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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

#151

Post by fiblye »

BartSaM wrote: post #138
volkk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Then ghosting would make much more sense, in my opinion, to keep the data just in case some information will get shared that could lead to catching terrorists/recruiters.

Just what I was thinking. Reddit and HN shadowban people without them ever knowing. Twitter probably should too, and allow things like current location/potential plans to be farmed.

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

#152

Post by im3w1l »

supergreg wrote: post #102
module0000 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a great way to plant false plans. You don't have to carry them out unless the threat was never mitigated(if it wasn't taken seriously, then you can carry it out for 2x damage: part being the attack itself, the second part being that "they knew and did nothing!").

How would you know if they did know and chose not to do anything to avoid showing they did know?

Well ISIS must have some form of intelligence of their own? Although I have no idea how advanced it would be.

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

#153

Post by maxerickson »

Semiapies wrote: post #144
maxerickson wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read more replies

Reply more usefully. There's been precious little real information ventured on the topic since I commented, and there was none before I did.

Sorry, it was a reference to Twitter hiding some content behind a button that says "Read more replies".

There is some chance that the bans and content suppression are using the same information.

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

#154

Post by alexanderstears »

grey-area wrote: post #141
alexanderstears wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

terrorism describes the infliction of civilian casualties meant to create a disproportionate climate of fear. By this definition, drones used in warfare are a form of terrorism. Let's address that point. First, that's a convenient definition that erases the distinction between State and non-State violence which is critical to many people's formulations of what is and isn't permissible. E.g I wouldn't tolerate my neig…

Terrorists seek to maximize damage That's not usually true. Terrorists often don't go for max deaths but for a specific symbolic target (e.g. Pentagon, wtc etc). What they want is to provoke a response, ideally heavy-handed repression - the aim is to polarise the society targeted, to instill fear and panic, and reveal the implicit violence of government as explicit action. Drone strikes and the policy of global assas…

What they want is to provoke a response, ideally heavy-handed repression

sounds damage maximizing to me - provoking a heavy handed response sounds like an issue of damage multiplication. It's not as if all targets are equally valid to terrorists - no one ever suicide bombed a corn field in Nebraska. If the 9/11 hijackers were going for maximum damage, what should they have attacked?

Drone strikes and the policy of global assassination does not keep you safe, it just kills a lot of people

It keeps me more safe than doing nothing, and less safe than other more dramatic attacks - e.g glassing the countries that produce the most terrorists. I'm sure my local police could keep me more safe, but that doesn't discredit the safety they help create.

Re support for democracy, I'm not sure why you believe that given support for Pinochet, sisi, Mubarak, hussein, Saud etc

America supports non-democratically elected leaders in addition to democratically elected leaders. I don't have a list, but I think the only democratically elected government that the US doesn't support is Hamas.

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

#155

Post by s73ver_ »

agumonkey wrote: post #140
astura wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before he was killed Bin Laden communicated with his inner circle only by USB drives transported by sneakernet - his bunker lacked Internet connection but his communications were electronic. I think some of his communication was re-transmitted by his couriers over the Internet though but not through locations that were physically near where he was hiding.

Now I'm curious, I wonder how feasible it would be to use acoustic sniffing to hear people like him talking or typing. Some guys infered letters from the sound of keystrokes.

Wouldn't you have to be close enough to his location to where he'd be within a bomb's range anyway?

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

#156

Post by s73ver_ »

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.

No. You will not stop ISIS by debating with them on Twitter.

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

#157

Post by s73ver_ »

katastic wrote: post #89
softawre wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

It's conflation to compare coontown with the_donald. Go there right now. You won't find "kill the jews" posts. You won't find "kill the gays/black people" posts. You'll find a ton of supportive people with a particular worldview--and there's nothing wrong with that. If you assume the people you disagree with are "insane" or disregard them as "full of hate" then you'll never understand why they think the way they do a…

"It's conflation to compare coontown with the_donald. Go there right now. You won't find "kill the jews" posts. You won't find "kill the gays/black people" posts. You'll find a ton of supportive people with a particular worldview--and there's nothing wrong with that."

Go read the comments. You will find plenty of that stuff.

"If the other candidate had won, would we consider her subreddit a hate sub?"

False equivalence. I don't recall Clinton ever saying she wanted to jail her political opponent. I don't recall her campaign ever retweeting literal white supremacists.

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

#158

Post by honestlyreally »

katastic wrote: post #87
volkk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Your guess would be 100% correct. We built huge spy networks only to find out that the terrorists don't even use the internet for their plans. They use burner phones and other non-tech solutions (paper?! omgawdwtf.) because (surprise!) they're harder to track on a systematic level.

They've been known to use pocket calculators for ciphers and transmit over radio frequencies digit by digit.

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

#159

Post by s73ver_ »

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...

From the POV of Reddit, their users, and their advertisers, does it matter? It's not there anymore, so they're good.

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

#160

Post by s73ver_ »

gertef wrote: post #121
camus2 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Agreed, and this should be the retort to any curtailing of free speech in the name of safety There is no free speech issue here, Twitter isn't operated by the government, neither is Facebook or Reddit. My point is, people are still free to set up their own servers at home, running their own app, their liberty to do that is not harmed by Twitter rejecting content. On the contrary, it's an opportunity for free speech…

The concept Free Speech transcends the specifics of the US Constitution's First Amendment. "Complies with US First Amendment" != "Free Speech"

The concept of Free Speech also includes that of Free Association. As in, Twitter gets to decide who they want to associate with. And in this context, associate with means use their platform.
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