Suggestion freedom of speech is important is a no-brainer. There are plenty of examples of suppression of speech that make this clear. Suggesting governments suck at this and that it’s a complex problem? Also clear, because it is.
Suggesting that we must provide a place for discussions of bigotry, hate, and other evils otherwise, society is bad as those individuals can only come from a place where they have never been a subject of any of that hate. “No, you can’t talk about hate” is never as bad as the hate itself, and if you want to argue otherwise, do not do it here. You are not welcome.
What started as a discussion about labelling and semantics (always a slippery slope to begin with) instead escalated into a multi-topic sealioning attempt anywhere the word was used, and culminated with clear bad-faith attempts to disrupt conversation as a whole, despite good-faith attempts by both Authors and the community to have an actual discussion in a dedicated topic.
LeonKowalski Has been given a significant timeout for leading a seventeen-reply derail of a topic that turned into a classic take-on-all-comers derail.
Additionally, while I can understand the spirit of misplaced white-knighting performed, I’m also going to call out that DukeTrout posting fourteen replies in response certainly did NOT limit the damage this poster was doing, nor did it in any way help keep the discussion on-topic.
User mangochin did not take the hint from the suspension above, nor the specific admonishment in the topic they were sealioning in, so they too have been given a timeout.
Seriously, if you post 24 replies in a topic, and it isn’t about you, and it doesn’t affect you or your people or your community directly, and it’s only three days old, you are disrupting the community here, not contributing to it.
All of that to dissect a trial [ETA: Right, not even a trial; just an indictment] that hasn’t even started yet, where the defendant is one ::checks notes:: Alec Baldwin.
User Ponchyan came out of retirement to inform us first that Boing Boing was covering the wrong topics, and then that the BBS community was inappropriate for telling them so, and finally that the moderation team inappropriate for declaring their comments off-topic. We hope they enjoy their return to retirement.
Kristian_Petterson has been banned for deciding that a rise in antisemitism in Florida is the correct venue to ask how harmful it truly is and defend the rights of bigots to find out.
