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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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The more I think about it, this is actually a great demonstration. Prior twitter management censored political speech surrounding various issues (COVID, trans issues). Current twitter management censors accounts that are threats to personal safety. Which one is gets criticized by the mainstream press?

Do you apply these standards consistently? When an account like @LibsOfTikTok posts about a drag event, is that a threat to the safety of those going to the event?

If LibsOfTiktok had made a habit of publishing the home addresses of those involved in the drag event, then yes that would be a threat to the personal safety of those involved. As it stands, the standard that got LibsOfTikTok repeatedly suspended was resharing videos that people voluntarily posted. How you think this is the same standard is beyond me.

Different things. If Libs post about “they are having a drag show at school X at time Y” it allows people to protest the event. That is, it serves a social use (for the reader to decide if benefit or detriment).

But showing the location of a single person? Hard to imagine the social use there.

Just because something serves a social use doesn't mean it can't also pose a threat to safety. Both can be true at the same time.

For the record, I have no issue at all with LoTT posting about “they are having a drag show at school X at time Y” even if there were dozens of credible shooting or bomb threats. They have the right to post that information, and what other people do with that information isn't LoTT's responsibility. I also have no issue with posting publicly available flight tracking data, but I also don't believe that's in any way shape or form a threat to anyone's safety (it also doesn't matter if it is).

Anyone who has the ability to harm Elon Musk based on flight data (i.e. the ability to stake out an airport) has the ability to get the publically available flight data from the original source. Signal-boosting this information posts no threat to anyone's personal safety whatsoever.