It's strange to see a company that once prided itself on active engagement with its users to find product-market fit antagonize its content creators so much. And as a user, it gives me the perception that the platform is just plainly unfair. (Plus the platform is unusable without Adblock).
Top streamers have been banned or lost partnerships for playing their own music[0], stating controversial political opinions[1][2], getting trolled by users who "snipe" streamers and shout vulgarities, or just accidentally showing movie clips with nudity [3]. From what I gather, the ban appeal process is byzantine and is heavily biased towards inaction. Oftentimes appeals are never even considered, or partnership staff plainly doesn't respond.
The upsetting part is Twitch is such a great platform technology wise, and its competitors can't seem to recreate the same magic. I guess we're stuck with lousy moderation until the streaming fad dies down.
First link: DMCA problems, this is super common but Twitch is reacting to a very poorly written law.
Second link: Someone got in trouble for saying "America Deserved 9/11" which is a bit beyond a controversial political opinion.
Third link: Person advocated that people start shooting protestors, a literal call for violence once again beyond a controversial political opinion.
Fourth Link: Played a game (not a movie) that included nudity. Twitch has pretty clear policy on that and while it wasn't intentional on the streamers part, not allowing nudity is a pretty standard thing.
None of your links back up the idea that Twitch is cracking down on free speech.
> Fourth Link: Played a game (not a movie) that included nudity. Twitch has pretty clear policy on that and while it wasn't intentional on the streamers part, not allowing nudity is a pretty standard thing.
From the link:
>> According to Twitch rules, nudity and sexual content are allowed if they are originally part of the game, but not if the game is modded to include sexually explicit material.
>> In this case, the original Blade Runner game has been modified to add some elements from Blade Runner 2049, including the famous hologram girl scene.
You could call that a "clear" policy, but it's also self-evidently insane. The problem isn't that there was nudity. The problem is that someone modified the game. Of course, that's also allowed.
So the problem is here you'll never be able to write the rule in a way that won't apply arbitrarily at least some of the time. Looking at that rule I'm guessing they wanted to disallow sex and nudity mods in games, which is pretty reasonable.
It's easy to say that Twitch should be more flexible with these things, distinguishing something like this example from a more pornographic mod, but putting more power in the hands of the individuals applying the rules will make things feel more arbitrary not less since different moderators will have different standards for when something goes too far. If you want there to be a clear rule so people know what they can or cannot do, then that means it's going to come off as overly ruthless in situations like this.
I think part of the problem is how inconsistent twitch is. eg some people have been banned for accidentally showing nudity in movies/games/websites. Whereas other people who stripped naked on twitch to advertise their OnlyFans account just get 72 hour suspensions
> Someone got in trouble for saying "America Deserved 9/11" which is a bit beyond a controversial political opinion.
Why do you say that? I would definitely file that under controversial political opinion. That opinion isn't calling for another one, or saying that the individuals killed deserved it.
Especially because he's saying it out of disappointment, not anger.
It's a difficult point, because it's very hard to say that without basically implying the people deserved to die. I disagree that it's not saying that.
"The perpetrators' motives were rational, based on America's policies and actions" is one thing (which I happen to agree with), but anytime you start indirectly justifying civilian massacres, it's a slippery slope. "America" isn't just the government but also the set of people living in the country.
Did Japan deserve the nuclear bombings, and did post-defeat Germany deserve ransacking and worse? On one hand, of course the leadership deserved severe reprisal, and their governments and forces did even worse things when taken in total, but if you're a person on the ground seeing civilians brutalized and killed, "desert" becomes a much more flawed notion.
An example for watchers of Attack on Titan, without spoiling anything: did [X] deserve [Y]?
So, I probably agree with that Twitch streamer's sentiment, but I disagree with the way they said it and I understand why Twitch suspended them.
I never said this is a free speech issue; Twitch is a private platform so they can do whatever they please. My concern is that the quality of the platform is going downhill because Twitch's response to everything is the ban button. For repeat offenders, I understand banning, but as far as I know, they don't even have a warning system in place. (Their ban policies are also wildly inconsistent when it comes to ban lengths).
In my view, this just leads to overall lower quality content on the platform. Creators can't risk or innovate because their entire livelihoods at are at the whim of a temperamental moderator.
I dunno, if someone is calling for their political enemies to be shot, I don’t think they deserve a warning. That is so clearly beyond the acceptable pale that one shouldn’t need a warning that such behavior is unacceptable. To pretend otherwise is to infantilise streamers and pretend that they’re utterly incapable of telling right from wrong.
To be clear, the controversial political opinions you believe should be platformed by Twitch are:
"If that means white redneck militia dudes mowing down dipshit protesters that think they can torch buildings at 10 PM, at this point they have my fucking blessing."
and
"America Deserved 9/11"?
Because those are the literal quotes from things that got people pulled from Twitch and you've labelled "controversial political opinions." I'm sorry, but suggesting that we unilaterally kill innocent people or that innocent people deserved to be killed by terrorists is absolutely beyond the pale and should result in consequences like losing partnerships or facing suspensions.
I'm old enough to remember when "gay people are all pedophiles" was the mainstream position given by the New York Times. It was utterly unacceptable to endorse such perverts.
I'm not so old to remember the arguments about how women are too emotional to be allowed to vote, or the ones about black people, but it was pretty unacceptable to come out in defense of either of those groups either.
Why in the world would I believe censorship is only going to squash the sort of stuff you list, when there's such a long history of it being used to oppress anyone who thinks they deserve the same rights as the rest of us?
Are we going to ban any pro-abortion discussions, because "suggesting we kill innocent people" is absolutely beyond the pale? Do you really think there aren't millions of people in the US drooling at that sort of censorship opportunity?
I think you are correct in that these tools will undoubtedly be used against progressive folks and minorities, as that's historically where they've been used.
I believe that Twitch has too much power/authority, but also I believe that it's reasonable to moderate speech in communities and platforms.
That said, I believe there's a material difference between examples and what was shared in the parent comment. I don't think one can generalize from "speech calling for violence should be removed from Twitch" to "all unpopular opinions will be suppressed". Yes, it was unpopular (and career limiting) to stand up for LGTBQ+ folks, and those voices rarely got mainstream airtime. Suppressing those voices was wrong, but totally different than prohibiting endorsements of mass violence.
I believe we, culturally, can evaluate the difference between "I think gay folks should have equal rights" and "America deserved 9/11" and understand why we should be open to the former and cautious about the latter.
Both "I think gay folks should have equal rights" and "America deserved 9/11" are fundamentally statements about ethics, and neither is calling for violence.
The second statement though, was a blatant call to violence (if white redneck militia dudes...), and the author did not get banned from twitch, instead they were simply limited in their monetization options.
But "America deserved 9/11" was an ethical statement, you're right.
I watched the stream live, and instantly unsubscribed from Destiny's youtube channel.
Saying that you feel like the situation allows for lethal violence to be used and that you would bless it is certainly, without a doubt, inciting violence.
No, the second statement isn’t a call to violence.
> "If that means white redneck militia dudes mowing down dipshit protesters that think they can torch buildings at 10 PM, at this point they have my fucking blessing."
This is clearly not a call to violence: it’s an approval of people intervening in serial arson, even if that means using force against the arsonists and lamenting that the state has failed to stop the serial arson, so it may fall to a militia. You can tell that by “if [...], at this point they have my fucking blessing” rather than any call to action.
Approving of militias using force to stop serial arsonists when the state has failed to keep the peace is an ethical statement — and one much tamer than “America deserved 9/11”. Most people believe that people have the right to protect themselves when the state fails to maintain peace.
I suspect you’re being uncharitable because you personally support the arsonists’ crime spree.
What specific violent act do you believe that quote calls for?
Sure we do — when society breaks down and the police can no longer maintain peace. As happened in a number of US cities this past year, when police were helpless in the face of Democrat-endorsed arsonists. Apparently, the speaker was from one of these cities that suffered from frequent, organized arson.
Regardless, we’re clearly having an ethical argument: there’s no call to violence.
> "mowing down dipshit protesters"
Your example is clearly not a call to action, it’s an example of an act the speaker would approve of if it happened — which is an ethical statement.
The speaker is not saying people should or asking people to mow down protestors: just that they’re okay with militias shooting arson gangs if that’s what’s required to stop their serial arson attacks.
> it’s an example of an act the speaker would approve of if it happened
Oh, will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest!
I've probably engaged way past where I should, as you aren't here to discuss calmly and rationally, but what you describe is an extremely common rhetorical technique. The streamer all but said, "will no one rid me off these meddlesome protestors?"
> The streamer all but said, "will no one rid me off these meddlesome protestors?"
On the contrary, they made a clearly ethical statement you’re trying to misportray, in a way which defames the speaker.
You say “calmly and rationally”: I’ve talked about the structure of the comment and the societal breakdown/violence in which it occurred — have you?
I think understanding the violence the speaker experienced from serial arsonists is important to understanding why they’d give an exasperated endorsement of violence to resolve the situation.
> The streamer all but said, "will no one rid me off these meddlesome protestors?"
No, they didn’t — you’re just emotionally and irrationally misinterpreting them.
Since you want to talk about rhetorical techniques: defaming people with false accusations is much more common than veiled orders.
"Mowing down" doesn't mean anything except mass murder, generally using fully automatic firearms. We both know this.
This is Destiny saying that if it takes someone committing mass murder to stop property damage, it is justified. There's no two ways about it.
Whether it is tamer or not than "America deserved 9/11" is a matter of opinion, I won't pronounce myself on it but I totally understand that opinion. It is categorically true that while "America deserved 9/11" is a statement of ethics, saying that you personally bless mass murder to prevent property destruction is incitement of violence.
Saying “America deserved 9/11” and “I’m okay with arsonists being killed by militias when the police can no longer maintain the peace” are both moral statements about mass casualty events — but neither is a call to commit a violent act.
> “if it takes someone committing mass murder to stop [serial arsonist gangs, when the police fail to stop them], it is justified”
This is clearly a statement of personal ethics — it’s discussing the cases in which the speaker believes violence is just, not calling for specific acts of violence.
I believe that you censoring in support of defamation (knowingly false claims an ethical statement is incitement) may incur liability for HN. Incitement has a specific legal meaning (which this is not).
You seem to be directly supporting defamation on your platform, as an administrator.
There have been multiple calls for violence against the police and against ICE coming from the left. Hacker News played a role in disclosing the home addresses of ICE employees shortly before a sniper shot through the windows of one of the locations at the address. Go read the stuff the John Brown Gun club is putting out.
These sorts of arguments always fall a bit flat with me for one simple reason: They assume a false causality. Our forbearance doesn't force others to reciprocate. If we try to stop people from encouraging the mass murder of protesters, sure, some people will look for ways to censor other ideas that I support. But if we don't oppose pro-murder propaganda, those people will still look for ways to censor ideas I support. When homophobia was the mainstream opinion, gay perspectives were commonly censored (in the sense we're talking about here of "powerful private parties not wanting to associate with them"). It seems pretty unrealistic to expect reciprocal generosity from someone who thinks protesters should be killed in the street, so I don't see how an argument based on ideas of "What if they did it to you?" could be persuasive.
> But if we don't oppose pro-murder propaganda, those people will still look for ways to censor ideas I support.
I can expand on this if you're really curious. The short version is that I don't think it's realistic to expect reciprocal generosity from a party that clearly has a double standard about what is and isn't censorship. But on the other hand, we can make a choice not to literally hand that party ammunition for their arguments.
We know that laws around censorship are disproportionately targeted at minority/oppressed communities. We have over 100 years of history demonstrating that fact, from the draft protests, to McCarthyism, to the mass-deplatforming and threatening of the LGBTQ+ community, to moral panics about satan worshiping and sex in mainstream media. We also know the arguments that those people use to try and further their agendas.
They will still use those arguments even if we have Free Speech principles. The difference is that neutral observers will be able to tell that they're being hypocritical. The difference is that they'll have fewer laws on the books that they can quickly repurpose to their agenda.
When you know what someone's strategy is to attack you, when you know how Republicans are going to try and disrupt protests and attack critics, you don't play into that strategy. You try to set up an environment that is hostile to their talking points. That's how Free Speech advocacy responds to bigots -- it tries to make a general social environment where, for example, the recent Florida laws trying to shut down protests look unusual and bad and repressive even to casual observers who haven't researched the issues.
We don't expect racists and homophobes to play fair, that's why we're building a set of laws and social standards that make it harder for them to argue that it's OK to pull funding from schools that teach critical race theory. These people are better at censoring than you are; if you let them set all of the rules of engagement, then they will win.
----
The opposite is also true. Free Speech and Free Association are more helpful to progressive organizations than they are to regressive movements, because most of the time regressive movements are trying to shut down conversation and to stop social evolution. You can see this happening with critical race theory, you can see this happening with BLM protests, you can see it pop up with recent efforts to restrict counseling and support structures for LGBTQ+ youth. You can even see it with how much Conservatives have freaked out over company statements on voting rights and business decisions not to work with states that pass regressive laws. Regressive movements talk a big game about Free Speech, but so much of their ideology depends on nobody questioning the status quo of how we think about race, gender, and inequality, and on punishing and ostracizing anyone in their communities that listens to critics or evolves their views over time.
Sure, they'll use Free Speech to try and argue against Freedom of Association or to claim that they're being oppressed because a football player had the "audacity" to talk about race in a public setting, but they're not particularly good at that kind of rhetoric. The arguments are ultimately unpersuasive and it's relatively easy to point out how they're being hypocritical. So by creating an environment that is Free Speech friendly, not only do we make their ideas about oppression less persuasive and harder to implement -- we also play to our strengths. We create an environment where it is easier to educate people about issues like trans liberation and to showcase the radical inequalities that exist in America. I don't think it's an accident that LGBTQ+ rights have progressed faster than other historical pushes for equality in an environment where it's easier than ever before to share information about people's day-to-day struggles and experiences. So much of regressive ideology relies on people being able to block out progressive movements and to filter/mischaracterize what progressive movements say.
----
So long story short, TLDR regressive/bigoted movements do abuse Free Speech to defend themselves, but it's mostly rhetoric. They are more reliant on censorship than on a free flow of information to further their goals. To the extent that they really care about Free Speech, they're mostly just arguing to get rid of Freedom of Association and to force people to stop criticizing them or kicking them out of privately owned spaces.
So when we build societies that are resistant to censorship, we're not saying that those people will play along and respect our rules. And we do accept that on the tail-end of certain movements (esp conspiracy theories), Free Speech does genuinely make our job harder. But what we're trying to do is to create a battlefield for progressivism that (overall) plays to our strengths and exploits their weaknesses.
By the same argument, you'd cheat and steal from literally anyone you could get away with cheating and stealing from. Because not doing it to them doesn't stop them from doing it to you.
But this isn't really how it works. Forebearance actually does have value because it changes society as a whole, shifts expectations at a broad scale, and creates moral authority to demand better from others which is persuasive and powerful.
At the end of the day, what kind of society do you want to live in? Will you contribute to making that society, or not?
I think you have drastically misunderstood my argument.
To use your analogy, let's say Bob is constantly stealing from you. You urgently need some essentials, and you say, "I know, I can steal them from Bob." But somebody stops you and says, "Wait, you don't want to do that! If you steal from Bob, he'll steal from you!" You would probably not find this persuasive, because you know Bob will steal from you regardless. There probably are good arguments you can make against stealing from Bob, but that particular one doesn't jibe with reality.
Let's say your spouse is constantly criticizing you. You feel frustrated, so you criticize them as well. Someone stops you and says, "Wait, you should criticize them less. Then they'll feel less frustrated and might also criticize you less." And you can, and do, and with some decent faith on both sides you can de-escalate. This is basically marriage counseling. This is how relationships improve.
You're framing this as a simple prisoner's dilemma problem with sharp-edged binary choices - but it's much more fluid than that in real life.
The fluidity non-binaryness of this is even more apparent given it's millions of people we're talking about, over time lasting generations.
If life really was a prisoner dilemma cooperation would be impossible.
We only have freedom of speech because the laws are stark and absolute.
Where's our freedom of privacy?
If we stop being freedom of speech absolutists, I can already tell you what's going to happen.
edit: I do not for the life of me understand why someone would downvote this. The opposite of freedom of speech is fascism, and it is a tool that can be employed by any ideology to oppress and impose.
Your second quote should be no more or less controversial than saying that any of the countries the US invaded afterward also deserved those invasions. 9/11 was, in part, blowback from previous American foreign policy.
Interpreting that as saying that people deserve to be killed by terrorists is 1. confusing a country as a whole with its citizens as individuals and 2. an unrealistically literal interpretation of clear hyperbole. Interpreting common hyperbole literally is just as problematic as taking hyperbole to excess.
I think discussions about invasions and attacks, even if they are uncomfortable, is totally reasonable. I'll happily talk with you about why American Imperialism is bad until I'm blue in the face.
I will say, when someone says we should attack civilians because of their government's foreign policy, I will say that crosses a line. It's unacceptable in my view. There's a huge gap between, "We should have uncomfortable discussions" and "those civilians deserved to die".
And on the internet, it's really challenging to say what is hyperbole. Even if it was intended to be hyperbole, which is plausible, maybe it's a charged enough topic that one should choose a different (or more obviously) hyperbolic take.
Mine too, but it's standard rhetoric among a very, very large part (possibly a near-majority) of the US population. Tech companies are fueling that fire by showing that (from that perspective), yes, they really are the paternalistic coastal elites that the other half of the country suspected they were. Leaving aside the many ways in which this weapon of platform banning can be abused by future shifts in power -- Google, Twitter, AWS, and now Twitch are not helping the causes they claim to be helping with prominent bans, they are just building taller walls around the various echo chambers.
By that logic "the use of atomic bombs in WWII was justified" should also be an unacceptable statement. ... I mean, I'm not saying that it shouldn't be unacceptable. Attacking civilians is pretty horrible and uncivilized. But is also is a common thread throughout most notable wars in the last 100 years or so.
Well, yes, these are controversial opinions. If they make you feel uncomfortable, that's fine - controversy does that. If you think anything that makes you feel uncomfortable should be illegal to say, then maybe you just don't care about free speech.
A vocal subset of the people that are uncomfortable are jumping to censorship as a means to solve problems. Both the political left and right do it. They don't want to hear opposing ideas, and they're increasingly trying to tune it out, ban, and delete it.
This is not healthy for a functioning democracy or individual liberty and freedom.
Freedom of speech needs to remain absolute. Encroachments upon our rights endanger us all.
(Honestly, we need freedom of privacy too. I wish we could roll back the clock and install amendments to enshrine these too.)
> If you think anything that makes you feel uncomfortable should be illegal to say...
No one said that. Please don't put words in my mouth.
> yes, these are controversial opinions
That's a bit like calling a ghost pepper a "a bit spicy" and then when someone dislikes eating a whole one raw saying, "maybe you don't care for food with flavor?"
The full quote from Destiny—a liberal anti-racist, mind you—is:
The rioting needs to fucking stop. If that means white redneck militia dudes mowing down dipshit protesters that think they can torch buildings at 10 PM, at this point they have my fucking blessing. Holy shit, this shit needs to stop. It needed to stop a long time ago.
To the rest of us, he is expressing exacerbation that law enforcement is allowing chaos from one particular political faction.
If you do believe in good faith that Destiny is actually "suggesting that we unilaterally kill innocent people", then do you believe that bluechecks on Twitter who freely speak in similar terms about White people are actually advocating for the slaughter/genocide of Whites?
No, iirc then he didn't get banned/temporary suspended for that comment. Twitch only decided to not do any direct business (partnership) with him anymore, so they unpartnered him. That means people can't subscribe to him anymore for a monthly fee and he can also not be tipped with Twitch's virtual tip currency. He also doesn't get any ad revenue split anymore. (And I think twitch is currently not running any ads on unaffiliated/unpartnered streams, not 100% sure about that.)
He can still be tipped through third party services though. (Like streamlabs and streamelements)
He's still allowed to stream, and now without contract, not exclusive anymore so that he also streams on Youtube and Facebook now I think.
I think that is also something they should do with people who just got arrested. Distance yourself from them, but don't ban them. If it's severe enough then they won't be able to go live anymore anyway.
He also runs independent subscriptions and chat on destiny.gg, his custom open-source website. I think his subs might have predated (2013) the general launch of twitch subscriptions (can't find the year), although some partners like day9 had subs on justin.tv as early as 2011.
I'd guess it's one of the reasons he manages to stay afloat despite his regular controversies.
First, Destiny describes himself as a "classical liberal", "hardcore capitalist", and "rule utilitarian." It's important to be specific, because the word "liberal" means different things in different contexts, and it is not always the same meaning as "progressive" or "leftist".
> he is expressing exacerbation that law enforcement is allowing chaos from one particular political faction.
You might read that from his comment, I believe that's one possible reading. Another is that he's encouraging additional chaos, literally calling for folks to be "mowed down" with his blessing.
> do you believe that bluechecks on Twitter who freely speak in similar terms about White people are actually advocating for the slaughter/genocide of Whites?
This is bait. It's also a distraction from the specific Destiny quote that was suspended on Twitch. Don't ask a leading question, state your thesis and provide specific evidence of it (E.g. "Twitch suspensions are applied unevenly for calls of violence, here are cases where the standards were inconsistent....")
> First, Destiny describes himself as a "classical liberal", "hardcore capitalist", and "rule utilitarian." It's important to be specific, because the word "liberal" means different things in different contexts, and it is not always the same meaning as "progressive" or "leftist".
None of the things you mentioned are incompatible with the group Americans call “liberal”. He also describes himself as a social democrat. He could certainly be described as a progressive.
> In general, I do not support vigilantism. I think Kyle Rittenhouse was clearly misguided in his attempts to cross state borders and should have stayed home. I also think there are steps he could have taken to minimize the risk of him needing to discharge a firearm.
> Of a larger 20+ minute debate with someone, a short 16 second clip was cut to make it sound as though I support violence against Black Lives Matter protesters when this couldn't be further from the truth. I am incredibly heated in this clip, but I am clear when I state that my main frustration is with the few rioters burning down private businesses and the idea that Trump's only path to victory was with continued arson and destruction of privately owned businesses across the US (full conversation in August of 2020 with context part clipped).
> I have always defended the existence of BLM and its purpose, sometimes in front of live audiences as the only liberal member on a panel. (Jesse Lee Peterson panel in October of 2020 | Conversation with call-in defending the existence and effectiveness of BLM's protests | Panel debate in August of 2020 | Support in November of 2018 of Kaepernick kneeling in the NFL | Attacking Dave Rubin's criticisms of Kaepernick's protests in September 2017)
> I've consistently pushed back against "white lives matter" and similar types of irresponsible rhetoric from the right. (Jesse Lee Peterson panel in October of 2020)
> I have continually defended protesting, and even rioting against public institutions while condemning the rioting/looting of private businesses, as I believe the latter feeds into Republican tactics to draw attention away from the overwhelmingly positive protests. (Discussion about Minneapolis protesting/looting in May of 2020 | Debate with conservative/Neo-Nazi(?) Ethan Ralph in June 2020 | Discussion on my stream in September of 2020)
> My specific issue in this debate was that I didn't believe it was morally acceptable to defend rioters destroying private businesses, regardless of their legitimate grievances with the local police. When I think of rioters attacking and destroying private property, I generally support citizens' rights to defend that property. I think back to the Korean-Americans that were defending their property in the '92 LA Riots, the Black Panthers in California defending their communities, or the tragedy of the "Black Wall Street" Tulsa massacre in 1921. I was especially moved by the frustrated, black local business owner who was screaming out in frustration about looters and rioters destroying his business in the '92 LA Riots.
> It's incredibly frustrating that people have intentionally and maliciously misconstrued a 16 second cut from a larger conversation to make it sound as though I don't support the BLM protests or somehow approve of racist white people indiscriminately killing protesters when this is an issue that I have been ruthlessly consistent on throughout the years. I unequivocally support BLM's right to both protest and riot against the public institutions that they view as oppressive. I have not changed or wavered on this stance in years.
> None of the things you mentioned are incompatible with the group Americans call “liberal”.
Disagree. In some contexts leftist and liberal are distinct and incompatible things. In American politics, liberal often means 'progressive', but 'classical liberal' is typically associated with libertarianism. That's not to say a classical liberal cannot hold progressive beliefs, but it certainly does not imply they hold progressive beliefs.
I'm not sure why you keep bringing up "leftist", perhaps a parent comment was edited but it looks like you're the only one who has used that term to describe Destiny here and the original characterization of him as an anti-racist liberal is 100% accurate by both the American and polysci usage of the term.
Because I think it's important to clarify -- many people in America use the term "liberals" to mean politically left. I wanted to clarify the poster's usage, did they mean this person was a classical liberal? A colloquial American liberal? The favorite-specter-of-the-Right liberal?
It's because those "creators" are absolutely replaceable - there's no reason not to simply jettison them if there's any issue. There's an army of people willing to try their hand at being a similar "creator", and the vacuum caused by the loss of one of these "creators" is so miniscule people will just watch the next available stream.
The replacement cost is so low and with such low impact, you can save even more money by not spending someone's time to review the appeal.
To verify, the aforementioned "magic" includes a strong network effect / community aspect? Or is the issue that the tech and UI is particularly well-optimized for this use case and if someone else could only get it write it would be easy for streamers to use it instead?
I think it’s a bit of a disingenuous example because Hasan has enjoyed TREMENDOUS success since then as well. Like, I think he got a few day ban (which is nothing long-term if you already have a following) and is now a top streamer in terms of subscribers and viewership.
Flamebait like this will get you banned on HN. We don't care what you're flaming for or against; we care about HN threads not being set on fire, or sent into deeper circles of hell.
It's hilarious that in a thread full of people hating on companies for deplatforming people for their opinions, you are getting massively downvoted for voicing your own opinion.
Goes to show that no one really wants "free speech".
I think you’re confused as to what upvoting and downvoting are for. The voting system is design to lift up comments that provide value to the discussion, and hide comments that don’t. Someone being downvoted doesn’t mean everyone is disagreeing with them, or punishing them for their opinion, rather just recognizing that it doesn’t bring any value to the topic of conversation.
> Someone being downvoted doesn’t mean everyone is disagreeing with them, or punishing them for their opinion
Regardless of what the rules are, in practice this is exactly how upvoting/downvoting works on sites like Reddit and this one. You can't override basic human nature with loose guidelines.
Voting is primarily a way to express that you agree/disagree without adding a redundant comment. Maybe you're thinking of other sites that are indeed intended to be used that way.
> Maybe you're thinking of other sites that are indeed intended to be used that way.
Do you have an example? It also seems probable that HN intended voting to be used that way as well. The intended use case isn't always what users use something for.
People who don't want free speech are usually the ones complaining about how other people exercise their free speech in ways that counter their own message.
Like voting on comments, for example. That's free speech too.
That said, HN is definitely not anything even remotely resembling a free speech platform, in concept or execution. It's the recruitment platform for Y Combinator, and all decisions are made here to optimize for that.
That's not what HN is optimized for. I can tell you that for sure because it's my job to (attempt to) optimize it and I've posted about this many times over many years:
It's terrible marketing not to admit to one's actual purpose. People can feel that. Also, it would be soul destroying to work at a job that required it. It's much better when your real purpose is aligned with what you say it is, and also with what you actually do. I find that's possible with HN, and it's one thing I like about the job.
It's totally ok if you don't believe me, but if you want to take the time to read the past explanations at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so..., I'd be super curious to hear what you think is wrong with them. For me the interesting thing about HN is that keeping the community happy—by gratifying curiosity—is the thing that produces value for YC.
Having read through, I think mostly the only clarification I'd offer is that I don't think it's bad or wrong for HN to provide value to YC by way of interest.
I was meaning to say almost exactly, "the way to maximize HN's value to YC is to maximize how interesting it is to the community"... so that when YC (and its companies) need interesting people to solve interesting problems, they're already here. It seems like you agree with that, though you do call it "cynical" and "hard-nosed business" reasoning.
"Marketing" is sometimes treated like a 4 letter word but that's not how I meant it.
"Interesting" however, seems like a very important word (it's mentioned 24 times in those 15 comments)!
> Goes to show that no one really wants "free speech".
Especially not on HN, where the SV/SJW group think prevail.
Argument I often get is "you are free to voice your opinions and we are free to massively downvote you", well, same happened with 9/11, the US elites have been cunts to the whole world (including to "The People" and still are), they are totally free to be, by then 9/11 came as a big slap in Wall Street America face, maybe they deserved it...
We've asked you many times to stop using HN for ideological battle. Since you've ignored those requests and done even more of it, I've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
As for "SJW group think", that sort of generalization is entirely determined by your own priors. The opposite side has different priors and sees HN in exactly the opposite way. Both views are not only imaginary, they're actually the same phenomenon with just one bit flipped.
It's a minority (on both sides of the political spectrum) that doesn't want free speech, but they're very vocal about it. It's fascism, regardless of who is doing it.
As long as the country and constitution remain in the "defend to the death your right to say it", we'll be fine.
Diversity of ideas and opinions should be celebrated.
Top streamers have been banned or lost partnerships for playing their own music[0], stating controversial political opinions[1][2], getting trolled by users who "snipe" streamers and shout vulgarities, or just accidentally showing movie clips with nudity [3]. From what I gather, the ban appeal process is byzantine and is heavily biased towards inaction. Oftentimes appeals are never even considered, or partnership staff plainly doesn't respond.
The upsetting part is Twitch is such a great platform technology wise, and its competitors can't seem to recreate the same magic. I guess we're stuck with lousy moderation until the streaming fad dies down.
[0] https://www.sportskeeda.com/esports/twitch-reportedly-suspen...
[1] https://dotesports.com/streaming/news/hasanabi-banned-from-t...
[2] https://win.gg/news/5496/destiny-loses-twitch-partnership-fo...
[3] https://www.ginx.tv/en/twitch/vinesauce-banned-on-twitch-ove...