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Twitter locked my account for a nine year old tweet

fightthefuture.org

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

#51
post #21

Honest question: is the source of the problem the hateful intent of the message, or the use of "bad words"? My reading on culture these days is that one can usually get away with spouting horrendous, hateful ideas so long as they do so without using a short list of offensive words. If the truly are trying to scrub hate from their platform, I applaud their effort, but they'll never succeed. Hate is too hard to define…

The bad words certainly - it is the banality of "moralistic enforcers" where you can teach young men to drop fire from above but they can't write "fuck" on their bombs because it is obscene.

That sort of mindless focus on bad words that might make people uncomfortable instead of you know - actual problems has been with us for centuriea unfortunately and has gotten better compared to regularly enforced obscenity laws - which are fucking obscene to anyone who stops to use their fucking brain for once.

So we were spending all of this money and oppressing with violence because a bunch of people are offended because they were told to be offended? That said use of resources could be used on /anything fucking else/ like patroling, doing reviews of random ceiminal sentences is actual fucking obscenity.

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

#52

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.

Unfettered access to information requires unfettered access to incorrect information.

The power to decide what's "correct" will be abused to block correct information that damages someone powerful.

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

#53
post #21

Honest question: is the source of the problem the hateful intent of the message, or the use of "bad words"? My reading on culture these days is that one can usually get away with spouting horrendous, hateful ideas so long as they do so without using a short list of offensive words. If the truly are trying to scrub hate from their platform, I applaud their effort, but they'll never succeed. Hate is too hard to define…

[deleted]

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

#54
post #7

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

So, based on the second paragraph of article:

    It’s honestly a very immature tweet. It’s something I wouldn’t say
    today. I have personally grown past the hate of the two party system.
    I feel like I have a clearer and more mature view on American
    elections, as well as seeing past the endless media designed to keep
    most people angry. This tweet was from a different era in my life. I’m
    not proud of it, yet it is a part of my history. Furthermore, it’s
    nearly a decade old.
are you suggesting that this reader is too thoughtful for twitter?

Or that by allowing them to stay on the platform, they provide an example that people can temper their political extremism over time by maturation and introspection, thereby disproving that the flyswatter techniques you seemingly prefer for the moderation of discourse may be ill-suited to actually promoting healthy discourse?

I'm not following the logic.

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

#56

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 think you can start a competitor but the lack of censorship is actually an anti-feature for most people as, at least in the modern internet, it seems to get your site filled with white supremacists. The social space is actually fairly crowded right now with Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Discord, the chans, Twitter, and a ton bunch of smaller ones (like HN) and they almost all fall into similar "censorship" models and I think that just reflects a the market right now (which is an interesting balance because neither side is really happy).

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

#57

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…

So how do you feel about blog platforms or other service providers that allow posting user-supplied comments on their platform? Should companies and non-profits all be required be to expend resources to keep your hateful comments available to the world?

How do we determine what's spam? What's advertising? What's XSS? You have a first amendment right to type any of these things into an input box. Does that mean the organization receiving your message legally has to post it, even if it fails to meet a basic requirement of not breaking their platform or insulting their user-base?

Are terms-of-service a violation of someone's first amendment? In my case where I am the only employee of my small platform, do I not have a first amendment right to not host content I disagree with on my domain with my own servers?

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

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unfortunately looks to me that if you do not have a Ministry of Truth, you end up with a society where private actors pump people with soma[1]. Personally, I am willing to accept a restricted version of Ministry of Truth to avoid that outcome.

[1]See Huxley, Brave new world.

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

#60
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Getting banned for calling someone (a high rank politician!!!) a whore Also calling them a 'cunt'. Attitudes like the above are why ordinary men and women don't want to become politicians - it's assumed to be OK to insult them in any way. Why not just call Palin a hypocrite? You should be able to criticise politicians. However if you want better politicians, screaming that they're cunts and whores instead of commun…

‘Ordinary’ men and women don’t want to become politicians for many reasons, but because “it’s assumed to be OK to insult them” isn’t on that list. You can insult anyone, for any reason—and people do all the time, regardless whether the person is a politician or not, a public figure or not, etc.. Sure, morally it might be unjust to insult a politician, or anyone for that matter. Yet the cool part about the United Stat…

> Yet the cool part about the United States is: it’s OK!

Dude, no, no it’s not ok. It’s not ok to have a culture where insults are encounter and ok. Insults can quickly lead to threats. Are often lies and manipulation. Are often racial or sexist or homophobic. And we as a society shouldn’t just stand by and allow it. What is gained by allowing insults? Honest question. Why should we be ok with them?

Now i do have to say what consistories and insult is not the easiest to define. But calling a politician a “whore” is clearly an baseless insult and a lie that brings nothing to any discussion.

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