
Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts - unreal37
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/11/16/502349250/twitter-suspends-prominent-alt-right-accounts
======
micaksica
I'm not a fan of the "alt-right" or a lot of its subculture. I also don't find
it particularly "alt", as much as it is "far" right. It is a lot of the ideas
that powered the NSDAP enveloped in the language of the Internet and memes,
with the targets broadened from Jewry to non-whites in general. However, I'm
also not a fan of suspending these accounts for controversial views if they
are not harassing people on the Twitter platform with the Twitter platform; it
is crossing into a murky area that feels remarkably like political censorship.
I know Milo et al were calling to brigade/raid users like Leslie Jones, and
that's crossing the line, and it's clear he was banned for a reason.

But let's scope this out for a second, neutrally: if the subculture is sharing
information that is against the political status quo to its own adherents, and
it is organizing for its beliefs, should it be censored because its belief is
fundamentally unpopular, especially when it is so far maligned from the
political views of Silicon Valley? If Twitter aims to be a neutral platform,
dissent takes more forms than just those that we agree with. It's being able
to express, share, and debate those views that we can come to agreements on
things.

The alt-right movement is in the crosshairs because a lot of people are still
reeling from the election, myself included, and people are trying to find any
and every excuse as to why Clinton didn't wrap this one up like it seemed to
be happening in the exit polls and on the coastal cities. The alt right is
popular, full of rage, and more than a little scary to some of us, but I don't
think that means they should be instantly suppressed. Only hearing what
politics are agreeable to you is how these types of movements rise in the
first place.

~~~
xaa
Agree. The first thing I thought upon reading this was: would Twitter ban an
account with the following description:

"dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of African descent
in the United States, and around the world."

Undoubtedly not. The only difference, of course, is s/African/European/g.

I'm a liberal, but I feel that if this election has taught us anything, it
should be that suppression of "undesirable" views only makes them stronger.
It's almost as if the Founders foresaw this somehow, and having done so,
created some kind of First Alteration of the Constitution to protect this kind
of speech, realizing that attempting to suppress it would cause more harm than
good.

I do realize that Twitter is not the government, but the same principle
applies.

~~~
leereeves
I feel like the left seriously damaged their ability to fight racist ideas
when they abandoned the idea of equality.

Now, the left calls colorblindness and "all lives matter" racist. (Remember
when Martin O'Malley was destroyed for saying that?) They create advantageous
standards based on race, and even exclusive positions for non-white
applicants. (For example, at the BBC.)

And I too doubt they would object to "dedicated to the heritage, identity, and
future of people of African descent in the United States, and around the
world."

MLK's dream that one day people would not be judged by the color of their skin
was abandoned by the left before the alt-right rose to power, and I believe
that helped the alt-right rise to power.

~~~
alistproducer2
HN is a bad place to discuss this sort of stuff because you're always risking
karma, but here goes.

As a liberal, I will say that liberals drastically overplayed their hand the
last 8 years. Many of us have been saying for a while that the language,
tenor, and actions of recent liberal movements was ultimately counter
productive.

I understand and share the demand to be treated decently and equally, but
admittedly things kind of got out of hand. Micro-aggression, safe spaces,
trigger words - all things that have good intentions but the people who
advocated for them were often, to put it kindly, un-diplomatic.

With "demographics" on our side, many of us constructed this alternate reality
where America, ready or not, was going to bend to our will - our worldview.
And so we poked the bear. Over and over and over again. Then it woke up, tore
our heads off and left us wondering what the f*ck happened.

~~~
prewett
I'm not sure if you intended this meaning, but it sounds like you see (your)
liberal view as the ultimately right one which will inevitably triumph in the
end, its just bad tactics right now.

I didn't notice this until after I got back to the US after some time in an
authoritarian country, and I noticed that liberals had this similar
authoritarianness of being unwilling to consider the merits of the other side,
a feeling of we are certainly right and we are going to enforce it on everyone
else through legislation. California just banned single-use plastic bags; it
could have simply charged a fee commensurate with the costs of cleanup. Or the
hot-button issues. Abortion: women's rights, yes, but the conservatives have a
point that it is also killing babies. Homosexual marriage: people's rights,
yes, but there are some good arguments to the other side, too. Usually issues
have two sides because there actually are two different ways of looking at the
problem, and to say that the other way is ignorant, intolerant, wrong, etc. is
really not respecting the other side.

(Full disclosure: I am a conservative. I am not saying conservatives (!=
Republican) are any better, certainly we have our own failings.)

I like your analogy about the bear, btw. I think you are probably right on.
And even as a conservative, I was just as shocked as everyone else. Hopefully
this election will get a good dialog going and people actually trying to
understand the other side. That would probably make it worth it.

~~~
alistproducer2
>I noticed that liberals had this similar authoritarianness

IMO this is what distinguishes a traditional liberal from a a progressive. For
me, a liberal is basically libertarian with a belief the state can be used to
ensure the rights of citizens are administered evenly.

IMO, if someone's actions aren't depriving another of life or liberty, the
state doesn't have much standing in regulating that activity. Progressives
believe state power can/should be used to protects their rights _and_ their
feelings. But, depending on the issue, you'll find conservatives taking the
same stance.

Gay people getting married deprives no one of anything. Conservatives that
want they're feeling protected are no different than the "SJW" so many of them
rail against.

Like all things there are some grey areas. For example, the trans bathroom
thing. I legitimately see both sides on that. Abortion is another I see both
sides on and believe compromise is the best way forward.

You'll find "authoritarians" on both sides of the political spectrum. In some
cases (like abortion) conservatives have their heart in the right places. So
do progressive/liberals (environmental issues, for example). In other cases,
both sides can begin to see the state as a tool to unnecessarily curtail the
liberty of their countrymen.

~~~
throwanem
> Gay people getting married deprives no one of anything.

There's an opportunity cost. I expanded on that a few days ago, and rather
than rehearse it again, I'll link the answer I gave to "What do anti-gay-
marriage people gain?":
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12933668](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12933668)

~~~
alistproducer2
I read you comment. I get your point on why the state provides benefits for
marriage. You're argument that civil unions should suffice misses the point
and is ignorant of the facts. The fight for marriage equality is not because
gay people are overly attached to the nomenclature, there's a real practical
difference between unions and marriage[1].

Also you quoted me in your response, but your comments made no argument
against my quote. Care to shed light on why people you don't know getting
married deprives you of something?

1: [http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/marriage-
compa...](http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/marriage-compared-to-
civil-unions.html)

~~~
aminorex
I think the reasonable thing is to eliminate the institution of state
marriage.

------
fiblye
I think, in a way, the media is kind of empowering the "alt-right" by
constantly referring to them as the "alt-right". It presents it as the little
guy vs The Man, and I think that makes it much more palatable than "far
right."

Influential people who think the government is intentionally making gay frogs,
that media needs to be under strict control, that climate change is a Chinese
hoax, and that everything is us vs (((Them))) just got a candidate that
represents their views into the White House. There's nothing alt about it.
It's just straight up mainstream now. Referring to it as such takes away from
the rebel factor and reveals that this is, in fact, just the new system, as
bad as the old one.

~~~
TillE
It's a little odd, since 99% of the time it's really just a euphemism for a
particular kind of neo-nazi.

~~~
nailer
Really? The alt-right side don't support immigration and like their own
culture - which is a very common thing across the world, particularly amongst
the working class. neo nazis specifically advocate violence.

I generally vote for the Labour party, but that doesn't mean I and my fellow
Labour voters (Corbyn aside) support Mao/Chavez/PolPot-style murdering of our
enemies.

~~~
rtpg
this is how the Alt-Right frames itself, and it's pretty ingenious. People
discuss protection of culture, and completely step over the part about "their
own culture".

The Alt Right ideology relies on the principle that White culture is the
"true" culture of the nation, and that other contributions simply do not
count. They cast an illegitimacy to the history of minorities in the US.

The debate about protecting the culture is irrelevant because they do not want
to protect the nation's culture. They want to protect White culture.

~~~
nailer
It's the same as the (generally left) folk feel fine about when preserving
areas from other cultures.

Want to preserve Oakland or the Mission as is? That's fine.

Don't like seeing women forced to walk around in burkas and girls having their
genitals cut (I live in London where these re both issues)? That's racist.
Obviously Islam isn't a race, and this makes no sense, but it's something
people still claim.

Either preserving existing cultures is OK or it isn't.

~~~
quonn
I'm sure genital mutilation is already prohibited under British law. The
problem with the burkas is that is it of course difficult to determine or
prove that they are not worn voluntarily. I know some girls from liberal
(Christian/Atheist) families who converted to Islam who wear a Niqab. I can
guarantee you that they are not "forced" to do this.

~~~
nailer
FGM is illegal, but there has been zero prosecutions, and estimated a few
thousand girls mutilated since the laws were passed.

One of the reasons FGM goes on in the UK is precisely that people don't want
to be seen as judging a culture, even for something which is statistically
more likely to happen in a culture: ie, the problem could be addressed with
medical inspections in schools but this won't happen for fear of being called
Islamophobic (oddly enough I learnt most of this from reading Bridget
Christie's book, and she's pretty damn left). A similar situation occurred in
the systemic rape cases in Rotherham.

And yes, of course people can voluntarily submit to something, it doesn't
change that others are forced.

~~~
quonn
So I've checked and I agree that the numbers of mutilations that apparently
happen in the UK is quite shocking. But I don't see how medical inspections in
schools are the answer to be honest.

~~~
nailer
Medical inspection would provide clear indication to parents that the
government is actually checking for FGM and prosecuting accordingly.

------
drawkbox
Not a good idea at all, I am never for censorship and I think we are losing
sight of why freedom of speech is important which is insane to me.

It is good all these ideas are out there even if you don't agree with them.
Shrouding them will only encourage it.

Strict absolutist and authoritative law/parenting almost always leads to
acting out, while passive law/parenting let's knowledge decide individual
choice.

Putting a stranglehold on knowledge that is bad will give people more desire
to find confirmation biases in it. Let them naturally learn it is bad
themselves.

This is just the Streisand effect and way too similar to what they do in
China, like the censoring of Kim Jong Un fat memes[1]. Twitter just got
political and that is not wise in business.

[1] [http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2016/11/16/502312268/...](http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2016/11/16/502312268/kim-fatty-the-third-no-more-china-reportedly-censors-
mockery-of-kim-jong-un)

~~~
masondixon
> we are losing sight of why freedom of speech is important which is insane to
> me.

I'm with you. Its very difficult to find people like you who think practically
and consider side-effects, etc.

I'm curious as to whether this has changed over time. And how could the
founding fathers have such foresight.

Where have all the thinkers gone?

~~~
tnone
They learned to self censor, lest they be shouted down and branded for heresy
by the left wing ideologues with an axe to grind.

~~~
trdrake
...or be branded as "brain-washed" dupes of lame-stream media by right wing
ideologues with a meme-generator.

everyone's shouting past each other.

~~~
someguydave
There is no symmetry here. The left has captured most education, media and
government organizations.

------
glenndebacker
The problem is that it's a counterproductive move. In Belgium / Flanders we
had an extreme far right political party called the Flemish Block.

Af first the media gave them no air time, they weren't invited to political
debates, they filtered them out like they didn't exist. The political parties
created a cordon sanitaire, somekind of agreement to never create a government
with that party involved.

The result? The biggest win ever for a far right party. To this day that
particular moment in history is called black sunday. They were the underdog,
the ideal party to give a protest vote and their idea's for a lot didn't seem
that ridiculous as they got no confrontations.

Later they tried to outlaw the party but it just resurfaced as a new party
called the Flemish importance (Vlaams Belang). Then something changed and they
got more airtime, they were invited to political debates or debates too court.

The result ? People saw how ridiculous some of their arguments were or how
they lost debates when confronted with just sane arguments.... Today they are
a marginally sized party at best and nobody is scared from them anymore.

The only way you can defeat those ideas is not by taking away their voice, but
to let them speak.

~~~
wu-ikkyu
>The only way you can defeat those ideas is not by taking away their voice,
but to let them speak.

>We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil
that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with
all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be
exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human
conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

-Dr. King, Letter From a Birmingham Jail

------
grandalf
Why does everyone think censorship is the answer? The idea that "evil" ideas
pollute minds is the same reasoning that neocons have for why Islam must be
stopped. It's bizarre and farfetched.

Our values of free speech and free expression are far more important than the
cringeworthy and extremely stupid things some people choose to say.

Twitter should not ban these accounts, or should it ban ISIS accounts or
anything else. Twitter is a platform, not a curation service or thoughtcrime
police force.

~~~
commenting
Twitter doesn't have to be a neo-Nazi propaganda platform if it deems that
unacceptable. They should (and do) have the freedom and liberty to choose who
uses their service.

~~~
masondixon
> neo-Nazi propaganda

Can you give me a definition of this that can be consistently applied to all
tweets?

The issue is that you can say something is "neo-Nazi propaganda" and it will
shut down the discussion and publicly shame the person because the phrase is
so powerful.

~~~
jsf666
> because the phrase is so powerful

Less day by day, thanks to the liberals

------
SyneRyder
Previously discussed here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12966699](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12966699)
(343 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12971779](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12971779)
(21 comments)

~~~
leereeves
But buried quickly.

That first link with 343 comments and over 100 points in an hour was on the
third page before it was two hours old.

~~~
wallace_f
That doesn't seem right. Maybe it would be better for mods to allow a
democratic process of discussion

~~~
grzm
There's been plenty of discussion over the past month or so on why this might
happen. IIRC, check some of the Peter Thiel-related submissions from around
the time he donated to the Trump campaign.

Sometimes it's a function of user flags (which affect the ranking even if
[flagged] isn't visible) which is a more democratic process, and sometimes
it's a function of what whether the mods determine that the discussion is
constructive and valuable to the overall health and purpose of the HN
community. I don't know if the mods always comment when this is the case, but
they have in the past done so.

~~~
RickS
My understanding is that there are also algos at work, for example posts that
are very young but have many comments fall faster, as a way to negate flame
wars.

~~~
grzm
You're right. Forgot about those when I initially commented, and noticed a
sibling had already mentioned them so I thought it was gratuitous to update
mine.

------
treebog
Twitter has a huge harassment problem. This has serious implications for their
business; as we saw the other week, Disney passed on acquiring them in part
because of the harassment situation. This seems like a good and necessary move
to strengthen their business by making their platform a more tolerable place
to visit.

~~~
masondixon
Why can't they just provide better filtering tools. You choose who you can
follow. They should pull some of their ad-targeting tech to focus on filtering
harassment.

------
Animats
Right-wing competitors to Twitter are already on line. See
"[https://gab.ai/"](https://gab.ai/")

 _“We need a conservative Facebook, a conservative Google, a conservative
Twitter”_ \- Steve Malzberg

~~~
ignoramceisblis
What do they do with their data? Make a list?

------
icu
The right to free speech is fundamental to a better society.

Ideally we have a free market of ideas fostered by tolerance and respect for
different points views. Not being willing to expose yourself to different
points of view creates ignorance.

Corporate censorship like this sends a signal that Twitter is not willing to
be that communication platform for free speech.

------
icu
You cannot have a conversation with someone who doesn't acknowledge your right
to have a divergent view. This sows the seeds of fascism and this is an
existential threat to West.

All other political and bulling noise aside, this to me is the core of what
Twitter is doing. As soon as the market understands that Twitter is betting
against freedom of speech I believe the market will adjust accordingly and it
will have a stock sell off and loss of users.

------
bougiefever
This is probably a good move. They should also suppress fake news sites that
are obviously not satire, but are meant to mislead. I can't believe I actually
support preventing people from sharing things, but somehow this propaganda has
to be exposed. This is a sad state we are in now.

~~~
leereeves
This is a corporation enforcing its world view.

Would you say the same if Twitter were owned by the right-wing and was banning
left wing users?

~~~
spamizbad
There are several major "right wing" corporations that do just that. As a
consumer you can make your choices accordingly (Hobby Lobby and Chick-Fil-A
come to mind)

You might be inclined to grant someone permission to stand on your lawn, but
chances are if they stood on your lawn and then held up a sign that said "Send
Jews to the gas chambers!" you'd likely ask them to leave. And if they
refused, you'd eventually force them to leave.

And calling that expulsion "enforcing your world view" would be a very extreme
way of explaining what you did.

~~~
BurningFrog
Are you saying Hobby Lobby and Chick-Fil-A have banned leftist from shopping
there?

~~~
ascagnel_
Hobby Lobby and Chick-Fil-A have moved to force their world-view on others.

------
kchoudhu
I guess the cost of allowing these accounts is greater than the ad revenue
they bring in now that election season is over.

------
badthingfactory
Does anyone have screenshots or examples of hate speech from these accounts? I
would like to make an informed decision about whether I should continue using
Twitter. I use Twitter every day, but if they're banning accounts because they
don't agree with certain views, I am absolutely closing my account.

------
chippy
Typing this regardless of the thread being flagged and disappearing - but I've
a comment on Twitter generally.

This, to me, seems the result of a Western tech company meeting the world.
It's a result of growing and enlarging the people using it. It's an indication
of different cultures, societies and ways of looking at the world.

To get more people, Twitter has been forced to appeal to a wider range of
people. When it started it was just people like us, techies, using it. It was
good, remember?

So we are seeing what happens when cultures and people clash. If anything,
Twitter needs to make the bubble better, not reduce the bubble. Facebook does
this really well - things can be shared from outside the circle but its not
usually some internal comment thread. Twitter makes it too easy for different
people to talk to each other.

As humans, the best way is to have more empathy for others, to understand that
other people you encounter may have different world views. Most online
conflict occurs not due to ideas but to lack of empathy of others. Twitter as
it is does not encourage empathy between people.

------
JulianMorrison
From Twitter's perspective, I'm figuring they see these people not as a
political movement, but simply as a nest of trolls, who go around harassing
people and inciting mobs and are thus poison to the network.

------
superkuh
I don't care about the politics of this move but this is why I have never, and
will never, use third party platforms to communicate. Centralization always
leads to abuse.

------
dmritard96
Seems like there is a case to be made that Trump should be suspended. Would
certainly be a loud statement but also would put twitter in an interesting
position.

~~~
cwilson
I'd never thought of that before. Trump values his Twitter account quite a
bit. What could he do if Twitter decided to suspend him as a protest?

I don't think this will ever happen, but it's an interesting hypothetical.

~~~
striking
Whatever social network he would then move to would gain many, many followers.
That would be Twitter shooting itself in the foot.

~~~
pekk
There are already Breitbart, FOX News, etc. which work on this principle even
without anyone being banned.

------
BurningFrog
Being headquartered in the most leftist city in the country may be risky for
Twitter when trying to navigate these issues.

I wonder if any uncloseted conservatives or republicans are in the room, or
even the building, when these things are decided?

------
ebbv
Good. Twitter, Reddit and other sites have a delusion that they have to allow
hate on their sites in the name of free speech. That is false. These sites are
not the only means of expression. Storm front has existed longer than those
sites. They can go there to spout their hate.

I truly believe that by playing host to hateful views over the last 6+ years,
sites like Reddit and Twitter have helped to mainstream them and make the "alt
right" (Neo-Nazi) movement what it is.

------
lujim
Something tells me the term Alt-Right is becoming one of those worn out labels
thrown around with the same amount of precision as a sawed off 12 gauge.

------
commenting
Good riddance. Twitter shouldn't let itself be a recruiting platform for neo-
Nazis and their ilk.

This is consistent with the ban on ISIS propaganda accounts, which was also a
positive step towards combatting online extremism.

~~~
hnsucks2
Are the banned "alt-right" commentators commensurate with ISIS propagandists?
If so, how much else ought to be banned? Black power groups? Anti-fascist
groups? Many "social justice" accounts post anti-white, anti-male messages
with impunity. Should we then paint all people concerned with social justice
with the same brush?

~~~
pekk
Were the literal 1930s Nazis comparable to ISIS propagandists? If not, then
why not? What about modern Neo-Nazis, are they really better? Why?

~~~
stale2002
The people that the left calls neo nazis would likely reject that label.

Just because you call a group you don't like a Nazi, doesn't make it true.

~~~
commenting
Doesn't make it false either. There is significant overlap between established
neo-Nazi movements and the "alt-right", both in membership and rhetoric.

~~~
hnsucks2
Where else are they going to go? There is a "significant overlap" between
social justice and anti-white, anti-male, anti-cis propaganda. There's no
convenient label to stick on that one just yet, but if you want to be
consistent you're going to have to paint all social justice people with that
brush.

------
norea-armozel
Personally, I'm glad Twitter is cleaning up these jerks but they seem to be
focusing on the most visible aspects of Twitter and ignoring the rest. It's
easy to nuke an account like Milo's but it's another to nuke an account of a
small time user (200 followers and the like). It's these folks who pose the
biggest problem IMO because they're the ones most likely to act in a manner
that is abusive on the site (barring Milo himself who seems to think he's
above the ToS of any site).

So, it's basically a whitewashing act to ensure they look like they're solving
a problem of abuse but in practice they ignore the 99% of abuse that actually
goes on. They think if they hit that 1% the 99% will get in line. But I think
the Twitter devs don't understand that they don't care. It's not as if their
lives depend on Twitter. They'll just laugh and make alt accounts to continue
the cycle over and over. Twitter needs a complete redesign for the abuse to be
minimized or otherwise eliminated. And it wouldn't even need banning involved
at least in my opinion. In some ways, I think Google had it right with G+
because it was easier to filter out people on circles than anything else. Too
bad Twitter is so popular.

------
peterkshultz
I'd imagine at least part of Twitter's rationale for doing this was to make
users contrast their proactivity with Facebook's stalling on labeling or
removing fake news. Twitter looks more on top of things as a result.

------
cft
Regardless of the alt-right point of view, I can only hope that
[https://gab.ai](https://gab.ai) takes off and does not get shut down or
sabotaged. We need a neutral social media.

~~~
pekk
Is it the same thing to be permissive and to be neutral?

~~~
return0
Yes. Would you say your power outlets are political?

------
noonespecial
Looks like the time has come for Twitter to choose to be either a community or
a platform. Really either is fine for a business to be but the choice does
need to be made decisively.

Freedom of speech runs headlong into freedom of association.

------
MichaelBurge
Twitter doesn't turn a profit, do they? If they get a couple months of losing
users, that could easily pop their inflated stock. I'm not sure this is a good
move for them.

~~~
pekk
IF they don't turn a profit, doesn't that suggest they're doing something
wrong and should change, rather than that they should conservatively refuse to
change anything and hope that they will suddenly start turning a profit that
way?

~~~
MichaelBurge
Your conclusion appears to be "Twitter should change something".

There are a lot of things businesses can do to increase profits: They can get
more users, they can cut employees, they can move their offices to cheaper
areas, they can pursue important business deals, and more.

If a plane is off-course, you wouldn't go to the cockpit and start flipping
levers and pressing buttons at random. But you could make the same arguments
you've made against a person opposing that idea.

------
return0
You can't keep suspending heretics forever and expect not to be called the
Spanish Inquisition.

------
EJTH
So freedom of speech is now only for religious extremists like ISIS, Al-Nusra
etc. whos supporters are free to express themselves on twitter.

The more the establishement tries to fight the alt-right, the more free (and
valid?) publicity it recieves.

I didn't really believe in the so called "anti-white" agenda, but the more I
see these guys getting censored for simply expressing their (somewhat
legitimate) concerns and their views while ISIS supporters are free to express
their hate towards the general western population, the more I am beginning to
accept the fact that there is a clear anti-european sentiment deeply rooted in
international politics. In other words: It really does seem like there is an
"anti-white" agenda, especially considering how islamist extremists are free
to share their decapitation pictures on facebook and twitter while raising
concerns for some official stats gets you banned and labelled as racist.

BLM acitivists are free to call for the killing of all "white cis males" on
twitter, that is apparently not hate speech at all - Sometimes I just get the
feeling that the entire world is FUBAR.

~~~
speeder
If you want to see anti-white agenda, pay attention to instances of GamerGate
interacting with politics...

First, Hillary campaign and pro-Hillary journalists keep lumping GG with
altright and Trump, ignoringt surveys that show that most GG people are more
in the Bernie camp instead.

This basically forced GG into politics, and then you got outright anti-white
racism on the mix... for example one of the biggest opponents of GG is
Bioware, they even made a tweet comparing trump to Reapers (mass effect
antagonists, they are a species of racist robots that use mass brainwashing as
basic weapon), but the same people in Bioware made blatant racist tweets, for
example tweeting photo of a cup with words about white tears, making a
feminist conference and writing in one of the slides that white women are
against the cause and should be ignored, defending hiring decisions based on
race (ie: hire everyone that ins't white) and so on.

GG also had spats with a guy that literally wrote that he wanted white people
dead, twitter banned his critics instead.

Or the infamous Leslie Jones vs Milo incident, GG people dug up lots of racist
tweets from Leslie, and then tried to defend Milo, and were banned instead.
someone then copied Leslie tweets, made a new account, and tweeted the same
tweets but changing whites for other races, and got insta banned.

GG also has lots of devs, that of course noticed GitHub controversies,
including that GitHub refused to fix their official code of conduct that
explicitly writes that anti-racism protections don't apply to whites.

GitHub also hired people that were already infamous on Tweeter for making
explicitly anti-white racist tweets.

------
Kenji
It seems like the alt-right fascist-leaning people are more dedicated to free
speech than the left-leaning liberals. Oh, the irony. I'm surprised how the
liberals still didn't learn the lesson after Trump was elected. Trump would
have never been elected if it wasn't for the silencing and ridiculing
campaigns of the liberal media. Turns out people don't like being patronised,
what a surprise.

~~~
Burritamos
I don't think most people have the desire or awareness to come to any
conclusion about what the 'liberal media' was doing. I think it's more about
believing what they were told by someone who spoke on the matter with an air
of authority.

If you ask the average person on the street about the improprieties of the
media leading up to the election, they're not going to go into the details of
the DNC emails and explain the cozy relationship between them and the media.
They never read them. They're going to say the media is 'rigged' because
that's what they were told over and over until the notion stuck with them.

------
jbmorgado
I can't really see how the answer for what just happened in these elections,
is even more "socially acceptable" censorship.

Clearly a lot of people were faking their world views on the social media in
order to appear "politically correct" and avoid being shunned and attacked
from people that see themselves as politically correct and informed.

And then, on the ballot without anyone looking, they, of course, voted against
that and we got Trump, Brexit, etc...

And now, people are expecting that the answer to on how to actually get these
people back, inform them, make them more open and try to show them a better
view of the world, is to censor their thoughts even more?

------
colemickens
_> Those with the "correct" political views can basically tell people to kill
themselves_

That's just simply untrue. Hyperbole and lies don't help in these
conversations. (And I say this as someone who thinks that Facebook and Twitter
have no place being arbiters of "truth").

Downvoted to -4 on HN for saying that Twitter doesn't allow liberals special
privileges to threaten violence on Twitter. Gotta just love this place
sometimes, and by love, I mean that it's full of shit.

~~~
sctb
We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12974189](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12974189)
for being much more uncivil than what is called for on this site. We have to
ask again that you not do this.

------
yAnonymous
Always entertaining when supposedly leftist organizations like Twitter out
themselves as fascists.

You're not better than the people you're suspending. In fact, you're a lot
like them.

------
stevebmark
Finally, Twitter is growing up and moving past its cowardly, childish "free
speech" dogma. It's taken them way too long to get here though.

~~~
leurfete
Good trolling sir. You had me going for a moment.
[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zT09Dy13slc/T3CInkRWjRI/AAAAAAAABI...](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zT09Dy13slc/T3CInkRWjRI/AAAAAAAABIM/u0ONBtTxNYI/s1600/salute.jpg)

~~~
geomark
Where I live a lot of kids have been arrested and imprisoned for that salute.

It so strange as an American expat living under a military dictatorship where
any improper speech is harshly dealt with to see American slowly but steadily
moving in the same direction. What's weird is it's starting with restrictions
on speech in the private sector and education. I'm wondering how long before
laws and the courts get behind the restrictions.

~~~
leurfete
Not long friend. Our campuses reflect a growing antipathy toward free
speech.[1] Whatever starts there usually ends up in the courts.

I've become convinced that the American left is now totally post liberal, in
the sense that they consider classical liberalism -- à la John Stuart Mill --
highly offensive.

1.) [https://www.thefire.org/spotlight-on-speech-
codes-2016/](https://www.thefire.org/spotlight-on-speech-codes-2016/)

