Twitter was going to ban conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Then Jack Dorsey intervened to save his account

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I re-read this several times but I can’t break out of the thought that this is such a naive and simplistic view of the world, and perhaps that is the problem with all of these theories.

Democracy requires an informed electorate. Sources of information are now everywhere and many are not vetted, meaning that right now, more than ever, facts are weapons. Because electorates vote on their beliefs, and information informs those beliefs. This has been true for, at least, centuries.

The idea that “freedom to speak” results in better decision making assumes that 1) those creating information are acting without bias, and 2) that their source information is itself accurate. This, too has been true for even longer - for millennia control over the written word and what could be spoken controlled vast swaths of the population, democracy or otherwise.

For the first time in history, we have platforms like Twitter that have given everyone the power to speak, without an increase in the ability of individuals to vet that speech for factual accuracy. We will fix this eventually (see projects like WikiTribune for that), but until we do, platforms that elevate speech based on bigotry, misogyny, and hatred further muddy the waters and result in even more difficulty determining factual accuracy while simultaneously giving the impression that there is an “equal divide” between Nazis and the alt-right and the rest of the world who would like to find solutions that don’t involve hating on brown people, women and anyone not in power structures that exist today.

One powerful way to do that is through social pressure. If the Nazis of the world want to start a HeilTwitter, go ahead. They will run into the reality that few people actually have any interest in supporting them, and that’s the appropriate response to groups intent on genocide.

Democracy was not created to give purveyors of hatred and bigotry a guaranteed platform against social pressure. This “deplatforming” you are seeing is literally democracy in action, just with the “votes” being what platforms one uses, what events one attends, or what groups are supported, instead of what vote is cast.

The simplistic idea that “deplatforming” of anyone is bad even if it’s socially unwelcome" is the exact opposite of the cause you seek to support. Imposing socially indefensible ideals on the public in the name of “freedom” is a very different political ideal from the one you are attempting to defend.

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Dorsey doesn’t have a “personal connection” to Jones or Spencer, and he’s not a Nazi or even a conservative, he’s a Liberal.

He’s just decided that Twitter’s view of what constitutes acceptable speech is different than the other platforms, Dorsey might even think the ban was right for the other platforms but not for Twitter because Twitter is a different kind of service. You might not agree with the decision but it doesn’t make him a Nazi unless you think Zuckerberg was also a Nazi until FB banned Jones.

And the fact he was personally involved with the banning decision should be obvious, it’s been one of the biggest news stories about those platforms for months. If the CEO wasn’t involved they wouldn’t be doing their job.

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My take on this is that they figured out if the ban Jones, they’ll have to face the pressure of banning dRumpf. And cadet bonespurs probably brings more to their bottom line than many others.

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Yeah, for a while I wondered if maybe this was just a cynical business decision (controversy=engagement). I think Dorsey is fully cognizant of the dollar signs there, but ultimately I do think this is about ideology for him.

It will be a happy day when I can read an article on the internet that isn’t spliced around a bunch of embedded tweets from self-appointed talking heads. This is especially true right here on BoingBoing.

@Roy_Brander, “The President of the United States of America today tweeted. . .”

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As with many privileged white male techbros in Silicon Valley, Dorsey’s personal politics are socially liberal but his business politics are small-l libertarian conservative:

Sometimes they co-incide out of convenience: he’s personally pro-immigration and from a business POV he needs those H1-Bs; and, more to the point, a deliberately naive take on free-speech absolutism (which might vaguely be considered “liberal” in contrast to the censorship-prone social conservatives) dovetails nicely with a need to keep his company’s MAU growth high.

In other words, he’s not a Nazi but he’s willing to enable them by giving them a platform when he’s not obliged to do so (except perhaps by his shareholders, and that’s a pretty lame excuse from a hands-on founder with Views). Zuckerberg is the same, at one point making excuses for allowing Holocaust deniers to remain on FB.

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Which is completely different from a Nazi or even Alt-right as many people here are claiming and the article itself all but stated.

There’s no excuse to call him a Nazi.

Keeping Jones on Twitter isn’t maximizing shareholder value. His draw isn’t that big and the controversy he attracts keeps away far more people than he’d ever attract. I believe Dorsey is keeping Jones on Twitter because of his personal views on free speech and his attempts to be politically neutral. He might be wrong but I don’t think he’s doing this because of shareholders.

Honestly, If anyone changed their mind because of shareholder pressure it was probably Facebook and Apple. That doesn’t mean they were wrong to ban Jones, but I don’t think they changed ideology as much as they recognized the alt-right stigma was tarnishing their platforms.

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Agreed. I took it as hyperbole on @TobinL’s part, understanding that he knows the difference. Perhaps you’ll agree with my contention that Dorsey is enabling Nazis, just as some powerful Weimar-era industrialists and bankers did in their own way.

It’s keeping MAUs and engagement (positive and negative toward Jones) up. That’s the basis of shareholder value in this company that depends on an advertising model.

As noted before, his personal views on free speech (deliberately naive and absolutist in a way they aren’t with thoughtful liberals) work well with the business goals I just described.

Also, Jones goes beyond politics: he’s inciting people to commit violent acts based on deranged fantasies that happen to be right-wing.

Apple doesn’t have to worry about engagement and MAUs – that’s a side business for them. Zuckerberg changed his mind because of public pressure, mainly because he jumped the low bar of being slightly more reasonable than Dorsey. FB is still an awful platform but, as I’ve said before, Twitter is operated by hapless technologists working for feckless managers.

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I don’t think he does. I suspect that @TobinL thought Dorsey was an Alt-Right MAGA Jones’ fan. I wouldn’t blame him if he did since the article all but stated that as a fact (with some very misleading description).

I honestly don’t know the right balance or strategy when it comes to balancing the ideals of free speech and pacifism with the need to stop the growth of the far right. I just don’t like this habit of accusing anyone who disagrees of either being a Nazi or supporting Nazis.

I think that would be pretty crappy business strategy, for everyone that hate-Tweets about something horrid that Jones said two more people either leave Twitter or don’t sign up. That’s why Reddit started cleaning house, they didn’t want to become a 4-chan where only trollies show up since no one decent wants to be associated.

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Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance would do for a start. That’s the kind of thing the thoughtful liberals I described above take into account when discussing free speech but which Dorsey does not.

Enabling Nazis. It is undeniable that Spencer would not have the reach he does if not for Twitter (and Dorsey specifically) allowing him to stay as long as he did. Same goes for Facebook, by the way.

You do understand that this company is run by Jack Dorsey?

I tend to think that kicking off all the alt-right scumbags and Nazis and violence-inciting conspiracy theorists wouldn’t hurt Twitter that much. However, it seems that Dorsey prefers to avoid the drama created by the usual conservative “martyrs” and the loss of a relatively small number of users for a quarter or two* and instead uses the ideological position of convenience described above to justify the decision.

[* putting aside the costs associated with hiring, training, and developing tools to support a proper moderation and enforcement system on a service of that scale]

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Well he decided in favor or the guy who broadacast and pushed hard bullshit theories about pizza parlors and democrat pedophile rings to his listeners. Which caused some idiot to wander into the pizza joint armed and looking to kill people.

The company itself is wonderful at banning people complaining about getting death threats from the alt-right/incel/assholes instead of banning the people actually making the threats.

They are willfully enabling the broadcast of ideas that are a threat to peoples lives (including mine and my families). They are by that association fucking close enough.

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How do you know he doesn’t? The existence of a line doesn’t imply a consensus about where that line is.

There’s a big difference between the IBMs of the day entering pro-active business relationships with Nazis and services not banning them.

An ad agency working for Spencer would be enabling Nazis, an airline seating him would not. A bookstore selling his books… probably enabling. I think Twitter is somewhere between bookstores and airlines.

Yes. I just think this insistence that he was driven by shareholder value ends up being a way to ignore the actual ideological or tactical reasons that drove his decision.

To me it seems like a bad business decision, I don’t see any reason to insist he made a bad business decision instead of accepting that they’re legitimately trying to find the proper balance for free speech.

Possibly, I think he’s trying to keep Twitter neutral. If there’s a factor beyond just ideology he’s worried that if he goes too far banning major Conservative figures then half the country writes off Twitter as a Liberal thing they don’t want to touch.

Now at that point there probably would be a fiscal penalty to that, but I think he legitimately wants Twitter to be this neutral ground for connecting people and exchanging ideas, and he doesn’t want half the ideas to jump ship.

Of course, I don’t think there’s any fear of Conservatives writing off Twitter while Trump is still tweeting.

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Because if he did he would have long ago said something to the effect of “our company is predicated on tolerance of different views and therefore we will not tolerate intolerance.” The line between tolerance and intolerance is a clear one, although Spencer and Jones and their ilk do try to blur it.

Also because, like most free speech absolutists, he’s proven himself to be a thoughtless nitwit on these matters.

I’m not discussing the IBMs of the day, I’m discussing the domestic German banks and steelworks and publishers of the day, all of who thought they could make a Reichsmark off of and control those crazy right-wing populists (who might also stave off the taxes the Commies or social-democrats would have imposed).

An airline is not giving him a platform any more than a lunch counter is: it’s providing what’s known as equal accommodation to a paying customer. There’s no in-between here. Media outlets, ad agencies, social networks, bookstores, publishers (including vanity presses), magazine festivals and anyone else offering a platform for speech under their own rules and standards are under no obligation in that regard – if they choose to provide Spencer with a platform they are enabling him.

I’m not ignoring either. I provided a description of the ideology of convenience he and other SV techbros use and laid out the short-term consequences he wishes to avoid.

He doesn’t have to. If he truly wants that he can invite the U.S. government to make it a common carrier (spoiler: he won’t because, among other things, it’s the Ro-o-oad to Serfdom and putting a “break up my monopoly” sign around his neck).

It won’t be half the country but the Know-Nothing 27% that already writes off most of the MSM outlets as a “liberal thing”. Those media companies may be struggling for other reasons, but they’re doing perfectly fine without Cletus the Slackjawed racist watching or (heh) reading.

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I agree. History doesn’t look kindly on those who enable right-wing populists and Nazis and violence-inciting conspiracy theorists. I don’t know why people are stretching to make excuses for those who give them a platform and especially for those (like Remnick) who should know better.

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Once again for the recently-arrived posters: it may be useful to have a poke at this thread before posting your “new” arguments in defence of Jack/Jones/et al.

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I have seen the political forums on the chans and they are indeed useless as every 15th word is an uncomplimentary reference to people of the Hebrew persuasion, but Twitter is different from a discussion forum. I never see Alex Jones’ tweets because I don’t follow him and I don’t follow anyone who retweets him. He is invisible to me on Twitter. You can also block anyone you want there.

Alexis de Tocqueville talked about there being freedom of speech in America, but that there was a limited range of opinions that were considered socially acceptable. If you expressed an opinion outside of that at the local tavern, people would change the subject or stop talking to you. I can see that you may be advocating that kind of shunning, but of course the decisions on what opinions to shun were not made by a handful of tech ceos, but by people choosing on their own. They can do that on Twitter by blocking or in many cases by just not following.

As a Liberal, I read widely and talk with people of wide ranging views. I value these discussions like we are having in this forum.

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Only as a matter of scale. BB BBS will soon implement an Ignore User feature but that doesn’t mean moderation will be lifted from the site so that Nazis and conspiracy theorists can roam freely and incite violence (quite the opposite).

If your argument was only about a handful of tech CEOs having the power to shun I’d agree, but in the context of anti-trust or common carrier regulation and not free speech. If you want to make it about free speech you have to acknowledge what kind of intolerant scumbags are being allowed by the (selectively) tolerant platform owners to use their platforms despite public pressure from their other users.

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You are missing the point.

Twitter gives Nazis a hub to organize, to rally, and to voiciferously agitate against the physical existence and well-being of others based on race, religion, and nationality. I mean, shit, just this week Twitter finally chose to kick off people advocating genocide against the Rhoingyas (damn autocorrect). Twitter didn’t boot Assad until earlier this year.

Twitter has shown that it chooses not to host certain people, and yet their CEO stands up for the greatest alt-Reich preacher of them all, Alex Jones.

Please, spare me your fake tears for the poor Nazis.

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Twitter–just ignore it. You’ll be happier.

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Twitter is largely responsible for enabling Donald Trump’s rise to power. Ignoring what happens on the platform does not make us immune from the consequences.

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