Twitter Alters Its Rules To Tackle Revenge Porn
from the erring-on-the-site-of-caution dept
Twitter has entered the battle against revenge porn, joining dozens of lawmakers, the FTC and Reddit. Twitter's CEO admitted last month that his platform "sucks at dealing with abuse." This has resulted in a policy tweak that forbids the posting of intimate photos without authorization and enables those on the receiving end of revenge porn/doxing/etc. to contact Twitter to have the tweets removed.Posting another person’s private and confidential information is a violation of the Twitter Rules.
Some examples of private and confidential information include:
- credit card information
- social security or other national identity numbers
- addresses or locations that are considered and treated as private
- non-public, personal phone numbers
- non-public, personal email addresses
- images or videos that are considered and treated as private under applicable laws
- intimate photos or videos that were taken or distributed without the subject's consent
Like any law/policy, there will be exceptions. Twitter's Rules go on to note that takedown requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis, rather than removing Tweets automatically when reported.
Keep in mind that although you may consider certain information to be private, not all postings of such information may be a violation of this policy. We may consider the context and nature of the information posted, local privacy laws, and other case-specific facts when determining if this policy has been violated. For example, if information was previously posted or displayed elsewhere on the Internet prior to being put on Twitter, it may not be a violation of this policy.Kashmir Hill, writing for Fusion, gathered more specifics from a Twitter employee:
I asked Twitter if there was a “Weiner exception.” How would this apply to a newsworthy intimate photo, such as the bulge-portrait then-Congressman Anthony Weiner accidentally tweeted of himself which went viral and eventually led to his resignation from office? The Twitter employee said there will be a “newsworthiness exception.” So if your bulge or boobs are a front page story in the newspaper, Twitter may not take them down.The policy also requires something that other sites (like Reddit) policing for revenge porn don't: the takedown request must be made by the person whose personal photos/information are being disseminated without authorization. This will hopefully deter some potential abuse.
One catch is that you have to recognize yourself in the photo and report it; Twitter doesn’t want “body police” going through tweets and reporting every pornographic image they find. If an offending tweet is removed, all native retweets will disappear too, but you’ll have to report all manual RTs and any further postings of the photo or video.Mary Anne Franks, the law prof currently engaged in crafting questionable revenge porn laws, says Twitter isn't doing enough.
Franks, for one, thinks it’s problematic that bystanders can’t report the posting of explicit images of others. “Every minute private sexual material is available increases the number of people who can view it, download it, and forward it, so even if Twitter responds quickly to complaints, it may be too late to stop the material from going viral,” she said by email.What Franks views as problematic is actually a practical safeguard. If you give removal power to everyone, it becomes a plaything for abusers.
Twitter will also try to determine whether the photos/info were actually posted without consent. However, at this point, the determination seems to largely rely on the takedown requester's assertions. The statement won't be legally binding or have any other repercussions other than possible suspension of the bogus requester's account. And there appears to be no process in place for the accused to challenge revenge porn accusations.
On the whole, it's not a terrible way to tackle revenge porn, even if it still leaves a lot to be desired. Certainly Twitter will be accused of censorship more frequently as this policy goes into effect, but as a private company, it can police user-generated content in any manner it sees fit. It's up to those using the service to decide whether they want to coexist with the rule tweaks.
Twitter notes that it's a work in progress. That, unfortunately, means the policy could possibly get much worse as Twitter "iterates" to fix "holes." As much as some people (like Franks above) would prefer Twitter to take a more proactive approach to removing revenge porn, the highly-subjective nature requires a reactive stance. Any policy change will be abused by both sides of this equation, and what's been implemented so far appears to be aimed at reducing collateral damage.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: forums, free speech, moderation, platforms, revenge porn
Companies: twitter
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Good
Nudes != pornographic
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Good
I used to visit and post on their religious forums until they said I was the bigot after calling murderers and pedophiles "not of my religion".
Reddit is a good example of what crowd justice can and will do to people when they go nuts on someone. Sure they can do some good, but more often than not, it is just a bunch of bigots calling a bunch of other bigots, bigots when the disagreements start. The posting peeps here at Techdirt are surprisingly more composed and respectable, even the ones I do not agree with.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
In other words....
In other words, "we'll just do what the hell we feel like, case-by-case."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
So what are her suggestions? Close Twitter? Because the only way to make it faster is to allow anybody to insantly delete any Twitter. I can see how this would work wonders.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I expect these ones will be the subject of most abuse. There are a lot of people out there who register websites to their home address, using their personal email addresses, but don't grasp that basic WHOIS look-ups aren't private and will freak out if you post any information from them.
Likewise there are a lot of people out there who freely use their real name online, are free with their geographic location, and freak out when someone looks them up in a phone book.
The moment these people get involved in a flame war on social media, someone is bound to make use of such information, if for no other reason than to freak these people out. I expect things will be downhill from there.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
On the other hand, it's problematic for a second reason as well: this policy means that in order for a victim to get something taken down, they're required to out themselves. What's worse? Having to say "This humiliating image of a naked person posted by their ex should not be there; please remove it." or "This humiliating image of a naked person posted by there ex is me and it should not be there; please remove it."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Demise of Twttr/Porn and Everything Else
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Political correctness
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Political correctness
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Political correctness
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Twitter Porn Revenge
[ link to this | view in chronology ]