Further Thoughts On Moderation v. Discretion v. Censorship
from the playing-semantics dept
Welcome back to Techdirt's favorite faux game show, Playing Semantics! This week, we're diving back into the semantics of moderation, discretion, and censorship. As a reminder, this bit is what we were arguing about last time:
Moderation is a platform operator saying "we don't do that here." Discretion is you saying "I won't do that there." Censorship is someone saying "you can't do that anywhere" before or after threats of either violence or government intervention.
Now, if we're all caught up, let's get back into the game!
A Few Nits to Pick
In my prior column, I overlooked a couple of things that I shouldn't have. I'll go over them here to help everyone get on the same page as me.
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anywhere — In re: "you can't do that anywhere", this refers to the confines of a given authority or government. It also refers to the Internet in general. Censors work to suppress speech where it matters the most (e.g., within a given country). Such censors often carry the authority necessary to censor (e.g., they work in the government).
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violence — "Violence" refers to physical violence. I hope I don't have to explain how someone threatening to harm a journalist is a form of censorship.
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government — This refers to any branch of any level of government within a given country. And anyone who uses the legal system in an attempt to suppress speech becomes a censor as well. (That person need not be an agent of the government, either.)
From here on out, I'll be addressing specific comments — some of which I replied to, some of which I didn't.
One such comment brought up the idea of a headmaster as a censor. Lexico defines "headmaster" as "(especially in private schools) the man in charge of a school." We can assume a headmaster is the highest authority of the school.
In a reply to that comment, I said the following:
If the headmaster is a government employee, they're a censor. If they're the head of a private institution, they're a "censor" in a merely colloquial sense. The privately owned and operated Liberty University (henceforth Liberty U), for example, has engaged in what I'd normally call "moderation" vis-á-vis its campus newspaper — which, despite it being a frankly immoral and unethical decision, Liberty U has every right to do as a private institution. (Frankly, I'd be tempted to call such people censors outright, but that would kinda go against my whole bit.)
But the example I used gave me pause to reconsider. Jerry Falwell Jr. (the "headmaster" of Liberty U) and free speech have often come to metaphorical blows. I noted this through a link to an article from the blog Friendly Atheist. The article has a quote from a former editor for Liberty U's school newspaper, who describes how Falwell's regime ran the paper:
[W]e encountered an "oversight" system — read: a censorship regime — that required us to send every story to Falwell's assistant for review. Any administrator or professor who appeared in an article had editing authority over any part of the article; they added and deleted whatever they wanted.
That raises the important question: Is that censorship or editorial discretion?
After reading the Washington Post article from which that quote comes, I would refer to this as censorship. I'll get into the why of my thinking on that soon enough. But suffice to say, "editorial discretion" doesn't often involve editors threatening writers with lawsuits or violence.
But though I call that censorship, some people might call it "moderation" or "editorial discretion". Falwell is, after all, exercising his right of association on his private property. What makes that "censorship" are the at-least-veiled threats against "dissenters".
Censorship Via Threats
Speaking of threats! Another comment took issue with how I defined censorship:
Why should it be "censorship" to threaten someone with a small financial loss (enforced by a court), but not to kick them off the platform they use to make the bulk of their income (independent of the government)? Is "you can speak on some other platform" fundamentally less offensive than "you can speak from another country", or is that merely a side-effect of the difficulty of physical movement?
To answer this as briefly as I can: A person can find a new platform with relative ease and little-to-no cost. No one can say the same for finding their way out of a lawsuit.
But that raises another important question: Does any kind of threat of personal or financial ruin count as censorship?
As I said above, the Liberty U example counts as censorship. As for the why? The following quotes from that WaPo article should help explain:
Student journalists must now sign a nondisclosure agreement that forbids them from talking publicly about "editorial or managerial direction, oversight decisions or information designated as privileged or confidential." … Faculty, staff and students on the Lynchburg, Va., campus have learned that it's a sin to challenge the sacrosanct status of the school or its leaders, who mete out punishments for dissenting opinions (from stripping people of their positions to banning them from the school).
School leaders don't have the power of government to back their decisions. But they can still use their power and authority to coerce other people into silence. ("Stop writing stories like this or I'll kick you out of this school and then what will you do.") Even if someone can move to another platform and speak, a looming threat could stop them from wanting to do that.
And the threat need not be one of financial or personal ruin. Someone who holds a journalist at knife point and says "shut up about the president or else" is a censor. The violent person doesn't need government power; their knife and the fear it can cause are all they need.
Money and Speech
A comment I made about companies such as Mastercard and Visa elicited a reply that pointed out how they, too, are complicit in censorship:
I cited Visa and Mastercard specifically because they are at the top of the chain and it's effectively impossible to create a competitor. If they say something's not allowed it isn't unless you want to lose funding. Paypal has been notoriously bad about banning people for innocuous speech over the years, but there are other downstream providers that aren't Paypal (although if all of them throw someone off, it still erases the speech). I am of the opinion that high-level banks should be held to neutrality standards like ISPs should due to their position of power. Competitors would be preferable, but the lack of either is frightening.
They make a good point. Companies like Visa can legally refuse to do business with, say, an adult film studio. So can banks. This becomes censorship when all such companies cut off access to their services. An artist who creates and sells adult art can end up in a bad place if PayPal cuts the artist off from online payments.
As the comment said, creating a competitor to these services is nigh impossible. Get booted from Twitter and you can open a Mastodon for instance; get booted from PayPal and you're fucked. That Sword of Damocles–esque threat of financial ruin could be (and often is) enough to keep some artists from creating adult works.
It's-A Me, Censorship!
Ah, Nintendo and its overzealous need to have a "family-friendly" reputation. Whatever would we do without it~?
Remember when Nintendo of America removed, or otherwise didn't allow objectionable material in their video games until Mortal Kombat came about and there were Congressional hearings and then the ESRB was formed?
Would you call what Nintendo did censorship or moderation? There's an argument for moderation in that it was only within their purview and only on their video game systems, but there's also an argument for censorship in that once the video games went outside of the bounds set by Nintendo of America, they were subpoenaed by the Government with threats of punishment. The ESRB made their censorship/moderations policies moot, but it's an interesting question. What do you think, Stephen?
This example leads to another good question: Do Nintendo, Sony, etc. engage in censorship when they ask a publisher to remove "problematic" material?
Nintendo can allow or deny any game a spot on the Switch library for any reason. If the company had wanted to deny the publication of Mortal Kombat 11 because of the excessive violence, it could've done so without question. To say otherwise would upend the law. But when Nintendo asks publishers to edit out certain content? I'd call that a mix of "editorial discretion" and "moderation".
Nintendo has the right to have its systems associated with specific speech. Any publisher that wants an association with Nintendo must play by Nintendo's rules. Enforcing a "right to publication" would be akin to the government compelling speech. We shouldn't want the law to compel Nintendo into allowing (or refusing!) the publication of Doom Eternal on the Switch. That way lies madness.
Oh, and the ESRB didn't give Nintendo the "right" to allow a blood-filled Mortal Kombat II on the SNES. Nintendo already had that right. Besides, Mortal Kombat II came out on home consoles one week before the official launch of the ESRB. (The first game to receive the "M" rating was the Sega 32X release of DOOM.) The company allowed blood to stay because the Genesis version of the first game — which had a "blood" code — sold better.
That's All, Folks!
And thus ends another episode of Playing Semantics! I'd like to thank everyone at home for playing, and if you have any questions or comments, please offer them below. So until next time(?), remember:
Moderation is a platform/service owner or operator saying "we don't do that here." Personal discretion is an individual telling themselves "I won't do that here." Editorial discretion is an editor saying "we won't print that here," either to themselves or to a writer. Censorship is someone saying "you won't do that anywhere" alongside threats or actions meant to suppress speech.
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Someone being popular doesn’t — and shouldn’t — make them wholly immune from the rules of a given service. Anyone who violates the rules should receive the proper punishment, be they a rando with an anime avatar or a sitting president.
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I’ve better things to do, so this is the last reply I have for you.
It isn’t saying that people are inherently racist. It’s saying that systems within the United States are inherently racist. The best example comes from that article from The Root I shared earlier:
CRT doesn’t say “white people are inherently racist”. It says “the systems we have in the United States are inherently racist because they were initially designed, and still continue, to benefit white people”. CRT is about looking at these systems through a lens of race so we can figure out how to best solve the problem of — wait for it — systemic racism.
Not a direct quote from the project itself. Nice try.
And if you truly believe that, I have a bridge in the Sahara to sell you.
No, he didn’t. He wanted to kick trans people out of the military. His ban on trans people serving in the military was literally meant to ban trans people from serving in the military.
And it was found, in short order, to not be an effective treatment for COVID-19. Trump and his acolytes continued to push the drug as an effective treatment anyway.
Not all the studies, no.
And I’d prefer to help keep things that way for everyone, which is why I’ll still be wearing a mask when I’m out in public. Don’t like it? Shoot me.
Their objections being legal didn’t make their objections credible — and without any credible evidence that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” in some way (which no one to date has provided), their objections were, are, and always will be bullshit.
An angry mob stormed the citadel of American democracy. They chanted “hang Mike Pence” while a makeshift hangman’s gallows waited outside. They went through the building looking for lawmakers to intimidate (or, given how some of the rioters were carrying plastic wrist cuffs, harm with physical violence). Several police officers suffered harm at the hands of rioters who were either armed or found weapons to use during the riot. One woman who was unwilling to back off from her “peaceful” attempt to enter a spot where lawmakers were being kept safe died because of her own selfish idiocy.
The whole point of the riot was, at a bare minimum, to intimidate lawmakers into ignoring the results of a free and fair election so Donald Trump could stay president. That they failed at their goal doesn’t make their Capitol putsch any less of one.
Don’t try to whitewash the insurrection again, Lodos. I’ve seen the videos of police officers being assaulted. I’ve heard the chants of “hang Mike Pence”. I know what they were trying to do that day, and it sure as fucking hell wasn’t “give lawmakers a handshake for doing their job”.
We already have laws against fradulent voting. Hell, a few Republican voters have been dinged by those laws for their fraudulent votes in the 2020 election. If the fraud these new laws are intended to prevent doesn’t exist, for what reason do we need the new laws?
Oh, Lodos.
Every racist comment you make is a fresh kick in the nuts.
And again, I didn’t say the GOP as a party are a bunch of white supremacists. I said the GOP, as a party, is on the side of white supremacy — whether Republicans like it or not — because their platform and their political language plays to the grievances of its broadest voting base (e.g., white conservative Christian men). That the grievance politics of modern American conservatism plays into the hands of white supremacists is more telling than the GOP (or you) wants to let on.
Okay. So what?
You’re upset because the people who can afford to pay higher taxes are being asked to pay higher tax rates — even when they don’t — than the people who can’t afford to pay those same rates?
Eh, depends on how much they have in the stock market and other investments. Take-home income isn’t all income.
To invest in others.
A dude who makes a billion dollars a year could sit on all that money, sure. Maybe some small fraction of it might actually go back into the economy. But if that dude were to instead invest that money into raising the wages for everyone who works beneath him, he’d be helping the economy even more than if he sat on that money. Why? Because those people will spend most of that money.
And if the dude makes half a billion the next year, so what? He will still be able to live more comfortably for the rest of his life than will a single mother of two who is crying her eyes out at 3am in the morning as she looks over the bills she can barely afford to pay on her two full-time minimum wage salaries.
Of course you do. But you’ve never thought about it in-depth, have you?
One person makes $20,000 a year. Another makes $2 million a year. Under a flat tax rate, both would have to pay 10% of their income every year. That comes out to $200,000 for the millionaire and $2,000 for the poor person. And I know what you’re saying: “Oh, that sounds fair.”
But $2,000 means a lot more to that poor person than $200,000 could mean to the millionaire because of the law of diminishing utility. The poor person might need that $2,000 for a medical emergency, or a car repair, or some other necessity that — if not taken care of — will expound their poverty even worse. The millionaire can afford to lose $200,000 and still live in far more comfort than the poor person because they have a much larger buffer between themselves and, say, living on the street.
A flat tax has no credible appeal when you consider how it would make poor people give up more of the money they need to literally survive in this wretched society and rich people would complain about how they couldn’t buy a second BMW because of taxes. So of course conservatives think it’s a good idea — after all, fewer poor people is always a good thing in their eyes, because conservatives always view poverty as a moral failing rather than a societal one.
Get some sunlight, you racist, cisgendered, patriarch-propagating misogynistic pig.
I care about a lot of issues. That the current SCOTUS was all but designed by Republicans to do away with a woman’s right to have an abortion if she so chooses — to force women to give birth, even if the child is conceived by rape or incest — is one of them.
The first POTUS to formally recognize Pride Month with an official presidential proclamation was Bill Clinton. Trump didn’t do that in any of his four years as President, by the way.
Well aren’t just the most sociopathic libertarian I’ve ever come across, to refer to groups of people in such detached and heartless terms. Are you sure you’re not a Republican? Because you sound like one.
They didn’t try to turn those detention centers into concentration camps. Trump did. And yes, I’m critical of how Obama handled, and Biden is currently handling, the immigration issue. What they’re doing isn’t ideal, and we need a better system. But at least they’re trying to be humane about it, compared with the “fuck ’em all” attitude of the Trump administration.
No, he denied the pandemic was a pandemic a month into the pandemic. That was the point where he and his administration could’ve been working overtime to stop the pandemic from spreading like wildfire, and he brushed it off with a simple “it’ll go away” declaration. The infamous “lost month” of the pandemic could’ve maybe saved thousands of lives if it hadn’t been “lost” due to the Trump administration dragging its heels on even admitting the pandemic was a pandemic.
And how’d all that work out? Mask mandates were allowed to stand, several people died because they thought they were drinking “miracle cure” chemicals that weren’t, and the economy was decimated anyway as shutdowns occured to prevent the pandemic from taking even more lives than it has. Seems like if Trump had listened to, relied on, and encouraged his followers to listen to actual experts with actual knowledge of actual science and actual expertise in their fields instead of a bunch of quacks and Mike Lindell, maybe the impact of the pandemic would’ve been lessened. But Trump belongs to the anti-science, pro-“freedom” party — the same party that, like Trump, loves uneducated white people who are so brainwashed on right-wing media that “science” is a four-letter word.
I want a president who at least tries to be diplomatic. Trump insulted anyone who so much as looked at him funny. (Unless it was Vladimir Putin, in which case Trump probably had a good fap later.)
They were marching on the side of white nationalists and in defense of monuments to men who betrayed the country in favor of upholding the institution of slavery. Even if they weren’t holding the exact same beliefs as the racists, those supposedly “very fine people” were in the company of racists that day. How “fine” could they really have been if they were marching for the cause of racism?
And if you think sending active-duty members of the military into American cities was a good idea, for any reason, you’re dumber than he was. Thank God he was talked out of it by people who knew better than to send men trained in the art of war into American cities armed with live ammo and an “everyone is an enemy” mindset.
[citation needed]
And even if he offered that solution, how hard did he push for it — or was that another part of his infamous “infrastructure week”?
I’m well aware of that. But to replace, he needed two things: The repeal of Obamacare and an actual replacement plan. Neither he nor the GOP ever had a replacement plan ready at any point in his presidency, so he could only ever repeal Obamacare and set American healthcare back a decade.
…fucking what
No, he didn’t. He never admitted he was wrong, and it took him years after the reveal of the long-form birth certificate to even say “Obama was born in Hawaii”, and he never — NEVER — apologized for his role in instigating and propagating that racist conspiracy theory. Find direct and exact quotes from Trump that prove all three of those points wrong, and I’ll concede the point. (You won’t, but I wish you luck in trying.)
He asked Georgia election officials to “find” enough votes to overturn the gap in votes between himself and Biden. (That was more than 11,000 votes, by the by.) He didn’t want to legally challenge the results — he wanted them overthrown because he couldn’t stand the idea that he lost the election.
Trump thinking more than 11,000 votes were missing doesn’t mean they were. And to date, nobody (including Trump himself) has presented credible evidence that a significant fraction of the votes he wanted “found” for him were missing.
Of course you are, you fuckin’ sociopath. You don’t care how much other people suffer so long as you’re content with voting for the suffering of people you hate.
Fuck off.
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Okay, let’s break down the planks of her platform as mentioned in that Fox News graphic:
Medicare For All — In other words, catching the American healthcare system up to literally every other developed country in the world.
Housing as a human right — I mean, sounds fine to me; why wouldn’t we want to have fewer people living on the street?
A federal jobs guarantee — Again, not seeing a real problem with this; the government should want to help people find jobs.
Gun control/assault weapons ban — Okay, and the problem here is…what exactly? That a gun nut won’t be able to buy an AR-15 they don’t need?
Criminal justice reform, end private prisons — Man, so far, so good with this platform; neither of these sound all that bad, especially the second one (private prisons have every incentive to mistreat prisoners for the sake of profit).
Immigration justice/abolish ICE — Contentious, sure, but if we got along fine before ICE, we can get along fine without it.
Solidarity with Puerto Rico — It’s a U.S. territory; why shouldn’t we stand in solidarity with PR?
Mobilizing against climate change — Even you think global climate change is a problem (albeit apparently one we’re too focused on solving or some shit, according to you).
Clean campaign finance — How is wanting to know who is funding political campaigns a bad thing, again?
Higher education for all — I can understand why the GOP would be against this (they prefer their electorate to be uneducated and distrustful of the educated), so of course you’d probably have a problem with this.
Women’s rights — What was that you had been saying about wanting to see AOC’s tits, again?
Support LGBTQIA+ — You’re here, you’re queer, but are you really for this, Lodos? You voted for a guy who isn’t, so…
Support seniors — Just because they’re old doesn’t mean they stop being people.
So, other than an objection rooted in “how will we pay for it” (which never seems to come up when we’re talking about the military but always seems to be an issue when we’re talking about literally anything else), what is so wrong with her platform that you think at least eleven out of the fourteen items on that list (the “vast majority of her platform”) are “idiotic”?
She is of Puerto Rican descent, you racist dipshit.
The fact that you’re so openly agreeing with racist douchewaffles who say she’s “idiotic” but offer nothing but dogwhistles about her background means you didn’t have to. (The sexist bullshit doesn’t help your case, either.)
And this is bad, how, exactly?
Okay, and…so what?
[citation needed]
We can “replace” ICE with the departments that handled immigrations and customs enforcement before they were crammed together into one agency that now has a history of legally sanctioned excessive violence against immigrants (legal or otherwise) and American citizens.
What’s so bad about wanting to do something about climate change and the economy at the same time? I mean, climate change will fuck over the economy at some point, whether we like it or not.
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Again: You say that like it’s a bad thing.
I think you are.
You’re not afraid of her platform; you’re afraid of its growing popularity. You’re not afraid of her; you’re afraid of the growing diversity she represents in both society and government. You’re not afraid of change; you’re afraid of change that you believe will leave you in the dust.
To put it bluntly, you’re afraid of the same things that Trump followers are afraid of. No wonder you voted for him: You share their white rage.
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That game was far from a “rarity”. It wasn’t Ninja Gaiden levels of successful, sure, but it also wasn’t some unknown game until the NES-on-Switch service came along. Hell, it was one of my favorites back when the NES was still a thing.
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Exactly.
Yes, and where in any of that is the conservative bullshit about the claim of, as you put it, “all whites are racist”?
Show me the exact bit of text from the 1619 Project — and I mean a direct quote with no ambiguity or wiggle room for any other possible interpretation — that says the United States was actually founded when the first African slaves arrived on the shores of the American colonies in 1619.
So is hiring a bunch of queer people into government jobs for the sake of saying “look at all the queers we hired, can we get your votes now”. Considering how Trump refused to name a US Special Envoy to Advance the Human Rights of LGBTQI+ Persons (a position created under Obama) during his four years in office and otherwise did next-to-nothing to fight for/protect the civil rights of queer people — recall that he also wanted trans people out of the military — calling his queer hires “tokens” is at least accurate.
[citation needed]
And by that, I mean: Cite the earliest possible story you can find that says a majority of Republicans believed safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines would be available prior to the 1st of January 2021.
Fair enough, but note that their concerns were at least grounded in the reality that Trump had already pushed for the use of hydroxychloroquil as a treatment for COVID-19 (which was later proven to…not be a treatment for COVID-19). The idea that he would fast track an unsafe vaccine for the sake of getting reëlected was not something borne out of, say, the kind of unfounded anti-science paranoia that convinced all the plague enthusiasts to go without masks.
They’re protected from the most severe side effects of the disease (including death). They’re not protected from catching (and thus spreading to others) the same disease that Donald Trump said would simply go away. (How’d that claim work out for him?)
That their objections were legal doesn’t make their objections any less based on a lie. Until and unless someone presents any credible indication that massive voter fraud affected the presidential election in even a single state — and only the presidential election, since for some reason the Dems could only rig that race but not all the other downballot races in the contested states — their objections were (and still are) rooted in Old 45’s Big Lie.
Okay, so they’re pointing out that Clinton won the popular vote. And? Trump won the bullshit Electoral College thing. The Democrats didn’t object to Trump’s victory like the Republicans objected to Biden’s. And nobody did an insurrection on the 6th of January 2017 in an attempt to overturn a free and fair election in the name of Hillary Clinton.
Your whataboutism is ridiculous on this point. Nobody tried to take down American democracy in the name of Hillary Rodham Clinton. But Old 45’s followers did try to “stop the steal” and install the (popular and electoral) loser of the 2020 election as President simply because they couldn’t deal with the fact that a highly unpopular POTUS lost the election. And that says nothing about the after-the-election attempts by Republican-controlled state legislatures to restrict voting in those states so as to protect what power they still have left.
Is there any credible evidence that says anyone not legally entitled to vote in the U.S. actually tried to vote (or successfully voted) in the 2020 elections in substantial numbers? If not: The restrictions are meant to disenfranchise voters that Republicans don’t want voting.
Note that I never made such a claim. I said the GOP is on the side of white supremacists, and this is true — because even if the GOP denounces white supremacy outright, it still pays lip service to those racists with dogwhistle politics about “thugs” and “welfare queens”. I don’t see the Klan seriously endorsing leftist candidates, sooooooo…
And yet, you were the one implying that the pro-M4A position wouldn’t be “popular” without AOC leading the charge: “The AOC progressives just happen to be a bit more popular because they got themselves a beautiful young lady to be their poster.” So which is it: Is the idea of M4A growing in popularity because of, or in spite of, that “beautiful young lady”?
That you made the leap from “fascist” to “Nazi” is understandable, but you made the leap yourself. I didn’t push you.
Why shouldn’t we prioritize caring for the environment? This is the only world we’ve got, and we’re slowly killing it, and it’s slowly killing us (and all other creatures) in return.
Socialism is already baked into the United States. Social Security? That’s socialism. Libraries? Hella socialist. Police, firefighters, and every other government department/service paid for with tax dollars? Socialist. As. Fuck.
Ain’t no such thing as “reverse racism” because no other racial group has ever had the same kind of sociopolitical power to inflict upon white people what white people have done to people of color for centuries. I mean, considering the Tulsa race massacre — where white people bombed Tulsa’s “Black Wall Street”, killed Black people in the process, destroyed any chance of the Black people who built businesses there from creating and passing down any form of generational wealth, and faced little-to-no consequences for their actions — when has something exactly like that ever happened to white people at the hands of Black people?
So what?
So what? To those that did know her, the policies for which she fought were largely popular. (I mean, at a bare minimum, taxing the fuck out of the wealthy should always poll well.)
No, it didn’t. She isn’t the singular mouthpiece for progressives; no one politician is. Even Bernie, try as he might, doesn’t speak for all progressives (nor did he speak for them even before AOC entered Congress).
Implying that the only worth Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has as a person lies with her appearance does, though. And considering how you all but drooled over her in the same comment where you said she’s a dumbass, the implication that you think her only worth as a person is to serve as a living fleshlight is…less of an implication than I think you’re comfortable with admitting.
And yet, there you were, begging AOC to show off her tits because you think that’s the only worth she has as a Congressperson.
You also gave your tacit and knowing support to a man who:
installed judges on the Supreme Court who lean in the direction of overturning Roe v. Wade once and for all
refused to acknowledge Pride Month, celebrate queer people, and defend the rights of queer people both domestically and internationally
tore immigrant families apart and kept them in concentration camps at the southern border
denied the existence of a pandemic, claimed the pandemic would “go away” within days, then did what he could to make the pandemic worse by contradicting actual scientists with actual expertise in dealing with actual pandemics
insulted his political “enemies” (including people in his own party) like he was a young child on a playground
claimed there were “very fine people on both sides” of a white nationalist march and the protest against said march, which ended with the death of a young woman at the hands of one of those white nationalists
prepared to call the military into American cities to quell protests/riots in the wake of George Floyd’s death
offered few condolences for the victims of gun violence and no real solutions on how to solve the issue of gun violence
attempted to repeal Obamacare without any actual replacement plan from either the GOP or his own administration ready to pass in the wake of that repeal
…and that was after he did those things. That doesn’t even get into his attempts to overthrow American democracy via the courts (which laughed him out, as well they should’ve) and direct contact with state election officials (who ignored his requests to “find” votes for him, as well they should’ve).
So yeah, as far as I’m concerned, you have one thing in common with a shitload of conservative men: You voted for fascism, for suffering, for “own the libs at any cost” because you thought you’d get to laugh at the people you hate suffering under another four years of Trump.
Live with that knowledge at the forefront of everything you do. Die with that knowledge as the last thought on your mind.
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Sammy, jeez, learn to keep it in one comment. Replying to all your stuff here for peace of mind.
Given how long it took for Nintendo to start the SNES part of its online system after the launch of the Switch, and how few games of the total libraries of both the NES and SNES are on the service (even compared to the amount of games available through the Virtual Console on the Wii U)? Don’t hold your breath waiting for GBA games — or games from any other system, for that matter.
Nor will it be the last. But it is one of the more infuriating times, especially for Metroid fans who want to play the games legally.
You know what games aren’t on that service? Fusion (GBA), Zero Mission (GBA), and the original Metroid II (GB). Considering how Dread will pick up from Fusion, the inability of Metroid fans to revisit that game legally on the Switch is notably egregious.
And it still only gives you a fraction of the games that are available on the Wii U’s Virtual Console.
Would it kill Nintendo to release a Metroid collection that has Metroids 1 to 4 (the original, Metroid II, Super Metroid, and Fusion) in addition to Zero Mission? Like, they can price it at a full $60 and do that limited time bullshit like they did with that Mario battle royale thing, but at least it would be something people could get their hands on.
The larger problem here is that Nintendo could easily afford to do such a thing, given the broad success of the Switch and many of the first-party games for that system (notably Animal Crossing: New Horizons and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild). That they don’t is a testament to either its inability to give a fuck about its classic back catalog or its dismissive attitude towards the same fans that are willing to toss Nintendo money in exchange for a legal way to play the old Metroid games. Either way, it’s not a good look.
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Well…yeah. That’s the whole point of curating a community: You generally don’t want assholes around.
No, it isn’t.
Say an asshole comes into a queer-friendly space and starts saying a bunch of anti-queer bullshit. They don’t technically violate the rules when they do it, but when pressed on why they’re being an asshole, they hide behind the excuse of “I’m not breaking any rules”. For what reason should the asshole be allowed to remain in that space even if everyone else wants the asshole gone?
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Yes, it does make sense — trolls will test the absolute limits of what a stated rule says, then use whatever punishment gets handed down as a point of information in learning how to game the system. A troll will look for a loophole to abuse so they can keep trolling without technically violating the rules. Think of it as a game of “I’m not touching you”: Trolls love getting as close as possible to “touching you” without actually “touching you” (i.e., breaking the rules).
Your problem is in thinking trolls won’t abuse loopholes to keep trolling. We’re not here to solve that problem for you.
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Prove it is and maybe we’ll care.
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Trump said what he said after a presentation that pointed out how household disinfectants — including bleach — could kill the virus on non-porous surfaces. If you think he was referring to peroxide drips when he said “disinfectants”, you’re deluding yourself into thinking Trump is a genius when he’s really a fucking moron.
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It will also kill the host, but that’s not important right now.
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Every time you open a “but”, you expose an asshole.
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Assume for a moment that Twitter has banned users from posting the phrase “conversion ‘therapy’ ”, which refers to the psychological (and often physical) torture of queer people done with the intent of making them heterosexual/cisgender. How would proponents of “conversion ‘therapy’ ” get around that ban? Easy: They’ll refer to “sexual orientation change efforts” (SOCE) or any of the other phrases they’ve invented to disguise or soften the image of “conversion ‘therapy’ ”.
(Before you ask: Yes, the position of those quotation marks are intentional, and yes, they will be repeated every time I use the phrase.)
Spell out a rule in explicit detail and you’ll have the worst kinds of people looking for a loophole. Then you’ll have to further detail new rules to cover the loopholes, which will themselves have new loopholes to exploit. Semi-detailed rulesets that provide examples of prohibited speech but don’t limit the bans to those examples alone can be adapted on the fly to account for those loophole-abusing assholes.
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I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue.
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Having the right to do a thing doesn’t make it the right thing to do. We’re allowed to say “they have the right to do that, but what they’re doing is bullshit” because of that principle. I’d love to see you explain why you think we’re not, though.
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Also worth noting: His comments came directly after a presentation that talked about how household disinfectants — including bleach — could kill the COVID-19 vaccine on non-porous surfaces. Since Old 45 isn’t the brightest of even the dim bulbs, that his remarks could’ve referred to bleach is incredibly likely.
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Remember: You obviously wanted this, or you wouldn’t have replied the way you did.
He may have paid lip service to the idea of condemning racism, sure. But he didn’t actually do anything to follow up his words. (And he also paid lip service to racists — or does “stand back and stand by” not ring a bell?) I mean, did he ever follow up Charlottesville with an executive order asking the FBI to investigate white supremacists or something? What did he do as POTUS — not say, do, as in “actions he took” — to show that he truly condemned racism?
Critical race theory isn’t what you’ve been brainwashed by conservative media to believe. Try actually learning what CRT is on your own for once.
It claims no such thing. The project intended “to reframe the country's history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United States’ national narrative”. Maybe if you actually read the materials in the project and tried to understand them outside of the bullshit framing given to them by conservative media outlets (which are more than happy to distort the project and other works like it to gin up white rage among conservative readership), you might learn something.
So what? He rarely defended their civil rights and kicked trans people out of the military. Installing a few token queers doesn’t grant him a lifetime pass to Pride.
Nobody thought the vaccines would be ready as soon as they were. Placing that on Democrats alone — and without any evidence that they even once tried to stop development of the vaccines — is a bullshit move and you know it’s a bullshit, Lodos. You’re so eager to blame Dems for everything that you seriously come off as a Republican lawmaker.
[citation needed]
[citation needed]
Also, many of the people in the anti–COVID vaccine crowd were also “I WANT MUH FREEDOMS” anti-maskers.
Republicans are the ones who tried to overturn the results of a free and fair election. Republicans are the ones passing voting restriction laws to shrink the franchise instead of expanding it. Republicans stand on the side of white supremacists (or at least pay lip service to such bastards because they’re in the voting base), evangelical conservative Christians who want the U.S. to be a Christian theocracy, and anti-queer bigots.
How are they not about any of the things I mentioned they are, again?
Wow. Do you really think people can’t actually believe in Medicare For All without first hearing a hot piece of ass say “we need a better healthcare system in this country”?
I didn’t call them Nazis — I called them fascists. All Nazis are fascists, but not all fascists are Nazis. Congratulations, you Godwinned yourself.
It, uh…it really isn’t as popular as you think it is, or else we’d have Medicare For All right now. And both Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were championing a few progressive causes well before AOC showed up in Congress, so maybe stop thinking AOC’s looks have anything to do with it. (Seriously, it’s like you fell out of a Breitbart tree and hit every brainwashing branch on the way down.)
Go touch grass, misogynist.
…a giant piece of shit, yes, we’re all well aware of how much you have in common with conservative men.
Is she not smart because she’s not smart, or is she not smart because the conservative media you (over)consume keeps distorting her actual words to make her sound like an idiot while simultaneously dehumanizing her into a mere sex object for their — your — desperate jackoff sessions?
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You can ask the question over and over again, but you’re going to get either the response I gave you last time or this one:
I don’t believe moderation is censorship because believing that would make me an entitled asshole who believes in “free reach”. If I believed Twitter could violate my First Amendment right to speak freely, I could justify believing the ideas of “Twitter owes me a spot on Twitter”, “Twitter shouldn’t be able to delete my speech”, and “Twitter should make other people listen to me”. I don’t believe in any of those things because I’m not an entitled asshole.
Also: Moderation doesn’t violate your First Amendment rights. If and when it does, we can discuss moderation being censorship. But right now, it doesn’t. So I can’t do that.
Also also: What specific speech are you worried about being “censored”? Please be more specific than “conservative speech” with your answer.
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But NYT does support the piece, regardless of whether everyone at the paper agrees with the views expressed therein. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t have run the op-ed — because to run the op-ed, someone at the paper had to make a decision on whether to run it.
Twitter doesn’t make those kinds of decisions. Speech comes first and moderation second because moderation is always reactive.
Conflating a political party currently known for fascism, hatred, and nakedly partisan powergrabs with progressivism only makes me wonder what the fuck you’re smoking, Lodos.
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But a site giving that speech its approval either directly (through a statement from the site’s owners/operators) or indirectly (through a refusal to moderate it) does equate to that site associating itself with that speech.
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