Of course, Zionism, that was easy. So I guess Israel gets to be booted off the internet too. No problem, it's not like they have any hitech industry to speak of.
One day I'd say the idea that AWS is booting people for disagreement with their political stances is a "ridiculously fringe thinking". Or that monuments to Lincoln and Washington (and also Cervantes and Frederick Douglass, why not) will be destroyed as racist is a "ridiculously fringe thinking" and would laugh at anyone suggesting this. Today it is our ridiculous reality.
I'm totally okay with suppressing the influence of an apartheid state. Are you?
Pretty much everyone was racist 120 years ago. Less, even, but, still 120 years ago is a safe buffer. I don't think building monuments to people who ordered the massacre of natives in the name of manifest destiny is a great idea, just as I don't think having monuments to Nathan Bedford Forrest is a great idea, either.
America's fetishization of its dead rulers is really second only to ancient Rome, a culture where they literally proclaimed their dead rulers to be gods. Lincoln, Washington, and Cervantes were racist, because the times they lived in were racist. We can do better, and uncritical reverence doesn't help us do that.
> I'm totally okay with suppressing the influence of an apartheid state. Are you?
It looks like you just are OK to suppress any point of view that you don't like. And not OK with freedom of speech. Fortunately for you - and unfortunately for everybody for whom it's still valuable - US is no longer a country where freedom of speech exists. I am not OK with this, and I think we are entering a period in American history which will be looked by descendants with deep shame and disgust, and this is due to people like you. Welcome to your 1984, and hope you never utter an unpopular thought.
I'm okay suppressing vile points of view such as racism, misogyny, and nationalism, as I said. I, for one, welcome a world where those ideas aren't welcome.
Nope, you are just okay suppressing points of view you didn't like, while calling them vile names such as "racism, misogyny, and nationalism". You just dismissed the whole 7 million country - and didn't feel a thing. And the world you are welcoming by it is the world of 1984 and Fahrenheit 451. The only different thing is that in your world books aren't be burned - that is bad for climate change. They will be - already are - quietly deleted from the servers. You are the dystopia that we've been warned about by 20th century writers. We failed to prevent you. Now it's for us to despair for the lost freedom and for you to hope to never cross your new masters (but know you will, sooner or later).
Israel recognizes the rights of everybody, including of course Arabs (Arab citizens have fully equal rights and have political representation in Knesset). Israel does not recognize some of the demands of the PA (which has full autonomy and Israel does not owe them anything), but this has nothing to do with "rights". Get some information before throwing around accusations. That's always the case with you censorious types - you are stunningly ignorant and unwilling to learn about things you dismiss.
A pile of propagandist bullshit. Of course outlets like Vox and Guardian hate Israel and call it "racist" all the time. It's a bunch of lies, naturally. One is about official language (there's no "right" of anyone to have their language as official, it's a majority decision and majority in Israel speaks Hebrew - as BTW do all Arabic citizens, who learn it at school and can speak and read it just fine, so nobody is dicriminated about anything), another is whining about Jews living on a land as if it was some sort of crime, third one somehow makes low turnout in Arab neighborhoods into an evidence (without a shred of proof) of somehow discrimination. And it's not like it's 5% turnout - it's 49.1%. In 2015 it was 63%. so I imagine, depending on the cycle and attractiveness of the candidate, it moves between 50 and 65%. US turnout in 2016 was 60%. And I am supposed to take this as an evidence of "marginalization"? That's really scrapping the bottom of the barrel. Taking a usual electoral ebb and flow and presenting it as some kind of rampant racism. Of course, that's exactly what haters of Israel always are and will be doing. And this is demonstrating my case perfectly - this is what you are basing your claim that the whole state of Israel (including the very same Arabs that you pretend to care about of course) should be removed from internet on the basis of that Arab participation in recent election slightly dropped and they lost some votes. This shows very prominently how extensive your censorship ambitions are.
No, I think Israel needs to go sit at the kiddie table until they respect the rights of everyone who lives in their country. Did you miss the part about how no Arab party has ever been invited to join a ruling coalition, by any chance? Or the part about how Israeli law explicitly says that only Jews have the right to national self determination? These are facts, buddy. That you are unconvinced by what I've put right in front of your nose shows your bias.
Israel respects the rights of everyone - and much more than any other country in the Middle East, arguably more than many countries on the planet, where even holding fair elections is not a given and free speech does not exist. Most Middle East countries don't even pretend to be democracies - Israel actually is. And yet it is singled out for hate again and again.
> Israeli law explicitly says that only Jews have the right to national self determination
That's a lie, the law doesn't say that. The law says Jews have the right to national self-determination in their national state - Israel. It doesn't say it is the only case possible of national self-determination, neither could it - how would Israel possibly make law for all other nations in existence?! Just as Japanese have it in Japan, Koreans - in Korea, Swiss - in Switzerland, and Mongolians - in Mongolia, Jews have their national state in Israel. That doesn't mean a Jew in Mongolia or Korean in Switzerland do not have human rights - but it does mean Korea would have Korean and not Mongolian as state language, and that people of Japanese descent may have easier time to get Japanese citizenship than people of French descent. Presenting this completely common occurrence as something exceptional and a proof of "racism" - all the while many other countries around it literally run violent ethnic and religious cleansing, murder their own citizens for "blasphemy" or being gay or wearing wrong dress - with absolutely no complaint from the likes of you, and singling out Israel for exclusion for completely routine and accepted practices among many nations... I can't really decide if it's Antisemitism or plain idiocy, neither do I care. It just another proof that censorious hate for free speech, and willful ignorance often walk hand in hand. You are literally ok to destroy everybody who you think - scratch that, who your feed on twitter, prepared for you by your betters, told you - are "bad", without even trying to understand. And then you pretend you're some kind of enlightened being...
It's clearly a losing position to argue that AWS should ban content related to Abraham Lincoln grounds of racism. In fact, this so egregiously fails the "smell test" that I don't think it's a useful analogy for this week's events.
Best I could find is this: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2013/dec/08... which implies it's an ethno-centric religion, so a hostile observer surely could call it "racist" (in an extended sense, where "racism" means exclusion by any ethnic origin, not just specifically the color of one's skin - just as antisemitism is commonly considered under the same term, even if majority of Jews it's directed at are of the same race as their persecutors).
I'm not ok with completely silencing anyone, but I am ok with extreme toxicity correlating with difficulty of amplification.
I don't think alex jones should be cut off from the internet or his home ISP, but I don't think twitter, facebook, youtube, google or anyone else has an obligation to broadcast him if they choose not to for example.
> I'm pretty okay with silencing racism, fascism, nationalism, and misogynism
And progressives have redefined these words to encompass basically every single political belief of ~half the country. Say something semantically meaningful.