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from the sometimes-a-cigar-is-just-a-cigar dept.
A Twitter rules update rolled out on Wednesday to address the site's "verification" system, and it attached a new set of standards to any user whose account receives a "blue check mark."
Twitter's "verification" system is used to confirm accounts of celebrities and other accounts of "public interest." However, the feature has long straddled a blurry line between identity confirmation and "elite" user status, especially since verified accounts receive heightened visibility and perks such as content filters. That issue returned to the headlines last week when Twitter gave a blue check mark to white nationalist Jason Kessler. Kessler is best known as an organizer of the Unite The Right white-supremacist rally, but before then, he had racked up a significant record of online hate propagation, particularly with anti-Semitic rhetoric about "cultural Marxism."
"Twitter on Wednesday removed the 'verification' checkmarks from the accounts of a number of white nationalists and far-right activists -- in a move that critics say could have a chilling effect on free speech." http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2017/11/16/twitter-targets-white-nationalists-and-far-right-activists-in-de-verification-purge.html
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 17 2017, @03:24PM (6 children)
I don't like twitter, but I DO like seeing it trigger idiots! I read through their rules and there is nothing SJW about it. They prohibit posts encouraging violence and self-harm, big whoop. I've said before, we need decentralized systems if we want our privacy and autonomy back. Do you get angry at news stations bleeping out swear words? Why not? Oh right, cause you're a disingenuous ass.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 17 2017, @04:18PM (5 children)
This trivial wrongthink gets your account blocked from everything but browsing and direct messages to followers. You are forced to dox yourself, revealing a phone number that can be used to track you in additional ways, and you are forced to delete the tweet:
https://i.redd.it/5m1jdqzbpiyz.png [i.redd.it]
Much less will get your blue checkmark yanked. Anything factual and honest about Islam is toast. You can't be pro-Trump unless you are Trump.
They went after Robinson, Baked Alaska, and Purposeful Wife just this week.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 17 2017, @08:50PM
lol [twitter.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 17 2017, @09:40PM (3 children)
You explain why I don't like Twitter. I think they're in the wrong and the issues with bots and disinformation campaigns will only be solved by society as a whole catching on that yes people / organizations / countries do engage in massive propaganda campaigns. Of course I got modded flamebait, but it is still true. All the triggered conservative rage is hypocritical in the extreme when the usual response has always been "private company can censor whatever they want!"
Maybe if conservative types weren't so frequently hypocritical I wouldn't find such schadenfreude in it. Don't mind that I promoted free systems and said I don't like twitter, just get your emotional fix in by downmodding someone calling out your crap!
On a tangent, similar response to all the idiotic anti net neutrality comments. Those morons will start screaming bloody murder when true censorship begins. At least with NN most conservatives and ibertarians get what's going on and don't support it.
As for your example, I find it a pretty tame bit of hateful racism. You may not see it as racism, but that just shows your own ignorance.
1. BLM is mad about police murdering black people, a long standing tradition with plenty of video evidence.
2. BLM is mad about systemic racism of which that twitter post is a great example.
3. That post not only misleads the reader about what BLM is about but also tries to place all the blame on black people with obvious racial overtones. Not a raging example of a hateful message, but definitely in the ballpark.
I don't agree with censorship and think that Twitter would better serve society perhaps by making it easy to find opposing viewpoints. Say a "similar tweets" and "opposing tweets" list. Make it easy for everyone to escape the echo chamber. They should stir up discussion, not stop it. Also, they shouldn't be hypocritical douchebags that only remove the hateful speech they don't like while giving even more disturbing stuff a total pass.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 18 2017, @12:27PM (2 children)
If the post tells what is NOT true, then yes. Does it?
But if it's telling the truth you'd like to suppress - then you, sir, are not just worse than any liar out there. You'd be worse than any overt fascist; because an open enemy of the society is less danger than an insidious one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 18 2017, @02:59PM (1 child)
Hello dummy, I bet you support trump even though it is clear he is a conman, liar, and very likely a massive criminal. You being as blind as the person posting on twitter isn't my fault.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 18 2017, @07:23PM
When choosing between those, the one with less rabid followers IS preferred, my dear SJW. The more your ilk runs around pestering people, the more Trump you'll get.