Twitter Bans Posts That 'Dehumanize' People In Connection With Diseases (reuters.com) 161
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Twitter said on Thursday it is banning posts that "dehumanize" people because they have a disease or disability or because of their age, a step that happens to correspond to an explosion of tweets about the spreading coronavirus. The company told Reuters that the policy change was not a reaction to the outbreak of the virus, which causes the respiratory disease COVID-19, but was part of its continual effort to update its rules against hateful conduct.
"We couldn't have predicted that this would happen in terms of the coronavirus," Jerrel Peterson, Twitter's head of trust and safety policy, said in a phone interview. Twitter's hateful conduct policy already bans attacking or threatening others on the basis of categories such as race, sexual orientation, age, disability or serious disease. This update will mean that those attacks do not need to be targeted to an individual or specific group. Now, even "if it's a tweet that doesn't have an @mention that likens a group based on their age, disability or disease to viruses or microbes or maggots, something that's less than human, that can be in violation of our policy now," Peterson said. Twitter went on to say that any offending tweets must be removed. Tweets sent before Thursday would also need to be deleted, but would not directly result in account suspensions, it said.
"We couldn't have predicted that this would happen in terms of the coronavirus," Jerrel Peterson, Twitter's head of trust and safety policy, said in a phone interview. Twitter's hateful conduct policy already bans attacking or threatening others on the basis of categories such as race, sexual orientation, age, disability or serious disease. This update will mean that those attacks do not need to be targeted to an individual or specific group. Now, even "if it's a tweet that doesn't have an @mention that likens a group based on their age, disability or disease to viruses or microbes or maggots, something that's less than human, that can be in violation of our policy now," Peterson said. Twitter went on to say that any offending tweets must be removed. Tweets sent before Thursday would also need to be deleted, but would not directly result in account suspensions, it said.
Does this mean (Score:1)
Re:Does this mean (Score:4)
That's OK. We lived through 'Nam, we lived through the birth of the civil rights movement, we survived Timothy Leary, Owsley, and Ram Dass, and a whole bunch of other shit. We can take an oiccasional 'OK Boomer' with a wry grin.
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"OK boomer" is off limits now?
No, because it's aimed at chrono-Americans of the white persuasion.
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They only selectively enforce these rules.
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Yeah I doubt they'll apply it to one twitter account in particular...
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The censorship fascists are in full bloom these days...
Re:Does this mean (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yup. "OK boomer" is the impotent lashing out of a millennial who has nothing to live for.
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I like to say, "Ok boomer" to millennials. It often makes them lose their minds.
Re: Does this mean (Score:2, Insightful)
"millennial who has nothing to live for"
Perhaps the millennials are a bit resentful that, on the Boomers' watch, the United States was transformed from a free and prosperous nation into a totalitarian nightmare with a collapsed economy.
Sure, it's not the fault of all or even most Boomers. But the youth's anger is understandable.
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"millennial who has nothing to live for"
Perhaps the millennials are a bit resentful that, on the Boomers' watch, the United States was transformed from a free and prosperous nation into a totalitarian nightmare with a collapsed economy.
Sure, it's not the fault of all or even most Boomers. But the youth's anger is understandable.
And the Millenials will eventually be just as reviled as the Boomers that they blame every single problem on.
And if they can't muster the fortitude to ignore the problems visited on them, it will turn out they are just impotent, nothing more than eternal victims.
They can vote this down - perhaps that will make them feel better.
But what are y gonna do? It's obvious that no generation has ever been abused. Too bad they didn't have a time machine to go back and tell those entitled kids during the depre
It's the exact opposite (Score:2, Insightful)
But to be fair to your original point, that is a lot to type, so I guess we're a bit lazy by shortening it to "OK Boomer".
Oh, and how the hell does Sanders keep going? I mean, he's been at it for longer than I've been alive and never lost hope. You'll never hear
Re:Does this mean (Score:5, Insightful)
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If they called out actual boomers for being boomers, that's one thing. They happily apply to anyone, regardless of age, because they think that person belongs to a contradictory mindset.
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The problem is that that"Ok Boomer" is very condescending.
When someone is an asshole, it's ok to call them an asshole. It's not OK to imply that the reason they are an asshole is because of their age. Nor their race, religion, nationality, gender or anything else.
Call out people for being assholes, not for their age.
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I always found it ironic that the generation that needs 4.2 million different labels to cover every potential sexual preference and gender also has no issue taking a label that has a known meaning, changing it, and then applying it to whomever they see fit. And worse, taking joy when people take offence to having that label applied to them.
Guide Us Landru! (Score:3)
Twitter wants to be Landru [wikipedia.org] and ensure peace and tranquility for all.
How this reads to me. (Score:3)
Forget the milquetoast (Score:2)
Millennial won't stop unless you take something away they really care about. Take away their avocado toast!
The long road to full censorship (Score:4, Insightful)
I appreciate what they're trying to do.. but why not just go all the way and outlaw saying anything bad about anyone? That way all of the people that have interesting thoughts and aren't sycophants can just leave now.
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Re:The long road to full censorship (Score:5, Informative)
Twitter is a not the government.
Twitter is only barely indistinguishable from the government, in the sense that all the elected government officials and agencies using it to communicate with the public.
The court decided that when POTUS blocks you, that's a violation of your 1A. But now it's fine for a corporation to decide if you should have access to the POTUS on this platform at all. This is them "doing as they wish". You should be able to see the problem with this, if you care at all about corporations not having more power and influence than they deserve.
'free to take your business elsewhere' is meaningless when there is no business there.
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"Twitter is only barely indistinguishable from the government, in the sense that all the elected government officials and agencies using it to communicate with the public"
Incorrect. They use it to communicate with the Twatters that hang out on Twitter. They cannot use Twitter Twatter to communicate with "members of the public" that does not do Twitter Twatter. Nor can they lawfully mandate that any specific member of the public use Twitter Twatter.
The former (using Twitter Twatter) to communicate with me
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Twitter is only barely indistinguishable from the government, in the sense that all the elected government officials and agencies using it to communicate with the public.
That's some bullshit you just posted.
Oh and by the way I don't think 'elected officials' should be using Twitter for anything at all.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Blah blah blah WORDS
*sigh*
Twitter is a privately owned company. They can do whatever the fuck they want. Get over it. Now bugger off, tweaker.
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As poster above noted this is irrelevant, as US law draws two criteria only one of which needs to be met for said law to apply.
One would think that people on slashdot of all places would recognise that "either x or y has to be true" argument cannot be debunked by claiming "but x is false".
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That is the argument that will have to be made to US Supreme Court eventually. Last time it happened with press and broadcast media in relation to political bias, it didn't go well.
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You yourself made a point that this may not apply above. Therefore, the next bout of "we must prevent the next Spanish-American war by placing limits on freedom of this new form of media" will have to be had, and the outcome will have to be enforced.
This is nothing new. It's something that major nations go through every time a dramatically new and popular method of mass communication is invented.
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You made the argument above that "Twitter not affected by relevant legislation". It's the same point that is made every time new kind of media is invented. The reason why I cited American-Spanish war as an example was that this war was a direct result of telegraph becoming available to civilians. This resulted in yellow press, which was openly inventing crazy things under the same defence: "we're not affected by relevant legislation".
This was argued in courts and in front of congress, and system was adjuste
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I don't know where you "outlined [this] topic" but it's irrelevant to whether Twitter is or isn't bound by limitations put by the First Amendment on parts of government, which Twitter is not a part of. That's what I was addressing when you wrote your clearly flawed argument [slashdot.org].
As for your segue to the issue of whether there *should* some arbitrary limitations, I haven't even touched that. I don't know why *you* keep diverting this discussion towards this while I'm trying to stay on topic. Is this particular di
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Excellent discussion of this issue and why it doesn't apply to YouTube and Twitter etc. This guy is an actual lawyer.
https://youtu.be/jjb-1V-jrJs [youtu.be]
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No it isn't because the second the SCOTUS ruled that the POTUS can't block because of the first amendment? It became a government platform, full stop. First amendment doesn't apply to private businesses, your employer doesn't have to give a shit about your speech on a subject and can fire you in most states which are right to work. SCOTUS saying this doesn't apply to Twitter?
SCOTUS decided that "merely hosting speech by others is not a traditional, exclusive public function and does not alone transform private entities into state actors subject to First Amendment constraints". So yes, First Amendment constraints indeed don't apply to Twitter, although they do apply to POTUS. You seem to be mightily confused as to what applies to Twitter and what applies to POTUS.
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First amendment doesn't apply to private businesses,
If that's what you think, you're going to be pretty shocked if you ever bother to read the supreme court first amendment case histories, instead of talking out of your ass.
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The court decided that when POTUS blocks you, that's a violation of your 1A
I blame the courts for that, not Twitter. And if Twitter is harmed by that ruling then I will sympathize with them and consider them to be a victim of an overreaching government - and I say that as someone who does not have a Twitter account, and who finds the notion of requiring Twitter to get government information to be vomit inducing. Fortunately I think you're exaggerating. I like to think that I'm pretty informed but I've managed to avoid that cesspool.
And if you're right ... if Twitter is where I nee
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They didn't rule the president blocking you violated your 1st Amendment rights. They ruled a federal law that forbids censorship of a certain category of speech outlet if it happens to allow comments applied to a federal person's official twitter speech feed. It was a law violation, not a 1st Amendment thing.
Complain to get the law repealed but most probably would like it in other contexts.
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They didn't. Check for yourself, the ruling is here for you to read and it's quite easy to understand, minimal legal jargon.
https://int.nyt.com/data/docum... [nyt.com]
They are saying that the government can't take steps to limit people's freedom of speech in political discussions, only the venue can. Of course Trump could simply delete his Twitter account if he wanted to, or leave the baseball stadium, but he can't force others to leave or prevent them listening to and responding to him.
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The court decided that when POTUS blocks you, that's a violation of your 1A. But now it's fine for a corporation to decide if you should have access to the POTUS on this platform at all. This is them "doing as they wish". You should be able to see the problem with this, if you care at all about corporations not having more power and influence than they deserve.
'free to take your business elsewhere' is meaningless when there is no business there.
This seems comparable to a political rally at a private venue, where the venue can decide who gets in, but the POTUS (government), can't decide who gets kicked out purely based on speech. Afaik this is how the law has been interpreted and I don't see why it should be different on the internet.
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The court decided that when POTUS blocks you, that's a violation of your 1A. But now it's fine for a corporation to decide if you should have access to the POTUS on this platform at all. This is them "doing as they wish". You should be able to see the problem with this, if you care at all about corporations not having more power and influence than they deserve.
'free to take your business elsewhere' is meaningless when there is no business there.
This seems comparable to a political rally at a private venue, where the venue can decide who gets in, but the POTUS (government), can't decide who gets kicked out purely based on speech. Afaik this is how the law has been interpreted and I don't see why it should be different on the internet.
A private venue could restrict guests based on desires of its paying renters, as it is not an open speech forum, especially if they want to open their yappers, too. This wouldn't apply to twitter, open to the world, and not a private gathering.
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A private venue could restrict guests based on desires of its paying renters, as it is not an open speech forum, especially if they want to open their yappers, too. This wouldn't apply to twitter, open to the world, and not a private gathering.
Look at the Trump Twitter court case, twitter is indeed a private gathering. However Trump managed to create a public square within it, but it's limited and does not apply to all of twitter.
Re: The long road to full censorship (Score:2)
I wouldn't use your words to describe the situation, but I get your point. Towards the management of the company certainly, for government interference not afaik. I'm even surprised that consumer protection laws such as false advertising hasn't been part of the discussion.
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As if we've all forgotten the narrative of how Facebook ads and Twitter trolls and memes were supposed to have cost the Dems the election. It's established history.
Facebook is protecting us from that evil foreign meddling harming our elections [theguardian.com] even as I speak.
Thanks for helping me to prove my point that Twitter and Facebook are also perfectly capable of abusing their mod points also, to silence reasonable speech they don't like.
So would you nationalize it? (Score:2)
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What's worse: nationalizing a website, or having the national dialog be dictated under corporatism?
We laugh when Wall St. says "we'll regulate ourselves" but so many see no issue at all with Big Social Media controlling what phrases, words, or names we are allowed to use. Allowing them to even pick the winners and losers in the marketplace of ideas could only lead to them determining outcomes at the ballot box.
Whatever course we must take, I would prefer to err on the side of free speech, equal protection,
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if you start applying free speech protection to a private website, then you've effectively nationalized it.
By this logic there are no non-nationalized websites, since all private websites enjoy free speech - that is, the owner of the web site decides what the site will and won't publish.
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elected government officials and agencies using it to communicate with the public.
Maybe they should nationalize it if it is that important.
'free to take your business elsewhere' is meaningless when there is no business there.
Isn't the whole point of capitalism that if you see a gap you should start your own successful business to take advantage?
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Isn't the whole point of capitalism that if you see a gap you should start your own successful business to take advantage?
Overcoming a natural monopoly [wikipedia.org] isn't like starting a hot dog stand in a food desert.
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We don't expect you to start building cars or planes.
The barriers to entry for a web service are incredibly low and easily scaleable as your alternative views make you amazingly popular.
Cough.
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By your ridiculous logic, the local library, school district, fire department, police department, city hall, down to the local dog catcher, also uses CNN to communicate to the public.
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Since they control the platform like this then they have become a publisher surely and are responsible and liable for the content.
Re: The long road to full censorship (Score:2)
Couldn't you just make your own Twitter? (Score:2)
Now, if the _government_ starts telling you what you can post to your own twitter then yeah, that's censorship.
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Because when a private company decides it doesn't want some particular kind of speech on its site, you're perfectly free to make your own site. When the government restricts speech, it's restricted everywhere the government reach.
Its wonderful to be treated like preschoolers (Score:2)
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People will stop being treated like preschoolers when they stop acting like preschoolers.
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People will stop being treated like preschoolers when they stop acting like preschoolers.
Part of being an adult is being held accountable for your actions. Piss in the pool and you're not welcome any more.
New Policy (Score:1)
Everybody except for Dipshit Donnie (Score:2, Interesting)
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Don't worry, the pedophile-in-chief is already on the case. He's got one of his pals trying to buy enough twitter stock to fire it's current CEO and take control of the company.
This is what you wanted (Score:2)
Here I've been saying what goes around comes around. I can't wait to hear the screeching about 1A and principles of free speech for muh democracy, from the very same people who wanted to deprive it from others, should they be unfairly censored themselves.
Maybe then they will learn.
What if they ask? (Score:1)
I accept how any hominids self-identify, even if they specify "animal".
Is that dehumanizing?
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Only if you ignore their safe word.
helping the Dems (Score:4, Interesting)
Is it only a coincide that this ban was announced two days after the candidate who seems to have early-stage dementia pulled ahead in the Democratic primary?
Does this mean that tweets mocking Biden's senility will be suppressed the next time he forgets who is his wife, his sister, where he is, where the audience is, or what office he is running for?
re: helping the Dems (Score:3)
"Elizabeth Warren is saying that we should break up Google. And like, I love her but she’s very misguided, like that will not make it better will make it worse because now all these smaller companies who don’t have the same resources that we do will be charged with preventing the next Trump situation; it’s like a small company cannot do that." -- Jen Gennai, Google Global Affairs
If one can do it, so can others.
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Even an early-onset Alzheimers Biden is better than the Terrorist-in-Chief for 4 more years. Hell, Bashir al-Assad would be a better POTUS than Trump.
This has to be the single most stupid thing you have ever uttered on Slashdot and that is quite a bar to hurdle. Maybe you would have preferred Trump attack the SF "resistance" with some nerve gas or drop some barrel bombs on the anti-Trumpers like your good boy Assad did. You do know Assad is in bed with Putin who you idiots have been claiming is the new AntiChrist of the last three years. You TDS retards are beyond ignorant.
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Of course, Assad would be bound by the US Constitution ...
Why? The current president isn't, and he's set a precedent.
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Trump is Putin's bitch.
Of course, Assad would be bound by the US Constitution and, as such, would probably make a better President.
Another TDS victim goes full retard and doubles down. Bashir Al Assad is bound by international law and that hasn't stopped his bombing of his own civilians. You don't seem to understand who is Putin's bitch or what it means either. Assad is one coup away from and the Saddam Hussein/Muammar Gaddafi treatment from his own people without Russian arms. You people are ridiculous.
Preparation for the Zombie Apocalypse (Score:3)
Its quick thinking by the Zombies at HQ who are already infected with the zombification virus to make sure that further zombies cannot be identified as Zombies by calling them zombies on Twitter.
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Now this is the sort of insightful commentary I come here for.
Usually twitter is full of orc hybrids, so their zombificiation could be very bad.
Old white males.. (Score:3)
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Guess what, I'm an old white male too. But I'm neither sexist or racist enough to tell people to shut up based on their sex or race. I think people like you should shut the fuck up and get the fuck out. We have no place for your discrimination. Racists and sexists: you are done. The world has moved on. Deal with it allready.
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Guess what, I'm an old white male too. But I'm neither sexist or racist enough to tell people to shut up based on their sex or race.
Have you ever called someone out for sexism or racism, excluding someone complaining about old white men?
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You should give up trying to troll people, you're awful at it.
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Speak for yourself. You're welcome to STFU and GTFO if you hate and despise yourself that much; just don't project your self-loathing onto the rest of us.
Reciprocity is the basis of civilization.The symbol for equality is "=", and not "=>", because equality goes both ways.
0/10 lurk more (Score:2)
Politicians are Vampires ... (Score:2)
based on their obvious sociopathy. Do I win a Twitter ban for mocking politicians now? They're mostly mentally ill by the DSM.
What else will @Jack ban before the investors throw him out?
Is there anyone left on Twitter? (Score:2)
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No. Only Twits hang out on Twitter. Hence the name. It is the Fletcher Memorial Home for twits.
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We'll protect you against the real world! (Score:4, Insightful)
Fucking Twitter.
You can't edit reality.
You can't, in any even-handed way, stop people from being assholes to one another (without being assholes yourselves).
And if someone can't handle reality, TOUGH FUCKING SHIT.
Grow a spine and an epidermis.
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No. It's always "being an asshole".
Ok boomer (Score:2)
"Ok boomer" dehumanizes the newly elderly by reducing them to their lost reproductive capabilities. Is Twitter going to protect them?
'dehumanize' is SJW hate-speech. (Score:3)
What does it even mean?
That's right. Nobody of *them* even knows.
It only serves as a catch-all thought-terminating clichee to shame people based on the SJWs' prejudice that what those people said would imply hate. (Protip: It mostly doesn't.)
That's the core trick of SJW terrorism: ... basically, hallucination.
Simply imply that what the other person said or did was hateful, even if only *you* think that because of your lack of self-confidence, and even if the other person didn't say/do that or you heavily "interpreted" it however you wanted. And then "call them out" on that
To amplify your attack by using the public as white knights to do the beatings for you, like the biggest coward ever. So you can keep in your role as the poor poor "victim". Or even just "victim" proxy.
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The "social justice" mindset is itself dehumanizing, as it reduces people to generic instances of broad demographic categories, instead of judging them as individual human beings. And the most viciously hate-filled people I have ever met have all been SJWs.
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ALL of identity politics is dehumanizing, as it reduces individual people to a mere collection of traits - skin color, sex, age, preferred genitals, etc.
Mmmmh (Score:2)
But we can still say that Florida will be hit hard?
What about "We should call it Wuhan Virus"? (Score:2)
What About Trump? (Score:2)
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Big mistake.