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> What happened to intellectual honesty? It’s gone. The ACLU itself is pretty anti free speech these days and happily looks the other way when censorship on pr

> What happened to intellectual honesty? It’s gone. The ACLU itself is pretty anti free speech these days and happily looks the other way when censorship on private social media platforms aligns with their ideological views. People have been writing about free speech issues at the ACLU for about a decade now: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/is-the-aclu-still-committed-to-free-speech https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/is-the-aclu...

deleted 1y ago
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FireBeyond 1y ago
Sadly, agreed. The ACLU used to be known as a stalwart on this, fighting for the right of the KKK to hold marches etc. The "their speech might be reprehensible, but we need to fight for all free speech" perspective. Now, they're uninterested in a lot of these issues. And I say this as someone very liberal. You can also separately debate where the line is on the topic of say "absolute free speech", but whatever the ACLU used to fight for, it fights for a distinct subset only, now.
- watwut 1y ago
  Why is free speech defined by freedom of nazi and never by freedom for left wing people? Nazi are popular now and sympatisants are political leaders. It is not their defense what defines freedom, it is everybody elses rights that define lack of it.
  - bofadeez 1y ago
    I'm glad I live in a country where nothing you say or think or do can ever take away my natural right to speak any opinion in a peaceful way. If you don't already have freedom too, I hope someday your government will stop oppressing your people and let them express their opinions in a peaceful way.
    - watwut 1y ago
      You dont live in America then. But that was not my question. My question was while is it ok to silence progressives, feminists, left wing, critics of nazi and still be considered free speech activist while "not actively defending nazi" is excluding you from that. Your only benchmark for free speech is "are nazi helped enough in their quest to oppress others". You dont care about anybody elses rights.
      - bofadeez 1y ago
        You're confused. Silencing people is the thing 1A protects against. "I'm in favor of gun rights and that's why we need to eliminate the 2A" I don't think you get it lol. Your arguments are not consistent with you understanding the facts. Who do you expect to convince with unapologetc ignorance?
  - FireBeyond 1y ago
    I am not defining it that way. I am saying that previously, the ACLU fought hard for free speech for both left wing causes and right. i.e., it fought for free speech. It still fights for free speech for left wing causes, but not for right. On a deeply personal level? That doesn't overly bother me, because I am fairly far left wing. But it's somewhat antithetical to -their- stated cause, about "protecting all speech, because as soon as you don't protect some, more and more is attacked".
    - bofadeez 1y ago
      This must be the first time as a far left liberal that you had a comment net downvoted just for saying demonstrably true facts? Frustrating huh? That's how it goes here if you don't conform to what others here would prefer to be true.
FridayoLeary 1y ago
Yeah. It died during COVID.
- cruffle_duffle 1y ago
  That should have been their hay day. The government pulled enough absolute nonsense to keep them busy for decades. But instead they seemed more interested in some bullshit like prisoners rights to masks or something. When trump was first elected I gave those guys like $300/month to fight the good fight against something I was told was a threat to my freedoms. The joke was on me though… because they very same set of people I thought cared about that stuff turned out to very much not care at all about literally anything they claimed to. They let the world burn to play politics. In the end I wound up voting for trumps second term and will never ever vote for a single democrat again in my life. As for the ACLU, what a shame.
bediger4000 1y ago
Come, come, my good sir! US citizens know that censorship on private social media platforms is NOT a First Amendment issue! While it may be censorship of a sort, it's not done by the US government, and therefor is allowable. This is middle school civics in the USA, old boy! There's nothing, nothing, in the US constitution that says anyone else must pay to promulgate your opinions. Freedom of speech is freedom of government suppression in the USA. But like almost everything else in the USA, it's up to you to pay for it.
- terminalshort 1y ago
  It is a 1A issue when they are censoring due to government pressure
  - bediger4000 1y ago
    Not what I'm arguing, I agree with you. Nobody is compelled to carry your speech, with a rare "common carrier" exception. Which social media is not. You've got me thinking. I'm sure there's government pressure on social media to not carry certain posts, or allow certain human access. That's a pretty clear 1st Amendment violation. But it shades off. What about say, NSA using it's total information awareness feed of the entire internet to let HN know when a terms-of-service violation happened. Is that OK? What about if the NSA selectively notifies Truth Social of TOS violations? What if the NSA sends an official lawyer around to Facebook to get them to modify TOS a particular way? What if the DoJ sends someone to Paul, Weiss to get them to send someone else around (pro bono!) to hint that modifying TOS a particular way would be beneficial to Bluesky? What if Zuckerberg calls up Trump and asks him how he'd like TOS to read? I'm not sure where the line is.
    - anonymouskimmer 1y ago
      > I'm not sure where the line is. The line is always where a criminal violation seems likely to occur, including criminal negligence. Otherwise the government has no business butting in, unless subpoenaed as a witness by a court in a civil matter. Edit: I guess the government also has a right to respond if it, or its policies, are a target of criticism or lies. But it should do this in the court of public opinion, or in an actual court if said speech breaches criminal law or a civil tort. Though in the latter cases it would be held to the highest standard. It has no right to otherwise shut down anyone's speech regardless of where it occurs.
hntechbro 1y ago
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deleted 1y ago

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FireBeyond 1y ago

Sadly, agreed. The ACLU used to be known as a stalwart on this, fighting for the right of the KKK to hold marches etc. The "their speech might be reprehensible, but we need to fight for all free speech" perspective. Now, they're uninterested in a lot of these issues. And I say this as someone very liberal. You can also separately debate where the line is on the topic of say "absolute free speech", but whatever the ACLU used to fight for, it fights for a distinct subset only, now.

watwut 1y ago
Why is free speech defined by freedom of nazi and never by freedom for left wing people? Nazi are popular now and sympatisants are political leaders. It is not their defense what defines freedom, it is everybody elses rights that define lack of it.
- bofadeez 1y ago
  I'm glad I live in a country where nothing you say or think or do can ever take away my natural right to speak any opinion in a peaceful way. If you don't already have freedom too, I hope someday your government will stop oppressing your people and let them express their opinions in a peaceful way.
  - watwut 1y ago
    You dont live in America then. But that was not my question. My question was while is it ok to silence progressives, feminists, left wing, critics of nazi and still be considered free speech activist while "not actively defending nazi" is excluding you from that. Your only benchmark for free speech is "are nazi helped enough in their quest to oppress others". You dont care about anybody elses rights.
    - bofadeez 1y ago
      You're confused. Silencing people is the thing 1A protects against. "I'm in favor of gun rights and that's why we need to eliminate the 2A" I don't think you get it lol. Your arguments are not consistent with you understanding the facts. Who do you expect to convince with unapologetc ignorance?
- FireBeyond 1y ago
  I am not defining it that way. I am saying that previously, the ACLU fought hard for free speech for both left wing causes and right. i.e., it fought for free speech. It still fights for free speech for left wing causes, but not for right. On a deeply personal level? That doesn't overly bother me, because I am fairly far left wing. But it's somewhat antithetical to -their- stated cause, about "protecting all speech, because as soon as you don't protect some, more and more is attacked".
  - bofadeez 1y ago
    This must be the first time as a far left liberal that you had a comment net downvoted just for saying demonstrably true facts? Frustrating huh? That's how it goes here if you don't conform to what others here would prefer to be true.

FridayoLeary 1y ago

Yeah. It died during COVID.

cruffle_duffle 1y ago
That should have been their hay day. The government pulled enough absolute nonsense to keep them busy for decades. But instead they seemed more interested in some bullshit like prisoners rights to masks or something. When trump was first elected I gave those guys like $300/month to fight the good fight against something I was told was a threat to my freedoms. The joke was on me though… because they very same set of people I thought cared about that stuff turned out to very much not care at all about literally anything they claimed to. They let the world burn to play politics. In the end I wound up voting for trumps second term and will never ever vote for a single democrat again in my life. As for the ACLU, what a shame.

bediger4000 1y ago

Come, come, my good sir! US citizens know that censorship on private social media platforms is NOT a First Amendment issue! While it may be censorship of a sort, it's not done by the US government, and therefor is allowable. This is middle school civics in the USA, old boy! There's nothing, nothing, in the US constitution that says anyone else must pay to promulgate your opinions. Freedom of speech is freedom of government suppression in the USA. But like almost everything else in the USA, it's up to you to pay for it.

terminalshort 1y ago
It is a 1A issue when they are censoring due to government pressure
- bediger4000 1y ago
  Not what I'm arguing, I agree with you. Nobody is compelled to carry your speech, with a rare "common carrier" exception. Which social media is not. You've got me thinking. I'm sure there's government pressure on social media to not carry certain posts, or allow certain human access. That's a pretty clear 1st Amendment violation. But it shades off. What about say, NSA using it's total information awareness feed of the entire internet to let HN know when a terms-of-service violation happened. Is that OK? What about if the NSA selectively notifies Truth Social of TOS violations? What if the NSA sends an official lawyer around to Facebook to get them to modify TOS a particular way? What if the DoJ sends someone to Paul, Weiss to get them to send someone else around (pro bono!) to hint that modifying TOS a particular way would be beneficial to Bluesky? What if Zuckerberg calls up Trump and asks him how he'd like TOS to read? I'm not sure where the line is.
  - anonymouskimmer 1y ago
    > I'm not sure where the line is. The line is always where a criminal violation seems likely to occur, including criminal negligence. Otherwise the government has no business butting in, unless subpoenaed as a witness by a court in a civil matter. Edit: I guess the government also has a right to respond if it, or its policies, are a target of criticism or lies. But it should do this in the court of public opinion, or in an actual court if said speech breaches criminal law or a civil tort. Though in the latter cases it would be held to the highest standard. It has no right to otherwise shut down anyone's speech regardless of where it occurs.

hntechbro 1y ago

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