Twitter has banned one of its most notoriously contentious voices. On Tuesday evening, the microblogging service permanently suspended the account of [a notorious troll], a day after he incited his followers to bombard Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones with racist and demeaning tweets.
“People should be able to express diverse opinions and beliefs on Twitter,” a company spokesperson said in a statement provided to BuzzFeed News. “But no one deserves to be subjected to targeted abuse online, and our rules prohibit inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others.”
With platforms like Twitter and Facebook having become the de-facto space where people come to voice their opinion and a central axis in world events – think the attack in Nice, the failed coup in Turkey, which effectively took place on Twitter and Facebook – a lot of people lose sight of what these platforms really are: glorified, very large and very popular online forums.
There’s no difference between that forum you run for the community of frog statuette collectors you’re a part of on the one side, and Twitter on the other. If people on your forum post insulting messages, harass your fellow frog statue collectors, or send in waves of trolls to post racist, hateful, and abusive messages at them, you’d ban them, remove their comments, delete their accounts.
Twitter is no different. Twitter, like your frog statuette collector forum, is a private enterprise, a personal space, where you set the rules regarding what’s allowed and what isn’t. I do the same here on OSNews. Banning people from your forum, from OSNews, or, indeed, from Twitter, is not a freedom of speech issue. The right to free speech protects you from the government, not from Twitter, forum moderators, or me deleting your hateful comment from OSNews. Or, for that matter, from deleting your perfectly valid and well-argumented comment (which I don’t do, but you get the point). Platforms like Twitter may have become a popular forum for expression, but it has no more obligation to “protect” the “right to free speech” than you have the obligation to accept people walking into your house and saying hateful comments to you or your loved ones.
Twitter and Facebook face huge problems with systematic abuse from trolls, and banning this particularly nasty troll is nothing more than lip service to a famous actress and comedian, and it does nothing to address the core problem the platform faces. Twitter might consider spending less time screwing over third party developers and creating nonsense nobody wants, and focus on the real problems many of their real users have to face every single day.
However Twitter doesn’t do anything against hate speech if it is in Arabic. There has been hash tags like “kill all atheists” and doesn’t block ISIS accounts unless there is legal action brought against it.
Didn’t ban people when they celebrate cops getting killed on twitter (black lives matter supporters).
But banning nero because he makes some f–king obviously trolly jokes because that what he does for a living … that isn’t okay. Also he didn’t incite them, he was just being a nob which is his whole schtick. Also Buzzfeed is heavily biased against anyone that self labels as a conservative, so I don’t trust their version of events.
And no these platforms aren’t like forums, because they have millions and in the case of facebook billions of users and they actively speak to Governments on how to control speech. So it is a free speech issue.
(BTW I think milo should have had his account suspended, but not because of the reasons given here).
Edited 2016-07-20 23:33 UTC
Twitter ban as an absolute last resort. They had previously warned him. He continued. He got banned.
If you have evidence that people have previously complained about specific accounts posting “kill all atheists” or accounts which have celebrated cops getting killed, then I’d love to see them. Even then, ironically enough, both of those things fall under “freedom of speech” so why would Twitter ban them?
What Milo did was specifically directed towards one person, which is entirely different.
Sorry but the US 1st Amendment doesn’t include a footnote that says “Also applies if you’re a really big company who makes a lot of money and people use a lot”.
Isn’t there a special exception to free speech in USA when it is direct threats to a named person ?
The writer could be sued for slander or harassment. That’s a civil matter, not criminal.
The online service that hosts the harassing / slanderous material has no liability. They can’t even be forced to remove it.
Maybe if someone made detailed and personal threats, that would be a crime? A misdemeanor in most jurisdictions?
Edited 2016-07-20 23:50 UTC
Maybe in the US they can’t but in the UK they can be forced to remove offending material.
Twitter is an American company, based in San Francisco. But they could very well have European offices or server locations that are subject to European laws. I don’t really know.
If they didn’t comply with UK law ISPs in this country would ban them. But ultimately they could be still be seen due to proxy sites e.g. pirate proxy isn’t banned by pirate bay is.
Based in San Francisco but homophobic, at least if the homo is conservative.
Yes, it is called the “Fighting Words Doctrine”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_words#United_States
There were no direct threats from @Nero – ban any follower that does so.
No, he incited followers to do so, which is worse, and still explicitly against terms of service.
I fully support Twitter to ban him even if he didn’t explictly follow terms of service, its their decision. They may have to explain them in the case of outcry, and may lose business if a majority feel it unjustified.
He actually didn’t if you look at the tweets.
Firstly the whole world isn’t america.
Secondly Twitter and Facebook and to a lesser extent google have been talking to European Governments (Germany for example). If you don’t think that is a worrying, I dunno how else to convince you.
Also Blaire White a Transexual Youtuber was doxxed recently by BLM supporters and Twitter hasn’t banned their accounts. She had to shut hers down because people were calling her in IRL and she had to go to the FBI.
I feel like I should be making myself a tin foil hat at this rate.
Which is troubling. Are you calling for Twitter to lower the bar on who they ban?
I can’t read arabic, I don’t think these people are lying to me as they are muslims that are disgusted by these guys.
Please inform me how I can google in a language that doesn’t even isn’t even related to latin? Also even if I found it you can’t read arabic and google translate is crap for anything other than simple sentences (I speak Spanish btw and I know it is garbage).
Edited 2016-07-21 00:02 UTC
If you can’t read it, you shouldn’t make claims about its content. What you are doing is hearsay. My brothers friends wifes sister insists she saw a flying saucer, that doesn’t mean it’s true.
I been told by more than one person and I have had to translated to me by good friends on mine.
Also you flying saucer example to discount my logic is flawed. Seeing an alien space craft is unbelievable … Religious people saying that non-religious people should die is quite believable.
In the us courts hearsay isn’t admissible proof. I think that’s what they are trying to point out. Direct testimony is proof, Hearsay is not.
We are not talking about a court system. My friends have told me there is on Arabic twitter a lot of what would be called hate speech, matey says “do you believe everything you are told”, me “no, but these people are trust worthy and I have no reason not to believe them”.
Yeah, I was trying to explain that those you were speaking with here wanted a higher level of evidence, which you can’t provide.
I believe that its probably true. I mean, If we were banning people for hate speech, Trump would have been removed last year. I’m not really sure why he hasn’t been removed other than, that controversy could potentially be too much.
Trump doesn’t really do hate speech, I think it is more likely that Arabic nations aren’t calling for a ban on hate speech since, “kill all jews” is kinda a really popular thing if you are in an islamic country.
No I am saying they should be consistent in their banning because they obviously aren’t.
They could use a random number generator to randomly ban random users if they wanted and nobody could stop them, and it wouldn’t violate a single right to free speech.
If they did that then it wouldn’t be a free speech problem, because that would be at least more consistent.
However you are ignoring the issue that these large companies do talk to governments on how to deal with “hate speech”. The hate speech definitions are notoriously vague in the UK.
This does make it a free speech issue and Thom you are ignoring that part of the argument entirely.
Edited 2016-07-21 00:13 UTC
There is no “free speech” problem. There is no guarantee to free speech on a private forum, in any jurisdiction that I am aware of.
Are Twitter consistent? No. Does that mean Milo didn’t deserve to get banned? No. Does that mean Twitter should be more consistent? Yes.
You keep on ignoring the fact that I keep on repeating that they are colluding with European Governments on vague hate speech laws and they are massively popular platforms.
They can control a lot of the narrative of whole countries and they are talking to Governments on how to do exactly that.
So it does make it a free speech issue. Saying it isn’t because they are a private company is idiotic, saying it isn’t because they are glorified forums is idiotic, because the scale is utterly different and they are colluding with government.
EDIT: made my argument more coherent.
Edited 2016-07-21 00:23 UTC
I’m ignoring it because it’s entirely irrelevant. Twitter have probably spoken to various governments about employment law; that doesn’t make it an HR matter.
It isn’t irrelevant, because their business is speech itself. FFS.
It is not the same as the laws they operate under (or probably skirt knowing that large companies like facebook and twitter paid less corp tax than I did last year).
Edited 2016-07-21 00:26 UTC
There is no protection under law.
There is no right to free speech on a private platform.
You keep on parroting the same thing without actually addressing my argument.
Large Corps + Government have spoken about how they can control speech on these platforms like facebook and twitter. That is a free speech issue in itself. It is problematic in itself. We aren’t just talking about working regulations.
These are hugely popular and if you aren’t on these platforms you can become a non-person and can be effectively silenced.
You keep on discounting the bigger picture issue because it suits your personal ideas.
Edited 2016-07-21 00:45 UTC
It is not a free speech issue. Twitter are not obligated to provide a platform for any speech whatever, other platforms are available, if no one will touch you, you can self-publish.
Much as just because I write an article, I shouldn’t expect a magazine or paper to publish it.
Twitter has responsibilities to carry on. Twitter is a carrier. Twitter has to deliver the message. An delivered as far as an allowed member.
Hate is a very loaded word. Law is a Maximum Common Divisor. Establish a lower limit to decency.
Hate has to be taken in this context. Clear and Open invitation to violate the rights of another individual.
“Much as just because I write an article, I shouldn’t expect a magazine or paper to publish it.”
Twitter is not ‘publishing’ you. Twitter is linking you.
Your ‘twit’ is not a product, it’s a message.
It’s a private website. They don’t have to be consistent. They can delete anything they don’t like, remove users at their faintest whim, or switch to an unpleasant color scheme. And because it’s a private website, not a function of government, Freedom of Speech doesn’t enter into it.
Yes they can. But you are ignoring their scale (facebook is massive they are most of the planet now) and the fact they are colluding with Governments on very vague hate speech laws.]
But you an other people that keep on this line of logic and keep on ignoring the rest of the picture because you are just focusing on that part of the argument.
I already said my piece on this, as I can see the discussion going exactly the same way.
http://www.osnews.com/thread?632039
Also if you don’t think this is happening i.e. collusion
Listen to this (it is long I know).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeysZCA8onI
Guy is facing 3 years in prison because he posted some satire on facebook.
Edited 2016-07-21 01:01 UTC
“facebook is massive they are most of the planet now”
No, they have a massive number of accounts. You’re confusing the map with the territory.
Except they have “Terms of Service” in which they tell you the standards of conduct, and either they enforce it uniformly or they don’t.
Again, if there were no Tos, no big ads proclaiming they are a free speech platform, I wouldn’t care.
But they say very specifically what is and is not conduct that will get you banned and what it acceptable. With thousands of examples worse than Milo that have not resulted in a ban, it is clear that they are discriminating.
I don’t know if anyone here would think it proper to ban racist, sexist, or homophobic speech, but I assume you would and you wouldn’t be screeching “But neo.nazi is a private company”.
If Twitter’s Terms of Service said “We’re going to allow women, blacks, transgenders, muslims to say anything they want including inciting murder, but if someone is white and/or straight, and or cis, and or male does it they risk being banned”, which would at least be honest, then your “private company, you agreed to a ToS contract” would be valid.
A private company has the right to do what it wants. It does not have the right to apply rules differently based on race, sex, gender, etc.
There is a controversy about Uber and Lyft because there are “service animals” like dogs for the blind, and many drivers don’t want to take them. The people are “private contractors” but it is considered against an act preventing discrimination of disabilities.
I’m sick of those who want government to force everyone to be politically correct, to stop “hate speech”, racism, sexism, homophobia, then turn around and say they are some kind of libertarian and that we should all be free to decide whom to associate with and we should be able to ban someone we don’t like.
Make up your mind.
Are you suggesting the man was banned based on his sexual orientation, race, religion, or gender?
I haven’t see any evidence of that.
Based on the quotes in every media source Milo didn’t even say anything. And clearly the claims of him being an organizer to racist attacks against this actor are all false aswell.
Twitter essentially banned him because they had wanted to do that for a long time and for some reason failed in that task before. Or maybe he was just made a scapegoat because Twitter had to do “something” in this case, and couldn’t figure out anything else. The decision was apparently made by one ill-educated Twitter boss alone.
Looking for the specific tweets that got Milo banned, all I can find are criticism of the Ghostbusters movie (e.g. his rather negative review) and dismissive comments about the hate mail Jones received, accusing her of playing the victim.
Not nice, but hardly racist abuse or threats; certainly nothing that could be compared with actual physical violence. The idea that he “incited his followers” seems to be a media spin with little evidence to support it – he isn’t responsible for what someone who happens to follow him chooses to do.
Bringing up the 1st amendment is a bit silly when talking about a platform like Twitter, but that doesn’t make them immune from criticism. Twitter have every right to ban who they like, but people can still complain about the inconsistent application of their rules. The way it seems acceptable to be as hateful as you like on Twitter as long as your hate is aimed at an acceptable target…
That’s their prerogative as a privately owned web service, to set and enforce their rules and guidelines for behavior.
And any one of us is free to start our own forum if we don’t like Twitter/Facebook/OSNews/whatever. Really, it’s that easy.
Freedom of Speech (US Constitution) is not relevant to newspapers or websites or any other private publication. You have no ‘right’ to post on Twitter any more than you have a ‘right’ to be published in the New York Times.
Except these services have millions and billions of users and they do speak to European Governments.
http://www.mtv.com/news/2723688/germany-twitter-facebook-google-dea…
BTW hate speech definition in Germany is so broad it is meaningless.
Again this is a free speech issue because of the number of users these platforms have and like it or not they pretty much the internet for a lot of people.
I have the same problem with the likes of Rupert Murdoch and the amount of media he controls and he spends a worrying amount of time talking to the conservative Government in the UK.
For TV, Radio and Print in the UK we have a third party that basically monitors news organisations and if they do anything that is basically blatantly unfair i.e. libel. They will make the offending media organisation post an apology on their platform.
Maybe they should have the same for social networks.
BTW in the UK we have several broadcasters, some are privately owned, others publicly owned and some a bit of both and they all have to comply with these regulations otherwise they are shutdown.
Edited 2016-07-21 00:05 UTC
If that’s true, it’s a voluntary situation. There are literally millions of online services and websites aside from Twitter. It’s nothing at all like historic banking or utility monopolies where consumers had no choice. It’s not even a Microsoft-style monopoly where newcomers are locked out of the market.
Edited 2016-07-21 23:31 UTC
You are making a strawman.
http://www.euractiv.com/section/justice-home-affairs/news/google-mi…
Hate speech in Germany and most of Europe has such a ridiculously broad definition it could mean almost anything these days.
If you don’t think that providers of services that collude with Governments to control speech on their massively popular platforms that are used by a good chunk of western world isn’t a free speech issue because “they own the site” well there isn’t much more to say really.
Correct. Not much else to say.
No I said he should have been banned and I quite like the guy because he is a genuinely funny IRL troll.
Sorry, but Twitter provide a service and set the terms of use. If you don’t like it, just use another forum. If you’re fool enough to get banned, you were fore-warned. This idiot explicitly broke those terms of service, so fully deserves the repercussions.
Don’t forget Spike Lee calling the black woman working for Trump a “house nigger” and not getting banned.
This is why I deleted my Twitter account, its quite obvious this policy only goes one way, someone on the left can be as offensive as they like (as long as they are a protected class as defined by SJWs, such as Muslim, Black, Trans, etc) and not have to worry about what they say while someone on the right will be banned.
In America it is a common theme for social media companies to be biased and one sided. This is due to cultural norms where one subject was assume to be true in their culture. For example, if I post an opinion why I disagree with same sex marriage, I will be labeled as a bigot, homophobic and discriminating and will be warned about account suspension. I learned this from quora.
What is true in America, is not necessarily true somewhere else.
“For example, if I post an opinion why I disagree with interracial marriage, I will be labeled as a bigot, racist and discriminating and will be warned about account suspension.”
Edited 2016-07-22 06:04 UTC
Has no-body read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Seriously? No one? Ever?
Let me copy&paste you the last article:
“Article 30. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.”
Meaning: you have the right to free speech as long as it doesn’t violate the Declaration. Or said otherwise: xenophobia, homophobia (as in saying gays doesn’t have same rights as heterosexuals, like marriage, adoptions, etc.) [hi Jews, Christians and Muslims], hate speech, etc. all of the are CRIMINALS. And hence, MUST BE PUNISHED FOR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.
Have a nice day 🙂
And this is the difference between the USA and European interpretation of Free Speech.
In USA, the government is prevented from acting against someone because of what [s]he says. This do not concern individuals : Free speech but not free from the consequences. (as illustrated in the XKCD comic)
In Europe, free speech is more regulated (hate speech laws), but it is considered as a fundamental right, and nobody should be unfairly treated because of his/her opinion, as long it is not considered as hate speech. (an old example from Mozilla, saying you are against gay marriage cannot be a justification for losing your job, and you may be entitled to pursue your employer if it was the case).
The situation of public fora is ambiguous, between “safe harbor” and the responsibility of each individual poster. Of course Twitter & al dont want to be responsible for anything, and the US interpretation, where hate speech is tolerated, is much easier to manage.
Edited 2016-07-21 00:07 UTC
No one would be complaining if they just said “We are a Social Justice Warrior platform, so they can dox, troll, and commit any amount of hatespeech, but any opposition will be permanently banned”
Fraud is NOT free speech.
But Twitter has said they believe in Free speech and are part of the Free speech party.
No, they aren’t.
There are even now tweets calling for the MURDER of senators, police, jews, europeans which they don’t seem to care about.
For the last year and a half it has been obvious that Twitter cares neither about incitements to violence or free speech. They will censor rape reports of muslim perpetrators in europe, but not muslims calling for the death of large numbers of people. They won’t censor black lives matter calls for the violent killing of police (and note we’ve had at least two attacks).
Milo says to an actress in an unfunny movie that it is unfunny and gets banned.
Fine. Twitter is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Clinton Foundation. Just admit it instead of pretending that anyone at Twitter cares about Liberty or Free Speech.
But if they did, they’d lose at least half their customers and their stock would tank.
Twitter has the absolute right to act as the mirror image of a Nazi organization or the KKK – I’m not sure if the “Public Accommodation” laws apply – if I have a button called “I Agree” on my front door can I deny service to blacks or whites, gays or straights if it merely has a barcode with a pointer to a 55 page ToS including a mandatory binding arbitration clause so it couldn’t even be heard by a judge or jury?
Maybe. But Twitter needs to figure out which side they are on. If they wish to be PG and cull abuse, they should start with those on their side, those they support. Not someone like Milo.
Can someone point out precisely what @nero did that was against the Twitter rules? His posts did not ask others to go after her explicitly or implicitly. She actively engaged him which negates several “once sided” aspects of their harassment rules. She had the ability to block people which she regularly does but made a point not to for some of the harassers for some reason. She also could make her profile private or simply ignore the users. She chose to read and respond to the trolls.
Does anyone actually have a technical solution to trolls? Do you want to make it impossible to be anonymous? That has it’s own risks. Should they use machine learning to filter messages mentioning users? It wouldn’t be 100% so humans would need to moderate. Is that really what you want even if it scaled?
If you shout into a crowd I’m unsympathetic if the crowd shouts back. If someone did something criminal, report it to the police. If your feelings are hurt… stop using the service, ignore the messages, make your profile private, block the users, ask for a feature to filter what you see to only subscribers, or get a thicker skin.
She could, but like most celebrities who leverage social media platforms, she won’t because it would run counter to her goal of getting her name out there. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that; it’s what Twitter is for, self promotion.
As for the troll, I’m glad he got banned and I would expect to be banned as well if I decided to be a twat in public posts. Twitter was within their rights as the owner of the service, and he knew that when he agreed to the ToS. Let him make his own social network where he can be free to spew whatever hatred he wants.
It was part satire and trolling to make a particular point. Acting like a bellend is part of it.
Edited 2016-07-21 02:04 UTC
Either way, he did something a web service owner didn’t like and was banned from the service. That’s standard operating procedure.
If I ran a forum celebrating the awesomeness of the color blue and some guy who thinks he’s the world’s best comedian comes in and shits all over the site, he’s going to be banned whether what he said was satire, trolling, or hate speech. I don’t care if he’s Joe Blow from Regina, Saskatchewan or some big shot editor from a major publication (who should know better btw); that’s my right as the forum owner, and thus was Twitter’s right.
No one is saying Twitter can’t do what they want. What people are saying is that they are being inconsistent and hypocritical. Additionally these companies are working with government to actively go after people which is scary.
I don’t disagree. However that doesn’t change the fact that it’s their right to do as they please, even if said inconsistency makes them look bad.
Trying to claim “free speech trumps a website’s rights over their content” makes one look ignorant and foolish; that was my point.
If you object, just stop using them. The message will get through if sufficient people object, as their business model will explode.
That is what is happening as Twitter is slowly sinking anyway. However Facebook which has similar possibilities and is much larger isn’t because their user base typically isn’t as savvy.
Of course she won’t make it private for that reason…
That doesn’t change the fact that she could take other actions to handle trolls. She chose not to. She, and others, fail to provide actual changes to the system which could give people the free speech platform Twitter claims to provide while giving the individuals complaining of harassment a way to have their “safe space.” They complain and censor. They inconsistently enforce their rules and in this case have banned someone who didn’t break the rules they claim. In fact Jones incited people to go after misc individuals during the exchange (yet didn’t get banned) and as I pointed out prior engaged Milo which negates any claim it was one sided.
The answer to bad speech is more speech. Not censorship. Private or public sphere. In the least customers have the right to demand honesty in the ToS and actions taken.
I also hope that you oppose laws which override a business owner’s rights to their property such as minimum wage, random discrimination laws, etc. And are OK with libraries or schools censoring or banning books.
Libraries and schools are government entities and therefore are subject to freedom of speech protections, unlike private businesses and websites. If you’ve ever met a librarian, you’d know they typically are staunch supporters of free speech and they don’t generally have the power to ban a book anyway. That kind of thing comes down from the municipal government, and more often than not the library will appeal the decision and win, again due to First Amendment protections that supersede local government busybodies.
I mean, I get that you want to argue for argument’s sake, but you’d actually have an argument if you’d leave your strawmen at home.
This is an idiotic argument. Being on twitter isn’t a human right.
Worse yet, multiple warnings did nothing to curb bad behaviour. They just had enough of appeasement and acted on their threat.
Edited 2016-07-21 12:32 UTC
like #Brexit, I expect Trump to win. Unlike #Brexit it will be a landslide.
The reason is the hypocrisy, double standards, liberty for me but not for thee that happens as exhibited here.
There can only be two honest variants. Admitted bias or true freedom.
When you create overstated examples of rudeness and call them harassment on one side, yet totally defend even worse examples including SWATting on the other side you will insure Trump wins.
I’m only for Trump because I’m tired of the screeching monkeys saying their feelings have been hurt (mine have been hurt worse, but my attackers were politically correct).
The more you support bias, double standards, and hypocrisy, the more Trump will win. And most places are like this so it should be a landslide for Trump.
(I should note that Crooked Hillary that is guilty, corrupt, a crony, and otherwise evil in many ways will make the victory easier – Bernie Sanders at least had principles and could have opposed Trump).
I voted you up even though your wrong and what you are supporting has all the faults of what you are opposing and more. However, I worry that many people think like you and Trump may win.
Brexit is a warning right wing populists can win.
I see your point but you can’t just censor someone because they may win and they’re not on your team.
Sure you can, if it’s your website.
The World needS to ban both: HIllary and Trump.
(find the funny word, not hate intended)
funnier until one of them win, then come the tears.
I’m glad to hear that you support the right of bakeries to refuse to make wedding cakes for gay couple because private business.
Except somehow I doubt your belief in the right of private businesses to make these decisions cuts both ways.
Twitter suspended his account because he was being a dick. “Dick” is not a protected class.
And “being a dick” is not a violation of their terms of service.
But you said it all. “Protected class.”
That’s pretty clear: Don’t be a dick.
+10 points to Gryffindor (I mean to Vanders)
That rule is very selectively enforced though. It wouldn’t be much of an issue for small forums, but a company that holds a near monopoly on a form of communication should be held to a higher standard.
We don’t let Google and Microsoft do whatever they want with their product either: no, because they’re so big, we require that they play by a set of rules to safeguard fair competition in the market. We might as well demand that they play by another set of rules that require them to enforce their terms fairly regardless of political opinion.
A monopoly of communication, Twitter? Ridiculous.
They don’t even have an online monopoly, and have no way of blocking new services/websites from entering the market.
There are literally millions of online forums, email services, blogs, messaging services, news sites that accept comments, and social interaction sites. You can even make your own in five minutes.
A monopoly, seriously?
Edited 2016-07-21 23:17 UTC
Well, if you know an alternative for Twitter that performs a similar task, let me know. And no, fora or even Facebook are not alternatives.
The problem of those big social network sites is exactly that: as long as the users are there, it’s hard to migrate away. You may as well talk to the wall.
Edited 2016-07-21 23:42 UTC
I don’t get it. A similar task, like writing on the internet or sending messages between smartphone users?
[rolling my eyes]
You’re right. I think Twitter is the only way people can communicate over cell phones or computers.
Edited 2016-07-22 00:02 UTC
Depends on what you want to communicate. Many companies have a presence on Twitter as well. It’s a cheap public sms service. If the alternatives were sufficient then I doubt Twitter would have all those hundreds of millions of users. People are on twitter because other people are on twitter. That’s why all those social media and chat services try to lock you in rather than opening up. There was even an article about that here a month ago or so?
I don’t disagree with that. But the facts remain:
* Twitter is a private service.
* No one is dependent on Twitter.
* There are millions of alternatives for online and cellular communication.
* Twitter is not a government agency and therefore Twitter’s irregular, inconsistent, unfair, random use of moderation tools is not a Freedom of Speech issue.
So can you point out where in the ToS it says calls for the killing of Jews and Police and specific races (BLM leaders have been doing just this) or throwing racist epitaphs at those that have a different political view (Spike Lee calls any black who is right wing a “house nigger” and “Uncle Tom”) is allowed in their ToS?
See the problem is NOT they have a “don’t be a dick” clause its the fact that they have made it clear they only consider the right wing able to be dicks and those on the left can be as disgusting and nasty as they want without risk.
I don’t disagree that Twitter have been inconsistent, and that they should be more consistent.
I disagree that there is some sort of Right WIng Witch Hunt, or that it was okay for him to be a dick because other people are being a dick. I also disagree that it is in any way a free speech issue, which is where his supporters have run to.
Spiky issue… Impossible to handle without getting hurt. On this aspect like the OSnews Team policy: Just making the front page for all ‘adult-but-sensitive’ audiences and taking the more spiky issues 2|3 layers backstage.
Twitter is dead, it can not even compete with a certain game in relevance. It has no economic return and the stock value after new emissions is still shit compared to IPO.
Really? We seem to be making an awful big deal out of something dead then, wouldn’t you say?
When something becomes so ubiquitous and large where it becomes a primary channel of communication heavy regulation regarding free speech rules that are consistently enforced need to come in to play. At least for the USA.
As is common among lefty journalists, they misrepresent facts to achieve a deep-seated goal: to silence those who forcefully point out the absurdity of their views and the ineffectiveness or lack of ethics of their heroes. It’s been happening for MANY decades on college campuses & the effort to silence righty media voices began in earnest in the early to mid 90s, with the rise of talk radio and ONE major news outlet that didn’t parrot the hundreds of other news outlets who routinely trashed those who weren’t lefty Democrats.
Milo is an young, immature, attention hog, but why should THAT result in getting banned? What seems to be a bigger irritant to lefty “free speech” champions is that he ruins their narrative: you can be both a righty AND gay, just as Peter Thiel ruins that narrative. Theil speaking at the “anti-gay” RNC is more than they can handle.
That was also the case when Clarence Thomas was nominated to be a Supreme Court Justice by a president from the “racist” Republican Party.
I suspect that nearly all “impartial” lefty journalists KNOW Milo didn’t incite racism against the actress. But it’s a quick, lazy way of advancing your cause of silencing uncomfortable speech.
I happen to be a member of several hobby-related websites, including OSNews. And the behavior you just described would get a person banned from most of them.
Why do people forget that Twitter is a company? They are not interested in changing the world for the better. They just want to avoid bad press. They get much more bad press from the actions of bored middle class tweens than people fighting ISIS. It’s all Common Business Practice 101.
This is not a complicated issue. Either Twitter believes in real free speech or they don’t. Obviously it’s the latter because they can and will censor what people say in certain situations. That’s about control – something they need to keep given the fact they’re a company. Allowing (extreme) hate speech is unpopular to say the least and therefore not in the company’s interest, thus Twitter will not fight for real free speech. They will expectedly act in their best interests.
I personally couldn’t give two shits what people say on Twitter because like every single other person on the planet, I have the option not to use it. Nobody has ever forced me to read Twitter posts and the same is true for everyone else.
The true core problem here is the expectation of free speech in the first place. What people should and shouldn’t be allowed to say or post is a subject for debate, and the idea that anyone, let alone everyone, has a right to real free speech is naive and unrealistic. Maybe it’s time to stop pretending and start calling things what they actually are.
Using the phrase “real free speech” is sufficiently vague as to be meaningless. What is “fake” free speech? I am fond of the notion that Internet messaging is not a tightly constrained resource requiring close monitoring of Twitter’s action. My analogy is George Carlin’s famous seven words you can’t say on TV or radio apparently because the airwaves are a limited resource subject to special restrictions. There is clearly no such restriction for internet communications.
I disagree. When people say `real free speech` they’re usually referring to speech which is not censored, restricted or punished. Speech that is protected regardless of content. Whether or not that speech has ethical, social, or moral acceptance may be debated but the unaltered speech itself isn’t and shouldn’t be hindered. “Fake free speech” is speech presented as being free but subject to control mechanisms, in view or hidden. This is where the phrase “freedom of speech, just watch what you say” comes from. Sure, you have freedom of speech, just watch your mouth — clearly something that can’t be described as `real free speech`.
Because some dipshit always comes along and confuses “speech” with “action”, let me point out that “speech” is defined as verbal articulation of thoughts and ideas. People mistakenly think `freedom of speech` is a blanket right that covers everything. Wrong. For example, (peaceful) protesting is permitted via freedom of assembly, not freedom of speech.
Even though Jack Dorsey STILL can’t point to specific tweets from @Nero inciting abuse against @LesDoggg, there IS a specific tweet inciting abuse by @LesDoggg herself and that tweet is STILL there:
‘ â€@Lesdoggg · Jul 18
@whitebecky1776 bitch I want to tell you about your self but I’m gonna let everybody else do it I’m gonna retweet your hate!! Get her!! ‘
That abuse incitement doesn’t matter in the slightest to @jack. He’s a loyal lefty Democrat, so her incitements & Black Lives Matters incitements on killing cops or celebrating their deaths is irrelevant to him.
Wikileaks, hardly a right-wing group, chided @jack for his censorship.
Anyone who squashes free speech is an ideological enemy. Who cares if someone said something? Actions speak louder than words. But heaven forbid, in this day and age, words hurt! Who cares if gays are systematically being murdered over there, as long as we focus on the non-violent spoken opinions of your neighbors, am I right?