A request for Twitter

In the last few months I've seen some discussion on the exploitation of vulnerable aspects of twitter's rules by social justice warriors to silence political dissent by using bots to mass block or mass report so dissenters' accounts would be suspended. On October 29, I emailed press@twitter.com with questions, explaining my intent behind the request. I wanted to be up-front about the fact that this was for an article to ensure that their reply would consist of information they wanted known. 

Recent trends in some groups' tweets have included referencing the option included in the "block or report" menu to report another user for content that is "Generally offensive, disrespectful or in disagreement with my opinion." Some users are touting that option as a means to silence political dissent. This sounded unlike a social site policy, and led me to look further into the reporting options.

Further investigation has only led to more questions, including questions about other options for reporting. The help bubble for that option says "Twitter does not screen content and does not remove potentially offensive content unless such content is in violation of the Twitter Rules and Terms of Service," so I have read those.

Some of the twitter rules have wording which could be subject to broad interpretation and potential abuse. I'm writing to request clarification, as I am considering an article. My current focus is communication, harassment, censorship, and how twitter's rules affect engagement between users in relation to political and other potentially controversial discussions. Any information I receive in response to these questions will contribute to that article.

For instance, listed under "targeted abuse" are

• if the sole purpose of your account is to send abusive messages to others;

and

• if the reported behavior is one-sided or includes threats

What factors determine if the sole purpose of an account is to send abusive messages to others?

Is disagreement with others' opinion considered an abusive message, and if so does that mean engaging in debate by replying to publicly made statements of opinion with counterarguments is now considered abuse?
If not, what is the specific reason for including "in disagreement with my opinion" in the harassment reporting options?

I am assuming that tweets without @user mentions are not considered "targeted" because they do not involve intentional contact and users can block feed they do not want to see. Is this correct?

Does "targeted abuse" include @user mentions without abusive language, but which contain a dissenting counterargument to something the user has said? (eg. I disagree with @twitteruser's stated opinion in LinkToPublication because reason #politicalorsocialconcept or @twitteruser I disagree with what you said.) If so, is that a blanket rule or does the behavior have to be repeated or continue after the user engaging in it has received some variation of "stop talking to me" before it is considered to be in violation?

Does the tone of a tweet change whether it is considered abusive, and if so what is the criteria for that? ("I disagree with what you said" vs a similar line containing expletives vs a line containing slurs or the suggestion that the user deserves to suffer violence because of his opinion.)

Under the Spam heading are the following criteria:

• If you have followed and/or unfollowed large amounts of users in a short time period, particularly by automated means (aggressive following or follower churn);

When a political or social movement forms on twitter, users often follow each other so that posts about their specific pet issue will show up in their feed. Is it a goal of twitter to prevent this, or does following require automated means in order to be considered a violation?

• If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates;

Many users post links to news stories, videos, and memes related to hashtags created for issues and concepts that have meaning to them. Very often these are, to the user, personal updates because they are new information about the issue or concept. Will users whose personal updates usually include links to information be considered spammers?

• If a large number of people are blocking you;
• If a large number of spam complaints have been filed against you;

This looks like it could be used by ideological groups to silence popular or very vocal users whose updates contain statements of opinion to which they are opposed, by banding together to all block and/or report the same person, thereby putting him or her in violation. What is twitter's administration doing to counter potential abuse of these rules?

• If you post multiple unrelated updates to a topic using #, trending or popular topic, or promoted trend;

There are Twitter users currently interpreting this to mean that dissenting views to a hashtag's political outlook and criticism of the belief or assertion behind a hashtag can be considered spam if it is posted to the hashtag. For example, posting an opposing viewpoint with a political hashtag can offend the readers of the hashtag, but it's a discussion attempt. Is it considered spam even if it is not belligerent or threatening?

• Randomly or aggressively following, favoriting or Retweeting Tweets;

This line is hard to interpret. Can you please give a more detailed explanation of what it means? How does twitter determine when following, favoriting, and retweeting are random or aggressive, and when doing those things is acceptable?

Finally, do you have a policy in place to deal with habitual, vexatious false flagging (users repeatedly reporting content which does not violate rules or terms of service in an attempt to silence speech they disapprove or people they dislike)? This is a behavior I've seen on other social networking sites where administrators have written and posted broadly interpretable policy without stipulating that false exploitation of it would also lead to discipline. What is Twitter doing to prevent users from banding together to engage in this type of harassment, and how do you differentiate between a user engaging in this and a user who spots or experiences and reports a lot of genuine violations?

If you provide me with a statement on the overall goal of Twitter's rules and guidelines as they relate to discussion on the site, I will include that in the article.

If you have any questions for me, please let me know, and I'll be happy to clarify anything that has not come across clearly. Thank you in advance for taking the time to address these questions. I hope to produce an article that will bring about better understanding of Twitter's rules and their relationship to the many discussions among users of the site.

To date I have not heard back. I cannot be sure if this is simply due to their staff for handling press requests being small and unable to keep up, or if they are avoiding answering the question. Even if it is the latter, it could be because, now that they realize there are holes in their policy they want to fix them before replying. It could also be due to a desire to leave those holes in place without having to answer for them. The only way to know would be to hear back from twitter, and that is out of my control. 

A tale of two faces

In May of this year, A Voice For Men published an article by Paul Elam about Women Action Media's successful crusade to get facebook to censor images they considered anti-woman. As Paul pointed out, the policy change statement facebook released in response to WAM was pulled from the WAM complaint word for word.
The result? A policy statement that was vague on most of its wording, with its only specificity being in language denoting that the rules wouldn't apply equally between the sexes.
 
Disturbing as it is that WAM decided to take control of speech on facebook, even more disturbing was that unequal approach. Their letter and the statement inspired by it spelled out a policy which would censor speech then spelled out why speech advocating violence against men was exempt.
Their excuse?
Violence against men don't real.

It wasn't long before facebook's administrators showed exactly how this broadly worded policy was going to affect speech, removing one AVFM image because its text criticized a feminist claim, and showed evidence against that claim, and another simply because it contained criticism of feminism. 

In my last post, I talked about the attitude it would take to report as offensive an image of a poster advertising a rally for men and boys in crisis. The choice to take offense at the idea of helping men and boys overcome disadvantages they face is, itself, a manifestation of hatred. Fortunately, this time facebook's administrators didn't cave in to the hateful individual(s) who reported the image. Unfortunately, previous actions by facebook administrators have demonstrated that it wasn't because the image was good. It was because the image didn't openly and directly criticize feminism.

They have decreed that it's not just hateful to post images glorifying violence against women and girls. It's also apparently hateful to post images which criticize feminist political ideology and the behaviors that are based on feminist ideology. It is not, apparently, hateful to post images glorifying and outright advocating violence against men.

All of the above images were reported to facebook. Facebook declined to remove any of them, stating of each "Thank you for taking the time to report something that you feel may violate our Community Standards. Reports like yours are an important part of making Facebook a safe and welcoming environment. We reviewed the photo you reported for containing hate speech or symbols and found it doesn't violate our community standard." I was provided with a link to the community standards page. While AVFM's account was suspended for a day while their image was investigated, I got a reply back about my report within a couple of hours.

Reading the standards outlined on the page, I cannot see anything which indicates that the removed AVFM images should be reasonably considered more in violation than should be photos of battered men on a page advocating castration and other physical abuse.


This is not just a simple double standard. In adopting and executing feminist-led policy, facebook has become a vehicle of both censorship, and hatred. The policy isn't "you can't advocate violence against and hatred." It's "You can't say anything feminists don't like, but we'll ignore actual celebrations of violence when men are the target."

With this discrepancy in their handling of speech, facebook's administrators have given a clear demonstration that their new policy is based not on morals but money. With that in mind, I've hatched an idea, and composed a couple of letters. WAM posted a list of organizations which pulled their advertising from facebook to pressure the site to cave to the organization's demands. I think those advertisers should hear from us, as well.

Love It Love It Love It
Desire Books
Specialty Natural Medicine         
Jump! Magazine
Down Easy Brewing         
Nationwide UK 
eReader Utopia         
Matt Miner Comics
House of Burlesque
Candypolis
Grow Your Own Theatre
Capturing Childhood
J Street
Nissan UK
WestHost
Zappos 
Zipcar 
Dove (To contact Dove, you have to contact Unilever.)
Audible 
Vistaprint 
FinnAir
Ocado
David Lloyd Leisure  


Letter to facebook advertisers:

You recently participated along with multiple organizations in a successful effort to bring censorship to Facebook. Following the success of that effort, the site updated its policy to bar users from posting images advocating gender based violence, and other communications determined by facebook staff to be "hate speech." Since the policy was adopted last spring, it has been used to remove images based not on the stated criteria, but on whether or not they fit in with specific political ideology.

Images which don't depict or advocate violence, but which criticize specific political beliefs, statements, or actions, have been removed as "offensive." Images advocating violence against men and posts containing hate speech targeting men are not removed when reported using facebook's complaint system. These include graphic depiction of injuries, and pages and posts advocating castration.

This means that while your ads will no longer be displayed on pages or next to images which feminists find objectionable, you will still be funding pages that advocate violence against men, contain statements of hatred and bigotry against men, and contain images depicting injuries to men described on the page as the result of said violence.

In working with Women Action Media's campaign to censor facebook, your organization has openly supported adopting a policy deeming the type of speech shown to you in the protests you received unacceptable, including depictions like the ones facebook is refusing to remove simply because men are the subject instead of women.

Do you support gender-based discrimination? Are you in favor of silencing political speech? That is what facebook's uneven execution of their new policy is. The site has determined that women are to be protected from potentially offensive speech, but men may be openly and aggressively targeted by it. The site has determined that one political ideology is to be protected from dissenting speech, while other ideological beliefs may be challenged or even openly slandered. Since you supported WAM's advocacy, your name is now associated with facebook's discriminatory attitude and censorship of political speech.

I urge you to reject that discriminatory association. Don't let your organization be used to impose a system of selective censorship. Tell facebook that association with your organization depends on equal application of their policy, and their support of free political speech. Their standards should apply equally and identically to both sexes, and should not include censorship based on political ideology.

Facebook should hear from us, too. I thought providing a link to their feedback page would assist in that, but you can't get to it unless you access it from your account so that facebook knows exactly who is contacting them. Instead, in the upper-right corner of your facebook page, click once on the little gear symbol, then once on "report a problem." When the "report a problem" pop-up shows, click "send feedback."
You'll see in the address bar the same link I've included on every mention of the site in this post (https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/), followed by a 15 digit number. The page will request a category for your feedback. You do not have to select a category.
Letter to facebook:

Earlier this year, you responded to an organization called Women Action Media by making changes to your policy on speech. According to your public statements, your new policy bars users from posting images advocating gender based violence, and other communications determined by facebook staff to be "hate speech." However, you have not executed your new policy without undue discrimination. Since the policy was adopted last spring, it has been used to remove images based not on the stated criteria, but on whether or not they fit in with specific political ideology.

Your stated policy calls for removal of hate speech and images advocating violence. It does not state anything about removal of speech or imagery which either states or dissents against a political viewpoint, but you have removed political statements that do not contain hatred or advocate violence, labeling them "hate speech." Images advocating violence against men and posts containing hate speech targeting men are not removed when reported using facebook's complaint system. These include graphic depiction of injuries, and pages and posts advocating castration.

This is a clear demonstration of political bias, and a gender based discriminatory attitude among facebook's administrators.

Do you support gender-based discrimination? Are you in favor of silencing political speech? That is what the uneven execution of your new policy indicates. You have determined that women are to be protected from potentially offensive speech, but men may be openly and aggressively targeted by it. You have determined that one political ideology is to be protected from dissenting speech, while other ideological beliefs may be challenged or even openly slandered.

This policy creates a hostile, discriminatory environment for male users, their friends, and their families. You may not be aware of this, but as many of your male users have faced intimate  partner and sexual violence as your female users have, only your male users have fewer options for support and recovery.

This means that your policy of tolerating images depicting violence against men is even worse than your previous policy of tolerating images depicting violence against women. You took steps to end the latter. You have no reasonable excuse for continuing to tolerate the former.

It also means that when you censor political speech which relates to the struggles faced by disadvantaged and abused men, including speech which debunks politically popular beliefs, you're contributing to the discriminatory social environment faced by men, particularly those who have been victimized.

Reasonable execution of your stated policy would not allow for this. Don't let your organization be used by a group with a political agenda to impose a system of selective censorship. Please instead commit to equal application of your policy, and your support of free political speech. Your standards should apply equally and identically to both sexes, and should not include censorship based on political ideology.