Lauren Hale watched a Twitter fight turn threatening last night, as Tea Party member and CNN Contributor Dana Loesch was attacked and threatened, and her husband ousted from the Twitter community for coming to her aid.
One of the great things about The United States of America is the First Amendment, our right to free speech. It’s also one of our biggest downfalls as the term “free speech” is subject to interpretation. Bottom line, we are guaranteed, in our greatest governing document, the right to speak our minds. Unless, of course, someone interprets what you have to say as an attack even if it’s not.
Last night, on Twitter, Dana Loesch, CNN Contributor, was attacked. This behaviour isn’t new to her. According to Loesch’s own words in a piece at Breitbart.com, “I’m used to it, it’s part of the territory of doing what I do, enduring hate like this daily”
Progressives didn’t like that Dana’s husband, Chris, came to her defense. They targeted him and flagged his account as spam in what is suspected to be a massive, coordinated attack. His account, @ChrisLoesch, was suspended. With the help of Ben Howe and hundreds of other conservatives, #FreeChrisLoesch trended worldwide at the third spot. (The screen shot Dana grabbed for her Breitbart piece only shows the US trending list, not the worldwide list.) Within an hour of public outcry and working internally with Twitter, @ChrisLoesch was reinstated.
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However, within just 30 minutes of reinstatement, Chris Loesch’s account was again taken down by angry Progressives bent on keeping him off the website and further inciting conservative ire.
As a friend of mine pointed out during this firestorm, the issue of people abusing Twitter to silence someone via false report is not a partisan issue. It’s everyone’s issue. Agree or disagree with the politics of the Loesch’s, Breitbart, liberals, or conservatives, Twitter is being abused to silence dissenting voices en masse.
Chris Loesch is not the only victim. As this storm grew stronger, stories of more Twitter accounts attacked in the same manner came to light. Even liberal accounts claimed they had been attacked. Ben Howe tweeted against falsely reporting any liberals for spamming, offering to help them if this happened.
Chris defended his wife against people who stated, “@dloesch is one of the few women on this planet that if I learned she’d been brutally raped and murdered, I wouldn’t shed a tear.” The account which tweeted this statement (among others) is still standing while Chris Loesch’s is still suspended.
Suspension of @ChrisLoesch via such a massive and coordinated attack exposes a flaw in Twitter’s algorithm for reporting spam accounts. The Loeschs are working with Twitter to ensure this flaw is fixed. At last check, it may be days before Chris is able to return to Twitter. Allegedly he returned for a second time, briefly, but was immediately removed again.
In the meantime, a husband finds himself banned from Twitter for defending his wife’s honour in the face of those admitting they would not shed a tear if she were to be physically harmed and murdered. Is this not what a husband is supposed to do when his wife is attacked? Defend her?
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Twitter is a privately owned corporation with its own rules and terms of services regarding what can and cannot be said within the services it owns. But when the rules are bent in order to silence someone who has not violated the rules, it becomes an issue of subjective censorship. I find it appalling that the account mentioning murder and violence toward Dana Loesch still stands.
Is this the United States in which we live? Is this the road on which we find free speech? Have we fallen so far from the original vision of our forefathers we now silence dissenters by any means necessary?
I may not agree with everything the opposition has to say but rest assured, I will defend their right to say it until they take it away from me.
What do you think? Should groups of Twitter users be able to strategically take down a single user?
What does language like what is used below, say about how we view women? How about the fact that the account using threatening language still stands on Twitter, but @ChrisLoesch doesn’t?
Let me start my comment by stating that the things on Twitter directed at Dana Loesch are disgusting, shameful, and should be repudiated by everyone with a moral center. Secondly, the tweets to her husband are apparently not of the same caliber, and thus I feel completely comfortable ignoring him for the rest of this conversation except to say I hope he gets his Twitter account back. That said, I’m conflicted. I can’t help but notice the irony in a prominent reactionary conservative figure being attacked in much the same way that she has attacked Americans of all kinds: LGBTQ,… Read more »
Good points, Zek. And although the first tweet by DBarberHotnuke were crass and nasty, he still backpedaled and pulled his punches a bit with the second. (Wouldn’t see that from the right, that’s for sure.) He also didn’t threaten her, or call her vicious names–he just expressed his disdain in a crude manner. Dana Loesch wasn’t harmed by it, and she likely benefited from the publicity she’s getting. Her husband was dutiful in defending her, but who knows what kind of nastiness he spewed in the process?–haven’t seen those tweets yet. So Lauren Hale’s concern over the episode seems a… Read more »
Weeks prior to the C.loesch incident, vocal Indie/Dem twitter accounts were being targeted with spam/block tactics and suspended. But those incidents did not get news media attention.
I don’t doubt this at all, Lindsey, but do you have any specifics or documentation for those who may be skeptical? (I’m not surprised actually, because “dirty tricks” seem to originate on that end of the spectrum and then tend to be replicated later by the other end when they see how effective the tactics are.)
Enough with the false equivalencies! Clearly we live in vitriolic times and many people of all political stripes get nasty in their discourse. However, the bullying tactics, deliberate misrepresentation of others statements and beliefs, and nasty name calling made its way into the mainstream from the right. Roger Ailes, Lee Atwater, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Andrew Breitbart, Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham,and so many others–all are widely recognized names of personalities on the right who perfected this brand of gotcha politics . Could we come up with a list of names on the left who use similar tactics? Yes.… Read more »
Well look at the pot calling the kettle black. You are aware that a perfect example of the very tactic you described, being used by the left by prominent mainstream names is currently going by the name “war on women”. Stop pretending your side is all squeaky clean. They are down in the mud just like everybody else.
How is that the pot calling the kettle anything at all? I’m not a mainstream public figure, nor am I making extreme statements or vilifying anyone. You might have noticed that I pointed out that vitriol exists across the political spectrum. My point is that the contentious discourse that passes for normal now came into the public conversation through the right. I offered a specific (but by no means comprehensive) list of well-known figures on the right who have established reputations for themselves as bullies and bomb-throwers. A quick google of any of these names will yield plenty of specifics… Read more »
“My point is that the contentious discourse that passes for normal now came into the public conversation through the right.” And I haven’t actually challenged that point. I’ve challenged your assertion (and you have, several times now, made this assertion) that the left remains tame in comparison when it comes to these tactics. I don’t particularly care who started it, but to pretend your preferential side is less stained by these tactics then your opposition is truly dishonest. The fact you choose to ignore this point of mine in favour of going back to defend against something I never challenged… Read more »
“Conservatives, on the other hand, have moved so far to the right that the mainstream of conservatism is now firmly entrenched in what used to be considered extremist territory.”
Ironically, most people would characterize this as a “deliberate misrepresentation of others statements and beliefs”
“Ironically, most people would characterize this as a “deliberate misrepresentation of others statements and beliefs'” They might characterize it as such, but they would be wrong. Not that facts tend to sway some people, but the objective, quantitative analysis of Poole and Rosenthal demonstrates that Republicans in Congress are more conservative now than any other time in the last 100 years. http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/04/10/150349438/gops-rightward-shift-higher-polarization-fills-political-scientist-with-dread Or if you don’t trust facts and figures, you might consider the views of a couple of intellectual heavyweights from the [conservative] American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institute, who also assert that Republicans have moved far to… Read more »
“Not that facts tend to sway some people, but the objective, quantitative analysis of Poole and Rosenthal demonstrates that Republicans in Congress are more conservative now than any other time in the last 100 years.” And you believe an analysis of two republicans is deemed an objective or quantitative representation of the entire republican party? And you don’t see how that very statement makes you as guilty as you are accusing them of being? I think this demonstrates quite reasonably the idea that this is a “deliberate misrepresentation of others statements and beliefs’”. All I’m saying is those in glass… Read more »
Well….since the Poole and Rosenthal study is based on the quantitative analysis of all the Republican votes in Congress over 100 years, I’d say (by definition) that it is indeed a quantitative analysis…not necessarily of ALL Republicans, but of all Republicans in Congress for 100 years. (Who of course were elected by……Republicans?) Bank and Ornstein’s analysis is subjective, but based on their expertise. You can choose to disregard them, but if you actually read the article and know who these guys are, you’d recognize that they know what they’re talking about. Of course all partisans do what you’re saying they… Read more »
I’m not denying that Democrats or liberals throw rhetorical bombs and make extreme statements–I’m saying that Republicans do it more, that those who do tend to be more high profile than their counterparts on the left, and that the Republican party has moved demonstrably further from the center than have the Democrats.”
And as I said in my other reply, the democrats war on women is an example that shoots this assertion of yours right to hell. Or are the president and vice president not high profile enough for you?
Actually, that doesn’t change the factual analysis at all, Mark. The fact that the left is (finally, for once) waging a successful marketing campaign against the GOP with their “war on women” meme does not disprove that the Republicans have shifted much farther to the right in recent decades.
The facts are quite clear; Reagan today would be condemned as a liberal Democrat, and Nixon a radical leftist… by modern GOP standards, anyway. Heck, they see Obama as a “socialist” when he’s not even left of center!
The last part of the sentence wasn’t actually what I was addressing there. It was specifically “I’m saying that Republicans do it more, that those who do tend to be more high profile than their counterparts on the left,” that I was intending to address. I suppose I should have clipped the last bit out.
Poor babies. Poor TP babies! Mean ‘ol liberals. Put your heads in Mama’s lap.
If forced to label myself I would come out somewhere on the progressive/Liberal/Socialist/Buddhist side of things.
But, I grew up with a house which was as close minded as any I can imagine. Wacko Liberal I would call it. Screaming at the TV and all.
Extreme is extreme nomatter what side you are on.
I’m cynical enough that I suspect that the ‘liberals’ attacking her may actually be conservatives in disguise, and the conservatives attacking liberals are actually liberals in disguise. At the very least, you can’t really know where a 140-character pseudonymed tweet is coming from. I’ve written into blogs as a paleoconservative and as a radical feminist and as a creationist and as an atheist and as a middle aged woman from Manchester and a geeky teenager from Iowa. I don’t believe I’m the first person to play with the (relative) anonymity of the internet. Do you really think everyone on Twitter… Read more »
Even people who are who they are, do you believe they hold the beliefs they claim they do? Such as people who claim to be great and caring people, yet talk soo much negativity towards others. People need to use their heads more before falling for wteets and what people say. Some signs, twitter followers, personal images, blogs, etc. But too many people believe what they read, which is a major downfall for everyone.
While I consider myself to be progressive and dislike a lot of the tea party and the conservative right are trying to do, personal attacks are completely inappropriate. Those people were way out of line attack that woman personally with threats of murder and rape, and then to ban her husbands account for defending her. That’s just shameful.
Just more proof that no one (and I do mean no one) believes in freedom. Not here, not there, not anywhere, not ever.
So it goes here amidst the humans… T’was ever thus.
“Twitter is a privately owned corporation with its own rules and terms of services regarding what can and cannot be said within the services it owns.” Combined with: “Is this the United States in which we live? Is this the road on which we find free speech? Have we fallen so far from the original vision of our forefathers we now silence dissenters by any means necessary?” This is a deeply flawed argument, about the level of a non-sequitur. A privately-owned corporation running a website has the right to censor and/or edit the messages on its site. Twitter.com is NOT,… Read more »
wellokaythen Good reason to privatize everything these days then: schools, higher ed, prisons, parks? With your logic, then people would be very restricted in what they could say in too many places. The whole internet is owned, so much for free speech then? Kind of a fascist logic to me, privatize things then you can silence people, better yet buy everything then you can control people? Twitter tweets are stored by Library of Congress: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/12/library-of-congress-to-store-tweets-based-on-twitter-deal/1#.T6BZoLWQnkc I have been attacked for defending my wife from lies and rumors from mom bloggers online. And those people have got a few of their… Read more »
I can’t see anything good about this. It’s mob mentality no matter which side of the political fence it comes from. The person who said such horrible things (and yes he’s not “advocating” for it, which rings completely false) should have been banned immediately for threat and TOS. Dana’s rep precedes her, which in no way excuses the vile attack on her, only reaffirms to me that if people want to get ugly and violent online? They will, regardless of gender or political affiliation. No one seems all that innocent here It’s nasty no matter how you look at it… Read more »
“It’s mob mentality no matter which side of the political fence it comes from.”
I gotta say that I’m becoming increasingly suspicious of the liberals. While I keep seeing conservatives making ignorant remarks, I keep seeing liberals launching vicious attacks on anyone who doesn’t agree with them. What’s with the bloodthirsty liberal mob mentality?
“What’s with the bloodthirsty liberal mob mentality?” I think what we’re seeing, actually, is both the Republicans and the Democrats getting more and more bloodthirsty and polarized. I think part of it is the extended election cycles that we have. I mean, how long after the 2008 elections did people already start campaigning for the 2012 primaries? It’s ridiculous. The election season in the U.S. lasts years…YEARS! Part of it is also to do with the economy, I think. It’s a tough nut to crack…there isn’t really a right or wrong answer, or rather there isn’t a morally right or… Read more »
Well, as someone who watched liberals NOT do that for decades, there is a part of me that’s like…Oh you finally learned how to play as nasty as the conservatives. But I don’t much like it in either direction truthfully. I hate it actually. But Karl Rove, Breitbart, etc they played superhardball and it worked.
“Well, as someone who watched liberals NOT do that for decades,”
…hmmm… I likely wasn’t around in the time period that you’re reffering to (and if I was, I didn’t care what “liberal” or “conservative” meant) I have to wonder how true this is. I mean I’m assuming the Liberal party was still made up of people back then, and politicians no less.
Odds are you’re either looking back through rose colored glasses, or you didnt notice because it wasnt being blasted at you 24/7 through some screen or another.
All politics is nasty. I’m just seeing more liberals attack harder first these days is all.
Atheists too I find. Considerably more so than the theist fundies these days.
Julie: “Well, as someone who watched liberals NOT do that for decades” Don’t mean to sound rude, Julie, but have you forgotten when George Bush 2nd was in office for two terms straight? Some of the extreme strands of the liberals compared him to a chimp, posting pictures of his face droopy expression next to one. There were also others who likened him to Hitler. While I disagreed vehemently with George Bush’s policies in the day, I never stooped as to compare him to a chimp or the most vile dictator that existed in the late thiries to early forties… Read more »
Neither did I. I just said that I think politics is ugly and that the left is attacking more first. I think the attacks of the right (in general) have been more effective during elections. I don’t think anyone truly wins though, when a platform is built on lies, mob mentality and the marketing of fear.
Anyone else think it’s kind of weird that they targetted her husband and not her with this coordinated attack?
No. Leaves her open to continue being attacked and removes her husband as an obsticle for that, since he wasn’t helping to attack her.
Yea that makes sense I guess.
I wouldn’t even assume it’s that Machiavellian: It’s more likely that he was responding and she wasn’t. Or that he fired back with insults and a whole lot of people reported him. I doubt it was coordinated.
Those tweets are truly reprehensible. I’d like to see screen shots of Chris’s tweets, though, as he may well have violated the Twitter TOS re: spam and abuse in his replies. After all, that’s his wife’s typical MO, as my story documenting her Saturday evening twitter rampage documents:
http://storify.com/rchains/lessons-in-lying-from-dana-loesch-1/
So, when it comes to the obviously hateful tweets against here…you’re saying she “had it coming”?
Way to blame the victim there. Maybe that’s something you want to work on?
Nope, I didn’t say that at all. But thanks for playing! 🙂
Rebecca, that’s not only what you implied, but your were so transparent about it that all the other commenters saw it too. I’m very sorry if you thought you were coy in the slightest.
Do you believe that everyone you disagree with should be persecuted, silenced, and attacked?
Certainly not! I think you’re confusing me with Dana Loesch. That’s her MO, as my link above illustrates, if you have time to read through it.
I dont neccessarily agree with her views, but you and I obviously have different definitions of “abusive”
I’m not sure if our definitions agree or disagree, as I don’t believe I offered one. I was referring to the Twitter definition of “spam and abuse,” which they lump into a single category/concept. Here’s their TOS page: https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311-the-twitter-rules#
Hope this helps!
You wondered if her husband had violated the TOS because of abusive posts, because (according to you) that’s what Loesch does. You then linked to a post documenting some of her “absuive” posts. In other words you didn’t really have to define “abusive” I assumed you meant her posts to define it for you. And I read through that TOS. I fail to see where she’s violated it (as does Twitter, I assume, since she’s still active.) Perhaps you’d care to point out, (specifically, mind, not with the internet equivilent of a vague gesture) how you feel she’s violated the… Read more »
No, my exact phrasing above, “he may well have violated the Twitter TOS re: spam and abuse in his replies.” Perhaps you missed my use of “spam and abuse” per the TOS terminology. The specific item that she borderline on violating is this: “If you send large numbers of duplicate @replies or mentions.” See “Lesson #2” in my Storify, in which in a small period of time she sent several nearly identical @replies/mentions to me. Granted, her phrasing was not identical, but the meaning was. As this is part of her MO, I can imagine how some people might believe… Read more »
Ah! And: A Yahoo News reporter investigated and found the original tweets. Truly, they were not at all horrible in content–only high in number. He suspects this is what got Chris Loesch banned. For full details, see http://m.yahoo.com/w/news_america/blogs/ticket/husband-cnn-dana-loesch-not-targeted-leftists-twitter-224831864.html .
Rebecca – 50 tweets in 45 minutes, while high in number, is no higher than what I tweet at least twice every Monday during an active support chat I lead. I have only been tossed in “Twitter jail” once or twice, never suspended nor banned. In order to be suspended or banned from Twitter, as I understand it, one must be reported as Spam. If you’re thrown in “jail” for excessive tweeting, you don’t receive an email from Twitter, you merely have to wait until the API resets. I know, because I’ve had this happen to me. I dug through… Read more »
Oh, how insightful! Thanks for sharing your experiences as context. I’ll attempt to pass this helpful feedback along to the reporter.
That’s… pretty hyperbolic. I don’t agree with her by a long shot but nothing you’ve quoted her as saying comes anywhere close to the abuse she received.
Hope this helps! 🙂
Now, now–I never said they were equal!
In fact, if I were in charge of twitter, whoever posted the reprehensible tweets screengrabbed above would be banned for sure.
All I’m saying is that given what I’ve seen of the Loesches’ tactics, a screen grab or two of his retorts would help us decide whether he crossed any lines in his responses. It IS possible that he violated the TOS, you know– just like it’s possible he was unfairly targeted by his opponents.
A follow-up: Yahoo News found his original tweets. Found their content was fine, but that their quantity may have triggered Twitter’s algorithm to ban him Loesch.
Details at http://m.yahoo.com/w/news_america/blogs/ticket/husband-cnn-dana-loesch-not-targeted-leftists-twitter-224831864.html .
There, there – You described it as “Her MO.” As I mentioned I’m not exactly a fan of the tea party but there isn’t even a comparison to be made between the debate she had with you and the mobbing she received.
I think it’s more than possible that he violated the TOS, but that’s not all you were saying.
A guy with a nuclear explosion tweeted that. That should tell you everything you need to know about their sick disposition.
I don’t see liberal versus conservative here, I see a flaw in twitter’s system coinciding with people too immature to have a reasonaed political debate.
The Loeschs are smart. I don’t agree with their politics but they are from a problem. The fact that people hide behind fake names and images is an issue that I can not comprehend.