CST Week 2 Scrapbook
Article Summary
This article details how Twitter had barred the word "bisexual" from it's users tweets. This would be the equivalent of them barring the words "gay", "lesbian", or "straight". Twitter sent out an apology regarding this and notified the public that they would no longer bar this word. The company issues this statement:
“Searches for certain words related to sexuality did not populate complete results. We apologize for anyone negatively impacted by this bug,” said a message from Twitter’s Support account. “It is not consistent with our values as a company.”The article then goes on to explain how last week an disgruntled employee at Twitter managed to temporarily deactivate President Donald Trump's account.
Why it was Chosen
I chose this article because I feel that censorship in social media is very important. I do not believe that twitter in no way should bar a certain word. I feel it should be up to the user to put any sort of filter on the searches that they do on twitter. Also to bar the word "bisexual" is just demeaning to anyone who may be "bisexual". It is not the right of Twitter to say what form of sexual orientation is not valued enough to be a searchable word in their context.
Ethical Implications
The ethical implication here is that Twitter essentially was saying that "bisexual" is a bad word. This is wrong in that the word is the same as "straight", "gay", or "lesbian". It was right of Twitter to admit their fault in this and provide a fix as soon as possible. The other ethical implication is that of censorship in social media. I don't think that Twitter should censor any words from it's search database unless explicitly asked to do so. It should be up to the user to let Twitter know that they would like a filter put into their search engine just as google does in theirs. In viewing the responses, there are people who view the opposite. That being "bisexual" is immoral and Twitter is right to ban such a word. Again I feel that if a person does believe this then they should be able to set their own filter to not have to view this if they so wish but it should not be up to Twitter on if they say a word is immoral or inappropriate.
It was interesting to see the article also mentioned that Donald Trump's Twitter account was deactivated by a disgruntled employee. To me this is very serious. I wonder as to the level of access that employees have to Trump's Twitter account. Very dangerous things could have resulted in this. We live in an age where Twitter has become a public forum. Imagine if a disgruntled employee could write Tweets on behalf of the President that could spark the next major war. Literally lives could be lost as a result. I personally feel that due to the magnitude of the office of Presidency on international affairs that the President should not be allowed to Tweet.
Credibility of Source
This article came from FoxNews.com which is a major news organization. I accept it's credibility.
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