Imagine the volume: 6,000 tweets are published, on average, every second worldwide, or 500 million messages per day. This possibility of reporting a photo used, without the consent of the person appearing in the image, announced Tuesday, November 30 by Twitter on his blog, is therefore a potential revolution.
An announcement with immediate effect: any private photo or video reported to Twitter by the person on it will be deleted if it has been posted without their consent. This is the principle on paper, but more concretely, several questions arise, among others on the means implemented to succeed in dealing with the volume of requests without delay: a deletion, okay, but how long after the notification of ‘a photo ?
We know that the second an image is published, it is almost already too late to hope to make it completely disappear from the Internet. The disappearance of the photo or video concerned should therefore be immediate, but we know that a dedicated team will have to decide on each deletion request, which will inevitably take time.
Has Twitter hired an army to deal with the reports? Who will manage them? And how will Twitter verify that the requester is the person in the image, since that is one of the conditions for the removal request to be considered?
Twitter France that franceinfo contacted, kicked in touch. Not only is the subject sensitive, it is also being piloted directly from Twitter’s global headquarters in San Francisco. And then, in their defense, we think it unlikely that those responsible for the social network in France have, at this stage, all the answers to this announcement that fell on Tuesday.
The objective of Twitter is nevertheless clearly stated: it is to fight against cyberstalking and in particular, against a practice that is growing, on Twitter and on Facebook: the disclosure of personal data to harm someone – we speak of “doxing” in English. Twitter watchers were already on alert to remove all publications that include an address or a phone number, without the consent of their owner.
By adding images in the broad sense, the social network wants to help reduce cases of harassment and intimidation that disproportionately affect – says Twitter – “women, activists, dissidents and minorities”. Accompanied by a video, a tweet is shared 6 to 10 times more; + 35% in the case of a tweet with a photo: this is to say the strength and virality, unfortunately, of these messages to harm.
This Twitter announcement comes at a special time in the life of the company and in the history of Twitter. On Monday, Jack Dorsey, the iconic co-founder of Twitter resigned, pushed out by the board, replaced immediately by its chief technology officer, Parag Agrawal.
The next day, Twitter announced this decision around the photos and videos. So, is the timing or the new CEO’s first decision? The only certainty: artificial intelligence, which will certainly be used, is one of Parag Agrawal’s specialties. Within a week, he’s the same age – 37 – as Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and boss of Facebook.
Twitter’s new CEO is expecting too – to be auditioned very soon in Washington. He thus gives a first pledge, upon his arrival, of his desire to better respect the privacy of users.