In a recent comment, CEO of Twitter (NYSE:$TWTR) Jack Dorsey stated that Twitter Inc is not doing enough to protect its users from hateful and abusive tweets. Following that, Twitter has vowed to crack down on hate speech and sexual harassment on its popular social media platform.
This continues a trend for Twitter, which has spent the last two years trying to clamp down on the hate and abuse that has infested the site in recent years.
While Dorsey and others have stated that the service has not done enough to curb those sorts of tweets, some are concerned that the recent initiatives are a step towards muzzling free speech.
According to a letter from the Associated Press received from Twitter on Tuesday, the company’s head of safety policy outlined the new prospective guidelines that will create some new rules, as well as tightening the pre-existing ones.
Emma Llanso, director of the free expression project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said, “It’s good that Twitter is thinking these things through and being fairly transparent about what they are doing.”
Llanso also pointed out that it would be incredibly important to have a transparent review and appeals process.
Twitter had specifically singled out the Llanso’s group for input on the proposed changes in the letter they sent out Tuesday.
So what’s changing?
First and foremost, Twitter is looking to stem the use of women who have either unknowingly or unwilling had their nude pictures or videos distributed online. They also looked to shield groups from hateful imagery, threats of violence, and hate symbols.
Chief in this is Twitter deciding to immediately ban any account identified as posting non-consensual nudity or ‘creep shots’.
Among the other objectives of the policy change were creating a system to allow bystanders to report unwanted exchanges of sexual content, and crackdown on hate symbols and imagery, although it didn’t specify which hate symbols specifically.
On Friday, Dorsey hinted at the coming policy changes with a tweeted message.
“Today we saw voices silencing themselves and voices speaking out because we’re *still* not doing enough,” Dorsey tweeted.
“Any kind of policy that is about taking down speech online, will be used for its intended purpose, but also by others who are looking to get things censored online. People out there looking to silence voices they disagree with are very savvy,” said Llanso.
“There will definitely be mistakes,” she warned.
The move comes after congressional investigators began digging into Twitter in search of Russian agents who used social media to influence last year’s U.S. election. A public congressional hearing is set for November 1st, which Twitter has agreed to appear at. The company also cooperated by handing over 201 accounts believed to be linked to Russia and admitting that at least $274,000 was spent on ads bought by a Russian government-linked media outlet Russia Today.
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