Who knew in 2018 we would be lead by unelected tech giants?

Thank you Meetthenewaccount. Quite extraordinary the hills on which these people choose to die. Defending Infowars! And then they go all coy when women point out the links between ‘gcs’ and the right/far right...

Well, I don’t know Posie...when even wpuk finally decide they can’t promote you on their platforms after all...and you wonder why cis socialist feminists like me find your attacks on how women dress, and on trans women, intolerable?

It just seems in insane to me that people who continually harass people (and are also mass reported) continue to post whilst the slightest infraction can result in suspensions for others.

DJLippy

I think its mass reports which identify an already established criteria.

It may well not be seen by a human.

RedToothBrush

You just turned me into the human equivalent of a nodding doggy. I can't even pick out one bit to quote that I agree with more than the rest.

Screenshotting that post for re-reading at leisure. Got my fingers burned a few days ago with the thread zapping of posts I wanted the chance to look at again, so taking no chances this time.

I just received a suspension for writing a thread about violent misogynistic content hosted on Twitter.

This is deemed as harassment against a protected category.

This thread was up for 30 minutes before I was suspended.

What is wrong with Twitter? It's NOT a violation of Twitter rules to post woman hating sissy porn but critiquing said content IS wrong?

Nazis, and all the other like-minded nastiness out there who call for the mass harassment, mass abuse, or mass murder of any minority do not belong in a decent or civilised society.

The problem with describing people as Nazis is that this neglects the issue of authoritarianism to silence people from the left. When we use Nazi as a blanket term it gifts left wing types a very simple and easy defence.

The problem at the moment is we have a rise of extremism of multiple types; right wing Christians, Nazi white supremacist types, Muslim extremists and left wing types.

All of these groups have certain things in common; how they dehumanise individuals and groups, how they advocate the 'extermination' of them by violent means and how they want to shut down civilised and moderate discussion by always reducing things to a black and white narrative of them versus us.

We need platforms to boost modern voices and promote them. Instead we have a pattern where traditional media seeking profit understands that they will generate more internet traffic with shock and outrage so moderates are marginalised as 'boring' or too complicated in favour of more simplistic and sensationalism. Why does C4 have programs about the Jihadi next door and why does Newsnight insist on putting on Steve Bannon and why does the Guardian pander to a stream of transactivists.

There is no robust challenging of whats said. Nor representation of more moderate positions. Instead they swallow whole whats said and its presented in a way that normalises it.

Freedom of speech should mean that these voices are there but are marginalised and there is no distortion of how representative these positions are because it assumes in theory that everyone has equal influence and power. In reality the power of the click rules.

So if you want to do something in this tide of shit, if you see something sensationalist the very best thing you can do is to turn off, turn over and refuse to click. Also with twitter don't retweet in disgust, screen shot and tweet that instead so it does show on twitter analytics.

To paraphrase the words of Donna Noble when the Doctor fought off a bad guy with a water pistol, Fermats, I bloody love you.

“Big data challenges purpose limitation, data minimization and data retention–most people never get rid of it with big data,” said Edwards.

“It challenges transparency and the notion of consent, since you can’t consent lawfully without knowing to what purposes you’re consenting… Algorithmic transparency means you can see how the decision is reached, but you can’t with [machine-learning] systems because it’s not rule-based software."

According to the professor, the issue becomes even more fraught where companies use people’s data to infer things about them—sensitive personal data, which includes things like sexuality and political and religious beliefs, gets even stronger protections under the GDPR."

I've realised TRAs are like flies....just when you think they've all been swatted, another one appears!

That's a brilliant takedown Fermats! 😀👍🏻

Should now be illegal in the EU under GDPR. This sorely needs testing in court.

Yes. As to things like public Twitter block lists.

This is the last time I will engage on you on any thread. I may offer factual corrections if you post anything innacurate, but I will not name check you or engage with your disgusting apologies for "arguments."

Hear, hear to your whole post, my friend.

But I'd just like to second this bit.

The algorithms that determine censure

Should now be illegal in the EU under GDPR. This sorely needs testing in court.

If we are throwing terms like nazi around

I bet hitler wasnt keen on free speech...bet he closed that right down!

Great post Fermat. You've got their number.

Meet, normally I try not to engage with extremists like you, but in this case I think it is important to spell out to any lurkers exactly the rhetorical tactics you are engaged in. Let me take just two of your examples:

1 domestic terrorist sits down at a table and lays out their plan to murder a serving soldier. 10 people sit down and have a civil discussion with the terrorist about it. 11 domestic terrorists are sat at that table.

1 person starts going on about how a minority group should be mass murdered. 10 people give him a platform to do so, even knowing the content of what has been said before. And then one of the people targeted by the hate is murdered. Guess what the 11 are culpable for.

Are you familiar with the phrase "dog whistle politics"? Because that is what you are doing here. By relentlessly likening us to Nazis, jihadis, racist mass murders because we have said we think free speech is vital to democracy, you are in fact engaging in the crudest imaginable attempt to close down discussion.

Everyone on this thread has repeatedly said they are completely in favour of legislation which allows people to be prosecuted for incitement to commit violence or murder, and for people to be prosecuted for conspiracy to commit violence and murder. Everyone.

And yet you keep returning to these entirely bogus examples.

While simultaneously ignoring the fact that no gender critical feminist has ever threatened violence or murder towards her opponents.

And while simultaneously ignoring the fact that TRAs frequently threaten extreme violence (curb stomping, "fucking up", bricks to the face) and rape towards women who disagree with them.

Gender critical femists say things like "I do not think it is right that vulnerable female prisoners should be incarcerated with, and have to share showers, sleeping space, etc., with sex offenders who have used their penises to rape women and children". You are using your dog-whistle arguments to try to make people believe that defending women's right to say this is in some way analogous to these women taking the side of people who set up death camps with the intention of murdering five million people. You think you're being terribly clever by merely implying it in a round about sort of way rather than saying it directly, but it's straight out of the Donald Trump playbook of how to cosy up to the Ku Klux Klan while allowing yourself a wafer thin layer of deniability.

That you should engage in dog whistle politics that tries to make that analogy is beyond disgraceful.

This is the last time I will engage on you on any thread. I may offer factual corrections if you post anything innacurate, but I will not name check you or engage with your disgusting apologies for "arguments."

The algorithms are easily weaponised by those with malevolent intent exactly parallel with the abuse by proxy using the police - as Posie has experienced as well.

Indeed.

Way back in the 90s when Google first appeared, many techies were sounding warnings about them and their cartel-like behaviour.

I'll hold my hands up to hearing and promptly ignoring those warnings. I shrugged and muttered "yeah, but fuzzy logic and it's so much better than Altavista".

When we get time machines I'll go back and kick my earlier self for that.

The algorithms are easily weaponised by those with malevolent intent exactly parallel with the abuse by proxy using the police - as Posie has experienced as well.

Sucks to be repeatedly targeted but hey - you must be the prize Posie :)

Way back in the 90s when Google first appeared, many techies were sounding warnings about them and their cartel-like behaviour. Trouble is there was no one in positions of power and influence in governance or law enforcement who had the skills to understand the threat - we are living with that deficiency of skills and systems thinking still today in those same institutions.

The algorithms that determine censure are like the cops who go to a DV incident and arrest the woman - designed by men to protect men and don't understand the nuances of the complex dynamics at play.

The fault is not the tech but the limited thinking and/or misogyny of its implementers

I asked Meet to unequivocally condemn the following:

homophobic sexual coercion (often accompanied by violent and sexually violent rhetoric) towards lesbian women by members of the trans community and their allies

violent including sexually violent threats towards women by TRAs?

For some reason they would not.

Ive seen the 'terfs are nazi' posts

And feminazi

So 'what do you consider a nazi to be ' is a very reasonable question under the circumstances

And in this brave new world of changing the neanings of words fuck knows what a nazi is anymore...i know what I consider to be a nazi

Actual fucking nazi's

Spin isn't real or substantive. And the spin you presented wasn't dismissed. It was answered in my response.

No it wasn't. But do carry on avoiding it and being hypocritical about violent threats.

Or is it all a bit theoretical, but you'd be up in arms and demanding a complete media blackout of Alex Jones if he started demanding that Mumsnet posters to this board should be burnt alive because he doesn't agree with what you're saying?*

I've already clearly stated that I have no issue with existing boundaries that relate to incitement to violence, harassment and threats. You can add libel to that, not that most people can afford to use that law.

And I would support MNHQ, or any other platform, when they banned him for breaking their T&C by committing a long established crime on their platform.

Just to clarify that aspect.

I am more than comfortable with MN, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple etc. creating terms and conditions that users must adhere to in order to use the service.

However, when some of those services absolutely dominate the communications market in conjunction with

• practices that allow them to maintain that dominance

and

-inconsistent interpretation and application of their terms and conditions, with an obvious faith based/politicised slant against some voices

...it is a case of "Huston, we have a problem" from me.

I am not a free market absolutist. If they cannot start to enforce their T&Cs consistently then I think there is some merit to discussing the pros and cons with regards to applying existing legislative solutions focused on monopolies and possible public utility status.

None of this is theoretical for me, I spent a large chunk of my 20s living in (and married into part of the power structure behind) a covert thin veneer of democracy, that went overt with a bang from time to time.

I came to recognise the creep of "wolf in sheep's clothing" tactics of information & communications control that can have people sleepwalking towards even thinner veneers of democracy. Enforced silence and misinformation hampers opposition from the lowest grassroots level, all the way up to the top.

I learned to ALWAYS use codewords and carefully check who was around before opening gob, to avoid the WrongSpeak crime of Lèse-majesté. Which taught me that thin veneers of democracy end up with lengthy imprisonment and the subsequent, oppressive silencing of perfectly justified criticism of the powerful and the sacred.

When cowering under a table I got to grips with the fact that when it goes overt, thin veneers of democracy can end up with peaceful, unarmed protesters being mown down with bullets at the top of my street.

There was nothing theoretical about any of it.

I left "thin veneer of democracy" in my rear view mirror.

I am not going to support a movement that could sleepwalk my child/my child's future children back to that.

I don't think majority white, English speaking countries have a special "better kind of human" feature that can allow them to hack away at the foundational principles their system rests on without the same consequence everywhere else gets when they use the same machete.

We are bog standard humans just like every other bugger on this spinning rock. Our less helpful choices and actions can have future, profound, real world consequences just like similar choices/actions can have everywhere else.

In the main, I don't think the vast majority of people looking to expand the limits of freedom of expression have enough personal experience of a real dictator-ish style of government to confidently borrow from the Junta's Playbook while telling this (hopefully someday) grandmother how to suck eggs.

If you have a Nazi at a table drawing up plans for the mass extermination of the Jewish people, and 10 people sat at the table in a civil discussion with them then you have 11 Nazis

If it is such a dream recruitment tool in practice why did the Nazis and the fascists on my side of the alps (and every other genocidal dictatorship in history) suppress and outlaw civil discussion as per the rights and wrongs of their ideology and genocidal dreams among the populace, the media and the political opposition ?

Are you seriously suggesting Nazism and fascism would have got further than they did, faster than they did, if they had avoided the self-harm of oppressing civil discussion from all side ?

Late MIL's family were well known local fascists. Late paternal Uncle-in-law was a partigano. My garage is stuffed with inherited papers and documents from both side. And anybody with even passable Italian rifling through it can see why civil discussion was suppressed, the extent to which it was oppressed and how much that helped the wrong side get as far as they did.

Which is why "How To Effectively Install The Oppression of Free Speech Before The Population Realise What It Will Cost Them" would be such a large chapter in the Dummies Guide To Being A Genocidal Dictator.

You worry about civil discussion as The Dream Tool Of Nazi Recruitment all you want. The second I am legally obliged, or socially sanctioned into holding my tongue in the face of a local going Mega-Lega ....I am taking it as a sign to swiftly gather up DH, DS and The Zoo and will be hightailing them to safer territory.

Been there, done that, didn't like the T-shirt.

"Your dismissal of my substantive point"

Spin isn't real or substantive. And the spin you presented wasn't dismissed. It was answered in my response.

As I said, entirely up to you if you want to ignore my answer or misrepresent it.

Free speech and all, innit?