alt-left Twitter purges many alt-right accounts

[Zenaan Harkness]

On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 12:01:34AM +0000, Ben Tasker wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 11:30 PM, juan <juan.g71 at 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
> 
> 
> 
> >         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, 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.

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

100 million? More? Less?

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

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


> 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) is
if you "follow" the person "attacking" you.


> 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".

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