Defamation is a civil matter and harassment is civil or criminal depending where you live. You'd have better luck going through the police or courts. People deal with similar harassment or misinformation campaigns all the time. It isn't Twitter's job to step in unless you can point to some clear violation of their ToS.
So Twitter provides a platform that actively facilitates defamation, then the individual and justice system has to spend lots of time and money addressing it, then Twitter gets to pocket all the ad revenue from the entire horrible ordeal? That is not fair or just, even if it is legal. And what about people in countries that don't have a functioning justice system. Twitter assists the defamer in screwing over the individual, making money in the process, and there is actually no path to justice? It's a worldview that's only possible to hold from a position of privilege.
It isn't about privilege. You know in a lot of countries it would be considered harassment/defamation by totalitarian governments to speak out against government officials. Should Twitter be on the offense and ban people speaking out against their government in such countries merely because it may be considered harassment there?
Twitter is a US company and therefore it makes sense that they would approach diplomacy from a US-worldview.
It certainly is a shame that people can makeup lies about someone and create a targeted campaign against that individual, but to people on the outside it can be difficult to play referee. Elon Musk proved you can call someone a pedo without any repercussions. This is the guy that claims he is going to take over Twitter in support of free speech. The proper venue to resolve harassment and defamation campaigns is usually the courts, unless you are getting threats and I think that is a much clearer violation of the ToS that is actionable.
> The proper venue to resolve harassment and defamation campaigns is usually the courts
This is why this perspective is so privileged. You're assuming people have access to a functioning legal system through which to correct the issue. In some rich countries, that'd cost a lot of time and money, which many people don't have. And in some poor countries without a functioning state, that's not even an option at all.
It's also an inversion of morality. You're putting 100% of the onus onto the small time individual to correct the issue, and 0% of the onus onto the large corporation that actively facilitated the harassment in the first place by engineering viral mechanics that encourage mobbing. You're also placing the cost burden onto the taxpayers by burdening the judiciary, and allowing the corporation to internalize all of the gains. The victims and society pay the cost, and the corporation makes money off the victimization that it actively facilitated. It's perverse.
> Twitter is a US company and therefore it makes sense that they would approach diplomacy from a US-worldview.
This is just a made up excuse as to why social media companies should be allowed to actively facilitate a spectrum of outcomes ranging from harassment to populism to outright genocide. I don't care if they are a US company or not. What they're doing is wrong.
> This is why this perspective is so privileged. You're assuming people have access to a functioning legal system through which to correct the issue. In some rich countries, that'd cost a lot of time and money, which many people don't have. And in some poor countries without a functioning state, that's not even an option at all.
I'm not assuming that they are. They may very well in fact not be, but they are an American-based company with a mostly functional legal system so that is the rules they go by. I for one thing it would be much more dangerous for Twitter to play judge, jury and executioner but it seems like that is almost what you're advocating for here.
> It's also an inversion of morality. You're putting 100% of the onus onto the small time individual to correct the issue, and 0% of the onus onto the large corporation that actively facilitated the harassment in the first place by engineering viral mechanics that encourage mobbing.
I don't see how Twitter encourages mobbing. They have privacy controls and you can also block people. If someone is making threats those can be reported to Twitter. Evidenced-base coordinated campaigns can be considered conspiracy and reported as such. Saying things you don't like isn't a conspiracy. Telling people where you live so they can harm you is strictly against their ToS.
Sometimes standing up for and defending yourself takes utilizing the rights given to you by law the best you can. The more you practice it the better you get at it. It isn't on a company to have to get involved in disputes on a public forum that are civil in nature unless they feel that there is a sign of physical danger to the individuals by letting it continue, and even then in there yes rightfully so there are legal remedies to report these types of violations.
> I for one thing it would be much more dangerous for Twitter to play judge, jury and executioner but it seems like that is almost what you're advocating for here.
> It isn't on a company to have to get involved in disputes on a public forum that are civil in nature unless they feel that there is a sign of physical danger to the individuals by letting it continue
Your worldview is that it's fine for corporations to create market failure[1] as long as they are not breaking the law, and then they shouldn't be expected to pay for it or make a good faith attempt to fix it.
I view this as wrong, because there are many things that cause tremendous harm despite being legal. The law has loopholes and is incomplete, the justice system has friction and access issues, and so on. The law should just be the minimum bar.
You already intuitively accept this in your personal life. If I was your neighbor, I could study all the noise ordinance laws and pollution laws, and figure out a way to make your life a living hell without technically breaking any law. You would obviously want me to not do this, despite the fact that I wasn't breaking any law.
Twitter could make many systemic reforms to make conversation healthier without any risk of a slippery slope into censorship. It's not just about putting a human in the loop in order to be "judge, jury and executioner". They could change the social and amplification mechanics. They refuse to do this on purpose. Quite the opposite. They pioneered some of the mechanics that put us into this ditch as a society.
I'd also add that it isn't just about moderation of edge cases. It's also about their neglect to enforce basic things such as preventing clear harassment or impersonation or revenge porn in a timely fashion.
You also have no answer for people with no access to the legal system aside from "tough luck". I don't accept it that someone should need tens of thousands of dollars in order to pursue defamation action in order to fix an injustice that Twitter actively encouraged.
If you truly believe that there is nothing Twitter can do, then they should at least give up more of their cash to the governments of the countries in which they operate in order to refund the taxpayer for the additional cost burden that they've imposed onto the judiciary and society at large. Otherwise it's just theft by indirection.
[1] Externalities such as facilitating populist revolutions, genocide, harassment and financial scams.
> I don't see how Twitter encourages mobbing.
Look at Amber Heard's last Tweet. As odious as her character may be, Twitter has facilitated her harassment by not giving her an option to disable quote retweets. The viral mechanics that Twitter has created has compounded that and magnified it. That's why you putting all the onus onto the victim and judiciary (taxpayer) to sort it out is an inversion of morality. The facilitator of the victimization gets to profit off it while the victim pays the cost.
