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A Reporter Built a Bot To Find Nazi Sock Puppet Accounts. Twitter Banned the Bot and Kept the Nazis (nytimes.com)
Yair Rosenberg, writing for the New York Times: I asked my own Twitter followers whether it might be possible to create a bot that would reply to these impostors and expose their true nature to any users they tried to fool. Neal Chandra, a talented developer in San Francisco whom I've never met, replied, "I can try to throw something together this evening." And so, after a week of testing, Impostor Buster was born. Using a crowdsourced database of impersonator accounts, carefully curated by us to avoid any false positives, the bot patrolled Twitter and interjected whenever impostors tried to insinuate themselves into a discussion (Editor's note: the link may be paywalled). Within days, our golem for the digital age had become a runaway success, garnering thousands of followers and numerous press write-ups. Most important, we received countless thank-yous from alerted would-be victims. The impersonator trolls seethed. Some tried changing their user names to evade the bot (it didn't work). Others simply reverted to their openly neo-Nazi personas. A few even tried to impersonate the bot, which was vastly preferable from our perspective and rather amusing. Twitter sided with the Nazis. In April, the service suspended Impostor Buster without explanation and reinstated it only after being contacted by the ADL's cyber-hate team. Over the next few months, we fine-tuned the bot to reduce its tweets and avoid tripping any of Twitter's alarms. As the trolls continued to report the bot to no avail, we thought the problem was resolved. But we were wrong. This month, Twitter suspended the bot again, and this time refused to revive it.
Yeah, Twitter has a bot policy.
https://help.twitter.com/en/ru...
Zoid.com
Look, I'm on board with a good nazi bash just like everyone else...but...
This smells fishy. They openly admit they spammed people, and they don't provide context to the discussion. Twitter is known for having a somewhat left-bias, so if these folks were identified and banned, twice, I'm already suspicious.
The linked article stinks of sensationalism, and that's what tripped my bullshit sensors from the start.
These assholes may be telling the truth, and they may be entirely justified in their outrage, but the article and the style in which it was written makes me highly suspicious.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
If you eliminate the troll accounts, you would find twitter is not experiencing the growth it claims.
It sounds a lot like they took a self-selected list of target accounts that they selected (or. People they personally chose to try and censor) and had a bot continuously spam any place those people tried to speak.
Perhaps it is just me, but doing that seems pretty damn 'nazi' (to use the modern interpretation of the word) and deserves a ban hammer at the least.
What they have done is basically told the world 'or opinion is RIGHT, and we will shout down any other opinions, because only our opinion is allowed to be heard, agree with us or pay the price'
In other words they are closed minded self riteous morons who want the world to be their own personal echo chamber.
It seems however the right thing was, almost surprisingly, done.
Nope. 1st amend. applies to govt only.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
We need to brutally murder these nazi cowards so they understand what the fuck their ideology means to honest, hard working citizens of America. Kill em all.
But commie shits are perfectly ok with you, right?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Not to mention that the title is pretty much a lie.
This 'reporter' selected a bunch of target accounts that they wanted to target, and pointed a bot at them than just spam-replied to attack those accounts.
The bot was doing no finding, no uncovering, nothing smart, it was just attempting to censor through spam.
The guy got exactly what he deserved - in fact was treated better than he should be, because their first time around he actually did manage to get his spam-bot reinstated - it was only the second time that it was correctly taken down for good.
He will try and spin victim-politics here, but the fact is that he feels the right to be the sole determiner of who should be removed from a platform he has nothing to do with. It doesnt reall ymatter if his targets are good, bad, or indifferent - he simply does not have that right.
"You looked at me in a way that I didn't like - you're a nazi fascist sexist misogynist and you need to die."
Any and all reasons for calling someone a "nazi" are fair game. So much so that the word has now lost almost all meaning.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Too bad "nazi" now means anyone who is not a leftist.
In this context, "nazi" means white nationalists, white supremacists... basically anyone at the "unite the right" rally who chanted nazi slogans. You know, nazis.
Not conservatives. Not libertarians. Just nazis.
Enjoy your civil war.
Racists caused the last one and racists, presumably because most of them don't actually know what a civil war actually is, seem to want one now. I don't know what a "race war" is, but I would prefer not to share a country with people who need one just so they can be proven right.
So if we can just peacefully persuade the racists to shut the fuck up (or if they are serious about white nationalism, fuck off back to Europe) it won't happen.
The party was dismantled generations ago, there are no more Nazis.
So those chaps making Nazi saultes, chanting "blood and soil", wearing swastikas and so on---what would you call them exactly?
If you want a good argument about it, I suggest you try arguing with this chap:
https://mobile.twitter.com/Har...
His take on it:
I guess I got confused when they gave the #Hitler salute and chanted "blood and soil" b/c it reminded me of who I fought in my youth.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Homophobia and death threats. What makes you any better than them?
Ah, yes. Petty vengeance is always a good motivator for most people, true.
"I got abused so I will abuse myself." Great way to go.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Are you talking about absolute idiots or reasonable people? The former says crazy shit all the time no matter which political/religious/shoe size they have and can be ignored.
Reasonable people use nazi as a generic insult too but not for "anyone who is not a leftist", if they do that they are in the absolute idiot category. Strongly authoritarian right have common traits with national socialism but so have leftist authoritarians. That doesn't mean they _are_ national socialists of course.
But now we should study what _you_ wrote: you imply only "leftist" people use the nazi insult. Ludicrous! Either your world-view is skewed so extremely that everyone using the word nazi is per definition leftist (which indicates that you are a right-wing extremist) or that you are an absolute idiot and should be ignored.
So what is it?
--
People not realizing there are many more axes in politics than the simple "left"-"right" one scares me. Democracy requires thinking people understanding politics in order to function properly.
There are liberal left and there are liberal right, there are authoritarian left just as there are authoritarian right, there are religious leftism just as there are religious rightism.
By doing that, you are hollowing out the term Nazi. In your vision, it just means 'racist'. It doesn't.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
I wouldn't call them Nazis because they aren't a member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
So your argument is Since the persons are not formally members of the nazi party, they are not nazis. That is as ridiculous as claiming Since World War II was the last formally declared war, there have been no wars since then.
When you are sure of something, you probably are wrong (search for "Unskilled and Unaware of It").
I wouldn't call them Nazis because they aren't a member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
If they look like a Nazi, quack like a Nazi, make heavy use of Nazy symbology and espouse the same values, it's reasonablt to call them Nazis.
If you want to engage in a game of mindless semantics where only you control the definitions, feel free, but don't expect anyone else to think you're being sensible.
you seem to think being called out for bad grammar, bad terminology etc. is some how unacceptable
Ah, I see you've entered the "just make shit up" part of the debate. That didn't take you very long I must say.
Where do you think you are? This isn't Twitter
On Twitter, you might have a chance of trying your arguments out with someone who has more than an armchair perspective, you know, someone who actually fought the Nazis.
I see you simply ignored that.
By the way, quoting the names of inapplicable logical fallacies, especially those you don't understand does not make an argument, and it does not make you sound clever.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
So in effect, anyone you brutally murder was a nazi coward. That's certainly an appealing model for society isn't it.
If it looks like a Nazi, Smells like a Nazi, holds the same views as a Nazi, and salutes like a Nazi, it is acceptable to call it a Nazi, and then punch it in it's stupid, ignorant, bigoted, Nazi, face.
False equivalence.
This is not an argument. This is your opinion presented as if it were a fact. You are by all means entitled to have your opinions, but please do not try to present them as facts. It comes across to me as a disguised attempt to appal to authority, with you being the authority.
This is Slashdot, not Twitter.
You have posted this or similar to several of your posts, and it comes across as an attempt to silence the other person and to try to be an authority ("such and such are the rules"). If you want to influence people, telling them to shut up or otherwise address them in a derogatory way is usually never a good idea.
But, to address the very quote (which I interpret to mean "While on twitter you might get away by saying whatever rambling comes out of your head, here on slashdot you have to provide valid arguments for what you write").
You have claimed that the arguments are not equivalent without backing that up with any arguments. So in a eat your own dog food opportunity, please explain exactly what you think the difference(s) between claiming Since the persons are not formally members of the nazi party, they are not nazis and Since World War II was the last formally declared war, there have been no wars since then is (are).
When you are sure of something, you probably are wrong (search for "Unskilled and Unaware of It").
The Nazis were left wing as well.
No, they weren't. They defined themselves as a "third position" distinct from both right and left, adopting a few elements from one side, a few from the other, and adding stuff of their own to the mix. This is why the right calls them left, the left calls them right, the center considers them extremists in one direction or the other, and also why all three are wrong. The center is correct only insofar as nazis are extremists, but they're extremists in a direction that doesn't fit within the left-right spectrum.
Also, internally the Nazi Party had several subgroups, including a left wing, a right wing, a monarchist wing etc. At some point the right wing of the party decided the left wing was being too troublesome and killed them all. Afterwards the economic policies of the party, that were somewhat "balanced" from the perspective of the left-right axis of the time, turned markedly to the right. But contrary to what the current left wants to believe on the matter, that still didn't turn Nazism itself into a right wing movement.
Nazism was and remained first and foremost nazi-wing. Any attempt at reducing that wing so as to fit the left-right spectrum, be it into the left side of the spectrum, as conservatives and libertarians want to do, be it into the right side of the spectrum, as liberals and socialists want to do, is and will continue being incorrect and doomed to failure.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
America prides itself on being the great melting pot but 40 years of multi-culturalism has revealed that large ethnic immigration, like Europe is experiencing now, harms society.
I've seen studies showing that multiculturalism is indeed the problem, but with a caveat: "multiculturalism" understood as the specific policy the left began defending since a few decades of preserving cultures as they are by creating almost absolute barriers for meaningful cultural exchange, whose most recent example is the whole nonsense about "cultural appropriation". What this multiculturalism does is to create ghettos with invisible walls, and that in turn results in a permanente divide that only grow resentment and tribal identities.
Before those policies were enacted, the US and other countries did pretty well with immigration. Immigrants understood they were moving into another culture that expected them to fit, and tried their best to fit while preserving distinctive elements of their origin cultures, not the whole package. These elements in turn spread a little into the culture they moved in, resulting in a blend that for all practical purposes worked pretty well. It was a conservative mode of thinking that worked, and worked well.
The current model is the opposite of that, and its failures are showing more and more, and in even more dramatic ways.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Merriam-Webster can suck it. Oxford gets it better.
Nazi
NOUN plural nazis
1) historical A member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
1.1) derogatory A person with extreme racist or authoritarian views.
1.2) A person who seeks to impose their views on others in a very autocratic or inflexible way.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Different standards can be, and are, applied to governments that to the citizens. Especially in the US where the constitution was written by rebels who very specifically wanted to impose greater restriction on the government, while still allowing it to function as a government.
Correct. All racists are not Nazis, but damn near all Nazis are racists.
It's possible to be a racist and not believe in nationalism and autocratic rule.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Many of the "white nationalists" who marched in Charlotte were wearing swastikas, carrying Nazi flags, and shouting anti-Jewish sayings. The other white nationalists there didn't seem to mind the presence of these folks. As a friendly tip: If you are waving a Nazi flag and shouting anti-Jewish sayings while protesting, chances are you're a Nazi. If the people you're protesting with are carrying a Nazi flag and you don't see anything wrong with that, chances are you're a Nazi.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
So all of a sudden it's "acceptable" to be violent towards someone because they have different views than you, but only if it's a certain subset of different views.
Yes, autocratic white supremecists are bad. No, that is not a free pass for committing assault. Grow up.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Semantics wouldn't save me or my family if these people got into power and rounded us up because we're Jewish*. It wouldn't be any comfort to me to say "Sure these people stand for everything the Nazis stood for but since they haven't joined any 'National Socialist German Workers' Party' they aren't technically Nazis." These groups worship Nazis and want to pick up where Hitler left off. I've met one in person and he told me, to my face knowing that I was Jewish, that the only thing Hitler did wrong was not finishing the Jewish people off. These people are Nazis.
* And don't say they wouldn't do that. It might not happen right away, but these people would love to do this if they got enough political power. As for the "it wouldn't happen in America" argument that some trot out, I'd respond with exhibit A: The Japanese Internment Camps during WW2.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
You know, it's funny. No one to the left of Orrin Hatch would mistake me for a leftist. This has gotten me into no end of political tangles and dust-ups in the places I go. And yet, I've never been called a Nazi. Not even in jest, except in direct response to me pointing out that nobody ever calls me a Nazi, and I think we can all agree that doesn't count.
How can this be, I wonder? If you and I -rightists both- are so similar, how is it possible that you get called a Nazi all the time, yet I never do, even as a joke? I suspect it comes down to one critical difference between us: you are a Nazi, and I am not. Godwin's Law aside, most people really are savvy enough to tell the difference.
If I'm at a free-speech rally and nazi's with flags, and arm-bands show up I wouldn't be rallying with them and I suspect the vast majority of the people wouldn't either and would probably react to them.
I don't have common cause with Nazi's and I wouldn't accept and protest with them for anything. There beliefs are the very definition of evil.
"Canadian" is a nationality, not an ideology. "Nazi" is an ideology - all you have to do to be one is to believe in the same ideas.
That was, in German obviously, the Hitler Youth's slogan. A neo-nazi colleague of mine had the German words tattoo'd on his arms, hence me looking it up. Also what is "None of them wore swastikas -- that's a reference to Hitler's Germany, a sad romanticization of Hitler who (as we all know) lost the war and committed suicide." supposed to mean? Is Hitler not a Nazi all of a sudden?
Also, yeah, they wore jackboots. They're kind of famous for that actually. Camo pants on Nazis are a recent thing, though Nazis were really fond of militaristic trappings on their clothing, so I'm not surprised it's there, it's more or less an update. I'm not sure where the pilot jacket thing comes from. Shaved heads isn't universal amongst Nazis, now or then, but it dates back to the skinhead movement of which an off-shoot intermingled with Neo-Nazis for some reason.
This must the "I'm not a nazi, you're a nazi, so there, I win" school of thought. What about SM's comments make you think he's in favor of "white supremacy, racism, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, violence for violence's sake, dismantling of the separation of powers, opposition to liberal democracy"? I've never seen him advocate any of that. Could it be that you made it up to make yourself feel better? I'm pretty certain that's it.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Of course, the main problem remains of the interpretation of what constitutes racism in the first place. And here I think comes the 'leftists' of the parent poster at play.
Clearly, to some degree this is an exaggeration - or more precise generalization - as well, but it's a fact a large part of the left has the tendency to label everything of certain subject-matters that goes against their core beliefs as being racist; for instance: a more stringent immigration policy is one of the archetypal issues. the most extreme are the lefty self-appointed vigilantes and SJW-snowflakes, but to a large degree it's typical for large parts of the left to not be able to argue rationally about immigration, and they implicitly or explicitly always indicate any position taken that wants to clamp down on immigration, has racist motives. they also have a far more pronounced tendency than the right (at least in current times) to impose their will and stifle free speech (at least speech they don't agree with) - you can look up video's of Ben Shapiro and see how the left is acting up, there.
Granted, with my European roots I wouldn't call the democrats in the USA real socialists; WE have socialists here. Even hard-line communists, still. But in general, it is true the left is, ironically enough, becoming more and more fascist in their behavior. Especially concerning free speech. I think the root cause is decennia of socially-imposed political correctness and the delusion that all cultures are equal by their very nature. The latter being at the basis of the 'multicultural society' of our current Western democracies - apparently blind to the fact that, depending on how many you let in of which culture and with which mentality, you're undermining the very foundations of that very same democracy. It's the "let's not rock the boat, even if it's heading towards an iceberg'-attitude a large proportion of the leftists and the ruling elite (aka, the 'moderate' politicians) have adopted.
IMHO, it's insane. But contrary to some of the ultra-right, I don't see race, on itself, as a problem. That's not the issue at all. It's culture and mentality. Logic indicates that, if you take in hundredthousands (one million even, like Germany in 2016) of people where 40% of those people (as polls in the UK have demonstrated) think that the sharia-law should govern and be above all other laws - than one would have to be an idiot to not see how dangerous that is for your own society. Does that have anything to do with race? No. Raise Africans or people from the Magreb in a Western country from when they are babies, and you'll have no problems at all, for instance. Their skin-colour or appearance is not a problem for one's society and the values it entails. But cultures - including religion - that are antithetic to our values *are*.
Try to argue that rationally with a lefty, and 9 times out of ten, he'll resort to name-calling and racism-slurs. Probably because he has no good rational riposte, but still... it's a very annoying way to stiffle speech one does not agree with.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---