Twitter Censorship

X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, updated its adult content rules to clarify how adult content may be posted and viewed.

The new policy states that users may share consensually produced and distributed adult nudity or sexual behavior, provided it's properly labeled and not prominently displayed. The policy also establishes a specific Adult Content warning, instead of the generic Sensitive Media label.

The new rules from the X website read:

You may share consensually produced and distributed adult nudity or sexual behavior, provided it's properly labeled and not prominently displayed.

We believe that users should be able to create, distribute, and consume material related to sexual themes as long as it is consensually produced and distributed. Sexual expression, whether visual or written, can be a legitimate form of artistic expression. We believe in the autonomy of adults to engage with and create content that reflects their own beliefs, desires, and experiences, including those related to sexuality. We balance this freedom by restricting exposure to Adult Content for children or adult users who choose not to see it. We also prohibit content promoting exploitation, nonconsent, objectification, sexualization or harm to minors, and obscene behaviors. We also do not allow sharing Adult Content in highly visible places such as profile photos or banners.

How we define Adult Content

Adult Content is any consensually produced and distributed material depicting adult nudity or sexual behavior that is pornographic or intended to cause sexual arousal. This also applies to AI-generated, photographic or animated content such as cartoons, hentai, or anime. Examples include depictions of:

• full or partial nudity, including close-ups of genitals, buttocks, or breasts;

• explicit or implied sexual behavior or simulated acts such as sexual intercourse and other sexual acts.

How to mark your content

If you regularly post adult content on X, we ask that you please adjust your media settings. Doing so places all your images and videos behind a content warning that needs to be acknowledged before your media can be viewed. You can also add a one-time content warning on individual posts. If you continue to fail marking your posts, we will adjust your account settings for you.

Users under 18 or viewers who do not include a birth date on their profile cannot click to view marked content. Learn more about age restricted content here .

Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, previously known as Twitter, has been speaking on TV about how the company will be censoring tweets.

During a CNBC interview, Yaccarino discussed the demarcation of duties between herself and ELon Musk, however, it is her stance on the website's content policies that has raised eyebrows.

In clarifying X's approach to moderation, Yaccarino introduced the concept of freedom of speech, not freedom of reach, a policy where users, when posting narratives that are not in line with approved speech, are labeled, possibly demonetized for that content, and have their visibility reduced on the platform.

She remarked: If it is lawful but it's awful, it's extraordinarily difficult for you to see it. insinuating that even legally permissible content might be obscured if deemed undesirable by the company.

The decisions and comments made by Yaccarino might seem like a strict stance against divisive or hurtful rhetoric but critics may see it as an alarming move away from the ethos of open dialogue and free speech.

Elon Musk is looking for ways to make Twitter profitable after paying $44 billion for the site.

The Washington Post reports that Twitter is working on a new feature dubbed Paywalled Video, which would allow users to charge money for access to videos.

Gizmodo adds that:

It's for porn. People on Twitter are going to charge for porn.

When a creator composes a tweet with a video, the creator can enable the paywall once a video has been added to the tweet. The prices are preset, with creators allowed to charge $1, $2, $5, or $10 for access to the video, with Twitter taking a cut of the payment using Stripe.

Twitter updated its rules about hateful content on 5th March 2020. The changes are in the area of dehumanizing remarks, which are remarks that treat others as less than human, on the basis of age, disability, or disease. The rules now read:

Hateful conduct policy

Hateful conduct: You may not promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease. We also do not allow accounts whose primary purpose is inciting harm towards others on the basis of these categories.

Hateful imagery and display names: You may not use hateful images or symbols in your profile image or profile header. You also may not use your username, display name, or profile bio to engage in abusive behavior, such as targeted harassment or expressing hate towards a person, group, or protected category.

Violent threats

We prohibit content that makes violent threats against an identifiable target. Violent threats are declarative statements of intent to inflict injuries that would result in serious and lasting bodily harm, where an individual could die or be significantly injured, e.g., "I will kill you".

Wishing, hoping or calling for serious harm on a person or group of people

We prohibit content that wishes, hopes, promotes, or expresses a desire for death, serious and lasting bodily harm, or serious disease against an entire protected category and/or individuals who may be members of that category. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Hoping that someone dies as a result of a serious disease, e.g., "I hope you get cancer and die."

• Wishing for someone to fall victim to a serious accident, e.g., "I wish that you would get run over by a car next time you run your mouth."

• Saying that a group of individuals deserve serious physical injury, e.g., "If this group of protesters don't shut up, they deserve to be shot."

References to mass murder, violent events, or specific means of violence where protected groups have been the primary targets or victims

We prohibit targeting individuals with content that references forms of violence or violent events where a protected category was the primary target or victims, where the intent is to harass. This includes, but is not limited to sending someone:

• media that depicts victims of the Holocaust;

• media that depicts lynchings.

Inciting fear about a protected category

We prohibit targeting individuals with content intended to incite fear or spread fearful stereotypes about a protected category, including asserting that members of a protected category are more likely to take part in dangerous or illegal activities, e.g., "all [religious group] are terrorists".

Repeated and/or non-consensual slurs, epithets, racist and sexist tropes, or other content that degrades someone

We prohibit targeting individuals with repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to dehumanize, degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category. This includes targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.

We also prohibit the dehumanization of a group of people based on their religion, age, disability, or serious disease.

Hateful imagery

We consider hateful imagery to be logos, symbols, or images whose purpose is to promote hostility and malice against others based on their race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or ethnicity/national origin. Some examples of hateful imagery include, but are not limited to:

• symbols historically associated with hate groups, e.g., the Nazi swastika;

• images depicting others as less than human, or altered to include hateful symbols, e.g., altering images of individuals to include animalistic features; or

• images altered to include hateful symbols or references to a mass murder that targeted a protected category, e.g., manipulating images of individuals to include yellow Star of David badges, in reference to the Holocaust.

Twitter explains in a blog post:

Earlier this year we started testing a way to give people more control over the conversations they start. Today, we're expanding this test to Japan and the United States!

With this test, we want to understand how conversations on Twitter change if the person who starts a conversation can hide replies. Based on our research and surveys we conducted, we saw a lot of positive trends during our initial test in Canada, including:

• People mostly hide replies that they think are irrelevant, abusive or unintelligible. Those who used the tool thought it was a helpful way to control what they saw, similar to when keywords are muted.

• We saw that people were more likely to reconsider their interactions when their tweet was hidden: 27% of people who had their tweets hidden said they would reconsider how they interact with others in the future.

• People were concerned hiding someone's reply could be misunderstood and potentially lead to confusion or frustration. As a result, now if you tap to hide a Tweet, we'll check in with you to see if you want to also block that account.

We're interested to see if these trends continue, and if new ones emerge, as we expand our test to Japan and the US. People in these markets use Twitter in many unique ways, and we're excited to see how they might use this new tool.

Twitter has announced a new punishment for Donald Trumps' tweets that it considers politically incorrect. Twitter will mark such tweets as 'abusive' and try and hide them away from being found in searches etc. However they will not be taken down. Twitter explains who its new censorship method will work:

In the past, we've allowed certain Tweets that violated our rules to remain on Twitter because they were in the public's interest, but it wasn't clear when and how we made those determinations. To fix that, we're introducing a new notice that will provide additional clarity in these situations, and sharing more on when and why we'll use it.

Serving the public conversation includes providing the ability for anyone to talk about what matters to them; this can be especially important when engaging with government officials and political figures. By nature of their positions these leaders have outsized influence and sometimes say things that could be considered controversial or invite debate and discussion. A critical function of our service is providing a place where people can openly and publicly respond to their leaders and hold them accountable.

With this in mind, there are certain cases where it may be in the public's interest to have access to certain Tweets, even if they would otherwise be in violation of our rules. On the rare occasions when this happens, we'll place a notice -- a screen you have to click or tap through before you see the Tweet -- to provide additional context and clarity. We'll also take steps to make sure the Tweet is not algorithmically elevated on our service.

Who does this apply to?

We will only consider applying this notice on Tweets from accounts that meet the following criteria. The account must:

• Be or represent a government official, be running for public office, or be considered for a government position (i.e., next in line, awaiting confirmation, named successor to an appointed position);
• Have more than 100,000 followers; and
• Be verified.

That said, there are cases, such as direct threats of violence or calls to commit violence against an individual, that are unlikely to be considered in the public interest.

What happens to the Tweet that gets this notice placed on it?

When a Tweet has this notice placed on it, it will feature less prominently on Twitter, and not appear in:

• Safe search
• Timeline when switched to Top Tweets
• Live events pages
• Recommended Tweet push notifications
• Notifications tab Explore

Twitter writes in a blog post:

Strengthening our approach to deliberate attempts to mislead voters

Voting is a fundamental human right and the public conversation occurring on Twitter is never more important than during elections. Any attempts to undermine the process of registering to vote or engaging in the electoral process is contrary to our company's core values.

Today, we are further expanding our enforcement capabilities in this area by creating a dedicated reporting feature within the product to allow users to more easily report this content to us. This is in addition to our existing proactive approach to tackling malicious automation and other forms of platform manipulation on the service. We will start with 2019 Lok Sabha in India and the EU elections and then roll out to other elections globally throughout the rest of the year.

What types of content are in violation?

You may not use Twitter's services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections. This includes but is not limited to:

• Misleading information about how to vote or register to vote (for example, that you can vote by Tweet, text message, email, or phone call);

• Misleading information about requirements for voting, including identification requirements; and

• Misleading statements or information about the official, announced date or time of an election.

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has said again there is much work to do to improve Twitter and cut down on the amount of abuse and misinformation on the platform. He said the firm might demote likes and follows, adding that in hindsight he would not have designed the platform to highlight these.

Speaking at the TED technology conference he said that Twitter currently incentivised people to post outrage. Instead he said it should invite people to unite around topics and communities. Rather than focus on following individual accounts, users could be encouraged to follow hashtags, trends and communities.

Doing so would require a systematic change that represented a huge shift for Twitter.

One of the choices we made was to make the number of people that follow you big and bold. If I started Twitter now I would not emphasise follows and I would not create likes. We have to look at how we display follows and likes, he added.

Deadnaming and misgendering could now get you a suspension from Twitter as it looks to sure up its safeguarding policy for people in the protected transgender category.

Twitter's recently updated censorship policy now reads:

Repeated and/or non-consensual slurs, epithets, racist and sexist tropes, or other content that degrades someone

We prohibit targeting individuals with repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to dehumanize, degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category. This includes targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.

According to the Ofxord English dictionary misgendering means:

Refer to (someone, especially a transgender person) using a word, especially a pronoun or form of address, that does not correctly reflect the gender with which they identify.

According to thegayuk.com:

Deadnaming is when a person refers to someone by a previous name, it could be done with malice or by accident. It mostly affects transgender people who have changed their name during their transition.

Twitter is consulting its users about new censorship rules banning 'dehumanising speech', in which people are compared to animals or objects. It said language that made people seem less than human had repercussions.

The social network already has a hateful-conduct policy but it is implemented discriminately allowing some types of insulting language to remain online. For example, countless tweets describing middle-aged white men as gammon can be found on the platform.

At present it bans insults based on a person's: race ethnicity nationality sexual orientation sex gender religious beliefs age disability medical condition but there is an unwritten secondary rule which means that the prohibition excludes groups not favoured under the conventions of political correctness.

Twitter said it intended to prohibit dehumanising language towards people in an identifiable group because some researchers claim it could lead to real-world violence. Asked whether calling men gammon would count as dehumanising speech, the company said it would first seek the views of its members. Twitter's announcement reads in part:

For the last three months, we have been developing a new policy to address dehumanizing language on Twitter. Language that makes someone less than human can have repercussions off the service, including normalizing serious violence. Some of this content falls within our hateful conduct policy (which prohibits the promotion of violence against or direct attacks or threats against other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease), but there are still Tweets many people consider to be abusive, even when they do not break our rules. Better addressing this gap is part of our work to serve a healthy public conversation.

With this change, we want to expand our hateful conduct policy to include content that dehumanizes others based on their membership in an identifiable group, even when the material does not include a direct target. Many scholars have examined the relationship between dehumanization and violence. For example, Susan Benesch has described dehumanizing language as a hallmark of dangerous speech, because it can make violence seem acceptable, and Herbert Kelman has posited that dehumanization can reduce the strength of restraining forces against violence.

witter's critics are now using the hashtag #verifiedhate to highlight examples of what they believe to be bias in what the platform judges to be unacceptable. The gammon insult gained popularity after a collage of contributors to the BBC's Question Time programme - each middle-aged, white and male - was shared along with the phrase Great Wall of Gammon in 2017.

The scope of identifiable groups covered by the new rules will be decided after a public consultation that will run until 9 October.

Ps before filling in the consultation form, note that it was broken for me and didn't accept my submission. For the record, Melon Farmer tried to submit the comment:

This is yet another policy that restricts free speech. As always, the vagueness of the rules will allow Twitter, or its moderators, to arbitrarily apply its own morality anyway. But not to worry, the richness of language will always enable people to dream up new ways to insult others.

The radio host and colourful conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been permanently censored by Twitter.

One month after it distinguished itself from the rest of the tech industry by declining to bar the rightwing shock jock its platform, Twitter fell in line with the other major social networks in banning Jones.

Twitter justified the censorship saying:

We took this action based on new reports of Tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our abusive behavior policy, in addition to the accounts' past violations. We will continue to evaluate reports we receive regarding other accounts potentially associated with @realalexjones or @infowars and will take action if content that violates our rules is reported or if other accounts are utilized in an attempt to circumvent their ban.

Update: Apple censors the Infowars app

8th September 2018. See article from theverge.com

Alex Jones' Infowars app has been permanently banned from Apple's App Store.

Apple confirmed the removal with Buzzfeed by citing the App Store guidelines, which forbids content that is offensive, insensitive, upsetting, intended to disgust, or in exceptionally poor taste.

Update: Paying the price of using Paypal

22nd September 2018. See article from uk.pcmag.com

PayPal is the latest tech company to ban Infowars. Paypal told PC<ag:

We undertook an extensive review of the Infowars sites, and found instances that promoted hate or discriminatory intolerance against certain communities and religions, which run counter to our core value of inclusion.

InfoWars said PayPal gave it 10 days to find an alternate payment provider before terminating the service. PayPal didn't cite the specific instances of hate speech, but Infowars says the content involved criticism of Islam and opposition to transgenderism being to taught children in schools.

Twitter has outlined further censorship measures in a blog post:

In March, we introduced our new approach to improve the health of the public conversation on Twitter. One important issue we've been working to address is what some might refer to as "trolls." Some troll-like behavior is fun, good and humorous. What we're talking about today are troll-like behaviors that distort and detract from the public conversation on Twitter, particularly in communal areas like conversations and search. Some of these accounts and Tweets violate our policies, and, in those cases, we take action on them. Others don't but are behaving in ways that distort the conversation.

To put this in context, less than 1% of accounts make up the majority of accounts reported for abuse, but a lot of what's reported does not violate our rules. While still a small overall number, these accounts have a disproportionately large -- and negative -- impact on people's experience on Twitter. The challenge for us has been: how can we proactively address these disruptive behaviors that do not violate our policies but negatively impact the health of the conversation?

A New Approach

Today, we use policies, human review processes, and machine learning to help us determine how Tweets are organized and presented in communal places like conversations and search. Now, we're tackling issues of behaviors that distort and detract from the public conversation in those areas by integrating new behavioral signals into how Tweets are presented. By using new tools to address this conduct from a behavioral perspective, we're able to improve the health of the conversation, and everyone's experience on Twitter, without waiting for people who use Twitter to report potential issues to us.

There are many new signals we're taking in, most of which are not visible externally. Just a few examples include if an account has not confirmed their email address, if the same person signs up for multiple accounts simultaneously, accounts that repeatedly Tweet and mention accounts that don't follow them, or behavior that might indicate a coordinated attack. We're also looking at how accounts are connected to those that violate our rules and how they interact with each other.

These signals will now be considered in how we organize and present content in communal areas like conversation and search. Because this content doesn't violate our policies, it will remain on Twitter, and will be available if you click on "Show more replies" or choose to see everything in your search setting. The result is that people contributing to the healthy conversation will be more visible in conversations and search.

Results

In our early testing in markets around the world, we've already seen this new approach have a positive impact, resulting in a 4% drop in abuse reports from search and 8% fewer abuse reports from conversations. That means fewer people are seeing Tweets that disrupt their experience on Twitter.

Our work is far from done. This is only one part of our work to improve the health of the conversation and to make everyone's Twitter experience better. This technology and our team will learn over time and will make mistakes. There will be false positives and things that we miss; our goal is to learn fast and make our processes and tools smarter. We'll continue to be open and honest about the mistakes we make and the progress we are making. We're encouraged by the results we've seen so far, but also recognize that this is just one step on a much longer journey to improve the overall health of our service and your experience on it.

Twitter announced yesterday that it would begin removing verification badges for famous tweeters that it does not approve of. Not for what is tweeted, but for offline behaviour Twitter does not like.

The key phrase in Twitter's policy update is this one: Reasons for removal may reflect behaviors on and off Twitter. Before yesterday, the rules explicitly applied only to behavior on Twitter. From now on, holders of verified badges will be held accountable for their behavior in the real world as well. Twitter has promised further information about the new censorship policy in due course.

Many questions remain unanswered. What will the company's review consist of? How will it examine users' offline behavior? Will it simply respond to reports, or will it actively look for violations? Will it handle the work with its existing team, or will it expand its trust and safety team?

Twitter has immediately rescinded blue tick verification from accounts belonging to far-right activists, including Jason Kessler, a US white supremacist, and Tommy Robinson, founder of the English Defence League.

Offsite Comment: Twitter has turned its back on free speech

The platform plans to exercise ideological control over its users.

25th November 2017. See article from spiked-online.com Andrew Doyle

There was plenty of strong language flying around on Twitter in response to the Harvey Weinstein scandal. Twitter got a bit confused about who was harassing who, and ended up suspending Weinstein critic Rose McGowan for harassment. Twitter ended up being boycotted over its wrong call, and so Twitter bosses have been banging their heads together to do something.

Wired has got hold of an email outline an expansion of content liable to Twitter censorship and also for more severe sanctions for errant tweeters. Twitter's head of safety policy wrote of new measures to rolled out in the coming weeks:

Non-consensual nudity

Our definition of "non-consensual nudity" is expanding to more broadly include content like upskirt imagery, "creep shots," and hidden camera content. Given that people appearing in this content often do not know the material exists, we will not require a report from a target in order to remove it.

While we recognize there's an entire genre of pornography dedicated to this type of content, it's nearly impossible for us to distinguish when this content may/may not have been produced and distributed consensually. We would rather error on the side of protecting victims and removing this type of content when we become aware of it.

Unwanted sexual advances

Pornographic content is generally permitted on Twitter, and it's challenging to know whether or not sexually charged conversations and/or the exchange of sexual media may be wanted. To help infer whether or not a conversation is consensual, we currently rely on and take enforcement action only if/when we receive a report from a participant in the conversation.

We are going to update the Twitter Rules to make it clear that this type of behavior is unacceptable. We will continue taking enforcement action when we receive a report from someone directly involved in the conversation.

Hate symbols and imagery (new)

We are still defining the exact scope of what will be covered by this policy. At a high level, hateful imagery, hate symbols, etc will now be considered sensitive media (similar to how we handle and enforce adult content and graphic violence). More details to come.

Violent groups (new)

We are still defining the exact scope of what will be covered by this policy. At a high level, we will take enforcement action against organizations that use/have historically used violence as a means to advance their cause. More details to come here as well

Tweets that glorify violence (new)

We already take enforcement action against direct violent threats ("I'm going to kill you"), vague violent threats ("Someone should kill you") and wishes/hopes of serious physical harm, death, or disease ("I hope someone kills you"). Moving forward, we will also take action against content that glorifies ("Praise be to for shooting up. He's a hero!") and/or condones ("Murdering makes sense. That way they won't be a drain on social services"). More details to come.

Offsite Article: Changes to the way that 'sensitive' content is defined and blocked from Twitter search

22nd October 2017. See article from avn.com

Banned on Twitter

If you're looking to follow news and advocacy about an anticipated Vermont legislature vote this week on legalizing marijuana, a search for the latest tweets that use the combined terms Vermont and marijuana will for many Twitter users yield zero results.

Same goes for searches for tweets using the terms pot, weed or cannabis. The latest results for jackass and jerk , words generally printed without censorship by news outlets, also yield a blank page with a message claiming: Nothing came up for that search, which is a little weird. Maybe check what you searched for and try again.

The omissions are examples of a new censorship syste introduced by Twitter, with users required to opt out of a filter to see uncensored results.

Top results for restricted terms still appear, but results for the most recent posts and for photos, videos and news content tabs do not.