This will end badly.
For whom? I think this is going to go very well for gab.ai. Obviously, not as well for Twitter.
Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads
291–300 of 389 posts
Re: Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
Twitter IMHO is a very poor medium for public communication. It is very difficult to discuss complex issues like gender relations or the dynamics of immigration in a sober, thoughtful, nuanced manner via streams of 140 characters. In the former in particular I actually feel there's a definite case where Twitter amplified division; the notorious "SJW vs MRA" storm advanced little if any productive discussion and merel…
I don't want to presume to tell you how to use twitter but to me, it seems to be clearly geared as a one to many broadcast channel. It is much more akin to a protocol that allows people to subscribe to events/ideas/movements/news and get succinct updates about them. It is a terrible place for discussion objectively, but I believe this was by design-- and a feature.
I do agree with you there. Twitter is great for immediate notifications like that.
For discussion, if people, say, tweeted a link to their blog entry with their thoughts, I feel that would be a great use case of Twitter. Unfortunately some chose to do the entire discussion on Twitter. That often ends up poorly.
Re: Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone with a fairly large rare Pepe collection, and who has been responsible for illustrating some extremely rare Pepes, but is in no way sympathetic to the notion of white supremacy, I find this whole Pepe controversy quite annoying. I've even removed the Pepe patch I had on my backpack in fear that someone would misinterpret my politics. The clearest indiction I had that the media and the Clinton campaign were…
Wow, thanks for posting this. I'm not a US citizen so I had not reviewed the candidate sites but I started to suspect things like this had to come from the democratic campaign. I figured soundbites though, not a page on the website. Unbelievable.
You're most welcome.
I usually take my civic duty fairly seriously and try to stay on top of the candidates and their campaigns but this year I found the negativity and vitriol displayed by both sides to be so grating that I was just tuning things out these last few months.
This whole issue with Pepe really drove things home for me, as juvenile as that may sound. I first stumbled upon Pepe years ago when I was even less sure of myself than I am now and I found the image of Pepe staring out of a window as the rain poured down outside [1] to be a perfect illustration of angst.
I'm upset that such an innocent meme could be co-opted by literal Nazis, but to be honest, I don't hold neo Nazis in particularly high regard so I'm not really surprised nor disappointed. On the other hand, I'd like to think a major candidate's campaign would put a bit more thought into the issue than simply asserting that Pepe posters are all Nazis.
I think most decent people would be upset and hurt at being called a racist, sexist, homophobe, or Nazis without a concrete reason. Yes, Pepe is just a stupid cartoon frog and it's not the end of the world that I no longer have him adorn my backpack, but still I feel this is a good example of the effect falsely labelling people with certain isms can have.
Despite being a progressive far to the left of Clinton, this whole affair makes me sympathetic to all the Trump supports, many, perhaps the vast majority of whom are not racist and have legitimate anger at the way Washington has neglected their concerns, who now face being lumped in with actual racists by the media.
Re: Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
But the difference is the context of history, right? While I definitely don't advocate for any "killallmen" stuff, I can recognize the difference between Jews, who were the actual target of a real genocide in which millions died and whose people are located in a country in a region embroiled in actual physical wars, vs men who are the target of.... internet campaigns? A key aspect is how these sentiments manifest (or…
I don't want to go down the path of who was oppressed, or how, or why. I will say that advocating for genocide is wrong. This shouldn't be rocket science. Advocating for the death or oppression of any group "just 'cause" is wrong. People shouldn't do it. Their behavior shouldn't be condoned, or excused as "they don't really mean it", or "they're not really going to do it", or "other people have it worse". Personally,…
Sure, but can you at least recognize that conflating what's happening here to men (an internet campaign that has no signs of manifesting in the real world in any significant way) vs. what Jews have experienced is not a useful thing to do? It is a huge false equivalence. You can believe that both are bad, while also saying that one of the two is much, much worse to the point that the comparison is unjust.
Re: Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads
#295Re: Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads
#296118 points in 1 hour, page 3 of HN? This story is writing itself. The alt-right is not a small number of people. 50 million went to the polls and voted for Trump. And with things like this, you're giving them ammunition. You just told 50 million people that their views are not accepted in society. You just told the electoral majority that they are not allowed in one of the most common forums for political discourse.…
The story here is simply that politics don't belong on Hacker News, and users (rightly) flag stories like this.
I think the question is how do we determine if a post is relevant to HN when it involves some elements that are "not relevant" (politics) and some that are (technology/Twitter).
There have been several posts—and fruitful discussions—about Facebook, the social media echo chamber, and the election. Why are those posts appropriate, but this is not? Because this is specifically about the alt-right? Because it attracts a certain type of commenter?
Re: Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads
#297I can only see this as furthering the echo chamber that caused many to be so blindsided by Trumps victory. I would like to see specifically why these people were suspended. If they're engaged in harassment obviously the suspension should hold up. If it really is just mass reporting for political speech (I've had friends msging 'targets' for reporting purely for them admitting to voting for Trump), I can only see it a…
These were figures representing groups that shout down diverse opinions and quell the free speech of others with noise and abuse. You're not improving understanding and engagement between communities when you allow bullies to silence the meek.
> shout down diverse opinions and quell the free speech of others with noise and abuse
How does that work? Twitter banned them for spamming?
Re: Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
Racial conflict in America is something that occurs and has modern repercussions. Race matters to a lot of people and should be recognized as having an axiom of privilege not unlike class (which you broght up), gender identity, and sexuality. If you don't believe that different skin colors are treated differently in America I beg you to speak with myself or another person of color of how they have been outsided or tr…
You're twisting my words beyond reason. Just because being white results in additional privilege, that doesn't mean that white people are "privileged" (i.e. better off that non-whites) in general. Even if you reduce the multidimensional spectrum of different advantages a person might have compared to others into a single dimension (and call it "privilege"), by far the most important privilege is class (wealth), other…
Do you have a source that class privilege is greater than all other privileges, including race? I don't believe the common racial bias papers such as applying to schools with a "black" name would change if you could also tick a box that read "I'm rich"?
Re: Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
Racial conflict in America is something that occurs and has modern repercussions. Race matters to a lot of people and should be recognized as having an axiom of privilege not unlike class (which you broght up), gender identity, and sexuality. If you don't believe that different skin colors are treated differently in America I beg you to speak with myself or another person of color of how they have been outsided or tr…
> Race matters to a lot of people and should be recognized as having an axiom of privilege not unlike class (which you broght[ sic ] up), gender identity, and sexuality. The narrative of "white privilege" leaves out the fact that no two people's experiences are ever alike. Social privilege is a combination of many things: socioeconomic status of their parents, educational attainment, criminal history, cultural experi…
I thought Trump was supported by economic and not name calling or racial issues. Did people vote for trump because they felt belittled by name calling? That's kind of petty. I was under the impresssion it was due to unheard serious economic strife in the rust belt.
Re: Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they are in fact members of the Alt-Right -- which it seems none of them deny -- then I don't see why any further explanation is required. The Alt-Right is an SPLC-designated hate group. They promote vile hatred against People of Color, women, Muslims, LGBTQ2s, immigrants, etc. I find it disturbing that well educated people could possibly believe a privately-owned company has some duty to serve as a platform for t…
and why should anyone care what the splc concludes? serious question.
Huh? You're seriously asking why we should care what experts on the far-right have to say about far-right organizations?