from the is-there-anyone-left-at-Twitter? dept.
Australia gives Twitter legal notice to clean up online hate content:
Twitter now has 28 days to respond to the legal notice from Australia and detail what the social media website is doing to deal with online hate posted on its platform, which accounts for the most complaints over the past year. Continuing violations could lead to daily fines of up to AU$700,000 ($474,670).
The social media platform is the source of one in three complaints sent to Australia's online safety regulator, eSafety.
The number of reported online abuse on Twitter also has been climbing since Elon Musk took control of the company last October, according to eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant. She noted that the spike in complaints coincided with Twitter's move to cut its global workforce from 8,000 to 1,500, which included its trust and safety teams. The company also removed its public policy presence in Australia.
In addition, Musk announced a "general amnesty" in November, during which 62,000 banned or suspended users reportedly were reinstated to the platform, including 75 that had more than 1 million followers, said Inman Grant. She also pointed to the reinstatement of previously banned accounts that "emboldened extreme polarizers, peddlers of outrage and hate." These included neo-Nazis in Australia and overseas.
While Twitter's current terms of use and policies prohibit hateful conduct on the site, the increase in complaints to eSafety and reports of hate content that remained on the platform indicate that Twitter is unlikely to be enforcing its rules, she noted.
Citing eSafety's own research, she said almost one in five Australians had experienced some form of online hate.
"Twitter appears to have dropped the ball on tackling hate," Inman Grant said. "We need accountability from these platforms and action to protect their users. You cannot have accountability without transparency and that's what legal notices like this one [issued by eSafety] are designed to achieve."
(Score: 4, Touché) by VLM on Tuesday June 27 2023, @03:14PM (48 children)
Its part of the overall rebranding effort to "make hate great again" by redefining the word hate.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DannyB on Tuesday June 27 2023, @03:58PM (46 children)
Hate is only part of the rebranding. Promotion of misinformation under the guise of allowing both sides of the story is also part of the rebranding.
Some people believe the sun rises in the East. Other people believe the sun rises in the West. Both points of view deserve equal consideration.
Elon bought Twitter because he was upset that Twitter had to draw the line and not allow certain *ahem* people to keep violating their terms of service. Solution: take over Twitter and change the terms of service. Say it is free speech, but then silence your critics.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2023, @04:13PM (16 children)
Turnabout is fair play. Don't like being silenced? Move to the Fediverse.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday June 27 2023, @04:18PM (15 children)
I had the good
scentscentssincesense to never get on Twitter, Facebook and the like.When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2023, @05:34PM (14 children)
Same here. Nor reddit.
Sometimes even this place is toxic. No freedom of expression here unless it happens to meet the approval of the modders, and that's not freedom of expression.
(Score: 5, Informative) by gnuman on Tuesday June 27 2023, @07:23PM (13 children)
Freedom of expression is ability to say what you want. Modders simply show if your opinion has any backing or is nonsense.
Unless you've been banned here, you still have freedom of expression, by definition.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2023, @07:32PM (9 children)
You may have forgotten about the reading level threshold. Before you say "I read at -1", not everyone does. The default is 2, so downvotes do censor.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2023, @08:44PM
So your argument boils down to "Change the default, so I don't have to do it because I'm a big baby and can't understand
difficulteasy concepts".(Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Tuesday June 27 2023, @09:24PM (3 children)
They don't censor - they allow users to filter out comments that they do no wish to see on their display.
Nothing prevents anyone from stating their point of view, but I am not compelled to read it. It is my computer - I will decide what I read on it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 28 2023, @12:53AM (2 children)
No, you and others are missing the point. If you read at the default of 2, others (the downmodders) are deciding what you will read. Others are censoring some of the posts you may otherwise find interesting, and may even upvote if you could see them. Not sure why this is so hard to understand.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday June 28 2023, @01:31AM
I think the problem is that you are an idiot. If you were less so, it probably wouldn't be difficult to explain things.
What's particularly stupid about this claim is that the allegedly censored posts still show up on the webpage. It's only a click away. This is really mild as far as censorship goes. We have real problems to care about.
And we ignore the elephant in this room, namely, that it's probably an excellent outcome that your post is so "censored". I've noticed that only certain shitposters whine that their posts are getting censored by moderation. My bet that is the case here as well.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by janrinok on Wednesday June 28 2023, @09:02AM
If I am reading at 2 or 3 then that is a choice that I have made. If I want to see everything (which is often essential due to the role that I have, but I actually use two different browsers set up differently) then I can select a more appropriate level. You are, as far as I can tell, just wanting to change the default. I don't agree that it needs changing but I am happy to discuss it further.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mykl on Tuesday June 27 2023, @11:03PM (3 children)
It's important that we maintain the definition of words so that we are able to have sensible conversations using the same language. That's what the first post is getting at - by redefining "hate" to "an opinion I don't like", the woke (usually) do themselves a disservice and show that they really aren't interested in free speech or the exchange of ideas at all - they really want to shut down everyone else so that theirs is the only voice that is heard.
Same with your attempt to redefine "Censor". Modding is not censoring - it provides the reader with the opportunity to choose whether they would like to spend their time reading a comment or not. You've got the ability to stand on your soapbox in the town square here - but that does not oblige us to stop and listen to you.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 28 2023, @12:00AM (2 children)
Off to a nice start, until I got to this:
> by redefining "hate" to "an opinion I don't like", the woke (usually) do themselves a disservice...
by redefining "hate" to "an opinion I don't like", extremists of all stripes do themselves a disservice...
There, ftfy.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mykl on Wednesday June 28 2023, @01:54AM (1 child)
It's a fair point, however I feel those on the right do it in a slightly different way.
Instead of saying that a particular statement is hate speech, they'll say that the speaker "hates America" (let's face it, the vast majority of the loony right that we hear from are Americans) or "hates Democracy". You can't be censored for "hating Democracy", but you can be censored for "hate speech".
On the whole, I think you're right though - there are vanishingly few Voltaires on either side.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 28 2023, @03:51PM
Yep, they use the power of the state to throw you in jail.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2023, @07:43PM (1 child)
Look up, read, comprehend and understand the definition of "free".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 28 2023, @12:02AM
>... the definition of "free".
Free Beer, Yea!! (adding "sarc" to this for the humor impaired)
(Score: 4, Informative) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Wednesday June 28 2023, @12:23AM
https://xkcd.com/1357/ [xkcd.com]
(Score: 3, Disagree) by khallow on Tuesday June 27 2023, @06:19PM (28 children)
(Score: 2, Redundant) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 27 2023, @07:00PM (10 children)
You obviously need some reeducation. Freedom of speech means you can say anything you like, so long as I approve of whatever you have to say. Are you some kind of deviant, who wants to say things that I disapprove of? Careful how you answer that, or you'll be diagnosed as antisocial, and bundled off to a nice round rubber room. And, before you object, you do understand that crazies don't have any rights.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2023, @07:39PM (8 children)
Even if I were to acquiesce to the extreme speech restrictions some want, I'm finding you can't even anticipate the insane ways some people will extrapolate something negative from the most good and innocent of intentions and simple things said. It's getting to where it's better to just stay silent. Hmm, what does that sound like, where have we heard of that scenario,,, is it oppression? It might be, gotta consult some sociologists.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Tuesday June 27 2023, @09:28PM (7 children)
The Soviet Union had secret ballots, too. The trick was, instead of marking who you were voting *for*, you struck out anybody you voted against. So all you had to do to vote for the Party-endorsed candidate was pick up the ballot and drop it directly into the box.
If you want to vote *against* the Party candidate, dear comrade, simply step into the voting booth where we keep the pen--SEIZE HIM! Take the subversive away!
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday June 28 2023, @06:26PM (6 children)
And all of you dimwits act as if you believe that social media is government. If I was Musk, I'd just block Australia, problem solved. To turn a cliche on its head, if Musk is so rich, ain't ain't he smart?
You have no right whatever to censor anything I say, AS LONG AS I OWN THE WEBSITE. Nobody can force me to post someone else's opinion, or prevent me from saying any damned thing I wish, unless it's slander, in which case there can be a civil suit.
Musk has every right to censor you on HIS website.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday June 28 2023, @06:41PM (4 children)
You apparently missed some recent news.
https://nlpc.org/corporate-integrity-project/meta-called-out-for-facebooks-censorship-at-behest-of-government/ [nlpc.org]
I'll ask you straight up: what is the difference between government officers censoring you, or those same government officers ordering Facebook to censor you? If you are pedantic enough, you'll find some silly philosophical and legal differences, but there is no real difference whatsoever. You've been silenced, and if you continue to make a fuss, you can always find yourself behind a barn, serving as a short range bullet catcher.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday July 10 2023, @06:19PM (3 children)
"Ordering" Facebook? Facebook has its own 1st amendment rights. Government can no more order Facebook to censor than they can do it themselves. The court case is whether it's legal for the government to PERSUADE. Those suing, and apparently you agree with them, say government itself has no right to speech.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 10 2023, @07:16PM (1 child)
When government and the major media groups get together and chat, it's not "speech", it's "conspiracy" and "collusion". Religious and political speech are the fundamental reasons for the first amendment. If government is part of a conspiracy to silence both, then you have a major problem.
Once again, the social media has replaced the town square, and here we have government policing the town square, silencing political speech and religious speech, as well as any other speech they deem subversive.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday July 13 2023, @12:38AM
Major media are owned by the filthy rich. When government and the major media groups get together and chat it's called Fascism. Welcome to 21st century America.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 11 2023, @04:26AM
Government can do quite a bit of illegal stuff. Not sure what your point was here.
Let me settle your concerns: it's not. There's too much opportunity for illegal coercion and quid pro quo in that "PERSUADE". And the secrecy of the alleged "PERSUASION" here is a sign that something was pretty damn fishy.
Do they have a right to bend the ear of your employer and "PERSUADE" them so that they fire your ass? All on the sly - so that you don't even know it happened? No.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday June 29 2023, @04:48AM
Sure, that's definitely what I was saying. I wasn't simply replying to
with a fact I thought some people might find interesting. /s
Yeah, just like the last 17 times this sort of "$Country demands $Company does thing" has come up. Thank god we have mcgrew here to say it!
WTF did you reply to me, dude?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday June 28 2023, @06:19PM
Freedom of speech means you can say anything you like, so long as I approve of whatever you have to say.
I think there's a slight communication problem here or I'm an ass burger who is being arrested for breaking Poe's Law. It stems from the fact that we're in the US, where even lies are protected by the constitution, while you live in Russia where they only pretend to have freedom.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2023, @08:01PM (4 children)
Yeah, but that's only in Florida and a few other Republican controlled states. In most of the rest of the country one can generally express themselves without fear of the State coming down on them or their company.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2023, @08:09PM (2 children)
You have it exactly backwards. You must live in an alternate reality.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 28 2023, @04:13PM (1 child)
The anti-drag bills sweeping the U.S. are straight from history's playbook [npr.org]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday June 28 2023, @06:31PM
They wasted taxpayer money passing those unconstitutional bills. I met Tennessee legislators working at Disney's gas station in the '80s. One of the corrupt bastards threatened to have me fired for politely refusing to break federal law by putting leaded gasoline in his unleaded car.
Tennessee legislators don't give a damn about the constitution or any other law.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 28 2023, @01:34AM
Or Europe and Australia.
(Score: 4, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday June 27 2023, @08:49PM (5 children)
Unfortunately, you believe the people who just tried to overthrow our Democracy and are trying to throw people in jail for wearing the wrong clothes are the former rather than the latter.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2023, @09:24PM (1 child)
freedom to do anything you want except control your own body, that's too far!
we'll force you to have it but supporting you in any way afterwards would be communism, fuck that!
be grateful for your week off and get back into the mines
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday June 28 2023, @06:35PM
freedom to do anything you want except control your own body, that's too far!
Says the damned fascist. In America you should be free to do any damned thing you want to as long as it causes no harm to others. Strippers, gays, transvestites have no affect on me at all, let them do any disgusting damned thing they want. It's none of my business, OR YOURS.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 28 2023, @12:59AM (2 children)
No, I don't. I find it interesting how poorly you and several others understood my points surrounding the January 6 protest. Just because I defend people from a particularly subjective and unsubstantiated attack doesn't mean I approve. I seem to recall repeatedly stating that people should be tried and convicted on the crimes they actually did. And those guys did a lot of crimes.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 28 2023, @04:16PM (1 child)
And some of those crimes were attempting to overthrow our Democracy:
Four Oath Keepers Found Guilty of Seditious Conspiracy Related to U.S. Capitol Breach [justice.gov]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 28 2023, @11:52PM
Look, it's over two years and the best you have to support that claim is a handful convictions on something called "seditious conspiracy". Legally, that doesn't even mean they conspired to commit sedition. And even if they really were committing sedition (which I allow is something they might have been doing though evidence is peculiarly lacking), that still falls far short of your claim that someone was trying to overthrow the US.
It's amazing just how little there is here. How about you lose your shit over something relevant instead of crying wolf?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DannyB on Tuesday June 27 2023, @09:32PM (5 children)
"Freedom" doesn't ban books.
"Freedom" doesn't restrict health care.
"Freedom" doesn't impose one religion.
"Freedom" doesn't oppress minorities as scapegoats.
"Freedom" doesn't stage coups against democratically elected governments.
You're thinking of "tyranny".
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2023, @09:41PM
"Freedom" is overrated. It died after the atomic bombs were dropped. Only folx around Joe Biden's age but without neurodegenerative disorders remember freedom.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 28 2023, @12:56AM
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 28 2023, @01:08AM (1 child)
This is a perfect example of how you liberals have lost rational thought.
Remember when "tolerance" was the viral narrative? Oops, wait, we who are asking for tolerance aren't very tolerant of others. Maybe let's stop using that word.
Every "Freedom" example you listed is BS.
You mention "ban books". What amount of pornography are you okay with children reading, seeing, being exposed to? At what ages? How is that not pedophilia?
Healthcare is a huge mess in USA, no question. It's not about raping the rich to pay for more- it's about getting control of an incredibly inefficient and out of control economic subsystem.
Name an example of someone "imposing one religion" in the US. That is true of many many other countries, and produces zealot terrorists, as I'm sure you know.
Name an example, facts, not generalizations and adjectives, of "oppress minorities".
Coup? So you're comparing the Capitol Hill riot to Prigozhin's march on Moscow? You're a nut.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Wednesday June 28 2023, @05:33AM
So how did you turn out? Pornography was available when you were young too. Is a naked breast pornography? Should we simply prevent mothers from feeding their children? Haven't all children been exposed to it then? Are they all turning out gay? Here there are places such as nudist beaches. Children do not show the remotest interest in naked bodies, or the sight of 2 same sex people holding hands. Their world does not stop. They do not immediately, or even eventually, become gay. Our streets are not full of children fornicating.
Children develop at different ages - their education should be appropriate to their mental ability to discuss facts objectively at their age level. Teachers are very good at determining this (well, they are in most places in the world, I cannot speak for the USA). Let them do their job and they will produce young people who can go forward and on to their own jobs and lives to the best of their individual abilities. They will not be held back by the limits that appear to affect some of their parents which must surely be a good thing. Each child can realise their own potential to the full.
No, it isn't because that is not what the word means. Pedophilia [wikipedia.org] (alternatively spelt paedophilia) is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Teaching children that some families consist of 2 male parents or 2 female parents isn't at all related to that definition. There is no sexual attraction to the child involved at all. As is often the case, the definition is being twisted to mean what YOU want it to mean. Go find another justification for what you are doing.
Nobody has suggested that the rich should be raped. That is another example of an emotive word being used to bolster your weak arguments. What has been suggested is that the rich pay their share. No matter what that share is decided to be, they are currently paying next to nothing (when compared to their riches) back to the state which has supported them and their businesses.
However I do agree with one of your points: "Healthcare is a huge mess in the USA". A few billion from some of the super rich should help fix that.
Once again, a perfectly good story about something entirely different has been twisted into something it was never meant to be.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 29 2023, @01:32AM
The books you keep going on about aren't banned. You can buy them on Amazon if you like.
So, ending an inconvenient human life is nothing more than health care. So, stop whining about people who exercise their Second Amendment rights.
That doesn't even happen in Salt Lake City. Maybe in some secluded rural areas where pedos "marry" multiple young girls?
Citations needed. I'm sure that most of them will come from central Africa, where massacres seem to be scheduled every decade or so.
You're referring to the "resistance" after the 2016 election?
But, it isn't tyranny when it's your side doing it, right?
You've certainly got all the talking points down. Now, you need to understand that it's all just rhetoric.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Opportunist on Tuesday June 27 2023, @07:26PM
The new Twitter slogan: Hate is what YOU do, but I don't.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday June 27 2023, @04:18PM (8 children)
Define hate content...
Most of it is obvious, but some isn't, and unjust / undeserved free speech suppression is bound to happen at the border.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday June 27 2023, @04:23PM (3 children)
They usually define it as apostasy against the new state religion.
Which just rebrands "hate" into meaning not being a member of the Church of the Current Thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2023, @08:48PM (1 child)
Truly bizarre, parodying the language of religion from the perspective of an oppressive religion. I appreciate the dedication to sounding as batshit as a fundamentalist.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2023, @09:24PM
Times change, grandpaw. Meet the new boss, Wokeism. Almost the same as the old boss, but somehow more insufferable.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday June 28 2023, @06:40PM
You apparently haven't noticed that the true state religion in every single country in the world, including Iran, is the worship of money and power. That cloth thing you see around the necks of bankers, lawyers, stockbrokers, politicians, world leaders? It's Satan's leash.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2, Interesting) by tizan on Tuesday June 27 2023, @07:51PM (1 child)
It is not a can of worm...any HR department has it well defined and they fire people for crossing the line and donot get sued out of existence applying it.
Let's take something not to trigger you.
If you have to say something about say about why a handicap person should be considered not as a humen ... you can do it in your home or on the public place but not at work as hate against handicap is well defined in most labor laws. In fact many work place will have extra wording which will say that they may fire if your expression of free speech seems to associate the company on certain issues they would not like to express on.
This is like saying it is a can of worm because killing somebody on the street for no reason at all is an expression of the second amendment rights.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 28 2023, @03:15AM
Except of course, when the HR department is what crosses the line. Just glancing [soylentnews.org] at a previous post I made on the subject:
My bet is that in each of these cases, the HR department helped drive the problem.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mykl on Tuesday June 27 2023, @11:14PM (1 child)
Defining things is not how it's done these days. Once you provide a concrete definition, it becomes harder to move the goalposts and throw baseless accusations against people you don't like. Better to leave things undefined so that you can throw out terms like "hateful", "fascist", "[insert-term-here]-phobic" etc.
I find it incredibly irritating that 'certain people' refuse to define terms in ways that aren't self-referential or entirely subjective, but I've at least come to peace with understanding why they do it. If I'm engaged in debate with someone like that, I will generally disengage, as there is no attempt at a good-faith exchange of ideas there.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by Mykl on Wednesday June 28 2023, @01:59AM
Looks like someone doesn't like what I've said. Rather than engage in good-faith conversation, they've resorted to the Troll mod. Thanks for proving my point.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 27 2023, @04:33PM (1 child)
1. Somebody says something that could be interpreted as hateful towards $GROUP_X
2. Everyone on Twitter in $GROUP_X, or is friends with someone in $GROUP_X, or wants to look supportive of $GROUP_X will feel obligated to respond with how wrong that is.
3. Odds are approximately 100% that one of those people will note that the somebody from step 1 is part of $GROUP_Y, and make a rude or hateful comment about $GROUP_Y.
4. Everyone on Twitter in $GROUP_Y, is friends with someone in $GROUP_Y, or wants to look supportive of $GROUP_Y will feel obligated to respond with how wrong that is.
5. Somebody notices that the person from step 3 is part of $GROUP_Z, and the cycle continues.
This process is known as "driving engagement", and it boosts advertising dollars. If there weren't people doing it naturally, you can bet that social media companies would pay someone to do it on purpose so long as they had plausible deniability.
And because the format of Twitter is to keep everything super short so as to minimize nuance and with that thinking at all, it's pretty much guaranteed to end up with $GROUP_X, $GROUP_Y, and $GROUP_Z all trying to shout slogans at each other thinking they've accomplished something by doing so.
The only winning move is not to play.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Informative) by gnuman on Tuesday June 27 2023, @07:26PM
It was also suppose to be for status updates.
Like...
* rebooting SQL server, read-only for next 5 minutes or so
* oops, SQL server not coming up ....
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DadaDoofy on Tuesday June 27 2023, @07:13PM (12 children)
It's no surprise when Musk ended censorship of content that didn't kowtow to the far-left narratives echoing through Twitter 1.0, his enemies would quickly embrace a new "Twitter is hate speech" narrative. If there is one thing modern day progressives can't stand, it's free speech.
"But but, if people were exposed to alternatives to our narratives, they might see how flawed they are! Don't you understand? People thinking for themselves represents a threat to our agenda!"
LOL, this hardly matters anyway. The roughly 4 million Twitter users in Australia represent about 1 percent of Twitter's user base. Even if Australia banned Twitter outright, it essentially amounts to a rounding error.
(Score: 5, Touché) by gnuman on Tuesday June 27 2023, @07:28PM (7 children)
If everyone you disagree with is "far left", then perhaps it's you that is the extremist with a problem.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by DadaDoofy on Tuesday June 27 2023, @07:52PM (5 children)
I completely agree that not every leftist is far left. However, since anyone even remotely conservative is always referred to by leftists as "far right" virtually without fail, I adopt the same practice as a matter of principle. What goes around comes around.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2023, @08:06PM (2 children)
You're much too kind. You forgot: "fascist", "Nazi", "fundamentalist", "racist", "MAGA",
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2023, @08:52PM (1 child)
With the exception of the last one, all these terms were used to describe Obama.
(Score: 4, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday June 27 2023, @08:56PM
Conservatives are far too mature to compare feminazis like Hitlery Clinton to fascists!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by janrinok on Wednesday June 28 2023, @05:02AM (1 child)
It also depends on your initial perspective. Compared to many political parties here in Europe both US parties are to the right of centre, and one very is very much so. Many people here laugh at the US description of 'left wing' or even 'communist'. Helping others have a better life, a better life expectancy, and have better jobs is not seen as being left wing politics. Some Europeans have lived under real left wing / communist regimes - they can well remember what it was like.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 28 2023, @12:20PM
FTFY. Private efforts to do the above aren't automatically considered left-wing. And that word, "allegedly" is quite important IMHO because like so many things political/ideological, there's routinely huge gaps between stated intent, actual intent, and outcome.
My correction covers this situation.
I don't find left-wing/right-wing all that useful because the two overlap naturally. Power seekers naturally are left-wing when out of power (exploiting various unaddressed problems and new ideas to obtain power) and right-wing when in power (now, that they're in power, stamping on the brakes - rigging society to stay in power and exploiting that power they obtained), and it's far from rare to find governments that manifest both ideological sides at once.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 28 2023, @11:37AM
That is correct, most people I disagree with ARE LEFT because they say and support sick insane extremist inhuman shit inclucing pedophilia and such:
"We are coming for your children" - transgender protesters
"Men can have periods"
"Only the left should have free speech"
"Transgender women can have periods"
"We cannot define what a woman is"
"The moment my baby was born, I could tell it was transgender"
"There is no performance difference between women and men athletes"
"There is no bioligical or phyical difference between a man and a transgender man/a woman and a transgender woman"
"Math/Scientific method/tests/grades are racist"
"Children must be taught in kindergarden everthing about sex including oral, anal, kinks, BSDM"
"Children belong to the Governmentt, not to the parents"
"Unlimited & unvetted immigration is good for the country"
"Cleopatra was black"
"All scientific discoveries were stolen from black people"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2023, @08:12PM (3 children)
It is ironic that some people talk about "free speech" this way, but then fully support having the government ban books from libraries under threat of a felony and bring the full power and weight of the State down on specific individuals and businesses for who they are or what they support. They complain about how they are oppressed on Twitter while at the same time enthusiastically support activities that are the very literal definition of violation of free speech. It isn't "progressives" who pass laws preventing mentioning most of 19th century American history because a minority of very emotionally fragile snowflakes in red caps might have their feelings hurt over what happened 150 years ago.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2023, @09:01PM (2 children)
Society does not have to tolerate gay porn brainwashing books in school libraries, or discredited progressive revisionist history in school curricula. Best you can do about the books is point wildly at Island Trees School District v. Pico, a split decision. I wonder what SCOTUS would say about the issue today.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 28 2023, @02:32AM (1 child)
Why is it that it isn't the person, but the book's fault that your kid will become gay, so they must be banned, but it isn't the gun's fault that your kid is dead, it is the person who used it that is at fault. Shouldn't we either ban both books and guns, or not blame both books and guns to at least try to keep a little bit of intellectual consistency in the "personal responsibility" argument department?
And if a book can make kids gay, why doesn't books that are approved to be sufficiently manly turn gay kids straight? There are a LOT more manly books out there then there are gay books. Even a very simplistic model you can make in Excel will show you that we shouldn't even have any gay people around. That must be what Russia and Iran have done and why they don't have gay people.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 29 2023, @03:07AM
(Score: -1, Troll) by Pseudofire on Tuesday June 27 2023, @08:53PM
Australia is nanners. Social oppression, Noncery, Political malfeasance - ya thanks but no thanks.
They cannot even define terms correctly, and allow feelings in the courtroom, just for this they will never be taken seriously.
But, thumbs up for trying to seem important.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 28 2023, @12:24AM
Australia went 1984 and so did NZ. There were those videos of them chasing people during COVID with loud vans blaring noise.
That's what they think of you.. that you should be chased like an animal and herded.
God forbid people can read unauthorized information on twitter.. they might start getting ideas. Let's brand them all Nazis, nobody likes those.
If they don't submit we can start extorting them, wouldn't want your little site to get blocked or us to start seizing your assets. Totally free and democratic behavior.
Completely above-board.