My personal take on this is. Freedom of speech is something I very clearly support. People should be able to express thoughts, opinions and beliefs freely; as a means of expressing themselves. However target hate speech and cyberbullying is not something I can support. Now some have criticised Jack Dorsey (CEO of Twitter) for not being tolerant. Nobody should have to feel obliged to tolerate intolerance. Jack made a very brave and right decision in my view by banning Milo. Quite frankly the LGBT does not need him.

Just to clarify here, if one wants to criticise the Ghostbusters remake; I’m all for it. Personally I don’t think it was needed remake (like all remakes) nor do I think it does the originals any justice at all. With that said Leslie Jones did not deserve to be harassed as she was.

Free speech is protected in the US to keep the government from censoring you. But private entities have the right to control speech in their domain.

Twitter did the right thing. No one has the right to be an unbridled ass hole via private media.

He doesn’t like what twitter did? Build his own social media app and site on his own dime, spew all the hatred he wants.

@NerdyKeith what is “premaritally” banned?

@zenvelo Great answer and very well said. Typo was amended before my editing time ran out.

I don’t see what Milo Yiannopoulos has to do with it; I don’t care for him much, but I don’t see how he “incited” people to send her racist Tweets. As for people being banned for writing that stuff on Twitter, I have no problem with that. Websites are allowed to set their own rules about what kind of content is and isn’t allowed.

Yes. There is freedom of speech. You can stand on the street corner and scream anything you like.

A business – i.e.Twitter – has a financial responsibility to provide an atmosphere as conducive to it’s members as possible.
I think Fluther has contextual exemptions for the “N” word?

If you’re in my house, and I don’t like your attitude, I will kick you out of my house, and off of my property. I suspect you might do the same to me. No explanation necessary.

Obligatory XKCD.

If you hover the image this is the title…

“I can’t remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you’re saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it’s not literally illegal to express.”

Freedom of speech doesn’t extend to businesses. That said, businesses that are established on free communication between people shouldn’t insert themselves into an editorial role. If he was directly threatening someone, that’s a line that can’t be crossed, but being a jackass on the internet to a celebrity… In my book Twitter shouldn’t try to play cop there. Yeah what he did was tasteless, shitty, and he’s obviously a bad human being. If it were my business, I’d allow people to be rude to each other.

Censorship (however well intentioned) is worse than any reduction in rudeness that may result from the censorship, obviously not in every case, but on the aggregate it could create much more harm.

He’s an ass who needs to be walking funny and talking high.
That pompous ASS was cruel and a real dickwipe.
Thank goodness he is booted, and that Leslie Jones is supported by so many because she is an excellent comedienne and a true lady in dealing with this racist f-ing waste of spunk.
Not that I have a strong opinion about the subject or anything.*

Twitter is a business. If a person potentially damages the business, then the business not only has a right to ban that person, but a responsibility to investors to do so. No one is preventing him from expressing his opinion, he’s just not allowed to express it in that one venue. No censorship, no violation of his rights, no suppression here.

I’m 50/50 on this. Really torn.

Yiannopolous is a crude and disgusting person, and his action are definitely worth censuring.

But I am leery of the Twitter taking it upon itself to become the behavior-monitor-in-chief. It’s not their role. Who in Twitter makes the decisions? What criteria do they use? How consistent will they be?

I was reading a thing this morning (after I saw thisQ) that this person had been responsible for creating a false Leslie Jones account to tweet nasty stuff in her name. That probably crosses a line in the agreement as well.

Also remember, Twitter is already restrictive with its 140 character limit. It was never meant to be a platform for manifestos.

@msh If Fluther had a best answer button, I’d be rewarding you best answer. Well said.

@canidmajor Yes there was a false account going around saying homophobic things making her look bad. She called the account out.

Great question. I have been thinking about ‘freedom’ of speech for a long while now for various reasons. Being new to the UK, for example, I was stunned by Katie Hopkins and the things she says. Stunned, angry and saddened. I also feel the media is very belittling to females and very into ‘fat shaming’. I could not fathom how people got away with it and didn’t get lynched so to speak.
There is a line between freedom of speech, expression and of course hate speech, and targeting specific groups of people with certain characteristics. Or of course targeting individuals, which is bullying.
I don’t know who this person is whom you speak of, so I hope this answer is fitting to this question. By the sounds of it they deserved to be banned.

I don’t know of a social site that doesn’t monitor and prohibit flame-bait in some fashion.

It doesn’t bother me a bit that this jerk was banned. He has plenty of other venues for spewing his hatred. Leslie Jones was just doing her job, minding her o wn business and this jerk decides to attack. I’m glad somebody slapped him down. He deserved it.

Sexist and racist bashing is not exercising freedom of speech, it’s verbal abuse.

The Ghostbusters remake may have been unnecessary and didn’t live up to the originals but that isn’t the fault of the actors. They didn’t write the script nor did they decide that this film was going to even happen.
Personally, I still thought it was fun in its own way.

It’s wrong to treat anyone like that regardless of the reason so this asshole deserves to rot in Twitter hell.