Crazy dingbats spread and trick others into joining their crazy dingbat circle, typically vulnerable and isolated people who are easier to influence, they suck these vulnerable people in who are alone but now they feel they have a place where they belong, there's hundreds of thousands of people like that around the world, that is how these ideologies grow. It's all well and good saying that "they'll just be mocked, ignored, have hate thrown back at them" by people, sure, I can do that, many others will do that, but these people don't care about that and being able to have a platform to amplify their voices will result in more people being sucked in by them and will eventually result in violence.

Recently in the UK, a trans girl was murdered by teenagers...Teenagers...As a result of the hateful rhetoric being thrown towards trans people lately, Andrew Taint is increasingly poisoning our young men's minds. Eventually some "crazy dingbat" takes things too far, once upon a time, Nazi Germany was just words, until they actually acted on their words after growing their influence. We have people like Nick openly calling for Jews to be killed, it will result in someone being sucked in by his ideology and hurting a Jewish person one day.

VGChartz is technically social media, are you arguing that VGChartz should have zero rules? Not sure you'd actually like that, Lol.

And the thing is, this nonsense IS gaining traction, I've personally seen a sharp increase in people being openly Nazi on Twitter, I literally gave an example on the previous page of Alex Jones being attacked for being negative towards Hitler, full of antisemitism in the replies with thousands of likes, Lol. I no longer bother reading replies to tweets anymore because it's either bots, sex spam or openly fascist people nowadays.

I don't think they're opposing ideas, there's less moderation on the people of Twitter but there's more censorship on behalf of governments by Musk but it's often on behalf of right wing governments like Turkey/India but meanwhile he got mad at Brazil for asking him to censor some accounts and that makes him a major hypocrite, if he's an advocate of free speech and no censorship then why does he bow to right wing governments? Why some but not others? Why is he willing to be banned in Australia but not Turkey/India? 

It was dismissive and annoying to be responded to with "Boo. Hoo." especially when in another thread you make note of the fact that you're staff and a rep of the site and then immediately give a dismissive response to another member of staff, Lol. Not going to lie, it makes me think less of you and less likely to treat you with respect in the future but it made me laugh more than anything and I don't care about it going beyond anything than that, not like I've not had pretty spicy debates with other members of the writing team before, I've been responded to a lot worse by other users and didn't moderate them so I'm not about go running to Machina because you said "Boo. Hoo." to me. Besides, the Mod team and Writing team are completely separate and don't crossover at all, we have our area, you have yours.

But if you agree that Fuentes is shit and should stay banned then good, but while you defend Musk and say that, Musk is saying he's going to unban Fuentes because "freedom of speech" and many others like Fuentes have been unbanned because "freedom of speech" which isn't just "I hate marmite!" but genuine hateful rhetoric, often leaning into violence and surely if you agree that Fuentes is bad, you can muster up some criticism to how Musk is handling things instead of the original post which basically mocked every comment concerned about the state of Twitter? You can see the hypocrisy in Musk's censoring for Türkiye and India but not for Australia and Brazil?

Whatever brother - I've spent the better part of 25 years arguing about countless things on message boards (and frankly I'm worn out and jaded at this point), so I can already tell this would lead to an endless debate. So I'll just end it here. I'm a former Democrat (and bisexual). I'm no right winger and certainly no Republican. If anything, my closest approximation is that of a Populist, Classical Liberal, and/or moderate Libertarian. I know I'm in the VAST minority when it comes to gaming journos on that front but that's the way I like it :P.

I know there is hatred, ignorance, and bigotry. It comes from all sides. But again, short of actually breaking the law, ALL speech should be allowed regardless (at least here in the US).

I'm sure there are some hypocrisies when it comes to Musk but such is the case with basically all humans on some level. All I know is he's allowing a far fairer, freer platform and more even playing field than Twitter saw during the latter days of Jack in 2016-2022. Of course it's still far from perfect.

From my vantage point at least, my side used to support free speech. Now they've become the pearl-clutching Authoritarians trying to police everything. That's all I'm wary about. We can cherry pick all year but it'll get us nowhere. 

Then you don't know much about modern day Twitter.

Sure, nothing has ever gone wrong when people in power decide they can do whatever they want.  

And with our freedom of speech, any decent person should call people out when they're being a bully.  That's still freedom of speech. 

Or maybe we should look even more when someone spends billions on something like Twitter instead of using that as justification not to care about it. He also didn't just buy it all with his own money, he got financial help from as example Saudi Arabia which could obviously also let him think twice about some political decisions on Twitter in one or the other direction.

History told us often enough that looking away at something which could end up badly is a bad thing. To act like everyone should just look away if he doesn't like how Musk tries to manipulate everyone, tries to tell everyone that every news media outside Twitter is useless, how you only find the truth when you use his service or how he spreads misinformation on a daily basis is pretty idiotic to be honest.

As more power someone has as more you have to look at what he does with it. You seem to think as more power someone has as more he should be able to do whatever he likes because he has the money to buy this right! Seriously...

As part of the writing team, you'd think you wouldn't ignore/dismiss 99% of the critcism, and only focus on one.

And like Trollian pointed out, it's not so much less censored, but less moderated. Elon seemingly complies with censorship demands from every nation to avoid getting Twitter shut down in those areas.

You tick a lot of boxes suggesting the opposite of what you claim though. You can label yourself whatever you want. But what people actually say and do is what matters.

Since you value freedom of speech so highly and hate censorship, you won't mind if I'm honest about how you (many years ago) had perhaps the most Arkham Asylum-esque comment I have ever read on this forum to this day, which of course ticked one of those boxes, being fragile masculinity.

You said that Mary Jane figuring out Peter Parker's alter ego before the rest of their friend group means that the movie writers are depicting "women being smarter than men".

Not that Mary Jane (commonly depected as an aspiring journalist) pays more attention to him than others do because she has feelings for him.

Glad this never gained traction.

"Both siding" a subject where one is way worse, is another box.

What's "fairer and freer" about bots and engagement farmers burrying any other comments because their checkmark pushes their unrelated spam comments above everyone elses?

And your cuttoff date being 2016 is anoter box ticked.

The way you constantly keep leaning into how you "used to be on the other side, but have since seen the light" is giving these vibes, tbh. (Likely forgot to switch to his burner account before posting.)

Just say what you think instead of trying to excuse it by painting a picture of your past that no one can verify.

"You said that Mary Jane figuring out Peter Parker's alter ego before the rest of their friend group means that the movie writers are depicting 'women being smarter than men'"

Ummm I'm pretty sure you got the wrong guy. I couldn't care less about that and know very little about Spider Man lol. If I did say that, I certainly don't feel that way now in my 30s haha. Maybe I was making a point about a Mary Sue thing (I dunno, you've apparently tapped my hundreds of posts for a decade so you draw it up lol)? But I've chilled on that quite a bit, Nowadays I just shrug it off and lump it all in the over-arching category of "shallow, bland, 1-dimensional characters." And lord knows there are many guy characters that fit that bill too, just in different ways typically. There are even some dude versions of Mary Sue (James Bond, Superman, John Wick, etc). There's definetely loads of mainstream content that makes men look like utter dumbasses, though there is plenty of content making women look nuts too soo.. Pretty much even there I guess? XD. But I love several female-fronted films, (Kill Bill, Hunger Games, Fargo, Wonder Woman, Black Swan, Mulholland Drive, Rogue One, Alien, Alita Battle Angel, MOST good horror films essentially lol) - so I'm not sure what you're getting at. If a character is well-developed I couldn't care less if they're a man, woman, sheep, or five-legged alien. I fail to see what any of this has to do with less censorship on Twitter..?

I haven't said anything remotely unreasonable here other than the immature "boo hoo" comment which I've since apologized for in my OP, as in hindsight it was childish. Everything else I stand by 100%. Gotta agree to disagree on this one, as I'm EXTREMELY passionate and strongly opinionated about the excesses and dangers of greater censorship, whatever form it takes. Again, Twitter's far from perfect but it most certainly is an improvement from the 2016-2022 Dorsey era.

You do not combat bad ideas (or any ideas) with censorship. You combat them with rebuttals featuring GOOD/right ideas. If a given side is calling en masse to quell rhetoric of "the other side", that only tells me that the pro-censorship side's ideas are weaker or don't hold water in the free market of idea exchange. It tells me they fear their ideas holding up in the court of public opinion; that they can't fight in an even playing field. They're only doing themselves a disservice. Partly because it makes them look weak, but also partly because said targets' that ARE quelled are usually just emboldened MORE - allows them to fester and build like a pressure cooker. It radicalizes people further. Forces them all into a sort of "underground" that builds and feeds upon itself, turning into another echo chamber, not to mention play the martyr role. When you get too many of those big, militant echo chambers that oppose one another more and more vehemently and continue to feed themselves with their own hysteria - BIG problems eventually emerge. 

Views that oppose my own, even the most radical and insane ones - I absolutely DON'T want censored. I want them out there for the world to see. Why is this? Because I don't fear them. Because I know they're wrong. Or I know they're unappealing, unpopular, or optically bad. Again, short of actual threats of violence, doxxing, harassment, etc.. 

Beyond this sermon I have nothing more to say. Clearly the wrong crowd.

Edit: Have to add this to the pile as well - "The way you constantly keep leaning into how you "used to be on the other side, but have since seen the light" is giving these vibes, tbh. (Likely forgot to switch to his burner account before posting.)

Just say what you think instead of trying to excuse it by painting a picture of your past that no one can verify."

Except the key difference is that most of MY views HAVEN'T fundementally changed over the years. The left/Dems have (or certainly their emphases on various issues has). Many of the ideas and philosophies I support were once left wing positions (anti-war, pro working class, free speech and expression/anti-censorship, free market, anti-establishment). I'm old enough to remember that quite well :P. Ain't my fault that they swung hard in the Authoritarian direction this past decade. My views are my views, regardless of the fluid nature of parties/factions or which sociopolitical "tribe" an idea is currently branded or associated with. I don't care. I have no problem saying what I think thank you very much. Believe me or don't, no skin off my back. 

Funny how all these "former left wingers" always mention about how "extreme" the left wing has gotten and that's why they "left" but they always ignore the MAGA lunatics and never call those guys out, Lol. I did used to be more centre-leaning but I've moved more left wing, however I am capable of calling out left-wingers and right-wingers.

Both sides have crazy fans, commie left-wingers who shill for Russia and far right fascists who want to take away rights from anyone not a white male but the key difference is there's no genuine far-left in the Democrat Party actually elected while there are multiple far-right MAGA in the Republican Party who impede progress and try to take away progress at every turn, who have crippled the Republican Party multiple times from moving forward.

It was MAGA who stopped the border bill, it was MAGA who let Ukrainians die for months, MAGAs bragging about taking away rights from women, MAGA bragging about shooting their dog. Anti-war is still a left wing position but that doesn't and shouldn't mean "fuck our allies, let them die" and in fact more Democrats support Ukraine than Israel and more Republicans support Israel than Ukraine so it's not even that clear cut that only one party is anti-war. Pro-working class is still a left wing position. Freedom of speech isn't freedom from public consequence but freedom from government consequence, if I say I love Hitler then I'll be rightfully driven out this site and/or banned.

Goes for the UK as well, Labour is more centre-left with a slant towards centre and the one furthest left was Corbyn who isn't even a Labour MP anymore. The Tory Party is right wing but they are a far cry away from whatever the fuck has happened to the Republican Party nowadays. The Party which has gone from "better dead than red" to "omg I love Putin's fascism" in about 10-20 years who have driven out traditional Republicans and are at each others throat constantly, it's so bad that the MAGA lunatics in the Republican Party consider fucking Mitt Romney to be a Democrat.

Who cares what the "far-left" say though? The Democrats don't even fucking listen to them, they have no members in the Democrat Party meanwhile Republicans DO listen to the MAGA lunatics and there ARE MAGA lunatics in the Republican Party. FFS The Democrats had to save Republicans own damn bill recently! If it weren't for the Democrats, Mike Johnson's bills wouldn't have even been voted on!

Ahh yes, and there it is! I was waiting for it! "But Bad Orange Man!" It's literally the entire Dem platform over the last decade. It's all they have left to run on. Even though the guy hasn't been in charge for 3 and a half years now, somehow everything is still his fault!

Look, I don't align with MAGA either (though we share a bit of Populist overlap). Frankly they can be close minded and bigoted when it comes to some of their more right wing views and many do have some weird cultist behavior when it comes to their worship of the man (though much of this is done tongue-in-cheek). Still, they're FAR more sane than the Dems of the last decade have been. And their platform makes more practical sense than the 'Dubya warmongering Neocon agenda as well, which I never stopped hating after 20 years.

In a perfect world, Ron Paul would be running things with Tulsi Gabbard as VP, but we're far from that now, aren't we :P