Posted: Aug 23, 2020 7:29 am
Mike_L wrote:Hermit wrote:Mike_L wrote:felltoearth wrote:Is it surprising that the British are running a counter intelligence/information program? I’m kinda like, yeah, that’s what the army does.
Sure, but if it's established that Twitter is a tool of governments (a willing tool, along with Facebook, Microsoft and Google) then the extent of its independence becomes questionable. Maybe it's then no better than (gasp!) RT.com!
If Twitter, along with Facebook, Microsoft and Google is, as you say. a willing tool of governments, it cannot be said that its (or their) independence becomes questionable. What can be said, is that they are exercising the discretion every commercial outfit has, to decide or change their editorial policies. This has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is what governments allow you to say, not what privately owned outfits allow on their turf. This is why you can rip shit out of Trump and Biden to your heart's content in the USA. Some commercial enterprises will not publish your opinion. Plenty will. Neither case has anything to do with freedom of speech.
The question is whether or not that discretion is influenced by or constrained by the government.
No, Mike, that is not the question. The question is "Is there ANY freedom of speech any more?" And to answer that question you need to be clear about what Freedom of speech is, and what freedom of speech is not. You do not appear to have bothered reading post #3 and #5, so I repeat from post #3: "...you are conflating freedom of speech, which is a matter of law, with decisions made by commercial enterprises. The latter have belatedly decided to not let conspiracy nuts like David Icke and the Qanon mob use their facilities as an outlet for their crap. In these cases their freedom of speech is not constrained by law. Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and others have merely made a commercially motivated change of editorial policy, saying in effect: "Not in our house. Spout your rubbish elsewhere."" From post #5: "Freedom of speech is, as the Merriam Webster dictionary put it, "the legal right to express one's opinions freely". Which arenas allow you to say whatever you want to say on their site is a matter of their editorial policy."
I presented the same distinction for a third time in post #43 - in the paragraph you snipped. Read it. Then we shall go from there, shall we?