Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37997864

by funkylexoo • 10 years ago

167 343 10 years ago

bbc.com

mbillie1• 10 years ago

Good.

module00002• 10 years ago

People love having their speech limited, I'm sure this will work out great for twitter.

croon5• 10 years ago

People love having their speech limited, I'm sure this will work out great for twitter.

I love having hate speech limited, if that's what you mean.

hermiti3• 10 years ago

The problem with banning hate speech is that it is relative. Next up, books will be banned because they incite alternate opinions.

matwood2• 10 years ago

As long as it is applied consistently. Are they also banning those spewing hate for Trump or the police?

It is just like everyone who is rioting with slogans like 'not my President.' These same people were giving Trump a hard time when he said the election system was rigged and didn't enthusiastically say he would support the results of the election. The left is doing a good job reenforcing the exact image many people voted against. The elitist attitude of tolerance unless disagreed with.

EDIT

Thanks for the downvotes and further proving my point. I would never vote for Trump, but simply pointing out hypocrisy and double standards does get people upset.

altaway3• 10 years ago

There are plain facts about the world which are often considered "hate speech". FBI crime statistics, for example. They gotta be banned to maintain the narrative.

edc1172• 10 years ago

Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences, and Twitter is free to do as they like with their platform.

Cthulhu_• 10 years ago

They're just kinda late, IMO.

problems• 10 years ago

While I agree with your statement, I think it's important to protect the concept of free speech in many places and to disrespect companies who don't.

Twitter has failed to do so here and is showing a blatant political statement (unless there were specific cases of harassment with these people or something, in which case I may be overstepping).

I think generally views like this are better left in the spotlight of the public where they can be properly argued with and not dragged into private forums and facebook feeds where it's much harder for people to see a wider response to them. Banning them is harmful to people who are getting a casual interest in their ideas and start reading up on it. When the only place they can do that is Breitbart or similar, how do you think that'll go?

striking7• 10 years ago

http://sealedabstract.com/rants/re-xkcd-1357-free-speech/

With the right of free speech comes the responsibility to extend that speech to others. Because if we leave who is heard to simply "who can speak the loudest", we won't find out when we're wrong.

See also: Mill's "On Liberty", available now in every Intro to Philosophy textbook.

oconnore• 10 years ago

Ok, so Twitter can definitely ban some people from its website, but "Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences" taken at face value, is pretty terrifying, especially given how our president elect has responded to criticism. Those consequences should be bounded to essentially: ... and now they don't like you anymore, and won't invite you to parties.

hermiti3• 10 years ago

Honestly, if there wasn't censorship of alt-right views to begin with on Facebook and elsewhere, then perhaps more people would have been motivated to get out and vote for what they believe in, rather than thinking that they had already won.

nameless912• 10 years ago

This isn't the limitation of free speech, this is a private company telling one of its users that they aren't welcome due to their behavior. It's like if you were at a store and started soapboxing about <insert alt right conspiracy bullshit here> loudly right in front of the register, the manager of the store is 100% allowed to ask you to leave. Freedom of speech means your speech isn't illegal, not that you will suffer no consequences for it.

ETA: some people made some comments below this that made me want to clarify a few things:

1) Twitter being publicly traded does not automatically make them beholden to every person on Earth, especially in matters of free speech. They're still allowed governing their platform in whatever way they see fit.

2) a better analogy might be a comedy club on open mic nigh.t. If you get up on stage and start making racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. Jokes the club owner has every right to throw you out. Yes, it's a public forum, but limiting your use of what is ultimately a private (i.e. not government owned) establishment does not constitute a violation of your rights unless it can be proven that you were denied access due to your membership in a protected class, or based on your gender, etc. Free speech doesn't protect you from (peaceful and appropriate) backlash.

corey_moncure2• 10 years ago

I think your analogy falls a little flat because 'right in front of the register' at a store isn't literally purpose-built to be a speech platform, as Twitter is.

hammock2• 10 years ago

He's not commenting whether it's right or not. He's just saying people won't like it

CoryG896• 10 years ago

Except that Twitter is not a private company. They are a publicly traded corporation.

ftrflyr• 10 years ago

Twitter is very much a public company beholden to its shareholders.

captainmuon• 10 years ago

That only works in practice if there are public spaces where you can excercise your free speech. If everything is a private space, then it's fine that the government won't limit your speech - but that promise becomes pretty vacuous.

I firmly believe that if something becomes as big as twitter (facebook, google, amazon, ...), it becomes infrastructure and should be subject to similar rules as the government. It should no longer be treated like that mom and pop groceries store.

It took people centuries to wrangle civil rights (including free speech and parliamentary representation) from their states - in that process changing them into democracies. Before, all of that was completely unheard of. I wonder if in future, people will fight the same way for free speech on Twitter, universal access to Amazon's shipping infrastructure, the right to be indexed (or forgotten) on Google, and so on.

altaway3• 10 years ago

Nobody has provided evidence of any bad behavior of the banned accounts.

maxerickson3• 10 years ago

The comment you replied to doesn't say free speech and doesn't invoke the constitution.

They are talking about the comedy club where the owner permanently bans anyone who makes jokes on certain topics. People stop going to it.

Which I think Twitter is going to have to have some standards about what sort of behavior they allow, it's just that there is risk of going too far and making the platform boring and useless. Banning accounts used for harassment is not going too far. Banning accounts because some arbitrary number of people don't like what they say probably is.

erichocean3• 10 years ago

this is a private company

I think you mean public company. They went public a few years ago.

module00002• 10 years ago

This isn't the limitation of free speech

I'm not talking about free speech. This is a company that didn't censor <x>, deciding to censor <x>. I'm sure the users that discussed/read/were-interested-in <x> will be thrilled. That is all.

mrgoldenbrown• 10 years ago

Not limiting speech wasn't really working out for them either. Abusive users was one of the reasons floated for their difficulty selling.

thecopy2• 10 years ago

How will this help Twitter turn a profit?

monkmartinez4• 10 years ago

This is a valid question methinks. I am not sure of the distribution of regular HN readers that identify with the so-called "alt-right" movement, but suffice to say millions of Americans do.

kelukelugames5• 10 years ago

Maybe now Disney will buy them?

Maybe companies more companies will buy ads?

I don't know. I own TWTR shares and cry every time I check my account.

soundwave1063• 10 years ago

It depends. There are two angles to this that I can see:

A) Twitter has a bad reputation for bullying and harassment; almost any financial analysis I read about Twitter has this as a strong negative. If Twitter is cracking down on this finally, this would help this reputation and potentially it's profit.

(Note that I'm assuming here that Twitter actually is suspending these accounts not because they are alt-right, but because they are bullying or trolling. I know the alt-right has a bad reputation in some sources for engaging in trolling behavior; I do not know whether this applies to the individual accounts in question.)

B) Being a haven for extremely divisive speech tends not to be the type of place that attracts advertising from companies with large amounts of capital; companies like these (larger ones) tend to default to inclusive for obvious reasons (it's better to have a potential customer base of everyone).

I don't like the idea of banning alt-right accounts for the sake of them being alt-right, but I can easily see justifying bans if either a small population harasses a larger portion of the users, or if significant advertising dollars are at sake. Twitter is a business.

ceejayoz• 10 years ago

Abuse on the platform reportedly lost them a Disney acquisition.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-17/disney-sa...

Walt Disney Co. decided not to pursue a bid for Twitter Inc. partly out of concern that bullying and other uncivil forms of communication on the social media site might soil the company’s wholesome family image, according to people familiar with management’s thinking.

mulletbum3• 10 years ago

Why does the alt-right have issues with them being banned from systems, but don't see issues with themselves banning others from systems.

For example, Twitter bans them from using Twitter, but the /r/The_Donald echo chamber bans anyone with a counter view to their own.

If you want freedom to speak on certain platforms, you need to provide the same rights to everyone.

orf• 10 years ago

That requires logic and critical thinking though.

lightbyte• 10 years ago

Its extremely ironic that the group claiming to "champion the fight against the social justice warrior and their safe spaces" does pretty much the exact same thing as what they say they hate.

api• 10 years ago

Welcome to the future where everyone is surrounded by a virtual reality bubble that endlessly strokes their ego by reinforcing their preexisting beliefs.

Honestly I see a lot of people doing this and agitating for it. Everyone wants a "safe space."

corey_moncure2• 10 years ago

I'm very interested in this topic. Do you have concrete evidence of contrary voices being silenced by administration in /r/The_Donald?

It may bear some consideration that this particular sub-reddit is itself silenced by having its stories removed from the front page by algorithm, which to me represents as great a sin or greater.

jjnoakes• 10 years ago

Greater sin or no, I've personally seen accounts get banned for sharing contrary views in that subreddit.

I mean, it's in their sidebar... "No Dissenters".

striking7• 10 years ago

/r/The_Donald has in its sidebar, literally, that people that do not wholly support Trump are not welcome.

That being said, I'm okay with that. It's not a place for reasonable discussion, it's just shitpostland.

However. Twitter prides itself on being a serious social network with considerations for free speech and the "new media"... being banned from something like that just because of what you believe is silly.

kelukelugames5• 10 years ago

corey "i'm just asking questions" moncure. Do HNers fall for this kind of concern trolling?

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=corey_moncure

a_bonobo• 10 years ago

It's right in the rules:

- No Dissenters or SJWs. AfterBerners MUST Assimilate.

croon5• 10 years ago

There is no data other than available to the mods of The_Donald or reddit at large, but there are A LOT of results just a google away, this was the first hit [1].

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/BannedFromThe_Donald/

voxic11• 10 years ago

It's explicitly against the rules of the subreddit to dissent against their narrative or express "social justice warrior" views.

See rule iv.

No Dissenters or SJWs. AfterBerners MUST Assimilate

beedogs2• 10 years ago

I've been banned on at least a half dozen accounts for posting anti-Trump comments on that subreddit. So, yeah.

MichaelBurge2• 10 years ago

I think the appropriate comparison to "Twitter" would be "Reddit", not specifically the /r/The_Donald subreddit.

If they started banning your Reddit account for being a communist, I imagine a lot of people - including "The Donald" - would be angry.

thecopy2• 10 years ago

Apples and oranges. /r/The_Donald is a subreddit niche specifically for supporters for Trump, it is standard for a niche subreddit with a specific goal to ban users which attempt to hinder that goal from happening. Hillary-subreddit does the same.

mulletbum3• 10 years ago

I was more trying to express the irony of it, even if one a spot and the other is a platform. Twitter doesn't have a "spot" so it is the platform you get banned from.

vonklaus2• 10 years ago

I agree that if is hypocritical however clearly the scale is substantially different. Subreddits are typically echochambers especially small niche non-defaults.

Twitter is a platform. Your analogy would be more akin to Reddit banning a subreddit-- which happens. I personally disagree with platforms like google, reddit & twtr editoralizing & policing things like ideology & expression. I certainly lean more libertarian here, but actions like this certainly are a slippery slope. It appears like favoritism in a benevolent view and censorship in a more hard line stance

JorgeGT3• 10 years ago

Do Twitter and /r/The_Donald have equivalent mission statements, though? I don't think Twitter aspires to be a meeting point for extreme political views.

croon5• 10 years ago

Isn't that exactly the point? One bans for extreme views/hate speech, one bans for dissent.

tajen3• 10 years ago

Reddit is in a much less monopolistic situation. Twitter is a mandatory medium for public communication. That's which censorship on Twitter is worse than in a subreddit.

Besides, it's a long stretch to imagine that right-wing media convinces people to become right-wing. In my case it's rather the opposite: I've been super-over-surcovered with left-wing pro-women communication until my 30s (whether in media or in programmer conferences), I noted that the mantra "Women are oppressed all the time" didn't match what I witnessed in companies (e.g. men from GitHub CEO to Douglas Crockford and all the way down to colleagues are being fired upon unproven accusations by women), which made me investigate the topic only to find that 90% of feminists' arguments are incorrect, which made me search for more reasonable media, aka "right-wing media" according to left-wing media.

Liberals have made a speciality of accusing right-wingers of censorship. That left-wing media like Twitter resorts to censorship only reinforces the perception that the world isn't fair and severely biased with double-standards in favour left-wingers.

If anything, I wish Brexit + Trump meant the end of the ban on some ideas like discussing immigration or men's rights.

_delirium• 10 years ago

Arguing that Twitter is so necessary to public communication that it should be regulated as something like a common carrier (perhaps applying the same to Facebook and YouTube) is an interesting argument, but one you usually hear from the left, not the right. The right usually takes more of a hardline private-property viewpoint along the lines of, "private companies should be able to institute whatever rules they want on their platform, start your own if you disagree".

FilterSweep6• 10 years ago

Twitter is a mandatory medium for public communication

What makes it "mandatory" - the fact that they choose not to use an alternative, or the fact that they have not built an alternative?

cabalamat• 10 years ago

Twitter is a mandatory medium for public communication.

That's the precise difference.

There are two solutions I envisage for Twitter's behaviour. One is a market solution of people moving away from it (e.g. towards Gab). This might be infeasible due to network effects.

The other is regulation: communication services above a certain size be required to be an open platform. This would still allow twitter to ban people, but anyone would be allowed to re-used Twitter's data feed making it much easier to set up a competitor.

censorship on Twitter is worse than in a subreddit

Not least because anyone can set up their own subreddit with their own moderation rules.

soundwave1063• 10 years ago

Twitter IMHO is a very poor medium for public communication. It is very difficult to discuss complex issues like gender relations or the dynamics of immigration in a sober, thoughtful, nuanced manner via streams of 140 characters. In the former in particular I actually feel there's a definite case where Twitter amplified division; the notorious "SJW vs MRA" storm advanced little if any productive discussion and merely put people in opposing camps lobbying grenades at the other side.

If this is now "mandatory" for public communication now, I feel that's a huge downgrade from public communication methods in the past.

flukus• 10 years ago

Twitter is a mandatory medium for public communication

Which is why everyone should stop using twitter. A private company should never have that much control over critical infrastructure.

lmm• 10 years ago

Virtually everyone opposes banning people they agree with but supports banning people they disagree with.

Try to compare like with like. If you're talking about subreddits, is the donald any more of an echo chamber than e.g. shit reddit says? (which AIUI autobans people just for posting on some particular other subreddits). If you're talking about twitter they do seem to be applying different standards for what qualifies as "hate speech" depending where you are on the political spectrum.

ht85• 10 years ago

I'm not sure if it makes sense to compare Twitter, a general communication tool used by every demographic, and a subreddit, which is a privately ran community.

partiallypro• 10 years ago

I don't know if you can quite draw that parallel. /r/The_Donald (which I myself am banned from) isn't the entire platform. Twitter is an entire platform. The_Donald is meant to be an echo chamber, much like Sanders for President was, they too would ban people on a whim. However, me being banned from /r/The_Donald is not any where near being banned from Reddit itself. Someone blocking me on Twitter is not me being banned from Twitter.

My fear here is that Twitter and Facebook are now political machines, even if I agree with what they are doing -generally-. Facebook is cracking down on "fake news," I saw fake news all the time on Facebook, from left (re: vaccines, GMOs, The Kochs) and right (re: Obama, Hillary, Global Warming.)

So, which is Facebook going to crack down on, and which one isn't it going to? I get trolled on Twitter more from the Right, but I do get trolled from the Left as well. Which is Twitter going to crack down on? They don't seem to have an open coherent policy. If I'm harassed by left and right, but I see more of the right being banned, at what point does this stifle speech?

Sure Twitter and Facebook are private companies and can run themselves in whatever manner they wish, but if they -do- have a bias, they should be open about it. If Facebook and Twitter wants to win my trust that they are handling this correctly, they should make the data of their bans public. Even old forums have a ban list and often reasons for bans as public. There is no such public face for these two platforms. They don't even have to have names/handles as public, just a graph that shows the data behind it.

radmuzom• 10 years ago

Do you really expect logic from people who consider the right to have the following views equal?

"I believe people's sexual preferences are private and the state should not interfere in it."

"I believe homosexuality is a crime and all gay men should be killed".

iopq2• 10 years ago

Because /r/The_Donald is a community, they don't give out bans for the entire Reddit website, only from their own community.

Twitter is not a community, it's a website akin to Reddit which contains communities.

mulletbum3• 10 years ago

Twitter doesn't have an ability to ban you from parts of the community. So they are a single community.

forgottenpass4• 10 years ago

Twitter bans them from using Twitter, but the /r/The_Donald echo chamber bans anyone with a counter view to their own.

Twitter is effectively the digital commons, run by a professional organization.

A subreddit is a subsection of a reddit, a website that lets any user roll up with a clowncar of mods and claim some land within their namespace.

ta_donk_gt• 10 years ago

Those things don't match up like you think they do. The equivalent of /r/The_Donald banning users is equivalent to /r/politics banning anyone who posted critically of Clinton between July and the election (even though The_Donald only claims to support Trump whereas Politics is intended to be more unbiased).

These are subreddits with their own admins managing them. Twitter as a company is banning users from their entire platform. The equivalent would be Reddit as a company banning very liberal users.

gthtjtkt2• 10 years ago

/r/The_Donald echo chamber bans anyone with a counter view to their own.

When you know there are super PACs literally spending millions of dollars to manipulate people on sites like Reddit, and other subreddits (like /r/HillaryClinton) also ban all dissenting opinions, why would you leave yourself so vulnerable to attack? Just so you can brag about occupying the moral high ground?

Reddit's completely opaque, volunteer moderator system guarantees that every single subreddit is biased in one way or another. /r/The_Donald was only doing what was necessary to create a community where people could discuss Trump without being berated and silenced by downvotes.

douche2• 10 years ago

You can't just go off and make your own Twitter, with blackjack, and hookers.

You can more-or-less do that on Reddit.

laumars3• 10 years ago

I'm not sure I agree with this. I think I'd rather have people with extreme opinions talking in the public where they are subject to counter arguments than somewhere less public where their message goes unchallenged.

okreallywtf• 10 years ago

I agree and disagree - on the one hand I prefer to have them out in the open so its easier to understand the kind of misinformation that is being spread, but unfortunately it seems like a large number of people (well, everyone to some extent but some people have more trouble it seems) separating fake information from more-or-less true information.

My guess is that by them having this platform, they can easily reach those who are primed for believing what they read. If people weighted the most informed responses equally to the tweets themselves that would be one thing, but my guess is that is not the case.

AimHere• 10 years ago

The next leader of the most powerful nation on earth already elected on a campaign that openly advocated torture and war crimes and made all sorts of racially charged insinuations. The USA seems set to embark on a terrifying policy of mass deportations in a few months.

A white supremacist is set to be installed as White House Chief of Staff, and his previous incarnation was as owner of news outlet talking in the public arena, presumably having his message challenged in exactly the manner you describe.

I think that your way of doing things has already run its course.

laumars3• 10 years ago

There was more to the Trump campaign than just misinformation on social media. Without wanting to rehash old discussions I think it's fair to say that most of the people who voted for Trump acknowledged his flaws but ultimately found Hillary Clinton less palatable.

Personally I don't think there was a single good candidate on the ballot.

SomeStupidPoint• 10 years ago

The reason there's a white supremecist in the white house is precisely that people silenced white people on places like Twitter when they complained about institutional social injustices against them.

So the white people got together and voted as a minority bloc for a member of their minority that would favor their interests over all others.

Your solution of trying harder to supress them will only get more Donald Trumps elected.

matwood2• 10 years ago

The USA seems set to embark on a terrifying policy of mass deportations in a few months

I really wish the MSM would stop burying facts in the story and out of the headlines. Not that I agree with it, but Trump has stated time and again that he wants to deport people in the US illegally who ALSO have a criminal record. There was some stat from the gov. that ~1.9 million illegals also have some criminal record, and that matches the figures he has thrown around.

My point is that the hyperbole in these discussions means that no one will ever come together. People need to act more like President Obama now that the election is over, and figure out how to make the best of a situation they may not like. Democracy will go on.

erichocean3• 10 years ago

You might not like this, but Obama has already deported more people than any other US president—2.5 million people to be exact.[0]

That's about what Trump is proposing.

[0] http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obamas-deportation-policy-num...

chillingeffect• 10 years ago

I agree 100%. We need exchange, dilution, exposure therapy, to become familiar with each others' ways and ultimately realize we're not a danger to one another if we're all working, well-fed, raising our children in peace.

The counterargument I see people making is that "hating $group is not an opinion." They see opinions as matters of taste, like twitter should just be about discussing flavors of ice cream, while racism is purely a crime and has to be punished. My response to that is words from the tip of the iceberg. We must discuss what's under the ocean's surface. NIMBY'ing assholes spoils that conversation space.

VeejayRampay2• 10 years ago

And even worse, when you ban those accounts, you reinforce the ideas that there's a media conspiration against the alt-right, giving the most vocal proponents of that ideology a platform to disseminate their ideas and victimize themselves.

adamnemecek• 10 years ago

Why does everything that Twitter does feel so ham-fisted.

mwill• 10 years ago

I can only see this as furthering the echo chamber that caused many to be so blindsided by Trumps victory.

I would like to see specifically why these people were suspended. If they're engaged in harassment obviously the suspension should hold up. If it really is just mass reporting for political speech (I've had friends msging 'targets' for reporting purely for them admitting to voting for Trump), I can only see it as a bad trend.

These people don't go away just because you ban them from your favourite sites. They just disappear from your own view, and go away to a more insular community, more of an echo chamber, where they become more radical.

kelukelugames5• 10 years ago

I've seen no evidence of trump supporters being targeted. There is no trend.

edit: wait, is it possible that just because I don't see it happening doesn't mean it isn't? Kind of like police brutality against black lives?

Sir_Substance• 10 years ago

That's because you're not looking for it. Anyone who protests gets muzzled along with the banee.

akerro• 10 years ago

I didn't followed too much news recently, but two that I heard about, I bet there was/will be more.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/10664/video-trump-voter-dragge...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/anders-vendel...

arkitaip3• 10 years ago

But these alt-right figureheads aren't your average trump voters. They actually are racist and nasty people and we shouldn't group them together with other conservative/right/trump voters.

jinfiesto3• 10 years ago

I'm not sure why the above is down-voted. There's a litany of evidence to suggest that this is actually true.

adam122• 10 years ago

They actually are racist and nasty people and we shouldn't group them together with other conservative/right/trump voters.

This sounds like stereotyping to me.

tajen3• 10 years ago

"A cartoon of Pepe the Frog is a commonly used symbol of the alt-right" is the subtitle of the image in the BBC article. Look at it, the drawing innocence is really staggering: I'm wondering what is the link, whether the link is warranted, and whether Twitter used posts of Pepe the Frog to recognize alt-right people. Sounds like a badly AI-generated inference to me.

sbuttgereit2• 10 years ago

I am very suspicious of people throwing these terms around. Especially because the left uses the terms "racist", "sexist", and "hateful" (etc) to demonize their opponents as opposed to actually addressing certain issues in debate rationally. The willingness to use these terms so freely to shut down debate means I simply don't believe such charges unless I'm shown something that actually meets a reasonable definition. Too many have simply cried wolf here.

I don't know of the people banned (I don't use Twitter) they may actually be all of these things: but I will not use the flimsy, leftist definitions to make that determination. You'd have to give more than your word that they are "racist" and "nasty".

mozumder• 10 years ago

Social media actually enables these people. A lot of them felt empowered when they found out many other people thought like them.

hammock2• 10 years ago

I was with you when you started to describe a soundproof echo chanber filled with progressives, which blinded them to public opinion. However you sort of pivoted at the end to an alt-right echo chamber. Perhaps it's a bicameral echo chamber. (insert Westworld comparisons here)

13years• 10 years ago

Agree, very disturbing trend and it only increases the animosity between groups.

The trending method of improving diversity and inclusivity is through exclusivity. This will not work.

People and groups who don't talk to each other grow further apart and trust each other less.

leereeves2• 10 years ago

The trending method of improving diversity and inclusivity is through exclusivity.

We should remember the source of this article, the BBC, said not so long ago: Whites Need Not Apply.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/03/bbc-criticised-by...

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/695312/BBC-seeking-research...

nnain• 10 years ago

True. People flocked to Twitter to hear general opinion, which the press didn't provide. That is changing.

They have also been controlling the trending #hashtags; trying to channel only certain type of discussion.

bougiefever2• 10 years ago

What do you do about Twitter and Facebook becoming the propaganda arm of the alt-right?

mhurron2• 10 years ago

People were blindsided because the majority didn't vote for Trump, but the US's backwards system meant that didn't matter.

In a democratic system where everyone's vote was equal, we would not have President-Elect Trump.

Pungsnigel2• 10 years ago

How do you know the result of a completely different kind of election? The candidates would obviously campaign differently in the case you are describing.

Digory• 10 years ago

Everyone knew it was a close election, and that the system we have is the system we have. It's not like the DNC was surprised by the electoral college last week.

People were blindsided because polling scientists treated the states discretely. What were the odds that Trump wins Ohio and Florida and Wisconsin and Michigan? This wasn't four separate battles -- it turns out that if he wins one of them, the odds are pretty good he wins all of them.

newaccount35743• 10 years ago

If it really is just mass reporting for political speech

It's not just for political speech. Multiple asian artists drawing cartoon porn, which was properly marked as sensitive content, got their twitter accounts suspended after some offended people mass-reported them.

fatbird• 10 years ago

These were figures representing groups that shout down diverse opinions and quell the free speech of others with noise and abuse. You're not improving understanding and engagement between communities when you allow bullies to silence the meek.

Sacho2• 10 years ago

shout down diverse opinions and quell the free speech of others with noise and abuse

How does that work? Twitter banned them for spamming?

throwaway2747393• 10 years ago

If they are in fact members of the Alt-Right -- which it seems none of them deny -- then I don't see why any further explanation is required.

The Alt-Right is an SPLC-designated hate group. They promote vile hatred against People of Color, women, Muslims, LGBTQ2s, immigrants, etc. I find it disturbing that well educated people could possibly believe a privately-owned company has some duty to serve as a platform for that filth.

underdown2• 10 years ago

and why should anyone care what the splc concludes? serious question.

psyc2• 10 years ago

From what I see in my feed, it seems 100% of "progressives" have doubled down on their hyperbolic, established, in-group rhetoric. I followed everyone that I follow because they are programmers, not because they are "progressives". But from looking at my feed, one would think that I deliberately set out to create a radical SJW echo chamber for myself.

lotsoflumens• 10 years ago

Exactly the same here. You wrote my thoughts perfectly.

It's sad actually.

dictum6• 10 years ago

I looked at a list of OSS project leaders and other programmers recently and was surprised at the popularity of the hammer and sickle symbol in their bios.

Upside is that I now know who not to listen to when the next tech drama pops up.

dragonwriter4• 10 years ago

From what I see in my feed, it seems 100% of "progressives" have doubled down on their hyperbolic, established, in-group rhetoric

Then that's a problem with your filter bubble.

I followed everyone that I follow because they are programmers, not because they are "progressives".

Which is why your view of progressives produced by that is distorted. Programmers who happen to be progressives aren't representative of progressives as a whole (they aren't representative of the broader group along class/income, education, race/ethnicity, or gender lines, among others, and several of those do correlate with preferred approaches.)

kristianc• 10 years ago

They have those echo chambers already. Some of them are talking about moving to a platform like Gab.

However, most of them realize that the appeal of Twitter is in being able to expose normal people (or 'normies' in their terminology) to far-right ideas.

It's delusional to think that these people want to enter into a conversation or a discourse of any kind - they're using Twitter as a platform to draw attention to their ideas. Twitter, as a commercial business - not a public commons - has no obligation to support that.

the-dude2• 10 years ago

Next time, MSM can honestly claim they didn't see it coming.

squozzer2• 10 years ago

Has the other shoe dropped yet? Having gone after the figureheads, who's next? Their followers? Smells like the beginnings of a witch hunt.

thro323• 10 years ago

How about suspending people who openly advocate genocide? #killallmen

CoryG896• 10 years ago

Gendercide?

kelukelugames5• 10 years ago

As an able bodied straight male working in tech, I don't understand how any man can be offended by the killallmen hashtag. I don't feel threatened. They can't even hurt my feelings. Offended men must be very soft and have small dongles.

huffpopo2• 10 years ago

I remember the die techie scum protests. Vomiting on busses, throwing rocks at bus windows etc. It was very threatening.

chippy2• 10 years ago

I don't understand how any man can be offended by the killallmen hashtag

You say don't understand. Do you want to?

They clue to your lack of understanding is in the first part of the sentence

As an able bodied straight male working in tech

Perhaps if you imagine yourself to be someone else in another background, place, circumstances you can begin to see why a hashtag which appears (if one was unfamiliar with the history of it) to advocate the killing of millions might be offensive to some people.

You might even come to the conclusion that while you don't find it personally offensive you can understand that some might find it troublesome.

thro323• 10 years ago

It is about applying the same rules to everyone. Plus it is illegal in many countries.

And my group (I am from east europe) was target of 6 genocides/persecutions in past century. I feel threatened, to the point I turned down some job offers.

adekok7• 10 years ago

Here's a simple test. Take someone's rhetoric, like "killallmen". And replace the target with "Jews". If the updated statement feels racist and evil, then the original is also racist and evil.

There's an entire subreddit devoted to this idea: https://www.reddit.com/r/menkampf/

It's eye-opening just how racist many "mainstream" comments are.

ve552• 10 years ago

Although Twitter obviously has the right to do this, legally, I don't think it is good.

Twitter is esentially a public infrastructure for real-time communication. We have public officials from countries all over the world that use Twitter to communicate to their citizens.

For that (and similar) reasons, I would strongly prefer if Twitter didn't go around policing what types of political opions are okay and aren't. Even if you really hate the people that Twitter bans, imagine if things were the other way around, and they started banning very liberal users.

robbiemitchell3• 10 years ago

They're not getting banned for opinions, they're getting banned for their actions on Twitter.

monkmartinez4• 10 years ago

Eh? Can you please explain the difference... it's 140 characters of text FFS.

legodt12• 10 years ago

The very liberal users aren't inciting hate speech, racist, misogynistic, and often times anti semitic attacks on other users en masse

monkmartinez4• 10 years ago

You aren't serious are you? The "alt-right" movement has put out several videos in recent days that shows just that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXpi3F0E5ro

aaron-lebo3• 10 years ago

You really just aren't looking:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UofT/comments/4rr3ga/blm_toronto_wh...

That's Facebook but you can find blatantly racist, sexist, etc stuff from people on the left of the political spectrum on every major social network these days.

altaway3• 10 years ago

No, they are posting anti-white bigotry and threats to kill the President.

Twitters "cultural background training" for its new mods surely contains the progressive stance that you can't be racist against white people.

MichaelBurge2• 10 years ago

Just to give an example of how this would sound if it were reversed:

Liberals are inciting violence using paid operatives(probably including the recent riots), have shot Trump supporters, use powerful institutions(Twitter, universities, etc.) to shut down speech they disagree with, and their most recent presidential candidate has historically been opposed to gay marriage and took foreign money from a country that executes gays. Liberals are also very racist, using zoning laws to exclude minorities from their gated communities in California.

Rattling off a bunch of hate every time you think of the other side is how you get angry people.

ve552• 10 years ago

Hate exists on both sides. If you want to ban the hate from one side, why not ban the hate from all sides?

Both sides have a lot of racism (and other forms of hate in general), but they likely look and feel quite different to very partisan observers. Once you start banning users for whichever type of hate you happen to dislike more than the others, things can go downhill quite quickly.

Increasing the transparency around this subject would improve the situation. If twitter wants to ban people due to their speech, users should at least be informed why those users were banned, so that they can decide for themselves if they agree or not.

reitanqild2• 10 years ago

I have been hanging around here on HN after the election and there was one group that IMO tried to portrait everyone but themselves as dumb half-humans.

And it wasn't the republicans. It wasn't people from flyover country laughing about their victory.

Edit: 2 down, no comments. And I have a weird feelings it isn't the republicans who are out to get me. ;-)

I have enough points so feel free to illustrate my point.

kdamken• 10 years ago

It's sad how what's supposed to be an open and democratic platform, isn't.

vorotato6• 10 years ago

Letting people silence others isn't democratic, it's antidemocratic. You can spout whatever garbage you want but don't try to prevent others from spouting theirs.

dmschulman2• 10 years ago

Painting insults and threats and bullying as legitimate criticism is the main rhetorical fallacy of the alt-right movement. They have a guarantee of free speech in this country but they do not have a guarantee of Twitter access.

imaginenore3• 10 years ago

Twitter allows threats and bullying when it comes from the left. They refused to ban the freaking jihadists. They have SJWs posting #killallmen, #KillAllWhiteMen #maletears in droves. Nothing ever happens to them.

This move is simply political censorship.

kelukelugames5• 10 years ago

Speaking of male tears...

adekok7• 10 years ago

For all the people downvoting, it's true:

https://twitter.com/hashtag/killallmen

About half of the tweets are serious "killallmen" comments. The other half are people complaining about it. And, complaining that twitter won't do anything, despite their terms of service saying such behavior is ban-worthy.

Or look at twitter banning Milo... because other people engaged in harassment. People who had no clear tie to Milo.

At no point could Twitter point to Milo's behavior, and say "this violated our terms of service, so he's banned". They just banned him, despite their terms of service.

I've mentioned this before on HN, and asked "What, exactly, did Milo do? Please point to something he did."

I received no replies, but got plenty of downvotes. Which says to me that the people involved (like the ones downvoting here) know their opinions are contrary to all facts and reason.

So if you're thinking of downvoting, try instead to convince me I'm wrong. Adult discussions are much more productive than naive attempts at censorship.

cossatot• 10 years ago

Are you calling actual jihadists left wing? Or are you calling SJWs jihadists?

stringcode• 10 years ago

Unless there were specific examples of breaking Twitter's terms and conditions from each individual, this does nothing but popularises alt right. Even then, the way they did it, just plays into alt right narrative. I don't how is this benefitial

KON_Air• 10 years ago

Out of place but I want to hear American HN regulars opinon;

Is this provacation or utter lack of self awareness as it i will only play into Trumps hand?

caseysoftware3• 10 years ago

Part of Trump's argument has been "the system is rigged" so this support it, especially once you consider that Twitter did not ban people calling for protests during the Arab Spring. In fact, the State Department - run by Hillary Clinton at the time - specifically asked for Twitter to keep accounts open and information flowing.

This is ideal for Trump and crew.

In the US, the Net Neutrality position describes internet access as a utility, not a luxury. Further the UN declares it a Human Right. If either/both of those positions hold, then the gatekeepers - Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc - suppressing any view or blocking access to any group could be a violation of human rights.

I think that will have to be settled in court, but it will get messy for those companies.

derrickdirge4• 10 years ago

But Arab Spring tweets weren't characterized by racially-charged harassment of other users.

rayiner• 10 years ago

Doesn't Twitter allow actual terrorists to post?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/technology/...

throwaway9801• 10 years ago

Just so long as they don't post anything supporting Trump.

narrowrail• 10 years ago

Zing!

Seriously though, if we have to have these political (tech-related if you stretch) discussions on HN, these green accounts should not be allowed to participate.

mkaziz• 10 years ago

I believe they recently started closing those too.

tptacek3• 10 years ago

They never should have.

erichocean3• 10 years ago

This will end badly.

lj3• 10 years ago

For whom? I think this is going to go very well for gab.ai. Obviously, not as well for Twitter.

barking• 10 years ago

People with different views need to be listened to and debated with rather than silenced. this newspaper article from a BBC journalist is quite thought provoking http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/journalists-are-helping-to...

daleharvey• 10 years ago

"Twitter finally bans accounts partaking in persistent abuse and harassment"

This isnt a freedom of speech / diversity of thought issue, these people are abusing others. Frankly I would prefer the police got involved and hate crimes and threats were taken seriously, but while late at least twitter are doing the right thing.

dictum6• 10 years ago

In other words, Twitter gives the Information They Don't Want You To Know badge to a group that already thrives on such framing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12961185

optionalparens• 10 years ago

I think the musician Jarvis Cocker explained this best in his song, "Running the World." Particularly the lines, "In theory, I respect your right to exist, I will kill you if you move in next to me."

People love to free speech, except when it involves supporting all the things they don't like. For the record, I don't love any extremes and certainly not the alt-right, but censorship is worse. It is never justified, under any circumstances.

If you don't like something, don't listen. People are and can be protected plenty of other ways, for example by laws against murder. The law anywhere isn't perfect, but censorship is even less so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRGGbyZzuTg

legodt12• 10 years ago

The comments here are extremely disheartening. It appears that the HN community values hate speech and harassment over "free speech" on a privately owned platform. I applaud Twitter for making itself a safer space for marginalized groups with this step even if it is very little, very late.

Edit: it is with heavy heart that I must say that I am EXTREMELY depressed by the amount of white racism denial I am seeing in the comments here. The hacker news community is demonstrating to me an extreme aversion to understanding or deconstructing racism in this country and is satisfied with endlessly repeating ancient defenses against racism under the package of feeling oppressed because marginalized groups of people are finally speaking out against their oppression.

throwaway2747393• 10 years ago

Good.

Twitter has a legal and ethical responsibility to not allow their platform to promote vile racism, sexism, Islamophobia, etc. No one owes anyone a platform to spew their hatred.

If the bigots don't like it no one is stopping them from getting their own websites.

osenvosem• 10 years ago

It seems Twitter just follow some political will from left/liberal camp. "Freedom of speech" and "democracy" we all know and love.

reader50002• 10 years ago

Twitter is a (going bankrupt) common carrier. Lawsuits?

grzm5• 10 years ago

I've heard of ISPs considered common carriers. Is there precedence for sites to be as well?

reader50002• 10 years ago

Not to my knowledge.

perseusprime11• 10 years ago

I'm going to sell my Twitter stock. They are making one mistake after the other. Do they understand how free speech works? Can they enable that on Twitter?

throwaway-hn1233• 10 years ago

I'm going to sell my Twitter stock

You've left that a bit late, haven't you?

squozzer2• 10 years ago

There's actually a decent canary to determine whether this is the opening salvo of a purge.

If Twitter bans @ScottAdamsSays - whom some have called a Trump apologist but who doesn't seem overtly racist - then we'll know the purge is on.

MK999• 10 years ago

Media is trying to control the narrative of the Trump victory... Filter-Bubble, Alt-Right, Fake-News Anything but the truth

VeejayRampay2• 10 years ago

As much as I disagree with the views of the "alt-right" (why not call them far right by the way?), I can't help but be astounded that we've opened that can of worms? Who got to decide who should be banned? Isn't Twitter basically free speech? Why are we even drawing lines to begin with? As soon as you do that, someone else with a different world view will start banning the accounts of transgenders, community organizers, since we're now basing our judgment of Twitter accounts on subjective criteria.

People have a right to follow/unfollow accounts and we should leave it at that.

googletazer• 10 years ago

A cartoon of Pepe the frog is a commonly used symbol of the alt right

So basically a witch hunt where they're finding "problematic" people and removing their opinions. On the first screenshot two of the "leaders" of the alt right have MAGA hats on, twitter could have just came out openly and said it didn't want Trump supporters on their platform.

gthtjtkt2• 10 years ago

How has the media STILL not realized that the "alt-right" is primarily composed of self-proclaimed "shit posters" and forum trolls who enjoy posting provocative things to get a rise out of the over-sensitive PC police and social justice warriors? They refer to this election as The Great Meme War, and their "leader" (aside from Trump himself) is a poorly drawn cartoon frog.

Those weren't red flags to whatever gullible stooge wrote this story? This is "The Hacker Known as 4Chan" all over again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVhn_tdF3eo

bakhy2• 10 years ago

little meta - HN is not the best place to have these discussions. the way voting works here, everything is too conformist, too sugarcoated, and most importantly, downvotes are regularly handed out (at least in such emotional discussions as political discussions are wont to be) according to the political views of the high-karma elites, and more particularly according to their lack of moral self-control (i.e. many will not "abuse" downvotes like that, but that then just gives more power to those doing it).

is it OK to assume that, among the people with high enough karma to cast downvotes, the distribution of political views equals that of the general commenting population? or, better question - does that even matter? i don't know, is it even possible to achieve some kind of crowd-sourced moderation without exposing the system to the risk of gangs of idealists attacking dissenters with downvotes?

myf01d• 10 years ago

What about the tens of thousands of accounts belonging to islamists cheering about killing non-muslims and preaching hate all day?

Taek2• 10 years ago

118 points in 1 hour, page 3 of HN? This story is writing itself.

The alt-right is not a small number of people. 50 million went to the polls and voted for Trump. And with things like this, you're giving them ammunition. You just told 50 million people that their views are not accepted in society. You just told the electoral majority that they are not allowed in one of the most common forums for political discourse.

It's not a good thing. The nation is deeply divided, and the actions of the liberals are giving the alt-right more strength. Tactics like this only work if you apply them to small groups, and even then it only works if the vast majority are not sympathetic to the cause.

That's not the situation in America. You are covering your ears and telling the bully he doesn't matter, and that he's not allowed to play with you. Except you're telling that to half the classroom, not just one bully. And you've got control of the soccer field, and most of the balls. You've become the bully. And you've given the rest of the class a lot of ammunition to dislike you.

chippy2• 10 years ago

page 5 now with 125 points, 16 mins after the above comment.

tptacek3• 10 years ago

The story here is simply that politics don't belong on Hacker News, and users (rightly) flag stories like this.

gnicholas• 10 years ago

I think the question is how do we determine if a post is relevant to HN when it involves some elements that are "not relevant" (politics) and some that are (technology/Twitter).

There have been several posts—and fruitful discussions—about Facebook, the social media echo chamber, and the election. Why are those posts appropriate, but this is not? Because this is specifically about the alt-right? Because it attracts a certain type of commenter?

reitanqild2• 10 years ago

IMO the problem seems to be this stories shoot up until people who are happy with the outcome of the election cements the top spots of the threads again (they do, on every story, seems there is a majority of people here who are happy with or at least respect the election.) Then flagging starts. At least this is what it looks like to me.

IMO some debate is useful and it could also be good because we could flag out a few more people who like to dismiss others as "dumb racists".

alva2• 10 years ago

As I think this is important considering all the discussion so far I feel justified in guiding people to the Ask HN [0] I have just posted. Welcome all feedback

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12967873

michaelbuddy2• 10 years ago

Yet another reason why Twitter will ultimately fail. Censorship of whoever you think are nefarious characters when purported "victims" can easily just block people is just plain silly. We already know there are block list services that will autoblock. So if anyone is getting trouble from troll / enemies or want to be their own echo chamber, it's easy to do all this stuff. Bye Twitter, hello Minds & Gab.

ap3• 10 years ago

Actually this matches NPI's policy too, guess they can't complain:

"NPI will, however, exclude those who show reckless disregard with the media, or those who've made morally indefensible public statements. Such people make our movement look bad. We choose not to grant them a platform. It’s as simple as that."

Source: http://www.npiamerica.org/the-national-policy-institute/cate...

a_lihu• 10 years ago

Great job, Twitter! Now you can go back to promoting the jihadi profiles at the fullest.

vorotato6• 10 years ago

To all those concerned, they were not suspended for being racist. They were suspended for trying to silence people they disagreed with via targeted harassment. If you do that, you might get banned, regardless of your political alignment. There are PLENTY of white supremacists who are doing just fine on twitter. According to twitter you are free to spread your shitty ideology as long as you don't actively prevent people from spreading theirs.

jackmaney• 10 years ago

Not only do I not see a problem with this, but I don't think Twitter went anywhere near far enough. They should have suspended Trump's account well over a year ago.

Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads

Related Stories