Last week, as I was writing an article about my recent experiences with harassment on Twitter, I saw this tweet about Del Harvey, one of the women in ELLE’s 2016 List of Women in Tech:
https://twitter.com/mlmarshall13/status/760618082234691585
The implication is that Twitter’s “Trust and Safety Council” is so appallingly inept at moderating users that even the person heading the council doesn’t trust her safety to it. (What does it mean when a tech executive doesn’t use her own company’s services? It’s also worth noting that Twitter executives “barely tweet.”) The more generous interpretation for Del Harvey is that harassment on Twitter, especially the kind directed at women, is so pervasive that anyone with a public profile would benefit from using a pseudonym.
The use of pseudonyms to curb online harassment is problematic: Anonymity doesn’t lend itself well to the type of discussions that people go on Twitter to have, unless you’re Silicon Valley’s favorite Twitter persona. Also, let’s not forget that Zoe Quinn, one of the high-profile women who were involved in #GamerGate (a video games controversy that occurred mostly on Twitter ) was not concealed by her use of a pseudonym.
Twitter formed the Trust and Safety Council to help tackle targeted abuse, but The Week questions the homogeneous composition of the organizations they enlisted:
Alongside unimpeachable organizations like the National Domestic Violence Hotline, there are organizations that explicitly support efforts to limit troublesome discussion. It’s worth noting that while many organizations on Twitter’s list have a progressive bent, I couldn’t find one with a conservative or libertarian bent. I can recommend, off the top of my head, the Cato Institute, FIRE, and the Becket Fund.
Breitbart technology editor Milo Yiannopoulos was recently booted from Twitter after Leslie Jones, one of the leading actresses in the remake of the Ghostbusters movie, accused him of directing racist and sexist abuse towards her (in his tweets, he called her “terrible” and “barely literate”). Racist comments from other users were directed at Jones, and Jones fired back, but the striking imbalance between Twitter’s response shows Twitter’s uneven and opaque approach to dealing with harassment.
Female conservative writer repeats what Leslie Jones said to see if Twitter has a bias & gets suspended! #FreeKassy pic.twitter.com/VsCJhpZzkg
— Mikael Thalen (@MikaelThalen) July 25, 2016
Banning one account while public supporting another for the exact same tweet is inconsistent with Twitter founder Biz Stone’s claim that “Twitter is a communication utility, not a mediator of content.” If you aren’t a celebrity (who gets a personal reply from Jack Dorsey, the other founder of Twitter) or President Obama (whose tweets were quietly filtered during his Twitter Q&A), or NBC (which shut down a user’s account for posting a video from the Olympic Games), but just an average user without a coveted blue check mark, what can you do?
One response, according to Hanna Rosin, an editor at Slate, is that you can take pride in the attention that you’re getting. Rosin has argued that online harassment could be seen as a cause for celebration because it means women are now in positions of influence, with voices important enough to be silenced.
Another response is to report the harassment to Twitter, but that can have unintended consequences: Twitter released a woman’s address to her harasser when she filed a DMCA request to take down private photos. When I sent a cease-and-desist letter through my lawyer to inform my Twitter harasser of her unlawful behavior, she defended her actions, citing Twitter’s opinion on the matter.
If the abuse rises to the level of a criminal complaint, then users can also contact their local police department, but there are no guarantees there, either.
I recently discovered that my league of Twitter harassers are all connected to Alana Pague, who in a police report provided to Heat Street admitted to unlawfully accessing my images and then threatening to distribute them—yet she wasn’t charged with any of the federal or state statutes she had violated.
https://twitter.com/NinjaEconomics/status/761278743843307524
…said it was "he said/she said" and wouldn't investigate the theft or the extortion. My story on cyber harassment coming up.
— Ninja Economics (@NinjaEconomics) August 4, 2016
Case 16003794.
The (alleged) suspect Pague texted & bragged that police let her go without hardly questioning her. https://t.co/QqOymmcevo— Ninja Economics (@NinjaEconomics) August 4, 2016
(After I posted these tweets, @MountainViewPD contacted me. At my request, they’ve assigned a female officer to my case and I’ve asked them to review evidence from Pague’s trial that was not available at the time the initial police report was made.)
Free-speech supporters worry that the 40 or so groups invited to take part in Twitter’s “Orwellian” safety council are more to likely further limitations on online debate, without actually reducing any harassment. Twitter’s commitment to free expression has led to criticism that because moderating comments has proven to be difficult, if not impossible, the social platform is “a primary destination for trolls and hate groups.”
The broadcasting tool that was once used by oppressed groups to organize social movements, from Iranian elections to Arab Spring to Black Lives Matter, has now become (as one former employee said), “a honeypot for assholes.”
