Hopefully Twitter actually defines a lot of these nebulous and highly-subjective terms going forward.
What is the exact definition of a "violent group"?
What constitutes "hateful imagery"?
Where can I find their database of "hate symbols"?
What constitutes a "hateful display name"?
What constitutes "condoning and glorifying violence"? (I would argue that many if not most video games at least glorify violence, from my perspective!)
In our modern Internet-connected society, the meanings of terms and symbols are subject to rapid and unexpected change. The ADL lists "Pepe the Frog" as a "hate symbol"[0], and while it's basically undeniable that many people use the symbol in an intentionally inflammatory or hateful context, I'm left completely at a loss as to whether or not posting an image of Pepe—or any cartoon frog for that matter—will get me suspended. (I have no reason to do so of course; this is entirely hypothetical.)
From the perspective of many people, especially those who use Twitter, certain political figures are considered to be inherently "hateful", and showing support for them is considered to be an act of hate.
There's a lot of talk about lines being drawn here but no talk of where exactly they will be drawn.
> Hopefully Twitter actually defines a lot of these nebulous and highly-subjective terms going forward.
There is a certain "jurisprudence" to this sort of thing. All laws are written ambiguously; that doesn't mean it's impossible to enforce them or that the laws are useless. Human interaction shouldn't be codified into computer code and in most cases can't be.
Whatever Twitter decides those things are, someone will be upset about it, and someone will contest the definition. That's fine. We already have this kind of thing in HN and Reddit and anywhere else on the internet where any kind of moderation happens. We had it in Usenet and in web forums.
The whole idea that ambiguity in the laws means that we should have absolute "free speech" including the demonstrably toxic and hateful place that Twitter has become is bonkers. Sure, you'll alienate some people who don't like your definitions. But that's kind of the point. To foster the community you want to have.
The problem is with situations like where our President tweets gifs promoting violence against people and news organizations, or attempts to instigate nuclear war via Tweet. Trump is obviously a gold mine for Twitter right now from both a growth and ad revenue standpoint (not even getting into the bot side of things), so they have a very vested interest in looking the other way.
There's also a lot of dangerous precedent that could be set if they were to block the POTUS.
So do we just say "no violent speech unless you've somehow managed to get elected"?
I’ll be more direct - yes. I would absolutely support banning any person, regardless of station, from the platform for violating its rules. Trump would still be the president without Twitter, we’re not talking about impeachment here.
And you're aware that includes all members of government, who are given a mandate for a monopoly on violence? Sorry this wasn't clear from your previous answer.
> The problem is with situations like where our President tweets gifs promoting violence against people and news organizations, or attempts to instigate nuclear war via Tweet.
That is spectacular. Our current culture war is THE reason why the Left is losing.
To be clear, if this were written as a law, it wouldn't survive the first challenge in court.
Edit: By way of further clarification, I realize that private entities have no such burdens when writing policies, but I was responding to a comparison with jurisprudence. That's not just a matter of a board making a call, or a CEO, it's the process by which an entire judiciary, over time, interprets law.
This is really nothing like it, just a set of loosely worded edicts from people who don't actually have to issue them in the first place, except to pretend that they're doing something constructive.
And it doesn't need to be a law either, just like HN doesn't need to set up a court and a trial every time it bans a user. Rough, ambiguous guidelines are ok for most internet communities.
To be fair, that was not in the Court's opinion — it was in a concurrence by Justice Stewart. People like to quote it, but it wasn't actually the law.
(A concurring opinion is written by one or more justices who joined in the Court's (majority) opinion but wish to write separately to make some separate points or explain where they diverge from the majority opinion.)
And that standard was upheld by judges who were very clear that they were wearing blindfolds when it came to obscenity law. It is a huge step backwards - Rather, many many small ones by two irredeemable groups, both with good intentions and results that are comparable to serial killers - that we're even talking about "Hate Speech" as if it were a thing.
There seems to be an assumption here and elsewhere, that Twitter or any such company actually has the answers to these questions. I really doubt that they do, and they announce these measures periodically for PR, to crack down on something, or just to reiterate what's always been true: they own their platform and everything on it.
These highly centralized, privatized means of communication have gone from amusing, to sickening.
And the mass of replies that each of his tweets garners, most of which I would personally consider to be unilaterally "hateful", especially the ones that seem to always float to the top...
They have already responded to this, the rules are applied with some leeway to account for "newsworthiness". The president's tweets will not be taken down and his account won't be banned because of a blind application of the rules.
If Twitter starts censoring mainstream political speech by even the POTUS, I think that'd draw more attention than they want.
Right now and in the future they can censor people that few people care about and probably have a much bigger impact without any outrage outside of niche communities.
My understanding is that the military and police, as representatives of an elected government, are legally allowed violence and should also be allowed to exist on Twitter.
They aren't affected by Twitter's existing rules, and presumably won't be by any new rules, unless they are changing not only the written rules but the unwritten rules controlling whether or not they apply the written rules.
Many of these things don't have exact definition in actual laws, either. I assume that a more detailed description will be made available as those policies are put into effect. Law systems generally rely on individuals designated to exercise judgment on a case-by-case basis, and, I assume, this will be the case here, too.
And even with actual law, people who may be satisfied with a particular law, may be very dissatisfied with a particular judge's interpretation and subsequent ruling, but that's how jurisdiction works.
What would be better? Putting down a concrete list of terms that can't be in a name? So, what happens when the hate groups come up with new dogwhistle terms to get around that? We now have to amend the list to add those? And then what happens to those who created their account with that name before it was against the rules?
Perhaps instead of a censorship arms race, we could stop trying to police speech & thought?
Is it better to push extremists and other weirdos to the echo-chamber fringe, to forums where they only ever encounter those that agree with them, or is it better to allow them into the public forum, where they will clearly find a huge number of people who disagree and argue with them, to show that their views are not so widely agreed with as they might come to dangerously believe in an echo chamber?
The above is assuming we only ever censor those who "should be censored"; imagine if social media were around during the civil rights movement and apartheid, whom would we then have censored, if you care to guess?
I know there are nuances here I haven't covered, but you can see that there is more to this than is seen at first glance.
We need some kind of un-governed mode of digital communication, as with real speech. No group can realistically stop you from shouting what you want to shout in public when you want to shout it, though you can obviously become a pariah or a prisoner shortly after. The same should be true online, free to face the consequences of your own speech, rather than not to speak at all.
It turns out that some ideas are toxic, as in, people get sucked into them, are too stubborn/whatever to admit they were wrong, and become rabid believers of nonsense.
Witness the adherents to the flat earth society or those that stringently don't believe we landed on the moon, never the Googler's sexist manifesto. Anti-semitic screeds like "the Jews run the banks and this is why you're poor!" frequently leak into open comment sections of your local news' website, or YouTube comments.
They're called echo chambers for a reason - semi-public forums become echo chambers because people won't seek out forums where people stringently disagree with them, they'll find supportive or semi-supportive forums, but in some cases those forums are stormfront or 4chan (where copying and pasting n-gger a million times passes for insightful). See also: HN's poor response to the Googler's firing. Vice.com had an infographic on Twitter about this, courtesy of MIT's media lab - https://news2-images.vice.com//uploads/2016/12/TwitterData1-.... Or multiple reports that certain groups of people have Fox News as their exclusive news outlet.
Even without social media, we see the same patterns in the past as we do today. Fun fact: Rosa Parks not the first person to stay seated at the front of the bus, but she had the unimpeachable character to deflect ad hominem attacks. It took a pre-organized movement just waiting for someone like Rosa Parks to refuse to move in order to catalyze change; homeless people, prostitutes, and drug addicts arrested for sitting at the front of the bus need not apply. We see this today, with Colin Kaepernick protesting "wrong" and that we could support Occupy Wallstreet/Black Lives Matter/Antifa if only they weren't protesting wrong.
When Twitter pretends to be powerless to do anything about death/rape threats to women journalists, the light of civilization is dimmed, ever so slightly. When entire classes of people disengage from mainstream discourse because they are being threatened by bodily harm, maybe it is possible that it is disingenuous to pre-conclude that anything possibly resembling censorship will result in a dystopian police state where African Americans are still denied the right to vote.
But again, in the absolutism of free speech, you're ignoring things like violent threats and racial slurs. And when you do that, you end up with something like 4Chan. Most people don't go there, for good reason.
And what consequence does someone who makes a lot of sock puppet accounts to send oven memes to Jewish people face? Pretty much none. Yet, those people are still faced with that constantly, and as a result, they choose not to engage. Now you've silenced their right to speech.
TBH, on Twitter (like on Facebook) you ultimately see posts from people you choose to follow. If you follow idiots, don't be surprised to see idiotic things. If you follow hateful people, don't be surprised to see hateful things.
That was the case until the @reply. Plus you probably don't want your followers to see idiots responding to your posts, unless they're following those idiots
It turns out, though, that lots of people you’d want to follow for interesting content also take a break from interesting, insightful, or funny tweets to have vitriolic rants.
Perhaps then the rules should enforce some sort of "theme" policy. I.e. if you're a gaming account, it has to stick to gaming content, etc. If it's political commentary, sure, and so forth. It might be difficult, but probably more do-able than the nebulous "abuse" rules that they currently have.
Really, it's what I hoped FB would turn into. I.e. you had "themed" pages, and follow them for posts regarding that theme. However, it seems that what happens is if a page and it's admins start getting any non-negligible amount of followers, they decide that it's their "right" to use it as a platform for opinions on unrelated matters. It's quite frustrating.
These are all just more detail on the One Rule of Social Media: You get banned when you're more trouble than you're worth.
There's some obviously good refinements here, suspension appeals are a no-brainer. There's been an undocumented appeals process where banned users complain until some twitter employee cares enough to look into it, but many users don't have enough clout to have that accomplished.
One thing that bothers me about twitter is that there is a special case of harassement that is just impossible to report: trending topics.
Here in Mexico (can't say if that happens anywhere else), every week or two there are hate trending topics against women, other countries and indigenous people and these last for more than a day.
If twitter wants to be a «safe and welcoming place» for anybody, they are missing out a huge issue, as there is no way to report a trending topic nor to find who created/popularized it in the first place (so we can report it, altough I'm sure it wouldn't lead to anything). I can't imagine what's going on twitter directive's heads, as the trending topic is almost one of the top 5 things a new user sees.
For what I can tell, these trending topics are created by influencers and bots to flex their muscles before a paid campaign, often regarding the government.
I hope that this will be covered by "Expanded Definition of Spam and Related Behaviors". In fact, I hope for major action on that front because I feel like it's a force multiplier for all of the other guidelines that they're pushing on, and it's one place where they could end up marking down their activity metrics greatly, to the detriment of their revenue and stock price.
I haven't followed Mexican Twitter much, so I'm a little surprised but not too much to hear that there are anti-women trending topics with regularity. Do you think this is a general Mexican machismo cultural problem or something that is more localised to the internet?
Can't say for sure, but we mexicans are very hypocrite about racism. We look at the US and can't believe how they treat their immigrants, but we do the same in the south border. I have heard that we treat them even worse than what happens in our north border.
There's a machismo culture and it might be the worst about ourselves, but also we look down to the indigenous population, saying things like «you are so indigenous» to mock somebody who has done something stupid.
Obviously we are not all like that, but when you look at the average mexican, things are not looking too good. So there's that, but also the thing about the trending topics is that it looks like it's created by people that gets paid to create them. And between jobs they are testing their weapons, focusing on a controversial issue (when you click on a trending topic it's almost 50%-50% people using it to make their hateful statement to those who use it to defend the affected group of people).
Regardless, a platform as interested in their user's safety shouldn't be a megaphone for hate speech.
Somewhat recently a reporter in Mexico was sexually assaulted and got a hold of surveillance footage and posted it to twitter to try to shame the police (they have a pretty poor record of prosecution of this sort of thing) and she was attacked pretty hard on twitter (and it sounds like the Mexican police were not very sympathetic when she reported it.).
https://news.vice.com/article/reporters-video-of-sexual-assa...
Remember when twitter was praised for being part of what helped the Arab Spring?
Now both corrupt and moral alike can be clamped down by these rules. Who will be the arbiter of what is considered a "violent organisation" and what is considered fair? Are "freedom fighters" on the side of good exempt from these suspensions or are twitter now simply too much part of the establishment to care for the next revolutions?
I can understand that twitter absolutely need to clamp down on spread of hate-speech and the spread of horrendous videos such as those that were produced by ISIS/ISIL for propaganda and recruitment purposes. But vague rules leads to selective enforcement which could be worrying for free speech and democracy in future.
> videos such as those that were produced by ISIS/ISIL
ISIS videos are what people are using to sell these policies. In reality, a lot of mainstream political speech in the US and EU will be censored by these policies. This is not an accident. Social media has succeeded too well in allowing normal plebians to spread ideas the ruling classes find distasteful.
How many times have you seen Donald Trump called a Nazi? You dont think it a stretch to have twitter ban people for supporting certain policies? Twitter does seem to lean quite heavily left, does it not?
What about the rise of the right in the EU? What about "undesired" stories about actual problems, large and small scale, caused by migrants? Pretty important topic, I would think, yet we already have communities self censoring all over the internet, what is stopping twitter from applying these laughably nebulous rules to hide a side of discussion on this topic too?
Well, when the president praises Nazi's as 'very fine people', what do you expect? Also, when the European far-right whips up fear and bullshit beyond all proportion against groups of the EU's own citizens, what do you expect?
See, that's the sort of thing he's talking about precisely. You've already made your mind up about Trump's comment, and detracted the conversation entirely. Next thing you know, you and other Twitter users all make a big hoo-ha about a relatively benign comment because you think it's offensive, and decide to report it to Twitter for it to get banned. There is nothing hateful about his statements, and you really should re-evaluate your critical reasoning (or news sources, if you took them for their word on it rather than evaluating it yourself) if you think it does.
Case in point: "And I'm not talking about the neo-nazis and white supremacists, because they should be condemned totally"
Moving back. Political speech, commentary, opinions and debate need to be uncensored entirely, no exceptions, if you are to have a democratic society. Otherwise, you're just thought-policing people into thinking/acting into the norm. Sure, harassing someone over a political view won't fall under that, but the key qualifier there is "harassing". I'd go so-far as to say that any platform that is open to the public needs to be punished for silencing any sort of political speech. That is undemocratic, for lack of a better word. Because it shuts-down general debate.
Yeah, like, those are actually the extremist groups with ties to terrorism that this kind policy is designed for. It’s not Twitter’s fault that mainstream politics has gone haywire... I mean maybe it is, but point stands
Right, and nothing more from the US armed forces ;) Or even the UN, for that matter. Or police forces. And what about team sports? Rugby is pretty violent, after all.
What's the difference between "Better experience for Suspension Appeals" and "Educating abusers about our rules", and why does it have different dates? Both seem to address the problem of accounts being suspended, and not being told why.
And will @USArmy be banned on November 3rd for being a "organization that uses violence to advance their cause"?
I think a big step forward would be a "right to be forgotten." Currently, the Twitter hoard is free to dox, "parody" and generally permanently harass any private citizen.
Anyone who has attempted to use Twitter's reporting mechanism knows it's a vapid black hole to /dev/null.
I've been told, "oh, people who hire a lawyer can usually get traction" -- and that's ridiculous.
I've reported many people's tweets. Mainly people posting far-right memes and also yelling at people for being Jews. Their accounts go away after a couple of days.
This might not be as effective for less blatant rule breaking
I got reported for calling Marin residents who didn't want to pay a $75 tax to support affordable housing because it might mean poor people in Marin "greedy cunts" and my account was suspended. Meanwhile they get to launch all sorts of insults and personal attacks at proponents of more housing and not get banned.
Filtering tweets based on bad language sounds like an easy user-based-configuration.
Do you think that Google's search results should contain pages with foul language or hardcore pornography? Or are you OK with Google's "safe search" functionality, which defaults to "safe"?
I don’t know about far left stuff but I’ve certainly seen a TON of complaints from women being harassed or targeted or out right under siege by hordes of users piling on them and complained that Twitter doesn’t do anything about it or even remove the reported tweets.
My experience was joining Twitter and then within a month or two scene the attacks that started gamer gate. Things don’t seem to have improved since then even though they keep saying they’ll fix some of this stuff.
I’ll believe it when I see it because so far they’ve never managed to do anything reasonable, at least in a sane timeframe.
Yes, I know two women who were explicitly doxed. Their cell phones started ringing incessantly. People posted and retweeted snapshots of their tweets. Oh -- one woman is transgender and she was "outed" as a "man."
That's nonsense, and I bet your comment will justifiably get down-voted to oblivion. On the other hand, I suspect many HN users will agree with your general sentiment.
My response is that the political spectrum is cyclical. Therefore, as you move far enough in one direction, you wrap around to the other side, like the edges of a PacMan board.
One example, in my opinion, is the idea that the "majority" or the "expert leaders" or "(pick your group)" are correct, and should be given absolute power. This then leads to horrible oppresssion, and destruction.
One of the reasons why these problems got so big is that these companies tried to automate too much of it. Had they started with people moderating from the start, the kinds of problems they had likely wouldn't have taken hold in the first place.
Anyone that runs a social website either already knows this or learns the hard way. The real issue is few people who use social website understand how difficult a problem this is.
I'd be shocked if these rules get used on the "let's punch Nazis" camp. More likely is that there's now additional things to point to when "problematic" tweets get mass-flagged.
Recently, someone posted a complaint about a Halloween costume that was a wall. That got the perpetually outraged group in motion, of course. One user said she would punch anyone who she saw wearing such a costume. Twitter banned her.
So, things may be changing slowly. It isn't easy for some folks to see faults in people who agree with them. I notice that when I stand up for something on the political right, I'm often assumed to be a member of the right. If I point out a problem with the political left, I'm often assumed to be a member of the political right.
It's very binary and people really aren't always objective. But, there are instances where this is changing. Some BLM members were recently banned because of hate speech and suggesting violence and some AntiFa have also suffered the same fate.
It takes time but it does appear that they are being more honest with their enforcement.
Of course, you still have the group who will try to interpret things as other than written. There are people who see -isms where none exist.
On this topic, it has led me to trying to coin the phrase, 'If you seek umbrage, you will find it.' I've seen another person quote it, so it may be catching on slowly.
> I notice that when I stand up for something on the political right, I'm often assumed to be a member of the right.
I was downright called a "Russian shill" just a few weeks ago. I criticized something Clinton did or said something about "the Russians" campaign. They proceeded to go and dig though my post history and found something 300 some days ago about how I speak Russian, so that was their proof that Putin is sending me a check every month.
There is a definite feel lately of "If you criticize my party, then you clearly must be a member of the other party, probably from the most extremist sub-group of it."
If there appears to be a political valence to Twitter's rules enforcement, it's only one that reflects the relative user base and their weaponization of reporting mechanisms.
Not being political but I honestly feel Donald Trump saved Twitter from oblivion. They were in dire straits last year and seem to have coasted through. I still sort of wish they would fail and vanish, but I think it's significant they are still here today when they couldn't find a buyer to save their lives not long ago.
All of these rules seem to make sense. They probably made sense 5 years ago?
But seriously, why the grace period? If I condone violence to promote a cause in October, is that ok? Just not next month? Is revenge porn ok for another 6 days?
Any time you suspend people, you need an escalation path, and you need real support people behind that. So you can't just turn on all the things until you staff up.
Without President Trump twitter would be useless in all honestly. It was slowly dying similar to tumblr, myspace, etc. But Trump revitalized it and made it a staple of politics. Great way to bypass the media and talk directly to the people
Kind of weird to share these guidelines as an image of text. It's not accessible this way, and I can't think of any reason why they would have chosen to share it as an image instead of a table with text. What am I missing?
Well yeah they could tweet an image of text if they want (and use alt-text if they cared), but why would they handicap the website by using the same image?
If Twitter really bans Pepe the Frog I expect a huge backlash. Whatever mechanism exists to get some symbol recognized as a hate symbol will be exploited by trolls: The Twitter bird itself could be saying some very nasty stuff soon.
Unwanted sexual advances is also a slippery slope. Twitter is already banning/muting users that make sexual advances to a company mascotte: Tony the Tiger. So I can't imagine how this will look like in "real life".
About the hateful names, what exactly would this be targeting? Are "jewgoldstein" or "(((they)))know" hateful ban-able names?
I don't have a verified logo next to my name, nor can I write 280 character Tweets, so I don't have much to lose if these new rules turn out to be draconic. All the hate groups (think lowest of low: harassing family of suicide victims), all the violence, all the glorification of terrorist attacks: It is mostly water under the bridge by now, and posturing. The large number of bots and users guarantees that this will be some ML algorithm with a few false positives, that won't have much of a voice for you to care about it.
I agree. The few times I’ve ever tried to look at my “local“ Twitter have been a mess. Bot posting weather for where I live (and a whole bunch of other places?). Flood of postings of every job entered to any online database near me. A whole bunch of other automated garbage.
If I want to see what people near me are tweeting it’s basically impossible. The signal to noise ratio is insane.
Hopefully those nitpicking the wording, timing, and implementation of these rules realize just how deep harassment and hate run on social media platforms like Twitter.
Certainly the rules are imperfect, but the amount of anonymous toxicity currently allowed is IMO much worse than some clunky standards. There's a lot of space between defending free speech and standing idly by while people use your service to attack others.
> Yes, we comply with the law. We also defend free speech. You may be happy to know we are reviewing our principles—good to do so regularly.
Now, maybe Twitter are more interested in proclaiming an interest in defending free speech than they are actually defending it, but you sure are making a lot of claims in these comments that don't pass basic scrutiny.
Thats okay. You're just not a proponent of free speech. Free speech is the deplorable and socially unacceptable.
It was once unacceptable to suggest black people had rights or that women should vote. To think we are at the apex of morality is hubris. Thus, I feel freedom of expression remains a vital component in modernity.
As the saying goes, "I don't agree with a word you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Indeed, I find that these sorts of rule changes, "codes of conduct", "safe spaces", etc. deeply troubling --- a sign of a society that has abandoned freedom, personal responsibility, and independent thought. People are letting governments and companies dictate (and increasingly, automate away the decisions in) their lives for them.
Consider that the vast majority of communications between people now happens online, through channels controlled by companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter. The power to control what people can say, think or do falls in the hands of a tiny number of groups who can manipulate, censor, and divert the masses in the direction they want. That is really, really scary.
Damned right. It is very scary. Fortunately, more people are starting to fight back. I've got a ready army of supporters, but they are Nazis and I'm not sure how helpful they will be.
The ACLU and EFF are busy right now. But they are on my side. They put up announcements but aren't able to do much. So, I keep doing what I have been doing.
I get two or three converts each time. I watch the karma change. I see the replies.
If you're not supporting free speech, stand over there and let us do it. When it finally clicks in, come join us - but you will be defending horrible speech. Horrible...
I go and immerse myself in this speech. I make it know on that I am not one of them. I go to voat and tell them my race and political views. I tell them that I'm there to fight for free speech. They actually accept me. Mostly... I've got a few to move out of their white nationalist gangs and one is getting a tattoo removed. So, it's a start.
"As the saying goes, "I don't agree with a word you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.""
The topic was racial slurs and rape threats. Are those things you want to defend, and is it honestly troubling to you that there are rules put up saying they are not allowed?
You are not a proponent of free speech. You're a proponent of speech that you don't find offensive. It is, in my opinion, okay to hold those views.
You're absolutely entitled to have those views. However, you're not a proponent of free speech. Free speech allows people to say all lawful things.
Threats and slander are unlawful and aren't protected speech. Child pornography is illegal. There are many things freedom of speech doesn't protect.
I have no major complaints about the legislation aspect as it currently is.
I did not assert that rape threats were civil rights. No, those are illegal. Well, they are actually only illegal of they are credible threats.
Slander is illegal. Credible threats of violence are illegal. Disclosure of classified data is illegal. Certain kinds of pornography are illegal. Inciting a riot is illegal. Credibly suggesting someone harm another is illegal.
There are more but that's the gist. Those acts are illegal.
What is not illegal is when some jerk comes and says, "I think all women should be raped." I think we can all agree that it is deplorable, but it is not illegal.
'It would be great if all those n&ggers were strung up.' is not illegal. But, "I'm going to get a truckload of us, come back, and string up them n&ggers!' is illegal.
That last one is illegal because it has become a credible threat.
When the neo-Nazi marches go on, complete with their fancy clothes, and shouting how they hate K&kes, N&ggers, Sp&cks, etc... and throwing up their Nazi solute - that's legal.
It's deplorable, but legal. And I support free speech. That means I support their right to express themselves within the legal framework.
The right to express yourself as you see fit is very much a basic human right. There are already limits.
So, I support all lawful speech. That is what it means when you defend the freedom of speech. Anything else is not defending it. Anything else doesn't need to be defended.
It is okay, really. At least it is okay by me. You don't have to support free speech. There are probably a list of other rights you don't support. The rights I support are in the US Constitution. I'd like to keep them there, but I accept that it is a living document.
Wow, that's a reasonable description and stance. What do you think of "free speech" advocates like Milo and Jack Posobiec? And the people marching at the freedom of speech rallies?
Milo, for example, will go somewhere and they will drown him out, protest, and interrupt his speech. Sometimes, they even manage to get the invite rescinded.
Slowly but surely, more and more people are seeing that people are trying to limit free speech. They are noticing that the universities are favoring certain types of speech.
What they are doing is bringing attention to the attempts to silence people. Slowly but surely, we are winning this fight. More people notice, more people speak out, more people exchange their ideas.
Their horrible speech (and Milo isn't that bad, I've listened to him) is enough to make people try to silence him. Before, it was quiet and nobody really noticed. Now, it has started to go mainstream.
Now, those who weren't paying attention are seeing the changes that have been underway since the 80s. And they are starting to speak up. They are starting to say, 'No, let them speak.'
It means more people are starting to speak out about our right to freely express and that many of those people aren't, you know, Nazis. Nazis make terrible frontmen for political movements. Really, they are just horrible people.
We are getting more socially acceptable people speaking out, instead of the outlandish.
It is a bit like how you can't mention State's Rights without being assumed to be a racist. That has been changing recently, as the subject matter is now weed and immigration. Those are easier causes for people to get behind than the racism usually associated with it.
So, it's changing. I see speech values changing rapidly. I've been at this since the 80s. I'm not dead yet, so I might just as well keep fighting the good fight. On my side are people like EFF and the ACLU, so I am in good company.
Of course you can. However, if your protest is done in such a manner that it negates their ability to speak, you've taken away their rights.
Oh, Milo is just a trolling attention whore. He's harmless. You should go spend a day on voat.co. If you want to, let me know. I'll go guide you around. You will see horrible people. There are some good people but they are the minority.
Again, no. I reject your absolutism. To say that someone is not a proponent of free speech because they don't believe those things are part of it is completely inane.
We will never agree on this topic. In the example you give, I do not see why either is acceptable, and I don't see why both are not a threat of violence. Someone being bombarded with messages like that is not going to see much of a difference.
You're also ignoring the silencing effect the speech you're defending has on other groups. Few people are going to stick around somewhere that those things are commonplace. Thus, that community is censoring and silencing other groups.
You can reject it all you want. You're still wrong. Free speech isn't speech you like. That's limited speech.
This isn't complicated. You wish to limit speech. That means you don't support free speech. It's okay to hold that opinion, even though I don't agree with you. You'd probably be better served if you were honest with yourself and others.
Twitter is not obligated to provide a platform of free speech. Which is good, because they don't. They are the exact opposite of free speech. Somewhere like voat.co is actually interested in free speech and, truth be told, they are as terrible as you might imagine.
But, coming in and saying that you want to limit speech and be called a free speech advocate? Save that for someone else. It borders on insulting that you think I'm that naive.
> you want to limit speech and be called a free speech advocate
Everyone wants to limit some speech. Do you support limits on fraudulent speech? Defamatory speech? Incitement to imminent lawless action? Speech that violates confidentiality obligations? Perjury?
Everyone agrees that some speech is so harmful it needs to be prohibited. The dispute is whether we should allow or prohibit speech that causes harms of a lesser degree; it is a dispute about what is the right balance between the freedom to speak and the freedom not to be harmed by speech.
Everyone is a free speech advocate (in that everyone supports people having some freedom to speak), and everyone wants to limit speech (nobody wants that freedom to be unlimited.)
If you will do me a favor, you can read all the comments that I've made in this thread. I have already explained that and answered those questions.
I support all legal speech. That's the line. If it is illegal, don't do it. If it is legal, you can do it. Just because it is legal doesn't make the speaker a good person.
I do not want to limit speech more than it already is. I'd like to expand it in a few areas. Specifically, they have been making use of free speech zones since the 1980s. This was done by the DNC. Yup. The DNC were the first to use free speech zones. Outside those zones, speech wasn't free.
Now, the front steps at the SCOTUS building are no longer a free speech zone. They moved the zone away from the public entrance. I want that fixed. I want all of them eliminated on property owned or paid for by the government. I want all public areas to be free speech zones.
I love me some speech. I really do.
I feel the same way about the government forcing me to house troops. I feel the same way about firearms. I can go on...
All lawful speech should be permitted. Nobody is obligated to provide a platform and nobody is objigated to listen.
Really, take five minutes and read my other comments. It will probably help. If you still have questions, I'll try to help.
I don't expect to change your mind, by the way. I just give you a point where you can pick a direction. These same rights I mention, they are also your rights. I am positive you say things that people think are offensive and hurtful. Well, you have that right. I aim to make sure you can keep that right.
> I support all legal speech. That's the line. If it is illegal, don't do it. If it is legal, you can do it.
Legal where? Speech that is legal in one jurisdiction is illegal in another. I live in Australia and you sound like you live in the US, and every country (and even states/provinces/etc within the same country) has different laws about what speech is allowed and what isn't.
The law is not fixed, it changes over time. (Even constitutionally entrenched laws, such as the US First Amendment, change, albeit more often by evolving interpretation than by textual amendment–however it is interpreted now, a future Supreme Court majority could always broaden or narrow that interpretation–and I'm certain that to some degree it will change.)
Part of the debate is not just what the law is (in whatever jurisdiction), but also what the law should be. Saying "I support all legal speech" doesn't do anything to answer the question of what the law should be.
In host country. Outside that, the user must follow their laws. The States don't have different speech laws. Not different enough to matter. Those get tossed when they get too SCOTUS.
If you read my posts, you'd see I already commented on what I felt about the current laws. They are right here in this big thread.
You just listed off a whole bunch of restrictions on speech that you support, so I'm not sure where you're standing here.
Is it your contention that the current collective US jurisprudence on free speech restrictions represents the platonic ideal of Free Speech, such that by defending it you are a "free speech absolutist"?
Some speech is considered unlawful and that I don't support. That is a longer subject, however.
I don't think we need 'free speech zones' at political rallies. The DNC started that. I don't like how SCOTUS moved the free speech zone away from the building. Things like that.
Lawful speech should be the default. Unlawful speech is afforded no such protections. I'm happy with those limits. Some speech is legitimately harmful.
Read the whoe thread. Even read the people I replied to.
I'm pointing out that your support of only speech that is currently considered lawful (and by implication, your support of restrictions on free speech that are currently codified into US law) means you are no more a free speech absolutist than the person you are arguing with.
It invalidates your entire argumentative posture throughout this thread IMO.
I don't think it's fair to claim KGIII's entire argument has been invalidated anymore than it's fair to characterize it as absolutist (b/c illegal speech was not supported in any of this thread by KGIII).
In the US, maximizing liberty is a priority, but minimizing violence is also a priority; so, these things both have to be considered. If Australia (or any other country) does not share this prioritization for liberty, that is up to their citizens. But, the US Constitution is still the law of the land here in the US, and no matter what those with authoritarian tendencies want for their countries, we will continue to prioritize liberty.
By the same token, your insistence on lumping threats of violence in with racial slurs is similarly inane. I don't hear anyone defending rape threats here.
I do. The person I was responding to is saying that you have to defend those if you wish to be a proponent of free speech. I reject that absolutism in it's entirety.
Nobody said you have to defend rape threats. Credible threats of violence are illegal. I believe you are ignoring or misunderstanding the argument (and the detailed reply was posted an hour ago). It seems you’re conflating racial slurs (and other deplorable speech) with threats of rape (or other horrific actions) as being equal. They are not.
There is a huge difference between these two:
> Get fucked, bitch.
> I have your address. I’m going to find you and rape you till you’re dead, bitch.
The second statement is absolutely illegal, as it is a credible threat. The first is a disgusting statement from an asshole that shouldn’t have ever been said.
Since 1998, I’ve been aware of a group of so-called christians who like to go to funerals and public events holding signs that say “god hates fags”. No doubt these people might be inclined to tweet, “We should round up all the fags and kill them.” Absolutely, without a doubt, deplorable as fuck. Still protected speech, as uncomfortable and disgusting as it is. These people nauseate me. They make me want to punch their teeth in. If I then reply to one of these assholes with, “Found your address. Coming for you. Better call your dentist.” I’ve wandered into credible threat territory, and illegal speech. I’m wholly unprotected by the First Amendment now.
Defending free speech means defending the constitutional right to say deplorable, yet wholly legal things. And it’s exceedingly difficult. Intellectually, I know it’s protected speech. I can type these words and say it’s legal and protected. I don’t dispute it at all. Emotionally, and as a human who believes in trying to do no harm because the world is chaos and it’s better to be kind, I can’t stand it. I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to read it. I want it gone. I want it to never have been said. I want people to have ways to escape being the targets of such speech. People shouldn’t feel unsafe. They shouldn’t feel attacked for who they are. And yet, we shouldn’t take away anyone’s right to speak their mind, no matter how disgusting.
In all these cases, the principles remain the same:
- there is no end to the vile things humans think and say, yet saying them is a right we’ve granted is, in sum, a net good
- anyone who veers outside mere speech and begins to incite, threaten, or engage in illegal action should be swiftly punished
- where lines get crossed or blurred and clarity is needed, we establish laws to do so (and they should pass constitutional muster)
What I find most difficult is having to defend from the assumption that my defense of speech means that I agree with the speech.
This is untrue and a non sequitur.
I can't stand Nazis. I'm not white and they'd harm me, if given opportunity to do so. They are truly horrible people.
As horrible as they are, they still deserve basic human rights up until they violate the law. We don't preemptively punish people. We don't take rights away without due process. We operate with the assumption of innocence until proven guilty.
Well, we used to...
So, when I stand up for the rights of the deplorable, I'm assumed to be a deplorable. Never mind that I'm standing up for the rights of all, I'm now counted as one of the deplorable.
And defending against that takes some time. To be fair, I didn't have anything better to do, most of the time. Still, I've had this conversation so many times that I could probably script it and automate it.
Seriously, a sibling post noticed that I have this verbiage figured out. They aren't the first to notice. I've been having this same conversation since before the Internet was world wide. Someone has to stand up for free speech while not actually being deplorable. It's more tasteful to hear it from me than to hear it from a KKK Grand Wizard. The reception is much better, put it that way. ;-)
Of course I'm willing to allow it. That's what defending free speech means. Free speech means allowing the deplorable, the horrible, the hateful, and the hurtful.
It does have limits, and those limits are already encoded in the laws. I've already been over those.
I like all of my rights, even if I'm not using them. I not only want them for myself, I want them for you.
I'm sorry, but we will never agree on this topic. Rape threats are not free speech, and saying I don't defend them does NOT mean that I am against free speech.
Just as you are allowed to say things considered insulting, oppressive, and intimidating by other (unfortunately large and growing) groups of people. Nobody complains about being marginalized more loudly than the nativists and white supremacists, and they use the exact same arguments as you do to demand that their critics be silenced.
That's understandable. However, while threats of violence are not protected speech in the U.S., insults (e.g., racial slurs) absolutely are, and that protection is the reason you can't be punished for insulting cops, for example, or whatever else might hurt someone's feelings.
I have to ask though... what is the actual problem with all of this "harassment"? Yes, many people pseudonymously post a lot of hateful garbage on Twitter, but it's just words on the Internet—if you put yourself out there as a public figure, assholes are gonna be assholes.
A few months ago, a VICE editor wrote a piece originally titled "Let's Blow Up Mount Rushmore" (the title was later changed)[0]. Being a South Dakotan, this was pretty offensive to me, and my reply got the most likes and retweets, putting it in the prominent "first reply" spot[1]. I got a lot of very nasty comments from various extremely angry people, including one who implied I was a Nazi or something by saying "I wonder if "rezich" [my surname] is supposed to be similar to "Reich" or it's just some amazing irony"[2]
I just shrugged it all off as the vitriolic Internet being the vitriolic Internet. I engaged with a few of the replies, but I let many of them just be, because really, what is the use in getting worked up over rude and angry Internet comments, that take nearly zero effort to post?
I understand that Twitter improving its harassment reduction systems will lead to better experiences for its users and overall make it a more attractive platform for people in general, but there's this idea that it is the "moral duty" of Twitter to prevent assholes on the Internet from being assholes on the Internet, and I just can't for the life of me understand it.
Words only have as much power as you let them have, and for some reason (which I won't speculate on here), it seems like everyone these days seem to want to give "hate speech" as much power as possible.
You're lucky that you don't have to take any of the death threats seriously, and that you don't fear being fired because of what people are writing about you on the internet. Women generally have this worse. Sometimes the harassment escalates to things that are actually illegal, like bomb threats. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/31/bomb-thre...
If you hosted a party and someone got super drunk and started shouting racial slurs at everyone, would you tell them to leave? Or would you laugh it off and tell everyone else to chill because it's just words?
> I understand that Twitter improving its harassment reduction systems will lead to better experiences for its users and overall make it a more attractive platform for people in general
That’s not the same thing. It’s much easier to just disengage on the Internet than in person. Presumably if this person is at your house you’d know them, which would add an element of emotional drama that isn’t there when some random person on frog twitter is posting Pepe memes. Just, like, look away.
In this analogy, Twitter is the host, users are guests. If a racist asshole shows up at the party, everyone else can easily disengage, by just leaving. Should the host just leave the door open and sit in the back making sure the lights stay on, prioritizing absolute free speech over who is having a good time? Or should they kick out toxic guests, so the people they like will stay?
But if someone shows up wearing a black coat and jackboots because they think they look cool(or posting pepe memes because they think the images are funny), can you brand them as racist and kick them out?
You sure can, especially if they're making the party uncomfortable and unpleasant for the rest of your guests. Their crime is not so much dressing like a Nazi, but intentionally antagonizing other people for no reason. If it wasn't intentional, they should note the reactions, take other people into consideration, and either leave or correct their behavior. Why don't other people have to consider the Nazi-dresser's feelings? Well, they do. They'll consider them for 10 seconds, realize there is no legitimate reason to be dressed like that, and rightfully suspect bad intentions.
If you want to be accepted into a community, earn it. Other people have no obligation to tolerate your presence and listen to your speech. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom to be heard.
This is such a dangerous path to go down, and it's really easy to see where we end up.
Let's say I'm vehemently anti-abortion, and have a YouTube channel where I discuss that topic. If some sufficient amount of users find my content "intentionally antagonizing" I could be de-platformed. YouTube is perfectly within their legal rights to do this, of course, at least currently. But these tech companies have all become critical infrastructure in how we communicate. Do you honestly think it's a good idea for these tech companies to start enforcing ideological conformity? What's perfectly normal speech for one is intentionally antagonizing to another.
No, I don't think tech companies should enforce ideological conformity, but they shouldn't enforce ideological equality either. A lot of people, especially on HN, seem to have this idea that if a rule or policy can't be exactly defined, it shouldn't be used. It's not possible to codify "no assholes allowed", so we should just abandon that idea.
Look, the reason we don't have a law against Nazi ideas in America is that it's too dangerous to give the government that power. If we did have such a law, and it were abused, there's no higher power to appeal to. We have nearly absolute free speech not because all speech deserves equal consideration, but simply because there is no practical legal alternative. But it is crucial to understand that since we can't give the government that power, society is obligated to pick up the slack. Nazis cannot be punished legally, so they must be punished socially. We all wish we lived in a world where any idea could be freely discussed, and "bad" ones would be naturally dismissed, but we don't. The world doesn't naturally improve, people force it to, and not just by hosting neutral discussion spaces.
What I'm describing is basically majority rule, and I understand how dangerous it is. Frankly, over the course of history, it's usually gone poorly. But there is no alternative. If you decide to be neutral, you're just giving more power to those who aren't. If you don't like racism, so you decide to live your life "colorblind", you're helping racists, as they obviously won't join you. As a member of society, you have an obligation to not only avoid helping racists, but actively work against them by loudly arguing with them, depriving them of opportunities to promote or implement their ideas, and maybe kicking them out of a party if they try to start some shit.
Twitter can't be neutral, because everybody else isn't. In fact it's not really possible to be neutral, they can either endorse the status quo, or work against it. If they abuse their incredibly powerful position, there is a higher power we can appeal to who is required to be neutral in such cases.
No one is saying they should "enforce ideological equality". What I am saying is that it's dangerous for a tech company to tip the scales like this.
Under your majoritarian rule proposal we'd just end up with any idea sufficiently derided by the loudest groups and most influential twitter personalities effectively banned. Especially given that 140-characters isn't enough space to realistically make full throated arguments, the prospect of people being misinterpreted is resoundingly high.
>We all wish we lived in a world where any idea could be freely discussed, and "bad" ones would be naturally dismissed, but we don't. The world doesn't naturally improve, people force it to, and not just by hosting neutral discussion spaces.
This statement is just Neomarxism repackaged. Taken to its logical conclusion, these corporations should become essentially political entities that enforce whatever ideological consensus the majority deems palatable. Twitter thus becomes a tool for sociocultural engineering. Given how poorly the company operates today, they should probably stay away from trying to broaden their mandate.
>If you decide to be neutral, you're just giving more power to those who aren't...
What? No I'm not. No one is neutral and those who say they are are lying. It sounds like you're half trying to Kafkatrap me. Just because I don't endorse Twitter's rule-making in this context does not mean I'm "helping racists". Especially since the definition of who is a Nazi or a racist seems to be continually expanding, forgive me for being skeptical that if they abuse their power anything would be done. You'd be helping the Nazis, remember?
Sorry, I'm just using "you" because I need a subject for my examples. It's the colloquial "you", I'm not literally talking about you. I'll stop.
Anyway, I agree that no one is neutral, that's my point. Twitter already is a political entity, it already is a tool for sociocultural engineering. It can't not be. The policy of "any and all legal speech will be allowed" is a political choice and an endorsement of the status quo. Allowing Nazi speech is obviously not as bad as literally being a Nazi, but it is an acceptance of the way things are. Allowing speech is just as political as blocking speech.
There is no way to avoid making these decisions, and the more power one has, the more the choice matters. A free-for-all policy is equivalent to an individual staying silent when their friend makes a racist joke, but with much greater consequences. If the people in charge of Twitter didn't want this responsibility, they shouldn't have created the site.
Have you read about what happened to the original targets of gamer gate? Not only did tens of people just constantly synonym rape and death threats but people actually doxed them and went after them at their physical addresses. Those addresses got posted on Twitter, along with phone numbers and other things.
Internet hate mobs, no matter what site they use, can cause real psychological and physical damage. They can make it extremely difficult for someone to get a job or cause all their personal information to be stolen.
There’ve been so many examples over the years of things that of come off of Reddit or Twitter or other 4chan i’m surprised someone would say that this stuff isn’t something people need to worry about.
You realize the internet is real right? There are actual people getting work done and building relationships on Twitter. If someone posts information about you, others could show up at your house or lie to your boss about you. If your feed is full of gross descriptions of rape it's hard to get work done. If a mob of hundreds of people start wishing you harm, you might realize it's not just "words". And large groups are forming now to sway elections.
This article makes a clear case why we should NOT be using Twitter. This means that in a supposedly open society and with a supposedly open technology there will be a company patrolling what each of us say, to see if it corresponds to what THEY believe to be appropriate? You can please count me out.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,
or abridging the freedom of speech
or of the press,
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble aAmendment 1
Freedom of Religion, Speech, and the Press
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
And to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
It will be interesting to see how Twitter allows Donald Trump to be abusive and threatening, while not allowing other celebrities, based on some carefully carved out definition of "newsworthy."
I think that this really does teach something valuable about social media and what humans actually are. I think we are seeing the death of Social Media here, at least in its current shape. One hopes that some technologist will learn some lessons from this and build something better.
Of course, I'm just a youngster and some of you oldies would just be seeing history repeated, I guess, but what I have in mind is the truly global nature of societies and peoples.
Organisations that use violence to advance their cause would include any army and armed forces, sometimes even posting images of things like drone strikes.
I doubt they would be banned though, it would make it very difficult to keep up to date with international conflicts such as the ones in Syria and Yemen.
Interesting. Scary to see how believable this assertion has become by now: Google is deploying military-tested techniques and methodologies against American citizens
What is the exact definition of a "violent group"?
What constitutes "hateful imagery"?
Where can I find their database of "hate symbols"?
What constitutes a "hateful display name"?
What constitutes "condoning and glorifying violence"? (I would argue that many if not most video games at least glorify violence, from my perspective!)
In our modern Internet-connected society, the meanings of terms and symbols are subject to rapid and unexpected change. The ADL lists "Pepe the Frog" as a "hate symbol"[0], and while it's basically undeniable that many people use the symbol in an intentionally inflammatory or hateful context, I'm left completely at a loss as to whether or not posting an image of Pepe—or any cartoon frog for that matter—will get me suspended. (I have no reason to do so of course; this is entirely hypothetical.)
From the perspective of many people, especially those who use Twitter, certain political figures are considered to be inherently "hateful", and showing support for them is considered to be an act of hate.
There's a lot of talk about lines being drawn here but no talk of where exactly they will be drawn.
[0] https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/pepe-t...