lesstenseflow

It’s funny to think that the concept of a female only hotel like the Barbizon was a workable idea in 1900, but would be impossible to establish today in our 2020s political climate, certainly not in NYC. It would be possible to set up a coed hotel for “female identifying” people of all sexes, but female only would be a nonstarter. One step forward two steps back it seems.

Why are comments about twitter's censorious nature being downvoted? The two main topics here (in my view) are 1. Twitter's response to Substack and how this move will impact the two companies and 2. the fact that some of Substack's most prominent users are writers who are refugees from other platforms (Andrew Sullivan from New York magazine, Bari Weiss from the New York Times etc.) who left because of the suppression-of-unpopular-speech trends that Twitter is now famous for.

So Revue is what, Substack minus fees plus twitter viewpoint-enforcement? In any event I think this topic (censorship) at least bears discussion and I encourage users here not to downvote the discussion in the name of "suppressing right wingers" or similar. Twitter does not just ban right wingers. Take a look at the list of prominent people banned from twitter[0], it includes people such as Talib Kweli, Zuby (both rappers), "The IT Crowd" creator Graham Linehan, numerous political satire accounts, numerous feminists, and numerous artists and others for death threats towards such potential victims as "the Planters mascot Mr. Peanut," "a dead mosquito" and "the country Austria" (issued by an Austrian artist).

If you have strong contrary views, you are probably in the danger zone for getting a twitter suspension or ban if someone wants to make a point of reporting you. Censorship should definitely be part of this discussion of Revue.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_suspensions#List_of_no...

I encourage you to familiarize yourself with this case before commenting that nobody should care about the subject being male. He went around booking bikini-waxing sessions (often in-home) from various women who provide this highly intimate service to women, then brought human rights complaints against them when they refused to wax his (male) genitals or allow him to come undress in their homes. This fellow’s sex very much mattered in this case, and people shouldn’t be forced to pretend it doesn’t as he goes around harassing and bringing frivolous suits against women. The courts ultimately agreed https://nationalpost.com/news/trans-activist-jessica-yaniv-f...

He also engaged in other behaviour so vile I won’t repeat it here https://www.womenarehuman.com/male-transgender-trans-activis...

Do you still think anyone who refuses to pretend-along with this predator/troll and echo his self-image back to him should be banned from Twitter? And do you think the speech is illegal?

> pretty narrow

Not so for better or worse. Multiple people have been banned from Twitter for calling a human rights litigation troll (and Twitter troll) a man (he is male).

https://nationalpost.com/news/free-speech-activist-lindsay-s...

https://mobile.twitter.com/bindelj/status/118726943929891225...

Calling a male troll “he” is definitely not illegal, yet you can be banned from Twitter for it. It’s not an incitement to violence, it’s not even borderline. Meanwhile that troll can ridicule one of the women in question for having a reproductive abnormality, so go figure. There’s a lot Twitter will ban you for that’s not remotely illegal, the gap is wide.

I agree. There are people on here seeming to argue that parler was booted “because of TOS violations” which they clearly were not. The winds changed direction and it became expedient to boot them, TOS rules don’t enter into the equation.

But the platforms aren’t being honest about this – they’re claiming that it was about terms of use violations. I’m saying “stop pretending like this argument from the platform makes any sense and let’s have a real discussion about the ramifications of banning groups from a platform when they become political unpopular.”

Parler did have moderation. What platform are you referring to here?

There's a lot of space between "what violates the law" (or explicit ios/play store Terms of Use for that matter) and "what will get you kicked off twitter" and I believe Parler operated in that space. Users could post stuff that would get them booted off twitter, but that was legal speech. This was fine with iOS & play store & AWS until they all simultaneously and independently (wink wink) realized it violated their terms of use. Unless we grant that this had nothing to do with newly discovered terms of use violations, it was crushing Parler in reaction to a change in the political winds (read: this is what happened).

Respectfully, this is bullshit. As mentioned above, the question was about dollars, cents, and optics. Parler costs nothing to cut & there's little PR hit (probably a benefit), Cutting Facebook would cost the platforms money.

The "terms of use violations" or whatever BS they're referencing for booting Parler doesn't even enter into it, the action is based at least 99% on cost/benefit to the platform, not some sanitary inflexible set of rules.

Dorsey showed Twitter's rules mean nothing. Trump violates rules: "oh well he's an exception because he's a head of state [and he's the best thing that ever happened to engagement!]." Trump is losing power & allies are fleeing him: "sure he's still a head of state but this is the exception to the exception, so we're booting him [plus the tides just turned against him and dumping him is more palatable]." Soon we'll have the exception to the exception to the exception.

So let's not play dumb and assert that this is about some fixed set of rules, the tech chiefs are clearly making the rules up as they go along based on "who is in power at the moment, what speech is unpopular at the moment" and above all "what will this cost us in dollars."

And the minute your speech is unpopular (I'm looking at you, anarchists, communists, and libertarians), out the door you go.

Good point. My expected reaction isn't "laws/CoC should be discarded" but "CoCs and their enforcement process is seriously flawed and needs revising."

Here there seem to be two issues: 1. Too-vague rules & 2. Unfair enforcement.

If we punished people for murder by forming a posse and summarily executing them, the reaction should be "yes murder should be forbidden but this enforcement process is seriously unfair and needs to be overhauled."

If we punish people for "being unkind" the reaction should be "this rule is unfair because it's not clear how one can go about following it and it is likely to be enforced highly subjectively which is likely to lead to enforcement based on personal bias, favoritism etc.."

What I think the author might see if he examined the situation with an open mind is that "be kind" (a rule he doesn't like) and "don't be sexist" (a rule he likes) both suffer from the issue of being vague and susceptible to extremely subjective interpretation. Reasonable people can (and do!) disagree about what is "kind," what is "sexist," or what is "racist," but these rules ignore this fact and take an "I'll know it when I see it" approach to kindness, sexism, racism etc. that is subject to the problems of arbitrariness, bias, and favoritism in all cases. I'm "haha"ing at the fact that the author refuses to consider this aspect of the problem: that it goes beyond just his case (other people think he's bad) to the cases of people that he thinks are bad.

> I was concerned that if only partial information became available, the anti-CoC crowd might jump on this as an example of problems with codes of conduct more generally, or might point at this as part of “cancel culture” (a concept I vehemently disagree with, since what is referred to as “cancellation” is often just “facing consequences”)

haha... 'Everyone else who gets accused of some transgression and is afforded no due-process is in fact guilty and deserving of punishment. Mine is the unique case of an opaque and capricious CoC process being applied unjustly.'

I find it funny that this fellow personally experienced the injustice of being caught up in an unfair CoC enforcement process run by some petty tyrants†, but refuses to believe that this may happen to other people, that his case may not be a wild aberration but a predictable norm, given the system and culture. I wonder what it would it take for Jeremy to say "Maybe this process has fundamental problems. Maybe a lot of the other people who have been burned by this have also been treated unfairly."

If someone can keep the faith even when they personally experience the injustice of a system like this, I don't what would change their mind.

† according to his account. As jpeloquin notes ITT, little is known to us third parties about the facts of the case.

> To be anti-racist is to fundamentally understand the lived experiences of the Black community and how it relates to other structures of power.

I thought “fundamentally understanding the lived experiences of the black community” was impossible for non-black people. What white person has achieved this goal? If none, is it impossible for a white person to be “anti-racist?”

I acknowledge racism is a real issue but think it’s reasonable to disagree what the best solution is. This stuff (white fragility etc) just smells way too much like “original sin” and “we are all sinners but must strive towards holiness, however unachievable” to me.

It’s really remarkable how much downvoting one gets if one says “SV tech company cultures are strongly left leaning.” This is such a widely known thing to anyone who’s worked in that environment that I’m surprised it’s controversial. Perhaps people just don’t like having this fact stated?

The high ratio of downvotes to rebuttals is also telling: people want to anonymously disagree but not to disprove. (I have a comment further down thread to the same effect that got a similar reception.)

> Hiring based on political beliefs, or in this case, presumed political beliefs, sounds like a dangerous road to go down.

You don’t think this is happening already? I’m not sure what companies you’ve looked at but most big tech firms have left wing political cultures on an official level, with “culture“ departments and events promoting and sharing various culturally left-wing talking points everyone is supposed to be on board with. Try saying “I actually don’t think america is a deeply racist country in 2020, there’s a huge amount of opportunity here which is evidenced by the number of people (ostensible victims of racism from India, mexico, etc) who line up to come here. Oh and by the way I think natal women are entitled to privacy from men in their bathrooms (like 95% of Americans believe)” during a lunch interview and see how fast you get the “thanks for your time we’ll be in touch.” Or just say “I voted for the current president” if you prefer something shorter.

Alternately, talk about supporting BLM, BDS, and how terrible America is as a country—no one will bat an eye.

For the record I hold views from both of the above “columns” but I know which ones I’m allowed to share at work (the left leaning “progressive” ones) and which ones I need to keep to myself, namely, everything else.

EDIT: downvoters: please set me straight here and let me know what part of my comment is inaccurate or untrue.

“The moon is made of cheese. Disagreeing with that causes me intense emotional distress so no ‘decent person’ would do so.”

Are any views invalid?

Why the moderator penalty? I ask because this is a case of someone being punished for discussing a topic (gender identity and the limits of one’s authority over the speech of others), and then it would seem discussion of the punishment is being suppressed on a second platform (here). Looks almost like “suppress the topic, then suppress the discussion of the suppression.”

Got me thinking wow, some people really don’t want anyone discussing this topic! I wonder why.

Anyway to the main point, why did this story get a mod point?

Using a throwaway for obvious reason: it’s rational to be afraid to discuss the topic openly (see TFA), these folks will put you on a blacklist faster than you can say HUAC.

Also from that article:

> Cellio, for what it's worth, does not include any preferred pronouns on her Twitter account.

Yet, when they refer to her, Stack Exchange puts pronouns next to her name, clearly against her own “preferences.” It’s like they’re literally forcing onto her an ideology or worldview which they know she does not share.

What bizarre, hypocritical, vindictive behavior from Stack Exchange.

Reading some of Monica’s commentary on this, it pains me to conclude that she doesn’t know just how bad the situation is. She appears to have approached the issue in question respectfully and highlighted her concerns diplomatically, and she believes there must be a “big misunderstanding” because of the extreme response with which she was met. Surely all parties are interested in reaching an outcome everyone can live with, right? Wrong.

The reason her questions and were met with summary punishment was due to the fact that the moral crusaders she was attempting to engage with do not tolerate ideological noncompliance. There was no “misunderstanding.” Chipps and the rest could detect that she was likely to continue to ask questions about the policy, and anyone who dares question such policies is clearly a “bigot” and a “transphobe,” and why would you want someone like that to be a moderator?

Word to the wise: people like this (moral crusaders) will not hesitate to burn your organization to the ground if they don’t get their way. They’ll run coups (like this), condemn you on Twitter, and scare everyone into first being silent, then leaving the org, either out of fear of being the next to be condemned, or just the exhaustion of dealing with it all. I have seen this happen to non-profits, conferences, even private school boards (take a look at Oberlin for an example). If you get crusaders like this in your org, you should consider it an existential threat.

Well, off to delete my Stack Overflow account.