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A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter

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Re: A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter

#291

Post by iasay »

nibbleshifter wrote: post #72
lin83 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also avoid those platforms but that also means self-exclusion from entire communities. I've seen large groups (DnD groups, gaming/sports clubs, obscure tech forums etc) being swallowed wholesale by Facebook, then Reddit and now Discord. That may not matter for a random game group but unfortunately Twitter is where most of the worlds journalists post and network.

Where I live now, most sports and hobby clubs coordinate solely via Facebook. If you don't have a FB account (like myself, currently), you are shit out of luck when it comes to finding out what's going on where/when.

Meetup.com is still working out well for me. Also everyone knows everyone so you end up with a vast contacts network after a bit.

Re: A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter

#292

Post by smaryjerry »

booleandilemma wrote: post #37
OrangeMonkey wrote: post #12

This is how big tech does damage to humans. Love it or hate it, the online world is our current public square. A public square, in the united states, has typically been an area where people can shout out their concerns or whatever they want to anyone who can listen and the government cannot stop it. Currently, our public squares are owned by private megacorporations that not only ban people for reasons many people ag…

Eh, I don't buy the public square argument. The online world is a cesspool filled with bots and crazy people. I don't need to voice my opinion on Twitter, nor is Twitter a place I need to be . What matters is how we relate to the people around us, in our communities. Your neighbor isn't a bot, the barista at the coffee shop isn't a russian troll. We need to stop taking the "online world" so seriously and connect with…

The bot solution is extremely simple, add more layers of human verification or a paid tier. It hurts the user experience in one way but enhances it in another. Why not at least require verification once per 24 hours? The trolls in person is not any better, we have enormous amounts of crime/lies in the real world. Being online actually protects users physically so much that now arguments are more over what is harming users mentally online. It seems dramatically better to ONLY risk your mental state than risk physical and mental harm in the real world. Someone being online has gotten a bad rap because people can get feelings hurt, but at the same time there are countless options to protect your feelings online also without banning other people. People have the tools to build a bubble around themselves but for some reason instead they often choose to build a prison around others instead.

Re: A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter

#293

Post by safety1st »

sgjohnson wrote: post #273
safety1st wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incredibly, they had a remote employee in Serbia, so when they banned all these countries, they banned one of their employees. Last I heard they were telling him to use a VPN to bypass their own corporate rules (which they have admitted exist to dodge Serbian laws...!)

Which is fine. Because if the company has no physical presence in a certain country, they can basically ignore their laws, because what’s the country going to do? Block your website? Having an employee there establishes physical presence.

Right, but their stated reason for instituting the policy in the first place was that they couldn't ignore Serbian laws if their websites were available to be viewed in Serbia.

Re: A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter

#294

Post by iasay »

whichdan wrote: post #56
iasay wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth pointing out that more life exists outside the corporate run stages. Part of their trick is to make you think that the only way of life is via their platforms. I’m not and never have been a Twitter or or TikTok or Facebook member.

Sure, but getting hundreds or thousands of people to join your Mastodon instance or whatever is a huge barrier when Twitter works fine /most/ of the time.

Or, you know, in real life. Which was more my point. I've done more networking face to face over the last couple of years than I ever got done using the Internet.

Re: A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter

#295

Post by jaunkst »

OrangeMonkey wrote: post #12

This is how big tech does damage to humans. Love it or hate it, the online world is our current public square. A public square, in the united states, has typically been an area where people can shout out their concerns or whatever they want to anyone who can listen and the government cannot stop it. Currently, our public squares are owned by private megacorporations that not only ban people for reasons many people ag…

That's a real issue. It's not just a monopoly in a competitive sense but also a monopoly on 'public squares'. Which is effectively against free speech.

When a company or moderator has the power to ban you from a public space your are ostracized by a non-democratic panel, with unknown agendas.

Re: A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter

#296

Post by uncletaco »

OrangeMonkey wrote: post #267
uncletaco wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A public square, in the united states, has typically been an area where people can shout out their concerns or whatever they want to anyone who can listen and the government cannot stop it. Growing up in Birmingham, AL I had a couple teachers who had dog bites and remembered the hoses from when they tried to shout out whatever they wanted in public squares. It's always interesting how people have such a rosy view o…

They remember the dog bites because its cases where the government acted illegally and were taken to task. Today, the governing actor of our virtual public squares are corporations - and a significant amount of people (maybe not you) seem to be ok with them taking what actions they wish.

It wasn't "illegal" for Bull Connor to use dogs and hoses. The problem was that it was legal and for most white people in the south, encouraged. Again this is another example of having a convenient lie ready made to fit a strongly held belief.

Re: A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter

#297

Post by vetinari »

safety1st wrote: post #143
OrangeMonkey wrote: post #12

This is how big tech does damage to humans. Love it or hate it, the online world is our current public square. A public square, in the united states, has typically been an area where people can shout out their concerns or whatever they want to anyone who can listen and the government cannot stop it. Currently, our public squares are owned by private megacorporations that not only ban people for reasons many people ag…

Here's a fun story. I see that this post is from fanbyte.com. Existing got me banned from fanbyte.com and all of the websites they own. Specifically, existing in a particular country. Not an exotic or unusual one on an embargo list or something -- just some country that Fanbyte felt they weren't earning enough profit from. They banned the entire populations of about ten countries from their entire network of websites…

China, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, Serbia and India

Just wow.

Re: A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter

#298

Post by uncletaco »

chimeracoder wrote: post #286
OrangeMonkey wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They remember the dog bites because its cases where the government acted illegally and were taken to task. Today, the governing actor of our virtual public squares are corporations - and a significant amount of people (maybe not you) seem to be ok with them taking what actions they wish.

> They remember the dog bites because its cases where the government acted illegally and were taken to task. Uh, no. Society has whitewashed the history of the Civil Rights Movement, but popular sentiment at the time was not with Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, the other freedom riders, etc. Civilians and the government sometimes acted illegally, sure, but some of those actions were absolutely legal. (Not to mention…

The government acted legally. That was (and in a lot of cases still is) the problem. In fact most cities and local governments reserve the right to use hoses and dogs they just don't because it would be bad optics. As the saying goes "the more things change, the more they stay the same".

Re: A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter

#299

Post by turdit »

beebmam wrote: post #289
OrangeMonkey wrote: post #12

This is how big tech does damage to humans. Love it or hate it, the online world is our current public square. A public square, in the united states, has typically been an area where people can shout out their concerns or whatever they want to anyone who can listen and the government cannot stop it. Currently, our public squares are owned by private megacorporations that not only ban people for reasons many people ag…

> the online world is our current public square That's right, and that's why virtually no one ever gets banned from using the internet. Twitter is not "the online world".

that’s like saying a car is just one method of transportation. so if you get banned from using cars you have no right to complain. but i can tell from your spastic angry (not to mention logically incoherent) post you are a twitter user who’s afraid of their echo chamber changing

Re: A clip from Stray got me banned from Twitter

#300

Post by Forgeties79 »

OrangeMonkey wrote: post #140
Forgeties79 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phone call, email, text message, Viber, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Telegram, actually interacting in person. Half my family isn’t even on Facebook and virtually none of us even use it anymore. If that’s the only way to keep up with family then don’t act like a complete jerk online, or you know don’t harass people , and you’ll be fine. Same as regular society. Contrary to popular belief, it actually takes…

It does not take a lot to get banned - you just have to have a stated opinion that does not correlate with a large portion of the user base. If the civil rights movement was being organized on facebook today with the culture and beliefs of the 1950's as our users, I am very confident MLK would have been banned from every service. ... and someone, somewhere, would say 'don't act like a complete jerk online, or you kno…

This is an accusation by American conservatives that has little to no basis in reality. It’s just an easy source of fake outrage they don’t have to back up. You won’t get banned for “wrong think.” Look how long it took Alex Jones to get de-platformed - the dude was literally starting witch hunts with his accounts.

Look, I will be the first to say we need to rein in social media companies. Their ability to shrug and say “oh well!” with no repercussions as their vaunted algorithms (mis)handle the impossibly large scale of their businesses is wrong. No other industry gets away with so much except maybe religious groups and oil/gas.

That being said, we should not conflate it with the incorrect and frankly dishonest cries of “censorship” by the right.

Related note: I think you’ll find this Twitter bot very interesting: https://twitter.com/facebookstop10/status/154978628117712896...

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