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?

[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?

[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: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.