[ADeerAppeared]

> because say the CEO of a company is friendly to the President.

"Engaging in political censorship of their platform in favour of the President" is a little more than being "friendly".

Free Speech in the US is dying. Ignore it at your own peril.

[javier123454321]

Are you talking about his role censoring for the current, or for the former admin? His flip flopping shows such a lack of character. However, being selectively outraged because this time he is doing it for someone you disagree with, which a lot of people are, reveals the real motives.

[dingnuts]

ok so where do those who have been consistently mad at the people variously in power going back to 2016 or even 2008 go to complain? non-partisan free speech believers exist

[javier123454321]

I agree. I like nostr the most out of the similar attempts at creating a standards based multi client social graph. Not a huge fan of federated servers like Mastodon. Bluesky seems like it has some good parts with the @ protocol, but is quite bad at non-partisanship in practice.

[zer8k]

People are gonna stay upset for quite a while. The billion dollar election manipulation campaign spanning Reddit/Tiktok/Youtube/Television was extremely effective. It convinced a very, very specific kind of person that the by-the-numbers worst candidate in modern history was going to win in an absolute landslide.

It will be years before these people realize how much the media was controlled from 2020-2024 specifically in favor of one political party. For a lot of people this was the first time it was extremely obvious and going back to Bush and Obama social media and the internet in general weren't considered "serious" political campaign locations. I certainly dont remember either Bush's or Obama's election being so insanely partisan to the point of calling one party Nazis. Of course there was vitriol but it was so tame compared to today.

[pbhjpbhj]

>being so insanely partisan to the point of calling one party Nazis

Do you mean the party who just used the inauguration to have a senior government member throw nazi salutes? The party whose presidents first actions included pardoning dozens of members of fascist groups?

You can't really be choosing this moment to complain about calling these people nazis??

[jazzyjackson]

I was about to say Musk doesn't have an actual role in government but I guess an executive order has made DOGE real, by renaming US Digital Service the US Doge Service.

[mmooss]

I think you need to make the argument about Nazis on its merits. Trump's people do much that fits the definition of fascism, many try to normalize or advocate for fascism, dictatorship, and even normalize Hitler. His most prominent member of government did a proto-Nazi salute (and don't say he's too dumb to know what it would look like).

And that paragraph would not be objectionable to many people in that political grouping.

[danparsonson]

"History doesn't repeat but it sure does rhyme a lot"

[blactuary]

He didn't censor for the former president

[gadders]

He did, and has said so publicly: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czxlpjlgdzjo

[blactuary]

He did not, and if you follow the actual facts and read the internal communications you find out he lied

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/16/rogan-misses-the-mark-ho...

[hoten]

Wow, that misinterpretation of "you can't yell fire in a crowded theatre" is really something. Do you think that's a smoking gun that he's shamelessly manipulating the audience, or is he really that dense (or, I suppose to be fair... is it an honest mistake - we all have blind spots)?

[karaterobot]

The point is that the people he's trying to communicate with don't care about that. You don't need to argue about that here, it's not relevant.

[sirsinsalot]

Dying? It isn't free speech if you can say what you like, but can only do it in a sound proofed room, alone.

[scarface_74]

He’s talking about private groups.

Regardless, no private platform is forced to provide you a voice. You can set up your own site and set up your own servers if need be. People have been getting their ideas out there before social media and even when the mainstream media wouldn’t cover them.

That’s how the civil rights movement came to prominence.

[graemep]

> Regardless, no private platform is forced to provide you a voice.

That was a reasonable stance historically. Only the government had real power to control speech.

Now a tiny number of platforms have a huge amount of power. They should have an obligation not to censor, because between them they can virtually block all practically available channels of communication.

[scarface_74]

Again, during the civil rights movement there was no social media and mainstream media.

You use personal outreach and then you build up from there. There are church networks, civil groups, advocacy groups etc

[graemep]

> There are church networks, civil groups, advocacy groups etc

Which are now largely dependent on social media and the like to reach people.

Church's somewhat less so because they do have services that people physically go to. Most campaign and advocacy groups work online, and for some social media is their main focus. They have to go where people are.

[scarface_74]

Then that’s their problem. I doubt that there is any group that you can’t start locally and build up a following.

[Hasu]

> They should have an obligation not to censor, because between them they can virtually block all practically available channels of communication

Absolute bullshit. It has never been easier in history to publish your own thoughts for the consumption of anyone who is interested in reading them. You can make your own website and put just about whatever you want on it. You can write and publish pamphlets or books with print on demand services. You can record audio or video with your phone and put it on your website or just send it directly to people. You can walk down to the town square and say pretty much whatever you want.

You absolutely don't need to be on Facebook or Twitter or ANY social networks to exercise your free speech. None of these companies has power over any means of communication other than their own platforms. You don't have to use their platforms.

[graemep]

> You don't have to use their platforms.

Yes, but you can reach far fewer people if you do not.

This is well on the way to arguing that you are free to say what you want in a sealed room.

[Hasu]

You don't have the right for anyone to care about what you say, and never have.

Your argument seems to be that the New York Times has no choice but to publish my op-ed, because otherwise how will anyone find it?

[scarface_74]

And? If you are on a platform and depending on random people finding your message, how are you going to get above the noise?

You have to put in the work. Major changes happen by people getting thier voice out before social media

[ADeerAppeared]

Much in the same way you are allowed to criticize Putin in Russia.

So long as you do it in a sound proofed room.

[XCabbage]

Huh? When has Facebook ever implemented political censorship on behalf of Trump? I am not aware of a single case of such a thing even being requested, let alone granted. The scandals about government-directed social media censorship were under Biden's admin, not under Trump's.

[chriswarbo]

"Instagram hides search results for 'Democrats'" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g32yxpdz0o

> While users who type "#Democrat" or "#Democrats" see no results, the hashtag "Republican" returns 3.3 million posts on the social media platform.

> By manually searching Instagram for "Democrats", rather than clicking on a hashtag, users are greeted by a screen reading "we've hidden these results".

> "Results for the term you searched for may contain sensitive content," it says.

[XCabbage]

This is really obviously not intentional, let alone requested by the Trump admin.

[sanderjd]

Definitely curious to see how long it takes to get fixed, now that it has gotten media attention.

[mmooss]

While I agree about Trump, Facebook has censored left-wing causes such as Palestinians. Zuckerberg's embrace of Trump, including possibly getting approval for Facebook's recent changes, raises many concerns.

[gadders]

Yes, Zuckerberg admitted that this is what used to happen under Biden recently on a podcast,

[briandear]

Free speech died when Covid came along.