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Twitter Plans New Measures to Reduce Hate Speech and Trolling

image via darkgovernment

Plans to introduce new measures that will limit the visibility of hate speech and trolling on Twitter are underway, the Financial Times reports. Leadership has sought to maintain its devotion to free speech — a premise on which the company was founded — yet management has become increasingly discontent with the flood of hate speech and trolling that inundate the social service. Twitter’s governance hopes to strike a happy medium between the two goals.

The pseudonym debate

One proposal is to hide replies from users who lack credibility — those with no followers, profile information, or photo — but management is concerned that this could subdue two of the biggest factors making Twitter so socially influential: free speech and anonymity.

Said Twitter CEO Dick Costolo via the FT:

The reason we want to allow pseudonyms is there are lots of places in the world where it’s the only way you’d be able to speak freely

The flipside of that is it also emboldens these trolls … how do you make sure you are both emboldening people to speak politically but making it OK to be on the platform and not endure all this hate speech? It’s very frustrating.

Tweets must flow

Twitter’s “tweets must flow” mantra has enabled incredible social movements like the Arab Spring, but also allowed for relentless streams of hatred towards public figures.

One such incident came at the end of April after the Boston Bruins lost a Game 7 playoff game to the Washington Capitals on an overtime goal by African-American player Joel Ward. Immediately after the game ended, the “Twitterverse” was inundated with racist and discriminatory comments.

In the United Kingdom, a student was sentenced to 56 days in prison after sending a racist tweet to Barclay’s Premier League soccer player Fabrice Muamba.

Finding a middle ground that maintains Twitter’s ideals yet limits abuse won’t be easy. But, as appalling incidents continue to occur, Twitter increasingly feels the need to make changes.

from BostInno http://bostinno.com/2012/06/28/twitter-hate-speech-trolling-changes/