Inside Twitter's Long, Slow Struggle To Police Bad Actors (wsj.com) 220
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has personally weighed in on high-profile decisions, frustrating some employees. An anonymous reader shares a report: When Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey testifies before Congress this week, he'll likely be asked about an issue that has been hovering over the company: Just who decides whether a user gets kicked off the site? To some Twitter users -- and even some employees -- it is a mystery. In policing content on the site and punishing bad actors, Twitter relies primarily on its users to report abuses and has a consistent set of policies so that decisions aren't made by just one person, its executives say. Yet, in some cases, Mr. Dorsey has weighed in on content decisions at the last minute or after they were made, sometimes resulting in changes and frustrating other executives and employees [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source], according to people familiar with the matter. Understanding Mr. Dorsey's role in making content decisions is crucial, as Twitter tries to become more transparent to its 335 million users, as well as lawmakers about how it polices toxic content on its site.
Last month, after Twitter's controversial decision to allow far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to remain on its platform, Mr. Dorsey told one person that he had overruled a decision by his staff to kick Mr. Jones off, according to a person familiar with the discussion. Twitter disputes that account and says Mr. Dorsey wasn't involved in those discussions. Twitter's initial inaction on Mr. Jones, after several other major tech companies banned or limited his content, drew fierce backlash from the public and Twitter's own employees, some of whom tweeted in protest. [...] "Any suggestion that Jack made or overruled any of these decisions is completely and totally false," Twitter's chief legal officer, Vijaya Gadde, said in a statement. "Our service can only operate fairly if it's run through consistent application of our rules, rather than the personal views of any executive, including our CEO."
Last month, after Twitter's controversial decision to allow far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to remain on its platform, Mr. Dorsey told one person that he had overruled a decision by his staff to kick Mr. Jones off, according to a person familiar with the discussion. Twitter disputes that account and says Mr. Dorsey wasn't involved in those discussions. Twitter's initial inaction on Mr. Jones, after several other major tech companies banned or limited his content, drew fierce backlash from the public and Twitter's own employees, some of whom tweeted in protest. [...] "Any suggestion that Jack made or overruled any of these decisions is completely and totally false," Twitter's chief legal officer, Vijaya Gadde, said in a statement. "Our service can only operate fairly if it's run through consistent application of our rules, rather than the personal views of any executive, including our CEO."
bad actors (Score:5, Insightful)
you mean "everybody who hurt my feelings and whom i don't like"
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And even a lot of people that never even posted. All of my friends have had their Twitter accounts banned even though as far as I know, none of them have posted. Mine was banned a couple of months ago even though I never posted. I created it to follow my employer's account.
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Re: bad actors (Score:4, Insightful)
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. Itâ(TM)s the only way to be sure.
"through consistent application" (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, they won't. There is absolutely no valid argument that Twitter is a common carrier. To designate them as such, all ISPs and telcos would have to also be so designated, and that's never going to happen.
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Actually, ISPs were common carriers, back when the internet was on phone lines.
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Twitter was never considered by the FCC to be a common carrier.
That's simply not true. When the internet was on phone lines, the phone lines belonged to a common carrier. However, the actual ISP were never considered common carriers.
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If they are "editing" for content, then they are a publisher, then the rules for libel start to apply.
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Now you're starting to understand why they're getting rid of bad actors like Alex Jones.
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may soon learn the hard way what "Common Carrier" means.
Common Carrier doesn't really mean anything to websites. They have some protection if they follow the DMCA, though.
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Maybe that explains why the US has such a huge problem with phone spam.
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Then when questioned on the application twitter spokespersons seem to offer this as a explanation, "its the algorithm that decides".
But that's a clear lie, because which users get banned for which behavior is not at all random. It's extremely targeted. Trump violates Twitter's policies regularly but he's not getting kicked off. Presumably the algorithm includes (if $twat = @POTUS then approvetweet) so you could argue that it is algorithm-based, but a human would clearly have decided.
Not going to happen (Score:1)
Anonymity should end (Score:1, Flamebait)
Facebook, twitter, etc should all (voluntarily) require all users to complete an identity verification process, and then real names should be used as handles.
If you aren't anonymous, then you are far less likely to be a jerk.
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Freedom is a high price to pay to get rid of "jerks".
Re: Anonymity should end (Score:3, Insightful)
Iâ(TM)m sure Chinese dissidents would 100% agree with you.
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I've said it before, the way you do away with free speech is to privatize. Media platforms to a large extent have been treated as public space. This is now being rolled back. So to some extent this is not regulation but deregulation. Social media now get to decide with their advisory boards what is allowed to be said. Guess who gets to be on the advisory boards.
I wouldn't disagree with the idea that people have to be kept accountable for what they say - to some extent. But what you get now is that big inter
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Once you censor, than you are legally liable for not censoring. Choose and perish ;P.
Allow the courts to censor and you have no problem, all entirely the law makers and the courts problem.
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Re:Anonymity should end (Score:4, Interesting)
A better system would be some kind of karma, attached to a pseudonymous user name, like here on Slashdot. As you build up karma, it becomes something that's worthy of accountability. Providing a verified real name could be used to provide initial karma, but it wouldn't be required.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Facebook, twitter, etc should all (voluntarily) require all users to complete an identity verification process, and then real names should be used as handles.
If you aren't anonymous, then you are far less likely to be a jerk.
Perhaps, but not always [twitter.com] ...
Re:Anonymity should end (Score:5, Interesting)
I was around back in the old days, when the university required my real name be on all of my usenet posts.
I made the mistake of correcting a popular figure who was repeating some debunked bullshit. A few months later, I gave in. I moved house, changed my phone number, and have been very careful of my identity ever since. Neither of us was anonymous. Several of the people who called me to threaten me called from their home phones, and since it wasn't a repeated pattern of behaviour by them, the police said it wasn't legally harassment. My phone still rang off the hook with dozens of them every day.
What you're advocating leads to mob rule, where the popular people get to say whatever they like and the little people have to suck it up. I mean, do you really think nobody ever knew what Harvey Weinstein was up to? Was he anonymous? He was just careful to choose victims well down the social ladder from himself. Anonymity is freedom for those of us living at the bottom of the social ladder, that's why it's so popular on sites full of bullying victims, like slashdot. Those of you living privileged lives higher up wouldn't understand.
Yes, there's nazi's and whatever other bogeymen live under your bed down here, but there's a hell of a lot of decent people who just aren't quite as good at playing the social climber game as you. And though you don't want to acknowledge it, there's a lot of socially adept jerks strutting about under their real names because they know their victims will never be able to call them out on it.
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WRONG.
There are plenty of real-life examples which prove your idea of no anonymity is not going to be the solution.
Elon Musk has himself provided us with multiple examples of being a jerk in a very public manner. So have many other people.
There are jerks in the world and you are powerless to prevent them from being jerks. That's how it is and how it will always be.
DEAL WITH IT, and quit acting like a spoiled child who expects the world to conform to his wishes.
Says the anonymous coward.
Elon Musk is not a normal human. He's probably an alien, so as an example, he doesn't count. Also, he may very well lose his job at Tesla for being a jerk. CEOs of public companies with boards of directors and share holds are not immune from being fired, not even Elon.
There are currently few ramifications for being a jerk online. Unless you threaten the life of the President (a crime), or are sued for libel, most everyday people face no repercussions for being jerks online, pro
Long overdue, but kudos to them (Score:1)
Most reasonable people are sick and tired of wading through filth whenever they read a news forum, entertainment forum, twitter feed, sports article, you name it. Many sites simply resort to shutting off comments altogether, which eliminates the angry hate filled trash, but also eliminates the relevant insightful commentary.
The solution is to get rid of the the angry hateful speech...regardless of political leanings. If eliminating the hate and trash happens to impact a certain shade of ideology, well maybe
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Some reasonable people think you shouldn't post braggadocio as an AC.
Re: Long overdue, but kudos to them (Score:2, Informative)
If your "facts" are demonstrably false and any reasonable person can conclude that you're committing libel, and it happens repeatedly, I don't really see why banning would be an issue.
Jones is trying to say he's posting his opinion. That's bs. Saying someone is an actor in a faked school shooting is a factual statement. It is true or it is not. It's not an opinion. If he was doing musical reviews, he'd be giving opinions. In this case, he is repeatedly spreading false information that is impacting the lives
Politics (Score:2, Insightful)
Dorsey didn't deliver on the Alex Jones ban. He chickened out and went for probation. That's breaking ranks.
He pays the price now. Pressure is going to get ramped up until Dorsey is ousted from Twitter. Media hitpieces week in week out until he crumbles or the stock implodes or both.
Because this isn't tech anymore. It's not even business. It's politics.
DMCA? (Score:2)
How does editorial control jibe with the DMCA safe harbor provisions?
It doesn't (Score:4, Insightful)
They could hide behind common carrier, but that's a very high bar to meet. It means being a dumb pipe, like the telephone company. It wouldn't be worth it. They couldn't even ban trolls from flood posting and the like. No social network could survive that.
Instead they're policing their network as best the can. Make no mistake, they didn't want to kick Jones & his ilk off. His viewer's money spends the same as everyone else's and they'd be happy with the advertising dollars. The final straw was when he mimed shooting Bob Mueller.
If you want a sci-fi take on what they're afraid of go read this [amazon.com]. I'm not saying Jones is trying to get somebody killed, but I'm saying words have power (as that Pizzagate business proved) and Jones is using them recklessly.
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The final straw was when he mimed shooting Bob Mueller.
So they have a standard where you can't "mime" violence? A standard they use against everybody?
Just who decides whether a user gets kicked off... (Score:3, Informative)
To some Twitter users -- and even some employees -- it is a mystery
LOL. No it's fucking not. It's really fucking obvious who gets kicked off the platform.
Are you a prominent conservative political figure that is currently in the focus of a lot of angry liberal people who like to mash the "report" button (for frivolous or false reasons) and aren't too big/connected that there will be business/corporate/financial retaliation if you get kicked off the site?
Congratulations, have a boot to the head! You're banned!
I'm still waiting for publicly known harassers and perpetrators of violent hate speach to get banned from Twitter like: Randi Harper, Zoe Quinn, Manveer Heir, Sarah Jeong, Robbi Rodriguez and all those antifa goons. They are guilty of actions that are at the least worse than conservative entities on twitter are accused of doing and yet they get to spew things like "murder all white people" or send pictures of their hairy assholes to other people, or use twitter to orchestrate a network of followers to harass both online and in real life people whom merely disagree with their ideology.
Did they incite violence (Score:1, Insightful)
I looked up a few of the ones you listed. Manveer Heir is walking the same fine line Jones did with what can only be described as a left wing dog whistle. You're right, he's hot garbage (just trying to make a name for himself stirring up controversy). But I couldn't find an im
Re:Did they incite violence (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you seriously arguing that making a "finger gun" at someone and going "bang" is inciting violence? Really?
"Hate Speech" and "Harassment" (for disagreeing with someone) are what they are being banned for. In other words, "wrong think".
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Are you seriously arguing that making a "finger gun" at someone and going "bang" is inciting violence? Really?
If a mobster makes a finger fun at you and says bang then if you're not in fear of your life then you have shit for brains. So yeah in the actual real world context matters. Sometimes that gesture can be a very meaningful threat from someone with the means to deliver.
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Because Alex Jones is really going to murder someone that he finger-gunned, recorded and broadcast publicly. Do you realize how ridiculous you sound? Do you realize how much hyperbole and out-of-context bullshit you are spinning this?
And then you had the chutzpah to say:
So yeah in the actual real world context matters.
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So now Alex Jones is a criminal mobster? Really?
If you want to play a stupid game of "mobving the goalposts" then piss off.
Mere speech can be legitimately threatening. You claimed otherwise. I provided proof that was not the case. If you want to make a different point, then do so. But we now both know your original point was a heap of shite.
Re:Did they incite violence (Score:4, Informative)
The platforms are worked one of his listeners is going to go off and shoot somebody. This isn't idle speculation either [nytimes.com].
By that standard, MSNBC [usatoday.com] is guilty of incitement and should be taken off the air: "The next month, he cited the MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show as one of his favorite television programs, adding that a recent show had highlighted the contributions of 17 wealthy donors to the Republican Party."
TL;DR: The Left isn't getting banned because they don't lean on violence.
Bullshit. Funny how you excuse Antifa, who practice actual violence. Why were the Proud Boys banned, when the only violence they commit is to defend themselves when attacked by the likes of Antifa?
Twitter has policies against promoting violence and racism, yet leftists accounts get away with it all the time [archive.is]. Say you hate black people, and you'll be banned in a nanosecond. Speak out in favor of white genocide, not only will Twitter let you keep your blue checkmark, they suspend [archive.is] the guy pointing [archive.is] you out.
False dichotomy (Score:2)
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I don't recall Rachel Maddow miming shooting Trump
Did Alex Jones do the same for Pizzagate? No. So your comparison is just as invalid. Jones is no more responsible for the pizza shooting than Maddow is for her rabid and biased coverage of Republicans.
If you're gonna do Whataboutism can you at least try harder than that?
Why did ignore the rest of my post, where I pointed out how you excused the actual violence done by Antifa? Where I pointed out how the Proud Boys were banned but did not endorse or commit violence except out of self-defense from the likes of Antifa. Where I pointed out the massive white hatred from Twitter ve
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because that's what got Alex Jones banned. The final straw was when he mimed a gun shot talking about Mueller. \
I mimed a gunshot once. The assistant principal talked to me, realized that my fingers weren't going to shoot anybody, and that was that.
Did you do it to an audience of 2 million people (Score:2)
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This cartel has been canning people who are *explicitly* anti-war and non-violence. Scott Horton, Dan McAdams, et. al.
Meanwhile the people who actually drop bombs on school buses get a pass.
It's hard to not use the term 'libtard' when that's how they're acting.
You're confusing right wing corporate Dems (Score:2)
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The vast majority of my friends have been banned from Twitter, and they're nowhere near conservative. You're wrong. Twitter just bans thousands of account each day at random.
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Are you a prominent conservative political figure that is currently in the focus of a lot of angry liberal people who like to mash the "report" button (for frivolous or false reasons) and aren't too big/connected that there will be business/corporate/financial retaliation if you get kicked off the site?
Congratulations, have a boot to the head! You're banned!
All the evidence I have see suggests that is actually happens to progressive/left leaning users much more often. Especially on YouTube, but Twitter has issues too. A lot of this mobbing gets organized on 4chan, right out in the open, but it's very hard to get a human being at those companies to even notice, let along check the 4chan thread and realize what has happened.
Re:Just who decides whether a user gets kicked off (Score:5, Insightful)
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I love it when you people let the mask slip. Thanks for politicizing Twitter and helping send it to the bottom.
Keeping up appearances (Score:2)
And yet Twitter's executive suite doesn't really care if the service truly operates fairly, it only cares if it has the APPEARANCE of operating fairly... and that can be accomplished without that niggling "consistent application of rules".
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I care neither about idiots nor their repetitive penchant for downvoting what they cannot comprehend, which is most everything. Let them niggle all they want.
Alex Jones (Score:5, Interesting)
I wouldn't call Alex Jones a 'far right wing' player. I'd call him a nutcase cultist. Back when I used to read the Drudge Report page (I quit frequenting it awhile back) if a link from Drudge took me to infowars.com I had a habit of instantly closing the page, because that site is a loony nest. This was particularly the case during the 2016 election, because you're not doing yourself a favor by hanging out in a loony echo chamber if you have sincere beliefs in a thought out political philosophy. There are similar fever swamps on the left, of course.
-------------------
This is an aside, but I was trawling around on the left political sites this weekend and noticed that the main Trotskyite newspaper in the US is now apparently defending Trump [themilitant.com] of all things.
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Alex Jones is a distraction from the far more pervasive censorship by Twitter. The real story is that Twitter was caught [hotair.com] mass shadowbanning those on the right, to the point that Republican senators got caught up in it.
And now right before CEO Dorsey is supposed to testify before congress, magically the mass shadowbanning disappears [breitbart.com].
And before you knee-jerk reflexively dismiss Breitbart, try attacking the argument, not the site.
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Alex Jones just happens to pedal conspiracy theories from the far right, or invents his own that are popular with the far right... But isn't actually far right. I'm not sure the distinction matters, as long as nationalists and supremacists are keeping him in business,
I got banned a few weeks ago (Score:4, Interesting)
I simply stopped using twitter and will not come back. F*ck it.
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It's to filter out sock puppets. Phone numbers require more effort to generate than email addresses, so by requiring them it makes it harder for sock puppet accounts to be created.
Assuming you are not a sock puppet it looks like yet another mistake.
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Instagram and Facebook did this to me too in the past. I'm not going to give them any of my selfies, personal datas, etc. Frak 'em.
Guilty by indignation (Score:2)
"Mr. Dorsey told one person that he had overruled a decision by his staff to kick Mr. Jones off, according to a person familiar with the discussion."
Ah, here we see another common tactic of the outrage industry: if we can't get X organisation to do what we want, then we'll just make up a rumour implicating one of the senior members, in order to personally pressure them into giving in.
Boycott Twitter Until Trump is Off It (Score:2)
Do what I did, close your account.
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policing (Score:2)
I remember the bad old days, when police did the actual policing, and there was due process and stuff.
Oh well. Forward!
Re:Nazis have no value to society (Score:5, Insightful)
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Almost every assertion is untrue.
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To paraphrase Carlin: Look at the average man, and realize half of them are dumber than him!
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So many mod points wasted (Score:1)
You understand that modding an AC to -1 for an on topic, detailed explanation with supporting links, just ends up as a penalty in meta-moderation later. I don't mind expanding on the comments, if it'll waste -1 mod points!
It's not a complicated thing. 2012 and Russian spies visit New York offering property deals in exchange for political help in getting sanctions lifted, they operate out of VTB Bank in New York and are prosecuted. Him and Felix Slater (born Felix Mikhailovich Sheferovsky, a Russian mobster
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conspiracy
Do you even know what conspiracy is? Like, the legal definition?
emoluments
The new vocabulary word that everyone learned this year......even though they still don't know what it means.
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Socialists and Nazi fascists were and are today mortal enemies, read more retard nazi apologist lol. No wonder they're kicking you off social media, you faggots are too dumb to continue to exist lol.
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Do you also believe tiger sharks are actual tigers? Do you think corn snakes are made of corn? It's in their name, after all.
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That is correct. Nazis were not socialists.
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Don't you mean "Nazis were not true socialists"?
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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No, he means that Nazis were trying to co-opt the name for their own means. They aren't "true socialists" in the same sense that North Korea is not a true "Democratic Republic."
Everyone in this thread should just fucking kill themselves, stop bitching about the left vs right aspect of brutal authoritarian regimes, and come to the realization that if you are a brutal authoritarian regime, you probably aren't anywhere close to any mainstream economic model.
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Well, I was half-joking, but "economic model" is ... vastly underestimating the scope of these ideologies.
Sure, they are "economic model", in the sense that everything you do involves money (even the communist USSR used money, just as the Federation uses gold-pressed latinum, despite the usual propaganda).
These "economic models" aren't just about how to handle your finances; they are about how you live your entire life (your "livelihood", if you will). The fact that totalitarian versions also include genoci
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They called it "Unite the Right".
From what I can see about similar movements in my country is that these people have a right-wing view on issues as identity and immigration, but mostly a left-wing view on economic policies.
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SO IF I KILL YOU i'm not human ??? (Score:2)
True, false or otherwise, they were not socialists. Nazis killed socialists.
So if I will you, i'm not a slashdotter ? Or a homo sapiens ? Typical neomarxist thinking....
NAZIONAL-SOZIALISTS were SOCIALISTS !!! !!!!!! !!! (Score:2)
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Nazis weren't tolerant of homosexuality, it was something they were trying to wipe out, it's just that they were often willing to accept castration as sufficient means of dealing with the problem rather than execution.
Unlike Jews, Roma and other undesirables, homosexuals were often allowed that means of escaping the holocaust.
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The slow struggle should be to earn reputation (Score:4)
So first I searched for "reputation". Nothing. Maybe 60+ comments is too soon? Then I searched for "funny", but that's just the normal disappointment. Then I actually looked at the posts modded "insightful". That's just sad. Final searches for "solution" as in "constructive". Sadder.
Anyway, I'm still fixated on seeking constructive solutions. The approach that most probably applies to Twitter is MEPR (Multidimensional Earned Public Reputation), though it would need some tweaking for that application.
In brief, trolls with earned bad reputations should be helped in rendering themselves less visible, and the more they like to act badly, the less visible they should become. I'm not saying it should be difficult to earn a good reputation, but there's no hurry, and if it's a slower process then the penalty of losing your reputation becomes more serious and worth avoiding.
ADSAuPR, atAJG.
Re: Nazis have no value to society (Score:2)
The Nazis murdered *communists*. Because (among other things) they were conflicting forms of socialism.
Re: Nazis have no value to society (Score:5, Informative)
Fascism and socialism or social-democratic-ism are not the same thing in any respect nor did the Nazis practice socialism.
Fascism, Socialism, and Communism are all top-down, command-and-control, redistributionist, collectivist, authoritarian ideologies that place little value on individual freedom over the interests of the collective. "Everything within the State, nothing outside the State." applies equally to all three. In none of them does the individual have "rights", only privileges allowed by the State that can be revoked anytime for any reason.
It's like Catholics, Protestants, and Methodists each accusing the others of not being Christian. They are all Christians that differ only on relatively minor points of doctrine. It's the same with Fascism, Socialism (and it's sub-variants like "Democratic Socialism" which is an oxymoron) and Communism.
Rather than "Left" and "Right" we should be discussing an "Up" and "Down", "Up" being larger government with the commensurate loss of individual liberty, and "Down" which is smaller, less powerful government with a commensurately larger amount of individual liberty.
With a less powerful government "Left" and "Right" would not matter as much nor affect individual liberty as drastically.
Get "Down" baby, and get free!
Strat
Re: Nazis have no value to society (Score:5, Insightful)
Socialism is an economic distribution model, not a government.
So there are no Socialist governments? Venezuela would like a word with you.
You're engaging in Post-Modernism. Why do you want to regress to something the West abandoned long ago for logic and reason during the Enlightenment which propelled humanity thousands of years forward in the space of a little more than a century?
Read about this stuff, Strat.
Back at you AC, and at least I have the confidence in my knowledge, principles, opinions, and facts to not post AC.
Strat
Re: Nazis have no value to society (Score:5, Insightful)
If you say "socialism" and "Venezuela" in the mirror three times a socialist account will appear behind you to tell you Venezuela isn't actually socialist and anyway it was done wrong. (just like all of the others)
LOL! Noice! Agreed, the socialists always trot-out that old, tired, "No true Scotsman" logical fallacy every time. People have gotten tired of hearing that BS to the point that even folks who aren't very politically-minded roll their eyes at those types anymore.
Strat is exactly right. Fascism was an attempt to avoid the economic collapse of Leninism while retaining the authoritarian control.
Thank you. Yes, Lenin even congratulated Mussolini when he took Italy Fascist, as Socialism and Fascism are both based on Marxist ideology.
Strat
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Oh, why do I feel the need to respond to people who are about as likely to understand as my cat?
https://qz.com/1335125/infowar... [qz.com]
https://www.rawstory.com/2017/... [rawstory.com]
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Challenging someone to a boxing match or saying you want a political duel is hardly inciting others to violence. If those are the best examples you can find, your argument is pretty weak.
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Ha! Immediately above your stupid, trollish idiocy a sensible logged in user has directly refuted you.
You're a fool.
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Just switch off all of those social apps. They are making the world a horrible place.
Re:They shouldn't be policing anyone (Score:4, Insightful)
If content is not illegal, Twitter should not be restricting it in any way.
Name one business that uses "not illegal" as its required standard of behaviour for patrons.
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If content is not illegal, Twitter should not be restricting it in any way.
Name one business that uses "not illegal" as its required standard of behaviour for patrons.
Um, most of them?
Seriously, you have to pretty much be doing something illegal (shoplifting, disturbing the peace) to be kicked out of, say, a grocery store.
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My god you have no idea how reality works, do you.
Try yelling racial slurs as you wander around the store and see how long it takes for you to get kicked out.
Or wander around yelling how your want to legalize paedophilia. I bet that will get you booted even faster.
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Try going into McDonalds, getting on your soapbox and lecturing the patrons about almost anything. See how long their "not illegal" standard of required behaviour holds for.
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So my conspiracy theory is that Alex still has access because otherwise Trump wouldn't.
Twitter has de-twitted others for inciting violence while ignoring Trump's regular incitement of violence. The simple fact is that their ToS means absolutely nothing. They'll carry any tweets that produce more ad revenue than they take away, period.
The Only real viable Outcome of this (Score:2)
The only real viable outcome of these hearings and all the brouhaha of banning and censorship, etc is likely legislation mandating that the terms and conditions for socials sites clearly outline specific behaviors that are prohibited, the penalties for violating the terms and conditions and requiring some form of due process for those who believe they have been wrongly accused and found in violation.
Can't really see the harm in that.