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TWITTER WILL IMPLEMENT changes to it’s rules in an attempt to make people feel safer online.
The company’s UK General Manager Tony Wang personally took to the micro-blogging site to apologise to women who had received abusive messages online. Wang’s unprecedented apology comes in the week that a 21-year-old-man was arrested on suspicion of harassing UK bank-note campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez.
“I personally apologise to the women who have experienced abuse on Twitter and for what they have gone through,” said Wang.
The abuse they’ve received is simply not acceptable. It’s not acceptable in the real world, and it’s not acceptable on Twitter.
“There is more we can and will be doing to protect our users against abuse. That is our commitment.”
In the company’s statement, released by Wang and Senior Director of Trust and Safety Del Harvey, Twitter say that they have listened to their users’ feedback and will include an in-tweet report button.
“We are committed to making Twitter a safe place for our users. We are adding additional staff to the teams that handle abuse reports and are exploring new ways of using technology to improve everyone’s experience on Twitter. We’re here, and we’re listening to you.”
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Why is he sorry? Its not twitters fault, its the users faults. They are unable to act as decent human beings from a computer, twitter just so happens to be the medium they choose to cause trouble. It can happen on any other social website on the internet, people just need to learn to block. I hope this doesn’t mean that everyone will have to use their real name or anything like that
Or go to the Garda station with their passport to register for an IP address.
Insult and abuse have now become an art form. The more spectacular, the more outrageous, the more surreal the better. This is recognised by users of social media. It is only people who dont use social media who miss this.
Agreed Andrew. Oh btw your momma so fat she’d scare a dog off a meat truck.
“People need to learn how to block”
Rubbish.
If every time you looked out your window, someone hurled violent threats to you, would an acceptable solution be a pair of curtains?
Also, these abusive idiots are not stupid. Blocking is no good against a continual stream of new accounts.
The problem lies with the abusers. The solution must lie there too. Proper, effective reporting procedures would be a good start.
He’s apologising because the ways in which abuse and threats can be reported on twitter are pretty poor. The “report abuse” button is only available on the iPhone app. People got very angry about the fact that they could do nothing to stop these guys threatening them, twitter reacted positively, one of the creeps got arrested, we all drank lemonade…
I find ignoring these trolls on twitter is the best policy.
While tweets of “your (sic) stupid” etc are pretty much water off a ducks back for most adults & therefore easy enough to disregard when thrown about by internet inbreeds, I’m not so sure that ignoring would be either the easiest or best course of action when threatened with rape and murder, as happened in this case.
I’d personally prefer that anyone publicly willing to repeatedly declare their intention to rape someone would be fairly closely looked at by the police, rather than allowed to continue broadcasting their opinion via social media unchecked.
And regarding it ‘not being twitters fault’, and twitter ‘acting positively’, it’s worth noting the allegation that when Caroline Criado Perez first reported that she was receiving up to 50 graphic rape threats an hour to Mark Luckie, manager of journalism and news for Twitter, his initial response was to ignore her, & then to lock his own account and pretend nothing had happened.
It’s only after a media shitstorm that’s made them look borderline incompetent that they’ve finally come out with a statement of intent to protect their users.
I was unaware of this sorry. That really is disgusting management but I still don’t want twitter to threaten anonymity
There are slags and threats. If you can’t take a slagging or some tool havin a go, you need to get a grip. Threats are different though and they should be dealt with/reported if you feel they are worrying.
Lets say I went online and told Piers Morgan I think you are a CunextTuesday, that’s name calling and essentially harmless. But if I go online and tell him I’m gonna attack him then I think that has to be taken seriously like the tools in an airport when asked have they anything to declare “yeh a couple of bombs” they get the rubber glove. Fair enough.
What if you say ‘yeh a couple of bombs’ in a really sarcastic tone. To marigold or not to marigold?
Ha! the proof is in the pudding. You go first…
Fwa-tish!…. ah yes, the unmistakable onomatopoeiac sound of a rubber glove being slipped on to a custom officers hand. Gets me going every time I pass through the airport.
Rory seems to have volunteered Adebayo
Ha! I like the frenetic spelling pal
Phonetic! Uuuuugh
Hay tha’ :-D
Twitter is pretty sad, actually. So sad that the majority of those who engage with it are sad.
Posted from your twitter account…….,,,
You’re not using it right Ned. To get the most from Twitter you need to start following people of similar interests. Try it. I notice you have 0 followers and are following nobody.
Hahahahaha Ned ye big ham.
This coming from a guy who posts in the journal through a twitter account. That’s pretty sad Ned!
I don’t engage with twitter. I use it to log in to the journal.
Give it a whirl man. I was against it too. It has it’s good points though. I can’t recommend following ‘dream girls only’ enough.
@Capt Adeboyo Flynn
what dream girls? Ah here now… xD
Check it out Tom! If ya like big butts, which I can’t deny.
Nice! Time to stop the abuse, not question of whether you can handle it or not, its the emotional, mental abuse that can do far greater damage!
“TWITTER WILL IMPLEMENT changes to *its* rules”
Too many soft cocks online now. It used to be the wild west where threats and abuse were always taken with a pinch of salt. Calling the cops in over some anonymous abuse is ridiculous particularly when you see UK passers get prison sentence for some drunken tweet.
None of stuff would matter half as much if media outlets weren’t getting interns to write up stories gleaned from twitter and Facebook.
If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.
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