Twitter targets hate speech, harassment
Twitter is vowing to crack down further on hate speech and sexual harassment, days after CEO Jack Dorsey said in a tweetstorm that the company is not doing enough to protect its users.
Twitter is vowing to crack down further on hate speech and sexual harassment, days after CEO Jack Dorsey said in a tweetstorm that the company is not doing enough to protect its users.
Dorsey echoed concerns of many users and critics who say Twitter it hasn’t done enough to curb the abuse. But others worry that it’s muzzling free speech in the process.
In an email, the company’s head of safety policy outlined the proposed guidelines that tighten existing rules and impose some new ones. They aim to close loopholes that allowed people to glorify violence, for example.
The email was sent to the company’s Trust and Safety Council, a group of outside organizations that advises Twitter on its policies against abuse.
“It’s good that Twitter is thinking these things through and being fairly transparent about what they are doing,” said Emma Llanso, director of the free expression project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit that’s a member of the Trust and Safety Council. But, she added, it will be important to have a clear appeals process and ways to review whether the policies are effective.
Twitter sent it to the group for input, and the changes are not yet final.
Some of the changes are aimed at protecting women who unknowingly or unwillingly had nude pictures of themselves distributed online or were subject to unwanted sexual advances. They would also try to shield groups subject to hateful imagery, symbols and threats of violence.
Twitter said it would immediately and permanently suspend any account it identifies as being the original poster of “nonconsensual nudity.” Previously, the company treated the original poster of the content the same as those who re-tweeted it, and it resulted only in a temporary suspension.
It said it would also develop a system letting bystanders on Twitter report unwanted exchanges of sexually charged content, whereas in the past it relied on one of the parties involved in the conversation to come forward before taking action. Twitter already allows bystanders to report other violations on behalf of someone else.
The company also said it would take new action on hate symbols and imagery and “take enforcement action against organizations that use/have historically used violence as a means to advance their cause.”