Stan Collymore: 'Twitter a vacuum for abuse'

"Former footballer Stan Collymore has accused Twitter of not doing enough to combat abusive messages after he was targeted by internet trolls.

Mr Collymore said he received offensive messages and death threats after he suggested Liverpool striker Luis Suarez dived to earn a penalty in last Saturday's match against Aston Villa.

He spoke to BBC Breakfast to explain why he wants Twitter to do more to tackle the issue of trolls.

He said police were "banging their heads against a brick wall" because of the way Twitter operated, and accused the company of providing a "vacuum" in which abuse of all kinds was published."




http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25839299

I'm 50/50 on this. A private company has the responsibility to police staff on their own networks, so why not twitter? I understand it's mass communication on a grand scale but it's ultimately their system and they should at least be proactive in detecting / highlighting abuse on their network. They could automate monitoring of their system to at least highlight potential abuse/bullying of their own members. Should they detect any potential abuse this could then be passed on to the authorities. They at least need to be proactive ... it's their system at the end of the day.

Should this be extended to forums too?

January 7th

Someone Threatened To Rape And Decapitate This Woman On Twitter, But She's More Angry Than Afraid

http://www.businessinsider.com/amanda-hess-next-civil-rights-issue-is-harrassment-online-2014-1

This One is Being Inestigated by the Police
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-25851865

And then there is this pair who have been charged....

"Two people have pleaded guilty to sending "menacing" tweets to feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25641941

Should there not be some responsibility from those providing a service to offer a proactive approach to protect those that they offer the service to? A forum does go some way in providing such in that there is a mechanism to block spammers and such like. The nature of the internet was/is anonymity should one feel the need, however that is slowly changing.

Sorry to change the thread of the thread but he was, in his time, a cracking centre forward.

Yes the blame lies solely with the offender and yes the Twitter should help the authorities I'm saying maybe they could be more proactive to try and prevent it. From what I understood, highlighting the issue to Twitter and getting Twitter to act wasn't so easy.

Depends who you support John

There is an interesting law out there, that I came across within Elf and Safety and that is the one on vicarius liability. Where the employer is liable for the employees conduct and safety and harm caused by that employee. But it doesnt stretch any further than that, as far as I know.

Well......I tend to be a bit of a neutral and support English football in general.

The issues come about with "inactivity" Google for example generally don't act on good will but the fear of being sued. Twitter is very likely the same but have never experienced anything on there (may have had abusive messages but never read!). But the issues need to addressed on some level to cut down on the amount of abuse online as its gotten out of control. Should Titter be sued for not stopping it? as an online publisher its responsible for what it publishes regardless of who is doing it. Giving immunity (no responsibility) to companies like Google, Twitter, Facebook etc they will see this as an easy way to not do anything about it. Believe me Google does until it receives legal notices!

Thou

Though there are signs that it might with "imputed liability" .

I was thinking being proactive as in developing algorithms that flag their admins with potentially harmful tweets. Their business is IT, a bit of expenditure on that style of development would show that they are at least doing something rather than waiting for the authorities to demand the data. It would not only portray that they are company that is for the good of the populous with good business ethics plus it delays what I think will be inevitable, that is, at some point in time these companies will need to be more accountable for the business they run. As I alluded to earlier the internet as a whole has evolved from anonymity, I personally think in years to come that "true" anonymity will cease to exist on the web (for such reasons as we are talking about right now). Everyone will be accountable, so why not those who are making lots of money out of it.

Thats a job for Oss....