The New York Times published a new opinion piece discussing the state of free speech in America:
“Free speech is predicated on mutual respect,” the Times editorial board writes. When public discourse in America is narrowed, it becomes harder to answer the many other urgent questions we face as a society. https://t.co/LAfLLoGyv1
— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) March 18, 2022
And let the record show that CUNY journalism Prof. Jeff Jarvis is appalled — appalled! Free speech is a pretty big deal in this country, especially given that it’s been under very real threat. How dare the New York Times publish a piece suggesting that America has a free speech problem!
Jeff Jarvis’ righteous indignation is positively boiling over:
This is appalling. The both-sidesism of The New York Times comes out in full force from its editorial board as it equates the left criticizing hate and the right burning books. Pure moral panic. A 🧵. 1/ https://t.co/0zQumjCIHh pic.twitter.com/XdqznFrBR3
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) March 18, 2022
Ah, yes. The people who are concerned about preserving and protecting the right to free speech are the ones in the throes of moral panic.
"and the right burning books."
Sure, Jeff. https://t.co/TltuL1bhx9
— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) March 18, 2022
The Left is just criticizing hate while the Right is burning books! Can’t the New York Times see that?
The editorial's lede is the worst of it. No, we have not lost our right to speak. We are exercising our right to speak around the gatekeepers that included old, white, male, privileged, powerful, closed newspapers and editorial boards and they resent it. 2/ pic.twitter.com/AKqv8mzQB1
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) March 18, 2022
We technically have the right to speak! We just may to worry about losing our jobs or being harassed if we say something the Left doesn’t like, but we technically have the right to speak!
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I hate polls as much as I hate from-on-high newspaper editorials for how they both preempt the public conversation, and this one brings me both. How did they expect people to answer this leading question? 3/ pic.twitter.com/rsZv4Z1zOy
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) March 18, 2022
Note, too, how The Times tsk-tsks liberals for "shutting down"–loaded choice of verbs there–bigoted, anti-democratic, and untrue (read: Republican) speech. 4/ pic.twitter.com/QBWUkBhzLf
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) March 18, 2022
God forbid someone have the temerity to point out that liberals have pretty consistently demonstrated themselves to be more in favor of policing speech than conservatives.
If you doubt for a moment The Times' turn to sympathy with the white-right, let this end those doubts: a yes-but attack on the left for making white people uncomfortable. Here is white victimhood, naked to behold. 5/ pic.twitter.com/xKlurZ8Ree
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) March 18, 2022
The New York Times is catering to the “white-right” now?
If one doubts this is about race, The Times own poll shows it is. Black people feel freer to discuss various topics and that is what bothers The Times but they are blind to it. 6/ pic.twitter.com/okXwZCi2qI
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) March 18, 2022
It couldn’t possibly be that white people might generally feel less free to discuss various topics because they’re worried about self-righteous woke blowhards like Jeff Jarvis trying to get them canceled. No way.
I'm reminded of this brilliant thread from Canadian academic @rinireg, about the Movement for Marginal Protections, which "wants to make it socially costly to debate the rights of marginalized people," against the Status Quo Warriors. The Times is SQW. 7/https://t.co/tXejtyA8cM
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) March 18, 2022
What The Times and Status Quo Warriors are objecting to is a process of norm-negotiation. The Times wants to be in a position to impose norms but can no longer. It resents the loss of power. 8/
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) March 18, 2022
We’re starting to think the one suffering from white victimhood is Jeff Jarvis. He seems to think he’s out there on an island somewhere, subjecting himself to persecution from the right-wing New York Times Editorial Page by defending restricting free speech.
The Times editorial board has been storing this anger up since losing its editor & columnists to criticism for bad decisions. The Times is blaming everyone but itself. That's the position of power The Times has long held. It can't adjust to being part of a larger conversation. 9/
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) March 18, 2022
What the internet has done is more voices too long not heard through the gatekeeping of white, male, mass media to have their say and the gatekeepers resent it. Just like the Trumpists, they do not want to share the institutions of power. 10/
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) March 18, 2022
Jeff’s really leaning into this hard. Guess he figures that if he keeps shouting loudly enough, he won’t have to stop and listen to himself.
So The Times gives us moral panic, blaming unseen forces that even The Times in this editorial refused to define: "However you define cancel culture, Americans know it exists, and feel its burden." Don't bother defining it. Calling it a foreboding force to fear is sufficient. 11/
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) March 18, 2022
It sounds like an old coot telling the newcomers to get off the lawn. "But the old lesson of 'think before you speak' has given way to the new lesson of 'speak at your peril.'" 12/
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) March 18, 2022
Reminder: this man is a journalism professor.
And get this: In issuing the necessary caveat that the First Amendment restricts only government, The Times draws an equivalency between Putin's censorship and that which The Times claims it feels here. Just offensive. 13/ pic.twitter.com/V6ivApRTAL
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) March 18, 2022
Of course, the grand paradox of this editorial is that The Times is complaining of being silenced in the greatest platform for speech ever yet created, the editorial page of The New York Times. 14/
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) March 18, 2022
From its bunker, The Times Editorial Board issues this threat: "This editorial board plans to identify a wide range of threats to freedom of speech in the coming months, and to offer possible solutions." Can't wait. 15/
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) March 18, 2022
A threat? Promising more opinions and discussions about endangered free speech is a threat?
The Times Editorial Board is trying to convince us that it is canceled. There is no such things as cancel culture. The Times is not canceled. It is merely complaining about having to share its stage. 16/
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) March 18, 2022
It sounds to us like Jeff Jarvis is the one complaining about the New York Times maybe being willing to share its stage. Isn’t that kind of the purpose of the New York Times Editorial Page? To share a stage with people with diverse opinions?
The problem isn't that you're speaking around them. It's that you're speaking on top of them with the express purpose of not letting them speak. https://t.co/SwJklFl0xT
— Noam Blum (@neontaster) March 18, 2022
But Jeff Jarvis doesn’t see that as the problem; he sees the speech as the problem.
Who, exactly, is stopping them from speaking? They seem to be doing a lot of it.
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) March 18, 2022
Jeff it literally happened last week at Yale Law School. Get your fingers out of your ears and your head out of your ass.https://t.co/9tPW0Gb02Z pic.twitter.com/MjplKm65Aa
— Noam Blum (@neontaster) March 18, 2022
We have no doubt that Jeff Jarvis would agree with Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern that the judges concerned about the implications of Yale Law students trying to drown out and shout down speakers are bigger threats to free speech than the Yale Law students trying to drown out and shout down speakers.
This week, over a hundred Yale Law students shouted down a female conservative speaker at an event where the two speakers AGREED. They called her a "b*tch." Today isn't your day, Jeff. Take a seat. The illiberal left has overplayed its hand. https://t.co/q4FvEYWhyF
— Erielle Davidson (@politicalelle) March 18, 2022
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