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Censorship Twitter Your Rights Online

Twitter Ignites Censorship Debate After Removal Of Parody Putin Account (thenextweb.com) 147

Twitter has suspended at least five popular anti-Kremlin Twitter accounts on its microblogging social network. The move has angered fans of the accounts and reignited the speculation on censorship on the platform. One such account parodied Russia President Vladimir Putin. The Next Web reports that some of the accounts have been brought back to function amid criticism from their respective fans. Parody accounts have resided in the gray area ever since the early days of Twitter. The social network's official ToS permits users to run a parody account of a celebrity provided they explicitly mention on their profile that it's a fake account. From the report: After their removal, social media users took two Twitter to voice their displeasure with the hashtag #NoGulagForDarthPutinKGB -- a reference to the repressive Soviet state -- and it's seemingly worked, as both accounts are back today. Of course, for how long, and why they were removed in the first place are questions that remain unanswered.
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Twitter Ignites Censorship Debate After Removal Of Parody Putin Account

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  • by Impy the Impiuos Imp ( 442658 ) on Thursday June 02, 2016 @06:08AM (#52231497) Journal

    It isn't censorship. Censorship is being forced to remove things.

    This is just, ummm, pre-removal before things gets that far.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      It isn't censorship. Censorship is being forced to remove things.
      This is just, ummm, pre-removal before things gets that far.

      If you're suffering the chilling effects of not sharing media because you think you might get in trouble, that's a second-order effect of censorship.

      • . . . I guess you and many others couldn't detect his rampant sarcasm?

        • . . . I guess you and many others couldn't detect his rampant sarcasm?

          My comment was for other people, who might not get the joke. If I had been offended, rest assured that you would now know.

      • by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 ) on Thursday June 02, 2016 @07:21AM (#52231829) Homepage

        "When was the last time you stopped yourself from saying something you believed to be true for fear of being punished or criticized for saying it? If you live in America, it probably hasn't been long."

        -- Tucker Carlson

        • by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Thursday June 02, 2016 @08:35AM (#52232235) Journal

          "When was the last time you stopped yourself from saying something you believed to be true for fear of being punished or criticized for saying it? If you live in America, it probably hasn't been long."

          Emphasis mine. Criticism is free speech. Interesting how so-called free speech supportes are against it when it comes to people using free speech in a way they don't like.

          • by swb ( 14022 )

            I think the kind of criticism he's talking about isn't what I'd broadly call constructive engagement.

            "Blacks engage in a lot of crime."

            Constructive engagement criticism is "Blacks are subject to unfair treatment by the police."

            What Carlson likely meant was responses that were like: "You're a horrible racist espousing white privilege and you should be prosecuted for hate speech."

            The former responds to the statement they disagree with, but does it in a non-hyperbolic and respectful way. The latter vomits hy

      • by T.E.D. ( 34228 )

        If you're suffering the chilling effects of not sharing media because you think you might get in trouble, that's a second-order effect of censorship.

        ...or you're just being considerate. Not every stray thought that flitters across your brain needs to be shared. For example, if you have opinions on a political candidate's spouse's looks, fantasies about something happening to a female who you happen to disagree with, or any opinion at all on a Kardashian, the world is much better off if you don't share. Really. We're fine.

        For reference, see Elon's Law [twitter.com]

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Okay, calm down everyone, it looks like it was just a mistake. The account is back up again now. No need to leap to conclusions before finding out exactly what happened.

      The account itself claims that the Russian Foreign Ministry put in a complaint. We need to wait for Twitter to explain what happened now.

      • Probably. Because the much more biting satire twitter account (https://twitter.com/kermlinrussia) is still up and running.

  • Good parody (Score:5, Funny)

    by jensend ( 71114 ) on Thursday June 02, 2016 @07:15AM (#52231807)

    I first saw this news on the BBC yesterday. The account is really funny, and the tweet they quote at the start of the article is nicely representative; I'll reproduce it here for those who haven't RTFA yet:

    Vladimir Putin (@DarthPutinKGB) May 27, 2016
            Arriving at Athens today:
            Customs: Name?
            Me: Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin
            Customs: Occupation?
            Me: No, this time i'm just here for 2 days

    • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      I first saw this news on the BBC yesterday. The account is really funny, and the tweet they quote at the start of the article is nicely representative; I'll reproduce it here for those who haven't RTFA yet:

      Vladimir Putin (@DarthPutinKGB) May 27, 2016 Arriving at Athens today: Customs: Name? Me: Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin Customs: Occupation? Me: No, this time i'm just here for 2 days

      There should be a parody Instagram account of Putin's shirt. Parody all his shirtless photos: a shirt on top of a horse, a shirt laying on a gym bench, a shirt with a fishing pole next to it, or on a mountain top. Things like that.

    • Re:Good parody (Score:4, Informative)

      by wwalker ( 159341 ) on Thursday June 02, 2016 @01:07PM (#52234683) Journal

      You mean funny as in retelling an old joke that was originally about Germans and Poland/France? http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/i... [worldoftanks.eu]

  • Can we just route Twitter off please? Nothing of value comes from there. Its bad enough we have to hear the news reading celebrity tweets or see inane comments scrawled across television shows. I find it difficult to even follow discussions when it only looks like message fragments.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • If you think nothing of value comes from Twitter, then follow some people - I see plenty of value in Twitter, but then I follow people I know create value and I un-follow people who stop creating value. Its a very useful tool - if you don't agree, then feel free to stop using Twitter, but don't presume to think that your opinion means we should all consider Twitter useless.

    • It is definitely an echo chamber for certain views. The staff have their views and agenda and if something is inconvenient monetarily or conflicts with their world view they censor it. If however you happen to be the same political persuasion as the staff at Twitter, I imagine it is useful enough for real-time monitoring of events to justify keeping an account.
  • "...social media users took two Twitter..."

    Did they give at least one back?

  • I can't help but to think why there isn't a decentralized social network yet; possibly built on top of peer-to-peer infrastructure. That way, people would not need to rely upon Facebook/Twitter/etc... being gracious enough to allow you to express your opinions.
    • The same reason that the first widely-used free messaging platform was Whatsapp, which at first was a simple XMPP knockoff that charged money, when technically superior and free systems existed for years: Popularity and low (not necessarily zero) cost are the only important factors in the success of a communication platform. If a communication platform isn't popular enough that you can communicate with most people then few will use it.

      Likewise, there are in fact decentralized social networks, used by a hand

    • Gnu Social, Diaspora?
  • Specifically, as to who, exactly, wrote:

    social media users took two Twitter

    There seems to be an extra 'w' in there, so either the submitter, the editor, or the guy at wherever the quote was taken from is, at best, semi-literate. I'm hoping it's the last, but the number of semi-literates all over makes it a tough call.

  • by Pseudonymous Powers ( 4097097 ) on Thursday June 02, 2016 @10:48AM (#52233221)

    Currently, according to the terms of service, parody accounts are acceptable as long as it’s clear that the account is intended to parody a person rather than attempt to trick Twitter users into believing it’s actually them.

    Putin's a genius. There's nothing DarthPutinKGB could say that's so outlandishly evil that the real Putin wouldn't say it, or actually do it. So there's no way to satisfy the Twitter terms of service, so the account has to be removed.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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