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Twitter Reinstates White Nationalist Leader's Account (buzzfeed.com)
An anonymous reader quotes BuzzFeed:
On Saturday evening, Twitter reinstated -- with verification -- the account of Richard Spencer, a leading figure of the so-called alt-right movement, and the head of the white nationalist think tank, The National Policy Institute. Spencer's account was suspended mid-November as part of a larger cull of prominent alt-right accounts... However, according to Twitter, Spencer was banned on a technicality: creating multiple accounts with overlapping uses. Twitter's multiple account policy was put in place as a safeguard to help curb dog piling and targeted harassment. [Twitter] offered to reinstate one of Spencer's accounts if he agreed to follow the company's protocols.
Vox says the move "raises the question of to what extent Twitter intends to enforce the 'hateful conduct' policy." But the suspension had also been criticized by David Frum, a senior editor at the Atlantic, who wrote that "The culture of offense-taking, platform-denying, and heckler-vetoing...lets loudmouths and thugs present themselves as heroes of free thought. They do not deserve this opportunity... today, a neo-Nazi has more right to build an arsenal of weapons and drill a militia than to speak on Twitter." But BuzzFeed points out that though the account's been reinstated, Spencer "is now tip-toeing around the company's three strike policy, which carries a permanent suspension."
Vox says the move "raises the question of to what extent Twitter intends to enforce the 'hateful conduct' policy." But the suspension had also been criticized by David Frum, a senior editor at the Atlantic, who wrote that "The culture of offense-taking, platform-denying, and heckler-vetoing...lets loudmouths and thugs present themselves as heroes of free thought. They do not deserve this opportunity... today, a neo-Nazi has more right to build an arsenal of weapons and drill a militia than to speak on Twitter." But BuzzFeed points out that though the account's been reinstated, Spencer "is now tip-toeing around the company's three strike policy, which carries a permanent suspension."
Ban the motherfucker for TOS violation and deny him the audience that feeds his hatred of everyone and everything else.
The term "White Nationalist" is meant to evoke the term "Nazi" mixed with "KKK".
But really it's neither of those things. A nationalist (of any skin color) simply wants government to put the interests of his nation first, above those of other nations generally.
When put that way it doesn't sound scary (or even unreasonable) at all. A nationalist can still want to work with other countries, can still support legal immigration - it simply means they adopt the doctors credo "First do no Harm". That is why the chattering news must paint the term with a racial brush, to frighten children or the weak minded...
Note they never call out "black nationalists" even though there are plenty of them... that would be racist after all! But it's OK to try and evoke hate for people based on color when they are white.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
because these groups have been hitting the dog whistle so hard you'd think they picked up a coaches whistle by mistake.
And we called out Black Nationalists in the 70s. They mostly calmed the hell down and stopped being racists. The White Nationalists didn't do that when they were called out. They doubled and trippled down. Mostly because they're being used by a wealthy elite to win elections and stuff state legislatures with pro-corporate anti-worker politicians. That's what pisses me off the most about racism. It's just an excuse to give everything to the 1%.
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"alt-right" is a concept intended primarily as a smear tactic by the Hillary campaign. White nationalists are hand-in-hand with the liberals in adopting it as a label. Since it is completely undefined, you can use it as a smear.
There's aren't any "white nationalists", KKK members, etc, in the Trump team, nor will there be. Both of these groups are utterly insignificant idiots, and have been denounced and denigrated time and time again by Trump and anyone else in his circle
You know we have videotape and records right? A ten second web search yielded this information
Trump himself is a hero to these people. What you think anyone is really buying the crap about trump being concerned about obama's birthplace? No, it was a transparently obvious attempt to delegitimize the first black president from the very beginning and it lasted just long enough to do what it needed to do. At the time Trump accused Obama of playing the best con in history, which was a bit of insight into how Trump thinks. He was lying of course, but I think even then he was thinking of playing the best con in history.
Sure on some level trump is likely racist, but mostly he is for Trump and is more than willing to deal with any racists that come along, as long as they support him. It is the same with Putin. We know Putin is a murderer. Too many of his enemies turn up dead. One even from polonium poisoning, but lead poisoning is the usual reason.
We also know he had a campaign manager with major Russian ties. We know they bent over backward to get him elected, though to be fair it was probably more to prevent Hillary. We know that he is bending himself in a pretzel to say that all of our intelligence agencies are stupid and wrong, and only he is right on russia and of course now Trump is appointing Russia's best friend in the most important position he has.
I wonder if he is afraid of his own polonium poisoning, or if there is actual marching orders. Heck, we even know that Trump is ignoring almost all of his intelligence briefings.
His decisions will cause deaths. All presidents decisions do. His uninformed decisions are bound to cause a lot more, but he is just too busy to do the damn job. Disgusting. Seriously, can you imagine Romney or McCain refusing to be kept up to date on threats?
Wow... when Trump wants something done, it really does get done!
Ban the motherfucker for TOS violation and deny him the audience that feeds his hatred of everyone and everything else.
Firstly, I'm not convinced that he promotes hatred.
We've learned in the last few weeks that the mainstream media is quick to mislabel something as bigoted and other related labels, so long as it promotes their position. To get to the truth you have to actually find the statements some person was saying, and then determine for oneself whether they're bigoted or not.
(And I haven't taken the time or effort to do this for Richard Spencer, never heard of him before this moment.)
And further, asking whether Trump was bigoted caused people to post entirely non-bigotry quotes as "proof" of his racism. Mexico isn't a race, he was specifically referring to criminals, Islam is not a race (it's a culture), and so on.
It's gotten so that no one can even mention race in an academic sense without being called a bigot, because the left knows that it's an easy way to shut down debate on the subject.
Secondly, the term "KKK member" has strong connotations, "white supremacist" is largely indicative of bias, but "white nationalist" seems like it's a tailored term to insult and demean most of the people who voted for Trump. It's trying to equate voting for Trump with white supremacy, which again is a way of shutting down debate on the issue. I'm white, I want the government to put the US first in things (such as trade agreements), but I'm not a racist or hateful person. Why am I (and half the country) always marginalized by the left?
It's estimated that there are less than 50,000 white supremacists in the entire country, and less than 1000 of the tattooed, nazi-ish, violent types that you see in a Banshee episode.
Trump got elected because there are real issues that were not being addressed by the establishment, but no one on the left *or* right has owned up to this simple fact.
Instead, it's all about racism. Voting for Trump was a hate crime.
Thirdly, the left really *really* doesn't have any good sense of priorities when it comes to human rights. Apparently anything goes, so long as it promotes their agenda. This twitter thing, and the quote above, is a good example of that in practice.
We don't allow twitter to hire only whites (14th amendment &c), or only men (19th amendment). We don't allow twitter to refuse services to gays or older people or the poor or veterans, because that would be a violation of their rights.
Why do we allow twitter to violate first amendment rights?
No one is required to give you a public forum, the saying goes, but Twitter *is* a public forum.
And finally, recall about a decade ago how ISPs would turn over subscriber information to the government on request without a warrant. The government thought that was OK because the ISPs were free to refuse, and it wasn't a violation of our rights because it wasn't the government doing it.
If we let companies censor our speech, then the same situation will happen. The government can "request" something be censored, with a wink and a nudge, and it won't be the government doing it.
We're rapidly losing our free speech rights.
And it starts with leftist idiots like the OP above, who thinks it's OK to violate that right, so long as the ends are virtuous.
Actually it was Hillary Clinton's infamy and unfitness for office that elected Donald Trump, in a close contest of infamy and poor fit for the job. Trump outperformed Romney in non-whites across the board. Dems could have run just about anyone but Clinton and taken the office. But no.
Unlike Ronald Reagan, who just gave them the fucking weapons they wanted so they could use them against us.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The "alt-right" was developed as a term to describe groups of conservatives who are not mainstream conservatives or establishment Republicans. As a classification term, it didn't imply racism- it encompassed several different groups of thought. I'm not sure how it was turned into a "movement", despite all these groups not really identifying as such, but I know that if you change "a classification for non-mainstream conservatives" into "a movement that accepts neo-nazis", you've totally redefined the term. Probably with the purpose of painting the non-mainstream conservatives with a neo-nazi brush, despite there being a decent number of the former, and only a handful of jackhats in the latter.
Regardless, it is done, and it happened super fast and recently. Already, the non-racist conservatives who are not mainstream have begun rebranding themselves to make plain that they are not "alt-right", because now the term just means "neo-nazi".
Twitter has gladly helped criminals, abusers, and racists - as long as they were leftists. Some of them even have the ear of Twitter's Ministry of Truth & Safety department.
When we start hearing of people on the left get removed from Twitter (permanently), then they might have some shred of legitimacy.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
The only violation that matters is not being a proper leftist according to Twitter.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Get a grip. Trump has not remotely denounced white nationalists.
Why should a president denounce any group of people? What good would that do? If it's not illegal why alienate people unnecessarily even if you strongly disagree with their ideology? Is this how you work to build the legitimacy of your office and country?
Trump has said a number of times he does not support nor does he seek the support of these groups. Obviously it will never be quite clear enough for race baiting media perpetually pushing racial narratives to enrich themselves.
The last youtube ad they ran was a straightforward white nazi dogwhistle
The code word / dog whistle is a magical device granting the invoker unlimited power to invent whatever connections fit their predetermined narrative.
If Trump loves the KKK or whatever your claim is your probably much better off convincing others by providing direct credible evidence to support your claims. It's fricking Trump shouldn't be that hard.