Twitter is once again in the news for all the wrong reasons, with the platform accused of mishandling images related to the recent Texas mass shooting.
According to The New York Times, Twitter’s handling of graphic images stemming from the shooting is once again reigniting the debate about tech platforms and moderation. On one side of the debate are those that believe the platform is too lax in what it allows users to post or not aggressive enough in labeling graphic content.
“This family does not deserve to see the dead relatives spread across Twitter for everybody to see,” Pat Holloway, 64, said in an interview with the Times. Holloway is a well-seasoned photojournalist, having documented the Waco standoff, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the Joplin, MO tornado.
On the other side of the debate are those who believe photos, such as those that circulated on Twitter, constitute news and should be shared — albeit with a label requiring the user to agree to see the post.
“This is news,” said Claire Wardle, the co-founder of the Information Futures Lab at Brown University. “Often, we see this kind of imagery in other countries and nobody bats an eyelid. But then it happens to Americans and people say, ‘Should we be seeing this?’”
The debate shows no signs of subsiding, with both sides able to point to policy and precedent for why their approach is right. At the same time, however, Twitter is drawing criticism because the Texas shooting images were far more accessible on its platform than competing social media sites.
When Elon Musk bought Twitter, he promised the company would provide a free speech platform. To that end, much of the content moderation team was laid off, and a large portion of the platform’s current moderation is community-driven. This opens the company up to increased accusations that it’s not doing enough to address the issue.
In addition, as Sarah T. Roberts, a UC Los Angeles professor studying content moderation, told the Times, people’s good intentions are often at odds with social media’s profit-driven goals.
“I understand where people on social media are coming from who want to circulate these images in the hopes that it will make a change,” Roberts said. “But unfortunately, social media as a business is not set up to support that. What it’s set up to do is to profit from the circulation of these images.”
One thing is clear: The issue of what to allow and what to block will continue to plague social media with no end in sight.
