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Blogger Incites Outcry Over Twitter Harassment

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Fri May 23, 2008 06:24 PM
from the welcome-to-the-intartubez dept.
Communications The Internet
CNet is reporting that one blogger has started an outcry about harassment as it applies to Twitter. While their written stance appears to support the safeguarding of abuse, Twitter appears to be waffling on the issue when it comes to the hard line of enforcement. "The final response to Waldman's complaint from Twitter co-founder Biz Stone asserted that "Twitter is a communication utility, not a mediator of content," and that "Twitter recognizes that it is not skilled at judging content disputes between individuals. Determining the line between update and insult is not something that Twitter, nor a crowd, would do well. Stone added that Twitter's team would continue talking about which situations were appropriate for account banning."
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  • Sock puppets? (Score:5, Funny)

    by TheRaven64 (641858) on Friday May 23 2008, @06:26PM (#23523668) Homepage Journal
    Oh, the other Twitter.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Joe U (443617)
      I'm going to go out on a limb and say both Twitters have a roughly equal amount of 'suck', but one of them might actually amount to something one day. (Hint: It's not going to be the M$ one)

      • Re:Sock puppets? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by erikina (1112587) <eri.kina@gmail.com> on Friday May 23 2008, @06:41PM (#23523754) Homepage
        He will, if you keep giving him so much attention. He's a troll (and a damn successful one). Stop feeding him.

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Joe U (443617)

            He seems like an asocial, obnoxious person who needs to be chewed out until he understands what he's doing wrong.
            Yeah, every popular site has one. Some of us even have em in real life. People like that are boat anchors on any site with user generated content, they slow the site down and get a lot of crap stirred up in the process.

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by Anonymous Coward
            > I could be wrong, of course

            No, you nailed it, pretty much. The only other thing to add here is that he is utterly and completely convinced that all his problems on Slashdot are the result of a massive conspiracy directed against him personally by Microsoft.

            The first few times I saw him make that argument I just sort of chuckled, but he is quite serious. He just knows that he is being modded down by evil agents of Microsoft intent on subverting Slashdot and his own personal freedom of speech.

            The idea th
                • Hello twitter! I have an honest to god question. Do you realize that your posting patterns fit the definition of psychotic paranoia? I mean seriously, not everyone that disagrees with you could possibly work for microsoft. I've had a bout or two in the past and I can attest that a little trip to BH can be a good thing.

                  peace
                • Where do you live, twitter? I'd love to meet you and see if you're like this in meatspace.

                  Hah! Kidding, of course. My employer and I know EXACTLY where you live. I'm taking over your file tomorrow; I'll be checking up on you.

                • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                  by causality (777677)

                  I know because I have been playing the dreadfully easy, multiple account game.

                  It's about time you 'fessed up to that.

                  The bottom line is that you are worse than ineffective, you are counter productive. You are on the losing side the free software battle and making things worse for yourself. Insult and disruption are empty.

                  I have used Linux for nearly eleven years. Not once have I felt that there is a "battle" between Microsoft and Free Software. I agree that Microsoft makes shitty products; that's w

                • Wow, you seriously think you're important enough that Microsoft would hire people to down-mod you on Slashdot?

                  I'd like to know where people got this idea that Microsoft hires people to try and game Slashdot. Seems like nothing more than paranoia.

                • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                  by ScentCone (795499)
                  It would not surprise me to learn that you work for M$ or some kind of PR firm under their hire

                  That's because it would really make you feel better if you could honestly discover that to be true. You want it to be true, because you're so invested in that fantasy that if you ever admit to yourself that it's a delusion, the psychic pain it will cause will really hurt you. Deep down, you rationally know that, but because you're afraid of the pain that will come with the shame of admitting you've been weaving

                • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                  by ResidntGeek (772730)

                  I have been playing the dreadfully easy, multiple account game.

                  Incorrect. What you've been doing is demonstrating aptly how dreadfully easy the multiple account game isn't. You've had something like 10 sockpuppets which you've used in the clumsiest of fashions and which have been quickly called out as such. You've shown no ability at all to conceal your intentions, change your writing style, post with different temporal patterns with different accounts, post in separate threads with different accounts, or

                • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                  by Stanistani (808333)
                  Twitter:

                  You lost me at M$.

                  That's how angsty thirteen-year-olds label Microsoft.

                  Just as anti-open source folks call it 'open sores' or label its propenents as filthy, stinking hippies.

                  You're a pimple on the face of free speech.

                  Meanwhile, to the other folks... do we need to drag this troll into every discussion of the microblogging software of the same name?
            • It seems that OUR twitter is infected with a rare brain mold that only grows in Mom's basement. Don't blame him, pity him instead. The mold is slowly frying his synapses one by one.
    • Yeah, I kept trying to figure out why the summary referred to Twitter using "their," and why CNet would care enough to write a whole story about a schizophrenic forum troll...

  • Wow (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Threni (635302) on Friday May 23 2008, @06:30PM (#23523684)
    People really take this shit seriously. Why can't they just say `we don't care. If you think you're being harassed, go to the police. We make no changes to our code, or messages sent over it, without a court order. If you don't like it - stop using our service.`.

    • Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)

      by hansoloaf (668609) <hansoloaf@@@yahoo...com> on Friday May 23 2008, @07:05PM (#23523902)
      me thinks the "blogger" is just trying to maintain or increase traffic to her site - thinking she's somewhat important.

      One interesting tidbit is that she works for Pownce. I do know that this harassment started before she worked for Pownce. Yet I do see that the conflict of interest is in there now if she continues to press her case. She is free to close her twitter account and utilize pownce fully.
      • But that would mean making a potentially socially *devastating* move once Pownce is finally sucked all the way down the drain. She'd have to spend ALL that time going back to Twitter and looking like a twit

    • Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)

      by me at werk (836328) on Friday May 23 2008, @07:13PM (#23523942) Homepage Journal
      They'd love to [zeldman.com], but when the community manager of Pownce (a twitter clone with a few more features) wants to sully the name of Twitter as Pownce is failing, you've gotta be a loud damsel in distress, don't you?

  • Important part of TOS (Score:5, Informative)

    by conlaw (983784) on Friday May 23 2008, @06:34PM (#23523712)
    As stated in TFA, Twitter's TOS includes the following:

    [Twitter] may, but have no obligation to, remove content and accounts containing content that we determine in our sole discretion are unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene, or otherwise objectionable or violates any party's intellectual property, or these terms of use.
    In other words, they've left themselves an out for claims such as these.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Mike89 (1006497)
      What I find funny is the complete double-standards of the internet community at large. eg. "OMG, Microsoft banned me because my gamertag seemed offensive, their ToS is stupid as!", then "OMG, Twitter won't enforce their ToS, that's stupid as!".

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by UncleTogie (1004853) *

        OMG, Microsoft banned me because my gamertag seemed offensive, their ToS is stupid as!", then "OMG, Twitter won't enforce their ToS, that's stupid as!".

        Ok, I'll bite... Stupid as what? ;)

      • Yeah, it's funny that a community composed of millions has people who have opposite viewpoints.
      • Not following the law is, well... illegal.

        Not acting to prevent harassment on the Internet? Generally legal.
  • Its a free service after all. If you don't like it then don't use it. Their TOS from TFA seem to suggest the same that they have no obligation to remove anything.
      • You make it sound as if we're all somehow 'entitled' to blog about what we had for dinner or what color we died our hair. I could hold out a bag of rabbit feces, but it doesn't mean you have to accept it.

          • Yeah, because those on welfare are paying into the system. And how about those homeless? You get good tax money from them!

            Yeah, because everyone knows that people on welfare never go to stores to buy food! And the homeless? They eat like kings for free!

            While they may not purchase things on the scale YOU do, don't assume that they purchase nothing. To put it another way: Go to your nearest store, buy a 20-oz soda, and then insist that you're tax-exempt 'cause you're on welfare or are homeless. See how far that'll take ya...

  • Related: GetSatisfaction Thread (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    http://getsatisfaction.com/twitter/topics/twitter_refuses_to_uphold_terms_of_service [getsatisfaction.com]

    There are many people posting in this thread, some more ardently than others. Good points are dotted here and there. Of particular note are the two replies from Twitter employees. It's interesting how neither of them pull the "we have no obligation according to the TOS" card and how neither of them make any move to discredit the complaint.

    Is silence tantamount to agreement, in this case?

    • The comments that show she's lying. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by me at werk (836328) on Friday May 23 2008, @07:07PM (#23523906) Homepage Journal
      There's a good comment there pointing out that this is all a bit of an attention whoring scheme (where's the full disclosure that the blogger crying out works for Pownce, a twitter competitor?), right here [zeldman.com].

      #

      I have a list of 13 tweets that Ariel sent us as examples of the abuse from the account she wanted banned. According to our records, this is everything she sent us, except for those from the âoeconfessionsâ account, which Ariel says [arielwaldman.com] was not the main problem. (I couldnâ(TM)t look those up, because the posts themselves were deleted before we could look at them.)

      I would *love* to post the whole file of these examples. I think it would clear a lot of things up. Unfortunately, since this content is the source of all this strife, and itâ(TM)s now off the Internet, that seemsâ¦well, not quite right.

      What I will tell you is this:

      Out of these posts, exactly one mentions Ariel by name. It calls her âoeexperienced.â The others do not personally identify Ariel.

      One of them uses the word âoecuntâ (with a quote, presumably from Ariel). None contain either âoecrackâ or âoewhore.â None contain threats, physical or otherwise. Most are insults about physical or personality attributes without referring to anyone specifically. If you were following both Ariel and the account of this woman when these posts were made, it may have been clear who she was referring to. Out of that context, you would probably have no clue. But even if they would have mentioned Ariel by name, most of them are not actionable, because we donâ(TM)t have a rule against insulting people or hurting their feelings.

      Caveat: Many of the examples she sent us were from Flickr. I didnâ(TM)t look at all of these, becauseâ¦well, we donâ(TM)t run Flickr.

      Our stance is this: We stand by our TOS. We have deleted accounts for abuse of various kinds. We had to make a judgement call here, as one does in all such cases. This didnâ(TM)t meet the bar for being banned, in our opinion.

      You can disagree with our judgment call. And thatâ(TM)s fine. But youâ(TM)re choosing to do that without seeing the content, and someone has very carefully painted a picture that has misled many people. (One might ask why Ariel didnâ(TM)t post the full tweets in order to strengthen her case.)

      Even if you do disagree with our judgment call, this is not an argument about whether or not weâ(TM)re enforcing our TOS; this is an argument about how we define âoeharassmentâ or âoeabuse.â

      THAT IS ALL.
      # Evan Williams said on May 23rd, 2008 at 6:45 pm:

      One more thing:

      @Russ: âoeâ¦a lawsuit, seems to be a concern of yours correct?â

      No, not correct. That is a total red herring that was probably constructed to make us look like a cowardly corporation (clever!).

      Not that we canâ(TM)t be sued â" sure, we can. But that has not motivated our actions here.


      Now the content of the "Ariel says" comment:

      # Ariel Waldman Says:
      May 23rd, 2008 at 12:52 pm

      @ericabiz youâ(TM)re right and I have worked with kosso and thanked him in the past and I very much appreciated his objective understanding of the issue.

      I chose not to mention him because the majority of the harassment I reference was created by a different account than the one he had created and I didnâ(TM)t want to drag him through this.


      All preserved so that when they try to cover it up, slashdot has a backup.
      • To offer a different argument, that it isn't a "publicity stunt"...

        Her mommy chimed in saying that supposedly it's a real life stalker that is pestering her [arielwaldman.com]

        That said, my opinion is she is a bit of an attention whore. Oops is she going to try to get my /. account shut down?

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by me at werk (836328)
          It proves that there's no proof of any of the statements that were supposed to be heinous enough to fully remove the account. An account, I might add, anyone can post to (it was a "confessional" much like grouphug). So, easily, and I'm not saying this WAS the case, but others have postulated it's likely: she could have made the posts, reported them, and they were "caught" by the person running the confessional as being bad before the people at Twitter had the chance to look at them.

          It's like if I trolled
  • What, was Max Power already taken?
  • There will no doubt be all sorts of threads here about whether Twitter has to remove content, if people are making too big a deal about this, comparisons to Flickr/YouTube/Microsoft(of course), etc... And of course LOTS of conversations about why Twitter is always down.

    But to me the real issue here is simple: This will make people say "If that is the way Twitter treats people, I'm moving on".

    A community-building site needs its community, otherwise it is just a php script sitting on a server somewhere. Piss
  • I am tired of people using teh Interwebs to incite outrage over something on teh Interwebs.

    Don't like flamers on Twitter? Don't use it.

  • Harassment on Twitter: (Score:3, Funny)

    by 88NoSoup4U88 (721233) on Friday May 23 2008, @07:10PM (#23523922) Homepage
    I assume harassment on Twitter consists of pre-twittering someone's intention of going for a shit [penny-arcade.com]?

    Or is it being Twit-rolled [twitter.com]

  • Self absorbed gobshites 2.0 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Cathoderoytube (1088737) on Friday May 23 2008, @07:13PM (#23523936)
    When you're dealing with the level of stupid that feels the need to post updates of whatever mundane crap they're doing at every moment of the day you're going to have to expect to attract a large number of other stupids. I'll say that MAYBE twitter really isn't an integral part of the internet, or blogosphere or whatever so much as it is an exercise in self absorbed gobshittery. I guess that's what 'web 2.0' is supposed to be though.

    Considering the individual in this case is a 'popular blogger' she should expect some bloody hate mail. I'm sure she gets plenty of lovey dovey crap from her followers as well, and they're all doing their very best to send her emails with smiley faces so she'll feel all good about having a blog and a twitter account.

    I for one welcome hatred! That's why I'm not posting this anonymously :)

    • I understand they're planning a somewhat less "me-centric" version of Twitter for people who still have room in their heads for at least one thought per day that isn't strictly related to themselves.

      I believe they're going to call it "Wanker".

    • Who pissed in your corn flakes?

      Why do you care so much if other people use a web service, update their friends/family/strangers with important or unimportant facts, and generally have a presence on the web? Does it REALLY affect you so much that you have to rant about it online? Do you have to resort to personal attacks on someone whom you've never met, never read, and don't care about?

      I'll never understand the hate some people have about other people using the internet.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by UncleTogie (1004853) *

        Do you have to resort to personal attacks on someone whom you've never met, never read, and don't care about?

        I have a question here....

        If they've never met them, never read their work/read about them, and don't care about them....

        ...how is it "personal"? Jus' asking...

      • It's the messy business we call the exchange of ideas and opinions. I figure anybody who feels to need to post how they're having their cornflakes on the internet is a self absorbed gobshite. This is the sort of inane crap you associate with celebrity gossip rags.

        Like did you hear?! Some idiot who runs a blog I've never heard about till she filed a lawsuit because the internet wasn't going her way just bought a new box of tampons!! I can't wait for the next update!!
    • For what it's worth, I use Twitter so I can update my girlfriend about what I'm doing (for example, if I'm going to be playing Civilization I'll tweet as much so she knows I can't hear the phone and that I'll be busy for a few hours). Not all of us are self-absorbed assholes who feel everything about us is important enough for everyone else to know.

  • The problem is... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WhatAmIDoingHere (742870) <sexwithanimals@gmail.com> on Friday May 23 2008, @07:33PM (#23524052) Homepage
    She's pissed that someone called her a crack-whore looking cunt.

    Here's how I see it: She looks like a crack whore, and all this bitching about being called a name makes her a cunt. Meaning: She's a crack whore looking cunt.

    She's an 'internet celebrity' (I guess) and decided to use her real information in her accounts. Next, she made her Flickr account known to all, and also posted skanky pictures in it. And when someone called her out on it, she cried.

    She could easily stop using it, since it's just ego masturbation anyway. "Look at all the people who care that I'm brushing my teeth!"

  • ahm i know her problem (Score:3, Funny)

    by FudRucker (866063) on Friday May 23 2008, @07:36PM (#23524070)
    she is just twitterpated...
  • Is it libelous? Is it threatening? If it's neither, there is no legal grounds to remove it.

    Twitter may decide that they "don't want to be that kind of service", but that's their business decision, as is how they proceed against TOS violaters, or whether they do at all.

  • Inciting outrage? (Score:5, Funny)

    by thePowerOfGrayskull (905905) on Friday May 23 2008, @08:12PM (#23524234) Homepage Journal

    One blogger whining about 'harassment' gets a few supporting comments on her post, and she's 'inciting outrage'?

    Must be a web 2.0 thing.

  • wtf? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by acvh (120205) <geek@@@mscigars...com> on Friday May 23 2008, @09:50PM (#23524750) Homepage

    she's a "social-media insights consultant"
    here's an insight, free of charge: get a real life.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by erikina (1112587)
      I've heard of not reading the article, but perhaps you should read the summary. Hint: They're talking about the micro-blogging service.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Basho (23847)
        Hm, I don't get your point, really. Twitter is a micro-blogging site, got that. But people post micro-blog postings ( Tweets ) with the intention that someone else will be following those micro-blog posts. That's why I called it a community: people connected to other people.

        So if a vocal subset of those people stand by their friends and leave Twitter for WHATEVER reason, the network starts to fall apart - once more people I'm interested in connecting with move elsewhere Twitter will be less interesting to m

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