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Harassment on Twitter is a very real problem, not just celebrities, but for regular users too. In order to help curb abuse on the platform (a fact that has reportedly kept the company from being sold), Twitter introduced a new feature last week that would put abusers in time out if they tweet offensive content at other users.

So if you wanted to tweet fuck you at a specific user or tell someone to fuck off, youd run the risk of having your account temporarily limited for 12 hours. Basically, you would be able to see your tweets, and your followers would be able to see your tweets, but no one else would.

In theory, thats not a bad idea. As weve said, harassment on Twitter is a real problem and the company has struggled mightily to make things better.

But these new filters can be overzealous. Twitter user Victoria Fierce quoted a tweet from Mike Pences official @VP Twitter account and added the commentary, fuck you, I gotta piss, and youre putting me - an American - in danger of assault by your white supremacist brothers. Her account was immediately put into time out for 12 hours.

That seems a bit harsh. Gizmodo has learned that the way Twitters abuse algorithm is supposed to work is that users who repeatedly tweet abusive content (and what is abusive is up to Twitter) will be put in time out when they engage with other users. So if you repeatedly tweet fuck you to various users, you run the risk of having your account limited.

The problem is, those filters appear to be very sensitive. Looking through Fierces timeline, the only other content that could be potentially seen as objectionable was a tweet containing the word piss and the handle @POTUS.

I was curious about how sensitive these filters were, so I started tweeting various objectionable content to various verified accounts. Amazingly, as soon as I tweeted fuck you @VP or fuck you @POTUS, my test accounts were immediately limited for 12 hours. Other Gizmodo colleagues had similar results, always after tweeting @VP or @POTUS. In my tests, tweeting the same content to other verified users (including @RealDonaldTrump), did not result in any time outs. From an outside perspective, it certainly looks like the POTUS and VP accounts are given certain abuse protections that might not apply to others.

A Twitter spokesperson assured me that this is not the case and that every account is treated equally. The spokesperson added that there will be times when Twitter gets things wrong, but the company is working fast to solve a very real problem.

I have no reason to doubt Twitters sincerity in trying to address abuse, but it seems fair to say that the way the new filter currently works lacks nuance. The most problematic tweets arent those that say, fuck you, its the ones that say Im going to kill you. In my tests, Im going to kill you tweets were ignored whereas fuck you tweets sent to @POTUS or @VP almost immediately made an account vulnerable to being limited.

I know Twitter is working hard on this problem and I recognize that it isnt easy to solve. Lets just hope the solution isnt limiting users who use language that some people find objectionable, while allowing others to make much more pernicious and dangerous threats unabated.

Excerpt from:
Twitter's New Abuse Filter Works Great, If Your Name Is Mike Pence - Gizmodo

WASHINGTON Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday strongly condemned a recent spate of anti-Semitism before visiting a vandalized cemetery outside of St. Louis.

Alongside Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, Pence stopped by Chesed Shel Emeth cemetery in University City where a vandal or vandals toppled and damaged more than 100 headstones in the past week.

Pences boss, President Donald Trump, was criticized for not speaking out sooner against anti-Semitism, but on Tuesday the President called bomb threats at 48 Jewish Community Centers in the US last month and other recent anti-Semitic incidents horrible and painful.

Pence, for his part, offered an unprompted message after receiving a tour of the Fabick Cat distribution center a mere 16 miles from the cemetery.

We condemn this vile act of vandalism and those who perpetrate it in the strongest possible terms, he said to applause, before recalling his recent visit to a concentration camp in Dachau, Germany. We saw firsthand what happens when hatred runs rampant in a society.

Pence told the story of the Americans who liberated the camp and how welcome they were in the eyes of the Jews who were imprisoned there.

Later, the vice president and Greitens, with their suit jackets off and sleeves rolled up, walked the grounds with Anita Feigenbaum, the executive director of the cemetery. The group surveyed the area, which was for the most part restored, with headstones turned upright. The Missouri governor had organized the volunteer event, posting it on his Facebook page the day before. About 100 volunteers participated in Wednesdays event.

Brandishing a bullhorn at the cemetery, Pence thanked the governor and the workers who are repairing the headstones.

There is no place in America for hatred or acts of prejudice or violence or anti-Semitism, he said. You just make us all proud.

Pences conduct and words earned him a laudatory statement from the Anne Frank Center, which had been tough on Trump for his response to the anti-Semitism Tuesday.

We call them as we see them. Today, Vice President Pence proved to be the ultimate mensch by visiting, and even cleaning, the desecrated Jewish graves in St. Louis, executive director Steven Goldman said. This administration finally showed America the kind of response our nation was waiting for all along a response filled with proactive heart.

More here:
Mike Pence, Missouri governor clean up vandalized Jewish cemetery - WGN-TV

People react to a question posed to New Jersey Republican Congressman Leonard Lance during a town hall meeting on February 22, 2017 in Branchburg, New Jersey. (EDUARDO MUNOZ ALVAREZ/AFP/Getty Images)

By Ese Olumhense

So-called angry crowds are liberal activists

Vice President Mike Pence blamed liberal activists on Wednesday, February 22nd for the recent, heated protests that have taken place at Republican legislators town halls across the United States.

Frustrated constituents have cornered GOP lawmakers at public forums and events in the last few weeks, demanding answers to tough questions on subjects ranging from the proposed repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to the White Houses rumored relationship with Russia.

The nightmare of Obamacare is about to end, Pence said Wednesday after a visit to a factory in Fenton, Missouri. Despite the best efforts of liberal activists at town halls around the country, Obamacare has failed and it has got to go.

The vice presidents remarks are in lockstep with those of President Donald Trump and the White House. In a tweet Tuesday, President Trump suggested the so-called angry crowds were planted by liberal activists. Press Secretary Sean Spicer furthered this theory during Wednesdays White House press briefing, saying professional protesters had manufactured the outrage.

There are people who are upset, but I also think that when you look at some of these districts and some of these things, it is not a representation of a members district or an incident, Spicer said. It is a loud, small group of people disrupting something in many cases for media attention.

Just because theyre loud doesnt necessarily mean that they are many, he added.

No town hall, no problem

Despite the seemingly coordinated White House decision to downplay the much-publicized backlash happening at GOP events nationwide, enraged and impassioned constituents continue to pop up at townhalls and other sites from Montana to Arkansas, Iowa, among other states.

The angry confrontations have picked up for weeks, but received notable attention this week as Congress took its first week-long recess. The pushback that has roiled meetings at home has prompted some GOP lawmakers to outright cancel events and appearances.

But for activists working to organize around these events, this is all part of the plan.

Indivisible, a group formed by former Democratic congressional staffers, published an online guide to holding effective town hall protests, and developed a Missing Member Action Plan that urges local groups and angelic troublemakers to be creative in their efforts to access their members of Congress. Part of their reclaim recess strategies include going to local press, gathering outside district offices, and organizing town halls and inviting the missing officials.

No town hall, no problem, the group said of this approach.

Congressional Republicans will continue dodging these public events, the group has said, because they do not want to look weak or unpopular and they know that Trumps agenda is very, very unpopular.

Some [members of Congress] have clearly made the calculation that they can lay low, avoid their constituents, and hope the current storm blows over, organizers added. Its your job to change that calculus.

Town halls will never be the same

Much, if not all, of Indivisibles strategy is borrowed from the Tea Party playbook. That conservative movement first gained national attention in 2009 through the same kind of rowdy disruptions of town hall events after the election of Barack Obama and proposal of the ACA.

Though both groups disagree on principles and policies, even Tea Party activists have pointed out the similarities in tactic, and how successful it has been in furthering civic participation.

I think town halls will never be the same, said conservative organizer Bob MacGuffie. In 2009, MacGuffie wrote the famed Rocking the Town Halls memo, a primer for conservative activists who wanted to corner their elected officials at local forums. The memo, first shared with other Tea Party members soon leaked, and MacGuffies stand up, shout out, sit down approach to getting officials to answer tough questions went viral, and was later adopted by groups elsewhere.

MacGuffie never envisioned that the scheme would later be used by liberal organizers like Indivisible, which linked to the memo on their website. He believes they have mischaracterized his original approach. Hes reached out to Indivisible, but said he has received no response.

Its a caricature of what I wrote, MacGuffie said of the Indivisible plan. What I wrote was a little edgy, but I did not tell people to take down the town halls.

MacGuffie also insists that the original Tea Party protests had a different, more intentional character.

We stood up on principle, he said. We went in, spread out in the hall, and asked the tough questions. That rallied people, but we also listened to answers.

Go here to see the original:
Vice President Mike Pence blames 'liberal activists' for town hall protests - fox6now.com

For the past eight years, thousands of conservative activists have descended on Washington each spring with dreams of putting a Republican in the White House.

They finally have one, but they are not sure he's really conservative.

With Donald Trump's presidential victory, the future of the conservative movement has become entwined with an unconventional New York businessman better known for his deal-making than any ideological principles.

It's an uneasy marriage of political convenience at best. Some conservatives worry whether they can trust their new president to follow decades of orthodoxy on issues like international affairs, small government, abortion and opposition to expanded legal protections for LGBT Americans and what it means for their movement if he doesn't.

"Donald Trump may have come to the Republican Party in an unconventional and circuitous route, but the fact is that we now need him to succeed lest the larger conservative project fails," said evangelical leader Ralph Reed, who mobilized his organization to campaign for Trump during the campaign. "Our success is inextricably tied to his success."

Trump is to address the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday morning. Speaking Thursday morning, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway thanked the conservatives for helping elect Trump.

Vice President Mike Pence is also scheduledto speak Thursday.

White House chief of staff Reince Priebusand top strategist Stephen Bannon say they have a great partnership and that it's helping President Donald Trump fulfill his campaign promises.

Media reports have suggested Priebus and Bannon don't get along and have competing agendas.

Their joint appearance Thursdayseemed geared toward countering those stories.

Bannon calls Priebus "indefatigable." Priebus says Bannon is "dogged" and "incredibly loyal."

Both called on conservatives to stay active in helping Trump enact an agenda that Bannon says centers on a "nationalist economic" approach.

Bannon says: "We are a nation with a culture and a reason for being."

As conservatives met for their first big sessions Thursday at the gathering in Oxon Hill, Maryland, a Washington suburb, they heard a stream of familiar conservative rhetoric.

A panel of GOP governors urged Washington Republicans, who control the levers of power for the first time in a decade, to deliver the results that Republican governors have brought to their states.

"The victory is not on Nov. 8. That is an assignment for change and real reform," said Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, urging Trump and his allies in Congress to make good on promises to repeal "Obamacare," enact tax reform, and cut the federal budget. "As governors, as activists, engaged citizens, we need to hold all elected leaders accountable for results in this cycle right now. We may not get this same opportunity again. We can't squander it."

Social conservatives were thrilled by a Wednesday night decision to reverse an Obama-era directive that said transgender students should be allowed to use public school bathrooms and locker rooms matching their chosen gender identity.

Trump has a somewhat tortured history with CPAC, an annual convention that's part ideological pep talk, part political boot camp for activists. Over the past six years, he's been both booed and cheered. He's rejected speaking slots and galvanized attendees with big promises of economic growth and electoral victory.

At times, he has seemed to delight in taunting them.

"I'm a conservative, but don't forget: This is called the Republican Party, not the Conservative Party," he said in a May interview on ABC's "This Week."

The tensions between Trump's brand of populist politics and conservative ideology will be on full display at the three-day conference, which features panels like "Conservatives: Where we come from, where we are and where we are going" and "The Alt-Right Ain't Right At All."

Along with Trump come his supporters, including the populists, party newcomers and nationalists that have long existed on the fringes of conservativism and have gotten new voice during the early days of his administration.

Pro-Brexit British politician Nigel Farage will speak a few hours after Trump.

Organizers invited provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos after protesters at the University of California at Berkeley succeeded in stopping his appearance on campus. But the former editor at Breitbart News, the website previously run by Bannon, was disinvited this week after video clips surfaced in which he appeared to defend sexual relationships between men and boys as young as 13.

Trump "is giving rise to a conservative voice that for the first time in a long time unabashedly, unapologetically puts America first," said Republican strategist Hogan Gidley. "That 'America First' moniker can very well shape this country, but also the electorate and the Republican Party and conservative movement for decades."

Trump's early moves including a flurry of executive orders and his nomination of federal Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court have cheered conservatives. They've also applauded his Cabinet picks, which include some of the most conservative members of Congress. The ACU awarded his team a 91.52 percent conservative rating 28 points higher than Ronald Reagan and well above George H.W. Bush who received a 78.15 rating.

But key items on the conservative wish list remain shrouded in uncertainty. The effort to repeal President Barack Obama's health care law is not moving as quickly as many hoped, and Republicans also have yet to coalesce around revamping the nation's tax code.

No proposals have surfaced to pursue Trump's campaign promises to build a border wall with Mexico that could cost $15 billion or more or to buttress the nation's infrastructure with a $1 trillion plan. Conservatives fear that those plans could result in massive amounts of new spending and that Trump's penchant for deal-making could leave them on the wrong side of the transaction.

"There is wariness," said Tim Phillips, president of Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity.

But with a Republican-controlled Congress, others believe there's no way to lose.

"He sits in a room with Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan. Is there a bad a deal to be made with those three in the room?" asked veteran anti-tax activist Grover Norquist. "A deal between those three will, I think, always make me happy."

Read more:
Mike Pence, Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway speak at CPAC today - Newsday

INDIANAPOLIS When the Trump administration unveiled an executive order trying to bar Syrian refugees from coming to the United States, many who have resettled here in the American heartland felt a familiar sense of dread: Mike Pence is trying to ban us. Again.

Fadi Lababidi was shocked. He and his family arrived here in October 2014, greeted with a banner at the airport and kindness from strangers. Lababidi and his wife have made a life for themselves in Indiana, where they work at a hospital cafeteria. Their older children attend public schools and speak fluent English to their 1-month-old sister, a U.S. citizen named Selena.

Now the Lababidis and other families who came to live here during the past few years are angry and shaken, worried that they might be forced to leave the country. Over plates of sweets, they discuss the anguish of knowing that it is possible that their loved ones will not be able to join them in their adopted country, and they fret about their children, their jobs, their future.

I dont know what they will do to us here. Will they deport us back? Will they send us back? Will they keep us here? asked Lababidi, a genial 48-year-old. I started questioning my presence here and what will happen to me and my family.

The national ban has a familiar feel to Lababidi. It was a little more than a year after he and his family arrived in the United States that a terrorist attack in Paris spurred Pence then Indianas governor to direct state agencies to stop the resettlement of Syrian migrants in the state.

[Mike Pence wants to keep Syrian refugees out of Indiana. Theyre coming anyway.]

Pences decision was a surprise to us because it did not represent the American people, the way we were welcomed and the way we were treated in public, he said.

Exodus Refugee Immigration and the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana sued Pence, asserting that he did not have constitutional authority to bar people from the state. Pence lost, with a federal appeals court ruling in October that the governors directive was discrimination on the basis of nationality.

The arrivals did not stop, and now more than 200 Syrian refugees live in this sprawling Midwestern city of more than 850,000. But now, Pence is vice president, and the administration moved to make a ban on Syrian refugees nationwide and indefinite. The apprehension and fear Lababidi felt in 2015 is back at levels he never imagined.

This time it was the entire country, and it was specifically toward Muslims, he said.

And it has rocked the small Syrian community in Indianapolis, a city that is home to a fast-growing immigrant population, including a growing number of refugees a blue dot smack in the middle of a deeply red state.

We won the battle, but were losing the war, said Cole Varga, executive director of Exodus.

Exodus resettled 947 refugees here in the past fiscal year, including 556 from Burma, 146 from Congo and 122 from Syria. From Oct.1 to Jan.31, 83 Syrian refugees arrived in Indianapolis through Exodus, and a total of 108 statewide. At least one Syrian family did not come to Indianapolis because of Trumps order, but another arrived recently after a federal appeals court struck down the administrations decree. A spokesman for Pence did not respond to requests for comment.

Pence at the time said he was trying to keep Syrian refugees out of Indiana in the name of security, and some here agree.

Ive never met them, said Steve Munn, a 66-year-old woodworker. Supposedly weve got our fair share.

At a McDonalds on the citys south side, a traditionally white, working-class enclave that is home to a cluster of Burmese refugees, Warren Gregory, 61, said he has not worked in a year. He is studying for an MBA and a degree in natural health, and he exalted the properties of myrrh oil and qigong. He will soon move 75miles south, to a cabin where he can live for less than $300 a month.

The refugees are treated better than normal folks, Gregory said. I have nothing against them. I have something against them being able to come here and make more money than us and not even have to worry.

Gregory said that the United States has no proof of who the Syrian refugees are and does not think vetting is strong enough.

I dont trust the State Department right now, and I dont like the U.N., he said of two agencies that conduct extensive vetting of Syrian refugees.

Refugees from Syria are subject to an enhanced security review, a process that can take years and includes numerous interviews, biometric checks, medical screening and security checks by multiple federal agencies.

But the Syrians living in Indianapolis said they have become accustomed to what people call Hoosier hospitality. Volunteers drive refugees to appointments and an international store, where they can buy the closest thing Indiana has to Syrian bread. Families use apartment courtyards for weekend get-togethers featuring kebabs, dancing and children. Schools ensure that Syrian refugee families are connected.

[Pence once called Trumps Muslim ban unconstitutional. He now applauds the ban on refugees.]

We feel like we are not by ourselves, said Alan Omar, who noted that he had to look up the city on Google because he had never heard of it before learning he would move here. There are good people around.

Omar, 21, fled Aleppo, Syria, where he remembers fighter jet attacks and bomb explosions all around for a small village in 2012 and then Turkey the following year. After nine vetting interviews where he was asked every single detail about his life, the United States granted him refugee status.

When he arrived here in May 2015, Omar barely spoke English and could not figure out where to take out the trash at his apartment complex. He found employment sorting packages in a warehouse and delivering pizzas. But he prides himself on his work ethic and wanted more.

He now works full time as a recruiter at a staffing agency, where colleagues treat me like part of the family. He speaks fluent English, attends adult high school classes at night with plans to continue to college and helps other Syrians navigate their new lives in the United States.

This is our second country, Omar said. Its our responsibility to take care of it.

But Trumps executive order has filled Omar and his family with trepidation. Most of his siblings are scattered around Europe, and one still lives in Syria. Omars mother recently received a green card and had planned to leave the United States to visit a sister who recently had a baby in Germany. Heartbroken, she put her plans on hold because the family is afraid that if she leaves she will not be able to return.

Lababidis father, who is ill, lives in Jordan and is in the final steps of the U.S. refugee-resettlement process. The two speak every day, the father asking the son for the latest news on the presidents decree and the son trying to maintain calm.

Because of Trump, we cannot see him or take care of him or treat him here, Lababidi said. My father is old 72years old. Does this make him a terrorist?

[How to be an American: Syrian refugees find a home in Trump country]

As Lababidi spoke, his eldest child, 14-year-old Ebrahim, wearing bright silver sneakers, quietly listened. Twelve-year-old Shimaa and 10-year-old Mohammad played with a cellphone, using Snapchat and Instagram. Eight-year-old Hamzeh alternated between rocking Selena in her car seat and snuggling under his fathers arm. Lababidi jokes that his children now speak so quickly in their new language, peppering their sentences with cool and awesome, that he needs an interpreter to understand them.

In school last month, one of Shimaas teachers told her class about Trumps order and singled out the girl as an example of the kind of person the law would keep out of the country an innocent sixth-grade girl.

He said that no one can come to America no more, and he stopped and he said, Shimaas Muslim. Is she racist? Is she a terrorist or something? the girl recounted.

They said no, Shimaa said, biting her hot-pink hoodie. She said she was a little scared and embarrassed, but she felt good telling people she is an Arab.

Hamzeh said that Trumps voice frightens him and sometimes makes him want to cry. Mohammad, in a Captain America sweatshirt, said he finally feels safe in the United States and likes speaking two languages.

Trumps order has spurred some here to respond in ways they never planned. Galen Denney, 36, an Indianapolis native studying electrical engineering, was so incensed after Trumps order that he started a Facebook event for a rally at the Indianapolis Airport. Hundreds of people showed up.

The same outpouring of support that was perhaps more reserved during Pences attempts at legislating discrimination are now simply amplified by the attempts to move from state-level politics to the national stage, Denney said.

There is some optimism among refugees and refugee advocates after the court struck down Trumps order. Varga, the director of Exodus, says there will be more battles to win, and Omar said the ruling allowed him to see the equality in America again.

While Omar and Lababidi have nothing but thanks and gratitude for Americans, transitioning to a new life is difficult, and not everyone has been welcoming.

Ebrahim Lababidi said he ignores nasty comments at school. Sixteen-year-old Rama Batman has dealt with insults from fellow students. Her mother, Lona al-Moghrabi, said that two students got into a fistfight over Trump at her sons middle school and police had to be called.

It was very scary, especially at the school, she said as her daughter interpreted in their living room. Trump took a lot of votes from Indiana.

See the article here:
As Indiana governor, Pence failed to exclude Syrian refugees. Now the federal administration he serves is trying ... - Washington Post