Hacker News Reader

Comment by coldpie | Hacker News Reader

If you're the type of person to say something likely to be censored on Twitter, we don't want you on there anyway.

You envision some perfect censorship filter. What if reality differs from your ideal?

What if, miracle of miracles, you and I disagree on what should or should not be censored? What if Twitter straight up abuses this power? Either way, the result may be fewer users, and this could hurt Twitter as a business.

"We"? Are you the queen?

Which of Twitter's unacceptable content policies do you find objectionable? I agree with all of them, and I think the vast majority of Twitter users do as well.

https://twitter.com/rules

That's why basic rights like freedom of speech exist, to protect us from such "well-intended" attacks in favor of an alleged "vast majority". "Harassment" as in that policy or other "codes of conduct" can be pretty much anything, in particular now that it has become standard mode of operation to claim victimhood for just about anything to silence other people.

The constitutional right to freedom of speech applies to public (government) institutions, not to private (non-government) institutions like Twitter. Twitter is exercising their constitutional right to freedom of speech to disallow certain kinds of content on their platform. There is no violation of anyone's constitutional freedom of speech.

If you think it's a poor business decision, that's your call, and time will tell. But it has precisely nothing to do with "freedom of speech."

Freedom of speech and the First Amendment are two different things, but I suspect you already know this.

No, that's just how he brushes off inconvenient problems.

Instead of rules, look at what's being censored and tell us if you agree.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Twitter

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/censoring-...

And so on.

I do not have any problems with Twitter's actions in the New Yorker article. I don't find "slippery slope" arguments persuasive when there is real harassment being committed right now. I don't think the wikipedia link is relevant to this conversation; it seems to be about state censorship. The "Controversy" section as it's written now is obviously not NPOV and cites no sources.

Exactly. Give them the tools and they'll censor whatever the fashion of the day calls offensive.

I know! It starts when you can't call a woman a slut, threaten her life, and post her private details and nude pictures on Twitter, and then before you know it you can't print out her picture, ejaculate onto it, and mail the soiled photo to her family[1]. What a crazy world we're headed towards.

[1] Why yes, this does actually happen. Harassment on the Internet is no joke. http://blog.unburntwitch.com/post/139084743809/why-i-just-dr...

Exactly! So let's just pick that one thing, and then invent some "guidelines" that totally won't prevent anything like that ever, but allow you to arbitrarily censor people with the wrong opinions. Awesome! War against "harrassment", mission accomplished!

Entitlement generation.

I don't have a problem with Twitter "arbitrarily censor[ing] people with the wrong opinions." Its their platform and they don't have to give a voice to everyone who has one, they can do whatever they please and promote any agenda they want. That is their choice. If you don't like Twitter's rules you're free to start your own site, or write a book. Nobody is entitled to use someone else's site any way they wish.

People are bringing this up to say that it could annoy many users and chase them away, as well as limit their user growth, not that they don't have the right to do it. Bad business decision, in other words.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com