zlacker

There is absolutely some truth that the mainstream media and tech giants are colluding to silence conservatives - the truth is that the mainstream "conservative" position in the US happens to involve behavior that runs afoul of neutral content norms (don't threaten people with violence, don't call them racial slurs, don't dox people, etc.) disproportionately more often than people with other political beliefs. Sure, there are some people of other political persuasions who are "essentially" calling for violence, but there's a large gap between "as MLK said, a riot is the language of the unheard, so I can't condemn it" (and even that is hardly a universal position among non-conservatives) and "I, the actual commander-in-chief of an actual military, am telling that military to use violence against my own people" + "We all think this is good and proper, do it."

This is an uncomfortable, rude, politically incorrect truth - but we're not going to have a productive discussion about "silencing conservatives" if we can't admit it.

It is absolutely possible to advocate for the political positions of conservatives (looking through the 2016 GOP platform, for instance - limited government, federalism, avoiding trade deficits, repeal of Dodd-Frank, auditing the Fed, right-to-work, opposition to abortion, support for the electoral college, removing gray wolves from the endangered species list, etc., etc.) without behavior that runs afoul of the norms. If there's a case where Twitter suspends someone for opposing Dodd-Frank, then we should absolutely criticize Twitter. (And I think there's a legitimate discussion to be had about where the line is about criticizing the government's pandemic response vs. spreading misinformation, for instance.) But saying "Conservatives really like to advocate for shooting people without due process, Twitter doesn't permit the advocacy of shooting people without due process, therefore Twitter is biased against conservatives" is more of a statement about conservatives than about Twitter.

>>geofft+(OP)
I think this is actually a balanced argument.

HN should have a setting so that the most downvoted posts show up at the top of the page... That would save me a lot of scrolling to get to the unpleasant but accurate content.