Twitter's whole moderation problem has been it is very very inconsistent. I've seen accounts from certain political persuasions be banned or suspended, but then I have seen someone openly tell someone to kill themselves and the tweet was never removed, and the person was never suspended/banned because of the account it was aimed at. The Onion has had some questionable pieces that weren't any better than what Babylon Bee had, and they were never touched. The moderation has to be consistent; I don't think a council is a bad idea, especially for bigger account bans.

I hope Trump is never allowed back, but he probably will be. In any case, things have to be equally applied and that has not been the case to anyone paying attention. Even the doxing rules have basically been completely ignored if it were aimed at -some- people.

Why?

No, you're confusing semantics. A Wyoming voter's vote counts several times more than a California's vote for the same position. Land borders shouldn't change your vote, that's _anti_-democratic and in favor of an unequal distribution of voting rights. We should call a spade a spade, and here the spade of the electoral college is clearly _not_ democracy when we no longer have to send state delegates across the barren frontier.

You can toot the representative republic horn all you want, which is what the system is, but it is in error to call the existing system democratic or a democracy _until_ the electoral college is gone. It should be. It serves no purpose other than to suppress what the majority of the people want. Likewise for state-specific regulations for cross-union office, like for President.

Do what you want for your own state representation (e.g. senator, governor) but the President should be the one person actually elected by a majority without shenanigans, whereas none is today.

Trump is an autocrat with goals to become a monarch. He proactively eroded democracy during his term, and continues to attempt to.

That has very large influence and is spreading and inspiring hate [1]. Mentally ill or not, he's causing real-world damage.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/banner-kanye-right-los-...

The police "again, that's the 23rd time today"

This kinda breaks down at the global scale. I can call for violent acts at your front door from a continent away with impunity.

The fascists call for violence is always a joke to them, until the moment it is not.

Twitter banned the Babylon Bee for targeting a random and rather anonymous bureaucrat that likely isn't among the 1000 most powerful people in government in the US for the sole purpose that she is trans. This targeting by the Babylon Bee and other conservative media has led to her getting death threats. Being a satire site doesn't mean we can laugh off all their behavior as a joke. Their behavior was a part of a harassment campaign against someone who is largely a private citizen in this instance. Stopping that doesn't seem like a mistake to me.

What? Since when is sex a social construct?

https://areomagazine.com/2022/01/05/race-is-a-spectrum-sex-i...

Of course, the word "binary" is a social construct, and "spectrum" is a social construct as well. However I would expect that in a forum focused on computers, binary generally means 0 or 1 with no other values possible even 0.0000001% of the time.

"Some men choose to identify as women." Really? This is not a serious statement that engages with the science behind gender transition.

>A genetic condition in which a male is born with an extra copy of the X chromosome

So still a male, got it.

The word "error" is a social construct. I prefer "variation", which also is a social construct, but doesn't imply a judgment. (Of course, judgments are social constructs.)

shocked realization

"Of course! Number of sides of a coin is a spectrum!"

In any case the number of sides of a coin is not a binary. It's just 2.

Bingo. This is what scientific terminology aspires to. Except “sex is pretty darn binary” is a useful, meaningful simplification, while “sex is a spectrum” is at best a fundamental misunderstanding of what a spectrum is, and at worst a politically motivated conflation of intersex conditions with gender variation.

Yes, because sex is a description of an observed natural phenomenon, not a taxonomy of medical interventions.

Plenty of intersex people are gender variant as well. See for example Dana Zzyym, who is intersex and uses they/them pronouns. They fought for nonbinary gender markers in passports.

That’s not to say that “sex isn’t real” or some absurd position like that. There is a real phenomenon in biology where genetic and phenotypical variance tends to follow a limited set of patterns. Biologists call those patterns “sex”. But, the idea that “sex” as we use it in normal day-to-day life is a rigidly defined system based on hard biological facts is laughably false. When was the last time you insisted on seeing someone’s genetic karyotype test results? When was the last time you asked someone to drop their pants so you could examine their genitalia and determine their sex?

The phrase “sex is a social construct” is technically true in the same way that “chairs are a social construct” is true. The word describes a fuzzy subset of the set of all things, and what we consider in or out of the set is largely based on what we think should belong to it, and that is absolutely influenced by societal expectations. Where do chairs end and tables begin? Where does the female sex end?

Once you get to that point, the phrase almost has no meaning. If all word definitions are social constructs, then that’s table stakes and it doesn’t make sense to call out a specific word as having that property. Surely the phrase “is a social construct” must mean something more than “is like any other word”. Indeed, the meaning of that phrase is larger than what it literally says. There is a socially defined meaning that is attached to it. That phrase implies the word in question “is arbitrarily defined (more than most words)” and “is up for interpretation (more than most words)”.

If you agree with me this far, then the right way to frame this discussion is “should we pin ‘sex’ as it is used in every day life to specific physical properties or should we allow it to be more porous?”. This isn’t as straightforward as it might seem. If we pin it, for example, to genetic karyotype, then we need to stop using it in contexts where the genetics of the person are unknown and must admit the existence of several additional sexes (e.g. X, XXY) AND recognize it’s no longer useful for describing the phenomenon of what a person looks like or how their body works. If we make it porous, then we will endlessly debate about whether boundary cases fall into one bucket or the other and possibly hurt some feelings along the way.

The fun thing is that we get to pick what words mean, and we get to pick what we do with “sex”. Language is, after all, a social construct.

This might be true for the incredibly tiny minority of intersex individuals who defy categorization, but for >99.9% of people it’s not true at all, and challenging the meaningfulness of a word based on such rare edge cases is a huge overstatement of how controversial this is.

Compare this to:

Prostrate surgery: https://www.europeanurology.com/article/S0302-2838(08)00764-... (19%)

Knee surgery: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6961288/#:~:tex... (6-30%)

Mastectomy for breast cancer: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/964824 (8% -- and this is presented as very low!)

The satisfaction rate for gender-affirming surgery is in a completely different league from the rest of medicine. (And I have a lot of sympathy for the few people that do regret them -- I'm good friends with one such person.)

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/ https://aeon.co/essays/do-analytic-and-continental-philosoph...

For what it’s worth, I’m a trans woman, and I’m well aware of some of the discourse around this topic already (both positions that are pro- and anti- “trans women are women”). I tried very hard to avoid injecting any of those details into it, though. I wanted to do a “reasoning from first principles” sort of analysis of the idea rather than try to recap the discussions that are happening in feminist spheres.

Social construct doesn't mean fake, though. It's real, and it describes a real thing, but is a simplified model of it. The fight is over which model is better.

Would you have said the same thing about ridiculing someone for being openly gay in government 30 years ago, being Catholic in government 60 years ago, or being Black in government 80 years ago?

I still think it's very much up for debate, unlike the instances you listed. I have trans friends, and while I can't speak for them, I don't believe they think the debate is as settled on some of these issues, especially in regard to "misgendering" being a hate crime. Hell, I've misgendered one of my non-binary friends constantly by accident and we're still friends. I'm not banned and haven't been charged with a hate crime. Would I want someone intentionally misgendering them just to get to them? No, I think that's cruel, and I'd defend my friend; but I don't think that person should automatically lose their account or be arrested (which has happened outside the US.) There's an important distinction there and it's an important debate.

The only joke I see is "a trans person exists". The article isn't about her policies, her performance in her job, or even complexities in our evolving definition of either sex or gender like you are implying. The joke is that this person is trans. The message of that joke is the existence of a trans person in public is worthy of mockery. Therefore the only way to stop the mockery is to stop being trans or retreat from public life. I think refusing to stop that mockery until the target does one of those two things qualifies as harassment.

That a man was voted “Woman of the Year”.

By any non-tautological definition of “woman” and “man”, that’s objectively true.

Are we not allowed to point out obvious truths when people claim the opposite?

Whether you think this particular example was cruel depends ultimately on whether you think it is targeting the individual’s gender dysphoria (the thing they didn’t choose to have), or whether it is targeting their claim to be something they objectively are not.

One might argue that there is no difference, if one believes that gender affirmation is the only treatment for gender dysphoria, and that everyone is obliged to participate in that treatment, and to do otherwise amounts to mockery of the unchosen affliction.

Personally I think it’s wrong to joke about people with schizophrenia, but equally wrong to tell them the voices in their head are real.

What makes the joke funny and culturally relevant — as opposed trivial cruelty — is that it represents a simple, forbidden truth for which one will be subject to severe public censure and deplatforming.

Comedy is a final bulwark against uncritical thinking, and can be used to deflate ludicrous ideas that are otherwise culturally unassailable.

Comedy can inspire thoughfullness and push back against societal norms. Comedy can also be a way to normalize bullying marginalized people. Being a troll and saying 'But wait, I'm being funny!' still makes you a troll. It's not like the account in question was trying to generate thoughtful discussion. Punch-down comedy is just dressed up hatefullness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8yV8xUorQ8

When you can be censured, deplatformed, and even lose your job for stating an objective truth like “men cannot get pregnant”, your words, by any possible definition, are punching up.

Unfortunately that isn't really true. Trans folks, especially trans women face discrimination and violence on a daily basis in society. You see, they actually exist in the real world and somehow Twitter mods can't keep people from saying and doing terrible things in real life.

>When you can be censured, deplatformed, and even lose your job for stating an objective truth like “men cannot get pregnant”, your words, by any possible definition, are punching up.

Spare me and your culture war nonsense. I'm sure you believe that white men are under attack and marginalized.

If the latter, there should be no issue in a satirical publication making the point that a man who wants to be a woman getting awarded a "Woman of the Year" accolade is nonsensical.

The editors shouldn't go to jail, but its obviously the type of hate content that will drive away users and advertisers and twitter was wise to ban it. It adds nothing to the discussion.

The Bee's article is more broadly a commentary on how accolades intended for women are now going to men who identify as women - which rather undermines the point of having such awards in the first place. The humor is in inverting this:

"The Babylon Bee has selected Rachel Levine as its first annual Man of the Year. Levine is the U.S. assistant secretary for health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where he serves proudly as the first man in that position to dress like a western cultural stereotype of a woman."

Criticizing male dominance like this is very much a 'punching up' type of comedy.

Only if you are completely clueless on what marginalization means, which by the rest of your comment, it appears you are.

It would make for a more substantive discussion if you explained why you disagree with my comment - could you elaborate further?

": to relegate (see relegate sense 2) to an unimportant or powerless position within a society or group"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/marginalize

Trans people, especially trans women are treated poorly. They have less economic opportunity, have a high incidence of being victims of crime, and face violence from society.

Being successful in spite of being marginalized doesn't somehow magically make you no longer marginalized.

Just like there are successful Black people, but they still experience systemic and social racism. Success doesn't magically change that.

I'm guessing you don't believe in systemic racism though, so its probably a non-starter

The main point was that the claims made by the new owner are demonstrably false.

The new owner claimed that unbanning decisions would be made by a new moderation council. While he was saying this, a slew of right-wing and conspiracy accounts were reinstated even though the council does not yet exist.

Meanwhile here we are, debating gender and sexuality.

They remain locked out of their account until they agree to delete a tweet about the story we’re discussing, which they’ve refused to do.

meh.

Twitter allowed much worse things that joking about someones self-identified gender.

It's a satire site: it's exactly what it says on the tin. If you leave political affiliation out of it, then, yes, twitter has been taking sides.

I mean the idea that a trans-woman could actually feel and experience the challenges a biological woman faces...is pretty controversial; or the fact that many base their identity on media stereotypes rather than the very diverse experiences of womanhood, also is a pretty important debate, especially among feminists.

We can't just close the debate off and disallow any discussion on it (or jokes about it), and call anything against it a hate crime. That's not how things work. It could also have massive political fallout if Progressives are unwilling to join in the debate and stifle any attempts at it.

The award is only ridiculous if you think trans people shouldn't exist in public as openly trans. I mean you even referred to her as "her" so you seemingly recognize that her being eligible for "Woman of the Year" is more appropriate than "Man of the Year". The perceived ridiculousness comes from the same fundamental concept underlying the joke, the existence of trans people is funny and their desire to simply live their life as they see fit is worthy of mockery.

>I mean the idea that a tran-woman could actually feel and experience the challenges a biological woman faces...is pretty controversial; or the fact that many base their identity on media stereotypes rather than the very diverse experiences of womanhood, also is a pretty important debate, especially among feminists.

No one is arguing that here. This is a person identifying as a woman and being recognized in public as a women. That is the only political statement being challenged. You are free to continue debating whether trans women and cis women have the same experience or whatever, but neither the USA Today or the Babylon Bee was making a statement in that debate.

>We can't just close the debate off and disallow any discussion on it (or jokes about it), and call anything against it a hate crime. That's not how things work. It could also have massive political fallout if Progressives are unwilling to join in the debate and stifle any attempts at it.

I don't know why this is framed as progressives shutting down the debate on the topic. The conservatives viewpoint that the Babylon Bee seems to subscribe to is that there is gender and sex are they same thing and they are binary. There is no way to debate against that viewpoint. There is no possible compromise position. It defines the very existence of someone like Levine. There is nothing Levine could have said to the Babylon Bee to stop them from targeting her specifically because they were criticizing an innate quality of her being.

This is simply your skewed view and not how many people read the joke. She was named as "woman of the year" BECAUSE she was trans, not because she was/is a woman. That's the joke. USA Today itself probably doesn't care if she is or isn't a woman, the award was issued to get engagement.

> I don't know why this is framed as progressives shutting down the debate on the topic.

Because that is how Progressives have treated the topic in general (at least publicly, privately not so much.)

> It denies the very existence of someone like Levine.

This is not true, it denies how this person views themselves, not their existence; and your existence isn't whatever reality you have chosen for yourself. For example, being gay is something you don't force society to see, you are simply attracted to the same sex. When you change your sex or gender, you are asking for a societal buy-in. That is much different.

> You are free to continue debating whether trans women and cis women have the same experience or whatever, but neither the USA Today or the Babylon Bee was making a statement in that debate.

Actually, both are very much connected, because the idea that you could not experience what a naturally born biological female could is perceive in the eyes of many as to why you cannot yourself ever be a biological female...when you were born male. These are very integrated topics.

Fine, and this is "simply your skewed view". Yours is not inherently more right than mine.

>Because that is how Progressives have treated the topic in general (at least publicly, privately not so much.)

You completely skipped my point. Progressives have treated this topic this way because there is no compromise position. What concession can a progressive hope to accomplish debating someone who believes that sex and gender are the same and binary?

>This is not true, it denies how this person views themselves, not their existence; and your existence isn't whatever reality you have chosen for yourself. For example, being gay is something you don't force society to see, you are simply attracted to the same sex. When you change your sex or gender, you are asking for a societal buy-in. That is much different.

Trans people don't need "societal buy-in" any more than any other group. They just want to live their life how they see fit. A trans person choice's don't impact you any more than a gay person's choice. Just leave them all alone and mind your own business.

>Actually, both are very much connected, because the idea that you could not experience what a naturally born biological female could is perceive in the eyes of many as to why you cannot yourself ever be a biological female...when you were born male. These are very integrated topics.

This has no relevance to the issue at hand. They weren't awarding the Cis Woman of the Year Award. They were awarding the Woman of the Year Award. Trans women should be just as eligible for that as cis women. This isn't a weightlifting competition. There is no reason to exclude trans women from this type of award.

Isn't the compromise position to tolerate everybody's own personal words and definitions? That certainly used to be the progressive position, at least up to about a decade ago.

The compromise position is that you tolerate people's personal definitions and words, i.e., you wouldn't ban them for having them. I'm not saying there is some legal "grounds" you could use to bar somebody from being intolerant of what you say or think, you just asked what a compromise position would be, and tolerance is one and it's what the progressive position was for a long time.

It's fundamental to democracy and a healthy public discourse that people be allowed to voice their opinions including disagreements. It's quite extremist to believe that people who disagree with us must stop talking about it. That is not what tolerance means.

What's the end game? Ban and censor and silence until nobody complains, disagrees, speaks out, or satirizes The Truth™ ?

The everyone should just be tolerant of other people's definitions solution kind of relies on everyone being tolerant of other people's definitions.

You said everyone should be tolerant of everyone else's definitions. Doesn't everyone include progressive, conservatives, USA Today, Twitter, and the Babylon Bee? If so, aren't you suggesting they should all stop complaining about the definitions the other groups use?

How many times do I have to say that I do not understand what point you are trying to make? I'm not saying that like I think your opinion is bad. I am saying I don't understand how you are applying your principle of tolerance in this situation. Either directly tell me why my summary of your position is wrong or stop playing this "grownup conversation" card. A grownup way to approach this situation would be to actually engage in the conversation rather than repeatedly complaining that I am having this conversation wrong.

The point I am trying to make, which I made from the very beginning, is that tolerance to peoples' different opinions is a possible compromise position and it was the progressive position for a time. That's it, that's the point. You asked about what compromise position there would be vs shutting down debate from people who believe sex and gender are the same thing and binary, and that's an answer for you.

You may not understand what tolerance means and want to ask more about that, you may have other questions, you may dispute that was ever the progressive position, or you may argue that it is not a viable compromise, but not by asking some nonsensical rhetorical question about what I am saying, or what I agree with. If you are not capable of addressing the comment without snide digs at the messenger, just take it elsewhere. As I said, nobody else will ever read this so the performantive "I won" style of internet-arguing is pointless. And I'm not getting the impression by now that you are interested an answer to your question. So why even waste any more time here?

I understand what tolerance means. I don't understand who you are expecting tolerance from in this situation.

The Babylon Bee's article is not tolerant of Levine's or WaPo's definitions. The BB's refusal to remove the tweet is not tolerant of Twitter's definitions. People aren't objecting to the BB's definition in a vacuum. They are reacting to the lack of tolerance from the BB.

The problem doesn't originate with a lack of progressive tolerance. It originates from the BB's intolerance.

I don't think you do.

> The Babylon Bee's article is not tolerant of Levine's or WaPo's definitions.

Please explain your reasoning. I think this is getting to your fundamental misunderstanding about what tolerating speech and opinions you disagree with means.

> The BB's refusal to remove the tweet is not tolerant of Twitter's definitions.

This is not a correct use of the meaning of tolerance. You could say they didn't tolerate twitter's terms of service or moderation demands, but not that they didn't tolerate twitter's "definitions", so it's just muddying the waters here I think because of the asymmetric positions of the two parties when we're talking about speech on twitter's platform. So we should focus on how BB is not tolerating Levine or WaPo first.

> People aren't objecting to the BB's definition in a vacuum. They are reacting to the lack of tolerance from the BB.

> The problem doesn't originate with a lack of progressive tolerance. It originates from the BB's intolerance.

People most certainly object to different definitions, but the interesting thing I think is how you are using the word (in)tolerance here. The way you are using it certainly does not match the use of the word in the former progressive position that I was referring to.

Levine and USA Today (I mistakenly said WaPo before) are using a definition of women that includes trans women. The Babylon Bee disagree with them. There are a few different ways the BB could react.

The most tolerant way would be to not say anything because Levine and USA Today's definitions don't impact them.

A less tolerant way would be to denote their disagreement through a related article that doesn't directly address Levine or USA Today. They could have had a cat winning at the Westminster Dog Show or whatever. That gets their point across without confrontation.

They chose an even less tolerant response. They directly mocked Levine and USA Today with derision and indirectly made Levine a target for future harassment. That behavior isn't tolerant.

Compare this to a scenario in which the tolerance debate is about a more discreet moral/immoral issue. Imagine I am anti-Semitic and hated when Bernie Sanders ran for President. The most tolerant response would be to keep that hate to myself and just vote for someone else. The less tolerant response would be to maybe write some webcomic in which the Happy Merchant meme disastrously runs for President to indirectly mock Sanders. The most intolerant response would be to name that webcomic character Bernie Sanders and reply to all his tweets with a link to the comic. That is what the Babylon Bee effectively did by directly promoting Levine as a target for ridicule to an audience that they had to know would harass her.

>This is not a correct use of the meaning of tolerance. You could say they didn't tolerate twitter's terms of service or moderation demands, but not that they didn't tolerate twitter's "definitions", so it's just muddying the waters here I think because of the asymmetric positions of the two parties when we're talking about speech on twitter's platform. So we should focus on how BB is not tolerating Levine or WaPo first.

Twitter's ToS on this issue use a definition of women that includes trans women. Otherwise, misgendering someone wouldn't be against Twitter's rules.

> The most tolerant way would be to not say anything because Levine and USA Today's definitions don't impact them.

> A less tolerant way would be to denote their disagreement through a related article that doesn't directly address Levine or USA Today. They could have had a cat winning at the Westminster Dog Show or whatever. That gets their point across without confrontation.

> They chose an even less tolerant response. They directly mocked Levine and USA Today with derision

That's simply not what tolerating the words and opinions of others means though. It doesn't mean that you can't disagree, you can't voice your disagreement, or you can't mock or satirize.

> and indirectly made Levine a target for future harassment. That behavior isn't tolerant.

Satirizing that USA Today award is not intolerant of their speech, because it is not calling for or taking action against an individual or group and their right or ability to speak.

And everybody's opinions and disagreements and speech can have good and bad intended and unintended consequences. People who believe sex and gender are the same and trans is a mental illness can be made subject to harassment by people who argue against them or mock them in public too. You can argue that's not that's a good thing and whether or not tolerance of speech and opinions promotes that (more than intolerance would), but you can't just call it intolerance just because you don't like it.

>Satirizing that USA Today award is not intolerant of their speech, because it is not calling for or taking action against an individual or group and their right or ability to speak.

Does that mean that you would consider mocking Jewish beliefs and calling them lies to be tolerant because it isn't calling for action against Jewish people? If not, how is it different from mocking Levine's identity?

> People who believe sex and gender are the same and trans is a mental illness can be made subject to harassment by people who argue against them or mock them in public too.

True, but that is the paradox of tolerance. No one cares what your personal definition is if you keep it to yourself. Those people will only get met with intolerance when they voice their own intolerance.

Haha here we go with the attempted gotchas again. Of course I'm Hitler, right? Not going to work, sorry.

No, I would not call any kind of speaking being tolerant, because that's not what tolerance means. You seem to be struggling badly with this simple concept, or at least pretending to be. It could be intolerant, if you were calling for some action against a person.

Tolerance does not mean anybody's ideas or opinions or beliefs are sacred and protected from disagreement or mockery. It's almost implied in the word really, I don't see why this is such a struggle - tolerance [for opinions I don't agree with].

> True, but that is the paradox of tolerance.

Yes, tolerance is not all roses.

> No one cares what your personal definition is if you keep it to yourself. Those people will only get met with intolerance when they voice their own intolerance.

That's still not what intolerance means, but sure censoring or banning or threatening people who voice opinions you disagree with is an alternative to tolerance, which you seemed to be talking about in the original comment I replied to. It goes both ways, right?

If speech is not intolerant that does not mean it's tolerant. It's not one or the other, and they are entirely independent concepts.

> Does that mean someone can be an open bigot and still be considered tolerant if they don't act on that bigotry or incite anyone else to act on it?\

It's possible they could be that and still be tolerant of other people voicing different opinions. It does get pretty complicated with what exactly constitutes bigotry, and where the line is from robust opinions and disagreements to assault, harrassment, intimidation, etc.

Let's take the Clintons and Obamas for example -- they are homophobic bigots who disagreed with the rights of gay people to get married and campaigned on hateful platforms of marriage being between a man and a woman, and yet they (as far as I know) did not censor or attack or intimidate those who disagreed with them on that issue, so we could say they were tolerant of different opinions despite their bigotry. Did they attract hateful supporters emboldened by their speech? Perhaps. Were their voters and supporters complicit in resulting discrimination and attacks on LGBTQI+ peoples? Maybe. It's a pretty tough problem though isn't it. Should they have been silenced, barred from office, imprisoned for what they said? No I don't think so.

I don't pretend there is a simple formula for it that everybody can follow without disagreement. There are no alternatives where that is the case though, except for the old "everybody who disagrees with sig will be punished" dictatorship.

Is there any objective evidence that censorship and intolerance would have better outcomes?

Well I guess that is the heart of our disagreement. The prefix in- means not. Intolerant literally means not tolerant. Not intolerant speech is by definition tolerant speech.

That is absolutely not the heart of the disagreement, just a weird definition that you're wrong about. The disagreement is fundamentally about whether tolerance for speech means allowing people you disagree with to speak.

Tolerant means you are tolerant toward others. Speaking is not itself an act of tolerance toward other people. I could make a post about Linux programming on Hacker News, that would not be tolerant toward trans people for example. It wouldn't be intolerant, it's just that it wouldn't be tolerant because I am not "tolerating" anybody when making such a post.

Or let's take another example in the strange gotcha twitter style you seem to be most comfortable communicating with: You posted an earlier comment which was "Yeah, insiders not knowing the full details of Musk's plan because Musk doesn't have a detailed plan yet seems more likely than WaPo just making some stuff up." There was nothing in that comment that showed an intolerance to Nazis attacking Jews, so you saying that you you are tolerant of Nazis attacking Jews when you made those comments, right?

There is nothing about the in- prefix of the word or anything else about it that means everything must be either tolerant or intolerant, that's ridiculous. Insoluble is the opposite of soluble, meaning it can't be dissolved. Does that mean your comment is insoluble because it is not soluble??

Intolerant: disapproving of or refusing to accept ideas or ways of behaving that are different from your own.[2]

These are the definitions from Cambridge Dictionary and show these words are direct opposites of each other. We can look at it like boolean logic.

True == !False

!True == False

NULL != True

NULL != False

NULL != !True

NULL != !False

Tolerant == Not Intolerant

Not Tolerant == Intolerant (the literal definition of the word)

NULL != Tolerant

NULL != Intolerant

NULL != Not Tolerant

NULL != Not Intolerant

The Musk example is not "not tolerant". It is NULL. It is making no comment about Nazism. The Babylon Bee article was not a NULL value because it was directly commenting on the acceptance of trans people.

[1] - https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/toler...

[2] - https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/intol...

A possible alternative position is tolerance for others' words and definitions, and this was the mainstream progressive position up to about 10 years ago.

That is not using your creative definition of the word tolerance, but the common one and the one which was used by progressives when they advocated for that position. So there's an answer for your question I originally answered.

But I am glad you have understood that a comment is not necessarily tolerant or intolerant. That's great progress, it took a while, but I applaud the effort and persistence. Good luck with the rest of the journey.

Yes, exactly, which is why banning/suspending them is wrong. A joke can hit or land based on who is hearing it. You not liking it doesn't mean it's inherently hateful.

> You completely skipped my point. Progressives have treated this topic this way because there is no compromise position.

No, Progressives treat it this way because they are scared of their base. If you talk to many in private there are serious questions that they are too scared to raise. But I'm telling you, if they don't raise them, they could politically suffer from it.

> Trans people don't need "societal buy-in" any more than any other group.

This is just factually wrong. It requires you to allow them in women's sports despite tremendous advantages, in women/men's bathrooms (probably the lesser controversial ones,) to be legally held responsible for misgendering, to chemically/hormonally alter children, etc. That is societal buy-in. That is not the same as allowing a Jewish person to practice their Sabbath, employing a black person, or allowing a gay man to get married. I can't even think of anything remotely comparable.

> This has no relevance to the issue at hand. They weren't awarding the Cis Woman of the Year Award. They were awarding the Woman of the Year Award. Trans women should be just as eligible for that as cis women. This isn't a weightlifting competition.

It is actually very relevant and the fact that you can't see that is frustratingly hilarious. It's also funny you say it's not a weight-lifting competition, when a person born a male could theoretically enter a women's weight-lifting competition and completely dominate...and it would be unquestionably supported by some people.

This logic doesn't work for moderation. There ultimately needs to be a judge. Otherwise, "I was just joking" becomes a get out of jail free card for any Twitter moderation.

>No, Progressives treat it this way because they are scared of their base. If you talk to many in private there are serious questions that they are too scared to raise. But I'm telling you, if they don't raise them, they could politically suffer from it.

You are still skipping over my point. You are placing the blame for not compromising on progressives, so tell me what they should do. What do think is the middle ground between progressives and conservatives who think trans people are mentally ill and shouldn't be allowed to express their trans identity in public? How do you compromise with people with that view?

>This is just factually wrong. It requires you to allow them in women's sports despite tremendous advantages, in women/men's bathrooms (probably the lesser controversial ones,) to be legally held responsible for misgendering, to chemically/hormonally alter children, etc. That is societal buy-in. That is not the same as allowing a Jewish person to practice their Sabbath, employing a black person, or allowing a gay man to get married. I can't even think of anything remotely comparable.

We are not even debating any of those issues because the belief that the Babylon Bee is putting forward is so extreme as to be unwilling to concede on any of it. Levine wasn't competing in a high school girls soccer game. She wasn't trying to use a public women's room. She isn't threatening legal action based off being misgendered. She is simply doing her job the same way all her colleagues are and yet she is subject of public ridicule and death threats for simply existing.

How do you think that gets fixed? Do you think there is some negotiation to be hard in which progressives promise to give up arguing about high school sports and conservatives will stop sending death threats to any openly trans public person?

>It is actually very relevant and the fact that you can't see that is frustratingly hilarious. It's also funny you say it's not a weight-lifting competition, when a person born a male could theoretically enter a women's weight-lifting competition and completely dominate...and it would be unquestionably supported by some people.

Fine, explain the relevancy. Tell me how that USA Today article supports "the idea that a tran-woman could actually feel and experience the challenges a biological woman faces" or challenges "the fact that many base their identity on media stereotypes rather than the very diverse experiences of womanhood".

And yes, I specifically was referencing weightlifting as an issue in which nuance can exist. I was contrasting that with an issue in which no nuance can exist, the idea that sex and gender are the same and both are binary. You either believe that or you don't.

No, the conservative position is that sex is objective and factual, while gender is a subjective facet of personality that is socially constructed. The compromise position is to destigmatize gender nonconformance within the category of “man” in a way that does not set up a conflict of rights with women.

One issue with people being coerced into using wrong-sex pronouns is that it restricts discussion on this topic.

In this case, for example, if you believe that he shouldn't have been awarded a "Woman of the Year" accolade because he is really a man, but have to refer to him as "her" to be able to say this such that other people can read this - i.e. to avoid your comment being removed or your account banned - then it undermines the entire point being made.

This thoughtful essay discusses some other repercussions of being coerced to use wrong-sex pronouns: https://fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/

That's mischaracterizing what was said. Here's the actual article: https://babylonbee.com/news/the-babylon-bees-man-of-the-year...

This is ridicule, quite clearly. I won't get into the "is it or is it not a hate crime" bit, but this isn't "merely" stating anything. The term "biological sex" doesn't even appear in the article. The point the reader is supposed to take from this article is quite clearly not "mere" information about Rachel Levine's gender and/or "biological sex". It's that Rachel Levine's presented gender was very funny to the authors and that we should laugh at her for it.

> Would I want someone intentionally misgendering them just to get to them? No, I think that's cruel

Seems like you're putting an awful lot of weight on the distinction between "hate" and "cruel" to me.

What about here on HN? Do you think it's OK for users here to be "cruel" to others, or should dang ban them? Because HN bans people for being cruel, probably every day. Why is Twitter different?

I think it's clear, and that everyone would agree, that if you showed up here on HN making fun of another commenter for their gender in exactly the way that the Bee did, using exactly the same words, that you'd be banned. And we'd all agree that you should be banned.

I think the logical trap that the "free speech" folks are falling into here is that this doesn't "feel" targetted in the same way. It's a "media organization" making fun of a "public figure" and neither the Bee nor Levine are part of "your community". So Twitter banning them doesn't feel like community enforcement of norms, it feels political. And since the Bee is on "your side" you feel like they must have been wronged.

So maybe you should be constructing arguments around whether or not Twitter consitutes a "community" with "norms"? Maybe it doesn't, I'm willing to hear arguments. But the idea that the article wasn't hateful jut doesn't fly as I see it. It was awful, and the only way to see otherwise is to get into a headspace where Levine isn't part of "your community" and thus her feelings don't matter.

So singling out e.g. cruelty specifically about trans people's gender presentation seems targeted and political, because it's completely commonplace to say cruel things about someone if they made bad art, or if they disagree with you about some political policies, and rarely do people get banned from anything about it.

The Bee went way out on a limb with that article as I see it. And they got banned. Certainly other similar accounts (the Onion, say) aren't nearly as hateful.

> What's the difference between Donald Trump and a worm? One of them is a slimy, loathsome creature incapable of complex thought; the other one actually shows up when it rains.

I'm claiming that most people would think that it's totally okay to say that about Donald Trump in public, even though it's an absurdly mean thing to say. (I am sure I could find similar jokes about Joe Biden, too.) I don't think that this would be deleted from Twitter if people reported it. But I also don't think it's really much different from what the Bee wrote. I think people would treat the Bee's article as different mainly if they think that being trans is a special category that is taboo to be cruel about.

From my perspective it's OK to criticize Trump (or Biden) for their policies and conduct, but I don't think people should fat-shame Trump, for example, or make fun of Biden's occasional stutter.

The issue isn't that people are being mean, it's that they're trying to ostracize people for aspects of their being that are out of their control. That's why, generally, trying to cast someone out for being of a certain race, gender, sexual orientation are considered unacceptable, but criticizing their political opinions or corrupt or otherwise slimy behavior are fair game.

Can this really be considered a core identity though? When a man such as Levine assumes an identity of a woman, is this not a form of identity fraud?

https://youtu.be/6Avcp-e4bOs

Also their discussion on the Forstater case is out of date; that original judgement they cite was overturned on appeal, and the subsequent employment tribunal found that Forstater had indeed been discriminated against for her gender critical beliefs.

Regarding whether Levine is a woman or "man who wishes he's a woman", the question feels like crawling way way into someone else's head to tell them they're wrong about how they feel about something? If you told me you disliked a certain food, I dunno, say, broccoli, I think a reasonable response would be for me to say, "Weird. I really like it." An unreasonable response might be, "Do you really dislike broccoli, or are you just a broccoli lover who's being difficult and seeking attention?" The answer to that question, if the question even makes sense, doesn't have any impact on me whatsoever.

To my eyes, the core of modern-day conservatism is being bothered by the existence of the type of people I don't like. See, for example, the governor of Florida being bothered by immigrants to the point where he felt the need to go four states away just to find some to be bothered by.

I think a lot of people bothered by trans women are having the same sorts of feelings, and I can't help but notice that in almost all cases, the trans women who bother them are people who have undergone either incomplete or otherwise unconvincing transitions, or, let's be honest, people who through no fault of their own happen to be ugly. I have never once seen people expressing these opinions about beautiful trans people, which strengthens my conviction that what it's really all about is "I just don't like that type of person". Which, I'd like to add, is an opinion or preference in itself and maybe even can't be helped and so who cares, but it feels needlessly cruel to express it to the people you feel that way about (imagine two people getting onto an elevator with you, and one of them sizes you up and says to the other, "I just don't like the look of this person"). And it becomes actually dangerous when they have a large audience prone to violence, and the person they're expressing their distaste for is someone who is already an outcast not because of their behavior but because they happen to not like broccoli, and it sometimes happens that people like them are literally murdered for it.

In any case, I'm not here to try to prove you wrong; just expressing my view because you asked. I'll also add that I think one of the problems we have on the left is the idea that if you're wrong about some issue it means you're evil, and I try to be wary of that, and I thought the video did a good job of navigating its argument without wallowing in that sort of spite. I like to imagine we're both here trying to figure stuff out in good faith.

Levine thinks it is. Some of us agree. What's the origin of the term "core identity" in your eyes, and in which bodies has our civilization invested the authority to regulate them? It sounds from your invocation of "fraud" like you think this should be a legal issue?

I mean, sorry, but this is an open and shut libertarian argument. It's no one else's business, especially the government's, to decide who you are. Period. If being a woman or a man (by whatever standards you want to use) isn't hurting anyone, and it clearly isn't, then our job is just to shut up about it.

I mean, seriously: there are people walking around all over the place with Y chromosomes. I have one too. We're everywehre! If my Y isn't hurting you now, how could that possibly change if I put a skirt on it?

OK, so that gets directly to my point. You have a community. It has norms. You presumably police it according to those norms. Some things are OK, some aren't. I'm not going to judge it, because it's not my community (though I dearly hope you aren't trafficking in the kind of hate the Bee did).

But Twitter is a community too, and it has different rules.

As for the joke you found. Y'know what, I think that's pretty borderline. I can see some forums (here, for example) finding that banworthy, and I wouldn't be shocked if Twitter did too. But it's also a rando comment with sub-1000 engagement numbers. If this was horrifically offensive to Trump supports, not many of them seem to have been complaining about it. The Babylon Bee had many millions of followers and this was a very controversial article.

It's like comparing someone being banned from your school chess club for being mean vs banning someone from the entire school district for being mean. It's not comparable. Twitter and Facebook are massive public forums, to the point where they are nearly public utilities that are privately owned.

An example: you would have your post removed if you posted that topless Elon photo with his weird body structure and made a comment about it, but on Twitter/Facebook that flies...because they aren't niche forums.

If I walked around the office calling my male co-worker by some random female name as a form of ridicule I'd end up on those cheesy videos they make you watch for sexual harassment training.

That's not what trust is supposed to mean between friends.

If someone stabs a friend they can't claim that since it's between friends, it's ok.

This is how you know laws such as what you're discussing are ridiculous.

Does it make you an asshole to crack a rude gay joke in front of someone who is gay? yes. Should it be criminal? absolutely not.

I don't see what's wrong with them. Dealing with this crap is part of being a public figure.

Left wing media consistently make fun of religious conservatives and it's all cool and dandy (I find it pretty fun too).

I understand transgender people are mentally ill [1] and are at a high risk of suicide, but I still don't think it's a good idea to silence everyone else not to hurt their feelings.

Individuals will never become strong if you just remove all the obstacles from their life.

[1] Even if they're not categorised as such anymore for political reasons, gender dysphoria is a close relative of body integrity dysphoria - people who believe they should be amputees - which is a mental disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_integrity_dysphoria

you mean like the then current president John f Kennedy?

That would be a more appropriate analogy to what this official is doing.

I say give users the moderation power and let aggregate voting dictate content that remains visible.

No one wants public control of democracy though. What these guys want is a business friendly soapbox.

The question is how much a public forum should allow or not, especially one that has advertisers but is also an important forum for our democracy. That's very important and just saying everything under the sun is hate speech is not a good debate starter, especially when it's unevenly applied, and the rules are written by one viewpoint.

I think the "downvote" system which does eventually hide comments (until you request them) is a feature that already exists in beta. I think that's better than the "shadow banning" and suspensions in some instances. Obviously, you still can't tolerate some things, such as calls for violence, rioting, etc. Moderation is very difficult, but I err on the side of more openness than locking things down and stifling speech and debate.

I don’t think I’ve seen anyone say that sex is a social construct. Gender yes. And that gender and sex are orthogonal. And that gender is a spectrum but sex in humans is binary.

Maybe I missed the evolution of the conversation but I don’t think I’ve seen any volume of argument that sex is a social construct. I’m open to be convinced.

When I was younger "gender is a social construct" mostly meant that if you were a man you were allowed to enjoy feminine things and if you were a woman, you could be a tomboy, etc. It also applied to trans individuals. However, that has shifted heavily over the last few years to be something very different and has gone so far as to go fully to the extent that sex (not gender) at birth is up for debate (even outside of Turner Syndrome or Intersex births.)

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/#SexGenDi...

(I linked straight to the section on sex as a social construct, but the whole article is worth a read.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/10/19/levine-tran...

If WaPo can bring out “random bureaucrats” to public attention for sole reason of being trans, why can’t Bee do the same?

For instance I absolutely wouldn't be using NH if it wasn't moderated in a way I happen to like. There are the various chan-derived boards and such, but I don't see any value in even finding out which still exist, because it's just not worth it my time to wade through mountains of garbage.

The real problem, however, is that you don't need to dig very far to see people engage in all sorts of behaviour that's not exactly in accordance with the Twitter rules, ranging from stuff like "just fucking deport the Christians already!!" to "would be a real shame if their face got smashed in with a brick wink wink" and that ... doesn't get moderated. I've reported a bunch of posts like that: always "no action needed, doesn't violate our community terms".

I think a lot of people would have significantly less trouble with Babylon Bee's ban if Twitter didn't let the platform be such a quagmire of nastiness, and then occasionally cherry-pick an example.

What you call a "harassment campaign" happens constantly on Twitter, driven by Twitter's own site and algorithms. Twitter frequently has a "main character" of the day, driven by the "What's Trending" sidebar on the home page, as well as quote Tweets by people with thousands or millions of followers that encourages and incentivizes the dragging of people who have little power. If this is a bannable offense, Twitter should ban itself.

Why does that matter?

>has led to her getting death threats

OK, punish the people who did the illegal thing. Imagine having personal responsibility!

>Being a satire site doesn't mean we can laugh off all their behavior as a joke

Yes, yes that's exactly what it means.

>Their behavior was a part of a harassment campaign against someone who is largely a private citizen in this instance

No, one article is not a harassment campaign.

They didn’t even make a joke. They just called trans woman a man. It was hate speech, pure and simple.

I am very afraid for the future of twitter now. Hate speech is going to run rampant on that platform now.

It’s not a crime nor hate speech to acknowledge someone’s biological sex. That’s what we do in sports and when we select partners for example. Most, if not all heterosexual men would not consider a “trans woman” to be an actual woman. Our way of selecting partners is proof of that. To punish a natural, and biologically based viewpoint that most of humanity hold and follow is tyrannical and unsustainable.

Sex is an emergent property of multiple genetic networks. This doesn't mean that it doesn't exist or that it is not bi-modal, but it is far from simple.

https://www.nature.com/articles/518288a

The fact that we don't go around performing genetic testing on people before we interact with them also raises questions about whether sex itself matters, or whether there must be different definitions for sexed categories dependent on policy purpose. (e.g. based on genitals when the concern is sexual violence; based on fertility for the purposes of reproductive medicine; based on gender performance; based on hormone levels, etc.)

I will immediately change my mind and recant my views — here and now! — if someone provides:

- A specific definition of what “gender” is, if not a synonym for “sex”

- Non-tautological definitions of “man” and “woman” that are consistent with your definition of “gender”

The fact that some women don't want to stay home and some men do doesn't mean it's a social construct. Many biologically-rooted differences between men and women are expressed in the population as overlapping but not coextensive normal distributions. E.g. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00421-006-0351-1

Same for a lot of what trans activists want to pass as facts.

Tolerance and fighting discrimination is important but bullying people into a set of beliefs is doomed to fail, except on Twitter until today ;)

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re looking for, but this seems like a non-attainable standard to me. Language is _so_ fuzzy. Do many nouns have ‘non-tautological’ definitions? Like, could you define ‘house’ or ‘boat’ ‘non-tautologically’?

The entire concept of "treating me as a {man,woman} and also agree to my particular ideas about sex and gender or otherwise you're a hateful bigot!" is quite remarkable. It's like "you must agree with my preferred theory about the origins of homosexuality or else you're homophobic!"

See https://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/84795/ (copy available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZHkN2EYkl0v1oxhbd-5mnp9Fn1V...) for a discussion of the different concepts and the resulting confusion from a so-called gender critical perspective.

The distinction between sex and gender leads to interesting problems of performing gender and what it means for gender (and sex) to be socially constructed. And if both are socially constructed can the divide be upheld without requiring counter-intuitive definitions?

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/#SexGenDi...

The haziness of the term "woman" seems to be a popular target for mockery among conservatives. And phrased as an ontological question ("what is a woman?") it is unsurprisingly baffling to many people who haven't kept up with feminism and who are not personally affected by the outcome of this philosophical debate. Equally unsurprising then for these people to consider "The Left" to be out of touch.

Expressing exasperation at our collective failure to wrap our brains around these concepts is an understandable reaction from someone well-read, but it does nothing to change minds.

This perfectly encapsulates the problem. So-called 'hate speech' is in the eye of the beholder and incredibly, just incredibly subjective.

Business-as-usual over at the Bee, then :-) It’s been suggested that conservatives just get too mad about things to be able to deliver a joke

There’s a lot of hate in the history books, 99% of it predating the internet.

Are those that engage in hate online more or less likely to act on it than those who engage in person? Are these interactions compelling them to use their voice off-line?

Actually I guess that's consistent, if you think men are lesser beings who deserve to be killed, then it makes sense you would also think that the worst possible thing you can do to a woman is call them a man.

"Trans rights are human rights!"

Okay, great! And then on the next wall, in the same colour so presumably by the same people:

"Kill all men!"

> "And what I'm doing, I'm calling out the Jewish community as a whole to say. People say to me, all, we grew up on Ye. Talk to your brother, ask him why is Ye upset? Everybody, all they [the Jewish Community] want to do is silence and shoot the messenger."

That's plainly antisemitism.

> And what I'm doing, I'm calling out the Jewish community as a whole ...

Imagine calling out an entire ethnicity for your woes, and being surprised that people find that offensive.

Especially when it seems like alot of the time people are called racist or sexist for sharing a viewpoint that in their view is accurate.

For example, whenever I run into drivers that don’t react to a light change I have noticed it tends to be a woman with a phone in her hand.

I’m sure someone would take issue with my experience listed above, but I feel like I should have the right to make such a comment without backlash, because in my experience that observation holds true.

My point is I feel like context and history are important.

What he said represents quite common black nationalist views and were espoused by most Black Power activists in the 60s. Those views are still highly relevant in the black community today, due to things like this[0], promoted by popular thinkers like Prof. James Small. Yes, they can be hurtful, but I believe the proper response is to make the sports and music contracts transparent and re-do them so they don't screw over black talent, as Kanye says, to address the underlying distrust, and rebuild proper ties between the Jewish and Black communities. Conflict is sometimes healthier when it's out in the open and gets addressed, rather than repressed and buried. There's enormous dangers in following the "destroy Kanye" route.

There's a huge difference to me between people with zero grievances (except being incels) turning to hate, versus being with huge legitimate historical and current grievances where I just disagree with how they express it. I still view it as my (and our) duty to address those grievances; we can address the distrust between communities afterwards once they're solved.

[0]: https://www.972mag.com/%E2%80%9C2pac-killed-by-jewish-gangst...

Why would you assume there's anything wrong with the contracts? He has the burden of proof and he hasn't shown it. Kanye believes he is being victimized by everyone. It's typical narcissist behavior. When someone says that everyone is an asshole, then they're probably the asshole.

Kanye made specific points that the contracts are unfair, with 'talent' not being paid fairly, and having their creative freedom restricted. He also argues that control over distribution is essential, and black people are underrepresented both as record label owners, and as distributors, therefore leading to a huge power imbalance. All those facts are true without needing to go into the 'Jewish' stuff.

People who focus on that controversy are helping these scum-of-the-earth industries survive for longer than they should. Artists should own their output. They need managers and agents, but those should be employees and contractors, not "owners".

I personally don't care to psychoanalyze Kanye, it's none of my business and none of yours. He has objectively been victimized, and became successful in spite of it. I empathize with him and hope what he points out will be resolved.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3gmjw/bad-deals-are-baked-i...

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-55366694

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/music-industry...

He hasn't met the burden of proof for this claim.

You want him to publish his contract? Ooops, he tried that. It showed that Kanye's deal is "standard" for the industry, which doesn't mean it's in any way fair.[0] He's also explicitly said he's doing this for black artists in general, not just himself.

You want him to try to change his contracts privately? Oops, he tried that; his label has deep pockets and just settled privately rather than changing anything.

Many others have tried and they just get buried in lawsuits, sometimes blackmailed (their next releases won't get promoted),[1] and even if they get out, their past albums are still owned by others.

Burden of proof is for exceptional claims. In an industry where egregiously unfair contracts are the norm, the exceptional claim is that Kanye's contracts are fair.

[0]: https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/kanye-west-record-...

[1]: https://www.okayplayer.com/music/rappers-bad-contracts.html

This reads not like you disagree with whether or not its antisemitic, but rather that you're justifying tolerance of some antisemitism on the basis of it being a common black nationalist view.

Which I don't find acceptable. I won't tolerate ethnic or racial prejudice.

> I still view it as my (and our) duty to address those grievances; we can address the distrust between communities afterwards once they're solved.

That's entirely possible without also tolerating hatred.

We can say both that Ye is wrong to be antisemitic _and_ agree that the music industry is exploitative.

From what I can see, most people who support Kanye are uncomfortable with the way he said it, but support his crusade against labels and distributors. Most (not all) of the people who oppose Kanye don't give a shit about labels or distributors beyond lip service, and are themselves exploitative (like Ari Emmanuel, who IMO contributed more to antisemitism than Kanye ever could). These people are not motivated by principles of tolerance, they're just trying to bury the issue. It's easy for me to choose where to stand, and I'm perfectly comfortable with my choice.

> We can say both that Ye is wrong to be antisemitic _and_ agree that the music industry is exploitative.

I say both too. But on the chessboard, sometimes you need to move pieces you don't want to. Rhetoric which is already extremely widespread doesn't bother me much; systematic and institutional discrimination against some of the people I admire most, bothers me highly. Fixing those industries is hard enough, and I don't want to make it any harder for him by joining the mob. I'll take issue with his comments once his fight is won.

He also seems to basically cites a lot of things that Black Israelites and Farrakhan say/believe, who are openly anti-Semitic.

I don't know how they don't all get banned, but they somehow have a very vibrant community.

The level of antisemitism that Kanye (no, I will not call him "Ye") posted is not beyond the pale for people in black Twitter. I'm not sure he ever expected it to go this viral or get this much backlash.

Soleimani. He helped the U.S. fight the Taliban. The U.S. later killed him in "self-defense" (no, really, that's what the U.S. Ambassador to the UN said). Scholars and the UN said the assassination was illegal. Do people who cheered his death deserve a ban?

That's not a trick question or whataboutism. At an international scale, principles have to be rigorously and fairly applied.

Asking honestly, why?

I am genuinely curious to understand the reasoning behind this line of thinking.

I think its fair to say the committee will end up being a scapegoat - but to be charitable to the idea in general its pretty clear that not 100% or even 75% of the population thinks that Babylon Bee should be banned. If you have a system where one voice on the committee can ban someone then most liberal comedians would be banned for played up reasons, too.

Say you have a committee of 9 people? What's your cut-off? There isn't a clear answer - especially as norms change a bit and the committee members change.

It’s his company and he can do what he wants with it. Any rules can be changed at any time without recourse.

I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Well, it might be bad for Twitter the service, but as far as legal governance, it’s the way it works.

But any type of council should be considered advisory at best.

Of course, a corollary is that they should be able to filter content on a per country basis because, obviously, what's legal differs from country to country, but I think there is no escap8ng that for any platforms that claims to be global.

Frog's Law of Social Media: free speech or advertising revenue - choose one.

It's shocking that HN commenters could be so toxic, indeed.

Any content moderation needs to extend beyond "Legal? (Y/N)" unless your main goal is to drive any real community away.

It's a big regression from the heights of the enlightenment, or just the recent past, in my opinion.

Or r/conservative banning people who have posted on any one of a number of other subreddits, sometimes before they've even posted in r/conservative?

Edit:

Not only that but also transparently disingenuous. I don't know r/conservative (my comments are not about liberal vs conservative and I find odd that you and others immediately frame them that way) but a dedicated 'conservative' subreddit is obviously not the same as Twitter, which, again as become the de facto standard for most political and news communication.

What I'm asking you is if you think that those forums should also be required to say "Legal (Y/N)?" and if not, why not?

I think most reasonable people would reject the assertion that twitter is the de facto standard. It isn't even in the top 10 for social media platforms by active monthly users, and usage and value of a platform varies way too much depending on age and gender. While twitter is possibly the de facto standard for gen-x + millennials and certain career groups such as politicians and journalists, it certainly won't be for 18-25 year olds. Facebook still has nearly 10x the monthly active users of twitter, in fact Twitter barely beats out Quora.

Ignoring the argument about it being the de facto standard, Twitter is a business. I expect that Elon would like to make money off of his $44B investment. In the battle between the free market and free speech, the free market will almost always win. If twitter goes the extreme free speech route, users who are often targeted by loud jerks, trolls and harassers will leave the platform. It will create bad press both in the form of people complaining about harassment as well as other businesses pulling ads where their customers or potential customers were harassed.

I notice you didn't mention Parler, though. That one's a bit harder to dance around. The "Premier Global Free Speech App". Surely that should allow all legal speech, right?

This would obviously fall well within the protections of free speech for many countries, certainly those of the U.S. And if you really wanted to you can go much nastier than that.

But I don't think it should be allowed here, or even on Twitter. Even using as an example here already feels iffy, but I feel adding it makes the point clearer.

If Twitter is the de facto standard and akin to an utility why should they make decisions on what's allowed beyond lawfulness?

My point is that allowing "anything that's within the law" will lead to some pretty unpleasant stuff.

> If Twitter is the de facto standard and akin to an utility why should they make decisions on what's allowed beyond lawfulness?

I don't think Twitter is the "de-facto standard" or akin to an utility, and the problem is that by allowing such content you would drive away a lot of people who would rather not be buried with insults and nastiness every time they post something.

There are loads of places where speech is regulated in some way, and you can't just go off on a expletive-laden rant at any moment. If I go to a Biden or Trump Q&A townhall meeting and start shouting abuse at him I will be removed as well.

In addition, whether a certain moderation approach would "drive away people" is a strawman. This is not the question.

That was not my intention; I'm genuinely trying to engage constructively and in good faith.

You stated that "anything that's within the law should be allowed", and I'm trying to examine what that would mean and what effects it would have. With an extreme example, yes, but that is the sort of stuff that would be allowed under your proposed policy. Now, if you think that's an acceptable trade-off: fair enough, I can't argue with that. But I don't think it can merely be brushed aside with "that's extreme", because in my experience things like that will be posted, usually by a small (but very active) group of people.

> In addition, whether a certain moderation approach would "drive away people" is a strawman. This is not the question.

The question is what effect this policy would have. This is, in my opinion, one of them.

In the crazy clown world in which we live, Twitter could theoretically kick off all the advertisers and become Elon Musk's self-promotion platform (which it already is), but I doubt the other investors would go along with this.

So in this case, free speech and the free market are at odds.

Hmmm, if I had a laundry detergent company I'd totally support tailored ads for Pornhub. "Forgot to take your dress off before the bukkake scene? Don't worry! DirtBlaster Detergent can handle even the crustiest of stains!"

You've actually got me thinking about the viability of this across a spectrum of common consumer products.....

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/technology/kanye-ye-twitt...

"No offensive t-shirts" is not the same thing as being banned lol

Anybody who comes by with a different take immediately loses interest in the group and so there’s a self-perpetuating system that makes the group more and more fanatical about right-think and wrong-think.

On Twitter, deleting tweets for wrong-think has largely the same chilling effect and self-perpetuating descent into an echo chamber.

When did this happen? Are you referring to tweets that promote anti-semetism like Ye's? Or to tweets advocating for political violence, like Trump's?

But if someone is arguing that it was a ban, and that it shows Musk unbanned them and is lying, then that's wrong. I was addressing that argument.

...or an employee who felt unshackled from the previous management and knew they would have air-support by the time anyone else realized what had happened.

Im not a elon fan. At all. but the knee jerk reaction he gets at this point is kind of deserved… however you’re better off not falling into that trap.

Why? He's lied about plenty of things, including on Twitter. What makes this particular statement inherently immune or unlikely to be a lie?

They were in Twitter jail (or whatever the term is). The account is there but they couldn’t publish new tweets.

That’s the change to watch for.

He could unban Trump, say he kept his promise, but keep the account locked so that Trump couldn’t actually tweet.

As a hypothetical example.

So, simply shadow ban them, then?

Twitter is different (although perhaps more different than it needs to be). Seeing as you ask, here is how to handle content deletion on Twitter without infantilizing users.

Don't ask a user to "delete" a tweet – something which has no effect on that tweet's visibility anyway. Just hide it and tell him why. If the user chooses to appeal, that appeal can go forward without restricting the use of the account. Hand out time-outs sparingly. They should be more of a final warning than a routine measure. If it's necessary to give a time-out, start the clock immediately, not when the user takes some action.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586073042534297601

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586073042534297601

> restore sanity to science and biology based cultural agreement

What does this mean, like scientific studies on how to get people to agree?

> "The Babylon Bee was tossed in Twitter jail 7 months ago for a joke that referred to an adult male as a man. We could have restored our account at any time by deleting the tweet, but we refused. It was the right call. Never censor yourself, and never apologize for speaking truth."

[0]: https://twitter.com/SethDillon/status/1585633678977544192?s=...

What's wrong with unbanning a satirical account?

It's either going to be a double standard or not. I moderated a busy gaming site for years. Users have nothing to do but re-post what got someone else banned and then complain things aren't consistent.

I would find the idea that a politician gets to say things, but I don't completely absurd.

The difference now is that Elon went from being one of the loudest members of the peanut gallery to the guy running the show.

https://m.jeuxvideo.com/forums/0-51-0-1-0-1-0-blabla-18-25-a...

Every scenario you can imagine happens.

That’s been Twitter’s official policy since they got criticized a lot for giving Trump passes on generally applicable rules in the runup to and just after thrbe 2016 election: they changed the rules so governments and sufficiently prominent public figures have wider latitude.

Musk selectively loosening restrictions on those who already have the loosest restrictions would be... well, not at all surprising.

If the contents of a law violates Twitter's TOS, can we not disseminate it on Twitter?

Earlier this year he seemed pretty set on the idea of allowing whatever's legal, making Twitter all about free speech. But now it'll just get some minor changes? If it's true, why the change of heart?

He has to deal with actual issues if he's bought Twitter, I agree, but I don't know if the financial incentive is so key, even with borrowed money.

Even if he fired everyone, and got free hosting, it would take nearly a decade to get that back. But that's obviously not realistic.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musks-twitter-takeover-see...

Take your originally intended actions and obscure responsibility for them until risks of accountability are sufficiently mitigated?

Is there a list of how many different institutions and investors have money in Twitter now? Because I remember Musk taking in a lot of money for this takeover. And those people probably had the smarts to give them an exit in case Musk decided to release the hounds.

I don't see anything in his behaviour which would justify your "optimistic" outlook. Sure it won't degenerate in one of those gutter platforms right away but I doubt he'll be able to maintain an acceptable level as long as he's directly involved. He just doesn't make the the impression of an adult person.

imho this may end up being really good for the rest of the internet if it drives away interesting and important people to other platforms.

> scapegoat

Now it's operation "get money back". He'll probably hold it for 5-10 years until tech stocks recover then IPO to try to foist it on his gullible fanboys. Until then he just needs to not scare off advertisers and cut costs enough to afford his debt repayments.

He signed a very clear contract to buy Twitter, he meant to do this.

He started to try and reneg when stocks dropped and his financing was looking extremely shaky.

No, obviously not. Ramping up his car company from roughly nothing to major global presence, kickstarting the world on electric traffic, and setting up private space rocketeering on the side. Oh, and becoming the supposedly richest person on the planet in he process. How insufferably childish of him.

As far as I remember it's: being born rich, getting lucky on one investment and than chewing up ideas of other people and having them sweat his bullshit out to keep their jobs sounds more like the true history here. Didn't get much better in the recent years.

I mean Trump made it to the president of the US of A and I wouldn't consider him an adult person either. History looks pretty similar. Just a different time with the appropriate difference in methods.

Sums it up in the best possible way.

- Elon Musk

I actually think the opposite is going to happen. He's already said he wants Twitter to be the most prolific site for advertisers saying that he thinks advertising can "delight, entertain, and inform you."

If he introduces a subscription model TikTok will pull ahead and take over the entire social media space.

https://www.pymnts.com/news/investment-tracker/2022/musks-pi...

On the other hand YouTube shorts can already technically do most things TikTok can, and handles copyright okay (from the pov of the big copyright holders) and has licenses for a lot of music and stuff and created an ad model making it much more interesting for people to create shorts then TikToks and allows using shorts as a way to get someone hooked for longer videos. And there are GeoPolitical reasons why regulators might want to push YouTube over TikTok e.g. by how they create regulations.

So there is a realistic chance that in the next 1 or two years YouTube Shorts will eat up TikTok due to better quality Shorts for the user and better monetization/money making chances for the creators.

That’s why I said there’s a lot they have to work out. They don’t want to fall into a model like Instagram where the bulk of ad revenues go to the largest influencers. But I would not be surprised to see them rework their payout scheme to something more predictable like YouTubes. The “big pot of money, split evenly” was a simple way to start but now is getting stretched.

One thing I find interesting about TikTok is they have one of the best, completely in App, ways of targeting users. The short format videos allows them to assemble a ton of data points very quickly on user interests and more and more product and recommendation searches are being done on their platform.

I could be wrong but I don’t see YouTube shorts catching up anytime soon TikTok has too much of the social Zeitgest going their way and it’s far easier for new creators to get noticed there as well.

No it won't. A lot of people simply aren't interested in short form video.

I think there will be another app that is half way between Twitter and LinkedIn.

TikTok is not taking over the entire social media space any time soon.

Isn't this his duty to shareholders as long as Twitter is (still) a publicly traded company?

Crappy link but it tells you the basics: https://www.zeni.ai/blog/debt-financing-for-startups

The 13 billion in loans are secured not complete junk.

Of course if cash flows become too low to service the debt (I.e. default), musk can always inject[1] more capital and keep the debt serviced he can afford to do that by leveraging (or selling)TSLA and SpaceX stock easily or use other financing options

(1) he could also buy the debt directly himself without changing capital structure, or refinance it by lending the company money personally

or have one of his other companies lend Twitter money,

he did this between spaceX and Tesla once , it is more difficult with TSLA today- he will get sued . However he controls the board and has the power. He did force TSLA by solarCity and won the lawsuit as well so not implausible.

Also he raised equity investment commitments from a16z , Sequoia , Ellison and few others as well who likely come in as new investors.[1]

So he still has a few shareholders but those who are accredited and have much higher risk appetite and long term view unlike not qtr to qtr of typical public companies so twitter wont be buffeted with market forces like FB is now when trying something radical.

[1] while some of 7B equity investment secured backed out since April , few publicly affirmed their intent to participate recently, no one knows how much was still on table and how much musk took.

I predict the best case scenario is that he does no worse.

"He knew the valuation was too high" is really not an accurate way to think about it. It makes it sound like he successfully proved those claims, when in fact he failed to present compelling enough evidence in court when he tried to use legal action to back out.

We know this because he decided not to go to court to prove that Twitter had hidden information.

Twitter has 7,500 employees. It doesn't take that many to run a Twitter. Most Twitter employees I know use their positions to work on things weakly aligned with the success of Twitter, such as random political or nerdy projects. That's a small sample set, but the things I hear raise my eyebrows.

If Twitter were private, and management aligned to shareholder value, the value could increase by a lot. I'm not sure if Musk can do that, or if it isn't overvalued in the first place, but that's my opinion on Twitter management from where I sit.

It's not uncommon for public companies, especially older ones, by the way. In many cases, almost every employee, right up through the CEO, is there to maximize their income, to maximize their future career prospects, and to have fun. That doesn't always align well with shareholder value.

either elon musk is the business genius a lot of people think he is (I think he is this) and he turns Twitter around and it's awesome.

else twitter fails and doesnt exist. net positive for the world and net negative for Elon, also good for humanity .

I wouldn't be so quick to assume that Musk's ~15 recent years of experiences with mechanical/aerospace/production-engineering businesses is gonna translate perfectly to whatever Twitter is supposed to be.

Maybe being forced to buy it (it's probably already halved in value at least) will make him think twice before gobbing off in future though.

It is ironic and laughable that Elons post to advertisers is done with screenshots of text. After 20+ years of mainstream networked computing this is what passes as a state of art platform and user experience to communicate to n audience.

The bulk of the problems Twitter faces today are amplified and directly inflicted by the essential design of the product.

Tl/Dr; nothing of value was lost.

Technological progress doesn't mean making user-hostile design. If users like a format or medium, you can offer it to them even if your platform is capable of greater things.

The fact you defend it as more readable than actual twitter design says a lot

In fact, if Twitter did want to improve the user experience, automatic OCR of such text and generation of the corresponding alt tag would be a practical improvement. In fact, general recognition of the content of an image and auto generation of an ALT tag would be a significant improvement.

... But that require them to do actual machine learning as opposed to being the internet's bathroom stall wall.

The fact they haven't done this just shows how inept their employees are.

Screenshots of text are popular because people don't seem to be able to copy and save data anymore. Social media apps don't let users download pictures anymore. I can only share intra-platform links to content. The Instagram app won't even let me select text. People get around this insanity by screenshotting the whole screen and saving a poor quality version of the data in image form. This is actually a lossy format conversion and will happen multiple times as people encounter resistance when they try to copy, save and share. It's not just images of text, it's screenshots of screenshots of of screenshots of text.

This is what computing has degenerated to. People can't do basic actions like copying and downloading anymore so they just use screen shots and screen recorders to get around software limitations. I've seen so many videos that end with the user manipulating the interface to stop the recorder. And then there's the people reduced to taking pictures of another screen with their phone cameras.

These aren't problems with screenshots of text (although others have done a pretty good job in listing those) or even problems with computing. These are problems with shitty social media platforms that want to take control from their users, and with the users who accept those kinds of limitations. Stop using bad user-hostile platforms and they'll either improve to win back users or they'll become obsolete and die as people flock to better alternatives.

There's no point in migrating to some perfect encrypted federated free software platform and being alone because everyone I know is still using Instagram.

If everyone went by that logic no one could ever stop using the social media sites they are using today. If you've found a good platform your best bet is to get people to use it in addition to the bad ones they use now and as more people join and use the better platform people could find themselves using the old ones less frequently. By enjoying and getting used to having the benefits of the new platform they could grow increasingly frustrated by the limitations of the older ones.

As long as the perfect encrypted federated free software platform is at least as easy to join and use as the old one asking a friend to add one more app to their rotation wouldn't be putting a huge burden on them.

Yeah. Next year I'll be reading about how the camera apps are detecting copyrighted content and refusing to take pictures too.

> wish I could just go back to android

Don't count on Android. Stakeholder lock down is increasing there too. Remote attestation is already a thing, soon we won't be able to run most apps if we "tamper" with the device by owning it.

Do you have any evidence of this ? I think samsung has done something with knox, but that is the only case I know of.

Apps will insist that you run unmodified software. Bank apps will require attestation because of "fraud". WhatsApp will require attestation because of "terms of service". Streaming apps will require attestation because of "piracy". Games will require attestation because of "cheating". Every app in the Play Store will find a bullshit reason to require it and the result is we can't use their software if we own the machine, we have to let the corporation own it.

- allow clicking hyperlinks

- allow copying content to paste elsewhere

- adhere to device display preferences. you wanted dark mode? fuck you, my screenshot's black on white, dwi

- support screen readers. i loled hardcore at the other post suggesting twitter OCR them--i mean sure, as a practical matter, they should given the status quo, but YOU COULD HAVE JUST USED TEXT TO BEGIN WITH

- scale properly when zoomed in or out

- display all the text up front. virtually all of these require you click through each image because the thumbnail is cropped (if not too small to read anyway)

idk what reason you'd ever actually want to use them unless you desperately needed to show off the cool font you used. saying they're easily readable is like saying the abhorrent mandatory training videos featuring some extremely bored person reading a script over a static background for 30 minutes, with no option to speed up playback or fast-forward, are perfectly understandable. like, yeah, sure, they _are_, but also you could have provided a set of text bullet points about how not to violate USFCPA that any literate person could read in about 2 minutes and we'd all learn the same damn thing

Ok I want to copy paste one of the sentences he said to send to my friend but not the whole message. Oh wait

One of the most important things for Elon to understand is that no matter how many programmatical measures are put into place to prevent abuse, there will always eventually be a workaround for people on a very public and open site. Protecting users and their content rights should be a goal of the platform as well, too many of these social sites see copycat behavior as fair game, and they reward people who steal and hijack content, that needs to be discouraged among several other bad social media behaviors.

I really don't see a problem with having an internet scale public bathroom wall for people to scrawl all over. Sure, Twitter is mostly spam and garbage, but so what? Every comment, however useless/offensive/entertaining/banal/silly/poetic/helpful/etc that isn't breaking the law isn't really a problem and no one is forcing you to read it.

I don't have much trouble ignoring Twitter entirely most of the time and the main issues I have with it aren't even about Twitter itself but with how people try to use it for things it is poorly suited for. It's the "journalists" who copy/paste tweets then call that an article I take issue with. Twitter is absolutely no place for presidential records, and shouldn't be the only place for any kind of important or official notification, or the only way to reach a company to get customer service.

There are certainty far better platforms for blogging, but lots of people like Twitter and find it useful. I don't see why Twitter should go away.

It's like saying that if you own a Lamborghini you can be a great manager at Lada.

Yeah maybe it helps a little but the vast majority of your decisions is still going to be determined by analysis on your users, not your experience.

1. Spams and bots are rampant. Now I understand it's hard, but eliminating the obvious ones is not hard. A verified account impersonating people and selling crypto is just insane.

2. I used to ask for verification and get this. Twitter doesn't agree with verifying myself. What is this idiotic policy? I am myself.

3. People should allow to tweet as long as it's not illegal, especially from high profile accounts. Moderation might not go away, but it should be minimal.

My opinion is that, if twitter enables widespread verification where a lot more people can be verified, twitter's convo will get 10x better (e.g. now they can rank replies, people will act more reasonably).

There’s a reason the legal system said free speech is out to the point of direct imminent harm. It was the arrogance of 20 year old programmers in silicon valley who thought they could create a better legal system.

They don't mind enforcing speech laws of other countries, lowest common denominator.

No tears would be shed if they were broken up, nationalized, etc.

First, whenever it comes to "free speech" 99% of the time people make that argument they're not arguging for "all speech". They're talking about "my speech". And most of that time they really just want to utter hate speech.

Second, the idea of what's normal or acceptable is built on deeply ingrained beliefs that typically aren't rational. You see this whenever Elon talks about the "far left". This is such a laughable concept. The "far left" in American politics quite often simply means "we should let trans people exist" (eg [1]). Even suggesting things like everyone deserves access to healthcare is viewed as an extreme left position in the US.

So when Elon argues he's a centrist, the calibration is off because your choices in mainstream American politics are mostly between extreme right (often called the "alt right") being the party of Trump and the center right in the form of the Democratic Party (eg [2]). There is no "left" in American politics. The takeover of neoliberalism in the US is near-total.

As for Elon's plans for Twitter, he's put a lot of money on the line and the letter to advertisers I think gives a good signal of where this is going. I predict Elon will simply cut costs, unban a few conservatives as a token gesture and wait a couple of years to take the company public again and get out. He may as well start making a "Mission Accomplished" banner now and book the aircraft carrier. This is basically the private equity playbook.

[1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/17/elon-musk-should-apologize-f...

[2]: https://twitter.com/cnbc/status/1471615893411090433?lang=en

Wokism is culturally dominant, but widely rejected all the way from center-left to anything to the right of that.

Republicans are economically right (so not extreme right), yet have a far-right outing, as you say.

Look I’m probably somewhere between center and far left depending on your perspective and maybe that’s the point. For better or for worse(probably worse) the functioning of society is based on relative, not absolute belief.

This hasn’t been the case until now. Just as an example lot of radical leftists, BLM activists etc. have openly called for extermination of white people and contantly used racist rhetoric without any consequences. Meanwhile a lot of convervatives, libertarians etc. have been banned/suspended from Twitter due to false ”hatespeech” reporting.

No one has ever asked for ”hounds to be released”. No one sane wants Twitter to become another 8chan. What people want is the one-sided 1984 experiment to end.

Tesla is a cesspool. Look at the lawsuits about unprofessionalism in their management structure.

I don't see how he is going to magically create a better culture than what he already did inside his existing companies.

And he uses the law against people all the time to shut them up, he doesn't like free speech when it challenges him personally.

He literally just had every engineer print out the last 3 months of code lol

https://twitter.com/leahculver/status/1586145696163373056

Definitely a story to be careful on

You make it sound like this has been proven many times, examples?