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As usual with these posts, I don't really find this convincing, that joke is not obvious to someone who doesn't know this person. The tweet can very easily be m

As usual with these posts, I don't really find this convincing, that joke is not obvious to someone who doesn't know this person. The tweet can very easily be misinterpreted by someone who does not get the joke. Please keep in mind that this is not just a Twitter thing, many decentralized communities may also not want to host jokes about self-harm or suicide.

catillac 5y ago
I think it’s obvious to an everyday English speaking person, this is a take on a regular saying, like “costing an arm and a leg” or “sell my firstborn” or something. Though if I were this Twitter person, I would definitely avoid any metaphors involving things like this if they’ve been banned or whatever so many times. Still, as an average person, it isn’t taken as anything but a riff on a saying.
- lavabiopsy 5y ago
  Yes, the thing is that Twitter is also accessible to people who are not everyday English speakers.
  - ameister14 5y ago
    Interesting - so from the perspective of a non-english speaker, would you say that a phrase like 'that cost an arm and a leg!' is likely to offend you?
    - lavabiopsy 5y ago
      I can't answer that question because I am a native English speaker, but I can say, I would probably not use that phrase around non-native English speakers. It's confusing and could be misinterpreted. Generally one would want to avoid using idioms like that when trying to cross a language barrier.
      - ameister14 5y ago
        The problem with that is that the person's intent isn't to cross the language barrier. Many languages have idioms involving body parts like this. In French it's couter les yeux de la tete, similar in Italian where it's costare un occhio della testa. One in Mandarin that means something different is 削足适履, about cutting your feet to fit your shoes. I get that idioms don't always translate well (some actually do, especially literal ones that are less referential like cost an arm and a leg) but I'd be careful before invoking misunderstanding with theoretical groups of non-english speakers.
        lavabiopsy 5y ago
        And yet, all of those could be misinterpreted by someone who is not familiar with that. >I'd be careful before invoking misunderstanding with theoretical groups of non-english speakers. If you're being cautious (as is common for a large website to do) then this is totally backwards -- you would actually need to be careful with invoking understanding when it comes to theoretical groups of non-english speakers. You can't start by assuming that everything that is said is going to be understood perfectly (Though I really wish that was possible, it would make it a lot easier to teach math, physics, history, etc).
    - estebarb 5y ago
      Yes, because in other languages things costs less body parts. In Spanish, for example things just costs an eye or a kidney. Spanish -> literal translation Me costó un ojo -> it costs me an eye Me costó un riñón -> it costs me a kidney (Edited for format)
    - blondin 5y ago
      let's stay on track here. that expression is an idiom. other languages have idioms that native english speakers would find weird. as far as the tweet that started all this, it sounded too serious in my opinion. kanye west (not sure if it was him who said it first) was correct with this one: adding an emoji would have sent a clearer message. blink blink smiley face or something.
  - dudul 5y ago
    Do native English speakers need to renounce their idioms to accommodate people who barely speak English then?
    - lavabiopsy 5y ago
      Sure. Have you learned a new language recently? If you haven't, it's an illuminating experience -- usually you don't start with the idioms until you have a really strong grasp of the basics and of some other advanced forms.
      - bombela 5y ago
        I am not a native English speaker. In fact, I learned English very late in life. And I don't think you have to pretend you are talking to the whole world all the time and restrict yourself to simple English.
        lavabiopsy 5y ago
        I don't understand, there's no pretending -- On Twitter, you are effectively talking to the whole world. Anyone in the world can click on your tweets and see what you're saying. If you want to have a broad reach, then minimizing the use of complicated words and language can absolutely help. That doesn't mean you can't discuss complex things, it just means being more deliberate in the way it's discussed.
      - dudul 5y ago
        So first, let's get the ad hominem out of the way. I speak 2 languages fluently in addition to my native language after living in 4 countries throughout my life, so don't patronize me. Then, your argument is so silly that I wonder if you're just being contrarian for the sake of it. By your logic, anyone speaking language A should make sure to dumb it down as much as possible, make it extremely basic to make sure that anyone in the world who doesn't have a good grasp on language A can understand it unambiguously. First of all, I don't owe you anything. If I decide to type a tweet in Italian, or Russian or whatever I don't have to accommodate you. If you don't understand the language, you're clearly not my target audience. Even though you can click on my tweet to read it doesn't mean that I need to make sure someone who doesn't understand the language can read it. Second, this is a total disservice to people learning the language to not use idiom and common constructs. These are expressions people use in real life, if they are serious about wanting to learn a language they want to be exposed to them.
  - estebarb 5y ago
    The joke is completely understandable to anybody that speaks Spanish too. In fact, many languages have idioms about exchanging body parts for something.
  - maccolgan 5y ago
    I don't see the solution, should we self-censor all humor to the point of the lowest common denominator?
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
Saying you'd exchange a body part that you can technically live without for something is a pretty common metaphor to the point where I'd say it's not glorifying self harm.
- lfowles 5y ago
  The tweet that got the account locked was a reply to the first one presented: "@craigmod There may be a video on how to cut off your leg"
  - estebarb 5y ago
    That is obvious sarcasm. I really think that Twitter is trusting too much on NLP for automating those checks and not humans. Because machines are particularly bad at grasping sarcasm. Its funny, because if you report obvious self harm or violence content in Spanish Twitter does nothing (like vaccines don't work, inject chlorine yourself, kill the president, organize a coup). (Edited: typos)
    - lavabiopsy 5y ago
      It may be obvious to you, but for someone not familiar with this person's type of humor, it might not be so obvious. Please consider that if you find yourself making sarcastic jokes in the presence of strangers and they are giving you funny looks. (It's happened to me more than once) I'm sorry that happens on Spanish Twitter, that's really unfortunate and it sounds like not a fun place to discuss things.
Rebelgecko 5y ago
Believe it or not, there are reasons to perform amputations other than suicide and self-harm
- lavabiopsy 5y ago
  Sure, but that is not made clear from the joke.
  - Rebelgecko 5y ago
    When there's a range of possibilities I don't think it makes sense to automatically assume ill-intent. Especially if you're going to willfully ignore context that proves otherwise. That's like one step away from Twitter banning knife companies because their advertisements promote self-amputation
    - lavabiopsy 5y ago
      I think there is some confusion here, it's not that there is assumption of ill-intent. It's just the possibility that it could be interpreted that way. From the perspective of a moderator being on the safe side, I could see how they have to always assume that a reader will ignore context, not willfully but by accident. Edit: Imagine you owned a knife company, would you use the contents of this tweet in an ad? I personally would not.
ekianjo 5y ago
> that joke is not obvious to someone who doesn't know this person The internet must be a scary place for these hypothetical persons you pretend to know.
- dharmab 5y ago
  The internet IS a scary place. Statistically, most of the content viewed on the internet is written by outlier individuals. https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most_of_what_you_read_on_the_internet_is_written/ https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most...
- lavabiopsy 5y ago
  Please avoid making these type of snarky comments with (incorrect) assumptions about me. A better way to phrase it would be to ask which persons I know like this, to which I could give a pretty universal response: children. You wouldn't expect a child to understand an adult joke. Sure, some do, but many don't -- they have to learn just like you and I did about what people's attitudes are and when they are joking or not.
  - ameister14 5y ago
    Children are not supposed to be on twitter, though.
    - lavabiopsy 5y ago
      I believe children ages 13-17 are able to use twitter.
      - ameister14 5y ago
        That's a special subset that are generally seen as competent enough to see and hear more adult material in order to better prepare for adult life. So actually, there's a real argument to let them see a twitter joke like this. They have less overall protections than a child under 13 for a reason.
newman8r 5y ago
> that joke is not obvious to someone who doesn't know this person. It's more like observational humor - it may very well be true. Some people might not find it funny, but it's not advocating for anything.
batch12 5y ago
Now, we should invent a new way to speak. Each of us needs something that removes ambiguity and includes only short, easy to pronounce words. We will find it easy not to accidently say the wrong thing. Such that the right things will flow almost unconciously. People will be more free knowing communication can happen without having to overthink it. Eutopia would be soon to follow. Anyway, just a thought. K
- lavabiopsy 5y ago
  I understand what joke you are trying to make, but I would say the real problem here is the exact opposite: a lot of tweets that I see end up being more ambiguous because of the brevity and lack of context. So it seems what you describe is actually already happening and is one of the main problems with microblogging, and is probably what caused this person's tweet to get flagged.
  - batch12 5y ago
    Yes, I agree. Trying to fit meaningful, full thoughts into 1xx characters is part of the problem.
  - batch12 5y ago
    Btw I worked (too) hard on that one, even encoding a message :)
MattPalmer1086 5y ago
It's a very obvious joke, but can only be understood if you read both tweets, the original and the reply. Person 1: 15 year old me would have cut a leg off for access to youtube. Person 2: there's probably a video on how to cut your leg off! Person 2 gets banned, Person 1 was the first to mention cutting his leg off. I can't see how this isnt an obvious joke, no matter what language you speak.
Brian_K_White 5y ago
The very fact that they don't know what the speech means, is exactly why they have no business trying to control it.
xdennis 5y ago
> The tweet can very easily be misinterpreted by someone who does not get the joke. [...] [M]any decentralized communities may also not want to host jokes about self-harm or suicide. The end effect of this is that it reduces speech to the lowest common denominator. Software and mods who are given 5 seconds to pass judgement on something don't have the capacity to properly assess things so it's easier to just default to banning. If Jonathan Swift were alive today, he's be permabanned from Twitter for promoting eating Irish babies.

catillac 5y ago

I think it’s obvious to an everyday English speaking person, this is a take on a regular saying, like “costing an arm and a leg” or “sell my firstborn” or something. Though if I were this Twitter person, I would definitely avoid any metaphors involving things like this if they’ve been banned or whatever so many times. Still, as an average person, it isn’t taken as anything but a riff on a saying.

lavabiopsy 5y ago
Yes, the thing is that Twitter is also accessible to people who are not everyday English speakers.
- ameister14 5y ago
  Interesting - so from the perspective of a non-english speaker, would you say that a phrase like 'that cost an arm and a leg!' is likely to offend you?
  - lavabiopsy 5y ago
    I can't answer that question because I am a native English speaker, but I can say, I would probably not use that phrase around non-native English speakers. It's confusing and could be misinterpreted. Generally one would want to avoid using idioms like that when trying to cross a language barrier.
    - ameister14 5y ago
      The problem with that is that the person's intent isn't to cross the language barrier. Many languages have idioms involving body parts like this. In French it's couter les yeux de la tete, similar in Italian where it's costare un occhio della testa. One in Mandarin that means something different is 削足适履, about cutting your feet to fit your shoes. I get that idioms don't always translate well (some actually do, especially literal ones that are less referential like cost an arm and a leg) but I'd be careful before invoking misunderstanding with theoretical groups of non-english speakers.
      - lavabiopsy 5y ago
        And yet, all of those could be misinterpreted by someone who is not familiar with that. >I'd be careful before invoking misunderstanding with theoretical groups of non-english speakers. If you're being cautious (as is common for a large website to do) then this is totally backwards -- you would actually need to be careful with invoking understanding when it comes to theoretical groups of non-english speakers. You can't start by assuming that everything that is said is going to be understood perfectly (Though I really wish that was possible, it would make it a lot easier to teach math, physics, history, etc).
  - estebarb 5y ago
    Yes, because in other languages things costs less body parts. In Spanish, for example things just costs an eye or a kidney. Spanish -> literal translation Me costó un ojo -> it costs me an eye Me costó un riñón -> it costs me a kidney (Edited for format)
  - blondin 5y ago
    let's stay on track here. that expression is an idiom. other languages have idioms that native english speakers would find weird. as far as the tweet that started all this, it sounded too serious in my opinion. kanye west (not sure if it was him who said it first) was correct with this one: adding an emoji would have sent a clearer message. blink blink smiley face or something.
- dudul 5y ago
  Do native English speakers need to renounce their idioms to accommodate people who barely speak English then?
  - lavabiopsy 5y ago
    Sure. Have you learned a new language recently? If you haven't, it's an illuminating experience -- usually you don't start with the idioms until you have a really strong grasp of the basics and of some other advanced forms.
    - bombela 5y ago
      I am not a native English speaker. In fact, I learned English very late in life. And I don't think you have to pretend you are talking to the whole world all the time and restrict yourself to simple English.
      - lavabiopsy 5y ago
        I don't understand, there's no pretending -- On Twitter, you are effectively talking to the whole world. Anyone in the world can click on your tweets and see what you're saying. If you want to have a broad reach, then minimizing the use of complicated words and language can absolutely help. That doesn't mean you can't discuss complex things, it just means being more deliberate in the way it's discussed.
    - dudul 5y ago
      So first, let's get the ad hominem out of the way. I speak 2 languages fluently in addition to my native language after living in 4 countries throughout my life, so don't patronize me. Then, your argument is so silly that I wonder if you're just being contrarian for the sake of it. By your logic, anyone speaking language A should make sure to dumb it down as much as possible, make it extremely basic to make sure that anyone in the world who doesn't have a good grasp on language A can understand it unambiguously. First of all, I don't owe you anything. If I decide to type a tweet in Italian, or Russian or whatever I don't have to accommodate you. If you don't understand the language, you're clearly not my target audience. Even though you can click on my tweet to read it doesn't mean that I need to make sure someone who doesn't understand the language can read it. Second, this is a total disservice to people learning the language to not use idiom and common constructs. These are expressions people use in real life, if they are serious about wanting to learn a language they want to be exposed to them.
- estebarb 5y ago
  The joke is completely understandable to anybody that speaks Spanish too. In fact, many languages have idioms about exchanging body parts for something.
- maccolgan 5y ago
  I don't see the solution, should we self-censor all humor to the point of the lowest common denominator?

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

Saying you'd exchange a body part that you can technically live without for something is a pretty common metaphor to the point where I'd say it's not glorifying self harm.

lfowles 5y ago
The tweet that got the account locked was a reply to the first one presented: "@craigmod There may be a video on how to cut off your leg"
- estebarb 5y ago
  That is obvious sarcasm. I really think that Twitter is trusting too much on NLP for automating those checks and not humans. Because machines are particularly bad at grasping sarcasm. Its funny, because if you report obvious self harm or violence content in Spanish Twitter does nothing (like vaccines don't work, inject chlorine yourself, kill the president, organize a coup). (Edited: typos)
  - lavabiopsy 5y ago
    It may be obvious to you, but for someone not familiar with this person's type of humor, it might not be so obvious. Please consider that if you find yourself making sarcastic jokes in the presence of strangers and they are giving you funny looks. (It's happened to me more than once) I'm sorry that happens on Spanish Twitter, that's really unfortunate and it sounds like not a fun place to discuss things.

Rebelgecko 5y ago

Believe it or not, there are reasons to perform amputations other than suicide and self-harm

lavabiopsy 5y ago
Sure, but that is not made clear from the joke.
- Rebelgecko 5y ago
  When there's a range of possibilities I don't think it makes sense to automatically assume ill-intent. Especially if you're going to willfully ignore context that proves otherwise. That's like one step away from Twitter banning knife companies because their advertisements promote self-amputation
  - lavabiopsy 5y ago
    I think there is some confusion here, it's not that there is assumption of ill-intent. It's just the possibility that it could be interpreted that way. From the perspective of a moderator being on the safe side, I could see how they have to always assume that a reader will ignore context, not willfully but by accident. Edit: Imagine you owned a knife company, would you use the contents of this tweet in an ad? I personally would not.

ekianjo 5y ago

> that joke is not obvious to someone who doesn't know this person The internet must be a scary place for these hypothetical persons you pretend to know.

dharmab 5y ago
The internet IS a scary place. Statistically, most of the content viewed on the internet is written by outlier individuals. https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most_of_what_you_read_on_the_internet_is_written/ https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most...
lavabiopsy 5y ago
Please avoid making these type of snarky comments with (incorrect) assumptions about me. A better way to phrase it would be to ask which persons I know like this, to which I could give a pretty universal response: children. You wouldn't expect a child to understand an adult joke. Sure, some do, but many don't -- they have to learn just like you and I did about what people's attitudes are and when they are joking or not.
- ameister14 5y ago
  Children are not supposed to be on twitter, though.
  - lavabiopsy 5y ago
    I believe children ages 13-17 are able to use twitter.
    - ameister14 5y ago
      That's a special subset that are generally seen as competent enough to see and hear more adult material in order to better prepare for adult life. So actually, there's a real argument to let them see a twitter joke like this. They have less overall protections than a child under 13 for a reason.

newman8r 5y ago

> that joke is not obvious to someone who doesn't know this person. It's more like observational humor - it may very well be true. Some people might not find it funny, but it's not advocating for anything.

batch12 5y ago

Now, we should invent a new way to speak. Each of us needs something that removes ambiguity and includes only short, easy to pronounce words. We will find it easy not to accidently say the wrong thing. Such that the right things will flow almost unconciously. People will be more free knowing communication can happen without having to overthink it. Eutopia would be soon to follow. Anyway, just a thought. K

lavabiopsy 5y ago
I understand what joke you are trying to make, but I would say the real problem here is the exact opposite: a lot of tweets that I see end up being more ambiguous because of the brevity and lack of context. So it seems what you describe is actually already happening and is one of the main problems with microblogging, and is probably what caused this person's tweet to get flagged.
- batch12 5y ago
  Yes, I agree. Trying to fit meaningful, full thoughts into 1xx characters is part of the problem.
- batch12 5y ago
  Btw I worked (too) hard on that one, even encoding a message :)

MattPalmer1086 5y ago

It's a very obvious joke, but can only be understood if you read both tweets, the original and the reply. Person 1: 15 year old me would have cut a leg off for access to youtube. Person 2: there's probably a video on how to cut your leg off! Person 2 gets banned, Person 1 was the first to mention cutting his leg off. I can't see how this isnt an obvious joke, no matter what language you speak.

Brian_K_White 5y ago

The very fact that they don't know what the speech means, is exactly why they have no business trying to control it.

xdennis 5y ago

> The tweet can very easily be misinterpreted by someone who does not get the joke. [...] [M]any decentralized communities may also not want to host jokes about self-harm or suicide. The end effect of this is that it reduces speech to the lowest common denominator. Software and mods who are given 5 seconds to pass judgement on something don't have the capacity to properly assess things so it's easier to just default to banning. If Jonathan Swift were alive today, he's be permabanned from Twitter for promoting eating Irish babies.