Current Events > Twitter BANS famous feminist Naomi Wolf. Did she deserve it?

(+) Yeah! (+)

How many of you would leave GameFAQs if mods decided to allow the posting of shock images? Would this site benefit from giving posters the freedom to put tubgirl or goatse wherever they choose?

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joe40001 posted...

Lets say instead of her being banned. Would the same people saying "fair next" say that if Amy Kremer was banned?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/400-current-events/79497980

Why would they ban Amy Kremer for quoting the article?


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ButteryMales posted...

To protect the greater good.

The Greater Good

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Anteaterking posted...

Why would they ban Amy Kremer for quoting the article?

My bad, I don't know the name of the woman who said it.

Whoever said it then, my question is about them.

EDIT: Would you support twitter banning "Aruna Khilanani"?

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Intro2Logic posted...

How many of you would leave GameFAQs if mods decided to allow the posting of shock images? Would this site benefit from giving posters the freedom to put tubgirl or goatse wherever they choose?

is that what she was doing

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This is pretty awesome people like this need to basically be banned from society until they get their act together there are two opinions the correct one and the wrong one people who are on the wrong side basically need to be silenced in all ways and banned from being employed maybe once they have no income they will see the light.

joe40001 posted...

"Speech is not being banned, you are just being blocked from saying things on every major way in which people communicate in modern society, but you are still free to scream into your pillow"

That goes against the spirit of free speech and you know it. Like it or not, social media is the public square.

God you literally do not understand the first amendment at all

What_ posted...

God you literally do not understand the first amendment at all

I'm talking about free speech as an ideal. Not the laws.

Though had people anticipated social media the founding laws might have been different, but obviously that was impossible.

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totalnerdken posted...

The issue is they keep saying they are free speech. Just stop saying it if it isn't true.

Well are you anti-free speech because you're against impersonating doctors, swatting, bomb threats, or just screaming bomb?

joe40001 posted...

I'm talking about free speech as an ideal. Not the laws.

Though had people anticipated social media the founding laws might have been different, but obviously that was impossible.

it's so annoying that people act like they don't get that concept. i guess it's easier to handwave somebody if they insist you're talking about the constitution

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AlphaCuck posted...

it's so annoying that people act like they don't get that concept. i guess it's easier to handwave somebody if they insist you're talking about the constitution

Agreed, it does get old.

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Maybe the problem is that you place more value on your own conceptualized version of what "free speech" should mean than it deserves.

Joe, I think part of the problem is that if you actually believe that Twitter is the "public square" and should thus be treated (morally if not legally) as a free-speech protected place, I feel like you're stopping short by just limiting that to "Therefore no should get banned".


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Tenlaar posted...

Maybe the problem is that you place more value on your own conceptualized version of what "free speech" should mean than it deserves.

Maybe.

But considering nearly every major social improvement and society reform was facilitated by free speech, and nearly every horrible thing in history came about because of authoritarian censorship, I think there's enough reason to highly highly value it.

If twitter existed in the 60s and the big corporate interests were running it, I'm sure Malcolm X would've been deplatformed. Likely MLK and many other civil rights leaders. Because as much as we pretend otherwise, at their time what they said was provacative and offensive to many.

It's a really important ideal for a healthy society.

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He knows what hes doing the same with all these all right trolls its the same gimmick theyve had every single time they come back here on their 1 millionth alt

Anteaterking posted...

Joe, I think part of the problem is that if you actually believe that Twitter is the "public square" and should thus be treated (morally if not legally) as a free-speech protected place, I feel like you're stopping short by just limiting that to "Therefore no should get banned".

social media as a whole is the modern public square, and there aren't many options and they are all pretty much lock-step ideologically.

Twitter/facebook are fighting wars with themselves and pretending they are fighting others. It's their fucked up algorithm that promotes everything that is crazy and sensational.

Tweak that a promote by intellectual and critical thinking rigor over "engagement" and none of these people would be a problem.

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joe40001 posted...

But considering nearly every major social improvement and society reform was facilitated by free speech

ButteryMales posted...

Her anti-vax bullshit isn't even protected speech in the first place.

What_ posted...

He knows what hes doing the same with all these all right trolls its the same gimmick theyve had every single time they come back here on their 1 millionth alt

See this is why I want to talk about it in the context of banning somebody like "Aruna Khilanani" because my stance would be the same but we would side-step this nonstarter of a left-vs-right thing.

Would you support twitter if they banned her?

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joe40001 posted...

But considering nearly every major social improvement and society reform was facilitated by free speech, and nearly every horrible thing in history came about because of authoritarian censorship, I think there's enough reason to highly highly value it.

I absolutely do not agree that those statements apply specifically to your version of "free speech" and not the version that the rest of us are talking about.

I was thinking about something similar. Like I got the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, but Ive made out with chicks that got the Pfizer vaccine and after each date I felt like crap the next day. Could have also been the drinking. But what if it was the mRNA

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Tenlaar posted...

I absolutely do not agree that those statements apply specifically to your version of "free speech" and not the version that the rest of us are talking about.

I think your version assumes "free speech for good ideas, but not for ideas I don't like" completely forgetting that the social changes I'm talking about were quite unpopular when they first came up.

If defending free speech meant only defending speech you liked then that's not defending free speech at all.

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joe40001 posted...

social media as a whole is the modern public square, and there aren't many options and they are all pretty much lock-step ideologically.

Twitter/facebook are fighting wars with themselves and pretending they are fighting others. It's their f***ed up algorithm that promotes everything that is crazy and sensational.

Okay, but what should be done about it? "The Free Market" isn't punishing Twitter/Facebook/etc. for banning people, so what mechanism would you suggest?

joe40001 posted...

Tweak that a promote by intellectual and critical thinking rigor over "engagement" and none of these people would be a problem.

So I can explain an algorithm that rewards "engagement". How do you make an algorithm to reward intellectual/critical thinking?

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joe40001 posted...

I think your version assumes "free speech for good ideas, but not for ideas I don't like" completely forgetting that the social changes I'm talking about were quite unpopular when they first came up.

If defending free speech meant only defending speech you liked then that's not defending free speech at all.

No, my version assumes "free speech means that the governing authority doesn't shut down your speech." It has nothing to do with like or dislike.

joe40001 posted...

I think your version assumes "free speech for good ideas, but not for ideas I don't like" completely forgetting that the social changes I'm talking about were quite unpopular when they first came up.

If defending free speech meant only defending speech you liked then that's not defending free speech at all.

ButteryMales posted...

Well are you anti-free speech because you're against impersonating doctors, swatting, bomb threats, or just screaming bomb?

Anteaterking posted...

Okay, but what should be done about it? "The Free Market" isn't punishing Twitter/Facebook/etc. for banning people, so what mechanism would you suggest?

The free market largely doesn't have a chance to. The startup costs for something like a Twitter/Facebook or youtube is far too high. That's why you see everybody using amazon even though most people hate them as a company and think they are evil. Like nearly everybody would switch and probably pay 5% more just to use a company that isn't as evil as amazon, and despite that market need, nobody fills it, because nobody can. It's too big to compete against.

Capitalism has problems, and monopoly type things are part of that.

So I can explain an algorithm that rewards "engagement". How do you make an algorithm to reward intellectual/critical thinking?

People can curate each other's content. You can upvote people based on how much you trust their judgement and then they can upvote content across a few dimensions of intellectual integrity. Then just have people rate quality of engagement, and places that have prolonged good engagement, highly rated by trusted integrity, and low in hostility are the most highest recommended.

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ButteryMales posted...

Well are you anti-free speech because you're against impersonating doctors, swatting, bomb threats, or just screaming bomb?

Free speech does not extend to planning or orchestrating crime.

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yeah ... well deserved

she is 50 pounds of crazy crammed into a 10 pound box

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It's a little frustrating that people conflate the idea of freedom of speech with the legal definition of it. In a society where corporations have such huge power and influence over our daily lives, of course freedom of speech issues get complicated. But you can think that without engaging with joenumbers, or for that matter without supporting Naomi Wolf.

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I'll say it again.

She broke the fucking TOS and got the ban hammer. This is not a free speech issue.

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Eat More Beef posted...

I'll say it again.

She broke the fucking TOS and got the ban hammer. This is not a free speech issue.

since you need it spelled out people are saying the terms are shitty

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AlphaCuck posted...

since you need it spelled out people are saying the terms are shitty

If they don't like it, they can use some other site.

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Umbreon posted...

If they don't like it, they can use some other site.

b-b-b-b-but muh modern publik squarrrrrrrrr
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metallica846 posted...

Continue? Hes always been like this.

he's ramped it up significantly the past year tho

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joe40001 posted...

Free speech does not extend to planning or orchestrating crime.

What crime is a doctor impersonator or a person making a bomb claim in public committing?

joe40001 posted...

People can curate each other's content. You can upvote people based on how much you trust their judgement and then they can upvote content across a few dimensions of intellectual integrity. Then just have people rate quality of engagement, and places that have prolonged good engagement, highly rated by trusted integrity, and low in hostility are the most highest recommended.

I don't understand why you think this would work at all. People already believe bullshit wholeheartedly, regardless of what any science or authority says.

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Delirious_Beard posted...

he's ramped it up significantly the past year tho

because it gives him the attention he wants
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joe40001 posted...

The free market largely doesn't have a chance to. The startup costs for something like a Twitter/Facebook or youtube is far too high. That's why you see everybody using amazon even though most people hate them as a company and think they are evil. Like nearly everybody would switch and probably pay 5% more just to use a company that isn't as evil as amazon, and despite that market need, nobody fills it, because nobody can. It's too big to compete against.

Capitalism has problems, and monopoly type things are part of that.

I agree that capitalism leads to problems. That just seems like a red herring here though. You say that the pseudo-monopoly position of companies is a problem, but still haven't answered "What should we (government, people, etc.) due to solve that problem?"

Also Amazon is fairly well-liked among consumers: https://today.yougov.com/topics/technology/explore/brand/Amazon .

joe40001 posted...

People can curate each other's content. You can upvote people based on how much you trust their judgement and then they can upvote content across a few dimensions of intellectual integrity. Then just have people rate quality of engagement, and places that have prolonged good engagement, highly rated by trusted integrity, and low in hostility are the most highest recommended.

This is naive at best. Much like reddit's "don't downvote for disagreeing" policy just doesn't work in general, having people curate content is just going to have "intellectual discourse" as a proxy for people's beliefs in the same way that engagement does. I also don't really think it would lead to less complaining by conservatives about "censorship". People already claim that they are "shadowbanned" any time their content doesn't get the reach they want, let alone if a "trusted integrity score" ruled them out. The thing about engagement is that it requires no extra work from the perspective of the user (people are already liking/retweeting for their own reasons) and outside of actual botting, etc. engagement is agnostic to the type of content that is being made.

Like Twitter isn't just a platform for rigorous debate of ideas anyway...why would you not want e.g. funny content that lots of people shared to be pushed to other people who might enjoy it?

Also I'm not sure from a "free speech" perspective why banning someone and dramatically limiting someone's audience because of "integrity" are meaningfully different. If no one is exposed to Naomi Wolf's posts because she rates poorly on those metrics, I'm not sure her free speech is being limited much less than when she's straight up banned.

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Anteaterking posted...

I agree that capitalism leads to problems. That just seems like a red herring here though. You say that the pseudo-monopoly position of companies is a problem, but still haven't answered "What should we (government, people, etc.) due to solve that problem?"

Also Amazon is fairly well-liked among consumers: https://today.yougov.com/topics/technology/explore/brand/Amazon .

I think saying Amazon is liked by anybody who pays attention to them is a very tough sell.

Like yeah, they are convenient af, but if you talk to anybody aware of their actual business practices they are not going to be "well liked"

This is naive at best. Much like reddit's "don't downvote for disagreeing" policy just doesn't work in general, having people curate content is just going to have "intellectual discourse" as a proxy for people's beliefs in the same way that engagement does. I also don't really think it would lead to less complaining by conservatives about "censorship". People already claim that they are "shadowbanned" any time their content doesn't get the reach they want, let alone if a "trusted integrity score" ruled them out. The thing about engagement is that it requires no extra work from the perspective of the user (people are already liking/retweeting for their own reasons) and outside of actual botting, etc. engagement is agnostic to the type of content that is being made.

It's hardly proof that it can't be done just because I can't pull a flawless mechanism out of my ass in 2 seconds. Twitter has had countless people working countless years to refine it's algorithm. Based on my knowledge of ML I'm sure nudging that algorithm towards "intellectual value" as defined by the user is doable.

Like Twitter isn't just a platform for rigorous debate of ideas anyway...why would you not want e.g. funny content that lots of people shared to be pushed to other people who might enjoy it?

You can have different mechanisms for different content.

Also I'm not sure from a "free speech" perspective why banning someone and dramatically limiting someone's audience because of "integrity" are meaningfully different. If no one is exposed to Naomi Wolf's posts because she rates poorly on those metrics, I'm not sure her free speech is being limited much less than when she's straight up banned.

She very much is, because anybody who wants to hear her and searches for her will not see her, that's a huge difference. Not being able to reach your followers is a huge huge difference.

Shadowbanning is something I hate even more than banning because it has the gaslighting component, but this is not shadowbanning, this is just de-recommending crazy content.

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Guide posted...

I don't understand why you think this would work at all. People already believe bullshit wholeheartedly, regardless of what any science or authority says.

Because all the mechanisms funnel them in that way.

If we start not optimizing for engagement we will simultaneously stop optimizing for conflict and distrust.

People trusted old news anchors not because they were infallable jesus, but because there wasn't a engagement bot on their hip telling them to distrust them all the time. When the incentives are aligned with truth and exposure to truth, people's distrust of science will go down. Same goes for people's blind trust of pseudo science, even when it's in a white coat.

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joe40001 posted...

Because all the mechanisms funnel them in that way.

If we start not optimizing for engagement we will simultaneously stop optimizing for conflict and distrust.

People trusted old news anchors not because they were infallable jesus, but because there wasn't a engagement bot on their hip telling them to distrust them all the time. When the incentives are aligned with truth and exposure to truth, people's distrust of science will go down. Same goes for people's blind trust of pseudo science, even when it's in a white coat.

Twitter itself don't funnel people unnaturally. Bot accounts, yes, that's a constant fight, but it's all the people, themselves, causing twitter to happen as it does.

The mechanisms you describe as a twitter fix don't actually change anything. People who believe in x for no good reason will still vote x as 5/5 in whatever categories you would have them fill out. Your idea is upvote/downvote with more steps.

People trusted news anchors because that and newspapers were literally all they had. Now, because we have unlimited access to unlimited content, any idiot can reinforce their uneducated beliefs at any time, and broadcast that to more idiots.

By meandering from your original point, you've come to a common conclusion: People need educating. Your next step will be to realize incentivizing education is really hard, because why do that when you can have nice, clear lines in the sand to explain away all your problems?

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Tenlaar posted...

Do you think that twitter is owned and run by fucking robots? Would you also argue that Walmart should be required to let you stand in the middle of their store and preach whatever message you want to?

I could see a CE poster doing that.
One of those far right Trumpets on here.

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Why are the people most in favor of "free speech" and against deplatforming. The ones that nobody really wants to read or listen to. Insufferable idiotic smug nobodies with nothing remotely interesting to say. Ever.
Weird.

Davos posted...

Why are the people most in favor of "free speech" and against deplatforming. The ones that nobody really wants to read or listen to. Insufferable idiotic smug nobodies with nothing remotely interesting to say. Ever.
Weird.

So true, I always just read the first sentence of Joe's long pointless essays and already I would have something that's completely wrong and easily refuted that I never have to bother with the whole thing.

Imagine drawing a line in the sand with your personality on the basis of choosing to believe vaccination is harmful and autism-inducing.

I don't get why.

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Guide posted...

Twitter itself don't funnel people unnaturally. Bot accounts, yes, that's a constant fight, but it's all the people, themselves, causing twitter to happen as it does.

The mechanisms you describe as a twitter fix don't actually change anything. People who believe in x for no good reason will still vote x as 5/5 in whatever categories you would have them fill out. Your idea is upvote/downvote with more steps.

People trusted news anchors because that and newspapers were literally all they had. Now, because we have unlimited access to unlimited content, any idiot can reinforce their uneducated beliefs at any time, and broadcast that to more idiots.

By meandering from your original point, you've come to a common conclusion: People need educating. Your next step will be to realize incentivizing education is really hard, because why do that when you can have nice, clear lines in the sand to explain away all your problems?

I believe people should be educated.

I don't agree that social media isn't playing an important role in the worsening of public discourse and anti-critical thinking.

That's not how these algorithms work.

Facebook funneled new moms who were into organic foods into antivax groups because antivax groups got the most clicks from organic food new moms. There was nothing about that mechanism that was "inevitable" as you imply. And a better designed system could have easily not recommended that.

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Did that lad seriously say more government regulations on how businesses should behave isn't a left v right issue?

Lmao

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