I can’t justify violating property rights, not even for speech.
Your belief could. Someone who believes moderation is censorship, no matter how they feel about PrOpErTy RiGhTs, could justify actions such as forcing services to host speech because they also believe censorship is evil and should be prevented at all costs. The belief justifies the act; that you’re unwilling to act on the belief doesn’t make that belief any less horrible.
So whose rights are you willing to sacrifice on the altar of preventing censorship?
If your form of moderation is deletion, you’ve censored.
I told you I was going to do this:
Having your speech deleted from one place out of a hundred, a thousand, even a million places overall isn’t censorship. Being denied the right to speak on property you don’t own isn’t censorship. Someone refusing to be the audience for your speech isn’t censorship. Nobody has a right to an audience or a platform at the expense of others — and being denied the privilege of an audience or a platform at the expense of others is not the same thing as being denied the right to speak at all.
The majority of people calling for forced hosting right now are people that could easily be swayed by acknowledging the private property issue.
And how do you know that with the certainty of God Herself? How do you know for an absolutely unassailable fact that people who believe both “censorship is evil” and “moderation is censorship” can be convinced to give up even one of those beliefs by talking about PrOpErTy RiGhTs?
I will always opt for the least aggressive method of administrative moderation.
I will opt for forms of moderation that actually punish people for breaking the rules. That includes bans and deletion of posts. Neither of those are censorship because on a service I own and operate, nobody else has an absolute right to use that service as their soapbox. Losing a privilege isn’t censorship; being denied the right to speak is. To that end, I want you to tell me something, Lodos: When Twitter banned Old 45, did that stop Donald Trump — then the sitting President of the United States — from speaking his mind anywhere else in both cyber- and meatspace? If the answer is “no”, he wasn’t censored by Twitter, no matter how much you cling to your practically religious belief that moderation is censorship.
And if the answer is “yes”, don’t even bother replying. I don’t need another fucking migraine.
I’m not fucking agreeing with you on the point, you ignorant dipshit.
My point is that even though someone isn’t being censored when their speech is moderated off a service that doesn’t want to host it, you still think they are — and the acts that belief can justify are fucking atrocious, because it means you can justify the forced hosting of speech and the compelled association of services with speech such as racial slurs and anti-gay propaganda. Your belief of “moderation is censorship” could justify actions that would silence marginalized voices and leave space only for those willing and able to wade through the muck and mire of services bogged down in bigotry, spam, porn, and trolling.
I’m not agreeing with your belief — I’m openly shitting on it. That’s because your belief deserves nothing but mockery and scorn and derision. So don’t you ever dare to defame me by implying that I agree with you on that point. If I agree with you on anything, I’ll explicitly fucking say so.
There are ways to not promote things you don’t like short of censoring it outright.
And what if someone doesn’t want to host the speech at all — should they be forced to host it so someone like you doesn’t call them a “censor” and subject them to harassment and humiliation? Your only solution to moderating speech someone doesn’t want to host is, in effect, “keep hosting the speech”. Doesn’t matter if it’s sandboxed. Doesn’t matter if it’s covered in a content warning. The speech is still there, and under your belief system vis-á-vis censorship, anyone who deletes that speech because they don’t want it associated with them or their property/service — even though the same speech could be reposted literally anywhere else! — is a filthy fucking censor.
When you opt to censor you’re a rude to be flushed from public existence.
(I kinda get what you’re trying to say here, but next time, hit the Preview button before you post and make sure you’re actually saying something coherent instead of letting your autocorrect do all your talking for you.)
No one is entitled to a spot on Twitter. Someone having their speech deleted from Twitter has not been censored — or flushed from public existence. That someone can take the same speech that got deleted and repost it anywhere else on the Internet. That they may not get the same audience for their speech that they might have had on Twitter is irrelevant because nobody — not a single goddamned person who has lived, who is living, and who will ever live — is entitled to an audience of any size.
Twitter is not a public fora. Twitter is not the be-all, end-all of public Internet speech and communications. Were Twitter to be shut down today, people could still communicate over the Internet and find ways to publish their speech.
Before you go making a statement about Twitter “censoring” people out of “public existence”, ask yourself this: How can I be censored/outside of public existence by virtue of not having a Twitter account, yet still tear down your inanity directly to your face for potentially all the world to read on this open-to-the-public website?
There’s a bit of a problem in not predefining things though.
There’s a bigger problem in trying to predefine everything: Every rule has a loophole, and every asshole looks for the loopholes. Ban the phrase “conversion ‘therapy’ ” from Twitter, for example, and assholes who support it will change what they call that torturous practice to avoid the radar. Ban the word “queer” because some people use it as a slur and those who identify as queer will end up caught in the crosshairs. Rules need to be able to predefine an outline of what speech is against the rules without being restricted to specific forms of speech. Times change, contexts change — and an inability to adapt means certain doom.
Sites should inform blocked, suspended, banned users, of exactly why they got punished. Specific reasons, not a generic line in policy.
Remove “blocked” from that list and I’d generally agree. (Blocking is typically a user-side action; nobody owes anyone an explanation for why they decided to block someone, least of all the person who was blocked.)
Now if they’d start removing other people who clearly call for violent actions in violation of law…!
They did — or did you miss the day when Twitter banned your Dear Leader?
You couldn’t leave well enough alone and give a one-word answer, could you, huh. Well, if you want to keep being humiliated… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There’s a difference between recognising a right and supporting it.
You’ve explicitly said that you believe a private property owner has the right to censor. You call that recognizing a right — I call it a justification of (and thus support for) censorship.
Moderation includes censorship (deletion) along with other methods.
You said you believe moderation is censorship. You never qualified that statement before. Are you backing down on that belief? Because it seems like you’re trying to back down from that belief.
You approach things as all or nothing.
Not everything. Some subjects have a lot of nuance, and I’m willing to look for the shades of grey. But in re: censorship, I am very much an all-or-nothing kind of person because fuck censorship. When I say “moderation isn’t censorship”, I say that because it isn’t.
Having your speech deleted from one place out of a hundred, a thousand, even a million places overall isn’t censorship. Being denied the right to speak on property you don’t own isn’t censorship. Someone refusing to be the audience for your speech isn’t censorship. Nobody has a right to an audience or a platform at the expense of others — and being denied the privilege of an audience or a platform at the expense of others is not the same thing as being denied the right to speak at all.
You come to me with that “moderation is censorship” shit again and I will copypasta that entire paragraph into my reply. And I will continue to do that in future replies until you get the point: Being denied a privilege isn’t being denied a right, and being denied the right to speak is censorship.
It explains why you view all (or most) Trump voters as fringe.
On the contrary: I view them as assholes who voted for human suffering so long as they weren’t the ones who had to suffer. That some of the beliefs of some Trump supporters lie on the fringe of the (unfortunately rightward-moving) Overton Window is irrelevant to that fact.
I’m willing to accept compromise even on issues important to me.
How much compromise you’re willing to accept may be the problem. Accepting compromise on, say, how much to spend on a given political goal is one thing. Accepting compromise on human rights and the prevention of suffering is a whole other ballgame — one you seem unapologetic for playing, given your self-proclaimed libertarian leanings. (“When libertarians talk about individual freedom, silently add ‘to own people’ to the phrase regardless of context.”)
You have the right to delete, I acknowledge that right. Doesn’t mean I have to agree with your deleting, purging, destroying, elimination of speech.
If you’re telling me I have the right to censor other people, you are at a bare minimum saying you support my right to do that — that you support the right to censor. Why else would you tell me I have the right to censor?
That’s a limited Liability grant of access.
And refusing it to anyone for any reason — like, say, someone calling you a turtlefucker to your face — would be to deny someone a privilege, not a right. You wouldn’t be censoring them because they could still go right into the public street and yell about the sexual affairs you had with elderly male tortoises across six continents.
(You sick fuck.)
I could put up a big cube and put the protestors in it.
That would be unlawful imprisonment — you know, an actual crime and an actual infringement of one’s civil rights.
I can simply refuse to allow you on at all, thus you’re ability to speak on my property has been censored.
No, it’s been moderated.
One more time: Moderation isn’t censorship. Losing the privilege of a platform to speak on or an audience is not the same as being denied the right to speak. And nobody is guaranteed the right to a platform or an audience at the expense of someone else.
Now please fuck every last infinite mile of off that you fucking can, because dealing with your goddamned ignorance is going to give me a fucking anuerysm.
If you believe censorship is an evil that must be prevented (which I hope you do), you can’t also believe “a property owner has the legal right to censor”. You are decrying censorship and, in the same breath, proclaiming that some people have a legal right to censor legally protected speech and silence people. The logic doesn’t parse.
Moderation either is or isn’t censorship — and if you say it is, you’re supporting censorship when you say “a property owner has the legal right to censor”. (I don’t have to live with that cognitive dissonance; I don’t believe moderation is censorship.) That leaves you with One Simple Question to answer: Do you believe moderation of legally protected speech, no matter the circumstances of that moderation, is the exact same thing as censorship?
Make your reply one word: “yes” or “no”. That alone will say enough.
I respect the legal rights of private censorship property owners to censor on their property.
Then you stand for censorship. You’re okay with censorship. You have no issue with censorship regardless of what you’ve said to the contrary. Because as I told you: You can’t be both for and against censorship at the same time.
Either moderation isn’t censorship or you’re in favor of censorship. I don’t care if this is Pride Month — you can’t have it both ways.
The proper response to man slaughter is not to level a city!
“Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense, our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
I don’t condone the George Floyd riots, but I sure as fucking hell understand them. Also: Nobody levelled an entire fucking city, so stop buying into the InfoWars-level conservative propaganda bullshit that says half the U.S. burned to the ground during the riots.
Sodom wasn’t burned for being evil, it was burned because their residents violated property rights.
Weird that you would refer to the attempted violent rape of two angels as “violating property rights”, but that seems right in line with your wanting to preserve property over human rights and seemingly humanity in general.
(“When libertarians talk about individual freedom, silently add ‘to own people’ to the phrase regardless of context.”)
the only thing I hold more important than absolute freedom of expression [i]s the right of a property owner to maintain, manage, dictate, and rule, over their own property
Then your entire belief system is predicated on a cognitive dissonance.
You said “censorship is the prohibition of access”. By the logic expressed in that sentence — which you said, might I remind you — any attempt by any property owner to prohibit access to their property is “censorship”. You’ve called yourself “anti-censorship”, which I must assume means you would prefer to prevent censorship from ever happening to anyone. Logically, the two positions can’t exist with one another: You can’t both be against the evils of censorship and still want the owners of private property to have the right to censor any- and everyone.
Either moderation isn’t censorship or you’re in favor of censorship. There really isn’t a middle ground here, not under the logic you’ve expressed.
Are you really so flat out against reaching your goal if your reasoning for getting there isn’t yours?
I’m against reaching a goal based on faulty or incomplete reasoning. The right of people to choose which persons/what speech they will and won’t associate themselves with is vastly more important — and far more applicable to 230 — than your sacred, godly, put-on-a-pedastal-to-worship property rights. If your entire argument for 230 is “property rights”, your argument is faulty and incomplete.
Because that’s a very Madam Nancy approach.
Oh, fuck. You’re a misogynist, too. Wonderful.
Why not accept differing factions can not have the same goal simply because we have different paths to reach it?
Because I would think that those differing groups could agree that the government shouldn’t be able to force services like Twitter — and the users of those services — to associate with speech they don’t want to associate with regardless of your revered-as-fuck “property rights” argument.
The first person to bring up private property rights (may have been you) made me reconsider 230. There’s a chance here to reach your goal!
If you can’t agree with me that not forcing people to associate with speech/other people is at least equally as important as your venerated “property rights” argument, I don’t give a fuck. But hey, you’ve outed yourself as someone who cares more about property than human rights/lives, so I don’t know what the fuck I should’ve expected.
I have only ever found three public displays of offensiveness. The Torah, the Bible, and the Quran.
[facepalm]
Look, I have issues with organized religion, but even I’m not that fucking far gone. So I’m gonna skip the rest of your New Atheist, “all religions are bullshit and should die”, woe-is-me bullshit from now on because it’s largely irrelevant now that I know who I’m dealing with. (Hint: It’s someone who probably thinks the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama was a tragedy because a building was damaged and not because four Black girls died at the hands of a group of Klansmen.)
Step on my lawn and you have one warning! Ignore it and loose a kneecap!
I’d expect nothing less from someone who considers property to be worthier of protection than people and their civil rights.
Now fuck all the way off, Lodos. E3 is starting and I can’t be fucked to care about you more than I care about Nina motherfucking Struthers.
“Censorship is prohibition of access.” Remember saying that? And you wouldn’t want to be a censor, would you?
Yes in you have no right to not be bombarded with noise on a public sidewalk or park area.
That wasn’t what I was asking about.
No, you aren’t forced to be an audience. Unless they hold you captive, which would be illegal detainment.
That was. But hey, since I’ve got it in my head: Wouldn’t my walking away from some jackass on a street corner — my prohibiting access to my attention and time — be censorship? 🤔
That’s a legal interpretation. Not actual codified law.
Unless either an actual codified law or a newer Supreme Court ruling overrules that interpretation, it basically is the law.
As long as the federal government pretends I put my trust in god there’s no freedom of/from association.
In that case, I can force you to be my audience and make you listen to every word I ever say, regardless of whether you want to hear it — and you said it’s okay because you believe “censorship is prohibition of access” and “there’s no freedom of/from association”.
Not so fun to see your own words turned against you in ways that would make you the victim of your own asinine logic, is it?
How does recognising a private organisation has the right to censor make me a supporter of forced association?
Let’s go step-by-step.
You believe social media moderation is censorship and have said so multiple times.
Your literal fucking words: “Censorship is prohibition of access.”
The logic created by those two ideas parses as follows: Any form of moderation that “prohibits access” to a social media service is censorship.
Since you seem to think censorship is evil, I must assume you want to prevent censorship from ever happening to anyone.
The only way to prevent social media censorship — to prevent the prohibition of access — is to allow someone access to any platform they wish no matter what.
Or, to put it another way: The only way to stop what you believe is censorship on Twitter is to let anyone post anything that isn’t illegal on Twitter, regardless of how Twitter’s owners/operators feel about that.
Also, since you believe “there’s no freedom of/from association” — your words, not mine! — you can’t simultaneously support the freedom of association vis-á-vis “property rights” and believe that freedom doesn’t exist. Either you can or you can’t force people to associate with you; you can’t have it both ways.
In all cases the person was censored, legally.
No, they weren’t. Because they weren’t denied their First Amendment right to speak their mind — they were denied the “right to free reach” (i.e., the imaginary right to an audience). You dare to throw the Constitution in my face? Go find any law on the books that says someone is legally entitled, without question, to an audience. I’ll wait.
Localised censorship has no [bearing] outside of the private local.
One: Get your autocorrect fixed.
Two: It ain’t censorship if someone has been denied the right to speak where they aren’t welcome. It’s censorship if they’re denied the right to speak anywhere — including places where they are welcome. Twitter can no more deny me my 1A rights than your sorry ass can.
Because censorship by a private entity is legal.
Censorship involves the denial of one’s ability to use their First Amendment rights. Moderation on Twitter doesn’t do that. A bartender tossing out a drunk fuckhead doesn’t do that. Me telling you to fuck every last conceivable mile of off sure as hell doesn’t do that (no matter how hard I try).
Freedom of speech must be legal.
Protesting for political change is legally protected speech. That the hypothetical protestors would be doing it at a time inconvenient to you is irrelevant in this argument — because denying them access to public spaces by calling the cops on them would be censorship under your “censorship is prohibition to access” logic.
No, that would be forced religion, forced conversion.
Like I said: forced association. You’d be forced to associate with a religious sect you don’t want to associate with. Since that isn’t happening, I don’t consider the use of money with “in God we trust” on it to be a forced association with any specific religious sect (or the Christian religion).
Besides, even if it were a forced association, what the fuck am I going to do — stop using money to pay for things? I’ll take a small-ish “forced association” with a supernatural deity over starving to death in a gutter every day of the week. (And twice on Sundays!)
Maybe I’m a far-far left Republican
Ain’t no such thing, fam. Hell, there’s not even an actual “far left” in the United States!
I worked for the Obama campaign twice… I have more left views than right.
Or you just hid your bullshit well.
I consider myself libertarian.
I forget where I read this, but I find it a useful reference: “When libertarians talk about individual freedom, silently add ‘to own people’ to the phrase regardless of context.”
every with-the-Republicans agreement stems from proper[ty] rights
Somehow, I’m not the least bit surprised that you care more about property than about human rights. Did watching people burn buildings during riots related to the death of George Floyd piss you off more than the actual death of George Floyd?
If I must choose between rights of the owner and freedom of distribution, I’ll accept censorship as the private property right.
You literally said “censorship is prohibition of access”. You can’t therefore believe in “censorship” on private property without contradicting your prior statement — because Twitter prohibiting access to bigots and ne’er-do-wells is, under your logic, censorship.
So once and for all, to settle this shit for good, here is the only question you need to answer — and, really, the only part of this comment to which you need reply:
How can you believe “censorship is the prohibition of access”, “censorship is an evil that should be prevented”, and “Twitter admins should have the absolute legal right to ban both people and certain kinds of speech from Twitter” at the same time?
Lodos, why you keep coming back despite being embarassed over and over and over, I will never know. But since you’re still here instead of leaving for “less biased” sites like you said you would…
Not sure how what a neighbour would reflect on me
Who said anything about a neighbor? I’m talking about your front lawn, son. But that’s neither here nor there any more…
Yes, but you aren’t forced as the audience.
That answer doesn’t make sense. It literally can’t make sense. By answering my question with “yes”, you are agreeing with the idea that I can be forced by a speaker into becoming part of their audience so long as I am in a public space. I can’t both be forced into listening and still walk away from the speaker. So yes or no, one more time: If I’m in a public space, does someone else have the absolute right to force me into being an audience for their speech?
a progressive fool like AOC
Better a progressive fool than a believer in cult bullshit.
You expect too much from people who support forced association.
You know that’s not true.
After all, I only expect bullshit from you.
“freedom of association” doesn’t appear in the constitution
“While the United States Constitution's First Amendment identifies the rights to assemble and to petition the government, the text of the First Amendment does not make specific mention of a right to association. Nevertheless, the United States Supreme Court held in NAACP v. Alabama (1958) that freedom of association is an essential part of freedom of speech because, in many cases, people can engage in effective speech only when they join with others.” — per the Wikipedia article on freedom of association
Censorship is prohibition of access.
And there it is — the one line that outs you as a supporter of forced association.
Let’s say, only for the sake of this argument, that you’re right: “Censorship is prohibition of access.” By that logic, if I keep someone who insulted my family out of my home, I’ve censored that dickhead because they no longer have access to my home. By that logic, a barkeeper who kicks out an unruly patron and tells them to never come back has censored the drunken dipshit. By that logic, a Twitter admin who boots a homophobic bigot for saying “queers should be sent to an island to die off” has censored the peabrained bigot.
But herein lies the problem with your logic: Those assholes still have every right to speak their mind elsewhere.
To say “censorship is prohibition of access” is to say “keeping people out of any place where they might speak is censorship”. And since we can both agree that censorship both sucks ass and should be prevented — well, I hope we can, at any rate… — under your logic, keeping people out of any place they might speak is evil and should be prevented. Your logic would destroy both private property rights and the freedom of association — including yours.
I don’t intend to be a hypocrite about it
And yet, you said “censorship is prohibition of access”. So…mission failed, cap’n.
In my from yard? No. That’s my private property.
You said both “censorship is prohibition of access” and “freedom from association is bullshit”. If you believe both of those statements are true, how can you refuse to let someone access your private property for a political protest action — how can you censor someone’s right to speak freely and force you to associate with them — without being a hypocrite about your expressed beliefs vis-á-vis both censorship and freedom from association?
I’ll call the police for disturbing the peace for a noise violation.
Wouldn’t that act prevent speakers from accessing a public place — or, under your “censorship is prohibition of access” logic, censor those speakers?
private property rights extend to left wing ideas too
Yes, that was part of my point — the freedom of association isn’t partisan.
I disagree with progressives on causes and concern [w]ith global warming
Well that’s disheartening to hear but—
but I’m all for green life. I want logical restrictions on coal. I want a reduction in oil use. And I want clean electric. I want mandated recycling and fines for failure. Regulations on all of big energy.
…okay how can you say you disagree with progressives on global climate change yet suggest a number of actions that progressives would be on board with enacting to curb global climate change
how the fuck does that work, Lodos
how the fuck
I’m anti public censorship.
Says the asshole who said that they’d call the cops on a political protest happening on public lands only because it happened at a specific time, even though they earlier said “censorship is prohibition of access”.
I may share som[e] beliefs but I’m so far opposite on so many issues only a fool would lump me in with Republicans.
At best, you’re a right-of-center Democrat (so basically a Republican In Spirit). At worst, you’re bullshitting us for the sake of trolling.
It’s forced association.
Eh, I don’t see that “in God we trust” bullshit as a direct attempt to make anyone associate with Christianity. I mean, despite the references to God on American currency, the government isn’t forcing Muslims and Jews and atheists to convert into Christians before actually being able to use that money. That would be forced association. So unless the United States federal government says I must be a Christian before I can slap down a twenty dollar bill in exchange for an American flag facemask at Walmart, I don’t give a fuck if that phrase is on the bill.
I’m sure you won’t mind being forced to listen to Klan propaganda blaring outside your window all day every day, then. After all, if “freedom from association is bullshit”, you surely won’t mind being associated with the speech of a racist terrorist organization.
I don’t [g]ive a fuck about “right of association”, only property rights.
And that’s why your argument is bullshit. If “freedom of association is bullshit”, do you believe it’s okay for people to force me into being their audience so long as I’m on a street corner or in a public park?
If you want to convince the lawmakers and their voters who are against 230 that there’s a value in it use something they care about like property rights.
I would like to think they’d care about not having the government force them into listening to the inane ramblings of a QAnon dickhead — even if Marjorie Three-Names is a member of Congress.
Coincidentally or not, the concerns line up.
Abandoning one concern for the other doesn’t accomplish shit — and the broader concern of the freedom of association (a guaran-fuckin’-teed right enshrined in the godfuckingdamned Constitution of the motherfucking United States of America) should be one that even the most hamheaded GOP lawmaker could get on board with.
I don’t care about your concern and you don’t care about mine.
I care about the property rights concern. But I care far more about the right of association, which can be affected regardless of property rights.
But we both see 230 as important.
…says someone who was A-OK with repealing or “fixing” 230 until a few weeks ago.
Like you, I’m all for kicking Republicans off Twitter.
You’re not — because I don’t believe in booting Republicans from Twitter, I believe in booting bigots and assholes from Twitter. Not that the two groups don’t have more overlap than both of them would care to admit, but still.
I cared about not calling it what it is and not giving legitimate cause.
And yet, you continue to refer to moderation — to the intentional curation of a community — as “censorship”. Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining, Lodos.
No, a privately owned interactive web service is private property and therefor should not be compelled into hosting content they don’t like.
[facepalms] God…fucking…dammit, Lodos.
But I can’t leave property rights out. It’s the basis for my belief.
I refer you back to my first two paragraphs of this reply.
You’ll never convince me, and a good chunk of this population, of all parties, in an inalienable right to or from association.
Cool, I’ll go see about setting up a giant-ass Black Lives Matter protest in your front yard without your permission, then.
…okay, facetious bullshit aside, I’d still be an asshole for doing that to you. You have every right to refuse being associated with speech that others would force upon you — regardless of whether you agree with it and regardless of where the attempt to force your association happens.
I’m not republican, not alt-right, conservative
You could’ve fooled me, given the way you whine about censorship-that-isn’t like they do.
Funny the same people yelling about freedom from association are the same ones who tend to paint with a mile wide brush when it comes to anyone who disagrees with them.
Neither of those things has to do with the other. Like, at all. I can think Democrats are generally a bunch of spineless shitbuckets who can barely find their asses with a map and a flashlight (and that’s on a good day), but none of that means I believe they should be forced to associate with anyone — or that anyone should be forced to associate with them.
You have a tool to swing the opinion. Is recognition of a parallel argument that bad if it get’s you to your goal?
It is if it’s the only argument and it ignores the broader, connected-directly-to-the-fucking-Constitution argument. You wanna argue about property rights? Go right ahead. But I’m not going to help you — not unless you recognize that the freedom of association is as important as the property rights issue upon which you’re staking all of your pro-230 beliefs. If you think someone has to own property before they can practice their freedom of association, you’ve a long way to go before you can ever — and I mean EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVER — consider me your ally in any way.
…oh, and I bet you think I forgot about the “in God we trust” shit, didn’t you? I didn’t — and for once, we’re on the same page: References to God or any other religious deity shouldn’t be on money or in the Pledge of Allegiance (which is a bullshit practice in its own right but that’s a whole other argument). But considering how we can’t get by without money and no one is legally forced to recite the Pledge, I’m willing to overlook that shit as a minor inconvenience. (And support anyone who seeks to undo that explicitly religious bullshit.)
big tech wants to make sure others don't read certain things
Hey, you know as well as I do that you can go to Parler if you want to read Klan propaganda and QAnon batshittery. I see no reason to make Twitter host that nonsense.
Your insistence on bringing up the “property rights” canard is getting both annoying and ridiculous. The freedom of association doesn’t depend on property rights — it depends on the government being unable to make a person or private entity associate themselves with specific speech (or other people/entities). The government might be able to provide spaces where no legally protected speech is off-limits, but it can’t force me to enter those spaces/listen to whomever is speaking. Some jackoff could be yelling racial slurs on a public street corner; that doesn’t entitle him to my attention.
You really don’t fucking get it, do you. My issue isn’t with a potential infringement of property rights — it’s with a potential (and in the eyes of “moderation is censorship” assholes, a perfectly justifiable) infringement of the right of association. That such an infringement would also double as an infringement of property rights is coincidental.
You can keep trying to do the “iT’s AbOuT pRoPeRtY rIgHtS!!1!1” bullshit. But it is, at best, a parallel argument to the actual argument, which is entirely about the government forcing an association between offensive-yet-legal speech and private entities that want no association with such speech. Hell, this isn’t even a partisan matter — I’m all for Gab and Parler being able to moderate left-wing speech off their respective services if that’s their (dumbassed) decision. This is about whether you believe such speech should be forced onto people regardless of whether “property rights” comes into play. So yes or no, and leave property rights out of the fucking equation: Do you believe the government should have the legal right to compel any privately owned interactive web service into associating with legally protected speech that the owners/operators of said service don’t want to associate with?
Your afraid the courts will not mandate open use if you call it by the c word.
First off: Please learn the difference between “your” and “you’re”. (Hint: Only one of them is a contraction of “you are”.)
As for what I fear? I’m not afraid of whatever you mean by “open use”. I’m afraid that assholes like you and Koby and cynoclast — assholes who believe moderation is censorship because it feels like being told “you can’t say that anywhere” even thought it isn’t — will keep pushing that lie so goddamned hard that you will eventually get enough people on your side who will push lawmakers for the unconstitutional act of compelling services like Twitter to host speech those services don’t want to host.
I’ve asked this of Koby, and I’ll ask it of you. Yes or no: Do you believe the government should have the legal right to compel any privately owned interactive web service into hosting legally protected speech that the owners/operators of said service don’t want to host? Keep in mind that “legally protected speech” can cover bigoted speech such as racial slurs and anti-queer propaganda, so saying “but those can be exceptions to the rule” isn’t an option for you here. Neither is “well if they’d just stay apolitical” or anything along those lines, since the speech I just mentioned can be considered “political speech”.
I recognize the definition. What I don’t do is agree with any interpretation that says moderation is censorship. If you believe in such interpretations, ask yourself what acts that belief would justify.
We’ve tried that, you dipshit. The ignorant people who believe moderation is censorship still somehow think they have an absolute unassailable right to post on Twitter. At a certain point, we can’t fix ignorance — we can only mock it.
On the post: Nigeria Suspends All Of Twitter After It Removes President's Tweet
fuck this I don’t need a fatal migraine
done with you and your bullshit
On the post: Nigeria Suspends All Of Twitter After It Removes President's Tweet
Your belief could. Someone who believes moderation is censorship, no matter how they feel about PrOpErTy RiGhTs, could justify actions such as forcing services to host speech because they also believe censorship is evil and should be prevented at all costs. The belief justifies the act; that you’re unwilling to act on the belief doesn’t make that belief any less horrible.
So whose rights are you willing to sacrifice on the altar of preventing censorship?
I told you I was going to do this:
Having your speech deleted from one place out of a hundred, a thousand, even a million places overall isn’t censorship. Being denied the right to speak on property you don’t own isn’t censorship. Someone refusing to be the audience for your speech isn’t censorship. Nobody has a right to an audience or a platform at the expense of others — and being denied the privilege of an audience or a platform at the expense of others is not the same thing as being denied the right to speak at all.
And how do you know that with the certainty of God Herself? How do you know for an absolutely unassailable fact that people who believe both “censorship is evil” and “moderation is censorship” can be convinced to give up even one of those beliefs by talking about PrOpErTy RiGhTs?
I will opt for forms of moderation that actually punish people for breaking the rules. That includes bans and deletion of posts. Neither of those are censorship because on a service I own and operate, nobody else has an absolute right to use that service as their soapbox. Losing a privilege isn’t censorship; being denied the right to speak is. To that end, I want you to tell me something, Lodos: When Twitter banned Old 45, did that stop Donald Trump — then the sitting President of the United States — from speaking his mind anywhere else in both cyber- and meatspace? If the answer is “no”, he wasn’t censored by Twitter, no matter how much you cling to your practically religious belief that moderation is censorship.
And if the answer is “yes”, don’t even bother replying. I don’t need another fucking migraine.
On the post: Nigeria Suspends All Of Twitter After It Removes President's Tweet
I’m not fucking agreeing with you on the point, you ignorant dipshit.
My point is that even though someone isn’t being censored when their speech is moderated off a service that doesn’t want to host it, you still think they are — and the acts that belief can justify are fucking atrocious, because it means you can justify the forced hosting of speech and the compelled association of services with speech such as racial slurs and anti-gay propaganda. Your belief of “moderation is censorship” could justify actions that would silence marginalized voices and leave space only for those willing and able to wade through the muck and mire of services bogged down in bigotry, spam, porn, and trolling.
I’m not agreeing with your belief — I’m openly shitting on it. That’s because your belief deserves nothing but mockery and scorn and derision. So don’t you ever dare to defame me by implying that I agree with you on that point. If I agree with you on anything, I’ll explicitly fucking say so.
On the post: Nigeria Suspends All Of Twitter After It Removes President's Tweet
And what if someone doesn’t want to host the speech at all — should they be forced to host it so someone like you doesn’t call them a “censor” and subject them to harassment and humiliation? Your only solution to moderating speech someone doesn’t want to host is, in effect, “keep hosting the speech”. Doesn’t matter if it’s sandboxed. Doesn’t matter if it’s covered in a content warning. The speech is still there, and under your belief system vis-á-vis censorship, anyone who deletes that speech because they don’t want it associated with them or their property/service — even though the same speech could be reposted literally anywhere else! — is a filthy fucking censor.
(I kinda get what you’re trying to say here, but next time, hit the Preview button before you post and make sure you’re actually saying something coherent instead of letting your autocorrect do all your talking for you.)
No one is entitled to a spot on Twitter. Someone having their speech deleted from Twitter has not been censored — or flushed from public existence. That someone can take the same speech that got deleted and repost it anywhere else on the Internet. That they may not get the same audience for their speech that they might have had on Twitter is irrelevant because nobody — not a single goddamned person who has lived, who is living, and who will ever live — is entitled to an audience of any size.
Twitter is not a public fora. Twitter is not the be-all, end-all of public Internet speech and communications. Were Twitter to be shut down today, people could still communicate over the Internet and find ways to publish their speech.
Before you go making a statement about Twitter “censoring” people out of “public existence”, ask yourself this: How can I be censored/outside of public existence by virtue of not having a Twitter account, yet still tear down your inanity directly to your face for potentially all the world to read on this open-to-the-public website?
On the post: Nigeria Suspends All Of Twitter After It Removes President's Tweet
There’s a bigger problem in trying to predefine everything: Every rule has a loophole, and every asshole looks for the loopholes. Ban the phrase “conversion ‘therapy’ ” from Twitter, for example, and assholes who support it will change what they call that torturous practice to avoid the radar. Ban the word “queer” because some people use it as a slur and those who identify as queer will end up caught in the crosshairs. Rules need to be able to predefine an outline of what speech is against the rules without being restricted to specific forms of speech. Times change, contexts change — and an inability to adapt means certain doom.
Remove “blocked” from that list and I’d generally agree. (Blocking is typically a user-side action; nobody owes anyone an explanation for why they decided to block someone, least of all the person who was blocked.)
They did — or did you miss the day when Twitter banned your Dear Leader?
On the post: Nigeria Suspends All Of Twitter After It Removes President's Tweet
You couldn’t leave well enough alone and give a one-word answer, could you, huh. Well, if you want to keep being humiliated… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You’ve explicitly said that you believe a private property owner has the right to censor. You call that recognizing a right — I call it a justification of (and thus support for) censorship.
You said you believe moderation is censorship. You never qualified that statement before. Are you backing down on that belief? Because it seems like you’re trying to back down from that belief.
Not everything. Some subjects have a lot of nuance, and I’m willing to look for the shades of grey. But in re: censorship, I am very much an all-or-nothing kind of person because fuck censorship. When I say “moderation isn’t censorship”, I say that because it isn’t.
Having your speech deleted from one place out of a hundred, a thousand, even a million places overall isn’t censorship. Being denied the right to speak on property you don’t own isn’t censorship. Someone refusing to be the audience for your speech isn’t censorship. Nobody has a right to an audience or a platform at the expense of others — and being denied the privilege of an audience or a platform at the expense of others is not the same thing as being denied the right to speak at all.
You come to me with that “moderation is censorship” shit again and I will copypasta that entire paragraph into my reply. And I will continue to do that in future replies until you get the point: Being denied a privilege isn’t being denied a right, and being denied the right to speak is censorship.
On the contrary: I view them as assholes who voted for human suffering so long as they weren’t the ones who had to suffer. That some of the beliefs of some Trump supporters lie on the fringe of the (unfortunately rightward-moving) Overton Window is irrelevant to that fact.
How much compromise you’re willing to accept may be the problem. Accepting compromise on, say, how much to spend on a given political goal is one thing. Accepting compromise on human rights and the prevention of suffering is a whole other ballgame — one you seem unapologetic for playing, given your self-proclaimed libertarian leanings. (“When libertarians talk about individual freedom, silently add ‘to own people’ to the phrase regardless of context.”)
If you’re telling me I have the right to censor other people, you are at a bare minimum saying you support my right to do that — that you support the right to censor. Why else would you tell me I have the right to censor?
And refusing it to anyone for any reason — like, say, someone calling you a turtlefucker to your face — would be to deny someone a privilege, not a right. You wouldn’t be censoring them because they could still go right into the public street and yell about the sexual affairs you had with elderly male tortoises across six continents.
(You sick fuck.)
That would be unlawful imprisonment — you know, an actual crime and an actual infringement of one’s civil rights.
No, it’s been moderated.
One more time: Moderation isn’t censorship. Losing the privilege of a platform to speak on or an audience is not the same as being denied the right to speak. And nobody is guaranteed the right to a platform or an audience at the expense of someone else.
Now please fuck every last infinite mile of off that you fucking can, because dealing with your goddamned ignorance is going to give me a fucking anuerysm.
On the post: Nigeria Suspends All Of Twitter After It Removes President's Tweet
If you believe censorship is an evil that must be prevented (which I hope you do), you can’t also believe “a property owner has the legal right to censor”. You are decrying censorship and, in the same breath, proclaiming that some people have a legal right to censor legally protected speech and silence people. The logic doesn’t parse.
Moderation either is or isn’t censorship — and if you say it is, you’re supporting censorship when you say “a property owner has the legal right to censor”. (I don’t have to live with that cognitive dissonance; I don’t believe moderation is censorship.) That leaves you with One Simple Question to answer: Do you believe moderation of legally protected speech, no matter the circumstances of that moderation, is the exact same thing as censorship?
Make your reply one word: “yes” or “no”. That alone will say enough.
On the post: Nigeria Suspends All Of Twitter After It Removes President's Tweet
Then you stand for censorship. You’re okay with censorship. You have no issue with censorship regardless of what you’ve said to the contrary. Because as I told you: You can’t be both for and against censorship at the same time.
Either moderation isn’t censorship or you’re in favor of censorship. I don’t care if this is Pride Month — you can’t have it both ways.
On the post: Nigeria Suspends All Of Twitter After It Removes President's Tweet
You can’t be against censorship and in favor of censorship at the same time. Do you stand with or against censorship?
On the post: Nigeria Suspends All Of Twitter After It Removes President's Tweet
“Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense, our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
I don’t condone the George Floyd riots, but I sure as fucking hell understand them. Also: Nobody levelled an entire fucking city, so stop buying into the InfoWars-level conservative propaganda bullshit that says half the U.S. burned to the ground during the riots.
Weird that you would refer to the attempted violent rape of two angels as “violating property rights”, but that seems right in line with your wanting to preserve property over human rights and seemingly humanity in general.
(“When libertarians talk about individual freedom, silently add ‘to own people’ to the phrase regardless of context.”)
Then your entire belief system is predicated on a cognitive dissonance.
You said “censorship is the prohibition of access”. By the logic expressed in that sentence — which you said, might I remind you — any attempt by any property owner to prohibit access to their property is “censorship”. You’ve called yourself “anti-censorship”, which I must assume means you would prefer to prevent censorship from ever happening to anyone. Logically, the two positions can’t exist with one another: You can’t both be against the evils of censorship and still want the owners of private property to have the right to censor any- and everyone.
Either moderation isn’t censorship or you’re in favor of censorship. There really isn’t a middle ground here, not under the logic you’ve expressed.
I’m against reaching a goal based on faulty or incomplete reasoning. The right of people to choose which persons/what speech they will and won’t associate themselves with is vastly more important — and far more applicable to 230 — than your sacred, godly, put-on-a-pedastal-to-worship property rights. If your entire argument for 230 is “property rights”, your argument is faulty and incomplete.
Oh, fuck. You’re a misogynist, too. Wonderful.
Because I would think that those differing groups could agree that the government shouldn’t be able to force services like Twitter — and the users of those services — to associate with speech they don’t want to associate with regardless of your revered-as-fuck “property rights” argument.
If you can’t agree with me that not forcing people to associate with speech/other people is at least equally as important as your venerated “property rights” argument, I don’t give a fuck. But hey, you’ve outed yourself as someone who cares more about property than human rights/lives, so I don’t know what the fuck I should’ve expected.
[facepalm]
Look, I have issues with organized religion, but even I’m not that fucking far gone. So I’m gonna skip the rest of your New Atheist, “all religions are bullshit and should die”, woe-is-me bullshit from now on because it’s largely irrelevant now that I know who I’m dealing with. (Hint: It’s someone who probably thinks the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama was a tragedy because a building was damaged and not because four Black girls died at the hands of a group of Klansmen.)
I’d expect nothing less from someone who considers property to be worthier of protection than people and their civil rights.
Now fuck all the way off, Lodos. E3 is starting and I can’t be fucked to care about you more than I care about Nina motherfucking Struthers.
On the post: Senator Wicker Introduces Bill To Guarantee The Internet Sucks
No one — not you, not I, not even the goddamn President of the United States — is entitled to a spot on Twitter.
On the post: Nigeria Suspends All Of Twitter After It Removes President's Tweet
“Censorship is prohibition of access.” Remember saying that? And you wouldn’t want to be a censor, would you?
That wasn’t what I was asking about.
That was. But hey, since I’ve got it in my head: Wouldn’t my walking away from some jackass on a street corner — my prohibiting access to my attention and time — be censorship? 🤔
Unless either an actual codified law or a newer Supreme Court ruling overrules that interpretation, it basically is the law.
In that case, I can force you to be my audience and make you listen to every word I ever say, regardless of whether you want to hear it — and you said it’s okay because you believe “censorship is prohibition of access” and “there’s no freedom of/from association”.
Not so fun to see your own words turned against you in ways that would make you the victim of your own asinine logic, is it?
Let’s go step-by-step.
No, they weren’t. Because they weren’t denied their First Amendment right to speak their mind — they were denied the “right to free reach” (i.e., the imaginary right to an audience). You dare to throw the Constitution in my face? Go find any law on the books that says someone is legally entitled, without question, to an audience. I’ll wait.
One: Get your autocorrect fixed.
Two: It ain’t censorship if someone has been denied the right to speak where they aren’t welcome. It’s censorship if they’re denied the right to speak anywhere — including places where they are welcome. Twitter can no more deny me my 1A rights than your sorry ass can.
Censorship involves the denial of one’s ability to use their First Amendment rights. Moderation on Twitter doesn’t do that. A bartender tossing out a drunk fuckhead doesn’t do that. Me telling you to fuck every last conceivable mile of off sure as hell doesn’t do that (no matter how hard I try).
Protesting for political change is legally protected speech. That the hypothetical protestors would be doing it at a time inconvenient to you is irrelevant in this argument — because denying them access to public spaces by calling the cops on them would be censorship under your “censorship is prohibition to access” logic.
Like I said: forced association. You’d be forced to associate with a religious sect you don’t want to associate with. Since that isn’t happening, I don’t consider the use of money with “in God we trust” on it to be a forced association with any specific religious sect (or the Christian religion).
Besides, even if it were a forced association, what the fuck am I going to do — stop using money to pay for things? I’ll take a small-ish “forced association” with a supernatural deity over starving to death in a gutter every day of the week. (And twice on Sundays!)
Ain’t no such thing, fam. Hell, there’s not even an actual “far left” in the United States!
Or you just hid your bullshit well.
I forget where I read this, but I find it a useful reference: “When libertarians talk about individual freedom, silently add ‘to own people’ to the phrase regardless of context.”
Somehow, I’m not the least bit surprised that you care more about property than about human rights. Did watching people burn buildings during riots related to the death of George Floyd piss you off more than the actual death of George Floyd?
You literally said “censorship is prohibition of access”. You can’t therefore believe in “censorship” on private property without contradicting your prior statement — because Twitter prohibiting access to bigots and ne’er-do-wells is, under your logic, censorship.
So once and for all, to settle this shit for good, here is the only question you need to answer — and, really, the only part of this comment to which you need reply:
How can you believe “censorship is the prohibition of access”, “censorship is an evil that should be prevented”, and “Twitter admins should have the absolute legal right to ban both people and certain kinds of speech from Twitter” at the same time?
On the post: Nigeria Suspends All Of Twitter After It Removes President's Tweet
Lodos, why you keep coming back despite being embarassed over and over and over, I will never know. But since you’re still here instead of leaving for “less biased” sites like you said you would…
Who said anything about a neighbor? I’m talking about your front lawn, son. But that’s neither here nor there any more…
That answer doesn’t make sense. It literally can’t make sense. By answering my question with “yes”, you are agreeing with the idea that I can be forced by a speaker into becoming part of their audience so long as I am in a public space. I can’t both be forced into listening and still walk away from the speaker. So yes or no, one more time: If I’m in a public space, does someone else have the absolute right to force me into being an audience for their speech?
Better a progressive fool than a believer in cult bullshit.
You know that’s not true.
After all, I only expect bullshit from you.
“While the United States Constitution's First Amendment identifies the rights to assemble and to petition the government, the text of the First Amendment does not make specific mention of a right to association. Nevertheless, the United States Supreme Court held in NAACP v. Alabama (1958) that freedom of association is an essential part of freedom of speech because, in many cases, people can engage in effective speech only when they join with others.” — per the Wikipedia article on freedom of association
And there it is — the one line that outs you as a supporter of forced association.
Let’s say, only for the sake of this argument, that you’re right: “Censorship is prohibition of access.” By that logic, if I keep someone who insulted my family out of my home, I’ve censored that dickhead because they no longer have access to my home. By that logic, a barkeeper who kicks out an unruly patron and tells them to never come back has censored the drunken dipshit. By that logic, a Twitter admin who boots a homophobic bigot for saying “queers should be sent to an island to die off” has censored the peabrained bigot.
But herein lies the problem with your logic: Those assholes still have every right to speak their mind elsewhere.
To say “censorship is prohibition of access” is to say “keeping people out of any place where they might speak is censorship”. And since we can both agree that censorship both sucks ass and should be prevented — well, I hope we can, at any rate… — under your logic, keeping people out of any place they might speak is evil and should be prevented. Your logic would destroy both private property rights and the freedom of association — including yours.
And yet, you said “censorship is prohibition of access”. So…mission failed, cap’n.
You said both “censorship is prohibition of access” and “freedom from association is bullshit”. If you believe both of those statements are true, how can you refuse to let someone access your private property for a political protest action — how can you censor someone’s right to speak freely and force you to associate with them — without being a hypocrite about your expressed beliefs vis-á-vis both censorship and freedom from association?
Wouldn’t that act prevent speakers from accessing a public place — or, under your “censorship is prohibition of access” logic, censor those speakers?
Yes, that was part of my point — the freedom of association isn’t partisan.
Well that’s disheartening to hear but—
…okay how can you say you disagree with progressives on global climate change yet suggest a number of actions that progressives would be on board with enacting to curb global climate change
how the fuck does that work, Lodos
how the fuck
Says the asshole who said that they’d call the cops on a political protest happening on public lands only because it happened at a specific time, even though they earlier said “censorship is prohibition of access”.
At best, you’re a right-of-center Democrat (so basically a Republican In Spirit). At worst, you’re bullshitting us for the sake of trolling.
Eh, I don’t see that “in God we trust” bullshit as a direct attempt to make anyone associate with Christianity. I mean, despite the references to God on American currency, the government isn’t forcing Muslims and Jews and atheists to convert into Christians before actually being able to use that money. That would be forced association. So unless the United States federal government says I must be a Christian before I can slap down a twenty dollar bill in exchange for an American flag facemask at Walmart, I don’t give a fuck if that phrase is on the bill.
On the post: Nigeria Suspends All Of Twitter After It Removes President's Tweet
I’m sure you won’t mind being forced to listen to Klan propaganda blaring outside your window all day every day, then. After all, if “freedom from association is bullshit”, you surely won’t mind being associated with the speech of a racist terrorist organization.
And that’s why your argument is bullshit. If “freedom of association is bullshit”, do you believe it’s okay for people to force me into being their audience so long as I’m on a street corner or in a public park?
I would like to think they’d care about not having the government force them into listening to the inane ramblings of a QAnon dickhead — even if Marjorie Three-Names is a member of Congress.
Abandoning one concern for the other doesn’t accomplish shit — and the broader concern of the freedom of association (a guaran-fuckin’-teed right enshrined in the godfuckingdamned Constitution of the motherfucking United States of America) should be one that even the most hamheaded GOP lawmaker could get on board with.
I care about the property rights concern. But I care far more about the right of association, which can be affected regardless of property rights.
…says someone who was A-OK with repealing or “fixing” 230 until a few weeks ago.
You’re not — because I don’t believe in booting Republicans from Twitter, I believe in booting bigots and assholes from Twitter. Not that the two groups don’t have more overlap than both of them would care to admit, but still.
And yet, you continue to refer to moderation — to the intentional curation of a community — as “censorship”. Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining, Lodos.
[facepalms] God…fucking…dammit, Lodos.
I refer you back to my first two paragraphs of this reply.
Cool, I’ll go see about setting up a giant-ass Black Lives Matter protest in your front yard without your permission, then.
…okay, facetious bullshit aside, I’d still be an asshole for doing that to you. You have every right to refuse being associated with speech that others would force upon you — regardless of whether you agree with it and regardless of where the attempt to force your association happens.
You could’ve fooled me, given the way you whine about censorship-that-isn’t like they do.
Neither of those things has to do with the other. Like, at all. I can think Democrats are generally a bunch of spineless shitbuckets who can barely find their asses with a map and a flashlight (and that’s on a good day), but none of that means I believe they should be forced to associate with anyone — or that anyone should be forced to associate with them.
It is if it’s the only argument and it ignores the broader, connected-directly-to-the-fucking-Constitution argument. You wanna argue about property rights? Go right ahead. But I’m not going to help you — not unless you recognize that the freedom of association is as important as the property rights issue upon which you’re staking all of your pro-230 beliefs. If you think someone has to own property before they can practice their freedom of association, you’ve a long way to go before you can ever — and I mean EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVER — consider me your ally in any way.
…oh, and I bet you think I forgot about the “in God we trust” shit, didn’t you? I didn’t — and for once, we’re on the same page: References to God or any other religious deity shouldn’t be on money or in the Pledge of Allegiance (which is a bullshit practice in its own right but that’s a whole other argument). But considering how we can’t get by without money and no one is legally forced to recite the Pledge, I’m willing to overlook that shit as a minor inconvenience. (And support anyone who seeks to undo that explicitly religious bullshit.)
On the post: Senator Wicker Introduces Bill To Guarantee The Internet Sucks
Hey, you know as well as I do that you can go to Parler if you want to read Klan propaganda and QAnon batshittery. I see no reason to make Twitter host that nonsense.
On the post: Nigeria Suspends All Of Twitter After It Removes President's Tweet
Your insistence on bringing up the “property rights” canard is getting both annoying and ridiculous. The freedom of association doesn’t depend on property rights — it depends on the government being unable to make a person or private entity associate themselves with specific speech (or other people/entities). The government might be able to provide spaces where no legally protected speech is off-limits, but it can’t force me to enter those spaces/listen to whomever is speaking. Some jackoff could be yelling racial slurs on a public street corner; that doesn’t entitle him to my attention.
You really don’t fucking get it, do you. My issue isn’t with a potential infringement of property rights — it’s with a potential (and in the eyes of “moderation is censorship” assholes, a perfectly justifiable) infringement of the right of association. That such an infringement would also double as an infringement of property rights is coincidental.
You can keep trying to do the “iT’s AbOuT pRoPeRtY rIgHtS!!1!1” bullshit. But it is, at best, a parallel argument to the actual argument, which is entirely about the government forcing an association between offensive-yet-legal speech and private entities that want no association with such speech. Hell, this isn’t even a partisan matter — I’m all for Gab and Parler being able to moderate left-wing speech off their respective services if that’s their (dumbassed) decision. This is about whether you believe such speech should be forced onto people regardless of whether “property rights” comes into play. So yes or no, and leave property rights out of the fucking equation: Do you believe the government should have the legal right to compel any privately owned interactive web service into associating with legally protected speech that the owners/operators of said service don’t want to associate with?
On the post: Nigeria Suspends All Of Twitter After It Removes President's Tweet
First off: Please learn the difference between “your” and “you’re”. (Hint: Only one of them is a contraction of “you are”.)
As for what I fear? I’m not afraid of whatever you mean by “open use”. I’m afraid that assholes like you and Koby and cynoclast — assholes who believe moderation is censorship because it feels like being told “you can’t say that anywhere” even thought it isn’t — will keep pushing that lie so goddamned hard that you will eventually get enough people on your side who will push lawmakers for the unconstitutional act of compelling services like Twitter to host speech those services don’t want to host.
I’ve asked this of Koby, and I’ll ask it of you. Yes or no: Do you believe the government should have the legal right to compel any privately owned interactive web service into hosting legally protected speech that the owners/operators of said service don’t want to host? Keep in mind that “legally protected speech” can cover bigoted speech such as racial slurs and anti-queer propaganda, so saying “but those can be exceptions to the rule” isn’t an option for you here. Neither is “well if they’d just stay apolitical” or anything along those lines, since the speech I just mentioned can be considered “political speech”.
On the post: Nigeria Suspends All Of Twitter After It Removes President's Tweet
I recognize the definition. What I don’t do is agree with any interpretation that says moderation is censorship. If you believe in such interpretations, ask yourself what acts that belief would justify.
On the post: Nigeria Suspends All Of Twitter After It Removes President's Tweet
Follow the rules of the service you’re on. Nobody has a right to post on any service they don’t own.
On the post: Nigeria Suspends All Of Twitter After It Removes President's Tweet
We’ve tried that, you dipshit. The ignorant people who believe moderation is censorship still somehow think they have an absolute unassailable right to post on Twitter. At a certain point, we can’t fix ignorance — we can only mock it.
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