This is such a small blip in all the crap this administration is perpetrating that most are probably not aware of it or are drowned out in the rage over inflation, tariffs, wars, immigrants, etc.

I'm a free speech absolutist (albeit one of apparently few people who actually knows what "free speech" is [0]) and I'm absolutely outraged and infuriated by this action and a long history of anti-speech actions by the USG, though this particular Administration is unprecedented in terms of censorship, general evil and authoritarianism in modern history. I also think it's unfortunate how many people in favor of all sorts of censorship now attack stawmen and treat something so vitally important as a joke like you have. The unseriousness you treat something incredibly serious with has become an endemic problem in our society, and directly inspires nihilism/fatalism/tribalism etc, feelings which in turn directly support authoritarianism.

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0: For example, if HN bans you, shadowbans you, makes your posts dead by default, flags, or downvotes, that's all free speech.

I hate to see this strawman every single time there is an attack on free speech. You are actually mocking the fight for free speech. You aren't attacking the hypocrites that only use it when convenient.

The only purpose this rhetoric serves is to justify using the power of government to silence opponents the next time your side happens to be in power.

Did you really though? I never understood the "free speech absolutists" to care about speech they disagreed with. They made it clear that they only accept "patriotic" speech a long time ago.

Did you catch the part where A/I Collective is operated by foreign parties outside the US?