Amazon Twitch to discipline people for offline behavior

Slapshot1188

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/07/amazons-twitch-says-it-will-now-punish-users-for-certain-harmful-offline-behavior.html

This is very scary stuff...

Sandmanjw

Huge lawsuit incoming...............

About time too...these companies thinking to be the moral/thought police need to be reined in...soon.

Neanderthal

Most of it sounded reasonable but then there is the question of their definition of "terrorist activities".  These days anyone who speaks openly about wanting honest elections and wanting to preserve freedom in the U.S.A. is likely to be labeled a terrorist by the leftists.

In fact, I now fully expect to be banned from this site just for pointing that out.

Slapshot1188

Sandmanjw said:

Huge lawsuit incoming...............

About time too...these companies thinking to be the moral/thought police need to be reined in...soon.

I agree.  Nobody is condoning any of these behaviors but we have a legal system setup to address it.  We should not allow private companies to try and respond to behavior that did not occur on their system.  Twitch should respond to behavior on Twitch and should NEVER be looking at what happens off Twitch.

Quizzical

From the article:

"Even when Facebook and Twitter each decided to ban former President Donald Trump from their services following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, their reasoning was fundamentally rooted in the ways they said he used or could potentially use their platforms to incite further violence."

Now that's quite the howler.  If being theoretically able to use social media to incite violence in the future is a bannable offense, wouldn't that justify banning absolutely everyone?

Slapshot1188

Torval said:

These actions include engaging in deadly violence, terrorist activities, grooming children for sexual exploitation, committing sexual assault or even “acting as an accomplice to non-consensual sexual activities.” It will also continue to consider offline harassment in cases where a user alleges abuse online.

I guess don't do those things?

Lawmakers have threatened to strip tech giants of their liability under the communications protection act. So, blame the party that gutted Net Neutrality. Since we can't get political here, even though our very civil fabric is under assault, I'll leave you to guess which group installed and championed Ajit Pai. Even though he's now gone, thankfully, the damage he did to online Civil Liberties, among other things, is huge.

Can you imagine the outrage if Twitch didn't censure people who engage in those activities? Worse, can you imagine the lawsuits and revenge by that one political party that hates the big tech sector? This is the consequence the rest of us pay for abandoning civil democracy for hostile partisan political tribalism. When capitalism is politically weaponized this is how mega-corporations respond.

Nobody is condoning any of that, but there is a LEGAL SYSTEM to address it.  If people are found guilty of that stuff then I suppose they would not be on Twitch right?  They would be in jail.

So you are comfortable with a company superseding the legal system?  For behavior that did not occur on their service?   That is downright scary to me.

iixviiiix

Quizzical said:

From the article:

"Even when Facebook and Twitter each decided to ban former President Donald Trump from their services following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, their reasoning was fundamentally rooted in the ways they said he used or could potentially use their platforms to incite further violence."

Now that's quite the howler.  If being theoretically able to use social media to incite violence in the future is a bannable offense, wouldn't that justify banning absolutely everyone?

I already look follow what Trump with do with his "social media platform"

Rungar

what about the ultimate offence? Telling the truth. 

Quizzical

Torval said:

These actions include engaging in deadly violence, terrorist activities, grooming children for sexual exploitation, committing sexual assault or even “acting as an accomplice to non-consensual sexual activities.” It will also continue to consider offline harassment in cases where a user alleges abuse online.

I guess don't do those things?

The devil is in the details.

A policy can easily be set up so that it will ban people for murder, rape, arson, armed robbery, or saying something that the company disapproves of.  And then "saying something that the company disapproves of" gets shoved off into miscellaneous other things, while the serious crimes garner the headlines.  But if that's the policy, nearly all of the meaningful bans would be for saying something the company disapproves of.

Certainly, that's an extreme interpretation.  But after Amazon's recent censorship run, any promises that the policy will be applied in good faith are laughable.  It really just means that they'll ban people whenever they feel like it whether they have a good reason or not.

Slapshot1188

Torval said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Torval said:

These actions include engaging in deadly violence, terrorist activities, grooming children for sexual exploitation, committing sexual assault or even “acting as an accomplice to non-consensual sexual activities.” It will also continue to consider offline harassment in cases where a user alleges abuse online.

I guess don't do those things?

Lawmakers have threatened to strip tech giants of their liability under the communications protection act. So, blame the party that gutted Net Neutrality. Since we can't get political here, even though our very civil fabric is under assault, I'll leave you to guess which group installed and championed Ajit Pai. Even though he's now gone, thankfully, the damage he did to online Civil Liberties, among other things, is huge.

Can you imagine the outrage if Twitch didn't censure people who engage in those activities? Worse, can you imagine the lawsuits and revenge by that one political party that hates the big tech sector? This is the consequence the rest of us pay for abandoning civil democracy for hostile partisan political tribalism. When capitalism is politically weaponized this is how mega-corporations respond.

Nobody is condoning any of that, but there is a LEGAL SYSTEM to address it.  If people are found guilty of that stuff then I suppose they would not be on Twitch right?  They would be in jail.

So you are comfortable with a company superseding the legal system?  For behavior that did not occur on their service?   That is downright scary to me.

Actually there is an entire political part and their conspiratorially driven tribalism that not only condone it but actively support it. That is exactly how we have arrived at this current destination.

These companies aren't superseding the legal system. They cannot jail you. They can suspend or ban you from their platforms. It is entirely legal for a company to do such things. In fact the party that promoted the destruction of Net Neutrality is very much hands-off, ideologically speaking, about what companies can do. It's is the foundation of unregulated capitalism. How often have we heard, "If users don't like it then they can go to another company."

It isn't that scary to me because there isn't a lot Amazon can do to me. They could close my account and prevent me from buying any new goods or services from them. I suppose they could even lock my account and I would lose access to a few movies and e-books, but that's about it. Additionally, since I'm not participating in those activities, or supporting groups or platforms that do, then I don't have much concern.

For those people who do participate in the destruction of our civilization for their own benefit (those activities listed in the article), promote idiotic conspiracies, lies, violence, insurrection, treason, and/or sedition; then I say, "Mess with the bull, you get the horns." That is, I support civil justice for those actions and not having access to Twitch, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, or whatever is the least of the consequences they should face. I also believe in second chances and if people turn away from that then they should be afforded a chance to establish trust and participate again.

So if a company wanted to say.. ban you from flying because there is an accusation that you hit your wife.  That would be OK?  Or if I do not want to hire you because someone online claimed you participated in a riot (no conviction or even arrest for such)  would that be OK?  

We have a legal system that addresses illegal things. 

You say "For those people who do participate in the destruction of our civilization for their own benefit (those activities listed in the article), promote idiotic conspiracies, lies, violence, insurrection, treason, and/or sedition; then I say, "Mess with the bull, you get the horns." 

But we are talking about people that have NOT been convicted of such.  People that they just decide may have done that.  And THAT is utterly terrifying to me.


Suppose I'm a Twitch Streamer who is accused of being a drug dealer.  Twitch shuts me down.  I lose my livelihood.  6 months later I am exonerated and it turns out I was not involved in any way.   Too bad for me?  Is that the world we want to live in?  Where mere accusations can be treated as findings of truth?

Utinni

Torval said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Torval said:

These companies aren't superseding the legal system. They cannot jail you. They can suspend or ban you from their platforms. It is entirely legal for a company to do such things.

This. This should literally be /thread but some folks don't seem to understand. Welcome to America, land of the free. If you want the government to step in and regulate how companies run platforms there are plenty of countries like China you can live!

Theocritus

If I have learned nothing else in life, it's taht I don't need Amazon or any of these other megacorporations.

klash2def

I specifically agree with not giving American Terrorist platforms to engage and congregate with each other... Sounds reasonable.

Regardless of who agrees though, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, etc are all companies that can do what they want with the platforms they own. Nobody can do anything about it but bitch and moan I guess, but at the end of the day, the final word is with them because it's their platform. 

Quizzical

The real life impact of the official policy change will probably be not much.  They likely already had some catchall policy that they could ban anyone at any time for any reason or without giving a reason.  If they didn't already have that, then they probably would have acted like it when they wanted to ban someone.

For example, how many justifications did Twitter cycle through when they wanted to ban the New York Post?  It was pretty obvious that the real justification was that they wanted to suppress a news story that made their preferred political candidate look bad.  It was insulting that they wanted to pretend that they had some other reason for the ban, and I don't think that they ever did come up with a plausible, politically neutral reason that justified the ban.

Or since we're talking about Amazon in particular, what was their reason for banning Ryan Anderson's book?  It wasn't any violation of Amazon policies.  They just decided to refuse to sell a particular book that looked like it might say some things that they disagreed with.  I'd bet that whoever pulled the book has no idea what it even says.

In the future, if Twitch decides that they want to ban someone, they're going to ban him regardless of whether they can point to any violations of Twitch policies.  The new policy change affect that.

BruceYee

Ummm... has Twitch looked at their own site specifically 'Just Chatting'..

Maybe they can ban themselves cause some of what goes on there can be considered dangerous...

Also... did anyone think they wouldn't eventually overreach after making all the streamers feel comfortable using their platform for years collecting that free money? Just look at how they treat their actual employees and you have the answer.

Slapshot1188

Slapshot1188 said:

Suppose I'm a Twitch Streamer who is accused of being a drug dealer.  Twitch shuts me down.  I lose my livelihood.  6 months later I am exonerated and it turns out I was not involved in any way.   Too bad for me?  Is that the world we want to live in?  Where mere accusations can be treated as findings of truth?

I just want to get back to that.  People are saying that this is OK?   I'm not even talking about whether Twitch can legally do so.  I am asking if we really want to live in a world where we do not wait for the legal process to play out, assume guilt based on accusation, and can take someone's livelihood away based on that mere accusation.

And it's not just Twitch.   Twitch is part of Amazon.  Perhaps I am a seller on the Amazon marketplace accused of the same... and lose my business because of a mere accusation.   
Amazon is a behemoth.  They are not your mom and pop store.  They truly are growing closer to a utility (not quite there yet IMHO but they will get there).  Should the private electric company turn off your power because they don't like something you are rumored to have said to your neighbor?  

Asm0deus

Slapshot1188 said:

Torval said:

These actions include engaging in deadly violence, terrorist activities, grooming children for sexual exploitation, committing sexual assault or even “acting as an accomplice to non-consensual sexual activities.” It will also continue to consider offline harassment in cases where a user alleges abuse online.

I guess don't do those things?

Lawmakers have threatened to strip tech giants of their liability under the communications protection act. So, blame the party that gutted Net Neutrality. Since we can't get political here, even though our very civil fabric is under assault, I'll leave you to guess which group installed and championed Ajit Pai. Even though he's now gone, thankfully, the damage he did to online Civil Liberties, among other things, is huge.

Can you imagine the outrage if Twitch didn't censure people who engage in those activities? Worse, can you imagine the lawsuits and revenge by that one political party that hates the big tech sector? This is the consequence the rest of us pay for abandoning civil democracy for hostile partisan political tribalism. When capitalism is politically weaponized this is how mega-corporations respond.

Nobody is condoning any of that, but there is a LEGAL SYSTEM to address it.  If people are found guilty of that stuff then I suppose they would not be on Twitch right?  They would be in jail.

So you are comfortable with a company superseding the legal system?  For behavior that did not occur on their service?   That is downright scary to me.

They were already doing this, they are just making it official or more clear now.

Twitch already does what they want and plays favorite big time, some people will get permabanned for some stupid shit out of their control or very minor first time offense while others can have nipple slips constantly or even snatch slips, while rolling around with thier dog, and more than once over the years yet are still peddling their "wares" on twitch....IRL and just chatting....lol

olepi

It's an interesting question. Should they wait for actual legal conclusions first?

The people who invaded the US Capitol and attacked Congress while it was in session are being charged with crimes. Should Twitch ban them? Should Twitch wait for the months it will take to prosecute them, and THEN ban them?

Should Twitch continue to provide them with a platform while they are waiting?

Or take the example of Matt Gaetz. He is under investigation for child sex trafficking. Should they ban him now? What if it turns out he is innocent? What if they didn't ban him, but 6 months later he is convicted?

Ungood

Torval said:

Let me turn this around, do you feel everyone is entitled to corporate services even if a company doesn't want to do business with a person? Should a company be forced to do business with an entity it doesn't want to?

This is a great question to ask Masterpiece Bakery.

Should they, or should they not, have a choice in who they serve?

Quizzical

Slapshot1188 said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Suppose I'm a Twitch Streamer who is accused of being a drug dealer.  Twitch shuts me down.  I lose my livelihood.  6 months later I am exonerated and it turns out I was not involved in any way.   Too bad for me?  Is that the world we want to live in?  Where mere accusations can be treated as findings of truth?

I just want to get back to that.  People are saying that this is OK?   I'm not even talking about whether Twitch can legally do so.  I am asking if we really want to live in a world where we do not wait for the legal process to play out, assume guilt based on accusation, and can take someone's livelihood away based on that mere accusation.

And it's not just Twitch.   Twitch is part of Amazon.  Perhaps I am a seller on the Amazon marketplace accused of the same... and lose my business because of a mere accusation.   
Amazon is a behemoth.  They are not your mom and pop store.  They truly are growing closer to a utility (not quite there yet IMHO but they will get there).  Should the private electric company turn off your power because they don't like something you are rumored to have said to your neighbor?  

To some extent, we already do live in a world where accusations matter more than truth.  And furthermore, if there were a bunch of people accusing you of being a drug dealer, sites would probably still ban you even if you could conclusively prove before the ban that you were not and had never been a drug dealer.

Utilities don't operate that way, but social media sites sure do.  Worse, society seems to be heading in the direction of more and more businesses operating that way.  Amazon shut down Parler's servers for no reason other than that a bunch of left-wing trolls told them to.  While I don't doubt that there were offensive things said on Parler, that's true of every significant social media site in existence, including Twitch.

Or consider that the MLB just moved their All-Star game out of Georgia in response to some lunatic conspiracy theory that a previously obscure bill does some unspecified, nefarious things that appear nowhere in the text of the actual bill.  And this is even though the actual text of the bill is on the Internet where absolutely anyone who cares could actually read it.  Nowhere in their announcement did MLB say that such and such particular thing was wrong with the bill.  They probably have no idea what the bill actually does and almost certainly don't care.  They simply calculated that it was easier to cave to the demands of an army of trolls caught up in some lunatic conspiracy theory than to ignore them or explain why they're nuts.

And the MLB did this the day after they signed a deal to stream MLB games in China.  The number of people working for MLB who genuinely believe that a random bill that does a bunch of minor things to clean up election procedures is worse than the Uighur genocide is surely zero.  But trolls pressured them about the former and not the latter, so they caved to the trolls on the former and tried to make money on the latter.

BeansnBread

You take on some risk when you base your livelihood on someone else's platform. The platform can drop you at any time for any reason. 

The conversation is, I think, fundamentally about how the marketplace of ideas has moved onto very few different social media platforms which are private companies. How do you protect the the idea of having a free and open marketplace of ideas while at the same time protecting the companies rights to manage their content however they see fit?

Sandmanjw

Torval said:

Slapshot1188 said:

So if a company wanted to say.. ban you from flying because there is an accusation that you hit your wife.  That would be OK?  Or if I do not want to hire you because someone online claimed you participated in a riot (no conviction or even arrest for such)  would that be OK?  

We have a legal system that addresses illegal things. 

You say "For those people who do participate in the destruction of our civilization for their own benefit (those activities listed in the article), promote idiotic conspiracies, lies, violence, insurrection, treason, and/or sedition; then I say, "Mess with the bull, you get the horns." 

But we are talking about people that have NOT been convicted of such.  People that they just decide may have done that.  And THAT is utterly terrifying to me.

Yes, if a company doesn't want to do business with me for legal reasons (and all those listed sound reasonable) then that is their prerogative. Unless there are laws requiring airlines to provide service to everyone then a ban due to unruly public behavior is, again, their prerogative. We don't force private businesses to do things they don't want.

Again, you're trying to conflate business choice with legality. Nothing stops a company from engaging in business with a convict unless it violates the law (e.g. possibly weapons ownership).

Let me turn this around, do you feel everyone is entitled to corporate services even if a company doesn't want to do business with a person? Should a company be forced to do business with an entity it doesn't want to? And on what grounds would you say so (aside from the list of legal discrimination). This site can ban any user it wants to at its sole discretion for any reason and it doesn't even have to provide one if it doesn't want to. Should that legally change?

That is so laughably ridiculous, people always seem to forget what they wish to. How many cases of businesses being forced to serve gay/lesbians not that long ago? 

Religious people/companies catching hell for thinking exactly what you are saying, that they can do business or not with who they choose? But being sued and forced to either close down or accept the rulings?

Those blinders some folks have on are getting thick....

What happened to the hate what you say but will defend your right to say it? You know the freedom of speech/religion and so forth we all claim to support?

Having companies be able to  regulate people in their private lives for thoughts or actions is just as ridiculous as saying that no gays or blacks are allowed here.... 

  

Utinni

Quizzical said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Suppose I'm a Twitch Streamer who is accused of being a drug dealer.  Twitch shuts me down.  I lose my livelihood.  6 months later I am exonerated and it turns out I was not involved in any way.   Too bad for me?  Is that the world we want to live in?  Where mere accusations can be treated as findings of truth?

I just want to get back to that.  People are saying that this is OK?   I'm not even talking about whether Twitch can legally do so.  I am asking if we really want to live in a world where we do not wait for the legal process to play out, assume guilt based on accusation, and can take someone's livelihood away based on that mere accusation.

And it's not just Twitch.   Twitch is part of Amazon.  Perhaps I am a seller on the Amazon marketplace accused of the same... and lose my business because of a mere accusation.   
Amazon is a behemoth.  They are not your mom and pop store.  They truly are growing closer to a utility (not quite there yet IMHO but they will get there).  Should the private electric company turn off your power because they don't like something you are rumored to have said to your neighbor?  

 The number of people working for MLB who genuinely believe that a random bill that does a bunch of minor things to clean up election procedures is worse than the Uighur genocide is surely zero.  But trolls pressured them about the former and not the latter, so they caved to the trolls on the former and tried to make money on the latter.

I wouldn't call giving the state election board the power to invalidate ballots at their own discretion a "minor thing" when it comes to democracy.

Slapshot1188

olepi said:

It's an interesting question. Should they wait for actual legal conclusions first?

The people who invaded the US Capitol and attacked Congress while it was in session are being charged with crimes. Should Twitch ban them? Should Twitch wait for the months it will take to prosecute them, and THEN ban them?

Should Twitch continue to provide them with a platform while they are waiting?

Or take the example of Matt Gaetz. He is under investigation for child sex trafficking. Should they ban him now? What if it turns out he is innocent? What if they didn't ban him, but 6 months later he is convicted?

If they did not ban him, and  6 months later he is convicted... what is the issue?  If he has done nothing wrong or illegal on the platform, is that not the way things should work?

There was a State Representative in Georgia that was ARRESTED (not rumored to be investigated) and threatened with 2 felony charges for "obstruction of law enforcement, a felony punishable by 1 to 5 years in prison, and preventing or disrupting General Assembly sessions or other meetings of members. "

Should Twitter, Twitch, the electric company, or anyone else have immediately canceled her accounts?  Well I hope not... as all she was doing was banging on some doors and the charges were later dismissed. 

If the behavior on the system is not illegal then what is the harm is leaving it while the legal process plays out?  

olepi

Slapshot1188 said:

olepi said:

It's an interesting question. Should they wait for actual legal conclusions first?

The people who invaded the US Capitol and attacked Congress while it was in session are being charged with crimes. Should Twitch ban them? Should Twitch wait for the months it will take to prosecute them, and THEN ban them?

Should Twitch continue to provide them with a platform while they are waiting?

Or take the example of Matt Gaetz. He is under investigation for child sex trafficking. Should they ban him now? What if it turns out he is innocent? What if they didn't ban him, but 6 months later he is convicted?

If they did not ban him, and  6 months later he is convicted... what is the issue?  If he has done nothing wrong or illegal on the platform, is that not the way things should work?

There was a State Representative in Georgia that was ARRESTED (not rumored to be investigated) and threatened with 2 felony charges for "obstruction of law enforcement, a felony punishable by 1 to 5 years in prison, and preventing or disrupting General Assembly sessions or other meetings of members. "

Should Twitter, Twitch, the electric company, or anyone else have immediately canceled her accounts?  Well I hope not... as all she was doing was banging on some doors and the charges were later dismissed. 

If the behavior on the system is not illegal then what is the harm is leaving it while the legal process plays out?  

My personal take is that Twitch, etc, should only ban people for activities on the platform, not for what they might or might not have done somewhere else.

Fortunately, it has no effect on me because I never use Twitch, FB, Twitter, etc.

Quizzical

olepi said:

It's an interesting question. Should they wait for actual legal conclusions first?

The people who invaded the US Capitol and attacked Congress while it was in session are being charged with crimes. Should Twitch ban them? Should Twitch wait for the months it will take to prosecute them, and THEN ban them?

Should Twitch continue to provide them with a platform while they are waiting?

Or take the example of Matt Gaetz. He is under investigation for child sex trafficking. Should they ban him now? What if it turns out he is innocent? What if they didn't ban him, but 6 months later he is convicted?

If someone is sitting in prison and unable to access a Twitch account from there, does it even matter if he is banned?

For that matter, if someone has a Twitch account and doesn't cause any trouble there, and then murders someone in real life, what is gained by banning him?  It's not like banning him from Twitch will bring back the dead or even prevent future crimes.

If someone is using Twitch to organize crimes, then sure, ban him.  Or better yet, contact the FBI with your evidence immediately, as they can do something more appropriate to a would-be criminal than merely banning him from a social media site.  But do ban him eventually.

In your example of the capitol riots, the people who organized the riots on YouTube and Facebook absolutely should be banned for it.  But that should be the extent of it.  There's no good reason for social media sites to dig around to determine whether random accounts that made no mention of the riot happen to belong to people who rioted.  Trying to do that is likely to lead to a large proportion of false positives, like the random guy in the CFD hat who got accused a bunch of times of rioting on social media even though he wasn't in Washington DC at the time of the riot.