Now that Elon Musk owns Twitter…

[kinkatx]

I deleted my main but kept my alt, mostly because I have a few thousand followers and don’t know where to start over that’s not soon going to be threatened by the conservative attempted takeover of media. 
 

Hate speech against protected groups needs to be criminalize as part of a larger plan to eradicate racism, xenophobia, sexism and LGBT related phobias from our society. I don’t think either current political party has the balls to do anything of the sort; they must appease their corporate doners not benefit society.!

[TwinkChaserSlut]

On 11/9/2022 at 11:56 PM, bbfarm said:

I deleted my Twitter account this past week. Using Twitter is supporting Musk. NO THANK YOU. I’d love to see his investment made worthless.  

People who stay they are going to stay and fight from the inside get ZERO respect from me. I’ve been hearing people say that about (Methodist, Catholic, etc.) churches for decades, and if anything things have only gotten worse there.  

Integrity is hot.  

Why are you against Elon?

[TwinkChaserSlut]

1 hour ago, kinkatx said:

I deleted my main but kept my alt, mostly because I have a few thousand followers and don’t know where to start over that’s not soon going to be threatened by the conservative attempted takeover of media. 
 

Hate speech against protected groups needs to be criminalize as part of a larger plan to eradicate racism, xenophobia, sexism and LGBT related phobias from our society. I don’t think either current political party has the balls to do anything of the sort; they must appease their corporate doners not benefit society.!

There is no such thing as "hate speech", unless you apply that term to anyone, regardless of their ideology. I'm all for freedom of speech, as long as it doesn't cause an imminent threat like screaming "fire" in a theater. That does NOT include speech of which you do not agree or speech that is "offensive" to you. Your speech may offend others but do you want your freedom to speak shut down too? You can't have it both ways.

[TwinkChaserSlut]

On 10/31/2022 at 4:01 PM, TightBott7 said:

I’ve just deactivated my Twitter account. 

Why?

[TwinkChaserSlut]

2 hours ago, kinkatx said:

I deleted my main but kept my alt, mostly because I have a few thousand followers and don’t know where to start over that’s not soon going to be threatened by the conservative attempted takeover of media. 
 

Hate speech against protected groups needs to be criminalize as part of a larger plan to eradicate racism, xenophobia, sexism and LGBT related phobias from our society. I don’t think either current political party has the balls to do anything of the sort; they must appease their corporate doners not benefit society.!

"Hate speech against protected groups needs to be criminalize as part of a larger plan..."

Remember that your idea here must apply to all people equally. You can't protect lgbtq folks but attack Jews or Catholics or other groups that you don't like.

[alwaysready]

now he is whining--once again--that he may go bankrupt. his great dream was to colonize mars; instead he is frittering away money on a social platorm that is not worth the toilet paper he uses. he has lost his way. the spacex superheavy and starshiop are slated for launch sometime this year--though musk time is always optimistic. after the success of the sls, this launch better go well for his company. 

[BootmanLA]

19 hours ago, TwinkChaserSlut said:

I'm hoping Elon will right the wrongs of the former Twitter-disinformation mobsters. Only time will tell. 

Musk has really zero interest in controlling disinformation; if he had any such interest, he'd be investing in the people and departments needed to root out bogus, sock-puppet and foreign troll accounts. He slashed them instead. I can't presume to speak for what Musk DOES want, but I suspect that somehow, somewhere along the way, he got his fee-fees hurt by posters on there and wanted to control the site to be able to take them down.

Given how aggressively he's censoring content by Twitter employees (and former Twitter employees) critical of him, that could be most of the reason.

It certainly wasn't a wise business decision.

[BootmanLA]

18 hours ago, kinkatx said:

Hate speech against protected groups needs to be criminalize as part of a larger plan to eradicate racism, xenophobia, sexism and LGBT related phobias from our society. I don’t think either current political party has the balls to do anything of the sort; they must appease their corporate doners not benefit society.!

You can't do that, at least in the United States. There is this pesky thing called the First Amendment which absolutely protects speech in and of itself.

Now, hateful speech *can* be used as evidence for a hate crime enhancement for an existing crime - but there must be another crime committed beyond the speech. And the hateful speech is only relevant to the extent that the prosecution can prove the intent of the crime was, in essence, to instill fear or terror in the protected group.

Meaning, if I burn down a craft store, I can be charged with arson. But if I burn down a craft store owned by lesbians, and scream "die you heathen lesbians!" in a protest in front of the store earlier in the week before I burn it down, a prosecutor can make a good case that the point of the arson was to terrorize the gay and lesbian community, not just to cause damage to these particular individuals.

It has nothing to do with corporate "doners" [sic]; it's just that speech is protected, except under exceptionally limited circumstances. Especially speech on controversial social issues.

[Fillitup57]

No matter who ‘owns’ Twitter, they are going to run it the watt hey want.  The last owner refused to allow any discussion of Hunter Biden’s lap top .  So it tilts one way or the other.  

[BootmanLA]

16 hours ago, TwinkChaserSlut said:

There is no such thing as "hate speech", unless you apply that term to anyone, regardless of their ideology. I'm all for freedom of speech, as long as it doesn't cause an imminent threat like screaming "fire" in a theater. That does NOT include speech of which you do not agree or speech that is "offensive" to you. Your speech may offend others but do you want your freedom to speak shut down too? You can't have it both ways.

The "fire in a crowded theater" bit needs to be completely retired.

First, the case in which the phrase was used wasn't about fire, or theaters. U.S. v. Schenck was about whether an anti-draft pamphlet distributed during World War I was protected speech or not. In a dreadful decision, the Supreme Court held it was not, under the theory that the pamphlet created a "clear and present danger" to a nation at war. This was what's known as an "as applied" challenge/ruling - where the Court said, in essence, in this particular set of circumstances, this law is constitutional, but this is not a blanket approval of a law banning any speech, any time, any where, that criticizes the draft.

Second, the phrase about the crowded theater was not any part of the holding in the case. Rather, it's what is called "dictum" - expository language in the opinion that helps illustrate a point, but which is not actually part of the ruling. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (who wrote the opinion) noted (again, in dicta) that "[t]he most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic," which is where we get that notion - in other words, it was cited as another example of speech causing a "clear and present danger."

Third, and perhaps most importantly, the central holding of Schenck has been effectively overturned. Rather than a "clear and present danger" test - one with which the Supreme Court grew increasingly uncomfortable over the decades - Brandenburg v. Ohio outlined a new test: the language in question is presumed protected speech unless the speech is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action". In other words, inflammatory language, by itself, is still protected - that's why flag-burning, which is inflammatory in multiple respects, is still protected speech (in this case, because it's a form of expression).

The "fire in a crowded theater" example might well inspire people to flee, and they might get hurt in the process. But the speech, by itself, did not "incite imminent lawless action" because the action incited - trying to get out of the theater - is not lawless. Accordingly, this is (since Brandenburg) a bad example because now such speech is, in fact, protected.

[BootmanLA]

5 minutes ago, Fillitup57 said:

No matter who ‘owns’ Twitter, they are going to run it the watt hey want.  The last owner refused to allow any discussion of Hunter Biden’s lap top .  So it tilts one way or the other.  

1. Prior to Musk's purchase of Twitter, it was a publicly traded company, run by a group of executives who were overseen by a board of directors elected by the shareholders. That's not the same thing as an "owner" "running it the watt hey want"[sic]. 

2. Nonetheless, it's a complete falsehood that the laptop in question, whose provenance cannot be determined with a high degree of certainty, could not be discussed on Twitter. Twitter blocked ONE article, from the New York post, which made several unsubstantiated (and still not substantiated) allegations about the laptop as though they were facts they had verified. There were, and still are, many tens of thousands of posts about the laptop. 

[Rillion]

Well at the rate Elon is running it into the ground, it won't be around much longer.

[kinkatx]

17 hours ago, TwinkChaserSlut said:

"Hate speech against protected groups needs to be criminalize as part of a larger plan..."

Remember that your idea here must apply to all people equally. You can't protect lgbtq folks but attack Jews or Catholics or other groups that you don't like.

Exactly! Racism, homophobia, antisemitism, etc should be aggressively eradicated from society. Counties like Spain have been working on this for decades… The United States has made it a political party. 
 

People like Musk are harmful to humanity, that much wealth hoarding is why the US has been declining in economic mobility for 70 years. Neoliberalism is a plague, and capitalism is harmful. Elon’s wealth comes from his father’s involvement in apartheid in South Africa but he never acknowledges he comes from horrific crimes against Africans. He’s just a bigger rich bigot that harms the rest of us. 
 

I value safety from these dangerous people more than free speech! Imagine our country if we simply criminalized racism, conservatism wouldn’t exist and we could finally bring back socialism to provide balance against the threat of neoliberalism. This country would be massively safer for women, children, minorities, trans people, gays, etc. 

[kinkatx]

1 hour ago, BootmanLA said:

You can't do that, at least in the United States. There is this pesky thing called the First Amendment which absolutely protects speech in and of itself.

Now, hateful speech *can* be used as evidence for a hate crime enhancement for an existing crime - but there must be another crime committed beyond the speech. And the hateful speech is only relevant to the extent that the prosecution can prove the intent of the crime was, in essence, to instill fear or terror in the protected group.

Meaning, if I burn down a craft store, I can be charged with arson. But if I burn down a craft store owned by lesbians, and scream "die you heathen lesbians!" in a protest in front of the store earlier in the week before I burn it down, a prosecutor can make a good case that the point of the arson was to terrorize the gay and lesbian community, not just to cause damage to these particular individuals.

It has nothing to do with corporate "doners" [sic]; it's just that speech is protected, except under exceptionally limited circumstances. Especially speech on controversial social issues.

Free speech is a myth in the US. The FBI will show up at your door if you threaten to do harm to people. We might as well better define the laws. No constitution amendment is without limits. 

[ErosWired]

32 minutes ago, kinkatx said:

I value safety from these dangerous people more than free speech!

 "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin

Free speech is the most potent defense against such dangerous people. If speech could be curtailed, the first thing they would take would be your right to call them dangerous.