Twitter Is Stepping Up Its War Against Online Abuse
Dear friends around the world,
Social media is in itself a neutral platform and so we can use it for good and bad purposes. Depending on our motivation, we can either use it to disseminate knowledge, inspiration and love or we can use it to spread hate and discrimination. Given that we are living in an era where social media is very much a part of our lives, it is understandable that we will inevitably cross paths with people whose intention is to hurt and damage others.
For a long time, Twitter has been a place where the so-called “freedom of speech” principles were protected at the expense of the dignity and feelings of its users. Tweet wars were free-for-all, hold-no-punches-back affairs where harassment and bullying were the norm instead of the exception.
This is why I am so glad to see that Twitter is finally taking real and sustained action against the abusive and vitriolic behavior that some of its users have exploited the platform for in the past. So many have received abuse and nasty messages on Twitter and have been bullied, hurt and offended as a result.
By strengthening their policies and reprimanding those who use their accounts for abusive purposes, it not only puts a stop to such users’ behavior but also discourages others who go around trolling people. I am encouraged by this and I hope Twitter keeps this up to continue protecting their loyal users. We need to make social media a place that is safe, polite and humane. Thank you twitter for stepping up and helping to make twitter a safer place for everyone.
Tsem Rinpoche
How Twitter Is Stepping Up Its War Against Online Abuse
Tom Huddleston, Jr.
Jul 20, 2017
Or view the video on the server at:
https://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/TwitterPunishAbusiveUsers2.mp4
Twitter has spent the past several months stepping up its efforts to curb instances of online abuse and harassment on the social media service. On Thursday, the company released new internal data showing some of the progress it’s made in cutting down on some users’ bad behavior.
Twitter said it is “taking action” against 10 times more abusive accounts than it was at the same time last year, which means the company is levying account suspensions—or, limiting users’ ability to use the service—on “thousands more abusive accounts” per day. Twitter also said it has removed twice as many repeat offenders—users who create new accounts after receiving a suspension—over the past four months.
Perhaps more notable is that Twitter claims it is “driving change in behavior” among users who have been punished for abusive actions on the service in the past. The company said it’s seen a 25% dip in abuse reports for accounts that were previously disciplined, and 65% of users who have been disciplined do not repeat their abusive actions. Twitter added that its new quality filter—which allows users to mute certain keywords and filter out notifications from bot accounts—has led to the company seeing a 40% drop in the number of blocks issued by accounts that have received an “@mention” from accounts that don’t follow them.
“While there is still much work to be done, people are experiencing significantly less abuse on Twitter today than they were six months ago,” Ed Ho, Twitter’s consumer product and engineering general manager, wrote in a blog post on Thursday.
Over the past year, Twitter has debuted new features meant to reduce the prevalence of online vitriol on the social media service, including using an algorithm to detect abusive behavior before it is reported so that Twitter can reduce the visibility of such posts and take action against the perpetrators. That’s part of Twitter’s efforts to temporarily limit the functionality of offending users’ accounts, and the company says it also explains its reasoning to users who it disciplines in the hopes of preventing further harassment.
Twitter has often boasted about its commitment to the principles of free speech, sometimes leading to criticism from those who felt the company was more interested in tolerating all forms of speech than in trying to ensure a harassment-free experience for its users.
The presence of harassment on Twitter especially came under the spotlight during last year’s presidential election, as political divides seem to have resulted in an uptick in vitriol and abuse on the service. There have even been calls for Twitter to ban the account of President Donald Trump, an avid Tweeter who has been accused of promoting violence and abuse with some of his posts on the site. (This week, Twitter told Recode that the company holds the president to the same standards as other users. Twitter’s vice president of Trust and Safety, Del Harvey, said: “The rules are the rules, we enforce them the same way for everybody.”)
Meanwhile, the ability to effectively police abusive behavior could prove essential to the company’s financial health, as Twitter needs to show regular, significant user growth in order to appease investors who are concerned that the company is lagging behind social media rivals like Facebook and Instagram. Twitter’s shares received a boost earlier this year when the company reported its biggest quarterly increase in monthly users since 2015, but the company needs to keep repeating that success, and maintaining a positive (and abuse-free) user experience is one piece of the puzzle (along with streaming video).
Source: http://fortune.com/2017/07/20/twitter-abusive-accounts-taking-action/
For more interesting information:
- Be careful of what you post online
- My social media image was a lie
- Victory over Online Hate
- Why so rude?
- Should We Delete Our Facebook Accounts?
- Why is she putting the Dalai Lama down?
- Tolerance Tweets
- Rudeness Is a Neurotoxin
- They want to kill me
- Will the Dalai Lama agree with this?
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Dear friends,
This meme is powerful. Who you hang around with and the types of attitude they have is who you will be influenced by many times and who you will become in the future. Look at your friends and the people that always surround you to know who you will become.
Tsem Rinpoche
It is good to see that twitter is taking steps to protect its users from cyberbullying.
More and more people are starting to use social media and signing up for an account is very easy, while this is good for those who wish to make an account for non harmful purposes there are others who use accounts to hurt others. I have seen many fake accounts used to cheat and hurt people and it is just sad to see how they abuse freedom.
Hopefully With the new steps in place Twitter will become a better and safer place for all its users.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this good news about Twitter taking actions on abusive users. Those users are being attacked by hate messages and harassed thoroughly with all the abusive messages. Imagine someone saying something bad or irrelevant about you. You will definitely feel sad and hurt. I hope other social media platforms will also take steps like Twitter to prevent these bad users from bullying other users.
With folded palms,
Vivian
We thank Twitter for playing fair, and making sure people are not abused and attacked on this free social media platform.
One can be free with speech, but one also should be responsible for one’s speech. Freedom of speech should not mean speech can be used indiscriminately.
It is good to know that Twitter protects his users from bullies, those who only seek to put others down and who do not benefit anyone, even themselves. It is good to know that such abusers get their visibility reduced and accounts closed so that they are punished by their actions and encouraged to stop such behaviour.
Thank you for sharing this and encouraging everyone to be civil and polite.
The freedom of speech ends when it does only to harm and hurt. Many people have been affected by rude and inappropriate messages on Twitter or other Social Media plateforms. Good to know that these social media plateforms learn and improve to prevent such damaging messages and posts in the public space.
it is very disturbing to know that even H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche and Kechara was target by people through hurtful comments, lies and negative speech. I hope that people who attack others by lying and wanting to damage their reputation will be stopped from such. Social media is a wonderful tool to inspire everyone for the better, this should be its main purpose.
Good to hear that someone is taking responsibility for their platform and implemented on their code of acceptable conduct. Human beings being human beings will try to take advantage of every situation until they are told and shown what is acceptable or not so.
A very good start and if twitter is being fair and just to ALL, then there is hope yet.
Since the popularity of Social Media soared post-2008, the unchartered territory of this digital platform became a sensation that bred covetousness and vulgarity in the name of freedom of speech. As social media platforms have become the only source of news for a growing numbers of people, and many gullible people actually believe everyting they read on social media.
On the other hand, many people make use of the platforms to spread their opinion, and when they see differing view points, they assault, abuse, insult, and troll the person. Recent years, many people also took it to social media to spread bully-ism, in the name of righteousness. So, everyone takes their brand of opinion and value system to social media and impose it onto others. Or it seems this way.
Therefore, it is refreshing to know that Twitter steps up their game to regulate the spreading of hatred and lies, even though some of these are spread in the name of freedom of expression. Repeat offenders who abuse other users online face suspension is a good way to make these trolls realize they have to be responsible for their words / actions, and there is no playing god on cyberspace.
I think we also hear it sometimes, on our local radio, calling for general public to check / validate the facts before forwarding message on social media. This is a good awareness for people to realize their action counts and they are responsibe for their social media messages.
Time for everyone to own up their actions on cyberspace and be a responsible netizen! spread lovea and care instead of hate and covetousness.
News and information are very important in our daily lives so that we can avert unnecessary mishap. However, many have also used the social media to harass and abuse people to the point of disaster.
It is good to note that Twitter in true democracy and rule of law will not exempt the President of the USA should there be misconduct on his part. That is wonderful news.
The aim of twitter to guide society to better conduct is also very noble.
I hope that Twitter will succeed in their regulations in order that it will be a platform for good information for the betterment of society.
Thank you Rinpoche for this website with such an interesting diversity of topics for the readers.
The social media site has been criticized because many people misused and exploited it. Twitter has been trying to stop the harassment on the service for quite some time..After admitting that it hasn’t done enough to stop trolls and deliberate misbehavior in the past. They are doing more with the latest step which temporarily limited some of account features. That is a good news and creating a safer environment for people to freely express themselves.The restriction effectively limits the reach of individual accounts to users ,maintaining a positive user experience. I am glad ,they are doing good as many of the user have been targeted .
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this wonderful news.