Twitter suspends 235,000 accounts for extremism

[GMDino]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/08/18/twitter-suspends-235000-terrorism-extremism/88955432/

Quote:SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter said it has suspended 235,000 accounts for violating policies on the promotion of extremism and terrorism over the past six months, bringing the overall number of suspended accounts to 360,000 in the last year.


The company has also expanded the teams that review reports of misuse of the networking service, which had become a go-to tool for some terror and extremist groups looking to get their message out.

Twitter said daily suspensions are up more than 80% since last year and that such suspensions jump just after terrorist attacks, when presumably extremists wish to tout their success.

After the terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, the Obama administration and presidential candidates had criticized social media platforms for not doing more to police extremist groups. In February, Twitter said it had suspended 125,000 accountsconnected to the Islamic State in the past six months.

In a blog post Thursday Twitter said it is working to disrupt extremists' ability to quickly create replacement accounts by expanding the teams that review reports of behavior that violates its terms and agreements. These teams work 24 hours a day, the company said.

Separately, it rolled out new tools aimed at reducing harassment, an endemic problem that's contributed to stagnant user growth. A quality filter will allow any user to get hide tweets that appear automated. And it will let users choose to limit their notifications to only those from people they follow.

To fight terrorist groups, the company said it's been using some of its own spam-fighting tools, allowing it to reduce the amount of time these users they exist on Twitter and the number of followers they gain.
[/url]

USA TODAY

Twitter rolls out new tools to hide harassment, threats

A[url=https://cchs.gwu.edu/sites/cchs.gwu.edu/files/downloads/Berger_Occasional%20Paper.pdf] study by researchers at George Washington University in Washington D.C. earlier this year found significant reductions in the number of Twitter followers for individuals who had to continually create new Twitter accounts after being suspended.

Security analyst J. M. Berger, co-author on the paper, said he estimates the total size of ISIS's presence on Twitter is down more than 90% from 2014.

In part because of pressure from Twitter, much of the messaging and propaganda from Islamic extremists has moved from Twitter to other platforms, such as the encrypted messaging service Telegram, said Veryan Khan, editorial director with the Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium, a private firm that collects information on terrorism.

“Certainly Islamic State still uses Twitter to amplify its messaging, but it’s not their primary release point at all. Even passers-by who might be supportive of IS on Twitter are quickly re-navigated to Telegram,” she said.

Still, ISIS users are in a constant battle with Twitter and Facebook to open new accounts to replaced closed ones, because those platforms are key to reaching the broader world, said Berger.

“To win new supporters, they have to be out in the open, where their potential recruits are. So these efforts to keep them offline are very important, and ISIS social media activists have acknowledged that suspensions are hurting their efforts,” he said.

[JustWinBaby]

Good for them.

And if the company does this voluntarily, as is their right, there are gray areas of govt censorship to be concerned with.

I assume Facebook does something similar?

[Rotobeast]

Wow.... no love for Anonymous, who started the campaign and carried a large workload.


Sent from my SM-S820L using Tapatalk

[Mike M (the other one)]

I wonder if they included Milo in that number.

[Beaker]

They shouldn't be allowed to do that....it's racial profiling.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

One wonders why it took them so long considering the Brookings Institute has pointed out the rise of Islamic extremists on social media for years. I guess they were too busy with important stuff like shielding celebrities from mean tweets.

[6andcounting]

(08-20-2016, 11:37 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: One wonders why it took them so long considering the Brookings Institute has pointed out the rise of Islamic extremists on social media for years. I guess they were too busy with important stuff like shielding celebrities from mean tweets.

They have priorities. They had to ban Milo before they could worry about terrorism stuff. Terrorists can only kill you if your close enough to their bomb. A mean tweet can offend people anywhere there's wifi.

[fredtoast]

(08-20-2016, 11:37 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: One wonders why it took them so long considering the Brookings Institute has pointed out the rise of Islamic extremists on social media for years.  I guess they were too busy with important stuff like shielding celebrities from mean tweets.

Some people argued that it was better to let them keep tweeting because that was a way to track them and find their connections.

[GMDino]

(08-20-2016, 02:05 PM)6andcounting Wrote: They have priorities. They had to ban Milo before they could worry about terrorism stuff. Terrorists can only kill you if your close enough to their bomb. A mean tweet can offend people anywhere there's wifi.

Exactly!

No one was ever banned from Twitter until him!

Once they popped that cherry they figured they could go after other, less threatening types.

[treee]

Eh, it's their right as a private entity. I am however concerned in general about the future of online anonymity and the restriction of speech via the internet.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder: Look, I saw this great opportunity to corner the market in Egyptian cotton. How was I supposed to know there was going to be a glut? I've got a hundred warehouses stacked with the stuff all over the European theater. I can't get rid of a penny's worth. People eat cotton candy, don't they? Well this stuff is better - it's made out of real cotton.

Yossarian: Milo, people can't eat cotton!

I don't know why but I read "Milo" and can't help but think about Catch 22, lol.

Quote:treee
Eh, it's their right as a private entity. I am however concerned in general about the future of online anonymity and the restriction of speech via the internet.

Yeah, I wonder how Social Media sites and message boards will define "Extremism" as well. Will it be "Mob Rule" or will they have a set of guidelines? 

By "Mob Rule" I mean will they suspend or ban someone who get a lot or reports simply because those reporting do not agree with what is said.

For instance, I am considered extreme because I believe the LGBT lifestyle to be a choice and a sin. 

Disclaimer: It's only an example of what is considered "Extreme" to many, it's not posted to start an argument or whatever.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

Catch 22, such a great book.

[treee]

(08-20-2016, 02:42 PM)Nebuchadnezzar Wrote: 1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder: Look, I saw this great opportunity to corner the market in Egyptian cotton. How was I supposed to know there was going to be a glut? I've got a hundred warehouses stacked with the stuff all over the European theater. I can't get rid of a penny's worth. People eat cotton candy, don't they? Well this stuff is better - it's made out of real cotton.

Yossarian: Milo, people can't eat cotton!

I don't know why but I read "Milo" and can't help but think about Catch 22, lol.




Yeah, I wonder how Social Media sites and message boards will define "Extremism" as well. Will it be "Mob Rule" or will they have a set of guidelines? 

By "Mob Rule" I mean will they suspend or ban someone who get a lot or reports simply because those reporting do not agree with what is said.

For instance, I am considered extreme because I believe the LGBT lifestyle to be a choice and a sin. 

Disclaimer: It's only an example of what is considered "Extreme" to many, it's not posted to start an argument or whatever.

Though I disagree with your belief, I agree that the "mob rule" mentality can be dangerous and that the drowning out or removal of opinions that dissent from the majority is something that is a very real issue.

[*PhilHos*]

(08-20-2016, 02:42 PM)Nebuchadnezzar Wrote: 1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder: Look, I saw this great opportunity to corner the market in Egyptian cotton. How was I supposed to know there was going to be a glut? I've got a hundred warehouses stacked with the stuff all over the European theater. I can't get rid of a penny's worth. People eat cotton candy, don't they? Well this stuff is better - it's made out of real cotton.

Yossarian: Milo, people can't eat cotton!

I don't know why but I read "Milo" and can't help but think about Catch 22, lol.




Yeah, I wonder how Social Media sites and message boards will define "Extremism" as well. Will it be "Mob Rule" or will they have a set of guidelines? 

By "Mob Rule" I mean will they suspend or ban someone who get a lot or reports simply because those reporting do not agree with what is said.

For instance, I am considered extreme because I believe the LGBT lifestyle to be a choice and a sin. 

Disclaimer: It's only an example of what is considered "Extreme" to many, it's not posted to start an argument or whatever.

Considering Milo didn't say anything worse than what Leslie Jones said to him, BUT that she was supposedly targeted by a lot of Milo's "fans", I'd say they will mainly go by Mob Rule but have their definition as well. 

[GMDino]

Guess I'll just add this here:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/19/breitbart-editor-milo-yiannopoulos-takes-100-000-for-charity-gives-0.html?via=mobile&source=twitter

Quote:Breitbart Editor Milo Yiannopoulos Takes $100,000 for Charity, Gives $0
The alt-right icon promised to give scholarships to white men, but almost a year later he still hasn’t filed with the IRS or handed out a penny.
[/url]GIDEON RESNICK

BEN COLLINS
[url=http://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/ben-collins.html]
08.19.16 1:15 AM ET
Months after he was supposed to give away more than $100,000 for college scholarships, Milo Yiannopoulos says all of the money is still sitting in his bank account.


The Breitbart editor and professional political agitator (recently banned from Twitter for harassment) came under fire this week as allegations surfaced that his charity, which would provide college scholarships exclusively to white men, has so far done no charity work with the money.
Yiannopoulos told The Daily Beast on Thursday that his lawyers are drafting paperwork that would establish it as a legal charity, but experts say that the way in which the “Yiannopoulos Privilege Grant” accepted donations was unethical and possibly illegal.

Yiannopoulos promised in January to create a college scholarship fund for “white men who wish to pursue their post-secondary education” that would be awarded in “early summer 2016.” The fund has raised somewhere between $100,000 and $250,000 to date, Yiannopoulos told The Daily Beast via email.


But the Yiannopoulos Privilege Grant has not filed any paperwork to become a charity in the United States. When asked if an application for tax-exempt status had been sent by his lawyers to the Internal Revenue Service, Yiannopoulos said, “I’ll check.”


No scholarships have been awarded and the charity’s website shows there isn’t even a way for prospective students to apply for them.

The grant program was announced with the self-congratulatory fanfare typical of many Breitbart articles written about its chief firebrand.



“In a move certain to infuriate the left, Breitbart Tech Editor Milo Yiannopoulos has created the Yiannopoulos Privilege Grant, a scholarship exclusively available to white men who wish to pursue their post-secondary education on equal footing with their female, ***** and ethnic minority classmates,” staff writer William Bigelow wrote in Breitbart, providing a wide audience for the grant’s publicity, on Jan. 21 this year.


The promise at the time was that the fund would disburse 50 grants of $2,500 to poor, young white men, a move intended to rile the left and raise the profile of the website and the so-called alt-right, a movement whose ascendancy reached new heights this week when Breitbart 

News executive Steve Bannon was made chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.


After the initial announcement in January, Yiannopoulos and several figures in the alt-right hosted a five-hour online telethon to collect money from donors. In the description for the video on Yiannopoulos’s account, there is a promise that the Privilege Grant will give 100 grants (not 50 as promised earlier) totaling $250,000 to “white men in support of their post-secondary education.”


While the group vowed that an application page would open on the website by the spring of 2016, it has yet to appear as of this writing. The grant’s website currently states that “applications are not yet open” and “please do not write to us if you are a prospective Grant applicant.”


“The initial flurry of interest in the Privilege Grant, and my skyrocketing media profile, left us behind on logistics,” Yiannopoulos said in a statement to The Daily Beast on Thursday. Yiannopoulos said he was announcing a new “administrative lead,” Colin Madine, after a series of questions about the program from The Daily Beast and on social media.

[*michaelsean*]

(08-20-2016, 08:48 PM)GMDino Wrote: Guess I'll just add this here:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/19/breitbart-editor-milo-yiannopoulos-takes-100-000-for-charity-gives-0.html?via=mobile&source=twitter

In his defense, Michael Scott did something similar.  And I quote: "I have made some empty promises in my life, but  hands down that was the most generous."