Yeah, as somebody fairly familiar with their operations I laughed out loud over the suggestion they just get 10k employees to moderate the anger of the world.
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
1. They absolutely have a shitty business model (in that I don't think they've even figured out what it is).
2. I'm not actually sure there's a way to effectively moderate on that scale, or that they should be any more responsible for people being mean on the internet than an email provider. I don't think anybody's come up with a successful moderation program for anything as large as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
Figure $50k per employee in costs x 10,000 employees, will add another 500m a year in expenses on top. Expenses which have no real ability to increase earnings to offset themselves.
For some interesting scale. Annually twitters loses about 60c per user or 0.25c per tweet.
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
But, similar to Reddit, I think Twitter's funding model and inability to address abuse are linked. I think the potential land mines (like, for example, having your company's ad show up on the Twitter page of a known white supremacist organization) curtail their ability to gather revenue.
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
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Giggles_FunsworthBlight on DiscourseBay Area SprawlRegistered Userregular
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
But, similar to Reddit, I think Twitter's funding model and inability to address abuse are linked. I think the potential land mines (like, for example, having your company's ad show up on the Twitter page of a known white supremacist organization) curtail their ability to gather revenue.
Nothing new would rise in its place by that standard. This is like the conversation I had with a friend who'd just gotten out of school doesn't really have any work experience. She was adamant that requiring working more than 40 hours a week, ever, was employee abuse. Even in the instance of start-ups that are scrambling to launch so they have revenue to grow and scale back what is required of individuals. With such an unreasonable standard there would just not ever be any new companies.
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
But, similar to Reddit, I think Twitter's funding model and inability to address abuse are linked. I think the potential land mines (like, for example, having your company's ad show up on the Twitter page of a known white supremacist organization) curtail their ability to gather revenue.
Who should dismantle Twitter, though? If its current funders wanted to do that they would have done it by now. Having the US government dismantle them either directly or through tort liability opens up a bigger can of worms than it closes. And I'm unconvinced that having an ad for Pepsi show up next to the Illinois Nazi Party twitter feed actually impacts Pepsi's buisness; internet advertising is understood to be largely automated. We might be in the best of all possible worlds on this one.
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
Interesting adjective choice, because this reads pretty much as pure:
Twitter is a disaster, it's a disaster, but you can fix it. Just get rid of the twitter and make a replacement and it will be great. It'll be the best tweeter there is. Everyone will love the new twitter cause it'll be so much better.
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
I don't even understand what your actual beef with Twitter is. It's an entirely optional social space that people frequently opt in and out of. It's arguably a better place for abuse of the nature you describe to happen specifically because there is distance and one CAN opt out of it--as compared to real life where all the same things happen but there can often be no escape.
I'm not saying it's ok because it's online, I'm saying it's not markedly different from what just happens normally outside of Twitter, so why exactly the desire for Twitter to end?
+5
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Giggles_FunsworthBlight on DiscourseBay Area SprawlRegistered Userregular
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
Requiring companies to spring forth from the womb fully formed would require even greater VC buy in, not less.
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
I don't even understand what your actual beef with Twitter is. It's an entirely optional social space that people frequently opt in and out of. It's arguably a better place for abuse of the nature you describe to happen specifically because there is distance and one CAN opt out of it--as compared to real life where all the same things happen but there can often be no escape.
I'm not saying it's ok because it's online, I'm saying it's not markedly different from what just happens normally outside of Twitter, so why exactly the desire for Twitter to end?
Twitter is a shitshow, in short, because users are subject to harassment that wouldn't be tolerated in person, and some public figures are essentially required to maintain a Twitter presence or switch careers. Twitter is incapable of moderating their service to eliminate the abuse. High-profile and especially medium-profile users can't leave because they'd lose their audience and then livelihood. Basic users don't want leave, or at least aren't leaving in numbers large enough to screw up the platform.
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
I don't even understand what your actual beef with Twitter is. It's an entirely optional social space that people frequently opt in and out of. It's arguably a better place for abuse of the nature you describe to happen specifically because there is distance and one CAN opt out of it--as compared to real life where all the same things happen but there can often be no escape.
I'm not saying it's ok because it's online, I'm saying it's not markedly different from what just happens normally outside of Twitter, so why exactly the desire for Twitter to end?
Twitter is a shitshow, in short, because users are subject to harassment that wouldn't be tolerated in person, and some public figures are essentially required to maintain a Twitter presence or switch careers. Twitter is incapable of moderating their service to eliminate the abuse. High-profile and especially medium-profile users can't leave because they'd lose their audience and then livelihood. Basic users don't want leave, or at least aren't leaving in numbers large enough to screw up the platform.
There is plenty of abuse in real life, if you think it's worse than what happens IRL I'd love for that to be quantified because I don't see it. What you're likely seeing isn't a Twitter phenomenon. Arguably it's a modern phenomenon caused by giving more people louder voices, and that is not going away because it's not a Twitter problem, it's a Human problem and so far no evidence has been presented to the contrary.
Edit: And you kind of day it yourself in the end, people aren't leaving in unusual numbers. People like it, people use it because it furthers their careers or makes them money or pushes their message. People endure and have endured the same consequences or worse for the same things since the beginning of time. For better or worse there is a cost to the public figure. And again, I'm not saying that's good. I'm asking why the ire is directed at the platform instead of the "speaker"
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
I don't even understand what your actual beef with Twitter is. It's an entirely optional social space that people frequently opt in and out of. It's arguably a better place for abuse of the nature you describe to happen specifically because there is distance and one CAN opt out of it--as compared to real life where all the same things happen but there can often be no escape.
I'm not saying it's ok because it's online, I'm saying it's not markedly different from what just happens normally outside of Twitter, so why exactly the desire for Twitter to end?
Twitter is a shitshow, in short, because users are subject to harassment that wouldn't be tolerated in person, and some public figures are essentially required to maintain a Twitter presence or switch careers. Twitter is incapable of moderating their service to eliminate the abuse. High-profile and especially medium-profile users can't leave because they'd lose their audience and then livelihood. Basic users don't want leave, or at least aren't leaving in numbers large enough to screw up the platform.
There is plenty of abuse in real life, if you think it's worse than what happens IRL I'd love for that tweet be quantified because I don't see it. What you're likely seeing isn't a Twitter phenomenon. Arguably it's a modern phenomenon caused by giving more people louder voices, and that is not going away because it's not a Twitter problem, it's a Human problem and so far no evidence has been presented to the contrary.
The level of personal threats and persistent abuse that a D list celebrity can attract on twitter would easily result in police action if carried out in person.
And yeah I've been arguing that it's a systemic problem with any service that has the basic parameters that Twitter has; as a service grows, the number of posts you can physically host on the server increases exponentially while the number of posts you can have moderation staff review will increase linearly, so eventually you hit a crossover point where your service becomes unmanageable. At that point the best you can do is user-driven moderation like Reddit does, or Facebook does indirectly.
In my opinion, Twitter is an example of the "this is why we can't have nice things!" sentiment. You can't make a Twitter with a ton of rules and strict moderation because a huuuuuuuuuge % of your customer base is there for drama, debate, politics, radical messages, etc etc. All the things that cause toxicity that your product can't live without.
What we do with this is the philosophical dilema. Some people think it's bad and harmful and it should therefore go, but I'd argue humans don't really work that way. We will find another outlet, as always we do.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited October 2016
the search for a means to put an end to twitter, an end to speech, is what enables the tweeting to continue~
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
I don't even understand what your actual beef with Twitter is. It's an entirely optional social space that people frequently opt in and out of. It's arguably a better place for abuse of the nature you describe to happen specifically because there is distance and one CAN opt out of it--as compared to real life where all the same things happen but there can often be no escape.
I'm not saying it's ok because it's online, I'm saying it's not markedly different from what just happens normally outside of Twitter, so why exactly the desire for Twitter to end?
Twitter is a shitshow, in short, because users are subject to harassment that wouldn't be tolerated in person, and some public figures are essentially required to maintain a Twitter presence or switch careers. Twitter is incapable of moderating their service to eliminate the abuse. High-profile and especially medium-profile users can't leave because they'd lose their audience and then livelihood. Basic users don't want leave, or at least aren't leaving in numbers large enough to screw up the platform.
There is plenty of abuse in real life, if you think it's worse than what happens IRL I'd love for that tweet be quantified because I don't see it. What you're likely seeing isn't a Twitter phenomenon. Arguably it's a modern phenomenon caused by giving more people louder voices, and that is not going away because it's not a Twitter problem, it's a Human problem and so far no evidence has been presented to the contrary.
The level of personal threats and persistent abuse that a D list celebrity can attract on twitter would easily result in police action if carried out in person.
.
I guess that just... Isn't impressive to me? Like, it sucks but really, we aren't going to run out of bored/angry/stupid/etc idiots waiting to hurl abuse and nonsense at anyone poking their head up. And again, that's not new! We're just in a modern age with more technologically driven outlets. More VISIBLE outlets for things that happened and you never knew happened.
I feel like these complaints are valid but they're not Twitter specific, so we're basically expecting Twitter to somehow control or fix the worst parts of humanity and that's just not fair
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
I don't even understand what your actual beef with Twitter is. It's an entirely optional social space that people frequently opt in and out of. It's arguably a better place for abuse of the nature you describe to happen specifically because there is distance and one CAN opt out of it--as compared to real life where all the same things happen but there can often be no escape.
I'm not saying it's ok because it's online, I'm saying it's not markedly different from what just happens normally outside of Twitter, so why exactly the desire for Twitter to end?
Twitter is a shitshow, in short, because users are subject to harassment that wouldn't be tolerated in person, and some public figures are essentially required to maintain a Twitter presence or switch careers. Twitter is incapable of moderating their service to eliminate the abuse. High-profile and especially medium-profile users can't leave because they'd lose their audience and then livelihood. Basic users don't want leave, or at least aren't leaving in numbers large enough to screw up the platform.
There is plenty of abuse in real life, if you think it's worse than what happens IRL I'd love for that to be quantified because I don't see it. What you're likely seeing isn't a Twitter phenomenon. Arguably it's a modern phenomenon caused by giving more people louder voices, and that is not going away because it's not a Twitter problem, it's a Human problem and so far no evidence has been presented to the contrary.
Edit: And you kind of day it yourself in the end, people aren't leaving in unusual numbers. People like it, people use it because it furthers their careers or makes them money or pushes their message. People endure and have endured the same consequences or worse for the same things since the beginning of time. For better or worse there is a cost to the public figure. And again, I'm not saying that's good. I'm asking why the ire is directed at the platform instead of the "speaker"
Because there are things that Twitter could do to rein in abuse. It is absolutely fucking ridiculous that it took a major corporation leaning hard on Twitter to get them to finally toss Milo out on his ass. It is disgusting that they reinstated Glenn Reynolds after his tweet about running protestors over because he gave an apology.
And your argument here is the reason that I have very little sympathy for your concerns about "chilling effects" on discourse by reining in abuse. Because as it turns out, this sort of abuse does have a chilling effect on discourse by minorities, women, and other groups. It makes them less willing to enter into the discourse, less willing to speak up, lest they be the next target. And yet your argument is "hey, this stuff happens, and you should learn to endure it."
They have been enduring it. For a very long time. And they shouldn't have to.
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
I don't even understand what your actual beef with Twitter is. It's an entirely optional social space that people frequently opt in and out of. It's arguably a better place for abuse of the nature you describe to happen specifically because there is distance and one CAN opt out of it--as compared to real life where all the same things happen but there can often be no escape.
I'm not saying it's ok because it's online, I'm saying it's not markedly different from what just happens normally outside of Twitter, so why exactly the desire for Twitter to end?
Twitter is a shitshow, in short, because users are subject to harassment that wouldn't be tolerated in person, and some public figures are essentially required to maintain a Twitter presence or switch careers. Twitter is incapable of moderating their service to eliminate the abuse. High-profile and especially medium-profile users can't leave because they'd lose their audience and then livelihood. Basic users don't want leave, or at least aren't leaving in numbers large enough to screw up the platform.
There is plenty of abuse in real life, if you think it's worse than what happens IRL I'd love for that tweet be quantified because I don't see it. What you're likely seeing isn't a Twitter phenomenon. Arguably it's a modern phenomenon caused by giving more people louder voices, and that is not going away because it's not a Twitter problem, it's a Human problem and so far no evidence has been presented to the contrary.
The level of personal threats and persistent abuse that a D list celebrity can attract on twitter would easily result in police action if carried out in person.
.
I guess that just... Isn't impressive to me? Like, it sucks but really, we aren't going to run out of bored/angry/stupid/etc idiots waiting to hurl abuse and nonsense at anyone poking their head up. And again, that's not new! We're just in a modern age with more technologically driven outlets. More VISIBLE outlets for things that happened and you never knew happened.
I feel like these complaints are valid but they're not Twitter specific, so we're basically expecting Twitter to somehow control or fix the worst parts of humanity and that's just not fair
To be blunt, and meaning no personal offense here: you don't interact with the Twitter service in the same way as somebody that people actually give a shit about. You're just some random guy; the Twitter system will only affect you personally if lightning strikes and you attract an internet lynch mob, like that woman that Sam Biddle spent months harassing on Gawker for making an off-color joke. A controversial celebrity is going to attract that kind of attention basically all the time, and doesn't really have the ability to opt out of it as freely as you do.
And I mean, I've been saying since post 2 that Twitter can't fix this, the service is more or less as good as you're gonna get. Eventually the money will run out, or it won't. In the meantime if you're opposed to the way Twitter works I'd suggest not using it. Like, not at all! You have to impact the numbers, this doesn't work if you just use it to follow those few authors you like and also Donald Trump.
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
I don't even understand what your actual beef with Twitter is. It's an entirely optional social space that people frequently opt in and out of. It's arguably a better place for abuse of the nature you describe to happen specifically because there is distance and one CAN opt out of it--as compared to real life where all the same things happen but there can often be no escape.
I'm not saying it's ok because it's online, I'm saying it's not markedly different from what just happens normally outside of Twitter, so why exactly the desire for Twitter to end?
Twitter is a shitshow, in short, because users are subject to harassment that wouldn't be tolerated in person, and some public figures are essentially required to maintain a Twitter presence or switch careers. Twitter is incapable of moderating their service to eliminate the abuse. High-profile and especially medium-profile users can't leave because they'd lose their audience and then livelihood. Basic users don't want leave, or at least aren't leaving in numbers large enough to screw up the platform.
There is plenty of abuse in real life, if you think it's worse than what happens IRL I'd love for that to be quantified because I don't see it. What you're likely seeing isn't a Twitter phenomenon. Arguably it's a modern phenomenon caused by giving more people louder voices, and that is not going away because it's not a Twitter problem, it's a Human problem and so far no evidence has been presented to the contrary.
Edit: And you kind of day it yourself in the end, people aren't leaving in unusual numbers. People like it, people use it because it furthers their careers or makes them money or pushes their message. People endure and have endured the same consequences or worse for the same things since the beginning of time. For better or worse there is a cost to the public figure. And again, I'm not saying that's good. I'm asking why the ire is directed at the platform instead of the "speaker"
Because there are things that Twitter could do to rein in abuse. It is absolutely fucking ridiculous that it took a major corporation leaning hard on Twitter to get them to finally toss Milo out on his ass. It is disgusting that they reinstated Glenn Reynolds after his tweet about running protestors over because he gave an apology.
And your argument here is the reason that I have very little sympathy for your concerns about "chilling effects" on discourse by reining in abuse. Because as it turns out, this sort of abuse does have a chilling effect on discourse by minorities, women, and other groups. It makes them less willing to enter into the discourse, less willing to speak up, lest they be the next target. And yet your argument is "hey, this stuff happens, and you should learn to endure it."
They have been enduring it. For a very long time. And they shouldn't have to.
Stuff has happened, is happening and will happen long after Twitter is gone. You're simply misplacing the blame.
If you want to argue an Ideal World solution that's cool but I'm not going to engage it. In this world, the things we like about Twitter are propped up by the things we don't like. The discourse and social aspects that we want are not what made Twitter a "success", they are useful byproducts of the millions and millions of people looking for an outlet, for a soapbox, for drama, for someone to hate, for something to argue about or get mad about. You take all this away and Twitter doesn't work anymore, can't exist. For all our sympathy for Celebs, they get what they want too: publicity both good AND bad. For all the hatred causes or people we like get, they're getting visibility which is WHY they're there to begin with. It's really more helpful if you imagine twitters support base as regular viewers of the E channel. That's what props it up so we can get the things we want.
There's a lot of bad there. And a lot of good. This is not perfect but it's also fairly par.
One thing that I think people get wrong. The issue isn't really Twitter giving a small number of people(like the Brietbart guy) a louder voice. Its that by using Twitter people remove the insulation from themselves.
30 Years ago, if some writer puts out some 'objectionable' newspaper story. And some talk radio guy goes off on it and get's their audience incensed, what do they do? Call the paper, mail a letter?
Today, that reporter has a Twitter account, but really the response hasn't changed -except in its ease of use. The difference is that instead of the newspapers number/address, they(the reporter) have basically given out their home address and phone number of 30 years ago.
By using a platform whose entire purpose is "I can be directly contact or be contacted by any other person at any time" all the messages that some poor receptionist or mail clerk would have screened are directly given to them. Using Twitter(or any hypothetical Twitter-like), is explicitly giving the public more access to you. That proximity and lack of intermediaries is why they are personally using public Twitter. Rather than a private one, or a public one run by a PR lakey.
That's the solution right there. Want someone to go through all your messages and get rid of the mean ones? Do what celebrities have done for decades, pay someone to do it for you.
tinwhiskers on
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ObiFettUse the ForceAs You WishRegistered Userregular
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
I don't even understand what your actual beef with Twitter is. It's an entirely optional social space that people frequently opt in and out of. It's arguably a better place for abuse of the nature you describe to happen specifically because there is distance and one CAN opt out of it--as compared to real life where all the same things happen but there can often be no escape.
I'm not saying it's ok because it's online, I'm saying it's not markedly different from what just happens normally outside of Twitter, so why exactly the desire for Twitter to end?
Twitter is a shitshow, in short, because users are subject to harassment that wouldn't be tolerated in person, and some public figures are essentially required to maintain a Twitter presence or switch careers. Twitter is incapable of moderating their service to eliminate the abuse. High-profile and especially medium-profile users can't leave because they'd lose their audience and then livelihood. Basic users don't want leave, or at least aren't leaving in numbers large enough to screw up the platform.
There is plenty of abuse in real life, if you think it's worse than what happens IRL I'd love for that to be quantified because I don't see it. What you're likely seeing isn't a Twitter phenomenon. Arguably it's a modern phenomenon caused by giving more people louder voices, and that is not going away because it's not a Twitter problem, it's a Human problem and so far no evidence has been presented to the contrary.
Edit: And you kind of day it yourself in the end, people aren't leaving in unusual numbers. People like it, people use it because it furthers their careers or makes them money or pushes their message. People endure and have endured the same consequences or worse for the same things since the beginning of time. For better or worse there is a cost to the public figure. And again, I'm not saying that's good. I'm asking why the ire is directed at the platform instead of the "speaker"
Because there are things that Twitter could do to rein in abuse. It is absolutely fucking ridiculous that it took a major corporation leaning hard on Twitter to get them to finally toss Milo out on his ass. It is disgusting that they reinstated Glenn Reynolds after his tweet about running protestors over because he gave an apology.
And your argument here is the reason that I have very little sympathy for your concerns about "chilling effects" on discourse by reining in abuse. Because as it turns out, this sort of abuse does have a chilling effect on discourse by minorities, women, and other groups. It makes them less willing to enter into the discourse, less willing to speak up, lest they be the next target. And yet your argument is "hey, this stuff happens, and you should learn to endure it."
They have been enduring it. For a very long time. And they shouldn't have to.
Do you think Twitter should also ban anyone who tweets in support of killing cops?
What about if they tweet in support of damaging property?
I say if you are gonna ban people for inciting/suggesting violence against a group, then you've gotta ban anyone who incites/suggests violence against any group. Otherwise you've got subjective rules and/or are banning people on motive/feeling/opinion/belief.
If you ban all inciting/suggestions of violence then you are also further oppressing the downtrodden that sometimes have to resort to violence/destruction in order to get their voices heard.
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
I don't even understand what your actual beef with Twitter is. It's an entirely optional social space that people frequently opt in and out of. It's arguably a better place for abuse of the nature you describe to happen specifically because there is distance and one CAN opt out of it--as compared to real life where all the same things happen but there can often be no escape.
I'm not saying it's ok because it's online, I'm saying it's not markedly different from what just happens normally outside of Twitter, so why exactly the desire for Twitter to end?
Twitter is a shitshow, in short, because users are subject to harassment that wouldn't be tolerated in person, and some public figures are essentially required to maintain a Twitter presence or switch careers. Twitter is incapable of moderating their service to eliminate the abuse. High-profile and especially medium-profile users can't leave because they'd lose their audience and then livelihood. Basic users don't want leave, or at least aren't leaving in numbers large enough to screw up the platform.
There is plenty of abuse in real life, if you think it's worse than what happens IRL I'd love for that tweet be quantified because I don't see it. What you're likely seeing isn't a Twitter phenomenon. Arguably it's a modern phenomenon caused by giving more people louder voices, and that is not going away because it's not a Twitter problem, it's a Human problem and so far no evidence has been presented to the contrary.
The level of personal threats and persistent abuse that a D list celebrity can attract on twitter would easily result in police action if carried out in person.
.
I guess that just... Isn't impressive to me? Like, it sucks but really, we aren't going to run out of bored/angry/stupid/etc idiots waiting to hurl abuse and nonsense at anyone poking their head up. And again, that's not new! We're just in a modern age with more technologically driven outlets. More VISIBLE outlets for things that happened and you never knew happened.
I feel like these complaints are valid but they're not Twitter specific, so we're basically expecting Twitter to somehow control or fix the worst parts of humanity and that's just not fair
To be blunt, and meaning no personal offense here: you don't interact with the Twitter service in the same way as somebody that people actually give a shit about. You're just some random guy; the Twitter system will only affect you personally if lightning strikes and you attract an internet lynch mob, like that woman that Sam Biddle spent months harassing on Gawker for making an off-color joke. A controversial celebrity is going to attract that kind of attention basically all the time, and doesn't really have the ability to opt out of it as freely as you do.
And I mean, I've been saying since post 2 that Twitter can't fix this, the service is more or less as good as you're gonna get. Eventually the money will run out, or it won't. In the meantime if you're opposed to the way Twitter works I'd suggest not using it. Like, not at all! You have to impact the numbers, this doesn't work if you just use it to follow those few authors you like and also Donald Trump.
No insult taken. I agree with almost all the criticisms, it's just a "trying to empty the sea with a bucket" kind of thing.we likely have to face the reality that Twitter essentially is unfiltered humanity and we can get upset about it or understand that learn what it means and how to deal with it.
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
I don't even understand what your actual beef with Twitter is. It's an entirely optional social space that people frequently opt in and out of. It's arguably a better place for abuse of the nature you describe to happen specifically because there is distance and one CAN opt out of it--as compared to real life where all the same things happen but there can often be no escape.
I'm not saying it's ok because it's online, I'm saying it's not markedly different from what just happens normally outside of Twitter, so why exactly the desire for Twitter to end?
Twitter is a shitshow, in short, because users are subject to harassment that wouldn't be tolerated in person, and some public figures are essentially required to maintain a Twitter presence or switch careers. Twitter is incapable of moderating their service to eliminate the abuse. High-profile and especially medium-profile users can't leave because they'd lose their audience and then livelihood. Basic users don't want leave, or at least aren't leaving in numbers large enough to screw up the platform.
There is plenty of abuse in real life, if you think it's worse than what happens IRL I'd love for that to be quantified because I don't see it. What you're likely seeing isn't a Twitter phenomenon. Arguably it's a modern phenomenon caused by giving more people louder voices, and that is not going away because it's not a Twitter problem, it's a Human problem and so far no evidence has been presented to the contrary.
Edit: And you kind of day it yourself in the end, people aren't leaving in unusual numbers. People like it, people use it because it furthers their careers or makes them money or pushes their message. People endure and have endured the same consequences or worse for the same things since the beginning of time. For better or worse there is a cost to the public figure. And again, I'm not saying that's good. I'm asking why the ire is directed at the platform instead of the "speaker"
Because there are things that Twitter could do to rein in abuse. It is absolutely fucking ridiculous that it took a major corporation leaning hard on Twitter to get them to finally toss Milo out on his ass. It is disgusting that they reinstated Glenn Reynolds after his tweet about running protestors over because he gave an apology.
And your argument here is the reason that I have very little sympathy for your concerns about "chilling effects" on discourse by reining in abuse. Because as it turns out, this sort of abuse does have a chilling effect on discourse by minorities, women, and other groups. It makes them less willing to enter into the discourse, less willing to speak up, lest they be the next target. And yet your argument is "hey, this stuff happens, and you should learn to endure it."
They have been enduring it. For a very long time. And they shouldn't have to.
Do you think Twitter should also ban anyone who tweets in support of killing cops?
What about if they tweet in support of damaging property?
I say if you are gonna ban people for inciting/suggesting violence against a group, then you've gotta ban anyone who incites/suggests violence against any group. Otherwise you've got subjective rules and/or are banning people on motive/feeling/opinion/belief.
If you ban all inciting/suggestions of violence then you are also further oppressing the downtrodden that sometimes have to resort to violence/destruction in order to get their voices heard.
This is a simple problem that can be solved with a new start up. Basically, we need Sesame Credit + Twitter. Where instead of "Pro Beijing Good Citizenship" the metric is "Says thing that Angelhedgie agrees with, Doesn't say things Angelhedgie disagrees with".
I've been deliberately avoiding the debate on what specific messages Twitter should moderate and which ones they shouldn't, because it's entirely beside the point: whatever standard you choose, unless your standard is "nothing, unless it results in direct legal action or a serious media outcry" Twitter doesn't have the staff to do it and couldn't amass that staff if they had the will to do so (which, admittedly, it seems that they don't)
I've been deliberately avoiding the debate on what specific messages Twitter should moderate and which ones they shouldn't, because it's entirely beside the point: whatever standard you choose, unless your standard is "nothing, unless it results in direct legal action or a serious media outcry" Twitter doesn't have the staff to do it and couldn't amass that staff if they had the will to do so (which, admittedly, it seems that they don't)
That, and doing so undermines their while product. There aren't uncounted millions just waiting to get on Twitter if only you could more effectively block someone. And even if there were, there are many many more who will simply stop going there if all the things that made it engaging are gone:
We'd enjoy the product more without them but without them we don't have a product
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
I don't even understand what your actual beef with Twitter is. It's an entirely optional social space that people frequently opt in and out of. It's arguably a better place for abuse of the nature you describe to happen specifically because there is distance and one CAN opt out of it--as compared to real life where all the same things happen but there can often be no escape.
I'm not saying it's ok because it's online, I'm saying it's not markedly different from what just happens normally outside of Twitter, so why exactly the desire for Twitter to end?
Twitter is a shitshow, in short, because users are subject to harassment that wouldn't be tolerated in person, and some public figures are essentially required to maintain a Twitter presence or switch careers. Twitter is incapable of moderating their service to eliminate the abuse. High-profile and especially medium-profile users can't leave because they'd lose their audience and then livelihood. Basic users don't want leave, or at least aren't leaving in numbers large enough to screw up the platform.
There is plenty of abuse in real life, if you think it's worse than what happens IRL I'd love for that to be quantified because I don't see it. What you're likely seeing isn't a Twitter phenomenon. Arguably it's a modern phenomenon caused by giving more people louder voices, and that is not going away because it's not a Twitter problem, it's a Human problem and so far no evidence has been presented to the contrary.
Edit: And you kind of day it yourself in the end, people aren't leaving in unusual numbers. People like it, people use it because it furthers their careers or makes them money or pushes their message. People endure and have endured the same consequences or worse for the same things since the beginning of time. For better or worse there is a cost to the public figure. And again, I'm not saying that's good. I'm asking why the ire is directed at the platform instead of the "speaker"
Because there are things that Twitter could do to rein in abuse. It is absolutely fucking ridiculous that it took a major corporation leaning hard on Twitter to get them to finally toss Milo out on his ass. It is disgusting that they reinstated Glenn Reynolds after his tweet about running protestors over because he gave an apology.
And your argument here is the reason that I have very little sympathy for your concerns about "chilling effects" on discourse by reining in abuse. Because as it turns out, this sort of abuse does have a chilling effect on discourse by minorities, women, and other groups. It makes them less willing to enter into the discourse, less willing to speak up, lest they be the next target. And yet your argument is "hey, this stuff happens, and you should learn to endure it."
They have been enduring it. For a very long time. And they shouldn't have to.
You're conflating "Twitter" with "The Internet" and "Life as we know it". There have always been racist misogynistic dickbags. Twitter can not, and should not, do anything to try to dictate morality to others. The correct venue to address these issues is the legal system, wherein laws are passed so that online harassment, such as referring to an african-american female reporter as an n-word c-word results in legal action. In the same way that if I saw her on the street and said those things, I would be punished.
When things like anti-bullying laws are used for this type of verbal abuse on twitter, and the federal government takes action (because this is an interstate issue), things may get better. But when one of the two major parties is putting up a racist misogynistic dickbag as presidential candidate, I wouldn't expect quick action.
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
I don't even understand what your actual beef with Twitter is. It's an entirely optional social space that people frequently opt in and out of. It's arguably a better place for abuse of the nature you describe to happen specifically because there is distance and one CAN opt out of it--as compared to real life where all the same things happen but there can often be no escape.
I'm not saying it's ok because it's online, I'm saying it's not markedly different from what just happens normally outside of Twitter, so why exactly the desire for Twitter to end?
Twitter is a shitshow, in short, because users are subject to harassment that wouldn't be tolerated in person, and some public figures are essentially required to maintain a Twitter presence or switch careers. Twitter is incapable of moderating their service to eliminate the abuse. High-profile and especially medium-profile users can't leave because they'd lose their audience and then livelihood. Basic users don't want leave, or at least aren't leaving in numbers large enough to screw up the platform.
There is plenty of abuse in real life, if you think it's worse than what happens IRL I'd love for that to be quantified because I don't see it. What you're likely seeing isn't a Twitter phenomenon. Arguably it's a modern phenomenon caused by giving more people louder voices, and that is not going away because it's not a Twitter problem, it's a Human problem and so far no evidence has been presented to the contrary.
Edit: And you kind of day it yourself in the end, people aren't leaving in unusual numbers. People like it, people use it because it furthers their careers or makes them money or pushes their message. People endure and have endured the same consequences or worse for the same things since the beginning of time. For better or worse there is a cost to the public figure. And again, I'm not saying that's good. I'm asking why the ire is directed at the platform instead of the "speaker"
Because there are things that Twitter could do to rein in abuse. It is absolutely fucking ridiculous that it took a major corporation leaning hard on Twitter to get them to finally toss Milo out on his ass. It is disgusting that they reinstated Glenn Reynolds after his tweet about running protestors over because he gave an apology.
And your argument here is the reason that I have very little sympathy for your concerns about "chilling effects" on discourse by reining in abuse. Because as it turns out, this sort of abuse does have a chilling effect on discourse by minorities, women, and other groups. It makes them less willing to enter into the discourse, less willing to speak up, lest they be the next target. And yet your argument is "hey, this stuff happens, and you should learn to endure it."
They have been enduring it. For a very long time. And they shouldn't have to.
You're conflating "Twitter" with "The Internet" and "Life as we know it". There have always been racist misogynistic dickbags. Twitter can not, and should not, do anything to try to dictate morality to others. The correct venue to address these issues is the legal system, wherein laws are passed so that online harassment, such as referring to an african-american female reporter as an n-word c-word results in legal action. In the same way that if I saw her on the street and said those things, I would be punished.
When things like anti-bullying laws are used for this type of verbal abuse on twitter, and the federal government takes action (because this is an interstate issue), things may get better. But when one of the two major parties is putting up a racist misogynistic dickbag as presidential candidate, I wouldn't expect quick action.
How, exactly, would you be punished? You can't call the cops on someone for them yelling out insults/hurtful words at you, as you pass on the street. There are maybe societal risks, depending on the area / situation, but that is no different than twitter as is now.
You can get a restraining order if they are following you around and repeatedly doing it, just like you can ignore the person.
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
I don't even understand what your actual beef with Twitter is. It's an entirely optional social space that people frequently opt in and out of. It's arguably a better place for abuse of the nature you describe to happen specifically because there is distance and one CAN opt out of it--as compared to real life where all the same things happen but there can often be no escape.
I'm not saying it's ok because it's online, I'm saying it's not markedly different from what just happens normally outside of Twitter, so why exactly the desire for Twitter to end?
Twitter is a shitshow, in short, because users are subject to harassment that wouldn't be tolerated in person, and some public figures are essentially required to maintain a Twitter presence or switch careers. Twitter is incapable of moderating their service to eliminate the abuse. High-profile and especially medium-profile users can't leave because they'd lose their audience and then livelihood. Basic users don't want leave, or at least aren't leaving in numbers large enough to screw up the platform.
There is plenty of abuse in real life, if you think it's worse than what happens IRL I'd love for that to be quantified because I don't see it. What you're likely seeing isn't a Twitter phenomenon. Arguably it's a modern phenomenon caused by giving more people louder voices, and that is not going away because it's not a Twitter problem, it's a Human problem and so far no evidence has been presented to the contrary.
Edit: And you kind of day it yourself in the end, people aren't leaving in unusual numbers. People like it, people use it because it furthers their careers or makes them money or pushes their message. People endure and have endured the same consequences or worse for the same things since the beginning of time. For better or worse there is a cost to the public figure. And again, I'm not saying that's good. I'm asking why the ire is directed at the platform instead of the "speaker"
Because there are things that Twitter could do to rein in abuse. It is absolutely fucking ridiculous that it took a major corporation leaning hard on Twitter to get them to finally toss Milo out on his ass. It is disgusting that they reinstated Glenn Reynolds after his tweet about running protestors over because he gave an apology.
And your argument here is the reason that I have very little sympathy for your concerns about "chilling effects" on discourse by reining in abuse. Because as it turns out, this sort of abuse does have a chilling effect on discourse by minorities, women, and other groups. It makes them less willing to enter into the discourse, less willing to speak up, lest they be the next target. And yet your argument is "hey, this stuff happens, and you should learn to endure it."
They have been enduring it. For a very long time. And they shouldn't have to.
You're conflating "Twitter" with "The Internet" and "Life as we know it". There have always been racist misogynistic dickbags. Twitter can not, and should not, do anything to try to dictate morality to others. The correct venue to address these issues is the legal system, wherein laws are passed so that online harassment, such as referring to an african-american female reporter as an n-word c-word results in legal action. In the same way that if I saw her on the street and said those things, I would be punished.
When things like anti-bullying laws are used for this type of verbal abuse on twitter, and the federal government takes action (because this is an interstate issue), things may get better. But when one of the two major parties is putting up a racist misogynistic dickbag as presidential candidate, I wouldn't expect quick action.
Except that you wouldn't be punished legally for doing that here in the US, because of the First Amendment. But you would likely face social opprobrium. People would choose not to associate with you because of your conduct. Which is fundamentally what people are asking of Twitter (which, as everyone likes to point out, is a private organization.)
And it's getting really, really tiresome to hear the "racists will always be with us" argument. It's funny that we ask the marginalized to endure all sorts of abuse hurled at them for all sorts of ridiculous, subjective reasons as being "the way of things", but start holding the people hurling that abuse accountable for their speech, and suddenly we get worried about subjectivity and "chilling effects".
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
I don't even understand what your actual beef with Twitter is. It's an entirely optional social space that people frequently opt in and out of. It's arguably a better place for abuse of the nature you describe to happen specifically because there is distance and one CAN opt out of it--as compared to real life where all the same things happen but there can often be no escape.
I'm not saying it's ok because it's online, I'm saying it's not markedly different from what just happens normally outside of Twitter, so why exactly the desire for Twitter to end?
Twitter is a shitshow, in short, because users are subject to harassment that wouldn't be tolerated in person, and some public figures are essentially required to maintain a Twitter presence or switch careers. Twitter is incapable of moderating their service to eliminate the abuse. High-profile and especially medium-profile users can't leave because they'd lose their audience and then livelihood. Basic users don't want leave, or at least aren't leaving in numbers large enough to screw up the platform.
There is plenty of abuse in real life, if you think it's worse than what happens IRL I'd love for that to be quantified because I don't see it. What you're likely seeing isn't a Twitter phenomenon. Arguably it's a modern phenomenon caused by giving more people louder voices, and that is not going away because it's not a Twitter problem, it's a Human problem and so far no evidence has been presented to the contrary.
Edit: And you kind of day it yourself in the end, people aren't leaving in unusual numbers. People like it, people use it because it furthers their careers or makes them money or pushes their message. People endure and have endured the same consequences or worse for the same things since the beginning of time. For better or worse there is a cost to the public figure. And again, I'm not saying that's good. I'm asking why the ire is directed at the platform instead of the "speaker"
Because there are things that Twitter could do to rein in abuse. It is absolutely fucking ridiculous that it took a major corporation leaning hard on Twitter to get them to finally toss Milo out on his ass. It is disgusting that they reinstated Glenn Reynolds after his tweet about running protestors over because he gave an apology.
And your argument here is the reason that I have very little sympathy for your concerns about "chilling effects" on discourse by reining in abuse. Because as it turns out, this sort of abuse does have a chilling effect on discourse by minorities, women, and other groups. It makes them less willing to enter into the discourse, less willing to speak up, lest they be the next target. And yet your argument is "hey, this stuff happens, and you should learn to endure it."
They have been enduring it. For a very long time. And they shouldn't have to.
You're conflating "Twitter" with "The Internet" and "Life as we know it". There have always been racist misogynistic dickbags. Twitter can not, and should not, do anything to try to dictate morality to others. The correct venue to address these issues is the legal system, wherein laws are passed so that online harassment, such as referring to an african-american female reporter as an n-word c-word results in legal action. In the same way that if I saw her on the street and said those things, I would be punished.
When things like anti-bullying laws are used for this type of verbal abuse on twitter, and the federal government takes action (because this is an interstate issue), things may get better. But when one of the two major parties is putting up a racist misogynistic dickbag as presidential candidate, I wouldn't expect quick action.
Except that you wouldn't be punished legally for doing that here in the US, because of the First Amendment. But you would likely face social opprobrium. People would choose not to associate with you because of your conduct. Which is fundamentally what people are asking of Twitter (which, as everyone likes to point out, is a private organization.)
And it's getting really, really tiresome to hear the "racists will always be with us" argument. It's funny that we ask the marginalized to endure all sorts of abuse hurled at them for all sorts of ridiculous, subjective reasons as being "the way of things", but start holding the people hurling that abuse accountable for their speech, and suddenly we get worried about subjectivity and "chilling effects".
Hedige, one the of the primary things Facebook moderation has been used for?
Silencing trans people. And activists. And etc.
So maybe, just maybe some of us have other concerns other than enabling racists and this kind of insinuation is getting a bit old.
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Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
I don't even understand what your actual beef with Twitter is. It's an entirely optional social space that people frequently opt in and out of. It's arguably a better place for abuse of the nature you describe to happen specifically because there is distance and one CAN opt out of it--as compared to real life where all the same things happen but there can often be no escape.
I'm not saying it's ok because it's online, I'm saying it's not markedly different from what just happens normally outside of Twitter, so why exactly the desire for Twitter to end?
Twitter is a shitshow, in short, because users are subject to harassment that wouldn't be tolerated in person, and some public figures are essentially required to maintain a Twitter presence or switch careers. Twitter is incapable of moderating their service to eliminate the abuse. High-profile and especially medium-profile users can't leave because they'd lose their audience and then livelihood. Basic users don't want leave, or at least aren't leaving in numbers large enough to screw up the platform.
There is plenty of abuse in real life, if you think it's worse than what happens IRL I'd love for that to be quantified because I don't see it. What you're likely seeing isn't a Twitter phenomenon. Arguably it's a modern phenomenon caused by giving more people louder voices, and that is not going away because it's not a Twitter problem, it's a Human problem and so far no evidence has been presented to the contrary.
Edit: And you kind of day it yourself in the end, people aren't leaving in unusual numbers. People like it, people use it because it furthers their careers or makes them money or pushes their message. People endure and have endured the same consequences or worse for the same things since the beginning of time. For better or worse there is a cost to the public figure. And again, I'm not saying that's good. I'm asking why the ire is directed at the platform instead of the "speaker"
Because there are things that Twitter could do to rein in abuse. It is absolutely fucking ridiculous that it took a major corporation leaning hard on Twitter to get them to finally toss Milo out on his ass. It is disgusting that they reinstated Glenn Reynolds after his tweet about running protestors over because he gave an apology.
And your argument here is the reason that I have very little sympathy for your concerns about "chilling effects" on discourse by reining in abuse. Because as it turns out, this sort of abuse does have a chilling effect on discourse by minorities, women, and other groups. It makes them less willing to enter into the discourse, less willing to speak up, lest they be the next target. And yet your argument is "hey, this stuff happens, and you should learn to endure it."
They have been enduring it. For a very long time. And they shouldn't have to.
You're conflating "Twitter" with "The Internet" and "Life as we know it". There have always been racist misogynistic dickbags. Twitter can not, and should not, do anything to try to dictate morality to others. The correct venue to address these issues is the legal system, wherein laws are passed so that online harassment, such as referring to an african-american female reporter as an n-word c-word results in legal action. In the same way that if I saw her on the street and said those things, I would be punished.
When things like anti-bullying laws are used for this type of verbal abuse on twitter, and the federal government takes action (because this is an interstate issue), things may get better. But when one of the two major parties is putting up a racist misogynistic dickbag as presidential candidate, I wouldn't expect quick action.
Except that you wouldn't be punished legally for doing that here in the US, because of the First Amendment. But you would likely face social opprobrium. People would choose not to associate with you because of your conduct. Which is fundamentally what people are asking of Twitter (which, as everyone likes to point out, is a private organization.)
And it's getting really, really tiresome to hear the "racists will always be with us" argument. It's funny that we ask the marginalized to endure all sorts of abuse hurled at them for all sorts of ridiculous, subjective reasons as being "the way of things", but start holding the people hurling that abuse accountable for their speech, and suddenly we get worried about subjectivity and "chilling effects".
Hedige, one the of the primary things Facebook moderation has been used for?
Silencing trans people. And activists. And etc.
So maybe, just maybe some of us have other concerns other than enabling racists and this kind of insinuation is getting a bit old.
Yeah, this is why I err on the side of caution when applying restrictions to speech, practicality of implementing controls aside.
Simple and effective self moderation tools are probably the easiest and cheapest way to deal with it.
What twitter probably needs, is the ability to set up a keyword blocking list. If anyone tweets at you with one of the indicated words in their post, they get auto-blocked, and you never see it.
e:
Self moderation tools, not self moderation, heh.
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
I don't even understand what your actual beef with Twitter is. It's an entirely optional social space that people frequently opt in and out of. It's arguably a better place for abuse of the nature you describe to happen specifically because there is distance and one CAN opt out of it--as compared to real life where all the same things happen but there can often be no escape.
I'm not saying it's ok because it's online, I'm saying it's not markedly different from what just happens normally outside of Twitter, so why exactly the desire for Twitter to end?
Twitter is a shitshow, in short, because users are subject to harassment that wouldn't be tolerated in person, and some public figures are essentially required to maintain a Twitter presence or switch careers. Twitter is incapable of moderating their service to eliminate the abuse. High-profile and especially medium-profile users can't leave because they'd lose their audience and then livelihood. Basic users don't want leave, or at least aren't leaving in numbers large enough to screw up the platform.
There is plenty of abuse in real life, if you think it's worse than what happens IRL I'd love for that to be quantified because I don't see it. What you're likely seeing isn't a Twitter phenomenon. Arguably it's a modern phenomenon caused by giving more people louder voices, and that is not going away because it's not a Twitter problem, it's a Human problem and so far no evidence has been presented to the contrary.
Edit: And you kind of day it yourself in the end, people aren't leaving in unusual numbers. People like it, people use it because it furthers their careers or makes them money or pushes their message. People endure and have endured the same consequences or worse for the same things since the beginning of time. For better or worse there is a cost to the public figure. And again, I'm not saying that's good. I'm asking why the ire is directed at the platform instead of the "speaker"
Because there are things that Twitter could do to rein in abuse. It is absolutely fucking ridiculous that it took a major corporation leaning hard on Twitter to get them to finally toss Milo out on his ass. It is disgusting that they reinstated Glenn Reynolds after his tweet about running protestors over because he gave an apology.
And your argument here is the reason that I have very little sympathy for your concerns about "chilling effects" on discourse by reining in abuse. Because as it turns out, this sort of abuse does have a chilling effect on discourse by minorities, women, and other groups. It makes them less willing to enter into the discourse, less willing to speak up, lest they be the next target. And yet your argument is "hey, this stuff happens, and you should learn to endure it."
They have been enduring it. For a very long time. And they shouldn't have to.
You're conflating "Twitter" with "The Internet" and "Life as we know it". There have always been racist misogynistic dickbags. Twitter can not, and should not, do anything to try to dictate morality to others. The correct venue to address these issues is the legal system, wherein laws are passed so that online harassment, such as referring to an african-american female reporter as an n-word c-word results in legal action. In the same way that if I saw her on the street and said those things, I would be punished.
When things like anti-bullying laws are used for this type of verbal abuse on twitter, and the federal government takes action (because this is an interstate issue), things may get better. But when one of the two major parties is putting up a racist misogynistic dickbag as presidential candidate, I wouldn't expect quick action.
Except that you wouldn't be punished legally for doing that here in the US, because of the First Amendment. But you would likely face social opprobrium. People would choose not to associate with you because of your conduct. Which is fundamentally what people are asking of Twitter (which, as everyone likes to point out, is a private organization.)
And it's getting really, really tiresome to hear the "racists will always be with us" argument. It's funny that we ask the marginalized to endure all sorts of abuse hurled at them for all sorts of ridiculous, subjective reasons as being "the way of things", but start holding the people hurling that abuse accountable for their speech, and suddenly we get worried about subjectivity and "chilling effects".
Hedige, one the of the primary things Facebook moderation has been used for?
Silencing trans people. And activists. And etc.
So maybe, just maybe some of us have other concerns other than enabling racists and this kind of insinuation is getting a bit old.
And one of the things Twitter's moderation-by-the-mob has been used for is the exact same thing. Except with more doxxing and threats, unless Facebook's moderation team is alot more hardcore then I'd heard.
I don't think humans until recently were particularly good at functioning in huge groups, and even now we're not exceptional at it. Connectivity and being able to feel you are part of a group is a fantastic amount of power to wield against others.
Threat of ostracizing or shaming is enough to make pretty normal people do some very crazy things when you're just talking about a real life social group of perhaps a dozen others. Free speech really isn't a concern for Starbucks or Kinko's. If you decide to walk into a Starbucks and act like a goose they would throw you out. If you decide to use a Kinko's to make flyers for your Klan meeting or make copies of your murder porn magazines, they can throw you out.
Ultimately Twitter is a business and it's up to them. Doxxing and Swatting are already crimes. You don't expect PacBell or the Postal service to monitor and prevent crimes coordinated using their respective services, you do expect them to prevent crimes however that utilize their services as a direct delivery method (mailbombs, phreaking) as part of being a (somewhat) secure and reliable service.
There is a deep down NEED for some people to act like geese when they can be anonymous, and they will always find a way in the age of the internet. Twitter is somehow sustainable even with an astounding loss reported every single year. It says more about the kind of nebulous "success measured not in dollars" that let's it keep rolling on. Everyone wants to find a way to leverage a social media presence to make money, but it turns out it's not profitable to just exist.
I believe that we as a society will get past the need for an internet presence once the new car smell wears off. For a lot of young people now they don't want facebook or twitter accounts, and only use instagram or pintrest as a way to keep in contact with people they actually know. It's less often now that I talk with people who need to be "connected" to each other and more that they want information delivered, so in some small ways we've come full circle. In an ironic way, the "free beer" attitude that people often scoffed at Linux users (for example) having, is now shared by people who use social media for some measure of their own success and in doing so in my opinion are making it a less attractive space to have a presence.
Twitter should probably have a subscription model so they can pay people to monitor content. It would be no different than paying a security guard and installing some cameras to make sure people don't get raped in a Wal-Mart parking lot. It's a business, despite the way people behave... it's not a right and eventually that will have to sink in.
As an aside, I don't think the emphasis on maintaining an internet persona is very healthy. We have a difficult time teaching kids and adults about bullying without victim blaming. When 200 kids at a school see someone in their underwear it's funny and embarrassing and probably results in a nickname and some bad memories of bullying. When a quarter million people with no effort get to see nude pictures of someone because word got out that it's on "the google" it can ruin a life. Education in the way information works should probably exist in the same way that education on how money works should still exist in high school.
Edit: If you don't like the way a service is moderated, don't use it. Facebook can delete every account from someone with a name that sounds sort of Asian, or Mexican. Or deactivate every profile picture that has a fat person in it, or a white person with no tan. It's a business, it's not a birthright. You can't post a picture of your cat wearing a racist harry potter costume on the window at Taco Bell, and if that's what you happen to really want to do then find a business that will let you?
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
I don't even understand what your actual beef with Twitter is. It's an entirely optional social space that people frequently opt in and out of. It's arguably a better place for abuse of the nature you describe to happen specifically because there is distance and one CAN opt out of it--as compared to real life where all the same things happen but there can often be no escape.
I'm not saying it's ok because it's online, I'm saying it's not markedly different from what just happens normally outside of Twitter, so why exactly the desire for Twitter to end?
Twitter is a shitshow, in short, because users are subject to harassment that wouldn't be tolerated in person, and some public figures are essentially required to maintain a Twitter presence or switch careers. Twitter is incapable of moderating their service to eliminate the abuse. High-profile and especially medium-profile users can't leave because they'd lose their audience and then livelihood. Basic users don't want leave, or at least aren't leaving in numbers large enough to screw up the platform.
There is plenty of abuse in real life, if you think it's worse than what happens IRL I'd love for that to be quantified because I don't see it. What you're likely seeing isn't a Twitter phenomenon. Arguably it's a modern phenomenon caused by giving more people louder voices, and that is not going away because it's not a Twitter problem, it's a Human problem and so far no evidence has been presented to the contrary.
Edit: And you kind of day it yourself in the end, people aren't leaving in unusual numbers. People like it, people use it because it furthers their careers or makes them money or pushes their message. People endure and have endured the same consequences or worse for the same things since the beginning of time. For better or worse there is a cost to the public figure. And again, I'm not saying that's good. I'm asking why the ire is directed at the platform instead of the "speaker"
Because there are things that Twitter could do to rein in abuse. It is absolutely fucking ridiculous that it took a major corporation leaning hard on Twitter to get them to finally toss Milo out on his ass. It is disgusting that they reinstated Glenn Reynolds after his tweet about running protestors over because he gave an apology.
And your argument here is the reason that I have very little sympathy for your concerns about "chilling effects" on discourse by reining in abuse. Because as it turns out, this sort of abuse does have a chilling effect on discourse by minorities, women, and other groups. It makes them less willing to enter into the discourse, less willing to speak up, lest they be the next target. And yet your argument is "hey, this stuff happens, and you should learn to endure it."
They have been enduring it. For a very long time. And they shouldn't have to.
You're conflating "Twitter" with "The Internet" and "Life as we know it". There have always been racist misogynistic dickbags. Twitter can not, and should not, do anything to try to dictate morality to others. The correct venue to address these issues is the legal system, wherein laws are passed so that online harassment, such as referring to an african-american female reporter as an n-word c-word results in legal action. In the same way that if I saw her on the street and said those things, I would be punished.
When things like anti-bullying laws are used for this type of verbal abuse on twitter, and the federal government takes action (because this is an interstate issue), things may get better. But when one of the two major parties is putting up a racist misogynistic dickbag as presidential candidate, I wouldn't expect quick action.
Except that you wouldn't be punished legally for doing that here in the US, because of the First Amendment. But you would likely face social opprobrium. People would choose not to associate with you because of your conduct. Which is fundamentally what people are asking of Twitter (which, as everyone likes to point out, is a private organization.)
And it's getting really, really tiresome to hear the "racists will always be with us" argument. It's funny that we ask the marginalized to endure all sorts of abuse hurled at them for all sorts of ridiculous, subjective reasons as being "the way of things", but start holding the people hurling that abuse accountable for their speech, and suddenly we get worried about subjectivity and "chilling effects".
Hedige, one the of the primary things Facebook moderation has been used for?
Silencing trans people. And activists. And etc.
So maybe, just maybe some of us have other concerns other than enabling racists and this kind of insinuation is getting a bit old.
And one of the things Twitter's moderation-by-the-mob has been used for is the exact same thing. Except with more doxxing and threats, unless Facebook's moderation team is alot more hardcore then I'd heard.
The point is that a bad moderation team can cause more problems than a lack of one. That hypothetical 10,000 member moderation staff (which, again, is a low estimate) will spend all day every day making judgement calls on what posts to censure and what to ignore. Even the ones that go in with good intentions will occasionally fuck things up, and you're gonna have some staff members who are themselves malicious because you can't gather a group of green thousand people without having a few assholes in it.
So, at the end of the day, the dilemma isn't "Twitter can spend a half billion dollars per year more but it'll turn the community around into a welcoming home for civil discourse" anyway. It's "Twitter can spend a half billion dollars per year and exchanges their current problem for a different one".
Hedige, one the of the primary things Facebook moderation has been used for?
Silencing trans people. And activists. And etc.
So maybe, just maybe some of us have other concerns other than enabling racists and this kind of insinuation is getting a bit old.
And one of the things Twitter's moderation-by-the-mob has been used for is the exact same thing. Except with more doxxing and threats, unless Facebook's moderation team is alot more hardcore then I'd heard.
The point is that a bad moderation team can cause more problems than a lack of one. That hypothetical 10,000 member moderation staff (which, again, is a low estimate) will spend all day every day making judgement calls on what posts to censure and what to ignore. Even the ones that go in with good intentions will occasionally fuck things up, and you're gonna have some staff members who are themselves malicious because you can't gather a group of green thousand people without having a few assholes in it.
So, at the end of the day, the dilemma isn't "Twitter can spend a half billion dollars per year more but it'll turn the community around into a welcoming home for civil discourse" anyway. It's "Twitter can spend a half billion dollars per year and exchanges their current problem for a different one".
Except that even better than no moderation is good moderation. The argument is one that if we were to use it in any other area, it would be rightfully rejected as a poor one. Yes, you would have to deal with errors and malicious actors, which is why you design systems to take those issue into account and handle them. (As was pointed out earlier, this very forum's list of banned users includes former moderators, some of whom were dismissed because of performance.) And yes, you would be trading one problem for another. But the new problem (you now have a moderation team requiring oversight) is a sight better than the old (you have no organized way to handle abuse).
Except that you wouldn't be punished legally for doing that here in the US, because of the First Amendment. But you would likely face social opprobrium. People would choose not to associate with you because of your conduct. Which is fundamentally what people are asking of Twitter (which, as everyone likes to point out, is a private organization.)
And it's getting really, really tiresome to hear the "racists will always be with us" argument. It's funny that we ask the marginalized to endure all sorts of abuse hurled at them for all sorts of ridiculous, subjective reasons as being "the way of things", but start holding the people hurling that abuse accountable for their speech, and suddenly we get worried about subjectivity and "chilling effects".
___ists have always been with us. Wrapping this problem up in Tech doesn't make it a new problem. People aren't "suddenly worried" about problems with speech regulation, People have been worried about it for centuries. This problem has been considered before, that you are dissatisfied with the answer and find it tiresome is unfortunate. But the philosophy and history are I think pretty clear, attempting to regulate speech on content is a treatment worse than the disease it purports to cure. That people use that knowledge to inform the behavior they want to see out of these new privately owned places, the pseudo-public squares of digital space, that as you and others have said, are for many people critical places to have access to; is a positive thing.
"This set of principles has served our public discourse well", "Our public discourse is increasingly run through private channels", "Let's use those principles to moderate our private channels" is a sound rational approach to a new incarnation of an old problem, not a reflexive shielding of racists. And surprisingly, it's also a far more collectivist approach to the problem than the tyranny of ownership, we are the god-kings, these are the ToS take it or leave it, approach some might reflexively associate with Silicon Valley.
Except that even better than no moderation is good moderation.
Good moderation isn't a thing. You have your idea of what "good moderation" is, and so do I, and so would Mike Pence if his head would stop shaking. In the 80s Tipper Gore was all about good moderation of our airwaves.
You continually keep ignoring this. Historically, the people kept out of the conversation by "good moderation" were not the hateful bigots. It was the deviant corrupting gays, or communists, or atheists, or women, or anarchists etc.
I don't know, if it's that in many ways many taboo subject matters have achieved at least the level of acceptance allowing them to be publicly discussed. Or maybe the echo chamber effect of this board paints a more rosy picture of the general american discourse, but things have not always been even as good as they are now, in many places they aren't "as good as the are now", and there is no guarantee they will stay this way in the future. So maybe rejecting one of the basic liberal principles that allowed us to get here, perhaps pulling up the ladder into the public discourse from some other 'deviant group' to whom in 40 years we'll all seem like horrible bigots about isn't a good idea, or less hypothetically, groups like Black Lives Matter who rely heavily on Twitter for organization and messaging right now.
Just this year Louisiana passed a hate crime law protecting cops, and it's already being used to pile up hate crimes charges onto people who swear at them during arrest. Who do you think is going to be able to apply more pressure on Twitter to get masses of people banned; a minority reporter DM'd slurs or a state attorney generals office? There's your good moderation.
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
I don't even understand what your actual beef with Twitter is. It's an entirely optional social space that people frequently opt in and out of. It's arguably a better place for abuse of the nature you describe to happen specifically because there is distance and one CAN opt out of it--as compared to real life where all the same things happen but there can often be no escape.
I'm not saying it's ok because it's online, I'm saying it's not markedly different from what just happens normally outside of Twitter, so why exactly the desire for Twitter to end?
Twitter is a shitshow, in short, because users are subject to harassment that wouldn't be tolerated in person, and some public figures are essentially required to maintain a Twitter presence or switch careers. Twitter is incapable of moderating their service to eliminate the abuse. High-profile and especially medium-profile users can't leave because they'd lose their audience and then livelihood. Basic users don't want leave, or at least aren't leaving in numbers large enough to screw up the platform.
There is plenty of abuse in real life, if you think it's worse than what happens IRL I'd love for that to be quantified because I don't see it. What you're likely seeing isn't a Twitter phenomenon. Arguably it's a modern phenomenon caused by giving more people louder voices, and that is not going away because it's not a Twitter problem, it's a Human problem and so far no evidence has been presented to the contrary.
Edit: And you kind of day it yourself in the end, people aren't leaving in unusual numbers. People like it, people use it because it furthers their careers or makes them money or pushes their message. People endure and have endured the same consequences or worse for the same things since the beginning of time. For better or worse there is a cost to the public figure. And again, I'm not saying that's good. I'm asking why the ire is directed at the platform instead of the "speaker"
Because there are things that Twitter could do to rein in abuse. It is absolutely fucking ridiculous that it took a major corporation leaning hard on Twitter to get them to finally toss Milo out on his ass. It is disgusting that they reinstated Glenn Reynolds after his tweet about running protestors over because he gave an apology.
And your argument here is the reason that I have very little sympathy for your concerns about "chilling effects" on discourse by reining in abuse. Because as it turns out, this sort of abuse does have a chilling effect on discourse by minorities, women, and other groups. It makes them less willing to enter into the discourse, less willing to speak up, lest they be the next target. And yet your argument is "hey, this stuff happens, and you should learn to endure it."
They have been enduring it. For a very long time. And they shouldn't have to.
You're conflating "Twitter" with "The Internet" and "Life as we know it". There have always been racist misogynistic dickbags. Twitter can not, and should not, do anything to try to dictate morality to others. The correct venue to address these issues is the legal system, wherein laws are passed so that online harassment, such as referring to an african-american female reporter as an n-word c-word results in legal action. In the same way that if I saw her on the street and said those things, I would be punished.
When things like anti-bullying laws are used for this type of verbal abuse on twitter, and the federal government takes action (because this is an interstate issue), things may get better. But when one of the two major parties is putting up a racist misogynistic dickbag as presidential candidate, I wouldn't expect quick action.
Except that you wouldn't be punished legally for doing that here in the US, because of the First Amendment. But you would likely face social opprobrium. People would choose not to associate with you because of your conduct. Which is fundamentally what people are asking of Twitter (which, as everyone likes to point out, is a private organization.)
And it's getting really, really tiresome to hear the "racists will always be with us" argument. It's funny that we ask the marginalized to endure all sorts of abuse hurled at them for all sorts of ridiculous, subjective reasons as being "the way of things", but start holding the people hurling that abuse accountable for their speech, and suddenly we get worried about subjectivity and "chilling effects".
Hedige, one the of the primary things Facebook moderation has been used for?
Silencing trans people. And activists. And etc.
So maybe, just maybe some of us have other concerns other than enabling racists and this kind of insinuation is getting a bit old.
And one of the things Twitter's moderation-by-the-mob has been used for is the exact same thing. Except with more doxxing and threats, unless Facebook's moderation team is alot more hardcore then I'd heard.
The point is that a bad moderation team can cause more problems than a lack of one. That hypothetical 10,000 member moderation staff (which, again, is a low estimate) will spend all day every day making judgement calls on what posts to censure and what to ignore. Even the ones that go in with good intentions will occasionally fuck things up, and you're gonna have some staff members who are themselves malicious because you can't gather a group of green thousand people without having a few assholes in it.
So, at the end of the day, the dilemma isn't "Twitter can spend a half billion dollars per year more but it'll turn the community around into a welcoming home for civil discourse" anyway. It's "Twitter can spend a half billion dollars per year and exchanges their current problem for a different one".
I know what the point was and I already explained in the post you are quoting why your position here is a bad one.
If your fear is that a more aggressive moderation policy will be used to silence certain groups well, guess what, that's already happening. People are already getting run off Twitter. It's just instead of being done by a moderation policy, good or bad, it's being done by random mobs of users spamming people with threats via their own and a bunch of dummy accounts they create.
You are right, Twitter could exchange one problem for another. Specifically a bad problem they have now for a less bad one they might have in the future. Cause unless you think a more aggresive Twitter moderation policy would involve the company doxxing it's users and telling them "I'm gonna kill you bitch", it's gonna be a step up.
Posts
Yeah, as somebody fairly familiar with their operations I laughed out loud over the suggestion they just get 10k employees to moderate the anger of the world.
And your point?
Because if Twitter cannot afford to fund operating moderation to deal with abuse, then perhaps they have a really shitty business model.
1. They absolutely have a shitty business model (in that I don't think they've even figured out what it is).
2. I'm not actually sure there's a way to effectively moderate on that scale, or that they should be any more responsible for people being mean on the internet than an email provider. I don't think anybody's come up with a successful moderation program for anything as large as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.
Okay? What's your solution, here? Right now you're just saying that Twitter should police their platform while acknowledging that they can't. This is like proposing a solution to the trolley problem wherein the guy at the lever flies like Superman and saves the guy on the train tracks.
Billion, not million.
Figure $50k per employee in costs x 10,000 employees, will add another 500m a year in expenses on top. Expenses which have no real ability to increase earnings to offset themselves.
For some interesting scale. Annually twitters loses about 60c per user or 0.25c per tweet.
The solution could very well be "pull Twitter's life support, let it crash, and let something new grow in its place, this time making sure that addressing abuse is brought in at the ground floor."
But, similar to Reddit, I think Twitter's funding model and inability to address abuse are linked. I think the potential land mines (like, for example, having your company's ad show up on the Twitter page of a known white supremacist organization) curtail their ability to gather revenue.
If you are gonna just handwave, might as well add in the "with blackjack and hookers"
Nothing new would rise in its place by that standard. This is like the conversation I had with a friend who'd just gotten out of school doesn't really have any work experience. She was adamant that requiring working more than 40 hours a week, ever, was employee abuse. Even in the instance of start-ups that are scrambling to launch so they have revenue to grow and scale back what is required of individuals. With such an unreasonable standard there would just not ever be any new companies.
Who should dismantle Twitter, though? If its current funders wanted to do that they would have done it by now. Having the US government dismantle them either directly or through tort liability opens up a bigger can of worms than it closes. And I'm unconvinced that having an ad for Pepsi show up next to the Illinois Nazi Party twitter feed actually impacts Pepsi's buisness; internet advertising is understood to be largely automated. We might be in the best of all possible worlds on this one.
No, I'm illustrating a core part of the problem.
Namely that as long as Twitter can continually sustain yearly losses of a...Trumpian nature, it will be near impossible for any competitors to sprout up. Especially if they're incurring costs that Twitter doesn't.
Interesting adjective choice, because this reads pretty much as pure:
Twitter is a disaster, it's a disaster, but you can fix it. Just get rid of the twitter and make a replacement and it will be great. It'll be the best tweeter there is. Everyone will love the new twitter cause it'll be so much better.
I don't even understand what your actual beef with Twitter is. It's an entirely optional social space that people frequently opt in and out of. It's arguably a better place for abuse of the nature you describe to happen specifically because there is distance and one CAN opt out of it--as compared to real life where all the same things happen but there can often be no escape.
I'm not saying it's ok because it's online, I'm saying it's not markedly different from what just happens normally outside of Twitter, so why exactly the desire for Twitter to end?
Requiring companies to spring forth from the womb fully formed would require even greater VC buy in, not less.
Twitter is a shitshow, in short, because users are subject to harassment that wouldn't be tolerated in person, and some public figures are essentially required to maintain a Twitter presence or switch careers. Twitter is incapable of moderating their service to eliminate the abuse. High-profile and especially medium-profile users can't leave because they'd lose their audience and then livelihood. Basic users don't want leave, or at least aren't leaving in numbers large enough to screw up the platform.
There is plenty of abuse in real life, if you think it's worse than what happens IRL I'd love for that to be quantified because I don't see it. What you're likely seeing isn't a Twitter phenomenon. Arguably it's a modern phenomenon caused by giving more people louder voices, and that is not going away because it's not a Twitter problem, it's a Human problem and so far no evidence has been presented to the contrary.
Edit: And you kind of day it yourself in the end, people aren't leaving in unusual numbers. People like it, people use it because it furthers their careers or makes them money or pushes their message. People endure and have endured the same consequences or worse for the same things since the beginning of time. For better or worse there is a cost to the public figure. And again, I'm not saying that's good. I'm asking why the ire is directed at the platform instead of the "speaker"
The level of personal threats and persistent abuse that a D list celebrity can attract on twitter would easily result in police action if carried out in person.
And yeah I've been arguing that it's a systemic problem with any service that has the basic parameters that Twitter has; as a service grows, the number of posts you can physically host on the server increases exponentially while the number of posts you can have moderation staff review will increase linearly, so eventually you hit a crossover point where your service becomes unmanageable. At that point the best you can do is user-driven moderation like Reddit does, or Facebook does indirectly.
What we do with this is the philosophical dilema. Some people think it's bad and harmful and it should therefore go, but I'd argue humans don't really work that way. We will find another outlet, as always we do.
I guess that just... Isn't impressive to me? Like, it sucks but really, we aren't going to run out of bored/angry/stupid/etc idiots waiting to hurl abuse and nonsense at anyone poking their head up. And again, that's not new! We're just in a modern age with more technologically driven outlets. More VISIBLE outlets for things that happened and you never knew happened.
I feel like these complaints are valid but they're not Twitter specific, so we're basically expecting Twitter to somehow control or fix the worst parts of humanity and that's just not fair
Because there are things that Twitter could do to rein in abuse. It is absolutely fucking ridiculous that it took a major corporation leaning hard on Twitter to get them to finally toss Milo out on his ass. It is disgusting that they reinstated Glenn Reynolds after his tweet about running protestors over because he gave an apology.
And your argument here is the reason that I have very little sympathy for your concerns about "chilling effects" on discourse by reining in abuse. Because as it turns out, this sort of abuse does have a chilling effect on discourse by minorities, women, and other groups. It makes them less willing to enter into the discourse, less willing to speak up, lest they be the next target. And yet your argument is "hey, this stuff happens, and you should learn to endure it."
They have been enduring it. For a very long time. And they shouldn't have to.
To be blunt, and meaning no personal offense here: you don't interact with the Twitter service in the same way as somebody that people actually give a shit about. You're just some random guy; the Twitter system will only affect you personally if lightning strikes and you attract an internet lynch mob, like that woman that Sam Biddle spent months harassing on Gawker for making an off-color joke. A controversial celebrity is going to attract that kind of attention basically all the time, and doesn't really have the ability to opt out of it as freely as you do.
And I mean, I've been saying since post 2 that Twitter can't fix this, the service is more or less as good as you're gonna get. Eventually the money will run out, or it won't. In the meantime if you're opposed to the way Twitter works I'd suggest not using it. Like, not at all! You have to impact the numbers, this doesn't work if you just use it to follow those few authors you like and also Donald Trump.
Stuff has happened, is happening and will happen long after Twitter is gone. You're simply misplacing the blame.
If you want to argue an Ideal World solution that's cool but I'm not going to engage it. In this world, the things we like about Twitter are propped up by the things we don't like. The discourse and social aspects that we want are not what made Twitter a "success", they are useful byproducts of the millions and millions of people looking for an outlet, for a soapbox, for drama, for someone to hate, for something to argue about or get mad about. You take all this away and Twitter doesn't work anymore, can't exist. For all our sympathy for Celebs, they get what they want too: publicity both good AND bad. For all the hatred causes or people we like get, they're getting visibility which is WHY they're there to begin with. It's really more helpful if you imagine twitters support base as regular viewers of the E channel. That's what props it up so we can get the things we want.
There's a lot of bad there. And a lot of good. This is not perfect but it's also fairly par.
30 Years ago, if some writer puts out some 'objectionable' newspaper story. And some talk radio guy goes off on it and get's their audience incensed, what do they do? Call the paper, mail a letter?
Today, that reporter has a Twitter account, but really the response hasn't changed -except in its ease of use. The difference is that instead of the newspapers number/address, they(the reporter) have basically given out their home address and phone number of 30 years ago.
By using a platform whose entire purpose is "I can be directly contact or be contacted by any other person at any time" all the messages that some poor receptionist or mail clerk would have screened are directly given to them. Using Twitter(or any hypothetical Twitter-like), is explicitly giving the public more access to you. That proximity and lack of intermediaries is why they are personally using public Twitter. Rather than a private one, or a public one run by a PR lakey.
That's the solution right there. Want someone to go through all your messages and get rid of the mean ones? Do what celebrities have done for decades, pay someone to do it for you.
Do you think Twitter should also ban anyone who tweets in support of killing cops?
What about if they tweet in support of damaging property?
I say if you are gonna ban people for inciting/suggesting violence against a group, then you've gotta ban anyone who incites/suggests violence against any group. Otherwise you've got subjective rules and/or are banning people on motive/feeling/opinion/belief.
If you ban all inciting/suggestions of violence then you are also further oppressing the downtrodden that sometimes have to resort to violence/destruction in order to get their voices heard.
No insult taken. I agree with almost all the criticisms, it's just a "trying to empty the sea with a bucket" kind of thing.we likely have to face the reality that Twitter essentially is unfiltered humanity and we can get upset about it or understand that learn what it means and how to deal with it.
This is a simple problem that can be solved with a new start up. Basically, we need Sesame Credit + Twitter. Where instead of "Pro Beijing Good Citizenship" the metric is "Says thing that Angelhedgie agrees with, Doesn't say things Angelhedgie disagrees with".
Problem Solved! So anyone know any VC's?
That, and doing so undermines their while product. There aren't uncounted millions just waiting to get on Twitter if only you could more effectively block someone. And even if there were, there are many many more who will simply stop going there if all the things that made it engaging are gone:
We'd enjoy the product more without them but without them we don't have a product
You're conflating "Twitter" with "The Internet" and "Life as we know it". There have always been racist misogynistic dickbags. Twitter can not, and should not, do anything to try to dictate morality to others. The correct venue to address these issues is the legal system, wherein laws are passed so that online harassment, such as referring to an african-american female reporter as an n-word c-word results in legal action. In the same way that if I saw her on the street and said those things, I would be punished.
When things like anti-bullying laws are used for this type of verbal abuse on twitter, and the federal government takes action (because this is an interstate issue), things may get better. But when one of the two major parties is putting up a racist misogynistic dickbag as presidential candidate, I wouldn't expect quick action.
How, exactly, would you be punished? You can't call the cops on someone for them yelling out insults/hurtful words at you, as you pass on the street. There are maybe societal risks, depending on the area / situation, but that is no different than twitter as is now.
You can get a restraining order if they are following you around and repeatedly doing it, just like you can ignore the person.
Except that you wouldn't be punished legally for doing that here in the US, because of the First Amendment. But you would likely face social opprobrium. People would choose not to associate with you because of your conduct. Which is fundamentally what people are asking of Twitter (which, as everyone likes to point out, is a private organization.)
And it's getting really, really tiresome to hear the "racists will always be with us" argument. It's funny that we ask the marginalized to endure all sorts of abuse hurled at them for all sorts of ridiculous, subjective reasons as being "the way of things", but start holding the people hurling that abuse accountable for their speech, and suddenly we get worried about subjectivity and "chilling effects".
Hedige, one the of the primary things Facebook moderation has been used for?
Silencing trans people. And activists. And etc.
So maybe, just maybe some of us have other concerns other than enabling racists and this kind of insinuation is getting a bit old.
Yeah, this is why I err on the side of caution when applying restrictions to speech, practicality of implementing controls aside.
What twitter probably needs, is the ability to set up a keyword blocking list. If anyone tweets at you with one of the indicated words in their post, they get auto-blocked, and you never see it.
e:
Self moderation tools, not self moderation, heh.
And one of the things Twitter's moderation-by-the-mob has been used for is the exact same thing. Except with more doxxing and threats, unless Facebook's moderation team is alot more hardcore then I'd heard.
Threat of ostracizing or shaming is enough to make pretty normal people do some very crazy things when you're just talking about a real life social group of perhaps a dozen others. Free speech really isn't a concern for Starbucks or Kinko's. If you decide to walk into a Starbucks and act like a goose they would throw you out. If you decide to use a Kinko's to make flyers for your Klan meeting or make copies of your murder porn magazines, they can throw you out.
Ultimately Twitter is a business and it's up to them. Doxxing and Swatting are already crimes. You don't expect PacBell or the Postal service to monitor and prevent crimes coordinated using their respective services, you do expect them to prevent crimes however that utilize their services as a direct delivery method (mailbombs, phreaking) as part of being a (somewhat) secure and reliable service.
There is a deep down NEED for some people to act like geese when they can be anonymous, and they will always find a way in the age of the internet. Twitter is somehow sustainable even with an astounding loss reported every single year. It says more about the kind of nebulous "success measured not in dollars" that let's it keep rolling on. Everyone wants to find a way to leverage a social media presence to make money, but it turns out it's not profitable to just exist.
I believe that we as a society will get past the need for an internet presence once the new car smell wears off. For a lot of young people now they don't want facebook or twitter accounts, and only use instagram or pintrest as a way to keep in contact with people they actually know. It's less often now that I talk with people who need to be "connected" to each other and more that they want information delivered, so in some small ways we've come full circle. In an ironic way, the "free beer" attitude that people often scoffed at Linux users (for example) having, is now shared by people who use social media for some measure of their own success and in doing so in my opinion are making it a less attractive space to have a presence.
Twitter should probably have a subscription model so they can pay people to monitor content. It would be no different than paying a security guard and installing some cameras to make sure people don't get raped in a Wal-Mart parking lot. It's a business, despite the way people behave... it's not a right and eventually that will have to sink in.
As an aside, I don't think the emphasis on maintaining an internet persona is very healthy. We have a difficult time teaching kids and adults about bullying without victim blaming. When 200 kids at a school see someone in their underwear it's funny and embarrassing and probably results in a nickname and some bad memories of bullying. When a quarter million people with no effort get to see nude pictures of someone because word got out that it's on "the google" it can ruin a life. Education in the way information works should probably exist in the same way that education on how money works should still exist in high school.
Edit: If you don't like the way a service is moderated, don't use it. Facebook can delete every account from someone with a name that sounds sort of Asian, or Mexican. Or deactivate every profile picture that has a fat person in it, or a white person with no tan. It's a business, it's not a birthright. You can't post a picture of your cat wearing a racist harry potter costume on the window at Taco Bell, and if that's what you happen to really want to do then find a business that will let you?
The point is that a bad moderation team can cause more problems than a lack of one. That hypothetical 10,000 member moderation staff (which, again, is a low estimate) will spend all day every day making judgement calls on what posts to censure and what to ignore. Even the ones that go in with good intentions will occasionally fuck things up, and you're gonna have some staff members who are themselves malicious because you can't gather a group of green thousand people without having a few assholes in it.
So, at the end of the day, the dilemma isn't "Twitter can spend a half billion dollars per year more but it'll turn the community around into a welcoming home for civil discourse" anyway. It's "Twitter can spend a half billion dollars per year and exchanges their current problem for a different one".
Except that even better than no moderation is good moderation. The argument is one that if we were to use it in any other area, it would be rightfully rejected as a poor one. Yes, you would have to deal with errors and malicious actors, which is why you design systems to take those issue into account and handle them. (As was pointed out earlier, this very forum's list of banned users includes former moderators, some of whom were dismissed because of performance.) And yes, you would be trading one problem for another. But the new problem (you now have a moderation team requiring oversight) is a sight better than the old (you have no organized way to handle abuse).
___ists have always been with us. Wrapping this problem up in Tech doesn't make it a new problem. People aren't "suddenly worried" about problems with speech regulation, People have been worried about it for centuries. This problem has been considered before, that you are dissatisfied with the answer and find it tiresome is unfortunate. But the philosophy and history are I think pretty clear, attempting to regulate speech on content is a treatment worse than the disease it purports to cure. That people use that knowledge to inform the behavior they want to see out of these new privately owned places, the pseudo-public squares of digital space, that as you and others have said, are for many people critical places to have access to; is a positive thing.
"This set of principles has served our public discourse well", "Our public discourse is increasingly run through private channels", "Let's use those principles to moderate our private channels" is a sound rational approach to a new incarnation of an old problem, not a reflexive shielding of racists. And surprisingly, it's also a far more collectivist approach to the problem than the tyranny of ownership, we are the god-kings, these are the ToS take it or leave it, approach some might reflexively associate with Silicon Valley.
And speaking of god-king thinking.
Good moderation isn't a thing. You have your idea of what "good moderation" is, and so do I, and so would Mike Pence if his head would stop shaking. In the 80s Tipper Gore was all about good moderation of our airwaves.
You continually keep ignoring this. Historically, the people kept out of the conversation by "good moderation" were not the hateful bigots. It was the deviant corrupting gays, or communists, or atheists, or women, or anarchists etc.
I don't know, if it's that in many ways many taboo subject matters have achieved at least the level of acceptance allowing them to be publicly discussed. Or maybe the echo chamber effect of this board paints a more rosy picture of the general american discourse, but things have not always been even as good as they are now, in many places they aren't "as good as the are now", and there is no guarantee they will stay this way in the future. So maybe rejecting one of the basic liberal principles that allowed us to get here, perhaps pulling up the ladder into the public discourse from some other 'deviant group' to whom in 40 years we'll all seem like horrible bigots about isn't a good idea, or less hypothetically, groups like Black Lives Matter who rely heavily on Twitter for organization and messaging right now.
Just this year Louisiana passed a hate crime law protecting cops, and it's already being used to pile up hate crimes charges onto people who swear at them during arrest. Who do you think is going to be able to apply more pressure on Twitter to get masses of people banned; a minority reporter DM'd slurs or a state attorney generals office? There's your good moderation.
I know what the point was and I already explained in the post you are quoting why your position here is a bad one.
If your fear is that a more aggressive moderation policy will be used to silence certain groups well, guess what, that's already happening. People are already getting run off Twitter. It's just instead of being done by a moderation policy, good or bad, it's being done by random mobs of users spamming people with threats via their own and a bunch of dummy accounts they create.
You are right, Twitter could exchange one problem for another. Specifically a bad problem they have now for a less bad one they might have in the future. Cause unless you think a more aggresive Twitter moderation policy would involve the company doxxing it's users and telling them "I'm gonna kill you bitch", it's gonna be a step up.