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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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Kanye West is banned from Twitter. So obviously any definition of free speech absolutism doesn't include him.

Snark aside - and the anti Elon crowd is quite snarky - the whole free speech for people in meltdown or not quite mentally stable is interesting question. My approach to human rights have often been - approve of them as long as I get to define who the humans are. So it turns out that my approach to free speech is that while I will go to extremes to protect the free, I don't consider the incoherent ramblings of a drunken hobo as speech.

On the other hand while it is easy to say "Cut his access to the social networks until he has cool down, so he stop hurting himself" and probably it is the best thing to do - I can see how a policy of for your own good can be used to cull all the edgy content.

I am free speech maximalist (note that's different from absolutist) and I would have shut Kayne West down.

Twitter provides a platform for much more free speech than, say, the NYT or Reddit.

Famous people posting swastikas on Twitter -- the steelman version of his picture is that he's telling Jewish people they should forgive Nazis, which seems to be a totally nonsensical position -- is a great way to get the platform shut down.

In this instance, removing one person's ability preserves the platform's availability for many others.

But given what you say your position is, where do you draw the line? Couldn't you apply your same reasoning to saying that Trump shouldn't be allowed on Twitter, or that more strict that speech regulation should be applied? People can always make the case that someone's free speech is suppressing someone else's.

Unfortunately I don't think bright lines exist for most things (i.e. most absolutist positions are untenable -- is spam free speech? there's no incitement of violence.) I think the left has historically been really good at amplifying something that's just far enough to change people's minds but nothing that's considered truly abhorrent (e.g. first gay marriage, then transgenderism; not the reverse).