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Twitter employee deactivates Trump account

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Twitter employee deactivates Trump account

#41

Post by hkmurakami »

nodesocket wrote: post #36
mankash666 wrote: post #2

This article shines light on the power bestowed upon Twitter employees. They can randomly deactivate one's account, and unless you're the president, you might not have any recourse. Particularly worrisome is the general left leaning political and social affiliation of such employees. We are an era of systemic censorship of right leaning speech by popular internet platforms. I'm personally center left, but in no way d…

I'll give a very personal account. I was in the past harassed on Twitter. I received death threats and users were giving out my phone number and address to other Twitter users via DM. I filed an official complaint, and Twitter's response was this is not harassment, we won't do anything. I am pretty sure because of my political views the Twitter support representative decided they didn't like me. The hypocrisy, bias,…

There was a series of articles a few years ago about closet GOP supporters in the tech industry fearing being "outed" for the damage it would cause to their careers. In your experience do you feel that this concern is justified?

(I think there was at least one startup CEO who declared that if he found out that anyone at his company had voted for Trump, that he would fire him/her)

Re: Twitter employee deactivates Trump account

#42

Post by bad_user »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #12
echlebek wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are literally nazis promoting themselves on twitter without censorship, so I disagree with your claim.

So now we can debate whether they (Nazis, or whoever) should be allowed to use a platform, allowing themselves to be identified and dealt with by the law. In that regard there is no global consensus. And arguments for and against can be quite compelling. We know that attempting to suppress ideas can have unintended consequences.

I am against censorship, however as an European I agree with our country's constitution that says freedom of speech is granted only as far as hate speech isn't involved.

Of course who should have the power to identify hate speech and censor content and what the definition of hate speech is, that's debatable. However a platform like Twitter is also private property, another right protected by the constitution and people don't necessarily have free speech rights on somebody else's property.

As for the compelling arguments about letting Nazis speak in order to identify them:

1. read some German newspapers just before 1933 – the same arguments against censorship have been used then as well, nothing new

2. if you want to see actual antisemitism, some literal Nazis, go to https://gab.ai — nothing on Twitter is as bad as what goes on in there and the moderates that are against censoring such opinions usually don't realize how bad they can get or their reach

Again, I'm very much pro free speech. But free speech is not my religion and it needs to be balanced against the other rights that we have as well, like property rights, or the right to feel safe and to be treated fairly and respectfully.

Re: Twitter employee deactivates Trump account

#43

Post by leereeves »

mozumder wrote: post #7
mankash666 wrote: post #2

This article shines light on the power bestowed upon Twitter employees. They can randomly deactivate one's account, and unless you're the president, you might not have any recourse. Particularly worrisome is the general left leaning political and social affiliation of such employees. We are an era of systemic censorship of right leaning speech by popular internet platforms. I'm personally center left, but in no way d…

Just treat these companies as media companies with editorial discretion instead of as utilities. Really, the moment you start to take advertising, you're responsible for content. Professional advertisers have specific rules about content they can associate with. I've worked with them and they're strict about that, for example, they can't show a beautiful fashion spread next to a bloody image in a magazine. That's jus…

> the creation of more competing social media outlets

Like gab.ai? Not allowed on iPhones.

Perhaps Twitter could be considered a media company with editorial discretion, but Apple?

Either treat these giant SV companies as utilities, or break them up.

Re: Twitter employee deactivates Trump account

#44

Post by apatters »

irulebush wrote: post #15

I frequently come across tweets by neo-nazis promoting their hateful ideas. We can't let this go on in the name of free speech.

Why not?

"Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express “the thought that we hate.”"

-Justice Samuel Alito, 2017

The debate on this topic has unfolded over hundreds, even thousands of years of Western political thought. The philosophy enshrined in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is that in fact we should let this speech go on because the alternative of suppressing it is worse for all of us in the long run. There are people of great intelligence and distinction within American society who still feel that this is true.

(It bears mentioning that while Twitter is a private entity and not bound by the same rules as a federal entity, the mass movement of speech from public to private platforms is one of the biggest issues under consideration.)

Re: Twitter employee deactivates Trump account

#45

Post by chiaro »

mankash666 wrote: post #2

This article shines light on the power bestowed upon Twitter employees. They can randomly deactivate one's account, and unless you're the president, you might not have any recourse. Particularly worrisome is the general left leaning political and social affiliation of such employees. We are an era of systemic censorship of right leaning speech by popular internet platforms. I'm personally center left, but in no way d…

"I'm personally center left" ...

Hopefully I don't get dang'd by observing how common a meme this is.

Companies, public and private, have the legal right to take on whatever political position they have, and beyond having the power to control dialogue, there is no way they can abdicate exercising that power; it's unavoidably emergent from their technology that someone's tweet has to show up top when you log in. This extends to anyone that writes code connecting a query to some media content.

Since asking for Government intervention in this realm is highly illiberal, the exercise of this power is a matter of corporate social responsibility. And how the CSR shakes out around the use of a platform to encourage hate and violence of any stripe is a point of contention.

Re: Twitter employee deactivates Trump account

#46

Post by ajuc »

gaius wrote: post #14
echlebek wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are literally nazis promoting themselves on twitter without censorship, so I disagree with your claim.

There are literally nazis promoting themselves on twitter without censorship There's all kinds of genocide being promoted on Twitter, and the so-called Nazis are literally the only ones being censored. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander says I. Either Twitter - a for profit entity - is a common carrier or they impose editorial standards, they can't be allowed to get away with playing both sides as it…

> and the so-called Nazis are literally the only ones being censored

False. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Twitter

Re: Twitter employee deactivates Trump account

#47

Post by andybak »

lsmarigo wrote: post #38
mankash666 wrote: post #2

This article shines light on the power bestowed upon Twitter employees. They can randomly deactivate one's account, and unless you're the president, you might not have any recourse. Particularly worrisome is the general left leaning political and social affiliation of such employees. We are an era of systemic censorship of right leaning speech by popular internet platforms. I'm personally center left, but in no way d…

Please re-consider your use of the term "SJW" as a derogatory term. I had hoped that garbage would stay on reddit. Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln were 'social justice warriors'. The more accepted definition is of an extreme leftist which in truth is statistically irrelevant % of the population. SJW is a strawman term that's great for dividing us and categorizing those with opposing views as the boogeyman.

Viewing US political culture from outside makes this even more entertaining. It appears to many people in Europe to be mostly two center-right/right groups calling each other nasty names.

Of course the standard left/right dichotomy is a historical accident and contingent on many local factors. And yet we continue to reify it as if it were some Platonic truth.

Re: Twitter employee deactivates Trump account

#48

Post by leereeves »

hkmurakami wrote: post #41
nodesocket wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll give a very personal account. I was in the past harassed on Twitter. I received death threats and users were giving out my phone number and address to other Twitter users via DM. I filed an official complaint, and Twitter's response was this is not harassment, we won't do anything. I am pretty sure because of my political views the Twitter support representative decided they didn't like me. The hypocrisy, bias,…

There was a series of articles a few years ago about closet GOP supporters in the tech industry fearing being "outed" for the damage it would cause to their careers. In your experience do you feel that this concern is justified? (I think there was at least one startup CEO who declared that if he found out that anyone at his company had voted for Trump, that he would fire him/her)

There was an article about that a few days ago that got a lot of attention here on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15595586

Re: Twitter employee deactivates Trump account

#49

Post by gjulianm »

adventured wrote: post #24
irulebush wrote: post #15

I frequently come across tweets by neo-nazis promoting their hateful ideas. We can't let this go on in the name of free speech.

Let's see how your logic extrapolates.... I frequently come across Socialists and Communists promoting their violent, hateful ideas. We can't let this go on in the name of free speech. After all, Communism murdered over a hundred million people in the 20th century. All Socialist and Communist propaganda - including all images of Mao, Che Guevara and the hammer & sickle - must be banned from all platforms, to avoid th…

The fundamental difference is that one is an economic ideology from which the genocidal ideas can be separated, and the other is a genocidal ideology. National socialism is an ideology for which certain types of people cannot exist, and such it is wholly incompatible with modern societies. Compare this to the fact that socialists and communists have been part of peaceful modern political systems. It is not that difficult to draw the line.

Re: Twitter employee deactivates Trump account

#50

Post by eganist »

mankash666 wrote: post #2

This article shines light on the power bestowed upon Twitter employees. They can randomly deactivate one's account, and unless you're the president, you might not have any recourse. Particularly worrisome is the general left leaning political and social affiliation of such employees. We are an era of systemic censorship of right leaning speech by popular internet platforms. I'm personally center left, but in no way d…

We see the "I'm a Democrat but don't support this Democrat" (sub with Republican if desired) position all the time in astroturfing campaigns. The giveaway is usually in the choice of language, e.g. "sjw" as opposed to a less charged term like "further left"
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