Texas A&M suspended professor accused of criticizing Lt. Gov. Patrick in lecture • Hacker News Board

Re: Texas A&M suspended professor accused of criticizing Lt. Gov. Patrick in lecture

#221

Post by dctoedt » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 3:49 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #220

dctoedt wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Horses for courses, as the Brits say. Here we had a government-employed professional who publicly (and mildly) expressed disagreement with another, high-ranking public servant on the merits of an issue of public concern — in a field in which the academic is something of an expert and the other public servant is ... not. That's a whole different kettle of fish than, say, a DMV employee greeting people at the counter w…

But she wasn't speaking as a private citizen. She was delivering a lecture purchased and paid for by the government.

> She was delivering a lecture purchased and paid for by the government.

If that's to be the standard, what effect do you think it will have on the hiring desirable faculty by state universities in red states? I'm already seeing reports of trouble in that regard.

Re: Texas A&M suspended professor accused of criticizing Lt. Gov. Patrick in lecture

#222

Post by smsm42 » Fri, Jul 28, 2023, 7:25 PM UTC

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #152

smsm42 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think when we have the government having regular meetings with major social networks, instructing them who to ban and which topics to exclude from discussion, and when we have the pipeline from foreign security services through the US government to the all major social networks which allow them to ban anybody without as little as cursory review - we are way, way beyond "family and friends" situation here.

The owners of social networks have free speech rights too. They can take others suggestions as to who and what to block and decide for themselves. The constitutional law is settled on this question. I wouldn’t be so quick to infringe that.

Quoting email to Zuckerberg:

We are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the White House and the press, to remove more Covid-19 vaccine discouraging content.

This is not "suggestion". This is government coercing private business.

Re: Texas A&M suspended professor accused of criticizing Lt. Gov. Patrick in lecture

#223

Post by smsm42 » Fri, Jul 28, 2023, 7:29 PM UTC

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #178

smsm42 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Suggestions". Right. Regular meetings and demands from the government to shut down speech is just mere "suggestions". How stupid you think your target audience is?

I don’t have a target audience. I’m just telling you the way it works. As far as I can tell the only place in the US that government is actually threatening private companies over their speech is Florida.

No, you are telling the way you'd like to pretend it works, because your partisan biases make you blind to facts. They way is actually works, as evident from Facebook executives themselves, is that they were constantly pressured by the government to censor, and attacked when the government felt they ate not censoring enough.