"But Twitter’s power as a tool for harassment became clear in 2014 when it became the epicenter of Gamergate, a mass harassment campaign that flooded women in the video game industry with death and rape threats.... In September 2016, a Russian troll farm quietly created 2,700 fake Twitter profiles and used them to sow discord about the upcoming presidential election between Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton.... In 2017... women boycotted Twitter during the #MeToo movement, and Mr. Dorsey... announced a list of content that the company would no longer tolerate: nude images shared without the consent of the person pictured, hate symbols and tweets that glorified violence. In 2018, Twitter banned several accounts linked to the hack-and-leak operation that exposed Mrs. Clinton’s campaign emails, and it began suspending right-wing figures like Alex Jones from its service because they repeatedly violated policies.... The next year, Twitter rolled out new policies that were intended to prevent the spread of misinformation in future elections, banning tweets that could dissuade people from voting or mislead them about how to do so.... In preparation for the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Twitter banned manipulated videos known as 'deepfakes' and forbade users to share material obtained through hacking campaigns. That policy was tested when The New York Post published an article containing emails purportedly obtained from the laptop of Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s son Hunter. Fearing that the materials came from a hack-and-leak operation, Twitter blocked the article from being shared on its platform...."
A quick history of Twitter's shift away from free speech, excerpted from "Inside Twitter, Fears Musk Will Return Platform to Its Early Troubles/Content moderators warn that Elon Musk doesn’t appear to understand the issues that he and the company will face if he drops its guardrails around speech" (NYT).
It seems that the earliest motivation was to protect women and to keep them from avoiding the site. But then it turned into assisting the Democratic Party.
Posts
111 comments:
isn't it FUNNY, that you can post ANYTHING you want about Republicans? Up to and including
Assassins Wanted
And that's JUST FINE
but IF, you want to post something TRUE; about a democrat... You're Banned
cya
In September 2016, a Russian troll farm quietly created 2,700 fake Twitter profiles and used them to sow discord about the upcoming presidential election between Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton
That's why there was discord in the USA's Presidential election!
Fancy that. A major, organic, truly 'grassroots' movement that was among the first digital battlefields revealing mass collusion between industry, media, government, and perverts caused one of the members of that tetrarchy to change the rules in a way that favored censorship.
I am shocked, SHOCKED, that twitter did this. It's almost like a coincidence or something...
Trust nothing in this article concerning GamerGate.
I think that Twitter should retain the option to reject tweets, saying "Please rephrase."
Ideas should not be banned, but modes of expression should be constrained in a public forum.
"RNB said...
Trust nothing in this article concerning GamerGate."
Yep.
This turned with "Believe all women" and the "Pussy hat" eras?
The Democratic Party set itself up by allowing Weinstein, Clinton, Bill Gates, Al Franken, Woody Allen, Jeffrey Epstein, John Conyers, Prince Andrew, etc. to run wild against women for generations. They were the party of sex and drugs and rock and roll. Free love.
They also drove Senator Bob Packwood from the senate, and tried their best to prevent Clarence Thomas from joining the Supreme Court over sex jokes.
So, when Trump did the same as mainstream Democrats but opposed the party the hammer fell against conservatives?!?!?!?
Textbook psychological projection. Pot calls kettle black. News at 11.
I remember those fake accounts. You could tell because they'd add all these silly stickers to their handle - flags, stars, fireworks, etc. I mean who does that?
Then after the election they disappeared.
They beefed up my follower count tho .
Well first, it’s the NYT so we all know they’ll put a favorable spin on Twitter and it’s actions pre-musk, and they’ll speculate on the parade of horribles post-musk.
To me, that recitation of the progression should be reposted everywhere and discussed ad nauseum. It shows a spiraling out of control from “trying to stop death threats” to “one party rule” so fast it makes the JFK Jr. crash look like a slow roll.
Anyone looking to avoid totalitarian rule, take note.
In September 2016, a Russian troll farm quietly created 2,700 fake Twitter profiles and used them to sow discord about the upcoming presidential election between Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton
Robert "The FBI Whitewasher" Mueller indicted a Russian company, Concord Management, for its participation in the alleged "troll farm".
The indictment was just a propaganda show to fool the American public into believing this stupid yarn. Mueller expected that Concord Management never would respond to the indictment, and so he never would have to present any evidence in a trial.
However, Concord Management hired a US law firm, which agreed to stand trial in the USA.
As the trial date approached, Mueller dropped all the charges, because he never really had any evidence that Concord Management was involved in his imaginary "Russian troll farm".
======
The New York Times still want the US public to believe all this stupid nonsense about an imaginary Russian troll farm sowing discord in US elections.
When they start out with the definition of Gamergate as a mass harassment campaign, it's already off the rails. This is not a description of them accidentally sliding down the slippery slope, this is them joyfully and intentionally creating the slippery slope and then for years gleefully making it slipperier and steeper
Matt Taibbi has an alternate history
According to mainstream legend, Twitter executives were forced to re-think their hands-off, “free speech wing of the free speech party” approach after watching the @RealDonaldTrump account become the world’s most-followed news network during the 2016 election campaign. In doing so, they upended the power of traditional news media figures to filter out what they deemed unacceptable political candidates. The Washington Post would later describe how anguished Twitter general counsel Vijaya Gadde and CEO Jack Dorsey realized after Trump’s election that their product had escaped its pen and needed putting down: ...
The Post went on to describe a Shakespearean tragedy, in which executives like Dorsey and Gadde tried, against all logic and evidence, to cling to doomed speech principles throughout the Trump presidency. Blind to their fate as all tragic figures must be, they held on past the bitter end, leaving Trump’s account up long enough to imperil democracy itself via the insurrection (democracy was always “democracy itself” in the Trump years). January 6th in this version of the story was clearly Twitter’s fault, caused by “a mob of Trump supporters, following the president’s calls on Twitter,” as the Post put it. When the company then belatedly did the right thing and deactivated Trump’s account, the Post said it “brought to an end an era of free speech online” that Twitter “itself helped create.”
That’s one version of history. I remember another.
First, it wasn’t Twitter that undermined the authority of Beltway pundits and back-room kingmakers like Mark Halperin’s* famous “Gang of 500” to decide which candidates were and were not “electable.” Way before 2016, voters had begun the process of rejecting obnoxious elitist rituals like the “invisible primary,” in which nominees were supposedly chosen before primaries even began by faceless groups of donors, party officials, and key media figures. We saw an early preview in 2008, when Hillary Clinton won the “invisible primary” but Democratic voters chose Barack Obama instead.
Read the whole thing, as they say. (my apologies if it is subscriber only)
Gamer gate you for crying out loud. Talk about Fake News.
That policy was tested when The New York Post published an article containing emails purportedly obtained from the laptop of Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s son Hunter. Fearing that the materials came from a hack-and-leak operation, Twitter blocked the article from being shared on its platform..
The Wikipedia article about the word "Pretext"
[quote]
A pretext (adj: pretextual) is an excuse to do something or say something that is not accurate. Pretexts may be based on a half-truth or developed in the context of a misleading fabrication. Pretexts have been used to conceal the true purpose or rationale behind actions and words.
In US law, a pretext usually describes false reasons that hide the true intentions or motivations for a legal action. If a party can establish a prima facie case for the proffered evidence, the opposing party must prove that these reasons were "pretextual" or false. This can be accomplished by directly demonstrating that the motivations behind the presentation of evidence is false, or indirectly by evidence that the motivations are not "credible". ....
[end quote]
The imaginary "hack-and-leak operation" was Twitter's pretext to block all information about Hunter Biden's laptop.
The "true purpose or rationale" was that Twitter intended to prevent the re-election of Donald Trump.
I'll just repeat. you can block anyone on Twitter. You can limit your comment section to your followers. If you're a blue check, you can just talk to blue checks.
if you're being "harrassed", you can stop it. Immediately. you can also report the tweet as abuse and if it TRULY is a "rape threat" - the person can be banned. Of course, all these "Rape threats" aren't threats or rape. as people normally understand the meaning of those words.
THe Left and the MSM constantly engage in adjective hysteria. If you say "I don't like you" to a Leftwing female that's a "Rape threat". If antifa protests thats' "peaceful" is trump supporters do it, its an "Insurrection". Mittens thinks talking about Biolabs is "Treason". Etc.
Yes, Twitter is used for s__posting. As long as lefties can still add the Ukraine flag, Blue Wave, and LGBT emojis to their profiles, why are they complaining?
The Left has zero principles and after cheering on Twitter for years, and dismissing claims of bias with "They're a private company - they can do what they want", the Left/liberals will NOW flip on a dime and make Musk run Twitter out to be an evil sinsiter company that must be regulated.
Just win baby. Just win. That's their only principle.
"Hack and leak" stories do make it onto Twitter:
https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/15/11-hacks-leaks-and-hoaxes-that-twitter-and-facebook-didnt-throttle-because-they-hurt-trump/
All these stories about free speech, yet some comments here never seem to get posted, even when they are less offensive than other comments.
Was it the "l-word"? Is that verboten? Good to know.
I'm not a video game guy but 'GamerGate', from what I know, was one of the first places where extreme left wingers tried to step in, take over, reshape, and eventually kill an industry. The video game nerds didn't understand the endgame but they did get they were being attached and fought back. I saw nothing in all the media reports that they did anything worse than the people who began the assault. They've conducted similar attempts to take over sci-fi publishing and seem to have assumed control of and killed comic books. The sci-fi people had a bit more success fighting off the progressive mobs but the invaders did manage to inflict some severe damage, destroying the Hugo Awards and gaining political advantage in publishing offices. All these campaigns seem to follow the same pattern: Identify a male dominated hobby, throw some deranged female progressives at the hobbyists, call the hobbyists Nazis because they respond in kind.
The pattern is overreach and unintended consequences in an effort to "do something".
Then they realize the power in it and use it deliberately.
Bug to feature.
In the NHL there is a saying that the ref always calls the retaliation.
It seems that the earliest motivation was to protect women
That’s the narrative they wish to spin. Closer to the truth is that a flaming progressive chick did highly unethical things to smear prominent gamers and writers with false accusations of chauvinism and was called out for her perfidy. In an effort to put the birdie’s thumb on the scale they censored men who fought the false charges and amplified her lies. Be wary of blue-check knights claiming to “protect women.”
More lying whores writing for the NYTimes.
If it is not illegal or obscene, what is the harm in letting various kinds of hate speech to be posted uncensored? It's not as if these kinds of tweets will be shoved into the faces of those who find them offensive. Except would-be censors will retweet them in an effort to give them wider exposure, without which they would be seen by very small numbers or marginalized. But after a while these would-be censors will stop retweeting this kind of stuff when they realize that no retaliatory action will be taken. Freedom, as someone said, means allowing stuff you find highly offensive.
Gamergate was a demand by the left that video games contain content that progressives wanted and any desire by actual gamers to say "no, we are already happy with the variety of games" was called harassment. However, like the BLM riots, when GamerGate proponents swatted their critics, the gamergate sympathetic media hardly noticed to mention it. The swatting behavior to harass critics of progressives continues to this day, see Tim Pool.
It's not as if these kinds of tweets will be shoved into the faces of those who find them offensive.
Libs of Tik Tok proves this can be done rather easily. It isn't very imaginative that someone could make Qanon's of Twitter, except they would then have to provide those examples. Better to smear all opponents as Qanon than to provide examples that show how small and fringe those people actually are.
Remember, it was never about what or who Zoe "FetMyLife (FML)" Quinn was fucking or how many.
It was about how many journalists were getting paid to write glowingly about their sloppy-seconds-software-slut and people doing the heavy lifting to find out who these writers were ultimately working for.
The core wasn't rotten. It was worse. It went right to the top, to the highest institutions in the world.
Hard to buy the good intentions sell job when you consider what accounts they left unscathed.
Civility bullshit.
The cry goes up continually to "Amplify (supposedly) marginalized voices" but when somebody like LoTT comes along to do just that, then it's "but not *those* marginalized voices."
If one reads through the comments here, it's almost as if people are fed up with being so exasperated.
"The New York Post published an article containing emails purportedly obtained from the laptop of Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s son Hunter. Fearing that the materials came from a hack-and-leak operation, Twitter blocked the article from being shared on its platform...."
Purportedly! Fearing! Except that the laptop contents were easily checkable and confirmed by at least one Hunter associate--hardly the stuff of a disinformation ploy. Plus the pictures were plenty damning in themselves. The only thing the Twitterati feared was harm to Dem power.
"It seems that the earliest motivation was to protect women and to keep them from avoiding the site. But then it turned into assisting the Democratic Party."
Protecting women, assisting Dems: what's the difference, exactly?
Musk has proposed requiring a valid credit card for each Twitter account. That by itself should take care of troll farms especially if each account requires a unique individual credit card.
Free speech as determined by USSC is broadly permissive. Why not follow that with a few additional limits. For example, free expression is not harmed if using the word Nazi is banned. Given the multitude of ways the term is used it is hard to know what is intended. Same for the usual four letter words. Racist is also problematic as a term for similar reasons. Why not require a tweet to explain how a person or statement is supposedly racist? That would lead to hilarity and discrediting of the tweeter.
I would also ban a user who DOXes someone else or threatens someone else with clear and present danger. Standard credit card software should be able to raise the requirements for getting around a ban such as getting a new card with the same name.
Finally, what is the value of the blue check marks? Seems like a strategy to boost the signal of liberal posters.get rid of them.
Running Twitter as a business can solve the lion’s share of its issues.
This article is an example of what another commenter here the other night called a bad faith argument for what Twitter has done. It is lies all the way down with these people.
"Gamergate, a mass harassment campaign that flooded women in the video game industry with death and rape threats..."
Yeah, well, except that Gamergate was actually an attempt by a few women to turn the boys' club that was gaming into a testosterone-free zone. It may not surprise you to learn that the methods they employed involved multiple statements contrary to fact, and leveraging their sexual attractiveness to manipulate men. Not to say that they were lying whores. Wouldn't want to say that. No, no, no ...
Seems like a lot of excuses to justify their censorship, which is easily shown to be mostly a one-way function. The problem issues should be able to be dealt with using the promised open source algorithm.
@Jupiter
"Not to say that they were lying whores. Wouldn't want to say that. No, no, no ..."
This time that can be said without saying it euphemistically.
Except these whores were shitty programmers with a cashapp. NOTHING screams modernity like a shitty coding hooker with piercings and a cashapp. It's this generations "Hooker with a penis".
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin should have it as a song - "Shitty Coding Hooker With A Cashapp"
I read the other day that Twitter will allow posts to the effect that homosexuals are damned and will go to Hell, but will block posts to the effect that men who identify as women are men who identify as women. If true, this is pretty damning. Musk has his work cut out for him.
"Yeah, well, except that Gamergate was actually an attempt by a few women to turn the boys' club that was gaming into a testosterone-free zone."
I actually know one of the women involved. Your statement is accurate.
"a Russian troll farm quietly created 2,700 fake Twitter profiles and used them to sow discord about the upcoming presidential election"
A year before, the Clinton campaign and the DNC enlisted its media allies to promote Trump and sow discord in the Republican primaries. It was estimated those allies gave Trump $2 billion in free media before the primaries even began. Anything meddling Putin accomplished stood squarely on the shoulders of that effort.
In the summer of 2016, the Obama administration via Susan Rice instructed the intelligence community to "stand down" and let the Russians. After all, if you plan to claim that Russian disinformation is undermining American democracy, it is necessary to let some of that disinformation into the country.
MYTH: Banning Twitter users for rape threats was controversial.
MYTH: Banning Twitter users for posting unwanted nude photos was controversial.
NOT A MYTH: Banning Babylon Bee was controversial.
This is not nearly as hard as Twitter and Dems say it is.
It's still early
Roger Stone was banned again from Twitter hours after reappearing on the site following
Roger Stone was banned from Twitter in 2017 after attacking journalists online.
He tried to rejoin the platform after Elon Musk's purchase of the site and was banned hours later.
"I'm anxious to see how strong Elon Musk's commitment to free speech is," he said.
Longtime political operative Roger Stone briefly returned to Twitter after being permanently suspended – only to be banned again hours later.
"Well bitches I'm back on Twitter," the close ally of former President Trump said on Telegram early Thursday. "I'm anxious to see how strong Elon Musk's commitment to free speech is." Time will tell this will be an interesting evolution.
"Fearing that the materials came from a hack-and-leak operation, Twitter blocked the article from being shared on its platform...."
So based on an emotional reaction without any documentable evidence, they banned a report published by a well-established news organization. And it just so happened that this suppression turned out to impact the election by misleading voters and denying them the right to make their own minds up about information published by a long standing media organization.
When ferreting out the truth, it is wise to take notice of not only what is said, but also what is not said. What is permitted and what is suppressed.
"Hack and Leak operation". Huh? You mean like the Pentagon Papers?
Twitter executives were shocked, shocked they say to discover that people were being twitted on the platform. An executive board was empaneled to provide an emotional response to twitting that was subjectively offensive with banning, banishment and deletion. But none of these highly paid executives ever thought, "hey, this power could be misused for partisan political purposes"
Twit, from the Old English “atwiten”, means "To vex by bringing to notice, or reminding of, a fault, defect, misfortune, or the like; to revile; to reproach; to upbraid; to taunt”
I recall in the early 2000s how nerds, gamers and incels flipped wiggy when women joined the blogs they followed. I'll take his word on 2014 - but that stuff had mostly been dealt with by then. Mostly.
"This article is an example of what another commenter here the other night called a bad faith argument for what Twitter has done. It is lies all the way down with these people."
That would be me. All these articles are the same. Straw man argument for the need of "moderation" to prevent threats and harassment when few would argue the point for real threats and harassment. It's the political censorship Twitter engages in that is the issue. And everyone of these article writers knows it and won't admit to it.
I really don't think Musk's task will be that hard.
You know no one has to reveal they're a woman on Twitter. Of course, many women enjoy playing up their desirability until it's exploited by people who disagree and want to discredit.
I mean I don't think I've ever seen Jake Tapper give journalist tips laying down in bed a la Taylor Lorenz.
Musk tweet on how he ended up on the right
It's words on a f***ing computer screen. A screen that is 100% within your power to avoid. This "safety" crap is, well, crap.
Anyone care to put a number on the mean tweets that led to violence? Actual violence, not "disagreeing with me is literally assault."
"It seems that the earliest motivation was to protect women and to keep them from avoiding the site. But then it turned into assisting the Democratic Party."
Maybe it seems that way to you, after you've swallowed the likely story cooked up by the chaste and virtuous literary scholars at the NYT. Isn't that what it says on the masthead? "All the news that's chaste and virtuous to print".
Enigma said...
This turned with "Believe all women" and the "Pussy hat" eras?
The Democratic Party set itself up by allowing Weinstein, Clinton, Bill Gates, Al Franken, Woody Allen, Jeffrey Epstein, John Conyers, Prince Andrew, etc. to run wild against women for generations. They were the party of sex and drugs and rock and roll. Free love.
Lest you forget the Kennedy/Dodd of waitress sandwich fame
Or Kennedy and his bridge jumping by car
"Fearing that the materials came from a hack-and-leak operation, Twitter blocked the article from being shared on its platform."
Yeah, for sure. That Vestal Virgin Vijaya Gabbe would never let anything be published on Twitter if she could not be absolutely certain of its spotless provenance. And calling attention to Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal's clearly expressed contempt for the First Amendment is ...........................
RACIST!!!!!!!!!!!
or Willie Brown and his Willie handler
It's almost like the Indian immigrants running much of American tech do not have a favorable view of Western Civilization. Like they think they could do it better, and plan to, as soon as they finish cleaning up this mess the Anglos made. It's like they have some kind of a grudge or something ...
I think that Twitter should retain the option to reject tweets, saying "Please rephrase."
That is actually a very good idea. Pointing out what is objectionable and asking people to rephrase their comments could serve an educational purpose and encourage civility. It would be less provocative than deleting tweets and banning people.
Two problems, though. One, if what's "objectionable" is saying that men aren't women, how do you rephrase that in a simpler, "less offensive" way? Two, people who get the power to censor don't willingly give it up and don't like being required to give reasons for their actions.
I just want to reiterate, as a girl gamer, everything that's been said above about gamergate being a Left false flag. Men (except for the rare troll) only care if women can game, not that they're women. Invade our gaming freedom, though, and everyone, men and women, will resist. It's annoying that the Left still tries to dine out on gamergate.
The Democrats/progs are just not able to honestly defend what they are doing.
Reading the New York Times writing about Twitter's current management is like reading the Soviet News Agency TASS writing about Castro.
Ann, may I suggest a "sow discord" category like what you do with "garner"? "Sow discord" strikes me as one of those odd phrases used ONLY by journalists. How does an interloper "sow discord" in what is meant to be a one-on-one battle to win, i.e., a US Presidential election. The essence of discord. If a journalists wants to say "I think some Russians created lying posts with the
intention of helping elect Trump," they are welcome (in my book) to say so; but a motive to "sow discord"?
I wonder if anyone else here remembers UseNet? I've not logged on in 20 years or more. I was surprised to find just now that it existed.
It was the first social network. It was Twitter before Twitter, or even the WWW existed. Lots of interesting forums. In the early 90s I used to play trivial pursuit every friday night at 1200 baud and 25 cents a minute to connect my modem to a server in San Juan.
Snopes, for example, is an outgrowth of Alt.folklore.urban which was a group I liked a lot.
Usenet made Twitter look like a sunday school.
You toughened up or left.
Twitter should ban any illegal speech. That is, illegal under US, no other, law.
It should ban nothing else.
I don't use Twitter much but I am pretty sure that I can block anyone who I don't want to listen to. It would seem that there might be a way to share lists of people who are blocked. For example, Could I buy a list of all the people who have been mean to Taylor Lorenz and mass block them?
Could I buy a list of all the alleged Neo National Socialists and white power folk and mass block them?
Seems there might be a market for an app that would allow one to do that.
Re Taylor Lorents, the 49 year old mean-girl who doxxed libs of Tik-Tok, I've been following her for a week or so now. I really enjoy her ravings. Kind of like Libs of Tik Tok, which I have enjoyed for a long time, but unfiltered and loonier.
John LGKTQ Henry
Twitter had no objection to publishing the illegally-leaked tax documents that ProPublica released, without any concern for their accuracy.
It is Woke dogma to say that if some speech makes "victims" uncomfortable, it is the same as snuff movies/Nazism/violent hate crimes, etc. Not true.
If Ann Coulter says the 19th Amendment was a mistake, as she occasionally does, is that hate speech? Whoever was actually running Twitter turned every pronouncement of Fauci, increasingly revealed as a liar and fool, into gospel. Perfectly sensible views and questions about origins of the Covid 19 vaccine and management of the pandemic were banned or condemned as misinformation. Joe Rogan and others had a good run with ivermectin (as far as I know, harmless in its usual dose; quite effective against parasites which we are unlikely to have in the West), but this happened partly because the Establishment decided we must not think about alternative treatments that might actually treat specific symptoms of Covid 19. Just wait for the vaccine. Then more vaccine. Do what you're told.
Anyone care to put a number on the mean tweets that led to violence? Actual violence, not "disagreeing with me is literally assault."
Well:
James Hodgkinson used Twitter
Frank James, ok he used Facebook and YouTube
Tim Pool gets a number of threats via Twitter and has been swatted 8 times this year.
I am starting to see a trend here. Then again, I'm fine with taking down death threats and even forwarding contact information to law enforcement, which is why I suspect Musk wants to validate accounts to actual humans that can be held responsible. Harassment is a different issue, because personally, I find the typical ads on most websites to be harassing.
The Washington Post would later describe how anguished Twitter general counsel Vijaya Gadde and CEO Jack Dorsey realized after Trump’s election that their product had escaped its pen and needed putting down: ...
Zuckerburg had a similar feeling from what I've read. Trump's people proclaimed a little too loud about how effective they were with Social Media. 2015-2016 social media was a peak in respect to free speech. It all started tightening then, and as a class of product it has been going downhill since.
There are only two options. One is free speech. The other is speech which is censored. I think most of us would prefer the latter, and by a significant margin. The problem is deciding who will do the censoring. I want to be the first one -- and indeed, the only one -- to volunteer.
The merger agreement gives the parties six months to close, subject to agreed extensions. It provides for getting approvals in multiple jurisdictions in US and abroad. The company will be run as it has been in the interim so nothing happens to affect the valuation behind the price. Musk can walk away for $1b or if there is a MAC (material adverse condition). Others can make an unsolicited better offer. The market still prices stock to account for risk of non-closing.
Are we going to be talking about post-closing twitter moderation policies for six months?
Why should any person or business entity be required to pass along the ravings of the President of the United States? That’s why Twitter was right on refusing to post links to the Hunter Biden laptop story that President Trump had Rudy Giuliani plant in the New York Post (right or wrong, the story was planted by Trump) and on banning President Trump (too late to do any good). If you can’t stand up for that freedom, your other musings on freedom of speech seem somewhat hollow.
What do the evidence of your senses tell you? I look at Elon Musk's companies, the teams he has put together, and what they regularly produce...ALL AROUND THE WORLD. Just the other night we stood on our driveway in the dark to watch a SpaceX flight rise in the sky from across the state here in Florida. (I love that we can see a launch in Cape Canaveral from our driveway in Sarasota). It was doing NASA's work. Better than NASA ever did. Just one example of hundreds.
I look at Twitter's entire existence and it looks like a company that peaked out years ago both in its mission and it's talent. From what I've read, it's behind the times in features and if anything, today it stands for censorship. I doubt that was Jack Dorsey's original mission.
It may be just hope on my end, but I am pretty sure that Elon Musk's team will look at the quality of employee at Twitter and the quality of their work, and then get to work on making it what it can be at it's very best.
I am not afraid of what others might Tweet. Hell, I'm not on Twitter anyway. It would be too much of a time suck and I would not have as much time to rant on Althouse if I was on Twitter. But for those who are investing their emotions and time on Twitter to win an argument with humanity, I do believe you will see a rash of new services, features, and improvements that will allow it actually compete for more and better users. Maybe even a few who have previously viewed it as a time suck. Not to mention hundreds or thousands who were censored off the site for wearing the wrong clothes on the wrong day.
The Disinformation Governance Board will be headed by Wilson Center fellow Nina Jankowicz
Yeah, no
The censorship started after Democrats flipped their lids over the fact that Trump used social media to win the 2016 Presidential election
"But Twitter’s power as a tool for harassment became clear in 2014 when it became the epicenter of Gamergate, a mass harassment campaign that flooded women in the video game industry with death and rape threats"
Yeah, just like Musk's tweet about the censorious Twitter lawyer flooded her with "death and rape threats", that for some reason none of the people "reporting" on this issue can actually link to.
What Gamergate DID do was let actual gamers give negative feedback to the people who were using political correctness to destroy the gaming industry
And to a leftist, especially a leftist female bully, telling her she's wrong IS the "moral equivalent" of "death and rape threats".
That is a farcical description of Gamergate, but literally the party line at America's Pravda.
It was a relatively early example of how the deranged activist left operates, as described by David Burge:
1. Identify a respected institution
2. kill it.
3. gut it.
4. wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect.
And it was partly successful, as at least one commenter noted regarding the Hugo Awards.
"In September 2016, a Russian troll farm quietly created 2,700 fake Twitter profiles and used them to sow discord about the upcoming presidential election between Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton"
Wow! ,700 fake Twitter profiles!
Out of a couple hundred million.
The problem wasn't the fake Russian accounts. The problem was the real American accounts, that spread wrong-think and called out lying leftists
Two-eyed Jack said...
I think that Twitter should retain the option to reject tweets, saying "Please rephrase."
Ideas should not be banned, but modes of expression should be constrained in a public forum.
No.
You don't want to see tweets with the F word in them? Awesome. Twitter gives you the ability to block all tweets with that word in them, or any other words you don't like.
Stop trying to decide for other people. The POINT of being an adult is we get to decide for ourselves.
If you're not willing to take that responsibility, then you are a child, and YOU should stay off of social media
Rory said...
...
A year before, the Clinton campaign and the DNC enlisted its media allies to promote Trump and sow discord in the Republican primaries. It was estimated those allies gave Trump $2 billion in free media before the primaries even began. Anything meddling Putin accomplished stood squarely on the shoulders of that effort.
This is true- and lots of us saw it. Democrats silently supported Trump in the primaries to sow discord and because HE WOULD BE EASY TO BEAT! I voted for Cruz in the primary in NY. I knew Trump was supported by DEMOCRATS to win the Republican primary. I was going to vote for whatever Republican had the nomination in any event as an ABC vote- Anybody But Cinton. I also saw something as time went on that the Trump supporting Democrats didn't see. Several of my friends and acquaintances, and in-laws, were wildly enthusiastic about Trump. I had no clue where this wild enthusiasm came from, but it existed. And throughout the campaign, it grew. And grew further after the nomination. And- it still exists. Driving through the backroads of rural NY there are many Trump 2024 flags flying, though currently they're outnumbered by FJB flags- or similar. But I suspect that someone who flies a FJB flag is a Trump supporter.
I don't think DeSantis, as POTUS, would make the same mistakes Trump did and leave swamp creatures in place to suborn his decisions. Trump was hamstrung at the very beginning with the entire establishment united to hamstring him. It was blindingly obvious Russiagate was a fraud from beginning to end- and yet there are still true believers that Trump colluded with Russia. I know people who know Trump is guilty! Guilty! Guilty! But can't say of what, just that he's GUITY!. After all, the media has been proclaiming it now for years. And look- the NYS attorney general is spending millions trying to find a crime he committed! Not investigating a crime that was committed, trying to find one. The walls have been closing in on him since before he was elected. meanwhile Hunter's crimes are shown in pictures, and ignored.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6Whgn_iE5uc
@libsofmusicalaccompaniment
@lyingwhoresofnytimes
"Fearing that the materials came from a hack-and-leak operation, Twitter blocked the article from being shared on its platform...."
Laugh out Loud x 100. The NY Slimes NEVER stops lying. Twitter never had a problem with ANY article that attacked Trump. And we now know the FBI/DOJ investigation of Biden was on-going and was well known in MSM circles in October 2020.
Twitter blocked the NY post and their Hunter Biden reporting because he HURT Joe Biden. To say anything else, is a bald faced LIE.
If your argument is that Musk will do a more neutral job of moderation than the current people running Twitter, that’s a political argument, not a free speech argument. If your argument is that Twitter should carry certain viewpoints as a public responsibility, that opens the door to regulation as a public utility, as Europe is going to do.
@OriginalMike
I'm in the same boat as you, though I don't know any of the GG people directly. I've got 1 degree of separation from at least ZQ, via the people I knew from the Hacker Halfway House above the illegal toner cartridge recycling business in Brooklyn.
@Darkisland,
My .sig was posted to alt.fan.warlord. The shame...
Gamergate was as viable as #MeToo when the warlocks (masculinists) and witches (feminists) were discovered to be native artifacts of social progress. #PrinciplesMatter #HateLovesAbortion
Hahahahahaha!!!
[wipes eyes]
Left Bank, never change.
Left Bank of the Charles said...
Why should any person or business entity be required to pass along the ravings of the President of the United States?
Because they claim to be a public communication tool.
"...death and rape threats" aren't free speech. Banning them doesn't seem to be a problem. The problem is that the left has redefined, or attempted to redefine, all speech it dislikes as violent and harmful, when it's, at most, simply speech that makes them upset because they disagree with it.
"Are we going to be talking about post-closing twitter moderation policies for six months?"
Does that idea make you uncomfortable?
"That policy was tested when The New York Post published an article containing emails purportedly obtained from the laptop of Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s son Hunter. Fearing that the materials came from a hack-and-leak operation, Twitter blocked the article from being shared on its platform...."
Funny how the flying monkeys at Twitter forgot all about that "hack and leak" policy when Trump's tax returns were illegally passed on to the NY Times. That story got shared far and wide on Twitter, and they nary batted an eye. Musk's first task should be an audit of every decision over the last decade to ban, block, or suspend users from the platform, focusing on which Twitter employee made the call in each case. If the decision could reasonably be interpreted as political or ideological in nature then said employee is immediately fired, and their name and the details of the case posted on the site. Make an example of the little monsters and next time they'll think twice.
"I'll just repeat. you can block anyone on Twitter. You can limit your comment section to your followers. If you're a blue check, you can just talk to blue checks ... if you're being "harrassed", you can stop it. Immediately."
Yes, but, what if just knowing that someone might be saying something mean about you drives you crazy? Shouldn't the claim itself be sufficient evidence that incomplete policing of Twitter presents and existential threat to your very being??
Speech is violence!! To make the world safe, it must be regulated. By the Wise Ones who know "violence" when they see it, of course.
All Musk has to do is make the inner workings of twitter moderation fair and transparent. And fire employee who opposes such a reasonable change. If someone is banned, they should be able to find out exactly which rules were broken and find out if those rules are equally applied to everyone. Seems reasonable and non-political right? It's just that the left doesn't like exposure to sun light.
Youtube offered me some VEEP
"Selina was groped by the husband of the Swedish Prime Minister."
"Up in the hills or down in the valley?"
It's a good thing that I'm not a woman or I'd be devastated.
Blogger Left Bank of the Charles said..."Why should any person or business entity be required to pass along the ravings of the President of the United States?"
We're not talking any business, we're talking Twitter, and because he's the President of the United States.
Leftists can not get it through their thick skull that while they held Trump in distain, half the country voted from him. Twice. What part of democracy do we not understand Left Bank? He is supported by half your fellow citizens, whether you like it or not, and that simple fact gives him a voice.
"The problem is that the left has redefined, or attempted to redefine, all speech it dislikes as violent and harmful, when it's, at most, simply speech that makes them upset because they disagree with it."
Not true. The Left doesn't want their opponents' speech banned because they disagree with it, nor even because they find it "hurtful", although the latter is one of the lies the reporters of easy virtue at the NYT are peddling. The Left wants to restrict their opponents' speech because the things their opponents are saying are true, they have no valid counterarguments, and thus far, they only have the means to steal fairly close elections.
disdain
Just ban women from Twitter, problem solved, and probably a lot of other ones too.
Perhaps Musk can institute Ladies Night on Twitter.
I like to remember that Gamergate started with legitimate and serious unethical behavior accusations against female reporters, who cried "sexist!" at their gamer accusers, rather than address the charges of unethical behavior.
Once the gamers who called out unethical behavior were "sexists!" without due process, without possible redemption, without appeal, they did the only rational thing - they used the tools of sexists, granted them by the female reporters.
Beware you don't create the beast you hate, with your hateful behavior.
I think we have gotten to the stage with censorship on social media that we are better off letting everyone do as they like and let the members decide for themselves what is worthwhile. The current censored "truth" is no more accurate than the wildest claims that initiated censorship. "Truth" is now what some 25 year old engineer decides it is. Is that really how we want to proceed?
@McCullough
"Perhaps Musk can institute Ladies Night on Twitter."
How many biologists would it take to moderate this? Might get messier faster than you can count to one, two, three, four, I declare a TERF war.
Rusty: hah, no, knock yourself out.
What "ravings"? Hunter's laptop was real. The scummy pictures and scammy emails were real. They were news.
October surprises are an American political tradition, and I suspect Democrat fingerprints are easier to find on the "Access Hollywood" tape or on Bush's DUI than Trump's are on Hunter's computer. Lots of lying goes on in American politics, but Trump and his campaign were actually telling the truth about the Bidens.
"Lots of lying goes on in American politics, but Trump and his campaign were actually telling the truth about the Bidens."
As opposed to Clinton and the RUSSIANS! Even if you support Twitter moderating election news, AND if you believe in their good intentions, you have to admit they're awful at it. They got both the 2016 and 2020 big election-eve stories wrong. Personally, I think it's evidence of their malevolence.
Banning women would solve the problem?
LOL. You give MEN too much credit.
Takes me back to 10/28/16, Comey and Weiner's laptop.
Imagine election campaigners from 1996 being told about 2016 and 2020. Laptops? You mean we survived Y2K?
The Disinformation Governance Board
=======
I had understood Governance = management/manipulaton
I did not know Governance = prevention / cure against
So the official narrative has changed from "Russians supporting Trump" to "Russians sowing discord". Well, that's progress of a sort. I guess.
So then who orchestrated the attack on women that got Twitter to accept speech restrictions?
How many coordinated attacks failed before one succeeded?
Gamergate was true game fans vs women with dicks and their white-knights
Was listening to a radio program this morning about the 1990s in Russia
One thing that hit me: The people supporting social media censorship are essentially to the left of, and more delusional than, Gorbachev
Gorbachev created Glasnost, "Openness", because he understood that censorship and secrecy were mainly used to hide the failures of the Soviet Government, and the result was that nothing could ever get better.
Musk is trying to bring Glasnost to Twitter, and the "Progressive" hardliners are behaving now just like the Soviet Communist hardliners were behaving then
I guess some things never change
Twitter meddled with the 2020 elections. That is all there is to it. End of story. Sunshine makes the best disinfectant. Elon needs to reveal these so called "AI" programming bots and algorithms that always slants the "Trending" stories in favor of democrats 100% of the time or supress stories harmful to them like Hunter's laptop story. Gee whiz, what a coinky-dink those stories get killed. What could be the pattern here?
The problem with Twitter is who chooses what to censor? Gamergate? A lot of fuss about nothing much. Hillary's email server? How was that not the biggest story since Watergate? Because the media and Twitter and Facebook decided it would not be a story. How was the Russian hoax not exposed as a Democratic Party operation in weeks if not days? Because the media and Facebook and Twitter decided to cover it up. The left went too far for too long and it became obvious to everyone the big social media networks as well as mainstream media were completely in the tank for the left. They may never regain credibility. Musk has a big job ahead of him.
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