When it comes to dealing with the current political landscape, social media companies don't have it easy. Part of what makes me effective at my job is working within the balance of the vision that company has for speech on their platform while prioritizing user safety.
You would think that those two would overlap. And they do, to an extent, but it really depends on the company and where they place their values. Most companies have no problems saying "hey, death threats and rape threats are bad." This is a no-brainer.
Creating a company value system that stands against simple and obvious things like threats is easy. Tou would think that this would extend to larger problems like nazis. Because desiring the extinction of a group of people should be an obvious bad thing, right?
But unlike death threats, it's this political thing. Everyone can agree that death threats are bad. But there are people in power in particular political parties that don't like minorities. So then it moves away from what's obvious to us, and it becomes about politics.
So these companies that maintain this vision of free and open speech on their platform, these companies that actually have put a lot of thought into things like how their policies affect political dissidents in third world countries, they start to struggle with what to do.
They don't want to seem unfair. They don't want to look like they value one political party over another. So they come up with these rules, and they try to stick to them. If you don't violate these rules, you don't get punished. Except it never really worked that way, did it.
For one, they remove the context of the larger situation from an individual statement. Nuance is lost. But also, they are so afraid of looking like they are penalizing members of a single political party that they do let shit slide that they wouldn't allow from other users.
Let's talk about Milo. Remember that asshat? Remember when he instigated abuse on so many people in a way that was COMPLETELY OBVIOUS to literally everyone? Remember how Twitter eventually created a rule about this?
Remember how they did nothing to him, even after creating that rule? Eventually he lost his verification because he went after the wrong person.
Hey. Hey, everyone. Did you know that Twitter wanted to give him back his verification?
Hey. Hey, everyone. Did you know that Twitter wanted to give him back his verification?
That's right. His little slap on the wrist was fought internally. There were still people that were concerned that Twitter might look biased.
Twitter rules don't apply to those that can be seen as vocal mouthpieces of political parties, be it Milo, Trump, or whatever the fuck Jones is.
And the thing is, jack has already said this. I don't even remember what bullshit excuses have been pedaled. Newsworthiness? Go fuck yourself in the break room at Twitter HQ, dude. Because we all know you're just stoked POTUS uses Twitter to make his dumbfuck announcements.
Alex Jones has admittedly never been much of a priority for me. He's always been a shitlord, but *most* people seemed to know this. He caused harm and he harassed people, but it just hadn't hit my radar for things I've had to help folks with.
But I applauded when platforms took a stand against his bullshit, because he added no value to the internet. His existence is a drain on resources. He targeted folks when they were having the worst days of their lives and tried to make it worse. He's actually terrible.
The platforms that did ban him don't often make big moves like that. But I've always said that Facebook user safety is better than Twitter (although in some aspects, it's apples/oranges) and thanks for proving me right, I guess?
I would never expect Twitter to take action on someone like Jones. Because they place their company values of having "open discourse" (my words, not theirs) above user safety 100% of the time. This is not the fault of the folks working in safety at Twitter. This is on jack.
And his fucking explanation is laughable. It's actually infuriating. It's the reason for this rant. Because even though it is complete bullshit, I am absolutely certain that he was being earnest and he believed every word when he said it.
The only interesting thing he said - the only line of value that we should all be paying attention to - is this. 
That's actually not a bad action. But he's not being specific about it. Reducing visibility is something that I often recommend companies do for new & unestablished accounts, especially ones that have suspicious behaviour.
I think it would make sense to reduce the visibility of Alex Jones. But I don't think that's what he's talking about. I suspect he's talking about bots/fake accounts that increase the visibility of Jones' tweets by inflating interaction counts. Not reducing Jones himself.
name literally one time that twitter has every done this.
again, political accounts are held to a different standard because of newsworthiness, so this is incorrect. not all accounts are created equal.
again, political accounts are held to a different standard because of newsworthiness, so this is incorrect. not all accounts are created equal.
This is actually a really important point. And it's also why political situations are so hard for social media. Because they look at the long term picture. But it's the wrong fucking picture. Some of the assumptions are incorrect.
Social media companies are not enacting laws. They maintain their own rules. If they make a decision, they don't necessarily have to be all "oh shit, this is going to be used against me in the future" because they can just CHANGE THEIR FUCKING MINDS AND REWRITE THE RULES AT WILL.
And yes, there will be outside pressure when and if that happens, but just grow a fucking spine already, tell everyone to fuck off, and uphold values that prize actual living human beings over conversations.
Because Twitter is not a public utility, it's your fucking company, and you have the ability to impose restrictions on it. You have the ability to create a value system and enforce it on your userbase. IN FACT, YOU HAVE DONE THIS. THIS IS WHAT TWITTER RULES ARE.
Because saying "death threats are bad" is still a value system. It is still a moral call. And Twitter was willing to stand up and say that, because it cost them nothing. They are so fucking afraid.
But I'm really curious. How many verified accounts with large followings could create unsubstantiated rumors about jack or folks close to him before action was taken? I bet it wouldn't take long for all of them to be banned, public conversation be damned.
bruh. "public conversation" only matters above all else when you're a cis white dude that isn't being targeted. I'm sure jack's mentions are a fucking disaster every minute of every day, and I'm sure he gets his fair share of threats. But he has resources that most do not.
Remember when social media companies were so worried about fake news? And now infowars is being protected on a single major platform lmao
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there is safety in messaging consistency. and twitter has none.
