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Comment by zeroonetwothree | Hacker News Reader

Why was it suspended in the first place?

Here's the article: https://babylonbee.com/news/the-babylon-bees-man-of-the-year...

There's also a lot more history as well. Elon has done a [serious] interview with the Babylon Bee before [1] and also propped them on Twitter [2]. When they were banned he contacted the head of the site to confirm they had been suspended, and even mentioned to him that he might have to buy the site to fix their behaviors. [3] That was just before he ran the poll on Twitter, seeing whether people viewed the site as supporting free speech or not. [4]

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvGnw1sHh9M

[2] - https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1331698780073320449

[3] - https://twitter.com/SethDillon/status/1511325246967660547

[4] - https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1507259709224632344

It was locked, in a process where they force you to explicitly admit your tweet broke the rules before you can get your account back. There's more context here: https://babylonbee.com/news/twitter-has-shut-down-the-bee

> in a process where they force you to explicitly admit your tweet broke the rules before you can get your account back.

What a power move. That sounds like a struggle session.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denunciation_rally

It’s exactly what it is. It is designed to humiliate you and to warn others. This has been the progressive playbook the last 10 years. It’s the same playbook the Chinese communists used as well as the Spanish Inquisition and other authoritarian movements.

... but is this response, itself satire?

I would also appreciate a source that is not a satire article created by an involved party.

I agree. It's not particularly funny, and the "bird and bee" visual is the closest thing to satire I can find here.

Adm. Levine stayed in a potentially unhappy marriage for 25 years for sake of their 2 kids, or possibly developed genitourinary cancer and leveraged it to do a public service and lead and include transgendered folks.

Not particularly funny. I read it as a tacit admission of guilt.

They selected Rachel Levine as their pick for "Man of the Year", although she is a transgender woman. Babylon Bee says that she is a man, and the truth cannot be hate speech.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Levine

Honestly I would agree with Babylon Bee if it would be just for satire, like giving a funny award to a transgender woman, I get it, but they are not in it for the jokes, they are in it for the truth as they say, and you can't have it both ways. Christians telling intolerant jokes is joke in itself, but the problem is that they take their jokes seriously.

In that link, why doesn't Wikipedia mention the subject's "Born" name, like they do with others who change their name? Natalie Portman, Teller, Elton John, just to name a few.

Wikipedia's name policy is to include names that someone was notable under.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biog...

This includes trans individuals, such as Chelsea Manning or Elliot Page, who have their birth name in their respective articles. For some reason, these Wikipedia editorial decisions are extra controversial around trans people, so Wikipedia has a MOS section to explicitly address this in the case of biographies of trans people:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biog...

Elton John was notable as Reginald Kenneth Dwight?

His career started in 1962 as RD and he legally changed his name to EJ in 1972. I think 10 years of being a reasonably famous musician under a name is notable, no?

By that logic, this is a rather impressive and notable CV, the majority of which was pre-transition:

https://www.hhs.gov/about/leadership/rachel-levine.html

ADM Levine was a Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the Penn State College of Medicine. Her previous posts included: Vice-Chair for Clinical Affairs for the Department of Pediatrics, and Chief of the Division of Adolescent Medicine and Eating Disorders at the Penn State Hershey Medical Center.

The notability requirement is specifically for transgender and non-binary individuals.

This is not true either. The "Presumption in favor of privacy" section, especially the "Privacy of names" part might interest you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_livin...

There's two separate concerns:

1. Privacy of names in general

2. Treatment of people who have changed their names.

For #2 there is a specific rule dealing with deadnaming:

> If a living transgender or non-binary person was not notable under a former name (a deadname), it should not be included in any page (including lists, redirects, disambiguation pages, category names, templates, etc.), even in quotations, even if reliable sourcing exists. Treat the pre-notability name as a privacy interest separate from (and often greater than) the person's current name.

Ah yes, I think I misunderstood what you meant by the notability requirement. AFAIK there are no cis people with pre-notability name changes covered under the privacy interest guidelines.

Isn't that, itself, bias? Why wouldn't Muhammad Ali receive the same consideration, given that he considered his birth name representative of racial oppression?

1. Ali specifically is moot since he won an Olympic Gold Medal (and his first professional world championship) under his birth name.

2. If calling black Muslims by their birth names were currently used as a way of signalling racism, then I suspect WP would adopt a policy for that as well.

As has been noted, Admiral Levine had significant accomplishments under her birth name. The point is, Ali isn't even granted the possiblity of having his birth name unexposed, because ONLY transgender and non-binary individuals are eligible for non-exposure.

> For some reason, these Wikipedia editorial decisions are extra controversial

Because there is a significant group of people who will insist on using a trans person's birth name even if it's no longer correct, being deliberately hostile but trying to hide behind a thin veil of plausible deniability.

Because Wikipedia tends to err on the side of respecting the wishes of the subject. For a less political example, CPG Grey's page doesn't have his legal name or photo despite them being pretty easy to find.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CGP_Grey

If someone legally changes their name, that would indicate to me that the subject wishes to be known by the new name. Yet Wikipedia will still list the birth name.

People change their names all the time when they get married or immigrate and have no problem with their birth name's being available. I don't think it's fair to make a blanket statement about this.

And some trans people "have no problem with their birth name being available," even if they have stopped using it. "Blanket statement," and all that...

>Because Wikipedia tends to err on the side of respecting the wishes of the subject.

Unless that subject is right wing.

Wolf Blitzer:

>Wolf Isaac Blitzer (born March 22, 1948) is an American journalist, television news anchor, and author who has been a CNN reporter since 1990, and who currently serves as one of the principal anchors at the network.[1] He is the host of The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer and until 2021, served as the network's lead political anchor.

Seems fine, right?

Tucker Carlson:

>Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson[5] (born May 16, 1969) is an American television host, conservative political commentator and author who has hosted the nightly political talk show Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News since 2016.

But Tucker is labelled conservative.

Founder Larry Sanger: "Wikipedia is Badly Biased" https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/

And you don't have to be right wing to see this. I'm a registered Pacific Green.

You've confused Tucker Carlson for a journalist. It's a mistake sufficiently common that his lawyers have had to explain in court that he is an entertainer and his words are to be taken as opinion. Journalists and entertainers are generally held to different standards, especially in court. A better comparison would be to Rachel Maddow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Maddow

>Rachel Anne Maddow (/ˈmædoʊ/ (listen), MAD-oh; born April 1, 1973) is an American television news program host and liberal political commentator.

Maddow has used the same defense against litigation as Carlson. The 'conservative/liberal' tag is applied when a person is described as a political commentator.

>You've confused Tucker Carlson for a journalist.

Having the same bias as Wikipedia isn't evidence of their impartiality.

I'm sorry if that sentence made you think you had enough information to assess my political leanings, and I'm even more sorry if I gave the impression that I care about the politics of TV personalities. I'm strictly speaking in terms of how Wikipedia describes people on television. I may as well have said "You've confused Wolf Blitzer for a political commentator," as Wikipedia doesn't classify him that way, and he's never represented himself that way in court.

I've got no problem with your characterization of Carlson, but do you honestly believe Blitzer is an objective arbiter of truth?

I don't, and I think this myth among so many in "news" media has done more to misinform people than any of the pundits who are honest about their biases. See also, Dan Rather and Brian Williams.

I never said anything about believing the news. Wikipedia labels the political leanings of people they identify as political commentators, and they don't label the political leanings of people they identify as journalists.

In this case, both Maddow and Carlson have used the argument in court that a reasonable person would not take what they say as fact. Regardless of our personal opinions about him or his employers, Blitzer has not made that claim.

If we're trying to ascertain whether Wikipedia is biased in how it describes people on television, comparing a political commentator to a journalist is not going to be a very instructive example. Comparing to another political commentator is going to be more useful. I'm not making any assertions about how I feel regarding these people.

Wikipedia's editing policy is to only include the birthname in the article if the individual was famous/well-known with it prior to changing it -- otherwise it's considered a privacy issue.

Rachel Levine is listed as an explicit example of this in their guidelines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Gend...

Actors don't change their name because they're changing their identity, actors often act under a different name because they are required to have a unique name to participate in certain organisations (e.g: screen actors guild). An actor may be known as Natalie Portman but who knows what's on her passport? Transgender people are typically changing their identity, which is a different process.

In some cases, it is only a professional identity, and their legal name is unchanged. But others do change their legal name, and Wikipedia still mentions the birth name. Same with married women who take a spouse's name.

> Transgender people are typically changing their identity

This is not a thing that is possible, although the idea that it could be has lead to at least a few transgender women claiming in court that they are innocent of the crimes they committed before their new name and presentation.

Because "Wikipedia Is Badly Biased" according to founder Larry Sanger: https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/

He thinks Wikipedia is biased because it describes (correctly) that "alternative medicine" is bullshit? And also he is a climate change denier? Why is he not complaining that there is bias against the flat earth people on wikipedia? Sorry, "scientific minorities". This article proves nothing other than the author is useless.

I read the article and I must have missed where it's stated that he is a climate denier or that alternative medicine is or is not bullshit. Those are just two of several examples where he tries to show the lack of neutrality.

Truth and satire are intertwined in a special way that makes satire be so powerful. Also Babylon Bee said they were satirizing USA Today as listing her as a top woman of the year.

They did it because of her accomplishments, not for being a transgender woman. There is an important difference.

I understand the satire on some level, she was a man, she only transitioned later in her life, so of course there is always a question of whether you have to be born a woman to be a woman, did these people born into the wrong body, can someone be a woman if you find her look uncanny and so on. There is a lot to work with here.

What I don't understand is the malice, the cultural war insisting that she is a man, which means that she shouldn't be allowed to be a woman, no matter what. In fact conservatives often go the length and argue against the very existence of transgender people, offering violence as a solution.

I have no problem with trans people, but making someone like Rachel Levine woman of the year on the basis of her accomplishments does ignore something important. Namely that a lot of the 'woman of the X' awards are meant to inspire or encourage women in fields they are discouraged from, and that having been perceived as a male for a lot of her career meant that Levine didn't experience early career sexism and that some of her accomplishments may not have been possible for a cis woman. My mother is about Levine's age, and she wasn't allowed to go to college for what she wanted because it wasn't appropriate for girls (engineering). If the only way you can succeed as a woman/the only way you can get accolades is to be perceived as male for most of your career, that is DISCOURAGING, not ENCOURAGING. I feel similarly about Caitlyn Jenner's awards.

Whereas it would be perfectly appropriate to give such an award to a woman who transitioned earlier and would have faced similar difficulties in career progression as cis women.

ETA: This also differs by generation. Levine and Jenner's generation denied a lot of opportunities to AFAB people. Excluding cis women who are now in their 60s from science growing up and then celebrating woman scientists who were only/partially allowed the career because they were in the closet is...odd.

The question is whether a wrong (discrimination of women) can be fixed with another wrong (discrimination of transgender women) or should we just do what's right in the first place.

The entire point is that we shouldn't build artificial obstacles anymore. The conservatives are obsessed with who's what color and gender, what they are doing in the bedroom or in the hospital, but we don't have to. None of this should matter, not for an engineering job, not for anything. The entire cultural war is completely pointless. Conservatives say that they are doing it for the sanctity of the family and normalcy, just like Putin is saying that he is doing it to protect Russia.

Going forward, you're absolutely correct. I would have fewer objections to a Gen Z trans woman being woman of the year in 20-30 years, because odds are she could have transitioned young enough to be subject to sexism in her career and therefore yes, we should celebrate her overcoming that obstacle, just as we would a cis woman.

Also I have no problem with trans women receiving awards where they didn't have advantages for being AMAB.

> None of this should matter, not for an engineering job, not for anything.

It does now, though, and it has for the majority of the lives of people under the age of 20-25. Cis women Levine's age HAVE experienced oppression. Erasing that is also bad. Trans rights (and queer rights in general) have progressed quickly enough that this change has happened within one lifetime, so things get a bit weird.

I've seen something similarly in gay spaces, actually, as a cis lesbian. Younger people seem to think that those of us who were old enough to live in an openly homophobic society should just...stop being affected by that. It doesn't work that way.

> The entire cultural war is completely pointless.

I mean, I agree, but I can't talk to other lesbians without trans women being the center of discussion so. Now we get trolling from everybody. It's exhausting.

I don't get the logic. Just because older women have experienced discrimination it doesn't mean that older trans women should too. I'm sure Levine had her fair share of obstacles too, but it shouldn't be up to some oppression olympics to decide who deserves what and when.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppression_Olympics

> Now we get trolling from everybody

I don't know what are you talking about, but feminist lesbians with anti-trans, gender-critical perspectives tend to be loud. They must be the sexual minority equivalent of kicking away the ladder after I got mine.

Of course not. But trans women who were in the closet for most of their lives or who didn't know being trans was an option had DIFFERENT oppressions than cis women or trans women who were able to be themselves at a younger age. And being AMAB did matter a lot more when Levine was growing up. Levine could get a credit card, for example. Levine, as a future scientist, wouldn't have had her teachers and parents telling her that her interests were inappropriate due to her sex or gender (now, she might have internalized the messages that girls received, which might have affected her, but those things would not be said to her directly and she didn't experience things like having a greater difficulty being published due to her gender until she transitioned).

A lot of awards for women are there to celebrate women who accomplish things in the face of obstacles and giving them to women who have not experienced THOSE obstacles is counter to the point. Similarly, Caitlyn Jenner was not discouraged from being athletic growing up whereas a cis woman was, so no, she didn't have to struggle for her fame in the same way a cis woman athlete from that generation would have.

Imagine giving a trans man who transitioned as a middle aged adult an award for being a man in a woman dominated profession (Like a nursing association declaring him 'man of the year' or something). That trans man would not have been discouraged from that path because of how he was born.

Basically, the logic is that the award isn't actually just about gender (despite being called 'man of the year' or 'woman of the year') - the award is 'person of gender X who did cool thing Y because cool thing Y is notable from gender X/rare from gender X'.

A lot of trans activists have a severe case of presentism where they react as though all of recent history should be looked at as though these things happened in 2022. They also like to strip context from things. Like it or not, Levine, as someone born in 1957, received advantages for being AMAB (from how OTHER PEOPLE treated her - I have no idea how she conceived of herself most of her life, that's private). Did she get ALL the advantages a cis man would get? No. But she also wasn't disadvantaged in the same way a cis woman would have been. Levine would never have had to worry about planning pregnancies/being fired for getting pregnant, would never have had to worry about procuring an abortion pre-Roe, would not have to worry about landlords refusing to rent to unmarried women, would not have grown up knowing she was limited to the 'Female' section of the 'Help Wanted' ads (which were still a thing when she was growing up).

It very much depends on the award. Levine's accomplishments are partially helped by her being AMAB, which is what makes an award for them kind of...gauche.

A non trans related example would be giving a cis lesbian (I am one) an award for balancing being a successful careerwoman and a mother. Like yes, obviously we can do that, but we don't have society or partners expecting us to do any of the domestic labor due to our sex/gender (since we're both women). So such a woman wouldn't have had to overcome the expectation she do the bulk of the parenting/household tasks. Awarding her that when she got to sidestep one of the major difficulties just reinforces that those difficulties are insurmountable. Does that make sense?

> I don't know what are you talking about, but feminist lesbians with anti-trans, gender-critical perspectives tend to be loud. They must be the sexual minority equivalent of kicking away the ladder after I got mine.

Basically, good luck having a space to discuss lesbianism without being overrun by both TERFs and newly out/chronically online pre-op trans women who want to make the entire space about trans issues. (I'm not making any statement about whether those people belong: lesbian trans women are lesbians). We can't have a space to discuss something like the difficulties in dating when your dating pool is minute without having TERFs shriek about trans women and some trans women bringing up girldick out of insecurity every 2 seconds. Both sides use us as a validation machine and I'm sick of it.

This is relevant because I don't get to step away from the culture war. It keeps invading the communities and groups I'm a part of against my will, and it's not always conservatives or TERFs doing it.

I kind of understand your perspective now. An award honoring women could be less appropriate for people who only transitioned later in their life, since they basically newcomers to being a woman. Though there are also awards that are for women, but for specific things, like flying the longest distance this year. Sport awards on the other hand can be problematic, because transgender women typically outperform women and by a lot.

This is a complicated issue I guess. One one hand it feels like maybe we don't need women-only awards, on the other hand women deserve a special recognition. I guess it should be up to the people giving the award. USA Today for example gave 12 people Women of the Year award in 2022, Dr. Rachel Levine was only one of them, she just kind of overshadowed everyone else because the controversy equals clicks.

> It keeps invading the communities and groups I'm a part of against my will

I don't know how it is for the lesbians, but for gay men you won't find an uncontested space, unless you go deeper into specific preferences. People are different, they want different things, like some people are into older people, bigger people, cross-dressing people, submissive people, more serious, less serious, not serious at all. There are millions of pet peeves, and the dating pool is about fighting your way through them. Nobody would notice an invasion by transgender men, just throw them on the pile. A lot of gay man are insecure, especially older people, nothing new there. I guess it's different for lesbians, or maybe it's just your communities, I don't know.

It is complicated and context dependent. Like awarding Laverne Cox an actress of the year/woman of the year award or giving Eliot Page an actor of the year award doesn't engender the same annoyance on my part since acting as a career is open to both sexes so Laverne would genuinely be 100% standing on her acting chops.

I do hope that eventually there's no need for identity specific awards and honestly, I find them a little condescending myself. But they matter to a lot of women I speak to.

The primary difference in spaces is that as a 34 year old lesbian, I can tell annoying, insecure, or assholeish cis baby or older insecure lesbians to knock it off. I can't tell trans lesbians that because then I'm transphobic (this has happened). They like to have it both ways: They want to be treated like any other lesbian until it's pointed out that they're ignoring social protocol, then they want special treatment. Ironically, TERFs do the same thing. Call out their trolling and then it's 'I can be here, I'm a lesbian!'

Gay men are less worried about group cohesion and more open about conflict than lesbians are. Both TERFs and insecure trans women take advantage of cis woman socialization unfortunately.

> The conservatives are obsessed with who's what color and gender, what they are doing in the bedroom or in the hospital, but we don't have to. None of this should matter, not for an engineering job, not for anything.

Tell me again, which side is establishing “affirmative action”?

> In fact conservatives often go the length and argue against the very existence of transgender people, offering violence as a solution.

This is just factually incorrect.

Nobody denies people exist that identify as trans. Some people deny the identity is accurate, but no major conservatives are denying gender dysphoria is a thing. Are you seriously suggesting denying a self identity is denying the existence of that person?

Conservatives also are not calling for violence against trans people.

Please stop with this rhetoric. You are acting like the conservatives of your imagination that you are bashing.

I'm seriously suggesting that denying someone's place in society is denying their existence, yes.

Conservative government officials, media commentators and militias are regularly attacking transgender people with real-life consequences. It's not just legislative attacks and information campaigns, but harassment and violent attacks.

It's a culture of hate, and there is no excuse for it, and it should be called out.

>I'm seriously suggesting that denying someone's place in society is denying their existence, yes.

What do you mean denying someone's place in society? Are there are bunch of conservatives denying jobs to trans people or something?

You are being too hyperbolic.

>Conservative government officials, media commentators and militias are regularly attacking transgender people with real-life consequences. It's not just legislative attacks and information campaigns, but harassment and violent attacks.

Please show me conservatives physically attacking or advocating for the physical attacks against trans people.

Harassment is more of a subjective thing. Some people think the Babylon Bee's satire is harassment. I don't think it is. I also don't see any genuine harassment. Please provide examples.

>It's a culture of hate, and there is no excuse for it, and it should be called out.

I have yet to see any hate. Please show me some examples.

Source: the entire conservative media from Fox News to Breitbart, social media, the paper below comparing left-wing, right-wing and Islamist political violence, anti-LGBTQ violence and attacks on pride festivals, anti-abortion violence, shooting sprees, bombings, the Capitol attack, MAGA Republicans and Trump himself, QAnon, white supremacists, militias, incels.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2122593119

https://www.adl.org/research-centers/center-on-extremism

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2022/01/05/a...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence

Causal racism + transphobia + xenophobia + scientific illiteracy + the impact font = conservative memes

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRightCantMeme/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communiti...

> I have yet to see any hate.

You have, it's everywhere. Just drop in any of these words (gender study, transgender, sea level rise, climate change, sustainable development, liberal, Democrat, socialism, feminism, globalism, women's rights, representation, diversity, science, education, racial justice, critical race theory, mainstream media, vaccine, Hunter Biden, George Soros) as a bait to anywhere on conservative spaces and watch the hate flow.

I think you are confusing things. Being critical of things is not hate. If that is your definition then sorry to tell you but we aren't working with the same definitions.

No point of debating when you think saying Hunter Biden committed crimes is the same as hate.

Violence has been happening much more from the left when it comes to topics you brought up.

There is significantly more violence on the pro abortion side. Look at all the prolife institutions that were damaged and destroyed. It is peanuts against the pro choice facilities. And to top it off some of them were attacks by leftists to frame the right.

Huge amount of racists crap written on walls and stuff have been hoaxes written by the group targeted. Look at Buba Wallace and Jussie Smollett. Look at the the rise in hate crimes against Asians. It isn't exactly happening from a common Trump demographic.

The left has been leading in violence and hate. Regardless the violence and hate is quite minimal. If all you see is hate and violence then you need to get off the internet and as the kids say touch grass.

Is watching Fox News or Newsmax counts as touching grass? Many of my sources touched grass and came to the opposite conclusion than you.

Criticizing Hunter Biden is not specifically hate, but then again people are not criticizing him, they are spreading conspiracy theories about him. It is yet to be proved that he committed any crime, but his privacy has been already thoroughly violated. Steve Bannon famously said that he doesn't feel good about it, but they are in war. Hunter's entire life was on that laptop, and it was straight up weaponized. Now he is a subject to many QAnon conspiracy theories, and fictional retellings.

> Look at all the prolife institutions

You mean anti-abortion institutions? There are barely any sources for violence against them. I don't think most people know about them. You don't see people attacking churches either. Anti-abortion violence is frequent, it's everywhere, it's a serious issue.

>Is watching Fox News or Newsmax counts as touching grass?

It is the exact opposite. I think this proves my point that you need to get out.

Please provide me some Fox or Newsmax links promoting hate and violence though. I would be interested in seeing what you call violence and hate.

>Many of my sources touched grass and came to the opposite conclusion than you.

I was suggesting you touch grass not people you listen to.

>Criticizing Hunter Biden is not specifically hate, but then again people are not criticizing him, they are spreading conspiracy theories about him.

Conspiracy theories are not hate or violence.

>It is yet to be proved that he committed any crime, but his privacy has been already thoroughly violated.

Not violence or hate. I don't think the repair shop should have gone through the laptop, but it did become the repair shops property after Hunter failed to pick it up.

>Steve Bannon famously said that he doesn't feel good about it, but they are in war.

I don't care what he says about feeling good. Regardless he didn't say kill Hunter or whatever you think conservatives are saying.

>Hunter's entire life was on that laptop, and it was straight up weaponized. Now he is a subject to many QAnon conspiracy theories, and fictional retellings.

Again, not violence or hate.

>You mean anti-abortion institutions?

No. I mean organizations that help people who are not aborting. Providing diapers, money, doctor's services are not anti abortion.

>There are barely any sources for violence against them.

Perhaps you should check what happened after Dobbs.

>I don't think most people know about them.

Most people don't know about the violence and destruction they are experiencing.

>You don't see people attacking churches either.

It doesn't happen often, but it did happen quite a lot after Dobbs. Also Canada had a lot of Churches burned a while back.

>Anti-abortion violence is frequent, it's everywhere, it's a serious issue.

Like I said, touch some grass. You need to get off the internet and talk to real people if you think it is frequent. Spending too much time on the internet skews your mind and causes you to think things are getting so bad in the world. Things aren't perfect, but violence is relatively low and things are OK.

> violence is relatively low and things are OK

[1] disagrees with you.

[1] https://prochoice.org/national-abortion-federation-releases-...

> disagrees with you

Good for them.

The problem with crap like that is saying that praying outside an abortion clinic is considered harassment which is considered violence. They say if people are outside that scares people from going into the clinic which means they are blocking access. It is nonsense.

Second, some of the attacks outside of clinics were from pro abortion people. That site is bias and making it look like they were all pro lifers.

Nothing you are saying invalidates these studies. It's not especially hard to run into this kind of hate out in the streets either, and if you are running an abortion clinic you pretty much have to deal with it on a daily basis.

While we were talking a conservative man went to Nancy Pelosi's house looking for her and attacked her husband with a hammer. This was just one of the many high-profile incidents that occurred since the attack on the US Capitol.

This is a pattern. It's a culture of hate as I said, just in the United States alone at least 10 million people is fuming with hate, ready to snap on a moment's notice thanks to conservative media riling them up with conspiracy theories.

Things are not okay at all. The United States came close to the brink on January 6, 2021. The conservatives and their idea of a Christian theocracy checks all the marks of fascism, and they are not going to abandon it. History likely won't repeat itself verbatim, but it can sure rhyme, and a lot of people will be worst for it.

Please just stop. The person who attacked Pelosi's husband was a leftist.

https://nypost.com/2022/10/29/paul-pelosi-attacker-david-dep...

You need to get outside and stop going on the internet so much.

I don't see where that article provides any evidence for "The person who attacked Pelosi's husband was a leftist.", if anything it suggests the opposite.

Edit: ok, spent the few minutes tracking down an archive copy of the mentioned blogs, and ranting about "climate hysteria", "why colleges are becoming Cults", "communism is a revolution sponsored by wallstreet" and "Groomer schools" doesn't seem like usual leftist talking points.

None of those are necessarily right wing views.

Many average liberals agree with all of those. I consider liberals to be leftists, I know there is contention on that label though.

I hold a more strict view than most people on what is right wing which may be causing my different view. I consider all liberals including classical liberals to be left wing.

I would mention that "San Francisco pro-nudist activist Gypsy" isn't exactly a very right wing sort of position.

He was also a hemp jewelry maker.

At best he was in the center in common American parlance.

Hate speech is a construct. Not only does this construct not exist in US law, it cannot exist because it violates the 1st amendment.

Surely the truth can be hate speech. For example, a statement like “I hate X and I call on my followers to organize and commit against X” would surely be hate speech even if it’s true.

First of all there is no such thing as "hate speech." This particular statement would expose you to charges of incitement of violence because you would be giving a direct order to your subordinates to "organize and commit [crimes, I assume] against x." The hate part has nothing to do with it.

One is a statement of fact. Another is an opinion with a call to action.

My Twitter feed is full of

“There are only two genders. Test” And links to medical papers on myocarditis.

Two things that would get you banned quick.

What people and/or topics do you follow to get these things? I follow things related to tech, economics and comics; and the ads seem to stay topical to those things.

Yeah, I'm seeing a big uptick in myocarditis stuff too. That's despite being very selective about who I follow; it's showing up in the replies. The disinfo crowd (not just on that topic) is off to an even quicker start than I expected. Just in time for the midterm elections, too. :(

Myocarditis in young men below the age of 18 from the vaccine is real and verified. This was even shown by the CDC during the ACIP meeting for the bivalent booster. It's roughly about 1 in 5000 chance of getting myocarditis, and about 1/3 of the patients are still suffering from it 90 days after diagnosis.

I'm sure it is real, but that's not the point. A fact can be true but still be amplified far beyond its actual significance relative to other things that are also true, and that seems like what's happening here. I'm seeing a lot of people citing the exact same highly-dubious articles, which takes us further from figuring out the empirical truth on a complex set of issues. Those citations are also often accompanied by other claims on other topics (or even simple abuse), also familiar but unrelated except for ideological affiliation.

I'm not saying there's any kind of conspiracy - no coordination is required here - but there definitely seems to be a zeitgeist of people taking out pent-up frustration on their political opponents today. And it's clearly happening right here as well, though FWIW I don't consider your own comment to be part of that. You raised a perfectly valid point; others, not so much.

censorship attenuates the truth to its true significance.

-Some powerful newspeak there bud

>I'm sure it is real, but that's not the point.

Please don't deny The Science. You sound like an antivaxer.

>A fact can be true but still be amplified far beyond its actual significance relative to other things that are also true, and that seems like what's happening here.

So? If something is true who cares if a lot of people talk about it and like the content? It doesn't appear to be artificially inflated so it is just a lot of people talking about it.

> Please don't deny The Science.

I'm not denying anything. In four short words I explicitly accepted my interlocutor's claim. Please don't misrepresent.

> You sound like an antivaxer.

Empty insults aren't helpful either, or allowed by guidelines. When they're obviously contrary to reality, they're actually laughable. I mean, really? This is the level of counterargument you have to offer?

> If something is true who cares if a lot of people talk about it and like the content?

Strawman. This isn't at all about who talks about or likes the content. It's about attempts to mislead people, even if no actual untruth is uttered. Even the law, which is usually pretty strict about requiring proof of wrongdoing, recognizes that omission and misrepresentation can be equivalent to actual untruth. My "good guy with a gun" example makes the same point elsewhere in this thread. When a person or group of people goes around Twitter citing the same weak study about myocarditis and vaccines a hundred times, they're trying to inflate its actual significance relative to dozens of stronger papers on all sides of that same issue. They're using it to instill fear, not to inform. When done for an ideological purpose, as it often clearly is, that's disinformation.

Please note that I'm not trying to prove or disprove any point about vaccines or myocarditis. Go have that poo-flinging contest somewhere else. Consistent with the topic of this submission, I'm trying to address the issue of an uptick in certain tactics that people on all sides use, which pollute public discourse and make all of our lives worse. It's really sad that every one of the responses has only illustrated more of the same problem.

>I'm not denying anything. In four short words I explicitly accepted my interlocutor's claim. Please don't misrepresent.

>Empty insults aren't helpful either, or allowed by guidelines. When they're obviously contrary to reality, they're actually laughable. I mean, really? This is the level of counterargument you have to offer?

I was being sarcastic.

Antivaxxers say "I'm sure the virus is real" or "I'm sure the booster will protect us this time".

I should have been more clear. I assumed it was obvious with capitalizing "The Science".

>Strawman. This isn't at all about who talks about or likes the content. It's about attempts to mislead people, even if no actual untruth is uttered.

So what is the solution. We can't know the motives of people when they say truthful stuff. Should we suppress truthful things when it becomes too popular because somebody may abuse the truth?

The reason why people are so heavily pushing myocarditis is because we were told the vaccines were completely safe and anybody who disagrees is an antivaxxer conspiracy theorist. This is just incorrect.

>Even the law, which is usually pretty strict about requiring proof of wrongdoing, recognizes that omission and misrepresentation can be equivalent to actual untruth.

I haven't seen any misrepresentation or omission on this subject (not that I have looked much). Every post I have seen have talked about young men having the issue not everybody.

>My "good guy with a gun" example makes the same point elsewhere in this thread. When a person or group of people goes around Twitter citing the same weak study about myocarditis and vaccines a hundred times, they're trying to inflate its actual significance relative to dozens of stronger papers on all sides of that same issue. They're using it to instill fear, not to inform. When done for an ideological purpose, as it often clearly is, that's disinformation.

That is just not the definition of disinformation. Disinformation must be false information.

You are also just making massive assumptions about people's motives. How would you like if I did the same to you? The only reason why you are saying this topic is disinformation is because you want young boys to die from myocarditis. See how dumb that is?

If you're going to call something "disinfo," that thing should at a minimum be required to be untrue.

Maybe you don't understand what disinformation is. It's not just about saying things that are factually untrue, because that's easily countered. More often it's about changing the interpretation or emphasis to promote a preferred narrative and/or create an illusion of popular support. Other times the goal is just to sow confusion or conflict.

For example, consider how "good guy with a gun" incidents are covered by the media. Some would say they're inappropriately suppressed in mainstream news. Others would say they're inappropriately celebrated in niche news or entertainment. I'm not here to say which is right, but both could be considered disinformation. They're trying to shift the narrative toward an ideological position, regardless of actual truth or proportionality.

So no, I don't agree that something must be untrue to be called disinformation. Presenting it that way is itself kind of treading the line.

There is a difference between an instance of an individual person sharing a true idea to convince others, and an organization which claims to report the news but selectively reports true news for propagandistic purposes.

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