Comment by Spivak | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Spivak | Hacker News Reader

This is going to be fun.

> Accounts that affiliate with organizations that use or promote violence against civilians

> Content that glorifies violence or the perpetrators of a violent act.

* "Support our troops"

* "Punch a Nazi"

* Basically any enthusiastic history account.

* Mall ninjas.

* Any action movie/tv property.

* Star Wars.

* UFC

It seems almost puritan to try and deny humanity's love of violence.

> If an account’s profile information includes a violent threat or multiple slurs, epithets, racist or sexist tropes, incites fear, or reduces someone to less than human, it will be permanently suspended.

* A little confused about the 'multiple' requirement. So long as you only hate one thing your good?

* Racist or sexist tropes is a bit hard to pin down. /r/bpt is full of examples of 'racist' tropes that are self-deprecating. I'm not the best at words but they probably want an exception for "laughing with you, not at you."

> intimidates, or uses fear to silence another person’s voice

I can't wait for this to not be applied against people who use public shaming as a silencing tactic.

Also, there's a bit on irony that in that policy is itself a silencing tactic. This is going to cause people afraid of being banned to self-censor because a statement is politically unpopular.

Dear Twitter,

If I'm a member of a visibly protected minority group (Black Muslim) and I tweet "Death to Zionist Sodomites occupying Holy Jerusalem" would I be suspended? Asking for a friend.

Probably, as you are violating one of Twitter's partner organizations on the Trust and Safety Council, the ADL, whose mission is to eliminate anti-semitism.

You can view Twitter's safety partners here to learn which groups have advisory over what counts as 'hate speech' : https://about.twitter.com/en_us/safety/safety-partners.html

Note he didn’t say Jews but Zionists so it would be ok as long as there won’t be too many brackets in his tweet. /s

Does Twitter's policy identify protected minority groups? Asking for a friend.

Well, protected classes (T|t)rump company policies at least in the US where Twitter is based.

> Accounts that affiliate with organizations that use or promote violence against civilians

So, every US federal agency's, and every local police force's twitter accounts will be shut down?

You should read the actual post, not just the comments.

> This policy does not apply to military or government entities and we will consider exceptions for groups that are currently engaging in (or have engaged in) peaceful resolution.

Well, that's quite a double standard.

Yeah, basically Twitter's version of the State Sponsors of Terrorism list. You are only allowed to murder people if you agree with our politics.

Does paramilitary count as military? Do revolutionary movements count as government entities?

Interestingly, if you read the full policies, the "Violent Extremist Groups" (https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/violent-group...) has a specific exemption for Government and Military but the "Violent Threats and Glorification of Violence" policy (https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/violent-threa...) is a bit different.

The Glorification of Violence policy says that acts of war, military attacks, state sanctioned executions, and natural disasters are not covered ... UNLESS ... "protected categories have been the primary targets or victims."

The funny thing is that I can't find their definition of "protected category" anywhere, which takes the Orwellian irony of the whole thing to the next level.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com