Democrat threat to freedom of speech?

[mindlight]

Breitbart still exists. The Blaze still exists. Fox News, The Federalist, National Review, American Thinker... all still exist.

The only sites getting shut down are cesspools of lies, hate, and violence. You should be welcoming the purge, but instead you're equating them with "conservative." What does it say about conservatism if you can't tell the difference between "conservative" and that garbage?

Well it seems this is a debate that needs to occur in the Republican party, as to what values they epouse. A substantial number of Republican voters hang on Trump tweets and Parler conversations. I know that what I believe is neither racist or nationalist and that myths about stolen elections and the ineffectiveness of face masks need to be debunked. But if you shut down the expression how can this conversation take place.

 

[mindlight]

Twitter banned Trump for his many violations of their rules...rules he agreed to. Trump had his account suspended on Wednesday for violating Twitter's ban on the glorification of violence. Trump immediately engaged in the same behavior as soon as his account was restored.

The issue here is not an attack on freedom of speech but in the demand for the freedom from consequences for what is said.

Incitement to insurrection by a figure of such power and authority is not something that should be tolerated. Because of these Twitter posts and various broadcasts Trump IS being held to account for his words and actions. So freedom of speech does not equate to freedom from consequence

 

[mindlight]

You are publishing your opinions of Christianforums.com...which has numerous rules that you agreed to follow and if you choose to violate those rules you can have your account here suspended or closed...do you think Christian forums is a threat to the freedom of speech?

Christian forums has certain basic values and creedal statements I have no problem with. Yes it does moderate how you speak and what you say. It is not a free for all like Parler or Twitter. Since I have been on this site 17 years it seems rather dumb to ask me that question. This is where I prefer to hang out. But if extreme opinions like those on Twitter and Parler are banned how can there be consequences for words expressed by fringe groups. If you no longer know what they are saying then how can you know when passions are building to incidents like the Capitol incident, who the characters are and who is fermenting what?

 

[mindlight]

No. The government is not controlling the speech, private companies are. This is similar to the NFL trying to keep athletes from kneeling during the National Anthem. There clauses, in contracts, which allow private companies to the to control what the general public sees and which can cause them financial harm to the companies. It's legalized censorship.

Amazon and Trump were not best buddies and now that power is slipping away they can jettison fear of him but if big tech companies have monopolies on hosting that shuts the conversation down entirely and shifts it underground. The power of these big companies to control the conversation is an issue here

 

[mindlight]

No one "shut down" Parler. Companies just refuse to host the platform anymore. A company is perfectly able to determine what products it carries. Are you suggesting that a company should not have that right?

No but it seems that Big Tech has a lot more power than I am comfortable with over the conversation , who gets to speak and who not

 

[Thomas White]

No but it seems that Big Tech has a lot more power than I am comfortable with over the conversation , who gets to speak and who not

It's not who gets to speak and who doesn't. It's who gets to use their platforms and who doesn't. Just like Christianforums.com, Amazon, Google, and the others have the freedom to choose who gets to use there platforms.

 

[SilverBear]

Incitement to insurrection by a figure of such power and authority is not something that should be tolerated. Because of these Twitter posts and various broadcasts Trump IS being held to account for his words and actions. So freedom of speech does not equate to freedom from consequence

yet in your OP you equated Twitter's permanent suspension of Trumps account as the end of freedom of speech and the beginning of a new totalitarianism of woke thought police.


So which is it?

 

[SilverBear]

Christian forums has certain basic values and creedal statements I have no problem with. Yes it does moderate how you speak and what you say. It is not a free for all like Parler or Twitter. Since I have been on this site 17 years it seems rather dumb to ask me that question. This is where I prefer to hang out. But if extreme opinions like those on Twitter and Parler are banned how can there be consequences for words expressed by fringe groups. If you no longer know what they are saying then how can you know when passions are building to incidents like the Capitol incident, who the characters are and who is fermenting what?

you seem to be presenting a double standard.

Twitter has certain basic values just as CF does ensuring that it isn't a "free for all" Twitter and CF are operating in the same ways both use their rules to limit the voice of some posters the only difference seems to be your approval of CF's rules

 

[Albion]

Thousands of people have been suspended from Twitter for that exact thing. Have you not seen politicos complaining about losing followers?

You must have missed the point there. The 'thousands' you are referring to are those who can in any way be considered Trump supporters--and not just because of them having written something that's provocative.

The same has not happened to people who are opposed to him, however, even including those who call for violence. Their posts are still available to readers. Twitter and the others justify their wholesale and almost overnight elimination of these thousands of users by saying that they broke the rules, but if so (and it's not actually true), the online opponents have been exempted from those rules.

 

[Redwingfan9]

Parler isn't Conservative, unless you think that white supremacy, anti semitism and neo Nazism are Conservative. Do you think those things are conservative?

I've been on Parler for 2 weeks and haven't seen any such thing. It's just a bunch of Trump fans grousing and conservatives pointing out the danger of tech giants deciding what opinions may or may not be expressed.

 

[SilverBear]

You must have missed the point there. The 'thousands' you are referring to are those who can in any way be considered Trump supporters--and not just because of them having written something that's provocative.

The same has not happened to people who are opposed to him, however, even including those who call for violence. Their posts are still available to readers. Twitter and the others justify their wholesale and almost overnight elimination of these thousands of users by saying that they broke the rules, but if so (and it's not actually true), the online opponents have been exempted from those rules.

you made this claim before and were asked to back it up with evidence. Still no evidence from you.

 

[Thomas White]

You must have missed the point there. The 'thousands' you are referring to are those who can in any way be considered Trump supporters--and not just because of them having written something that's provocative.

The same has not happened to people who are opposed to him, however, even including those who call for violence. Their posts are still available to readers. Twitter and the others justify their wholesale and almost overnight elimination of these thousands of users by saying that they broke the rules, but if so (and it's not actually true), the online opponents have been exempted from those rules.

What profiles are you talking about? We will report them and fix it. The reason so many conservatives got deleted is because they were talking about the same thing and using the same hashtags. It was easy to find them.

 

[Albion]

you made this claim before and were asked to back it up with evidence. Still no evidence from you.

First, it is necessary to understand what the claim actually is. I don't seem to be able to get you to that level.

 

[Albion]

What profiles are you talking about? We will report them and fix it.

Last I read anything about this, the total was in the tens of thousands and expanding rapidly. One TV commentator reported that something like 60,000 people who had done nothing more than sign on to his posts as "followers" such as we can do here on CF were wiped out in only several days.

The reason so many conservatives got deleted is because they were talking about the same thing and using the same hashtags. It was easy to find them.

That's a guess, I take it.

 

[Hazelelponi]

What profiles are you talking about? We will report them and fix it. The reason so many conservatives got deleted is because they were talking about the same thing and using the same hashtags. It was easy to find them.

At this point in the great purge its hard to assess the "who", of who has been removed. As of yesterday Twitter had banned over 70,000 accounts since Trumps account had been banned... more left by free will.. God only knows how many have been removed from Facebook at this point, but Facebook is probably banning as many or more accounts, as they have more users than Twitter in the first place.. I know some who have been banned, but I'm sure like Twitter it's far more.

According to the news media those accounts on Twitter were banned for sharing Q-Anon content, but on Facebook that's definitely not the case because they banned the walk away organisations official page, and all it had was a bunch of videos of former democrats giving their reasons for walking away from the party... it was far tamer than the owner and founder of the movements personal page who believed a lot of the states new voting legislation opened the door to potential fraud, and his personal page wasn't banned. However they did go after and ban his employees, videographers and volunteers personal pages... that's nothing to do with Q-Anon... moderate democrats, former or not arent sitting around sharing Q-Anon..

So I find it quite doubtful Twitter is simply deleting accounts for sharing Q content, instead of taking down the content and setting up new site rules (aka no sharing Q content allowed) which isn't, to my knowlege, against site rules.

They are simply banning conservatives, as far as I can tell...

 

[Redwingfan9]

At this point in the great purge its hard to assess the "who", of who has been removed. As of yesterday Twitter had banned over 70,000 accounts since Trumps account had been banned... more left by free will.. God only knows how many have been removed from Facebook at this point, but Facebook is probably banning as many or more accounts, as they have more users than Twitter in the first place.. I know some who have been banned, but I'm sure like Twitter it's far more.

According to the news media those accounts on Twitter were banned for sharing Q-Anon content, but on Facebook that's definitely not the case because they banned the walk away organisations official page, and all it had was a bunch of videos of former democrats giving their reasons for walking away from the party... it was far tamer than the owner and founder of the movements personal page who believed a lot of the states new voting legislation opened the door to potential fraud, and his personal page wasn't banned. However they did go after and ban his employees, videographers and volunteers personal pages... that's nothing to do with Q-Anon... moderate democrats, former or not arent sitting around sharing Q-Anon..

So I find it quite doubtful Twitter is simply deleting accounts for sharing Q content, instead of taking down the content and setting up new site rules (aka no sharing Q content allowed) which isn't, to my knowlege, against site rules.

They are simply banning conservatives, as far as I can tell...

The QAnon people are nuts. However, taking down their content while allowing violent left-wing groups like Antifa and BLM to organize riots on Twitter is outright hypocrisy.

 

[Hazelelponi]

The QAnon people are nuts. However, taking down their content while allowing violent left-wing groups like Antifa and BLM to organize riots on Twitter is outright hypocrisy.

I agree...

 

[hislegacy]

So people and companies should not have the right to be suspicious of individuals and not wish to do business with those individuals?

Do some research it is a media source warning companies not to hire specific people. Are you ok with that?

Thousands of people have been suspended from Twitter for that exact thing. Have you not seen politicos complaining about losing followers?

Name one Democratic Politician. Maxine Water encouraged open confrontation and she was not censured. Why is that?

 

[Thomas White]

Do some research it is a media source warning companies not to hire specific people. Are you ok with that?



Name one Democratic Politician. Maxine Water encouraged open confrontation and she was not censured. Why is that?

What, exactly, did not Maxine Waters say? That would be the answer to your question.

A company has the right to state that they would be uncomfortable working with certain individuals. Forbes is saying that they would have to verify anything coming from a company that hired former Trump press secretaries/communication staffers. Forbes did not say it would not work with those companies. Do you believe a company should not have the right to state their intentions? After all, that is what freedom of speech is all about.

 

[Hazelelponi]

The QAnon people are nuts. However, taking down their content while allowing violent left-wing groups like Antifa and BLM to organize riots on Twitter is outright hypocrisy.

Plus, just to add a thought, but not all Q content is trash either. I've run across things in the past, and often it's just screenshots of other people's posts. And if you fact check it it's an actual screenshot of what someone has said, usually with a 1 sentence comment about the post.

It's like anything else, some truth some lies. And if Q wasn't a member on Twitter, no one could share their content in the first place...

Do I appreciate the trash that is Q? No... because they've been in the middle of some serious insanity and I hold something against crazy people as a whole (they do scare me).. but Twitter outright banning people for potentially sharing what may in the end be a harmless post they happened to agree with - that's the definition of insanity.

And your right, they don't do that to anyone on the left - no matter how crazy those people get!