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Twitter locked my account for a nine year old tweet

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Re: Twitter locked my account for a nine year old tweet

#41

Post by onion2k »

chrisan wrote: post #9
moksly wrote: post #7

Seems more like twitter banned the author 9 years too late.

It is definitely an immature tweet, however I think 9 years can change a person a lot. Maybe twitter could have given him a warning about his tweet and ask if he would like to delete it before the instaban algorithm hit

They blocked the account but as you can see from the bottom of the screenshot in the article the account could be reinstated by deleting the tweet in question. If the author is honestly saying they no longer stand by what they posted 9 years ago they could easily just delete it and move on.

That raises a bunch of different questions about what Twitter are doing to change history, and the way they represent their platform, but those are separate to the banning of users based on their history.

Besides, this might be motivated by Twitter acting on a complaint. It could be that Sarah Palin (or someone representing her) complained about the tweet recently, in which case Twitter need to deal with that now.

Re: Twitter locked my account for a nine year old tweet

#42

Post by ohithereyou »

andy_ppp wrote: post #30
romaaeterna wrote: post #15

Unaccountable censorship of expression by our main communication providers is incompatible with Democracy. Communication is often a natural monopoly, and you can't just "start a competitor" to Twitter and have the market fix the problem (see gab.ai). If we're going to have censorship on the big platforms (Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) and backbone providers (ISPs, Cloudfront), us normal human beings need…

I would also argue that unfettered access to incorrect information is also a massive problem for democracy.

I don't want a Ministry of Truth filtering what I'm allowed to hear. In a functional democracy, education and robust debate are supposed to be the defenses against misinformation.

Most western democracies long since scrapped proper education because it's easier to win the support of the population with propaganda^H public relations than it is to make a reasoned argument.

Re: Twitter locked my account for a nine year old tweet

#43

Post by crankylinuxuser »

The big issue, which I have received significant consternation of "ownership", is that these mega-corps are creating their own dictatorships online. And they are how "speech" is conducted, given their monopoly on where the people are.

The obvious and most consistent counterclaim is that these are "private entities who can choose whom to deal with".

That statement is predicated on the facetious assertion that a corporation is a human, and should be treated as such and provided latitude as one. It obviously is not. And with their clout in personnel, money, lawyers, and more - they are a uberhuman.

The path forward seems clear. Corporations should not be treated the same as real humans. And their powers should be limited to prevent these formations of super-countries with draconian and arbitrary laws, just because technology allows them so.

Re: Twitter locked my account for a nine year old tweet

#44

Post by whafro »

onion90 wrote: post #25
chrisan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is definitely an immature tweet, however I think 9 years can change a person a lot. Maybe twitter could have given him a warning about his tweet and ask if he would like to delete it before the instaban algorithm hit

Twitter could, of course, have just given a warning. But I also don't see any problem treating the tweet as if it were current. The age of the tweet does not change whether it is acceptable or not, does it?

Well, he was banned for violating the Twitter rules, and those rules didn't exist at the time.

Getting a message saying something like "this message violates the rules today, so we're going to delete it" or "delete this message within a week or we'll have to ban your account" would seem more reasonable to me than immediate ex post facto enforcement.

Re: Twitter locked my account for a nine year old tweet

#45

Post by onion2k »

pjc50 wrote: post #37
onion2k wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. That should really read "I started using Twitter back in 2008. A decade after Windows CE phones became quite common, and 5 years after the launch of Windows Mobile."

Windows CE phones were significantly worse than simply trying to use a Nokia 3210. They were very much a false start.

I had an HTC TyTn II back in about 2006. It was flawed but ultimately it was a pretty good device given the limitations of the time. Trying to cram Windows on to a phone without changing things was a mistake obviously, but for some things (email..) it was awesome.

Re: Twitter locked my account for a nine year old tweet

#46

Post by abc126589 »

Shameless plug: you can use services like Twitter Archive Eraser (https://martani.github.io/Twitter-Archive-Eraser/) to selectively delete old tweets and in bulk.

Many of us identify with the author and most content created on social media years ago have no reason to stay around.

Re: Twitter locked my account for a nine year old tweet

#47

Post by motohagiography »

I have a problem with this whole concept that you don't get to have ideas and test them, but that the ideation and words themselves make you something or means you are or have become something.

It's dishonest, lacks any legitimacy, and it is the root of the culture war. Words only have the consequences the reader or listener gives them, they do not have intrinsic consequences in themselves. The fantasy that mere belief is transformative or redeeming is a seductive deception.

Platforms should demonstrate they are principled before merely driving certain interests, even (especially) if they are convinced those interests are the right ones.

Re: Twitter locked my account for a nine year old tweet

#49

Post by ralfd »

hoistbypetard wrote: post #40

I think Twitter should delete everything older than XX days old, where XX is a number on the order of 15 or 30. The kind of heavily context-dependent short form throwaway expression the site is built for and actively encourages does not age well, and an auto-delete policy that emphasizes that would make the site better and cheaper to operate.

Immediately a twitter archive would pop up though.

Re: Twitter locked my account for a nine year old tweet

#50

Post by ryanmercer »

chrisan wrote: post #9
moksly wrote: post #7

Seems more like twitter banned the author 9 years too late.

It is definitely an immature tweet, however I think 9 years can change a person a lot. Maybe twitter could have given him a warning about his tweet and ask if he would like to delete it before the instaban algorithm hit

>It is definitely an immature tweet, however I think 9 years can change a person a lot.

Absolutely, I have blog posts from 2001 I leave up that are absolutely horrid.

In 2001 I was a 16 year old, who's father had died 12 days before his 13th birthday and was moved to another school a few months later where he had no friends and fell in with the punk/goth crowd. I didn't care about school, all I cared about was music and getting high or running around shows or the mall while tripping. I said stupid shit on livejournal under a username only my friends knew, mostly complaining about my mother and school. I now host those on RyanMercer.com, wholly attributed to me.

That's who I was when I was 16, it's not who I am now.

Now I post about problems we face as a civilization, I post about things that interest me, I post about things that scare me, I post about how we need to come together and put aside foolish things to focus on ensuring a better future for ourselves and our offspring but I'm not going to hide who I was 18 years ago. Now I put thought into my posts, I don't rush to a computer to type "oh my god I hate them all blah blah blah raging against society", I'm not going to try and cover that up as that's part of my experience, who I was is part of who I am, if anything it shows that people can mature.

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