Twitter has been attacked for vigorously enforcing the copyright of corporate Olympic partners while leaving death threats on the backburner.
Outraged users noted that anybody posting clips of events at Rio 2016 had their posts wiped out in a matter of minutes, compared to victims of potentially criminal harassment, who have a much tougher time.
The social network has been zealous in enforcing the exclusive rights of Olympic sponsors and media partners to show footage from events.
Twitter is deleting users posting Olympic clips within minutes. They have tools to deal with harassment, but they'll only protect brands.
— mhoye (@mhoye) August 12, 2016
One high-profile case, as reported by Ars Technica, saw a user in Venezuela have his entire account shut down, despite his claims that Venezuelan law allows him to post short and relevant clips.
It mirrors efforts by the International Olympic Committee to ban reporters from making GIFs or Vines of events they attend.
The phenomenon caused many to wonder out loud how Twitter could police copyright violations so effectively, while potentially criminal posts like death and rape threats often prove impossible to get pulled.
Of course there are exceptions. Leslie Jones got a lot of help when she came under attack from trolls and threatened to leave the network.
The International Olympic Committee ruthlessly removed every video of the Djokovic-Potro match from YouTube and other sites!#Rio2016
— Rohith (@Dr_Rhodium) August 8, 2016
THE OLYMPIC COMMITTEE TOOK DOWN MY INSTAGRAM VIDEO OF THE OPENING CEREMONY FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT ARE YOU KIDDING ME
— ★Blasty McSplode★ (@meevist) August 6, 2016
Instead, Twitter banned Milo Yiannopoulos on the grounds of nebulous encouragement he supposedly gave to racist users.
Leslie Jones duly returned, and was able to leverage her Twitter presence to get an invite to Rio to “slay all day”:
CHEAH IM HERE. IM GONNA GET TO SEE MICHAEL PHELPS GET HIS 22nd GOLD MEDAL!! pic.twitter.com/ObkwV79HlN
— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) August 12, 2016
But if you are a regular person on the social network, the chances of such star treatment are pretty slim.
Heat Street asked Twitter whether it is indeed investing more effort to protect big brands than victims of death threats and the like – but didn’t get a straight answer.
A spokesman for the service responded by highlight a number of anti-abuse initiatives, including the block function, efforts to work with police, its controversial Trust and Safety Council and membership of the EU’s hate speech police.
When pressed directly on whether it was putting more effort to dealing with copyright infringement than death threats, he would only say that both sets of rule violations “are enforced”.
