Today, in things that actually happened:
1) A fan of right-wing “journalist” and #GamerGate panderer Milo Yiannopoulos has set up a White House petition to demand that Obama “issue a statement demanding the restoration of Milo Yiannopoulos’s Twitter verification badge.”
According to the petition, Twitter’s removal of the little blue verification badge from Milo’s account — a Twitter perk given to a teensy fraction of its users — means that it is “effectively declaring war on libertarian and millennial voices by punishing the outspoken commentator for his views.”
2) Meanwhile, on Twitter, the subject of all this drama — who still retains all his posting privileges on the social media platform — has been complaining “jokingly” that David Bowie’s death has drawn attention away from his plight.
How come David Bowie is verified, @twitter? HE'S FUCKING DEAD
— Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) January 11, 2016
David Bowie's last words said to have been "Feminism is cancer"
— Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) January 11, 2016
IF THIS PETITION GETS 2,000 SIGNATURES IN THE NEXT 2 HOURS I WILL SING A BOWIE SONG LIVE ON A YOUTUBE STREAM https://t.co/MxDAXtqRXK
— Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) January 11, 2016
Happily, the petition did not get 2000 signatures in those two hours, or at all. As I write this, the petition stands more than 98,000 signatures short of the 100,000 needed for the White House to even officially notice it.
Rest in Peace, David Bowie. And go to hell, Milo.
Do 2,000 people actually care enough to sign, though, that’s the question.
Trying to get the President to force a private company like Twitter to do something is SO libertarian of them, right?
So this is also a way to keep track of their actual numbers?
I’m really pretty over people using this stuff as an opportunity to superciliously declare their disdain for Twitter as a medium. Remember Ferguson Missouri? Baltimore? Every instance of police brutality over the last couple of years? You have Twitter to thank for the fact that these things are going viral.
There are tons and tons of super smart activists who don’t have platforms like Brietbart saying all kinds of incredibly valuable things on Twitter because it’s the one place on the internet where they have a real voice.
It’s not your thing? Fine. It certainly has plenty of problems in terms of how it deals with harassers that need to be fixed. But it takes a special kind of privileged obliviousness to dismiss it as bunch of people you don’t know spouting worthless drivel into the ether.
@Sweaty Examination Goblin
Thank you for that villain reference. I knew I had seen Milo before. He’s an evil henchman in that horrible 4th Austin Powers movie that thankfully exists only in my nightmares.
@Sweaty Examination Goblin:
I teach millennials. No, most of them are not like this, and I only say that because I’m sure that out there, there must be some who are. My students are mostly hard workers who have to balance school with a lot of work and sometimes a family as well.
Me too. There are loads of problems with the platform but the problem is not “social media exists.”
In my experience of libertarians, this is fairly standard. For all that they rail against government, they seem to expect it to wipe their asses for them.
Re Yianniopoulos:
I’m the same age as him and I identify as an older Millenial. I do not, however, believe that Twitter disrespects Millenials by un-blueticking him. The voice of his generation he most assuredly is not. For one thing, the voice of his generation would have more than 2000 lackeys.
Re Twitter:
SevenofMine makes an excellent point.
In my opinion, Twitter is an extremely democratic platform with a very low barrier to entry. That makes it very difficult to prevent previously-unheard voices from using it, and means that it inherently disrupts previous power relationships built upon limited access to information and to the ability to speak.
Downside of this? There’s no way to filter out the crap either. You get a lot of good but Sturgeon’s Law applies hard.
Eventually Twitter will institute anti-harassment tools. They can’t avoid it. It’ll be interesting to see whether these end up being used by law enforcement and moneyed interests to silence people.
Sheez, Matt Forney got banned all together and we didn’t see him kicking up this much fuss.
Milo Yiannopoulis; making Matt Forney look mature?
“Said to have been”.
In other news, Abraham Lincoln’s last words said to have been “Milo Yiannapoulis is a wretched cockgoblin”.
Imagine how small, boring, and pointless a life you would have to lead in order to care this much about something this stupid.
“The problem with quotes on the internet is that you never know whether or not they’re real.” – Oscar Wilde
So, was that extraordinary image created by a Mi-lover of Milo-hater?
I’m trying to determine whether it’s ironically hilarious or sincerely so. Either way, I luff it.
Shouldn’t Milo and his fellow manospherians be manning up: keeping a cool head and a resolute jaw and a stiff upper lip?
I miss the strong, silent type of man’s man.
I think Milo will never be a spationaut. No rocket will ever be able to lift both him and his ego at the same time.
(is megalomania in the list of ableist insult ? I don’t even know if it’s a disease in a medical sense)
This is such a tragedy. I am at a loss for words. The oppression this man is experiencing. Its just so very terrible. I am sobbing as I type.
I don’t usually go in for schadenfreude, but I’m making an exception today.
Yeah, these people think “small government” means no protection for anybody except themselves. Silly little boy – like a two year old, stamping his foot and screaming orders at the adults.
In my country we even have a term for that: Fortuynisme, after a horrible politician of Trump-like horribleness.
It means: Wanting the government to not interfere in your business at all, while doing everything for you.
So, impossible and a true sign of stupidity. (Since you can have either/or)
I almost want this petition to reach the White House, because if the right sort of person drafts the response, we could be in for a deliciously elegant reply explaining why POTUS has better things to do than interfere with the management of Twitter.
OTOH, I’m glad we don’t have to suffer through Milo trying to sing a Bowie song.
I sense a picayune disturbance in The Farce. As though yet another tired, eminently forgettable embarrassment to our species with a hilariously overly-inflated sense of self importance and his smallish coterie of yammering followers were reminded yet again of the eye-rolling contempt their ongoing odiousness breeds even in the otherwise largely disinterested and automated bowels of technology businesses running prominent social media platforms, and responded with predictable, aggrieved yelping for a while, before returning to their more generic pattern of spamming, abuse, and exchanging extremely poorly thought-out, largely incomprehensible image macros…
(Well, possibly it was that. Might also have been gas.)
While I would love the poetic justice in him getting deported, it’s kind of like getting rid of dog shit in your yard by dumping it in your neighbor’s; your lawn will be shit free, but you’re going to screw up relations with the entire neighborhood for years to come.
Sadly, the Lemmy thing isn’t going to happen. IUPAC requires that elements be named after a region, a property of the element, a mineral that contains it, a mythological concept, or a scientist. I’m afraid Lemmy is going to have to wait in line behind a lot of great scientists who haven’t gotten the recognition they deserve.
Why not name an element after Rosalind Franklin? Rosalinium? Franklinium?
@Sheila Crosby:
Off-topic, which telescope is that?
Terrabeau:
I believe the canonical WHTM deportation destination is Snake Island, where the locals would welcome any newcomers with open arms, if they had arms.
I’m thinking of starting a petition to get Obama to pants Milo. Preferably in public with live media coverage. Obama’s on his ‘don’t give a fuck’ tour, so I’m sure he’d be up for that.