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Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads

bbc.com

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Re: Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads

#311

Post by vorotato »

caseysoftware wrote: post #274
vijayr wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says "The social network has not given an explanation for its actions." Banning is fine, but it would be nice if they can actually say in writing, citing reasons and evidence, why they banned them (even if lots of evidence exists elsewhere). Banning without any explanation isn't of any use to anyone

In the US, the Net Neutrality position describes internet access as a utility, not a luxury. Further the UN declares it a Human Right. If either/both of those positions hold, then the gatekeepers - Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc - suppressing any view or blocking access to any group could be a violation of human rights. I think that will have to be settled in court, but it will get messy for those companies.

Nobody is being banned from the internet. They are merely being banned by a privately owned American website. Businesses in America have the right to refuse service to any individual provided it is not due to protected status. In America your opinions do not grant you protected status.

Re: Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads

#312

Post by dragonwriter »

psyc wrote: post #222
mwill wrote: post #14

I 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…

From what I see in my feed, it seems 100% of "progressives" have doubled down on their hyperbolic, established, in-group rhetoric. I followed everyone that I follow because they are programmers, not because they are "progressives". But from looking at my feed, one would think that I deliberately set out to create a radical SJW echo chamber for myself.

> From what I see in my feed, it seems 100% of "progressives" have doubled down on their hyperbolic, established, in-group rhetoric

Then that's a problem with your filter bubble.

> I followed everyone that I follow because they are programmers, not because they are "progressives".

Which is why your view of progressives produced by that is distorted. Programmers who happen to be progressives aren't representative of progressives as a whole (they aren't representative of the broader group along class/income, education, race/ethnicity, or gender lines, among others, and several of those do correlate with preferred approaches.)

Re: Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads

#313

Post by vorotato »

cmdrfred wrote: post #191
jinfiesto wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's painting one group as a whole at all. No one is suggesting that all or most Trump supporters are racist. Only that many alt-right figure heads are. It's not a heavy claim. With Steve Bannon being appointed to the upcoming White House staff, there's been a parade of examples illustrating the blatant racism of alt-right figureheads. While I appreciate the sentiment that Democrats lost the election by…

"No one is suggesting that all or most Trump supporters are racist." I have seen that claim hundreds of times in the past few days.

In this specific thread? I think context is relevant here.

Re: Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads

#314

Post by dragonwriter »

wavefunction wrote: post #140
adam12 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They actually are racist and nasty people and we shouldn't group them together with other conservative/right/trump voters. This sounds like stereotyping to me.

Are you kidding me? Those who identify as "alt-right" aka Far Right are definitely racist and nasty folks and you can easily see it by reading through their screeds and "jokes." In the US, they have a right to express themselves, but they do not have a right to be accepted as decent and normal people.

> Those who identify as "alt-right" aka Far Right

While the alt-right is defined by some toxic views (white nationalism, particularly) also found in some parts of the far right, it's a distinct group.

Re: Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads

#315

Post by GBond »

dahart wrote: post #196
tajen wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A cartoon of Pepe the Frog is a commonly used symbol of the alt-right" is the subtitle of the image in the BBC article. Look at it, the drawing innocence is really staggering: I'm wondering what is the link, whether the link is warranted, and whether Twitter used posts of Pepe the Frog to recognize alt-right people. Sounds like a badly AI-generated inference to me.

I just listened to the story of Pepe yesterday. https://gimletmedia.com/episode/77-the-grand-tapestry-of-pep... The artist who created Pepe had nothing to do with the alt-right, it's an internet meme they took by sheer volume, just by using it a lot. Pepe has been around for 10 years, and the use of it as a symbol of white supremacy is 2-3 years old. The artist recently got put on a web page by the Anti Defamation Le…

The reality is sometimes the meaning poured behind a symbol gets changed. The SWASTIKA symbol, originally meant "Good Fortune", existed 5000 years before the Nazis used it.

Re: Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads

#316

Post by tajen »

FilterSweep wrote: post #54
tajen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is in a much less monopolistic situation. Twitter is a mandatory medium for public communication. That's which censorship on Twitter is worse than in a subreddit. Besides, it's a long stretch to imagine that right-wing media convinces people to become right-wing. In my case it's rather the opposite: I've been super-over-surcovered with left-wing pro-women communication until my 30s (whether in media or in prog…

> Twitter is a mandatory medium for public communication What makes it "mandatory" - the fact that they choose not to use an alternative, or the fact that they have not built an alternative?

The network effect. Viewers are on Twitter, so no party can succeed without using Twitter for communication.

What's your point, are you saying that new political parties are only allowed to grow if build their own Twitter competitor or have pre-approved ideas?

Re: Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads

#317

Post by SolaceQuantum »

nathanasmith wrote: post #304
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I thought Trump was supported by economic and not name calling or racial issues. What I actually said (emphasis mine): >> part of what sent people to the polls for Trump The conversation from some quarters has been to group people into neat little boxes that they don't actually fit in. People voted Trump for many reasons. It is a fallacy to hypostatize them all into a singular perspective. When you see the world is…

I do hope you mean the general "you" in this language, otherwise I will have to ask for clarification if you mean to imply that I am unable to view the world into more than hyposanitization of a singular perspective.

I'm merely confused why white privilege shouldn't be something that is recognized as existing on its own, alongside with class privilege, able-bodied privilege, and all other things that kind of interact and intersect. A black rich woman is in some ways better off than a white poor man, but being black still affects her, bring a woman still affects her. For example, maybe she cannot find a bra that fits her skin color, or she cannot find makeup to fit her skin color but society demands she wear makeup. Similarly, a white deaf man will not have to deal with makeup or bras, but he'll have to deal with the difficulties of being deaf, including the exclusion of the deaf community and the difficulty/on-going discussion in discerning deaf culture as an illness that needs to be cured or a community that should be fostered.

Re: Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads

#318

Post by grzm »

dictum wrote: post #270
psyc wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I see in my feed, it seems 100% of "progressives" have doubled down on their hyperbolic, established, in-group rhetoric. I followed everyone that I follow because they are programmers, not because they are "progressives". But from looking at my feed, one would think that I deliberately set out to create a radical SJW echo chamber for myself.

I looked at a list of OSS project leaders and other programmers recently and was surprised at the popularity of the hammer and sickle symbol in their bios. Upside is that I now know who not to listen to when the next tech drama pops up.

Do you literally mean hammer and sickle? Or is that a literary device?

Re: Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads

#320

Post by nathanasmith »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #317
nathanasmith wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought Trump was supported by economic and not name calling or racial issues. What I actually said (emphasis mine): >> part of what sent people to the polls for Trump The conversation from some quarters has been to group people into neat little boxes that they don't actually fit in. People voted Trump for many reasons. It is a fallacy to hypostatize them all into a singular perspective. When you see the world is…

I do hope you mean the general "you" in this language, otherwise I will have to ask for clarification if you mean to imply that I am unable to view the world into more than hyposanitization of a singular perspective. I'm merely confused why white privilege shouldn't be something that is recognized as existing on its own, alongside with class privilege, able-bodied privilege, and all other things that kind of interact…

There is a comment on this article by me with a link to a video addressing "white privilege". I'm in class right now so I cannot go at length on its contents. If you want further enlightenment, watch the video.
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