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Comment by at_a_remove | Hacker News Reader

A Republican Congresswoman was just locked out of her Twitter account prior to some kind of Dem resolution, at least if you believe https://www.mrctv.org/blog/marjorie-taylor-green-reportedly-... as a source of truth.

Nothing to see here, move along.

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marjorie taylor green requires more detail than simply “a republican congresswoman” - she’s blamed forest fires on jewish space lasers, among other racist, homophobic, and transphobic conspiracy theories

And some of the "more detail" might also include that her account was re-instated after that, but that today's suspension comes at a timing that some might consider interesting, as a movement is attempting to oust her from government. Yes, more detail could be invoked.

She is still an elected member of congress, and from what I hear - a rather popular one, regardless of her "tinfoil hatery".

Opposition parties should _never_ have the power to just expel people they don't like from the opposing side.

I'm sure it's purely coincidence she is locked from her twitter account on the same day that congress will be voting on a resolution on whether or not to expel her.

> Article 1, Section 5, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution addresses the question of what is required to expel a person from Congress. It states: “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.”

If it’s in the constitution, especially if the founding fathers put it in, it can become popular with Americans.

Free speech is not concerned with a person's ability to spew and regurgitate bs in private platforms and I see no reason to give her preferential treatment over anyone else.

freedom of speech protections exist to protect against this exact sentiment.

You can't just silence everyone you disagree with.

They have their right for 'spewing' their 'bs' just like you have for 'spewing' yours.

And it's not up to you, me or Twitter to decide which opinions are right or wrong.

> freedom of speech protections exist to protect against this exact sentiment.

Sorry, but that's plainly false. No legal scholar will agree with you.

They can go in a public place to do, e.g. press conferences and so on.

Any person has the right to dictate a mode of conduct on their platform and penalize individuals who do not follow said code. Why should I be paying for bandwidth and host the content of any individual who does not follow my rules in my platform? I provide a service and I have the right to dictate who gets to use it.

The senator can go spew her homophobia, conspiracy theories and racism in a public space, nobody prevents her, but I certainly wouldn't provide a platform for her and her ilk.

*decide for others

Shes has only been removed from twitter for spreading false information. Her free speech has not been violated.

She was only only suspended for 12 hours, and Twitter is doing damage control saying it was their automated system that messed up. I don't believe them.

> I'm sure it's purely coincidence she is locked from her twitter account on the same day that congress will be voting on a resolution on whether or not to expel her.

Surely you could see that correlation as a pattern of questionable behavior finally biting her and not some conspiracy between the liberal elite and Twitter.

Is there like a guide somewhere telling people to bring up some specific incident every time a particular UnPerson's name is brought up? I swear there's a few dozen people for which, as soon as their name is mentioned, a dozen green accounts will suddenly post what somebody has determined is "critical context" under which we are supposed to see them.

Okay she made one silly facebook post that doesn't really quite say that. If we're gonna popularize the absurd things said by every freshman congressperson on social media, well we've got a long book to write.

What? There’s a difference between “one silly post” and the perpetual spiel of QAnon conspiracy theories and beliefs. Your comment makes it seems as if she said that one edgy thing we all say as teenagers in a one off. I don’t agree with muting her until after her expulsion, but this comment is disingenuous.

I'm not seeing your point here.

Do you like this? Not like it? Why?

I feel like this is exactly the type of feedback they're asking for.

I offer data, not a conclusion. And it's data that is well-timed, given the statement.

What do you think?

I didn't raise the point. I haven't formed an opinion on this particular issue.

Why did you offer this data?

I guess I will break all of this down for you, since you did ask.

1) Twitter calls for public input on their approach to their handling of accounts of government officials. This individual is a government official and this is an instance of handling their account.

2) Well-timed. They called for this input on March 18th. This instance of account handling is from March 19th, approximately one day later. This makes it "more relevant," given that it was not, say, six years ago.

So, I offered this data because it was topical and timely to the discussion at hand. Rather than a hypothetical, it exists as a real instance of how Twitter as a corporation handles the Twitter accounts of government leaders. If I were to discuss the price of tea in China back in 1887, that would not be topical or timely.

This may be all be true[1], but none of it explains your "nothing to see here" trailing remark.

[1] Though there's activity on her account from 15 hours ago. In addition if someone is banned from Twitter, doesn't Twitter take their tweets offline/hide them?

Oh, the trailing remark is because Twitter has long had the habit of "whoops the algorithm did it!" happening as the most convenience of excuses when the timing is suspicious.

I don't know what Twitter does with people's tweets. Frankly, I find the platform almost too chaotic to look at for more than a few seconds. It feels like a roomful of ping-pong balls with text on them, whizzing at your head, only loosely clustered.

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