14 ms·

Twitter Permanently Suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Account

103 points by mistersquid 5y ago

gjsman-1000 5y ago
I don’t care what she said, it is not the job of private businesses to censor elected officials. And yes, I know they can but that does not mean they should.
- uncletaco 5y ago
  They suspended her personal account but her official congressional account is still live
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  Also Twitter has now demonstrated they are completely ignorant to the Streisand Effect. This won’t change minds. This will only harden viewpoints and invite political and regulatory scrutiny.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    > Streisand Effect She is a Congressional Representative. This isn't about shutting her up. Its about Twitter coming out and saying that they agree that she's a loon. No one actually expects a member of Congress to be permanently shut up over something like this. -------- When '@dang' comes around here and deletes posts, its about pushing the discussion in the direction they want for this website. The _ONLY_ moderating action internet citizens have is moderation: deletion of posts, soft-banning, permanent bans, and the like. There's no other possible effect available for Twitter (or other social media) to come down on unruly users.
    - anigbrowl 5y ago
      I disagree. Any communication system can be gamed, but the incentives can be distributed many different ways. If Twitter had shared blocklists for example, it would be easier for people to coordinate that kind of signaling. I think the originally intent was to have it as a platform for positive conversation (so you can favorite or share a tweet but not downvote it); however the structure of the platform meant that disagreement instead became expressed through snark, sarcasm, and pithy one-liners, to the detriment of any real discourse.
      - dragontamer 5y ago
        > If Twitter had shared blocklists for example, it would be easier for people to coordinate that kind of signaling. But Twitter doesn't. Hacker News doesn't. Reddit doesn't. All three of these large Social Media sites require moderators to police the actions of their users. This isn't new or exotic, this is just how the web typically works. Forums, Usenet, Mailing lists, IRC, BBS, its always been like this. If you want to try to make a new social network with different moderation systems (ex: user-based blocking), feel free to do so. But I've hung out enough on 8-chan to know that you'll have to deal with Swatters and Doxxers almost immediately, who are looking for an unmoderated coordination medium, and they'll take advantage of your features. You'll also have to deal with lesser forms of spam and advertisements: Cryptocoin spam these days, but it used to be Viagra, or Nigerian Prince scams. ------- The question isn't "Twitter shouldn't be allowed to moderate its users". The question is if Twitter made the right move here or not. So now lets actually discuss the crux of the issue: is spreading COVID19 misinformation a big enough reason to warrant a banning? I of course agree with the move. Our hospitals are filling up with the Omicron variant and the vast majority of these patients are not-vaccinated. Twitter leveraging their reputation to say that Marjorie Taylor Green is a net benefit to society.
        anigbrowl 5y ago
        Well nothing is preventing them from implementing such features if they want to.
        dragontamer 5y ago
        > Well nothing is preventing them from implementing such features if they want to. There's nothing preventing you from implementing your own social network with those rules. Hacker News is a forum for business ideas and web-based technologies after all, built around an angel fund / venture capital slant. But I'm trying to tell you that you'll end up relying upon user-based moderation for many cases: including simple cases like spam from new users or VPNs. Maybe even IP-based blocking as certain unsavory groups of people tend to cluster around certain IP addresses.
  - grayfaced 5y ago
    Streisand effect only helps them in this case. They don't care about the content of the message or changing minds. They care about the message being tied to twitter and the damage to their brand.
  - bootlooped 5y ago
    I don't think history has proved the Streisand Effect materializes here. When Twitter and others deplatformed Trump after January 6, his direct lines to his followers were dissolved. He had a subscription email or something that was a failure. I think he's trying to launch a social network soon. He has never managed to get as big of microphone as he had before.
  - boardwaalk 5y ago
    I’m not sure Streisand effect applies here. Anyone roughly aware of American politics knows MTG’s looniness. And Twitter has already banned DJT which was a bigger thing. This isn’t going to bring attention where there wasn’t any already.
  - short12 5y ago
    Twitter doesn't need to care about the Streisand effect. The goal was to remove her from being their problem. Mission accomplished Let her go elsewhere
  - anigbrowl 5y ago
    Absurd. Of all platforms, Twitter is best positioned to assess how big the Streisand effect really is and measure whether the howls of outrage from her supporters are really louder than the low-level rumble of discontent from her opponents.
- JohnTHaller 5y ago
  Most private sector businesses don't want to be in the business of helping spread deadly lies, though. And they're not required to be.
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    Twitter did not even say she lied, they just said that they (Twitter) considered it “misleading.” Not false, “misleading.”
    - tshaddox 5y ago
      That’s a distinction without a difference. The reason that false claims are dangerous is because they can mislead people.
    - mint2 5y ago
      Most deception is build on half truth and partial truths and or even selective truths. Outright lies tend to be less believable
    - JohnTHaller 5y ago
      They don't want the liability of calling here a liar. But she's big on posting about 'vaccine deaths' and that the vaccine doesn't work against Delta and that people 65 and under don't need to worry about Covid.
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  Is it censorship? she’s not banned from the internet… less than 25% of the country has a twitter account.
- amusedcyclist 5y ago
  No they definitely should, this is precisely their job. Why should public officials not be held to the same standards as individual citizens
  - poszlem 5y ago
    Because they have the weight of people who elected them behind them. I don't understand how that's hard to understand. It's the same reason why we care about murder of an elected official more than a murder of any other person.
    - MattPalmer1086 5y ago
      So you think they should be held to higher standards than others then?
      - poszlem 5y ago
        I think it should be the voters who decide what the standars are, not random corporations.
        amusedcyclist 5y ago
        Voters decide who sits in congress, not who gets to talk on twitter, thats a job for twitters employees
    - skywal_l 5y ago
      She'll be fine. Isn't the media market, in the US, free? She'll go to fox news or parler.
- krapp 5y ago
  So you're saying no elected official should be bound by any laws, contracts or the terms of service of any organization, since doing so could be interpreted as "censorship?" That if anyone else had said what Marjorie Taylor Greene had said, they would be subject to action by Twitter under its own stated policies, but the rules just shouldn't apply to her?
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    Has Twitter applied their rules fairly and evenly, or even tried to do so? Last I remember Maxine Waters was calling for public harassment without consequence.
    - gpu_explorer 5y ago
      Twitter isn't the government. Twitter isn't the government. Twitter isn't the government. Like it or not, they have a perfect right to terminate her account for any legal reason, including breach of contract. For the record, Twitter doesn't even need a "reason" as long as they don't terminate her for an illegal reason. This might be difficult to understand, but it's not censorship.
      - saurik 5y ago
        Just because Twitter has the right to do something doesn't make it right for them to do it. And that they have the right to do it also doesn't mean that people shouldn't be angry at them for having done it, or use their right to call them out for it. Twitter shouldn't be doing this stuff. You totally can defend their right to do it while damning their actually doing it... but that isn't what you are doing as the person you are arguing with didn't even claim they shouldn't be allowed to do it: they merely said they shouldn't do it.
        gpu_explorer 5y ago
        You mean the "right" to ban Marjorie Taylor Green for breach of contract? Marjorie Taylor Green breached a written agreement she entered into with Twitter. Provided their terms of service aren't illegal, Twitter certainly should be able to enforce them.
- graememcc 5y ago
  Twitter has worldwide reach, so what if a citizen of another country is harmed due to misinformation posted by a US elected official? The citizens of that country didn't elect them.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    She’s only elected to be a legislator in the House of Representatives. It’s not like she has a license to kill. That ought to have nothing to do with anything else, including her privileges on any random website.
  - showerrain 5y ago
    That's the problem of the other country to defend its citizens.
- gpu_explorer 5y ago
  Why should Twitter give up their right to freedom of expression and freedom of association? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    In an ideal world, because they are now the public square effectively, they should be held to a different stricter standard. As well as other big tech companies (App Store, etc.)
    - gpu_explorer 5y ago
      Twitter is not the public square. They app stores are not the public square. No one takes that argument seriously because it's not serious. Is it censorship that most existing book publishers are highly unlikely to publish a book of your or my political opinions? Should a publisher, or anyone else, be compelled to promote speech they disagree with? Would you want someone to compel you to write or publish lies? Marjorie Taylor Greene has VASTLY more ability to get her messages out, and to therefore express herself, than the average American citizen. She can go on Fox News or MSNBC or she can have her office send out press releases. Please stop saying this is censorship. This is NO WAY meets any accepted definition of censorship in the frame you are using.
      - gjsman-1000 5y ago
        I’m not talking about just Twitter or just this issue. And I specified “in an ideal world” which we aren’t in. In an ideal world, big tech would have more regulation and would have, due to their size, certain regulations on their behavior and who they choose not to do business with, not just in the political sphere. An example (to draw an extreme example to make my point), Visa and MasterCard (due to their size) couldn’t just say screw OnlyFans. They are too large and influential especially together.
        rpdillon 5y ago
- zachberger 5y ago
  Her official congressional account was not suspended, only her personal account.
- freedAssoc99 5y ago
- gregd 5y ago
  What obligation does Twitter have to provide anyone with a platform?
- albertopv 5y ago
  Why not? Why should a private business let government decide who can speak and how and their platform? China does that and it's not funny.
- gethoht 5y ago
  It was only her personal account that was suspended. The account tied to her position in government is still there @RepMTG.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  What laws should be written to address this then?
no-dr-onboard 5y ago
I’m not sure what she said, but given the amount of reversals and “facts-later-questioned” concerning this virus, I’d be interested to see if she ever would have it reinstated if she were right about the key points concerning her ban.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  I distinctly remember when discussing whether it was a lab leak would get you censored. Now, scientists consider it unlikely, but now you are allowed to discuss it.
  - alwayseasy 5y ago
    No, the "censorship" tended to target those that discussed the lab leak and then retweeted hateful and anti-Asian content aside.
- nojito 5y ago
  She made repetitive tweets that Omicron proves that vaccines don't work.
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    Okay, but do you think that a single person following her Twitter is going to say, “Wow, Twitter censored her because she was wrong”? Of course not. They are going to be livid and more determined in their belief. Anyone defending vaccine should be angry at Twitter for making the situation worse.
    - tshaddox 5y ago
      I don’t think the point of the ban is to convince people who saw her old tweets that she was wrong.
    - trzy 5y ago
      Not the point. The ban isn’t to change their mind, it’s to remove a source of toxic discourse on the platform. Now there will be fewer retweets and flame wars instigated by her. And it will hopefully serve as one more reason for those who feel targeted by this to seek an alternative platform.
bko 5y ago
> Twitter suspended Ms. Greene’s account after she tweeted on Saturday, falsely, about “extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths.” She included a misleading chart that pulled data from a government database of unverified raw data. Does anyone have a link to the tweet in question? It's interesting that it was labeled the chart as "misleading" as opposed to based on doctored data. It appears being factual is not enough and you could "mislead" depending on how you present it. But "mislead" from what precisely? A policy decision? It relates to the whole shift from "disinformation" to "misinformation", which has a much broader scope. Either way, I always feel a little weird about a private corporation censoring a democratically elected politician, especially when concerning political speech. I get that its their platform, but its not without political influence. The white house has admitted to be in close contact with all the large social media companies regarding what is 'misinformation', going so far as to flag posts [0]. There's definitely a risk of political interference [0] https://mleverything.substack.com/p/what-would-government-censorship https://mleverything.substack.com/p/what-would-government-ce...
- MattPalmer1086 5y ago
  It's not censoring for a private company to refuse service to someone. I don't agree with government compelling speech for a private company either.
  - psyc 5y ago
    Why is Twitter the speaker when MTG tweets, but Verizon is not the speaker when I call my mom?
    - MattPalmer1086 5y ago
      Good question. I'd say it has to do with how public the communication in question is, but I'd be interested in other opinions.
    - darkstar999 5y ago
      Because Verizon isn't broadcasting your conversation to the world.
loourr 5y ago
[flagged]
- quux 5y ago
  What's the hospitalization rate and death rate in NY? A large part of why those numbers are so low are vaccines, in addition to masking and omicron being less virulent.
  - quux 5y ago
    In case you need a citation: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/30/nyregion/omicron-covid-nyc.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/30/nyregion/omicron-covid-ny...
- notreallyserio 5y ago
  I fail to see the connection. It sounds pretty misleading to me.
  - loourr 5y ago
    You see, if the vaccine worked as originally advertised, people who are vaccinated should not contract covid. Therefor it does not work as originally advertised. Now before everyone freaks out - we've changed the claim around what a vaccine does. It's no longer intended to prevent spreading covid or prevent contracting covid, it's just intended to reduce symptoms of covid. So if that's your definition of vaccine efficacy then I would agree her claims were false.
- darkstar999 5y ago
  That's not what she said. From the article: Twitter suspended Ms. Greene’s account after she tweeted on Saturday, falsely, about “extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths.”
  - paragisatool 5y ago
    [flagged]
Veen 5y ago
Elected officials shouldn't have to rely on Twitter or other social media platforms to communicate with their constituencies. This woman seems like a loon to me, but she's a loon with a democratic mandate. If social media is going to be the default communication medium, then perhaps it needs regulation to clarify its relationship with elected officials.
- kemayo 5y ago
  Interestingly, she only got personally banned. Throughout she has maintained a "official business" account, which didn't get used for conspiracy-peddling, which hasn't been banned. > Ms. Greene’s official Congressional account, @RepMTG, remains active because tweets from that account did not violate the service’s rules.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  This is close to my reasoning. If Twitter or others are so important then they should be regulated as public utilities. I don't think they are. It's funny when politicians with entire staff committed to disseminating information complain about censorship.
  - krapp 5y ago
    If social media is that important - and that isn't a decision anyone has actually voted on, it's just something people say now - then the government can build its own social media platform and regulate it as a utility. Having the government take over a private business because it decides the free speech rights of politicians should be more important than the free speech and association rights of everyone else is a bad idea. This isn't like the FCC regulating the airwaves, the internet isn't a limited spectrum, and there's no reason to act as if the capacity to disseminate information over it is actually a scarce resource.
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
      I mostly agree. Regulating something as a utility doesn't mean the government takes over the company. There are just much more rules for what they can do. For example my electric company has an approval process for price increases.
quux 5y ago
Good
logicalmonster 5y ago
I don't care about the musings of idiotic politicians (and most of them are indeed idiots), but it rubs me the wrong way that Twitter is preventing the people from hearing where their tax dollars are going, and that Twitter has decided to be the arbiter of truth for society. Also, according to the article, it seems like her strikes were for subjective comments. If this is the case, that strikes me as doubly wrong. According to the article: > Twitter suspended Ms. Greene’s account after she tweeted on Saturday, falsely, about “extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths.” She included a misleading chart that pulled data from a government database of unverified raw data. The phrase "extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths" seems to be a true subjective opinion if there were some non-zero number of Covid vaccine deaths. People might disagree on whether an objective number should be subjectively described as high or low, but it seems like that's an opinion. Also, why describe a chart as misleading? Why not describe it as false information? There's a big difference. Whether you disagree with her data or not, Twitter deciding that a government chart is "misleading" is kind of horrifying as a precedent because data could still be true and marked as misleading. Are they going to ban politicians from discussing budget charts or crime statistics in public debates if they decide that it's misleading with no objective basis? > The company had issued her a fourth strike in August after she falsely posted that the vaccines were “failing.” Whether a government policy is failing or not seems highly subjective. Is this really vaccine misinformation? > Ms. Greene was given a third strike less than a month before that when she had tweeted that Covid-19 was not dangerous for people unless they were obese or over age 65, and said vaccines should not be required. Based on the survival rates for people in these categories, many people would say that this is accurate and based on a subjective risk-management analysis. It's certainly less dangerous for young and non-fat people. Did this really merit a strike even by their convoluted logic? Certainly not.
- jdavis703 5y ago
  > Are they going to ban politicians from discussing budget charts or crime statistics in public debates if they decide that it's misleading with no objective basis? I’m assuming the “government database” is VEARS, which is using raw, unverified data. It would be like if someone took NextDoor or Shotspotter reports to derive crime statistics.
warning26 5y ago
I hate that Twitter always hides behind vague TOS terms for bans like this. They can, and should, ban all these lunatics, and they shouldn't need any kind of ridiculous TOS justification to do so.
skilled 5y ago
Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to have any kind of discourse on a topic like this because people's opinions are too diluted. When Twitter does an action like this, or any other media platform, it is rarely done by a single person on a whim. It is a collective decision by a number - 2, 3 or maybe more - of people. The crazy part that this decision is solely one-sided. Twitter doesn't care if this person is right or wrong, their understanding is that this person is spreading misinformation and that's it. And in a case like this, it is most certainly amplified by the stature of the person in question. Who says the information is right or wrong? Well, I'd bet that it is also a collective of people. In this case, it is probably scientists and health professionals. Who, of course, in due course could also be found out to have been wrong. But, Twitter is clearly omni-sentient and can see that their decision is the right one.
ALittleLight 5y ago
One thing I don't like about the New York Times is that they obscure the actual information to force you to rely on their presentation. Why can't they just show the tweet in question and explain why it's wrong? I'm assuming it's something like the numbers of vaccine complications reports have gone up in objective numbers but not relative to numbers of vaccinations and that could look scary on a graph - or something like that. But why do I have to guess or search out the information myself? I would think a news article could and should easily incorporate this. The big problem with this reporting style is that reality could be either Twitter unjustifiably censoring people because they don't like their politics by making harsh rule interpretations, or MTG repeatedly sharing harmful misinformation and deserving a ban. Because the NYT won't actually show information the reader is left not knowing and likely believing an interpretation based on what they thought going in to the article.
mark_l_watson 5y ago
No matter what their politics are, I would hope that all reasonable people can condemn cancel culture, regardless of the political alignment of the person being cancelled. I get a lot of value from Twitter because I follow a few awesomely interesting people, but I could probably get the same effect by bookmarking their blogs. People should have access to all information, and filter for themselves what is trash. I don’t want Twitter, news media, etc. filtering. I have started to just pay attention to a small number of people: Lex Fridman, Joe Rogan, Matt Taibbi, and Noam Chomsky. That is a small sample size, but enough diversity for me.
- sjs382 5y ago
  Strangely enough, MTG is actually a proponent of cancel culture. See: her calls to fire/blacklist athletes that knelt during the national anthems.
- tjr225 5y ago
  Marjorie Taylor Greene is entitled to create her own Twitter. Not to use someone else’s Twitter.
  - mark_l_watson 5y ago
    I don’t disagree with you, I am just ruminating about making a personal decision to stop using Twitter. I did that years ago for Facebook (now, less than ten minutes a month in FB). I am having some difficulty deciding whether I think the major Platforms should be public regulated services or the property of companies that can do anything they want to with their property. My opinion changes on this…
    - phillipcarter 5y ago
      > My opinion changes on this… It's a fine orthogonal discussion. There are several things worth considering in my mind: * Perhaps these social media platforms are defectively designed * Section 230 may need to be amended so that billion-dollar companies have more to hold them to account when things spread on their platforms * CEOs could be criminally prosecuted when their companies lie (e.g., Facebook's ad revenue fraud in promoting FB video) I think there are far better reasons to consider leaving social media than them suspending the personal account of a known provocateur who breaks rules all the time (her official government account is intact).
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mkr-hn 5y ago
I don't know who needs to hear this, but if a company suspends a member of the government who has a budget and staff for PR as a function of serving as a member of that government, then that person has not in any meaningful way been censored by the government. This is not the poster case for trying to prove tech has too much power. There's a long list of marginalized people suspended for no good reason who don't get to whine about it on C-SPAN or through their press office.
- paragisatool 5y ago
  [flagged]
- neartheplain 5y ago
  How many times a year do you watch C-SPAN? How often do you browse the press release page for your local elected official, much less someone else's? Whatever you think of this particular Congresswoman, Twitter is one of the largest and most influential outreach platforms. It's like getting banned from radio in the 1940s and saying, "Who cares? There's still newsletters and speaking engagements." Getting banned from Twitter is a big deal for people who engage with mass audiences.
  - mkr-hn 5y ago
    She still has her congressional account. This is only her personal account. edit to add: That said, she can say things on C-SPAN that would get the congressional account suspended too (see: Trump hopping accounts as they got suspended after the initial ban). And those things would be reported by people who can do so under the cover of reporting, so it's not like she has any less reach for the goofballery now.
  - rektide 5y ago
    > It's like getting banned from radio in the 1940s It'd be like getting banned from one station, perhaps. Radio? To my knowledge the FCC has never banned anyone from the airwaves. This pretense that the big social networks are so big that politicians must be granted access is just poisonous beyond belief to what the internet is. No one is stopping MTG from setting up countless points of her own presence, or sharing links to MTG-related media on Twitter. Alas, that getting banned from one of the big networks is a crude, de-facto facsimile to a truth is quite the sad sign of the state of affairs. That we have become so very centralized, that our primary way of connecting is via such heavily centralized pillars that hold up so very much of the online experience is nothing short of a travesty. I mainly try to calm myself by reminding myself how recent all this is, how new. And assuring myself of their inability to create new & visionary ways of connecting; the big networks are beholden to their experience as massified, consumerized, common experiences. Their own impermissiveness, their own slowly closing, setting ever more fast in concrete rules & expectations bring hope that the frontier & more open communications might rise again.
aDfbrtVt 5y ago
The post that got her suspended claimed “extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths.” per the NYT article. I was unable to find a screenshot of the original tweet, seems to have been deleted. A cursory look at the raw VAERS data from the CDC[1] shows: Reports of adverse events to VAERS following vaccination, including deaths, do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem. (...) During this time, VAERS received 10,688 reports of death (0.0022%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine. CDC and FDA clinicians review reports of death to VAERS including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records. In contrast, the CDC[2] estimates that 817k people have died of Covid-19 in the US which puts the mortality at 248 deaths per 100k individuals. Currently, an unvaccinated individual has 20x the risk of dying from Covid-19 than someone with a booster. I am no first amendment scholar, but spreading lies that increase people rate of mortality by 20x seems pretty close to the "shouting fire in a crowded theater" exception to protected speech. That puts aside the fact that Twitter is a private platform, thus first amendment laws do not apply. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/ad... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/mortality-overview.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/mortality-overview.htm
- rpdillon 5y ago
  I agree with the thrust of what you're saying, but wanted to nitpick a bit to point out that there is no 'fire in a crowded theater' exemption to protected speech. Your point that not all speech is protected is, of course, correct. https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-apologia-for-censorship-are-enough/ https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...
  - aDfbrtVt 5y ago
    Thanks for the link, it is always a pleasure to learn from Ken White. The right to free speech (fortunately) seems to have evolved significantly since World War I! It would appear that the modern test to determine first amendment exemption is Incitement to Imminent Lawless Action and was established in Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969 [1][2]. * Advocacy of force or criminal activity does not receive First Amendment protections if (1) the advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action, and (2) is likely to incite or produce such action. * From that quote, I think it is pretty clear that the posts from Marjorie Greene would not pass the test and are thus eligible for first amendment protection (if Twitter was a government entity). Caveat: Not an American, just a curious neighbour to the north. [1] https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/970/incitement-to-imminent-lawless-action https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/970/incitement-to-i... [2] https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/189/brandenburg-v-ohio https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/189/brandenburg-v-o...
socrates1998 5y ago
We kicked out a bunch of traitors from Congress during the Civil War era, so banning a person from twitter who is actively trying to foster a Civil War by promoting lies and misinformation seems pretty mild. Banning her or anyone like her who spreads lies is perfectly within Twitter's terms of service. The issues is doing it consistently. I can't tell you how many times I have reported lies about elections and Covid on twitter and almost always it's "We found nothing wrong with this".
paragisatool 5y ago
[flagged]
paragisatool 5y ago
[flagged]
solarkraft 5y ago
Ah, let's get out the two wonderful arguments: - Censorship bad, the state should regulate social media to not censor - It's a private company, they can do whatever they want Used however it fits by either political side. Are we better than this?
- bradlys 5y ago
  Looking at this thread - no, no we are not. Doomed to repeat until eternity it seems.
- IronWolve 5y ago
  The private company argument was used back in the civil rights movement too, it was an excuse. Society banned private companies denying services in law to promote a better and acceptable society. Sadly, just to re-implement it again under the same old tired argument, it's a private company... It's not fooling anyone who is being honest, this is just banning people you don't like. Political group is the new religious group, banning the groups you don't like shouldn't be acceptable in modern society.
  - gpu_explorer 5y ago
    I don't think this is the same old tired argument. Political groups are not a protected class in the United States, and for good reason. Political affiliation is not an inherent quality of a person. People's political affiliation can, and does, change. Marjorie Taylor Green had her Twitter account terminated for breaching a written contract between her and Twitter. Her Twitter account was not terminated because she is a Republican, or because she's a woman, or because she's white, or because she's over 40, or because she's heterosexual. During the civil rights movement, people were denied service because of the color of their skin. This didn't happen to Marjorie Taylor Green.
    - IronWolve 5y ago
      Politics encompasses everything. And people can switch religion too. So thats not really an argument protected rights are finite and not subject to change. Also, Lets not pretend politics isn't the reason companies are banning and denying service to people. They clearly banned her for her right leaning politics, and used terms like "misinformation". Its clearly forcing their politics onto the public by not allowing counter views, the politics that do include race, religion, and other aspects of life. Civil rights like openly protesting for the opposite political party is indeed being squashed. This is the same excuse thats used to silence preachers/priests who talk politics, as if the 2 are not the same. Civil rights is politics. California knew this when they added political association to protected classes.
afavour 5y ago
What an absolute boon for Marjorie Taylor Greene. Twitter is not a place where useful, meaningful conversation happens in the political space (especially by people like MTG) but she’ll be able to dine out on this ban for a long time. I expect it’ll be featured in every fundraising email she sends until something changes. She’s not meaningfully censored, just like Trump wasn’t: every press release he sends gets coverage, he still sends out emails to his millions of followers just fine.
- gpu_explorer 5y ago
  It's hard to see this as a "boon" for Marjorie Taylor Green. If Twitter is such a useless platform, why was she busy using it to promote her ideas? I absolutely agree that termination of her Twitter account is not meaningful censorship. I'm sure it won't be long before all the networks want to interview her about it. The invitations have probably already been sent.
  - bradlys 5y ago
    Twitter is a place that is used by a lot of “journalists” or just people in the media. Participating there is going to get you coverage in other forms of media and free rent in the minds of people in media.
    - gpu_explorer 5y ago
      Of course. That's why Marjorie Taylor Green shouldn't have breached her user agreement.
spicyusername 5y ago
Sometimes the right course of action doesn't fall neatly inside a simple set of rules or inside a binary "this is good, that is bad" narrative. Sometimes very similar circumstances need to be handled in very different ways because of subtle nuances in their contexts. This is why lawyers and philosophers will never be out of work and why we should all be wary of borrowing McPhilosophies from internet memes and Twitter hot-takes without putting in the effort and research to think through the issues for ourselves. If you find yourself reacting to this news with too neat and tidy of a response, that is a good sign that you may need to spend some time trying to understand and empathize with alternative perspectives and that you may need to spend some time trying to understand why this is such a complicated (and consequential) issue for the United States government and Twitter to navigate.
xqcgrek2 5y ago
What goes around will come around. The existence of Twitter as a relevant private company is now limited to 2-4 years, the amount of time the next GOP takes total control of government.
riffic 5y ago
members of congress should not be using commercial social media as their exclusive form of pushing out status updates to the populace. We have open standards (W3C recommendations) even, and these protocols can be adopted by the content management system used by House.Gov. Congress Critters need to become part of the Fedi.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  This just pushes censorship down a level, as we found out with Parler and Gab. Remember when Gab used to use Mastodon, and the major app stores told the authors of Mastodon clients that unless they hardcoded a check to prevent their app from connecting to Gab, their apps would be banned?
  - riffic 5y ago
    that's fine. I'd prefer if official (public) business were conducted through public infrastructure through open protocols rather than via commercial walled-gardens. They (being the House of Representatives) absolutely should own their namespace and operate under 'house.gov'. Facebook and Twitter could even provide this service, as a commercially managed hosted endeavor (look at how Gmail is white-labeled as "Google Workspace" and sold as a service on a portable domain name).
    - josephcsible 5y ago
      The point is that when the government infrastructure refused to censor the "wrongthink" opinions, Apple and Google would ban any clients for those open protocols that don't hardcode a check to refuse to connect to those servers. And don't Google's Terms of Service apply even to Google's white-label services?
      - riffic 5y ago
        you think the app stores are going to ban clients that don't hard-code communication blocks for "house.gov"?

103 points by mistersquid 5y ago

I don’t care what she said, it is not the job of private businesses to censor elected officials. And yes, I know they can but that does not mean they should.

uncletaco 5y ago
They suspended her personal account but her official congressional account is still live
gjsman-1000 5y ago
Also Twitter has now demonstrated they are completely ignorant to the Streisand Effect. This won’t change minds. This will only harden viewpoints and invite political and regulatory scrutiny.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > Streisand Effect She is a Congressional Representative. This isn't about shutting her up. Its about Twitter coming out and saying that they agree that she's a loon. No one actually expects a member of Congress to be permanently shut up over something like this. -------- When '@dang' comes around here and deletes posts, its about pushing the discussion in the direction they want for this website. The _ONLY_ moderating action internet citizens have is moderation: deletion of posts, soft-banning, permanent bans, and the like. There's no other possible effect available for Twitter (or other social media) to come down on unruly users.
  - anigbrowl 5y ago
    I disagree. Any communication system can be gamed, but the incentives can be distributed many different ways. If Twitter had shared blocklists for example, it would be easier for people to coordinate that kind of signaling. I think the originally intent was to have it as a platform for positive conversation (so you can favorite or share a tweet but not downvote it); however the structure of the platform meant that disagreement instead became expressed through snark, sarcasm, and pithy one-liners, to the detriment of any real discourse.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      > If Twitter had shared blocklists for example, it would be easier for people to coordinate that kind of signaling. But Twitter doesn't. Hacker News doesn't. Reddit doesn't. All three of these large Social Media sites require moderators to police the actions of their users. This isn't new or exotic, this is just how the web typically works. Forums, Usenet, Mailing lists, IRC, BBS, its always been like this. If you want to try to make a new social network with different moderation systems (ex: user-based blocking), feel free to do so. But I've hung out enough on 8-chan to know that you'll have to deal with Swatters and Doxxers almost immediately, who are looking for an unmoderated coordination medium, and they'll take advantage of your features. You'll also have to deal with lesser forms of spam and advertisements: Cryptocoin spam these days, but it used to be Viagra, or Nigerian Prince scams. ------- The question isn't "Twitter shouldn't be allowed to moderate its users". The question is if Twitter made the right move here or not. So now lets actually discuss the crux of the issue: is spreading COVID19 misinformation a big enough reason to warrant a banning? I of course agree with the move. Our hospitals are filling up with the Omicron variant and the vast majority of these patients are not-vaccinated. Twitter leveraging their reputation to say that Marjorie Taylor Green is a net benefit to society.
      - anigbrowl 5y ago
        Well nothing is preventing them from implementing such features if they want to.
        dragontamer 5y ago
        > Well nothing is preventing them from implementing such features if they want to. There's nothing preventing you from implementing your own social network with those rules. Hacker News is a forum for business ideas and web-based technologies after all, built around an angel fund / venture capital slant. But I'm trying to tell you that you'll end up relying upon user-based moderation for many cases: including simple cases like spam from new users or VPNs. Maybe even IP-based blocking as certain unsavory groups of people tend to cluster around certain IP addresses.
- grayfaced 5y ago
  Streisand effect only helps them in this case. They don't care about the content of the message or changing minds. They care about the message being tied to twitter and the damage to their brand.
- bootlooped 5y ago
  I don't think history has proved the Streisand Effect materializes here. When Twitter and others deplatformed Trump after January 6, his direct lines to his followers were dissolved. He had a subscription email or something that was a failure. I think he's trying to launch a social network soon. He has never managed to get as big of microphone as he had before.
- boardwaalk 5y ago
  I’m not sure Streisand effect applies here. Anyone roughly aware of American politics knows MTG’s looniness. And Twitter has already banned DJT which was a bigger thing. This isn’t going to bring attention where there wasn’t any already.
- short12 5y ago
  Twitter doesn't need to care about the Streisand effect. The goal was to remove her from being their problem. Mission accomplished Let her go elsewhere
- anigbrowl 5y ago
  Absurd. Of all platforms, Twitter is best positioned to assess how big the Streisand effect really is and measure whether the howls of outrage from her supporters are really louder than the low-level rumble of discontent from her opponents.
JohnTHaller 5y ago
Most private sector businesses don't want to be in the business of helping spread deadly lies, though. And they're not required to be.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  Twitter did not even say she lied, they just said that they (Twitter) considered it “misleading.” Not false, “misleading.”
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    That’s a distinction without a difference. The reason that false claims are dangerous is because they can mislead people.
  - mint2 5y ago
    Most deception is build on half truth and partial truths and or even selective truths. Outright lies tend to be less believable
  - JohnTHaller 5y ago
    They don't want the liability of calling here a liar. But she's big on posting about 'vaccine deaths' and that the vaccine doesn't work against Delta and that people 65 and under don't need to worry about Covid.
micromacrofoot 5y ago
Is it censorship? she’s not banned from the internet… less than 25% of the country has a twitter account.
amusedcyclist 5y ago
No they definitely should, this is precisely their job. Why should public officials not be held to the same standards as individual citizens
- poszlem 5y ago
  Because they have the weight of people who elected them behind them. I don't understand how that's hard to understand. It's the same reason why we care about murder of an elected official more than a murder of any other person.
  - MattPalmer1086 5y ago
    So you think they should be held to higher standards than others then?
    - poszlem 5y ago
      I think it should be the voters who decide what the standars are, not random corporations.
      - amusedcyclist 5y ago
        Voters decide who sits in congress, not who gets to talk on twitter, thats a job for twitters employees
  - skywal_l 5y ago
    She'll be fine. Isn't the media market, in the US, free? She'll go to fox news or parler.
krapp 5y ago
So you're saying no elected official should be bound by any laws, contracts or the terms of service of any organization, since doing so could be interpreted as "censorship?" That if anyone else had said what Marjorie Taylor Greene had said, they would be subject to action by Twitter under its own stated policies, but the rules just shouldn't apply to her?
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  Has Twitter applied their rules fairly and evenly, or even tried to do so? Last I remember Maxine Waters was calling for public harassment without consequence.
  - gpu_explorer 5y ago
    Twitter isn't the government. Twitter isn't the government. Twitter isn't the government. Like it or not, they have a perfect right to terminate her account for any legal reason, including breach of contract. For the record, Twitter doesn't even need a "reason" as long as they don't terminate her for an illegal reason. This might be difficult to understand, but it's not censorship.
    - saurik 5y ago
      Just because Twitter has the right to do something doesn't make it right for them to do it. And that they have the right to do it also doesn't mean that people shouldn't be angry at them for having done it, or use their right to call them out for it. Twitter shouldn't be doing this stuff. You totally can defend their right to do it while damning their actually doing it... but that isn't what you are doing as the person you are arguing with didn't even claim they shouldn't be allowed to do it: they merely said they shouldn't do it.
      - gpu_explorer 5y ago
        You mean the "right" to ban Marjorie Taylor Green for breach of contract? Marjorie Taylor Green breached a written agreement she entered into with Twitter. Provided their terms of service aren't illegal, Twitter certainly should be able to enforce them.
graememcc 5y ago
Twitter has worldwide reach, so what if a citizen of another country is harmed due to misinformation posted by a US elected official? The citizens of that country didn't elect them.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  She’s only elected to be a legislator in the House of Representatives. It’s not like she has a license to kill. That ought to have nothing to do with anything else, including her privileges on any random website.
- showerrain 5y ago
  That's the problem of the other country to defend its citizens.
gpu_explorer 5y ago
Why should Twitter give up their right to freedom of expression and freedom of association? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  In an ideal world, because they are now the public square effectively, they should be held to a different stricter standard. As well as other big tech companies (App Store, etc.)
  - gpu_explorer 5y ago
    Twitter is not the public square. They app stores are not the public square. No one takes that argument seriously because it's not serious. Is it censorship that most existing book publishers are highly unlikely to publish a book of your or my political opinions? Should a publisher, or anyone else, be compelled to promote speech they disagree with? Would you want someone to compel you to write or publish lies? Marjorie Taylor Greene has VASTLY more ability to get her messages out, and to therefore express herself, than the average American citizen. She can go on Fox News or MSNBC or she can have her office send out press releases. Please stop saying this is censorship. This is NO WAY meets any accepted definition of censorship in the frame you are using.
    - gjsman-1000 5y ago
      I’m not talking about just Twitter or just this issue. And I specified “in an ideal world” which we aren’t in. In an ideal world, big tech would have more regulation and would have, due to their size, certain regulations on their behavior and who they choose not to do business with, not just in the political sphere. An example (to draw an extreme example to make my point), Visa and MasterCard (due to their size) couldn’t just say screw OnlyFans. They are too large and influential especially together.
      - rpdillon 5y ago
zachberger 5y ago
Her official congressional account was not suspended, only her personal account.
freedAssoc99 5y ago
gregd 5y ago
What obligation does Twitter have to provide anyone with a platform?
albertopv 5y ago
Why not? Why should a private business let government decide who can speak and how and their platform? China does that and it's not funny.
gethoht 5y ago
It was only her personal account that was suspended. The account tied to her position in government is still there @RepMTG.
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
What laws should be written to address this then?

no-dr-onboard 5y ago

I’m not sure what she said, but given the amount of reversals and “facts-later-questioned” concerning this virus, I’d be interested to see if she ever would have it reinstated if she were right about the key points concerning her ban.

gjsman-1000 5y ago
I distinctly remember when discussing whether it was a lab leak would get you censored. Now, scientists consider it unlikely, but now you are allowed to discuss it.
- alwayseasy 5y ago
  No, the "censorship" tended to target those that discussed the lab leak and then retweeted hateful and anti-Asian content aside.
nojito 5y ago
She made repetitive tweets that Omicron proves that vaccines don't work.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  Okay, but do you think that a single person following her Twitter is going to say, “Wow, Twitter censored her because she was wrong”? Of course not. They are going to be livid and more determined in their belief. Anyone defending vaccine should be angry at Twitter for making the situation worse.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    I don’t think the point of the ban is to convince people who saw her old tweets that she was wrong.
  - trzy 5y ago
    Not the point. The ban isn’t to change their mind, it’s to remove a source of toxic discourse on the platform. Now there will be fewer retweets and flame wars instigated by her. And it will hopefully serve as one more reason for those who feel targeted by this to seek an alternative platform.

bko 5y ago

> Twitter suspended Ms. Greene’s account after she tweeted on Saturday, falsely, about “extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths.” She included a misleading chart that pulled data from a government database of unverified raw data. Does anyone have a link to the tweet in question? It's interesting that it was labeled the chart as "misleading" as opposed to based on doctored data. It appears being factual is not enough and you could "mislead" depending on how you present it. But "mislead" from what precisely? A policy decision? It relates to the whole shift from "disinformation" to "misinformation", which has a much broader scope. Either way, I always feel a little weird about a private corporation censoring a democratically elected politician, especially when concerning political speech. I get that its their platform, but its not without political influence. The white house has admitted to be in close contact with all the large social media companies regarding what is 'misinformation', going so far as to flag posts [0]. There's definitely a risk of political interference [0] https://mleverything.substack.com/p/what-would-government-censorship https://mleverything.substack.com/p/what-would-government-ce...

MattPalmer1086 5y ago
It's not censoring for a private company to refuse service to someone. I don't agree with government compelling speech for a private company either.
- psyc 5y ago
  Why is Twitter the speaker when MTG tweets, but Verizon is not the speaker when I call my mom?
  - MattPalmer1086 5y ago
    Good question. I'd say it has to do with how public the communication in question is, but I'd be interested in other opinions.
  - darkstar999 5y ago
    Because Verizon isn't broadcasting your conversation to the world.

loourr 5y ago

[flagged]

quux 5y ago
What's the hospitalization rate and death rate in NY? A large part of why those numbers are so low are vaccines, in addition to masking and omicron being less virulent.
- quux 5y ago
  In case you need a citation: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/30/nyregion/omicron-covid-nyc.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/30/nyregion/omicron-covid-ny...
notreallyserio 5y ago
I fail to see the connection. It sounds pretty misleading to me.
- loourr 5y ago
  You see, if the vaccine worked as originally advertised, people who are vaccinated should not contract covid. Therefor it does not work as originally advertised. Now before everyone freaks out - we've changed the claim around what a vaccine does. It's no longer intended to prevent spreading covid or prevent contracting covid, it's just intended to reduce symptoms of covid. So if that's your definition of vaccine efficacy then I would agree her claims were false.
darkstar999 5y ago
That's not what she said. From the article: Twitter suspended Ms. Greene’s account after she tweeted on Saturday, falsely, about “extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths.”
- paragisatool 5y ago
  [flagged]

Veen 5y ago

Elected officials shouldn't have to rely on Twitter or other social media platforms to communicate with their constituencies. This woman seems like a loon to me, but she's a loon with a democratic mandate. If social media is going to be the default communication medium, then perhaps it needs regulation to clarify its relationship with elected officials.

kemayo 5y ago
Interestingly, she only got personally banned. Throughout she has maintained a "official business" account, which didn't get used for conspiracy-peddling, which hasn't been banned. > Ms. Greene’s official Congressional account, @RepMTG, remains active because tweets from that account did not violate the service’s rules.
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
This is close to my reasoning. If Twitter or others are so important then they should be regulated as public utilities. I don't think they are. It's funny when politicians with entire staff committed to disseminating information complain about censorship.
- krapp 5y ago
  If social media is that important - and that isn't a decision anyone has actually voted on, it's just something people say now - then the government can build its own social media platform and regulate it as a utility. Having the government take over a private business because it decides the free speech rights of politicians should be more important than the free speech and association rights of everyone else is a bad idea. This isn't like the FCC regulating the airwaves, the internet isn't a limited spectrum, and there's no reason to act as if the capacity to disseminate information over it is actually a scarce resource.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
    I mostly agree. Regulating something as a utility doesn't mean the government takes over the company. There are just much more rules for what they can do. For example my electric company has an approval process for price increases.

quux 5y ago

Good

logicalmonster 5y ago

I don't care about the musings of idiotic politicians (and most of them are indeed idiots), but it rubs me the wrong way that Twitter is preventing the people from hearing where their tax dollars are going, and that Twitter has decided to be the arbiter of truth for society. Also, according to the article, it seems like her strikes were for subjective comments. If this is the case, that strikes me as doubly wrong. According to the article: > Twitter suspended Ms. Greene’s account after she tweeted on Saturday, falsely, about “extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths.” She included a misleading chart that pulled data from a government database of unverified raw data. The phrase "extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths" seems to be a true subjective opinion if there were some non-zero number of Covid vaccine deaths. People might disagree on whether an objective number should be subjectively described as high or low, but it seems like that's an opinion. Also, why describe a chart as misleading? Why not describe it as false information? There's a big difference. Whether you disagree with her data or not, Twitter deciding that a government chart is "misleading" is kind of horrifying as a precedent because data could still be true and marked as misleading. Are they going to ban politicians from discussing budget charts or crime statistics in public debates if they decide that it's misleading with no objective basis? > The company had issued her a fourth strike in August after she falsely posted that the vaccines were “failing.” Whether a government policy is failing or not seems highly subjective. Is this really vaccine misinformation? > Ms. Greene was given a third strike less than a month before that when she had tweeted that Covid-19 was not dangerous for people unless they were obese or over age 65, and said vaccines should not be required. Based on the survival rates for people in these categories, many people would say that this is accurate and based on a subjective risk-management analysis. It's certainly less dangerous for young and non-fat people. Did this really merit a strike even by their convoluted logic? Certainly not.

jdavis703 5y ago
> Are they going to ban politicians from discussing budget charts or crime statistics in public debates if they decide that it's misleading with no objective basis? I’m assuming the “government database” is VEARS, which is using raw, unverified data. It would be like if someone took NextDoor or Shotspotter reports to derive crime statistics.

warning26 5y ago

I hate that Twitter always hides behind vague TOS terms for bans like this. They can, and should, ban all these lunatics, and they shouldn't need any kind of ridiculous TOS justification to do so.

skilled 5y ago

Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to have any kind of discourse on a topic like this because people's opinions are too diluted. When Twitter does an action like this, or any other media platform, it is rarely done by a single person on a whim. It is a collective decision by a number - 2, 3 or maybe more - of people. The crazy part that this decision is solely one-sided. Twitter doesn't care if this person is right or wrong, their understanding is that this person is spreading misinformation and that's it. And in a case like this, it is most certainly amplified by the stature of the person in question. Who says the information is right or wrong? Well, I'd bet that it is also a collective of people. In this case, it is probably scientists and health professionals. Who, of course, in due course could also be found out to have been wrong. But, Twitter is clearly omni-sentient and can see that their decision is the right one.

ALittleLight 5y ago

One thing I don't like about the New York Times is that they obscure the actual information to force you to rely on their presentation. Why can't they just show the tweet in question and explain why it's wrong? I'm assuming it's something like the numbers of vaccine complications reports have gone up in objective numbers but not relative to numbers of vaccinations and that could look scary on a graph - or something like that. But why do I have to guess or search out the information myself? I would think a news article could and should easily incorporate this. The big problem with this reporting style is that reality could be either Twitter unjustifiably censoring people because they don't like their politics by making harsh rule interpretations, or MTG repeatedly sharing harmful misinformation and deserving a ban. Because the NYT won't actually show information the reader is left not knowing and likely believing an interpretation based on what they thought going in to the article.

mark_l_watson 5y ago

No matter what their politics are, I would hope that all reasonable people can condemn cancel culture, regardless of the political alignment of the person being cancelled. I get a lot of value from Twitter because I follow a few awesomely interesting people, but I could probably get the same effect by bookmarking their blogs. People should have access to all information, and filter for themselves what is trash. I don’t want Twitter, news media, etc. filtering. I have started to just pay attention to a small number of people: Lex Fridman, Joe Rogan, Matt Taibbi, and Noam Chomsky. That is a small sample size, but enough diversity for me.

sjs382 5y ago
Strangely enough, MTG is actually a proponent of cancel culture. See: her calls to fire/blacklist athletes that knelt during the national anthems.
tjr225 5y ago
Marjorie Taylor Greene is entitled to create her own Twitter. Not to use someone else’s Twitter.
- mark_l_watson 5y ago
  I don’t disagree with you, I am just ruminating about making a personal decision to stop using Twitter. I did that years ago for Facebook (now, less than ten minutes a month in FB). I am having some difficulty deciding whether I think the major Platforms should be public regulated services or the property of companies that can do anything they want to with their property. My opinion changes on this…
  - phillipcarter 5y ago
    > My opinion changes on this… It's a fine orthogonal discussion. There are several things worth considering in my mind: * Perhaps these social media platforms are defectively designed * Section 230 may need to be amended so that billion-dollar companies have more to hold them to account when things spread on their platforms * CEOs could be criminally prosecuted when their companies lie (e.g., Facebook's ad revenue fraud in promoting FB video) I think there are far better reasons to consider leaving social media than them suspending the personal account of a known provocateur who breaks rules all the time (her official government account is intact).

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mkr-hn 5y ago

I don't know who needs to hear this, but if a company suspends a member of the government who has a budget and staff for PR as a function of serving as a member of that government, then that person has not in any meaningful way been censored by the government. This is not the poster case for trying to prove tech has too much power. There's a long list of marginalized people suspended for no good reason who don't get to whine about it on C-SPAN or through their press office.

paragisatool 5y ago
[flagged]
neartheplain 5y ago
How many times a year do you watch C-SPAN? How often do you browse the press release page for your local elected official, much less someone else's? Whatever you think of this particular Congresswoman, Twitter is one of the largest and most influential outreach platforms. It's like getting banned from radio in the 1940s and saying, "Who cares? There's still newsletters and speaking engagements." Getting banned from Twitter is a big deal for people who engage with mass audiences.
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  She still has her congressional account. This is only her personal account. edit to add: That said, she can say things on C-SPAN that would get the congressional account suspended too (see: Trump hopping accounts as they got suspended after the initial ban). And those things would be reported by people who can do so under the cover of reporting, so it's not like she has any less reach for the goofballery now.
- rektide 5y ago
  > It's like getting banned from radio in the 1940s It'd be like getting banned from one station, perhaps. Radio? To my knowledge the FCC has never banned anyone from the airwaves. This pretense that the big social networks are so big that politicians must be granted access is just poisonous beyond belief to what the internet is. No one is stopping MTG from setting up countless points of her own presence, or sharing links to MTG-related media on Twitter. Alas, that getting banned from one of the big networks is a crude, de-facto facsimile to a truth is quite the sad sign of the state of affairs. That we have become so very centralized, that our primary way of connecting is via such heavily centralized pillars that hold up so very much of the online experience is nothing short of a travesty. I mainly try to calm myself by reminding myself how recent all this is, how new. And assuring myself of their inability to create new & visionary ways of connecting; the big networks are beholden to their experience as massified, consumerized, common experiences. Their own impermissiveness, their own slowly closing, setting ever more fast in concrete rules & expectations bring hope that the frontier & more open communications might rise again.

aDfbrtVt 5y ago

The post that got her suspended claimed “extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths.” per the NYT article. I was unable to find a screenshot of the original tweet, seems to have been deleted. A cursory look at the raw VAERS data from the CDC[1] shows: Reports of adverse events to VAERS following vaccination, including deaths, do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem. (...) During this time, VAERS received 10,688 reports of death (0.0022%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine. CDC and FDA clinicians review reports of death to VAERS including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records. In contrast, the CDC[2] estimates that 817k people have died of Covid-19 in the US which puts the mortality at 248 deaths per 100k individuals. Currently, an unvaccinated individual has 20x the risk of dying from Covid-19 than someone with a booster. I am no first amendment scholar, but spreading lies that increase people rate of mortality by 20x seems pretty close to the "shouting fire in a crowded theater" exception to protected speech. That puts aside the fact that Twitter is a private platform, thus first amendment laws do not apply. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/ad... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/mortality-overview.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/mortality-overview.htm

rpdillon 5y ago
I agree with the thrust of what you're saying, but wanted to nitpick a bit to point out that there is no 'fire in a crowded theater' exemption to protected speech. Your point that not all speech is protected is, of course, correct. https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-apologia-for-censorship-are-enough/ https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...
- aDfbrtVt 5y ago
  Thanks for the link, it is always a pleasure to learn from Ken White. The right to free speech (fortunately) seems to have evolved significantly since World War I! It would appear that the modern test to determine first amendment exemption is Incitement to Imminent Lawless Action and was established in Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969 [1][2]. * Advocacy of force or criminal activity does not receive First Amendment protections if (1) the advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action, and (2) is likely to incite or produce such action. * From that quote, I think it is pretty clear that the posts from Marjorie Greene would not pass the test and are thus eligible for first amendment protection (if Twitter was a government entity). Caveat: Not an American, just a curious neighbour to the north. [1] https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/970/incitement-to-imminent-lawless-action https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/970/incitement-to-i... [2] https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/189/brandenburg-v-ohio https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/189/brandenburg-v-o...

socrates1998 5y ago

We kicked out a bunch of traitors from Congress during the Civil War era, so banning a person from twitter who is actively trying to foster a Civil War by promoting lies and misinformation seems pretty mild. Banning her or anyone like her who spreads lies is perfectly within Twitter's terms of service. The issues is doing it consistently. I can't tell you how many times I have reported lies about elections and Covid on twitter and almost always it's "We found nothing wrong with this".

paragisatool 5y ago

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paragisatool 5y ago

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solarkraft 5y ago

Ah, let's get out the two wonderful arguments: - Censorship bad, the state should regulate social media to not censor - It's a private company, they can do whatever they want Used however it fits by either political side. Are we better than this?

bradlys 5y ago
Looking at this thread - no, no we are not. Doomed to repeat until eternity it seems.
IronWolve 5y ago
The private company argument was used back in the civil rights movement too, it was an excuse. Society banned private companies denying services in law to promote a better and acceptable society. Sadly, just to re-implement it again under the same old tired argument, it's a private company... It's not fooling anyone who is being honest, this is just banning people you don't like. Political group is the new religious group, banning the groups you don't like shouldn't be acceptable in modern society.
- gpu_explorer 5y ago
  I don't think this is the same old tired argument. Political groups are not a protected class in the United States, and for good reason. Political affiliation is not an inherent quality of a person. People's political affiliation can, and does, change. Marjorie Taylor Green had her Twitter account terminated for breaching a written contract between her and Twitter. Her Twitter account was not terminated because she is a Republican, or because she's a woman, or because she's white, or because she's over 40, or because she's heterosexual. During the civil rights movement, people were denied service because of the color of their skin. This didn't happen to Marjorie Taylor Green.
  - IronWolve 5y ago
    Politics encompasses everything. And people can switch religion too. So thats not really an argument protected rights are finite and not subject to change. Also, Lets not pretend politics isn't the reason companies are banning and denying service to people. They clearly banned her for her right leaning politics, and used terms like "misinformation". Its clearly forcing their politics onto the public by not allowing counter views, the politics that do include race, religion, and other aspects of life. Civil rights like openly protesting for the opposite political party is indeed being squashed. This is the same excuse thats used to silence preachers/priests who talk politics, as if the 2 are not the same. Civil rights is politics. California knew this when they added political association to protected classes.

afavour 5y ago

What an absolute boon for Marjorie Taylor Greene. Twitter is not a place where useful, meaningful conversation happens in the political space (especially by people like MTG) but she’ll be able to dine out on this ban for a long time. I expect it’ll be featured in every fundraising email she sends until something changes. She’s not meaningfully censored, just like Trump wasn’t: every press release he sends gets coverage, he still sends out emails to his millions of followers just fine.

gpu_explorer 5y ago
It's hard to see this as a "boon" for Marjorie Taylor Green. If Twitter is such a useless platform, why was she busy using it to promote her ideas? I absolutely agree that termination of her Twitter account is not meaningful censorship. I'm sure it won't be long before all the networks want to interview her about it. The invitations have probably already been sent.
- bradlys 5y ago
  Twitter is a place that is used by a lot of “journalists” or just people in the media. Participating there is going to get you coverage in other forms of media and free rent in the minds of people in media.
  - gpu_explorer 5y ago
    Of course. That's why Marjorie Taylor Green shouldn't have breached her user agreement.

spicyusername 5y ago

Sometimes the right course of action doesn't fall neatly inside a simple set of rules or inside a binary "this is good, that is bad" narrative. Sometimes very similar circumstances need to be handled in very different ways because of subtle nuances in their contexts. This is why lawyers and philosophers will never be out of work and why we should all be wary of borrowing McPhilosophies from internet memes and Twitter hot-takes without putting in the effort and research to think through the issues for ourselves. If you find yourself reacting to this news with too neat and tidy of a response, that is a good sign that you may need to spend some time trying to understand and empathize with alternative perspectives and that you may need to spend some time trying to understand why this is such a complicated (and consequential) issue for the United States government and Twitter to navigate.

xqcgrek2 5y ago

What goes around will come around. The existence of Twitter as a relevant private company is now limited to 2-4 years, the amount of time the next GOP takes total control of government.

riffic 5y ago

members of congress should not be using commercial social media as their exclusive form of pushing out status updates to the populace. We have open standards (W3C recommendations) even, and these protocols can be adopted by the content management system used by House.Gov. Congress Critters need to become part of the Fedi.

josephcsible 5y ago
This just pushes censorship down a level, as we found out with Parler and Gab. Remember when Gab used to use Mastodon, and the major app stores told the authors of Mastodon clients that unless they hardcoded a check to prevent their app from connecting to Gab, their apps would be banned?
- riffic 5y ago
  that's fine. I'd prefer if official (public) business were conducted through public infrastructure through open protocols rather than via commercial walled-gardens. They (being the House of Representatives) absolutely should own their namespace and operate under 'house.gov'. Facebook and Twitter could even provide this service, as a commercially managed hosted endeavor (look at how Gmail is white-labeled as "Google Workspace" and sold as a service on a portable domain name).
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    The point is that when the government infrastructure refused to censor the "wrongthink" opinions, Apple and Google would ban any clients for those open protocols that don't hardcode a check to refuse to connect to those servers. And don't Google's Terms of Service apply even to Google's white-label services?
    - riffic 5y ago
      you think the app stores are going to ban clients that don't hard-code communication blocks for "house.gov"?