In 2015, a man wearing a skull mask posted a video outlining his plans to murder Brianna Wu. The skull video was only one of many such disturbing and bizarre posts targeting Wu and other women online as part of a harassment campaign dubbed GamerGate.
This was in the early days of content moderation in a social media ecosystem with far fewer rules, but still, Twitter moved quickly to remove the video, preventing it from going viral, Wu said. Though GamerGate illustrated just how inept social media platforms were at protecting their users, Twitter’s prompt action served as an early example of the company’s relative willingness to address criticism and work to tamp down on abuse, Wu said.
Although social media platforms have struggled to respond to misinformation, hate speech, election interference and incitement to violence, Twitter has over the years taken a more nuanced and thorough approach, developing, revising and expanding an extensive policy framework.
