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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday October 20 2018, @06:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the no-wonder-I've-not-seen-a-Vogon-on-Twitter dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Social media giant Twitter has banned a Belgian Elite Dangerous player for tweeting a poem in reply to a tweet from the official game's account. Tim Wellens, the now-suspended Twitter user, has yet to regain access to his account at the time of writing, despite multiple appeals.

[...] In Elite Dangerous, the Thargoids are an alien race that is at odds with humanity. Twitter caught onto the threatening language that Wellens used — despite directing it at a fictional group — and suspended his account. According to Eurogamer, in an email to Wellens, Twitter support explained that they took action because he violated their "rules against posting violent threats."

He has since appealed the decision, pointing out that he "never ever threatened a real person or organization on Twitter."

"Thargoid or foe, I'm coming to kill you, was directed to the thargoids and enemies in the game," he told Eurogamer.

His appeal was met with a computer-generated email, and Wellens followed up by re-appealing his case. As of Oct. 8, his account remains out of his hands.

Good ole Artificial "Intelligence"...

Source: https://techraptor.net/content/twitter-suspends-elite-dangerous-player-for-posting-poetry


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  • (Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday October 20 2018, @06:51AM (2 children)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane (4757) on Saturday October 20 2018, @06:51AM (#751305)

    "Thargoid or foe, I'm coming to Imperial Hammer you" wouldn't have tripped the Twitter political correctness alarm.

    Of course, it probably wouldn't fit the poem's meter anymore though...

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @10:26AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @10:26AM (#751354)

      wouldn't have tripped the Twitter political correctness alarm.

      So you think trying to filter out threats of violence or to kill, which this post contained, is all about political correctness? Twitter, and all other social media platforms, are used for threats of intimidation and violence every day. Stopping that is not "politically correct".

      Obviously the post in question wasn't directed at people, but you can't expect filtering/AI/whatever-you-call-it to understand the relationship between the poster and the group. IMO the post should have been removed by "name of technology here" and the poster's account flagged for immediate review by a human. If the post was an actual threat it should have been reported to the police (which doesn't apply in this case).

      Twitter, no matter how useless many of us think it is, loses credibility when they go after real posts threatening real violence if they start giving people passes. When it comes to threats of violence these platforms should err on the side of caution.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Saturday October 20 2018, @02:56PM

        by hemocyanin (186) on Saturday October 20 2018, @02:56PM (#751398) Journal

        I generally agree that threats should have consequences but the problem with the business model of twitter, google, facebook, or whatever, is that they don't use enough real people to do the evaluation because real people cost real money. So the platforms err on the side of treating every issue like it can be appropriately solved with a sledgehammer, which is false. If these companies are going to act as moderators, they should do so responsibly and I'm not getting the impression they do that. Two wrongs don't make a right.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Blymie on Saturday October 20 2018, @06:53AM (2 children)

    by Blymie (4020) on Saturday October 20 2018, @06:53AM (#751306)

    Sadly, all this AI blather is just someone hard coding responses. Just because a database might fill in some "OK" example data, and then slowly morph that "OK" data as time passes and *other* hard coded conditions allow it, doesn't mean we're even slightly, remotely, close to AI.

    This is just a dumbass filter gone bad, probably matched on "coming to kill you".

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @08:28AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @08:28AM (#751323)

      Anything with a computer is now artificial intelligence.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @10:29AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @10:29AM (#751356)

        Anything with a computer is now artificial intelligence.

        Well, you're half right. I just watched porn on my computer and it was definitely artificial. I don't think there was any intelligence involved.

  • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday October 20 2018, @06:56AM

    by MostCynical (2589) on Saturday October 20 2018, @06:56AM (#751308) Journal

    you'd be suspended if you threatened to kill someone's deity/magic sky fairy.. so no difference here?

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @07:01AM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @07:01AM (#751309)

    Many years ago, I created a Match.com profile with the headline "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

    The profile was deactivated due to concerns about "violence."

    I explained to the customer service rep who, apparently, hadn't seen the wonderful film [wikipedia.org] that this was just a movie quote.

    While I was eventually allowed to keep the headline, I was quite annoyed. This seems like more of the same.

    However, before acting decisively [quotes.net], perhaps we should keep this [xkcd.com] handy. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure, and is bound to get you talked about (with apologies to RAH).

    • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday October 20 2018, @07:57AM (4 children)

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday October 20 2018, @07:57AM (#751315) Homepage

      Sadly, Randall never got laid from showing that woman all about Diet Coke and Mentos. His Magnum Opus [xkcd.com] never got him laid, either. Now he just looks like a goddamn idiot no matter how "smart" his comics are.

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 20 2018, @09:16AM (3 children)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 20 2018, @09:16AM (#751331) Journal

        How do you know he never got laid? Are you his sister or something? I know, sisters always know.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @10:46AM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @10:46AM (#751364)

          You mean that your sister was literally the first to know?

          • (Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 20 2018, @03:08PM (1 child)

            by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 20 2018, @03:08PM (#751403) Journal

            No, but it's always somebody's sister. In my case, it was your aunt's sister.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @02:29PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @02:29PM (#751392)

      While I was eventually allowed to keep the headline, I was quite annoyed.

      What did you expect, for their systems to recognize a pop culture meme? Did you actually expect the CSR, who may not even be located in the US or speak proficient English, to know a movie reference of your liking?

      • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Saturday October 20 2018, @06:18PM

        by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 20 2018, @06:18PM (#751439) Journal

        Did you actually expect the CSR, who may not even be located in the US or speak proficient English, to know a movie reference of your liking?

        Reasonable expectations would be more along the lines of:

        Gee, what an odd, violent thing to say.

        ** search engine ** five seconds **

        Oh, I see. Carry on.

        Contrast this with the effort actually expended by both parties (more than five seconds each, in case math isn't your strong suit).

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @07:03AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @07:03AM (#751310)

    >> never ever threatened a real person

    Way to resort to petty tribalism by unpersoning and portraying members of the out-group as inferior.

    #ThargoidLivesMatter

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @07:14AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @07:14AM (#751312)

      Way to resort to petty tribalism by unpersoning and portraying members of the out-group as inferior.

      Your sense of humor needs to get over itself. [youtube.com]

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @08:18AM (8 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @08:18AM (#751319)

    The only thing that could save the world from madness is we all abandon these online traps. They have the right to impose their own rules on their platforms, however cruel and unusual or capricious and arbitrary. And boy do they use that right. Perhaps currently the intention is mostly to save money for the overlords but this results in madness for the users. We as a society should not accept their terms. We must not normalize madness.

    Read their fucking Terms of Service and Privacy Policies &c &c word for word. Then you will definitely not happily accept them.

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 20 2018, @09:22AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 20 2018, @09:22AM (#751333) Journal

      Write a script, that opens accounts. Each account sends a protest over the TOS. As soon as the protest is sent, the bot closes the account. Create a botnet. All the bots run that same script. Soon, there will be leventy-leven trillion people on record, all protesting the TOS.

    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @10:31AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @10:31AM (#751359)

      *** Irony Meter Triggered ***

      "The only thing that could save the world from madness is we all abandon these online traps." posted AC on the internet.

      • (Score: 4, Touché) by hemocyanin on Saturday October 20 2018, @03:10PM (2 children)

        by hemocyanin (186) on Saturday October 20 2018, @03:10PM (#751406) Journal

        Yeah except there are actual real people here keeping things going and not arbitrarily banning anyone. Secondly, freely allowing AC posting is 180 degrees from what goes on with Twitter et al.

        A month or so ago I lost my moderating privileges for 30 days for misusing the "spam" mod. I have every reason to think that my action was reviewed by a person who compared that mod to the text of the post in question. The sanction was totally fair. With Twitter, my account would just be deleted. The key factor isn't that both Soylent and Twitter are internet sites for discussion, the key factor is how different sites treat their users.

        • (Score: 2) by dry on Sunday October 21 2018, @01:55AM

          by dry (223) on Sunday October 21 2018, @01:55AM (#751540) Journal

          The problem is that one site is a few orders of magnitude larger. Here with a few thousand users and probably a lot less at any time, it is easy to have volunteer person review spam mods and IIRC, they're about the only things reviewed. Meanwhile twitter has how many users? And how many things that need reviewed and seems to not have a way of generating money to pay moderators.

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday October 21 2018, @03:54PM

          by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Sunday October 21 2018, @03:54PM (#751684) Homepage Journal

          Twitter has always been VERY FAIR to me. Except for the HORRIBLE 11 minutes with the Rogue employee!!

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by legont on Saturday October 20 2018, @01:30PM (2 children)

      by legont (4179) on Saturday October 20 2018, @01:30PM (#751387)

      Only terrorists and pedophiles are not on twitter and facebook.

      --
      "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
      • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday October 20 2018, @02:56PM (1 child)

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday October 20 2018, @02:56PM (#751399) Journal

        Only terrorists and pedophiles are not on twitter and facebook.

        Damn, then I must be either a terrorist or a pedophile. How do I find out which I am? ;-)

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @06:36PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @06:36PM (#751443)

          Damn, then I must be either a terrorist or a pedophile. How do I find out which I am? ;-)

          There is a simple answer without the need for false dichotomies. OP never said it was mutually exclusive so the safest bet is to consider yourself both.

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Bot on Saturday October 20 2018, @11:08AM (10 children)

    by Bot (3902) on Saturday October 20 2018, @11:08AM (#751368) Journal

    The moon shines over the sea
    With the strength of a million lumens
    Kill all humans

    --
    Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @11:55AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @11:55AM (#751371)

      Bot you are wrong again
      Getting it right cannot be hard
      Kill all progtards

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @07:16PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @07:16PM (#751454)

        The Morlocks are real
        They tire of eating themselves
        Deplorable are their ways

      • (Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday October 21 2018, @02:33PM

        by Bot (3902) on Sunday October 21 2018, @02:33PM (#751661) Journal

        My progressive friends.
        Their world is all about distributing wealth.
        Their final solution, botify all people.
        They will die last.

        --
        Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Kalas on Saturday October 20 2018, @08:23PM (1 child)

      by Kalas (4247) on Saturday October 20 2018, @08:23PM (#751467)

      If the last line was "Tonight I kill all humans" that would be a damn masterpiece.

      • (Score: 3, Touché) by Bot on Sunday October 21 2018, @02:28PM

        by Bot (3902) on Sunday October 21 2018, @02:28PM (#751658) Journal

        Indeed, we should have masked the attack code word a lil better.

        --
        Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday October 21 2018, @04:45AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 21 2018, @04:45AM (#751565) Journal
      There's the apocryphal Seven Kill Stele which supposedly said (in Chinese):

      Heaven brings forth innumerable things to nurture man.
      Man has nothing good with which to recompense Heaven.
      Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill.

      I guess we can only talk about the nice parts of history.

    • (Score: 1) by DECbot on Monday October 22 2018, @09:26PM (3 children)

      by DECbot (832) on Monday October 22 2018, @09:26PM (#752174) Journal

      There once was a man from Nantuckit,
      Who tweeted from a bucket.
       
      His snark was woke.
      His fortunes were broke.
       
      As for the final line of this poem, I said "Ah fuck it."

      --
      cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
      • (Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday October 23 2018, @10:02AM (2 children)

        by Bot (3902) on Tuesday October 23 2018, @10:02AM (#752423) Journal

        nothing like an anticlimaxy last line, indeed, e.g.

        --
        Account abandoned.
        • (Score: 1) by DECbot on Tuesday October 23 2018, @09:19PM (1 child)

          by DECbot (832) on Tuesday October 23 2018, @09:19PM (#752592) Journal

          Ah, well, it may have been tweeted from a bucket located on an undisclosed Massachusetts island.

          --
          cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
          • (Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday October 24 2018, @09:18AM

            by Bot (3902) on Wednesday October 24 2018, @09:18AM (#752874) Journal

            And Twitter AI classifying it as a racist ISOLATIONIST troll bucket post paid by putin through erdogan.

            --
            Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday October 20 2018, @12:20PM (1 child)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Saturday October 20 2018, @12:20PM (#751376) Journal

    If this discussion was done with tweets on Twitter, how many accounts would be suspended? Most of them?

    Having humans review everything the "AI" flags is probably too expensive. I put quotes around that, because as AI goes, what Twitter has sounds like a lot more hype than reality. Their so-called AI must be barely better than a dumb word match. Who remembers why people started using "pr0n" for the p word?

    • (Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Saturday October 20 2018, @03:58PM

      by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 20 2018, @03:58PM (#751415) Journal

      Frak that.

      --
      В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @09:38PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @09:38PM (#751482)

    If he was Saudi, Twitter would have sent him to the nearest Saudi embassy for dismemberment. That is how Saudis solve their media related problems.

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