Jack Dorsey's Twitter Army of Attack Corgis
It used to be a joke that some kind of police would enforce "political correctness." Not anymore. Now there are "Twitter mobs" that seem to assemble out of nowhere and try to destroy the lives of people they find to be "problematic". Targets of the Twitter mobs often have their real names, phone numbers, addresses and places of work published on Twitter or elsewhere on the internet. Once the targeting information is provided, others in the Twitter mob carry out anonymous attacks.
These attacks usually include phone calls to the target's employer accusing the targeted person of racism, sexism, etc. without explaining that they are using their own definitions of those terms that don't actually mean racism or sexism, but rather, the opposite. People are now routinely accused of racism because they do not pay any attention to peoples' race and have no prejudice on account of race. That is the essence of non-racism, yet it is called racism by the people who call themselves "woke" and gleefully participate in Twitter mob attacks. They don't bother to explain this when they call the target's boss and demand that he never again employ such a horribly racist person. After a few hundred such phone calls threatening to accuse the business owners of racism if they don't fire the targeted employee and threatening a boycott of the business, many businesses give in and fire someone just because a Twitter mob demanded it.
Most people don't think this can happen to them, but it can. Even those who are not directly targeted are still affected. "Politically incorrect" commentary is being driven off social media platforms, off youtube, off more and more of the internet. Of course, it is also being driven off of television, radio and major publications. Editors have been fired because of attacks like these. Everyone in media, in the film industry, everyone who speaks to a mass audience, all of them are at risk of this and increasingly they know it. They self-censor for fear of a Twitter mob attack. As a consequence, the political opinions that are deemed "politically correct" are heard more often and any idea that the Twitter mobs don't like is either silenced entirely or fades away more and more from public view with every passing day.
We are encouraged to believe that "politically incorrect" is actually bad and it's a good thing that it's fading away. Much that is "politically incorrect" is bad. But on the other hand, is it really a good thing that one and only one way of thinking is considered acceptable and everything else is silenced by destroyed lives without any recourse or fair hearing for the targeted person? Is it a good thing if freedom of speech just ends?
It doesn't matter whether we agree with the ideals the woke movement claims to support. They change what they stand for. Nobody knows what they will be advocating or punishing ten years from now.
We are witnessing the creation of an enormously powerful shadow government. It legislates in secret, deciding what is allowed and what will be declared "problematic" and punished ruthlessly without any trial or any rights of the accused. They have no respect for the concepts behind the statute of limitations. There is a centuries old principle of law that if nobody has brought a criminal complaint against someone for a particular incident, then after some number of years, specified in the law, it becomes too late to charge them. This usually applies to all crimes except murder. So, if someone shoplifted something twenty years ago, you cannot charge them for it now. But if they posted a politically incorrect joke on the internet twenty years ago, Twitter mobs can attack them at any time, destroy their careers, wreck their marriage, drive them from their profession and leave them unable to pay their debts. That's assuming none of the thousands of angry Twitter mobsters goes so far as to go to the target's address that has been helpfully published for exactly this reason and sets fire to their house or otherwise attacks the target. If someone committed an armed robbery far in the past, that's forgiven. If they said something "problematic", even as a joke, there is no forgiveness. There is no mercy. The Twitter mob attacks.
Other important legal principles are ignored such as ex post facto. This is the principle that you cannot be blamed for breaking a law that wasn't written yet at the time. It's pretty much common sense. Not for the Twitter mobs. If someone used a term for an ethnic minority that is now out of date -- but wasn't at the time -- there is no forgiveness. There is no mercy. The Twitter mob attacks.
So, just a quick question that might seem irrelevant. Why are these groups of raving "woke" fanatics called Twitter mobs? I mean, it's well known that this sort of thing often spreads on social media and Twitter is a kind of social media. Is that all it is?
The more I think about it, the more I think that is not all there is to it. This has happened so often on Twitter, that the term "Twitter mob" has become a commonly used term. Not "Facebook mob", not "Instagram mob", certainly not "Parler mob".or "Steemit mob". Maybe Twitter is just particularly useful for this kind of thing. Or maybe there are just more people on Twitter that are "woke."
Maybe. I heard recently that Jack Dorsey is very woke. He's the CEO of Twitter. That might seem irrelevant if you don't know how social media works from a technical standpoint. I mean, you post stuff and your Facebook friends see it, your Twitter followers see it, etc. right? Wrong.
Social media companies do not send you every post by everyone you follow, "friend" or otherwise connect to. You can test this by taking a look at the account of someone you follow on Twitter or is your "friend" on Facebook. Not one of the people you find the most interesting. Someone else. Look at everything they posted and see how much of that actually showed up on your account where you would see it without looking at their account. If all of it showed up, check another account. You will see that you're not getting everything.
Twitter and Facebook and others have computer programs called algorithms that decide automatically which posts by other people will be sent to your account. Those posts, tweets, etc. will automatically show up on your screen whether you go looking for them or not.
The companies that do this say that their algorithms are designed to send you things you've shown some interest in. That description sounds totally innocent. It's intended to sound that way. Yet we also know that Facebook and Twitter have altered their algorithms many times to reduce how much "extremist" ideas spread. Facebook even did an experiment to see if it could make people happy or sad by selecting only happy messages to forward to them or only sad ones. It worked. Social media companies have been working with the US government to find out if it's possible to detect revolutions in other countries before they happen by what ideas as spreading on social media. Of course, once this is understood, it is not limited to foreign countries and it becomes possible to stop a revolution just by changing the algorithm. That might not work because revolutionary ideas could spread by some other method.
Starting a revolution by changing the algorithm is much easier than stopping one. Whether the information is spreading on other media is irrelevant. Social media alone can make sure revolutionary propaganda reaches the people. They don't even have to create the propaganda. There are always people out there advocating every political idea. They may be a few dozen out of a hundred million. They may be a radical fringe almost nobody has ever heard of. But one tweak of the algorithm and their message spreads everywhere. All you have to do is change the algorithm to make sure that every time anyone posts the favored message, that it gets forwarded to all their friends and followers instead of just a few.
Some companies do just operate platforms that allow people to say what they want and don't try to silence some political ideas and "amplify" others. Twitter is not one of them. Neither is Facebook. This is part of why they keep the details of their algorithms secret.
So, what does it mean when we see Twitter mobs forming easily, spreading within hours to thousands of people, and then engaging in threatening behavior? They post targeting data including real names and addresses of people along with comments urging people to do things to cause problems for or even physical harm to targeted individuals. This is not because Twitter is neutral. This is because Twitter is allowing it to happen at the very least, while censoring opponents of this movement. The incredible ease with which these messages propagate on Twitter and the impunity with which they attack people is reasonable grounds to suspect that the algorithms are actually promoting this.
Jack Dorsey is the CEO of Twitter. He of course can control the algorithms. Reports indicate he vehemently supports the "woke" ideology of the Twitter mobs. We should not assume this is coincidence. Do Twitter mobs form in favor of any other ideology? Do right wingers post messages pointing out that some news reporter posted something seven years ago favorable to communism and within 24 hours thousands of right wingers on Twitter are calling that reporter's employer calling them a communist and demanding that they be fired?
If you think that this is because there just aren't that many right wingers or that they wouldn't want a news reporter fired for being a communist or even just a liberal, I have to wonder if you are living in a bubble. More than 70 million Americans just voted to re-elect Donald Trump. Here in Canada, there are fewer right wingers, but Twitter isn't a Canada-only thing. I doubt that the members of the Twitter mob that demanded the firing of a professor at a Canadian university not so long ago were all from Canada.
How many political movements have arisen in recent years virtually overnight on the strength of a Twitter hashtag. Like, the #metoo movement for example. It shared the same characteristics as other Twitter mobs. It seemed to be a noble cause, but involved anonymous accusations, no fair hearing for the accused, no limitation on how far into the past accusations could go, applying current rules and norms to events that occurred before those rules and norms existed, and, of course, ruthless attempts at punishment directed at the guilty and the innocent alike. Accusation was treated as fact.
I don't mean to imply that Harvey Weinstein was innocent. After all, he did get a trial and was convicted. But the punishment did not start after he was convicted. He and everyone else on that list were subjected to all sorts of efforts to harass and harm them before there was any sort of trial. Trials are important. They are not rights we give to criminals. Trials are the process we use to make sure we punish guilty people instead of innocent people.
We see similar Twitter mobs all the time making accusations of racism. Not real racism, though we are meant to think so. People are called "racist" when they are not. The accusers have created a backwards definition of racism that says only one race can be racist. The definition itself is obviously racist as are those who use it. But on the basis of nothing more than that, people are being attacked by Twitter mobs. The same algorithms that make sure that neo-nazis can't use Twitter for this purpose, do allow "woke" people to do this. The algorithms seem pretty clearly to be amplifying the messages, spreading them as widely as possible as quickly as possible.
It does seem plausible that Jack Dorsey wants this and has made it happen. Not by openly calling for it, but by making, authorizing or allowing others to make subtle alterations to the algorithms of Twitter. The Twitter mobs appear to be grass roots movements and in some sense, they are. But they are also only possible because a huge corporation run by Jack Dorsey approves, supports and amplifies their messages. Then it allows them to post targeting information and coordinate attacks on their selected victims.
If it was a right wing group doing this, I'm pretty confident that the messages would be censored, accounts would be censored and users would be banned. I know this because Twitter is doing exactly this to people pushing right wing ideologies. Maybe, if you're not right wing, that sounds great. Maybe you laugh out loud and take joy in the suffering of those you see as your enemies. But do you really want your own freedom of speech to be at the mercy of a large corporation? Do you really want to be at risk of false accusations and immediate punishment by Jack Dorsey's attack dogs? What if there is a corporate buy-out and the next CEO of Twitter is a right winger? How would you like to see the tables turned against you?
The Twitter mobs are not just a grassroots movement. They are grass in Twitter's lawn, protected, watered and well-tended. To use another analogy, they are Jack Dorsey's pet attack dogs. By themselves they are not powerful or dangerous. They are not Dobermans or Pitt Bulls. They are more like Corgis, a breed of dog that is known for being quiet and unaggressive. They also have short legs that make them cute, but also prevent them from being able to run as fast as larger dogs. But if you trained Corgis to attack and had a lot of them, they would be able to maul anyone they targeted. That's what Twitter mobs are: Jack Dorsey's attack Corgis.
Jack Dorsey's Twitter Army of Attack Corgis
Very informative. I am unschooled in Twitter and yet in the past couple months have seen some of what you spoke of and see the problem of social media's interference of communication. It is akin to wire tap and unlawfully interfering in personal communication. And as you addressed the whole freedom of speech is at risk and with such a precious commodity we should do all to safeguard it. Glad I was tipped off to read this helpful article and will benefit reading more I'm sure.