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Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

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Re: Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

#371

Twitter is well within the rights to do this, but I have seen tweets from blue check marks essentially calling for violence and Twitter didn't remove them. So, does that mean Twitter actually -supports- those view points now? If Twitter is going to police people, it needs to be across the board. Otherwise it's just a weird censorship that is targeting one person and can easily be seen as political. Everyone is applau…

Eh? Do you have any examples? This is nothing new, Twitter has been applying this standard to tweets for a very long time (it's part of their ToS!). It usually results in deleting your tweet or an outright ban. The only difference here is that they've kept the tweet up since they deem it to be in the public's interest.

How about this one:

https://twitter.com/kathygriffin/status/1086927762634399744?...

Re: Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

#372

Twitter is well within the rights to do this, but I have seen tweets from blue check marks essentially calling for violence and Twitter didn't remove them. So, does that mean Twitter actually -supports- those view points now? If Twitter is going to police people, it needs to be across the board. Otherwise it's just a weird censorship that is targeting one person and can easily be seen as political. Everyone is applau…

[deleted]

Re: Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

#373

Twitter is well within the rights to do this, but I have seen tweets from blue check marks essentially calling for violence and Twitter didn't remove them. So, does that mean Twitter actually -supports- those view points now? If Twitter is going to police people, it needs to be across the board. Otherwise it's just a weird censorship that is targeting one person and can easily be seen as political. Everyone is applau…

it's almost like the president of the united states is held to a higher standard than some random jackanapes with a "blue check" next to their name.

Re: Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

#374

Twitter is well within the rights to do this, but I have seen tweets from blue check marks essentially calling for violence and Twitter didn't remove them. So, does that mean Twitter actually -supports- those view points now? If Twitter is going to police people, it needs to be across the board. Otherwise it's just a weird censorship that is targeting one person and can easily be seen as political. Everyone is applau…

There is absolutely some truth that the mainstream media and tech giants are colluding to silence conservatives - the truth is that the mainstream "conservative" position in the US happens to involve behavior that runs afoul of neutral content norms (don't threaten people with violence, don't call them racial slurs, don't dox people, etc.) disproportionately more often than people with other political beliefs. Sure, there are some people of other political persuasions who are "essentially" calling for violence, but there's a large gap between "as MLK said, a riot is the language of the unheard, so I can't condemn it" (and even that is hardly a universal position among non-conservatives) and "I, the actual commander-in-chief of an actual military, am telling that military to use violence against my own people" + "We all think this is good and proper, do it."

This is an uncomfortable, rude, politically incorrect truth - but we're not going to have a productive discussion about "silencing conservatives" if we can't admit it.

It is absolutely possible to advocate for the political positions of conservatives (looking through the 2016 GOP platform, for instance - limited government, federalism, avoiding trade deficits, repeal of Dodd-Frank, auditing the Fed, right-to-work, opposition to abortion, support for the electoral college, removing gray wolves from the endangered species list, etc., etc.) without behavior that runs afoul of the norms. If there's a case where Twitter suspends someone for opposing Dodd-Frank, then we should absolutely criticize Twitter. (And I think there's a legitimate discussion to be had about where the line is about criticizing the government's pandemic response vs. spreading misinformation, for instance.) But saying "Conservatives really like to advocate for shooting people without due process, Twitter doesn't permit the advocacy of shooting people without due process, therefore Twitter is biased against conservatives" is more of a statement about conservatives than about Twitter.

Re: Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

#375
post #355

Twitter is well within the rights to do this, but I have seen tweets from blue check marks essentially calling for violence and Twitter didn't remove them. So, does that mean Twitter actually -supports- those view points now? If Twitter is going to police people, it needs to be across the board. Otherwise it's just a weird censorship that is targeting one person and can easily be seen as political. Everyone is applau…

There is a worse side effect that comes from conservatives feeling that they have been silenced, as people feel like they have less and less say in a political process they are more and more likely to start employing means outside of it. The real risk here is that if more and more outlets for conservative voices are silenced, whether for good cause or not, this will reinforce the narrative that many of them have that…

[flagged]

Re: Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

#376
post #16

The service that hosts the accounts of all branches of the US military, all major weapons contractors, all three letter agencies, and many foreign militaries, governments, and world leaders guilty of all manner of war crimes, and this is where they draw the line for violence. Really interesting.

Well, in political science and sociology, one of the most common definitions of the state is that it possesses a monopoly on legitimate/lawful violence. Violence conducted via the military or police, according to regulation , is lawful. But violence conducted by citizens, or by members of the government or military that is not according to law/regulation, is not lawful. I'm not saying Twitter's drawing the line exact…

Presidents are also commanders in chief; a civilian that has ultimate control of state’s violence monopoly. Still the distinction between lawful/unlawful applies.

Re: Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

#377

Twitter is well within the rights to do this, but I have seen tweets from blue check marks essentially calling for violence and Twitter didn't remove them. So, does that mean Twitter actually -supports- those view points now? If Twitter is going to police people, it needs to be across the board. Otherwise it's just a weird censorship that is targeting one person and can easily be seen as political. Everyone is applau…

I don't think any reasonable person would think that Twitter supports violence simply because they aren't removing posts from people who don't matter. When you have limited resources, you have to apply them in a way that has the most impact. Making sure the President of the United States is adhering to their ToS seems like a good place to start.

Remember that Twitter gets something like 500 million tweets per day. If it took someone working minimum wage 15 seconds to decide whether or not a tweet violates their ToS, Twitter would spend 30 million dollars a day on this, and the results probably wouldn't even be that good. So they don't do that, instead focusing resources where they will have the most impact.

I am also pretty sure they are not trying to censor conservative viewpoints. If Joe Biden starts telling people to go shoot looters or that Mitch McConnell murdered one of his aides, I am sure they will add a little note to those tweets.

Re: Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

#378
post #355

Twitter is well within the rights to do this, but I have seen tweets from blue check marks essentially calling for violence and Twitter didn't remove them. So, does that mean Twitter actually -supports- those view points now? If Twitter is going to police people, it needs to be across the board. Otherwise it's just a weird censorship that is targeting one person and can easily be seen as political. Everyone is applau…

There is a worse side effect that comes from conservatives feeling that they have been silenced, as people feel like they have less and less say in a political process they are more and more likely to start employing means outside of it. The real risk here is that if more and more outlets for conservative voices are silenced, whether for good cause or not, this will reinforce the narrative that many of them have that…

Alternatively - if those pushing the far-right violent rhetoric don't have as much of an audience, their support may fade because they don't have a platform.

Deplatforming works.

Re: Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh? Do you have any examples? This is nothing new, Twitter has been applying this standard to tweets for a very long time (it's part of their ToS!). It usually results in deleting your tweet or an outright ban. The only difference here is that they've kept the tweet up since they deem it to be in the public's interest.

How about this one: https://twitter.com/kathygriffin/status/1086927762634399744?...

The Trump crowd sure hates Kathy Griffin today. Do you guys know that she is a comedian and not the President of the United States?

Re: Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh? Do you have any examples? This is nothing new, Twitter has been applying this standard to tweets for a very long time (it's part of their ToS!). It usually results in deleting your tweet or an outright ban. The only difference here is that they've kept the tweet up since they deem it to be in the public's interest.

https://twitter.com/RaheemKassam/status/1266340243134963712 EDIT: Scroll down a bit, the original poster made their account private a few moments ago

It's been a couple of hours - in general, saying stuff like that actually does in fact get Twitter's content moderation to kick in and force you to delete the tweet, and I regularly see folks who aren't conservative get temporary suspensions for it.
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