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

#711

Post by refenestrator » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 12:57 AM UTC

CyberDildonics wrote: post #695

refenestrator wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd submit for your consideration that there's quite a lot stopping someone from just starting a twitch competitor. Even beyond the tech challenges, there are thousands of posts out there describing the network effect and trend towards winner-takes-all in a given social networking market. I'm honestly curious about the mindset that leads one to just say 'nothing stopping you, make your own twitch, no biggie'. Is it l…

Now you're moving the goal posts from "able to broadcast yourself" to "starting a twitch competitor. Then you're moving the goal posts from "streaming yourself" to "reaching as many people as possible and/or making the most money from it". You can say what you want on the internet, but people don't have to listen and companies don't have to broadcast you, promote you or pay you. Alex Jones still does his show, but if…

I didn't open up the "just go start your own twitch" line, I was responding to someone.

> You can say what you want on the internet, but people don't have to listen and companies don't have to broadcast you, promote you or pay you.

That sounds good in a vacuum, but what about when it's a handful of companies doing all of the broadcasting? If this were the internet of the 2000s, with a widely distributed network of self-hosted blogs and BBs, I'd be right there with you, but that's not where we're at.

Alex Jones is big enough to bring his noxious show anywhere. What about the little guy? What if it's the historically persecuted who continue to be persecuted when this all shakes out?

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

#712

Post by ttt0 » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 12:57 AM UTC

smt88 wrote: post #670

ttt0 wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> You can label anything fascism. This is like saying that words don't mean anything, so we should stop trying to use them. No one agrees on a hard line between fascist and not-fascist, but that doesn't mean it's entirely an artificial distinction. Is the ACLU fascist? What about Ron Paul? Obviously "no" to both of those. And what about neo-Nazis who describe themselves as fascists? > Trump was labeled a racist and i…

Sure, there are people who identify themselves as fascists. I didn't said it doesn't exist. But nowadays anything even remotely outside the status quo is called fascism by the lunatics on Twitter.

> Unfortunately the First Amendment gives corporations and bankers an enormous amount of power over what they choose to say and publish, which means they have political power. You can't do anything about that except scrap the First Amendment.

As you pointed out yourself, Trump was sued for refusing service to blacks. And yet, the 1A is still here.

> Or you should tell the white supremacists who celebrated Trump's victory[2]. If you're going to fish for weak "both sides are the same" examples, you're going to have to find an example that isn't so easy to counter-argue.

It's funny that you're posting Richard Spencer, because in this elections he was against Trump and he was celebrating Biden's victory.

He was supported by libertarians, nationalists, plain old conservatives or some liberals even. You can't be everything at the same time and this is a very stupid argument to make. Same goes for Biden.

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

#713

Post by armchairhacker » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 12:57 AM UTC

Agree or disagree I don't really see how this is news.

Companies like Twitch will ban people they don't like anyways, they don't need an explicit rule. It seems obvious that someone who commits violence or hate crimes will get banned from popular social media platforms.

Also all of the "severe misconduct" that they state are obviously bad things, like bigotry or actual crimes. Of course they could call "severe misconduct" anything they want, like supporting the Amazon unions. But they could ban the supporters and give whatever explanation they want anyways.

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

#714

Post by cblconfederate » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 12:57 AM UTC

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #10

cik wrote: post #7

Is there any doubt that we've entered the era of approved, or not free speech. 'Severe misconduct' today means racist behaviour, perhaps tomorrow it means support for the NRA, or anti-environmental behaviour. The thought police have finally invaded ever part of society.

If your speech is really valuable you shouldn't depend on the free services of a privately-owned ad-supported company meant for streaming games to propagate it. Furthermore speech as the forefathers probably meant was people physically going to town squares and talking there. There is free press, which is what social media is more like, and the owner of a press has the right to decide what he/she will print--the Cons…

Then we need public services for communication to save the world from private dystopia, the same way we have public roads. Every country should set up a free mastodon account and email for every citizen.

Plus i m not sure the principle of Free speech is that limited, speech doesnt count as speech if it cant reach anyone. And giving to a handful of employees the power to shape the messaging of millions is directly affecting democracy itself.

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

#715

Post by caddemon » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 12:58 AM UTC

psychiatrist24 wrote: post #624

nostromo wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that they're banning people for things not done in the store. What if there's a single major provider of groceries in a state and they decide to ban everyone convicted of a felony for life. Would that be ok?

In the case of the supermarket, the person who is banned could pay somebody else to buy stuff for them. In an extreme case, that somebody would have to be the government preventing the person from starving. In general I think private businesses should be allowed to decide who they want to do business with. In the case of Twitch, the question to me is what is the contract the users enter with Twitch - what promise doe…

I had no problem with hosts kicking off Parler, and I don't really have a problem with this Twitch policy, but those are very different things than the grocery example. Social media companies, webhosts, etc. are directly enabling speech as a core part of their product. As was mentioned above it would be against the principle of not coercing speech to force one of these companies to continue serving a customer.

But I really do not think allowing someone to buy lettuce should be considered a form of speech, or even an "association". Banning someone from using a grocery store - or perhaps more relevant to this example Amazon.com - for actions completely unrelated to the service is wrong IMO, even if it were somehow restricted to 100% accuracy rate of only blocking very bad people.

I haven't seen it happen yet, but if it becomes in vogue to worry that selling a random material good to a customer is some kind of endorsement of that customer, that will lead to a very concerning situation down the line. It is now all too easy to gather information on people, potentially dating back decades. I don't see any reason grocery stores should know anything about their customers outside of what can be observed when shopping.

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

#716

Post by natsup123490 » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 1:03 AM UTC

kodah wrote: post #253

I had to type in this box more times than I'm willing to admit to produce something that didn't violate the guidelines. Let's examine why this is problematic: - This will absolutely be leveraged on anyone in a precarious position. It's their ultimate out. Minority groups, majority groups, it doesn't matter - you're in trouble and need a platform to tell your story? Not happening on Twitch. Expect more to sign on to t…

> I can't imagine staying in this country much longer.

If you are serious about that statement, I encourage you just as I have encouraged all my family and close friends. I have never regretted leaving America. There are dozens of nicer countries to live in.

However, tech platforms exert their dominance worldwide. Americans have made this a global problem.

Most of my family and friends still feel like they don't need privacy because they have "nothing to hide" because they "aren't doing anything wrong." It's hard to communicate the idea that the tech lords' ideas about "wrong" are being rapidly redefined and weaponized, driven by a very active and rapidly growing neoreligious woke cult, and it has nothing to do with logic and reason, little to do with morality, and much to do with power. And the more information you feed them the more power you yield to them until one day you'll realize the enormity of what you willingly did, but by then it will be far too late. You will be a slave to their crushing, perverse, and ever smaller version of morality. They know who all your friends are, what your fingerprint looks like, your walking gait, where you hang out, ... everything. And they abandoned the motto "don't be evil".

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

#717

Post by ggggtez » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 1:07 AM UTC

kodah wrote: post #253

I had to type in this box more times than I'm willing to admit to produce something that didn't violate the guidelines. Let's examine why this is problematic: - This will absolutely be leveraged on anyone in a precarious position. It's their ultimate out. Minority groups, majority groups, it doesn't matter - you're in trouble and need a platform to tell your story? Not happening on Twitch. Expect more to sign on to t…

If you go on Facebook and say "Hey, I'm going to go shoot up a school on twitch tomorrow", then Twitch can ban you. Previously, it was unclear that this was bannable because it didn't occur on site.

Phrasing this as an argument against "Cancel Culture" is the ultimate moral hand-wringing. There is nothing even closely resembling what you're talking about in this change. This is no slippery slope. This is just the obvious result of people realizing that the internet is real life.

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

#718

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 1:09 AM UTC

ngokevin wrote: post #646

kodah wrote: post #253

I had to type in this box more times than I'm willing to admit to produce something that didn't violate the guidelines. Let's examine why this is problematic: - This will absolutely be leveraged on anyone in a precarious position. It's their ultimate out. Minority groups, majority groups, it doesn't matter - you're in trouble and need a platform to tell your story? Not happening on Twitch. Expect more to sign on to t…

"Terrorist activities, child sexual exploitation, violent extremism, credible threats of mass violence, carrying out or deliberately acting as an accomplice to sexual assault" falls under moralism and cancel culture? We've seen things that fester online that lead to real life tragedies or to the damaging of the fabric of democracy itself. Including insurrection on the US Capitol which took its roots on Twitter. There…

[deleted]

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

#719

Post by coldpie » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 1:11 AM UTC

adzzzz wrote: post #633

coldpie wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently Twitch's employees like these policies for ethical reasons, and/or their businesspeople and advertisers think these policies will bring in more money. Personally, I like these policies and I'd like to see more of this kind of proactive action. I like Twitch more knowing that they have this policy. It shows that they understand their role in shaping public discourse and are taking responsibility for it. It'…

>and/or their businesspeople and advertisers think these policies will bring in more money Yes this is the reason. They will continue to stifle speech so its more palatable for corporations to run ads on their platform. Censoring art and dissent is working well for the people you agree with right now. 60 years ago the current culture would have been unfathomable. In 60 years it may be unfathomable to you again, but n…

I think money is a reason, but I don't think that's the only reason. If I was in a position of power there, I would endorse the same policy purely on ethical grounds, even if it for some reason harmed our relationship with advertisers. I suspect some of the employees there feel the same way.

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

#720

Post by rsj_hn » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 1:11 AM UTC

TameAntelope wrote: post #339

kodah wrote: post #253

I had to type in this box more times than I'm willing to admit to produce something that didn't violate the guidelines. Let's examine why this is problematic: - This will absolutely be leveraged on anyone in a precarious position. It's their ultimate out. Minority groups, majority groups, it doesn't matter - you're in trouble and need a platform to tell your story? Not happening on Twitch. Expect more to sign on to t…

I think it's an interesting consequence of accountability, that the people being held accountable tend to vocally dislike being held accountable, but don't want to say so for some reason. It'd honestly be pretty refreshing for a leader to come out and say, "I don't think my actions should be held against me like your actions should be held against you because I'm special/different." Insane, but refreshingly honest. F…

Since when has BLM or antifa been held accountable for anything? BLM alone murdered over 30 policemen and several civilians. They pulled a dead body out of one of the burned out buildings in Minneapolis after the violent left-wing riots there. Antifa murdered 9 in Dayton and injured over 20 others, they stormed multiple government buildings and attacked government officials and police. Who is held accountable for promoting violence against ICE, disclosing the home addresses of the police and shooting at their facilities?