Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers And Deeply Unfunny ‘Satirist’ Seek To Remove Website 1st Amendment Rights To ‘Protect Free Speech’
from the that-doesn't-seem-right dept
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who heads something called the “House Republican Big Tech Task Force” has teamed up with Seth Dillon, the CEO of the deeply unfunny “conservative” Onion wannabe, The Babylon Bee, to whine in the NY Post about “how to end big tech censorship of free speech.” The answer, apparently, is to remove the 1st Amendment. I only wish I were joking, but that’s the crux of their very, very confused suggestion.
Let’s start with the basics: Dillon’s site regularly posts culture-war promoting satire. Because Republican culture wars these days are about shitting on anyone they dislike, or who dares to suggest that merely respecting others is a virtue, many of those stories are not just deeply unfunny, but often pretty fucked up. None of this is surprising, of course. But, the thing about the modern GOP and its culture wars is that it’s entirely based around pretending to be the victim. It’s about never, not once, being willing to take responsibility for your own actions.
So, when the Babylon Bee publishes something dumb that breaks a rule, and they get a minor slap on the wrist for it, they immediately flop down on the ground like a terrible soccer player and roll around about how their free speech has been all censored. It hasn’t. You’re relying on someone else’s private property. They get to make the rules. And if they decide that you broke their rules, they get to show you the door (or whatever other on-site punishment) they feel is appropriate. This is pretty basic stuff, and actually used to be conservative dogma: private property rights, the rights to freely associate — or not — with whoever you want under the 1st Amendment, and accepting personal responsibility when you fuck around, were things we were told were core to being a conservative.
No longer (it’s arguable, of course, if they were ever actually serious about any of that).
There is no free speech issue here. The Babylon Bee has 1st Amendment rights to publish whatever silly nonsense it wants on its own site. It has no right to demand that others host its speech for it. Just as the Babylon Bee does not need to post my hysterically funny satire about Seth Dillon plagiarizing his “best” jokes by running Onion articles three times through GPT3 AI with the phrase “this, but for dumb rubes.” That’s freedom of association, Seth. That’s how it works.
Perhaps its no surprise that the CEO of a “what if satire were shitty” site doesn’t understand the 1st Amendment, but you’d think that a sitting member of Congress, who actually swore to protect and uphold the Constitution, might have a better idea. Not so for Rep. McMorris Rodgers, who once actually was decent on tech, before apparently realizing that her constituents don’t like elected officials from reality, and prefer them to be culture warriors as well.
Anyway, after whining about facing a tiny bit of personal responsibility — including, I shit you not, having to be fact checked by Facebook (note to the two of you: fact checking is more speech, it’s not censorship, you hypocritical oafs) — they trot out their “solutions.”
Big Tech must be held accountable. First, we propose narrowing Section 230 liability protections for Big Tech companies by removing ambiguity in the law — which they exploit to suppress and penalize constitutionally protected speech. Our proposal ensures Big Tech is no longer protected if it censors individuals or media outlets or removes factually correct content simply because it doesn’t fit its woke narrative.
I mean, holy fuck. There is no excuse in the year 2022 to still be so fucking ignorant of how Section 230 works. Especially if you’re in Congress. Narrowing Section 230’s liability protections won’t lead to less moderation. It will lead to more. The liability protections are what allow websites to feel comfortable hosting 3rd party content. The case that caused Section 230 in the first place, involved Prodigy being held liable for comments in a forum. If you make sites more liable, they are less likely to host whatever nonsense content you want to share on their website.
Second, removing “factually correct content” whether or not it “fits its woke narrative” (and, um, no big tech company has a “woke narrative”) is… protected by the 1st Amendment. Content moderation is protected by the 1st Amendment. Dillon doesn’t have to publish my unfunny piece. Twitter doesn’t need to publish his unfunny piece. Facebook can fact check all it wants — even if it gets the facts wrong. It’s all thanks to the 1st Amendment.
Taking away 230 protections doesn’t change that — it just makes websites even LESS likely to host is culture war nonsense.
But McMorris Rodgers and Dillon aren’t done yet.
Second, we propose requiring quarterly filings to the Federal Trade Commission to keep Big Tech transparent about content moderation. This will allow Congress, the FTC and Americans to know when and why these companies censor content to determine whether it’s justified. We’d also sunset Section 230 protections after five years, so Congress can reevaluate them if necessary and incentivize Big Tech to treat all content fairly or have their protections revoked.
Again, this is almost certainly unconstitutional. I know some people struggle with the idea of why transparency requirements are an affront to the 1st Amendment, but it’s pretty straightforward. If Congress ordered Seth Dillon to file his site’s editorial policies, including details about what stories they reject and which they promote “to determine whether its justified” for the site to make those editorial decisions, pretty much everyone would recognize the 1st Amendment concerns.
Demanding anyone justify editorial decisions by filing reports with the government to “determine whether [those editorial decisions are] justified” is just a blatant attack on free speech and the 1st Amendment.
Sunsetting Section 230 just takes us back to the issue we noted above. Without liability protections, websites are MORE likely to remove content to avoid liability, not less.
This isn’t like some big secret. Perhaps Dillon and McMorris Rodgers only get their news from sites like the Babylon Bee, and that helps them not understand how anything works. But, really, that’s no excuse.
Third, our proposal requires Big Tech to improve appeals processes for users to challenge moderation decisions and enables people to petition their state’s attorney general to bring legal action against Big Tech, enhancing users’ power to challenge censorship. Twitter would be required to notify a user, like the Babylon Bee, through direct communication before taking any censorship action. Big Tech would also be required to give users the option to challenge any censorship decisions with a real person — not a bot — to disincentivize Big Tech from completely automating its censorship process.
Right, so again, all of that is an affront to the 1st Amendment. Should I be able to petition my state’s attorney general to bring legal action against the Babylon Bee for failing to publish my truly hilarious article about how Cathy McMorris Rodgers hates the internet so much, she pushed legislation banning communities from building their own broadband networks (really funny stuff, because it’s true).
Of course not. The 1st Amendment protects websites and their editorial decisions. There is no constitutional cause of action any attorney general could take against a website for their moderation decisions.
As for the appeals process — most websites have one. But mandating one would, again, raise serious constitutional issues, as it’s the government interfering with the editorial process.
And, note, of course, that none of these complaints address the fact that the social media sites that people like Dillon like, including Parler, Gettr, and Truth Social, have far more arbitrary and aggressive content moderation policies (even as they pretend otherwise).
It’ll be hilarious — even Babylon Bee worthy, if I say so myself — if this bill passes, and woke liberals use it to sue Truth Social for taking down truthful content about the January 6th hearings. C’mon, Seth, let me publish that as an article on your site! Or you hate freedom of speech!
Free speech must be cherished and preserved. It’s time Big Tech companies uphold American values and become fair stewards of the speech they host.
But the Babylon Bee remains free to be as shitty as before? How is that fair?
Filed Under: 1st amendment, cathy mcmorris rodgers, content moderation, editorial discretion, free speech, section 230, seth dillon
Companies: babylon bee
Comments on “Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers And Deeply Unfunny ‘Satirist’ Seek To Remove Website 1st Amendment Rights To ‘Protect Free Speech’”
Cathy McMorris Rodgers is pandering to her base to get elected. While it’s a good thing that voters are holding her accountable, it’s a bad thing that it’s to pressure her to make anti-democratic actions. It also gives you a bit of an impression on an alternate reality of what might happen if Chris Cox stayed in congress and remained a congresscritter instead of becoming SEC chair during W’s administration.
As for the Babylon Bee, they’re clearly saltier than the lake in Utah over being suspended from Twitter unless they removed an anti-trans tweet. Yet they feel that they have a right to be bigoted on property other than their own. If they want to be bigots on their own property, nobody here (on Techdirt) is objecting. Once they want to force other people to use their property, that’s when they turn into authoritarians.
Peace out.
Why Is Conservative Comedy So… Not Very Good?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSXKzPOcYDU
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Short answer: It’s about punching down at marginalized people instead of punching up at privileged powerful elites.
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Another shorter answer: The Republicans are so angry at Obama being elected they want to murder everyone who isn’t white and Republican in America.
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And democrats are so mad at trump being elected they want to murder every unborn baby
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… said nobody mentally competent, ever.
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As has previously been pointed out by another commenter, every period is a pregnancy that didn’t happen, in addition to which, the egg isn’t part of the person’s body once it’s no longer in the ovary. Should we therefore lock up every person with a uterus for infanticide for every period they have?
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Meanwhile, Republicans were so mad a black man became the President of the USA they started getting more tribal, refused to compromise even on deals that would make them look good, elected Trump, and to top off that shitty decade or so, attempted to do an insurrection. While publicly proclaiming their NeoNazi proclivities.
Now they’ve managed to fuck over WOMEN as well, and look set to slowly dismantle due process.
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Also imporant to note: Donald Trump didn’t take the idea of running for President of the United States seriously until after he was insulted by the first Black man to sit in the Oval Office.
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fUCK YO FEELINGS BRO!
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Stop the steal!
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That’s part of it, but another reason is that they try and push politics first and comedy second. Recently, while following the Alex Jones trial, I was exposed to some of his cohort Owen Shroyer’s attempt at stand up. It was awful. Not awful in that I didn’t find the jokes funny, even on the odd occasion where it wasn’t “isn’t this strawman silly?”. There were barely any jokes. It was just a parade of political talking points with no humour at all, unless you bought into the politics he was saying out loud.
Compare that with, say, Bill Hicks or George Carlin at their prime. They definitely pushed political viewpoints, but it was all wrapped up in something that was still funny even if you disagreed with the politics. Right-wing comedy quite often has nothing at all if you don’t already agree with them.
Plus, of course, there’s a lot of comedy that isn’t political at all. There’s comedians who are political outside of their acts, but don’t push it in their content, yet right-wingers always seem to put the politics first.
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Most American “conservative” humor isn’t even humor.
There’s nothing in the modern Babylon Bee that doesn’t make me fear for my life.
There’s no “funney” being done in modern American “conservative” humor, unless you find threatening minorities, debasement of the opposing party for ideological reasons and projecting raw violent energy as a form of comedy.
They’re not even bothering to slip an insult into a joke, and I can do that and still fall back on the humor excuse.
They’re using the insult, and not as a joke, but as a bare-faced threat.
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That’s modern conservative ideology in a nutshell, really: fear.
“Fear the lawmakers who want to pass sensible gun control, for they’re coming to take all your guns away and maybe kill you in the process! Fear the immigrants who come here illegally, for they’re coming to do more Nine-Elevens and take everyone’s jobs! Fear the queer people who are destroying black-and-white gender norms and upending rigid gender roles, the non-Christians who want to make it illegal to be a Christian anywhere, and any other unnamed Repugnant Cultural Others who are a threat to the American way of life!”
Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering. And I know quoting Star Wars is a bit ridiculous in this context, but that quote does hold up. The fear of queer people existing, for example, leads to anger at queer people existing openly and proudly, which leads to hate for queer people not being shamed back into the closet, which leads to queer people suffering harassment and assaults and murders and rapes that are intended to send a message to other queer people.
Modern American conservatism is nothing but a well of paranoia that is frighteningly self-sustaining. You can see that now in how conservative lawmakers and pundits are saying “if the FBI can raid Trump’s home, they can raid your home”: They didn’t care about the FBI raiding people’s homes until that happened to one of their own, at which point they decided “maybe shittalking or even defunding this specific policing apparatus isn’t such a bad idea”. Fear begets paranoia; while a little paranoia is a good thing to have, basing an entire sociopolitical philosophy on living in perpetual paranoia doesn’t do anyone any favors.
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Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering. And I know quoting Star Wars is a bit ridiculous in this context…
If you were quoting Star Wars, but you’re actually quoting Mark Twain via Star Wars. 🙂
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Nobody ever tells me these things until it’s too late.
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George Lucas’ fault, really. He’s the one who committed plagiarism.
FTC Quarterly Filing
“We moderated however we wanted to because it’s our constitutional right to do so. Full stop.”
Republicans do not want free speech, but rather the freedom to shout down anyone who disagrees with their narrative, and convince the people to appear to go along with their agenda, by remaining silent, or cheering when told to. Next thing you know, they will make it official that the police enforce their party line.
If the Onion wrote a headline on this Story
Angry, Salty Karen from Congress Hijacks Onion Wannabe To Complain About Twitter.
Perhaps its time to demand they can pass the citizenship test we demand immigrants take before they are allowed into office.
Suggesting we gut the fscking Constitution requires that her party does something to her.
This bullshit really needs to end, letting them say whatever the fsck they want with no penalties for doing so needs to end.
They are lying to the citizens of the nation in a baldfaced appeal to keep their job that obviously they are unqualified to hold.
The GQP we’re the party of fsck the Constitution, we know better.
These people are a blight on the nation & actively harming the nation from some of the highest positions available.
How groundbreaking of an idea is it to require they STOP LYING?
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…that’s, uh…not as pro-First Amendment a stance as you seem to think it is, chief.
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Demanding access to an audience is not something that the first amendment guarantees, Indeed it only says that the government will not stop you speaking, not that other people will help you spread your words.
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Demanding the right to speak their mind without government interference, on the other hand, is absolutely guaranteed by the First Amendment.
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Angry TAC was angry.
The fact we are paying these assholes and they are lying to us raises serious questions.
The fact that calling them out is seen as bad raises serious questions. (Until Axios what media had the balls to call Trump on his lies in real time?)
They are paid with public money to tell us Jewish Space Lasers are responsible for forest fires.
Proposing an unconstitutional law, when you are a law maker, should have a penalty. They swore an oath to uphold & defend what they are willing to shred to “win” hearts and minds, when they betray that oath why does nothing ever happen?
1st Amendment shouldn’t protect cops who lie in court, it shouldn’t protect lawmakers undermining the Constitution.
The 1st Amendment protects their right to lie, but it doesn’t protect them from being called out or being censured when they do so… but the entire system seems to have no issue with the constant lies, no fact checking, just allowing them to keep wanting to act to undermine the nation.
Label fetishism
Here is your problem: “they” for you means people running under the label “conservatives”.
When you say “if they were ever actually serious about any of that”, you are mixing up the label of conservatism with actual conservatives.
Conservatives remain serious about conservative issues. And Republican party supporters continue to identify with the label “conservative”. But there are both non-conservatives invading the the Republican party as well as Republicans giving up on conservatism.
People are willing to die for flags and uniforms and other labels. They are a lot more flexible about principles.
It’s ok to be fascist. It’s not ok to wear brown shirts: that’s what the bad guys do.
It’s ok to torture, maim, rape, murder, pillage and plunder as long as you are the good guys. You are free to do whatever you want once you took an oath on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Human Rights. That oath is sacred like a letter of marque. It turns all your crimes into worthy deeds.
Or does it? Maybe it’s worth retaining a bit more meaning with the labels you use. Don’t say “conservative” if you don’t mean conservative.
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When people who identify as conservatives are the ones demanding libraries be defunded for refusing to remove books, demanding endless investigations and recounts into an election that nobody can prove was fixed/rigged/stolen, and stand one presidential election away from installing fascists into the highest levels of the American federal government (and turning their ideology into law)…yeah, I think I’ll use “conservative” no matter how you feel about that.
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If by “conservative” you mean “NeoNazi” then yes.
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I do my best to choose my words as carefully as possible. When I say “conservative”, I mean “conservative” unless I note otherwise.
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Those people also identify as law-abiding and righteous and within their god0given rights, but that does not mean it makes sense for anybody to use “law-abiding” and “righteous” and “within their god-given rights” in the same completely perverted manner as they do.
If you do that, you join their crusade against values since the actual values then are left without a term to describe, and it is well-known that things you cannot talk about will take a heavy backseat among the things you think about and are able to reach consensus about.
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I will use the label “conservative” to talk about self-identified conservatives; if necessary, I’ll tack on an adjective or adjectival phrase to further clarify what I mean. I do my best to choose my words carefully.
You trying to police what words I say so I won’t sound so mean when I talk about conservatives is your hang-up. Fix it yourself.
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It’s kinda hard when these “conservatives” (aka NEONAZIS) have stated they want to overturn due process and HAVE endorsed violence to try to get what they want.
And then there’s 8 years of Obama showing that very few, IF ANY, want to actually siddown and talk, let alone come to a compromise.
Modern “conservatives” (aka NEONAZIS) are not misunderstood. They are violent totalitarians who are actual security and Constitutional threata to America and needs to be treated like the actual threat they are. Ideally with the due process America has left.
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This mindset comes, in part, from conservative religious beliefs. To the average conservative Christian, there is Good and Evil and nothing in-between: Good must be rewarded and upheld; Evil must be punished and destroyed. Under a belief system like that, compromise means dealing with instead of destroying Evil.
You can see this mindset in action by looking at how conservatives to shut down, defund, or remove books from public libraries. To them, the books they want gone represent Evil—or, to put it more bluntly, a threat to the belief system they’re trying to instill upon children (theirs and everyone else’s). Instead of looking for a compromise with the libraries or seeking a personal compromise within themselves (i.e., understanding that they don’t deserve to turn their religious beliefs into policy that affects everyone), they seek to destroy the libraries. All of that is made ten times worse by the recent rise in accusations of “grooming”—which is darkly hilarious in this context when you consider how many children have been raped by religious leaders (often without consequence!) in this country.
In the world of conservative religion, compromise is forbidden. Black-and-white thinking rules the day. That’s why the people trying to ban books won’t stop at the books—they’ll defund and shut down public libraries across this country if they can. And I can only imagine what might happen if someone thinks a specific librarian needs to be “dealt with” for the sake of “protecting the children”.
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Jan 6 already happened and we know what happened to the cops that actually tried to do their jobs.
They were shot and killed.
And that’s what they will do to anyone who doesn’t fit into their shitdick totalitarian ideology. Even the “baby factories”. Even those who believe in their shitdick cause. AND ESPECIALLY US.
They NEVER wanted to talk, or compromise, unless it means they get to murder us en masse.
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The only person shot and killed at the Capitol that day was Ashli Babbitt. I’m not in favor of coddling the rioters or anything like that, but we can at least be honest about what they did.
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The only person shot and killed at the Capitol that day was Ashli Babbitt.
Not to defame the dead, but that was her own fault.
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Truth isn’t defamation.
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…recounts into an election that nobody can prove was fixed/rigged/stolen…
Well, of course they can’t. Everyone knows you can’t prove a negative.
'But... the rules aren't suppose to apply to us!'
Ah the modern ‘conservative’, overwhelming hate for the constitution even as they clutch in to their chest(in between wiping their ass with it) and the self-entitlement of a toddler who is absolutely shocked that actions have consequences and that that applies to them as well.
While I imagine this is mostly just pandering to idiots to garner votes it’s all sorts of disturbing that ‘attacking the constitutional rights of people you don’t like for daring to violate the fictional rights of you and yours’ is considered a valid tactic, as it paints a pretty ugly picture of those voters and what they want to see in government/office.
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Well… I was under the impress they uses what the rest of us consider normal communications means, and not the constitution, for this. It would explain so much of what is “said”
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Jan 6 happened.
What they want is technically reality. Albeit a badly-planned and failed insurrection version of reality.
And unless they are stopped, it will happen again.
Here’s hoping the FBI raids on Trump’s property finally pins something onto the Republican Party.
Q: When is a joke not a joke?
A: When it’s a Republican in Congress. 😉
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No, you can’t expect them to “publish [your] truly hilarious article about how Cathy McMorris Rodgers hates the internet so much” because you are clearly censoring their speech with your unfairly evil speech… we should be calling you BigTechDirt! In fact, becaus you even thought it, you should probably have your website taken off the internet and banned from having an internet connection until a judge rules that you are safe to have online, and you can trust them completely to fair, impartial, and honest (and we know you cant say otherwise, because we already took down the sites critical of them, and you also aren’t allowed on the net, so boo yah!)
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Put down that meth pipe.
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Pick up your sarcasm detector.
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The 1st Amendment is not synonymous with free speech. The 1st Amendment is a partial implementation of free speech against the government. Because you like the viewpoint-based censorship that the large generic speech platforms are providing for you, you hide behind legalisms to try to claim that they are not censoring their users. But they are.
The Babylon Bee was censored. They posted satire about a political figure, and Twitter stopped them from posting anything else until they took their post down. (The “apology” the Bee then issued was hilarious.) It makes no difference that Twitter was legally allowed to do this. Legal behavior and moral behavior are not the same thing.
Re: Oh god, you’re still here?
Moderation is a platform/service owner or operator saying “we don’t do that here”. Personal discretion is an individual telling themselves “I won’t do that here”. Editorial discretion is an editor saying “we won’t print that here”, either to themselves or to a writer. Censorship is someone saying “you won’t do that anywhere” alongside threats or actions meant to suppress speech.
Now tell me which one happened when Twitter told the guy behind the Babylon Bee account “delete this tweet to get your account back” and the guy said “lol no I’d rather be a martyr for shitty conservative comedy”.
Re: Re: 'If I can't swear at you while IN your house I've been censored!'
It’s telling how the bigot and asshole position is so utterly lacking in merit that they’re reduced to labeling ‘not being able to use someone else’s private property to speak from, against the property owner’s wishes’ as ‘censorship’.
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You would like your false definition of censorship to hold because you like the viewpoint-based censorship the large generic platforms provide for you and you would prefer that it not be called censorship. But censorship is the act of the censor, the silencing of speech on platforms controlled by the censor on the basis of viewpoint, regardless of the ability to speak elsewhere.
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You keep saying this so much that it no longer has any meaning. I’d bet that you only say it because some other right-wing shitbag said it first and you think it sounds smart.
It isn’t censorship, though. Any speech that Twitter bans from its service can be repeated elsewhere. Free reach isn’t guaranteed under either the law or the principles of free speech; losing a spot on a platform that you don’t own/operate isn’t censorship.
Censorship requires a suppression of one’s right to express themselves. Being dinged on Twitter for breaking its rules isn’t censorship. You would prefer it be called censorship so you can imply that Twitter is violating both the spirit and the letter of the First Amendment—so you can find a way to circumvent that same amendment and force Twitter to host speech it would otherwise “censor”.
This is just another form of the “I have been silenced” fallacy: You imply that a platform can censor someone without explaining how moderation on a single platform equates to censorship on a level where someone’s right to speak freely has been suppressed by threats or actions meant to do exactly that. Losing a spot on Twitter isn’t censorship; giving up that spot because someone threatened to sue you and kill you (possibly not even in that order) is censorship.
Few things grind my gears like censorship. One of those things is people callously disregarding actual factual efforts aimed at stopping people from exercising their rights to claim that the loss of the privilege of using someone else’s property as a soapbox is the same damn thing. You’re doing exactly that when you claim that Twitter is censoring people when it isn’t.
And by the by, I will once again point to a single person in support of my position, despite the fact that I hate that person: Donald daughterfucking Trump. When you can show me exactly how Twitter suppressed his freedom of speech—his right to speak freely and express himself—by banning him from Twitter, you will have earned the right to argue for your position with some semblance of credibility. Until then, go back to your TERF forums and whine about how trans people still exist despite your best efforts to eradicate them.
Oh, and one more thing: For fuck’s sake, at least try not to sound like a robot who can only repeat the same ten sentences and empty phrases. You’re not going to change anyone’s mind if all you can do is repeat the same tired bullshit like it’s supposed to have any meaning after the first few repetitions. Even I try not to use my copypastas unless I think doing so is necessary.
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Censorship is the act of the censor. Twitter and Facebook and Amazon have the power to censor what is said on their platforms, and they use that power to censor certain points of view, points of view that you are happy to have silenced.
I will repeat myself every time I need to. Speaking the truth does not require repeating it every time someone is wrong.
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Ugh. Brain slip. Rather, speaking the truth does not require *rephrasing* it every time someone else is wrong. Repeating it is sufficient.
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Sounds good to me! You’re wrong.
I can’t speak for Twitter, but I feel morally and legally justified in telling racists and bigots to get out of my house and spew their hate somewhere else.
And racists, bigots, homophobes, transphobes, misogynists, and so forth, should be encouraged, convinced, or shamed into abandoning their hateful ideologies. Humanity is better off without that nonsense.
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I’m glad you now understand how free speech is supposed to work. Finally!
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whoosh
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Two problems with that way of thinking, you walking lint trap:
Even when I repeat my various talking points on matters like censorship, I try to rephrase things so I don’t end up relying on my copypastas. That’s how I keep my thoughts fresh and updated—and how I move towards a fuller understanding of those thoughts. You’ve got a dozen phrases, sentences, and paragraphs—likely all workshopped with your TERF allies—that you repeat ad nauseam as if doing so is suddenly going to win you an argument. (It’s not.)
When you can stop repeating yourself, Botsen Roborg, maybe you’ll learn something about what you believe. Until you can do that, you’ll never be anything more than a laughingstock around here—and nothing short of you becoming an entirely different commentator will ever change that.
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Being a laughingstock around here would matter only if I respected the people doing the laughing, which I obviously do not. I choose to express myself as I see fit, regardless of what you may think of it.
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[Projects facts not in evidence]
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Hey bro you stopped say “woke” so much, now I really doubt that you are the real busted hyman.
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Since Masnick chooses to personally censor my remarks that he regards as “spreading hate”, I have decided to phrase my comments in a way less likely to trigger him. My beliefs haven’t changed, and if you would like to mentally adjoin words to my posts that I would have used before, go ahead.
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Believe it or not, Masnick does not personally target anyone on this cite for “censorship”. The spam filter is entirely algorithmic, and flagging requires multiple people to do. The only exception is purely commercial spam, which Mike does (sometimes) manually remove after it’s already up.
Now, is it possible that you were using phrases that causes the filter to automatically pick out your comments to be held for moderation or something? Sure! But that is in no way a case of you being personally targeted.
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When it comes to me, be does act personally. He literally said so in a comment on this site.
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Let me put it this way: if Twitter’s rules were to change to be biased opposite of how you perceive them, my position would not change. I might change my decision on whether or not to use Twitter, but that’s it.
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Neither would mine. I do not want the large generic speech platforms to impose viewpoint-based censorship, whether I support or oppose the viewpoints being censored.
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Oh wow, Twitter stopped The Babylon Bee from posting to The Babylon Bee’s website? Didn’t know Twitter had that much control over another companies resources, someone should look into that.
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*The 1st Amendment is not synonymous with free speech. The 1st Amendment is a partial implementation of free speech against the government. *
Which is not how it works. At all. Now go away and don’t comment again until you’ve studied the concept of free speech and tge implications of both it and the 1st Amendment, Republican shill.
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Re: Re:
No.
Re: Re: Re:
“I’m an a–hole arguing in bad faith, I know I’m an a–hole arguing in bad faith, but I’m gonna be an a–hole arguing in bad faith anyway.”
Go away, Rotten Hymen.
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Re: Re: Re:2
No.
Re: Re: Re:3
Anyone else wanna bet that people telling Hyman to fuck off is the only time he respects the word “no”?
Re: Re: Re:4
I’ll put $100 on that.
Re:
So why the fuck do you hate private property laws, Hymen?
Is it because castle doctrine means the owner has a fighting chance to kick you out of their premises, thus denying you a place to rant about how transgender people should be killed?
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Re: Re:
The castle doctrine also allows store owners to shoot looters, rioters, and arsonists. But Democratic shills get members of the press fired for saying “buildings matter too.”
The large generic speech platforms are practicing viewpoint-based censorship, silencing opinions you happen to dislike. They are allowed to do that because they are private entities, but that does not make their actions any less censorship, more moral, or less violative of free-speech principles.
Re: Re: Re:
Funny how you bitch out loud and at length about “censorship” from “generic speech platforms” when they’re platforms you hate, but go dead-in-the-ground silent when that same “viewpoint-based censorship” happens on right-wing shitpits like Gab and Truth Social. 🤔
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Re: Re: Re:2
Not in the slightest. As usual, you argue with some illusory version of me that says things that you want him to say, not with things that I say.
Gab, Truth Social, Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, and the like are all politically biased platforms that openly engage in viewpoint-based censorship. They are counterexamples to the “go elsewhere” garbage favored by those here who like the viewpoint-based censorship practiced by the large generic speech platforms. They demonstrate that going to small, biased sites is useless – the censorship there will be, if anything, worse.
Re: Re: Re:3
Yeah, see, there’s one big problem with that line of thinking: If the “generic speech platforms” are engaged in “censoring” the kind of viewpoints that would be welcomed on sites like Gab and Truth Social—which has essentially been your stance since you first congealed on this site and vomited out your bullshit—how would those “politically biased platforms” be anything other than a replacement for those “generic speech platforms”? (A lack of users doesn’t count.)
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Re: Re: Re:4
What? The reason it’s useless to go to the smaller biased sites is that they will also engage in viewpoint-based censorship, even more blatantly than the large generic speech platforms. The nature of the viewpoints they censor might be different, but that doesn’t help. It will still be impossible to engage in free, wide-ranging discussions without the platform plunging a thumb down on the scale. Those sites simply become echo chambers for the house point of view.
The best hope for free speech online is to convince the large generic speech platforms not to engage in viewpoint-based censorship.
Re: Re: Re:5
Once again this shows a stunning lack of understanding of reality. What you call “viewpoint-based censorship” is merely “keeping assholes who are driving people away from my site off of my site.”
The INTERNET ITSELF is the “large generic speech platform.” It does not engage in any viewpoint-based censorship, because it can’t.
But your argument that Twitter should allow assholes like you to insult anyone to the point that non-assholes no longer want to use their platform, is just stupid and not based in reality.
Allowing assholes to abuse and harass everyone is not “free speech supportive” because it drives away the non-assholes. So under your own ridiculous definition it is its own form of “viewpoint-based censorship.”
The internet is the generic speech platform. Private services are their own spaces, and they get to set their own rules. The fact that all of the major platforms that actually have large userbases enforce a “no assholes” standard kinda says it all. You just don’t like it because you’re a bigoted asshole, and you want to harass people. You’ve told on yourself quite a lot here, dude.
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Re: Re: Re:6
I see you censored away my response. I’ll try again, avoiding some of the truths that trigger you.
Your claim that the large generic speech platform is the internet rather than Facebook, et al. is just silly. The public square is the place where people gather to speak, and today, those places are the privately owned huge platforms. Companies that provide those forums should respect the free speech of their users, even though they legally do not have to do so.
Re: Re: Re:7
I did no such thing. As you can see you have comments all over this thread.
So, your argument is that if enough people decide to show up in a specific private spot, it suddenly should be seized as public property. I never took you for a communist, Hyman. But okay.
I note you avoided what I said in my post, perhaps because you have no answer for it.
Why should private companies give up their own rights to protect the speech of the marginalized or those attacked by bigoted assholes such as yourself?
Your position makes no sense at all, except if you can’t handle the fact that people are rejecting the fact that you’re an asshole and telling you you’re not welcome to harass other patrons.
Why should assholes get to set the rules? Why shouldn’t they have to respect the rules set forth by the private providers, which they CHOSE to violate?
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Re: Re: Re:8
Again and again, because you like the viewpoint-based censorship the large generic speech platforms are providing for you, you keep insisting that I want to use force to stop them, even though I have never said such a thing, and am completely opposed to it.
The large generic speech platforms are now the public square, because that’s where people gather to talk to each other. As such, the platforms should recognize that they have the moral obligation to uphold the free speech of their users, and refrain from censoring their users based on viewpoint. If they do not, they should be urged, criticized, and shamed into changing their policies.
The comment of mine which did not appear stated that I believe you discard your own free speech principles when people speak against ideology that you have incorporated deeply into your identity, and there are so many people who believe the same that you are terrified that you will not get to have your way. It’s easy to support free speech for positions you hate when you believe that they will not gain purchase – Nazis marching through Skokie aren’t going to make many converts, but the Babylon Bee’s satire very well might.
Re: Re: Re:9
And you falsely insist that I “like the viewpoint-based censorship the large generic speech platforms are providing.” Which is wrong on multiple levels.
I don’t support censorship, and I advocate for the large generic speech platform — which is the internet — not to censor anyone. I have even run a whole conference about that very point.
Where your inability to comprehend simple fucking ideas seems to be stuck is that you falsely insist that private entities that have always had rules are “large generic speech platforms.” That’s never been the case. First of all, all of those platforms are different, i.e., not generic. Second, they have always had rules, and they have always removed people for breaking those rules.
Third, you falsely insist that they are “viewpoint based” in their decisions when they are almost all not so (it’s true that Truth Social, Gettr, and Parler have admitted to being so), but Twitter and Facebook bend over backwards to not. What they will do is STOP ASSHOLES FROM HARASSING PEOPLE.
What you keep insisting is “viewpoint based censorship” is merely the decision not to aid assholes in harassment. You are an asshole who likes harassing people (mainly people whose genitals you are obsessed with, which remains incredibly creepy to me). Stopping assholes from harassing your patrons is not viewpoint based censorship. It’s stopping harassment.
Even if, as you falsely claim, these platforms are “public squares” you know what will get you tossed from a public square? HARASSING PEOPLE.
Just admit it dude: you like harassing people when you don’t like their genitals. And you look to shame sites into making it easier for you to harass others. It’s kinda sick, but that’s reality.
Again, harassing others will get you kicked out of any public square in the world. So this argument is not the winner you think it is.
So you started out this comment by insisting that you don’t want to force platforms into anything… and then type this, saying that they should be shamed into changing their policies.
Also you continue to ignore the reason for those policies, which is that if you allow assholes with weird genitalia fetishes like yourself to harass people, lots of people will leave because they don’t want to be harassed. The way to actually uphold free speech principles is to minimize the impact of assholes who are doing the harassing. That creates space for more people to actually communicate.
You, however, really want to “criticize and shame people” into silence because you are creeped out by their genitals. Beyond being creepy, that is very much against the principles of free speech. You’re a much bigger censor than any website dude.
No such comment was blocked.
Don’t wrap your weird creepy obsession with wishing to harass people in the claim of it being about free speech. It’s not. It never has been and it’s an insult to those of us who actually fight for free speech when you try to claim it as such.
Fuck off.
Re: Re: Re:10
Shaming someone into behaving properly is not using force, it is applying effective criticism. Since you like the censorship being applied, you do not want the platforms to be shamed into changing, but that’s not my problem.
People who resisted the Satanic Panic did not do so because they liked Satan, but because lies were being proclaimed as truth. You may curse at me, accuse of me of harassment, or accuse me of obsessing over genitalia as much as you like, but you will not compel me to affirm lies as truth.
Re: Re: Re:11
And content moderation on private property is not censorship in the exact same way. Both are decisions made by people about their own speech.
Why do you insist that private companies shouldn’t be able to make their own speech decisions?
I don’t like censorship being applied. I don’t like moderation being applied in most cases. I have long argued that it should be minimal. And I practice what I preach. Admit it: you’d have been banned from almost any other site for your ongoing nonsense.
But I admit that private sites have their own rights to do as they want. And I fight against actual censorship by fighting for actual free speech rights.
You are so full of yourself. You compare your infatuation with other people’s genitals, your unwillingness to have the most basic level of respect for others… with moves that actually ruined peoples lives?
What the fuck is wrong with you?
Of all the hills to die on you want to make sure you can harass people because you want to know what’s in their underwear. Get help. Serious help.
Re: Re: Re:12
When people around you are insisting that the world is flat, it is not obsession or infatuation with spheres to state that the world is a globe. You have been taken in by a false and pernicious ideology, and you are so blinded by it that you cannot see how incredible and ridiculous its claims are. It’s a new Lysenkoism, a total denial of physical reality and capitulation to wishful thinking.
Re: Re: Re:13
This isn’t some noble fight for truth, dude. This is you obsessing over someone else’s genitals. Why the fuck do you care? What business is it of yours?
I don’t care what people do in their personal lives. Why is it so important to you to deny people their basic dignity.
I have a friend who goes by a different name than their birth name. I call them by the name they prefer. I don’t say “no, that’s a lie.” I respect their basic dignity and call them by their chosen name.
Why can’t you do that? Why must you insist that you get to look in their pants and tell them “you can’t be called that?”
That serves literally no benefit at all, other than making people feel threatened and unsafe. Why do you wish to make people feel threatened like that?
Again, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Re: Re: Re:7
No its not, because if you have your own blog on the Internet you are making your words public. Lack of an audience is you problem to solve, or maybe consider that it means your words are not as popular as you think they are.
What you show a desire for is to force people to listen to your words by demanding that you join their conversation.
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Re: Re: Re:8
Lack of an audience is not your problem to solve when someone is silencing you. That’s just censorship.
Re: Re: Re:9
Explain to me again how someone’s post on their own website as been “silenced”, by twitter kicking them of their platform. If one was speaking of actual speech, silenced means the complete inability to get your message out, this is manifestly -not- true of sites like the Babylon Bee, who have a healthy crowd of people listening their message on a daily basis, ON THEIR OWN WEBSITE. The simple truth is thse sites are not being silenced, it is that other platforms are refusing to help amplify them further. And -nobody- has a right to demand that help.
Re: Re: Re:10
Censorship is the act of the censor, silencing speech based on viewpoint wherever the censor has the power to do so. It is completely irrelevant whether the speaker can find somewhere else to speak. You would prefer this not to be so because you like the censorship being provided for you, but censorship it is.
Re: Re: Re:9
Nobody or company is legally required to help you make your words public, or grant you an audience. When you continually attack part of their use base because you hate trans people, they are well within their rights to ban you. Indeed you local grocer could ban you for doing that to any of their customers or staff.
Your troubles with social media are all of your own making, because what you call a viewpoint, and insist on expressing, other call bigotry
Re: Re: Re:10
They are not required to do anything, as private entities, but as generic speech platforms embedded in a society that values the principles of free speech, they should uphold the ability of their users to speak freely. If they do not, they should be urged, criticized, or shamed into changing their policies.
Truth is truth, and calling truth bigotry makes it no less true.
Re: Re: Re:9
There are only two ways to silence people.
The first, which you GLEEFULLY endorse for anyone who isn’t a white supremacist, is to HARASS them into silence.
The second is murder, regardless of it being a hitjob or actually shanking/shooting/strangling people.
1A prevents the government from doing BOTH.
You not getting an audience is clearly a YOU thing, considering even the big white supremacist gathering holes have sizable enough audiences.
Does this mean even YOU are that unpalatable to them?
Re: Re: Re:6 You don't understand, Mike.
Hyman Rosen has a reversed production-comprehension lag such that he accidentally says “viewpoint” when he really means “behavior” and “censorship” instead of “consequences”. So, whenever he says “viewpoint-based censorship”…
Re: Re: Re:
When you can demonstrate that banning someone from your online platform or physically removing someone from your private property is even remotely the same as actually shooting someone, you might have a point.
Well, not really.
But regardless, you haven’t demonstrated that, so I see no need to try to go any further as you haven’t even gotten that far.
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Re: Re: Re:2
Shooting someone who is trying to invade and destroy your property is very much justified, especially when the government refuses to uphold is obligation to provide such protection.
Re: Re: Re:3
So’s them chasing you out of their property, preferably with Civil War muskets, bayonets and cannons, because, I dunno, DON’T FORCE OTHERS TO BECOME YOUR FUCKING SOAPBOX?
Which is very well within THEIR rights as well.
Unless you’re implying that right is exclusive only to white people. And even then, yes, you’re not entitled to an audience and you can’t force others to be your personal soapbox.
Even if they’re white. Or NeoNazi.
Re: Re: Re:4
In a society that values free speech, people will be exposed to viewpoints they despise. That’s what free speech is for. Private companies don’t have to support free speech, but they should.
Most people pay lip service to free speech, but don’t actually support people speaking opinions they oppose. Others, like Masnick, are more nuanced – he supports free speech for opinions he hates as long as those opinions are unpopular. But for things like gender ideology, which are likely opposed by a majority of people, be would rather have contrary opinions censored for fear that they might win.
Re: Re: Re:4
The large generic speech platforms should be encouraged, not forced, to support the free speech of their users. Because you like the viewpoint-based censorship they are now providing, you pretend that I am advocating for the use of force so that you can hide behind the legalism of the 1st Amendment, which prohibits such force.
Re:
Neo Nazi says what?
Re:
“The Babylon Bee was censored. They posted satire about a political figure, and Twitter stopped them from posting anything else until they took their post down”
That’s not censorship, that control of private property. BB could publish anywhere else they wanted, and Twitter could control what happens on their own site, which is allowed by the concept of owning property, the first amendment and freedom of association, at it has been since the printing press was first invented.
Why are you people always so opposed to private property ownership and free speech rights?
Re: Re:
Because they want to force people to listen to and agree with them.
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Re: Re: Re:
The large generic speech platforms are using their own free speech rights to censor the speech of their users. That they are private merely means that they are allowed to do this. That does not make their censorship any more moral or correct, not does it immunize them from criticism for their behavior.
Re: Re: Re:2
The likes of Devin Nunes practice censorship, as in say things about me anywhere and I will drag you into court”. Titter and Facebook practice moderation, as in “you cannot say that on this platform, take your words elsewhere”. The low number of users on platforms like Gab and Truth Social says something about the popularity of the speech they hosts, especially as there is no limitation of how many social platforms you can use.
Re: Re: Re:3
But I didn’t sue the owner of that Twitter account because they said mean things about me, I sued them because they were pretending to be my mom.
Re: Re: Re:2
[Hallucinates facts not in reality]
Re: Re: Re:2
It’s goddamn telling everytime someone calls you a Neo Nazi you don’t deny it.
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Re: Re: Re:3
That would imply that I cared what you thought about me.
Re: Re: Re:4
And yet, here you are, you fucking Nazi.
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Re: Re: Re:5
Pointing out your errors and respecting your opinions are separate things.
Re: Re: Re:6
They’re both the same in that you have never done either.
Re: Re: Re:6
You should be telling yourself that, not us.
Re: Re: Re:5
Do you have some evidence that the person you’re responding to is imprisoning and gassing Jews? Or invading other countries? Maybe they’re nationalizing businesses and using that production for their war effort?
Or do you just not know what Nazis are?
Re: Re: Re:6
Like “racist”, “Nazi” now just means “someone I don’t like” to left-wingers.
Re: Re: Re:7
[Hallucinates facts not in evidence]
Re: Re: Re:4
Thanks for proving you do bro!
Re: Re: Re:
If only that was what they would stop at doing.
Jan 6 proved they want to do way worse of the rest of us.
Re: Re: Re:2
That was an attempt at the ultimate means to make people listen and agree, by establishing and authoritarian regime.
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Re: Re:
Censorship is the act of the censor, silencing speech based on viewpoint on platforms the censor controls. Because you like this censorship, you want to apply a false definition of censorship so that you can say that the platforms are not censoring. But they are.
Re: Re: Re:
You’re going to repeat this exact paragprah another 50 times over the next week, aren’t you.
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Re: Re: Re:2
As often as necessary.
Re: Re: Re:3
Liar.
Re: Re: Re:3
It was never necessary because no one actually believes why you claim they believe.
Re: Re: Re:4
*what
Re: Re: Re:
… and there you admit, with your own definition, that there is absolutely no censorshio going on outside of places like Gab, Parler, and Pravda.
Re: Re: Re:2
Even if they were right it’s really not the argument they might think it is, because while telling someone to leave a store because they’re loudly proclaiming that anyone not a white straight male is inferior and doesn’t deserve to have rights could be phrased as ‘applying consequences to a person’s speech based upon their viewpoints’ most people are just going to see and treat that as showing a bigoted asshole the door so other people don’t have to deal with said bigotry while they’re shopping.
Not all viewpoints are equal and not all of them deserve equal treatment. ‘I like puppies’ is not likely to get you negative social consequences. ‘Non-white/straights/males are inferior’ is and should.
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Re: Re:
Censorship is stopping someone from speaking based on the viewpoint of their speech. The Bee was censored.
Re: Re: Re:
And just with that, you admit you’re knowingly lying in bad faith every time you claim moderation is censorship.
Re: Re: Re:
“Censorship is stopping someone from speaking”
Then, why do I keep having to hear you morons whining about it? If you were blocked from speaking I wouldn’t have to keep encountering you ever time someone tells you to GTFO away from the adults trying to speak.
Re:
It makes no difference that Twitter was legally allowed to do this.
Think so? It means the Babylon Bee can either adhere to the TOS, or fuck off.
Legal behavior and moral behavior are not the same thing.
No shit. One is written in explicit terms. And the other depends on who you ask.
Which fucking one would you want to take a chance with in court?
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Re: Re:
Since Twitter is allowed to censor as they wish, there is no reason for courts to be involved. But Twitter should be encouraged, convinced, or shamed into not censoring its users based on their viewpoints.
Re: Re: Re:
And Hyman Rosen should be rhetorically punched in the face until he realizes that he is not welcome everywhere, and stops trying to force his way in where he is not welcome.
Re: Re: Re:
And when that doesn’t work, what is the next step?
You’re obviously never going to be okay with Twitter “censoring its users based on their viewpoints” (your words, not mine). When asking nicely fails—and it will—you’ll have nothing else left unless you go exactly where your fascist ideology takes you: forcing the law to make Twitter host speech.
You can’t tell me your position will end with “oh well, I lost, time to give up”. I mean, you’re a dude who literally wants trans people back in the closet or in the grave, and you’ve shown no signs of admitting that trans people deserve to exist and live as their authentic selves. You will absolutely hit a point one day where you will say “the law should make Twitter host this speech”.
You think it can’t happen. You think it won’t happen. But so long as you’re a TERF who’s unwilling to change their fascistic exterminationist thinking about trans people, the chances that you’ll fall into the same mindset in re: Twitter are incredibly high.
Tick. Tock.
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Re: Re: Re:2
Once again, you argue with an illusory version of me who says what you what him to say.
“When it fails” I will keep criticizing, that’s all. Because the viewpoints being censored by Twitter are true, it is inevitable that physical reality will eventually overcome ideology, whether they like it or not. Force will not be necessary, just as it was not necessary to overcome the Satanic Panic. Eventually ridicule accomplishes the same thing.
I don’t believe you understand what “authentic” means. Nothing can be less authentic thank denying the reality of one’s body.
Re: Re: Re:3
An accounting office is ot a Pizza Hut no matter how much you bitch about its trapezoidal red roof.
Re: Re: Re:4
Well, you’re also ignoring a ton of actual science on the matter as well.
Gender dysphoria is real. And it’s actually treatable.
And unlike you, I do believe that force might be necessary to force YOUR shitty beliefs out of America, at least.
Die in a fuckine fire, Hymen. You’d wish the same on us and kill us too.
Re: Re: Re:5
Your comment was confusing until it became obvious it looks like you misfired and replied to the wrong comment there.
Re: Re: Re:6
Yeah, once in a while I do that.
The preview stuff doesn’t always link to the comment I was replying to. And mobile screens do not always show that due to the screen size.
Sorry about that.
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Re: Re: Re:5
I rather feel like the Sith Emperor encouraging you to give into your rage. You are discovering that Americans are largely not buying what you’re selling, such as the swimming federations barring transwomen from women’s teams, and that makes you, not me, angry enough to kill, and you justify that to yourself by thinking that I would do the same to you. But I would not. Pointing at you and laughing is more than sufficient.
Re: Re: Re:6
I’m not laughing.
You lot managed to poison Christianity in my country.
And at least the Sith give a choice. You comparing yourself to Palpatine rather than Malak, or even some other Sith Lord is more telling of who you really are.
You can’t play the moral card when you gleefully admit you would want to harass them into silence and likely suicide, if not subscribing to an ideology that would genocide them. Or ignoring the science behind gender dysphoria, asshole.
(PS, it turns out transgender folk in sports is a complex, confusing issue even for sports professionals of ALL STRIPES and I’m more than happy if they took the time to actually understand these concerns. Which apparently, unlike your examples, are likely happening, and I’ll take the words of actual transgender sports professionals over someone who denies the reality of gender dysphoria.)
Re: Re: Re:7
People who might commit suicide because other people refuse to validate their false beliefs need mental health treatment. It is never the responsibility of people to affirm lies in order to comfort the believers of those lies.
I do not want to drive people to suicide, harass them into silence, nor silence them at all, in fact. But in a society that values freedom of speech, people must be prepared to face the fact that their most cherished and deeply-held beliefs may be seen as ridiculous nonsense by others, who will have no compunction about saying and doing so: https://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/24/the-great-desecration
Re: Re: Re:8
It’s people with hateful false beliefs like you that need to do humanity a favor and leave it, not the people who want to live as they person they were born.
Re: Re: Re:3
Why is one’s physical/genetic makeup more authentic than one’s psychological makeup? Why do you insist that it’s mental illness? If the body says one thing and the mind says another, why do you insist that the mind is wrong? Why can’t the mind be right and the body wrong?
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Re: Re: Re:4
Because the mind is a bunch of software and the body is hardware. Hardware is fixed, software is infinitely mutable.
Gender ideology is attempting to redefine words that refer to the physical to instead refer to the mental, and then compel everyone who has been using the physical definitions to switch to the new ones. That is not going to be allowed to happen.
Re: Re: Re:3
Once again, you argue with an illusory version of me who says what you what him to say.
Every accusation a projection-filled confession.
Re: Re: Re:3
Nothing can be less authentic than denying the reality of one’s body.
Lolwut? A person knows they are trans when they realise their brain doesn’t match their body, which means they’re very aware of the reality of their body, actually. What is the least authentic of all is the denial of others’ lived experience just because you don’t (and refuse to) understand it.
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Re: Re: Re:4
Since a person only ever had access to their own mind, they cannot know that their mind does not “match” their body. There is only one body for them to know and only one mind for them to know. They may certainly observe other people and wish that they were more like them, and attempt to mimic them in various ways, not nothing can change what they are physically.
Meanwhile, many people have religious, cultural, and social behaviors and taboos that relate to physical bodies, and no desire to modify those to instead refer to mental states, regardless how much people professing the new gender ideology would like them to.
Re: Re: Re:5
Like the Native Americans and their third genders, depending on tribe.
Not everything belongs to the NeoNazis, Hymen. Likewise, the Native Americans don’t think too highly of you trying to police THEIR culture. Or speak for them.
Re: Re: Re:6
It doesn’t matter what they think. Culture does not override physical reality. Catholics can believe that their crackers and grape juice turn into the flesh and blood of their god, but they don’t. They’re just crackers and grape juice.
Re: Re: Re:3
Once again, no one is “denying the reality of one’s body”. That is a strawman. I’ve pointed this out to you countless times before. Stop it.
It's simple enough to understand
BigTech’s responsibilities with regard to speech on the Internet can be understood well with expectations towards a mythical entity we may call “Big Sewage”.
It’s simple enough what any responsible adult would expect from Big Sewage in two simple items:
a) Big Sewage should not poison any of our environment or wildlife or other means of living.
b) Big Sewage has no business interfering with me pouring down the drain whatever I want to. They are not entitled to telling me how to do an oil change or dispose of paint sludge.
c) No Ifs and Buts. Nerd Harder.
d) I know how to count to two, thank you very much.
Re:
Not so much “nerd harder” as “troll harder”, which instruction is directed at you, BTW.
Re: Re:
I don’t know about you, but I think David’s post is sarcastic.
Re: Re: Re:
I didn’t once I understood points A and B to be metaphors for the 1st Amendment and free speech.
Future
“Nothing said by this company or others explains why it’s necessary to continue to engage in pervasive surveillance of students when most of them will be attending classes in person?”
The future is surveillance and surveillance is the future. Might as well get the kiddies used to living under the eye of Big Brother.
Sad truth
The sad truth is, if it’s written by a Republican, or their ilk, and it’s getting moderated, it is repugnant to almost everyone who is civilized.
They want us to be forced to swim in that repugnance, to become like them, in their image.
Nothing less will do…and they’re not going away until they get what they want.