Would Evan Williams Ban a Twitter User if They Called His Mother a Cunt?
Update from Ev below.
Twitter Blog: Our Terms Twitter is out with what feels like a fairly clinical and cold response to their latest PR nightmare Ariel Waldman. Ariel Waldman, who works for Pownce, has had a stalker harassing her on Twitter for the last two years and had sought relief from Twitter based on their TOS prohibiting harassment.
Seems that this is now Twitter’s official stance:
“This speaks to our larger stance that Twitter is a communication utility, not a mediator of content. For those who are interested in this debate, please note that we are engaged in editing our ToS so it more clearly states the scenarios in which we will take action.”
A couple of things.
1. If Twitter wants to be a phone company or a DSL or cable carrier and not be responsible for vile harassment that takes place in their community, then they shouldn’t have borrowed the warm and fuzzy community language from Flickr in the first place. Not only did they borrow it from Flickr they referenced Flickr in their TOS giving any reasonable user the assumption that they’d enforce harassment like Flickr does.
2. Not enforcing their TOS after the fact and instead changing it is like someone being arrested for a crime and then saying, well, we’ll just change the law after the fact to suit us. If they are going to change their TOS, fine, but kick or ban the current offending user and then change it going forward.
3. It’s interesting that it took Ariel two years of complaining before Twitter said that they’d change their TOS. Shouldn’t they have agreed to change their TOS back months ago before this became their PR nightmre.
4. Would Ev and the rest of the Twitter team kick or ban someone if they were saying the same thing about their mothers, daughters, girlfriends or wives? What if someone was posting Ev’s mother’s full name, email and other info on Twitter and calling her a cunt or a crack whore. Would it make a difference? If you are a guy, think about the woman closest to you in your life. How would you feel if they were being harassed on Twitter while Twitter had a stated policy of not allowing harassment?
Webware’s article on this today here.
You can follow the conversation on this blog post here.
Update: Evan Williams responds in the comment of this post.
“Thomas and Friends,
Yes, we probably shouldn’t have borrowed Flickr’s TOS. Like a lot of startups, we threw something up early on and didn’t give it a lot of thought. Our bad. That’s why, as the service grew, we made it a priority to create a better, clearer TOS. This is not in response to Ariel. It was being worked on before any of this happened. (And I don’t know where you got two years. Ariel says in her post she started using Twitter just over a year ago.)
Having said that, we *do* enforce the TOS we have now. We have deleted accounts in other cases. This situation has been manipulated to a story of we agreeing that there harassment and decided we are cool with that. That’s not what happened. We looked at the content Ariel was complaining about and didn’t think it crossed any line. If you’ve seen what we were sent and disagree, that’s fine. But if you haven’t seen it, how can you or anyone possibly argue about that?
You’ll note that Ariel didn’t put up any of the screenshots she took of this content. (kosmar: Have you don’t the search on Summize? Can you find something? Because I cannot.)
Lastly, we may draw the line in the sand in a different place than you. Is there a technical definition of what “harassment” is? If we have different definitions, does that mean we’re not enforcing our TOS?”
Update 2: Matthew Ingram has a good write up on the situation as well here.
Very forthright blog. Twitter is acting with intent to harm Ariel. If they think they are simply a conduit of talk, then they should immediately and constantly disabuse Twitterers of the idea that they are in a community. Twitter is now saying they are not a community, they are tubes.
how can @ev ask if someone has seen the contents in question? at least anyone who is aware of summize could easily search for the terms ariel mentioned and find those tweets at least @consession. why is he trying to fool me?
What’s more, I’ve logged into Twitter several times over the past few days, and I haven’t received any type of notice that the TOS have been changed. Don’t users have to re-agree to those when they’re changed?
Thomas and Friends,
Yes, we probably shouldn’t have borrowed Flickr’s TOS. Like a lot of startups, we threw something up early on and didn’t give it a lot of thought. Our bad. That’s why, as the service grew, we made it a priority to create a better, clearer TOS. This is not in response to Ariel. It was being worked on before any of this happened. (And I don’t know where you got two years. Ariel says in her post she started using Twitter just over a year ago.)
Having said that, we *do* enforce the TOS we have now. We have deleted accounts in other cases. This situation has been manipulated to a story of we agreeing that there harassment and decided we are cool with that. That’s not what happened. We looked at the content Ariel was complaining about and didn’t think it crossed any line. If you’ve seen what we were sent and disagree, that’s fine. But if you haven’t seen it, how can you or anyone possibly argue about that?
You’ll note that Ariel didn’t put up any of the screenshots she took of this content. (kosmar: Have you don’t the search on Summize? Can you find something? Because I cannot.)
Lastly, we may draw the line in the sand in a different place than you. Is there a technical definition of what “harassment” is? If we have different definitions, does that mean we’re not enforcing our TOS?
They probably don’t have the resources available to mediate content, hence their reluctance to do so.
The person bothering Ariel will probably just create new accounts if the current ones get banned. It will require constant upkeep to keep the guy away. They’re apparently not willing to do that.
If someone were harassing me on twitter, I would probably just stop using it. Considering I don’t really understand the point of twitter to begin with, I certainly don’t know why someone would continue using it if it was unpleasant.
Ev, thanks for responding. I appreciate your willingness to talk openly about what’s going on with this. Between the “official” Twitter blog response and your twits it was hard to really glean much on your opinion with regard to this. So what you are saying is that in your opinion based on what Ariel shared with you that it did not constitute harassment.
Let me be more direct and to the point. If what was presented to you by Ariel had instead been written about your mother or your wife Sara, would you have deleted the account in question?
Thomas have you seen the conversation in question? We need that to judge here, and Ariel needs to post it. I’ve been supportive of Ariel’s complaint but I’m concerned that Ariel herself allows the word at Pownce. Why is it OK at Pownce and not OK at Twitter?
http://joeduck.com/2008/05/23/online-abuse-part-ii-pownce-tos-violations/
@ev i did search on summize and i found the tweets ariel mentioned on her initial post at least over on @confession. (sure @confession was a tool to tweet anonymously, so no user could be kicked directly there … i ran myself the different account @confessed attached to twittermail for some weeks and finally removed the account being afraid of similar things happening)
in case you didnt see these tweets here is one of them in the google cache with a timestamp of april 13:
http://twurl.nl/zkvydl
is this something you refer in http://twitter.com/ev/statuses/817807577 or did i get you wrong there?
and yes, copying tos is a bad idea. i clearly understand why this happens all the time in startups, what does not make it better practice.
your point of being at tube and not the contentprovider is also understandable, yet good community mgmt is different to me. and a community is what twitter is. face it.
Joseph, I don’t think I have an issue with the word cunt and I don’t think that this word should be banned from a social network that prohibits harassment.
I have not seen all of the various conversations in question. I’d be happy to look at those if either Ev or Ariel wanted to share them privately or make them public.
What I hear from Ariel’s take though is that
1. she suffered “multiple accounts of harassment,” in June 2007 and contacted Twitter about it and received minor action.
2. the “harassment continued throughout the course of 2007.”
3. that similar harassment was taking place at Flickr where action was taken by Flickr deleting 3 accounts (I find it interesting that they would consider it harassment while Twitter who borrowed their language would not).
4. More harassment took place in March of 2008, including tweets calling her a cunt. Twitter was contacted again.
5. In April Twitter was contacted again with more examples of harassment including tweets calling her a crack whore and referencing lesbian porn that included her name and email address.
Now if any of the above is not true. I’m happy to hear about it. But I find it difficult not to interpret the facts as outlined on Ariel’s blog as harassment. Is Ariel lying about any of this? Maybe. If so then Ev or anyone at Twitter certainly should be given an opportunity to explain where Ariel is lying or where her facts are wrong.
Thomas,
Add the following to the mix for consideration: The very last comment on her original blog entry on this is by her Mom (she later confirms it’s her) and refers to a stalking incident that started 3 years ago in her home town back then.
That’s certainly different than a threat from an anonymous Internet stalker, and would explain why she felt so strognly about the matter.
If this person feels that they are being harassed, then they should have a Judge issue a restraining order.
Do we really want all of these corporations themselves deciding that does and does not constitute harassment?