- Freedom of speech is of extremely high importance for any free society and should not be taken for granted

- Removing it in any capacity should be done with extreme care and free of any bias one way or another, with a lot of thought put into any future consequences

- Speech without a platform isn't speech at all

- Private companies' interest should have little, if any, control over the ability of the public to speak

- Just because a private company is legally allowed to do something, doesn't mean they should

- The marketability of speech (for financially or politically) should have no bearing on whether it's allowed or good

I don't know if all of this is being upheld. I think a lot of interests are at play here. I have no easy answers or even recommendations other than that everyone think about what objective barometers they really think makes speech allowable or not.

(Edit: list rendered real bad)

I know the problem is complex, but I think the solution to the problem was based on basic human impulses (And very American if I'd say so myself. Sorry), because simply deplatform the app will not actually convince it's users to leave it, it does not educate those people about what's right and wrong, and it opened a huge playground for the conspiracy theorist to play around.

All around, I think deplatforming is a bad solution to this problem.

EDIT: Clarify: I'm not here to support Parler (not even a bit), and I understand the deplatforming was for the immediate issue. However, I hope those who involved in the decision making could look for a better solution that would convince people to claim down and be rational. That's all.

...but it is exactly that isolation that create the bubble induced amplification of hate-speech.

If everyone was forced to exist on the same platform (as a though experiment) then hate-speech would have to co-exist with rational thinkers and their hateful ideas might not propagate much.

...but the moment you ban/deplatform/censor/etc... then they begin to form isolated groups with no counter-balance of rationality.

There is already no counter balance.

Breaking up their platforms into smaller pieces is actually helpful and will keep them from readily finding new members on the internet.

I’ve tried to have a calm and reasonable discourse with people who believe in things like QAnon, anti-vaccination theories, the “deep state”, GMO conspiracies, among others, and I’m a single voice among however many hundreds or thousands of others they are listening to. No amount of evidence or rational argument will sway these people because they are swimming in a sea of voices reinforcing their views.

I’m not sure if deplatforming is the right solution here but I also don’t know what the alternatives are. Should we let them keep espousing and spreading patently false information that is actually causing harm to society to a large audience and hope that people just ignore it? That doesn’t seem like a good solution, either.

Every time big tech bans or suspends a user, another supporter of Trump is born.

I think that's a US thing. Other countries seem to be genuinely more rehabilitative. Looks like 55% of the state prison population is there for violent offenses: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html

Handling non-violent offenders away from the violent ones might be a good start.

That being said, what do we do in this situation (which is a common one I see in these kinds of debates)?:

- Group A claims X.

- Person N asks Group A to provide evidence for their claim X.

- Group A cannot provide said evidence, or the evidence provided is unreliable/cannot be validated.

- Person N asks for additional evidence that the claim X made by Group A is true.

- Group A insists they are right and refuses to provide any additional evidence for claim X.

- Person N chooses to not believe Group A’s claim X due to a lack of evidence.

What’s the next step? Assuming good faith on the sides of both parties, how do you reach some sort of agreement or conclusion?

And what do we do when claim X made by Group A is one that leads to violence or other societal harms (such as an increase in death and suffering due to the spread of disease in the case of anti-vaccination theories)?

I don’t have a good answer, here. I desperately want to have rational and productive conversations with people with whom I disagree. But how do you avoid a deadlock situation like the above?

Recall my post that evidence cannot sway "person N".

*Btw, usually there are more then two sides: it's just stale majoritarian system which leaves people just two unsatisfactory choices in US.

But that assumes both sides are operating in good faith - it's pretty clear in the example that A are not (as are some sides in the real world.)

Not only is that game of whack-a-mole unsustainable, it will lead to the creation of un-silencible platforms. ...and if they are scalable they might become the new standard.

It will be pretty sad if social media platforms are ultimately displaced by the platforms created due to their censorship.

From a platform perspective, there isn't much difference between companies curtailing the use of their platforms to carry out violent activity and those platforms curtailing other illegal activities such as spamming or malware distribution.

We don't consider sending 1 million unsolicited emails free speech, and wouldn't consider a gang using reddit to co-ordinate free speech. Is there any difference for groups coordinating the violent overthrow of an elected democracy?

(1) Rationality is not a counterbalance to implacable, violent division when there is a fundamental conflict of value. Rationality is just ruthlessly optimized maximization of one's own utility function.

(2) For those things where rationality in principal could be a counterbalance, the problem is that people (all of them) are not rational (rationality is an abstract, unattainable ideal), and the ways in which certain people are irrational can minimize the effect of what partial rationality other people in the group they are incorporated into have.

When a group tries to exclude certain ideas from general conversation, it tends to be ideas whose expression is seen as indicateling one or both of (a) irreconcilable conflict of values with values that the rest of the groups sees as table stakes, and/or (b) incorrigible and toxic-to-the-group irrationality in assessment of reality and pursuit of values, whether or not these values are compatible with the group’s values.

So, in either case, the decision is not made in a lack of awareness that isolation removes, int he abstract, rationality as a counterbalance in the conflict between the core group and the excised group, it's is made instead because of the belief that rationality does not function as such a counterbalance with the concrete group targeted for excision, and indeed that the presence of that excised group mitigates the function rationality otherwise would serve as a counterbalance to conflicts within the core group.

The first such group that comes to mind is Heaven's Gate, which I think illustrates the opposite:

A brief reading of Wikipedia suggests to me that key members arrived in place via media attention, even though they spent significant other effort trying to recruit members.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven's_Gate_(religious_group...

I'm not sure where the sitting is, but the ones radicalizing right now don't get a counter opinion.

Teaching with current level of science as hard baseline is already a place where some western countries like US fail (ie evolution vs creationism topic).

I don't think the change I mention is in direct interest of many governments, so its more like a pipe dream and an additional burden on parents to drill this into their kids.

- clarity: while not everything has a right or wrong answer, but lots of things do

- robustness: it's okay for people to disagree with you, and also for you to be wrong and learn from it

- reason: avoiding the standard fallacies

- agreeing to disagree: individuals you know/interact with and your relationships with them are more important than abstract tribes you may or may not belong to

How do you teach someone to self-analyze and understand where their problems are actually coming from? To question their own conclusions and rethink what they know?

Still, it's possible to improve the current education system, by a lot. The current "learn this, don't ask why" doesn't work, and to make it worse, parents can be just as uninformed and stubborn as their kids, so they'll come to school raising hell over their lil' precious' bad grades.

In the case of political discourse, that may improve the case around some 'fringe theory' concepts which add fuel to the fire, but it's not going to stop the core 'fire', which is driven by philosophy/ethics/metaphysics.

People need to be able to break the 'fourth wall' in these debates in order to question their philosophical biases, and empiricism-as-answer-to-all-problems is also a philosophical bias - eugenics was seen by many as 'scientific virtue' in the 1920s, as one obvious example

2. No speech limitations should be placed on online discussions unless it deviates away from rational debate.

3. Newsfeeds are sorted by popularity AND scientific accuracy.

4. All opinions about an issue, article, or topic are categorized and mapped on a spectrum. Meta data for quick analysis: how does my opinion compare to my peers?

I hope I still, before I'm banned, managed to demonstrate that it is nigh impossible to tell the difference between the most extreme satirical absurdly totalitarian opinion, and actual "progressive" thought these days. And now they have both chambers.

As long as the Internet exist, ( not only the Web, but the Net ) you are only pushing these people to other places. And possibly to an invitation only sub group. They will form its circle in Telegram or other means of media. A bit slower than they first appeared. But the power of internet meant that movement is still relatively quick. And with the power of Hyperlink, news and information spread just as fast as they are in a single group.

So the platform isn't Facebook, Twitter or Youtube, It is the Internet. Or the name information super highway really describe the point better. Which sort of brings the question of regulating the internet but we wont go into that for now.

There is another point wroth mentioning. The making of decent fake news that cant be easily rebutted is far easier than the time and money required to spent for Fact Checking. Not to mention most people dont bother Fact Checking in the first place.

Having been on the other side of the fence with freedom of speech taken away, I agree with parent and grand parent;

Freedom of speech is of extremely high importance for any free society and should not be taken for granted

I think deplatforming is a bad solution to this problem.

I think the free speech issue may be a little overblown here. I would be really concerned if cable companies stop carrying Fox News, but I get that this is a slippery slope. However, I think at the end of the slippery slope is not really the end of free speech, but rather two completely separate echo chambers each with its own mega distribution channels.

For example, Democrat leadership could promise to hold another election immediately after the vaccination is complete. In addition, to persuade trump supporters, they could consider getting rid of mail-in ballots, and legislating a Democratic version of voter ID law.

It's the democratic solution as well. Democracy should be about appealing to the largest possible percentage of population, and shutting up the other side is not a democratic solution to the current US crisis.

Republicans don't like mail-in voting because it makes it a lot easier for the entire population to vote, and they have been spending the last few decades making it a lot harder for people who are not rich white suburbanites to vote.

Neither the Democrat nor Republican establishments want that either. After all, rigging primaries or engaging in other dubious activities would be much too hard.

[1] I am using "coerced" a bit loose here, I am including both "vote X, or else" as well as "if you vote X, I will give you this $SUM money". If it is by structure impossible to show that you complied, it is less likely that either will happen.

The chain makes the system completely and easily auditable. You can't easily game the system. Votes can be easily tallied and randomly sampled to ask voters if the votes match up.

As to repercussions, you already sign your ballots and register to vote. Because of this, there's pretty much no stopping government repercussions if they chose to take action.

Most importantly, it gets rid of all the election fraud debate.

Note that I am not saying that widespread fraud actually occurred in this election...there was no evidence of it, in large part because the laws were setup so that there wouldn’t be. But that isn’t really the point. It could have occurred and nobody could ever prove it, short of the perpetrators themselves coming forward to admit what they did.

Unless something changes before 2024, there is no longer any point in bothering to cast your vote. When anyone can vote without having to prove that they are eligible, and can do it remotely, it renders all votes meaningless.

However I think any pressure towards in-person voting MUST be accompanied by an expansion of rights in terms of how far polling places are from you, a national holiday where everyone gets the day off work, sizeable transportation stipends, etc. Without all of that, requiring people to vote in person is de facto disenfranchisment.

And furthermore, with regards to 2020, I disagree with you wholeheartedly. I think everyone had a right to no-contact voting this year due to COVID. It was a special set of circumstances.

With regard to 2020, the changes to the laws that occurred could have been entirely well-intentioned. They probably were. But those changes have led to the current crisis of confidence in the election results, and rightly so.

I can't find any evidence for this. Further, at least where I live, ballots are mailed to voters and include a control number that ensures only one vote is counted for that person.

Then there is the issue of dead people that have not been removed from the voter rolls. We know for a fact that in 2020, many of these were returned, filled out, likely by family members. That alone is an issue (example: https://youtu.be/CINHx-z9cbk ).

Here is an article with an overview of some of the laws that were changed/relaxed in 2020. Generally speaking, each relaxed restriction opens up more and more avenues for fraud:

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/states-changed-rules-voting-...

You claim fraud and offer a video as proof. The video contradicts you. In it they explicitly say, a few times, there wasn't any fraud.

Further, at least in this election, voting and registering to vote were one in the same in many jurisdictions. Many states automatically sent out mail-in ballots to everyone that was registered. All that had to be done from there was to fill it out and send it in. Families of dead people sent in those ballots in many cases.

Registering to vote as someone else, or as an entirely fictional person, is absurdly easy in many jurisdictions. In California, for instance, one can skip any identity checks by simply marking two checkboxes: one indicating they have no ID, and one indicating they have no social security number [1]. Voila, you are now a registered voter. Combine this absurdity with automatically sent out mail-in ballots in many states, and you have a disaster waiting to happen.

[1] https://covr.sos.ca.gov/

The Republican Secretary of State ran an election audit in 2016 and found that, over 2+ million votes cast, around 50 or so were "fraudulent," most of those being cast by people who voted in Oregon and elsewhere.

Vote-by-mail is not problematic, if you consider the historical evidence provided by places that have been doing it for a while.

That is the party line, but you have no way of actually knowing that. The election audit to which you refer has no way of knowing how many votes were cast by identities that were simply invented because of the ease of registration in many states (which has now been combined with proactive sending of mail-in ballots, thanks to COVID). Sure, they can tie together people who voted in more than one state, but that isn’t the attack vector that anyone with any sense would use. Show me a good way of identifying brand new identities used to vote in states where there are easy ways to bypass ID requirements (such as California). There isn’t.

[1] https://covr.sos.ca.gov/

Consider that an investigation (that includes said identity check), concluding with a recount happens

• mandatory by design to a random small subset of voting districts

• everytime someone reports to the voting commission an indication or outright evidence of irregularities or fraud

• everytime there is a difference between head-to-head candidates smaller than a certain percentage

If GP is right and "nothing pans out", then that means that the CA Secretary of State web site is not an effective tool to commit voting fraud.

¹ A common analogue is: "I do not believe in gods. Theists can change my mind when they bring forth evidence that measures up to the extraordinary claim. In the last couple of thousands of years, this did not happen. Thus, I will live my life as if gods do not exist."

Absence from where? It is perfectly legal to not have an ID or social security number. Not having those things proves nothing. And nobody is going to track down everyone in the country with the same name and DOB that you selected and ask them if they are the Fred Wilson (example) that voted in California. People move all the time, so it wouldn’t be unusual if they went by the house and that person doesn’t live there.

The way that system is setup to accept voters without ID verification, there is not a way to legally disprove that the person with whatever name and DOB chosen does not exist (assuming more than 1 other person in the country shares those characteristics). Hence it would be impossible to legally prove that this invented person isn’t real.

I literally just showed how shockingly easy it is for anyone to invent California voters in a matter of seconds. That’s exceptional in my opinion. I could write a script that would register 10k of those in several minutes. But the more likely scenario is that I can’t be the only one that has realized this...nobody knows how many people are doing this once or a few times.

That is the whole point of this conversation - the possibility of incredibly easy, undetectable fraud renders all votes meaningless because we simply don’t know how much occurred and there is no way to find out because the rules are so loose. Until they are changed, it completely negates any point in voting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_voting_in_the_United_St...

Could you clarify what you mean exactly with this. In my mind people should have a right to ignore speech they don't want to hear. Furthermore, the definition of a "platform" has become very diffuse with the advent of the internet. In the before times you were either in the newspaper most people read, or maybe on one of the handful of TV channels, or you basically did not have a platform beyond the people you could physically interact with. Whereas now you can have many options which all reach different kinds and amounts of people.

I have many vague feelings but maybe I can sum them up in the following, probably unhelpful, statement: people have a right to a platform that is equivalent to standing in a town square and yelling.

Whilst on there for non-political purposes, you can't in practice 'choose to ignore' the political speech you'd prefer to avoid, as it's made everybody an activist with a massive megaphone. Activism is shared and retweeted into your face relentlessly.

If Big Tech as a whole has decided to wage war on 'red team' ideas (or other competing ideas, such as Unity 2020, banned from Twitter), there's a risk that they could transform a bad 2-party political system into a single-party monopoly, where the voters have no power at all.

Things weren't good when old media (TV/newspapers) had all the power+influence. But at least there was some sort of balance. And if a new newspaper appeared, it couldn't be shut down entirely in <24hrs by the competition.

It could if it had used printing presses owned by the competition. I'm assuming these old newspapers used either their own printing presses, or presses owned by independent printing shops. They used a little common sense and concluded that using printing presses owned by the NY Times was probably not a good long term strategy for a newspaper that wanted to compete against the NY Times.

All I'm saying is, use your own printing presses, and you can't be shutdown. Run your own website, on your own server and no one will kick you off their servers. Nothing's really changed here, so I don't see a free speech issue.

They have their own network, own peering agreements, etc etc etc. They didn't build the internet, they built their own "platform" by building out their own little corner of the internet. You want to be a "platform" like Amazon, but you don't want to build everything necessary for a "platform" to be a platform. That is the crux of the problem. If what you really want is simply free speech, well that's free. If all you really want is a website, well that's pretty cheap too, but maybe not free. But when you start talking about platforms, you have to pay to build the platform you want. Even a soapbox is not free, someone somewhere had to pay for it.

You're complaining that building a platform is too expensive the same way someone a hundred years ago may have complained that buying the presses is too expensive. It makes no sense. If you want to print your own paper, you need the presses.

I'm against the highest level of the stack so to speak having to be available to everyone such as Twitter, that would be us saying these companies are too critical to our way of life and forcing a private entity to do business with those it doesn't want to, which is not only dangerous but I believe simply not true if we foster the building of others and should be summarily changed or investigated as a new type of monopoly if we find (are finding?) that they are becoming too critical, centralizing is bad.

I am also against people not being able to connect their services at the lower level of the stack to then build out their offering on the higher level of the stack though and that's where I think we need to regulate.

At the end of the day, I'm a strong supporter of free speech. But, it's up to the speaker to provide their own platform. If all they can manage is a literal soapbox in the town square, so be it. There is no fundamental right for a person's speech to be easily broadcast, nor is there a right for that speech to be heard or acknowledged.

As long as Twitter, Facebook, the NYT, and the WSJ are private entities, they also have their own rights. If we really want to prevent de-platforming, the solution seems to be categorizing media companies as some sort of utility. But, I don't really know what they would look like.

Yes it sucks your audience is limited but you are correct, people have a right to any platform they are able to create.

Also monopolies and oligopolies are what happens in unregulated capitalism. If frustrates me that the many of folks today who take issue with the tech giants have been pro deregulation, pro capitalism, and screaming about how afraid we should be because a boring sleepy vanilla POTUS is going to usher in socialism and communism... WTF is your solution then? Everyone can point out problems and evoke FUD.

This argument is becoming increasingly disingenuous based on actions of just the last few days.

Didn’t Parler go ahead and do exactly what you recommended?

* cut off from Google Play and Apple Store. Most people don’t even have personal computers anymore, so their phone / IPad is the only way to access the platforms.

* Apple doesn’t allow side loading. Google makes it less and less viable and so many necessary APIs are moved out of the open Android Sdk and into the gated Play APIs.

* As if to demonstrate the absolute futility of your suggestion, AWS cut off Parler‘s servers.

* Any site need some sort of financial API. How many times have we seen companies like Stripe, GoFundMe, Visa and MasterCard, and even large banks give in to the mob.

* every other required piece of the puzzle will do the same: DNS providers, CDNs, and even the large backbone ISPs. Sorry, bigot, but we’ve decided we won’t be routing your traffic through our exchange.

* Even power companies are privatized in the US. Sorry, just go make your own power grid, right?

Parler only went halfway there. They created a app/website. But, that's not an entire platform (as we see today). An entire platform in this context includes servers, fiber optic networks, routers, etc. If Parler wants to speak on the scale they envision, they can build their own infrastructure to do so. Yes, that's expensive, but it's also no different than the pre-internet era, where similar speech would be relegated to self-published fliers, because no newspaper or TV would carry the message.

Social media created a new type of platform. But people are forgetting that it also created a new and more vicious type of activism, too.

Maybe you could compare AWS to a haulage company, the equivalent of trucks distributing the newspapers. If Parler were to buy their own 'trucks' (servers), would they be able to drive freely on the 'roads' of the Internet? Or would nobody be willing to provide them a connection?

This argument is absurd and I feel in bad faith. We have public roads and you are free to travel on them to distribute your flyers. You still need permission to enter the premises of private owners though if you want to solicit or leave your property (flyer) on their property.

No, they didn't.

Parler set up a web site on AMAZON's platform, and it was subsequently shut down. If they had created their own platform with their own servers, they would still be running today.

What happens when registrars cut them off? No DNS routing for them until they build their own registrar? Will the point at which the segregated internet’s join become a DMZ guarded by both factions?

This entire app, and business, was shut down for a few bad actors. Traditionally you subpoena for info, but cancel culture stepped in again.

I don't think anyone, from Trump to Alex Jones, is asking to be able to force people to follow them on Twitter or youtube. But they should have a right to be there, and talk to people that have chosen to follow them, that's quite a different thing.

It boggles mind that we are trying to keep a high ground on free speech while the rug is being yanked away from our bottoms.

+ Free Speech. Not when you have millions deluded, angry, violent and ready to use any means to incite violence, take down gov, threaten governors and are trigger happy to exercise 2nd amendment rights. I’m terrified of these people.

I get it. Free speech is important, especially when you disagree with someone. This is how society progresses. You can have the free speech still, just make sure you don’t rally up people to take up arms on bogus claims. They’ve had their free speech chances to contest in court, have peaceful debates and be civilized.

r/conservative, as much as you disagree with them, is still ok and fine. They’re respectful for the most part.

My understanding is that in Parler, posts are moderated by a jury of five peers. But if that jury is just as extreme as the poster advocating murdering journalists, what then?

Section 230 doesn't provide a safe harbor for criminal speech like advocating or planning violence. There has to be a second moderation channel to keep that from happening, or Parler should be liable as an accessory for violent crimes planned in the open on its platform.

I'd wash my hands of them if they're that negligent.

I got banned from the Donald subreddit for saying the aclu does a lot of good things. It wasn’t spam. It wasn’t even controversial.

Doublethink is more common with extremists regardless of bent, but what we are seeing is doublethink and eager consumption of propaganda, along with gaslighting the other side and accusing them of exactly the same. It is toxic and wears you down.

My offense? I looked up the bill, which did indeed criminalize some flag burning and was indeed authored by her, and posted that in a comment there, along with the official bill summary and a link to the full bill.

I got banned from /r/conservative for agreeing with Ronald Reagan and the first President Bush on some issues, favoring a market based approach over regulation. I did not point explicitly mention Reagan or Bush, and the moderators nailed me for these far left opinions!

Does "fake news" refer to news stories that are complete made up? Contain mistakes? Or that are true but that you simply don't like? Or does "fake news" refer to the act of baselessly accusing a reasonably researched story that in fact is probably accurate?

I'm not in the US and people are incorporating that term in their everyday language.

I meant that it was exceptionally rare to call anything fake news until some evidence was provided. That trust in journalism has been systematically eroded by President Trump and his party.

I’ve just seen so many online lies I don’t trust anything any more. I am not accusing you of anything.

In other words, the TOS is effectively useless.

We’ve entered new territory. When you look at analogues to this situation, Islamic radicals, mass shooters in America being mostly white men, both of the broader groups (Muslims, white Americans) can easily say those fringe actors are the 0.000001%. Even those that might support the fringe actors in the broader group would still only represent a small percentage.

The rioters in this case, if they are the fringe of the broader Republican base, visually looked significant. This is nothing like ‘oh, yeah that’s just one crazy nut’. In the broader group, the percentage that sympathizes with this fringe is high, with the most official accounting of this number being the actual 75 million Americans that voted for Trump.

We are in no way talking about a fringe imho.

It seems that not many people have been to parler, and very few links to screen shots or other evidence is available.

Unfortunately - and this really is just what usually happens - the noble arguments for free speech get converted into a shield to add respectability to parler and hate speech.

And if the trend continues, more political or even subversive content starts appearing in the sub, at just the angle to take advantage of the blind spots of forum goers.

It’s happening here, I’m seeming that dumb path finding algo for indoctrination playing out over the past three threads.

I'm not personally comfortable with the easy bake radicalizing from that so to speak and is what pushed me over the edge in being okay with the ban. We wouldn't tolerate a place where it was easy to breed other types of extremism why is this any different was my thought.

They’ll translate it as “it’s not that bad”.

“It’s only a few steps away from OANN”

“That means the first bunch of stuff is normal people talking about conservative talking points.”

“Sure, not a place I’d like to hang out, but I’d see why it may need protection even if I may disagree, that’s what I’m trained to do.”

Yeah no.

Parler actively removes people who bring in the “liberal” point of view.

I’ll even grant, that removal by ideology is a necessary tool for political moderation.

But that still means that parler is an echo chamber, amplifying beliefs that the “election was stolen”, “democrats will destroy the country.”

Isn’t this what is happening to conservative voices? Further do you have evidence of this?

Do you know there’s gaming and other non political content on Parler? It was born out of politics so the majority of content is still focused around it.

Why don’t you see it for yourself instead of letting your imagination run wild?

I have been on Parler, briefly to validate all the claims of constant, unabated, hate speech and found nothing of the sort. Will I continue to use it? Unlikely, but I don’t use social media. I wouldn’t call it hotbed of right wing extremists though.

Basically, a lot of folks are asking: Why are we censored, when they aren't ? Why the extraordinary double standards? When someone talks about peaceful protesting and is banned for incitement for violence, why is someone calling for explicit murder allowed on Twitter (with accompanying graphical images).

Apply the rules equally, or not at all.

You can see the “violent few” drag and beat an officer to death. You can see and hear the surrounding mob cheer themselves on. So how many people need to witness a murder in progress before doing anything about it?

Yougov showed 45% support among Republicans: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-electio....

PBS/Marist poll, only 18%: https://thehill.com/homenews/news/533452-poll-18-percent-of-....

I don't see either side making any effect towards compromise.

At this point I have to ask, what compromise do you suggest be made to these people? How do you compromise with people that were shouting "Hang Mike Pence" in front of some home-made gallows?

You know, actually listen to and address their complaints instead of just saying 'you're a crazy conspiracy nut.'

Believe it or not the elections law wasn’t created in October 2020; they’re a well-regulated and secure process. As evinced by no one being able to present any evidence of widespread fraudulent behavior even in states with GOP legislatures and Secretaries of State.

There's been reports of thousands of votes not being counted or added to the transmitted counts in various jurisdictions. That means at least part of the system broke down.

There is ample statutory and regulatory provision in every state for processes that confirm every aspect of what you are questioning. It’s as if you know nothing about elections or election systems.

If someone is able to report the wrong number of total votes, it means all the controls in the process weren't followed or simply doesn't work. The burden of proof is on the people holding the election to prove it's valid. So far, 'certifying' results is a rubber stamp, there's no actual certification being done.

But it looks like this did happen? One example[1].

> You know, actually listen to and address their complaints instead of just saying 'you're a crazy conspiracy nut.'

There were attempts to address their complaints. Re ounts and audits took place. Those recounts and audits didn't change the result or uncover any further evidence of fraud. This didn't align with Trump's claims so his base dismissed it as lies. The interesting thing coming out of this is that they're now turning on the rest of the republican party who accept what their own observers are telling them.

I'd also like to point out that this was all happening while Trump was privately pressuring the Georgia secretary of state to 'find' him enough votes to win[2].

Uncovering fraud was never the motivation here, it's a cynical attempt at destroying trust in the election process in order to corrupt the result.

[1]https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-electio...

[2]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/10/trump-call-g...

The complaints were not heard without first attempting to call to shame an entire group of 75mil people.

And your second source can be read a different way: “find the votes that existed that you shred”, he’s not saying make up the votes, he’s saying find the ones he believes they fraudulently shred. Part of the divide in this country is taking something like this, twisting the words to make a sensational title that’s then thrown at every moderate or conservative. Think about how much this has happened over the last 4 years.

How can this ever be read as "find the votes that existed that you shred"? Especially considering that he goes on to claim he won by "hundreds of thousands" of votes. Shouldn't he be interested in uncovering that massive fraud, therefore supporting his assertions that it actually happened?

> Part of the divide in this country is taking something like this, twisting the words to make a sensational title that’s then thrown at every moderate or conservative. Think about how much this has happened over the last 4 years.

Come on, Fox News has been doing this since the 90s. They literally posted an article suggesting their base drive their trucks into protestors[1].

> Here’s a compilation of liberal protesters getting pushed out of the way by cars and trucks,” wrote the article’s author. “Study the technique; it may prove useful in the next four years.

Those poor, innocent, conservatives being attacked by the thugs in the mainstream liberal media.

Note that Fox and Trump have pushed these people so far that even Fox has lost control of them, and are now branded "traitors" for anything other than tacit support of their worst behaviour. They were literally calling to hang their own Vice President just last week.

[1] https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-quietly-deletes-artic...

Your unconscious bias against Trump is what is defining your interpretation of that exchange. A person not trying to find something wrong with everything he says will interpret it the way I did. Using your same logic, if he won by hundreds of thousands then why does 11,780 matter enough to commit a felony?

> Come on, Fox News has been doing this since the 90s. They literally posted an article suggesting their base drive their trucks into protestors[1].

And many have moved on from Fox News as a result. But the same can't be said for the left and CNN. Further, your still not tending to the divide, just jumping onto the problem and saying "me too".

> Those poor, innocent, conservatives being attacked by the thugs in the mainstream liberal media.

Great job > Here’s a compilation of liberal protesters getting pushed out of the way by cars and trucks,” wrote the article’s author. “Study the technique; it may prove useful in the next four years.

Isn't this promoting violence? Why was the author not banned from the world?

> Note that Fox and Trump have pushed these people so far that even Fox has lost control of them, and are now branded "traitors" for anything other than tacit support of their worst behaviour. They were literally calling to hang their own Vice President just last week.

Quit pointing fingers. You want to blame Fox (again with Fox) and ignore the yelling and screaming the left did over the last 4 years. You want to ignore the forced conversions (that have always historically failed). You want to ignore cancel culture. And again, the left wants to take statements and twist them to make some outlandish point. It's only going to divide us more.

You made up a quote, putting words in his mouth. I quoted the man directly. Words that he uttered in a call to a Republican Secretary of State, in the middle of an audit of signatures that the Secretary of State had ordered at Trump's request.

> Using your same logic, if he won by hundreds of thousands then why does 11,780 matter enough to commit a felony?

In an amazing coincidence, 11,780 votes just happened to be the number of he needed to win the election. I'm sure you can come up with an explanation of how he just happened to randomly choose that number out of all the other ones.

My assertion is that he did not win at all, certainly not by hundreds of thousands of votes and that he was lying, as evidenced by the fact that he expresses no interest in having those fraudulently discounted votes found and that indeed no evidence whatsoever that he won by hundreds of thousands of votes has been produced.

> And many have moved on from Fox News as a result. But the same can't be said for the left and CNN. Further, your still not tending to the divide, just jumping onto the problem and saying "me too".

They moved on from Fox news to an even more extreme platform in OAN...

> Quit pointing fingers. You want to blame Fox (again with Fox) and ignore the yelling and screaming the left did over the last 4 years.

The left did not cause Trump to reject the results of the election, whip his base into a frenzy and send them to the capitol. Aren't you supposed to be the party of personal responsibility? "You made me do this" also hasn't been considered a very good excuse since domestic abuse went out of fashion in the 60s.

> You want to ignore the forced conversions (that have always historically failed).

I absolutely agree with you that gay conversion therapy is horrendous and should be outlawed.

> You want to ignore cancel culture.

I think there are discussions to be had about cancel culture, but that's not what is being screamed about. Right now Parler is the kid in the sandbox that threw sand in everyone's eyes and then got upset that no one wanted to play with them.

> And again, the left wants to take statements and twist them to make some outlandish point. It's only going to divide us more.

Your lack of introspection is getting absurd at this point. The right made concerted attempts to portray Obama as a Muslim anti-christ who wasn't even a US citizen. One of the people attempting to throw doubt on Obama's citizenship was Trump himself. What you're annoyed about is the fact you and your friends are no longer getting away with dog-whistling in an attempt to escaping the consequences of your actions:

When asked to condemn white supremacists Trump instead said:

> "The Proud Boys? Stand back and stand by, but I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about Antifa and the Left…,"

To the rioters who had occupied the capitol after hours of inciteful speech by Trump and his associates: > "This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace, so go home, we love you, you’re very special."

These rioters had recently been calling for Trump's own Vice President, Mike Pence, to be hanged, they had bludgeoned an officer to death, and a woman had been killed while attempting to reach the members of congress in hiding. I'm sure that woman just wanted a nice chat with Mike Pence, or perhaps AOC. Sadly we'll never know.

Could you provide the exact quote for inciting the violence?

Then on the day Congress was supposed to confirm the result they organised a rally of the people they'd stirred up and spent hours telling that they needed to "fight". The closest thing to a direct order was Giuliani during that rally:

> “Over the next ten days, we get to see the machines that are crooked, the ballots that are fraudulent, and if we're wrong, we will be made fools of. But if we're right, a lot of them will go to jail.” Mr Giuliani then suddenly yelled: "Let's have trial by combat!" to lacklustre cheers from the crowd.[1]

Despite the apparently lacklustre response, Trump then went on to direct the mob towards the Capitol where we all know what happened.

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-electio...

Well, we don't both know that. What you're offering is an opinion, your interpretation of things amounts to some sort of incitement. My opinion is this is a coordinated overreaction by the media to demonize a public figure. Nothing new about that, and offending someone's sensibilities isn't criminal.

What quote? I listened to the same call you posted. So which quote did I make up?

> In an amazing coincidence, 11,780 votes just happened to be the number of he needed to win the election. I'm sure you can come up with an explanation of how he just happened to randomly choose that number out of all the other ones.

OK, but the actual number of votes is irrelevant. It's still a felony requesting any fraud, not an amount over a certain threshold. So the actual number listed doesn't particularly matter, just the interpretation of the statements.

> They moved on from Fox news to an even more extreme platform in OAN...

Don't group the extremists and republicans together. Every single republican I know reads almost every news source. Most sticking to whatever news app is on their phone. So no, not OAN. Any source playing on your emotions for views should be called into question, regardless of which end of the spectrum your on. Both sides do this, the left and the right. But when it's pointed out on the left, nothing is done to stop the sensationalism.

> The left did not cause Trump to reject the results of the election, whip his base into a frenzy and send them to the capitol. Aren't you supposed to be the party of personal responsibility? "You made me do this" also hasn't been considered a very good excuse since domestic abuse went out of fashion in the 60s.

Actually this recently started with the lack of voter ID laws or enforcement, some years ago. This started the mistrust in elections, which is dangerous (and you see why now). If secure voting disenfranchises voters, then lets figure out how not to. Requiring you prove you can vote should be possible for the US given the resources we have.

> I absolutely agree with you that gay conversion therapy is horrendous and should be outlawed.

Sure! But not what I'm talking about. This type of forced conversion is the ones leaving moderates out of the discussion for fear of being canceled by the left. That's the forced conversion I'm talking about, become one of us or find a new life.

> Right now Parler is the kid in the sandbox that threw sand in everyone's eyes and then got upset that no one wanted to play with them.

How so? Have you been on Parler? Do you believe there are not examples of extremism on all platforms? Perhaps the discussion should be around some sort of regulated speech flagging engine so this sort of moderation isn't difficult? They do have a moderation team, and perhaps it's lacking. But in my brief experience with it, it's not the hate bed the left is painting it as.

> Your lack of introspection is getting absurd at this point. The right made concerted attempts to portray Obama as a Muslim anti-christ who wasn't even a US citizen. One of the people attempting to throw doubt on Obama's citizenship was Trump himself. What you're annoyed about is the fact you and your friends are no longer getting away with dog-whistling in an attempt to escaping the consequences of your actions:

Where exactly is my introspection lacking? Or what have I failed to introspect about? Are you assuming that I am a republican and applying other assumptions about my beliefs? I don't agree with that violence on Jan 6, and I don't agree that attacking where someone came from is right either. I also don't agree with the BLM / Antifa violence, which just happened again last weekend. If you want to "attack" someone, "attack" them in a formal debate. Stop the underhanded politics. Protest peacefully. Both sides.

Trump and his circle of political enablers were, and this is the result. They should be shamed and continue to be shamed until and after legal actions against them are successful.

PS this “75 million” phrasing is utter propaganda, let’s talk about 82 million people rejecting this dangerous president and him continuing to make a case that his re-election is somehow more legitimate than a Biden win.

The president and his lawyers making a claim without presenting evidence is not grounds for overturning an election, full stop. They’re the ones who are lying, fomenting insurrection, and deserve to be shamed.

The people who believe them are unfortunate.

Did any ineligible voter cast a vote in your anecdotes? No? Hmm.

https://www.quora.com/Is-voting-anonymous-in-the-United-Stat...

It’s interesting that you were adamant about fraud not happening, yet didn’t know the actual argument. Further not knowing our elections are anonymous shows that you’re just arguing a point you don’t know. This is what I meant by the left not listening. The assumption is the right is “uneducated” yet here we are explaining what the real problem is while reeducating you.

You raised a question about the rosters which are by definition not anonymous, being a list of names. To show fraud you would need to show evidence that someone cast a vote while not on the roster or incorrectly on the roster.

The registration, chain of custody and observer rules prevent this from happening at a large scale.

I know this is going to go against the media narrative about how reprehensible the riot was, and the reverence we must pay to Congress, but for the entirety of 2005-2020, Congress had record low approval ratings.

Last week we just visually saw the reality of storming congress (you may not even know it’s possible in your perceptions until you literally see it).

Well, people just saw it’s possible. Either base can find a lot more reasons to rile themselves up and go down there. So, I really don’t buy that Americans will by and large condemn the act, especially on the Republican side. Those polls are for sure under-tallied, Congress (and now particularly, a Democratic congress) is way too hated by the agitated right-wing, the once war mongering Bush nationalists, to the reimagined tea-party anti-Obama coalition, to the re-imagined anti-authoritarian Trump cohort, to the newly re-imagined ___________ (militant?).

Not a fringe my dear friends, an evolving force.

that is, your terror and mistrust are misplaced. let people talk, even disgustingly. let the world change (progress) in response. that's much better than bottled-up anger that explodes unpredictably and fractally.

Obviously these are all hypothetical scenarios and questions, but if the mob a few days ago had any aim and organization they would have clearly seized our government and they're being whipped into a frenzy by things like Parler to try it again on the 17th so I'm told.

I don't like our current system, but the slow decay gives us the ability to work towards the aims which you have stated on more preferable terms.

The sitting president directly used its office, power, platform to try to stop a democratic process, and launch/command an attack against a different branch of the government (the legislature). Even if that attack was purely symbolic. (... though calling it symbolic while people died is not entirely right.)

A radicalized subgroup of the fanaticized Trump cult used force to thwart a democratic process they deemed fake/undemocratic. And they managed to successfully pause that process for considerable amount of time.

Especially the stark contrast between the interaction of police and Trump cultists compared to police and BLM protesters points to an other serious problem.

...

That powerless group of people includes the sitting president, a bunch of senators and representatives, and they had a very very real chance of winning the election.

That same powerless group, at least a part of it that choose to do so, managed to basically stroll into the Capitol, loot it, and go away unharmed. (They got tear gassed eventually.) And this group included an elected state representative, various police officers, veterans, lawyers, and other not exactly powerless members of society.

This is about status, which is about perception. Conservative ideology is about social order, the status quo. This 'powerless group' wants to maintain their power, despite the results of the democratic process - which is designed to measure exactly that peacefully.

This is very much a thing. It's a serious ongoing thing. It has been ongoing forever though. And it's going to go on for ... well, probably forever too, but that only means other will have to expend energy to actively push that status quo toward a more fair equilibrium (or set-point).

politicians, however, are in such a position, though even that is a relatively remote possibility. luckily trump had no chance of retaining the presidency, by force or otherwise, mostly because he's too self-absorbed, and frankly stupid, to effectively consolidate power like xi jinping or putin did.

As a non American coming back from the holidaysplaying catch up on all this,

When did BLM/Antifa start liking to exercise their 2nd amendment rights by the millions? I know a lot of them were but I don't think it was anywhere more than thousands.

That's exactly what our tyrannical Russian government says about those who don't like Putin being in power for 20+ years. Thus, they limit our rights for free speech online, prosecute for extremism, deny us rights to peacefully gather and protest.

If you Americans go down this path any further, you'll too find yourself living under the tyrannical dictatorship no better than ours.

Oh, unfortunately, unlike you, we don't have 2nd amendment rights, so actually rebelling is harder. So I suggest you clinging to your guns as strong as you can: all points that you are going to need them.

The US government has nukes, but they still got their asses handed to them in Vietnam and struggled in Afghanistan and Iraq. It's true that if the feds truly want to squash an uprising they have the means to do it. But do they have the will to do it? At what cost? I can imagine a scenario where they'd be willing to use enough force to subdue unarmed citizens by not enough to subdue an armed uprising, which could escalate to civil war.

In short: there exists a scenario in which the second amendment enables the citizens to resist the government to an extent that they wouldn't be able to otherwise. Whether this is a good or bad thing is something you can decide for yourself.

Now assume half the military itself is sympathetic to the “rebels” and the government would have a difficult time containing any real insurgency.

The US government has made a lot of enemies over the decades, many of whom would be more than willing to provide modern weapons and explosives to the insurgents.

Though the US overwhelmed the Iraqi military quickly and decisively, it was a decade of constant roadside bombs, made with materials easily smuggled into the country and implemented with minimal training, that eventually wore down US morale and willingness to fight.

Finally, the US military is such a big business here, a good percentage of the population has had professional military training and combat experience.

That being said, there are, of course, a bunch of other examples of armed conflicts with the government that do not turn out well for the "citizens" when the government decides to violently pursue its goals (1985 MOVE bombing, Waco, Ruby Ridge, etc). But, I guess my point with all of this is that, for better or worse, the proliferation of guns in American society certainly does have an effect on the decision matrix of the government (even if the "citizen militia" ultimately does not stand a chance against a determined government response...

This is precisely the intended effect. Sure some wahoos think they could fully overthrow the military but for most it is about changing the calculus from "tyrannical takeover of unarmed populace with minimal resistance" to "uh oh, they are fighting back". This results in much more of a cause to rally around, feed into rebel propaganda, win over military members to the "just cause" which of course tips the balance, etc.

We saw what only a few hundreds of folks could do when parts of the normal defense are strangely absent. Imagine even a 30% defection.

If it was ever at that point, the military would not exist in its current form.

The "military" is not a monolith that would just suppress a revolt if it was that size and scope that it needed to. The Civil War in the U.S. had almost all of its Confederate soldiers come from the U.S. Army. The current leadership corps in the U.S. military is disproportionately Southern and conservative. They're not going to be going against their countrymen if it came to that, and no one is going to be nuking their own cities.

The protest wasn't the issue. Storming the capitol is the problem.

> If you Americans go down this path any further, you'll too find yourself living under the tyrannical dictatorship no better than ours.

In this case, we are trying to prevent a tyrannical dictator.

I do agree though that we are possibly entering a damned if we do, damned if we don't territory.

Andy gno and timcast IRL has been streaming news on these attacks and riots for just as many many months.

The people that did this have been ignored for a very long time and been watching government do nothing while their lives get ripped apart by a virus and a mob of people calling them racist for being white.

You people dont seem to understand you are just as bubbled as the right is.

Whatever delusional "wrongs" the Right feels they've suffered from the government doesn't come close to comparing to that. In a true Godwin's Law type fashion, even attempting a comparison might be enough to end the argument.

I didn't. You did.

I specifically said Portland, and yes, many of the people there involved were acting under the pretense of BLM but imo it was mostly just black bloc antifa being antifa. Portland antifa groups have a known and consistent history of this behavior, they've exploited BLM to amplify their attacks and they've used the support they received for doing so to embolden their actions.

They have literally stalked and murdered trump supporters in the street, they have shot people, and they have blinded and maimed anyone that gets in their way.

Blinding and maiming anyone that gets in their way sounds like they've blinded or maimed maybe 30k people in Portland by now?

There are no trials. Reinoehl was shot dead by police.

Blinding is commonly attempted with high powered lasers. They aim them at police and anyone filming after they speak code words to tell you to stop filming the crime about to take place.

They're maim anyone that refuses to bow down and say blacklives matter if confronted. It's huge bully tactics.

The whataboutisms/false equivalences from Trump supporters is annoying. I'm surprised you didn't bring up Hilary's emails, but I digress.

No one said the protest on the mall was a problem until Trump incited them to occupy the Capitol after priming the pump for months. Where are the politicians inciting the Portland protesters to insurrection?

I didn't say you did, I was simply presenting the facts and reasons these people have for their actions I don't condone or agree with them. I understand them, I've followed along on both sides of this and nobody is talking to anyone, the left is calling people racist for even questioning them and cancelling leftist media on the regular for being "alt right" whatever the hell that means.

I'm just not surprised this is the outcome. What else can you expect?

It's not whataboutism, I'm not using my example to say they have the right to do what they did, what I'm pointing out is that you can't have sustained >100 day riots in portland with the government not being allowed to intervene and expect anything fucking less than an amplified repeat.

Do people really believe anything those fake news spewing idiots say?

Andy gno is just a raw twitter feed full of riot porn. I don't think he's "fake news" and I'm glad he exists.

Tyrannical governments will always find a way to abuse the legal system.

Most people would be in favour of laws against corruption, but corruption charges are one of the most common ways that autocrats use to suppress opposition.

The problem now is your tech overlords, who have shown that they are very willing to silence and deplatform their political opponents, and who seems closely aligned with your new government. Good luck voting them out next time.

No, it really isn't, and this fear-mongering rhetoric is extremely unhelpful. There is bi-partisan support for antitrust actions towards these companies. If trump's (former?) followers are serious about breaking up big tech, they should stop repeating trump's baseless lies about how big tech is some sort of satanic radical leftist communist conspiracy, and get it on these bi-partisan lawsuits.

No it's actually the opposite -- by design, both parties are far too greedy and selfish and disorganized to do that on their own.

Perhaps we can talk again about this in 5 years. I sincerely hope you are right, actually, but the realist in me begs to differ.

Also I don't see how pandering to the government is always a win-win situation for big businesses in the US. The tech companies have their own interests which do not always align with either political party.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that the US Constitution certainly doesn't rely on the lousy assumption that all winning politicians will be honest and all private companies will be "responsible", by some definition of responsible. It's more about leveraging self-interest to preserve a check and balance at all levels so that not a single power runs wild.

A tech platform doesn't have political opponents.

And there were no issues with voting ( there were some on a very small scale where most seem to be an attempt for Trump).

Well, yes. That's why holding people accountable for the consequences of their speech is considered by many countries to be the right course of action...

Not all progress is positive.

I'm not going to have the argument that people have been having for hundreds of years about where to draw the line, but I will point at this QAnon nonsense, and suggest that it highlights how malleable downtrodden people are, and how dangerous allowing it might be.

This is a good point. When Trump came to power populism was in full effect. There was Bernie on one side and Trump on the other of the same populism coin. Globalism, progress, etc... have left large swaths of the population behind.

I think many of these people know that QAnon spouts nonsense, but they are desperate in their personal situations. Healthcare is bankrupting people, they can't afford to send their kids to college if they can even afford kids, and housing has become out of reach for many. Until the downtrodden are addressed, QAnon isn't going anywhere.

QAnon, fascism, conservative ideology all have "social order" in common. QAnon of course drives it up to 11+, it's a full blown doomsday cult, with Trump being some kind of figurehead. And there's always something that threatens the status quo, their place in society. Immigrants, globalization, China, muslims, mexicans, antifa, gays, transgender frogs, liberal elites, uppity n....s.

Recommended long, but very insightful video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44

Naturally facts don't matter. You mentioned globalism, which indeed displaced many people from jobs, but this has always been ongoing. A hundred years ago this change was even more drastic. But back then this wasn't "weaponized". (Then the unions came, but then they too faded as technological changes dispersed big groups of homogeneous workers.) And now modern political parties try to play on these identities. (Mostly through candidates, as they locally present themselves, and naturally try to mobilize people.)

There's always someone who preferred the good old days, positive is subjective, or at least, subject to certain criteria, and even then, it's often multiple generations that pass before we know one way or another.

Then nothing's really changed. Before social media people would write letters to the editor or be interviewed on the radio or TV. Publication of said speech was always at the sole discretion of the platform holder.

With TV and newsprint, we had no platform at all, unless the media company shared our views or deemed our speech newsworthy. Even for innocuous speech.

With Twitter and Facebook, almost all of us have a platform that reaches potentially millions of eyeballs. That didn't exist 20 years ago - back then, we'd have to self-publish newsletters, or literally speak from a soap box in the town square.

That said, it is a balancing act, and I'm not certain where that balance point is (and it possibly moves over time too). But, the posts that have been shared from Parler were possibly illegal - they were planning armed sedition at best and a coup at worst - both of which are very much illegal and prosecutable. It wasn't just unsavory speech - it was illegal speech, that Parler itself refused to moderate.

Twitter still have plenty of calls to violence that are still up. As an example this one shared by tens of thousands of people.

https://twitter.com/rezaaslan/status/1307107507131875330?s=2...

Right now you could as easily make an argument that the real danger to the democratic institutions are being lead by the big tech platforms. Either they become a publisher with responsibilities or they allow for this to happen.

Check out the Paradox of Tolerance, it’s very relevant to deciding on “free speech with / without limits”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

What proactive tolerances are we working with? Because the standard on A-A-G seems to be "we're only going to tolerate things we mostly agree with" - which is a faux tolerance. If they can't tolerate the speech of a sitting president then we haven't really reached the point where the paradox of tolerance is at play. That is routine intolerance. To be tolerant there has to be an element of putting up with things they genuinely disagree with.

People who refer to it hypocritically pretend to have a higher moral ground than their opponents. In fact, they are more or less the same. Truly tolerant people should win the other side with their virtue, and yes, it insanely harder. But it's not hypocrisy.

Note that this isn't hyperbole for rhetorical effect, that is literally the kind of intolerance that the paradox of tolerance is based on, and seems to be what you're advocating, by extension.

“Ignorance breeds fear. We fear those things we don’t understand. If we don’t put a lid on that fear and keep that fear in check, that fear in turn will breed hatred because we hate those things that frighten us.

“If we don’t keep that hatred in check, that hatred in turn will breed destruction. We want to destroy those things that we hate. Why? Because they frighten us. But guess what? They may have been harmless and we were just ignorant.”

https://lanthorn.com/61539/news/news-daryl-davis-lecture-at-...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/features/klan.ht...

Quite frankly I’m finding it hard to respond.

> Truly tolerant people should win the other side with their virtue, and yes, it insanely harder.

Popper does a really good job explaining why this is not possible, and therefore tolerance without limit is not possible.

I’d prefer tolerance without limit to be the optimal strategy, but I do need some convincing that it’s possible.

Do you mind adding constructive criticism so we can work on a better mental model for tolerance and free speech?

So, how do tolerant people fight the intolerant? Maybe, we have some similar precedents from the past. Turning the other cheek principle [2] and nonresistance movement [3] have worked out quite well for Gandhi. Educate, explain, suffer injustice, yet, stay true to your principles. That's the way to the better future for humanity.

(I'm not claiming to be a fully tolerant person myself. I'm just calling out hypocrites who pretend to be ones)

[1]: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/toleranc...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turning_the_other_cheek

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonresistance

He also says that you can’t wake a person pretending to sleep.

I enjoy learning about the tactics used by non violent approaches - and it has shown a realistic and clever tactical approach to your political reality.

Gandhi’s approach was always about both - morals and practical tactics.

Take Mandela- he adapted Gandhi’s approach because he realized that the approach was contingent on his operating environment.

So acknowledging Gandhi means acknowledging Popper.

You can’t convince someone who is only deigning to speak to you, or worse - sees you as a chance to broadcast their poison while appearing legitimate.

Bad faith arguments are not solvable in the modern public squares.

Tolerating them may be better for humanity but it takes to long for those folks to disappear from the gene pool. And, they are armed due to the 2nd Amendment, which Gandhi didn't have to deal with. Sure, guns exist around the world but they are in massive abundance in the US.

And I don't even want to touch the subject or very recent far more destructive mobs which not only were not silenced, but instead were celebrated and praised for their principled position

I don't think you know who Gandhi was.

If you think that tolerance doesn't work then just don't call yourself tolerant, it's quite simple. Also your remarks about the gene pool might be interpreted as a call for genocide, so I'd be careful with that.

> There is a word for that in the English language: hypocrisy.

It's not hypocrisy, it's cognitive dissonance.

Half of this thread in a nutshell is loyalists who have a mediocre grasp on history.

Our government was established on founding principles that have been eroded and usurped beyond recognition. The loyalists cannot imagine that one day our elites in government - who care nothing about the people - will do something that even they think crosses a grotesque line. By that time, it will be too late. The power they've given the government in order to remove the bad orange man will not be given up without a fight.

Yes, I particularly love when people are trying to appeal to history and justify hate speech laws and Antifa to say that without them, a second Hitler could raise to power. I consider myself to be lacking in education, but damn.

> - Speech without a platform isn't speech at all

These seem to me to be in conflict: if I don't have access to a particular platform (let's say, the New York Times), do I have access to freedom of speech?

First, if having a platform in a specific company's garden means speech and forcing someone to shout on a street corner to only a handful of people is silencing them, then how can they provide different size platforms to me versus anyone else? Is limiting my post to the millionth spot down the list any different then making me shout on a street corner to the same number of people? If they limit the view of my posts to just a handful of people rather than the front page, I"m being just as silenced as being forced to shout on a street corner. If they provide one person a spot on their front page and not me, am I being silenced? I demand my time on the front page or top search results. Are you going to regulate how companies are permitted to design their algorithm? Would you disallow algorithms that buried certain groups?

By designing the algorithms that put some people on the front page and not others, they already have made editorial decisions and are silencing people. So my question to any of the people who are against the companies not allowing some speech, why are you not against the algorithms that already silence people?

And second, if twitter can't deny users due to the type of speech, are christian forums forced to allow themselves to be overrun by 4chan type atheists or members of another religion?

These are a couple just off the top of my head, it's easy to come up with examples that show the original posters two points are in contradiction.

What if you're actually wrong and the other person is right? I'm sure it has happened before and will again.

How would you want to be treated if the roles were reversed?

Regardless; censoring, which is essentially what you're doing, can only push people further into their corners.

Much of what is now generally considered capital T true was once extremely controversial.

And censoring will always come back to chew your head off since you're hiding rather than solving the problem.

This is the back door to authoritarianism. This basic premise would allow the government to reach in and force companies to associate against their will. This power will be abused.

> Speech without a platform isn't speech at all

This is utter nonsense. By this logic, speech without access to a bullhorn or an editorial board isn’t speech at all.

You have a right to speak without being prosecuted by the government. Pretending that you have a right to a Twitter account or an equivalent thereof is both silly, it’s incredibly entitled.

Nah, OP has a point - even if it's easy to misinterpret. Just as you mentioned government coercion about free association, speech means that "those people" are free to start their parallel society, their own journals, newspapers, forums and whatnot.

It means that speech as a right has to include the right for the capability of building, having, and operating a platform, not a right for a guaranteed audience.

This ignores that private companies are made up of people, and those people have opinions and moral compasses.

If some large number of your employees don't want to be working on a product that provides a platform for speech they believe is reprehensible, what do you do?

If you ignore them, some of them -- perhaps high value employees -- quit. Others, who maybe don't have great job mobility, stick around, but feel miserable, because their job makes them do unethical things. Not a great outcome.

Is free speech for all more important than refusing to sell to people you believe are doing something unethical with your product?

I honestly don't know the answer to that question. My gut reaction is to celebrate Parler effectively getting kicked off the internet, but I do worry that the long-term consequences of doing things like this will haunt us as a society.

For the system to work, no one should believe this one position determines the course of the entire government, but since the 1980s you would be a fool not to.

Given the office of president is out of check and it gets to apply discretion to (in this example) how media companies will be treated both in actual law and whether cases are run, it is only a matter of time before a president builds his route to dictator. Members of whichever party puts him in will be happier for a decade at most, then it's soylent green for everyone.

Sure, they feel persecuted for the deplatforming but that's not really reasonable - we know there's less reason in their community than there needs to be (well it's reasoning based on a funnel of lies they've been manipulated with over decades via Fox News, Republican party, etc), but it wasn't their toy to begin with - the other big kids/adults/tech companies were just happy to let them use them, so they don't have the right to having access to the toys that aren't theirs - and it's unhealthy to make them believe they do, which is essentially coddling for purpose of trying to stop them from crying or ending their temper tantrum - but then it prevents them from developing boundaries.

This is a complex situation, it will unfold how it does, I just hope current leadership is adequate and that forces that can be mobilized if necessary are adequately trained to try to reduce the loss of life if the uprising continues - or arguably terrorist acts - due to disbelieving that the election was fair, hypocritically it would be considered fair if their choice won.

Similarly, FOX News is under no obligation to broadcast "all opinions." There is no real distinction in this case.

One can always yell on the street corner, that's your (limited) platform.

If company grows so big that its use is so common - like a street corner - such platform should be available for all - and all should be accounted for their speech also. Platform is a platform, shouldn't policy people around - that is the job of ... police.

Do you wonder why now we have accounts blocked, but when there were people on the streets attacking policy I haven't heard of any account on facebook/twitter being blocked?

It is because platform wasn't free from politics like it should be, companies have preferences and they will block one political view and allow another - this should not be the case if the use of given platform is monopolistic (or duopolistic: twitter-facebook). If you grow you should give up some of your power, the question is at what scale it should happen.

(*duct/duck - delete as appropriate)

Same like how public utility companies cannot shut off your power or water because they don't like you.

There's a line where continued operation becomes aiding and abetting, and it's also clear the content of that site represented a clear and present danger in the short term.

This isn't a theoretical discussion. This is a direct consequence of an attempted coup.

You got it backwards. The Internet was build in such a way everyone could easily host their own platform. However due to companies like Amazon using questionable and monopolistic tactics the Internet is now build in such a way it's going to be very hard to go around these companies.

> This is a direct consequence of an attempted coup.

While a disgrace, riots and pillaging can hardly be called a coup. Read about the 2016 Turkish coup attempt to see what a real coup (attempt) looks like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta... . Just like hard wind is not a hurricane, this wasn't a coup.

The President of the United States has spent the past several weeks trying to get anyone and everyone to: throw our legitimate votes, conjure new illegal votes, getting the Vice President to reject electors, getting the Senate to reject electors, sharing doctored videos, telling his supporters that they need to hold traitors accountable, telling his supporters to March in the capital and show strength.

Yeah, those rioters did not effect a coup, or even come close. But it is definitely true that someone is attempting a coup.

Just because Trump is not capable of seeing that he lost doesn't mean he tried a coup, like the gp said, it is just a stronger wind, not a hurricane.

But they did have some kind of force. Enough to storm the capitol. With a noose, zip ties and cries to hang people in the line of succession.

While the President agitated them and then watched on monitors.

> A "coup," shorthand for "coup d'état," is broadly characterized by Merriam-Webster as a "sudden decisive exercise of force in politics," but particularly the "violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group."

Civil unrest definitely does not qualify as "sudden decisive exercise of force". Now if Trump had declared a state of emergency because of the unrest and then use the emergency laws to arrest political opponents, now that would have been a coup.

I think we can all agree that if Trump succeeded, a large number of people would call it a coup and they would be right.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_revolution#

Revelotion != coup.

Coups is done by a small but capable force, they would need to take both Capitol and Pentagon at least (and I mean not just shoot everyone there, but persuade those in control to give it up or turn them).

How do you envision those that raided capitol could take power of US? All they could do is just sit there and wait for special forces shoot them one by one.

Coup wasn't even considered, most probably what they did is plant malicious software on laptops/servers there and I think the real threat will be seen only few months later.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coups_and_coup_attempt...

But sure, ignore all the stuff that contradicts your argument to minimise the impact of an assault on democratic institutions.

You are right. It was a disgrace and a very unserious attempt, but the aim was clearly a coup.

Winds don’t have aims and goals. That crowd went there to stop the process of congress affirming President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. That’s what makes it a coup attempt. If only successfull and well organized coups would count what would be the meaning of the term “coup attempt”?

Just because they botched the implementation doesn't lessen the intent.

While I agree the physical attempt was weak. Parler was literally hyping up about killing multiple politicians ( eg. Planting the head of the VP on a tree).

Additionally, they got really far, up to the chamber where they hid. If they would have breached that chamber, the coup could have succeeded ( eg. No Pelosi/Pence/Biden/..)

I severely underestimated the talks on Parler until I saw the evidence and Amazon banned them.

As a reference, the coup on 06/01 is very similar to this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch

Also, the 50 lawsuits without any sufficient evidence to throw out legitimate votes and trying to win by in person peer pressure doesn't belong in any western democracy.

This was a coup. A failed coup is still a coup.

( Belgian )

But you can make your own software stack, from the ground up if needed.

I mean this is HN, where people think dropbox is easily cloned over a weekend (it's just rsync and tftp), twitter employs 10 times as many people as needed since it really only take a few dozen, etc. And, the free market plus private corporations are part of the natural order of the world, why weren't they the 11th commandment God etched on the tablets given to Abraham?

Quit moaning on a web forum about how a non-government entity must accommodate your chat needs, and actually make your own. Or go old school and print all the crap you want to distribute. Last I checked the Constitution didn't guarantee your access to social media. Can't really say the Founding Fathers original intent was that you can hit the like button on some post hosted by a private corporation, no matter what.

Without water you'll die. Without the facts that lady got herself killed the other day.

“the more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it.”

This clear and present danger was obvious, and places the imperative on supporting services to question whether they want to aid and abet sedition.

But anyway, there are no social media monopolies. We have Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, iMessage, Discord, Signal, etc, etc, and it goes on and on. They’re also very segmented, Facebook is huge but it’s almost irrelevant to kids and young adults. New services pop up regularly because barriers to entry are incredibly low and segmentation is so high.

For some reason the fact that Parker is a cesspit doesn’t get mentioned. Perhaps because people here rightly haven’t been to it and are being intellectually honest and not decrying something without evidence.

Twitter and Facebook have recently gone to court because of their blatant censorship, editing, and banning or speakers for having differing opinions. They are no longer a distributed publishing houses free. They are now editors and are to be held accountable for their actions and the actions of others on their sites.

I believe that if we add one limit to the liberty of speech and we'll have thrown the baby out with the bath water.

Just so we're clear fascism definition "Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe."

I'd prefer to speak solely on the point of human liberties. And just so we're clear, you can see the differences of civil rights and human liberties which are naturally inherent to all people. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/civil_liberties "Congress shall make no law" - This is the first Amendment of your Liberties, and regardless of the reasoning, changing them will only trade 1 evil for a worse one.

The way it is now is that all may do as they wish... with lawful consequences unless protected by the your rights and liberties. To be clear what I mean is that if you cause damages and there are victims of the "crime" then you should be held accountable. The problem we are facing today is that so many people have those their integrity as to make some people regret having rights and liberties. But it's a slippery slope, imagine on the far side of the extreme where the fed comes to your home in the middle of the night with guns and cameras in tote and force you to say something against your will. That is inherently against your liberty (freedom of speech), would you give this up because someone else said something you don't like?

In my opinion all media should be completely and totally decentralized... a bit like bitcoin. What this means is that no one should be able to control media... not even the federal institutions (especially not them). Fascists and neonazis... well they can all be ousted on decentralized networks for all I care. Every news/media/message should be accountable, but should not be controlled. If someone claims or says something that causes damages it should be accounted for, but there should be no control over it from any outside force.

In China every website, every video, every message has what can be referred to as an OID, in software these can be used as public universal identifiers and can be traced back to a source. The problem with China is that their fascist federal institution will reward and pay people to report and take down any media they don't like. That's fascism. That's the exact opposite of what America should be by our constitutional rights and our inherent liberties. However! Their tracking system is astounding and could help the people take lawful retribution on any damages caused by some created content.

And since I read a lot of HN comments about how free speech needs limits to "handle nazis", and since you said no, I became interested in what's your opinion on this problem. Thanks for the fast and detailed reply!

> [definition of fascism]

Yeah, that works. Usually I just say it's a method of obtaining and maintaining power through populist ultranationalism, palingenetic rhetoric with a certain aesthetics, etc.

> To be clear what I mean is that if you cause damages and there are victims of the "crime" then you should be held accountable.

Do I correctly assume that this is very similar to the libertarian idea of using/extending tort law for as many things a possible?

> slippery slope

Um, just a nitpick, but a slippery slope argument is usually a fallacy.

So, what I'm trying to say is that we already have limits on it. And while I think continuously extending those limits - just as Hitchens's fire fire fire speech from 2006 argues [0] - is a noble goal, but also as other comments said it's Twitter's or Jack Dorsey's freedom to not be a mouthpiece of someone. Which is interestingly the same thing as your example. Just instead of the feds trying to force you to say something it's Trump trying to force/coerce/pressure Twitter to host him. (Which is basically the "free association" part of liberties.)

> [decentralized accountable media]

I wholeheartedly agree. I'm still bitter about how instead of evolving RSS, PubSubHubBub, PingBack and stuff to something more, we just got Facebook, Twitter, WordPress and Blog Fucking Spot.

Yet it's hard to deny how powerful network effects are. This sort of means every niche will have its own "natural monopoly". (For example despite all its money Google was not able to seriously contest FB, nor WhatsApp. And FB was only able to contain it and Instagram by buying them.)

Aaaand, while I very much like Signal, it's yet another centralized thing.

... and yes, I know it's hard to make a decentralized platform. Federation is hard, spam, sybil attacks, reputation accounting. Though maybe with Bitcoin Lightning (or similar) someone could put together the right microeconomics (incentives for cooperation).

[0] I like his argument about how the freedom of speech is also about having the freedom to hear other's speech. Hear criticism about oneself, and so on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Hg-Y7MugU

Twitter is a publicly traded company. Its owned by the public so Jack Dorsey can't claim it as his own platform. The second he sought the benefits of public funding, it became the publics platform- democrat or republican should have equal right to it. But he's welcome to tweet his opinion if he wants to.

Free speech is the freedom to say what you like without punishment. It doesn't mean that everyone has a natural birthright to an audience, or to free, global distribution of their speech.

Nationalization is the answer you're looking for

You don't expect coal companies to suspend operations because of pollution and climate change. Maybe I misunderstood what you meant by "should" here. Care to clarify?

It's good that the laws/government does not coerce/force companies to do business with everyone under the sun, but it doesn't mean it would be good if they (or if society) started to exercise this right all the time, because it can be very much abused, for example if some company is extremely xenophobic/racist, then in that case it's not good that that company is excluding a bunch of people. Also, if corporations drop everybody just because it's inconvenient/unprofitable, it can easily lead to abuse of market position.

Usually it is recommended that for complex and emotional content email/text communication is not good. It should be done in person. In social media complex/emotional things are being discussed in text form which causes more rift. So we need better tools video/animation/pictures to discuss things that are being discussed in social media. These better tools should be easy to use for common person to use and communicate.

It will be also good to have a tool, which for any argument gives all the assumption being made. Such a tool can also help in communicating better.

In short we need better communication tools and better laws. (minor edit and added last sentence)

I agree with basically your whole post, but I think it should be emphasized that extreme care has been taken. Things have escalated to the point that Trump supporters violently attacked the legislative branch in order to subvert our political process. There isn’t much worse than that. Parler is being actively used as part of a system to plan, coordinate, and build support for more attacks (e.g. posts referring to journalists as soft targets).

It sounds very easy when you speak in the abstract.

I could tell you a dozen examples where you can argue for both sides, and what your conclusion will be will depend on what the media says and whether or not you like the person they "persecute" and vilify.

AOC said "Are you all ready to make a ruckus? Are you all ready to fight for our rights?". "Oh no, those are fighting words, they incite violence". Would you like ban her from all platforms?

What happens to people without a party? A recent trend on the progressive left was the #ForceTheVote to ask the AOC, squad and the progressive wing of the party to withhold their vote for Nancy Pelosi's speakership in exchange for a vote on M4All (the thing they've run on, "but now is not the time"). Should they all be banned because they want to "force" the vote?

"Hold your representatives feet to the fire"? Do I want to literally do that and burn them alive? Or I want to keep them accountable?

"Heads on pikes"? Do I want to behead them, or I want them to lose their position and I want them to get fired?

What if I get frustrated at a party, and I say "the gloves are off" and decide to run against them? "Oh no, he said 'gloves are off', he wants to be beat up the congressman/congresswoman. Silence him!". What if I say, "I'm going to destroy them". Obviously, I was speaking in the political sense, but if enough people on cable say the opposite, you'll never believe me.

The point is that there are usually hundreds of ways to frame something. If you didn't hear the context, and you only see the 5 seconds soundbite, you'll believe it's justified. You also won't look into it, because "why would you protect an aggressor? the clip was clear, he/she threatened people with violence".

FYI: I brought examples from the left so that people understand that almost every person who has given an energetic speech can be framed as "violent" and in the future can be shut down (if the power dynamics change). I used American examples, as the two-party system is simpler as a multiparty system and most people are familiar with the things that happen in the US. The same would be true in other countries, though.

If you make such grave accusations without proof, you are guilty of inciting what results.

If you see smoke and yell fire in a crowded room and people are trampled trying to get out, fine.

If you yell fire in a crowded room with no evidence, and people get trampled, you are culpable. Even if you said "remain calm and peaceful" after you yelled fire.

There are no markers or evidence of any kind. Nobody can even come up with plausible stories nevermind facts.

So should we really be making the comparison to two of the most obviously corrupt states on earth? Does that help the conversation or just muddy the waters?

The simple question of "what would be the point" is enough to dismiss nearly all of that spectrum of conspiracy theory - wherein no reason that makes a modicum of sense can be given. "Hur dur, because control the populous" or something is generally the best that can be mustered, and asking how or why leads only to more dead ends.

Likewise, trying to come up with a story about why both his own party and the opposing party and a large number of his own base and the entirety of the opposition's base will lead to no plausible story.

Take GA for example. A large percentage of the election officials are Trump supporters. I don't know about post coup attempt, but leading up they said they would still vote for Trump again even after he started putting them in danger with his fraud nonsense.

Finally, if someone wants to 'rig' an election, the path is not directly through changing votes, it's through social engineering. That's what the Russia investigation was about in 2016, and what Trump attempted here through all the lies both leading up to and post election.

The comment I responded to mentioned elections in Russia, unrelated to Russian election interference in 2016.

The problem in Russia, the problem in all of these questions is the huge imbalance of power. Russia an Belarus is an autocracy. (Yes, it's again context, but using the word context is uselessly too broad, doesn't have explanatory power.)

So Trump claims they are persecuted, we can look at the balance of power. Oh, he's the sitting president. Well, then it's very-very-very unlikely that he's silenced, and it's more likely that he's trying to overextend his power, and he's simply facing pushback from various other social/democratic/other institutions.

When Twitter banned the SciHub account because it broke their Counterfeit policy people noted that in this case it was likely Twitter using its power too much to please Elsevier/India.

One of the arguments made was that laws passed by legislatures weren't followed, for example the deadline for mail-in ballots in PA, which was extended until 5 P.M on November 5 even though the law on the books is explicit that ballots postmarked after election day were invalid. The fact that a court upheld the view in contradiction with fairly plain language of the law caused some controversy.

The above doesn't mean "The election was stolen". It doesn't mean it would have turned out differently. But I think there is some room for debate. Even though Trump is aggrandizing the issue politicians do that all the time and aren't de-platformed for it.

So there is absolutely nothing wrong with a ballot arriving after 5PM November 5th, so long as it was postmarked before the cutoff.

So the laws were followed, no contradiction, just a selective lack of understanding by a group of bad actors.

[0] https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20...

On the flip side, quite a bit of violence did occur on the 6th; the speech that got us there was pretty clearly intended to get us there.

They are more obviously incitements to violence than a post saying they won't be attending the inauguration.

At this point it becomes mostly about what your model of the person speaking is. If you think they are evil you will interpret their intent and communication as evil and if you think they are good you will interpret it as good.

There is no possible methodology that can be used that will end up declaring Trump's comments incitement while declaring AOC's not to be that won't end up becoming become simple partisanship.

Context is king, as always.

A reasonable person could reasonably interpret endlessly repeated claims that some liberal cabal is literally overthrowing the government and that America will actually die without immediate action, followed by violence that isn't condemned, mixed with blatant encouragement of violent action, with a long history of identical behavior, as violent.

Your examples might work in a vacuum where the reader has no knowledge of common english terms, any cultural context for the language, or any context about who the speaker is (though even then I think the obvious difference would be detected).

If he said "destroy them" as people are out destroying things, yes obviously. Or if he's been ranting about stolen elections and fraud and calling for action.

If he said "fight them, in the polls | marketplace of ideas! Destroy them!" or something then obviously not.

Trying to pretend any of this is like, too ambiguous to really make a call on, is a joke. Anybody can spot the difference.

Here, the question is whether a rational person in Trump’s position could have known that directing people to the capital and telling them illegal activity was going on inside are likely to promote specific lawless action at that destination, regardless of the specific words used or whether the type of violence is specified.

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2021/01/08/a-civilian-s-g... has a larger primer.

Trump spent years peddling lies and conspiracy theories, and getting right up to the incite violence line. His attempts to keep white nationalist on his side, by repeatedly having to be prodded to denounce them after showing some weird support is a problem. So yeah, if he said those things, it absolutely would count and may not count with someone else.

Are you for shutting down the New York Times, then? The violence they’ve facilitated dwarfs that of the recent events.

Edit: in case you doubt me, here’s a pretty damning article:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/iraq...

So was conservative media - why single out only the mainstream media?

What we have here is a small group of companies exerting quasi-monopoly power; Apple and Google controlling "apps" or Twitter and Facebook controlling "social media". Sure, they have some smaller competitors technically, just like East Germany had some smaller political parties technically.

If it was up to me, I'd change the status quo: Let FAAGT decide if they want to be publishers, no limited liability, or open platforms, limited liability but at the same time they have to agree to Freedom of Speech for all, unless it's criminal speech like incitement to violence, or some narrow additional predefined exemptions such as the option to not allow pornography or nudity or gore.

And then, if Parler fails to moderate their content again and leaves up criminal stuff, it's the job of law enforcement and courts to not only sanction the people who abused Parler to commit these crimes, but also the state to sanction Parler.

https://thebaffler.com/salvos/on-the-rudeness-of-mobs-pogue

'On October 25, the freemen of Essex County, New Jersey, proclaimed that anyone who adhered to the Stamp Act should be cast out of polite society, that decent people should have “no Communication with any such Person, nor speak with them on any Occasion unless it be to inform them of their Vileness.” This was not an isolated view. One writer to a Pennsylvania paper suggested, in language typical of the time, that a man paying stamp duties should be “branded with eternal infamy and reproach,” and cast out. “Let him be alone in the world—let him wish to associate with the wild beasts of some dark loathsome cave.”'

... from government.

I will add that even with regards to the government, there are limits to free speech — falsely shouting “fire” in a crowded theater is the archetypal example.

Some people seem to think that freedom of speech is something that can be broadly forced upon private organizations, and that’s simply not true.

If folks don’t like companies that, in their opinion, unreasonably restrict speech, then I suggest they vote with their dollars, their attention, and maybe their work (e.g., via competitors).

Like Gab and Parler! Oh wait...

I generally agree private businesses shouldn’t be forced to do business with anyone they don’t want to, but we’re talking about near monopolies that in many ways wield more power than governments.

Apple and Google each have a monopoly on app distribution on their platforms. Facebook and Twitter combined effectively have a monopoly on social networks.

Big tech have basically declared that 30% of America is unwelcome on their platform. That is overbearing moderation that is likely to provoke a market response. I'd give it 6-12 months to see if they can hold on to a monopoly even leaving that massive slice of the market in play.

As for Apple, yes. They do have a monopoly over their app platforms. Either a more robust PWA support framework or side loading needs to be a priority on iOS. I wouldn’t consider Google as having a monopoly over app distribution as you can sideload apps on Android and Android has (from what I’ve heard) well-rounded PWA support.

At this point, their only option to survive would be to build their own new internet. And that would need power/spectrum/land or other things that could be taken away from them by determined enough activism.

Maybe they could survive for a while by moving to a decentralised P2P/blockchain system of some kind. But that could potentially be blocked at an ISP level.

A few years ago I heard some people say we needed net neutrality. Republicans were against it.

Note that when this phrase was originally used, it was to justify imprisoning people who distributed flyers opposing the draft in WW1, and the supreme court later partially overturned it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...

Why not? Private companies must respect your rights, like your right not to be discriminated against, so why can‘t they be forced to respect your right to free speech? Just because the status quo of the legal ecosystem is not ready to handle this edge-cases doesn‘t mean it can‘t be made to do it with some adjustments.

There’s plenty of existing examples of compelled speech. We could simply say, “you cannot run a public/large forum without allowing mostly free speech”.

I think the compelled speech argument is extremely weak, we have very narrowly defined and specific cases in strictly defined circumstances. This would make it the default for vast swathes of common communications and as I pointed out introduce huge problems with noise, spam and griefing.

That mostly leaves Alibaba Cloud (I have no idea if it is available outside China) and "Others" - so a 43%. Not much to choose from considering that the big players have the best prices.

The right of free expression is guaranteed by the first amendment by restricting the government from infringing upon your right. It doesn’t say the government or anyone else has to give you a microphone.

In order to ban me from a platform you have to take (negative) action towards me. My content is already on that network. Compelling to respect my rights means compelling a company to not negatively act against me.

Those businesses are also free to close up shop if they can’t handle it. If they are dumb enough to explicitly say they don’t want to do something for a certain legally protected class of individual solely due to their belonging to that class, then IMO they deserve to lose their shirt.

That would amount to involuntary servitude, which is not permitted by the 13th Amendment.

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation

Also see the Supreme Court case Brandenburg v Ohio (1969), which excluded from protection speech "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action"

I don't know what the answer is, but having seen these large private companies censor rational discussion of scientific fact, this scares me.

"Voting with your dollars" means taking your dollars and giving them to the 0.001% that agree with you. Then this will strengthen them a little so they may become 0.0011% or whatever.

Any large social movement should be able to support a share of the economy commensurate to its size, complete with their own journalists, printing presses, leaflet distributors, radio stations, TV shows, phone factories, app stores and social media apps, or whatever communication infrastructure they want to use.

Of course that requires lots of work, but if that work is divided by the number of people involved, it becomes manageable again (after all, the whole rest of society manages just fine).

If people want to skip that work and instead rely on others to provide them with everything, they shouldn't be surprised if they don't get exactly what they want.

This looks like a internet version of witch hunt.

To use an analogy closer to the founding of the United States: if you want to publish a radical new newspaper, you need to be prepared to buy your own printing press and build up your own network of stores, because the existing printers and sellers may not want to support you.

You are a republican, how do you publish your political pieces?

You have to create a 4th printing press from ground up (because people that have printing press parts are refusing to work with you).

Distribution is a more appropriate in this case.

Take Fox News as an example. They're not going to allow their platform to be used for liberal propaganda, and most likely also vet any advertisers. They aren't expected to just allow any content to be broadcast.

I guess a devil's advocate viewpoint could be that some of these services are platforms, but then again the reasons given for some of these bans aren't necessarily strictly political.

It just doesn’t feel like the right thing for our republic. It feels like foul play, and I guess my recourse is at the ballot box.

I guess I think the points raised here and elsewhere about what businesses can do are specious. We still try to keep things fair.

There was once something called "Net Neutrality". As I recall conservatives were strongly against it.

We must decide if that needs to change.

Not quite, the East India Company is a counter example.

The Boston Massacre was greatly exaggerated, really only five rioters were killed and arguably the British shot them after violent provocation. Paul Revere's engraving was fiction and portrayed them as murdering the colonists in cold blood, which planted the seeds of the American Revolution.

As far as the barrier to mass communication being lower, perhaps, but mass communication was more prominent in the 18th century than you might think. Pamphlets were fairly inexpensive easily duplicated short-form propaganda, and were read aloud in taverns and churches. Communication wasn't "instant" but it was possible, and the social aspects would have made it more like Twitter and Facebook than I think we'd like to admit.

This will require either amending the constitution to strip companies of their 1A rights, OR the supreme court ruling that companies are not people and have no 1A rights. Both are tall orders in my view, with far-reaching direct and 2nd-order effects.

Wait, in the US companies are considered people?

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romney-says-cor...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckley_v._Valeo

Is big tech within their right to censor how they see fit? Yes.

Is it antithetical to the American ethos? Probably.

I also think that us being forced to rely on private platforms for public discourse is a grave threat to democracy. There must be public forums that are strong enough to be viable and legitimate places for the majority of public political discourse to take place without relying on private institutions.

Speech has never been, and will never be, completely protected without exceptions in the US.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

It's true that you _can_ find Parler out of those app stores, but a significant fraction of people would not be able to do so; nor would people encounter Parler as a popular app they might consider installing.

(The web hosting is a different issue since there are a bunch of hosting options.)

We're talking about the situation in the United States, not a free market. If there were viable alternatives, nobody would care about being blocked from Twitter or Google or Facebook. The fact that these monopolies collude in their censorship campaign makes the impact that much more severe. The situation with these monopolies colluding to block an aspiring competitor is clearly an anti-trust issue.

There's literally no reason for a "viable alternative" to not appear. I mean, Parler is a "viable alternative" to Twitter, isn't it? It got kicked off AWS? Go ahead, and create your own viable alternative, there's literally nothing stopping you, just like in a "free market".

And considering that Google banned the app GCP is also out of the question.

BTW. You know that the largest cloud provides in the world are also the ones I mentioned above? There is only Alibaba Cloud that is outside US and all the rest are just small businesses (that might just resell what the big three is providing).

And what would be next? Let's block the "new Parler" on the DNS or routing level - build yourself a new internet?

I hate far right wing and also hate far left wing, but I will protect both right to speak.

2) Smaller providers like Digital Ocean are in fact not reselling the larger services, but you’re right that folks like Heroku are based on AWS.

3) They all have the right to speak. But private enterprises also have the right to decide for themselves if they want to do business with them. That too is a freedom of expression. It’s unclear to me why you think the far left or far rights freedom should supersede the moderates freedoms.

But they aren’t monopolies. AWS, Azure, GCP, Oracle, Digital Ocean.

Sure, there are only a handful of news networks in the US, just like there are only a handful of cloud infrastructure providers. But the first amendment doesn’t guarantee that everyone gets their own hour on the nightly news, and it doesn’t force private corporations in general to do business with all comers.

I don’t have to invite QAnon into my house, and I certainly don’t need to bake QAnon a wedding cake. And neither do AWS, Azure or Digital Ocean.

OK, but first you don't know if it is QAnon and second, are you also allowed not to bake wedding cake for a black couple, or maybe for Jewish one?

It is your freedom, right? So where is the line you can't cross? For me it is: if you open business you have to deal with everyone, sorry. If you don't like it, don't open a business.

You just need to follow the law, if courts say that "you can't sell wedding cakes to QAnon" you follow that, but until there is such law...

Can you explain what you mean here? I wasn’t aware that tech companies worked with one another when choosing who or what to ban.

But every time one of the entities takes some decision or step or action, whether censorship or otherwise, it makes it a little bit more excusable and easier for others to do it and justify it.

E.g. (hypothetical)

1. Reddit bans /r/ABC for "TOS violations".

2. It's news and many reporters report on it across various articles. Some say it's due to "repeated" "alleged" "hate speech" violations, whether true or not. Probably 50% true, who knows.

3. ABC makes its own website and has a mailing list from some mail newsletter provider X because that's just what you do when you have a site and need to keep in touch with visitors/members.

4. Activists on Twitter notice. Outrage mob starts. "@X mail provider hosting known hate-speech movement" "@X mail provider...did you know you're hosting known white supremacists?" "Everybody, please stop using @X, they're supporting white supremacists!" "@AWS please look into what @X is using your infrastructure for!" ...all citing some selective articles as legitimacy.

5. Articles get written about a "movement" to have X drop service for controversial and "alleged" hate-speech website ABC.

6. X mail provider gets pressured and eventually drops service to ABC.

At this point, X mail provider probably won't get many "legitimate", "official" and "mainstream" criticisms for effectively dropping customers (even if all the mail sent by those customers on X's platform is 100% legal and innocent). Nor can their shareholders complain about losing profit because "we can't be seen supporting racists".

The problem is that each time this sort of thing happens, it adds "partial proof" of the accusations without an actual "court-like" process that decides if it's really true or not. After a certain point, it's just accepted and then carries an aura of truth/legitimacy.

Edit. Formatting.

It was banned from Reddit for being “hate speech” and in fact you can no longer suggest that obesity is something to be ashamed of —- on nearly any platform! Including GitHub. (but you are allowed to mock mock cigarette smokers or meth tweakers).

Generally speaking, hate speech can be allowed free speech, but not advocacy or incitement of specific violent acts. As the platform owner, and absent additional guidance from courts or Congress, private companies have no choice but to make decisions about what can be done with their private property. No company that is not a "common carrier" is obligated to let their infrastructure be used for a specific purpose. If you don't like the choices they make, the root cause isn't with the companies, it's with the laws themselves.

There is a sort of slider here between speech & property. If you dislike companies controlling their platforms as they see fit & want the slider to move in favor of free speech, it moves against freedoms of private property.

The current generation not knowing how to communicate without social media does not imply or suggest that social media is necessary for communication. If a person believes their values and entitlements limited by private entities they find alternatives not facilitated by those private entities, as in alternatives to social media.

I too agree that social media as a common medium probably does not, in itself, confer "common carrier" status on it. Even if many have been bought up by Facebook, there is still room for competitors to arise that provide alternative. This is not like ATT&T before its breakup where it was literally the only option. Heck, nothing stops someone from rolling their own stack on a local PC or local "cloud" and running their own social media service there, with mobile friendly sites that don't need an Android or Apple apps no need to rely on 3rd party cloud infrastructure. Then they would only be relying on the common-carrier ISP infrastructure that couldn't ban them for content. They aren't entitled to use the private infrastructure services or content distribution networks of other private organizations.

Woah, what?! No, this is entirely antithetical to "freedom of speech". The government should absolutely NOT be determining what is and is not allowed speech.

> Otherwise we are always dependent on the good will of the companies without democratic control

The market will decide right? Companies are made up of individuals. Their customers are as well. The past 30 years is evidence of that.

The government does not originate tort claims of libel. It is there to mediate disputes that citizens bring against each other. Because the next best thing is people committing acts of violence against each other.

The relevant section:

"Criminal libel is rarely prosecuted but exists on the books in many states, and is constitutionally permitted in circumstances essentially identical to those where civil libel liability is constitutional."

Again, this is really beside the point IMO, as I mentioned before. I only brought it up due to being an unreconstituted pedant, unable to help myself.

That's as hyperbolic as my omission is glaring. Yes, there are a few very narrow exceptions made.

I would say, though, that our 1st amendment rights are stronger today than ever.

I think you’re right in that the health of a democracy is closely linked to the ability of diverse voices to make themselves heard.

I don’t know what effect these moves will have but I suspect it will not have the intended one.

This is not about diversity of opinions anymore. The people who did this need to be persecuted and receive lengthy jail sentences, whoever aided and abetted them needs to be sentenced, and there need to be real and actual consequences. Because if we don't do that, we only show that we are weak, and that you can storm the Capitol without any consequences. What is the lesson you think they will take from that? You think it stops here? Are they encouraged, or discouraged? If nothing happens to them, what do you think they'll do next? This isn't over.

The people who are fanning the flames need their megaphones taken from them. If whole platforms exist for the purpose of encouraging hatred and sedition, these platforms need to be banned. It's not rocket science. Fucking ban Fox News. Block Breitbart. Or drown them in lawsuits and persecute them for every lie they tell. It's either that or fascism. You choose.

> You think it stops here? Are they encouraged, or discouraged? If nothing happens to them, what do you think they'll do next? This isn't over.

I don’t think it stops here. That’s sort of what I was getting at. Will censorship result in less violence or more violence? The assumption is that it turns the temperature down, but where is the precedent for that?

“Free Speech” - not just the technical definition but the culture of it - is a core American value. Having it suppressed so quickly and broadly may actually result in more violence.

I fear that we’re at the beginning of the American “Troubles”

A discussion about freedom fighters is a different one than a discussion about terrorists, even though the people involved might have committed the exact same crime (shooting a bunch of people).

As such, designating the mob as American Patriots and the event itself as a "riot" or "insurrection" instead of as a "coup" is - indeed - important and very telling.

This is the paradox of tolerance. If you tolerant violent, discriminating voices like say, the Proud Boys, that intimidates other diverse groups from participating. Their intolerance becomes mainstream, making society less tolerant over time.

If we look at Parler being dependent on other companies, there are 3 dependencies that bit them in the last few days:

(A) running servers on AWS

(B) distributing Android app through Google Play Store

(C) distributing iPhone app through Apple Store

Parler could and should have avoided the dependency on AWS by hosting with a company more aligned with their views or outside of the US.

However, I cannot in good faith say "Parler should have written their own mobile OS if they want people to use their platform from their phones". I believe Android supports app installation without Google Play. It's a little inconvenient, but I think an extra minute or two of clicking around is an ok price to pay for access to unpopular speech.

However, as far as I know there's no way to have an app on iPhones without Apple's approval. This is a strong point for "even if you start your own company, you're not the governor - 45% of America's phone users can only access your service at the mercy of Apple".

If you want the convenience afforded by the technology of private companies then you will have to follow their rules; if you show that you're racist while a guest in my house, I'm going to ask you to leave and if you refuse I'm going to call the police to have you removed.

Android does allow side-loading of apps, and Apple has the ability to prevent already installed apps from working. I think ultimately this is a question of whether you want your opponents/"enemies" - those who aren't aligned with you - to have access to the same level of technology as you: is it a good idea to level the playing field or to have an advantage? Arguably it's only good if the owners/controllers of that technology are on a more right/good path than the "other."

I assume in part Parler expected or wanted this deplatforming to happen as free marketing and to rally individuals to the platform, rallying the energy of people feeling persecuted - because enough of them were openly calling for violence and moderators weren't removing those comments/users from the platforms - but they don't seem to be having that sane/reasonable conversation to calm and quell the angry mob - and any "outsider" who attempts to reason with them gets ban/blocked, so it's inevitable it will spillover into the physical world. I feel and think it's good to slow this mob down however possible, even if it angers some of them more - they were already substantial open calls for violence, so it's not like deplatforming was the cause, the cause is Trump et al's lies and propaganda to incite violence; where's Trump ingenuine call for "law and order" after the Capitol was stormed? Answer: Trump told people to go to the Capitol.

'Stop calling it a “free speech app”. Historically Parler is harsher on dissenting political views than any of their competitors. Just, ya know, against the “other side”.' - https://www.reddit.com/r/technews/comments/kts86k/comment/gi...

There's so much learned helplessness, victim mindset- and a sign of an unhealthy, non-critical thinking, more unreasonable population.

If this seems to you to be one of the deepest root causes of the problem, that people can't compete due to centralized monetary control systems, and you want to help make the world better by uprooting that critical power, you may consider digging deeper into these projects.

So to be more clear - you're okay with removing this layer of protection? And yes, it could be abused but then that's where actual work and getting in place an intelligent and accountable government with sound policy is the path, not taking down walls so to make it easier for bad actors to function within the system; not caring about it, concerning yourself with it, and externalizing the cost of the purposeful ignorance is a very bad idea.

"Bitcoin is almost as bs as fiat money" - Elon Musk, I look forward to Elon eventually voicing his full thoughts on this and not just his summization; he of course has to be careful due to the growing "army of HODLers" who are all financially aligned, all financially incentivized to promote Bitcoin et al to increase their value in the decentralized, global Ponzi-Pyramid. There are issues in the system, they can be course corrected by educating people on the right policies, Bitcoin et al is certainly the impetus for this to occur.

If you are EXTREMELY knowledgeable and careful, you can transact with Bitcoin anonymously.

Less than 0.01% of the people who make a bunch of noise on Twitter or who stormed the Capitol are going to know how to be able to figure it out correctly.

Imagine it were the other way around, and suddenly Twitter and Facebook just couldn't use banks anymore, or cards.

Centralized control of money is too dangerous for everyone. Whatever power exists could someday be wielded against you.

Why do you think the rioters are so afraid and angry? They were fine with Trump's making up executive powers that don't actually exist anywhere. Now they're seeing the other edge of the sword, and they're so afraid they're losing their minds.

Learn from them. Don't become like them when your view falls out of favor. Don't create a power so great your life would be ruined if your enemy came to wield it.

Also, cash exists as a payment option - yes, it's slower than digital transactions which is also a feature to limit and slow allocation and in this case, slow the allocation to people wanting to allow open calls for violence. With enough support they could also create their own credit card company, if they can find a government who will be supportive of open calls to violence.

I don't know if you're aware of it, but your falling empire, the almighty America, is not the only country in the world. The censorship tactics that are deployed right now on the half of the population of the country that famously has the most free speech in the world, will be used against the people in other countries too. The willingness of the corporations to work with authoritarian governments, the obvious example being China, is not exactly a secret. These people hold no moral convictions, they use slave labor for God's sake, just so you can mindlessly consume more useless crap like a new iPhone every year or God knows how many pairs of Nike shoes, as they pander to you with rainbow flags and raised fists.

People who are in the front lines against such governments, some of whom you might show "support" to regularly on your favourite social media website, are also being persecuted for the same reasons - calls for violence and terrorism. The people from my country were hailed as heroes after the WWII by the Western world. But today, in some places in the world, people who are doing the same thing and fighting for the same causes that we did are labeled as terrorists. People might belive one thing today and the complete opposite tomorrow. Which is whatever suits the people at the media industry and their employers at the time.

And the bottomline is that you yourself might find yourself on the receiving end of the things you think are so great in the near future. The following weeks are not about the left vs the right. Or antiterrorism vs terrorism. Or morality vs lack thereof. Or however you want to frame it to feel good about yourself. It's about escalation or de-escalation. The right completely lost and the left had the upperhand. But for some reason, either stupidity or on purpose, they've chose to go about it in the worst possible way. Get petty, overblow the Capitol shitshow and seek revenge on the right. You might not even agree with that framing, but this is how the right perceives it. And that means escalation. Nothing might happen because of it or everything might happen. But the point is that you've turned the victory of the left into an uncertain future, that no one knows what holds.

Sorry for getting carried away, I know this is not a place for my bullshit, but this is basically the only place where I can voice my meaningless opinions that no one cares about.

The ability for private companies to deplatform who they want is a feature, it's a failsafe against authoritarianism and tyranny - and it's not black and white, all or nothing - it's a spectrum or gradient, and it can be evolved with good core policies like those that will break apart the duopoly and reduce the power of amalgamated mainstream media; I hope you're aware of Andrew Yang and his core policy proposals which will do just that.

I'm mentally too tired to reply thoroughly to the rest of what you say, however you're right in that there is a beast on both sides of the duopoly that's integrated with mainstream media who will sensationalize - and stir up both sides however much they can for the sake of views and revenue. So I don't agree with your premise that either side had actual control of what narrative was presented, which is a problem in of itself - and one pro of social media is people like Yang who can share what they've learned and interact with others online without the gatekeeping of TV channels and newspapers, a relatively direct connection to people interest in tuning into your individual channel; 3 days ago he also stated: "For Cable News we should revive the Fairness Doctrine which the FCC had on the books until 1985 that required that you show both sides of a political issue. It was repealed by Reagan. If there was ever a time to bring it back it’s now." - the thread is here where he discusses this: https://twitter.com/JanPerry/status/1347211706162769921 - he begins by saying "There are 3 problems with our media that are fueling polarization: ..."

This is a perfectly fine place for your "bullshit" - you didn't name call, so you're all good in my books.

> The ability for private companies to deplatform who they want is a feature, it's a failsafe against authoritarianism and tyranny - and it's not black and white, all or nothing - it's a spectrum or gradient, and it can be evolved with good core policies like those that will break apart the duopoly and reduce the power of amalgamated mainstream media

If you'd listen to the right-libertarians, the conclusion they've reached is that if we would take capitalism without the government to it's full extent, it would be a very authoritarian system. They correctly predicted this tactics of deplatforming from every angle that we can see today, as a way of getting rid of undesirable people who would try to bring back the government. Ironically enough, they were wrong only in that it targeted them first, not the communists. I guess the second part addresses this, and what can I say to that, I wish I could be that optimistic.

> So I don't agree with your premise that either side had actual control of what narrative was presented, which is a problem in of itself

Sorry, I wasn't clear at all in what I meant. By "the left" and "the right" I generally meant that the people in power on the left went after Trump supporters. It's showing my own biases there I guess in portraying it as the "elites vs people", but to my defense, I'd say it was at least accurately on topic of this thread. And surely there are already more than enough people to go after the right-wingers in power, so I'm sure it's fine. But I agree with you, Reps and right-leaning media are lying to their base just as much as Dems and left-leaning media are lying to their base, if that's what you're saying.

Biden won, that's reason enough to reignite your optimism - even if it's just a little flame. Then stimulus-survival cheques will go to many that desperately need it. Then everyone will get vaccinated for COVID and things can begin to open up again. Yang is running for NYC Mayor - though not officially announced - he's registered to run + there's a video of him doing a Mayoral run announcement video. Yang, then if it makes sense, will run again in 2024 - "instead of that single $2,000 stimulus cheque - how much would it have helped if you got $1,000 every month?" Etc.

"Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions." - Yup, though how much is perpetuated purposefully by Democrats vs. the narratives that mainstream media (or whoever else has influence on what they say) is unknown - but it happens. It's why social media is good because it allows people like Andrew Yang to have a voice - someone very articulate, very understanding of the problems, and has figured out the solutions which he's able to clearly explain. We need many more Andrew Yangs.

Yes, but that’s already true without this action, which doesn’t make them any more or less democratically controlled. A more democratic way of deciding clear limits on free speech would be great, but the absence of one doesn’t mean the platforms should sit on their hands and do nothing while the world burns.

Would it be acceptable for the state to pass laws that severely limits private entities to do so?

There’s lot to think about here. Free speech is good and all, but is it not really about free speech in relation to the state? i.e you’ll not be thrown in jail or persecuted for saying things.

Btw, if you follow policy just a bit bellow the surface you’ll soon find that “we are always dependent on the good will of the companies without democratic control” since ways back.

This is why it is interesting - it’s a question about regulation. State and law “interfering” with private company interests.

I like regulations on big companies in general, but this one would end up with weird effects, I reckon.

The internet is still rather open - parler could start a web site or give out a magazine.

The possible venues of free speech are numerous.

They're just deciding they don't want to host their content on their servers. Which makes sense because some of their content is illegal. Amazon wouldn't host a message board for pedos eithers.

Having said that, it is indeed disturbing how large the actual power of those big companies is. As a society, we have to consider how this should be handled going forward.

If you keep plotting insurrection, violent murder, and the overthrow of democracy, you will also be banned. As you should be. Because if you aren't banned, any form of support - whether it's delivering pizza or web services - has the potential to make you an accessory.

Most TOS are pretty clear about the "no criminal acts" part. The baffling thing isn't why those rules exist, it's why right wing extremists particularly seem to believe the rules shouldn't apply to them.

So that I understand: on what grounds are such companies deciding what's allowed or not allowed for all people? As best as I can tell, they're deciding what's allowed or not allowed on their own platforms.

And a point I've made elsewhere but I'll repeat here: Parler might've exposed itself to FOSTA/SESTA by insisting on not moderating, and as such, while AAPL/AMZN/GOOG deplatformed Parler with violence as cause, it's also somewhat likely that gaining awareness of the lack of FOSTA/SESTA compliance may have forced their hand. (I'll invite an attorney to keep me honest here - I'm not one.)

I keep pointing this out because, of course, FOSTA/SESTA were passed in the last few years.

As I understand him, private companies should decide for themselves who they serve and if we think they are behaving immorally, convince our circle not to give them business. It's not the government's job to say who they can and cannot serve.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/rand-...

    PAUL: I like the Civil Rights Act in the sense that it ended discrimination in all public domains, and I’m all in favor of that.

    INTERVIEWER: But?

    PAUL: You had to ask me the "but." I don't like the idea of telling private business owners — I abhor racism. I think it’s a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant — but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership. But I absolutely think there should be no discrimination in anything that gets any public funding, and that’s most of what I think the Civil Rights Act was about in my mind. 

    INTERVIEWER: But under your philosophy, it would be okay for Dr. King not to be served at the counter at Woolworth’s?

    PAUL: I would not go to that Woolworths, and I would stand up in my community and say that it is abhorrent, um, but, the hard part — and this is the hard part about believing in freedom — is, if you believe in the First Amendment, for example — you have to, for example, most good defenders of the First Amendment will believe in abhorrent groups standing up and saying awful things and uh, we're here at the bastion of newspaperdom, I'm sure you believe in the First Amendment so you understand that people can say bad things.It’s the same way with other behaviors. In a free society, we will tolerate boorish people, who have abhorrent behavior, but if we're civilized people, we publicly criticize that, and don't belong to those groups, or don't associate with those people.

In this case, it was decided that the baker has a right to refuse service if they have a moral objection to the service they're being asked to provide. The same principle applies to Amazon, though one can certainly see how the scale and scope of Amazon's services and their centrality to the online economy makes things a bit more complicated.

Just the system working as intended I think?

[1] https://twitter.com/BethLynch2020/status/1347987417052172306...

Companies are obligated to make the most possible money for their shareholders. Otherwise their shareholders withdraw investments and invest elsewhere. Deplatforming is a legal money making strategy (it might succeed or it might fail but the goal is to make money). To add more data, in Nov 2020 7 MM more “potential customers” voted for Biden compared to Trump. Additionally, the “potential customers” that voted for Biden were predominantly younger i.e. more time to purchase good and services from company X. It seems clear to me deplatforming is a medium-term and long-term financial numbers game.

> Otherwise we are always dependent on the good will of the companies without democratic control.

The way I see this is:

Historically we thought free market economics only applied to the monetary aspect of socio-economics. “deplatforming”/“cancel culture” seems to be the free market “solution” to social issues. It is basically the “popular vote” weighted by capital, forcing social change by ostracism/“excommunication” (specifically limiting their ability to scale their speech, without excommunicating them from society - “soft excommunication”?).

Historically social issues were dictated by the church through “hard excommunication” fast and effective, but not fair to minorities. Since then we’ve tried to use a version of “one person one vote” and required government regulation, and moved very slow (for many reasons, one of them being a disproportionate voting power to low population states). Perhaps we are now witnessing the efficiency of the free market to solve social issues?

Which is an interesting/ironic result, given historic Republican policy about free markets.

P.S. FWIW, I’d be happy with more regulation in this area, even though the free market “solution” is in my favor. I hope we can soon live in a world that uses “one person one vote” for all societal decisions, that strategy seems most fair to me. However, whatever your politics might be, please understand: A true “one person one vote” does also mean that both the Senate and the Electoral College need to be rectified.

How do you feel about #killallmen on Twitter?

Okay here is a challenge for you. I'll give you links from 2016 - 2019. Try getting them removed. I have been reporting them for months now and Twitter hasn't acted. Twitter sucks at this. It only removes Right Wing content. But maybe Twitter will be willing to take your report seriously instead of mine. So here is the list:

2016 post: https://twitter.com/lil_cmb/status/765737247781949444?s=19

2018 post: https://twitter.com/DutchessOfDork/status/100553860903276953...

2018 post: https://twitter.com/MadamePete/status/1017462143279681541?s=...

2019 post: https://twitter.com/jcmithnoy/status/1085855272793366529?s=1...

The ex-PM of Malaysia literally tweeted that Muslims have a right to kill millions of French people for massacres of the past. On Twitter. I am sure nothing of what Trump tweeted matches this racist hate. Yet Trump was banned while the ex-PM of Malaysia deleted his tweet by himself without any repercussions from Twitter. Read more about it here: https://twitter.com/AskAnshul/status/1347803217405509632

When it comes to Social Media I have a huge list of things that these companies have done wrong. And it just keeps growing. So when you say "Just requires a report" I feel like laughing at your innocence. I have a list of Instagram accounts that spew anti-Hindu content daily. Have reported them multiple times already. Facebook doesn't remove them. I don't even want to link to them because it is that bad!

https://twitter.com/cecilyy15/status/410145078670536704?s=20

https://twitter.com/cjevans64/status/333093612520865792?s=20

https://twitter.com/dlwest4/status/387428416753917952?s=20

https://twitter.com/_dresslr/status/455476238334033920?s=20

There are literally pages more.

What you mean is Twitter doesn't prioritize your singular reports on low engagement tweets from years ago.

If they had more engagement they could have more reports.

But keep martyring yourself, it results in amusing justifications like thinking there wouldn't be racist people who had clamored for the assassination of the first black president of the United States :)

-

Also your bringing up that PM is a great example too!

Twitter has bent over backwards for politically influential individuals. Twitter was under the impression nothing Trump could do would get his account banned while president, they even said as much!

It took 5 deaths at the Capitol during an attempted attack on Congress as a direct result of his actions for them throw in the towel.

I mean the man threatened nuclear war over Twitter and Twitter didn't bat an eyelid. Compared to that a poorly worded comment about genocide seems about par?

It is funny you can find these low engagement tweets not a big deal while the threat report that Amazon sent to Parler literally contained a low engagement post too. It wasn't a verified handle that posted that violence induced post. Yet Parler was kicked off of Amazon while you are here providing justifications for Twitter. How does that make you feel?

These are the low engagement Parler posts. Can you extend the same justification you gave for Twitter to Parler too?

1. https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2021-01/10/4...

2. https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2021-01/10/1...

3. https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2021-01/10/1...

Say it ain't so!

-

And also what are you even trying to say, that the reason why Parler was banned was those images?

Haha, no. It was because of the ratio of that kind of content to all the content.

Turns out if your only differentiator is you allow X that your competitor doesn't allow, you get a ton of X.

Whether it's porn, hate speech, illegal products, you name it.

You're inviting yourself to become a haven for X.

-

Also please confirm: You said Twitter only removes Right Wing content"

Do you stand by such a statement? Because further discourse with you from me will rely on speaking within the realm of reality.

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Reply to both comments since now I'm rate limited:

Two comments back to back showing a tendency to read things in the most convenient way...

Those images, literally just those images, are not why Parler was banned. Your argument literally relies on the fact!

Otherwise those images exist for Twitter and they'd be kicked off!

It was those images PLUS context, and you argue the context is they're right leaning, and I argue the context is they refused to censor hate speech and ended up being a haven for it

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I literally gave you the reason right there! You allow X, other place doesn't, you'll be swamped with X.

Call it game theory, call it human nature, call it whatever you want, that's how it's worked on the internet since time immemorial, I don't get why Parler was supposed different

And now that I have shown you that Amazon did use those low engagement Parler posts as reason to boot Parler (their email mentions "98 examples"), will it use the same yardstick to boot Twitter out of AWS for the thousands of low engagement violent tweets that is littered across Twitter? If you have a convincing answer for it I'll be glad to engage with you further. I say so because Twitter is hosted on AWS (https://www.techradar.com/in/news/twitter-signs-up-aws-for-i...)

If Amazon cannot kick Twitter out then I say that Big Tech is hypocritical and ideologically biased. Or that Twitter is a big paying customer and Amazon wouldn't want to mess with the relationship it has with Twitter. You pick what is the excuse going to be.

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Replying to your posts as edits because of rate limits *shrugs*

> It was those images PLUS context, and you argue the context is they're right leaning, and I argue the context is they refused to censor hate speech and ended up being a haven for it

Censor hate speech in low engagement content? Isn't that the very reason you gave for why Twitter is not removing those hate speech filled posts? Because they are surprise, surprise low engagement posts.

So why bother? Why is Amazon going out of its way to remove Parler from AWS for low engagement posts? It is not like some high profile user with a large following asked for people to commit violence right? I am literally using your own justification for Parler too. Why is your justification for Twitter okay while not okay for Parler?

If Amazon had evidence of high engagement posts spreading violence in Parler it would have attached those images. Not images from low engagement posts. This just goes to show that Big Tech just doesn't want Parler in there. That is all there is to it. It is an ideological battle. Else the same filth you find in right wing Parler you find in Twitter, Facebook and the rest of social media. There is literally no difference between any of these social platforms.

Nope. You see you tacked on your own little part that changes the meaning in a HUGE way.

Parler eschewed censorship period.

You're slowly inching towards getting this

No matter how much engagement a post had, how much vitriol someone spewed, literally the first page is promising there is no deplatforming a user for their speech.

So when your differentiator is you don't censor at all, you become a lightning rod for things like hate speech!

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I mean seriously this applies to ANYTHING: imagine a burger place called "WcDonalds"

We have an 1:1 equivalent to menu to McDonalds.

But we're lesser known, long term prospects are unknown.

Despite that we aim to be functionally equivalent to McDonalds with one small twist...

We allow drug use in our restaurants.

Let's say it's a state that decriminalized drugs, we allow you to toke up in line, as you eat, we're saying its your right.

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Who do you think ends up going to our WcDonalds?

If someone claims WcDonalds locations are just full of drug users, are you going to go "you have no proof of that!!!!"? Isn't it common sense that's the outcome?

That's Parler and Twitter. The biggest draw to Parler is that you have free speech regardless of engagement, where Twitter is limited speech. Anything that doesn't fit in the Twitter limited speech, including hate speech and racism, is going to be attracted to Parler.

And in Twitter when you see it you can report it and there's a reason for it to be removed! Even if it fails for old low enagament posts!

But on Parler, by design, that content will not be removed. No matter how big it gets, how many reports it has, by design, the user won't be deplatformed.

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Also seriously I want you to clarify if you actually think Twitter only deletes Right Wing comments, it's a pretty off the wall claim that harms the weight of any further discussion

It's funny to see how the left wing was crying over censorship in Parler now suddenly says that Parler was banned because it wasn't censoring anything. Isn't this what leftists were saying just a year back:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200627/23551144803/as-pr...

Here is another quote from Amazon's email which talks about Parler removing violent posts:

"You remove some violent content when contacted by us or others, but not always with urgency."

This is Amazon crying about Parler removing violent posts but "not always with urgency". What the actual fuck? Why should Parler do anything with "urgency" just because Amazon asked for it? Is Amazon the US Government? I have been reporting accounts and tweets for months on Twitter and it hasn't yet been removed. But Amazon is greater than you, me and everyone else. If it asks something you better deliver immediately or else you'll be booted from their platform.

But they are doing nothing about the low engagement violent tweets on Twitter which is hosted on AWS infrastructure. I haven't seen a bigger bunch of hypocrites in my life!

Amazon doesn't realise it but it has given so much ammunition for Parler to sue in a court case. They literally have admitted in the email that Parler is removing violent posts but not with the same urgency that it wants. Well news flash: no social media platform in the World removes any post with urgency. I sometimes get notifications for reports I had submitted months ago with "Sorry we did not find it violating our policies and it cannot be taken down". On posts that are literally violent.

Unless you have used the garbage reporting system that these social media companies have in place and experienced it first hand you don't have any right to talk about Parler and its efficacy in removing illegal content.

The analogy is there to aid your understanding, but if you want to block your ears and go "lalalala left wingerr lalalalala" I guess it won't help right? I told you to stop ascribing your political leanings to me, nothing I've said is partisan. It's lazy attempts to distract from actual discourse.

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You chose one point to explode which isn't even related to the topic at hand and still won't answer if you actually think "Twitter only removes Right Wing content" which is what started this whole thing!

And you just spent an entire comment complaining about Parler's removals... you want to be embarrassed real quick?

My points about Parler... come from Parler!

Here's their exact words:

> We prefer to leave decisions about what is seen and who is heard to each individual. _In no case will Parler decide what will content be removed or filtered, or whose account will be removed, on the basis of the opinion expressed within the content at issue._

You say

>you don't have any right to talk about Parler and its efficacy in removing illegal content

Another weasel! Hate speech is not illegal! At least not in the US!

My comment repeatedly says Parler allows hate speech yet amusingly you're trying to distract with all sorts of talk about Amazon when _the literal community guidelines_ are bragging that you won't be banned for any opinion... which includes hate speech!

Stop doing this. Stop trying to throw up a smoke screen by building up strawman after straw man.

I won't answer you anymore until you answer two questions:

1. Does Parler allow hate speech (with the reminder that it is not illegal in their jurisdiction)

2. Do you believe Twitter only deletes Right Wing content.

Answer thise questions, not with another unrelated question or diatribe which I'll easily dismantle. Just yes or no, or you'll have shown who's really beating around the bush

> Twitter is already very judicious when it comes to any use of the word 'kill' nowadays=s, or anything that could be violent. Just requires a report.

Which is not true. Even those counterexamples of conservative tweets being violent and Twitter not removing them proves my point itself. That no matter how much you report Twitter won't remove violent posts. It doesn't matter if the tweet is from left or right. Which is the entire premise of Amazon booting Parler from using AWS. That Parler isn't removing such low engagement violent tweets (and cites 98 examples in their email). While Amazon signed a deal with Twitter renewing their cloud contract inspite of Twitter not removing thousands of low engagement violent tweets (be it on the left or the right). This is hypocritical.

However, whenever Twitter has censored it has censored right wing accounts. Name one prominent left wing account that Twitter has banned. Can you name even one? I'll wait.

What sort of post truth world are you living in?

1. I looked up a list of Twitter suspensions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_suspensions

2. I found this after scrolling just a short while: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/smash-racism-dc-twitter-ban-t...

Provide one example of a prominent “left wing account” that ought to have been banned because they doxxed someone or made violent threats that wasn’t banned. I’ll wait. Did Bernie Sanders tweet that we should hang Mike Pence?

I don’t consider myself a left winger. Name a prominent mainstream conservative (in the vein of say Bush) that ought to have been banned that wasn’t. I’ll wait.

I can’t name a single mainstream libertarian, paleoconservative, neoconservative, kooky rationalist, or anarcho-primitivist who has been banned, and that’s simply because the Cato Institute and Less Wrong don’t go around saying we should execute politicians by firing squad. If that’s the only kind of intellectual contribution you have to make to society, I think you need to take a long hard look at your priorities.

> Provide one example of a prominent “left wing account” that ought to have been banned because they doxxed someone or made violent threats that wasn’t banned. I’ll wait. Did Bernie Sanders tweet that we should hang Mike Pence?

I'll give you plenty. How about this? Kathy Griffin. 2.1 million followers. She posted a photo of her holding a decapitated head of the President of USA: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4556566/Kathy-Griff...

That is a direct threat of assassination towards the sitting President of the United States. Whether you like him or hate him you do not get to threaten a sitting President with decapitation.

But what did Twitter do? Read it in Kathy Griffin's own words: https://twitter.com/kathygriffin/status/1348355262155878404

Quoting her verbatim: "All I had to do was delete the post". That is all that these hate inciting leftist handles get on Twitter. A slap on the wrists. All that was required for her to do is issue a fake apology and then delete her tweet. But then she posts tweets gloating about how she could get away so easily. Utterly shameful!

Did Twitter not ban Steve Bannon for calling for beheading of Dr Fauci (and rightly so)? I support the ban on Steve Bannon. But when Twitter can ban Steve Bannon and it lets go of Kathy Griffin that is when I have a problem. This is clearly selective enforcement of policy. Because it is ideological. Twitter is known to employ people who are left wing leaning and do not have tolerance for right wingers. Jack Dorsey admitted it himself. So it is obvious that their ideological beliefs have percolated through to even moderating content. That is fine if that is what they want their platform to be. No issues with that. But when they start taking a moral high ground and dictating to Parler on what is right and what is wrong I call them bloody hypocrites. Because that is what they have also been doing themselves! They are no saints.

Also, let us not forget what Twitter was. Twitter was a platform that enabled ISIS propaganda to spread unchecked for 2 years - from 2013 to 2015 until finally it deleted all terror material from the site after intense public pressure. And during those 2 years they enabled ISIS to recruit sympathizers from across the World. Twitter even got sued in 2016 for the same : https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/14/widow-ame...

Quoting from the article:

"Tamara Fields, a Florida woman whose husband Lloyd died in the 9 November attack, accused Twitter of having knowingly let the militant Islamist group use its network to spread propaganda, raise money and attract recruits. She said the San Francisco-based company had until recently given Isis an “unfettered” ability to maintain official Twitter accounts.

“Without Twitter, the explosive growth of Isis over the last few years into the most-feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible,” says the complaint filed on Wednesday in the federal court in Oakland, California.

Fields says that at the time of her husband’s death, Isis had an estimated 70,000 Twitter accounts, posting 90 tweets per minute."

Was Twitter ever held accountable for this? Never. It will never be held accountable. Because rules on facilitating hate speech and terror networks only apply to Parler. Not to Twitter, Facebook and Google. These platforms are above the Law and above everyone else. You and me included.

> I don’t consider myself a left winger. Name a prominent mainstream conservative (in the vein of say Bush) that ought to have been banned that wasn’t. I’ll wait.

There isn't any left. Those who ought to have been banned have been banned along with those who did nothing egregious. It was a proper purge. Either you are with the Establishment and Big Tech or you are purged. As simple as that. So now the only thing left is to ask Twitter when it is going to take action on prominent left wing accounts that violated its policies but Twitter gave them a free pass.

> I can’t name a single mainstream libertarian, paleoconservative, neoconservative, kooky rationalist, or anarcho-primitivist who has been banned, and that’s simply because the Cato Institute and Less Wrong don’t go around saying we should execute politicians by firing squad.

Because you have your eyes and ears closed. Maybe you should take a good look at the photo Kathy Griffin posted. You don't need anyone to say they will "execute politicians by firing squad" when they themselves hold the decapitated head of the sitting President of the United States.

> If that’s the only kind of intellectual contribution you have to make to society, I think you need to take a long hard look at your priorities.

Calling out hypocrisy has nothing to do with intellectual contributions to society. Both can co-exist. Just because you are incapable of calling out hypocrisy doesn't mean I shouldn't. I'll do what I feel I should do with my life and you can do what you feel with your life. Thankfully I am not a Citizen of USA else I'll be shunned/shamed/cancelled/boycotted/banned or worse killed for my beliefs or my skin color. You are happy being in a Big Tech dominated, censored internet, with an invisible social ranking system which can boot you out based on the political flavour of the day... then that is your choice. Remember that what is popular today will not be 20 years from now. Politics change, people change. You may in the future be at the receiving end of such a digital purge too because a Party of your opposing belief might come to power. Why? Because the red line has been crossed when it comes to censorship. A precedent has been set. Now it can be used for the right reasons or misused for the wrong reasons. Knowing how humans think I am leaning safely towards the latter.

> There isn't any left. Those who ought to have been banned have been banned along with those who did nothing egregious. It was a proper purge.

Lol ok, “there isn’t [sic] any left.”

Perhaps as an American I’m not familiar with what passes for conservatism in your country. But if your definition of conservatives excludes George Bush, Lindsey Graham, David Koch, Ron Paul, etc., then sure, all conservatives have been banned from Twitter!

I’m a gun-owning Christian non-Democrat living in the downtown of a big city. Having a pearl-clutching violence-endorsing non-American tell me I should worry about BLM and the Democrats “purging” people with my beliefs is surreal. If Bush is a liberal to you guys then I guess I’m as liberal as can be.

I’m out.

Do I feel they are truly conservatives? Nope. Not at all. At least not in the what conservatism means.

> violence-endorsing non-American

When did I endorse violence? Are you out of your mind? I literally said that I would want to see the insurrectionists thrown behind bars for what they did. Point to the part where you found me endorsing violence or take back your words.

My take on the insurrection and what should be done to those who desecrated the US Capitol: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25729582

> I should worry about BLM and the Democrats “purging” people with my beliefs is surreal

I never once mentioned BLM or Democrats purging conservatives. I accused the leftist lobby in Big Tech doing the purge because of how tied they are to their ideology. Whether BLM/Democrats had a role in it I don't know. So I won't even drag them into this. You want to extrapolate to include BLM and Democrats that is your headache not mine.

> If Bush is a liberal to you guys then I guess I’m as liberal as can be.

Bush was an opportunist. An establishment war hawk. A Conservative only by name but a Statist in every sense of the word. Bush was anything but for limited Government. These are the people you resonate with? People who bombed other countries ruthlessly based on a hunch that there are "weapons of mass destruction" (ex: Iraq and Afghanistan)? And you have the gumption to say I endorse violence? Look into a mirror and you'll see the person who endorses violence stare back at you.

And since you mentioned "Cato Institute" in one of the posts above, let me link an article that succinctly explains why Bush is not a conservative: https://www.cato.org/blog/bush-was-not-conservative

Listen buddy, if none of George Bush, Lindsey Graham, David Koch, Ron Paul, or the Cato Institute represent “true conservatives” to you, then I’m glad the notion of conservatism wherever you’re from is not one shared by my fellow Americans. Have a good day and please don’t come here.

Just going to point out that Kathy Griffin was suspended on Twitter and lost her job.

I guess that part didn't fit your narrative...

I can't find Steve Bannon's Twitter account anywhere. Now why is that so? Can you find it for me?

Unless you are talking about a different Kathy Griffin she hasn't been suspended.

As far as losing her job is concerned that is not something I was even bothered about. Since when did discussion on Big Tech censorship turn into resultant unemployment because of stupidity?

I don't mind those terrorists who invaded the Capitol be tried and thrown behind bars let alone be put in no fly lists or be removed from their jobs. Insurrection has to have consequences. I just don't want Big Tech's ideological censorship. Because this emboldens Big Tech to do more ideological censorship not less. Let the law take its course. Let the insurrectionists face real life consequences for their treason including but not limited to loss of job, putting on no fly lists and even prison time. It doesn't require Big Tech censorship to achieve those consequences. Or apply the rules to everyone in the same way. If you are going to ban Steve Bannon for beheading statements then ban Kathy Griffin for holding a decapitated head of the President. As simple as that.

If the Big Tech companies can't do it then I'll call them hypocrites. Then they have no moral standing when it comes to Parler. What is the difference between Parler and them? Nothing at all.

Notice how you completely skipped the part where I mentioned how Twitter enabled ISIS to operate with impunity for 2 years and only focused on my last paragraph? Yeah that shows where your mind is.

It's almost like you didn't realize suspensions default to being temporary... it's newsworthy to be permanently suspended, and it only happens with a heavy pattern of rule breaking, once or twice didn't do it...

You don't even know what a Twitter suspension is and yet you're going after this.

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Also I skipped the part about Isis because:

a) Twitter literally spent years fighting Daesh on their platform and you're cluelessly trying to paint them as being in bed with them or something...

b) If I had followed every lazy diversion you dropped in that diatribe I'd need to start billing you here.

Nope. I never heard of Bannon's Twitter account being temporarily suspended in the past. Can't find any source for it. It can't be possible because this account was created post-pandemic (aka 2020). If you can point me to any source which confirms what you say I'll be willing to change my stance that Twitter did give him a "chance" first. If you are talking about Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos account being banned then that is not the same as Bannon's account (called War Room: Pandemic - Suspended account here: http://twitter.com/WarRoomPandemic).

The best part is that Bannon did not even put the video on Twitter but instead put it on Facebook. But still got suspended by Twitter. Whereas Kathy Griffin posted the photo and video of the photoshoot on Twitter and got a rap on her knuckles.

a) Twitter literally spent years fighting Daesh on their platform and you're cluelessly trying to paint them as being in bed with them or something...

Yeah that is why they were sued for it right? Maybe you can tell the widow of the man who died because of an ISIS attack this logical reasoning. Let us see if she will be convinced with your reasoning.

That lawsuit was thrown out. You know why? Because of Section 230. Which surprisingly only applies to Big Tech. Not to small tech like Parler.

trying to paint them as being in bed with them or something...

Isn't that what was done to Parler? Using the users posts to ban Parler from all platforms. By trying to paint them as being in bed with them or something. Section 230 was turned into a joke when it came to Parler. What is the use of Section 230 if a platform can be censored and banned nevertheless?

https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/usa-judg...

"A US judge...tossed out a lawsuit accusing Twitter of abetting terrorism by allowing Islamic State propaganda to be broadcast using the messaging platform. District Court Judge William Orrick granted a motion by Twitter to dismiss the case, reasoning that providing a platform for speech is within the law and that the company did not create the content. The Communications Decency Act protects online platforms from being held responsible for what users post."

Be better.

> Here's their exact words:

> We prefer to leave decisions about what is seen and who is heard to each individual. _In no case will Parler decide what will content be removed or filtered, or whose account will be removed, on the basis of the opinion expressed within the content at issue._

Right. And as usual you conveniently skipped the part that comes after this in the "Principles" section which is what any leftist liberal would do. This again busts your propaganda about Parler allowing violence, hate speech on their platform as being mentioned in their policy. Lie by selectively quoting guidelines. You can play this game all you want but it won't work in a Court of Law nor will it work with me. All Parler has to do now is sue Amazon for lying in their email that Parler doesn't have a policy on tackling hate speech.

> My comment repeatedly says Parler allows hate speech

Bullcrap. I'll disprove your nonsense by quoting straight out of the Parler Guidelines:

"Parler will not knowingly allow itself to be used as a tool for crime, civil torts, or other unlawful acts. We will remove reported member content that a reasonable and objective observer would believe constitutes or evidences such activity. We may also remove the accounts of members who use our platform in this way.

Sometimes the law properly requires us to exclude content from our platform once it is reported to us or to our Community Jury—content we would make it a priority to exclude anyway. Obvious examples include: child sexual abuse material, content posted by or on behalf of terrorist organizations, intellectual property theft.

However, even when the law may not require us to flag or remove reported content, or to ban a member, we will nonetheless do so when we deem it necessary to prevent our services from being used by someone in the commission of a crime or civil tort—particularly when these are likely to interfere with our mission of providing a welcoming, nonpartisan Public Square. Examples include criminal solicitation, fraud, and nuisance."

In case you did not know the meaning, "civil torts" encompasses hate speech and much much more.

LINK TO THE PARLER GUIDELINES (because you were scared to link it in the first place): https://legal.parler.com/documents/guidelines.pdf

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> Stop doing this. Stop trying to throw up a smoke screen by building up strawman after straw man.

I am not. You are. You just embarrassed yourself by selectively quoting from the guidelines. Stop lying to just prove a point. By not linking to the Guidelines you made it amply clear what your intent is.

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> I won't answer you anymore until you answer two questions:

You won't be able to answer after you read this comment anyways. I did not want to embarrass you but you are repeatedly asking for it so I'll gladly oblige.

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> Answer thise questions, not with another unrelated question or diatribe which I'll easily dismantle.

You couldn't dismantle anything. On the contrary I dismantled your lie that Parler doesn't have a hate speech policy in place.

> Just yes or no, or you'll have shown who's really beating around the bush

> 1. Does Parler allow hate speech (with the reminder that it is not illegal in their jurisdiction)

NO. I just disproved it quoting straight from their guidelines. They even have guidelines on how to report illegal and hate content here: https://legal.parler.com/documents/Parler-Community-Jury.pdf

> 2. Do you believe Twitter only deletes Right Wing content.

YES. Left wingers are left untouched. The only time the left wing was up in arms against Twitter was when their bot/fake/pseudonym-based accounts were deleted and they trended #StopTheLeftPurge. No prominent left winger was banned. No account of any prominent left winger who called for assassination of Trump was banned. Most prominent left wingers were left alone with just a rap on their knuckle after they posted incendiary tweets (some of them were even anti-semetic). And those who posted anti-semetic tweets were Congressmen/women. Not some lunatic with zero followers and with low engagement tweets. If a prominent Right wing account had posted something similar they would have gotten an insta-ban. That ex-PM of Malaysia literally called for genocide of millions of French. Was his account banned? Nope. After that there have been multiple terror attacks in France. If Trump's speech can be linked to US Capitol violence then why can't the ex-PM of Malaysia's tweet be linked to the series of terror attacks that put France on the edge? See the dichotomy?

Do you have evidence of any prominent Left wing personality being banned from Twitter? I can give you examples of hundreds of prominent Right wing personalities purged from Twitter. Name one prominent left wing personality who was banned from Twitter. I'll wait.

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Now instead of arguing with me if you had just bothered to look this up yourself you would have gotten to the truth. But nope. You want to waste your time and my time going around in circles and posting ridiculous analogies. And even worse you are unable to comprehend anything in full. Be it the article which I linked of Amazon falsely accusing Parler or the Parler Guidelines themselves. This is because you are more interested in proving me wrong than trying to understand the subject matter at hand. In the process you are just exposing yourself completely.

I have answered all your questions without beating around the bush or posting stupid analogies. After this point I won't give any further replies as the discussion is devolving into an argument over who is right and who is wrong rather than the pressing issue of Big Tech dominance (Which is what I am concerned about and which you seem to not care about - which is fine as well. To each his own).

That's inaccurate. What he "literally" wrote was: “Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past.”

I read his whole quote. He's a nutjob but accusing him of calling for genocide is inaccurate. Also, perhaps France should consider saying sorry for testing nuclear weapons in the South Pacific and maybe relinquishing its occupied islands and terrorities like French Guyana back to the indigenous people that deserve independence. It is 2021, not 1821 anymore.

You keep saying typical left winger this, typical left winger that, without saying anything useful at all.

The less words I spend on you the better.

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https://legal.parler.com/documents/guidelines.pdf

These legal guidelines allow hate speech. Period.

You brought up the Principles but refused to clarify where they ban hate speech, did you read them?

Because they don't ban hate speech or racism...

One is anti-illegal activity (hate speech is not covered here)

One is anti-spam. Hate speech is not covered here.

I didn't make up any quotes, I didn't omit anything that supported your point, if anything the principles I omitted solidify my point...

They have principles as an addendum.

Those are a chance to clarify that while they are pro-free speech by default they reserve certain rights. And yet they refused to call out legal things like racism and hate speech...

You're literally making my case for me.

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And on the Twitter front, you just admitted it right? Twitter removes left wing content, you linked it yourself. Case closed.

You haven't meaningfully replied for several comments, so I don't mind if you save your breath after your replies being dismantled over and over again.

OMG did you even bother to read what I wrote? I literally mentioned that "civil torts" encompasses "hate speech". Maybe you should Google what "civil torts" means.

Quoting verbatim from the Guidelines: "Parler will not knowingly allow itself to be used as a tool for crime, civil torts, or other unlawful acts"

DEFINITION of a "tort": A tort, in common law jurisdiction, is a civil wrong (other than breach of contract) that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. It can include intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, financial losses, injuries, invasion of privacy, and many other things.

In fact a "civil tort" is more accurate term than "hate speech". It is more broader than all the specific hate combating policies that social media companies have in place. There is a complete paper on how torts can be used to combat "hate speech": https://scholarship.law.uc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...

> You haven't meaningfully replied for several comments, so I don't mind if you save your breath after your replies being dismantled over and over again.

I have meaningfully replied. You don't have the patience to read what I wrote causing me to repeat myself ad nauseam. You can start your learning process by understanding what "civil tort" means. Then come back here once you learnt the definition.

> And on the Twitter front, you just admitted it right? Twitter removes left wing content, you linked it yourself. Case closed.

Linked what myself? Twitter hasn't closed prominent left wing accounts. I am still waiting for you to provide one. All the accounts that it has closed are bots/fake and some fringe accounts with hundred followers or so. The day Twitter bans Kathy Griffin I'll say Twitter is not biased. Else they are hypocrites. As simple as that.

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Replying here because of rate limits:

> Because Parler's guidelines are saying since it's not tortious they wouldn't deplatform the user!

That is a very bad reading of what Parler's guidelines state. They are simply saying that they won't be used as a tool for civil tort. In other words, they won't subject themselves to anything that can constitute a civil tort. They aren't going to be the judge/jury to say whether a statement is deeply hateful or harmless hate. They just won't be a party to any of it (doesn't matter if the statement is harmless hate or deeply hateful). It doesn't matter if a US Court Judge rules finally that the statement was defamatory or not. That is for the Court to decide not Parler. Parler won't even entertain something it feels will cause Civil Tort. How is it decided? Parler has Guidelines for that too. They have a Community Jury setup (site is obviously down so I am linking to a Cached version: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1oI4Ww...)

From their guidelines (again linking to the Cached version: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:oNJnp_...):

"However, even when the law may not require us to flag or remove reported content, or to ban a member, we will nonetheless do so when we deem it necessary to prevent our services from being used by someone in the commission of a crime or civil tort—particularly when these are likely to interfere with our mission of providing a welcoming, nonpartisan Public Square."

They clarify it even further that even if the law doesn't require them to remove reported content/ban a member they will do it if they feel it interferes with the mission of providing a welcoming, nonpartisan Public Square. Please tell me how hate speech is "welcoming" and "nonpartisan" in any way, shape or form.

> I mean in your mind I guess it's ok to make a comment that just states the word nig*r over and over because it's not tortious right?

If Parler feels this is amounts to Civil Tort they will remove it. Now they won't obviously check which jurisdiction the user messaged from, which court will take up the case and how will it be decided. That is not in the scope of what Parler can do. Parler also doesn't have resources to go through all that to decide whether a statement constitutes a case for Civil Tort or not. Parler is just going to assume that yes this amounts to Civil Tort and just remove the offending content. Simple as that. Now obviously they won't do it immediately. Just like Twitter won't remove a Tweet immediately if you call someone a nig*r (especially if the person is being creative with how he writes it). I have seen Tweets that contain abuse/hate speech and it stays up for months. It is impossible to moderate every single tweet or parley. Even when reported it takes time. But to expect perfection from a 4 million user site while a 330 million users site is still suffering from moderation issues is a bit too much.

The article is saying is that in the process of hate speech someone could commit something like defamation...

Parler says they won't be a tool for tortious conduct right?

_The literal article you linked is explaining how some courts have found calling someone a nig**r is not defamation_

And more importantly... if no specific person or action against a group was mentioned then the entire article doesn't even apply!

There are _so many deeply hateful things one can say without exposing themselves to a tort_

I mean in your mind I guess it's ok to make a comment that just states the word nig**r over and over because it's not tortious right?

Because Parler's guidelines are saying since it's not tortious they wouldn't deplatform the user!

I said: > I mean in your mind I guess it's ok to make a comment that just states the word nig**r over and over because it's not tortious right?

You reply: > If Parler feels this is amounts to Civil Tort they will remove it.

I literally explained how it is not tortious. Regardless of jurisdiction. It's not defamation. It's not tortious. It's not a civil tort.

So you're admitting Parler won't remove a comment that's just "nig**r" repeated over and over according to their guidelines.

Thanks for making my point again.*

Yes I am saying these are the images for which Parler was banned. Maybe you should do your research before you happen to accuse me of saying things I never said. These images were provided by Amazon to Parler as a justification to remove Parler from AWS. These images were not taken by me or provided by me.

The article which covers these images:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johnpaczkowski/amazon-p...

> Haha, no. It was because of the ratio of that kind of content to all the content.

No evidence to back up your claim here. Again, this is the sort of stupid left wing bubble that makes up most left wingers. Unless you can say exactly how much of the content was violent on Parler your guess is as good as mine. I just showed the GP evidence on how Twitter doesn't remove hate speech on its platform much the same as Parler. That is about it. I can dig thousands of tweets for you which show hate speech. I am not going to waste my time doing it. If Amazon can use the above images as justification to remove Parler then Twitter being online is hypocritical.

Go back and read every comment I've made as if I'm a 65 year old white man with greying hair who's voted Republican every year except this one because I didn't approve of Trump's handling of Coronavirus.

Does anything change? Do my comments ring any less true?

As I explained above, you also don't believe just those images that got them banned, it's the context they exist in that matters, that's literally what the next line says!

And of course I explained exactly why I can confidently say Parler's ratio of hate speech would be higher... because their differentiator is literally not moderating hate speech since it counts as free speech.

False. Have already shown with evidence that they were indeed moderating hate speech and did indeed have it clearly, unambiguously defined in their guidelines. No matter how much you try to twist it the facts are staring back in your face. That guidelines do exist.

There is literally no differentiator between Twitter and Parler. Both take their own sweet time to moderate violent content/hate speech. Yet Amazon finds Parler not moderating "with urgency" a requirement to terminate business with Parler while renewing cloud contracts with Twitter for the same damn thing. I haven't seen a bigger hypocritical bunch.

And what will this lead to? Fragmentation and balkanization of the internet.

You have not done this. Parler allows hate speech.

Parler literally takes it as a principle that they only "censor" illegal content and span jurisdiction. That excludes hate speech.

Hate speech is not illegal in Parler and Twitter's jurisdiction for the hundredth time.

That's why they were banned.

Parler literally says it doesn't allow itself to be used for "civil tort". I can't argue with you if you refuse to even acknowledge the legal terminology used here.

Anyways I'll leave this link for you to learn more about how Civil torts are used to combat hate speech: https://scholarship.law.uc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...

I searched that and the top result was a tweet insulting anyone who even says it.

-

Overall that looks like a pretty hyperbolic statement rather than a credible threat.

Whereas "kill Mike Pence" after a group storms the Capitol building sounds a lot less hyperbolic.

Why ? Because for years, Trump's administration (I don't recall but maybe Obama's also) is fighting against "Fake News", forcing platforms to do fact checking "or else".

A new platform emerging, promoting its lack of control over that will irremediably leads to huge abuses and scandals. It's just a matter of time.

A massive scandal over a year, a closure over two or three tops.

Look at Ted Kaczynski, a terrorist with some very strange ideas. Although he had freedom of speech, he had no means to get his ideas out in front of more people. He had to resort to extreme measures, like a bombing campaign to blackmail newspapers into printing his manifesto.

If he was active today, he’d just post it on YouTube and gather millions of views. If YouTube gets squeamish about the violence, move to Parler.

It was easy to guarantee freedom of speech to everyone when people like Ted no means of actually broadcasting their ideas without being gatekeeped by newspaper editors.

Our world is different now. It saddens me to say this but maybe our principles have to adapt too.

No, he wanted eyeballs, and the best way to get those was to mail bombs. He wanted to terrify people into listening to him. His ideas weren't palatable on their own so he took a shortcut paid in human lives.

I remember this. The things people will believe :) The idea that the two premiere newspapers carried in full, with great fanfare, the manifesto because of a few letter bombs is laughable.

("We don't negotiate with terrorists" was oddly a running theme back then, but no one ever accused the American public of being incapable of tolerationg gross cognitive dissonance. We're exceptionally good at it.)

The manifesto articulates a principalist position against technology that ultimately suggests complete deindustrialization as "solution" to unchecked integration of technology in human societies. This absurd non-solution, delivered via a "madman", is the precise reason it was broadcast to a bewildered world.

So like, Ted Kaczynski was basically victim and world owned him millions of views? And when Ted Kaczynski cant get those millions of views, he "has to resort" to killing people?

And if Ted Kaczynski had youtube channel and the channel would be ignored, would he still be entitled to kill people to get more views?

What are you proposing?

Bombing is not valid option. I am saying that Ted Kaczynski had no option other then violence complete nonsense.

2.) When people like you try to frame his bombing as result of "not having other options", point out that such reasoning is illogical and entitled.

You're a dangerous idiot with garbage ideas.

Looking down that staggeringly long list, I can say with some confidence that this was one of the more inconsequential attempts historically.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coups_and_coup_attempt...

From here in Europe it looked like an improvised coup attempt. Not a coup as in taking over the country, but a coup as in decapitating part of the government.

"Definition of coup d'état

: a sudden decisive exercise of force in politics

especially : the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coup%20d'%C3%A9ta...

I'm not sure pedantry contributes much in the circumstances.

This is the question for this generation. The laws and constitution can be changed to reflect the will of the majority.

So stop arguing about what the law says now and look at the bigger picture. What should the law say.

No, free speech refers to free speech. Government censorship is one thing that can prevent speech being free, but not the only one.

Or put another way, there is a legal concept of "freedom of speech", rooted in the First Amendment in the US, and there is a somewhat separate moral concept, which can be both narrower and broader than the legal one. There is some pretty widespread disagreement on the exact boundaries of the moral concep.

The legal concept did not create the moral concept. The reason there is a First Amendment is that the value of free speech already existed, and was codified, in one limited domain, in the Constitution.

And I am quite sure that if the moral concept becomes too narrow, with overwhelming support for speech restrictions in the population in general, the legal concept will follow, via the amendment process... Which makes it a priority, for me, to push back on attempts to narrow the moral concept absent great need.

Or to put it another way: There is no legal requirement for a non-government entity to allow various speech in the US. But in many cases I would argue there is a moral requirement, even if they disagree with the content of the speech. Obviously, being a moral requirement, there is a line the entity needs to decide on for itself after which it will no longer support said speech.

Manufacturing Consent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuwmWnphqII

Such limitations in the case of the first amendment are pretty well captured here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

Credible threats of violence and incitement register with exceptionally strong precedent. Fighting words and threatening the President-Elect of the United States are two such categories of unprotected speech with, again, exceptionally strong precedent.

Anyone claiming their freedom of speech is being violated in this scenario by pushing fighting words and specific threats may be failing to understand:

1. that such freedoms don't extend as protection from being barred by private property and enterprise, and

2. that even if they did, their words are exempt... again, with strong law and case law.

I do agree that there's value in exploring registering social media and communications platforms as utilities. I don't yet know the implications of such.

And on another note (and borrowing from an earlier comment of mine), I do wonder how many of the Parler removals that have taken place used Wednesday as the justification but in reality were done for FOSTA/SESTA cover, which ironically is a law passed within the last few years.

But when someone else criticizes some valid issues with the US and the reply is a sort of "did your country put men on the moon?", that's just ridiculous. Address the issue at hand.

Sometimes you have to silence people to let everyone else have their rights. And that’s what is happening here.

Trump supporters don’t support free speech or freedom of expression as a concept to be applied to everyone. They just want to have free speech themselves and for everyone else to shut up.

Of course these kids would be dealt with. They'd be removed, parent called, expelled so that all other kids can have fruitful discussions.

But somehow here we are discussing that the exact analogue in social media is somehow worthy of protection and being allowed to yell, spread disinformation and incite literal domestic terrorism, sedition and insurrection.

My European perspective on this is that speech should be as free as possible without crossing some strict borders. And for me, these borders clearly are calls for violence or destruction of the state. A democracy cannot exist without compromise.

Republicans and their far-right extremist equals in Europe are not willing or ready to achieve compromise. For decades it has been an "Us vs. them" instead of finding an optimal compromise. Their mode of operation is disrupt, gaslight, object. No matter how objectively true things are (climate change, Corona...)

It's not conservatism itself that is bad but at least since Reagan, the shape of conservatism in the US has become inhuman and disgusting. And the GOP is celebrating itself for it, cumulating in the terrorist MAGA cult.

I think this is a key point that is currently at quite a low ebb worldwide. The appetite for compromise seems to be at an unhealthy nadir.

I understand that, when you think you are right and the other side is wrong or even evil, it can be difficult to want to compromise.

People are quick to cite polarization as the source, and yes, sure; but what causes and has caused this polarization? It's not like the world was never polarized before.

If the general decline in violence is true, such as claimed by e.g. Pinker (Better Angels etc), then maybe we are not actually more polarized than ever before? But the evidence seems conflicting at best.

Anyway, I don't have any answers.

I also think your last paragraph is over-the-top, and probably reflects a relatively biased sample from the underlying facts.

My ego isn't infinitely tied to my opinions and views - though to some degree it certainly must be. I don't believe in deleting what I wrote but maybe I could have written something less polemic. I was probably damaging discussions myself.

The question is always: can you take a step back, reflect and maybe adjust your opinions? I even understand resolute positions on ephemeric topics such as ethics and value systems.

One can have long discussions about how to deal with a hijacked airplane heading for a population center. But baseless opinions about a virus or measured climate change, such as outright denial of their existence or impacts, have no place in "adult" discussions.

We should be concerned about how to face these issues and not discuss with trolls and gaslighters about established, independently proven facts.

I think that is most people, especially when they are emotional.

My “right to free speech” should not limit your “right to religion” or your “right to political association”, and in this case “your right to safety”.

While South Africa has a lot of improvement to do, the understanding that rights need to be self-limiting in order to remain sustainable is a very good starting point in a constitutional democracy.

The corollary to this is that as population density increases freedom gets more limited, because people’s circles of freedom overlap more. Modern society has a lot more limitations on personal freedom because that is the only way to equally provide access to freedom to everyone in a denser world.

Even this seemingly-simple example is complicated in practice: who decides whether safety is threatened? I have seen people claim to feel physically unsafe whenever someone raises the question of how specific women's sports should handle participation trans women, and I have seen other people claim to feel physically unsafe when someone suggests raising taxes to fund more public services (immediately reaching for comparisons to the USSR in the 1930s).

Is the test then whether someone feels unsafe as a result of the speech? Or whether a "reasonable person" would feel unsafe? And so on, and so forth.

There's really no good way to win completely here: either some people are going to feel unsafe, or you have to have _quite_ draconian speech restrictions to try to avoid that (and probably still fail). You might be able to do something that works for neurotypical-enough people, but that's the best I can see.

So for example, it is explicit that freedom of expression cannot limit another’s freedom to practice their religion [2].

Furthermore it has been determined that freedom of religion is not absolute [3], for example that religious objections cannot prevent a women from seeking an abortion, or for a same-sex couple to marry. And indeed these two examples are protected by law.

So yes you can say that “your right to religion should not limit my right to free speech”, but there is no conflict of interest or ambiguity in terms of how these two rights interact. In South Africa the line is drawn in the sand already. While this may seem like a hardline (pun not intended), it’s important to understand South Africa’s dark history with selective rights and freedoms, and that the one of the lessons learnt is the explicit outline of rights and their limitations in the Constitution. South Africa is a young democracy and these limitations are a feature of fairly recent history.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_South_Africa

[2] https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/chapter-2-bill-rig...

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_South...

These are in large part motivated by racism but much of the language used is religious and about religion.

For that reason, a P2P Twitter-type platform where accounts couldn't be removed would be potentially very dangerous.

I would rather try to deal with free speech by looking at personalisation and filter bubbles, perhaps mandating some kind of diversity gets baked into algorithms, which seems to lie at the root of the issue (that and economic inequality).

That's in the TOS, yes. Or actually, a lot more broader: activities "that may be harmful to others, our operations or reputation," are reasons for termination. (EDIT: I now actually wonder if they grant large customers with specially negotiated deals explicit changes to these terms - if you do a large multi-year contract, surely your lawyers would want some more security on that)

Re your example, at least from a quick look at the search results, the versions of "Mein Kampf" Amazon.de offers are all legal to sell in Germany. (Its legal status was and is ... somewhat complicated, changed in recent years due to copyright expiring, and "it's banned" is not quite accurate)

In the meantime, the Bavarian state has brought it to market again in a commented form. The original text is reproduced together with comments on the text. This issue is freely traded and even used in historical education at schools.

Often said, yet it somehow very often excludes religion, which is not immutable, and very often includes simple matters such as intelligence, which is immutable.

I find that more often than not, when a man speaks of such “immutable" traits, what he really means is “whatever the culture I grew up in arbitrarily treats much like an ethnicity, a tribe, something to owe fealty to” — religion is that in many cultures, but intelligence is not.

And I stress how cultural it is: it is often noted that in Japan religion is not treated as such a tribe, culturally, and that Japanese persons often find it curious how residents of other cultures can owe a lifelong fealty to a single religion rather than experiencing elements of multiple religions as it be suitable.

One could argue that such things are so associated with immutability merely because they are treated as a fealty in their respective cultures, a lifelong allegiance, and that switching sides is considered such a betrayal, that they are culturally made immutable, even though there is obviously no reason why religion or political affiliation should be.

You seem to conveniently ignore the blindingly simple context that for the past 20 years, America has been bombing and invading a single region of the world in the name of evangelical fanatics from the bible belt.

And that's looking past the Gulf Wars and Afghanistan where America created and armed the Taliban. It's not snowflake grievance culture to suggest there is a targetted religion here.

I fully 100% support the ability of Facebook, Twitter, etc to ban accounts. They have every legal and moral right to do so. Rembember that freedom of association is also a thing.

At the same time, I recognize that sufficently powerful corporations are practically just another form of government. Does it really make practical difference to you if a government says "you can't say that", vs a monopolist/trust/cartel saying the same thing?

But that only points out the fact that, for example, Facebook should not exist in its current form. That fact that that it is basically the only significant player in its niche points to a spectacular market failure, one likely compounded by unlawful monopolistic practices by Facebook.

There should instead be multiple viable competing services in such spaces. If it takes alienating decent sized chunks of the population to eventually get a viable competitor, then so be it. And no Parler is certainly not that viable competitor. But if Facebook's actions piss of enough people who are not extremists, then a true competitor might actually start to emerge.

The same applies to Apple/Amazon/Google.

---

After thought:

Seriously who is the #2 competitor to Facebook's main service? There really does not seem to be any significant competitor in the English speaking world. While on the other hand, Amazon for example has fairly clear competitors for most of its products, at least in the US. Walmart/EBay competes with the shopping, GCP/Azure compete with AWS, YouTube Gaming competes with Twitch, multiple streaming services compete with the video and music offerings, etc. Apple likewise has competitors for pretty much all of their offerings. Even Google has competition on most of their products.

It’s a perfectly reasonable position, and IMO the correct one.

But speech has always been limited: incitement to violence, criminal conspiracy, libel, blasphemy (in many places), “public exposure of private facts” (damaging other people’s legitimately private life), revealing classified material ... and so on.

I think what people fail to distinguish is the free exchange of ideas - what totalitarian countries suppress - and the right to say whatever you like even it it’s to do deliberate harm for selfish ends.

The paradox of tolerance shows us that to have freedom we can actually use there must be limits on what we are free to do.

Organising and inciting an insurrection to overturn an election - what effect does that have on the speech and political rights of those who spoke for months to win the votes of the newly elected President? To respect the freedom of those people shouldn’t we restrict the speech of the former, when it is shown to have become dangerous?

IMO, nobody gets it 100% right 100% of the time, but the USA model isn’t the perfect or only solution.

Legislation has a place in limiting the power and reach of social media, which would naturally diffuse the kind of problems people have with big tech.

Karl Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance[1]:

> The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly paradoxical idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

I think prohibited speech should be addressed through post-fact punitive measures, not through blanket premptive actions.

Even if someone does say prohibited things, it does not necessarily follow that all that say ought to be prohibited. So no-platforming is morally and ethically problematic.

To me, it seems more ethically problematic to allow immediate threats of violence to proliferate on a platform unchecked until it can be proven that violence actually occurred, simply for the sake of ideological purity.

Taking steps to stop violence before it begins makes more sense than using hindsight to judge the merits of the violence.

IMO.

I doubt if these platforms or anyone have the ability to determine legality of posts before they are made.

When it becomes very cheap to violate the law and remains expensive to enforce the law, obviously we see a lot of lawbreaking ensue. The solution ought not to be to sweep away the First Amendment, but to do a combination of things that:

1. Makes it feasible to enforce the law on internet speech when and where it applies 2. Go enforce that law

The First Amendment exists in a context of assumed liability for publishers. This may have been more practical when there aren't that many publishers. When there are $billions of publishers, the deterrent impact of liability fear just isn't there. Regulation is also an alternative to making law enforcement more practical and affordable. If you don't want to expend the resources prosecuting every violation of the law, you have to take some proactive steps to manage the environment to reduce potential violations. This is why you have the FCC regulating content on broadcast media, for example.

So I'm not really sure what time period you refer to where there was truly free speech in America?

This. I have started to believe that although free speech is very important, it is only possible to have full free speech in a society where there is not too much hostility between groups. Otherwise it has become too easy to manipulate people, both in your own group and in groups that you are opposed to.

But the society should determine those limits. We are completely within our right to do so. If we don't want people stomping around claiming and ethnic group is subhuman and should be exterminated, society has the right to determine that. We choose our representatives, they make a law, and then that speech is no longer protected.

Now, the people who would be subjected to that limit are going to fight tooth and nail to defend it. They will espouse all manner of fallacy, especially the slippery slope that the US will become China or North Korea or Russia. These are intentional tactics to obfuscate the power of the majority for their nefarious schemes.

However, if the majority decides it wants to ban, say, all non-Christian speech, then other rights kick in: such as the right to practice any religion freely.

The Bill of Rights is a fairly astute document not just in its content but its malleability (hello prohibition & slavery & suffrage), because the Constitution was missing a lot of important things. Let's not underestimate it, nor let others do so.

Internet became liberal minefield swamp and you haven't done anything about it besides blaming.

Build the venues to reach people. Invest in media that speak your language.

Counter all fake news with strong and convincing media you control.

Do it before their "peaceful protestors" will burn the rest of our cities.

Internet became conservative minefield swamp and you haven't done anything about it besides blaming.

Build the venues to reach people. Invest in media that speak your language.

Counter all fake news with strong and convincing media you control.

Do it before their "peaceful protestors" will burn the rest of our cities.

I don't know much about Parler - it sounds like the key people there were real assholes and possibly criminals. There are any number of reasons that might apply for getting rid of it. Parler might not be the limiting case that decides our rule.

Then rebuke them, don't try and silence them. First off, you won't silence them, you'll just drive them to another platform or underground and in fact, likely give them even more credence (similar to the Streisand effect) - big tech just created a bunch of martyrs and "forbidden speech" and we all know how well it goes when things are "forbidden", it just attracts more people who want to be martyrs as well.

By discriminate, do you mean "disparage" or simply "make a distinction between"? Or something else?

In either case, it seems like quite a low threshold, it seems like it would mean you condone a social network that bans people that say "I don't like white people" or "women can't drive"?

Does anyone?

I know people say they do, but they also reject the direct consequences of it, so obviously don’t mean it or don’t understand it.

Section 230 protections doesn't apply here either. It does protect against civil suits, but only for good faith attempts at removing illegal content. It's fair to question whether Parler has done a good enough job in that regard. If not, then the appropriate parties should sue Parler to force it to clean up it's act. But there is nothing inherently illegal about Parler, so there is no reason why these platforms deserve protection for thwarting the many perfectly legitimate users on the platform.

There's a not unreasonable chance that Amazon will lose here.

It does in part, yes.

> I imagine FAANG has better lawyers than Parler.

That is by no means a given.

But I believe that there are plenty of good right-leaning lawyers who would see fighting this kind of thing as an important long-term survival strategy.

Businesses have free speech rights in addition to individuals.

Let's take a shop owner as an example. This particular shop owner does not support Trump. They have a community notice board on their shop where people can post things.

Of course they are not going to let a Trump supporter post a MAGA sign on that board. It's their business, they can decide whats allowed there and what isn't. Forcing them to display a MAGA sign would be essentially "forced speech" which would also violate their rights.

That doesn't prevent anyone from making MAGA signs or posting them in other places, so the free speech of those people wasn't violated in any way by the shop owner refusing to display their signs.

Therefore I think Amazon, Apple, Google and the other companies shouldn't be forced to convey messages on their platforms they don't agree with, otherwise it's violating their rights.

If we can't discuss and address it and other sensitive things like it that are evil and are approved-speech by tech then we're doomed as a society, and I'd say we're no better than actual racists, oppressors and slavers from days past.

Moves like this by tech companies only makes it worse and more difficult to discuss this.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but these recent steps taken by tech are incredibly disturbing.

I also don't understand what tech companies are preventing from being discussed? The issue with Parler is they weren't moderating to delete violence inciting commentary - if Parler had done an adequate job of that then the app would still be accessible on those app stores.

More government control leads us more towards a CCP state, whereas the freedom of businesses to be relatively sovereign is a failsafe against potential tyranny - and where people are "voting" for the companies they support the governance of by buying their products, services - allowing them to earn revenues/profit to continue existing; yes, there needs to be even more competition to prevent oligopoly behaviour, and there is policy possible to help with that - especially what's needed is good data and network portability laws so people's online life is easily mobile, as well I believe there needs to be a mechanism that extracts more value from businesses that gain benefit from economies of scale for various reasons.

Just as a reminder, the deplatformed population was pushing (and the platform was enabling) fighting words - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_words

By the way, the "fighting words" decision(like the other oft-favored "fire in a crowded theater" quote) are great ironic examples of what kinds of speech you are looking to suppress - a Jehova's Witness swearing at police, and a protestor against the draft in WWI. You don't need to be imaginative to see how these "reasonable limits to free speech" will be used negatively, you only need to look at what they were created for.

Had Wednesday not happened, there would be no ability to consider the language in scope as such.

Vague threats were made, impressions were that there was no telling whether or not they were serious, and then the insurrection happened.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech

Now, free speech _can_ also be used to spread lies and incite violence, and maybe banning Trump before he had a chance to spread unsubstantiated claims about election fraud would have prevented this recent chaos, but it seems to me that doing it afterwards will increase the chances of violent conflict, at least in the near term. Moreover, the possibility that he might have eventually conceded or placated his supporters is now nil. So, as a consequentialist, I'm dubious of the notion that banning him can be justified on ethical grounds.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johnpaczkowski/amazon-p...

This whole banning of Parler looks like a bad faith exercise where those with different political opinions are held to stricter standards.

Freedom of speech with limits is an oxymoron.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

You feel this way because you agree with their political views. But that's not how free speech works. What if these platforms banned Joe Biden, because they correctly pointed out that he has used his right to free speech before to destroy millions of lives by unleashing a mass incarceration bill, which to this very day disproportionately affects certain racial groups based upon "immutable characteristics of their person" [1]?. Or if they had canceled him over what appear to be highly credible allegations of sexual assault [2]? Would you feel the same way?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcpO329xTGI

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA_Wt22f6gs

i think if the line is delineated legally, explicitly, clearly that this restriction adds freedoms to those who would be restricted were free speech absolute and the screams of the intolerant drowned out their pleas for survival.

i think the perception this does not qualify as free speech because it is not absolutely free in a libertarian sense (i can say literally whatever sequence of things i can imagine, i can transmit literally any sequence of bits, i can portray literally anything in film/video games) is a strange and mostly american one.

to be clear: i agree free speech is important and am not particularly arguing against it in the american context here either—one thing that i think is better in sum in american is the high degree of press freedom due to america’s extremely high legal standard for libel. i just wanted to comment on the sociological phenomenon i see where there is “free speech” and “this other thing where it is free speech as most other places would recognize it”.

this is just one of the things makes america peculiar, in a special sense. blessing and a curse, and in total i think the lumps are worth the rest of the pudding.

(Whether this particularity has expired is a separate question.)

It's naive to think that like-minded people won't find an online place to rally, and then eventually rally in person when they feel necessary or are incited ton do so - in this case the ongoing coup attempt is based on lies. It's a futile effort to try to suppress them, they will just gather elsewhere and the deplatforming will be a justification in their mind that they're being persecuted, as the digital/speech will inevitably manifest into the physical where the confrontation can't be avoided.

I do see the deplatforming akin to parents attempting to teach a child their behaviour isn't acceptable, the problem is these children aren't understanding that - and they're adults now without anyone reasonable that they look up to or listen to as a good role model; they've listened to Trump et al who are pushing the false narrative of election fraud, so they will feel justified in violent actions.

Which Amazon, Facebook and Twitter also do "in abundance". I can give a list of links which show direct violations of their violence policy, discriminating religion, people et all and it has been happening for years and yet no action as been taken. But does it matter if I give you such a list? It doesn't matter. Why? Because it is taken for granted that all venomous stuff that you find online is coming from the Right Wing/Alt Right/Trumpists etc. There is nothing that Left can do wrong.

Since this is the notion that I find most left liberals employ there is no way to come to a common ground in such scenarios. Unless you are willing to accept that there is venom on the left wing too there is no way I will agree to your point. If you feel Parler harbors hate in abundance you will be shocked to see the kind of hate I have found on Amazon, Twitter and Facebook spewed by the left. If you want to address the issue you should take a holistic approach of condemning it in all platforms and not single out one platform. Only then I can take your argument seriously. But the question is: Can you do it?

Just like every freedom, it must be limited by others' freedoms. As the saying goes "your freedom to swing your fists ends at my nose." So it is with speech. You should be able to speak your mind, but if that speech causes someone else harm, then that person's right not to be harmed must be weighed against your right to speak.

Maybe we shouldn't allow private entities like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, etc decide where those boundaries are. I don't think capitalism is a good fit in this case.

I've been suggesting this since before all this went down: many left of center folks don't actually believe in free speech; only "correct" speech.

What makes me really nervous is historically, leftist governments have much higher body counts than right wing governments. These types of governments have the commonality that they tightly control speech and thought.

This is all personal as a relative in my wife's side of the family spent half his life in the gulag for having the audacity to suggest Stalin was not a good guy to his drinking buddies (who turns out are the ones that reported him).

If you're on the left (or right), please do some soul searching on this topic. Also consider that it might not be your guy/gal/party who decides what speech is appropriate (and it's a constantly moving target). And in the age of the internet archive, anything you've written in the past is/will be open season. That's pretty scary, at least for me.

Already in Germany before WWII Hitler used that to his advantage where he worked hard enough to make "Jew", "communist" and "social democrat" into synonyms. Meanwhile, social democrats were the biggest party that was openly pro-democracy. Other major party were anti-democracy.

The distinction is not between modern and old "socialism" like Sweden or Denmark. The distinction is whether you buy the "anyone not exactly right with is basically communist" framing.

Scenario: US is at war abroad. Government officials, military, and pro-war political wing is using social networks to rally the nation, urge continued fighting, etc.

Tech companies' leadership, being pacifist and against war, decide to deplatform the war party all together. Attempts to establish alternative means of mass communication by pro-war party (and the government!) are blocked as even Cloud Providers ban them.

My conclusion (ymmv) running above in my head: national security trumps private property considerations, and those suggesting private capital operating mass communication networks and system, can behave as they please are wrong.

[p.s. What happens to Pentagon and JEDI and MS cloud, if Microsoft leadership turns pacifists in middle of a war? "Private company" can do as it pleases? The premise is ludicrous when state interests are concerned.]

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Deplatforming a sitting POTUS before constitutional means (impeachment|25th) have legally removed him from office is technically an element of a coup. Two basic things happen in coups: control of mass media, and military brass ignoring chain of command.

For the record, IMHO, there is no way FANGs would dare this if they did not have a greenlight from Pentagon and the Alphabet soup agencies.