3 ms·

It is always interesting when people complaining about having their speech suppressed turn out to hold (in the former case) extremely orthodox, standard views o

It is always interesting when people complaining about having their speech suppressed turn out to hold (in the former case) extremely orthodox, standard views or (in the latter case) fairly common views, instead of obscure or actively unpopular points of view. (I'd certainly appreciate it if the latter weren't common, but it polls shockingly well in the US right now)

im3w1l 6y ago
That just makes it worse doesn't it? When the suppression has increased in scope to include "standard" views?
- kevingadd 6y ago
  How would you functionally suppress the majority? What would that look like? What would the actual negative effect of it be? If 40% of the population believes something, keeping them from posting on Twitter isn't going to magically cause their belief system to evaporate. They'll at most feel persecuted and go somewhere else. These mainstream views are represented all over broadcast TV and in the US house and senate, even if someone gets their account shadowbanned on Twitter for saying it using some expletives. Naturally, most of these majority belief systems and viewpoints aren't functionally being suppressed, because many employees at these companies hold the same views. It's usually just the extremist stuff, and some of the people who bail from Twitter to head to Gab or Parler end up causing trouble there too by being so extreme they run afoul of those sites' incredibly lax and generous policies. I could understand this complaint if the government was applying force or other punishments (financial penalties, etc) to suppress a majority viewpoint, but in this case it's private corporations exercising their rights to exclude majority speech from their platform. This is an important right for them to have regardless of how popular a view is. It wasn't that long ago that polling numbers showed the average American supported the Kent State massacre, and it wasn't that long ago that interracial marriage was illegal in parts of the US. The nature of "majority views" and the impact of reducing their visibility is difficult to grapple with.

im3w1l 6y ago

That just makes it worse doesn't it? When the suppression has increased in scope to include "standard" views?

kevingadd 6y ago
How would you functionally suppress the majority? What would that look like? What would the actual negative effect of it be? If 40% of the population believes something, keeping them from posting on Twitter isn't going to magically cause their belief system to evaporate. They'll at most feel persecuted and go somewhere else. These mainstream views are represented all over broadcast TV and in the US house and senate, even if someone gets their account shadowbanned on Twitter for saying it using some expletives. Naturally, most of these majority belief systems and viewpoints aren't functionally being suppressed, because many employees at these companies hold the same views. It's usually just the extremist stuff, and some of the people who bail from Twitter to head to Gab or Parler end up causing trouble there too by being so extreme they run afoul of those sites' incredibly lax and generous policies. I could understand this complaint if the government was applying force or other punishments (financial penalties, etc) to suppress a majority viewpoint, but in this case it's private corporations exercising their rights to exclude majority speech from their platform. This is an important right for them to have regardless of how popular a view is. It wasn't that long ago that polling numbers showed the average American supported the Kent State massacre, and it wasn't that long ago that interracial marriage was illegal in parts of the US. The nature of "majority views" and the impact of reducing their visibility is difficult to grapple with.