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from the the-root-of-twitter-is-twit-not-tweet dept.
Twitter has announced a series of new anti-abuse measures, following the leak of the CEO's admission that Twitter "sucks at dealing with abuse and trolls." It has extended its definition of violent threats to include "promoting violence against others." Punitive measures include temporary account suspensions, obligations to delete certain tweets, and requiring phone verification to reenable account access. The company is also devoting more resources to reviewing abuse complaints, and is experimenting with a feature that would automatically identify potentially abusive tweets by looking for similarities with past abuse.
In a potentially troll-enabling move, Twitter has added an option to allow users to receive direct (private) messages from users they don't follow. The feature is opt-in and could allow additional public engagement with businesses and journalists.
Finally, Twitter has shifted management of all non-U.S. user accounts to Twitter International, headquartered in Ireland. That means those users will be subject to stricter European Union data protection laws. Twitter's latest transparency report indicates that the U.S. government made 1,622 requests for information involving 3,299 accounts from July 1, 2014 through December 31. Twitter complied with 80% of the requests.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday April 22 2015, @03:05PM
Once they've caught somebody making violent threats, the next step is to determine if that legally falls under criminal threatening laws i.e. are they making the threat credible with publishing the target's address and such. Send a few hundred people to jail for threatening to kill people, with a near-guarantee that they'll be caught (since they aren't keeping it secret), and that might well send a message.
And as a reminder, just because the First Amendment says you can say stuff doesn't mean that a private business like Twitter has any obligation to act as your megaphone.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by TK-421 on Wednesday April 22 2015, @06:07PM
In fact, using Twitter as her megaphone got this [wthr.com] Indiana school teacher fired after controversy. [rawstory.com]
She was just fired today (last night). I personally think Twitter should still allow things like this. If she were to have been prevented access to her "megaphone" they might never had known she should be fired for suggesting violence as a possible recourse. Agree or not, violence is a rather poor attempt at the exchange of ideas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 22 2015, @10:27PM
They are just words that hardly ever have any meaningful action behind them. Jail however brands someone a criminal every time, limits their employment opportunities for the rest of their lives, and brings higher scrutiny with any government interactions leading to a higher chance of being incarcerated over petty things. No. It is not worth ruining the lives of a few hundred human beings over words just to send a message that others do not like those words.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday April 23 2015, @02:01PM
I'm advocating jail time for people who say something along the lines of: "I'm going to kill you, John Smith, who lives at 123 Elm St, Springfield, Kansas, with his wife Lisa and his daughters Sarah and Mary, who usually leaves for work at 8:25 AM ..." That reasonably leaves John Smith fearing for his life, and the life of his daughters, which inflicts significant harm on him.
And before you say that isn't happening, consider that when Felicia Day wrote a piece condemning this sort of behavior online, that kind of message was directed at her within hours.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.