Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the the-pen-is-mightier dept
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous comment about Ubisoft saying people need to get used to not owning games they play:
What the world needs is a DRM-ed digital currency you can use for buying DRM-ed digital content. If the seller makes the product vanish, the buyer can make the payment vanish….
In second place, it’s an anonymous reply to some silly accusations about Techdirt articles:
Obviously you don’t read any of them, do you.
Mike writes about facts that can be observed by anyone with an IQ greater than that of a raw carrot. When he does state an opinion, he marks it as such. If he didn’t, you can be sure that Elmo would be doing the lawsuit-fandango all over Techdirt’s ass. (Side note: No, Elmo didn’t invent email either.)
So riddle us this: do you post anonymously on (bullshit ideogram)Twitter? And if not, why are you uncomfortable with using your name here, where we don’t ban anyone, not even you?
For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we’ve got two more anonymous comments. First, it’s a response to another comment that defended California’s “save the kids from social media” ballot initiative by comparing it to regulations on automobile and food safety:
Your examples are things that will cause harm to any user, if they use the product long enough. Lets fix your brakes before you have an accident seems like a good idea. Lets ban alcohol because f few people have a problem with it is not. Also, with social media you have to address the question is it social media doing the harm, or is that just the means of social interaction that would do the same harm, regardless of how that interaction took place.
Next, it’s a comment continuing the conversation about the dogwhistle significance of the “okay” hand sign:
The whole point of the fascists co-opting an otherwise benign hand sign is for plausible deniability.
Over on the funny side, our first place winner is another anonymous comment (big week for the anons!) about the lazy Amazon spam products with ChatGTP failures in their text:
I’m somewhat impressed by the variety of polite dismissals used by ChatGPT. In that last graphic alone, the description sports “sorry,” “apologies,” “regrettably,” “we apologize,” and “unfortunately.” You would be hard pressed to find a human that will put that level of effort into repeatedly telling someone to fuck off.
In second place, it’s still another anonymous comment, again on the same subject:
Sorry, But I Can’t Provide The Information You’re Looking For makes a safe and reputable tattoo gun, this article is a baseless hit piece.
For editor’s choice on the funny side, we might as well keep things going and stick to anonymous comments, so we start with one about the now-revived First Amendment lawsuit against Ron DeSantis from ousted prosecutor Andrew Warren:
Live your life such that if it were a book, it would be banned in Florida.
Finally, we’ve got a quip about the Florida politician (pushing yet another “ban kids from social media” bill) misspelling the word “principles” on his website:
He clearly has elementary principals
That’s all for this week, folks!
Comments on “Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt”
Damn. Anonymous really is legion.
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"No Ban"
TechDirt may not ban people per se, but they do subject people to low-grade harassment – flagging, long waits in moderation queues, and possibly outright banning of some comments. (I’m never sure about that one; it may just be the outmoded technology losing comments, although it seems to me that certain content gets “lost” more than others.)
The site owner believes incorrectly that freedom of speech is satisfied by preventing the government from censoring opinions based on viewpoint while having large private generic speech platforms performing the same censorship is fine.
Re:
You’re the one who harasses people because you can’t take “no” for an answer, dude. Get some help.
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Re: Re:
Says the guy who’s publicly admitted many times to being mentally ill! 🙄
Re: Re: Re:
No, you’re confusing him with the trolls.
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Re: Re: Re:2
It’s disappointing how you insult TD readers who post feedback disagreeing with regime narratives…
Re: Re: Re:3
There is no “regime”, and there are plenty of dissenting comments that don’t even get flagged.
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Re: Re: Re:4
You’re delusional.
Literally all of the comments expressing viewpoints that criticize the site/regime’s narrative(s) under this post have already been hidden!!
Re: Re: Re:5
[Projects facts contrary to extensive evidence]
Re: Re: Re:5 Let me explain that for you, with crayons...
When someone spouts dumb, ignorant shit (or ignorant, bigoted shit), they are likely to get down-voted to “collapsed comment” (ie. “hidden”, but still not removed or inaccessible) status, by the other people present in the forum.
That’s not “dissenting views getting censored”, that’s just dumb shit getting boo-ed off the stage.
Re: Re: Re:5
Confirmation bias. You only pay attention to (or remember) the posts that get hidden, so you miss the ones that don’t. That you don’t notice/remember them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Also, the “dissents” posted on posts like this one (as opposed to the standard ones) are generally of lower quality since fewer people bother to comment on them at all, and there’s less that might be worth criticizing. Lower-quality “dissent” is generally dumb, ignorant, bigoted, delusional, troll-ish, and/or harassing, so it tends to get flagged. Reasonable, higher-quality dissent generally doesn’t get flagged unless it’s by someone who usually posts things that deserve being flagged, and those users who do that are also more likely to post comments on these sorts of posts than more reasonable dissenters.
Also, whether any particular comment gets hidden is decided by the users’ votes to do so, not the people running this site.
There is no conspiracy going on here. Just you jumping to conclusions and falling for your own confirmation bias (assuming for the sake of discussion that you aren’t just a troll). One might even say it’s just that you’re delusional.
Re: Re: Re:3
“Regime.” Well, you do give yourself away, don’t you?
Re: Re: Re:3
If you cannot take the heat, stop saying stupid shit.
Re: Re: Re:3
It takes a special kind of stupid to gaslight about the comments on the same page you’re posting on, BDAC.
Re: Re: Re:2
Hey, c’mon now. Don’t you think comparing that asshole to a troll is insulting to the troll?
Re: Re: Re:
Your every accusation, a confession.
Re: Re: Re:
I have never once read a comment by Stephen saying that he has schizophrenia, depression, etc. Please clarify your assertion.
Re:
It’s not “fine” that so much speech relies on and is mediated by large private corporations – there are certainly problems with that fact. It’s just (a) not an infringement on any kind of protected right to free speech, and (b) not solved by some sort of hamfisted “neutrality” requirement which would itself be an infringement on said protected rights
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Re: Re:
It’s hard to see how a publicly owned large generic speech platform would be better. The government would be very constrained in how it would be permitted to moderate, and shifting political winds would whipsaw moderation at the drop of an election. It would likely make the user experience worse.
When large private generic speech platforms censor, they are not infringing on the rights of their users, nor should there be any government mandate in place on how they are permitted to censor. They should, of their own volition, respect the foundational value of free speech and not censor opinions based on viewpoint. If they do not, they should be urged, convinced, shamed, or bought to try to get them to change. And if they still do not, then that’s just the way it will be. Not everyone behaves as other people would have them behave.
Actually, now that I think about it, a government run newsletter site similar to SubStack might be ideal. The government would not be allowed to censor based on viewpoint, and there would be little crosstalk between the different newsletters, so people choosing to read what they like would not be subject to reading things they don’t, if they didn’t want to. You would have less of the “Nazi bar” nonsense that the site owner here likes to complain about, since the government could truthfully say that they are not allowed to censor Nazis, not that they don’t want to.
Re: Re: Re:
“The Holocaust was a good thing” is a viewpoint. I can’t imagine that many social media services actively want to host that viewpoint or the people who believe in it. Therein lies the problem with your “viewpoint discrimination” complaints: You’re expressing a belief that any “large generic speech platform” (as if that phrase means anything to anyone but you) has an obligation—moral, if not legal—to host viewpoints so vile and heinous so long as those viewpoints aren’t expressed in a vile and heinous way. “The Holocaust was a good thing” isn’t exactly the same as “Hitler should’ve killed more k⸺es and f⸺ts” in terms of content, sure, but both sentences support the idea that the Holocaust was a net positive for the world.
You see a problem with a platform refusing to host either sentence (and the viewpoint those sentences express). You would prefer to see that platform host that speech despite the owners not wanting to host it. And you would endlessly harass the owners of that platform to host that speech despite their saying “no”. Those facts all say a lot about you; none of it is good.
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Re: Re: Re:2
The fact that it says about me is that I support freedom of speech. It’s no surprise that you and the site owner do not.
You really are an idiot. Think of how many times this site has explained that Section 230 holds people who write things responsible for their speech, not people who host those writings. If you don’t like some opinion that someone has written, the correct target of that approbation is the person who has written it, not the platform on which it appears.
Re: Re: Re:3
You have explicitly said that you will harass, and continue to harass, any owner(s) of a “large generic speech platform” (🙄) who don’t think that they have an obligation to host all legally protected speech. By your own admission, you believe in ignoring someone telling you “no” and harassing them until they say “yes”, which makes me wonder how many times you’ve done that to potential sexual partners.
Legal liability for speech is not the same thing as an association with that speech.
I can criticize Twitter for hosting Nazi speech just as you can criticize Twitter for deleting Nazi speech from Twitter. You don’t have the exclusive right to criticize a platform for its moderation choices, and you sure as shit won’t take that right away from me unless you kill me. Just how willing are you to pull that trigger?
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Re: Re: Re:4
You flatter yourself by thinking that you’re worth killing for your useless opinions. A little sneering chuckle in your direction is more than enough. Your thoughts do seem to keep drifting to murder, though, which is the natural direction for woke filth who cannot convince normal people to behave the way they want them to. Back in the 1970s your kind were setting off bombs around the United States.
As always, you invent illusory versions of me who say what you want them to say so that you can win arguments with yourself. Large private generic speech platforms should not host all legal speech. They should moderate for spam, topicality, and decorum. Even government-run speech sites moderate for topicality and decorum.
A public-facing company will always face possible criticism for its actions, and it should. The owners may explain their point of view and the reasons for their actions as they like, but they cannot stop people from disagreeing with them and trying to get them to change. Idiot woke protesters have been attacking Shell Oil for decades, for example.
And continuing with what your imaginary interlocutors say, I have, of course, never sought to stop anyone from criticizing X for anything. You are just as free to demand that they allow nothing but woke propaganda as I am to demand that they honor the fundamental value of free speech.
Re: Re: Re:5
HAH. Finally got you to fuckin’ say it. 🤣
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Re: Re: Re:6
“Finally”? I have been saying this all along. The voices in your head must be truly loud.
Moderation is not censorship. Moderation silences speech based on its form. Censorship silences speech based on its content. A way to tell is to examine whether two similarly-worded messages with opposing viewpoints would both be silenced. If yes, then the silencing is more likely to be moderation. If no, then the silencing is more likely to be censorship. The lines will be blurry, naturally.
Re: Re: Re:7
Moderation is the exercise of speech, and has never silenced speech. Moron.
Re: Re: Re:7
No. No, you have not. You’ve been whining about how “large generic speech platforms” (🙄) are “censoring” speech by way of “viewpoint discrimination”. You’ve been demanding that they concede to your idea of “behaving properly” by hosting any and every bit of legally protected speech. You’ve been insisting that those platforms have an obligation—moral, if not legal—to host every possible “viewpoint” no matter how much the owners of those platforms don’t want to host a specific “viewpoint”. Only when your arguments have been deflated and proven to be weak-ass bullshit do you finally start to concede what the rest of us have been telling you all along…and act like yes, you were agreeing with us all along.
To wit:
You have literally been saying otherwise this whole time…
…irrelevant hair-splitting notwithstanding.
Under that logic, a platform that chooses not to host pro-Nazi speech but chooses to host anti-Nazi speech is engaging in censorship. You’ve gone out of your way to paint censorship (and those who engage in it) as morally heinous. You’ve also made clear that you would endlessly harass platform owners who engage in what you believe to be “censorship” so they will eventually “behave properly” by ending their “censorship” and hosting speech they would otherwise refuse to host (and the people who express that speech).
You have never, in any meaningful way, expressed any agreement with the idea that the owners of a platform should have a choice in what speech it hosts.
Your entire position has been that platform owners should be forced, by harassment if not by law, into hosting speech they wouldn’t host. Your entire logic rests on the idea that your morality is objectively correct and should trump the morality of those platform owners. Your argument, paper-thin as it is, rests on the idea that a platform owner should concede their rights of free speech and free association to give people a right to free reach.
And at every turn, everyone who has looked past the surface of your arguments—myself, Mike Masnick, every other Techdirt commentator who has ever ripped your shit apart—has found those arguments lacking in both merit and depth.
Shit, man, I’ll even put your argument to the test. Assume I run a Mastodon instance where I have a rule that bans pro-Nazi speech. The instance is what I assume you would refer to as a “generic speech platform”, in that any user can post anything they want so long as they play by the rules. Yes or no, Hyman Rosen: Would you endlessly harass me to make me host pro-Nazi speech on my Mastodon instance?
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Re: Re: Re:8
Given that I have, every single time, said that large private generic speech platforms should make the voluntary choice not to censor their users, and should be urged, shamed, convinced, or bought to get them to change if they continue to do so, but they should never be forced, the obvious conclusion, as always, is that you are an idiot.
You can’t stand the thought that all over America (the world, really) people say that a man can never be a woman and are not silenced for it. You hoped that the large private generic speech platforms would do such silencing for you, and you react with murderous fury when people try to stop the censorship that you thought would give you the totalitarian control you crave.
Re: Re: Re:9
And yet, your insistence that a platform’s owners be endlessly harassed over moderation decisions until they change their mind is effectively saying “they should be forced to behave as I want them to behave”. Your whole schtick has been about trying to force upon people—without their consent—a moral obligation you made up out of wholecloth. No law recognizes the obligation of which you speak. None of the Founding Fathers recognized the idea of “free reach”. Other than your insistence on “founding values” and other such empty bullshit, where does this idea of a moral obligation to host pro-Nazi speech actually come from?
You’re right, I can’t stand it. It’s not only a precursor to more violent actions against trans people, it’s also divisive in a way that allows the elite assholes who spew that shit to get away with getting in your goddamn head and demanding you hurt their chose Repugnant Cultural Other for them. It’s pitting you against people who are simply trying to exist in a world that is violently opposed to their existence for the sake of making those people more marginalized when they should be your allies against the only class of people that are truly out to destroy this world. (I speak, of course, of wealthy and powerful motherfuckers like Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and the Catholic Church as an institution.)
But even though I despise that speech and loathe the people who express it? I have not now, nor will I ever, call for any kind of infringement upon their right to say those things. Abandoning a platform that allows such speech to flourish isn’t an infringement of those rights; neither is criticising their speech, criticising that platform’s decision to welcome that speech, and/or preventing them from posting that speech on any platform I own or operate. To even so much as imply, in any way, that I am out to “silence” TERFs and anti-trans bigots by infringing on their rights is to lie so blatantly that I have no choice but to call it a lie.
Dude, I don’t even actively use Twitter or Facebook. (I have a burner account on Twitter that I use to stay logged in so I can keep up with certain accounts, but I’ve never once tweeted from it.) I don’t give a fuck what Twitter does in terms of moderation—well, other than to point and laugh at Elon fucking up his platform for the sake of welcoming Nazis into his bar.
Every accusation, a confession.
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Re: Re: Re:10
Heh. You really are an idiot, aren’t you? In the same comment you call criticism of behavior you like harassment and say there’s nothing wrong with criticism of behavior you hate.
Re: Re: Re:11
How are we going to determine who is the idiot? You or Stephen?
Lets start with that I can only conclude that you don’t understand the difference between criticism and harassment. Your comment isn’t a criticism, it’s a form of low grade harassment. This comment on the other hand, is a criticism of your bad attempt of conflating these concepts.
Are you now able to answer the question I posed?
Re: Re: Re:11
Criticism is one thing. You’ve made it clear that you will endlessly harass people until they exhibit “proper behavior” that aligns with the “moral obligation” you want to thrust upon people without their consent. That includes your admission to wanting to harass trans people out of public life unless they live the way you believe they should live to make you comfortable and happy. If anyone here is a censor, it’s the dude who has promised to enforce his morality on everyone else by making everyone else so sick and tired of fighting you that they give in to your demands.
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Re: Re: Re:11
Keep coping, straight white trash.
A clitty cage is coming for you with your name written on it.
Re: Re: Re:11
…hallucinated nobody literate, ever.
Re: Re: Re:7
“Moderation silences speech based on its form.”
Incorrect. Censorship (the legislative banning of content) silences speech. Moderation only says, “Get the fuck off my property if you’re going to say things like that!” not removing your ability to find somewhere else to say it the way censorship does.
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Re: Re: Re:8
Censorship is the act of the censor, silencing opinions based on viewpoint on platforms the censor controls. The ability of the silenced to speak elsewhere is irrelevant.
Re: Re: Re:9
How, then, does your plan to censor platform owners by harassing them into compliance with your demands for their behavior not qualify as a form of censorship?
Re: Re: Re:8
Lying that moderation is censorship is essentially claiming that infinity-1=0.
Re: Re: Re:5
First off, Hyman, thanks for telling us how you view Mike and the rest of us.
Secondly, those bombings also were accompanied by armed bank robberies, and the infiltration and takeover of churches and other non-related entities by, you guessed it, COMMUNIST PROVACATEURS. Saboteurs from Latin America, trained by the Soviet Union, infiltrated America to foment a communist revolution.
These saboteurs are either dead or too old to pose a credible threat. And the Soviet Union no longer exists.
Meanwhile “conservatives” are more than happy to commit treason (if America were in a war with China and its puppets Russia and North Korea) in order to reestablish the Confederate States of America. Bypassing entirely the entire “train terrorists to sew chaos to create a communist revolution” thing.
No one’s fooled by you, Nazi simp.
Re: Re: Re:3
No you do not, you support forced carrying of your speech, so that you can exercise the hecklers charter.
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Re: Re: Re:4
As always, people benefitting from private censorship hide behind the 1st Amendment and pretend that people who are being asked to behave properly are instead going to be forced to behave properly, which the Constitution prohibits.
Re: Re: Re:5
Your idea of “behaving properly” involves the owner of private property giving up their right of association after endless amounts of harassment so someone can espouse Nazi viewpoints on property that the Nazi doesn’t own or control. Piss off.
Re: Re: Re:5
You benefit from “private censorship,” you hypocrite! The same right to choose not to carry another’s speech is the same right you have not to listen or associate with others. They’re not hiding behind the 1st Amendment. They’re actively exercising their rights – the same rights you enjoy. Again, that’s like claiming that people who aren’t actually breaking the law are “hiding” behind the fact that they are technically innocent of your accusations of criminal behavior. You’re just saying you disagree with their rights, but you’re slightly self-aware enough to recognize you’re impotent to do anything about it.
This is a great example of gaslighting. We have literal, real world examples of actual legislation proposed by conservative law makers that have sought to use government force to restrict the 1st Amendment-protected free speech right of private platforms to moderate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_House_Bill_20
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moody_v._NetChoice,_LLC#NetChoice_v._Moody
And “behave properly” is a disingenuous passphrase for “allow a platform to become a Nazi bar.”
Serious question:
What viewpoints are you referring to that have been “censored” on private platforms that you think should have been allowed?
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Re: Re: Re:6
The Babylon Bee satirically awarding Dr. Rachel Levine its Man of the Year award is the poster child for viewpoint-based censorship.
I have offered my opinion on how to deal with large private generic speech platforms that censor their users. If other people want to deal with that differently and you don’t like that, then you need to go and criticize them. Yelling at me for what other people do is not useful. I’m not going to care, and the other people won’t hear your complaints.
Re: Re: Re:7
I couldn’t have asked for a more apropos example. You’re upset that bigots aren’t allowed to use platforms to harass people. You’re complaining that Twitter wasn’t a Nazi bar before Musk. Cry me a Pervitin river, mein herr.
But my problem is with your specific opinion on “how to deal with large private generic speech platforms that censor their users.” You’re the disingenuous fascist apologist trying to use an intentional mischaracterization of “free speech rights” as a trojan horse to let Nazis into the bar.
I gave you a wide open question and the best scenario you came up with for poor, censored, oppressed people was a conservative millionaire entrepreneur’s web site that is literally its own publishing platform getting dinged for a terms of service violation.
This is exactly what’s wrong with “free speech absolutists” when they cry about “censorship.” They’re just bitching that other people don’t want to and don’t have to listen to their bullshit and hatred.
Re: Re: Re:7
Hyman.
The Babylon Bee has, I dunno, an entire ass website to promote its views. Views that old Twitter told to stop using its site as a public soapbox.
Twitter is not a government entity, save for the accounts owned by actual government entities and politicians.
And yes, we’ve also criticized Mike for being unable to handle a known harasser who has harassed other websites in the “conservative” backyard.
On the other hand, you seem to be immune to just about everything we can throw at you, and decorum dictates I cannot use less savory methods.
Sincerely fuck off.
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Re: Re: Re:8
Censorship is the act of the censor, silencing opinions based on viewpoint on platforms the censor controls. The ability of the silenced to speak elsewhere is irrelevant. Whether the censor is a governmental or a private entity is irrelevant.
Re: Re: Re:9
According to this line, any act that (under your view of the word) censors someone else is censorship. Wouldn’t that mean, then, that the endless harassment to which you wish to subject platform owners if they don’t “behave properly” is an act of censorship if you succeed in making those platform owners give up their own rights of association and free speech so speech they wouldn’t normally host could be hosted on their platforms? Wouldn’t you harassing people into submitting into the “moral obligation” that you made up for them be the act of a censor, since it would be a low-key infringement of their civil rights? Wouldn’t any of that make you the kind the censor that you decry?
Re: Re: Re:7
For what reason—other than your empty and ridiculous assertions about “moral obligations”, “proper behavior”, and “foundational values”—should Twitter ever host that speech if its owners don’t want to host that speech?
Re: Re: Re:3
You can’t support freedom of speech if you are attempting to bully a property owner into submission that he/she must carry your speech. That’s a direct example of a dichotomy.
Further, you continually exhibit an ignorance that defies all rational thinking. Even after more than 90 posts to this thread alone, you either don’t see and understand, or you are being willfully ignorant about the fact that speech is not the issue here, free or otherwise. It’s all about association, and until you “get it”, you are going to continually be flagged for your ignorance. Plan on it.
Claims of censorship were always a Republican/Conservative screeching point, because none of them paid attention in class when the subject of the day was The Constitution. They all thought they heard “prostitution”, and said that’s a good idea, let’s skip out of class and go bang a whore. Thats why this country in in a world of shit right now, because some people’s kids …. Oh, Christ, why am I even trying to talk sense to you. I need a bath and a shower both to clean the crud off my body, after dealing with the like of you.
To quote Charles Dickens, I devote thee to the devil.
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Re: Re: Re:4
A large private generic speech platform is not an association of like-minded people, it is a public square where everyone comes to speak. Associations of like-minded people self-organize on those platforms using tools the platform provides, and within those groups, topicality may dictate that certain opinions not be permitted – a group dedicated to OU-certified kosher foods need not permit arguments that tablet-K is also a valid certification, for example.
Re: Re: Re:5
But it isn’t a public square in the sense that the general public owns it. Therein lies your problem.
The platform itself can still ban those opinions (by way of banning speech that expresses those opinions). Other than crying about “censorship” as if the right to free reach exists and inflicting endless harassment upon the owners of those platforms in a bid to make them “behave properly”, you can personally do one thing—and only one thing—about those decisions: nothing.
Or do you really believe, with all your heart and soul, that the owners of an LGBT-friendly Mastodon instance should be harassed to no end by you and everyone you know—emailed, phonecalled, texted, yelled at in the streets, doxxed, SWAT-ed, even physical (and possibly sexually) assaulted—until they decide to host propaganda for “conversion ‘therapy’ ” on their platform?
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Re: Re: Re:6
That one thing is powerful, though, which is why it is enshrined in the Constitution. That one thing was enough to convince Musk to buy Twitter, for example, regardless of how he has subsequently managed the company.
A public square is formed by virtue of the fact that the public comes there to speak. The private ownership means that the owners cannot be compelled to allow all viewpoints to be expressed, but it all so means that the owners can moderate in ways not permitted to the government. It is up to the public to guide the owners to correct behavior by making their voices heard.
A forum such as you describe is very obviously not a generic speech platform, but rather an affinity group with a clearly specified editorial slant. If it chooses to allow only certain viewpoints backing its stance, that’s fine, especially if it spells out its policies clearly. I have pointed to the example of E-Cat World before:
There is no question scientifically but that the E-Cat is a yearslong scam perpetrated by Andrea Rossi (and similarly Brilliant Light Power by Randell Mills). But this website doesn’t want to hear that, and that’s fine. (Not so much for the suckers, but from the point of view of freedom to speak.)
Re: Re: Re:7
You say this like there is one singular objective form of “correct behavior”. If Twitter were to ban pro-Nazi speech tomorrow, would Musk be exhibiting “incorrect” behavior? What makes his behavior “incorrect” other than your disagreement with Musk choosing to ban a kind of speech that you believe he (and every other platform owner) has an absolute and unignorable obligation to host?
Irrelevant. No speech platform is truly “generic” because all platforms moderate for spam and illegal content. They have an editorial slant against letting spam, CSAM, and other such bullshit through to the platform. And even if a platform has “a clearly specified editorial slant”, that is irrelevant to the fact that the owners of said platform still have the legal right to decide what legally permissible content will and will not be allowed on it. If the law can’t force a Moms For Liberty page on Facebook to allow pro-queer comments, it shouldn’t be able to force a pro-queer Mastodon instance to host propaganda for “conversion ‘therapy’ ”. Nor should you be able to force that instance into hosting that speech by endlessly harassing that instance like a rapist endlessly harassing their next victim until that victim says “yes”.
And yet, by the logic of your arguments, that forum should host that speech it doesn’t want to host—after all, as an open-to-the-public forum where members of the public publicly congregate to publicly discuss matters of public importance, that forum has a moral obligation to host that legally protected speech. That’s your logic. That’s your argument. You can’t disown it now that it’s coming back to bite you on your face.
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Re: Re: Re:8
What makes behavior incorrect is only my designation of it as being so, along with a sufficient number of other people who believe the same. There is no “board of correct decision making” (at least until our AI overlords take over). If enough people disagree, we get another culture war issue, and the poor (but also very rich) company gets to navigate a minefield.
When AB decided to associate Dylan Mulvaney with Bud Light there was no referee to call a penalty. The public largely reacted with disdain, it cost Bud Light market share, and that encouraged AB to change its advertising approach.
I will decide what I consider to be correct behavior, and I will say so. Other people are free to disagree, but that isn’t going to change what I believe unless they present good reasons.
Once again, you refer to laws and force because you want to hide behind the legalism of the 1st Amendment so you can outsource censorship to private entities not bound by it. But what the 1st Amendment does allow is criticism of the behavior of people and companies whether they like it or not, and for unlimited amounts of time. Woke ideologues never stopped criticizing Henry Kissinger, for example.
E-Cat World is not a generic speech platform. It is a site dedicated to a particular affinity group with a particular point of view, and they say so. Large generic speech platforms like X, TikTok, FaceBook, and Instagram are not dedicated to any particular group or opinion, but are public squares where massive numbers of people gather to speak on every topic under the sun. Those are the platforms that should not censor opinions based on viewpoint. You deliberately do not want to see the difference because you want the censorship that those platforms provide. (Or because you’re an idiot. Or why not both?)
Re: Re: Re:9
So you don’t believe in laws and the constitution then? Do you really think you have the moral high-ground here, arguing that people other than you have less rights guaranteed by the constitution? Because that is the logical conclusion to your “hiding behind the legalism of the 1st Amendment” argument for people who exercise their constitutional rights. And as someone else mentioned the thing with the printing presses, the foundational value of free speech was always that you can say whatever you want, at your own expense. The last part is crucial but you refuse to accept that, and when you demand others to host speech they wouldn’t normally do – who is paying for that, in money or rights?
There are no such thing as “large generic speech platforms”. Every social media service is a private service that are open to the public to use after they have agreed to adhere to the rules of the service. So no, they aren’t “public squares” – they are private properties that the public can use as long as the owners allows it, period. That you invented your own word-salad definition in an attempt to strip rights from people just shows how utterly immoral and hypocritical you are.
Harassing people isn’t a viewpoint, it’s an action done by assholes, sociopaths and bigots. That you get upset because you aren’t allowed to harass people is quite telling.
Said the person who can’t accept facts that objectively prove them wrong while trying to rewrite actual history to fit a narrative.
Re: Re: Re:9
You admit that things outside of the legal realm are entirely subjective and non-binding, but then you whine that others aren’t bound by your entirely subjective perspective and they are reminding you that they have legal rights you want them to give up just because you feel subjectively entitled to greater rights than them.
This isn’t the flex you think it is. You keep attacking people for asserting their rights. You sound like a grifter complaining that people are wary of your attempts to sucker them.
And it also allows for the things you decry, such as moderation on private platforms. But you ignore that because you disagree with that right, which makes any assertion of 1st Amendment protections for you evidence of your hypocrisy.
No, they’re mostly ad platforms with some messaging features. They are not public squares. There’s no entitlement to use them the way pubic property can be used. And the fact that you have advocated for buying out social media companies in order to change their moderation practices proves you know they are not public squares. Your designation of “not dedicated to any particular group or opinion” is your own arbitrary designation. There is no legal distinction. A platform doesn’t suddenly become a public square just because you didn’t tell people to only talk about model trains or X-Box games on there. I don’t have to sign up for an account or agree to a terms of use to walk into a public square and start exercising my 1st Amendment rights.
There’s no objective measure of what constitutes a viewpoint, so you’re suggesting an impossible standard. Trolls intentionally undermine commonly understand meanings and usages of words for their own benefit.
You seem to assume that people who support 1st Amendment rights do so because they support the content of what others are saying or how others are moderating their own platforms. You couldn’t be more wrong. I didn’t agree with a lot of Twitter moderation decisions before Musk (such as suspending journalists for quoting Trump) and I agree even less post-takeover, but Twitter continues to be a private platform where arbitrary moderation is a legal right. Because the same right Musk has to moderate Twitter as he likes is also my right to host my own platform and carry only the speech I endorse on my own website. If you don’t support the rights of others, you don’t support your own rights either.
Re: Re: Re:5
Except it is not a public square at all. It’s not public (the platform reserves the legal right not to platform anyone, the same way your local convenience store reserves the right to refuse service to anyone). Everyone doesn’t use every platform or a single platform. People who are banned from one platform (usually for violating the terms of service) can often post on other platforms. This is nothing like a public square that is always public property and always a forum for protected speech.
You are actively designating the equivalent of some random dude’s front yard as a public square, just because he chose to invite some people to his front yard barbecue and you want the privilege of being able to tell him his wife is ugly and you expect you’re special enough that you shouldn’t be trespassed from his property when he informs you that you aren’t welcome anymore.
Re: Re: Re:3
“…I support freedom of speech.”
No, you don’t. What you support is the freedom to get your junk out on someone else’s private property with no restrictions on your desire to engage in indecent exposure.
Re: Re: Re:
Why? As privately owned platforms, they have a right to free speech and association, and have no obligation to be associated with hate speech/disinformation/trolling/general stupidity. Their 1A rights trump your privilege of using the platform.
Nutters like you have been trying this shit for years, and the platforms haven’t budged. So why can’t you accept your own argument?
Is it because you’re being disingenuous right now? I think it’s because you’re being disingenuous right now.
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Re: Re: Re:2
People who hide behind legalisms to commit evil are still evil. “Why” is because it’s the right thing to do. Criticizing people who are wrong is also the right thing to do, even when it appears not to be working.
Re: Re: Re:3
Who appointed you as the worlds conscience? You have so convinced yourself that you are right that you have become a nuisance on your way to becoming an actual danger to society.
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Re: Re: Re:4
The beauty of free speech is that everyone can be a self-appointed world’s conscience, whether other people like it or not.
Re: Re: Re:5
The beauty of free assocation is that everyone else is allowed to ignore you no matter how much you whine like a spoiled brat of a child.
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Re: Re: Re:6
In order to be ignored, it must be possible for speech to be heard. Censorship silences speech in order that people who might not wish to ignore it do not get a chance to hear it, because the censors fear it.
Re: Re: Re:7
And if someone gets banned from Twitter, they have the rest of the fucking Internet at their disposal for posting and sharing their speech. Twitter is under no obligation—moral, ethical, and certainly not legal—to host any third-party speech. Keep mistaking a privilege for a civil right at your own peril, dipshit.
Then why aren’t you talking shit about book bans that target pro-queer content?
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Re: Re: Re:8
Censorship is the act of the censor, silencing opinions based on viewpoint on platforms the censor controls. The ability of the silenced to speak elsewhere is irrelevant.
Book bans targeting private institutions by the government are illegal and unconstitutional. Private institutions that censor books based on viewpoint may do so legally, but in doing so violate fundamental values of the United States (such as when Amazon refuses to sell When Harry Became Sally).
Government institutions like public libraries and schools should stock their shelves with books that their users want to read, and that address all sides of controversial social issues when that is relevant. Public school curriculums should not teach false beliefs as true, but again, when it comes to social controversies, should teach what the various sides believe.
Public libraries should not ban books based on viewpoint, whether fiction or nonfiction, including books that paint non-heteronormative people or non-white people in a positive light. Not even books that pretend that the trans delusion is not a delusion. They should also not ban books meant for young adult readers that contain sexual situations. If they do commit such censorship, the public officials controlling them should be shamed, urged, convinced, sued, or voted out of office to get them to change.
Re: Re: Re:9
No one is ever going to buy that bullshit, so you can stop selling it and get some original material instead of years-old obviously workshopped material from some right-wing shitpit. Repeating that shit like a mantra doesn’t magically make it a good argument.
And yet, when those libraries have books by/about queer people yanked from their shelves because a bunch of busybody conservatives with a bug up their ass decided that nobody should be able to read those books, YOU have never once openly criticized those bans. The best libraries offend everyone; you seem to think the best libraries shouldn’t offend right-wing dipshits. Prove me wrong, fucker.
You’re only saying this now because you know I’ll keep hammering you on your implicit support of queer-focused book bans—and I’ll be incredibly effective at it, because I don’t script out my comments weeks to months in advance!—until you’re forced to admit that such bans are no better than book bans that target conservative content. I know you think I’m an idiot, but I wasn’t born yesterday.
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Re: Re: Re:10
I have been consistent in my opinions from the very start of my presence here. Your dislike of what I say is not going to get me to stop saying it.
All books bans are equally bad. Bans targeting non-heteronormative content or non-white content are just as bad as bans targeting conservative content. Since I have always believed this, I have no problem saying it, regardless if you feel some weird sense of triumph when I say it. In fact, I even oppose bans on outright lies, such as the 1619 Project.
Re: Re: Re:11
Yes, you’ve been consistent in your opinions…when you’ve chosen to share them, which is often at times when you think sharing them will bolster your arguments or your reputation. You’ve never once expressed any concern for, or any derision towards, queer-focused book bans until I just now hammered you for your implicit support for them. Only then did you finally come out and say “those bans are bad, m’kay”—and it’s entirely possible that you don’t actually believe that but are saying it anyway because you think it makes your paper-thin arguments stronger/makes you look good.
It’s hard to take you seriously on this when you’ve been so disingenuous and argued in such bad faith that you’ve literally defended child porn being posted on Twitter. All your anti-trans bullshit makes it that much harder for me to believe you’re not okay with the book bans in question. You want to prove me wrong? When another story about actual censorship shows up on Techdirt, drop into the comments and shittalk that censorship without resorting to your stank-ass “censorship is the act of the censor” line or drawing any comparisons to social media moderation. I’m betting you won’t, so by all means, prove me wrong…or don’t. Your choice.
Re: Re: Re:9
That you want to conflate moderation with censorship is only natural when you are a bigot who want to harass people he thinks are wrong. You have explained on several occasions that you do this because you think they are wrong and you keep harassing them until they either shut up or acquiesce that you are right. Which kind of ties into what you said:
So when you harass people until they shut up or acquiesce out of fear, you have effectively censored them – there is no need for having control of a platform when people like you through harassment silences people.
Re: Re: Re:7
Hyman.
Mike already has heard your anti-LGBT screeds and your Zionist bullshit.
He’s already told you several times to fuck off or stop.
You have chosen neither.
At this point, you ARE engaging in harassment.
Re: Re: Re:3
No moral person calls moderation evil like you do.
Re: Re: Re:3
So just to recap: you think social media platforms should effectively be bullied(or bought) into doing what you think is right, but if the bullying doesn’t work, that’s just the way it is, but also the bullying should continue regardless.
All this for the supposed “evil” of a private company expressing their 1A rights.
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Re: Re: Re:4
Yes. Just as the woke have been protesting against Shell Oil for decades. “Slavery is bad, and we protested a few times but the enslavers didn’t change their minds, so we stopped.” That’s not how this works.
Re: Re: Re:5
The difference being that slavery is actually bad and evil.
You not getting to express your narrow-minded viewpoints online with no consequence is not.
Re: Re: Re:
The current best solution is federation and the ability to defederate. Everyone controls their own blocklists. Groups can create large blocklists that others can adopt, so if you don’t want fascists or MLM karens, you can just subscribe to a blocklist for those.
This is an absurd historical revisionism. “The foundational value of free speech” was always a government-only scenario. Newspapers weren’t required to carry every letter to the editor. Printers weren’t required to publish every manuscript that was handed to them. Free speech has always been about the freedom from government control of speech. You’ve never had a right to enter another man’s house, spout things he disagrees with, and then insist he doesn’t have the right to remove you based on your viewpoint. His right to free speech includes the right to not host your speech on his property.
Notably also, “viewpoint” is often a disingenuous term here. People use the term when it’s not just a simple matter of disagreement, such as “women should have a right to make their own medical decisions” vs “my religion says abortion is wrong,” but rather when they’re actively advocating against the rights of others (ironically including your denial of the free speech rights of others not to host your speech). Fascists don’t care about free speech, but they’ll tout it because they know others do care about free speech. They think it’s a gotcha to use it against them, like a trojan horse to introduce fascist rhetoric and poison the well.
Or in other scenarios, the “viewpoint” is a conspiracy theory mixed with racism mixed with misogyny mixed with some good old genocidal dog whistles. One man’s “viewpoint” is another man’s harassment, defamation, fraud, libel, slander, or threat.
Free speech means people have a right not to poison their communities with the people who start out saying “I’m a free speech absolutist” and then quickly descend into “they’re trying to replace white people!” and “we should put gun turrets on the border!”
Free speech is like the paradox of tolerance. If you allow anyone to say anything with no moderation, you aren’t being tolerant of free speech, you’re suppressing the right to free speech of everyone who doesn’t want to drink at a Nazi bar.
Re: Re: Re:2
Of course it is, this odious person had to invent new history from whole cloth to push his “foundational value”-schtick.
Which is why he is pushing his idiotic revisionist view of history. One of the actual foundational values behind the 1A came about because the British were fucking around with printers who printed unflattering things about them, which resulted in printers being jailed and their presses confiscated. And his revisionism is even more stupid when you consider that no one could demand a printer to print something if they didn’t want to after the British was kicked out, not the government or anyone else for that matter.
You have to be particularly stupid and bigoted to think you can rewrite history to fit a narrative not based on reality.
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Re: Re: Re:3
The 1st Amendment says
The plain reading is that freedom of speech is something that people have, and the government is enjoined from abridging it. The framers did not choose to say that freedom of speech is something that the government grants, but something that the government is not allowed to take away.
Because you want to take away people’s freedom of speech, you and the site’s owner choose to believe in constricted versions of it, so that you hide behind legalisms and laud censorship by private parties.
Re: Re: Re:4
Did I say otherwise?
The above is an argument only an idiot would make who have no understanding of the history behind the 1A. The 1A was never ever intended to restrict private entities, only the government. It was never ever intended to be used as a bludgeon that people like you could use to restrict other peoples constitutional rights, try as you might.
You can talk all you want about “the foundational values” but since you haven’t even bothered to learn the history behind the Constitution your arguments about it is worth as much as a wet fart in an ocean.
You desperately want to be right so you invent shit out of thin air because you can’t deal with the fact that the world doesn’t function in the way you want it to. All that is evidenced by you ignoring facts and history every time you spout your nonsense.
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Re: Re: Re:5
And if I were asking that anyone’s rights be restricted, you would be correct. But of course I am not doing that. You want to couch it in those terms exactly so you can hide behind the legalism of the 1st Amendment to get the private left-wing censorship you crave.
A large private generic speech platform should honor the foundational value of free speech and voluntarily choose not to censor its users based on their viewpoints. If they do choose to censor, people should use their own ability to speak freely to criticize the platform and get them to change their behavior.
Re: Re: Re:6
You have consistently admitted that you would harass the owners of social media platforms to make them change their minds about hosting certain kinds of speech that they (and the broader userbases of those platforms) don’t want hosted on those platforms. You are, in effect, saying that you will ignore someone saying “no” to make them say “yes” no matter what or how long it takes. That is demanding that someone give up their right to both free speech and free association so you (and your fellow queer-bashing, CSAM-defending, rapist-adjacent right-wingers) can have the imaginary right of free reach by way of using property you don’t own against the otherwise voluntary wishes of the platform owners.
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Re: Re: Re:7
That’s how freedom of speech works. People get to address other people and criticize their behavior, even when the targets don’t like it and would prefer the criticism to stop. I don’t understand why you would think otherwise. Oh, wait, yes I do. You’re an idiot.
Re: Re: Re:8
I don’t think otherwise. What I’m doing is calling you out for your promise to endlessly harass people until they comply with your demands for their behavior…and heavily implying (if not outright saying) that such behavior is akin to the behavior of rapists, who—like you—have an issue with people saying “no”.
Re: Re: Re:6
You are asking for it every time you trot out your inane arguments that social media must host speech against their wishes, ie forcing them to do what you want. Do you think we don’t remember what you have said here over and over again? Perhaps you can’t remember what you said because your connection to factual reality is a bit tenous?
What terms? I’m stating exactly what the constitution says, the history behind it and the rights people have because of it. Your inability to accept that other people have rights that you can’t override speaks volumes how you think.
There it is again, “foundational value”. You are indeed incapable of processing factual information even when it is spoon-fed to you.
And why the fuck should they honor anything that relates to what you want? You can’t even honor the wishes of the owner of this site so anytime you trot that argument out you have already shot it down yourself through your behavior here, idiot.
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Re: Re: Re:7
You are free to argue that free speech is not a foundational value of this country despite being considered so important that we could not have had an agreed-upon Constitution without it. You would be right in line with your 1619 Project cronies, I guess. But you may have noticed that your “blame America first” crew is not getting more popular.
Re: Re: Re:8
Does that “foundational value” include the right to demand people host your speech/make others listen even if they don’t want to listen?
Re: Re: Re:8
I’m arguing that what you think is the “foundational value” of this country is some made up shit since you don’t know the history behind the constitution and the 1A. You are arguing from a point of stupidity and ignorance.
Ha ha… You’re still stupid…
Re: Re: Re:6
You are asking for to be allowed restriction to restrict other peoples rights by demanding that platforms allow you to harass those you disagree with to such an extent that they leave the platform, or remain silent on topicd that you attack them over..
Re: Re: Re:4
Freedom of speech must include the abilty of groups to eject and refuse to listen to people. To claoim otherwaise is to abridge the freedom of speech by forcing speech onto people.
Re: Re: Re:5
Yes. The freedom of speech includes both positive and negative rights for speaker, medium and audience.
A speaker has both the right to speak freely and the right to remain silent (free of coerced speech). A medium has the right to publish and the right to refuse. An audience member has the right to listen, and the right to refuse to listen.
No one is owed a platform or audience. To do so is compelled publication and attention, which is antithetical to civil rights.
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Re: Re: Re:6
Correct. A large private generic speech platform should never be compelled by the government to carry any sort of speech. They should respect the foundational value of free speech and choose of their own volition not to censor their users based on viewpoint. If they choose to censor regardless, they should be criticized, urged, shamed, or bought to try to get them to change, but they should never be forced.
Re: Re: Re:7
Isn’t endlessly harassing a platform’s owner to make them change their mind—even after they’ve already made clear that no, they don’t want to become a Nazi bar—just another way of forcing them to change by making them so sick of the harassment that they give in to your demands?
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Re: Re: Re:8
No. It is people exercising their free speech right to criticize a company that is doing harm. Private companies have the right to censor as they wish, but they do not have the right to silence criticism about their actions.
Coming from anyone else, I would say that it is ironic that people calling SubStack a “Nazi bar” would clutch their pearls about a site being criticized for its behavior, but since it’s from you, it’s merely idiotic.
Re: Re: Re:9
How is a ban on pro-Nazi speech doing any harm to anyone but the people who espouse such speech, and what kind of harm would such a ban generate besides forcing those people to fuck off to a platform that actually welcomes them?
But they do have the right to refuse to listen despite your insistence on endlessly harassing them into compliance with your idea of “proper behavior”.
Re: Re: Re:4
[Projects facts contrary to extensive evidence]
Re: Re: Re:4
If you’re in favour of removing people’s right to private property, stop beating around the bush and just say it.
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Re: Re: Re:5
Urging large private generic speech sites not to censor and criticizing them if they do is no more taking away their right to private property than is urging someone to donate money to charity and criticizing them for being niggardly if they don’t. Asking is not compulsion. Criticism is not use of force.
Re: Re: Re:4
Yes…
Yes…
…and you completely lost the script. The Constitution specifically says that “Congress shall make no law…” which only proscribes government control or punishment of speech. If the “you” you’re referring to is not a government entity, the proscription does not apply. And moreso, the government is literally, by the same amendment, proscribed from enforcing your interpretation that private entities don’t have the right not to platform speech they disagree with.
“You and the site’s owner” are not the government. By asserting that they have no right to viewpoint discrimination, you’re denying their right to freedom of speech because it would necessarily require government action to stop them from discriminating, which you’ve admitted to understanding is against the Constitution.
You’re saying you have a right to freedom of speech but others do not have the same right.
“This criminal thinks he’s innocent just because he didn’t actually break the law! Somebody arrest this man!”
One man’s “censorship by private parties” is another man’s freedom of speech in action. Become your own private party and run your own platform. Host your own speech completely uncensored.
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Re: Re: Re:5
As always, you hide behind the legalism of the 1st Amendment and pretend that force is being used to compel speech so that you can say this is not permitted. But large private generic speech platforms should never be forced to host speech they do not want. They should voluntarily choose to honor the free speech of their users, and if they do not, they should be criticized, urged, shamed, or bought, but never forced, to try to get them to change.
Re: Re: Re:6
Freedom of speech is primarily a legal concept. It’s not “hiding behind legalism” to address it in its native medium. Freedom of speech as a philosophical or moral concept has no basis for consensus such that it’s not even worth discussing. You and I can disagree legally and we can take it to a court and have the matter decided. If we disagree on a philosophical or moral basis, there is no possible resolution because there is no objective conclusion. It’s just dueling perspectives with no end. Since you avoid the legal and press the philosophical, you’re admitting that you know the law isn’t on your side, but you want to bully people into your perspective because you feel entitled to their time and energy. Your position is narcissistic. It’s also primarily shared by fascists and disingenuous trolls who don’t “honor” the actual, legal free speech rights of others.
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Re: Re: Re:7
There are many philosophical and moral concepts for which there is no consensus. That’s why we have culture wars. Lack of consensus does not require surrender. People who believe in their version of philosophical and moral concepts should fight for them.
The law, by the way, is completely on my side (or rather, I am on its side); it is a very good thing that our government may not compel private entities to speak in ways they do not wish. But the same law also allows me to criticize others for their behavior even when they do not like such criticism and would like it to stop, and even when the criticized behavior is legal.
Re: Re: Re:8
Not entirely. Some culture wars are just made up bullshit meant to spin up hatred and thus stop people from thinking straight and make them just follow and blindly support authoritarian grifters. Conservative politicians are great at this.
A lot of other culture wars are exactly like what you’re pushing – privileged people who are afraid of losing privilege so they try to enforce arbitrary social and cultural rules that benefit them, but not others. “Know your place!” “You can’t do that!” “Do you know who I am?!?”
It requires you to respect the legal rights of other people, such as their free speech rights not to host your speech or listen to you.
Oh, hell no. Fascists can be said to believe in their version of philosophical and moral concepts. They definitely shouldn’t fight for them.
That’s such a narcissistic take. You should be introspective and rational and question your assumptions.
I love the pivot. Suddenly the legal is relevant only when you find an angle you want to argue. Don’t hide behind the legalism of the 1st Amendment! I hear that’s bad, at least from somebody a few comments upthread.
Re: Re: Re:8
But it does require the accommodation of allowing the opposing point of view to exist, that is live and let live. Your problem is you want to force everybody to share you viewpoints, and you will not accept any divergent views; and that is a Nazi/Fascist/Communist/Taliban/ISIS and other authoritarian approach to ruling society.
Re: Re: Re:
Mike doesn’t “complain” about Nazi bars so much as he points them out for others to take note and avoid. He then renders his personal opinion of those who welcome Nazi’s onto their property. I need not repeat or quote any of his statements.
Now to the real jist of conversations like this:
As Strawb points out, this whole brew-ha-ha is NOT about free speech rights – it NEVER was. It’s about 1A’s fifth clause, the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and that’s all it’s ever been, the right to associate with whomever one might please. For those of you making like poster boys for post-natal abortion ever since #45 came to the fore, the corollary is that you are permitted to deny someone from attempting to associate with you.
If an “owner” of some property deems a person to be an asshole, and does not wish to associate with said asshole, there’s no amount of law the entire land that force that owner to let the asshole onto his property, period. Do notice that no words of any kind ever need to be spoken, it’s all about association, not speech.
All of you “free speech shouldn’t be censored by anybody” clowns are whining because you can’t even read the First Amendment, let alone understand what it says. And the rest of us, those of us who paid attention in school, we do understand what 1A says, and it says in plain language that we can tell you to fuck right off with your happy horseshit.
I think you need to start buying better drugs. Let me suggest carbolic acid, that’ll work wonders for your attitude.
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Re: Re: Re:2
Of course the right to associate with whomever you want was used historically to keep Black people, Jews, Catholics, women, and other distinctive groups out of places where white Protestant men wanted to be only with each other. I doubt you would be any more happy with an unfettered right of association than you are with an unfettered right to speak.
What you want, the way all good little tin-pot dictators do, is to force people to believe, speak, and act the way you want them to. But in a country that has all sorts of freedoms as foundational values, you don’t get to do that.
Re: Re: Re:3
And in re: private clubs and other such not-open-to-the-public places, that’s perfectly fine. The law couldn’t, didn’t, and still can’t legally force Augusta National Golf Club to admit women; that the club later did so of its own accord doesn’t change that fact.
The right of free association is like the right of free religion: You only have that freedom if you have the freedom to say “no”. Yes, there are instances where the right of free association is trumped by the law—but those exceptions are about public spaces and making such spaces open to as many members of the general public as possible.
No, you’re thinking of Christian nationalists.
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Re: Re: Re:4
So you think it’s “perfectly fine” to have a whites-only club, as long as it’s truly private? You really are an idiot. “Fine” and “legal” are not exactly overlapping circles on a Venn diagram.
Re: Re: Re:5
You are aware that your argument doesn’t really make any sense? Right?
Idiot.
Re: Re: Re:5
Legally speaking? Yes. The government should have the same right to forcibly integrate a private club meant only for white people that it should have to forcibly integrate a private club meant only for men: none. (Again: See my Augusta National example.)
Morally speaking? Hell no. Fuck those racists.
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Re: Re: Re:6
Of course you also want the government to forcibly “integrate” women’s bathrooms to allow in men.
Re: Re: Re:7
Yes, yes, you’re on the side of people who want to violently remove trans people from this plane of existence, we get it. The J.K. Rowling book club meetssssss somewhere else, dear.
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Re: Re: Re:8
Again, your mind turns to murder, which you would no doubt like to commit. Keeping men out of women’s bathrooms is not violence, and the woke filth lost the pretense that anything but violence is violence after they celebrated the rape, murder, and kidnapping of Jews on October 7.
Oh, funny thing about Rowling – the Hogwarts Legacy game that I’ve recently completed my first run through has a trans character who talks prominently about being “a witch and not a wizard”, and who wasn’t accepted that way by some fellow Hogwarts students but was by a goblin friend. There are also gay NPCs in the game. The game creators say that Rowling wasn’t involved in its development, although of course she is getting a boatload of money from it given that HL was the best selling game of 2023. Everyone wins, everyone loses! Buy it and support transphobic Rowling or support a game with trans and gay characters. Boycott it and keep a few pence out of Rowling’s pocket or punish a company trying to be inclusive. (The game is pretty, but the gameplay would be better if it didn’t limit your moral choices to only the decision to buy it – the game has no internal morality system and you can Avada Kedavra as much as you like and no one will care.)
Re: Re: Re:9
Don’t whine at me because I see past the glamour of your “genuine concerns” bullshit. You and your TERF allies want to get rid of trans people; alls I’m doing is saying out loud what you and your less extremist allies wouldn’t dare speak.
From what I’ve heard, that representation is about in line with what one might expect from Rowling herself—maybe a little kinder in execution, granted, but still not fully respectful of actual queer people.
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Re: Re: Re:4
That’s it Stephen! Mock those stupid ass imaginary friend believers! Oh shit I’m going to cum!
Re: Re: Re:3
Bigots and assholes aren’t a distinctive group, it’s an amorphous blob of people who are too stupid to learn basic social skills. Plus, another foundational value of the 1A is that people can’t be forced to be associated with bigots and assholes.
I’m not surprised you don’t understand the irony in the above statement. The only one here who try to force people to believe, speak and act in a certain way is you since you have on many occasions said that you have the right to force yourself upon people against their wishes because you think they are wrong. Contrast that to everyone else who says “take your shit elsewhere, you aren’t welcome on my property anymore” which is them asserting their rights, rights that you want gone.
Yeah, like my or others freedom to kick obnoxious people out from private property. A freedom, I might add, you want to infringe on because you want to force yourself and your speech on others. And every time you use that phrase, “foundational values” it tells everyone you have no understanding of the history of the Constitution and the amendments. I can’t wait to see what inane excuse or argument you’ll invent to deny this fact.
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Re: Re: Re:4
The only person who has any property rights in this site is its owner, and he elects not to delete my posts even when I sign in. How he wants to get me to change my behavior is the same way I suggest to get large generic speech platforms to change – urging, criticizing, shaming, and so forth, but not using force. (I hope that buying me is not an option. I suppose he could try bribery.)
Re: Re: Re:5
And what did he tell you? It was something very simple, but since we have established that you are a sociopath that go out your way to harass people I’m not at all surprised you are still here shitting the place up.
Spoken like a sociopath. You think it is about you but it isn’t because it is about everyone else that can post anonymously, and every time you post here and keep up your harassment you increase the risk of Mike saying “fuck it” and forces everyone to sign in to post, ie your shittyness can have the consequence of less free speech. And you can thank every other asshole, bigot, racist or knuckle-dragger for the state of moderation on social media today – because it’s all in response to people like you.
You have an inflated sense of your own worth, nobody will spend a penny on you.
Re: Re: Re:3
Why are you Neo Nazis always such dumb whiny cunts?
Not like we have to worry about your ilk.
Mr “master race” over here, can’t even outfox a spam filter.
Re: Re: Re:
You are like a satanist insisting they should be able to address the congregation in St Peters Basilica. That is you have no sense that what you want to say is not welcome everywhere, but rather insist that people listen to you. You insistence that this site keep your words visible is very much the mark of a Nazi, or other person who thinks that their ideas are right and any disagreement with them is wrong, and they are entitled to force other people to agree with them.
Re: Re: Re:2
St. Peter’s is not a generic speech platform, it is dedicated to the service of a particular religion.
Re: Re: Re:3
“Generic speech platforms” are yet privately owned, which is rather the point. The sidewalk is your public square, “platforms” are not.
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Re: Re: Re:4
Large private generic speech platforms are the public square because that’s where the public now comes to speak on every topic imaginable. The owners of such platforms should respect that and the free speech of their users, and not censor opinions based on viewpoint.
Re: Re: Re:5
They’re still privately owned. Any designation as a “public square” that doesn’t involve those services becoming owned by the government or the general public is irrelevant.
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Re: Re: Re:6
It’s irrelevant in the same way that asking wealthy people to donate to charity is irrelevant, in that it isn’t. With great power should come great responsibility. The large generic speech platforms are the public square, and the owners have a moral obligation to their society to respect the free speech of their users and not censor opinions based on viewpoint. They can choose not to do that, and then will have to face the consequences of what their users might think.
Re: Re: Re:7
No. No, they do not. You’re arguing that, at some nebulous and ill-defined “I’ll know it when I see it” moment, a platform becomes “big enough” that its owners must give up their right of association and their right of free speech so that third parties can use the platform to post speech that would’ve otherwise been banned. Your argument about “moral obligations” is a smokescreen—your real argument is that sites as big as Facebook and Twitter shouldn’t have the right to moderate anything but illegal content. Shit, son, if Elon Musk wanted to do so, he could shut down Twitter right now and all your arguments about “moral obligations” and “public squares” and “viewpoint discrimination” would be pointless because Musk has no moral obligation to keep Twitter running. Such an obligation doesn’t exist because such an obligation is, by its nature, subjective and therefore a matter of one’s own morals and perspectives. You might think you have an obligation to host Nazi speech, but you sure as shit can’t enforce that obligation on Twitter, Facebook, or any other social media service without harassing the owners of those services to a point where you’re probably going to get a visit from federal authorities.
Re: Re: Re:5
…said nobpdy with any capacity to comprehend what “public square” means.
Re: Re: Re:5
Is not related to their ability to post on that platform.
Re: Re: Re:
As the saying goes, it’s important to keep an open mind — but also, not so open that one’s brains fall out.
Re: Re: Re:
There’s no such thing as a generic speech platform.
Re: Re:
But that has always been the case, and at least with the Internet anybody can set up a blog or other site to publish their speech. They also have many more opportunities of publishing comment than they has when that was limited to letters to the editor.
Also note that the old ways of spreading speech, and sharing ideas based on phone calls, letters and direct conversions still exist. The anti-war and hippy movements did not have the advantages of the modern era, with all phones being fixed lines yet managed to have global conversations.
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Re: Re: Re:
The places where people set themselves up to speak on the internet are the large generic speech platforms, because that’s where everyone is. It’s the false friends of free speech like the site owner who hate the fact that when those people do that, they actually have an audience who listens to them and likes them.
Re: Re: Re:2
Your freedom of speech includes your ability to set up you own blog and attract an audience, it does not grant you the right to try and turn somebody else’s blog into your platform. You are not demanding the freedom of speech, you are demanding that people listen to you whether they want tor not.
Re: Re: Re:3
Why do you think he invented phrases like “large generic speech platforms” and “foundational values”? It’s just a way to hid his true argument: “I demand the use of other peoples property against their wishes and a captive audience that must be forced to listen to what I say!”.
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Re: Re: Re:3
No. Asking that opinions not be censored because of viewpoint is not demanding that other people listen to them. It is asking that such opinions not be removed so that other people who want to listen to them can. It is the censors who are afraid that people want to listen to these opinions, and want to make that impossible.
Re: Re: Re:4
…unless you endlessly harass the people “censoring” those opinions into compliance with your demands for their behavior.
If Twitter wants to ban pro-Nazi speech, there are plenty of places on the Internet for people to find that speech besides Twitter. Twitter has no obligation to keep those opinions on that platform; to suggest otherwise is to demand the right of free reach become a legal certainty instead of a pipe dream of dipshits.
Re: Re: Re:2 If A, then B, which leads to C... Ummm, wait a minute
… an audience that likes them so much, that it quickly and reliably down-votes them to “hidden” status oblivion?
It would appear that you’ve been so busy arguing your “position”, that you haven’t actually bothered to think about it first.
Re: Re: Re:3
As stand-up comics know, you have the right to free speech but the obligation to read the room.
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Re: Re: Re:3
The TechDirt comment section is populated almost entirely by a crew of woke ideologues. I do not expect to make any headway into those people’s opinions, and I post here because it’s fun.
The same is not true for the large private generic speech platforms. Those have a large number of people who believe the opposite of woke ideology and are happy to see such viewpoints expressed. The platforms, meanwhile, are staffed by people whose ideology is similar to the TechDirt commenters, and they hate the fact that so many of their users don’t believe as they do, and are happy to censor such viewpoints.
Re: Re: Re:4
…hallucinated no human, ever.
Re:
Bitch please.
People flag you because you add nothing to the experience and shockingly your posts are still there for people to see & decide if you actually are a fuckwit that is best ignored.
Moderation queue… oooh scary.
I guess you never noticed that I bitch about hitting moderation a lot so if it was a secret plot why would they subject their pet sociopath to it?
“lost posts”
oooh spooky…. welcome to the moderation queue & given the stupidity you’ve manage to spew so far I can see why it might be a hard call if your posts are spam or not.
“while having large private generic speech platforms performing the same censorship is fine.”
Allow me to insert the common refrain that you seem to have missed, if you show up at someones home, hop up on the dinner table, & take a dump they can throw you out & not ever let you return. You do not have a right to say how people can run their own places or cry because they decided you being a bitchy crybaby isn’t something they want in their place.
Perhaps if you read the 1st Amendment rather than just assume what brain trusts like the 3 toed sloth MTG claims is a violation of her 1st Amendment rights is accurate.
(The video of her screeching at Twitter execs violating her 1st Amendment rights goes here)
BTW if you hate it here so much, why do you keep posting?
Imma guessing you also enjoy pissing into the wind.
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Re: Re:
And yet you, like a trained seal, still engage and reply to them! 🤣
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Re: Re:
As I said, it’s low-grade harassment, extremely ineffective except for letting people peck at the flag button like pigeons getting their cocaine fix. It’s not a “secret plot”, it’s just the site owner’s way of pretending to support free speech but hoping that he can annoy the people speaking enough so they’ll leave.
Once upon a time, people also thought there was nothing wrong with ejecting people from restaurants because their skin was the wrong color. People have the right to do certain things, but that doesn’t mean it’s right to do them.
The 1st Amendment is irrelevant to users of large private generic speech platforms, because the owners hold all the rights. The users do not have free speech rights on those platforms. But because freedom of speech is a foundational value of the United States, those sites should respect the free speech of their users even though the 1st Amendment allows the owners to censor as they wish.
I like posting here because telling wrong people they’re wrong is endlessly entertaining, especially when they persist in being wrong in exactly the same ways.
Re: Re: Re:
We get it, you despise free speech and project your delusional illness onto us.
Re: Re: Re:
Go ahead and keep trying that DARVO shit—but like trying to buy a Ferrari with Monopoly money, that trick won’t work here.
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Re: Re: Re:
What’s (almost) amazing is that your sober, moderate, insightful comment (above) has already been flagged and hidden!! 😮
Re: Re: Re:2
…said nobody mentally competent, ever.
Re: Re: Re:2
You ever hear of sealioning?
Re: Re: Re:
Then what do you call what you do? Pot, meet kettle.
Seriously, if you call that opposition to free speech, you’re no better.
You’ve got things backwards. You insist in being wrong in exactly the same ways. And even when you’re right (or at least stating a valid opinion), you do a terrible job at arguing those points, so most people won’t be swayed into agreeing with you unless they already did beforehand.
If you want those “large, generic platforms” to do as you wish, you should really get better at persuading people rather than just repeating the same things over and over again.
Re: Re:
“Lost posts”
i think he means the double and other multiple posts, because he always prematurely wets his pants.
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Re:
Exactly. I’ve been a victim of this TD speech suppression as well.
I’m an American Patriot, but the site owner is a degenerate commie, so much of my pro-USA, pro-police, anti-Bolshevik, tech-adjacent commentary is never published (…especially the pro-police stuff. Cushing is a notorious censor of his own audience).
Re: Re:
Sorry Herman I stand corrected. This here jagoff is apparently the Moe to you and blue balls Larry and Curley.
Re: Re:
…said no human, ever.
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Re: Re: WHo Does the Censoring?
I’ve wondered about this. Does each TechDirt writer censor the comments on their own posts, or is there a distributed and consolidated censorship mechanism?
Re: Re: Re:
There is no censorship. But for the record: While Techdirt admins can hide/delete comments, comments are generally hidden by enough users flagging a post for being abusive/trolling/spam. In my experience, mere disagreement with a point raised by either commenters or Techdirt articles isn’t enough to warrant a flagging. That tends to happen to outright spam, posters who argue in bad faith, and people who do troll schticks like the asshole who does the “I’m an ultra-leftist, kill all the cishets and white people” bit and the asshole who does the “I’m an ultra-rightist, kill all the marginalized people” bit (who I’m relatively sure are both the same asshole).
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Re: Re: Re:2
You. Are. Deranged.
All of the replies on this discussion that denounce TD’s suppression of anti-regime commentary have been flagged! And even a post pointing out the absurdity of a particularly sober and rational comment having been flagged has itself been hidden!
Re: Re: Re:3
Many who read TD seems to have a finely tuned bullshit detector which results in them flagging such content. That you can’t discern what is bullshit and “sober and rational” is entirely a problem people like you have, ie a severe lack of social skills.
Re: Re: Re:3
Nobody else suffers from those deranged hallucinations you do.
The things you claim to see don’t exist back out here in the real world.
Re: Re: Re:3
If you don’t like the company you keep you can always leave bro.
Re: Re: Re:3
Who is deranged here again? It sure isn’t Stephen.
Dude, TD isn’t suppressing anyone. The users are the ones hiding comments. Most users are aware of this, and you were literally just told this.
So yes, comments that repeat the same easily debunked claim are getting hidden. That doesn’t mean that mere disagreement is enough to get hidden; it has to be particularly dumb disagreement or something else to be worth flagging by most.
I’ve seen several cases in other articles where there are posts that disagree with TD’s “narrative” that never got hidden. They’re just more reasonable than you are.
It wasn’t a rational comment. Just because it made sense to you doesn’t make it rational. And being sober isn’t enough, though it can help. Ever heard of sealioning? Even sober posts can be trolling, irrational, and/or absurd.
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Re: Re: Re:
While I’m not an Insider, so I can’t say with absolute confidence, but I’m almost certain that the option exists for each TD columnist to moderate their own comments. Anecdotally, 1 out of 4 of the comments I submit “anonymously” to TC’s posts are published, whereas site-wide I’d estimate a 3/4 success rate (including sincere, heartfelt suggestions that the entire “transgender” population in America be literally liquidated).
Re: Re: Re:2
Well, you know… Truth Social is not exactly representative.
Re: Re: Re:2
Just because you’re sincere and heartfelt in your nonsense doesn’t make it not nonsense. Calling for an entire demographic to be “liquidated” (which is incorrect use of the term; you mean “killed”) is bad enough for reasonable people to decide it shouldn’t be published. Many on the right and many transphobes think that that’s way too far.
Also, what you’re talking about is the moderation queue and filter. It has nothing to do with what posts get hidden/flagged.
Re: Re: Re:
All “censorship” on techdirt exists solely in the delusional hallucinations of the mentally ill.
The mechanism therefore is whatever psychoative drugs one falsely claiming to see it is on.
Re:
That’s because private companies deciding what speech they want to host is their free speech, and it trumps whatever bullshit you have to say.
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Re: Re:
Just because large private generic speech platforms are allowed to censor as they wish does not mean that they should. Not everything that is legal is right, and not everything that is wrong is illegal.
No one is required to give charity, for example, but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t.
Re: Re: Re:
Nobody cognitively functional says “large generic speech platforms censor.”
Re: Re: Re:
Yes, yes, you think every social media site should make itself a Nazi bar, we get it.
Re: Re: Re:
Woah! Stop right there, asshole! Who died and elected you to tell other people how to spend their money? You may not’ve said “you will”, but you sure as hell implied it, laying out a guilt trip that would shame a grandmother. You come around here again with that shit, and I’ll start flagging you automatically and continuously. You’ve been warned.
Re: Re: Re:
This is true. It just doesn’t address the fact that you are asking platforms to voluntarily give up their free speech in order to not impede the free speech of others. What was being pointed out to you is that moderating their own platforms is itself an exercise of the owner’s free speech. You don’t even try to answer that.
Strawb said nothing about legality or the Constitution. You have simply decided that only you (or people who agree with you) can distinguish between the legal concept of free speech and the moral/philosophical notion of free speech, and so you don’t extend that courtesy to anyone else.
Re:
Pot, meet kettle.
Do you not understand the difference between a platform and its users? TechDirt doesn’t flag people; its users do.
The alternatives to which are either no moderation whatsoever (including of spam) or no comments (or at least no anonymous comments). This isn’t a large site that can wade through the entire backlog of comments in the moderation queues all that quickly. They don’t have the human capital to do such a thing. It’s going to take time. Learn some patience.
Also, in no way is that harassment.
The site owner does not believe that it’s “fine”; just an exercise of the platform owners’ free speech. Also, it’s not just preventing the government from censoring opinions based on viewpoint but from censoring facts or content in general.
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Re: Re:
TechDirt provides the flagging mechanism, which is mostly used by the users to target viewpoints they don’t like, in a useless way since those posts get the most responses regardless of flagging.
When I comment while signed-in, my posts get held up in the moderation queues an order of magnitude longer than if I post anonymously. That’s the low-grade harassment I mean.
When the site owner sees SubStack enabling the free speech of its users, he goes off on diatribes. That’s not the attitude of someone who values free speech, it’s the attitude of someone who poses as a believer in free speech but wants other people to rid him of those meddlesome speakers.
Re: Re: Re:
Cry more, asshole. It still doesn’t make your DARVO shit any more effective, and it sure as hell doesn’t help you beat the accusations of wanting to force websites into becoming Nazi bars.
Re: Re: Re:
Curious how you can provide zero real-world examples of anything resembling your mentally ill delusions.
Re: Re: Re:
Dude. Why do you keep lying? I did not go off on any diatribe, and I have no issues with Substack deciding to host whatever it hosts. I merely pointed out that its decisions have consequences, and it should be cognizant of what they are. I’m all for Substack to host whatever it wants, just as I’m all for its competitors to host whatever they want, or for people to set up their own sites and say whatever they want.
It perplexes me to no end that you continually lie about me and my views.
It’s almost as if you HAVE to lie in order to convince yourself that you have a point, when all you seem to have is a near total ignorance of what free speech means.
Re: Re: Re:
Hey Hyman.
Mike has expressly told you to behave or fuck off.
Since you have chosen to HARASS Mike, don’t pretend you’re a fucking victim.
You have NEVER BEEN AND NEVER WILL BE A VICTIM OF CENSORSHIP.
Since you’re the one doing the harassment, you ARE VIOLATING MIKE’S RIGHT TO NOT ASSOCIATE WITH YOU. We generally arrest people who harass others in real life, you know.
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Re: Re: Re:2
I love you too.
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Re: Re: Re:2
The site owner chooses not to delete my posts even when I sign in. He hopes that by yelling, screaming, and cursing at me, and sending my signed-in posts to long moderation delays, I will become frustrated enough to leave, and then he can maintain his illusions about himself as supporting free speech while having harassed someone whose viewpoints he hates into silence.
That’s fine with me, as it’s not going to work. I am not a “victim of censorship” here, since most of my posts do appear. When I complain about large private generic speech platforms engaging in viewpoint-based censorship, it’s usually about speakers with much higher profiles than mine, such as The Babylon Bee or Donald Trump.
Re: Re: Re:3
Hyman, we get it, you’re a fucking Nazi.
Seek help. Help that directly injects itself into your fucking head.
Re: Re: Re:4
Ivermectin?
Re: Re: Re:3
Remind me: Doesn’t the Babylon Bee have an entire-ass website of its own, and isn’t Donald Trump such a public figure that he could literally call a press conference to fart into a microphone and get national news coverage? Because that doesn’t sound like “censorship” to me, but hey, I’m not a TERF who also defends child porn (and child rape by extension).
Re: Re: Re:3
What’s actually happening is you take too much meth and it’s giving uou paranoid hallucinations of things that have never once happened in the real world.
You can show not a single instance of censorship on Techdirt, or viewpoint-based censorship of the babylon bee or trump because such thigs exclusively exist only within the delusiins of the mentally ill.
Your gaslighting doesn’t work here where you’re the dumbest person in the room.
Re: Re: Re:
Techdirt doesn’t decide how it gets used, so it’s not Techdirt using it to engage in “low-grade harassment”.
Still not harassment. That’s just choosing to prioritize anonymous posts over yours. That’s not harassment.
Over their refusal to acknowledge it and their hypocrisy. They were giving literal Nazis money and ignoring any criticisms of that fact or lying about it. They also were ignoring the fact that their own ToS said that those Nazis should be removed. (Also, SubStack was enabling the free speech of some of its users; others were being moderated for ToS violations, but literal Nazis were allowed to get away with violating those ToS.)
Maybe not what you think “free speech” means, but then we all know that your notion of that differs from most people’s, even ignoring the legal vs moral aspect of it. Mike has pointed out multiple times that he singled out SubStack because of their refusal to own up to what it was they were doing, not simply for enabling the free speech of literal Nazis. He also pointed out how this would be bad from a business perspective.
Re: Re: Re:2
Or.
Mile has expressly told this Nazi simp to stop being a homophobic, transphobic asshole several times and instead of, you know, stopping, Hyman Rosen has chosen instead to abuse anonymous posting in order to engage in a low-grade harassment campaign.
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Re: Re: Re:3
Telling someone what viewpoints they should not state and to not speak at all is precisely the action of an enemy of free speech, which is what the site owner is.
If you would like me to post under my own name rather than anonymously, get the site owner not to send my signed-in posts to moderation queues where they face long delays.
Re: Re: Re:4
If you come to my house and I tell you not to shittalk my family while you’re in my house, does that make me an enemy of free speech, or do the rules suddenly change when we’re talking about meatspace?
Re: Re: Re:4
That has nothing to do with the site-owner and everything to do with your posting habits.
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Re: Re: Re:5
The site owner can choose not to send my posts to moderation queues. He wants to engage in low-grade harassment in the hope that I will leave voluntarily, so that he can maintain his posture of claiming to believe in free speech.
There is no question that he has specifically targeted me for this; I believe he has said so explicitly, and in any case, when I am signed in, it can take days for my comments to appear. He really, really does not like to hear that men can never be women and that people should not be allowed to force their way into single-sex spaces for which their bodies disqualify them.
Re: Re: Re:6
Now is a good time to remind you that you’re the one harassing Techdirt, since Mike (and a lot of other people) have made clear that you’re not wanted around here. You were sent a message by having your comments sent to moderation while you were logged in; that you didn’t get the message is, I assume, an issue you also have with people telling you “no” in meatspace. But sure, keep doing that DARVO shit—maybe it might work on one of your sockpuppets.
Re: Re: Re:6
Spam being filtered appropriately as spam isn’t censorship, no matter how many conspiracies you hallucinate.
Re: Re: Re:4
No, Hyman, I don’t particularly care about your harassment campaign against Mike just because you were told the rules and chose not to comply.
And I’d prefer you take a long walk off a short pier, right after you inject some help directly into your fucking head.
If you can’t behave, fuck off to somewhere else.
Besides, since you hate public property so much, why don’t you let me or Stephen come in and insult you about how your Nazi/Zionist simping is going to hurt the Jews? Or would you like me to wander in and say things you find offensive?
Re: Re: Re:4
Mike is not the government, and this is his site, his rules. If you can’t handle being corrected, that’s on you, not on any of us.
This is coming from someone who KNOWS exactly how censorship is being conducted. You clearly don’t know jack fucking shit, Hyman.
Hyman. You have been warned multiple times by the owner to cut it out or fuck off.
You are the kind of people that force the rest of us to make shared banlists.
This has NOTHING to do with the First Amendment. It has everything to do with YOU being banned from those fine “conservative” wateringholes and getting moderated for your frankly abusive speech.
Did YOU also do the same thing in those fine “conservative” wateringholes as well? It’s very likely you did as well.
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Re: Re: Re:5
Yes, I did the same there, correcting wrong people just as I do here. The issues were different, naturally.
A lot of atheism-related stuff, including arguing against people who claimed that AI could never achieve consciousness because souls.
Some arguments over the Sad Puppy kerfuffle over the Hugo awards a few years ago. Believe it or not, I was on the side of the SJWs because I didn’t like the attempt to game the awards with slates. It did turn out that the Puppies were right about the woke takeover of science-fiction publishing, but I still would not have voted differently – I voted for the anti-slating E Pluribus Hugo algorithm at the WSFS business meeting of MidAmericon II.
Re: Re: Re:6
It’s honestly kind of pathetic that even when you make points that people can agree with, you phrase them in the most off-putting ways to make sure no one would ever want to agree with you just to avoid being on the same side as someone who uses “woke” and “SJWs”. It’s like you actively try to drive everyone else away from you because you’re too afraid of becoming “woke” or some shit.
Re: Re: Re:6
I give absolutely zero fucks about your personal preferences, but thanks for confirming what I suspected: that you were harassing those fine “conservative” communities as well.
You seem to don’t want to learn, do you, Hyman.
Re: Have you tried not being a hateful spammy bigot?
Herman, the only two people I’ve ever seen brag about losing to a spam filter are you and blue balls.
Re:
…hallucinated nobody mentally competent, ever.
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Re:
lol cry moar straight white trash
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The best part about Techdirt is when Stephen T Stone says “IT’S STEPHEN T STONING TIME” and Stephen T Stones all over the place.
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This is so delusional, yet pathetic (and funny!).
As if the Great Elon Musk would ever care about a podunk little blog (w/ a terrible UI) like TechDirt!! 😂
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Elon is absolutely that petty.
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Word.
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And he has his scouts out scouring the web for people saying mean things about him. That’s also Word.
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Re: You put the wrong sentence first bro.
“This is so delusional, yet pathetic (and funny!).
As if the Great Elon Musk would ever care about a podunk little blog (w/ a terrible UI) like TechDirt!! 😂”
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Hmmm, I think I like that idea. I think we should all call it GEM (Great Elon Musk). Should easily be seen how that is derogatory and/or sarcastic.
IQ is kinda bullshit, though.