Twitter CEO Admits Platform Sucks at Dealing with Trolls, Change is Coming

[[Coi] Mr.CLuBBeR]

Twitter will begin aggressively booting trolls and abusers

It's no secret that Twitter is a haven for trolls. You know it, we know it, and even Twitter CEO Disk Costolo knows it. The question is, will the company ever do anything about it? It appears so -- in a heartfelt memo to employees, Costolo held himself accountable for the level of trolling and abuse that takes place on Twitter on a daily basis. He used words like "ashamed" and "embarrassed" to describe how he feels, calling the situation a "truth" that needs to be dealt with, and he intends to do just that.
"We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years. It's no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day," Costolo said in a memo obtained by The Verge.
What prompted the memo is a story feminist Lindy West shared with This American Life. She's often the target of harassment on Twitter, and one incident in particular involved a message she received on the microblogging service purported to be from her dead father. It was mean in nature, but far from the only incident of trolling at her expense.
After writing an article in which West said she thought male comedians are careless with the subject of rape, she was bombarded with nasty Twitter messages.
"I love how the bitch complaining about rape is the exact kind of bitch that would never be raped," one of the posts read.
Catching wind of all this, a Twitter employee asked on an internal forum if Twitter could do a better job in this regard. And then the memo came.
"I'm frankly ashamed of how poorly we've dealt with this issue during my tenure as CEO. It's absurd. There's no excuse for it," Costolo continued. "I take full responsibility for not being more aggressive on this front. It's nobody else's fault but mine, and it's embarrassing."
Costolo goes on to make it clear that he's blaming himself and only himself, but just as important, is also vowing to do something about it. He says that Twitter is "going to start kicking these people off right and left and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears them."
He hasn't commented on the memo that's now gone public, but it's out there, and so it's up to Costolo to follow through and make Twitter a better place. It's a fine line he'll have to dance, one that teeters between too much censorship and trolling, and it will be interesting to see how it goes.
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