Katie Hopkins suspended from Twitter

[GortonBlue62]

That's not really true. You're still here, after all.

In general it is true. It's also the case that people with high numbers of posts have the CoC applied much less rigorously.

Love the site by the way, despite the illiberal intolerant political views of the majority on here. Can't imagine what we did without it.

 

[GortonBlue62]

No rights have been revoked for Hopkins that she hasn't agreed to cede to someone else's judgement when signing up to twitter.

It's not an inalienable right when it's on a company's own website; it's only a right as far as the company terms of use allow it; if those terms, which have been signed up to, grant them the right to ban an account, then the account user has agreed voluntarily to give up that right.

If someone wants free use, they can set up up their own website and do it there.

I'm talking about the attack on freedom of speech in our wider society influencing social media companies.

Too many people saying they believe in 'freedom of speech' when they actually believe in 'freedom of speech but...'.

 

[Ric]

In general it is true. It's also the case that people with high numbers of posts have the CoC applied much less rigorously.

Love the site by the way, despite the illiberal intolerant political views of the majority on here. Can't imagine what we did without it.

That is also not true, but thanks for the kind words.

 

[MillionMilesAway]

I'm talking about the attack on freedom of speech in our wider society influencing social media companies.

Too many people saying they believe in 'freedom of speech' when they actually believe in 'freedom of speech but...'.

That's because complete freedom of speech is not something that any commercial company will ever associate with. If Twitter (or any other commercial company) sees a backlash from the type of hate Hopkins peddles, it will act to protect it's reputation and income. Damn that wider society having opinions...

The outcome of any 'complete' freedom of speech is pretty hard to imagine, but I think it would almost certainly lead to bullying of any group perceived 'weaker'.

 

[GortonBlue62]

That's because complete freedom of speech is not something that any commercial company will ever associate with. If Twitter (or any other commercial company) sees a backlash from the type of hate Hopkins peddles, it will act to protect it's reputation and income. Damn that wider society having opinions...

The outcome of any 'complete' freedom of speech is pretty hard to imagine, but I think it would almost certainly lead to bullying of any group perceived 'weaker'.

I don't think the founding fathers' of the United States found it difficult to imagine when they framed the first amendment to the American constitution...

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble"

... nor did the citizens of England a century earlier when the ideas that inspired the American revolution were being aired in the English Civil War.

Anyway, signing off now, but remember this time tomorrow you will be living in a country where the laws that affect you are made by people who are directly accountable to you.

 

[MillionMilesAway]

I don't think the founding fathers' of the United States found it difficult to imagine when they framed the first amendment to the American constitution...

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble"

... nor did the citizens of England a century earlier when the ideas that inspired the American revolution were being aired in the English Civil War.

Anyway, signing off now, but remember this time tomorrow you will be living in a country where the laws that affect you are made by people who are directly accountable to you.

Ooh, death by non sequitur. And tosh, of course.

 

[Bigga]

I don't think the founding fathers' of the United States found it difficult to imagine when they framed the first amendment to the American constitution...

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble"

... nor did the citizens of England a century earlier when the ideas that inspired the American revolution were being aired in the English Civil War.

Anyway, signing off now, but remember this time tomorrow you will be living in a country where the laws that affect you are made by people who are directly accountable to you.

What a stupid argument...

 

[ZenHalfTimeCrock]

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear" George Orwell.

There are problems with this statement when it is invoked as an exceptionless moral principle or right.

First of all, an unlikely but hypothetical case: suppose that I am a chemist who inadvertently discovers a simple way to manufacture a highly lethal nerve gas from readily available kitchen products. Would it be acceptable for me to publicise the recipe online in a manner that might attract attention from terrorist organisations?

If that example sounds contrived, then what about Rex Feral's Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors ? It was published in the USA and came to wider public attention when a real hit man followed instructions in the book to carry out an actual contract. That's an interesting example to research online, starting with the Wikipedia entry.

When it comes to the limits of free speech and a consideration of what it is appropriate or inappropriate to state in public, the most obvious line to be drawn is one described by the Victorian philosopher John Stuart Mill. Mill contrasts a newspaper article in which the author claims that corn dealers are starvers of the poor, and the same view spoken (or communicated via a placard) right outside a corn dealer’s house. The first is, for Mill, a controversial opinion that should be allowed to enter the public debate, even if the view is false or immoral; the second is, in those circumstances, an act of incitement to violence and unacceptable.

Interestingly, Trump arguably crossed that line during his presidential campaign. At Wilmington, North Carolina on August 9th 2016, he said this about Hillary Clinton: 'If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is.'

Mill was probably thinking about incitement to physical violence. But what of speech that amounts to relentless, psychological bullying? That often happens in schools. And what if the recipient of the bullying has a high physical pain threshold but is more sensitive to verbal assaults?

Cases of undeserved media witch hunts and the activities of online trolls also spring to mind, especially, in the latter instance, when they emanate from the darker corners of cyberspace.

My personal view is that there is probably no unambiguous or entirely satisfactory way to balance off the interests of those who are concerned about free expression and the right to offend, and those who might be on the receiving end of the worst examples of this.

Maybe it's a case of deploying Mill's principle as an initial yardstick or signpost and then coming to a more specific judgement about each case individually.

 

[aguerrrroooooooooooo]

The outcome of any 'complete' freedom of speech is pretty hard to imagine, but I think it would almost certainly lead to bullying of any group perceived 'weaker'.

Complete freedom of speech would require Twitter to tolerate terrorists trying to recruit people or peadophiles sharing abhorrent material on their platform.

It is completely ridiculous to expect a company or wider society to tolerate total freedom of speech

 

[mexico1970]

Complete freedom of speech would require Twitter to tolerate terrorists trying to recruit people or peadophiles sharing abhorrent material on their platform.

It is completely ridiculous to expect a company or wider society to tolerate total freedom of speech

Twitter have purged many far left accounts too, i'm not arguing that that's a good or bad thing it's just a thing and as you say it's a company protecting its brand. But to give a private meeting to a z list celebrity is a slippery slope.
Either way if Twitter is even handed and cut all radicals off then it's on them and they'll live or die as a business by making those decisions.