I didn't mention anything about people being banned from twitter specifically.
What i high-lighted was Twitter (and their employees) having the capability to employ shadow-banning techniques. This is where certain peoples content is downgraded within the system so it doesn't turn up in searches or appear on other people's feeds. It was admitted by Twitter software engineers the majority of its use was targetted towards conservatives & Trump supporters.
Do you have a source for that claim? Because the only record I can find of such a thing is from
conservative activist James O'Keefe, who has a history of dishonest and selective editing to make it appear as if people said something they didn't. In fact, the only news media reporting such claims on the first page of Google results are the usual collection of right-wing, victim-mentality shit stirrers, of Breitbart, Russia Today and the radical Catholic site LifeSiteNews.
Also who (and by what authority) gets to decide if some-one is Alt-Right. Do you not see a problem where if someone (like an employee from Twitter) disagrees with a person views they could label them 'Alt-Right' and have their content removed. You also get the problem where people start relying on companies like the Southern Poverty Law Center to discern for them who should be considered 'extremists' or 'hate groups'. Only the other week they published an article which labeled Tim Pool (freelance left leaning journalist) as Alt Right, on the basis that he had associated with/interviewed people from the far right. If you don't see the potential for bias & abuse then fine, but i see it as a form of censorship & de-platforming.
Who is being banned because they're alt-right? They're being banned because of the sort of threatening, harassing and abusive behaviour that manifests itself in the movement loosely defined as the alt-right. David Duke is presumably still on the site and posting his white-nationalist opinions because he doesn't mobilize his followers to harass other people on the platform like many of those who got banned did.
Maybe i misunderstand what the whole verification is about, but i was under the impression that it was so known people in public eye could verify who they were, so they that other people couldn't masquerade as them using similiar names & profiles to cause mischief & problems. What it now seems to have turned into is a 'badge' for views & opinions that are endorsed by Twitter, and not about proving identities.
That was originally the idea, but Twitter seemed to be worried that giving people verified status
You might not have a problem with this, but my view is that social media should be neutral, and not show bias or favouritism to any side.
That's all well and good, and I'd agree, but it's ultimately a private company and will act in a way that reflects best on them and ensures them the greatest profits. It will generally take new laws to change things and it will be interesting to see if anything comes out of this current investigation. But I would argue that the criticism of Twitter (maybe you have another example I referenced) doesn't meet any of the standards of impartiality or neutrality that you demand of Twitter. As an example, Milo Yiannapoulos used to answer criticism of Breitbart's bias by saying "name me a media source that isn't biased." You can't have that attitude and then play the victim when another media company kicks you off their platform because of things you've said. But that's what this is all about. The evidence that conservative voices on social media are being silenced is paper thin, and yet the victim mentality persists. Twitter, by definition, publishes a greater breadth of political views than any media company in history, and yet companies with an explicit editorial stance are criticising them. Let's be honest, it's precisely because of their lack of concern over what political views are aired on their platform that groups like CA were able to exploit it in the first place. Try and get a Hillary Clinton advert on Fox News or a Labour advert in the Daily Mail and see how that works out for you. Yet biased news sources like these are often the first to cry foul at any perceived bias, as if the privately-owned Twitter is under any more of an obligation to be impartial than they are.
My original point still stands, and that was it seems people (on both sides), as long as they are getting the results or outcomes they desire, aren't really interested in the methods used. The methods, lack of a level playing field etc only become an issue when they become affected.
Absolutely. 30 years ago, it was whoever could hire the best advertising company and brown nose Rupert Murdoch the most.
Fucking hell, I didn't want to get into another discussion.