Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

Re:Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Fac... by XorNot on Sunday November 15, 2020 @08:03AM (#25100861)

"free speech" of this type also doesn't really exist on the internet - because bots are a thing. You can't have a digital equivalent of a town square because whatever else you do, it's simply not possible to create in-person pseudo-anonymous supporters.

But on the internet, this is easy - it's a damn service you can buy and it scales on the orders of 1-to-1000 or (usually much more) voices.

CAPTCHA's don't solve it - because this is also a service - breaking CAPTCHA's by the hundred and supply account keys in bulk.

You simply cannot have a digital space which works like a physical one, and as such you cannot meaningfully not moderate it because human participants cannot out-pace bots and sockpuppet accounts. Facebook's entire, unearned initial trust was because notionally it solved this problem - people forget it was initially limited to student's with student email addresses at school's it knew. It was very much, initially, exclusive enough that it kept something of a lid on this problem.

The feeling about it has persisted far beyond the now non-existence of this mechanism.

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Re:Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Fac... by drilldrive on Sunday November 15, 2020 @09:35AM (#25101489)

This is exactly why I believe a dutiful representation of the 1st amendment in the Internet includes anti-botting measures, since bots flood the town-hall with un-measured broadcasting, shuttering out any and all active speech. But beyond anti-botting and one or two other very minor holds, a public forum should have no other restrictions of moderation. There is an exact restriction needed for the moderation to itself not be speech-impacting either by too much or too little of it.

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Re:Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Fac... by jacquesm on Sunday November 15, 2020 @12:05PM (#25102661)

The problem you will run into is that the 1st amendment is a US thing and the internet is a global thing.

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Re:Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Fac... by drilldrive on Sunday November 15, 2020 @12:28PM (#25102891)

Well all the major internet firms are based in the United States, if they want to hold to foreign markets they would need to hold separate divisions in separate countries, or in coalition dealings. There is a reason USA law Section 203 debates (which doesn't address the core problem) are so contentious regarding Social Media.

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