Seems obvious to me that this is so the government can force the platform to silence users who are critical of the government.
Especially since this is probably the only incident in the last couple of decades where the cancelation was a result of the government threatening consequences unless a specific individual was not canceled.
Dril said it best.
Oh, sweet summer child. It's as "grassroots" as the Cultural Revolution (party elites encouraging and directing mobilized workers and farmers to play out their power plays) was grassroot.
The FBI and others telling Twitter what to censor, the goverment agencies threating companies to comply, academics and prestigious news media on lockstep, nebulous NGOs and "think tanks" suggesting what's fake news and what's not, tech behemoths collaborating, even banks having a go at it.
In other words, it's as top down as the current Republican shit is.
Is there anything that will make you interested in free speech itself, or is it just an attack towards those you disagree with? People don't want to waste time in an internet debate with someone who starts off with an assumption of the latter, and you've already concluded you were being sarcastic in asking. The lack of interest in responding to you about it will only help drive your belief "the other people" are the only ones who claim to care about free speech.
The Kimmel thing is indeed a stupid and dangerous attack on free speech, but you can't just wait until the speech under attack is about something you care for to declare that. It's already too late at that point, which is what many of the people you eagerly dismiss as just caring about right wing politics were trying to say.
No, Trump started it in his first term, Biden just continued it, as did Trump continue what he started.
No, it didn't.
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/ex...
There is no lack of "equivalent left wing attack", just shifts on when it's okay to do based on how much the individual agrees with it. I've had this exact conversation with right wing folks but the other way around (where nothing conservative was unreasonable suppression but plenty left wing was unreasonable suppression). Because you agree with the views of whatever the Biden admin supported e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation_Governance_Boar... then you don't consider it a problem (and yes, the Biden administration likes to claim it was just building on something the Trump administration had started... which gets us nowhere in actually doing something positive for free speech instead of using it as a blame game). Because someone else agrees with Trump/Kirk they don't consider it a problem. As a result, there is nothing I can say that will make anyone agree when things are equivalent. The difference is not that I agree with a different agenda, nor do I need to find equivalence, it's that I'm not interested in weighing the speech itself.
I, obviously, don't like Russian misinformation (or human smugglers or whatever thing is obviously malintended), but I don't think trying to have a government body decide what is misinformation is a good way to solve the concerns. That's what a free speech absolutist is after all, not just a way to say only a certain party did something bad. I could go on and on about specific instances, but all that does is rile people up about "why would you put that in a list of bad things" or "that's obviously not as big a deal to worry about" whenever they see something they tend to agree with. Those not in support of free speech have no problem saying other transgressions on free speech are a bigger deal, just in agreeing what "other" is.
Supporting free speech is not about agreeing with the speech, it's about tackling any perceived bad speech with open means instead of power. I don't agree with either the Biden or Trump administrations on the ways either seek to suppress social media, regardless if you think some are justified and others aren't. You think it's okay to suppress things as long as they seem harmless or small to you, I don't. That's the only fair assumption of what a free speech absolutist is.
I will give credit that at least my original comment isn't already flagged dead for saying I'm really about free speech instead of the opposition, which has been the typical result the previous 4 years.
The point with Biden and Trump is whenever free speech is mentioned, people conclude the part of a political spectrum they identify with is being attacked by someone they perceive as being on a different part, with no belief there could ever be a person actually worried about free speech itself. It's not at all about whether I agree or disagree with where they perceive that threat to be from on the spectrum, it's just what such people like to claim. I've yet to see a normal political spectrum where 100% of folks agree with free speech absolutism, even when inconvenient.
To folks who actually care about free speech instead of partisan politics, the idea of debating where on a scale of 1 to 10 the source of the threat might be from is in itself absurdly irrelevant. To folks that don't care about free speech, it's convenient to perceive free speech claims as only ever having a hidden partisan agenda instead of allowing the possibility of a free speech absolutist. The only exception I can think to any of this is a political spectrum where one side is "free speech absolutism" itself.
Self-professed "free speech absolutists" get really angry when left or anti right people speak or make the right uncomfortable.
And it was like that all along, just a bit more hidden so that moderate right can pretend it is not happening all along.
The left en masse has been doing this for 10 years, and for far less that "authoritarian viewpoints".
People say all sorts of stuff, but if your consistently being told by a large cohort of individuals your shit stinks for a decade, it probably stinks.
I agree that the authoritarian left has very much tried to recreate the "no smoke without fire" pre-liberal "justice" system, but all it takes is organisational capture of media coupled with a lot of people without any critical thinking skills.
Just in time for them to “finish the job”
EDIT: Found this: https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/tiktok-ban-fueled-by-israe...