Embattled Twitter CEO Dick Costolo wrote an internal memo admitting the company’s abject failure when it comes to large-scale abuse and harassment in the Twittersphere. Basically, what happens now is a certain element on Twitter thinks nothing of ganging up, issuing violent threats, encouraging suicide, and making generally cruel comments and horrific sexually abusive diatribes (most Twitter abuse targets are women.) It’s hard to police the online world, but Twitter clearly hasn’t developed enough strong tools to catch and evict the abusers. Costolo, to his credit, says the buck stops with him and that Twitter will redouble its efforts to protect people.
“We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we’ve sucked at it for years,” writes Costolo in a memo obtained by The Verge. “It’s no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day. I’m frankly ashamed of how poorly we’ve dealt with this issue during my tenure as CEO. It’s absurd. There’s no excuse for it.”
