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Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists
- adamnemecek 8y agoCmon the meme is kinda funny.
- rc_bhg 8y agoIt's also kind of stupid. As in, very tiny amounts the things that the "joke" tries to attack are based in reality. Its as if they cannot accept that large numbers of progressive or liberal minded people exist.
- alcio 8y agoif Twitter were to ban stupid content from its website, not much would remain ; the stupidity of this can't be used as a reason to explain the bans.
- comesee 8y agoIt's a joke, you're taking it way too seriously
- DanAndersen 8y agoI think it's actually the reverse. Your critique is that the NPC meme ignores that lots of liberals/progressives exist. The rightist promoters of the NPC meme would agree with that statement -- but they would say that it's because most are just acting as ideologically/memetically programmed automatons. Crucial to understanding this meme is that its promoters see "libs" not as literal bots, but as humans-with-bot-thinking, who have grown up on a diet of platitudes and mantras without deep analysis. On the contrary, the left/libs/progressives (whatever you want to call them) on Twitter have had a habit of actually doing what you're saying, when they pull out the "oh look another Russian bot" troll. That meme actually asserts that the number of actual conservatives/right-wingers is literally small and being amplified by actual programmed chatbots.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- sp332 8y agoBeing funny isn't really a defense against pointing out that it's harmful.
- adamnemecek 8y agoIs it?
- sp332 8y agoHarmful? "a few of the accounts started posting misleading information about the midterm elections, including encouraging liberals to vote on Nov. 7". Yes.
- castlecrasher2 8y agoGolly, this is so "show me the man and I'll find you the crime" going on here. Are liberals actually too stupid to know when the vote is?
- sp332 8y agoThe upcoming midterm elections are expected to be very close, with low turnout favoring Republicans. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/democratic-lead-continues-to-grow-in-race-for-house-cbs-news-poll-battleground-tracker/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/democratic-lead-continues-to-gr... So a strategy for Republicans lately is to reduce turnout. Voter roll purges, disenfranchisement of felons, stricter voter ID laws, and closing polling stations are some legal ways to reduce turnout. Groups that are less concerned about appearing above-board use lies as a cheap way to nudge close elections. Spreading misinformation is effective enough that even well-funded fraud campaigns do it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud#Disinformation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud#Disinformation High turnout tends to favor Democrats, so they are less motivated to engage in this particular kind of election fraud. I don't think that makes them smarter or dumber.
- castlecrasher2 8y ago
- anjc 8y agoThe speed at which the media have rounded against this meme is breathtaking. Are some memes inherently powerful and just need to be controlled? Why are they powerful? How much longer can 30 year old boomers be let sip Monsters outdoors? It's not right.
- adamnemecek 8y agoMemes are propaganda on steroids.
- 706f6f70 8y agoCould say the same about most journalism today as well.
- OldJackHinson 8y ago"NPC meme" is to 2018 as "Common Sense" is to 1776.
- fenwick67 8y ago"30 year old boomers"?
- andun 8y agohttps://knowyourmeme.com/memes/30-year-old-boomer https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/30-year-old-boomer
- patrickg_zill 8y agosiiiippp
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jobigoud 8y agoYes some memes are more powerful than others. Like biological replicators, they score on longevity, fecundity and fidelity. For example many religions have a clause where if you stop believing you go to hell. Or if you don't teach it to your children you are a bad person. Very powerful mechanism.
- wpietri 8y agoI confess this campaign is a puzzlement to me. There are a bunch of people all repeating the same idea as a way of critiquing people they believe are... all repeating the same ideas?
- bitlax 8y agoWouldn't that be how you would critique that sort of thing? I dont think it's that hard to get.
- DanAndersen 8y agoIs it really that hard to understand? At its simplest level, the NPC meme is an extension of "I'm a member of [insert outgroup here], look how dumb I sound" trolling.
- wpietri 8y agoI guess? It's so self-invalidating that I'm having trouble seeing the point. Do they understand that they're engaging in the exact behavior they're criticizing? If they do and see it as clever irony, it hasn't come across in the bits I've seen. If they don't then it seems a vigorous self-own.
- influx 8y agoI see your point, but what’s weird is Twitter is banning these accounts and the press is freaking out about it. Why not let these npc memers continue to self own? Why interrupt your enemy while he’s making a mistake?
- wpietri 8y agoFrom Twitter's perspective, meme-makers aren't the enemy. Drama is good for their revenue numbers. Bulk fake accounts are a problem in general, so I'm sure they noticed the spike. But I'd guess the false election information is the honest motivation for the mass ban. People have basically given them and Facebook a mulligan on the 2016 election. But they definitely don't want to be blamed twice an a row for ruining democracy; not only does it make them look careless, but it significantly raises the risks of intemperate regulatory action.
- comesee 8y agoGreat honest accurate article. NPC meme is the funniest thing since Ugandan knuckles
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- beauzero 8y ago...as someone who is oblivious to these things (only knew it was a "thing" last night)...can someone explain why this is harmful and not just people wasting time?
- avaer 8y agoFrom the article, spreading misleading voter information, which could cause voters to miss the date.
- abnry 8y agoSigh. So people who would normally vote liberal are now going to vote on the wrong day because they got the election day date from a troll account mocking their liberal position--and they didn't bother to remember that elections are always on Tuesdays or to use google?
- pcbro141 8y agoI guess Twitter found the potential negatives of allowing voter suppression campaigns on their platform (no matter how ineffectual you think they are) are greater than the benefits of allowing people to carry them out 'because free speech.'
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Meai 8y agoIt's just an elaborate form of calling somebody stupid by implying that they don't consciously think about their decisions by means of having an inner dialogue. For twitter to ban this is weird but hey, I guess they are moving more towards the european model of free speech if they aren't already there.
- rc_bhg 8y agoIt's basically propaganda. Propaganda is generally agreed to be a bad thing for a true democracy.
- malvosenior 8y ago> Last week, a trolling campaign organized by right-wing internet users spilled over onto Twitter. So Twitter bans a bunch of satire accounts for political reasons and the New York Times applauds the decision. This makes me incredibly sad but I guess it's to be expected. If your political position is so weak that some jokes can damage it, maybe it's time to take a deep inward look. I don't see anyone calling on SNL to ban Trump impersonations.
- Retric 8y agoFor spreading incorrect election information. Plenty of far right twitter accounts, these where designed to get banned for publicity.
- malvosenior 8y ago> these where designed to get banned for publicity. I don't think they were. I think they were designed to be funny and characterize a particular ideology. As I said in the other comment, this article gives one extremely mild example of incorrect election information and says "a few" of the accounts were participating in that. Why would you ban all of them, including the accounts not spreading misinformation?
- Retric 8y agoNot all of these accounts where banned. But, it's likely they where banning multiple sock puppets from the same users.
- castlecrasher2 8y ago>far right twitter accounts Nazis are everywhere, after all. And wow is it just embarrassing to see this "incorrect election information" thing being touted here. If someone was actually convinced that the election was a day later because they believed an NPC Twitter account they have only themselves to blame.
- Retric 8y ago
- rhema 8y agoA long time ago, I was told "don't feed the trolls". It's hard to see how this publicity (e.g. the NYT) is not feeding the trolls. There is no doubt that this campaign, whatever motivations, was successful. At the same time, social media platforms are more at the ready to ban pranksters, bots, etc. That might be the only approach that works when the majority of society participates. (1) don't feed the troll, but it grows despite most people trying to ignore it. (2) ban the troll, and give them the NYT press they wanted in the first place Not a lot of good options here.
- sp332 8y agoThat approach only works for people who are "acting out" and trying to get attention online. The meaning of "troll" has changed. It doesn't work for people who are conducting harassment campaigns or spreading misinformation. It kinda doesn't work for anyone you're interacting with on a personal, non-anonymous basis anyway. If someone is behaving badly in a company or even in a casual group, you don't just ignore them.
- rhema 8y ago"If someone is behaving badly in a company or even in a casual group, you don't just ignore them." I think I agree, but it goes against the grain of what people previously thought you should do on the internet. >harassment campaigns or spreading misinformation I am genuinely curious about the flora of the NPC movement. I mean, this territory between meme and organized campaign is really interesting and it's sad it comes at the cost of society.
- michaelflux 8y agoYou're completely correct. Don't feed the trolls is exactly right. And yet every single time that the right throws out some more bait, no matter how silly, no matter how stupid, the left looses it's shit. Take this NPC thing, it's a damn joke, just like every single meme - it may be funny, it may not be depending on your own preferences, but when it gets posted and in response you have 50 articles the next day about how it 'dehumanises' something or other ... before it even gets to NYT, the trolls are more than fed.
- fromthestart 8y agoThis meme is originally based on the idea that not all people have an inner voice, and the supposition that people without an inner voice may be less likely to introspect and think critically. I think the ban is a little ridiculous and likely has more to do with it's origin on a so called "far right" website than anything else.
- michaelflux 8y agoBut with that said, what isn't 'far right' these days ... I'm just counting down the days until Bernie is called far right because he's not throwing bricks through Starbucks' windows.
- nailer 8y agoAnti-FGM activism and and reformist Islam have both been labelled hate speech according the SPLC: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/opinion/southern-poverty-law-center-liberals-islam.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/opinion/southern-poverty-... While Twitter bans criticism of the left using the NPC meme, @dbwrf, a pro (yes they exist) FGM group is not only still up but also running a Twitter ad campaign supporting FGM.
- michaelflux 8y agoThat story just illustrates how insane things have gotten. Maajid goes "hey I'm a member of this group, I want to improve our culture/religion" and is labeled an extremist. Meanwhile others from this group are raping children and the only thing that is said is "oh it's their culture, don't be so racist". Blows your goddamn mind.
- simonsarris 8y agoBernie is anti open borders, calling it basic globalist shilling. "It would make everybody in America poorer—you’re doing away with the concept of a nation state" I bet if you repeated his opinion but didn't use his name on Facebook, some, uh, [leftward people with very reflexive opinions] would show up to argue with you.
- lostgame 8y agoI love the last question ‘Aren’t you giving these trolls the attention they’re seeking by writing about them in The New York Times?’ I thought the same thing. Interesting to see right-wing business coming out of *chan-land. I’d always seen it as more of a left-wing place.
- malvosenior 8y ago*chan-land is pro freedom of speech. Historically that meant being against things like religious crusades against explicit lyrics and anti-evolution arguments. With the shift of the left against free speech, they've become the new enemy.
- dandersh 8y agoNo they're not, their idea of freedom of speech extends no further than "I want to say whatever I want." Their longstanding history of doxxing, conducting raids, etc. on those who they disagree with are the exact opposite of actual proponents of free speech.
- Carlton87 8y agoY'all went so far left *chan-land is now considered right.
- beaconstudios 8y ago*chan land is chaotic neutral and always has been. Authoritarians just can't handle chaotic. A projection of a high dimensional vector (politics) onto a line (left - right) is always going to be a goof.
- frou_dh 8y agoNot sure how to feel about this one. Waiting for John Oliver's take.
- yAnonymous 8y agoI'm with you on that. Eagerly waiting to be fed my opinion and then post about it on FB and Twitter. My friends are going to love it and I will feel appreciated.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- rustcharm 8y agoNY times characterizing these protesters as far/right or as “attention starved gamers” is also odd.
- andun 8y agoThis is HN so you might appreciate this version: (SFW) https://i.imgur.com/aPaBYCt.png https://i.imgur.com/aPaBYCt.png
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- josteink 8y agoHow about they proceed to ban bots instead? That would IMO make twitter much more useful, but of course it would kill 95% of their “user base” and traffic.
- OldJackHinson 8y agoWell, part of the basis of this "campaign" is that the people they are satirizing are indistinguishable from "bots"...
- rc_bhg 8y ago4chan is too stupid to tell the difference between a bot and a liberal
- booleandilemma 8y agoThe fact that NYT even asks the question “Are these Russian bots?” kind of fuels this meme, imo. Their answer is “probably not”.
- fireflash38 8y agoYou might know that internet trolls from reddit/4chan aren't likely to be russian (at least for this meme in particular), but most (especially older) people are not familiar with the various internet cultures. It's a question I can definitely see my parents asking.
- mikeatlas 8y agoThe appropriate title should have included: "The accounts violated Twitter’s rules against “intentionally misleading election-related content."
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ds0 8y agoEvan James has a good writeup on the sort of anxieties around society that sprung up the NPC meme [0]. There's a portion which I think has a kernel of truth, although it is definitely generous to the kind of people that immaturely lashed out and made very low-effort twitter accounts which wound up propagating the meme: >The far right can be profoundly intuitive creatures, who feel more deeply than cursory glances suggest. The NPC meme is a response to something real, something that snarky liberals, and even leftists, increasingly fail to notice. In short, it is a tragicomic acknowledgment that things are not OK, that we are all NPCs (to one degree or another) because we are all in bondage. I think the idea that people repeat samey platitudes they hear on TV or read online without much further thought is certainly a legitimate concern. The meme brought up a good point about mass consumer culture, but from there, it attained its own populism: a thousand voices telling a thousand other voices that they're following a script. As someone who admittedly spends a lot of time on 4chan (an online addiction I have sustained for ten years), I was present to witness its snowballing on the imageboard. What I found interesting then was that the crux of the discussion around the meme focused on the idea that few people have an inner monologue [1]. [0] https://jacobitemag.com/2018/10/02/empty-realm/ https://jacobitemag.com/2018/10/02/empty-realm/ [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/pristine-inner-experience/201110/not-everyone-conducts-inner-speech https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/pristine-inner-exper...
- kazagistar 8y agoIt confuses me, because "don't take things at face value" and "don't just follow a script" is, well, postmodernism. It's also anticapitalism. It's also a commentary about peoples reverence of traditional gender roles and religions. Actually, I totally fail to see why it's a conservative meme at all, unless it's being repeated without any attempt to consider broader implications.
- ds0 8y ago>unless it's being repeated without any attempt to consider broader implications. That's just it, I think. The meme was taken in by a crowd that itself does not practice introspection. I don't think the New York Times is too far off when they mention its spread by "attention-starved gamers": disenfranchised young men attempting their own first run at exercising a naive political opinion over the internet.
- jessaustin 8y agoThe Right used to abhor postmodernism, and were properly mocked by the Left whenever they whinged about it. Now the Right have embraced postmodernism, and the Left have no idea how to respond.
- Nasrudith 8y agoThat happened back with George W. Bush ironically and really ended it for the postmodernist side. There was one interesting article about it. http://clubtroppo.com.au/2012/02/22/george-bush-bruno-latour-and-the-end-of-postmodernism/ http://clubtroppo.com.au/2012/02/22/george-bush-bruno-latour... Being disengaged with reality because it doesn't say what you want it to isn't a good thing but some delusions are more harmful than others.
- jessaustin 8y agoGreat link, with great links! I'll be avidly reading those over the next few days. "...Latour can actually write well when he wants to." Golden! The PoMo "side" is not exactly the Leftist side, however. If reformed PoMo enthusiasts expect all this to go away now that they've seen the error of their ways, they will be disappointed. The discourse from 4chan etc is not only a reaction to a particular political circumstance, but also to the experience of real people in economic, advertising, media, social, etc arenas. The channers have found something that empowers them to speak back to dominant narratives that exclude them, and they're not going to give it up just because e.g. Latour has changed his mind.
- mkumm6 8y agoBanning all those accounts based on a tiny minority of tweets promoting fake election dates seems like totally bs reasoning. If their reasoning for the bans was actually a policy against "dehumanizing speech" as some have said, then why not ban everyone who tries to dehumanize a Trump supporter with an accusation of them being a "Russian bot?" Or what about dehumanizing language against opponents like racist/sexist/Nazi/homophobic/transophobic etc? Also.. I think this meme has a grain of truth to it - I don't know about the political aspect, but as to people's minds generating the same content and repeating the same phrases over and over: it seems as if our popular media is pretty limited in the things journalists and TV hosts are "allowed" to cover and say. Late night hosts all seem the same. That's one reason I enjoy 4chan, because the content is so diverse.
- dandersh 8y agoI must admit, it has been entertaining watching how the meme's proponents have acted as if they have uncovered some great Truth of the human experience, when in fact it's nothing more than the tired old "I am a critical thinking individual while those who disagree with me are not." wrapped in video game nomenclature. I suspect that deep down this was an attempt at coining a "new" SJW after the term had gone mainstream.
- comesee 8y agoIt's a joke
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ericdykstra 8y agoOne thing I really like about Twitter is that you can choose to follow who you want. If you don't want to see memes making fun of you, just don't follow accounts that post/retweet these memes. It's sad that Twitter is banning satire accounts. I'm against all censorship of lawful speech, and condemn Twitter and any social media platform that participates in this kind of censorship.
- michaelflux 8y agoAnd this is really at the root of the entire culture war. It used to be 'hey, that person said something stupid', lol ok what an idiot, anyway moving on to what we were doing' Now instead it's 'hey that person said something stupid, I need to share it to 5000 followers to show just how stupid they are and how virtuous I am for pointing out that it's stupid, hey hey hey people look look look I'm resisting the stupid look look there's a stupid person'. What we have is a large group of people who can only be described as professional offence takers. They wake up in the morning, and go out of their way to look though twitter what to be outraged by. They proactively seek out conflict purely for the sake of virtue signalling. And when these people engage so consistently, after a while you get people who just post shit just for the sake of getting that emotional response out of the other side.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- pcbro141 8y agoIn my view, there's a difference between letting people say stupid things, and letting people deliberately say misleading things that are clearly for the purpose of influencing an election (spreading the wrong election date.) I don't see anything wrong with Twitter not tolerating people spreading the wrong election date because 'free speech, don't be so offended'.
- michaelflux 8y ago> people deliberately say misleading things for purpose of influencing an election Well there goes every political campaign ever. All jokes aside, these days it doesn't matter if it's the media, the campaigns themselves, the supporters - it's not about the facts, it's not about anything real, it's just about spreading misleading shit faster than it can be fact checked. It's an issue on the right, it's an issue on the left. One may be worse than the other, but it doesn't mean it's better, it's just marginally less shitty.
- 7dare 8y ago> Evidence suggests that these are mostly just attention-starved gamers looking to impress one another What is the link with gaming I'm missing here? Is 4chan simply associated by gaming defacto? I don't see anything else about video games or any evidence of these people being gamers in the article...
- hugg 8y agoMaybe they think that only gamers know what an "NPC" is. But, feels like a stretch.
- ericdykstra 8y ago"Gamers" and "Gamergate" is a generic boogeyman that media outlets can use to direct their anger at. See "Why Young Men of Color Are Joining White-Supremacist Groups" [1] for another example. The obvious answer to "Why are non-whites joining white supremacist groups" might be "They're not white supremacist groups, they're just mislabeled by people who call everyone they disagree with nazis." The article explains that it is, however, Gamergate and Ayn Rand that are turning non-white people towards white supremacy, even though Gamergate and Ayn Rand don't have an opinion on racial superiority as far as I know. edit: It looks like I triggered the NPC downvote algorithm. I hope the next patch gives them dialogue choices. [1] http://archive.is/P0X3D http://archive.is/P0X3D
- whywhywhywhy 8y agoTo me, the real explanation for a lot of this bizarre nonsense is because journalists are spending all day on Twitter which in reality isn't the real world it's technically just a very popular internet forum with a few famous users and they've begun to not understand that what happens on the internet forum Twitter does not represent what's actually happening in the real world. This is how internet forum drama gets mistaken as actually something people in the real world actually think about. Once you start to see this it becomes so strange that you can even tell when a journalist is a Twitter addict just from some of the terms and thinking they start to include in their articles. There is very much a Twitter hivemind heavy users start to tap into, and unlike say Reddit users or even 4chan users they mistake Twitter as being the real world and the hivemind as reality.
- spaceflunky 8y agoBanned for "voter suppression"? Really? As if a bunch of people are going to get disenfranchised because a stupid joke tweet? Come on. If you don't vote because of that one tweet maybe you aren't educated enough to be voting in the first place. Furthermore, why not just ban that one tweet? Banning the entire meme because one tweet only goes to further the narrative that anything right wing is being systematically suppressed on the internet. Congrats on throwing the trolls a giant hunk of red meat, Twitter.
- kirykl 8y agoThese should be treated as similar to political cartoons.
- jf- 8y agoThis may be an unpopular opinion, but I’d prefer if this culture war crap were kept off HN. There are plenty of other places to discuss this, just because Twitter is involved doesn’t mean it’s related to tech.
- michaelflux 8y agoNot unpopular opinion at all. Reckon most here would agree. Used to be you could come here to at least slightly escape from all that shit and artificial outrage. Now I can barely tell the difference between HN and Vox.
- atq2119 8y agoYeah, this thread has degraded extremely rapidly in terms of comments. And luckily it just disappeared off the front page :)
- michaelflux 8y ago> this thread has degraded extremely rapidly The internet in a nutshell.
- username3 8y agoThis article was on Techmeme. https://www.techmeme.com/181016/p42#a181016p42 https://www.techmeme.com/181016/p42#a181016p42
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- M_Bakhtiari 8y agoNormally I’d agree, but I think prolific Silicon Valley startup Twitter playing such a big role makes it very much Hacker News material.
- forgottenpass 8y ago>Aren’t you giving these trolls the attention they’re seeking by writing about them in The New York Times? Yes, probably. But understanding how these things happen, and how easily joke memes can escape the internet’s seedy underbelly and morph into actual tools of influence, is part of understanding the mechanics of modern politics. Laudable goal. Yet they shot themselves in the foot. Instead of focusing on "everyone falls into the trap of substituting popular rhetoric in the place of critical thinking" they had too much of what could be dismissed as "orange man supporter bad."
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- CosmicBagel 8y agoI have a hard time believing these troll accounts had a significant impact on anyone's voting decions. Dumb meme, but seems like an over reaction.
- jessaustin 8y agoIt's interesting that this Twitter ban gets all this attention, while a far more civically damaging coordinated mass-ban by Twitter and Facebook has largely escaped notice. [0] If one were a cynic, one might suggest that there is only enough space in the news cycle for one group of unsympathetic ban victims. [0] https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/10/13/internet-censorship-just-took-an-unprecedented-leap-forward-and-hardly-anyone-noticed/ https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/10/13/internet-censorship-...
- Fellshard 8y agoA few observations. 1. Why did NYT get a special scoop on who's been banned, and why? That makes it more likely to be perceived as an act of signaling more than one of genuine enforcement. 2. Streisand Effect, in several ways. The reaction by Twitter also serves to put blood in the water, letting those trolls know that the tactic hit a soft spot, and encouraging them to hit it more aggressively. 3. Where's the line between this and satire? I'm seeing: a. Blatant hyperbole b. Obvious markers that the account is a part of the satire: hyperbolic or downright silly account names, and a distinctive avatar
- fenwick67 8y ago"let's show how unthinking this other group is with a snowclone meme"
- gldev3 8y ago"Pro-trump" What the f? Don't we have professionals anymore? Why is this news? Why is this so innacurate i thought the NY Times was a decent source of information. These people know nothing.
- smsm42 8y agoSomething that caught my eye there is serious discussion about whether jokes about November 7 voting (that I hear every election I've witnesses in US, bar none) is interfering with election and "giving false voting information" and whether it justifies removing the account. Which got me thinking - do I really want people that don't know which day is the voting day and trusting random twitter account with crudely drawn meme as an avatar with this information - do I really want them voting that much? It looks to me that if such people show up on November 7, it would only be for the best for everybody.
- mdimec4 8y agoROFL