Following Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, some progressive/left-leaning people have left, or are considering to leave. I haven’t left. So far Twitter has been very useful for me for (1) political activism, especially regarding Higher Education policies in my own country; (2) as a source of information – it’s partly a supplement to newspapers and other traditional media; (3) exchanging information with others, worldwide; (4) some debate and exchange of arguments, which sadly is probably part of the reason the blogosphere has been in decline over the last decade. Hence, there are still reasons not to leave, but obviously I am waiting to see how Twitter under Musk-rule will change.
Nevertheless, it’s high time to start looking seriously into the alternatives; this might make it easier/less costly to leave if we ever judge we have to. I’m at square zero concerning Twitter-alternatives, and surely I’m not the only one. Hence my question: what are your experiences on other social media platforms, and do you have any advice to offer to those considering to move to another place?
{ 44 comments }
Sumana Harihareswara 05.01.22 at 1:53 pm
Here is a thread by an acquaintance about how to switch to Dreamwidth, and here’s a recipe about how to post on Dreamwidth so as to encourage comments and responses.
Jake Gibson 05.01.22 at 2:13 pm
I will stay on Twitter for the time being.
If the bots and trolls get too prolific to block, I will decide what to do.
I don’t miss Facebook at all. But I think I would miss Twitter. It seems to be a good way to keep up with some of my non-political interests.
Sophie Jane 05.01.22 at 2:22 pm
Mastodon is the usual recommendation – it’s Twitter-like but distributed, with no overall ownership, no algorithm, and a distinctly human feel. I’ve been on there since 2017 and I love it, but the design and the culture is different enough from Twitter that it doesn’t work for everyone.
In particular, Mastodon works best for conversations at human scale – it’s not so useful if you want to follow news, and the public-performance culture of Twitter doesn’t really carry over. It’s not a place to amass thousands of admiring followers for your snark and/or wisdom.
The culture is distinctly left wing too – Crooked Timber would probably be near the rightward edge of the mainstream on Mastodon – and there’s a strong queer presence. Attempts to debate trans rights will get you banned from most of the major instances. “Free speech” communities do exist but, as everywhere else, they’re mostly alt-right or worse, and generally get blocked by the rest of the network.
The official starting-point is joinmastodon.org, but I’d actually recommend academics take a look at scholar.social:
https://scholar.social/about
Tim 05.01.22 at 3:17 pm
Most attempts at Twitter alternatives that I know of are in response to Twitter’s open Leftism, and as a result are explicitly Right-leaning.
The only other “big” (they apparently have half a million users) one I know is mastodon.social, which was created in opposition to closed systems in general rather than anything to do with the usual political spectrum. Their server rules note they ban the -isms and such.
Chris Corrigan 05.01.22 at 3:57 pm
Tim: I think it depends on who you know on Twitter. Most of the people I know who are leaving Twitter are leftists who are doing so because they perceive Elon Musk as a right wing free-speech zealot. I think it’s interesting to notice that people are leaving Twitter for all kinds of reasons that may not be tied to A reality beyond their projection of the situation. In other words there’s something deeper going on.
I have rejuvenated my blog and have been encouraging others to do the same. Back in the old days when we began blogging in the early 2000s there were blog rolls on the side bar of every weblog. This was our social network. We would use those links to find other interesting things and once RSS came around we were able to aggregate them into a stream of news that was perfectly curated and under our own control.
I’m in favour of that kind of Self organizing social network. I’m a little bit perplexed by the desire of people leaving platforms like Twitter to ask their favourite billionaire to create a new one for them. Blogs are free. Hyperlinks are free. They were all designed that way for us to create social networks.
Sophie Jane 05.01.22 at 5:11 pm
This short guide by another long-time Mastodon user does a much better job than I could of explaining Mastodon for twitter users – and it has a useful list of common misconceptions too:
https://blog.mjb.im/mastodon-and-the-fediverse
Matthew 05.01.22 at 5:18 pm
The short answer is that there are no alternatives, because that’s what network effects do. Rather we need people like you to lend your momentum to making an alternative viable. So please do consider using Mastodon or one of the other options that can federate via ActivityPub (I use Friendica myself, but the distinction doesn’t matter). It won’t be useful for any of the purposes you highlight, but if you just wait for such an alternative to arrive it never will. Even better would be if Crooked Timber would host its own instance.
The important choice is not any particular software, or any particular policies. The important choice is whether you express yourself within the boundaries of one particular “platform”, or if you allow your message to propagate further. I’ve deleted my Twitter account, and I absolutely am missing those voices. But I’m still hoping that eventually I will get to hear them again outside the garden walls.
Cranky Observer 05.01.22 at 5:42 pm
I have see a lot of recommendations for Mastadon, but this description makes me curious. I have been using online ‘net and Internet forums since 1982. Every open, no ownership, no moderation forum I have participated in has eventually been destroyed by small groups of people with destructive bent who have put some moderate effort into gaming the infrastructure and using the forum’s and members’ strengths against it (classic monkeywrenching + eristic argumentation attack). How does Mastadon avoid this? Or is it working well now because it is being used by small numbers of like-minded (or at least community minded) people?
Ingrid Robeyns 05.01.22 at 5:56 pm
thanks for all the links so far! Very helpful.
On Mastodon, the second link that Sophie Jane (#6) posted does help to get a basic sense of how it works; I think it also answers Cranky Observer’s (#8) question on how it can get not destroyed by small groups of haters – namely, each “instance” of Mastodon has its own rules and moderates them (perhaps for those of us new, “an instance” could be understood as “a group on a server which you can join” – like scholar.social that Sophie Jane (#3) pointed to.) And apparently one can move one’s account from one “instance” to another “instance”.
Matthew @7 – I don’t think Crooked Timber has the capacity at this point to host an instance – for technical but especially time-wise reasons. But I appreciate the argument you make, and will join Mastodon one of the next days (though for the time being without leaving twitter) – but first I want to read up a bit more and find an instance that fits best with who I am/what I am intersted in.
Sophie Jane 05.01.22 at 9:23 pm
The short, easy, and incomplete answer to Cranky Observer’s question is that it’s possible to block or mute whole instances at both user and instance admin level and, as Ingrid says, every instance has its own moderators and its own rules. So while we’ve had some spectacular implosions of particular instances or communities, the network continues. So far, anyway.
As for running your own instance – there are a couple of hosting services that will do the technical work for you at quite an affordable rate. I use masto.host for my own single-user instance, for example. Moderation is work, of course, but not so much if you keep the instance small.
J-D 05.01.22 at 11:42 pm
The statement ‘Twitter is openly Leftist’ is a patent falsehood.
darms 05.02.22 at 12:55 am
I don’t use twitter nor do I text; I have no need for any similar sort of ersatz company nor do I have anything to say that is particularly important. Instead I spend an hour or so each day visiting numerous still-active blogs & such, following the links of choice to be found within. I read very quickly so my web trail is vast, I think I have as good a grasp of the national & international news as anyone in the PNW could hope to have as I read many articles from many sources on many topics, some similar, some not. I know a conspiracy when I hear one, no matter how well hidden/represented, I will find it. My personal circle is pretty small (65 no kids) so 10 minutes of FB takes care of that. I don’t have a cell phone, either. (This, unfortunately, may change…)partial list of websites available should demand warrant
Neville Morley 05.02.22 at 4:39 am
@Chris Corrigan #5: thanks for this – I liked your ‘how to blog’ post (https://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot/how-to-blog/, and the advice to write posts in the same spirit as posting on social media. I have kept slogging on with my blog since 2015, at least until the last year or so when a combination of Long COVID and a feeling of inexorable decline regardless of how much effort I put in has led to major falling off. What I have never got, unlike Twitter, us much engagement; plenty of readers in the past, but very few comments, and that was my goal when I started.
Loki 05.02.22 at 8:08 am
I agree with some of the other comments. In my experience for an online community to work it either needs to be actively and strictly moderated (which Twitter isn’t) or the participants need to all know each other in meatspace (so there are disincentives to behaving badly). As Cranky Observer points out, if rules aren’t enforced then the community rapidly gets taken over by antisocial behaviour.
A social media alternative to Twitter is Reddit, which has millions of subreddits which are moderated (though more or less stringently). I like Reddit because it is set up to emphasise popular content but the creators aren’t important. So in effect I follow themes rather than individuals. This tends to make it far less antagonistic and egotistical than Twitter. To give Crooked Timber readers a flavour https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/ might be of interest.
nastywoman 05.02.22 at 8:44 am
there is no alternative to ‘twitter’ –
as on TEH Intertubes – it is without any question the most fun Clown-Show-Game –
(You just HAVE to make sure you don’t get any serious followers or your dad –
or mom might tell’ya: Stop playing this TwitterGame again – Daaling!)
AND –
the most fun you can have -(with your clothes on) – is playing with all these successors of ‘trump’ (the Worlds New Word for: Utmost Right-Wing Racist Science Denying Stupid) –
Like there is this complete crazy dude called ‘Tucker Greenwald’ – who just tweeted in defence of an even crazier dude called ‘Glenn Carlson’ :
‘Even a decade ago – calling someone a racist and fascist over and over, would have destroyed anyone’s reputation and career’ – without noticing – that the fact that neither the career of Tucker Greenwald nor Glenn Carlson or ‘trump’ – in the minds of so many Americans STILL haven’t been destroyed – is really, REALLY worrisome.
As it seems to proof that histories FIRST Class-Clown-On-Twitter STILL is LOVED by so many -(mainly) Americans.
AND
proof –
how well –
‘trump-putin’ propaganda has worked –
AND
WE can’t have that –
So-
YES!
We need to keep on playing ‘TWATTER’
TM 05.02.22 at 9:37 am
“The short answer is that there are no alternatives, because that’s what network effects do.”
That is correct and that is why the only “alternative” is powerful regulation. The EU’s Digital Services Act seems like the right approach. This is what progressive political activism should focus on, not quijotic and self-defeating acts of defiance.
Mikhail Shubin 05.02.22 at 11:43 am
I might be a little archaic here, but… why does one needs social platforms anyway? Whats wrong with “everyone have a blog” scheme? It still works as fine as 10 years ago.
Sure, it is not possible to do (1) political activism, but for activism there is no alternative to “use the platform that everyone uses”
For (2) news (3) information and (4) debates blogs are still fine.
Mike Furlan 05.02.22 at 9:35 pm
I agree with Mikhail,
“I might be a little archaic here, but… why does one needs social platforms anyway? Whats wrong with “everyone have a blog” scheme? It still works as fine as 10 years ago.”
I don’t have a reason to have my own blog, but I depend on them to fill me in on anything I might miss in the “main stream” media.
Also too, the kids seem to be liking Reddit, and Discord lately.
SusanC 05.03.22 at 3:18 pm
Twitter’s short messages seem to be not very conducive to coherent ration argument. So, of course, it’s a medium where Trump excels. I tend to avoid it.
Trader Joe 05.03.22 at 5:42 pm
@16 TM
“That is correct and that is why the only “alternative” is powerful regulation. The EU’s Digital Services Act seems like the right approach.”
Your reaction is precisely why Musk chose to acquire Twitter and take it private. “Regulating” shit doesn’t make free speech – it makes it one company/government’s view of free speech. Moscow and China do this quite well, its the natural endpoint of regulation and we’re much further down the path than most admit (it cuts both ways for overly leftist and overly right wing views).
Is it possible to have a space where we allow people to articulate views without worrying constantly about “protecting” anyone? Why do visitors require protection – they know they might find views the believe are offensive yet go there anyway? Its a forum of opinion, not news (though for sure the distinction can be narrow).
I don’t know if such a space is possible anymore than the next person. Musk thinks it is and I’d say he has a better chance than most at making it so. I fervently hope he’s right even if I’m skeptical.
nastywoman 05.03.22 at 8:43 pm
@16
‘Your reaction is precisely why Musk chose to acquire Twitter and take it private’.
No –
Musk is one of these… weird dudes who believed the nonsense that banning some Crazy Right-Wing Science Denying Nonsense on Twitter had/had something to do with FREE SPEECH – while in reality any Internet Platform – like any type of ‘publisher’ -(which basically doesn’t want to get sued) can ‘aufwiegel’ ‘the people’ to storm some Pizzeria in order to free some children Hillary Clinton supposedly is ‘vampirizing’.
AND about
“Regulating” shit doesn’t make free speech’ –
Regulating ‘Traffic’ neither – BUT somebody got to do it – as we just don’t want YOUR neighbour to kill YOU because ‘Trump’ just posted that it is actually YOU who is the bloodsucking Vampire ALL the children has to be freed from.
Right?
(Wingy Winky!)
And Moscow and China are a very BAAD example – as these countries make sure – that on any of their gov or so called ‘private’ Internet platforms only THEIR governmental propaganda prevails – while in our so called called ‘Western Democracies’ anything goes – even amazingly successful Russian and Chinese Propaganda – which ALWAYS on certain ‘platforms’ (or ‘media) HAD and HAS to be checked for ‘accurancy’ or ‘basic truthfulness’
as it ALWAYS was the duty of ANYBODY who publishes ANYTHING.
AND AGAIN –
Free Speech –
NEVER! –
Not even in my lovely ‘Heimatland’ America gave JOE or anybody else the right to demand that somebody shows up at your neighbours house – BE-cause he -(or she) posted online that YOU are a ‘Bloodsucking Vampire’ and that YOU – should have a Garlic Cross thrusted into YOU you heart!
Right?
AND the worst –
after you turne into dust – Trump -(or any other Right-Wing Idiot) tweeting:
NOW THAT WAS JUST A JOKE!
(and to be continued!)
J-D 05.04.22 at 2:09 am
That depends on whether the next person is somebody like me who understands that you are describing requirements which contradict each other by definition and which therefore cannot possibly be fulfilled simultaneously. On the one hand you describe people being allowed and on the other hand you describe people not being protected. You can have one of these things or the other but, by definition, not both. If allowing people to do some specified thing means anything at all, it means protecting them from interference which would disallow them from doing that thing. If people’s ability to do whatever-it-may-be is not protected in any way, then any reference to allowing them to do it is vacuous/meaningless.
If the expression ‘free speech’ is to have any meaning at all, then it must coincide with somebody’s interpretation of its meaning. There may be a reasonable objection to the way the term is interpreted by a particular individual, or multiple individuals, or a particular organised group such as a corporation or government, but there is no reasonable way to object to any and all interpretation of it: interpretation is an inescapable requirement of the meaningful use of language.
TM 05.04.22 at 8:44 am
Shorter TJ 20: “Any regulation of private business is dictatorship”
I’m not interested in debunking this nonsense.
nastywoman 05.04.22 at 10:42 am
and from the NYT:
‘SÃO PAULO, Brazil — When Elon Musk reached a deal to acquire Twitter, right-wing Telegram groups in Brazil went wild. Here at last was a muscular champion of free speech. Even more, here was someone who — users rushed to confirm — wanted Carlos Bolsonaro, son of the president, to be Twitter’s managing director in Brazil.
That was, of course, not true. But I wasn’t surprised. I had been following these groups on the messaging app for weeks, to watch how misinformation was spread in real time. In Brazil, fake news seems to be something that the population at large seems to fall victim to — Telegram just offers the sort of deepest rabbit hole you can go down. So I knew — from horrible, eye-sapping experience — that for many right-wing activists, fake news has become an article of faith, a weapon of war, the surest way of muddling the public discussion.
“Fake news is part of our lives,” President Jair Bolsonaro said last year, while receiving a communication award from his own Ministry of Communications. (It doesn’t get more Orwellian, does it?) “The internet is a success,” he went on. “We don’t need to regulate it. Let the people feel free.”
You can see his point. After all, fake news produced a headline supposedly in The Washington Post that read, “Bolsonaro is the best Brazilian president of all times” — and claimed that a recent pro-Bolsonaro motorcade rally made the Guinness World Records. But my plunge into the country’s Telegram groups revealed something more sinister than doctored articles. Unregulated, extreme and unhinged, these groups serve to slander the president’s enemies and conduct a shadow propaganda operation. No wonder Mr. Bolsonaro is so keen to maintain a free-for-all atmosphere’.
TM 05.04.22 at 10:58 am
Let’s note in passing that Elon Musk has a pattern of using his economic power to retaliate against public criticism, so it makes total sense that right-wing shibertarians are making him their “freedom of speech” poster child.
SusanC 05.04.22 at 11:19 am
WThe current situation seems to that economic network effect lead to social networks becoming highly centralised, with some tech company imposing speech restrictions that go way beyond what is required by law.
Which then leads to competitors offering as their unique selling point that they will allow some specific forms of speech (typically, not everything) that is permitted by law but not allowed by the dominant player in the market.
It’s a recipe for political polarisation.
(Also, not the typical scenario you see in undergraduate level economics texts. Natural mono0loies, sure. But here you have a natural monopoly whose growth is limited by other-regarding preferences – the bulk of users not wanting to share a social network with “those people”, with the result that “those people” get their own service provider)
Trader Joe 05.04.22 at 6:23 pm
Hmm. @20 I assert the view that regulation is not an answer and that while I’m skeptical think that maybe Musk deserves a shot to see if he can take a resource that is plainly broken (Twitter) and possibly make it better.
The response: 1) my view is called nonsense. 2) some slightly hard to follow rant about Trump, anti-science and blood sucking vampires (I enjoy your comments anyway even if I can’t always follow them) and 3) a thoughtful comment about what free speech might mean.
That’s probably about par for the course. Guess Twitter is perfect the way it is, no need to try for improvement – my mistake.
Now if we could just get a roomful of completely normal, morally correct people reflecting every possible diversity and political interest to agree on what free speech is so we can regulate it we’ll be all set, what could go wrong. (Keyboard dripping with sarcasm).
As we few have amply demonstrated, even as few as 4 reasonably intelligent, reasonably sane and largely liberal people can’t agree on something as basic as where free speech begins and ends, why would anyone presume a government, a corporation or any other body of people would do any better.
Mike Furlan 05.04.22 at 10:11 pm
“As we few have amply demonstrated, even as few as 4 reasonably intelligent, reasonably sane and largely liberal people can’t agree on something as basic as where free speech begins and ends.”
I think we can agree. It has been done before, in “Three Media Leaders convicted for Genocide” the UN explains:
“In a radio interview broadcast at the height of the genocide on 25 April 1994, Ferdinand Nahimana, talked of the “war of media, words, newspapers and radio stations”, which he described as a complement to bullets. In sentencing him, Judge Pillay, told Nahimana, “You were fully aware of the power of words, and you used the radio – the medium of communication with the widest public reach – to disseminate hatred and violence….Without a firearm, machete or any physical weapon, you caused the death of thousands of innocent civilians.” Called “Radio Machete” by some, RTLM told listeners on 4 June 1994 that the Tutsi would be exterminated. “Look at the person’s height and his physical appearance,” RTLM journalist Kantano Habimana said, “Just look at his small nose and then break it”. ”
https://unictr.irmct.org/en/news/three-media-leaders-convicted-genocide
Not hard to understand from that perspective why Twitter took that action it did. Unless you think promoting violence is an essential part of “free speech.”
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,
J-D 05.04.22 at 11:04 pm
Congratulations! Many people find it difficult to admit error, but those who can’t admit error can’t improve. You’re on your way!
Now, in this case, you face an additional hurdle in that you are mistaken about the nature of your error. It is an error to suppose that Twitter is perfect and cannot be improved. This should be obvious, because every human construct has faults and is therefore, in principle, susceptible of improvement. However, because this is an absolutely general point, it has no value as evidence for the conclusion that when Elon Musk proposes to change Twitter he is likely to improve it. In principle, every human construct is susceptible both of being made better and of being made worse. Some more specific evidence is needed to justify supposing that Elon Musk’s changes are likely to make Twitter better and not to make it worse, and so far none has been provided.
TM 05.05.22 at 8:10 am
Noticed by chance a long thread by John Holbo concerning J D Vance’s authoritarianism (https://twitter.com/jholbo1/status/1522037386871406592):
excerpt: “So long as Trump-Hitler is doomed to crash and burn, you might as well sip chardonnay with Romney and bide your time. But if there is really a chance that the Strongman will seize the helm then maybe he’ll shape the feckless, degenerate masses into something more worthy”
I think it’s notworthy. Holbo might have published this as a a blog post on CT but apparently he doesn’t care about blogging any more, and now prefers Twitter.
SusanC 05.05.22 at 11:36 am
There’s a crisis in journalism, with a distinct lack of anyone checking whether the story is actually true or not.
– Traditional print media like the The Guardian have shifted heavily towards opinion pieces. These are presumably cheap to write, because the journalist can have an opinion about something without needing to do any fieldwork to find out what’s going on.
– Tweeters like Glenn Greenwald clearly aren’t checking if their stories are true, either (cf. the rumour about biolabs in Ukraine, which is distinctly lacking in supporting evidence)
– Self-declared “face checkers” turn out to be mostly partisan hacks who are more motivated by whether a story benefits their party than whether it is actually true or not
– Having a government department who job is to label news stories as true or false has a pretty poor reputation in the past, and I really don’t see it turning out at all well in the US. (Plus, there’s the small matter of the constitution)
Current status quo: some tech billionaire gets to decide which stories are tweetable. Costs about 40 billion dollars. This is a problem even if the tech billionaire is not Elon Musk.
MisterMr 05.05.22 at 11:45 am
@Trader Joe 20
” “Regulating” shit doesn’t make free speech – it makes it one company/government’s view of free speech. ”
In a literal sense, “free speech” is a right, so it exists only because of regulations/laws.
I think that as times goes by, and social media becomes more and more pervasive, we will need some rules about de-platforming (which is not the same thing free speech but is what we are speaking about here, I suppose).
nastywoman 05.05.22 at 5:15 pm
@
‘some slightly hard to follow rant about Trump, anti-science and blood sucking vampires’
I’m sorry – but I always thought – that the believe of so many of my fellow Americans –
that Hillary Clinton had a Pizzeria where she sucked the blood from children she kept imprisoned – is/was the best example for: ‘Internet Insanity’ – and the amazing success of Right-Wing Racist Science Denying Propaganda.
And I could have used any other example…
Like for example – ‘how in my homeland children are very well protected from pornography’ –
as somehow the use of pornography in my homeland is much more regulated than for example in any Skandinavian country – where children –
(and even Grown-Ups) are much better protected from any exposure of ‘Brutality’ and/or ‘Hate’
And as I tried to hint with my ‘Parabel’ of the Bloodsucking Vampires…
Dear Joe –
where does YOUR free speech begin and end, when it comes to to FREE SPEECH PORNOGRAPHY versus FREE SPEECH BRUTALITY and HATE –
like –
right now there is this –
probably much better example about all these pictures from the War In Ukraine –
where some Internet Publishers have no problem to show even the utmost gruesome details of death – as they call it their Right to Free American Speech.
And was that a (hopeful) thoughtful comment about what free speech might mean?
Trader Joe 05.05.22 at 7:53 pm
@33nastywoman
“Dear Joe –
where does YOUR free speech begin and end, when it comes to to FREE SPEECH PORNOGRAPHY versus FREE SPEECH BRUTALITY and HATE –”
Thanks for the thoughtful response (the first one was thoughtful too, only different…smile).
Is it a 100% cop out to say ‘I don’t know’? I’m not sure my own level of morality/sensitivity is entirely up to the task most days. Like the famous quote on pornography I tend to know it when I see it but have a hard time explaining what the line is before the fact.
I’d guess that compared to the average person I’d have a relatively wider tolerance than many – not because I don’t care, but that I think a on balance a lot of people jump up on a soap box and yell “unacceptable” because it gets them attention to do so when in fact the item in question is much more in the realm of ‘distasteful’ than in fact unacceptable from a free speech standpoint. A fart joke can be distasteful, but shouldn’t be banned. A joke about say, a Jew, a Muslim or a Catholic (or any other faith or non-faith)- probably the same thing, but less obviously.
I’ll use an example – the recent controversy around Dave Chappell’s comedy routine which made comments about Trans-persons. I wouldn’t have made those comments myself and I personally found them distasteful + probably wrong and unnecessary – but should such speech be curtailed or censored? No in my view. Chappell has the right to assert his view and with that right suffer the consequences (such as may be) to having that view.
Your point on “war pictures” is likewise a challenging one. I’m inclined to show the pictures to the extent they are in fact from a trustworthy source (most photos can be reasonably verified) with some reasonable trigger warning at the top of the page – view at your peril to be sure, but I’m not in favor of suppression.
All that said, those are my views. If they let me run Twitter for a day, those are some examples of how I would think. They are right for exactly one person.
nastywoman 05.05.22 at 10:25 pm
@
‘If they let me run Twitter for a day, those are some examples of how I would think’.
So you also would… ‘regulate’?
Right?
But concerning ‘pornography’ perhaps a bit more… shall we say ‘liberal’ than the average
‘Moralistic Right-Wing American’? and about Dave – I think that Will Smith is even the better example – that WE ALL SHALL respond only peacefully to stupid and tasteless jokes
(of ‘Comedians’)
BUT as Mike Furlan already has told you – all of the above doesn’t apply for the Murdeous War Criminals of our World – as when Hitler told his followers to ‘Exterminate the Jews’ – such SPEECH not only HAS to be ‘regulated’ is HAS to be ‘verboten’ – like in the case of the “Three Media Leaders convicted for Genocide” – where Judge Pillay, told the War Criminal Nahimana, “You were fully aware of the power of words, and you used the radio – the medium of communication with the widest public reach – to disseminate hatred and violence….Without a firearm, machete or any physical weapon, you caused the death of thousands of innocent civilians.” Called “Radio Machete” by some, RTLM told listeners on 4 June 1994 that the Tutsi would be exterminated. “Look at the person’s height and his physical appearance,” RTLM journalist Kantano Habimana said, “Just look at his small nose and then break it”. ”
AND I very much hope – that you agree with US about that one?
J-D 05.05.22 at 11:49 pm
This is an implausible suggestion. I’d be interested if you could produced any evidence to support it; I doubt you can.
If nobody has suggested that his speech should be curtailed or censored, then it creates a severely misleading impression to pose this question. On the other hand, if people have suggested that his speech should be curtailed or censored, then it clouds the issue to omit all information about how they have suggested his speech should be curtailed or censored.
If you accept that those consequences could include some people deciding not to invite him to perform, then you are accepting one form of curtailment of his speech!
If you accept a requirement for reasonable trigger warnings, then you are accepting another form of curtailment of speech!
*How hard is it to spell his name correctly?
Tm 05.06.22 at 10:02 am
SusanC: „There’s a crisis in journalism, with a distinct lack of anyone checking whether the story is actually true or not.“
There is ample reason to be annoyed by the news media. I often find examples of reporting that in my view breach journalistic standards (I’m obviously referring to the respectable ones like Guardian, Süddeutsche or NYT, not the right wing trash that doesn’t have any journalistic standards at all) and it makes me angry, because I think this really matters and liberal democracy does to a substantial degree depend on reliable journalism.
Yet your statement that nobody is checking any more whether a story is true or not is patently false. When you make claims like that, you are contributing to the problem that you pretend to Haare about, namely too many people unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality.
Tm 05.06.22 at 10:05 am
Oh dear: „pretend to care about“ not „Haare about“ …
Tm 05.06.22 at 10:30 am
To expand a bit: objectively speaking, it was never as easy as it is today to find accurate factual information about current events. Accurate and reliable information was never as easily accessible as it is today. For example the wealth of factual information we have at our fingertips about COVID, or about Putin’s war against Ukraine (sadly that is not the case in Russia). In the latter case there is more uncertainty because claims by war parties are not easily verifiable but still, we can probably say that hardly ever was there so much reliable reporting about an ongoing war.
The paradox is that many if not most people are not well informed despite the easy availability of reliable information. The reasons for this state of affairs are disputed and probably complex. But claims to the effect that „the media in general just can’t be trusted“ are clearly false, and clearly part of the problem, not part of a credible analysis of the problem.
Trader Joe 05.06.22 at 12:25 pm
@35 Nastywoman
Yes, I agree such remarks as “Radio Machete” should be suppressed. While I’m aware of what happened Rwanda, I’m not particularly familiar with what role RTLM might have played and the degree to which this was free speech gone wrong or simply propaganda by a controlling government (Hitler’s speeches were clearly the latter and accordingly pretty dang hard to suppress short of giving ones own life).
J-D trigger warnings are not suppression of free speech any more than movie reviews are. They advise a content consumer of what to expect, they don’t infringe the expression of the speaker.
Equally Chappelle has no given right to perform anywhere – on Netflix, on stage or any other non-public venue. Those opportunities are given to him by those who control those venues which are not public utilities, its not a suppression of his speech for him to be denied those. It would be a very curious definition of free speech that would demand all private stages open themselves to all comers – if it were so, we’d all get our chance to appear at Carnegie Hall.
John Quiggin 05.07.22 at 5:55 am
I’m not happy about Musk taking over Twitter, and allowing Trump back on, but it won’t have any effect on my experience, which is generally positive, and draws on lessons learned here at CT. I block trolls on sight, warn against snark and mute long boring arguments. The effect is to create a feed consisting of people who broadly agree with me, but disagree in interesting and sometimes amusing ways.
As regards blogging, it takes a lot of work, which is why the instant hit of tweeting has so much appeal. But the rise of Substack seems as if it might herald a return to the glory days of blogging, with the financial incentive that it’s possible to charge for subscriptions.
Saurs 05.07.22 at 9:55 am
@41
good illustration of the vacuity of atomized politics (first para, where whatever doesn’t concern my sense of entertainment has no measure) with unchecked reverence in the second para for the dubious funding of politically correct right wing fare* (substack is substack because the early influencer-adopters that made it visible were paid for their unedited, unfiltered reactionary garbage that was then elevated by their patrons through clicks-trawling algorithm) coupled with a weird contempt for “unthinking” or “instant”citizen journalism twitter used to and will soon no longer provide a platform for.**
*this, in fact, takes no work at all and credulously believing this kind of content is worth an actual readership paying for it is unserious; like all gigized economies, substack is unsustainable without fresh injections of capital from sources other than users and customers
**all because some second gilded-age robber baron wants to own the equivalent of a newspaper to ensure it is friendly to his interests and helps amplify his pump n dump schemes.
J-D 05.07.22 at 10:33 am
You referred to the curtailment of speech, and I responded to that remark. Now you refer to suppression of free speech. ‘Curtailment of speech’ and ‘suppression of free speech’ are not synonyms; it is consistent to regard something (for example, a requirement for reasonable trigger warnings) as being a curtailment of speech without regarding it as suppression of free speech.
Again, it is consistent to describe lobbying for somebody not to be invited to perform as an attempt to curtail his speech without suppressing it; which again makes relevant the point I made before, that if there are actually examples of people calling for his speech to be curtailed, it obscures the issue to omit all information about how they have suggested it be curtailed.
J-D 05.07.22 at 10:38 am
As a non-user of Twitter myself, it’s good to know that you have been able to find way to use it that work for you; but to me it still seems relevant that other people report experiences different from yours.
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