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Twitter discloses 10k accounts suspended for fomenting political discord

techcrunch.com

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Re: Twitter discloses 10k accounts suspended for fomenting political discord

#21

Post by djsumdog »

mc32 wrote: post #8

If they are bots which get paid or are under control of a government, sure, suspend. If these are individuals voicing opinions and not inciting violence, I think they are wrong. People should be able to have disagreeable opinions, even illegal opinions (“pot should be legal”), “the minister in an asshole”. People should not be guilty of wrongthink.

Twitter blocked my account for a nearly 10 year old post. I'll admit, I'm not prod of the post. It was immature and something I wouldn't write today. But looking at our past is how we grow, and erasing it doesn't seem right:

https://fightthefuture.org/article/twitter-is-trying-to-eras...

Re: Twitter discloses 10k accounts suspended for fomenting political discord

#22

Post by djsumdog »

tantalor wrote: post #19
mc32 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In order to combat vile trolling and direct incitement to violence, Twitter has taken it upon themselves to moderate other behaviors as well. There are historic tweets from senior people at Twitter which today would get banned. As an example, if I were to the r-word, I could get the hammer, depending if it’s noticed or not. I do not use the r-word. I think it’s in poor taste and reflects badly on one’s upbringing to…

Twitter does not constrain your ability to hold/believe your opinion, merely to express it on their platform (which they own and grant you access under the condition you conform to the rules they apply to everybody).

But at what point do those platforms have a monopoly on distribution? I run my own Mastodon server and really enjoy the platform a lot more than Twitter, but the vast majority of people just use the big things that are out there.

Facebook and Twitter may own their own platforms, but the collective value given to them by society and their ability to distribute ideas and change opinions globally should be deeply troubling and of great concern.

It can even be said large platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google and even stores like Amazon are kinda their own States in some ways. They have governance. They have voters (shareholders). They have policy and negotiate policy with other governments via lobbies, and they can control what people see and persuade how people think.

Re: Twitter discloses 10k accounts suspended for fomenting political discord

#23

Post by cameronbrown »

tantalor wrote: post #19
mc32 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In order to combat vile trolling and direct incitement to violence, Twitter has taken it upon themselves to moderate other behaviors as well. There are historic tweets from senior people at Twitter which today would get banned. As an example, if I were to the r-word, I could get the hammer, depending if it’s noticed or not. I do not use the r-word. I think it’s in poor taste and reflects badly on one’s upbringing to…

Twitter does not constrain your ability to hold/believe your opinion, merely to express it on their platform (which they own and grant you access under the condition you conform to the rules they apply to everybody).

This will, in my opinion, be one of the great debates of our time. Does a private company have the right to choose which opinions can be expressed on its platform? It's really hard to choose.

Re: Twitter discloses 10k accounts suspended for fomenting political discord

#24

Post by jressey »

mc32 wrote: post #8

If they are bots which get paid or are under control of a government, sure, suspend. If these are individuals voicing opinions and not inciting violence, I think they are wrong. People should be able to have disagreeable opinions, even illegal opinions (“pot should be legal”), “the minister in an asshole”. People should not be guilty of wrongthink.

What would you say about an individual whose behavior has been manipulated by bots that are paid by or under the control of a government?

Re: Twitter discloses 10k accounts suspended for fomenting political discord

#25

Post by deminature »

mc32 wrote: post #8

If they are bots which get paid or are under control of a government, sure, suspend. If these are individuals voicing opinions and not inciting violence, I think they are wrong. People should be able to have disagreeable opinions, even illegal opinions (“pot should be legal”), “the minister in an asshole”. People should not be guilty of wrongthink.

Twitter discussion threads are so often extremely polarized and uncivil. They have to do something otherwise the majority of users who aren't interested in reading threads of propaganda accounts fighting with each other will lose interest in the site.

It's not about suppressing controversial opinions, it's about keeping what is fundamentally a site most people use for entertainment, entertaining, instead of a battleground for those with the most extreme opinions on the internet.

Twitter have been incredibly permissive with they allow compared to Facebook and Reddit up until now.

Re: Twitter discloses 10k accounts suspended for fomenting political discord

#26

Post by vkou »

panarky wrote: post #9
mastazi wrote: post #2

I’ve been wondering for a while whether I should delete my Twitter account and this piece of news suggests to me that perhaps I should. The sentence “Fomenting political discord” sounds a lot like 1984.

Not the first time I've heard someone argue that state-sponsored agitprop is free speech, while suppressing it on a private platform is somehow dystopian. Ignorance is strength?

State-sponsored agitprop bad, private, corporate-sponsored agitprop good.

Am I understanding the implications of your post correctly?

Re: Twitter discloses 10k accounts suspended for fomenting political discord

#27

Post by cameronbrown »

panarky wrote: post #9
mastazi wrote: post #2

I’ve been wondering for a while whether I should delete my Twitter account and this piece of news suggests to me that perhaps I should. The sentence “Fomenting political discord” sounds a lot like 1984.

Not the first time I've heard someone argue that state-sponsored agitprop is free speech, while suppressing it on a private platform is somehow dystopian. Ignorance is strength?

Prove that it's state sponsored. The point is, we can't. Not without Twitter sharing their data and methodologies. I've heard too many horror stories about being axed from the internet by a faceless corporation to accept their judgement blindly.

Re: Twitter discloses 10k accounts suspended for fomenting political discord

#29

Post by Porthos9K »

If you really cared about preserving your right to freedom of speech, you'd have your own website. You check your rights at the door the second you log in to a platform you don't own or control.

Twitter isn't a government agency, but a private corporation protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. They have the right to reject any content you contribute without being liable for any user-generated content they publish.

That means they don't owe you a platform. Likewise, you owe them nothing, so why tolerate Twitter's continued existence? Just open up /etc/hosts and set twitter.com's IP to "0.0.0.0". Problem solved.

Re: Twitter discloses 10k accounts suspended for fomenting political discord

#30

Post by striking »

mc32 wrote: post #8

If they are bots which get paid or are under control of a government, sure, suspend. If these are individuals voicing opinions and not inciting violence, I think they are wrong. People should be able to have disagreeable opinions, even illegal opinions (“pot should be legal”), “the minister in an asshole”. People should not be guilty of wrongthink.

It's clear from the article that these are the former.

A sentence from the beginning of the article:

> Today’s removals mark nearly one year of Twitter’s efforts to identify and remove accounts that are spreading political misinformation for the purposes of changing public sentiment — something that has wide-ranging impact beyond simply being annoyed on social media, including not least democratic processes like voting in elections or referendums.

The list of countries later is also hard to miss.

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