
Twitter employee deactivates Trump account - osrec
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41854482
======
mankash666
This article shines light on the power bestowed upon Twitter employees. They
can randomly deactivate one's account, and unless you're the president, you
might not have any recourse.

Particularly worrisome is the general left leaning political and social
affiliation of such employees. We are an era of systemic censorship of right
leaning speech by popular internet platforms.

I'm personally center left, but in no way do I condone the actions of the new
breed of leftists, from SJWs claiming "free speech as torture" to wanting
"safe spaces" everywhere

~~~
nodesocket
I'll give a very personal account. I was in the past harassed on Twitter. I
received death threats and users were giving out my phone number and address
to other Twitter users via DM.

I filed an official complaint, and Twitter's response was this is not
harassment, we won't do anything. I am pretty sure because of my political
views the Twitter support representative decided they didn't like me. The
hypocrisy, bias, and subjective filtering is rampant in silicon valley. It
also unfortunately is a thing here on HN as well. To this day I still get
downvoted not for the content of my comments, but because solely people
"recognize" me.

~~~
hkmurakami
There was a series of articles a few years ago about closet GOP supporters in
the tech industry fearing being "outed" for the damage it would cause to their
careers. In your experience do you feel that this concern is justified?

(I think there was at least one startup CEO who declared that if he found out
that anyone at his company had voted for Trump, that he would fire him/her)

~~~
nodesocket
Absolutely. I've been lucky enough to be self-employed for a bit, but if you
walk into any bay area startup nearly everybody will be a vitriol against
Trump and conservatives very publicly. It is not even subtle. I'm the kind of
person who actually enjoys a debate, and my lack of PC offends some. If I were
an employee, probably would be problematic.

~~~
rb666
Reason is that the political debate is no longer right vs left in the US.
Trump and his posse have proven to be compulsive liars.

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trump...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-
lies.html)

This means there is little left to debate.

~~~
hkmurakami
? The "appropriate" size and role of the federal government is still a very
worthwhile and earnest point of debate, and that is a classic left/right
issue.

~~~
keganunderwood
Sorry but nobody is for small government. Nobody is for a balanced budget. It
is a farce.

We all have two piles: a. Things we want the government to do b. Things we
don't

If you're for a balanced budget, you'll oppose current tax cut plans and
demand government cut spending. The problem is of course where do we cut
spending? Find me a dollar of "waste" and I'll show you someone who benefits
from it. Can we please stop pretending?

~~~
timrichard
> Find me a dollar of "waste" and I'll show you someone who benefits from it.

I expect others who've also worked on Government projects would find that as
preposterous as I do.

------
gfodor
In addition to creating what is likely to be an epic shitstorm for Twitter
ops/sec/PR employees and leadership, the net result of this will just be
further fuel for those who see tech giants as censors of political speech, as
well as embolden those who wish to further regulate these companies. A pretty
stupid move if you ask me.

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f_allwein
So any customer support employee has the right to disable accounts without any
checks? That would be worrisome.

For context, I used to work for Google's Search Quality Evaluation team, which
was in charge of removing spam from search results. No junior user could
remove anything without several other people approving it, and senior
colleagues were extremely diligent and meticulous. It would have been
unthinkable for anybody to remove a website for personal reasons (as in this
case), as seems to be the case here.

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ajuc
Well, it turns out twitter isn't a good way for president of the united states
to communicate with the world. Who would have thought :)

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lancebeet
It is odd that Twitter doesn't have protected accounts that can't be accessed
by customer support without supervisor approval, to prevent this kind of thing
from happening.

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leggomylibro
The real funny thing is that this will clog up the news cycle for the next 36
hours or so, unless more than a dozen people die all at once or something.

People actually care about this. Holy cow.

------
ThrustVectoring
Quick question: did the unnamed Twitter employee violate the Computer Fraud
and Abuse Act?

~~~
FLCL
I doubt it, insofar as employees of Twitter are expected to have authority and
access to these tools. That isn't to say that they didn't violate the employee
code of conduct.

------
feborges
I am surprised at how many cynical people think that asking for Trump to be
removed from Twitter has anything to do with censorship or violation of first
amendment rights.

Twitter is a private business and its content is controlled by the company
itself. If Twitter comes to the point when they would delete Trump's account,
that would be the equivalent of kicking him out of your house. It is your
house, your rules.

Right wingers tend to conveniently bend the borderline between public and
private whenever it benefits them.

~~~
notacoward
> It is your house, your rules.

Spot on. The first amendment prohibits _government_ from limiting speech. It
does not require private parties to allow arbitrary speech, let alone to
broadcast it. One could argue that social media should be regulated as public
utilities, subject to rules (but still not first amendment) about what speech
must or must not be allowed. I happen to disagree, but even if I agreed it
hasn't happened yet and even if it happened it would still be commerce clause
rather than first amendment.

> Right wingers tend to conveniently bend the borderline between public and
> private whenever it benefits them.

So much this. Conservatives and libertarians _constantly_ complain about
environmental or financial regulation, but when it comes to "too big to fail"
bailouts or stealing taxpayer money to provide free infrastructure (of all
kinds) for big business they're mostly silent. Sure, there are always a few
who speak up, but "not all libertarians" in economics is a lot like "not all
men" in gender relations. It's an excuse, a mere fig leaf of concern that
doesn't really conceal a generally neo-feudalist agenda.

P.S. I see some of the snowflakes are taking advantage of the "censorship"
options here on HN to downvote, thus essentially proving my point.

------
dogruck
Twitter will soon be subjected to regulations that mandate transparency to
their decisions, data, and algos.

------
mattbillenstein
$10 of my personal cash to the next Twitter employee to deactivate Trump's
account.

~~~
tryingagainbro
Now that's FU money, because they'll need it. "Great resume. So, you were at
Twitter. And you got fired for what exactly...?

~~~
sAbakumoff
He/she was not fired for fucking up the trump's account. It was his/her last
day in twitter.

~~~
flukus
This is the sort of thing that can change that. Any holiday pay or extras that
may have been owed to this employee might disappear, they could also have been
fired immediately if twitter wanted to send a message and acted fast enough.

~~~
ubernostrum
No matter how much they might be angry about it, they're not going to withhold
money they legally owe to the employee. And besides, the check has already
been printed at that point, and may have already been in the employee's hands,
since many places legally require any back pay or unused vacation to be paid
out on the final day and no later. Employers who try to screw with that
typically only do so because they don't have lawyers or HR departments, and
quickly learn why those are useful things for an employer to have.

------
irulebush
I frequently come across tweets by neo-nazis promoting their hateful ideas. We
can't let this go on in the name of free speech.

~~~
rebuilder
We might have to. Fringe groups like neo-nazis thrive on suppression.
Censoring them may serve to validate their narrative of fighting for a cause
despite oppression. It also shows them people are taking them seriously.

~~~
noncoml
Censorship, and especially from a private company, doesn’t sound like the
solution. If they are breaking some law bring them to justice. It’s not
Twitter’s job to decide who gets to say what, is it?

