Hacker News Reader

Comment by johndevor | Hacker News Reader

> clear ties to inciting violent riots

https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1347302588434284544

Twitter selectively enforces their rules, largely targeting conservatives.

Are you saying the personal comments of a MSNBC reporter are equivalent to the personal comments of a sitting US president or Senator?

No. I'm saying that leftwing violence is distributed. Rightwing is centralized. The radical left is smart. There's no head antifa leader. Doesn't mean antifa is any less dangerous, I might argue more dangerous because there's no head to the hydra.

Are you making the argument that there are coordinated, yet distributed, Antifa cells spread across America that pose a greater or equal threat then:

1) the mob that stormed the capitol building with threats to kill and kidnap US congressmen, senators, and the VP?

2) the several dozen Michigan militia members currently indicted for attempting to kidnap the governor of Michigan

3) the texas commuters who attempted to steer the Biden/Harris campaign bus off the highway

Every large platform selectively enforces rules. The squeakiest wheels get the grease. The Twitter firehose is a notoriously large amount of data; difficult for computers to parse, and impossible for a human to review unless brought to their attention. I don't think it's fair to automatically attribute it to malice.

Also, not sure I'm following what that link is supposed to demonstrate. Twitter has no power to censor cable news networks.

When tens of millions of people protest something, it could just be because they have a legitimate grievance.

That said, it should be perfectly OK to permanently ban seditionists and traitors, as well as those who egg them on. If those are conservatives to you, then that's your words, not mine.

And Twitter should act as an arbiter for such distinction?

They decided to.

What you've linked to is a splicing of several segments of video which attempts to link together events, groups, places people and organizations most of which are not actually linked together. For example:

* A person says "looting", and in a following or preceding segment another person, on another channel at another time says "Antifa".

* An image of cars on fire in the background, and segments by some anchors or pundits saying that protests are important, or should not be polite.

So, while I'm no fan on MSNBC, CNN etc., and think they're being rather hypocritical with their treatment of the confirmation protesters - that clip is just under-handed smearing by its author and by you.

I updated my post to be more accurate about the extent of Twitter's actions regarding bans. Also, to be fair, conservatives are associated with the conspiracy theories and the Capitol riots, so it makes sense they would be targeted. I agree it is a shame if there are some conservatives who are not promoting conspiracy theories that have been silenced.

Yes, conservatives have been the only group associated with riots this year. Makes total sense why they are the only ones targeted.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com