4 ms·

It would only be better if they unbanned everyone and stopped trying to bend the messages sent over the platform. At the moment it seems like it might be bette

by seany 10y ago

It would only be better if they unbanned everyone and stopped trying to bend the messages sent over the platform. At the moment it seems like it might be better for it to just burn down, so something more open can replace it.

eropple 10y ago
Do you think they should unban people who threaten to rape and kill people because they disagree about video games? If so, why?
- intopieces 10y ago
  As a for-profit business? No, I do not think they should unban people who threaten to rape and kill people (for any reason). They have a duty to their investors to create a company that is profitable, and those actions rarely result in a profitable enterprise. As a nonprofit organization? Yes, absolutely they should. They should allow users to form groups and better curate their own feed, assisted by algorithms, and essentially let the people who want to say terrible things say terrible things and let the people who don't want to read it block them. This is essentially the same fight about what "The Internet" should be that has been going on since the Usenet heyday. We do have to realize now, though, that there are no benevolent corporations who want what is best for the Internet. We have to advocate for that ourselves.
- CoryG89 10y ago
  I don't necessarily hold this view, but I can see the merit in it. I tend to lean toward purist as far as free speech goes. Slippery slope arguments and what not. Personally, I like the concept of outsourcing the policing/moderation of a community to the community itself. I think what online forums do by promoting moderators from the long time, trusted user base is a step in the right direction. The upvote/downvote system on HN, where the downvoted stuff gets increasingly more difficult read, is even better.
  - eropple 10y ago
    Great freedoms come with great responsibilities. I tend to think that free speech works only when the consequences of using that free speech...y'know...exist. In a universe of pseudonymity and anonymity, those consequences don't exist. Even when you are literally committing the crime of assault (friendly reminder: assault is the threat of violence, battery is the violence) against somebody because they have the temerity to be a woman who makes video games or a black man who criticizes the police on the Internet. To that end, showing people the door seems eminently reasonable. You aren't going to actually be able to visit upon them the prosecution (again, for literal and extant crimes) that they have earned for themselves, but you can, and IMO should, cut them out of the social universe that you undertake to create and protect.
    - CoryG89 10y ago
      If by "assaulted" you mean assaulted by words alone, then I am not sure that the right to not be assaulted should trump free speech. I believe dealing with newly generated accounts can be dealt with as a separate problem, distinct from the community at large. Reputation and filtering messages/content, and or restrictions based on account age are some examples. If you don't think there can be any consequences for free speech on the internet, then I don't see how you can give any credibility to threats of violence, which you can simply block out yourself instead of having to have big brother do it for you.
    - VLM 10y ago
      The problem with that is pragmatically the cost of real estate in a Potemkin village is apparently zero. You can write a sellable poem that people like about wine, all its good and (mostly) bad. But good luck selling a poem about sucralose or aspartame.
    - stale2002 10y ago
      But there WOULD be consequences. The consequences is that you would end up on a lot of people's ban lists. That way you don't have to interact with people you don't want to.
- h4nkoslo 10y ago
  What about completely anodyne conservatives like Robert Stacy McCain or Glenn Reynolds, or journalists like Chuck Johnson or Milo Yiannopoulos that at worst pick on celebrities National Enquirer-style?
  - eropple 10y ago
    I can't speak to McCain or Reynolds. But Johnson isn't a journalist; he is a bog-standard harasser in his own right. Yiannopoulos got a lot of cover for a long time because he is, under a technical and squinty definition, a journalist--and one who has a history of using their base of followers to threaten people. Where his eye settles, where he encourages actions, shitfloods of death and rape threats follows. I'm OK with both being shown the door. EDIT: OK, I've done some quick reading, and "anodyne"? Are you serious? I have no opinion on whether McCain should be shown the door from Twitter, but dude, if you think a neo-Confederate and active white supremacist is "anodyne", either I am vastly underestimating the rot in the right wing of American politics or you do not live in anything within fridge-tossing distance of the real world. (But, then again, Trump.)
    - h4nkoslo 10y ago
      So you've gone from "Twitter mostly only bans people throwing around death threats" to, "well this one guy once wrote some bad stuff under a pseudonym in another forum, and this other guy has rude followers" Do you see why people might not exactly trust Twitter's commitment to being a content-neutral platform, or why they might be reluctant to give them huge amounts of free content and network effects that can be taken out at a whim?
      - eropple 10y ago
        I asked seany if they should unban people who make death and rape threats. I didn't assert that Twitter bans only people who make death and rape threats. So, no, I'm not "going" anywhere. Now, as to your eliding of actual malicious intent: pointing the Eye of Sauron at people, when you know-and-can't-not-know that your followers will deluge whoever you point at with death and rape threats, is not, in my book, merely "having rude followers". It is intentionally trying to harm somebody. And this is what Milo did, regularly, on Twitter--while he finally picked on a celebrity who had the social standing to hit back, he would regularly retweet some nobody who never said anything to him to his followers and let the head-hunting commence. You should be judged for that, and you shouldn't be allowed to continue harming people. So yeah, I'm OK with him being kicked to the curb. But I'm gonna be honest: given the way you're writing about all of this, you should be reluctant to use Twitter. You should leave Twitter. I think that's a great idea. I entreat you to definitely, without a question, leave and start your own thing. And maybe you'll prove me wrong, that this land of ponies is so much better for everyone, instead of just the swarms of abusers--but I doubt it. So go get started! I look forward to seeing it.
- collyw 10y ago
  While I agree that its not good to make these threats, does anyone take a bunch or gamers sitting in their mothers basements seriously when they make these threats?
  - eropple 10y ago
    A friend of mine had her address publicized and pictures taken in front of her home--no, not Google Street View shots, new pictures--by anonymous Twitter eggs who told her they would behead her and rape her. Should that not be taken seriously? (She, of course, did take it seriously; she crashed on friends' couches for a few weeks while she found a new place to live. And she is not the only one by a long shot; this is totally a just and equitable punishment for being a woman on the Internet, though, I guess.)
  - blakeyrat 10y ago
    Even if you don't take them seriously, they can still do a lot of damage. Even ignoring the psychological elements of being constantly denigrated, these groups can usually drive people off of Twitter by sheer mass of tweets. "Just block them", it's easy when there's one or two accounts being dicks. It's much more difficult when 4chan's recruited 50,000 accounts to be dicks.
    - eropple 10y ago
      For sure. This is also why "block lists" don't actually, y'know--work. Oh, distributed block lists! Which require somebody to be abused by the new randos before they work! At some point, and I'd personally argue that that point was a few years ago now, you take the gloves off and start eighty-sixing the bad actors.
- stale2002 10y ago
  Private decentralized ban lists would be a good solution to this. If you don't like people who say things that you believe are terrible, you can subscribe to a ban list. If you don't care about people saying offensive things, you just don't subscribe to any ban lists. Or maybe only subscribe to spam ban lists.
- dominotw 10y ago
  >If so, why? Because they are arbitrarily applied based on ideological lines and what your caste is in progressive caste system. I see tons of accounts asking for Donald Trump to be anally raped but none of them are suspended. Why do you support this gross and repulsive censorship?
  - eropple 10y ago
    If an account threatens to rape Donald Trump, I am 100% in favor of seeing that account shown the door (and, where possible, the person behind it be barred from the service and prosecuted if feasible). Why would I not be?
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - dominotw 10y ago
      > I am 100% in favor of seeing that account shown the door What are your thoughts on why Twitter choose not to do that?
      - eropple 10y ago
        The same reason why they only barely combat the turds who threaten people I know personally: it doesn't scale. I would like them to invest much more in doing so. Can you provide links to these threatening tweets? I will happily report them right now.
        dominotw 10y ago
        What do you think Twitter do given consistency doesn't scale currently? Only obvious answer is to unban banned accounts, right?
        eropple 10y ago
        In no way do I think that. I don't think there is value in letting some assholes back in because you haven't shown every asshole the door. The correct answer is to continue showing assholes the door. You are bailing out the ocean--but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Now, can you please provide those threatening tweets? I would like to report them.
- seany 10y ago
  Yes. There is already a legal mechanism for dealing with this. Ignore them on your list, or report them to the authorities. Booting them off the platform doesn't make sense to me.

by seany 10y ago

eropple 10y ago

Do you think they should unban people who threaten to rape and kill people because they disagree about video games? If so, why?

intopieces 10y ago
As a for-profit business? No, I do not think they should unban people who threaten to rape and kill people (for any reason). They have a duty to their investors to create a company that is profitable, and those actions rarely result in a profitable enterprise. As a nonprofit organization? Yes, absolutely they should. They should allow users to form groups and better curate their own feed, assisted by algorithms, and essentially let the people who want to say terrible things say terrible things and let the people who don't want to read it block them. This is essentially the same fight about what "The Internet" should be that has been going on since the Usenet heyday. We do have to realize now, though, that there are no benevolent corporations who want what is best for the Internet. We have to advocate for that ourselves.
CoryG89 10y ago
I don't necessarily hold this view, but I can see the merit in it. I tend to lean toward purist as far as free speech goes. Slippery slope arguments and what not. Personally, I like the concept of outsourcing the policing/moderation of a community to the community itself. I think what online forums do by promoting moderators from the long time, trusted user base is a step in the right direction. The upvote/downvote system on HN, where the downvoted stuff gets increasingly more difficult read, is even better.
- eropple 10y ago
  Great freedoms come with great responsibilities. I tend to think that free speech works only when the consequences of using that free speech...y'know...exist. In a universe of pseudonymity and anonymity, those consequences don't exist. Even when you are literally committing the crime of assault (friendly reminder: assault is the threat of violence, battery is the violence) against somebody because they have the temerity to be a woman who makes video games or a black man who criticizes the police on the Internet. To that end, showing people the door seems eminently reasonable. You aren't going to actually be able to visit upon them the prosecution (again, for literal and extant crimes) that they have earned for themselves, but you can, and IMO should, cut them out of the social universe that you undertake to create and protect.
  - CoryG89 10y ago
    If by "assaulted" you mean assaulted by words alone, then I am not sure that the right to not be assaulted should trump free speech. I believe dealing with newly generated accounts can be dealt with as a separate problem, distinct from the community at large. Reputation and filtering messages/content, and or restrictions based on account age are some examples. If you don't think there can be any consequences for free speech on the internet, then I don't see how you can give any credibility to threats of violence, which you can simply block out yourself instead of having to have big brother do it for you.
  - VLM 10y ago
    The problem with that is pragmatically the cost of real estate in a Potemkin village is apparently zero. You can write a sellable poem that people like about wine, all its good and (mostly) bad. But good luck selling a poem about sucralose or aspartame.
  - stale2002 10y ago
    But there WOULD be consequences. The consequences is that you would end up on a lot of people's ban lists. That way you don't have to interact with people you don't want to.
h4nkoslo 10y ago
What about completely anodyne conservatives like Robert Stacy McCain or Glenn Reynolds, or journalists like Chuck Johnson or Milo Yiannopoulos that at worst pick on celebrities National Enquirer-style?
- eropple 10y ago
  I can't speak to McCain or Reynolds. But Johnson isn't a journalist; he is a bog-standard harasser in his own right. Yiannopoulos got a lot of cover for a long time because he is, under a technical and squinty definition, a journalist--and one who has a history of using their base of followers to threaten people. Where his eye settles, where he encourages actions, shitfloods of death and rape threats follows. I'm OK with both being shown the door. EDIT: OK, I've done some quick reading, and "anodyne"? Are you serious? I have no opinion on whether McCain should be shown the door from Twitter, but dude, if you think a neo-Confederate and active white supremacist is "anodyne", either I am vastly underestimating the rot in the right wing of American politics or you do not live in anything within fridge-tossing distance of the real world. (But, then again, Trump.)
  - h4nkoslo 10y ago
    So you've gone from "Twitter mostly only bans people throwing around death threats" to, "well this one guy once wrote some bad stuff under a pseudonym in another forum, and this other guy has rude followers" Do you see why people might not exactly trust Twitter's commitment to being a content-neutral platform, or why they might be reluctant to give them huge amounts of free content and network effects that can be taken out at a whim?
    - eropple 10y ago
      I asked seany if they should unban people who make death and rape threats. I didn't assert that Twitter bans only people who make death and rape threats. So, no, I'm not "going" anywhere. Now, as to your eliding of actual malicious intent: pointing the Eye of Sauron at people, when you know-and-can't-not-know that your followers will deluge whoever you point at with death and rape threats, is not, in my book, merely "having rude followers". It is intentionally trying to harm somebody. And this is what Milo did, regularly, on Twitter--while he finally picked on a celebrity who had the social standing to hit back, he would regularly retweet some nobody who never said anything to him to his followers and let the head-hunting commence. You should be judged for that, and you shouldn't be allowed to continue harming people. So yeah, I'm OK with him being kicked to the curb. But I'm gonna be honest: given the way you're writing about all of this, you should be reluctant to use Twitter. You should leave Twitter. I think that's a great idea. I entreat you to definitely, without a question, leave and start your own thing. And maybe you'll prove me wrong, that this land of ponies is so much better for everyone, instead of just the swarms of abusers--but I doubt it. So go get started! I look forward to seeing it.
collyw 10y ago
While I agree that its not good to make these threats, does anyone take a bunch or gamers sitting in their mothers basements seriously when they make these threats?
- eropple 10y ago
  A friend of mine had her address publicized and pictures taken in front of her home--no, not Google Street View shots, new pictures--by anonymous Twitter eggs who told her they would behead her and rape her. Should that not be taken seriously? (She, of course, did take it seriously; she crashed on friends' couches for a few weeks while she found a new place to live. And she is not the only one by a long shot; this is totally a just and equitable punishment for being a woman on the Internet, though, I guess.)
- blakeyrat 10y ago
  Even if you don't take them seriously, they can still do a lot of damage. Even ignoring the psychological elements of being constantly denigrated, these groups can usually drive people off of Twitter by sheer mass of tweets. "Just block them", it's easy when there's one or two accounts being dicks. It's much more difficult when 4chan's recruited 50,000 accounts to be dicks.
  - eropple 10y ago
    For sure. This is also why "block lists" don't actually, y'know--work. Oh, distributed block lists! Which require somebody to be abused by the new randos before they work! At some point, and I'd personally argue that that point was a few years ago now, you take the gloves off and start eighty-sixing the bad actors.
stale2002 10y ago
Private decentralized ban lists would be a good solution to this. If you don't like people who say things that you believe are terrible, you can subscribe to a ban list. If you don't care about people saying offensive things, you just don't subscribe to any ban lists. Or maybe only subscribe to spam ban lists.
dominotw 10y ago
>If so, why? Because they are arbitrarily applied based on ideological lines and what your caste is in progressive caste system. I see tons of accounts asking for Donald Trump to be anally raped but none of them are suspended. Why do you support this gross and repulsive censorship?
- eropple 10y ago
  If an account threatens to rape Donald Trump, I am 100% in favor of seeing that account shown the door (and, where possible, the person behind it be barred from the service and prosecuted if feasible). Why would I not be?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - dominotw 10y ago
    > I am 100% in favor of seeing that account shown the door What are your thoughts on why Twitter choose not to do that?
    - eropple 10y ago
      The same reason why they only barely combat the turds who threaten people I know personally: it doesn't scale. I would like them to invest much more in doing so. Can you provide links to these threatening tweets? I will happily report them right now.
      - dominotw 10y ago
        What do you think Twitter do given consistency doesn't scale currently? Only obvious answer is to unban banned accounts, right?
        eropple 10y ago
        In no way do I think that. I don't think there is value in letting some assholes back in because you haven't shown every asshole the door. The correct answer is to continue showing assholes the door. You are bailing out the ocean--but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Now, can you please provide those threatening tweets? I would like to report them.
seany 10y ago
Yes. There is already a legal mechanism for dealing with this. Ignore them on your list, or report them to the authorities. Booting them off the platform doesn't make sense to me.