If so, wouldn't that mean that twitter is credibly bias towards progressives?

The null hypothesis here is that Twitter is biased against users who violate their terms of service, and that if conservatives violate Twitter's terms of service more often than progressives, they appear to be subjected to "harsher" treatment, which is interpreted by conservatives as an organized campaign of anti-conservative bias and suppression, rather than Twitter simply enforcing its policies.

What needs to be demonstrated, to me, is that the majority of banned provably conservative accounts were not banned for violating Twitter's terms of service, but for their political views, and that an equal or greater ratio of provably liberal accounts with equal or greater following which violated Twitter's terms of service were not banned, in order for political bias to be the more likely reason for the treatment of conservatives.

What if I told you that twitters TOS itself is bias against conservatives? Your whole argument seems premised on the idea that twitters TOS is completely neutral.

>What if I told you that twitters TOS itself is bias against conservatives?

Here is Twitter's TOS[0], I'd ask you to prove it.

[0]https://twitter.com/en/tos

> We reserve the right to remove Content that violates the User Agreement, including for example, copyright or trademark violations, impersonation, unlawful conduct, or harassment.

So Kathy griffin doxxing and sending a hate mob after children is not harassment but alex jones having a minor encounter with a CNN journalist is an instantly bannable example of harassment.

I'm pretty sure your just arguing out of bad faith at this point.

Interesting. So which part of that do you feel is intrinsic to being a conservative, that would make the part of the TOS you quoted biased against conservatives? Is it the harassment, maybe? The unlawful conduct?

> I'm pretty sure your just arguing out of bad faith at this point.

You have no idea what that means, do you?

I had the exact same thought. I guess I'm glad I didn't post it as a top-level comment, because it looks like you have unintentionally become an example of how HN is prone to downvote swarms from those same conservatives who feel so victimized on Twitter.

One key here is the limitations of a "neutrally applied" standard. As others have pointed out, an alternative hypothesis is that the liberal majority is more likely to report violations. This can happen through sheer weight of numbers, it can mean completely neutral application of the standard but non-neutral invocation of it, and the author does nothing to address it.

Another confounding factor has to do with the very nature of conservatism and liberalism. One could argue, and conservatives do argue in other contexts, that the very definition of "hate speech" and the degree to which it is suppressed have a very liberal bias. Those who believe in those standards are more likely to invoke them, even if the two groups are equal in number. Those who do not believe in those standards are more likely to transgress. This is a difference in both invocation of the standard (by users) and its construction, but still not its application (by Twitter's mod team). Again, the author does nothing to address it.

AFAICT, what the author is demanding is equal outcomes despite unequal factors leading to those outcomes. It's an odd position for a conservative to take. Does Richard Hanania believe such affirmative action is justified in other contexts where a particular neutrally applied decision process yields unequal outcomes because of discrimination skewing its inputs? As always on deliberately "contrarian" Quillette, it seems like there's a bit of inconsistency here.

> I guess I'm glad I didn't post it as a top-level comment, because it looks like you have unintentionally become an example of how HN is prone to downvote swarms from those same conservatives who feel so victimized on Twitter.

That’s okay, I don’t mind losing some internet points.