Twitter UK Boosts Anti-Abuse Tools After Threats Against Women

[theHandpuppet]

Source: New York Times

Twitter UK Boosts Anti-Abuse Tools After Threats Against Women
By REUTERS
Published: August 3, 2013 at 9:51 AM ET

LONDON — The British arm of Twitter apologized on Saturday to a group of high-profile women who have been threatened with death and rape on the micro-blogging site, and announced measures to make it easier for users to report abusive tweets.

Twitter had come under increasing pressure to react after a feminist campaigner, several women members of parliament and female journalists were targeted by users who hurled misogynistic abuse at them and in some cases made violent threats...

... Police arrested two men over rape threats against Criado-Perez. One of them was also suspected of making rape threats against opposition Labour legislator Stella Creasy, who backed the bank note campaign and also appeared with Carney on July 24.

In separate incidents days later, several high-profile female journalists received tweets from someone threatening to bomb their homes and "destroy everything" there....


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2013/08/03/technology/03reuters-britain-twitter.html?hp

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I don't know what the laws are in the U. K. but I hope the penalties these men face will be enough to discourage any more thugs from making threats in future.
Sheesh, we are living in the 21st Century, aren't we?

[dipsydoodle]

1. Whilst I don't agree that some should make advserse remarks to others

if you don't like something which in effect is free then don't use it. Creasy is still saying Twitter have more to do - what does she want a free one to one response service just in case ?

Yes the UK penalties for misuse of social media are stiff as became apparent during the follow up to the Tottenham riot.

[theHandpuppet]

3. "adverse remarks"?

Trying to intimidate women by threatening to rape, kill or bomb them goes WAY beyond making "adverse remarks". DU is free too, but there's no way you could get away with that crap here.

[Posteritatis]

4. I'm okay with people demanding free services address death threats. (nt)

[dipsydoodle]

5. This was a few fruit cakes sending texts

about a trivial issue concerning which rational people don't give a fuck about anyway - the issue was new £5 notes. Personally I don't care if if we've got Alfred E. Neuman on them. She literally expects a more or less instant response to alerts despite the fact someone can set up a twitter a/c send an offensive text, dump the account and open other one immediately. If it was a pay system that would be easy to cope with - just increase the price accordingly.

[Posteritatis]

6. Yeeeah, get a clue about what happened and then get back to us. (nt)

[theHandpuppet]

7. The woman, Caroline Criado-Perez, was threatened with rape

Yes, no rational person would have responded with threats simply because the portrait of a woman was to appear on currency. That doesn't diminish the kind of intimidation these threats pose to women and the politicians/journalists involved. I agree that Twitter could solve a good deal of the problem by operating a pay system, but I'm still bothered that your tone comes off as dismissive.

[MotherPetrie]

2. Good. Let misogynists build their own micro-blog platforms to compete with Twitter. Then they

can show what they're not made of to their inadequate little hearts' content with no mean mommy slapping their little hands.

[historylovr]

8. The calendar says 21st Century.

The attitudes not so much.