7 ms·

Can this be summarized as "Twitter, implement censorship because people are saying things we don't like?" I fully understand that Twitter is a company offering

• staticassertion 9y ago
  You can say and think whatever you like. Companies giving platforms to hate is not something that democracy requires. It's less "that idea is popular" and more "these people are inciting hatred against other people". I'm baffled that people still repeat this "free speech is important" thing when we're talking about a private service giving an audience to white supremacists.
  • dominotw 9y ago
    hate cannot be precisely defined though. Thats the crux of the argument.
    • croon 9y ago
      Sure it can. It means "intense dislike". If that is directed at an intrinsic property of a group of people, that's hate speech. Example: black people as opposed to smokers.
      • nileshtrivedi 9y ago
        Very soon that leads to any speech criticizing, say, the capitalists or the politicians in power.
        • croon 9y ago
          > Very soon that leads to any speech criticizing, say, the capitalists or the politicians in power. No, because that's not an intrinsic property. Hating people who take too long at the register isn't the same as viewing all redheads as inferior.
          • changchuming 9y ago
            What is intrinsic? Is being poor intrinsic? Can I spew hate against the poor and the homeless then? The problem is these definitions are unclear, and policing hate against black people obliges you to police hate against the homeless, and pretty soon everything else. I have seen far more examples of slippery slopes happening than not, so forgive me if I'm skeptical.
          • nileshtrivedi 9y ago
            The whole point is that lines are not easy to draw. Religion is a belief system and is not an intrinsic property either. Are you going to allow speech like "Kill all muslims" which is not very different from "Kill all capitalists". Free speech is so critical to a functioning free society that I'd rather err on the side of allowing bad speech rather than banning not-bad speech by mistake.
    • latch 9y ago
      Plenty of countries have legal definitions which are well enforced (1) and which often rely on internationally agreed upon standards (2). Slippery slopes is usually a fallacious argument, decidedly so in this case where plenty of successful examples exists. (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Keegstra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Keegstra (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civil_and_Political_Rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civi...
  • rimliu 9y ago
    Because free speech is important. That includes speech you do not like.
    • staticassertion 9y ago
      This is it - this is what baffles me, thank you for posting this.
  • chmod775 9y ago
    Yes. They are not legally required to provide service to anyone. But indiscriminately providing services to everyone (within the laws of your country), without booting people based on a personal agenda, is the ABC of gaining the trust of your users.
    • mozumder 9y ago
      Wrong. A respected editorial standard allows for even more trust. Example: Do you trust Washington Post or Twitter more?
      • anonemouse145 9y ago
        Independent journalists who are getting banned from Twitter en masse.
      • SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
        Comparing a centralized, unified group like a newspaper writing team with a diffuse, decentralized mob like Twitter makes me question your sincerity.
        • mozumder 9y ago
          Twitter is a single corporation. It can choose to limit the scope of its published tweets if it wishes, via stronger editorial rules.
          • SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
            It could also choose to open a steel factory and produce I beams -- why are we not criticizing its low steel output? Twitter would immediately lose all utility to me if it transitioned out of the business of being a forum/socialization platform to a poorly sourced algorothmic newspaper. (They're flirting with it -- and frankly, it doesn't seem to be going well, because that's not what people want.) It seems outright disingenuous to suggest that Twitter and the NYT are in the same business, and seems to be based entirely around a false equivalence about "publish". There are multiple kinds of businesses that publish things, and the solution to problems in one domain aren't just to be a differemt type of business.
  • SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
    I'm terrified of people who use phrases like "inciting hatred" as an excuse for why we should start ostracizing entire swatches of people from social discourse. Hilariously, I'd say that if anyone is "inciting hatred", it's probably you at your strawmen. In my experience, they're much more dangerous to the well-being of society than the people they're trying to silence, as they're generally authoritarians of the worst sort without a shred of remorse because they're doing it for The Right Reasons(TM) and are sure of it. But if I tolerate you speaking, someone I view as an immediate and visceral threat to my society, I suppose I can tolerate just about anyone using words. It's a shame we'll likely come to violence because you can't show the same tolerance, and use words not force on people you disagree with.
  • Amezarak 9y ago
    I believe democratically elected governments should have more power than corporations. Right now, corporations have complete and utter control over the most common and important communications method of our time. Think about what you're saying: corporations have the power to prevent you from saying anything online. Twitter and Facebook can ban you for your political opinions. Fine, you say: get your own website. Well, we've seen that your registrar, CDN, and hosting providers will also kick you off if they find your speech sufficiently offensive (or if enough pressure comes down on them to do so.) In the end, your ISP can do the same thing. Corporations own the commons we all use. Yes, the FA only protects you from government censorship, but the societal principle of free speech is not so limited. If you cannot speak because every commons is owned by a private corporation, or where any speech can be banned because a mob is threatening to protest you, you do not have free speech in any meaningful sense. I don't believe the solution to our problems is to blithely conclude that corporations can do whatever they want, it's their platforms, and that anyway, it's about "hate" (who gets to define that?) We need to look very seriously about how communication has evolved since the 18th century and what "freedom of speech" means now, and how to settle it in a way that at least leads to democratically elected institutions having the power to restrict it, rather than corporate overlords. I would also argue that repression of speech is a contributing factor to the rise of violence. As long as all speech is legitimized, there's a relief valve for despicable beliefs. The Nazi Party was born in an environment where political violence was already commonplace, and where nationalist rhetoric resulted in the nationalists being severely beaten. Consequently, only the most violent and committed people remained, who then organized their own violent mobs. Ultimately, the perception of being "repressed" by both mob violence and the state (the Nazi party was later banned) only lent support by people who felt for the "underdog" and radicalized supporters who felt that legitimate, nonviolent means would never be enough.
  • eitland 9y ago
    I hate nazism as much as everyone else. Problem is they and other media companies (and often the users as well) has ridiculous problems to understand the diffence between racism (judging and treating people different depending on who their parents where etc) and scepticism towards a recent immigration wave (do we want to relocate all these humans right here, right now? Can we help more people by doing it differently?)
    • staticassertion 9y ago
      OK, but there are definitely plenty of clear cut cases and Twitter has historically had issues dealing even with these. This isn't an issue of media in general, we're talking about Twitter, that's what the article is about.
• ChristianBundy 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance Tolerance is generally a useful tool for social discourse, but when your "peers" are actively working to recruit and organize a movement to silence/deport/kill your friends it's generally not useful to tolerate that behavior. Tolerance only works when you have at least the smallest and most fundamental amount of social cohesion.
  • detcader 9y ago
    And white supremacists say their enemies are against social cohesion and organizing to silence people (in the latter case there's a bit of truth, in terms of the anti-civil-liberties streak of my fellow progressives and leftists). In the end it's still taking political sides.
  • mc32 9y ago
    Is there any mainstream movement for reporting legal immigrants? As for illegals, every major country in the world deports illegal immigrants, even good old Canada, to the chagrin of many who thought they'd walk over and be granted immigration status without any further effort.
    • pjc50 9y ago
      (I'm assuming "reporting" was a typo for "deporting") Brexit? Helpfully Brexit is a multi-faceted movement, so you can't pin down people as supporting or opposing any particular policy. But it seems a large part of it was driven by opposition to "eastern europeans" - who are in the UK legally under freedom of movement. If Brexit happens without a new rule being introduced, suddenly millions of people who legally immigrated to the UK will become "illegal". (They can try the naturalisation process, which is long, expensive, not at all guaranteed to succeed, and closed to many categories of people)
• craftyguy 9y ago
  The 1st amendment only applies to the government, not to your peer citizens or to companies. They can censor whatever they want.
  • detcader 9y ago
    No one believes they can't. But should they? https://theintercept.com/2014/08/21/twitter-facebook-executives-arbiters-see-read/ https://theintercept.com/2014/08/21/twitter-facebook-executi...
  • mc32 9y ago
    People on both sides pull this card out till it affects their PoV. Imagine the calls we'd witness from one side of the spectrum if Twitter went 4chan.
    • GVIrish 9y ago
      If Twitter went full 4chan it would implode. There's no way Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or even Reddit would have gotten to the size they have if they were curated in favor of trolls. When subgroups of trolls have gotten booted from larger communities and tried to start their own social media enclaves, they've never gotten to a truly large scale because most people don't want to be part of that kind of community.
      • anonemouse145 9y ago
        "curated in favor of trolls". If you're not with us you're actively against us.
      • mc32 9y ago
        My point is people are okay with sites self governing till self government evolves into the loudspeaker for the other side and then they want regulation. A better way, in my view would be for twitter to allow people to subscribe to groups and those groups have their own moderation. Obviously some things would be subject to regular laws like immediate threats of violence, doxxing, etc.
• tdees40 9y ago
  No, how about users (me, at least) are leaving Twitter because it's a rotten cesspool of misogyny, racism and stupidity. Maybe users should get a choice to avoid some of this?
  • rimliu 9y ago
    But you have a choice and according to you, you are already using it: leaving Twitter.
  • nprz 9y ago
    Doesn't twitter allow you the option to mute and block users you would rather not hear from?
    • tdees40 9y ago
      Sure, but there's like umpteen million terrible accounts...seems like a lot to ask of your users.
  • throw2016 9y ago
    Any public platform is going to have this. You have to first decide what you don't want in clear language and legislate it very specifically and clearly. Or you will destroy diversity and free speech. Newspapers and TV are controlled so you don't see too much of it. But any public internet site cannot avoid this without heavy moderation which at Twitter, Youtube, Facebook scale are not easy problems to solve.
• mysterydip 9y ago
  To your point, say twitter existed when segregation was accepted as “normal society”, Or pre-lgbt general acceptance.
  • nathanaldensr 9y ago
    That's exactly my point. I myself am not racist, nor do I believe in segregation, but does that mean I or others should actively work to prevent the discussion of those ideas? Wouldn't we become just as bad as the people we decry if we tried to suppress their viewpoints?
    • jkestner 9y ago
      No, because we'd still be, you know, not racist. But I think suppressing a viewpoint is counterproductive. Instead, the holders of those viewpoints should be held to the light, and it's a Twitter problem in that such people can be completely anonymous or even fake. Hard to have a public debate when some of the participating citizens are fictional.
      • blfr 9y ago
        The arguments for the US constitution in the Federalists Papers were presented pseudonymously. Debate doesn't require some silly real names policy.
    • pjc50 9y ago
      Yes, and no? Proposing racial segragation is something is highly offensive to non-white people, discriminatory in and of itself. If you're an employer, letting some guy talk about his beliefs in racial discrimination in your workplace is creating a hostile environment for your other employees. If you have any kind of position in a community, you shouldn't allow it there either.
• blfr 9y ago
  Can this be summarized as "Twitter, implement censorship because people are saying things we don't like?" Yes, basically. OP apparently also thinks that what constitutes community is a central authority handing out badges. the company should issue badges of status or of shame based on signals about how people actually use, or abuse, Twitter. In other words, Twitter should begin to think of itself, and its users, as a community And believes that Facebook or Linkedin profiles are markers of online reputation. These people (he's not alone) are watching their authority eroding and believe that it could be stopped with another status symbol. Doubtful. Aside, which online communities has Anil Dash created?
  • pjc50 9y ago
    There was an entire startup built around social media profile reputation, called Klout. It's possible for some people to earn decent lifestyle incomes from social media, although this usually means Instagram. > Aside, which online communities has Anil Dash created? Stackoverflow? https://stackoverflow.com/company/management https://stackoverflow.com/company/management
    • dillera 9y ago
      He joined way after that was created.
• blatherard 9y ago
  No, that's an insufficient summary. At the least, you should note harassment as a significant issue, since the author brings it up many times.
• nxsynonym 9y ago
  I agree with you. The only thing that censorship brings in this particular case is a safe space for advertisers. I see exactly 0 harm in sharing a platform with people with alternate views than me. If you don't like the way a social platform is heading, then leave it. You are not entitled to a safe space. At the end of the day twitter is going to cater to its biggest and most influential users. It costs you nothing to ignore the users who are saying things you don't like.
  • pjc50 9y ago
    > I see exactly 0 harm in sharing a platform with people with alternate views than me. Spoken like someone who's never been the victim of a targeted harassment campaign. It's a little hard to take that view when people are posting pictures of your children's school along with their death threats.
    • nprz 9y ago
      Since when is sharing a platform with people whose political views differ from yours equal to allowing targeted harassment? I don't think many would disagree that someone who threatens real life violence on someone should result in a banning from that platform. But an automatic ban based on political affiliation seems undemocratic.
      • pjc50 9y ago
        The original article doesn't mention anything like "an automatic ban based on political affiliation". The de-verification of white supremacists argument hinges around both verification as endorsement, and the possibility that some political beliefs (white supremacy) are in themselves a threat of violence.
    • nxsynonym 9y ago
      Meh, these threats exist in the real world as well. You can't silence everybody who might possibly be a threat at some point. Those who actually make the threats should be dealt with, but last time I checked it's "innocent until proven guilty" not "guilty until proven liberal".