This ban seems to heavily take advantage of the current moment, as it's obvious that he has tweeted worse things in the past.
It's strange that they picked such a poor way to justify the ban when they could have made a significantly stronger case, and in doing so could have convinced millions more people that they are trying their best to apply policies evenly. For example, I have a hard time imagining why they chose to specifically quote "American Patriots", as if that somehow contributes to the straw that broke the camel's back. Perhaps they have a strategic reason for going about this how they did, but I think it will have some negative 2nd/3rd order effects. that they haven't yet realized.
I imagine we are still only in the early days of the conflicts that are to come in this sphere (and I'd include just about every company and political faction in them, unfortunately).
(Also because apparently I have to state this explicitly in every comment related to Trump: I do not support Trump, his supporters, the recent events that occurred at the capitol, etc etc)
Is it just my perception, or is their actual justification using the 2 quoted tweets kinda weak? Interpreting his boycott of an event as a call to violence seems like a huge stretch. It seems like they wanted to shoehorn a justification using his 2 latest tweets when the actual reason goes back further.
When I saw the cryptic 1 sentence tweet that he wasn't going to be there, the first thing that came to mind was that he was telling his supporters indirectly that they could do whatever they wanted since he wouldn't be in harms way.
So perhaps it is a huge stretch to some, but we need to remember it is also not a stretch at all to many, especially given the recent events. Therein lies the danger.
However, suppose that Bill Clinton, George Bush, or Barack Obama had declined to attend the inauguration of there predecessors. That would surely trigger a crisis worthy of de-platforming. We’ve become somewhat numb to this sort of thing.
I guess my second draft would have said, “We’ve allowed DJT a platform because he is the President of the United States. In light of all that he has said on Twitter over the last 10+ years, though, he is guilty of inciting hate and violence among his followers. [Cite myriad tweets and cases.] We were going to wait until he left office to suspend his account. In light of his most recent tweets indicating that he would not attend the inauguration, we think it prudent to move up this timeline...”
In light of everything that's happened this week, I think the first tweet could easily be interpreted as having been intended to further stoke his followers' outrage. The 2nd tweet, while somewhat factual, I think also came off as incendiary and divisive. What excuse does he have at this point for not attending the inauguration other than to make yet another spiteful statement to increase tensions and, therefore, incite more violence?
The full comments in the post detail similar reasoning.
Update: As many people have pointed out (and as the Twitter post mentions), the 2nd tweet could also be interpreted as emphasizing that it would be safe to commit further violence at an event that he won't be attending. This is certainly a much more grave concern than the one I mentioned above.
Taken in isolation the two tweets in particular don't seem that much crazier than anything else he has said over the past four years. However, given the overall context of what happened on Wednesday and the (now deleted) tweets leading up to the incident, there is sufficient justification (IMO) for a ban from those prior tweets alone.
It's extremely weak, but that doesn't matter. Twitter has been wanting to do this for a very long time. This was the perfect catalyst and they're going to be lauded for doing so by the left.
You forget that he was already under a "soft ban" due to his previous activities on the platform. This was just the confirmation that he didn't change his behavior.
Agree. It would have looked better to just pick any of the top 100 worse recent tweets (which these aren’t). Or simply none at all.
It’s a correct (late) call, but using these quotes will read to those who disagree as “we have nothing we just want to shut him down” which is unfortunate.
these two Tweets must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks.
you should go check out far right communities online, to them he may as well have said "Storm the inauguration on the 20th." He 100% deserved to be banned just for that comment's kairos.
Does anybody have a solution to the bigger underlying question of de-platforming and censorship on online platforms?
As far as I can tell, there are two general viewpoints:
a) Censorship is bad, free speech is good. You should counter bad arguments with better arguments.
b) There are types of speech, which are proven to lead to violence in the long-run. Also, some things can be proven as untrue. Lies are bad.
I have to say, I agree with both of those points. I think group A is missing the point, that there are echo chambers and people radicalizing within their filter-bubbles up to the point of literal terrorism, while group B is missing that the power to censor can be misused by bad actors in the future and that silenced people will not just change their mind.
Is there a proper answer for someone like me? Where should I stand on this? I am leaning towards group A, while acknowledging that radicalization does happen and dearly worrying about perversion of words like "truth" or "fact" ("your/my truth", "alternate facts").
Comparing today's media, to the media of old - where they colluded to hide FDR couldn't walk because of the shame/and attacks it'd lead to now, where Tech companies overtook print media and now themselves control the pitchforks and direct anger at the masses.
1984 Two minutes of hate is real, so very real, and it's quite sad how most people welcomed this into the world.
I've deleted my social media, twitters years before, and have divested myself completely from other platforms. There is nothing to be valued, gained or such,
The Internet should always be a decentralized, fragmented piece of human technology. The more centralized it becomes, the more authoritarian it is. And the orgs that become in control point the finger at others to show off how it's not them.
--
I hold no opinion on Trump, but these tech companies have to much power and it's a game of bidding where they can creep more and more into our lives and general lobbying to make the case that life is "better" with them here then it ever was before.
This has been an embarrassing incident to those in power because it made them look weak. But calling a populist movement with millions of supporters, terrorists is very short sighted. It will only accelerate the fire.
The left soon will control all three branches of government, after an election that many people question, has been simultaneously advocating for censorship of its political adversaries, more draconian civil rights removals under the guise of COVID. The inevitably resulting destruction of more people's livelihoods will create more desperate people. I hope you realize where this is all going. Because its obvious more people will be revolting if this continues, and will organize to resist. Censorship and oppression is not the answer. Letting people voice their grievances, is the last peaceful outlet before actual violence.
74 million voters. This is not going to play out well. There's really no coming back from this moment, the technocratic elite have changed American democracy forever. Edit: I mean this in the way Snowden tweeted yesterday, it will be interesting how this plays out for better or worse, but it is a monumental policy shift that will be a date marked in history books.
You say this like its the first time Americans have had to learn to live with having lost a federal election. Half the country is disappointed every four years. Starting to make concessions to terrorists because they got really upset after being lied to repeatedly makes no sense.
> the technocratic elite have changed American democracy forever
The president has spent weeks trying to delegitimize the results of a democratic election, culminating yesterday by inciting a mob to de-rail the ratifying of the results, but it’s the banning of said president from a social media site that has changed American democracy forever. Right.
It appears to me that there is a huge electorate that is disgruntled and has felt that the people in power have ignored it for too long. If such a large number of people have actually vandalized Congress (didn't they do something like this to the Michigan Statehouse) to make their displeasure known, then they must genuinely feel that the normal method of registering protest, i.e., voting, has ceased to function for them. The overall smug and condescending tone of the mainstream and social media barons and the professional class only exacerbates this feeling.
How many of us here has had to face years of despair because of job loss, and loss of social standing due to globalization and corporate greed? Do we have any genuine hope (and more importantly, need) of understanding this 74 million?
There have been closer elections in recent history. Why are you giving this particular one such outsized proportion?
You didn't see this sort of reaction in 2000, and that was far far closer.
And to be clear, this election was 306 to 232. That is considered a landslide in my book (meaning my 40+ years of living). And in percentages, you can see just how poorly Trump performed in this election - 51.4% to 46.9%. 2000 was 47.9% to 48.4% (technically a negative 0.5% difference).
So I think your argument is completely disingenuous.
Maybe the solution is to use 21st century tools for democracy in 21st century. Issue based open voting, flexible mechanism of vote delegation, and ability to trade votes to reach compromise can fix what social media have broken https://voteflux.org
Curious, do you think all 74 million people are actually outraged? A lot of people voted republican because of libertarian views, not because they support Trump specifically. A lot of them also don't believe the election was rigged. The capitol riots that occurred this week have also swayed more people away from the conservative party. Trump still has millions of supporters but I think that number is tricking down given the recent events.
Trump is the one who chose twitter. No position on the planet has more choices to spread a message to an audience than the POTUS. Twitter owes Trump nothing. He broke their rules and faces the consequences. One politician being banned on social media sites is not a sign of the technocracy subverting democracy; it’s a sign that no one is above consequences of their own actions.
I doubt it’s as big as you say. Watch interviews with normal Trump voters (ie, not the meme-lords and q nuts), and they have expressed a pretty high degree of frustration with his Twitter habit for most of his presidency. Given how long Twitter has put up with the obvious abuse of the latitude they uniquely gave him, a lot of people may be grumpy but will understand. Had they done this years ago and NOT given him such exceptional latitude, then you’d probably have seen much larger blowback.
Okay, let's retroactively suspend John McCain for singing "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran" on a hot mike.
President George W. Bush should be suspended for invading Iraq on false or flimsy pretexts, resulting in 6,000 American soldiers killed and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
Obama lied when he said "you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan" eleven times and this turned out not to be true (90% anyway). Shouldn't the social networks censor patently false and misleading statements by a very influential leader?
Ronald Reagan said something about launching the nukes on the USSR, I don't remember the exact quote. Cancel him off social media.
Et cetera.
</parody>
The harm in censorship is that it actually reduces the flow of communication and information, for future historical records as well as for the present.
It's a purge, had just read 5 minutes ago that they had suspended Michael Flynn's account, now I'm seeing that FB has decided to ban a community of over half a million people [1] supposedly because their political opinions are not in the best interest of FB the company right at this moment. Of course, I had to get all that info from thedonald.win because almost no-one else is talking about this. Coincidentally, I also think thedonald.win is only hours away from having their domain name taken from under them. This is crazy, crazy stuff.
If it matters I'm not an American citizen, have never set foot in the US (even though it's a country I admire in many ways, just right now I'm reading a selection of Anti-Federalist papers in order to try and understand it better), have grown up as a kid in Ceausescu's one-party state Romania and I have to tell you that this doesn't look good.
When banning someone like donald trump you need to have a great press release for justification. You need to point to something that people who are in the middle will read and think, yeah that makes sense, I'm surprised you didn't do that earlier.
Instead, they have this PR that I honestly disagree with, even in the current climate, I don't see it.
I can only think, they wanted to ban him before he left office in order to set a precedent that they could ban him before he left office, and use that for some sort of future legal justification. I could see this as a use to ban future presidents before the 4 years are over. Or if he became president again they wouldn't have to re-instate his account.
Beyond things that are broadly considered reprehensible (e.g. videos of rape), I'm not convinced that moderation/deplatforming is healthy for society.
I definitely get the "my company - my rules" POV. The First Amendment doesn't apply to private spaces.
Then again, I'm not convinced that moderators ought to have the power to control what sorts of ideas are interrogated publicly (e.g. in the company of strangers). It's particularly problematic when the social climate at the companies that control these platforms is synonymous with the Progressive echochamber, but it's also hard to imagine any body that would be qualified to police ideas.
One of the worst things to happen this decade is the rise of social echochambers, where groups of people intellectually isolate themselves amongst likeminded people, writing-off dissenters as evil strawmen. The groupthink in these echochambers is nudged further to the extremes by the loudmouthed activists who control what ideas people are comfortable expressing. Large groups isolating themselves in these constantly drifting echochambers leads to the problems we saw this week in Washington. I fear making the platforms synonymous with these echochambers will only make this problem worse.
Anonymity and free expression have historically been some of the best qualities of the Internet. Anyone can say - and think - anything, and share those thoughts with everyone. That's always included snark, parody, and similar absurdities. People don't always mean what they say - they often might not even know _if_ they mean what they say.
Those same qualities make it particularly vulnerable to misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Figuring out how to help people understand what's likely to be true without censoring the kinds of ideas people can openly express is one of the great challenges of our time. I really hope we solve it.
I am loving people who don't understand that they are literally supporting billionaires while claiming to be anti-corporate resistance.
Definition of Liberal used to be: "Willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one's own; open to new ideas. Relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise."
I am still a liberal. But I am not the current liberal.
I find This whole "incitement to violence is bad" thing to be nonsensical.
Political speech is practically always incitement to violence:
According to Weber, the state is a "human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory." [1]
And political discussions are about what the state should do (executive decisions, laws, etc), that is, in which cases it should coerce people, who should it coerce, and what should it do with the result of that coercion (e.g. taxes). Coercion ultimately leads to violence if the coerced individual doesn't surrender.
So, I can't take this "incitement to violence is bad" thing seriously. Because if they truly believed that, then all political speech should be banned.
I understand how Twitter says that these are relevant to the recent events, but it feels like they were just sitting around waiting for him to tweet something they could latch onto to use as a reason to remove him. Because these tweets seem innocent compared to so many of his others.
Really not sure how I feel about this though... weighing between the benefits of allowing open speech on “town square” Internet forums versus enforcing their right as a private entity and removing his violence-inciting self.
It used to be fairly uncontroversial that internet forums could be heavily moderated. Many of the more valuable forums I frequented in my youth were often moderated to stay on topic and cut down on spam. I cannot imagine paying much attention 20 years ago if a random forum decided even to go further than Twitter has and simply ban all Republicans or all Democrats. Indeed there are many subreddits that go this far with little fanfare. What is the dividing line here between these sites and Twitter?
Another question - what burden does a Twitter ban impose on free speech on the Internet? If Twitter bans me, I am free to move to another social media site like Parler or even make my own blog. If my views are despicable enough then some services may refuse to host me but I am unaware of anyone who has been totally bereft of a solution to put up a website.
These alternatives fail to impress for one obvious reason. It's harder to get eyeballs on Joe's random Q blog than on Twitter or Facebook. Similarly I could self-publish a book - and people do - but I lack the expertise necessary to actually get anyone to read it. I personally see social media as a set of publishers rather than as a printing press, hence why I'm not too chagrined by this decision.
Just a quiet word from a free speech advocate who has lived in China and spoken extensively with victims of the Cultural Revolution. The overheated rhetoric here and the shrill denunciations of political rivals ring all too familiar. Ask your older Chinese friends and colleagues how they view the matter of political censorship. You may find their observations salient.
Sorry to go off-topic, but is anyone else logged in to HN and experiencing very slow response times? Except for the times HN has gone down, I've never seen it take 5-10 seconds just to load the front page or any of the comment threads. I'm assuming it has something to do with so many users checking out this thread, which is pretty amazing for a Friday night.
(viewing HN in logged out mode is much faster thanks to the caching)
It's sad: everyone claims to be in favor of "democracy" --- yet when a tiny number of unaccountable, anonymous, biased people inside big tech companies place limits on what the whole world can say, people cheer.
When you support the kind of arbitrary governance, you're cheering for authoritarianism, cheering for oppression, and ultimately cheering for a kind of tech feudalism. Don't give me this "it's a private company" line: unaccountable individuals at corporations can deny you transportation, speech, and financial services --- they can ruin your life merely because they dislike you. Yes, tech companies can't take away your freedom. They can't put you in jail. But they can effectively exile you from civilization. Should private individuals have that power?
I get it. Some people are just fundamentally uncomfortable with democracy: public consensus is a messy way to govern a society. Besides: Twitter and other tech companies are, right now, making the decisions that you think are right. But what you're essentially doing is opting into a VC-funded startup that offers you cool stuff at an unsustainably low price. When the VCs demand a profit, that company will raise its prices, and you, locked in, will be forced to pay, forever.
Power works the same way: give up control to individuals now and you might like the immediate results, but you'll change your mind when those individuals start doing things you dislike, and when they do, you'll have no recourse. Throughout history, we find that people who vote dictators into power regret it later. Let's not repeat that old mistake.
While your High School Civics class said a lot of things, the reality is (most of) The Founders got together because they saw where things were headed and they were terrified of mob violence that was breaking out in the colonies. They worried that either the Brits would arrive a crush things, or the locals would turn on them with tar and feather.
So they got together and engineered a very weak democracy, unsure which direction it would go in. They left a lot of messy bits unresolved.
Twitter is a platform without an editor or oversight. It is a platform for mobs. Our Founders would have been terrified of it.
[+] [-] ve55|5 years ago|reply
It's strange that they picked such a poor way to justify the ban when they could have made a significantly stronger case, and in doing so could have convinced millions more people that they are trying their best to apply policies evenly. For example, I have a hard time imagining why they chose to specifically quote "American Patriots", as if that somehow contributes to the straw that broke the camel's back. Perhaps they have a strategic reason for going about this how they did, but I think it will have some negative 2nd/3rd order effects. that they haven't yet realized.
I imagine we are still only in the early days of the conflicts that are to come in this sphere (and I'd include just about every company and political faction in them, unfortunately).
(Also because apparently I have to state this explicitly in every comment related to Trump: I do not support Trump, his supporters, the recent events that occurred at the capitol, etc etc)
[+] [-] Rebelgecko|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrchess|5 years ago|reply
So perhaps it is a huge stretch to some, but we need to remember it is also not a stretch at all to many, especially given the recent events. Therein lies the danger.
[+] [-] webel0|5 years ago|reply
However, suppose that Bill Clinton, George Bush, or Barack Obama had declined to attend the inauguration of there predecessors. That would surely trigger a crisis worthy of de-platforming. We’ve become somewhat numb to this sort of thing.
I guess my second draft would have said, “We’ve allowed DJT a platform because he is the President of the United States. In light of all that he has said on Twitter over the last 10+ years, though, he is guilty of inciting hate and violence among his followers. [Cite myriad tweets and cases.] We were going to wait until he left office to suspend his account. In light of his most recent tweets indicating that he would not attend the inauguration, we think it prudent to move up this timeline...”
[+] [-] davesque|5 years ago|reply
The full comments in the post detail similar reasoning.
Update: As many people have pointed out (and as the Twitter post mentions), the 2nd tweet could also be interpreted as emphasizing that it would be safe to commit further violence at an event that he won't be attending. This is certainly a much more grave concern than the one I mentioned above.
[+] [-] nodamage|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] war1025|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danaliv|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BitwiseFool|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fotta|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coliveira|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alkonaut|5 years ago|reply
It’s a correct (late) call, but using these quotes will read to those who disagree as “we have nothing we just want to shut him down” which is unfortunate.
[+] [-] thrill|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smaili|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skulk|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sneak|5 years ago|reply
This reflects poorly on Twitter.
[+] [-] allendoerfer|5 years ago|reply
As far as I can tell, there are two general viewpoints:
a) Censorship is bad, free speech is good. You should counter bad arguments with better arguments.
b) There are types of speech, which are proven to lead to violence in the long-run. Also, some things can be proven as untrue. Lies are bad.
I have to say, I agree with both of those points. I think group A is missing the point, that there are echo chambers and people radicalizing within their filter-bubbles up to the point of literal terrorism, while group B is missing that the power to censor can be misused by bad actors in the future and that silenced people will not just change their mind.
Is there a proper answer for someone like me? Where should I stand on this? I am leaning towards group A, while acknowledging that radicalization does happen and dearly worrying about perversion of words like "truth" or "fact" ("your/my truth", "alternate facts").
[+] [-] rootsudo|5 years ago|reply
1984 Two minutes of hate is real, so very real, and it's quite sad how most people welcomed this into the world.
I've deleted my social media, twitters years before, and have divested myself completely from other platforms. There is nothing to be valued, gained or such,
The Internet should always be a decentralized, fragmented piece of human technology. The more centralized it becomes, the more authoritarian it is. And the orgs that become in control point the finger at others to show off how it's not them.
--
I hold no opinion on Trump, but these tech companies have to much power and it's a game of bidding where they can creep more and more into our lives and general lobbying to make the case that life is "better" with them here then it ever was before.
I can't say if it really is.
[+] [-] dukeofdoom|5 years ago|reply
The left soon will control all three branches of government, after an election that many people question, has been simultaneously advocating for censorship of its political adversaries, more draconian civil rights removals under the guise of COVID. The inevitably resulting destruction of more people's livelihoods will create more desperate people. I hope you realize where this is all going. Because its obvious more people will be revolting if this continues, and will organize to resist. Censorship and oppression is not the answer. Letting people voice their grievances, is the last peaceful outlet before actual violence.
[+] [-] shiado|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TT3351|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] enumjorge|5 years ago|reply
The president has spent weeks trying to delegitimize the results of a democratic election, culminating yesterday by inciting a mob to de-rail the ratifying of the results, but it’s the banning of said president from a social media site that has changed American democracy forever. Right.
[+] [-] rmk|5 years ago|reply
How many of us here has had to face years of despair because of job loss, and loss of social standing due to globalization and corporate greed? Do we have any genuine hope (and more importantly, need) of understanding this 74 million?
[+] [-] sixothree|5 years ago|reply
You didn't see this sort of reaction in 2000, and that was far far closer.
And to be clear, this election was 306 to 232. That is considered a landslide in my book (meaning my 40+ years of living). And in percentages, you can see just how poorly Trump performed in this election - 51.4% to 46.9%. 2000 was 47.9% to 48.4% (technically a negative 0.5% difference).
So I think your argument is completely disingenuous.
[+] [-] notional|5 years ago|reply
You keep blaming tech companies for the poor actions of the adults using it and it doesn't make sense.
[+] [-] chr1|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] miguelmota|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willis936|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TeaDrunk|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MattGaiser|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cecja|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jupdarter|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blisterpeanuts|5 years ago|reply
Okay, let's retroactively suspend John McCain for singing "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran" on a hot mike.
President George W. Bush should be suspended for invading Iraq on false or flimsy pretexts, resulting in 6,000 American soldiers killed and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
Obama lied when he said "you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan" eleven times and this turned out not to be true (90% anyway). Shouldn't the social networks censor patently false and misleading statements by a very influential leader?
Ronald Reagan said something about launching the nukes on the USSR, I don't remember the exact quote. Cancel him off social media.
Et cetera.
</parody>
The harm in censorship is that it actually reduces the flow of communication and information, for future historical records as well as for the present.
[+] [-] paganel|5 years ago|reply
If it matters I'm not an American citizen, have never set foot in the US (even though it's a country I admire in many ways, just right now I'm reading a selection of Anti-Federalist papers in order to try and understand it better), have grown up as a kid in Ceausescu's one-party state Romania and I have to tell you that this doesn't look good.
[1] https://twitter.com/BrandonStraka/status/1347592064322719744
[+] [-] bargl|5 years ago|reply
When banning someone like donald trump you need to have a great press release for justification. You need to point to something that people who are in the middle will read and think, yeah that makes sense, I'm surprised you didn't do that earlier.
Instead, they have this PR that I honestly disagree with, even in the current climate, I don't see it.
I can only think, they wanted to ban him before he left office in order to set a precedent that they could ban him before he left office, and use that for some sort of future legal justification. I could see this as a use to ban future presidents before the 4 years are over. Or if he became president again they wouldn't have to re-instate his account.
[+] [-] bsimpson|5 years ago|reply
I definitely get the "my company - my rules" POV. The First Amendment doesn't apply to private spaces.
Then again, I'm not convinced that moderators ought to have the power to control what sorts of ideas are interrogated publicly (e.g. in the company of strangers). It's particularly problematic when the social climate at the companies that control these platforms is synonymous with the Progressive echochamber, but it's also hard to imagine any body that would be qualified to police ideas.
One of the worst things to happen this decade is the rise of social echochambers, where groups of people intellectually isolate themselves amongst likeminded people, writing-off dissenters as evil strawmen. The groupthink in these echochambers is nudged further to the extremes by the loudmouthed activists who control what ideas people are comfortable expressing. Large groups isolating themselves in these constantly drifting echochambers leads to the problems we saw this week in Washington. I fear making the platforms synonymous with these echochambers will only make this problem worse.
Anonymity and free expression have historically been some of the best qualities of the Internet. Anyone can say - and think - anything, and share those thoughts with everyone. That's always included snark, parody, and similar absurdities. People don't always mean what they say - they often might not even know _if_ they mean what they say.
Those same qualities make it particularly vulnerable to misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Figuring out how to help people understand what's likely to be true without censoring the kinds of ideas people can openly express is one of the great challenges of our time. I really hope we solve it.
[+] [-] busymom0|5 years ago|reply
Definition of Liberal used to be: "Willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one's own; open to new ideas. Relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise."
I am still a liberal. But I am not the current liberal.
[+] [-] young_unixer|5 years ago|reply
Political speech is practically always incitement to violence:
According to Weber, the state is a "human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory." [1]
And political discussions are about what the state should do (executive decisions, laws, etc), that is, in which cases it should coerce people, who should it coerce, and what should it do with the result of that coercion (e.g. taxes). Coercion ultimately leads to violence if the coerced individual doesn't surrender.
So, I can't take this "incitement to violence is bad" thing seriously. Because if they truly believed that, then all political speech should be banned.
[1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/state-monopoly-on-violence
[+] [-] californical|5 years ago|reply
Really not sure how I feel about this though... weighing between the benefits of allowing open speech on “town square” Internet forums versus enforcing their right as a private entity and removing his violence-inciting self.
Either way, this is a huge deal
[+] [-] tempsy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sobellian|5 years ago|reply
Another question - what burden does a Twitter ban impose on free speech on the Internet? If Twitter bans me, I am free to move to another social media site like Parler or even make my own blog. If my views are despicable enough then some services may refuse to host me but I am unaware of anyone who has been totally bereft of a solution to put up a website.
These alternatives fail to impress for one obvious reason. It's harder to get eyeballs on Joe's random Q blog than on Twitter or Facebook. Similarly I could self-publish a book - and people do - but I lack the expertise necessary to actually get anyone to read it. I personally see social media as a set of publishers rather than as a printing press, hence why I'm not too chagrined by this decision.
[+] [-] thatswrong0|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tatrajim|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danso|5 years ago|reply
(viewing HN in logged out mode is much faster thanks to the caching)
[+] [-] quotemstr|5 years ago|reply
When you support the kind of arbitrary governance, you're cheering for authoritarianism, cheering for oppression, and ultimately cheering for a kind of tech feudalism. Don't give me this "it's a private company" line: unaccountable individuals at corporations can deny you transportation, speech, and financial services --- they can ruin your life merely because they dislike you. Yes, tech companies can't take away your freedom. They can't put you in jail. But they can effectively exile you from civilization. Should private individuals have that power?
I get it. Some people are just fundamentally uncomfortable with democracy: public consensus is a messy way to govern a society. Besides: Twitter and other tech companies are, right now, making the decisions that you think are right. But what you're essentially doing is opting into a VC-funded startup that offers you cool stuff at an unsustainably low price. When the VCs demand a profit, that company will raise its prices, and you, locked in, will be forced to pay, forever.
Power works the same way: give up control to individuals now and you might like the immediate results, but you'll change your mind when those individuals start doing things you dislike, and when they do, you'll have no recourse. Throughout history, we find that people who vote dictators into power regret it later. Let's not repeat that old mistake.
[+] [-] hindsightbias|5 years ago|reply
So they got together and engineered a very weak democracy, unsure which direction it would go in. They left a lot of messy bits unresolved.
Twitter is a platform without an editor or oversight. It is a platform for mobs. Our Founders would have been terrified of it.