<story><title>A calendar of upcoming changes to the Twitter Rules</title><url>https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/company/2017/safetycalendar.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>adamrezich</author><text>Hopefully Twitter actually defines a lot of these nebulous and highly-subjective terms going forward.&lt;p&gt;What is the exact definition of a &amp;quot;violent group&amp;quot;?&lt;p&gt;What constitutes &amp;quot;hateful imagery&amp;quot;?&lt;p&gt;Where can I find their database of &amp;quot;hate symbols&amp;quot;?&lt;p&gt;What constitutes a &amp;quot;hateful display name&amp;quot;?&lt;p&gt;What constitutes &amp;quot;condoning and glorifying violence&amp;quot;? (I would argue that many if not most video games at least glorify violence, from my perspective!)&lt;p&gt;In our modern Internet-connected society, the meanings of terms and symbols are subject to rapid and unexpected change. The ADL lists &amp;quot;Pepe the Frog&amp;quot; as a &amp;quot;hate symbol&amp;quot;[0], and while it&amp;#x27;s basically undeniable that many people use the symbol in an intentionally inflammatory or hateful context, I&amp;#x27;m left completely at a loss as to whether or not posting an image of Pepe—or any cartoon frog for that matter—will get me suspended. (I have no reason to do so of course; this is entirely hypothetical.)&lt;p&gt;From the perspective of many people, especially those who use Twitter, certain political figures are considered to be inherently &amp;quot;hateful&amp;quot;, and showing support for them is considered to be an act of hate.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s a lot of talk about lines being drawn here but no talk of where exactly they will be drawn.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.adl.org&amp;#x2F;education&amp;#x2F;references&amp;#x2F;hate-symbols&amp;#x2F;pepe-the-frog&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.adl.org&amp;#x2F;education&amp;#x2F;references&amp;#x2F;hate-symbols&amp;#x2F;pepe-t...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jordigh</author><text>&amp;gt; Hopefully Twitter actually defines a lot of these nebulous and highly-subjective terms going forward.&lt;p&gt;There is a certain &amp;quot;jurisprudence&amp;quot; to this sort of thing. All laws are written ambiguously; that doesn&amp;#x27;t mean it&amp;#x27;s impossible to enforce them or that the laws are useless. Human interaction shouldn&amp;#x27;t be codified into computer code and in most cases can&amp;#x27;t be.&lt;p&gt;Whatever Twitter decides those things are, someone will be upset about it, and someone will contest the definition. That&amp;#x27;s fine. We already have this kind of thing in HN and Reddit and anywhere else on the internet where any kind of moderation happens. We had it in Usenet and in web forums.&lt;p&gt;The whole idea that ambiguity in the laws means that we should have absolute &amp;quot;free speech&amp;quot; including the demonstrably toxic and hateful place that Twitter has become is bonkers. Sure, you&amp;#x27;ll alienate some people who don&amp;#x27;t like your definitions. But that&amp;#x27;s kind of the point. To foster the community you want to have.</text></comment>
<story><title>A calendar of upcoming changes to the Twitter Rules</title><url>https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/company/2017/safetycalendar.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>adamrezich</author><text>Hopefully Twitter actually defines a lot of these nebulous and highly-subjective terms going forward.&lt;p&gt;What is the exact definition of a &amp;quot;violent group&amp;quot;?&lt;p&gt;What constitutes &amp;quot;hateful imagery&amp;quot;?&lt;p&gt;Where can I find their database of &amp;quot;hate symbols&amp;quot;?&lt;p&gt;What constitutes a &amp;quot;hateful display name&amp;quot;?&lt;p&gt;What constitutes &amp;quot;condoning and glorifying violence&amp;quot;? (I would argue that many if not most video games at least glorify violence, from my perspective!)&lt;p&gt;In our modern Internet-connected society, the meanings of terms and symbols are subject to rapid and unexpected change. The ADL lists &amp;quot;Pepe the Frog&amp;quot; as a &amp;quot;hate symbol&amp;quot;[0], and while it&amp;#x27;s basically undeniable that many people use the symbol in an intentionally inflammatory or hateful context, I&amp;#x27;m left completely at a loss as to whether or not posting an image of Pepe—or any cartoon frog for that matter—will get me suspended. (I have no reason to do so of course; this is entirely hypothetical.)&lt;p&gt;From the perspective of many people, especially those who use Twitter, certain political figures are considered to be inherently &amp;quot;hateful&amp;quot;, and showing support for them is considered to be an act of hate.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s a lot of talk about lines being drawn here but no talk of where exactly they will be drawn.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.adl.org&amp;#x2F;education&amp;#x2F;references&amp;#x2F;hate-symbols&amp;#x2F;pepe-the-frog&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.adl.org&amp;#x2F;education&amp;#x2F;references&amp;#x2F;hate-symbols&amp;#x2F;pepe-t...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>QAPereo</author><text>There seems to be an assumption here and elsewhere, that Twitter or any such company actually has the answers to these questions. I really doubt that they do, and they announce these measures periodically for PR, to crack down on something, or just to reiterate what&amp;#x27;s always been true: they own their platform and everything on it.&lt;p&gt;These highly centralized, privatized means of communication have gone from amusing, to sickening.</text></comment>