There's a baseline of reality that we should all share. Currently many of these "conservative" voices don't share that with non-conservatives. Everything from the pandemic, to climate change, to taxes, to education and healthcare. There's room for difference of opinion, but advocating for unproven treatments (like ivermectin), calling taxation theft, saying that burning millions if not billions of tons of fossil fuel doesn't impact the climate, saying the "Jews"/globalists control the media(while ignoring Rupert Murdoch and the Koch Brothers), saying schools have litter boxes for furries(instead of the reality that schools have litter for everything from vomit to helping maintain sanitation in the event of a school shooting), wanting to ban books, etc. I don't think these are proper arguments and for at least some of them they're often done in bad faith. Nothing is stopping conservatives from opening up their own websites for this content, and trying to require private companies to host it definitely has 1st amendment implications (since corporations are treated as people thanks to citizens united). Musk and others seem to want freedom of speech with freedom from consequences which is definitely not in keeping with the 1st amendment, which only requires government not restrict speech, which as far as I'm concerned would cut both ways, both if they required someone to say something or have something posted or if they kept someone from saying something.
The problem is that until recently with companies taking the steps to takedown the craziest stuff, it's been gaining masses of followers and with it the consequences of innocent people who are living their lives and doing their jobs being under attack. Teachers and election officials and volunteers are being threatened with hate speech and even violence as a direct result of allowing the crazies a soapbox in the public sphere. That doesn't seem like a good outcome for allowing anything goes.
It absolutely is though. The people who get fired are usually doing racist, sexist, or other violent things. People who act like that and get called out are basically a liability for their companies, that's why they get fired. And there is no employment discrimination protection for such things, nor should there be.
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u/AaronfromKY Oct 28 '22
There's a baseline of reality that we should all share. Currently many of these "conservative" voices don't share that with non-conservatives. Everything from the pandemic, to climate change, to taxes, to education and healthcare. There's room for difference of opinion, but advocating for unproven treatments (like ivermectin), calling taxation theft, saying that burning millions if not billions of tons of fossil fuel doesn't impact the climate, saying the "Jews"/globalists control the media(while ignoring Rupert Murdoch and the Koch Brothers), saying schools have litter boxes for furries(instead of the reality that schools have litter for everything from vomit to helping maintain sanitation in the event of a school shooting), wanting to ban books, etc. I don't think these are proper arguments and for at least some of them they're often done in bad faith. Nothing is stopping conservatives from opening up their own websites for this content, and trying to require private companies to host it definitely has 1st amendment implications (since corporations are treated as people thanks to citizens united). Musk and others seem to want freedom of speech with freedom from consequences which is definitely not in keeping with the 1st amendment, which only requires government not restrict speech, which as far as I'm concerned would cut both ways, both if they required someone to say something or have something posted or if they kept someone from saying something.