The NPC meme controversy

[paleologos]

"Doubt"

Doubt all you want but I did ask:

...what do you mean by "people like me"?

And apparently you had no answer.

I disagree with you. This is not a case of Twitter removing accounts it has deemed as malicious, it is removing accounts it has proven to be fake.

You are welcome to disagree but you are also welcome to do a more diligent work reading my posts in this thread, or at least declare that you have not read them.
For example I have stated that I would like such decisions by Twitter or other social media to be transparent.
I don't know how they came to the conclusion that certain accounts were fake.
It wasn't transparent.

But let's assume it was also correct.
It's not enough to say that an account is "fake".
Twitter should also make known to all, who is behind each particular account, either a person, or an organization.
I mean the same trail of "digital footprints" that led them to believe that certain accounts were fake would also indicate who set said accounts up.
Then Twitter would have the opportunity to change the name of the account owner to reflect the name of the person or organization who set up this account.

And to be entirely honest, and I understand that this may read like splitting hair, I don't believe that any account can be fake inasmuch as an account represents the will to communication.
(The will to communication is real, even when someone lies.)
All there is instead is accounts under false name.
I consider Twitter liable to reveal which accounts are made under false names, disclose the real names and swap the false names with the real ones so that people would know.
Then they wouldn't need to suspend any of them.

I still think your opinion has clearly been swayed by misinformation, hence why you are following this censorship line of discussion on a matter of fake accounts being removed.

I don't just have an opinion, I argue the case of it and all who come here are invited to do the same.
Telling me that my opinion is wrong because in your opinion "I was swayed", is not a counter argument for my arguments.

I disagree. This sounds like a less coherent version of the Fox/Trump Administration argument that there isn't one truth, when there is.

You are responding to a part of my post where I did not argue there is no such thing as truth, or factual reality, as a matter of fact I do believe and acknowledge such things exist and never implied otherwise.
People can disagree on which aspects of reality are more influential in any given situation, ergo we can disagree on what is the issue with the latest Twitter action.
Also, the ability of different individuals' to manifest rationality in the way they process the information they receive varies widely.

This is what I meant and it ought to have been clear enough for you but either you don't understand what you are reading or this was a deliberate interjection of a strawman.
It is a problem when any one individual take it upon themselves to decide for the rest of us and without us what aspects of reality should concern us and what is the rational way to deal with those.
It is simply not possible for anyone to ever earn such authoritativeness.

I absolutely think the people we see emerging, who are too lazy, stupid or evil to look at facts and truths need to be derided.

I have not seen such people in the forums.
What I have seen is people who acknowledge that facts exist not in a vacuum but in a context and the ways any particular fact interacts with it's context are subject to interpretation.
We come to the forums to discuss and hopefully constructively syncretize our various interpretations.
I have also seen a different kind of people, those who believe that they are in a far better position than anybody else to understand what the facts are, the significance on any particular one fact and what is the best way to interpret them.
Such people usually don't bother to share the lights of their perceived wisdom with the rest of us "intellectual plebes" by means of arguments, they only come here to pontificate and tell us how superior they think they are.

[Abdülmecid I]

You are welcome to disagree but you are also welcome to do a more diligent work reading my posts in this thread, or at least declare that you have not read them.
For example I have stated that I would like such decisions by Twitter or other social media to be transparent.
I don't know how they came to the conclusion that certain accounts were fake.
It wasn't transparent.

That's your personal view about how twitter should its rules upon the membership and completely irrelevant to any accusations about social media unfairly persecuting right-wingers. As I explained previously, all these NPC accounts violated at least two of the rules (regarding abuse and sock-puppeting), despite the fact that they had agreed to respect them, when their accounts were firstly registered. Nowhere does twitter (a private business and not the corporate embodiment of socialism) promise to shield Donald's fandom from the real world or to waste its resources, in order to establish a transparent connection between the various alts, so any complaints coming from the banned 4chan trolls are not only baseless, but disingenuous. As I showed earlier, this is a typical case of far-right political correctness. Tribalists literally cry, because the rules were enforced fairly, without any special privileges given to them for the sake of their edgy ideology. Their outrage expresses their need for a safe space, where they can install an echo-chamber for their political dogma, completely isolated from any opposition, in the form of counter-arguments, Terms of Service or even simple criticism. The easiness with which this issue has been distorted to look like the exact opposite, left-wing political correctness, reveals the power of propaganda and logical fallacy, a domain where far-right digital activism traditionally excels.

[paleologos]

That's your personal view...

I never said otherwise.
It should go without saying that any single individual can only speak for himself/herself and no one else and that's what I'm doing.
Alas, it has to be said every time.

...about how twitter should its rules...

"Should" what "it's rules"?
The question I posit in the opening post is not whether Twitter has the legal right to deny service.
Of course they have that right because they are a corporate for-profit actor and they are endowed by the law of the USA with full rights of corporate person-hood.
(Whether the particular case law is right or not, is not the topic of this thread.)
Instead, the question I posited was "Was Twitter in the right to suspend said accounts?"
That's what we are discussing.

...completely irrelevant to any accusations about social media unfairly persecuting right-wingers.
As I explained previously, all these NPC accounts violated at least two of the rules (regarding abuse and sock-puppeting), despite the fact that they had agreed to respect them, when their accounts were firstly registered.

Suspending an account is hardly persecution.
I argued that if the Twitter people had tracked the digital footprint of the accounts to people who declared false names, it could notify them that their accounts would henceforth be attributed to the actual names.
The NPC meme is not really abusive, by any standard and the action I propose in the stead of suspending the accounts would effectively negate sockpuppeting:
Twitter would be spared the accusations of political bias, twitters of the NPC meme would keep their accounts and the leftist snowflakes would know who didn't have the guts to "troll" them under their own name.
That's a win for all and as always that's just my opinion but people are welcome to evaluate the argument.

Nowhere does twitter (a private business and not the corporate embodiment of socialism) promise to shield Donald's fandom from the real world...

Never argued otherwise.

...or to waste its resources, in order to establish a transparent connection between the various alts...

Once the resources have been spent to establish that an account is a false flag operation, the further resources needed to demonstrate just that, are negligible.

...so any complaints coming from the banned 4chan trolls are not only baseless, but disingenuous.

That is irrelevant and that's not an opinion: It is technically irrelevant.

In the propaganda and public relations wars it is a waste of resources for any side to try to proselytize the believers of the other side as they are already invested in that cause.
One may think it is fairly easy, or fairly difficult, to convince the naive and uninformed of a falsehood.
It is a immensely more difficult to convince the same people to admit that they have been fooled, once they have swallowed the first pill.

It is a far more efficient use of resources to try to tip over those sitting on the fence.
One of the ways to do that is to portray the other side in a bad color.
Twitter managed to be maneuvered into a position where it is lit by a bad color, at least from the point of view of the right wingers.

Elections in the USA are coming up and the GOP cannot hope to make any gains.
They are trying to cut their losses and there's a lot of people who voted GOP in the last elections but are now thinking they won't bother to go vote again.
In a way they are sitting (ducks) on a fence.

As I showed earlier, this is a typical case of far-right political correctness.

You may have argued it but I don't think you have shown it.

Tribalists literally cry, because the rules were enforced fairly, without any special privileges given to them for the sake of their edgy ideology. Their outrage expresses their need for a safe space, where they can install an echo-chamber for their political dogma, completely isolated from any opposition, in the form of counter-arguments, Terms of Service or even simple criticism.

I tend to perceive reality as something a lot more banal (and darker) than what you are describing.
I believe that if the controversial accounts were indeed a false flag operation, then the creators of those accounts have achieved the purpose of portraying the opposition as ideologically possessed and hell bent on curtailing the liberties of the "common folk".
This is happening across the board of issues, for example the Brett Kavanaugh controversy has allowed conservatives to address women with the slogan "this can happen to your sons/brothers/husbands" in reference to the smearing of one's reputation without evidence.
The implicit threat is made:
"If the Dems come to power, they will bring with them an extreme form of feminism and social warrior culture that will have people judged and convicted by mob rule, merely on the word of the accusers."
I couldn't possibly say that I believe this would happen but I must say that to certain cohorts among the American constituencies such caveats are easily made plausible.

The easiness with which this issue has been distorted to look like the exact opposite, left-wing political correctness, reveals the power of propaganda and logical fallacy, a domain where far-right digital activism traditionally excels.

That is exactly why I have taken the position I have taken:
In the propaganda and public relations wars, the very last thing you want is allow the opposition to look right to even one tenth of the people who are still sitting on the fence.

[removeduser_487563287433]

For example I have stated that I would like such decisions by Twitter or other social media to be transparent.
[/FONT]

This is why you need to do less talking, more reading:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/techn...=.297f3fa15652

This issue has been widely covered in the press, questioned in Congress, commented upon by Twitter. There's no conspiracy, I am sorry.

[Cyclops]

I really wasn't asking for an advice....

Sounded like you were. You were whining about "manginas" and "where is my power" and being told to shut up, and not being as strong as a cartoon character and its sad.

You can pretend its ironic but it sounded heartfelt. I can't really sympathise if you're pretending you're not whining, you've been dealt a winning hand in life and you choose to complain.

[paleologos]

This is why you need to do less talking, more reading:
This issue has been widely covered in the press, questioned in Congress, commented upon by Twitter.

This is not accessible to me.

There's no conspiracy, I am sorry.

I don't believe I have mentioned the word "conspiracy", nor did I imply I believe there is one.
Maybe you need to read my argumentation in my exchange with Abdülmecid I.
It's in post #163.

Sounded like you were.

I suppose you need to look this up so I am posting a link for your ease.
Read Rhetorical question.

You were whining about "manginas"...

That's taking a word out of context.
I am not impressed.

...and "where is my power" ...

With as much honesty as a grain of sand one would be able to respond to the arguments I have actually made and in the exact, in-context way I have worded them.
I know you can muster at least twice as much honesty.
Give it a try.

...and being told to shut up, and not being as strong as a cartoon character and its sad.

To which I gave an exhaustive response and got a pair of strawmen in return.

You can pretend its ironic but it sounded heartfelt.

No, what is ironic is that you pretend you don't understand that I found it ridiculous someone trying to win points in a game of impressions they were playing alone by using condescending language and passive aggressive shaming tactics.
If you bothered to read my posts and payed attention to my choice of words you would have figured out what works with me and what not.

I can't really sympathize...

Your sympathy is neither needed, nor wanted.
Some of us are here to join heads and others just to lock horns intellectually.
I'm the former but won't shy away from the latter.
People just don't come here looking for a dry shoulder.
Maybe you are posting in the wrong social media.

...if you're pretending you're not whining, you've been dealt a winning hand in life

"He who smelt it first, dealt it" is what they say and it seems it applies to braingasps as well as gutgasps.

...and you choose to complain.

I complain that you are posting in the wrong social media.

[removeduser_487563287433]

This is not accessible to me.

Like... you literally just have to google it. There's months of coverage.

[paleologos]

Yes I know, I did, it's in the first post, I started this thread.
Now, do I need to explain the story of Caesar's wife?

[removeduser_487563287433]

How are you reconciling the contradiction of your belief this is censorship, while claiming you know the reports that it is in fact a matter of removing fake accounts?

[paleologos]

How are you reconciling the contradiction of your belief this is censorship...

I have made 46 posts in this thread, including this one, I believe I can be forgiven for not remembering the exact post.
Please point me to the post of mine in which I am using the word "censorship", so that I can see the context in which that word is used.
Because the choice of words matters and the context matters just as much.

Also, if you had followed the conversation from the beginning you would know that my opinion is not carved in stone and I did not try to hide this.
You will see just how my opinion evolves.
Just don't expect to see any transfiguration, only refinement and lots of nuance.

...while claiming you know the reports that it is in fact a matter of removing fake accounts?

Leftist outlets give a very different account of the event that right-wing ones, so we can be sure that that this is a real controversy that strikes nerves on both ends of the political spectrum.

I posted the above on post #3, my second post in this thread.
If you kindly follow the debate from the beginning we will avoid lots of double posting.

[Cyclops]

...
That's taking a word out of context.
I am not impressed....

The context of you using the word mangina was you whining about being told to shut up. There's no context where you look strong with this. Harden up.

...Your sympathy is neither needed, nor wanted.
Some of us are here to join heads and others just to lock horns intellectually.....

You're here to complain about mean words. I made a post about paedophile porn addicts causing trouble and this prompted a flood of "rhetorical questions" from you, ending with this tear jerker.

...
I am a straight white male.
Should I apologize for being a straight white male?
How much apologizing is enough?

You were whining about the pain of being in the dominant category in our society in an off topic way in thread about a meme cobbled together by neckbeard child porn addicts. That's not putting heads together or locking horns intellectually, its whining. I'm not offering a dry shoulder, I'm suggesting you stop whining, don't apologise and show some self respect.

Getting back to the topic, do you think wannabe Nazi child porn addicts are in a position to comment in a meaningful way on the banality of mainstream beliefs?

[athanaric]

You were whining about the pain of being in the dominant category in our society

"Our society"? Is paleologos Australian?

[...] in an off topic way in thread about a meme cobbled together by neckbeard child porn addicts. That's not putting heads together or locking horns intellectually, its whining. I'm not offering a dry shoulder, I'm suggesting you stop whining, don't apologise and show some self respect.

Getting back to the topic, do you think wannabe Nazi child porn addicts are in a position to comment in a meaningful way on the banality of mainstream beliefs?

Your rhetoric is getting increasingly shrill. Sounds like someone is afraid. Or maybe just projecting?

[Himster]

do you think wannabe Nazi child porn addicts are in a position to comment in a meaningful way on the banality of mainstream beliefs?

The fact that you feel the need to obsessively libel them like that and the fact that they predicted exactly how society would react and the level of their sense of irony and humour suggests that yes, they do have a poignant message and have delivered it with impeccable timing.

[paleologos]

The context of you using the word mangina was you whining about being told to shut up.

No, the context is in a quotation of what I posted, find that and read it again.

There's no context where you look strong with this. Harden up.

Respond to the arguments I make.
The rest is cheap ad hominem remarks.

You're here to complain about mean words.

Quote my post.

I made a post about paedophile porn addicts causing trouble and this prompted a flood of "rhetorical questions" from you, ending with this tear jerker.

We are not discussing pedophilia in this thread and I don't know what you mean by "tear jerker".

I am a straight white male.
Should I apologize for being a straight white male?
How much apologizing is enough?

That was an attempt to show how the kind of people who would vote for Trump are persuaded to vote for Trump.
If you employ identitarianism to get out the women's vote you run the risk of alienating a bunch of people.
Identitarianism cuts both ways and someone like Trump does not become the first-in-order elected official in the most powerful country of the world by accident.
It's because cultural marxists managed to made him look like the lesser of two evils to almost half the voters.

That goes a long way to show how toxic identitarianism has become.
And still you insist.
Trump's ascendancy is not an aberration, it is a construct of our time and the factors that caused it are at work in your country as well.
When it happens to Australia, blame yourself for it because nobody owes it to you to vote in a "politically correct" way.

You were whining...

Your repetition of the word "whining" is a cheap attempt to cast me in a bad light and shame me for something others may think about me.
It is adding nothing to the debate, the purpose of it is to derail the debate.
You are avoiding the topic.

...about the pain of being in the dominant category in our society...

About dominant categories:
There is no such thing in western societies, all are equal before the law.
I dominate no one.
You dominate no one.
You are not dominated.

The repetition of that claim by professional SJW is an attempt achieve two things:

First, to shame people into behaving as if they owe something.
Really man, even if that was the case, when is the debt payed off? - SJWs have no good answer to this question.
How much affirmative action does it take for the weaklings to be "equalized"? - SJWs have no good answer to this question.
When a society achieve the golden standards of egalitarianism in treatment, freedom of choice and availability of opportunities but different groups still achieve different outcomes, why is that not proof of different choices? - SJWs have no good answer to this question.

Second, to justify the failure of the policies SJWs have advocated over the years to achieve the promised results.
I believe that individuals are unique and when they are free, they make unique choices and achieve unique outcomes.
It is impossible to -even attempt- homogenize the outcomes of different individuals in a society without oppressing them.
And you just can't oppress people in a truly free society.

...in an off topic way...

Adding nuance is almost never off topic.
The nuance I was attempting to add was the alienation certain people experience when they are told that they are dominant when they are not.
Then again some people are immune to nuance.

...in thread about a meme...

One just can't be that naive.
This thread is not about the meme itself, it is about the way different actors reacted to the meme and how the reaction of certain actors reinforced the causes that led to the meme's creation.

...cobbled together by neckbeard child porn addicts.

I don't know such people, do you?

That's not putting heads together or locking horns intellectually, its whining.

If you believe that then don't bother coming back here to post.

I'm not offering a dry shoulder...

Don't pretend that I asked for one.
Like when you implied that I wanted sympathy.

...I'm suggesting you stop whining, don't apologize and show some self respect.

I guess that's what a red herring looks like.

Getting back to the topic, do you think wannabe Nazi child porn addicts are in a position to comment in a meaningful way on the banality of mainstream beliefs?

Where did you find these people?
But let me explain -or mansplain if you prefer- that the topic is not about whether a meme was "a meaningful comment on the banality of mainstream beliefs".
The topict is about whether and how some of the reactions to the meme reinforce the causes of it.

...
Your rhetoric is getting increasingly shrill. Sounds like someone is afraid. Or maybe just projecting?

Naaah... That's what happens when underhanded manipulation efforts fail to produce the predicted results such as either escalation of the tone to the level that one breaks the ToS, or shaming the other person into submission.

[Pontifex Maximus]

It's hard to believe this is a response to a post arguing that introducing gun control is justified based on the data supporting the suggestion that it would reduce firearms violence. But this is what vulnerably minded people are being trained to respond to... not to the argument, but with the brainwashed belief that everything is "us versus them". What relevance does antifa have to the argument of gun control? None, of course. But domestic and foreign forces are waging an evergreen campaign to train this man to respond partisanly without considering the truth, or the argument. It is training an army of hostile agents to democracy and civility without them being aware of it.

Right. Orange man bad, you provide no evidence, your constitutional analysis is a sum of zero, you have absolutely no intellectual basis for your incredibly awful arguments. Sadly this is now just routine from the left. There is no actual argument here, just simplistic arguments "guns bad" "orange man bad" and a total disregard for legal realities. Honestly it is boring to debunk these emotionally based arguments that lack any sort of factual backbone.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Right. Orange man bad, you provide no evidence, your constitutional analysis is a sum of zero, you have absolutely no intellectual basis for your incredibly awful arguments. Sadly this is now just routine from the left. There is no actual argument here, just simplistic arguments "guns bad" "orange man bad" and a total disregard for legal realities. Honestly it is boring to debunk these emotionally based arguments that lack any sort of factual backbone.

See? He goes straight for it, his argument isn't anything to do with the topic, but 100% an attack on the perceived left. Totally brainwashed at this point.

[Cyclops]

...If you believe that then don't bother coming back here to post......

You commenced this exchange with a very weak OT post, I'm trying to get you back on track here.

I posted about neckbeard paedophiles making memes, you responded with a whining OT complaint about people dismissing your arguments and calling you a mangina. I reassured you the you shouldn't apologise, and offered relevant advice albeit to your OT points.

Later you claim your questions where rhetorical, does that mean you did not mean them? Or that you agree they were silly? Rhetoric is essentially the art of persuasion, although it has a secondary sense of superfluous almost meaningless language. Given you failed to persuade me did you intend the second sense?

I have responded to your flabby rhetoric as sincerely as I can, you have responded with images, not sure where the ToS stands on that. I am happy to respond in good faith to questions asked in good faith but this argument seems to be spiralling into self referential irrelevance.

Getting back to the topic, do you think people who frequent a board that is infamous as a hotbed of paedophile image sharing should be taken seriously when they offer social commentary?

[paleologos]

You commenced this exchange with a very weak OT post, I'm trying to get you back on track here.

I posted about neckbeard paedophiles making memes, you responded with a whining OT complaint about people dismissing your arguments and calling you a mangina. I reassured you the you shouldn't apologise, and offered relevant advice albeit to your OT points.

Later you claim your questions where rhetorical, does that mean you did not mean them? Or that you agree they were silly? Rhetoric is essentially the art of persuasion, although it has a secondary sense of superfluous almost meaningless language. Given you failed to persuade me did you intend the second sense?

I have responded to your flabby rhetoric as sincerely as I can, you have responded with images, not sure where the ToS stands on that. I am happy to respond in good faith to questions asked in good faith but this argument seems to be spiralling into self referential irrelevance.

This is what a communications breakdown looks like when it is deliberate.
With every word you type, you misrepresent my positions because you cannot refute them without punching a hole in your precious ideology.
But this is what happens with people who built their sense of identity and self image around virtue signalling.
(You see, two and more can play this game, athanaric and Himster also made good points but you chose to ignore them.)

Getting back to the topic, do you think people who frequent a board that is infamous as a hotbed of paedophile image sharing should be taken seriously when they offer social commentary?

That is not the topic and you already know the answer but I will indulge the question.
Arguments ought to be examined on their own merit, acknowledged for the merit they have and countered for the merit they lack, regardless of what I think of the person who makes them.
I mean, look at what I'm doing, debating you for a few days now.

[Cyclops]

....
Arguments ought to be examined on their own merit, acknowledged for the merit they have and countered for the merit they lack, regardless of what I think of the person who makes them.

I agree.

In the case of a site renowned for its paedophile culture, as well as bigotry and racism, I'd say a meme accusing the majority of people as functioning as scripted bots is vaguely amusing but contains no larger message than "most people are stupid, even people who think they are smart". I know its true of myself, and I'm pretty sure the vast majority on 4chan .

I don't think they are behaving like fascists by doing so, they're just blowing smoke up their own arses, "we get it, we are Player 1, the others are just environmental artefacts".

This sort of arrogance is found in many ideologies "non-Christians can't see the truth in the Scripture" "class traitors have been fooled by capitalists" "only the rulers of the Republic should be allowed to lie" "women are too emotional to think logically" "testosterone causes a toxic reaction in men's reptilian midbrains".

The shading over into the golem version of the meme does show how rank with wannabe Nazi scum 4Chan is. Its a pretty scummy place.

....I mean, look at what I'm doing, debating you for a few days now.

...and now you're doing it without rhetoric or images.

[Heathen Hammer]

As Himster pointed it out, the fact that you have to keep making rather childish accusations(straight out of mid-2000s FOX news special about dangers of "Internet trolling") about them just shows that maybe they just hit the right spot with that NPC meme? It all comes down to people who reacted same as you did is exactly what this meme predicted. I'm rather glad your posts serves as an excellent illustration to how excellently does this meme describe the way people that let mainstream media think for themselves.