I didn't say that. I am not referring to the congress, where probably industrial military complex considerations are the main driver of the decisions.
I am talking about the culture, the people at large. I can't see no other segment of civil society more vocal and passionate about Israels defense than some groups of evangelical christians, and this Texas law is just an example of that.
I voted for the guy who nominated Pai as a commissioner and against the guy who nominated Pai to be the chairman and I voted for two senators who voted against his nomination to be chairman. I also voted for the guy who kicked his ass to the curb.
I didn't vote for the guys who made the decision to buy the F35, who audited my tax return, or who wrote the manual on uniform traffic control devices (and among all of these I have the most beef with them). But I voted for and against their bosses. I really really don't want my local mail carrier being an elected position, I and you and they have better things to do.
this country isn't a direct democracy, lets not act like it should be just when we disagree with the actions of those elected. These arguments are simply asinine because you know damn well this isn't how things work or were meant to work. You don't like the rule written by one 'unelected' lawyer in the executive branch so you are happy with it being overturned by another 'unelected' lawyer in the judicial branch...
and i'll add to my own comment because honestly this line of argument just infuriates me.
define 'made the decision'. Who made the decision by your estiamtion? was it the president who directed aides to implement a vaccine mandate? was it the aid who decided it was most appropriate to do through CMS? was it the head of CMS who directed individuals in his organization? Was it the person who actually fired up microsoft word and WROTE the text? The person who published the final rule?
Your argument is a straw man to try and give the veneer of a high minded process complaint to something you simply disagree with on substance. It is characteristic of certain groups and it is unfortunately rarely actively critiqued. It has become common place and is fundamentally disruptive to productive discourse.
remarkably, those who bash him are the same people twitter has done everything to bend over backwards for. same on reddit, facebook, twitch, etc.
people on the opposite side of the privileged class are barely allowed to exist on those platforms - only if they police their speech very carefully to avoid breaking a myriad of vague and unwritten rules, and even then they're still subject to being unpersoned for some perceived offense committed off-platform.
> people on the opposite side of the privileged class are barely allowed to exist on those platforms - only if they police their speech very carefully to avoid breaking a myriad of vague and unwritten rules, and even then they're still subject to being unpersoned for some perceived offense committed off-platform.
I'm having trouble understanding what any of this means
Parent is saying that these platforms cater to left leaning reactionaries ("social justice warriors"), and that people on the opposite side (conservatives) are far more restricted, but most of the criticism comes from those same left leaning reactionaries about the sites not further restricting the already-restricted side.
I don't think that there is anything inherently "conservative" about misinformation about a disease in the midst of a pandemic. If Biden decides tomorrow to claim COVID is a hoax, vaccines have microchips, drinking bleach cures COVID, or attempts a violent coup against the government, it'd be fair game to ban him from the platform, regardless of whether he's considered "liberal" or "conservative."
I did go through the "Ctrl-F" for the link, and it was a list of terrorists, Holocaust deniers, neo nazis, and hate speech. I don't think being a conservative necessarily entails any of these things either, even if they are often linked to being "*-right."
Ahh you weren't really asking, just trying to prove a point that conservatives are allowed to speak freely on twitter, as long as they don't accidentally set off a COVID misinformation ML classifier in their criticism of a gov't COVID policy, or have enough people flag their posts as misinformation.
I guess i should have just responded with the NYPost thing, which is the only thing I recalled initially, given it was particularly egregious right before an election and even Dorsey admitted it was a mistake:
https://nypost.com/2020/11/17/jack-dorsey-admits-lockout-of-...
>Ahh you weren't really asking, just trying to prove a point that conservatives are allowed to speak freely on twitter, as long as they don't accidentally set off a COVID misinformation ML classifier in their criticism of a gov't COVID policy, or have enough people flag their posts as misinformation.
It's hard to convey intent over text, but I couldn't be more genuine in my curiosity. Accidentally setting "off a COVID misinformation ML classifier" is a legitimate concern. Are otherwise appropriate posts being misclassified as misinformation? And wouldn't that be of concern to folks across the political spectrum? Same goes for flagging posts; this seems like a concern that isn't restricted to a single political position.
Well there's a lot of "conservative" aka right-wing American complaints about twitter silencing their voices for political reasons, some of them are just trolls who were being jerks bellyaching, but some do have a scent of legitimacy to me. It's all gray area really, personally you can read about some of the people banned on that list (cntl-f "conservative" = 24 results) or the NY post situation if you like and decide for yourself.
I personally think these media platforms are evolving policies that will be enforced selectively (e.g. NYpost account frozen for writing a story involving "hacked" materials) based on the bias of the people enforcing the rules (well that's really a violation of our policies, but that other post isn't because of nuance, that nuance really just a reflection of bias in either the classifier, or human being making final judgement call).
> only if they police their speech very carefully to avoid breaking a myriad of vague and unwritten rules, and even then they're still subject to being unpersoned for some perceived offense committed off-platform
Not sure what you're talking about. Can you provide examples/evidence?
If you really want to post about how vaccines make your blood cells broadcast 5G radio waves, you can go make a Parler account regardless of whether you get "unpersoned" (?) by Twitter.
Twitter's rules enforcement is historically EXTREMELY casual, the only thing I can think of is that they are relatively consistent about punishing death threats regardless of context. Even then, they let some of that slide. Very often a rules violation just results in a tweet being deleted or marked with a disclaimer, not a ban - few services would treat rules violations that way.
>If you really want to post about how vaccines make your blood cells broadcast 5G radio wave
oh, that's a great example, actually. as far as I vaguely recall from the times before the pandemic, expressing skepticism or criticism towards the government and corporations was not against the rules.
>Twitter's rules enforcement is historically EXTREMELY casual
yes - for the privileged class, twitter does indeed "let some of that slide".
english is not esperanto. it happens to be the native language for a significant part of the world population, and they have no obligation to accept its bastardization for the sake of inclusivity.
in every non-western country with its own language, those "some" would get rightfully ridiculed.
What is this universal, pure English you've been speaking? I must have missed the tablets on which it was written?
Non jokingly: There is no "bastardization" of a natural language. It is spoken how it is spoken and insisting otherwise is missing the point of language (I suggest it is "communication"). There is no King of English to sit and dictate the rules except for the common languages spoken.
If you want to really grok the concept, take some time to figure out what a "language" actually is. I'll give you a hint: your first 5 definitions have obvious failings.
I don't agree that contemporary usage defines the language. We have a canon of English literature reaching back centuries, and people use phrases from e.g. Shakespeare without eveen noticing they're doing it. I think it would be a shame if learning contemporary usage should fail to equip you to read Shakespeare.
Descriptivism is all very well; but it doesn't seem to allow for any usage to be actually incorrect.
Fair point, and I don't have a good counter-argument.
I think my problem, if anything, isn't that there's an excess of freedom of thought and expression so much as there's not enough counter-thought and counter-expression.
So my shaky position is stuck somewhere between what I've identified as the two evils: Book burning, and the uncritical dissemination and condoning of problematic ideas. (I'm aware there's a further problem here because I'm the one deeming things "problematic").
I also think I picked the wrong place to have this conversation. After all, TFA isn't talking about Ayn Rand, it's talking about "opposition to LGBTQIA material, the history of racism, and material that may cause discomfort to readers." These aren't things I would typically label as "problematic."
