13 comments

  • stetrain 37 minutes ago
    I'm sure this was done in a perfectly fair and balanced manner and not in a way that is at all aligned to the CEO's publicly stated politics.
    • porkbellyeee 35 minutes ago
      [dead]
    • theplumber 23 minutes ago
      I think most of Trump agenda(I.e anti immigration, anti trans/lgbtq+ policies) would not have survived on social media or at least on Twitter/x. It would have been marked as hatred, bigotry, racism etc so it doesn’t surprise me we now see the other side of the coin.

      At some point it we may get balanced policies but we are still far from that as no party seems to want that yet.

      • piyuv 5 minutes ago
        What do you mean “it would have been marked as hatred”? It _is_ hatred, bigotry, racism, etc. Trump isn’t shy about showing how racist and hateful he is.
      • stetrain 4 minutes ago
        > I think most of Trump agenda(I.e anti immigration, anti trans/lgbtq+ policies) would not have survived on social media or at least on Twitter/x.

        Then how did he get elected in 2016 with a heavy social media presence and then continue using Twitter as his primary direct communication method as POTUS up until 2021?

      • baggachipz 15 minutes ago
        This is absolutely not a "both sides" thing. The owner of the network is spending record amounts of money on getting Republicans elected this cycle (and last). The idea that his social network would do anything counter to the whims of the CEO or his pal is utterly laughable.
        • k33n 12 minutes ago
          [flagged]
          • causesothere 9 minutes ago
            What you are saying is objectively false, uselessly partisan, and shows both an obvious and tragic misunderstand of both recent and collected history.

            I do not know what your information diet is like, but if you would like help, I'm sure folks would be willing to talk and listen.

            • k33n 6 minutes ago
              What I said is objectively true. It’s partisan sure. But you love partisan remarks when they feed into left wing delusional thinking.

              If you need help, please contact a mental hospital. There are resources out there for you.

              You’re all doing my work for me. The visible comments will all be “republicans are cheating and censoring” with all counter arguments flagged. It’s TOO funny and very effective. Thank you!

      • a3w 15 minutes ago
        e.g. anti-anti-facism was missing, which is funniest use of "anti", and saddest for a POTUS.
      • krapp 10 minutes ago
        Trump's movement originated on and proliferated on social media, what are you talking about? Jan. 6th was planned and organized on social media, often openly. His agenda would not have survived without social media.
    • dionian 26 minutes ago
      Just because it happened under Jack doesnt mean Elon will do it, like silencing americans for wrong opinions.
      • causesothere 22 minutes ago
        Elon has been pretty actively removing speech from X he disagrees with. Thats just objectively true.

        And he's been obviously. And objectively deeply partisan outside of X. The OP's supposition that he'd be partisan on X in the run up to an election is a fair and reasonable one, independent of what Jack did.

        • edgyquant 20 minutes ago
          Examples? X is full of left wing politics so even if Elon has done the occasional censorship it’s nowhere near the scale that conservative voices were censored prior to 2022.
          • treyd 11 minutes ago
            Removing hate from a privately-run platform is not censorship. It just feels like censorship to reactionaries because their political beliefs are hateful and do not respect the categorical imperative.
            • pjc50 8 minutes ago
              Just to complete the set of views expressed in this thread: it is censorship, and it's also absolutely necessary if you want to have a civil society. Otherwise the whole thing - society, not just the platform - evolves into competitive death threats and thence into actual violence. This includes state violence.

              You can no more run a social media website without moderation than you can run a nuclear reactor without a moderator.

            • krapp 8 minutes ago
              It is censorship. Banning any content of any form for any reason, including legality, is censorship.

              What people don't want to admit to themselves is that censorship isn't always a bad thing. Realizing that requires a degree of nuance that the internet currently doesn't support.

          • causesothere 13 minutes ago
            Try to have a rational and calm discourse about trans folks on X. You will necessarily need to compare the lived experiences of trans people and people who are not trans, which will probably result in you using the prefix "cis" (which is the literal opposite of the prefix trans). You will get moderated for doing so.
            • zulux 1 minute ago
              I refuse to use "cis". I'm not a subtype.
          • samcolson42 12 minutes ago
            Can you provide some data about the scale of 'conservative voices... censored prior to 2022'? I have used the platform a long time, trying to take in a balanced set of news sources. I do not believe that conservatives ever had a problem getting their voice heard on the platform... All of Charlie Kirk's (vile) tweets are still up, for example.
      • stetrain 18 minutes ago
      • k33n 24 minutes ago
        [flagged]
        • esseph 11 minutes ago
          The guy in office has a press ban

          Lol

  • mingus88 38 minutes ago
    What a blow to Elon to lose his account in his own platform
  • tavavex 5 minutes ago
    Sounds like they're just getting rid of competition
  • ChrisRR 13 minutes ago
    Thank you HN for highlighting new usernames in green
  • olooney 38 minutes ago
    Twitter over 300 million daily active users. 13,000 is 0.004% of that.

    A standard drop of water is 0.05 ml. A standard household bucket is about 3 gallons. So the proverbial "drop in the bucket" is 0.0004%.

    So, for all you naysayers out there saying this is just a drop in the bucket, it's literally x10 that.

    Why, if they could get this up to a repeatable process and ban 13,000 accounts per day, that would be 1.5% every year. After a couple of years of work, that might even be perceptible to the average user. Sounds like the problem is well in hand.

    • thatsabadlook 26 minutes ago
      This is the most contorted argument I have ever seen. I admire it on some level. Like we could be friends but I wouldn't let you watch my dogs
      • bliteben 20 minutes ago
        Yeah not sure I'd want to be around for his midlife crisis though.
    • piva00 35 minutes ago
      Without any stats/metrics about engagement of real users with these accounts you have absolute no basis to do any comparison to drops of water.

      Not sure why number of accounts matter at all, even more if you are depending on internal Twitter investigations to determine that without knowing any of the methodology to detect those, etc.

      But sure, you can always defend Twitter if that's the hill you want to die on.

      • gruez 33 minutes ago
        >Without any stats/metrics about engagement of real users with these accounts you have absolute no basis to do any comparison to drops of water.

        I think it's fair to assume that if x.com refuses to provide stats that are easily obtainable for them (eg. views or followers), that those stats aren't favorable to them.

    • greg7mdp 18 minutes ago
      Sometimes 0.004% matters when the population is not homogenous.

      The 0.004% richest Amreicans hold the majority of US wealth. I would not be surprised if the 0.004% top X users in terms of followers have a majority of followers as well.

      So implying that because 0.004% is a small proportion of total users, this user ban is unconsequential seems flawed to me.

  • voidhorse 37 minutes ago
    Meanwhile: https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-midterms-republicans-do...

    Manipulation of elections is OK as long as you do it with money.

  • bratsche 30 minutes ago
    Probably 13,000 accounts that suddenly went dark after Ukraine took out some datacenter in Russia recently.
    • diath 15 minutes ago
    • thatsabadlook 28 minutes ago
      Doubtful... It looks like Starlink showed it's colors to Ukraine and it's admiration for the Russian state what was it within 24hrs of that operation? Yikes.
      • rpmisms 14 minutes ago
        That's not an accurate characterization of what happened, and I think you know that.
        • causesothere 8 minutes ago
          I don't think anyone knows that, given it's news from the past couple days.
  • feverzsj 22 minutes ago
    Posts on "For you" are mostly pro right/republican/Trump these days, even if you block such accounts frequently.
    • craftkiller 1 minute ago
      Why are you still using Twitter? It has been years since the purchase, you've had plenty of time to switch.
    • causesothere 17 minutes ago
      X is a deeply partisan website. It actively censors leftist viewpoints. So it's not surprising it would skew rightward.

      This effect is self reinforcing, if you are leftish, and you are in a tightening space, why would you stay?

    • inquirerGeneral 16 minutes ago
      [dead]
  • brodouevencode 46 minutes ago
    Reminder that Twitter (X) has done similar things (shadow-banning) before.
    • causesothere 20 minutes ago
      HN does too. It's a standard moderation practice.
  • syngrog66 18 minutes ago
    meanwhile Musk spending $250M+ on Republican campaigns. but sure, ban a few Twitter accounts
  • lawn 42 minutes ago
    Knowing Musk, they probably purged pro Democrats while leaving Russian bots alone.
    • boesboes 40 minutes ago
      true, luckily they're mostly offline since yandex gone boom
  • throwaway613746 42 minutes ago
    [dead]
  • gvfsa 47 minutes ago
    >...as well as content intended to discourage participation.

    Uh? That's odd. In my country I don't vote because I don't feel represented and I encourage others in my situation to do the same. Would I get banned for saying that?

    • oeitho 4 minutes ago
      Why would any politician care about your concerns if you don’t vote?

      I’ve heard this said by acquaintances before, but even when someone finally says what they want to hear they find another reason to not vote… without exception.

      Whenever the topic shows up I always tell people to vote and that there’s no good reason to not vote if you legally can.

    • boesboes 41 minutes ago
      Are you a bot from an openly hostile nation? If not, then probably not. But maybe you've already been successfully brain washed, because that's EXACTLY what countries do to undermine each other
      • gvfsa 32 minutes ago
        No, I read the policy and it doesn't cover what I mentioned. It looks like "content intended to discourage participation" is probably not the best wording...

        https://help.x.com/en/rules-and-policies/election-integrity-...

      • knottn 22 minutes ago
        Getting idiots to not vote undermines elections? Weird.
        • pjc50 12 minutes ago
          Selectively getting people to not vote, yes. It's the reverse of "get out the vote" campaigns.
        • causesothere 20 minutes ago
          Yes. Building apathy erodes democracy.
          • MatekCopatek 1 minute ago
            It's a little more nuanced than that. Not voting can be just as democratic as voting if you're informed about your options and decide none of them represent your position.

            But even in situations where someone would potentially want to vote and a tweet misleads them to believe it's not worth it, why is that worse then a tweet misleading them to believe that a certain political option will work in their favor?

          • AnimalMuppet 4 minutes ago
            So do people that are easily manipulated by propaganda. Do you want such people to vote, to give the election to the best propagandists? Or do you want them to not vote, and deal with the apathy?
            • stetrain 0 minutes ago
              The fewer people who vote, the smaller the group that needs to be influenced to make a difference in the election.
        • nozzlegear 17 minutes ago
          It obviously undermines elections. The only thing weird here is your faux confusion.
    • ChrisRR 16 minutes ago
      Why would you get banned for saying that? What a pointlessly argumentative comment