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Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists

nytimes.com

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Re: Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists

#101

Post by Nasrudith »

jessaustin wrote: post #46

The Right used to abhor postmodernism, and were properly mocked by the Left whenever they whinged about it. Now the Right have embraced postmodernism, and the Left have no idea how to respond.

That happened back with George W. Bush ironically and really ended it for the postmodernist side. There was one interesting article about it.

http://clubtroppo.com.au/2012/02/22/george-bush-bruno-latour...

Being disengaged with reality because it doesn't say what you want it to isn't a good thing but some delusions are more harmful than others.

Re: Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists

#102

Post by jessaustin »

heavenlyhash wrote: post #96
ericdykstra wrote: post #60

One thing I really like about Twitter is that you can choose to follow who you want. If you don't want to see memes making fun of you, just don't follow accounts that post/retweet these memes. It's sad that Twitter is banning satire accounts. I'm against all censorship of lawful speech, and condemn Twitter and any social media platform that participates in this kind of censorship.

For the 1,000,000th time: you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater and call it "satire" either.

Repeating it all those times hasn't made it true.

Re: Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists

#104

Post by fireflash38 »

booleandilemma wrote: post #38

The fact that NYT even asks the question “Are these Russian bots?” kind of fuels this meme, imo. Their answer is “probably not”.

You might know that internet trolls from reddit/4chan aren't likely to be russian (at least for this meme in particular), but most (especially older) people are not familiar with the various internet cultures. It's a question I can definitely see my parents asking.

Re: Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists

#105

Post by nailer »

heavenlyhash wrote: post #96
ericdykstra wrote: post #60

One thing I really like about Twitter is that you can choose to follow who you want. If you don't want to see memes making fun of you, just don't follow accounts that post/retweet these memes. It's sad that Twitter is banning satire accounts. I'm against all censorship of lawful speech, and condemn Twitter and any social media platform that participates in this kind of censorship.

For the 1,000,000th time: you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater and call it "satire" either.

Do you think pointing out someone else appears to have stock opinions and doesn't actually think about the world around them is "shouting fire in a crowded theatre"?

Re: Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists

#106

Post by ericdykstra »

nathan_long wrote: post #86
ericdykstra wrote: post #60

One thing I really like about Twitter is that you can choose to follow who you want. If you don't want to see memes making fun of you, just don't follow accounts that post/retweet these memes. It's sad that Twitter is banning satire accounts. I'm against all censorship of lawful speech, and condemn Twitter and any social media platform that participates in this kind of censorship.

> One thing I really like about Twitter is that you can choose to follow who you want. If you don't want to see memes making fun of you, just don't follow accounts that post/retweet these memes. My experience of Twitter is the opposite. Someone I follow posts something I think is intelligent and polite, and the replies are filled with people launching tangential attacks and making weird accusations. A tweet is like a…

> Someone I follow posts something I think is intelligent and polite, and the replies are filled with people launching tangential attacks and making weird accusations.

You can still curate this experience. There are accounts that I will never read the replies from, and there are accounts that I know will have great replies.

There are other accounts where I will. I ban, mute, and use the "don't show retweets from this user" feature liberally.

> suppose hoards of people with political opinions you detest start creating accounts that pose as "your side", using the worst possible arguments for your positions, insulting everyone, and making "your side" look stupid and cruel. Is that a kind of speech you want to protect?

If you're talking about the NPC accounts, they are clearly satire by their tweeting style and avatar.

Actual subversive impersonation is tricky, but I would hope that those kinds of accounts get outed by the side of the people they are subverting and the side they are subverting can condemn those arguments, positions, and tactics.

Re: Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists

#107

Post by chippy »

kazagistar wrote: post #68
ds0 wrote: post #41

Evan James has a good writeup on the sort of anxieties around society that sprung up the NPC meme [0]. There's a portion which I think has a kernel of truth, although it is definitely generous to the kind of people that immaturely lashed out and made very low-effort twitter accounts which wound up propagating the meme: >The far right can be profoundly intuitive creatures, who feel more deeply than cursory glances sug…

It confuses me, because "don't take things at face value" and "don't just follow a script" is, well, postmodernism. It's also anticapitalism. It's also a commentary about peoples reverence of traditional gender roles and religions. Actually, I totally fail to see why it's a conservative meme at all, unless it's being repeated without any attempt to consider broader implications.

At it's core, it shouldn't be a conservative meme at all, if anything it's a "free thinker" or a libertarian / anarchist point of view. I think it is labelled "conservative" is because the left have reacted strongly against it, thereby defining it, and reinforcing the forms that cause that reaction by their opposition. It's a kind of virus which gets stronger the more anti viral counter measures are applied.

Anyhow, I first heard about someone calling other people an NPC in a robert anton wilson celebration event 5 years ago by a man on acid talking about how many people in the world are NPCs when you try to talk to them about something real or important. I thought it quite funny, was a bit uneasy, sort of agreed, and sort of disagreed.

Re: Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists

#108

Post by pcbro141 »

michaelflux wrote: post #85
ericdykstra wrote: post #60

One thing I really like about Twitter is that you can choose to follow who you want. If you don't want to see memes making fun of you, just don't follow accounts that post/retweet these memes. It's sad that Twitter is banning satire accounts. I'm against all censorship of lawful speech, and condemn Twitter and any social media platform that participates in this kind of censorship.

And this is really at the root of the entire culture war. It used to be 'hey, that person said something stupid', lol ok what an idiot, anyway moving on to what we were doing' Now instead it's 'hey that person said something stupid, I need to share it to 5000 followers to show just how stupid they are and how virtuous I am for pointing out that it's stupid, hey hey hey people look look look I'm resisting the stupid l…

In my view, there's a difference between letting people say stupid things, and letting people deliberately say misleading things that are clearly for the purpose of influencing an election (spreading the wrong election date.)

I don't see anything wrong with Twitter not tolerating people spreading the wrong election date because 'free speech, don't be so offended'.

Re: Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists

#109

Post by michaelflux »

nailer wrote: post #88
michaelflux wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But with that said, what isn't 'far right' these days ... I'm just counting down the days until Bernie is called far right because he's not throwing bricks through Starbucks' windows.

Anti-FGM activism and and reformist Islam have both been labelled hate speech according the SPLC: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/opinion/southern-poverty-... While Twitter bans criticism of the left using the NPC meme, @dbwrf, a pro (yes they exist) FGM group is not only still up but also running a Twitter ad campaign supporting FGM.

That story just illustrates how insane things have gotten.

Maajid goes "hey I'm a member of this group, I want to improve our culture/religion" and is labeled an extremist.

Meanwhile others from this group are raping children and the only thing that is said is "oh it's their culture, don't be so racist".

Blows your goddamn mind.

Re: Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists

#110

Post by pcbro141 »

nailer wrote: post #105
heavenlyhash wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the 1,000,000th time: you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater and call it "satire" either.

Do you think pointing out someone else appears to have stock opinions and doesn't actually think about the world around them is "shouting fire in a crowded theatre"?

Spreading the wrong voting day is. The mockery is fine, but I don't see anything ridiculous about Twitter not tolerating voter suppression campaigns on their platform.
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