If the recent situation about the newest Ghostbusters is any evidence, people can be pretty mean on the internet. Online trolls can amass quickly and it can be hard to stop them once they get going. But some social media outlets have been a bit slow in implementing rules in suspending or outright banning users who violate their perspective terms of use.
Twitter has had some lax rules when it comes to filtering out certain replies, but they took a step forward when it banned writer Milo Yiannopoulos for directing a troll army to antagonize Leslie Jones. Yiannopoulos contends Twitter was censoring him, but the site felt some of his messages were a bit over the top. Twitter may not be changing the social media landscape, but it is giving other sites and apps courage to deal with unruly users.
Instagram is next in this line as it is setting up a word filter, which allows users to control the comments of their pictures or even turn off comments completely. It’s still in a beta phase, with high profile (a.k.a. celebrity) users getting the first crack at the function. Instagram hopes to issue an app-wide use of the function in the coming weeks.
The new system could do wonders for blocking out online trolls, who get a kick out of annoying and being down right mean to people. But at the same time, it will be a tough balancing act for Instagram as they don’t want to verge on the edge of censorship and have users invoke their freedom of speech right. It may be smarter to just ban derogatory terms or sayings, as opposed to shutting down comments completely.
(Via Engadget)