Slashdot Mirror
Twitter Says It's Beating the Trolls (betanews.com)
Mark Wilson writes: After making it easier to report abusive tweets and increasing the size of its anti-troll team, Twitter believes it is getting 'bad behavior' under control. As well as bullying of acquaintances and work colleagues, Twitter has also been used to attack celebrities, the gay community, religious groups, and more, with many people feeling driven from the site. It seems that the decision to take a very hands-on approach to troll tackling is starting to pay off. The head of Twitter in Europe, Bruce Daisley, says that the tools that have been introduced have had a real impact on trolling. He goes further, saying that there is a direct correlation between the release of new safety tools and reporting mechanisms, and the drop in unacceptable behavior.
From what I've read, Twitter is infact censoring some tweets, depending on the terminology used.
Apparently several gamergate people have been for lack of a better word "shadowbanned" or words which are trending are deliberately not showing up.
Say what you will about Gamergate (it's certainly a stupid name) - there's some real dipshits involved with it, who've said some ghastly shit.
There's *ALSO* some perfectly sane people who've said some quite intelligent things, however one side of the debate has succeeded in altering history and current time, by somehow managing to label the entire group, virtually terrorists, including lying about what's been said or done, claiming they are "in the right" regardless of what the other people say, dismissing things that people say because of who they are (strawman) and so on.
It's been quite eye opening to watch actually and one thing I have noticed which I wouldn't have before, is that I have a far, FAR more skeptical eye on things in the regular and gaming media. It's opened my eyes HUGELY, in how things are reported. "X is bad, X did this, X said this" etc, when some of those things are utterly impossible to prove, outright incorrect, or labeling an entire group for one persons actions - been an educational year.
FWIW: I'd align myself as closer to GG than not, but certainly not "active" more a casual observer in it all.
As for twitter censoring and this news article, as I stated, I've heard multiple times in the past 6 months, certain things are simple not being made visible due to who they are or what's being said, even if it's not offensive - use the wrong hashtag, prepare for potential censorship.
Note: Posting anonymously, as usual with any gamergate discussion of any kind, lest "the good nice guys" harass and dox me (but that side is infallible and that's never occurred before, honest!)
So they're cracking down on common everyday trolls. But, racist/misogynistic/hateful tweets are just fine, if you're a presidential candidate.
And here's a serious question. Why wasn't that Minnesota politician who doxxed her complaining constituents banned from Twitter? It made national headlines because she was taking a self-righteous "herp derp, take that you racists" view of perfectly sane, non-racist complaints that she was siding with Black Lives Matter as they planned to disrupt access to an airport and the Mall of America.
Then she takes her account private. You want to drive these trolls off social media? When they do stuff like that, block them from privacy. Make every dirty, rotten thing they've said public.
Why didn't the earlier story about internet freedom make any mention of this Twitter banfest, Slashdot? Why was there never a /. story about Vice (where the internet freedom story came from) itself hypocritically silencing the masses by wiping out its own comments section, ensuring that only themselves and approved plebians will have a voice on their site?
/. story about the ridiculous UN Women/Broadband propaganda report that tried to promote the idea of "cyber-violence" (an awkardly obvious pretense to a desired government crackdown) which proved so embarassing that they had to pull it from public view (and no /. story when that happened either).
Why was there never a
It's abundantly clear that there's an activist arm of the tech news media (which Slashdot, sadly, clearly wants to be part of) that isn't anti-censorship or anti-bullying at all, as long as they get to be (or choose) the approved bullies and censors.
I don't know where the fuck this only-governments-can-commit-censorship concept came from, but it's total bullshit.
Yes, if a government limits the ability of somebody to express some idea, it is censorship.
If a corporation limits the ability of somebody to express some idea, it is, guess what, censorship!
And if an individual limits the ability of somebody to express some idea, once again it is censorship.
The parties involved don't matter; censorship refers to the action of suppressing what others express.
Anyone can commit censorship. Anyone can be a victim of censorship.
And while some social media provider may have the right to remove content from their system, that doesn't mean it isn't censorship.
It's still censorship, because the expression of somebody else is being suppressed or eliminated.
Anyone who claims such suppression isn't censorship because it's being done by a private party is a fucking idiot.
I hope Twitter will be around for a long time. It's a honey pot for people who think they can engage in social or political commentary in 140 characters or less. The more these people are distracted and kept away from the rest of the Internet, the better.
I love origin stories.
You know you're in for a bumpy ride when a sentence starts out like that. And in case anyone doesn't know who Richard Dawkin is, he's mainly famous for getting BOFA'd from space on twitter. Here is the exchange that made him so well-known (the dank memes that follow the actual event are worth the trip):
https://twitter.com/richarddaw...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Dawkins (note the s) is famous for writing several very popular, widely translated books on atheism and the delusion of religion. He is also an accomplished evolutionary biologist.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
There's no "free speech" on television; it's censored all the time (as a matter of course, even.) There's no "free speech" in newspapers; there's no "free speech" on the radio.
These are all commonly censored due to government regulation or when the company running the media outlet determines that broadcasting speech could be detrimental to its own interests.
How, exactly, are Facebook and Twitter any different from any other media outlet that solicits public content, then publishes what it wants? I think you're confusing what it essentially a self-publishing service with a soapbox on a streetcorner. With the latter, you generally do have free speech (within limits), with the former you certainly do not.
You think that's bad? ESR apparently has evidence that a Feminist organization is attempting to frame Linus Torvalds and other open source leaders for sexual assault, presumably to force them out of the community / push some form of gender/diversity quota on Kernel Development. (This all occurred around the same time they started pushing to get those god awful totalitarian Codes of Conduct on various groups and websites.)
One would think that would make the front page, but nope. Went into submission limbo.
Censorship, the suppression of words, images, or ideas that are "offensive," happens whenever some people succeed in imposing their personal political or moral values on others.
Indeed. It's the reason why you can't have sex with your sister on the sidewalk.
While censorship in itself is a bad and repressive thing, it is also often useful as grease to make society trundle along. People generally don't mind censorship as long as it's not their own ideas or beliefs being censored. But there will always be victims - the open question is whether the disruption of societal norms trumps the repression of the victims.
Yep. It's perfectly fine to harass and doxx people who disagree with you, but only if you're part of the hugbox.
ESR makes wild, unfounded accusations about people claiming that they make wild, unfounded accusations. Apparently irony is lost on the guy.
SJW n. One who posts facts.