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.