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US politics, Israel/Palestine conflict 

Some other perspectives on this hearing:

"In the midst of complaints that the presidents failed to adequately condemn antisemitism, scant attention has been paid to their opening remarks." - "University Presidents Were Right to Condemn Hate Speech and Defend Free Speech" by Stephen Rohde in First Amendment News thefire.org/news/blogs/ronald-

"I’m surprised by the people who think the university presidents were somehow tricked or couldn’t have answered differently. They weren’t and they could have." - "I know university presidents can respond better to odious speech — because I saw it happen at my school" by Ari Kohen for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency jta.org/2023/12/12/ideas/i-kno

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US politics, Israel/Palestine conflict 

Seems like I'm not the only one frustrated by the response to college presidents' responses about at the recent "Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism" congressional hearing.

Ken White (The Popehat Report) has written about this, and the title alone may be enough: "Stop Demanding Dumb Answers to Hard Questions" popehat.substack.com/p/stop-de

In the American political context, "Hate speech is free speech," has a specific meaning, and I think grasping this is critical for any discussion about how we handle objectionable speech, not just in the current context of the war in the Middle East but also in, for example, the context of social media.

@web3isgreat When I first heard about this this I honestly thought it was a satirical news article

The PRO Codes Act is a power grab that would help giant industry associations ration access to huge swaths of U.S. law. Congress shouldn’t fall for it. #OpenAccessWeek eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/acce

"Colorado high court to hear case against Christian baker who refused to make LGBTQ-themed cake" by Colleen Slevin and Jesse Bedayn for Associated Press

apnews.com/article/colorado-ba

Specifically, someone ordered a pink cake with blue frosting (and no writing) to celebrate gender transition. This case is going to be interesting to watch. Personally I don't think this should be considered speech, assuming that the baker provides options for cake and frosting colors as a normal part of doing business.

@interfluidity Awesome! I've been meaning to write something like this but I never got around to it. I'll have to check this out.

(I was going to ask if this could be extended to Twitter but there's already a tool for that too!)

If I had a nickel for every time I started sponsoring a creativity tool after crappy pricing changes from proprietary competitors, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice. fund.godotengine.org/

Thinking of hosting your own social media? While new projects like the fediverse make it possible, you'll want to consider some of the legal risks involved. eff.org/deeplinks/2022/12/user

This week, I went over to Bluesky and asked people who'd left Mastodon why they left, and lots of people told me. I grabbed the replies and crunched them and wrote up a summary. I think it's really interesting and often kind of wrenching.

erinkissane.com/mastodon-is-ea

#meta

New from NYU Engelberg Center: The Anti-Ownership Ebook Economy

"Something happened when we shifted to digital formats that created a loss of rights for readers. Pulling back the curtain on the evolution of ebooks offers some clarity to how the shift to digital left ownership behind in the analog world."

Read the full whitepaper: nyuengelberg.org/outputs/the-a

Related: "In Defense Of Free Speech Pedantry" popehat.substack.com/p/in-defe

"Talking about our legal rights, and helping more citizens understand them, is an unqualified good. Debating 'free speech culture' — that is, seeking consensus on how we should react socially and private-institutionally to speech we hate — is also good, as I have argued. So, for that matter, is discussing the ancient question of what speech is kind, decent, or morally acceptable. But those are very distinct questions, directed at us wearing different analytical and philosophical hats."

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"The problems are these:

"We don’t have anything resembling a consensus on what 'cancel culture' is and we’re not having a serious discussion about defining it;

"We don’t have a consensus on how we reconcile the interests of speakers and responders, and we’re not making a serious attempt to reach one.

"We don’t have a consensus about what to do about it and we’re not trying to reach one."

"Our Fundamental Right To Shame And Shun The New York Times" by Ken White in The Popehat Report popehat.substack.com/p/our-fun

US politics/SCOTUS 

Curious about the ramifications of the recent decision. Does it mean that I, as an atheist website designer, can refuse to create wedding websites with religious references? (This would not be based on the actual religion of the partners, only the content of the site.) Or what if I want to create websites for only same-sex couples? Must I have a sincerely-held religious belief to this effect or can I simply exercise my right to not speak in certain situations?

I always had a distaste for Pinterest since it required you to login to view things, while didn't. Now Pinterest doesn't require login (just found this out today, I'll admit) and Twitter does.

@Hikitile well, my previous comment here made it so I guess it was just a temporary thing? Actually, I wonder if there's a difference between top-level comments and replies to other comments.

@Hikitile Test reply from Mastodon (because it seems that my previous reply to a Kbin "article" was not federated?)

@Otome-chan Hm, I thought this would be accounted for already. Both are presented to the Fediverse as "@[name]@[instance]", right? I wonder if Lemmy has the same problem...

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