Ta-ta Twitter trolls!

Last week, social media platform Twitter agreed to collaborate with Australian police to investigate threats and abuse made by internet trolls. Until recently, local authorities had to seek information from Twitter via the US court system. However, after a meeting between Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and Twitter’s head of global public policy, Chris Crowell, a process has been established with Australian police.

According to the Herald Sun, Twitter has agreed to:

1. Establish better contact with Australian law enforcement agencies, especially to deal with the most serious situations such as threats of violence or self-harm and;
2. Preserve information such as user account names, IP addresses and times of interactions and tweets for non-imminent threats such as trolling or bullying for as long as the legal process may need to access them.

This is a major breakthrough in the war against internet trolls. It comes after the Daily Telegraph launched a campaign named #StoptheTrolls to urge Twitter to unmask trolls and turn them in to authorities for prosecution.

Earlier this month, celebrity Charlotte Dawson was hospitalised over negative comments made by users on Twitter. See my blog post on this story. However, she’s not the first person and won’t be the last to be affected by trolls. Recently, Ms Dawson wrote, “If someone uses Twitter to encourage someone to suicide, to intentionally harass and intimidate people, THAT. IS. NOT. OKAY”.  

It is good to see social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter being proactive and receptive to community concerns. In Facebook’s terms of service, it clearly states “you will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user”. This sends a strong message that, just like in real life, offensive and bullying behaviour on social media is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. In particular this message is good for younger Australians to be exposed to, as we start to see bullying moving from the school yard onto social media. 

Obviously, stamping out internet trolls won’t happen overnight. But getting the governments, law enforcement, community and social media platforms to work together will not only bring awareness to the issue but penalise those who engage in such conduct.

Do you think the collaboration between Australian police and Twitter will prevent trolls from writing negative comments/posts?