While Twitter has been the center of a number of abusive controversies in the last year (including Gamergate as well as some cases where anonymous accounts threatened a variety of individuals), the social networking service has a reputation for taking a long time to respond to complaints. Thankfully, company recently incorporated a variety of features into its system that would help to counteract these behaviors. But what is the philosophy behind it?
Twitter general counsel Vijaya Gadde posted an op-ed in the Washington Post on Thursday that provides some perspective on the company's goal. Gadde says that Twitter has two particular focuses: creating a platform for free information and making it safe for dissenting opinions.
"We want Twitter to continue to be a place where the expression of diverse viewpoints is encouraged and aired," Gadde said. "To do that, we have to keep Twitter safe for the widest possible range of information and opinions to be shared, even when we ourselves vehemently disagree with some of them."
Gadde admits that Twitter has not been able to maintain the standards that it's advocating for.
"As some of our users have unfortunately experienced firsthand, certain types of abuse on our platform have gone unchecked because our policies and product have not appropriately recognized the scope and extent of harm inflicted by abusive behavior," she said. "Even when we have recognized that harassment is taking place, our response times have been inexcusably slow and the substance of our responses too meager."
That's why Twitter and Gadde are working on an overhaul of their safety policies that will "give our teams a better framework from which to protect vulnerable users.....as well as expanding our definition of 'abuse' to ban indirect threats of violence."
While this is good, Gadde believes that safety policies like the one above, if enforced incorrectly, could undermine freedom of speech on a global scale. That's why she noted that "It is not our role to be any sort of arbiter of global speech. However, we will take a more active role in ensuring that differences of opinion do not cross the line into harassment."
