And now information about your account has been leaked, and will be lumped in with more nefarious accounts. I have a feeling that a significant number of people have similarly made accounts out of curiosity. I've had my parents and some less technically inclined friends recently ask me what Parler is because it's been in the news. These aren't people that fall under the alt-right categorization in the slightest, and they're also not people who would think to use fake information if they were signing up for something to see what it is like.

Even if the platform had terrible and dangerous content on it, we should avoid assuming that everybody on it supported that content, and we shouldn't celebrate their personal information being leaked.

I don't care if my personal information was leaked. I followed discussions, posted a comment or two like, "What evidence do you have for that?" There seemed to be tons of other accounts that did the same, along with accounts by obvious Lefts who were there to troll. I highly doubt there will be blowback for the kind of participation I did.

I am absolutely a privacy advocate. However, in the case where the continued existence of our democracy hinges on rooting out violent domestic terrorists, I am willing to make tradeoffs. At this point, you should think about Parler as a jihadi forum for rednecks.

I don't understand your claim that terrorists are a threat to our democracy. As long as most of the people in the country believe in democracy, the country will continue to have democracy.

The real threat to democracy is allowing leaders to stop following the democratic process. For example, on 02021-01-06, 147 congresspeople voted to throw out the votes from an entire state, even after their party had pursued the appropriate legal remedies [0]. Next time, they may succeed in throwing out votes. At that point, USA will be an oligarchy. This is the real threat to democracy.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/07/us/elections/...

Those Congresspeople were responding to, and enabling, the same terrorists. These are not two separate discussions.

Can you please explain how they were enabling the terrorists? Did the congresspeople get the Capitol Police to stand down? Even if they did, that is a separate thing from throwing out votes.

The country could have terrorist acts every day and still have democracy. Our congresspeople could have their meetings in an underground bunker, wear body armor all the time, and travel in armored vehicles, and it would still be democracy. Democracy means the people decide who has power.

Terrorists can use violence and may change some people minds, but they cannot destroy our democracy. Democracy exists in the minds of US voters.

Lauren Boebert was livetweeting the location of Pence and Pelosi so that the mob could "get her".

That crime is separate from trying to throw out votes.

At this time, it's becoming clear that the GOP establishment is in favor of de facto one-party rule. They are seeking to overturn the results of a democratic election, and many of them are encouraging voter disenfranchisement and even stochastic terrorism to retain their grip on power.

The attack last Wednesday was literally successful in preventing a vote about an election and you can't fathom how terrorism is a threat to democracy? Imagine if those two quick-thinking staffers didn't grab the electoral votes and take them to the bunkers.

>>147 congresspeople voted to throw out the votes from an entire state, even after their party had pursued the appropriate legal remedies

Hey wait, they had the opportunity to vote their conscience on it? Does that mean they were Constitutionally empowered to raise and decide the question?

The USA is a republic, and explicitly not a democracy, said status having been debated early on and pure democracy was found seriously wanting in the qualities needed for a just and lasting society of free people.

No. The constitution does not allow them to throw out votes.

A republic is a form of democracy. Arguing semantics has no place in HN.

And "vote their conscience" is a weasel phrase. They had a duty to tally the votes, a procedure to follow. Some of them didn't want to follow the procedure. Changing the procedure requires a constitutional amendment, agreement from a supermajority of states. Regardless of their individual thoughts on the matter, the laws of the land do not allow them to vote to disregard the law.

>>And "vote their conscience" is a weasel phrase. They had a duty to tally the votes, a procedure to follow. Some of them didn't want to follow the procedure.

So are you neglecting the Electoral Count Act of 1887? If the law and procedure requires they must vote when a proper objection is raised, it is not against the law to vote as they see fit, aka vote freely. This is the generally accepted meaning of "voting their conscience", not vague or misleading and thus not a weaselly phrase.

Perhaps you should cite the Constitutional support for the premise that Congress must vote a particular way when a vote is taken in this case. Especially when actual law and rule allows for the particular question to be raised and put to a vote.

>>A republic is a form of democracy. Arguing semantics has no place in HN.

There is a distinction, as described in Federalists no. 10, Madison proposes that representatives are elected to protect us from the failings of democracy. It is my understanding this is the generally accepted distinction of why we don't vote directly or bind our Senators and Representatives to vote a particular way. I feel it is germane because it means the actions taken were consistent with the specific republican form of government in the USA and to imply they were un-democratic or a threat to democracy is to imply the government is a different form.

In other words there is nothing wrong or unlawful with contesting the electors the way they did. Their only risk in Congress is if Nancy Pelosi (or whomever is Speaker) can gin up a ⅔ majority of members present for a quorum and win a vote to expel the objectors. And of course that can be for any reason she pleases, just like the impeachment. Which is why we may interpret the stated reason as partisanship.

You imply that I am ignoring some important point of the Electoral Count Act of 1887 [0], but you do not state the point or how it makes the behavior of the Republican voters OK and not an attack on democracy. Please behave in a more respectful way.

I reviewed the act. It contains rules for handling the situation when a state has not properly selected its electors or certified its votes. Pennsylvania did properly select its electors and did certify its results before the deadline.

The act allows congresspeople to submit written objections, with grounds. The objections submitted on 02021-01-06 were the same lies that were rejected by Republican judges in Pennsylvania and the US Supreme Court. You can read them in [1]. Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey eloquently explained the situation to the Senate [2].

I see nothing in the Electoral Count Act of 1887 that would allow Congress to throw out a state's votes. If you can find it, please reply.

Throwing out a state's votes is unacceptable. And it is unconstitutional, regardless of any acts passed by Congress short of constitutional amendments. Our nation has democracy written into its core. No party can throw it away with a vote.

[0] https://govtrackus.s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/24/ST...

[1] https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2021/01/06/hou...

[2] https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2021/01/06/sen...

You should look at your cites: Electoral votes may be discarded lawfully if they are not found to be "regular", as specified in 3 U.S. Code § 15: "and no electoral vote or votes from any State which shall have been regularly given by electors whose appointment has been lawfully certified to according to section 6 of this title from which but one return has been received shall be rejected, but the two Houses concurrently may reject the vote or votes when they agree that such vote or votes have not been so regularly given by electors whose appointment has been so certified."

Not only does chapter 90, section 4 of the original act you cited provide an explicit procedure for raising objections to submitted electoral votes by state, conducting debate, and a vote, but the congressional record you cite shows the Senators and Representatives following the procedure outlined in the original act as incorporated in 3 U.S. Code § 15.

Hardly an unlawful attack on democracy. Lawful objections were raised, lawful debate was held, and a lawful vote was taken.

You originally asserted >> "The real threat to democracy is allowing leaders to stop following the democratic process. For example, on 02021-01-06, 147 congresspeople voted to throw out the votes from an entire state, even after their party had pursued the appropriate legal remedies [ https://govtrackus.s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/24/ST... ]. Next time, they may succeed in throwing out votes. At that point, USA will be an oligarchy. This is the real threat to democracy."

Like it or not, the Senators and Representatives followed the lawful process. It was not exhausted until the objections were defeated. Asserting there was something "undemocratic" about the objections or the potential of throwing the out the electoral votes is irrelevant, it is not unconstitutional or illegal.

The objective of the process is to end up with someone holding the office of President. If it is true, however, that the election was fraudulent, and that fraud involved disenfranchising the democratic vote for the slate of electors, that would be a threat to democracy, especially if Congress refused to acknowledge it. The courts want no part of it because it's the responsibility of the State Legislatures and Congress.

if the mass killings that right wing people want, come to pass, that for me would be a loss equal to "threat to democracy"

i think we are post-privacy.

we need compassion to restrain ourselves from harming others

but I dont think anyone can expect to hide from anyone else on this rock at this point.

And now there are folks right here in this thread who will assume the absolute worst about you and try to ruin your life. I wish you the best of luck in surviving this. This is why it's not reasonable to paint every account there as that of a terrorist.

Why would they? Because he did nothing? Or because he was 'present'? Accounts that monitor something are not going to run with the crowd in their act. See also: the historian who documented a lot of the mayhem on the 6th from inside the crowd.

Because they're not going to investigate all 4+ million Parler accounts to distinguish between those involved and those not. Many folks here are just assuming everyone on Parler was a terrorist or complicit in what happened. The poster's name and phone number are now lumped in with everyone else's. All we can hope is they made the effort to use fake information.

No one will be judged for having an account, because a lot of people were signed up just to monitor and watch. It is trivial to claim that you only signed up for that reason and to expect the claim to stick. If you happened to be frequently posting the chronicles of the elders of zion or talking about how you wanted to pursue an ammo box solution to a ballot box loss then you are going to have a lot more explaining to do.

> No one will be judged for having an account, because a lot of people were signed up just to monitor and watch.

Just like certain subreddits weren't banning people just for having posted in certain other subreddits, even if those posts were opposition posts, right?

I think you need to read more Jonathan Haidt, because research shows you're flat out wrong about this.

I definitely hope that your analysis here is the prevailing one.

I'd hope it would take a bit more than 'present' to be handed a sentence. But time will tell.

I've been seeing a lot of people claiming to have been in the Capitol (with the crowd) in a "journalism" capacity who also seem to spend the rest of their time openly and vocally supporting the conspiracy theories and groups that led to the riot. I've become very torn between the dual ideas that a) it's important for people to be covering these things and b) by nature of a protest, those people being in the crowd are tacitly (or openly) contributing their voices to that movement.

I think there's a difference between physically showing up at the Capitol during that event and being present for the whole thing (even if not entering the Capitol) versus just having an account on a site where some planning for the event took place. It seems to me that it would've been quite possible for a casual user of Parler -- or someone like the above poster who signed up as an observer -- to not even be aware of said planning. For instance, I'm pretty sure I have some family members who created Parler accounts in the past, and yet they called me up asking me what was going on at the Capitol and why, suggesting they were just as surprised/shocked as everyone else.

I think folks here are underestimating how many people just viewed Parler as a right-leaning Twitter and didn't realize how far some corners of it had went or were going.

They don't need to assume, because they will have your private messages and posts.

Didn't we learn from 4/8chan that letting people post whatever they want (semi-)anonymously leads to disgusting behavior?

People cannot post whatever they want on 4chan. On boards such as /g/, and /sci/, any off topic discussion is banned, including blatantly racist content. Other than that, there is free discussion that can be quite enlightening. And just because you choose to use a website does not mean you agree with the fringes. Just because you're a reddit user, and reddit has gore subreddits, are you into gore?

You make 4chan sounds like a utopia. Clearly you've never seen the revenge porn, gore, doxxing, etc that happens (or at least used to happen, havent been there in years) on b/.

why the hell would anyone go on /b/? Same reason no one goes to reddit/r/nsfl

And honestly, 4chan really is a utopia compared to orange reddit. Removing identities makes conversations less about how the individual appears and more about the substance of the topic.

So you agree that unmoderated communities result in cesspools? We took the scenic route, but I'm glad we arrived at my point eventually.

This thread is talking about an example of doxxing on a much larger scale than anything that has ever happened on 4chan. What's your point?

My point is what my original comment says.

Older than that, here’s a take from 2004: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

reddit is the same thing. not all of 4chan is bad. not all of reddit is bad. but there is bad on both. it has nothing to do with the website it’s the format

The difference is that reddit at least tries to moderate calls to violence and hate speech.

They don't always do a good job of it, though.

AFAIK 4chan is also moderated to an extent, which is what lead to 8chan/others.

4chan is moderated

The whole reason 8chan was created was because they were kicked off of 4chan for disgusting behavior (specifically doxing/harassing game journalists)

I think it's also that unmoderated forums become a magnet for people who want to spew hate, rather than anonymity inherently leading regular people into such behavior (though maybe the former causes some of the latter).

Then you should be worried because your employer and family may discover that you were a member of Parler. The "I was just curious" defence might not be as convincing as you think.

LOL, this is as ridiculous as, "You were once handed a leaflet about the Nazi Party in 1937, therefore you are a Nazi."

If we don't move past this kind of absolute nonsense, you really will have a violent confrontation on your hands, because you're going to end up alienating millions.