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Comment by MBCook | Hacker News Reader

Really?

I’d say no matter what you think of Jones you should be celebrating this as it means Twitter is holding to their own published policies.

The nonsense of banning people for X, unless they famous, unless they’re the wrong KIND of famous, or are being attacked by someone and asking “Why do they get to say X to me” stuff is a mess.

How can anyone run a platform if the rules are in constant flux on a per day/user/reason/moon phase basis?

Half the problem over the last few years is the quicksand of rules. Punishments applied unevenly start to look an awful lot favoritism even when there isn’t any there.

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> celebrating this as it means Twitter is holding to their own published policies.

Have they banned the racist New York Times editor yet?

We already know certain people get special treatment. They were explicitly said it for the president. Jones certainly got it.

I’m not sure who you’re talking about or what they did but I’ve always gotten the feeling that Twitter is very careful about messing with people who have any amount of power/fame.

My position? Apply the rules to everyone who violates them no matter what.

Twitter has shown that won’t do that. But I’ll take 40% enforcement over 5% enforcement.

> But I’ll take 40% enforcement over 5% enforcement.

A politically motivated 40% is far worse than a completely open forum.

It's a NYT journalist that stated multiple times she hates white people. Like, really vile stuff. No ban, no 7 day suspension. Nothing. The NYT even defended her (Sarah Jong).

Now, the crazy annoying right-winger Candance Owens just copied the same tweets and replaced white with black. What followed? Banned.

Twitter does not uphold their now standard independent from political affiliation. They can do that, it's a private company, but they should not LIE about it.

> The NYT even defended her (Sarah Jong).

It’s even worse than simply defending her - the NYT admitted they knew about the tweets when they hired her!

So in a competitive market like journalism where dozens of qualified candidates would have applied for the job the NYT deliberately chose the candidate who openly hates white people.

And shortly before hiring her they ran an article stating it was good that Roseanne Barr was driven from the workplace because of a single racist joke she made.

Alex Jones has more integrity than the NYT.

They’re talking about Sarah Jeong, who’s been the subject of one of the more recent made-up controversies various right-wingers are using as an chance to bond over their shared identity as self-perceived victims:

https://www.vox.com/technology/2018/8/8/17661368/sarah-jeong...

The usual differences apply: she was making obvious jokes in the style of right-wing rhetoric (e.g. joking about how white people can’t handle the sun and need to live underground) about a group which has never been seriously threatened rather than repeating slurs which have serious history behind them, there was no sign of capacity or intent to do real harm, etc. Twitter doesn’t do nuance well but it’s about as accurate as thinking Swift made a serious proposal to eat poor children.

> made-up controversies

So making dozens of anti-white comments over a sustained period of time is just a joke?

Yet Alex Jones calling a specific person a rat without any generalization when that person has been targeting him for harassment and deplatforming is anti-Semitic?

This is why the right and center have a growing distrust for the left.

> making obvious jokes in the style of right-wing rhetoric

Except right wing people don’t talk like that.

> Alex Jones calling a specific person a rat without any generalization when that person has been targeting him for harassment and deplatforming is anti-Semitic?

Please don’t waste time assuming you’re talking to people who are completely unaware of his history and unable to check Wikipedia. If you want to defend Alex Jones, justify pizzagate, harassing the parents of massacre victims, or calling for armed uprising — i.e. the things which actually got him banned.

I know why you aren’t, of course, because it would make the false equivalence of trying to compare him to Jeong a complete farce, not to mention raising some uncomfortable questions about your shared values. You clearly like to present yourself as speaking for some relatively mainstream group but that’s incompatible with defending extremists like Jones.

> Except right wing people don’t talk like that.

You seriously expect everyone to have forgotten the blood and soil guys? The birthers and other racists — like the figurehead of your party?

> i.e. the things which actually got him banned.

So twitter was lying when they said he was banned for his video with the CNN guy?

> false equivalence of trying to compare him to Jeong a complete farce

Exactly - he clearly is not as bigoted, racist, and hateful as Jeong.

A more similar comparison would be Sarah Jeong and Richard Spencer.

> but that’s incompatible with defending extremists like Jones.

Why? I don’t need to agree with everything you say to defend your right to speak.

Alex Jones is a conspiracy nut but he’s also brought up lots of interesting topics worth discussing.

There is no need to spread malicious lies about him like saying he has called for armed uprisings.

> blood and soil guys

Ah yes the fringe fake right who want socialism and open borders but only for whites.

Maybe you should put down the fake news and go out and meet some conservatives. There are millions of us in California.

> The birthers

The birthers belong in the same category as the 9/11 truthers and the current Trump-Russia conspiracy theorists.

You can hardly compare them with hardcore racists like Jeong.

Yeah, double standards. Unbelievable

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