This is the fourth in a series of six posts on compliance issues with various online platforms. The first post was about YouTube. The second post was about Facebook. Last week’s post discussed Instagram. Today’s post will focus on Twitter. On April 5, the fifth post in the series will cover Snapchat. The sixth and last post in the series, on April 12, will be about Reddit.
Twitter, one of the best-known social media platforms and a popular news and networking service, was created in 2006. Within a few years, Twitter rapidly became one of the most frequently-visited websites in the world. Twitter is widely used all over the world as a source of breaking news as well as a social messaging service and a content-sharing platform for photos, videos, links, and microblogs in threaded comments.
Twitter’s rapid growth in terms of popularity and influence has meant that usage and community standards have often been self-regulating as they emerge, and not always successfully so. Furthermore, Twitter’s own efforts at governance or risk control have also proven insufficient or misguided at times. The divisive opinions on Twitter’s social and moral responsibility so far have not eroded interest from and engagement by users all over the world, even as they debate on the platform itself regarding the ethics of its practices and standards.
- Privacy issues – Twitter is public, but it could offer a lot more privacy
- Ban on cryptocurrency advertising – Twitter bans cryptocurrency advertising, joining other tech giants in crackdown
- General regulatory scrutiny of social media services – Social media stocks tumble as Wall Street fears regulation
- Data-driven self-regulation – No, Twitter, Healthy Conversation Can’t Be Engineered
- Customer due diligence obligations – Banks have to know their customers. Shouldn’t Facebook and Twitter?
- Employee diversity – Twitter claims it was more diverse in 2017, but that’s not what the data shows
- The spread of false information – People on Twitter like passing on lies better than they like retweeting the truth
- Mixed results and reception of content moderation – Twitter Tried to Curb Abuse. Now It Has to Handle the Backlash
- Censorship allegations – Is Twitter Really Censoring Free Speech?
- Identifying and removing terrorist content – Terrorism is Faster Than Twitter
Check back next Thursday for the fifth post in this series, which will be about current compliance and ethics issues with Snapchat.