Consequences for Veterans and/or retirees in the 2021 DC Riots

[SlickAg]

No, you're not actually recalling what I said correctly. This what I actually said:


I didn't agree with the Tweet.
If I were her CO, I would've just benched her pending the proper UCMJ investigation.



Nobody is censoring memes for being stupid. Censoring is only happening when it creates harm.
If someone takes a shower cam of your wife or daughter, is it OK to just let it go viral? There are many examples of where it has caused real, not theoretical, direct harm to people when social media has been abused.
In the absence of any real regulation to guide them, companies, as private entities, are policing themselves. As long as they are doing that, you're going to continue to get an imperfect result.
Do I think that enforcement is not completely fair? Absolutely. However, the ones getting themselves Twitter bans are pretty heinous people and groups. Like the literal American Nazi party. Or Hamas. So...are we saying it was wrong to boot those groups from social media?



You are mixing up freedom of speech the Constitutionally protected right, and the use of a service, which is a privilege.
And it is also within the First Amendment rights of a private company to express themselves by choosing not to affiliate themselves with a service they do not agree with. Remember gay wedding cakes? The decision was you can't force a provider to do something they don't want to do, that's a violation of THEIR First Amendment rights.
Parler, IMO, is running into the same problem that other social media platforms had when they started, but now that they're realizing they actually DO need to moderate content (and not just say it in their TOS) they were not at all prepared for the storm when it hit.



This may be true, but the right wing isn't some kind of "answer".
I dislike the left's stance on gun rights and entitlement spending, but there are plenty on the right just as guilty of being narrowing "freedoms" they don't happen to agree with at any moment. So people on the middle are supposed to pick between a decline into either socialism or fascism? Fuck that.

What do you call shutting down Parler? There's no way for them to organize anything on there. Listen to the CEO getting interviewed. It's unreal what happened to him. Has Facebook shut itself down even thought people used them to plan "peaceful protests" which have turned into riots? The Ayatollah of Iran can still call for the destruction of Israel and all Jews from Twitter, but Donald Trump can't use it?

I am not mixing up the difference between Constitutionally protected privilege and the First Amendment. There's "Un-American" and illegal. If you're fine with continuing down the slippery slope of only allowing people who think certain things to be allowed to say things without being cancelled, so be it. I'd like to point out that only allowing one group of people or one political party to be "right" is one of the literal components of Fascism.

 

[SlickAg]

There's zero appetite in the Senate for this and they'd need 60 votes. Not going to happen. Write it down.

Until the filibuster goes away...

"Schumer was asked about the filibuster, officially Senate Rule XXII, in the context of former President Barack Obama deriding it as an impediment to reviving protections of the Voting Rights Act.

“And if all this takes eliminating the filibuster — another Jim Crow relic — in order to secure the God-given rights of every American, then that’s what we should do,” Obama said last month in Atlanta in his eulogy for the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.

Biden has recently been open to the idea of eliminating the filibuster, although he clearly would prefer to get enough Republican senators to cross the aisle to support his agenda.“I just don’t believe you’re going to have this kind of resistance … that we had before,” Biden said in an interview earlier this month for the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists. “If in fact they are as obstreperous as is expected, we’d have to get rid of the filibuster, but the filibuster has also saved a lot of bad things from happening too.”"

Schumer: Ditching filibuster not ‘off the table’ if Biden, Democrats win

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer says eliminating the filibuster is a possibility if Democrats sweep into the majority with Joe Biden in November.

www.rollcall.com

Filibuster or bust: How Senate Democrats could get rid of the filibuster

President Obama called for eliminating the legislative filibuster last month, which could occur if Democrats retake the Senate.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[BigRed389]

What do you call shutting down Parler? There's no way for them to organize anything on there. Listen to the CEO getting interviewed. It's unreal what happened to him. Has Facebook shut itself down even thought people used them to plan "peaceful protests" which have turned into riots? The Ayatollah of Iran can still call for the destruction of Israel and all Jews from Twitter, but Donald Trump can't use it?

I am not mixing up the difference between Constitutionally protected privilege and the First Amendment. There's "Un-American" and illegal. If you're fine with continuing down the slippery slope of only allowing people who think certain things to be allowed to say things without being cancelled, so be it. I'd like to point out that only allowing one group of people or one political party to be "right" is one of the literal components of Fascism.

I call it not doing business with someone they don't want to do business with. What else am I supposed to call it?
FB is a bit different, they do have a history of liberal bias but that's the problem of having to hire hundreds (thousands) of people to trawl through social media content and review flagged content. It could use some work. Maybe the people who are angry enough to go fly/drive across the fucking country to do something stupid could get a job with Facebook as mods (kidding, terrible idea).

As for the Ayatollah, I'm in general agreement with you.
However, Twitter shut down the private account of Donald Trump. Not the POTUS account. There's a difference.

And the logic Twitter used on Trump's account is effectively the same as "fire/crowded theater", based on actual events that happened, not just idle chatter.
The Ayatollah has been yelling Death to America since Iran was a nation...it hasn't actually triggered anything recently if I'm not mistaken. They have some options - if they don't ban him immediately (I think they should and apply a broader standard) they probably would ban him if an Iranian (or other regional actor) does attack us (or Israel) after he posts something inflammatory on Twitter. Their precedent is set now, so I'd certainly support putting Twitter on the spot if they don't.

As for the rest, it's not a simple issue, so I'll try and keep this short :
I am fine with private companies who have decided their TOS requires canceling the American Nazi Party account.
And Hamas and ISIS accounts.
And accounts that are used to doxx or harass people or post revenge porn.
I doubt any reasonable person opposes the above. Having established that as a position, then we are already on the slippery slope of only certain things being "allowed" to be said without being canceled, and you're just arguing about just how far you want to be up or down the slope.

If you feel it is "un-American" and we need to bring all that back, or that it is the "right" thing to do, and that it is not just a "fringe" position, I'm sure the free market will demonstrate market need for such a "war zone/free fire" forum to come into existence.

 

[SlickAg]

I call it not doing business with someone they don't want to do business with. What else am I supposed to call it?
FB is a bit different, they do have a history of liberal bias but that's the problem of having to hire hundreds (thousands) of people to trawl through social media content and review flagged content. It could use some work. Maybe the people who are angry enough to go fly/drive across the fucking country to do something stupid could get a job with Facebook as mods (kidding, terrible idea).

As for the Ayatollah, I'm in general agreement with you.
However, Twitter shut down the private account of Donald Trump. Not the POTUS account. There's a difference.

And the logic Twitter used on Trump's account is effectively the same as "fire/crowded theater", based on actual events that happened, not just idle chatter.
The Ayatollah has been yelling Death to America since Iran was a nation...it hasn't actually triggered anything recently if I'm not mistaken. They have some options - if they don't ban him immediately (I think they should and apply a broader standard) they probably would ban him if an Iranian (or other regional actor) does attack us (or Israel) after he posts something inflammatory on Twitter. Their precedent is set now, so I'd certainly support putting Twitter on the spot if they don't.

As for the rest, it's not a simple issue, so I'll try and keep this short :
I am fine with private companies who have decided their TOS requires canceling the American Nazi Party account.
And Hamas and ISIS accounts.
And accounts that are used to doxx or harass people or post revenge porn.
I doubt any reasonable person opposes the above. Having established that as a position, then we are already on the slippery slope of only certain things being "allowed" to be said without being canceled, and you're just arguing about just how far you want to be up or down the slope.

If you feel it is "un-American" and we need to bring all that back, or that it is the "right" thing to do, and that it is not just a "fringe" position, I'm sure the free market will demonstrate market need for such a "war zone/free fire" forum to come into existence.

Naw dude, they deleted tweets the President made using the POTUS account as well. They didn't suspend his account, they just deleted them. Censored them. Censored the President of the United States.

FWIW, these are the tweets that warranted suspension:

"The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!"

and

"To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th."

If you think that those tweets glorified violence and resulted in the tweets being taken down permanently but the following quote from the Ayatollah does NOT glorify violence, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you:

"Why should & how can #Israel be eliminated? Ayatollah Khamenei's answer to 9 key questions. #HandsOffAlAqsa"

Quote from the article below:

"If it is clear that another account is being used for the purposes of evading a ban, it is also subject to suspension," Twitter said in a statement. "For government accounts, such as @POTUS and @WhiteHouse, we will not suspend those accounts but will take action to limit their use. However, these accounts will be transitioned over to the new administration in due course and will not be suspended by Twitter unless absolutely necessary to alleviate real-world harm."

And to be clear, what I find to be Un-American is the suppression of ideas other than your own, or those with which you don't agree. I am talking about it in a very specific context. But yes, I tend to agree that most censorship ends up with the group, person, or entity ordering the censoring becoming more and more like the thing it's trying to prevent by engaging in censorship in the first place.

Twitter bans President Trump permanently | CNN Business

Twitter has suspended President Trump from its platform, the company said Friday evening.

www.cnn.com

 

[Griz882]

Until the filibuster goes away...

"Schumer was asked about the filibuster, officially Senate Rule XXII, in the context of former President Barack Obama deriding it as an impediment to reviving protections of the Voting Rights Act.

“And if all this takes eliminating the filibuster — another Jim Crow relic — in order to secure the God-given rights of every American, then that’s what we should do,” Obama said last month in Atlanta in his eulogy for the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.

Biden has recently been open to the idea of eliminating the filibuster, although he clearly would prefer to get enough Republican senators to cross the aisle to support his agenda.“I just don’t believe you’re going to have this kind of resistance … that we had before,” Biden said in an interview earlier this month for the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists. “If in fact they are as obstreperous as is expected, we’d have to get rid of the filibuster, but the filibuster has also saved a lot of bad things from happening too.”"

Schumer: Ditching filibuster not ‘off the table’ if Biden, Democrats win

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer says eliminating the filibuster is a possibility if Democrats sweep into the majority with Joe Biden in November.

www.rollcall.com

Filibuster or bust: How Senate Democrats could get rid of the filibuster

President Obama called for eliminating the legislative filibuster last month, which could occur if Democrats retake the Senate.

www.cbsnews.com

Here is what you are missing. This is a game of months, not years. As of today there are only 23 months and 21 days until the midterms...and Biden hasn’t even sworn in. Take away from that a minimum of six months to campaign. That leaves just 17 months to make any real change to the system. Eliminating the filibuster would be “that thing.” It would end any hope at cooperation and set off a firestorm of protest that every moderate senator (regardless of party) will soon hear and listen too.

I will state categorically that the mid-terms remain a total unknown. The democrats may likely lose the House and the Senate is not exactly stable for either side. More than anything else, more than party and more than people, politicians want to keep their jobs.

 

[taxi1]

FWIW, these are the tweets that warranted suspension:

"The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!"

and

"To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th."

Really need to put them into context with his prior tweets. They weren’t in isolation.

The last one in particular, combined with all of the ongoing right wing extremist on-line traffic, can easily be read as, “So feel free to destroy the inauguration.”

Some entrepreneur can feel free to spin up their own services.

 

[MIDNJAC]

I do NOT think that censorship has been applied in a "fair" or equitable manner. But what are people to do about it? Lawsuits which have had varying levels of success? Short of passing legislation or changing what already exists, what legal recourse is there other than that? The way I read it.....businesses are there to make money. Whether folks like it or not, certain businesses have determined that various matters/people take away from their money, and they posted the no longer welcome sign.

To be fair, I have never visited twitter or really much in the way of the social media app world.....and I feel just fine. So maybe I just don't "get" them

 

[BigRed389]

Naw dude, they deleted tweets the President made using the POTUS account as well. They didn't suspend his account, they just deleted them. Censored them. Censored the President of the United States.

FWIW, these are the tweets that warranted suspension:

"The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!"

and

"To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th."

If you think that those tweets glorified violence and resulted in the tweets being taken down permanently but the following quote from the Ayatollah does NOT glorify violence, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you:

"Why should & how can #Israel be eliminated? Ayatollah Khamenei's answer to 9 key questions. #HandsOffAlAqsa"

Quote from the article below:

"If it is clear that another account is being used for the purposes of evading a ban, it is also subject to suspension," Twitter said in a statement. "For government accounts, such as @POTUS and @WhiteHouse, we will not suspend those accounts but will take action to limit their use. However, these accounts will be transitioned over to the new administration in due course and will not be suspended by Twitter unless absolutely necessary to alleviate real-world harm."

Twitter bans President Trump permanently | CNN Business

Twitter has suspended President Trump from its platform, the company said Friday evening.

www.cnn.com

Wasn't tracking on that. Welp, that's just great. I literally got nothing for that.
See, I never wanted them to ban him until he left office because I knew it would lead to exactly this situation and now we have to have this stupid debate.
I would've preferred they just put him in like a 24 hour time out like a child every time he Tweeted something controversial...that would've kept him on his account instead of trying to bypass it using the POTUS account, which is a different problem.

But what do you really want to do? Like I said on my last post, we got to a point along the slope of "some censorship is OK" a hell of a long time ago, for real and valid problems. What's the solution? Anything you do that forces Twitter to do anything they don't want to do in itself smacks of authoritarianism. If you have a solution that doesn't involve being vindictive to Twitter just because you don't like something they do, I'm all ears.

We can't have nice things because the world is full of assholes. How do you propose we deal with those assholes without letting them just freely take a giant dump over everyone else?

 

[Brett327]

Until the filibuster goes away...

Also not going to happen. You can write that down too.

 

[SlickAg]

Really need to put them into context with his prior tweets. They weren’t in isolation.

The last one in particular, combined with all of the ongoing right wing extremist on-line traffic, can easily be read as, “So feel free to destroy the inauguration.”

Some entrepreneur can feel free to spin up their own services.

Literally the company who banned him from using their services said that those are the tweets. If they felt that previous tweets should have been included, they certainly could have.

I find it interesting that, for some, we need context in terms of the President's tweets but not in terms of the actions of last week and the normalization of mob and crowd violence in the preceding months.

 

[SlickAg]

Here is what you are missing. This is a game of months, not years. As of today there are only 23 months and 21 days until the midterms...and Biden hasn’t even sworn in. Take away from that a minimum of six months to campaign. That leaves just 17 months to make any real change to the system. Eliminating the filibuster would be “that thing.” It would end any hope at cooperation and set off a firestorm of protest that every moderate senator (regardless of party) will soon hear and listen too.

I will state categorically that the mid-terms remain a total unknown. The democrats may likely lose the House and the Senate is not exactly stable for either side. More than anything else, more than party and more than people, politicians want to keep their jobs.

I think a lot of people, I know I certainly am, are banking on that to provide a semblance of normalcy as our nation moves forward. And perhaps a return to the civil discourse of yesteryear.

I just think if 2020 and now 2021 have shown us anything, it's that the previously unimaginable has become all of a sudden very real.

 

[SlickAg]

Also not going to happen. You can write that down too.

Let's assume that this all blows over and as Griz said, we're just back to drinking coffee in the morning and seeing how our Bitcoin did overnight. I think two of the biggest, and super fascinating, storylines going forward are 1) how does the GOP move forward given the internal strife between the MAGA crowd and those who the MAGA crowd would call RINOs and 2) battle for control and relevance in the Democratic Party between the old guard (Pelosi, Schumer, et al) and The Squad. I think they'll both be critical, and I personally hope that the latter's socialist agenda gets stymied. But I think The Squad is going to push and push and push until the boundaries of legislative norms and mores are expanded upon.

Mr. Biden has two options: middle ground and steady the ship as it were, or be a progressive. I've seen lots of things that made me think he's very open to the latter.

I hope you're right, but I think the discussion is going to come up sooner rather than later.

 

[jmcquate]

The hubris of the Senate to change Senate rules believing their party will be in the majority forever is fascinating. Why the Senate would want to become a smaller version of the House instead of being seen as the "adult table", I'll never understand.

 

[SlickAg]

Wasn't tracking on that. Welp, that's just great. I literally got nothing for that.
See, I never wanted them to ban him until he left office because I knew it would lead to exactly this situation and now we have to have this stupid debate.
I would've preferred they just put him in like a 24 hour time out like a child every time he Tweeted something controversial...that would've kept him on his account instead of trying to bypass it using the POTUS account, which is a different problem.

But what do you really want to do? Like I said on my last post, we got to a point along the slope of "some censorship is OK" a hell of a long time ago, for real and valid problems. What's the solution? Anything you do that forces Twitter to do anything they don't want to do in itself smacks of authoritarianism. If you have a solution that doesn't involve being vindictive to Twitter just because you don't like something they do, I'm all ears.

We can't have nice things because the world is full of assholes. How do you propose we deal with those assholes without letting them just freely take a giant dump over everyone else?

I know that Clay Travis isn't everyone's cup of tea, but he calls himself a First Amendment absolutist. I think this piece of his does a good job of lining up the arguments about why censorship like we've seen, such as Amazon, Apple, and Google, essentially eliminating Parler is such an unprecedented and scary thing in America. He also comments about the importance of embracing diversity of thought and ideas.

Why Big Tech Bannings Are Bad For America's Marketplace of Ideas

Long time readers of OutKick know that above everything else, I am a First Amendment absolutist. I believe the First Amendment is our most sacred right,

www.outkick.com

 

[Treetop Flyer]

The hubris of the Senate to change Senate rules believing their party will be in the majority forever is fascinating. Why the Senate would want to become a smaller version of the House instead of being seen as the "adult table", I'll never understand.

I think the idea if implemented would be to change the rules to ensure their party would retain control for the foreseeable future. Hypothetically, eliminate the filibuster, grant statehood to DC and maybe PR, pack the court, force universal mail-in voting. Still short sighted and very dangerous but I understand the reasoning.