So Twitter has finally given Milo Yiannopoulos the boot — apparently for good — after the Breitbart “journalist” gleefully participated in, and egged on, a vicious campaign of racist abuse directed at Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones on Twitter earlier this week.
This wasn’t the first time that Milo, formerly known as @Nero, used his Twitter platform — at the time of his suspension he had 338,000 followers — to attack and abuse a popular scapegoat (or someone who merely mocked him online). It wasn’t even the worst example of his bullying.
What made the difference this time? Leslie Jones, who has a bit of a Twitter following herself, refused to stay silent in the face of the abuse she was getting, a move that no doubt increased the amount of harassment sent her way, but one that also caught the attention of the media. And so Milo finally got the ban he has so long deserved.
But what about all those others who participated in the abuse? And the rest of those who’ve turned the Twitter platform into one of the Internet’s most effective enablers of bullying and abuse?
In a statement, Twitter said it was reacting to “an uptick in the number of accounts violating [Twitter’s] policies” on abuse. But as the folks who run Twitter know all too well, the campaign against Jones, as utterly vicious as it was, wasn’t some kind of weird aberration.
It’s the sort of thing that happens every single day on Twitter to countless non-famous people — with women, and people of color, and LGBT folks, and Jews, and Muslims (basically anyone who is not a cis, white, straight, non-Jewish, non-Muslim man) being favorite targets.
Twitter also says that it will try to do better when it comes to abuse. “We know many people believe we have not done enough to curb this type of behavior on Twitter,” the company said in its statement.
We agree. We are continuing to invest heavily in improving our tools and enforcement systems to better allow us to identify and take faster action on abuse as it’s happening and prevent repeat offenders. We have been in the process of reviewing our hateful conduct policy to prohibit additional types of abusive behavior and allow more types of reporting, with the goal of reducing the burden on the person being targeted. We’ll provide more details on those changes in the coming weeks.
This is good news. At least if it’s something more than hot air. Twitter desperately needs better policies to deal with abuse. But better policies won’t mean much if they’re not enforced. Twitter already has rules that, if enforced, would go a long way towards dealing with the abuse on the platform. But they’re simply not enforced.
Right now I don’t even bother reporting Tweets like this, because Twitter typically does nothing about them.
https://twitter.com/Bobcat665/status/735282887965085697
And even when someone does get booted off Twitter for abuse, they often return under a new name — and though this is in direct violation of Twitter’s rules, the ban evaders are so seldom punished for this violation that most don’t even bother to pretend to be anyone other than they are.
Longtime readers here will remember the saga of @JudgyBitch1 and her adventures in ban evasion.
Meanwhile, babyfaced white supremacist Matt Forney’s original account (@realMattForney) was banned some time ago; he returned as @basedMattForney. When this ban evading account was also banned, he got around this ban by starting up yet another ban evading account, under the name @oneMattForney, and did his best to round up as many of his old followers as possible.
https://twitter.com/onemattforney/status/753087810006085634
A few days later, Twitter unbanned his @basedMattForney account.
And here’s yet another banned Twitterer boasting about their success in ban evasion from a new account:
https://twitter.com/_AltRight_Anew/status/755643864036339716
And then there are all the accounts set up for no other reason than to abuse people. Like this person, who set up a new account just so they could post a single rude Tweet to me:
In case you’re wondering, the one person this Twitter account follows is, yes Donald Trump.
And then there’s this guy, also with an egg avatar, and a whopping three followers, who has spewed forth hundreds of nasty tweets directed mostly at feminists.
Here are several he sent to me, which I’ve lightly censored:
And some he’s sent to others.
So, yeah. Twitter is rotten with accounts like these, set up to do little more than harass. And if they ever get banned, it only takes a few minutes to set up another one.
Milo used his vast number of Twitter followers as a personal army. But you don’t need a lot of followers to do a lot of damage on Twitter. All you really need is an email address and a willingness to do harm.
It’s good that Twitter took down one of the platforms most vicious ringleaders of abuse. But unless Twitter can deal with the small-time goons, with their anime avatars and egg accounts, as well, it will remain one of the Internet’s most effective tools for harassment and abuse.
@authorialAlchemy : I won’t say the name because I am a bit paranoid about staying anonymous. In a similar way to mafia wars, Farmville, and co, it’s a very slow game that allow people to pay for quicker progress.
The problem ? Most people who pay aren’t rich people who have too much money. A good bunch of them are depressed people. You see the guys who enter a casino despite being broke, and spend most of their money on the hope to be rich ? You see the broke people who spend all their money on alcohol ? It’s that kind of people who pay a lot in thoses facebook game.
Our product promised people to be cool, with a collection system and a feeling to belong to a community. Being at 100% in the collection gave you access to a faux VIP suite in game, and there were a group of people very proud of being 100% guy. That’s very attractive to people who feel dejected, and it cost them more or less a grand per month to stay on top.
The worse example we had is someone we actually signaled to social services. He blowed about 15k euros in one year, then emailed us to know if we could hire him as a community manager because he was broke after blowing his inheritance. We refused, his profile suddenly spent a lot less money, about half the very minimum welfare money France give (half a RSA, for french people), then suddenly bought for 4000 euros, on a credit card that promptly got declared as stolen. We banned him from the pay shop, asked social service for advice, and off the record they confirmed he actually blew the inheritance from his mother and never had a job.
Other examples were less extrem, but most “whale” (high paying user) who caused problem were unemployed.
That’s how a game who started on a relatively positive basic (community, a ranking system where everyone can be #1, saying to people they are cool) can end up being one of the worse possible monetization scheme. Without even trying.
@AlphaBetaSoup:
Being the “token SJW” on a right-wing site can do a lot of good for the site, but at the cost of a lot of stress for that person. I’ve been doing it for a few months now on the Stellaris forums and while
The issue with such forums is, in my experience, to do with the way their communities work. They have small cores of permanent regulars who have long ago adopted whatever position they have decided to hold, and cannot be swayed for good or for ill. You will never reach these people.
Around them are a much larger swarm of people who come in with already-preconceived notions and don’t stay for long. Because of this, they’re normally oblivious to community norms of behaviour and aren’t aware of which points have already been discussed to death. You will never reach these people.
Between these two sets are a sliver of those whom one can reach and can often make real and lasting contributions to, but the personal cost of doing so is often high.
It always depresses me to see f**k-trumpets like Milo and his legion of unholy trolls drive people away from spaces like Twitter. Some of my best friends are on Twitter and I even met two of my boyfriends (I’m polyamorous) through it.
I know right now that its ridiculously lax enforcement of its own rules has turned it into a the biggest haven for the worst scum of the internet this side of 4chan but I have also seen others (some of them close friends) talk about Twitter literally saving their lives because it allowed them to find others like them and realise that they weren’t completely alone.
That’s why Milo and his ilk make me so mad: social media has the potential to be one the greatest tools of uniting us and then they have to come and just poison the well with their bile. *sad sigh*
@ Ohlmann
I think that was Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil. Although when I look into that online abyss all I feel is queasy 🙁
@ej
You’re right, but it will cause you stress. I’ve been in the same place as the only communist on a conspiracy site, which, when I joined was more ‘spiritual’, but in the last year or two has spiralled out of control and become the new ‘Stormfront’. Both times I was banned it was because of clashes with Nazis which ended up in the ‘rant room’, because of my user name most of them thought I was a bloke, when I told them I wasn’t they went completely batshit on me. As a person in favour of gay marriage and women’s rights, I had to be the voice of reason when talking about nonsense they use ad hominem, ‘Cultural Marxism” ie its the Jooooze, the ‘gay agenda’ ‘feminazis’ ‘Liberal Fascists’ all that jazz. I got accused of promoting the rape of three year olds to stop them being homophobic! Did this guy get banned when I reported it to the mods? No. I did. As a Marxist, I do not consider myself a SJW, (and not a liberal because they are fiscal conservatives, not compatible with socialism) but of course I have sympathy for violations of human rights. I see most of this stuff, race baiting, religious intolerance, homophobia as a tool of the elites or the ‘ruling class’ to divide and conquer. There has always been class struggle, but when they cause division amongst the proletariat, it is them sitting up in their ivory towers watching the “plebs” at war with one another, and not looking at them with their bank bail outs, hedge funds, tax breaks for the ultra rich, privatisation of public services and off shore tax havens. We don’t look at the criminals who lord it over us, on their million dollar yachts whilst the industrial worker made redundant is scared of losing his house and ending up on the street and a ‘coloured’ guy taking his place at a lower wage. He’s been brought up with ‘reaganomics’ the belief in trickle down and the prevailing idea that what is good for the fat cats is good for all of us. He looks at Trump and sees an ideology, a rich successful man that his kids can look up to and aspire to. He’s going to make America Grunt Again! (Once he gets rid of all the foreigners that is)
Thanks to everyone (too many names to go back and check!) for the discussion of potential ways to regulate Twitter and online communities in general. Fascinating and thought-provoking. Also very timely – and I’m sad that the cause of such a great discussion was the utter shite that people have had to endure, Leslie Jones being the most recent example.
I use, and appreciate, Twitter, mostly for news and professional contacts. I don’t like networking much, as an introvert, but it’s essential and Twitter is one of the best platforms for it. But jebus it’s got some horrible corners. For all the “I was banned from Twitter for being conservative” stuff we hear, it’s certain types of conservatives (alt-righters) who are far and away the most revolting and unrestrained in these spaces.
I think someone’s already mentioned Clem Ford – on her Twitter account, she deals with threats every single day. Not people disagreeing with her, or criticising her views – people vowing to cause her all kinds of injuries unless she shuts up. No idea how she manages to log on.
Gah. Not sure if it’s just me but things are really getting to me more than usual lately. I’ll take myself off to bed now. Hugs and kittehs to everyone here 🙂 you people rock.
It’s my understanding that what Ohlmann is describing is actually common among games with a “freemium” financial model. When he describes the man who blew through his inheritance as a “whale,” he’s actually using industry terminology for the small fraction of any freemium game’s userbase who provide most of the revenue.
(And you’ll never hear a peep out of Gamergate about freemium games creating a casino-like atmosphere to encourage certain people to overspend)
@ViolinlessHoax : I should hvae double checked. I remember it from a tabletop Cthulu session, and assumed too much. Sorry.
@ banned
Didn’t the term ‘whale’ actually arise in the casino industry?
Be interesting to see how many people now employed in the gaming industry have a background in the gambling industry. Does seem like there’s a lot of the same psychology at work.
OT: I’ve just seen this – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/21/florida-police-shoot-black-man-lying-down-with-arms-in-air – but Stateside commenters may know more.
I simply don’t understand how this can happen. I may need to go in search of brain bleach.
@Alan : my experience is an entire firm without any overlap with the gambling industry, for what it’s worth. As in, nobody had experiences in the gambling industry, neither in the management, nor among the developpers, and even less in the HRs and communications.
The bulk of non-developpers came from televisions. The bulk of developers came from various big nouns of the web industry.
I can’t speak for other firms however.
OT:
I recently received this goldmine of hilarity as a tweet response from an anti-feminist troll. This user is not a Poe, based on everything i’ve seen from him. I felt like sharing it here.
That looks like a delicious sandwich. I am evidently not manning properly.
A trendy cafe I like does that exact same sandwich but with nettles instead of the salad. They even serve it in that same paper (is that a new thing now?)
Of course, the substitution with nettles probably means I keep my macho credentials.
makroth:
What were they responding to?? How could that sandwich be a response to anything? This is incredibly important. I must know.
@Ohlmann: No worries! The librarian in me felt it necessary to point that out, but it happens to everyone, obvs.
@Alan: The term “whale” did originate in the gambling industry, and specifically on the Poker circuits where, for some reason, regulars like to draw parallels to marine life. Weak, amateur poker players are called “fish” who are hunted by the professionals called “sharks”. Continuing in the same vein, the big spenders or high rollers are called “whales” because they’re fat with cash. The term “whale” just spread from there into the other gambling arenas. (The first time I’ve heard it was actually on that show “Las Vegas” with James Caan and TV is the best source of information as we all know.)
@ violinless
“Best”? You mean there are other sources?
(But thanks for your info 🙂 )
@Tessa
They were responding to a post by Kristi Winters with random offensive images and incredibly lazy strawmen. This picture was mostly unrelated to anything i was arguing with him about. Most pics were just boring (trying to offend is usually so uncreative), but i found this one to be… precious. I really don’t think he realized how fragile it made him look.
@ makroth
There was something about the tone of that sandwich post that just made me think of ‘Viz’. And lo and behold I was right (had to happen one day).
Amazing that someone took it seriously though. It’s like those news outlets that unironically repeat Onion stories.
http://viz.co.uk/the-sexist-book-of-records-least-manly-sandwich/
makroth:
Awww, that’s much less interesting than that awesome picture. It’s so adorable! I wanna hug it.
Edit: And Alan totally ruined it! Thanks a lot!
I’ll just have to hold tight to the idea it was posted unironically…
Ohlmann, your description of the user base of your game makes sense to me. Frequently the people who have time to play games enough to get to the highest levels quickly are unemployed and often depressed; the game gives them an emotional reward that they’re lacking or can’t get anywhere else (isolation, lack of self-esteem because of the culture’s focus on a job as a person’s identity, etc.). The “pay to win” model perpetuates the problem, as you were saying, because they need that emotional reward, but these specific people in question don’t have the money necessary because of the aforementioned depression/unemployment.
It’s a terrible situation to be in; I’ve managed to avoid it mostly by luck, I suspect. But I’m glad that you and your company realized you were making money off of people’s misery and, more importantly, had the integrity and moral sense to /stop/.
Also, that sandwich looks delicious, but it could be better with the addition of crab meat (real or fake) or shrimp. Which doesn’t count as a manly-type meat, correct? I mean, I wouldn’t want to manify the sandwich!
Also also, what’s rocket and lamb’s lettuce?
http://i.imgur.com/efQAEN5.png
*Incoming social conflict rant from a white-male authoritarian-type. Criticism and differing perspectives welcome!*
@AlphaBeta Soup
You are talking about something that I have wanted to organize myself, and that I “put on the back burner” because the reality of doing so was more complex than I anticipated so I contented myself with dissecting and understanding social conflict for the benefit of the people I interacted with in social justice circles. I had a lot of learning to do in just figuring out how to be supportive in the way that others needed (I’m making no assumptions about your position in this mess). But it is a good idea in principle and one I’ve been thinking about since I was the “alpha token SJW” at a pony-themed spawn of 4chan. In the mean time when my job allows I’m working on writing up some “fundamentals of social conflict on the internet” or similar.
EJ is right, it takes a toll. I have more stamina and ability for it than most because of psychology and privilege and I still hit my limit. I was a substitute teacher and a moderator on the serious discussion board on Ponychan at the same time. Eventually the combined stress triggered anxiety and PTSD symptoms that took more than a year to shed (I’m happy that it took a long time to develop though). When they could stand it it was enormously helpful to have backup from a few others, but it was not as organized as it could have been. Knowing one’s limits is important as well as having really good routines that let you ensure you do a good job and maintain emotional health. That means things like regular periodic time away from the conflict (and therapeutic activities) and writing draft responses that you leave for the next morning to provide some emotional distance.
More specifically,
*The reason that there are more on left-wing, anti-racist, feminist sites probably has to do with history and culture. They have a cultural advantage in that they are used to being the dominant culture so there is a sense of “doing what they are used to seeing be done” that makes it easier for them, there are pre-existing social dynamics for them to take advantage of. Coming from more authoritarian cultures is an advantage both emotional and strategic. They represent “the way things have been” so for us it is an uphill battle, but it is a battle with advantages because of human nature and the reality that they are in the wrong.
*It’s probably true that many of them do enjoy arguing with people. But there is more than one motivating emotion that can be attached to experiences and cultural role-modeling. Fear and disgust work as well. I was friends with a very bitter, pain-wracked “MRA type” (the best I can do to convey the disposition, but it’s not accurate) for a long time on Skype who I tried to help work through their issues as well as I could. Things that are tricky to be supportive of in a conflict setting where showing support for “the other side” can be a real problem. It’s a part of strategy I’m still working on.
An important reason for white-male combative authoritarian types with ethics like me to get involved, with maintaining the dynamic of communities like this one if nothing else. It’s just as important to create and maintain “social reservoirs” such as this (or places like Freethought Blogs also in my case) for marginalized people to be able to speak openly about their experiences and feelings about things. But even there it’s often hard work to learn how other people need help, “ally” has negative connotations. I got yelled at a lot and I needed it, and some “allies” don’t take being yelled at very well. Organizing “counter ops” is a whole extra level of complexity and a better second step might be “ally training camp”.
It would be a good idea in the long run, but specifically going to right-wing social areas in an organized fashion should be done with some care. Human beings have a sense of social territory and that should be something that is done openly, with warning, and with as much of a “non-confrontational” disposition as possible (it’s not possible to prevent the feeling of confrontation and attack completely, but the social messages and structural effort there is important). We don’t want to appear to be invaders because we would be doing what we don’t like and they would take that as implicit permission to keep acting as invaders (tit-for-tat morality rules). There is a kind of “ceremony” or “ritual” to group confrontation that can help with the way things look from the outside and inside. There is an instinctual moral system to acting in this context and most authoritarian-types will respond to it, to “save face” if nothing else.
In the short term such counter-ops are better for responding to situations where left-wing, anti-racist, and feminist articles, twitter feeds, websites, social arenas and other places are being inundated with abuse. One of the complicating factors is that these invasions are in part “invasions” in that there is often no intent to swarm, the participants are from their perspective individually responding but the social dynamics are on their side so an abusive invasion is the result. Bringing a balance to the numbers will be a big help, and that fact that we are in the right is an advantage.
Something else that is really important is a database of responses to the arguments that these people use categorized by synonym and euphemism, and it has to be intersectional (maybe modeled after the evolution supporting talkorigins). “race realist” = racist. Scratch a race realist and ask for the reality they appeal to and you find new spins on the same old irrational prejudice and discrimination. Often they just “move the goal posts” on the old justifications. When measuring skulls became garbage they moved on to genetics and IQ (some still use the skull argument too which is why the database is important) When we figure out what IQ is and why the culture advantages white people at taking IQ tests they will move onto something else. It’s the cultural programming and unconscious assumption that what one remembers from experience is reality and motivated reasoning that is the biggest enemy here.
Rocket and lamb’s lettuce are garden greens. They used to be very common in salads and kitchens, but I don’t believe they were ever really adopted into the greenhouse growing model when that started up (early 1900s I think?) so they fell out of favour. Now they’re being picked up again as fancy alternatives to lettuce, even though they’ve been absolutely pedestrian for centuries. Just a weird hiccup in their use makes them novel again today. They are tasty, try them!
Huh. Thank you. They sounded similar to radicchio, in that radicchio sounds all fancy and awesomely tasty (since a craving for it resulted in Rapunzel’s mother promising her to the witch… which I side-eye heavily) but which is in reality an acceptable and tasty lettuce substitute but nothing to write home about. Good to know my instincts were correct there. 🙂
If I ever see them, I will endeavor to try them. 🙂