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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

#111

Post by nailer »

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…

> Would you distinguish satire from impersonation? ... is clearly self-identifying as a satire of Donald Trump. Nobody is going to confuse that account with the real one.

> But 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.

Personally I'd distinguish satire from impersonation in this case as the banned accounts have:

- Grey flat colored faces

- A nose made out out of two straight black lines

- The username "npc" followed by a number

For example, every avatar the image underneath the headline in the article linked to in this page:

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/17/business/17NPC/17...

It's not a particularly subtle distinction.

> making "your side" look stupid

Just wanted to quote that again.

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

#112

Post by michaelflux »

jf- wrote: post #80

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I’d prefer if this culture war crap were kept off HN. There are plenty of other places to discuss this, just because Twitter is involved doesn’t mean it’s related to tech.

Not unpopular opinion at all. Reckon most here would agree.

Used to be you could come here to at least slightly escape from all that shit and artificial outrage. Now I can barely tell the difference between HN and Vox.

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

#113

Post by atq2119 »

jf- wrote: post #80

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I’d prefer if this culture war crap were kept off HN. There are plenty of other places to discuss this, just because Twitter is involved doesn’t mean it’s related to tech.

Yeah, this thread has degraded extremely rapidly in terms of comments. And luckily it just disappeared off the front page :)

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

#114

Post by nailer »

pcbro141 wrote: post #110
nailer wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you think: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/17/business/17NPC/17... looks like a source of trustworthy information?

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

#115

Post by michaelflux »

pcbro141 wrote: post #108
michaelflux wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

> people deliberately say misleading things for purpose of influencing an election

Well there goes every political campaign ever.

All jokes aside, these days it doesn't matter if it's the media, the campaigns themselves, the supporters - it's not about the facts, it's not about anything real, it's just about spreading misleading shit faster than it can be fact checked.

It's an issue on the right, it's an issue on the left. One may be worse than the other, but it doesn't mean it's better, it's just marginally less shitty.

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

#116

Post by ericdykstra »

pcbro141 wrote: post #108
michaelflux wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

Where do you draw the line? Do you think an account with...

username: NPC #15253823

id: npc_15253823

avatar: generic gray NPC avatar with sunglasses

posting #LetHerDecide memes is "clearly for the purpose of influencing an election," or is it satire? If that level of satire won't be tolerated, what will?

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

#117

Post by pcbro141 »

abnry wrote: post #37
avaer wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article, spreading misleading voter information, which could cause voters to miss the date.

Sigh. So people who would normally vote liberal are now going to vote on the wrong day because they got the election day date from a troll account mocking their liberal position--and they didn't bother to remember that elections are always on Tuesdays or to use google?

I guess Twitter found the potential negatives of allowing voter suppression campaigns on their platform (no matter how ineffectual you think they are) are greater than the benefits of allowing people to carry them out 'because free speech.'

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

#118

Post by whywhywhywhy »

ericdykstra wrote: post #72
7dare wrote: post #61

> Evidence suggests that these are mostly just attention-starved gamers looking to impress one another What is the link with gaming I'm missing here? Is 4chan simply associated by gaming defacto? I don't see anything else about video games or any evidence of these people being gamers in the article...

"Gamers" and "Gamergate" is a generic boogeyman that media outlets can use to direct their anger at. See "Why Young Men of Color Are Joining White-Supremacist Groups" [1] for another example. The obvious answer to "Why are non-whites joining white supremacist groups" might be "They're not white supremacist groups, they're just mislabeled by people who call everyone they disagree with nazis." The article explains that…

To me, the real explanation for a lot of this bizarre nonsense is because journalists are spending all day on Twitter which in reality isn't the real world it's technically just a very popular internet forum with a few famous users and they've begun to not understand that what happens on the internet forum Twitter does not represent what's actually happening in the real world.

This is how internet forum drama gets mistaken as actually something people in the real world actually think about.

Once you start to see this it becomes so strange that you can even tell when a journalist is a Twitter addict just from some of the terms and thinking they start to include in their articles.

There is very much a Twitter hivemind heavy users start to tap into, and unlike say Reddit users or even 4chan users they mistake Twitter as being the real world and the hivemind as reality.

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

#119

Post by simonsarris »

michaelflux wrote: post #49
fromthestart wrote: post #19

This meme is originally based on the idea that not all people have an inner voice, and the supposition that people without an inner voice may be less likely to introspect and think critically. I think the ban is a little ridiculous and likely has more to do with it's origin on a so called "far right" website than anything else.

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.

Bernie is anti open borders, calling it basic globalist shilling. "It would make everybody in America poorer—you’re doing away with the concept of a nation state"

I bet if you repeated his opinion but didn't use his name on Facebook, some, uh, [leftward people with very reflexive opinions] would show up to argue with you.

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

#120

Post by Fellshard »

A few observations.

1. Why did NYT get a special scoop on who's been banned, and why? That makes it more likely to be perceived as an act of signaling more than one of genuine enforcement.

2. Streisand Effect, in several ways. The reaction by Twitter also serves to put blood in the water, letting those trolls know that the tactic hit a soft spot, and encouraging them to hit it more aggressively.

3. Where's the line between this and satire? I'm seeing: a. Blatant hyperbole b. Obvious markers that the account is a part of the satire: hyperbolic or downright silly account names, and a distinctive avatar

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