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I’ve been wondering for a while whether I should delete my Twitter account and this piece of news suggests to me that perhaps I should. The sentence “Fomenting

I’ve been wondering for a while whether I should delete my Twitter account and this piece of news suggests to me that perhaps I should. The sentence “Fomenting political discord” sounds a lot like 1984.

nbst 7y ago
In the article, the accounts were "actively spreading misinformation and encouraging unrest in politically sensitive climates." Sounds fine to me. Overreaction much?
- mastazi 7y ago
  > "actively spreading misinformation and encouraging unrest" Isn't this the way many dictators describe democracy movements? How do we know if it's one or the other? Twitter is not a government, you can't submit a freedom of information request, we don't know what methodology they've used.
- michalu 7y ago
  Sounds fine to me too. When NSDAP executed "Night of the Long Knives" they also provided a reason that sounded fine. In fact it wasn't even called Night of the Long Knives, it was called "Hummingbird" ... Nobody is going to provide a reason that doesn't "sound fine" ... or did you verify those accounts? Besides "encouraging unrest in politically sensitive climates" is BS statement in itself. They kicked out 200k Chinese accounts, 5k from UAE, 4k from Russia ... so these are "politically sensitive climates" according tho whose political narrative and objectives? I'm sure Chinese definition of "sensitive climates" fits different countries. Bottom line is, Twitter is a private business and now they play geopolitics (or aid their player of choice, choose whichever you like)
- rbritton 7y ago
  Do you trust their judgment on this? Will you always? Like other similar happenings, the side you agree with may not always be the side making the choices. No one can objectively make that call in 100% of circumstances, and the risk of deplatforming a valid counter voice should not be dismissed.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    > Do you trust their judgment on this? More or less. > Will you always? Hard to say. I can at least see the possibility that the answer is no. > Like other similar happenings, the side you agree with may not always be the side making the choices. The side that's in favor of keeping foreign agitprop off of the site is a side that I'm likely to continue to agree with. It's not like the actors being blocked are good-faith "valid counter voices". They are illegitimate because of their methodology, not because of their viewpoint. (An organized campaign of people lying about who they're working for, trying to advocate positions that they don't actually believe, in order to mess with the minds of voters of another country... yeah, let's block that, no matter which viewpoint they've chosen to "advocate".) Could Twitter move on to viewpoint blocking? Yes, they could. Would I have a problem with it if they did? Absolutely. Disclaimer: I don't actually use Twitter, and I may not know what I'm talking about.
- Kaiyou 7y ago
  Inconvenient truths often get mislabeled as misinformation.
  - dymk 7y ago
    What truths are being labeled as misinformation here?
    - Kaiyou 7y ago
      If I knew and told you that for this very site I'd get banned. If the truths weren't inconvenient, no one would bother mislabeling them.
- makomk 7y ago
  Isn't that exactly how China justifies all its online crackdowns?
- tempest345 7y ago
  "misinformation" - as defined by whom? "encouraging unrest in politically sensitive climates" - La Résistance in Vichy France would fall under this. In some countries asking for fair and democratic elections would fall under this.
- sweeneyrod 7y ago
  Without any context, if you said "a spokesman justified the censorship by claiming those involved were 'actively spreading misinformation and encouraging unrest in politically sensitive climates'" and asked me to guess who the spokesman was representing, I would say the Chinese government not Twitter. You might object that that statement is true when made by Twitter but would be a lie coming from China, but I don't think that's right. The protestors in Hong Kong are certainly "encouraging unrest" and probably some of them have made untrue claims at some point. This kind of surface-level similarity doesn't necessarily mean much, but I still think it's a bit disturbing. Twitter have a lot of power to censor, and I'm not sure why anyone would trust them to reliably use it wisely.
panarky 7y ago
Not the first time I've heard someone argue that state-sponsored agitprop is free speech, while suppressing it on a private platform is somehow dystopian. Ignorance is strength?
- mastazi 7y ago
  > state-sponsored agitprop as defined by the board of Twitter, Inc.? I stand by my "ignorance" then.
- vkou 7y ago
  State-sponsored agitprop bad, private, corporate-sponsored agitprop good. Am I understanding the implications of your post correctly?
  - WhatIsDukkha 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism I think is pretty directly relevant to your "question"? So unless we deal with the problem of Coca Cola being on twitter we can't deal with state sponsored bots? Your question seems insincere and merely aimed at morally confusing the issue to no useful purpose.
    - vkou 7y ago
      How on Earth is pointing out the hypocrisy of censoring paid propaganda by a state actor, but not by a corporate actor whataboutism? This is an incredibly relevant issue. And we're not even trying to 'deal with the problem of Coca Cola being on Twitter'. The whole raison d'etre for Twitter's existence is dissemination of paid propaganda by corporate actors. It's what keeps the lights on at Twitter! Ads, promoted tweets, and other forms of paid speech.
      - WhatIsDukkha 7y ago
        If the difference between a State and a Corporation is that muddled in your mind it's your issue not the rest of ours. It's a critical part of being a discerning person to be able to BOTH say how things are similar and how they differ. You seem to have no test for discerning how Coca Cola and the Russian government differ.

nbst 7y ago

In the article, the accounts were "actively spreading misinformation and encouraging unrest in politically sensitive climates." Sounds fine to me. Overreaction much?

mastazi 7y ago
> "actively spreading misinformation and encouraging unrest" Isn't this the way many dictators describe democracy movements? How do we know if it's one or the other? Twitter is not a government, you can't submit a freedom of information request, we don't know what methodology they've used.
michalu 7y ago
Sounds fine to me too. When NSDAP executed "Night of the Long Knives" they also provided a reason that sounded fine. In fact it wasn't even called Night of the Long Knives, it was called "Hummingbird" ... Nobody is going to provide a reason that doesn't "sound fine" ... or did you verify those accounts? Besides "encouraging unrest in politically sensitive climates" is BS statement in itself. They kicked out 200k Chinese accounts, 5k from UAE, 4k from Russia ... so these are "politically sensitive climates" according tho whose political narrative and objectives? I'm sure Chinese definition of "sensitive climates" fits different countries. Bottom line is, Twitter is a private business and now they play geopolitics (or aid their player of choice, choose whichever you like)
rbritton 7y ago
Do you trust their judgment on this? Will you always? Like other similar happenings, the side you agree with may not always be the side making the choices. No one can objectively make that call in 100% of circumstances, and the risk of deplatforming a valid counter voice should not be dismissed.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  > Do you trust their judgment on this? More or less. > Will you always? Hard to say. I can at least see the possibility that the answer is no. > Like other similar happenings, the side you agree with may not always be the side making the choices. The side that's in favor of keeping foreign agitprop off of the site is a side that I'm likely to continue to agree with. It's not like the actors being blocked are good-faith "valid counter voices". They are illegitimate because of their methodology, not because of their viewpoint. (An organized campaign of people lying about who they're working for, trying to advocate positions that they don't actually believe, in order to mess with the minds of voters of another country... yeah, let's block that, no matter which viewpoint they've chosen to "advocate".) Could Twitter move on to viewpoint blocking? Yes, they could. Would I have a problem with it if they did? Absolutely. Disclaimer: I don't actually use Twitter, and I may not know what I'm talking about.
Kaiyou 7y ago
Inconvenient truths often get mislabeled as misinformation.
- dymk 7y ago
  What truths are being labeled as misinformation here?
  - Kaiyou 7y ago
    If I knew and told you that for this very site I'd get banned. If the truths weren't inconvenient, no one would bother mislabeling them.
makomk 7y ago
Isn't that exactly how China justifies all its online crackdowns?
tempest345 7y ago
"misinformation" - as defined by whom? "encouraging unrest in politically sensitive climates" - La Résistance in Vichy France would fall under this. In some countries asking for fair and democratic elections would fall under this.
sweeneyrod 7y ago
Without any context, if you said "a spokesman justified the censorship by claiming those involved were 'actively spreading misinformation and encouraging unrest in politically sensitive climates'" and asked me to guess who the spokesman was representing, I would say the Chinese government not Twitter. You might object that that statement is true when made by Twitter but would be a lie coming from China, but I don't think that's right. The protestors in Hong Kong are certainly "encouraging unrest" and probably some of them have made untrue claims at some point. This kind of surface-level similarity doesn't necessarily mean much, but I still think it's a bit disturbing. Twitter have a lot of power to censor, and I'm not sure why anyone would trust them to reliably use it wisely.

panarky 7y ago

Not the first time I've heard someone argue that state-sponsored agitprop is free speech, while suppressing it on a private platform is somehow dystopian. Ignorance is strength?

mastazi 7y ago
> state-sponsored agitprop as defined by the board of Twitter, Inc.? I stand by my "ignorance" then.
vkou 7y ago
State-sponsored agitprop bad, private, corporate-sponsored agitprop good. Am I understanding the implications of your post correctly?
- WhatIsDukkha 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism I think is pretty directly relevant to your "question"? So unless we deal with the problem of Coca Cola being on twitter we can't deal with state sponsored bots? Your question seems insincere and merely aimed at morally confusing the issue to no useful purpose.
  - vkou 7y ago
    How on Earth is pointing out the hypocrisy of censoring paid propaganda by a state actor, but not by a corporate actor whataboutism? This is an incredibly relevant issue. And we're not even trying to 'deal with the problem of Coca Cola being on Twitter'. The whole raison d'etre for Twitter's existence is dissemination of paid propaganda by corporate actors. It's what keeps the lights on at Twitter! Ads, promoted tweets, and other forms of paid speech.
    - WhatIsDukkha 7y ago
      If the difference between a State and a Corporation is that muddled in your mind it's your issue not the rest of ours. It's a critical part of being a discerning person to be able to BOTH say how things are similar and how they differ. You seem to have no test for discerning how Coca Cola and the Russian government differ.