Twitter Suspends American Far-Right Activists' Accounts (theguardian.com)

Twitter has suspended the accounts of a number of American "alt-right" activists hours after announcing a renewed push to crack down on hate speech. From a report on The Guardian:Among the accounts removed were those of the self-described white-nationalist National Policy Institute, its magazine, Radix, and its head Richard Spencer, as well as other prominent alt-right figures including Pax Dickinson and Paul Town. Spencer, who according to anti-hate group SPLC "calls for 'peaceful ethnic cleansing' to halt the 'deconstruction' of European culture", decried the bans as "corporate Stalinism" to right-wing news outlet Daily Caller. "Twitter is trying to airbrush the alt right out of existence," Spencer said. "They're clearly afraid. They will fail!"

Comments

Poor Nazis

[MightyMartian]

It's so hard being a Nazi now a days, for some reason everyone seems to think your a vile repugnant monster.

Re:Poor Nazis

[Nidi62]

It's so hard being a Nazi now a days, for some reason everyone seems to think your a vile repugnant monster.

Everyone knows anti-Naziism is really just a conspiracy run by the hair transplant and wing industries. Twitter is secretly funded by Rogaine! #sethtescalpfree

Re:Poor Nazis

[Anonymous Coward]

It's so hard being a Nazi now a days, for some reason everyone seems to think your a vile repugnant monster.

While the left openly make death threats, BLM supporters openly call for 'white genocide' and other supremacist movements like islam and zionism get a pass? They're all equally vile!

Re:Poor Nazis

[gnick]

The push to persecute Nazis is a conspiracy started by the Jews.

Re:Poor Nazis

[Anonymous Coward]

The primary issue I find with all of these Nazi claims is that the actual Nazis were the ones using the popular media and personalities to silence and censor and were not the ones being silenced and censored.

Re:Poor Nazis

[OhPlz]

Talk versus the left rioting. You can't see the difference?

Re:Poor Nazis

[Mashiki]

Talk versus the left rioting. You can't see the difference?

Of course they probably can't. It's the same reason why you'll see media(especially leftist media) in europe fall over itself supporting things like Antifa or not reporting on it at all, while their members beat the shit out of people or firebomb places while stating they're "anti-fascist." Or calling for the rape and murder of ethnic germans, sometimes just whites though.

Re:Poor Nazis

[nickberry]

Or they allow trending topcis like Rape Melenia...

Re:Poor Nazis

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry but tolerating hate is not tolerance, it's cowardice

It doesn't matter, the USA has enshrined freedom of speech in its Constitution.
Or is this freedom only good when liberal elites use it to their advantage ?

Re:Poor Nazis

[GLMDesigns]

And, what if they're not Nazi's? Alt-Right != Nazi.

What is an alt-right? He's someone that took the left-wing-identity-politics and applies the principles to European history.

Identity politics, cultural appropriation nonsense is stupid, inane and pathetic. It applies to all groups.

The Alt-Right is an unintended consequence of the modern progressive's university curriculum.

If the Alt-Right is racist then so are proponents of identity politics. Welcome to the world you created.

I, for one, think that identity politics is racist. Now if identity politics is not racist then the Alt-Right is not racist.

(This doesn't mean that there aren't Neo-Nazis and other out there. Only that the broad brush denunciation is inaccurate.

Common guys. Appreciate the nuance of it all.

Re:Poor Nazis

[MightyMartian]

Germany has remained a pretty democratic nation since the end of the Second World War, even after the reuniting with East Germany, and it in fact makes it illegal for many kinds of Nazi and white supremacist speech to be disseminated. So the idea that censorship is the primary creator of Nazi-like regimes is absurd. I'm not defending censorship here, and I don't really even agree with Germany's stance (it made a lot more sense seventy years ago), but you're literally ignoring the most notorious aspects of Nazism and its fellow travelers in space and time. Nazism at its core was a nationalist and racist ideology that proclaimed the Aryan race to be superior and the rightful master of the other races, even to the point of taking upon itself the role of expunging ethnic groups it deemed unworthy or dangerous.

But as we all know, censorship, particularly in the US, is only a *legal* problem when it is the state trying to silence people. Twitter is a private organization, and is within its rights to determine who can and cannot use its service. It has decided that white supremacists and similar far right groups will not be able to use Twitter as a platform to disseminate their views. For the more extreme groups within the Alt-right, this is a problem, because if they're basically stuck on Breitbarts and even more far right sites, well, then they lose the efficiency that a platform like Twitter can offer them. But that really is there problem.

If I was running any kind of site or hosting service, and I had customers or users using my service to promote hatred of ethnic and racial minorities or promote white supremacist ideas, I don't care if I lost their business, I'd cancel their accounts and refund any money I might owe them. I have no desire to silence them, but I don't see why I'm obligated to provide them a platform.

Re:Poor Nazis

[XXongo]

Citation needed.

And to a reliable source, not some right-wing wacko conspiracy site.

Re:Poor Nazis

[ShanghaiBill]

First they came for the Nazis, and I did not speak out because I was not a Nazi ...

Re:Poor Nazis

[Wycliffe]

I'm sorry but tolerating hate is not tolerance, it's cowardice

But defining hate speech is problematic. Which of these is hate speech:
1) I don't think it's right for a man to marry a man. (A stance taken by many christians)
2) I don't think it's right for a man to marry a 4 year old. (A stance taken by most westerners but still practiced in some countries)
3) I don't think it is right for a man to have sex with a another man. (An old stance that was once common and still held by many christians)
4) I don't think it's right for a black to marry a white. (An old stance that was once common but mostly rejected today)
5) I don't think I should have to help a man marrying a man celebrate his wedding by baking a cake. (A stance taken by many christians)
6) I don't think it is right to refuse to sell a cake to someone because you object to their wedding. (A stance taken by many liberals)
7) I don't think I should have to sell medicine to countries that are going to use it for lethal injection. (A stance taken by many countries in europe)
8) I don't think it is right to kill an infant. (A stance taken by most today but was once common in some cultures)
9) I don't think it is right to kill a baby just because it hasn't been born yet. (A stance still held by most christians)

There is obvious hate speech but voicing your opinion on what you feel is right or wrong and/or not wanting to participate in something that
you feel is wrong is not hate speech. The problem today is that both sides of many debates have decided that their side is morally superior
and think that the other side is immoral or unethical if they have a different opinion.

Re:Poor Nazis

[Kielistic]

I would say that technically all Abrahamic religions are supremacist movements. Everyone who isn't us is going hell, we're the chosen people, etc.

Re:Poor Nazis

[Jhon]

So you're just completely ignoring the Obama shooting targets that suddenly got popular both times he got elected, not to mention the people who actually hanged and burned his likeness hundreds of times, during the widespread protests?

A few 'interesting' news clips over the last two election cycles about violence targeted at people for their opinions:

A Thousand Oaks man got his finger bitten off by someone who didn't like the Anti-Obamacare Protesters.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.co...

Democrat tried to run down Republican with his car.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOL...

Left wing nut flies plain in to building.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02...
(interesting to note that he was 'originally' reported as a right-wing nut because... Texas. After his "note" was found, it was clear he was a left wing nut)

Man beaten and robbed by democrat thugs because he supports Trump.
http://www.cnn.com/videos/poli...

High school girl attacked for supporting Trump:
http://nbc4i.com/2016/11/11/vi...

To be fair, there were also these bits:

Muslim women in CA and LA attacked by Trump supporters.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article...
Oh wait... no witnesses or injuries -- and one admits to lying about it entirely and is going to be charged for filing a false police report.

Trump supporters paint "Die Blacks Die" during protest:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016... (foxnews, but associated press provided).
Oh wait... it said "Die whites die". So silly of me.

How quickly people forget.

Yes... and how willingly they ignore what's under their nose...

Re:Poor Nazis

[Anonymous Coward]

He's someone that took the left-wing-identity-politics and applies the principles to European history.

Only in the loosest, and frankly most American of ways, but you are correct.

The effect of sustained identity politics has driven a generation into a new kind of "white" identity, running against the course of individualisation of at least the last 50 years. In addition to the usual categorization of racial, sexual, and ethic groups, identity politics ranks groups by (lack of) privilege, and as far a this goes, "white" people who have the "most privilege" are constantly criticised -- and at this point it is fair to say -- demonized by the so called "social justice warriors" who comprise the loudest part of academia, and the greater part of the mainstream media.

It's an insane situation which has been allowed to develop, but effectively identity politics has re-divided Americans by race and in particular appears to be provoking a reactionary response from the "white" population. It's worth noting that historically, this group was not so encompassing, and modern day "whites" were once rigidly socially stratified into separate racial and ethnic categories within the USA and other countries. It doesn't appear that identity politics has applied these historical norms, and so the class they have in effect created, or provoked into being created or in the process of creation, is arguably a much broader one than a European or world historian would recognise.

I don't know whose bright idea it was to, in effect, "meme" a new kind of "white" mega-race into existence, but it's something profoundly unsettling to see forming in slow motion in response to the endless, overbearing, pontification from the media and academia on matters of race. I think that Dr. King would first be saddened, then appalled, and finally terrified by the new reality that identity politics has wrought on America. There doesn't seem to be any end in sight, and the media is just making things worse.

What ever happened to the ideal of egalitarianism?

Re:Poor Nazis

[KozmoStevnNaut]

So we're just completely forgetting the actual rioting that happened both times Obama was elected?

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundi...

Re:Poor Nazis

[smugfunt]

Which of these is hate speech:

None of them are. They are merely expressions of hateful opinions. To be hate speech the speaker must incite others to hatred or violence against the object of his hatred.

What about the far-left?

[TheCastro1689]

I've seen news articles about a lot of hate and violent threats towards Trump and others by people, but they aren't banned. Twitter really is as biased as I see in articles, even the ones posted to Slashdot.

Re:What about the far-left?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a private company and they can do as they wish. They don't need to explain their actions to you or anyone else.

Re:What about the far-left?

[penandpaper]

Does that mean a baker doesn't have to bake a cake for a gay couple? They are both private companies, yet one gets to decide who uses their service based on political ideology.

At least with Twitter it can be argued that it is a platform for speech and as such the law should reflect Twitters impact on political discourse and outcomes on elections. Just like a town-square you cannot be kicked out for racist speech and yes it doesn't mean you have to listen it (walk away or block people. the power is in the individual not the state). AT&T was determined critical and cannot limit its service on political ideology so there is legal precedent.

Are platforms of speech critical to political discourse in the country and should they be protected? If not, then why is it different for a baker exercising their constitutionally protected religious belief with their private company?

Re:What about the far-left?

[serviscope_minor]

Does that mean a baker doesn't have to bake a cake for a gay couple? They are both private companies, yet one gets to decide who uses their service based on political ideology.

Nazis aren't a protected category. Also, being a Nazi is a choice.

Re: What about the far-left?

[ClickOnThis]

Who is a private company? Twitter, sir/madam, is not private. And as a decently-sized shareholder, their actions affect me.

Then raise the issue at a shareholders' meeting. Good luck.

The important point is that Twitter is not the government. And because of that, they're not obliged to protect anyone's right to free speech. When you're in their dojo, you play by their rules.

Re:What about the far-left?

[mi]

Being "private company" is, obviously, not enough of a defense, as Facebook just found out the hard way, for example. Evidently, some violent hate-groups — such as BLM and the rest of the "anti-Trump" crowd — are more equal than others.

Has Twitter banned any of accounts calling for an assassination of the President-elect? For killing all White people? Obviously not.

But, hey, it is a private company... Maybe. A good illustration on why "hate speech" must remain legal — because any enforcer will be just as biased as Twitter is proving themselves to be.

Re:What about the far-left?

[penandpaper]

You sure about that?

I like this gem from that article:

Sara R. Neel, staff attorney with the ACLU of Colorado. “It’s important for all Coloradans to be treated fairly by every business that is open to the public – that’s good for business and good for the community.”

Now, flip that around to the current /. article.

Or:

“While we all agree that religious freedom is important, no one’s religious beliefs make it acceptable to break the law by discriminating against prospective customers,” said Amanda C. Goad, staff attorney with the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Project. “No one is asking Masterpiece’s owner to change his beliefs, but treating gay people differently because of who they are is discrimination plain and simple.”

Let me do a little word swapping:

“While we all agree that freedom of speech is important, no one’s speech make it acceptable to break the law by discriminating against prospective customers,” said staff attorney. “No one is asking Twitter’s owner to change their beliefs, but treating political opponents differently because of what they say is discrimination plain and simple.”

emphasis on changes.

Re:What about the far-left?

[ClickOnThis]

Does that mean a baker doesn't have to bake a cake for a gay couple?

Let's just try an experiment:

Does that mean a baker doesn't have to bake a cake for a black couple?
Does that mean a baker doesn't have to bake a cake for a Hindu couple?
Does that mean a baker doesn't have to bake a cake for a Syrian couple?
Does that mean a baker doesn't have to bake a cake for a dwarf couple?
Does that mean a baker doesn't have to bake a cake for a Republican couple?

When the right to free speech conflicts with the right to equal protection, you have to decide which right wins. The correct decision is the latter.

Re:What about the far-left?

[Holi]

In Oregon LGBT is a protected class since 2007. The bakery did break the law.

Re:What about the far-left?

[Rei]

It's no secret that BLM incites violence against white people and cops,

Reference to the BLM policy supporting "inciting violence against white people and cops", please.

As for them protesting and practicing civil disobedience, I'm terribly sorry that their feeling the need to draw attention to the (statistically demonstrable) greater likelihood of an unarmed black person being killed by the police and similar issues is inconveniencing you. I'm sure they never would have done so if they had known that they might have made you late for a dinner party.

Re:What about the far-left?

[Holi]

So if you read that, you will see that the damages were awarded for the denial of service and not the release of the complainants information.

The op and I were wrong.

Irony

[Anonymous Coward]

One account suspended merely replaced the word "black" with "white" to show the double standard Twitter has with race. For instance, someone would tweet "Can't wait for white people to go extinct" and the account would replace white with black. The person using the "white" tweet was never suspended.

don't know their right from their left

[frovingslosh]

I don't understand. It is the left that is engaging in hate speech, and even physical violence. They are rioting, advocating the assassination of the President-elect, and denouncing democracy in this country. And they are blaming others for their own faults and criminal actions. Sounds like Twitter is going after the wrong people.

Twitter is now arbiter of truth

[sinij]

Whatever you think of alt-right (hopefully, not too well), this move by Twitter establishes itself as an arbiter of norms and values.

As a nation we value our freedom of speech. We tolerate even the likes of Westboro Church. We tolerate this because unless deplorable people have the right to speak freely, there could be no freedom of speech. It must be that absolute. Unfortunately, it was made clear that Twitter doesn't share our national values.

Peter Theil

[tekrat]

So, I see an echo chamber that the far right creates their OWN version of twitter, kind of like how the right created their own "news" organization.

And so begins the true divide in the country, where the fox news people feed their own echo chamber via alt-twitter, and the liberals have msnbc and twitter.

And the two sides never speak to each other.

Ahh...

[argStyopa]

It's so charming to watch the Liberal Left endorse censorship without the slightest trace of irony.

You guys really DON'T get it, do you? Or do you think the various actors and their sympathies today will /forever/ agree with your personal morality?

Re:"I disapprove of what you say...

[sinij]

As a progressive, for quite some time I watched in horror as Left turned deeply Regressive. They have no idea that censorship apparatus that they are building will be quickly turned on them.

Re:"I disapprove of what you say...

[Verdatum]

I will not defend your right to actively attempt to make people feel unsafe using threats of violence. I will not defend your right to attempt to incite riots. I will not defend your right to shout "fire!" in a crowded building. The concept of non-protected speech exists for good reason.

misleading headline

[tchdab1]

Headline falsely implies that the accounts were deleted because they were alt-right or far-right, when they were deleted because they used hate speech. Not a bias in viewpoint, but a cap on hate speech.

Re:Do both Ends of the Spectrum

[Attila Dimedici]

Actually, the left wing equivalent of the "Alt-Right" is the "Ctrl-Left".

Re:You're comparing a knee-jerk reaction to fear

[SmokeyRobot]

A bit of hyperbole is to be expected in the face of what's coming (hope you're health, you're about to lose pre-existing condition coverage unless you're rich enough to pay for COBRA).

Oh you mean one of the two parts of the ACA that Trump just agreed with and said he would keep on 60 minutes. I am not even a Trump supporter but the spread of misinformation and bullshit from the left at this point is absolutely horrendous. It went from sites on the right doing it to switching to the left. The man isn't even in office yet. By all means though don't let facts get in the way of your fear-mongering.

Ob. xkcd

[XXongo]

I'm sorry but tolerating hate is not tolerance, it's cowardice

It doesn't matter, the USA has enshrined freedom of speech in its Constitution. Or is this freedom only good when liberal elites use it to their advantage ?

Freedom of speech doesn't mean that a particular non-government platform has to tolerate your speech on their site.

here it is explained by Randall Munroe: xkcd
(don't forget to read the mouseover text).

Re:Ob. xkcd

[pastafazou]

Unless you're a cake maker...in that case, you can't refuse to make a cake because you disagree with what the customer wants written on it...

Re:Ob. xkcd

[TheReaperD]

Part of free speech is NOT being free from the consequences of said speech. If you act like an asshole (such as a business discriminating against gays, in this instance), you can be subject to public denouncement, boycotts and civil litigation from the affected parties and it can lead to you being shut down as a business, as it happened in this case. Also, the federal government has, and some states expand upon, a list of protected classes of individuals that you may not discriminate against based on certain criteria. You don't get to refuse to service anyone, rent them a home, give a loan, etc. on the basis of someone's race, for example, as that has nothing to do with their ability to pay, perform a service or do a job. If you discriminate based on these criteria (they're easy to look up), you're breaking the law in addition to the above possible consequences. So. TL;DR: Yes, you can be an asshole to black people, gay people, etc. just be prepared to suffer the public consequences.

Re:Ob. xkcd

[lexman098]

You can absolutely refuse to make a cake if the customer wants something you think is offensive written on it. You just can't refuse to make a normal generic wedding cake for someone who's gay.