Re: [liberationtech] Where can I find the Twitter censorship handbook?
John, So am I mistaken that Twitter blocks (and by blocks I mean does not allow to be visible) certain content in certain countries, in accordance with local regulation? I'm not saying its right or wrong, but unless I'm mistaken about this, its a bit melodramatic to get on your high horse about the lack if censorship or mediation of tweets, which, if twitter filters tweets based on location is just prima facie untrue. I happen to completely understand why twitter does this and believe the ability to change your set location in order to avoid the filtering is a good workaround. That said, no need to be rude, dramatic, or misleading. Brian On Dec 15, 2012 4:38 AM, John Adams j...@retina.net wrote: I work there. Read the damn TOS. Twitter -does not- censor or meditate content. https://support.twitter.com/articles/15794-abusive-behavior and https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311-the-twitter-rules It's a serious affront to all the work we've done to enable people to freely communicate, and the number of times that we've gone to bat for users, to make posts like these. -john On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 6:36 PM, Griffin Boyce griffinbo...@gmail.comwrote: Have you tried contacting twitter support directly? In the first instance, it's likely that you were reported by someone who saw it and took offense to it. As for having tweets reported for spam, it could have been a competitor (and that type of reporting is easy to automate). But the Twitter spam algorithm could also have interpreted the [short tweet length + link + popular hashtag] as being spam. From a merchant perspective, we kind of operate at her majesty's pleasure. By that I mean that social networks make the rules, enforce them (or not), and our only real recourse is to move to another, less populated social network. I'd recommend talking to twitter support before totally writing it off, but you might not get a resolution for the reasons mentioned above. Best, Griffin Boyce @abditum On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 8:42 PM, Uncle Zzzen unclezz...@gmail.comwrote: Warning for the politically-correct: this message contains the N-word. I believe it is in context :) -- I believe that usability is a security concern; systems that do not pay close attention to the human interaction factors involved risk failing to provide security by failing to attract users. ~Len Sassaman PGP Key etc: https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/User:Fontaine -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
Re: [liberationtech] Where can I find the Twitter censorship handbook?
Have you tried contacting twitter support directly? In the first instance, it's likely that you were reported by someone who saw it and took offense to it. As for having tweets reported for spam, it could have been a competitor (and that type of reporting is easy to automate). But the Twitter spam algorithm could also have interpreted the [short tweet length + link + popular hashtag] as being spam. From a merchant perspective, we kind of operate at her majesty's pleasure. By that I mean that social networks make the rules, enforce them (or not), and our only real recourse is to move to another, less populated social network. I'd recommend talking to twitter support before totally writing it off, but you might not get a resolution for the reasons mentioned above. Best, Griffin Boyce @abditum On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 8:42 PM, Uncle Zzzen unclezz...@gmail.com wrote: Warning for the politically-correct: this message contains the N-word. I believe it is in context :) -- I believe that usability is a security concern; systems that do not pay close attention to the human interaction factors involved risk failing to provide security by failing to attract users. ~Len Sassaman PGP Key etc: https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/User:Fontaine -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
Re: [liberationtech] Where can I find the Twitter censorship handbook?
On Sat, Dec 15, 2012 at 9:36 AM, Griffin Boyce griffinbo...@gmail.comwrote: Have you tried contacting twitter support directly? In the first instance, it's likely that you were reported by someone who saw it and took offense to it. I guess I should have, but now it's too late and I don't even have links to those tweets. I'll try to do this next time something like this happens As for having tweets reported for spam, Doh! I wasn't thinking of that possibility. It would most certainly explain the N-word incident it could have been a competitor (and that type of reporting is easy to automate). But the Twitter spam algorithm could also have interpreted the [short tweet length + link + popular hashtag] as being spam. And I guess they wouldn't provide the handbook for this, so that spammers don't adapt to it. This is a perfect place to put political or commercial censorship patterns. No one would ever know :) From a merchant perspective, we kind of operate at her majesty's pleasure. By that I mean that social networks make the rules, enforce them (or not), and our only real recourse is to move to another, less populated social network. A bit off-topic: I think a large cloud of indenti.ca/osub communities (e.g. run by NGOs, promoted by internet defense league or such) could become populated (as a whole - not on a single server) pretty fast (if the campaign catches) AND you can cross-post everything to your twitter/facebook etc. via apps, so it would echo into the existing socnets and promote migration. I'd recommend talking to twitter support before totally writing it off, Like I said, I'll do it next time, while I still have the tweet's URL :) but you might not get a resolution for the reasons mentioned above. That's what bothers me the most. I think they should at least say why it was hidden (e.g. was flagged by 6 users or automatically identified as spam). If they can avoid answering THAT, it not only allows arbitrary censorship but it's a simple consumer problem: sometimes it doesn't work and I don't know why, in other words - it's not a reliable service (an insult in a language even executives can understand). -- Those Romans are crazy -- Obelix -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
Re: [liberationtech] Where can I find the Twitter censorship handbook?
I am not intimately familiar all cases but I just want to acknowledge the backbone that Twitter has had in defending the privacy of their users in court. People like John at Twitter are fighting the good fight for a free internet. - Dan It's a serious affront to all the work we've done to enable people to freely communicate, and the number of times that we've gone to bat for users, to make posts like these. -john On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 6:36 PM, Griffin Boyce griffinbo...@gmail.comwrote: Have you tried contacting twitter support directly? In the first instance, it's likely that you were reported by someone who saw it and took offense to it. As for having tweets reported for spam, it could have been a competitor (and that type of reporting is easy to automate). But the Twitter spam algorithm could also have interpreted the [short tweet length + link + popular hashtag] as being spam. From a merchant perspective, we kind of operate at her majesty's pleasure. By that I mean that social networks make the rules, enforce them (or not), and our only real recourse is to move to another, less populated social network. I'd recommend talking to twitter support before totally writing it off, but you might not get a resolution for the reasons mentioned above. Best, Griffin Boyce @abditum On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 8:42 PM, Uncle Zzzen unclezz...@gmail.com wrote: Warning for the politically-correct: this message contains the N-word. I believe it is in context :) -- I believe that usability is a security concern; systems that do not pay close attention to the human interaction factors involved risk failing to provide security by failing to attract users. ~Len Sassaman PGP Key etc: https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/User:Fontaine -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
Re: [liberationtech] Where can I find the Twitter censorship handbook?
Sounds like he might have blocked you. I think that makes a lot more sense than any of the other possibilities raised. On Sat, Dec 15, 2012 at 2:42 AM, Uncle Zzzen unclezz...@gmail.com wrote: Warning for the politically-correct: this message contains the N-word. I believe it is in context :) I'm sorry I didn't respond to this in time and I now don't have links to the tweets I mention, but I'm pretty sure other people on the list had similar experiences. In short: Twitter is excluding tweets by me and my friends based on arbitrary (until proven otherwise) criteria. Here are 2 incidents. 1) The N-word incident About a month ago, @MrChuckD ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_D ) has tweeted that in his opinion, Twitter should censor tweets containing the N-word. Me and another friend (independently of each other) have replied. * I said something like if you don't oppose censorship, you don't deserve to be called a nigger * My friend said something like and that's from someone who has a song called [I don't wanna be called] yo nigga i.e. the n-word was misspelled in that case :) Note: The content of these tweets is not brought here in order to express or debate our opinions or style (we're both huge fans BTW), but to show what might have triggered censorship filters (if that is the case), and the actual semantics of the tweet. We were then IMing about this to each other, and found out that when looking at @MrChuckD's tweet (where all replies can be seen), none of us could see our tweets or each other's. 2) The Bitcoin incident A merchant friend has tweeted something as we now accept #bitcoin [+ link to buy page] Nobody (including the person who tweeted this) could see the tweet at the #bitcoin hash tag. #bitcoin seemed to be fairly active during that time and there were tweets within minutes (maybe even seconds) before and after that tweet. Now the first incident is alarming enough IMHO (I'm actively considering moving my business to the identi.ca/OSub world), but I could live without using the N-word (and half of my forking vocabulary) if there was a Twitter Censorship Handbook or Newspeak Dictionary I could consult (although from a usability perspective, I'd prefer getting a please rephrase that pop-up). But the second incident gives me the creeps: * What the fork WAS wrong with that tweet? * Maybe it's a bug? * Maybe twitter's filtering algorithm was hacked by competitors of that merchant? * Is there a way to contest such a decision (or even get an admission from twitter that a tweet of mine WAS blocked, and preferably why)? If twitter is a platform that is supposed to mobilize future Arab Springs, we have a real problem here - because the alternative is facebook :) -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- US: +1-857-891-4244 | NL: +31-657086088 site: jilliancyork.com http://jilliancyork.com/* | * twitter: @jilliancyork* * We must not be afraid of dreaming the seemingly impossible if we want the seemingly impossible to become a reality - *Vaclav Havel* -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
