4 ms·

Twitter, the Politburo

31 points by exolymph 6y ago

leshokunin 6y ago
1) spend day trolling people on Twitter 2) get reprimanded 3) write an articulate and elaborate rant philosophizing about how Twitter is really unfair. Maybe you could use that energy in the first place?
nullc 6y ago
I don't have a twitter account and have never had one. I don't like the service, don't like the polices, don't like its nearly unusable glitchy interface, I don't like what it seems to do to people that I know and (sometimes formerly) respect(ed). I think the "twit" in the name is pretty descriptive on many levels. But that's fine, not everyone has to like everything. Unfortunately not using it doesn't prevent people from trying to impersonate me there, cursing people out under my name, posting scams etc. On the dozenth or so times I reported one of these imposters to twitter they asked me to make an account to report via their web interface. As requested, I made a throwaway account. About an hour after the account was created I received a notice that my account was suspended for violating their rules. I've literally never used it, no one at my home was using twitter (or in trouble with it). They're just pathetically broken from top to bottom. Broken service, broken culture, broken process. If you get something out of it, good for you. But I remain mystified why anyone finds it to be of value.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cbradford 6y ago
Twitter, and all other social media, are places of public accommodation, no different from a restaurant or hotel. As such they should not be allowed by law from having discriminatory rules based on any protected class or idea. It is beyond time for these platforms to be held to the same standards that we held other places of public accommodation to during the civil rights movement.
- krapp 6y ago
  >As such they should not be allowed by law from having discriminatory rules based on any protected class or idea. Pretty sneaky, but there are no "protected ideas" equivalent to the legal definition of a protected class, apart from ideas being protected against discrimination by the government in the First Amendment, so Twitter moderating content is not equivalent to racial or other protected class discrimination. Twitter is held to the same standard as other private businesses in that regard. Hotels and restaurants are also allowed to refuse service to you and even eject you from the premises if they don't like your behavior.
underseacables 6y ago
Twitter is for all intensive purposes a walled garden run by a dictator. There is no accountability because it’s a private (albeit public) company.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 6y ago
  Exactly. It seems to me that the people that are most in favor of de-regulating businesses are the ones that are most upset when they themselves are screwed over by a company that has little to no regulatory oversight. I think there actually should be laws that prevent the big tech companies from unilaterally banning or suspending accounts without reasonable cause and without reasonable recourse/compensation if they were wrong to do so. But that won't happen.
  - krapp 6y ago
    >I think there actually should be laws that prevent the big tech companies from unilaterally banning or suspending accounts without reasonable cause and without reasonable recourse/compensation if they were wrong to do so. The thing is, everyone with an account on Twitter agreed to its terms of service beforehand. You want the government to punish social media platforms for doing what they explicitly stated in print they claimed the right to do, and what their users agreed to let them do, in exchange for using the service.
    - Eddy_Viscosity2 6y ago
      Firsly, regulation isn't the same as punishment. It's a very necessary part of how the economy works. Secondly, "agree" is a strong term for what actually happens with terms of service. What really happens is that people are forced to accept them or else. Since there is no other option, people rarely even read them. Why bother, especially when they can unilaterally be changed at any time. The power imbalance between big monopolistic companies and regular customers is just too vast to even suggest that TOS are some sort of negotiated "agreement". Lastly, even if you take the no-regulation, TOS are binding, standpoint, the article is about Twitter not even following its own policies and guidelines. That his main beef. That twitter isn't even following its own rules and still there isn't anything that can be done.
yunruse 6y ago
I'm of the firm opinion that, while a protocol-based social network would be the ideal, Twitter could still move to a more equitable method of content policing and still make profit: allow people to volunteer to moderate flagged tweets, and if some consensus is reached then the tweet(s) are overridden and can stay. While this might push the layer one step up, people trolling that system might be easier to find by, say, every so often giving dud examples that clearly and egregiously break rules such that those that mark "keep" can be checked to ensure the system isn't being abused.

31 points by exolymph 6y ago

1) spend day trolling people on Twitter 2) get reprimanded 3) write an articulate and elaborate rant philosophizing about how Twitter is really unfair. Maybe you could use that energy in the first place?

nullc 6y ago

I don't have a twitter account and have never had one. I don't like the service, don't like the polices, don't like its nearly unusable glitchy interface, I don't like what it seems to do to people that I know and (sometimes formerly) respect(ed). I think the "twit" in the name is pretty descriptive on many levels. But that's fine, not everyone has to like everything. Unfortunately not using it doesn't prevent people from trying to impersonate me there, cursing people out under my name, posting scams etc. On the dozenth or so times I reported one of these imposters to twitter they asked me to make an account to report via their web interface. As requested, I made a throwaway account. About an hour after the account was created I received a notice that my account was suspended for violating their rules. I've literally never used it, no one at my home was using twitter (or in trouble with it). They're just pathetically broken from top to bottom. Broken service, broken culture, broken process. If you get something out of it, good for you. But I remain mystified why anyone finds it to be of value.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

cbradford 6y ago

Twitter, and all other social media, are places of public accommodation, no different from a restaurant or hotel. As such they should not be allowed by law from having discriminatory rules based on any protected class or idea. It is beyond time for these platforms to be held to the same standards that we held other places of public accommodation to during the civil rights movement.

krapp 6y ago
>As such they should not be allowed by law from having discriminatory rules based on any protected class or idea. Pretty sneaky, but there are no "protected ideas" equivalent to the legal definition of a protected class, apart from ideas being protected against discrimination by the government in the First Amendment, so Twitter moderating content is not equivalent to racial or other protected class discrimination. Twitter is held to the same standard as other private businesses in that regard. Hotels and restaurants are also allowed to refuse service to you and even eject you from the premises if they don't like your behavior.

underseacables 6y ago

Twitter is for all intensive purposes a walled garden run by a dictator. There is no accountability because it’s a private (albeit public) company.

Eddy_Viscosity2 6y ago
Exactly. It seems to me that the people that are most in favor of de-regulating businesses are the ones that are most upset when they themselves are screwed over by a company that has little to no regulatory oversight. I think there actually should be laws that prevent the big tech companies from unilaterally banning or suspending accounts without reasonable cause and without reasonable recourse/compensation if they were wrong to do so. But that won't happen.
- krapp 6y ago
  >I think there actually should be laws that prevent the big tech companies from unilaterally banning or suspending accounts without reasonable cause and without reasonable recourse/compensation if they were wrong to do so. The thing is, everyone with an account on Twitter agreed to its terms of service beforehand. You want the government to punish social media platforms for doing what they explicitly stated in print they claimed the right to do, and what their users agreed to let them do, in exchange for using the service.
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 6y ago
    Firsly, regulation isn't the same as punishment. It's a very necessary part of how the economy works. Secondly, "agree" is a strong term for what actually happens with terms of service. What really happens is that people are forced to accept them or else. Since there is no other option, people rarely even read them. Why bother, especially when they can unilaterally be changed at any time. The power imbalance between big monopolistic companies and regular customers is just too vast to even suggest that TOS are some sort of negotiated "agreement". Lastly, even if you take the no-regulation, TOS are binding, standpoint, the article is about Twitter not even following its own policies and guidelines. That his main beef. That twitter isn't even following its own rules and still there isn't anything that can be done.

yunruse 6y ago

I'm of the firm opinion that, while a protocol-based social network would be the ideal, Twitter could still move to a more equitable method of content policing and still make profit: allow people to volunteer to moderate flagged tweets, and if some consensus is reached then the tweet(s) are overridden and can stay. While this might push the layer one step up, people trolling that system might be easier to find by, say, every so often giving dud examples that clearly and egregiously break rules such that those that mark "keep" can be checked to ensure the system isn't being abused.