Twitter Enforces ToS, Cares About Users
A discussion fueled by hearsay heated up this week when a popular blogger accused us of refusing to enforce our Terms of Service. The accusation is damaging to our reputation and the additional insinuation that we don't care about our users is offensive to us personally.
Twitter is 16 employees made up of systems engineers and operators, product designers, and support specialists. We do not employ public relations professionals. This accusation caught us by surprise, putting us on the defensive in the middle of what continues to be a very busy work week.
What Really Happened?
A while back, this person submitted 13 individual tweets to our support staff that she considered to be harassment and wanted us to delete the owner's account. It should be noted that the woman who wrote these tweets deleted the account on her own in March.
Upon receiving the complaint, Twitter employees carefully reviewed the 13 alleged offending tweets in order to determine if they violated our Terms of Service. Of the 13 tweets, only one mentioned the blogger by name and it called her this word: "experienced."
There was one post that contained a particularly unpleasant word but it did not identify a specific name. None of the tweets contained threats, physical or otherwise. Some of them may have been insults about personality or physical attributes but again, they did not identify anyone specifically.
During the course of this public discussion it has come to light that these two women have a history of unpleasant interaction over the Internet. While the complainant may indeed feel harassed she is wrong to accuse Twitter of negligence. We review every complaint and we have on occasion deleted accounts for code of conduct violations. In this case, we saw no violation.
Note that this same popular blogger issued another complaint more recently about a different account which was some sort of "confession" mashup that allowed multiple people to post to one Twitter account. Our support staff investigated as soon as we received the complaint but the account had already been deleted by it's creator. This complaint was separate from the original complaint and added confusion. This was not the account that inspired the accusation.
Keeping our Terms of Service Current
The Twitter Terms of Service document is two years old and in need of updating. We were engaged in a review prior to this incident and there is no connection. There are issues of liability, indemnity, and various legalese that need to be brought up to speed with the current state of Twitter, Inc. Additionally, we plan to look very closely at the code of conduct section which refers broadly to "harassment." We think we can make this more specific to avoid future confusion.
In the meantime, we stand behind our current Terms, we care about users, and we take every complaint seriously.
Twitter is 16 employees made up of systems engineers and operators, product designers, and support specialists. We do not employ public relations professionals. This accusation caught us by surprise, putting us on the defensive in the middle of what continues to be a very busy work week.
What Really Happened?
A while back, this person submitted 13 individual tweets to our support staff that she considered to be harassment and wanted us to delete the owner's account. It should be noted that the woman who wrote these tweets deleted the account on her own in March.
Upon receiving the complaint, Twitter employees carefully reviewed the 13 alleged offending tweets in order to determine if they violated our Terms of Service. Of the 13 tweets, only one mentioned the blogger by name and it called her this word: "experienced."
There was one post that contained a particularly unpleasant word but it did not identify a specific name. None of the tweets contained threats, physical or otherwise. Some of them may have been insults about personality or physical attributes but again, they did not identify anyone specifically.
During the course of this public discussion it has come to light that these two women have a history of unpleasant interaction over the Internet. While the complainant may indeed feel harassed she is wrong to accuse Twitter of negligence. We review every complaint and we have on occasion deleted accounts for code of conduct violations. In this case, we saw no violation.
Note that this same popular blogger issued another complaint more recently about a different account which was some sort of "confession" mashup that allowed multiple people to post to one Twitter account. Our support staff investigated as soon as we received the complaint but the account had already been deleted by it's creator. This complaint was separate from the original complaint and added confusion. This was not the account that inspired the accusation.
Keeping our Terms of Service Current
The Twitter Terms of Service document is two years old and in need of updating. We were engaged in a review prior to this incident and there is no connection. There are issues of liability, indemnity, and various legalese that need to be brought up to speed with the current state of Twitter, Inc. Additionally, we plan to look very closely at the code of conduct section which refers broadly to "harassment." We think we can make this more specific to avoid future confusion.
In the meantime, we stand behind our current Terms, we care about users, and we take every complaint seriously.
52 Comments:
Let me guess: One woman was Marianne Luban and the other was Kathy Griffis. Those two have been going at it forever.
Biz,
Take a look at this Summize search of past tweets from the 'confession' account:
http://summize.com/search?q=from%3Aconfession+ariel
Not only one tweet contains Ariel Waldman's name, but several tweets. I realize most of these have been deleted, but you mentioned only one tweet could have been taken offensively, and only that tweet contained her full name. I also realize that confession has shut down their account, on their own, because of this abuse.
The confession account came later and was a separate complaint. It did not inspire the original accusation and we did not get a chance to investigate as it was deleted too quickly by the owner. I've updated the post here to reflect that fact. Thanks.
hopefully everyone can play nice..perhaps a time out corner would work. it's the internet and it has many people with "opinions". i just signed up today for this site and something i have practiced in the past is just to not read things i find offensive and ignore them. though i have never been targeted on a personal level and if i was, i would not give an audience to such a thing and go about my merry way. it would seem you did your best to fix a situation and it's literally impossible to please everyone. doing your best is all you can do. thank you.
We play in Twitter's yard, and as such they make the rules. If they don't want to police it from people being rude to one another, that is their right. They reserve the right to remove posts and block accounts, but it is ultimately up to them to decide when to do it. If you don't like it, I'm sure that Disney has a service for you.
The problem with Benevolent Dictatorships is that they often forget to be benevolent, or that their definition is different than those they rule over.
This is a lot of hub-bub over nothing. It's a personal feud, and Twitter's been dragged into it.
Never underestimate the power of the BLOCK button.
It can't be emphasized enough - if you're being stalked - even on the internet - go to the police. If the issue truly rises to the level of physical threats and fear, that's the best course of action.
And if you read Gavin DeBecker's "The Gift of Fear" you'll note that not engaging the person is another important course of action. The harasser lives for interaction, and if you don't do it, they can't get their fix.
Now if people are just calling you names? I recommend thicker skin. It's not terribly expensive and is healthy for everyone.
Great response, Biz. Sorry that you guys had to take time away to give this issue so much attention.
The next time something similar happens, we all need to take a step back and a deep breath. Deleting someone's account does nothing to stop them from creating 100 more, and there's no feasible technology in existence to prevent this from happening (unless Twitter was to personally check the identity of every signup, which is an unreasonable expectation).
Creating a similar firestorm only gives the "attacker" more attention, which will fuel their actions. If Ariel was concerned about how a single tweet could affect her Google search rankings, she should have been a lot more concerned about how her name is now exclusively associated with this fiasco. Being on record as failing to see this (obvious) outcome has likely entirely ruined any chance she has at future employment in the social media space, which is a shame.
Twitter is a wonderfully self-policing community. You don't like what someone says, you don't have to follow them, or better yet, you can block them. Short of a suicidal or homicidal threat, Twitter getting involved as a policing agent would only make a situation worse.
I beg for clarification:
"In the meantime, we stand behind our current Terms, we care about users, and we take every complaint seriously."
I do not understand how a company says it stands behind their Terms, cares about users and still the only response (see getsatisfaction thread) is that they are going to change their TOS to reflect the new "conditions".
"A while back, this person submitted 13 individual tweets to our support staff that she considered to be harassment and wanted us to delete the owner's account. It should be noted that the woman who wrote these tweets deleted the account on her own in March.
Upon receiving the complaint, Twitter employees carefully reviewed the 13 alleged offending tweets in order to determine if they violated our Terms of Service. Of the 13 tweets, only one mentioned the blogger by name and it called her this word: "experienced."
There was one post that contained a particularly unpleasant word but it did not identify a specific name. None of the tweets contained threats, physical or otherwise. Some of them may have been insults about personality or physical attributes but again, they did not identify anyone specifically."
Then if none of the tweets were a violation of your TOS (which you seem to be implying), then why not share them with the community? Seems that would be the quickest way to put this to bed.
Right now all we have is he said/she said.
And just curious, but why refuse to mention the 'popular blogger' by name? You are talking about Ariel, correct?
ups,
Our response was robust. We reviewed each of the 13 individual tweets and held correspondence with the complainant. The content in question was not in violation of our Terms therefore we did not delete the account.
We began the process of reviewing our entire ToS (code of conduct section included) weeks ago at the urging of advisors as it is two years old and in need of update. This incident did not inspire us to change the ToS.
The internet is great in a lot of ways. I'm an enthusiastic user of the internet, and every day I spend an hour or two surfing around.
But there are some real downsides to this technological wonder, and this catfight is a good example of it. Because of the anonymity of the internet, people frequently feel emboldened to do and say things they wouldn't say face-to-face. The result is a lot of trash talking and flame wars.
ToS/AUP is what keeps us from being punished over the jelly donut. Right on Biz.
ups: Are you seriously saying that the best way to stop this abuse of Ariel is to repost the abusive tweets on an extremely public official blog?
If you decide to add a TOS staff, there are a number of us out here who've been doing that job at other sites for years. Less training required means faster implementation.
Or should that be when you decide...
Its not easy building something that everyone wants to ride is it? You need to hold a contest, can you make me scale? The hunt for your new CIO. Serious, if that guy/gal could make this scale, should be intelligent enough to be CIO.
Sorry, I meant Mack, not ups.
Who wrote this Blogger thing anyway...
I completely agree with 'anonymous'. I am glad everyone is so involved and passionate about issues that occur in the ethers of internet land, and willing to fling themselves whole heartedly behind a cause and/or support someone in need... but when it gets too emboldened to the point of throwing stones and flame wars, I feel like those people are forgetting there are real people behind the doors of Twitter HQ. As Biz wrote (on Satisfaction), Twitter is a new medium & I completely empathize that they are having to speak to this issue and learn from it so publicly.
You have my support, Obvious! xo
I want to compliment the Twitter staff for a number of things. First, I am amazed you keep this thing running as well as you do with such a small staff. No small feat! Second, I appreciate your openness about the matter and willingness to re-examine the TOU. Finally, I want to thank you for a service that has reconnected me to people long lost and new and also become an integral part of my business communication in a Web 2.0 world.
I just wanted to say thank you for giving the world Twitter. It has opened new horizons for me and helped me meet a lot of great people who are interested in the same things I am. It has helped me grow professionally more than attending the same old things at my own workplace. During my travels, I have had immediate help and support for finding out things to see and do. I can't say enough good things about twitter and just wanted you to know how much I appreciate y'all!
Thanks for not being in the business of censorship and mediation, and on behalf of the rest of, sorry for taking you away from your week-o-chaos.
@malbiniak
Biz, in Ariel's post she says:
"Unfortunately, in 2008 it escalated to a level that could no longer be ignored. Tweets were being fired off directly calling me a “cunt” amongst other harassing language. On March 14, I wrote to Twitter, giving the example URLs of abuse and stated to them clearly:"
You state that only one of the tweets mentioned her by name and that this tweet merely called her "experienced".
Ariel says she was called a cunt by this account by name while your response would indicate that she was not.
So either you or she is lying. Am I correct in this? Or is there another explanation? Was the word cunt used in the twits that she supplied to you?
Caution, dataminers at work...
Crank, whirr, kerplunk
Here are the offending posts you requested:
http://summize.com/search?q=Ariel+Waldman+confession
Thank you using summize, the twitter tar pit.
Hey twitter, I don't care what you all opt to do as a result of this - its your company and I'll still more than likely be on twitter either way. I have but two things to tell you- first, don't fear courts. They are generally expensive and such, but you have no reason to fear a lawsuit over something in your TOS and you could probably even get your attorney's fees back if it went to a courtroom. Secondly, don't worry too much about how up in arms everyone is about this right now. Ariel isn't fanning flames or hate-mongering against twitter, and the issue is over with. Let's all calm down a bit; this is a part of twitter's growing process as a company - unfortunately, it's being shared more widely than may be necessary or they would like. We've all learned something here, and let's not get lost in it and lose sight of the bigger goal. Yes, this happened, yes it was handled, and yes, there were mistakes made. Everyone makes mistakes, and in this case they weren't all twitter's. I wholly agree that twitter is not responsible for two individuals who dislike each other and that they're in a bit of a tight spot because of their TOS and its current wording. Twitter was very much within the bounds of the law and their obligation to their users (as stated in the TOS) with regards to what occurred. Nothing too horrific has happened here, nor anything too earth-shatteringly shocking. Let's all agree to learn, revise the TOS, and move on.
Twitter Fan says hope today's a good day over there ;-)
You guys are getting hit hard lately. A lot of people are joking about the downtime, but they come back. I'll keep coming back, especially after seeing how you handled this situation. Thank you for being open.
I'm thinking that if anything, the hardest thing to do is come up with a ToS which benefits you guys (Twitter) and us (the Twitaholics). ToS policies can't be fair to everyone, and we can't stop things such as this from occuring. Let's do everyone a favor and not make a mountain out of a molehill with this.
Twitter guys had every reason to be cautious here. Let's remember - AOL got sued and lost multiple cases for policing their system and creating an environment that was considered "safe" by users.. once you cross that threshold, you're responsible for all activity (which Sucks).
Naive and dangerous.
You may be a small team, but that doesn't remove your obligation to enforce your own terms of service or to educate yourself about what they mean.
This post is defensive and ill-informed on the subject of what constitutes harassment. Harassing tweets do not necessarily need to specifically name the individual - to be considered harassing, they simply need to create a hostile environment. If the tweets were widely understood to be able a particular person by her/him and others, then that's that.
Just because they weren't necessarily specifically @harrassed person YOU SUCK! or something, doesn't mean that it wasn't harassing behaviour that broke your ToS. If there's a history of harassment elsewhere, that builds up the case, it doesn't undermine it - as seems to be your implication.
Anyway, it's impossible for an outsider to know what's happened in this particular case, I'm just very concerned about the tone, attitude and perspective of your post.
thomas hawk,
That was the particularly unpleasant word I referenced when I wrote, "There was one post that contained a particularly unpleasant word but it did not identify a specific name."
So if there are complaints you won't really do something about it but you still care to convince me so I won't just walk away from Twitter.
I get it - you're a small company that is grew faster than you though possible. Now we have TOS issues and a platform that simply doesn't work. It was a lack of poor planning to not have a back up and now with the TOS issue, a lack of experience with actual entities who've dealt with this.
We're coming up to Memorial Day and I can't keep up with my friends because you're still broken. The solution (as frankly I am sick of hearing) isn't to put myself on a higher text package plan, but to find something that works.
It would be nice to not have to pay attention to the man behind the curtain if the curtain didn't have so many holes.
Folks, I may have to reject comments referencing the confession account. That account was deleted and it was not the account that inspired the accusation.
I was impressed by your handling of this issue enough to sign up for Twitter. Too many organizations would have taken the easy way out and just given into the mob rather than doing the right thing.
I recently contacted Twitter regarding a TOS violation and I have to say that I think Twitter did a pretty darn good job reviewing the information and handling the situation.
Now, to all the folks stating just use block, that's a nice idea in theory but blocking someone doesn't deal with the issue of their posts violating the TOS. If someone is posting libelous, defamatory, threating, or harassing statements - ignoring them doesn't make the statements go away. Additionally, it doesn't stop them from coming up in google searches, friendfeed and anywhere else the person is "feeding" their twitter account to. Block is great but it doesn't resolve the issue.
I would love to see many more options available to users like the ability to flag a users account for review and perhaps so many flags would suspend the account until the user called in to have the account reactivated.
Of course, this would mean that Twitter would have to have the staff to look into and handle these accounts and calls so that may be something to aim for in the future.
Right now, I think Twitter is doing the best they can with the resources they have and WE as users have to be responsible and responsive and come together as a community when we see violations until Twitter has the manpower to handle these issues as other services do.
Just my experience and my opinion.
@MailOurMilitary
I ventured into using Twitter for the first time this weekend. I know I'll never get as much from it as younger, long-time users but it did what I wanted it to do. Thanks for a nice tool.
People, people... As ustice says. There is a ToS we all are "suposed to read" before using a determined service. We should notice that the rules the service implements are used in a "general way" to try and keep the place in order. But it is IMPOSSIBLE to be taking care of everyone around. I myself have been attacked a lot in my blogger account and here on twitter and... Do you see me suing Twitter or anyone in particular? No! Cause it makes no sense. I accepted the rules and I wanted to play. So the best I can do is to ignore the person who did that... And go on... However, the people who DOES KNOW YOU will know that whatever is said on the internet... Is just worth nothing compared to WHO YOU REALLY ARE! As I read here, Don't under estimate the power of the BLOCK button! Biz, Good Luck! For those bugging around internet and doing theese kind of silliness: Grow up... The time has come xD!
How the hell did people like this survive high school? If I had a dollar for every time an insult was hurled at me I wouldn't have to work!
Its not like the internet has the reputation of being the friendliest place. If you want to be such a popular blogger, you're going to get trolls and bitches following you. This is no fault of the services they choose to use.
These people need to grow up. Period.
I must confess that when I read Arial's post I jumped straight in and showed my support for her. Now that I've read Twitter's account of the issue and seen 'the other side to this story'. My lesson: never judge until you've hear both sides of the story (pardon the cliches).
Twitter offers a great service which I use daily and will continue to do so and I feel deserve commendation.
If you accept the ToS then live by the conditions. I echo the many previous posts - use the 'BLOCK'!
Oh my God :(
Twitter: you totaly ROCK! I was receiving MarsPhoenix events twitters on my mobile BEFORE I could see them at NasaTV !
Biz,
I think you've folks done what you were supposed to do and not everyone is happy that you don't join in the mob with torches and pitchforks. If we the end user can't manage ourselves on places we choose to subscribe to on the Internet, then how in the world can we manage ourselves in public?
I don't pay you any money and you haven't asked for any; and yet, you still offer an incredible service.
Peace,
Chris
Well done.
I think at some point you guys are still going to need a community evangelist/public interface of sorts - but for now? Right on target Biz.
It's been interesting to see the number of people shouting from the tops of their internet lungs about your "TOS violations" without having the evidence to go on.
Was the woman in question harassing Ariel? I'm fairly certain she was... but she managed to do so in a way that didn't actually cross your lines.
The problem lies with the other person, not the service that s/he uses to abuse their victim.
It's nice to see that Twitter didn't just bow to the weight of 'bad word of mouth' and concede the point. Hang in there guys.
Less time moderating bitchy women on the Internet, more time fixing the multiple breakages, please. Surely one's a bit more productive than the other, and how much work could you have gotten done on said breakages during the time it took you to write up this piece of drama?
I've been using Twitter for a week. First I abandoned your official Facebook app for TwitterSync, and then you did something you called "too much jabber" which conveniently broke TwitterSync...right around the time we Facebook users started jumping ship to the unofficial app and said so. Overloaded with comments on this blog, you then told us that a server in San Francisco broke. Twitter, LiveJournal has better turnaround time than this, and they have an exponentially higher load as well as a paying userbase who gets to bitch and can't be shut up with "well, it's free!" What are your people in San Fran doing? You created a service based on instant status updates, yet give us no similar satisfaction when it breaks in very mysterious, coincidental ways.
What gives? You're really not making a good impression on me, nor on many others, it looks like. If you don't start talking, *honestly*, you may find your userbase depleted. Then again, you may not. But I've lived without Twitter this long, and I've only had it for one long, trouble-filled week. Why should I continue to bother? Please advise.
Easy fix: if the complainant had not been following the stalker, than this would not have been an issue to begin with. The most effective way to overcome your opponent is to not acknowledge that they exist.
Tell us you'll change your TOS so your no longer responsible for such things and calling a well known blogger a lier are bad things in my book.
unfortunately, I see both sides. I know nothing about this situation, but I do know about internet bullying and stalking, as it's happened to me once in the past. Constant harrassment can lead to people leaving a service. Hence why I am posting anonymously - as to not draw attention to myself. (my situation didn't happen on Twitter, though) However, I will say my experience went well beyond the posts I saw. But this is how it started, pretty much. And the only way I could stop it was quit the service, which the person targeted here obviously did, too.
I also see it as poor form to post what amounts to a private dispute on a public blog. This has amounted in giving undue attention to the dispute and could exacerbate further ones, in an attempt to well, get attention on this blog.
These things are all about attention. Unfortunately, the Internet, especially social networking apps - often attract the worst sorts, people looking for 24/7 attention and any attention, good or bad, is currency. Don't buy into that, Twitter!
However, on the other hand - it's a really hard job for you guys at Twitter. It is your job to stop something when it gets out of hand, though, and refer it to the authorities if it seems to be headed to dangerous water. You don't want to be the ones dealing with the RL shooting in the parking lot by an actual stalker and your site getting the media blame, trust me on that!
Anyway, now taking off my devil's advocate... I can't really say much about this particular situation, probably Twitter did the right thing - but I do disagree with it being on the blog and certainly there are situations that happen which do require intervention - I hope this situation won't color future ones where it might really involve someone's life on the line. :)
Twitter could have handled this a heck of a lot better. This response has probably just inflamed the situation rather than resolved it. This is the danger when companies have developers who are responsible for the product, also 100% in charge of communications; the two don't always mesh. See my post here: Twitter TOSgate: Sometimes, PR is a good thing.
You people need to stop hiding behind your lawyers and own up to what you did, well, really, didn't, do.
The internet is great in a lot of ways. I'm an enthusiastic user of the internet, and every day I spend an hour or two surfing around.
But there are some real downsides to this technological wonder, and this catfight is a good example of it. Because of the anonymity of the internet, people frequently feel emboldened to do and say things they wouldn't say face-to-face. The result is a lot of trash talking and flame wars.
To thomas hawk. I don't think its an either or option where Twitter is lying on one end and Ariel on the other. Twitter mention's the submission of 13 tweets. That could be 13 out of 13 or 13 out of 100. But nevertheless ONLY 13 were submitted for review.
Also, Twitter mentions that many of the tweets didn't directly identify Ariel. Well, if you and I are having a conversation. Maybe the first time I @reply you, but the other posts aren't tied to your name. But you recognize that they are directed at you (hopefully).
Of course, the opposite can happen. You could assume they were directed at you; but I could have sent a few to someone else around the same time. Either way, unless I directly mention your name in the offensive tweet; it's hard t say its directed at you.
Anyway, submitting 13 tweets probably isn't enough to prove a history of harassment; especially to anyone unfamiliar with the issue. Of course, people familiar with the issue may recognize harassment with one tweet.
Someone mentioned, if you go into a train station, and scream out "Blank is a c#nt" or some other offensive statement, if the person isn't there, is it still harassment. And frankly, I'm of the ilk who would say no it isn't. Not unless it included first and last name and possible geographical detail (address, street, or neighborhood). That's just me.
If you go to someone's work or home and are insulting or try to intimidate then that's harassment. Making a random pissed statement in public without providing people the method to connect it back to the victim is just another case of the crazy person at the train station today.
My thoughts on the issue; don't really address if its harassment or not. Obviously, from Ariel's point of view it is. My thoughts are: (1) if you block a person from your stream, then you are not going to see they're comments about you; and (2) unless they @reply them or mention your name directly, it becomes hard to state this person just called me 'bad term'.
The first line of defense is Twitter's block feature. If I'm offended, disgusted, or whatever by someone's post, I don't follow or unfollow; and if they are particularly irritating to me, I block (mostly spammers, but still...). This means the only way I hear conversation from said person is via friends or if I seek it out. And if I seek it out, using Summize, the person needs to @replies me or mention my name.
Block people block. Someone can't litter your feed, unless you let them. That's not to say that can't target your good name. But that's what Summize can be used for, and generally requires them to state your name. Which makes the cases much easier to prove.
OH eff off, this isn't high school. Grow UP!!
"Twitter is a wonderfully self-policing community. You don't like what someone says, you don't have to follow them, or better yet, you can block them"
"..Less time moderating *itchy women on the Internet..."
HEAR HEAR!!
Folks, this post has been up for about three days and the spammers are moving in. Hopefully everyone who wanted to comment has done so. I'm going to turn off comments so I don't have to moderate spam. Thanks for all the feedback.
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