I hate Hasan, but it's fucking depressing that supposedly free speech advocates then do a complete 180 when a mild criticism of Israel appears and then it's free game to shut down a entire platform unless they capitulate to the ADL's demands.
I'm not sure which "free speech advocates" you are referring to. If you mean some people within the commentary sphere, then maybe, depending on exactly what position they've adopted before.
If you mean, for instance, my last post, then I have never held a candle for either Israel or Palestine. I dislike Destiny, I really dislike Hasan, but I really, really, REALLY hate Twitch, and if this shitshow destroys it I don't care who started it or why, just so long as it dies.
As I inferred earlier, we're at the point where we can not reform large, corporate, advertiser-supported platforms to be free-speech friendly. That ship has sailed, and it's entirely possible that it was never possible by their very structure and nature. These big, centralised platforms are by their nature corrupt and corrupting. The best thing that we, as consumers, can do is to make them unviable. The demand is there, the money is there, but this model is not sustainable or good for society. This is basically consumer accelerationism - turn what would otherwise be a slow decline into a swift conflagration, so that a better, decentralised model for online content can become dominant. The only reason that hasn't happened already is unfair competition from giant corpos who can run these sites at a loss as their propaganda arms, but even those pockets are only so deep.
Look at what is currently happening in the videogame and on-demand TV sphere, where the giant companies are being destroyed by normies finally being sick and tired of them being used as delivery mechanisms for activism and propaganda rather than art, and are starting to switch off. In videogames especially, the normies are switching to the free speech side of the argument, and it's nearly put Ubisoft out of business, with the likes of EA and Activision likely to follow. Let them fall, and put the boot in where you can. Let the indie space take over gaming. You won't have the green shoots break through if the dying trees are blocking the light, so burn and cut them down. A little ecosystem management goes a long way, and it doesn't matter whether the guy with the chainsaw likes Israel or not.
