Twitter Launches Trust and Safety Council To Help Put End To Trolling (thestack.com) 204
An anonymous reader writes: Twitter has announced a new trust and safety council to stamp out bullying and trolling on the microblogging site. The Twitter Trust & Safety Council will initially be formed of around 40 bodies, including the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, ICT Watch, NetSafe, and Samaritans. These organisations, along with safety experts, academics and security researchers, will work to ensure a safe and secure platform for users to express themselves freely and safely. The Council's main focus will be to protect minors, encourage 'greater compassion and empathy on the internet,' and promote efforts in media literacy and digital citizenship. Community groups will also participate to help prevent online 'abuse, harassment, and bullying,' as well as mental health problems and suicide.
This is a bad idea. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: This is a bad idea. (Score:1)
Mostly this, the people they have hired have made a career of washing all commentary on their work as trolls.
Re: This is a bad idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
Who gets to define "Trolling" and "Bullying". My guess, suddenly all sorts of speech will be suddenly labels "Micro-aggression" and be banned.
"I'm voting for _________" -- not politically correct candidate = BANHAMMER!!!
Re: This is a bad idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, obviously if you're voting for _________ then you must be a racist and sexist. So anything you say is hate speech.
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Hint : answer is not affirmative.
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Sanders also fill the blank in quite several places now.
"Bernie bros" etc..
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Who gets to define "Trolling" and "Bullying". My guess, suddenly all sorts of speech will be suddenly labels "Micro-aggression" and be banned.
"I'm voting for _________" -- not politically correct candidate = BANHAMMER!!!
This is nothing terribly new, Twitter is just being a little more open about the fact that the truth is not welcome on their system.
There are all sorts things I can say, that are factual statements and can be proven to be true, that will get me banned from a lot of places on the Internet.
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Most nations have their own safe sites in their own languages that have a role for locals. Why join another big site to be tracked, reported on and corrected?
Group think sets in and a very chilling system after posting with ip's tracked, user banned and facing chat downs.
Good news for any new or older social media site in the USA that can promote and prote
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Grep! Gabber gobbler!! Your micro-agressive post was triggering for me you fat, racist, misogyonerd, neckbeard, rapist, loser, white, cis male! You hate women and are on the wrong side of history you entitled shitlord!! Your rights to an internet end where my feelings begin, so expect you internet privileges to be taken away you MRA rape culture promoter!
Twitter isn't going far enough. And Slashdot needs to ban your kind. Please donate to my Patreon to make this possible. Do it or I'll call my media contact
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The impression I got was that they actually want to encourage free speech and make people feel safe expressing their views - I don't imagine it's actually an anti Trump voter thing. What they're trying to stop is all the bullying and death threats, and there's plenty of that happening on both sides of the political fence, so it should actually *help* the Trump voters express themselves.
The internet's been especially bad for this ever since all that "gamergate" shit where suddenly if you express any hint of
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I agree. As a recent example, a woman I know on Twitter was harassed by a group of people. Her "crime"? She adopted two white kids and two black kids and this group of white supremacists couldn't let that stand. I looked through some of their tweets and felt like I needed to bleach my eyes/brain. (The tame tweets called her black children "things" and "pets." I won't repeat what the non-tame ones said.) Many of the people said they went to her website, downloaded all photos of her kids, and planned t
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once again the king of strawmen has misrepresented the issue.
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Because censorship has never been abused!
Mod (Score:2)
Wait, maybe some of the mods might be biased... I know, how about also implementing meta-moderation?
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Really?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Face it Twitter is the kindergarten play ground of public forums. They basically want to control it by gagging the children and chaining them to a stake in the ground so they can't pester each other. Any idiot can scream anything, at one point you just have to give up and walk away from Twitter, from the start most said it would simply fail for this exact reason and Twitter are desperate to keep it going because of the quite silly pretend worth of Twitter and the total bullshit level of advertising and PR=B
Re:This is a bad idea. (Score:4, Funny)
If you've ever had a kindergarten age kid, you will recognize the appeal of this idea.
Re:This is a bad idea. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This is a bad idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
The name is a hoot and a half: "Trust and Safety Council". This sounds like something I would expect to see in a dictatorship, like North Korea, the former East Germany, Soviet Russia or a fistful of Middle East Sheikdoms.
Let's just call it what it really is: "Board of Censorship".
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
It makes sense when you realize that they don't want users to trust them and feel safe, what they're trying to do is convince advertisers that they can trust Twitter and that it's a safe platform to advertise on. There are so many stories of Twitter advertising campaigns coming back to bite the advertisers as hashtags get co-opted by users, that Twitter needs to convince advertisers that they can block that from happening in the name of "preventing trolls."
They're also hoping to score some leftist points wi
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“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
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If someone is breaking the law then providing tools to help gather evidence and support their prosecution is not usually considered censorship. Serious trolling is often illegal.
More over, Twitter is a private platform. They can set whatever standards they want, and don't owe anyone a platform. Like all private forums, they have to balance the ability to say anything against the desire to provide a platform to the greatest number of people and avoid creating an echo chamber with everyone screaming at each o
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You're a fool if you somehow think the same won't happen at Twitter, or worse yet if you just don't care.
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The difference is, despite what the MRAs and anti-feminists scream, Twitter doesn't try to stop people saying unpopular things. It only acts when they start abusing other users.
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Ok then, what do you suggest doing instead? Let's start by accepting the goals of protecting minors and encouraging compassion and empathy. (Maybe you don't agree with those goals, but that's irrelevant. Twitter has set them as goals, and it's their platform. Besides, most people outside the Slashdot bubble would agree with them.) So what do you recommend they should do to promote them?
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...and in other news: (Score:5, Insightful)
Twitter Launches Church Of We Don't Like Your Opinion So We're Going To Brand You A Troll Council to Help Put End To Hurt Feelings
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This is something that Slashdot already does. They'll clearly be infringing on some sort of patentrightmark or something...
Re:...and in other news: (Score:5, Insightful)
Criticize Islam: Banhammer for hate speech
Criticize Christianity: [crickets]
Criticize women's rights movement: Banhammer for misogyny
Criticize men's rights movement: [crickets]
Re:...and in other news: (Score:4, Insightful)
will work to ensure a safe and secure platform for users to express themselves freely and safely.
Unless you have an opinion that differs from someone else's. Or if we think you are a troll, because restricting free speech is the quickest way to allowing people to express themselves freely.
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Again with the third person? You really are a pathetic creature, aren't you?
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It's different when you're in a position of power relative to another group, and have been for centuries or longer.
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oh look, ignorance modded insightful by ignorant mods.
its like when people say "but what about white history month" ... completely oblivious to the fact that the entire point is that white history month is better known as "the other 11 months of the year".
ie, more of the same "im against political correctness because I want to be a bigoted prick"
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Last time I checked, black history was still included in history curricula for the full 12 months of the year. Though I would just love to see a teacher try to function under your ignorant premise and announce that she won't be covering the Civil Rights movement or slavery because "Every other month but February is for white history." I'm sure that wouldn't cause a fucking uproar.
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Criticize Islam: Banhammer for hate speech
That's only because Islam has so many fanboys on here :D
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You think it's bad in me, you should meet Anita Sarkeesian.
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Yiannopoulos is still there
Did they give him back his "verified" status yet? What was it even taken away for? It's obvious which way the wind is blowing.
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The large number of un-banned anti-feminists proves that criticism women's rights isn't a banable offence.
And that doesn't stop them from forcing people to delete tweets that they find objectionable, like pointing out their logical fallacies. But twitter's "harassment team" is fine with stuff from Jessica Valenti or Andrea Dworkin's screaming "kill all men" or writing about how they'd other things to happen.
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Do you have any specific examples of tweets that were forcefully deleted for pointing out logical fallacies without breaking any laws or other Twitter rules?
Also, you Dworkin "quote" isn't a quote, she never said that. If I'm wrong, please provide a citation.
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Reading further down in that twitter post actually details why those tweets needed to be deleted. What Sushi was doing is called Sea-Lioning and is considered as Spam under Twitter's rules.
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Your opinions make me feel unsafe. Shouldn't Slashdot be a safe place for everyone? We must get authorities involved. This is a safety concern, after all.
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I'll hand myself in as one of those disgusting monsters who tries to form an evidence-based opinion.
I'm trying my best to paint anyone who criticises an opinion given by a back person as a racist, a woman as misogynist or a trans person as... anti-trans?
I... I just need to learn to start treating people I don't know as victims who can't survive without my help, especially those who don't want it.
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I... I just need to learn to start treating people I don't know as victims who can't survive without my help, especially those who don't want it.
Or just shut up and applaud on cue.
Safe Space to Express Yourself Freely (Score:5, Insightful)
So you are free express yourself, as long as you express yourself in a way approved by these organizations?
What fucking hypocritical bullshit.
Re:Safe Space to Express Yourself Freely (Score:4, Insightful)
Freedom of speech, just watch what you say.
Autists trying to script social interation? (Score:1)
This hypocritical attitude is getting to be a problem all over the place. It's not just Twitter.
For example, just look at the Rust programming language project. They have a very bureaucratic and tyrannical code of conduct [rust-lang.org]. Beyond that, they even have a moderation team [rust-lang.org] that will go after anyone deemed to have "violated" the code of conduct!
What I think we're seeing in cases like this are autists of one degree or another trying to "script" social interaction.
What I mean by that is that they're people who are
Re:Autists trying to script social interation? (Score:5, Informative)
For example, just look at the Rust programming language project. They have a very bureaucratic and tyrannical code of conduct.
Ok, let's look at, specifically, what they define as harrassment:
You have a problem with these? Then stay out. None of these rules are unreasonable. Indeed, since you find them so unreasonable that you have to whine here about it, you sound like the kind of person that any group, that wants to get anything done, should keep out, lest they be trolled into wasting time on your moronic nonsense.
I seriously wonder what you would have done, 25 years ago, when "unprofessional behavior" would have gotten you booted off the entire Internet.
--
BMO
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Please define "violent language", "discriminatory jokes and language" and "personal insults, particularly those related to gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or disability." Also, please explain how "unwelcome sexual attention" differs from welcome sexual attention and how to avoid giving the unwelcome kind. Perhaps an instructive video [youtube.com] can help.
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I have a problem with this...
Even a non-gender neutral pronoun is considered "sexist language" by some. Context is everything. When we allow freedom of expression to be curtailed by the over-sensitive, we encourage the victims of bullying to become bullies.
-- sent from my GAYPhone
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Also sometimes a personal insult is in order, especially when said person is acting like a dolt.
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You're an imbecile. You're a flat-out mouth-breathing imbecile, who aspires to be a moron.
>rules of conduct are intimidating
Then leave society as a whole and live on your own island. But good luck earning money to buy that island, as you will have to cooperate with other people to earn it, which you are certainly incapable of doing.
--
BMO
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But nowadays we apparently have thin-skinned man-children creating self-contradictory codes of conduct
Why yes you are right, I do believe I have just spotted one.
Freedom isn't free. (Score:1)
So you are free express yourself, as long as you express yourself in a way approved by these organizations?
What fucking hypocritical bullshit.
You are also free to take your expression to another platform that better suits your sensibilities. Or start your own.
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Why do you care so much what Twitter, a private company that you no doubt avoid because of tracking and all social media being a stupid scam where you are the product, does?
8chan still exists, now 4chan has sold out to the SJWs and banned GamerGate. Oh, but even 8chan has rules. You can still run your own server. There is even TOR if you need it.
Why do you feel Twitter in particular owes you a platform?
Twitter's doing NOTHING. Yay! (Score:2)
So Twitter's solution to their unfettered harassment problem is a 40 person committee?
Basically, this is a nice way of saying they won't be doing anything, but perhaps paying protection money into some industry groups so that they won't complain any more.
They can completely change the concept of a feed, and throw out the character limit that has been the defining feature of the service since its inception. But actual tools to allow users to manage asshats on the service (like even /. has had for nearly
Safe & Secure (Score:4, Insightful)
safe and secure platform for users to express themselves freely and safely
As long as your free expression doesn't piss off any of the 40 busybody groups, of course.
f + s = k (Score:5, Insightful)
God, I'm so stupid. Here I've been hanging out on the internet for decades now, and I never once realized in all that time that all we had to do to make everyone nice to each other all the time was to institute draconian levels of censorship based on arbitrary rules decided upon by the most hypersensitive and litigious subgroups in the community.
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Wrong Approach (Score:1)
The only way to get rid of trolling is to teach people not to give a flying fuck what other people think about them.
Only then will it just not matter what other people say, and they will either stop saying stuff, or just be ignored.
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Sorry I but I still think they should care enough to wear deodorant.
Really? (Score:1)
encourage 'greater compassion and empathy on the internet'
Why am I envisioning King Canute commanding the tide?
"platform for users to express themselves freely" (Score:3, Informative)
Translation: Complete freedom to agree with the left just as much as you like.
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Translation: Complete freedom to agree with the left just as much as you like.
Yeah there's definitely a bias. Unfortunately that means for a lot of users will not be using twitter much which seems to be the plan. It's all puppies and rainbows on Twitter
#FuckThat
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Leftist = rightist = centrist = totalitarian. That old terminology is obsolete.
In this case, you could probably substitute "establishment" or "nomenklatura" in place of "left".
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Need to stop patent / trademark trolling as well (Score:2)
Need to stop patent / trademark trolling as well
Obligatory (Score:1)
Obligatory [youtube.com]
Which part of Edit feature do they not GET? (Score:1)
Are trolls and spamsters a problem on Twitter?
Sure.
Are moronic 12 yo boys and the adult males that act like that and harass women on Twitter a problem?
Sure.
Will this work?
Nope.
Only public shaming works.
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Damn shame our justice system stopped using pillories, isn't it?
Re:Which part of Edit feature do they not GET? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why all the sexism? Are you saying that women can't possibly be the trolls? Or is it agism, that trolling people is somehow a 12 year old thing? Perhaps you should expand your horizons and realize that ANYONE can troll, including the ones making up these rules!
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Um, logic fail. If I state A means B, and you say C means B, that does not mean both are not true.
it's not my job to describe C means B. I leave that up to GG.
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So, APK, how does it feel to Troll on an article about trolling? If Slashdot worked the way that Twitter is trying to setup, you wouldn't be able to post anymore. How would that make you feel?
You are essentially giving an example of exactly what Twitter doesn't want any more of. People who post all about how awesome they are, and how terrible the other person is, just because they can't win an argument. It is like exactly what the definition of a troll is. You must live under a bridge.
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Here's an interesting twist on this discussion of censorship, trolls, SJWs et al:
http://forum.hosts-file.net/vi... [hosts-file.net]
For those who don't feel like clicking, it is a first-time poster tattling on APK to a hoster of his software about all his evil deeds here on ./ in an attempt to get his software pulled. Don't get me wrong, I think that is an entirely appropriate if not overdue or at least kind of funny response. It does however seem to smell a little SJW-y, no? Leaving the forum of free discussion and att
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The post you link to was not me. I am against censorship, even of people that I disagree with. I post in response to APK to try and help him improve himself and his product, but I would make no effort in having it removed.
I totally agree with you though that it is SJWish to try and censor him through making Steve aware of how bad APK makes him look by being associated with the trolling campaign that APK put me through previously.
I also think it is kind of funny that that post got APK to admit that he was
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1. I don't advertise anything, I however am very vocal about disproving your advertising.
2. What efforts? I never did anything to try and get Dice or hpHosts to do a damn thing. You are after all replying to my post saying that it wasn't me, and giving the reason I wouldn't do such a thing.
3. If the new Slashdot owners decide to ban you, it will be because of your behavior, not because I did anything to cause it, and you can only have yourself to blame as you intentionally make efforts at avoiding the AC
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You don't get BITCHSLAPPED all the time APK?
When are you going to register an account anyways? It isn't particularly hard to do as you can see
I heard ZDNet gave your HOSTS engine 0/5 stars oooooh burn!
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Subject says it all. We all laugh at the Slashdot trolls such as APK!
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Any opinion not in the group is trolling.
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The quote was meant to be Satya Nadella about you, not you about Satya. I assume that AC meant it as a joke.
Maybe Twitter Can Hookup With Wired (Score:1)
Both Twitter and Wired seem to want to self destruct.
More power to them!
Twitter Launches Trust and Safety Council To (Score:2)
ensure that only approved trolling and bullying can be done on their web site.
If Twitter mattered, it might be disturbing. But since, if you have something you can say in 140 characters, you have nothing to say, who cares?
You always get what you deserve (Score:2)
I am continually amazed at just how bad the tech industry is at basic concepts of governance.
Hey we created this platform where everyone who wants to shout can be heard by everyone .. now what type of behaviors would one guess this would tend to reinforce? Try not to think too hard about it.
You can't police fundamentally deleterious structures away.. sure you can try.. you can always attempt to beat people into compliance but eventually the unsurprising outcome is a failed police state.
If you really want t
They failed (Score:3)
Twitter Launches Trust and Safety Council To Help Put End To Trolling
They already failed. What's next, the Orwellian Council of Freethinkers?
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/asrcasm "Sorry, your speech has been flagged for being subversive and causing dissent. For blasphemy of original thought, Citizen, you are charged with the Crime of Heresy; you have been re-assigned for Re-Indoctrination of Censorship and Sensitivity Training until you learn to express yourself in only official approved conduct that "We, the powers that be, Deem Fit." Have a nice day."
Translation: We're a bunch of wussies intolerant of other people expressing their opinion and instead want to dictate to o
So the few (trolls) get to hurt the many? (Score:3)
Internet trolls have not been able to control their urges to hurt random innocent people. Make no mistake about it. The rape and death threats, the bulling, really do hurt people.
Twitter has finally gotten enough feed back from their customer base that trolling, bulling and other forms of online harassment are unacceptable. I am please that they are trying to do something about it. They will probably make some missteps. But they will make twitter better for most people and immensely better for a few people who are the target of the attacks.
If you don't like twitter trying to mildly enforce some simple rules of social decency and common courtesy, then go find some other free service and spew your vitriol there. That way the larger community can ignore you.
I have no sympathy because my adult daughter received her first rape threat when she was 11 when she posted a comment to a gamer forum. Just call me a California liberal but social decency and common courtesy make the world a better palace to live despite what Trump spews.
RLH
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How about you ask your daughter whether she'd rather be free to express herself, or have the certainty that if she receives an inappropriate twit, that the throw-away account used to make it will be banned (and might get her own main account banned if she writes a twit that offends someone).
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No need to ask. I know that she, like 99.9% of all women would gladly put some limits on how she expresses herself if that meant reducing the vitriol and hate she gets on a frequent basis.
You are obviously a guy. Guys do not understand how women look at personal safety. A woman's personal safety is something she is aware of ALL the time. I call this a woman's safety tape. Sometimes it is in the distant background like when she is at home protected by locked doors. But during the day when she is out in
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Seriously? Women are always afraid? Of what exactly?
You do realize that men are - by a factor of 4 or 5 - more likely to be murdered than women, right?
Are you really in fear 24/7? You should probably see a psychologist.
Anita's there... (Score:5, Informative)
https://about.twitter.com/safe... [twitter.com]
Doing a quick scan, I recognized Anita Sarkeesian (search for "feminist frequency").
That's definitely a neutral unbiased third party who hasn't made controversial videos and never claimed that disagreement with her opinions were trolling and abuse.
Who fucking cares? (Score:4, Informative)
Twitter is a free service. Don't use it if you don't like their policies.
Safe zone all over again, not the same (Score:2)
Some people are too sensitive, so they want to stop other people from saying things that offend them. But instead of dealing with it themselves, they appeal to some authority to fight the “problem” on their behalf. Because not only are they super-sensitive, but they’re also LAZY.
At a university, we certainly cannot condone physical violence. And patterns of sustained harrassment are also not acceptable. However, college is a place where people need to be CHALLENGED, socially, intellect
It's fucking nothing. (Score:2)
I am also pretty sure that such announcements will be a regular occurrence for as long as they appear to have some effect on investor confidence.
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That was the Monday night meeting of the men's rights movement.
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Yes. The meeting was held in Roosh V's mom's basement. She made rice krispy squares.
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TBH, the rice krispy squares sucked.
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People familiar with Twitter might notice that, much like the plans to increase the length of a tweet to 10,000 characters, this basically removes the entire point of the service.
Twitter is, and has always been, completely pointless bullshit.
It's all part of the Silicon Valley Scam. A company that has never made a profit, loses hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and yet has a market cap of over $9 Billion.