Spanish politician suspended by Twitter for saying 'a man cannot get pregnant'
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This is overreach. This isn't giving speech to people under dictatorships, this is being the diktator. They, unelected, undeferring, are dictating the rules, regardless of local laws, mores and so on.
If they continue setting the rules for speech world-wide from their world-view-only, I think we can expect to see more Nigerias, Irans and Chinas when it comes to Twitter --and I would not blame them. Arguably, they are interfering with the sovereignty of these places. Ten years ago people who like this sort of pannational rule setting would have been claiming "Imperialism" but it's okay because they are the imperialists.
If anything it shows just how reliant these politicians have become on a foreign company for their political ranting/culture waring.
Twitter is not, in any sense of the word, the sole arbiter of acceptable speech. Nor are they even remotely trying to be.
What if WeChat, if TikTok, etc., etc., went all out with CCP propaganda and undermined Biden on all things China with regard to their US users? What if they decided they wanted to back a friendly candidate and have anti Biden propaganda? Are we cool with that? Or are they only cool when they carry water for you?
Let's suppose Mark Z decided he wanted to forgo US citizenship and went out and got Russian citizenship and then decided it was okay for FB to carry his new message? Cool? Oh, oh, do I hear calls of "interference"?
Except, they absolutely do? If Twitter wants to do business in Spain, it has to obey Spanish law. If it wants to succeed in the Spanish market, it has to appeal to Spanish consumers.
Your hypothetical scenarios are all based on a misunderstanding of my position here. It's absolutely the US's prerogative to take action against foreign companies that disseminate agitprop. Likewise, if Spain wants to step in and stop Twitter here, they can (and should!) do so.
That said, I think you're skipping the crucial middle step here where the citizens actually object to what Twitter is doing. Obviously, you think this is "propaganda" and "dictating the rules", but I don't see any indication that most people in Spain feel the same way. Where is the outrage from anyone other than a far-right political party that got ~15% of the votes in a historically low turnout election?
I think this is a discussion which needs to be had, though.
Not a discussion of anything related to trans biology, which doesn't belong here, but of Twitter meddling in the politics of other nations by enforcing a California Democrat's idea of acceptable speech on other people.
Twitter has accounts like @10DowningStreet and @POTUS, which are de facto government organs. It has become a global commons for politics, and this is a very awkward fit for enforcing rules which are primarily designed to keep frog emojis and rainbow-flag emojis from yelling slurs at each other.
How do you foresee this discussion being different than the one about Nigeria and Twitter [1] or Trump and Facebook [2] (both within the past day or so), modulo some details? Coupled with the distraction that you yourself pointed out, I think this is an ongoing discussion (has been for years on HN), and will likely be unchanged with this particular entry.
There are plenty of purely biological topics posted that stimulate curiosity or the intellect. It's the users that decide, collectively, what counts as on topic and what doesn't. If an article about trans biology was posted that didn't produce tons of snide sarcasm and identity politics in the comments (admittedly unlikely), I wouldn't flag it.
https://www.mit.edu/afs.new/sipb/user/ayshames/Python/LORETT...
There are many people who don't know the difference between a transman and a transwoman. If you say a transwoman can't get pregnant, then you're right. If you say a transman can't get pregnant, then you're factually wrong, there's been quite a few.