Tim Allen asks "who makes these rules" when talking about Roseanne cancellation. - Sensationalist Headlines

http://ew.com/tv/2018/08/02/tim-allen-roseanne-firing/ ‘We’ve gone backwards.’ There are things you can’t say. There are things you shouldn’t say. Who makes up these rules? And as a stand-up comic, it’s a dangerous position to be in because I like pushing buttons. It’s unfortunate.” Mull says. “My own dealings with Rosie never indicated to me anyone who would write that tweet. I certainly don’t approve of the tweet. I never saw that in her. But I did see things in her that were inexplicable.”

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/free_speech_2x.png

I'll get shit on for defending Rosanne at all, but being high as fuck on ambien, having a crushing schedule, being old as fuck, and being a comedian who has been known to push buttons for years, I really have trouble being too mad at her over her comment about a woman who looks more white, and jewish, than she does black. I don't really like the woman, I don't really think she should have been fired though. I think she needs help. And in our society, we really don't offer help to people who fuck up.

I hate this comic because this comic is vague and hamfisted that this can be applied to any situation, including the oppression and suppression of voices. XKCD is funny when it comes to science but the 'hot takes' on society and more are fucking abysmally simple minded and lack the nuance required and its fairly obvious when the writing for the science jokes has layers of humor but the 'societal hot takes' are usually preaching.

Freedom of speech literally means freedom of consequences. If there is a consequence, it is no longer freedom of speech. That's not a bad thing - I would personally argue that freedom of speech is way too idealistic. But it's important that we stop saying "freedom of speech but..." It either is or it isn't. In America, what we have is the right to free speech (which is VERY specific), and that right can't be taken away until it begins to infringe on others people's rights. Anyway, I think that people should be a little bit afraid or the fact that companies are forming a pseudo-government that enforces rules against speech based on what they think will determine outrage. I personally think Roseanne misspoke and didn't mean to convey a racist message, and the solution should have been an apology. I also think the Rick and Morty guy made a joke that was misconstrued and he should have simply clarified instead of nuking himself off the internet. Same for the Guardians of the Galaxy guy who actually got fired. With that said, people shouldn't be ashamed for thinking Roseanne is stupid for what she said because at the very least it was thoughtless garbage, and I do think that there should be some shame for that. Going as far as to completely cancel her show and ruin her name in Hollywood for it? That's a bit much, and I think that's just going to create more pressure for being any kind of public figure. I also don't think that many people were really calling for her to be fired.

That's not even close, you will face consequences for saying things, but those consequences should be proportional and that's the issue. We've lost our ability to proportionalize things and its backfuring spectacularly.

I've heard it both ways (not that both are correct mind you). Though freedom of speech without consequence (I can say whatever I want and no one should act upon or judge my speech) always seemed to be way too impractical, and I didn't even really see the idealism there (what value does speech have if one shouldn't be judged or sway opinions with what they say?). The other way that I have heard, and the more functional interpretation which is the one we run into problems with today, is that the government is not able to act upon you or judge you for what you say. This protects ideas from being censored, or political dissidents from being silenced. Which, I think Wauterboi does have a point with. At what point do companies wield more power over what you say, and how your speech is delivered, such that they are more dangerous than the government ever could be in regards to pushing narratives, or silencing dissidents, or censoring ideas? Not that what Roseanne said is even close to acceptable, or that I agree with Tim here, but it is an interesting thing to think about considering that the methods that information is delivered over (or preferred to be delivered over for most people) are owned by private groups rather than being open spaces. I don't have a solution, or even know if this is a problem, but it is something I find interesting to think about. How technology has changed us, and how older interpretations of government, individual rights, and representation may not be as easily reconciled with modern societies.

If I was representing a company and called a black person a monkey mixed with the muslim brotherhood, Id be fucked six ways till sunday and possibly barred from majority of jobs. Roseanne said some stupid shit and was fired for her actions because she is the showrunner and lead actress for her show.

From the government. People or private entities can scold you as much as they like, though. Not sure where this idea comes from that you should be allowed to be a heinous pile of trash without any kind of consequences whatsoever but it doesn't take much of a brain to figure out why that doesn't work.

I'm sorry but the 'ambien' excuse was hilarious, and then her doubling down and backpeddling didn't help I agree she shouldn't have been fired for the initial comment but how she went full retard immediately after didn't help. What even does 'being old as fuck' have to do with anything, that isn't even a thing. That doesn't let you get away with anything. I take it you got this from 'the dick show', I don't think it's safe to take it as deep as Dick actually wants it Social consequences are a part of freedom of speech, you don't get to act like a total asshole and just get away with it It's to prevent the government from arresting you for your speech You can't use your speech to impede the rights of other people (Death threats, blackmail, childporn etc) Some people are OK with companies firing people for whatever they want, but it's not ok when its someone they like I still agree that freedom of speech should be modified and EXPANDED onto the internet, and say that Twitter + Youtube is a public platform

Isn't this the jackass who did a bunch of blow and then told drug users should be sent to jail?

she also believes in the q-anon conspiracy which is blatantly racist and thinks that Hillary is trafficking children

It enables every moron's favorite scapegoat: "I was just trolling you bro". That's the only reason people follow the concept, it gives them a get out of jail card, so they can spew stupid shit for years on end and never take responsibility for it.

It doesn't mean anything? It's an explanation. People really need to stop feeling that "explanations" are excuses. They are not. Explaining the reasoning, the why, behind something is not excusing it. It's exposing it so it can be dealt with. What is not dealing with the issue, in my opinion, is saying she was wrong, and moving on and forgetting about it. Was she in the wrong? Yes. Did she do something bad? Yes. Was she in full control of her actions? No. Has she expressed regret and remorse about expressing that? Yes. I just don't see how a person can grow, change, or become better when we take any explanation of the things they need to fix as an "excuse" and keep hating them.

There are situations where I would excuse Roseanne's behavior in a vacuum due to the effects of Ambien, especially since I believe her that she didn't know the woman was Black. But the problem was, the comment she made was endemic of a much larger issue with her twitter history. The way I see it, that tweet was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I wasn't even referring to Roseanne. She got what happened for treating social media like its a personal bubble.

It was pretty disillusioning when I realized that Tim Allen was the characters he usually portrayed: stubborn, hard-headed, averse to new ways of thinking, and pretty backwards.

In the US at least, that's the legal protection on freedom of speech provided by the 1st Amendment. That is not, and should not be, synonymous with free speech as a principle. Put another way: The 4th Amendment only protects your privacy from the government. That does not mean people or private entities should be free to spy on you as much as they like, because we still hold a principle of privacy that extends beyond the limits of the 4th Amendment. People need to stop talking about 'free speech' as something that only applies to government, just because the law primarily concerns government overreach. It was framed that way because two hundred years ago the only entities that could systematically suppress free speech were governments. With the Internet serving as both a perfect archive and a way of organizing people to punitive action, and private companies like Facebook gaining more control over public discourse, it's downright dangerous to ignore the implications for free speech. Roseanne said some stupid shit and I think deserved to be fired for it, which is different from it being legal just because it wasn't the government handing out repercussions.

Right, that's fine. People should critique. That's not really a consequence though. Firing is. And, again, freedom of speech isn't necessarily a good ideal. Maybe a good target to strive for, but something that can't be made a reality. If someone is fired for what they say, there isn't freedom of speech. There are active restrictions being made on speech. The difference is it's being handled by companies and not the government. I can't get rid of this double quote on mobile for whatever reason.

I largely agree with this post, and with that I want to reiterate myself to be a little clearer: People conflate the freedom of speech as simply being able to criticize the government, which is incorrect. Freedom of speech, as a concept, means being able to voice your opinion and not face repercussions for it. If you face repercussions, that means you're not totally free to say what you want to say. If that sounds extreme to you, that's because the freedom of speech is extreme. It's why America doesn't have explicit freedom of speech. You have the right to the freedom of speech, which is different than just flat out freedom. Your right can be taken away when it conflicts with someone else' rights. You can't go around delivering hate speech or inciting violence. You can't defame. You can't regurgitate other people's work. You can't threaten people. Most people would argue all of those points as good things, as I do, which is why most people don't actually believe in free speech. Not believing in free speech isn't a bad thing. The concern is then determining when should speech be limited. My belief is that we should approach freedom of speech as sanely as possible, and be very wary of the limits we place. Right now, we've trained ourselves to become sensitive to speech and react by demanding people's livelihoods be destroyed. The problem with that is there's no established standard for when this occurs, and that there is no form of democracy to determine where the limits should be. It's a government deciding who should be allowed to work based entirely out of fear and outrage. That's why Tim Allen's question isn't a bizarre thing to ask: who's making the rules, here? A lot of companies right now are firing people as a precaution to outrage, not actually because of it. For example, Disney got rid of the Guardians of the Galaxy director over tweets he's made long, long ago. They've been specifically dug up to get him fired, not because anyone actually cared about those tweets. And when there is actual outrage, like in the case of Roseanne - I think it's massively debatable whether or not that was going to have a huge effect on business, and whether or not people would have been able to move on. They went for the permanent nuclear option immediately - it doesn't matter if Roseanne actually made a legitimate fuckup that everyone could have come back from. When these public figures get fired like this, it seriously affects the national conversation. They gave validation to the idea that Roseanne is actually literally racist, and as such there's really nowhere for Roseanne to go from here because of it. Which companies are going to pick her up, now? If you, the reader, don't like Roseanne, that's fine. The Guardians of the Galaxy director's bad press was given legitimacy through his firing too, and he's not a bad person. And I don't think a lot of companies think that guy is bad too, but they're afraid of associating with him for sure. There isn't a real conversation happening about these people - people are just dismissing and moving on. And I'm worried it's going to get worse and start affecting people who are challenging in the slightest - you know, like comedians. Like politicians. Like activists. People that are trying to be good people but will be written off with a buzzword. I don't think that people should be worried that we aren't going full-fledged free speech, but because we aren't relying on that principle we really have to taken the time to think about the concessions we have to make, and who the resulting power is going to be given to.