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Twitter Ignites Censorship Debate After Removal Of Parody Putin Account (thenextweb.com)

Posted by msmash on from the drawing-the-line dept.

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.

9 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. We freely choose to not be hurt. by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.
    1. Re:We freely choose to not be hurt. by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "When was the last time you stopped yourself from saying something you believed to be true for fear of being punished or criticized for saying it? If you live in America, it probably hasn't been long."

      -- Tucker Carlson

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  2. Most publishing is privately owned by sjbe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Most publishing is privately owned by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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...

      Surely they are often biased, especially in favor of the current government. 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 (labor unions are bad, trade deals are good, globalization is great, privatizations are awesome, welfare s*cks, etc...).

    2. Re:Most publishing is privately owned by drainbramage · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So, why can we parody and ridicule Trump but not Putin?

      --
      No brain, no pain.
    3. Re:Most publishing is privately owned by Plus1Entropy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Well I mean Britain, and European countries in general, have different views on free speech than the US does. For example, in 2007 there was the European Union Framework Decision for Combating Racism and Xenophobia, which makes the following punishable in all EU Member States:

      Publicly inciting to violence or hatred , even by dissemination or distribution of tracts, pictures or other material, directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin.

      The same law also prohibits denying or trivializing genocides, crimes against humanity, and war crimes; it specifically mentions crimes defined by the Tribunal of Nuremberg (i.e. Holocaust denial).

      Now, denying the Holocaust is stupid, it likely stems from racism, and I would choose not to associate myself with anyone who did. But I definitely prefer the US interpretation and implementation of free speech. It's not the Government's job to be the arbiter of truth, and allowing them to control speech in just about any way is one of the most serious threats to liberty that there is.

      --
      Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
  3. Good parody by jensend · · Score: 5, Funny

    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:

    Vladimir Putin (@DarthPutinKGB) May 27, 2016
            Arriving at Athens today:
            Customs: Name?
            Me: Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin
            Customs: Occupation?
            Me: No, this time i'm just here for 2 days

  4. Re: It's a private business. by hviezda14 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Lot of rude words in your post and next to none arguments. If it is not a public service, owner can public/delete posts as he wants. He must obey the law (e.g. not to pretend to be someone else, etc.). But he has zero duty to voice your opinion.

  5. making Poe's Law his bitch by Pseudonymous+Powers · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.