Twitter tightens rules on sex harassment, violence
Twitter broke ranks Thursday with other social media companies that have refused to reveal how they monitor content and attempt to protect users from hate speech and harassment, as the company announced several proposed changes to its policies.
Those changes included banning nonconsensual nudity and the glorification or condonation of violence and unwanted sexual advances. The company also announced numerous new policies that address things like violent groups, hateful imagery and how people whose accounts have been suspended are notified.
The announcement came less than a week after countless women boycotted Twitter over its ambiguous and at times inconsistent handling of harassment, hate speech and other unwanted interactions on the social network.
“This won’t be a quick or easy fix, but we’re committed to getting it right,” Twitter’s safety team wrote in a blog post Thursday. “Far too often in the past we’ve said we’d do better and promised transparency but have fallen short in our efforts. Starting today, you can expect regular, real-time updates about our progress. Sometimes, this may be insight into the difficult questions we’re asking ourselves, even before we have the answers. This is the first time we’ve shared this level of visibility into our work, and we hope it helps build trust along the way.”
CEO Jack Dorsey teased the rollout of these new policies in a tweet on Wednesday that said sharing these behind-thecurtain details “makes us feel
uncomfortable because it’s a work in progress and rough, but it’s the right thing to do: We believe showing our thinking and work in real-time will help build trust.”
Twitter on Tuesday alerted the members of its Trust and Safety Council, which is composed of dozens of nonprofits from around the world that help inform Twitter’s use guidelines, policies and programs. Late Thursday afternoon, Twitter released a calendar that lists dates for when each change is expected to take effect.
By Oct. 27, Twitter will update its rules surrounding nonconsensual nudity and how users can appeal if their accounts are suspended. Twitter said this would include detailed, personal responses that outline for users how their accounts violated the company’s rules of use.
“We see voices being silenced on Twitter every day. We’ve been working to counteract this for the past 2 years,” Dorsey wrote in a series of tweets last week. “Today we saw voices silencing themselves and voices speaking out because we’re *still* not doing enough.”
Twitter has been grappling with the latest round of intense criticism since women decided to boycott the company last Friday in solidarity with actress Rose McGowan, whose account was suspended when she tweeted a personal phone number in a series of tweets accusing Harvey Weinstein of rape and sexual abuse.
McGowan later responded to Dorsey’s statements that he wanted to improve Twitter’s handling of sensitive issues by asking him to “immediately” remove the verification — a small blue check mark reserved for the verified Twitter accounts of journalists, celebrities and other people of note — on white nationalist Richard Spencer’s profile.
Though Spencer and other white nationalists remain on the social network, Twitter announced that, starting Nov. 3, it would suspend accounts “for organizations that use violence to advance their cause.”
It was not immediately clear whether this policy change might put pressure on other social networks like Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. All three have been criticized for their refusal to shut down hate groups and for abuses that users have committed while using their services, and for refusing to open up about their internal policies.