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I am left with a great feeling of unease if not disgust at the Valley's long con on the concept of free expression. Social media likes to say it's the great equ

I am left with a great feeling of unease if not disgust at the Valley's long con on the concept of free expression. Social media likes to say it's the great equalizer, the democratic weapon. Twitter likes to pretend it's single handedly responsible for the Arab Spring, and with great irony they are now suppressing some of the results of that message that are no longer "on brand". Social media isn't about, and has never been about, freedom of expression, as much as sometimes we seem to think it is. It's about saying whatever you need to to get scale, and then suppressing dissident communities that might cost you ad revenue or you personally find distasteful once you have the power and authority to do so. It's a cultural appropriation of a hacker ethos for the sake of a business purpose. As for this action, very few things enrage me as much as Wahhabism and Islamic extremism; in fact, sometimes I struggle with the cognitive desire to write off Islam and the Muslim world as a whole because of ISIL and its followers. However, I don't believe that this idea makes much sense. You cannot kill a meme by driving it off your platform; religious zealots have traditionally faced much worse persecution than being banned from a service. They will spring up again in places harder to detect, with tools that strengthen their communities. Their enclaves will no longer coexist alongside peaceful messages; they will be harbored entirely within their own safe spaces, echo chambers that strengthen their hatred in their isolation. Instead of a potential ISIL sympathizer seeing ISIL messages alongside trending topics against extremism and terrorism, they will spend time on extremist forums in which there is no dissenting opinion. They will not see pictures of people lamenting the death, they will have communities where this death is entirely praised. Instead of seeing football scores or other young people facing their same problems that may have differing religious opinions, they will find more people willing to indoctrinate them when exploring whether or not they find meaning in Islamic extremism. Twitter may think they are taking the oxygen out of the atmosphere by banning them, but in reality they are simply shifting the fire to someplace where it can burn hotter.

onion2k 10y ago
Those other platforms already exist. Twitter's actions won't change that. If someone wants to see extremist material they can, and will, by visiting those other sites. That was the case before and it continues to be. The difference now is that they'll find it a little harder to find them because there won't be a handy Twitter feed to search, and people who haven't sought that material won't see retweets from those accounts. That's a net benefit.
- phn 10y ago
  It is, until you find yourself on the extremist side of someone's book.
  - fucking_tragedy 10y ago
    Reminder that left of center socialist views are considered extremist. As are right-wing libertarian values. Both espouse views that would upend the status quo and both groups are monitored / infiltrated. A forum I kept tabs on for years adopted some of the former views (European style socialism) around the 2008 election. The admin was visited by the FBI and decided that keeping the forum up wasn't worth being hassled by the government. Violence was never promoted or glorified. Martin Luther King was considered a communist threat, so much so that the FBI sent him a letter suggesting he take drastic measures (see: suicide) lest they out him as an adulterer. [0] Occupy Wall St was heavily surveilled as a threat. The FBI worried that it was a front for a violent revolution. [1] Centralization of discussion allows quick suppression of dissenting opinion. [0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/fbis-suicide-letter-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-and-dangers-unchecked-surveillance https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/fbis-suicide-letter-dr... [1] http://bordc.org/news/the-fbi-and-occupy-the-surveillance-and-suppression-of-occupy-wall-street/ http://bordc.org/news/the-fbi-and-occupy-the-surveillance-an...
    - Senji 10y ago
      >Occupy Wall St was heavily surveilled as a threat. The FBI worried that it was a front for a violent revolution. It was, that was what Soros was pushing for when he funded it in part.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - meira 10y ago
    It's happening right now in Brazil with left wing and social movements.
imron 10y ago
> Twitter may think they are taking the oxygen out of the atmosphere by banning them, but in reality they are simply shifting the fire to someplace where it can burn hotter. You've missed the sub-text surrounding this. This is not about Twitter taking oxygen away from Islamic Extremists. This article is a public relations response to deflect recent accusations that for political reasons Twitter is banning alt-right figures it doesn't like (e.g. Milo Yiannopoulos), but aren't banning Islamic extremists who call for and say far worse things. Those accusations have started to gain traction outside alt-right circles recently (to Twitter's detriment) hence the need to come out with news saying how many hundreds of thousands of extremist accounts they've also banned, and how they've been doing this for months. I'd be surprised if the majority of these bans were the result of any sort of internal campaign designed to rid Twitter of Islamic extremism, as opposed to regular people just complaining about abusive/offensive accounts that also happen to involve Islamic extremists.
sp332 10y ago
Cutting off communications channels can disrupt an organization. Specifically, removing them from Twitter might keep people who are not going looking for extremism from being recruited.
Senji 10y ago
>Twitter likes to pretend it's single handedly responsible for the Arab Spring Real credit goes to the CIA.

onion2k 10y ago

Those other platforms already exist. Twitter's actions won't change that. If someone wants to see extremist material they can, and will, by visiting those other sites. That was the case before and it continues to be. The difference now is that they'll find it a little harder to find them because there won't be a handy Twitter feed to search, and people who haven't sought that material won't see retweets from those accounts. That's a net benefit.

phn 10y ago
It is, until you find yourself on the extremist side of someone's book.
- fucking_tragedy 10y ago
  Reminder that left of center socialist views are considered extremist. As are right-wing libertarian values. Both espouse views that would upend the status quo and both groups are monitored / infiltrated. A forum I kept tabs on for years adopted some of the former views (European style socialism) around the 2008 election. The admin was visited by the FBI and decided that keeping the forum up wasn't worth being hassled by the government. Violence was never promoted or glorified. Martin Luther King was considered a communist threat, so much so that the FBI sent him a letter suggesting he take drastic measures (see: suicide) lest they out him as an adulterer. [0] Occupy Wall St was heavily surveilled as a threat. The FBI worried that it was a front for a violent revolution. [1] Centralization of discussion allows quick suppression of dissenting opinion. [0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/fbis-suicide-letter-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-and-dangers-unchecked-surveillance https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/fbis-suicide-letter-dr... [1] http://bordc.org/news/the-fbi-and-occupy-the-surveillance-and-suppression-of-occupy-wall-street/ http://bordc.org/news/the-fbi-and-occupy-the-surveillance-an...
  - Senji 10y ago
    >Occupy Wall St was heavily surveilled as a threat. The FBI worried that it was a front for a violent revolution. It was, that was what Soros was pushing for when he funded it in part.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- meira 10y ago
  It's happening right now in Brazil with left wing and social movements.

imron 10y ago

> Twitter may think they are taking the oxygen out of the atmosphere by banning them, but in reality they are simply shifting the fire to someplace where it can burn hotter. You've missed the sub-text surrounding this. This is not about Twitter taking oxygen away from Islamic Extremists. This article is a public relations response to deflect recent accusations that for political reasons Twitter is banning alt-right figures it doesn't like (e.g. Milo Yiannopoulos), but aren't banning Islamic extremists who call for and say far worse things. Those accusations have started to gain traction outside alt-right circles recently (to Twitter's detriment) hence the need to come out with news saying how many hundreds of thousands of extremist accounts they've also banned, and how they've been doing this for months. I'd be surprised if the majority of these bans were the result of any sort of internal campaign designed to rid Twitter of Islamic extremism, as opposed to regular people just complaining about abusive/offensive accounts that also happen to involve Islamic extremists.

sp332 10y ago

Cutting off communications channels can disrupt an organization. Specifically, removing them from Twitter might keep people who are not going looking for extremism from being recruited.

Senji 10y ago

>Twitter likes to pretend it's single handedly responsible for the Arab Spring Real credit goes to the CIA.