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Twitter Ignites Censorship Debate After Removal Of Parody Putin Account (thenextweb.com)
Twitter has suspended at least five popular anti-Kremlin Twitter accounts on its microblogging social network. The move has angered fans of the accounts and reignited the speculation on censorship on the platform. One such account parodied Russia President Vladimir Putin. The Next Web reports that some of the accounts have been brought back to function amid criticism from their respective fans. Parody accounts have resided in the gray area ever since the early days of Twitter. The social network's official ToS permits users to run a parody account of a celebrity provided they explicitly mention on their profile that it's a fake account. From the report: After their removal, social media users took two Twitter to voice their displeasure with the hashtag #NoGulagForDarthPutinKGB -- a reference to the repressive Soviet state -- and it's seemingly worked, as both accounts are back today. Of course, for how long, and why they were removed in the first place are questions that remain unanswered.
Why the fuck do people rely on centralised private speech platforms to make political speech? Stop using Twitter and Facebook, you dumb bastards, before you prove the commies right that the freedom of the press is owned by the owners of the presses.
It isn't censorship. Censorship is being forced to remove things.
This is just, ummm, pre-removal before things gets that far.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
"After their removal, social media users took two Twitter to voice their displeasure"
Don't you mean that social media users took *too* Twitter to voice their displeasure?
Parody or "Fake" accounts used to be a very funny and running joke on Twitter. Everyone know they are satire.
These latest turn of events are putrid and Twitter management should hang their heads in shame. They now shit on free speech as they now brown nose the powerful. They are traitors to American values. Fuck these traitorous Benedict Arnolds.
Twitter must explain: Who was the fucktard behind it? Nothing less than their sacking is acceptable. Jack Dorsey: WHO IN TWITTER IS SO DESPERATE TO WRAP THEIR LIPS AROUND PUTIN'S WANG AND SWALLOW WITH A BIG HAPPY GRIN ON THEIR FACE? EXPLAIN YOURSELF SIR!
Why the fuck do people rely on centralised private speech platforms to make political speech?
Because speech that nobody hears is pretty much useless and twitter and facebook are where the readers are these days. Platforms for widely disseminated speech have been private for centuries. Newspapers, TV, radio, etc are all centralized and privately owned in most cases and it's generally worked just fine as long as there was more than one publisher. In fact you don't actually want your publishers to be owned by the government if you actually care about free speech.
I first saw this news on the BBC yesterday. The account is really funny, and the tweet they quote at the start of the article is nicely representative; I'll reproduce it here for those who haven't RTFA yet:
Can we just route Twitter off please? Nothing of value comes from there. Its bad enough we have to hear the news reading celebrity tweets or see inane comments scrawled across television shows. I find it difficult to even follow discussions when it only looks like message fragments.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
You're confusing your own country with the rest of the world. Many major TV broadcasters in the european continent are state-owned: BBC in the UK, RAI in Italy, France 2 in France, etc...
All of those exist along side a huge amount of privately owned media. State owned media is fine as long as it doesn't have enough of the market or sufficient influence to undercut media independence. See Russia and China if you need an example of too much media being State owned/controlled. I don't think media independence in the UK or France is a serious concern.
Surely they are often biased, especially in favor of the current government.
Not necessarily though it's a reasonable concern. I would argue the BBC is remarkably independent in most important ways. I could say the same of others. NPR and PBS in the US is partially sponsored by the government and yet nobody is arguing that NPR is beholden to the whims of our government even in the face of many who would like to defund it. (helps that not much of their funding comes from the government these days)
However, that's not worse than a newspaper or a private TV channel whose owner is a bank or a major industrial group, which will obviously report in a way that serves the owner's interests
Of course. That's why you need a variety of voices so that no single voice dominates the conversation whether it be public or private.
"...social media users took two Twitter..."
Did they give at least one back?
If there's two, there's probably others as well...
Only Twitter users would not know the difference between "two" and "to"... what is this world coming to?
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I'm sure the people behind this joke twitter account with over 26 000 tweets isn't being paid by anyone to do this. I've heard that only Russia does that.
I can't help but to think why there isn't a decentralized social network yet; possibly built on top of peer-to-peer infrastructure. That way, people would not need to rely upon Facebook/Twitter/etc... being gracious enough to allow you to express your opinions.
Specifically, as to who, exactly, wrote:
There seems to be an extra 'w' in there, so either the submitter, the editor, or the guy at wherever the quote was taken from is, at best, semi-literate. I'm hoping it's the last, but the number of semi-literates all over makes it a tough call.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
So, why can we parody and ridicule Trump but not Putin?
Short version? Putin will literally execute or imprison Twitter executives in Russia if they offend him. Trump couldn't really do that even here in the US even if we actually were dumb enough to elect him unless someone was stupid enough to directly threaten him. I don't think people here in the US really appreciate just how gangster Putin and other leaders in Russia really are. They have people killed or put in jail routinely. Russia isn't really a democracy even if they've adopted the trappings of one. While the US leaders hardly have their hands clean, they aren't the sort of threat to the media that they are in Russia.
There is no downside to everyone saying what they want when they want, true or false.
Complete and demonstrable bullshit. People can be injured by words. Physically, economically, emotionally and and sometimes permanently. There is a reason shouting fire in a crowded theater is illegal. Inciting a riot can get people killed. Fraudulent speech can hurt people economically. Slander and libel can ruin someone's life. Etc. Free speech doesn't remain free for long if the powerful or malicious can injure others without consequences by what they say. It's no different than your right to swing your fist ends at my chin. Free speech is not the same thing as speech without limits and never has been.
Currently, according to the terms of service, parody accounts are acceptable as long as it’s clear that the account is intended to parody a person rather than attempt to trick Twitter users into believing it’s actually them.
Putin's a genius. There's nothing DarthPutinKGB could say that's so outlandishly evil that the real Putin wouldn't say it, or actually do it. So there's no way to satisfy the Twitter terms of service, so the account has to be removed.
You're right, of course. One solution that offers some protection both ways is to avoid CENSORSHIP (prior restraint) and instead impose penalties AFTERWARDS for libelous or otherwise unlawful utterances. That way the people as a whole hear what is said and judge whether or not the government is being reasonable and just.
This is why it bugs me so much when people call any penalties for unlawful speech "censorship". It may or may not be bad, but it's not censorship if everyone can hear what you have to say and come to your defense if need be. Censorship is worse because the public never knows what it is they weren't allowed to hear.
Wow, PopeRatzo, that was almost Libertarian of you, congratulations!
How about a job? Does anyone owe him a job, or is it Ok for employers to let go an employee for any reason — or with no reason at all?
Or, maybe, a wedding cake? Does anyone owe anybody a cake, or is Ok — in your opinion, not asking about laws here — for a baker to reject somebody's business?
What do you say to these yahoos, who claim, a business only exists because "we tolerate it"?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You have got to learn the difference between big-L Libertarian and small-L libertarian, mi. Anyone can be the latter, but it takes a special kind of goofball to be the former.
You are welcome on my lawn.
So, why can we parody and ridicule Trump but not Putin?
Because he has a red face and green hair, which makes him an oompa loompa, and oompa loompas are fictional, so it is perfectly OK to make fun of him.
Please don't tell me that you're so liberal that you even consider that to be politically incorrect.
So what you're saying is, you're a different kind of special goofball?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
This is why it bugs me so much when people call any penalties for unlawful speech "censorship".
Just because someone is able to speak doesn't mean they cannot be censored. To use an extreme example, if I credibly threaten to put you and your family in prison if you talk about me, you are probably not going to talk about me even if you are capable of doing so.. A threat of unreasonable punishment is a perfectly effective way to effect prior restraint even if technically there is nothing physically preventing me from speaking. It absolutely is a form of censorship.
SOME people, in some cases, might not speak if doing so could expose them criminal liabilty. On the other hand, history is full of courageous people who spoke up in the face of death threats. "We must all hang together, or we shall surely hang seperately" wasn't a joke. If you'd like a more recent example, espionage carries the death penalty, yet Edward Snowden exists.
So we can say that criminal liabilty may sometimes have an effect similar to what censorship does directly.
Similarly, some people die from the flu. The flu sometimes has an effect similar to what beheading does directly.
Therefore the flu is a form of beheading?
No, beheading is one way a person can die, the flu is a completely different way.
Censorship is one way to regulate expression, criminal liability is a completely different way.
Criminal liabilty IS a form of "regulation of expression". It's not censorship any more than a frog is a giraffe just because both are animals.
Yes, indeed I am.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Vladimir Ras Putin
:)
He doesn't want people to know that, though.
OMG why do you use all caps all the time you fucking fucktard!
OMG WHY DO YOU USE ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME YOU FUCKING FUCKTARD!
why do you use all caps all the time you fucking fucktard!