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I read something today which I have long thought deep down, but hadn’t really seen spelled out elsewhere.
Namely, the censoring done by the liberal left, while there, is rather mild in the scheme of things and is probably much less than the same left would be censored by the people it currently censors if that group was in power.
The quote that brought it to my mind was from here, on Richard Hannania’s substack. After a post discussing being banned by Twitter, he drops this at the end of the article.
https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/saying-goodbye-to-twitter
The attitude of censoring opponents seemed to have crystallized for the left around 2016, where I distinctly remember the conversation centering around the limits of tolerating intolerant ideologies. (Which seems to have become fully settled by now, interesting to observe an ideological movement update in real time in that way).
Does Hannania have a point here? Is the issue that the right takes offense with censorship itself, or would the right if it actually gained back power censor in a much more strict and comprehensive way?
Huh? Them being wrong about everything is precisely the reason you shouldn't try silencing them. The only way to give them the rope to hang themselves with is to let them talk in from of common people, and reveal what they truly believe and want.
Indeed, this is why Libs of Tik Tok is so despised amongst the intelligentsia. She's not generating content or perpetrating hoaxes herself, she's just holding up the mirror and that's the last thing a lot of these people want.
Not because (outgroup) triumphalism is incredibly grating? Or because her coverage reeks of sensationalism? Because fact-checking takes an obvious backseat to a good outrage, as I’m sure @TracingWoodgrains will attest? Or because she’s a transparent partisan more interested in scoring cheap points than on anything the “intelligentsia” actually value?
Maybe it’s her position in the linguistic side of the culture wars. Or the association with TikTok, which already pisses off people over 50, and Twitter, which pisses off most of its users. Or her determination to construct the worst argument in the world by asserting that “libs” are best judged by a curated outrage stream.
Or maybe she just comes across as a bitch. I don’t know. Point is that there’re plenty of reasons to disagree with her coverage that aren’t just “they hated Jesus because he told the truth.”
Have we gotten to the point where we're pretending now that TW wasn't having to produce active forgeries about the matter when Libs of TikTok expressed the exact criticism you're saying she didn't have?
I'd link to TW's post describing everything he did during that entire event, but for some odd reason, it was deleted. Funny, that.
When did Trace's post get deleted? Was it during the original shitstorm, or was it more recently after some activists decided him clowning on LOTT for internet points was Bad, Actually as part of attacking BARPod? I think it was the former, but...
I deleted my motte summary during the initial storm. Needed to take a step back. The post itself was never deleted and I have no plans to delete it.
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