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Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

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Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#251

Post by matt4077 »

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…

If you were, say, an excellent PR consultant. Some "alt"-right group comes along and wants to hire you, willing to pay your standard rate and demanding relatively standard work. Would you be willing to?

Almost all would probably decline. Not just because we wouldn't enjoy the work, but also because it is something that, by definition, would help them and support their goals (according to their judgement – otherwise they wouldn't hire you).

Should people working at twitter not be allowed to make similar decisions? It's not hyperbole – look at reddit, and how it has devolved to something like a lowest common denominator. I'd leave as fast as I could instead of lending support to the toxic community.

Do they have a right that overrides mine? No. Private entities are more or less free to decline any customers, exceptions only where they have monopoly power (telecom, water).

Is fighting them out in the open the more valiant thing to do? No – I don't argue about chemtrails, or religion, or flat earth or evolution. Because it doesn't work. The chance of them convincing me that evolution isn't real is 0. Unfortunately, even though I'm right, my chance to convince them is about the same. Because none of this has anything to do with facts – it's red tribe vs blue tribe, and the right's search for a sense of belonging that Reagan sold to the highest bidder.

Is it going to empower the extremists to ignore them? Considering the ideas aren't new, I can only conclude that the internet has given them increased visibility and therefore helped their rise. If reasonable people decide to curtail their options for propaganda – by hiding them from Facebook, Twitter, Google the way conspiracy theories were ignored by reasonable people in the past, they may just shrink back to their appropriate size of plus or minus 0.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#252

Post by XJOKOLAT »

brlewis wrote: post #247
XJOKOLAT wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your conclusion but not the comparison. The context at the moment is that there are many rabid, racist, some violent, followers of these sites out there who have recently felt validated. If your gentle website "dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of African descent in the United States, and around the world." had a similar atmosphere of whipped up feeling around it, potentially lead…

It sounds like you're not only for banning abuse, but for banning emotionally-charged material that can make abusive people feel validated. To me that sounds like going too far.

If that's what it sounds like, then I would ask you to read the comment again.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#253

Post by matt4077 »

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…

This is a tired old argument, so let me just quote Daniel Victor:

Those in the Black Lives Matter movement say black people are in immediate danger and need immediate attention, like the broken bone or house on fire.

Saying “All Lives Matter” in response would suggest to them that all people are in equal danger, invalidating the specific concerns of black people.

“You’re watering the house that’s not burning, but you’re choosing to leave the house that’s burning unattended,” said Allen Kwabena Frimpong, an organizer for the New York chapter of Black Lives Matter. “It’s irresponsible.”

More to the point: It is a given that all lives matter, said Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, an assistant professor of African-American Studies at Princeton University.

“That has always been an assumption,” she said. “The entire point of Black Lives Matter is to illustrate the extent to which black lives have not mattered in this country.”

“if we jump too quickly to the universal formulation, ‘all lives matter,’ then we miss the fact that black people have not yet been included in the idea of ‘all lives.’ ”

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#254

Post by quonn »

sangnoir wrote: post #238
quonn wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Abortion is another I see both sides on and believe compromise is the best way forward. How would such a compromise look like? > In some cases (like abortion) conservatives have their heart in the right places. Right, but this is already your personal judgement. For example I personally feel that the conservative stance on abortion is cruel and creates more suffering.

> How would such a compromise look like? No-questions-asked contraception. edit: A more radical idea would be to ban abortions but allow the parents to give up the baby at birth as a ward of the state. The expenses would be covered by a new tax.

Contraception is not fully reliable (there are 6-12 pregnancies per 100 women per year despite contraception).

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#255

Post by throwanem »

throwaway-hn123 wrote: post #248
throwanem wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it, though? The argument I advance against homosexual marriage proceeds from the legitimate interest of the state in supporting marriage and reproduction. If it helps any, I hardly more often find myself in agreement with conservatives on most issues than with progressives...

So, you would deny marriage rights to a heterosexual couple who are infertile and unable to have children?

No, I would hesitate to extend marriage rights to an entire class of people, of all of whom the same is true.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#256

Post by matt4077 »

prewett wrote: post #138
alistproducer2 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm not sure if you intended this meaning, but it sounds like you see (your) liberal view as the ultimately right one which will inevitably triumph in the end, its just bad tactics right now. I didn't notice this until after I got back to the US after some time in an authoritarian country, and I noticed that liberals had this similar authoritarianness of being unwilling to consider the merits of the other side, a fee…

I'm willing to say that, yes, most "liberal" ideas are ultimately right, and will ultimately prevail.

History has by and large been a march towards these ideals. Freedom, equal chances, some organized support isolating you from the raw&random powers of markets&nature.

That believe isn't new, by the way. The first progressive would have said: "We believe these truths to be self-evident".

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#257

Post by rp2008 »

alistproducer2 wrote: post #150
prewett wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you intended this meaning, but it sounds like you see (your) liberal view as the ultimately right one which will inevitably triumph in the end, its just bad tactics right now. I didn't notice this until after I got back to the US after some time in an authoritarian country, and I noticed that liberals had this similar authoritarianness of being unwilling to consider the merits of the other side, a fee…

>I noticed that liberals had this similar authoritarianness IMO this is what distinguishes a traditional liberal from a a progressive. For me, a liberal is basically libertarian with a belief the state can be used to ensure the rights of citizens are administered evenly. IMO, if someone's actions aren't depriving another of life or liberty, the state doesn't have much standing in regulating that activity. Progressive…

There is no such thing as a libertarian that believes the "state can used to ensure" anything.

One of the core tenants of libertarianism is the nonaggression pact, and with this it is impossible to use the state to "ensure" too many things domestically.

This next part will seem hostile, but think about it logically.

The reality is that people usually want to enforce and others the qualities that they project from their own shadow; for instance, liberals tend to be racist (wanting special privaliges for one race or another, depending on the circumstance), and sexist (wanting to elect a treasonous criminal based on it being a woman alone), and thieving (wanting to levy money from others via taxation, for their own causes), and yet these three qualities are some of the biggest claims that liberals make against libertarians and conservatives, that they are greedy, racist, sexists.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#258

Post by StavrosK »

throwanem wrote: post #230
trhway wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

from that your comment: >Homosexual partnerships, which are incapable of producing children, thus are of no benefit to the state, and can only be an unproductive diversion of funds which otherwise would be allocated to the benefit of heterosexual marriages which can and often do produce children. i think you're completely wrong here. Homosexual couples do adopt children and given the number of children in the foster…

> Homosexual couples do adopt children and given the number of children in the foster care [...] A commonly cited argument, to be sure. Let's look at the magnitude of its impact in practice. Per federal statistics, roughly five hundred thousand US children are in foster care, which is roughly two-thirds of a percent of children in the US, or six per thousand. Figures on the number of children adopted by homosexual co…

As I replied to your linked comment, you're conflating the arguments. If you believe that marriage should be allowed if and only if a couple bears/adopts a child, then make parenthood a prerequsite for marriage, there's no point in instituting complex heuristics to try to guess whether a couple wants kids or not beforehand.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#259

Post by StavrosK »

sangnoir wrote: post #238
quonn wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Abortion is another I see both sides on and believe compromise is the best way forward. How would such a compromise look like? > In some cases (like abortion) conservatives have their heart in the right places. Right, but this is already your personal judgement. For example I personally feel that the conservative stance on abortion is cruel and creates more suffering.

> How would such a compromise look like? No-questions-asked contraception. edit: A more radical idea would be to ban abortions but allow the parents to give up the baby at birth as a ward of the state. The expenses would be covered by a new tax.

We would solve all our problems at once if only we could come up with a process that would make parenthood opt-in, rather than opt-out... Like a reversible vasectomy.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#260

Post by nailer »

rtpg wrote: post #210
nailer wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? The alt-right side don't support immigration and like their own culture - which is a very common thing across the world, particularly amongst the working class. neo nazis specifically advocate violence. I generally vote for the Labour party, but that doesn't mean I and my fellow Labour voters (Corbyn aside) support Mao/Chavez/PolPot-style murdering of our enemies.

this is how the Alt-Right frames itself, and it's pretty ingenious. People discuss protection of culture, and completely step over the part about "their own culture". The Alt Right ideology relies on the principle that White culture is the "true" culture of the nation, and that other contributions simply do not count. They cast an illegitimacy to the history of minorities in the US. The debate about protecting the cu…

It's the same as the (generally left) folk feel fine about when preserving areas from other cultures.

Want to preserve Oakland or the Mission as is? That's fine.

Don't like seeing women forced to walk around in burkas and girls having their genitals cut (I live in London where these re both issues)? That's racist. Obviously Islam isn't a race, and this makes no sense, but it's something people still claim.

Either preserving existing cultures is OK or it isn't.

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