Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

#51

Post by bachbach » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 9:38 PM UTC

CharlesW wrote: post #7

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #3

Honestly, "Those are the eyes of a rat" is a fairly tame insult compared to the kind of toxic drivel Jones usually says, and seems like weak grounds for termination. He should've been kicked off long ago, but I fear that having this particular example be the "final straw" is only going to strengthen the alt-right's persecution complex.

It does seem tame, but a quick search suggests it may be an anti-semitic dog whistle.

I am not a fan of Alex Jones but he is not an anti-semite.

In fact I suspect you have it backward. Jones will be intimately aware of (some of) the far left and (some of) far right anti-semite culture - it takes some character to see the big picture and in my personal exhaustive experience with that world most people exposed to those cultures would become anti-semites fast.

Jone's nemesis is altogether more abstract - he sees himself as crusader against a modern meme similar to communism or fascism.

Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

#52

Post by pcwalton » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 9:38 PM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #5

> “Those are the eyes of a rat,” There's no way they can ban him for saying that yet still claim to enforce the rules equally for all political affiliations. There have been thousands (maybe more) tweets by people with blue verification checkmarks calling Trump an orange oompa loopa and much worse. No one has been banned for that (rightfully so imo). There's been a ton of pressure on Twitter to ban Jones but using th…

> There have been thousands (maybe more) tweets by people with blue verification checkmarks calling Trump an orange oompa loopa and much worse. No one has been banned for that (rightfully so imo).

Maybe because those kinds of tweets about Trump aren't anti-Semitic.

Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

#53

Post by ziroshima » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 9:39 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #23

CharlesW wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem tame, but a quick search suggests it may be an anti-semitic dog whistle.

Some insults are simply worse depending on who they are targeting. It is the difference between calling GW Bush a monkey because he occasionally looked like a monkey and Obama being called a monkey as a racial slur. The former is a childish insult that is easy to ignore. The latter is a form of bigotry that shouldn't be tolerated.

Gauging the degree to which insults are insulting or offensive (based on context!) is always going to be problematic. I find your comment a little bit disturbing because it reminds me of the Roseanne fiasco. The woman she was insulting really does look like she could have been in the planet of the apes films. Is it racist to publicly observe a similar appearance? If someone believes that Obama has a monkey-like appearance, as you believe GW Bush does, are they racist? In other words, intent is often not the same as the interpretation, which as long as we are doing trial by public opinion, I am not comfortable with.

Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

#54

Post by drfuchs » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 9:39 PM UTC

CharlesW wrote: post #7

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #3

Honestly, "Those are the eyes of a rat" is a fairly tame insult compared to the kind of toxic drivel Jones usually says, and seems like weak grounds for termination. He should've been kicked off long ago, but I fear that having this particular example be the "final straw" is only going to strengthen the alt-right's persecution complex.

It does seem tame, but a quick search suggests it may be an anti-semitic dog whistle.

Quite. See, for example, the 1940 Nazi propaganda film "The Eternal Jew." Quoting Wikipedia: "The film utilizes a montage that juxtaposes these images of ghetto Jews with images of rats to draw an analogy between the migration of Jews from Eastern Europe with the migration of rats. For example, one of the shots shows a pack of rats emerging from a sewer, followed by a shot of a crowd of Jews in a bustling street of the Łódź Ghetto. Close-ups of those in the crowd reveal sickly, malformed facial features. The narrator states that, as rats are the vermin of the animal kingdom, Jews are the vermin of the human race and similarly spread disease and corruption."

Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

#55

Post by ArchTypical » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 9:39 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #23

CharlesW wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem tame, but a quick search suggests it may be an anti-semitic dog whistle.

Some insults are simply worse depending on who they are targeting. It is the difference between calling GW Bush a monkey because he occasionally looked like a monkey and Obama being called a monkey as a racial slur. The former is a childish insult that is easy to ignore. The latter is a form of bigotry that shouldn't be tolerated.

> Some insults are simply worse depending on who they are targeting.

That's just an ideological step that is unwise to adopt. Taking that as a philosophy, anything you say is an intolerable statement because of who might get offended by it. This is antithetical to free speech as prior restraint. I don't know why anyone would subscribe to such a viewpoint. Every philosophy has boons and banes, but that doesn't mean the philosophy is absolute nor moral.

Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

#56

Post by manfredo » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 9:40 PM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #26

malvosenior wrote: post #5

> “Those are the eyes of a rat,” There's no way they can ban him for saying that yet still claim to enforce the rules equally for all political affiliations. There have been thousands (maybe more) tweets by people with blue verification checkmarks calling Trump an orange oompa loopa and much worse. No one has been banned for that (rightfully so imo). There's been a ton of pressure on Twitter to ban Jones but using th…

There's no way they can ban him for saying that yet still claim to enforce the rules equally for all political affiliations. It's not the government, they absolutely can ban people for anything they want and they don't have to be consistent about it. There's nothing you can do about this it than deleting your account, complaining about them on the internet, and/or acquiring a seat on their board of directors and effe…

Sure Twitter and other tech platforms are well within their rights to act in an explicitly partisan manner, but their reputations will suffer and the government will be even more keen on breaking them up and putting them on a tight regulatory leash.

Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

#57

Post by readams » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 9:40 PM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #26

malvosenior wrote: post #5

> “Those are the eyes of a rat,” There's no way they can ban him for saying that yet still claim to enforce the rules equally for all political affiliations. There have been thousands (maybe more) tweets by people with blue verification checkmarks calling Trump an orange oompa loopa and much worse. No one has been banned for that (rightfully so imo). There's been a ton of pressure on Twitter to ban Jones but using th…

There's no way they can ban him for saying that yet still claim to enforce the rules equally for all political affiliations. It's not the government, they absolutely can ban people for anything they want and they don't have to be consistent about it. There's nothing you can do about this it than deleting your account, complaining about them on the internet, and/or acquiring a seat on their board of directors and effe…

This seems to be a common trope lately. The claim seems to be that because censorship by private parties is not banned by the constitution, it is therefore a good idea.

It is entirely fair to criticize private parties for censorship even though there may be no legal recourse. It is in turn almost never a good idea to demand the censorship of ideas you don't like.

Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

#58

Post by malvosenior » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 9:40 PM UTC

MBCook wrote: post #41

malvosenior wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for replying instead of downvoting. The problem I have is how subjective all of this is, and while they say they are trying to increase transparency I don't see it. This action suggests they keep tabs on accounts and there's some threshold they can reach over a period of time that will flip a ban on even if the actual action that causes the ban wouldn't be bannable in isolation. I've not seen this policy di…

But this is LESS subjective. They have rules. Before they were enforced randomly. Was that fovoritism? Who was at the button for that particular complaint? Who knows! It doesn’t really matter what their rules or definitions of the terms they use are. Or how subjective people claim they are. People will choose to use the service or not based on what they see happening. But for the past few years, it want a question of…

I agree with everything you've said except for the second to the last sentence :)

This looks like just another arbitrary (and possibly politically motivated) ban to me. If they start removing other accounts of their "friends" who engage in behavior such as commenting on other's appearance, then I'd say we're starting to see consistency.

That hasn't happened yet though, and banning Jones for such a mild tweet seems to suggest it's unlikely we'll see the same scrutiny applied to others as many people would get kicked off the platform for this level of vitriol.

Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

#59

Post by happytoexplain » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 9:40 PM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #29

nichochar wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah. the good old: lets criticize a generalization by making a generalization. Always a strong argument :)

Since when does the broadness of an observation or argument have any impact on its validity? Who made up that rule?

I'm confident that people tend to extrapolate anecdotal negative experiences about groups of people in bad faith, and that, as the group size increases, this tendency increases relative to the availability of more objective observations. If that's true, the broader the group subjected to a negative generalization, the more likely it is that the observation is as I described. Combined with intuition about the nature of the negativity, I can sometimes feel confident expressing an opinion about the observation one way or the other (e.g. "I think X people are less conversational" vs "I think X people are mostly violent thugs").

Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

#60

Post by hbosch » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 9:40 PM UTC

ve55 wrote: post #47

One of the most difficult issues with the style of bans that large tech companies perform is that there is no hope for them to have strong consistency. For them to be consistent they would have to ban anyone that has been an equal or worse offender, while not banning anyone that is a lesser offender. This is obviously far-fetched, especially with decisions that are made by humans on a case-by-case basis. Regardless o…

It's OK to be inconsistent, because tech companies aren't governments and their rules aren't laws. They are allowed to control their platform however they want.

Everyone is welcome to create their own "free-er" Twitter, Facebook, or Reddit.