Comment by throwawaysea

5 years ago

We can hope Twitter adopts and enforces policies equally across the board, but they won't and I don't think they can either.

As an example of how they won't do so, consider that there are people literally organizing violent riots and destruction of property on Twitter right now, and they have not been banned or had their tweets/accounts hidden. Ilhan Omar's daughter was caught doing so herself, amplifying rioting supported by Antifa and DSA (Democratic Socialists of America), as documented in https://thepostmillennial.com/ilhan-omars-daughter-shows-sup.... While hundreds of people are inciting violence and using Twitter to organize violence in Minneapolis, the company has done nothing to stop it, and yet they're willing to block Trump's tweet on the theoretical enforcement of laws against criminal rioting? Clearly this is a discriminatory bias in action.

As for how they can't do so: Twitter is a Silicon Valley company. It mostly employs young, far left liberals. Its internal culture is heavily influenced by where it is located and the people it employs. Their Hateful Conduct Policy (https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/hateful-condu...) is also subject to that cultural/political influence. For instance, this policy notes that "misgendering" is not allowed. But if you're on the other side of the transgender debate, and feel that pronouns should be based on biology-derived gender, and don't think trans women and biological women should be lumped into a group, then you might be banned. Put another way, Twitter has encoded political stances into their operating procedures, and there's no escaping that even if they expressed a wish to treat their customers equally across the board.

There are only two ways out. One option is that Twitter admits it is biased, that they do discriminate against certain viewpoints, and that they do exert editorial control over their platform. The other option is that they return to viewpoint neutrality, avoid censorship/blocking, and only do so to the minimal extent explicitly required by law.

18 comments

throwawaysea

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LordDragonfang  5 years ago

>people literally organizing violent riots and destruction of property on Twitter right now

>Ilhan Omar's daughter was caught doing so herself

Apparently, retweeting a list of supplies to help protect yourself from bodily harm from violent police is "literally organizing violent riots and destruction of property"

  • throwawaysea  5 years ago

    I get what you're saying, but the flip side of it is that such actions are aiding, enabling, and abetting a crime (in this case, a large number of crimes). The "protect yourself from bodily harm" bit is what enables these rioters to avoid dispersing and ceasing violent destruction of property. And it is obvious from numerous tweets from various DSA and antifa handles that these two groups are very much amplifying and glorifying destructive rioting. This is real material violence, not theoretical violence, and therefore Twitter needs to shut it down if they have a problem with theoretical violence that they think Trump's tweet glorifies.

    Calling police "violent" for wanting to stop blatant opportunistic theft and terrorist behavior (e.g. deliberately cutting gas lines to create big explosions) is a stretch. I would call the initial policing incident that tipped off the protests violent, and I would call the destructive rioting violent (as opposed to the initial peaceful protesting). Both acts deserve condemnation and consequences in my view.

runarberg  5 years ago

Rioting, looting, and even torching buildings is not the close to the same level of violence as police killings, driving down protestors, or threatening people with guns. Tweets endorsing or even glorifying the former don’t come close to be as dangerous as tweets excusing the latter. Don’t pretend like these two are equivalent.

tobylane  5 years ago

It’s possible to have bias without editorialising, as far as I know Twitter only hides, deletes or bans. It doesn’t edit, the fact checking is appending.

  • HeroOfAges  5 years ago

    How is appending not editing. If I append a statement to the end of your comment that contradicts your earlier point without your permission, how is that not editorial?

    • ardy42  5 years ago

      > How is appending not editing. If I append a statement to the end of your comment that contradicts your earlier point without your permission, how is that not editorial?

      Hi, I think you're wrong. Here's the proof: I haven't edited your comment, but by replying I have just appended a statement to it without your permission.

      8 replies →

    • joshuamorton  5 years ago

      According to section 230, it is only relevant if it changes the meaning of the original content. If it's clearly different content, then it's clearly different content.

joshuamorton  5 years ago

> But if you're on the other side of the transgender debate

Then you follow twitter's rules on its platform. You're free to misgender people elsewhere.

Moderation, even moderation and policies you personally disagree with does not rise to the level of "editorial control" under the law.

> While hundreds of people are inciting violence and using Twitter to organize violence in Minneapolis, the company has done nothing to stop it, and yet they're willing to block Trump's tweet on the theoretical enforcement of laws against criminal rioting?

Are you certain that no tweets from protestors glorifying violence have been removed? Notably, none of the tweets you mention are condoning violence, so you're actually insisting that twitter hold $random_internet_people_on_the_whole to a higher standard than the president.

You want twitter to take "Bring milk to a protest" more seriously than "when the looting starts, the shooting starts". That's not Twitter's bias showing, that's yours. Under this interpretation, I believe twitter would also have needed to remove tweets organizing the recent Hong Kong protests. Is that what you want?