As long as one does not try to deprive them of the means or possibility to get a platform, that is. Also, one should not be hypocritical about it, and pretend one is for free speech, but then stifling it, or claim one is doing anything else then censoring or being biased on 'their' platform towards the speech one doesn't like.
Also, I've been pondering how far one can take this. What do you think?
Imagine some bloke in China gets thrown in an isolation-chamber because of his speech, and laments his lack of free speech. If the guards then said: 'what do you mean, you can speak freely about all you want, in your cell, so there is no problem anymore." they would be technically right, mayhaps, but everyone will note something wrong with this.
And if they said: "we deport you out of china; we're not obliged to provide you a platform, after all." Would/should one consider this not an infringement of free speech? Maybe the law in China allows it, even for the government, and they use the same argument "not being forced to provide a platform'... so... it wouldn't be an infringement of speech?
Maybe, maybe not; I'm not that familiar with the nazi party in the USA, nor elsewhere, I'm afraid.;-) Though I would suspect even then neo-nazis would be more correct (as they're called in Germany and most of Europe, btw).
The gravitas of the term 'Nazi' does not stem - at least not only - from just being 'racist', after all. It has a historical meaning to it.
But regardless... if I remember correctly, this was - in the parent post - about "abusive trolls". Which immediately got equated with white supremacists and Nazis in the following post(s).
Well, calling that Nazism, too, is hollowing it out as well.
1)Manner of speech. Seen the prevalence here on/., chances are higher it to be a fellow. Otherwise I would say "ma'am". (j/k)
2)I would already refute your first claim here. What accusations? My main point was that using the correct term is important, and that otherwise the term(inology) gets hollowed out. The fact you see that as accusations, and baseless ones at that, merely indicate I was right when I said 'only in your own mind' in my former post.
Also, you're not making much sense in your rebuttal. The rape-example WAS to show how words get hollowed out by using it in immer broader meanings. Since that WAS my major point, obviously, it *did* associate with it - you've basically acknowledged it yourself. Maybe you had another idea of what constituted my major point? Otherwise, you're not making sense by trying to refute my point by acknowledging the associations made.
Well, luckily most dictionaries still haven't. But, of course, language changes. Expanding and hollowing out are not mutually exclusive, and no doubt the meaning of words change - in the future, nazis may be another word for asshole, person I don't agree with, or rightwinger, for instance. It's not impossible. But it still will be a hollowing out of the real gravitas of the term. And the fact it is, is caused by people like you.
There is no way around it: the wider you use a specific term for other things than its original purpose, the more its use becomes general applicable and watered down in regard to the original meaning.
So, let me rephrase my former post: instead of saying you (well, people using it in other ways) will hollow it down by doing so, I will add you've already hollowed it down. Satisfied, now?
And lastly, since it's neither an accusation nor a strawman, I have difficulty finding a sensible response to your last part, but if you still didn't get the point - maybe reading comprehension isn't your forte? - it's that diluting - broadening in your vision - a term which has a specific and heavy meaning, for other things that have not the same gravitas, makes the term lose it's ethical and moral weight. Your counter that you found it in a dictionary does nothing to refute this, it only shows the dilution has gone so far as to begin encroaching in the dictionaries. If you don't see how equating trolls that spout racist comments on a forum with Nazis, whom are responsible for massacring and killing 6 million Jews, women and children included, is problematic within any reasonable standard ethical framework where you have to evaluate different behavior, then you're simply passed any hope.
"If someone tweets in the way I've described, it's perfectly reasonable to call them a Nazi"
No, it isn't. That was the whole contention to begin with, so re-iterating the premise which was contended, doesn't really constitute an argument for it.
You're missing the point entirely. Posting nasty shit or them feeling butthurt or not has nothing to do with it. Even if they WERE generally and genuinely racist and not merely trolling, they still wouldn't be Nazis. That's because Nazism and racism aren't the same thing, and by immer broadening the meaning of a heavy-loaded term, you're actually hollowing it out. Keep it up, and it will amount in a general term for assholes and people you do not like, or even people that say something you do not like, in general. Some leftist snowflakes already use it that way.
So, no, they are not Nazis because they posted a picture and made racial comments, and no, not even because their tweets were 'vile' and 'demonstrate a pattern of behavior'. (Do you note how broad you're already beginning to interpret 'Nazism' yourself?)
It would be the right option, given the parameters of your former post.
If you're genuinely interested in knowing what sources someone else uses, may I suggest, next time, asking for it directly, instead of making a red herring yourself, and then acting as if you don't know you did exactly that? It might be slightly more fruitful.
As you may have noted, I'm not the parent poster, nor did I even really delve into the question whether or not Twitter should rather be considered left or not and why. I just thought your question 'how so?' was rather trollish in nature, since surely you'd noted that of your own counterargument it was silly, and you actually knew you were using a red herring. Granted, we're on slashdot, so it's not like it's uncommon or unforgivable.;-) But I still wanted to point this out.
A cursory look at the issue gives me some links: https://www.usatoday.com/story... , and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tec...... and those were on the first 3 links, so I'm not sure how well you searched. The first seems not very much substantiated by statistical or other scientific methods, so I would regard it as rather having low worth. The latter is more interesting. For instance, it clearly indicates twitter users have a far more positive outlook on immigration, something which is more of a left-wing tendency, than a right wing attitude, we'll all agree on that. They clearly do not represent the populace as a whole (aka, they are not representative, in scientific terms) and have a tendency to promote and be supportive of things the leftists are promoting and supportive of the most as well. One can argue this does not mean a one-to-one relationship between the two groups, sure. But let's be realistic: it ain't the rightwingers that are going to be suddenly more positive about topics they typically are not fond off, just because they use twitter, now are they? The most likely explanation, thus, is that the correlation between the two - the same mentality and attitudes towards the same subjects and goals, of leftwingers and twitter users - also have a causal relationship.
This indicates that Twitter - also in the userbase, thus - is, overall, more leftist than rightist.
Of course, the main problem remains of the interpretation of what constitutes racism in the first place. And here I think comes the 'leftists' of the parent poster at play.
Clearly, to some degree this is an exaggeration - or more precise generalization - as well, but it's a fact a large part of the left has the tendency to label everything of certain subject-matters that goes against their core beliefs as being racist; for instance: a more stringent immigration policy is one of the archetypal issues. the most extreme are the lefty self-appointed vigilantes and SJW-snowflakes, but to a large degree it's typical for large parts of the left to not be able to argue rationally about immigration, and they implicitly or explicitly always indicate any position taken that wants to clamp down on immigration, has racist motives. they also have a far more pronounced tendency than the right (at least in current times) to impose their will and stifle free speech (at least speech they don't agree with) - you can look up video's of Ben Shapiro and see how the left is acting up, there.
Granted, with my European roots I wouldn't call the democrats in the USA real socialists; WE have socialists here. Even hard-line communists, still. But in general, it is true the left is, ironically enough, becoming more and more fascist in their behavior. Especially concerning free speech. I think the root cause is decennia of socially-imposed political correctness and the delusion that all cultures are equal by their very nature. The latter being at the basis of the 'multicultural society' of our current Western democracies - apparently blind to the fact that, depending on how many you let in of which culture and with which mentality, you're undermining the very foundations of that very same democracy. It's the "let's not rock the boat, even if it's heading towards an iceberg'-attitude a large proportion of the leftists and the ruling elite (aka, the 'moderate' politicians) have adopted.
IMHO, it's insane. But contrary to some of the ultra-right, I don't see race, on itself, as a problem. That's not the issue at all. It's culture and mentality. Logic indicates that, if you take in hundredthousands (one million even, like Germany in 2016) of people where 40% of those people (as polls in the UK have demonstrated) think that the sharia-law should govern and be above all other laws - than one would have to be an idiot to not see how dangerous that is for your own society. Does that have anything to do with race? No. Raise Africans or people from the Magreb in a Western country from when they are babies, and you'll have no problems at all, for instance. Their skin-colour or appearance is not a problem for one's society and the values it entails. But cultures - including religion - that are antithetic to our values *are*.
Try to argue that rationally with a lefty, and 9 times out of ten, he'll resort to name-calling and racism-slurs. Probably because he has no good rational riposte, but still... it's a very annoying way to stiffle speech one does not agree with.
But maybe we're speaking aside eachother. My point, if it wasn't clear, is not that companies can't put sanctions in place as an *employer*, it's that, ultimately, they can't take away unalienable rights. Such as free speech.
Only in your own mind, my dear fellow., Though I would agree with the latter part: I, at least, put some effort in what I argue. It's a pity that can't be said of everyone.
No, it's called being equally sarcastic as the parent poster. I thought I was being obvious, but apparently not obvious enough.
If the other poster 'from the other sub-thread' wants to claim he was only being ironic, and his argument was not an argument at all, he should feel free to do so.
Thus, if you still would doubt: yes, things are white and black, as far as being a hypocrite or not goes. My post here was not relevant on purpose, to indicate and be equal to the non-relevance of the post I responded to, and I definitely didn't provide an valid argument.
So we're both in agreement. The only thing you missed is that I was being ironic in doing so, and it was not MEANT as a valid argument.
I'm still waiting on the poster of the 'other subthread' to acknowledge the same. But as long as he doesn't, his question was quite hypocritical indeed.
But, as I've argued in my post, neither diminishes anything to the comment of the poster that called his comment a red herring, to which he asked "how so".
Basically, using a red herring is still a red herring, even if your defence is that the other used a red herring as well. He should have known that, and he probably did know why it was true, so that makes the question rather hypocritical.
Also, while in general I agree with your assertion that normally it's for the one making a claim to provide proof, it should not be used as an excuse for laziness to not even bother to augment your own knowledge on your own merit on a subject you yourself respond to (as the poster did). After all, he made an implicit claim of his own, indicating that the claim that twitter was leftish was not true. The only substantiation he gave for that was bullocks, since it generalised from one example, as if that was would constitute proof of anything. Should one respond in-depth to someone who already knows his own response doesn't make sense, nor bothers to have even a cursory look into the subject he's responding to and talking about himself?
Time is limited for everyone, after all, and I, for instance, wouldn't and couldn't be bothered discussing with people who are flat-earthers, for instance. Sometimes it's too much idiocy (and obvious laziness and proud-of-ignorance) going around to even try to waste any time on it. That's not an ideal, but a pragmatic approach, granted.
In any case, his argument was NOT to the 'overall tone of twitter users', otherwise he would have argued as such. He clearly used a one-case anecdotal example to make a generalisation and a refute of another claim, which is nonsensical. Thus, a red herring, indeed. There is no way around this. It would be the same if in some right-wing breitbart-ish forum, some socialist had signed in and posted his ideas about it, and than calling the site left-wing. Clearly, that sort of reasoning is pure BS. The reasoning would be faulty, even IF it happened to be left-wing, btw. It just makes no logical sense and is intrinsically not a good argument, nor a good riposte.
I think the parent poster is right in pointing out to use the correct definition. It's not about being for or against, it's about using the right words and terminology for what you want to say.
The problem, otherwise, is one of hollowing out the REAL meaning of those words and terms. By applying them to things they don't apply to, but only to things that 'looks' like it to you, one actually dilutes and diminishes the gravity of the words/meanings it has. It's like people claiming to have been 'raped' on the internet because their avatar was hacked in a compromising way. that's not rape at all, and it does a *disservice* to all women whom actually got raped in real life. Call all trolls who make racist slurs Nazi's, and similarly, you're diluting the gravity of what Nazism truly was.
It's a good idea to call a bird which walks, floats and looks like a duck, a duck - if you don't know any better, but if people point out it's actually a goose, then you have no excuse to still call it a duck.
You really think the defining characteristics of Nazi's was, that they posted a picture somewhere and were trolling?
As many posters have said: the term is being hollowed out. Even you do it. You're interchanging the general term of racism (or racist) for Nazism (or Nazi).
While Nazism was an ideology which had a high degree of racism in it, the reverse is not true. Aka: all nazi's are racists (well, the majority were, in any case), but not all racists are nazi's.
So, in actuality: yes, it is ridiculous to call someone a Nazi just because they took a photo of someone and spouted some racial comments with it.
What applies to the governments, applies to its citizens. Even if companies can not be hold to it, as a citizen, in principle, you have the right to free speech. Companies can give sanctions or have other policies, but they can't really *prohibit* free speech, as such, of anyone.
"How so?", you ask, thereby being either genuine, and indicating a lack of self-analysis, or you're being deliberately obtuse and thus a hypocrite/troll.
Your counterargument boils down to: but the OP didn't provide proof for his statement neither. Even when taken at face value - which is already a stretch, since it's commonly known that twitter, as a whole, is more leftist than right indeed - it doesn't make for a valid counter. It's not because the OP would use a red herring that you didn't use one as well. Claiming, thus, that 'because Trump has a Twitter account' that somehow shows how wrong the parent poster was in his assessment is nonsensical, and, indeed, a red herring. why? Because having one account that is 'on the right', even a famous one, does not counter the claim that, overall, twitter is leftist. Even thousand wouldn't be, if leftists would have, for instance, a 1 in 10 dominance. Or if the people actually running Twitter, are more leftist leaning than rightwinged. To call something right or left, thus, is about the overall majority or the governance of things, not about being unanimous where every last participant is a leftist before you can call it left-leaning. So claiming something is not leftist because there is an account of a rightwinger there also, makes no sense, and is a red herring. It's like saying ISIS is not an Islamic fundamentalist organisation, because one member would have said he doesn't mind Jews and unbelievers all that much. One bird doesn't make a flock, after all.
I think you're well aware of this - or otherwise you lack intelligence - so I find your pseudo-naïve question superfluous and slightly annoying, since you already know the answer to it, but pretend you don't know, just for trollings' sake.
True, but it still means the poster who said 'nice red herring' is correct. Even if one now claims the OP used a red herring as well, it still not invalidates the conclusion the response was also using a red herring.
The fact he then asked 'how so?' either indicates he lacks self-analysis, or is being deliberately obtuse and being a hypocrite.
1)That there is such a thing as truly unbiased, neutral and objective news. 2)That only one side (the Russians) are not following in delivering point 1 while 'we' are.
Both premises are untrue.
So the dichotomy you make between 'real news' (from google), and 'fake news / propaganda' (from the Russians) just isn't there. It's already a biased fabrication of your mind, even while you're railing against biased news yourself. the hardest bias to note is the one of yourself, after all.
The truth is, people going to google for news invariably get served biased news with varying levels of propaganda and BS *from both sides*, whether its from RT or CNN.
Wouldn't that eliminate almost ALL articles and certainly opinion-pieces both in the West as beyond, and as well for Republicans as Democrats? I'm all for filtering out the BS if the filter is working, as long as it's applied consistently for everyone. What I do NOT want is filtering out just one side of the BS and then only hearing the BS of the ones pulling the strings.
Also; if the original mutter of a mutterer has been muttered by another mutterer, is that mutterer a muttering mutterer?
Slashdot Mirror
As long as one does not try to deprive them of the means or possibility to get a platform, that is. Also, one should not be hypocritical about it, and pretend one is for free speech, but then stifling it, or claim one is doing anything else then censoring or being biased on 'their' platform towards the speech one doesn't like.
Also, I've been pondering how far one can take this. What do you think?
Imagine some bloke in China gets thrown in an isolation-chamber because of his speech, and laments his lack of free speech. If the guards then said: 'what do you mean, you can speak freely about all you want, in your cell, so there is no problem anymore." they would be technically right, mayhaps, but everyone will note something wrong with this.
And if they said: "we deport you out of china; we're not obliged to provide you a platform, after all." Would/should one consider this not an infringement of free speech? Maybe the law in China allows it, even for the government, and they use the same argument "not being forced to provide a platform'... so... it wouldn't be an infringement of speech?
Well, I'm only pondering aloud. :-)
Maybe, maybe not; I'm not that familiar with the nazi party in the USA, nor elsewhere, I'm afraid. ;-) Though I would suspect even then neo-nazis would be more correct (as they're called in Germany and most of Europe, btw).
The gravitas of the term 'Nazi' does not stem - at least not only - from just being 'racist', after all. It has a historical meaning to it.
But regardless... if I remember correctly, this was - in the parent post - about "abusive trolls". Which immediately got equated with white supremacists and Nazis in the following post(s).
Well, calling that Nazism, too, is hollowing it out as well.
1)Manner of speech. Seen the prevalence here on /., chances are higher it to be a fellow. Otherwise I would say "ma'am". (j/k)
2)I would already refute your first claim here. What accusations? My main point was that using the correct term is important, and that otherwise the term(inology) gets hollowed out. The fact you see that as accusations, and baseless ones at that, merely indicate I was right when I said 'only in your own mind' in my former post.
Also, you're not making much sense in your rebuttal. The rape-example WAS to show how words get hollowed out by using it in immer broader meanings. Since that WAS my major point, obviously, it *did* associate with it - you've basically acknowledged it yourself. Maybe you had another idea of what constituted my major point? Otherwise, you're not making sense by trying to refute my point by acknowledging the associations made.
Well, luckily most dictionaries still haven't. But, of course, language changes. Expanding and hollowing out are not mutually exclusive, and no doubt the meaning of words change - in the future, nazis may be another word for asshole, person I don't agree with, or rightwinger, for instance. It's not impossible. But it still will be a hollowing out of the real gravitas of the term. And the fact it is, is caused by people like you.
There is no way around it: the wider you use a specific term for other things than its original purpose, the more its use becomes general applicable and watered down in regard to the original meaning.
So, let me rephrase my former post: instead of saying you (well, people using it in other ways) will hollow it down by doing so, I will add you've already hollowed it down. Satisfied, now?
And lastly, since it's neither an accusation nor a strawman, I have difficulty finding a sensible response to your last part, but if you still didn't get the point - maybe reading comprehension isn't your forte? - it's that diluting - broadening in your vision - a term which has a specific and heavy meaning, for other things that have not the same gravitas, makes the term lose it's ethical and moral weight. Your counter that you found it in a dictionary does nothing to refute this, it only shows the dilution has gone so far as to begin encroaching in the dictionaries. If you don't see how equating trolls that spout racist comments on a forum with Nazis, whom are responsible for massacring and killing 6 million Jews, women and children included, is problematic within any reasonable standard ethical framework where you have to evaluate different behavior, then you're simply passed any hope.
"If someone tweets in the way I've described, it's perfectly reasonable to call them a Nazi"
No, it isn't. That was the whole contention to begin with, so re-iterating the premise which was contended, doesn't really constitute an argument for it.
You're missing the point entirely. Posting nasty shit or them feeling butthurt or not has nothing to do with it. Even if they WERE generally and genuinely racist and not merely trolling, they still wouldn't be Nazis. That's because Nazism and racism aren't the same thing, and by immer broadening the meaning of a heavy-loaded term, you're actually hollowing it out. Keep it up, and it will amount in a general term for assholes and people you do not like, or even people that say something you do not like, in general. Some leftist snowflakes already use it that way.
So, no, they are not Nazis because they posted a picture and made racial comments, and no, not even because their tweets were 'vile' and 'demonstrate a pattern of behavior'. (Do you note how broad you're already beginning to interpret 'Nazism' yourself?)
?
If you're talking about the parent post you responded to; that was not made by me. So I can't answer your question for you.
It would be the right option, given the parameters of your former post.
If you're genuinely interested in knowing what sources someone else uses, may I suggest, next time, asking for it directly, instead of making a red herring yourself, and then acting as if you don't know you did exactly that? It might be slightly more fruitful.
As you may have noted, I'm not the parent poster, nor did I even really delve into the question whether or not Twitter should rather be considered left or not and why. I just thought your question 'how so?' was rather trollish in nature, since surely you'd noted that of your own counterargument it was silly, and you actually knew you were using a red herring. Granted, we're on slashdot, so it's not like it's uncommon or unforgivable. ;-) But I still wanted to point this out.
A cursory look at the issue gives me some links: https://www.usatoday.com/story... , and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tec... ... and those were on the first 3 links, so I'm not sure how well you searched. The first seems not very much substantiated by statistical or other scientific methods, so I would regard it as rather having low worth. The latter is more interesting. For instance, it clearly indicates twitter users have a far more positive outlook on immigration, something which is more of a left-wing tendency, than a right wing attitude, we'll all agree on that. They clearly do not represent the populace as a whole (aka, they are not representative, in scientific terms) and have a tendency to promote and be supportive of things the leftists are promoting and supportive of the most as well. One can argue this does not mean a one-to-one relationship between the two groups, sure. But let's be realistic: it ain't the rightwingers that are going to be suddenly more positive about topics they typically are not fond off, just because they use twitter, now are they? The most likely explanation, thus, is that the correlation between the two - the same mentality and attitudes towards the same subjects and goals, of leftwingers and twitter users - also have a causal relationship.
This indicates that Twitter - also in the userbase, thus - is, overall, more leftist than rightist.
Well, I certainly concur with your last part. ;-)
Of course, the main problem remains of the interpretation of what constitutes racism in the first place. And here I think comes the 'leftists' of the parent poster at play.
Clearly, to some degree this is an exaggeration - or more precise generalization - as well, but it's a fact a large part of the left has the tendency to label everything of certain subject-matters that goes against their core beliefs as being racist; for instance: a more stringent immigration policy is one of the archetypal issues. the most extreme are the lefty self-appointed vigilantes and SJW-snowflakes, but to a large degree it's typical for large parts of the left to not be able to argue rationally about immigration, and they implicitly or explicitly always indicate any position taken that wants to clamp down on immigration, has racist motives. they also have a far more pronounced tendency than the right (at least in current times) to impose their will and stifle free speech (at least speech they don't agree with) - you can look up video's of Ben Shapiro and see how the left is acting up, there.
Granted, with my European roots I wouldn't call the democrats in the USA real socialists; WE have socialists here. Even hard-line communists, still. But in general, it is true the left is, ironically enough, becoming more and more fascist in their behavior. Especially concerning free speech. I think the root cause is decennia of socially-imposed political correctness and the delusion that all cultures are equal by their very nature. The latter being at the basis of the 'multicultural society' of our current Western democracies - apparently blind to the fact that, depending on how many you let in of which culture and with which mentality, you're undermining the very foundations of that very same democracy. It's the "let's not rock the boat, even if it's heading towards an iceberg'-attitude a large proportion of the leftists and the ruling elite (aka, the 'moderate' politicians) have adopted.
IMHO, it's insane. But contrary to some of the ultra-right, I don't see race, on itself, as a problem. That's not the issue at all. It's culture and mentality. Logic indicates that, if you take in hundredthousands (one million even, like Germany in 2016) of people where 40% of those people (as polls in the UK have demonstrated) think that the sharia-law should govern and be above all other laws - than one would have to be an idiot to not see how dangerous that is for your own society. Does that have anything to do with race? No. Raise Africans or people from the Magreb in a Western country from when they are babies, and you'll have no problems at all, for instance. Their skin-colour or appearance is not a problem for one's society and the values it entails. But cultures - including religion - that are antithetic to our values *are*.
Try to argue that rationally with a lefty, and 9 times out of ten, he'll resort to name-calling and racism-slurs. Probably because he has no good rational riposte, but still... it's a very annoying way to stiffle speech one does not agree with.
And let's hope it stays that way for a while longer. ;-)
I'll go for the 'probably not'. ;-)
It... does.
But maybe we're speaking aside eachother. My point, if it wasn't clear, is not that companies can't put sanctions in place as an *employer*, it's that, ultimately, they can't take away unalienable rights. Such as free speech.
a citizen != an employee, after all.
Only in your own mind, my dear fellow., Though I would agree with the latter part: I, at least, put some effort in what I argue. It's a pity that can't be said of everyone.
No, it's called being equally sarcastic as the parent poster. I thought I was being obvious, but apparently not obvious enough.
If the other poster 'from the other sub-thread' wants to claim he was only being ironic, and his argument was not an argument at all, he should feel free to do so.
Thus, if you still would doubt: yes, things are white and black, as far as being a hypocrite or not goes. My post here was not relevant on purpose, to indicate and be equal to the non-relevance of the post I responded to, and I definitely didn't provide an valid argument.
So we're both in agreement. The only thing you missed is that I was being ironic in doing so, and it was not MEANT as a valid argument.
I'm still waiting on the poster of the 'other subthread' to acknowledge the same. But as long as he doesn't, his question was quite hypocritical indeed.
But, as I've argued in my post, neither diminishes anything to the comment of the poster that called his comment a red herring, to which he asked "how so".
Basically, using a red herring is still a red herring, even if your defence is that the other used a red herring as well. He should have known that, and he probably did know why it was true, so that makes the question rather hypocritical.
Also, while in general I agree with your assertion that normally it's for the one making a claim to provide proof, it should not be used as an excuse for laziness to not even bother to augment your own knowledge on your own merit on a subject you yourself respond to (as the poster did). After all, he made an implicit claim of his own, indicating that the claim that twitter was leftish was not true. The only substantiation he gave for that was bullocks, since it generalised from one example, as if that was would constitute proof of anything. Should one respond in-depth to someone who already knows his own response doesn't make sense, nor bothers to have even a cursory look into the subject he's responding to and talking about himself?
Time is limited for everyone, after all, and I, for instance, wouldn't and couldn't be bothered discussing with people who are flat-earthers, for instance. Sometimes it's too much idiocy (and obvious laziness and proud-of-ignorance) going around to even try to waste any time on it. That's not an ideal, but a pragmatic approach, granted.
In any case, his argument was NOT to the 'overall tone of twitter users', otherwise he would have argued as such. He clearly used a one-case anecdotal example to make a generalisation and a refute of another claim, which is nonsensical. Thus, a red herring, indeed. There is no way around this. It would be the same if in some right-wing breitbart-ish forum, some socialist had signed in and posted his ideas about it, and than calling the site left-wing. Clearly, that sort of reasoning is pure BS. The reasoning would be faulty, even IF it happened to be left-wing, btw. It just makes no logical sense and is intrinsically not a good argument, nor a good riposte.
I think the parent poster is right in pointing out to use the correct definition. It's not about being for or against, it's about using the right words and terminology for what you want to say.
The problem, otherwise, is one of hollowing out the REAL meaning of those words and terms. By applying them to things they don't apply to, but only to things that 'looks' like it to you, one actually dilutes and diminishes the gravity of the words/meanings it has. It's like people claiming to have been 'raped' on the internet because their avatar was hacked in a compromising way. that's not rape at all, and it does a *disservice* to all women whom actually got raped in real life. Call all trolls who make racist slurs Nazi's, and similarly, you're diluting the gravity of what Nazism truly was.
It's a good idea to call a bird which walks, floats and looks like a duck, a duck - if you don't know any better, but if people point out it's actually a goose, then you have no excuse to still call it a duck.
"So those chaps making Nazi saultes, chanting "blood and soil", wearing swastikas and so on---what would you call them exactly?"
They're called Neo-nazi's.
By doing that, you are hollowing out the term Nazi. In your vision, it just means 'racist'. It doesn't.
Really?
You really think the defining characteristics of Nazi's was, that they posted a picture somewhere and were trolling?
As many posters have said: the term is being hollowed out. Even you do it. You're interchanging the general term of racism (or racist) for Nazism (or Nazi).
While Nazism was an ideology which had a high degree of racism in it, the reverse is not true. Aka: all nazi's are racists (well, the majority were, in any case), but not all racists are nazi's.
So, in actuality: yes, it is ridiculous to call someone a Nazi just because they took a photo of someone and spouted some racial comments with it.
What applies to the governments, applies to its citizens. Even if companies can not be hold to it, as a citizen, in principle, you have the right to free speech. Companies can give sanctions or have other policies, but they can't really *prohibit* free speech, as such, of anyone.
Wouldn't that actually be the last of the sockpuppet-trolls, albeit a real life one? ;-)
Ah, yes. Petty vengeance is always a good motivator for most people, true.
"I got abused so I will abuse myself." Great way to go.
"How so?", you ask, thereby being either genuine, and indicating a lack of self-analysis, or you're being deliberately obtuse and thus a hypocrite/troll.
Your counterargument boils down to: but the OP didn't provide proof for his statement neither. Even when taken at face value - which is already a stretch, since it's commonly known that twitter, as a whole, is more leftist than right indeed - it doesn't make for a valid counter. It's not because the OP would use a red herring that you didn't use one as well. Claiming, thus, that 'because Trump has a Twitter account' that somehow shows how wrong the parent poster was in his assessment is nonsensical, and, indeed, a red herring. why? Because having one account that is 'on the right', even a famous one, does not counter the claim that, overall, twitter is leftist. Even thousand wouldn't be, if leftists would have, for instance, a 1 in 10 dominance. Or if the people actually running Twitter, are more leftist leaning than rightwinged. To call something right or left, thus, is about the overall majority or the governance of things, not about being unanimous where every last participant is a leftist before you can call it left-leaning. So claiming something is not leftist because there is an account of a rightwinger there also, makes no sense, and is a red herring. It's like saying ISIS is not an Islamic fundamentalist organisation, because one member would have said he doesn't mind Jews and unbelievers all that much. One bird doesn't make a flock, after all.
I think you're well aware of this - or otherwise you lack intelligence - so I find your pseudo-naïve question superfluous and slightly annoying, since you already know the answer to it, but pretend you don't know, just for trollings' sake.
True, but it still means the poster who said 'nice red herring' is correct. Even if one now claims the OP used a red herring as well, it still not invalidates the conclusion the response was also using a red herring.
The fact he then asked 'how so?' either indicates he lacks self-analysis, or is being deliberately obtuse and being a hypocrite.
This hinges on two assumption:
1)That there is such a thing as truly unbiased, neutral and objective news.
2)That only one side (the Russians) are not following in delivering point 1 while 'we' are.
Both premises are untrue.
So the dichotomy you make between 'real news' (from google), and 'fake news / propaganda' (from the Russians) just isn't there. It's already a biased fabrication of your mind, even while you're railing against biased news yourself. the hardest bias to note is the one of yourself, after all.
The truth is, people going to google for news invariably get served biased news with varying levels of propaganda and BS *from both sides*, whether its from RT or CNN.
Wouldn't that eliminate almost ALL articles and certainly opinion-pieces both in the West as beyond, and as well for Republicans as Democrats? I'm all for filtering out the BS if the filter is working, as long as it's applied consistently for everyone. What I do NOT want is filtering out just one side of the BS and then only hearing the BS of the ones pulling the strings.
Also; if the original mutter of a mutterer has been muttered by another mutterer, is that mutterer a muttering mutterer?