Video download link | md5sum f7809a345e8f8318dec06991dfe5b18d Social Control by Filtering Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: Twitter is an out-of-control censorship machine and it should be treated accordingly even by those who merely "read" or "follow" Twitter accounts; Twitter is a filter, not a news/media platform or even means of communication

TWO weeks ago I wondered aloud about ceasing to post anything in Twitter, in effect boycotting it. The upside was seen as lessening the threat of account ban (deletion of nearly a million tweets), but the downside was vacuum permitting propaganda to flourish unchallenged (e.g. lies about patents).

But yesterday it became more apparent that anything I ever wrote there (or got reposted there) can be used to sanction me, retroactively. Imagine things I said in 2009 which did "not age well"... or for that matter, imagine people showing or citing (without taking note of the date) old tweets of people bragging about meeting famous criminals, albeit only much later, well after the facts.

"The video above mentions just a subset of actions taken against me by Twitter, each for criticising one or some of IBM, FSFE/Gulag, Bill Gates, OSI/Microsoft, and dishonest critics of Wikileaks."Twitter is a horrible place to be. Not only due to government pressure; it's about money!

The video above mentions just a subset of actions taken against me by Twitter, each for criticising one or some of IBM, FSFE/Gulag, Bill Gates, OSI/Microsoft, and dishonest critics of Wikileaks. Twitter typically sides with the reporter and only by virtue of law (in Germany at least) they're compelled to inform me about the judgement, albeit there's no room for an appeal, no due process, and typically no transparency at all.

Half a decade ago Daniel Nazer (EFF before moving to Mozilla) said that Twitter was forcing him to remove a tweet or be denied access to his account. Such actions have since then been 'normalised' and we gave one such example suppressing truth-tellers about Microsoft managers [1, 2].

"The dangers associated with Twitter became apparent much later, e.g. clickbait, 'curated' timelines (for "engagement"), and surveillance capitalism; the censorship in Twitter got a lot worse and a lot more obvious around 2016 (I had hardly sensed it beforehand)."For the record, I never posted in Twitter directly. I started with Identi.ca, which sent copies to Twitter some time months later (after people had convinced me not to limit myself to Identi.ca) and since about 2010 I've done the same through JoinDiaspora (StatusNet was flailing).

The dangers associated with Twitter became apparent much later, e.g. clickbait, 'curated' timelines (for "engagement"), and surveillance capitalism; the censorship in Twitter got a lot worse and a lot more obvious around 2016 (I had hardly sensed it beforehand). I wrote a lot about it back then (in my personal site and Richard Stallman's personal site back then said: "Roy Schestowitz reports being censored ("shadowbanned") by Twitter for posting about Twitter censorship. This kind of censorship is not obvious to the one being censored."

We wrote a high number of posts (over a dozen in recent weeks alone) about the subject covered in the video above. The bottom line is, Twitter has become a lot like smoking, but many who are 'chain smokers' still aren't aware of the health implications (or are in deep denial about it). ⬆