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Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

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Re: Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

#61
post #57

A couple weeks ago Twitter inexplicably suspended @AppsExposed, an account that has repeatedly exposed scams in Apple's App Store and was recently featured in Forbes. The account is still suspended. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2021/02/02/porn-ap... This has nothing to do with euthanasia, but that's the point. It could be anything, or nothing. Twitter doesn't even have to give a reason for suspending acc…

I got blocked from posting on Twitter about 6 months ago. After a couple complaints and a couple weeks, they reinstated. No idea why. I don't even post mild political stuff.

>"Just don't use Twitter", some say.

And, yeah, it's one of the main ways I interact with a lot of people professionally. Losing access would be a major inconvenience and probably even somewhat professionally damaging.

Re: Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

#62
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why would anyone get banned for being pro euthanasia? Because it's explicitly against the rules. "You may not promote or encourage suicide or self-harm." https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/glorifying-se...

Euthanasia is not self-harm, quite the contrary.

It is suicide, though, and therefore seems to be against the rules as they're stated

Re: Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

#63

Why does it matter if the flagging is automatic? Does that somehow make it more acceptable? The popularity of this view makes me wish more people read Kafka. A future tyranny might end up not being Orwell's 1984 or Huxley's Brave New World, but a kafkesque nightmare where people are lost in a world of AI giving out absurd punishments. [1] Kafka's book The Castle [2] is essentially about this, although I think his aph…

One difference is that Twitter, Facebook, Google, are not governments and have no real authority over you. They only have the power you give them by choosing to stay in their ecosystem. Therefore it's a strain to refer to them as officials.

If you're worried about them _becoming_ officials, then act now. Leave these platforms and convince others to do the same.

Re: Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

#64
It's a half-joke in Catholic media circles that making comments like this is likely to receive some kind of punishment on social media... I say "half-joke" because it happens extremely frequently and those writers in that world all know it happens and try to laugh about it.

As someone in the tech world, I spend most of my time interacting with more "liberal" people. I don't hear about this happening with any frequency, accidentally or otherwise, to those on the left. At the same time "diversity of thought" is something I only read about in right-leaning circles. Events like the one shown in this article are why diversity of thought matters. This is clearly an important debate, and Twitter, willfully or systematically, is shutting down a legitimate, notable voice in the debate, and Twitter is ill-equipped to even understand that the point made by the bishop is reasonable (if not universally shared).

Re: Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

#65

Why does it matter if the flagging is automatic? Does that somehow make it more acceptable? The popularity of this view makes me wish more people read Kafka. A future tyranny might end up not being Orwell's 1984 or Huxley's Brave New World, but a kafkesque nightmare where people are lost in a world of AI giving out absurd punishments. [1] Kafka's book The Castle [2] is essentially about this, although I think his aph…

I think the argument that private business is going to be the death of free speech is a strawman argument of the right. Typically this demographic goes out of its way to ensure a healthy free market with little obstructions.

However they seem to lack the technical experience to launch a (successful and secure) competing social network of their own. So instead of achieving technological parity and becoming valid competition, they instead aim to impose regulations on the entire industry. It's ironic and disappointing.

Re: Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

#66

> And even if euthanasia is just that – and Twitter is very proud to toot its horn as the sensitive and sensible, woke platform that clamps down on promotion and encouragement of self-harm, including its ultimate form, suicide – the tweet, even though it opposed it, got banned. This is such an interesting topic, because while euthanasia can be considered a way of suicide, advocating against it can also be considered…

I had a long and interesting conversation with my father about this. He's retired now, but was a family lawyer (solicitor in the UK). He is vehemently opposed to euthanasia purely on the grounds of his experiences with ailing/aging parents and greedy children - he's had clients tidy up their wills, often with their children looking over their shoulders, and then kill themselves to stop "being a burden" on their famil…

This might not advance the state of the discussion any further, but have you and/or your father had the chance to see the film "Knives Out"? It's a mystery/dark comedy, and explores somewhat-related ideas in a good-natured way.

Re: Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

#67
This is a mistake. Of course it is a mistake. But we should understand that mistakes happen disproportionally to views Twitter consider acceptable but only barely so, and that mistakes are not harmless. People are risk averse, and this will many other people will seal their lips. People with their whole life on twitter, who cant afford to take risks. And lets not forget the trouble for this particular bishop.

Re: Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

#68
post #65

Why does it matter if the flagging is automatic? Does that somehow make it more acceptable? The popularity of this view makes me wish more people read Kafka. A future tyranny might end up not being Orwell's 1984 or Huxley's Brave New World, but a kafkesque nightmare where people are lost in a world of AI giving out absurd punishments. [1] Kafka's book The Castle [2] is essentially about this, although I think his aph…

I think the argument that private business is going to be the death of free speech is a strawman argument of the right. Typically this demographic goes out of its way to ensure a healthy free market with little obstructions. However they seem to lack the technical experience to launch a (successful and secure) competing social network of their own. So instead of achieving technological parity and becoming valid compe…

>Typically this demographic goes out of its way to ensure a healthy free market with little obstructions.

You are kidding right ? Private businesses goes out of their way to obstruct the market. Google being exemplary proof of this.

Re: Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

#69
post #61
post #57

A couple weeks ago Twitter inexplicably suspended @AppsExposed, an account that has repeatedly exposed scams in Apple's App Store and was recently featured in Forbes. The account is still suspended. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2021/02/02/porn-ap... This has nothing to do with euthanasia, but that's the point. It could be anything, or nothing. Twitter doesn't even have to give a reason for suspending acc…

I got blocked from posting on Twitter about 6 months ago. After a couple complaints and a couple weeks, they reinstated. No idea why. I don't even post mild political stuff. >"Just don't use Twitter", some say. And, yeah, it's one of the main ways I interact with a lot of people professionally. Losing access would be a major inconvenience and probably even somewhat professionally damaging.

Yes, I actually deleted my Twitter account and joined ADN. I was gone from Twitter for 4 years. But this accomplished nothing, it only hurt me professionally, and ADN eventually shut down.

Individuals can't win in this scenario. Like it or not, the big social networks have captured the masses.

Re: Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

#70

I live in Europe, in a country where black population is statistically insignificant, I only see black people about once every fortnight, and I live in a city of close to 2 million people. A lot of my acquaintances and friends have practically zero exposure to what caused the BLM movement and during last summer there was a significant number of people posting stuff along the lines of "all lives matter". To illustrate…

> And I have since then always arrived to the conclusion that Facebook cannot interpret irony, satire, sarcasm and reflection.

Sarcasm has to be the least effective possible way to communicate anything, anywhere. You are absolutely begging to be misinterpreted or misunderstood, either legitimately or even deliberately. And you can't really defend yourself because 'it was sarcasm' won't cut it as a defence with many people - it sounds like 'it was a prank bro'.

Why would anyone choose to communicate about a complex issue this way?

> I posted "All lives matter, arbeit macht frei."

This seems positively suicidal - I can't imagine what good you thought could come of this!

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