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I'll be honest -- I haven't really seen any cases where someone was deplatformed for a legitimate political view. By that I mean a viewpoint that is at least t

I'll be honest -- I haven't really seen any cases where someone was deplatformed for a legitimate political view. By that I mean a viewpoint that is at least tolerant, if nothing else. If the argument against deplatforming is that people should be allowed to heap hatred on gay people or other minorities, then it's not a particularly strong argument. Maybe this is just inherent to a conservative viewpoint, I don't know. If progressives are pushing for more freedom, more tolerance, then to oppose it you have to, by definition, advocate for less of those. I like a spirited discussion, but I believe that intolerance is the one single thing we cannot tolerate. It destroys everything else.

lr4444lr 6y ago
Were you not here when the James Damore debacle happened? And he was hardly expressing a political PoV, just trying to marshall some data on good faith to respond to his company's solicitation for ideas people had to solve a tough problem.
- patmorgan23 6y ago
  And he advocated for policies that would tangibly make the workplace better and more equal like allowing for flex days and for employees to go part time during maturity/paternity leave.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  The Google engineer, right? I try not to read too much into company politics. Even at a relatively large company it can get very personal. AFAIK he wasn't really deplatformed anyway, he was fired. It seems that the NLRB decided the firing was proper. That's the sum total of my knowledge, and at first glance I don't think it's a good comparison with the larger discussion about deplatforming on public services.
  - manfredo 6y ago
    I'd consider getting fired a much more serious form of ostracism than deplatforming. Getting banned from Twitter doesn't affect your ability to pay rent. I personally put the blame for his firing more on the blatantly distorted and sometimes even outright counterfactual coverage of his message. The number of mainstream and well respected outlets that falsely claimed he wrote that women are biologically less capable engineers, rather than that they lower predilection to enter the field , was disturbing. After his memo Google announced that they wouldn't set quotas for groups beyond the demographic's representation in the field. The people I know at Google felt that the reaction was overblown.
macinjosh 6y ago
You get to decide what a ‘legitimate political view’ is? That’s rich. This is so tone deaf.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  I see you got no further than 'legitimate political view' and then immediately decided to reply. Read the whole comment before replying, please. And go ahead, disagree with my definition -- I was pretty clear. Convince me that intolerance should in fact be tolerated; that it will not destroy a tolerant society. Why is it that conservatives consider intolerance to be their right above everyone else?
incompatible 6y ago
Left wing groups were banned by Facebook too. As far as I know they didn't heap hatred on minorities, unless you include fascists as a minority. https://boingboing.net/2020/08/21/citing-violence-facebook.html https://boingboing.net/2020/08/21/citing-violence-facebook.h...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
arminiusreturns 6y ago
I have seen it quite a bit over the last year in particular. Are the views being expressed popular? No. Are they "legitimate"? Yes. (what ever in the world that is supposed to mean, outside of being unlawful I would consider all speech legitimate even if I disagree with it, but not many people seem to like Voltaire these days I suppose.) I'm very disappointed that the rhetoric has devolved into "but they all deserved it so it's ok"... your filter bubble is showing.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  > what ever in the world that is supposed to mean I defined it. Intolerance is not a legitimate viewpoint. It is not the expression of an idea, but the suppression of someone else's. I think I was pretty clear, I consider intolerance the one viewpoint we cannot tolerate. Everything else is fair game.
  - arminiusreturns 6y ago
    My point is that you are then deigning someone to have the power to decide what is tolerant and what is not, when that is not nearly as acceptable or uncontroversial as you seem to be assuming. For example: > If progressives are pushing for more freedom, more tolerance, then to oppose it you have to, by definition, advocate for less of those. The framing of this is not correct. The problem is that not all "progressives" are pushing for that, which then undermines the assumption that opposition is therefor automatically intolerant and therefor automatically bannable/deplatformable. Some of the real progressives I follow such as Graham Elwood and Jimmy Dore have frequently had issues with their platforms giving them a hard time (demonteizing, etc) just because their positions or even topics of conversation are controversial, and many of them frequently mention they wouldn't be surprised to be deplatformed for said reason. To me, the real crux of your position, is that by completely bucking the standard of free speech in which we have legal definitions for speech that isn't tolerable, positions like yours seem to want to expand those definitions (libel, defamation, imminent incitement to violence, etc) to a point that you must now designate some non-legal entitiy as the moral arbiter of what is intolerant/tolerable, and that is indeed a most slippery slope. I think I have rewatched these two videos of Christopher Hitchens on the topic a good half dozen times each in the last year, and I keep thinking about their content. [1,2] From [2], I will link the timestamp of what I am about to quote [3]: "Whose going to decide? ... Who will you appoint? Who will be the one who says, "I know exactly where the limit should be, I know how far you can go, and I know when you've gone too far, and I'll decide that" Who do you think, Who do you know, who have you heard of, who have you read about in history who you would give that job?... Not for you, but for the people you are listening to and the peoples whose comments you hope to hear in return, for your own education, for your own elightenment, and for your own elucidation, as Mr. Paine says, commenting on Milton, one of the vices of those who would repress the opinions of others is they make themselves prisoners of their own opinions, because they deprive themselves of the means of changing them." 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2uzEM0ugY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2uzEM0ugY 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjhj9Hn8oQw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjhj9Hn8oQw 3. https://youtu.be/Tjhj9Hn8oQw?t=2590 https://youtu.be/Tjhj9Hn8oQw?t=2590
jolincost 6y ago
You're not being honest. Abusing meaning of word legitimate

lr4444lr 6y ago

Were you not here when the James Damore debacle happened? And he was hardly expressing a political PoV, just trying to marshall some data on good faith to respond to his company's solicitation for ideas people had to solve a tough problem.

patmorgan23 6y ago
And he advocated for policies that would tangibly make the workplace better and more equal like allowing for flex days and for employees to go part time during maturity/paternity leave.
rootusrootus 6y ago
The Google engineer, right? I try not to read too much into company politics. Even at a relatively large company it can get very personal. AFAIK he wasn't really deplatformed anyway, he was fired. It seems that the NLRB decided the firing was proper. That's the sum total of my knowledge, and at first glance I don't think it's a good comparison with the larger discussion about deplatforming on public services.
- manfredo 6y ago
  I'd consider getting fired a much more serious form of ostracism than deplatforming. Getting banned from Twitter doesn't affect your ability to pay rent. I personally put the blame for his firing more on the blatantly distorted and sometimes even outright counterfactual coverage of his message. The number of mainstream and well respected outlets that falsely claimed he wrote that women are biologically less capable engineers, rather than that they lower predilection to enter the field , was disturbing. After his memo Google announced that they wouldn't set quotas for groups beyond the demographic's representation in the field. The people I know at Google felt that the reaction was overblown.

macinjosh 6y ago

You get to decide what a ‘legitimate political view’ is? That’s rich. This is so tone deaf.

rootusrootus 6y ago
I see you got no further than 'legitimate political view' and then immediately decided to reply. Read the whole comment before replying, please. And go ahead, disagree with my definition -- I was pretty clear. Convince me that intolerance should in fact be tolerated; that it will not destroy a tolerant society. Why is it that conservatives consider intolerance to be their right above everyone else?

incompatible 6y ago

Left wing groups were banned by Facebook too. As far as I know they didn't heap hatred on minorities, unless you include fascists as a minority. https://boingboing.net/2020/08/21/citing-violence-facebook.html https://boingboing.net/2020/08/21/citing-violence-facebook.h...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

arminiusreturns 6y ago

I have seen it quite a bit over the last year in particular. Are the views being expressed popular? No. Are they "legitimate"? Yes. (what ever in the world that is supposed to mean, outside of being unlawful I would consider all speech legitimate even if I disagree with it, but not many people seem to like Voltaire these days I suppose.) I'm very disappointed that the rhetoric has devolved into "but they all deserved it so it's ok"... your filter bubble is showing.

rootusrootus 6y ago
> what ever in the world that is supposed to mean I defined it. Intolerance is not a legitimate viewpoint. It is not the expression of an idea, but the suppression of someone else's. I think I was pretty clear, I consider intolerance the one viewpoint we cannot tolerate. Everything else is fair game.
- arminiusreturns 6y ago
  My point is that you are then deigning someone to have the power to decide what is tolerant and what is not, when that is not nearly as acceptable or uncontroversial as you seem to be assuming. For example: > If progressives are pushing for more freedom, more tolerance, then to oppose it you have to, by definition, advocate for less of those. The framing of this is not correct. The problem is that not all "progressives" are pushing for that, which then undermines the assumption that opposition is therefor automatically intolerant and therefor automatically bannable/deplatformable. Some of the real progressives I follow such as Graham Elwood and Jimmy Dore have frequently had issues with their platforms giving them a hard time (demonteizing, etc) just because their positions or even topics of conversation are controversial, and many of them frequently mention they wouldn't be surprised to be deplatformed for said reason. To me, the real crux of your position, is that by completely bucking the standard of free speech in which we have legal definitions for speech that isn't tolerable, positions like yours seem to want to expand those definitions (libel, defamation, imminent incitement to violence, etc) to a point that you must now designate some non-legal entitiy as the moral arbiter of what is intolerant/tolerable, and that is indeed a most slippery slope. I think I have rewatched these two videos of Christopher Hitchens on the topic a good half dozen times each in the last year, and I keep thinking about their content. [1,2] From [2], I will link the timestamp of what I am about to quote [3]: "Whose going to decide? ... Who will you appoint? Who will be the one who says, "I know exactly where the limit should be, I know how far you can go, and I know when you've gone too far, and I'll decide that" Who do you think, Who do you know, who have you heard of, who have you read about in history who you would give that job?... Not for you, but for the people you are listening to and the peoples whose comments you hope to hear in return, for your own education, for your own elightenment, and for your own elucidation, as Mr. Paine says, commenting on Milton, one of the vices of those who would repress the opinions of others is they make themselves prisoners of their own opinions, because they deprive themselves of the means of changing them." 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2uzEM0ugY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2uzEM0ugY 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjhj9Hn8oQw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjhj9Hn8oQw 3. https://youtu.be/Tjhj9Hn8oQw?t=2590 https://youtu.be/Tjhj9Hn8oQw?t=2590

jolincost 6y ago

You're not being honest. Abusing meaning of word legitimate