http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/too-rude-for-its-own-good-twitter-needs-moderation-8545918.html
As Britain waited for his 2013 budget, a tentative George
Osborne joined Twitter, the social micro-blogging site. The Chancellor must
have been prepared for some degree of abuse on his interactions page. But the
torrents of invective that flooded the site in the hours following Osborne’s
new profile raise a serious issue about expressions of contempt.
Yesterday Twitter turned seven. Since 2006, the outlet has
challenged its users to post succinctly and effectively in 140 characters or
less, a bastion of free speech for the modern mentality. The communicative
approach represents an intuitive paradigm shift: we are a nation on the pulse.
Short updates from prevalent social figures drove the popularity of twitter as
an en vogue medium of expression.
Yet we are increasingly carried away by the kind of short,
snappy and sometimes rash outbursts that - when they catch on - foster the
creative qualities that can make Twitter's top trending topics so brilliant. On
Wednesday, for example, if you were to click on the trends of either “budget”
or “George Osborne” a stream of abuse and harassment would have popped up on
your screen.
Paraphrasing George Osborne’s first ever tweet, one user
posted “Today I’ll present a budget that shows what a complete and utter
useless cunt I am”. Another bemused tweeter argued “shouldn’t you be fixing the
economy instead of fucking about on twitter?” Some took it upon themselves to
cram as many insults as is possible into 140 characters: “you’re a first class
bellend, you overpaid, overeducated fox hunting twat.”
Of course Osborne is not the first person to feel the wrath
of Twitter users. In fact, the phenomenon is becoming more mainstream.
Olympians felt the force of trolls last summer, with Rebecca Adlington
receiving tweets comparing her to a whale, and Tom Daley being subject to
inconsiderate tweets about his deceased father.
Abuse
Action should be considered, especially when we examine the
number of high profile people deactivating accounts: from TV presenters
Kirstie Allsopp and Helen Skelton to footballer Micah Richards and beyond,
the impacts of twitter misuse are concerning. Perhaps these celebrities could
provide part of the solution: with billions of followers, the likes of Justin
Bieber, Lady Gaga and One Direction could quite easily preach a better means of
interacting on the Twitter platforms. Many of their followers are guilty of
some abuse, whether it is sending threats to fellow fans, or mocking the
artist’s contemporaries if their preferred singer doesn’t receive an award.
With the attacks happening at all levels – popular culture,
political, racial, religious – is it time that Twitter invest in a scheme of
censorship? When monitoring a site whose most defining feature is user
interaction and integration, there's no easy answer. Twitter’s success is built
off its ability to generate momentum on any topic at all.
While it might be impractical to impose a blanket ban on
certain words or phrases, it is quite possible that Twitter could prevent
certain terms becoming trendable, limiting the hashtag. The hashtag is a staple
part in galvanizing a twitter movement and some of the more obscene trends get
to the top in this way. #ReasonsToBeatUpYourWife and #fuckyouwashington are
but two examples; another, #OnceYouGetMarriedYouCant, stems from our tendency
to overshare (‘family friendly’ suggestions included: “sit on the toilet and
clip your toenails wit the bathroom door open” and “keep those naked photos of
your ex”).
Proactive approaches from Twitter developers may be the only
means to tackle the problem of harassment. Despite the high-profile cases of
breaking super-injunctions and jail sentences being served for mocking the
adversities of our celebrities, users remain relatively unversed on the issue
of acceptable Twitter actions. Crown Prosecution has issued a 14-page
guide to social media prosecution and related laws, but there is still a
tendency to believe that the blogosphere does not impact the physical world.
Violent threats and campaigns of harassment are easily challenged in court.
Taking action
In fact, French anti-racism firms may have got the ball
rolling by holding Twitter itself to account. The French Jewish Student
Union and the J’accuse organisation have demanded a fine of $50million to
be paid for Twitter not having handed over details of users whose abusive
comments broke French law. The tag, #UnBonJuif (A Good Jew), instigated a
string of abusive anti-Semitic posts on the micro-blogging site last year.
Stéphane Lilti, the anti-racism groups’ lawyer, told FRANCE 24 “The 38 million
euros cited, which is [the equivalent of] 50 million US dollars, is designed to
make them [Twitter] wake up to the fact that protecting the authors of racist
tweets is not acceptable.” Without doubt, Twitter wields a great responsibility
for sharing and directing thoughts and should be penalised if they don’t
monitor and act responsibly.
Safeguarding however comes with a risk. Increased filters of
trending material could cause a delay in news transmission, and augmented
censorship runs the risk of Twitter losing its dynamism. It would undoubtedly
ensure a drop in popularity, and then there would be nothing to censor anyway.
