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Twitter Says It's Cracking Down on Hate Speech (usatoday.com) 427

With public backlash growing, Twitter says it's taking steps to crack down on hate speech, from making it easier to report alleged incidents on the social media service to educating moderators on what kind of conduct violates the rules. From a report on USA Today: Twitter users will also gain more control over their experience on Twitter with the ability to mute words and phrases, even entire conversations, if they don't want to receive notifications about them, said Del Harvey, Twitter's head of safety. The effort comes as an uptick in biased graffiti, assaults and other incidents have been reported in the news and on social media since Election Day, prompting president-elect Donald Trump to call for people to "stop it" during a 60 Minutes interview on Sunday night. The FBI reports that hate crimes rose 7% in 2015, led by attacks on Muslim Americans.
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Twitter Says It's Cracking Down on Hate Speech

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  • Dun dun dun (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @09:25AM (#53288855)

    This is a slippery slope.

    You don't have the right to not be offended.

    The echo chamber is the reason Trump got elected. It made the American left complacent.

    • Re:Dun dun dun (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Bill, Shooter of Bul ( 629286 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @10:17AM (#53289195) Journal

      You don't have the right to pretty much anything on twitter, a private service offered for free use. They can decide on their policy for the use of their service.

      • by sinij ( 911942 )

        You don't have the right to pretty much anything on twitter, a private service offered for free use. They can decide on their policy for the use of their service.

        This is because our laws are behind times. Twitter is a modern equivalent to a public meeting space. Just like you couldn't enforce "Democrats only" washroom in your private restaurant, it shouldn't be legal to censor on social media based on political views.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          Just like you couldn't enforce "Democrats only" washroom in your private restaurant

          If someone in the restaurant starts yelling out about how you should kill all the Jews, you can absolutely kick them out.

          It shouldn't be legal to censor on social media based on political views.

          To some people, mass murder is a political view.

      • You don't have the right to pretty much anything on twitter, a private service offered for free use. They can decide on their policy for the use of their service.

        Hit the nail on the head! A company cannot and should not sit idly by if they think their product, brand, and core business is being damaged by something they could prevent or reduce the impact of.

        Slashdot should take note.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          You mean like refusing to bake a cake for a lesbian wedding, because you find homosexuality morally abhorrent?

          The problem is that one half of our cultural/political spectrum has taken it upon themselves to redefine terms to suit their liking.
          So the word "Hate Speech" only means "Disagrees with me"
          "Phobia" has gone from "irrational fear" to "Doesn't completely and unconditionally support and embrace"
          "Girl" now means "Man with a dress on"
          "White Supremacist" now means "White male with traditional values"
          "Sexis

          • by Ranbot ( 2648297 )

            This AC's angry hyperbolic reply misses the point completely. When a company thinks their product or brand is being damaged they can act to protect it. Individual right to free speech is secondary. If individuals think the company overreacted, it's a free market and they are free to take their activities elsewhere to avoid that product/service. It's a two-way street.

      • Re:Dun dun dun (Score:5, Insightful)

        by spire3661 ( 1038968 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @12:04PM (#53289987) Journal
        And we are saying that maybe its time we revisit that stance and start applying common carrier rules to these services once they reach a certain threshold of users. AT&T was once a 'private' entity too, but We The People determined that their service was so necessary that common ground rules had to be put in place for the good of all.
      • Just to play devil's advocate, does Twitter also have a right to ban Chinese people from using their service since they can decide on their police for the use of their service?

        Obviously most people would state that Twitter shouldn't be allowed to do that, but should they be able to ban anyone who talks about China?

        Somewhere in there is a line that gets crossed and it goes from perfectly acceptable (or even expected) to ban to morally reprehensible (or outright wrong) to ban. I think most people draw t
      • You don't have the right to pretty much anything on twitter, a private service offered for free use. They can decide on their policy for the use of their service.

        They certainly think they can, and technically from a legal standpoint they are right. But in reality the users decide whether or not Twitter is allowed to do something and the shareholders won't stand for anything that pisses off too many users.

        And I'm pretty sure that most people think that free speech trumps the "right not to be offended" or the "right to control other people's speech", even if they're not as vocal about it for now.

      • Re:Dun dun dun (Score:5, Insightful)

        by penandpaper ( 2463226 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @01:28PM (#53290675) Journal

        Does that mean a baker should not forced to bake a cake for a gay couple? I am confused, both are private services offered yet one cannot decide on their policy for the use of their service.

    • Re:Dun dun dun (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Oswald McWeany ( 2428506 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @10:19AM (#53289201)

      You don't have a right to not be offended, but Twitter has a right to try and maximize their profits. If people are being driven away from their product because of what they perceive to be offensive behavior, Twitter owes it shareholders to try and combat offensive behavior.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        You know what happens when you're offended?

        Leprosy. You get Leprosy!

        • Re:Dun dun dun (Score:5, Insightful)

          by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @10:55AM (#53289495) Journal

          You can keep banging that drum if you like but it gets no less silly.

          While people have no right to not be offended, you also don't have a right to offend people: you cannot force them to listen to you and if they leave then there is nothing you can do about it, legally. Whine all you like but if people leave Twitter because they don't want to listen to blatontly bigoted shit all day, that's their perogative. Twitter has decided it would rather keep those people around.

          So tough luck buttercup.

    • There is being offended then there is being threatened.
      It is the difference of saying "Group X of people are getting a disproportional amount of assistance." vs. "Group X should be shot"
      Now members of Group X may be offended from the first statement because they feel that they may be placed in harder circumstances and people don't seem to care about that.
      vs. Members of Group X being afraid of the people who state the second statement. Where they are fearful of unjust action taken against them.

      This is a two

      • saying "group x should be shot" is perfectly acceptable in this country. I mean would anyone argue that saying people in ISIS should be shot?

        saying I am going to shoot group X however is different, that is a threat.

        I hope you can see the difference between the 2 statements and why one is protected and the other is not
    • Since Twitter and Trump had a very symbiotic relationship during the primaries, Twitter should make sure that it recognizes real hate speech from just opinions of people on either side
    • Twitter is a private service. If it wishes to offer its users the tools to block certain messages, then that's between said users and Twitter. It sounds optional, so what's the big deal?

  • by 0100010001010011 ( 652467 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @09:25AM (#53288861)

    And the wonder why people that might consider using them go elsewhere.

    "Shame about that speech you have over there, shame if anyone called it hate speech."

    • "Why isn't anyone using us"?

      And they wonder why people that might consider using them go elsewhere.

      "Nice things you're talking about over there, shame if anyone called it hate speech".

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Once all the fun people exit to free speech platforms what is left?
      Staff from monarchies, theocracies, kingdoms, cults and Communist governments? Boring users who know never to have or be fun? Celebrities and their staff?
      Local government services? Political parties and foundations? NGO's? Teams of SJW? Sports? Newspaper staff doing web 2.0?
      Once freedom of speech before, during and after comments is gone, all the very best users go.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Exactly what is wrong with giving people filters so they can decide who talks to them or not?

        It's only free speech if I can force my bigoted opinions on everyone. You don't have a right not to be offended so that means I have the right to chase you down and offend you no matter how far you run. I'm sure the founding fathers said something about how endless streams of mindless, bigoted shit are super important or something because first amendment and freeze peach.

        • by sinij ( 911942 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @11:03AM (#53289551)
          As usual, reading comprehension is entirely abandoned in favor of partisan hackery. Twitter was caught red-handed applying filters to people they ideologically disagree with while leaving blatant abuse from ideologically like-minded individuals unaddressed. This isn't about individuals deciding they want to create filters that apply to their own feed, it is about Twitter deciding to apply filters to specific individuals and forcing this filter on everyone else.
          • Twitter was caught red-handed applying filters to people they ideologically disagree with

            Like Milo?

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by meta-monkey ( 321000 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @11:53AM (#53289905) Journal

        Exactly what is wrong with giving people filters so they can decide who talks to them or not?

        I agree with that, of course you should be able to filter things. I think the problem that happened with this election for the left is Dems built their own echo chambers. The mainstream media's a corporate/left echo chamber (6 major companies own all the media, they have similar interests, with only Fox really disagreeing on a few points), it's all based in NY/DC/LA/Atlanta where everyone's an urbanite and has similar attitudes, the opinion of the "man on the street" is literally the first guy who comes walking by outside the studio, and then Dem voters get on FaceBook and Twitter and share these same articles from HuffPo back and forth and block anybody who says "you know, that's not entirely accurate..." because they're a hateful nazi. And of course, never, EVER, look at a right-wing or conservative blog or news site because no matter how well researched and cited the article is, it must be evil lies and conspiracy nonsense. If it were important, Anderson Cooper would let me know! And then election night rolls around and they're SHOCKED when things didn't go as they expected. People on the right weren't. The only states I got wrong on my map were NH and Wisconsin.

        And no, people on the right are not in "right wing echo chambers." You can't be in a right-wing echo chamber because the entire culture is left wing, the TV media is left wing, and your friends on facebook are spamming those same HuffPo articles. The right saw the left's side and said "these people are delusional." The left never saw the right's side, and it's scary now, because my FaceBook feed is full of hysterical people who believe Trump is literally Hitler and all their friends and neighbors are secret Nazis because they never heard an opposing viewpoint the entire campaign. Actually now they've moved on to stage of grief 3: bargaining, and they're passing around shit about how faithless electors might save them, or this HuffPo delusion piece about how some loophole could still make Bernie win...? Shit you not, that's the article.

        And pretty much no one on my FaceBook feed has come to realization their media's been lying to them. Nope. Trump is Hitler, their neighbors are Nazis, we're all gonna die. They're still swallowing the fear mongering retardation from the MSM, like that Steve Bannon is an anti-Semitic white supremacist. The proof of this is that during a bitter divorce his ex-wife said he didn't want their kids going to a Jewish school with Jewish girls. Never mind that Andrew Breitbart was a Jew, half the staff at Breitbart is Jews, Milo is a Jew, and Breitbart shills hard for Israel and documents all the anti-Semitic hate crimes from the migrant crisis that the European media covers up. Nope, because of something from a vicious divorce settlement that's proof he's whispering in Trump's ear that it's time to fire up the ovens so everyone panic.

        It's insane. I don't know what if anything will ever break these people out of their bubble. Maybe once they get past Depression they can be brought to Acceptance with the hopeful thought that "hey, it wasn't your fault, Anderson Cooper was lying to you. Maybe you just need to get your news from multiple different types of sources, and judge them appropriately, because nobody's unbiased or 100% right all the time?" God I hope.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @09:27AM (#53288875)

    Considering that those on the left consider support Trump to be "hate speech" I assume what this really means is cracking down on the freedom of speech.

    People have been investigating those so called "Trump-caused hate incidents" and a lot of them turn out to be faked. There is no "hate backlash" brought on by Trump. What you're seeing are the people who lost the election trying to smear the winner to take away from the fact that THEY LOST and that America does not want to go down the path they've been pushing.

    • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @11:03AM (#53289547)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • We have documented video evidence of leftist rioters smashing cars and windows, setting street fires, blocking freeways, pulling people out of their cars and beating them. The "hate crimes" from Trump supporters are someone's FaceBook post describing a completely ridiculous sounding event. "I'm a transotherkin POC and was minding my business when an evil white man in a red hat knocked my ice cream cone out of my hand and screamed in my face 'go back to ISIS yew Mexican!!!!!'" Totally happened. Or some rando

  • by slapout ( 93640 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @09:29AM (#53288885)

    The problem with this is that it will be up to Twitter to define "hate speech". Is it saying hateful things to someone? Is it threatening someone? Is it saying things they disagree with?

    • Twitter has the right to decide what they define as "hate speech" it's on their intellectual property that people are tweeting. As long as they're not breaking any laws, Twitter can do whatever the hell they want.

      • No they can't. The users decide whether Twitter is allowed to do something, and Twitter is under obligation via their shareholders to behave themselves. Don't tell people they have to bend over and take it just because you agree with restricting freedom of speech website by website.

    • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      Is it saying things they disagree with?

      That's exactly what it is. You'll find quite a few of the 3rd wave feminists and TERFs using this as a means to shutdown discussion, or launch harassment against people, even going as far as trying to get them criminally charged. [nationalpost.com] Also facts are hate speech, and if they happen to be threatening you? That's not hate speech. Also if you quote their statements or rhetoric [heatst.com], that's hate speech too. This shouldn't be a surprise though, Twitter decided to create the Orwell sounding "Trust and Safety Council" [twitter.com] w

      • by sinij ( 911942 )
        Hey, all of this is fine because it comes from right-thinking people, but referring to someone with the wrong gender pronoun is a crime against humanity.

        Then they wonder why/how Trump got elected.
  • by sinij ( 911942 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @09:33AM (#53288915)
    So the technocrats didn't like the outcome of the past election and are now determined to ensure it won't happen again. Lets not pretend this has anything to do with hate speech.

    The only thing that would push me to vote for a despicable candidate like Trump if the other side is attempting censorship.
  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @09:44AM (#53288989)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by ephemere ( 645313 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @09:45AM (#53288995)
    "the ability to mute words and phrases"

    I've been hoping for this for a long time. I'll start by filtering out "Liberal" and "Conservative" and go from there.
  • by fph il quozientatore ( 971015 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @10:02AM (#53289115)
    "Twitter Says it's Cracking Down on Free Speech"
    • No one has right to free speech on Twitter. It belongs to Twitter. You have the right to hate speech in your home, you don't have the right to hate speech on the intellectual property of a company that expressly denies it. Never have.

      Twitter has the right to censor what you say, so does Facebook, My Space, Slashdot, or anywhere else online.

      You also have the right to start your very own Twitter alternative that welcomes hate speech if that is your prerogative.

      • Perhaps it's not about what they can or can't do. Some of them could probably roll their own Twitter in a day. It's about what they wish they could make you do. If you run a service, you better play ball with them or uncle Trump's script kiddies will straighten you out.
    • by SirSlud ( 67381 )

      Hey look, the onion wrote an article about you: http://www.theonion.com/articl... [theonion.com]

  • Now that Trump has been elected, we enter a new era where white men now have license to say whatever insulting, sexist, and racist things they want. In other words, hate speech is encoraged. Therefore filtering out hate speech would be unnecessary and heavily discouraged.

    On a more serious note, filtering out “hate speech” must be considered carefully. In the 60’s, you could shut anyone up just by labeling them a commie. Today, you can squelch any dissenting opinion you want by labeling

    • by Oswald McWeany ( 2428506 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @10:39AM (#53289363)

      To the British, the American colonists were “assholes”

      Wrong tense. :P

    • by sinij ( 911942 )

      Now that Trump has been elected, we enter a new era where white men now have license to say whatever insulting, sexist, and racist things they want.

      Could you kindly tell me where I can get this license? Because I recently get a ticket for insulting without license and the fine was steep.

    • The problem is we've changed the definition of words so much people can't tell up from down anymore. When I was a kid, "racist" meant someone who judged a person on the color of his skin instead of the content of his character. Today if you do that, judging the content of the character of a man who pulls a gun on a cop or tries to crush his skull in with his bare hands as "worthy of being shot," you're racist if that man is black. Today, if you judge someone by the content of their character instead of the

  • by RogueyWon ( 735973 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @10:17AM (#53289193) Journal

    Twitter itself is a huge part of the problem in the coarsening of political debate. The emphasis on short, snappy "soundbite" statements and the e-peen benefits of being retweeted serve as powerful incentives for people to forgo civility and mean that the most extreme voices, whatever their persuasion, get the most prominence.

    When you are trying to fit your thoughts into a character limit, what kind of clauses are you going to cut? How about:

    "I see your point, but have you considered..."
    "I understand why some people are attracted to that argument, but..."
    "I know there are exceptions to this rule..."
    "I might be oversimplifying here..."
    "This is purely anecdotal, but..."

    Twitter is a remarkably effective tool for stripping conversations of all of the little niceties, qualifications and acknowledgements that keep things civil. It's a platform for thumping certainties, hysterical over-reactions and wanton attention-seeking. I've known rational, well-spoken people, often well-regarded in their professional fields, who turn into flaming morons on Twitter.

    It's not a problem of Twitter's moderation policies or editorial stances, but rather a fundamental problem with the medium. Being mischievous, maybe 140 characters should be the minimum rather than the limit.

    • by swb ( 14022 )

      Twitter is to discourse what PowerPoint is to information. Short and dumbed down.

      Being mischievous, maybe 140 characters should be the minimum rather than the limit.

      Now that would be an interesting concept for a forum/social media site -- a requirement for a minimum size of at least 500 characters. If you don't have anything thoughtful to say, you can't say it.

    • by Fire_Wraith ( 1460385 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @10:37AM (#53289339)
      While the 140 character limit certainly does hinder nuance and full expression, the coarsening of civil discourse in open space is much more far reaching than that. Look at just about any unmoderated comments section on the web for a prime example. I'd bring up Penny Arcade's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, but anonymity seems to be only part of the equation. I would argue rather that it is the increased degree of removal from immediate social consequence that enables and encourages people to be flaming shitbags to each other on the internet.

      We have certain expectations of polite behavior in person, and someone who violates those norms gets punished by the way everyone around reacts to them. This doesn't carry over to the internet though - worse, you can probably find people who will support you in your asshole-ish behavior.
  • Good (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @10:19AM (#53289205)
    I'm glad. I'm tired of the trolls and racists and assholes trying to ruin every single Internet discussion. Fuck them. Not that Twitter is a good place for a discussion, but the assholes have run rampant in every place on the Internet where people (try to) communicate. I would never spend time in a real life place that had these same idiots saying these same kind of things, and I don't online, either. I'm sick of it. I don't need it.
  • I thought that they would also mention the many death threats Trump has received. As much as I dislike Trump, he was also a victim of threats on Twitter, but that is nowhere mentioned in the article.
  • I'm torn. On the one side, harassment has been redefined on the Regressive Left to mean "disagreed with a Radical Regressive Leftist." So when I hear there's people harassing people on social media, I'm reminded that some of the professional victims crying about this harass themselves [imgur.com] for victim credentials, while others dox and [imgur.com] harass others [imgur.com] while running an industry blacklist of their enemies. Both of which are allowed to continue unopposed due to them sharing the politics of the people running the sit

    • We just saw an entire election be decided because one side refused to step outside of their bubble for 6+ months at a time

      I know, right? Something like 40% of Trump voters are still Birthers. Can you believe living a bubble of deception like that? Crazy!

  • Look, twitter would be a better place if it removes comments like "you stupid bitch" and "you neckbeard racist". They are content free attacks that diminish the value of what one gets out of tweeter.

    I would equally ban Killary/Drumpf postings. If you cannot make a point without a childish nickname, go some place else. This does not censor content, it censors non-content and has no bias per se to the left or right.

  • This sounds very arbitrary. Who decides what's hate speech and what's one person calling another person out?

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