Twitter bans 7k QAnon accounts, limits 150k others as part of broad crackdown
news.yahoo.com
news.yahoo.com
Message boards and forums have always had moderators and admins who could censor at will. You're posting on one right now.
Can anyone explain how Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc. is qualitatively different from any of these other websites?
There's a real question about when they cease being just another website or chatroom and become a public utility.
One would imagine in the '90s, AOL was probably as dominant as Facebook or Twitter is today- large enough to push its own alternative to URLs ("AOL Keywords"). The difference was there were far fewer people on the internet and the internet and computers in general were not as significant to our day-to-day lives. I doubt that Twitter today acts any differently from AOL Time Warner in Y2K.
Finally, scale is a measure of quantity, not quality.
Also, a difference of degree can be such that it becomes a difference in kind.
It all basically happened in a decade, and especially grew in the last few years where even presidents are making news on Twitter first. And when the CEO of Twitter says social media is a right, it further begs the question of what access and moderation really mean.
This issue has peaked because a few massive corporations have consolidated the internet discussion market share, and they now wield massive power because of it. People want that power to be limited.
Pieces like this one [0] read so very quaint now.
I suppose, just like social media's detrimental effects on mental health [1], these advance warnings were just collectively ignored by society- and the tech companies themselves- until very recently. Odd, that.
[0] http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/12/facebook-...
You can still have conversations with ease by email, IM, phone, and on your own forums on a server you control (or non-electronically such as in person or by paper mail).
What an FB or Twitter ban effectively takes away is broadcasting your material to a vast audience for free.
As far as scale, your comment already proves the point. A portal with a few millions users showing some brand pages is nowhere near the same as having a billion people constantly connected with every detail of their lives shared.
AOL was only dominant for a short while as an internet destination, but it wasn't dominant in people's lives and still competed with TV and print media in a mostly broadcast fashion. Modern social media is much more pervasive and powerful than AOL ever was.
In the early AOL era, one couldn't even use it to access the web.
How many collective human hours are spent within the walled gardens of Facebook and Twitter daily?
So AOL was a big fish in a tiny lake. In comparison today, FB and Twitter both are megaliths that impact how the ocean currents circulate.
https://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm
Use, interactions, control benefits, and ad spend have grown vastly more than linearly as a consequence.
A large Internet service in 1999 might have 1-10 million users (AOL peaked at ~27 million subscribers in 2002). Those were not connected wirelessly 24/7, but had occasional and intermittant, often dialup, access.
2. HN users tend to downvote tedious, repetitive flamewar.
So you’ll find stories like this one that should be pretty high up which have been flagged to death and no longer appear on the main page.
It is like we are stuck between two evils.
One is censorship, that is used by dominant group to silence everyone else.
Another is bunch of minority groups that might have outlandish aims and use free speech platforms to harrass everyone else.
What I don't like that it is left to private company to sort it out and enact their own policies. This questions should be clearly handled on legislative level. In the end of the day a company provides a service, they shouldn't be the judge of how much free speech is allowed/not allowed.
So I would say it is not failure of twitter here, it is just massive failure of our political process, but we all kind of know that already.
W/out twitter you lose a voice you'd never have had if Twitter didn't exist, so by them banning hate speech maybe if your voice matters you'll exercise some caution and prudence when making a statement.
Right now, what prevents Russian government/companies going to twitter and telling them look guys, you just banned your American extremists, can you please do the same for ours. They also practice hate speech, disinformation etc. The only problem is that Russian extremists look like average centrist US democrat.
In terms what is the right and what is not the right is not really for twitter to determine in this case. My point was it should be determine on legislative level what should be on twitter and what shouldn't.
In the end of the day twitter is a massive part of the political process. People exercising their rights, complaining to their representatives, supporting them, spreading their message.
So if you ban entitties from twitter, you ban them from political process. And I do think some entities should be banned, but it shouldn't be up to twitter, it should be up to us citizens to decide that.
If we think that holocost-deniers, nazy sympaphizers or whatever should be banned from social media bring it to the vote, pass the law, hopefully it will stand supreme court challenge and move on.
Nobody is arguing Stormfront should be shut down. In fact, the argument looks more like "Twitter is no more obligated to host the QAnon conspiracy theory than Stormfront is to host a weekly editorial from the head of the Anti-Defamation League."
I'm sure they granted themselves this power in the Terms of Service, if not then I'm sure they've granted themselves the power to update the Terms of Service
It's also been interesting that the proponents of allowing these campaigns to continue say that stopping them will indeed lead to totalitarian censorship of "free speech."
Granted we must always be vigilant against social pressure going too far. For example, the mob that formed to find the Boston marathon bomber over-zealously targeted the wrong people, risking their lives. We must learn from things like this.
But to jump from banning hate campaigns on private platforms, to total censorship, is an impressively intellectually dishonest juggling act.
Who determines what is hateful?
In this case, Twitter.
People keep forgetting that 1984 assumes a singular authoritarian control, not multiple authorities and the freedom to choose one, several, or none of them.
It's a massive group of people LARPing about the most serious crimes anyone can be accused of and it focuses on new people nearly every day. No trials. Weak evidence. No way for the accused to face their accuser. It's as bad as the worst of "cancel culture".
Also, just look in the replies of any regular person who attacks QAnon claims on Twitter and you will see responses accusing them of being a pedophile, a murderer, a Satanist, and claiming that they, their families, etc. will be imprisoned or executed.
The posts are word salad fever dreams claiming certain celebs are literally satanic and practicing witchcraft and ritually murdering children.
A depressing number of people swallow it. We haven't evolved enough since Salem.
The nature of "Q", or at least the current person publishing under that guise (likely Jim and/or Ron Watkins), is that they rarely make any kind of concrete claims or predictions, but they've certainly made allusions to Moloch, Satan, cannibalism, etc. when referring to political figures. It's the responsibility of "bakers" in the community to take "Q"'s "crumbs" and come to conclusions. Certainly these conclusions have been widespread in the community for years and have not been spoken against by "Q".
Grow a backbone, or fold to public pressure?
Especially when Q controls the level of the aggressive hate in the nonsense.
I'm not so sure that the level of aggressive hate from the populace is attributable to Q. I believe he's just tapping into it.
Don't mistake the lack of force behind the word for its denotation. Belief in Protocols-of-Zion-originated global conspiracy theory is also nonsense.
Then disbelieve it out of existence. Just because someone believes nonsense, don't think it isn't dangerous.
I always wondered why the military was helping 8kun. [1]
1. https://twitter.com/prayingmedic/status/1194054383488516096
"There is a secret truth to the universe known only to this secret cabal in the back of this drinking parlor" is an old trope. Far more expected than "There is a secret truth to the universe and Twitter is letting the nutters who believe in it multicast it via one of the most populated social networks on the planet." Better for Twitter to give it the axe, lest people confuse a badly-hashed-together conspiracy theory for actual truth.
The best way to combat conspiracy theories like QAnon would be for our elites and institutions to stop constantly preying upon the people and lying to them about it via a neutered press, and actually hold some members of their own class accountable for once. The massively corrupt corporate giveaway that was the Covid stimulus is a great recent example. The Epstein case being slow walked by the FBI for 25 years and then trying to sweep it all under the rug with "oops he killed himself while the guards were asleep and the cameras malfunctioned!" is another. As long as this kind of stuff continues, people will attempt (often haphazardly and incorrectly) to understand how and why it isn't being stopped, and who's in charge of it. They will be easy targets for grifters and bunkum artists who rush in to fill the gaps left by complete radio silence on the part of mainstream media sources.
You know, I don't agree with QAnon and think it has many properties of a dangerous cult, but they do at least have one advantage over run-of-the-mill liberals in correctly identifying the ruling elite as the chief cause of the world's problems, instead of constantly focusing blame on "deplorable" Trump supporters with zero actual power or influence.
The problem with expecting representative government to do "What the people want" is the people want a lot of things. Many of them incompatible. Some of them terrible ideas.
I do not know what to make of that, other than to suggest the "elite vs commoner" division may not be politically clear.
The mistake is believing "elites" comprise an organized group with a single motivating purpose and unified agenda exercising arbitrary power over the facade of government.
The problem with using terms like "elites" and "ruling class" when referring to American politics is that while they're a great basis for conspiracy theories and class warfare, the simple dimensionality of "left vs. right, elite vs. commoner" don't describe the actual complex dynamics of political reality, or the fact that checks and balances do sometimes work.
QAnon just needs you to believe it a conspiracy theory a little longer.
Take the red pill.
That's the thing about conspiracy theories, they differ from reality because reality is consistent; conspiracies are merely internally consistent. They break down in the light of real world evidence. A man threatened people in a pizza parlor, demanding to see the pedophile ring running out of the basement of that building. The building had no basement. It would be amusing, or pitiful, if he hadn't had a gun to do the threatening. A theory doesn't deserve a second chance after something as foolish as that.
I wish you the best of luck out there, and I hope you get out of the grip of this 4chan-originated delusion. I wish I could help you, but on this side of the facts, the whole thing is so ridiculous that I don't understand how anybody sees it hang together.
Why would I ask this? Because its the MF IRS that NEVER stops trying to get a cent owed to them.
That 4chan conspiracy explains this when nothing else does.
And besides, that Pizzagate bit you decry as the end of QAnon's veracity hasn't yet reached its conclusion.
Literally nothing else? Not the fact there's an international pandemic so collections right now are like squeezing money from a stone? Not even the fact they didn't stop (i.e. people kept receiving collection notices right up to the People First Initiative)?
> And besides, that Pizzagate bit you decry as the end of QAnon's veracity hasn't yet reached its conclusion.
The pizza parlor running a pedophile ring out of its basement had no basement. That's as concluded as it gets.
I have figured out which side you're on.
https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-increases-visits-to-high-in...
Where is the evidence that collections were suspended in January and February?
And, don't forget Justice Roberts just ruled last month that successive presidents cannot undo executive orders.
Enjoying the show yet?
And, if there's a group of people involved, they just seal the indictments until they have the evidence to convict all of them.
There's a huge number of them involved. You can view the number of sealed federal indictments by state on the qmap.pub site.
Be patient, the arrests are coming.
https://torresjrjr.com/archive/2020-07-19-guide-to-the-fediv...
gab.ai gave breathing room for a man to be so radicalized by surrounding himself with anti-Jewish conspiracy that he murdered people at a synagogue. 4chan is a notorious breeding ground of terrible memetic hazards (including, notably, QAnon).
I don't guarantee Fediverse will end up the same, but the alternative services seem to collect mostly fringers who got kicked off of mainstream services with cause, and that's not a group I intend to support with my time and engineering labor. When I see a new social media site pop up, the first question I have is "What stops it from being the next gab.ai?"
And the NBC website doesn't have an impossible-to-opt-out GDPR popup
People are not responsible for what their ignorant fans say.
I know believers of this stuff think "QAnon" is a person, but I've not seen any evidence that leads me to believe this is the case and quite a bit of conjecture / circumstantial evidence that suggests at one point the name was being used by a cabal of imageboard moderators.
If none of us knows the identity of "Q" then anyone can pretend to be their prophet and there is no way to confirm nor disconfirm. This is why I describe QAnon as a LARP -- it's easy for the average person to participate without knowing any rules (because there are none).
If so then why the double standard with Q there are dumb fans who post stupidity for literally everything. You would think people would actually quote the source (always ignored) instead of using a clear falacy of using ones followers to define them.
This is what I'm arguing against. When it comes to QAnon, you can't know the difference between QAnon, QAnon fans, and any rando who pretends to be either. It's a feature of the LARP.
Anyone can say they are part of anonymous and create their own anonymous branded videos....etc..
In a way, it's a natural evolution of the "meme", which was originally a word coined by Dawkins to describe the gene of biological evolution equivalent in cultural evolution. Nobody owns a meme. Rarely can we prove who was actually the first to use a meme (KnowYourMeme attempts this, but occasionally can't definitively identify the creator). Memes keep their virility based on the collective LARP that all humans participate in (sometimes the meme goes away and other times it stays active).
Honestly, my analysis of the Wayfair storage bin incident was that it was probably a LARPer (QAnon, 4Channer, Russian/Chinese troll, whatever) who had access to the WayFair vendor admin panel and realized that QAnon followers would eat it up.
https://soundcloud.com/media-roots/the-origins-of-qanon-foll...
The article states this group has “ties to dangerous real-world activities”. Does anyone know of any? Or is this just conjecture? The article’s statement was fairly vague.
> was a militant anti-fascist organisation,
emphasis mine. People who self-identify as anti-fascist nowadays have little to do with communism. Why not link this page? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-fascism
Second of all, is "communist" a slur on HN? Is that supposed to sound scary or something?
But I’ve never met someone complaining about them who could name one of them. It’s like some Boys of Brazil meets George Soros thing with them.
The left is a vast collection of competing factional ideas that in many cases the only common purpose is a demand for change.
Environmentalists can't agree with each other, let alone animal welfare activists who can't agree with native/traditional rights; and theres a range of single issue movements that end up diluting support for bigger picture issues simply by association. I'm not saying that they are wrong or their demands invalid but it draws attention away from the messages everyone could get behind if there was better focus.
It happened with the "Occupy Wall Street" and "BLM" will likely go the same way if it doesn't simply stick to one core message.
Then there's like at least 3 groups trying to start 3 new political parties, those of us pushing for the greens, more pushing for one of the socialist parties, and some even pushing for the libertarian party (I'm a leftist/socialist libertarian, but the libertarian party is NOTHING like a left/libertarian), and some voting for Trump out of spite, or insanity, and the rest probably cow-towing to vote for Biden.
Just ideas alone it's pretty disjointed. No organization. I mean the right/tea party at least was pretty coherent and had a pretty good structure to accomplish their goals.
Leftists though have their own purity tests, and their own minds made up and can be rather stubborn about how to accomplish goals, what those goals should be, etc...
I think we all have ADHD or something.
However, there's no 'terrorism' on the left, or very rare. antifa is not a terrorist org. Show me the deaths, the bombs, etc. I can show you plenty of those on the right though, an antifa terrorist is probably some kid egging or graffit-ing a building. That's about as serious as they get, because most on the left are also pacifists.
Bernie was unfortunately an outsider who never stood a chance without the power brokers in the Democrat party stepping forward to back him, but the Greens seem to just eat their own.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon#Incidents https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2020/01/08/mother-t...
No "antifa" movement has been associated with the same degree of violence and coordinated harassment. There are not tens of thousands of "antifa" members sharing lists of public figures they believe have been or should be executed and fabricating evidence against those figures.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-man-with-assault-rifle-d...
I don't think you believe in some time travel conspiracy, that would be more of QAnon thing.
It should have by rights have disappeared into obscurity after the imminent mass arrests of HRC and other prominent Dems didn't occur; much like the lone gunman inadvertently showed Pizzagate as a hoax.
Rather it has morphed into a moment of sorts that channels people frustrations with anything and everything, with a weird idolisation of Trump the celebrity and now encompasses any alt/far-right fringe idea that is big on conspiracy but generally lacking in theory.
* Doxxing
* Brandishing weapons in a family restaurant [1]
* Targeting journalists for violence
* Targeting public figures who have been accused of crimes for violence [2]
* Targeting politicians for violence
* Bombing churches (and yes, Satanic temples are just as bad to bomb as Christian churches)
* Invading foreign soil
Could you help flesh out the equivalence here? It seems like quite the false equivalence to me. Antifascist violence is a last resort, not a central desire of the ideology; we've seen police, military police, and now secret police in a continuing escalation of violence by the state; meanwhile, Q's followers seem quite happy to endorse violence as the primary means by which political and social change are achieved, by which detective work is done and facts are learned, and by which discussions are had and consensus is reached.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon#Incidents
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate_conspiracy_theory
Connor Betts who shot 9 people dead was an antifa sympathizer [1]
James T. Hodgkinson who hurt two officers and wounded Republican Rep. Scalise in a shootout was found to have posted a lot of content comparing President Trump and the Republican party to Nazis [2]. An idea that has been popularized by antifa elements.
[0] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/briannasacks/ice-detent...
[1] https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/08/07/dayton-shootin...
[2] http://jewishbreakingnews.com/2017/06/14/breaking-shooter-id...
I sympathize with the argument that social platforms are private and can do business (or not) with whomever they please, the counter argument is that these platforms are "Radical Monopolies" (https://wikitia.com/wiki/Radical_Monopoly) apropos of a recent HN thread on Ivan Illich, where the analogy for the effect of being kicked off a platform is not like Ford declining to sell you a car where you can just go get another one, but rather, cancelling your license in Los Angeles.
It's not 1:1, but if you lose your drivers license in a city like LA or non-coastal state, your ability to participate in society (find work, etc) and your social franchise in society is diminished because the automobile has a radical monopoly in American cities.
Twitter and social platforms like Facebook have definitely become radical monopolies for reputation, where if you have no social media presence, you are excluded socially. (Regarding Facebook, try find a date without an instagram page.) Facebook execs even commented publicly early on that people without Facebook accounts should be treated as suspicious.
That QAnon types are so ridiculous and indefensible is what makes them a great example for discussing how and whether to protect minority views. Twitter does have the right to do what they want, and I'm optimistic that these purges will create demand for the divergent platforms that will replace this first generation of them, but to say this right is simple and natural ignores precedents of radical monopolies that were enabled and sustained by political protection, which seems naive. The non-libertarian case for limiting social platforms ability to purge can be summed up in president Obama's thoughts,when he said, "you didn't build that."
Arguably, social platforms that rely on network effects to become radical monopolies didn't "build that," either.
Facebook beat out competitors with two advantages: access to primary sources (they primed the network with college students) and requirement to use real names, which set them apart from other persona-based social networks at the time and encouraged people to be their "normal selves" on FB. Turns out, that's what a lot of people wanted; relative to the cyberpunk-esque other options, it felt "normal and safe." They made a market choice and it paid off for them.
Facebook was a way for people who went to Harvard to tell people they went to Harvard without having to actually say it, and for everyone else to be seen know them - Facebook didn't build Harvard, but it is an effect of it.
Twitter is an artifact of speech protections and nerds, and now that it has arrived it's trying to cast off the taint of trade to become a walled suburb safe for middle class banalities. Did a few thousand lines of code create billions in value, or did a society with a network effect produce it?
The Wild West gave way to towns and suburbs too. Turns out, most people don't want to get shot in the street at high noon, and once the pioneering time is done, that kind of behavior becomes no longer acceptable. Pioneers who have also decided they're done risking having to duel in the hot sun will stick around; pioneers with more risk tolerance (or a thirst for that kind of experience) then often set out for new territory to tame.
The radical monopoly concept captures this dynamic, where products bulldoze culture. Sure, it's progress, but just don't look behind the curtain, and certainly don't be as sanctimonious as the social media platform execs have been.
There may be people who helped Twitter gain widespread adoption by their fame who are now feeling taken advantage of by Twitter changing its rules to kick them off their service. Maybe we can bend the analogy far enough to call them 'displaced natives?'
Do such people exist though? I'm pretty sure the Venn diagram of QAnon supporters and long-lived Twitter luminaries is two circles. Even if we accept the notion of "Twitter natives," we seem to raise the question of who the "displaced natives" are when regular Twitter users have to put up with this novel conspiracy nonsense.
QAnon is bonkers, but as an example of a culture being displaced by a technology platform, which I argue is the unavoidable effect of the dominance of said platform, this is good example of the effect of these platforms. They aren't neutral. They're welcome to be against whatever QAnon is for, but I don't buy the story that Twitter is virtuous and worthy for doing it, and they're not the little guy or the people, they are the dominant paradigm.
So is Twitter essentially admitting this rule is only enforced against groups they don't like?
If they're spreading hatred against some groups or harassing individuals why not use these rules instead? Twitter prohibits that already.
Also the timing is interesting given America is having and election in a few months and these Q people are some of President Trump's most devoted supporters. Didn't seem to bother them for over 2 years.
> The spokesperson said while the targeted enforcement against QAnon fell under Twitter’s existing platform manipulation rules, its classification of QAnon as coordinated harmful activity was a new designation. The spokesperson said Twitter was taking action now because of an escalating degree of harm associated with the conspiracy theory.
Q / QAnon only exists because of the Trump election. It's a way for "President Trump's most devoted supporters" to be engaged in the campaign. I wouldn't be surprised if the entire LARP was created by or steered by the campaign team.
That’s like saying Obama supporters are pro killing innocent people with drones. Obviously this is ridiculous.
Both far right and left have extremists that shouldn’t be tolerated by anyone.
I have yet to see a QAnon follower who didn't also support Trump, so from my perspective being a Trump Supporter is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being a QAnon follower.
> Both far right and left have extremists that shouldn’t be tolerated by anyone.
I'm not sure what you mean by "tolerated" here. I'm fine with calling them out for their silly ideas and actions. Perhaps even "canceling" them if they get too extreme. I'm not interested in actually adopting their techniques.
She also stated they made they decision internal how they personally feel is best.
Personally, I believe that any monopoly having power to silence a crowd should be held to a legal standard. Ban all or ban none.
I think Twitter can do whatever they want and personally I'm fine with rules if they actually mean something. But here it sounds like they're just coming up with a bogus reason to delete a lot of people permanently.
The normal penalty for violating most rules that have to do with what you said is a temporary ban. By invoking this one they can go for a permanent suspension straight away.
Can't have free speech because too many voters are conspiracy nuts. Can't ban content because free speech.
The level of ignorance has to be seen to be believed, on sites like 4chan.
Education can clear this impasse, but is it too late?
The fringes will always be there, they're just more visible and vocal now. The real issue is whether a platform will choose to be moderated or not, and what tools it offers to users to control their experience. All major platforms are still working on that balance, especially as they become increasingly dominant mediums of expression.
And the fringes have enlisted bots to amplify their message, which includes accusations of serious criminal behavior with no evidence that would stand up in court.
I suspect media platforms won't actually be able to fix these problems because they are codependent on the outrage that they create.
They then purposely pushed it from 4chan to places it would be believed, other forms of social media like Facebook.
The general populace (of social media users) are the ones who eat it up. They eat shit up from an anonymous image board that has always said that
"The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
tl:dr "civil" society has quite literally proved it's simply not ready for the internet. Wonder if this will go down as the Great Filter.
Watching the movie Slackers (2002) recently was eye opening. You'd think this weird conspiracy thing was recent, but Slackers shows it predated the mass adoption of the internet.
I find it hard to imagine where this ends.
but, of course, im small. the relative harm to the extremist is small. they can find another place to spread their awful message. but what if i'm bigger? what if i have monopolized a large portion of political speech within a country? what if my platform is the primary communication channel for the president of the united states? do i then have an obligation to provide a platform to that speech?
what if myself and a few friends own such a significant share of the internet that we can effectively remove extremists from all online participation. they cant host a server. they cant register a domain. they cant use private messenger apps. they cant send or receive money.
to what degree can a person be ostracized from society for having an unpopular opinion.
i certainly don't agree with the views of the taliban. i certainly wouldn't want to be complicit in the hosting of those views. but i have to wonder, if "illegitimate" speech can be removed by a small minority of corporate leaders how long is it before "legitimate" speech is removed?
can a democratic society really exist where all opinions are filtered through a corporate elite? can "problematic" speech be allowed to exist so long as it doesn't call for violence? are calls to violence always evil?
the BLM protests have certainly made calls to violence. should the cause for racial equality be stopped because it offends or threatens a minority (or even a majority) of people? couldnt' the BLM protest be construed as "problematic" or "illegitimate" and removed from the civil discourse overnight?
im asking because i don't know what to do. there doesn't seem to be a clear path forward. there is no "public square" on the internet. its all private. but there's no one left in the "real" public square. the one in meat space. the "public square" has moved onto private property and there's no way to get it back.