9 ms·

The threats and violence Twitter won't police

114 points by rrauenza 6y ago

99_00 6y ago
Jack Dorsey gave Colin Kapernick $3 million after he tweeted a call for a violent revolt. “When civility leads to death, revolting is the only logical reaction, The cries for peace will rain down, and when they do, they will land on deaf ears, because your violence has brought this resistance. We have the right to fight back! Rest in Power George Floyd.”
- fat_pikachu 6y ago
  Explicit call for violence. Foments distrust in civil authority. Textbook incitement of violent insurrection.
- jariel 6y ago
  There is obviously some legitimacy to the notion the rules are applied unfairly. It's invariably about 'fine lines' 'gray areas' and 'shifting sands of policy and situation'. In that context, I don't see Kap's statement quite as a call to violence, even though it may be, it's veiled just sufficiently that I would personally give it a pass. Certainly 'resistance' is within bounds. 'Revolt' I guess would be the complicating term. The real question is ... why would Jack Dorsey give a very wealthy athlete $3M? I would hope you meant to day 'Colin's Foundation' or something like that which is hopefully focused on legit social justice, and not, for example, perpetuating lies about elections? Finally, to my point about 'shifting sands' - I think the context of a President using the legitimacy of his office to make very serious false claims, which have very serious implications, and who's further incitement at last materially contributed to an 'insurrection' on Capitol Hill ... may very well have been a 'new context' in which the policy might materially change. It probably the behooves Dorsey & Co. to start to think about their new defacto policy in the context of other actors, so as to be fair. Edit: Dorsey's donation was indeed to a Kap led foundation, not to Kap himself, here [1]. It seems there's legitimacy to the cause, that said, I can't help bit grin at the large image at the bottom, with Kap's 'Che' style self-branding effort. [1] https://www.knowyourrightscamp.com/ https://www.knowyourrightscamp.com/
  - aksss 6y ago
    Irrespective of Dorsey and Kap (really), can we all acknowledge that “foundations” or these non-profit entities run by the wealthy and politically entangled are convenient vehicles of tax advantage, asset protection, and influence peddling? I’m not saying all are so let’s not get our knickers in a twist - there are plenty of altruistic non-profits out there, and many that only exist thanks to the wealthy. But the default reaction to large sums of money being given to a foundation named for a wealthy, politically entangled person or family should not be, “oh, it’s a non-profit, it’s helping the children”. More than likely it’s that person’s way of putting assets they enjoy daily into a trust to shelter it from taxation or legal seizure (think tax man or divorce court), to get monetary consideration for services rendered (foundation pays high salaries to family members or self while on payroll as nominal employees), and to accept gifts to support the above under cover of a donation. Write a check for a few worthy charitable operations, do some appearances, publish a few reports, and it’s a net positive legal financial strategy.
    - jariel 6y ago
      So first - the donation has nothing to do with anything really, it's kind of a side issue. Second, this is not the kind of 'influence peddling' organization you are thinking of. These kinds of orgs. are 'influentially benign', this money is not going to change any votes. You're thinking more of Clinton Foundation or Koch Brothers. If you want to be cynical about it - then I suggest it's more to do with the fact that this 'charity' seems to be the 'Colin Kap Personal Brand Promotion Marketing Vehicle' in the sense it seems to be more about him than ostensibly the people he's trying to help. And of course 'how' he's trying to help seems a little vague. If this were something like 'support underproduction kids by helping them pay for tuition' that would be wonderful. But the real issue is ostensible hypocrisy in Twitter bans, and while I think there is a legit fine line, I don't think Twitter has crossed it. They can make the case for banning Trump and not Kap. Though maybe there's some other tweets they ought to delete as well. To his credit, Dorsey did indicate the difficult challenge in the decision and that this issue certainly is not over. There's a difference between calling for protest of authorities who have killed innocent people, possibly on the basis of racism vs. trying to stop the electoral process, which amounts to a de-facto coup. Those are worlds apart. Those who 'looted Target' I hope can face appropriate charges, those who materially were trying to stop the electoral process as well, and those will be 'much more relevant'.
deleted 6y ago
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sosuke 6y ago
I understood there was a difference between "I hope they all * of *" and "I will * them" The first example "someone take this" is indirect. Edit: upon reflection this could be a direct threat if the person saying it might make it happen by their influence alone. Like a mob leader saying "someone take out this trash" The second example is even more indirect. Doesn't say he would do it. Doesn't say anyone else would do it. Doesn't even say what it is. A threat yes, but a veiled threat. The third example is more of the same. Like saying "I hope you choke on it!" isn't a threat.
- troupe 6y ago
  “Someone take this clown out NOW. #AssassinateTrump" Is that what you were saying was indirect?
  - sosuke 6y ago
    It is indirect. It isn't a solicitation for the job specified but a cry that it should happen. I do see that as becoming a direct threat if the person giving it has a known cadre of people willing act on their words. Such as a military or cult leader might.
    - traveler01 6y ago
      So it is ok because it's about Trump?
      - happytoexplain 6y ago
        The parent said it would be worse if the author were somebody with power or fame - not if the target wasn't. Edit: Just clarifying, not agreeing. While I agree that there is subjectivity around how indirect a threat is, who the author and their audience is, etc, I do think in this case this tweet should be removed.
        aksss 6y ago
john_moscow 6y ago
It is very easy to understand the situation if you look at specific people and their motivations. We have a large group of people who are deeply insecure and unsatisfied with their lives. Their jobs price them out of property ownership, they have near zero chance of retirement and very faint perspectives in starting families. All those problems would go away with the raise of the purchasing power of their salary, but the corporate world has found a cheaper solution. People are told to follow their feelings, "bring entire themselves at work", etc. Instead of paying them more, we let it slide when they blow their steam off at someone they don't like. It keeps them busy and it costs zero on the balance sheet. A much better alternative to unionizing or starting competing co-ops, right? In long-term, this creates a massive divide in the society. Conservative-minded people that are happy with what they have find this childish. Emotional people feel that conservatives have some unfair advantage and try to attack them for it. The recent election is just a good indicator of the divide, since the conservative vs. emotional groups clearly have opposing opinions about it. The corporations are simply supporting the side that costs the less to them, it's business and nothing personal. In a longer term, it looks like the death of American Dream. You are no longer expected to achieve wealth and financial independence through hard work, and then do what YOU want. Instead, the role model is to dedicate your energy to endless bashing of your peers from the opposing political camp, while the corporations grab an unprecedented share of the economy.
- troupe 6y ago
  > In a longer term, it looks like the death of American Dream. You are no longer expected to achieve wealth and financial independence through hard work, and then do what YOU want. There are plenty of people who still expect to achieve success through hard work. The people who do achieve success through hard work usually tend to be from the set of people who have that expectation though.
  - john_moscow 6y ago
    I am talking about popular culture. I consider myself moderately successful (I run a small business that I managed to build from scratch through trial and error after studying the "hot" fields and working in the industry). I am happy with my life and I'm trying to pass my mindset to my kids to make sure they can find what works for them. From what I can see, I am the only example of this in their life. The mainstream media talks about how we are privileged and should step back, not want anything, and let others have it. The role models of prosperity are Instragram celebrities and pop singers, that have a hard cap on their numbers by definition. Nobody takes the long road with rewards further down seriously, and this is saddening. Because the people I know that followed the instant gratification route years ago are not happy at all right now. And the trouble is that once you are the only person with this mindset in your neighborhood, and are wealthier than others, people with pitchforks will come for you. It won't help that you made your fortune through hard work if your neighbors think it's unfair. There have been historic precedents. Kulaks in early Soviet Union [0] is a very good example. Mccloskeys case from last year is another one. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization
deleted 6y ago
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a_new_start 6y ago
This is incredibly weak reporting. 1. Has this tweet been reported? Generally when I report a bad tweet, the account gets suspended within a week or so. I've reported this tweet (about 20 minutes ago), so we'll see what happens. 2. Where's the threat? This seems akin to my saying "The United States will fall". 3. Oh come on. Yeah, it's shitty, but how is this in the same ballpark as an actual threat? If this is the worst they found on Twitter...
dakial1 6y ago
Wouldn't it be better for platforms to solve this division problem by setting their algorithms to simply move everyone to the center (by giving preference to moderate posts)? They already do the curation by showing what they think we would like to see, maybe they should show us what we need to see. Ultra left and ultra right are different faces of the same problem.
- sedivy94 6y ago
  Increasing profits has become a race to optimize user engagement. Extreme or polarizing statements attract attention. Milktoast moderate viewpoints do not. That’s a tough sell.
  - aksss 6y ago
    Maybe unusual, but I didn’t leave Facebook because of the moderate viewpoints, I left it because of the routinely offensive commentary ordinary people would otherwise not be comfortable making, and the privacy concerns. It was lowering my faith in humanity.
hbiden2020 6y ago
Demand Hunter Biden be arrested today! Do it you fucking virtue signaling fucks!
blisterpeanuts 6y ago
There is no middle ground when it comes to freedom of speech. I find it interesting to read Khamenei's statements, even though I find his regime repugnant for killing gays, jailing dissidents, stifling women's rights, and threatening Israel. It's important that we be able to see what he says. It doesn't mean we're glorifying him or legitimizing him, and those elements in the West or elsewhere who may agree with him will get it from alternative sources anyway. Likewise, it's important to see what violent elements in our society are saying, even if we disagree with them and find them reprehensible. You can't stop ideas from flowing; you can slow them down temporarily, by banning them from the mainstream marketplace of idea exchange. But ideas still have a way of leaking through. If someone is advocating assassination of the President on social media, they should be reported to the FBI. Simply deleting their posting accomplishes nothing. These media platforms mistakenly think that they are arbiters of ideas and information, when in reality they're just glorified bulletin boards. It should not be up to them to decide on others' behalf what is appropriate to be seen and what is not. Just my opinions.
- everdrive 6y ago
  > Simply deleting their posting accomplishes nothing. If it does "nothing," then why is it bad if it happens?
- tenebrisalietum 6y ago
  > If someone is advocating assassination of the President on social media, they should be reported to the FBI. Simply deleting their posting accomplishes nothing. Let's do both?
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > If someone is advocating assassination of the President on social media, they should be reported to the FBI. Simply deleting their posting accomplishes nothing. Limiting the reach of incitement to violent crime is not “nothing”. Obviously, it should also be reported to appropriate authorities.
- mnd999 6y ago
  I think you (and many others) are confusing a right to freedom of speech with a right to publication. Publishers and editors have been deciding on people's behalf what should and should not be published for hundreds of years. You might write a letter to the New York Times, and they might publish it or they might not. They might decide based on their political leanings.
happytoexplain 6y ago
Maybe I'm missing something, but this seems purposefully disingenuous. Not to say that there definitely isn't a liberal bias in Twitter moderation, but this article's evidence is that they banned the US president but didn't ban three rando tweets with five or fewer likes/retweets. Surely the more likely case here is that moderation has missed them so far? On the other hand, the KillTrump hashtag is indefensible, since surely this isn't the first time that's appeared, and it seems super easy to spot and ban without needing a ton of user reports (though admittedly, looking right now, all tweets under that hashtag are using it to criticize the hashtag...).
- jamie_ca 6y ago
  Agreed, there's a difference in degree between randos with no reach rage-tweeting into the void, and Trump being read by millions. That said, if they're going to say Trump's tweets are finally a problem, there's definitely other public figures with thousands/millions of followers who are also tweeting messages of violence, and it sounds like continued crickets on that front.
mcguire 6y ago
Has anyone reported these tweets? (I ask because of the number of times I've gotten calls from my neighbors asking "Is your power off?" and learning that no one had reported the outage.) Edit: I'm not a Twitter user, so I can't.
- a_new_start 6y ago
  I reported the first tweet mentioned in the NYPost article. This was about an hour ago, so I would expect it to take a few days before the tweet is removed.
  - mimikatz 6y ago
    At that point there is not point. A tweets lifetime is hours at most. No one scrolls back days.
  - bArray 6y ago
    > This was about an hour ago, so I would expect it to take a > few days before the tweet is removed. Apparently Amazon's standard ToS policy dictates that if it's not removed within 36 hours, they will turn their servers off.
    - tzs 6y ago
      Amazon started bringing Parler's attention to serious contract violations back in November, which Parler failed to adequately address. Amazon says that in fact the situation at Parler got worse, not better, after their months of warnings.
      - bArray 6y ago
        > Amazon started bringing Parler's attention to serious > contract violations back in November, which Parler failed > to adequately address. You think Twitter has never broken Amazon ToS? What is to stop AWS saying "this thing we warned you about last year, well, it's still there and you've got 36 hours before we shut down your servers". > Amazon says that in fact the situation at Parler got > worse, not better, after their months of warnings. I don't know if you noticed, but the situation around the US election got worse everywhere. Not so long ago #HangPence was trending on Twitter, and within the last 24 hours or so #HangTrump. That's trending - Twitter is actually promoting that!
jessmay 6y ago
The mental gymnastics some of you will do to support people simply because they have the same world view as you is disgusting.
- happytoexplain 6y ago
  I do hope "some of you" doesn't mean "those of you with a specific political affiliation", since obviously this is a problem with people in general.
- a_new_start 6y ago
  Who is being supported?
- zahrc 6y ago
  I agree, the inability to differentiate between "agreeing" and "supporting" is the real reason everyone is so divided over everything!
- aksss 6y ago
  As a telling sign of the times, I have no idea to whom you are referring. :D Those are the best comments, because all sides should take heed of them.
mcphage 6y ago
To start with, I don't think this article is even correct—people have been banned for tweets interpreted as calls for violence against Trump before. At least on a temporary basis. But in general, threats and calls for violence on Twitter are a problem. One that Twitter has been loathe to face for a while. Now they're starting to face it. Maybe they'll take it seriously, and handle it well, and maybe they won't—but when someone starts caring about a thing, saying "well look at these times you used to not care" doesn't really mean much. You're right, they used to not care, but now they're starting to. Let's see where it goes.
richardARPANET 6y ago
Twitter allowed "Hang Mike Pence" to Trend for more than one day recently. When will they be removed from the App Stores?
- a_new_start 6y ago
  I'm going to assume good faith on your part with this question. This hashtag was used, almost exclusively, by people discussing the chants of "Hang Mike Pence" last week at the Capitol.
  - fuzzer37 6y ago
    Ahh see. There's your issue. Assuming these people are arguing in good faith.
    - seneca 6y ago
      > Ahh see. There's your issue. Assuming these people are arguing in good faith. Comments like this add nothing and degrade the conversation. The point of this site is conversation, not muck throwing.
    - im3w1l 6y ago
      Yeah I've seen a lot of breakdown of good faith from both sides recently. I wonder if it's even fixable. It seems to be related to the modern commoditization of socialization. With a close friend, honesty is best, but with a stranger, pulling a fast one seems more attractive.
  - richardARPANET 6y ago
    When I clicked on it, the page was full of Tweets don't fall inline with your claim, but maybe we all see a different Twitter according to "personalization" :)
    - a_new_start 6y ago
      Again, without wishing to assume bad faith on your part, I find this very hard to believe. If this was so prevalent, there would be many screenshots of the offending tweets used to prove that this hashtag was actually being used for making threats against Mike Pence. Instead, all I have seen are screenshots of tweets discussing the chants made by the mobs who stormed the Capitol last week, as well as many tweets asking why this hashtag was there. If can share some screenshots of a "page full of Tweets", or link to some evidence, then I will gladly take that onboard.
blueyes 6y ago
A good gauge of how much a publication or individual supports last week's insurrection against a legitimate presidential election is the amount of "whataboutism" and "free-speechism" they engage in now. If you are talking about BLM, free speech or bitcoin and you think that will solve the Real Problem, you are ignoring a clear and present danger. Last week, the president of the United States participated in an invasion of the US Capitol in order to disrupt the orderly transfer of power. It was not a spontaneous riot and it was not mere incitement of a mob. It was sedition and violence. The people who invaded the Capitol carried weapons and wore merchandise that announced their plans; e.g. sweatshirts emblazoned with the words "Civil War." They discussed those plans openly and stupidly on Parler. Some of them appear to have coordinate with Republican members of Congress, such as Gosar and Brooks, who were giving "reconnaissance tours" in the days immediately before the invasion. Dem lawmaker says panic buttons were removed from office https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/01/13/nation/it-was-like-looking-evil-capitol-attack-through-eyes-massachusetts-delegation/ https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/01/13/nation/it-was-like-lo... Mikie Sherrill says unidentified lawmakers led ‘reconnaissance’ tours ahead of Capitol attack https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/12/mikie-sherrill-capitol-hill-attack-458655 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/12/mikie-sherrill-capi... Kapernik is not the issue. China is not the issue. The issue is whether we want a democratically elected president to take office in the US, or whether we should tolerate speech that incites people to violently oppose that transition. Free speech has never been absolute. It is one right among others. We have always drawn lines around it, including on the platforms that are banning Q and Trump now. What are some other forms of speech we banned? Various kinds of gun and drug sales, as well as speech and images related to human trafficking and abuse. Those lines were always there. The people who wanted to discuss those things did not have a right to do so under the US system, or on social media. The social media platforms are currently drawing a line to exclude the incitement of violence, the enabling and activating lies that led to the insurrection last week. They are fully within their rights to do so. Trump does not owe it to them to change his speech and behavior, and they do not owe him a platform. That's called freedom and it works both ways. The good news is, most of the people dumb enough to believe Trump and Q are not smart enough to navigate the Dark Web, and encryption apps will weaken their performative feedback loop. ISIS was undermined in a similar way by deplatforming.
- 6y ago
Yetanfou 6y ago
Here's a somewhat more comprehensive list of malcontents who get to use Twitter for all sorts of nefarious purposes without being censored, let alone banned. It is not my own list, I found it on Ben Shapiro's "Daily Wire". Those of you who immediately reach for the down-arrow on seeing Shapiro's name do well to realise that this is the exact subject we're talking about here. Ayatollah Khamenei (@khamenei_ir) Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, has openly tweeted his desire to destroy Israel, calling it a “cancerous growth” that must be “uprooted and destroyed.” More recently, the Supreme Leader has implied that the United States could be sharing COVID-19 vaccines abroad in order to “contaminate other nations.” Following the U.S. air raid that killed Iranian General Soleimani, Khamenei said that Iran, “will never forget this and will certainly deal a reciprocal blow to the United States.” Despite the fact that Khamenei and his oppressive regime have banned Twitter in Iran, his account remains active for the rest of the world to see. In June of this year, Twitter responded to calls for Khamenei’s suspension, saying his tweets “fall into the category of foreign policy saber-rattling on economic or military issues.” Zabiullah Mujahid (@Zabehulah_M33) You may not know his name, but you certainly know the organization he represents. Mujahid is a spokesman for the Taliban, an organization who have gone far beyond violent words, committing heinous acts of terror in the name of radical Islam, killing thousands of innocent people — including American troops and citizens. Mujahid’s account has amassed over 147,000 followers, and his account appears free of any “fact checks” or warnings from Twitter admins. The page regularly touts Taliban exploits, praising the Mujahideen and celebrating raids and other violent attacks within Afghanistan. For example, one of Mujahid’s recent tweets bragged about new members who’d joined the terrorist organization. “25 soldiers, police, and [government officials], realizing the facts and efforts of recruitment officials, resigned and joined the Mujahideen.” Louis Farrakhan (@LouisFarrakhan) Louis Farrakhan, perhaps the most famous anti-semite in America today, still has an active Twitter account, despite routinely comparing Jews to “termites,” among other things. Farrakhan, head of the notorious “Nation of Islam,” tweeted in 2018, “I am not anti-semite. I am anti-termite.” Though Twitter removed the “verified” check from his account following a tweet about “the Satanic Jew and the Synagogue of Satan,” his account still remains active and public. Chinese Embassy In The U.S. (@ChineseEmbinUS) You may not know it, but the Chinese Embassy in the United States has their own verified Twitter account with over 78,000 followers. Their account is routinely used to spread Chinese Communist Party propaganda on behalf of President Xi Jingping. This week, they used Twitter to defend China’s use of concentration camps in part of their ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs. “The minds of Uygur women in Xinjiang were emancipated and gender equality and reproductive health were promoted, making them no longer baby-making machines,” the account tweeted, before saying the victims are, “more confident and independent.” While the tweet has since been deleted, the account has not. New York City Antifa Account (@NYCAntifa) For all their talk of restricting those “promoting violence,” Twitter still allows Antifa accounts full access to the platform, despite their “by any means necessary” slogan and their use of violent rhetoric and tactics. The account routinely “doxes” individuals deemed “Nazis” — in other words, anyone on the Right — sharing photos and personal information in an attempt to intimidate and coerce. The page also reposts photos and videos of “fascists” being attacked on the street and at protests, with gleeful captions. Nicolas Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) Despite running his country into the ground and killing or jailing anyone who stood in his way, Nicolas Maduro — best known as the human rights abusing, socialism loving, dictator of Venezuela — still enjoys the use of his Twitter account. Throughout the week, he can be seen using the platform to spread propaganda in support of his murderous regime, all while his starving citizens languish in poverty. Though the United Nations has labeled Maduro one of the worst human rights abusers on Earth, with his continual crimes being well-documented, his Twitter account remains untouched. Kathy Griffin (@KathyGriffin) Kathy Griffin, the “comedian” turned wannabe political activist, is now perhaps best known for a photo she posted holding a bloody replica of Donald Trump’s decapitated head. Evidently, pretending to hold the severed head of the President of the United States doesn’t violate Twitter’s policy on the “glorification of violence.” Griffin initially apologized for the gruesome photoshoot, but eventually doubled down, reposting the image on election night in November. While Twitter flagged the tweet as containing “potentially sensitive content,” they allowed it to stay and have taken no further action against Griffin’s account.
mattnewton 6y ago
How is Jack Dorsey suddenly pulling strings at Apple, Google, and Amazon? What does Amazon care if Twitter does well? Are either Tim Cook or Sundar Pichai secretly holding significant shares? “Big tech” could collude to make more money (like the time Apple and Google reportedly did to reduce labour costs), I’d certainly buy that. But I don’t understand what is in it for these companies to collude to crush Parler, a company none of the platform companies that removed it compete with. Twitter’s stock is down since purging one of their largest draws to the site. Isn’t the simplest explanation here that people are covering their ass? And the examples the article found with 3 retweets are basically a neglible threat?
- bArray 6y ago
  > What does Amazon care if Twitter does well? Twitter just signed a multi-year contract with Amazon AWS [1] (sorry for the source, but this is really unreported by quite a lot of mainstream media): > "Last month, Defendant Amazon Web Services, Inc. (“AWS”) > and the popular social media platform Twitter signed a > multi-year deal so that AWS could support the daily > delivery of millions of tweets. AWS currently provides > that same service to Parler, a conservative microblogging > alternative and competitor to Twitter," the filing reads. With regards to: > Isn’t the simplest explanation here that people are > covering their ass? Kinda. Big tech is under serious political pressure to enact these changes to remove any platform that Trump may use. I heard (although haven't verified) that Trump made an account on Parler and just a few hours later every service that Parler depend upon abandoned them with minimal notice. This is servers, phone API, lawyers, etc - the entire stack. [1] https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/parler-sues-amazon-antitrust-contract-breach https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/parler-sues-amazon-an...
  - mattnewton 6y ago
    I don’t understand how that is relevant though. Presumably Amazon would just as well sell to Twitter and Parler, if Parler wasn’t opening them up to brand damage? Amazon doesn’t own Twitter and has nothing to gain from not selling to their competitors afaict. And this explains nothing of the Apple and Google deplatforming.
- 6y ago
neartheplain 6y ago
Conservative activist Bevelyn Beatty, Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, and a third Proud Boy were stabbed in DC just before the election. Beatty was hospitalized with a punctured lung: https://www.newsweek.com/proud-boys-stabbed-washington-enrique-tarrio-election-1544740 https://www.newsweek.com/proud-boys-stabbed-washington-enriq... On Twitter, many expressed glee at the attack and disappointment that the stabbings were not fatal: https://twitter.com/ShaunG05712929/status/1324042071636922368 https://twitter.com/ShaunG05712929/status/132404207163692236... https://twitter.com/SaltPotatoes/status/1324004264524632069 https://twitter.com/SaltPotatoes/status/1324004264524632069 https://twitter.com/DcAntifa/status/1323970794595196928 https://twitter.com/DcAntifa/status/1323970794595196928 https://twitter.com/tonica5683/status/1324241314066632705 https://twitter.com/tonica5683/status/1324241314066632705 The tweets remain up. This all happened a month before the stabbings at a Proud Boys rally in DC (victim affiliations unknown), which received considerably more press attention: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/pro-trump-dc-rally-stabbing https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/pro-trump-dc... This is one case I remembered off the top of my head, having followed the past year’s unrest closely (too closely for my mental health, if I’m honest). There are many cases like it, with many similar tweets.
aksss 6y ago
“Twitter hosts a #KillTrump hashtag. In all of the glorious English language there is no clearer, plainer, or shorter way to call for violence than the word kill followed by someone’s name. But there it is...And this isn’t new, back in June the hashtag #AssassinateTrump was bouncing around the website with gems like “Someone take this clown out NOW.” That tweet is still up.” I worry about the ability to evenhandedly censor at scale, but the content examples above should be pretty easy to automate the cleansing of if one wanted to. I’m curious how many would bet (and how) regarding Twitter’s reaction if #killbi*den or assassination-focused alternatives became a thing this spring. We don’t need to speculate about dissemination of ideas - hypotheses harmful to Trump (Russian collusion) are left alone for years, while hypotheses critical of Biden (grifter schemes involving his son) get prominently deplatformed, not just modded with a disclaimer. Both were legitimate news stories, both warranted the public interest, and both involved government investigation. To be clear, I’m all for Twitter’s right to do this. Wholeheartedly. I chaff at the promoted perception that they are even-handed in toeing a moral line simply because a) it seems demonstrably false with even casual examination by an honest broker, and b) it forestalls conversation about their behavior as a market actor. The bigger concern here isn’t Twitter’s own social alignments, but the barriers they and other gatekeepers evidently can enforce to bar competition. It’s interesting that the market competition in this age seems to be aligning with a competition of ideas, because otherwise I’m not sure this would ever come to a head. To the extent that there’s a public policy issue that needs examining here, I think it’s somewhere in that ball of string: section 230 probably assumed that the Internet would not be run (for all intents and purposes of being an accessible public forum) by oligopolies: nor that so few organizations would have such massive vertical and horizontal leverage. I don’t tend to think that section 230 reform is a good idea, but am inclined to think that this week’s display of power begs for some trust busting. So what happens when the targets of such examination have traded staff with the political administration, and have such stratospheric piles of cash? The laws are in place - it’s hard to call Twitter, et al innocent monopolies anymore.
CarelessExpert 6y ago
> Twitter has the right to police the speech on its platform, but the rules must apply equally to everyone if they claim to be a neutral platform and not a publisher. sigh https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello... > > If you said "A site that has political bias is not neutral, and thus loses its Section 230 protections" > I'm sorry, but you are very, very, very wrong. Perhaps more wrong than anyone saying any of the other things above. First off, there is no "neutrality" requirement at all in Section 230. Seriously. Read it. If anything, it says the opposite. It says that sites can moderate as they see fit and face no liability. This myth is out there and persists because some politicians keep repeating it, but it's wrong and the opposite of truth. Indeed, any requirement of neutrality would likely raise significant 1st Amendment questions, as it would be involving the law in editorial decision making. Debate all you want about whether what Twitter did was moral, it was unquestionably legal, and anyone claiming otherwise either doesn't understand section 230 or is deliberately trying to mislead. In this case I'm betting it's the latter.

114 points by rrauenza 6y ago

Jack Dorsey gave Colin Kapernick $3 million after he tweeted a call for a violent revolt. “When civility leads to death, revolting is the only logical reaction, The cries for peace will rain down, and when they do, they will land on deaf ears, because your violence has brought this resistance. We have the right to fight back! Rest in Power George Floyd.”

fat_pikachu 6y ago
Explicit call for violence. Foments distrust in civil authority. Textbook incitement of violent insurrection.
jariel 6y ago
There is obviously some legitimacy to the notion the rules are applied unfairly. It's invariably about 'fine lines' 'gray areas' and 'shifting sands of policy and situation'. In that context, I don't see Kap's statement quite as a call to violence, even though it may be, it's veiled just sufficiently that I would personally give it a pass. Certainly 'resistance' is within bounds. 'Revolt' I guess would be the complicating term. The real question is ... why would Jack Dorsey give a very wealthy athlete $3M? I would hope you meant to day 'Colin's Foundation' or something like that which is hopefully focused on legit social justice, and not, for example, perpetuating lies about elections? Finally, to my point about 'shifting sands' - I think the context of a President using the legitimacy of his office to make very serious false claims, which have very serious implications, and who's further incitement at last materially contributed to an 'insurrection' on Capitol Hill ... may very well have been a 'new context' in which the policy might materially change. It probably the behooves Dorsey & Co. to start to think about their new defacto policy in the context of other actors, so as to be fair. Edit: Dorsey's donation was indeed to a Kap led foundation, not to Kap himself, here [1]. It seems there's legitimacy to the cause, that said, I can't help bit grin at the large image at the bottom, with Kap's 'Che' style self-branding effort. [1] https://www.knowyourrightscamp.com/ https://www.knowyourrightscamp.com/
- aksss 6y ago
  Irrespective of Dorsey and Kap (really), can we all acknowledge that “foundations” or these non-profit entities run by the wealthy and politically entangled are convenient vehicles of tax advantage, asset protection, and influence peddling? I’m not saying all are so let’s not get our knickers in a twist - there are plenty of altruistic non-profits out there, and many that only exist thanks to the wealthy. But the default reaction to large sums of money being given to a foundation named for a wealthy, politically entangled person or family should not be, “oh, it’s a non-profit, it’s helping the children”. More than likely it’s that person’s way of putting assets they enjoy daily into a trust to shelter it from taxation or legal seizure (think tax man or divorce court), to get monetary consideration for services rendered (foundation pays high salaries to family members or self while on payroll as nominal employees), and to accept gifts to support the above under cover of a donation. Write a check for a few worthy charitable operations, do some appearances, publish a few reports, and it’s a net positive legal financial strategy.
  - jariel 6y ago
    So first - the donation has nothing to do with anything really, it's kind of a side issue. Second, this is not the kind of 'influence peddling' organization you are thinking of. These kinds of orgs. are 'influentially benign', this money is not going to change any votes. You're thinking more of Clinton Foundation or Koch Brothers. If you want to be cynical about it - then I suggest it's more to do with the fact that this 'charity' seems to be the 'Colin Kap Personal Brand Promotion Marketing Vehicle' in the sense it seems to be more about him than ostensibly the people he's trying to help. And of course 'how' he's trying to help seems a little vague. If this were something like 'support underproduction kids by helping them pay for tuition' that would be wonderful. But the real issue is ostensible hypocrisy in Twitter bans, and while I think there is a legit fine line, I don't think Twitter has crossed it. They can make the case for banning Trump and not Kap. Though maybe there's some other tweets they ought to delete as well. To his credit, Dorsey did indicate the difficult challenge in the decision and that this issue certainly is not over. There's a difference between calling for protest of authorities who have killed innocent people, possibly on the basis of racism vs. trying to stop the electoral process, which amounts to a de-facto coup. Those are worlds apart. Those who 'looted Target' I hope can face appropriate charges, those who materially were trying to stop the electoral process as well, and those will be 'much more relevant'.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

sosuke 6y ago

I understood there was a difference between "I hope they all * of *" and "I will * them" The first example "someone take this" is indirect. Edit: upon reflection this could be a direct threat if the person saying it might make it happen by their influence alone. Like a mob leader saying "someone take out this trash" The second example is even more indirect. Doesn't say he would do it. Doesn't say anyone else would do it. Doesn't even say what it is. A threat yes, but a veiled threat. The third example is more of the same. Like saying "I hope you choke on it!" isn't a threat.

troupe 6y ago
“Someone take this clown out NOW. #AssassinateTrump" Is that what you were saying was indirect?
- sosuke 6y ago
  It is indirect. It isn't a solicitation for the job specified but a cry that it should happen. I do see that as becoming a direct threat if the person giving it has a known cadre of people willing act on their words. Such as a military or cult leader might.
  - traveler01 6y ago
    So it is ok because it's about Trump?
    - happytoexplain 6y ago
      The parent said it would be worse if the author were somebody with power or fame - not if the target wasn't. Edit: Just clarifying, not agreeing. While I agree that there is subjectivity around how indirect a threat is, who the author and their audience is, etc, I do think in this case this tweet should be removed.
      - aksss 6y ago

john_moscow 6y ago

It is very easy to understand the situation if you look at specific people and their motivations. We have a large group of people who are deeply insecure and unsatisfied with their lives. Their jobs price them out of property ownership, they have near zero chance of retirement and very faint perspectives in starting families. All those problems would go away with the raise of the purchasing power of their salary, but the corporate world has found a cheaper solution. People are told to follow their feelings, "bring entire themselves at work", etc. Instead of paying them more, we let it slide when they blow their steam off at someone they don't like. It keeps them busy and it costs zero on the balance sheet. A much better alternative to unionizing or starting competing co-ops, right? In long-term, this creates a massive divide in the society. Conservative-minded people that are happy with what they have find this childish. Emotional people feel that conservatives have some unfair advantage and try to attack them for it. The recent election is just a good indicator of the divide, since the conservative vs. emotional groups clearly have opposing opinions about it. The corporations are simply supporting the side that costs the less to them, it's business and nothing personal. In a longer term, it looks like the death of American Dream. You are no longer expected to achieve wealth and financial independence through hard work, and then do what YOU want. Instead, the role model is to dedicate your energy to endless bashing of your peers from the opposing political camp, while the corporations grab an unprecedented share of the economy.

troupe 6y ago
> In a longer term, it looks like the death of American Dream. You are no longer expected to achieve wealth and financial independence through hard work, and then do what YOU want. There are plenty of people who still expect to achieve success through hard work. The people who do achieve success through hard work usually tend to be from the set of people who have that expectation though.
- john_moscow 6y ago
  I am talking about popular culture. I consider myself moderately successful (I run a small business that I managed to build from scratch through trial and error after studying the "hot" fields and working in the industry). I am happy with my life and I'm trying to pass my mindset to my kids to make sure they can find what works for them. From what I can see, I am the only example of this in their life. The mainstream media talks about how we are privileged and should step back, not want anything, and let others have it. The role models of prosperity are Instragram celebrities and pop singers, that have a hard cap on their numbers by definition. Nobody takes the long road with rewards further down seriously, and this is saddening. Because the people I know that followed the instant gratification route years ago are not happy at all right now. And the trouble is that once you are the only person with this mindset in your neighborhood, and are wealthier than others, people with pitchforks will come for you. It won't help that you made your fortune through hard work if your neighbors think it's unfair. There have been historic precedents. Kulaks in early Soviet Union [0] is a very good example. Mccloskeys case from last year is another one. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

a_new_start 6y ago

This is incredibly weak reporting. 1. Has this tweet been reported? Generally when I report a bad tweet, the account gets suspended within a week or so. I've reported this tweet (about 20 minutes ago), so we'll see what happens. 2. Where's the threat? This seems akin to my saying "The United States will fall". 3. Oh come on. Yeah, it's shitty, but how is this in the same ballpark as an actual threat? If this is the worst they found on Twitter...

dakial1 6y ago

Wouldn't it be better for platforms to solve this division problem by setting their algorithms to simply move everyone to the center (by giving preference to moderate posts)? They already do the curation by showing what they think we would like to see, maybe they should show us what we need to see. Ultra left and ultra right are different faces of the same problem.

sedivy94 6y ago
Increasing profits has become a race to optimize user engagement. Extreme or polarizing statements attract attention. Milktoast moderate viewpoints do not. That’s a tough sell.
- aksss 6y ago
  Maybe unusual, but I didn’t leave Facebook because of the moderate viewpoints, I left it because of the routinely offensive commentary ordinary people would otherwise not be comfortable making, and the privacy concerns. It was lowering my faith in humanity.

hbiden2020 6y ago

Demand Hunter Biden be arrested today! Do it you fucking virtue signaling fucks!

blisterpeanuts 6y ago

There is no middle ground when it comes to freedom of speech. I find it interesting to read Khamenei's statements, even though I find his regime repugnant for killing gays, jailing dissidents, stifling women's rights, and threatening Israel. It's important that we be able to see what he says. It doesn't mean we're glorifying him or legitimizing him, and those elements in the West or elsewhere who may agree with him will get it from alternative sources anyway. Likewise, it's important to see what violent elements in our society are saying, even if we disagree with them and find them reprehensible. You can't stop ideas from flowing; you can slow them down temporarily, by banning them from the mainstream marketplace of idea exchange. But ideas still have a way of leaking through. If someone is advocating assassination of the President on social media, they should be reported to the FBI. Simply deleting their posting accomplishes nothing. These media platforms mistakenly think that they are arbiters of ideas and information, when in reality they're just glorified bulletin boards. It should not be up to them to decide on others' behalf what is appropriate to be seen and what is not. Just my opinions.

everdrive 6y ago
> Simply deleting their posting accomplishes nothing. If it does "nothing," then why is it bad if it happens?
tenebrisalietum 6y ago
> If someone is advocating assassination of the President on social media, they should be reported to the FBI. Simply deleting their posting accomplishes nothing. Let's do both?
dragonwriter 6y ago
> If someone is advocating assassination of the President on social media, they should be reported to the FBI. Simply deleting their posting accomplishes nothing. Limiting the reach of incitement to violent crime is not “nothing”. Obviously, it should also be reported to appropriate authorities.
mnd999 6y ago
I think you (and many others) are confusing a right to freedom of speech with a right to publication. Publishers and editors have been deciding on people's behalf what should and should not be published for hundreds of years. You might write a letter to the New York Times, and they might publish it or they might not. They might decide based on their political leanings.

happytoexplain 6y ago

Maybe I'm missing something, but this seems purposefully disingenuous. Not to say that there definitely isn't a liberal bias in Twitter moderation, but this article's evidence is that they banned the US president but didn't ban three rando tweets with five or fewer likes/retweets. Surely the more likely case here is that moderation has missed them so far? On the other hand, the KillTrump hashtag is indefensible, since surely this isn't the first time that's appeared, and it seems super easy to spot and ban without needing a ton of user reports (though admittedly, looking right now, all tweets under that hashtag are using it to criticize the hashtag...).

jamie_ca 6y ago
Agreed, there's a difference in degree between randos with no reach rage-tweeting into the void, and Trump being read by millions. That said, if they're going to say Trump's tweets are finally a problem, there's definitely other public figures with thousands/millions of followers who are also tweeting messages of violence, and it sounds like continued crickets on that front.

mcguire 6y ago

Has anyone reported these tweets? (I ask because of the number of times I've gotten calls from my neighbors asking "Is your power off?" and learning that no one had reported the outage.) Edit: I'm not a Twitter user, so I can't.

a_new_start 6y ago
I reported the first tweet mentioned in the NYPost article. This was about an hour ago, so I would expect it to take a few days before the tweet is removed.
- mimikatz 6y ago
  At that point there is not point. A tweets lifetime is hours at most. No one scrolls back days.
- bArray 6y ago
  > This was about an hour ago, so I would expect it to take a > few days before the tweet is removed. Apparently Amazon's standard ToS policy dictates that if it's not removed within 36 hours, they will turn their servers off.
  - tzs 6y ago
    Amazon started bringing Parler's attention to serious contract violations back in November, which Parler failed to adequately address. Amazon says that in fact the situation at Parler got worse, not better, after their months of warnings.
    - bArray 6y ago
      > Amazon started bringing Parler's attention to serious > contract violations back in November, which Parler failed > to adequately address. You think Twitter has never broken Amazon ToS? What is to stop AWS saying "this thing we warned you about last year, well, it's still there and you've got 36 hours before we shut down your servers". > Amazon says that in fact the situation at Parler got > worse, not better, after their months of warnings. I don't know if you noticed, but the situation around the US election got worse everywhere. Not so long ago #HangPence was trending on Twitter, and within the last 24 hours or so #HangTrump. That's trending - Twitter is actually promoting that!

jessmay 6y ago

The mental gymnastics some of you will do to support people simply because they have the same world view as you is disgusting.

happytoexplain 6y ago
I do hope "some of you" doesn't mean "those of you with a specific political affiliation", since obviously this is a problem with people in general.
a_new_start 6y ago
Who is being supported?
zahrc 6y ago
I agree, the inability to differentiate between "agreeing" and "supporting" is the real reason everyone is so divided over everything!
aksss 6y ago
As a telling sign of the times, I have no idea to whom you are referring. :D Those are the best comments, because all sides should take heed of them.

mcphage 6y ago

To start with, I don't think this article is even correct—people have been banned for tweets interpreted as calls for violence against Trump before. At least on a temporary basis. But in general, threats and calls for violence on Twitter are a problem. One that Twitter has been loathe to face for a while. Now they're starting to face it. Maybe they'll take it seriously, and handle it well, and maybe they won't—but when someone starts caring about a thing, saying "well look at these times you used to not care" doesn't really mean much. You're right, they used to not care, but now they're starting to. Let's see where it goes.

richardARPANET 6y ago

Twitter allowed "Hang Mike Pence" to Trend for more than one day recently. When will they be removed from the App Stores?

a_new_start 6y ago
I'm going to assume good faith on your part with this question. This hashtag was used, almost exclusively, by people discussing the chants of "Hang Mike Pence" last week at the Capitol.
- fuzzer37 6y ago
  Ahh see. There's your issue. Assuming these people are arguing in good faith.
  - seneca 6y ago
    > Ahh see. There's your issue. Assuming these people are arguing in good faith. Comments like this add nothing and degrade the conversation. The point of this site is conversation, not muck throwing.
  - im3w1l 6y ago
    Yeah I've seen a lot of breakdown of good faith from both sides recently. I wonder if it's even fixable. It seems to be related to the modern commoditization of socialization. With a close friend, honesty is best, but with a stranger, pulling a fast one seems more attractive.
- richardARPANET 6y ago
  When I clicked on it, the page was full of Tweets don't fall inline with your claim, but maybe we all see a different Twitter according to "personalization" :)
  - a_new_start 6y ago
    Again, without wishing to assume bad faith on your part, I find this very hard to believe. If this was so prevalent, there would be many screenshots of the offending tweets used to prove that this hashtag was actually being used for making threats against Mike Pence. Instead, all I have seen are screenshots of tweets discussing the chants made by the mobs who stormed the Capitol last week, as well as many tweets asking why this hashtag was there. If can share some screenshots of a "page full of Tweets", or link to some evidence, then I will gladly take that onboard.

blueyes 6y ago

A good gauge of how much a publication or individual supports last week's insurrection against a legitimate presidential election is the amount of "whataboutism" and "free-speechism" they engage in now. If you are talking about BLM, free speech or bitcoin and you think that will solve the Real Problem, you are ignoring a clear and present danger. Last week, the president of the United States participated in an invasion of the US Capitol in order to disrupt the orderly transfer of power. It was not a spontaneous riot and it was not mere incitement of a mob. It was sedition and violence. The people who invaded the Capitol carried weapons and wore merchandise that announced their plans; e.g. sweatshirts emblazoned with the words "Civil War." They discussed those plans openly and stupidly on Parler. Some of them appear to have coordinate with Republican members of Congress, such as Gosar and Brooks, who were giving "reconnaissance tours" in the days immediately before the invasion. Dem lawmaker says panic buttons were removed from office https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/01/13/nation/it-was-like-looking-evil-capitol-attack-through-eyes-massachusetts-delegation/ https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/01/13/nation/it-was-like-lo... Mikie Sherrill says unidentified lawmakers led ‘reconnaissance’ tours ahead of Capitol attack https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/12/mikie-sherrill-capitol-hill-attack-458655 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/12/mikie-sherrill-capi... Kapernik is not the issue. China is not the issue. The issue is whether we want a democratically elected president to take office in the US, or whether we should tolerate speech that incites people to violently oppose that transition. Free speech has never been absolute. It is one right among others. We have always drawn lines around it, including on the platforms that are banning Q and Trump now. What are some other forms of speech we banned? Various kinds of gun and drug sales, as well as speech and images related to human trafficking and abuse. Those lines were always there. The people who wanted to discuss those things did not have a right to do so under the US system, or on social media. The social media platforms are currently drawing a line to exclude the incitement of violence, the enabling and activating lies that led to the insurrection last week. They are fully within their rights to do so. Trump does not owe it to them to change his speech and behavior, and they do not owe him a platform. That's called freedom and it works both ways. The good news is, most of the people dumb enough to believe Trump and Q are not smart enough to navigate the Dark Web, and encryption apps will weaken their performative feedback loop. ISIS was undermined in a similar way by deplatforming.

6y ago

Yetanfou 6y ago

Here's a somewhat more comprehensive list of malcontents who get to use Twitter for all sorts of nefarious purposes without being censored, let alone banned. It is not my own list, I found it on Ben Shapiro's "Daily Wire". Those of you who immediately reach for the down-arrow on seeing Shapiro's name do well to realise that this is the exact subject we're talking about here. Ayatollah Khamenei (@khamenei_ir) Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, has openly tweeted his desire to destroy Israel, calling it a “cancerous growth” that must be “uprooted and destroyed.” More recently, the Supreme Leader has implied that the United States could be sharing COVID-19 vaccines abroad in order to “contaminate other nations.” Following the U.S. air raid that killed Iranian General Soleimani, Khamenei said that Iran, “will never forget this and will certainly deal a reciprocal blow to the United States.” Despite the fact that Khamenei and his oppressive regime have banned Twitter in Iran, his account remains active for the rest of the world to see. In June of this year, Twitter responded to calls for Khamenei’s suspension, saying his tweets “fall into the category of foreign policy saber-rattling on economic or military issues.” Zabiullah Mujahid (@Zabehulah_M33) You may not know his name, but you certainly know the organization he represents. Mujahid is a spokesman for the Taliban, an organization who have gone far beyond violent words, committing heinous acts of terror in the name of radical Islam, killing thousands of innocent people — including American troops and citizens. Mujahid’s account has amassed over 147,000 followers, and his account appears free of any “fact checks” or warnings from Twitter admins. The page regularly touts Taliban exploits, praising the Mujahideen and celebrating raids and other violent attacks within Afghanistan. For example, one of Mujahid’s recent tweets bragged about new members who’d joined the terrorist organization. “25 soldiers, police, and [government officials], realizing the facts and efforts of recruitment officials, resigned and joined the Mujahideen.” Louis Farrakhan (@LouisFarrakhan) Louis Farrakhan, perhaps the most famous anti-semite in America today, still has an active Twitter account, despite routinely comparing Jews to “termites,” among other things. Farrakhan, head of the notorious “Nation of Islam,” tweeted in 2018, “I am not anti-semite. I am anti-termite.” Though Twitter removed the “verified” check from his account following a tweet about “the Satanic Jew and the Synagogue of Satan,” his account still remains active and public. Chinese Embassy In The U.S. (@ChineseEmbinUS) You may not know it, but the Chinese Embassy in the United States has their own verified Twitter account with over 78,000 followers. Their account is routinely used to spread Chinese Communist Party propaganda on behalf of President Xi Jingping. This week, they used Twitter to defend China’s use of concentration camps in part of their ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs. “The minds of Uygur women in Xinjiang were emancipated and gender equality and reproductive health were promoted, making them no longer baby-making machines,” the account tweeted, before saying the victims are, “more confident and independent.” While the tweet has since been deleted, the account has not. New York City Antifa Account (@NYCAntifa) For all their talk of restricting those “promoting violence,” Twitter still allows Antifa accounts full access to the platform, despite their “by any means necessary” slogan and their use of violent rhetoric and tactics. The account routinely “doxes” individuals deemed “Nazis” — in other words, anyone on the Right — sharing photos and personal information in an attempt to intimidate and coerce. The page also reposts photos and videos of “fascists” being attacked on the street and at protests, with gleeful captions. Nicolas Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) Despite running his country into the ground and killing or jailing anyone who stood in his way, Nicolas Maduro — best known as the human rights abusing, socialism loving, dictator of Venezuela — still enjoys the use of his Twitter account. Throughout the week, he can be seen using the platform to spread propaganda in support of his murderous regime, all while his starving citizens languish in poverty. Though the United Nations has labeled Maduro one of the worst human rights abusers on Earth, with his continual crimes being well-documented, his Twitter account remains untouched. Kathy Griffin (@KathyGriffin) Kathy Griffin, the “comedian” turned wannabe political activist, is now perhaps best known for a photo she posted holding a bloody replica of Donald Trump’s decapitated head. Evidently, pretending to hold the severed head of the President of the United States doesn’t violate Twitter’s policy on the “glorification of violence.” Griffin initially apologized for the gruesome photoshoot, but eventually doubled down, reposting the image on election night in November. While Twitter flagged the tweet as containing “potentially sensitive content,” they allowed it to stay and have taken no further action against Griffin’s account.

mattnewton 6y ago

How is Jack Dorsey suddenly pulling strings at Apple, Google, and Amazon? What does Amazon care if Twitter does well? Are either Tim Cook or Sundar Pichai secretly holding significant shares? “Big tech” could collude to make more money (like the time Apple and Google reportedly did to reduce labour costs), I’d certainly buy that. But I don’t understand what is in it for these companies to collude to crush Parler, a company none of the platform companies that removed it compete with. Twitter’s stock is down since purging one of their largest draws to the site. Isn’t the simplest explanation here that people are covering their ass? And the examples the article found with 3 retweets are basically a neglible threat?

bArray 6y ago
> What does Amazon care if Twitter does well? Twitter just signed a multi-year contract with Amazon AWS [1] (sorry for the source, but this is really unreported by quite a lot of mainstream media): > "Last month, Defendant Amazon Web Services, Inc. (“AWS”) > and the popular social media platform Twitter signed a > multi-year deal so that AWS could support the daily > delivery of millions of tweets. AWS currently provides > that same service to Parler, a conservative microblogging > alternative and competitor to Twitter," the filing reads. With regards to: > Isn’t the simplest explanation here that people are > covering their ass? Kinda. Big tech is under serious political pressure to enact these changes to remove any platform that Trump may use. I heard (although haven't verified) that Trump made an account on Parler and just a few hours later every service that Parler depend upon abandoned them with minimal notice. This is servers, phone API, lawyers, etc - the entire stack. [1] https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/parler-sues-amazon-antitrust-contract-breach https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/parler-sues-amazon-an...
- mattnewton 6y ago
  I don’t understand how that is relevant though. Presumably Amazon would just as well sell to Twitter and Parler, if Parler wasn’t opening them up to brand damage? Amazon doesn’t own Twitter and has nothing to gain from not selling to their competitors afaict. And this explains nothing of the Apple and Google deplatforming.
6y ago

neartheplain 6y ago

Conservative activist Bevelyn Beatty, Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, and a third Proud Boy were stabbed in DC just before the election. Beatty was hospitalized with a punctured lung: https://www.newsweek.com/proud-boys-stabbed-washington-enrique-tarrio-election-1544740 https://www.newsweek.com/proud-boys-stabbed-washington-enriq... On Twitter, many expressed glee at the attack and disappointment that the stabbings were not fatal: https://twitter.com/ShaunG05712929/status/1324042071636922368 https://twitter.com/ShaunG05712929/status/132404207163692236... https://twitter.com/SaltPotatoes/status/1324004264524632069 https://twitter.com/SaltPotatoes/status/1324004264524632069 https://twitter.com/DcAntifa/status/1323970794595196928 https://twitter.com/DcAntifa/status/1323970794595196928 https://twitter.com/tonica5683/status/1324241314066632705 https://twitter.com/tonica5683/status/1324241314066632705 The tweets remain up. This all happened a month before the stabbings at a Proud Boys rally in DC (victim affiliations unknown), which received considerably more press attention: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/pro-trump-dc-rally-stabbing https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/pro-trump-dc... This is one case I remembered off the top of my head, having followed the past year’s unrest closely (too closely for my mental health, if I’m honest). There are many cases like it, with many similar tweets.

aksss 6y ago

“Twitter hosts a #KillTrump hashtag. In all of the glorious English language there is no clearer, plainer, or shorter way to call for violence than the word kill followed by someone’s name. But there it is...And this isn’t new, back in June the hashtag #AssassinateTrump was bouncing around the website with gems like “Someone take this clown out NOW.” That tweet is still up.” I worry about the ability to evenhandedly censor at scale, but the content examples above should be pretty easy to automate the cleansing of if one wanted to. I’m curious how many would bet (and how) regarding Twitter’s reaction if #killbi*den or assassination-focused alternatives became a thing this spring. We don’t need to speculate about dissemination of ideas - hypotheses harmful to Trump (Russian collusion) are left alone for years, while hypotheses critical of Biden (grifter schemes involving his son) get prominently deplatformed, not just modded with a disclaimer. Both were legitimate news stories, both warranted the public interest, and both involved government investigation. To be clear, I’m all for Twitter’s right to do this. Wholeheartedly. I chaff at the promoted perception that they are even-handed in toeing a moral line simply because a) it seems demonstrably false with even casual examination by an honest broker, and b) it forestalls conversation about their behavior as a market actor. The bigger concern here isn’t Twitter’s own social alignments, but the barriers they and other gatekeepers evidently can enforce to bar competition. It’s interesting that the market competition in this age seems to be aligning with a competition of ideas, because otherwise I’m not sure this would ever come to a head. To the extent that there’s a public policy issue that needs examining here, I think it’s somewhere in that ball of string: section 230 probably assumed that the Internet would not be run (for all intents and purposes of being an accessible public forum) by oligopolies: nor that so few organizations would have such massive vertical and horizontal leverage. I don’t tend to think that section 230 reform is a good idea, but am inclined to think that this week’s display of power begs for some trust busting. So what happens when the targets of such examination have traded staff with the political administration, and have such stratospheric piles of cash? The laws are in place - it’s hard to call Twitter, et al innocent monopolies anymore.

CarelessExpert 6y ago

> Twitter has the right to police the speech on its platform, but the rules must apply equally to everyone if they claim to be a neutral platform and not a publisher. sigh https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello... > > If you said "A site that has political bias is not neutral, and thus loses its Section 230 protections" > I'm sorry, but you are very, very, very wrong. Perhaps more wrong than anyone saying any of the other things above. First off, there is no "neutrality" requirement at all in Section 230. Seriously. Read it. If anything, it says the opposite. It says that sites can moderate as they see fit and face no liability. This myth is out there and persists because some politicians keep repeating it, but it's wrong and the opposite of truth. Indeed, any requirement of neutrality would likely raise significant 1st Amendment questions, as it would be involving the law in editorial decision making. Debate all you want about whether what Twitter did was moral, it was unquestionably legal, and anyone claiming otherwise either doesn't understand section 230 or is deliberately trying to mislead. In this case I'm betting it's the latter.