Talk:December 2022 Twitter suspensions

WP:NOTNEWS?

Just me, or does this feel like way too much in depth coverage for what may yet turn out to fail WP:NEVENTS when applying the WP:10YT? Maybe it's just a knee jerk reaction to what feels like a rush to cover every little nuance of the ongoing chaos and it'll turn out this is the pivotal moment in the whole thing, but I'm curious if the current editors are mindful of this as a potential issue for the article and how they view it. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:26, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I would honestly say this is quite informative and helps explain what's going on, especially with how chaotic Twitter is after Musk took hold of it. If it's not quite time for an individual article it should at least be covered elsewhere. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 20:43, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I came across this article from being linked in Acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk#Content moderation which I'd consider the most likely main article. While I don't disagree it's a lot of helpful context here, that doesn't mean it's encyclopedic content that belongs here rather than Wikinews. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:50, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Second. QRep2020 (talk) 22:04, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

• I created the page initially, and I personally feel that this specific incident is significant enough that it warrants its own standalone page, and that merging it into Acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk would make that already very long page that much more unwieldy, and would make that specific section of the Acquisition page particularly overlong compared to the rest of the article. In fact, I suspect there are other sections of that website that might warrant other separate standalone articles (which then are linked to from the original page), rather than the other way around... — Hunter Kahn 22:31, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

  Agreed. QRep2020 (talk) 22:34, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

  Also agree that this is significant enough, and think it's best to wait and see what the longer term fallout and broader media response is to all of this before making any merge attempts. Cheers! 98.155.8.5 (talk) 03:28, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree, this is clearly a news article. It was a crazy event, but will it be remembered for the ages as "The Thursday Night Massacre"? Once upon a time Wikipedia had a "ask questions first, shoot later" approach to determining whether or not outrages-of-the-day deserved an article. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 07:33, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree as well; this seems like a rather lurid retelling of events that is only being paid attention to because it happened to people who write newspapers. I'm not sure if this has lasting notability; according to Musk, the suspensions have all been lifted. Is it really news that a few dozen people couldn't go on Twitter for a day and a half? jp×g 07:43, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Just a point of clarification: at the beginning of this drama, it was a threat of indefinite suspension. So this has changed for now, though it appears things could go haywire anytime Musk has a tantrum and decides to wave his magic wand. Cheers! 98.155.8.5 (talk) 09:41, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

References

It struck me as a bit recent. OTOH, sometimes months happen in days. I realised that my main objection was the title, not the content or noting the event - so I've supported a move (below) - David Gerard (talk) 11:18, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 17 December 2022

Thursday Night Massacre (Twitter) → December 15, 2022 Twitter suspensions – While the current title is certainly funny, article titles are not an appropriate place for tongue-in-cheek hyperbole. Compare this with the other events listed at the disambiguation page for "Thursday Massacre":

• Hundreds of soldiers killed in the Battle of Tampere
• Two separate incidents in 1934 where workers on strike were killed
• Dozens of demonstrators shot dead in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
• Over a hundred people injured when police fired into a crowd in Berkeley in 1969
• Four protestors killed in Bahrain in 2011

A search for articles with "massacre" in their titles returns almost entirely incidents in which large numbers of people were killed: Nanjing Massacre, Mỹ Lai massacre, Katyn massacre, etc. Given that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, our titles for articles should be attempts to describe them in terms that are accurate and neutral. jp×g 10:43, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

• Support, the name is a bit of a stretch. One use is a headline, another report says it was a name given by "one security researcher" without even naming the security researcher - David Gerard (talk) 11:17, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
• Support, I certainly like the name, but personal editorialising on an article name is not what Wikipedia is about. Tentonne (talk) 11:46, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

• Support: the title is misleading to readers; no one would expect it to be about social media bans (even with the "Twitter" in brackets there, it brings to mind more a shooting at their offices than anything else). CharredShorthand (talk) 12:05, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

• Disagree: Compare with usage of Friday Night massacre for the 2020 postal service crisis. And obviously the Saturday Night Massacre of President Nixon, which began this naming convention for political events. If the name is used in media it isn't up to Wikipedia to decide whether its appropriate to use the name for something that isnt an actual massacre. The postal service one only uses it as a redirect, which might also be done here, but that depends entirely on what term establishes itself in the media, not what Wikipedia editors feel is appropriate. --jonas (talk) 12:17, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

  Using it as a redirect is perfectly fine and I don't think anyone was advocating against that. Friday Night massacre is therefore not a precedent against this move; if anything it's supportive.

  Sources are often mentioning the name "Thursday Night Massacre" as well as referring to the event in a more descriptive fashion (particularly in headlines). The naming criteria are relatively nuanced and I think the move can be justified on grounds of precision, consistency, naturalness with reference to those. CharredShorthand (talk) 12:33, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

• I am the original author of the page and so I obviously Disagree with the move and thing it should remain as is; the term “Thursday Night Massacre’’ wasn’t intended to be editorializing, but rather was the term that was trending on Twitter after the incident and was used by several journalists to describe the event afterwards, as is stated in the article and cited with sources. I think adding “(Twitter)” to the title to soften the impact of the word “Massacre” was a good solution. However, if we do rename the article, I have a Comment: I think having the full date in the proposed title December 15, 2022 Twitter suspensions is both needlessly clunky, but also partially inaccurate, since some suspensions (like the jet-tracking accounts) came on December 14. If we rename it, I think other alternatives like December 2022 Twitter suspensions or December 2022 Twitter suspensions controversy would be better. But again, I favor the current title, and feel a colloquial phrase commonly used to describe the event is preferable to long and clunky titles invoked primarily to avoid the use of that phrase… — Hunter Kahn 13:12, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
• Support Wikipedia article names should be as descriptive as possible, not catchy or emotional. The article about the platypus should be named "Platypus", not "Why you should not do mushrooms at work (God's creation)". Besides, unlike the Nixon event, that catchy name has not been widely used yet --- not even within Twitter. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 13:35, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
  • Your platypus example suggests you believe this name was made up out of thin air just to be funny, but it has been widely used, first on Twitter (it originated as a trending phrase there), and then in the media. There are sources and citations currently in the article stating this, and other news articles have been published since then that continue to call it that (examples here, here, here, here), and Mediaite even literally called the event what "many other media observers dubbed the "Thursday Night Massacre". — Hunter Kahn 13:59, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
• Comment: From what I see of the discussion in the coverage, there is no clear external consensus on this title and Wikipedia appears to be the most visible website naming it as such, so I'm uncertain about the title as is. However, I want to push back on the idea that the title as-is is hyperbole or tongue-in-cheek; it has been used by other parties and follows the Saturday Night Massacre convention. --\/\/slack (talk) 14:08, 17 December 2022 (UTC)