Twitter has long been lax in terms of appropriate online behaviour. CEO Dick Costolo even admitted as much last year. So the social media site finally took heed, and tightened its code-of-conduct belt.
Primarily, the revised 'rules' concern abusive or hateful behaviour. Basically, this involves attacking or threatening people "on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease.”
Also addressed is terrorism, which wasn't hitherto included in the scope of inciting violence and which will go some way to tracking down terrorist cells.
We claim to value above all freedom, and yet unfortunately that translated as the freedom to hate or spew vitriol online to your heart's content.
Anyone who has set foot - or finger, rather - into the Twittersphere has probably been the target of abuse in one form or another. Particularly susceptible, claims this article, are "minorities, religious groups, journalists, people who express political viewpoints, celebrities, gay people, homophobic people, elderly people." Yup, pretty much everybody.
As a writer in the public eye, I get my fair share of trolls. Many of these people hide behind their twitter handles and instead of attacking ideas and opinions, direct their enmity at persons they don't personally know.
It's been the most unfortunate occupational hazard I've known. While many readers are respectful and intelligent, others are simply belligerent, rarely reading beyond a headline and therefore drawing ignorant, ill-formed conclusions about a piece they've largely misunderstood.
“We’re going to start kicking these people off right and left and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears them," wrote Costolo in his memo. "Everybody on the leadership team knows this is vital.”
Hopefully Twitter's new rules will make people think twice before blindly lashing out from a place of pig-shit ignorance. A good place to start may be @realDonaldTrump...
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