This is a very strange way to describe what's going on at Twitter.
Musk has loudly announced that you're not allowed to even link to your other profiles on any other social media sites, or even describe indirectly how to find them. No major social media site has ever done something quite this anticompetitive, and certainly not all this scale. I've been using the Internet since the Eternal September, and this is a ludicrous policy.
Except in the sense that the speech being controlled is "X social media platform is better", I don't think it is.
Let me be clear that I think Twitter's new social media sharing policy is ridiculous and likely to cause a Streisand effect for Mastodon and others. Twitter is really harming itself with these policies more than anything else, but time will tell whether they see their own errors and grow up in time to save themselves.
Having said that, what other forms of free speech are being prohibited? I haven't read too deeply into the situation around the ElonJet and related account suspensions, but the justifications they've made were related to individual safety regarding real time location sharing of people in the course of their private lives, one case of which led to someone attempting to attack a person based on their shared location.
I think it's clear that there is some justification for prohibiting public location sharing for controversial figures during the course of their private lives, as it holds little value in terms of expressing oneself freely. Meanwhile, the previous suspensions tended toward expressions which were far less likely to lead to physical harm.
You have misunderstood what Elon and I are referring to by 'ban evasion'.
You may disagree with the policy of banning the promotion of alternative social platforms, but that is the rule. Trying to break that rule while not getting banned is blatantly ban evasion.
That's not what ban evasion means. Ban evasion is the attempt to circumvent an existing ban or suspension. Posting content that does not benefit Twitter, without violating Twitter's rules, is not ban evasion.
You're mistaken about the situation. PG did violate Twitter's rules (although I believe Elon has since had a change-of-heart about the rule he broke). Specifically, its rules on the promotion of alternative social platforms policy. You can find these rules on Twitter's page on Rules and Policies[0].
This is not the usual use of the phrase "ban evasion", but it is a literally correct use of it.
Your redefinition of the phrase "ban evasion" would implicate anyone who follows the platform's rules but is not wholly devoted to the interests of the platform's owners.
Sure (please note that this is a quotation from the policy as it was when PG was suspended, and that the policy has since been changed):
> At both the Tweet level and the account level, we will remove any free promotion of prohibited 3rd-party social media platforms, such as linking out (i.e. using URLs) to any of the below platforms on Twitter, or providing your handle without a URL:
As you are aware, the formerly suspended account did not link out to Mastodon or directly name any Mastodon handle. The tweet that led to the suspension was also compliant with how the CEO claimed the policy should have been interpreted:
> Casually sharing occasional links is fine, but no more relentless advertising of competitors for free, which is absurd in the extreme.
Whether that rule has since been deleted is of course interesting, but it is not directly relevant to my point, which is that PG did violate Twitter's rules (but, to be clear, the rule was indeed deleted).
Yes, I am aware that PG did not provide a hyperlink. In fact, that's the core of my claim about PG attempting to violate Twitter's rules while evading a ban (the kind of action which Elon and I have referred to as 'ban evasion').
I believe you have misinterpreted Elon's Tweet. But I'm not interested in debating the interpretation of the poorly written Tweet. What is clear is that it was known that linking to Mastodon accounts was not allowed on Twitter, which is why PG, attempting to evade a ban, did not provide such a link.
> What is clear is that it was known that linking to Mastodon accounts was not allowed on Twitter, which is why PG, attempting to evade a ban, did not provide such a link.
The user avoided posting the link so that he would be compliant with the rules as the CEO interpreted them. Your expectation is for the user to avoid posting any content that runs against Twitter's financial interest, even if that content is compliant with the rules. That is not a reasonable expectation, and the unreasonableness of this expectation caused the backlash that led to the account being unsuspended.
> The user avoided posting the link so that he would be compliant with the rules as the CEO initially interpreted them
Where did Elon interpret the rule as being that users can advertise prohibited 3rd-party social media platforms as long as they don't provide a hyperlink?
> Your expectation is for the user to avoid posting any content that runs against Twitter's financial interest, even if that content is compliant with the rules.
Why are you talking about my expectations? What I am doing here is pointing out that PG clearly violated Twitter's rules. My claim is a descriptive claim, not a normative one.
The CEO's statement (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604593057676300288) interpreted the deleted policy to mean that occasionally sharing links to other social media platforms is "fine". The suspended account's tweet did not even include a link to Mastodon, it only mentioned that a Mastodon account exists without directly naming the handle. Because the tweet did even less than what the CEO claimed was "fine", the suspension was unjustified.
You are inventing a completely different definition of "ban evasion" that has not been used in any Twitter policy page to try to justify the suspension, even after the suspension has been reversed for its unreasonableness.
If you read carefully the thread you linked you will see that Elon affirmed the following statement:
> You just can’t create or turn (my emphasis) your account into a free advertising unit for one of the listed competing platforms.
This is what PG was doing (you can argue that he actually wasn't - but he was according to Elon's standards, which is the important sense). One Tweet buried deep in a thread that could possibly be misinterpreted to support your position is not convincing.
I am not "inventing a new definition of ban evasion". I am using simple English words in a straight-forward way.
> I am using simple English words in a straight-forward way.
No, you are taking a phrase that already has a defined meaning in the context of Twitter and making up a new definition for it to attempt to justify the suspension. As Twitter has already defined it, "ban evasion" is the circumvention of an existing ban or suspension. It is not something that can be done by an account that is not already suspended or banned.
I have no idea why you are continuing to defend this unjustifiable suspension even after Twitter has already reversed it. The fact that your initial comment is flagged, downvoted, and hidden (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34044649) shows that your argument has been firmly rejected on HN.
Whether you like my use of the words 'ban' and 'evasion' ultimately isn't super relevant to my point.
I'm not 'defending' Twitter's actions. I'm interpreting reality. I'm discussing a matter of fact. The question is: did PG break Twitter's rules? The answer: yes. You may dislike Elon Musk. You may dislike me. You may dislike Twitter's (now deleted) rule. But this basic factual claim will remain correct.
HN has an infinite track record of being very wrong. I take my comment being flagged as a much greater endorsement of it than had it been "upvoted". You can find countless HN users in this thread getting the basic facts of the situation wrong (yourself included). And it's not just that these are ignorant people searching for the truth. These are not enquiring minds. Any amount of sincere reflection would have revealed the truth. These are people actively claiming clear untruths as the truth. Why should I care about being downvoted, if these are the people downvoting me? Any time I am upvoted I should take it only as a sign to take a step back and think: "have I made some kind of blatant logical error?"
- The tweet is not similar to any of the examples provided in the deleted policy (“follow me @username on Instagram”, “username@mastodon.social”, “check out my profile on Facebook - facebook.com/username”).
- The tweet did not bypass restrictions on external links via means such as URL cloaking or plaintext obfuscation, with the example provided being “instagram dot com/username”.
Even though the account did not break Twitter's rules, you believe that it should have broken Twitter's rules because the tweet said something that hurts Twitter's business prospects. This is what you are erroneously using the phrase "ban evasion" to describe, even though Twitter's policy on ban evasion (https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/ban-evasion) defines it as something done only by accounts that were previously banned or suspended.
HN does have it right this time. HN users are fully capable of seeing that the novel definition of "ban evasion" you invented specifically for your argument does not match the definition used in https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/ban-evasion.
Using a hyperlink is not neccessary to break the rule. Naming a Mastodon account (or any account) is not neccesary to break the rule. Breaking the rule in the same way that it was broken in the examples given is not neccesary to break the rule. Elon stated in various places that attempts such as PG's to break the rule (which is about the promotion of prohibited social media) without getting banned would not be tolerated. In one instance he referred to such an attempt as 'ban evasion' (this was in a Twitter space, I'll find it when I'm back at my PC).
Elon's phrase "casual sharing" is not inclusive of PG apparently denouncing Twitter and promoting his Mastodon account in its place. PG's Tweet was anything but casual. If PG had linked to some post he found interesting that happened to be on Mastadon, that might qualify as casual.
I never claimed that my use of the phrase 'ban evasion' matched the use in the Twitter user agreement. HN and I are in agreement on that count (as I have stated elsewhere in this thread).
Frankly, you have bad reading comprehension, most likely due to motivated interpretation i.e. you tend to see what you want to be there rather than what is actually there.
> Elon stated in various places that attempts such as PG's to break the rule (which is about the promotion of prohibited social media) without getting banned would not be tolerated.
The expectation is that you either break the rule and get suspended, or you don't break the rule and don't get suspended. This acccount didn't break the rule (or the ban evasion policy) as it was written but still got suspended because Twitter still deemed the tweet to be against its interests, even though Twitter didn't bother to codify this in the rule. Twitter can suspend any account on its platform for any reason it wants, of course, but the resulting backlash led to the account being unsuspended.
If a person can read he should be able to see that PG's Tweet broke the rule. There's nothing too complicated about it - the rule clearly stated that X was not allowed, and PG did X.
You seem like someone who can read, so the charatable interpretation is that there is some kind of mental block that's stopping you from seeing the clear truth.
If you want to stop talking, OK. Either way I hope you have a merry Christmas.
The TOS says any accounts that primarily focus on promotion of competitors will be banned, which, hm, but anyways. I think it’s obvious PG’s account was not primarily focused on links to other socials, so on to the next condition.
The TOS also says any accounts which post a direct link to such sites will be found in violation.
It does not say anything about purely mentioning the fact you have another social media (especially without saying the username), nor linking to a personal website, nor does it say anything about referring to where to find such a thing
Not really; it’s the same. You can’t release products that compete with apple, ala an App Store, or games store, etc. It took a lawsuit to change that for Europe, but we still have yet to see what that looks like.
I think the Apple rule they're referring to is that if you have an in-app transaction, you're not allowed to reference the fact that the transaction can be made off-app (which would avoid Apple's 30% cut). It's not quite the same, but similarly draconian in that it restricts what you're allowed to say (as opposed to what you're allowed to link to).
That’s one part of it, also if you sell say ebooks or MP3s, you can’t sell them in-app, but also you can’t even provide a link in-app to buy them using the mobile browser.
I don’t want to derail this conversation with App Store policies, but the notion of policing links isn’t great, especially for a social network.
Not only that. There are a lot of things you can't say on the App Store. Pretty much anything critical of App Store policies or mentioning alternative platforms as text in your app (rather than user generated content) is likely to get you the boot.
Calling this a "blatant attempt at ban evasion" is uncharitable. What he wrote was, at most, arguably against the spirit of the rule. This is not even to speak of whether the rule is reasonable, or even just consistent with Elon's stated values.
Have I been advocating following Twitter's rules? No. I've simply been explaining what those rules were (they have since been reverted) and how PG broke them.
Even worse, does it apply any ethical principles to the decision making around the limits of freedom of speech? I.e. when you're weighing up whether, say, incitement of violence, or Nazi support are beyond the line of what is acceptable, do you also place 'promoting alternative social media technology' as somewhere near these limits of freedom of speech?
Actually, Elon just had paul's account unsuspended. Regardless of the reasoning, it makes much of your argumentation moot (irrelevant) because it's clear you don't understand Twitter or Musk's reasoning (nor does Musk).
> At both the Tweet level and the account level, we will remove any free promotion of prohibited 3rd-party social media platforms, such as linking out (i.e. using URLs) to any of the below platforms on Twitter, or providing your handle without a URL:
Note that Twitter's TOS are only one of the three components of the Twitter User Agreement. There are also the Twitter Rules and Policies. This is what Twitter's Rules and Policies page says:
> At both the Tweet level and the account level, we will remove any free promotion of prohibited 3rd-party social media platforms, such as linking out (i.e. using URLs) to any of the below platforms on Twitter, or providing your handle without a URL:
Elon has made it clear that these blatant attempts at ban evasion are not allowed.