4 ms·

Twitter purges accounts, and conservatives cry foul

26 points by matt4077 9y ago

ProAm 9y ago
Why Twitter (or any social media, Reddt, FB, HN, Snap, etc) needs to be considered a source of truth or honestly is beyond me. It's no different than listening to a stranger in real life.
- matt4077 9y ago
  Either words have meaning or they don't. If they don't, Social Media, newspapers, podcasts, and everything else could just shut down. If they do, If they do, it's important that we at least have the sort of context clues about the source of information and their reliability that we have in real life.
  - ProAm 9y ago
    They don't. Do you think Twitter cares if they have truth or DAU and advertisers?
- duxup 9y ago
  I think it is less about being the truth and what exactly you're doing business hosting and what the end results might be.
- helthanatos 9y ago
  They should probably reduce the amount of spam. It makes for a better experience and uses less server space... However, I don't believe they do it near well enough to be considered "fair" especially because they do it mostly manually and the people doing it are partial in some direction.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    It's definitely not about the "server space". The cost of server space is infinitesimal. At least on Facebook, if you have a business, you pay for increased intention. The more of your followers who are fake, you're paying for useless views. Why would anyone want fake followers except to boost their own ego? Unless you're an "influencer" and getting paid based on your follower count?
reilly3000 9y ago
Hey, I paid $5 greenbacks for those followers. #libtards
- dang 9y ago
  Could you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and not comment like this here?
Paraesthetic 9y ago
Lol politico isn't a credible source. They are more biased than the fake accounts they are reporting on.
ryanx435 9y ago
Woah woah woah I've been warned by dang for politics on hackernews. Now it's ok for this article? Ha ha I'm "calling foul" ;)
scarface74 9y ago
Why do conservatives keep complaining about sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc? Every other group that feels like they are underrepresented in the media and on the internet seem to be able to start their own community. Looking at the popularity of Fox News, I could see there would be a lot of money catering to conservatives. Heck, I would be willing to start a "conservative Twitter" if I thought I could get the funding and the uptake and I'm not conservative. It's like the atheist who became rich selling Bible apps.
- researcher7 9y ago
  As someone who was shadow banned, I left twitter, youtube, and facebook. The few times I expressed my opinion in a peaceful way, got called probably every name you can think of, and then saw my twitter account suspended. I was told by twitter support I was engaging in "targeted harassment", asked for proof, did not hear back from support. The twee they referred to is a reply to someone wishing me to die from terminal disease, to which I responded "Bless your heart", and apparently that person reported me for that. After one month of being shadow banned, which for some reason spilled to youtube and facebook, I closed all accounts. I can understand why conservatives feel that way. They are the only group getting things like this thrown at them, and I am an independent, who happened to disagree on calls to censor one side over the other, seen first hand what that gets you into. I have seen reports of gab.ai being popular and truly for free speech, but did not use them, lost interest in social media altogether, and to be honest, my productivity went up after that. Maybe others have different experiences, but that was my experience.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    While this post was fine. I've looked at your few other posts here on HN. HN specifically discourages snarky uninformitive posts. HN has every right to have community standards. A post such as "Another socialist utopia collapsing? Shocked, shocked I tell you." doesn't add anything to the conversation. If you look at some of my recent posts where I argue against the government interfering in tech, I'm definitely not pro big government by any means. So I'm not commenting on your opinion just your tone. I've seen some of my pro-capitalist posts go back and forth between downvotes and upvotes, but I would like to think that I had reasonable arguments that added to the discussion.

26 points by matt4077 9y ago

Why Twitter (or any social media, Reddt, FB, HN, Snap, etc) needs to be considered a source of truth or honestly is beyond me. It's no different than listening to a stranger in real life.

matt4077 9y ago
Either words have meaning or they don't. If they don't, Social Media, newspapers, podcasts, and everything else could just shut down. If they do, If they do, it's important that we at least have the sort of context clues about the source of information and their reliability that we have in real life.
- ProAm 9y ago
  They don't. Do you think Twitter cares if they have truth or DAU and advertisers?
duxup 9y ago
I think it is less about being the truth and what exactly you're doing business hosting and what the end results might be.
helthanatos 9y ago
They should probably reduce the amount of spam. It makes for a better experience and uses less server space... However, I don't believe they do it near well enough to be considered "fair" especially because they do it mostly manually and the people doing it are partial in some direction.
- scarface74 9y ago
  It's definitely not about the "server space". The cost of server space is infinitesimal. At least on Facebook, if you have a business, you pay for increased intention. The more of your followers who are fake, you're paying for useless views. Why would anyone want fake followers except to boost their own ego? Unless you're an "influencer" and getting paid based on your follower count?

reilly3000 9y ago

Hey, I paid $5 greenbacks for those followers. #libtards

dang 9y ago
Could you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and not comment like this here?

Paraesthetic 9y ago

Lol politico isn't a credible source. They are more biased than the fake accounts they are reporting on.

ryanx435 9y ago

Woah woah woah I've been warned by dang for politics on hackernews. Now it's ok for this article? Ha ha I'm "calling foul" ;)

scarface74 9y ago

Why do conservatives keep complaining about sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc? Every other group that feels like they are underrepresented in the media and on the internet seem to be able to start their own community. Looking at the popularity of Fox News, I could see there would be a lot of money catering to conservatives. Heck, I would be willing to start a "conservative Twitter" if I thought I could get the funding and the uptake and I'm not conservative. It's like the atheist who became rich selling Bible apps.

researcher7 9y ago
As someone who was shadow banned, I left twitter, youtube, and facebook. The few times I expressed my opinion in a peaceful way, got called probably every name you can think of, and then saw my twitter account suspended. I was told by twitter support I was engaging in "targeted harassment", asked for proof, did not hear back from support. The twee they referred to is a reply to someone wishing me to die from terminal disease, to which I responded "Bless your heart", and apparently that person reported me for that. After one month of being shadow banned, which for some reason spilled to youtube and facebook, I closed all accounts. I can understand why conservatives feel that way. They are the only group getting things like this thrown at them, and I am an independent, who happened to disagree on calls to censor one side over the other, seen first hand what that gets you into. I have seen reports of gab.ai being popular and truly for free speech, but did not use them, lost interest in social media altogether, and to be honest, my productivity went up after that. Maybe others have different experiences, but that was my experience.
- scarface74 9y ago
  While this post was fine. I've looked at your few other posts here on HN. HN specifically discourages snarky uninformitive posts. HN has every right to have community standards. A post such as "Another socialist utopia collapsing? Shocked, shocked I tell you." doesn't add anything to the conversation. If you look at some of my recent posts where I argue against the government interfering in tech, I'm definitely not pro big government by any means. So I'm not commenting on your opinion just your tone. I've seen some of my pro-capitalist posts go back and forth between downvotes and upvotes, but I would like to think that I had reasonable arguments that added to the discussion.