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Article

21 Dec 2018

Author:
Emily Dreyfuss, Wired

Twitter is indeed toxic for women, Amnesty report says

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Amnesty International considers such online abuse against women a human rights issue, and has repeatedly called on Twitter to release “meaningful information about reports of violence and abuse against women, as well as other groups, on the platform, and how they respond to it.”... “We have built the world’s largest crowdsourced data set about online abuse against women,” Milena Marin, senior adviser for tactical research at Amnesty International, said in a statement. “We have the data to back up what women have long been telling us—that Twitter is a place where racism, misogyny and homophobia are allowed to flourish basically unchecked.”... "Abuse, malicious automation, and manipulation detract from the health of Twitter," Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s legal, policy, and trust and safety lead, wrote in a response to Amnesty, which was provided to WIRED. "We are committed to holding ourselves publicly accountable toward progress in this regard."

... Gadde also took issue with the way Amnesty defined "problematic" tweets, writing: “We would welcome further discussion about how you have defined 'problematic' as part of this research in accordance with the need to protect free expression and ensure policies are clearly and narrowly drafted.” The report does acknowledge that "problematic tweets may qualify as legitimate speech and would not necessarily be subject to removal from the platform... "We remain committed to expanding our transparency reporting to better inform people about the actions we take under the Twitter rules," Gadde wrote in her response, dated December 12. "We are grateful for the feedback Amnesty shared on what this should include."