And this is really at the root of the entire culture war.

It used to be 'hey, that person said something stupid', lol ok what an idiot, anyway moving on to what we were doing'

Now instead it's 'hey that person said something stupid, I need to share it to 5000 followers to show just how stupid they are and how virtuous I am for pointing out that it's stupid, hey hey hey people look look look I'm resisting the stupid look look there's a stupid person'.

What we have is a large group of people who can only be described as professional offence takers. They wake up in the morning, and go out of their way to look though twitter what to be outraged by. They proactively seek out conflict purely for the sake of virtue signalling.

And when these people engage so consistently, after a while you get people who just post shit just for the sake of getting that emotional response out of the other side.

There's definitely a large cultural problem both with people being overly defensive and overly offensive (and I think a majority of people who seem to fall into one of these camps actually fall into both, just depending on the topic). On both sides, there's a gradient of behavior with no practical definition, and at the extremes of each, harsh reaction to that behavior becomes inevitable, since we're humans. On the defensive side, this is the transition between "I disagree but support your right to say it" and attacking a person who has said or done something that isn't particularly hateful or violent. On the offensive side, this is the transition between a harsh but grounded joke aimed at somebody's flaws as a way of making a point, and naked hatred (which may be framed as a joke, as all things can be).

I think we absolutely must address both problems somehow, but I also think that the movement of the offensive tendencies toward their respective extreme is much more damaging and more directly at fault for most of the current breakdown of human interaction. If person A mocks person B and implies that they should be lynched, and person B punches person A, they have both crossed the lines of reason on their positions (A: offensive, B: defensive), but boy am I not overly worried about B's behavior in context (that's a broad analogy, and a representation of my perspective rather than a universal example - it's not a comparison to the article's subject, which is a much more grey example of hatred vs reaction).

Of course, people will always see their group as reasonable and "the other" as unreasonable, especially when the "groups" are so broad that there's no room to stand outside and look in. It's all about as subjective as can be. Unfortunately, that doesn't make the practical outcome of such subjective interpretation any less concrete or unavoidable. I'm not sure what will end up causing this to deescalate, since both sides are utterly dug in.

In my view, there's a difference between letting people say stupid things, and letting people deliberately say misleading things that are clearly for the purpose of influencing an election (spreading the wrong election date.)

I don't see anything wrong with Twitter not tolerating people spreading the wrong election date because 'free speech, don't be so offended'.

> people deliberately say misleading things for purpose of influencing an election

Well there goes every political campaign ever.

All jokes aside, these days it doesn't matter if it's the media, the campaigns themselves, the supporters - it's not about the facts, it's not about anything real, it's just about spreading misleading shit faster than it can be fact checked.

It's an issue on the right, it's an issue on the left. One may be worse than the other, but it doesn't mean it's better, it's just marginally less shitty.

The point is that it is an issue. Yeah, for the last 200 years dozens of scumbags have lied to millions of American citizens, and I'd rather it never happen again.

No-one is advocating for people to be full of shit. All that is being said is that mass censorship of "offensive" words/ideas is the stupidest, most counter-productive way to do it.

Where do you draw the line? Do you think an account with...

username: NPC #15253823

id: npc_15253823

avatar: generic gray NPC avatar with sunglasses

posting #LetHerDecide memes is "clearly for the purpose of influencing an election," or is it satire? If that level of satire won't be tolerated, what will?

Twitter decided trying to get people to not vote by spreading the wrong election date crosses the line. There's not much satire in spreading the wrong election date. I don't think it's ridiculous at all.

You avoided my direct question. Most of the accounts in question did not spread the wrong election date.

Didn't mean to. I had assumed all the banned accounts did spread the wrong election date.

I'll take your word that most of the accounts in question did not spread the wrong election date. I guess Twitter saw that some were, and assessed that the accounts were part of some 'campaign' (because they're similar in appearance, creation date, etc.) and basically judged every account in that 'campaign' as one.

To answer your question, if I were Twitter and I suspected all the accounts were being operated by the same small group of people, then yes I would punish all the accounts including the ones that hadn't yet carried out voter suppression tactics.

If I saw they were posting very similar content, I'd suspect the accounts that hadn't spread the wrong election date were soon going to and not wait until they all did to get rid of them.

No worries. I understand your position, but I think Twitter is vastly overreaching here. I can find no evidence that these accounts were actually trying to mislead people into not voting.

For the 1,000,000th time: you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater and call it "satire" either.

This is the kind of post the NPC meme is parodying. Instead of parroting mindless talking points, why don't you learn about the history of the quote "shouting fire in a movie theater"? Learn about Schenck decision and how "shouting fire in a movie theater" was used to justify a criminal offense against individuals distributing anti-draft flyers to military-aged men. YES. Common anti-draft speech practiced wherever today was once as dangerous as what you're implying. This decision's first amendment implication was finally overturned in Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969.

Make up your own mind, and form your own opinions. This meme is not dangerous, it's exposing a dangerous pattern. A pattern of people parroting simplistic ideas with no knowledge of the context involved. A pattern which effects most sides of the political aisle. Don't be an NPC, learn and grow, become a player.

Do you think pointing out someone else appears to have stock opinions and doesn't actually think about the world around them is "shouting fire in a crowded theatre"?

Spreading the wrong voting day is. The mockery is fine, but I don't see anything ridiculous about Twitter not tolerating voter suppression campaigns on their platform.

Do you think: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/17/business/17NPC/17... looks like a source of trustworthy information?

I guess Twitter took a zero-tolerance stance against voter suppression campaigns, whether the accounts involved are clearly satirical or not. They just flat out don't want people using their platform to spread the wrong election date, even if spreading the wrong election date is just 'trolling' or 'satire' or 'expressing my opinion on the liberals' to some. Again, I don't find that stance ridiculous.

Equating joke accounts spreading the wrong election date with voter suppression is just laughable. How could anyone possibly believe an NPC Twitter account? How stupid would they have to be?

Except there's no crowded theater and no fire. It's time to put that rusty excuse to rest - the fact that some speech can cause bad consequences in extremely specific narrow case does not mean that now you can justify any speech restriction by "but fire in theater! Checkmate, free speech!"

Repeating it all those times hasn't made it true.

... What?

Edit: Oh, your profile says " "obvious troll" ". Okay then. Checks out.

Since your ability to educate yourself has been exhausted at a single misreading of irony, others will do it for you:

https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...

I've been following on these /pol/ memes for a while, and I'm quite disappointed about the mainstream media. Because this, as a postmodern phenomenon, and their political and social implications need serious sociological and cultural studies. What are the social and cultural basis of these memes and the political movement of it? What is its underlying mechanism? If you can't understand it and just blindly discredit them it as "far-right troll campaign", then it is parts of the problem, not a solution.

"The Internet is an inherently platform of democratic and equality, which empowered the individuals to be free from the establishment", this narrative from the 80s has been proven to be wishful thinking. It appears to be true, because it coincided with the economic boom of 80s neoliberalism until ~2010. When middle east politics started to be destabilized, people celebrated because the revolution was liberal. There was even the "cute cat theory of digital activism", which says when there are funny memes involved, people are more likely to join the political protest of Internet freedom. And it was seen as a good thing - a faceless dictatorial government was overthrown by lolcat. Isn't it the miracle of the postmodern Internet?

But it has been clear that ANY idea, can by popularized and supported by a free Internet. Now in the current age of deglobalization and political and economic failure, naturally, nationalistic and conservative ideals are getting more and more popular support, like the Arab Spring, was supported by a number of people of the young generation who are frustrated by the status quo. And memes also played an important role in the movement, but now they are called hate symbols and should be banned by major platforms.

Now it has been clear that the Internet can surely empowers "individuals to be free from the establishment", it is very true, but unfortunately, any ideas, not only "democratic and equality" ideas, as long as long as it has popular support, can be empowered by the Internet.

When we've realizing an free and open Internet does not necessarily support liberalism, or democracy, or equality, the next question naturally arisen - when the important argument for Internet freedom is that they bring democracy and equality no longer works, should the Internet be free and open? Should we have free speech anymore? I believe the answer must be yes, including "them".

But the media are now just blindly discredit the trolls, and only solution they purposed was "don't feed the trolls", or Twitter and Facebook should ban "hate speech". If the mainstream cannot actually to study and understand its mechanism, and the underlying social-economical basis this conflict, of this new online anti-establishment and trolls, and to provide a social solution, I don't think the problem is going to be solved at anytime, and the answer to free speech, and a free, open Internet is going to be "No" soon.

If you want to understand more about the trolling culture and its mechanism, I recommend "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture", by Whitney Phillips, published by The MIT Press.

B-b-but they spread information that could lead intelligent and informed people to miss the vote!

Who doesn't get the voting date from Twitter these days?

> One thing I really like about Twitter is that you can choose to follow who you want. If you don't want to see memes making fun of you, just don't follow accounts that post/retweet these memes.

My experience of Twitter is the opposite. Someone I follow posts something I think is intelligent and polite, and the replies are filled with people launching tangential attacks and making weird accusations.

A tweet is like a tiny conference talk whose attendees are self-selecting. Yet random strangers all over the world are able to detect the in-progress talk, parachute in, and yell crazy things, and nobody can take away their microphone.

> It's sad that Twitter is banning satire accounts. I'm against all censorship of lawful speech, and condemn Twitter and any social media platform that participates in this kind of censorship.

Would you distinguish satire from impersonation? Eg, https://twitter.com/RealDonalDrumpf?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7... is clearly self-identifying as a satire of Donald Trump. Nobody is going to confuse that account with the real one.

But suppose hoards of people with political opinions you detest start creating accounts that pose as "your side", using the worst possible arguments for your positions, insulting everyone, and making "your side" look stupid and cruel. Is that a kind of speech you want to protect?

> Someone I follow posts something I think is intelligent and polite, and the replies are filled with people launching tangential attacks and making weird accusations.

You can still curate this experience. There are accounts that I will never read the replies from, and there are accounts that I know will have great replies.

There are other accounts where I will. I ban, mute, and use the "don't show retweets from this user" feature liberally.

> suppose hoards of people with political opinions you detest start creating accounts that pose as "your side", using the worst possible arguments for your positions, insulting everyone, and making "your side" look stupid and cruel. Is that a kind of speech you want to protect?

If you're talking about the NPC accounts, they are clearly satire by their tweeting style and avatar.

Actual subversive impersonation is tricky, but I would hope that those kinds of accounts get outed by the side of the people they are subverting and the side they are subverting can condemn those arguments, positions, and tactics.

> Would you distinguish satire from impersonation? ... is clearly self-identifying as a satire of Donald Trump. Nobody is going to confuse that account with the real one.

> But suppose hoards of people with political opinions you detest start creating accounts that pose as "your side", using the worst possible arguments for your positions, insulting everyone, and making "your side" look stupid and cruel.

Personally I'd distinguish satire from impersonation in this case as the banned accounts have:

- Grey flat colored faces

- A nose made out out of two straight black lines

- The username "npc" followed by a number

For example, every avatar the image underneath the headline in the article linked to in this page:

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/17/business/17NPC/17...

It's not a particularly subtle distinction.

> making "your side" look stupid

Just wanted to quote that again.