Twitter quietly edited its hateful conduct policy to drop transgender protections

Musk says his own tweets might be labeled under new hateful conduct policy.

See full article...

 

[aerogems]

Even using Twitler's own version of "free speech absolutism" which is anything that isn't illegal... these things would constitute hate speech and harassment in the US, and thus are illegal.

Edit: Also, anyone who put a label on any of Twitler's posts would be hearing a shrill South African accented "you're fired! you're fired! you're fired!" in their immediate future.

 

[aerogems]

I'm not answering officially here for Ars, just making a personal observation as someone who's been embedded in online journalism for decades:

It would be incredibly poor reporting, by any organization, to not link to original sources. If a statement of newsworthy note is made on Twitter then it should be linked. And not just screenshotted, actually linked.

I was just reading that Tech Dirt piece about Dell Cameron being banned and was very frustrated that they embed screenshots without links. I couldn't even find the original Mastodon post Dell made about his ban made until a colleague linked me.

(Edit: here's that Mastodon link btw if anyone else wants it: https://journa.host/@dell/110227348408885700 )

I should always be able to see the original source, and verify it, and dig further. Screenshots are not reliable, and do not provide context.

Regardless of Elon Musk being an asshole, Twitter's policies, or anything else, we and everyone else should maintain our professional standards as reporters. Linking to sources, stating facts reliably, and not letting personal vendettas or biases affect the ability to do that. Which doesn't mean people can't call out Musk, but it can be done professionally.

On a personal level people of course can avoid Twitter, but reporters have a vital role in our society and democracy and should uphold certain standards.

I know you said you weren't responding on behalf of Ars or anything, but maybe something to kick around in the orbiting HQ is to just have text links instead of embedding the tweet. Still includes the original source, but doesn't drive traffic to a site that promotes hate and bigotry the same way an embedded tweet does. You can then quote the relevant text from the tweet or include a screen capture if there's a chance it may get deleted or something.

 

[aerogems]

groomer is a good identifying word

Ever notice how the people who like to use that word in derogatory ways are always posting photos of themselves surrounded by small children?

 

[aerogems]

My own feeling on embedded tweets is basically the way I feel about covering Bad People™. We will often get comments along the lines of "why are you giving this person attention?" The answer is always "because it's news". Ignoring them will not make them go away or change what they did. Our job is to often shine the light on them.

Embedding a tweet is really the best way to show the content. It has all the context, and the link. Everyone can see it. I doubt it drives any more clicks than a link, and doesn't provide Twitter with ad revenue.

Doesn't mean we can't discuss it internally, but I think just journalistically speaking it's the most responsible approach.

Not saying don't cover topics, just change the way you cite sources within the article. But, in any event, just my unsolicited 2₵ so do with it what you will.

 

[aerogems]

Spoiler: Bigotry and Hate Speech

Yet more Musk hate from the fast becoming echo chamber Ars...... Do all you left wing liberals actually ever listen to yourselves and just HOW ridiculous you sound? Obviously not. I strongly suggest you all properly research the Nazi party (which was socialist left wing through and through - again do some ACTUAL research, greatest con of all all time the left selling Nazi's as right wing). You are all heading exactly the same way. The woke brigade of the US is the laughing stock of the the world. Y'all really need to wake up to reality - right now you have all drunk way too much koolade to even function on a normal human premise.

Ashley Belanger - perhaps you should be writing for political sites rather than a tech site, just how biased are you? No, no...... I dont need to ask..... totally is the answer, you have NO clue about balanced or non-partisan do you. Yet another left wing moron, just like the vast majority posting here...... ala the echo chamber. Good luck with that....... When are you going to turn that into a gas chamber I wonder, for the people that have a different opinion to you..... Sounds like most of you want that already. You should be asking yourselves why you have the opinions and beliefs you do...... its called prgramming.

Musk is merely starting to dismantle the programming regime that you have been programmed by to protect.

Whether you like it or not - Musk is for free speech and all you who are critical of Musk are not for free speech. Please stop to actually think about what that says about you and what your thinking processes are.

Who are you trying to convince? There something you maybe have been secretly wanting to tell everyone? Are you secretly jealous when you see a girl wearing a cute top? Do you stare longingly at that pair of red pumps in the store window? Maybe you wander through the women's lingerie section in stores, and wonder what it'd be like to wear those silk panties for a day. Go ahead, we won't judge you here based on any of that here. We will judge you for long posts full of self-loathing masquerading as culture warrior bullshit though.

 

[aerogems]

So, since I've come out on Ars once before, I'll do it again... As a woman with transition experience and today alone, there were no less than 25-ish news and "news" articles that came across my feed that were specifically trans related. There was one that was positive.

As it's been years since I've transitioned, I've built a pretty thick skin for ignorant comments, misinformation, hateful speech and so on. At some point it sure would be nice to turn on the internet and find a space, any space, that isn't disparaging my community and family, calling us groomers, degenerates, and worse.


How about these two words? Report and ignorance. It may not do anything but those two words did make me feel good.

So yes, words have meaning and yes, they cause harm... If you didn't believe this, you wouldn't have been a giant human baby and cried your little rant.

Just wanted to say quickly

1. Respect for making a difficult decision like that, I know it's not like you just wake up one day and decide you want to transition
2. Glad you seem to have found some measure of happiness
3. I don't think I will ever understand why people are against allowing others to be their true selves, especially when they expect other people to cater to their preferences and comforts (maybe I just answered my own question)

 

[aerogems]

So I had the opportunity to try to wear high heels recently as a silly moment with Cass.

Holy crap was it a leg workout. I'm sincerely surprised heels aren't used for leg training. My ankles feel ripped AF after that.

Had a gf once who actually managed to run, at a pretty good clip no less, in a pair of heels. I was quite impressed by that honestly. Never actually tried wearing them myself, but based on your comment, sounds like I should be even more impressed by the ex-gf's ability to run in heels.

 

[aerogems]

“When Nazis sends their people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing spelling errors. They’re bringing run-on sentences. They’re missing punctuation. And some, I assume, are literate people.”

Ask not whether you should upvote, ask whether there's a way to upvote more than once!

 

[aerogems]

It's make me wonder if Ars is some kind of Vice, NPR, CNBC or maybe CNN. I do enjoy some of the technical article but the comment section is is so far left, it remind me the childhood in Romania under Ceausescu, where you were automatically a enemy of the state if your opinion was not in line with the party and state propaganda, sad to see this happen more and more not only in the USA but in Canada and Europe as well, so if I have to guess the western society is moving backwards to the Neo-Marxism to a totalitarian dictatorship where a insignificant minority dictates mandate how the society “must” function and crucified the ones that has a different opinion,believes or another point of view (conservative for example) ,not to mention political correctness , here are some words we unfortunately are allowed to use :Forefathers,Man-made,Blacklisted,Right-hand man,Blackmail,Manpower,Mankind,Black sheep,Fat,Idiot,mad,Prostitute,Illegal immigrant...e.t.c (still use then , and I will use them no mater what , so I wish you all bon voyage to the new world order (Neo-Communism) If I'm not wrong Lenin had an saying about this: "useful idiot".

Arguments like this always fall rather flat when you could leave any time you wanted if it was so traumatizing being here. Now, if someone is literally holding a gun to your head and making you click on links, read articles, and post comments, boy will my face be red, but I think I'm probably safe. What you really want, is for your specific views and opinions to be recognized as the "correct" ones. Instead of doing a little introspection to consider the idea that maybe your views are the incorrect ones, you concoct this laughable conspiracy theory about how there's some kind of Neo-Marxist (which you use incorrectly BTW) gang of posters who viciously downvote people like you for not subscribing to their specific set of views.

If it is so horrible being here, the exit is this way I'm not saying you have to leave, but if being here is such a miserable experience for you, why would you want to stay?

 

[aerogems]

sir this is a wendys.

"What do I have to do to get a snow cone around here?"
"Sir, this is a bank!"

 

[aerogems]

Honest question - why bother responding to a one day old account that can't respond to you and that has already been downvoted out of sight?

1. It wasn't hidden when I made that post
2. Is that some kind of new restriction or something?
3. Unless it's a Twitler taint tickler post, where there seems to be a high number of instances where long dormant accounts suddenly "wake up" to engage in a little verbal Twitler fellatio, I generally don't look at post counts or the age of an account

 

[aerogems]

1. It was hidden within about ten to fifteen(maybe less) minutes of being posted
2. There's no restriction that I'm aware of. I questioned the utility of your post.
3. I don't know which view you're using, but in the front page view it's very obvious when the account was created and how often they've posted.

Uh, ok? Not really sure where you're going with this.

 

[aerogems]

You may have contributed the single most disgusting post ever.

Congrats? Enjoy your hovel, useful idiot.

Largely unrelated, but your using the phrase useful idiot made for a good opportunity to drop this little nugget. You thought China having unofficial police departments in the US was bad...

https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/18/americans_russians_doj_disinfomration/

 

[aerogems]

The issue of gender is front and center at the moment, to the point where a lot of the time people experience fear about even commenting about it in fear of backlash. Look at what happened to JK Rowling, the backlash was unjustified, what she said wasn't transphobic if you actually read her comments, but it has certainly been percieved that way by the masses. Lately in my view, the WOKE pendulum has swung too far, so Musk is totally in the right to do what he did removing the specifics from the Twitter rules.

I might have at least been willing to give you the benefit of the doubt on making a serious argument, even if it's one I would disagree with, right up until you gave the game away and identified yourself as nothing but a right-wing fascist troll by using the word "woke". The fact that people who use that term don't even grasp the irony is simultaneously sad and hilarious. Also infuriating because I keep having to buy new irony meters when people like you keep burying the needle so far it breaks. Those things aren't cheap ya know!

 

[aerogems]

Yup. Exactly this.

Which is why the occasional slip-up, corrected, is accepted by most trans people. You're trying, habits creep in, it happens. The important thing is that you realised your mistake and corrected yourself. You're not going to be ostracised for one honest mistake, especially if you're obviously making an effort to fix it and not repeat it.

I forget what I was watching now, but they were interviewing someone's mother. Towards the end of the interview they say, "I'm sorry, I've been calling them by <old name> all this time when they go by <new name> now." That is a good way to tell the difference between it being an honest mistake and a deliberate act of harassment: whether the person doing it apologizes.

Still, since someone brought it up earlier... I'm refusing to call Kanye West anything but Kanye West unless/until he starts recognizing the right for trans people to change their names to fit with their true identity.

Also, need to dig up a link at some point, but there was an interesting story on some NPR show. They were discussing how India's supreme court is hearing arguments about whether to allow same sex marriages and how the majority Hindu party is claiming that it's against Indian culture and some idea that was imported from "the west" during the colonial period. Only, some people looked at texts dating back around 2,000 years and found that it was actually the other way around. It was homophobia that was imported by the British to India. Prior to that, there are examples of same sex couples being celebrated in India.

 

[aerogems]

Ah, the backlash I foresaw for having an opinion outside of the currently accepted narative.
Shame... shame.... (Rings bell)

Now where have I heard an almost identical comment? Oh yeah, by an account that was banned shortly before this one started posting. Coincidence?

 

[aerogems]

Uh, no? The physicist guy is definitely a troll, he did the online furniture store being used to traffick children bit. There are people who believe that, they don't really find their way here.

At least a furniture store makes more sense than a pizza place. You have lots of large boxes coming in and going out on a regular basis, and sitting around in the back, so you could, hypothetically, at least hide a few kids in those. Now, granted you could still sail the entire US Navy fleet side by side through some of the holes in the idea that you can come up with just off the top of your head, but someone at least put a teensy bit more thought into this one.

 

[aerogems]

This is very clearly a troll. Report, move on, block if you care to. Responding is giving him what he wants.

Clearly you missed Aurich's post with a screen cap of his reports inbox.

 

[aerogems]

p.s. You whiny clowns have been reporting me since you discovered this was like my 4th account. You're the ones who can't handle any opinion counter to your own and just keep scrolling.

Just going to leave this here since I know Aurich has a massive backlog in reports to get through. He, or any of the other Ars mods, can take whatever action they deem appropriate for ban evasion.

Edit: OK, looks like Litazia beat me to pointing it out, but still just leave it here in case the first one gets missed somehow.

 

[aerogems]

English is not actually a language, it's just old high German, French, and Norse sitting on each others' shoulders under a trench coat. Vincent Reallanguageman, off for a meeting in the language business factory.

You sure it's not three kids in a trench coat pretending to be an adult?

 

[aerogems]

Thank you. It's not unappreciated.

FYI, the next sockpuppet for BrainDroppings is named HerpesOnline (see: the Joe Rogan topic).

Let the Whac-a-Mole continue.

I have my suspicions about schnackenpfefferhausen also being a sock puppet. Seems to be active around the same time(s) as the account ruining a perfectly good title for a George Carlin book, at least before being hit with the ban hammer, makes a lot of the same faithless arguments, seems to get off on the attention... I'll leave it up to Ars staff to take it from here for many reasons... like, I don't have access to the tools needed to make a conclusive determination myself. /s

 

[aerogems]

Ever notice how bigoted chuds suddenly become super invested in obscure niche women's sports leagues as soon as trans women are involved?

I have a sneaking suspicion that ol' shitsnackpepperhousen hadn't even heard of the USA Powerlifting organization let alone cared about their women's open division until they hit enter on their Google search.

Reminds me of when all these asshats suddenly became hyper vigilant about ethics in games journalism... oh right, that was just all just a targeted hate campaign against a queer person; one mind you which literally became the groundwork for the current alt-right fascist hate movement.

Hey, it has the upside of increasing awareness of these organizations. Women's basketball has been seeing a pretty big increase in viewership lately and it's helped put the WNBA in a much better position when negotiating royalties for broadcast rights with ESPN. Same goes for college level teams, where the women's basketball championship was actually getting some prime time news coverage in sports segments. I don't give a reindeer's fart about basketball no matter which gender's playing, but I think it's great all these women athletes are finally starting to get some of the recognition they deserve. It'd be even better if the way people were "discovering" them was not through a bunch of incel culture warrior asshats, but this is one of the dumbest timelines, so what did you expect?

 

[aerogems]

Well, this place has turned into a cesspool capable of espousing only a single viewpoint and intolerant of anyone even interested in the IDEA that discussion should be allowed, regardless of what their position may or may not be. Ad-hominems are the order of the day as well as calling someone a liar.

The vast majority of commenters here are intellectually dishonest idealogues. Do better.

 

[aerogems]

Yes, I read Aurich’s comment,I don’t agree with it. I agree that it’s the way they are wording their comments. They can pretend they’re not bigots and just asking questions, feign the Joe Rogan defense. They’re bigots and what they say is violent and abhorrence wrapped in performative civility. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous and yes, I do believe Aurich knows this. There is no legitimate reason to cater to them.

I know most people probably will mentally edit this part out, but I'll say it anyway so I can quote it again later when people ignore it in their replies. I do NOT agree with our transphobe "friends" and very much think there's absolutely nothing wrong with people wanting to live in a way that feels natural to them. To the best of my knowledge, I've never known any trans people personally, though maybe I did/do and just didn't/don't know it. Outside of a few very specific scenarios, it just doesn't really factor into anything I do. If I pass some random person on the street who happens to be gay or trans or whatever, that has absolutely zero impact on my life, so I really don't care. I have a general life philosophy that so long as it's little or no effort on my part, and it helps make someone else's day a little better, I'll do it. Might be that I hold a door open a couple seconds for someone behind me, or call someone by their preferred nickname. I don't have the energy to hate people who haven't actually done anything to me.

Now, that all said, we have people here who talk about how it's perfectly acceptable to go up and punch Nazi's in the face for no reason other than existing. It's always made me a bit uneasy, because as much as I understand the sentiment, it's basically a flipped version of the argument the Nazis make. So, if you want Ars to crack down more on the transphobe comments, it's only fair that they also crack down on calls for violence against Nazis. At this point, I'm predicting there will be at least one person who replies calling me a Nazi or sealion or something along those lines because they haven't been reading. Really, if you want to say Nazis are bad then it's on you to find a way to demonstrate a better path, not just use the same tactics as those you're admonishing. Yes, it will require a lot more time and effort, but that's kind of the point. That is what it means to be a better person.