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by ApolloFortyNine 2195 days ago
There were an incredible number of tweets calling to "Burn it down" or similar (about the fires in Minneapolis after the George Floyd protests).

I can link a few tweets, but with millions of twitter messages a day, I can hardly link enough to be statistically relevant if you choose to believe the other way, and I don't have the energy to randomly sample twitter.

1 comments

Which is hateful against... buildings?
It's not that it's hateful. It's inciting and encouraging violence, which I'm pretty sure is against the ToS.
> Violence: You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people

Try again

Burning a building to the ground is presumably an (in)direct act of violence against the inhabitants of said building. 911, the Oklahoma City Bombing and the Kyoto Animation fire all come to mind.
It's generally understood that violence is something that happens to a person or living entity; buildings being burnt down is very different from a person being attacked. The word violence might be used for both, but really, it is meant in the modern day to refer to people.

Violence isn't about property that can be rebuilt with mere money. It is about hurting people.

How does burning down someone's business cause them no harm? You are implicitly making the claim that anyone who owns or leases a building for their business is rolling in excess money, which is incredibly ignorant, naïve, uncharitable, and untrue; especially when many of the businesses called for burning were locally owned, and many minority owned. That kind of thinking is pretty hideously warped, and you'd do well to rethink your worldview to avoid such malice.
> You are implicitly making the claim that anyone who owns or leases a building for their business is rolling in excess money, which is incredibly ignorant, naïve, uncharitable, and untrue

You are twisting my words. I make no implicit claim of that sort. Do you not see the difference between being 1) shot with a gun, or stabbed, or otherwise physically attacked in a violent moment, and 2) coming to work the next day to find your place of business burned?

Those are two very different things.

I do not mean to suggest that the employee whose work is burned is not hurt, but certainly, it is not a violent act against them as the other situation with guns or stabbing is.

> That kind of thinking is pretty hideously warped, and you'd do well to rethink your worldview to avoid such malice.

I really don't know about this comment. I think it is your worldview that is 'warped' but I wouldn't insult you by calling your traits 'hideous'. Please be more polite on HN.

> You are twisting my words. I make no implicit claim of that sort. Do you not see the difference between being 1) shot with a gun, or stabbed, or otherwise physically attacked in a violent moment, and 2) coming to work the next day to find your place of business burned?

You are literally burning down someone's place of work and then you expect them to not be hurt? What guarantee can you give that the person who comes to work the next day to find his business burnt doesn't die of shock? If he dies does it not amount to murder? Who takes responsibility for his death?

I can't believe you are actually saying this stuff! People spend their entire life savings building a business! Having it burnt down is as good as murdering them! It is no different from someone pointing a gun at you and trying to kill you. People have survived gunshot wounds just like people have survived their buildings being burnt down. They both were hurt. One was hurt physically while the other suffered psychological hurt. And if someone died from gunshot wounds he is no different from someone dying of shock seeing his business being burnt to the ground. Both were killed out of violence. Both suffered pain. You cannot say one is more benign than the other! It is not!

You're making a distinction between the employee and the owner, which is highly revealing. You don't think the owner works, supplies or has any value in the business they run. That is dehumanizing them. That is hideous. I stand by my words.
So I looked up their policy, and you seem to be correct there. Twitter defines violence as towards other individuals or groups. https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-rules

However, if users are encouraging or telling others to break the law, that is also against Twitters policies.

> You may not use our service for any unlawful purpose or in furtherance of illegal activities.

Encouraging or inciting others to break the law is illegal.

Although it's on the illegal goods page, I think this could still be against their policy.

https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/regulated-goo...

The definition of violence: "behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something." Unless we're using words in the humpty dumpty sense of "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
One of the buildings was the police precinct