Comment by systemvoltage | Hacker News Reader

Comment by systemvoltage | Hacker News Reader

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The sad truth is that this is an intense political battle. I would personally favor Elon Musk taking over and shaking things up, any other position is untenable. And, I am saying this as a progressive. I think an open and transparent social platform would be great for the society.

The issue is that managerial class of America, both in private and public sector, are in bed with each other. The government cannot suppress free speech using the frontdoor, but these social media companies (Meta, Twitter) as well as Big Tech machinery (Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon) act as a proxy for supressing political speech through opaque algorithms and straight up censorship.

We, liberals, used to be exceptionally devoted to free speech. Just look up ACLU's cases from the 90's and prior. We were against the establishment. Against the managerial class crushing labor. Against the fucking 3 letter agencies.

Now, my own party wants to turn America into an authoritarian censorship dystopia. It's hard to stand by that.

Just as the Republican Party has been taken over by neocons, the Democrat Party has been taken over by neolibs. They both have the same ideas and are never on the oposite sides. That is why you see endless and meanilingless wars, media conglomerates, censorship, billionaire-class, 3-letter-agencies off the leash, workers in diapers.

> Now, my own party wants to turn America into an authoritarian censorship dystopia

You could start by lobbying to force tech companies over a certain size to disclose reasons for users or content being removed from the platform. The legislation would have to have teeth, naturally.

Even aclu doesn’t believe in free speech anymore, at least not like they used to

ACLU has been gutted out and running on fumes off of donor class. I'll leave you with guessing who these people are.

Btw, I've never seen my comment go from 6 votes to 0 in a matter of 30 mins. Insane.

There's nothing conspiratorial about pointing out the close ties between organisations like the ACLU and HRC and the Democratic party, if that's what you mean.

Sad truth is, the moment an advocacy group and a political party become too close, the advocacy group ceases to be effective. This has nothing to do with Democrats in particular; cozying up to the Republicans is no different (e.g. the NRA).

I'm heartened by the emergence of organisations like FIRE that are picking up the baton for free speech in some of the contexts where the ACLU has completely dropped the ball, but still feel a pang of sadness at the hollowing out of the old, bad-ass ACLU.

Agreed. "bad-ass ACLU" is the perfect description.

> FIRE

What's going to be its immunity against the pests that took over ACLU/NRA?

Free speech has turned from a widely held value on the left into a narrow technicality.

It's the nature of politics. Free speech was useful to your party so they defended it. Now that free speech weakens them they oppose it.

The same happens with the other team.

It's disappointing but predictable.

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