
Twitter Suspends 235,000 More Accounts Over Extremism - uptown
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/19/technology/twitter-suspends-accounts-extremism.html
======
gmisra
Trying to be both a platform and a community are goals which are often in
conflict, especially in terms of operations. Communities really need things
like trust, reputation, moderation, rules, and enforcement. These are things
that are hard to enforce programmatically, and often require a lot of
customization.

e.g. reddit started as a platform for communities, but the success of /r/all
made it more a community of communities, at which point some of the more
extreme communities became a liability and had to be censored. In contrast,
imgur appears to have managed the separation between the two quite well.

It is still unclear what twitter wants to be.

~~~
Senji
Imgur is filled with just one demographic, and it's the lowest of the youtube-
comments-section-tier underage poster milieu.

------
ctdonath
Such sites need think real hard about whether they want to be a moderated
community or a common carrier. Moderated community? have to hire a _lot_ of
people to monitor & cull content, publish clear rules about what's acceptable
and what's not, and take their lumps when action/inaction has problematic
consequences. Common carrier? then make clear _nothing_ is moderated save for
blatant criminal violations (at which point police are informed), and legal
(if objectionable) content is simply published/transferred without hinderance.

Tough call. Twitter et al are trying to be both; this will backfire bad at
some point.

~~~
ProAm
These sites do not care, they want to make money. They will do whatever will
achieve that goal. This is a needed PR move by Twitter to curb the amount of
bad press they are getting. Twitter is in stagnation and bad press will not
help them gain any momentum.

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downandout
There is no inherent right to free speech on Twitter. Free speech has always
had legal limits, and private organizations such as Twitter are fully within
their rights to further limit speech on their platforms as they see fit.
Terrorist groups (including ISIS) have publicly claimed that they are having
success using social media as a recruitment tool, so this seems like an
appropriate response.

~~~
greydius
This is not a free speech issue as far as the US constitution is concerned.
Twitter is not part of the government.

~~~
downandout
Correct, which is essentially what I said in my comment. But this article
talked about free speech, and everytime this issue comes up, people start
moaning that their right to free speech is being inhibited, apparently not
realizing or caring that they have no such right on a privately owned and
operated platform. That's why I brought it up.

~~~
r_smart
Free speech and the first amendment are different things. People aren't being
unreasonable when they moan about the curtailing of free speech on Twitter.

That said, I don't have a strong stance either way on this particular issue.

------
micaksica
I am left with a great feeling of unease if not disgust at the Valley's long
con on the concept of free expression. Social media likes to say it's the
great equalizer, the democratic weapon. Twitter likes to pretend it's single
handedly responsible for the Arab Spring, and with great irony they are now
suppressing some of the results of that message that are no longer "on brand".

Social media isn't about, and has never been about, freedom of expression, as
much as sometimes we seem to think it is. It's about saying whatever you need
to to get scale, and then suppressing dissident communities that might cost
you ad revenue or you personally find distasteful once you have the power and
authority to do so. It's a cultural appropriation of a hacker ethos for the
sake of a business purpose.

As for this action, very few things enrage me as much as Wahhabism and Islamic
extremism; in fact, sometimes I struggle with the cognitive desire to write
off Islam and the Muslim world as a whole because of ISIL and its followers.

However, I don't believe that this idea makes much sense. You cannot kill a
meme by driving it off your platform; religious zealots have traditionally
faced much worse persecution than being banned from a service. They will
spring up again in places harder to detect, with tools that strengthen their
communities. Their enclaves will no longer coexist alongside peaceful
messages; they will be harbored entirely within their own safe spaces, echo
chambers that strengthen their hatred in their isolation. Instead of a
potential ISIL sympathizer seeing ISIL messages alongside trending topics
against extremism and terrorism, they will spend time on extremist forums in
which there is no dissenting opinion. They will not see pictures of people
lamenting the death, they will have communities where this death is entirely
praised. Instead of seeing football scores or other young people facing their
same problems that may have differing religious opinions, they will find more
people willing to indoctrinate them when exploring whether or not they find
meaning in Islamic extremism.

Twitter may think they are taking the oxygen out of the atmosphere by banning
them, but in reality they are simply shifting the fire to someplace where it
can burn hotter.

~~~
onion2k
Those other platforms already exist. Twitter's actions won't change that. If
someone wants to see extremist material they can, and will, by visiting those
other sites. That was the case before and it continues to be. The difference
now is that they'll find it a _little_ harder to find them because there won't
be a handy Twitter feed to search, and people who haven't sought that material
won't see retweets from those accounts. That's a net benefit.

~~~
phn
It is, until you find yourself on the extremist side of someone's book.

~~~
fucking_tragedy
Reminder that left of center socialist views are considered extremist. As are
right-wing libertarian values. Both espouse views that would upend the status
quo and both groups are monitored / infiltrated.

A forum I kept tabs on for years adopted some of the former views (European
style socialism) around the 2008 election. The admin was visited by the FBI
and decided that keeping the forum up wasn't worth being hassled by the
government. Violence was never promoted or glorified.

Martin Luther King was considered a communist threat, so much so that the FBI
sent him a letter suggesting he take drastic measures (see: suicide) lest they
out him as an adulterer. [0]

Occupy Wall St was heavily surveilled as a threat. The FBI worried that it was
a front for a violent revolution. [1]

Centralization of discussion allows quick suppression of dissenting opinion.

[0] [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/fbis-suicide-letter-
dr...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/fbis-suicide-letter-dr-martin-
luther-king-jr-and-dangers-unchecked-surveillance) [1]
[http://bordc.org/news/the-fbi-and-occupy-the-surveillance-
an...](http://bordc.org/news/the-fbi-and-occupy-the-surveillance-and-
suppression-of-occupy-wall-street/)

~~~
Senji
>Occupy Wall St was heavily surveilled as a threat. The FBI worried that it
was a front for a violent revolution.

It was, that was what Soros was pushing for when he funded it in part.

------
siculars
Beyond the obvious censorship slippery slope, strategically, should these
extremist accounts be suspended? Wouldn't it be more beneficial to analyze
their social graph and other intel to find out who these people are?

~~~
at-fates-hands
Agree 100%

I think Ted Nugent said it clearly when he said (and I'm paraphrasing here),
"We need to give these people a public platform so we can keep tabs on them. I
want to know what these crazy people are thinking and planning."

I think this should be the same thing. If we're all about free speech, that
includes speech we also might not like so much. It also allows us to keep tabs
on these people and who they're connected to (who's behind the accounts as
well as who follows them) so we can better mitigate the threats they're
posing.

Censoring them does nothing but push them back into the shadows where their
communications then become encrypted, unavailable and out of the public eye.

~~~
mkaziz
Exactly - you want this information unavailable and out of the public eye. You
don't want teenager X in the US becoming enamoured with publicly spewed IS
ideology and deciding to do something to help them out. Teenager X is the sort
of person who wouldn't actively seek out IS, but if it's directed at him,
well, he may listen.

The question of who decides what gets culled is a different and far more
nuanced question to answer - but I for one am glad that these accounts are
getting closed down.

~~~
siculars
Twitter doesn't work that way. You can't "direct" your message at someone
unless you pay for an ad. People need to seek out these messages.

~~~
mkaziz
It does if friend Y starts retweeting those kinds of messages. Or if you
happened to follow a dormant account that has since been commandeered by IS.
There's a million ways for those kinds of messages to enter your stream.

------
grandalf
This fascinatingly illustrates a concept that Chomsky emphasizes, but is
rarely so glaringly obvious:

In the US the government _does not need to crack down_ on free expression the
way the government in China or Singapore does, because American corporations
happily apply censorship without any legal requirement to do so.

This is why some stories are essentially missing from our newspapers and news
broadcasts, etc.

I highly recommend the documentary "Manufacturing Consent" which features a
lot of Chomsky's ideas on this kind of thing.

~~~
Senji
You can always get your underground news from places like 4chan/8chan and
various IRC channels.

------
sixhobbits
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes [0]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%3F)

~~~
privateersman
After thinking about it over the years, I don't think social media is as
influential as people think. Look at the UK's past election and referendum to
see. A bubble of opinion with a huge disconnect from reality.

All I will say is: stay away from these sorts of services if you value your
mental health.

~~~
r_smart
My argument against you from the same example: Look how uniform young people
were in the decision (obviously the people who spend the most time using
social media).

~~~
Senji
Also the same people being exposed daily to the govt approved propaganda
through school and university.

------
chvid
Censorship should not be a job for some big corporation.

It should be done by the government, checked by the legal system and based
upon open and clear legislation.

This is why we need the open web and why monopoly social media like Twitter
and Facebook are so dangerous.

~~~
WalterBright
> It should be done by the government

There's not been a good history with that.

------
Karunamon
Huh, they finally nuked the convicted ISIS preacher's account.[1][2]

Took long enough - that account's been spewing hate since at least last April.
It's almost like their priorities are backwards...

[1]: [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/anjem-choudary-
ve...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/anjem-choudary-verdict-
youtube-twitter-facebook-isis-terrorism-posts-not-deleted-a7194041.html)

[2]:
[https://twitter.com/anjemchoudary?lang=en](https://twitter.com/anjemchoudary?lang=en)

~~~
ptaipale
I think it's been spewing hate much longer than that? That was just when some
attempts were made to close it.

The British authorities just didn't have much tools for it, which sounds funny
when they are otherwise enforcing various super-injunctions very greedily.

~~~
Karunamon
I lay the blame completely on Twitter in this case. That account was reported
multiple times by me and people I know on the service, and they sat on their
hands for well over a year.

It shouldn't take a national/law enforcement influence for a company to not
give platform to literal terrorists once brought to their attention.

Meanwhile, saying something not particularly nice is grounds for immediate
suspension. Kind of screwed up that they take mean words (regardless of their
content) more seriously than _terrorism_ , you know?

~~~
ptaipale
I can't think of any other reason than that Choudary was good business for
Twitter. They got so many advertisements delivered to potential suicide
bombers, machete attackers and Syria jihadists that it was profitable.

------
s_q_b
This is immoral, and amounts to censorship. The moment we believe an _idea_ is
too dangerous for our citizens to express is the day American democracy dies.

Yes, Twitter is a non-governmental entity and has the legal right to do
whatever it wishes. But that does not make their decision any less wrong.

It also does not matter how incendiary the accounts were. You may be burning
Mein Kampf instead of On Liberty, but you're still burning books.

Edit: Changed "private" to "non-governmental" to prevent confusion.

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norea-armozel
I don't understand how some people think that it's the job of a private
corporation to handle social media like it's a common utility. Twitter isn't
the only major social media site/app today since there's SnapChat, WeChat,
Instagram, Facebook, and many more. So if you get banned on Twitter just go to
another site. Hell, it's easier still to make another account (just have to be
careful not to be flagged as a bot). This is why I don't cry when a person (or
even I) get banned. We have the whole Internet and all it's products minus one
of them.

~~~
Karunamon
_I don 't understand how some people think that it's the job of a private
corporation to handle social media like it's a common utility._

For one, because said corporations carry on like it is. As an example, Twitter
pretends it's responsible for the Arab Spring. Reddit up until very recently
was loudly and repeatedly touted by its founders as a platform for free
speech.

You can hardly blame the users for getting the impression that the marketing
is making for them!

 _So if you get banned on Twitter just go to another site._

Meanwhile, you've lost your social network and get to start over again from
square one. This is not a minor annoyance.

~~~
norea-armozel
>For one, because said corporations carry on like it is. As an example,
Twitter pretends it's responsible for the Arab Spring. Reddit up until very
recently was loudly and repeatedly touted by its founders as a platform for
free speech.

That constitutes false advertising at worse. This doesn't come under
censorship in any way.

>Meanwhile, you've lost your social network and get to start over again from
square one. This is not a minor annoyance.

And so a website owner is obliged to give you free reign on their site? Sorry
if I don't agree but the fact of the matter is that leaning on a walled garden
to keep your friends is IMO a bad idea. I've been hit by the ban hammer more
than once on sites like Twitter and I've learned it's best to keep your
friends on your contact list on the old phone. Yes, it's not as hip or cool
but luckily many contact apps have social media fields.

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smsm42
I seriously doubt there are 235,000 actual terrorists around that tweet. Or
that banning people from twitter does anything to combat the real threats of
terrorism. It may feel good for them to feel like they are fighting terror,
but I seriously doubt that makes any difference. And I'd rather see people
supporting ISIS out in the open where people that hopefully do have effective
ways to combat ISIS can see them then in some darknet corners where they can
fester without anybody knowing.

------
grandalf
The notion that "terrorism" is a tactic and not a label for groups has been
widely observed.

War has been referred to as "politics with guns".

How petty to try to constrain the free speech of vocal adversaries. The US has
invested billions trying to make the world hate Muslims and it's clearly not
working well enough.

I'd like our president to vocally criticize Twitter for this move and request
that free expression be restored.

------
walls
I really wish Twitter had some kind of release mechanism for suspended names.
Here's another 235k account names that will never be available again.

------
pmarreck
So much for free speech. Muzzling people will only make them more vehement and
is not the best long term solution.

~~~
overcast
Free speech isn't a universal concept in the world. Would you be OK with
extremist organizations having their own channel on cable? Twenty four hours a
day of hate speech, and recruiting your children to join them. Of course you
wouldn't. Free speech ends when you're using it to harm others as far as I'm
concerned.

~~~
randyrand
TV is privately owned. It's unrelated.

That said, I would be perfectly fine with ISIS be allowed to hand out flyers
around town. It's their right.

------
pnathan
One thing I am keenly uncomfortable and aware of is the merging of the public
and private fora. There _is_ a huge difference in our law, yet they _are_
merging. I'm not sure what is to be done, but it seems very clear that
Something should be done.

------
csense
Why are there so many extremists?

~~~
ptaipale
Bell curve? Not just in intelligence, but in psychological factors leading to
hate. If you have a billion people, the 0.1 % of its extreme nutters will be a
crowd of a million.

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thescriptkiddie
This is thoroughly disgusting, but I guess now we at least know that Twitter
is evil. Maybe we'll get a decentralized alternative to Twitter out of it.

~~~
paulcole
Just curious, but is there any mass-market decentralized service that is
actually widely used by normal people?

~~~
notdonspaulding
Besides email, you mean?

~~~
paulcole
That's a pretty good example. But for the average normal person, email is very
centralized-- aol, hotmail, yahoo, etc. Centralized in the sense that they've
handed all control over to a 3rd party, which I thought was the point the op
was making.

------
mindslight
The groupthinking majority _loves_ censorship.

(this is one reason why we avoid building/using centralized trash)

~~~
helthanatos
Centralized trash?

------
RubyMyDear
I'm a pure functional programmer. I hope I don't get kicked off of twitter for
my intolerance of Scheme, Lisp, or F#.

------
helthanatos
I'm surprised I wasn't suspended...

