One of the things that’s becoming clear to me from #TwitterFiles2 is there are big parts of the online left that actually can’t discern a difference between abuse & spam vs. political or scientific speech they disagree with. They think the two are the same.
https://twitter.com/jonst0kes/status/1601040645996494848
It’s cliche to say some leftists think any disagreement with them is abuse/harassment/harm, but how else to explain this rampant conflation of Twitter’s public anti-spam & abuse policies with its secret policy of suppressing of other kinds of speech?
This is what comes of declaring every utterance of your political or ideological opposition to be a deliberate attack in bad faith. Saying “covid’s mortality = flu mortality” isn’t just wrong (FYI it /is/ wrong IMO), but it’s literally an attack like SPAM or abuse.
This isn’t just culture war clout bait, BTW. I have encountered this in other private venues with prominent lefties, where you think you’re having a discussion about a contentious issue w/ facts & arguments, but they read it as abuse & disinfo & then censor you.
I basically still cannot get over that this is how it is with very prominent people in media & academics. I’m eternally in denial that it’s /really/ like this now (vs. this just being a thing some say to punch the other team), so I’m always surprised to see it in action yet again
Censors will say, “but the stakes are people’s lives! People will DIE if you say that!” Well… y’know, the stakes in politics & public policy debates are /always/ people’s lives. Lives are at stake everywhere in public policy, which is WHY we have rules to protect speech.
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