11–20 of 153 posts
He should start a blog or a magazine. Marginalizing harmful and admitted liars is fine.
Will not shed a tear when Q makes Alex Jones look like a lame mainstream reporter and his audience, seeking the "truth", moves on from him to the latest, greatest purveyor of utter nonsense.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It does seem tame, but a quick search suggests it may be an anti-semitic dog whistle.
It seems like every comment by someone the left doesn’t like is a kind of dog whistle.
> “Those are the eyes of a rat,” There's no way they can ban him for saying that yet still claim to enforce the rules equally for all political affiliations. There have been thousands (maybe more) tweets by people with blue verification checkmarks calling Trump an orange oompa loopa and much worse. No one has been banned for that (rightfully so imo). There's been a ton of pressure on Twitter to ban Jones but using th…
They didn't ban him for saying only that. Here's a part of their official statement on the matter.
>Today, we permanently suspended @realalexjones and @infowars from Twitter and Periscope. We took this action based on new reports of Tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our abusive behavior policy, in addition to the accounts’ past violations.
https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1037804427992686593
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It does seem tame, but a quick search suggests it may be an anti-semitic dog whistle.
It seems like every comment by someone the left doesn’t like is a kind of dog whistle.
Always a strong argument :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It does seem tame, but a quick search suggests it may be an anti-semitic dog whistle.
It seems like every comment by someone the left doesn’t like is a kind of dog whistle.
> “Those are the eyes of a rat,” There's no way they can ban him for saying that yet still claim to enforce the rules equally for all political affiliations. There have been thousands (maybe more) tweets by people with blue verification checkmarks calling Trump an orange oompa loopa and much worse. No one has been banned for that (rightfully so imo). There's been a ton of pressure on Twitter to ban Jones but using th…
https://www.c-span.org/video/?450990-1/foreign-influence-soc...
They've got the whole thing.
> “Those are the eyes of a rat,” There's no way they can ban him for saying that yet still claim to enforce the rules equally for all political affiliations. There have been thousands (maybe more) tweets by people with blue verification checkmarks calling Trump an orange oompa loopa and much worse. No one has been banned for that (rightfully so imo). There's been a ton of pressure on Twitter to ban Jones but using th…
I did not downvote you, but the official statement claims this was the last straw, and not a response to a single offense: https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1037804427992686593
The problem I have is how subjective all of this is, and while they say they are trying to increase transparency I don't see it.
This action suggests they keep tabs on accounts and there's some threshold they can reach over a period of time that will flip a ban on even if the actual action that causes the ban wouldn't be bannable in isolation.
I've not seen this policy discussed around any of their other bans.
The timing is also very suspicious as all the other big social media platforms banned Jones recently. That suggests that there's some level of coordination and/or Twitter is caving to outside pressure and not actually acting on their own internal policy in a consistent manner.
Honestly, "Those are the eyes of a rat" is a fairly tame insult compared to the kind of toxic drivel Jones usually says, and seems like weak grounds for termination. He should've been kicked off long ago, but I fear that having this particular example be the "final straw" is only going to strengthen the alt-right's persecution complex.
The thing about persecution complexes is that those who have them will find persecution in anything, so it's kind of a waste of energy to worry about what might trigger those prone to thinking in such a way.
Interestingly enough, that’s probably why Twitter feels comfortable ignoring the screams of outrage from the “this is censorship, and the internet is now dooooomed” crowd. When the only thing a group has to stand on is a slippery slope of their own invention, ignoring them is a safe option. People who can only accept their own rigid interpretations at the direct expense of everyone else are impossible to engage with, and a global megacorporation simply doesn’t have the luxury to try.
The banning of Alex Jones from one platform doesn’t spell the end of freedom, or the rise of unfettered censorship, it’s just the application of the most bedrock, basic standards of both intellectual honesty and human decency. The idea that freedom can only exist if we require something like Twitter to lend their platform to the likes of Jones is intellectually bankrupt. It’s also ironic on Hacker News, which explicitly exists as the result of strong curation and moderation. Having standards isn’t censorship, and just as a newspaper doesn’t owe you and everyone else their own page, no other outlet does either.
> “Those are the eyes of a rat,” There's no way they can ban him for saying that yet still claim to enforce the rules equally for all political affiliations. There have been thousands (maybe more) tweets by people with blue verification checkmarks calling Trump an orange oompa loopa and much worse. No one has been banned for that (rightfully so imo). There's been a ton of pressure on Twitter to ban Jones but using th…
Comparing facial features, particularly eyes, to those of a rat is a well-known anti-Semitic smear.
Commenting on Trump's horrible spray tan is not the same kind of thing.
> There's been a ton of pressure on Twitter to ban Jones but using this tweet as an excuse shows they are in no way politically neutral.
Well, yeah, targeting racist harassment isn't politically neutral: institutionalized racism is very much a political position.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems like every comment by someone the left doesn’t like is a kind of dog whistle.
Comparing Jews to rats is a classic Nazi trope. It's actually a dog whistle, for real and true.