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Comment by labrador | Hacker News Reader

Babylon Bee seems pretty harmless. I find right wing humor to be fairly low-IQ, but they should be able to joke about trans women without getting banned. I'm a recovering alcoholic and bipolar, so I have to put up with jokes about drunks and manic street preachers. Why should trans get a pass? Heck, I even tell jokes about drunks and manic street preachers myself.

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A closest analogy would be the Babylon Bee making a joke about how you are not bipolar, it's all just in your head, or a satire about researchers trying to cure bipolar disorder instead of cancer, a real disease, and those would be fine, but then they would insist that it is true, your bipolar disorder is made up, and the CEO of Babylon Bee would go on Tucker Carlson's show and they would laugh about you being a whiny, lazy leftist making up things because you never had a strict parent to beat some sense into you.

Feel the difference? Transgender people should be absolutely the butt of jokes, that's how you include them, but then don't go around denying, mocking and invalidating them. Without some semblance of good faith you are not a joker, but a propagandist.

>> the CEO of Babylon Bee would go on Tucker Carlson's show and they would laugh about you being a whiny, lazy leftist

Then the Babylon Bee would publish "After Dismissing Warnings From His Mother, Tucker Carlson's Face Is Now Stuck That Way", which is hilarious since I knew before clicking the link which face it would be.

They make fun of everybody.

-- https://babylonbee.com/news/after-dismissing-warnings-from-h...

Yeah, once, lightheartedly, in jest. These comical masterpieces are on the front page every other day.

https://babylonbee.com/news/man-pretending-to-be-woman-visit...

"OMG OMG OMG Mr. President, how aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrree you? EEEEEEEEEE!" said pretend woman Mulvaney in a perfect impression of a totally normal woman. "I'm so, so, so, so, so, so excited to talk to you about important issues concerning very, very young little girls just like me!"

Meanwhile this one is just shamelessly pushing conservative misinformation. They even call for action at the end suggesting a propaganda book for children from the Libertas Institute, a libertarian think tank.

https://babylonbee.com/news/the-top-15-greatest-threats-to-d...

Yes I feel that because there are people close to me who think I manipulated the psychiatrist to get the diagnosis to excuse my behavior. They feel I am smart enough to do that. They can't experience what it is like to be me so they can't know and I excuse them for that. I use Jesus' phrase "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" to get through it.

>Babylon Bee seems pretty harmless.

It's as harmful as The Onion. Which is to say, not.

I think The Onion is funny, but the bee is funnier. They're even better at mocking themselves than any of their haters are: https://babylonbee.com/news/babylon-bee-writers-struggling-t...

From what I read here, they throw punches at transsexuals, and write some light hearted jokes about conservatives. It's mild. Probably an excuse so they can claim to joke about both sides without genuinely doing it.

They should be able to joke about anything. There are no sacred cows. If someone doesn’t like their humor then don’t read it. Don’t follow them.

They are allowed to joke about anything. They just aren't allowed to joke about anything anywhere.

If Twitter doesn't want them to make those kinds of jokes on their platform, Twitter is free to tell them they can't make those jokes there. That doesn't stop the Babylon Bee from making those jokes.

And, if Twitter has changed their mind, Twitter is free to tell them that they can now make those jokes on the platform.

This is how the marketplace of ideas works. Twitter is a participant in that marketplace. If you want to say things on their platform, you have to follow their rules.

Twitter is free to set up their moderation policy as it sees fit, but at the same time public is free to criticise Twitter for said moderation policy and the way it's applied. The fact that they can ban Bablylon Bee (under current law) doesn't mean that everyone should just shrug and accept it.

> but at the same time public is free to criticise Twitter for said moderation policy and the way it's applied

I certainly never argued that the public should not be allowed to criticize Twitter.

> If you want to say things on their platform, you have to follow their rules.

This implies that rules set up by social media sihes are sacred and shôldn't be questioned.

> > If you want to say things on their platform, you have to follow their rules.

> This implies that rules set up by social media sites are sacred and shouldn't be questioned.

It simply does not imply that.

Then they shouldn't have agreed to not joke about that stuff in the first place

Where in the terms does it say you can't make this joke? The enforcement of these things have been completely arbitrary.

https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/hateful-condu...

Key part being the last sentence here:

"We prohibit targeting others with repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to dehumanize, degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category. This includes targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals."

Perhaps Twitter does arbitrarily enforce punishment for intentional misgendering. Doesn't change the fact that Babylon Bee shouldn't agree to those terms in the first place if they have no plan on adhering to them.

It’s satire. They aren’t harassing anyone, they’re making a joke about a public person. It’s a joke and it’s completely different than “targeted misgendering”.

It's satire that's making fun of transgenderism. It would only work as satire that isn't intentionally misgendering if it was mocking conservatism's refusal to accept someone's gender. Which is absolutely not what they're doing

You’re confusing aesthetics and taste with harassment and targeted misgendering.

If you don't like Twitter prohibiting transphobia, don't use Twitter?

Just because you have to put up with jokes doesn't make it right. Those people get it all the time and it adds up. While you might be comfortable with it others are not. Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9n_UPyVR5s and tell me you don't see the parallels

I'm a big fan of "right to listen", so people with different comfort levels can all be more comfortable. It's as unfair for people with low comfort levels for jokes to make everyone else uncomfortable with overbearing censorship as it is to constantly be bombarded with triggering jokes. People should have the right not to have to deal with reading stuff they don't want to. People should also have the right to not be censored, and anyone who wants to read those jokes should be able to. These two issues don't have to be in conflict, theoretically.

It sounds like a technology problem if you dig deep enough. Somehow flipping moderation from banning people outright(except for illegal content and spam) to categorizing the content by possible triggers, then letting people subscribe to certain moderation lists that hide things they don't want to see. As long as it's optional on the listener's end, it's not censorship.

Jokes about alcoholics and bipolar people aren't usually part of a political campaign (willing or unwilling) to get them barred from many parts of public life[1] or fuel other genocidal ambitions[2].

Also, they're not even funny. Maybe because their function is not to make you laugh.

[1]: https://twitter.com/ErinInTheMorn/status/1582492801190674432

[2]: https://www.damemagazine.com/2022/03/15/trans-people-are-in-...

Perhaps you are unaware that many recovering alcoholics choose to remain anonymous because revealing it would be damaging to their career. I don't tell people I'm bipolar under my real name because I noticed it scares people and they pull away from being friends with me. So don't tell me how trans women are more special than me.

Politicians aren't using alcoholics as boogie-men.

Communicating your stigmas is optional, and rarely does anyone with institutional power demonize you or even attempt to de-facto ban you from public life for it.

I am extremely obviously trans, I can't opt out of being beaten up because some conservative talking head said people like me are all pedophiles. And if the GOP had their way I'd be illegal anywhere a 10 year old could be as "inherently sexual".

It is not optional. I have to out myself as well. Any time I start getting in a serious relationship with someone I have to sit them down to have "the talk" about me being a recovering alcoholic and bipolar. It's usually a relationship killer.

Let's be honest, you have a better chance of finding love than I do. I've been single for 10 years.

Look, I don't want to fight. I just want to use humor to ease my pain. Humor is good for that. What's wrong with a joke about a trans woman?

Nothing is bad with jokes about trans people inherently.

But as I already said, these are meant to tease your disgust reflex more than provoke laughter.

I'd recommend looking up some trans comedians. Not that I think you need to be trans to make jokes about us, but it certainly seems to help go beyond the typical "X identifies as Y" one joke format that is so prevalent in conservative comedy and certainly the Babylon Bee that collecting permutations of it has its own subreddit.[1]

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/onejoke/

> I'd recommend looking up some trans comedians

Will do. That sounds interesting. Thanks for engaging and Godspeed.

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