The comparison seems apt because while the magnitude of the punishment is out of proportion the refusal to yield to orthodoxy by taking the simple way out is similar.
And they still had plenty of other outlets, including their very successful website.
This is like a single book publisher telling Galileo, "we won't print this one page, but the rest of the book is ok".
That doesn't seem very hateful, although it may seem derisive. There is a difference.
Did it go beyond that?
Reach and influence are important, because they impact the magnitude of what a derisive comment can do to a target.
You saying, "lol, man!" In your living room has no reach, it won't cause harm. The Bee saying it has huge reach, and when aimed at a specific minority individual can lead to serious harm.
I can't yell in a library, the librarians aren't authoritarian. I know going in that libraries aren't the place for that.
Obvious and simple solution here:
1. Allow people to say whatever offensive jokes they want.
2. Keep banning the actual problem: those who make the targeted threats.
The entire concept of "incitement" is ridiculous. We have agency. Nobody can force me to go threaten someone. Go after the ones who commit actual harm, not the ones who make jokes.
Looking at what the families of Sandy hook victims suffered at the hands of mentally ill viewers of Alex Jones is heartbreaking. When you have an audience of millions, I believe you have a responsibility to be intentional about what you publish, because you know that someone might take you very seriously and do awful things.
Sure, we can catch the people who make threats often enough, but the damage has already been done. It's far better to ask folks to be considerate and intentional about who they target, rather than try and sweep up the wreckage of someone's life after the fact.
> where he serves proudly as the first man in that position to dress like a western cultural stereotype of a woman
> We have still chosen to give the award as his self-identification has no bearing on the truth
If you attack a successful member of a minority group based on their minority you still aren't punching up, sorry.
Her.
He could've gotten a lighter sentence if he just accepted the plea deal! Do you understand how silly this sounds.
Moreover, they awarded Rachael Levine "Man of the Year" as a parody because they are a parody website that is right-leaning. Of all the things you could class as so-called "transphobia" this is what you choose? They never deserved to be banned. Additionally, I can go, right now, to Twitter and find a literally gold mine of rule breakers who lean far left that seem to never get touched. Strange, that.
I personally am excited for the reckoning. Twitter is absolute disaster and hopefully the left leaning bad actors get the bans they have deserved since 2016. I've read absolutely disgusting things, especially regarding white people ("white"-phobia in your terminology?) that should be banned and in many times investigated by the FBI. Hopefully we see those bans come down soon. There's a huge difference between Parler and what gets banned on Twitter. To the point you could consider Twitter a very good approximation of Parler for the left. It's time these bad actors get the bans they deserve.
There are already tools you can use on Twitter and other platforms to ignore content you don’t want to see (mute or block, for example). Banning someone should only be done in extreme circumstances like if someone is breaking the law or making literal calls to violence.
It only sounds this way because I targeted the left here. I only did that because it’s Twitter. I would rather have the extremes removed from the platform regardless. It’s already enough of a mess as it is.
This is exactly what this is. This reminds me of the right-wing anti-gay comics of the last decade; showing a loving couple swaddling a turd between them, etc. Us left-wingers created Twitter, and we don't want to see your ugly speech on our platform. If you are concerned about "white-phobia", consider the difference between punching up and punching down. "Parler for the left" would make sense, if any left-wingers wanted to use Parler. Go play in your swamp and leave the rest of us alone.
Let me guess, you 100% _do not_ consider yourself a racist
Ah yes. I forgot, everyone who isn’t on the “punching down” side needs to be treated more equally than everyone else.
That’s made up nonsense used to disguise objective racism. You’re perpetuating the exact same hate you claim is a problem. You’ve just put a veneer of legitimacy on it by masking your language.
I think a more reasonable argument is that people should be allowed to present themselves how they want without prejudice, but that there are still some undeniable facts about the world. Clearly there are people who want to have this discussion and silencing one side of the discussion doesn’t resolve it. It just causes the tension to fester. Get it out in the open and the truth will come out.
It's just a shitty experience.
Regardless, you didn't answer my question: "If Babylon Bee makes a joke about trans people how is that removing trans voices from the platform?"
People voluntarily leaving is not removing voices.
This is naive. If a Klan bar doesn't literally throw out Black people, they still are preventing Black people from being there by making the environment so unpleasant they cannot remain.
"Help Help I'm being oppressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!"
I propose Twitter bans anybody who "berates" a politician. If we don't do that then Twitter is allowing the environment to be too unpleasant for one the most marginalized groups out there.
Why would my plan be bad, but yours good?
Just because there is an environment that is too unpleasant for some people to remain in, doesn't mean that environment should change to conform to the wants of that person. People who are sensitive to sound can't go to some loud bar and demand everybody stop making noise. (Well they could demand it, but nobody will care). The bar isn't forcing the person to leave by not lowering the volume.
Additionally, congresspeople are public figures - being satirized is part of the social contract when you become a public figure.
And congresspeople have power. Lots of power. Saying that an average congressperson and an average trans person are equal is just not true.
If you pulled out another minority group with little power, your rule might be more agreeable.
…why do you think politicians have bodyguards?
> They aren't typically dealing with a healthcare system that is actively hostile to them.
Not doing unnecessary cosmetic surgery is not “actively hostile”.
B) For some trans people, the surgery is necessary from a quality of life perspective and a reduction of dysphoria.
C) It varies by country. In the US, the medical system is actively hostile to everyone (but especially trans people). In the UK, the requirements to just get HRT as a legal adult are insane.
Congressmen are attacked all the time. They have assassination attempts all the time. The average trans person doesn't need protection, but the average congressman does.
>They aren't typically dealing with a healthcare system that is actively hostile to them. They don't have high levels of homelessness, abuse, and suicide.
Healthcare is absolutely not hostile to them. Doctors are being threatened with firing (or may have been fired?) if they don't use the correct pronouns.
I do agree that trans people have higher levels of homelessness, abuse and suicide, but I don't think it is relevant.
>Additionally, congresspeople are public figures - being satirized is part of the social contract when you become a public figure.
Having a public social media account makes you a public person in a sense. If you don't want public attention don't make a public account.
>And congresspeople have power. Lots of power. Saying that an average congressperson and an average trans person are equal is just not true.
Seeing how a trans person was able to get a company that has something like 10% of the internet going through them (Cloudflare) to remove a site I would say trans people have a massive amount of power.
>If you pulled out another minority group with little power, your rule might be more agreeable.
I think we should have consistent rules regardless of how much power a person has. Should politicians not have the right to a trial because they are powerful? Of course not. Rules should be uniform.
While I'm mixed on the ban, this is a mischaracterization of what they were banned for. They were banned for misgendering a specific person not questioning transgenderism. There is a significant distinction between questioning an idea and targeting a specific person.
There are great yard sticks to this question in theory "I tolerate everything except intolerance. Your right to swing your arms stops when they come into contact with someone's nose." In practice though it's always easy - on every side - to pick out the things we don't like and decide that they're violent or intolerant.
Everyone is tolerant of the things they like - and they ask everyone to join them in that if they like those things or not.
If this was some random trans Rachel from Boring, Oregon, I'd call this a clear case of bullying and say the ban was 100% justified and shouldn't remain, but I think there is a much, much higher bar when the target is a government official or celebrity. But that doesn't change the fact that the entire point was singling out an individual for mockery.
But this case was not that. This case was specifically targeting a specific individual and making fun of them being trans. That's absolutely transphobia.
That is good. A lot of people don't agree.
>who is telling the joke,
Not true.
>whi is the punchline, etc.
Maybe. The problem is the inconsistent standards on that. Punch lines that are anti white or anti male aren't considered sexists or racist, but anti trans ones are.
We need a consistent standard and we don't have it.
>But this case was not that. This case was specifically targeting a specific individual and making fun of them being trans. That's absolutely transphobia.
That was not the case. They were parodying the newspaper or magazine that said Levine was the woman of the year.
I feel like using terms like chest feeding, menstruaters, or birthing parent is female erasure.
And they didn’t which means they’ve earned gobs of respect because of their principled and dignified stance to refuse to be bullied. They won and showed the world you don’t have to lick the boots of elitist corporate oppressors.