4 ms·

Milo didn't tell his fans to attack her. In fact she had been tweeting with various other people long beforehand and drawing a lot of ire through her comments.

Milo didn't tell his fans to attack her. In fact she had been tweeting with various other people long beforehand and drawing a lot of ire through her comments. It sets a terrible precedent as far as what Twitter is willing to take a hard stance on.

jonathankoren 10y ago
I fail to see how banning a repeated harasser is a terrible precedent.
- jaredklewis 10y ago
  Of course no one wants to see people harassed, but it's just that Twitter until recently was both censorship free and well known by the general population. Personally I think it would be great if these things could be settled in courts with due process. Harassment is a crime and nothing would please me more than to see some of these harassers serve time. But what's the other way? Twitter becomes non-neutral arbiter of what is right and wrong? One person's rebel is another's terrorist. One person's mob is another's protest. If Twitter starts to get involved in some censorship, it raises the obvious question from members of why that one thing they don't like wasn't censored. The only viable way for a free platform is all or nothing. Can't half way free speech.
  - jonathankoren 10y ago
    You can't say "harassment is a crime" and then cry that you can't have "censorship" in some sort of misguided idea of free expression absolutism. There has never been a successful platform without moderation. Even 4chan moderates. Even 8chan. Without it, you quickly get a cesspool of trolls. And then you have nothing but a cesspool.
    - Nullabillity 10y ago
      > You can't say "harassment is a crime" and then cry that you can't have "censorship" in some sort of misguided idea of free expression absolutism. If it's bad enough that it's illegal then there are legal procedures to be followed. As little as I generally trust judges, there's at least far more oversight than having some random PR rep make the call in secret.
      - jonathankoren 10y ago
        Well the consequences, are a lot more than not being able to play with someone else's web page. My point is, no one really believes in absolutism.
      - csydas 10y ago
        But twitter isn't a public service; at the end of the day, you're still playing by their rules and it is your choice to play with twitter or to play somewhere else. The difference in userbase between twitter and other services doesn't mean you don't have to follow twitter's house rules. There's no reason a judge would need to get in on something like this, especially since Milo likely would be culpable by association under the US justice system, the result ultimately being the same. Personally, I don't like the idea of having to get the government involved in all online transactions - I'd like a place to say what I want where the worst that can happen is I get banned - it's not that I plan to say horrible things, it's that I don't trust when automated systems merge with state/federal law. (see: DMCA and youtube). Systems, even non-computer ones, can be gamed. The US justice system has pretty much been gamed by this point, and it's a pretty expensive game to play. For someone like Milo, if Breitbart wanted to, they could bankroll him so he could play. For an individual like me? I can't afford to play the game. I don't want it to come to this, where you have to be able to afford participating in discussions online. You don't even have to say anything particularly egregious (or anything at all) to be the target of someone just fucking around with the systems. I'd rather that the ramification for stuff like this was kept to accounts on websites instead of going to the courts.
        Nullabillity 10y ago
        > I'd rather that the ramification for stuff like this was kept to accounts on websites instead of going to the courts. I agree with that in a sense, but that's not currently the case. The question isn't public court or private company "court", it's whether there should be a private company "court" in addition to the public ones (which, mind you, can already get involved). At least there is some degree of transparency and public influence on the public ones.
  - richmarr 10y ago
    > Can't half way free speech. Twitter isn't your town square. They have legally set out T&Cs that specify what you are and aren't allowed to do using their service. Abuse damages Twitter's reputation so it's totally fair for them to shut it down.
    - Nullabillity 10y ago
      > Twitter isn't your town square. And yet, that's what they want to seem like they are. Until something like this happens...
      - richmarr 10y ago
        > And yet, that's what they want to seem like they are. Until something like this happens... They want to be as close to being a town square as it's possible for a commercial service to be... but there'll always be differences in behaviour caused by anonymity, and scale. Perhaps more importantly, if the town square turns into a huge argument, and all the reasonable people go home, the town square doesn't have to explain what happened to its shareholders.
        Nullabillity 10y ago
        As close as possible and as close as profitable are vastly different goals. As a user, the latter is not particularly interesting, even though most platforms (including this one, of course) take that approach, sadly.
        richmarr 10y ago
        > As close as possible and as close as profitable are vastly different goals. Sure, if you want to set up a non-profit or p2p social network (or contribute to an existing one) then good luck getting widespread adoption. I sympathise, in the social networking world you're bound to the low common denominator of the group you want to talk to. As a niche user you have a set of opinions that may or may not be bourne out by evidence of majority behaviour. The majority seems to without fail opt for profit-making services because they're usually higher quality & the conditions are broadly considered acceptable. Edit: Corrected "down-sides" to "conditions" because I don't consider them entirely negative.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- nailer 10y ago
  Can you link to any tweet where he harassed someone? He did mockingly say a friend of his deserved to be harassed, that's about it as far as I can tell.
onion2k 10y ago
This is a straightforward business decision from Twitter's perspective. People seeing someone banned get annoyed but they don't leave. People seeing abuse stop using the platform. Consequently it's better for business to ban people than to let abuse happen. Plus, really, it's better for society. Twitter is run by people after all. They (hopefully) don't want to build a tool people use for abusing others.
- intoverflow2 10y ago
  >They (hopefully) don't want to build a tool people use for abusing others. Bit late for that, they already did.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
auganov 10y ago
I don't think it's a terrible precedent. I only wish they were more uniform and systematic in banning similar kind of people. If anything it shows that you have to be very notorious until action is taken. There's plenty of accounts that incite hate without technically doing that directly in their content. For example there's this Shehab News Agency https://web.facebook.com/ShehabAgency.MainPage https://web.facebook.com/ShehabAgency.MainPage that will often report on terrorist attacks technically without clearly endorsing them but just by looking at the comments that praise the attacks and the overall style of reporting there's absolutely no doubt they're supportive. As the general public becomes more online-hate-speech-savvy we're bound to see more and more people adopting that strategy.

jonathankoren 10y ago

I fail to see how banning a repeated harasser is a terrible precedent.

jaredklewis 10y ago
Of course no one wants to see people harassed, but it's just that Twitter until recently was both censorship free and well known by the general population. Personally I think it would be great if these things could be settled in courts with due process. Harassment is a crime and nothing would please me more than to see some of these harassers serve time. But what's the other way? Twitter becomes non-neutral arbiter of what is right and wrong? One person's rebel is another's terrorist. One person's mob is another's protest. If Twitter starts to get involved in some censorship, it raises the obvious question from members of why that one thing they don't like wasn't censored. The only viable way for a free platform is all or nothing. Can't half way free speech.
- jonathankoren 10y ago
  You can't say "harassment is a crime" and then cry that you can't have "censorship" in some sort of misguided idea of free expression absolutism. There has never been a successful platform without moderation. Even 4chan moderates. Even 8chan. Without it, you quickly get a cesspool of trolls. And then you have nothing but a cesspool.
  - Nullabillity 10y ago
    > You can't say "harassment is a crime" and then cry that you can't have "censorship" in some sort of misguided idea of free expression absolutism. If it's bad enough that it's illegal then there are legal procedures to be followed. As little as I generally trust judges, there's at least far more oversight than having some random PR rep make the call in secret.
    - jonathankoren 10y ago
      Well the consequences, are a lot more than not being able to play with someone else's web page. My point is, no one really believes in absolutism.
    - csydas 10y ago
      But twitter isn't a public service; at the end of the day, you're still playing by their rules and it is your choice to play with twitter or to play somewhere else. The difference in userbase between twitter and other services doesn't mean you don't have to follow twitter's house rules. There's no reason a judge would need to get in on something like this, especially since Milo likely would be culpable by association under the US justice system, the result ultimately being the same. Personally, I don't like the idea of having to get the government involved in all online transactions - I'd like a place to say what I want where the worst that can happen is I get banned - it's not that I plan to say horrible things, it's that I don't trust when automated systems merge with state/federal law. (see: DMCA and youtube). Systems, even non-computer ones, can be gamed. The US justice system has pretty much been gamed by this point, and it's a pretty expensive game to play. For someone like Milo, if Breitbart wanted to, they could bankroll him so he could play. For an individual like me? I can't afford to play the game. I don't want it to come to this, where you have to be able to afford participating in discussions online. You don't even have to say anything particularly egregious (or anything at all) to be the target of someone just fucking around with the systems. I'd rather that the ramification for stuff like this was kept to accounts on websites instead of going to the courts.
      - Nullabillity 10y ago
        > I'd rather that the ramification for stuff like this was kept to accounts on websites instead of going to the courts. I agree with that in a sense, but that's not currently the case. The question isn't public court or private company "court", it's whether there should be a private company "court" in addition to the public ones (which, mind you, can already get involved). At least there is some degree of transparency and public influence on the public ones.
- richmarr 10y ago
  > Can't half way free speech. Twitter isn't your town square. They have legally set out T&Cs that specify what you are and aren't allowed to do using their service. Abuse damages Twitter's reputation so it's totally fair for them to shut it down.
  - Nullabillity 10y ago
    > Twitter isn't your town square. And yet, that's what they want to seem like they are. Until something like this happens...
    - richmarr 10y ago
      > And yet, that's what they want to seem like they are. Until something like this happens... They want to be as close to being a town square as it's possible for a commercial service to be... but there'll always be differences in behaviour caused by anonymity, and scale. Perhaps more importantly, if the town square turns into a huge argument, and all the reasonable people go home, the town square doesn't have to explain what happened to its shareholders.
      - Nullabillity 10y ago
        As close as possible and as close as profitable are vastly different goals. As a user, the latter is not particularly interesting, even though most platforms (including this one, of course) take that approach, sadly.
        richmarr 10y ago
        > As close as possible and as close as profitable are vastly different goals. Sure, if you want to set up a non-profit or p2p social network (or contribute to an existing one) then good luck getting widespread adoption. I sympathise, in the social networking world you're bound to the low common denominator of the group you want to talk to. As a niche user you have a set of opinions that may or may not be bourne out by evidence of majority behaviour. The majority seems to without fail opt for profit-making services because they're usually higher quality & the conditions are broadly considered acceptable. Edit: Corrected "down-sides" to "conditions" because I don't consider them entirely negative.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
nailer 10y ago
Can you link to any tweet where he harassed someone? He did mockingly say a friend of his deserved to be harassed, that's about it as far as I can tell.

onion2k 10y ago

This is a straightforward business decision from Twitter's perspective. People seeing someone banned get annoyed but they don't leave. People seeing abuse stop using the platform. Consequently it's better for business to ban people than to let abuse happen. Plus, really, it's better for society. Twitter is run by people after all. They (hopefully) don't want to build a tool people use for abusing others.

intoverflow2 10y ago
>They (hopefully) don't want to build a tool people use for abusing others. Bit late for that, they already did.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

auganov 10y ago

I don't think it's a terrible precedent. I only wish they were more uniform and systematic in banning similar kind of people. If anything it shows that you have to be very notorious until action is taken. There's plenty of accounts that incite hate without technically doing that directly in their content. For example there's this Shehab News Agency https://web.facebook.com/ShehabAgency.MainPage https://web.facebook.com/ShehabAgency.MainPage that will often report on terrorist attacks technically without clearly endorsing them but just by looking at the comments that praise the attacks and the overall style of reporting there's absolutely no doubt they're supportive. As the general public becomes more online-hate-speech-savvy we're bound to see more and more people adopting that strategy.