How do you
feel about twitter? Could it be a good
tool for democracy? Can ordinary people
make the promotional materials of a country more interesting and
authentic, or is it too easy to slip into vulgarism? What do you think about twitter blocking
people? Is this censorship? Is the need to block people a sign that
twitter, and the internet in general, has changed for the worse?
Written by Rio
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this article, out of curiosity, I have checked the @sweden twitter account. By reading through the archived posts, what surprised me is how natural and personalized the tweets are, and in first sight, it doesn’t look like a government-owned account. Although I kind of understand why they had to end the 7 year long campaign that was supported from all around the globe. It was because its too “Free”, something that the government aimed to do in this account.
In Twitter, there is a certain limit on what you can tweet about, and when the limit is crossed over, twitter will try to regulate by censoring or deleting. Vulgarism or hate speeches that are directed towards a specific group of people, religion, and political beliefs are restricted under their Hateful conduct policy, just like how other social media companies, such as FaceBook, tends to do. Although this is not because Twitter is trying to manipulate the society, it is because they want to construct a community that is friendly to all type of people. In @sweden, one of the curator tweeted about his day-to-day schedule which included too much vulgarism; One time, a curator tweeted racist comments against Jews; In another time, one of them seized on Donald Trump. The campaign aim was to let Swedes tweet freely, but they couldn’t think about the possibility that the account could be too personal and out of control, which may cause people to feel displeasure.
However in many cases, Twitter over exaggerates on people’s comments. It’s the person in charge who investigates and corresponds to the reported tweets, and it heavily depends on the person’s perception. Some of them might be extremely lenient on censoring posts, and some might be extremely strict on those. This also goes for Social Medias such as YouTube. Even though some of the recent songs contains extremely sexual content, those are not restricted or banned, because the operators takes this as an style of art, instead, even a slight sexual content in personal videos can lead to censorship.
I don’t have any problem on Twitter censoring inappropriate tweets, and I can clearly accept the decision made by @sweden. Although what I totally disagree with Twitter is the act of “Shadow Banning”: an act of hiding tweets without letting the person know. Twitter itself denied the fact that they shadowbanned people, however former employees reported that they secretly censored contents that the operator personally thought its inappropriate and offended, such as conservative tweets, or pro-Trump tweets. This is beyond the level of censoring hate speeches, but it’s just an violation against freedom of speech. If does act continue to grow, Social Media won’t be like its supposed to be, where people can throw opinions to each other, although it will turn in to an “Anti-Social Media”.
In most cases, the internet is the Wild West of communication. For this reason, I can see clearly why the Swedish government made the decision to put curators in charge of the @sweden account - just as the article states, it makes it feel more human and personal. Considering the fact that back in 2011, Twitter was largely uncensored and people could tweet anything they wanted to, I find it quite uplifting that the people in charge had enough faith that the curators would not post anything to embarrass Sweden as a whole. Moreover, I understand and agree with the decision to cancel the curator program. While the curator program may have been a good idea in 2011, in the recent years, Twitter has developed a more politically enthusiastic climate. Having an account on it run by its citizens might be too big of a risk for Sweden's public image and relations with other countries. Just the fact that the account began blocking controversial accounts speaks for itself. Even though the article says that the account is being terminated to expand to a larger audience, I believe that this is just a convenient cover up story for the real reason - a fear of bad PR.
ReplyDeleteUnderstandably, the Swedish government wanted its Twitter account to stay out of trouble, but blocking accounts making threats against migrants, women and LGBTQ people is not justified in my eyes. This is a form of censorship because it prevents certain views from being expressed in a certain context. I believe this violates the right to free speech to some extent - a right that should be guaranteed for every human being. If I want to say "Hitler did nothing wrong, death to all Jews", I should have the right to say so, regardless of whether I mean it seriously. Equally, anyone who disagrees has every right to argue against what I said, but absolutely no right to prevent me from saying it in the first place. If the accounts that @sweden blocked expressed views that Sweden as a country disagrees with, the curators could have simply ignored them.
Michal,
DeleteI agree with your opinion about @sweden being a great way of promoting the country on social media. However, I disagree with your opinion about the free speech. The free speech is indeed an important right of all human beings, still there are limits. If you insult your boss,which results in you losing your job, for example, it’s not a violation of free speech, rather than a decision of your boss to punish you for not being polite. The same goes for the @sweden account. I don’t see how the account violates the free speech. After all, it’s the decision of the account owner to choose what kind of ideas they want on their website.
Twitter is one of the most used social networking services in the history of mankind. It was found in 2006 and it now has a total stock value of 40 billion dollars and is used by over 335 million users. Through Twitter people can post almost anything they want to share with the world or interact with each other.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, information provided by a citizen or someone who is genuinely interested in some country is usually more interesting than information provided by the government. When the country is presented by ordinary people it rapidly becomes way more authentic and interesting. Also, by allowing the public to share their opinions through one account helps us get all the possible perspectives on the country and we get to know the citizens. In the case of @Sweden, people have the opportunity to see the best and the worst of Sweden and citizens of this country. This has many benefits such as for example, when I am on a vacation in Sweden I would know what places to visit because the people who live there recommend it. Of course, this kind of project may have some disadvantages such as the possible occurrence of vulgarisms or hate speeches, but this is mostly regulated by Twitter, so we should not be concerned about this issue all that much. The issue I noticed when I was looking at the posts is that the most recent posts had almost nothing to do with Sweden except that the curator is a Swedish citizen so for me the main idea of this project disappeared. But after the seven years, the @Sweden twitter account definitely formed something very unique and beautiful.
On the other hand, the internet has definitely changed a lot in the past few years and it definitely had an impact on the project of the Swedish government. Nowadays people on the internet feel unstoppable because there are basically no consequences to their actions. In the case of @Sweden, I don’t think that blocking people and removing certain posts should be considered a censorship and it is probably better that they regulate the posts. At least this they prevent the account from becoming a total anarchy. In addition, they also prevent people from publishing inappropriate posts.
In conclusion, @Sweden helped people from all around the globe get to know Sweden and what places you might want to consider visiting in Sweden. Thanks to this governmental project we got familiar with many amazing people from Sweden and with the culture of this country. We should definitely support these types of ideas because it is a very nice way of helping a nation get attention but we should be also careful because the internet is not the same as it used to be only a few years back.
I really like this idea of giving people of Sweden access to it’s account. After all, there’s no one who can show you the country better than the citizens themselves. By giving the access to random people, they create diversity and people can suddenly explore different aspects of Swedish everyday life. After I’ve looked at the @sweden Twitter I was pleasantly surprised. You keep scrolling while you have no idea what will appear on your screen next. I’ve learnt sometimes weird but exciting facts about Sweden in a short time and now I am a bit more familiar with the life of Swedes. I wish more countries, including Slovakia would present themselves like this on social media, I just don’t think Twitter is the right platform.
ReplyDeleteTwitter is not what it used to be. As the article mentions, Twitter back in the day was full of possibilities. The blue songbird has benn used as a tool for people to engage with each other and spread ideas. Nowadays people say it’s “toxic. It is full of trolls, people spreading threats and bots that are spamming the site. I used to have a Twitter account but I have deleted it exactly for this reason. I just din’t see the point of being on Twitter anymore, especially when there are other social networks that offer better features and user experience like Facebook, Youtube or Instagram. Many people felt the same way and that’s the reason why the network is stagnating. That’s why I understand Sweden's decision to end this project and continue on Youtube. In my opinion, Youtube is the best social media platform now and can help share this amazing project to even more people.