• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

The Leftist Tyranny of Twitter

Jack Hays

Traveler
Banned
DP Veteran
Joined
Jan 28, 2013
Messages
94,823
Reaction score
28,342
Location
Williamsburg, Virginia
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Independent
Here's a pretty clear example. If you're Jewish and right-of-center Twitter will ban you. If you're on the left and prone to hateful pronouncements you get promoted and praised.

Why Is Sarah Jeong on Twitter and Not Laura Loomer?
Michelle Malkin, Townhall
This is a tale of two young, outspoken women in media.
One is a liberal tech writer. The other is an enterprising conservative new media reporter. One has achieved meteoric success and now works at a top American newspaper. The other has been de-platformed and marginalized. Their wildly different fates tell you everything you need to know about Silicon Valley's free speech double standards.
Some smug elites will downplay Twitter's disparate treatment of these users by arguing that private tech corporations can do whatever they want and that no First Amendment issues have been raised. But this battle is about much more than free speech rights. It's about whether the high-and-mighty progressives who monopolize global social media platforms truly believe in nurturing a free speech culture.
By punishing politically incorrect speech and making punitive examples of free thinkers, tech titans are enforcing their own authoritarian version of Silicon Valley sharia -- a set of both written and unwritten codes constricting expressions of acceptable thought in the name of "safety" and "civility.". . . .
 
Here's a pretty clear example. If you're Jewish and right-of-center Twitter will ban you. If you're on the left and prone to hateful pronouncements you get promoted and praised.

Why Is Sarah Jeong on Twitter and Not Laura Loomer?
Michelle Malkin, Townhall
This is a tale of two young, outspoken women in media.
One is a liberal tech writer. The other is an enterprising conservative new media reporter. One has achieved meteoric success and now works at a top American newspaper. The other has been de-platformed and marginalized. Their wildly different fates tell you everything you need to know about Silicon Valley's free speech double standards.
Some smug elites will downplay Twitter's disparate treatment of these users by arguing that private tech corporations can do whatever they want and that no First Amendment issues have been raised. But this battle is about much more than free speech rights. It's about whether the high-and-mighty progressives who monopolize global social media platforms truly believe in nurturing a free speech culture.
By punishing politically incorrect speech and making punitive examples of free thinkers, tech titans are enforcing their own authoritarian version of Silicon Valley sharia -- a set of both written and unwritten codes constricting expressions of acceptable thought in the name of "safety" and "civility.". . . .

Considering that most of what we hear from the White House is via Twitter, your point falls completely flat.
 
Considering that most of what we hear from the White House is via Twitter, your point falls completely flat.

I did not realize deference to the WH invalidates the rights of the rest of us. When did that happen?
 
It's twitter. It's always been trash. Why people put so much faith in social "media", I'll never know.

Fox or someone can make their own conservative variant of twitter. It's be just as big a steaming pile of poo and nonsense, but it can be done.
 
I did not realize deference to the WH invalidates the rights of the rest of us. When did that happen?

No rights here have been violated. The article you cited very specifically questioned culture, not rights.
 
No rights here have been violated. The article you cited very specifically questioned culture, not rights.

The OP's conclusion:

Every day that blue check marked hate-monger Sarah Jeong gets to tweet while Laura Loomer remains silenced reminds us of how powerful social media conglomerates have rigged the free speech playing field. It's no fantasy. It's a nightmare.
 
I did not realize deference to the WH invalidates the rights of the rest of us. When did that happen?

If they were as anti-right as you'd like to paint it, Trump would have been banned by now.
 
The OP's conclusion:

Every day that blue check marked hate-monger Sarah Jeong gets to tweet while Laura Loomer remains silenced reminds us of how powerful social media conglomerates have rigged the free speech playing field. It's no fantasy. It's a nightmare.

It's not free speech infringement. It may be dumb, it may be unfair, but it's not an infringement of free speech.
 
It is a rigged playing field, as described.

It's not a "rigged free speech playing field" as described because it doesn't have anything to do with the rights of free speech. There's nothing stopping anyone from making a conservative-leaning variant of twitter.
 
Here's a pretty clear example. If you're Jewish and right-of-center Twitter will ban you. If you're on the left and prone to hateful pronouncements you get promoted and praised.

Why Is Sarah Jeong on Twitter and Not Laura Loomer?
Michelle Malkin, Townhall
This is a tale of two young, outspoken women in media.
One is a liberal tech writer. The other is an enterprising conservative new media reporter. One has achieved meteoric success and now works at a top American newspaper. The other has been de-platformed and marginalized. Their wildly different fates tell you everything you need to know about Silicon Valley's free speech double standards.
Some smug elites will downplay Twitter's disparate treatment of these users by arguing that private tech corporations can do whatever they want and that no First Amendment issues have been raised. But this battle is about much more than free speech rights. It's about whether the high-and-mighty progressives who monopolize global social media platforms truly believe in nurturing a free speech culture.
By punishing politically incorrect speech and making punitive examples of free thinkers, tech titans are enforcing their own authoritarian version of Silicon Valley sharia -- a set of both written and unwritten codes constricting expressions of acceptable thought in the name of "safety" and "civility.". . . .

So because some one can actually follow the rules Twitter has, it is leftist tyranny? Your argument is that rightists cannot manage to follow simple rules?
 
It's not a "rigged free speech playing field" as described because it doesn't have anything to do with the rights of free speech. There's nothing stopping anyone from making a conservative-leaning variant of twitter.

Sure. There's nothing stopping anyone from rounding up capital and founding a new company.:roll:
Reminds me of the old claim about hunger: both rich and poor have the same right to pick through garbage for scraps.
Your objection is silly.
 
So because some one can actually follow the rules Twitter has, it is leftist tyranny? Your argument is that rightists cannot manage to follow simple rules?

On the contrary. The objection is that the rules apply unevenly.
 
If they were as anti-right as you'd like to paint it, Trump would have been banned by now.

Oh, they would ban Trump if they thought they could weather the backlash.
 
Sure. There's nothing stopping anyone from rounding up capital and founding a new company.:roll:
Reminds me of the old claim about hunger: both rich and poor have the same right to pick through garbage for scraps.
Your objection is silly.

It's just an internet shouting post. If there's demand, you can make it. Is that not America? You can round up capital if you want. I mean, it's easier to play victim, sure. But it's not impossible for some conservative group to make their own variant of twitter.

Or one can just sit around, doing nothing but bitching, and pretending it's a free speech issue when it's not.
 
It's just an internet shouting post. If there's demand, you can make it. Is that not America? You can round up capital if you want. I mean, it's easier to play victim, sure. But it's not impossible for some conservative group to make their own variant of twitter.

Or one can just sit around, doing nothing but bitching, and pretending it's a free speech issue when it's not.

It should not be necessary to establish a new company to be treated fairly in a communications sphere based on public airwaves.
 
It should not be necessary to establish a new company to be treated fairly in a communications sphere based on public airwaves.

Well it's private, so there's that. Which is why it's not a free speech issue.
 
On the contrary. The objection is that the rules apply unevenly.

Here is the rule: https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/hateful-conduct-policy

Let me quote from it:

References to mass murder, violent events, or specific means of violence where protected groups have been the primary targets or victims
We prohibit targeting individuals with content that references forms of violence or violent events where a protected category was the primary target or victims, where the intent is to harass. This includes, but is not limited to sending someone:

media that depicts victims of the Holocaust;
media that depicts lynchings.

Inciting fear about a protected category
We prohibit targeting individuals with content intended to incite fear or spread fearful stereotypes about a protected category, including asserting that members of a protected category are more likely to take part in dangerous or illegal activities, e.g., “all [religious group] are terrorists”.

Loomer tweet clearly violates at least the first, and potentially the second part of what I quoted. Can you show where Jeong tweeted something that violated that rule? I hate to have to teach people how to think(rule 1: don't go to other people to do your thinking for you, especially nutbag editorial writers), but that is the minimum you have to do to show bias in this case, something your editorial source did not do(notice it did not even quote the rule violated, which you would think would be of primary importance).
 


On the vital necessity of free speech and the idea of the right to free speech in the broadest possible historical context.

Quite interesting.
 
If you're right of center and Jewish you get banned from Twitter for no reason?

I guess that explains why Jacob Wohl was banned from Twitter. Oh wait....
 
It's just an internet shouting post. If there's demand, you can make it. Is that not America? You can round up capital if you want. I mean, it's easier to play victim, sure. But it's not impossible for some conservative group to make their own variant of twitter.

Or one can just sit around, doing nothing but bitching, and pretending it's a free speech issue when it's not.

As has been pointed out, it's not a legal free speech issue, but it's problematic for free speech culture, which Twitter itself claims to cherish:

We believe in free expression and think every voice has the power to impact the world.

https://about.twitter.com/en_us/values.html

Which is the actual criticism against them. Pointing to the First Amendment doesn't absolve them of not living up to what they say they're about.
 
It is a rigged playing field, as described.
If it's a rigged playing field, Twitter would have shutdown Trump's account in 2015.

There are throngs of vile conservative of Twitter who are allowed to spew their bile, so just stop with the "Twitter is censoring us!" nonsense.
 
As has been pointed out, it's not a legal free speech issue, but it's problematic for free speech culture, which Twitter itself claims to cherish:



https://about.twitter.com/en_us/values.html

Which is the actual criticism against them. Pointing to the First Amendment doesn't absolve them of not living up to what they say they're about.

Oh noes! Someone didn't live up to the propaganda they spew. Should we be upset that places like Fox News are not particularly fair or balanced? Take Twitter to court if you think you can make a case then. But Twitter is just a cesspool of stupidity and people believing they are more important then they actually are, so I don't know how far you'd get.
 
As has been pointed out, it's not a legal free speech issue, but it's problematic for free speech culture, which Twitter itself claims to cherish:



https://about.twitter.com/en_us/values.html

Which is the actual criticism against them. Pointing to the First Amendment doesn't absolve them of not living up to what they say they're about.
One can be about the promotion of free expression while holding people to standards of what is acceptable discourse.

Obviously, they have other rules against racial slurs, sexual material, hate speech, and whatnot, and they free to impose those rules at their discretion. If you don't like it, you can create your own forum.
 
Back
Top Bottom