Twitter faces backlash over rape-threat tweets
(CNN) -- A barrage of rape and death threats on Twitter aimed at feminist Caroline Criado-Perez -- who petitioned to have women displayed on banknotes -- has sparked outrage in the global media and among the Twitterati.
Following a day-long onslaught, in which Criado-Perez received around 50 sexually-abusive tweets an hour, police finally arrested a 21-year-old man in Manchester on Sunday.
But the story has ignited a backlash against the site from users and the media alike with more than 50,000 people signing on online petition urging Twitter to tackle Internet trolls.
UK Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper wrote to Wang on Sunday criticising Twitter's "inadequate" response.
In her letter, Cooper wrote: "Despite the scale and seriousness of these threats, the official response from Twitter continues to be extremely weak -- simply directing Caroline away from Twitter towards the police, and, belatedly, directing users to abuse-reporting forms on Twitter."
Writing in The Guardian, columnist Tanya Gold called on "misogynists" to be shamed rather than criticized, describing the Internet trolls as "lonely, fearful and dumb," adding that the emergence of social media "has given the vicious a voice."
Criado-Perez had her own take on the debate being played out her Twitter account. Writing in the Independent on Saturday, she said: "If we stand firm, and shout back as one, we will win."
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/29/tech/twitter-criado-perez-abuse-media-reaction/
Jane Austin on a bank note. FFS.
= new reply since forum marked as read
The linked article notes in passing that, if users could report abuse, and Twitter then had to review each such report, there'd be a huge "manpower" (should've been "staffing"
requirement.
I'm not on Twitter but my impression is that there's a staggering number of tweets every day. If even a small percentage tick someone off enough to send an alert, then there'd be a barrage of alerts to review, including many that represented no more than vehement disagreement. ("He called Senator Cruz an idiot!" "He called Senator Sanders an idiot!"
There would also be major line-drawing problems. It's easy enough to say that clear death threats are unacceptable, but what about veiled death threats, not to mention all the other nastiness that people are capable of. For example, I'm sure some people tweet derogatory words for particular groups (race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc.).
Consider how often members of a DU jury, drawn from a community of like-minded people, disagree with each other about whether a particular post violates our TOS. Twitter abuse reviewers, facing a similar task but with their decisions reviewed by a wider variety of people, would make many rulings that prompted fresh outrage. Along with the army of reviewers, Twitter would have to hire at least a squad's worth of PR people.
