Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Alt-Right Members Suspended by Twitter

Twitter has suspended many accounts associated with the alt-right.

Included among them was the verified account of Richard Spencer, an alt-right leader.

He has issued this video statement.

 

I didn't follow Spencer on Twitter and really don't know much about him, however, it is my view that all voices should be allowed to be heard within public forums.

As a private (non-governemnt) organization, Twitter should certainly be allowed to set any rules it wants but it is very dangerous to support the snuffing out of speech on public forums.

First they cane for...

-RW

12 comments:

  1. "...all voices should be allowed to be heard within public forums." and "...it is very dangerous to support the snuffing out of speech on public forums."

    What is a public forum? Also, do they exist in a PPS, in your view?

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    1. Twitter, like many internet venues, invites the public in to voice their views, opinions, etc. In return they sell advertising space and monetize the site however they can.

      Should such a public forum start censoring those its owners disagree with it will quickly become a boring echo chamber. Those generating the content that brings in other people will become bored and leave. With the lower traffic comes less ad revenue.

      Twitter is free to do as it wants, but it's playing with its own survival.

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  2. I personally dont care what a private entity does on ones property and I was suspended from twitter years ago for tweeting that Al Sharpton is a racist POS. If the alt-right is full of all these tech heads like some of them claim to be, then why aren't they creating their own version to compete with twitter? (Yes I'm fully aware of Gab) It's pretty obvious (and has been for awhile) that twitter is owned and run by the left

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    1. Don't you care that Twitter is weaponized propaganda with with goal of taking away your liberty?

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  3. More business opportunities for alternative social media like Gab, etc.

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  4. To be honest, I'm kinda surprised to hear Bob say "but it is very dangerous to support the snuffing out of speech on public forums".

    Don't get me wrong, btw. I absolutely want people to be able to speak freely online. However isn't Bob supposed to be a hard-line free market capitalist? Shouldn't he believe that the free market will solve this problem? Isn't this a good test case scenario to see how capitalism works? Twitter has alienated users. Will the free market respond by creating other platforms that capture the market share that Twitter apparently doesn't want?

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    1. I hope someone does introduce a competitor to Twitter. And google also.

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  5. Vox Day: The Alt Right is a Western ideology that believes in science, history, reality, and the right of a genetic nation to exist and govern itself in its own interests. ["Its"?]

    http://voxday.blogspot.com/2016/08/what-alt-right-is.html

    My neighbor was an M.P. during Viet Nam in NYC. He said you couldn't let Swedish American and Norwegian American soldiers get drunk together because they would go to brawling against each other. Is the genetic nation at war with itself?

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  6. Vox Day:

    I was always a minarchist libertarian; I embraced libertarianism out of pessimism towards the government. But libertarianism has turned out to be nearly as economically ignorant as Marxism, and nearly as dangerous as Leninism, Nazism, or Maoism. Mass immigration, of the sort considerably more limited than that envisioned by the purist libertarians who correctly subscribe to open borders, has proven to be at least potentially as disastrous as any of those three historically infamous ideologies. Just how bad, we don't know yet, because the scenario is still in the process of playing itself out.

    The key difference between the Alt-Right and libertarianism is that libertarianism insists on the existence of Rational Man. The Alt-Right observes, to the contrary, that Man is an irrational, rationalizing creature. Where you fall on that question alone will logically dictate whether you ultimately side with the libertarians or the Alt-Right, if your ideals incline towards the libertarian.

    Tucker writes: This similarity is historically contingent and largely superficial given the vast differences that separate the two worldviews. Does society contain within itself the capacity for self management or not? That is the question.

    To which the Alt-Right responds: Define society.

    That being said, one intellectual subset of the Alt-Right could well be described as National Libertarianism, because, after all, once the nation has been sufficiently established and defended, it still has to decide how it will henceforth live.


    http://voxday.blogspot.com/2016/11/libertarian-vs-alt-right.html

    I dispute that Rothbardian libertarianism means "open borders". I think that AnCap makes these issues moot. In 1950, there were 1.5 million people in Detroit proper (excluding the suburbs) and 300,000 black people. In 2010, there were 55,000 white people in Detroit proper out of a population of 700,000 which is 83% black. If in 1950 there had been no laws against discrimination, no public schools and private streets, roads and neighborhoods, integration could and would have proceeded at whatever pace with which the population was comfortable. Private streets, sidewalks and schools would have made everyone safe. People always vote tribal but they tend to not buy tribal. Just living pursuant to AnCap rules means one is non-violent, not seizing subsidies from his neighbors and is being honest and faithful in fulfilling contracts. People will learn whom to trust and with whom to associate based upon Hayekian personal and local knowledge. If people find it advantageous to live with “their own kind”, they will. If not, they won’t.

    Further, irrational people who misbehave will be easy to spot once they commit a crime and can be expelled from the community if that what the bylaws provide for.

    And just who is going to make these “genetic nation” decisions anyway?

    Also, I suppose Twitter has the right to ban whomever they please except they should be honest about whom they are banning and why. Even left wingers have recently noted that the NYT and Washington Post are full of "fake news".

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  7. There is some wanton cognitive dissonance with the left (per usual) going on here. This is the Social Media version of the scenario of the Christian baker being forced to bake a gay man's wedding cake.

    Twitter should ban who it wants to and no cake baking should be forced. However, the government position is to force cake baking, so it follows that it should also force Twitter to allow these people access.

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  8. I don't support the snuffing out of free speech on private property such as Twitter, just as i don't support a private business rejecting customers on the basis of race.

    This does not change the fact that Twitter is private property and that they have a right to ban certain speech on their medium if that is what they want.

    Remember, libertarianism is about the NAP and private property right. No more. Libertarianism qua libertarianism has no opinion on what someone does with his rights and liberties.

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