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Peter Schaeffer's avatar

Twitter, in my experience is a bastion of bigotry and exclusion. If you express a non-PC thought, you get banned. The most fanatical racism and even genocide advocacy is OK on Twitter as long as it is PC. Take a look at Sarah Jeong's Twitter history. A few of her racist tweets were

“dumbass fucking white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants”

“white men are bullshit”

"Oh man it's kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men"

#cancelwhitepeople

Of course, she produced a lot more than these horrible (very racist) tweets. Was she banned? Punished in any way? Not exactly. Indeed, the NYT hired her onto it's editorial board.

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Peter Schaeffer's avatar

In my opinion, Twitter (and Facebook) are de-facto monopolies and should be regulated as such. Both should be forced to get out of the censorship business. In other words, they should not be allowed to censor opinion, that they don’t like (which is what they do now).

The evidence that Twitter (and Facebook) engage in left-wing censorship is rather strong. The racist Sarah Jeong provides one case in point. Over a period or years, she generated numerous vile tweets. Of course, Twitter took no action. A few of her tweets were.

“dumbass fucking white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants”

“white men are bullshit”

“fuck white women lol.”

"Oh man it's kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men"

“Are white people genetically disposed to burn faster in the sun, thus logically being only fit to live underground like groveling goblins.”

#cancelwhitepeople

Sadly, she produced a lot more than these horrible (very racist) tweets. Was she banned? Punished in any way? Not exactly. Indeed, the NYT hired her onto it's editorial board.

Quote from “It Isn’t Your Imagination: Twitter Treats Conservatives More Harshly Than Liberals” (https://quillette.com/2019/02/12/it-isnt-your-imagination-twitter-treats-conservatives-more-harshly-than-liberals/)

“Another particularly shocking case is that of Kathy Griffin, who demanded that her followers make public the names of the Covington High School students who were falsely accused of aggressively harassing a Native American activist. Despite this explicit call to harass minors, she has not been sanctioned by Twitter.”

For better or worse, Twitter has essentially 100% market-share in it’s target market (online text messaging in the US). Of course, Facebook (now Meta) also has essentially 100% market-share in it’s target market. Both engage in blatant viewpoint censorship.

One person has compared ‘misinformation’ on Twitter to ‘crying fire in a crowded theater’. That’s wrong. It’s more like ‘crying fire in Time’s Square’ which is protected speech.

Indeed, one person’s ‘misinformation’ is another person’s facts. Consider a few cases in point. The ‘lab leak’ theory of COVID-19 was a ‘conspiracy theory’ until it became a ‘plausible theory’. The consensus about masks has changed several times. Were all of the other views about masks ‘misinformation’?

We don’t let the phone company decide who gets phone service. We don’t let the phone company listen to our phone calls and cut off phone service when it detects something it doesn’t like. We don’t let the USPS decide who gets mail. We don’t let the electric company decide who gets power. Twitter (and Facebook and the rest of Social Media) should be forced out of the censorship business.

If (for example) someone violates Federal Law (for example, by uploading child pornography), then they should be prosecuted. However, political speech should be protected even if Twitter doesn’t like it.

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