Conservative activist Bevelyn Beatty, Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, and a third Proud Boy were stabbed in DC just before the election. Beatty was hospitalized with a punctured lung:
This all happened a month before the stabbings at a Proud Boys rally in DC (victim affiliations unknown), which received considerably more press attention:
This is one case I remembered off the top of my head, having followed the past year’s unrest closely (too closely for my mental health, if I’m honest). There are many cases like it, with many similar tweets.
Jack Dorsey gave Colin Kapernick $3 million after he tweeted a call for a violent revolt.
“When civility leads to death, revolting is the only logical reaction, The cries for peace will rain down, and when they do, they will land on deaf ears, because your violence has brought this resistance. We have the right to fight back! Rest in Power George Floyd.”
There is obviously some legitimacy to the notion the rules are applied unfairly.
It's invariably about 'fine lines' 'gray areas' and 'shifting sands of policy and situation'.
In that context, I don't see Kap's statement quite as a call to violence, even though it may be, it's veiled just sufficiently that I would personally give it a pass.
Certainly 'resistance' is within bounds.
'Revolt' I guess would be the complicating term.
The real question is ... why would Jack Dorsey give a very wealthy athlete $3M? I would hope you meant to day 'Colin's Foundation' or something like that which is hopefully focused on legit social justice, and not, for example, perpetuating lies about elections?
Finally, to my point about 'shifting sands' - I think the context of a President using the legitimacy of his office to make very serious false claims, which have very serious implications, and who's further incitement at last materially contributed to an 'insurrection' on Capitol Hill ... may very well have been a 'new context' in which the policy might materially change. It probably the behooves Dorsey & Co. to start to think about their new defacto policy in the context of other actors, so as to be fair.
Edit: Dorsey's donation was indeed to a Kap led foundation, not to Kap himself, here [1]. It seems there's legitimacy to the cause, that said, I can't help bit grin at the large image at the bottom, with Kap's 'Che' style self-branding effort.
Irrespective of Dorsey and Kap (really), can we all acknowledge that “foundations” or these non-profit entities run by the wealthy and politically entangled are convenient vehicles of tax advantage, asset protection, and influence peddling? I’m not saying all are so let’s not get our knickers in a twist - there are plenty of altruistic non-profits out there, and many that only exist thanks to the wealthy.
But the default reaction to large sums of money being given to a foundation named for a wealthy, politically entangled person or family should not be, “oh, it’s a non-profit, it’s helping the children”. More than likely it’s that person’s way of putting assets they enjoy daily into a trust to shelter it from taxation or legal seizure (think tax man or divorce court), to get monetary consideration for services rendered (foundation pays high salaries to family members or self while on payroll as nominal employees), and to accept gifts to support the above under cover of a donation. Write a check for a few worthy charitable operations, do some appearances, publish a few reports, and it’s a net positive legal financial strategy.
Bail funds are a great example of non-profits with bad incentive structures.
In Portland, when bail money is returned it goes directly to the person arrested, not the bail fund that paid it out. If that bail was paid by a fund like Defense Fund PDX which raised over $100k this summer, the arrestee tends to just pocket the money [0][1]. When a permissive DA such as the one in Portland drops most charges against protestors and rioters [2], they are effectively paid (financially incentivized) to protest, riot, and get arrested with zero negative long-term consequences. One Portland bail fund raised over a million dollars this summer [3].
One night of setting fires and attacking the police can net an arrestee hundreds or thousands of dollars [4] in bail repayments. If their bail is paid in a timely manner, the arrestee can "earn" even more money the next night. This has the effect of prolonging the violent sort of protests we have seen in the Portland area since June. The effect is not obvious to well-intentioned bail fund donors, who in the best case simply wish to support peaceful protest.
When these bail funds are run by the arrestees and their friends, or by people who understand the violent feedback loop and seek to sustain it, the ethical problems inherent to this system become even more pronounced.
So first - the donation has nothing to do with anything really, it's kind of a side issue.
Second, this is not the kind of 'influence peddling' organization you are thinking of. These kinds of orgs. are 'influentially benign', this money is not going to change any votes.
You're thinking more of Clinton Foundation or Koch Brothers.
If you want to be cynical about it - then I suggest it's more to do with the fact that this 'charity' seems to be the 'Colin Kap Personal Brand Promotion Marketing Vehicle' in the sense it seems to be more about him than ostensibly the people he's trying to help. And of course 'how' he's trying to help seems a little vague.
If this were something like 'support underproduction kids by helping them pay for tuition' that would be wonderful.
But the real issue is ostensible hypocrisy in Twitter bans, and while I think there is a legit fine line, I don't think Twitter has crossed it. They can make the case for banning Trump and not Kap. Though maybe there's some other tweets they ought to delete as well.
To his credit, Dorsey did indicate the difficult challenge in the decision and that this issue certainly is not over.
There's a difference between calling for protest of authorities who have killed innocent people, possibly on the basis of racism vs. trying to stop the electoral process, which amounts to a de-facto coup. Those are worlds apart.
Those who 'looted Target' I hope can face appropriate charges, those who materially were trying to stop the electoral process as well, and those will be 'much more relevant'.
Nevertheless, there was an insurrection on Capitol Hill whereby a few thousand people did overrun with the intent to stop the electoral process (and with a few others planning much worse).
So it's established there was an insurrection in his name.
Now:
He called people to Capitol Hill from across the country specifically to protest the electoral validation.
He publicly stated on many occasions - without factual evidence - that the election was stolen, giving his audience what they believed to be the credibility necessary to make very aggressively legitimate grievance.
He condemned his on VP for failing in his duty (to commit sedition?)
He called on protesters to 'fight fight fight'
He called on them to commit 'political combat'.
He called on them to 'walk down Pennsylvania Ave' with him.
During the insurrection he didn't call in the National Guard, nor convene with Mike Pence, he wasn't publicly trying to get them to stand down, rather, he was on the phone with Republican Congressmen (who were in lock down facing threats to their lives!) pressuring them to stop the vote count, which would be illegal obviously.
The President - at that moment - was a willing participant , along with the protesters, in an attempt to overthrow the Republic - which is a coup.
This is Standard Authoritarian Playbook, it happens all the time, just not in places we pay attention to.
I don't believe Trump planned a coup, but he put all the conditions in place and lit the match, and when it started to burn, he acted directly against his responsibility as President, and instead, acted with the insurrectionists.
If, at the moment of insurrection, he were to have stepped in and quashed it all - which he could have done but chose not to - then the argument could be made that 'he didn't mean it, it just got out of hand'.
His statements on Twitter were a primary vehicle for this insurrection ergo, a ban, which as Jack says ... 'is complicated'. No doubt. And of course there's hypocrisy and bias with him and the rest of social media.
How is Jack Dorsey suddenly pulling strings at Apple, Google, and Amazon?
What does Amazon care if Twitter does well? Are either Tim Cook or Sundar Pichai secretly holding significant shares? “Big tech” could collude to make more money (like the time Apple and Google reportedly did to reduce labour costs), I’d certainly buy that. But I don’t understand what is in it for these companies to collude to crush Parler, a company none of the platform companies that removed it compete with.
Twitter’s stock is down since purging one of their largest draws to the site.
Isn’t the simplest explanation here that people are covering their ass? And the examples the article found with 3 retweets are basically a neglible threat?
Twitter just signed a multi-year contract with Amazon AWS [1] (sorry for the source, but this is really unreported by quite a lot of mainstream media):
> "Last month, Defendant Amazon Web Services, Inc. (“AWS”)
> and the popular social media platform Twitter signed a
> multi-year deal so that AWS could support the daily
> delivery of millions of tweets. AWS currently provides
> that same service to Parler, a conservative microblogging
> alternative and competitor to Twitter," the filing reads.
With regards to:
> Isn’t the simplest explanation here that people are
> covering their ass?
Kinda. Big tech is under serious political pressure to enact these changes to remove any platform that Trump may use. I heard (although haven't verified) that Trump made an account on Parler and just a few hours later every service that Parler depend upon abandoned them with minimal notice. This is servers, phone API, lawyers, etc - the entire stack.
I don’t understand how that is relevant though. Presumably Amazon would just as well sell to Twitter and Parler, if Parler wasn’t opening them up to brand damage? Amazon doesn’t own Twitter and has nothing to gain from not selling to their competitors afaict. And this explains nothing of the Apple and Google deplatforming.
(I ask because of the number of times I've gotten calls from my neighbors asking "Is your power off?" and learning that no one had reported the outage.)
Amazon started bringing Parler's attention to serious contract violations back in November, which Parler failed to adequately address. Amazon says that in fact the situation at Parler got worse, not better, after their months of warnings.
> Amazon started bringing Parler's attention to serious
> contract violations back in November, which Parler failed
> to adequately address.
You think Twitter has never broken Amazon ToS? What is to stop AWS saying "this thing we warned you about last year, well, it's still there and you've got 36 hours before we shut down your servers".
> Amazon says that in fact the situation at Parler got
> worse, not better, after their months of warnings.
I don't know if you noticed, but the situation around the US election got worse everywhere. Not so long ago #HangPence was trending on Twitter, and within the last 24 hours or so #HangTrump. That's trending - Twitter is actually promoting that!
> Twitter has the right to police the speech on its platform, but the rules must apply equally to everyone if they claim to be a neutral platform and not a publisher.
> > If you said "A site that has political bias is not neutral, and thus loses its Section 230 protections"
> I'm sorry, but you are very, very, very wrong. Perhaps more wrong than anyone saying any of the other things above. First off, there is no "neutrality" requirement at all in Section 230. Seriously. Read it. If anything, it says the opposite. It says that sites can moderate as they see fit and face no liability. This myth is out there and persists because some politicians keep repeating it, but it's wrong and the opposite of truth. Indeed, any requirement of neutrality would likely raise significant 1st Amendment questions, as it would be involving the law in editorial decision making.
Debate all you want about whether what Twitter did was moral, it was unquestionably legal, and anyone claiming otherwise either doesn't understand section 230 or is deliberately trying to mislead.
I understood there was a difference between "I hope they all * of *" and "I will * them"
The first example "someone take this" is indirect. Edit: upon reflection this could be a direct threat if the person saying it might make it happen by their influence alone. Like a mob leader saying "someone take out this trash"
The second example is even more indirect. Doesn't say he would do it. Doesn't say anyone else would do it. Doesn't even say what it is. A threat yes, but a veiled threat.
The third example is more of the same. Like saying "I hope you choke on it!" isn't a threat.
Ultimately it comes down to the sensitivity of the moderators. And we're having this debate because the content moderators at these bay-area big tech companies are hyper sensitive to content from the right and charitable to content from the left. So they can take a threat from the right seriously, but think that a threat from the left is just hot air.
So someone saying something like "Get rid of traitors!" can be interpreted as a call for war or it could be interpreted as 'take these people out of office by voting!' It all depends on the moderator's worldview and biases.
Oh interpretation. How I loathe thee. It was the bane of my English class experience.
You're absolutely right that moderators bias is part of the equation. I was trying to make a delineation between actionable and desirable. Afaik the FBI only looks into and responds to direct actionable threats. My personal stance is that these comments are ugly but I'd only remove them if they fell into that category in which the FBI would take notice.
It's funny you mention English class. I've often wondered if people reading too much into things, seeing patterns where there aren't any, or thinking there's some grand design happening is in-part caused by all the reaching and looking for hidden meaning we've been taught to do from English classes.
Don't take this hunch too seriously. I have no way to prove it and it's only food for thought.
"Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" (also expressed as "troublesome priest" or "meddlesome priest") is a quote attributed to Henry II of England preceding the death of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1170. While the quote was not expressed as an order, it prompted four knights to travel from Normandy to Canterbury, where they killed Becket. The phrase is commonly used in modern-day contexts to express that a ruler's wish may be interpreted as a command by his or her subordinates.
I'm not sure if this is still true, but it used to be a crime to say you wanted to (or were going to?) kill the president. This is actually why there's a song titled "kill the president" on the first offspring album.
I wonder, regardless of what Twitter will do, what the law is in the case of this tweet? In any case, saying you want to kill anybody is a bad idea. We should place a greater expectation for good behavior on the president of the united states as compared to any random moron on Twitter.
I'm not really talking about what Twitter should do here, though. Rather, as a general matter, the president of the united states should be held to a higher standard than most of us.
It is indirect. It isn't a solicitation for the job specified but a cry that it should happen.
I do see that as becoming a direct threat if the person giving it has a known cadre of people willing act on their words. Such as a military or cult leader might.
So the explicit call for violence, which you have no idea who is reading it, what their mental state is, what action they may take, etc is not a problem, but a call to protest is a threat that needs to be dealt with ASAP.
I think a threat of violence is split between the other and the self in the perceived action. I, Let's, We'll are all inclusive of the self and thus would be direct threats. Someone, anyone, y'all are indirect, unless as I said the person giving the statement was of sufficient influence as to expect it carried out.
The parent said it would be worse if the author were somebody with power or fame - not if the targetwasn't.
Edit: Just clarifying, not agreeing. While I agree that there is subjectivity around how indirect a threat is, who the author and their audience is, etc, I do think in this case this tweet should be removed.
There is this kernel of my soul that dislikes how things are worse when they happen to politicians than when they happen to fellow citizens, or to political buildings rather than family-owned buildings. One part of me likes to believe it’s a reaction to the affront to something representative which matters to a broad collection of people, but that nagging kernel also reminds me that it conveniently prioritizes the interests of those with power over the individuals, even to the point of being dismissive of the daily crimes suffered by a great many individuals.
I don't think it is okay to make comments like that about anyone. But I am talking about a threat and then wishing someone ill being different in nature. One carries the idea of direct action by the speaker.
It’s a different problem when someone with authority does this. “Someone #AssasinateTrump” from a random person without authority (implied or otherwise) to actually order an assassination runs afoul of their community guidelines, Trump saying we should take the capitol is likely a crime because of his authority.
That being said, these Twitter guidelines are an absolute mess because they rely on human moderation and human attention. I don’t think they deserve their status as a defacto public square.
Wouldn't it be better for platforms to solve this division problem by setting their algorithms to simply move everyone to the center (by giving preference to moderate posts)? They already do the curation by showing what they think we would like to see, maybe they should show us what we need to see. Ultra left and ultra right are different faces of the same problem.
Increasing profits has become a race to optimize user engagement. Extreme or polarizing statements attract attention. Milktoast moderate viewpoints do not. That’s a tough sell.
Maybe unusual, but I didn’t leave Facebook because of the moderate viewpoints, I left it because of the routinely offensive commentary ordinary people would otherwise not be comfortable making, and the privacy concerns. It was lowering my faith in humanity.
“Twitter hosts a #KillTrump hashtag. In all of the glorious English language there is no clearer, plainer, or shorter way to call for violence than the word kill followed by someone’s name. But there it is...And this isn’t new, back in June the hashtag #AssassinateTrump was bouncing around the website with gems like “Someone take this clown out NOW.” That tweet is still up.”
I worry about the ability to evenhandedly censor at scale, but the content examples above should be pretty easy to automate the cleansing of if one wanted to. I’m curious how many would bet (and how) regarding Twitter’s reaction if #killbi*den or assassination-focused alternatives became a thing this spring.
We don’t need to speculate about dissemination of ideas - hypotheses harmful to Trump (Russian collusion) are left alone for years, while hypotheses critical of Biden (grifter schemes involving his son) get prominently deplatformed, not just modded with a disclaimer. Both were legitimate news stories, both warranted the public interest, and both involved government investigation.
To be clear, I’m all for Twitter’s right to do this. Wholeheartedly.
I chaff at the promoted perception that they are even-handed in toeing a moral line simply because a) it seems demonstrably false with even casual examination by an honest broker, and b) it forestalls conversation about their behavior as a market actor.
The bigger concern here isn’t Twitter’s own social alignments, but the barriers they and other gatekeepers evidently can enforce to bar competition. It’s interesting that the market competition in this age seems to be aligning with a competition of ideas, because otherwise I’m not sure this would ever come to a head.
To the extent that there’s a public policy issue that needs examining here, I think it’s somewhere in that ball of string: section 230 probably assumed that the Internet would not be run (for all intents and purposes of being an accessible public forum) by oligopolies: nor that so few organizations would have such massive vertical and horizontal leverage. I don’t tend to think that section 230 reform is a good idea, but am inclined to think that this week’s display of power begs for some trust busting.
So what happens when the targets of such examination have traded staff with the political administration, and have such stratospheric piles of cash? The laws are in place - it’s hard to call Twitter, et al innocent monopolies anymore.
Maybe I'm missing something, but this seems purposefully disingenuous. Not to say that there definitely isn't a liberal bias in Twitter moderation, but this article's evidence is that they banned the US president but didn't ban three rando tweets with five or fewer likes/retweets. Surely the more likely case here is that moderation has missed them so far? On the other hand, the KillTrump hashtag is indefensible, since surely this isn't the first time that's appeared, and it seems super easy to spot and ban without needing a ton of user reports (though admittedly, looking right now, all tweets under that hashtag are using it to criticize the hashtag...).
Agreed, there's a difference in degree between randos with no reach rage-tweeting into the void, and Trump being read by millions.
That said, if they're going to say Trump's tweets are finally a problem, there's definitely other public figures with thousands/millions of followers who are also tweeting messages of violence, and it sounds like continued crickets on that front.
To start with, I don't think this article is even correct—people have been banned for tweets interpreted as calls for violence against Trump before. At least on a temporary basis.
But in general, threats and calls for violence on Twitter are a problem. One that Twitter has been loathe to face for a while. Now they're starting to face it. Maybe they'll take it seriously, and handle it well, and maybe they won't—but when someone starts caring about a thing, saying "well look at these times you used to not care" doesn't really mean much. You're right, they used to not care, but now they're starting to. Let's see where it goes.
When I clicked on it, the page was full of Tweets don't fall inline with your claim, but maybe we all see a different Twitter according to "personalization" :)
Again, without wishing to assume bad faith on your part, I find this very hard to believe.
If this was so prevalent, there would be many screenshots of the offending tweets used to prove that this hashtag was actually being used for making threats against Mike Pence.
Instead, all I have seen are screenshots of tweets discussing the chants made by the mobs who stormed the Capitol last week, as well as many tweets asking why this hashtag was there.
If can share some screenshots of a "page full of Tweets", or link to some evidence, then I will gladly take that onboard.
Yeah I've seen a lot of breakdown of good faith from both sides recently. I wonder if it's even fixable. It seems to be related to the modern commoditization of socialization. With a close friend, honesty is best, but with a stranger, pulling a fast one seems more attractive.
Why is this being parroted in every thread? Do you realize the trend was not itself a threat but a discussion about Trump supporters at the capitol calling for the hanging? The words are alarming without that context—- which I believe is why Twitter had it removed—-but surely discussing and condemning someone else’s hateful expressions is not the same as expressing those things yourself.
> the president of the United States participated in an invasion of the US Capitol
Wow. When did fake news shift from "incited" to "participated"? Soon if will be "fired a gun that killed a police officer" and then "blew up the Capitol".
“You will have an illegitimate president. That is what you will have, and we can't let that happen”
“If you don't fight like hell you're not going to have a country anymore”
“Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. After this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to walk down. We’re going to walk down, any one you want, but I think right here. We’re going walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
Afterwards tweeting:
These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long,
> Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back. It’s like a boxer, and we want to be so nice. We want to be so respectful of everybody, including bad people.
I’m not cherry picking, I’m telling you where “the order” was to March on the capitol. He says “we” are marching on the capitol, multiple times; too many to list here even. I include the full transcript for context.
If you wanted to cherry pick to show nonviolent intent, there is a much better passage than the one you picked (which I read as disavowing niceness, he is clearly implying that they are too nice and that’s why they are in this bind!)
He explicitly says “peacefully” when describing the marching at one point:
“I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
However, if I tell someone that their country is under attack, that they have been too nice about it and have to show strength, and then say to march peacefully and patriotically, does the peaceful adjective whitewash the rest of the incendiary speech? Does it change that he falsely claimed electoral victory and called on his supporters to reclaim it in a show of “strength”? I would argue no, but it’s certain to be the key passage in his defense.
> After all, when people believe our national destiny hangs in the balance, they often respond accordingly. Or, as I said in a December 4 newsletter warning about potential violence, “if you argue that the very existence of the country is at stake, don’t be surprised if people start to act as if the very existence of the country is at stake.”
“Fight like hell” is very common language in politics.
A lesson all politicians need to take to heart is that there are people running around in our population who take everything very literally and very seriously. The hyperbole of political rhetoric needs to adapt to the deinstitutionalization that is modern society. But an accounting of politicians using this kind of hyperbole would show no favor to either party - in fact IME more often than not it’s the party not in power at any given moment that uses the most impassioned rhetoric.
We can scold Trump for using playing with matches in a dry forest, but let’s not pretend this is uniquely inciting language. That standard would convict politicians of all stripes.
It is very easy to understand the situation if you look at specific people and their motivations.
We have a large group of people who are deeply insecure and unsatisfied with their lives. Their jobs price them out of property ownership, they have near zero chance of retirement and very faint perspectives in starting families. All those problems would go away with the raise of the purchasing power of their salary, but the corporate world has found a cheaper solution. People are told to follow their feelings, "bring entire themselves at work", etc. Instead of paying them more, we let it slide when they blow their steam off at someone they don't like. It keeps them busy and it costs zero on the balance sheet. A much better alternative to unionizing or starting competing co-ops, right?
In long-term, this creates a massive divide in the society. Conservative-minded people that are happy with what they have find this childish. Emotional people feel that conservatives have some unfair advantage and try to attack them for it. The recent election is just a good indicator of the divide, since the conservative vs. emotional groups clearly have opposing opinions about it. The corporations are simply supporting the side that costs the less to them, it's business and nothing personal.
In a longer term, it looks like the death of American Dream. You are no longer expected to achieve wealth and financial independence through hard work, and then do what YOU want. Instead, the role model is to dedicate your energy to endless bashing of your peers from the opposing political camp, while the corporations grab an unprecedented share of the economy.
> In a longer term, it looks like the death of American Dream. You are no longer expected to achieve wealth and financial independence through hard work, and then do what YOU want.
There are plenty of people who still expect to achieve success through hard work. The people who do achieve success through hard work usually tend to be from the set of people who have that expectation though.
I am talking about popular culture. I consider myself moderately successful (I run a small business that I managed to build from scratch through trial and error after studying the "hot" fields and working in the industry). I am happy with my life and I'm trying to pass my mindset to my kids to make sure they can find what works for them.
From what I can see, I am the only example of this in their life. The mainstream media talks about how we are privileged and should step back, not want anything, and let others have it. The role models of prosperity are Instragram celebrities and pop singers, that have a hard cap on their numbers by definition. Nobody takes the long road with rewards further down seriously, and this is saddening. Because the people I know that followed the instant gratification route years ago are not happy at all right now.
And the trouble is that once you are the only person with this mindset in your neighborhood, and are wealthier than others, people with pitchforks will come for you. It won't help that you made your fortune through hard work if your neighbors think it's unfair. There have been historic precedents. Kulaks in early Soviet Union [0] is a very good example. Mccloskeys case from last year is another one.
> You are no longer expected to achieve wealth and financial independence through hard work, and then do what YOU want.
Whatever dream people may have, “wealth and financial independence” has not been a reasonably expected outcome of a lifetime of hard work for most Americans, ever.
> In long-term, this creates a massive divide in the society. Conservative-minded people that are happy with what they have find this childish. Emotional people feel that conservatives have some unfair advantage and try to attack them for it. The recent election is just a good indicator of the divide, since the conservative vs. emotional groups clearly have opposing opinions about it. The corporations are simply supporting the side that costs the less to them, it's business and nothing personal.
I think conservative/liberal and emotional/stoic are orthogonal. I think there's a lot of mis-identification of other people who don't match one on one or both of the spectrums with attribution of more difference than is warranted.
For instance I am liberal and left-leaning but I think my best efforts are spent working hard and advocating for people less fortunate than me who haven't had the same opportunity that I have.
Privilege has given me a pretty easy life and not everyone gets the same chances. You don't have to participate in social change if you don't want to, but at least don't hold it back out of fear that we'll destroy your prosperity. As I understand economics the only way everyone succeeds is if we grow the economy as a whole. That means giving people meaningful, well-paying jobs especially if they don't have the ability or desire to find a way for themselves. We can't let people starve or die of easily curable disease and so the cost will be there regardless of whether a person is doing low-value work or high-value work.
Perhaps that is in a sense a mini-death of the American Dream? That particular dream never existed for everyone anyway; factory workers, miners, farmhands, and other laborers were never assumed to be part of it. That nature of production efficiency and capitol allocation requires a pyramid of workers, at least until automation takes over. This is especially true during the rapid rise of the middle class in the 40s and 50s. However, it was generally assumed that every citizen could at least have a pretty good life. If the economy starts to squeeze laborers into poverty then it's broken and needs to be fixed.
There is no middle ground when it comes to freedom of speech. I find it interesting to read Khamenei's statements, even though I find his regime repugnant for killing gays, jailing dissidents, stifling women's rights, and threatening Israel. It's important that we be able to see what he says. It doesn't mean we're glorifying him or legitimizing him, and those elements in the West or elsewhere who may agree with him will get it from alternative sources anyway.
Likewise, it's important to see what violent elements in our society are saying, even if we disagree with them and find them reprehensible.
You can't stop ideas from flowing; you can slow them down temporarily, by banning them from the mainstream marketplace of idea exchange. But ideas still have a way of leaking through.
If someone is advocating assassination of the President on social media, they should be reported to the FBI. Simply deleting their posting accomplishes nothing.
These media platforms mistakenly think that they are arbiters of ideas and information, when in reality they're just glorified bulletin boards. It should not be up to them to decide on others' behalf what is appropriate to be seen and what is not.
> If someone is advocating assassination of the President on social media, they should be reported to the FBI. Simply deleting their posting accomplishes nothing.
> If someone is advocating assassination of the President on social media, they should be reported to the FBI. Simply deleting their posting accomplishes nothing.
Limiting the reach of incitement to violent crime is not “nothing”.
Obviously, it should also be reported to appropriate authorities.
I think you (and many others) are confusing a right to freedom of speech with a right to publication.
Publishers and editors have been deciding on people's behalf what should and should not be published for hundreds of years. You might write a letter to the New York Times, and they might publish it or they might not. They might decide based on their political leanings.
You haven't made yourself clear, but assuming you're referring to the legal concept of a publisher, then obviously no, the parent was using the word literally, not legally.
https://www.newsweek.com/proud-boys-stabbed-washington-enriq...
On Twitter, many expressed glee at the attack and disappointment that the stabbings were not fatal:
https://twitter.com/ShaunG05712929/status/132404207163692236...
https://twitter.com/SaltPotatoes/status/1324004264524632069
https://twitter.com/DcAntifa/status/1323970794595196928
https://twitter.com/tonica5683/status/1324241314066632705
The tweets remain up.
This all happened a month before the stabbings at a Proud Boys rally in DC (victim affiliations unknown), which received considerably more press attention:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/pro-trump-dc...
This is one case I remembered off the top of my head, having followed the past year’s unrest closely (too closely for my mental health, if I’m honest). There are many cases like it, with many similar tweets.