How should harassment or abuse be defined on the social networks?
Twitter has announced that its own data shows that its efforts to combat harassment and abuse on the network are finally paying off.
But the company’s statements run counter to the reality experienced by a large number of people who have used screen captures and examples of tweets illustrating abuse, which the company consistently dismisses, saying they do not violate the rules of the company.
What we are talking about here is how to define harassment or abuse on the social networks. According to Twitter, harassment is not what you report, but what one of its employees says so. In short, Twitter, decides what constitutes harassment or abuse on its network, and what we say carries no weight. One could argue that abuse, which I have experienced, is a simple and cheap resource for the company, which can decide which behavior constitutes harassment and abuse and which does not, and then publish any figures it likes.
But Twitter has no right to set itself up as judge and jury about harassment or abuse is. Only those affected by it can decide. If somebody says they are being subjected to harassment or abuse, they need to be believed. Harassment or abuse are essentially subjective problems: someone can harass another person simply by insisting on a particular subject, even with perfect manners. The limits of such harassment or abuse, in that sense, could be established according to the characteristics of the victim: public figures, because of their visibility, could be in some sense forced to accept certain levels of harassment or abuse. Thus, repeatedly asking a politician about a corruption case is hardly harassment, but doing the same to you or me over an unpaid bill may well be. The key, from my point of view, is the social dimension.
Another obvious aspect would be the impact: it is not the same to insult somebody with few followers, who may well be a total unknown, as it is to do so on an account seen by thousands, or even millions of people.
But the main problem, I would argue, lies in the nature of the issue: behavior is not constitutive of harassment or abuse because Twitter says so, but because you or I say so. Then there is the question of whether a zero tolerance policy could be used by some people to suppress certain attitudes which, in strictly judicial terms, could be considered lawful? Possibly, but that is precisely the question: a conversation in a social context cannot be judged, and least of all by Twitter.
On one side is the social context, based on the norms of politeness and other social norms, and on the other are the courts that judge crimes such as insult, harassment or defamation. They are different, and Twitter should never, I believe, take on the role of judge. What Twitter should do, is to take all reports of harassment or abuse and process them properly according to a series of clearly defined protocols, which mean deleting a tweet and warning offenders, or even closing their accounts and finding ways to prevent them accessing the site again. The only way to maintain a social network free of harmful elements such as harassment or abuse is through a zero tolerance policy.
A zero-tolerance policy, as long as we are not allowed to decide whether we are being harassed, will mean nothing. As said, this is a sensitive subject, and one I am especially sensitive about, given that I have been the victim of abuse; but obviously, there are other opinions on this.
(En español, aquí)
