When Clean-Up Fails

Moderating user-generated content on social media has proven to be a tough task for companies.

- Devika Singh

JOURNALIST BARKHA DUTT has been a frequent target of trolls on social media platforms. But who could have thought that reporting these incidents might lead to blocking of her account? Recently, when she tweeted some of the threat pictures sent to her, Twitter blocked her account for 12 hours. It was, however, restored after she reported the blackout to the authorities of the microblogging site. Twitter defended its move by saying its users are not allowed to publish or post other people’s private information without their express authorisation and permission (it is unclear whether those posts carried personal details of the people who had abused her on social media). Whatever be the reason, this is just one example of how technology fails when it comes to taking complex and nuanced decisions about social media content.