Daily Tech Commentary from Jan Dawson
Twitter has published its latest Transparency Report, which covers the first half of 2017 and mostly relates to requests for intervention in content posted on Twitter by government entities. Amongst the other data in there, though, Twitter has also reported specific numbers on the accounts removed from the service over promotion of terrorism, a total …
Continue reading “Twitter Removed Nearly 1m Terrorist Accounts From 2015 to 2017”
Twitter has a blog post up and apparently also spoke to reporters about its efforts to curb abuse and harassment on the platform. The company released data about the improvements it’s made over the past year and the positive effects it says these are having, such as acting on ten times as many abusive accounts, …
Continue reading “Twitter Provides Data on Abuse Efforts, Fails to Address Inconsistent Application”
BuzzFeed, which continues to be the publication leading the charge in reporting on Twitter’s poor handling of abuse and harassment on the platform, has yet another report today suggesting that for all the company’s recent feature changes and claimed improvements in handling abuse, it’s still falling short. Specifically, it still dismisses abuse and harassment reports …
Continue reading “Twitter is Still Mishandling Abuse and Harassment Reports”
I’ve been very critical of Twitter over its poor response to abuse and harassment on the platform, so I don’t think they should get a free pass now just because they’ve finally decided to do something about it. However, kudos to them for finally acting on these issues after the years of bizarre prevarication on …
Continue reading “Twitter Provides Three More Enhancements to Dealing with Abuse and Harassment”
Unlike last week’s changes, which were mostly about changes in the user interface of non-abusive users, this change is directed specifically at limiting the reach of abusive users, which feels like a more important and urgent priority. The limits are only temporary – no-one is getting kicked off the platform for this abusive behavior, merely …
Continue reading “Twitter Is Now Temporarily Throttling Reach Of Abusive Accounts – BuzzFeed”
This is one of those times when the word “finally” seems the apt response. Twitter has denied and stalled its way around the abuse issue, and never seems to have taken it nearly seriously enough, but the promise last week that it was finally ready to start moving faster seems to be bearing at least …
The topic of fake news and the related topic of filter bubbles has been one BuzzFeed has been particularly strong on in recent months (abuse on Twitter is another). This analysis is fascinating, and shows how even the experience of watching video on Facebook can be colored by the outlets a user chooses to follow. …
Continue reading “This Is What Facebook’s Filter Bubble Actually Looks Like – BuzzFeed”
One of the most baffling aspects of Twitter’s inertia over the past couple of years has been its refusal to take the issue of abuse and harassment on the platform seriously. This late-night tweet storm by the company’s VP of Engineering suddenly revealed that Twitter had decided to take the issue much more seriously and …
Continue reading “Twitter To Roll Out Anti-Harassment “Fixes” This Week – BuzzFeed”