Comments on: Twitter adopts a motto to defend users

By: markleiser.phd.law

markleiser.phd.law — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 10:29:43 +0000

Reblogged this on #Hashtag – Thoughts on Law, Technology, the Internet, and Social Media and commented:
Twitter adopts a motto to defend users
Apple has “Think Different” and Facebook has the “Hacker Way.” Now, emerging tech giant Twitter is trying out corporate creeds of its own.

“Defend and respect the user’s voice” is one of ten short phrases the company has posted on a wall of its San Francisco office. The phrases, which are also individually inscribed on company laptops, represent the company’s “core values” according to Twitter’s general counsel, Alex Macgillivray. Here’s a shot (the other slogans are blurred at Twitter’s request):

Most of the Twitter slogans are innocuous (like “Ship It”) or bland corporate statements but the vow to defend users’ voices appears to carry more significance. Twitter has already stood out among social media companies by challenging government subpoenas directed at its users. Such acts led a Wired reporter to write that Twitter “beta-tested a spine.”

By: PCCare247 Reviews

PCCare247 Reviews — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 07:11:52 +0000

Yep. Lets see how they deal with such things in future. Coz this has no end for sure.

By: Jeff John Roberts

Jeff John Roberts — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 02:56:45 +0000

Thanks for the comment, Tracy. I’m uneasy too about the incident — it smells of reprisal. But on the flip side, Twitter says they have a church/state wall between the business side and the folks who handle the incoming takedown complaints (meaning that the person asked to effect the takedown heard it from NBC — albeit on a tip from a Twitter employee — and from not someone at Twitter). We’ll have to see how they address these sort of conflicts in the future.

By: Tracy

Tracy — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 02:13:43 +0000

“The company landed in hot water this month after it was accused of deleting the account of a journalist who had criticized a corporate partner.”

The issue isn’t that Twitter deleted the account. The issue is Twitter informed NBC about the “critical” tweets and encouraged NBC to file a complaint so that Twitter could punish the journalist without looking like the “bad guy”. For the life of me I don’t know why Twitter backtracked (after the damage had been done). This type of collusion between major corporate interests is nothing rare or new.