News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWar... by simongr3dal on Thursday May 02, 2019 @10:07PM (#19814885)
In someway these social networks amplify voices by their sharing and recommending and suggesting based on what users do, a normal city square doesn't amplify your voice.

So this is different from walking past a demonstration or assembly in the city, it is more of an Inception movie-like warping of the entire city to bring everyone closer to these peoples voices.

Re:Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWar... by speedplane on Friday May 03, 2019 @04:14AM (#19816502)
> these social networks amplify voices by their sharing and recommending and suggesting based on what users do, a normal city square doesn't amplify your voice.

Actually, a city square does exactly that, amplify your voice to all those that pass. The difference is that there are many city squares to stand in, whereas there are only a handful of social media companies. The problem here is Facebook's monopoly power, not the medium of communication.

Re:Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWar... by toofy on Friday May 03, 2019 @08:31AM (#19817793)
> The difference is that there are many city squares to stand in, whereas there are only a handful of social media companies

I’m just not sure this holds up to any kind of scrutiny. There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of forums online where people can speak.

It’s a problematic analogy anyway, Facebook is not a public space, if we’re going insist on applying a real world physical analogue, they would be much closer to a city’s incredibly popular nightclub with a stage, which of course would never be required to give extremists or provocateurs free-reign of their equipment or stage. But even this analogy has problems.

I think the real argument is whether or not a company is free to associate its brand with whatever it likes.