Twitter recently announced that it’ll forbid hate speech issued against entire religious groups (like calling them subhuman and vermin). They may also extend similar protections to people targeted for their race, gender and sexual orientation.
This announcement comes on the heels of Instagram announcing its new anti-bullying features including an AI detection system that asks people to “reconsider” before posting a potentially insulting comment and a “restrict option” allowing users to flag bullies and review any comments before they’re visible.
Here’s the thing though: Twitter has a horrid record of consistently applying its own policies across its platform of more than 330 million users. Also Instagram’s new system won’t do much for its estimated 77.6 million users: Bullies know their comments are insulting and requiring users to manually filter out abusive content as it comes in means that they’ll still see the
Even Instagram knows its platform is well-designed for bullying. According to a recent Time magazine piece:
How about we take this to the next level?
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Sheri Bauman, a counseling professor at the University of Arizona who has spent years studying bullying’s causes and effects, calls Instagram a “one-stop shop for the bully” because everything they need is there: an audience, anonymity, an emphasis on appearances, and channels that range from public feeds to behind-the-back group chats. Instagram executives acknowledge that as they try to attract more users and attention to the platform, each new feature brings with it a fresh opportunity for abuse. “Teens are exceptionally creative,” says Instagram head of public policy Karina Newton.
In fact, in the Time article, Instagram’s anti-bullying team said that everyday they discover new and novel ways that people bully and harass each other, and these new methods require new solutions.
Related: YouTube CEO struggles to explain response to racist, homophobic harassment of gay journalist
Considering that 27.1 percent of LGBTQ youth say they’ve experienced cyberbullying in the last year — compared to 17.1 percent of heterosexual peers — and the fact that bullying can increase someone’s likelihood of developing mental illness, dropping out of school or committing suicide, Twitter and Instagram have a huge social responsibility to get it right.
poundmetoo
Again with the racist anti white pic! And people wonder why Trump got elected!
Josh in OR
Are you KIDDING me?! “There’s a black guy in a picture! That makes it racist against poor, downtrodden, oppressed whites who are NEVER featured in pictures on Queerty!”
Get out of here with that nonsense, jackass…
Kangol2
Drumpf “got elected” because of massive interference from a hostile foreign power! Out of 130 million votes he lost by nearly 3 MILLION popular votes and snaked into office on a 70,000 vote margin in 3 states to win the electoral college! That’s how he “got elected,” not because of your racist hysteria.
Mikey E
“probably won’t help queer kids”
According to a recent survey of LGB and T youth by the University of Connecticut and sponsored by HRC, only 0.7% of gay and bisexual boys age 13-17 and only 2.8% of lesbian/bi girls identify as “queer.” Those results are consistent with other surveys showing very few youth or adults identifying as “queer.” So while over 98% of gay/bi girls and boys reject being called “queer,” this site feels free to disrespect them and their identity. It’s especially disrespectful in the context of a post about bullying.
UlfRaynor
Obviously this article wasn’t meant for LGBT kids but for the newly redefined usage of the word queer, which is gender non conforming heterosexuals and we all know how way more repressed they are compared to LGBT youths.
I think it’s even more enlightening/concerning that Twitter decided it was more important to start it’s anti-bullying protocols with oppressive religious ideologies instead of those they oppress and bully.
batesmotel
Part of the article got cut off. Well these bullying filters are a good start. It should be across the board on all sides. Enough is enough with the attacking back and forth. Time to grow up and move on. If you can’t communicate without attacking people, then you don’t deserve access to the internet, or people for that matter.