4 ms·

Funny how Twitter tolerates blatantly terrorist regimes like Iran while banning those who challenge them. How do they justify this?

rvz 4y ago
Apparently you can also violate the Twitter guidelines without being banned only if you are Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran who has done this for years, here is an example of him calling for violence to 'destroy' another country: [0] Twitter really has one rule for some individuals and another rule for many. There is no justification for any of this from the big tech appeasers. [0] https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1263749566744100864 https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1263749566744100864
- k_sze 4y ago
  Strictly speaking, the wording isn't a call to violence. It's more like a prediction.
  - askhan 4y ago
    It’s rather extreme case of passive-aggressive — someone, who knows who, will do the salutary job of uprooting and destroying.
    - jstarfish 4y ago
      "Stochastic terrorism"
- danso 4y ago
  > Twitter really has one rule for some individuals and another rule for many. There is no justification for any of this from the big tech appeasers. Huh? Twitter has explicitly justified differential treatment for different kinds of users -- particularly in the name of public interest. Their rules and policies site has a page titled, "About public-interest exceptions on Twitter": https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/public-interest https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/public-intere... > At present, we limit exceptions to one critical type of public-interest content—Tweets from elected and government officials—given the significant public interest in knowing and being able to discuss their actions and statements. > As a result, in rare instances, we may choose to leave up a Tweet from an elected or government official that would otherwise be taken down.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    Precisely, and this policy was implemented not because of Khamenei, but Trump.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    Yeah, vague "we may choose for undisclosed reasons" rules are the best way to say "we'll do whatever we feel like, mostly depending on whether we agree with the tweet".
- faller_slive 4y ago
  Do you think someone should be banned for saying something like: The Nazi regime is a deadly, cancerous growth and a detriment to this region. It will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed. Then, the shame will fall on those who put their facilities at the service of normalization of relations with this regime.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    Coincidentally, the Nazis also spread lies about Jews murdering children. I'm sure if Twitter had been around, you would've seen similar Tweets coming from them, for very much the same reasons.
O__________O 4y ago
This was done for the activist, not against them. For more information see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33106622 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33106622
- KrishnaShripad 4y ago
  Is this to protect his account from being accessed by authorities and checking his DMs? Isn't it better then to disable access to his DMs rather than blocking public tweets/timeline? I don't see a point in suspending his entire account when all his tweets would probably be available in some public archive/wayback machine.
  - O__________O 4y ago
    (Have limited experience on the topic, just attempting to respond based on what little I do know.) Twitter stating the obvious has no control over information that’s no longer on its servers. Possible Wayback may not not even be aware of the risks it’s creating. That said, DMs are very much in Twitter’s control and it is not uncommon for highly motivated parties with substantial resources to either insert employees into companies like Twitter or target employees via bribes, blackmail, etc. Google’s first publicly disclosed attack, which among other things targeted activist accounts, very likely was a result of insider helping. Beyond that, if Twitter did not do anything, it is a very real possibility that the activist might be tortured for their passwords; if the accounts don’t exist, are not recoverable, at least for that specific reason, it would be irrelevant. There are so many situations to account for, but deleting the account/data is this safest minimal viable path.
mehdix 4y ago
Sorry for my misleading comment. As stated many times, Twitter suspends accounts to protect the activist. So this is in fact fine.
vkou 4y ago
They justify it very simply. They follow the laws of the countries they operate in. If the US turned into a repressive single-party state that only held sham elections, Twitter would follow it's laws, too, whatever they would be.
- SanjayMehta 4y ago
  Actually they try very hard to dodge the laws of the countries they're operating in. In India they've been playing all kinds of games to avoid following the law. There was a particularly farcical argument used by them, which was on the lines of "our policies are better than your law." They only complied when their employees faced arrest and other legal actions. I don't get the impression that their senior management are grounded in reality. My popcorn is getting cold waiting for Twitter's muskification.
unity1001 4y ago
> Funny how Twitter tolerates blatantly terrorist regimes like Iran They tolerate them just like how they tolerate the murderous f*cks who lied about nonexistent Iraqi WMDs and proceeded to murder 1 million Iraqis. They are still on twitter. They have blue checkmarks. They make 6 figures or more. The whole lot of them, an entire administration...
kjkjadksj 4y ago
Welcome to neoliberalism, where coca cola has a bottling plant in saudi arabia.

rvz 4y ago

Apparently you can also violate the Twitter guidelines without being banned only if you are Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran who has done this for years, here is an example of him calling for violence to 'destroy' another country: [0] Twitter really has one rule for some individuals and another rule for many. There is no justification for any of this from the big tech appeasers. [0] https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1263749566744100864 https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1263749566744100864

k_sze 4y ago
Strictly speaking, the wording isn't a call to violence. It's more like a prediction.
- askhan 4y ago
  It’s rather extreme case of passive-aggressive — someone, who knows who, will do the salutary job of uprooting and destroying.
  - jstarfish 4y ago
    "Stochastic terrorism"
danso 4y ago
> Twitter really has one rule for some individuals and another rule for many. There is no justification for any of this from the big tech appeasers. Huh? Twitter has explicitly justified differential treatment for different kinds of users -- particularly in the name of public interest. Their rules and policies site has a page titled, "About public-interest exceptions on Twitter": https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/public-interest https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/public-intere... > At present, we limit exceptions to one critical type of public-interest content—Tweets from elected and government officials—given the significant public interest in knowing and being able to discuss their actions and statements. > As a result, in rare instances, we may choose to leave up a Tweet from an elected or government official that would otherwise be taken down.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  Precisely, and this policy was implemented not because of Khamenei, but Trump.
- luckylion 4y ago
  Yeah, vague "we may choose for undisclosed reasons" rules are the best way to say "we'll do whatever we feel like, mostly depending on whether we agree with the tweet".
faller_slive 4y ago
Do you think someone should be banned for saying something like: The Nazi regime is a deadly, cancerous growth and a detriment to this region. It will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed. Then, the shame will fall on those who put their facilities at the service of normalization of relations with this regime.
- luckylion 4y ago
  Coincidentally, the Nazis also spread lies about Jews murdering children. I'm sure if Twitter had been around, you would've seen similar Tweets coming from them, for very much the same reasons.

O__________O 4y ago

This was done for the activist, not against them. For more information see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33106622 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33106622

KrishnaShripad 4y ago
Is this to protect his account from being accessed by authorities and checking his DMs? Isn't it better then to disable access to his DMs rather than blocking public tweets/timeline? I don't see a point in suspending his entire account when all his tweets would probably be available in some public archive/wayback machine.
- O__________O 4y ago
  (Have limited experience on the topic, just attempting to respond based on what little I do know.) Twitter stating the obvious has no control over information that’s no longer on its servers. Possible Wayback may not not even be aware of the risks it’s creating. That said, DMs are very much in Twitter’s control and it is not uncommon for highly motivated parties with substantial resources to either insert employees into companies like Twitter or target employees via bribes, blackmail, etc. Google’s first publicly disclosed attack, which among other things targeted activist accounts, very likely was a result of insider helping. Beyond that, if Twitter did not do anything, it is a very real possibility that the activist might be tortured for their passwords; if the accounts don’t exist, are not recoverable, at least for that specific reason, it would be irrelevant. There are so many situations to account for, but deleting the account/data is this safest minimal viable path.

mehdix 4y ago

Sorry for my misleading comment. As stated many times, Twitter suspends accounts to protect the activist. So this is in fact fine.

vkou 4y ago

They justify it very simply. They follow the laws of the countries they operate in. If the US turned into a repressive single-party state that only held sham elections, Twitter would follow it's laws, too, whatever they would be.

SanjayMehta 4y ago
Actually they try very hard to dodge the laws of the countries they're operating in. In India they've been playing all kinds of games to avoid following the law. There was a particularly farcical argument used by them, which was on the lines of "our policies are better than your law." They only complied when their employees faced arrest and other legal actions. I don't get the impression that their senior management are grounded in reality. My popcorn is getting cold waiting for Twitter's muskification.

unity1001 4y ago

> Funny how Twitter tolerates blatantly terrorist regimes like Iran They tolerate them just like how they tolerate the murderous f*cks who lied about nonexistent Iraqi WMDs and proceeded to murder 1 million Iraqis. They are still on twitter. They have blue checkmarks. They make 6 figures or more. The whole lot of them, an entire administration...

kjkjadksj 4y ago

Welcome to neoliberalism, where coca cola has a bottling plant in saudi arabia.