Twitter Promises 'Meaningful' Safety Updates Next Month

[HardOCP News]

Twitter is promising meaningful safety updates next month. You know, unlike all those meaningless ones they did in the past. It will be interesting to see what Twitter defines as "meaningful," why they have to wait until next month to reveal them and how Twitter users will react to the changes.

The prevalence of Twitter trolls is often blamed for the site's slow user growth and difficulty with advertisers. It's hoped that this new strategy will give people "more control over their Twitter experience" and offer the "most important safety features" to users. That may not be enough, however, given that how easy it is to find accounts spreading racism, targeted harassment of women and minorities or threats of violence.

 

[Gigus Fire]

Twatter being a retarded form of communication should be blamed for slow user growth.

 

[westrock2000]

I wish they would update their website to just work.

I regularly have to include both desktop and mobile versions of Twitter links because they won't work on the other.

Still can't open links embedded in Tweets on iOS (it preppends "http://" to the link so it has double http://https:// which is invalid....).

 

[M76]

I wonder if this means they'll create the echo chamber feature.

Oh no, if an article uses the word "toxic" for something else than actual materials hazardous to health, it's safe to say it's bullshit without reading any part of it.

What do they even think "toxic trolling problem" means? Is the word denoted to be some sort of booster adjective?

 

[westrock2000]

Toxic usually is used to describe something that goes against popular thinking. Thought is an infection, and it is very contagious. Free thought would of course be very toxic and people should stay away from it.

 

[M76]

Toxic usually is used to describe something that goes against popular thinking. Thought is an infection, and it is very contagious. Free thought would of course be very toxic and people should stay away from it.

That would imply that there is a non-toxic way of trolling which fits in fine with popular opinion.

That's why I think they don't even know what the word means, it just became some sort of detractor. They attach it to everything that they don't like.

According to some on-line dictionary it means something that creates unpleasant feelings.

So it's basically bullshit. There are a lot of things that are unpleasant but very necessary.

 

[westrock2000]

That would imply that there is a non-toxic way of trolling which fits in fine with popular opinion.

Apparently this is what a "troll" is. Twitter thankfully got rid of this danger to society.




George Carlin would have been publicly hung if he were alive today.

 

[twonunpackmule]

Twitter, the AMD of Social Media.

 

[jfreund]

"Safety"

 

[JDon]

Twitter poaches QuiVR idea, creates power gesture enabled Safe Space.

 

[TwistedAegis]

Toxic usually is used to describe something that goes against popular thinking. Thought is an infection, and it is very contagious. Free thought would of course be very toxic and people should stay away from it.

Yes, piling on people anonymously with well thought out tweets using nothing but slurs is merely "something that goes against popular thinking."

When you can't tell the difference between differences of opinion and calling someone bitch/slut/whore/whatever, that's why we all just can't get along.

 

[M76]

Yes, piling on people anonymously with well thought out tweets using nothing but slurs is merely "something that goes against popular thinking."

When you can't tell the difference between differences of opinion and calling someone bitch/slut/whore/whatever, that's why we all just can't get along.

For the people crying for these "countermeasures" there is no difference between different opinions and name-calling. To them disagreement is "deplorable" no matter how well informed, and polite it is. But agreement no matter how misinformed, false, or dishonest it is is OK, as long as it's pushing the same rhetoric. They believe the only acceptable stance on every matter is their own, and anyone with differing opinions is morally bankrupt. And they don't understand comedy. They don't understand how ridiculing an idea is funny. So to them everything seems offensive. They go around being offended by everything. And instead of being informed they decided they want to insulate themselves from the unpleasant truth. It all began when we couldn't call retarded kids retarded anymore, we invented a new phrase for the same thing "mentally challanged". And we couldn't call disabled people disabled anymore we had to call them "differently abled" . Changing what we call them doesn't do shit to make life for these people better, but it makes these idiots feel better about themselves. And now they want to extend their blanket of ignorance to everything they don't want to face.

George Carlin foresaw this 20-30 years ago, and we thought it was only a joke, and it's harmless. Well now the same idiots have the ears of major world leaders, and they're very close to implementing their oppressive policies, were dissent will be eradicated. It will mark the beginning of the end. As clash of opinions is what makes us weed out stupid ideas, before they're implemented. But if people are put in echo chambers, without even hearing about dissent we get things like solar freaking roadways.

 

[TwistedAegis]

I do think there are echo chambers both left and right, and some of the left are way overboard on the safe space microaggression BS. But to claim that there is no toxicity, or a lot of toxicity, and trolling on Twitter and that is legit comedy/differing of opinion is an echo chamber in and of itself from many of those that do it.

If you want to be taken seriously, don't be an asshat online, it's pretty simple.

 

[westrock2000]

Yes, piling on people anonymously with well thought out tweets using nothing but slurs is merely "something that goes against popular thinking."

When you can't tell the difference between differences of opinion and calling someone bitch/slut/whore/whatever, that's why we all just can't get along.

Well that's what happens when you have to limit the boundless capacity of human expression to 140 characters.

 

[M76]

I do think there are echo chambers both left and right, and some of the left are way overboard on the safe space microaggression BS. But to claim that there is no toxicity, or a lot of toxicity, and trolling on Twitter and that is legit comedy/differing of opinion is an echo chamber in and of itself from many of those that do it.

If you want to be taken seriously, don't be an asshat online, it's pretty simple.

Toxic is just another repurposed buzzword, nothing more. We don't need it. We can describe assholes whose only goal is to troll people as just that, assholes. The problem is that any countermeasure that limits free speech will be abused, and used to get rid of opposing points of view. Trolls can be ignored, and they should be ignored, as they feed off attention. But if you lock yourself in a chamber where only pre-approved opinions are visible that destroys the flow of information. If people only see opinions in perfect alignment with their world view, they'll believe that to be the truth no matter how wrong it is. And that's infinitely more dangerous than a few namecalling trolls. For a democracy to work first and foremost you need an informed public. You don't need a public that feels good about themselves in their echo chamber while the world is falling apart around them. And in that department we're already pretty challenged. Imagine if everyone can opt to only hear comments that parrot their own.

And this is not about the left or the right. It's much more common for so called progressives to want to shut down conversation and opposing points of view instead of addressing it. And I'm not saying that as a right winger. I'm pretty much left leaning on almost every policy there is.

 

[Scizyr]

From the title of the article I thought they were upgrading their security. Twitter's user growth started dwindling when they started limiting their stance on free speech and combating "trolls."