Twitch will ban users for 'severe misconduct' that occurs away from its site • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitch will ban users for 'severe misconduct' that occurs away from its site

#471

Post by bilbo0s » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 10:15 PM UTC

exolymph wrote: post #453

_jal wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a Twitch ban is effectively a ban on all opportunities that involve money in the esports scene. I suggest you ask Colin Kaepernick about how it is in the non-'E' sports world. (Edit: misspelled name)

The dude who landed a big advertising campaign with Nike based on his high-profile activism?

In other words, he changed his line of work from a "sports athlete" to a "marketing guy".

The esports guys should take note at what happens to sports athletes who behave "badly". They typically don't get to participate in sports anymore.

Re: Twitch will ban users for 'severe misconduct' that occurs away from its site

#472

Post by geraneum » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 10:15 PM UTC

The point which is sometimes missing is that it does not matter if you believe a user (i.e. Donald Trump or anyone to whom these policies may apply) deserves to be banned or not.

What matters IMO is that a certain individual lost access to a service or product based on a ToS (not the democratic law) of a company which may change at any time to reflect the corporation's interest (morally or otherwise). Also, these companies happen to intertwine with today's social fabric.

There are no checks or balances on the amount of power these companies hold. Even if you believe, for example, Donald Trump deserved to be banned, you might think for yourself what will stop them to come for you next? Do you believe companies play a moral rule book?

Imagine you lose access to your important email address, or your phone number (which is perhaps operated by a private corporation). Do you also have a podium in your house to fix it?

Now you see where I am going with this. I don't want to take a side in a political argument. That's not the point here.

With all that said, it's hard to not address the elephant in the room. Which is the "free market". Unfortunately, this is a difficult problem to solve which I don't have the expertise to propose a solution for. But what I can observe is that this phenomenon is not new and not exclusive to tech companies. Take banks, for example, you get a credit score that is shared between banks and you can be denied service. If you make insurance claims your premium may go up even if you switch providers. You can be denied coverage with a pre-existing condition. An airliner can deny you service based on a policy exclusive to them, a company abuses your private data, etc.

In most of the instances I (an individual), have been denied service from a powerful minority and they decide to do so following their interest (fair or unfair).

While there are a ton of arguments by different political, philosophical, and sociological views for these examples pro/against, I wonder if this problem can be solved in the current system without some fundamental changes/enhancements?

Re: Twitch will ban users for 'severe misconduct' that occurs away from its site

#473

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 10:15 PM UTC

omgwtfbbq wrote: post #459

tesmar2 wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it’s not just money. By lowering the taxes and regulatory environment, you increase individual freedoms. That’s worth a lot to Americans.

Sure, the freedom to be murdered in a mass shooting or go bankrupt due to a basic medical issue. I think much of the world thinks that the American "System" is rather disturbing and callous.

[deleted]

Re: Twitch will ban users for 'severe misconduct' that occurs away from its site

#474

Post by BitwiseFool » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 10:16 PM UTC

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #443

BitwiseFool wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such an apt retort that I'm sure people are downvoting you out of pure cognitive dissonance.

He's being down-voted because it's whataboutism. It's no different than the 50 Cent Army that suddenly cares about Native Americans when the topic of the Uyghurs comes up. Yes, the red scare was bad, yes the US's treatment of indigenous people was bad. Everyone agrees about this. There's no school district in the US that uses a history textbook that says the Sioux deserved it and McCarthy had the right idea. The fact…

Whataboutism can sometimes be a valid declaration of hypocrisy.

Re: Twitch will ban users for 'severe misconduct' that occurs away from its site

#475

Post by Rompect » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 10:17 PM UTC

nsgi wrote: post #278

newbie789 wrote: post #250

Coming from the perspective of someone that was an admin of a medium-large forum back in the vBulletin heyday of the early 2000s, I’m somewhat amused by people getting angry at moderation decisions. The rules were pretty clear: This is my website. I pay the bills and maintain it. Here are some clear rules that if you break them, you will be punished with a ban/suspension/shadow an/redirect to goatse upon login/etc. a…

> redirect to goatse upon login That's a rather shitty thing to do. I understand it has a warning now or doesn't exist or whatever, but no one should have to see it without their consent

Pussy

Re: Twitch will ban users for 'severe misconduct' that occurs away from its site

#476

Post by ttt0 » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 10:17 PM UTC

smt88 wrote: post #389

ttt0 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and I don't care about free market. We're already doing this, we're forcing private companies to do business with people they don't want to do business with right now. I don't even care so much about social media, but banks and services that provide basic infrastructure to keep your own web services afloat shouldn't be allowed to discriminate people based on their politics.

> discriminate people based on their politics It usually seems to be based on people's bigotry or sexual misconduct. I haven't yet seen a politics-based ban. Regardless, politics is not a protected class, nor should it be. If your political view is fascist, why should you have the same protections as someone who is born a minority? One thing can be changed and can be thought of as evil; the other can't.

You can label anything fascism. Trump was labeled a racist and it's as stupid as calling Biden communist.

You should have protections so the corporations and bankers don't have too much power over politics.

Re: Twitch will ban users for 'severe misconduct' that occurs away from its site

#477

Post by concordDance » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 10:17 PM UTC

tw04 wrote: post #429

concordDance wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally have no idea where to find Trump's latest babble. This is also true for pretty much everyone I know. He has been effectively silenced. (And at least in the case of Twitter, it was definitely not for glorification of violence given the two tweets they cited in their blogpost)

>I personally have no idea where to find Trump's latest babble. We'll ignore for a second that just because he can't post on twitter doesn't mean that you can't find things he's saying on twitter - so that would be the first place. 30 seconds of searching and they've got 4 posts about trump in the last 48 hours. https://twitter.com/oann Fox News? OANN? Newsmax? He's on almost daily and not exactly difficult to track…

The fact it's filtered makes a big difference.

I've been mislead too many times by filtered stories to have any trust in them.

Re: Twitch will ban users for 'severe misconduct' that occurs away from its site

#478

Post by jimbob45 » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 10:17 PM UTC

tryonenow wrote: post #215

dopamean wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll never understand the argument that Trump was "silenced." As you said, he's a former US president. He has ample resources to get his word out. The only people who think he has been silenced are people who spend too much time on twitter or people who are being disingenuous.

>If Trump really wants to get his thoughts out to the world, he can host his own website and publish them there And what's the recourse when the same forces collude to shut someone or some group out of the hosting platform for wrongthink? Build your own server farm? Build your own cloudflare? Build your own DNS? How far do we go in allowing tyranny by a loud and powerful minority? If we can regulate corporations to p…

You’re being facetious but I would unironically contribute to a community Cloudflare to escape their tyranny.

Re: Twitch will ban users for 'severe misconduct' that occurs away from its site

#479

Post by _-david-_ » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 10:18 PM UTC

tw04 wrote: post #156

Alupis wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a certain point, these platforms have such enormous, unprecedented influence and control over public discourse, that they aught to be thought of differently than, say a restaurant refusing service to a guy without a shirt or shoes on. We're clearly in uncharted territory, when it comes to the control and release of information. Just using Twitter and Facebook for example - they've silenced the second-most voted fo…

>How can we, as a society, claim to value free speech, yet allow social discourse platforms to censor and silence political enemies? Quite easily. Freedom of speech is freedom from government suppression of that speech - it's quite clear in the constitution. Freedom of speech doesn't mean I or anyone else has to give you a platform to speak from.

There is a precedent for having first amendment protections on private property.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama

Re: Twitch will ban users for 'severe misconduct' that occurs away from its site

#480

Post by choppaface » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 10:18 PM UTC

redm wrote: post #8

"The company said users will be able to report such behaviors but it may also investigate cases proactively, for instance if there is a verified news report that a user has been arrested." So we've arrived at "innocent until accused" instead of "innocent until proven guilty"? And if proven guilty, they will both be punished under the law, and again by companies like Twitch? If proven innocent will they be restored? W…

The lack of the internet is the original cancel culture. Before the internet, it was easy for speech to get confined to some small region due to financial status, ethnicity, etc. The internet fundamentally counter-acts cancel culture.

However, the “right to free speech” does NOT imply a right to be heard. Internet entities can and will do stupid things that interfere with individual expression, but they don’t trample upon individual rights. If literally nobody wants to hear a message, that doesn’t preclude one from expressing it to one’s self.