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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29716 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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Anyone who thinks either party takes free speech seriously hasn't been keeping score for long enough. I know "both sides are bad" is a a very tepid take, but its just true on this one. Both sides have stuff they wish everyone would just shut up about, and unscrupulous enough legislators to give a shot at enacting controls on speech given the right political climate.

This is why organizations like the ACLU are important, in theory at least.

I don't think many people are surprised to see a Republican turn out not to care very much about freedom of speech. The interesting things is that Elon Musk, specificallly, has turned out not to care about freedom of speech very much and is doing things he explicitly said he would not do not long ago, using very similar excuses that the left has used to censor its political opponents, namely a nebulous concern for safety.

People keep repeating this, but none of them have bothered to make the apples to apples comparison of discriminating against political viewpoints versus banning real-time location doxxing. Until they do, this is just more 'Boo Musk' weaksauce.

Wake me up when Elon starts banning people for referring to Rachel Levine by their preferred pronouns.

It may not be the same or even as bad, but it is certainly noteworthy that Elon Musk is turning out to be a hypocrite who doesn't care as much about free speech as he said he did.

I will consider it noteworthy once everything in the Twitter files and the incestuous relationship between SV, the state, and the media (some of banned themselves being implicated in the drops) receives the same measure and moreso.

Unt then - No. I really dont find this noteworthy at all despite your insistence. The last 10 years has been a graveyard of high-minded tech companies loudly pledging their allegiance to free speech suddenly doing an about-face and reneging on that promise when it was convenient. The mainstream conversation about hypocrisy on social media platforms will not start at Elon Musk.

real-time location doxxing

Is it though? I haven't followed this Musk saga, but aren't they just tell where the jet that belongs to Elon is?

It's like if Lady Gaga had a concert, than some people on twitter would say "hey, Lady Gaga will be at this Concert Hall at 19:00", it wouldn't be considered "doxxing" really. Flight radar and such are great tools that are beneficial to our society.

Someone named Scott Alexander had this essay: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/29/against-signal-boosting-as-doxxing/

I don't think those are comparable. Signal-boosting some offensive tweet written by a nobody might increase his visibility tenfold. Meanwhile signal-boosting public information about Musk will increase risk to him or his family only marginally.

Sadly the ACLU has completely betrayed its principles. It makes me sad; I was so impressed by them as a teen, and now they're up there with the UN Women's Twitter account.

ACLU was formed as the legal defense fund for CPUSA - they haven't betrayed their principles.

https://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/blog/baldwin.pdf

The famous cases like Skokie Illinois was classic "signal boost people that make the other side look bad" (only works when you have total control of the press) combined with "create a reputation for our organization as principled that will allow us to be more effective a boosting left wing causes".

yeah thats why my support for them is only theoretical and not practical.

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