Back in the '90s, when you entered AOL Instant Messenger chatrooms there was always disclaimers saying that certain content (swearing, hate speech, sexual material, etc.) were subject to be filtered out, or would cause you to be kicked.
Message boards and forums have always had moderators and admins who could censor at will. You're posting on one right now.
Can anyone explain how Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc. is qualitatively different from any of these other websites?
There are a few different contingents that frequent HN and bother to look at the comments on posts like this, which results in equal numbers of downvotes on wildly opposing top level comments.
There is a large contingent on HM that doesn’t seem to want to discuss anything that’s related to politics in the smallest way, no matter how directly on topic it is for technology.
So you’ll find stories like this one that should be pretty high up which have been flagged to death and no longer appear on the main page.
One is censorship, that is used by dominant group to silence everyone else.
Another is bunch of minority groups that might have outlandish aims and use free speech platforms to harrass everyone else.
What I don't like that it is left to private company to sort it out and enact their own policies. This questions should be clearly handled on legislative level. In the end of the day a company provides a service, they shouldn't be the judge of how much free speech is allowed/not allowed.
So I would say it is not failure of twitter here, it is just massive failure of our political process, but we all kind of know that already.
the right to post on twitter, or even have a platform isn't a human right, it's not even a constitutional right, it's a 'privilege' the company gives you as long as you don't act like an idiot. Just like every web forum on the internet since aol and newsgroups in the 90s.
W/out twitter you lose a voice you'd never have had if Twitter didn't exist, so by them banning hate speech maybe if your voice matters you'll exercise some caution and prudence when making a statement.
They should just use the admin panel to start posting different stuff, a distributed re-education campaign with shadowban for user-generated content
I'm sure they granted themselves this power in the Terms of Service, if not then I'm sure they've granted themselves the power to update the Terms of Service
It's been encouraging to see companies grow a backbone and crack down on harassment and hate campaigns, and not hide behind cowardly cries of "free speech." Twitter has taken too much time to do this, but recently they've been doing it more. Even Reddit, notorious for powering and consciously allowing hate campaigns, has cracked down more.
It's also been interesting that the proponents of allowing these campaigns to continue say that stopping them will indeed lead to totalitarian censorship of "free speech."
Granted we must always be vigilant against social pressure going too far. For example, the mob that formed to find the Boston marathon bomber over-zealously targeted the wrong people, risking their lives. We must learn from things like this.
But to jump from banning hate campaigns on private platforms, to total censorship, is an impressively intellectually dishonest juggling act.
Facebook hate groups don't need Twitter accounts to operate. Regardless of the presumably positive outcome for the mainstream timeline, this is likely a futile whack-a-mole move that only benefits Twitter. Hate groups organize in private and output the vitriol with whichever fake accounts they have in possession. The way to definitively solve this societal problem is to help the people caught in the self-radicalisation filter bubble to overcome their real-life problems that fuel the hate. Banning them from the services that played a part in turning them seems a bit hypocritical.
Good “first” step. Thing is in a time of public health crisis misinformation is not something we need to put up with. It’s should be blocked, not just not propagate. Social media has indeed become a public health problem.
QAnon is a dynamic LARP. There is no conspiracy that they can't absorb. The anonymity of the authors is a feature, but it also means there is no person who can authoritatively deny that the WayFair conspiracy theory was not related to the core "deep state" one.
Honestly, my analysis of the Wayfair storage bin incident was that it was probably a LARPer (QAnon, 4Channer, Russian/Chinese troll, whatever) who had access to the WayFair vendor admin panel and realized that QAnon followers would eat it up.
For those interested in a deep dive into QAnon and its origins I highly recommend this podcast by Robbie Martin. He goes into possible links to Roger Stone and Erik Prince (and therefore ultimately Trump).
People are able to judge information they encounter. The problem is when there is so much information, that the amount of time it takes to get to a piece of information that is worthwhile to evaluate has long surpassed the amount of time people have to evaluate the information. So good info never even makes its way to them.
The phrase "more ... than any other account" is hyperbolic at best. The repetitive drumbeat to try to paint Trump as Hitler-esque is strange. Among other things his ability to communicate is severely lacking.
Since we apparently are expressing wishes now, I wish that twitter just didn't exist in the first place.
Don't know what QAnon was, apparently it's not just one person but 7K accounts so a group? I took one visit to the website not long ago and wrote it off as garbage. Obviously there is true stuff mixed in but I'd say the fake news level at least slightly higher then CNN so I can see why twitter would flag it as such. Should they be banned though? Honestly, I'm more for leaving the nonsense like flat earth stuff up so you know who is crazy, but twitter will do twitter things.
A lot of people did that years ago, when Twitter's response to a notorious Twitter troll being elected as President of the United States was to modify their TOS so that there's a "newsworthiness" carve-out that keeps trolls on Twitter.
I’d like to see Antifa added to this growing list as well.
The article states this group has “ties to dangerous real-world activities”. Does anyone know of any? Or is this just conjecture? The article’s statement was fairly vague.
You could start with the guy who charged into the pizza shop back when this all began. Fortunately he didn't kill anyone but he's now in jail after sincerely believed children were being abused and that it was being covered up.
If you're optimizing for "ties to dangerous real-world activities" it's weird that you'd pick anti-fascist protestors before considering cops and soldiers. Cool ideology you have there.
No "antifa" movement has been associated with the same degree of violence and coordinated harassment. There are not tens of thousands of "antifa" members sharing lists of public figures they believe have been or should be executed and fabricating evidence against those figures.
As an antifascist, I'd like to list some things [0] which I haven't done and which I do not imagine are parts of healthy antifascism, but which I can understand that Twitter might ban folks for encouraging or doing:
* Doxxing
* Brandishing weapons in a family restaurant [1]
* Targeting journalists for violence
* Targeting public figures who have been accused of crimes for violence [2]
* Targeting politicians for violence
* Bombing churches (and yes, Satanic temples are just as bad to bomb as Christian churches)
* Invading foreign soil
Could you help flesh out the equivalence here? It seems like quite the false equivalence to me. Antifascist violence is a last resort, not a central desire of the ideology; we've seen police, military police, and now secret police in a continuing escalation of violence by the state; meanwhile, Q's followers seem quite happy to endorse violence as the primary means by which political and social change are achieved, by which detective work is done and facts are learned, and by which discussions are had and consensus is reached.
This comment was on a dupe thread and I'm adding it here in case this gets un-flagged. There is a good reason to discuss this:
I sympathize with the argument that social platforms are private and can do business (or not) with whomever they please, the counter argument is that these platforms are "Radical Monopolies" (https://wikitia.com/wiki/Radical_Monopoly) apropos of a recent HN thread on Ivan Illich, where the analogy for the effect of being kicked off a platform is not like Ford declining to sell you a car where you can just go get another one, but rather, cancelling your license in Los Angeles.
It's not 1:1, but if you lose your drivers license in a city like LA or non-coastal state, your ability to participate in society (find work, etc) and your social franchise in society is diminished because the automobile has a radical monopoly in American cities.
Twitter and social platforms like Facebook have definitely become radical monopolies for reputation, where if you have no social media presence, you are excluded socially. (Regarding Facebook, try find a date without an instagram page.) Facebook execs even commented publicly early on that people without Facebook accounts should be treated as suspicious.
That QAnon types are so ridiculous and indefensible is what makes them a great example for discussing how and whether to protect minority views. Twitter does have the right to do what they want, and I'm optimistic that these purges will create demand for the divergent platforms that will replace this first generation of them, but to say this right is simple and natural ignores precedents of radical monopolies that were enabled and sustained by political protection, which seems naive. The non-libertarian case for limiting social platforms ability to purge can be summed up in president Obama's thoughts,when he said, "you didn't build that."
Arguably, social platforms that rely on network effects to become radical monopolies didn't "build that," either.
I'm not sure what you mean by "enabled and sustained by political protection" in this context. Facebook and Twitter didn't have to build the web infrastructure, but there were other social networks in existence before those two became dominant. I'm not sure how we perceive their network effects as non-self-built.
Facebook beat out competitors with two advantages: access to primary sources (they primed the network with college students) and requirement to use real names, which set them apart from other persona-based social networks at the time and encouraged people to be their "normal selves" on FB. Turns out, that's what a lot of people wanted; relative to the cyberpunk-esque other options, it felt "normal and safe." They made a market choice and it paid off for them.
[+] [-] Apocryphon|5 years ago|reply
Message boards and forums have always had moderators and admins who could censor at will. You're posting on one right now.
Can anyone explain how Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc. is qualitatively different from any of these other websites?
[+] [-] vecinu|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|5 years ago|reply
2. HN users tend to downvote tedious, repetitive flamewar.
[+] [-] zrail|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MBCook|5 years ago|reply
So you’ll find stories like this one that should be pretty high up which have been flagged to death and no longer appear on the main page.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] arkitaip|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] timavr|5 years ago|reply
It is like we are stuck between two evils.
One is censorship, that is used by dominant group to silence everyone else.
Another is bunch of minority groups that might have outlandish aims and use free speech platforms to harrass everyone else.
What I don't like that it is left to private company to sort it out and enact their own policies. This questions should be clearly handled on legislative level. In the end of the day a company provides a service, they shouldn't be the judge of how much free speech is allowed/not allowed.
So I would say it is not failure of twitter here, it is just massive failure of our political process, but we all kind of know that already.
[+] [-] gremlinsinc|5 years ago|reply
W/out twitter you lose a voice you'd never have had if Twitter didn't exist, so by them banning hate speech maybe if your voice matters you'll exercise some caution and prudence when making a statement.
[+] [-] vmception|5 years ago|reply
I'm sure they granted themselves this power in the Terms of Service, if not then I'm sure they've granted themselves the power to update the Terms of Service
[+] [-] stevebmark|5 years ago|reply
It's also been interesting that the proponents of allowing these campaigns to continue say that stopping them will indeed lead to totalitarian censorship of "free speech."
Granted we must always be vigilant against social pressure going too far. For example, the mob that formed to find the Boston marathon bomber over-zealously targeted the wrong people, risking their lives. We must learn from things like this.
But to jump from banning hate campaigns on private platforms, to total censorship, is an impressively intellectually dishonest juggling act.
[+] [-] some1else|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] torresjrjr|5 years ago|reply
https://torresjrjr.com/archive/2020-07-19-guide-to-the-fediv...
[+] [-] onyva|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hadrien01|5 years ago|reply
And the NBC website doesn't have an impossible-to-opt-out GDPR popup
[+] [-] themark|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thephyber|5 years ago|reply
Honestly, my analysis of the Wayfair storage bin incident was that it was probably a LARPer (QAnon, 4Channer, Russian/Chinese troll, whatever) who had access to the WayFair vendor admin panel and realized that QAnon followers would eat it up.
[+] [-] bynormous|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0xy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AndrewBissell|5 years ago|reply
https://soundcloud.com/media-roots/the-origins-of-qanon-foll...
[+] [-] newobj|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mensetmanusman|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] manigandham|5 years ago|reply
The issue is social media and the speed and scale of information without identity or verification. That's not going to be solved by curation.
[+] [-] codeddesign|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ativzzz|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asquabventured|5 years ago|reply
I hope this is just missing the sarcasm tag?
[+] [-] sixstringtheory|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geofft|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] sjtgraham|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] arkitaip|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] EdSharkey|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] flippinburgers|5 years ago|reply
Since we apparently are expressing wishes now, I wish that twitter just didn't exist in the first place.
[+] [-] Romanulus|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s9w|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] berryjerry|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yobi-ponti|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shadowgovt|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codeddesign|5 years ago|reply
The article states this group has “ties to dangerous real-world activities”. Does anyone know of any? Or is this just conjecture? The article’s statement was fairly vague.
[+] [-] dwd|5 years ago|reply
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-man-with-assault-rifle-d...
[+] [-] exogeny|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jhardy54|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djur|5 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon#Incidents https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2020/01/08/mother-t...
No "antifa" movement has been associated with the same degree of violence and coordinated harassment. There are not tens of thousands of "antifa" members sharing lists of public figures they believe have been or should be executed and fabricating evidence against those figures.
[+] [-] joshuamorton|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaomidi|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Kednicma|5 years ago|reply
* Doxxing
* Brandishing weapons in a family restaurant [1]
* Targeting journalists for violence
* Targeting public figures who have been accused of crimes for violence [2]
* Targeting politicians for violence
* Bombing churches (and yes, Satanic temples are just as bad to bomb as Christian churches)
* Invading foreign soil
Could you help flesh out the equivalence here? It seems like quite the false equivalence to me. Antifascist violence is a last resort, not a central desire of the ideology; we've seen police, military police, and now secret police in a continuing escalation of violence by the state; meanwhile, Q's followers seem quite happy to endorse violence as the primary means by which political and social change are achieved, by which detective work is done and facts are learned, and by which discussions are had and consensus is reached.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon#Incidents
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate_conspiracy_theory
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Cali
[+] [-] motohagiography|5 years ago|reply
I sympathize with the argument that social platforms are private and can do business (or not) with whomever they please, the counter argument is that these platforms are "Radical Monopolies" (https://wikitia.com/wiki/Radical_Monopoly) apropos of a recent HN thread on Ivan Illich, where the analogy for the effect of being kicked off a platform is not like Ford declining to sell you a car where you can just go get another one, but rather, cancelling your license in Los Angeles.
It's not 1:1, but if you lose your drivers license in a city like LA or non-coastal state, your ability to participate in society (find work, etc) and your social franchise in society is diminished because the automobile has a radical monopoly in American cities.
Twitter and social platforms like Facebook have definitely become radical monopolies for reputation, where if you have no social media presence, you are excluded socially. (Regarding Facebook, try find a date without an instagram page.) Facebook execs even commented publicly early on that people without Facebook accounts should be treated as suspicious.
That QAnon types are so ridiculous and indefensible is what makes them a great example for discussing how and whether to protect minority views. Twitter does have the right to do what they want, and I'm optimistic that these purges will create demand for the divergent platforms that will replace this first generation of them, but to say this right is simple and natural ignores precedents of radical monopolies that were enabled and sustained by political protection, which seems naive. The non-libertarian case for limiting social platforms ability to purge can be summed up in president Obama's thoughts,when he said, "you didn't build that."
Arguably, social platforms that rely on network effects to become radical monopolies didn't "build that," either.
[+] [-] shadowgovt|5 years ago|reply
Facebook beat out competitors with two advantages: access to primary sources (they primed the network with college students) and requirement to use real names, which set them apart from other persona-based social networks at the time and encouraged people to be their "normal selves" on FB. Turns out, that's what a lot of people wanted; relative to the cyberpunk-esque other options, it felt "normal and safe." They made a market choice and it paid off for them.