Twitter defends anonymity of users

An executive of Twitter has told an Oireachtas committee investigating cyberbullying that it understands concerns about the posting of unidentifiable abuse on the platform but the company regards anonymity as of “fundamental value”.

Sinéad McSweeney, Twitter’s director of public policy for Europe, said it saw anonymity “as giving people who would not otherwise have a voice” the chance “to be part of discussion, to be part of debates, and maybe to be part of a world that is not generally open to them”.

Asked whether Twitter could identify users for law enforcement agencies, Ms McSweeney confirmed the website did not “require people to provide their real names at any stage of the process”.

She said Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte and his department were best placed to say whether there was a gap in legislation but the company had rules controlling the platform.

Twitter could suspend those who posted abusive material, and co-operated with law enforcement agencies on criminal matters. She agreed, however, complaints procedures were not universally known and “we need to do some work on that”.

Addressing the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, she said she understood the “serious concerns” people had raised about anonymity but it was important not to lose sight of the opportunities of social media. “We need to balance our commitment to the privacy of our users” with any such concerns, she said. “The privacy of users is very important to us.”

Asked about the possibility of an online press council that would allow people who were defamed to pursue justice, she replied: “I would push people to the resources which are there which all the companies have put into place.”

Online bullying

Where a civil wrong was committed, “they need to seek legal advice and pursue those avenues”. In relation to online bullying, she said, “we owe it to our children” to stay in touch with technology. “My advice to parents is to recognise that they have to understand the tools and channels that their children are using.”

If parents find any child under 13 using Twitter, they should contact the company by email, she said. It was “neither physically or technically possible” for the company to moderate content, given there were one billion tweets every 2½ days.

Facebook’s director of policy for the UK and Ireland, Simon Milner, said it had a different approach to anonymity in that “the real identity principle goes right across the site”.

There were various ways users could control what they posted, and who could read it, as well as procedures for pursuing a complaint, he added.

Handling complaints

Patricia Cartes, Facebook’s European safety director, said minors were prioritised when it came to such complaints and they were met with shorter response times. Like the Twitter representative, however, Facebook was unable to detail precisely how long it took to deal with complaints.

Asked about the possibility of supporting a cyberbullying hotline, Facebook officials said it supported internet safety initiatives in other countries, “sometimes financially”. But Ms Cartes said its approach was technology-led. Rather than hiring 3,000 people to deal with complaints, it invested in technological solutions for responding to abuses.The committee’s final hearing on the issue takes place next Wednesday.