So much for that iron-clad commitment to free speech that prevented Twitter from banning the many, many people who wished and threatened death upon other users and public figures until now. What changed?
I know the topic is about speech, but consider the underlying sentiment as well. Gandhi wrote his second letter to Hitler in 1940, as the world was engulfed in flames. I'd like to draw attention to his fourth paragraph, which begins with, "We have been trying for the past half a century to throw off the British rule..." he explains why he suspended India's struggle against the British, to resist Hitler: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/gandhi-s-letter-to-hitl...
I am saddened that people on Twitter are so polarized that they block me when I try to get them to read Gandhi, of all people.
Back in the 1960s, the left was for free-speech, and the right worked to control it, out of the Red Scare. My experience is that this situation is now reversed, with the extreme left engaging in the same speech restriction tactics to advance Social Justice and Critical Race Theory. (The extreme right is terrible, actually racist, without a doubt! Don't get me wrong - I am not shilling for anyone, I am just trying to be as objective as I can be.)
This polarization is making it difficult for people to see substantial issues. For example: there is a Uighur genocide taking place in China, and very few people are willing to read tweets about that.
How to fix this? Well, maybe you'd be interested in episode 40 of The Portal podcast, which goes over Arthur Koesler's 1944 essay on the Holocaust, back when nine out of ten Americans dismissed it as propaganda? https://art19.com/shows/the-portal/episodes/26457564-ea02-47...
I think we need to stop filtering people out, and quit this massive guilt-by-association thing. Stop clicking on people's profiles to see if you agree with them before you look at what they have to say...
> I think we need to stop filtering people out, and quit this massive guilt-by-association thing. Stop clicking on people's profiles to see if you agree with them before you look at what they have to say...
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, that really resonates. The polarization feels extreme today, although I wonder if people in past times felt the same? I assume they did. Maybe it's just our tribal nature. If you're interested, I posted this article on sqwok to discuss further. We're a super small beta test community right now but would love to have you, sqwok.im/p/R0ePMDJh033gRg, cheers
