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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.
Somewhat slantwise, Kanye's recent travails and the debate about his mental health make me think again about an argument I got into about Brittany Spears with my wife. Hot take: Coogan's Law should be universalized to all celebrities and not just minors. Record companies, sports teams, and film companies should be required to follow the same rules for adult entertainers as for kids:
Because so many of these people crack up, go broke, etc. I'm not pro Free Brittany, I'm pro enslave Olivia Rodrigo. Hell, SBF should have been putting aside 15% of his earnings rather than thinking the gravy train would never stop. Kanye should have been forced to put aside 15% of his earning when he was sane into a conservatively managed blind trust, so that he'd have something to fall back on. If we're going to put these people into a situation they are not emotionally or mentally equipped to handle, we should be providing them with the tools to survive it.
Seriously, in cases like the NFL/NBA where so many players wind up broke, the player's associations should be forcing this into every contract. 15% goes into a trust where the principal can't be touched until the player is 50 or 60.
It's Britney, not Brittany.
Also, that's incredibly paternalistic and condescending. That's OK when we're talking about literal children, but it's a different thing to have the nanny state stick their schnoz in the private affairs of famous and highly visible people.
I'm really upset you missed the opportunity to say, It's Britney, bitch!
78% of former NFL players are under severe financial stress or bankrupt within 2 years. We're putting people into predictably bad situations over and over, and then saying fuck em they were weak when they don't work out.
Setting it as a law was a pisstake, but the player's associations really should include this in the next CBA. A union that cares about all its members should have the brains to realize that its members lack brains.
There's also nothing stopping record or film executives from putting it in every contract they sign with a young performer. I want to look out for you, I don't want to see my stars go the way of other stars. The studio system had its flaws and its villains, but it also protected and built careers for a lot of players who never made it after they broke "free."
Jeez. I'm unironically wondering if the repeated low-grade brain injuries have anything to do with that.
I don't think soccer and basketball players or rock musicians do much better. More to do with becoming rich quickly without the emotional equipment to handle it.
Taylor Swift, my local girl, is the daughter of a corporate lawyer. And she always gets her legal rights "The Jews" can't touch her.Because she has the instincts to handle her wealth.
Magic Johnson and Lebron had it naturally, they make good decisions. But most don't. SBF didn't have the instincts to handle his success either and I doubt he's been in a lot of fistfights.
Yeah.
I know a decent amount of high-income 'lottery winner' types between sports, influencers and a few other similar fields. Most just mentally operate on the assumption that the income'll never stop coming.
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