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Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

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Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#141
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just gamergate that uses that ambiguity -- think of how the "okay" symbol ("o" formed with thumb and first finger, remaining three extended upward) has been repurposed as a white power gesture; all of the group photos of proud boys and other white supremacist groups now have them all holding up that distinctive "okay" hand gesture, because it's a call out to their values and to the people that share them. Bu…

The proud boys are a strange white power group when they have prominent black members.

I'm glad you didn't dispute that they're a white power group; for interested readers who waded this far into the comments, here are some useful links:

* https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/proud-boys * https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/grou...

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#142
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The proud boys are a strange white power group when they have prominent black members.

I'm glad you didn't dispute that they're a white power group; for interested readers who waded this far into the comments, here are some useful links: * https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/proud-boys * https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/grou...

Obviously I was disputing it.

You do know that Gavin McInnes wife is an Indian right and he started the proud boys as a joke? Do do know that right?

I wouldn't believe everything you read from those sources. The SPLC just had to apologise and pay 3.3 million to Maajid Nawas because they called him Islamophobic and he is a Muslim. Maajid Nawas was suing them for deformation in the UK.

https://www.splcenter.org/news/2018/06/18/splc-statement-reg...

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#143

So tired of these "OMG What Did I Create?" stories from social media devs. How about you grow a conscience _before_ you build these things? I have told managers to go f themselves for: Content that would demean people Lying to or misleading customers *Hosing over my fellow engineers ... among other things I don't think it's that special of a thing to do but reading these things makes it seem like it is.

Ironically it's things like Twitter that has popularised these types of public displays of confession of guilt in the court of public opinion. Maybe it's sensible to forsee the mob attacking you by apologizing before they get you.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#144
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad you didn't dispute that they're a white power group; for interested readers who waded this far into the comments, here are some useful links: * https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/proud-boys * https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/grou...

Obviously I was disputing it. You do know that Gavin McInnes wife is an Indian right and he started the proud boys as a joke? Do do know that right? I wouldn't believe everything you read from those sources. The SPLC just had to apologise and pay 3.3 million to Maajid Nawas because they called him Islamophobic and he is a Muslim. Maajid Nawas was suing them for deformation in the UK. https://www.splcenter.org/news/20…

If you'd like to post anything refuting the fact that the Proud Boys are a white supremacist group, please do so.

None of these statements: 1) they have non-white members so they can't be, 2) the founder has a non-white wife, 3) the SPL Center was successfully sued for unrelated reasons by someone unrelated to the Proud Boys, or 3) "it started as a joke" refute the claim.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#145
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously I was disputing it. You do know that Gavin McInnes wife is an Indian right and he started the proud boys as a joke? Do do know that right? I wouldn't believe everything you read from those sources. The SPLC just had to apologise and pay 3.3 million to Maajid Nawas because they called him Islamophobic and he is a Muslim. Maajid Nawas was suing them for deformation in the UK. https://www.splcenter.org/news/20…

If you'd like to post anything refuting the fact that the Proud Boys are a white supremacist group, please do so. None of these statements: 1) they have non-white members so they can't be, 2) the founder has a non-white wife, 3) the SPL Center was successfully sued for unrelated reasons by someone unrelated to the Proud Boys, or 3) "it started as a joke" refute the claim.

No sorry this is backwards. I don't have to prove anything. I wasn't making a claim they were (and it is quite a serious claim).

As far as I am concerned there is no evidence other than spurious claims from the SPLC and the ADL.

I gave you evidence that the SPLC throws the racism (Islamophobia is a very similar accusation) around too liberally and because Maajid Nawas is in the UK that has tighter defamation laws he was able sue them for a substantial amount of money. If the SPLC doesn't do basic research about Maajid Nawas, how can you trust they have done their research about the Proud Boys? The answer is you can't.

And sorry those statements do somewhat refute the claim. White-supremacists wouldn't have non-white people in their movement. White-supremacists wouldn't have children with non-whites (they call those people race-traitors). The movement was started as a joke (Gavin McInnes was on Joe Rogan Podcast 920 & 710 I believe it was one of these appearances where he specifically coined the term, but it could be an earlier appearance on his show).

So I can back up everything I've said. All I've seen presented so far from you is smear pieces by organisations that even Noam Chomsky has criticised in the past.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always roll my eyes when HN falls for interviews with "random engineer or product person responsible for [feature]", as if that automatically confers authority like they're Richard Stallman or Tim Berners-Lee. Combining the fact that they have nothing insightful to say with the ego boost from being interviewed in visible articles means that people like this are going to say whatever they think will provide a punchy…

For me, the motivation is that it's interesting to see someone grapple with the consequences of their work. This guy is clearly no guru. And the sensationalism of the title is just media being media.

Yea, I think that's definitely an interesting thing to see in action. But what I'm pushing back against is the notion that this person's perspective is all that valuable: he doesn't even appear to have been that heavily involved in the feature. The point is that _Buzzfeed knows that_, and they know that this is just a lazy piece for a slow news day, that will be clicked on and shared by the more thoughtless parts of the Internet.

I definitely wouldn't be making this comment were the article about @jack, or someone else that Buzzfeed could make the case was responsible for the design and development of Twitter early and over time.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always roll my eyes when HN falls for interviews with "random engineer or product person responsible for [feature]", as if that automatically confers authority like they're Richard Stallman or Tim Berners-Lee. Combining the fact that they have nothing insightful to say with the ego boost from being interviewed in visible articles means that people like this are going to say whatever they think will provide a punchy…

Why do you say "HN" is falling for it? Hacker News did not write the article. Buzzfeed did. We're simply commenting on it.

I'm not sure I understand this comment at all.

Buzzfeed is the one writing the clickbait. Obviously they would not be the ones falling for anything. HN, collectively, put this article on the front page, treating shallow nonsense as if it's notable because it feeds our biases. It's a data point that speaks ill of the collective discernment abilities of HN (and the quality of the community) that we put content-free clickbait on the front page and discuss it as if it's valuable (or more accurately, use it as a fig leaf for soapboxing preexisting views).

This isn't some generalized "HN is full of dumb low-effort takes and clickbait" complaint; I got used to that years and years ago. But part of being on an online forum is pushing back against stuff like this and calling out low quality content when we see it.

Re: Man Who Built the Retweet: “We Handed a Loaded Weapon to 4-Year-Olds”

#148
post #83
post #6

I think the real problem is Twitter refuses to make sophisticated filtering available to users. Simple mute, block, and keyword filtering are inadequate.

Good filtering has traditionally been one of the killer features of userscripts for enhancing imageboard experiences. Things like filtering by image hash, regular expressions and recursive filtering (also filter content that engages with filtered content; repeat) are pretty powerful tools for fighting abuse or, at minimum, making the daily grind not quite so terrible. Stuff like that is generally accomplishable clien…

Hey, I am also looking for a way to filter images like that. How about we exchange contacts? If email is okay, here is mine: rjt %40 keemail dot me
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