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Comment by manifestsilence | Hacker News Reader

It's such an important distinction though. When people do it, it's just dissenting voices. When a platform removes someone, they can just find another platform. Twitter doesn't owe anyone a voice on it.

But when the government says you can't talk about a thing, they can make you take it down everywhere. Only this is protected, and this line needs to not be crossed.

I little sympathy for people getting upset at being deplatformed - they can go elsewhere, and their cries of freedom of expression cry wolf to the constitutional issue of those in power doing actual oppression.

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When you have your career destroyed by voicing a non-pc opinion, it’s a lot more complicated than finding another Twitter to post 140 character posts.

Yeah, but at the same time you need to understand that you're devaluing the rights on the other side of that. The guy whose company you work for, or the company whose platform you're using, or whatever the case may be, shouldn't be obliged to have their revenue take a hit solely in support of your right. I mean, if it's not going to cost your boss' company any money? Yeah OK, I can see where they should probably keep you. But if it is, well now you're putting who knows how many other jobs at risk.

You only have the right to inconvenience yourself in support of your rights. Just like me or any other person. I don't have the right to put all of my coworkers at risk so that I can call some black guy the N word for instance. That's kind of the way rights work. You have rights, but everyone else does as well.

You know perfectly well I’m not talking about “my right to call some black guy the N word”. I’m talking about careers destroyed by certain vocal minorities that many if not most people are secretly tired of, yet won’t speak out against because of the fear of being lynched next.

Anyway, how’s your comment even relevant to what I replied to?

GP: (implying) Twitter mobs can silence or even destroy people just like government silencing;

P: Just find another Twitter;

Me: When your career’s destroyed finding another Twitter is probably not the highest priority;

You: You deserve to have your career destroyed, because otherwise Twitter mobs will be angry with your employer and colleagues.

So you’re refuting what? If there’s freedom of expression no one’s job would be at risk. Don’t bring up “freedom from consequences”, murdered journalists also had freedom of expression, they only faced certain consequences.

I'm refuting the obligation of other people to listen or associate with you. That's all implicit in the first. Freedom of Speech. Freedom to Ignore. Freedom of Association. All of it.

NO. Your company is under no obligation to maintain your employment. Why? Because the owner of your company has rights too. You're not the only person who has rights. That's the whole point here. The First is for everyone. And they can do what they like with their rights. And you can do what you like with your rights.

We don't take away rights from Paul, because Peter finds Paul's rights inconvenient. That's not how the Constitution works.

Again, where the hell did I say I’m the only person with rights? Could you please stop putting words into my mouth?

And again, in the cases I was alluding to, people were only terminated because of supposed “public outcry”. Without “public outcry” the companies wouldn’t have done anything. You think they actually enjoy disassociating with employees because they made some remarks on Twitter that are completely irrelevant to what they’re hired for? Think again.

So, Twitter mobs have no obligation to listen to or associate with the individuals I was talking about. Exactly. It would have been great if they disengage and left well enough alone. But nope, they’re out for blood.

More like:

- You have a successful GitHub project.

- One of your key contributors voted for Trump

- PC police come and demand you kick said contributor off of your project for violating CoC because they went digging through his Twitter history and found a tweet with him wearing a MAGA hat

- You disagree and say it's his right to vote for whoever he wants

- PC police do everything they can do destroy you and your project because you have run afoul of their wishes

you can make up any scenario you want. does this actually happen?

It did. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21484347

That's just freedom of association in action.

> PC police do everything they can do destroy you and your project because you have run afoul of their wishes

No one was trying to destroy the Linux Foundation, Linux itself, or the KubeCon conference.

I've seen people say they'll stop working with a project if someone else they don't like is working on it, but I've never seen anyone actually attempt to destroy the project.

> No one was trying to destroy the Linux Foundation, Linux itself, or the KubeCon conference.

Right, because they acquiesced to the demands of the PC police. Had LF stood their ground and pushed back against the PC police, there may have been protests, etc. that caused KubeCon to be cancelled. Never underestimate the power of PC police whipping up a righteous maelstrom on twitter.

Again you can make up any scenario you want. You have no evidence that that is what actually would happen, because it didn't happen.

Even if it did, I don't see the problem. People have the right to protest and say what they want about the Linux Foundation.

My argument is so what?

That's what living in a nation with the First means. People can protest you, even for frivolous reasons. I could go organize an online protest against Mattel because I want a Malibu Barbie with stripper heels and poles.

The Constitution doesn't dictate how I use my rights, it only says that the government can't interfere with them. That's the line that can't be crossed.

Now if Twitter finds my request for Malibu Barbie Stripper Heels and Poles ridiculous and wants to get rid of me, that's their right.

Why? Because Freedom of Association is implicit in the First. And Twitter may decide that my request for Malibu Barbie Stripper Heels and Poles crosses a line that it isn't comfortable with.

Finally, I fully realize that Malibu Barbie Stripper Heels and Poles is obviously a ludicrous and trivial idea that Twitter would not even bother banning me for, but you get the idea. Some social justice warrior might come along and be offended by it and go on a crusade etc etc etc. But that's their right is the point.

This would be fine if we had basic income but since your survival is tied to employment, employers should not be allowed to discriminate based on political opinion any more than they can discriminate against pregnant women or seniors.

Sigh.

Guy, try to be reasonable.

Opposition to a political opinion, is itself, a political opinion.

What you're asking is that your political opinion be the only one that gets Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Association, Freedom of Speech etc. Because you are explicitly asking that people with opposing political opinions not be given rights of Freedom of Expression and Association.

Opposition to a political opinion is a valid political opinion.

You should lose your livelihood for having this political opinion is another valid political opinion, however distasteful.

However, there’s a big problem if you’re guaranteed to lose your livelihood when a handful of vocal individuals who otherwise have no associations with you whatsoever hold the aforementioned opinion.

Let’s just hope you’re never on the receiving end of it.

>Let’s just hope you’re never on the receiving end of it

Too late. I joined up with the ACLU decades ago, long before there ever was a Twitter. So I've been a pariah for a long while and it doesn't bother me. The important thing is to maintain the civil liberties of each and every person in the United States.

The Equal Opportunity Act begs to differ. Specifically, companies are/were prevented from discriminating on a racial (etc) basis even though (in many places, at various times) it was unpopular to employ minorities and could even impact the companies' bottom lines. Personally, I'll trade employer profit for employee rights all day every day.

Blame your employer for that, not the people on Twitter who disagree with you.

"disagree"

We start entering massive grey areas though when these platform companies actively take taxpayer funds and monies to run these platforms, then seemingly shut down one side of the debate or participate in active censorship.

I get the argument if it's their platform with their money curating the content their way, but many of these large platform companies, like Google, have received massive infusion in funds through the government, tax breaks, or subsidies, and nearly monopolized large segments of information exchange (search, video, etc.)

When you have so much material support going into these companies from federal and state governments, and then they behave a certain way towards our rights, you begin to enter a very realistic scenario where a proxy intrusion of your rights starts becoming a real thing, especially if that platform is one of the only few realistically available to use.

> When people do it, it's just dissenting voices.

Except when those dissenting voices make credible threats to your person, family, and livelihood or libel and slander you at a volume that is infeasible to litigate.

> I little sympathy for people getting upset at being deplatformed - they can go elsewhere

Where can they go when all of the major social media companies share the same general ideology? This idea that social media networks are plug-and-play beggars belief. Or perhaps you simply meant that people who don't adhere to this ideology simply don't deserve to participate in social media; that it's a privilege and not a right?

> their cries of freedom of expression cry wolf to the constitutional issue of those in power doing actual oppression.

What does this even mean?

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