They need to understand that to anyone right of center, this comes across as a conspiracy to silence all dissent. No matter what you think of Steve Bannon (and even most conservatives don't think highly of him), that's a very bad look.
Maybe we should stop caring. We’re in “boy who cried wolf” territory here, where Gmail’s spam filters are even part of the liberal conspiracy because a Congressman’s email went to the junk folder.
You don't have to call it a conspiracy to see that things are broken.
The defense of broken things that "they could be even more broken" somehow isn't working.
Also, the Internet seems to have made a lot of people more thin skinned, and angry at thought provoking statements.
(Did Cerf, Kleinrock et al. foresee they were laying the ground work for a reactive "venting" machine?)
The real question for hn (IMO) is whether these are problems that can be solved with technology.
Prominent conservatives frequently criticize parts of the left for its constant claims of persecution, and its intense competition in 'victimhood olympics'.
Perhaps we should throw that same playbook at organizations like Breitbart.
How do we square that, then. You want it to be OK to call for a public servant to be beheaded? (The Bannon case). You want it to be OK to just print lies (c.f. most of Newsmax and a lot of Breitbart)?
You need to understand that to anyone left of center, your demand seems to be a conspiracy to be wrong at will. Isn't that likewise a "bad look"?
What the fuck does this mean? I want people to be free to express themselves, and yes, that includes being free to earn money. I do not want a few corporations deciding what people are allowed to say on the internet, or even who is able to earn a living on the internet.
Just to be clear here: You're saying you don't personally have a problem with people making money from publishing specific and credible threats of violence (which is the case discussed in the original post), or from publishing intentional misinformation with real-world partisan political goals.
It also sounds like you don't support the ability of people who purchase ads to have any control over whether their money funds publishers of the type described above.
If a threat of violence really is specific and credible, clearly the FBI should get involved, and the person responsible should get arrested. If anyone really thought of a threat of violence as specific and credible, that's what they would call for, not for advertisers to demonetize the person making the threat.
Bannon was talking of "heads on pikes", which is obviously metaphorical.
So, yes, that's OK. Even if he's completely wrong in his claims of fact, we shouldn't be expelling people from society over their choice of historical allusion.
The quote itself was literally not a metaphor: “Now I actually want to go a step farther, but I realize the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man. I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes, right, I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you’re gone – time to stop playing games.”
Now, you can argue that this was irony, sure. In the real world, if Bannon isn't delusional, we don't do that and it won't happen. But it's not a metaphor. The word "actually" tells you that right at the start. He is saying, literally, what he would like to do.
And that's awful, and shameful, and if anyone who wasn't on your team said it you'd be screaming (c.f. Kathy Griffin and the severed head -- which was a metaphor!).
Meanwhile there is literal beheading going on in France - but mainstream media is completely silent on topics like immigration. The general dissatisfaction with mass immigration in the USA and Europe, and the failure of the mainstream media to acknowledge this, is what is fueling the rise of Breitbarts.
The American right - and especially the religious wing of it - has been trying to silence those who disagree for generations, so their dislike at receiving some of the same treatment is not particularly compelling.
Consider the origins of the term "heresy"...
Their problem here is that it worked, and they won. So now people are trying to fight back by borrowing parts of the playbook. Victim of their own success by dirty tricks.
