
Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads - funkylexoo
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37997864
======
mwill
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.

~~~
arkitaip
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.

~~~
adam12
> 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.

~~~
pyvpx
alt-right by definition is racist and sexist. that is the definition of the
alt-right platform.

~~~
LyndsySimon
Dozens of people in my close social circles identify as "alt-right", and none
of them are remotely sexist or racist.

~~~
maxerickson
Do they understand what is happening to the label that they identify with? Do
they seek to make a clear statement about what they believe the alt right
stands for?

If they let some definition take hold that includes racism, then in the future
when they object to saying that the alt right is racist, they aren't standing
up for what they believe in anymore, they are providing cover for the racists
that stole the label from them.

~~~
LyndsySimon
Racists are not the people who are defining the term - it's the left and the
media.

~~~
maxerickson
Who changes the meaning is totally irrelevant to it becoming cover. It's not
fair to the people that aren't racist, but it's irrelevant to whether they end
up providing cover for racists.

------
ve55
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.

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

~~~
MichaelBurge
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.

~~~
legodt
These are all true, and I'm not a liberal so I'm cool with this. There are
things I don't like, such as your complaint about Twitter overstepping it's
bounds. Hell, I'll even do you one better. Liberals love pipelining more
people to prison, they love unnecessary voter registration beuracracy, and
they love supporting institutions that keep the poor poorer and the rich
richer. Racism is a bipartisan issue it's just that the alt right has been
more vocal about their racism online recently while the left tends to hide it
away while still quietly supporting it. Check out a trend dubbed "white
feminism," it talks all about this

------
Taek
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.

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

~~~
reitanqild
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".

~~~
tptacek
You honestly think the majority of HN participants are _happy_ with the
outcome of the election?

------
mulletbum
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.

~~~
corey_moncure
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.

~~~
striking
/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.

~~~
robbiemitchell
They're not being banned for their opinions, they're being banned for their
actions on Twitter.

~~~
striking
Can you point to some of those actions? I'm having trouble finding any
evidence that shows they should be banned.

Now, I think their viewpoints are disgusting too. But their views don't affect
people, their actions do.

~~~
FilterSweep
Have you suddenly lost your ability to create a relevant Google/DDG query?

I can't, for the life of me, understand how you can't find evidence (example
of Alt-right figurehead Milo Yiannopoulos):

[http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/leslie-jones-twitter-
tro...](http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/leslie-jones-twitter-troll-
regrets-attacking-ghostbusters-actress/story?id=41808886)

Now, whether he _should_ be banned for what he did is up for contention. But
he knows what he did, and he knows how he attacked her.

~~~
striking
Yiannopoulos was banned months ago. I'm talking about the current article and
the views and actions of those who were freshly banned.

------
laumars
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.

~~~
AimHere
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.

~~~
laumars
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.

~~~
ambicapter
Making Hillary unpalatable was part of the alt-right campaign to elect Trump.
#SickHillary and other ways of killing her trustworthiness were campaigns
imagined and put into effect by Trump sympathizers.

~~~
laumars
Yes, smear campaigns happen on both sides. I'm talking beyond that though.
E.g. Some saw Clintons "career politics" as her being indoctrinated into the
status quo whereas Trump represented a change.

I was as unhappy about the result as the next lefty but it doesn't help the
situation to assume that all Trump supporters are ignorant, nor any of the
worse accusations. Those supporters will have their reasons and if you want
any hope of swaying their opinions then you have to listen to their arguments
- something we did a poor job of in both the UK's EU referendum and the
American election. We got preachy instead, so many on the opposing side kept
their opinions quiet and we ended up not only misjudging the support of those
campaigns had but ultimately losing the vote as well.

------
rayiner
Doesn't Twitter allow actual terrorists to post?

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/technology/...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/17/islamic-
state-twitter-accounts-rainbow-makeover-anonymous-hackers?client=safari)

~~~
throwaway9801
Just so long as they don't post anything supporting Trump.

~~~
narrowrail
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.

------
dictum
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](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12961185)

------
stringcode
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

------
dmschulman
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.

~~~
imaginenore
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.

~~~
adekok
For all the people downvoting, it's true:

[https://twitter.com/hashtag/killallmen](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.

~~~
dmschulman
You're being intellectually disingenuous to believe that #killallmen is a
legitimate threat of violence towards men. Find me some examples of violent
feminists lynching and murdering men on the basis of feminist dogma.

Meanwhile, those with racist, bigoted, homophobic, and anti-semitic viewpoints
continue to commit actual hate crimes, murders, campaigns of intimidation, and
worse.

So yeah, you're making a typical strawman argument to deflect legitimate
criticism and turn the conversation away from the topic at hand. Not worth
engaging you further on this point, but if you want to discuss the topic at
hand, I'm all ears.

~~~
adekok
> You're being intellectually disingenuous to believe that #killallmen is a
> legitimate threat of violence towards men

Many (not all) of the people who say this really do believe it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCUM_Manifesto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCUM_Manifesto)

[http://www.dailywire.com/news/8386/feminist-journalist-
all-m...](http://www.dailywire.com/news/8386/feminist-journalist-all-men-are-
rapists-and-should-amanda-prestigiacomo#)

> Find me some examples of violent feminists lynching and murdering men on the
> basis of feminist dogma.

How about violence towards men, based on their dogma? See Jordan Peterson in
Toronto, among many others.

> Meanwhile, those with racist, bigoted, homophobic, and anti-semitic
> viewpoints continue to commit actual hate crimes, murders, campaigns of
> intimidation, and worse.

Which are all bad. And should be stopped.

But you're being intellectually disingenous if you believe that fighting _all_
bigotry is bad, because some bigots are more violent than others.

> So yeah, you're making a typical strawman argument to deflect legitimate
> criticism and turn the conversation away from the topic at hand.

Only if you ignore all facts and reason.

Sorry.

> Not worth engaging you further on this point, but if you want to discuss the
> topic at hand, I'm all ears.

i.e. you don't want to admit to the bigotry and hostility I dislike, because
you think it's not as bad as the bigotry and hostility you dislike. And,
you're so full of yourself, that you're unwilling to learn from people who
disagree with you. People who just might have reasons for their opinions.

In this mindset, the good people are (by definition) good, and can do no
wrong. The bad people are (by definition) bad, and can do no right. You don't
need to engage the bad people as people, because they're evil and despicable.
You can just dismiss them out of hand.

Or, you can do what Daryl Davis did.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis)

A black man befriended KKK members, talked to them as _people_. He used
friendliness, along with facts and reason, to convince them that racism was
wrong.

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

------
module0000
People love having their speech limited, I'm sure this will work out _great_
for twitter.

~~~
nameless912
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.

~~~
maxerickson
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.

------
daleharvey
"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.

------
legodt
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.

------
barking
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...](http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/journalists-are-helping-to-create-a-
dangerous-consensus-1.2868638)

------
VeejayRampay
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.

------
KON_Air
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?

~~~
caseysoftware
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.

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

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

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

~~~
vorotato
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.

------
bakhy
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?

------
optionalparens
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRGGbyZzuTg)

------
ap3
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...](http://www.npiamerica.org/the-national-policy-
institute/category/the-rainbow-coalition)

------
erichocean
This will end badly.

~~~
lj3
For whom? I think this is going to go very well for gab.ai. Obviously, not as
well for Twitter.

------
vorotato
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.

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

------
alva
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](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12967873)

------
jackmaney
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.

------
mbillie1
Good.

------
gthtjtkt
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVhn_tdF3eo)

------
myf01d
What about the tens of thousands of accounts belonging to islamists cheering
about killing non-muslims and preaching hate all day?

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

------
reader5000
Twitter is a (going bankrupt) common carrier. Lawsuits?

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

~~~
reader5000
Not to my knowledge.

------
perseusprime11
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-hn123
> I'm going to sell my Twitter stock

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

------
thro32
How about suspending people who openly advocate genocide? #killallmen

~~~
kelukelugames
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.

~~~
adekok
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/](https://www.reddit.com/r/menkampf/)

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

~~~
moskie
But the difference is the context of history, right? While I definitely don't
advocate for any "killallmen" stuff, I can recognize the difference between
Jews, who were the actual target of a real genocide in which millions died and
whose people are located in a country in a region embroiled in actual physical
wars, vs men who are the target of.... internet campaigns? A key aspect is how
these sentiments manifest (or have manifested) in a tangible sense.

~~~
adekok
I don't want to go down the path of who was oppressed, or how, or why.

I will say that advocating for genocide is wrong.

This shouldn't be rocket science. Advocating for the death or oppression of
any group "just 'cause" is wrong. People shouldn't do it. Their behavior
shouldn't be condoned, or excused as "they don't really mean it", or "they're
not _really_ going to do it", or "other people have it worse".

Personally, I've never advocated for genocide, and never defended anyone who
advocates for genocide. The idea horrifies me.

~~~
moskie
Sure, but can you at least recognize that conflating what's happening here to
men (an internet campaign that has no signs of manifesting in the real world
in any significant way) vs. what Jews have experienced is not a useful thing
to do? It is a huge false equivalence. You can believe that both are bad,
while also saying that one of the two is much, much worse to the point that
the comparison is unjust.

~~~
adekok
> an internet campaign that has no signs of manifesting in the real world in
> any significant way

Then you're not paying attention. See my other links.

> You can believe that both are bad, while also saying that one of the two is
> much, much worse to the point that the comparison is unjust.

Your argument comes across that advocating genocide isn't really _that_ bad,
because they don't really _intend_ to do it, and anyways, the Holocaust was
worse.

I find that entirely unconvincing. Morally bankrupt may be a better
description.

~~~
moskie
Your idea that men and Jews are equivalently oppressed, to the point where you
seem to believe it is invalid to point out that these situations are different
and require different responses, is psychotic and incredibly toxic, and I will
not humor it. The evidence you provide is an overtly anti-Semitic subreddit
that makes its "point" by minimizing the Holocaust via a word game, and yet
you question _my_ morals. I see a world where the "oppression" of men takes
the form of a handful of anecdotes of people saying mean things (that I
concede they should not say), compared the oppression of Jews that takes the
form of systemic violence ([https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2012/topic-
pages/victims/vict...](https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2012/topic-
pages/victims/victims_final) "62.4 percent [of anti-religious hate crime
victims] were victims of an offender’s anti-Jewish bias."). The willful non-
recognition that these are different types of issues that require different
responses is naked bigotry.

~~~
adekok
> Your idea that men and Jews are equivalently oppressed

Which is not, in fact, what I said. Or what I believe. But why let facts
interfere with a good flamewar?

> you seem to believe it is invalid to point out that these situations are
> different and require different responses

You're missing my point. Which is explained in simple English FFS.

> The evidence you provide is an overtly anti-Semitic subreddit

Uh... no. You don't seem to be able to understand rhetoric or analogy.

No one in that subreddit advocates anti-semitism. Instead, they re-write
hateful articles to show that they have the same tone and style as anti-
semitic articles. And that both are wrong.

Your interpretation of these analogies is that the people are actually
advocating the opinions they're mocking.

Which (again) entirely misses the point. Depressingly so.

> I see a world where the "oppression" of men takes the form of a handful of
> anecdotes of people saying mean things

Like advocating for the genocide of men? Which isn't entirely saying "mean
things".

> The willful non-recognition that these are different types of issues that
> require different responses is naked bigotry.

I think your hostility comes from a point of view which prevents you from
understanding what I've written.

I've tried to make it as clear as I can. Genocide is bad. Advocating for
genocide is bad.

Anyone should be able to understand that.

Your point is that advocating for the genocide of _some people_ isn't really
that bad... because jewish people had it worse.

If you can't understand the immorality of such a statement, I have little more
to say. If the only way you can defend such actions is to label me an anti-
semite, well, that's your delusion. You're welcome to it.

------
thecopy
How will this help Twitter turn a profit?

~~~
soundwave106
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.

------
michaelbuddy
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.

------
MK999
Media is trying to control the narrative of the Trump victory... Filter-
Bubble, Alt-Right, Fake-News Anything but the truth

------
squozzer
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.

------
throwaway274739
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.

------
googletazer
>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.

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

