[Kattywumpus]

We really need a better vocabulary for talking about this sort of thing than the 20th century terms of fascism, communism, and liberalism. I don't have the words yet, but we need to start inventing them.

We are in a new era, and our disasters won't look like theirs. People who shrug away this kind of censorship with the magic words "private company" are in a dangerous form of denial.

[metalliqaz]

... you say, as the OP links to a fully accessible social media post by Ron Paul.

From Techdirt:

    Moderation is a platform/service owner or operator saying “we don’t do that here”. Personal discretion is an individual telling themselves “I won’t do that here”. Editorial discretion is an editor saying “we won’t print that here”, either to themselves or to a writer. Censorship is someone saying “you won’t do that anywhere” alongside threats or actions meant to suppress speech.

[Kattywumpus]

As I pointed out above, this is really 20th century thinking. Social media allows for a kind of mob behavior that has shown itself antithetical to the kind of market liberalism most of our current assumptions are based on.

Or did you not notice that Parler and its hundreds of thousands of users had literally been systematically erased from the internet yesterday by hounding their service providers?

It's bizarre to see the liberal left I grew up with now defending a kind of insane market fundamentalism and corporate control of the commons of free speech without even blinking at the contradiction. I think that liberal left I grew up with is dead.

We need a name for what it has become, and where they are taking us.

[AnimalMuppet]

How about "social authoritarian"? Or "non-government authoritarian"? They don't have the power of government behind them, but they manage to be pretty authoritarian without it...

[trianglem]

Not really, the literal definition of fascism is a far right authoritarian group and it defines the trump administration well.

[julioneander]

I wonder where did you get that definition from?

[chipotle_coyote]

Well, I got "an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization" from the New Oxford American Dictionary.

We could also go with Wikipedia's "Fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe" if you're down with crowd-sourced definitions.

If you're not, there's historian Kevin Passmore's more verbose one: "Fascism is a set of ideologies and practices that seeks to place the nation above all other sources of loyalty, and to create a mobilized national community. Fascist nationalism is reactionary in that it entails implacable hostility to socialism and feminism, for they are seen as prioritizing class or gender rather than nation. This is why fascism is a movement of the extreme right."

And, of course, we could go right to the source. Benito Mussolini wrote, "Granted that the 19th century was the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the 20th century must also be the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century."

If you really want to argue with the claim that fascism is a far-right, authoritarian movement, have at it, but that claim has a whole pile of evidence on its side.

[barbacoa]

Wrong.

The fascists were strong feminists, they supported women suffrage long before it was legal in the USA.

They also supported progressive tax system, minimum wages and strong labor laws.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist_Manifesto

[AnimalMuppet]

They said they were. They also said they were peaceful and democratic. Read "The Manifesto in Practice" section of your link before you take what the manifesto said at face value.

[trianglem]

Strong “feminists” that demanded the purpose of women was to stay at home and raise children. Most of Asia had suffrage for women much before the Western world but I would not call them strong feminists.

[barbacoa]

Maybe not by modern standards but by 1920/30s standards fascist were radical feminists.

[barbacoa]

Well technically...

The literal definition of fascism is an socialist economic system characterized by state run private enterprise. China is probably the closest modern example of true fascism in the literal sense.

No seriously fascism means none of the things people attribute to it today.

Read the about writings of giovanni gentile -- the karl marx of fascism -- if your interested in what literal fascism means.

[echlebek]

IMO I would be better off not reading the writings of the Karl Marx of fascism.