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If you haven't noticed the chorus of coastal media types asking for people they disagree with to be prevented from speaking in any public forum, then you are tr

If you haven't noticed the chorus of coastal media types asking for people they disagree with to be prevented from speaking in any public forum, then you are truly oblivious.

ska 4y ago
> "chorus of coastal media types" KIIS-FM has a choir?
jshen 4y ago
Or maybe we’re all in filter bubbles, including you.
- wallfacer120 4y ago
  - actually_a_dog 4y ago
shadowgovt 4y ago
I've seen them asking for private forums to stop giving such folk a platform, because an organization can choose to do what it will with its private property. But public forums? No, I can't say I have. In fact, I remember witnessing a President giving a large speech in a public forum that was followed by a riot at the Capitol (whether said speech was causal to the riot is still a matter for the courts). Nobody challenged his right to give the speech until the question of whether it was "incitement to riot" came up, and that challenge is unrelated.
- ilyt 4y ago
  Define "public forum". Because both Facebook and Twitter have way more range than most of what would be defined as "public forum" does
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    Range doesn't make something a public forum. Generally, control of the space by the public (or their delegates) does. A letter to the editor of the New York Times has the potential to be seen by 343,000 households (a number down from 1.3 million). This never made the New York Times' letters page a public forum. Twitter, for example, was at least previously accountable to shareholders. Now, it's very much a private forum.
    - ilyt 4y ago
      And New York Times have competition in the space. There is no meaningful competition to what Twitter or Facebook does. If you stifle voices on that platform majority of the country won't hear them. Them not being technically public is the problem in itself , they function like public forum for opinions but one that is manipulated by corporation.
      - shadowgovt 4y ago
        Twitter is competition to Facebook, Facebook to Twitter, and as we're observing thanks to Twitter coming under new management, Mastodon is competition to Twitter also. > If you stifle voices on that platform majority of the country won't hear them This is technically correct (the best kind of correct) but doesn't imply either a legal or moral responsibility on Twitter's part. Freedom of the press has never meant one is obliged to let others use one's press; in fact, it means the opposite. If people want a channel more unbiased than Twitter [1], they should build it. The Musk purchase has shown how fragile the bird really is when the users lose confidence in it. You note that them not technically being public is a problem. I think you raise an interesting question: what would a technically public forum look like and who would build it? If the government built it, do we imagine it would run the Post story, or would those in charge of it squelch it because the story is harmful to the active regime? It is, perhaps, best for the government to be out of the business of editorial work; leave that to the press. (... and if one wants a government-subsidized communication channel that isn't edited by someone else: that's the Internet and we already have it. Then one's goal to combat Twitter becomes building a service as easy-to-use as Twitter that everyone can use; make the press itself as free as possible. I recommend supporting the Mastodon project if that's one's goal. Or put effort into making one of the many, many blogging software packages of the world ever more turnkey. The way to maximize freedom of the press is to maximize presses, not constrain how the freedom can be used). [1] long experience suggests to me what you actually get when you try this experiment is a channel with different biases, but by all means.
fleddr 4y ago
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  It's not irony. The ability to say something doesn't imply anyone is obligated to either listen or agree. Downvotes imply a desire to quiet a signal (or at least, a belief the signal is uninteresting and should show up below other signals) and the site is designed to enhance interesting signals and suppress uninteresting ones. Everything here is doing exactly what it says on the tin. The weird notion is that one should be able to just walk into a space like this, say whatever, and get it treated with the same reverence as any other statement. There are other places on the internet that act like that, and they are not this place.
  - zmgsabst 4y ago
    > If you haven't noticed the chorus of coastal media types asking for people they disagree with to be prevented from speaking in any public forum, then you are truly oblivious. This doesn’t seem like a low-signal comment: it’s factually true and relevant to the context. Rather, people are falsely marking it as low signal because they don’t like it and want to manipulate the discussion by hiding things they don’t like. Which is classic censorship — and I think highlights a deeply anti-intellectual trend in this community.
    - toofy 4y ago
      > …it’s factually true and relevant to the context. this is factually true? what exactly is a “coastal media type”?
      - zmgsabst 4y ago
        Large US news companies have their staff largely in areas like California, New York, etc. because US media conglomerates are concentrated in those areas. Eg, WarnerMedia who is the parent company of CNN — a news agency that’s undergone substantial cuts under a new CEO due to its bias.

If you haven't noticed the chorus of coastal media types asking for people they disagree with to be prevented from speaking in any public forum, then you are truly oblivious.

ska 4y ago

> "chorus of coastal media types" KIIS-FM has a choir?

jshen 4y ago

Or maybe we’re all in filter bubbles, including you.

wallfacer120 4y ago
- actually_a_dog 4y ago

shadowgovt 4y ago

I've seen them asking for private forums to stop giving such folk a platform, because an organization can choose to do what it will with its private property. But public forums? No, I can't say I have. In fact, I remember witnessing a President giving a large speech in a public forum that was followed by a riot at the Capitol (whether said speech was causal to the riot is still a matter for the courts). Nobody challenged his right to give the speech until the question of whether it was "incitement to riot" came up, and that challenge is unrelated.

ilyt 4y ago
Define "public forum". Because both Facebook and Twitter have way more range than most of what would be defined as "public forum" does
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  Range doesn't make something a public forum. Generally, control of the space by the public (or their delegates) does. A letter to the editor of the New York Times has the potential to be seen by 343,000 households (a number down from 1.3 million). This never made the New York Times' letters page a public forum. Twitter, for example, was at least previously accountable to shareholders. Now, it's very much a private forum.
  - ilyt 4y ago
    And New York Times have competition in the space. There is no meaningful competition to what Twitter or Facebook does. If you stifle voices on that platform majority of the country won't hear them. Them not being technically public is the problem in itself , they function like public forum for opinions but one that is manipulated by corporation.
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      Twitter is competition to Facebook, Facebook to Twitter, and as we're observing thanks to Twitter coming under new management, Mastodon is competition to Twitter also. > If you stifle voices on that platform majority of the country won't hear them This is technically correct (the best kind of correct) but doesn't imply either a legal or moral responsibility on Twitter's part. Freedom of the press has never meant one is obliged to let others use one's press; in fact, it means the opposite. If people want a channel more unbiased than Twitter [1], they should build it. The Musk purchase has shown how fragile the bird really is when the users lose confidence in it. You note that them not technically being public is a problem. I think you raise an interesting question: what would a technically public forum look like and who would build it? If the government built it, do we imagine it would run the Post story, or would those in charge of it squelch it because the story is harmful to the active regime? It is, perhaps, best for the government to be out of the business of editorial work; leave that to the press. (... and if one wants a government-subsidized communication channel that isn't edited by someone else: that's the Internet and we already have it. Then one's goal to combat Twitter becomes building a service as easy-to-use as Twitter that everyone can use; make the press itself as free as possible. I recommend supporting the Mastodon project if that's one's goal. Or put effort into making one of the many, many blogging software packages of the world ever more turnkey. The way to maximize freedom of the press is to maximize presses, not constrain how the freedom can be used). [1] long experience suggests to me what you actually get when you try this experiment is a channel with different biases, but by all means.

fleddr 4y ago

shadowgovt 4y ago
It's not irony. The ability to say something doesn't imply anyone is obligated to either listen or agree. Downvotes imply a desire to quiet a signal (or at least, a belief the signal is uninteresting and should show up below other signals) and the site is designed to enhance interesting signals and suppress uninteresting ones. Everything here is doing exactly what it says on the tin. The weird notion is that one should be able to just walk into a space like this, say whatever, and get it treated with the same reverence as any other statement. There are other places on the internet that act like that, and they are not this place.
- zmgsabst 4y ago
  > If you haven't noticed the chorus of coastal media types asking for people they disagree with to be prevented from speaking in any public forum, then you are truly oblivious. This doesn’t seem like a low-signal comment: it’s factually true and relevant to the context. Rather, people are falsely marking it as low signal because they don’t like it and want to manipulate the discussion by hiding things they don’t like. Which is classic censorship — and I think highlights a deeply anti-intellectual trend in this community.
  - toofy 4y ago
    > …it’s factually true and relevant to the context. this is factually true? what exactly is a “coastal media type”?
    - zmgsabst 4y ago
      Large US news companies have their staff largely in areas like California, New York, etc. because US media conglomerates are concentrated in those areas. Eg, WarnerMedia who is the parent company of CNN — a news agency that’s undergone substantial cuts under a new CEO due to its bias.