How could anyone want to #freemilo?

FranticFrummie

Tue, Jul 26 2016, 2:37 pm

The issue is not what he said, or whether he is a "nice person". The issue is Twitter's terms of service. He did not call for violence, or encourage anyone else to be violent.

He had an unpopular opinion. Last I checked, that was not a crime. He said some really mean things, but that falls under Freedom of Speech. If Twitter wants to be a strictly Social Justice site, then it needs to be clear about that in it's terms. It's their site, and they make the rules. Milo did not violate their rules as currently stated.

Nobody was bent out of shape when Twitter was blowing up with comments about #F*ckWhitePeople and #KillThePigs, or #KillAllCops. Nope, no problem at all with promoting race riots and randomly targeting law enforcement.

Insult an actress for a bad movie, and that gets you a banning? Double standards much?

Silencing critics will not get you anywhere. In fact, it's backfired beautifully, because now more people than ever have discovered Milo's videos and writing, and he's gotten a HUGE audience for it. Thanks, Twitter!

allthingsblue

Tue, Jul 26 2016, 2:49 pm

He violated the following rule:
"We believe in freedom of expression and in speaking truth to power, but that means little as an underlying philosophy if voices are silenced because people are afraid to speak up. In order to ensure that people feel safe expressing diverse opinions and beliefs, we do not tolerate behavior that crosses the line into abuse, including behavior that harasses, intimidates, or uses fear to silence another user’s voice.

Any accounts and related accounts engaging in the activities specified below may be temporarily locked and/or subject to permanent suspension.

....Harassment: You may not incite or engage in the targeted abuse or harassment of others. Some of the factors that we may consider when evaluating abusive behavior include:
if a primary purpose of the reported account is to harass or send abusive messages to others;
if the reported behavior is one-sided or includes threats;
if the reported account is inciting others to harass another account; and
if the reported account is sending harassing messages to an account from multiple accounts..."

He harassed her.

ora_43

Tue, Jul 26 2016, 3:53 pm

AFAIK, people are supporting #freemilo largely as a free speech issue.

Yes, technically Twitter doesn't owe anyone free speech, but with reality what it is today, social media platforms have HUGE power over what gets heard and what doesn't.

And like previous posters said, it's mostly about what looks like hypocrisy. If Twitter wants to create a rule that personal attacks and body-shaming are grounds for banning - great! But if thousands of other people are getting away with it and just this one guy gets banned, it looks bad.

All that said, yeah, Milo comes across as really mean. Like, casual cruelty is an integral part of his public persona. But the thing about free speech and other rights is that they apply to everybody or nobody. It's easy to say "great, ban him, he's a d*****bag," but who gets banned next?

(disclaimer - I do think it looks like he actually violated Twitter policy. And if that's true, the ban makes sense. But people who back #freemilo tend to disagree)

Fox

Tue, Jul 26 2016, 3:59 pm

allthingsblue wrote:

In another thread, if I recall correctly, I saw posters saying they wanted to #Freemilo and felt he shouldn't be banned from Twitter.
How could a frum Jewish woman not be appalled and disgusted at Milo's abuse of Leslie Jones? I mean, if you read the comments he said about her, you will blush with shame. They almost made me cry for Leslie. They are not just rude and insulting- they are vicious.
This is not about politics. This is not about racism. This is about a person cruelly abusing another human being and provoking his followers to do the same.
If someone can be so cruel and heartless, they most certainly should be banned from Twitter. How can you think otherwise?

What Happened?
I watched the whole thing unfold in real time, and the two "nasty" tweets sent by Milo (@Nero) were the following:

Quote:

If at first you don’t succeed (because your work is terrible), play the victim. EVERYONE GETS HATE MAIL

And then:

Quote:

Barely literate. America needs better schools!

The second tweet was in response to a completely incoherent tweet from Leslie Jones.

Which one do you find cruelly abusive?

The horrible racist tweets that Leslie Jones received began before Milo tweeted anything about the movie or Leslie Jones. In fact, Jones had responded to a number of those tweets. Jones's claim -- that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey bought into -- is that Milo somehow mobilized an army of racist followers to send nasty tweets. Precisely how he did this was never addressed.

Now, it is no doubt true that Milo has followers who are racists, and some of them may indeed have tweeted horrible things to Leslie Jones. But holding someone responsible for the actions of his/her followers on social media in the absence of any hint or suggestion that they take such an action sets a standard that none of us should find acceptable.

Leslie Jones herself has a somewhat checkered Twitter history, including ranting against white people and urging followers to "Get her" in response to a troll.

But that's not really the reason people are upset.

Reason #1 for #FreeMilo
The first reason people are upset is that Twitter as well as other social media enforce their Terms of Service capriciously. For example, tweets calling for the killing of police officers are still up, and at various times ISIS has had accounts that call for terrorist acts. Death threats are common, including death threats from known people in geographic proximity to the person being threatened.

In response to her defense of Milo, Kassy Dillon received tons of death threats, many of which she made public. One, in particular, was from another student at her college. She reported these to Twitter, and the response was to suspend her account for a day or two with no explanation. A number of the death threats are still up there!

Reason #2 for #FreeMilo
The second reason that people are upset is that they feel that insults traded on social media do not fall into the same category of "yelling fire in a crowded theater" and represent a slippery slope toward restricted speech.

If someone is sending you horrible tweets, you have several very easy options:

* Block them.
* Ignore them.
* Walk away from the social media platform.

Leslie Jones has subsequently said, "If someone gets in my face and calls me a gorilla, I'm gonna call their mama a gorilla." That's totally fine, and all of us have fed the trolls at one time or another. But Jones didn't do that; instead, she made a highly emotional, dramatic exit from Twitter, only to come back 48 hours later.

You can't have it both ways.

Why Does Any of This Matter?
So why does a frum woman care about any of this?

Because Milo is one of the few circuses that comes to town to stand up against third-wave feminism, identity politics, and the "grievance plantation." He's the only circus that comes to town to discuss the role of masculinity in society and how we're raising our boys.

I won't go into it here, but much of the research that Milo introduces to his audiences and many of the people he interviews should resonate deeply with the frum community -- both in terms of what we're doing right and where we might improve.

Personally, I'm not obsessed with who will be the next President. But I worry a lot about the increasing inability of college-educated people to make arguments based on facts rather than feelings. I worry a lot about the encroaching demand that people be protected at the cost of their freedom. I worry that the best and brightest kids in America are being trained to scream, "hate speech" rather than refute actual hatred with actual facts.

Unfortunately, the serious scholars and thinkers who consider these problems don't get much publicity. If one person reads about Christina Hoff Sommers' or Jack Donovan's work -- let alone actually reads some of the work itself -- putting up with the circus that is Milo will have been well worth it.

bluebird

Tue, Jul 26 2016, 4:10 pm

As much as people want to make this about free speech, that is not the issue. He was banned not for just this incident, but because he has repeatedly engaged in behavior against Twitter's TOS. This is actually the third time he was banned, the difference is that this time it is permanent.

The main problem is not what he said specifically, but the fact that he instigated brigading, which is essentially encouraging his army of followers to bully people while he steps back, whistles quietly, and says that *he* didn't do anything and of course he can't control other people.

His drones also created fake, anti-Semitic or racist tweets that they attributed to Leslie Jones, which Milo retweeted as if they were real, further serving to whip up anger and encourages other to harass her.

This is not the first time he's done this.

Milo is very, very good at manipulation and making himself seem like a champion of all that is right and good, dragged down by fascists who can't handle the truth. Don't fall for it, regardless of your political leanings. He enjoys playing his supports as much as trolling his detractors.

Fox

Tue, Jul 26 2016, 4:22 pm

bluebird wrote:

The main problem is not what he said specifically, but the fact that he instigated brigading, which is essentially encouraging his army of followers to bully people while he steps back, whistles quietly, and says that *he* didn't do anything and of course he can't control other people.

What, he somehow zaps ideas into the heads of people who follow him on Twitter?

bluebird wrote:

His drones also created fake, anti-Semitic or racist tweets that they attributed to Leslie Jones, which Milo retweeted as if they were real, further serving to whip up anger and encourages other to harass her.

Which his supporters pointed out immediately as fake within a couple of minutes. Unfortunately, the real archived tweets weren't much better! I guess the drones weren't as imaginative as they needed to be.

bluebird wrote:

Milo is very, very good at manipulation and making himself seem like a champion of all that is right and good, dragged down by fascists who can't handle the truth. Don't fall for it, regardless of your political leanings. He enjoys playing his supports as much as trolling his detractors.

So if your argument is that he's a shameless self-promoter, I don't think you'd have any dissenters. That said, his presence on the public stage says more about the lack of other alternatives than about his talents.

Fox

Tue, Jul 26 2016, 5:23 pm

sequoia wrote:

Because there is a certain brand of women who believe, mistakenly, that if they met Milo they'd be friends.

In reality Milo would mock and fat-shame them.

So this is an interesting point that probably deserves another thread that about three of us would actually be interested enough to follow.

Yes, Milo does get his share of college-aged fangirls. In fact, two of his primary social media proxies are college girls.

For a complete explanation of this phenomenon, you have to examine the symbiotic relationship between gay men and young women in the secular world. For a college-aged woman, an attractive gay man is the perfect repository of affection. She has male companionship without the s-xual demands that would come from heteros-xual men. He gets external confirmation of his masculinity without having to conform to traditional masculine behavior.

Moreover, there are some underlying tropes in such relationships, one of which is that the gay man appoints himself as a guardian of the young woman's well-being, such as scaring off unsuitable boyfriends or gently disabusing her of unrealistic fantasies regarding the male gender. Again, this permits a man who would typically not be seen as a "protector" to engage in that masculine behavior while providing a young woman with either symbolic or literal "protection."

An additional trope is perhaps a bit outdated but nevertheless alive and kicking: as part of his "protection," the gay man feels obligated to do whatever is necessary to help the young woman advance her prospects in heteros-xual relationships. This might mean courtship strategy, grooming advice, or tough love about what will attract the "best" guy.

Take a look at Milo's fat-shaming: it's hilarious and so sad. Although he tries to stick to the narrative that being overweight is unhealthy, he keeps coming back to, "You're not going to get a husband if you're too fat and dye your hair blue!" Apparently those of us who are already married are allowed to become as fat as we like!

Milo desperately needs women in his orbit so that he can enact the role of protector despite looking, most recently, like a bishie vampire and wearing pearls. It's a way of signalling, "I'm still a man despite the way I look and act" and asserting masculine advantage over straight men who would condemn him by saying, in essence, "I'm able to protect your women when you would take advantage." By contrast, you don't find gay men whose behavior reflects traditional masculine expectations courting the fangirls or chastising them for doing things that might diminish their "market value" to heteros-xual men.

Whew! I should get some kind of honorary degree in gender studies! Or maybe feminist dance theory?

debsey

Tue, Jul 26 2016, 8:33 pm

It seems to me that there's an issue being played out here that is played out countless times on Imamother.

Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. In other words, there have to be reasonable limits to "free speech" (the "fire in a crowded movie theater" test for speech that should be curtailed argument.)

Should harassment and bullying be banned? Definitely. People should be able to disagree in a courteous manner. If you truly believe something, you should be able to express yourself coherently, without resorting to personal attacks, mockery, or harassment.

That being said, if Twitter, or Facebook, or any social media platform engages in selective enforcement, any ban becomes essentially meaningless. It's ok to have #killthejews or #thejewsownHollywood but not #LeslieJonesIsFat? Makes no sense, it's unfair, and the selective enforcement is hypocrisy at its worst.

Do I have a solution? Not really. But I just wanted to point out, here on Imamother, we can all be shining examples of how to disagree without resorting to personal attacks (I said we CAN be, not that we ARE.) We have moments of it, but if anything #FreeMilo should teach us it's this - it's the 3 weeks - let's all learn to disagree without being discourteous.

fmt4

Tue, Jul 26 2016, 9:43 pm

This whole situation made me cry for Leslie as well. She's obviously someone who has undergone a lot of ridicule and pain over her appearance. I really can't imagine how hard it is to be a woman in Hollywood looking so "Un-hollywoodlike." She talked about how so many designers didn't want to make dresses for her for the premiere... Then she finally found this beautiful red dress and she looked so happy in it... And then the horrific comments came... And yes, it's easy to say that you have to have tough skin in this industry but it doesn't mean it's easy to do... And I don't know if milo deserves to be kicked off Twitter or not but I will NEVER support a man who takes such obvious glee in exploiting women's insecurities and making them feel horrible about themselves - in his original review of the film, he singled Leslie out as "spectacularly unappealing," of course he could pretend that he's referring to her acting but it's a pretty obvious dig at her looks.