Woke people think they're Galileo but they're really the church

The book burning going on lately is insane

Everyone thinks they're Galileo. Who would ever stay with the side they think is wrong and cruel? History (i.e. future opinions) will assign the labels.

Galileos tend to work alone or almost alone.

If someone joins a mob against a single person, odds are that their self-identification as Galileo is ... unsound.

Really, very few people are Galileo in modern America for the reason you listed. There are two massive groups of people against each other much more than there are individuals who almost everyone is against. Much more Red vs White army than Galileo against the Church.

Yeah.. you don't normally see mob's carrying out justice very well.

everyone at twitter or FB content moderation roles, or execs -- think they are ethics luminaries and moral compases of the 21st century. Sort of the Supreme Court of ethics and moral judgment.

Really the problem is not with liars, it is with liars that wield lots of influence, power -- and try to actively and systemically circumvent existing law.

Twitter is not the government. Support decentralized messaging and publication platforms if you don’t like big winners having too much power.

Yes. And unlike the Government, I an individual have no say in how Twitter operates. I have have no say in how Facebook operates. I have no say in how Google operates. Those three combine account for the overwhelming majority of the public square that is the internet.

I cannot vote out the CEO of Twitter, Facebook, or Google because I think they are doing the wrong thing. This is worse, because individuals are powerless.

And before you argue that people can go to their own websites, how is meaningfully different from Chinese citizens who use VPN's. After all they can still access information.

In both cases it is near impossible for a message, movement, or anything else to grow without the use of the core popular platforms. And any message which could grow in other spaces would have the counter narrative pushed on the core platforms.

Ummm the early web is a counter example. Any one can publish a website. And a lot of the content that makes these monoliths popular is user generated - it could easily be captured by decentralized system. Put an Insta UI on email and make it cool.

The whole American system says it is ok for successful companies to grow large and powerful. I personally wouldn’t mind some anti-trust actions, but even better would be for people to prefer non-mass media. Visit my website and listen to the guitarist at the local bar and watch indie films and read good books rather than popular books. But others have other preferences.

Making real change is society is not the same as propagating memes or conspiracy theories - it takes time and effort and a lot of eyeball to eyeball persuasion. If you don’t like what Twitter is doing you can create a competitor, and make it popular. The difference is competition - if you persuade enough people, you can replace Twitter. If Twitter is anti-competitive then there is a legal recourse. If you fail to persuade people that twitters method of trying to encourage truth and virtue are bad, that is a fact of your social world. Try again or give up.

> And before you argue that people can go to their own websites, how is meaningfully different from Chinese citizens who use VPN's. After all they can still access information.

If you're going to write out a response centered on "anyone [being able to] publish a website", at least respond to OP's point. How is that a solution that's in any way better than telling CCP citizens that censorship is totally fine because they can use a VPN?

Distinction without difference. Twitter has the capability to whip up a sizable mob and inflict violence anywhere in the world, on a spectrum from cancel culture to corporate cowering to violent riots to color revolutions.

The principle of free speech is enshrined in the constitution at a time when the only thing powerful enough to constrain speech to this degree was the government.

Times have changed. Twitter is more powerful.

Who is we? Fox News has been at 6.5 since Bush Jr.

And now we're at the flip side where the Clinton News Network, The Washington Compost and MSNBSee are all blatantly partition and have gone so far off the rails, they have news anchors who are saying that a protest is peaceful, while buildings and car dealerships are literally burning behind them .. on multiple occasions.

Please keep the Slashdot-era cutesy nicknames off HN.

They undermine your argument, degrade the discourse, and have no place here.

Some, like Keith Olbermann are jumping straight to between 6 and 7:

"Olbermann called for a wide range of Trump's "enablers" to be "prosecuted and convicted and removed from our society.""

Including 'enablers' like Amy Coney Barrett.

https://popculture.com/trending/news/keith-olbermann-raises-...

Bush the elder wanted atheists deported so both sides have their share of lunacy.

Unhinged entertainers is one thing, but it gets pretty scary when similar language is coming elected officials.

"A county prosecutor has again denigrated constituents, this time with the alarming claim that we must “cleanse society” of the “diseased thinking” of Trump supporters."

https://mynorthwest.com/2231869/rantz-county-prosecutor-clea...

https://www.heraldnet.com/news/a-prosecutors-anti-trump-post...

The "news" being censored is political misinformation being pushed by the NY Post of all places. I'd be alarmed if they were preventing anyone from posting about Donald Trump's sudden NBC townhall, not some obvious con thrown out by Giuliani to a tabloid of ill repute.

1. We can't censor because of slippery slope

2. Idiots elect clown because of propaganda

3. Hundreds of thousands of people die from preventable catastrophe.

I don't disagree with you but this is not an acceptable answer.

Is Cuomo a clown elected by idiots who killed tens of thousands of people for his decision to have nursing homes take in COVID patients?

Cuomo and DeBlasio made terrible decisions. But NY only accounts for 15% of US covid deaths. This is a nation-wide problem.

Why is the percentage important? The principle is the same - bad decision, preventable. If the 15% was everyone you cared about perhaps you would not see it that way.

I think maybe you are reading something into my statement that wasn't there, as people I do care about were in that 15%.The point is that this is a problem across the entire country - in red states and blue states, in states with Republican governors and with Democratic governors. America as a whole is experiencing this problem in a way no other country is, and I don't think it's Andrew Cuomo's fault.

>Is Cuomo a clown elected by idiots

Yes. Is he the same type of clown as Trump? No. But Cuomo's an idiot.

Cuomo is a center-left Democrat, how does that compare to Trump's alternative in 2016?

Really it sounds like tens or hundreds of thousands of people could die during a pandemic, regardless of what effort goes into paving a politician's way into office with censorship.

So dimissive, people selected who aligned with their needs.

Their vote is as valid as yours.

It's actually more valid unfortunately because I live in a highly populated state. If hundreds of thousands of people dying needlessly aligns with anyone's goals I want them out of the country. The reality is they got tricked because they're too stupid to make rational decisions and too entitled to realize it.

Out of curiosity, where do you think the line SHOULD be?

No, seriously. You have to draw the line somewhere, right? If your answer is "no, these platforms should be perfectly neutral", then are you okay with child pornography and terrorist beheadings in your feed?

If you say no to this, and the answer is based on the law, what happens if the law is unethical and for example the Trump/Republican administration passes a law saying "Acknowledgement of the gay lifestyle is illegal" (a la Russia).

Regardless of any political division there is a general humanistic "ethical line". It varies from person to person, but if you discount outright nazis and child pornographers generally we can find where that is.

Why should a private corporation not choose where that ethical line is for it?

The Murdoch news empire has fluctuated between 5 and 6 on that scale for as long as I can remember.

Not trying to excuse Facebook and Twitter's behavior here, but let's not let social media become a scapegoat while News Corp continues to run rampant.