Judge Blocks US Officials From Tech Contacts in First Amendment Case (washingtonpost.com) 414
A federal judge on Tuesday blocked key Biden administration agencies and officials from meeting and communicating with social media companies about "protected speech," in an extraordinary preliminary injunction in an ongoing case that could have profound effects on the First Amendment. From a report: The injunction came in response to a lawsuit brought by Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, who allege that government officials went too far in their efforts to encourage social media companies to address posts that they worried could contribute to vaccine hesitancy during the pandemic or upend elections.
The Trump-appointed judge's move could undo years of efforts to enhance coordination between the government and social media companies. For more than a decade, the federal government has attempted to work with social media companies to address a wide range of criminal activity, including child sexual abuse images and terrorism. Over the last five years, coordination and communication between government officials and the companies increased as the federal government responded to rising election interference and voter suppression efforts after revelations that Russian actors had sowed disinformation on U.S. social sites during the 2016 election. Public health officials also frequently communicated with the companies during the coronavirus pandemic, as falsehoods about the virus and vaccines spread on social networks including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
The Trump-appointed judge's move could undo years of efforts to enhance coordination between the government and social media companies. For more than a decade, the federal government has attempted to work with social media companies to address a wide range of criminal activity, including child sexual abuse images and terrorism. Over the last five years, coordination and communication between government officials and the companies increased as the federal government responded to rising election interference and voter suppression efforts after revelations that Russian actors had sowed disinformation on U.S. social sites during the 2016 election. Public health officials also frequently communicated with the companies during the coronavirus pandemic, as falsehoods about the virus and vaccines spread on social networks including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
1984 put on hold (Score:3, Insightful)
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Great news. The government isn't allowed to limit free speech, and they have been illegally side-stepping that by having their willing minions in the tech sector do it for them.
So you're in favor of people telling others completely false and wrong information, information which could get them killed. Or how Tucker Carlson runs a child molestation ring from his mansion, according to rumors. Or how the Catholic Church is the largest pedophile operation in the world with all its groomers. Or how Donal Trump and his family are agents for foreign governments and use their inside information to undermine the United States.
Okay, the last one wasn't made up, but the others are complete
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The problem is that the gov't isn't supposed to dictate what people can say.
Re: 1984 put on hold (Score:2)
How about everyone say what they want, and we have real consequences for people who make up shit?
Re:1984 put on hold (Score:5, Insightful)
So you're in favor of people telling others completely false and wrong information, information which could get them killed.
Personally, I feel the existing framework for dealing with such speech is adequate without the government getting further involved. If someone slanders you, you can sue. If someone posts misinformation, it can be handled by community moderation or by the platform voluntarily (without coercion from Uncle Sam) establishing their own clearly defined acceptable content policies.
If a platform wants to be a hotbed of misinformation and lies that aren't running afoul of libel/slander laws, as long as that's the hill the owners of the site wish to die on, that's their right.
When the argument is that misinformation is harmful, what you're really saying is that you think the American public is collectively too stupid to think for themselves. Perhaps we should be improving our public education standards so we don't have a population of easily impressionable sheeple in the first place?
Re:1984 put on hold (Score:4, Insightful)
it can be handled by community moderation or by the platform voluntarily (without coercion from Uncle Sam)
Is there any evidence of coercion from Uncle Sam?
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"When the argument is that misinformation is harmful, what you're really saying is that you think the American public is collectively too stupid to think for themselves."
Jeez, buddy, have you ever seen some of the interviews with MAGA people? It's far, far too late to "improve education standards". These people control school boards, and they work like dogs to ensure as many American children as they can get hold of are reduced to the same level of proud ignorance they exhibit every time they open their
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The government has no place deciding what is misinformation or truth. Especially when partisans in the government treat opinions that differ from theirs or inconvenient truths (does not fit the ideological objective) as misinformation. The government has the ability for 'experts' to publish guidance to the populace. We also have the press that can investigate and challenge misinformation (if only they'd go back to the concept of showing both sides of a story).
I think the biggest difference here is that s
I don't think that poster was... (Score:3)
In favor of all the lies all those government people and social media companies shovelled for YEARS in favor of masks, lockdown, experimental vaccines, and pushing the lie of Trump-Russia collusion, or the lie that Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian propaganda.
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Telling people to take a horse medication instead of a vaccine is not just fake information, it's a lie at best, fraud and depraved indifference at worst.
Also, hilarious that you suggest Tucker can sue for slander, I mean, isn't that censoring free speech? He'd be asking the governme
Re: 1984 put on hold (Score:2, Insightful)
Telling people the most widely human-used anti-parasitic on the planet is "horse medicine" to keep them from considering it *isn't* dangerous misinformation? The reason that lie was spread is because you can not EUA a drug in the US if there is any valid alternative treatment that *has* been properly tested.
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Telling people the most widely human-used anti-parasitic on the planet is "horse medicine" to keep them from considering it *isn't* dangerous misinformation? The reason that lie was spread is because you can not EUA a drug in the US if there is any valid alternative treatment that *has* been properly tested.
No, telling people medicine formulated for 1500-2000lb livestock animals that's sold at feed/farm stores "horse paste" is not misinforming them.
I literally stood in my uncle's feed store and listened to customers tell my aunt they were buying it for themselves before "the gubbmint" stopped them, and some of them had traveled quite a distance because they were slow to take it off their shelves. They honestly thought people were just joking about the whole situation. My cousin actually got arrested for
Re: 1984 put on hold (Score:4, Funny)
What people heard the FDA doing with their "you are not a horse" campaign was openly mocking and shitting on them
They deserved to be mocked, and they were literally shitting upon themselves. The majority of them were overdosing themselves, they were using a treatment ineffective for their case, it was causing them to shit their pants in hilarious numbers, and they were also avoiding the only treatment shown to be helpful in reducing their symptoms preemptively.
Re: 1984 put on hold (Score:4, Informative)
They deserved to be mocked, and they were literally shitting upon themselves. The majority of them were overdosing themselves, they were using a treatment ineffective for their case, it was causing them to shit their pants in hilarious numbers, and they were also avoiding the only treatment shown to be helpful in reducing their symptoms preemptively.
As a private citizen you are entitled to your opinion. As a public health *PROFESSIONAL* you are not entitled to act unprofessionally and publically shit on tax payers because you believe a group of them are clowns.
What matters is the public response to "you are not a horse" campaign not whether or not you think they "deserved it" or not. The goal isn't to push ideology or settle scores. It's to advance public health. Anyone who can't do that should be replaced with someone who can.
At the time of the campaign the FDA's official position was that Ivermectin was unproven and there was a lack of evidence either in favor or against. Your assertion it was ineffective was NOT shared by FDA at the time.
The issue of vaccines is orthogonal to treatment. Both were necessary. The vaccinations only reduced symptoms and deaths by an order of magnitude they were never complete solutions to preventing all severe outcomes or death. This concept that it's either vaccines or treatment because someone might opt for treatment instead is dangerous nonsense.
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You don't get to whine that your free speech was being restricted by the government.
Yes you do, you should be able to whine about it, that's free speech, if you think you should be able to shout fire in a theater, you should be able to state that.
Telling people to take a horse medication instead of a vaccine is not just fake information, it's a lie at best, fraud and depraved indifference at worst
You or the government should be able to sue, and the a judge and jury should decide, not a back room chat with your person in authority decide what should be published. The difference is on is an open discussion, with right of reply, the other is not.
Re:1984 put on hold (Score:5, Insightful)
Suing for slander is not the same as telling someone they couldn't say something. Freedom to speak isn't freedom from the consequences of speaking. If one can prove that someone intentionally spread lies about them in order to harm them, then they have a legal case for slander.
Many animal and human medications are the same. But they're marketed under different names and have different dosages. But, keep looking only at a single side of the story put out to make a single person look bad. There were a lot of unknowns with covid and a lot of experimental treatments (based on known medications with known impacts on certain symptoms). There was also a whole lot of 'because Trump' denouncements of nearly everything which is a very dangerous way to react to anything.
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How about specifying "is freedom from the GOVERNMENT causing consequences from your speaking". You are still subject to private and social consequences.
If you're an asshole, the consequences are most likely people shunning you, or making fun of you. This is fine, the us.gov is not involved. If you lie, you may be subject to a tort. Again, this is not the government sanctioning you, but providing a mechanism for a private citizen to sanction you.
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I don't know anyone in (a). I know a lot of people in (b) and almost everyone is in camp (c) now anyways.
a) You know Robert F. Kennedy.
b) If you know people in b then they're anti-vaxxers because there is no such thing as an untested vaccine. EVERY vaccine has been tested [hhs.gov] before the public gets to use it. Nor were the covid vaccines [reuters.com] "experimental".
c) Non sequitor. Not getting a booster, as I haven't, is not the same thing as a or b. If you're not at high risk, a booster isn't needed. Just like any other
Re: 1984 put on hold (Score:3)
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Sounds like "the context" is that they rushed this.
Re: 1984 put on hold (Score:3)
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> The vaccine was not tested on stopping the transmission of the virus before it entered the market.
And yet the CDC, The president, the media and your doctor lied the entire time.
They're still lying to you you're just too much of a narcissist to admit you were duped.
Like SpaceX landing rockets... (Score:5, Interesting)
To me, Pfizer not testing whether it stops transmission is a bit like how SpaceX didn't initially test landings on their Falcon rockets. First they concentrated on getting payloads to orbit reliably.
The goals of the vaccine, in rough order:
1. Make the disease significantly more survivable,
2. Make the vaccinated person significantly less likely to get sick at all.
3. Reduce transmission of the disease - a distant third place goal.
Once they verified #1 and #2 - which were relatively easy to study in parallel using the same methodology, the vaccine was proven effective, and was on route to be released. It protected those vaccinated.
That the vaccine ended up helping with herd immunity type stuff by making it less likely that people would catch the disease from those vaccinated, was really a happy bonus, and more easily studied with wider releases.
Re:1984 put on hold (Score:5, Informative)
As a young non-fatass, I was never at risk. I guess I never need the vaccine then.
Never at risk? Young healthy people died from COVID. I was talking to an ER nurse and she said watching them die was the worst. Because they are so healthy they'd last over weeks on a ventilator slowly withering away before finally dying. She also talked about dying people begging for the vaccine and having to explain it was too late for it to work.
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Death isn't the only risk to healthy people. They can also get Long COVID, which can be debilitating.
One of the many reasons why the British healthcare system is massively under-staffed is because so many formerly healthy and highly productive staff now have Long COVID.
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https://www.heart.org/en/news/... [heart.org]
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> c) Non sequitor. Not getting a booster, as I haven't, is not the same thing as a or b. If you're not at high risk, a booster isn't needed. Just like any other vaccine.
Ok, for one, you can't generalize vaccines like that, and secondly, whether a booster is "needed" is more a question of risk tolerance, but overall, at least the first booster should improve your outcomes regardless.
As a young non-fatass, I was never at risk. I guess I never need the vaccine then.
Most people aren't quite as healthy or even young as they think they are.
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"It's defenses reduced your chances of being infected, and lowered the load of the virus if you were infected, reducing the magnitude of which you could spread it."
That was the theory and it has been proven untrue. There was not a reduced chance of transmission nor infection which correlates to the vaccine. The last time anyone was seriously defending it, the supposed benefit was down to reduced symptoms.
What really killed it was the pfizer related FOIA which showed that not only did pfizer know it didn't w
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As a young non-fatass who got the vaccine I spent 3 weeks completely bed-ridden from COVID. My other young non-fatass Padel teammate ended up in the ICU.
I wouldn't describe you as a young non-fatass. If you think you don't need to vaccinate it doesn't matter how old you are or what shape you have. There's only one adjective to describe you: MORON.
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> You're endangering someones grandma. You're clogging the hospitals.
That was very true then it is much less now, hence boosters are no longer recommended except for those at high risk.
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The people I know, claim to be in group a. They are against this vaccine, but it seems that they became against other vaccines as well. I don't know how they live with being vaccinated against a bunch of diseases (in the USSR, some vaccines were mandatory and those people are old enough to have reached adulthood in the USSR). The reason they are against the vaccine is because "it's bad" or "they put chips in it".
For me it's this - the Ministry of Health (or whatever the department, like the CDC in the US) d
Re: 1984 put on hold (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't need a medical degree to have a valid aversion when they get caught outright lying to you on pretty much every significant claim they made.
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And if that had happened, you would have a valid point. But that's not what happened.
The anti-vaxxers are the ones who lied about every claim. They lied about what the claims were, and then they lied more about what the facts might have been.
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Some loud-mouth moron politicians shouted that, but it was a last-ditch effort to hold onto power they were losing and to sway their ignorant supporters to a dangerous and false line of thinking.
If you want to talk about people getting caught lying on everything they say, look no further than the alt-right and everyone attacking the vaccine and social media companies for stopping them from lying about the vaccine and spreading misinformation and hate. Almost every breath
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d. The agency and doctor are right about some vaccines and not others.
d is the most believable to me.
While I got the vaccine and believe that it is safe, I can see how someone may think that this particular vaccine maybe less safe based solely on the time it took to release it. Also in my eyes silencing doctors that disagree that the vaccine is safe only increases my skepticism of the vaccine.
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For me it's this - the Ministry of Health (or whatever the department, like the CDC in the US) decides if some medicine is safe or not. If I go to a doctor and get a prescription for whatever, I have to trust that the doctor knows what he/she is dong and that the government has certified the medicine correctly.
I suggest you read up on Thalidomide. There are a whole generation of 50 somethings with missing limb parts due to their mother's blind trust of the medical establishment.
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The government should not be censoring speech
How do you feel about Title X speech restrictions?
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Now how many other State projects exist only to whip up support for other State-approved GroupThink?
Just mark government policy posts as ads, problem solved!
Re:1984 put on hold (Score:5, Insightful)
Gotta protect that free speech when there is a buck to make.
Or a minority to oppress.
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Gotta protect that free speech when there is a buck to make.
Or a minority to oppress.
State coercion only applies to white Christians apparently. Would you still feel so smug if a Muslim baker or web designer was forced to create something with a homosexual wedding? Or were you referring instead to the oppression of those pesky over represented East Asians applying to elite schools?
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Re:1984 put on hold (Score:4, Insightful)
Arguing for or against the ability of the social media companies to censor speech they disagree with on their own platform is a separate argument. And, from what I can tell this injunction does not stop the various social media companies from doing these things on their own.
My big question however is what happens to the polcies that these companies are currently enforcing that were directed intiially by the government? My assumption (not a lawyer) is that all those polciies would be open to litigation by the parties they impacted. By acting at the behest of the government I presume they can be considered government actors and thus subject to lawsuits brought on a first amendment basis.
Free speech selective definition. (Score:4, Insightful)
Pizzagate, Jewish space lasers, election denialism, threats of violence, doxing, conspiracy to overthrow the government, ... alll a_OK now
The Republican party has given up even pretending to care. On the side of tax dodgers, on the side of violent fascists, ...
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Eventually Republicans do end up hoisting themselves by their own petards over these sort of issues. Citizens United is pretty much the basis of Disney's case against the state of Florida. Some LGBTQ+ owned businesses are considering the recent SCOTUS decision as permission to refuse service to right-wingers.
Re:Free speech selective definition. (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh yes, also the rights of Christians to abstain from doing business to customers now means anyone of any religion can refuse to do business. Given that many Christians fervently argue that atheism is a religion, that applies here too. Hypocrisy comes back to bite people in their own ass.
And yes, it is hypocrisy. When have you heard anyone say "I refuse to make you a wedding cake because I saw you look at another woman with lust in your heart"? Or "I refuse to do your taxes because I saw you visit a casino"? There are many sins listed explicitly in the bible that so many self righteous pharisees overlook, while focusing on homosexuality which is only rarely implied is a sin in scriptures without some hand waving explanation. BUT, homosexuality is a political issue, and a cultural issue, and these people cannot separate their religion from culture and politics.
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Discussion of race in class room, or LGBTQ in colleges, or information about birth control, abortions.... nah, not covered by free speech. Pizzagate, Jewish space lasers, election denialism, threats of violence, doxing, conspiracy to overthrow the government, ... alll a_OK now
The Republican party has given up even pretending to care. On the side of tax dodgers, on the side of violent fascists, ...
They care -- about the wrong things. And it's not just the classroom: It’s Getting Hard to Stage a School Play Without Political Drama [nytimes.com]
As lawmakers and parents seek to restrict what is taught in classrooms, many teachers are seeing efforts to limit what works they can stage.
so, basically... (Score:5, Informative)
A: You did not read the filings, or the judge's order.
or
B: You did, and you know that what you posted was crap, but you're hoping other people did not read the actual documents and will be mislead by your drivel.
NOBODY in this case alleges ANYBODY in government colluded with Big Tech to suppress communications about race, LGBTQ, birth control, abortions, etc. Your entire 1st paragraph is delusional. The Republican party is NOT the party refusing to face the issue of government-BigTech collusion to control information. Tax dodgers? You mean like hunter biden writing-off drugs and prostitues as deductions on his taxes?
Incidentally, "fascists" are the guys who unite government power with corporate power and then control communications for the manipulation of the masses...
Just thought you might want to learn about the real thing instead of the cartoon version you apparently have in mind.
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The Republican party is NOT the party refusing to face the issue of government-BigTech collusion to control information.
The Republican party is the party refusing to face the facts [theguardian.com].
Re:so, basically... (Score:4, Informative)
Do you not read the news? 140Mandak262Jamuna wasn't referring to this ruling when talking about race, LGBTQ issues, birth control, or abortions. They were referring to CRT bans [worldpopul...review.com], Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill [go.com] and DEI ban [npr.org], signs of upcoming attempts to ban contraception [reliasmedia.com], and some of the stricter state abortion bans [nbcnews.com] respectively.
None of these are delusional; as far as I can tell, the only one that isn't in effect yet is the contraception ban. Furthermore, all of these policies are pushed by Republicans.
Re:Free speech selective definition. (Score:5, Interesting)
With that said, in my lifetime, Democrats and Republicans alike have had a problem with failing to criticize what used to be fringe elements of their party. In the case of the Democrats, at the very least there still seems to be a roughly equal balance of power in Congress between the various factions within the party. In the case of Republicans, they've been largely consumed by the fringe elements over the years; Trumpism was just the ultimate result and climax of this.
This is unfortunate because many issues are complex and require educated critical dissent in order for all interests to be adequately represented. Even if you dislike just about everything that the Republicans stand for, I imagine you can at least admit that there is a place for informed critical dissent of whatever you do stand for; you're never going to always get it right, you'll always have blind spots, and there is a place for a dissenting faction. The problem I have is that Republicans are, in my opinion, not doing a good job of offering informed dissent in recent years because they have failed to keep the fringe crazies in their faction in check and they are starting to take over. As a result, Democrats don't take their dissent seriously and, in the lack of informed dissent, assume there is no worthwhile dissent and that they're right, so they push bad ideas through the legislative process and take their opinions into the classroom and teach uncritiqued political opinion as fact... without an ounce of malicious intent, mind, because they have no reason to think they're wrong when their only opposition is buffoons and nitwits.
Re: Free speech selective definition. (Score:4, Insightful)
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No, by discussions it will say how slavery was wrong, how apartheid was wrong, how racism is wrong.
Yes, about that... [youtube.com]
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Yes, about that... [youtube.com]
Yeah, I already knew cartoon kids went to cartoon schools that look like that from watching South Park. How about some real footage of actual students in an actual class in the real world? [youtube.com] Swap out the flat screen TV for an overhead transparency projector and not much has changed since I went to school decades ago.
Re:Free speech selective definition. (Score:5, Interesting)
That statement is a good example of the hostile media effect [wikipedia.org] which is "the tendency for individuals with a strong preexisting attitude on an issue to perceive media coverage as biased against their side and in favor of their antagonists' point of view. Partisans from opposite sides of an issue will tend to find the same coverage to be biased against them."
Unless you know of a reliable, politically neutral source for your claim?
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And so they should vote correctly for the party that will maximize racist and sexist policies against heterosexual men and white peoples.
Haven't you ever heard the expression "Equal rights for others does not mean fewer rights for you. It's not pie.”?
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It can. If I don't get a job or a spot in college because I'm the wrong color,
Indeed this is historically a major issue with non-whites in the country, lasting even to today. Oh wait, you honestly believe that white men are losing out on jobs because of their race? Scuse me while I laugh at the naivete.
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It can. If I don't get a job or a spot in college because I'm the wrong color, then yes, my life, Liberty, and pursuit of happiness has been negatively impacted by your increasing the "rights" of someone else.
Addressing education/job/housing discrimination is a tough one, because we can't just wave a magic wand to erase prejudice. It's always going to require some sort of compromise, where neither side is going to be fully pleased with the outcome.
However, I was mostly referring to issues such as LGBTQ+ rights, where simply existing is considered an affront by the American right-wing.
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>What are you talking about, woke us about recognizing that differences exist and respecting others.
I'm not sure the woke are really very famous for respecting others.
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I thought we were against fascism!? (Score:2)
> could undo years of efforts to enhance coordination between the government and social media companies
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”
Benito Mussolini
--
Can you handle the truth about the west: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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What do you mean, against fascism? It is literally one of the pillars of one political party's platform.
And just so everyone's on the same page [imgur.com] as to what fascism is about. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
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Yes, that's the Democrats.
Re:I thought we were against fascism!? (Score:5, Insightful)
> What do you mean, against fascism? It is literally one of the pillars of one political party's platform.
I think we're both acknowledging the democrats are fascist. The question is are we going to stop it. :)
Yes, yes. It's the Democrats who are fascists. It's the Democrats who are against human rights, who want religion and government intertwined, who want to protect corporations, who want to do away with labor unions and employee rights, who are against intellectuals. Yup, certainly sounds like Democrats. Can't think of any other party who embraces the virtues of fascism like Democrats do.
link to injuction (Score:5, Informative)
Ruling on injunction https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com] (just the document, not paywalled).
Paradox of tolerance (Score:5, Insightful)
"...states [wikipedia.org] that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually ceased or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly self-contradictory idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance."
In other words, unregulated speech deteriorates into censorship just as surely as unregulated markets devolve into monopolies.
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Trevor Noah on free speech / White House Correspondents Dinner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Even rational leftists understand
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In other words, unregulated speech deteriorates into censorship just as surely as unregulated markets devolve into monopolies.
This is highly misleading, as implying that unregulated speech causes censorship to occur is simply not true. The censorship occurs only as a consequence of lack of explicit protections for unregulated (as in free) speech.
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In other words, unregulated speech deteriorates into censorship just as surely as unregulated markets devolve into monopolies.
We've had the internet and its totally unregulated speech for several decades now. The internet is no less censored than before, despite every country's government trying to censor it with laws and regulations. While those can keep a few major social media sites from promoting undesirable content, it's still incredibly easy to escape that kind of censorship.
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Not a good reason to tolerate criminal activity by the government.
Re:Thus spake every tyrant (Score:4, Interesting)
And Hitler loved to paint; therefore, painting is bad, right? That's your argument.
Tell that to the conservative states who are doing all they can to ban books about racism and sexual identity! [theguardian.com]
Wow, the "right not to tolerate the intolerant" [wikipedia.org] leads to all that? Are you serious or just trolling?
We have to protect free speech (Score:2)
People need to be allowed to read all sorts of bullshit and especially believe it. First, a lot more morons die. Which is good for the overall gene pool. Second, with more people sick and dying, lockdowns get to last longer, which means there is no talk about RTO and we can stay in the comfort of our home office.
I demand that people are allowed to die for my comfort!
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I think it's less that paranoids survive, it's more that people who can gauge information for credibility do. If you're constantly paranoid and don't believe anyone, you will eventually die in a burning house when someone tells you to go outside and you don't believe them this was the better choice because you fear they want to kill you.
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People need to be allowed to read all sorts of bullshit and especially believe it. First, a lot more morons die.
From where I sit, it seems like most of them survived and moved to Florida.
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No vaccine is side effect free. That's why I wouldn't exactly want to have a malaria vaccine while going on a trip to Norway. But with the chance in climate, this might change.
The first smallpox vaccine had horrible side effects, up to and including a nontrivial chance to actually die of it. Compared to the disease, though, it was still the better option.
Now, we've come a long way since then, and taking the chance with the vaccine was in this case actually statistically sensible. But then again, I wouldn't
Responsibility (Score:2)
When all the newspapers had a picture of the accretion disk around Sag A* or the SMBH in the center of M87 on their frontpage, nobody doubted the science.
When the newspapers headlined how LIGO 'saw' intermediate mass BH mergers, nobody doubted the science.
Yet when presented with a simple correlation graph of the concentration of CO2 and global temperatures, US politics spoonfed by Big Oil seeds distrust.
When presented with scientific facts about vaccines, US politics seeds distrust.
And that's accepted by th
Re: Responsibility (Score:2)
The image of the accretion disk, the orbits of material spiraling into the SMBH, the shadow of the SMBH on that disk, those are all actual pixels resolved by the Event Horizon Telescope.
Unless you mean "artist rendering" like infrared pictures are just frequency shifted so we can see them with the very limited spectral range of our eyes, but that doesn't make it any less a picture.
Just like the x-ray of that broken arm isn't any artists rendering. It's a picture already.
Re: Responsibility (Score:4, Informative)
No president seriously advocated ingesting bleach. Sarcasm is a thing.
You're right, he didn't seriously advocate for ingesting bleach. But no sarcasm was involved. What he seriously advocated for was investigating whether using cleaning products in the lungs might be feasible. This is different from suggesting that people go out and inject cleaning products, so you're right about that part, but completely wrong about the sarcasm.
You had a valid argument right there, and then you reached right past it for some bullshit and destroyed your whole argument. Never go full bullshit.
How the Woke Fail the Paradox of Tolerance (Score:2)
‘There, Popper lays out a short summary of when a free society should and must not tolerate intolerant movements if it is to survive. It is not only when they espouse and
Congress shall make no law... (Score:2)
This judge needs to be disrobed for impeding the President's and the government's freedom to discuss whatever the fuck they want. It's clear he didn't even read the first 5 words of the second amendment.
Censoring speech to protect free speech (Score:2, Insightful)
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Re:Censoring speech to protect free speech (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, the way Trump kicked CNN out of the White House for asking tough questions that put him in a bad light [wikipedia.org] was very troubling.
Perfect for a Republican administration (Score:2)
Here's the opening of the opinion ... (Score:3)
The explosion of social-media platforms has resulted in unique free speech issues— this is especially true in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States' history. In their attempts to suppress alleged disinformation, the Federal Government, and particularly the Defendants named here, are alleged to have blatantly ignored the First Amendment's right to free speech.
Although the censorship alleged in this case almost exclusively targeted conservative speech, the issues raised herein go beyond party lines. The right to free speech is not a member of any political party and does not hold any political ideology. It is the purpose of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail, rather than to countenance monopolization of the market, whether it be by government itself or private licensee. Red Lion Broadcasting Co., v. F.C.C. (1969).
Sign of the times (Score:3)
It sounds about right that our choice at the moment is between limiting free speech and allowing mass manipulation of public opinion through disinformation.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a first amendment guy. This is the right decision from a first amendment perspective.
But the disinformation factories have become pretty adept and AI tools will make them more and more dangerous and effective. We don't have a solution for that.
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Re: Bad optics (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Bad optics (Score:5, Insightful)
> This is the right decision even if it is for dubious reasons.
Half a million Americans died unnecessarily because they were sold COVID disinformation for political gain.
The average person in the US does not have the right culture, education, and critical thinking skills to avoid being strongly affected by right-wing propaganda, even when it's killing them. You might say, "let them die", but there are plenty of people they can take with them on the way out.
When people are pushing dangerous proven lies that are killing hundreds of thousands of your fellow citizens... isn't that well over the line where you want to start curbing free speech a bit? Plenty of Western democracies manage to find a line between "whatever the hell you want" and "only government-approved groupthink" and it seems to serve everyone a lot better than where the line is generally drawn in the US.
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Sue them, have a authenticated user symbol on each post so people can at least know if they lie they can be prosecuted.
The average person in the US does not have the right culture, education, and critical thinking skills to avoid being strongly affected by right-wing propaganda, even when it's killing them. You might say, "let them die", but there are plenty of people they can take with them on the way out.
This maybe so, but I don't think the statement is any less true of the average congressman. In fact due to selection bias they are just probably better lairs and a greater desire for power.
The whole purpose of free speech is to limit the power of politicians, which they have vastly more than the average person, letting them influence speech behind scenes is unacceptable.
Half a million Americans died unnecessarily because they were sold COVID disinformation for political gain.
Firstly I don't unde
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>Firstly I don't understand how anyone got that figure
You take the excess death toll during the main phase of the COVID pandemic and compare it to other developed countries that weren't being run by right-wing populists.
The US lost about twice as many people as it would have if a third of the population hadn't effectively gone batshit insane.
On the other hand, St.Gritty was born. FAFO.
Re: Bad optics (Score:4, Interesting)
That's funny to me. I was talking to a Harvard educated economist and a neuroscientist that has a PhD in psycology today; they happen to be husband and wife.
"Solar doesn't work here." "EVs are an environmental nightmare." "The current labor situation is a function of the government shutting down society for two years."
All of these are talking points devoid of critical thinking. They get 10% less solar annually than Hawaii. The economics is marginally worse due to currently lower electricity rates, but it still has payback. Anti-EV comments at this point are basically too dumb to argue. U6 unemployment is the lowest since it has been recorded starting in 1996 and U3 unemployment is about on-par with the lowest values of the past 25 years. U3 is on-par with February 2020 and U6 is lower.
The issue isn't education, culture, intelligence, or whatever. It is cruel indoctrination.
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The fact that both sides are attacking my comment is good evidence that I got it right
Re:Bad optics (Score:4, Interesting)
When conspiracy believers are accusing social media of censoring "conservatives" (not the word I would use) at the request of Democrat officials, maybe they should back off from "coordination".
The fact that both sides are attacking my comment is good evidence that I got it right
No, it suggests you should consider and look for that, but in this case it means nothing of the sort. Conspiracy believers erroneously believe social media is censoring self-described conservatives [thehill.com] for the same reason they believe all the other bad things they believe about government: because self-described conservative politicians told them those things. Members of the "government is bad" party told them government was bad, and then they believed them because they wanted to. For example, ol' Cancun Cruz ranted long and loud about how you couldn't trust the vote, then ranted long and loud in congress about how his constituents didn't trust the vote after he told them not to.
What's interesting about this to me is that conservative voters are not blind followers; they only follow those who lead in the dumb-ass direction they want to go. When Trump told them they should take the vaccine, they began to reject him, and he then stopped trying to tell them that. If a conservative starts to favor gun control, they drop him like a rock. These are interesting and unforeseen (by the republican party) consequences to deliberately compromising education in America [bestcolleges.com]. Conservative lawmakers thought that destroying our education system would produce highly tractable voters, but instead it produced highly opinionated voters — with invalid and actively harmful opinions. Now the republican party has no options for getting elected except running out in front of a horde of undereducated cucks cheering for their own dumbing down.
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I didn't realize that Biden fought for segregation 200 years ago or that Robert Byrd lived to be 200+ years old. Funny how the parties switched but Democrats just continued their hijinx.
Re: Bad optics (Score:2)
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That's all disinformation, some of it by carefully chosen phrasing presenting the truth in a misleading way, and some of it just simple outright lies.
And you bought it and you're still proudly parroting it like an idiot after all this time.
Re:Free, free, free! (Score:4, Interesting)
Republicans are obsessed with the notion of "freedom" above all else.
They are? They may have used to back in the '90s or so, but just about every bill my governor talks up is restricting people's freedoms.
Freedom to get an abortion? Gone
Freedom to speak? - Gone if you're a teacher
Freedom to get medical care, as prescribed by doctors - Not if you're underage/trans, even with parental permission.
Freedom to express dislike for one of his policies? Not if you're a corporation looking to appease your employees.
Etc...
I'm a member of the libertarian party, not that I agree with most members of my party(they're nuts), and we get lots of people who confuse Ayn Rand with being libertarian(the intersections between Rand and philosophical libertarianism of her period are merely coincidental, she hated us), etc... I'm more of a traditional philosophical libertarian.
It means I can get strange, because while I support a UBI, for example, my justifications for it are severely different than other people's. My suggested amounts are also 1/2-1/4 of them.