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

reuters.com

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

#511

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.

This is a strawman, we are talking about workers right in the US, not healthcare or gun control. You may disagree with the way work is regulated in the US, but at least attack those regulations instead of trying to derail into two other, highly nuanced and emotional, subject matters.

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

#512
post #111
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…

So you want the government to force private companies to continue doing business with someone they no longer wish to provide services to? We aren't talking protected class here, we're talking private companies picking and choosing who to do business with via non-discriminatory means. That's called a free market. Will they be restored if they're proven innocent? Maybe. Maybe not. Again, that's called a free market.

> So you want the government to force private companies to continue doing business with someone they no longer wish to provide services to?

I didn't see him mention the government at all. Just because you think something is wrong to do, doesn't automatically mean the government has to get involved.

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

#513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whataboutism can sometimes be a valid declaration of hypocrisy.

But there's no hypocrisy. Nobody is saying McCarthy was right or endorsing his tactics. Edit: It appears I may have misinterpreted the initial comments sarcasm as a "if McCarthy could do it then it's fair game" rather than a criticism of modern outrage mob tactics.

> Nobody is saying McCarthy was right or endorsing his tactics.

You are correct that they are in fact not saying that; the hypocrisy is in then turning around and saying that cancel culture is right and endorsing their tactics.

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

#514
post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can agree with you, but still think there's a problem. The fact is nobody who wrote the constitution thought we'd get to a point where there was such a dominant private speech player. So yeah, it made sense at the time, since government was the big player historically, but we're looking at a different situation now.

>The fact is nobody who wrote the constitution thought we'd get to a point where there was such a dominant private speech player. I'm quite certain that's not true. Papers in the 1700s had just as much dominance in speech as social media does today. https://csac.history.wisc.edu/document-collections/themes-of... I think HN has a gross overestimation of twitter's influence. There are 7.9 Billion people on the planet,…

> There are 7.9 Billion people on the planet, and 185 million daily active twitter users.

Twitter is a US platform first and foremost. It doesn't make sense to compare the total number of Twitter users against the number of people on the entire planet. According to Statista:

> Social network Twitter is particularly popular in the United States, where as of January 2021, the microblogging service had audience reach of 69.3 million users

https://www.statista.com/statistics/242606/number-of-active-...

That is about a quarter of the US population. Your 185/7900 figure is off by an order of magnitude.

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

#515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is up to the team though. This is closer to a TV station banning somebody so now they can't compete in a sport that will be broadcast on that station, forcing the team to kick them off.

Shouldn’t a TV station be able to decide whether they want to promote a pedophile?

That is sort of the start of a strawman argument because Twitch bans for a lot of things, not just being a convicted pedophile. But even in that case I don't think it is fair to completely disallow somebody from appearing on a TV network. That also isn't what I would consider "promotion".

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

#516
> It said examples of this “severe misconduct” include terrorist activities, child sexual exploitation, violent extremism, credible threats of mass violence, carrying out or deliberately acting as an accomplice to sexual assault and threatening Twitch or its staff.

What points here will not already lead to jail time and an outright ban from all social activities? The bans are for criminal acts that are outside of free speech protections.

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

#517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone and their cat understands that it is hypocritical bullshit. They'd let his incitements slide easily if he was their political ally and not an opponent. I don't have a horse in that race, but it is disgusting how people defend this blatant and obvious bias as perfectly normal thing.

And what sort of incitement is coming from the left? is it "socialize healthcare" or "we should throw molotovs at protests", because the latter isn't allowed on Twitch either.

Because the Summer of Love 2020 was so peaceful and innocent from either side of politics... seriously, get over it. Both the left and the right are cut from same cloth. They'll torch whoever doesn't agree with giving them the power. Both sides are just different flavors of control.

Let's not forget how it was Trump's DHS that was mistreating folks on the border back in the day. Is it still Trump calling the shots on the border? Is it still Trump wanting to bring manufacturing to the US instead of China? No, Biden is now implementing the same policies as Trump, except in blue flavor instead of red.

Get over yourself thinking your political party salute has meaning. They're all the same assholes. Twitter and Facebook are not against violence or hate, they're against whoever doesn't agree with them.

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

#518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whataboutism can sometimes be a valid declaration of hypocrisy.

But there's no hypocrisy. Nobody is saying McCarthy was right or endorsing his tactics. Edit: It appears I may have misinterpreted the initial comments sarcasm as a "if McCarthy could do it then it's fair game" rather than a criticism of modern outrage mob tactics.

I don't understand where you're coming from because I absolutely see the woke crowd using McCarthyite tactics.

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

#519
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The significant difference is I (assume) no one depended on your forum for earning a significant part of their income. Once you set yourself as a place where you want people come and earn money, then banning them, and thus depriving them of something of real monetary value, takes on and entire different set of nuances.

I don't think there really are "nuances" about what the owners can and cannot legally do. There are nuances about the decisions about people that are willing to participate in the website however. Say I own twitch, can't I just shut it down? Maybe I mismanaged it, maybe it isn't profitable, maybe it isn't profitable enough to make it worth the trouble, maybe I want to make a statement, maybe I am bored, maybe I am si…

> If you can't make it illegal for me to shut it down (on the premises that it would risk my users' livelihood) then you can't make it illegal for me to kick users out (on the same premise)

> In the end though, the owner(s) do and should have the last word.

Thats not exactly true. A relevant counter example would be to look at other major communication services. For example, take telecom. A telephone company cannot just kick users off of the platform, for any reason. They have to follow common carrier laws.

Obviously, the law would have to be changed, in order for these laws to apply to these new platforms.

But, unrelated to any specific moderation policy, I think that there is a very nuanced and interesting discussion to be had, about how common carrier laws have not really kept up to date with some of the many new internet platforms these days.

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

#520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t this just like other sports, where a star is pilloried for some indiscretion outside of their sport which can result in them being dropped from a team etc?

That is up to the team though. This is closer to a TV station banning somebody so now they can't compete in a sport that will be broadcast on that station, forcing the team to kick them off.

Which effectively can also happen now. In fact the athlete is likely wealthy and will be ok despite his career crashing. This could in fact happen to the guy who waits on tables down town.

If he became internet infamous and the tv station covers it the business he works at might be obliged to fire him.

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