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Twitter Permanently Suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Account

nytimes.com

51–60 of 218 posts

Re: Twitter Permanently Suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Account

#51
post #41
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would government censorship look like to you? If someone criticizes a government policy, and a private platform censors this person after nudging from the state (which isn't in dispute), is that not censorship?

She is the government.

So one set of politicians is nudging a private platform to censor another politician. This is pretty much par for the course, no?

Re: Twitter Permanently Suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Account

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most private sector businesses don't want to be in the business of helping spread deadly lies, though. And they're not required to be.

Twitter did not even say she lied, they just said that they (Twitter) considered it “misleading.” Not false, “misleading.”

That’s a distinction without a difference. The reason that false claims are dangerous is because they can mislead people.

Re: Twitter Permanently Suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Account

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should Twitter give up their right to freedom of expression and freedom of association? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights

In an ideal world, because they are now the public square effectively, they should be held to a different stricter standard. As well as other big tech companies (App Store, etc.)

Twitter is not the public square. They app stores are not the public square. No one takes that argument seriously because it's not serious. Is it censorship that most existing book publishers are highly unlikely to publish a book of your or my political opinions? Should a publisher, or anyone else, be compelled to promote speech they disagree with? Would you want someone to compel you to write or publish lies?

Marjorie Taylor Greene has VASTLY more ability to get her messages out, and to therefore express herself, than the average American citizen. She can go on Fox News or MSNBC or she can have her office send out press releases. Please stop saying this is censorship. This is NO WAY meets any accepted definition of censorship in the frame you are using.

Re: Twitter Permanently Suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Account

#54
No matter what their politics are, I would hope that all reasonable people can condemn cancel culture, regardless of the political alignment of the person being cancelled.

I get a lot of value from Twitter because I follow a few awesomely interesting people, but I could probably get the same effect by bookmarking their blogs.

People should have access to all information, and filter for themselves what is trash. I don’t want Twitter, news media, etc. filtering.

I have started to just pay attention to a small number of people: Lex Fridman, Joe Rogan, Matt Taibbi, and Noam Chomsky. That is a small sample size, but enough diversity for me.

Re: Twitter Permanently Suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Account

#55

I don’t care what she said, it is not the job of private businesses to censor elected officials. And yes, I know they can but that does not mean they should .

Also Twitter has now demonstrated they are completely ignorant to the Streisand Effect. This won’t change minds. This will only harden viewpoints and invite political and regulatory scrutiny.

> Streisand Effect

She is a Congressional Representative.

This isn't about shutting her up. Its about Twitter coming out and saying that they agree that she's a loon. No one actually expects a member of Congress to be permanently shut up over something like this.

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When '@dang' comes around here and deletes posts, its about pushing the discussion in the direction they want for this website.

The _ONLY_ moderating action internet citizens have is moderation: deletion of posts, soft-banning, permanent bans, and the like. There's no other possible effect available for Twitter (or other social media) to come down on unruly users.

Re: Twitter Permanently Suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Account

#56

I don't care about the musings of idiotic politicians (and most of them are indeed idiots), but it rubs me the wrong way that Twitter is preventing the people from hearing where their tax dollars are going, and that Twitter has decided to be the arbiter of truth for society. Also, according to the article, it seems like her strikes were for subjective comments. If this is the case, that strikes me as doubly wrong. Ac…

> Are they going to ban politicians from discussing budget charts or crime statistics in public debates if they decide that it's misleading with no objective basis? I’m assuming the “government database” is VEARS, which is using raw, unverified data. It would be like if someone took NextDoor or Shotspotter reports to derive crime statistics.

To be fair to VAERS, a doctor needs to fill it out, and the doctor is not paid to do so. It’s not exactly a user-submitted database.

Re: Twitter Permanently Suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Account

#57
post #26

I’m not sure what she said, but given the amount of reversals and “facts-later-questioned” concerning this virus, I’d be interested to see if she ever would have it reinstated if she were right about the key points concerning her ban.

She made repetitive tweets that Omicron proves that vaccines don't work.

I'm 100% pro vaccine. I'd rather Twitter were destroyed for doing this than Greene were suspended. I'll happily deal with combating some misinformation, it's an opportunity that is critically important. People with anti vax beliefs don't magically stop existing just because you censor Greene; it hurts, it does not help to do that. Instead, more of them go underground, they vanish from the surface, you don't see them as much, but they're still around spreading those ideas. The notion that you can't have a debate over vaccines in the open air - eg Twitter threads, or comparable - between such sides is disgusting. What other point does Twitter serve then? An official public relations release platform for previously authorized statements and speech. And to let people know what you ate for lunch, its original glorious purpose.

Twitter should be a place where I can argue against Greene's vaccine statements when she Tweets them. She provides an excellent central point of focus to distribute correct information, a honeypot for delivering information that is right. (insert retort: yeah but that doesn't work, you can't convince people; cool, so shut it all down then, civilization is over, give up now; throw them in the gulag, that's where you have to go with that logic if you believe people are permanently beyond reason)

Re: Twitter Permanently Suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Account

#58
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She made repetitive tweets that Omicron proves that vaccines don't work.

Okay, but do you think that a single person following her Twitter is going to say, “Wow, Twitter censored her because she was wrong”? Of course not. They are going to be livid and more determined in their belief. Anyone defending vaccine should be angry at Twitter for making the situation worse.

Not the point. The ban isn’t to change their mind, it’s to remove a source of toxic discourse on the platform. Now there will be fewer retweets and flame wars instigated by her. And it will hopefully serve as one more reason for those who feel targeted by this to seek an alternative platform.

Re: Twitter Permanently Suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Account

#59
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should Twitter give up their right to freedom of expression and freedom of association? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights

Twitter is not a conscious being, and cannot experience the subjective feeling of being oppressed. I support maximal liberty for humans, and appropriate protection of those humans from corporations as well as the government. Corporations may be collections of people, but they're a lot more than that - which makes them not human - and in any case they are not loci of experience.

Some users might like a platform where saying obviously false things and potentially dangerous things is not allowed and I don't know why Twitter should not be allowed to provide them with this.

Re: Twitter Permanently Suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Account

#60
post #4

> Twitter suspended Ms. Greene’s account after she tweeted on Saturday, falsely, about “extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths.” She included a misleading chart that pulled data from a government database of unverified raw data. Does anyone have a link to the tweet in question? It's interesting that it was labeled the chart as "misleading" as opposed to based on doctored data. It appears being factual is not…

I think this is the tweet that got her suspended:

https://twitter.com/johncardillo/status/1477663920349499400/...

the complaint seems to be her presentation is misleading. i can understand that. if you give some medical treatment to a large number of people then some of them are going to be harmed by it but the benefits to individuals could still exceed the harm. but if we apply the same kind of logic then i feel twitter's warning text is misleading. it is not the complete picture whether COVID 19 vaccine is considered 'safe' for a person. what is important for an individual when making a decision whether to take the vaccine or not is whether the benefits exceed the costs. a vaccine might be 'safe' but the costs might still exceed the benefits if the risk differential between vaccinated and unvaccinated is low enough.

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