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Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

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Re: Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

#881

Post by jacquesm »

paulmd wrote: post #712
yyyk wrote: post #312

The underlying issue: Musk's incentives don't give him much reason to care if Twitter goes under. Musk likely feels he might as well push for any changes he likes, and gain whether Twitter survives or not. What was Musk's biggest bugbear about 'old' Twitter? The moderation system. If Twitter goes under, the only practical alternative at the moment is Mastodon, and Mastodon can't replicate Twitter's moderation due to…

> If Twitter goes under, the only practical alternative at the moment is Mastodon WeChat: "am I a joke to you?" Seriously, Zuck wishes he had the kind of daily center-stage that WeChat has in their customers' lives. Totally guarantee that if Twitter officially folded they'd at least make a play and they might well come out on top. WeChat is absolutely the #1 beneficiary of any Twitter collapse scenario - which is one…

Best comment in this thread, thank you for the precise analysis.

Re: Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

#882

Post by jacquesm »

kweingar wrote: post #604

It is ironic that only a week or so after the Twitter Papers were released (where a primary focus was suppressing stories and accounts with little justification and hastily written new rules), Musk is now doing the exact same thing.

What Musk is doing is much worse. There is zero deliberation on this, just the whims of a thin skinned guy.

Re: Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

#883

Post by whywhywhywhy »

lambic2 wrote: post #481
anigbrowl wrote: post #412

Echoing David Sacks, he's now tweeting that the journalists in question were tweeting 'assassination coordinates.' https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603587970832793600 Starting to think there might be some national security issues with one guy being the nominal linchpin of the US space program, satellite internet, and global public messaging infrastructure.

But aren't the coordinates of his plane public anyways? And wouldn't shutting down ElonJet account be enough, why all these journalists' accounts as well?

The journalists posted links to it to no? To try and sneak around the rules but still do the same as the banned account.

Wasn’t about his plane anyway someone in a mask made a threat on a car his child was being driven in thinking it was Elon.

Re: Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

#885

Post by refurb »

xracy wrote: post #696
calculatte wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is everyone up in arms for? This is a private company, so he can do whatever he wants. That is what everyone has been saying for years. I mean, it turns out they were wrong and Twitter was actually colluding with government agencies to bypass the first amendment. But censorship and targeted suspensions were defended tooth and nail by internet commenters. Is this a problem now only because people you like are tar…

In a word, Hypocrisy. Everyone is up in arms for Hypocrisy. Musk's statement was that free speech would be allowed on Twitter. And yet, here he is chilling free speech. It's not surprising. It's just also really bad. So people are up in arms that they're losing a platform that, while by no means perfect, was better for free speech than it currently is.

It's just bizarre that the same people complaining about this are the same people that said "Twitter is private and can ban whoever they want" and defended censorship.

Then Elon turns around does the same thing and suddenly they flip and claim they were always "free speech proponents" all along.

They should just be honest and admit it's all political.

But anyways, this NH post is now at 1320 comments. It's like CNN's talking heads shouting at each other.

Re: Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

#886

Post by im3w1l »

paulmd wrote: post #712
yyyk wrote: post #312

The underlying issue: Musk's incentives don't give him much reason to care if Twitter goes under. Musk likely feels he might as well push for any changes he likes, and gain whether Twitter survives or not. What was Musk's biggest bugbear about 'old' Twitter? The moderation system. If Twitter goes under, the only practical alternative at the moment is Mastodon, and Mastodon can't replicate Twitter's moderation due to…

> If Twitter goes under, the only practical alternative at the moment is Mastodon WeChat: "am I a joke to you?" Seriously, Zuck wishes he had the kind of daily center-stage that WeChat has in their customers' lives. Totally guarantee that if Twitter officially folded they'd at least make a play and they might well come out on top. WeChat is absolutely the #1 beneficiary of any Twitter collapse scenario - which is one…

> they've already got him banning chinese journalists and pushing the state position

Mind elaborating on this? Would be a shame if something so important got lost in all the noise.

Re: Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

#887

Post by eecc »

jrmg wrote: post #784
eecc wrote: post #762

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, thank you for reminding this forum, although I’m sure everyone here remembers or has already been made aware of this contradiction. Can you argument this point further or is it enough to imagine it with a trollface meme? Me personally, I argue that it was an exaggerated policy position to take. Under no circumstances should menacing, harassment, threats to personal safety be tolerated. It’s definitely a good thi…

I posted that deliberately without comment. I think it stands on its own as something people should reflect on when forming their opinion of the current situation, and thought that adding commentary would only muddy the perception of it. I definitely did not intend it to be imagined with a troll face meme. But since you asked my opinion, I’ll post it and people can judge it separately to the tweet. I actually do agre…

Thanks. I prefer this comment, where your considerations are reasonably articulated and "on the record" rather than letting the reader project their own assumptions.

I don't think Musk's behavior is capricious, but rather _improvident_. It shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the problem domain -- social media -- and functional capacity to process its signals. I'd prefer he turned back to tech, where he undeniably has a much better track record.

Re: Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

#888

Post by washadjeffmad »

xracy wrote: post #696
calculatte wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is everyone up in arms for? This is a private company, so he can do whatever he wants. That is what everyone has been saying for years. I mean, it turns out they were wrong and Twitter was actually colluding with government agencies to bypass the first amendment. But censorship and targeted suspensions were defended tooth and nail by internet commenters. Is this a problem now only because people you like are tar…

In a word, Hypocrisy. Everyone is up in arms for Hypocrisy. Musk's statement was that free speech would be allowed on Twitter. And yet, here he is chilling free speech. It's not surprising. It's just also really bad. So people are up in arms that they're losing a platform that, while by no means perfect, was better for free speech than it currently is.

The irony is that this is also the most transparent decisionmaking at Twitter has ever been. It's a live public view of the negotiation with a userbase over the future of the platform.

The release of the previous management's internal communications showed the liberal and comfortable application of euphemism, justification after the fact, and technical deniability in upper leadership.

Twitter showing outage not over evidence that the culture of banning and de-amplifying both users and public interest topics without agency or notification, condemning by decision of a secret, unauditable council under influence of the federal government and corporations, and doing so under the tack of keeping their CEO in the dark shows how carefully calculated their appearance was. Remember, they lost their canary.

I don't think Elon Musk is much if any better. I also can't say that Twitter is any worse. Speech was being chilled and controlled before, and unless your definition of "free speech" is "being free from what offends me or is counter to my opinions and beliefs", it's more likely the hypocrisy you worry about is nothing more than actually being able to draw a line between an action and its cause and a target you can confidently level a finger at.

People will adjust as they ever have. However, the ones who interact now will be the influencers of what Twitter becomes. That is what matters, not any confused and petty logic that our leaders should all be infallible and godlike.

Re: Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

#889

Post by WeylandYutani »

alangibson wrote: post #737
h11h wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also worth noting that revealing real names and workplaces of anonymous accounts is still allowed. The doxxing that is banned is a specific class of doxxing that isn't often considered to be doxxing.

This. Since when is current location of a well known person doxxing? AFAICT, Elon made that up to suit himself.

Interesting, if I said on Reddit I just saw Airforce one flying over would I be doxxing Biden?

Re: Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists

#890

Post by badwolf »

lamontcg wrote: post #578
barbariangrunge wrote: post #296

> Update: Musk just weighed in on the suspensions, characterizing them as intentional. “Same doxxing rules apply to “journalists” as to everyone else,” he tweeted in a reply. > It’s worth noting that the policy these accounts violated, a prohibition against sharing “live location information,” is only 24 hours old. It seems like a good rule, but in this case the application of the rule seems less impersonal than it c…

Weirdly I'm almost on the other side of the whole doxxing issue. We've established now that Elon really doesn't like it when people dox him, and all his right-leaning supporters are defending that. Well, that's a precedent now for when minorities and vulnerable people who aren't billionaires are doxxed by right wing hate groups (e.g. Kiwifarms). And radical free speech just got abruptly limited when it got personal.…

Elon, quite literally, immediately asked for the Internet to doxx someone right after making this rule change. He posted a picture of a car/license/person and demanded everyone find this person. Strangely, the 'incident' was never important enough to actually contact law enforcement over...
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