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Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists
91–100 of 174 posts
Re: Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
For spreading incorrect election information. Plenty of far right twitter accounts, these where designed to get banned for publicity.
> these where designed to get banned for publicity. I don't think they were. I think they were designed to be funny and characterize a particular ideology. As I said in the other comment, this article gives one extremely mild example of incorrect election information and says "a few" of the accounts were participating in that. Why would you ban all of them, including the accounts not spreading misinformation?
Not all of these accounts where banned. But, it's likely they where banning multiple sock puppets from the same users.
Re: Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists
#93One thing I really like about Twitter is that you can choose to follow who you want. If you don't want to see memes making fun of you, just don't follow accounts that post/retweet these memes. It's sad that Twitter is banning satire accounts. I'm against all censorship of lawful speech, and condemn Twitter and any social media platform that participates in this kind of censorship.
B-b-but they spread information that could lead intelligent and informed people to miss the vote!
Who doesn't get the voting date from Twitter these days?
Re: Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists
#94One thing I really like about Twitter is that you can choose to follow who you want. If you don't want to see memes making fun of you, just don't follow accounts that post/retweet these memes. It's sad that Twitter is banning satire accounts. I'm against all censorship of lawful speech, and condemn Twitter and any social media platform that participates in this kind of censorship.
And this is really at the root of the entire culture war. It used to be 'hey, that person said something stupid', lol ok what an idiot, anyway moving on to what we were doing' Now instead it's 'hey that person said something stupid, I need to share it to 5000 followers to show just how stupid they are and how virtuous I am for pointing out that it's stupid, hey hey hey people look look look I'm resisting the stupid l…
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Re: Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Originally yes, that was the joke, people just repeating the same buzzwords and catch phrases in response to anything as game NPCs do. However as with all the memes over the last few days, it quickly turns from that into 'well those people are reacting exactly how we thought they would, just keep posting it if it triggers them'. e.g. take Pepe - the only reason it caught on was because the left took the bait and lost…
>take Pepe - the only reason it caught on was because the left took the bait and lost their shit over it. Pepe was popular way before it was a political meme.. Pepe comes from a book released in 2006, and according to KYM feelsbadman became a meme in 2009.
I'm referring to it catching on in a political sense and becoming such a major part of the 2016 election cycle while neither the crying Jordan, the spongebob caveman, the sad ben Affleck and all else that was popular at that time didn't.
Re: Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists
#96One thing I really like about Twitter is that you can choose to follow who you want. If you don't want to see memes making fun of you, just don't follow accounts that post/retweet these memes. It's sad that Twitter is banning satire accounts. I'm against all censorship of lawful speech, and condemn Twitter and any social media platform that participates in this kind of censorship.
For the 1,000,000th time: you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater and call it "satire" either.
Re: Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists
#97I have a hard time believing these troll accounts had a significant impact on anyone's voting decions. Dumb meme, but seems like an over reaction.
Re: Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists
#98One thing I really like about Twitter is that you can choose to follow who you want. If you don't want to see memes making fun of you, just don't follow accounts that post/retweet these memes. It's sad that Twitter is banning satire accounts. I'm against all censorship of lawful speech, and condemn Twitter and any social media platform that participates in this kind of censorship.
I've been following on these /pol/ memes for a while, and I'm quite disappointed about the mainstream media. Because this, as a postmodern phenomenon, and their political and social implications need serious sociological and cultural studies. What are the social and cultural basis of these memes and the political movement of it? What is its underlying mechanism? If you can't understand it and just blindly discredit them it as "far-right troll campaign", then it is parts of the problem, not a solution.
"The Internet is an inherently platform of democratic and equality, which empowered the individuals to be free from the establishment", this narrative from the 80s has been proven to be wishful thinking. It appears to be true, because it coincided with the economic boom of 80s neoliberalism until ~2010. When middle east politics started to be destabilized, people celebrated because the revolution was liberal. There was even the "cute cat theory of digital activism", which says when there are funny memes involved, people are more likely to join the political protest of Internet freedom. And it was seen as a good thing - a faceless dictatorial government was overthrown by lolcat. Isn't it the miracle of the postmodern Internet?
But it has been clear that ANY idea, can by popularized and supported by a free Internet. Now in the current age of deglobalization and political and economic failure, naturally, nationalistic and conservative ideals are getting more and more popular support, like the Arab Spring, was supported by a number of people of the young generation who are frustrated by the status quo. And memes also played an important role in the movement, but now they are called hate symbols and should be banned by major platforms.
Now it has been clear that the Internet can surely empowers "individuals to be free from the establishment", it is very true, but unfortunately, any ideas, not only "democratic and equality" ideas, as long as long as it has popular support, can be empowered by the Internet.
When we've realizing an free and open Internet does not necessarily support liberalism, or democracy, or equality, the next question naturally arisen - when the important argument for Internet freedom is that they bring democracy and equality no longer works, should the Internet be free and open? Should we have free speech anymore? I believe the answer must be yes, including "them".
But the media are now just blindly discredit the trolls, and only solution they purposed was "don't feed the trolls", or Twitter and Facebook should ban "hate speech". If the mainstream cannot actually to study and understand its mechanism, and the underlying social-economical basis this conflict, of this new online anti-establishment and trolls, and to provide a social solution, I don't think the problem is going to be solved at anytime, and the answer to free speech, and a free, open Internet is going to be "No" soon.
If you want to understand more about the trolling culture and its mechanism, I recommend "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture", by Whitney Phillips, published by The MIT Press.
Re: Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists
#99The speed at which the media have rounded against this meme is breathtaking. Are some memes inherently powerful and just need to be controlled? Why are they powerful? How much longer can 30 year old boomers be let sip Monsters outdoors? It's not right.
Yes some memes are more powerful than others. Like biological replicators, they score on longevity, fecundity and fidelity.
For example many religions have a clause where if you stop believing you go to hell. Or if you don't teach it to your children you are a bad person. Very powerful mechanism.
Re: Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists
#100It's interesting that this Twitter ban gets all this attention, while a far more civically damaging coordinated mass-ban by Twitter and Facebook has largely escaped notice. [0] If one were a cynic, one might suggest that there is only enough space in the news cycle for one group of unsympathetic ban victims.
[0] https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/10/13/internet-censorship-...