National Public Radio yesterday posted an article titled “Twitter has lost 50 of its top 100 advertisers since Elon Musk took over, report says.” The article relies on a report from the liberal site Media Matters for America founded by Democratic operative David Brock. The report lists companies that have publicly pulled their advertising and the article strongly suggests that it is due to the pledge of Elon Musk to restore free speech protections on the social media site. These companies are well within their free speech rights to boycott the company or suspend their support in light of possible changes on content. However, customers also have the right not to support companies that do not support their free speech rights.
The NPR article contains this graph:
“Chevrolet, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc., Ford, Jeep, Kyndryl, Merck & Co. and Novartis AG all issued statements about halting Twitter ads or were reported and confirmed as doing so. The others ceased advertising on the platform for a “significant period of time following direct outreach, controversies, and warnings from media buyers.”
A quick review of these companies shows that many use the same vague rationale of Chipolte that they want to wait to “gain a better understanding on the direction of the platform under its new leadership.” These companies have not expressly called for censorship. They simply say that they will not advertise with the company until that they are satisfied with the company’s new “direction.”
The assumption is that the companies were fine with the “direction” of the old Twitter in limiting free speech. In the very least, it did not seem to be a sufficient concern to prompt them to make public statements suspending advertising in prior years.
The companies have remained silent on why the prior “direction” did not appear to be a corporate concern. They did not apparently view the prior Twitter policies as barriers to advertising.
Specifically, these companies appeared to have no objections to the company maintaining one of the world’s largest and most notorious censorship systems. The blocking of the Hunter Biden laptop story did not appear to be a barrier for advertisers. The blocking of individuals offering opposing views on Covid, climate change, transgender policies or other issues was not an apparent barrier. Yet, the announced intention to restore free speech protections has warranted these suspensions.
There is also a concern that these suspensions have followed a campaign from many on the left to pressure advertisers to pull advertising funds. The public statements have been celebrated by those seeking to coerce Musk into restoring censorship on the platform. The campaign is also ramping up as Musk threatens to reveal back channel communications related to the censorship of political and social commentary. The disclosures could prove embarrassing for many in the political and media establishment.
There is even a campaign on the left to ban Twitter from the Apple and Google stores to pressure Musk to relent on censorship. This could create a massive war between the establishment and these companies against Musk and many citizens over free speech. Musk is reportedly preparing for such a ban.
Companies like Disney have faced backlash over taking political positions in states like Florida. However, for the most part, companies assume that consumers will be driven by their products rather than their policies in making purchase choices. They may be right, but these companies are viewed by many as supporting an anti-free speech campaign. That could be a question for some consumers. For shareholders, these decisions raise questions of whether corporate executives are serving their interests in joining an effective boycott against Twitter.
The reason for their withdrawal of advertising remains intentionally vague but the timing and message seems quite clear. The move to pull advertising can lead many customers to question the “direction of the leadership” of these companies on free speech. If these companies do not want the restoration of the prior Twitter censorship policies, they should state so. They should also state what they are demanding from Musk if it is not the censorship or the banning of individuals.
These companies may insist that they do not want to have advertising associated with unpopular or offensive posters, particularly given the “general amnesty” for previously banned accounts. While it did not seem to be a problem to be associated with one of the world’s largest censorship companies, it is clearly their right to associate or disassociate with any company. It is also the right of consumers to choose to disassociate with companies due to their position on free speech.
Jonathan: It seems Elon Musk attracts controversy in all his moves at Twitter these days. He now says he is going to reinstate the accounts of Donald Trump and Kanye West. This odd couple was in the news this week. Business Insider has an article (11/24) about recent visitors to Mar-a-Lago. Jeff Greene, a fellow billionaire and Mar-a-Lago member, says Trump has no real “friends”. Those who congregate at Mar-a-Lago are there for one purpose–to heap fawning praise and adulation on Trump who soaks up the applause when he enters the dinning room. When Greene was an active member he says Trump “would come over to my table, I think because I was a billionaire. He likes billionaires”. But Greene says he and Trump never became “friends” because Trump could not use Greene to get ahead. Greene says all of Trump’s relationships are “transactional” .
Which brings up the latest visitors to Mar-a-Lago during Thanksgiving. In postings and a video Kanye West says he had dinner with Trump over the holiday. West relates he brought along Nick Fuentes, the well know white nationalist and anti-Semite. They share views on the Jews. While breaking bread West told Trump he intended to run for president in 2024 and asked Trump to be his running mate. The 45 yr old rapper says Trump was taken aback and “started basically screaming at me at the table telling me I was going to lose…”. West says Trump was so enraged he made disparaging remarks about West’s wife, Kim Kardashian. Not a good move! Anyway, Trump admits he had dinner with West but denies knowing anyone else at the table. Now that’s hard to believe. Nick Fuentes is a well know white nationalist and anti-Semite who participated in the Charlottsville neo-Nazi rally. The DOJ calls Fuentes a “white supremacist”. Breaking bread with two notorious anti-Semites does not appear to be a good way for Trump tp kick off his own presidential campaign. The negative fallout from the dinner is causing fits for the Trump campaign. Two advisors winced at how a Holocaust denier like Fuentes could wind up having dinner with Trump. “It’s a f—ing nightmare” one advisor said. Indeed.
So why would Musk want to invite two notorious anti-Semites back to Twitter? Birds of a feather? Musk also says he will reinstate other suspended accounts. That means the anti-LGBTQ firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene will be back on Twitter spewing out her own form of bigotry. And you wonder why advertisers are avoiding Musk’s Twitter in droves? As the author Steven King says: “Pretty soon the only advertiser left on Twitter will be My Pillow”.
And what is your answer to defending Musk against his critics? A counter-boycott where consumers can “choose to disassociate with companies due to their position on free speech”. That’s likely to go over like a lead balloon. Are you going to lead a consumer boycott of Eli Lilly, the pharma giant that millions depend upon for essential medications? Good luck on that one! Your decision to back Musk is having all sorts of unintended consequences you should have foreseen—so now you are forced to double-down to protect your investment. The outcome is not going to be pretty!
Dennis McIntyre, I get a kick out of people like you on the left who first tell us that the pharmaceutical companies are gouging Grandma with high prices but now you chose to defend them. We can rest assured if something can be twisted to your purposes you will twist it. Please inform us when you began hating Eli Lilly again. I’m sure we won’t have to wait for long.
Dennis, My old maid aunt cant out gossip you. She at least knows her sources, and is accurate in the facts.
Dennis McIntyre does the Trump anti semitic screed again. You know, the guy who got the Arab nations to put Israel’s embassies in their nations for the first time. Yes, that guy Trump who brought the Middle East nations closer to agreement than anytime in history. Dennis forgets to mention a well known anti semite that appears regularly on MSNBC by the name of Al Sharpton. Dennis always regurgitates the latest news from MSNBC like a puppet on a string. He thinks he’s a real boy.
The problem with your comment is that it ignores the fact the the left and Democrats have been playing identity politics for so long, right out in the open, that folks on the right are starting to play right along. Forgive me though for not taking your chicken little act seriously. If Kanye were replaced with a female star and had said the same thing about “white people (wypipo)” or men, nobody on the left would bat an eye. In fact, our universities openly push the same type of nonsense around group guilt. And conspiracies about the “cis-hetero-patriarchy” and “white supremacy. The left has been actively pushing and justifying the same type of philosophy that they’re now insisting is so pernicious. When the left gets their act together and gets back to the liberal logic of treating people as individuals, rather than as members of whatever group that your genetic inheritance puts you into, then maybe it’ll be time to take the type of hysteria your comment displays seriously. Until that happens though, don’t expect folks ttake you claims of anti-semitism, racism, or whatever other -ism that folks like you sling around. Hopefully folks will start to wake up to the numerous logical and performative contradictions and will see them for what they really are….power hungry ideologues.
Dennis….Trump associated with “bad people”! The Horror! Well, that settles it… boycotts Twitter.
The left is simply irrational with their arguments.
Dennis McIntyre- help me out here, Dennis. The professor writes an article about free speech and why it is important, and you write a comment describing why you dislike a particular individual. What am I missing?
I don’t know about the reports you have of Trump. I have had no personal experience or contact with him. But I did volunteer work with a woman who worked in Trump’s office and had daily contact with him. She was not shy about giving her opinion and did not suffer fools gladly. She said Trump was a pleasure to work for: kind, courteous, and intelligent.
With respect to Trump – whether he has friends, who those friends are, and who he has to dinner – is none of your business.
Just as whether you have friends, who those are and who you have to dinner is none of my business.
As is typical of left wing nuts you are fascinated by the private lives of others.
It is this that John Stuart Mill argued was the fatal flaw of democracy – ordinary people demand for themselves and through representative govenrments infringements on freedom they would never tolerate from kings.
It is thanksgiving – enjoy your turkey. Keep your nose out of Trump’s and the rest of ours.
Joan Say: Al contrario! You missed one of the points of my comment. Trump has no “friends”. He may have acquaintances that serve a narrow business or personal purpose–but he has no genuine “friends”–not the kind we enjoy. And who Trump has over for Thanksgiving dinner is very much my business and the business of the country. When he entertains two well known anti-Semites that is of concern to me. Trump is the guy, in case you forgot, who led the insurrection at the Capitol and continues to claim the 2020 election was stolen from him. He is, in case you didn’t notice, the target of several civil and criminal investigations. That makes him a subject of intense public interest. When Trump breaks bread with 2 well known anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers it sends the message of encouragement to white nationalists and neo-Nazis everywhere. There has been a huge increase in anti-Jewish violence. So, yes, who Trump associates with and who he supports is very much my business!
I have no idea if Trump has freinds – nor do you.
That is not an argument, it is just an assertion that it is obvious that you are blowing out your ass.
There was no need to address it because it was obvious you could not possibly not know what you were talking about.
But it is typical of left wing nut arguments – when you have nothing – and you never do, attack peoples character – and if you do not know what to attack – just make something up.
And you wonder why no one trusts you ?
No it is not your business – or the countries who Trump has for dinner.
To a very limited extent it is of interest to the country who the current president has for dinner.
But you are not entitled to know whatever you want about other people just because you have no life of your own.
Kanye is a friend and has been for a long time. He was responsible for several of Trump’s pardon’s.
He remains a very influential person.
He also appears to be having some personal difficulties and has said some stupid things – you should empathize, you do that all the time.
BTW Trump has said exactly that about Kanye and more specifically about his dinner with Kanye, He specifically said that he had dinner with someone who is a friend and who currently needs a freind and some good advice. Kanye brought two guests. They were Kanye’s guests – Trump did not invite them.
You want to be critical of some of the things Kanye has said – go for it – though people who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
You said Trump has no friends – but in fact Kanye is a friend.
And unlike you and other loathsome leftists, Trump does not turn his back on friends because they have made mistakes.
Trump has made it clear – not that he should need to, that he is not an anti-semite. and that Kanye has made mistakes, he has also made it clear that he is their for Kanye.
I would suggest that you are more likely the one with no friends – you certainly do not know how to be a friend.
“Kanye is a friend and has been for a long time. “
“Trump does not turn his back on friends because they have made mistakes.”
—
“When a friend makes a mistake, he remains a friend, but the mistake remains a mistake.” S Peres
Would you go to dinner with Ilhan Omar if invited ? Or invite her to dinner with you ?
I would.
If there is a reason to go to dinner I would, but if you are talking about being social with an anti-Semite who has no good qualities, I wouldn’t.
No one has no good qualities.
Though it is sometimes hard to tell here.
Frankly directly – either via email or face to face even over controversial topics I have had excellent exchanges with prominent leftists.
One of the problems with Twitter is that it encourages rational people to say very stupid things.
I went back last night, and it seems much less brutal than in the past.
Lets see if it stays that way.
I am BTW NOT opposed to twitter engaging in “content moderation” – I just want it to be based on clear rules, and implimented automatically rather than by humans.
I do NOT want anything at all done about “disinformation” – that is a completely different issue from trying to encourage more civil speech.
“No one has no good qualities.”
Let me revise that, good qualities that I find valuable. I don’t eat dinner with everyone. I discriminate, based on value, not race, politics, etc.
You are free to do so.
I would eat dinner with Ilhan Omar. I would listen carefully to what she has to say, and I would hope that she does the same.
Trump dined with Kim Un, and Putin and Xi.
I can live with his dining with Fuentes and Kanye.
Possibly more so than any other politician – Trump is what he says he is.
There is no need to try to peek behind the curtain to see who might be pulling his strings.
Even Pence has recently said that you can trust that Trump means what he says.
Feuntes, and Kanye are not going to secretly convert Trump into an anti-semite and white supremecist.
Frankly the “white supremecist” nonsense is just annoying. There are plenty of republicans whose values I do not share.
That does not mean they are a danger to society.
Ilhan Omar is not a “danger to society”. They woke progressive 10% of the country that shares her views IS.
There is no open movement of white supremecists in this country.
We go through this idiocy with nearly every bad thing that happens in this country.
Every shooting, every odd incident is purportedly a reflection of the incitement of violence by the right.
Yet, when the perpitrators are not nuts, or minorities, they are BLM activists, or non-binary or ….
Regardless, we have very little actually political violence in this country.
What we have is NOT secret.
We do not have a secret army of white supremcists comiting acts of political violence and then HIDING their motives.
Those who engage in political violence do not do so secretly – he politics is the point.
Antifa is an example of Political violence. While they do not get the press coverage they deserve – they do not hide what they are doing or why.
The riots at the federal courthouse in Portland are political violence – no one there was hiding the politics of what they were up to.
Right or left actual political violence is rarely done by individuals, and never done “secretly”.
Trump is the guy how lead the challenge to a lawless and likely fraudulent election
There was no insurrection – unless you are talking about BLM’s “summer of love” or the 100+ consecutive days of riots and attemptes to take over the federal courthouse in Portland.
YOU seem to have a problem when those you oppose do not roll over and capitulate.
Gore challenged the 2000 election – he went all the way to the supreme court and lost – was that an insurrection ?
Kavanaugh protestors flooded through the capitol, disrupting various hearings – 58 people were arrested, one of which put an axe through the door of a Senator. Regarldess, these people were all ACTIVELY trying to intimidate Senators – was that an insurrection ?
Abrahms has been beaten by KEmp twice – and still claims the results were due to fraud – is that an inserection ?
Hillary has not conceeded the 2016 election, she and other democrats challenged some states in court alleging fraud,
they sought to get electors to change their votes – and succeeded in a few instances, Trump’s “plan” to “overturn the election” in congress was drafted by Lawrence Tribe specifically for Hillary Clinton to “overturn” the 2016 election.
I can go on and on.
You are free to be unhappy with Trumps actions.
You are not free to LIE.
No one should beleive your claims that there was an insurrection in 2021 – unless you treat other similar events by democrats as insurrections too. You do not, that means that you are just a hypocrite and a liar.
Completely independent of the claims of fraud – the 2020 election was stolen. You the left, the media, supressed all negative stories about the Biden crime syndicate – that is called stealing an election.
Trump has been the target of left wing nuts for a long long time.
How well has that gone for you ?
You do not seem to grasp that when you go after someone 50 times and fail,
it is reasonable of the rest of us to conclude from that point on that you are just politically biased and corrupt.
Trump has not been charged with anything.
I can name dozens of people in my town who are charged with crimes, some convicted of them.
That does not mean you are entitled to know who they had over for dinner.
Your morbid desire to pry into the lives of others is YOUR problem, and a reflection of the likelyhood that you have no life of your own or friends.
JUDAS
It seems to me a strange thing, mystifying
That a man like you can waste his time on women of her kind.
Yes, I can understand that she amuses,
But to let her kiss you, stroke your hair, that’s hardly in your line.
It’s not that I object to her profession,
But she doesn’t fit in well with what you teach and say.
It doesn’t help us if you’re inconsistent.
hey only need a small excuse to put us all away.
JESUS
Who are you to criticise her?
Who are you to despise her?
Leave her, leave her, let her be now.
Leave her, leave her, she’s with me now.
If your slate is clean, then you can throw stones.
If your slate is not, then leave her alone.
I’m amazed that men like you can be so shallow, thick and slow
There is not a man among you who know or cares if I come or go.
John 8
Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them.
The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group
and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.
In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”
They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.
When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.
Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
“No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
Luke 18
The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable:
“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
I suggest paying more attention to your own life
The increase in hate crimes is almost entirely in cities. Very Few MAGA republicans live in cities.
The Recent Colorado mass shooting was an act of domestic terror and was committed by a guy who claims to be non-binary whos pronouns are they/them.
The largest single target of anti-semetism in the US is Ben Shapiro – pretty sure that those attacking him are not MAGA republicans.
Here is Glenn Greenwald on this immoral effort to use nonsensical claims like yours to suppress speech.
https://rumble.com/v1xbl8g-the-medias-deranged-hysteria-over-elon-musks-restoration-of-free-speech.html
“it sends the message of encouragement to white nationalists and neo-Nazis everywhere”
Both of them.
That is sadly laughable. It was the Nazis that suppressed free speech. You and your cohorts have swallowed a page out of Goebbels’ text book—if you’re going to tell a lie, tell a big one.
Psychologists are laughing at your projection of one of your flaws onto others. A clumsy attempt at slight of hand.
Does your reply mean anything ?
As best I can tell it just indicates you are clueless.
When was the last time there was an act of political violence that a nazi took credit for ?
I can not think of a single one.
The point of political violence is POLITICAL. It is by definition NOT political violence if it is not clear why the violence was committed.
Absolutely Fascists supressed speech, as do ALL socialists.
There are plenty of actual examples of efforts to supress speech by those on the right – Sen. MacCarthy jumps immediately to mind. The left used to think that the black lists, The House Unamerican Activities Committee and similar violations of the first amendment b the right were bad.
No they are trying to do so much worse that history forgets MacCarthy.
Regardless, I am not a republican. I am not here to defend everything republicans have ever done. I have opposed many republican acts and policies just in the 21st century. The primary people I follow are actual liberals like Turley, or Derschowitz, or many many others who fought often against republicans for the constitutional and civil rights that those on the left are rushing to obliterate today.
When american Nazi’s are an actual threat again, when they are consequential again – which is not likely in my lifetime.
I will speak out against them.
In the meantime there are more left wing nuts who actually engage in political violence in Portland than there are nazis in the entire US – probably by an order of magnitude.
What flaw am I projecting, and which psychologists are laughing ?
It would be helpful if when you engage in ad hominem you could atleast do so in a way that the insult was clear.
Further I have no idea how my reply would either be projection or a slight of hand.
“So, yes, who Trump associates with and who he supports is very much my business!”
Nope.
Schiif likely to dodge republican subpeona
https://rumble.com/v1xj868-after-threatening-trump-for-years-adam-schiff-wont-say-if-he-will-honor-sub.html
“When Trump breaks bread with 2 well known anti-Semites “
Trump disavows anti-Semitism.
The left embraces anti-Semitism as seen in the squad. Do you not think before you write?
Musk did not invite anyone. He got rid of Silly Twitter bans – thousands of them.
Musk has also noted that by a ratio of something like 99.99% twitter bans targeted conservatives.
He is now starting over with more objective rules – and that is changing.
People are getting banned for certain types of hate speech – and interestingly more are being banned by OBJECTIVE rules on the left, than on the right. They are being banned for impersonating other people – and again = more on the left than the right.
Several Antifa groups have been banned for advocating violence.
Musk is working through the Check system – apparently there will be 3 types of checks.
But one thing Musk has already found from check subscriptions – is that this reduces bots and confirms identity better than anything else.
Someone must PAY for a check mark – that means there is a bank account, credit card, debit card, or some other financial marker of identity tied to that account.
There was a brief spike in “hate speech” – the use of the N word. That lasted about a day. Now “hate speech” is 20% lower than before Musk took over.
Musk has put a speed limit on ALL accounts – posts are limited to the amount a person on meth could type if they could keep going 24×7.
Implimenting that nearly wiped out the “hate speech” – it was all from bots.
Fighting bots is a war, the speed limit is a good start, but hackers will work arround it eventually.
Active users on Twitter are UP 20% since his takeover.
BTW I WANT all those groups you wish to Ban on Twitter and elsewhere – I want the Nazi’s and Antifa on Twitter and elsewhere.
I want them publicly telling us all about themselves, who they are. I WANT them trying to recruit new members – and I want to know what their actual numbers are.
I doubt Musk will do that – but that would be really good.
I would note that social media users curate their own feeds – though Musk is looking to give them more power to do more fine grained personal censoring of their own feeds.
YOU should be able to choose the voices you wish to hear – not the voices other people get to hear.
Purportedly twitter users on the left fled elsewhere and are now headed back – because Their left wing nut twitter sphere ended up more of a hellscape than anything leaning right. They ended up at war with themselves.
Regardless, Twitter belongs to Musk. He can do with it whatever he wants.
And you can be part of that or not.
Twitter is moving in the right direction at the same time the left seems to be changing its position on Tik Tok.
“This is not something you would normally hear me say but Donald Trump was right on TikTok years ago,.. If your country uses Huawei, if your kids are on TikTok, if your population uses WeChat as a social media platform, the ability for China to have undue influence is, I think, a much greater challenge and a much more immediate threat than any kind of actual, armed conflict,… China having this kind of technology domination in a number of countries ought to scare the heck out of us because we’ve seen the kind of Orwellian surveillance state they’ve already created within China.” _Congressman Mark Warner (D)
China’s National Intelligence Law requires organizations and citizens to “support, assist and co-operate with the state intelligence work”.
It appears that suddenly the world is changing and accepting small parts of what Trump was saying to the American public despite the denial by CNN and other networks.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/trump-was-right-on-tiktok-threat-leading-democrat-20221024-p5bsd3.html
S. Meyer, you say , China’s National Intelligence Law requires organizations and citizens to “support, assist and co-operate with the state intelligence work. I say The United States Intelligence Law requires organizations and citizens to support, assist and co-operate with the FBI intelligence work to investigate parents who want to have a say in what their children are learning.
TiT, I am not sure of your point. Today the US is acting more in Chinese fashion than previously. There is a strong leftist link to our enemies ,especially China. China requires companies working there to give up certain information that makes the situation dangerous for America. America does not force such actions, at least not today.
S, Meyer, we are experiencing similar actions by our intelligence agency today in America. People here are being forced to go along with government mandates every day and if the people are not in compliance penalties will ensue. Covid shots are an example. If you think it’s not happening yet you are mistaken.
No, I know that is happening but not to the same degree as what is happening in China.
Tit, forced Covid shots are nothing but a big reward to big pharma. Independent
many seem to forget that several years ago NPR/PBS decided to kill comments on their stories because conservatives were primarily commenting and in most cases pointing out the errors in the stories
NPR is way past its pull date. Let the DNC support it, not taxpayers.
Meritocracy, not wokeness. Shareholders, not stakeholders. Capitalism, not ESG. Musk is on the right track. Rome wasn’t built in a ….
Based on the data that I am finding Twitter is doing well.
Several anti-bot tactics are working – this is a never ending technology war so that will require permanent vigilence.
Regardless actual hate speech measures are below pre takeover levels – because bots were responsible for most of it.
Active users is up 20% and rising.
The paid check system is raising revenue, resulting in better posts, impeding bots, and verifying identity.
With more related improvements expected to come.
Twitter has slashed the workforce – and still doing the job.
People are still being banned – for violating CLEAR rules – and more of those are on the left than right.
American Free Enterprise, distinctly not Karl Marx’s pejorative, capitalism.
Jonathan – Here’s a hypothetical for you to put into your “free speech” pipe and smoke: You argue an important case in front of the Supreme Court. When the decision is published months later, you turn on the TV and they say your side lost. But, you download the ruling, and it appears you won!
The mass media in unison continue to insist your plaintiff lost. You call the NYT for an interview, and they brand your “opinion” that you won as disinformation. You get an interview with a e-rag with a circulation of 1 million, and it is summarily ignored or branded as infowarfare. However hard you try, your message is effectively blocked.
In my hypothetical, do you still defend the major media org’s right to its own interpretation of a court decision?
If so, where do you draw the line? If the 1st Amendment protects willful, deceitful disinformation about an official government action or result, not by a single voice, but in concert by an unorganized alliance of media and tech giants acting against the government, then you are advocating for insurrective infowarfare on a mass scale. There are certain conflict-settling and justice-advancing events taking place in a democracy that must carry authority — you can disparage such results, but not claim that the opposite occurred.
Twitter drew a line at Trump’s disinformation campaign about him “winning the 2020 election by a landslide”.
Whether you call that exercising editorial judgment, or denial of free-speech, what matters most is that one group of citizens (Twitter) thwarted irresponsible and insurrective abuse of those freedoms. As a result, we’re Thankful to not be fighting a violent civil war over who is the legitimate President 2021-2025.
Your definition of free-speech invites anarchy, alienation and ultimate descent into armed warfare over irreconcilable narratives. It’s just not persuasive the wide berth you are giving to public mendacity. Yes, we need ample room to express opinions, including divergent thinking. But, the question of Court decisions, or who was certified as winning an election — those are not matters of opinion. Without certainty about such matters in the public infospace, there can be no civilized government. There can only be rule-of-the-jungle.
👎
Anonymous, once again you provide us with one of your erudite responses. Such thought! Such clarity! We are so amazed at your command of both language and thought. 👎Now that there is some kinda smarts I tell ya.
I’m no fan of Trump, but he was the President of the United States, duly elected, and is a former president. You simply don’t ban him.
Are you unable to judge for yourself if what he says is true?
One set of citizens – esp. Twitter or any institution, is NOT entitled to decide what is irresponsible or insurective. PERIOD.
And that always ends badly.
You are free to decide for yourself what to listen to. You have no right to control what others can hear.
If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.
-John Stuart Mill
https://heterodoxacademy.org/library/all-minus-one/
Free speech is not merely a right – it is an absolute necescity for a functioning society.
“ You have no right to control what others can hear.”
Private companies or organizations do. Even religious ones do. The court constitution is clear on that. The only limitations are imposed on government.
No they do not. They only have the right to control what THEY say, or what they allow to be said on their property.
That is it.
The supreme court has never found a right or power to force silence.
Further – even if you could manipulate the court to get a bad decision – that does not change the fact that freedom and particularly free speech is intrinsically linked to rise in standard of living.
We F’d up Covid. The most important reason we F’d up was the active supression of multiple viewpoints by those like YOU.
While it is likely that absent YOUR censorship only a small number of people would have lived who would not have otherwise,
There are few effecatious treatments – and most both the supressed and accepted do not work very well.
But our response to Covid had massive negatives throughout our world. It drove depression and anziety up. Suicides up, drug use up, drug overdoses up, destroyed jobs, businesses, particularly small businesses,
These are all harms that could have been avoided had the voices that proved to be correct saying – our responses do not work, and can not work were heeded.
We are quite litterally seeing in the real world the failure of the lefts “precautionary principle” – or Basitats’ Seen vs unseen.
Censorship always supresses truth as well as falsehood. We are always worse off when we censor.
And you have proved it – and still fail to grasp the implications of your own failure – or even that you have failed.
As always you do not know what you are talking about
Twitter advertised itself as the “the free speech wing of the free speech party”.
Here is Jack Marshall’s reply.
https://ethicsalarms.com/2022/11/27/ethics-dunce-but-funny-alyssa-milano/#comment-825423
Under some circumstances it is a tort to intentionally interfere with a business relationship with the intention to cause harm.
Perhaps it is time to explore and expand this.
One good billion dollar judgment could stop the nonsense.
“Companies Join [Actionable Conspiracy of Antitrust Collusion to Deliberately and Willfully Harm by Acting] to Suspend Advertising with Twitter”
– Professor Turley
not surprising given GMs and Fords dependence on the federal government
I believe GM and Ford provided support for the Nazi regime.
The New GM became insolvent and must have been dissolved, its remnants sold to prepared investors. The communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs) denied those prepared investors market opportunities, propped up GM unconstitutionally, and appointed an affirmative action beneficiary as CEOette. Government has no power to operate a commercial enterprise or manipulate free markets. Where the —- is the Supreme Court, which was decided, in 1803, to have the power of Judicial Review over all acts of the legislative and executive branches?
Government exists, under the Constitution and Bill of Rights, to provide maximal freedom to individuals while government is severely limited and restricted to merely facilitating that maximal freedom of individuals through the provision of security and infrastructure only. Congress is limited to taxing for debt, defense and infrastructure. Article 1, Section 8, provides Congress the power to tax ONLY for “…general Welfare…,” omitting and, thereby, excluding any power to tax for individual welfare, specific welfare, particular welfare, favor or charity. The same article enumerates and provides Congress the power to regulate ONLY money, the “flow” of commerce, and land and naval Forces. Additionally, the 5th Amendment right to private property is not qualified by the Constitution and is, therefore, absolute, allowing Congress no power to claim or exercise dominion over private property, the sole exception being the power to “take” private property for public use. If the right to private property is not absolute, there is no private property, and all property is public. Per their sworn oath, Justices of the Supreme Court must support the literal, manifest tenor of the Constitution and the Supreme Court has no power to legislate, modify legislation, or modify legislation through “interpretation.”
The singular American failure has been and remains the Supreme Court; most Justices must be impeached and convicted of crimes of high office.
If each of 75 million people is willing to pay $100/yr to twitter, that will keep the twitter strong. It is a small cost for freedom of speech. Once you lose that freedom, it will take many people’s lives to regain that freedom.
The errors in my comment because the comment bar shows only the upper half of one sentence on my system so, essentially, I have typing blind! Erros in my comments and any that may in this one are because of this restriction.
must be commenting using a phone
Capitalism at work! If one doesn’t like your beliefs, the can refuse to buy your products. In this instance, those who want to lose my business would, among others, be those who tell me to wht to say or to shup up! Those are the same ones now pulling their advertisements from Twitter. Take note of these businesses that want you thoughts and opinions censored.
The article from Media Matters that contains the list of companies pulling their ads from Twitter is itself one big fake piece of disinformation, and some of the comments to the article are as vile as any I’ve seen anywhere. What these short-sighted liberal idiots fail to see is that the people who comment on Twitter are the same people who comment on many other media sites — from the NYTimes to FOX. So, unless they want to stop all comments on all venues (as many liberal sites already do in their cowardly way), they are wasting their time. But I guess for the fragile-minded, crusading for “safe spaces” takes priority over protesting war, the death of the dollar, sex and drug trafficking, government corruption, or any of those trivial issues. Get pronouns straight and speech purified, and they’re happy.
The biggest problem with the old twitter “moderation” is that they were often wrong especially when it came to bad news for the progressives/democrats. So Musk should frame the question as the old system was broken and biased and needed fixed. That is what he is doing.
Won’t last. Ignoring tens of millions of users is a breach of fiduciary duty. Eventually the stockholders will demand they return.
https://www.2ndvote.com/
You must be a stupid progressive. Musk is THE stockholder.
I’m talking about the advertiser’s, you idiot.
And NOBODY calls me a progressive. Them’s fighting words.
The massive effort targetting musk is evidence of the extent that the left is rightly terrified of him.
If Musk succeeds – the rest of SM will be obligated to follow.
Even exposing the malfeasance of the left at Twitter pre-Musk is very damaging to the left.
The fact that 99.99% of banned accounts were conservative is very damaging.
It makes is clear that we have a war going on that the left will use all institutions to punish those it does not like.
If Musk wins the ability of the left to crush the voice of the right will be severly damaged.
“ The fact that 99.99% of banned accounts were conservative is very damaging.”
That’s a false claim. John B. Say is a liar. He has no evidence to prove that statistic is factual.
Nope, it is literally the data from Twitter.
I do not have the exact numbers but off the top of my head there were about 6500 banned conservative accounts and 5 banned accounts on the left.
Musk has banned more left accounts in the past few days for advocating for violence, than all left accounts ever banned.
This is what happens when there are clear rules consistently followed.
Musk was himself shocked at the incredible anti-conservative title to bannings and other content moderation measures.
Actually follow what is slowly being exposed at twitter – rather than the left wing nuts screaming and ranting over the end of the world and you might actually learn the truth.
Regardless, the facts and statistics are out there.
There was a brief spike in “hate speech” – approximately 1 day long, before Musk implimented a filter limiting agregates posts from an account to what a typist on meth could produce 24×7. The result of that was a DECLINE in so called hate speech by about 20% from pre-takeover levels.
Establishing one of Musks points – clearly way to many bots. As well as that much of what the left claims is not real. It was not conservatives, but bots driving “hate speech”. As well as demonstrating the poor job that pre-takeover content moderators were doing.
I would further note that Musk’s amnesty was almost exclusively for conservatives.
Not because he favored conservatives – but because he refused to unban those who directly advocated violence, and those who created multiple fake accounts. The result was about an equal number of conservatives and those on the left remain banned.
But new banns are so far entirely on the left – mostly antifa chapters for advocating for violence.
Two observations: first, media buyers are often radical lunatics. Advertising and media purchasing are chock full of them. It’s what I call “vocational bias.” Some types of work, if you can call it that, are magnets for political weirdos.
Cable broadcasting is another example. Media buyers will pay top dollar for decrepit CNN just to support “the message.”
My second observation is that the American Chamber of Communists (oops, maybe I meant “Commerce”) wants to make media a safe space for Beijing’s propagandists. Why? You have to toe Beijing’s line if you want access to their markets. To Chevrolet, Chipotle, Ford, Jeep, Kyndryl, Merck, and Novartis, the almighty Yuan makes the US Constitution obsolete. These business leaders are pigs. They are traitors.
They are also the biggest fools God ever cursed us with. China’s markets will be a hostage taking in which American corporations will be paying ransom for decades. Apple is already struggling with this dilemma:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGRCtFJu-6A
These evil business leaders also pretend that “fascism” is a dirty word when China’s corporate Communism is really just the old, nationalist fascism, masquerading with red buntings.
“In the empire of lies, truth is treason.” George Orwell
“The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them.” _Lenin (attributed)
Today the enemy is Bejing and our President, many in Congress and many corporations are beholden to China.
Diogenes, you are on target.
Thanks, Allen 🙂
Lenin never said that. It’s not even “attributed” to him.
“Lenin never said that. It’s not even “attributed” to him.”
Anonymous has the habit of continuously walking into Stupidity and then living with it. Duck Duck Go
has Lenin first on their list.
“The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them.
Vladimir Lenin
Commonly attributed to Lenin, but not found in any of his published works.
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (5th edition) points out that ‘Remembrances of Lenin’, “
https://libquotes.com/vladimir-lenin/quote/lbv5x2p
https://rumble.com/v1xcjs6-special-broadcast-national-security-alert-with-michael-khoury.html
Wokeness is intellectual crossfit – a jumbled, contradictory, ultimately useless endeavor when measured against reality, unless one is very young and can elude the effects for a short period due to their time of life which will obviously change. It is no wonder confused millennials and younger flock to the ideology as they do an ineffective workout protocol, being proud that they are doing things exactly backward and killing any possibility of *lasting* progress or gains. Their brains are a friggin’ MESS. Alas, as with crossfit, that will only become apparent over time when strength hasn’t improved much (unless they are juicing, i.e. cheating) and things start to break down, and badly.
All these corporations care about is their profit, and they think that’s the way the wind is blowing. I think they are sorely mistaken, personally. They can interfere with our votes, but unless they take away currency, our power lies there, and there’s nothing they can do. They are in a catch-22 of their own making, IMO.
I wish all this angst was directed at “operation Choke Point”
Thanks for the list, now I know what companies to boycott because they are blatantly anti free speech and irrationally woke.
I thought it was interesting that there are only two companies on that list that I do any business with. So now I’ll use a different credit card when I purchase anything online and buy a different ketchup, I’m good with that.
Talk is cheap. Especially on the internet.
Thanks for the list. We will share with other like-minded friends – write the companies and begin banning them as soon as possible. This woke nonsense needs to die a fast death.
All that these companies are accomplishing is putting a big blue “X” on their backs signifying them as totally untrustworthy in their pronouncements and motives and totally within the thrall of the corrupt, duplicitous prog/left. It makes it easier to reject them as providers for myself and like-minded Americans.
Hmm, I was going to buy an Apple 14, but I might wait to see what Apple does. I stopped using Google’s browser long ago.
Years ago, Absolute vodka created a stupid anti-American ad. That was my vodka of choice. I sent a letter and poured the Absolute down the drain and have never bought it since. I send out letters to those whose products I stop using, addressing them to all the major players in the company. Letters work better than email. Absolute sent out a lot of apologies. Do these large companies care any longer?