US citizens have broad rights to public free speech.

Corporations have broad rights to self-regulate their platforms.

No one is saying Bannon broke the law. It's just interesting how Twitter and FB are making different decisions about the kind of platforms they want to have.

In your estimation, if Facebook doesn't censor this speech, then that makes them a certain "kind" of platform? It means that Facebook is pro-beheading?

So how come if the US government doesn't censor it, it doesn't make the US a pro-beheading country? Empirically, compared to other countries the US manages to be pretty anti-beheading despite tolerating speech about beheading.

Do you think that any failure to censor speech constitutes an endorsement of that speech? Is it not possible to allow speech you disagree with? Does Facebook the company have to endorse every opinion someone posts on it?

I didn't attempt to answer any of those questions, but instead simply tried to illustrate that Bannon went beyond metaphor in his words.

I don't like censorship and I don't like public speech that encourages violence. Unfortunately, those two stances are at odds sometimes and there are warnings from history on both sides.

>What do you think should be done with the activists who erected a guillotine in front of Jeff Bezos' house in DC? Should they be put in jail for attempted murder?

Are you equating being suspended off Twitter to being thrown in Jail? For the record, people commonly do get suspended for harassments for sending death threats to public figures. Unfortunately they aren't as high profile as bannon, so they don't get op-ed's written about them.

>How about Kathy Griffin, who posted a video of herself beheading Trump in effigy?

Why would you bring up Kathy Griffin when she got Twitter account suspended as well for that stunt? The answer to your question is "no I don't think Bannon should get better treatment then Kathy Griffin".

> Are you equating being suspended off Twitter to being thrown in Jail? For the record, people commonly do get suspended for harassments for sending death threats to public figures.

My point here is that people on one end of the political spectrum are given the benefit of the doubt when they make statements like this that they are not meant to be taken literally. Meanwhile, people on the other end of the political spectrum are treated as though they actually intend to carry them out.

>My point here is that people on one end of the political spectrum are given the benefit of the doubt

By your own example this isn’t true. Kathy was suspended from Twitter for what she did. Most targeted calls for violence lands you a suspension on Twitter.

The reason you feel like one side is given the benefit of the doubt isn’t rooted in reality, at least on Twitter - it’s just far more likely for the other side of the political spectrum to whip up a media frenzy about free speech. And your point about one side being more likely to carry acts of violence out also seems ignorant of what’s happening today. There is only one political leaning that has resulted in people showing up armed to pizza places or trying to kidnap a governor.

It’s difficult to understand why you bend over so hard to make excuses for Bannon, when the guy who he was “joking” about has had to literally hire bodyguards for much of the past year.

> There is only one political leaning that has resulted in people showing up armed to pizza places or trying to kidnap a governor.

Hold on a second here. Am I the only one that remembers this summer? There is also a party that excused, if not encouraged, arson, rioting, dragging people out their cars and beating them in the street, and one outright murder that was explicitly predicated on the victim being of the opposing political party:

https://nypost.com/2020/08/30/blm-activists-celebrated-as-tr...

You can read the comments right here to see the difference in treatment. When Kathy Griffin did her thing, the response was generally "Gee, Kathy you went a little too far, tone it down"

Here people are twisting themselves into pretzels trying to "prove" what Bannon really meant. "You see he mentioned Tudor England so therefore that conclusively proves that this was not a figure of speech..."

I don't care about Bannon, I care about a free and open exchange of ideas. We can't have that if some parties appoint themselves the arbiters of permissible speech.

>I don't care about Bannon, I care about a free and open exchange of ideas. We can't have that if some parties appoint themselves the arbiters of permissible speech.

Are you a free speech absolutist? So calls for violence isn’t a line you are willing to draw in the sand? If Bannon was distributing child pornography should Facebook allow that too, or should Zuckerberg not appoint himself as an arbiter is that situation? This is an insane premise, so I’m not sure what to say to this. Even the current law doesn’t let you recklessly abuse free speech like this (e.g. fire in a movie theater). You do realize Fauci and his family doesn’t even feel safe anymore leaving their home without security detail? Why should someone like Bannon be afforded such great benefit of the doubt given Fauci’s situation. Someone like Bannon would and has cried about “cancel culture” but in this case he’s free to essentially force a man into hiding.

Try to stick to the topic at hand. This is not child pornography. We don't have to worry about Zuckerberg appointing himself the arbiter of child pornography because we have actual laws, arrived at via a democratic process, that define what that is. See how that works? We didn't just leave it up to companies to call something "child pornography" whenever it suits their interests to do so.

This is not fire in a crowded theater either. Bannon made a clearly hyperbolic statement about something he would do in some hypothetical fantasy scenario where he is in the White House and it is some kind of alternate reality where putting someone's head on a pike is a real thing that could actually happen.

Bannon is not in the White House. It is very unlikely that he will ever again be in the White House. Trump fired him over two years ago. Even if he were in the White House, I can't believe I have to explain this, putting someone's head on a pike out in front of the White House is not a real thing that even has the slightest, remotest possibility of happening. Even if Bannon were President, that is not something he could do. Do you understand that? He may as well have said "I'd incinerate Fauci with laser blasts from my eyes" that is about as realistic.

Fauci is a highly visible figure in the midst of a global crisis. It is unfortunate, but not surprising, that he needs security. Even minor celebrities get stalkers and death threats. At some point you become known by enough people that it is a statistical certainty that some of them will have a form of mental illness that may cause them to unhealthily fixate on you. That will happen regardless of anything Bannon says.

> I care about a free and open exchange of ideas

Then don't use TwitFace. Go use 4chan or 8chan or someplace with looser standards.

Perhaps they should also be banned from Facebook.

They too should be kicked off Twitter.