>They are not directly responsible for anyone’s safety and have no reason to take down content that isn’t a direct threat or clear defamation.

From the article: the author is asking to have false, defamatory content removed.

> That’s the police or justice system’s job.

That is not an available option to the author of this article. The author is alleging that false posts are being made to lay the groundwork for the author being detained and tortured by the local justice system.

>the author is asking to have false, defamatory content removed.

The author is asking to have content that he says is false removed.

>The author is alleging that false posts are being made to lay the groundwork for the author being detained and tortured by the local justice system.

Since the tweets may be used as an excuse to have him detained, removing them will do nothing, because the government could just as easily use a different medium for the same purpose. Twitter can't prevent someone who can and wants to kidnap you from kidnapping you.

This is a good point and I think pretty well captures the "and what is Twitter supposed to do about it" angle.

To say "well, thus and such comedian is connected to the regime, that's why he has tweeted about me," well, what level of investigation is Twitter supposed to do that they a) disprove the allegations lobbed at OP (working for RAW provocateurs) and b) are able to support the allegation against the comedian's intent, and thus prove that the whole interaction is as the OP says it is?

Doing so goes beyond moderation, it goes beyond fact checking, it's nearly at the level of a personal background check or a trial.

What is being asked of Twitter seems totally outside the realm of what a social media company should be doing. It seems like OP wanted to do the right thing, to speak truth to power, but is now realizing that power was listening.

An account that publicly exposes your identity is not the right place to antagonize people with machine guns if you are not willing to take on personal risk, and that has nothing to do with moderation policies.

> Since the tweets may be used as an excuse to have him detained, removing them will do nothing, because the government could just as easily use a different medium for the same purpose.

This is nonsense. That's like letting someone use your gun to shoot someone because they'd be able to find a gun somewhere.

You're right, Twitter is a gun and tweets are bullets that kill. It's a perfectly apt analogy. /s

So basically meh, they'll torture him anyway?

If we're starting from the assumption that the government is posting false tweets that it'll use as excuses to kidnap and torture people, then I don't see what effect removing those tweets would have. A person under a real threat of violence needs real, physical protection. Anything that can be done over the Internet is insufficient.

It removes pretext used for justification of seizure and torture. Doing nothing enables the oppressor in this case.

>because the government could just as easily use a different medium for the same purpose

Nope, it isn't the police or justice system's job. That's a corporation externalizing the cost of their customer service division onto the taxpayer. Australia for example spends millions of dollars on online safety enforcement because these tech companies refuse to hire real people to remove revenge porn, impersonation, and so on.

That’s not right. The corporation’s job is to follow the law and abide to court orders. Identifying and prosecuting harassers is not “customer service”. If you take customer’s claims at face value what you get is people misusing the system to harass or silence even more people.

They should immediately act on takedown notices, for example in the case of revenge porn, but are not a private replacement for law enforcement.

The corporation's minimum burden is to follow the law and abide by court orders.

That doesn't mean a corporation should be exempt from criticism when it does the wrong thing despite fulfilling that minimum burden. Laws are inadequate, and have loopholes.

Example: A corporation could literally make it its mission to funnel all profits into buying dirty coal and burning it for no reason whatsoever. There's nothing illegal about this in many countries.

  "They should immediately act on takedown notices, for example in the case of revenge porn, but are not a private replacement for law enforcement."

They don't immediately act on such notices. That's part of the problem. They've pushed their customer service division onto the taxpayers of rich countries. And they've outright screwed the people on poor countries (Myanmar?) that have no recourse.

there is clear defamation. they are claiming that i work for intel agencies of foreign countries, which is not true.

I sympathize with your situation but it doesn’t look that simple.

How could Twitter verify that claim? Who should they trust? If someone was indeed hired by another foreign agency, they might as well deny it for that persons own safety.

The same information war could be playing out on WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook or other networks, TV, radio, newspapers.

One thing that’s not clear. The tweet you show claims you are “appointed” to a position by a human rights org in India. But your denials all say you aren’t “working” for India, and you claim here for “intel agencies”.

It would be good to be more clear on both sides. Did they appoint you or did you associate in any form? Are they an independent org or a government agency? Maybe there were multiple accusations you are rolling into one?

The International Human Rights Foundation (IHRF) seems to be an NGO based in New York, perhaps with offices in India as well, but they don't seem to be an organ of the Indian government. The author of this article quotes a tweet trying discredit the IHRF by claiming they are "registered in India" (might be true, but so what?)

Pakistan and India aren’t exactly on great terms.

Defamation is a civil matter and harassment is civil or criminal depending where you live. You'd have better luck going through the police or courts. People deal with similar harassment or misinformation campaigns all the time. It isn't Twitter's job to step in unless you can point to some clear violation of their ToS.

So Twitter provides a platform that actively facilitates defamation, then the individual and justice system has to spend lots of time and money addressing it, then Twitter gets to pocket all the ad revenue from the entire horrible ordeal? That is not fair or just, even if it is legal. And what about people in countries that don't have a functioning justice system. Twitter assists the defamer in screwing over the individual, making money in the process, and there is actually no path to justice? It's a worldview that's only possible to hold from a position of privilege.

It isn't about privilege. You know in a lot of countries it would be considered harassment/defamation by totalitarian governments to speak out against government officials. Should Twitter be on the offense and ban people speaking out against their government in such countries merely because it may be considered harassment there?

Twitter is a US company and therefore it makes sense that they would approach diplomacy from a US-worldview.

It certainly is a shame that people can makeup lies about someone and create a targeted campaign against that individual, but to people on the outside it can be difficult to play referee. Elon Musk proved you can call someone a pedo without any repercussions. This is the guy that claims he is going to take over Twitter in support of free speech. The proper venue to resolve harassment and defamation campaigns is usually the courts, unless you are getting threats and I think that is a much clearer violation of the ToS that is actionable.

> The proper venue to resolve harassment and defamation campaigns is usually the courts

This is why this perspective is so privileged. You're assuming people have access to a functioning legal system through which to correct the issue. In some rich countries, that'd cost a lot of time and money, which many people don't have. And in some poor countries without a functioning state, that's not even an option at all.

It's also an inversion of morality. You're putting 100% of the onus onto the small time individual to correct the issue, and 0% of the onus onto the large corporation that actively facilitated the harassment in the first place by engineering viral mechanics that encourage mobbing. You're also placing the cost burden onto the taxpayers by burdening the judiciary, and allowing the corporation to internalize all of the gains. The victims and society pay the cost, and the corporation makes money off the victimization that it actively facilitated. It's perverse.

> Twitter is a US company and therefore it makes sense that they would approach diplomacy from a US-worldview.

This is just a made up excuse as to why social media companies should be allowed to actively facilitate a spectrum of outcomes ranging from harassment to populism to outright genocide. I don't care if they are a US company or not. What they're doing is wrong.

> This is why this perspective is so privileged. You're assuming people have access to a functioning legal system through which to correct the issue. In some rich countries, that'd cost a lot of time and money, which many people don't have. And in some poor countries without a functioning state, that's not even an option at all.

I'm not assuming that they are. They may very well in fact not be, but they are an American-based company with a mostly functional legal system so that is the rules they go by. I for one thing it would be much more dangerous for Twitter to play judge, jury and executioner but it seems like that is almost what you're advocating for here.

> It's also an inversion of morality. You're putting 100% of the onus onto the small time individual to correct the issue, and 0% of the onus onto the large corporation that actively facilitated the harassment in the first place by engineering viral mechanics that encourage mobbing.

I don't see how Twitter encourages mobbing. They have privacy controls and you can also block people. If someone is making threats those can be reported to Twitter. Evidenced-base coordinated campaigns can be considered conspiracy and reported as such. Saying things you don't like isn't a conspiracy. Telling people where you live so they can harm you is strictly against their ToS.

Sometimes standing up for and defending yourself takes utilizing the rights given to you by law the best you can. The more you practice it the better you get at it. It isn't on a company to have to get involved in disputes on a public forum that are civil in nature unless they feel that there is a sign of physical danger to the individuals by letting it continue, and even then in there yes rightfully so there are legal remedies to report these types of violations.

> I for one thing it would be much more dangerous for Twitter to play judge, jury and executioner but it seems like that is almost what you're advocating for here.

> It isn't on a company to have to get involved in disputes on a public forum that are civil in nature unless they feel that there is a sign of physical danger to the individuals by letting it continue

Your worldview is that it's fine for corporations to create market failure[1] as long as they are not breaking the law, and then they shouldn't be expected to pay for it or make a good faith attempt to fix it.

I view this as wrong, because there are many things that cause tremendous harm despite being legal. The law has loopholes and is incomplete, the justice system has friction and access issues, and so on. The law should just be the minimum bar.

You already intuitively accept this in your personal life. If I was your neighbor, I could study all the noise ordinance laws and pollution laws, and figure out a way to make your life a living hell without technically breaking any law. You would obviously want me to not do this, despite the fact that I wasn't breaking any law.

Twitter could make many systemic reforms to make conversation healthier without any risk of a slippery slope into censorship. It's not just about putting a human in the loop in order to be "judge, jury and executioner". They could change the social and amplification mechanics. They refuse to do this on purpose. Quite the opposite. They pioneered some of the mechanics that put us into this ditch as a society.

I'd also add that it isn't just about moderation of edge cases. It's also about their neglect to enforce basic things such as preventing clear harassment or impersonation or revenge porn in a timely fashion.

You also have no answer for people with no access to the legal system aside from "tough luck". I don't accept it that someone should need tens of thousands of dollars in order to pursue defamation action in order to fix an injustice that Twitter actively encouraged.

If you truly believe that there is nothing Twitter can do, then they should at least give up more of their cash to the governments of the countries in which they operate in order to refund the taxpayer for the additional cost burden that they've imposed onto the judiciary and society at large. Otherwise it's just theft by indirection.

[1] Externalities such as facilitating populist revolutions, genocide, harassment and financial scams.

> I don't see how Twitter encourages mobbing.

Look at Amber Heard's last Tweet. As odious as her character may be, Twitter has facilitated her harassment by not giving her an option to disable quote retweets. The viral mechanics that Twitter has created has compounded that and magnified it. That's why you putting all the onus onto the victim and judiciary (taxpayer) to sort it out is an inversion of morality. The facilitator of the victimization gets to profit off it while the victim pays the cost.

Twitter has already booted former president of the USA Donald Trump due to similar conduct. As they say, with great power, comes great responsibility. Twitter have shown themselves willing to wield their power for the good of the USA, thus they should also accept their responsibility for the good of all mankind.

It could be argued that since the latter is impossible, they should abstain from the former.

Exactly. People are acting like the conversation here for the past year+ hasn't revolved around social media companies taking responsibility for the negative effects of their products

Trump was inciting civil unrest often, but I believe they set a terrible precedent by banning his account for the “I’m not attending the inauguration” tweet, based on a ton of very subtle inferences.

One cannot reasonably expect them to act as a fact checker & censor for the entire world, nor would that be desirable from a private corporation. What we need is better, regulated moderation systems, and a justice system that can keep up with the pace of social media.

The pace of social media is insurmountable. More information is generated per second on social media than any justice system could process in a year.

More information is generated in the material world per second than is generated on social media per year, but we haven't seen that as a reason to dismantle the justice system.

Nobody was advocating for dismantling the justice system.

Social media specifically lends itself to widespread and high frequency libel, fraud, threats, and other illegal acts. What "material world" information manages to do so at a similar rate?

The vast majority of social media 'libel, fraud, threats, and other illegal acts' involves an unverified identity as either the sender and/or receiver. It can all be ignored with a click of the button, or often even easier because one never sees it in the first place.

And why does it matter if the total number of messages exceeds our ability to read them? People don't sue over an aggregate of messages but for individual messages. If there are too many people suing then the courts will simply take longer and longer until an equilibrium point is reached.

What is the alternative?