7 ms·

What did he do?

tomhoward 10y ago
Supposedly he incited a harassment campaign against Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones: http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/19/12221452/ghostbusters-leslie-jones-twitter-abuse-racist http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/19/12221452/ghostbusters-lesl...
Natsu 10y ago
He said something about someone else, his fans then harassed someone, they quit, and Twitter blamed him for it... I think. That's what the article implies, anyhow.
MichaelGG 10y ago
The link above shows him being mean to her. Perhaps he told other people to be mean, too? (Dunno, if he did, I'd think it'd be shown all over.) Or maybe Twitter decided he isn't a good fit for them. He's said that "feminism is cancer", so they might find that offensive. He's popular with the kind of people that might insult her, so perhaps him being rude was enough cause for Twitter? Maybe Twitter will implement some system to hide new/anonymous/unvouched users from messaging more popular users. Or give them filtering capabilities. As the target in this case says, "Twitter I understand you got free speech I get it. But there has to be some guidelines when you let spread like that."
- MBCook 10y ago
  He had hundreds of thousands of followers and has been implicated in sending them after people he doesn't like/agree with and encouraging harassment numerous times.
  - MichaelGG 10y ago
    But no smoking gun this time? Any other times? Or just the effect of a popular, charismatic guy doing something and others joining in?
    - jonathankoren 10y ago
      The guy is a well known troll and ringleader. He revels in it. His followers revel in it. There was plenty of reason to ban him, long before now. Lest we forget the whole gamergate fiasco. Shit, that's still going on? Fuuuuuuuck....
    - adekok 10y ago
      No smoking gun. But, he holds opinions which are anathema to the people who implement Twitters censorship policy. http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/02/twitters-new-safety-council-makes-a-mockery-of-free-speech/ http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/02/twitters-new-safety-cou... FTA: > They think their right never to see something that upsets them outweighs the historic, hard-fought-for freedom of people to say and write what lies in their hearts and minds. To paraphrase Christopher Hitchens, who do you trust to censor the media you read? My answer is "No one, I'm an adult." Some people believe that we can only achieve safe political discourse via censorship. They are either unaware that censorship affects political discourse, or they plan on using their control of censorship to control the political discourse.
      - jonathankoren 10y ago
        I know it may come as a surprise, but it's not about you. It's about harassment. You may think think that doxing and constant harassment both online and off is "political discourse," but it's not. It's actions that make all discourse impossible. You can cry about your freedom all you want, but you're in someone else's sandbox. You play by their rules, unless you're trying to say that society should compel speech on private actors.
        adekok 10y ago
        > I know it may come as a surprise, but it's not about you. It's about harassment. Well.. proof would be nice. i.e. proof that Milo instigated and/or coordinated a campaign of harassment against her. The only evidence being offered is for Milo calling her names. Which is not evidence of harassment. > You may think think that doxing and constant harassment both online and off is "political discourse," but it's not. You're projecting. It's a tell. You'll note that I didn't make any such claim. So why are you attacking me for a claim I didn't make? Could it be that you think anyone who disagrees with you must support doxxing and harassment? It's easier to label people as "evil", than to think rationally about your own position. Or to treat someone else in a discussion as a human being who deserves respect. > You can cry about your freedom all you want, but you're in someone else's sandbox. Yeah, label me a crybaby. It's the 5 year-old attitude towards online discussion. You don't use facts, evidence, logic, or common decency. Just "You're a big poopy head". Please go look at Twitters code of conduct. And then look at the high profile people they've banned. How many have violated the code of conduct? As a hint: People that the censors don't like seem to get banned a lot... even when they don't engage in ban-worthy behavior. The censors absolutely abuse their power to further their own political agenda. They ignore the rules that they created. And you support them. It's not just that it's Twitters sandbox. It's that they don't follow the rules they created. It's entirely reasonable to point out their hypocrisy, and to call it censoring of political discourse. Any reasonable person would agree. i.e. A person whose first argument is not to label someone else as a shitlord who supports doxxing and harassment.
- viraptor 10y ago
  > Maybe Twitter will implement some system to hide new/anonymous/unvouched users from messaging more popular users. So basically do a split between users known enough to not be abused and everyone else? Not a great solution. They've already got policies to deal with abuse (https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311 https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311), but they don't act on it very often. They should just decide if they want to go "full free speech" like reddit, or actually have some rules and enforce them. Right now they fail both sides.
  - MichaelGG 10y ago
    Splitting users sucks, but it is what people are asking for. Indeed there are blocklists that are shared to help people ignore groups, so users are already doing it in a hacky way. A kudos/vouch system might work fine. They've got thousands of employees -- certainly they can figure something out better than what they're doing. Right now it's just random-nuke-if-it-gets-attention. And it certainly feels like Twitter has a political bias. >"full free speech" like reddit Reddit went sorta censorious didn't they? Decided any sub that made fun of fat people was not allowed and applied that sitewide (killed new subreddits with different people, if they shared the same topic). Created a system that requires signing up and verifying email just to get a read-only view of certain subreddits? (For instance, r/blackfathers, a subreddit which had _no_ content, was quarantined, so you can't even see that it has no content unless you verify and login.) There's no justification for requiring a verified email account to view content, except to serve as a chilling effect. It's totally their right, just they shouldn't be held up as a bastion of free speech. Even 4chan surpasses them on that account.
    - donatj 10y ago
      The block lists, especially the non-publicly published ones, are awful. I got in a well mannered Twitter argument - as a pacifist I was arguing that violence is never the answer, against a tweet promoting violence by a fairly popular Twitter user. They thew some foul language my way before blocking me. Fine, they don't want to talk to me. I can live with that. The kicker though was I subsequently found a number of other completely unrelated things like @PicardTips blocking me as well. It took me a while to understand what had happened. I tried emailing @PicardTips to no avail. Sigh. A world where expressing an opinion any other person finds offensive leads to blacklisting isn't a world I want to live in.
- cocotino 10y ago
  >Maybe Twitter will implement some system to hide new/anonymous/unvouched users from messaging more popular users. That exists already, new accounts don't trigger notifications to anybody.
- danso 10y ago
  I don't mind that Milo mocked the movie or actress. But he also retweeted (noticeably) faked tweets that purported to show her using extremely anti-gay epithets, the kind of thing that turns a flamewar into a full-blown digital witch burning. If someone posted to HN a viral news article that used obviously faked tweets to show that Elon Musk is an admirer of Hitler, no one would be surprised if that account (and the article's site domain) ended up permabanned from HN.
  - jimbobimbo 10y ago
    Is it possible to retweet a fake tweet?
    - danso 10y ago
      A common pattern is to screenshot a Tweet, to preserve it before it is deleted, and attach it to your own Tweet as an image.
joshkpeterson 10y ago
He's responsible for mobilizing lots of trolls to harass women and POC. Not a great human being.
- atom-morgan 10y ago
  Substitute women and POC with other demographics. Does his status as a human being change?

What did he do?

Supposedly he incited a harassment campaign against Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones: http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/19/12221452/ghostbusters-leslie-jones-twitter-abuse-racist http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/19/12221452/ghostbusters-lesl...

Natsu 10y ago

He said something about someone else, his fans then harassed someone, they quit, and Twitter blamed him for it... I think. That's what the article implies, anyhow.

MichaelGG 10y ago

The link above shows him being mean to her. Perhaps he told other people to be mean, too? (Dunno, if he did, I'd think it'd be shown all over.) Or maybe Twitter decided he isn't a good fit for them. He's said that "feminism is cancer", so they might find that offensive. He's popular with the kind of people that might insult her, so perhaps him being rude was enough cause for Twitter? Maybe Twitter will implement some system to hide new/anonymous/unvouched users from messaging more popular users. Or give them filtering capabilities. As the target in this case says, "Twitter I understand you got free speech I get it. But there has to be some guidelines when you let spread like that."

MBCook 10y ago
He had hundreds of thousands of followers and has been implicated in sending them after people he doesn't like/agree with and encouraging harassment numerous times.
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  But no smoking gun this time? Any other times? Or just the effect of a popular, charismatic guy doing something and others joining in?
  - jonathankoren 10y ago
    The guy is a well known troll and ringleader. He revels in it. His followers revel in it. There was plenty of reason to ban him, long before now. Lest we forget the whole gamergate fiasco. Shit, that's still going on? Fuuuuuuuck....
  - adekok 10y ago
    No smoking gun. But, he holds opinions which are anathema to the people who implement Twitters censorship policy. http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/02/twitters-new-safety-council-makes-a-mockery-of-free-speech/ http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/02/twitters-new-safety-cou... FTA: > They think their right never to see something that upsets them outweighs the historic, hard-fought-for freedom of people to say and write what lies in their hearts and minds. To paraphrase Christopher Hitchens, who do you trust to censor the media you read? My answer is "No one, I'm an adult." Some people believe that we can only achieve safe political discourse via censorship. They are either unaware that censorship affects political discourse, or they plan on using their control of censorship to control the political discourse.
    - jonathankoren 10y ago
      I know it may come as a surprise, but it's not about you. It's about harassment. You may think think that doxing and constant harassment both online and off is "political discourse," but it's not. It's actions that make all discourse impossible. You can cry about your freedom all you want, but you're in someone else's sandbox. You play by their rules, unless you're trying to say that society should compel speech on private actors.
      - adekok 10y ago
        > I know it may come as a surprise, but it's not about you. It's about harassment. Well.. proof would be nice. i.e. proof that Milo instigated and/or coordinated a campaign of harassment against her. The only evidence being offered is for Milo calling her names. Which is not evidence of harassment. > You may think think that doxing and constant harassment both online and off is "political discourse," but it's not. You're projecting. It's a tell. You'll note that I didn't make any such claim. So why are you attacking me for a claim I didn't make? Could it be that you think anyone who disagrees with you must support doxxing and harassment? It's easier to label people as "evil", than to think rationally about your own position. Or to treat someone else in a discussion as a human being who deserves respect. > You can cry about your freedom all you want, but you're in someone else's sandbox. Yeah, label me a crybaby. It's the 5 year-old attitude towards online discussion. You don't use facts, evidence, logic, or common decency. Just "You're a big poopy head". Please go look at Twitters code of conduct. And then look at the high profile people they've banned. How many have violated the code of conduct? As a hint: People that the censors don't like seem to get banned a lot... even when they don't engage in ban-worthy behavior. The censors absolutely abuse their power to further their own political agenda. They ignore the rules that they created. And you support them. It's not just that it's Twitters sandbox. It's that they don't follow the rules they created. It's entirely reasonable to point out their hypocrisy, and to call it censoring of political discourse. Any reasonable person would agree. i.e. A person whose first argument is not to label someone else as a shitlord who supports doxxing and harassment.
viraptor 10y ago
> Maybe Twitter will implement some system to hide new/anonymous/unvouched users from messaging more popular users. So basically do a split between users known enough to not be abused and everyone else? Not a great solution. They've already got policies to deal with abuse (https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311 https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311), but they don't act on it very often. They should just decide if they want to go "full free speech" like reddit, or actually have some rules and enforce them. Right now they fail both sides.
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  Splitting users sucks, but it is what people are asking for. Indeed there are blocklists that are shared to help people ignore groups, so users are already doing it in a hacky way. A kudos/vouch system might work fine. They've got thousands of employees -- certainly they can figure something out better than what they're doing. Right now it's just random-nuke-if-it-gets-attention. And it certainly feels like Twitter has a political bias. >"full free speech" like reddit Reddit went sorta censorious didn't they? Decided any sub that made fun of fat people was not allowed and applied that sitewide (killed new subreddits with different people, if they shared the same topic). Created a system that requires signing up and verifying email just to get a read-only view of certain subreddits? (For instance, r/blackfathers, a subreddit which had _no_ content, was quarantined, so you can't even see that it has no content unless you verify and login.) There's no justification for requiring a verified email account to view content, except to serve as a chilling effect. It's totally their right, just they shouldn't be held up as a bastion of free speech. Even 4chan surpasses them on that account.
  - donatj 10y ago
    The block lists, especially the non-publicly published ones, are awful. I got in a well mannered Twitter argument - as a pacifist I was arguing that violence is never the answer, against a tweet promoting violence by a fairly popular Twitter user. They thew some foul language my way before blocking me. Fine, they don't want to talk to me. I can live with that. The kicker though was I subsequently found a number of other completely unrelated things like @PicardTips blocking me as well. It took me a while to understand what had happened. I tried emailing @PicardTips to no avail. Sigh. A world where expressing an opinion any other person finds offensive leads to blacklisting isn't a world I want to live in.
cocotino 10y ago
>Maybe Twitter will implement some system to hide new/anonymous/unvouched users from messaging more popular users. That exists already, new accounts don't trigger notifications to anybody.
danso 10y ago
I don't mind that Milo mocked the movie or actress. But he also retweeted (noticeably) faked tweets that purported to show her using extremely anti-gay epithets, the kind of thing that turns a flamewar into a full-blown digital witch burning. If someone posted to HN a viral news article that used obviously faked tweets to show that Elon Musk is an admirer of Hitler, no one would be surprised if that account (and the article's site domain) ended up permabanned from HN.
- jimbobimbo 10y ago
  Is it possible to retweet a fake tweet?
  - danso 10y ago
    A common pattern is to screenshot a Tweet, to preserve it before it is deleted, and attach it to your own Tweet as an image.

joshkpeterson 10y ago

He's responsible for mobilizing lots of trolls to harass women and POC. Not a great human being.

atom-morgan 10y ago
Substitute women and POC with other demographics. Does his status as a human being change?