Regardless of your political views, behaviour such as this from tech monopolies/gatekeepers should be a cause of concern for anyone who'd like to keep their freedoms (esp of speech) intact.
The ideal scenario would be for people to use the web as how it was originally intended: ie, everyone having custom websites (and private emails) hosted on a VPS with an RSS feed so that your friends can follow your "feed". That way you'd own your content and wouldn't have to worry about censorships/account bans etc.
Discover-ability is just about the only downside with this.
This to me is Twitter becoming the want-to-be William Walker of Modern day Social Media. They’re conducting foreign policy as a private entity. Maybe they will suffer their own self-capture too.
Exactly, this shouldn't be a freedom of speech issue -- Twitter's freedom to say whatever it wants on Twitter should trump anybody else's freedom to say whatever they want on Twitter.
But it is a freedom of speech issue because Twitter is a monopoly/gatekeeper. That's what needs fixing.
True, US didn't recognize the National Assembly, but many countries (Lima Group) didn't accept it... Canada for example formally recognized Juan Guaidó as President of the National Assembly over a year ago.
> Clearly no agenda here. Twitter backing an illegitimate US backed tin pot dictator and denying the legitmately elected government a voice.
As far as I can tell, the group you're calling the "legitimately elected government" is that of the tin pot dictator that's run Venezuela into the ground and ran a sham election to cement its power:
> Maduro’s allies swept legislative elections last month boycotted by the opposition and denounced as a sham by the U.S., the European Union and several other foreign governments. While the vote was marred by anemically low turnout, it nonetheless seemed to relegate into irrelevancy the U.S.-backed opposition led by lawmaker Juan Guaidó.
The government there bribes voters with food handouts. Think of how bad things must be if you can be bribed with food:
> The government may now be in control of the National Assembly but the low turnout was hardly a "win".
> Sure, there were people who cast their vote, some still clinging to the man in power, others citing their democratic right as well as many more fearful of repercussions like losing food handouts if they didn't.
> But for the most part, there's an atmosphere of resignation. Most Venezuelans I've spoken to this past week saw little point in these elections and decided there were better things to be doing on Sunday.
> The vast queues at petrol stations rather than the polling stations explain what you need to know about politics here - that Venezuelans just want to survive another day and for politics to just go away.
automated suspensions due to reports, which can be appealed
irrevocable suspensions at the discretion of twitter staff
I suspect this is the former. If an account gets enough reports, twitter's algos will automatically suspend it. The account owner then has the option to appeal it.
I agree with other answers here, but as a pushback, maybe it's not Twitter but rather the press and spotlight on it? There was an obvious "bump" after the insurrection, but I wonder if it reverted to it's mean and now we're just focused on that metric as we weren't before.
Imagine a curve. On the x-axis is amount of censorship. On the y-axis is opposition. A slippery slope corresponds to a flat part of the curve, where a large increase in censorship causes a small increase in opposition.
Any policy in the middle of the slippery-slope is not stable. Political alliances are easiest to form advocating either side of it.
In this case there are few people who want Trump banned but think banning Venezuela's National Assembly is a step too far.
> Twitter just suspended the account of Venezuela's new National Assembly, which was voted on in an election in December
There was no legitimate election. The Lima Group (practically every country in America - North and South), the EU, and indeed the UN say it's not legitimate. Some random person on twitter says it is.
Twitter has been banning Maduro backed accounts for years, to try to link this into the recent fair and transparent US elections and the removal of ex-president Trump from twitter is desparate
Having a censor mindset is going to be destructive to Twitter and the userbase. Now everyone is going to want to find and ban anyone who they see as violating rules. Making PR issues as they go to the media saying XXX was banned, but not YYY who is just as bad as worse. A huge Pandora's box has been opened.
> Otherwise Twitter is interfering in foreign diplomacy and governments, be they legal, illegal, authoritarian or democratic.
> Twitter should not be making these calls.
Twitter should totally should be making the calls. If the CCP wants to put a big propaganda poster in my front yard "for diplomatic reasons," I'd tell them to fuck off. Neither I nor Twitter have any obligation to carry the messages of any regime.
If they want to do diplomacy, they can send a representative to the State Department. If their government wants to communicate, let it use mechanisms it actually controls.
> Otherwise Twitter is interfering in foreign diplomacy and governments, be they legal, illegal, authoritarian or democratic.
This is giving Twitter way too much credit (and too much power). When did a stupid 280chr “microblogging” platform become a channel for foreign diplomacy? To make an absurd comparison, should we consider the politics subreddit a diplomatic venue too?
Twitter's users are essentially volunteer contributors on a privately owned and operated web site, and Twitter has every right to do as it pleases with whatever content it hosts.
This is basically whining about the actions of mods on a free web forum.
Maybe governments shouldn't be using some poorly run private sector web site to communicate with the public.
If someone created a Twitter account impersonating (not parodying) a Government or Government Agency, would people anticipate that Twitter might remove it?
Those who celebrated Trumps ban off Twitter will quickly see how the tables can turn. What is worse is that I can't come up with a suitable answer to the Twitter censorship problem. Regulate? Remove 230?
> I can't come up with a suitable answer to the Twitter censorship problem
Protocols over platforms. Get to a critical mass in a blogging protocol such that posts can be shared between platforms and apps that each moderate, or don't, according to their own needs.
The power of Twitter is in their silo. When enough of us de-silo they lose their power.
Removing 230 would lead to exponentially more bans, as Twitter would be liable for anything users said. Regulation? Well, do you want the government to force you to allow me to put political signs on your lawn? Same thing. Twitter is private property, they can kick you off if they want.
I honestly don't see Twitter lasting much longer. They'll ban and woke mob their way to halving their user base. Once the mob finally has their safe space, investors will let them know how much that's worth.
Just waiting will do. Let the free markets decide and please, for the love of god, don't involve governments. They are already stupidly powerful, let's not give them more of it ourselves.
I love how in other threads the past 2 weeks, folks were considering the trump ban a one time, extreme thing that wouldn't happen again.
Heres the thing, what if Biden decides to strengthen consumer privacy rights? Who will lose the most out of it? The same folks who are now controlling popular narrative. "You dont want to end up like Trump, do you?" Think about that. How hard is it for them to propagate anti-Biden rhetoric now? Twitter has free reign of changing people's opinion by Twitter declaring what is true and what is disinformation.
The simplest no-brainer answer to the censorship problem is for everyone to own their personal websites with custom email and RSS feeds so that friends and family can "follow" you. Nobody can censor you on your own website can they? ;)
[+] [-] amalantony06|5 years ago|reply
The ideal scenario would be for people to use the web as how it was originally intended: ie, everyone having custom websites (and private emails) hosted on a VPS with an RSS feed so that your friends can follow your "feed". That way you'd own your content and wouldn't have to worry about censorships/account bans etc.
Discover-ability is just about the only downside with this.
[+] [-] mc32|5 years ago|reply
That should not be.
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|5 years ago|reply
But it is a freedom of speech issue because Twitter is a monopoly/gatekeeper. That's what needs fixing.
[+] [-] dc2k08|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] undefined1|5 years ago|reply
Why would any other country use it now?
No doubt this will lead to countries leaving Twitter and making their own. Indeed at least Germany, France[1] and Mexico[2] realize the problem.
1. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-11/merkel-se...
2. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-mexico/mexic...
[+] [-] prophesi|5 years ago|reply
For the same reason people were using it before. Everyone is on Twitter. A much, much smaller fraction are on Twitter-alternatives.
That said, I wish them the best of luck, as I hope alternatives are able to succeed in the near future.
[+] [-] neom|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gord288|5 years ago|reply
You’re really not making the point you think you are making.
[+] [-] mainstreem|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mainstreemm|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] grawprog|5 years ago|reply
But i guess, private company and all that, doesn't matter if what they're doing aligns completely with US military interests or so the argument goes.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ardy42|5 years ago|reply
As far as I can tell, the group you're calling the "legitimately elected government" is that of the tin pot dictator that's run Venezuela into the ground and ran a sham election to cement its power:
https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-congress-socialists-con...:
> Maduro’s allies swept legislative elections last month boycotted by the opposition and denounced as a sham by the U.S., the European Union and several other foreign governments. While the vote was marred by anemically low turnout, it nonetheless seemed to relegate into irrelevancy the U.S.-backed opposition led by lawmaker Juan Guaidó.
The government there bribes voters with food handouts. Think of how bad things must be if you can be bribed with food:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-55211149:
> The government may now be in control of the National Assembly but the low turnout was hardly a "win".
> Sure, there were people who cast their vote, some still clinging to the man in power, others citing their democratic right as well as many more fearful of repercussions like losing food handouts if they didn't.
> But for the most part, there's an atmosphere of resignation. Most Venezuelans I've spoken to this past week saw little point in these elections and decided there were better things to be doing on Sunday.
> The vast queues at petrol stations rather than the polling stations explain what you need to know about politics here - that Venezuelans just want to survive another day and for politics to just go away.
[+] [-] paulpauper|5 years ago|reply
automated suspensions due to reports, which can be appealed
irrevocable suspensions at the discretion of twitter staff
I suspect this is the former. If an account gets enough reports, twitter's algos will automatically suspend it. The account owner then has the option to appeal it.
[+] [-] chmod775|5 years ago|reply
A medium where you can't communicate with your (political) adversaries has greatly reduced value even less relevance.
It's also kind of boring.
[+] [-] ashish1521|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bszupnick|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dominotw|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] im3w1l|5 years ago|reply
Any policy in the middle of the slippery-slope is not stable. Political alliances are easiest to form advocating either side of it.
In this case there are few people who want Trump banned but think banning Venezuela's National Assembly is a step too far.
[+] [-] iso1631|5 years ago|reply
There was no legitimate election. The Lima Group (practically every country in America - North and South), the EU, and indeed the UN say it's not legitimate. Some random person on twitter says it is.
Twitter has been banning Maduro backed accounts for years, to try to link this into the recent fair and transparent US elections and the removal of ex-president Trump from twitter is desparate
[+] [-] sschueller|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NonEUCitizen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] orange_tee|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mimikatz|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mc32|5 years ago|reply
Otherwise Twitter is interfering in foreign diplomacy and governments, be they legal, illegal, authoritarian or democratic.
Twitter should not be making these calls. This is a decision for the State Department to make.
[+] [-] ardy42|5 years ago|reply
> Twitter should not be making these calls.
Twitter should totally should be making the calls. If the CCP wants to put a big propaganda poster in my front yard "for diplomatic reasons," I'd tell them to fuck off. Neither I nor Twitter have any obligation to carry the messages of any regime.
If they want to do diplomacy, they can send a representative to the State Department. If their government wants to communicate, let it use mechanisms it actually controls.
[+] [-] pb7|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlexandrB|5 years ago|reply
This is giving Twitter way too much credit (and too much power). When did a stupid 280chr “microblogging” platform become a channel for foreign diplomacy? To make an absurd comparison, should we consider the politics subreddit a diplomatic venue too?
[+] [-] pengaru|5 years ago|reply
This is basically whining about the actions of mods on a free web forum.
Maybe governments shouldn't be using some poorly run private sector web site to communicate with the public.
[+] [-] dragonwriter|5 years ago|reply
People need to stop acting like Twitter is supposed to act as an organ of the US government.
[+] [-] im3w1l|5 years ago|reply
The prudent thing for Venezuela is to get together with a few other countries and jointly block Twitface.
[+] [-] dariusj18|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perardi|5 years ago|reply
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/section-230-good-actua...
[+] [-] llboston|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joemazerino|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hirundo|5 years ago|reply
Protocols over platforms. Get to a critical mass in a blogging protocol such that posts can be shared between platforms and apps that each moderate, or don't, according to their own needs.
The power of Twitter is in their silo. When enough of us de-silo they lose their power.
[+] [-] burnte|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] axaxs|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whitepaint|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NoOneNew|5 years ago|reply
Heres the thing, what if Biden decides to strengthen consumer privacy rights? Who will lose the most out of it? The same folks who are now controlling popular narrative. "You dont want to end up like Trump, do you?" Think about that. How hard is it for them to propagate anti-Biden rhetoric now? Twitter has free reign of changing people's opinion by Twitter declaring what is true and what is disinformation.
[+] [-] amalantony06|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitwize|5 years ago|reply
The duly elected government of a country is a different matter entirely.
[+] [-] monadic3|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] xhkkffbf|5 years ago|reply