On Sat, 19 Nov 2016 00:01:34 +0000 Ben Tasker <ben@bentasker.co.uk> wrote:
On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 11:30 PM, juan <juan.g71@gmail.com> wrote:
'Their' service exists only thanks to the users and the fascist government they work for.
Twitter is entirely dependant on it's userbase, yes. If they feel that allowing that kind of speech is going to lead to users not feeling comfortable using the service (leading to a reduction of the userbase) the only sane commercial decision is to remove the problematic speech, no?
Working for the government or not, they're hardly likely to stand and defend harassment when that'll cost them users. Especially given that it sounds like they do a terrible job of making money out of those users anyway
The profits of businesses like twitter are certainly no concern of mine...though from a purely commercial point of view you are right. On the other hand, that means they should suppress ANYTHING that the mob doesn't like. Or pander to anything the mob ikes, be it clever and uplifting, stupid or outright criminal.
What kind of sane 'cypherpunk' 'activist' would defend fascist corporations like twitter? Rhetorical question of course....
It's not intended as a defence of Twitter per se.
I'm not a fan of corporations by any stretch of the imagination, and certainly not of the American capitalism rules all mindset.
But you know what, I believe in individual rights,
So do I. that's why I'd never invoke individual rights to defend fascist twitter or their laughable (from a legal and moral point of view) 'terms of service'. More important, the people who call themselves 'twitter' don't believe in individual rights. If they did they would not be a leading company under 'jurisdiction' of the US state.
and that includes the right not to be party to something like harassment. If you're being made to carry things you staunchly disagree with, in a world where people will associate them with you, that's - in effect- compelling speech which is just as bad (if not worse) than suppressing speech.
A corporation actually take a stance to try and prevent some of the targeted abuse that flows online is a good thing.
Oh yes. Censorship is a 'good thing'... Anyway, I should mention that this incident is just propaganda, as usual. Twitter and their political masters need to pretend that they are not 'racists' so they lynch a few racists..so that all the official racism of the US empire can happily continue. It's called 'plausible deniability'...hypocrysy...or The American Way.
It might not (nay, doesn't) offset the myriad faults with the system, but it's a lean towards benefiting the userbase (even if driven primarily by self-interest). The world isn't black and white, even the truly evil can perform good acts from time to time.
Don't forget these guys weren't banned for being right-wing, or for expressing "alt-right" views. Most (if not all) had a habit of directly harassing people for race, gender, whatever.
How did they harrass people? By posting bullshit on twitter? It must have been that, since, as far as I know, twitter hasn't become the thought police in the offline world...yet.
They're still free to continue running websites promoting their views. I'd have a bigger issue with a hosting company refusing to host what amounts to a political (if extreme) opinion or news site.
It's the same thing. You can claim that 'property rights' trump free speech in that case too.
The line seems to be drawn at launching direct attacks, which doesn't seem unreasonable, especially given the reality is we live in a world where capitalism currently exists, and most of society doesn't want to have to deal with that type of bullshit.
Course, there is the question of how direct attacks should be defined too, and there's no good way to do that definitively.
Right. Which means twitter can ban and censor whoever they wish for whatever 'reason' they can come up with, or none at all. I'm sure their 'terms of service' say exactly that.
I think encouraging hundreds, if not thousands, of followers to hurl abuse at one user is probably well over it though.
The 'terms of service' of the corporate mafia are null and void, in case you never noticed.
Not if you plan to use a service provided and controlled by that mafia.
They still have no value from a moral or legal point of view. Except of course inside the same legal fascist system that created them. Circular logic backed by guns. I realize it may be expedient to comply with some mafia requirement or 'regulation', the complying being done under compulsion of course, but as soon as they turn their back, it's legitimate to blow their brains if possible. Same thing with twitter, figuratively speaking.
The (non-corporate) mafia, in fact, tend to be quite insistent that you abide by their terms
Yes, but see above.
I know you'll probably disagree with huge chunks of that, if not all of it, and it's probably a bit muddled where it's been rattled out.
The TL:DR is, there isn't a good answer that works in the world we currently live in. Those that were banned (or at least those I've bothered to look up) were assholes. Not because of their speech, but of their actions.
But were their actions anything but speech?