Babylon Bee Twitter suspended for.. telling jokes, Whack Wokeness is after comedy

this question has nothing to do with nothing. Another distraction, what's termed a "red herring," a diversionary tactic to get out from under the burden of discussing "free speech" in the broad sense of that term

 

What do you think the threshold for Islamic extremists terror rhetoric should be allowed on social media platforms? Anything below the threshold of direct threats allowed?

 

that's a genuinely tough question

 

It has everything to do with Babylon being suspended, you calling it a 'red herring' is an attempt to distract and projection.

Websites set their TOS/Rules and force their users to abide by those rules or face punishment.

Babylon Bee can STILL speak, it can still go on another platform to say whatever it wants to say, twitter did not prevent it from speaking it just told it that it can't speak on its platform.

If you want to discuss the idea of free speech, be my guest, but twitter did not violate Babylon Bee's free speech by suspending it.

 

Mill provides a clue to how he might parse this in his example of the corn dealers (which somewhere in another thread we've discussed in more detail). The general idea is this: at a distant remove, hostile or hateful speech might be allowable, as when the legislature says the corn dealers are starving poor people with high prices. Whereas speech should be legitimately regulated if it is a mob outside of a specific corn dealer's house yelling "This corn dealer who lives here is starving poor people with high prices." Mill suggests here the threat of real harm to a specific, identifiable person would warrant/justify limiting that mob's "free speech."

I think "content moderation" on social media has attempted to do something analogous; it's just that the algorithms employed are very crude and get things wrong just about as frequently as they get things right, censorship-wise

 

So tired of this.

Liberals need to grow thicker skin and embrace free speech (for all its flowers and thorns).

Conservatives need to stop being such obstinate assholes and afford trans people basic respect and dignity.

 

No, the Bee still freely publishes on its own web page, thank goodness. What you omit is the other half of the equation: Twitter has undeniably censored the Bee by suspending/banning it from the Twitter platform

 

Sure it has censored the Bee...it can do that. Platforms censor content they don't want on their platform all the time. That's not a free speech violation and if it is and if so many conservatives feel it is then they should have been put this issue before the courts...well, they have...and it hasn't done well in the courts...

https://www.courthousenews.com/ninth-circuit-tosses-pragerus-free-speech-claims-against-youtube/

So despite @AroundTheWorld study of constitutional law...he's wrong here and the guy that didn't study it is correct. Me. The courts have ruled on these cases and every time rule in favor of the platform using the same language.

 

Obviously you don't use Twitter... It's toxic and repelling to the point where both sides want to retain a hold on it.

Elon has a tough task ahead of him.

 

You should also include in the equation that the Bee tacitly accepted Twitter's TOS in exchange for using their product. It's a relevant detail. Explicitly violating terms of an agreement and being forced to delete your post is different from Twitter deleting a post even when it's within the stated rules.

As a practical matter, censorship is a problem when it creates unreasonable limits on one's ability to freely express ideas. In this case, the Bee could have very easily communicated its "idea" on Twitter without targeting an actual person. I've seen many satirical articles by The Onion that use fictional characters. The Bee's intent was to specifically harass and denigrate an individual, because this mean-spiritedness against public figures in the trans community is like catnip for its readership. Recognition and acceptance of a person's gender identity is an extremely sensitive matter for people of that community, as you would know better than me being the parent of a trans child. I generally consider myself a pretty open-minded person, but this is just gross. And all for a cheap laugh at a dumb joke (this person dressed like a woman but is clearly a dude! ho ho).

 

Chapelle is actually funny. People with a sense of humor understand the difference between Dave Chapelle and The Babylon F'ing Bee.

 

They aren't making a legal argument about free speech here. I assume they understand that Twitter is fully within its legal rights to censor content. They are arguing for free speech as a moral principle on the grounds that Twitter is a de facto "digital public square". In my view, this elevates Twitter to a position that I don't think is necessarily warranted.

 

I felt the last few posts I was replying to were challenging the legal aspects of it.

If we're debating the idea of free speech there certainly can be an argument made that a digital space is different than a physical one and an argument that might come up in the future as we create more digital spaces that might be vital for people seeking happiness and liberty blah blah blah...but if the theoretical Metaverse is big in 20 years and everyone is on the Metaverse and you're banned from the Metaverse...maybe then we will start making free speech laws that are specific to digital spaces.

I agree in that I don't think Twitter is a public square myself, @Os Trigonum even correctly reminded me a month or so back that the vast majority of people (in this country at least) don't use twitter, therefore to me having speech on twitter isn't that big of a deal. I know some people might counter with "It has affected elections" and I don't think that is in contention but...usually people popular on twitter are popular off of it as well. Trump wasn't silenced at all since being banned, he can still fart and have someone report on what he ate.

I think when debating the idea of free speech that some people confuse free speech with being heard and various consequences of that speech. Everyone should have the right to say whatever they want but you can't expect people to want to hear it or for people to react kindly to it.

 

Funny isn't the dividing line.

The dividing line is malice.

Dave manages to be funny without being demeaning.

The problem is that distinction will always exist purely in the eye of the beholder.

When it comes to trans jokes:

Funny and not malicious - Chapelle
Funny and malicious - Babylon Bee
Not funny and malicious - Steven Crowder

 

I don't know about Steven Crowder. On The Babylon Bee, I can only comment on the piece this thread is about, which I quoted earlier. Not funny, but sure it's a personal taste thing.

 

the good news is that for there to be free speech regarding comedy, one need not find the comedy actually "funny." As someone else remarked, there's no accounting for taste. George Carlin offended an awful lot of people in his lifetime, people who did not find his humor at all funny . . . and yet he was one of the most hilarious comics who has ever lived

 

We usually give things that are intended to be works of comedy a pass, because we take it for granted that they don't exactly really mean what they are literally saying. It uses exaggeration and/or irony to make people laugh. That's where the art lies.

Here is a case where the piece literally says exactly what the author intended -- this person is a weirdo and is a MAN, regardless of what the weirdo would like us to think. It's not funny, in my opinion, which is a matter of personal taste, yes. But that isn't the real issue. It clearly violates the user agreement, and the author cannot hide behind this being supposedly a work of comedy as a defense, because the part that is in violation (you can't harass/denigrate a minority in a targeted way) is exactly what the author wanted to convey.

 

yeah, but I think the spoof wasn't on Levine, it was on USA Today for naming Levine "Woman of the Year."

Levine is a public figure, and public figures are out there in the open, vulnerable to criticism, satire, all of it.

 

Fair points.

I will admit, I was unaware of the USA Today thing. That does change my perception of this a bit.

 

Didn't know who this was, googled him, saw a few bits, found him more angry than funny.