Twitter censoring political satire [split topic]

[manticore]

Altogether now.

Twitter does not owe you an audience.
Youtube does not owe you an audience.
Facebook does not owe you an audience.

I do not believe you really think this issue is a simple as that.

Pdine:

Cry me a river, fuckface. <-satire.

And surely the point is that you shouldn't be banned from any platform for saying something like that? (unless you're making some reference that I don't understand).

[Cuellar]

Where's that 'favourite threads that keep getting repeated' thread...

[Barry Admin]

Yeah well that was my fault, not biggys, and I'll try to remember not to bother again.

[biggytitbo]

If you read James Woods tweets he isn't even right wing, he's more a partizan republican zealot. He has no consistent views other than promoting the republican party and specifically trump.


But that's irrelevant as always, if you think it's OK these silicon valley giants, with their warmongering sponsors, to censor people for this most bullshit of reasons then you're advocating a very stupid and bad precedent.

[Pdine]

Pretty sure the GOP is right wing, Biggo.

[biggytitbo]

My point is if you read Woods twitter its not that he's an ideologically right wing man, its that he's a pissy, pathetic GOP fanboy who just feebly promotes any pro republican/trump position without any intellectual consistency.

By contrast, someone like say Peter Oborne or Peter Hitchens, are obviously right leaning but will side with Jeremy Corbyn when it is right to do so because they have some degree of basic moral and intellectual integrity. Woods is just a partizan whore.

[Crisps?]

Disappointed in Woods, I always took him for a Red Star fan.

And surely the point is that you shouldn't be banned from any platform for saying something like that?

The point is you should boycott services (like countries) if you don't like their policies or actions.

[DistressedArea]

God I wish radio 4 would do this.

[Paul Calf]

Disappointed in Woods, I always took him for a Red Star fan.

The point is you should boycott services (like countries) if you don't like their policies or actions.

You should limit yourself to boycott if your aim is to waste your energy on a campaign that'll be noticed by about 200 people and have no effect at all.

Boycotts don't work.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Boycotting should be combined with explaining to what you are boycotting why you are boycotting them.

[Crisps?]

You should limit yourself to boycott if your aim is to waste your energy on a campaign that'll be noticed by about 200 people and have no effect at all.

Boycotts don't work.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/boycott

HTH

[manticore]

The point is you should boycott services (like countries) if you don't like their policies or actions.

I would indeed like to boycott the entire mass culture, radio, television, cinema, the world wide web, the whole damn thing. Unfortunately that would have to be a general social movement and isn't likely to happen in the foreseeable future.

Who knows what the coming ecological catastrophe will bring?

[Sebastian Cobb]

I believe that social movement were the anchorites.

[Barry Admin]

If I can try and pinpoint why these threads annoy me so much - to the point where I always really, really regret even posting in them - it comes down to a few issues. And by "these threads" I guess I mean any discussion where the limits of personal expression are stomped on and decided by corporations and/or governments.

1) Just the sarky and sometimes aggressive and over-defensive tone. I was as bad here for making a now redacted comment about someone being a sour cunt.

2) The "he's a dick anyway, so who even cares about the actual principle of the thing, look at this other unrelated dick thing he once said anyway" posts by people like Bhazor.

3) The way people side so readily with corporations that don't have their fucking interests at heart.

4) The general political apathy. 'That's just how it is!', 'corporations don't owe you shit, they can do what they want!', "know your place, consumer."

Are the majority of us just too old and jaded to be idealistic now?

Then you also get people - on a comedy discussion forum inspired by one of the greatest satirists and hoaxers of all time - pretending not to know what satire is, or reframing things in such a way that doesn't make any sense. A particular example that comes to mind is the "what if I posted 'I hate Jews lol ;-)' on a bathroom stall?" style of argument that was popular during the Count Dankula thread, and which Pdine made on the bottom of page 1 of this thread.

It's just absolutely baffling to me. I guess I remember a time where people didn't give a fuck about anyone dumb enough to be taken in by an obvious hoax like this - more fool them. In this instance, the hoax mostly seems to have caught out people it's not actually targeting, i.e. right wing nut jobs like James Woods!

If declaring something as "fake news" can now be used to limit comedy, then I'd argue we have a real problem on our hands.

I remember what was good about the internet, and it was that it had some edge to it - more than that, it felt free, like the Wild West. It wasn't a homogeneous shitfest where corporations were constantly clamping down on what could be said. People hadn't yet given up their anonymity. Now you have sites like Twitter telling people "you can't make jokes! FAKE NEWS!" Or sites like Twitch where streamers have to follow their rules when they're not even on the Twitch site.

It is a fucking shitshow.

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

3) The way people side so readily with corporations that don't have their fucking interests at heart.

4) The general political apathy. 'That's just how it is!', 'corporations don't owe you shit, they can do what they want!', "know your place, consumer."

Are the majority of us just too old and jaded to be idealistic now?

I don't think anyone actually wants to side with Twitter. It's just the alternative here is "satire" by fascists who own most of the corporate media and the entire U.S. government and are presently causing the downfall of human civilization.

If this was Twitter taking down a non-right-wing "joke" then the reactions would be different.

[manticore]

I believe that social movement were the anchorites.

The anchorites were individuals who withdrew from society, and they existed in the time before industrial mass culture. They lived in physical cells, while we exist in mental cells.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The anchorites were individuals who withdrew from society, and they existed in the time before industrial mass culture. They lived in physical cells, while we exist in mental cells.

Boycotting 'entire mass culture, radio, television, cinema, the world wide web, the whole damn thing' sounds a bit like withdrawing from society to me.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I don't think anyone actually wants to side with Twitter. It's just the alternative here is "satire" by fascists who own most of the corporate media and the entire U.S. government and are presently causing the downfall of human civilization.

If this was Twitter taking down a non-right-wing "joke" then the reactions would be different.

I think a lot of it comes down to my enemy's enemy is my friend lines of thinking.

[manticore]

I don't think anyone actually wants to side with Twitter. It's just the alternative here is "satire" by fascists who own most of the corporate media and the entire U.S. government and are presently causing the downfall of human civilization.

The far right don't own most of the corporate media. Their 'liberal' and conservative enablers do, and they are not to be trusted.

[manticore]

Boycotting 'entire mass culture, radio, television, cinema, the world wide web, the whole damn thing' sounds a bit like withdrawing from society to me.

No, it would be creating society. Mass culture is asocial.

[Barry Admin]

I don't think anyone actually wants to side with Twitter. It's just the alternative here is "satire" by fascists who own most of the corporate media and the entire U.S. government and are presently causing the downfall of human civilization.

If this was Twitter taking down a non-right-wing "joke" then the reactions would be different.

That's fucked though, isn't it? What happened to the principle of the thing?

Corporations aren't ideological and benevolent. This won't stop with right-wing voices being silenced, biggy is absolutely correct with that observation.

[Crisps?]

Not being on Twitter (aka most people in the world) = being silenced? That's the argument is it?

[Howj Begg]

I guess reframing the lies and deceptive propaganda of the Leave EU campaign as satire clears up a lot for me here.

[marquis_de_sad]

I think the truth is these stories tend to bring out the worst in people, and everyone can end up feeling frustrated and not listened to by the other side. I get caught up in it as much as anyone, so sorry about that.

From my perspective, Neil, the frustrating thing is even if I (or someone else) say that I don't agree with the harsh treatment (of Dankula by the courts on one extreme and Woods by twitter on the other), the assumption from people who lean more towards your take is that simply by trying to understand the issue I am essentially condoning the outcome.

The main issue for me is how do institutions deal with this sort of thing? By which I mean things that look like fake news or hate speech but might be satire. Do they throw up their hands and say they can't tell the difference? That's an option, sure, but I don't see much of a willingness to see the options being seriously discussed. The emphasis always seems to be 'this is censorship', which it might well be, but I'm not satisfied with the more conspiracy-inclined takes that see this as all being orchestrated behind the scenes and somehow vaguely connected to the military industrial complex. My feeling is that this is another example of people (the courts, social media companies) who don't really know what to do and are playing it by ear, making them very vulnerable to being blown about by the hot air of the culture wars. The important questions for me are: If you have a desire to curb fake news, how do you deal with satirically fake news? and If you have a desire to curb hate speech, how do you deal with satire of hate speech?

[Barry Admin]

By coincidence, I'm watching some videos about Maddox at the minute, and this has just been mentioned:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/aug/18/facebook-satire-tag-the-onion

Facebook satire tag aims to stop you getting fooled by the Onion

Social network trials feature that would flag up fake news stories from humorous sites in users' news feeds

Fed up with being taken in by headlines such as "Security Experts Advise Americans To Not Click Anything"? Facebook may have the answer: the social network is testing a tag to flag up stories from sites such as the Onion, reports Mashable. A Facebook spokesman said: "We are running a small test which shows the text "[Satire]" in front of links to satirical articles in the related articles unit in News Feed. This is because we received feedback that people wanted a clearer way to distinguish satirical articles from others in these units."

Monkey is sure the move would prevent gullible readers from being taken in – but can't help feeling it would spoil the fun of spotting the Onion headlines among the breaking news on Facebook.

2014, btw. Thought that was interesting in and of itself.

I guess the argument is actually that people should be wary and sceptical of corporations who are publishers acting as censors, particularly given the reach and dominance of these platforms, and the number of people who rely on them for their information and news. You know, like we happily do with the old media?

[Funcrusher]

If this was Twitter taking down a non-right-wing "joke" then the reactions would be different.

And that's the problem right there.

[Sebastian Cobb]

As in maddox.xmission.com maddox? Is he still on the go? He must be getting a bit old to be edgy.

[biggytitbo]

Not being on Twitter (aka most people in the world) = being silenced? That's the argument is it?

No, it's more that todays public spaces - social media, are controlled by a handful of mega powerful silicon valley giants who are colluding with the state and warmongering 'think tanks' to selectively censor free speech. The likes of Alex Jones are just loss leaders, what it's really about is grabbing control of the previously anarchic internet where alternative voices were finally getting heard and controlling it like the old days of the msm to favour the establishment friendly gatekeepers. Whilst the whole Jones controversy was unfolding, twitter was banning numerous genuine Iranian accounts for spurious reasons like election subversion, whilst amplifying the Atlantic council MEK affiliated trolls insidiously pushing for regime change. And we've seen numerous anti-war and leftist voices targeted too. This is what it is all about, the western war empire had begun to lose their grip on the flow of information, and this is their fight back - to collude with these giant social media and internet companies to grab the internet back from been this democratising force that gave everyone a voice to something controlled and moderated by the state and their favoured corporations.

[Barry Admin]

marquis, good post, thanks. I don't have all the answers either, I just despair at certain things, such as the right now claiming free speech as their value, because the left have largely given up on it. This will bite us in the ass eventually.

You don't have to be conspiracy-minded - indeed, I'm not usually. I just think this is all fucked, and we're losing something great because of it. I also see a huge change in people's attitudes since the dawn of social networking, as I've said in previous threads. I kind of don't want to send the thread down old familiar and well-trodden paths though.

While reading a Washington Post article about that proposed Facebook "satire tag", I did see a good suggestion therein: briefly, the idea was to educate people to recognise "fake news" so that they could distinguish it for themselves. And I thought, fucking hell, yeah, that sounds legitimately brilliant. Instead of a more authoritarian, big brother culture where Silicon Valley nerds curate our information, let's instead educate people so they aren't credulous enough to be taken in by 4chan trolls.

By the way, for those who are apathetic, can I just point them back to what Twitter themselves said about those 4chan trolls in the first post? "Misleading in a way that could impact an election."

That's huge to me. And worrying. Why does twitter have that much power, and what happens when it starts impacting on political candidates you support rather than oppose?

[Barry Admin]

As in maddox.xmission.com maddox? Is he still on the go? He must be getting a bit old to be edgy.

It's a huge convoluted story, I'll probably start a thread about it when I'm caught up. It basically encompasses Maddox alienating everyone who ever supported him, and launching a $20 million lolsuit. Check YouTube for more if you're intrigued, the videos by "Whang!" seem to be a great starting point.

It is some crazy and entertaining shit.