A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy: How Twitter Encourages Harassment (and How to Fix It)
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Date
2019-09-18
Authors
Conbere, Timothy
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
In August 2014, the video games community on Twitter became embroiled in a months-long harassment campaign called Gamergate. The campaign initially targeted indie video game developer Zoë Quinn, but quickly spread to many women and feminist games developers and journalists, targeting them with slurs, sexualized epithets, threats of violence, and more. This thesis examines what Twitter has done to prevent the kind of harassment that occurred during Gamergate and explains the social-psychological principles behind Twitter’s failure to curb the culture of abuse on its platform. There is a fundamental disconnect between Twitter’s value of allowing its users to share information instantly without barriers and its desire to protect its users from harassment. In order to solve the problem of harassment, Twitter will need to shift its foundational value away from free speech and towards deliberate community building.
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Keywords
Abuse, Community, Gamergate, Harassment, Twitter