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Twitter on abuse: CEO says measures against hate symbols coming soon

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STP Team
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Twitter is going to change its rules around women safety and sexual harassment in a bid to make them stronger and effective. Responding to the rising encore of the #WomenBoycottTwitter hashtag, the CEO tweeted they were working on strengthening their existing terms to deal with harassment. The internet is divided on the stance taken by Twitter on abuse thus far. While some believe the platform is selective, others have criticised the recent Women boycott Twitter campaign.

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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in a string of tweets, "We see voices being silenced on Twitter every day. We’ve been working to counteract this for the past 2 years. We prioritized this in 2016. We updated our policies and increased the size of our teams. It wasn’t enough. In 2017 we made it our top priority and made a lot of progress. Today we saw voices silencing themselves and voices speaking out because we’re *still* not doing enough. We’ve been working intensely over the past few months and focused today on making some critical decisions. We decided to take a more aggressive stance in our rules and how we enforce them. New rules around: unwanted sexual advances, non-consensual nudity, hate symbols, violent groups, and tweets that glorifies violence." He said we could expect more news on this front in a few weeks from Twitter.

What's The Controversy?

Rose McGowan's account was suspended after she had been tweeting about allegations of sexual abuse and harassment that have been surfacing against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

Following this, on Friday, the hashtag #WomenBoycottTwitter turned into a movement after McGowan's account by blocked as a symbol to protest Twitter's policing of individual accounts.

Tech Crunch reported "Twitter has abruptly broken its own policy of not commenting on individual accounts to explain why it temporarily suspended the account of actress Rose McGowan," referring to the responses by Jack Dorsey,

8/ These changes will start rolling out in the next few weeks. More to share next week.

— jack (@jack) October 14, 2017 public on his timeline. 

Why were some women boycotting twitter?

Women had taken to the hashtag #WomenBoycottTwitter calling for a 24-hour boycott of the platform to show support for victims of sexual assault.

The boycott is a response to Twitter’s recent suspension of actress Rose McGowan

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The boycott is a response to Twitter’s recent suspension of actress Rose McGowan, following a New York Times report earlier this week that detailed decades of sexual assault and harassment by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

Twitter in India has initiated many programs lined up to quell the challenges of being online in a public platform and dealing with trolls.

Dealing with trolls and other abuse

Twitter in India has initiated many programs lined up to quell the challenges of being online in a public platform and dealing with trolls. Through their position of strength series, which SheThePeople has also partnered, the platform has tried to address safety challenges and train women on dealing with abuse.

 

jack dorsey rose mcgowan position of strength india safety for women online she the people online safety summit
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