Surely it's their site and their policy? At the moment they are drawing a comparison between gamergate-style intimidation and normal social discourse out in the real world. Some interactions on Twitter do not feel like the real world to me and I guess Twitter wants that to change. But its up to them.

Don't be so stupid. Really, if you don't like twitter's policies, find another site to use. If you're right about this being a slippery slope, their business will collapse as millions of users drift away because they believe they are being oppressed. I don't think that's going to happen but maybe it will.

In the mean time, the rest of us will be able to guess with a high degree of accuracy what Twitter will and won't tolerate. If you're unable to do that, that's fine too. You can get banned or suspended or not.

I think that person's argument is that gamers are being oppressed by Anita Sarkeesian's well-written and argued videos.

Or some such drivel.

Taking quotes out of context like that is just appalling. Normal people do not do that. The video you linked to is from one of the more vociferous gamergate leaders. Why not find the same quote of femfreq?

However, to answer your point:

"Women are being institutionally oppressed all the time, in nearly every facet of our lives" - this statement is hardly even remarkable. It's a standard feminist idea, which is discussed seriously all over the world. I can't imagine why you think the statement is odd or unusual. Here is a hint: there is feminist critique of every art form. If you don't like it, you don't have to read it or pay any attention to it. The problem here is that she has been receiving rape and murder threats because of what she says. Hopefully you can understand that that is not really appropriate.

The way you talk to your best friend is not the same as the way you talk to strangers on the internet. Nobody cares what you say to your friends, apart from you and them. Twitter feels that it needs to take a specific and direct interest in the invective directed at some of its users. This is a different thing altogether.

No doubt you can link us to these people. I'm sure many people here would be interested to see some examples.

Can you point to this incident on twitter?

I live in the UK and I regularly read the Guardian. I'm not sure what that has to do with twitter, save that they are both private organisations and can impose their own rules on their own space. Why do you care? If you have a blog, you can do this yourself. Or not. It's up to whoever owns the space isn't it?

I don't see the relevance of the UK police's behaviour. This story is about twitter and how they are trying to control their own space. They are allowed to do that, regardless of what you think. Why you think the UK police are connected to twitter is a mystery to me.

If Twitter decides that any threatening or harmful tweet is to be erased, half of Twitter could end up being thrown out. It's too bad their new CEO is on the warpath about this.

This is an obvious straw man.

People who received threatening tweets or whatever, could always just log off and stop seeing them.

This gets to the heart of the matter. Of course people who are threatened could just go away. But I think that the overwhelming majority of people want the people doing the threatening to go away. I guess Twitter, a commercial organisation, has made a calculation that they would prefer the people who threaten others to leave. It's their site and it's entirely up to them how they manage it, what sort of behaviour they want to allow and what they should do about people who won't behave.

What are you talking about? Are you suggesting that your ability to express your views depends on twitter allowing you to do so? If twitter won't let you, try facebook. If they're not keen, just set up your own webpage and put what you like there. If you can't do that, take an ad in the paper or stand on a street corner shouting whatever you like. That's free speech.

Your comment is idiotic. If people are threatening to rape and murder other users of twitter, it is entirely rational for twitter to attempt to put a stop to that. That is not "censorship". You can still say whatever you want. Twitter does not have to host what you want to say.

Right, just like generalizing and stereotyping games and gamers as a "Choose your own patriarchal adventure"

Are you just making this shit up?

The scary ones are the real SJWs who go cruising through tags looking for people breaking their own special set of playground rules and begin the harassment, usually pulling in their own white knights to send many simultaneous violation requests that the blogger is unceremoniously punted from the service or just annoy somebody into the dirt.

No doubt you can give examples of this behaviour? Just saying it doesn't make it true.

This argument holds no water when gamergaters are so desperate to get the gg autoblocker banned.

Making threats is often done when one's back is against the wall.

This sounds very noble, but a huge number of these threats are threats to rape people. That doesn't sound like something that someone with their back against the wall would threaten.

The best fix is to be able to conduct discourse only with people who don't threaten to rape or murder other people. I use the gg autoblocker, but I can understand why some people don't want to do that and I can also understand why Twitter would want to suspend/remove people like that from their service.

Are you really suggesting that the three women who have mostly been targeted by gamergate actually made up the threats against them?

Your "argument from authority" point means nothing, as I have no skin in the game. I'm simply pointing out that there is no benefit to someone screeching here that '"SJWs" are the worst people in the world', when gamergate and similar groups have comprehensively failed to have their case accepted anywhere. That's an argument from reality.

I doubt if anyone will get banned and be surprised about it. It's clear they have the "rape and murder" crowd in mind.