Twitter's decision therefore takes a stand on what the "truth" is.

This is not intended to judge how true the original article by the way, for future downvoters.

Twitter is not an arbiter of truth and never was. Their policies are clear.

They are not an arbiter of truth or an authority.

The problem with Twitter is that it can ban information based on western media consensus. aka echo chamber.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-23/video-uyghurs-shaved-...

This is holocaust level work.

The ABC link shows a random video uploaded and verified as 'authentic' by someone who sits at his home watching Google maps. If that's the level of evidence required for Holocaust then it's a lost cause to reason with you.

also to add, there are 12 million uighur in china, if the claim of genocide on 3 million of uighur is true, that means 1 in 4 uighur are slaughtered. Xinjiang to this day is open for visits for foreigners, there are zero reports of refugees in neighboring countries. If the there is indeed a holocaust going on, then these evidence should be easy to find right? and you probably wouldn't need to rely on "leaks" and videos verified by a 22 year old "goolge map" expert.

I'm of the belief that any coercion with the intent to disuade women from having any (or more) kids is ethically wrong, (except for some very very limited cases). Govt really shouldn't have a heavy influence on what is a family decision.

While I'm all for educating poor areas in order to increase quality of life... if one of the stated goals of that education is to reduce the number of that populations offspring, then there are some tough ethical questions about such a program that need to be answered.

And that's before you even get into the "targeted minority" aspects.

And yes, I get that one easy way to "improve quality of life" is to have fewer kids (I personally disagree), and I get that educated couples often have fewer kids...

but if that's where the bulk of the QoL bump is coming from... Then that's just straight up population control going by an alias with better branding.

The policy has historically allowed exceptions for ethnic minorities, but looking at news stories they have been physically putting birth control devices in Uyghur women without consent too. The state perfected its art of surveillance by testing on minorities; it's no surprise they also perfected some other human rights violations from experience with Han people.

(There are cheap condom programs, but the entire country just doesn't talk about sex. You get few safe sex talks, and all these stuff end up as balloons for kids and hairbands. Combined oral contraceptives are cheap and OTC, but the culture is heavily against "unnecessary use of western medicine", especially for the cheap ethinylestradiol/levonostrogel kind because "cheap means bad". So you end up with good women's bodily autonomy on paper and terrible execution, even without the violations.)

It's sterilization, so that Uighur families can't have children.

EDIT: HN won't let me respond, probably due to the automatic moderation controls kicking in on this article, so here's an example of the forced sterilization policy indiscriminately targeting all Uighur women: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/04/muslim-minorit...

The more boring explanation is the simpler one I think; that they're bringing policies toward minorities in line with policies toward the majority -- i.e. ending a form of "affirmative action" they used to have.

You can argue that population control of _any_ kind is wrong and cruel, and I think that's a totally defensible argument, but there's a rhetorical sleight of hand going on here where people equate China's controversial population control measures (that have been ongoing for decades) with the elimination of a particular ethnic minority, Nazi-style.

It's a culture- and religion-based form of oppression. The ethnic Uighur people are Muslims, for the most part. They form a distinct subculture within China. The Communist Party sees their nonconformity as a threat to social harmony. That's why, in addition to forced sterilization and forced birth control, the government has imposed forced re-education in concentration camps.

Their goal is to destroy the Uighur population's distinctiveness as a subculture in China. It is deliberate ethnocide (by forced internment) and genocide (by reproductive suppression).

Which makes you ask, what's the difference between Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups like the Hui? Well, the biggest as far as I can tell is the influx of new, extremist ideologies like Wahhabism that are actually quite _incompatible_ with the indigenous culture. The reasons why that happened seem complex, but maybe you can say it's an unfortunate outcome of US and Russian meddling in the region over decades.

It's absolutely true that there's increased security and surveillance targeted at Uyghurs in the region, I've seen a lot of videos taken by travelers from the area that confirm that. There's also a coordinated and systemic program of re-education, as admitted by Chinese authorities. I'm sure there is a non-zero amount of abuses as part of this whole program, but I don't think that's the same thing as genocide. & I think the stated reason in their propaganda for _why_ this is all happening passes the smell test... Otherwise, wouldn't they be repressing Hui Muslims as well?

(Also see Tibet -- people said the same thing about Tibetan culture 20 years ago, but it's pretty well-understood now that there were foreign-funded separatist elements back then)

How would your opinion change if that correlation were found to disappear in the coming decades? Or if it actually began to reverse (for example as populations shift to being more urban where kids are expensive and access to assisted reproduction depends on wealth)?

>The best way to "control" population growth is...

Then provide some level of govt incentive to reach that goal, it's still coercion (or if you prefer, manipulation), even if the incentive is 1st order positive effects, and the stated goal/result is a 2nd or 3rd order effect.

Thinking about it, I keep coming back to preditory lending/selling tactics or dark-pattern manipulation (except the UI is your life choices) as comparisons, but I haven't worked out exactly why, yet, other than it bothers me in a similar way. Moreso, since it's government.

It's a coordination problem. Everyone wants to act in the way that maximizes their happiness/success/utility, but in doing so acts in a net-negative way. One of the premier purposes of government is to solve coordination problems. Why is it unethical for the government to solve this coordination problem?

Or, more concretely, why does my right to have a dozen children trump my children's right to have sufficient resources left to them to live a happy life?

People are free to use or not birth controls if they want or not children, same for the education. People aren't tricked in reducing the amount of children they have. Data in developed countries seems to point that when people are better educated and have the tools to decide for children, they get them later in life and in less quantity (without considering other factors, such as religious communities that have more children per woman than average).

But what I was originally going to say is that the language gets really fuzzy really fast. Like you could argue that sex education is a form of persuasion (though I wouldn't say coercion) and is easily argued as a form of population control. But I think many of us would call that beneficial. I'd say the same with free/cheap and easy access to forms of birth control. I'd say that enables more choice. But if we're talking about a counseling center that guilt trips someone into having the child or not having the child I'd call that coercion and I don't think that's right. But others would call that persuasion and education. So I think this gets messy really quick and a bit of expanding on the thought for clarification is needed.

I used the word "coercion" intentionally, although it's not exactly right.

Just as "coercion" implies "force or threatening," "persuasion" implies an "un-forced, freely-made choice." And that is a big part of what I'm questioning depending on particular circumstances.

At what level of deception or trickery or lies-of-omission, does the free-choice become the illusion-of-choice?

Hypothetically, in Xinjiang, if (and I get that this is an extremely unlikely "if" for obvious reasons) if we presume the actions are exactly the same (provide/offer/compel education), and the end results are exactly the same (results in suppressed Uighur birthrate, but educated),

Then does the government's good or bad intent matter?

What's the difference between these scenarios, if

1) China govt being honest and trying raise the QoL in Xinjiang to be equal with the rest of China, or

2) China govt lying, and using education as a pretense because of the low birthrate result that they desire?

Giving the state arbitrary powers to limit population growth is a form of violence. Having a state sactioned sterilization on excess children is just as horrific as a war, without any of the spoils of war.

The problem lies in the fact that the gov is the last body left to resolve our deepest conflicts as we are no longer free to commit acts of violence on our own behalf. Making it through life used to be materially difficult and death was far more common. Living in our current heaven-like atmosphere has far darker implications for the age-old conflicts.

Except, you missed the part where, if someone's free to run up the score with 4, 6, or 10 children...they also have the freedom to watch them starve if they can't support them.

I don't know that better planners should be forced into subsidizing bad family planning/no family planning.

What about government policies that persuade women to have more children? Are those ethically ok?

That it be worse than, for example, forced foreskin removal or teeth correction would only follow from the axiom that reproduction is a higher goal that all should have.

If one can say that one can kill a man who has not yet been conceived, by stopping his hypothetical future birth, then every form of contraception is murder, nay, the simple election not to have sex or otherwise procreate is then murder.

The argument of genocide of course does not imply that the man who is sterilized is killed so long as he be allowed to live after the sterilization, but rather that his future, hypothetical offspring is, because it would now never come to be.

The comparison I made was with forced foreskin removal and forced dental correction, something that can also not be undone.

any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

As usual, U.N. definitions are made without much thought, and quickly lead to the absurd when being held to even the slightest of inspection — it is almost as if it be a forum of very emotional men, who put very little thought into what they are doing.

If we say that stopping future births rather is problematic, then most forms of sex education are problematic.

That would be perhaps true if the Dutch government were planning to give out free condoms only to white people or only to black people or only to blonds or only to christians etc. If they are universally giving out condoms, then they are obviously not trying to destroy any particular ethnic or national group inside their own country - the obvious limit to the UN definition.

Then they are only giving them out to the “ethnicity” called “the Dutchman”.

But this another matter of why I'm never very impressed with any definition that names the pseudoscientific concept of “ethnicity” — it is of course entirely an arbitrary thing what is and isn't classified as a separate “ethnicity” much like how the difference between a dialect and a separate language is of course one of politics, not science.

If only the province of Frisia were to have a plan for handing out such condoms, would that qualify as genocide of the Frisians then, which some claim is a different ethnicity for historical reasons? Are the inhabitants of each city perhaps a different ethnicity?

If you permanently and compulsorily sterilized everyone in Frisia, yes, that'd be a genocide. Giving them condoms they can voluntarily and reversibly use is not.

If the government were giving out free vasectomies or tubal ligations to certain ethnic groups and not others, that would be a wildly different story.

I'm simply saying that by the U.N.'s definition of “genocide”, handing out condoms can be construed as such, and that the definition is therefore not worth much, or rather, that following it's definition, genocide is not problematic per se¯, as it does not necessarily involve the involuntary taking of human life.

Free condom initiatives typically do not have that intent.

However, if the local authorities in Frisia were to implement such a plan, that would be closer to the first case of universal measures, since the authorities in Frisia shouldn't be expected to hand out condoms in other provinces. Of course, if it turned out that the measure was in fact planned by the central government and passed off as a local idea, that would again move the needle towards being suspicious.

In general, intent matters - that is why the law can't be formalized mathematically. If a country is targeting some group that it has historically considered "different" (regardless of how questionable the difference is) with some kind of measure which may have negative consequences, that measure should receive scrutiny, and the context should be identified. For example, giving poor people condoms may be an attempt at population control in one country, while in another country it may be a democratically enacted benefit.

We are far away from providing mathematically clear definitions of legal concepts such as genocide, murder, theft, fraud and anything you like. There are always surprising subtleties, and intent and context are always going to be a part of the definition.

>However, if the local authorities in Frisia were to implement such a plan, that would be closer to the first case of universal measures, since the authorities in Frisia shouldn't be expected to hand out condoms in other provinces. Of course, if it turned out that the measure was in fact planned by the central government and passed off as a local idea, that would again move the needle towards being suspicious.

This is a distinction you make, but not a distinction the U.N. definition makes, which shows that you, much as I do, do not find the definition credible.

The U.N. definition does not factor in supranationality as a condition.

> In general, intent matters

Perhaps, but that difference is not given in the U.N. definition.

> that is why the law can't be formalized mathematically.

Then the definition should have never been offered as a rebuttal.

> If a country is targeting some group that it has historically considered "different" (regardless of how questionable the difference is) with some kind of measure which may have negative consequences, that measure should receive scrutiny, and the context should be identified. For example, giving poor people condoms may be an attempt at population control in one country, while in another country it may be a democratically enacted benefit.

All of this goes far beyond the original definition and is quite ad hoc.

I suspect that if further challenges and exceptions be raised against all these further rules, that more ad hoc rules are further and further added.

> We are far away from providing mathematically clear definitions of legal concepts such as genocide, murder, theft, fraud and anything you like. There are always surprising subtleties, and intent and context are always going to be a part of the definition.

Indeed we are, so perhaps the definition should not have been offered as if it actually be meaningful and the U.N. should drop the prætence of it's having “definitions” and “rules” for what is clearly simply “we rule on a case by case basis, mostly on our gut feeling.”

And that is too how laws work. I find that in practice the written text of the law is largely irrelevant vis a` vis the gut feeling of whatever man vested with the power to interpret the law and I believe that not much would change in practice if entire law books were simply replaced with “The judge may do as he will and punish what he finds immoral on a case by case basis.”

Rule of law is almost always a veil for rule of men.

> Perhaps, but that difference is not given in the U.N. definition.

Yes, it is. The UN's 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines it explicitly with intent in mind:

"... genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group..."

Of course it is! The definition explicitly says "any of the following acts committed with the intent to [...]".

One more thing that the definition says that I hadn't even noticed and that significantly simplifies my examples, and immediately makes your example clearly NOT genocide, is that point (d) talks about imposing reproductive restrictions, which offering free condoms will never do.

> All of this goes far beyond the original definition and is quite ad hoc.

Yes, I was going beyond the strict definition of genocide and exploring similar concepts. The idea of defining what "ethnic groups" etc. means by historical precedent is probably the exact intent of the UN definition, though.

> And that is too how laws work. I find that in practice the written text of the law is largely irrelevant vis a` vis the gut feeling of whatever man vested with the power to interpret the law and I believe that not much would change in practice if entire law books were simply replaced with “The judge may do as he will and punish what he finds immoral on a case by case basis.”

This is completely wrong for 99% of law, and might be slightly true for a few aspects of criminal law. In 99% of cases, the judge is ruling entirely on the law, there is no moral cause to be explored.

In general, actions done to children by their parents (or with their parents' expressed, unequivocal consent) are not considered "forced" except in cases where the harm is large. So, male circumcision or teeth corrections or vaccinations are not "forced" on the children, because they are acts that their parents consider are beneficial to the child.

However, if the state were to force children to be circumcised or have their teeth aligned regardless of their parents' desires, then most people would object to that.

Even more importantly, any actions which affect someone's ability to use their body in a normal way are generally considered abhorrent. That is why male circumcision is usually tolerated, while female circumcision is an abomination, even if done by one's parents. Forced sterilization is obviously in the second case, since it is terminally preventing someone from performing one of the 3 fundamental components of life.

Obviously so is forced foreskin removal and forced tooth correction, so I fail to see that point.

> In general, actions done to children by their parents (or with their parents' expressed, unequivocal consent) are not considered "forced" except in cases where the harm is large. So, male circumcision or teeth corrections or vaccinations are not "forced" on the children, because they are acts that their parents consider are beneficial to the child.

I see, so it would be fine of the parents were the ones forcibly sterilizing them rather than the government.

I find that absurd: I for one am in favor of government-mandated vaccinations and find this to be a very desirable thing opposed to letting parents be the ones to decide.

> However, if the state were to force children to be circumcised or have their teeth aligned regardless of their parents' desires, then most people would object to that.

Yes, which I find absurd.

It matters not to the man whose body was irreparably altered whence the order to do so came — it's a rather shallow comfort to then be told that it was fine because it was the will of one's parents rather than the government's.

> Even more importantly, any actions which affect someone's ability to use their body in a normal way are generally considered abhorrent. That is why male circumcision is usually tolerated, while female circumcision is an abomination, even if done by one's parents. Forced sterilization is obviously in the second case, since it is terminally preventing someone from performing one of the 3 fundamental components of life.

Yes, you call it fundamental which goes right back to that it only holders water if one considers reproduction a higher goal that all must aspire to.

And with “all”, one can argue roughly half of all; I've noticed that he moral queasiness of sterilization of the male seems to be quite a bit lower than with sterilization of the female — as if that not be rooted in some belief that a female's primary function is to be a reproductive engine: close your eyes and think of England.

Reproduction is a fundamental function of your organism, whether you chose to use it or not (for example, I am not going to reproduce). Any entity forcefully removing your body's ability to perform any of its fundamental functions is obviously abhorrent. If the state were seeking to remove your ability to see or your ability to consume food or excrete it, would you find that a matter of definitions?

By contrast, male circumcision and teeth straitghening are essentially cosmetic differences. Male circumcision is more problematic (and it is certainly not considered anywhere close to normal in most of the world), but even there the harm is minimal - being able to cover one's glans with one's foreskin is not a significant ability that anyone could claim has a significant effect on their life (of course, the risks of complications associated with the procedure itself are a different matter).

> I've noticed that he moral queasiness of sterilization of the male seems to be quite a bit lower than with sterilization of the female

I have no idea where you have seen this. I haven't even seen the sex or gender of the person being potentially sterilized discussed at all in any discussion of the horror of forced sterilization. Certainly nowhere in this thread or even the deleted tweet.

Overall, you seem to want to either make some kind of eugenic argument for forced sterilization (which I consider so abhorrent it's not even worth arguing against), OR some kind of strange more-liberal-than-thou argument that reproduction shouldn't be given some special place (which no one is, it's just that reproduction is the ONLY function of the body that anyone seems to think it might be ok to take from you for some strange reason - it isn't, anymore than gouging your eyes or removing your inner ear would be).

And what test or criteria might you use to decide what is and isn't a “fundamental function of one's organism”?

> By contrast, male circumcision and teeth straitghening are essentially cosmetic differences.

It is not so much the result of both that I find problematic as the painful methodology by which they are achieved.

Cutting up a man sans any anæsthesia, sewing him back up, and leaving him otherwise alive but with a scar is also merely cosmetic; it was, however, rather painful for him.

> I have no idea where you have seen this. I haven't even seen the sex or gender of the person being potentially sterilized discussed at all in any discussion of the horror of forced sterilization. Certainly nowhere in this thread or even the deleted tweet.

It has been well discussed and noted that physicians seem to be far more willing to perform elective sterilizations on males than on females and find some kind of greater moral fault with the latter than the former.

> it isn't, anymore than gouging your eyes or removing your inner ear would be).

And I would submit that most, if not nigh all human beings when given the dilemma of either surrendering their reproductive capacity or an eye, would surely pick the former.

It's telling that human beings willingly surrender their reproductive capacity all the time, but I have seldom heard of a man who decided to have a healthy eye removed simply because he wanted himself rid of it.

So yes, I consider removing a man's reproductive capacity to be quite trivial and inconsequential compared to removing his eye.

Which of both would you choose?

Sure, that is something to discuss. In the case of teeth, most parents in most of the world only have their children go through procedures that are likely to be important for their health (even if the child may not like the procedure). Male circumcision is also not something I condone personally, and it is relatively rare in most of the world outside some ethnic/religious groups.

> It has been well discussed and noted that physicians seem to be far more willing to perform elective sterilizations on males than on females and find some kind of greater moral fault with the latter than the former.

We are discussing forced sterilization here in general. When you are talking about male elective sterilization, do you mean vasectomy? Because then, one reason why surgeons may be more willing to go through with it is because it is (at least theoretically) reversible, so it constitutes a smaller decision than surgical female sterilization, which is always definitive.

It is also true that historically doctors have felt far more entitled to make decisions for women's bodies than for men's, so I do expect that this shamefully persists.

> So yes, I consider removing a man's reproductive capacity to be quite trivial and inconsequential compared to removing his eye. > Which of both would you choose?

This is not about choice - that is the whole point. The population we are talking about is not given any choice - the state is deciding to change the way their body works, against their own interests.

Even more importantly, while taking away someone's reproductive capacity may be a smaller apparent harm than taking away their eyes, it is a much, much worse harm over the long term of the community. Literally destroying the Family as a core part of their community is going to destroy their old age, and it is an explicit attack on their culture.

> It's telling that human beings willingly surrender their reproductive capacity all the time, but I have seldom heard of a man who decided to have a healthy eye removed simply because he wanted himself rid of it.

You will find very, very few human beings permanently surrender their reproductive capacity willingly EXCEPT for those who are essentially finished with it - people with at least one, but likely several children. True, there are likely slightly more people who willingly permanently give up their reproductive capacity than people who have an eye removed, but the reason is also obvious: there is absolutely nothing to gain from having an eye removed, while giving up your reproductive capacity allows you to have unprotected sex without the possibility of expensive, hard to care for children.

> And what test or criteria might you use to decide what is and isn't a “fundamental function of one's organism”?

There are many ways to come up with a definition that will include reproduction but not include crooked teeth or the foreskin. In fact, reproduction is so fundamental that we usually define life as being primarily related to reproduction - that is, any chemical substance that can simply reproduce itself is usually at least a candidate for being considered a form of life (the minimalist definition is just a fixed physical form and reproduction + heredity).

So while many functions of a living organism are more or less "fundamental", reproduction is almost the only one you can't debate away.

Now, if looking strictly at one individual organism, it is true that reproduction becomes much less fundamental, so I am assuming that this is the angle you are thinking from. But I don't think this is the right way of looking at it when considering whether a medical procedure could be justly forced on an entire population.

You might as well ask, why is forced sterilization worse than forced removal of your appendix?

Oh, please. Twitter's application of its policies is outrageously inconsistent, even for high-profile U.S. officials. Otherwise, how come the many people who openly defend the extra-judicial killings by the U.S. military (from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump) have yet a twitter account? And I'm not saying anything about tweets supporting the violent overthrow of several governments worldwide; those are tolerated because they align with U.S. interests. Twitter is the ministry of truth of the U.S.A. and its main mouthpiece.

EDIT: https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/773545200807534592

(This tweet by Hillary Clinton glorifies an extrajudicial killing in foreign territory, with the opposition of the country where it happened, and at the same time manages to sneak in some falsehoods. The text is: "When our SEALs took out bin Laden, they brought the terrorists' families to safety first. That's American honor. " This is false, since several members of the bin Laden family died in the attack, including women and children. I'm not saying that killing bin Laden was wrong, just that Twitter policies are wildly inconsistent regarding violence and falsehood.)

He was not entitled to any protection afforded uniformed combatants, but I'm pretty sure it still would have been against the Geneva Conventions to kill him with sarin, for instance.

The U.S. wasn't behind the killings of Ghadaffi. Ghadaffi was killed by his own bodyguards after Ghadaffi's own citizens overthrew their government in a civil war spurred by resistance movements in neighboring countries arising from despots incarcerating and assassinating political opponents.

The U.S. was behind the killing of Bin Laden. He organized the single largest terrorist attack against the U.S. in history. As a non-state actor, he was not protected by any laws, therefore, killing him was not illegal nor was it extradjudicial. This has been the state of international law for over a century, as codified in the Geneva Conventions and the amendments and followup conventions. If you have issues with international law, take that up with the Hague.

This is false, since several members of the bin Laden family died in the attack, including women and children. I'm not saying that killing bin Laden was wrong, just that Twitter policies are wildly inconsistent regarding violence and falsehood.)

Bin Laden's sons were killed in the attack and one of his son's wives, but no children were killed. They were not just innocent collateral damage; they were killed in the attack while resisting U.S. forces. The non-resisting members of the family are alive today to talk about what happened because we didn't kill them.

I imagine bin laden was still protected by Pakistani laws, same as people inside the US are protected by US laws, even if they've pissed off some other country

“Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.” - George Orwell

Which is why so many factions in Washington are putting so much effort to undermine potential challengers as the American destiny is to be number 1. The moment another group becomes more powerful, they know that what you describe will occur.

I imagine bin laden was still protected by Pakistani laws, same as people inside the US are protected by US laws, even if they've pissed off some other country

You imagine incorrectly. As a non-state actor, bin Laden was not subject to the protection of any nation's laws. This has been international law for over a century, and this view was upheld by the U.N. Moreover, Pakistan's government itself said it had no issues with the legality of the operation, and indeed elements of Pakistan's government and military participated in aspects of the operation.

On a side note: the US bombing of Libya, and Hillary's remark in particular, is seen by some as a watershed moment in North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons [3]. In response to international pressure, Gaddafi suspended Libya's nuclear weapons program in 2003. The subsequent US/NATO bombing of Libya and Gaddafi's brutal death supposedly convinced the Kims that if they ever gave up their nukes, they'd be vulnerable to the same type of foreign intervention and overthrow.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlz3-OzcExI

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Muammar_Gaddafi#Captu...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/hillary-clint...

[3] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/libya-the-for...

I find this argument to be uncompelling.

The same situation happens with twitter, that only enforces its rules when they go against the mainstream USA mentality.

Edit: not sure if this is allowed but I'm curious why I am being downvoted? Is there some logic I'm missing here? Or I guess people just think state-sanctioned violence should be allowed? If so, wouldn't this tweet by China be fine, since this violence is being done by the Chinese state?

- an illegal mob ransacking Congress in an attempt to overthrow an election, and

- a constitutional arrest of a criminal president (e.g. by the House Sergeant-at-Arms, or by the FBI under Mike Pence’s and the Cabinet’s order via the 25th Amendment)

should not need an explanation.

Twitter is clearly drawing a line somewhere about what violence is okay, and what violence isn't, and it's not particularly clear where it is and if there is any bias.

It is worth noting that “state-sanctioned” violence does not always mean legally-sanctioned violence, since state actions can easily be criminal, or at least lawless.

- The Capitol Hill mob was illegal violence, albeit state-sanctioned (by endorsement of the president)

- Arresting the president (either under Congressional authority or the 25th amendment) would be legal state-sanctioned violence

- Although nominal Chinese law is somewhat authoritarian with regard to ethnic minorities and Muslims, the reason the Xi regime is so desperate to cover up and propagandize the concentration camps is that they are illegal under Chinese and international law

This is basically what politics is - deciding how to fairly apply violence. So Twitter is taking a political stance by only removing some calls. And an especially strong stance if they are going to start judging nation states.

Personally, I find that it would be far more fair for Twitter and FB to allow these accounts but to add editorial notes to their tweets/posts explaining that the company believes strongly that these are falsehoods, or something similar. Even the current "This claim about election fraud is disputed" seems somewhat disingenuous to me.

I do think a label is the best solution, especially for accounts that represent a real person or entitity and aren't anonymous.

You're really saying that forcing someone to the ground at gunpoint, handcuffing them, and dragging them to jail where they'll be locked up and can't leave isn't violence?

Edit: plus my first comment described a peaceful arrest, not someone resisting.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/forced-sterilization-la...

They're not isolated cases.

... which Twitter can block.