4 ms·

So to be clear, you believe the Twitter should be unbiased towards terrorist videos, Child abuse, etc? Or is it just the white supremacy, antisemitism, homopho

by olliej 5y ago

So to be clear, you believe the Twitter should be unbiased towards terrorist videos, Child abuse, etc? Or is it just the white supremacy, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia that you want back? This is a very simple question. You either want unbiased or you are saying that the stuff that “wokeness” limited is good, and should be given a large platform. Yes or no? This is a very simple binary question

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
No, it's not binary. There are plenty of answers beside "yes" and "no".
- olliej 5y ago
  The question is: "do you censor some content?"
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    We get it. You've got your "gotcha" question that you keep hammering on because you think you can force us to agree with you if you just keep asking it enough times. We aren't interested in playing your game or having a conversation where you lead us by the nose. We talk in absolutist terms, not because we all are actually absolutists, but because the moment you say you favor restrictions on speech, someone wants you to support restrictions big enough to cover a "military operation". We aren't interested in going there. If we can't actually make absolute free speech work, that's at least where our hearts are and the direction we push toward. So, OK, if you want to say "aha, see, you really don't believe in absolutely free speech", well, great, enjoy your pointless victory. We're going to keep pushing in the direction of speech that is as unrestricted as possible.
    - olliej 5y ago
      It is not a gotcha question, you talk in absolute terms of "free speech", because you know it is less acceptable to say "I want to call LGBT people a disease", "I want to be able to blame minorities". What I am trying to say, is that I am sick of pandering to that bullshit deflection. If you hate some minority, and think that you are in the right for doing so, you should just be saying that. You shouldn't be claiming other stuff is being censored, and that's what you're correcting, as a cover to get back to bigotry, attacking minorities, and of course that other favorite: trying to overthrow elections. Because that's the only significant censorship that twitter has added, and even that is fairly minimal.
      - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
        Your attempt to guess my motives is a total failure. You are also violating the site guidelines, specifically the part about "charitable interpretation". No, I want free speech because I actually believe in free speech.
      - blagie 5y ago
        The classic quote is: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." You're trying to assign incorrect motives to people on this thread. That's dishonest. I absolutely agree that if people hate some minority, they should be able to say it outright. That should carry social stigma, but not a prison sentence, public shaming, or economic ruin. Censoring people isn't effective. If people feel oppressed, they dig in. I live in one of the wokest parts of the US, and it's also probably the most racist place I've been. You can't have open conversations with people. All the racism and bigotry is just closeted and hidden. I used to live in a part of the US where a few people were openly racist, and it was a million times better. Most people weren't racist. The ones who were, you could avoid. You could also talk to people about their beliefs, and you know something? People got less racist over time. Open conversations also meant you could explore reasons for achievement gaps and employment gaps, and there was slow and steady progress. Free society is prerequisite to addressing prejudice, not the other way around. The only thing that has changed since the classic quote are market dynamics: Platforms can generate ad clicks by lying, polarizing people and promoting hate. That, we ought to address. But we ought to address it without outright cancelling / censoring / banning / ostracizing people. Technically, that's not even hard to do; if people post crap, The Algorithm shouldn't bump it up. From a market perspective, that's impossible without regulation; if Twitter/Facebook/etc. don't promote hate, lies, and polarization, a new platform which does will take over.
jimmygrapes 5y ago
Why do all your comments read like they're straight out of a training manual for how to be disingenuous in debate and activism to get your way?
lurquer 5y ago
> Yes or no? This is a very simple binary question It’s triggering to a lot of people to use the term ‘binary’ in that manner. You need to check your Hetero-privilege. It’s hateful and hurtful to non-binary posters.
- olliej 5y ago
  See, this is the kind of anti-LGBTQ stuff that is not censored on Twitter today. You have used the common trope of the pretty much fictional extreme - there are definitely people who abuse terms like “triggered”, etc for stuff that by clinical definition isn’t - but what you’re attempting to do is take a large group of real humans, and reduce them to a caricature so that you can then treat them as non-people. This is a standard step, taken by many groups, many times, targeting many groups to justify discrimination, persecution, and worse. This kind of trivialization and dehumanization was and is used by people justifying sexism, slavery, apartheid, segregation, homophobia, transphobia, anti-semitism, anti-Palestinian, anti-Catholicism, anti-Protestantism, manifest destiny, by the japanese vs Chinese or POWs, Koreans vs Philippines, British vs Italian immigrants, etc, etc Persecuting people is not something that seems specific to any single group, history is replete with one group trivializing another. I would just like you to recognize that your reflexive response to my calling out what censorship is being targeted, and that it is not a “free speech for everyone” action as is being claimed, was to immediately attempt to trivialize the identity of another group of humans. It’s not materially different from people in the south creating uppity black stereotypes, crooked nose Jews around every corner, the gay people preying on innocent straight people. You could be totally fine with that, the problem people seem to have is more often being called out on it, than actually doing it. I’ve encountered plenty of liberals that will happily do or say racist or phobic things (phobia is super common in the “liberal” democrats), but get upset if you call them out on it. It’s the same thing with “dog whistles”: people treat saying certain specific words as bad, but instead of stopping the statements they simply change the words used. So a variety of words and phrases became “urban youth”, “Jews” became “globalists”, etc To me it seems a lot of the “anti-censorship” complaints are more people being upset that they’re behavior is getting called out.
blagie 5y ago
It's not a binary question. 1) You listed a broad range of issues. 2) Each of those issues have different definitions. "White supremacy" means KKK in red states, and "the dominance of white culture in the design of American institutions" in woke culture. "Child abuse" can mean paedophilia or spanking. My experience with these questions is that one answer leads to one definition, and another to the other. I've been down this road with woke individuals before. "Yes" takes you to a definition which makes you look like a KKK-supporting pedophile, and "No" to a definition which leads to policies offensive to most people in the world. And that's about where I think Twitter should place standards: - Algorithms should poorly rank inflammatory, polarizing content. This is the bulk of where Twitter's market cap comes from, so Elon loses money. - Humans should remove content which most people in the world would find grossly offensive. Not woke white Westerners, but most people.
- olliej 5y ago
  It is binary, the question is: Should some content be censored? That is a yes/no question. I gave extremes of what content means, so that hopefully everyone would agree that some content should be censored. A free speech absolutist might say that the answer is no, but I suspect the overwhelming majority of people could find something above that they agree should be censored. My reason for being so aggressive here is because I am sick of the “anti-censor” brigade claiming that they’re simply fighting for all free speech. What I want people to acknowledge is that they do there is simply that there’s just been a bunch of things censored that they want to be able to say. We can argue about what that content is, but everyone here knows that different groups fundamentally disagree about a number of those things that are currently not allowed on Twitter. Personally I look at the things Twitter let’s you report, and which of those things are actually not allowed - many of the report pathways simply say “this is allowed, you can simply block this person” - the only things that I have actually ever seen actually get removed are people fairly explicitly calling for violence, saying entire races, lgbt people, specific religions, etc are “diseases”, “paedophiles”, “should be locked up, executed, …”, etc Based on that experience, and based on the conversation surrounding “anti-wokeness”, it sounds fairly clearly as though that is the content that people believe is being wrongly censored. Everyone here has seen the many, many reports from conservatives claiming that they are being unfairly censored and subjected to discrimination and bias on social media platforms. I’ve also seen how in every single study it has been found that there is no such bias. So again, we get to I know the kind of content that has been censored, and if people are making the claim that Twitter is censoring “too much” or that it needs to “protect free speech”, then that is the only content that is available to “uncensor”. I would love to be proved wrong, but I do not see any evidence of what people feel is being unfairly censored, that I do not believe falls into the above categories.

by olliej 5y ago

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

No, it's not binary. There are plenty of answers beside "yes" and "no".

olliej 5y ago
The question is: "do you censor some content?"
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  We get it. You've got your "gotcha" question that you keep hammering on because you think you can force us to agree with you if you just keep asking it enough times. We aren't interested in playing your game or having a conversation where you lead us by the nose. We talk in absolutist terms, not because we all are actually absolutists, but because the moment you say you favor restrictions on speech, someone wants you to support restrictions big enough to cover a "military operation". We aren't interested in going there. If we can't actually make absolute free speech work, that's at least where our hearts are and the direction we push toward. So, OK, if you want to say "aha, see, you really don't believe in absolutely free speech", well, great, enjoy your pointless victory. We're going to keep pushing in the direction of speech that is as unrestricted as possible.
  - olliej 5y ago
    It is not a gotcha question, you talk in absolute terms of "free speech", because you know it is less acceptable to say "I want to call LGBT people a disease", "I want to be able to blame minorities". What I am trying to say, is that I am sick of pandering to that bullshit deflection. If you hate some minority, and think that you are in the right for doing so, you should just be saying that. You shouldn't be claiming other stuff is being censored, and that's what you're correcting, as a cover to get back to bigotry, attacking minorities, and of course that other favorite: trying to overthrow elections. Because that's the only significant censorship that twitter has added, and even that is fairly minimal.
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      Your attempt to guess my motives is a total failure. You are also violating the site guidelines, specifically the part about "charitable interpretation". No, I want free speech because I actually believe in free speech.
    - blagie 5y ago
      The classic quote is: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." You're trying to assign incorrect motives to people on this thread. That's dishonest. I absolutely agree that if people hate some minority, they should be able to say it outright. That should carry social stigma, but not a prison sentence, public shaming, or economic ruin. Censoring people isn't effective. If people feel oppressed, they dig in. I live in one of the wokest parts of the US, and it's also probably the most racist place I've been. You can't have open conversations with people. All the racism and bigotry is just closeted and hidden. I used to live in a part of the US where a few people were openly racist, and it was a million times better. Most people weren't racist. The ones who were, you could avoid. You could also talk to people about their beliefs, and you know something? People got less racist over time. Open conversations also meant you could explore reasons for achievement gaps and employment gaps, and there was slow and steady progress. Free society is prerequisite to addressing prejudice, not the other way around. The only thing that has changed since the classic quote are market dynamics: Platforms can generate ad clicks by lying, polarizing people and promoting hate. That, we ought to address. But we ought to address it without outright cancelling / censoring / banning / ostracizing people. Technically, that's not even hard to do; if people post crap, The Algorithm shouldn't bump it up. From a market perspective, that's impossible without regulation; if Twitter/Facebook/etc. don't promote hate, lies, and polarization, a new platform which does will take over.

jimmygrapes 5y ago

Why do all your comments read like they're straight out of a training manual for how to be disingenuous in debate and activism to get your way?

lurquer 5y ago

> Yes or no? This is a very simple binary question It’s triggering to a lot of people to use the term ‘binary’ in that manner. You need to check your Hetero-privilege. It’s hateful and hurtful to non-binary posters.

olliej 5y ago
See, this is the kind of anti-LGBTQ stuff that is not censored on Twitter today. You have used the common trope of the pretty much fictional extreme - there are definitely people who abuse terms like “triggered”, etc for stuff that by clinical definition isn’t - but what you’re attempting to do is take a large group of real humans, and reduce them to a caricature so that you can then treat them as non-people. This is a standard step, taken by many groups, many times, targeting many groups to justify discrimination, persecution, and worse. This kind of trivialization and dehumanization was and is used by people justifying sexism, slavery, apartheid, segregation, homophobia, transphobia, anti-semitism, anti-Palestinian, anti-Catholicism, anti-Protestantism, manifest destiny, by the japanese vs Chinese or POWs, Koreans vs Philippines, British vs Italian immigrants, etc, etc Persecuting people is not something that seems specific to any single group, history is replete with one group trivializing another. I would just like you to recognize that your reflexive response to my calling out what censorship is being targeted, and that it is not a “free speech for everyone” action as is being claimed, was to immediately attempt to trivialize the identity of another group of humans. It’s not materially different from people in the south creating uppity black stereotypes, crooked nose Jews around every corner, the gay people preying on innocent straight people. You could be totally fine with that, the problem people seem to have is more often being called out on it, than actually doing it. I’ve encountered plenty of liberals that will happily do or say racist or phobic things (phobia is super common in the “liberal” democrats), but get upset if you call them out on it. It’s the same thing with “dog whistles”: people treat saying certain specific words as bad, but instead of stopping the statements they simply change the words used. So a variety of words and phrases became “urban youth”, “Jews” became “globalists”, etc To me it seems a lot of the “anti-censorship” complaints are more people being upset that they’re behavior is getting called out.

blagie 5y ago

It's not a binary question. 1) You listed a broad range of issues. 2) Each of those issues have different definitions. "White supremacy" means KKK in red states, and "the dominance of white culture in the design of American institutions" in woke culture. "Child abuse" can mean paedophilia or spanking. My experience with these questions is that one answer leads to one definition, and another to the other. I've been down this road with woke individuals before. "Yes" takes you to a definition which makes you look like a KKK-supporting pedophile, and "No" to a definition which leads to policies offensive to most people in the world. And that's about where I think Twitter should place standards: - Algorithms should poorly rank inflammatory, polarizing content. This is the bulk of where Twitter's market cap comes from, so Elon loses money. - Humans should remove content which most people in the world would find grossly offensive. Not woke white Westerners, but most people.

olliej 5y ago
It is binary, the question is: Should some content be censored? That is a yes/no question. I gave extremes of what content means, so that hopefully everyone would agree that some content should be censored. A free speech absolutist might say that the answer is no, but I suspect the overwhelming majority of people could find something above that they agree should be censored. My reason for being so aggressive here is because I am sick of the “anti-censor” brigade claiming that they’re simply fighting for all free speech. What I want people to acknowledge is that they do there is simply that there’s just been a bunch of things censored that they want to be able to say. We can argue about what that content is, but everyone here knows that different groups fundamentally disagree about a number of those things that are currently not allowed on Twitter. Personally I look at the things Twitter let’s you report, and which of those things are actually not allowed - many of the report pathways simply say “this is allowed, you can simply block this person” - the only things that I have actually ever seen actually get removed are people fairly explicitly calling for violence, saying entire races, lgbt people, specific religions, etc are “diseases”, “paedophiles”, “should be locked up, executed, …”, etc Based on that experience, and based on the conversation surrounding “anti-wokeness”, it sounds fairly clearly as though that is the content that people believe is being wrongly censored. Everyone here has seen the many, many reports from conservatives claiming that they are being unfairly censored and subjected to discrimination and bias on social media platforms. I’ve also seen how in every single study it has been found that there is no such bias. So again, we get to I know the kind of content that has been censored, and if people are making the claim that Twitter is censoring “too much” or that it needs to “protect free speech”, then that is the only content that is available to “uncensor”. I would love to be proved wrong, but I do not see any evidence of what people feel is being unfairly censored, that I do not believe falls into the above categories.