[yitosda]

Much of the point of a dog whistle (as I understand it) is plausible deniability. The parent comment stands: shutting it down over something that "may mean something" -- even though with context you may be quite sure -- is a bad look.

The next step is simply to point at the myriad of other times anyone called someone a rat on Twitter and Twitter is left to defend a position of shutting people down over what they were thinking when they wrote something.

They should have used one of the many better reasons they had for this this case.

[staticassertion]

Or we should just be willing to call dog whistles what they are and stop feeling the need to respond when people cry 'but that person used the word rat over there!'.

[yitosda]

It's possible I've been living under a rock, but while I'm aware of rat being pejorative, I'm finding out in this thread for the first time about the anti-semitic undertones.

It's pretty clear that the difference is context, but I also don't think there can be clear guidelines if Twitter is expected to delve into the context for each tweet its users make.

In fairness, context typically doesn't provide smoking guns as pungent as this one. I'd still say it's not beyond reasonable doubt (and I'd guess most would be ok with that for a Twitter ban -- it's not prison or death).

So, sure, everyone should call it a dog whistle on the preponderance of evidence, but there were almost certainly better grounds for the ban. I doubt there will ever be a good ban target whose only giveaway is dog whistles.

[MBCook]

I was aware of it, but I couldn’t have told you about it without prompting. I didn’t remember it that well. As soon as someone mentioned what it was it made perfect sense to me.

Yeah, that’s the complex part of all of this. As you said context is king here, and Jones is very well known for making implicit or explicit derogatory remarks about Jewish people. There really isn’t room for him to claim “I didn’t know that“.

> there were almost certainly better grounds for the ban

I think you’re right that this was sort of a cherry pick.

He’s done way more than enough stuff in the past to earn him a ban but they never acted on it.

After the hearing and his behavior immediately after I’m guessing they were tired of defending him and having to answer these questions AGAIN.

But it would seem especially strange/capricious just say “that thing you did three months ago that we gave you a pass on? Now you’re out.“

So I think they just chose the latest thing as their “instigating” incident and said that plus the totality of his previous behavior meant a total ban.

Even though the most recent thing is not as bad (relative to his previous ‘highs’).

[sheepmullet]

> After the hearing and his behavior immediately after I’m guessing they were tired of defending him and having to answer these questions AGAIN.

Did you listen to the hearing?

Jack was being questioned for unfairly silencing conservatives.

[MBCook]

I know with the hearing was about. And I know they’re desperately trying to say that they are not silencomg conservatives. Jones has been a very obvious case of someone who has stayed on the platform despite violating the TOS multiple times.

And then after the hearing: Jones went up to a reporter from CNN, screamed in his face, made anti-Semitic remarks about him, AND POSTED IT TO TWITTER.

They was supposed to continue to let the TOS violations go? He probably chose the worst possible time/place to misbehave.

The only thing that would make any sense is that he PURPOSEFULLY did this to get kicked off as “proof” he’s being censored. I’m sure that’s the narrative he’s pushing.

Did he know the end was coming anyway and decided to make the best of it? Did he think they were “losing“ the hearing and he needed to provide “proof”?

Or is he just that incapable of controlling himself/behaving?

Doesn’t matter. He explicitly chose to shoot himself in the foot. I don’t see how Twitter had a choice.

“Do we want all the Democrats mad at us over Jones plus all the Republicans over ‘censorship’... or do we want to enforce our TOS, say he didn’t give us a choice, and be no worse off than yesterday (slightly better with Ds)?“

[sheepmullet]

> I know they’re desperately trying to say that they are not silencomg conservatives.

And then they go and silence Alex Jones the very next day...

> Jones went up to a reporter from CNN, screamed in his face, made anti-Semitic remarks about him, AND POSTED IT TO TWITTER.

He confronted one of the key people responsible for deplatforming him.

He wasn’t screaming and he didn’t make anti-Semitic remarks.

He did get in the guys face and was making a lot of offensive comments.

> The only thing that would make any sense is that he PURPOSEFULLY did this to get kicked off as “proof” he’s being censored

Of course he did.

Now all conservatives have to do is document all the offensive left-leaning tweets over the next few weeks and Congress will drag Jack right back to explain his clear bias against conservatives.

Or alternatively Twitter will be forced to start applying its rules equally to the left (fat chance). I’ve reported 3 significantly more offensive tweets already today.

If Jones did nothing then smaller less popular conservative voices would continue to be unfairly silenced and in the long term he would surely be banned as well.