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Twitter discloses 10k accounts suspended for fomenting political discord

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Re: Twitter discloses 10k accounts suspended for fomenting political discord

#41

Post by mc32 »

tantalor wrote: post #19
mc32 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In order to combat vile trolling and direct incitement to violence, Twitter has taken it upon themselves to moderate other behaviors as well. There are historic tweets from senior people at Twitter which today would get banned. As an example, if I were to the r-word, I could get the hammer, depending if it’s noticed or not. I do not use the r-word. I think it’s in poor taste and reflects badly on one’s upbringing to…

Twitter does not constrain your ability to hold/believe your opinion, merely to express it on their platform (which they own and grant you access under the condition you conform to the rules they apply to everybody).

So if a foreign concern were to buy Twitter and they changed their ToS and banned talk of dissident oppression in Russia and banned talk of persecutions in China and banned talk about climate change, people would just chuck it up to, “it's their platform” love it leave it?

Re: Twitter discloses 10k accounts suspended for fomenting political discord

#42

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

Porthos9K wrote: post #36
jstewartmobile wrote: post #17

about damn time! this "internet" thing--letting ordinary dummies all over the world ( even the ones in shithole countries ) talk to each other--is, was, and always will be bad news . only way to protect these fools from " fake news " is to filter everything through the pure and blameless mouths of demographically-targeted, perfect-haired multimillionaires reading teleprompters. it is the only way! in light of this gl…

Nice sarcasm. Too bad hardly anybody seems to get it.

People could be understanding the sarcasm, but instead down-voting as that's not what this site is meant for.

Re: Twitter discloses 10k accounts suspended for fomenting political discord

#43

Post by PorterDuff »

diveanon wrote: post #32

So they finally banned Trump's account?

Trump's account is a beautiful example of how useless Twitter is.

Typically it goes...

Trump: CONGRATULATIONS ON FIREFIGHTERS FOR MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. THIS ADMINISTRATION IS FOR FIREFIGHTERS!

Followed by 1k responses of YAY TRUMP! and 50k responses of people vomiting up any old thing that's just as insulting as they can cook up. Why on Earth do people waste their time on this sort of thing? It has evolved from keyboard warriorhood to some sort of internet Tourette's.

/end old man rant.

Re: Twitter discloses 10k accounts suspended for fomenting political discord

#44

Post by GrassFedAltCoin »

dymk wrote: post #34
GrassFedAltCoin wrote: post #33

I'm amazed at how certain people seem on either side of this debate. This seems to me like an incredibly difficult problem, and I can't see a solution that doesn't involve significant trade offs. On one hand, silencing people for "inciting unrest" does sound like something a dystopian judge would say before passing sentence. On the other, there is a philosophical argument—and economic incentive—for Twitter to protect…

A single individual or organized group possessing thousands of accounts used to astroturf a platform is abusive of the platform, regardless of what the message is - banning that sort of activity doesn't seem dystopian.

I don't disagree at all — but in your hypothetical situation, they're clearly not being banned for causing "unrest." They're being banned for creating fake accounts to spam the platform en masse, "regardless of what the message is" as you say.

Re: Twitter discloses 10k accounts suspended for fomenting political discord

#45

Post by mc32 »

deminature wrote: post #25
mc32 wrote: post #8

If they are bots which get paid or are under control of a government, sure, suspend. If these are individuals voicing opinions and not inciting violence, I think they are wrong. People should be able to have disagreeable opinions, even illegal opinions (“pot should be legal”), “the minister in an asshole”. People should not be guilty of wrongthink.

Twitter discussion threads are so often extremely polarized and uncivil. They have to do something otherwise the majority of users who aren't interested in reading threads of propaganda accounts fighting with each other will lose interest in the site. It's not about suppressing controversial opinions, it's about keeping what is fundamentally a site most people use for entertainment, entertaining, instead of a battleg…

I use it for following topics I’m interested in. I’ve not seen haywire imbroglios. I don’t have to follow threads that I disagree with. I don’t have to follow people/accounts who annoy me. I don’t have to go hunt down and report people whose opinions I disagree with.

Re: Twitter discloses 10k accounts suspended for fomenting political discord

#46

Post by [deleted] »

mc32 wrote: post #8

If they are bots which get paid or are under control of a government, sure, suspend. If these are individuals voicing opinions and not inciting violence, I think they are wrong. People should be able to have disagreeable opinions, even illegal opinions (“pot should be legal”), “the minister in an asshole”. People should not be guilty of wrongthink.

[deleted]

Re: Twitter discloses 10k accounts suspended for fomenting political discord

#47

Post by jstewartmobile »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #42
Porthos9K wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice sarcasm. Too bad hardly anybody seems to get it.

People could be understanding the sarcasm, but instead down-voting as that's not what this site is meant for.

literature and history be damned, we should all stand in obedient awe of some lisp nerd's rules for meaningful conversation

Re: Twitter discloses 10k accounts suspended for fomenting political discord

#48

Post by Porthos9K »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #40
Porthos9K wrote: post #29

If you really cared about preserving your right to freedom of speech, you'd have your own website. You check your rights at the door the second you log in to a platform you don't own or control. Twitter isn't a government agency, but a private corporation protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. They have the right to reject any content you contribute without being liable for any user-generated con…

That's still requiring someone to host you (assuming your not self serving), your ISP to connect to you, and your DNS to continue directing people to you. You're always reliant on someone else's platform to keep you afloat on the internet.

I know, and I think some of that could be eliminated if ISPs were required by law to allow people to self-host Web and gopher sites (and properly secured SMTP) on residential connections and do a full IPV6 rollout so that you can have your server directly accessible without NAT if you want. Then you can just give out your IPV6 address if domain registrars refuse to serve you because they find your site's contents objectionable.

Re: Twitter discloses 10k accounts suspended for fomenting political discord

#49

Post by mc32 »

djsumdog wrote: post #21
mc32 wrote: post #8

If they are bots which get paid or are under control of a government, sure, suspend. If these are individuals voicing opinions and not inciting violence, I think they are wrong. People should be able to have disagreeable opinions, even illegal opinions (“pot should be legal”), “the minister in an asshole”. People should not be guilty of wrongthink.

Twitter blocked my account for a nearly 10 year old post. I'll admit, I'm not prod of the post. It was immature and something I wouldn't write today. But looking at our past is how we grow, and erasing it doesn't seem right: https://fightthefuture.org/article/twitter-is-trying-to-eras...

Yeah that tweet is uncivil due to foul language. I wouldn’t use that same language, but if Twitter doesn’t have a ban on those words, I don’t see why they’d ban the tweet or account which is expressing an opinion and isn’t a call to act on violence.

It’s really trying to mould behavior otherwise allowed in public. We accept this opinion but not that opinion or language.

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