Twitter Suspended Hundreds of Thousands of Accounts Amid 'Violent Extremism' (fortune.com)

Twitter said on Tuesday it had suspended more than half a million accounts since the middle of 2015 as the company steps up efforts to tackle "violent extremism" on its microblogging platform. From a report: The company shut down a total of 376,890 accounts in the last six months of 2016, Twitter said in its latest transparency report.

Comments

What's the plan, Stan?

[tietokone-olmi]

Because shutting down extremist accounts ends violent extremism... how exactly? What about the baby, freshly dumped alongside bathwater?

(of course the point was always to dump the baby to begin with.)

Re:What's the plan, Stan?

[vvaduva]

Exactly...censoring speech (whatever that speech is) doesn't actually change people's hearts and minds. It just pushes the speech into darker corners of the web. I would much rather know who the hateful and bigoted are so I can avoid them.

Re:What's the plan, Stan?

[MightyMartian]

A business deciding they're not going to allow certain kinds of messages on their public bulletin board is no more censorship than me ordering my racist uncle to stop talking trash or get out of my house. In both cases, a private interest is making space available but making rules about what and cannot appear. Seeing as violent extremists have no lack of other places on the Internet to spread their message, this does constrain them. What it does do, however, is force them back on to their own echo chambers, which sucks for them, because that's where they were previously stuck for decades. Back in ye olden days, about the only way you could see any White Supremacist literature was by ordering one of their xeroxed periodicals in the mail, or on occasion, when one of them got sufficiently motivated to stick some shitty little xeroxed flyer on the windshield.

These groups have a right to their platform, but no one else has any obligation to provide them a pre-existing one. It's been this way for a very long time. Even newspapers won't publish nastier extremist rhetoric.

Re:What's the plan, Stan?

[nine-times]

Because shutting down extremist accounts ends violent extremism... how exactly?

Maybe I'm missing something, but where does it say that they intended to end violent extremism? It said they're trying to "tackle 'violent extremism' on its microblogging platform," but I think a more reasonable interpretation of that is that they're not trying to deal with violent extremism itself, but with its presence on their platform.

And actually, to deal with your question more directly, denying extremists a platform does help prevent the spread of that extremism. It doesn't really matter if it's ISIS or the KKK, if you help people spread their propaganda, you're deepening the problem. Twitter has simply taken the position that they don't want to assist in spreading that kind of propaganda. And before you start harping on the First Amendment, no, the First Amendment does not require that private parties assist you in spreading your speech. It only disallows the government from making your speech illegal.

Re:What's the plan, Stan?

[MightyMartian]

I've never quite understood this argument how censorship actually makes extremists stronger. In a modest way I can see some legitimacy in saying be an "underground" movement will have a certain romantic appeal, but it's still pretty damned limiting. When White Supremacists had their shady BBSs and later websites, those were places that one had to actually seek out. But Twitter, Facebook and Google have given these groups a kind of free mass distribution they could only have previously dreamed of, and I think these services blocking them will not be doing the extremist types any favors. Quite the opposite, it's going to push them back under their online rocks again, where yes, maybe they regain a sort of mystique, but not what they really crave, which is mass media attention.

And it's coming. Advertisers and potential buyers are making it clear that extremist content on these major services is harmful to their own brands. So, whether you believe Google, Twitter and Facebook should just allow this kind of content on their systems because of simplistic notions about freedom of speech is irrelevant, they won't do it because it will cost them money. If the extremists want to broadcast their message, they're going to have to do it on their own, and without the assistance of the major online portals.

Re:What's the plan, Stan?

[MightyMartian]

Generally when censorship is brought up here, it's an attempt to conflate First Amendment protections with a private organization's lawful right to moderate content. Yes, in technical terms it is censorship, but since some people seem to believe that the First Amendment protection of speech somehow should be imposed on private companies' Internet-facing content, I think it's useful to draw a distinct line between content moderation and censorship.

Re:What's the plan, Stan?

[stdarg]

It's virtually impossible in an unmoderated forum. For instance if your opponents vastly outnumber you, your brilliant repudiations will largely go unnoticed due to the noise. Not to mention many people judge arguments based on apparent popularity. If lots of people are acting offended by what you say, regardless of the merit of your argument, there is a huge group of people who simply won't want to believe you because you're a troll/jerk/mean/whatever.

unless your own wack bullshit depends on similar constructions

Your own wack bullshit DOES depend on similar constructions! Unless you're only going to go out and argue the most basic, obvious things that virtually nobody disagrees with.

Re:What's the plan, Stan?

[meta-monkey]

but since some people seem to believe that the First Amendment protection of speech somehow should be imposed on private companies' Internet-facing content

That's not the argument. No one is saying companies should be forced to comply with the first amendment. "Free speech" as a principle exists outside of the Constitution...it's the shared cultural value that the Constitution seeks to protect. The cultural value came first, then the legal protection. This is how descriptive legal systems like english common law came to be.

The point is that these online platforms like Twitter don't hold this cultural value. That's okay, I guess, you don't have to. But they claim to, while saying they're only denying a platform for "hate speech," but this is bullshit too since they never punish anyone for saying "killing white people." That's pretty damn hateful.

They're not for free speech, they're not against "hate" on principle, they're just partisans.

Re:What's the plan, Stan?

[MightyMartian]

But as we have already established, it is permitted where private individuals or organizations are concerned. The Government cannot restrain freedom of speech, save within very narrow and limited contexts (the "shouting fire in a crowded theater" or libel laws, for instance). But I as an individual am under no obligation to permit someone to stick a racist sign on my lawn, as my property rights override the racist's freedom of speech, and by the same token, Twitter is under no obligation to allow such content on its own property; the screen real-estate it makes available to the world.

This is what irritates me. People keep conflating private organizations' right to censor content they publish (a right that has existed for centuries now) with the sharp constitutional limits on government interference with free expression. The First Amendment does not block a newspaper from refusing to publish a racist letter to the editor, nor does it block Twitter from kicking off extremists. You can feel those sorts of decisions are wrong, and as a member of a free society you're solution is simply to go elsewhere.

Re:It's paying off, too!

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? When I look at the data from Sept 22 to March 21, I don't see anything that looks like a correlation. When I expand the graph to a year I see it remaining roughly the same other than an abberation around the 2016 presidential campaign when the Orange One became so prominent, falling back to norms in October when no one gave a damn, and then more recently falling again when Twitter has had news of problems with the company itself.

>I don't see anything that looks like a correlation.

cuz you don't want to see it?

Usually, when a company makes some announcement that is intended to cast some action in a positive light (Twitter is safer because it's cracking down on extremists and harassers!), the expectation is to see a favorable, if temporary, response from the market. Instead, its stock price is taking a dive right now.

Re:So Hillary's account got deleted?

[DaHat]

As a moderate conservative and former Republican,

That sounds like a shibboleth...

I put the blame on the RNC nomination process — or lack thereof.

Specifically what part of the non-process did you find broken? What should the process/party have done to prevent Trump (or any other candidate)?

They had the responsibility to ensure that they fielded qualified candidates for the nomination.

Except they are sort of limited to who throws their hat into the ring... and unlike the Democrats, worked to not play favorites and let the candidates & their supporters duke it out.

Trump is neither a conservative nor a Republican, and, until a few short years ago, a Clinton Democrat. :/

A Bill Clinton Democrat maybe, but thanks to the wonderful DNC nomination process, they ended up with the worst possible candidate. Of course, I contend that it was actually the election of Obama which moved the Overton window enough to make a Trump run & presidency possible.

I tried to Open a Twitter Account

[sycodon]

...the first tweet I made in response to someone (I forget now) that was critical of the Democrats, the account was suspended and they demanded all kinds of personal information so they could, "decide" if I were a bot or not.

Fuck them. Fuck the SJWs from Silicone Valley. The Big Quake can't come soon enough if you ask me.

Selectively Banning Racism

[Kunedog]

A business deciding they're not going to allow certain kinds of messages on their public bulletin board is no more censorship than me ordering my racist uncle to stop talking trash or get out of my house.

Which is only to say that "Yes, both situations are examples of censorship."

To make the metaphor more accurate to what Twitter is doing, let's say you had two uncles, each a different color and both racist toward the other. Now let's say you picked sides and only threw out the uncle whose racism you disagreed with.

Even if you are within your rights to do that, the banned uncle (and plenty of other, non-racist folks) are right to call you out for both your hypocrisy and your own racism.

Re:It's paying off, too!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

99% of which were conservative, no doubt. When left wing extremists get violent, they get cheered and let off.

All the violence has been on the anti-Trump side

[walterbyrd]

Seems to me all the violence has been on the anti-Trump side:

1. Hillary hires violent thugs to disrupt Trump Rallies - as was proved by the Veritas project.

2. Hillary supporters beat down homeless African American woman.

3. Hillary supporters beat down man in Chicago, and steal his car, because they thought he voted for Trump.

4. Hillary supporters abduct and torture mentally ill man because man supported Trump.

5. Violent riots when Trump was elected

6. Violent riots when Trump was inaugurated

Re: Speaking of payoffs

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. A load of the people kicked off were Pro- Trump supporters to help perpetuate the lie that Trump Is very unpopular, even though he has a massive and loyal fanbase. Indeed many of the Twitter anti-Trump members are NGO spooks. Twitter is dirt - in it with big media and cronyism like CNN. Pity. Its a useful platform but is now forever smeared in the minds of anyone with half or even 1/4 of a brain.