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1061 points danso | 11 comments | | HN request time: 0.685s | source | bottom
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partiallypro ◴[] No.23350905[source]
Twitter is well within the rights to do this, but I have seen tweets from blue check marks essentially calling for violence and Twitter didn't remove them. So, does that mean Twitter actually -supports- those view points now? If Twitter is going to police people, it needs to be across the board. Otherwise it's just a weird censorship that is targeting one person and can easily be seen as political.

Everyone is applauding this because they hate Trump, but take a step back and see the bigger picture. This could backfire in serious ways, and it plays to Trump's base's narrative that the mainstream media and tech giants are colluding to silence conservatives (and maybe there could even be some truth to that.) I know the Valley is an echo chamber, so obviously no one is going to ever realize this.

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Jestar342 ◴[] No.23351776[source]
Erm, what? This is just not true, and is a false dichotomy. Moderation is hard. Always has been. Stuff will slip through the cracks.

POTUS has the most popular (and currently most controversial - note, that's _controversial_ not _extreme_ or some other morph) so it's easy to see why Twitter are on top of it. Other blue-checked accounts, whilst more "important" than unverified, just simply don't compare to the importance and prevalance of POTUS' account.

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efitz ◴[] No.23352276[source]
If most of the mistakes happen in one direction, then I would argue that there's some other mechanism at work than just "mistakes".

Update: data https://quillette.com/2019/02/12/it-isnt-your-imagination-tw...

Update: admission https://www.vox.com/2018/9/14/17857622/twitter-liberal-emplo...

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mthoms ◴[] No.23352797[source]
Maybe right leaning users have a higher propensity to say offensive/harmful things?

I'm not being facetious. Isn't this something the right is actually proud of? I mean, they actually boast about not being "politically correct" (something the rest of the western world calls "common decency").

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1. ThomPete ◴[] No.23352900[source]
You base that on what exactly?
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2. xrd ◴[] No.23353033[source]
The Quillette article posted as evidence above says exactly that:

"Perhaps conservatives are simply more likely to violate neutral rules regarding harassment and hate speech. In such case, the observed data would not serve to impugn Twitter, but rather conservatives themselves."

3. mthoms ◴[] No.23353282[source]
>You base that on what exactly?

Just about every other editorial on right leaning outlets that complain and moan about political correctness?

Oh, and actual self-identified right leaning HN/Redit users. Just ask, many of them will be quick to tell you (some version of) "political correctness is BS".

(To be clear, I know not all right-leaning people think this way, but a very large proportion do).

Just so I'm clear, are you arguing that avoiding political correctness is not a core tenet of a large part of the conservative base? I thought it was a badge of honor for many?

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4. mwfunk ◴[] No.23353607[source]
Almost the entire American right wing media is continually hate- and fearmongering about their perceived political opponents, actively and/or knowingly spreading disinformation, and has been for my entire adult life, at least as long as I've been paying attention, which is going on several decades. That's their only move, give people enemies so they don't actually have to propose solutions to anything. It's easy to give people enemies, much harder to actually solve complicated problems that require getting everyone on board. There used to be a more intellectual, reality-focused American right wing (and still is, but to a vastly smaller degree than just a few years ago). But now Alex Jones has replaced William F. Buckley and modern Republicans are much more likely to know about Rush Limbaugh than Edmund Burke. Buckley and Burke would get tarred and feathered as RINOs nowadays and that's really saying something.

That's not an opinion or a judgement, that's just reality, as much as 1+1=2 or the sky being blue. It doesn't require interpreting anything or contextualizing anything. It's obvious and plain as day, and eyes and ears and integrity and maturity are all that are required to perceive it. I absolutely believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that any reasonable application of any reasonable rules of moderation concerning threats, abuse, and misinformation would have much more impact on a typical Trump supporter in 2020 than anyone else (still faithful in 2020 folks, that's the type of person we're talking about here), and that that would be almost certainly the fault of the individual, and not biased moderation. The only way moderation would affect both sides equally would be if both sides were the same, or composed of the same sort of people.

But both sides have never been the same, and that's more true now than at any time since the Civil War. Except that now Republicans identify with Confederates instead of Lincoln and his ideals, and somehow Democrats flipped from representing Evangelical rural Southerners to representing the industrialized, urban, and successful parts of America, that were represented by Republicans in Lincoln's day.

FWIW I agree with George Washington that political parties themselves are the poison pill that repeatedly divides and screws up America, and that our current system is fatally flawed because it naturally leads to a two-party system, and that two-party systems by definition lead to more corruption and shittier governance. Just because one party is clearly criminally corrupt doesn't make the other party the goodguys, but until (if ever) we get rid of FPTP voting, it's a "pick the lesser evil" situation, and hoo boy is one evil obviously lesser than the other one.

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5. meheleventyone ◴[] No.23353693[source]
Also going around calling everyone snowflakes for being offended by whatever heinous thing they come out with that day.
6. ThomPete ◴[] No.23353720[source]
i am arguing that who is politically correct depends on time and context. There was a time when the left was politically incorrect conpared to the mainstream. It has nothing to do with political observation.
7. ThomPete ◴[] No.23353743[source]
i love it when political opinion pieces gets presented by the author as just reality. Its certainly not my reality you are explaining.
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8. StanislavPetrov ◴[] No.23355092[source]
"Political correctness" is complete garbage. This is an opinion shared by a wide variety of people across the political spectrum (as well as by the majority of people who eschew politics all together). Belief in free speech and free expression is not a "conservative" position - quite the opposite. Ironically (and unfortunately) the authoritarian identitarians who currently control the Democratic party and large portions of legacy media have pushed many people who believe in free speech towards Trump (or just out of the political system all together) with their toxic demands for adherence to "political correctness".
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9. mthoms ◴[] No.23356200{3}[source]
Since I didn't opine on whether "Political Correctness" is good or bad, none of your word salad has any relation to what I wrote.

Sorry, I won't bite. See if you can bait someone else.

10. arminiusreturns ◴[] No.23357454[source]
>But both sides have never been the same,

Both are owned by the same oligarchs, it's a pretend lesser of evils game that just pendulum swings back and forth every few election cycles and it amazes me people still fall for this kind of rhetoric. Then again, most people fell for Russiagate hook line and sinker too... and when we increasingly get the evidence about how false it was, crickets... The entire democratic party fell for disinformation just as easily as the republicans did. Stop kidding yourself.

11. mwfunk ◴[] No.23422689{3}[source]
No shit dude.