Jim:
   >>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.
   I think you're being intentionally dense here.
   This isn't people tweeting "build a wall", it's throwing abuse at a
   specific individual.
   > 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.)
   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
   >> "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?
   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.
   > "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.
   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
   > 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.
   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
   - [1]http://fusion.net/story/327536/milo-yiannopoulos-nero-permanently-
   banned-from-twitter/ - 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
   >  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.
   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.
   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:
   >  The difference between your previous scenarios and the twitter thing
   is 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 <[2]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.

     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?

     > 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

     > 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
   [3]https://www.bentasker.co.uk

References

   1. http://fusion.net/story/327536/milo-yiannopoulos-nero-permanently-banned-from-twitter/
   2. mailto:zen@freedbms.net
   3. https://www.bentasker.co.uk/