Twitter has barred hundreds of accounts for posing as liberal activists

One thing I really like about Twitter is that you can choose to follow who you want. If you don&#x27;t want to see memes making fun of you, just don&#x27;t follow accounts that post&#x2F;retweet these memes.<p>It&#x27;s sad that Twitter is banning satire accounts. I&#x27;m against all censorship of lawful speech, and condemn Twitter and any social media platform that participates in this kind of censorship.

This meme is originally based on the idea that not all people have an inner voice, and the supposition that people without an inner voice may be less likely to introspect and think critically.<p>I think the ban is a little ridiculous and likely has more to do with it&#x27;s origin on a so called &quot;far right&quot; website than anything else.

A long time ago, I was told &quot;don&#x27;t feed the trolls&quot;. It&#x27;s hard to see how this publicity (e.g. the NYT) is not feeding the trolls. There is no doubt that this campaign, whatever motivations, was successful. At the same time, social media platforms are more at the ready to ban pranksters, bots, etc. That might be the only approach that works when the majority of society participates.<p>(1) don&#x27;t feed the troll, but it grows despite most people trying to ignore it. (2) ban the troll, and give them the NYT press they wanted in the first place<p>Not a lot of good options here.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I’d prefer if this culture war crap were kept off HN. There are plenty of other places to discuss this, just because Twitter is involved doesn’t mean it’s related to tech.

The Right used to abhor postmodernism, and were properly mocked by the Left whenever they whinged about it.<p>Now the Right have embraced postmodernism, and the Left have no idea how to respond.

I confess this campaign is a puzzlement to me. There are a bunch of people all repeating the same idea as a way of critiquing people they believe are... all repeating the same ideas?

&gt; Evidence suggests that these are mostly just attention-starved gamers looking to impress one another<p>What is the link with gaming I&#x27;m missing here? Is 4chan simply associated by gaming defacto? I don&#x27;t see anything else about video games or any evidence of these people being gamers in the article...

A few observations.<p>1. Why did NYT get a special scoop on who&#x27;s been banned, and why? That makes it more likely to be perceived as an act of signaling more than one of genuine enforcement.<p>2. Streisand Effect, in several ways. The reaction by Twitter also serves to put blood in the water, letting those trolls know that the tactic hit a soft spot, and encouraging them to hit it more aggressively.<p>3. Where&#x27;s the line between this and satire? I&#x27;m seeing: a. Blatant hyperbole b. Obvious markers that the account is a part of the satire: hyperbolic or downright silly account names, and a distinctive avatar

How about they proceed to ban bots instead?<p>That would IMO make twitter much more useful, but of course it would kill 95% of their “user base” and traffic.

The fact that NYT even asks the question “Are these Russian bots?” kind of fuels this meme, imo.<p>Their answer is “probably not”.

Something that caught my eye there is serious discussion about whether jokes about November 7 voting (that I hear every election I&#x27;ve witnesses in US, bar none) is interfering with election and &quot;giving false voting information&quot; and whether it justifies removing the account. Which got me thinking - do I really want people that don&#x27;t know which day is the voting day and trusting random twitter account with crudely drawn meme as an avatar with this information - do I really want them voting <i>that much</i>? It looks to me that if such people show up on November 7, it would only be for the best for everybody.

...as someone who is oblivious to these things (only knew it was a &quot;thing&quot; last night)...can someone explain why this is harmful and not just people wasting time?

&gt;Aren’t you giving these trolls the attention they’re seeking by writing about them in The New York Times? Yes, probably. But understanding how these things happen, and how easily joke memes can escape the internet’s seedy underbelly and morph into actual tools of influence, is part of understanding the mechanics of modern politics.<p>Laudable goal. Yet they shot themselves in the foot. Instead of focusing on &quot;everyone falls into the trap of substituting popular rhetoric in the place of critical thinking&quot; they had too much of what could be dismissed as &quot;orange man supporter bad.&quot;

I have a hard time believing these troll accounts had a significant impact on anyone&#x27;s voting decions. Dumb meme, but seems like an over reaction.

The speed at which the media have rounded against this meme is breathtaking. Are some memes inherently powerful and just need to be controlled? Why are they powerful? How much longer can 30 year old boomers be let sip Monsters outdoors? It&#x27;s not right.

These should be treated as similar to political cartoons.

&quot;Pro-trump&quot; What the f? Don&#x27;t we have professionals anymore? Why is this news? Why is this so innacurate i thought the NY Times was a decent source of information. These people know nothing.

Banning all those accounts based on a tiny minority of tweets promoting fake election dates seems like totally bs reasoning. If their reasoning for the bans was actually a policy against &quot;dehumanizing speech&quot; as some have said, then why not ban everyone who tries to dehumanize a Trump supporter with an accusation of them being a &quot;Russian bot?&quot; Or what about dehumanizing language against opponents like racist&#x2F;sexist&#x2F;Nazi&#x2F;homophobic&#x2F;transophobic etc?<p>Also.. I think this meme has a grain of truth to it - I don&#x27;t know about the political aspect, but as to people&#x27;s minds generating the same content and repeating the same phrases over and over: it seems as if our popular media is pretty limited in the things journalists and TV hosts are &quot;allowed&quot; to cover and say. Late night hosts all seem the same. That&#x27;s one reason I enjoy 4chan, because the content is so diverse.

It&#x27;s <i>interesting</i> that this Twitter ban gets all this attention, while a far more civically damaging coordinated mass-ban by Twitter and Facebook has largely escaped notice. [0] If one were a cynic, one might suggest that there is only enough space in the news cycle for one group of unsympathetic ban victims.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;caitlinjohnstone.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;10&#x2F;13&#x2F;internet-censorship-just-took-an-unprecedented-leap-forward-and-hardly-anyone-noticed&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;caitlinjohnstone.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;10&#x2F;13&#x2F;internet-censorship-...</a>

The appropriate title should have included:<p><i>&quot;The accounts violated Twitter’s rules against “intentionally misleading election-related content.&quot;</i>

Banned for &quot;voter suppression&quot;? Really?<p>As if a bunch of people are going to get disenfranchised because a stupid joke tweet? Come on. If you don&#x27;t vote because of that one tweet maybe you aren&#x27;t educated enough to be voting in the first place.<p>Furthermore, why not just ban that one tweet? Banning the entire meme because one tweet only goes to further the narrative that anything right wing is being systematically suppressed on the internet.<p>Congrats on throwing the trolls a giant hunk of red meat, Twitter.

Evan James has a good writeup on the sort of anxieties around society that sprung up the NPC meme [0]. There&#x27;s a portion which I think has a kernel of truth, although it is definitely generous to the kind of people that immaturely lashed out and made very low-effort twitter accounts which wound up propagating the meme:<p>&gt;The far right can be profoundly intuitive creatures, who feel more deeply than cursory glances suggest. The NPC meme is a response to something real, something that snarky liberals, and even leftists, increasingly fail to notice. In short, it is a tragicomic acknowledgment that things are not OK, that we are all NPCs (to one degree or another) because we are all in bondage.<p>I think the idea that people repeat samey platitudes they hear on TV or read online without much further thought is certainly a legitimate concern. The meme brought up a good point about mass consumer culture, but from there, it attained its own populism: a thousand voices telling a thousand other voices that they&#x27;re following a script.<p>As someone who admittedly spends a lot of time on 4chan (an online addiction I have sustained for ten years), I was present to witness its snowballing on the imageboard. What I found interesting then was that the crux of the discussion around the meme focused on the idea that few people have an inner monologue [1].<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jacobitemag.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;10&#x2F;02&#x2F;empty-realm&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jacobitemag.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;10&#x2F;02&#x2F;empty-realm&#x2F;</a> [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.psychologytoday.com&#x2F;ca&#x2F;blog&#x2F;pristine-inner-experience&#x2F;201110&#x2F;not-everyone-conducts-inner-speech" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.psychologytoday.com&#x2F;ca&#x2F;blog&#x2F;pristine-inner-exper...</a>

Cmon the meme is kinda funny.

&quot;let&#x27;s show how unthinking this other group is with a snowclone meme&quot;

Not sure how to feel about this one. Waiting for John Oliver&#x27;s take.

&gt; <i>Last week, a trolling campaign organized by right-wing internet users spilled over onto Twitter.</i><p>So Twitter bans a bunch of satire accounts for political reasons and the New York Times applauds the decision. This makes me incredibly sad but I guess it&#x27;s to be expected.<p>If your political position is so weak that some jokes can damage it, maybe it&#x27;s time to take a deep inward look. I don&#x27;t see anyone calling on SNL to ban Trump impersonations.

NY times characterizing these protesters as far&#x2F;right or as “attention starved gamers” is also odd.

ROFL

I love the last question ‘Aren’t you giving these trolls the attention they’re seeking by writing about them in The New York Times?’<p>I thought the same thing. Interesting to see right-wing business coming out of *chan-land. I’d always seen it as more of a left-wing place.

This is HN so you might appreciate this version: (SFW)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;aPaBYCt.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;aPaBYCt.png</a>

Great honest accurate article. NPC meme is the funniest thing since Ugandan knuckles

I must admit, it has been entertaining watching how the meme&#x27;s proponents have acted as if they have uncovered some great Truth of the human experience, when in fact it&#x27;s nothing more than the tired old &quot;I am a critical thinking individual while those who disagree with me are not.&quot; wrapped in video game nomenclature.<p>I suspect that deep down this was an attempt at coining a &quot;new&quot; SJW after the term had gone mainstream.