Sunday, September 6, 2015

Reacting to Deniers with Social Justice-Style Censorship is WRONG

A few months back (over 5 to be more precise), a completely unnecessary bit of Twitter drama unfurled involving the cherry-picker in chief, Steven Goddard. Apparently, people complained that he was "abusing" or harassing climate scientists and his opponents via his tweets, and Twitter agreed, temporarily suspending his account. DailyKos derided Goddard's protests of the suspension here.

Now, all 3 of my blog readers know that I'm no fan of Goddard, and disagree with just about everything he says. That being said, you know what the WORST way to deal with deniers' scientific illiteracy is? To act like butthurt social justice warriors and claim that when they childishly call people "Nazis" and "fascists," it's abusive, harassing behavior worthy of censorship.

Yes, I just said "butthurt social justice warriors," and get used to it, because I'm beginning to believe the radical Left is becoming more of a threat to science than the usual suspects on the Right ever possibly could dream of being. Perhaps more on that in later posts.

Here's a snippet of the DailyKos' sarcastic take on Goddard's understandable reaction:

Goddard responded to Twitter's horrific injustice with a slew of posts, including one about "Green Shirt Fascists," where he begs readers to tell Twitter to "release" him as a "Political Prisoner at Twitmo," and another informing readers of his new URL (realclimatescience.com) because he expects "climate Nazis to get [him] blocked from Wordpress."

Which leads one to wonder, what does Goddard consider abuse, if not calling people fascists and Nazis? Apparently it's not though, since "The Nazis at Twitter" have since restored his account.


You know what's abusive, DailyKos? Censorship. How about we suspend your Twitter account for abusive support of censorship and mock you when you complain? Oh, it'll only be temporary, so buck up.

And, yes, as I've tweeted, I already understand that I'm way late in covering Twitter's draconian nonsense here.

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