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"Among the elite, and within Twitter specifically, there is much more inclination to ban the right. I say this as someone whose political views, if you force t
by memish 4y ago
"Among the elite, and within Twitter specifically, there is much more inclination to ban the right.
I say this as someone whose political views, if you force them onto the left-right spectrum, probably end up about 80% toward the left. E.g. I've spent millions over the past several elections supporting the Democrats.
It used to be that censorship was something the right did, and free speech was something the left were in favor of. But over the last few decades, banning "problematic" ideas has become a huge component of left culture (http://paulgraham.com/heresy.html http://paulgraham.com/heresy.html).
Plus tech companies in general, and especially Twitter, lean to the left. Imagine walking around Twitter pre-Covid. You'd find plenty of openly far-left employees. How many openly far-right employees would you find? I don't think you'd find any.
The combination of (a) the left's recent focus on banning heretical ideas, (b) the leftward lean of tech companies generally, and (c) the leftward lean of Twitter even among tech companies, means that right-wing speech is much more likely to get banned on Twitter than left.
That's why people on the far right keep starting lame Twitter alternatives. You don't see people on the far left doing that. They don't need to. They have Twitter."
https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1515235822890532864 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1515235822890532864
- bscphil 4y ago> That's why people on the far right keep starting lame Twitter alternatives. You don't see people on the far left doing that. They don't need to because they have cool Twitter alternatives. Like Mastodon.
- Yoric 4y agoWhich is also the Trump alternative, iirc. Just the far left seems to respect the license.
- vrfvr 4y agoNo, it's not THE trump alternative. It existed before. Open source, such that anyone can use it
- Yoric 4y agoI meant used by the Trump alternative.
- bscphil 4y agoThat's fair, although part of the reason I call Mastodon the "cool" alternative is because of its federation. AFAIK the right wing forks don't generally have that.
- mcphage 4y agoWhich side is on a book banning tear again?
- memish 4y agoBoth! The difference is in what they target. "On the right, banning books means trying to prevent their kids from reading them. But on the left it often means trying to prevent anyone from reading them." https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1515563419386191880 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1515563419386191880
- selectodude 4y agoPaul Graham's tweet with zero corroborating evidence other than "believe me I'm paul graham" is not a source.
- KennyBlanken 4y agoThe example he cites is from a tweet made by a guild of writers for the Oxford University Press. > We, the members of the OUP USA Guild, are calling upon our colleagues and authors to take a stand against the upcoming publication of “Gender-Critical Feminism”. Sign the petition below (OUP employees and authors only). Yeah, that's not a "ban", and "gender critical feminism" = TERFs. Ie, "people who think trans women are faking it so they can rape women and children in bathrooms or 'cheat' 'the system'" Remind me which side thinks businesses have a constitutional right to refuse to serve people if it violates their "beliefs"...yet finds it unacceptable that unionized workers are objecting to publishing of research on a subject? Also, remind me which side is boycotting a major entertainment company...because said company's CEO voiced displeasure...at a bill that bans any language referencing non-straight gender orientations?
- mcphage 4y agoThat reads like those "UI vs UX" images where the creator just takes 2 random photos and sticks them next to each other—while simultaneously being deeply ignorant of what’s going on in the country right now.
- vrfvr 4y agoMastodon is from a far right?
- philosopher1234 4y agoI’m pro censorship. We have and need speech norms. The left and right are not equal. The left does not rely as much on lies to advocate its positions, and the left is not as oriented around destruction and regression as the right. We need a more robust understanding of speech than “allowed or not”. Emphasis & volume matters.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago"does not rely as much on lies to advocate its positions" To be honest, that's hilariously false. The left suppressed Hunter Biden's laptop story for two years, saying it was misinformation, before admitting it was true. The IRS targeted right-wing and Christian non-profit organizations deliberately for auditing. Obama claimed that forcing nuns to buy health insurance covering birth control was necessary, and claimed you could keep your doctor under Obamacare, which even PolitiFact called a Pants-on-Fire Lie. The left claimed that a baker needed to make a personalized cake supporting gay rights, or it would open the waves to discrimination, even though the baker was willing to sell any other cake to them that wasn't customized with that particular label. I can go on and on.
- philosopher1234 4y agoPlease, do go on and on. You can stop when you get to the left attempting to overturn the American presidential election. Edit: are our neoliberal overlords a bunch of cold hearted shit heads? Yes. Should we elect and promote barely disguised fascists in response? No.
- gjsman-1000 4y agoHuh. I remember when the left had Maxine Waters saying to publicly harass voters of the opposite political party, and during the 2016 election when they tried to harass and dox the electors in hope that would prevent Trump from being elected.
- philosopher1234 4y ago