alt-left Twitter purges many alt-right accounts

[Ben Tasker]

On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 9:07 PM, Zenaan Harkness <zen at 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 <zen at 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
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