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Twitter locked my account for a nine year old tweet

fightthefuture.org

141–150 of 367 posts

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

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so the hypothesis is that we can’t have unfettered access to information.

So who do you propose gets to spoonfeed the masses with their okayed content? That is a terrifying argument.

Obviously the natural answer is the companies who started first and developed these products that are now super widely used.

I’ve only heard two arguments- let Twitter do what they want (viva Capitalism!) or have government regulate (viva Socialism!).

I wish there was more thought given by Twitter, and others, to just self apply free speech rights and stick to using the current legal system to restricting speech. There’s a ton of law to protect people from damaging speech (harassment, slander/libel, dangerous threats, etc). It’s quite possible that Twitter can just use a more rational standard for their process.

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

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nobody is well informed on all issues. You just can't be. You can't fact check everything. We live in a world where the authority we defer judgement to has split up, into less balanced partisan entities. Not saying pre-internet news were unbiased, but public sources tended to be better curated. (At least where I live, I'm sure Fox has always been this horrid) This is why filter bubbles and building psychological prof…

Precisely, the marketplace of ideas has become the cesspit of lies and we need to pull ourselves and everyone else out of it.

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

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so the hypothesis is that we can’t have unfettered access to information.

So who do you propose gets to spoonfeed the masses with their okayed content? That is a terrifying argument.

Even if one were in favor of unfettered access to information generally, it doesn't logically follow that an individual publisher such as Twitter is obliged to offer or facilitate unfettered access. The WSJ isn't obliged to offer access to fake stock listings alongside the real ones.

And unless you are okay with your bank providing unfettered access to your ID, account number and PIN, I'd imagine that you are not in favor of general unfettered access either.

Democracy may require access to information but civilization requires that information not be universally shared.

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

#144
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

‘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…

If you mean on a legal level, it's less about what is gained by allowing insults than it is what is lost by disallowing them. That is, it becomes trivial to ban criticism by labeling it an insult.

On a social level, there is something to be gained from insults: authenticity. Perhaps it comes down to personal preference, but I would rather live in a society where people can speak their mind (and potentially face social backlash for it) than a society where everything is artificially sanitized. Empathy is great to strive for on a personal level, but forcing the appearance of empathy just leads to strained smiles.

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

#145
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m confused. What technology did twitter replace? Oh it didn’t? This is completely new, the ability to communicate to this many people at once? Okay so what ancient rights are being trampled exactly? If anything we probably need to be censoring people on Twitter right now as it doesn’t seem to convince anyone of anything other than that the people on the other-side of their argument are sub-human. Edit: Also, it alw…

[flagged]

Is Mastercard required to do business with the Bernie Sanders campaign, even though his stated policy goals might harm their business?

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

#146

Their notification was fine. The tweet was vile and full of expletives. You'll have trouble finding any business or institution that tolerates speech like that. This isn't the censorship hill anyone should want to die on.

I don't agree. Wartime cartoons are vile yet we rarely censor them because of the historical value. I do think that going back a decade with an algorithm and getting people to clean up tweets that likely match a regex filter is whitewashing and it does make twitter a less valuable historical resource. It's a totally different argument from the normal you should be able to say what you want - because I would support c…

The problem is that Twitter probably sees a lot of complaints to the tune of "but the other guy said the same kind of thing and he didn't get banned!"

If they want to enforce a policy consistently and not have to face constant complaints, then I don't think grandfathering in old violations after some arbitrary date is going to work.

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

#147
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

‘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…

> Dude, no, no it’s not ok.

I don’t think you understood my comment as a whole. Although it may be morally unjust, it is legal, and therefore “OK” to say whatever you want (bar a call-to-action). So, again, while it may be unjust, in the eyes of the law here, it’s OK. You can’t fordably control discourse—that leads to more negatives than positives. :)

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

#148
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

If you mean on a legal level, it's less about what is gained by allowing insults than it is what is lost by disallowing them. That is, it becomes trivial to ban criticism by labeling it an insult. On a social level, there is something to be gained from insults: authenticity. Perhaps it comes down to personal preference, but I would rather live in a society where people can speak their mind (and potentially face socia…

You summed it up better than even I could. Thanks!

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

#150
Locking the account post facto without warning is debatable, but I don’t follow the argument of how the author has grown up since this tweet. Insulting people is not acceptable in a public space, no matter the date or the age of the aurhor, it’s basic education. Freedom of expression is not freedom to publish insulting messages. I’m glad Twitter is enforcing this.
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