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Good news citizens of San Francisco and Chicago, your looting/shoplifting epidemic is about to vanish completely! Antifa riots? What are those? I mean, if you c

Good news citizens of San Francisco and Chicago, your looting/shoplifting epidemic is about to vanish completely! Antifa riots? What are those? I mean, if you can't post pics and videos on Twitter, did it even really happen? The next step is Twitter will have a formal list of approved media outlets (gee I wonder which ones it might be) where if they publish it first, Twitter will allow it. Selective reporting seems to be one of the primary tools for media bias/activism, and this is Twitter figuring out their own way to selectively ban content they don't like instead of the current user generated openness.

commandlinefan 5y ago
It doesn't entirely work until they manage step 3: make Twitter (and Google, Facebook and Amazon) the entirety of the internet. We saw some movements in that direction when Amazon and Apple colluded to remove the Parler Twitter competitor app. They don't (yet) control enough of the internet routing infrastructure to complete their vision, but it's definitely coming.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  Is parler supposed to just be a “Twitter competitor” now? Is that really an intellectually honest way to describe it and why it was removed?
  - bopbeepboop 5y ago
    Yes? Twitter fights their users to keep CSAM available, while Parler was pulled down for a handful of posts they claimed they’d have moderated if they discovered them. Hosting the people who host CSAM while banning the people who actively moderate but missed a few messages shows a clear political bias. AWS is fine hosting CSAM for Twitter, but Republicans for Parler is just disgusting. Apparently. https://boundingintocomics.com/2021/01/23/twitter-faces-lawsuit-over-failure-to-remove-child-porn-from-platform/ https://boundingintocomics.com/2021/01/23/twitter-faces-laws...
jf22 5y ago
I've always found people tend to mention "Chicago" as a sort of dog whistle. There are so many other cities with more crime and violence but Chicago is the preferred choice when you want to agitate and alarm.
- logicalmonster 5y ago
  > There are so many other cities with more crime and violence but Chicago is the preferred choice when you want to agitate and alarm. I'm not sure what cities have more crime and violence than Chicago. But if commenting on Chicago is off limits, what cities do people have your blessing to comment on? I would never want to agitate and alarm.
  - rrook 5y ago
    > I'm not sure what cities have more crime and violence than Chicago. Per capita, Chicago is absolutely not an outlier for these statistics. Is there a particular measurement that you're familiar with that ranks Chicago at the top?
    - barbacoa 5y ago
      >Per capita If you rank by total murders Chicago comes in an easy first. Comparing a very large city like Chicago to comparatively smaller cities blurs the numbers when you are talking per capita. For example St Louis is a small inner city surrounded by numerous suburbs cities that have much lower crime rates. Those low crime suburbs don't get counted into the per capita rate. Chicago is large enough of a city that both the high crime and low crime areas all get counted together.
      - danShumway 5y ago
        > If you rank by total murders Chicago comes in an easy first But ranking by total murders is definitely wrong, isn't it? You can have criticisms of the per-capita rate, and you can argue that the smaller cities should have their suburbs included. But the alternative of just saying "let's look at the raw numbers independent of population and see which one is better" would be even more absurd. Just as an example here, there are plenty of reasons to be distrustful of the per-capita comparisons of Covid infection across states, or to argue that they don't capture all of the nuance of what's going on. But nobody would ever seriously argue that those problems mean you should stop paying attention to population size when comparing Covid rates between states. Similarly, it just seems really silly to me to argue that missing suburbs means we should stop controlling for total population in crime data.
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
Don't get your information from Twitter. I don't. :)
- dilap 5y ago
  Best source I've found. What do you use?
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
    The Atlantic, New Yorker, NPR, NYT, Reuters, here.
    - dilap 5y ago
      IMO those all provide a very particular, somewhat narrow perspective. I feel I can get a wider sense of what's going on from Twitter. As just one example, mainstream sources were quite blase about the COVID pandemic until very late, while other (it turns out more accurate) perspectives were available on Twitter. (Edit: Well, w/ the partial exception of HN, of course!)
      - 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
        Twitter is an odd duck. What does it mean to "use" Twitter? If I follow the posts of an actual NYT reporter who is tweeting an event they are at am I using NYT or am I using Twitter? This is different than following what's trending and getting into the muck with other faceless users which is I what I typically ascribe "using" Twitter to mean. As an aside- a benefit of just not using social media for news is that I miss out on a lot of things that almost always turn out to not be important. There is a higher threshold. I'm not succumbed by some hot issue or crisis for a day that is ultimately meaningless. Coworkers would often ask me my thoughts on an issue and I'd have no clue what they're talking about. It's liberating. Sometimes less is more.
        dilap 5y ago
        For me, using Twitter means following a bunch of strangers that seem knowledgable about various domains. Obviously, there are a gazillion possible ways to use it. :-) I feel I've learned useful things that I wouldn't know without it, and it's the second-best way I've found, after personal experience, to ascertain the "truth" about the world. (Blogs and substack and forums like HN are similar, but they don't have the same breadth and density.) Is it a good use of time? Who knows, hard to say. It's interesting, sometimes even addictive. I do agree that on an emotional level we should be most occupied with living the tangible, real lives in front of us, and not worry too much about history roiling by all around us.
gorwell 5y ago
A former NYT tech reporter is calling it the `Andy Ngo law`. https://twitter.com/NellieBowles/status/1465724183044841473 https://twitter.com/NellieBowles/status/1465724183044841473 It does seem crafted to gatekeep citizen journalists who are a major thorn in the corporate media's official narrative.
- native_samples 5y ago
  Specifically, Ngo posted a lot of videos of BLM riots, and mugshots of people arrested for said rioting, to show they weren't black and in fact were often teachers, government employees etc. Well the establishment didn't like that at all. Ngo: "Oregon lawmakers introduced a bill to stop public record access to arrest photographs after I documented who was arrested at the riots last year." And now Twitter introduces this new policy the day after Jack resigns. Presumably stopping people like Ngo tweeting about arrested people had been a long term desire of the internal faction whose ascent is now complete with the new CEO, so bye bye videos of peaceful protests!
- bedhead 5y ago
  Funny, the moment I first read this I also called it Andy Ngo Law and quipped to a friend that Twitter finally figured out how to shut him down.
Talanes 5y ago
As a San Franciscan, Twitter is the only place I see anyone worried about a looting epidemic. And my peer group is literally "Union Square retail worker," so we're kind of the people everyone keeps telling me are the most freaked out.

commandlinefan 5y ago

It doesn't entirely work until they manage step 3: make Twitter (and Google, Facebook and Amazon) the entirety of the internet. We saw some movements in that direction when Amazon and Apple colluded to remove the Parler Twitter competitor app. They don't (yet) control enough of the internet routing infrastructure to complete their vision, but it's definitely coming.

vineyardmike 5y ago
Is parler supposed to just be a “Twitter competitor” now? Is that really an intellectually honest way to describe it and why it was removed?
- bopbeepboop 5y ago
  Yes? Twitter fights their users to keep CSAM available, while Parler was pulled down for a handful of posts they claimed they’d have moderated if they discovered them. Hosting the people who host CSAM while banning the people who actively moderate but missed a few messages shows a clear political bias. AWS is fine hosting CSAM for Twitter, but Republicans for Parler is just disgusting. Apparently. https://boundingintocomics.com/2021/01/23/twitter-faces-lawsuit-over-failure-to-remove-child-porn-from-platform/ https://boundingintocomics.com/2021/01/23/twitter-faces-laws...

jf22 5y ago

I've always found people tend to mention "Chicago" as a sort of dog whistle. There are so many other cities with more crime and violence but Chicago is the preferred choice when you want to agitate and alarm.

logicalmonster 5y ago
> There are so many other cities with more crime and violence but Chicago is the preferred choice when you want to agitate and alarm. I'm not sure what cities have more crime and violence than Chicago. But if commenting on Chicago is off limits, what cities do people have your blessing to comment on? I would never want to agitate and alarm.
- rrook 5y ago
  > I'm not sure what cities have more crime and violence than Chicago. Per capita, Chicago is absolutely not an outlier for these statistics. Is there a particular measurement that you're familiar with that ranks Chicago at the top?
  - barbacoa 5y ago
    >Per capita If you rank by total murders Chicago comes in an easy first. Comparing a very large city like Chicago to comparatively smaller cities blurs the numbers when you are talking per capita. For example St Louis is a small inner city surrounded by numerous suburbs cities that have much lower crime rates. Those low crime suburbs don't get counted into the per capita rate. Chicago is large enough of a city that both the high crime and low crime areas all get counted together.
    - danShumway 5y ago
      > If you rank by total murders Chicago comes in an easy first But ranking by total murders is definitely wrong, isn't it? You can have criticisms of the per-capita rate, and you can argue that the smaller cities should have their suburbs included. But the alternative of just saying "let's look at the raw numbers independent of population and see which one is better" would be even more absurd. Just as an example here, there are plenty of reasons to be distrustful of the per-capita comparisons of Covid infection across states, or to argue that they don't capture all of the nuance of what's going on. But nobody would ever seriously argue that those problems mean you should stop paying attention to population size when comparing Covid rates between states. Similarly, it just seems really silly to me to argue that missing suburbs means we should stop controlling for total population in crime data.

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

Don't get your information from Twitter. I don't. :)

dilap 5y ago
Best source I've found. What do you use?
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  The Atlantic, New Yorker, NPR, NYT, Reuters, here.
  - dilap 5y ago
    IMO those all provide a very particular, somewhat narrow perspective. I feel I can get a wider sense of what's going on from Twitter. As just one example, mainstream sources were quite blase about the COVID pandemic until very late, while other (it turns out more accurate) perspectives were available on Twitter. (Edit: Well, w/ the partial exception of HN, of course!)
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
      Twitter is an odd duck. What does it mean to "use" Twitter? If I follow the posts of an actual NYT reporter who is tweeting an event they are at am I using NYT or am I using Twitter? This is different than following what's trending and getting into the muck with other faceless users which is I what I typically ascribe "using" Twitter to mean. As an aside- a benefit of just not using social media for news is that I miss out on a lot of things that almost always turn out to not be important. There is a higher threshold. I'm not succumbed by some hot issue or crisis for a day that is ultimately meaningless. Coworkers would often ask me my thoughts on an issue and I'd have no clue what they're talking about. It's liberating. Sometimes less is more.
      - dilap 5y ago
        For me, using Twitter means following a bunch of strangers that seem knowledgable about various domains. Obviously, there are a gazillion possible ways to use it. :-) I feel I've learned useful things that I wouldn't know without it, and it's the second-best way I've found, after personal experience, to ascertain the "truth" about the world. (Blogs and substack and forums like HN are similar, but they don't have the same breadth and density.) Is it a good use of time? Who knows, hard to say. It's interesting, sometimes even addictive. I do agree that on an emotional level we should be most occupied with living the tangible, real lives in front of us, and not worry too much about history roiling by all around us.

gorwell 5y ago

A former NYT tech reporter is calling it the `Andy Ngo law`. https://twitter.com/NellieBowles/status/1465724183044841473 https://twitter.com/NellieBowles/status/1465724183044841473 It does seem crafted to gatekeep citizen journalists who are a major thorn in the corporate media's official narrative.

native_samples 5y ago
Specifically, Ngo posted a lot of videos of BLM riots, and mugshots of people arrested for said rioting, to show they weren't black and in fact were often teachers, government employees etc. Well the establishment didn't like that at all. Ngo: "Oregon lawmakers introduced a bill to stop public record access to arrest photographs after I documented who was arrested at the riots last year." And now Twitter introduces this new policy the day after Jack resigns. Presumably stopping people like Ngo tweeting about arrested people had been a long term desire of the internal faction whose ascent is now complete with the new CEO, so bye bye videos of peaceful protests!
bedhead 5y ago
Funny, the moment I first read this I also called it Andy Ngo Law and quipped to a friend that Twitter finally figured out how to shut him down.

Talanes 5y ago

As a San Franciscan, Twitter is the only place I see anyone worried about a looting epidemic. And my peer group is literally "Union Square retail worker," so we're kind of the people everyone keeps telling me are the most freaked out.