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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29299 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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Elon Musk has suspended a slew of liberal journalists and pundits from Twitter. It is, as Benjamin Braddoc puts it, a red wedding for the liberal establishment. I initially believed that he was just the "controlled" opposition of the deep state, obviously he's stepped on way too many toes for that. This imo underscores an important truth to the ultra principled who believe in free speech absolutism and neutral institutions, the overton window won't shift the other way just to punish the "heretics" who've assailed this sacred virtue. Social media, our Frankenstein, has made it insanely easier for mob rule to influence culture (not that it wasn't already).

I still don't believe we're witnessing complete course reversal, but this could just be the first legitimate W for the right.

EDIT: It looks like he's lifting the suspension.

  • Right-wing politicians, journalists and public personas suspended, banned and shadow-banned for years - "It's a private company, just don't be an asshole!"

  • Left-wing journos suspended for one day for doxing Musk - "It's fascism! Regulators, come and save us! It's free speech apocalypse!"

It is utterly fascinating how there's not a shred of even trying to apply fair standards here. Everything is completely motivated reasoning all the way down.

Кто кого? All the way down.

But let’s not kid ourselves here- right wingers seeing their enemies get suspended are totally going ‘free speech? It’s a private company and you’re being assholes.’

Ya except this was a decision actually made by the private owner of the company, not the FBI sending threatening communiques and making demands.

This might be the only instance in the past 3+ years where the "private company" argument actually has any weight since at least in this instance we're pretty damn sure it wasn't the fascist security-media-intelligence complex state.

This is a reasonable point, I just don’t usually see twitter warriors making it.

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