Elon Musk, Twitter’s next owner, provides his definition of “free speech”

Amid Twitter buyout, Musk says free speech is simply "that which matches the law."

Read the whole story

 

[graylshaped]

After that, I feel obligated to link today's SMBC.

Wait, that's what Homeric means? D'oh!

Have you ever read The Iliad? It's all fights, by horse-taming men near a "wine dark sea" (apparently the ancient Greeks didn't have a word for blue). Still, it was better than the movie.

Ah, the Iliad. Also known as "Ten years of murder over which asshat owns the women".

Don't forget the vaunting over corpses, which I have to assume was simply tea-bagging.

 

[ardent]

After that, I feel obligated to link today's SMBC.

Wait, that's what Homeric means? D'oh!

Have you ever read The Iliad? It's all fights, by horse-taming men near a "wine dark sea" (apparently the ancient Greeks didn't have a word for blue). Still, it was better than the movie.

Ah, the Iliad. Also known as "Ten years of murder over which asshat owns the women".

This grossly under-represents Achilles' abs.

 

[graylshaped]

After that, I feel obligated to link today's SMBC.

Wait, that's what Homeric means? D'oh!

Have you ever read The Iliad? It's all fights, by horse-taming men near a "wine dark sea" (apparently the ancient Greeks didn't have a word for blue). Still, it was better than the movie.

Ah, the Iliad. Also known as "Ten years of murder over which asshat owns the women".

This grossly under-represents Achilles' abs.

Eh. He was a heel.

 

[mpfaff]

I think Elon will solve the timid advertiser problem by shutting down the posts of those who are calling for boycotts. After all, if free speech is to survive, then that speech that calls to end free speech must not be tolerated. Call it a paradox of tolerance. Silencing the enemies of free speech is still consistent with the principles of free speech.

Elon Musk made it clear that legal speech is allowed. Boycotts are free speech. Part of freedom of speech is freedom of association and the freedom to not associate with people or companies who support things you find terrible. Banning talk of boycotts is pretty authoritarian and steps even further than banning people who get people stirred up to harass the parents of murdered children

Boycotts are economic action. If they were free speech, then there would be no legal way for the federal government to prohibit transactions with prohibited parties(Iran, North Korea, etc)

International trade is different from a boycott and the government can absolutely regulate that. A boycott is simply a group of people making their feelings known and refusing to do business with an entity that runs contrary to their morals. You're wanting it to be regulated that people can't make decisions to not support a business based on their own feelings, or rather they can't make that position known publicly because it might hurt their bottom line. Your opinion would be more welcome in North Korea than the United States.

"Vote With Your Wallet!"

"Except if what you don't want to buy belongs to our side. Then it's really really bad!"

I must confess to an utter lack of surprise at the alt-right once again condemning their own core values. They've long ago descended into a vision of the fantasy land where factual reality and basic logic aren't so darn mean to them all the time.

It's just a weird stance to take, much of the right seem to really lean into authoritarianism. It's why they love Trump, he's a big strong man that makes people they don't like mad. They don't really care about freedom, they're just victims.

 

[Scifigod]

After that, I feel obligated to link today's SMBC.

Wait, that's what Homeric means? D'oh!

Have you ever read The Iliad? It's all fights, by horse-taming men near a "wine dark sea" (apparently the ancient Greeks didn't have a word for blue). Still, it was better than the movie.

Ah, the Iliad. Also known as "Ten years of murder over which asshat owns the women".

This grossly under-represents Achilles' abs.

Eh. He was a heel.

His one weakness!

 

[Scary Devil Monastery]

After that, I feel obligated to link today's SMBC.

Wait, that's what Homeric means? D'oh!

Have you ever read The Iliad? It's all fights, by horse-taming men near a "wine dark sea" (apparently the ancient Greeks didn't have a word for blue). Still, it was better than the movie.

Ah, the Iliad. Also known as "Ten years of murder over which asshat owns the women".

Don't forget the vaunting over corpses, which I have to assume was simply tea-bagging.

It does put things in perspective that what in ancient times was high culture would, today, be an afternoons worth of MMA mixed with fart jokes and the extra thrill of pageant winners being handed to the victor as sex slaves.

 

[graylshaped]

After that, I feel obligated to link today's SMBC.

Wait, that's what Homeric means? D'oh!

Have you ever read The Iliad? It's all fights, by horse-taming men near a "wine dark sea" (apparently the ancient Greeks didn't have a word for blue). Still, it was better than the movie.

Ah, the Iliad. Also known as "Ten years of murder over which asshat owns the women".

Don't forget the vaunting over corpses, which I have to assume was simply tea-bagging.

It does put things in perspective that what in ancient times was high culture would, today, be an afternoons worth of MMA mixed with fart jokes and the extra thrill of pageant winners being handed to the victor as sex slaves.

Fart jokes are funny.

Fight me.

 

[Scary Devil Monastery]

I think Elon will solve the timid advertiser problem by shutting down the posts of those who are calling for boycotts. After all, if free speech is to survive, then that speech that calls to end free speech must not be tolerated. Call it a paradox of tolerance. Silencing the enemies of free speech is still consistent with the principles of free speech.

Elon Musk made it clear that legal speech is allowed. Boycotts are free speech. Part of freedom of speech is freedom of association and the freedom to not associate with people or companies who support things you find terrible. Banning talk of boycotts is pretty authoritarian and steps even further than banning people who get people stirred up to harass the parents of murdered children

Boycotts are economic action. If they were free speech, then there would be no legal way for the federal government to prohibit transactions with prohibited parties(Iran, North Korea, etc)

International trade is different from a boycott and the government can absolutely regulate that. A boycott is simply a group of people making their feelings known and refusing to do business with an entity that runs contrary to their morals. You're wanting it to be regulated that people can't make decisions to not support a business based on their own feelings, or rather they can't make that position known publicly because it might hurt their bottom line. Your opinion would be more welcome in North Korea than the United States.

"Vote With Your Wallet!"

"Except if what you don't want to buy belongs to our side. Then it's really really bad!"

I must confess to an utter lack of surprise at the alt-right once again condemning their own core values. They've long ago descended into a vision of the fantasy land where factual reality and basic logic aren't so darn mean to them all the time.

It's just a weird stance to take, much of the right seem to really lean into authoritarianism. It's why they love Trump, he's a big strong man that makes people they don't like mad. They don't really care about freedom, they're just victims.

That would be points 5 to 8 from Umberto Eco's "14 defining characteristics of fascism";

5. Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
6. Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”
7. The obsession with a plot. “Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged.”
8. The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”

In other words the message is;

"You're all feeling bad because those people, who aren't at all like you, are taking over everything. They'll come turn your children into deviants and feed them to the global liberal cannibal cult. They own everything. They have all the power. They're everywhere.
Fortunately they're weak, dumb, and lesser as fuck so they'll fall like tenpins in the face of our united front!"

Rational people will spot the broken logic on all levels almost immediately.
The alt-right isn't rational though. They're grievance addicts, and that means when they are offered fact and logic what they see is an attempt to steal the needle from them.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... ion-444570

 

[ardent]

After that, I feel obligated to link today's SMBC.

Wait, that's what Homeric means? D'oh!

Have you ever read The Iliad? It's all fights, by horse-taming men near a "wine dark sea" (apparently the ancient Greeks didn't have a word for blue). Still, it was better than the movie.

Ah, the Iliad. Also known as "Ten years of murder over which asshat owns the women".

Don't forget the vaunting over corpses, which I have to assume was simply tea-bagging.

It does put things in perspective that what in ancient times was high culture would, today, be an afternoons worth of MMA mixed with fart jokes and the extra thrill of pageant winners being handed to the victor as sex slaves.

So no change.

 

[Wheels Of Confusion]

"We have a therapeutic now" =/= "nobody but the elderly should be vaccinated."
Don't stan for a coward, cad, bully grifter, and thief liar.

 

[orwelldesign]

If you are Musk and you believe in free speech and your vision is to make Twitter the defacto town square then the goal is equal opportunity for all to participate and for all voices to be heard within the limit of the law. This isn’t extremism people and this isn’t unreasonable. The Left is doing everything they can to make this look like fascism when they’re the ones actually promoting censorship. The simple fact is that NO ONE is credible or reliable enough to never spread disinformation or to be an unbiased arbiter of acceptable speech. What about this is so difficult for the Left to understand?? And no, the fact that Desantis promotes parental rights for parents and their children over the Left’s (apparent need and) inability to wait to indoctrinate until 4th grade isn’t book burning and isn’t fascism. And no, most of the discussion/posts the Left wanted banned aren’t racist or anti-LTBTQ+, rather the Left tries to conflate those with legitimate voices on the Right as a strategy to silence dissent. Now Musk will be in charge of this private company so you should all be happy that this private company can once again determine it’s own TOS even if these TOS may perchance hew much more closely to the Constitution. Somehow freedom of speech is a massive power loss for the Left. Unbelievable!

"The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all"
“Is someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like? If that is the case, then we have free speech.” -Elon Musk

And yet, in all of history, not one conservative voice has ever been silenced for advocating in favor of smaller government, or lower taxes, or reduced regulatory authority, or changing any particular regulatory regime.

For instance, *I* don't think massage therapists should have to have thousands of hours of instruction before being able to give massages for money. That's a "conservative" position -- I think it's regulatory over-reach, and that massage therapy, specifically, would indeed be a place where the market could take care of it. That is, if you're no good at it, you won't get or retain clients, so you'll get *yourself* out of the market. You're unlikely to hurt someone -- to injure someone, rather -- giving a bad massage. You're just likely to waste everyone's time.

The fail case for a bad massage is "didn't do any good," unlike, say, actual medicine, or pharmacy, or any of the places where regulation makes very good sense. There's a *high* bar for doctors and pharmacists, because getting it wrong is quite likely to lead to actual injury.

That's a conservative position, or, rather, what would traditionally be called a conservative position. I'll get banned from exactly zero places for that.

Witness the majority of people who earn temp or perm bans from this forum -- they don't get banned until they let their mask slip, and use anti-trans slurs. That's, like, nine of the last ten bans I'm aware of.

Bigotry isn't free speech.

It's also not a "conservative" position, not unless you're admitting something quite awful about conservatives and conservatism.

It has to rise to the level of incitement of violence for it to cease being free speech in the United States. Simply being a bigoted asshole isn't going to necessarily meet that bar. There is an argument to be made that the 14th Amendment should make hate speech impermissible (outside of the narrow ranges where it's currently unprotected) but that's never been tried before any Court as far as I know.

That being said, the freedom of speech is not a shield against consequence. It's just a guarantee that the government can't step in and stop you from running your mouth. That's it.

Perhaps I misspoke -- I'm well aware that bigotry actually *is* "free speech." You can be a shitty bigot all you like, and the government can't do anything about it, unless you're very specifically calling for imminent violence in a credible way. Well, not *you* specifically, "one can be..."

Yet, to the surprise of absolutely no one, the "conservative viewpoints" that get censored by //everyone else who's not the government and doesn't want to hang around with shitty bigots// are, drumroll, universally shitty bigotry.

My point was solely and entirely that the sum of "conservative viewpoints" that are in fact censored by places like Facebook and Twitter are not "conservative viewpoints," not unless those complaining are willing to cede that the modern "conservative" viewpoint is in fact almost entirely shitty bigotry and grievance addiction, and no longer represents policy or values -- just dislikes and contrarinesses.

I'm thoroughly convinced that this is the case, and has been since ~2008. The right lost their goddamn minds when Obama was elected, because their hidden assumption (white supremacy, or at least, white hegemony) was shown up by a man who few of them could equal.

 

[ardent]

If you are Musk and you believe in free speech and your vision is to make Twitter the defacto town square then the goal is equal opportunity for all to participate and for all voices to be heard within the limit of the law. This isn’t extremism people and this isn’t unreasonable. The Left is doing everything they can to make this look like fascism when they’re the ones actually promoting censorship. The simple fact is that NO ONE is credible or reliable enough to never spread disinformation or to be an unbiased arbiter of acceptable speech. What about this is so difficult for the Left to understand?? And no, the fact that Desantis promotes parental rights for parents and their children over the Left’s (apparent need and) inability to wait to indoctrinate until 4th grade isn’t book burning and isn’t fascism. And no, most of the discussion/posts the Left wanted banned aren’t racist or anti-LTBTQ+, rather the Left tries to conflate those with legitimate voices on the Right as a strategy to silence dissent. Now Musk will be in charge of this private company so you should all be happy that this private company can once again determine it’s own TOS even if these TOS may perchance hew much more closely to the Constitution. Somehow freedom of speech is a massive power loss for the Left. Unbelievable!

"The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all"
“Is someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like? If that is the case, then we have free speech.” -Elon Musk

And yet, in all of history, not one conservative voice has ever been silenced for advocating in favor of smaller government, or lower taxes, or reduced regulatory authority, or changing any particular regulatory regime.

For instance, *I* don't think massage therapists should have to have thousands of hours of instruction before being able to give massages for money. That's a "conservative" position -- I think it's regulatory over-reach, and that massage therapy, specifically, would indeed be a place where the market could take care of it. That is, if you're no good at it, you won't get or retain clients, so you'll get *yourself* out of the market. You're unlikely to hurt someone -- to injure someone, rather -- giving a bad massage. You're just likely to waste everyone's time.

The fail case for a bad massage is "didn't do any good," unlike, say, actual medicine, or pharmacy, or any of the places where regulation makes very good sense. There's a *high* bar for doctors and pharmacists, because getting it wrong is quite likely to lead to actual injury.

That's a conservative position, or, rather, what would traditionally be called a conservative position. I'll get banned from exactly zero places for that.

Witness the majority of people who earn temp or perm bans from this forum -- they don't get banned until they let their mask slip, and use anti-trans slurs. That's, like, nine of the last ten bans I'm aware of.

Bigotry isn't free speech.

It's also not a "conservative" position, not unless you're admitting something quite awful about conservatives and conservatism.

It has to rise to the level of incitement of violence for it to cease being free speech in the United States. Simply being a bigoted asshole isn't going to necessarily meet that bar. There is an argument to be made that the 14th Amendment should make hate speech impermissible (outside of the narrow ranges where it's currently unprotected) but that's never been tried before any Court as far as I know.

That being said, the freedom of speech is not a shield against consequence. It's just a guarantee that the government can't step in and stop you from running your mouth. That's it.

Perhaps I misspoke -- I'm well aware that bigotry actually *is* "free speech." You can be a shitty bigot all you like, and the government can't do anything about it, unless you're very specifically calling for imminent violence in a credible way. Well, not *you* specifically, "one can be..."

Yet, to the surprise of absolutely no one, the "conservative viewpoints" that get censored by //everyone else who's not the government and doesn't want to hang around with shitty bigots// are, drumroll, universally shitty bigotry.

My point was solely and entirely that the sum of "conservative viewpoints" that are in fact censored by places like Facebook and Twitter are not "conservative viewpoints," not unless those complaining are willing to cede that the modern "conservative" viewpoint is in fact almost entirely shitty bigotry and grievance addiction, and no longer represents policy or values -- just dislikes and contrarinesses.

I'm thoroughly convinced that this is the case, and has been since ~2008. The right lost their goddamn minds when Obama was elected, because their hidden assumption (white supremacy, or at least, white hegemony) was shown up by a man who few of them could equal.

No worries, I'm not Ken White, but I believe in the First Amendment enough to actually want to represent it as accurately as possible. I'd also like punching Nazis in the face for spewing bigoted speech to be a protected act, but you can't win them all.

 

[orwelldesign]

If you are Musk and you believe in free speech and your vision is to make Twitter the defacto town square then the goal is equal opportunity for all to participate and for all voices to be heard within the limit of the law. This isn’t extremism people and this isn’t unreasonable. The Left is doing everything they can to make this look like fascism when they’re the ones actually promoting censorship. The simple fact is that NO ONE is credible or reliable enough to never spread disinformation or to be an unbiased arbiter of acceptable speech. What about this is so difficult for the Left to understand?? And no, the fact that Desantis promotes parental rights for parents and their children over the Left’s (apparent need and) inability to wait to indoctrinate until 4th grade isn’t book burning and isn’t fascism. And no, most of the discussion/posts the Left wanted banned aren’t racist or anti-LTBTQ+, rather the Left tries to conflate those with legitimate voices on the Right as a strategy to silence dissent. Now Musk will be in charge of this private company so you should all be happy that this private company can once again determine it’s own TOS even if these TOS may perchance hew much more closely to the Constitution. Somehow freedom of speech is a massive power loss for the Left. Unbelievable!

"The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all"
“Is someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like? If that is the case, then we have free speech.” -Elon Musk

And yet, in all of history, not one conservative voice has ever been silenced for advocating in favor of smaller government, or lower taxes, or reduced regulatory authority, or changing any particular regulatory regime.

For instance, *I* don't think massage therapists should have to have thousands of hours of instruction before being able to give massages for money. That's a "conservative" position -- I think it's regulatory over-reach, and that massage therapy, specifically, would indeed be a place where the market could take care of it. That is, if you're no good at it, you won't get or retain clients, so you'll get *yourself* out of the market. You're unlikely to hurt someone -- to injure someone, rather -- giving a bad massage. You're just likely to waste everyone's time.

The fail case for a bad massage is "didn't do any good," unlike, say, actual medicine, or pharmacy, or any of the places where regulation makes very good sense. There's a *high* bar for doctors and pharmacists, because getting it wrong is quite likely to lead to actual injury.

That's a conservative position, or, rather, what would traditionally be called a conservative position. I'll get banned from exactly zero places for that.

Witness the majority of people who earn temp or perm bans from this forum -- they don't get banned until they let their mask slip, and use anti-trans slurs. That's, like, nine of the last ten bans I'm aware of.

Bigotry isn't free speech.

It's also not a "conservative" position, not unless you're admitting something quite awful about conservatives and conservatism.

It has to rise to the level of incitement of violence for it to cease being free speech in the United States. Simply being a bigoted asshole isn't going to necessarily meet that bar. There is an argument to be made that the 14th Amendment should make hate speech impermissible (outside of the narrow ranges where it's currently unprotected) but that's never been tried before any Court as far as I know.

That being said, the freedom of speech is not a shield against consequence. It's just a guarantee that the government can't step in and stop you from running your mouth. That's it.

Perhaps I misspoke -- I'm well aware that bigotry actually *is* "free speech." You can be a shitty bigot all you like, and the government can't do anything about it, unless you're very specifically calling for imminent violence in a credible way. Well, not *you* specifically, "one can be..."

Yet, to the surprise of absolutely no one, the "conservative viewpoints" that get censored by //everyone else who's not the government and doesn't want to hang around with shitty bigots// are, drumroll, universally shitty bigotry.

My point was solely and entirely that the sum of "conservative viewpoints" that are in fact censored by places like Facebook and Twitter are not "conservative viewpoints," not unless those complaining are willing to cede that the modern "conservative" viewpoint is in fact almost entirely shitty bigotry and grievance addiction, and no longer represents policy or values -- just dislikes and contrarinesses.

I'm thoroughly convinced that this is the case, and has been since ~2008. The right lost their goddamn minds when Obama was elected, because their hidden assumption (white supremacy, or at least, white hegemony) was shown up by a man who few of them could equal.

No worries, I'm not Ken White, but I believe in the First Amendment enough to actually want to represent it as accurately as possible. I'd also like punching Nazis in the face for spewing bigoted speech to be a protected act, but you can't win them all.

I don't know if you saw previously that I earned myself a felony battery charge in 2008 -- I punched the everliving *shit* out of someone who called me and my professor a couple of f-slurs while he was doing Prop 8 activism. For those who might be unfamiliar, that was California's constitutional proposition defining marriage as between a man and a woman only. It was ruled unconstitutional a few years later -- I'm glad that we're tending towards a true "be who you are" society, if somewhat slowly.

I tried walking away, and he followed. I told him "hey, we're working on a paper, he's not my boyfriend, he's my professor, let it go." And he kept following, and kept jawing, for four blocks.

And I said "the next time that word comes out of your mouth, I'm going to break your jaw."

Then.

I.

Did.

And I don't feel the least little bit bad about it. We were minding our business, and I warned him. Several times.

"Punching a Nazi" isn't a hypothetical, for me.

(FWIW, I was not convicted of felony battery in this case, though I was certainly guilty of punching an asshole in the face. It was reduced, after some serious legal work, to a disturbing the peace citation. And I had to pay for his medical bills. That seemed eminently fair, all things considered.)

 

[nimelennar]

After that, I feel obligated to link today's SMBC.

Wait, that's what Homeric means? D'oh!

Have you ever read The Iliad? It's all fights, by horse-taming men near a "wine dark sea" (apparently the ancient Greeks didn't have a word for blue). Still, it was better than the movie.

Ah, the Iliad. Also known as "Ten years of murder over which asshat owns the women".

Don't forget the vaunting over corpses, which I have to assume was simply tea-bagging.

Also, "Why you should look a gift horse in the mouth."

 

[s73v3r]

The covid therapeutics nonsense was largely junk science people plugging drugs that didn't work or that bleach shit. The rest of it is outside the United States and won't be protected by the Musk owned twitter, because he's also said he's complying with the laws of other countries too.

You're calling Peter McCullough a junk scientist?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_A._McCullough

Abso-fucking-lutely.

Shame everything that was "misinformation" in his interview in December was the recommended path of treatment

Aside from that whole, "Don't get vaccinated" and "vaccines cause mutations" bullshit. He's a worthless fucking quack, and you know it.

And it's been proven that prompt administration of therapeutics is the ideal way to treat someone infected at all with anything.

And it's been proven that vaccinations are better than therapeutics.

 

[graylshaped]

If you are Musk and you believe in free speech and your vision is to make Twitter the defacto town square then the goal is equal opportunity for all to participate and for all voices to be heard within the limit of the law. This isn’t extremism people and this isn’t unreasonable. The Left is doing everything they can to make this look like fascism when they’re the ones actually promoting censorship. The simple fact is that NO ONE is credible or reliable enough to never spread disinformation or to be an unbiased arbiter of acceptable speech. What about this is so difficult for the Left to understand?? And no, the fact that Desantis promotes parental rights for parents and their children over the Left’s (apparent need and) inability to wait to indoctrinate until 4th grade isn’t book burning and isn’t fascism. And no, most of the discussion/posts the Left wanted banned aren’t racist or anti-LTBTQ+, rather the Left tries to conflate those with legitimate voices on the Right as a strategy to silence dissent. Now Musk will be in charge of this private company so you should all be happy that this private company can once again determine it’s own TOS even if these TOS may perchance hew much more closely to the Constitution. Somehow freedom of speech is a massive power loss for the Left. Unbelievable!

"The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all"
“Is someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like? If that is the case, then we have free speech.” -Elon Musk

And yet, in all of history, not one conservative voice has ever been silenced for advocating in favor of smaller government, or lower taxes, or reduced regulatory authority, or changing any particular regulatory regime.

For instance, *I* don't think massage therapists should have to have thousands of hours of instruction before being able to give massages for money. That's a "conservative" position -- I think it's regulatory over-reach, and that massage therapy, specifically, would indeed be a place where the market could take care of it. That is, if you're no good at it, you won't get or retain clients, so you'll get *yourself* out of the market. You're unlikely to hurt someone -- to injure someone, rather -- giving a bad massage. You're just likely to waste everyone's time.

The fail case for a bad massage is "didn't do any good," unlike, say, actual medicine, or pharmacy, or any of the places where regulation makes very good sense. There's a *high* bar for doctors and pharmacists, because getting it wrong is quite likely to lead to actual injury.

That's a conservative position, or, rather, what would traditionally be called a conservative position. I'll get banned from exactly zero places for that.

Witness the majority of people who earn temp or perm bans from this forum -- they don't get banned until they let their mask slip, and use anti-trans slurs. That's, like, nine of the last ten bans I'm aware of.

Bigotry isn't free speech.

It's also not a "conservative" position, not unless you're admitting something quite awful about conservatives and conservatism.

It has to rise to the level of incitement of violence for it to cease being free speech in the United States. Simply being a bigoted asshole isn't going to necessarily meet that bar. There is an argument to be made that the 14th Amendment should make hate speech impermissible (outside of the narrow ranges where it's currently unprotected) but that's never been tried before any Court as far as I know.

That being said, the freedom of speech is not a shield against consequence. It's just a guarantee that the government can't step in and stop you from running your mouth. That's it.

Perhaps I misspoke -- I'm well aware that bigotry actually *is* "free speech." You can be a shitty bigot all you like, and the government can't do anything about it, unless you're very specifically calling for imminent violence in a credible way. Well, not *you* specifically, "one can be..."

Yet, to the surprise of absolutely no one, the "conservative viewpoints" that get censored by //everyone else who's not the government and doesn't want to hang around with shitty bigots// are, drumroll, universally shitty bigotry.

My point was solely and entirely that the sum of "conservative viewpoints" that are in fact censored by places like Facebook and Twitter are not "conservative viewpoints," not unless those complaining are willing to cede that the modern "conservative" viewpoint is in fact almost entirely shitty bigotry and grievance addiction, and no longer represents policy or values -- just dislikes and contrarinesses.

I'm thoroughly convinced that this is the case, and has been since ~2008. The right lost their goddamn minds when Obama was elected, because their hidden assumption (white supremacy, or at least, white hegemony) was shown up by a man who few of them could equal.

Were Obama eligible to run again and did so, he would probably win again, too.

But if we really want to see people lose their shit, imagine Biden nominating him for a hypothetical Supreme Court vacancy.

 

[nimelennar]

If you are Musk and you believe in free speech and your vision is to make Twitter the defacto town square then the goal is equal opportunity for all to participate and for all voices to be heard within the limit of the law. This isn’t extremism people and this isn’t unreasonable. The Left is doing everything they can to make this look like fascism when they’re the ones actually promoting censorship. The simple fact is that NO ONE is credible or reliable enough to never spread disinformation or to be an unbiased arbiter of acceptable speech. What about this is so difficult for the Left to understand?? And no, the fact that Desantis promotes parental rights for parents and their children over the Left’s (apparent need and) inability to wait to indoctrinate until 4th grade isn’t book burning and isn’t fascism. And no, most of the discussion/posts the Left wanted banned aren’t racist or anti-LTBTQ+, rather the Left tries to conflate those with legitimate voices on the Right as a strategy to silence dissent. Now Musk will be in charge of this private company so you should all be happy that this private company can once again determine it’s own TOS even if these TOS may perchance hew much more closely to the Constitution. Somehow freedom of speech is a massive power loss for the Left. Unbelievable!

"The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all"
“Is someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like? If that is the case, then we have free speech.” -Elon Musk

And yet, in all of history, not one conservative voice has ever been silenced for advocating in favor of smaller government, or lower taxes, or reduced regulatory authority, or changing any particular regulatory regime.

For instance, *I* don't think massage therapists should have to have thousands of hours of instruction before being able to give massages for money. That's a "conservative" position -- I think it's regulatory over-reach, and that massage therapy, specifically, would indeed be a place where the market could take care of it. That is, if you're no good at it, you won't get or retain clients, so you'll get *yourself* out of the market. You're unlikely to hurt someone -- to injure someone, rather -- giving a bad massage. You're just likely to waste everyone's time.

The fail case for a bad massage is "didn't do any good," unlike, say, actual medicine, or pharmacy, or any of the places where regulation makes very good sense. There's a *high* bar for doctors and pharmacists, because getting it wrong is quite likely to lead to actual injury.

That's a conservative position, or, rather, what would traditionally be called a conservative position. I'll get banned from exactly zero places for that.

Witness the majority of people who earn temp or perm bans from this forum -- they don't get banned until they let their mask slip, and use anti-trans slurs. That's, like, nine of the last ten bans I'm aware of.

Bigotry isn't free speech.

It's also not a "conservative" position, not unless you're admitting something quite awful about conservatives and conservatism.

It has to rise to the level of incitement of violence for it to cease being free speech in the United States. Simply being a bigoted asshole isn't going to necessarily meet that bar. There is an argument to be made that the 14th Amendment should make hate speech impermissible (outside of the narrow ranges where it's currently unprotected) but that's never been tried before any Court as far as I know.

That being said, the freedom of speech is not a shield against consequence. It's just a guarantee that the government can't step in and stop you from running your mouth. That's it.

Perhaps I misspoke -- I'm well aware that bigotry actually *is* "free speech." You can be a shitty bigot all you like, and the government can't do anything about it, unless you're very specifically calling for imminent violence in a credible way. Well, not *you* specifically, "one can be..."

Yet, to the surprise of absolutely no one, the "conservative viewpoints" that get censored by //everyone else who's not the government and doesn't want to hang around with shitty bigots// are, drumroll, universally shitty bigotry.

My point was solely and entirely that the sum of "conservative viewpoints" that are in fact censored by places like Facebook and Twitter are not "conservative viewpoints," not unless those complaining are willing to cede that the modern "conservative" viewpoint is in fact almost entirely shitty bigotry and grievance addiction, and no longer represents policy or values -- just dislikes and contrarinesses.

I'm thoroughly convinced that this is the case, and has been since ~2008. The right lost their goddamn minds when Obama was elected, because their hidden assumption (white supremacy, or at least, white hegemony) was shown up by a man who few of them could equal.

Were Obama eligible to run again and did so, he would probably win again, too.

But if we really want to see people lose their shit, imagine Biden nominating him for a hypothetical Supreme Court vacancy.

For Clarence Thomas' (hypothetically vacant) seat.

 

[graylshaped]

If you are Musk and you believe in free speech and your vision is to make Twitter the defacto town square then the goal is equal opportunity for all to participate and for all voices to be heard within the limit of the law. This isn’t extremism people and this isn’t unreasonable. The Left is doing everything they can to make this look like fascism when they’re the ones actually promoting censorship. The simple fact is that NO ONE is credible or reliable enough to never spread disinformation or to be an unbiased arbiter of acceptable speech. What about this is so difficult for the Left to understand?? And no, the fact that Desantis promotes parental rights for parents and their children over the Left’s (apparent need and) inability to wait to indoctrinate until 4th grade isn’t book burning and isn’t fascism. And no, most of the discussion/posts the Left wanted banned aren’t racist or anti-LTBTQ+, rather the Left tries to conflate those with legitimate voices on the Right as a strategy to silence dissent. Now Musk will be in charge of this private company so you should all be happy that this private company can once again determine it’s own TOS even if these TOS may perchance hew much more closely to the Constitution. Somehow freedom of speech is a massive power loss for the Left. Unbelievable!

"The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all"
“Is someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like? If that is the case, then we have free speech.” -Elon Musk

And yet, in all of history, not one conservative voice has ever been silenced for advocating in favor of smaller government, or lower taxes, or reduced regulatory authority, or changing any particular regulatory regime.

For instance, *I* don't think massage therapists should have to have thousands of hours of instruction before being able to give massages for money. That's a "conservative" position -- I think it's regulatory over-reach, and that massage therapy, specifically, would indeed be a place where the market could take care of it. That is, if you're no good at it, you won't get or retain clients, so you'll get *yourself* out of the market. You're unlikely to hurt someone -- to injure someone, rather -- giving a bad massage. You're just likely to waste everyone's time.

The fail case for a bad massage is "didn't do any good," unlike, say, actual medicine, or pharmacy, or any of the places where regulation makes very good sense. There's a *high* bar for doctors and pharmacists, because getting it wrong is quite likely to lead to actual injury.

That's a conservative position, or, rather, what would traditionally be called a conservative position. I'll get banned from exactly zero places for that.

Witness the majority of people who earn temp or perm bans from this forum -- they don't get banned until they let their mask slip, and use anti-trans slurs. That's, like, nine of the last ten bans I'm aware of.

Bigotry isn't free speech.

It's also not a "conservative" position, not unless you're admitting something quite awful about conservatives and conservatism.

It has to rise to the level of incitement of violence for it to cease being free speech in the United States. Simply being a bigoted asshole isn't going to necessarily meet that bar. There is an argument to be made that the 14th Amendment should make hate speech impermissible (outside of the narrow ranges where it's currently unprotected) but that's never been tried before any Court as far as I know.

That being said, the freedom of speech is not a shield against consequence. It's just a guarantee that the government can't step in and stop you from running your mouth. That's it.

Perhaps I misspoke -- I'm well aware that bigotry actually *is* "free speech." You can be a shitty bigot all you like, and the government can't do anything about it, unless you're very specifically calling for imminent violence in a credible way. Well, not *you* specifically, "one can be..."

Yet, to the surprise of absolutely no one, the "conservative viewpoints" that get censored by //everyone else who's not the government and doesn't want to hang around with shitty bigots// are, drumroll, universally shitty bigotry.

My point was solely and entirely that the sum of "conservative viewpoints" that are in fact censored by places like Facebook and Twitter are not "conservative viewpoints," not unless those complaining are willing to cede that the modern "conservative" viewpoint is in fact almost entirely shitty bigotry and grievance addiction, and no longer represents policy or values -- just dislikes and contrarinesses.

I'm thoroughly convinced that this is the case, and has been since ~2008. The right lost their goddamn minds when Obama was elected, because their hidden assumption (white supremacy, or at least, white hegemony) was shown up by a man who few of them could equal.

Were Obama eligible to run again and did so, he would probably win again, too.

But if we really want to see people lose their shit, imagine Biden nominating him for a hypothetical Supreme Court vacancy.

For Clarence Thomas' (hypothetically vacant) seat.

Fingers crossed.

 

[watermeloncup]

I guess transphobes don't know about paragraphs.

 

[Deleted member 388703]

the actual goal of the Left which is to promote its agenda unchallenged and to control the media narrative.

[Projects facts contrary to all real-world evidence]

 

[Dzov]

I guess transphobes don't know about paragraphs.

Your leftist techniques hold no power over him.

 

[watermeloncup]

I guess transphobes don't know about paragraphs.

Your leftist techniques hold no power over him.

It's true, paragraphs are just a leftist conspiracy to make things easier to read. Portlandia is just telling it like it is. It was hard for them to write that post, so it should be hard to read it.

 

[Dzov]

the actual goal of the Left which is to promote its agenda unchallenged and to control the media narrative.

[Projects facts contrary to all real-world evidence]

I'm for a media that doesn't engage in actual falsehoods and propaganda. Now how that could be enforced in a way that wouldn't allow a corrupt government to twist it to their purposes, I have no idea. As we've learned from the Trump years, rogue governments can and will ignore laws they don't like (Hatch act, anyone), unless there are even stronger rules that they can't suborn. See how in the last few years, both Russia and China both removed presidential term limits.

 

[Hack-n-Slash]

But that’s a straw man argument to disguise the actual goal of the Left which is to promote its agenda unchallenged and to control the media narrative.

Every accusation a confession...

 

[Adreaver]

The Left would like you to think that it’s merely advocating against racism and hate speech (neither of which are clearly defined and are subject to change). But that’s a straw man argument to disguise the actual goal of the Left which is to promote its agenda unchallenged and to control the media narrative.

[Citation needed]

This is why the Biden administration is scrambling to create a “disinformation board.” He’s hoping to mitigate the loss of Twitter and hoping we will somehow deem his group as independent arbiters of the truth.

[Citation needed]

He’ll try to leverage this for political advantage in the lead up to the elections. The Left wants to be the sole arbiter of what is and what is not DISINFORMATION.

[Citation needed]

You may still believe for example, that the Hunter Biden story is a Russian or Republican disinformation campaign but numerous fact checking and less biased news sources have proven it a legitimate story and one that should never have been banned.

This has been thoroughly debunked a number of times in this thread already. There is a laptop, which may have at one point belonged to Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden sent some emails. Literally nothing else has been verified or confirmed to be true.

Likewise, political commentators like Tucker Carlson arguably do not engage in “hate speech” or “disinformation” any more than the numerous liberal commentators on more liberal networks.

Can you give me an example of a right-wing political commentator being banned for hate speech or disinformation, aside from the NY Post and the Hunter Biden Laptop story? Can you give me an example of a left-wing commentator engaging in hate speech or disinformation without consequence?

As a result, there is clearly no RELIABLE arbiter of what is and what is not disinformation and with increased sensitivity, there is always some percentage of the public who can interpret non-hate speech as hate speech.

Is the speech calling for violence against, subjugation of, or denial-of-rights to a specific class of people based on protected characteristics like sex, race, religion, age, or national origin? Then it is hate speech. Is it objectionable while not falling into those narrowly-defined categories? Then it is not hate speech, but Twitter (and any other 3rd party) can decide they don't want to host it if they so choose.

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has been criticized by some for "engaging in 'hate speech' toward transgender people for saying that there are two biologically distinct genders” even though upwards of 75% of the populace agrees with the statement, "[t]here are two genders, male and female."

Fuck TERFs. I don't have anything further to say on this topic because I'm angry enough already.

People’s views on both sides of the debate on volatile topics like gender, immigration, climate change, vaccines etc. have as much right to be heard as views on more prosaic topics such as microeconomics and international trade.

No, topics like gender, race, etc have no place in the debate, where one side is claiming that XYZ people don't deserve to exist or don't deserve the same rights as others. Climate change policy is up for debate, sure, but whether climate change is happening and caused by humans has been settled science for decades. Ditto vaccines.

It does not take a rocket surgeon to realize that a mod could easily inculcate their own political/social views when in control of shadow banning and implementing algorithmic bias. If political bias can happen at the FBI, it can certainly happen at Twitter. The potential for abuse and bias is undeniable and IF one’s goal is to make a site that is truly open to all, within the limits of law, then these issues clearly need to be addressed.

Twitter is a private company and is allowed to have whatever biases in moderation they want. The alt-right has for years (without evidence) been complaining about biased moderation. The left is also allowed to complain about biased moderation if they so choose.

Musk (thus far) simply wants to take Twitter from a platform that was shadow banning more conservative voices and censoring legitimate stories to one that allows all voices under the law.

Show me an example of a "conservative voice" being silenced for expressing conservative values. I'll wait.

That shouldn’t be viewed as a loss for the Left unless you view it through the optics of tribal politics where the Left is losing some of it’s political influence to further its agenda on numerous economic, social, environmental and international fronts. And that is exactly what is causing all the anguish among the commenters here and more broadly across the rest of the liberal news media at large.

Or the left just doesn't want to deal with harassment from people questioning the right of the LGBTQ community to exist with the same rights as everyone else, but no, it has to be a plot by the left to further some nebulous agenda that nobody can articulate.

 

[ardent]

I guess transphobes don't know about paragraphs.

He appears to deal in absolutes.

Including absolute shit.

 

[mpfaff]

The comments/replies here are rather disingenuous in their presuppositions and due to moderated comment frequency, can’t be responded to individually. The Left would like you to think that it’s merely advocating against racism and hate speech (neither of which are clearly defined and are subject to change). But that’s a straw man argument to disguise the actual goal of the Left which is to promote its agenda unchallenged and to control the media narrative. This is why the Biden administration is scrambling to create a “disinformation board.” He’s hoping to mitigate the loss of Twitter and hoping we will somehow deem his group as independent arbiters of the truth. He’ll try to leverage this for political advantage in the lead up to the elections. The Left wants to be the sole arbiter of what is and what is not DISINFORMATION. You may still believe for example, that the Hunter Biden story is a Russian or Republican disinformation campaign but numerous fact checking and less biased news sources have proven it a legitimate story and one that should never have been banned. Likewise, political commentators like Tucker Carlson arguably do not engage in “hate speech” or “disinformation” any more than the numerous liberal commentators on more liberal networks. As a result, there is clearly no RELIABLE arbiter of what is and what is not disinformation and with increased sensitivity, there is always some percentage of the public who can interpret non-hate speech as hate speech. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has been criticized by some for "engaging in 'hate speech' toward transgender people for saying that there are two biologically distinct genders” even though upwards of 75% of the populace agrees with the statement, "[t]here are two genders, male and female." People’s views on both sides of the debate on volatile topics like gender, immigration, climate change, vaccines etc. have as much right to be heard as views on more prosaic topics such as microeconomics and international trade. It does not take a rocket surgeon to realize that a mod could easily inculcate their own political/social views when in control of shadow banning and implementing algorithmic bias. If political bias can happen at the FBI, it can certainly happen at Twitter. The potential for abuse and bias is undeniable and IF one’s goal is to make a site that is truly open to all, within the limits of law, then these issues clearly need to be addressed. Musk (thus far) simply wants to take Twitter from a platform that was shadow banning more conservative voices and censoring legitimate stories to one that allows all voices under the law. That shouldn’t be viewed as a loss for the Left unless you view it through the optics of tribal politics where the Left is losing some of it’s political influence to further its agenda on numerous economic, social, environmental and international fronts. And that is exactly what is causing all the anguish among the commenters here and more broadly across the rest of the liberal news media at large.

You don't respond individually because you're a coward and can't effectively defend anything in a conversation. It's why you post your little manifestos in a huge block of uninterrupted text

Accusing the left of being against hate speech as being a strawman and then proceeding to build a strawman is... something.

Then it's just a screed about how being transphobic is correct 'cause science, some whining about no one caring about Hunter Biden's laptop, and some goofiness about a left wing conspiracy to control people or some shit. Fun fact, nothing can be open and accepting to all, if you are accepting of bigoted speech then you are not accepting of the targets of bigotry. It's why moderated platforms flourish and unmoderated ones are seen by pretty much everyone as trash.

 

[Hack-n-Slash]

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has been criticized by some for "engaging in 'hate speech' toward transgender people for saying that there are two biologically distinct genders” even though upwards of 75% of the populace agrees with the statement, "[t]here are two genders, male and female."

Populace *where*? Russia?

While still higher than it should be, that number sits at about 55% here in the U.S.

 

[Jordan83]

The comments/replies here are rather disingenuous in their presuppositions and due to moderated comment frequency, can’t be responded to individually. The Left would like you to think that it’s merely advocating against racism and hate speech (neither of which are clearly defined and are subject to change). But that’s a straw man argument to disguise the actual goal of the Left which is to promote its agenda unchallenged and to control the media narrative. This is why the Biden administration is scrambling to create a “disinformation board.” He’s hoping to mitigate the loss of Twitter and hoping we will somehow deem his group as independent arbiters of the truth. He’ll try to leverage this for political advantage in the lead up to the elections. The Left wants to be the sole arbiter of what is and what is not DISINFORMATION. You may still believe for example, that the Hunter Biden story is a Russian or Republican disinformation campaign but numerous fact checking and less biased news sources have proven it a legitimate story and one that should never have been banned. Likewise, political commentators like Tucker Carlson arguably do not engage in “hate speech” or “disinformation” any more than the numerous liberal commentators on more liberal networks. As a result, there is clearly no RELIABLE arbiter of what is and what is not disinformation and with increased sensitivity, there is always some percentage of the public who can interpret non-hate speech as hate speech. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has been criticized by some for "engaging in 'hate speech' toward transgender people for saying that there are two biologically distinct genders” even though upwards of 75% of the populace agrees with the statement, "[t]here are two genders, male and female." People’s views on both sides of the debate on volatile topics like gender, immigration, climate change, vaccines etc. have as much right to be heard as views on more prosaic topics such as microeconomics and international trade. It does not take a rocket surgeon to realize that a mod could easily inculcate their own political/social views when in control of shadow banning and implementing algorithmic bias. If political bias can happen at the FBI, it can certainly happen at Twitter. The potential for abuse and bias is undeniable and IF one’s goal is to make a site that is truly open to all, within the limits of law, then these issues clearly need to be addressed. Musk (thus far) simply wants to take Twitter from a platform that was shadow banning more conservative voices and censoring legitimate stories to one that allows all voices under the law. That shouldn’t be viewed as a loss for the Left unless you view it through the optics of tribal politics where the Left is losing some of it’s political influence to further its agenda on numerous economic, social, environmental and international fronts. And that is exactly what is causing all the anguish among the commenters here and more broadly across the rest of the liberal news media at large.

Wow, that's a great story.

Any moderation Twitter currently does is already allowed under the law. Even though nobody anywhere can point to examples of conservatives being banned from Twitter for advocating for smaller government and less taxes, even if Twitter did that, they are well within the law to be able to do so.

One or more of all the things that conservatives cry about Twitter doing, whether or not they are actually being done (such as banning, moderating, curating content, using algorithms, presenting the parts of the internet they want you to see, and on and on), is applicable to almost any web based platform out there - including Amazon, Netflix, Google, Facebook, Truth Social, LinkedIn, and on and on and on.

I'm still baffled by the idea that Twitter must change, because something something the law, yet every other platform can continue operating the way they do...when they all operate under the same laws, or lack of.

I'm so fucking confused by this constant nonsense.

 

[Deleted member 388703]

The comments/replies here are rather disingenuous in their presuppositions and due to moderated comment frequency, can’t be responded to individually. The Left would like you to think that it’s merely advocating against racism and hate speech (neither of which are clearly defined and are subject to change). But that’s a straw man argument to disguise the actual goal of the Left which is to promote its agenda unchallenged and to control the media narrative. This is why the Biden administration is scrambling to create a “disinformation board.” He’s hoping to mitigate the loss of Twitter and hoping we will somehow deem his group as independent arbiters of the truth. He’ll try to leverage this for political advantage in the lead up to the elections. The Left wants to be the sole arbiter of what is and what is not DISINFORMATION. You may still believe for example, that the Hunter Biden story is a Russian or Republican disinformation campaign but numerous fact checking and less biased news sources have proven it a legitimate story and one that should never have been banned. Likewise, political commentators like Tucker Carlson arguably do not engage in “hate speech” or “disinformation” any more than the numerous liberal commentators on more liberal networks. As a result, there is clearly no RELIABLE arbiter of what is and what is not disinformation and with increased sensitivity, there is always some percentage of the public who can interpret non-hate speech as hate speech. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has been criticized by some for "engaging in 'hate speech' toward transgender people for saying that there are two biologically distinct genders” even though upwards of 75% of the populace agrees with the statement, "[t]here are two genders, male and female." People’s views on both sides of the debate on volatile topics like gender, immigration, climate change, vaccines etc. have as much right to be heard as views on more prosaic topics such as microeconomics and international trade. It does not take a rocket surgeon to realize that a mod could easily inculcate their own political/social views when in control of shadow banning and implementing algorithmic bias. If political bias can happen at the FBI, it can certainly happen at Twitter. The potential for abuse and bias is undeniable and IF one’s goal is to make a site that is truly open to all, within the limits of law, then these issues clearly need to be addressed. Musk (thus far) simply wants to take Twitter from a platform that was shadow banning more conservative voices and censoring legitimate stories to one that allows all voices under the law. That shouldn’t be viewed as a loss for the Left unless you view it through the optics of tribal politics where the Left is losing some of it’s political influence to further its agenda on numerous economic, social, environmental and international fronts. And that is exactly what is causing all the anguish among the commenters here and more broadly across the rest of the liberal news media at large.

Wow, that's a great story.

Any moderation Twitter currently does is already allowed under the law. Even though nobody anywhere can point to examples of conservatives being banned from Twitter for advocating for smaller government and less taxes, even if Twitter did that, they are well within the law to be able to do so.

One or more of all the things that conservatives cry about Twitter doing, whether or not they are actually being done (such as banning, moderating, curating content, using algorithms, presenting the parts of the internet they want you to see, and on and on), is applicable to almost any web based platform out there - including Amazon, Netflix, Google, Facebook, Truth Social, LinkedIn, and on and on and on.

I'm still baffled by the idea that Twitter must change, because something something the law, yet every other platform can continue operating the way they do...when they all operate under the same laws, or lack of.

I'm so fucking confused by this constant nonsense.

In related Republicans-keep-proving-they-hate-free-speech-rights-they-don't-understand news:
Marjorie Taylor Greene Has A Bill To Burden Elon Musk’s Twitter With An Avalanche Of Frivolous Lawsuits

 

[mpfaff]

The comments/replies here are rather disingenuous in their presuppositions and due to moderated comment frequency, can’t be responded to individually. The Left would like you to think that it’s merely advocating against racism and hate speech (neither of which are clearly defined and are subject to change). But that’s a straw man argument to disguise the actual goal of the Left which is to promote its agenda unchallenged and to control the media narrative. This is why the Biden administration is scrambling to create a “disinformation board.” He’s hoping to mitigate the loss of Twitter and hoping we will somehow deem his group as independent arbiters of the truth. He’ll try to leverage this for political advantage in the lead up to the elections. The Left wants to be the sole arbiter of what is and what is not DISINFORMATION. You may still believe for example, that the Hunter Biden story is a Russian or Republican disinformation campaign but numerous fact checking and less biased news sources have proven it a legitimate story and one that should never have been banned. Likewise, political commentators like Tucker Carlson arguably do not engage in “hate speech” or “disinformation” any more than the numerous liberal commentators on more liberal networks. As a result, there is clearly no RELIABLE arbiter of what is and what is not disinformation and with increased sensitivity, there is always some percentage of the public who can interpret non-hate speech as hate speech. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has been criticized by some for "engaging in 'hate speech' toward transgender people for saying that there are two biologically distinct genders” even though upwards of 75% of the populace agrees with the statement, "[t]here are two genders, male and female." People’s views on both sides of the debate on volatile topics like gender, immigration, climate change, vaccines etc. have as much right to be heard as views on more prosaic topics such as microeconomics and international trade. It does not take a rocket surgeon to realize that a mod could easily inculcate their own political/social views when in control of shadow banning and implementing algorithmic bias. If political bias can happen at the FBI, it can certainly happen at Twitter. The potential for abuse and bias is undeniable and IF one’s goal is to make a site that is truly open to all, within the limits of law, then these issues clearly need to be addressed. Musk (thus far) simply wants to take Twitter from a platform that was shadow banning more conservative voices and censoring legitimate stories to one that allows all voices under the law. That shouldn’t be viewed as a loss for the Left unless you view it through the optics of tribal politics where the Left is losing some of it’s political influence to further its agenda on numerous economic, social, environmental and international fronts. And that is exactly what is causing all the anguish among the commenters here and more broadly across the rest of the liberal news media at large.

Wow, that's a great story.

Any moderation Twitter currently does is already allowed under the law. Even though nobody anywhere can point to examples of conservatives being banned from Twitter for advocating for smaller government and less taxes, even if Twitter did that, they are well within the law to be able to do so.

One or more of all the things that conservatives cry about Twitter doing, whether or not they are actually being done (such as banning, moderating, curating content, using algorithms, presenting the parts of the internet they want you to see, and on and on), is applicable to almost any web based platform out there - including Amazon, Netflix, Google, Facebook, Truth Social, LinkedIn, and on and on and on.

I'm still baffled by the idea that Twitter must change, because something something the law, yet every other platform can continue operating the way they do...when they all operate under the same laws, or lack of.

I'm so fucking confused by this constant nonsense.

In related Republicans-keep-proving-they-hate-free-speech-rights-they-don't-understand news:
Marjorie Taylor Greene Has A Bill To Burden Elon Musk’s Twitter With An Avalanche Of Frivolous Lawsuits

Old Marjorie is just behind the curve and doesn't really understand how anything works. Much like our long winded friend above who seems to be upset that he can't make fun of transgender people online in most places.

 

[graylshaped]

...The Left...

I couldn't be arsed to deal with the rest of your wall of text after hitting your code words.

Thank you for trying, though.

 

[orwelldesign]

... to one that allows all voices under the law.

Goddamn you're dumb. Like, actually, factually dumb. I'm surprised you can tie your shoes, though I suppose that is a "citation needed" if ever there was one.

Let me go over this again, using small words and short sentences:

Being a shitty bigot is legal.

If your only moderation policy is "this is legal, so we won't censor it," you end up with...

*drumroll*

A site full of shitty bigots, and no one else.

Or 4chan, or 8kun, but I am repeating myself.

Because normal, reasonable people? They don't want to hang out with bigots. You get one or the other, you don't get both. You can have people talking about the worthless (n-words), or you can have the entirety of the non-racist humanity. Which, believe it or not, *vastly* outweighs the "I want to call transgender people the t-slur" crowd

You've had a room full of people specifically and in detail demonstrating just how you're wrong, and you hide behind a wall of text, failing to address a bunch of solid points, because you're a coward. Like your percentage figure: it doesn't matter what percentage of people believe something. That has no bearing on the truth of that thing -- once upon a time, 99.99+% of people/believed/ the earth to be flat.

Those people were wrong.

So it is with the ridiculous drive to reduce gender to a strict binary. Gender is fluid and should be free. Hell, biological sex isn't even a binary. There's *lots* of variations besides your rather more typical XX or XY chromosome pairings.

Your reductive views should be embarrassing.

I know it's not, but it should be.

 

[Jordan83]

The comments/replies here are rather disingenuous in their presuppositions and due to moderated comment frequency, can’t be responded to individually. The Left would like you to think that it’s merely advocating against racism and hate speech (neither of which are clearly defined and are subject to change). But that’s a straw man argument to disguise the actual goal of the Left which is to promote its agenda unchallenged and to control the media narrative. This is why the Biden administration is scrambling to create a “disinformation board.” He’s hoping to mitigate the loss of Twitter and hoping we will somehow deem his group as independent arbiters of the truth. He’ll try to leverage this for political advantage in the lead up to the elections. The Left wants to be the sole arbiter of what is and what is not DISINFORMATION. You may still believe for example, that the Hunter Biden story is a Russian or Republican disinformation campaign but numerous fact checking and less biased news sources have proven it a legitimate story and one that should never have been banned. Likewise, political commentators like Tucker Carlson arguably do not engage in “hate speech” or “disinformation” any more than the numerous liberal commentators on more liberal networks. As a result, there is clearly no RELIABLE arbiter of what is and what is not disinformation and with increased sensitivity, there is always some percentage of the public who can interpret non-hate speech as hate speech. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has been criticized by some for "engaging in 'hate speech' toward transgender people for saying that there are two biologically distinct genders” even though upwards of 75% of the populace agrees with the statement, "[t]here are two genders, male and female." People’s views on both sides of the debate on volatile topics like gender, immigration, climate change, vaccines etc. have as much right to be heard as views on more prosaic topics such as microeconomics and international trade. It does not take a rocket surgeon to realize that a mod could easily inculcate their own political/social views when in control of shadow banning and implementing algorithmic bias. If political bias can happen at the FBI, it can certainly happen at Twitter. The potential for abuse and bias is undeniable and IF one’s goal is to make a site that is truly open to all, within the limits of law, then these issues clearly need to be addressed. Musk (thus far) simply wants to take Twitter from a platform that was shadow banning more conservative voices and censoring legitimate stories to one that allows all voices under the law. That shouldn’t be viewed as a loss for the Left unless you view it through the optics of tribal politics where the Left is losing some of it’s political influence to further its agenda on numerous economic, social, environmental and international fronts. And that is exactly what is causing all the anguish among the commenters here and more broadly across the rest of the liberal news media at large.

Wow, that's a great story.

Any moderation Twitter currently does is already allowed under the law. Even though nobody anywhere can point to examples of conservatives being banned from Twitter for advocating for smaller government and less taxes, even if Twitter did that, they are well within the law to be able to do so.

One or more of all the things that conservatives cry about Twitter doing, whether or not they are actually being done (such as banning, moderating, curating content, using algorithms, presenting the parts of the internet they want you to see, and on and on), is applicable to almost any web based platform out there - including Amazon, Netflix, Google, Facebook, Truth Social, LinkedIn, and on and on and on.

I'm still baffled by the idea that Twitter must change, because something something the law, yet every other platform can continue operating the way they do...when they all operate under the same laws, or lack of.

I'm so fucking confused by this constant nonsense.

In related Republicans-keep-proving-they-hate-free-speech-rights-they-don't-understand news:
Marjorie Taylor Greene Has A Bill To Burden Elon Musk’s Twitter With An Avalanche Of Frivolous Lawsuits

I'll admit, I really don't understand the hate boner for Section 230 either. The way I see it, if Section 230 gets repealed, every site that hosts any kind of user content will do one of 3 things -

1. Moderate and screen everything so thoroughly that only the absolute safest content makes it through, which means that almost nothing at all will get through.

2. Moderate absolutely nothing whatsoever, ever. Every platform that chooses this option eventually pretty much becomes 8chan (or whatever chan, I don't keep up).

3. Stop hosting user content altogether. No comments, posts, message boards, etc.

I really don't see any of those as a great outcome, to be honest. And I don't think those who are trying to repeal 230 would be particularly happy with any of those results. I'd actually expect most non social-media sites, whose entire model doesn't directly depend on user content, to opt for #3.

Edit to add: My understanding of the possibility of outcome #2 may be incorrect. That may not even be possible in the absence of 230, depending on where the site is hosted. I'll leave it as-is though, so we all may learn, and leave this edit as an explainer.

 

[Tofystedeth]

The comments/replies here are rather disingenuous in their presuppositions and due to moderated comment frequency, can’t be responded to individually.
<edit for brevity>

Yes well, in 5 days, if you're still around, you'll be able to post all you want. Or you could subscribe and remove the limit immediately. It's not "moderation", it's automated spam control.

 

[graylshaped]

... to one that allows all voices under the law.

Goddamn you're dumb. Like, actually, factually dumb. I'm surprised you can tie your shoes, though I suppose that is a "citation needed" if ever there was one.

I, for one, am happy people now have access to velcro-fastened shoes.

This, coming from a guy who wears chanklas 98% of the time, excluding the times when I am barefoot, like right now. With a dog sleeping on my feet, because we took the time to teach him a "Puppy Blanket" command.

And that 98% is by actual measurement, and the fact that I collected data on this probably says more about me than the fact that I don't wear shoes with laces very often.

Aw, darn it. He got bored of being my puppy blanket and is now on the couch (the only piece of furniture on which he is allowed, because sometimes we want a puppy blanket).

 

[mpfaff]

... to one that allows all voices under the law.

Goddamn you're dumb. Like, actually, factually dumb. I'm surprised you can tie your shoes, though I suppose that is a "citation needed" if ever there was one.

Let me go over this again, using small words and short sentences:

Being a shitty bigot is legal.

If your only moderation policy is "this is legal, so we won't censor it," you end up with...

*drumroll*

A site full of shitty bigots, and no one else.

Or 4chan, or 8kun, but I am repeating myself.

Because normal, reasonable people? They don't want to hang out with bigots. You get one or the other, you don't get both. You can have people talking about the worthless (n-words), or you can have the entirety of the non-racist humanity. Which, believe it or not, *vastly* outweighs the "I want to call transgender people the t-slur" crowd

You've had a room full of people specifically and in detail demonstrating just how you're wrong, and you hide behind a wall of text, failing to address a bunch of solid points, because you're a coward. Like your percentage figure: it doesn't matter what percentage of people believe something. That has no bearing on the truth of that thing -- once upon a time, 99.99+% of people/believed/ the earth to be flat.

Those people were wrong.

So it is with the ridiculous drive to reduce gender to a strict binary. Gender is fluid and should be free. Hell, biological sex isn't even a binary. There's *lots* of variations besides your rather more typical XX or XY chromosome pairings.

Your reductive views should be embarrassing.

I know it's not, but it should be.

Not that any of the free speech maximalists respond to the point of wide open moderation chasing off normally adjusted people. But the person you responded to absolutely either doesn't have the courage or the wits to engage in discourse. We may get another Gish gallop post with a little tease of bigotry buried in the middle again, but little else.

 

[Deleted member 388703]

The comments/replies here are rather disingenuous in their presuppositions and due to moderated comment frequency, can’t be responded to individually.
<edit for brevity>

Yes well, in 5 days, if you're still around, you'll be able to post all you want. Or you could subscribe and remove the limit immediately. It's not "moderation", it's automated spam control.

And it's doing its job.