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"WHY DO YOU CENSOR US?" Ted Cruz SLAMS Twitter And Facebook During Election Suppression Hearing. (admin) I think we are dealing with two CEOs, Facebook and Twitter, who are acting like dictators and using weasel words to not answer a direct question. They do censor the users and they are both needing to be restricted or punished for their dictates suppressing our rights of free speech. They are Publishers and should lose their protection.
ajhilder 7 Nov 18
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You also have a right to choose whether to do business with Twitter or Facebook or not.

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Silly; people censor their enemies.

Also, people do what they can get away with.

This is irrelevant to right/center/left, it's human nature.

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Well, they are not the only ones suppressing free speech. I made a comment on trump's Gab account that got deleted and had my account locked down till they went through and read everything I'd written. Also, there are three states who are banning CNN. And bitchit and other free speech sites aren't really all that free. They work alongside the major players, probably because they have no other alternative. When the Fed passed the propaganda thing that allows for all this, it all became an illusion: the illusion of free speech, the illusion of choice, and the illusion of words. The last refers to how they, whoever they are, change the definition, the meaning of words. It's Gaslighting! Our society has become no different than living under the dictates of an abusive relationship! Actually, it's all been going the way for over 100 years, bit by bit.

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They keep slamming but they do nothing about it. Why is that? Could it be because they are not really against the control the media has over the population as long as they have the control of the media. Democratic control bad, Republican control good. If they really hated the concept of a controlled media it would be stopped, posthaste.

Isn’t that the purpose of the hearings, to do something about it?

@parsifal No. The purpose of hearings is to make the people who voted for them believe they are on their side when in actuality they are not.

@lawrenceblair And I thought I was cynical when it came to politics... lol

@parsifal The longer one lives, that is, the longer one lives with their eyes, ears, and brain working, the more cynical one must become about politicians and human government. I 82 thus extremely cynical of human government. LOL

@lawrenceblair you have 12 on me but I’m claiming equality after a career in public service and living in canuckistan

@parsifal There was a time when I was in my twenties and thirties when I considered escaping to either Canada to Australia, but the cost of doing so stopped me. Over the years I have come to realize what a silly idea that was. Not a slam on the people of those nations, but their governments. LOL

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Free Speech applies to government action, not the terms set by a private company which offers a no-cost platform. You have a right to free speech, but not the right to an audience.

There is a difference between your free speech and censoring another’s right to free speech. That is the difference between being an information “provider” and a “publisher” as Mr Cruz ably pointed out

@parsifal they aren't censoring anyone's free speech. They are not obligated to give them a platform to speak. Facebook has rules against nudity - is it censoring people's free speech by not allowing nudity?

As someone that identifies as a right leaning libertarian I would agree with your statement IF (big if) they were not afforded protection under section 230. Once they are offered said protection they are no longer operating with complete autonomy but instead act according to federal provisions and guidelines surrounding said protection. 230 protection is predicated on a quid pro quo of the entity in question functioning as a platform, not a publisher, and hence the entity (twitter mainly it seems) must also uphold their end of the bargain if they wish to maintain said protection. If they want to operate as a completely private businesses with no 230 protection then sure go for it, censor away, but they can't have their cake and eat it too.

lol, no. that's not what this is - this is "no platforming", that's why they come after you even if you speak in non-censored platforms.

Familiarize yourself with human behavior throughout history, it's pretty dark and evil.

@Afterthought yeah, human behavior is pretty dark and evil throughout history. Which is why private companies are not obligated to give you a platform to spew dark and evil rhetoric.

@JacksonNought Correct, but that is also not what is happening here. Pursuit of impossible things that might seem good at the time, such as equality, when taken to extremes become evil. Best to have free speech and put up with some bad stuff. Are you aware that deplatforming also includes using banks, travel, etc? We do that to criminals, where is the trial here? Where is justice here? Again, tolerating the fringe is best, and if you want to shift the boundary of criminality, tread carefully and preserve justice.

@JacksonNought Then that censoring is, as Cruz pointed out, being a publisher

@Afterthought but again, Facebook and Twitter are not civil rights. You do not have a "right" to be given a platform to reach millions upon millions of people to share your opinions. I will use the nudity example again - Facebook bans nudity or sexual content. A sex worker cannot use Facebook to promote the sale of their nude photos. This is no different than telling someone they cannot use Facebook to spread misinformation about Election results or pandemic issues. Facebook and Twitter are privately companies which can set their rules how they see fit, and you do not have a right demand they let you promote yourself.

I absolutely agree with you that blacklisting or "cancelling" is wrong, and people should not be banned from using banks or travel or other public utilities because of their backwards thinking. You can make the argument that if one bank or travel company bans them, then they can just go to another one - but what if they all ban? That can be problematic. I feel the same way about the whole bakery / florist vs same-sex couple debate, as there is no guarantee the couple could find a different place to accommodate them.

@parsifal, @Jrockintx83 they are not a publisher for choosing what content is allowed. They are not creating or curating content, it is still user generated. Section 230 protection means they cannot be held liable for user content - if someone makes a post encouraging violence on someone, and then someone actually goes through with it, Twitter cannot be sued for letting that happen. That does not mean they can't set their own TOS and rules for who can have an account and post. I will once more bring up sex workers. Can we start holding hearings on platforms like Facebook and YouTube because they don't allow nudity or sexual content? That is a total infringement on free speech and censoring people, right? It should be a free-for-all of anything people want to post?

If you want to take away Section 230 protection, then you are welcoming mass bannings of people for the platforms to protect themselves, probably Trump as the very first one. Parler is making its users agree to a clause to pay for legal bills if they are sued for content - would you prefer Twitter do this? Maybe they should, so some random troll in his basement will be forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars in legal feels for deciding to post that Hillary Clinton eats babies.

@JacksonNought the porn example has been addressed by congress. The 96 communications decency act was written for the very reason of preventing minors from getting to indecent and obscene content on the internet. Notably, it was fought and defeated in 97's Reno v ACLU with the only exception being obscenity (the legal definition thereof) and CP. Other forms of "indecent" were held to be protected by the first amendment so that's why twitter is allowed to show all the nudity they want. As far as Facebook and YouTube go, they POTENTIALLY could be brought up for restricting this content on the same grounds because, as I said above, "indecent" media in this regard has a precedential decision of being protected by the first amendment. The only reason Facebook and YouTube get away with it currently is because they haven't been challenged on it with successful litigation yet.

Personally, I think it's easier to go somewhere else. This is why alternatives like slug here, minds, bitchute etc are skyrocketing in popularity.

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