I think it’s really sad that to get that human connection I’m going to have to deal with harassment again that damages and deadens your humanity.” "I’ve developed life-long friends on Twitter.
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“We fought very, very hard to improve the platform for women, for LGBTQ people and people of color,” said Wu, who is white and identifies as bisexual.īut Wu has no plans to leave Twitter, which she - a former candidate for Congress in Massachusetts - relies on for personal and professional relationships. She said “it terrifies me" to hear Musk talk about rolling back - if not completely wiping away - these efforts. Wu has since worked closely with Twitter’s trust and safety team to improve the platform. The harassment was part of a larger online campaign targeting female game developers that became known as GamerGate. She has received sexual-assault and death threats on Twitter since 2014, when she created a video game, Revolution 60, that featured women as protagonists. →īrianna Wu understands that arena as well as anybody. “No one feels safe in a public square where as soon as you speak, a hostile mob screaming obscenities descends upon you. Michael Kleinman, who has studied online harassment for Amnesty International, said if Twitter allows more hateful and abusive speech, marginalized people who get attacked are likely to express themselves less. That’s also true for people with disabilities, people who belong to religious minorities and members of the LGBTQ community. While polls show all types of people are susceptible to online harassment, extensive research has shown that women and people of color are far more likely to be targeted. It's not the angriest users who leave, experts say, but those who simply find no use for the platform. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, users called for a boycott, but there was no mass exodus.Įven when fed-up users do leave a social media platform, there's typically a stream of new users that come in right behind them.
When Facebook was slow to act to remove then-President Donald Trump from the platform for his role in the Jan. The uproar over Twitter echoes what other social media companies have experienced in the recent past. They may also reveal clues as to how Musk will govern the platform he hopes to own. Playful, aggressive and often juvenile, Musk’s past tweets show how he has used social media to craft his public image as a brash billionaire unafraid to offend.
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“The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all," Musk tweeted Tuesday. But in tweets to his 85 million followers since Twitter agreed Monday to his $44 billion offer to buy the company, Musk has made clear that he wants to limit content-moderation efforts. He hasn't offered many details about his plans and he didn't immediately respond to questions Wednesday. Musk has called himself a “free-speech absolutist” and believes Twitter, with more than 200 million users, will be improved by policing content less heavily. And it says it does not tolerate violent threats. The company says on its site that it does not permit targeted harassment or intimidation that could make people afraid to speak up. Twitter did not immediately respond for comment. She also reports some of the most egregious messages to Twitter, although she says the platform rarely does anything about them. To mitigate the hate, Bracey Sherman has blocked thousands of people, and she uses filters to hide some of the most extreme messages. They cannot easily get attention wherever they go, cannot leave Twitter and expect their followers to join them. “It is a montage of hate and gore and violence,” Bracey Sherman said.īut while some famous people have said they are planning to quit Twitter because of Musk, more typical users like Bracey Sherman say it's not that simple. Renee Bracey Sherman, a biracial abortion rights advocate, endures a steady stream of predictable criticism on Twitter and, occasionally, an eruption of vile tweets: messages calling for her death, photos of aborted fetuses and, recently, her likeness photo-shopped as a Nazi. That could help explain why Musk shows little concern for the underbelly of unfettered free speech, although advertisers - who account for 90% of Twitter's revenue - may not feel the same way.