Stacy responds …
Unexpectedly, and without explanation, my @rsmccain Twitter account was suspended Friday evening. Based on past experiences, my guess would be that this resulted from a complaint by one of the leading “social justice warriors” (SJWs) who have been at war with #GamerGate since August 2014. However, there was no reason stated for the suspension, and who knows? […]
This morning I shared some thoughts with a blogger friend who followed the #GamerGate saga:
As I have said for years: Being notorious is not the same as being famous, but it’s better than being anonymous.
That is to say, I don’t often complain about being hated or misunderstood. It comes with the territory. I started out in the news business as a $4.50-an-hour staff writer for a tiny weekly newspaper in Austell, Georgia. Most people have no idea what I did before I got involved in political journalism as an assistant national editor for The Washington Times in 1997, or even have any idea of the work I did there. The vast majority of people who read my blog or follow my Twitter feed have no knowledge of or interest in my personal “backstory.” It’s not about me. I am not the story. I am the guy telling the story, or I am the guy making jokes about the story. I understand that. But I think some people in the New Media era lose sight of this reality.
Politics is like football. It’s a team sport. Until I was in my mid-30s, I was a very partisan Democrat. Bill Clinton (who I voted for in 1992) cured me of my Democrat loyalty. During the 1990s, I began a rather deep autodidactic study of politics, history, economics, philosophy, etc. My politics are conservative, my economics are Austrian, my faith is Christian. It’s that simple — and certain people HATE me for it. But those people hate everybody who is not a Democrat. Fine. I understand that kind of hate, having once been a Democrat myself, but Democrats think of their personal hatred as “social justice.” And so I understand them better than they understand me.
However, it’s not about me. . . .
Breitbart has recently confirmed that Twitter is engaging in shadow banning
According to the source, Twitter maintains a ‘whitelist’ of favoured Twitter accounts and a ‘blacklist’ of unfavoured accounts. Accounts on the whitelist are prioritised in search results, even if they’re not the most popular among users. Meanwhile, accounts on the blacklist have their posts hidden from both search results and other users’ timelines.
Our source was backed up by a senior editor at a major digital publisher, who told Breitbart that Twitter told him it deliberately whitelists and blacklists users. He added that he was afraid of the site’s power, noting that his tweets could disappear from users’ timelines if he got on the wrong side of the company.
Shadowbanning, sometimes known as “Stealth Banning” or “Hell Banning,” is commonly used by online community managers to block content posted by spammers. Instead of banning a user directly (which would alert the spammer to their status, prompting them to create a new account), their content is merely hidden from public view.
For site owners, the ideal shadowban is when a user never realizes he’s been shadowbanned.
However, Twitter isn’t merely targeting spammers. For weeks, users have been reporting that tweets from populist conservatives, members of the alternative right, cultural libertarians, and other anti-PC dissidents have disappeared from their timelines.
Twitter, as a private company, has every right to do what they want. However, if they are going to censor or ban on ideological grounds, they should be honest enough to put that in the TOS and let the market decide.
But Leftism and honesty are not well acquainted.
[…] 8: At Protein Wisdom /?Before […]
Free Stacy?
Or, to quote our friend Jean-Jacques Rousseau, do we see that man is born free; and everywhere is in chains? Perhaps better to free oneself by quitting the enchainment of twitter? Be free! Escape the bounds of 140 characters — as well as the control and depredations of social justice warriors — for the joys of longform writing and communication.
[…] Protein Wisdom: #FreeStacy […]
Who could possibly be against Trust™ and Safety™?
“Twitter, as a private company, has every right to do what they want”
Darleen, here is were we disagree. The bakeries who refused to bake gay wedding cakes aren’t able to do whatever they want. And try not serving someone at your restaurant who has a different skin color, even if it has nothing to do with race and everything to do with how the people are acting.
No, I’d say it’s time for the right to use the same tactics on the left as they use on the right. Sue for political discrimination, and don’t stop until they are either bankrupt or they give in.
[…] Blogs: protein wisdom and TheRalphRetort.com, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and Vox […]
I’m with Callahan here. My principles are the same as Darleen’s (“Twitter, as a private company, has every right to do what they want.”), but the country obviously doesn’t operate by those principles. The leftists want, and have largely succeeded, to make us live by their claimed principles, so we should beat them over the head with their hypocrisy and force them to enjoy the same hell they foist on everyone else.
It’s just like the spoiled brat who loves hurting others because she has never been on the receiving end. The only way to convince them of the wrongness of their demands is to give them a long, deep drink of their own sewage.
[…] twitchy.com, TheRalphRetort.com, protein wisdom and American Power Datechguy / Da Tech Guy Blog: The Twitter Star Chamber Suspends Stacy […]
Acknowledging Callahan’s and Cortillaen’s comments, I nonetheless must side with Darleen. Twitter’s shareholders are the ones who will take the hit from this behavior. The power is in the users. Stop using Twitter. Delete accounts. Find a different forum. Eventually, it will turn into AOL. Inevitably, the SWJs destroy what they touch. It will happen with Twitter, unless they right the ship in short order.
> The power is in the users. <
yes. i wish mr g. would post here occasionally as i don't patronize twitter or facebook.
the only facebook site i use to visit was m. levin but zuckerclown writes grafitti over the post so i don’t go there anymore.
Callahan & Cortillaen
I’ve written in support of bakeries, florists and photographers who have been targeted by the gaystapo; and yes, I agree that if they aren’t allowed freedom to run their businesses why should Twitter
Except, somehow I believe that concedes the point to the statists.
I think it’s an excellent opportunity for Michelle Malkin to strike gold a third time (after HotAir – R.I.P., and Twitchy), and create a hard-core pro-speech Twitter equivalent/replacement. There’s no doubt in my mind that many more influential folk on the right will find themselves un-Twittered between now and November.
I mean, what’s the point of being a Silicon Valley billionaire if you can’t use your semi-monopolistic service to sway elections?
Twitter’s shareholders are the ones who will take the hit from this behavior.
This is kind of the point, since those same shareholders elect the Board who institutes – or at the very least, approves – such policies and #censorship. Until they are made aware of a problem, there would be no point for them to change anything, would there?
Feel free to walk away, but make it clear WHY, and to as broad an audience as possible. Punish the ones who benefit financially, and I bet you might even get a few people who do not condone such behavior to do something in their own financial interest, and force some changes. But without the negative feedback, they might not like the censorship, but won’t do anything since there doesn’t seem to be any downside for them.
Not AOL, but Facebook. By design.
Need to clean the place up before you can sell it, after all…
Darleen, it concedes that their tactics are effective, not that their policies are right. Unfortunately, we are currently in a position of weakness where we are not the ones determining the policies. They are the ones writing the rules. I just insist we force them to live by their own rules. After all, what sports team would have a hope of winning when the other team gets to write the rules and ignore them at will?
Further, allowing the leftists to benefit from the inequality is a compounding problem. Look at racism today. The powers behind groups like BLM have become accustomed to “racism” being both shield and sword and being utterly immune to their own chosen weapon. Any attempt to push back and point out the rampant anti-white racism in their ranks is met, even by bystanders, with what? Dismissal at best. We’ve allowed them to tilt the field in their favor for so long that the tilt has become expected, normal, and massively more difficult to undo. Their dishonest advantage has become, in a word, institutionalized.
This can’t be a matter of “wait until the pendulum swings back”. Allowing these things to go unchallenged lets them tie the pendulum on their side where it will take a complete upheaval to dislodge.
I wish we could afford to play nice and take the high road, but they’ve made sure that’s a losing proposition. I’m willing to be exactly as nasty and ruthless as they have decided the game will be, because that’s the only way I see to make them recognize the conditions they have created and be open to restoring civil discourse.
There’s nothing that gets shareholder’s attention faster than a flurry of high-profile lawsuits. $TWTR stock is tanking right now; a perfect time to slap a suit or three on their bottom line. Make them bake Stacy a cake!
Twitter is indeed tanking.
Time to request an archive of your tweets, just in case it all vanishes tomorrow.
Some of those bon mots must be saved for eternity, after all!
I’m happy to let the waves of entropy consume whatever prey they earn or seduce! As visits by gods of the copybook headings go, this one has an uncommonly light touch, and the decency to issue a warning apart from the copy book heading by which we know it.
What’s up with AdamBaldwin on twitter? They screw him too? Or has he offed his own tweeted archive?
He got suspended. Larry Correia got shadowbanned so he’ looking to quit.
Ace is out, he says he doesn’t want Twitter making money off of his content. He’s back on his own blog.
Endorsed. You can find me there as “ak4mc,” just like on my now-dormant Twitter account.
Somebody’s going to have to get Twitchy to expand its focus.
[…] is probably limited. With the practice of Shadow Banning having been confirmed at Twitter, the conservative blogosphere is bracing for […]
SexTroubleBook, Stacy’s ALT just got suspended as well.
http://theothermccain.com/2016/02/22/freestacy-rsmccain-will-not-be-restored-sextroublebook-suspended/#disqus_thread
[…] media is probably limited. With the practice of Shadowbanning having been confirmed at Twitter, the conservative blogosphere is bracing for […]
‘ppears Baldwin deleted his own business, declaring he ain’t comin’ back.
I just deleted my Twitter account. Good le riddance.
As a sidebar note, I suspect the only viable alternative to Twitter will be going back to individual blogs with self-hosted comment sections. Only a matter of time before Disqus and other commenting services implement similar policies.
EEMAJINN by Johan Le Nnon Sr.
Imagine bloggers linking
To each other’s blogs
No outraged sniffing or blinking
No resentful glory hogs
Imagine all the bloggers
Sharing what they think and feel…
Imagine there’s no fences
To keep the riff-raff out
No moats or barbed wire
No need to wave or shout.
Imagine all these bloggers
Saying what they have to say…
You may say I’m a dreamer
And then cite the current year
We did it once and it was glorious
What do you idjits have to fear?
Imagine no cabal like circles
Of like minded drones
Trying to guide the conversation
With scary jack-boot traffic cones
Imagine all those comments
Posted without exile’s threat…
You may ban me for a dreamer
Yeah no shit, that time is done.
There was a wonderland of beauty
We let it crumble, now it’s gone.
Just re-deactivated my account, having gotten screenshots of tweets I’d had embedded at my own site. Buh-bye, Twitter, you soothing-color-schemed, unswastika’d Dritterreich.
I was going by corduroyalist on twitter. That’s probably not a terribly important piece of information.
Anyone want to take bets as to how long it’ll be before Twitter decides that a “true names” policy is needed to stop “abuse”?
True names makes you easier to harass in real life using other means. And people can still fake it out.
I set up on quitter.se and freezepeach.xyz which is a 4-chan and conservative leper colony for people not really that welcome on quitter.se Both are rather sparse. Lots of anime avatars.
[…] – Muslim Ambushes NY Cops, Opens Fire – Two Of Eight Officers Injured Protein Wisdom: #FreeStacy – Twitter’s Orwellian “Truth And Safety Council” Suspends @rsmcca… Shot In The Dark: Defining Hate Down STUMP: Living Beyond Your Means Kills – Debt Is Just The […]
-I’ve requested my Twitter Archive.
-Palaeo wrote: I was going by corduroyalist on twitter. That’s probably not a terribly important piece of information.
I had a feeling it might be – never got around to asking you.
-Vincent Curatola [aka: ‘Johnny Sacs’] is sticking it out:
@HarrietBaldwin @BobBelvedere #Churchill…”Never, Never, Never Give Up!”
https://twitter.com/vincentcuratola/status/701968349329235969
-Still haven’t made-up my mind, but I can be found at FreezePeach and Quitter at @BobBelvedere.
These alternative are, at best, temporary alternatives.
Someone who access to investors really needs to start a true alternative. Maybe one of the Marks [Levin or Steyn] or Mrs. Malkin?
I’ve always used my own name online and if anyone’s ever tried to harass me in meatspace I’ve never noticed.
Some of you may recall on occasion my observation that “on the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” until you start sniffing butts and humping legs. Style cues and the inevitable smattering of personal detail are a lot harder to conceal than people realize. A sufficiently motivated online enemy cannot be prevented from doxxing his target.
Managing potential foes’ motivation, I find, is far more effective. I don’t think the technique has kept me from speaking my mind online.
I never really set out to hide behind an avatar, I have just used this ID since I started on the internet in the early nineties but, sometimes the little fascists do make it seem like a good idea.
“https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/trump-the-wall-just-got-ten-feet-higher/2016/02/13/5eb4a90e-d1f9-11e5-90d3-34c2c42653ac_video.html ”
Something sure got ten feet higher. Looks more like a pile than a wall to me though.
New Trump campaign song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bltr_Dsk5EY
I’ve had two incidents since 1994. Neither was politically motivated but they helped to shape much of my current policy. If some wanna be batman or professional screw-artist want to make a deduction or two ( after hitting the search engines for common phrases) me, then fine. It’s not supposed to be a cyber punk black ice code fortress, but I’m not offering it up on a big piece of watercress for lazy dims to plod after either.
Clearly. But we’ve seen enough by-god trolls here who thought their pseudonyms were bulletproof (not meant literally), as demonstrated by how hard they worked at motivating people to track them down.
The point is, anonymous or not, the best way to keep people from picking a fight in meatspace is simply by not going around picking fights online.
Though if someone does like to pick fights online, doing so under his own name, using his own picture, and with his name and address easily found, can have just as effective a deterrent effect with any trolls capable of weighing potential consequences.
Except that anyone capable of weighing potential consequences would avoid being a troll…
“I say…
‘ruff.'”
I’ve been fasting from Twitter for Lent, and sounds like it may be a good time to make it permanent.
However…
It seems like the left has done this, in large part, by banding together as an “advocacy group”, getting themselves heard under threat of branding Twitter owners as mysogynist/racist/younameit-ist, and thus giving their viewpoint more immediacy and authority than is rightful.
Can we do likewise?
Can we on the right manage to band together, form a similar “Free Speech Advisory Council” among both grassroots and right-minded glitterati with louder voices and credibility, and get heard under threat of branding Twitter owners as authoritarian/censorious/whatever-ist?
Or is it even worth it?
It depends on what the goal is. Personally, I don’t see the longterm benefit of setting up a permanent pitched battle for Hill #36,144 when GNU Social allows any number of the other hills, federated and crossfollowed, to serve the same function for conservative, market-oriented, smaller-government-supporting opinion.
Live, speak and fight as we claim to believe, and we’ll make more headway.
Meh, I’m going back to twitter for a while at least. I’d rather be thrown out than herded out.
So I log back on Twitter and I’ve gained 20 followers since I left? WTF?
Beware the fake followers that have hardly any followers!
There was some speculation about a year ago that Brett Kimberlain was behind these faux accounts, but I never saw evidence.
Bob’s right. I tended to kick people off my followers’ list if I had any excuse. Simplest way, in case they’re not really bad guys, is to block them and then unblock them a second or two later.
Best part was, if they even noticed (I doubt any of them did) they blamed a Twitter glitch.
I’m open to returning to Twitter if @jack and his JBTs get shown the door.
The mysterious phantom 22 were probably a counter error because they went away after a couple of hours. Otherwise it’s a “people really like it when I don’t tweet” situation.
[…] media is probably limited. With the practice of Shadowbanning having been confirmed at Twitter, the conservative blogosphere is bracing for […]
[…] media is probably limited. With the practice of Shadowbanning having been confirmed at Twitter, the conservative blogosphere is bracing for […]
[…] media is probably limited. With the practice of Shadowbanning having been confirmed at Twitter, the conservative blogosphere is bracing for […]
[…] media is probably limited. With the practice ofShadowbanning having been confirmed at Twitter, the conservative blogosphereis bracing for […]
[…] media is probably limited. With the practice of Shadowbanning having been confirmed at Twitter, the conservative blogosphere is bracing for […]
[…] media is probably limited. With the practice of Shadowbanning having been confirmed at Twitter, the conservative blogosphere is bracing for […]
That’s the best way one gets off someone’s unwanted list.
You could save yourself the trouble, and keep the follower, by using the Mute option. Can’t tell you how many I’ve muted. But I’ve only blocked 2 who stayed blocked: one being that pesky ‘bot ‘Red Scare’, the other a black-hat hacker who likes to DOX.
Or, better, if having too many Tweets in your TL troubles you, create your own “Best-of” list and only read from that. Customized, prioritized, and best! when you allow more followers in your abandoned TL, you won’t seem so standoffish.
[…] media is probably limited. With the practice of Shadowbanning having been confirmed at Twitter, theconservative blogosphere is bracing for […]
[…] media is probably limited. With the practice of Shadowbanning having been confirmed at Twitter, the conservative blogosphere is bracing for […]
[…] media is probably limited. With the practice of Shadowbanning having been confirmed at Twitter, the conservative blogosphere is bracing for […]