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Twitter, It’s Time to End Your Anything-Goes Paradise

nytimes.com

101–110 of 116 posts

Re: Twitter, It’s Time to End Your Anything-Goes Paradise

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing a centralized, unified group like a newspaper writing team with a diffuse, decentralized mob like Twitter makes me question your sincerity.

Twitter is a single corporation. It can choose to limit the scope of its published tweets if it wishes, via stronger editorial rules.

It could also choose to open a steel factory and produce I beams -- why are we not criticizing its low steel output?

Twitter would immediately lose all utility to me if it transitioned out of the business of being a forum/socialization platform to a poorly sourced algorothmic newspaper. (They're flirting with it -- and frankly, it doesn't seem to be going well, because that's not what people want.)

It seems outright disingenuous to suggest that Twitter and the NYT are in the same business, and seems to be based entirely around a false equivalence about "publish". There are multiple kinds of businesses that publish things, and the solution to problems in one domain aren't just to be a differemt type of business.

Re: Twitter, It’s Time to End Your Anything-Goes Paradise

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 1st amendment only applies to the government, not to your peer citizens or to companies. They can censor whatever they want.

I scrolled down until I found this comment just so that I could give you my canned response: The government supports free speech because it's important and a Good Thing. Just because private companies aren't required to do the same doesn't make it any less important and a Good Thing.

The point your canned response misses entirely is that it is non always a 'Good Thing'

Re: Twitter, It’s Time to End Your Anything-Goes Paradise

#103
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter and it’s not even close. A journalists synthesis of what he thinks the evidence is carries no weight. Twitter is like a mini trial. You hear the testimony from the horse’s mouth, people cite documentary evidence, and you weigh credibility to reach a conclusion.

So you trust the Russian troll bots on Twitter?

That's absolutely not what rayiner wrote.

Re: Twitter, It’s Time to End Your Anything-Goes Paradise

#104
post #67
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can this be summarized as "Twitter, implement censorship because people are saying things we don't like?" Yes, basically. OP apparently also thinks that what constitutes community is a central authority handing out badges. the company should issue badges of status or of shame based on signals about how people actually use, or abuse, Twitter. In other words, Twitter should begin to think of itself, and its users, as a…

There was an entire startup built around social media profile reputation, called Klout. It's possible for some people to earn decent lifestyle incomes from social media, although this usually means Instagram. > Aside, which online communities has Anil Dash created? Stackoverflow? https://stackoverflow.com/company/management

He joined way after that was created.

Re: Twitter, It’s Time to End Your Anything-Goes Paradise

#105
post #72
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This would only be a fair standard if also applied to Communists. In terms of sheer historical body count, there is no rival. Depending on how I was born, nazis want to get rid of me. Who exactly are these "communists" wanting to get rid of? And how can I spot those people? A lot of people has died in the name of Christianity. Would you call Christianity violent in terms of ideals? I don't disagree that communist r…

Advance apologies for getting a little off-topic, but compelled to reply in this case. I'm...not even sure how to respond to this historical misunderstanding, other than Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_... > there is literally nothing in the tenets against groups of people or violence Depending on the particular regime and which groups they designate as the bourgeoisie: Scientis…

I, for one, am a bourgeois and happy to be. I'd be in deep shit if any communist or socialist inspired group hypothetically took power in my country.

Re: Twitter, It’s Time to End Your Anything-Goes Paradise

#106
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Does this user have a racial slur in their username?" would knock out like a really good chunk of the problem, tbh. Or like "Is the user saying they are a nazi" would cover a lot too. Pretty basic stuff would go a long way.

Those people wouldn't vanish from Twitter, they would just choose a slightly more subtle username.

Correct. They would use more cryptic slurs which would be used in context and would be not easily differentiable from common words.

You can't just silence hate speech with censorship. More generally, you can't silence ideas. If you try, you normally end up in a worse situation.

Re: Twitter, It’s Time to End Your Anything-Goes Paradise

#107
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Posting the same canned response twice in one thread doesn't advance the discussion at all.

It's proposing that you read it agian, with the implication that you probably missed the point.

I feel like those of us that are very scared of authoritarian tendencies demonstrated in this thread are being interpreted as promoting hatred. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions," could not be more applicable.

Re: Twitter, It’s Time to End Your Anything-Goes Paradise

#108
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very soon that leads to any speech criticizing, say, the capitalists or the politicians in power.

> Very soon that leads to any speech criticizing, say, the capitalists or the politicians in power. No, because that's not an intrinsic property. Hating people who take too long at the register isn't the same as viewing all redheads as inferior.

The whole point is that lines are not easy to draw. Religion is a belief system and is not an intrinsic property either. Are you going to allow speech like "Kill all muslims" which is not very different from "Kill all capitalists".

Free speech is so critical to a functioning free society that I'd rather err on the side of allowing bad speech rather than banning not-bad speech by mistake.

Re: Twitter, It’s Time to End Your Anything-Goes Paradise

#109
post #72
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This would only be a fair standard if also applied to Communists. In terms of sheer historical body count, there is no rival. Depending on how I was born, nazis want to get rid of me. Who exactly are these "communists" wanting to get rid of? And how can I spot those people? A lot of people has died in the name of Christianity. Would you call Christianity violent in terms of ideals? I don't disagree that communist r…

Advance apologies for getting a little off-topic, but compelled to reply in this case. I'm...not even sure how to respond to this historical misunderstanding, other than Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_... > there is literally nothing in the tenets against groups of people or violence Depending on the particular regime and which groups they designate as the bourgeoisie: Scientis…

> I'm...not even sure how to respond to this historical misunderstanding, other than Wikipedia:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_....

So you didn't actually even read my post. This is what I wrote:

> I don't disagree that communist regimes have killed innumerable people

And then you continue:

> Depending on the particular regime and which groups they designate as the bourgeoisie: Scientists, Farmers, Journalists, Factory Managers, Christians, Jews, Petty Criminals, Tartars, Kurds, Ukrainians, Germans, Poles, Estonians, Kulaks, Teachers(who taught the wrong thing), Capitalists, etc.

This was exactly my point.

> At least with national socialism you have a chance to get out.

Not if you're born the wrong way.

And I'm curious as to why you didn't comment on Christianity, and how you view killing in the name of Christ/God.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_violence#War

Is Christianity then the same as Communism in terms of violence?

Re: Twitter, It’s Time to End Your Anything-Goes Paradise

#110
post #109
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advance apologies for getting a little off-topic, but compelled to reply in this case. I'm...not even sure how to respond to this historical misunderstanding, other than Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_... > there is literally nothing in the tenets against groups of people or violence Depending on the particular regime and which groups they designate as the bourgeoisie: Scientis…

> I'm...not even sure how to respond to this historical misunderstanding, other than Wikipedia: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_... . So you didn't actually even read my post. This is what I wrote: > I don't disagree that communist regimes have killed innumerable people And then you continue: > Depending on the particular regime and which groups they designate as the bourgeoisie: Scienti…

Wait: the one who wants to silence speech is you.

We are just saying that, if you want to silence people in the name of past mass killings, you have to silence a lot of people. Nazis, communist / socialists, probably even Christians and Muslims, yes.

Wouldn't be better to just not try to silence anyone? :)

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