The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended • Hacker News Board

Re: The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

#431

Post by socialismisok » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 6:44 AM UTC

gaganyaan wrote: post #377

socialismisok wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I talk about fluidity of gender, or gender distinct from sex, I start with well accepted terms. Consider: you would probably agree with me that a butch tomboy and a valley girl fashionista are both women. But they represent different extremes on what we, socially, agree femininity is. We might say the butch woman is less feminine than the valley girl. Likewise, we'd typically say Clint Eastwood is more manly tha…

"gender" as a term on its own is used very confusedly by a lot of people, but there's a simple definition that makes things clear: "gender == sex". The trick is that "gender" disambiguates that you mean "sex as it relates to a social context" instead of "sex as it relates to a biological context". Where this all gets cleared up is that you should use more specific terms such as "Gender norms", "gender presentation",…

Gender doesn't equal sex, though. My non binary friends are very much equipped with penises or vaginas.

There's a wide variety of genders in the rest of the world as well. While this is a newer concept in American and Western cultures, there are non male, non female genders dating back to mesopotamia.

Re: The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

#432

Post by socialismisok » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 6:46 AM UTC

chudmeister wrote: post #323

socialismisok wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They gave a trans woman their man of the year award and tweeted about it. Twitter said misgendering is against their rules and blocked the account until they deleted the tweet. Babylon Bee felt attacked and refused to delete the tweet, so they just left their own account locked.

> felt attacked No, they were attacked.

Those are not mutually exclusive. One can feel attacked when they are or aren't actually attacked. One can feel not attacked, even if you are.

You act on the feeling.

Re: The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

#433

Post by socialismisok » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 6:50 AM UTC

leeroyjenkins11 wrote: post #213

socialismisok wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transphobia is pretty clearly against twitters rules. They weren't really banned, they were locked out until they deleted their tweet. All they had to do was delete the tweet.

Quoted post unavailable.

It is transphobic when you deliberately say the wrong thing (especially with an intent to harm or be inflammatory). A trans woman is a woman.

Re: The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

#434

Post by ilyt » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 6:50 AM UTC

MollyRealized wrote: post #289

txsoftwaredev wrote: post #7

Great, they should have never been banned to begin with.

The right of free speech doesn't apply to a private company. A company has every right to dictate what services it will provide and the conditions for using those services. It is not a public communications carrier.

> It is not a public communications carrier.

It has 400 million users. By all other definition it is a public space

Re: The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

#435

Post by socialismisok » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 6:52 AM UTC

_-david-_ wrote: post #142

socialismisok wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transphobia is pretty clearly against twitters rules. They weren't really banned, they were locked out until they deleted their tweet. All they had to do was delete the tweet.

A joke about trans people is not transphobia. If somebody makes a joke about white people is that whitephobia?

A joke about trans people may or may not be transphobia. There's a ton of context to consider - who is telling the joke, whi is the punchline, etc.

But this case was not that. This case was specifically targeting a specific individual and making fun of them being trans. That's absolutely transphobia.

Re: The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

#436

Post by socialismisok » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 6:58 AM UTC

_-david-_ wrote: post #403

socialismisok wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People voluntarily leaving is not removing voices. This is naive. If a Klan bar doesn't literally throw out Black people, they still are preventing Black people from being there by making the environment so unpleasant they cannot remain.

You could make that argument about any group that has a large amount of critics. Congress, for example, has an approval rating under that of trans people. I propose Twitter bans anybody who "berates" a politician. If we don't do that then Twitter is allowing the environment to be too unpleasant for one the most marginalized groups out there. Why would my plan be bad, but yours good? Just because there is an environme…

Partly due to power imbalance. Congresspeople are not typically subject to routine violence just because they are congresspeople. They aren't typically dealing with a healthcare system that is actively hostile to them. They don't have high levels of homelessness, abuse, and suicide.

Additionally, congresspeople are public figures - being satirized is part of the social contract when you become a public figure.

And congresspeople have power. Lots of power. Saying that an average congressperson and an average trans person are equal is just not true.

If you pulled out another minority group with little power, your rule might be more agreeable.

Re: The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

#437

Post by socialismisok » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 6:59 AM UTC

chudmeister wrote: post #321

socialismisok wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hateful in the sense that it's very derisive in the culture of the target and Babylon Bee has a large enough audience that the individual is likely to receive targeted threats as a result. Reach and influence are important, because they impact the magnitude of what a derisive comment can do to a target. You saying, "lol, man!" In your living room has no reach, it won't cause harm. The Bee saying it has huge reac…

None of these authoritarian excuses matter. They can say what they want about who they want now.

Moderation is not authoritarianism.

Re: The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

#438

Post by socialismisok » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 7:04 AM UTC

caeril wrote: post #366

socialismisok wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hateful in the sense that it's very derisive in the culture of the target and Babylon Bee has a large enough audience that the individual is likely to receive targeted threats as a result. Reach and influence are important, because they impact the magnitude of what a derisive comment can do to a target. You saying, "lol, man!" In your living room has no reach, it won't cause harm. The Bee saying it has huge reac…

> derisive in the culture of the target > the individual is likely to receive targeted threats as a result. Obvious and simple solution here: 1. Allow people to say whatever offensive jokes they want. 2. Keep banning the actual problem: those who make the targeted threats. The entire concept of "incitement" is ridiculous. We have agency. Nobody can force me to go threaten someone. Go after the ones who commit actual…

This is true for you and me, but when we're dealing with the laws of large numbers I can guarantee there are folks who are not able to understand that these are "just jokes".

Looking at what the families of Sandy hook victims suffered at the hands of mentally ill viewers of Alex Jones is heartbreaking. When you have an audience of millions, I believe you have a responsibility to be intentional about what you publish, because you know that someone might take you very seriously and do awful things.

Sure, we can catch the people who make threats often enough, but the damage has already been done. It's far better to ask folks to be considerate and intentional about who they target, rather than try and sweep up the wreckage of someone's life after the fact.

Re: The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

#439

Post by socialismisok » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 7:09 AM UTC

Covzire wrote: post #133

socialismisok wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They gave a trans woman their man of the year award and tweeted about it. Twitter said misgendering is against their rules and blocked the account until they deleted the tweet. Babylon Bee felt attacked and refused to delete the tweet, so they just left their own account locked.

For some context, and why some believe that Babylon Bee's suspension was the catalyst for Musk buying Twitter: Twitter is the defacto online public square for a great number of people in politics, journalism, academia and many other fields. Twitter's TOS was, for whatever reason, deliberately written to disenfranchise half the voter base, half the country more or less by making it so simply expressing deeply held pol…

"half the country" overstates things. Roughly 40% of Americans believe that trans rights are good, roughly 30% believe they are bad, and 30% are undecided.

I'd argue that if Twitter has a liberal bias, it reflects the mostly majority opinions. (Speaking as a leftist whose friends are constantly banned for trivial nonsense, Twitter also hates the left. Not the Democrats, they aren't leftist.)

Re: The Babylon Bee's Twitter account is no longer suspended

#440

Post by socialismisok » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 7:14 AM UTC

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #279

diebeforei485 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the person - https://www.hhs.gov/about/leadership/rachel-levine.html My hot take is that it's OK to mock senior government officials, actually.

> My hot take is that it's OK to mock senior government officials, actually. Mocking senior American government officials is the most protected speech in the country, in fact. I do it liberally an encourage others to. It's the most fundamental part of holding them accountable.

Is all mocking fair game? I mean, I hard agree with you, but I think there are things that are gauche or hurtful to mock. Like, I think Obama was a bad president and there are plenty of mock worthy things there, but depicting him and Michelle as apes is beyond the pale for me. Mock his policies, mock his affect, mock his social behaviors in other countries, hell, mock his tan suit. But to bust out racist memes? I dunno... I think that sucks.