On 11/18/2016 02:55 PM, Shawn K. Quinn wrote:

On 11/18/2016 03:44 PM, Zenaan Harkness wrote:

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Once known as the "free speech wing of the free speech party", Twitter's true colours are hard to hide for even those with slowest brainial neorone.

Facebook to follow and Google joining the party.

I wouldn't call them "alt-left" just because they want the garbage off of their service. There is a difference between free speech and garbage.

Well, ACLU has supported rights of KKK to rally :)

On Fri, 18 Nov 2016 23:05:58 +0000 Ben Tasker wrote:

On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 10:08 PM, Mirimir wrote:

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On 11/18/2016 02:55 PM, Shawn K. Quinn wrote:

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On 11/18/2016 03:44 PM, Zenaan Harkness wrote:

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Once known as the "free speech wing of the free speech party", Twitter's true colours are hard to hide for even those with slowest brainial neorone.

Facebook to follow and Google joining the party.

I wouldn't call them "alt-left" just because they want the garbage off of their service. There is a difference between free speech and garbage.

Well, ACLU has supported rights of KKK to rally :)

Aye, but they've not also given them a section on their blog to post on have they?

If you look a little deeper, you'll also find it's not the fundamental views (and expression of) themselves that Twitter have taken issue with, it's that the users in question repeatedly violated the ToS.

There's really not that much wrong with an individual service provider deciding there are rules if you want to use their service.

'Their' service exists only thanks to the users and the fascist government they work for. What kind of sane 'cypherpunk' 'activist' would defend fascist corporations like twitter? Rhetorical question of course.... The 'terms of service' of the corporate mafia are null and void, in case you never noticed. There

might, of course, be some chilling effects if all players in that area decide to enforce overly strict rules, but that's somewhat different.

As ever, XKCD is relevant - https://xkcd.com/1357/

From: Ben Tasker On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 11:30 PM, juan 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? As opposed to that old concept of actually letting people engage in FREE SPEECH?!?Sorry, but I have to laugh!   A lot of speech will bother _somebody_.  If a service removes speech that _somebody_ claims to object to, fairly soon there will be little or no speech to see.  I suspect these people are merely trying to justify PC censorship.   Stop it.       Jim Bell

From: Ben Tasker

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 As opposed to that old concept of actually letting people engage in FREE SPEECH?!? Except as I tried to make clear in the rest of the email, it's not the speech that's the issue, but the actions. Oh, really?  Have you ever heard of something called "selective enforcement"?  You didn't identify the "actions" involved.  Somehow, I suspect that these "actions" are not going to be enforced against the PC crowd, only those opposed to them.  Go ahead, surprise me.

Want to post how much you hate (to pick an example) mexicans on twitter? Go for it, it's unlikely you'll be banned. Are people who post how much they hate Trump, or hate people who support him, going to be banned?  Somehow, I don't think so.  It's PC nonsense.  Selective enforcement.

"Encourage hundreds, if not thousands, of others to tweet racist shit at a single user?" "Free speech" means allowing people to say things you hate. If you haven't learned that yet, you don't know what free speech is. " Its your action there that gets you banned. It's not what you've said so much as the fact you've led a charge. Twitter'll deny you the tools to take those actions." Oh, I see!  Posting such statements are "actions", not "speech".Well, if that trick were used, people could be prosecuted for uttering sounds that happen to sound like "hate speech".  See the problem?  Of course you don't.

My comment was in the context of a commercial decision, and yes, the sane commercial decision is to remove those that are causing issues, if >they're in the minority. They're a corporation and can't let a small chunk of revenue drive away large chunks. It's that simple." If the speech involved was objected to by 99% of the population, or even 95%, you might have a point.  but I suspect you are really only referring to the opinions objected to by (at most) 51% of the population, or in fact far less.  (Say, speech objected to by 75% of the PC crowd, or maybe 10% of the population.)

"Reddit had to" HAD TO?  Really?  Are you absolutely sure about that?  Like, somehow, their computer servers would melt down, or something, if HTML data with certain data patterns were stored in it? " go through a similar thing a while back, and shuttered coontown (amongst other subs). Many predicted the demise of reddit, but in reality, whilst some users left for Voat and probably never came back, most of the remaining subs continue to thrive. Admittedly, that was more about getting money to come onboard in the first place, so it was as much about the investors sensibilities as the userbase." If the existence of alternate forums was a justification for censorship, the state of California (for example) could negate the U.S. Constitution's 1st Amendment, with the explanation:  "If you don't like it, you can move to another state".   See the problem?   Of course you don't!

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 A lot of speech will bother _somebody_.  If a service removes speech that _somebody_ claims to object to, fairly soon there will be little or no speech to see.   I agree. And booting someone for saying something offensive isn't right. Encouraging others to descend, en masse, on someone else though >isn't just speech, it's incitement - an action. Or at least as much as an action as the average user can actually take online "descend, en masse, on someone else"???   You mean, like, physically attack them?   Or do you merely mean using speech that offends them?  If the former, I don't see much of a problem.  If it is the latter, I see a huge problem.

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I suspect these people are merely trying to justify PC censorship I suspect you dropped "PC" in there because it's one of your trigger words. This isn't about political correctness, this is about people getting >targeted, en masse, because their skin's the wrong colour, or because they lack a penis (or in some cases, have one). Not about protecting >peoples sensibilities, but about outright, deliberate victimisation. Again, you say, "targeted".   You mean, like being shot at?  Struck with a baseball bat?   Or merely criticized?  Do these people need their "safe spaces", or "trigger warnings", etc?

FTR, There's fuckload wrong with world of Political Correctness, especially once you get people arguing that we should use so-called "positive >iscrimination". Yes, but that's far from its only problem.

Leaving actions aside, and going back to the original reason I mailed the list, Mirimir noted that ACLU supported the KKK's right to rally. IOW >they defend the KKK's right to free speech. Yes, but "rallying" is "actions", right?  Or is it "speech"?

"ACLU don't however, let the KKK hold those rallies in their carpark, or provide them with megaphones etc. There's a big difference in defending the right to speech and actively helping someone make that speech." Private property is different.  Twitter MIGHT justify discrimination based on the fact it's privately-owned.  However, that's a very imperfect defense.  First, Twitter hasn't previously claimed that it has an institutional bias.  This is new.  Further, imagine a different service, one that presents itself as being Twitter-like, but which openly engages in what we'd agree is hateful, racist speech, and discriminates in employment.  If a person could use the court system to try to shut them down, then it isn't purely a "private" operation, is it?   It's subject to government regulation and control.  In that case, I think that Twitter itself (following arguendo, the same logic) should be subject to legal attack.  Is that how you want things?

I see this as much the same, you've got the right to say what you like, and I'll gladly defend that, but I'm not going to help you say it.  Why would Twitter be any different? Hell, the world in general is no different. You don't see Breitbart hosting guest columns from lefties, just as >you don't tend to see liberal publications inviting the alt-right to put their views forward. Each have to find their own, accommodating, venues to >push their agendas from. Except you forget:  Up to now, Twitter hasn't identified itself as a "left-wing" organization.  Now, apparently, it has.    It can no longer hide behind the illusion that it is an unbiased organization.  Its censorship is selective, and biased.  Just as we now know,.             Jim Bell

On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 12:14 AM, jim bell wrote: From: Ben Tasker On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 11:30 PM, juan 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? As opposed to that old concept of actually letting people engage in FREE SPEECH?!?Sorry, but I have to laugh!   A lot of speech will bother _somebody_.  If a service removes speech that _somebody_ claims to object to, fairly soon there will be little or no speech to see.  I suspect these people are merely trying to justify PC censorship.   Stop it.       Jim Bell

-- Ben Tasker https://www.bentasker.co.uk

On Sat, 19 Nov 2016 00:01:34 +0000 Ben Tasker wrote:

On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 11:30 PM, juan wrote:

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'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.

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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.

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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?

On Sat, 19 Nov 2016 01:37:31 +0000 Ben Tasker wrote:

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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.

They're actually reasonably explicit in what they consider "hateful" - https://support.twitter.com/articles/20175050 - not that there isn't wiggleroom if they wanted to though

Good old George would be proud I think =) Twitter's ministry of love is fighting against hate. "Freedom of expression means little if voices are silenced because people are afraid to speak up. " "Freedom of expression means nothing if you can control what people post and effectively silence anyone you want to silence." Plus in this case it's important to not only look at what is being said, but who is saying it. We have self-appointed crusader against hate twitter, which is an arm of the american state. Their commitment against hate is hardly credible ;)

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Analogies tend to be flawed, but let me offer one anyway.

Say we meet in a bar.

- Case 1: You say something offensive and I punch you. Who's most in the wrong?

Fairly cut and dry, you may be a dick, but I'm in the wrong there. You used your right to free speech, whereas I've taken an action that some (most?) would consider unacceptable.

- Case 2: You decide you don't like me, and proceed to loudly tell the rest of the bar that I'm (for example) a queer thats clearly in need of a beating. Half the bar takes the opportunity to beat the shit out of me.

Half the bar crossed the line I crossed in case 1, so clearly they're in the wrong. You still only used speech (assuming you didn't get a crafty kick in, anyway), but you used it in order to incite the bar to cause harm.

Yes, that would make me morally responsible for it, and more. The people who carry the physical actions do it out of their own free will so they are fully guilty, but the 'intellectual' author carries a good deal of blame too.

Physically, you didn't take any action, but I'd argue that convincing others to do it for you is effectively an action by proxy.

Indeed.

Physical harm still came to me though, so we're still not close enough to the Twitter angle.

- Case 3: Same as in case 2, except they don't beat the shit out of me. Instead, they yell abuse and threaten to beat the shit out of me every time they see me for the next month (or week if you prefer).

Again, you've only used speech, but you've used it to try and ensure that my life is made a living hell (for whatever period of time). That's not without it's ill effects (for me)

Right.

I'll agree that "action" isn't necessarily the best word for it, but incitement sounds too much like something the government would say and I don't like repeating it.

The difference between your previous scenarios and the twitter thing is that if there were any threats, I doubt they were credible at all. I mean, what kind of threat is an anonymous idiot with a fake account half accross the world saying he'll kill you? Your own account probably not giving any real info about you either.

Most people just aren't equipped to deal with intense, persistent verbal abuse, so if they're the victim of it, most don't cope too well. For much the same reason, bystanders tend to be afraid to speak up in their defence too. Which plays merry havoc with the ideal that the best defence against "bad" speech is more speech, at least on the individual level. At a higher level it works over time, but it's the individual revenue sources that corporations are trying to keep happy

I had a facebook account for a few years, and a lot of fake libertarians ended up blocking me - surprise surprise. More than a few of them whined about the lazy poor on welfare...while literally working for the state themselves. Of course for those people tha ability to block anybody who called them out was essential.

On 11/20/2016 11:49 AM, juan wrote:

Anyway, this discussion about twitter is moot because in the future a computer science scientist will discover (and patent of course) a new technology that will enable SMS messages with a length of 200 characters. Perhaps even 220 characters. This new technology will render the twitter obsolete.

Such is the unstoppable manifest progress of American Free Market capitalism, created by the chosen master race destined to rule the universe, the jews. People who read the bible know that western civilization owns its absolute mastery of everything to brick law written in thick bricks. Especially the part about stoning to death children who don't obey their parents. And gays, too.

Twitter has threatened for about a year now to lift the 140 character limit. They did it with direct messages a while back. You can type to your heart's content in a DM now THIS is "Thick as a brick" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9JEPeeohYs If you want you can Stone the Crows https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jo2stCPzds While having a good time Flogging Molly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojKoTjsSks8 Rr Ps. Stone the Crows disbanded after their lead guitar player jumped into a swimming pool with his electric guitar plugged in. THAT'S "Thick as a Brick" for sure....

Jim:

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Want to post how much you hate (to pick an example) mexicans on twitter? Go for it, it's unlikely you'll be banned.

Are people who post how much they hate Trump, or hate people who support him, going to be banned? Somehow, I don't think so. It's PC nonsense. Selective enforcement.

Well, no. Just like you're not going to be for posting that you hate mexicans, which is kind of my point.

Oh, I see! Posting such statements are "actions", not "speech". Well, if that trick were used, people could be prosecuted for uttering sounds that happen to sound like "hate speech". See the problem? Of course you don't.

If the speech involved was objected to by 99% of the population, or even 95%, you might have a point. but I suspect you are really only referring to the opinions objected to by (at most) 51% of the population, or in fact far less. (Say, speech objected to by 75% of the PC crowd, or maybe 10% of

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"Reddit had to"

HAD TO? Really? Are you absolutely sure about that? Like, somehow,

"descend, en masse, on someone else"??? You mean, like, physically attack them? Or do you merely mean using speech that offends them? If

Private property is different. Twitter MIGHT justify discrimination

Further, imagine a different service, one that presents itself as being Twitter-like, but which openly engages in what we'd agree is hateful, racist speech, and discriminates in employment. If a person could use the court system to try to shut them down, then it isn't purely a "private" operation, is it? It's subject to government regulation and control. In

I think you're being intentionally dense here. This isn't people tweeting "build a wall", it's throwing abuse at a specific individual. the population.) There's no way we can objectively measure this, but I think your figures are wrong. 49% may not object to you tweeting "build a wall", but I think a much smaller percentage would be happy with you (and others) racially abusing an individual user (to pick an example). That's not "being PC", that's thinking you're a prick for continually tweeting coon at a single user just to see how they'll respond their computer servers would melt down, or something, if HTML data with certain data patterns were stored in it? Well, yes. They had to, in that they felt they couldn't attract the revenue they wanted to in the current state. Businesses, funnily enough, want to make money. the former, I don't see much of a problem. If it is the latter, I see a huge problem. It *is* a little tricky to physically attack someone whilst on the internet. But there are situations online that we consider worthy of the term "attack". A DDoS Attack, for example, doesn't do any physical harm and yet is still considered an attack. Why? Because it's a targeted and deliberate attempt to interfere with operations. If you're receiving thousands of abusive tweets sent specifically at you, and/or those same people are filling your mailbox with the same, I'd call that an attack. YMMV based on the fact it's privately-owned. However, that's a very imperfect defense. First, Twitter hasn't previously claimed that it has an institutional bias. You don't need to have previously expressed a public opinion on something to suddenly find you don't agree with it. Corporations (and media) aren't required to explicitly state whether they're left or right leaning (which in some ways is a shame) In the case of Twitter though, it's not like they haven't stated their objections before - http://fusion.net/story/327536/milo-yiannopoulos-nero-permanently-banned-fro... - you'll have to forgive the somewhat PC tone of parts of that, I'm sure google will find you examples closer to your tastes if needed that case, I think that Twitter itself (following arguendo, the same logic) should be subject to legal attack. Now that's a complex area of law, and varies between countries. But, those who were banned would (AFAIK) be perfectly at liberty to try and sue Twitter. Strange though, whenever something like this comes up, you sometimes hear threats of legal action, but they're never followed through. It's almost as if the complainers haven't got a case under law. Admittedly, it might well be, of course, that the cards are unfairly stacked against them.

Except you forget: Up to now, Twitter hasn't identified itself as a "left-wing" organization. Now, apparently, it has.

The difference between your previous scenarios and the twitter thing is

See earlier comment - there's no requirement for them to have done so. And just to be a little picky. In the rest of the world, Twitter are not a left-wing organisation, nor are most of the US's "lefty" politicians much further left than centre-right. But I take your point Juan: that if there were any threats, I doubt they were credible at all. That's a valid point (though I did say analogies were flawed). Receiving those kind of threats is undoubtedly unpleasant, but you're right, they shouldn't lead to quite the same fear for safety as in my scenario. On the other hand, I could understand someone fearing that they were just the beginning. The person sending them might not, physically, be able to reach you themselves, but the next step might be swatting. But, to be fair, at that point we're away from speech and well into real-world actions.

I mean, what kind of threat is an anonymous idiot with a fake account half accross the world saying he'll kill you? Your own account probably not giving any real info about you either.

It's scary the amount of information people do put online, though most at least have the sense to not publicly post their address. That's often not enough, though. Both corporations and governments seem to take a laid back approach to protecting the data they're given (and in the case of govt, the data they compel us to give them), so with various leaks floating about there's always the possibility that information can be gathered. Again, though, I'll conceded that that's a seperate issue

Of course for those people tha ability to block anybody who called them out was essential.

There's definitely groups of people (some of those Jim would probably correctly identify as "PC") who seem to revel in the ability to block dissenting views. An individual blocking someone else, at most, is only harming their ability to learn something about the opposing view. But others do try to take it further by trying to have "it" blocked at a wider level by coercing government (or private orgs) to act. On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 6:43 AM, Zenaan Harkness wrote:

At what userbase level would you consider a communication platform to have crossed the line into "service provider"?

100 million? More? Less?

I think, to an extent, it depends as much on how the provider behaves as it does on userbase level. Although actual function would need to come into it too. The platform that twitter provides is one that lets you "reach" millions of people. In some ways, it's almost unrivalled, in the sense that it's (IMO) far easier to stumble across someone new on Twitter than it is on FB etc. Whether that's an essential service, obviously, is up for debate.

Do you agree that "Twitter" has become a communication platform/ conduit?

To some extent, yes.

And do you agree that no one is obliged to "follow" anyone else?

Yes. But, not following you doesn't mean that you can't dump stuff into my notifications by simply including an @. If you've got many hundreds of people doing that, are you going to sit and block all of them?

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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.

So you say. This is Twitter we're talking about - where the only way you can be "attacked" (you should at least be saying 'verbally' attacked)

Yes, I should have been saying verbally, you're right is

if you "follow" the person "attacking" you.

Untrue. Depending on your settings, you'd need to be following me to for me to send you a direct message. But I can still include you in mentions which'll end up in your notification area. As an added "bonus" those mentions are visible to anyone who is following you, so they can reply to them (which'll also ping me). A DM would, at least, be hidden from your followers If you look at Razers tweet earlier, you'll probably find he's not following any of those

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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.

So now "speech == actions".

At what point, in the online world, would you consider something becomes analogous to a real-world action? Their action was that they verbally attacked someone (and encouraged others to do so) - obviously doing that requires speech but the two are not the same thing.

The Ministry of Truth congratulates you; take notice that the Ministry's cheques take up to 48 hours to arrive.

Please ensure it's made out to CASH ;) -- Ben Tasker https://www.bentasker.co.uk

On 11/19/2016 01:07 PM, Zenaan Harkness wrote:

On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 11:25:19AM +0000, Ben Tasker wrote:

But I can still include you in mentions which'll end up in your notification area. As an added "bonus" those mentions are visible to anyone who is following you, so they can reply to them (which'll also ping me). A DM would, at least, be hidden from your followers

If you look at Razers tweet earlier, you'll probably find he's not following any of those His ability to create such "non-following" is perhaps above the ability of "the average Twitter user"?

I don't understand what you mean by non-following. I simply block people who troll me and take a look at new follows and Rt'ers Favoriters etc I've never seen before (especially if the profile pic's a 'twitter egg' or a girl taking a selfie (the same selfie girl pics get used over and over and over again by various trollbot accounts) or a cute cat (et al) I spot marketers by taking a look at their timeline to see what they post. Take a quick look at the other people they follow and who follows them to see if they're just middlemen collecting handles for others to market with (Why you'll see in many account's sidebar descriptions "No Lists"). I simply don't want certain accounts to have access to viewing my followers (persec for them and minimizing the potential for spamming or marketing at them b/c they follow me etc), or as I said disabusing the intent of my tweets which should be pretty clear. No magic. I just do a quick check and use common sense and compare some things... Like you can tell something about accounts by their tweet activity. How many followers they have in relation to following (Twitter also uses that as a spammer flag if someone follows way more people than follow them Twitter will cap the #). Is everything a retweet or favorite but they never actually have an original thought? She looks like a nice intelligent girl but all her followers are prongirlz... Then once a year or so I go over accounts I don't remember and see if they're dead wood inactive or have changed their tenor. some hashtags attract bots. Mention ANYTHING regarding the stock market and you'll be swarmed by investment advisorbots. Tweet anything to do with social media and you get all kinds of SEObot accounts retweeting favoriting and following. It's a hashtag jungle oot deh folks Regarding 'replies'... If I put your handle at the beginning of a tweet it's directed at you (not a direct message, public and visible in my replies tab). If I put your nick at the end it's the equivalent of a Cc:. If any character appears before a tweet directed at you (at the beginning), typically a period, one doesn't have to go to my replies tab to see it. It appears on my main time-line. Twitter has been 'threatening' to make all direct replies visible on the main timeline but I haven't seen that yet albeit I have noted that when I tweet a direct reply (without the period in front) it does initially appear on my timeline but disappears to the replies tab on page refresh. I'm not aware of what happens at another user's end if they view my timeline immediately on posting that direct reply but I suspect it's only visible to me until page refresh to allow for ease of access if I'm writing a series of nested replies Such as using up all 140 in text in the reply and leaving it visible temporarily to addend or add a link or somesuch. Rr

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On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 6:43 AM, Zenaan Harkness wrote:

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At what userbase level would you consider a communication platform to have crossed the line into "service provider"?

100 million? More? Less? I think, to an extent, it depends as much on how the provider behaves as it does on userbase level. Although actual function would need to come into it too.

The platform that twitter provides is one that lets you "reach" millions of people. In some ways, it's almost unrivalled, in the sense that it's (IMO) far easier to stumble across someone new on Twitter than it is on FB etc.

Whether that's an essential service, obviously, is up for debate. Please try to avoid shifting ground, or further twisting my words. I don't mind genuine efforts to explain a corporation's position to the world in a functional way, but massaging the questions is fundamentally deceptive, and ought be avoided.

"Essential service" would be something like water, or electricity (for cooking). Internet access is not an 'essential service', yet ISPs are "service providers", Internet Service Providers to be precise. Like a telephone.

I'm sure it called be argued that Twittering on Twitter makes one a Twit, but it's also easy to say that once any communication platform reaches a 100,000,000 user base, it has become a utility, a service provider, albeit not an essential utility.

Arguing otherwise is arguing -for- a feudal corporatist world, ESPECIALLY given that these corporations (in particular in this instance the one you're spruiking for) build themselves to such heights with statutory corporate and monopolistic protections, defended by government and the courts. Zuckerberg is protected from personal legal attack by the corporate veil of protection(ism) provided by the 100% artificial corporation entity. "Twitter" in the "communications domain" at least but possibly "all domains" is (presumably) a "protected" (for exclusive use of Twitter Inc) trademark.

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Do you agree that "Twitter" has become a communication platform/ conduit? To some extent, yes. Would be difficult to argue otherwise.

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And do you agree that no one is obliged to "follow" anyone else? Yes. But, not following you doesn't mean that you can't dump stuff into my notifications by simply including an @. If you've got many hundreds of people doing that, are you going to sit and block all of them? OK, so Twitter does have an "email" type of targetting function. I didn't know that.

Sounds like the technology is flawed - it's centralised, and a walled garden - at least you can set up your own email server.

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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. So you say. This is Twitter we're talking about - where the only way you can be "attacked" (you should at least be saying 'verbally' attacked) Yes, I should have been saying verbally, you're right

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if you "follow" the person "attacking" you.

Untrue. Depending on your settings, you'd need to be following me to for me to send you a direct message. Ok. Didn't know that (as above).

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But I can still include you in mentions which'll end up in your notification area. As an added "bonus" those mentions are visible to anyone who is following you, so they can reply to them (which'll also ping me). A DM would, at least, be hidden from your followers

If you look at Razers tweet earlier, you'll probably find he's not following any of those His ability to create such "non-following" is perhaps above the ability of "the average Twitter user"?

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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. So now "speech == actions". At what point, in the online world, would you consider something becomes analogous to a real-world action? When either: a) it has criminal consequences b) it falls subject to civil claim of damages

Other than that, Rayzer's (personal) approach seems reasonable.

ISTM that Twitter Inc perhaps ought make it easy for "common folk" to ban individuals or groups algorithmicly, sort of how Razer does this.

But for Twitter Inc to get into the business of completely banning individuals for using a communications platform, when that platform is essentially a walled garden, is not acceptable.

This could also expose Twitter Inc to a class action lawsuit if there are some motivated bunnies around - as others have been saying, the "statutory privileges" that corporations have, give rise to certain obligations to the rest of society, in particular when those corporations become large and dominant, or extremely dominant, in their particular "market" (and yes, even if they are the original creator of that market) - you cannot ethically have the protectionist benefits of being "a corporation", with no consequential obligations and duties to the wider society commensurate to those protections.

Thus, class action lawsuit against Twitter Inc.

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Their action was that they verbally attacked someone (and encouraged others to do so) - obviously doing that requires speech but the two are not the same thing. The same can happen with email. Or telephone. Or text messages. Or Facebook "friends".

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The Ministry of Truth congratulates you; take notice that the Ministry's cheques take up to 48 hours to arrive. Please ensure it's made out to CASH ;) What? Twitter Inc's HR/accounts department not paid you last month? Shoddy...

On 11/20/2016 04:02 AM, Ben Tasker wrote:

But, if every one of Razer's followers (as well as randoms who stumble over the tweet) retweet it (or generate completely new tweets), they'll then get new copies/notifications.

Yup. That how the rat-packing part of twitter 'bullying' happens. I've had that occur on a small scale but I can only imagine a journo or other public figure having a real problem with it. You have to visit the account's page to block (using tweetdeck makes it easier). It can be very time consuming. My tactic has always been to block the first person who @'s or RT'd me but if you're being bullied and getting hundreds of them it cold take a while to even figure out who was first.

So, to summarise the claim "Twitter is in fact a utility provider, so should be subject to a Universal Service Obligation, and as such cannot discriminate against users"

Reiterating Ben in other words: Twitter IS NOT a "utility provider", meaning a common carrier. That requires an act of congress or the FCC just like the procedure cell phone companies went through in the early mid 1990s when the phones were still analog, and people were listening in with scanners on convos, and the customers figured out the phones were really just glorified walkie-talkies, and the providers went begging congress for protection from eavesdropping and got it. But not without being required to be subject to fines for excessive 'dropped calls' and the demand the providers move to more 'secure' digital transmissions as quickly as possible, which they were doing anyway for technical reasons. Twitter is under no obligation whatsoever to provide the service, and if Twitter simply disappeared tomorrow, tough darts. It can discriminate. It IS private.... Popularity doesn't change that. Ben:

"Ultimately, I think that lawsuit would probably be doomed from the outset.

Right. You can't force twitter to become a common carrier. Rr

On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 9:07 PM, Zenaan Harkness mailto:zen@freedbms.net> wrote:

On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 11:25:19AM +0000, Ben Tasker wrote: > On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 6:43 AM, Zenaan Harkness mailto:zen@freedbms.net> wrote: > > At what userbase level would you consider a communication platform to > > have crossed the line into "service provider"? > > > > 100 million? More? Less? > > I think, to an extent, it depends as much on how the provider behaves as it > does on userbase level. Although actual function would need to come into it > too. > > The platform that twitter provides is one that lets you "reach" millions of > people. In some ways, it's almost unrivalled, in the sense that it's (IMO) > far easier to stumble across someone new on Twitter than it is on FB etc. > > Whether that's an essential service, obviously, is up for debate.

Please try to avoid shifting ground, or further twisting my words.

Sorry, that wasn't my intention. I was hung over and trying to interpret what exactly you actually meant by "service provider", as I wasn't entirely clear whether you were viewing it as a utility or an essential service, so I expounded a little on my thinking which has obviously made it less clear.

"Essential service" would be something like water, or electricity (for cooking). Internet access is not an 'essential service', yet ISPs are "service providers", Internet Service Providers to be precise. Like a telephone.

I'm sure it called be argued that Twittering on Twitter makes one a Twit, but it's also easy to say that once any communication platform reaches a 100,000,000 user base, it has become a utility, a service provider, albeit not an essential utility.

For a utility? That number seems reasonable to me

Arguing otherwise is arguing -for- a feudal corporatist world, ESPECIALLY given that these corporations (in particular in this instance the one you're spruiking for) build themselves to such heights with statutory corporate and monopolistic protections, defended by government and the courts. Zuckerberg is protected from personal legal attack by the corporate veil of protection(ism) provided by the 100% artificial corporation entity. "Twitter" in the "communications domain" at least but possibly "all domains" is (presumably) a "protected" (for exclusive use of Twitter Inc) trademark.

They almost certainly are, yes.

> > Do you agree that "Twitter" has become a communication platform/ > > conduit? > > To some extent, yes.

Would be difficult to argue otherwise.

> > And do you agree that no one is obliged to "follow" anyone else? > > Yes. But, not following you doesn't mean that you can't dump stuff into my > notifications by simply including an @. If you've got many hundreds of > people doing that, are you going to sit and block all of them?

OK, so Twitter does have an "email" type of targetting function. I didn't know that.

Sounds like the technology is flawed - it's centralised, and a walled garden - at least you can set up your own email server.

Yes, and with email you at least have the ability to set up some very strict filters to try and limit what you receive. Until recently, Twitter lacked even the beginnings of that - they've recently added the ability to "mute" tweets based on keyword. Not tried it though so it might be crap.

I _think_ it's probably fair to say that the tools Twitter provide were probably reasonable for how they envisioned the platform being used. Whether through simple growth or lack of imagination, though, it is fairly flawed if your aim is to filter things getting sent to you directly

> But I can still include you in mentions which'll end up in your > notification area. As an added "bonus" those mentions are visible to anyone > who is following you, so they can reply to them (which'll also ping me). A > DM would, at least, be hidden from your followers > > If you look at Razers tweet earlier, you'll probably find he's not > following any of those

His ability to create such "non-following" is perhaps above the ability of "the average Twitter user"?

In the case of Razer's tweet, we actually need to look at the reverse (so I mis-stated it a bit).

Razer sent an unsolicited tweet to three people, all of whom are unlikely to be following him. They'll have received a notification of the tweet.

If they don't like it, it's fairly simple, they just click to block Razer.

But, if every one of Razer's followers (as well as randoms who stumble over the tweet) retweet it (or generate completely new tweets), they'll then get new copies/notifications.

I can't actually remember for sure whether blocking on twitter does anything with retweets. If you've blocked Razer and I retweet his tweet, it's possible Twitter will see who the originator is and block it, but I've a feeling that isn't the case.

"mentioning" a user like that is fairly routine on Twitter though, and if you're replying to a tweet (that you've stumbled over by looking at trending keywords, or whatever) the interface even drops a mention in for anyone involved in that thread. So it's well within the ability of the average user

> > > 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. > > > > So now "speech == actions". > > At what point, in the online world, would you consider something becomes > analogous to a real-world action?

When either: a) it has criminal consequences b) it falls subject to civil claim of damages

Other than that, Rayzer's (personal) approach seems reasonable.

ISTM that Twitter Inc perhaps ought make it easy for "common folk" to ban individuals or groups algorithmicly, sort of how Razer does this.

Yes, I think that'd probably be a good idea. Blocking by "person" also comes with the downside that the persistent will create and cycle new profiles, being able top block based on some kind of algorithm would be good. From a quick scan, it looks like the new muting ability goes some way towards that - https://support.twitter.com/articles/20175032

Course, it does mean that (in effect) you'll be the only person not to see the tweets as they'll still be publicly available. That's obviously different to dropping email at the edge, but it seems reasonable as it's not that dissimilar to if those comments had been published on a blog.

But for Twitter Inc to get into the business of completely banning individuals for using a communications platform, when that platform is essentially a walled garden, is not acceptable.

As I said before, for them it was probably a commercial decision, and at a commercial level it makes sense.

At a technical level, they've not kept pace with demand in terms of creating tools so that people can effectively filter what they're receiving, so it's possible that they felt - in the short term - that there wasn't any other way.

Corporations exist as a part of a capitalist society, a rightly or wrongly, a good proportion of that society see the bans as acceptable. Course, that's easy to attain when a good proportion of society sees the speech being blocked as distasteful, but my point is, from Twitters PoV they probably see that the majority of the users either support it or are ambivalent.

I'm not saying that's an ideal place for society to be...

This could also expose Twitter Inc to a class action lawsuit if there are some motivated bunnies around - as others have been saying, the "statutory privileges" that corporations have, give rise to certain obligations to the rest of society, in particular when those corporations become large and dominant, or extremely dominant, in their particular "market" (and yes, even if they are the original creator of that market) - you cannot ethically have the protectionist benefits of being "a corporation", with no consequential obligations and duties to the wider society commensurate to those protections.

Thus, class action lawsuit against Twitter Inc.

Ethically speaking you're correct, but, let's follow this through a bit, as the idea is semi-intriguing. To start with I'm going to pull in some of what you've said previously (as that's interesting too)

So, to summarise the claim "Twitter is in fact a utility provider, so should be subject to a Universal Service Obligation, and as such cannot discriminate against users"

Twitter are in the US, so the laws are already stacked against the claimants. I'm also not in the US so will probably make a few errors here

First hurdle is going to be actually showing that Twitter qualify as the sort of Communications Provider that would fall under the necessary regulations (that is, that they should be subject to FCC oversight). Given the ramifications for Twitter, they'd resist that *very* strongly. I'm not 100% sure there's a case to be made here, at least under the laws as they stand, especially when you consider similar providers (FB et all) would probably file ex parte's in support of Twitter (as a decision in the wrong way might hit their profits/responisibilities too)

But, assuming you get past that, the next thing is to try and and enforce those obligations. Given how hard some of the actual ISPs (Comcast in particular) have fought, ducked and weaved, in order to avoid living up to those obligations, I'd imagine Twitter (with their smaller US userbase) would probably put up some pretty meaningful resistance here too.

Ultimately, I think that lawsuit would probably be doomed from the outset.

Going back to what you actually just said though - that the privileges corporations have give rise to obligations to the rest of society.

At a point, that is something that's semi-reflected in law. If you look at the anti-trust stuff, once a provider reaches a monopoly share on the market, there are additional responsibilities that are enforced (though I'd argue that actually, most of them seem to be obligations to "the market" rather than to the user-base as such - they're predicated on the fundamental idea that the free market solves all, which doesn't work so well when the players are all bent in one way or another).

So there is a kind of precedence.

There are other obligations as well (like not dumping chemical waste in the water supply), but IMO they're currently viewed more as rules imposed than actual responsibilities (i.e. they seem to be dodged any time there's an opportunity).

What they all seem to run up against is this myth that corporations have an overwhelming responsibility to their share holders. It gets used as an excuse to let common decency be overridden by the profit imperative. Without finally putting that to rest (somehow), I don't think it matters what responsibilities society says it expects from the corporations, they'll simply be ignored when it suits.

Given that lawsuits are predicated on what the law says, if those ethics aren't reflected in law, lawsuits aren't going to prevail. Seems to be the case, at the moment, that even when they are, the punishment doesn't always cost the corp more than they made from the breach.

No idea how we fix that though, the lawmaking structure is broken, and even if it wasn't the laws that already exist get ignored or willfully misinterpreted in pursuit of the next dime.

> Their action was that they verbally attacked someone (and encouraged others > to do so) - obviously doing that requires speech but the two are not the > same thing.

The same can happen with email. Or telephone. Or text messages. Or Facebook "friends".

True, and you just named several "platforms" that those banned _could_ use instead of Twitter.

In the context of it being like an action though, I'd say encouraging the same flood of abuse would be more or less the same on all of those. The tooling for dealing with it on each of those differs though, and I think Twitter's probably at the bottom of the list in terms of means of stopping it (assuming we accept that all-together leaving the service isn't an ideal option)

> > The Ministry of Truth congratulates you; take notice that > > the Ministry's cheques take up to 48 hours to arrive. > > Please ensure it's made out to CASH ;)

What? Twitter Inc's HR/accounts department not paid you last month? Shoddy...

No, they said my request for money might be offensive to those who believe in a resource based economy and banned me ;)

-- Ben Tasker https://www.bentasker.co.uk