Sometime between when I signed off on Friday and signed back on Saturday evening, my good friend Stacy McCain was suspended from Twitter, his horrible crime…giving his opinion.
As explained by the folks at Reason:
Remember a few days ago, when Twitter elevated anti-GamerGate leader Anita Sarkeesian to its “Trust and Safety Council,” an imperious-sounding committee with Robespierre-esque powers to police discussion on the social media platform? The goal, according to Twitter, was to make it easier for users to express themselves freely and safely.
You see Stacy was given the boot from twitter because he expressed his opinion about the anti-Gamergate people.
Gamergate is not an issue I have been following closely. However according to my son the gaming nerd (nerd is now a title of honor) #Gamergate is a battle between hardcore gamers (like my son) and women in the gaming industry who accuse the gamers of sexism. The Gamergate hashtag is used by people who object to the political correctness pushed by people like the new member of the twitter “ministry of truth” Anita Sarkeesian. Ms Sarkeesian became famous because of a video series she created called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games which complains about how women are depicted in video games.
According to my son who is not the least political these anti-GamerGate people like Ms. Sarkeesian are the new kind of feminists. Instead of trying to fight for the normal things like equal rights, these people push the idea that anything they disagree with is misogynistic.
On his website The Other McCain Stacy explained:
Unexpectedly, and without explanation, my @rsmccain Twitter account was suspended Friday evening. Based on past experiences, my guess would be that this resulted from a complaint by one of the leading “social justice warriors” (SJWs) who have been at war with #GamerGate since August 2014. However, there was no reason stated for the suspension, and who knows? So I’ve switched to the @SexTroubleBook account I created to promote my book and meanwhile, friends who are fed up with Twitter’s bias and censorship started the #FreeStacy hashtag. This morning I shared some thoughts with a blogger friend who followed the #GamerGate saga:
As I have said for years: Being notorious is not the same as being famous, but it’s better than being anonymous.
That is to say, I don’t often complain about being hated or misunderstood. It comes with the territory. I started out in the news business as a $4.50-an-hour staff writer for a tiny weekly newspaper in Austell, Georgia. Most people have no idea what I did before I got involved in political journalism as an assistant national editor for The Washington Times in 1997, or even have any idea of the work I did there. The vast majority of people who read my blog or follow my Twitter feed have no knowledge of or interest in my personal “backstory.” It’s not about me. I am not the story. I am the guy telling the story, or I am the guy making jokes about the story. I understand that. But I think some people in the New Media era lose sight of this reality.
Politics is like football. It’s a team sport. Until I was in my mid-30s, I was a very partisan Democrat. Bill Clinton (who I voted for in 1992) cured me of my Democrat loyalty. During the 1990s, I began a rather deep autodidactic study of politics, history, economics, philosophy, etc. My politics are conservative, my economics are Austrian, my faith is Christian. It’s that simple — and certain people HATE me for it. But those people hate everybody who is not a Democrat. Fine. I understand that kind of hate, having once been a Democrat myself, but Democrats think of their personal hatred as “social justice.” And so I understand them better than they understand me.
However, it’s not about me. . . .
The rest of the story is at Stacy’s website,
My friend Stacy has fallen victim to a problem with most social media today, which is they do their damndest to censor conservatives. It’s up to all of us to fight to get him back on twitter–because if Twitter is allowed to get away with banning Stacy McCain for free speech, they will be able to ban any of us for basically anything.
So I support the #FREESTACY movement not just because Stacy McCain is a friend, but because what happened to him could happen to any of us.
