Podcast Notes Key Takeaways

• According to Twitter’s Hateful Conduct Policy deadnaming and misgendering are a violation of their rules
  • What’s deadnaming? – If a transgender individual changes their birth name, you’re not allowed to call them by the name they went by before the transition
  • Misgendering refers to using a pronoun or form of address, that does not correctly reflect the gender with which someone identifies
• The main thing Twitter is trying to do (this is important):
  • “My intention is to build a platform that gives as many people as possible the opportunity to freely express themselves” – Jack
    • When people encounter particular hateful conduct – they tend to remove themselves from the platform completely, which goes against the above – this is why Twitter’s specific rules/policies are in place
• How does the process work once a tweet is reported?
  • Note – Twitter cannot yet recognize tweets that may go against their policies. They’re currently developing the algorithms to do so, but right now tweets must be reported.
  • As tweets are reported, they’re added to a queue and ranked by severity
    • What’s most severe? – If someone’s physical safety is harmed, or private information is leaked
  • A small content moderation team then examines the tweet and the context around it
    • They then have the ability to go down the enforcement spectrum:
      • 1) They make people log in to their Twitter account and read a message from Twitter explaining how they violated their policies, and force them to delete the tweet if they want to continue using the platform
      • 2) Temporary suspension if offenses are repeated
      • 3) Permanent ban as a last resort
• On Banning:
  • “We don’t usually or automatically suspend accounts with one violation because we want people to learn and understand what they did wrong, and give them an opportunity not to do it again. It’s a BIG thing to kick someone off the platform. We take that very, very seriously.” – Vijaya
• Does Twitter have a liberal bias?
  • Tim brings up quite a few points:
    • Most of the people Twitter bans are conservative
    • Conservatives don’t agree with Twitter on the definition of misgendering
      • “If you have a rule in place that specifically adheres to the left ideology, you by default are enforcing rules from a biased perspective” 
      • The conservative view of misgendering – If someone is a biological male, and they’re called “she”
      • The progressive view (the same as Twitter’s policy) – if someone wants to be called “she” and they’re a biological male, that’s what needs to happen (and if someone doesn’t comply, depending on history/context, they’re prone to being banned)
        • “You actually have in your policies a rule against the conservative perspective”
  • Thoughts form Vijaya
    • “We have a rule against the abuse and harassment of trans people on our platform”
      • Why does Twitter have this rule?
        • Through much research with the American Association of Pediatrics, it’s been found that a very high number of transgender youths commit suicide (it’s about 10x the normal suicide rate for teens)
          • The main cause of this – bullying behavior (which Twitter wanted to avoid)
    • “All I’ll say is our intent is not to police ideology. Our intent is to police behaviors that we view was abuse and harassment.”
• The extent of Twitter’s influence and the problems with this:
  • Tim:
    • Someone in the U.S. can be banned from Twitter for not complying with the misgendering policy, while foreigners are free to use the platform (as long as they comply with the rules) to influence U.S. elections
    • “Twitter is becoming extremely important in how our public discourse is occurring, how our culture is developing, and who even gets elected. If you [Twitter] have rules that are based on a global policy, that means American citizens who are abiding by all the laws of our country are being restricted from engaging in public discourse because you’ve monopolized that.”
      • “At a certain level, there are going to be American citizens who have been removed from this public discourse, because you [Twitter] have different rules than the American country has”
    • “Twitter is slowly gaining too much control, from your personal ideologies, based on what you’ve research and what you think is right over American discourse”

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org



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Jack Dorsey is a computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur who is co-founder and CEO of Twitter, and founder and CEO of Square, a mobile payments company. Vijaya Gadde serves as the global lead for legal, policy, and trust and safety at Twitter. Tim Pool is an independent journalist. His work can currently be found at http://timcast.com