5 ms·

Removing my comment, it was misunderstood as me supporting hate speech, which was not my intention.

davidw 4y ago
> Neutrality means I get to say what I want and you can't get mad at me or get my job to fire me. Twitter as a company/platform never went after anyone's job. Free speech does not mean that speech is without consequences.
- throw10920 4y ago
  "Consequences" are enacted by an authority. The thing that happens on Twitter is "mob justice". EDIT: I did not read carefully before commenting, this comment is irrelevant.
  - davidw 4y ago
    The 'authority' mentioned was an employer, who is free to hire and fire people at will in he US, in many cases. Turns out that employing, say, a nazi, is not popular at many companies. This can certainly go to far, but it's kind of up to the employer, isn't it.
    - throw10920 4y ago
      I misread. You're right, it's fully reasonable for companies to remove individuals from employment due to their own speech (but nobody else's).
becquerel 4y ago
There's a lot of people on twitter who just want to say the n-word, want to say Kanye is right about Jewish people, want to say LGBT people are groomers, etc. I personally don't see the justice in letting people who want to cause material harm to others - people who'd put me in a camp if they had their way - like that have a platform, no-questions-asked
- arghnoname 4y ago
  There's a philosophical thing here and people have different views. The ACLU used to defend the right for the KKK and neo-nazis to parade around in jewish neighborhoods doing holocaust denial, etc, and if I remember correctly many of their lawyers doing such work were Jewish. The view if those people are idiots, and they can say this if they want, and more decent people (who outnumber the bigots) will counter the bigoted speech with their own. No one can credibly deny that some speech is harmful. We'd all like to suppress some speech that we don't like, but the reason free speech advocates take the position they take (generally) is that once speech is prohibited the status quo regime will ban legitimate criticisms. So the good has to be accepted with the bad. It's a tough issue. If I'm honest I favor censorship of views that I believe are harmful, but would object strenuously if my point of view is censored. I also think being called slurs, etc, is an unpleasant user experience, to say the least, so from a business perspective if nothing else I get why that is censored. Still, the censorship has gone too far in my view. We need to figure out a way to circle this square.
  - davidw 4y ago
    Beyond all that, which is a tough issue, Twitter is also a company, and if people are freely throwing around the N word and crazy conspiracy garbage, normal people are going to leave. Advertisers are going to leave with them. See this bit of discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33375286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33375286
    - skissane 4y ago
      I guess Musk is going to put less emphasis on outright bans, and more on “quarantining”. He might not ban an account posting racial slurs all day long, but it won’t be recommended, it won’t come up in search unless you set some special flag, and non-followers who visit it will get some kind of warning interstitial “Many users have reported this content as highly offensive, are you sure you want to view it?” Ads will only be displayed if the advertiser explicitly opts in.
  - _jal 4y ago
bee_rider 4y ago
In that case, it is impossible for Twitter to achieve neutrality (in that they can't control how viewers respond to a particular individual's odious tweets). If anything removing these sorts of tweets was a nice gift to bigots, covering their tracks for them.
ohgodplsno 4y ago
Lmao, no. Neutrality means that twitter won't delete your vile tweet. I'll absolutely screenshot it and report it to your employer, should it be truly heinous behavior that would make your coworkers uncomfortable.

> Neutrality means I get to say what I want and you can't get mad at me or get my job to fire me. Twitter as a company/platform never went after anyone's job. Free speech does not mean that speech is without consequences.

throw10920 4y ago
"Consequences" are enacted by an authority. The thing that happens on Twitter is "mob justice". EDIT: I did not read carefully before commenting, this comment is irrelevant.
- davidw 4y ago
  The 'authority' mentioned was an employer, who is free to hire and fire people at will in he US, in many cases. Turns out that employing, say, a nazi, is not popular at many companies. This can certainly go to far, but it's kind of up to the employer, isn't it.
  - throw10920 4y ago
    I misread. You're right, it's fully reasonable for companies to remove individuals from employment due to their own speech (but nobody else's).

becquerel 4y ago

There's a lot of people on twitter who just want to say the n-word, want to say Kanye is right about Jewish people, want to say LGBT people are groomers, etc. I personally don't see the justice in letting people who want to cause material harm to others - people who'd put me in a camp if they had their way - like that have a platform, no-questions-asked

arghnoname 4y ago
There's a philosophical thing here and people have different views. The ACLU used to defend the right for the KKK and neo-nazis to parade around in jewish neighborhoods doing holocaust denial, etc, and if I remember correctly many of their lawyers doing such work were Jewish. The view if those people are idiots, and they can say this if they want, and more decent people (who outnumber the bigots) will counter the bigoted speech with their own. No one can credibly deny that some speech is harmful. We'd all like to suppress some speech that we don't like, but the reason free speech advocates take the position they take (generally) is that once speech is prohibited the status quo regime will ban legitimate criticisms. So the good has to be accepted with the bad. It's a tough issue. If I'm honest I favor censorship of views that I believe are harmful, but would object strenuously if my point of view is censored. I also think being called slurs, etc, is an unpleasant user experience, to say the least, so from a business perspective if nothing else I get why that is censored. Still, the censorship has gone too far in my view. We need to figure out a way to circle this square.
- davidw 4y ago
  Beyond all that, which is a tough issue, Twitter is also a company, and if people are freely throwing around the N word and crazy conspiracy garbage, normal people are going to leave. Advertisers are going to leave with them. See this bit of discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33375286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33375286
  - skissane 4y ago
    I guess Musk is going to put less emphasis on outright bans, and more on “quarantining”. He might not ban an account posting racial slurs all day long, but it won’t be recommended, it won’t come up in search unless you set some special flag, and non-followers who visit it will get some kind of warning interstitial “Many users have reported this content as highly offensive, are you sure you want to view it?” Ads will only be displayed if the advertiser explicitly opts in.
- _jal 4y ago

bee_rider 4y ago

In that case, it is impossible for Twitter to achieve neutrality (in that they can't control how viewers respond to a particular individual's odious tweets). If anything removing these sorts of tweets was a nice gift to bigots, covering their tracks for them.

ohgodplsno 4y ago

Lmao, no. Neutrality means that twitter won't delete your vile tweet. I'll absolutely screenshot it and report it to your employer, should it be truly heinous behavior that would make your coworkers uncomfortable.