For years, one of the main grievances among Twitter users has been the ability for anonymous trolls to send abusive comments to other people on the service.Yiannopoulos isn't anonymous, so I begin puzzled. And "troll" and "abusive" are vague, abstract words. The next sentence is:
But on Tuesday, Twitter barred one of the most egregious and consistent offenders of its terms of service, Milo Yiannopoulos, in an attempt to show that it is cracking down on abuse.So I'm thinking I'll want to know, specifically, what terms of service Yiannopoulos is thought to have violated and what were his "egregious" and "consistent" violations. Also, Twitter seems to be accused of using Yiannopoulos for show. Has he been singled out because of his visibility or because the people he's bothered are the ones Twitter wants to cause to think it's really doing something?
The ban against Mr. Yiannopoulos, a technology editor at the conservative news site Breitbart and known by his Twitter handle, @Nero, follows a campaign of prolonged abuse against Leslie Jones, a comedian and co-star of the recently released “Ghostbusters” movie..... Hundreds of anonymous Twitter commenters hurled racist and sexist remarks at the star’s Twitter account, rallied and directed by Mr. Yiannopoulos this week. The news media picked up on the abuse after Ms. Jones began retweeting screenshots of the litany of comments sent to her over the past few days.I need to go to the linked article to see what kind of "abuse" has been aimed at Jones — not by Yiannaopoulos but by people he "rallied and directed" (whatever that means). You've got a gigantic Hollywood movie, which seems to me to be a big, ripe, deserving target for criticism, mockery, and — yeah — abuse. Of course we should savage this crap! Who is this movie star that her dramatic sensitivity and walking off in a huff should mean a damned thing to any sensible citizen?
Okay. Now, I've read the linked article about the "campaign of prolonged abuse," and I fail to see what's special about Jones as opposed to thousands of other actors, musicians, and politicians that little people say mean things about all the time. And I really don't know why the banning extended to Yiannopoulos.
Twitter did not comment directly on Mr. Yiannopoulos’s account or actions of the past 48 hours, but the spokesman said over that period, “We’ve seen an uptick in the number of accounts violating these policies and have taken enforcement actions against these accounts, ranging from warnings that also require the deletion of tweets violating our policies to permanent suspension.”Now, I've read the whole NYT article and I never found out what terms of service Yiannopoulos supposedly violated or what his "egregious" and "consistent" violations were or how he "rallied" and "directed" other Twitter users and I'm just left with my original suspicion that he was singled out because he was a high-profile antagonist to the people Twitter has decided to comfort and protect and because Jones was high-profile and dramatized great offense taken.
Could someone just quote the Yiannopoulos tweets in question? Does Twitter mean to say that if one user expresses hate for a particular celebrity, he'll be held responsible for the way other users express hate for that celebrity? That's not a workable policy. Think of all the big-time Twitter users who express hate for Donald Trump and the lesser users who come out with obscenities and true threats? Twitter wouldn't kick them all out.
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137 comments:
He doesn't fit or support the Narrative.
Milo and other conservative voices need to move off of twitter and on to alternate platforms (like twister - http://twister.net.co/). Starve the beast!
My cynical side thinks that this has to do with removing an effective voice in the period before an election. That's what the IRS did with Tea Party groups. Why wouldn't Twitter do it?
I will bet my next year's salary that Milo's outbound abuse is nothing compared to Michelle Malkin's inbound.
All you need to understand is that Twitter is owned and run by Leftists.
A lot of humorless feminists have moved into positions of power at tech companies. From the article:
"Twitter has said that dealing with abuse and “trust and safety” issues is one of its top priorities, though it has not detailed how it will handle the issues in the future."
And there is this:
"Twitter's new Trust and Safety Council is an Orwellian nightmare"
http://theweek.com/articles/607490/twitters-new-trust-safety-council-orwellian-nightmare
NPR reported on this too &, of course, left out completely that Yiannopoulos is conservative. In another publication he got smeared as being "alt-right", as if he just happens to be gay with a preference for black boyfriends, British, & Catholic who just forgot to pack his bed sheet mask when he flew in from the Old Country.
Twenty-something yo bureaucrats at work. Another reason to raise the voting age.
Poor reporting is too common at the NYT.
Milo says feminism is cancer and hates Islam. That's all the Nyt needs to know.
I think Milo insulted the movie. Some people started sending Leslie Jones gorilla pictures. They tried to tie that to Milo, but I haven't seen any screenshots of that. There should be plenty if it's true.
Twitter is pornography. Masturbation is not healthy in public. Case closed.
Next case!
I had the same reaction to a different article on this--never said what was so offensive (and I'm not about to search Twitter for it) that this woman had to drop Twitter (they didn't have to repeat it verbatim, but at least give the reader some idea of why it was so egregious). Nor did it explain what Milo Y did that "encouraged" any of this.
So we're left with: "some guy somehow got other twitter users to send messages so nasty a woman quit twitter, and now twitter banned the guy for it." Which is about as useful a story as "four planeloads of travelers missed their destination" to describe 9/11.
"I'm just left with my original suspicion that he was singled out because he was a high-profile antagonist to the people Twitter has decided to comfort and protect and because Jones was high-profile and dramatized great offense taken."
1. Twitter is run by CA libs. Nero is a conservative and high profile.
2. As a company, Twitter is in real trouble. The Street hates it.
3. Banning this guy generates controversy which generates users which generates revenue. Number 2.solved.
One would have to peruse the conservative blogosphere over the past year to fully understand the context of Twitter's consistent targeting of conservatives, Milo in particular, who has been repeatedly suspended, then upon outcry repeatedly reinstated, as well as high profile users like Adam Baldwin who have quit Twitter in protest of Twitter's egregious partisanship.
The power to control communication and information is a temptation no walled garden can resist, and none does.
I happened to be on the Twittering machine and was watching this episode go down. A lot of the pics and graphics posted to the lady's account were repugnant but none of them came from Milo himself, nor I did I see him directing his followers to harass her. He wrote a review very critical of her film, she said something about reporting him and then his followers jumped in. I think he only directed 3 or 4 twitterings at her before she blocked him.
Anyway, the stuff posted to her account was really beyond the pale but the Yianopoulos fellow didn't do it. I guess Twitter must be homophobic.
Are we still allowed to be surprised that privately owned internet platforms are not free speech zones?
"I fail to see what's special about Jones as opposed to thousands of other actors, musicians, and politicians that little people say mean things about all the time."
Yes, you do. Of course you do.
She's a black woman involved in the feminist rallying point du jour. Could there possibly be a bigger sacred cow? And I think there's at least a 50 percent chance the whole kerfuffle about her poor, injured feelings and her tearful exit from Twitter is a cynical ploy for sympathy. Like a hot young girl posting a picture on Facebook with the caption "Why am I so ugly?" begging for likes and compliments. Which Jones has been getting by the bushel.
Twitter is under control of SWJ and they always try to shut opposing voices up
Twitter puts the Kafka in Kafkaesque.
He is guilty and you can't see the evidence.
Asking this is not friendly and may be interpreted in a way you will not like.
Why is there so much hate?
Twitter, @Jack Allows Users to Call Black Breitbart Reporter ‘Coon’ — Repeatedly
Doesn't Althouse automatically delete a certain poster's posts?
Private forums are private, they aren't free speech zones.
Twitter has struggled with anonymous trolls and targetting of certain users. As their platform slides they can either let it disappear or they can try something to stem the tide.
Not sure this is the best solution, but it's better than just fiddling while their company burns
Teenage Boys With Tits: Here’s [Milo's] Problem With Ghostbusters
This entire walled garden - users-as-product paradigm seems overripe for paradigm shift to me. Remember CB radio?
Of course you can't find any reference to those things because they don't exist. Twitter has become all social justice war all the time. I was one of the first 500K people @mjbwolf to use the service and I thought it was great until the last year or so when Twitter morphed into a savage progressive hate-filled sewer. One used to be able to have polite or profane back-and-forths over issues.
First the trending topics became skewed. They refuse to let #TCOT or #HHRS hashtags trend because they were "overtly political" which means the wrong kind of politics. Hugh Hewitt's radio show is pretty mainstream and "top conservatives on Twitter" was one of the oldest hashtags used. But because they represent the wrongspeak kind of politics they are kept off the list. Of course gun control and climate change have no trouble making the trending topics list with a variety of political hashtags.
The Twitter created the Orwellian "Trust and Safety Counsel" made of social justice warriors who, fresh off their sad puppies campaign to wipe conservatives off the list of rightspeak sci-fi authors eligible for HUGO awards, vehemently went after conservatives on Twitter for non-existent and made-up "infractions" that are never explained and hidden behind opaque language that tells you just as much as the lengthy NYT article did. Squat.
So after stripping Milo of his blue check mark showing he is who he says (editor for Breitbart) without explanation it is no surprise the fascists of Twitter have sent him to social media Siberia. Meanwhile, progs who threaten conservatives are left alone, their tweets archived for the world to see. All the lefties full of hate are allowed to tweet at will. Terrorists can post jihad videos and calls to war. But conservatives can't make fun of an alleged comedienne who happens to be black (and "starring" in a crappy remake).
There is clear trend afoot from Silicon Valley and the socialist media sites. Conservatives can USE the service but not engage with tender progs lest their superior feeling get hurt. Now you see why we don't trust Zuckerberg and the idiot who run twitter. They are all scum, wanting to control what people see and hear, hoping to keep the public ignorant about all the liberal lies propping up the bloated candidate they wish to see rule over us.
Ann Althouse said...And I really don't know why the banning extended to Yiannopoulos.
Respectfully, Professor, yes you do.
If people like Milo complain about unfair treatment, though, nice people like you are likely to label that "whining."
Anyway, Media is biased, unfair to non-Lefties, and tries to disguise its obvious bias as "caring about safety" or some such excuse. Surprise!
http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2016/07/19/suspendneroparty-trends-across-twitter/
His tweets are reprinted here. There is no evidence he asked anybody to do anything.
Mark, your comments do not address anything in Althouse's post and have nothing to do with the controversy over banning people who have not, by the evidence posted in public, actually broken ANY of the terms of service. That's why this is an issue. Even private companies (publicly traded) are supposed to live up to the terms of service they impose, right? Twitter's actions are arbitrary and unexplained. The things they claim some "bad" people did is outweighed by all the bad things the "good" people on Twitter do.
I don't like or care for the guy, but Twitter has been looking to ban and get rid of him for months. They went so far as to remove his blue checkmark for awhile to try and make it seem like it wasn't really him.
As far as I can tell, they found an excuse to do what they've always wanted to do.
And there is this:
"Twitter's new Trust and Safety Council is an Orwellian nightmare"
Given who they named to the board (Anita Sarkeesian? REALLY?), Orwellian is being kind. Twitter is a leftie circle jerk. Nothing more. Conservatives would be well-advised to stop giving them their material at no cost.
It's even funnier since the "harassed" has posted some quite offensive things in the past herself on Twitter.
I think Milo insulted the movie. Some people started sending Leslie Jones gorilla pictures. They tried to tie that to Milo, but I haven't seen any screenshots of that. There should be plenty if it's true.
Referred to it, if memory serves, as teenage boys with tits, commenting that women don't tend to find queefing jokes hilarious yet the movie hits those high notes early.
One would have to peruse the conservative blogosphere over the past year to fully understand the context of Twitter's consistent targeting of conservatives, Milo in particular, who has been repeatedly suspended, then upon outcry repeatedly reinstated, as well as high profile users like Adam Baldwin who have quit Twitter in protest of Twitter's egregious partisanship.
Robert Stacy McCain has been banned. As was his account for his book promotion as well.
The Twitter created the Orwellian "Trust and Safety Counsel" made of social justice warriors who, fresh off their sad puppies campaign to wipe conservatives off the list of rightspeak sci-fi authors eligible for HUGO awards, vehemently went after conservatives on Twitter for non-existent and made-up "infractions" that are never explained and hidden behind opaque language that tells you just as much as the lengthy NYT article did. Squat.
They were also very much on the losing end of Gamergate as well.
They're using this as a pretext, because they can't ban him for his Trumpish comments aobut Muslims.
Banning him to defend Jones, who is a woman and black, looks a lot better.
I don't think people really are this stupid, but we'll see.
There was a doctored image of a tweet showing Jones calling Milo an "Uncle Tom Fag". And that set off a bunch of idiots to attack Jones. I suspect whomever made the doctored image also contributed to some of the horrible images thrown at Jones.
On Twitchy, there are some details.
Many young, educated people believe that free speech and due process are structures imposed by heterosexual white men on society in order to privilege themselves and deprivilege people who are not heterosexual white men.
It therefore is courageous and correct to deny people freedom of speech and due process. You are fighting the power that uneducated, poor hillbillies have over feminists from upper-middle-class families with degrees from our finest universities.
And the producers of this highly unnecessary Ghostbusters remake are able to turn this into a chapter in the culture war, and skip over the fact that this is another episode of Hollywood recycling their usual marketable dreck because god forbid they take any real risk with an original film. And now they can paint any criticism as sexist (and thanks to this, racist).
Unless Mr. Y wrote "ok, white folks--let's show this uppity black lady a thing or two!" (or something to that effect) it sounds more like he drew attention to her film (which he found lousy) and she fought back, bringing the twitter mob in for retaliation.
You either want free speech and are willing to tolerate the ugliness of it, or you want something carefully curated and sterilize it a bit.
If you don't want to deal with Breitbart, here are the tweets:
"If at first you don't succeed (because your work is terrible), play the victim.
EVERYONE GETS HATE MAIL FFS https://t.co/W572qB4Vqw
— Milo Yiannopoulos ひ✘ (@Nero) July 18, 2016"
"Wow, Leslie! pic.twitter.com/Ni2J3rod9R
— Milo Yiannopoulos ひ✘ (@Nero) July 19, 2016"
"Don't tell me some mischievous internet rascal made them up! https://t.co/u8QRgaThTE
— Milo Yiannopoulos ひ✘ (@Nero) July 19, 2016"
"It's not racist to point out that a movie fucking sucks. The end! See you tomorrow at Clinton Cash launch and GAYS FOR TRUMP PARTY
— Milo Yiannopoulos ひ✘ (@Nero) July 19, 2016"
"Many young, educated people believe that free speech and due process are structures imposed by heterosexual white men on society in order to privilege themselves and deprivilege people who are not heterosexual white men."
Anyone saying that can call themselves something, but it certainly isn't "educated". Maybe "indoctrinated".
""It's not racist to point out that a movie fucking sucks. The end! See you tomorrow at Clinton Cash launch and GAYS FOR TRUMP PARTY"
Well, that's a smoking gun right there! How can you read that and not think "come on, racist fans, pile on!"
In fact, just hating a gratuitous Hollywood re-make is per se racist and sexist because of course any "all women" version of a movie is an improvement. Just like opposing Hillary means you hate women in power.
And the producers of this highly unnecessary Ghostbusters remake are able to turn this into a chapter in the culture war, and skip over the fact that this is another episode of Hollywood recycling their usual marketable dreck because god forbid they take any real risk with an original film. And now they can paint any criticism as sexist (and thanks to this, racist).
Hell, some critics got lambasted as being misogynistic for simply saying "I have no desire to watch this film and I will not review it". Sony was hoping that making this an SJW tentpole would help the movie. A $46M opening is a poor sign when it was mainly people who wanted to blast it and people who wanted to support it and neither are going to be repeat viewers to any degree. Sony is likely to lose a ton on it...especially since China won't air it, either.
You either want free speech and are willing to tolerate the ugliness of it, or you want something carefully curated and sterilize it a bit
It's not even that it's curated.
It's that it is curated in such an uneven manner. If you're a Leftie, getting banned seems exceedingly difficult.
Milo was banned for being extremely effective at exposing false narratives. The term the tyrants like to use was "hooligan". But now they ramble on about offending favored classes of people with truth exposure.
The message is that social media turns you off at will. all of you non-persons take heed.
Althouse wondering why the NYT embargoes facts and news it does not like? She is too smart to really be wondering that.
Yeah, they wanted him off twitter before the demo convention and they got the pretext and put him down.
Buzzfeed has a couple of tweets that don't seem THAT offensive. Depending on what tolerance level... (from zero = banning clapping, to eleven = Trump announcing he's running for potus) you want to apply. It seems like their policy Twitter is day to day. They make it up as they go.
This tweet has it just right...
"There are actual cop killer advocates on Twitter. ISIS is on Twitter. And Twitter picks on a gay conservative"
If Jones was not black, it's unlikely she would have been extended the kind of privilege twitter extended to her here.
And yet hateful and (to my mind) racist comments from the BLM crowd are just fine.... Yep, terms of use violations. That must be the reason.
Kind of like hate crimes, are in the eye of the beholder.
You really don't know why they banned him?
"And yet hateful and (to my mind) racist comments from the BLM crowd are just fine"
-- Try reporting them. Allegedly, his tweets were reported and deemed inappropriate. From what I've read here, absent anything else, I'd say that's reaching. But, maybe there's a tweet or a Direct Message not here, and if there is, Twitter should point to it for us.
At the moment though, it looks like Twitter wanted to send a message.
"Sony is likely to lose a ton on it...especially since China won't air it, either."
I'd like to see all the big studios go flat, and sell off their divisions into smaller studios that might be able to focus on some original content. I have a natural aversion to remakes, particularly unnecessary ones. Did anyone seriously say to themselves "I'd really like to see Ghostbusters again, hey, maybe with a new cast! All women will be hilarious!"
"There are actual cop killer advocates on Twitter. ISIS is on Twitter. And Twitter picks on a gay conservative"
Geez--if they still allow actual incitements of violence on their site, they have no grounds for banning "racially insensitive" remarks. I mean, hell, maybe the remarks are incredibly nasty, but that's a far cry from encouraging violence.
-- Try reporting them. Allegedly, his tweets were reported and deemed inappropriate. From what I've read here, absent anything else, I'd say that's reaching. But, maybe there's a tweet or a Direct Message not here, and if there is, Twitter should point to it for us.
That the head of Twitter got involved, I will say it was his call. And he is as Leftie as they get.
Fortunately, Twitter will be dead. Good riddance.
I'd like to see all the big studios go flat, and sell off their divisions into smaller studios that might be able to focus on some original content. I have a natural aversion to remakes, particularly unnecessary ones. Did anyone seriously say to themselves "I'd really like to see Ghostbusters again, hey, maybe with a new cast! All women will be hilarious!"
Thing is...it could've worked. Take it out of NYC since it no longer gritty. Don't basically pretend the original didn't happen. And don't cast Mellisa McCarthy who is fucking death. And don't hire a director like Feig who loves "subversive" comedies to direct what is allegedly a mainstream project.
Geez--if they still allow actual incitements of violence on their site, they have no grounds for banning "racially insensitive" remarks. I mean, hell, maybe the remarks are incredibly nasty, but that's a far cry from encouraging violence.
Milo has gotten some heinous tweets himself and deals with it. Twitter will not care. But, yes, there are plenty of tweets advocating violence there --- but since they call for it to the "right" targets, Twitter sits on their thumbs. Just like Facebook does to pages that do the same.
Building on Mike's great observations at 11:11, another thing I've noticed among these younger indoctrinated folks is the high they get when they get something to "trend" on Twitter. It's creepy. I know a 25 y.o. Grad student that went to some Soros-backed protest, and was practically orgasmic when he found out they were trending on Twitter. Then the crazed search to see if they were in any pictures--this was their moment! It's all so bizarre.
It's because he's gay and doesn't toe the progressive party line. Twitter is run by homophobes and ideological bigots.
Mike, we don't know what this user has in his DM's, but Twitter does.
In my guestimation, they are kicking him out based on private messages which they cannot acknowledge reading. As a moderator at a very large discussion board for a few years we ran across that very issue a couple times - the user broke the terms in a so-called private message.
Those messages are only private in terms of other users, but we liked to keep those users in the dark that top level moderation can access what they want. Sorta the way we let them talk themselves into thinking we also allowed free speech.
Users generate the product and views which are being sold. Best to let them take the blue pill and not see our walled garden and instead imagine themselves in a wide open space.
If he said something damaging in a DM, Twitter would release it. Their goal is to delegitimize him, not ban him. All they'd need is whoever he sent it to to agree to release it, which if he was harassing someone, there's no reason for them NOT to agree to release it.
rhh: "Twenty-something yo bureaucrats at work. Another reason to raise the voting age."
They learned everything they know from the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at Snowflake University. Same kind of techniques, too.
I've had a lot of bitchy gay friends. It's what they do. Get over it!
mezzrow: Twitter puts the Kafka in Kafkaesque.
Actually, it was LinkedIn that put the Kafka in Kafkaesque.
OK, that may be a bit too high-scale-web-developer inside ball, but I find it funny.
Mark said...
Mike, we don't know what this user has in his DM's, but Twitter does.
In my guestimation, they are kicking him out based on private messages which they cannot acknowledge reading.
I'm old enough to remember when double secret probation was comedy. I'm sure it's a coincidence the left's about face on questioning authority came when they became the authorities.
Who's Milos?
Matthew - And admit they read them?
Given Twitter believes he is encouraging this trolling, I doubt any of the people he encouraged would agree to let Twitter release it as they are his co-conspirators and would be implicated as well.
So they can either admit that messaging on their system is not private or just do this as they are. I don't see a benefit to their releasing the message as his defenders would never believe it [or believe it wasn't faked] and it would change the story to being about Twitter instead of about Milo and their use policy.
As it is, people who already hate Twitter have another reason to - many people don't understand the medium and don't care to, Twitter's story will fly for everyone except those who wouldn't believe it despite what they provided. Why reveal their hand?
Mark: I was assuming that he'd have to have sent a harassing DM to someone, not coordinating with someone.
So, Twitter is a private business that can ban people it doesn't like. I guess those lunch counters in 1960's Alabama should have used "Trust and Safety" committees to decide who could sit at them...
Stop making so much sense, Ann! You're making everyone's largely empty brains hurt!!
Pro-Choice is a many selective thing. It giveth and taketh away.
Blogger Rick said...
I'm old enough to remember when double secret probation was comedy.
You mean to say that the behavior of today's educated liberal class is indistinguishable from the behavior of the neo-fascist college president in Animal House?
Could someone just quote the Yiannopoulos tweets in question?",
By quoting him, damikesc pointed out why They don't quote him.
Twitter and the NYT don't like Yiannaopoulos, but can't say why.
Diagnosis: probable virtue signaling.
Terry:
Dean Wormer initiated the investigation to justify his predetermined punishment.
Sound familiar?
Dan Aykroyd chimes in...
link.
Besides Trump, here's why:
'Yiannopoulos wrote a scathing review of Ghostbusters, published Monday on Breitbart, "Teenage Boys With Tits: Here's My Problem With Ghostbusters." In it, he wrote that Ghostbusters was a "film acting as standard bearer for the social justice left ... full of female characters that are simply stand-ins for men plus a black character worthy of a minstrel show."'
Perversely, I want to see the Ghostbusters movie now to see just how bad it is.
Political correctness means never having to grow a thicker skin.
"Has he been singled out because of his visibility or because the people he's bothered are the ones Twitter wants to cause to think it's really doing something? "
Both of those things.
Just as a thought experiment, can you imagine any insult against Trump that would be vile enough to get that user banned from Twitter......I have only a sketchy idea of who these two people are, but they're both in the public arena by their own volition.
I refuse to read Yiannopolous (I tried once, he was horrible - pure partisan red-meat fodder of the sort I can't stand from any source) - despite some rough, broad agreement on some issues.
But Twitter's full of it on this, transparently.
Nobody should have ever used Twitter in the first place, and I'll continue not doing so.
well they dont even let him off with a warming
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2016/07/19/gq-writer-apologizes-tweet-about-wanting-beat-benghazi-mom-death?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=marketing&utm_campaign=gq-benghazi
Whatever the wisdom or stupidity of Twitter's conduct, this Milo character is not a voice for liberty or conservatism. He's an exhibitionist who is pro-authoritarian and has Daddy issues. I mean, this freak literally calls Trump "Daddy."
I guess you can try to frame an argument "First they came for the freaks who call Trump 'Daddy,' and I said nothing," etc., but c'mon.
Anyone considered that the racially offensive tweets to the actress are false flag operations sent by fellow lefties?
Seems like the most reasonable explanation for this entire incident.
False Flag all the way by the SJW crowd.
Who's Milos?
Don't be bitchy Titus......
"what were his "egregious" and "consistent" violations" Tweeting while gay-con.
"I really don't know . . ." Faux ignorance, right? You've been cutting down on the faux surprise shtick a bit ("I can't understand why" etc.), and I think it has made the blog better.
Anyway, thanks for exposing the latest Prog wagon circle. It's not tweets they find egregious, it's the very existence of non-Progs. That's what makes Milo a dangerous you-know-what. Of course, it extends to you as well. SSM support won't save you.
Perhaps Twitter's policy is just for the purpose of excluding/removing a small handful of commenters who, they believe, intend to ruin their forum. Nothing wrong with that, right?
Could someone just quote the Yiannopoulos tweets in question?
You can tell by all the responses, professor, that no, they can't. Mark is the real give away. He wants you to believe that the evil was done in private, through private messaging, which twitter got their hands on, but can't admit to.
Therefore, you can safely assume, since you have quite a large number of lefties all of a sudden on your site, that there is no damning information out there concerning Milo and his tweets.
Left Bank of the Charles said...
Perhaps Twitter's policy is just for the purpose of excluding/removing a small handful of commenters who, they believe, intend to ruin their forum.
Twitter is a publicly traded company. It's sole purpose is to provide value to its stockholders. All of its policies serve that end.
The best thing about Twitter is that ordinary people can talk back to the famous and powerful, or at least to their social media aide. I use that privilege sparingly. But some people just go all Shouting-Thomas in a disagreeable dialogue and can't let things go.
I blame psychotropics.
LOL, Brian, you obviously don't have any teens or young adults in your life. "Daddy" is a popular term to call someone you love or think is hot/awesome. Milo is using the term "Daddy" tongue in cheek. I've never seen anything to indicate he has daddy issues. Milo definitely goes over the line sometimes, saying some offensive and/or provocative things but politically, he's spot on. And he has a huge following. That's why Twitter and the rest of the leftosphere finds him so threatening. I agree that this was likely a false flag operation just to silence him at a pivotal time.
"I guess you can try to frame an argument "First they came for the freaks who call Trump 'Daddy,' and I said nothing," etc., but c'mon."
I'll give it a whirl--this Milo sounds like a bit of a weirdo and for all I know he is a despicable person, but that doesn't justify twitter's reaction and the media's hyperventilation over him ripping on what may be a lousy film (I haven't seen it yet) and somehow "encouraging" bigots to tear into one of its stars. Yes, I know twitter's a private company and can curate its site how it wants--it's still a lousy principle to uphold which appears guided solely by Milo being the "wrong" sort.
As you note, if we can't circle the wagons when they come for the freaks who call Trump "daddy" then there won't be much left when they come after the rest of us.
You're assuming the old cultural rules apply. They don't. It used to go like that, and now it goes like this.
Ah, "Brian No Profile"
Pajama Boy, or Trigglypuff?
There's that word "Daddy" again.
Who uses that word an awful lot lately, and doesn't know who "Chuck" is?
Whatever the wisdom or stupidity of Twitter's conduct, this Milo character is not a voice for liberty or conservatism. He's an exhibitionist who is pro-authoritarian and has Daddy issues. I mean, this freak literally calls Trump "Daddy."
He's very tongue-in-cheek with his Trump "obsession". He labels himself a cultural Libertarian, where adults should be allowed to do as they please as long as they don't physically harm others. There is little freaky about him.
Twitter is a publicly traded company. It's sole purpose is to provide value to its stockholders. All of its policies serve that end.
Looking at stock performance and profitability --- apparently not.
The best thing about Twitter is that ordinary people can talk back to the famous and powerful, or at least to their social media aide. I use that privilege sparingly. But some people just go all Shouting-Thomas in a disagreeable dialogue and can't let things go.
It's cute that this is believed.
Most of "famous" use blockbots to prevent communication with "common folks".
Yes, I know twitter's a private company and can curate its site how it wants--it's still a lousy principle to uphold which appears guided solely by Milo being the "wrong" sort.
It also defeats the purpose of Twitter. If all you can say is what they say you can say, why even bother?
I don't...but why would anybody? All they can sell is what you provide.
I saw one of the tweets she received which showed a promo poster from a 1975 CBS Saturday morning kids' show, "The Ghost Busters"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_Busters
This show featured Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch as wacky slapstick detectives who chased ghosts, a'la Scooby Doo...with their sidekick, a "gorilla" (a guy in a suit) who spoke, drove cars, etc...
The tagline on the tweet was:
"Yours isn't the first Ghostbusters to feature an ape"
Some of the tweets may be false flag, but there's a lot of hate in the world and I presume most of them are genuine. Such insults are wrong, and they should be condemned.......But why are some insults so much worse than others? The BLM crowd have been bashing cops with some vigor in recent times. Their actions have inspired their fans and followers to not just tweet insults but to murder police officers.......It will never happen but if Peter Dinklage should come out for Donald Trump, I confidently predict that he would receive a ton of little people insults. That's the way of the world.
I guess not many of you care, but the racist attacks on her Twitter feed were pretty jaw-dropping. Not the usual subtle stuff- this was real Bull Connor stuff. I don't know how responsible for any of that this one guy is, but regardless, y'all's comments about how this is "PC" stuff show you haven't seen what happened.
Effect precedes cause: Breitbart is now claiming Jones' troll-boxing preceded Milo's mention of her by 2 1/2 hours.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2016/07/20/leslie-jones-twitter-trolls-milo-yiannopoulos/
Breitbart's take: Jones engaged trolls to promote self and movie, Twitter used Jones to rid itself of Milo.
While Twitter is a publicly traded private sector company like Google, like Google it has now been promoted by all media as effectively a public media utility. It will probably take more tiny acts of self-control and will not to use it than this age can muster to seriously gain its attention.
"Doesn't Althouse automatically delete a certain poster's posts? Private forums are private, they aren't free speech zones. Twitter has struggled with anonymous trolls and targetting of certain users."
One individual's blog isn't parallel to a whole service like Twitter. That's why your analogy is bad. My blog is on Blogger. Blogger is comparable to Twitter.
I have my blog form my expressive purposes and I choose to have a comments section and I alone determine the policy of how widely inviting I want to be. I happen to choose a pretty open policy and I'm all for free speech, but I do, as the instructions above the compose box say exclude "a small handful of commenters who, I believe, intend to ruin this forum."
Twitter is a private business, so it doesn't have a legal problem with restrictions on speech, but it is subject to persuasion and market forces as it sets its policy and the argument for having a strong free speech policy is, I think, very strong. I have made it many times on this blog over the years. Twitter, like Blogger (and Facebook), should value freedom of expression and should avoid viewpoint discrimination and censorship. These services are very important to people now, and the company should show respect for our interests.
Of course, we can just leave and go somewhere else if we want, but that's part of the pressure on Twitter/Blogger/Facebook to have a free-speech policy. It also feels pressure (from people like Jones) to do censorship, and I'm sure they worry about losing important segments of users, like women and children or religious people or people who don't want to see dirty words and pictures. They can't let the worst voices drive out everyone else. I have some sympathy for what they are doing with trying to keep up the numbers of users, but I really don't like seeing catering to celebrities over vibrant critics and I don't like seeing viewpoint discrimination. They should feel strong pressure to remain politically neutral.
"You really don't know why they banned him?"
The point of my post was: The NYT reporting is inadequate. I want the article not to make assumptions but to provide facts. It's not about my ability to suspect or guess things or to do my own research. This is a critique of the NYT.
I wonder if Peter Thiel will say anything about Twitter.
He does (or did) own a huge lot of Facebook, besides Paypal.
I don't use either Facebook or Twitter, but Paypal is very useful to me.
Breitbart makes a pretty persuasive case that Jones did what twitter and the NYT are accusing Milo of having done.
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/07/20/double-standards-leslie-jones-racist-twitter-history/
For what it's worth, I don't think Jones or Milo should be banned.
"Doesn't Althouse automatically delete a certain poster's posts? Private forums are private, they aren't free speech zones. Twitter has struggled with anonymous trolls and targetting of certain users."
You cannot have a public business and then discriminate. People are shutting down bakeries and various other businesses because you are not allowed to have a publicly owned business and discriminate against gays for example. How far this goes we will find out.
Twitter the company is trying to discriminate. They are a company that offers a service to the public. This puts you outside of various 1st amendment protections as we have been learning for a while.
@Gahrie's shade throwing
Lol. You know he's jealous.
Seems like Clayton Hennessey is right. Twitter has probably just been waiting for a dust up to ban him.
I like the guy (maybe because I am not gay). He revels in speaking truth to power, when the power is on the left. He is funny to me, because he is so good at pissing off those whom I think are the wrong people. Probably today, there is no one who can piss off the campus SJWs and little snowflakes than he. If he were straight, or acted straight, they wouldn't overreact, as they do. Being gay is supposed to qualify him as an officially aggrieved victim. But he uses that supposed official victim hood for conservative ends, and that is just not tolerated. Just like what the left does to conservative blacks, only maybe worse, because he is somewhat of a flames, and that is somewhat voluntary, whereas skin color is not.
Funny thing is that the gays around here in rural MT are no less conservative this election than anyone else. If they put a political sticker on their truck, it will be for Trump, and not Crooked Hillary (despite many of them being adamantly convinced that she is a Lesbian). But they aren't flaming out there like Milo, because no one cares. They care on campuses across the nation, so that is part of his persona.
Ann Althouse said...
The point of my post was: The NYT reporting is inadequate.
Yes ma'am, and the point of our responses is: of course it's inadequate! It's inadequate for a perfectly obvious reason, and that reason is bias. The bias, in this case, ensures that the actual "journalism" (as in, reporting facts) is bad--their bias causes them to produce bad journalism and inadequate reporting. As the kids used to say: "duh!" Of course it does--this is not unusual.
But...isn't pointing this out a form of "whining?" Or is it not whining because you, as an uninvolved party, are being harmed (getting crappy reporting) as a result of the bias, so therefore it's ok for you to complain (but it woudln't be ok for the target of the bias to complain)?
Clayton Hennesey wrote: The power to control communication and information is a temptation no walled garden can resist, and none does.
Brilliant and succinct.
Vox does a better job of explaining things:
http://www.vox.com/2016/7/20/12226070/milo-yiannopoulus-twitter-ban-explained
harrogate @2:26pm --
As someone at the top mentioned, check out Michelle Malkin's feed sometime. A conservative, Asian woman, she gets the most repugnant tweets you will ever see, and she manages to roll forward. Leslie Jones, a public person, needs to grow a freaking skin. Or use the block button.
Just remember, people, if you offer a service like baking cakes or taking pictures, then you have to service gay weddings.
But if you're service is facilitating speech online and you don't like a gay man's speech, feel free not to provide your service to that gay man.
"Twitter is a publicly traded company. It's sole purpose is to provide value to its stockholders. All of its policies serve that end."
Well, one could say that OUGHT to be the sole purpose. But when SJW's get in seats of power all bets are off. Hmmm, could the shareholders make a case that the obvious and blatant politicizing of Twitter has harmed share price? Class action Hooooo!
Bearing, I notice Vox also contained less than no evidence that Milo encouraged anything. Do you wish to present this proof?
Blogger readering said...
Vox does a better job of explaining things:
http://www.vox.com/2016/7/20/12226070/milo-yiannopoulus-twitter-ban-explained
Actually, it does a poor job of explaining it. It tries to defend it by claiming that Milo is a racist and transphobic and a bunch of other words to describe him, but it doesn't provide anything showing us how he violated twitters terms of service.
It just accuses him of being an awful person that they don't like. The one thing they point to is that he tweeted to her saying everyone gets hate tweets (Milo gets a lot of hate tweets, which he likes to share and mock).
And then she accuses him of being behind all the hate she is getting.
Yet, of the two, she is the only one to send her twitter followers after someone (A violation of the terms of service).
So, in typical MSM fashion, it tries to defend twitter, but it does a poor job of giving us a good explanation of why Milo would have been legitimately banned.
If, on the other hand, you meant, it provides a good explanation of what twitter was thinking (IE: We hate Republicans and the right) then yes, it does do that.
Blogger readering said...
Vox does a better job of explaining things:
http://www.vox.com/2016/7/20/12226070/milo-yiannopoulus-twitter-ban-explained
The best part of that Voxplaining is they'd never do that with terror attacks.
For example:
As a part of the general harassment campaign, Yiannopoulos’s followers created a series of fake tweets, some of which appear to have been made using browser developer tools, others at the fake Twitter creation site Let Me Tweet That for You; a look at the site shows a number of similar fake tweets made recently and also attributed to Jones.
Yiannopoulos "screencapped" and reacted with fake shock to the tweets, leading many Twitter users to believe that the tweets came from Jones’s real account. The tenor of the fake tweets portrayed Jones as speaking in an exaggerated "street" slang and depicted her as dropping anti-Semitic and homophobic slurs. When Jones tweeted that she had blocked @Nero, she was inundated with racist replies in response — an (extremely offensive) representative sample comes from a self-described Gamergater, "shitposter."
Within the alt-right’s fortified castle, Reddit, users were positively gleeful over Jones’s upset reaction, particularly at r/KotakuinAction and the notoriously offensive r/OpieandAnthony. (Warning: Link may contain racial slurs and hate speech.)
They are trying to make Milo responsible for other people's bad deeds. Making connections based off of pretty loose stuff.
But what do you suppose Vox does every time a Muslim kills a bunch of people?
Or, if black people kill a bunch of cops, do you think they Voxsplain to us how the rhetoric of Democrats has caused these officers to be killed?
Yeah, me neither.
Blogger Johnathan Birks said...
Perversely, I want to see the Ghostbusters movie now to see just how bad it is.
Me too but not enough to leave my house and certainly not enough to pay for.
I'm in no hurry. It'll be in Netflix, Amazon, TV soon enough.
John Henry
Would teenage boys with tits be transgendered?
Or might it be a reference to our Titus and who he hangs out with?
John Henry
Blogger Brian said...
Whatever the wisdom or stupidity of Twitter's conduct, this Milo character is not a voice for liberty or conservatism. He's an exhibitionist who is pro-authoritarian and has Daddy issues. I mean, this freak literally calls Trump "Daddy."
But on the plus side he did set off Trigglypuff who has given the internet countless millions of hours of entertainment.
So there is that.
Twitter (TWTR) is the most fantastically bad public company in the last few decades. Never earned a dime. Never figured out what it wanted to be when it grew up.
Now it bans Milo, an interesting character, at a fantastically auspicious time.
What does Twitter want to do? Maybe go to 150 characters? Maybe ban links to videos? There are lots of ways to go, Dorsey. You could go full cartoon or something. Hey, how's that Square thing going, which should be a money-printing machine?
Here's what I keep wondering:
1) Twitter has negative revenue. That means the company has to spend cash it doesn't have to keep the place running. It's probably not that expensive. You could probably keep a shop like that running on $10m/year. But it has never made a dime.
2) Twitter has about a $13b market cap.
Who is keeping this pile of steaming shit afloat? There's a story there.
Ann, what makes you think that the NY Times needs to provide reasons for its opinions? They are the NY Fucking Times!
He committed the Thoughtcrime of being both gay and conservative. That's all you need to know.
Most of "famous" use blockbots to prevent communication with "common folks".
Of course. But others will see it if you use a germane hashtag, yes?
Their only product is their stock. They can churn that stuff out.
Blogger Brian said...
Whatever the wisdom or stupidity of Twitter's conduct, this Milo character is not a voice for liberty or conservatism. He's an exhibitionist who is pro-authoritarian and has Daddy issues. I mean, this freak literally calls Trump "Daddy."
Uh, no. He is a member of the same party I am, the party of leave me the fuck alone. You don't seem to know what the word authoritarian means. The leftists are the totalitarians these days. Milo actually is what leftists pretend to be - brave and genuinely counter-cultural.
You think someone should be stripped of his free speech because because he calls Trump "daddy" and you're creeped out by it? Who's the authoritarian? Who's the fascist? Look in the mirror, asshole.
According to NPR Milo's Twitter account was clean. The claim is that he was using other social platforms (Chan4) to incite twitter attacks on Jones. That makes this even more bizarre. So Twitter will now ban people based on content from other social media. Ugly.
Forgot to post link if anyone is interested.
http://www.npr.org/2016/07/20/486785197/twitter-bans-breitbart-editor-for-sending-offensive-tweets-to-leslie-jones
"The point of my post was: The NYT reporting is inadequate. I want the article not to make assumptions but to provide facts. It's not about my ability to suspect or guess things or to do my own research. This is a critique of the NYT."
Miss Althouse - you are judging NYT by the standards which are not applicable to it. NYT uses same tricks that the good old Soviet media was using (trust me, I know, I was there). You just have to learn how to read it - and then you understand what they are really saying. Ann Coulter was quite descriptive - if a liberal media outlet is very upset and noisy about something, but it is providing few actual facts to prove their point, then you know they are lying. And that's that.
Strangely, threatening to beat a woman to death because she said something you don't like at a political convention is not the kind of "targeted abuse" that gets you kicked off Twitter. At least not this week -- I imagine it might be different next week.
Haven't looked at the entire thread so this may have been mentioned, but here is an interesting article about the timeline of the exchange between Milo and Leslie. It shows that she was already engaged with critics long before he became involved:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2016/07/20/leslie-jones-twitter-trolls-milo-yiannopoulos/
The interesting thing now will be to see what the cartilage/bone ratio of the overall conservative spine turns out to be. Milo is fairly restricted to being a hobbyhorse of Breitbart, occasionally picked up by Drudge, but his treatment fits squarely within a trend that has been building against conservatism by Twitter for some time.
Now conservatives at large have all the objective evidence they really need to begin routinely referring to the homophobe Jack Dorsey and the racist Leslie Jones as a matter of everyday conversation. Will they have the spine to bring equal armament to the fight, or will they conclude forfeiting position at cost is being the better of the two sides?
Moreover, Ms. Jones has a spokeswoman contract with Allstate wherein her fetching side is used to lure potential customers into its good hands. What would Allstate think if these tweets about "white people shit" came to be broadly assigned as its calling card?
If right isn't right and wrong is never called out by right in perfectly available ethical terms, then only might becomes right, and conservatism deserves to be routinely reduced to being the catamite of the left.
Once again, here's how that usage works:
The homophobe Jack Dorsey.
The racist Leslie Jones.
Répéter...
The homophobe Jack Dorsey.
The racist Leslie Jones.
"But...isn't pointing this out a form of "whining?" Or is it not whining because you, as an uninvolved party, are being harmed (getting crappy reporting) as a result of the bias, so therefore it's ok for you to complain (but it woudln't be ok for the target of the bias to complain)?"
No. I'm holding their feet to the fire. It's what I do.
I guess not many of you care, but the racist attacks on her Twitter feed were pretty jaw-dropping. Not the usual subtle stuff- this was real Bull Connor stuff.
What? She got attacked by German Shepherds and knocked down with a fire hose?
That bastard Milo!
I know Ms. Althouse will never probably read this, so most likely will not answer, but what is the difference to denying the access to the Twitter service and the service of baking a cake? I saw another Conservative commentator post on Twitter about this yesterday and she posted screen shots of multiple death threats.
What is the law on this?
The whole point of the NYT's omission is that they don't want to say why Milo got banned, which really has to do with the views he expresses than for any particular abuse. I'm sure somewhere in the ToS there is a provision that allows them wide latitude to ban users if complaints are filed.
I know back when I used to read Merchant Services Agreements, some of them had very sweeping rules over what the merchant's rights were when disputes arose. They didn't quite say "YOU LOSE" but some of them came pretty close to it (of course, those particular merchants had ways of making life rather unpleasant had someone chosen to dispute a legitimate charge).
Might be time for a public accommodations suit.
Ann Althouse said...No. I'm holding their feet to the fire. It's what I do.
Ok, but what I'm looking for here, Professor, is how you make the distinction between whining and "holding their feet to the fire."
When I say: the NYTimes is ridiculously biased and their biases make their efforts at journalism fail--they often fail to inform readers of the actual facts due to their bias and political/ideological agendas. You say: That's whining, Hoodlum.
You say: This NYTimes article goes out of its way to not inform readers and thus fails as journalism. I respond: you're right, Professor, and the reason for that failure is their bias. You say: My criticism of the NYTimes is holding their feet to the fire.
I ask: why is it "whining" when others point out Media failures due to bias, but it's not whining when you do the same?
Twightlight
“A lot of the pics and graphics posted to the lady's account were repugnant but none of them came from Milo himself,
“Anyway, the stuff posted to her account was really beyond the pale but the Yianopoulos fellow didn't do it. “
This is what Althouse was asking:
‘I need to go to the linked article to see what kind of "abuse" has been aimed at Jones — not by Yiannaopoulos but by people he "rallied and directed”’
Not what Y did but what others did. So you answered her question, although without citing specifics.
Clayton Hennesey said...
The interesting thing now will be to see what the cartilage/bone ratio of the overall conservative spine turns out to be. Milo is fairly restricted to being a hobbyhorse of Breitbart, occasionally picked up by Drudge, but his treatment fits squarely within a trend that has been building against conservatism by Twitter for some time.
Now conservatives at large have all the objective evidence they really need to begin routinely referring to the homophobe Jack Dorsey and the racist Leslie Jones as a matter of everyday conversation. Will they have the spine to bring equal armament to the fight, or will they conclude forfeiting position at cost is being the better of the two sides?
Moreover, Ms. Jones has a spokeswoman contract with Allstate wherein her fetching side is used to lure potential customers into its good hands. What would Allstate think if these tweets about "white people shit" came to be broadly assigned as its calling card?
If right isn't right and wrong is never called out by right in perfectly available ethical terms, then only might becomes right, and conservatism deserves to be routinely reduced to being the catamite of the left.
Once again, here's how that usage works:
The homophobe Jack Dorsey.
The racist Leslie Jones.
Répéter...
The homophobe Jack Dorsey.
The racist Leslie Jones.
You know, of course, that it isn't illegal to be any one of those things.
Which is beside the fact that nobody knows who those people are and nobody gives a fuck.
No.
really.
nobody cares.
@ Rusty @ 7/21/16, 5:58 AM
Well, as for being illegal, the irrelevancy of that is right up there with also not being an effective way to moisturize skin, raise prize hogs, and many other things it is also not. That doesn't stop liberals themselves from using boycotts and other assaults to materially damage conservatives based on "racism", "homophobia" and other also non-illegal cultural fulcrums.
Right now, the status quo seems to inevitably be that the liberal side dishes it out, the conservative side dutifully takes it, then the conservative side whines about it mightily on blogs, like this one.
Putting Leslie Jones out business with Allstate for doing the same things conservatives get assailed for every day might go along way toward evening the sides, possibly even toward stopping this frivolous but damaging weaponization of cultural differences.
When you respond to the bully who is always starting shoving matches by soundly breaking his nose and cheekbones, you not only begin to save yourself further annoyance, you save others from him as well.
But I'll acknowledge that enough are slavishly enough in thrall to Twitter to not allow themselves to be bothered, particularly conservatives. Pity.
this vox piece explains it pretty well
http://www.vox.com/2016/7/20/12226070/milo-yiannopoulus-twitter-ban-explained
pdug said...
this vox piece explains it pretty well
http://www.vox.com/2016/7/20/12226070/milo-yiannopoulus-twitter-ban-explained
7/21/16, 10:04 AM
That piece pretty well explains nothing. They can not point to anything that Milo actually did. They claim that "his followers" did things but can not show one tweet where he directs them to.
Then there is also this it’s notable that Twitter seems more vulnerable to brigading from the internet’s alt-right corners — Reddit, 4chan and 8chan, various men’s rights forums, and other niche right-wing, libertarian-leaning, heavily male-dominated communities — than other social media platforms.
I seem to recall a rocket scientist and a shirt, and something about a comet and [wait for it...] twitter that resulted in the fellow having to give a tear filled apology but yep, the alt-right is the one that abuses twitter. Got it.
Though [from the article] it seems that twitter is fine with Jones calling Milo "the Uncle Tom of gay [people]".
She is a friggen comedian for goodness sakes. Has she never been heckled? Is her skin so thin that she can't deal with it? It looks like she deals it out pretty good but cries to "daddy" when she gets some back.
Least we forget twitter is a notoriously unsafe space for women. Cause women are forced, FORCED to be on twitter and there is no way for them to block anyone and these are like words! Oh the humanity!
readering said...
Vox does a better job of explaining things:
http://www.vox.com/2016/7/20/12226070/milo-yiannopoulus-twitter-ban-explained
7/20/16, 3:22 PM
pdug said...
this vox piece explains it pretty well
http://www.vox.com/2016/7/20/12226070/milo-yiannopoulus-twitter-ban-explained
7/21/16, 10:04 AM
When the hired trolls start stepping on each other with the same talking point, you know your blog is being heavily targeted.
TMZ just had something on it.
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