Twitter is not a politically neutral site

Author: Vader

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#1
Vader
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Twitter has been in a lot of controversy with regards to Trump's ban on Twitter. Many have agreed with this pact and claimed Twitter doing the right thing to protect their guidelines which they say Trump committed.

However, this article suggests that Twitter did not ban child pornography as they believe it did not violate their guidelines, but child pornography is a FEDERAL CRIME? 
https://nypost.com/2021/01/21/twitter-sued-for-allegedly-refusing-to-remove-child-porn/?utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_campaign=SocialFlow

You are telling me that twitter refused to ban child porn yet decided to ban Trump over this? Is Twitter truly politically neutral like they say? The answer is no. Twitter is a left leaning media outlet where the left takes a strong place and is promoted, while conservative views are limited and suppressed, as Trumps banning is evidence of. 

Twitter has a right to be a company leaning left, as it is a free capitalist world where government can't restrict companies, and I have no problems with it. If Twitter admitted to being a leftist outlet, I simply won't engage in their company. However, Twitter blatantly lies about being neutral, thus promoting false advertising. 

#2
HistoryBuff
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@Vader
You are telling me that twitter refused to ban child porn yet decided to ban Trump over this?
you are comparing apples to oranges. Child pornography is not political in any way. So saying Twitter didn't do anything in that incident but did do something in this incident is not really a comparable situation. And certainly doesn't show any kind of political leaning. 

Twitter is a left leaning media outlet where the left takes a strong place and is promoted, while conservative views are limited and suppressed, as Trumps banning is evidence of. 
This is a common refrain on the right, but is largely just bullshit. Basically, twitter doesn't like to punish people unless it feels it absolutely has to. Their business is to allow people to say and do as much as possible. They only resort to bans and things when they have absolutely no choice. Trump went WAY, WAY, over the line. He has for years. If he hadn't been president Twitter probably would have banned him years ago for the shit he put on there. He got a pass because he was president. 

However, Twitter blatantly lies about being neutral, thus promoting false advertising. 
you haven't provided any evidence that they aren't neutral. your only examples are a completely non political case where they didn't do anything, and a case of someone blatantly breaking twitter's rules for years and years and eventually being punished for it when he triggered a violent insurrection against the government. 
#3
oromagi
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@Vader
Twitter has been in a lot of controversy with regards to Trump's ban on Twitter. Many have agreed with this pact and claimed Twitter doing the right thing to protect their guidelines which they say Trump committed.

However, this article suggests that Twitter did not ban child pornography as they believe it did not violate their guidelines, but child pornography is a FEDERAL CRIME? 

You are telling me that twitter refused to ban child porn yet decided to ban Trump over this? Is Twitter truly politically neutral like they say? The answer is no.
So we have the NY Post (the place where reporters quit just weeks ago because Post executives pressured them to invent false stories about Biden) reporting that an anonymous lawsuit in Florida alleges that Twitter was slow to block pictures of a naked teenager in 2019.  Let's note that  from Jan '19 to Jun '19 Twitter suspended a total of 244,188 accounts for violations related to child sexual exploitation about 10% of the two million suspensions Twitter handled in that six months.   

Twitter won't publish how many reports of abuse it handles daily but even if we go with a low number like 1 in every 100 tweets that's still 5 million complaints daily that have to be handled by a staff of 1500 people.  Automated processes handle about half of these but that still leaves more than a thousand abuse reports per employee per day- obviously most shit just never even gets seen.

Of course, thousands of minors each day violate child porn laws by posting sexually explicit pictures of themselves all over the place.  Nobody has the capacity or will to police this voluntary and essentially victimless activity so a lot of the less obvious stuff ends up getting ignored.  By his own testimony, the boy was making his activity look voluntary and like an individual choice even if it is true that he was being blackmailed elsewhere.  If an 14 year old boy looks old enough to be 18 and appears to be doing something voluntary and anonymous, Twitter's not really on the hook and is not going to devote the massive resources required to investigate the true circumstances.

There's nothing leftist about it- the most likely explanation is that no human actually looked at the first two complaints.  My understanding is that the tweet was taken down after the third complaint. 

You're talking about spotting needles in haystacks.

Trump, on the other hand, tweeted this after a well armed lynch mob wearing Trump T-shirts and MAGA hats tore down the Stars and Stripes from the walls of the Nation's Capitol and put up Trump flags, murdered cops and cried out for the death of the Vice President on every live television channel in the world:


Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country
and
These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!


This is the rhetorical equivalent of a missile pointed at the heart of American democracy- this is our President laughing and clapping as planes slam into the World Trade Center.

Your thesis is that Twitter must be corrupt because not every needle in every haystack is treated with the same alacrity as an inbound ICBM.  It seems like such a profoundly false equivalency to me.


#4
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@Vader
Silicon valley companies are populated with very left-leaning workers and such. That's the culture there. Websites like twitter, imgur and reddit are progressive echo chambers. Conservatives are downvoted and users get banned there. Poor whites who complaint about being marginalized by affirmative action politics are regarded as closet white supremacists indulging in dog whistle racism. Trump was a terrible leader for them, and his bullshit has forever damaged their interests. The capitol riot has been seized as a license to censor "undesirable" political viewpoints.
#5
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@Death23
I thought all cultures were equal? Embrace all cultures?

I guess some cultures are more equal than others President George Orwell.
#6
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@Greyparrot
You're overdue for re-education.
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#7
Vader
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@HistoryBuff
Basically, twitter doesn't like to punish people unless it feels it absolutely has to.
So you're saying that child porn (a federal crime) is less important than Trump debatably inciting riots (i'm saying debatable in the context of the situation, I believe he did) Glad to know you'd rather believe that child pornography isn't as important as stopping an idiot from tweeting
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#8
Vader
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@HistoryBuff
The investigation itself is a neutral investigation that was conducted, posted by the NY Post.
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#9
Vader
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@oromagi
I've been doing a bit of research into this, but Pew Research suggests that 70% of Twitter Adults are Democrats. Corporations function to benefit the people and appeal to people, so it would be a fiscally reasonable to assume they'd appeal to masses

The argument itself is anecdotal in my opinion, as data is private, so we never have a full understanding. It comes down to anecdotal evidence
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@Vader
So you're saying that child porn (a federal crime) is less important than Trump debatably inciting riots
If you would look at oromagi's response you would see that twitter suspended 1/4 of a million accounts for child porn. They also suspended trump for inciting riots and the overthrow of democracy. Both are serious issues. 

Glad to know you'd rather believe that child pornography isn't as important as stopping an idiot from tweeting
child pornography is obviously a serious issue that needs to be dealt with. And twitter does take steps to do so. However attempting to overthrow democracy would have catastrophic effects on the entire country, potentially the entire world. Trump was trying to stop the legitimate president from being sworn in by any means necessary. If he had succeeded there is no telling how various parts of the government or the american people would react to a violent seizure of power by a sitting president. 
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Vader
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@HistoryBuff
However attempting to overthrow democracy would have catastrophic effects on the entire country, potentially the entire world. 
You have to be completely deluded if you think this was an attempt to overthrow democracy. Crazy idiots running into the capital when everything is evacuated is not going overthrow a democracy. It takes much more than a mob of idiots. Please read history before you make such idiotic claims to declare that "Democracy would have been overthrown"

Ultimately, while I will not defend Trump's horrendous actions, he has a right to question the results and send to trial, in which he completely lost due to our democracy set in place. There would be no way he'd try to stick himself in the seat no matter what excuse you have.

 twitter suspended 1/4 of a million accounts for child porn
Yes, but they said what they said in that response, which they said they didn't feel the need to take action. That response is unacceptable. While I understand the mods have a hard time, they also need to take more action versus giving that statement, which they said they didn't feel the need too. 
#12
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@Vader
You have to be completely deluded if you think this was an attempt to overthrow democracy
the president tried to get Pence (along with lots of other people) to throw out the results of the 2020 election. That mob then attacked the capitol on the day the results were being counted to prevent Biden from being officially the winner. The express goal of both the president and the mob was to prevent the results of the election from being counted. What do you call that if not an overthrow of democracy? They wanted the guy who lost the election to remain president, even if they had to use violence to do so. 

 Please read history before you make such idiotic claims to declare that "Democracy would have been overthrown"
if trump had succeeded then he would have remain president despite losing the election. What do you call that other than an overthrow of democracy? If you don't need to win an election to be president, then we no longer have democracy. 

Ultimately, while I will not defend Trump's horrendous actions, he has a right to question the results and send to trial, in which he completely lost due to our democracy set in place. 
of course he has the right to question the results and have that tested in court. He lost all of those over a month ago. But he was still trying to throw out the results of the election even after every one of his claims was thrown out of court. 

Yes, but they said what they said in that response, which they said they didn't feel the need to take action. That response is unacceptable. 
I don't know the details of that specific case. But they are not, in any way, related to Trump being banned. You attempted to argue that Twitter doesn't do anything about child porn but they banned trump. Well they do ban TONS of accounts over child porn, so your argument has no merit. 

While I understand the mods have a hard time, they also need to take more action versus giving that statement, which they said they didn't feel the need too. 
perhaps in this specific case they were right and didn't need to. Perhaps they were wrong and they made a mistake. I don't know. Either way it isn't relevant to a conversation about trump being banned. 
#13
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@Vader

I've been doing a bit of research into this, but Pew Research suggests that 70% of Twitter Adults are Democrats. Corporations function to benefit the people and appeal to people, so it would be a fiscally reasonable to assume they'd appeal to masses

The argument itself is anecdotal in my opinion, as data is private, so we never have a full understanding. It comes down to anecdotal evidence
Only 20% of Twitter users are American and 45% of Twitter users are bots so that 70% Democrat number is not possible.  I think the stat you are thinking of is that 92% of all human US Tweets originate with 10% of US Tweeters and of that 10%, 69% lean Democratic (which is not surprising since that demographic is heavily black, female, and millenial)  But that group isn't doing political posting so much as lifestyle, shopping, music, etc.  They're also Twitter's target demographic.  But that's not a political choice by Twitter- that's just the group of people who are most likely to buy things they see on Twitter

Twitter doesn't put out real numbers but speaking very roughly- of the 100 million daily US tweets, about 92 million are generated by the most active 10%- some 7,260,000 of whom 70% or about 5 million lean Democrat.  I bet 80-90% of the customers at my local McDonald's lean Democratic- does that mean my McDonald's is not politically neutral?  I guess it really isn't politically neutral but can you really draw much inference about the McDonald's ownership and management by customer demographics?

I guess the eventual end of this argument is that Trump was banned because Twitter is not politically neutral- honestly I don't know how anybody could be politically neutral about an attack on our government by one political party working to disenfranchise the rival political party.  Either you believe in the US Constitution or you were okay with Trump taking over our government- there's not much room for neutrality.