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How are they providing a "progressive-supremacist" slant? And what does that even mean? Perhaps you should unfollow those whose tweets you don't like. It isn

How are they providing a "progressive-supremacist" slant? And what does that even mean? Perhaps you should unfollow those whose tweets you don't like. It isn't Twitter that is generating the content. Is it the way they display it that bothers you?

skylan_q 10y ago
Perhaps you should unfollow those whose tweets you don't like. It isn't Twitter that is generating the content. Fully agreed and totally expected for people to do this. But Twitter is going so far as to ban people who haven't made threats, but that Twitter considers evil. EDIT: They're also shadowbanning many accounts of those who support Trump. Scott Adams recently switched his endorsement, and within a few days was shadowbanned.
- candiodari 10y ago
  Example: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151301555066/the-week-i-became-a-target http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151301555066/the-week-i-became-... Hacker News does the same, incidentally: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6060954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6060954 I always found that weird about the American system. "Free speech" on the one hand, and yet extreme reactions to political opinions everywhere. You regularly find Americans who publicly declare that they won't work with people with particular opinions. It switches which side is the one overtly silencing the other, which is also weird. When I was a teenager, it was definitely republicans silencing people, and yet today, not so much. Very weird.
  - skylan_q 10y ago
    It wouldn't bother me as much if Twitter was small-fry. But in some cases they even see themselves as a public utility. Imagine not being allowed a bus ride because of your party affiliation!
  - DanBC 10y ago
    That post is years old. Dang has said that they rarely use shadow banning any more. Here's one comment where he says this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12205161#12208276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12205161#12208276 > I think it means the same thing as shadow banning. We have largely phased that out, except for spammers and serial trolls. For the most part we tell people that we banned them by posting a reply to one of their comments, and when they seem rehabilitable (I suppose that's not a word?) we invite them to email hn@ycombinator.com if they want to be unbanned.
- DanBC 10y ago
  > They're also shadowbanning many accounts of those who support Trump. Scott Adams recently switched his endorsement, and within a few days was shadowbanned. More accurately, that's the reason Scott Adams gives. Twitter hasn't (as far as I know) responded yet. Since Adams is known to use sock-puppets there might be something else going on. Why would Twitter ban trump supporters and not all the other really vile people infesting twitter?
  - skylan_q 10y ago
    Why would Twitter ban trump supporters and not all the other really vile people infesting twitter? Because they work for the Clintons and Saudi Arabia.
    - DanBC 10y ago
      Neo Nazis work for the Clintons?
      - skylan_q 10y ago
        Check who owns Twitter.
- koolba 10y ago
  > EDIT: They're also shadowbanning many accounts of those who support Trump. Scott Adams recently switched his endorsement, and within a few days was shadowbanned. His original "endorsement" of Hillary was driven by fear of being physically injured or killed due to his support of Trump[1]. He's been pro-Trump from the beginning. [1]: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/145456082991/my-endorsement-for-president-of-the-united-states http://blog.dilbert.com/post/145456082991/my-endorsement-for...
  - skylan_q 10y ago
    Oh I know this. It did go over most people's heads and many thought he was serious about his Clinton endorsement. He then "came out" for Trump.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >They're also shadowbanning many accounts of those who support Trump. How about: they just have some BS department/AI that shadowbans based on user complaints etc, and they do a lousy job at it? Here's the same result, without the conspiracy part.
ihsw 10y ago
Progressive-supremacy is reactionary intolerance towards illiberal principles and ideologies for the sake of multiculturalism and cultural relativism. Well-meaning liberals and ideologically driven leftists naively and ignorantly pander to minorities, and more to the point they minimize or refuse to challenge bigotry within minority communities for the sake of political correctness, tolerating what they believe is "other cultures," and respecting different lifestyles. For example, Hillary Clinton labels Trump's voters as deplorable -- a group of bigoted, sexist, and racist xenophobes. They are irredeemable, except when they provide generous campaign contributions. She ignores the fact that the very same labels apply to the Gulf monarchies, from whom she receives vast sums of cash. The hypocrisy is palpable and it should be readily apparent that she has no moral center.
- skylan_q 10y ago
  In other words, "follow the money" to see what motivates Twitter to do what it's doing.
eloisant 10y ago
I think the problem is some people don't just unfollow when they don't like tweets, they start a flame war. Worse, they will attack people they don't follow because one of their friend retweeted something for the sake of starting a flame war. Add to that the fact that 140 characters are not enough to put nuances and develop an argument, and you get an environment that fosters trolls. It's not limited to a specific way of thinking (i.e. SJW) http://wondermark.com/1k62/ http://wondermark.com/1k62/ This is a direct consequence of the way twitter works with everything public, retweeting, etc.
ptaipale 10y ago
It's not what Twitter users do, it's what Twitter does. Like shadowbanning Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert. http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151301555066/the-week-i-became-a-target http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151301555066/the-week-i-became-...
- minitech 10y ago
  Who really knows how that happened? I doubt it was a conscious decision by Twitter. Maybe an automatic shadowban occurs after a certain number of reports while awaiting staff review, and people figured out how to abuse that feature.
  - skrowl 10y ago
    You could almost believe that if he weren't the 5th or 6th famous vocal Trump supporter to get banned. Milo Yiannopoulos, Scott Adams, @Ricky_Vaughn99, the list goes on and on. Many of the large tech companies here in the USA are in the tank for Hillary, presumably because they want a president that is very easily influenced by special interest dollar. Who can blame them? They don't want their gravy train cut off. Google rather famously censors things on her behalf almost daily now, it seems. If you dare to check out news.google.com during this election cycle, the political section is full of discredited partisan sources like WashPo, HuffPo, and CNN that are nothing but hit pieces about Trump. It's disgustingly biased.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - minitech 10y ago
      I don’t want to get into the whole conspiracy thing here, so I’ll just point out that you’re saying he’s the 5th or 6th famous vocal Trump supporter banned, but you only listed two other people, one of whom (Yiannopoulos) is kind of well known for hate and was explicitly banned for it, not shadowbanned.
      - 10y ago
rndgermandude 10y ago
The problem is not unfollowing (and muting/blocking) accounts you don't like. The problem is following accounts that you might do. Twitter started to ban and/or shadowban (hellban) accounts for political reasons, sometimes for short periods of time, sometimes forever, and also just made your own account unfollow accounts they deemed "offensive", whatever this means. I'm not just talking about true or perceived troll/harasser accounts here, but people like Scott Adams of Dilbert fame who did not harass anybody as far as I have seen, just had the "wrong" opinions regarding Hillary/Donald recently (I follow him since forever and could verify his tweets stopped showing up in my timeline when the shadowban happened)[0] And not just accounts are affected, entire hashtags are hidden from trending and auto complete as a means to limit their spread. At the same time, other accounts who are truly harassing and even trying to incite violence are left alone, e.g. because the target is Trump or a Trump supporter and those are apparently fair game. (No, I am not a Trump supporter, but telling people to self harm or commit suicide because they tweeted #MAGA once is not only against twitter rules, it's against basic human decency) Sure, they are a private company and entitled to censor or not censor as they please. But twitter users are also noticing that the self proclaimed free speech zone of the web and beacon of democracy fails to deliver on their free speech promises. [0] http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151301555066/the-week-i-became-a-target http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151301555066/the-week-i-became-...
derptron 10y ago
The progressive-supremacist slant refers to the "Trust and Safety Council" which is little more than censorship of those guilty of wrongthink aka saying anything that goes against the current tidal wave of PC culture.

skylan_q 10y ago

Perhaps you should unfollow those whose tweets you don't like. It isn't Twitter that is generating the content. Fully agreed and totally expected for people to do this. But Twitter is going so far as to ban people who haven't made threats, but that Twitter considers evil. EDIT: They're also shadowbanning many accounts of those who support Trump. Scott Adams recently switched his endorsement, and within a few days was shadowbanned.

candiodari 10y ago
Example: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151301555066/the-week-i-became-a-target http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151301555066/the-week-i-became-... Hacker News does the same, incidentally: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6060954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6060954 I always found that weird about the American system. "Free speech" on the one hand, and yet extreme reactions to political opinions everywhere. You regularly find Americans who publicly declare that they won't work with people with particular opinions. It switches which side is the one overtly silencing the other, which is also weird. When I was a teenager, it was definitely republicans silencing people, and yet today, not so much. Very weird.
- skylan_q 10y ago
  It wouldn't bother me as much if Twitter was small-fry. But in some cases they even see themselves as a public utility. Imagine not being allowed a bus ride because of your party affiliation!
- DanBC 10y ago
  That post is years old. Dang has said that they rarely use shadow banning any more. Here's one comment where he says this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12205161#12208276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12205161#12208276 > I think it means the same thing as shadow banning. We have largely phased that out, except for spammers and serial trolls. For the most part we tell people that we banned them by posting a reply to one of their comments, and when they seem rehabilitable (I suppose that's not a word?) we invite them to email hn@ycombinator.com if they want to be unbanned.
DanBC 10y ago
> They're also shadowbanning many accounts of those who support Trump. Scott Adams recently switched his endorsement, and within a few days was shadowbanned. More accurately, that's the reason Scott Adams gives. Twitter hasn't (as far as I know) responded yet. Since Adams is known to use sock-puppets there might be something else going on. Why would Twitter ban trump supporters and not all the other really vile people infesting twitter?
- skylan_q 10y ago
  Why would Twitter ban trump supporters and not all the other really vile people infesting twitter? Because they work for the Clintons and Saudi Arabia.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    Neo Nazis work for the Clintons?
    - skylan_q 10y ago
      Check who owns Twitter.
koolba 10y ago
> EDIT: They're also shadowbanning many accounts of those who support Trump. Scott Adams recently switched his endorsement, and within a few days was shadowbanned. His original "endorsement" of Hillary was driven by fear of being physically injured or killed due to his support of Trump[1]. He's been pro-Trump from the beginning. [1]: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/145456082991/my-endorsement-for-president-of-the-united-states http://blog.dilbert.com/post/145456082991/my-endorsement-for...
- skylan_q 10y ago
  Oh I know this. It did go over most people's heads and many thought he was serious about his Clinton endorsement. He then "came out" for Trump.
coldtea 10y ago
>They're also shadowbanning many accounts of those who support Trump. How about: they just have some BS department/AI that shadowbans based on user complaints etc, and they do a lousy job at it? Here's the same result, without the conspiracy part.

ihsw 10y ago

Progressive-supremacy is reactionary intolerance towards illiberal principles and ideologies for the sake of multiculturalism and cultural relativism. Well-meaning liberals and ideologically driven leftists naively and ignorantly pander to minorities, and more to the point they minimize or refuse to challenge bigotry within minority communities for the sake of political correctness, tolerating what they believe is "other cultures," and respecting different lifestyles. For example, Hillary Clinton labels Trump's voters as deplorable -- a group of bigoted, sexist, and racist xenophobes. They are irredeemable, except when they provide generous campaign contributions. She ignores the fact that the very same labels apply to the Gulf monarchies, from whom she receives vast sums of cash. The hypocrisy is palpable and it should be readily apparent that she has no moral center.

skylan_q 10y ago
In other words, "follow the money" to see what motivates Twitter to do what it's doing.

eloisant 10y ago

I think the problem is some people don't just unfollow when they don't like tweets, they start a flame war. Worse, they will attack people they don't follow because one of their friend retweeted something for the sake of starting a flame war. Add to that the fact that 140 characters are not enough to put nuances and develop an argument, and you get an environment that fosters trolls. It's not limited to a specific way of thinking (i.e. SJW) http://wondermark.com/1k62/ http://wondermark.com/1k62/ This is a direct consequence of the way twitter works with everything public, retweeting, etc.

ptaipale 10y ago

It's not what Twitter users do, it's what Twitter does. Like shadowbanning Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert. http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151301555066/the-week-i-became-a-target http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151301555066/the-week-i-became-...

minitech 10y ago
Who really knows how that happened? I doubt it was a conscious decision by Twitter. Maybe an automatic shadowban occurs after a certain number of reports while awaiting staff review, and people figured out how to abuse that feature.
- skrowl 10y ago
  You could almost believe that if he weren't the 5th or 6th famous vocal Trump supporter to get banned. Milo Yiannopoulos, Scott Adams, @Ricky_Vaughn99, the list goes on and on. Many of the large tech companies here in the USA are in the tank for Hillary, presumably because they want a president that is very easily influenced by special interest dollar. Who can blame them? They don't want their gravy train cut off. Google rather famously censors things on her behalf almost daily now, it seems. If you dare to check out news.google.com during this election cycle, the political section is full of discredited partisan sources like WashPo, HuffPo, and CNN that are nothing but hit pieces about Trump. It's disgustingly biased.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - minitech 10y ago
    I don’t want to get into the whole conspiracy thing here, so I’ll just point out that you’re saying he’s the 5th or 6th famous vocal Trump supporter banned, but you only listed two other people, one of whom (Yiannopoulos) is kind of well known for hate and was explicitly banned for it, not shadowbanned.
    - 10y ago

rndgermandude 10y ago

The problem is not unfollowing (and muting/blocking) accounts you don't like. The problem is following accounts that you might do. Twitter started to ban and/or shadowban (hellban) accounts for political reasons, sometimes for short periods of time, sometimes forever, and also just made your own account unfollow accounts they deemed "offensive", whatever this means. I'm not just talking about true or perceived troll/harasser accounts here, but people like Scott Adams of Dilbert fame who did not harass anybody as far as I have seen, just had the "wrong" opinions regarding Hillary/Donald recently (I follow him since forever and could verify his tweets stopped showing up in my timeline when the shadowban happened)[0] And not just accounts are affected, entire hashtags are hidden from trending and auto complete as a means to limit their spread. At the same time, other accounts who are truly harassing and even trying to incite violence are left alone, e.g. because the target is Trump or a Trump supporter and those are apparently fair game. (No, I am not a Trump supporter, but telling people to self harm or commit suicide because they tweeted #MAGA once is not only against twitter rules, it's against basic human decency) Sure, they are a private company and entitled to censor or not censor as they please. But twitter users are also noticing that the self proclaimed free speech zone of the web and beacon of democracy fails to deliver on their free speech promises. [0] http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151301555066/the-week-i-became-a-target http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151301555066/the-week-i-became-...

derptron 10y ago

The progressive-supremacist slant refers to the "Trust and Safety Council" which is little more than censorship of those guilty of wrongthink aka saying anything that goes against the current tidal wave of PC culture.