10 ms·

https://twitter.com/thecitywanderer/status/1516176983549530122 https://twitter.com/thecitywanderer/status/15161769835495301... This is how it starts. What else

https://twitter.com/thecitywanderer/status/1516176983549530122 https://twitter.com/thecitywanderer/status/15161769835495301... This is how it starts. What else will they push and censor.

drewrv 4y ago
Next thing you know there will be actual laws that ban what can be said in schools, books being banned, and laws that allow drivers to run over protesters. Fortunately the people who are vigilant about Twitter moderation policies and word processor features are acting in good faith and will be outraged by actual government attempts to stifle speech.
- azinman2 4y ago
  You forgot the /s
- Clubber 4y ago
  >ban what can be said in schools So if you are referring to the "Don't say gay," law, you should actually read it. Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards. That's the actual text. I don't see how you could possibly think that is an appropriate subject for a 3rd grader, much less a kindergartner. The partisan hyperbole around it is ridiculous on both sides. >books being banned Like Huckleberry Finn? Agree, books shouldn't be banned. Well maybe Mein Kampf and The Turner Diaries. Maybe some shouldn't be taught in public schools, right? How about the Bible? Should that be excluded from the public school corriculum? No screening of A Birth of a Nation you'd agree with? It's not like they're removing them from public libraries or the internet. What is taught in public schools vs what is allowed to be said in a public forum are quite different things as well. >laws that allow drivers to run over protesters I don't think that is a free speech issue, plus you are misrepresenting this legislation as well. It's not like a democrat can run over a GOP protestor or vice versa, I believe there has to be an actual threat involved like a group encircling your vehicle baseball bats. Here's the issue with your argument, you are arguing with an imaginary person. That's like a GOP person saying something like, "libs are socialist!" It's a huge generalization and mis-catagorization. It's an emotional, misinformed argument rather than a rational one, and you are doing the same thing. You're consuming too much news / opinion. Take a break from it, most of it isn't that great for you. I fell into the same trap when I was younger.
  - Zak 4y ago
    > I don't see how you could possibly think that is an appropriate subject for a 3rd grader, much less a kindergartner. The partisan hyperbole around it is ridiculous on both sides. What's problematic about it is that it's enforceable by private litigation. In one recent example[0], shortly before the law was passed, a group of Florida parents demanded action be taken against a 6th grade teacher for disclosing that his marriage was to another man after taking time off for his wedding. Had the law been in effect, it's likely one or more of those parents would have sued. Such a suit probably wouldn't be successful in terms of winning a judgment. His disclosure wasn't "classroom instruction" after all, and most people probably would consider it age appropriate. Winning isn't necessarily the point though; creating a chilling effect such that teachers have to pretend queer people don't exist seems like the likely goal to me. Indeed, the teacher in question is quitting teaching. [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/-cannot-teach-florida-lgbtq-educators-fear-fallout-new-school-law-rcna22106 https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/-can...
    - Clubber 4y ago
      >What's problematic about it is that it's enforceable by private litigation. In one recent example[0], shortly before the law was passed, a group of Florida parents demanded action be taken against a 6th grade teacher for disclosing that his marriage was to another man after taking time off for his wedding. Had the law been in effect, it's likely one or more of those parents would have sued. Thanks for the article. Assuming it's accurate it sounds like only the school districts are able to be sued. I assume teachers themselves would fall under qualified immunity which applies to all government workers. Florida teachers also have (albeit weak) union representation. Unfortunately in the US anyone can sue anyone else for any reason, so for the individual there doesn't seem like anything would be legally different. Having said that, many Florida schools are absolutely horrible at education outcomes. >Parents will be able to sue school districts for alleged violations, damages or attorney’s fees when the law goes into effect July 1. This whole enforced by private litigation trend is troubling, I wholeheartedly agree. Texas is doing something similar with abortion clinics. I believe some democratic states (CA maybe?) is doing it with gun shops too. Hopefully when enough people lose in court and lose their attorney's fees, it will cease to become a thing.
- rayiner 4y ago
  By “ban” you mean the government that is providing a taxpayer-funded service choosing what content is provided as part of that service by taxpayer-paid employees, right?
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    I think they mean the government providing a taxpayer-funded service letting citizens bring private lawsuits instead of going through the regular channels for addressing errors if deviations from curricula occur because for some reason those channels (which are also government-defined) are inadequate, yet cannot be improved. We'd best not pull the thread on why they can't be improved.
  - guelo 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - rayiner 4y ago
      Who is suggesting that Google employees be restrained? Also, the complaint about Google employees is a liberal one. It’s about a small, wealthy, highly unrepresentative group of people having outsize power over society and culture.
      - guelo 4y ago
        As if I haven't read thousands of "these companies are public utilities" arguments ever since conservatives embraced Trump's politics of total war against perceived enemies.
        rayiner 4y ago
        > Trump's politics of total war against perceived enemies. Trump was a Democrat for most of his life, after all. You know, the folks that turned on a dime to defend corporate free speech the moment the big corporations were on their side. I'm too nerdy to stomach the hypocrisy, but it's hard to fault someone for playing to win.
shadowgovt 4y ago
Nothing is being censored here; it's a simple recommendation. If they start censoring personal correspondence, they open up a huge opportunity for another option to disrupt them. It's not an impossible scenario, but it's an unlikely (and more importantly: self-correcting) scenario.
- gurkendoktor 4y ago
  Self-correcting because frustrated users will simply start their own Google? Even if that happens, their second generation of employees will start a revolt if their company doesn't follow the latest DIE best practices. I honestly think that only the Russian/Chinese model of a nationalized IT ecosystem has a chance to resist these trends.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    Self-correcting because Google already has competition in the cloud editor space. Office suites are valuable software with an obvious business model for monetization. > I honestly think that only the Russian/Chinese model of a nationalized IT ecosystem That wouldn't solve the underlying problem if the nation decides some words are inappropriate (in fact, if we're thinking anti-censorship you may have chosen two particularly bad examples ;) ). It's power structures all the way down.
Animats 4y ago
Can you turn that off? If you turn it off, is it part of your record that you did so?
- eli 4y ago
  lol
  - Animats 4y ago
    And, if you turn it off, does that info go into the document's metadata, and does that affect search ranking?
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      If Google were to affect search ranking for something like that, it would be much simpler to just affect it based on the presence of the actual keywords that would have been underlined than retaining some metadata about the configuration of the editor when the document was written. Spoiler alert: Google already has a deny list of words that will cause a page to not show up outside of focused queries for it. Most people have no idea how much porn is actually on the internet.
- mpalczewski 4y ago
  You can turn it off, but would you. Would you risk turning it off at work where everyone else that looks at your doc sees the purple and you never even got a heads up.

https://twitter.com/thecitywanderer/status/1516176983549530122 https://twitter.com/thecitywanderer/status/15161769835495301... This is how it starts. What else will they push and censor.

drewrv 4y ago

Next thing you know there will be actual laws that ban what can be said in schools, books being banned, and laws that allow drivers to run over protesters. Fortunately the people who are vigilant about Twitter moderation policies and word processor features are acting in good faith and will be outraged by actual government attempts to stifle speech.

azinman2 4y ago
You forgot the /s
Clubber 4y ago
>ban what can be said in schools So if you are referring to the "Don't say gay," law, you should actually read it. Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards. That's the actual text. I don't see how you could possibly think that is an appropriate subject for a 3rd grader, much less a kindergartner. The partisan hyperbole around it is ridiculous on both sides. >books being banned Like Huckleberry Finn? Agree, books shouldn't be banned. Well maybe Mein Kampf and The Turner Diaries. Maybe some shouldn't be taught in public schools, right? How about the Bible? Should that be excluded from the public school corriculum? No screening of A Birth of a Nation you'd agree with? It's not like they're removing them from public libraries or the internet. What is taught in public schools vs what is allowed to be said in a public forum are quite different things as well. >laws that allow drivers to run over protesters I don't think that is a free speech issue, plus you are misrepresenting this legislation as well. It's not like a democrat can run over a GOP protestor or vice versa, I believe there has to be an actual threat involved like a group encircling your vehicle baseball bats. Here's the issue with your argument, you are arguing with an imaginary person. That's like a GOP person saying something like, "libs are socialist!" It's a huge generalization and mis-catagorization. It's an emotional, misinformed argument rather than a rational one, and you are doing the same thing. You're consuming too much news / opinion. Take a break from it, most of it isn't that great for you. I fell into the same trap when I was younger.
- Zak 4y ago
  > I don't see how you could possibly think that is an appropriate subject for a 3rd grader, much less a kindergartner. The partisan hyperbole around it is ridiculous on both sides. What's problematic about it is that it's enforceable by private litigation. In one recent example[0], shortly before the law was passed, a group of Florida parents demanded action be taken against a 6th grade teacher for disclosing that his marriage was to another man after taking time off for his wedding. Had the law been in effect, it's likely one or more of those parents would have sued. Such a suit probably wouldn't be successful in terms of winning a judgment. His disclosure wasn't "classroom instruction" after all, and most people probably would consider it age appropriate. Winning isn't necessarily the point though; creating a chilling effect such that teachers have to pretend queer people don't exist seems like the likely goal to me. Indeed, the teacher in question is quitting teaching. [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/-cannot-teach-florida-lgbtq-educators-fear-fallout-new-school-law-rcna22106 https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/-can...
  - Clubber 4y ago
    >What's problematic about it is that it's enforceable by private litigation. In one recent example[0], shortly before the law was passed, a group of Florida parents demanded action be taken against a 6th grade teacher for disclosing that his marriage was to another man after taking time off for his wedding. Had the law been in effect, it's likely one or more of those parents would have sued. Thanks for the article. Assuming it's accurate it sounds like only the school districts are able to be sued. I assume teachers themselves would fall under qualified immunity which applies to all government workers. Florida teachers also have (albeit weak) union representation. Unfortunately in the US anyone can sue anyone else for any reason, so for the individual there doesn't seem like anything would be legally different. Having said that, many Florida schools are absolutely horrible at education outcomes. >Parents will be able to sue school districts for alleged violations, damages or attorney’s fees when the law goes into effect July 1. This whole enforced by private litigation trend is troubling, I wholeheartedly agree. Texas is doing something similar with abortion clinics. I believe some democratic states (CA maybe?) is doing it with gun shops too. Hopefully when enough people lose in court and lose their attorney's fees, it will cease to become a thing.
rayiner 4y ago
By “ban” you mean the government that is providing a taxpayer-funded service choosing what content is provided as part of that service by taxpayer-paid employees, right?
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  I think they mean the government providing a taxpayer-funded service letting citizens bring private lawsuits instead of going through the regular channels for addressing errors if deviations from curricula occur because for some reason those channels (which are also government-defined) are inadequate, yet cannot be improved. We'd best not pull the thread on why they can't be improved.
- guelo 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - rayiner 4y ago
    Who is suggesting that Google employees be restrained? Also, the complaint about Google employees is a liberal one. It’s about a small, wealthy, highly unrepresentative group of people having outsize power over society and culture.
    - guelo 4y ago
      As if I haven't read thousands of "these companies are public utilities" arguments ever since conservatives embraced Trump's politics of total war against perceived enemies.
      - rayiner 4y ago
        > Trump's politics of total war against perceived enemies. Trump was a Democrat for most of his life, after all. You know, the folks that turned on a dime to defend corporate free speech the moment the big corporations were on their side. I'm too nerdy to stomach the hypocrisy, but it's hard to fault someone for playing to win.

shadowgovt 4y ago

Nothing is being censored here; it's a simple recommendation. If they start censoring personal correspondence, they open up a huge opportunity for another option to disrupt them. It's not an impossible scenario, but it's an unlikely (and more importantly: self-correcting) scenario.

gurkendoktor 4y ago
Self-correcting because frustrated users will simply start their own Google? Even if that happens, their second generation of employees will start a revolt if their company doesn't follow the latest DIE best practices. I honestly think that only the Russian/Chinese model of a nationalized IT ecosystem has a chance to resist these trends.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  Self-correcting because Google already has competition in the cloud editor space. Office suites are valuable software with an obvious business model for monetization. > I honestly think that only the Russian/Chinese model of a nationalized IT ecosystem That wouldn't solve the underlying problem if the nation decides some words are inappropriate (in fact, if we're thinking anti-censorship you may have chosen two particularly bad examples ;) ). It's power structures all the way down.

Animats 4y ago

Can you turn that off? If you turn it off, is it part of your record that you did so?

eli 4y ago
lol
- Animats 4y ago
  And, if you turn it off, does that info go into the document's metadata, and does that affect search ranking?
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    If Google were to affect search ranking for something like that, it would be much simpler to just affect it based on the presence of the actual keywords that would have been underlined than retaining some metadata about the configuration of the editor when the document was written. Spoiler alert: Google already has a deny list of words that will cause a page to not show up outside of focused queries for it. Most people have no idea how much porn is actually on the internet.
mpalczewski 4y ago
You can turn it off, but would you. Would you risk turning it off at work where everyone else that looks at your doc sees the purple and you never even got a heads up.