'We hate what you’ve done with the place – especially the hate' Australia tells Twitter The office of Australia's eSafety Commissioner has issued an official "please explain" to Twitter over its content moderation practices and whether it is enforcing its own policies against hateful conduct. "eSafety received more complaints about online hate on Twitter in the past 12 months than any other platform and has …
There is always “hatred” on Twitter. The difference is that Twitter now allows “hatred” from both sides, not just left-wing hatred like under its previous owners.
What those complaining about “hatred” dislike that it’s not just their “hatred” that is allowed.
Tesla still have some advantage in range over a lot of their competitors, the big thing that puts me off from these cars is their supercar like performance. Tesla 3 Long Range does 0-60 in 3.9 seconds, I'm too old for that shit, and I'm too poor for the insurance rating such power gives. I'd probably wrap it around a tree.
Why on Earth would any rational person buy a Y? The batteries are now an integrated, read nonremovable, part of the structure. When the battery goes bad, the entire car will have to be scrapped because it will cost more than a new one to replace the battery pack. I can't see insurers wanting to cover it for less than a grand a month, as even a minor fender bender now gets an EV totaled since minor accidents can cause the car to catch fire a week or two after. Even if a battery pack is replaceable, the cost is often more than the car is worth but in the case of the Y, no possible replacement.
Seems like definitions are hard to come by.
Opinions far from your own don't count.
Death threats and other direct threats on individuals would definitely count, and I guess you could build out a little from there.
As long as it doesn't just mean "opinions that are currently deemed unacceptable".
I don't remember the name of the bloke, but it was in a context about what construed harassment and I do remember his advice that was quoted in one of the Aussie morning papers.
The advice was "Don't be a dickhead".
It's not really something that can be defined by the likes an RFC, but like an old definition of pornography you know it when you see it.
Making Twitter a dickhead-free zone is probably difficult while Musk is in charge, but it is an attractive thought.
"Don't be a dickhead" is excellent advice, however there is surely a category of comments that are definitely dickhead-ish and offensive without actually being hate speech.
I'd like any platform I'm posting on to keep to the higher standard (The Register comment pages are an excellent example of mostly dickhead-free behaviour even in the midst of some pretty sensitive topics), but having that as a legal standard for all platforms is probably setting the bar too high
Conservative: I have been censored for my conservative views
Me: Holy shit! You were censored for wanting lower taxes?
Con: LOL no...no not those views
Me: So....deregulation?
Con: Haha no not those views either
Me: Which views, exactly?
Con: Oh, you know the ones
(https://twitter.com/gourmetspud/status/1588570438224908288)
> If you can't tell obvious hate, you're part of the problem.
> This is something children understand.
As usual, the obvious cases are obvious.
However, some things that people think are hate speech, which are clearly not:
- Someone suggests that there are "only two genders".
- "Make America Great Again".
- Covid lockdowns might not have been the best strategy.
- Racism is racial bigotry and has nothing to do with power.
- Massive immigration might have some downsides, particularly from Islamic countries.
Children also don't understand nuance or how complex the world is. Perhaps don't use them as a source of wisdom?
That's really not how it works.
The goalposts are moving all the time, nothing is obvious any longer.
Liking classic cars will probably be unacceptable in the near future due to emissions, for example.
Meat consumption is already being pushed as being a bad thing.
Next you'll be penalised for taking a flight, then driving out of town.
Own some books that are no longer authorised? You're in big trouble now.
Opposing those restraints will be considered unacceptable hate speech.
Without definiton it's all open to abuse.
I hope these are all just the ramblings of a madman. But I'm not so sure.
One of the examples of hate speech that I can think that I was actually the target of, happened in December 2003 (summer in Southern Hemisphere) when I was house-sitting for my youngest sister in New Zealand while she was off on her honeymoon with her husband. I was riding along one street on a bicycle, when a couple of young girls came out and one said to the other, "I think New Zealand should be for whites only." It took me some time to realize I had been the target of that, but yes, I'd burnt well and truly brown, and the halfwits concerned had decided I was too black to reside in New Zealand ... interesting what a mix of ancestry does for one, but my ancestors include plenty of nut-brown maids ...
No reference to anything other than my colour, which was well and truly brown then. Thankfully it was only a couple of halfwitted girls, but if you meet it in a pub from a drunk doofus or in a shop from a bored and dull shopkeeper, it's a bit more serious.
The one problem I see with "hate speech" laws is that they'll wind up being used and abused by the wrong sort - the halfwits who claim "free speech" for their own ravings, but claim it's "hate speech" whenever I make fun of them for their obvious deficiencies in ... humour, for starters ... it's been seen in action: His Serene Grace the Duke of Dorkshit Donald J. Trump claiming "Free Speech" for his ravings, while claiming anyone who criticizes him is a "hater" ....
Well done.
Shame that you can't have the same attitude towards the dinofuel industry.
Or maybe Musk should buy a few politicians, like they did ? Ah no, there's the whole "cutting costs" thing.
Oh well, nothing lasts forever.
The sentiments are not exclusive. I have never been a Twitter user myself, but if I were, I would include both complaining about abuse and considering a move to another platform viable options. In fact both can be exercised: I could file a complaint and then move, or file complaints while in the process of moving.
And it would be equally reasonable for me to suggest both responses to someone else unhappy with the platform.
I don't think that accurate, it's more that Twitter is actively instigating hate
Interesting. The prefix cis is often being used as an insult, its also unnecessary - you don't need a prefix to describe the base state of humanity do you? The base state of humanity is cis female, from fetal development through to preponderance of the world population
So, as some are unfortunately handicapped by later modifications, perhaps we should consider the word male to be an insult? BTW, never heard cis used as an insult, can you provide a citation?
Since "insulting" is a subjective quale, any term can be intended (by the writer) as an insult, or inferred (by the reader) as one. For example: only an utter rutabaga would complain about being referred to as "cis".
So citing an example wouldn't prove anything; for it to be relevant you and LR would have to agree on an insulting interpretation, and one example isn't significant.
What LR's post does demonstrate, not that we needed more examples, is that many people are happy to take offense at just about anything if doing so confirms their worldview.
'Cis' is simply the opposite of 'Trans', 'cis' meaning 'on the same side of', 'trans' meaning 'on the opposite side of', these terms are not, in and of themselves, insults. However, if you perceive 'cis' as an insult, it's because you perceive 'trans' as an insult. Have a think about that.
I have watched the Web develop for many years.
My obvious question is why commentards and lawmakers now generally assume those that provide outlets for individual commentary (Google, Meta, Microsoft etc) should be made legally responsible for censoring that free commentary?
Why are the individuals/organisations that make the comments not being held legally responsible for their own comments if they are *unlawful* rather than simply distasteful?
It seems to me that it's much easier for governments to make unaccountable bodies decide how to censor free speech and then blame them for lack of control (or over zealous filtering) rather than potentially having a noose of obvious state-censorship tightening around the neck of the "all-for-freedom of speech, democratic" government.
Control what is illegal by directly enforcing the law of the land, using the law enforcement agencies, against those responsible for the comments. If the law isn't fit for the task then change it. Any other way invites happily walking into state censorship by proxy.
You nailed it pretty well, the govts don't want to be seen to be censoring so they covertly outsource it. This also allows for a wider range of topics that can be censored as it isn't a simple 'stuff that is illegal' that gets cut.
Although the UK police loves their 'non crimes' and things that 'might cause someone anxiety'.
"It seems to me that it's much easier for governments to make unaccountable bodies decide"
If you make them decide you make them accountable.
The alternative to making the platforms accountable is for the government to use tax-payers' money to do that. How much extra tax would you be prepared to pay to let Elon & the rest off the hook? Or should the hate victims have to pay to defend themselves?
"Why are the individuals/organisations that make the comments not being held legally responsible for their own comments if they are *unlawful* rather than simply distasteful?"
A number of reasons, but mainly
(a) some platforms allow anonymity, semi-anonymity or pseudonymity, in which case the platform can nix a post or even block the user even if they don't know who the user is in real life. For tech-savvy haters it's probably fairly trivial to set up a throwaway account over a VPN, fire off a few offensive comments, and dlete teh account. Heck, I'm pretty sure there are dark corners on the internet where you could pay someone a couple of satoshis to do it for you.
(b) local laws vary and posting can be done internationally, so a poster in, say, Saudi Arabia who posts a comment inciting violence against gay people is not going to be even investigated, let alone tried/convicted for that in Saudi, it's simply not illegal there (not to mention it's in support of official government policy). For the same reason, such a person would never be extradited to a country where making such comments is a criminal offence, and even less so if the offence is 'just' a civil one.
So if the law of a country can't target hate speech at the point of origin, it can target them at the point of consumption (where they certainly do have jurisdiction).
Funnily enough, when it comes to these large online platforms, they are happy to sell the idea to their users and to their advertisers that they can customise exactly what a user sees based on their history, preferences etc, but when it comes to filtering out hate speech it's suddenly far too onerous???
I upvoted you but I think the problem remains - what is hate speech.
One of my other news feed led me to this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2l2k2NtenM
its a "discussion" between a teacher and a young female student at Rye College. Personally it give me hope for the future BUT the student would probably have been accused of hate speech!
"Why are the individuals/organisations that make the comments not being held legally responsible for their own comments if they are *unlawful* rather than simply distasteful?"
1) The majority of these comments are made anonymously - Yes, we COULD require that the platforms ensure they known who is on the other end of the line, but that way lies another madness (imagine someone like Putin being able to track down who doesn't like his policies).
2) The platforms ARE MAKING MONEY out of those comments. Why do people always overlook this bit? This is NOT "free speech", this is "speech paid by others". If they weren't making money one way or another, they wouldn't provide the platform. And as far as I am concerned, if you make money from a product your provide (in this case, a commenting platform) then it's up to you to make sure it follows the local laws where it is provided.
YMMV, of course.
"hate" frequiently = something someone may disagree with
If it's illegal (such as specific threats) there are already laws to deal with this, but the term "hate" has become completely devalued as it's used to try to shut down debate on all sorts of issues. Someone can disagree with something, can criticise something, but that doesn't automatically mean they are pushing "hate". Those who throw around these accusations are frequently just using it as a tactic to shout down any opinions which differ from their own.
Sounds more like those who disagree with Musk, a lot of whom were Musky fanbois before he bought Twatter then changed their minds about him when he ended the Twatter censorship war that existed before he bought it.
Either everyone has the right to express an opinion, even those you (the royal you, not you specifically) disagree with, or nobody does. As was stated before - speech that incites violence is already illegal in most nations although in the Middle East, inviting homosexuals to ride the Russian Elevator is still a government approved activity.
However things such as overt racism and the inciting of hatred towards others are proliferating. This is exactly the kind of thing that happened pre WW1, where racism and hatred of specific groups became normalised by controlling politicians and their media.
We see it now with the messages of hatred and division spewing out of the likes of Braverman regularly. We see it with the inciting of hatred towards refugees by dehumanising them and twisting things to make it all about "illegal small boats" - the fact that no route for refugee entry into a country is illegal and the international accords, that the UK was instrumental in, make this very clear and these international accords came about to counter the proliferation of racism and hatred that were instrumental in these wars. Therefore not only is the likes of Braverman inciting racism, hatred and division she is also lying about "illegal small boats". This is just one example, but when a current cabinet member posts such comments on Twitter, writes them for media such as the Telegraph, Mail and Express and elsewhere and then these same messages of hatred, division and lies are repeated by others which propagates these messages of hatred, division and lies and enables others to follow suit with their own similar messages.
That's an example of hate speech and why it's entirely toxic. Disagreeing is perfectly fine, and should be encouraged in many ways, but outright hatred and lying should never be considered acceptable. Otherwise we'll find ourselves in the situation where a criminal and proven serial liar is permitted into a position of power that they are entirely not suited for, for example Johnson.
You have aptly demonstrated the repeating of racist statements. People like you, who repeat such statements, enable and embolden the original perpetrators of such statements. They couldn't get away with it without the enablers and excusers of their messages. Your calling them "economic migrants" is a textbook example of belittling and singling others to apportion blame and to dehumanise them.
An efficient, human and appropriate immigration process would assess each application on their merits. This should be a fast, compassionate and above all fair system.
Some people seeking refugee status will undoubtedly be doing so for unacceptable reasons. However, we are meant to be a first world country. We claimed to be at the forefront and a leader against hatred and facism. Yet messages such as yours and intentionally destroyed immigration systems and the use of such systems and reporting on them has been used to fuel hatred and division. For what aim? For the good of our fellow humans, who are 99%+ genetically identical to us but happen to have been born in a different arbitrary location on the planet that we share? If you want to apply divisions and hatred based on "economic migrants" then the likes of Braverman shouldn't be in the country at all because her parents would have been rejected by her racist approach to immigration.
The beeb refers to them as migrants, not refugees.
If you wish to migrate to the UK, USA or many other countries there are processes in place. I know as my OH has had to do this. Lots of paperwork and some money needed. Probably less costly than paying a smuggler to put you on a boat as I saw one interview where the person had paid $8,000 just to cross the med. Even with all the fees, flights and cargo shipments we spent less than that.
What would be good for our fellow humans is to 1) not bugger up their home country by either flattening it ourselves in the name of 'democracy' or selling the guns and bombs to a 3rd party to do it for us and 2) making sure that when they get here they don't fall through the cracks and end up as modern day slaves living in awful conditions.
Also the people smugglers know we are a soft touch and are deliberately put these people on dangerous boats as it ensures the various coast guard, military or NGO ships will come pick them up.
Nothing racist about any of that. You might want to take of the racist tinted glasses.
Lots of paperwork and some money needed
Where the facilities are available - the Government made a big song and dance that they were 'establishing an office to process claims in France' that turned out to be one desk in an airport - one that wasn't manned most of the time..
The whole focus is wrong. To deter illegal migration, you need to offer legal options that the people who want to migrate can access. If you don't, people turn to the people smugglers (they are the people that the home office should be going after, not the migrants!) and the whole cycle turns again, with more people dying in overcrowded fishing boats just so that some criminal can make lots of cash.
Given fair legal options, the 'illegal' migrant number will drastically reduce. But this (or any UK) government doesn't want to do that because the same people who voted for Brexit will be manipulated into frothing hatred of migrants by the likes of Priti Patel, Braverman and Johnson (who, ironically, are all descendants of immigrants!) and the government doesn't want people unhappy enough to vote for any alternative.
I don't know how you spent less than $8k to get a settlement visa for the UK. My wife has had to go through the visa process for the UK and all in, including visa costs, travel, English exams, getting documents translated and authenticated and a myriad of other expenses, it cost us in the region of £12-14k. This does not include UK citizenship, which was another £1-2k on top. It took five years and was a constant stress hanging over our lives. The constant worry that they would refuse the next visa and we would be split up. We've been married over a decade now, so finished all of that more than five years ago. I'd imagine the prices have increased since then, they certainly did every time we needed the next visa.
That's all a moot point anyway as 99.9% of refugees would come nowhere near to meeting the requirements of a UK immigration visa. They'd need either a job offer to come to, a spouse / sponsor here who is earning over a certain threshold, or be independently wealthy and able to pass the financial requirements themselves. If none of those things are the case, they would spend the £1.5 to £2k on the initial visa application, only to be refused and lose that money. If they are in fear of their lives, selling everything they own and paying $8k to cross the Med or Channel doesn't seem too bad. If all you've got is $8k, that's nowhere near enough to meet the requirements for a normal immigration visa. This is why the lack of any way for refugees to apply for asylum from outside the UK is what enables the traffickers. With UK law as it stands, these people can only apply for asylum if they get to the UK first.
So all the talk about stoping the boats being purely about saving people's lives and preventing people traffickers is pure BS. If that was true, there would be ways to apply for asylum from outside the UK. It's all about winning the votes of the bigoted.
You're just trying to argue this because "a difference of opinion" sounds acceptable and advocating genocide does not. But that's a matter of the emotional valence that you've (arbitrarily, specifically in the case of "a difference of opinion") attached to these terms, not their actual meaning.
Those who throw around these accusations are frequently just using it as a tactic to shout down any opinions which differ from their own.
Unlike every other era since the invention of language, when no one employed pathos and hyperbole in their rhetorical strategies. Thanks for pointing out this novel feature of our present historical moment.
I am shocked, shocked, that human beings are acting like human beings.
The lack of a bright-line test for hate speech does not mean that hate speech and online aggression are not problems.
Yes, they are a problem, but there's a huge difference between calling for physically attacking people you disagree with when they are in public, and just saying "I disagree with you." In the US, we have had politicians state just this, then act surprised when it happens.
“If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere!”
Word for word from Maxine Walters in 2018, concerning people with whom she disagreed with over illegal immigration in the US. Calling for random people to gather a crowd and push back on a single person? How is that not calling for lynching someone? Later, she called for burning down more US cities if the people involved in the George Floyd death weren't found guilty of 1st degree murder. She didn't care about justice, only a guilty verdict whether the accused were guilty or not. In her own words:
“Well, we gotta stay on the street,” Waters said. “And we’ve got to get more active. We’ve got to get more confrontational. We’ve got to make sure that they know that we mean business.”
"Getting confrontational" and "letting them know we mean business" means riot and burn down the city, not peaceful dialogue.
I wonder if it's similar to the UK's extradition agreement with the US? The one where the US can demand any UK citizen is extradited to the US before any charges are demonstrated, let alone proven, but where if the UK wants the extradition of a US citizen the answer is "no, they are a US citizen".
Australia became Woke so no loss there. Aussie Men are no more....
Once a nation of "quite good" rugby players, lol, and Aussi Rules nutjobs , that has sadly been turned into the land of wussies.
Shame really as I spent a large part of my youth having a lot of fun down the pub with the Aussies and Kiwis when I lived in London, they used to be great folks... And I include the Shielas in that last statement.
"Hate" is one of those things that "I know it when I see it" but is actually really difficult to define. That is, its subjective. Which means its a matter of opinion which means that 'moderating hate speech' is merely censorship by another name.
I'm not into hate speech myself, its not that I regard it as peurile and stuff but because the people that plaster garbage around the Internet don't understand the great British concept of 'verbals' -- "Anything you say will be taken down and may be given in evidence against you". They also think they're anonymous, that they can say and do as they please because nobody's going to hold their words to account. We encourage that fiction rather than telling anyone who posts that, yes, you will be held to account BUT you can't freely insult, lie or threaten without potential consequences. (To quote a Supreme Court justice -- "The right to swing your arm extends as far as the other guy's nose:.)
I appreciate what Musk is trying to do. I don't necessarily agree with him but I'd rather help him to build a forum than continually take cheap shots at him. After all, the kind snide remarks and continual sniping is the very essence of the kind of discourse we should be discouraging. (How many times are we going to fall for "But will someone think of the children?" before we figure out that its actually nothing to do with children?)
And you've proven Khaptain as correct. Hate is hard to define, and one person's definition will not match another's. This is why I feel anyone should have the right to speak their mind, provided they aren't calling for violence or attacks.
If anything, a person just being able to publicly speak their minds relieves mental pressure. Most people just want to be heard, and some people who aren't allowed to vent verbally will decide to use violence to get their point across.
A dictionary definition of "hate" is: intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury. : extreme dislike or disgust : antipathy, loathing.
Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hate
Other dictionaries are available, this just happened to be free and an easy one to link to.
Musk is so thick he probably doesn't realize the flawed first amendment doesn't apply everywhere.
And before they come out of the woodwork... i know I am exercising freedom of speech here. I have had a few of my posts moderated. I do not kick off.. I try to figure out what i did that was against policy and not do it again. This is how civilization works
"eSafety received more complaints about online hate on Twitter in the past 12 months than any other platform and has received an increasing number of reports of serious online abuse since Elon Musk's takeover of the company in October, 2022"
“Michael Shellenberger: Exposing the censorship industrial complex | SpectatorTV”
Australia probably couldn't stop *you* from accessing Twitter, but a simple requirement for ISP's to block the servers (either at DNS or IP level) would be effective for most of the population. For a recent example, look at the treatment of Russia Today in much of Europe.
And Australia is a little place, but it could serve as an example to much bigger places that share their cultural attitudes, such as the EU.
Given what he borrowed to buy Twitter, Musk needs to do a lot more than just cover operating costs. If advertisers see him lose an entire continent, Twitter is surely toast.
This post has been deleted by its author
Add to the server block in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf on their frontend loadbalancers (bit of pseudocode here, bear with me):
server { if (geoip.country = "aus") { return 451; } }
We have the 451 HTTP response code for a reason. Countries that fail to respect free speech need not burden themselves with access to platforms which do.
You may now whine about why [particular kinds of speech you hate] doesn't count and why [every idiot who forgot where the [close window] button lives] must be protected at all costs from seeing mean words on their screens, and why that protection simply must come in the form of doing everything physically possible to stop the mean words from being written rather than just teaching people how to close their browsers.
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