Actually I think they should just increase the ability of a twitter user to block things they don't want to see personally. Anything else seems to be heading in the direction of full scale censorship of the internet on the basis of hurt feelings. Which is fine if the hurt feelings happen to be reasonable. Unfortunately once people realize they can utilize being offended to silence their ideological opponents, they begin to abuse it. They already are. And if we think that can't backfire on us, we are fools.
I can't get behind any moves to silence speech, even hurtful speech. Today it may be bigots, but tomorrow it might be us, and we'd have been the ones to push for something that ended up gagging us. Use the block button instead.
At this point in time freedom of speech is coming under threat and it's largely happening because progressives have been pushing for anything "offensive" to be illegal to see or say. At the end of the day my feelings as a trans person have no contest against the protection of the principle of free speech and free speech should be absolute, since those wily enough have proven they can simply move the goalposts to redefine offense to silence or criminalize their opponents. I'm watching it happen daily. People who are not bigots but ideologically opposed to certain aspects of progressivism or "progressive ideas" have been labelled bigots and Nazis and then silenced just for disagreeing. I've read enough history books to see where this is eventually going to lead and I don't want to be a part of making it reality.
As speech gets more and more curtailed, and the right to challenge ideas goes down the drain as a result, do you think protected feelings will make up for the world that's being created by this?
Further, do you think this climate of aggressive progressivism is going to last for ever? What happens when the right to speak "about certain things" is gone but the shoe is on the other foot? That will not be very comforting for us then, I assure you.
Speech should be protected, and if there's something you don't want to see and hear, block it yourself and don't read or listen. Don't enable others to begin taking away the right to speak about anything at all. Even about things you don't personally want to hear. We will never be able to make the world some completely offense-free environment or completely safe for trans people at all times, and we certainly won't make it safer by making it less free, nor will we even be able to keep tabs on hate by driving it underground.
"I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Remember this quote? Suddenly people seem to have stupidly forgotten how important it is to do this. Trans people haven't won the fight to be seen as equals yet; the fight for that and to remain free might be eternal. The last thing we want to be doing is aiding people who want more control over what people are allowed to say. The right to say transgressive, offensive things was what enabled feminists, remember, or the gay community, or the trans community to ever have a voice in the first place, because all this at some point would have been considered offensive and distasteful to the status quo. We are the LAST PEOPLE who should be clamoring for tape over people's mouths. We are going to need speech now and in the future, and we won't have it if you hand it over to whoever gets to deem something "too offensive" in eagerness to protect your feelings in the present.
Think about this.
