The BBC was able to report on his controversy easier
Free speech is to allow the multi-billionaire companies to advertise their products to the masses. It isn’t free speech so much as a right to advertise. It helps billionaire companies much more than anyone else.
Sounds like a bunch of snowflakes enacting their cancel culture.
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Fuck man. We are at peak stupid right now. Kirk was a piece of shit, the people leading the us are pieces of shit. Ceo’s and leaders of racist/ fascist movements are getting shot in the streets.
The people are pissed, we are entering a tipping point
Tipping point USA?
CEOs: yes, but can I market this as increasing shareholder value somehow?
Both sides are held to their own standards – but only one side actually has standards.
If you have zero standards, as does the right, what is there to hold anyone to?
Worse, when you’ve swaddled yourself in fanatic Christianity, where the only one who can judge you is a god, and he’ll forgive all your sins if you accept some guy into your heart, and the way to do that is to say you have, you can do literally anything and be accepted.
The rest of us hold each other accountable. As we should.
Don’t pine for the blind acceptance of sociopaths – it’s infernal for all of us.
Cowardice is a standard?
Depends on how you define cowardice, I guess. Care to enlighten me?
A company not standing behind its commentators who didn’t even say anything false for fear of lawsuit from orange man or mob outrage.
Companies aren’t actually people and therefore cannot experience cowardice.
(e: nor the shame or stigma that accompanies it, thus their actions, and why actual cowards hide behind them.)
No shit, they have boards of executives who are cowards & just looking to maximize stock returns. Editorial freedom? Stand up to right-wing pressure & tell them to go suck a dick? Nah, sacrifice integrity & cave like bitchasses.
OP: Instead of posting an image of an image of text without link to source or text alternative, which breaks accessibility, searchability, and fault tolerance for no compelling reason while making the web less usable, could you try at least linking to source?
Find a real news source did if you want real news. This a Wendy’s.
Are you enabling/promoting ableism?
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Covie
@covie_93on x formerly known as twitter:Minutes after former President Jimmy Carter’s death was announced Scott Jennings was on CNN calling him a “terrible president” with a “big ego”. He wasn’t fired. He never apologized.
After Paul Pelosi was attacked Fox News hosts joked about it on air. They weren’t fired. They never apologized.
After Charlie Kirk was killed Matthew Dowd said on MSNBC that he was “divisive” adding, “hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions.” He was fired after apologizing.
Free speech only goes one way.
Sep 11, 2025 · 3:08 AM UTC
It’s totally comprehensible why users here do not post links to this hatespeech platform imho.
It’s totally comprehensible
Not really.
Not linking to source, because they hate the hosting platform is feel-good, petty vindictiveness that that does little against the platform while actually hurting the uninvolved on accessibility & usability. To prevent traffic to platforms, linking to alternatives like proxies for those services & web archival snapshots is common practice around here.
Posts like this, and most comments to be honest. Really makes me question how low the bar is in the US in terms of general education. You all talk about “Freedom of speech” while not having a single clue as to what it actually is.
Freedom of speech, protects you from your government (with some exceptions, often being, threats, incitement, disclosing classified information, and things of that nature), that’s it.
Freedom of speech, is all of those people saying all of those things, without facing criminal charges or other forms of retaliation from the government.
It does not, will not, and never have, protected you from losing employment because of what you say.
Nobody ever said this was about the first ammendment. Its illustrating the double standards the oligarchs have set for everyone who isn’t on their side. Everybody knows at this point the government and oligarchy are one and the same.
Freedom of speech is a broader principle, and existed before the US.
The 1st Amendment ensures our speech is protected from the government; it does not give that right. Our rights are considered “natural rights” and thus law only codifies them; rights are not given to us by the government. Small but important detail.
“Freedom of speech” is not a universal right. Everything you have is in the end, given or granted to you by your respective government. Some afford more rights than others.
They’re the ones that govern after all.
You’ve never been able to just say what you want without consequence. If you’re working as tech support and just tell your customers they can fuck off every time they have a problem, chances are, you’re not going to be employed much longer.
“BUT MUH FREEDOM OF SPEECH!?” yeah. You’re free to say it. Congratulations. Now you suffer civil repercussions.
JFC I am only explaining the legal and cultural framework. Which should have clarified things for you,
instead of making you angry.fuck the fuck offI can assure you, between the two of us, only one person is angry enough to express it. Have a good day.
Sorry. But understand the context im giving you. You don’t have to argue that its not true.
You managed to be technically correct while missing the entire point of the post.
OP’s quote is about being able to voice controversial opinions without consequences, not the legal protection specified in the constitution. He is claiming that only one side is ever held to account for saying odious things.
Adhering narrowly to facts without considering context is not demonstrative of good thinking, nor is it typical of good debating.
OP’s quote is about being able to voice controversial opinions without consequences
You ever heard of the saying “Freedom of speech isn’t freedom from consequences”?
The kind of saying people would use in response to being accused of “cancel culture” a couple of years ago.
So, congratulations, you’ve gone full circle. Except this time around, the shoe is on the other foot.
I’m not here to debate what you think “Freedom of speech” is. I’m informing you of what it is, and what it isn’t. Do with that what you will.
Thank you for attempting to inform me, but it was unnecessary. As I mentioned already and as my post made clear, I am aware that there is more than one form of free speech. Your view is parochial; concepts of free speech exist beyond your narrow definition and your narrow country.
I will attempt to explain OP’s point again, since you are still somehow missing it. OP is saying that there are consequences for speech if the speaker is liberal and no consequences for speech if the speaker is conservative. OP is saying that standards are applied differently based on your political beliefs. OP does not specify who is meting out the consequences.
The boy who cried wolf. Time and time again. When one actually showed up. No one cared, because no one believed it.
I’m fully aware of what point OOP is trying to make. It just doesn’t have anything to do with Freedom of speech.
I would also argue that Democratic “news” companies could fire people for views they deem unacceptable. Just that, for some reason, most “news” (actually more infotainment) companies for some reason tend to be conservative.
This is why this struggle is actually also about economic issues, i.e. what people own how much stuff. This is what should also be considered and tackled, somehow.
I definitely agree that ownership of news media companies is highly problematic. That’s why public broadcasters are so important - they are not beholden to private owners.
It’s also an ethical norm.
Legally, however, media company executives caving and settling lawsuits with obscene payouts to Trump while in office draws into question decisions at other media companies that appear to chill free speech to avoid further legal action.
Freedom of speech, protects you from your government (with some exceptions, often being, threats, incitement, disclosing classified information, and things of that nature), that’s it.
It doesn’t protect you from the government in any practical sense. Just ask Hewy Newton or Fred Hampton or MLK. Ask Mahmoud Khalil or the 25 pro-Palestinian demonstrators arrested just three weeks ago. Ask Tatiana Martinez, A Colombian TikTok influencer in Los Angeles was arrested by ICE agents during a live stream.
The FBI has had task forces dedicated to COINTELPRO since the 60s. Freedom of Speech in the US is entirely fictitious.
What we’re seeing in Mass Media is a trickle-down effect resulting from the US involvement in contracts to Tech Companies and large banks with ownership of private news outlets. Paramount settling a case over disparagement in a 60 Minutes interview with Trump for $16M came on the heels of an FCC decision about their merger with Skydance. The Bezos Post firing senior correspondents and staffing up with reactionary hacks comes as DOGE threatens a host of government contracts with Amazon’s primary moneymaker, Amazon Web Services. Bloomberg getting peppered with lawsuits in Trump-friendly courts is a secondary result of Mike’s feud with Trump on a national stage.
You are being wilfully ignorant if you refuse to draw a straight line between business sector firings of highly placed journalists and the parent companies of these media businesses cutting deals with the current administration.
There have been numerous instances of successful lawsuits against the government where someone’s freedom of speech was infringed upon. They were awarded monetary compensation.
The purpose of “Freedom of speech” is to protect you from the government.
A news media company collaborating with the government is certainly immoral. But it’s not a “Freedom of speech” violation.
There have been numerous instances of successful lawsuits against the government where someone’s freedom of speech was infringed upon.
For every singular success there’s been a thousand failures. And the long arc of history has bent towards censorship, particularly in the 21st century.
The purpose of “Freedom of speech” is to protect you from the government.
The courts do not protect your freedom to speak. They occasionally promise compensation years after you’ve had your speech quashed and your organization busted up. But the bar for the plaintiff is high and the cost of legal fees is crippling.
A news media company collaborating with the government is certainly immoral.
This isn’t about morality. A news company manager that acts at the behest of a government agency bureaucrat in exchange for financial compensation is an agent of the government. In the same way that a private security guard paid with public money is a cop.
You’re not free. Your oppression has been monetized.
Your misunderstanding of what constitutes Freedom of speech is utterly irrelevant to what it actually is.
There’s a distinction between 1st amendment free speech and, more colloquially, tolerance for free expression. The OOP was complaining about firings, so they are referring to the latter.
It’s easy to understand people when you think for a minute and give them the benefit of doubt, I find.
That still doesn’t make it a freedom of speech issue.
There absolutely is a distinction between “Freedom of speech” and “Tolerance of Speech”. I agree.
I can make that distinction. Seems OOP, and most people, can’t. You’re doing everyone a huge disservice by attributing acts that has nothing to do with freedom of speech, to freedom of speech.
Ever heard of the story about the boy who cried wolf?
Freedom of speech protects you from retaliation from the government, not from being fired by your company.
I would argue that that is a difficult thing to say. Wasn’t there a series of lawsuits against companies because they refused to hire women for special roles? Or was that in another country? possibly it was in germany
Anyways, in some countries, companies can get legal punishment if they discriminate based on gender and ethnicity and such. I would argue “free speech” might be protected similarly.
The media is captured by the right.
That’s a VERY, VERY bad sign for our nation and democracy in general, and, historically, that’s an indication that things about about to get REAL dark.
We should start printing flyers expressing views like the views this guy was fired for and posting them up all over our cities. We can’t rely on the media to be able to express truth anymore. And posting said views on here or other, more censored, social media isn’t going to cut it anymore. Doesn’t reach enough people, and not the right people. The people on the fence. The people on the middle. The people that will end up being captured by the right because they control the media.
Our police force is largely capture by the right too. I’d honestly be afraid of getting caught by cops if I was putting up flyers with left-leaning information.
That’s basically the playbook.
The right cries free speech, but demands everyone else’s free speech be removed.
There is some notable discrepancy between how USA citizens describe their (theoretical & practical) “free speech” vs how the rest of the world sees their “free speech” in the same regard.
It’s def a complex subject but I don’t think a lot of people think USA is at the forefront of this.
(But it is extensively marketed - most countries/cultures/regimes have such tidbits, which differ a lot.)Gramsci talked about this long before the 24/7 news cycles even existed. This is what the bourgeois hegemony is. Hegemony isn’t defined only by the brute force of the state to enforce itself onto the people, but encompasses the ownership of cultural, political, and intellectual institutions too. The role of hegemony is to shape the views and values of the underlying classes as to make said values seem normal, organic, and timeless. This in turn will manufacture the consent the owning class needs in order to pursue its interests. As of now, the bourgeois hegemony has decided that Charlie Kirk needs to be brought on equal footing with other political activists. They have decided that the subordinate classes need to accept that Charlie Kirk’s very real and tangible political activism is nothing but “opinions” in “the marketplace of ideas” and the consequences he has suffered at the hands of the system he helped build are unexpected. This is why everyone from the democrats to the republicans, from the liberal media to the conservative media is suddenly calling out “political violence” and mourning Kirk publicly. The bourgeoisie is trying to instill a new Zeitgeist and the people calling it out are a thorn in their side.
This is the absolute worst instance of what you’re talking about that I’ve seen. I have no idea how you can say he advocated Christianity at his best. He was an effective political organizer of the conservative youth movement able to take oppressive messaging and wrap it in the vaneer of liberalism and Christian marginalization. He did this for some very powerful and monied institutions. He created a monster.
I didn’t say any of that. I have no clue where you got that from
I should have been more clear. I posted the article as an example of what I understood you were pointing at.
When I said “you”, I should have said the author of the article. I wasn’t being clear enough.
I think your take is right on the money.
The only “way” free speech goes is… Leaving the US as we speak.
Freedom of speech is words that they will bend. Metallica taught me that in 1988.
Freedom with their exception.
I love reddit screenshots of a twitter post.
I love the fact that twitter screenshots are still racially segregated on reddit
I still can’t believe they wanted people to send pictures of their arms to prove they are a person of color before posting/commenting. Okay, maybe I can believe that. What I can’t believe is that anyone defended it
It was only like that for popular posts, I assume for mods to have some time to clean. You didn’t have to prove shit to post or comment
I mean, I blocked the sub after they asked me to send a picture to comment. I have no idea what their actual policy was, just what my experience was
We need to go deeper
It’s…
Beautiful 🥹
Now it just needs some jpeg
It’s not a screenshot, reddit changes their images so if you try the old right click save as they can tell you aren’t in their app and add the frame around it for free advertising. If things get embedded then they are still getting their recognition. Not a bad idea for Lemmy tbh…
So… It’s still a reddit post about a twitter post, posted on lemmy.
Voyager has an option to do just that. The Voyager watermark is also optional.
Neat!
