I'm going to be honest: I'm struggling with myself over how I feel about the mass banning that Ali faced from the entire internet this weekend.

He is a bad person from every angle: on an interpersonal level, on a political level, from a moral level, everything. He is a convicted felon and a straight-up BAD guy. I really cannot stress this enough.
All of that being said: I don't think I'm comfortable with his ejection from the Internet (Twitter, Venmo/Paypal, etc). He hasn't been convicted of anything over Stop the Steal. I'm SURE he has been grifting and honestly probably engaged in fraud, again.
Do I think he should be investigated for his role in the violence from 1/6 and financial impropriety? Yes, abso-freaking-lutely. But absent that investigation turning up actionable evidence, I am not comfortable with his wholesale booting from the Internet/commerce.
This pains me to say, because the Internet (and America) would be better off without him. But there has to be a certain amount of due process and transparency, even on Venmo and Twitter.
All of this said, unlike most of my opinions, I’m really not married to this one. Open to your thoughts and arguments.

More from For later read

I’ve asked Byers to clarify, but as I read this tweet, it seems that Bret Stephens included an unredacted use of the n-word in his column this week to make a point, and the column got spiked—maybe as a result?


Four times. The column used the n-word (in the context of a quote) four times. https://t.co/14vPhQZktB


For context: In 2019, a Times reporter was reprimanded for several incidents of racial insensitivity on a trip with high school students, including one in which he used the n-word in a discussion of racial slurs.

That incident became public late last month, and late last week, after 150 Times employees complained about how it had been handled, the reporter in question resigned.

In the course of all that, the Times' executive editor said that the paper does not "tolerate racist language regardless of intent.” This was the quote that Bret Stephens was pushing back against in his column. (Which, again, was deep-sixed by the paper.)

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