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Twitter Just Permanently Suspended Conservative Writer Milo Yiannopoulos
- pseudo_monkey 10y agoGood, just because you may have the right to free speech doesn't mean you should be given a platform to spread your hate.
- dmpk2k 10y agoI've only seen a little from Milo, and what I saw didn't seem hateful. So I'd appreciate someone giving examples.
- ericras 10y agoThis is the back and forth that got him banned: http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2016/07/18/ghostbuster-leslie-jones-reports-milo/ http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2016/07/18/ghostbuster-leslie-...
- pseudo_monkey 10y agoIt's a bit difficult to dig through his account now it's suspended but here is a Guardian article about what has been happening http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/19/leslie-jones-twitter-abuse-deliberate-campaign-hate http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/19/leslie-...
- dmpk2k 10y agoAlas, there isn't really anything there about what he has been saying, just someone else saying he's a terrible person. Well, okay, but I'd like to make my own mind up about whether someone is hateful or not. The best I can tell is that he can be an asshole.
- throwaway-hn123 10y ago> Well, okay, but I'd like to make my own mind up about whether someone is hateful or not. Bit odd for you to be so concerned about making up your own mind, yet be so reliant on other people providing you sources.
- dmpk2k 10y agoIf someone makes a claim, the onus is on them to provide compelling evidence to justify that claim. Besides, I have taken a preliminary look; Milo seems to be an outspoken asshole (and thus poisoning the discourse), but not an outright hateful bigot... feel free to provide evidence to the contrary.
- throwaway-hn123 10y agoNo no, feel free to do a bit of Googling and find out for yourself.
- lastres0rt 10y agoPretty sure you're expected to do your own research here. What do you think this is, Reddit?
- jshevek 10y ago> Alas, there isn't really anything there about what he has been saying, just someone else saying he's a terrible person. This is a good characterization of the media's overall response to twitter's banning of Milo. Everyone just keeps saying "he's a terrible person" in dozens of different forms - some rather extreme - but rarely is any real evidence presented. If they present any evidence at all, they cherry pick and take things out of context.
- mveety 10y agoYes it does. Censorship by public or private entities is dangerous because it destroys the open marketplace of ideas. The best ideas, given time, will rise to the top, and censorship in all forms prevents this from happening. Speech that is agreeable to the public/government/whatever doesn't need any protection, but speech that isn't does. We all should protect speech in all forms even if it's hateful or abhorrent.
- pseudo_monkey 10y agoSo you would agree that Milo et al shouldn't be using the internet to silence marginalised groups then?
- st3v3r 10y agoNo, it doesn't. No one should be forced to see your hate and harassment. Why should I protect someone calling Leslie Jones an ape? And do NOT say to simply "ignore it" or to "log off". None of that works. It doesn't stop it, and asking someone in the public eye to not use social media is basically telling them to not have a career.
- smt88 10y agoYiannopoulos can still be hateful and abhorrent on Breitbart.com and many other widely-read outlets. He can hold an anti-Leslie Jones rally on a major street in the US, and police will protect him (including black police). This isn't a blow to free speech. It's Twitter deciding not to let someone use its service and its resources for the purposes of rallying racists to berate an innocent woman who acted in a movie.
- Godel_unicode 10y agoThe naïve "all speech is sacred and any censorship is wrong" does not work in the real world. for example, if you yell "fire" in a crowded theatre, you will be prosecuted. Now that we've established that there can (and indeed must) be limits on speech, it's up to a mature society to devise limits which protect speech but also respect others rights. Banning someone from Twitter is one of the least effective ways to censor an author who has multiple venues which pay them to write. As the linked comic says (I can't believe nobody has linked to it yet, so the obligatory XKCD is below) this is not censorship. This is signaling that his speech was inappropriate and harassment. Being banned from Twitter doesn't stop him from posting on e.g. Facebook. His speech can still be heard by any who want to hear it, this ban merely prevents him from harassing her further. https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
- feylikurds 10y agoLet me get this straight, Milo is of foreign-descent, homosexual, and has inter-racial relationships, but is a hardcore conservative? Why people take him seriously, I will never know.
- Analemma_ 10y agoYou'd be amazed how many Neoreactionaries are gay guys from foreign countries. I've never known what to make of this phenomenon, but it's fascinating to watch.
- dogma1138 10y agoConservatives have to be straight and racist?
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- smt88 10y agoThey don't, but homophobia, denial that sexuality is mutable, denial that homosexuality exists, and racism are all driven by conservatives. There have been times when liberals were racist (e.g. some, but not most, eugenicists), but generally speaking, conservatives want to preserve the past, and the past is incredibly racist. Conservatives fought the abolition of slavery, and to this day they support laws that marginalize or infringe upon the rights of homosexuals. A gay conservative is someone acting against his/her interests, and a pro-equality conservative is an oxymoron.
- hjrnunes 10y agoOr, maybe, people know what their own interests are better than you do?
- croon 10y agoIf that was the case, the circus that is US politics wouldn't exist. Doesn't really matter which side you're on. If you're on the left it's obvious that more than 99% of the conservative voters are voting against their own (at least economic) interests. If you're on the right the democratic voters are sheeple and slaves to the lamestream media. I'm not trying to hide my affiliation, but the phrasing on either side is obviously pointing to the same logic. The vast majority of voters are followers, determining votes by proxy of affiliation of people they trust, rather than the complete platform of their candidate.
- zorpner 10y agoAbout damn time. It's a shame that it took him & his followers harassing a celebrity to get this done, given how many people they've threatened before, but hardly surprising.
- elgabogringo 10y agoReally, who has Milo threatened?
- smt88 10y ago1) GP said "they've threatened", which referred to the followers, rather than Yiannopoulos himself. 2) It's possible to inspire your followers to threaten people without making a threat yourself. Yiannopoulos has painted groups he dislikes (feminists, Muslims, etc.) as threatening and dangerous to his followers, which is a tacit justification of violence and threats against them.
- elgabogringo 10y ago#1 Was anyone actually threatened or just insulted and, regardless, what does that have to do with Milo? #2 Very tenuous justification there. One that twitter certainly doesn't hold other groups to.
- smt88 10y ago> #1 Was anyone actually threatened or just insulted and, regardless, what does that have to do with Milo? His followers have threatened some horrific stuff to lots of people, especially during the height of GamerGate harassment. It has to do with Yiannopoulos only if he intended to create those reactions among his followers, which I (and others) suspect he did. We'll never know for sure. > #2 Very tenuous justification there. One that twitter certainly doesn't hold other groups to. Agreed. Perhaps Yiannopoulos has grounds to sue Twitter for unfair treatment. I doubt it, though IANAL. In this case, Twitter may not be using "inciting followers to make threats using dog-whistle rhetoric" as a criterion for banning people. It would ban Yiannopoulos and not, say, a black nationalist for one simple reason: Yiannopoulos was more famous and created more consternation among potential users.
- elgabogringo 10y agoEverything and everyone the left disagrees with now gets labeled as "hate" and increasingly gets flagged and then banned. Why is the left so afraid of a debate?
- XMPPwocky 10y agoWhat debate was involved here?
- ericras 10y agoThe debate that's been unfolding for a couple months about the Ghostbusters movie as leftist propaganda.
- dogma1138 10y agoI don't think anyone thinks that the new GB movie is a leftist propaganda, it's a bad movie and people now blame the reception on the fact that they've replace the cast with women. They could've used the American pie cast and it would not have mattered they made GB into a Tyler Perry movie that's why it tanked.
- st3v3r 10y agoAnd what part of that debate was calling Leslie Jones an ape?
- smt88 10y agoFree speech is vitally important, but this decision has nothing to do with it. Yiannopoulos can still speak and write in many other public places, including any public part of the US, his own personal blog, and any other unrestricted platform (such as Facebook). Twitter is selling a product, and they have a right to decide what kind of product it is. They have a right to decide what their brand is connected to. If you argue that free speech requires private companies to be neutral toward everyone who wants to use them as a medium, you're also arguing that newspapers must publish any editorials that are sent to them. You're arguing that TV networks accept all ads, no matter how repugnant, and that phone carriers allow stalkers to contact anyone they wish. People should be willing to die to defend free speech, but let's also be clear on what is and isn't actually an attack on free speech. Yiannopoulos is a troll, and Twitter (in the interest of their shareholders) should have started banning people like him a long time ago.
- elgabogringo 10y agohmmm.... It certainly has nothing to do with the first amendment protections since twitter is a private company, but - at least from my POV - it does have to do with censorship, bias, and, depending on how you define it, free speech.
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- smt88 10y agoYes! It absolutely is censorship and bias. I agree with that. But private corporations are allowed to censor and be biased. That's why a bar can kick you out for screaming racial slurs if they want to: it hurts their business by making their customers unhappy. That's also why corporations can donate to any political cause that they want. Some private corporations exist only to be biased! The ACLU is an example. "Free speech" means, to me, the freedom to speak without fear. Twitter has not given Yiannopoulos a reason to fear speaking. He's just no longer free to use Twitter as a broadcast medium. It's like if Twitter lent him a huge megaphone that said "TWITTER" on it, listened to what he said, and then decided they didn't want him to have it anymore.
- flukus 10y agoIf anyone wants freedom of speech then they should be using open platforms, not corporate controlled ones. I have no idea why anyone allowed twitter to ever have as much influence as they do.
- st3v3r 10y agoIn what world is a targeted harassment campaign considered "freedom of speech"? And why do you care so much about the harassers, yet offer nothing for those who's speech is silenced because they are harassed off the platform? Do those people not matter?
- flukus 10y ago>In what world is a targeted harassment campaign considered "freedom of speech"? Who decides where that line is drawn? >And why do you care so much about the harassers, yet offer nothing for those who's speech is silenced because they are harassed off the platform? Do those people not matter? The can block/ignore/filter, just like everyone has always done.
- AlwaysBCoding 10y agoI understand that the first amendment protects against government censorship, and not the censorship of a private company. But honest question, what is the difference between a private business refusing to bake a wedding cake for a gay wedding (which courts have ruled illegal), and twitter refusing their platform to a conservative writer.
- croon 10y ago1) He's not banned for being a conservative, nor writer. 2) They (likely) did not order a cake with writing on it targetting someone. They just wanted a cake for themselves. IANAL, but I'm assuming the bakery got ruled against on grounds of bias crimes against sexual orientation. He's not targetted for either being gay or conservative or any other personal trait other than on their service portraying a seemingly vile human being through targetted harassment of other user(s), which they deemed a breach of their ToS.
- smt88 10y agoGays can't decide whether or not to be gay, just as people can't decide the color of their skin. The US values protecting people against discrimination based on unalterable traits. Making intentionally inflammatory comments on Twitter is alterable, so it's not analogous to being gay.
- st3v3r 10y agoTwitter did not refuse their platform to a conservative writer. He had been using Twitter for years. What happened is that he used their platform to post impersonating tweets of other users, as well as lead large harassment campaigns against other users. Both are against the Twitter ToS. After repeated ToS violations, he was finally banned. So no, they did not refuse their platform to a conservative writer. They did not do anything to anyone for their political beliefs. They kicked off a user who had repeatedly broken the rules.
- emjoes1 10y agoIn general this is my prob with society today. Why do we have to be nice to people? Why do we have to show empathy? Why can we not say hateful things? No violence/assault no harm.
- croon 10y agoWhy shouldn't we be (at least at first try to be) nice to people? What possible reason? Is it excerting more effort? Does it in any concievable way affect the world in a negative way? I'm sure your argument would be other people taking advantage, but being nice isn't the same as being naive. Give people the benefit of the doubt and the world is a better place. Thankfully most nations laws and most private companies ToS extend beyond just physical harassment. He breached Twitter's ToS multiple times. Now he's banned.
- dang 10y agoI can tell you what the answer is on Hacker News, at least. You have to treat others respectfully here because if we allowed users not to, the community would decay, the best people (who incidentally have no trouble being respectful) would leave, and this place would become uninteresting, like scorched earth. That's the biggest risk to this site so we take it seriously.
- greatemployee 10y agoI see this sort of argument a lot and I don't know how true it is. Is it /really/ true that the best contributors are so sensitive? In my experience, these days it's actually the worst contributors or those who contribute not at all who are the most sensitive and liable to throw in the towel. I'm sympathetic to your view but there is another risk that by overmoderating or catering to the most sensitive of contributors, HN will be left with non-interesting content, or controversial opinions will be silenced.
- bas 10y agoYou don't have to be nice to people, or show empathy, or refrain from saying hateful things; however, we are equally free to avoid associating with you.
- kelukelugames 10y agoIt’s clear that existing hate speech laws are inadequate for the social media era. And if we decide, as we perhaps might, that a lifetime ban on the internet is unworkable and disproportionately punitive, given the centrality of the internet to our professional and personal lives these days, what on earth are we to do? No one has yet offered a convincing answer. In the meantime, we are all, bit by bit, growing ever more fearful of the next wave of molestation. Together with other commentators, I have in the past argued for verified identities on social networks, so those responsible for abuse and persecution of public figures and the vulnerable might be held accountable for their actions. That seems redundant when trolls are now so brazen they don’t care about disapproving words from their loved ones back inside Facebook when they leave furious missives using that social network’s commenting system elsewhere on the internet. So perhaps what’s needed now is a bolder form of censure after all, because the internet is not a universal human right. If people cannot be trusted to treat one another with respect, dignity and consideration, perhaps they deserve to have their online freedoms curtailed. For sure, the best we could ever hope for is a smattering of unpopular show trials. But if the internet, ubiquitous as it now is, proves too dangerous in the hands of the psychologically fragile, perhaps access to it ought to be restricted. We ban drunks from driving because they’re a danger to others. Isn’t it time we did the same to trolls? - See more at: http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/yiannopoulos/3359/the-internet-is-turning-us-all-into-sociopaths/#sthash.SNvn8OTL.dpuf http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/yiannopoulos/3359/the-internet...
- partiallypro 10y agoA private company can do whatever they want on their platform. The problem I have is that they pretend that they are unbiased arbiters, when history suggests otherwise. I also have a problem with this as Twitter investor (I'm a huge critic of Twitter, if you look at my history; and I'm specifically an investor hoping for someone to just buy the company and fire Jack and his team.) I don't know how to balance the harassment policies (which I think should be enforced in some cases) and free speech. I think free speech is vital to the success of any social media platform. I also know the tendencies of internet trolls is that if you come at them, they often go much harder towards you. It would make more sense if you could auto-block mentions that contain keywords, almost like a spam filter. Basically filter bubbles or groups/channels, with the ability to see unfiltered mentions. I really do not think this solves the problem, as we saw with Reddit, 4Chan, 8Chan, (or basically any forum that has operated since the early 2000s) etc. When Reddit started mass banning people and subreddits it saw a huge uptick of "shitposts," eventually a lot of those people formed "The_Donald" and now they basically control most of the front page, and have for months. Banning in many instances can give the banned users a much louder voice, especially if they have any sort of movement or following behind them. I think anyone with experience in online forums dating back to the early 2000s knows this to be true. Forum "fallouts" happen often, and usually occur after a significant ban or power grab...it often ends up killing the platform or community. I don't think social media platforms are any different. I fear unless Jack and many others are removed from the company, it will become like a Yahoo, with core assets that are marked as virtually worthless and no one willing to buy and catch the falling knife.