An advocate for honoring women on British currency was thanked for her efforts on Twitter with dozens of rape threats. A female writer who recently spoke out against rape jokes, almost predictably, got the same treatment. CNN’s Doug Gross asked Brian Solis for his thoughts on the subject based on his views around “Freedom of Tweet, is it a Right or Wrong?”

Following are some of Brian’s thoughts as published in, “Twitter faces new pressure to limit hate speech.”

 

“Expressed hate and abuse is unfortunately part of our society, and it is now also part of our real-time digital culture,” said Brian Solis, a new media analyst for Altimeter Group and author of “What’s the Future of Business? Changing the Way Businesses Create Experiences.”

“As we live the digital lifestyle, our expectations are such that any menace should not only be dealt with accordingly, it should be done immediately.”

“Twitter represents a new medium that the world hasn’t seen before,” Solis said of the site that supports 400 million tweets every day. “To protect its users, it must invest in automated and manual safety and reporting mechanisms as it grows.”

But, in 2013, it’s become nearly impossible to distinguish where “Web culture” ends and culture as a whole begins. Solis, the analyst, noted that as social media become more and more mainstream, bad behavior that would never be accepted on a sidewalk will increasingly be policed, one way or another, online.

“The idea of ‘freedom of tweet’ does not supersede law,” he said. “Expression aimed at hurting or threatening someone is indeed a threat heard around the world.”