The only thing that I foresee coming out of this is increased re-election chances for some of those house representatives on the judiciary panel. Mostly due to this grandstanding move making it appear like they are trying to be "tough on big tech" and are doing something against the "big bad zucc".
This is so stupid and tiring. At this point the only thing I am hoping for is that will be at least as entertaining and idiosyncratic as the infamous Zuck senate hearing from 2018.
Considering that the chair (Jim Jordan) himself ignored a subpoena from a similar committee (Jan 6) with no consequences; I'd say the chances are slim to none.
Well, that's just a natural consequence of a checks-and-balances system that has bugs... Like expecting a group of people to enforce the law against themselves.
Zuck, on the other hand, 'only' has plain-old upper-class-privilege to lean on.
He can sponsor the campaigns of every single Representative (or their opponents) and not break a sweat - he's wealthier than the Koch brother(s).If he picks up a phone, most reps - including those on the committee - will hear him out. Zuck could wrangle more allies in the House than Jim Jordan.
Republicans are insane, Democrats are cowards, neither lead.
This is what you get when you try to get everyone to vote. Your vote counts! But when too many people who have no idea what's going on vote, the game of who gets elected becomes "who can take advantage of the ignorant masses best?". Which is why we got a reality TV personality as a president and zero pressure by the electorate to get the Democrats to get anything done.
Of course they are cowards.
Republicans have far more guns, have anger issues, and are willing to use them. I'm guessing what you are advocating is for Democrats to do more? To become more radical? But look at the rest of the posts in this thread, at how many people are calling liberals fascist. What would happen if they actually tried to do something?
Maybe we could have some kind of tax you must pay before going to the polls, only allowing land owners to vote, limit the number of polling places in the wrong neighborhoods, make it a crime to vote without state issued ID but make sure the state issued ID is inconvenient to get in the wrong neighborhoods.
That will really make sure only the right people vote and they only elect the right people.
Nearly every country in the world that has elections requires some kind of identification to vote, I don’t see any reason to object to this besides it being somebody else’s desire.
Don’t be absurd, I’m not advocating for a poll tax or keeping any specific kind of person from voting… except those who know nothing about or would otherwise be uninterested in politics.
Votes are being sought through the same spammy clickbait fear methods that grabs so much attention these days. Such methods to win elections corrupt the political process so the only way to win is to grab the most attention through fear, fake conflict that becomes real, and other sorts of degrading manipulation.
The kind of shit I’m getting constantly from both parties in my inbox is disgusting and directly responsible for the awful state of national politics. Either I’m supposed to step up to battle the evil opponents or I’m supposed to be afraid of what they’ll do if they win (so give now! 5x matching only going on for a limited time.
I would not object to voting IDs if they were free and easy to acquire. They are not. The fraud they allege to prevent is low double digit numbers when summed up over decades of voting. If you don't see that ID laws are being intentionally used to prevent votes from people who want to vote, you are willfully blind.
From wikipedia: The criminal offense of contempt of Congress sets the penalty at not less than one month nor more than twelve months in jail and a fine of not more than $100,000 or less than $100.
Somehow I'm thinking he'll avoid the jail time and maybe have to pay a fine that amounts to pocket change for him.
You don’t get to pay the money and go away. The contempt proceeding would be used to compel him to obey.
I agree that billionaires generally enjoy a different tier of the legal system, but consider that if the House moves forward with contempt, they have to see it through. He has to obey, or be thrown in jail until he does. Because the alternative is that the House demonstrates that it does not enjoy legitimacy. Everyone will begin ignoring House subpoenas because, hey, the House doesn't enforce them. I'm pretty sure there's a few Trump-world people who tried this and it didn't go well for them?
> but consider that if the House moves forward with contempt, they have to see it through. He has to obey, or be thrown in jail until he does.
What we learned from the previous administration is that you just need to fight it until the power switches hands meanwhile fighting it in court. Zuck makes some donations to the opposition party candidates and their PAC's, and hope they win.
Or he subverts the controlling party the way Russia would do it, and hire some firm (possibly Israeli) to do a deep background check in the ruling party and use it to blackmail them.
Also it's not a good look when one of the controlling party members chose to ignore a subpoena issues by the same body they control now.
It just blows my mind to see how conservative Americans have become convinced that "big tech" is actively censoring them. Any online person knows that social media is an absolute mudslide of right-wing content.
No matter how much I block alt-right YouTube channels, google continuously either ignores those blocks, or forces more and more in to my recommended.
It’s crazy to see “right wing content is being censored” claims while google is very very clearly pushing right wing content above everything else.
I don’t use Facebook, but my wife does and Facebook is exactly the same. It is very obviously pushing right wing content up.
When you can open up a video and within 30 seconds, they’re calling for the eradication of the Jews, with hundreds of thousands of views, it really begs the question of what the hell these people are saying that it’s actually being removed. Cause straight up calling for genocide is not just allowed to thrive on Facebook and google, it is actively pushed on to recommended no matter how much you try to block it.
I watch PBS space time, various software engineering talks, and chess. That’s it. Why is YouTube recommending conspiracy theorist alt-right shit?
You might consider me alt right, I sure wouldn’t but regardless, this has absolutely not been my experience. I’ve heard many of the alt podcasts and YouTube and movies, heck I’ve even gone on infowars...
I definitely have never had anything even remotely close to your examples. Very bold claims but also very incorrect.
The Infowars guy is spreading propaganda that Democrats are killing children and drinking blood. That is a very thin veneer over actual Nazi propaganda.
I don't know if I have ever heard of a video with many views openly calling for genocide, but one can certainly spot those calls in the comments of those sources. That shit is coming from somewhere not far removed.
In this thread there is something unusual to see in the wild: a dog whistler immediately talking about "hereditary intelligence" and IQ tests after a single question on what precisely "wrong think" is.
Not Bold at all.
I just watch Science and Programming on YouTube, and it will start suggesting alt-right, red-pill, religious content, pretty radical religious content.
From my perspective, the internet leans right. This isn't some isolated experience.
I don't know what to tell you. I watch "right wing content" exclusively and not even I got "exterminate the jews" level content. Though I see plenty of commentary about day to day beliefs by academia that calls for my race to be wiped out and discriminated against.
I'd say the media is playing both sides except you all can't deny that there is systemic discrimination against white people in multiple countries' law books right now, in 2023.
I thought the other one was even more odd: "Oh Youtube keeps promoting right-wing, eradicate the Jews content".
But, to be fair, I didn't say I don't see antisemitic content. That for sure pops up once in a while in very "muted" language. I've also seen a rising trend for the traditional values of Jewish people to be admired on the right/conservative side, so there is that.
Academics are not calling for genocide dude. If you can point to even one non right wing academic figure that calls for the genocide of any race of people, I’ll donate $100 to Doctors Without Borders that moment.
Look, I agree these things aren't straight out "hey lets go out and gas white people" (Well one of them is). But the pattern is disturbing, and the media coverage is even more disturbing because they're (I would argue) hiding the level of this stuff, thus preventing us from having the conversation. Why do conservatives feel threatened, this is just Affirmative Action and Inclusion (such orwellian terms that hide their discrimination), so why do you feel that way unless you're secretly racist? Well, it's because there is a sustained, and secretly promoted hatred of white people and it needs to be brought to light.
As an example, the Wikipedia page on Brittney Coopers at Rutgers University. No mention of this pretty-notable controversy about her racist comments. Probably edited for months after the story broke until people lost interest dealing with the Wikipedia rules.
> I'd say the media is playing both sides except you all can't deny that there is systemic discrimination against white people in multiple countries' law books right now, in 2023.
Sure I can. Many of the laws cited as "discrimination against white people" in North America and Europe are either things like affirmative action or laws to the effect of "don't be a dick to minorities". As a white guy I've never felt disadvantaged by such laws, but maybe I'm just made of sterner stuff than people that claim to represent "western values" and prattle on about how weak men are these days.
The older I get, the less "turn the other cheek" I feel like being towards bullies, and that's what this is, bullying. I want to leave a fair and equitable world for my (white) children, not one filled with hatred and racism.
And to answer your point, I say this in the context of an african country where white people are a minority and yet still discriminated against with laws passed by a "democratic" government. Of course, it's all under the guise of "Affirmative Action" and "Black Economic Empowerment", giving it that "noble" aura of "fairness". Meanwhile the country burns as the laws enrich the elite, keep the black people poor, make the white people poorer, and ultimately cause everyone to blame everyone else.
> When you can open up a video and within 30 seconds, they’re calling for the eradication of the Jews, with hundreds of thousands of views, it really begs the question of what the hell these people are saying that it’s actually being removed. Cause straight up calling for genocide is not just allowed to thrive on Facebook and google, it is actively pushed on to recommended no matter how much you try to block it.
> I watch PBS space time, various software engineering talks, and chess. That’s it. Why is YouTube recommending conspiracy theorist alt-right shit?
I call bullshit.
There's plenty of racist crap on the internet, but "within 30 seconds, they’re calling for the eradication of the Jews, with hundreds of thousands of views" is just not believable, unless you're _deliberately_ going into some very dark corners. Facebook isn't suggesting this to the broad audience because it would get immediately flagged -- in some countries, such a video is illegal.
YouTube's algorithms can get twisted up and make recommendations based upon associations we don't see, but "I watch PBS space time, various software engineering talks, and chess. That’s it. Why is YouTube recommending conspiracy theorist alt-right shit?" is just not believable, unless someone in your house is deliberately searching for it, or you think anything non-Marxist is alt-right.
I have an extremely similar profile (chess, PBS space time!) and I get non stop Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate in my recommendations. YouTube Shorts are the worst for this, I can't scroll through ten videos without seeing this guy, no matter how many times I click "do not want!"
Dude. I’ve selected “don’t recommend this channel”, reported and blocked “the critical drinker”, who’s videos can be summed up as “women and black people are bad”, no less than 8 times and YouTube is STILL recommending this fucker as of 7 minutes ago.
Is there anyone out there collating data on YouTube suggestions in a widespread way? Like a browser extension that tracks when and what videos appear vs which ones are watched.
I assume doing this would be a privacy nightmare, and not capture most data 'the algorithm' runs off of.
I've heard of specific studies where fresh accounts are tested and the time until certain 'radical' content starts showing up, but nothing on existing accounts in use by people. I don't have a great handle on this, since I limit the amount I use YouTube's suggestions.
It just blows my mind to see liberal Americans being ok with every major social media platform ban accounts and block content they said was false when it was actually true. Biden laptop for one.
Liberalism has been coopted by authoritarianism and branded as a weird sort of "friendly fascism" [1].
Instead of recognizing the historical dangers of that sort of philosophy, it's wholly embraced - with an illusion of legitimacy pasted on top that exploits our better natures by channeling good intentions (anti-racism, anti-discrimination, self-ownership, public health, environmentalism) into a mechanism for certain people to gain more power and control.
The part of this that I've found the most disturbing is the absolutely bizarre pivot the "left" made from being deeply suspicious of Big Pharma, to a sudden (almost overnight) support of government regulatory partnership with megacorps, with all of the actors in the scenario receiving big money and little scrutiny.
Even asking basic questions and pointing this stuff out gets you shouted down and cancelled (I'm burning lots of karma just posting this viewpoint).
The over 6 billion dollars [2] per year that pharma spends on direct-to-consumer ads on TV, and how that influences the content that's shown on TV and which politicians the media supports are completely ignored.
Somehow the folks that have traditionally been the champions of civil rights, anti-war, and watchdogs against the growth and abuse from corporate power, have instead become cheerleaders for an authoritarian state controlled mostly by the military industrial complex and big pharma.
I don't think it's unique to the "left" - the "right" is certainly guilty of the same stuff, it's just particularly painful to watch coming from the folks I grew up believing were the ones that were supposed to protect us from that sort of abuse.
“Vaccines work” is not the the same as supporting big pharma.
Additionally, stating that all people deserve a good life, and attempting to stop bigotry is not “fascism”. Your definitions of things have no basis in reality.
Stop brainwashing yourself. Start using basic critical thinking skills.
It’s unclear who’s brainwashed here or who’s using critical thinking skills.
Not all vaccines work. It’s ok and prudent to require efficacy trials and release of information about those trials before making a call on whether a person wants to subject their body to it.
Not all comments that you find bigoted are thought to be bigoted by everyone. Who makes that judgement?
And not all people deserve a good life like murderers and rapists.
You literally stated that your “alternate political opinion” is transphobia dude.
Efficacy on Covid vaccines is long demonstrated and you’re still calling it fake news dude.
It is exceptionally clear who is brainwashed here.
Not only that, but your position changes depending on the context of the conversation. Was fast tracking Covid vaccines good or bad? Depends. Are we talking about the fact that Trump was fast tracking them, or are we talking about whether vaccines work or not?
Additionally, you guys don’t even regard what fast-tracking actually means anyway. It doesn’t mean “ignore evidence. Push it through”. It means “if you get a task related to this, you drop everything else and focus on this instead”.
There are lots and lots of kinds of authoritarianism, and Democrats et al have embraced a Leftist type which pushes for egalitarianism through violence, which is antithetical to fascism (the egalitarianism, not the violence). There are a few big name Dem politicians who are pushing a modern brand of fascism, but they're the minority now.
Nothing that follows should be viewed as a defense of the Right.
> Somehow the folks that have traditionally been the champions of civil rights, anti-war, and watchdogs against the growth and abuse from corporate power, have instead become cheerleaders for an authoritarian state controlled mostly by the military industrial complex and big pharma.
Ah, see, that's your mistake. You were fed the cherry-picked history where the Democrats et al were the Good Guys of the 20th Century; this is a common problem when government schools are run by teachers unions that are in bed with one party.
Progressives were never liberal; they were always authoritarians. If you read some of the fascist writers before WWII, they often praised the progressives in the US, including FDR.
Marxists were never liberal; they've used various names over the years to avoid taking responsibility for the tens of millions of people they killed to achieve their utopia, but it's important to recognize how much of the modern US Left draws from Marxism.
During the anti-Communist years after WWII, the Communists tried to rebrand themselves as civil libertarians and the like. This was a show. The ACLU was genuinely liberal, but the Left was also committing terrorist acts as "champions of civil rights, anti-war, and watchdogs against the growth and abuse from corporate power". The terrorism part doesn't get taught in school. Kids hear that the Black Panthers set up lunchrooms, but so do Hamas and Hezbollah. They're still terrorists.
So we should recognize that Democrats et al were never the liberal champions we were taught in school or heard on TV. The reality is always dirtier and more complicated.
Pretend that I also spend 20 minutes typing up why I think the Right is awful, because they've rarely been liberal either.
I'm conservative (actually conservative) although not American and my point of view is the opposite of yours. Terms of service of big tech are written in particular not to allow me to express my political opinions.
Goes to show how we all have a different experience. But what is surprising is how the experience is negative for everyone involved...
Please provide the ToS segments that are not allowing you to express your political opinions. Feel free to provide said political opinions as well. I am open to your opinion, but not without examples.
What you are saying is that these TOS don’t allow you to behave like a horrible person towards other users of the platform, which is why these provisions are there in the first place.
What you are saying is that morals should not have changed and evolved at all, ever, because societies aren't allowed to broadly define what "respect" means, only a handful of asshats.
Also, your points very strongly suggest that the paradox of the intolerance would apply here.
> Also, your points very strongly suggest that the paradox of the intolerance would apply here.
Your response suggests you don't understand my points at all.
The "paradox of tolerance" could just as easily be invoked by Orbán, Erdoğan, Trump, the Christian churches, etc. I suspect Orbán and Erdoğan HAVE.
Once we give "society" the ability to decide what is and is not "hate speech", you give people you oppose and fear the ability to decide what is and is not "hate speech".
The answer to that isn't to craft a better definition of "hate speech", or create a permanent majority of your particular brand of ideology, it's to eliminate the idea that any group should oppress the other based upon what they believe.
> Hate to break this to you, but society as a whole, and not "big tech", have "moved the goalposts" to consider hate speech frowned upon.
And in this case "society as a whole" means liberals.
It's pretty essential to understand this is an area of political controversy where rival factions are fighting with each other, and those factions have different strengths and weaknesses.
The liberal faction has a much stronger hold of certain institutions (e.g. media, academia) that give it much more power over language. Redefining terms is a pretty powerful weapon. For example, if there's a consensus that "hate speech" is unacceptable, win your battle by redefining it into a grab-bag that encompasses all kinds of things you oppose. Another example is the trick of redefining "society as a whole" to mean your faction, to delegitimize your opponents even if they have similar levels of support. That tactic has the most power within the faction and with "neutrals," opponents can see through it but often have trouble countering it.
> And in this case "society as a whole" means liberals.
Are we really debating if saying that "black people are intellectually inferior", is hate speech? Are the merits of any of the sides defending or attacking this statement, worth debating without a context?
OP came with this broad statement that "black people IQ is lower" than other races. He stated that it was a "fact", which may as well be, but without a context, not only it is meaningless, but derogatory for no other better reason than attacking someone for the color of their skin.
If we, as a society, cannot find comments like these, "wrong", then we have failed.
>> And in this case "society as a whole" means liberals.
> Are we really debating if saying that "black people are intellectually inferior", is hate speech? Are the merits of any of the sides defending or attacking this statement, worth debating without a context?
The OP gave two examples, and you're ignoring one. There's a lot more political across-the-board consensus about race and IQ than there is about transgenderism, and that actually factors into my point.
The primary moving of the goalposts here is by this online neoreactionary movement based around reminiscing on an idyllic vision of simpler times when everyone walked uphill to school both ways and people "knew their place". Everyone else is basically content not dwelling too much on things like the heritability of intelligence, regardless of whether they're technically true in the statistical sense, because of the generally horrible outcomes from doing so.
> What you are saying is that these TOS don’t allow you to behave like a horrible person towards other users of the platform, which is why these provisions are there in the first place.
Exactly. This is why no one should be allowed to deny the resurrection of Christ.
To deny the resurrection of Christ is to invalidate who I am. It's hate speech.
You want to discuss on-line how it is a fact that blacks have a lower IQ?
Or, just debate if this is true, pretty sure there are a lot of studies showing this is not a fact.
If women have hysterectomy's are they no longer women?
Are you German? Asking for a friend looking for a eugenics meetup.
>> Saying that a mtf transexual is not a woman is hate speech according to these terms
> If women have hysterectomy's are they no longer women?
You know that's a pretty disingenuous misinterpretation, right? If someone says a "mtf transexual is not a woman," they're almost certainly using a classical definition of "woman" that was never so reductive as to classify a woman who's had a hysterectomy as a non-woman. Their actual definition is almost certainly something along the lines of:
1. Gender and sex are the same concept, which is assigned at or near birth based on physical inspection of genitalia according to traditional standards.
2. The identity is fixed throughout life, someone can't "transition" (because if injury, etc.). The only possible allowed exception is if point #1 was not done correctly.
3. Certain developmental and genetic problems that result in ambiguity are so rare and insignificant that they do not affect the definition of the categories.
How can I assume what this person is using as criteria?
I have definitely heard anti-trans activist state that if 'you can't have a baby, you aren't a woman'.
Now I have to figure out what segment of anti-trans beliefs this one has?
Point 3: If anti-trans activist do realize this, then why not include that in the laws? Why further victimize the few cases with genetic disorders by not recognizing them?
> How can I assume what this person is using as criteria?
The same way you can can communicate with anyone and understand I'm not using "communicate" to mean "hit with a pickle."
That is: having an understanding of what things conventionally mean and the kinds of ideas people conventionally have, so you won't get thrown off by one-offs or people who are not communicating clearly or seriously.
> I have definitely heard anti-trans activist state that if 'you can't have a baby, you aren't a woman'.
Communicate means "hit with a pickle." I picked up a pickle and communicated with my computer.
> Now I have to figure out what segment of anti-trans beliefs this one has?
Now that you've encountered someone who has stated that "communicate means 'hit with a pickle,'" will you have any trouble figuring out what someone means when they say "communicate"?
> Point 3: If anti-trans activist do realize this, then why not include that in the laws?
Because point 3 is so obvious that it goes unstated and is not typically consciously articulated by those who hold the way I did. But it's there if the only two sex/gender categories are male/man and female/woman.
This is the problem. You have expressed some opinions, and think they are 'conventional' thus I should of course automatically understand you.
This is no longer true in our post-truth world. Both sides have re-defined vocabulary to a degree that conversation is near impossible. So guess you are really questioning why I don't open with more sympathetic readings of others posts? I should know everyone elses definitions, figure out which definition they are using, and then cross reference to my definitions?
What the first poster stated and what you have are not the same, and are not obviously 'conventional'.
You do know the 'trans' controversy is a completely made up story to lead the 'right' around by the nose?
You did state it, so you must know, there are genetic disorders and people that actually do suffer with them. There are a lot of other people that do not understand this, so hey, lets pick Trans to pile on. How can I know that the original poster really meant (calm) "MTF transition because of genetic disorder" versus (angry) "MTF wuut, ahhhh, bible bible, god, against nature"
The original poster was complaining because as a conservative, he was being censored by not being allowed to talk about how blacks have a lower IQ, thus I assumed he was in the camp of "bible bible, righteous vengeance, trans are unnatural, god told me to kill the abominations".
> This is the problem. You have expressed some opinions, and think they are 'conventional' thus I should of course automatically understand you.
And you do understand me.
> I should know everyone elses definitions, figure out which definition they are using, and then cross reference to my definitions?
Yes, if you want to communicate. That's pretty par for the course, and nothing special about any "post-truth world." And it's not like I described anything esoteric. Those three points were a pretty straightforward formulation of how pretty much everyone in the general population understood gender identity a few decades ago.
But if you just want to "express yourself" via unidirectional excretions, even if those expressions rest on pretty obtuse misunderstandings, then don't do that.
> You do know the 'trans' controversy is a completely made up story to lead the 'right' around by the nose?
It isn't, but I understand that that belief is a convenient and psychologically satisfying for some people in certain "post-truth" bubbles, to borrow your expression. It's not unusual for people to mainly "know" their "opponents" though their own side's propaganda (and the usual recipe is a big lie sprinkled with a few little bits of truth and flattery, to make the mass go down easy).
> You did state it, so you must know, there are genetic disorders and people that actually do suffer with them
Yeah I do, but that fact is actually neither here nor there for understanding why your hysterectomy comment was a nonsense misinterpretation, which I also touched on when I brought it up.
> The original poster was complaining because as a conservative, he was being censored by not being allowed to talk about how blacks have a lower IQ, thus I assumed he was in the camp of "bible bible, righteous vengeance, trans are unnatural, god told me to kill the abominations".
That's pretty lazy, bigoted thinking. Even if you correctly identify the other guy is a bigot, it doesn't mean you aren't one too.
>"Those three points were a pretty straightforward formulation of how pretty much everyone in the general population "
Nope. I think you are in a bubble yourself if you think these points are common in the general population.
>"understood gender identity a few decades ago"
There you go. Now you are starting to see the problem. Definitions have shifted over time. The current population (not the population of decades ago) and 'generally on the right', do not understand those definitions as you stated, and are driven by 'biblical' interpretations, not science. How am I a bigot for noticing this? Or not keeping up with their current biblical interpretations.
But. It does seem like you might be able to break through and see the big picture. You seem to have started to understand the limitations of language and that it is being used to manipulate. Guess, since you seem to acknowledge that your bubble is also a bubble, and I have a bubble, but this break down goes ad-Infinitum, every individual is a bubble. What, does every conversation have to start with a debate about language? It wouldn't be a bad idea these days. I'm tired of keeping up with every sub-groups shifting definitions on the right. (though, I do concede, I'm tired of keeping up with the left too on most days).
But big picture, for groups, you can't deny that the evangelical take over of Republicans is NOT driven by some well regarded genetic research, and is really a purely emotional hot button, with plenty of lets say 'stretched language to sway the frothing pews'.
So, yeah, I was un-generous to the original poster, but given the background of today, I don't think my interpretation of his post was a 'long shot', 'a risky bet', 'very far off'.
> There you go. Now you are starting to see the problem. Definitions have shifted over time. The current population (not the population of decades ago) and 'generally on the right', do not understand those definitions as you stated, and are driven by 'biblical' interpretations, not science.
This redefinition, based on the relatively fringe belief that a man is actually a woman if he says he is (and vice versa), isn't supported by any scientific evidence.
Most people find this redefinition somewhat ludicrous but generally didn't care too much until recently, after institutional capture by ideologists holding this belief and the negative effects of it being applied to law and policy, for women and children most of all, became apparent.
Originally there was simply an attempt to protect a victimized group. Say, for example, let trans kids (and lets be honest these kids are having a hard life) use a different bathroom. Perhaps to relieve these kids already difficult situation.
Why make a boyish girl use the girls room and get teased by the girls, and who knows what would happen if they were put in with the boys. Or why make a female boy 'twink' continue to get sexually harassed by the football team, but of course, can't put a boy into the girls restroom. So, the solution, have a third option, lets have a 3rd restroom for these kids in a difficult situation. Simple, problem solved.
And then - the "Right", the Religious, Republicans, just 'lost-their-shit'. And decided this is the group to pile on. Here is a hot button issue we can whip up the crowd with.
I've never seen or heard anybody on the left doing anything like the boogie man situations that the 'right' is portraying. The examples are all made up. There are NOT some huge number of grown men dressed up as women using restrooms and stealing girls, there are not some massive number of male athletes stealing awards from girls. These are all just fiction to feed to the right wing.
Meanwhile. Trans people are just caught in the middle. They didn't start any of this.
There are real genetic disorders which do not go by the visual genital's. I think most people on the right think you should just be able to reach in someone's pants and figure it out.
Sorry. When posting before, I couldn't remember the term/source for the 'hysterectomy' comment.
It stems from the "TERF" camp, "trans-exclusionary radical feminist".
One of their arguments is that if a person doesn't have a 'uterus' then it isn't a woman. Or even if they don't 'menstruate' then they are not women.
Which kind of begs the question, what about women that have had hysterectomies', or are older. The really radical side feminist seem to ignore that their arguments also leave out a lot of traditional 'women'.
This was my reason for the response to original poster. Their tone seemed to indicate a similar line of reasoning.
I would have thought "actual conservatism" is more concerned about size of the government or balanced budgets than about peoples' skin color or their genitalia, but apparently that's a mistake I keep making.
> I would have thought "actual conservatism" is more concerned about size of the government or balanced budgets than about peoples' skin color or their genitalia, but apparently that's a mistake I keep making.
Yes, it's a pretty ignorant mistake to understand "actual conservatism" solely as fiscal conservatism. I mean, it's only one of the axes on those dumb 2-dimensional political charts that get passed around all the time. Social conservatism exists, and it's the difference between libertarians and the people who are usually called conservative.
It's perhaps that I've never really understood why "conservatism" means austere, balanced budgets and "conservatism" means bathroom police. I don't really get the underlying connection I suppose. I guess I've always seen "true conservatives" as the wealthy elite who pair their fiscal policy with whatever social issues they don't care about (basically any of them) that will drive votes for them.
The quintessential example would be Mitt Romney - his position on abortion evolved through the years, but his position on tax cuts for the rich has never waivered.
> It's perhaps that I've never really understood why "conservatism" means austere, balanced budgets and "conservatism" means bathroom police. I don't really get the underlying connection I suppose.
"Conservative" has the same root as "conserve," and I think that goes a long way towards explaining the latter "bathroom police" (e.g. conserve the traditional understanding an social convention).
IMHO, the former "austere, balanced budgets" is harder to explain, but (in the American context, at least), I suspect that started as "conserving" the policies from before the New Deal, when taxes were less and the government was much smaller (relative to the rest of the country).
But at a certain point, it just means what it's used to mean, and there's no sense trying too hard to derive it from first principles.
The mistake that keeps getting made is using "conservative" as a synonym for "Republican". The Republican party used to be the conservative party, generally trusting in institutions and gradual change. They trusted in institutions so much that they supported the Iraq War because the status quo power structure told them it needed to be done.
There is nothing conservative about the current Republican party. Basing your vision of society on how you imagine things were 70 years ago is not conservative - rather it entails drastic radical change. Essentially the Republican party is now better described as populist reactionaries (Moldbug's own term), who gave up on conservatism because they got frustrated from things changing at all.
With how things currently are, the Democratic party is more appropriately referred to as the conservative party. Despite having its own contingents of extremists pulling in various directions, they're essentially still being kept in check by the status quo power structure - for better and for worse.
> MTF "transwomen" are not women. That's not an opinion, it's biological fact ... they never had a uterus or other female sex organs and almost zero had a XX chromosome
A favorite technique of bad-faith arguers and spreaders of disinformation is to take a very narrow definition a word (often overly narrow), derive some conclusion about it, and then apply that conclusion to a much broader definition of that word. You've started by picking a definition of "biological women" that sounds somewhat reasonable (but certainly not completely agreed upon, especially regarding "other female sex organs"), and then used that to justify the statement "MTF 'transwomen' are not women.". But that 2nd use of the word "women" is very different. Nobody who posts that on Twitter really means "MTF trans women do not have uteruses and most do not have XX chromosomes". Nobody is confused on this point. They mean "MTF trans women are not 'real women', and therefore it's OK to mistreat them." I think you know this.
> the _group_ of folks who select "Black" or similar has a lower median on IQ tests
I will accept this statement exactly as stated as being true, but that's not how you're using it. This statement does not come unburdened with a ton of other (false) assumptions behind it. The most obvious one is that you seem to think this statement justifies the claim "blacks have a lower average IQ than other races" -- No! That is a completely different claim. Note the word "race" here. That statement is talking about "blacks as a race", really meaning "genetic, innate features of humans belonging to the race 'black'." Even the existence of such a race is reasonable to dispute, but the biggest problem is going from a correlation between IQ scores and specific group of people to a causation about why that group of people has low IQ scores (i.e. because of their race). That is not true, and has been basically totally debunked.
But look at how many more words it took me to address the statements, compared to making them in the first place. It was an extremely subtle change from "group that checks 'black'" to "race", yet the latter very clearly implies innate features while the former does not. It's a one-sided fight, and censorship is a perfectly reasonable tool to even the odds. There are very subtle ways that such "facts" can be completely misused, misattributed, and misinterpreted to support hatred. That (often intentional) misuse, misattribution, and misinterpretation is hate speech.
That is not a fact.
Those studies have all been debunked, pseudo-science, that only get quoted in context like this when someone wants to justify racism.
Hey, I just read a study that Republicans have a lower IQ. That is documented fact. Not even joking, there are studies that show this, also easier to fool, less able to deal with change.
And like always, we see again that "express my conservative political opinions" is code for "spew unsubstantiated hate speech". It's the standard meme:
"I have been censored for my conservative views!" - OMG, you were censored for wanting lower taxes? - "LOL no, not those views" - Oh, so ... limited government regulation? - "Haha no not those views either" - Then which views, exactly? - "Oh, you know the ones."
> Saying that blacks have a lower average IQ than other races, (although this is not a political opinion but a fact, still)
It is neither political opinion, nor fact. It is debunked, racist, unadulterated hate speech.
My political opinion is that veave never wipes his ass after a bowel movement and picks his nose and eats it. (Actually not an opinion, but a 100% true fact.) This is protected speech and if you disagree with me or try to stop me from saying it then you are censoring and oppressing me.
How do you square that view (you support anyone's right to say anything) with disagreeing that a company should be able to dictate the rules on their own platform? In my view, even the latter is a form of expression.
> Saying that a mtf transexual is not a woman is hate speech according to these terms.
More importantly, a prohibition on stating this silences feminist women who need to speak up on issues of female-only spaces and services, and the necessity for all males to be excluded from such.
So the definers of "hate speech" in this instance have managed to bake misogyny directly into their definition. And they think this is progress.
Thank you for doing this, and I hope others follow your example.
It's really easy to be agreeable with platitudes. The real world is a complicated and messy place, and asking for specifics helps to ground the conversation in reality.
Seriously. I absolutely did not expect someone on this website to lead with "I cannot say black [people] are mentally inferior" as an example of how they are being censored. Usually they reserve that for more private channels, like after they've gotten someone to move to Telegram.
The idea is not for people with undesirable opinions to "out" themselves, it's more for the onlookers to realize that platitudes are merely nice-sounding soundbites.
The real world is complicated, and necessitates nuance, caveats and exceptions, and there's really no better example than watching a conversation unfold about said specifics.
The following can both be true, and IMO both are true:
1. The vast majority of right-wing content goes uncensored.
2. A few really choice targets for censorship get categorized as "misinformation", "disinformation", or "malinformation" and are subject to widespread campaigns of suppression.
(... And there may be systematic algorithmic down-weighting of some right-wing ideas or accounts, but I'm not confident enough in the evidence here to call it a serious problem, which is why there's no #3 on that list.)
Probably the most non-partisan example I can think of would be the Christchurch shooter's manifesto, a document which approximately everyone disagrees with. For a while after the massacre, it seemed like every social media platform was aggressively trying to make sure nobody could read the thing. You could find a copy with some effort, but only by skulking around in the shadier parts of the web. You could say that they're private companies and can do what they want -- but if they hadn't censored in lockstep, it's likely that some government displeasure would come down on the uncooperative companies later.
The result of this is a censorship regime that's hard to see because it only goes after the high-value targets.
“but if they hadn't censored in lockstep, it's likely that some government displeasure would come down on the uncooperative companies later”
This is the root of the problem, right? In the US, the government is specifically excluded from doing this either directly or indirectly, except in specific and rare circumstances that were not in play for most of the censorship that has occurred like covid origins, speech deemed racist, criticism of vaccines, speech deemed hateful, and speech deemed incorrect for example.
These makes Congress look like such a clown show. Like Fox News doesn't coordinate with conservatives?
It's complete grandstanding, and nothing more. Complete waste of time.
Regarding YouTube promoting right wing content mentioned in other comments, I haven't seen that. I watch science and space, maker and tech shows, along with live music. I have never seen what the commenters are complaining about. I get the same recommendations over and over again, which is a bit annoying. Maybe because I ignore most of the algo recommendations I'm missing something.
I don’t understand the analogy. How are Fox News and Facebook analogous in this situation? The claim is that citizens are being forcibly censored on a social media platform does not equal a news organization coordinating willfully with some politicians.
Congress is always grandstanding but that doesn't mean they don't have a point:
"A copy of the contempt report asserts that Zuckerberg and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, have "willfully refused" to comply in full with a congressional subpoena stemming from the panel's investigation into any _efforts by the executive branch to encourage social media companies to moderate content_ on digital platforms."
There's plenty of evidence that the government was doing that on Twitter -- it is a big deal when the government goes to private actors and gets them to censor people.
Sure, the GOP might be hypocrites about this but every single liberal should be lining up to say, "In this case they're right, and we'll hold them to the same standard when one of them is president."
The problem is that the Democrats are also hypocrites, both the politicians and their voters are _not_ liberal, and they like the idea of using the government to censor information they don't like.
> Like Fox News doesn't coordinate with conservatives
It think the general case they are making is that Fox doesn’t have Section 230 immunity, and is therefore responsible/liable for its editorial decisions. (See: the Dominion settlement.)
The claim is that social networks are having their cake (immunity from liability of content) and eating it too (getting to make editorial decisions).
The more general issue being that they are using editorial discretion to remove content that the government politely asks them to remove, rather than stuff that any law says they must control. (And the claim is that of course they would not acquiesce if a Republican government made a polite request to remove something they didn’t like.)
> What was illegal about the government’s actions in your view?
That wasn't what I wrote.
In the US, the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution protects the right of the people to speech etc.; the government is generally and overwhelmingly prohibited from censoring people.
Instead, we have the US government contacting _private_ (i.e. not government) companies and wink wink nudge nudge having the private companies censor people, _which would be illegal for the government to do directly_.
I see what you mean now, thanks. Strongly agree with the general point around delegation to private companies (eg on surveillance).
Personally I think you can make a case for justifying some curtailment of speech during an emergency (specifically sharing outright false or extremely misleading claims, say “young people are immune to Covid”) but again, agreed it should be done through a framework that is legislated and that the courts can challenge/check rather than unofficial channels.
I do think there is some grey area though - if the government is also providing coordination (eg CDC) then it’s not crazy to have a direct channel to the major news/social publishers to coordinate messaging in an emergency. And when they are just providing coordination it’s not necessarily censorship (since the companies would be free to do otherwise). Vs if they are buying license plate data for example, they are clearly actually indirectly doing the thing that they’re forbidden from doing directly.
The penalty seems less than a slap on the wrist for Zuck, but I suppose there's the moral value at play. It's also sad to see the left/right flame war slip into HN. The comments are appalling and remind me why I went cold turkey on social media.
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[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 222 ms ] threadThis is so stupid and tiring. At this point the only thing I am hoping for is that will be at least as entertaining and idiosyncratic as the infamous Zuck senate hearing from 2018.
Zuck, on the other hand, 'only' has plain-old upper-class-privilege to lean on.
I imagine being a billionaire provides a bit more than plain-old upper-class-privilege
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/590947-house-has-the-p...
They're likely plenty of republican hobby horse issues where they would start subpoenaing other members of Congress once they had power.
Democrats have to be squeaky clean. Republican can stage coup's.
This is what you get when you try to get everyone to vote. Your vote counts! But when too many people who have no idea what's going on vote, the game of who gets elected becomes "who can take advantage of the ignorant masses best?". Which is why we got a reality TV personality as a president and zero pressure by the electorate to get the Democrats to get anything done.
That will really make sure only the right people vote and they only elect the right people.
Don’t be absurd, I’m not advocating for a poll tax or keeping any specific kind of person from voting… except those who know nothing about or would otherwise be uninterested in politics.
Votes are being sought through the same spammy clickbait fear methods that grabs so much attention these days. Such methods to win elections corrupt the political process so the only way to win is to grab the most attention through fear, fake conflict that becomes real, and other sorts of degrading manipulation.
The kind of shit I’m getting constantly from both parties in my inbox is disgusting and directly responsible for the awful state of national politics. Either I’m supposed to step up to battle the evil opponents or I’m supposed to be afraid of what they’ll do if they win (so give now! 5x matching only going on for a limited time.
Everybody who wants to should be able to vote.
Somehow I'm thinking he'll avoid the jail time and maybe have to pay a fine that amounts to pocket change for him.
it doesnt matter how much jiu jitsu he knows , a holding cell is not a good place for Z, even for 5 minutes.
I agree that billionaires generally enjoy a different tier of the legal system, but consider that if the House moves forward with contempt, they have to see it through. He has to obey, or be thrown in jail until he does. Because the alternative is that the House demonstrates that it does not enjoy legitimacy. Everyone will begin ignoring House subpoenas because, hey, the House doesn't enforce them. I'm pretty sure there's a few Trump-world people who tried this and it didn't go well for them?
What we learned from the previous administration is that you just need to fight it until the power switches hands meanwhile fighting it in court. Zuck makes some donations to the opposition party candidates and their PAC's, and hope they win.
Or he subverts the controlling party the way Russia would do it, and hire some firm (possibly Israeli) to do a deep background check in the ruling party and use it to blackmail them.
Also it's not a good look when one of the controlling party members chose to ignore a subpoena issues by the same body they control now.
https://dayton247now.com/news/local/rep-jim-jordan-urbana-oh...
No matter how much I block alt-right YouTube channels, google continuously either ignores those blocks, or forces more and more in to my recommended.
It’s crazy to see “right wing content is being censored” claims while google is very very clearly pushing right wing content above everything else.
I don’t use Facebook, but my wife does and Facebook is exactly the same. It is very obviously pushing right wing content up.
When you can open up a video and within 30 seconds, they’re calling for the eradication of the Jews, with hundreds of thousands of views, it really begs the question of what the hell these people are saying that it’s actually being removed. Cause straight up calling for genocide is not just allowed to thrive on Facebook and google, it is actively pushed on to recommended no matter how much you try to block it.
I watch PBS space time, various software engineering talks, and chess. That’s it. Why is YouTube recommending conspiracy theorist alt-right shit?
I definitely have never had anything even remotely close to your examples. Very bold claims but also very incorrect.
I don't know if I have ever heard of a video with many views openly calling for genocide, but one can certainly spot those calls in the comments of those sources. That shit is coming from somewhere not far removed.
If you see a right wing video and it says “we gotta get rid of these Hollywood elites”, they’re actually calling for the eradication of the Jews.
The right wing spends half of their time online creating and sharing “plausibly deniability” phrases.
Here’s a common dog whistle right here in this very thread:
“You’ll get banned for wrong think”. — just a dog whistle for “I want to drop hate speech and n-bombs with no consequence”
Or
“Different political opinions”. — a dog whistle for the exact same as above.
From my perspective, the internet leans right. This isn't some isolated experience.
The reason they don’t “see it” is because they’re participating in spreading the hate.
I'd say the media is playing both sides except you all can't deny that there is systemic discrimination against white people in multiple countries' law books right now, in 2023.
But, to be fair, I didn't say I don't see antisemitic content. That for sure pops up once in a while in very "muted" language. I've also seen a rising trend for the traditional values of Jewish people to be admired on the right/conservative side, so there is that.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10145969/Public-fur...
No mention of this "controversy" on her Wikipedi page, either.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/professor-under-fire-for-white-ge...
But with a bit more googling, I found some additional ones.
https://www.thecollegefix.com/video-uc-berkeley-professor-un... https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/06/02/texas-professor-white... https://www.thecollegefix.com/stanford-student-senator-says-... https://jonathanturley.org/2021/04/28/barnard-professor-trig...
Look, I agree these things aren't straight out "hey lets go out and gas white people" (Well one of them is). But the pattern is disturbing, and the media coverage is even more disturbing because they're (I would argue) hiding the level of this stuff, thus preventing us from having the conversation. Why do conservatives feel threatened, this is just Affirmative Action and Inclusion (such orwellian terms that hide their discrimination), so why do you feel that way unless you're secretly racist? Well, it's because there is a sustained, and secretly promoted hatred of white people and it needs to be brought to light.
As an example, the Wikipedia page on Brittney Coopers at Rutgers University. No mention of this pretty-notable controversy about her racist comments. Probably edited for months after the story broke until people lost interest dealing with the Wikipedia rules.
Sure I can. Many of the laws cited as "discrimination against white people" in North America and Europe are either things like affirmative action or laws to the effect of "don't be a dick to minorities". As a white guy I've never felt disadvantaged by such laws, but maybe I'm just made of sterner stuff than people that claim to represent "western values" and prattle on about how weak men are these days.
And to answer your point, I say this in the context of an african country where white people are a minority and yet still discriminated against with laws passed by a "democratic" government. Of course, it's all under the guise of "Affirmative Action" and "Black Economic Empowerment", giving it that "noble" aura of "fairness". Meanwhile the country burns as the laws enrich the elite, keep the black people poor, make the white people poorer, and ultimately cause everyone to blame everyone else.
> I watch PBS space time, various software engineering talks, and chess. That’s it. Why is YouTube recommending conspiracy theorist alt-right shit?
I call bullshit.
There's plenty of racist crap on the internet, but "within 30 seconds, they’re calling for the eradication of the Jews, with hundreds of thousands of views" is just not believable, unless you're _deliberately_ going into some very dark corners. Facebook isn't suggesting this to the broad audience because it would get immediately flagged -- in some countries, such a video is illegal.
YouTube's algorithms can get twisted up and make recommendations based upon associations we don't see, but "I watch PBS space time, various software engineering talks, and chess. That’s it. Why is YouTube recommending conspiracy theorist alt-right shit?" is just not believable, unless someone in your house is deliberately searching for it, or you think anything non-Marxist is alt-right.
I assume doing this would be a privacy nightmare, and not capture most data 'the algorithm' runs off of.
I've heard of specific studies where fresh accounts are tested and the time until certain 'radical' content starts showing up, but nothing on existing accounts in use by people. I don't have a great handle on this, since I limit the amount I use YouTube's suggestions.
Liberalism has been coopted by authoritarianism and branded as a weird sort of "friendly fascism" [1].
Instead of recognizing the historical dangers of that sort of philosophy, it's wholly embraced - with an illusion of legitimacy pasted on top that exploits our better natures by channeling good intentions (anti-racism, anti-discrimination, self-ownership, public health, environmentalism) into a mechanism for certain people to gain more power and control.
The part of this that I've found the most disturbing is the absolutely bizarre pivot the "left" made from being deeply suspicious of Big Pharma, to a sudden (almost overnight) support of government regulatory partnership with megacorps, with all of the actors in the scenario receiving big money and little scrutiny.
Even asking basic questions and pointing this stuff out gets you shouted down and cancelled (I'm burning lots of karma just posting this viewpoint).
The over 6 billion dollars [2] per year that pharma spends on direct-to-consumer ads on TV, and how that influences the content that's shown on TV and which politicians the media supports are completely ignored.
Somehow the folks that have traditionally been the champions of civil rights, anti-war, and watchdogs against the growth and abuse from corporate power, have instead become cheerleaders for an authoritarian state controlled mostly by the military industrial complex and big pharma.
I don't think it's unique to the "left" - the "right" is certainly guilty of the same stuff, it's just particularly painful to watch coming from the folks I grew up believing were the ones that were supposed to protect us from that sort of abuse.
We live in interesting times. [3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
[2] https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/healthcare-industry-...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_ti...
Additionally, stating that all people deserve a good life, and attempting to stop bigotry is not “fascism”. Your definitions of things have no basis in reality.
Stop brainwashing yourself. Start using basic critical thinking skills.
Not all vaccines work. It’s ok and prudent to require efficacy trials and release of information about those trials before making a call on whether a person wants to subject their body to it.
Not all comments that you find bigoted are thought to be bigoted by everyone. Who makes that judgement?
And not all people deserve a good life like murderers and rapists.
Efficacy on Covid vaccines is long demonstrated and you’re still calling it fake news dude.
It is exceptionally clear who is brainwashed here.
Not only that, but your position changes depending on the context of the conversation. Was fast tracking Covid vaccines good or bad? Depends. Are we talking about the fact that Trump was fast tracking them, or are we talking about whether vaccines work or not?
Additionally, you guys don’t even regard what fast-tracking actually means anyway. It doesn’t mean “ignore evidence. Push it through”. It means “if you get a task related to this, you drop everything else and focus on this instead”.
[1] https://youtu.be/0EOkC44ZIfo
There are lots and lots of kinds of authoritarianism, and Democrats et al have embraced a Leftist type which pushes for egalitarianism through violence, which is antithetical to fascism (the egalitarianism, not the violence). There are a few big name Dem politicians who are pushing a modern brand of fascism, but they're the minority now.
Nothing that follows should be viewed as a defense of the Right.
> Somehow the folks that have traditionally been the champions of civil rights, anti-war, and watchdogs against the growth and abuse from corporate power, have instead become cheerleaders for an authoritarian state controlled mostly by the military industrial complex and big pharma.
Ah, see, that's your mistake. You were fed the cherry-picked history where the Democrats et al were the Good Guys of the 20th Century; this is a common problem when government schools are run by teachers unions that are in bed with one party.
Progressives were never liberal; they were always authoritarians. If you read some of the fascist writers before WWII, they often praised the progressives in the US, including FDR.
Marxists were never liberal; they've used various names over the years to avoid taking responsibility for the tens of millions of people they killed to achieve their utopia, but it's important to recognize how much of the modern US Left draws from Marxism.
During the anti-Communist years after WWII, the Communists tried to rebrand themselves as civil libertarians and the like. This was a show. The ACLU was genuinely liberal, but the Left was also committing terrorist acts as "champions of civil rights, anti-war, and watchdogs against the growth and abuse from corporate power". The terrorism part doesn't get taught in school. Kids hear that the Black Panthers set up lunchrooms, but so do Hamas and Hezbollah. They're still terrorists.
So we should recognize that Democrats et al were never the liberal champions we were taught in school or heard on TV. The reality is always dirtier and more complicated.
Pretend that I also spend 20 minutes typing up why I think the Right is awful, because they've rarely been liberal either.
Goes to show how we all have a different experience. But what is surprising is how the experience is negative for everyone involved...
Do you want Viktor Orbán to define it? How about Tayyip Erdoğan? Or Donald Trump?
Or how about the Christian church? They prefer to call it blasphemy, but they'll happily call it "hate speech" if they can censor people.
Also, your points very strongly suggest that the paradox of the intolerance would apply here.
Your response suggests you don't understand my points at all.
The "paradox of tolerance" could just as easily be invoked by Orbán, Erdoğan, Trump, the Christian churches, etc. I suspect Orbán and Erdoğan HAVE.
Once we give "society" the ability to decide what is and is not "hate speech", you give people you oppose and fear the ability to decide what is and is not "hate speech".
The answer to that isn't to craft a better definition of "hate speech", or create a permanent majority of your particular brand of ideology, it's to eliminate the idea that any group should oppress the other based upon what they believe.
It's a tenet of liberalism.
I understand them pretty well: since moral relativism is absolute, there is no point in setting limits on speech.
> ... it's to eliminate the idea that any group should oppress the other based upon what they believe.
I have no issues with oppression against those wanting to oppress others. Again, paradox of tolerance.
And in this case "society as a whole" means liberals.
It's pretty essential to understand this is an area of political controversy where rival factions are fighting with each other, and those factions have different strengths and weaknesses.
The liberal faction has a much stronger hold of certain institutions (e.g. media, academia) that give it much more power over language. Redefining terms is a pretty powerful weapon. For example, if there's a consensus that "hate speech" is unacceptable, win your battle by redefining it into a grab-bag that encompasses all kinds of things you oppose. Another example is the trick of redefining "society as a whole" to mean your faction, to delegitimize your opponents even if they have similar levels of support. That tactic has the most power within the faction and with "neutrals," opponents can see through it but often have trouble countering it.
Are we really debating if saying that "black people are intellectually inferior", is hate speech? Are the merits of any of the sides defending or attacking this statement, worth debating without a context?
OP came with this broad statement that "black people IQ is lower" than other races. He stated that it was a "fact", which may as well be, but without a context, not only it is meaningless, but derogatory for no other better reason than attacking someone for the color of their skin.
If we, as a society, cannot find comments like these, "wrong", then we have failed.
> Are we really debating if saying that "black people are intellectually inferior", is hate speech? Are the merits of any of the sides defending or attacking this statement, worth debating without a context?
The OP gave two examples, and you're ignoring one. There's a lot more political across-the-board consensus about race and IQ than there is about transgenderism, and that actually factors into my point.
Exactly. This is why no one should be allowed to deny the resurrection of Christ.
To deny the resurrection of Christ is to invalidate who I am. It's hate speech.
If I were to personalize my opinions on Christians as derogatory comments, probably.
> If I were to personalize my opinions on Christians as derogatory comments, probably.
Wait, wut? NO! Did you not get the satire?
If women have hysterectomy's are they no longer women?
Are you German? Asking for a friend looking for a eugenics meetup.
> If women have hysterectomy's are they no longer women?
You know that's a pretty disingenuous misinterpretation, right? If someone says a "mtf transexual is not a woman," they're almost certainly using a classical definition of "woman" that was never so reductive as to classify a woman who's had a hysterectomy as a non-woman. Their actual definition is almost certainly something along the lines of:
1. Gender and sex are the same concept, which is assigned at or near birth based on physical inspection of genitalia according to traditional standards.
2. The identity is fixed throughout life, someone can't "transition" (because if injury, etc.). The only possible allowed exception is if point #1 was not done correctly.
3. Certain developmental and genetic problems that result in ambiguity are so rare and insignificant that they do not affect the definition of the categories.
I have definitely heard anti-trans activist state that if 'you can't have a baby, you aren't a woman'.
Now I have to figure out what segment of anti-trans beliefs this one has?
Point 3: If anti-trans activist do realize this, then why not include that in the laws? Why further victimize the few cases with genetic disorders by not recognizing them?
The same way you can can communicate with anyone and understand I'm not using "communicate" to mean "hit with a pickle."
That is: having an understanding of what things conventionally mean and the kinds of ideas people conventionally have, so you won't get thrown off by one-offs or people who are not communicating clearly or seriously.
> I have definitely heard anti-trans activist state that if 'you can't have a baby, you aren't a woman'.
Communicate means "hit with a pickle." I picked up a pickle and communicated with my computer.
> Now I have to figure out what segment of anti-trans beliefs this one has?
Now that you've encountered someone who has stated that "communicate means 'hit with a pickle,'" will you have any trouble figuring out what someone means when they say "communicate"?
> Point 3: If anti-trans activist do realize this, then why not include that in the laws?
Because point 3 is so obvious that it goes unstated and is not typically consciously articulated by those who hold the way I did. But it's there if the only two sex/gender categories are male/man and female/woman.
This is the problem. You have expressed some opinions, and think they are 'conventional' thus I should of course automatically understand you.
This is no longer true in our post-truth world. Both sides have re-defined vocabulary to a degree that conversation is near impossible. So guess you are really questioning why I don't open with more sympathetic readings of others posts? I should know everyone elses definitions, figure out which definition they are using, and then cross reference to my definitions?
What the first poster stated and what you have are not the same, and are not obviously 'conventional'.
You do know the 'trans' controversy is a completely made up story to lead the 'right' around by the nose?
You did state it, so you must know, there are genetic disorders and people that actually do suffer with them. There are a lot of other people that do not understand this, so hey, lets pick Trans to pile on. How can I know that the original poster really meant (calm) "MTF transition because of genetic disorder" versus (angry) "MTF wuut, ahhhh, bible bible, god, against nature"
The original poster was complaining because as a conservative, he was being censored by not being allowed to talk about how blacks have a lower IQ, thus I assumed he was in the camp of "bible bible, righteous vengeance, trans are unnatural, god told me to kill the abominations".
And you do understand me.
> I should know everyone elses definitions, figure out which definition they are using, and then cross reference to my definitions?
Yes, if you want to communicate. That's pretty par for the course, and nothing special about any "post-truth world." And it's not like I described anything esoteric. Those three points were a pretty straightforward formulation of how pretty much everyone in the general population understood gender identity a few decades ago.
But if you just want to "express yourself" via unidirectional excretions, even if those expressions rest on pretty obtuse misunderstandings, then don't do that.
> You do know the 'trans' controversy is a completely made up story to lead the 'right' around by the nose?
It isn't, but I understand that that belief is a convenient and psychologically satisfying for some people in certain "post-truth" bubbles, to borrow your expression. It's not unusual for people to mainly "know" their "opponents" though their own side's propaganda (and the usual recipe is a big lie sprinkled with a few little bits of truth and flattery, to make the mass go down easy).
> You did state it, so you must know, there are genetic disorders and people that actually do suffer with them
Yeah I do, but that fact is actually neither here nor there for understanding why your hysterectomy comment was a nonsense misinterpretation, which I also touched on when I brought it up.
> The original poster was complaining because as a conservative, he was being censored by not being allowed to talk about how blacks have a lower IQ, thus I assumed he was in the camp of "bible bible, righteous vengeance, trans are unnatural, god told me to kill the abominations".
That's pretty lazy, bigoted thinking. Even if you correctly identify the other guy is a bigot, it doesn't mean you aren't one too.
Nope. I think you are in a bubble yourself if you think these points are common in the general population.
>"understood gender identity a few decades ago"
There you go. Now you are starting to see the problem. Definitions have shifted over time. The current population (not the population of decades ago) and 'generally on the right', do not understand those definitions as you stated, and are driven by 'biblical' interpretations, not science. How am I a bigot for noticing this? Or not keeping up with their current biblical interpretations.
But. It does seem like you might be able to break through and see the big picture. You seem to have started to understand the limitations of language and that it is being used to manipulate. Guess, since you seem to acknowledge that your bubble is also a bubble, and I have a bubble, but this break down goes ad-Infinitum, every individual is a bubble. What, does every conversation have to start with a debate about language? It wouldn't be a bad idea these days. I'm tired of keeping up with every sub-groups shifting definitions on the right. (though, I do concede, I'm tired of keeping up with the left too on most days).
But big picture, for groups, you can't deny that the evangelical take over of Republicans is NOT driven by some well regarded genetic research, and is really a purely emotional hot button, with plenty of lets say 'stretched language to sway the frothing pews'.
So, yeah, I was un-generous to the original poster, but given the background of today, I don't think my interpretation of his post was a 'long shot', 'a risky bet', 'very far off'.
This redefinition, based on the relatively fringe belief that a man is actually a woman if he says he is (and vice versa), isn't supported by any scientific evidence.
Most people find this redefinition somewhat ludicrous but generally didn't care too much until recently, after institutional capture by ideologists holding this belief and the negative effects of it being applied to law and policy, for women and children most of all, became apparent.
Originally there was simply an attempt to protect a victimized group. Say, for example, let trans kids (and lets be honest these kids are having a hard life) use a different bathroom. Perhaps to relieve these kids already difficult situation.
Why make a boyish girl use the girls room and get teased by the girls, and who knows what would happen if they were put in with the boys. Or why make a female boy 'twink' continue to get sexually harassed by the football team, but of course, can't put a boy into the girls restroom. So, the solution, have a third option, lets have a 3rd restroom for these kids in a difficult situation. Simple, problem solved.
And then - the "Right", the Religious, Republicans, just 'lost-their-shit'. And decided this is the group to pile on. Here is a hot button issue we can whip up the crowd with.
I've never seen or heard anybody on the left doing anything like the boogie man situations that the 'right' is portraying. The examples are all made up. There are NOT some huge number of grown men dressed up as women using restrooms and stealing girls, there are not some massive number of male athletes stealing awards from girls. These are all just fiction to feed to the right wing.
Meanwhile. Trans people are just caught in the middle. They didn't start any of this.
There are real genetic disorders which do not go by the visual genital's. I think most people on the right think you should just be able to reach in someone's pants and figure it out.
It stems from the "TERF" camp, "trans-exclusionary radical feminist".
One of their arguments is that if a person doesn't have a 'uterus' then it isn't a woman. Or even if they don't 'menstruate' then they are not women.
Which kind of begs the question, what about women that have had hysterectomies', or are older. The really radical side feminist seem to ignore that their arguments also leave out a lot of traditional 'women'.
This was my reason for the response to original poster. Their tone seemed to indicate a similar line of reasoning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womyn#:~:text=Womyn%20is%20one....
https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk...
Yes, it's a pretty ignorant mistake to understand "actual conservatism" solely as fiscal conservatism. I mean, it's only one of the axes on those dumb 2-dimensional political charts that get passed around all the time. Social conservatism exists, and it's the difference between libertarians and the people who are usually called conservative.
The quintessential example would be Mitt Romney - his position on abortion evolved through the years, but his position on tax cuts for the rich has never waivered.
"Conservative" has the same root as "conserve," and I think that goes a long way towards explaining the latter "bathroom police" (e.g. conserve the traditional understanding an social convention).
IMHO, the former "austere, balanced budgets" is harder to explain, but (in the American context, at least), I suspect that started as "conserving" the policies from before the New Deal, when taxes were less and the government was much smaller (relative to the rest of the country).
But at a certain point, it just means what it's used to mean, and there's no sense trying too hard to derive it from first principles.
There is nothing conservative about the current Republican party. Basing your vision of society on how you imagine things were 70 years ago is not conservative - rather it entails drastic radical change. Essentially the Republican party is now better described as populist reactionaries (Moldbug's own term), who gave up on conservatism because they got frustrated from things changing at all.
With how things currently are, the Democratic party is more appropriately referred to as the conservative party. Despite having its own contingents of extremists pulling in various directions, they're essentially still being kept in check by the status quo power structure - for better and for worse.
Him: "Facebook's ToS classifies totally cool, normal opinions as hate speech"
Them: "Give us examples!"
Him: <literal hate speech>
Them: DOWNVOTE
It's _exactly_ how they framed it:
"Saying that blacks have a lower average IQ than other races, (although this is not a political opinion but a fact, still)."
We need to stop jumping up and crying Racism! anytime someone writes an objective fact that doesn't include the caveat "but maybe white supremacy".
A favorite technique of bad-faith arguers and spreaders of disinformation is to take a very narrow definition a word (often overly narrow), derive some conclusion about it, and then apply that conclusion to a much broader definition of that word. You've started by picking a definition of "biological women" that sounds somewhat reasonable (but certainly not completely agreed upon, especially regarding "other female sex organs"), and then used that to justify the statement "MTF 'transwomen' are not women.". But that 2nd use of the word "women" is very different. Nobody who posts that on Twitter really means "MTF trans women do not have uteruses and most do not have XX chromosomes". Nobody is confused on this point. They mean "MTF trans women are not 'real women', and therefore it's OK to mistreat them." I think you know this.
> the _group_ of folks who select "Black" or similar has a lower median on IQ tests
I will accept this statement exactly as stated as being true, but that's not how you're using it. This statement does not come unburdened with a ton of other (false) assumptions behind it. The most obvious one is that you seem to think this statement justifies the claim "blacks have a lower average IQ than other races" -- No! That is a completely different claim. Note the word "race" here. That statement is talking about "blacks as a race", really meaning "genetic, innate features of humans belonging to the race 'black'." Even the existence of such a race is reasonable to dispute, but the biggest problem is going from a correlation between IQ scores and specific group of people to a causation about why that group of people has low IQ scores (i.e. because of their race). That is not true, and has been basically totally debunked.
But look at how many more words it took me to address the statements, compared to making them in the first place. It was an extremely subtle change from "group that checks 'black'" to "race", yet the latter very clearly implies innate features while the former does not. It's a one-sided fight, and censorship is a perfectly reasonable tool to even the odds. There are very subtle ways that such "facts" can be completely misused, misattributed, and misinterpreted to support hatred. That (often intentional) misuse, misattribution, and misinterpretation is hate speech.
I'm not arguing in bad faith.
> Nobody who posts that on Twitter really means "MTF trans women do not have uteruses and most do not have XX chromosomes".
Yes they do. I'm arguing that now.
> I will accept this statement exactly as stated as being true, but that's not how you're using it.
Of course that's how I'm using it.
> But look at how many more words it took me to address the statements,
Of course, because you took everything I wrote, responded "You mean the opposite" and went from there.
Try reading what I wrote rather than what your bigotries tell you I wrote.
It's true that some men desire to be women, and some women want to be men. But such yearning doesn't change one's material biological reality.
Hey, I just read a study that Republicans have a lower IQ. That is documented fact. Not even joking, there are studies that show this, also easier to fool, less able to deal with change.
"I have been censored for my conservative views!" - OMG, you were censored for wanting lower taxes? - "LOL no, not those views" - Oh, so ... limited government regulation? - "Haha no not those views either" - Then which views, exactly? - "Oh, you know the ones."
> Saying that blacks have a lower average IQ than other races, (although this is not a political opinion but a fact, still)
It is neither political opinion, nor fact. It is debunked, racist, unadulterated hate speech.
My political opinion is that veave never wipes his ass after a bowel movement and picks his nose and eats it. (Actually not an opinion, but a 100% true fact.) This is protected speech and if you disagree with me or try to stop me from saying it then you are censoring and oppressing me.
Regarding your other comment I support your right to say whatever you want.
More importantly, a prohibition on stating this silences feminist women who need to speak up on issues of female-only spaces and services, and the necessity for all males to be excluded from such.
So the definers of "hate speech" in this instance have managed to bake misogyny directly into their definition. And they think this is progress.
It's really easy to be agreeable with platitudes. The real world is a complicated and messy place, and asking for specifics helps to ground the conversation in reality.
The real world is complicated, and necessitates nuance, caveats and exceptions, and there's really no better example than watching a conversation unfold about said specifics.
1. The vast majority of right-wing content goes uncensored.
2. A few really choice targets for censorship get categorized as "misinformation", "disinformation", or "malinformation" and are subject to widespread campaigns of suppression.
(... And there may be systematic algorithmic down-weighting of some right-wing ideas or accounts, but I'm not confident enough in the evidence here to call it a serious problem, which is why there's no #3 on that list.)
Probably the most non-partisan example I can think of would be the Christchurch shooter's manifesto, a document which approximately everyone disagrees with. For a while after the massacre, it seemed like every social media platform was aggressively trying to make sure nobody could read the thing. You could find a copy with some effort, but only by skulking around in the shadier parts of the web. You could say that they're private companies and can do what they want -- but if they hadn't censored in lockstep, it's likely that some government displeasure would come down on the uncooperative companies later.
The result of this is a censorship regime that's hard to see because it only goes after the high-value targets.
This is the root of the problem, right? In the US, the government is specifically excluded from doing this either directly or indirectly, except in specific and rare circumstances that were not in play for most of the censorship that has occurred like covid origins, speech deemed racist, criticism of vaccines, speech deemed hateful, and speech deemed incorrect for example.
It's complete grandstanding, and nothing more. Complete waste of time.
Regarding YouTube promoting right wing content mentioned in other comments, I haven't seen that. I watch science and space, maker and tech shows, along with live music. I have never seen what the commenters are complaining about. I get the same recommendations over and over again, which is a bit annoying. Maybe because I ignore most of the algo recommendations I'm missing something.
"A copy of the contempt report asserts that Zuckerberg and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, have "willfully refused" to comply in full with a congressional subpoena stemming from the panel's investigation into any _efforts by the executive branch to encourage social media companies to moderate content_ on digital platforms."
There's plenty of evidence that the government was doing that on Twitter -- it is a big deal when the government goes to private actors and gets them to censor people.
Sure, the GOP might be hypocrites about this but every single liberal should be lining up to say, "In this case they're right, and we'll hold them to the same standard when one of them is president."
The problem is that the Democrats are also hypocrites, both the politicians and their voters are _not_ liberal, and they like the idea of using the government to censor information they don't like.
It think the general case they are making is that Fox doesn’t have Section 230 immunity, and is therefore responsible/liable for its editorial decisions. (See: the Dominion settlement.)
The claim is that social networks are having their cake (immunity from liability of content) and eating it too (getting to make editorial decisions).
The more general issue being that they are using editorial discretion to remove content that the government politely asks them to remove, rather than stuff that any law says they must control. (And the claim is that of course they would not acquiesce if a Republican government made a polite request to remove something they didn’t like.)
The problem here is that the _government_ was conspiring with those companies to censor dissenters -- er, I mean "conspiracy theorists".
We don't need to change Section 230. We need to stop the government from using private companies to do things it's illegal for the government to do.
That wasn't what I wrote.
In the US, the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution protects the right of the people to speech etc.; the government is generally and overwhelmingly prohibited from censoring people.
Instead, we have the US government contacting _private_ (i.e. not government) companies and wink wink nudge nudge having the private companies censor people, _which would be illegal for the government to do directly_.
Personally I think you can make a case for justifying some curtailment of speech during an emergency (specifically sharing outright false or extremely misleading claims, say “young people are immune to Covid”) but again, agreed it should be done through a framework that is legislated and that the courts can challenge/check rather than unofficial channels.
I do think there is some grey area though - if the government is also providing coordination (eg CDC) then it’s not crazy to have a direct channel to the major news/social publishers to coordinate messaging in an emergency. And when they are just providing coordination it’s not necessarily censorship (since the companies would be free to do otherwise). Vs if they are buying license plate data for example, they are clearly actually indirectly doing the thing that they’re forbidden from doing directly.