President Joe Biden

[EOTL]

Actually this is a big problem.

We only have a few platforms that are somewhat universal in terms of communication. Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Over the past year and especially the last half year, these platforms have blocked messaging from the right. Their reasoning is not consistent since they do not apply the same rules to the left. Now some may argue they are private companies...and they are. But at the same time they are essentially monopolies. By that I mean if you cannot message on those 3 you effectively are not messaging.

I personally am not happy or comfortable with the idea that now ideas are being suppressed.

Take for instance the NY Post stories on the Hunter Biden laptop. They produced emails, photos, etc of what appears to be shall we say sketchy behavior on the part of Hunter that ALSO includes payments from various government. Twitter banned the NY Post stories saying that they do not allow stories about hacked or illegally gained information to be propagated. Yet just a few months ago, they allowed NY Times stories about Trump taxes that were illegally leaked. So they are inconsistent.

They have blocked certain Trump tweets saying it promotes violence. Yet allow tweets from Iran threatening violence as another example.

And so on.

It is actually a scary thing if we now have gatekeepers like that that suppress speech/thought from one side of the political spectrum, but not the other.


As a general rule I believe Sunshine is the best disinfectant for various speech/thought. And generally private companies do have the right to limit what is on their platform.

However when their platforms are basically the only ones used worldwide (twitter, instagram, facebook, etc) and they are censoring certain content, we do have a problem since it effectively silences a significant portion of the population.

Whiners don’t like the 1st Amendment and the free market when it doesn’t suit their position. Twitter has a 1st Amendment right to tell you magats to f**k off. If you don’t like it, make your own social media platform using the free market. You’re drawing such huge support here, I think you’re ready. So snowflakey.

Orange Chicken Little claims the sky is falling now that he can’t spread his hate to all his treasonous trumpanzee followers with his thumbs. No it’s not. He can try being a real man and hold a press conference in the press room of the WH. Or gosh, maybe he should not have been such a POS and ignored months and months of polite warnings. But still not a peep out of the magats here about the abhorrent conduct that got their boy banned in the first place. They want to be sh**bags without having to face repercussions for it. Well, it turns out all that big business you wanted so much to get all those massive tax breaks at the expense of social welfare thank you very much for your stupidity, now trickle down your way out of here.

 

[notintheface]

My prediction is Parler folds in 2 years.

You misspelled "days".

 

[Hüsker Dü]

This is such a pathetic argument. I wish someone would rid me of this meddlesome Karen.

Same old argument he never said it precisely, so.

 

[tenacious]

Oops, turns out you had no clue what Parler actually depends on. So who are Google and Apple in your goofy Roman analogy?

Redirect Notice

I suppose they would be the chorus... or the voice of the people as was the trope of Greek drama.

It's funny, even the Greeks 3000 years ago saw and understood that there could be a major disconnect between the kings, queens and heroes and the chorus / regular people. Watching some of the jokers we got in Washington strut around patting themselves on the back and I'm reminded of how little things have changed.

 

[tenacious]

Actually is a dark day. And the banning of thought/speech/ideas from various sites has much more long term (bad) consequences vs what happened the other day in the capital.

Idk. I share the negative reflective response when it comes to almost all issues of censorship.

However I see little downside to restrictions on yelling 'fire' in a crowed theater. Likewise I see little long term damage to restricting post calling flash mobs to destroy other peoples property. Nor do I see little harm in restricting things like spreading peoples kids cell numbers on the internet so wackos can call and harass them as a means of hurting the parent.

To me talking about a few common sense restrictions over internet behavior seems somewhat warranted.

 

[tenacious]

Let's not forget a legit siege of a federal building in portland for months - with documented proof of attempted murder of Federal Officers by antifa latte warriors.

Not only wasn't it put down, but local leaders were able to prevent anyone else from coming in and cleaning it up either.
What did Trump learned from this you might ask? Well lets just say I can just imagine visions of pro trump municipalities doing the same in his name.

To me this isn't an either or. The woke progressives and the crazy Trump people ALL gotta go back to the pasture.

 

[happy9]

Not only wasn't it put down, but local leaders were able to prevent anyone else from coming in and cleaning it up either.
What did Trump learned from this you might ask? Well lets just say I can just imagine visions of pro trump municipalities doing the same in his name.

To me this isn't an either or. The woke progressives and the crazy Trump people ALL gotta go back to the pasture.

Don't agree with the first part, doesn't make sense. On JAN 22, Portland will clear it's streets of Antifa? Or Antifa will just melt away, go back to work?

Agree on the second - make a pasture and put them both in it.

 

[whatithink]

Because of the following below.

No, it was because I don't use Twitter to any real extent, so who they allow or ban has no relevance to me.

I've read about the story on various outlets and frankly it seemed a hack job to me. Either way Hunter wasn't running for office and if this was the most corrupt or horrible thing the Rs could come up with about Biden after 47 years of public service ... then, whatever.

 

[Grace T.]

Idk. I share the negative reflective response when it comes to almost all issues of censorship.

However I see little downside to restrictions on yelling 'fire' in a crowed theater. Likewise I see little long term damage to restricting post calling flash mobs to destroy other peoples property. Nor do I see little harm in restricting things like spreading peoples kids cell numbers on the internet so wackos can call and harass them as a means of hurting the parent.

To me talking about a few common sense restrictions over internet behavior seems somewhat warranted.

Agree speech is not unlimited. Twitters gone way beyond that. With the president, trump never called on his supporters to seize the capitol or engage in violence. The argument is he incited them by falsely claiming the election was “stolen”. Further, if incitement is the same standard Twitter engaged in a double standard by not censoring several ds (including kamala harris) that egged on the spring rioters. If violence is the standard, they engaged in double standards with China Iran and their supporters. They further did not censor Antifa accounts in the spring actually calling people to violence

with the hunter biden stuff Twitter was later proven to be wrong so engaged in a fact Checking which was later found to be incorrect and thereby interferes with a democratic election

with respect to the mask/lockdown/vaccine stuff Twitter is now interfering in debate including among credentialed experts

as to the free speech argument, the difference between Twitter and say the gay wedding cake baker is that Twitter claims it is a content neutral platform that does not edit its content and therefore can’t be legally held accountable for the actions of posters. If true they have no business editing content except for the most extreme outlines you’ve given and which should be set out in law governing isps. If not, their immunity should be removed in which case they are free to speak but also bear the liability (like a magazine or newspaper).

 

[Chelsea dad g09]

their immunity should be removed in which case they are free to speak but also bear the liability (like a magazine or newspaper).

This 100%.

 

[tenacious]

Don't agree with the first part, doesn't make sense. On JAN 22, Portland will clear it's streets of Antifa? Or Antifa will just melt away, go back to work?

Agree on the second - make a pasture and put them both in it.

Guess really all I was trying to say was- imagine what Trump was thinking when he realized that fear of civil unrest was a problem democrats and moderates don't have an answer for other then appeasement?

 

[tenacious]

Agree speech is not unlimited. Twitters gone way beyond that. With the president, trump never called on his supporters to seize the capitol or engage in violence. The argument is he incited them by falsely claiming the election was “stolen”. Further, if incitement is the same standard Twitter engaged in a double standard by not censoring several ds (including kamala harris) that egged on the spring rioters. If violence is the standard, they engaged in double standards with China Iran and their supporters. They further did not censor Antifa accounts in the spring actually calling people to violence

with the hunter biden stuff Twitter was later proven to be wrong so engaged in a fact Checking which was later found to be incorrect and thereby interferes with a democratic election

with respect to the mask/lockdown/vaccine stuff Twitter is now interfering in debate including among credentialed experts

as to the free speech argument, the difference between Twitter and say the gay wedding cake baker is that Twitter claims it is a content neutral platform that does not edit its content and therefore can’t be legally held accountable for the actions of posters. If true they have no business editing content except for the most extreme outlines you’ve given and which should be set out in law governing isps. If not, their immunity should be removed in which case they are free to speak but also bear the liability (like a magazine or newspaper).

Great post. I agree.

 

[EOTL]

Agree speech is not unlimited. Twitters gone way beyond that. With the president, trump never called on his supporters to seize the capitol or engage in violence. The argument is he incited them by falsely claiming the election was “stolen”. Further, if incitement is the same standard Twitter engaged in a double standard by not censoring several ds (including kamala harris) that egged on the spring rioters. If violence is the standard, they engaged in double standards with China Iran and their supporters. They further did not censor Antifa accounts in the spring actually calling people to violence

with the hunter biden stuff Twitter was later proven to be wrong so engaged in a fact Checking which was later found to be incorrect and thereby interferes with a democratic election

with respect to the mask/lockdown/vaccine stuff Twitter is now interfering in debate including among credentialed experts

as to the free speech argument, the difference between Twitter and say the gay wedding cake baker is that Twitter claims it is a content neutral platform that does not edit its content and therefore can’t be legally held accountable for the actions of posters. If true they have no business editing content except for the most extreme outlines you’ve given and which should be set out in law governing isps. If not, their immunity should be removed in which case they are free to speak but also bear the liability (like a magazine or newspaper).

The difference between Twitter and the bigoted baker are that baking a f**king cake is not speech. If they had asked him to bake a specific pro-gay cake, sure that would be speech. But refusing to sell a standard cake right out of their book to someone because they are gay is no different than refusing to sell bbq to someone because they are black. As the history of Ollie’s BBQ made clear many years ago, using religion as a weapon to persecute minorities is illegal. Period.

If Twitter decided to censor you god people simply for making god statements, that would be a problem for Twitter. But if it does so because you’re an a**hole making a**hole comments, religion is not a valid excuse to prevent Twitter from kicking your s**tbag ass off, just as it isn’t a valid to excuse to be an a**hole for refusing to sell cakes. No wonder you don’t actually practice law and apparently never have.

Bigger picture, religion is big part of the current problem. These white evangelical punks have this ridiculous sense of entitlement that makes them think they can do whatever they want, and be as big an a**hole as they want, because their god says it’s ok. It not only justifies the “morality” of being immoral, but also the ridiculous notion that they should not need to face the repercussions that they expect anyone who does not share their fake should.

God people don’t want to admit to even themselves that this underlies much of their hatred of people who burn down Wendy’s to protest race discrimination, but their vigorous defense of seditionists who tried to tear down democracy. Their Orange Julius/Jesus has convinced them that it is God’s will for him to win re-election, that non-believers are trying to steal it, and it is therefore morally acceptable to try to overthrow democracy and loot the U.S. Capitol. They see a moral imperative spurred by religion to engage in their abhorrent conduct, but they see no moral imperative in opposing bigotry and racism, because they just ignore those parts of their god book.

 

[EOTL]

I suppose they would be the chorus... or the voice of the people as was the trope of Greek drama.

It's funny, even the Greeks 3000 years ago saw and understood that there could be a major disconnect between the kings, queens and heroes and the chorus / regular people. Watching some of the jokers we got in Washington strut around patting themselves on the back and I'm reminded of how little things have changed.

If you compare who typically serve by party, you will who are the “elites” who are disconnected from regular people and who are not. You’ll see who mock AOC because she was a bartender, you’ll see the difference between the experiences of Obama- Trump or Loeffler-Warnock or Cruz- growing up, you would see how wrong your trope is. The actual ultra-wealthy elites try to minimize the massive difference between the two - which as you suggest should be a huge negative - by claiming that the democrats running against them are “the same” for two reasons. First, because most of them also have an education. This discredits education. Second, because they also take campaign donations from wealthy people. This is bs because it does not at all change that it has no impact in terms of whether they are real people who grew up experiencing what real people experience.

 

[EOTL]

If you’re one of the magat apologists criticizing Twitter for taking action in response to sedition and an attempted coup led by Orange Julius Wannabe Caesar, here’s his lawyer on Parler. Now go back to the Orwellian idea that defending why abhorrent comments on a privately-owned platform violates free speech, when the reality is that it’s Twitter exercising its 1st Amendment rights, and you arguing against the existence of the 1st Amendment. I seriously can’t believe people have so perverted the 1st Amendment in theor minds that they’re actually arguing that private citizens should be prohibited from exercising it. Honestly, part of me hopes some magats do what the president’s attorney says. I guess magats don’t care about any amendment that gets in the way of shooting someone.

 

[espola]

Agree speech is not unlimited. Twitters gone way beyond that. With the president, trump never called on his supporters to seize the capitol or engage in violence. The argument is he incited them by falsely claiming the election was “stolen”. Further, if incitement is the same standard Twitter engaged in a double standard by not censoring several ds (including kamala harris) that egged on the spring rioters. If violence is the standard, they engaged in double standards with China Iran and their supporters. They further did not censor Antifa accounts in the spring actually calling people to violence

with the hunter biden stuff Twitter was later proven to be wrong so engaged in a fact Checking which was later found to be incorrect and thereby interferes with a democratic election

with respect to the mask/lockdown/vaccine stuff Twitter is now interfering in debate including among credentialed experts

as to the free speech argument, the difference between Twitter and say the gay wedding cake baker is that Twitter claims it is a content neutral platform that does not edit its content and therefore can’t be legally held accountable for the actions of posters. If true they have no business editing content except for the most extreme outlines you’ve given and which should be set out in law governing isps. If not, their immunity should be removed in which case they are free to speak but also bear the liability (like a magazine or newspaper).

At some point, repeating false statements after they have been shown to be false becomes deliberate dishonesty.

Here is a dose of bitter medicine for you --

Must-see new video shows Capitol riot was way worse than we thought

Chris Hayes: “It is entirely possible that there were people in that crowd, looking to apprehend, possibly harm, and possibly murder the leaders of the political class that the President, and people like Mo Brooks, and even to a certain extent Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, have told them have...

www.msnbc.com

 

[NorCalDad]

Agree speech is not unlimited. Twitters gone way beyond that. With the president, trump never called on his supporters to seize the capitol or engage in violence. The argument is he incited them by falsely claiming the election was “stolen”. Further, if incitement is the same standard Twitter engaged in a double standard by not censoring several ds (including kamala harris) that egged on the spring rioters. If violence is the standard, they engaged in double standards with China Iran and their supporters. They further did not censor Antifa accounts in the spring actually calling people to violence

with the hunter biden stuff Twitter was later proven to be wrong so engaged in a fact Checking which was later found to be incorrect and thereby interferes with a democratic election

with respect to the mask/lockdown/vaccine stuff Twitter is now interfering in debate including among credentialed experts

as to the free speech argument, the difference between Twitter and say the gay wedding cake baker is that Twitter claims it is a content neutral platform that does not edit its content and therefore can’t be legally held accountable for the actions of posters. If true they have no business editing content except for the most extreme outlines you’ve given and which should be set out in law governing isps. If not, their immunity should be removed in which case they are free to speak but also bear the liability (like a magazine or newspaper).

I have no idea if what the tech companies are doing is the right move or not. What I do know is that these decisions they're making aren't being taken lightly. They have incredibly strong legal teams. I think they have a pretty good idea of what they're doing. For Twitter here's a more detailed explanation for suspending Trump:

Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump

Suspension of @realDonaldTrump

blog.twitter.com

I'm definitely conflicted on a lot of this. I think on one hand I totally get that many of these actions such as impeachment and social media banning will continue to churn the right wing propaganda machine, ultimately riling up the Trump base. On the other hand, Trump needs to be held accountable. We simply can't normalize his behavior. It's definitely a conundrum.

 

[EOTL]

This is the Bloated Buffoon’s lawyer, who had been pushing the comspiracy theory that the election was fraudulent and who is 0-60 in court telling magats to murder the VP of the US. Yet still, the magats here insist there is no connection between the President’s statements and the insurrection. What dumbs**t apologists and seditionists.

 

[Grace T.]

I have no idea if what the tech companies are doing is the right move or not. What I do know is that these decisions they're making aren't being taken lightly. They have incredibly strong legal teams. I think they have a pretty good idea of what they're doing. For Twitter here's a more detailed explanation for suspending Trump:

Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump

Suspension of @realDonaldTrump

blog.twitter.com

I'm definitely conflicted on a lot of this. I think on one hand I totally get that many of these actions such as impeachment and social media banning will continue to churn the right wing propaganda machine, ultimately riling up the Trump base. On the other hand, Trump needs to be held accountable. We simply can't normalize his behavior. It's definitely a conundrum.

The legal teams aren’t making the decisions. The people in charge of the censorship (at Twitter some of whom have known d affiliates) tell their bosses we should do x. The bosses say yeah or nah pitch it to the lawyers. The lawyers don’t say good or not: they say on the one hand if you do this y can happen, and if you don’t z could happen, but we don’t really know and here are up teen parades of horrible to the contrary. The lawyers aren’t making their decisions...they are trying to avoid making concrete rulings on their own and advise the client of the pros and cons. And not all in house teams are strong. Don’t know about Twitter but many of them are idiots.

 

[NorCalDad]

The legal teams aren’t making the decisions. The people in charge of the censorship (at Twitter some of whom have known d affiliates) tell their bosses we should do x. The bosses say yeah or nah pitch it to the lawyers. The lawyers don’t say good or not: they say on the one hand if you do this y can happen, and if you don’t z could happen, but we don’t really know and here are up teen parades of horrible to the contrary. The lawyers aren’t making their decisions...they are trying to avoid making concrete rulings on their own and advise the client of the pros and cons. And not all in house teams are strong. Don’t know about Twitter but many of them are idiots.

That's not true at all. You actually have no idea how the inner workings of these social media companies work. Legal teams at these companies have way more say than perhaps other institutions you may be familiar with. Trust me on this.