That is quite a stretch. Bitchute is video hosting, so it's not a Twitter competitor. And you're ignoring that it's well known as a host for hate speech. [1][2]
And the internet isn't print journalism, yet it struck a near-fatal blow to newspaper budgets. That's the economic side of it. The other side is, as you say, established media discreetly [1] censoring alternatives that don't toe the line. But I don't care to have my web browsing be censored by the ADL, no matter how they justify it.
All this Reddit/Bitchute/newspaper stuff is a non sequitur — we're talking about Twitter and Mastodon, not any of those other things. Censoring Mastodon is a new policy under Elon.
The point of the "hate speech" comment is that there's a plausible reason to suppress Bitchute that doesn't involve stifling competition (especially because, as GP mentioned, Bitchute isn't actually a competitor to Twitter). So it's not even analogous to what's happening here.
> we're talking about Twitter and Mastodon, not any of those other things.
I don't view things so narrowly. If you want to limit yourself to only Twitter and Mastodon, you are free to do so, but that does not make similar cases non sequiturs.
You haven’t demonstrated that they’re similar. So far, all you’ve shown is that Twitter previously displayed sensitive content warnings on links to a video site known for hate speech. That’s the whole point of a content warning. It's not analogous to the current situation, which is that Twitter is abusing that warning to stifle a competing service.
It's both censorship, you just like the excuse/justification given in one case.
> all you’ve shown is that Twitter
And Google, and reddit. Somehow, when shown the gatekeepers of online attention all censoring in concert with each-other, you see only isolated instances.
"It's completely different. They censored Bitchute before, but now it's Mastodon."
It's censorship when they take down spam bots and child porn. But I don't hear you comparing that to what's happening here, because they would be ridiculous comparisons. Again, what is the point of a sensitive content warning if not to warn people about sensitive content?
If, as you allege, the major social media sites are all in cahoots, why is Twitter the only one making it difficult to share links to Mastodon?
Mastodon is also known for hate speech, with whole instances seemingly devoted to it.
Meanwhile, the ADL is also well known to push an agenda far beyond addressing hate speech, acting as an apologist for crimes against humanity in service to Israel's colonial regime.
Some people in Texas have been known to be outspoken with their hateful views; does that make Texas a host for hate speech too?
I hope you warmed up before stretching like that, as I'm afraid you'll hurt yourself.
I agree with you that the ADL's recent Israel positions are often short-sighted and terrible. But their century of tracking and fighting hate is solid work, and even if you didn't want to listen to them here, plenty of other groups agree with them on Bitchute. I even linked to one of them for you.
As to the rest, I'm not even sure what your point is. If you figure one out, let me know.
I think the idea is that BitChute tries to position itself as an alternative to YouTube, and Google (as the owner of YouTube) is doing its damnedest to prevent people from using the alternative. Replace BitChute with Mastodon and Google/YouTube with Twitter and its a similar pattern.
Sure, but the commenter said that this has been operating procedure for Twitter. But that does not seem to be true -- mastodon links have not been (soft) censored up until this point.
I was responding to the question about what link OP was trying to draw between BitChute and Mastodon, no idea at all about the second question re censoring Mastodon links on Twitter.
But again, responding to your parallel comment, OP is not saying that BitChute is a competitor to Twitter. It's that entrenched player <a> is (soft) censoring new competitor <b> where <a>, <b> are filled in with (Google/YT, BitChute) and (Twitter, Mastodon).
That's the most charitable read I could come up with, too. It's such a tenuous connection, though, that one wonders why it's even worth mentioning in this context.
Even if this specific case existed pre-Musk, it's been clear through his actions that free speech was just a ruse to distract from his censoring of critical opinions of himself.
Yes, it was a DMCA takedown, for showing a copyrighted Dave Chappelle clip from his unreleased new special. Context is good. You can't just walk into a paid performance show, record it with your cellphone and release it willy nilly.
In my experience this seems to be the case for practically everyone who crows about free speech on the internet.
It's kinda fucked up how the right has managed to "boy who cried wolf" discussion of personal freedom and free speech from important parts of modern democracy into massive red flags in conversation with others.
It is also fucked up how the left manages to convert all conversation about its censorship into whataboutism about the terrible things that the right has said.
All I want is a discussion platform without left-wing censorship, but with fact checks on right-wing conspiracy theories. Where controversial things can be discussed. Like how stupid it is that California policies in favor of racial equity helped keep 3/4 of COVID vaccines received in January of 2021 from going in ANYONE's arm. See https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/the-story-of-vaccinatec... if that tidbit surprises you.
There is plenty of blame to go around on both extremes.
I also accused the right of conspiracy theories, then pointed to specific liberal policies that killed people in the name of racial equity. I believe that these things are important to talk about. But people are so focused on slotting others into preconceived sides that they refuse to even talk about what it might mean to have a space where these conversations could be had.
I wonder how many instances Twitter will be (soft) censoring? New instances can pop up at any moment, does Twitter plan to deplatform all of them, just ones that host objectionable content, or just those that are big enough to notice? This is a game of whack a mole. Good luck swinging that heavy ban hammer, Elon.
Wow that would be a scorched earth policy, would it not? You would then be deplatforming video and image hosting sites, discussion forums, and blogs. Including people.kernel.org, the Linux kernel developer blogging platform.
Sure. I don’t know the ActivityPub spec; maybe there’s some way to disambiguate further. But I think Elon would be fine with deplatforming anyone for whom he could get away with it.
Leaving aside discussion of the public dumpster fire going on at Twitter, or the constant shrieking about "free speech", or the weird culture warrior turn its CEO has taken...
I've actually been reasonably pleased with Mastodon. It's got its rough edges for sure, but it's weathered the Twitter expatriation storm better than expected, and lots of folks I follow are mirroring their content there. The Fedifinder tool (fedifinder.glitch.me) is a really quite painless way to update my follow list as people move over.
I don't know whether or not Twitter is going to be "replaced" any time soon, but right now this does have sort of the feel of a Digg moment to me.
For those who don't know what @ElonJet is: It is not a human's account, it is an account where a bot posts locations in the world of Elon Musk's jet (which it gets using publicly-accessible data).
TBH, I believe that bot activity regulation and censorship of people are two distinct issues. Still, the search-shadowbanning of @ElonJet is quite inappropriate.
Can confirm. I didn't see a flag. I unchecked that setting and refreshed. Now it's hidden behind a message that says "The following media includes potentially sensitive content."
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[ 75.1 ms ] story [ 2007 ms ] threadAnd at Google as well: https://reclaimthenet.org/google-play-bans-bitchute-app/
Edit: And at reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Tartaria/comments/ktwypc/warning_re...
[1] https://www.adl.org/blog/bitchute-a-hotbed-of-hate [2] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2021/02/24/the...
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Tartaria/comments/ktwypc/warning_re...
The point of the "hate speech" comment is that there's a plausible reason to suppress Bitchute that doesn't involve stifling competition (especially because, as GP mentioned, Bitchute isn't actually a competitor to Twitter). So it's not even analogous to what's happening here.
I don't view things so narrowly. If you want to limit yourself to only Twitter and Mastodon, you are free to do so, but that does not make similar cases non sequiturs.
> all you’ve shown is that Twitter
And Google, and reddit. Somehow, when shown the gatekeepers of online attention all censoring in concert with each-other, you see only isolated instances.
"It's completely different. They censored Bitchute before, but now it's Mastodon."
If, as you allege, the major social media sites are all in cahoots, why is Twitter the only one making it difficult to share links to Mastodon?
Meanwhile, the ADL is also well known to push an agenda far beyond addressing hate speech, acting as an apologist for crimes against humanity in service to Israel's colonial regime.
Some people in Texas have been known to be outspoken with their hateful views; does that make Texas a host for hate speech too?
I agree with you that the ADL's recent Israel positions are often short-sighted and terrible. But their century of tracking and fighting hate is solid work, and even if you didn't want to listen to them here, plenty of other groups agree with them on Bitchute. I even linked to one of them for you.
As to the rest, I'm not even sure what your point is. If you figure one out, let me know.
But again, responding to your parallel comment, OP is not saying that BitChute is a competitor to Twitter. It's that entrenched player <a> is (soft) censoring new competitor <b> where <a>, <b> are filled in with (Google/YT, BitChute) and (Twitter, Mastodon).
Of course, there's no way for us to know how many strikes the account may have had prior.
It's kinda fucked up how the right has managed to "boy who cried wolf" discussion of personal freedom and free speech from important parts of modern democracy into massive red flags in conversation with others.
All I want is a discussion platform without left-wing censorship, but with fact checks on right-wing conspiracy theories. Where controversial things can be discussed. Like how stupid it is that California policies in favor of racial equity helped keep 3/4 of COVID vaccines received in January of 2021 from going in ANYONE's arm. See https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/the-story-of-vaccinatec... if that tidbit surprises you.
Is that too much to ask for? Apparently so...
I also accused the right of conspiracy theories, then pointed to specific liberal policies that killed people in the name of racial equity. I believe that these things are important to talk about. But people are so focused on slotting others into preconceived sides that they refuse to even talk about what it might mean to have a space where these conversations could be had.
But it’s his platform, can always build a new one if he breaks bad.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Here you can use this to build your own Twitter, complete with video broadcasts peer to peer: https://github.com/Qbix/Platform
I've actually been reasonably pleased with Mastodon. It's got its rough edges for sure, but it's weathered the Twitter expatriation storm better than expected, and lots of folks I follow are mirroring their content there. The Fedifinder tool (fedifinder.glitch.me) is a really quite painless way to update my follow list as people move over.
I don't know whether or not Twitter is going to be "replaced" any time soon, but right now this does have sort of the feel of a Digg moment to me.
https://twitter.com/JulianAssange
which is still "Account suspended"
but also new suspensions/bans, e.g. left-wing commentator Garland Nixon:
https://www.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/z2depd/garlan...
and additional examples.
TBH, I believe that bot activity regulation and censorship of people are two distinct issues. Still, the search-shadowbanning of @ElonJet is quite inappropriate.
Check out for yourself: https://twitter.com/joshuatopolsky/status/160230074530237645...
Do you see a warning label or not? I don't.
Comment below if you see or not.
Update: the difference seems to be logged out or not.
If I'm logged in, I don't see the flag. I see it when not logged in.
https://twitter.com/settings/content_you_see