Three things in which I believe but which to solve in a balanced way is not easy:

There should be no limitations to freedom of speach as long as it does not constitute a crime.

Private companies are free to determine their T&C and to not offer their service to users not complying with the T&C.

Quasi-monopolies are to be monitored and potentially be regulated in case of abuse of dominant positions by the relevant competition authorities.

What have the Democrats done to warrant such censure, compared to what the Republican party and Trump has been doing? I would love to know what you think you are referring to when it's just obvious for what specific and well-publicised reasons that Trump has been blocked from the platforms.

That's why regulators need to get a handle on social media... it has gone far, far away from its original intentions of simply being "social enablement" and people are now increasingly and painfully aware of the material and very serious impact it can have in important areas like politics.

Just came across a quote in another place which pretty much sums up why Trump has been barred from Social Media

"Because Trump deliberately encouraged the closest thing this country
has seen to a coup d'etat".

Proponents of Free Speech, be it on the World stage or just here on our little old EF, need to accept that it's not acceptable to post inflammatory misinformation and lies, regardless of whether it leads to the storming of congress or just makes our forum an unpleasant place to be.

Here’s another example....

Simon and Schuster cancelled Senator Josh Hawley’s book contract (he’s the senator from Missouri who led the objection to the Pennsylvania vote) .

In an interview (I think it was from the View, a US program) Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said that Simon and Schuster was a private company and it was their right to cancel the contract if they felt it would be detrimental to their business. Sen Hawley’s speech was not being limited, he could go make money elsewhere, but a private company is under no obligation to publish the work of someone they feel has engaged in inappropriate behavior - in this case, contributing to incitement to riot.

I'm all for censoring hate speech on social media. There are just too many people that resonate with that vitrol. I'm not sure, however, you can label this cancel culture. For me, disseminating false information that can result in crime is clearly illegal.

Well, a little over a year ago, we had exactly that. Not anything Jihadist nor racist, but a series of posts about violence, including actions which could have killed somone. An EF member who described his own behaviour towards his three-and-a-half year old son: "I'm starting to knock him around at home a bit ... I start by taking one of his toys and when he comes to get it, I deck him to the ground", and also wrote of throwing the child across the room.

So that's not towards another member of EF, but a small boy, and potentially lethal.

At the time, it took quite some concerted effort from many users to get anyone to intervene. Then, the mods cleaned up by deleting that user's posts which had described significant child-abuse. The user who had posted them backed down by claiming, after the fact, that the posts espousing that violence had all been written in jest.

As far as I recall, no, the user was not banned, but did not post again afterwards, and their username is no longer visible.

What's hypocritical is that Twitter, like this forum, don't apply their rules and standards uniformly. Murderers like Valdimir Putin or Nicolás Maduro still have Twitter accounts, Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechnyan leader who rounded up gay people still has a Twitter account.

Donald Trump paid the price for his time on Twitter, one could argue, by not being reelected, with fair and due process. Getting banned from Twitter is not a transparent process. Of course there's the argument that Twitter and Facebook are private companies and can do what they like, which is correct. However the crackdown by big Tech on rivals like Parler and Gab (removing them from app stores, refusing to host webpages) is something far more sinister, and shows a clear political bias.

The riots last summer in America were entirely organised and managed via social media like Twitter and Facebook. People got hurt, some died and property got damaged. Twitter never acted on any of this. Basically it gives the impression that Big Tech/Silicon Valley doesn't have a problem with violence so long as it suits their agenda.

People seem to be conflating the medium and the message here. Twitter didn’t “cancel” Trump. They kicked him for repeated violations of their policies. As they have done for others on all sides of the political landscape.

He’s still free to spout drivel, he just doesn’t have the borrowed megaphone any more.

However the crackdown by big Tech on rivals like Parler and Gab (removing them from app stores, refusing to host webpages) is something far more sinister, and shows a clear political bias. (Sorry, the quote function wouldn't work for some odd reason)

I disagree. Those sites are being used by organisations/individuals to spread false information that may incite illegal activities.


Edit: Is there a reason why I can't quote Tony Clifton's post?

Getting banned from Twitter is an entirely transparent process. Breach the T&Cs = get warned. Multiple breaches = ban.

You seem to be confusing it with a media outlet. It’s a platform, an amplifier for your opinions. Putin, Maduro and their ilk are abhorrent individuals, but they don’t use Twitter to incite violence or talk nonsense.

Twitter has avoided the hypocrisy you accuse them of precisely in applying their policies uniformly.

But where does it end and who decides what you and I can and can't see because it may incite us to commit a crime.. At the moment it's the tech companies who are deciding.

Most of us are intelligent enough to not run out and commit a crime because some guy on twitter said something ..

As opposed to learning that the world is flat, or that 5G causes Covid on Facebook?

It is not for unelected Silicon Valley to block these websites, there is an elected government and laws to judge that.

I'm not sure if you're serious or not? Ayatollah Khomeini called for the destruction of Israel on his Twitter account and it is still active. China spreads misinformation over Uighurs via Twitter and the accounts are still active. The lists is almost endless.

They are behaving like a media outlet in how they moderate their platform, in which case they should be regulated as a publisher.

That argument holds zero water when you consider how many people stormed the capitol the other day. Any grown adult with even a passing amount of life experience and knowledge of history and current events should know full well that many people are impressionable/miguided enough to be willing do bad things for causes that they feel strongly about.

The storming of the White House proves you wrong. At the moment, too many people are currently invested emotionally in believing Trump's words. His accusations have created a platform for conservative Christian organisations, right-wing organisations, Fox, etc. to tap into a demographic that ultimately will bring them both money and power.

Those conspiracy theories don't incite illegal activities, as I had specifically mentioned in my post.

I’m not sure if you mean the unverified Ayatollah Khamenei account that posts English accounts of his speeches? It can’t be Khomenei for obvious reasons.

China uses multiple platforms, Twitter included, as part of its propaganda and cyber warfare programme. But I’m not sure how you would ban an entire country...

https://www.englishforum.ch/forum-su...-problems.html

I'm in principle for total free-speech and let individuals make up their own minds.

However, the stupidity of the average human has made total freedom no longer possible.

QAnon's absurd allegations would be dismissed out of hand by anyone with a brain cell or two - but no, they and the likes of David Ike and 1000s of crackpot so-called doctors and healers, conspiracy theorists continue to gain support.

It's not binary, so censoring ideas both on EF and all other social media will and can never be fair and just...

You mean illegal activities like this?

https://www.businessinsider.com/77-p...20-5?r=US&IR=T

It's blatant hypocrisy and this is why people are mad. If Silicon Valley think they're helping the situation then they're very much mistaken.

Totally agree with everything you wrote above. However, inciting to violence, hate speech and slander are not or rather, should not be part of what is acceptable to post on social media imo.


Last but not least, don't forget Twitter is a business. They cut their losses. When it was profitable to offer a platform to him and his worshipers they did, when everyone, including staff and some of the family abandons ship, Twitter is blocking his account. Really, move along nothing to see here....