Mick Clifford: The two things social media giants must do to combat abuse and manipulation
A new policy by Twitter is to take action when complaints from an anonymous account are made about an image being posted without the subject’s permission. Recently there have been examples of this that were used to prevent legitimate media scrutiny.
On Wednesday last, a man described as a Kinahan cartel member was jailed for 10 years. Alan Wilson admitted his role in a murder conspiracy that led to a shooting outside a crowded bar in Dublin in 2010.
Sentencing Wilson at the Special Criminal Court, Judge Tara Burns said he was involved in a “highly sophisticated, meticulously planned attack on a Sunday in July in front of a large group of civilians out socialising”.
She said the attack had left two of the three victims with lifelong injuries including brain damage to one of them, rendering him forever reliant on the daily support of his family. The judge also noted that none of the three victims were the intended targets of the shooting.
Wilson is just the latest in a long line of criminals associated with the Kinahan crime family who have been jailed in recent years. In May 2020, at the sentencing hearing of another Kinahan footsoldier, Judge Tony Hunt said he accepted garda evidence that the gang is organised in a hierarchical structure, with “cells and sub-cells” to “segregate and limit knowledge” among gang members.
Two years previously in a High Court judgement, the cartel was named as being involved in “the importation and distribution of controlled drugs and firearms within this jurisdiction.” Daniel Kinahan was named in that judgement as being one of the leaders, having taken over the family business from his father, Christy.
Daniel Kinahan presents himself as a businessman with an interest in boxing promotions. He is now based in Dubai. Should the gardaí want to extradite him, it would be a lot more difficult to manage from Dubai than his former country of residence, Spain.
Eight days ago, Daniel Kinahan was photographed on a beach in Dubai with the UFC fighter Darren Till. The fighter uploaded the picture onto social media and it was widely shared. chief reporter John Hand posted the picture with some text that referred to a “drug baron”. The reference was to Kinahan as Till has no involvement in any criminality.
Soon afterwards, John Hand was locked out of Twitter, which had received a complaint of breach of privacy about the photograph. The journalist was told that he would have to delete the offending tweet or else appeal. The appeal could take days or weeks and Hand needed his Twitter account for work so he deleted the photograph. The complaint came from an anonymous account.
So an anonymous supporter of a man named in court as a major criminal figure managed to get a crime journalist booted off Twitter for posting a photograph? Many others also posted the photo, none of which attracted complaints.
The only result was the silencing of a reporter who was legitimately tracking the activities of a reputed major criminal figure who is attempting to present himself as a legitimate businessman. John Hand’s experience has been replicated elsewhere.
In the USA, anti-vax protests are major gathering points for all sorts of right-wing groups. Freelance videographer Sean Carmitchel covers these protests and two weeks ago found himself shut out of his Twitter account following an anonymous complaint.
“It’s frankly a pretty boring tweet,” Carmitchel told ABC News.
“The thread itself was of an anti-mask rally which was counter protested and ended up in a very brief shouting match. What’s funny is that I wasn’t even sure what the tweet was until I was able to get back on Twitter.”
Yet the outcome was that this journalist was shut down for legitimately covering the kind of activity that requires constant media scrutiny.
These and other similar incidents are occurring because of a new policy by Twitter to take action when complaints are made about an image being posted without the subject’s permission. The above are just two examples of where the complaint came from an anonymous account and was used to prevent legitimate media scrutiny.
Irony abounds. Twitter users can be and are subjected to horrible abuse and serious pile-ons. This tactic is used in politics but the really nasty stuff often involves targeting individuals for personal abuse. Twitter has done little to address this stuff.
Much of the abuse that is meted out comes from anonymous accounts, which bear no responsibility for whatever they post, and as a result, can pursue all sorts of agendas from behind a veil and are a Godsend to propagandists in any area of public life.
In all likelihood, the company is scared stiff to address any of this in a meaningful way because it might scare off customers. Yet policies are apparently easily crafted which can be used by nefarious actors to shut down legitimate inquiry on the medium.
Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, shapes the company’s mission statement in the kind of fluffy spiel that appears to be in the drinking water in Silicon Valley.
“It matters to us that people have a free and safe space to talk,” he says.
“That’s why we’re constantly improving our rules and processes, technology and tools. We’re not perfect – that’s why we listen to you, the people on Twitter. It’s also why we work to be as transparent as possible.”
You can make of that what you will. What is undeniable is that Twitter, like other social media companies, is a platform flooded with hate, abuse, and manipulation, much of which goes unchecked.
There are two simple policies that all social media companies could adopt which would fit neatly into their various mission statements and genuinely ensure that the platform is a so-called safe space.
Messages and posts could be filtered and blocked before being sent or posted if they contain racist abuse or discriminatory material. The advances in software development have made this possible.
The second issue that needs to be addressed is that all users should have their identity properly verified on opening an account. Ideally, the whole concept of anonymous accounts should be scrapped but if the company isn’t willing to do that then it should at least ensure that it is in possession of solid information of the holder of every account.
These changes would ensure that Twitter is truthfully subscribing to its mission statement rather than using it as a piece of fluff behind which the main objective is to ramp up profits on the back of anything that will attract users to the site.
It won’t happen because any such move would eat into the exponential profits these companies make. As a result, the likes of Twitter find themselves tolerating a scenario in which those who are subject to legitimate scrutiny can use the medium to further their own agendas.
Happy Christmas and let’s hope it’s a safe one.
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