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Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

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Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#21

Post by micaksica »

Karunamon wrote: post #16
micaksica wrote: post #8

I'm not a fan of the "alt-right" or a lot of its subculture. I also don't find it particularly "alt", as much as it is "far" right. It is a lot of the ideas that powered the NSDAP enveloped in the language of the Internet and memes, with the targets broadened from Jewry to non-whites in general. However, I'm also not a fan of suspending these accounts for controversial views if they are not harassing people on the Tw…

It feels like political censorship because it is political censorship. Those with the "correct" political views can basically tell people to kill themselves, or worse, while Twitter turns a blind eye to literal terrorists (of the blowing themselves up with bombs variety) using their platform to spread their message. You can say whatever you want about how terrible the people being banned supposedly were, but Twitter'…

90 days ago Milo + ISIS came up, and Twitter banned 235,000 ISIS accounts. I wrote a similar comment then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12314841

It's unfair and highly inaccurate to say that Twitter is turning a blind eye to terrorists on the platform. However, I'd be interested to know what radical leftist organizers are doing to use the Twitter platform and how many of them have ended up banned as well.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#23

Post by japanese_donald »

stevebmark wrote: post #17

Finally, Twitter is growing up and moving past its cowardly, childish "free speech" dogma. It's taken them way too long to get here though.

...except the people that want to hurt the president elect, call for all white men to be killed, and rape the president elect's wife.

I've seen all of this and more on Twitter and these accounts have not been touched.

It's childish for Twitter to use its power to silence political opponents.

Some of these alt-right accounts deserved to get banned. Others were just people expressing their political beliefs and not directly attack anyone.

This election has really opened my eyes to the amount of childish, immature, and mentally unstable people we have in the United States.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#25

Post by micaksica »

panic wrote: post #20
micaksica wrote: post #8

I'm not a fan of the "alt-right" or a lot of its subculture. I also don't find it particularly "alt", as much as it is "far" right. It is a lot of the ideas that powered the NSDAP enveloped in the language of the Internet and memes, with the targets broadened from Jewry to non-whites in general. However, I'm also not a fan of suspending these accounts for controversial views if they are not harassing people on the Tw…

Unfortunately, the nature of Twitter makes debate unlikely to end in agreement. Twitter is just trying to improve the environment for its users so more people will join and stick around. Most people find the "ideas that powered the NSDAP" quite disgusting.

> Most people find the "ideas that powered the NSDAP" quite disgusting.

If we are truly building a society of tolerance, whether or not one has a visceral reaction to an idea should not stop whether or not one can discuss and debate it. I'm not a neo-Nazi, but I've talked at length with them about their views. I will give anyone a few minutes to explain what they are about, try to listen to it neutrally, and form my own opinion. My personal conclusion of neo-Nazism is that it is a way for white men that feel they have no economic opportunity to blame a convenient target, and they try to rationalize Nazi Germany's domestic infrastructural successes as a reason why the country was doing what was right. I think it is a prime example of scapegoating, and I find it violent and hateful.

If we are paying lip service to tolerance and acceptance of alternative worldviews to make ourselves feel like better progressives, we are doing our views a disservice and acting more hypocritical than those that blatantly wear radical views of censorship and discrimination.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#26

Post by Karunamon »

micaksica wrote: post #21
Karunamon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like political censorship because it is political censorship. Those with the "correct" political views can basically tell people to kill themselves, or worse, while Twitter turns a blind eye to literal terrorists (of the blowing themselves up with bombs variety) using their platform to spread their message. You can say whatever you want about how terrible the people being banned supposedly were, but Twitter'…

90 days ago Milo + ISIS came up, and Twitter banned 235,000 ISIS accounts. I wrote a similar comment then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12314841 It's unfair and highly inaccurate to say that Twitter is turning a blind eye to terrorists on the platform. However, I'd be interested to know what radical leftist organizers are doing to use the Twitter platform and how many of them have ended up banned as well.

Hamas' official account had been around since 2010 [1].

235k accounts is nothing. Absolutely nothing. Twitter accounts are like email addresses, cheap and disposable. It took proliferation of articles like that one (and probably more importantly, a lawsuit) for them to get off their rears and do something about it. And this is after multiple reports over months, against unambiguously hateful accounts, some of which I personally participated in.

For some reason, it takes no such media shaming or legal action to ban, limit, or otherwise mess with the speech of the political right. Milo can just mention someone, someone else will say it's brigading, and off we go to the races. A celebrity can talk about getting hate tweets, and the CEO will drop what he's doing and personally reach out to them, while ISIS propaganda goes completely unchecked.

Feelings are less important than terrorist propaganda, full stop, end of story. No matter what you think of the political right, this is a disgusting inversion of priorities.

[1]: http://www.jpost.com/Business-and-Innovation/Why-are-terrori...

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#27

Post by dpc59 »

TillE wrote: post #19
fiblye wrote: post #11

I think, in a way, the media is kind of empowering the "alt-right" by constantly referring to them as the "alt-right". It presents it as the little guy vs The Man, and I think that makes it much more palatable than "far right." Influential people who think the government is intentionally making gay frogs, that media needs to be under strict control, that climate change is a Chinese hoax, and that everything is us vs…

It's a little odd, since 99% of the time it's really just a euphemism for a particular kind of neo-nazi.

alternative is pretty much a synonym of neo

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#28

Post by panic »

micaksica wrote: post #25
panic wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, the nature of Twitter makes debate unlikely to end in agreement. Twitter is just trying to improve the environment for its users so more people will join and stick around. Most people find the "ideas that powered the NSDAP" quite disgusting.

> Most people find the "ideas that powered the NSDAP" quite disgusting. If we are truly building a society of tolerance, whether or not one has a visceral reaction to an idea should not stop whether or not one can discuss and debate it. I'm not a neo-Nazi, but I've talked at length with them about their views. I will give anyone a few minutes to explain what they are about, try to listen to it neutrally, and form my…

Sure, but not everyone enjoys spending their time engaging with Nazi rhetoric. There are plenty of places outside of Twitter where you can actually choose whether or not to have a discussion.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#30

Post by betenoire »

TillE wrote: post #19
fiblye wrote: post #11

I think, in a way, the media is kind of empowering the "alt-right" by constantly referring to them as the "alt-right". It presents it as the little guy vs The Man, and I think that makes it much more palatable than "far right." Influential people who think the government is intentionally making gay frogs, that media needs to be under strict control, that climate change is a Chinese hoax, and that everything is us vs…

It's a little odd, since 99% of the time it's really just a euphemism for a particular kind of neo-nazi.

the politically correct term for a racist
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