No. The statement I replied to, which I quoted in my reply so that there would be no question what I was replying to, was:
I get it. I was explaining the context of *my* comment not your comment.
The context of "public discourse" is "on the Harvard campus and community".
Ok fine. Then I think it's perfectly fine for certain voices to be excluded from *that* public discourse.
Oh, please. You know better than that. If you're a Harvard student and you know that Harvard is yanking acceptance from anyone who says something offensive
I haven't seen any evidence that "anything offensive" will get you rejected from Harvard. As I have said. I don't think these comments are *just* offensive. They are also mean-spirited and lack any intellectual merit (i.e. they are stupid).
It doesn't even require this specific instance to know there is a chilling effect.
Sometimes chilling effects are a good thing. There is a chilling effect at my job for telling your boss to go fuck himself/herself. There is a chilling effect in telling my wife all the times I think I am right and she is wrong. I don't so much view these as chilling effects as incentives for civility.
No, the first amendment is specific in limiting what the government can do. I am not the government. You've already said that Harvard has the right to do what it did because Harvard is not the government, which means you think it does not apply to them. Why would Harvard rally to rescind the first amendment when it does not apply to them?
Harvard's right to speech is protected by the 1st amendment. The individuals making up the Harvard institution are also protected by the 1st amendment. That's how it applies to them. That's how it applies to everyone. That's not to say that some people don;t actually support the 1st amendment. Some people (many on the left and in academia) seem to support restrictions on the first amendment for things like hate speech, etc. I haven't seen any evidence of this coming specifically from Harvard.
You felt compelled to tell me that you were defending the right of Harvard to do this, as if I was somehow not defending the right of Harvard to do this. If you thought I agreed, why are you arguing with me about it?
I'm sorry you felt that I was implying this. I was merely trying to clarify my own position.
Non sequitor. This is not a case of the University speaking, it is a case of the University acting against already-accepted incoming students for the students' speech. A University that allows their students to make offensive comments is not "throwing" anything at their students.
I will state once again that I don't think offensive comments are necessarily bad. You seem to want to characterize these comments as *only* offensive. I think there are many offensive comments that have intellectual merit, are not mean-spirited, nor intentionally offensive, etc, and I don't think these sorts of ideas would warrant punishment. Many ideas that some people find offensive are factually true or correct (i.e. they are not only defensible, they should actually be adopted). Is the idea that "hanging dead mexican children are like pinatas" in any way defensible or helpful in furthering discourse? I think more importantly it conveys something deficient about the person who felt compelled to voice this idea in a public forum.
I think more important than the chilling effect that this may have on others voicing similar meritless ideas, it tells other perspective students that having these sorts of ideas makes you a worse person that many people don't want to associate with.
I have plenty of friends that have thoughtful ideas that others would find offensive. It would be catastrophic if all offensive ideas were abandoned. I have no desire to get to know these 10 reje
Self censorship is not always a bad thing. If I did not censor myself I would constantly be saying "That's because you are a fucking idiot" in weekly meetings at work.
I am pretty sure I would be fired if I let that slip out. And even if I was given a second chance, I don't think I would be given a third. I would fire me for creating a hostile work environment if I were my own boss.
I hate when people say "Freedom of speech, but with responsibility" as a way to try to justify encroachment of the 1st amendment. That's bullshit. Speech shouldn't have any legal consequences outside some narrow circumstances like perjury, obstruction of justice, etc. But speech can and should have LOT'S of consequences (good and bad) among your private associations.
Being the guy with an incisive and hilarious joke at every turn should have good consequences. Posting inane racist memes to a "public" facebook group that makes the admissions board at Harvard regret their decision to accept you, should also have consequences. If for no other reason than Harvard wants to admit smart people, so if they are going to admit racists, they would probably prefer to get the smart ones.
I suspect that Harvard will not eliminate racism with this decision. People will still be racist. People will still be immature. Maybe people will put a little more thought into what they say if they want to get into Harvard. That sounds shitty, but it's a good life lesson. You can;t tell your boss to go fuck himself and expect to still have a job.
There is exercising your legal rights as an American citizen and there's being an idiot asshole. You might be president, but you might also get rejected from Harvard. It's America, anything is possible.
I guess it depends how long it takes for Trump to get impeached or otherwise unpresidented through a failed re-election. There is a reason the Trump administration is leaking like an open pipe (a sieve is not leaky enough for this metaphor). The distrust for this man goes beyond mere partisanship, and countless people are risking prison time to try to undo arguably the worst mistake in recent American history.
She probably should never work in a government position again. She has proven herself untrustworthy. Government secrets are important enough where even well-intentioned leakers need to be punished. We can't have every leaker be protected by their good intentions, or else there would be no secrets anymore.
That said, uncontrollable leaking is one of the failsafes of our democracy, and this is what it looks like when the immune system of democracy is rejecting it's new idiot commander.
So what if Trump promised to give 20% of America's nuclear arsenal to Russia in exchange for hacking the election to help him win. ZOMG Russia Russia Russia. Old news. Find something else to be outraged by.
Actually, the real problem is that enforcement is EXPENSIVE. You're asking for an expansion of a burdensome and often ineffectual solution, which people in the field already know about, which is why they're investigating this problem more thoroughly to see if they can come up with a better means of accomplishing the desired end.
If enforcement is expensive, then you're doing it wrong. Law enforcement agencies all across the country use ticketing as a source of revenue. Giving out tickets should pay for itself and then some. If anything the real problem is when law enforcement gets so addicted to the ticketing revenue that they start continue to ticket even after the bad behavior is effectively disincentivized.
Your example was poorly chosen, rape was defined in many jurisdictions already defined as something only men can do.
If you have a little imagination, you can probably use my example as a case against poor legal definitions of rape as well. My intent was not to find an example where everyone in the world currently does something exactly correctly, but rather as an example that shows a clear delineation between the right and wrong ways to do it. The fact that some may choose to do it the wrong way only shows that this delineation is not just theoretical.
If that is the case, then ticketing EVERYONE who is double parked will naturally disproportionately affect uber/lyft drivers.
We don't need laws that punish men who rape women. All we need are rape laws punishing all rapists. If it is true that more men are rapists, then more men will be affected by these laws. We don't need to bake that bias into the laws themselves.
You said that they get the right to decide. If you think that government punishment for deciding "no" is "get[ting] to decide", then there is no common language we share.
The question was "Who gets to define what an "asshole" is?" which is a proxy for "Who gets to decide who is worthy of disassociation?".
My comment was intended as an implicit rejection of the idea that there needs to be a common definition that we all adhere to. It was not intended as an incontrovertible descriptive statement.
Why should they? It doesn't apply to them.
Of course it does. It applies to everyone in the United States. And that's not to say that one should only care about laws that apply to themselves. I care about unjust laws in other countries that do not apply to me.
They were "offensive". That's a very broad categorization which isn't synonymous with "mean spirited".
I don't have a problem with offensive things. You can't control whether people will be offended by something. If anything, it is all but guaranteed that any statement will be found to be offensive by someone. There are plenty of offensive ideas that are nonetheless worthy of expression and consideration. I think these sorts of ideas are devoid of any merit, even if they are and should be constitutionally protected.
It's speech. It doesn't break bones.
No it doesn't break bones. Neither does getting rejected from a private university.
It brings into the open opinions that need to be identified and dealt with. Those opinions are already out in the open. They don't really add anything of merit to any conversation. My evaluation of merit is subjective and so is Harvard's.
You accomplish two things by suppressing such speech. 1) You hide it from view, which makes it easier to deny the existence of.
I agree and therefore oppose the suppression of any speech.
2) You strengthen the hate behind it because the people you are suppressing know you are doing it and resent you for it.
Strengthen the hate behind it?? I don't think I agree with that as it is worded, but certainly it is possible that consequences have the potential to create resentment and reinforce bad behavior out of spite. That is always a risk.
The fact that you don't have the time to respond to every comment that you find offensive doesn't mean that those comments should be eliminated from the public discourse.
They are not eliminated from public discourse. At the most extreme, they are eliminated from Harvard, but probably not even close to that.
You can, really, ignore things that you don't want to reply to. You not jumping up and immediately arguing with the speaker doesn't mean you agree with him.
Sure, you can also hear opposing views from people outside of Harvard.
You might have noticed that I began my comments by saying that Harvard had the right to do that. The issue at hand is the wisdom of doing so, not the right.
You might have noticed that I never accused you of denying Harvard's right to do this. I agree that an issue is the wisdom of doing it. And my position is that it was not unwise to do it. I think it *would* be unwise to deny entry to someone who made a controversial point of view public that might go against the university's own political stance. For example if person A said "I think we should deport all illegal immigrants as they make our society worse" and person B says "Dead hanging mexicans are just like pinatas". They are both potentially offensive. They are both "opposing points of view". I think one is worth having a debate about, and one is not. I think it is valuable to have these voices in society be public (rather than be hidden in the shadows), but I don't think it is n
Oh, wait, you'd like to solve the problem before the drivers crash and kill people? Oops, sorry, that's harder.
It is harder, which is why it is yet to be solved through policy.
Here's an idea. Not all crashes kill people. In fact most don't. We should be able to stop lot's of people after they crash but before they kill anyone.
Unless you make wedding cakes for a living and your "asshole" customer is gay.
I'm all for bigoted cake makers having the right to refuse service to gay people. I never claimed that every law that exists is just. Far from it.
There is almost no question that Harvard has the right to refuse admission to people who make offensive comments. I feel there is almost no question that them doing so is very wrong.
That's your decision that Harvard is an asshole, which you are entitled to.
The only upside to their action is that it is now painfully obvious that Harvard has no interest in free expression, they are only interested in providing an inoffensive campus so their students will not have to deal with offensive or upsetting ideas.
I think they probably have *some* interest in freedom of expression. I don't see them lobbying against the first amendment. The ideas the students espoused do not seem to have any merit at all. They are not controversial or politically incorrect. They are just mean spirited. It is not for the government to decide what expressions have merit, it is for private citizens and institutions.
If I were running Harvard, I wouldn't want these assholes on my campus either. I would definitely want people with opposing viewpoints. I would want there to be a free expression of ideas. I would not want people expressing crude racism. I don't think this provides any intellectual merit, and denying these people entry allows other people who might be more mature and thoughtful to part of their community.
There is a benefit to being exposed to controversial ideas and opposing points of view. But not all opposing points of view are equal. We have limited time and energy. It is not efficient use of resources to waste them dealing with trivially stupid and mean spirited points of view.
I will defend the legal right to say any of these horrible things, while simultaneously defending the right of a private person or institution to disassociate with people that express those things.
It's not just social media affecting elections. It's people affecting elections, and people are on social media. Yes social media sites themselves have an influence beyond the people participating on them, but so do traditional media like newspapers, radio, TV, books, etc. Social media is just a new form of media that has always had an effect on public perception of everything, including politics.
Phone lines are physical. There is a physical limitation involved with having lots of different phone line providers to choose from. There can be (and are) lots of social media sites to choose from. In fact people of all political ideologies seem to be able to coexist pretty easily on the same social media sites.
Also, the only reason social media had such a "large" effect on this election, was because it was so close, and we have a horrible election system, so literally everything had a large effect on the election. If Hillary were winning by 30 points to start with, then almost nothing could have effected the outcome.
I haven't seen much Trump hate in this thread aside from the very top. My general impression of the past supreme court justices has been that even when they are political ideologues (i.e. they always vote the conservative or liberal position), they are at least consistent in their ideology. They don't tend to change their ideology to help particular parties or people. If a conservative position happens to help the progressive side of a case or vice versa then so be it.
That point might become moot as voice calls become less of a factor in billing. Many plans come with unlimited voice, texting and data. Even plans that don't come with unlimited data, the utility of records which track bytes transferred as a means of corroborating billing accuracy are limited.
I think they could reasonably throw all this data away, if they really wanted to protect their customers data even from searches that had a warrant. But I suspect that even carriers with a desire to protect data are willing to handover data when a warrant is granted (i.e. there is still faith in the court system for now).
Sometimes police demand. Sometimes they ask. Sometimes police ask if they can search you, or your property, and you can often decline that search if they do not have a warrant. In fact I believe they are required by law to *ask* rather than demand (even if they might do so in a demanding tone). Not ((asking and receiving permission) or (getting a warrant)) for a search might lead to a situation where they are unable to get a conviction that hinged upon evidence gathered during that search.
I just assumed this was already the correct way to view the situation. Like T-Mobile could as a general principle require a warrant for turning over any data, but decide to freely handover any relevant data to law enforcement after a terrorist attack or something (i.e. equivalent to the decisions a person might make).
There are no doubt some people that employ double standards. These people exist on the left and the right, and will always be there. How does that change anything? Sure, you can and should point out the hypocrisy, but the existence of hypocritical people does not change who is right in any case.
Not getting into harvard and being thrown in jail are not the same type of consequences. One is a punishment, the other is just a bad thing that happened.
The reductionist argument here is "Any consequence (public or private) for speech is an infringement on freedom of speech".
I consider myself a 100% libertarian, free speech proponent, and I consider the pro-freedom position to be allowing Harvard to decide what their own admissions standards are, allowing Facebook to decide what speech they will rebroadcast, and allowing individuals to apply to whatever schools they want o and say whatever they want to in person or on any private media that are willing to amplify them.
I even oppose slander and libel laws as legitimate unjust sources of chilling effects.
It's not even private censorship. Private censorship would be if facebook censored their comments (which would also be fine with me). Social media sites routinely censor things.
It's like the Chinese good citizen points, you prosper if you have the right friends and say/think the right things.
In China they can (and do) imprison people for criticizing the communist party. Not getting into your favorite college is not even in the same ball park of consequences.
It depends what you mean by "banning comments". Do you mean having any sort of consequences for those comments once said? Do you mean having those comments removed? Do you mean having your account banned? Do you mean being imprisoned or fined by the government for those comments? The constitution protects one of those things.
The socialists, trade unionists, jews that were "came for" by a government.
Freedom of speech should not extend into the the territory where it begins to infringe on freedom of association. (e.g. forcing private universities to take your money an allow you to attend their university even if they don't want you there).
Slashdot Mirror
So you are saying that.... things can't be 2 things?
I didn't see that in any of her hacked emails...
No. The statement I replied to, which I quoted in my reply so that there would be no question what I was replying to, was:
I get it. I was explaining the context of *my* comment not your comment.
The context of "public discourse" is "on the Harvard campus and community".
Ok fine. Then I think it's perfectly fine for certain voices to be excluded from *that* public discourse.
Oh, please. You know better than that. If you're a Harvard student and you know that Harvard is yanking acceptance from anyone who says something offensive
I haven't seen any evidence that "anything offensive" will get you rejected from Harvard. As I have said. I don't think these comments are *just* offensive. They are also mean-spirited and lack any intellectual merit (i.e. they are stupid).
It doesn't even require this specific instance to know there is a chilling effect.
Sometimes chilling effects are a good thing. There is a chilling effect at my job for telling your boss to go fuck himself/herself. There is a chilling effect in telling my wife all the times I think I am right and she is wrong. I don't so much view these as chilling effects as incentives for civility.
No, the first amendment is specific in limiting what the government can do. I am not the government. You've already said that Harvard has the right to do what it did because Harvard is not the government, which means you think it does not apply to them. Why would Harvard rally to rescind the first amendment when it does not apply to them?
Harvard's right to speech is protected by the 1st amendment. The individuals making up the Harvard institution are also protected by the 1st amendment. That's how it applies to them. That's how it applies to everyone. That's not to say that some people don;t actually support the 1st amendment. Some people (many on the left and in academia) seem to support restrictions on the first amendment for things like hate speech, etc. I haven't seen any evidence of this coming specifically from Harvard.
You felt compelled to tell me that you were defending the right of Harvard to do this, as if I was somehow not defending the right of Harvard to do this. If you thought I agreed, why are you arguing with me about it?
I'm sorry you felt that I was implying this. I was merely trying to clarify my own position.
Non sequitor. This is not a case of the University speaking, it is a case of the University acting against already-accepted incoming students for the students' speech. A University that allows their students to make offensive comments is not "throwing" anything at their students.
I will state once again that I don't think offensive comments are necessarily bad. You seem to want to characterize these comments as *only* offensive. I think there are many offensive comments that have intellectual merit, are not mean-spirited, nor intentionally offensive, etc, and I don't think these sorts of ideas would warrant punishment. Many ideas that some people find offensive are factually true or correct (i.e. they are not only defensible, they should actually be adopted). Is the idea that "hanging dead mexican children are like pinatas" in any way defensible or helpful in furthering discourse? I think more importantly it conveys something deficient about the person who felt compelled to voice this idea in a public forum.
I think more important than the chilling effect that this may have on others voicing similar meritless ideas, it tells other perspective students that having these sorts of ideas makes you a worse person that many people don't want to associate with.
I have plenty of friends that have thoughtful ideas that others would find offensive. It would be catastrophic if all offensive ideas were abandoned. I have no desire to get to know these 10 reje
Self censorship is not always a bad thing. If I did not censor myself I would constantly be saying "That's because you are a fucking idiot" in weekly meetings at work.
I am pretty sure I would be fired if I let that slip out. And even if I was given a second chance, I don't think I would be given a third. I would fire me for creating a hostile work environment if I were my own boss.
I hate when people say "Freedom of speech, but with responsibility" as a way to try to justify encroachment of the 1st amendment. That's bullshit. Speech shouldn't have any legal consequences outside some narrow circumstances like perjury, obstruction of justice, etc. But speech can and should have LOT'S of consequences (good and bad) among your private associations.
Being the guy with an incisive and hilarious joke at every turn should have good consequences. Posting inane racist memes to a "public" facebook group that makes the admissions board at Harvard regret their decision to accept you, should also have consequences. If for no other reason than Harvard wants to admit smart people, so if they are going to admit racists, they would probably prefer to get the smart ones.
I suspect that Harvard will not eliminate racism with this decision. People will still be racist. People will still be immature. Maybe people will put a little more thought into what they say if they want to get into Harvard. That sounds shitty, but it's a good life lesson. You can;t tell your boss to go fuck himself and expect to still have a job.
There is exercising your legal rights as an American citizen and there's being an idiot asshole. You might be president, but you might also get rejected from Harvard. It's America, anything is possible.
You could probably cut that list in half and be more reputable.
I guess it depends how long it takes for Trump to get impeached or otherwise unpresidented through a failed re-election. There is a reason the Trump administration is leaking like an open pipe (a sieve is not leaky enough for this metaphor). The distrust for this man goes beyond mere partisanship, and countless people are risking prison time to try to undo arguably the worst mistake in recent American history.
She probably should never work in a government position again. She has proven herself untrustworthy. Government secrets are important enough where even well-intentioned leakers need to be punished. We can't have every leaker be protected by their good intentions, or else there would be no secrets anymore.
That said, uncontrollable leaking is one of the failsafes of our democracy, and this is what it looks like when the immune system of democracy is rejecting it's new idiot commander.
So what if Trump promised to give 20% of America's nuclear arsenal to Russia in exchange for hacking the election to help him win. ZOMG Russia Russia Russia. Old news. Find something else to be outraged by.
I guess it could potentially add to the momentum of a turn public opinion to make impeaching Trump a possibility.
Actually, the real problem is that enforcement is EXPENSIVE. You're asking for an expansion of a burdensome and often ineffectual solution, which people in the field already know about, which is why they're investigating this problem more thoroughly to see if they can come up with a better means of accomplishing the desired end.
If enforcement is expensive, then you're doing it wrong. Law enforcement agencies all across the country use ticketing as a source of revenue. Giving out tickets should pay for itself and then some. If anything the real problem is when law enforcement gets so addicted to the ticketing revenue that they start continue to ticket even after the bad behavior is effectively disincentivized.
Your example was poorly chosen, rape was defined in many jurisdictions already defined as something only men can do.
If you have a little imagination, you can probably use my example as a case against poor legal definitions of rape as well. My intent was not to find an example where everyone in the world currently does something exactly correctly, but rather as an example that shows a clear delineation between the right and wrong ways to do it. The fact that some may choose to do it the wrong way only shows that this delineation is not just theoretical.
If that is the case, then ticketing EVERYONE who is double parked will naturally disproportionately affect uber/lyft drivers.
We don't need laws that punish men who rape women. All we need are rape laws punishing all rapists. If it is true that more men are rapists, then more men will be affected by these laws. We don't need to bake that bias into the laws themselves.
You said that they get the right to decide. If you think that government punishment for deciding "no" is "get[ting] to decide", then there is no common language we share.
The question was "Who gets to define what an "asshole" is?" which is a proxy for "Who gets to decide who is worthy of disassociation?".
My comment was intended as an implicit rejection of the idea that there needs to be a common definition that we all adhere to. It was not intended as an incontrovertible descriptive statement.
Why should they? It doesn't apply to them.
Of course it does. It applies to everyone in the United States. And that's not to say that one should only care about laws that apply to themselves. I care about unjust laws in other countries that do not apply to me.
They were "offensive". That's a very broad categorization which isn't synonymous with "mean spirited".
I don't have a problem with offensive things. You can't control whether people will be offended by something. If anything, it is all but guaranteed that any statement will be found to be offensive by someone. There are plenty of offensive ideas that are nonetheless worthy of expression and consideration. I think these sorts of ideas are devoid of any merit, even if they are and should be constitutionally protected.
It's speech. It doesn't break bones.
No it doesn't break bones. Neither does getting rejected from a private university.
It brings into the open opinions that need to be identified and dealt with. Those opinions are already out in the open. They don't really add anything of merit to any conversation. My evaluation of merit is subjective and so is Harvard's.
You accomplish two things by suppressing such speech. 1) You hide it from view, which makes it easier to deny the existence of.
I agree and therefore oppose the suppression of any speech.
2) You strengthen the hate behind it because the people you are suppressing know you are doing it and resent you for it.
Strengthen the hate behind it?? I don't think I agree with that as it is worded, but certainly it is possible that consequences have the potential to create resentment and reinforce bad behavior out of spite. That is always a risk.
The fact that you don't have the time to respond to every comment that you find offensive doesn't mean that those comments should be eliminated from the public discourse.
They are not eliminated from public discourse. At the most extreme, they are eliminated from Harvard, but probably not even close to that.
You can, really, ignore things that you don't want to reply to. You not jumping up and immediately arguing with the speaker doesn't mean you agree with him.
Sure, you can also hear opposing views from people outside of Harvard.
You might have noticed that I began my comments by saying that Harvard had the right to do that. The issue at hand is the wisdom of doing so, not the right.
You might have noticed that I never accused you of denying Harvard's right to do this. I agree that an issue is the wisdom of doing it. And my position is that it was not unwise to do it. I think it *would* be unwise to deny entry to someone who made a controversial point of view public that might go against the university's own political stance. For example if person A said "I think we should deport all illegal immigrants as they make our society worse" and person B says "Dead hanging mexicans are just like pinatas". They are both potentially offensive. They are both "opposing points of view". I think one is worth having a debate about, and one is not. I think it is valuable to have these voices in society be public (rather than be hidden in the shadows), but I don't think it is n
Most of *Harvard's* applicants get get rejected.
Most applicants don't apply to Harvard.
I can be inanely pedantic too.
Oh, wait, you'd like to solve the problem before the drivers crash and kill people? Oops, sorry, that's harder.
It is harder, which is why it is yet to be solved through policy.
Here's an idea. Not all crashes kill people. In fact most don't. We should be able to stop lot's of people after they crash but before they kill anyone.
Why not just give out tickets to EVERYONE who is double parked? Why is this just an uber/lyft problem?
Unless you make wedding cakes for a living and your "asshole" customer is gay.
I'm all for bigoted cake makers having the right to refuse service to gay people. I never claimed that every law that exists is just. Far from it.
There is almost no question that Harvard has the right to refuse admission to people who make offensive comments. I feel there is almost no question that them doing so is very wrong.
That's your decision that Harvard is an asshole, which you are entitled to.
The only upside to their action is that it is now painfully obvious that Harvard has no interest in free expression, they are only interested in providing an inoffensive campus so their students will not have to deal with offensive or upsetting ideas.
I think they probably have *some* interest in freedom of expression. I don't see them lobbying against the first amendment. The ideas the students espoused do not seem to have any merit at all. They are not controversial or politically incorrect. They are just mean spirited. It is not for the government to decide what expressions have merit, it is for private citizens and institutions.
If I were running Harvard, I wouldn't want these assholes on my campus either. I would definitely want people with opposing viewpoints. I would want there to be a free expression of ideas. I would not want people expressing crude racism. I don't think this provides any intellectual merit, and denying these people entry allows other people who might be more mature and thoughtful to part of their community.
There is a benefit to being exposed to controversial ideas and opposing points of view. But not all opposing points of view are equal. We have limited time and energy. It is not efficient use of resources to waste them dealing with trivially stupid and mean spirited points of view.
I will defend the legal right to say any of these horrible things, while simultaneously defending the right of a private person or institution to disassociate with people that express those things.
It's not just social media affecting elections. It's people affecting elections, and people are on social media. Yes social media sites themselves have an influence beyond the people participating on them, but so do traditional media like newspapers, radio, TV, books, etc. Social media is just a new form of media that has always had an effect on public perception of everything, including politics.
Phone lines are physical. There is a physical limitation involved with having lots of different phone line providers to choose from. There can be (and are) lots of social media sites to choose from. In fact people of all political ideologies seem to be able to coexist pretty easily on the same social media sites.
Also, the only reason social media had such a "large" effect on this election, was because it was so close, and we have a horrible election system, so literally everything had a large effect on the election. If Hillary were winning by 30 points to start with, then almost nothing could have effected the outcome.
I haven't seen much Trump hate in this thread aside from the very top. My general impression of the past supreme court justices has been that even when they are political ideologues (i.e. they always vote the conservative or liberal position), they are at least consistent in their ideology. They don't tend to change their ideology to help particular parties or people. If a conservative position happens to help the progressive side of a case or vice versa then so be it.
That point might become moot as voice calls become less of a factor in billing. Many plans come with unlimited voice, texting and data. Even plans that don't come with unlimited data, the utility of records which track bytes transferred as a means of corroborating billing accuracy are limited.
I think they could reasonably throw all this data away, if they really wanted to protect their customers data even from searches that had a warrant. But I suspect that even carriers with a desire to protect data are willing to handover data when a warrant is granted (i.e. there is still faith in the court system for now).
Sometimes police demand. Sometimes they ask. Sometimes police ask if they can search you, or your property, and you can often decline that search if they do not have a warrant. In fact I believe they are required by law to *ask* rather than demand (even if they might do so in a demanding tone). Not ((asking and receiving permission) or (getting a warrant)) for a search might lead to a situation where they are unable to get a conviction that hinged upon evidence gathered during that search.
I just assumed this was already the correct way to view the situation. Like T-Mobile could as a general principle require a warrant for turning over any data, but decide to freely handover any relevant data to law enforcement after a terrorist attack or something (i.e. equivalent to the decisions a person might make).
There are no doubt some people that employ double standards. These people exist on the left and the right, and will always be there. How does that change anything? Sure, you can and should point out the hypocrisy, but the existence of hypocritical people does not change who is right in any case.
Not getting into harvard and being thrown in jail are not the same type of consequences. One is a punishment, the other is just a bad thing that happened.
The reductionist argument here is "Any consequence (public or private) for speech is an infringement on freedom of speech".
I consider myself a 100% libertarian, free speech proponent, and I consider the pro-freedom position to be allowing Harvard to decide what their own admissions standards are, allowing Facebook to decide what speech they will rebroadcast, and allowing individuals to apply to whatever schools they want o and say whatever they want to in person or on any private media that are willing to amplify them.
I even oppose slander and libel laws as legitimate unjust sources of chilling effects.
Most people get rejected form harvard...
It's not even private censorship. Private censorship would be if facebook censored their comments (which would also be fine with me). Social media sites routinely censor things.
It's like the Chinese good citizen points, you prosper if you have the right friends and say/think the right things.
In China they can (and do) imprison people for criticizing the communist party. Not getting into your favorite college is not even in the same ball park of consequences.
It depends what you mean by "banning comments". Do you mean having any sort of consequences for those comments once said? Do you mean having those comments removed? Do you mean having your account banned? Do you mean being imprisoned or fined by the government for those comments? The constitution protects one of those things.
The socialists, trade unionists, jews that were "came for" by a government.
Freedom of speech should not extend into the the territory where it begins to infringe on freedom of association. (e.g. forcing private universities to take your money an allow you to attend their university even if they don't want you there).