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Twitter to use algorithms to cut down on abusive behavior

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Illinois

* I can see some unintended consequences of this (people who regularly heap praise on celebrities and politicians they love), but it’s an interesting development…

Today, Twitter announced that it will start relying on algorithms to identify and restrict accounts for engaging in “abusive behavior,” which the company defines as either “repeatedly Tweeting without solicitation at non-followers” or violating the Twitter terms of service. The update has been in place for a few weeks now, but the company made it public today. The change goes beyond what some thought would be simple keyword policing (read: swear words) by also considering the relationships between users when determining abuse.

Penalties may include making an account’s tweets only visible to its followers for 12 hours or more, or being forced to verify a phone or email address associated with the account. In a statement about the changes, the company’s vice president of engineering, Ed Ho, wrote, “Our platform supports the freedom to share any viewpoint, but if an account continues to repeatedly violate the Twitter Rules, we will consider taking further action.” […]

Twitter will also allow you to filter out notifications from accounts that do not have a profile photo or that list an unverified email addresses or phone number, which are sometimes signs that an account was created specifically to abuse others anonymously. You’ll also be able to decide how long you want to mute accounts, conversations, and keywords. These features resemble the quality filter and notifications settings that verified users have had for some time now.

Also, as I’ve mentioned before, the number of people directly tweeting angry stuff at Gov. Rauner has skyrocketed since the election. And my Twitter feeds are full of people screaming all day and all night at President Trump. If Speaker Madigan had an account, I can only imagine what those tweets would look like. Pretty sure there wouldn’t be a lot of pics of kittens and pink ponies.

Anyway, they might wanna consider exempting politicians from that plan. Your thoughts?

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Mar 1, 17 @ 12:40 pm

Comments

As in other realms, the abusers elicit the crackdown. For those who aren’t flamers, it should not cramp their style.

Comment by Anon Wednesday, Mar 1, 17 @ 12:44 pm
Does this mean that drumpf’s twitter accounts are going to be restricted?

Comment by Huh? Wednesday, Mar 1, 17 @ 12:47 pm
It would help if they acted on actual cases of reported abuse. Abuse is out of control because they don’t do anything about it. Limiting interaction that is legit might capture some abuse, but it will miss most of it.

This is likely to hurt the medium in terms of encouraging people to interact with those who have larger followings. So I interact with David Simon who wrote the Wire. He doesn’t follow me, but I think we’ve had interesting twitter discussions. This would appear to put me at risk.

Comment by ArchPundit Wednesday, Mar 1, 17 @ 12:59 pm
Oh, and when Dan Proft wanted to block me, he found it plenty easy.

Comment by ArchPundit Wednesday, Mar 1, 17 @ 1:00 pm
Wow…county worker salaries and Twitter alogrythmns….can’t wait to see what’s next

Comment by Annonin' Wednesday, Mar 1, 17 @ 1:05 pm
Arch, Katrina McQueary didn’t need no stinkin’ algorithm to block old AA.

Comment by Arthur Andersen Wednesday, Mar 1, 17 @ 2:55 pm
“Arch, Katrina McQueary didn’t need no stinkin’ algorithm to block old AA.”

Me neither. (I think she blocked me sometime between the second and third revision of that notorious piece.)

– MrJM

Comment by @MisterJayEm Wednesday, Mar 1, 17 @ 3:47 pm
I won’t be surprised if it works like FB and traditional/conservative viewpoints get deemed abusive on a much tighter basis than liberal/progressive viewpoints

Comment by titan Wednesday, Mar 1, 17 @ 4:43 pm