Twitter censoring political satire [split topic]

[marquis_de_sad]

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?

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.

You're right that individuals should be sceptical of what they read online, but I'm not sure that the situation is quite the same as with old media. Newspapers in the UK basically do what they want, but TV is quite regulated. You mentioned Chris Morris above, but do you think Channel 4 deleting the 'GRADE IS A CUNT' gag was censorship?

But to address what you said properly, while I agree that individuals should be cautious, people don't have the time to research every issue and check whether something a source says is genuine. Usually if the source agrees with their political leaning then they'll assume it's true (often even after being shown it's not true) and vice versa. Relying on individuals to be sceptical reminds me of that 50s (?) newsreel that Adam Curtis put in one of his documentaries, where citizens were advised to make a chart of the week's news and check for inconsistencies. It's a nice idea, but in the end it's unlikely to change much. The end result is people being asked to make democratic choices without having all the information, and usually having instead false information.

[Sebastian Cobb]

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.

I'll check it out, cheers!

[Sebastian Cobb]

You're right that individuals should be sceptical of what they read online, but I'm not sure that the situation is quite the same as with old media. Newspapers in the UK basically do what they want, but TV is quite regulated. You mentioned Chris Morris above, but do you think Channel 4 deleting the 'GRADE IS A CUNT' gag was censorship?

But to address what you said properly, while I agree that individuals should be cautious, people don't have the time to research every issue and check whether something a source says is genuine. Usually if the source agrees with their political leaning then they'll assume it's true (often even after being shown it's not true) and vice versa. Relying on individuals to be sceptical reminds me of that 50s (?) newsreel that Adam Curtis put in one of his documentaries, where citizens were advised to make a chart of the week's news and check for inconsistencies. It's a nice idea, but in the end it's unlikely to change much. The end result is people being asked to make democratic choices without having all the information, and usually having instead false information.

I think this is a wider educational problem where critical thinking and questioning sources is no longer encouraged. When I was at school (up until 2003) it felt like education had succumbed to goodheart's law, and based on the teachers I know who've either fucked it off or gone private for the sake of their own sanity I understand it has gotten worse.

I don't think you have to be a full on conspiracy theorist to wonder whether critical thinking among the masses is considered inconvenient.

[biggytitbo]

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.

NATO warmongering think tank the Atlantic Council (funded by arms companies, banks and gulf state dictators) are literally being employed by social media companies to censor free speech on the basis of their own utterly baseless conspiracy theories. I mean it couldn't be more blatant.

[manticore]

I don't think you have to be a full on conspiracy theorist to wonder whether critical thinking among the masses is considered inconvenient.

There are endless forces undermining out ability to think critically and reflectively, and they are indeed not to do with a conspiracy, but the nature of the culture we live in and that our minds are broken in their capacity for autonomy by heteronomous forces from earliest childhood.

[thugler]

Well it's up to you. If you would like to read what the censored bloke in question has to say about it, you can look here and make up your mind:

https://twitter.com/Sofocleous_A/status/1041729763289821186

https://medium.com/@angelos.sofocleous94/resignation-statement-humanist-students-president-elect-719d81079028

Yeah and it's exactly what you would expect, the standard terf nonsense, and whining about offence and free speech. 'Gender critical' is such a nonsense term. Would we accept racists using the term 'race critical'. Fuck this guy.

[Crisps?]

I think if Facebook, Twitter et al allowed all the people they've banned to come back, they'd trip over each to do so.  So is the problem being too big and corporate or being too big and corporate and banning people?

Why are anti-corporate people supporting and putting their content on Facebook in the first place? Why do people with alternative opinions expect big corporations to act in or care about their interests?

For me apathy, or something worse, is the idea that if you're not on the pages of a big evil corporation, you're nowhere.

[Sebastian Cobb]

For me apathy, or something worse, is the idea that if you're not on the pages of a big evil corporation, you're nowhere.

But that's basically true, if you look at trends that describe where people come from onto websites it's generally your facebooks and your twitters. It's being owned by a handful of people in the way print or broadcast generally is.

[Barry Admin]

But that's basically true, if you look at trends that describe where people come from onto websites it's generally your facebooks and your twitters. It's being owned by a handful of people in the way print or broadcast generally is.

Yes. And I'm actually hopeful that people are gradually starting to realise that this is an unsuitable state of affairs in many, many ways.

As far as I'm concerned, there are a few things that are apparent:

Firstly, huge communities aren't as fulfilling as smaller ones. This is particularly true when you're having to share space with relatives, co-workers and such, when really you want to get away from them and express yourself in a different way - one which may not be appropriate when you're around them.

Some measure of anonymity is also beneficial, for similar reasons, and because the internet is full of nut jobs.

I could go on about this for a while, and why I also hate "karma" systems like upvoting/downvoting, but it's probably not that relevant or interesting. What I suppose I want to happen is for more and more people to stop tolerating shit, restrictive, censorious communication platforms run by corporations, and look for alternatives. Like CaB, obviously.

It bothers me greatly that these platforms are so central to so many people's lives now, and yet so many of the users have an attitude that that's just how it is, and why should they - as consumers - have any kind of say in how it's run or what it's values are? Why even criticise it? Why tolerate anyone else doing so? Just shoot it all down ans carry on, without any acknowledgment that things might have gotten worse, and that this downward trend is likely to continue.

[Cloud]

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

Yes I've noticed that.  I'm pretty much a "leftie SJW cuck" or whatever they call us these days but always find it odd that I seem to possess the rare skill of not taking everything that's typed on the internet at face value, and remembering what a joke is. A lot of the other lefties seem to have abandoned all sense of humour for po faced pearl clutching, and take everything literally. 

Controversial I'm sure, but I'll also go so far as to include the "I get death threats on Twitter" bandwagon. No, you didn't receive 500 death threats and unless anything was really specific I don't think you seriously have to flee your home. You received 500 messages from 13 year old gobshites who crawled out from under 4chan somewhere when someone linked you in a thread and are posting for 'keks' and to impress their mates.  Taking it all literally and panicking is only making them laugh harder, surely...

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.

This is definitely a worrying problem.  I suffer from the bad habit myself: I find it hard to promote free speech because at the moment it seems like 99.9% of the people who utter the phrase are massive right wing nutjobs and it's like I'd be taking their side.  They've successfully managed to turn the concept into "the right to say shitty things about women, black people, Muslims, LGBTs etc without criticism" which is pretty much what I 'hear' nowadays when someone mentions free speech.  It's a good thing for everyone, and one 'side' taking it as almost their trademark is a huge problem.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Firstly, huge communities aren't as fulfilling as smaller ones. This is particularly true when you're having to share space with relatives, co-workers and such, when really you want to get away from them and express yourself in a different way - one which may not be appropriate when you're around them.

Some measure of anonymity is also beneficial, for similar reasons, and because the internet is full of nut jobs.

Yes I agree with both these things a lot. Someone once described Facebook as 'a badly organised house party where  you've invited people from different chapters of your life who never should be in the same room together'. And I think that's definitely true. Twitter is basically the surface of the Internet, what makes it what it is, is also its curse, everyone can be connected to everyone via a few links.

Reddit gets a lot of shit for some of its most prominent and awful public subs but I can't see it as a more accessible usenet in a way.

[Benevolent Despot]

This is definitely a worrying problem.  I suffer from the bad habit myself: I find it hard to promote free speech because at the moment it seems like 99.9% of the people who utter the phrase are massive right wing nutjobs and it's like I'd be taking their side.  They've successfully managed to turn the concept into "the right to say shitty things about women, black people, Muslims, LGBTs etc without criticism" which is pretty much what I 'hear' nowadays when someone mentions free speech.  It's a good thing for everyone, and one 'side' taking it as almost their trademark is a huge problem.

I support free speech for ISIS and co., even during a war against them. I also support killing them in a war. That's how important free speech is.

[Crisps?]

But that's basically true, if you look at trends that describe where people come from onto websites it's generally your facebooks and your twitters. It's being owned by a handful of people in the way print or broadcast generally is.

I probably shouldn't have edited that line, it originally said "giving in to the idea".

It seems that people are arguing that Facebook should be forced by law to accept all points of view, which sounds great on the surface, but simply reinforces reliance on Facebook and basically makes their dominance official. They'd love that.

The solution is for people to stop relying on it - which should have happened long ago, but people are just too addicted to that 'free' traffic - and to find, create and use other diverse methods to get their message out.

I think not only are Facebook bans a good thing, but the more of them there are the better.

[Sebastian Cobb]

When you see people getting booted from twitter you see a lot of people saying 'it's not an impingement on an infringement of speech, it's like chucking someone out at a party for saying objectionable things' but I'm not sure about that. Getting banned on here would be that, but getting chucked off twitter is becoming a bit like being sent to Coventry.

[manticore]

Yeah and it's exactly what you would expect, the standard terf nonsense, and whining about offence and free speech. 'Gender critical' is such a nonsense term. Would we accept racists using the term 'race critical'. Fuck this guy.

Being critical of gender is being critical of misogyny, and that's what Angelos Sofocleous knows. 'Terf' = 'feminazi', same impulse behind the word. 'Gender' is a myth and a prison, 'race' is neither, it describes the basis on which people are oppressed. There is no equivalence whatsoever.

One more example of why the debate about free speech is not simple. 'Terf' is a term of hate, 95% directed against women, but I wouldn't want to actually ban anyone from using it on any platform.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

inescapable

[thugler]

Being critical of gender is being critical of misogyny, and that's what Angelos Sofocleous knows. 'Terf' = 'feminazi', same impulse behind the word. 'Gender' is a myth and a prison, 'race' is neither, it describes the basis on which people are oppressed. There is no equivalence whatsoever.

One more example of why the debate about free speech is not simple. 'Terf' is a term of hate, 95% directed against women, but I wouldn't want to actually ban anyone from using it on any platform.

You are graham linehan and I claim my £5

This idea that terf is a term of a abuse is stupid, it's just a literal description of what they believe. It's like saying homophobic is a term of abuse. It's generally used against people who don't want to treat Trans people fairly and equally, their sex being irrelevant.

[Cloud]

When you see people getting booted from twitter you see a lot of people saying 'it's not an impingement on an infringement of speech, it's like chucking someone out at a party for saying objectionable things' but I'm not sure about that. Getting banned on here would be that, but getting chucked off twitter is becoming a bit like being sent to Coventry.

That's also a problem IMO, in the same vein as Crisps's comment about Facebook.  Neither are publicly owned or agnostic standards of communication like email or anything like that (which is where free speech laws probably would be a better argument?), but are relied upon and treated like "the internet itself" and the very fabric of human communication - a perfect example of how wrong this is is how Donald Fucking Trump uses it for international diplomacy (or rather, lack of diplomacy most of the time) and it really is treated in that way.  The fact that "soandso tweeted this and that" is treated equally to an official public statement and not just laughed at like "oh right yeah I shitpost on random internet shitpost platforms too" is still something I find an absurdity.  It's a platform propped up by one company.  What happens if it goes tits up?  Because it seems at this point like it'd almost cause the collapse of civilisation!

[manticore]

This idea that terf is a term of a abuse is stupid, it's just a literal description of what they believe. It's like saying homophobic is a term of abuse. It's generally used against people who don't want to treat Trans people fairly and equally, their sex being irrelevant.

Your comments equating 'gender-critical' with 'race-critical' show that like most men who sound off about this subject, you haven't read or listened to the arguments of the people you're insulting.

The vast majority of gender-critical women strongly support trans people's human rights. The amount of misogyny directed against those women is extraordinary.  And there are plenty of transexual people who are gender-critical and thus derided as 'terfs.'

Oh sod it, please read this and decide for yourself about the argument it makes. It's not long:

https://rebeccarc.com/2018/01/14/some-basic-questions-about-sex-and-gender-for-progressives/

[thugler]

Your comments equating 'gender-critical' with 'race-critical' show that like most men who sound off about this subject, you haven't read or listened to the arguments of the people you're insulting.

The vast majority of gender-critical women strongly support trans people's human rights. The amount of misogyny directed against those women is extraordinary.  And there are plenty of transexual people who are gender-critical and thus derided as 'terfs.'

Oh sod it, please read this and decide for yourself about the argument it makes. It's not long:

https://rebeccarc.com/2018/01/14/some-basic-questions-about-sex-and-gender-for-progressives/

The usual stuff. The argument is basically women (though not all women in reality) have a uterus and trans women don't, so why can't we exclude them from the category of women.

By the description in the link you give, you would assume that men have x ray eyes and simply oppress women based on their uteruses, rather than the reality that Trans women are oppressed in the exact same ways (and some extra ones I expect)

It also infers strongly that trans people are simply men dressing up as women as a way of invading women's spaces in order to abuse them. This doesn't seem to be remotely accurate.

This biological essentialism isn't some complicated argument I've not listened to the nuances of, it's pretty simple and smacks to me of the same crap people used to say about gay people or interracial relationships. The issue of gender is very complicated and nuanced, and just declaring it a myth and that everything is very simple doesn't work for me.

[manticore]

That's such a wilful misunderstanding that I give up.