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Twitter to ban political advertising

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Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#491

Post by F147H34D »

randiantech wrote: post #487
zanny wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to make a slippery slope argument about a private corporations private, for-profit website is hilarious. Twitter will do whatever the hell it wants on its own property and has no obligation to listen to anyone except the voice of 51% of its shareholders. If you don't want your communications to be under the total absolute control of a corporate entity you have no influence over, you might want to pack your bag…

Im scared of such arguments. And im telling you as a libertarian. No, private companies should be regulated and shareholders cant be the only voice to be heard. I mean, what if starbucks shareholders decide that, lets say, african americans are no longer allowed to buy coffe on their shops. Would it be ok to allow it?

No. We have the civil rights act of 1964.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#492

Post by airstrike »

erichocean wrote: post #469
zanny wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to make a slippery slope argument about a private corporations private, for-profit website is hilarious. Twitter will do whatever the hell it wants on its own property and has no obligation to listen to anyone except the voice of 51% of its shareholders. If you don't want your communications to be under the total absolute control of a corporate entity you have no influence over, you might want to pack your bag…

Evergreen: Twitter is a public company. And the grandparent just argued that we should easily be able to regulate companies. You're saying the opposite, now we can't regulate because they're quote-unquote "private"? Well, which is it? Can we regulate for-profit companies for the good of the nation or not? If not, why not?

> Twitter is a public company.

Correction: Twitter is a corporation with publicly-traded equity.

A "public company" isn't the same as a "public good" or controlled by government and regulated as if it were owned by the entire republic

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#493

Post by airstrike »

humanrebar wrote: post #378
tasty_freeze wrote: post #289

Whenever these topics come up, the comment section is full of people advocating for no limits based solely on slipper slope arguments: who is going to determine what is politcal? Who is going to determine what is true? But we all life with boundaries and we cope just fine. Why should this street in front of my house have a 35 MPH speed limit? What is special about 35? Why not 36? Why not 34? Who is to say that one is…

The concern is about categories, not magnitudes, though. A better analogy would be a certain tax rate for "cars" and another lower one for "trucks" so as to not harm blue collar small businesses. We would start seeing more personal vehicles designed to be "trucks" even if they weren't used for large hauls or some sort of business purpose. And, of course, we already see exactly that happen to car designs. The argument…

> A better analogy would be a certain tax rate for "cars" and another lower one for "trucks"

That would be a pretty poor analogy since taxes are mandatory and imposed by the government.

Nobody should feel obligated to use Twitter.

You can't just decide to create an alternative tax system, but you're definitely free to build your own microblogging / social network.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#494

Post by hnick »

F147H34D wrote: post #491
randiantech wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im scared of such arguments. And im telling you as a libertarian. No, private companies should be regulated and shareholders cant be the only voice to be heard. I mean, what if starbucks shareholders decide that, lets say, african americans are no longer allowed to buy coffe on their shops. Would it be ok to allow it?

No. We have the civil rights act of 1964.

But presumably, were this discussion taking place in 1963, there would be someone saying:

will do whatever the hell it wants on its own property and has no obligation to listen to anyone except the voice of 51% of its shareholders.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#495

Post by DavidSJ »

BurningFrog wrote: post #454
tasty_freeze wrote: post #289

Whenever these topics come up, the comment section is full of people advocating for no limits based solely on slipper slope arguments: who is going to determine what is politcal? Who is going to determine what is true? But we all life with boundaries and we cope just fine. Why should this street in front of my house have a 35 MPH speed limit? What is special about 35? Why not 36? Why not 34? Who is to say that one is…

I think you just made a slippery slope argument against slippery slope arguments !!!

I think it was an argument by analogy, not a slippery slope argument. Although I suppose the distinction between the two is a bit ... slippery.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#496

Post by F147H34D »

hnick wrote: post #494
F147H34D wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. We have the civil rights act of 1964.

But presumably, were this discussion taking place in 1963, there would be someone saying: will do whatever the hell it wants on its own property and has no obligation to listen to anyone except the voice of 51% of its shareholders.

This is all well documented history. I encourage you to look at the circumstances and conversations in govt that lead to the civil rights act.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#497

Post by drak0n1c »

wavefunction wrote: post #144
bhupy wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about ACLU or Planned Parenthood?

Those are a civil rights group and a health care provider. If your politics are opposed to civil rights or health care then you may consider them "political" but they aren't. Not by any reasonable definition.

If an organization lobbies to receive taxpayer funding, or lobbies to change laws and legal rulings, they are political. Whatever else they happen to offer doesn't cover that up.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#498

Post by hnick »

F147H34D wrote: post #496
hnick wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But presumably, were this discussion taking place in 1963, there would be someone saying: will do whatever the hell it wants on its own property and has no obligation to listen to anyone except the voice of 51% of its shareholders.

This is all well documented history. I encourage you to look at the circumstances and conversations in govt that lead to the civil rights act.

I think that's really beside the point I am making. My argument is that history is full of people defending the status quo, until it stops being the status quo. Then it becomes taken as truth that the new status quo is how things must be.

We can have discussions about what a business can and cannot do beyond what they are currently allowed to do.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#499

Post by smadurange »

ben509 wrote: post #375
Consultant32452 wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm skeptical of this. Is a private charity promoting an LGBT fundraiser a political ad? What about Fox News pushing an ad about how other news is fake. Or MSNBC pushing an ad about Russia collusion? Was the now infamous Gillette woke ad political? It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Yeah, "political" is a weasel word like "extremist." A view I like isn't political, it's just common sense or settled science, it's the other guy's views that are "political."

That's so nicely put.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#500

Post by arbitrarylimit »

octonion wrote: post #200
SirensOfTitan wrote: post #102

From what I recall Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez questioned Zuckerberg, she questioned along the anecdote of: If I purchase ads on Facebook saying Republicans support the Green New Deal (but they don't), will Facebook take the ads down? I often see these clean, easily provable anecdotes from those who support some kind of suppression of speech. I worry though: often the truthfulness of real world statements are difficu…

Are political propaganda and deliberate lies the type of speech the Founding Fathers were trying to protect?

Yeah, among other things, they were.
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