Leftist Twitter troll Krassenstein brothers banned from the platform for operating fake accounts.

Ed and Brian Krassenstein. Fox News.

Leftist Twitter trolls Ed and Brian Krassenstein, famous for commenting on almost every President Trump tweet, have been banned from the platform for operating fake accounts and purchasing account interactions. Fox News. The pair had almost constant attacks on President Trump and other conservative figures. The Daily Beast suggested that the men had bought accounts that would retweet and like their posts. They also operated fake accounts though the brothers claimed it was to monitor death threats. Twitter said the two men were banned and that Twitter rules apply to everyone.

My Comment:

I'm of two minds of this. On the one hand I hated these two idiots and it was pretty disgusting to see them as a top reply to pretty much every single President Trump Tweet. Their posts were garbage and had nothing to do with reality and it was frustrating to see them consistently in the top replies to the President. If anyone deserved to have a social media death, just because they were annoying and stupid, it was those two. 

On the other, I've spoken out about social media bans before. I generally think that social media is far to likely to ban people for little reason and often for political reasons. I also think that the social media giants are only enforcing rules on second accounts and purchasing followers because they don't like the competition. You can, of course, boost your tweets on Twitter and they will always crack down on people who want to cheat the system. This isn't so much about what the brothers did, but how they did it. If they had paid their money to Twitter directly they would have been fine, but they didn't and now they are gone.

However, I think the big difference between the Krassensteins and the various conservatives that got banned is that the brothers were clearly violating the rules. Unlike many of the other people banned who either did nothing wrong or were pretty far from violating the rules, it seems likely that the Krassenstein brothers were doing it blatantly. This makes it very hard to feel sorry for the Krassensteins, even if I hate social media bans in principle. 

I always though there was something up with Krassensteins always showing up under President Trump's posts. I had assumed that the problem was Twitter itself. They have an obvious political bias against President Trump and would have the motive and means to promote people that attack President Trump. 

But I might have been wrong about that. It seems clear that at least part of the problem with the Krassensteins was the fact that they were gaming the system. They had fake accounts boosting their posts and that may have helped them show up under Trump all the time. 

So, did the brothers deserve to be banned? I think it's clear they gamed the system and by Twitter's rules they clearly should be banned. But I also think  that most people shouldn't be banned from social media unless they are breaking the law. I don't think the Krassensteins broke the law so I do think that a permaban is probably excessive. 

That being said, I absolutely despise these two brothers. They are a good example of two people trying to take advantage of people who desperately want someone to tell them what they want to hear. They are liars and snake oil salesmen and the political discourse in this country would be much better if it wasn't for people like the Krassensteins bringing everything down. Though I am at least uncomfortable with their banning, I can't ignore the fact that they were just absolutely terrible.