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Twitter Suspends 300k Accounts Tied to Terrorism in 2017

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Re: Twitter Suspends 300k Accounts Tied to Terrorism in 2017

#51

Post by i_cant_speel »

alexasmyths wrote: post #30
WillPostForFood wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? Are you afraid they can defeat you with tweets? The risk of normalizing suppressing speech is greater than the risk of terrorism.

'The pen is mightier than the sword'. The tweets are valuable propaganda to ISIS. They are consumed by billions of young impressionable minds all over the world, inducing them to 'take up the cause'. ISIS does not have the right to 'free speech'. Stopping ISIS from spreading their selfie vids of how they burned people alive and 'You can too!' - is not controversial.

Unbelievably, it looks like it is controversial.

Re: Twitter Suspends 300k Accounts Tied to Terrorism in 2017

#52

Post by make3 »

volkk wrote: post #19
chrissnell wrote: post #10

I understand why Twitter might not want ISIS accounts on their service but from a national security standpoint, it seems better to have the communication happening on a U.S.-based service like Twitter than some darknet or crypto-centric app.

My guess is that the real comms already do happen outside of Twitter, and that Twitter is simply a recruitment platform/loudspeaker

Indeed. I would be very surprised if any real planning happened on twitter DMs. That would be unbelievably stupid, with the NSA stuff now being so well known

Re: Twitter Suspends 300k Accounts Tied to Terrorism in 2017

#53

Post by javajosh »

chrissnell wrote: post #10

I understand why Twitter might not want ISIS accounts on their service but from a national security standpoint, it seems better to have the communication happening on a U.S.-based service like Twitter than some darknet or crypto-centric app.

This is perhaps giving the USG too much credit, but it's possible that they considered this a reasonable trade-off. That is, they are reducing the amount of new radicalization, at the expense of driving the already radicalized underground. On it's face, this is a good trade-off, since already radicalized people are going to be using crypto/darknet stuff anyway.

Re: Twitter Suspends 300k Accounts Tied to Terrorism in 2017

#54

Post by MrZongle2 »

josefresco wrote: post #15
lawl wrote: post #4

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. Who defines what is considered terrorism and what isn't? Once censorship infrastruc…

Twitter is a business - they are not rounding people up for extermination. This is a poor, and hyperbolic comparison.

It might not be the best comparison, but OP was on-target with their last sentence: "Who defines what is considered terrorism and what isn't? Once censorship infrastructure is in place, it will get abused."

Today, it's ISIS. Well, that's OK -- they're clearly terrorists.

Tomorrow, it's the KKK and White Supremacy groups. Well, that's OK too -- they're racists.

Next month, it's climate change deniers -- that's probably just as well, as climate change is a threat to civilization and these guys are merely standing in the way of a solution.

Two months from now, it's Trump supporters -- might as well, as Trump is against taking action against climate change and the whole alt-right thing is a nebulous group that includes the already-banned bunch of racists....

Next year, it's the people who objected to all the Trump supporters being censored -- they clearly aren't on-board with keeping online speech civil and hate-free....

Etc.

Yes, Twitter is a private organization and therefore cannot run afoul of any 1st Amendment protections. The danger isn't from certain groups being able to tweet, it's from this casual "ban what we don't like" attitude so easily adopted by individuals and groups who would otherwise be screaming bloody murder if they were the ones being scrutinized.

I'm all for bombing ISIS and similar groups to oblivion. I'm not OK with this latest fad of neo-Puritanism determining what is "hateful" and unacceptable speech and the subsequent hand-washing because it's private industry doing it rather than the government.

Edit: If you disagree, take the time to explain why. Otherwise, your downvotes simply further illustrate my point: I'm saying something you don't like, so you'll do your best to simply punish & censor an alternative viewpoint.

Re: Twitter Suspends 300k Accounts Tied to Terrorism in 2017

#56

Post by orf »

virmundi wrote: post #14
lawl wrote: post #4

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. Who defines what is considered terrorism and what isn't? Once censorship infrastruc…

Unfortunately, you'll see the American ideal of free speech quickly purged from the Internet as American companies shed their nationalism for profit. The EU does not hold speech as dear as the US. As the EU gains more power, they'll pressure American firms to conform to their laws. Since the firms have EU headquarters, they will. If the American firms wore that mantle with pride (and paid the taxes that go with it),…

Meh, as an EU citizen I think their balance of free speech is OK. Not as extreme as in the US, but that doesn't make it worse. The UK draws a sensible line without having it enshrined in any constitution.

The right to forget is a great example. Sure, its "against the free speech of Google" but it's decidedly for the people being spoken about IMO.

Re: Twitter Suspends 300k Accounts Tied to Terrorism in 2017

#58

Post by [deleted] »

softawre wrote: post #50
aphextron wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, and this should be the retort to any curtailing of free speech in the name of safety. Its the same argument as allowing “the_donald” to exist on Reddit. You will not stop an ideology by denying them a platform. Better to debate them in an open forum, even if they are evil. The only way to counter bad ideas is with good ones.

There was a recent /r/science article that suggested the banning of coontown and fatpeoplehate resulted in less hate on the platform as a whole. Would you argue this hate moved to other avenues of the web? I'd bet some of it did, but some people just stopped being so hateful on the internet once their cesspool went away. https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/6zg6w6/reddits_ban...

[deleted]

Re: Twitter Suspends 300k Accounts Tied to Terrorism in 2017

#59

Post by Apocryphon »

virmundi wrote: post #35
Apocryphon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's arguable that the American ideal of free enterprise trumps free speech in this era- and such corporations have always had the right to police speech as they'd like. Private entities and all that. If you don't like it, perhaps you should support anti-monopolist policies.

I do support anti-monopolist policies. My favorite president is Teddy. The very fact that we are discussing the enterprise limiting speech does show it's arguable. I say it should be argued. Further, I say that comments such as yours, while I'm fine with you stating it, serves only to act as slight of hand that limits speech.

We should aim to break up the ongoing dominance in tech by these ever-increasing conglomerates, either nationalize Twitter into a public utility, or break it so alternatives exist so people can switch to them. That may be the ideal world to strive for.

In the current world, though, I find free speech arguments in this context to be alarmist because Twitter isn't the only channel for public discourse, and this specific case (shutting down jihadist accounts) seems like a less flagrant act of corporate censorship than, say, Apple banning iOS apps that warn civilians of drone attacks. It just seems like there are worthier incidents to get outraged about, but people like to choose certain targets of outrage because it suits their tastes. Hacker slacktivism is as annoying as any other kind.

Re: Twitter Suspends 300k Accounts Tied to Terrorism in 2017

#60

Post by matt4077 »

aphextron wrote: post #36
chrissnell wrote: post #10

I understand why Twitter might not want ISIS accounts on their service but from a national security standpoint, it seems better to have the communication happening on a U.S.-based service like Twitter than some darknet or crypto-centric app.

Agreed, and this should be the retort to any curtailing of free speech in the name of safety. Its the same argument as allowing “the_donald” to exist on Reddit. You will not stop an ideology by denying them a platform. Better to debate them in an open forum, even if they are evil. The only way to counter bad ideas is with good ones.

Sure, just like you could convince McDonald's to go vegan with a few carefully worded arguments...

ISIS doesn't use twitter to debate you. They use it strictly for outbound propaganda.

Even if you could somehow convince those running ISIS accounts of the folly of their endeavours, these are likely to be a tiny fraction of ISIS' people. There are a few dozen social media people in their ranks, but the idea that the bulk of them even have access to Twitter is somewhat laughable.

Denying ISIS such propaganda outlets is useful in fighting them. Proof by the free market theorem: they wouldn't use Twitter if they did not consider it better than the alternatives. They are also better informed about their situation, so they're more likely to be right than anyone else. Denying them this possibility must therefore be damaging to their cause.

This idea that extreme ideologies are somehow damaged by access to mass media is among the most ridiculous infatuations HN has embarked on, informed almost exclusively by wishful thinking. An ideology that is pushed underground is, and this is almost a truism, strictly worse off than one that has access to these tools.

See the recent reddit paper for some numbers, or consider something like r/the_donald: does anybody really believe that community would have been more powerful if it had been relegated to their own platform early on?

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