Twitter will shoot down tweets that are hateful towards religious groups

[nanoguy]

Why it matters: Social media platforms are under fire today for failing to protect their users against hate speech and misinformation, which is why they're all scrambling to do everything from filters to infusing AI that sifts through everything to weed out offensive content. Twitter is now taking what until recently was a broad set of rules and tweaking it so that it can remove some of the ambiguity and hopefully make the platform a safer place for conversation.

Twitter is trying hard to restore the sanity of its platform, and is now changing its policies to tackle hate speech against religious groups. The company has already started enforcing the new rules, and will remove tweets that "include language that dehumanizes others on the basis of religion". Tweets that predate the policy update will also be removed if people report them, but apparently won't result in account suspension. As for newer tweets, they will count towards an account deletion.

The company hinted at the policy update last year, when it proposed a set of rules that would prevent users from comparing groups of people to animals or disgusting things such as excrement. It received 8,000 pieces of feedback from people in over 30 countries who suggested the company's "hateful conduct" policy was too broad to be effective.

As a result, Twitter has been working to expand the rules so that it can protect identifiable groups, but in the latest changes it's not clear how it would protect the religiously unaffiliated. In any case, the company says it's focused on "addressing the risks of offline harm", and has developed a more in-depth training process so that its teams of moderators can make better decisions when reviewing tweets.

To put things in perspective, Twitter is doing a bit better financially as a result of such efforts, and just last month announced it will label rule-breaking tweets from high profile accounts and hide their content by default, requiring user interaction to be displayed. With the recent policy changes in effect, it will be interesting to see if people who are religiously affiliated will find Twitter less toxic as a result.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/80880-twitter-shoot-down-tweets-hateful-towards-religious-groups.html

 

[Panda218]

Those examples in the photo sure are tame compared to some of the stuff I've said regarding religious groups online...

 

[VitalyT]

Religious groups are known to vigorously hate everyone who is not with them. Twitter might as well shut down all religious groups at once...

 

[EClyde]

I am forwarding this to my sister

 

[Hexic]

InB4 double-standard "religious groups aren't protected" statements.

 

[kombu]

Religious groups are known to hate everyone who is not with them. Twitter might as well shut down all religious groups at once.

Sounds like maybe you should move back to Russia.

 

[kombu]

Those examples in the photo sure are tame compared to some of the stuff I've said regarding religious groups online...

Stunning and brave!

 

[VitalyT]

Sounds like maybe you should move back to Russia.

A religious hater, aren't you?

 

[VitalyT]

I am forwarding this to my sister

Too late, I have already forwarded this to your sister

 

[wiyosaya]

Religious groups are known to vigorously hate everyone who is not with them. Twitter might as well shut down all religious groups at once...

IMO, it depends on the group. Some are far worse than Palpatine!

 

[arrowflash]

Oh, I'm sure Twitter will ban all religious hate speech equally for all groups and won't be biased at all.

 

[toooooot]

Religious groups are known to vigorously hate everyone who is not with them. Twitter might as well shut down all religious groups at once...

You have in mind a small number misrepresenting the rest of their communities thinking they must all be like that.

Lets say Vitally lives in an X-ville where there are 2 murderers who were just recently convicted and are on all news channels.
Watching those, I assume that Vitally lives in Xville the ville where some worst people live.
"People like Vitally are known to kill people, just like those two I recently seen on TV.

Friends, religious groups are for the most part neutral, some better some worse.
Saying they are known for "incert_bias " only proves you are aware of the
stereotypical types media loves portraying because they spike interest and
viewer numbers, thus bringing money to news companies.

Now tell me this, why does the first thought of religious groups doing something good not pop in your head and into the comment area? Maybe because good deeds are boring, and nobody is gonna shine light on those. I know for a fact that people who know and do good to others care little about anybody knowing about them doing that.

Your comment is about a small percentage "representing" larger groups. You are a felon according to your logic when it is applied to an X ville and you as its citizen.

 

[fluffydestroyer]

I'm not against this measure but 2 things comes to mind.

1. religious people can be very hateful, do they take this into account.
2. One can say this is against freedom of speech in some way (??) but how about discussion instead ? I don't know if this could be implemented but I'm sure most people will say those things in the heat of a moment.

I don't know. I'm not racist in any way, I just hate everyone equally

 

[funglebuddy]

Correction to the Article: Twitter will be censoring speech it deems as not appropriate. And further drives home the idea that freedom of speech does not exist on private platforms.

 

[p51d007]

Only to Christian & Jewish groups...to others, probably not!

 

[EClyde]

Religious groups are known to vigorously hate everyone who is not with them. Twitter might as well shut down all religious groups at once...

Only your group does that

 

[Lew Zealand]

Correction to the Article: Twitter will be censoring speech it deems as not appropriate. And further drives home the idea that freedom of speech does not exist on private platforms.

But why doesn't it exist? Because you have investors who need to be satisfied and if ad revenue dips because of negative publicity, you need to fix the problem that led to the negative publicity.

Of course anyone can create a social platform and declare freedom of speech for everyone but once you need to start paying for those increasing hosting and bandwidth costs, you've gonna need a source of revenue and that rarely goes hand-in-hand with hate speech beyond a mere trickle.

 

[funglebuddy]

True its all about money for these asshats. Thats one of the reasons I dont use social media. That and the whole data privacy thing.

 

[Maxiking]

Religious groups are known to vigorously hate everyone who is not with them. Twitter might as well shut down all religious groups at once...

You have in mind a small number misrepresenting the rest of their communities thinking they must all be like that.

Lets say Vitally lives in an X-ville where there are 2 murderers who were just recently convicted and are on all news channels.
Watching those, I assume that Vitally lives in Xville the ville where some worst people live.
"People like Vitally are known to kill people, just like those two I recently seen on TV.

Friends, religious groups are for the most part neutral, some better some worse.
Saying they are known for "incert_bias " only proves you are aware of the
stereotypical types media loves portraying because they spike interest and
viewer numbers, thus bringing money to news companies.

Now tell me this, why does the first thought of religious groups doing something good not pop in your head and into the comment area? Maybe because good deeds are boring, and nobody is gonna shine light on those. I know for a fact that people who know and do good to others care little about anybody knowing about them doing that.

Your comment is about a small percentage "representing" larger groups. You are a felon according to your logic when it is applied to an X ville and you as its citizen.

Just like Vatican has been neutral towards homosexuals, trans..

Just like muslim countries and religious leaders or Koran, The Bible are neutral towards homosexuals and they don't stone or execute them for being so or do not criminalise homosexual sexual practices.

I live in the different world then.