Speaking of harassers, as I was in the previous post, everyone’s favorite PR maven and serial libeller, Janet “Judgy Bitch” Bloomfield, has been suspended from Twitter — this time, one hopes, for good, as she’s a prime example of someone using Twitter as a “hate amplifier,” which she has stoked in the past with deliberate and malicious libel. She also made a second account to get around her previous suspension, which one would think would in itself be enough of a TOS violation to justify permanent suspension. The real question isn’t why she was suspended; it’s why she wasn’t suspended for good a long time ago.
EDIT: Removed portions of this post so as not to further inflame the situation.
I’m confused. So, a misogynist asshat gets suspended from twitter but if we find this funny, we’re in favour of organized efforts to eliminate their freeze peach? That’s kind of a leap, isn’t it? Like, I’m not seeing how the one equals the other.
I don’t even get why this fucking tangent started. It’s like Phoenician manufactured his argument wholesale, didn’t give any information on what he was arguing about, and then declared himself the winner because WE JUST HATE DIFFERING OPINIONS or something.
I’d ask if I missed something, except I know I didn’t.
I went back a few pages to see what started it and it appears that being and saying you are pleased that a person who is verbally abusive to others was suspended from a public platform, youtube or twitter or wev, is proof that we would approve of people being no platformed by mass reports. This means we (madness and katz and kittehserf specifically) have no integrity. We have demonstrated insufficient concern for the reason T (some d00d I have no idea who is) was suspended. PiatoR really really wanted to talk about this and we failed to live up to his unrealistic expectations.
I would suggest that we all take a mo and consider the possibility that we have not always acted perfectly appropriately in all circumstances. Then remind yourself that we were warned that PiatoR is now and always has been a troll with stealth capability.
Apparently we’re not allowed to express gladness that a known troll, hatemonger and harasser was suspended even temporarily from a platform that is under no obligation to provide him with a megaphone for his hateful, harassing trollishness.
Who’s being censorious toward whom, here?
Wow, what a pretentious gasbag. Welp, guess my initial instinct about him was the correct one.
You know who I’d like to see ACTUALLY banished from the Internet? Andy Blake. Now THERE is a dude who is not safe on the Internet and has no intention of changing his behavior. That’s not a matter of my disliking his difference of opinion either; he spouts allll the “correct” social justice speak on tumblr. But he’s also been using the Internet to create multi-inspired cults of personality around him for over a decade, and has never once shown a change in his behavior.
I’m changing the topic because Phoenician’s is boring.
I’m still in favor of banning people for being boring,tbh.
From the Comments Policy (bolding mine):
Boring trolls take note.
But Kittehs! We only find Phoenician boring because his opinion is DIFFERENT from ours!
My understanding of TF’s situation is that Twitter suspended his account, with the option to un-suspend as long as he clicks a button saying, “yes, I promise to stop engaging in the behavior that got me suspended.” So even in the context of Twitter, he hasn’t been “silenced” in any meaningful sense. He could come back to Twitter at any time. He has chosen not to. It appears that his goal is to get Twitter to revoke his suspension, which I guess he would consider a moral victory. It’s moot, because even if they revoke this suspension, any further TOS violation would necessitate another suspension. It’s completely childish, and apparently TF doesn’t see the point of Twitter if he can’t incite harassment.
It’s beyond ridiculous that he claims he’s a victim of censorship. Twitter is not the government; according to his own account of events, he was suspended for illegal speech, or inciting illegal speech; and harassment is designed to *silence the victim*, which makes it even more ridiculous for him to complain that HE has been silenced. It’s a pretty standard, snake-eating-its-tail, you’re-the-real-bigot-if-you-don’t-tolerate-bigots argument.
Soooo in other words, Phoenician was full of shit.
I mean, I know you guys knew already, but just to reiterate.
I have to confess to my lack of integrity. Just this afternoon I had to refresh the force fields keeping my body together. Without them, my molecular structure just kind of comes apart.
A + for petulance, though.
PoM – I haven’t levelled up to force fields yet. I’m still held together with duct tape.
Cassandra, your instincts are always right. At least about trolls and people who aren’t here in good faith.
So…he’s effectively silenced HIMSELF, then. Out of sheer petulance and stubbornness and Teh Stoopid.
Serves him right.
What her fans do not seem to understand is that JB gave Twitter no choice in the matter. Libel and slander is considered a criminal activity in some parts of the world including the United States. She consistently used her Twitter account to defame others, if Twitter continues to let her use their service to post libelous and slanderous tweets then they are the publishers of that libel and slander and that makes them liable to any aggrieved parties.
Nope. Twitter isn’t a content provider in that context. JB could be liable, but even then it’s probable she could cloudy the waters enough with Times v. Sullivan that someone who wasn’t rich as Croesus couldn’t afford the retainer.
Libel suits are notoriously hard to bring, even when the case it fairly clear (see Carol Burnett v. National Enquirer), so for all that she is probably guilty of libel, that has nothing to do with Twitter banning her.
What got her banned was that there is (at present, and one hopes into the unending future) a backlash against this, and Twitter feels it’s in their best interest (as a business) to appear to be responding. If we don’t keep the pressure up, they will backslide: because “drama” equals eyes on the screen, and twitter’s money is from ad revenue.
Either you can engage the person and show the absurdity of their positions or you can choose to not engage them.
Or, when the evidence shows the first course to be pointless, and the second to be fruitless, one can point out to others the folly of allowing that person to continue to harm others.
Because it wasn’t a “difference of opinion” which got JB the hook, it was abusive behavior, and public attacks on another person. A far cry from anything which ought to be considered a privileged behavior.
I Piator is running true to form (I seem to recall making an agreement with Cassandra at the time).
There are (from what I can see) a few inviolables he has, one of them is a sort of Freeze Peach thing: for some reason (which I can’t fathom) he has decided TF is deserving of all fora in which to spew: for some other reason (even less comprehensible) he seems to think it non-possible that TF has actually breached the rules of civil society
She appears to be back online at https://twitter.com/ArdReign (as Janet Bloornfield). I came across her for the first time after she started commenting after one of my tweets,