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Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

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Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#111

Post by MichaelBurge »

pekk wrote: post #86
MichaelBurge wrote: post #29

Twitter doesn't turn a profit, do they? If they get a couple months of losing users, that could easily pop their inflated stock. I'm not sure this is a good move for them.

IF they don't turn a profit, doesn't that suggest they're doing something wrong and should change, rather than that they should conservatively refuse to change anything and hope that they will suddenly start turning a profit that way?

Your conclusion appears to be "Twitter should change something".

There are a lot of things businesses can do to increase profits: They can get more users, they can cut employees, they can move their offices to cheaper areas, they can pursue important business deals, and more.

If a plane is off-course, you wouldn't go to the cockpit and start flipping levers and pressing buttons at random. But you could make the same arguments you've made against a person opposing that idea.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#112

Post by commenting »

stale2002 wrote: post #104
pekk wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were the literal 1930s Nazis comparable to ISIS propagandists? If not, then why not? What about modern Neo-Nazis, are they really better? Why?

The people that the left calls neo nazis would likely reject that label. Just because you call a group you don't like a Nazi, doesn't make it true.

Doesn't make it false either. There is significant overlap between established neo-Nazi movements and the "alt-right", both in membership and rhetoric.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#113

Post by alistproducer2 »

leereeves wrote: post #48
xaa wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. The first thing I thought upon reading this was: would Twitter ban an account with the following description: "dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of African descent in the United States, and around the world." Undoubtedly not. The only difference, of course, is s/African/European/g. I'm a liberal, but I feel that if this election has taught us anything, it should be that suppression of "…

I feel like the left seriously damaged their ability to fight racist ideas when they abandoned the idea of equality. Now, the left calls colorblindness and "all lives matter" racist. (Remember when Martin O'Malley was destroyed for saying that?) They create advantageous standards based on race, and even exclusive positions for non-white applicants. (For example, at the BBC.) And I too doubt they would object to "dedi…

HN is a bad place to discuss this sort of stuff because you're always risking karma, but here goes.

As a liberal, I will say that liberals drastically overplayed their hand the last 8 years. Many of us have been saying for a while that the language, tenor, and actions of recent liberal movements was ultimately counter productive.

I understand and share the demand to be treated decently and equally, but admittedly things kind of got out of hand. Micro-aggression, safe spaces, trigger words - all things that have good intentions but the people who advocated for them were often, to put it kindly, un-diplomatic.

With "demographics" on our side, many of us constructed this alternate reality where America, ready or not, was going to bend to our will - our worldview. And so we poked the bear. Over and over and over again. Then it woke up, tore our heads off and left us wondering what the f*ck happened.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#114

Post by drewrv »

iopq wrote: post #82
commenting wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Black Lives Matter means Black Lives Matter as well . The All Lives Matter movement, as a reaction to BLM, is essentially saying that they don't, and that the racial struggles of American Blacks are irrelevant. That is the reason why All Lives Matter is considered abusive.

> The All Lives Matter movement, as a reaction to BLM, is essentially saying that they don't That's not what "all" means. It's turning the name of the movement by implying it means "only" Black Lives Matter. So All Lives Matter is saying that not only Black Lives Matter.

If one truly believed "all lives matter" then one would not object to the statement "black lives matter".

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#115

Post by haimez »

pasquinelli wrote: post #84
haimez wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But at what COST. As a platform shaping measure, this is clearly an intentional measure to create a /specific/ different echo chamber. This is the mechanic that just created a Trump presidency.

that's assuming a lot. maybe trump won, more than anything else, because he was the republican candidate in a year that a two term democrat was sitting in the presidency.

It's fair to say I'm assuming an interpretation that's difficult to prove on its own merit, but the implied counter-interpretation here implies that it was perfectly normal for him to be the republican nominee in the first place, and par for the course. Tides go in, tides go out. You can't explain that.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#116

Post by paulddraper »

leereeves wrote: post #48
xaa wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. The first thing I thought upon reading this was: would Twitter ban an account with the following description: "dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of African descent in the United States, and around the world." Undoubtedly not. The only difference, of course, is s/African/European/g. I'm a liberal, but I feel that if this election has taught us anything, it should be that suppression of "…

I feel like the left seriously damaged their ability to fight racist ideas when they abandoned the idea of equality. Now, the left calls colorblindness and "all lives matter" racist. (Remember when Martin O'Malley was destroyed for saying that?) They create advantageous standards based on race, and even exclusive positions for non-white applicants. (For example, at the BBC.) And I too doubt they would object to "dedi…

> when they abandoned the idea of equality

They still champion equality.

Unfortunately, it's now the equality of outcome, rather than equality of opportunity.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#117

Post by [deleted] »

badlucklottery wrote: post #101
micaksica wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Sounds like you're talking about the paradox of tolerance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance Twitter has to choose between upholding the ideal of tolerance (4Chan is a good example of this) and trying to create a community of tolerance by running off the intolerant crowd. I don't think there's a happy medium in this case because the alt-right seem to really like disrupting conversations that are inco…

[deleted]

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#118

Post by ilugaslifg »

commenting wrote: post #73
leereeves wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the left seriously damaged their ability to fight racist ideas when they abandoned the idea of equality. Now, the left calls colorblindness and "all lives matter" racist. (Remember when Martin O'Malley was destroyed for saying that?) They create advantageous standards based on race, and even exclusive positions for non-white applicants. (For example, at the BBC.) And I too doubt they would object to "dedi…

Black Lives Matter means Black Lives Matter as well . The All Lives Matter movement, as a reaction to BLM, is essentially saying that they don't, and that the racial struggles of American Blacks are irrelevant. That is the reason why All Lives Matter is considered abusive.

Yes, "black lives matter as well". That is a statement that I now understand and strongly appreciate the power and full meaning of, after spending a good amount of time and emotional and intellectual effort on it.

The problem is innocent people who happen onto the conversation, interpret it at first glance, not unreasonably, as some insane asshole saying "only black lives matter", engage in good faith on that basis, to uphold ideals that we can all agree are right... and subsequently are piled on by a mob who agree that the offender has just instantly and irredeemably proven themselves to be one of the worst things they've been taught it's possible to be. With a real, non-zero chance of their real lives being actually, materially ruined as part of this public shaming.

The problem is things like "Black Lives Matter" being used as a shibboleth[0] -- an excuse to form a gleeful lynch mob, giving everybody a pleasurable and community-affirming chance to engage in collective norm-enforcement against The Other.

The problem is an atmosphere where I'm so paranoid about even attempting to have a good-faith intellectual conversation about this that I have to create a throwaway account to remove a not-at-all implausible chance of having my life ruined for even engaging on this topic at all.

And this isn't even getting into the atmosphere that seems to really be setting in, where agreeing to listen to someone has become tantamount to agreeing with everything they say. That's the really frightening one.

----

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#119

Post by autognosis »

alistproducer2 wrote: post #113
leereeves wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the left seriously damaged their ability to fight racist ideas when they abandoned the idea of equality. Now, the left calls colorblindness and "all lives matter" racist. (Remember when Martin O'Malley was destroyed for saying that?) They create advantageous standards based on race, and even exclusive positions for non-white applicants. (For example, at the BBC.) And I too doubt they would object to "dedi…

HN is a bad place to discuss this sort of stuff because you're always risking karma, but here goes. As a liberal, I will say that liberals drastically overplayed their hand the last 8 years. Many of us have been saying for a while that the language, tenor, and actions of recent liberal movements was ultimately counter productive. I understand and share the demand to be treated decently and equally, but admittedly thi…

>>because you're always risking karma -----

That's why the serious discussion happens on 4chan. Say WTF you think, or GTFO.

I also upvoted you. :-)

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#120

Post by paulddraper »

betenoire wrote: post #30
TillE wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A white racist.

The Black Panthers are also racist, but I would not call them alt-right or neo-nazis.

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