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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday October 14 2017, @07:52AM   Printer-friendly
from the jumping-to-conclusions dept.

The actress, who has emerged as a Hollywood voice in the Harvey Weinstein sexual-assault scandal, revealed that Twitter had locked her account on Wednesday night.

Rose McGowan had a hold placed on her Twitter account Wednesday night, an act that quickly sparked outrage among the many users who have been following her posts ever since news first broke of the allegations against Harvey Weinstein.

The actress, who has emerged as a Hollywood voice after finding herself thrust into the center of the developing story of sexual misconduct, harassment and assault allegations against the movie mogul, took to her Instagram and Facebook accounts to relay the news of her temporary suspension, writing cryptically that "TWITTER HAS SUSPENDED ME. THERE ARE POWERFUL FORCES AT WORK. BE MY VOICE. #ROSEARMY."

She added a screenshot (below) from a message from Twitter telling her that she had violated their terms of service and that she would be locked out for 12 hours once she deleted certain tweets. She posted the message late Wednesday night.

As of 7:20 a.m. PT on Thursday, Twitter had unlocked McGowan's account, telling THR the temporary lock was due to the actress tweeting out a private number, which falls under the private information violation under Twitter Rules. McGowan deleted the post to regain access.

Are social media platforms common carriers, or not?


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Spamalope on Saturday October 14 2017, @10:50AM (4 children)

    by Spamalope (5233) on Saturday October 14 2017, @10:50AM (#582238) Homepage

    An important societal question now is what to do now that speech on the public commons has moved into the hands of private companies with political agendas.

    I've seen common carrier status mentioned, but that's got downsides and seems easy to game. It may make things worse AND not work. Maybe a hybrid could work? Create a different type of common carrier status, connected to anti-trust and patent law. Say Google has reached that new common carrier status, and that in those markets Google can't exercise its patents against competitors and can't enter into exclusive deals. (ex: no deal with Apple to include Google search and block all others, and Google can't block Google Maps and search from iPhones unless Apple makes G+ the only social media or Gmail the only email on the device) Maybe those restrictions should be market based, so they'd apply to anyone creating a commons equally.

    It seems likely entrenches players will lobby for rules that disproportionately effect new players/opponents with fewer political connections. Maybe simply allowing some form of fraud tort if a 'commons' company doesn't follow its own policy, with enhancements for demonstrated bias. (dishonest bias is worse than incompetence or disregard)

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Saturday October 14 2017, @12:21PM (3 children)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Saturday October 14 2017, @12:21PM (#582253) Journal

    How about, handle it the way it's always been handled? That is, let people be responsible for their own words? Anyone can be sued for slander or libel. Odds of being sued and losing go way up if you tell not just any lie, but vicious, hurtful lies. And, if those lies spread further.

    Why should it matter how the words were delivered? That's falling right into that logic trap of thinking that "on a computer" or "on the Internet" somehow makes it different.

    • (Score: 2) by Entropy on Saturday October 14 2017, @09:45PM (1 child)

      by Entropy (4228) on Saturday October 14 2017, @09:45PM (#582414)

      Because certain people feel you shouldn't be able to speak your opinion. Those certain people are often surprised when the same is applied to them.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @01:55AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @01:55AM (#582867)

        A phone number is not an opinion.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @12:58AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @12:58AM (#582853)

      > Anyone can be sued for slander or libel.

      Without having seen the tweet, it sounds like harassment. When someone's phone number is given out against the person's wishes, often the intent is to bring unwanted calls, voicemails and text messages.