
Real profanity and disease on the internet is untouched while you police decorum - panarky
http://davidsimon.com/bourdain/
======
Torgo
It took a lot of effort to get Twitter to acknowledge that these mock death
threats are a form of abuse.

------
kevingadd
One interesting thing is that this perspective - displeasure that decorum is
being enforced instead of underlying issues being addressed - is loudly shared
by both left and right on the internet these days. After a few decades of
insincerity and bad faith argument it seems like everyone is getting fed up,
and most people running platforms have no idea what to do about it.

Look no further than Gab, a no-censorship right wing Twitter alternative that
is now in crisis due to fights between users and corporate leadership over a
mix of death threats and - you guessed it - decorum.

~~~
drivingmenuts
I can't help but think that a lot of the people making free-speech (online)
arguments are being deliberately obtuse.

The Constitution and general body of law doesn't really address interactions
on privately owned forums. It doesn't even really cover publicly (shareholder)
owned forums, either, because they are, in effect, private as well.

Government-owned/controlled forums are a different matter entirely and they
can't be censored in the same way.

Any online site has the right to say: this far and no further. How simple is
that? State what you're not going to allow, admit that some things are
judgement calls and call it done and dusted.

I will fight for your right to say any damn stupid thing you want (barring
yelling fire in a theater), just don't try it in the middle of my f---ing
living room.

~~~
cosmiccartel
You're confusing the First Amendment with the principle of Free Speech.

When it comes to privately owned forums, they _may_ have absolute control over
what is acceptable to say, but those who disagree with their policies are
perfectly justified in criticizing them for violating the principle of free
speech.

But it isn't even as black and white as you say from a legal standpoint. There
is precedent (Marsh v. Alabama) for the owners of a publicly-used, privately-
owned space to have their rights limited in order to protect the
constitutional rights of persons using the space. The same principle could
apply to sites as large as Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit.

------
saas_co_de
A rich hollywood producer complaining about being deplatformed - surely we
have better things to do with our time?

~~~
kevingadd
If you've spent much time working in media, you'd know a considerable number
of people are just chasing down every project to pay rent. Just like open
source software and startups, not everyone gets rich off of a success.

------
hrktb
I feel the same argument could have been made for someone thrown out of a
tribunal for constantly swearing at the defendant.

Sure there’s an emotional side of it, but following a set of rules doesn’t
prevent from expressing one’s opinion to a satisfactory point.

~~~
kevingadd
I think the argument being made by TFA is that rules and structures can, if
constructed incorrectly, privilege 'civil' advocacy for abhorrent behavior
over discourse that accurately characterizes it for what it is.

Hyperbolically decrying minor things as atrocities has led to rules of decorum
that assume no atrocities actually occur, and any heated argument is
automatically bad.

~~~
hrktb
The TFA isn’t about accurately describing behavior, it’s about voicing disgust
in feel-good words for the author.

> But the hyperbolic and comic hope that a just god might smite the slanderer
> or brutalizer with a deadly skin disorder is somehow beyond the pale.

Words are plenty, there would be no shortage of them to express the author’s
point within relying on deadly skin disorders. Nobody [edit: here at least] is
denying atrocities, the point is to adjust communication to the medium used.

------
oh_sigh
David Simon isn't even right in the argument he is having with those who he
wishes to die of boils - Non-nationals entering or attempting to cross the US
border at a non-designated time or place _is_ a crime according to the
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

~~~
charlesism

        > "mothers who have their children kidnapped and held
        > incommunicado from them at the American border are criminals
        > - and both mother and child deserve that fate"
    

I doubt his main point of contention is whether or not the mothers are
criminals.

Not that I'm very enthusiastic about his main point. There are ways to
communicate scorn that don't involve death wishes.

~~~
oh_sigh
I think that is his whole point. He was responding to someone who basically
said "When American parents commit crimes, they are also separated from their
children in the penal system".

But I should point out that I don't really know how twitter works and have a
very hard time following conversation there. Maybe something different went
down.

