Re:PayPal Has Begun Quietly Shuttering Left-Wing Media Accounts
by kstenerud on Thursday May 05, 2022 @01:47AM
(#31269980)
Considering the places whose accounts are being shut down, I'm not surprised. A private company isn't going to want to end up on the wrong end of sanctions due to whom they're enabling. Places like Consortium News and Mint Press are pretty far out there with the conspiracy theories already, but the Russian propaganda would be what killed their accounts.
All of these financial companies that don't have legal requirements otherwise use the same playbook: Be very trigger-happy, and have a boilerplate "go away" message that gives them maximum maneuverability and reveals no further information that would invite argument (the more their representatives talk, the greater the risk of legal liability).
When I got booted from N26, I kept calling customer service to inquire about it until finally one of the operators broke protocol and told me that the rules require her to hang up on me the moment I mention the closure of my account (and then hung up, of course).
It's nothing personal; they're just protecting their bottom line (which is why most financial institutions are bound by consumer protection laws).
Re:PayPal Has Begun Quietly Shuttering Left-Wing Media Accounts
by raxxorraxor on Thursday May 05, 2022 @06:50AM
(#31271724)
A legal scholar in my country just argued that overblocking doesn't exist. I sometimes fail to imagine where these people live. Of course there are bad actors in the profession but from someone in a public position this came as a surprise.
Without an ounce of predictability of legal decisions any provider will block generously, any half-arsed lawyer should know this. If our legal scholars are that dense or self-interested, I don't see how any provider could ever make sensible decisions.
Re:PayPal Has Begun Quietly Shuttering Left-Wing Media Accounts
by pessimizer on Friday May 06, 2022 @10:57AM
(#31285929)
> Those both seem to be on the same level as NaturalNews and InfoWars.
What does that mean in this context? Are you saying that the sites promote health quackery and bizarre theories about fake mass shootings, or is saying they're like NaturalNews and InfoWars just a way to say that you would like them banned because you disagree with their opinions (like you presumably disagree with health quackery and theories about Democrats being possessed by demons?)
Re:PayPal Has Begun Quietly Shuttering Left-Wing Media Accounts
by skinnymuch on Friday May 06, 2022 @02:37PM
(#31288411)
They aren’t alike at all. The listed sites spend actual legitimate effort with their organizations and the news they publish. The right wing sites you named are grifts. Not high effort passionate work.
Your comment makes it seem more likely you disagree with left wing stuff.
...and I agree that the site may have (apparent or otherwise) biases. But the content reads true to me. I've seen and heard of previous examples of attempts to suppress and shut down publications or talking points that do indeed later turn out to have been accurate.
Re:PayPal Has Begun Quietly Shuttering Left-Wing Media Accounts
by IdEntities on Friday May 06, 2022 @06:29PM
(#31290218)
What don't you like about this, exactly? Jon Ronson was saying much the same thing in his book The Men Who Stare at Goats a short time ago.
MKUKTRA was real and its methods and results continue to play a key part in our intelligence services' activities. Some people just don't want to hear how rotten and untrustworthy their society's key institutions have become I suppose.
Re:PayPal Has Begun Quietly Shuttering Left-Wing Media Accounts
by jka on Saturday May 07, 2022 @06:39AM
(#31293481)
That book was a while ago, I think? I remember watching the film.
Here's one paragraph that I found particularly unpleasant from the article:
"After he was stripped naked, interrogators 'lined up' one-by-one to slam Baluchi's head into plywood - and, on occasion, concrete - walls over and over again, until they became 'fatigued,' whereupon another would take their place, in sessions lasting up to two hours. A CIA operative interviewed by the Inspector General claimed this method was 'meant more for 'sensation' than to hurt the detainee,' and 'simply made a big noise.'"
It troubles me for a few reasons:
- It seems unlikely that decision-makers approving 'enhanced' interrogation would be aware of the methods used -- because as illustrated here, they're a disgrace -- and so it implies that the site operated without accountability
- It's documented[1] that no useful intelligence was gathered as a result of these actions
- It's (presumably?) taxpayer funds that pay for this, so there should be transparency so that citizens can debate and decide whether they support it
- It seems to imply an organizational structure that allows -- or provides for -- some people without any moral or sympathetic core to be employed in the (largely senseless) hurt of other human beings
To me, those aren't behaviours that should be acceptable in a 21st century organization, regardless of location. So that's what I don't like about the article -- but I do appreciate the ability to read it.
(from reading more about the publisher, it may indeed have some problems - whether financial censorship makes sense probably depends on the weight of evidence and reasoning behind that)
Re:PayPal Has Begun Quietly Shuttering Left-Wing Media Accounts
by tacitusarc on Thursday May 05, 2022 @01:29AM
(#31269873)
Assuming no context is required other than the reporting here, this is rather disturbing. On the other hand, it’s hard for me to take the moral vicissitudes of jacobinmag regarding tech censoriousness seriously, given their coverage of Parler and related issues.
Re:PayPal Has Begun Quietly Shuttering Left-Wing Media Accounts
by polski-g on Thursday May 05, 2022 @08:01AM
(#31272239)
States should start passing "must-bank" laws which require financial service companies to serve any and all clients unless ordered otherwise by a judge for criminal actions
Re:PayPal Has Begun Quietly Shuttering Left-Wing Media Accounts
by simonblack on Thursday May 05, 2022 @06:48PM
(#31279234)
I left Reddit after ten years because of unnecessary censorship.
I happened to comment on a photo of an 'iron lung' on the front page saying that I hadn't seen one of those in over 50 years. The next day I saw that I had been banned from some obscure subreddit that I had never even heard of. Seems the subreddit with the photo on the front page was one of the pro-Trump subreddits.
When I complained about that, my complaint post was 'disappeared'.
If Reddit are going to be so up themselves, I can do without them. So I do.
The land of 'free speech' isn't, as far as social media is concerned.
Re:PayPal Has Begun Quietly Shuttering Left-Wing Media Accounts
by Traster on Friday May 06, 2022 @11:25AM
(#31286265)
Reddit is a super weird situation. If you take their policies literally, it's basically a site set up where sub-reddits are pure dictatorships. So in some ways it's perfectly pro free-speech, you can always make your own sub-reddit. But in other ways it's a completely totalitarian dictatorship with all of the larger sub-reddits run by a tiny cabal of very online people. There's no mechanism to appeal the decision of a sub-reddit, and since interacting with another sub-reddit is considered harassment or brigading you can't even talk about one sub-reddit on other sub-reddits.
Re:PayPal Has Begun Quietly Shuttering Left-Wing Media Accounts
by darthrupert on Wednesday May 18, 2022 @01:43AM
(#31419592)
Doesn’t it work like that in capitalistic democracy too? The nation is formed as a liberal democracy, but it specifically allows “subnations”, i.e. corporations, to be run with much more freedom. Almost all of them are run in a very authoritarian way.
Some of those corporations are comparable to small nations in size and wealth.
There are lots of jacobinmag.com submissions with lively discussions in comments as well, and not that many complaints about the reporting (comparable to the usual media sources).
Re:PayPal Has Begun Quietly Shuttering Left-Wing Media Accounts
by pessimizer on Friday May 06, 2022 @11:01AM
(#31285976)
They're like Breitbart because they disagree with Democratic Party consensus, not for any other reason. Everything that doesn't agree with this week's party line (even if that involves denouncing last weeks party line) is like Breitbart.
Re:PayPal Has Begun Quietly Shuttering Left-Wing Media Accounts
by jwozn on Friday May 06, 2022 @02:12PM
(#31288195)
This might be a symptom of jacobinmag being less well known. I had never heard of it prior to this post. I also think the discussion here is civil and most people seem to agree that the banning is justified. My experience with breitbart is that the articles are extremely flame-war-y
Re:PayPal Has Begun Quietly Shuttering Left-Wing Media Accounts
by IdEntities on Friday May 06, 2022 @06:30PM
(#31290227)
I haven't seen any solid case for the banning other than "sites shouldn't publish information which is embarrassing to NATO's efforts in Ukraine." Not one person has raised a factual dispute with anything published at either site.
Re:PayPal Has Begun Quietly Shuttering Left-Wing Media Accounts
by skinnymuch on Friday May 06, 2022 @02:43PM
(#31288468)
Who is most people agree? There’s not a large sample size as you said. Left wing sites don’t have the same billionaire funding strategy as many major right wing sites including Breitbart. Breitbart doing lower effort grifting half the time is the opposite of Jacobin at the very least being clear the people running it are doing it with passion and their actual belief.
Re:PayPal Has Begun Quietly Shuttering Left-Wing Media Accounts
by skinnymuch on Friday May 06, 2022 @02:44PM
(#31288484)
Where is the relation? Where is Breitbart’s equal level of hard hitting in depth pieces? Do you not think Jacobin not being heavily funded by right wing billionaire and so on makes it not possible to be the left wing version of Breitbart. Which is funded in that way?
All of these financial companies that don't have legal requirements otherwise use the same playbook: Be very trigger-happy, and have a boilerplate "go away" message that gives them maximum maneuverability and reveals no further information that would invite argument (the more their representatives talk, the greater the risk of legal liability).
When I got booted from N26, I kept calling customer service to inquire about it until finally one of the operators broke protocol and told me that the rules require her to hang up on me the moment I mention the closure of my account (and then hung up, of course).
It's nothing personal; they're just protecting their bottom line (which is why most financial institutions are bound by consumer protection laws).
Without an ounce of predictability of legal decisions any provider will block generously, any half-arsed lawyer should know this. If our legal scholars are that dense or self-interested, I don't see how any provider could ever make sensible decisions.
What does that mean in this context? Are you saying that the sites promote health quackery and bizarre theories about fake mass shootings, or is saying they're like NaturalNews and InfoWars just a way to say that you would like them banned because you disagree with their opinions (like you presumably disagree with health quackery and theories about Democrats being possessed by demons?)
Your comment makes it seem more likely you disagree with left wing stuff.
...and I agree that the site may have (apparent or otherwise) biases. But the content reads true to me. I've seen and heard of previous examples of attempts to suppress and shut down publications or talking points that do indeed later turn out to have been accurate.
MKUKTRA was real and its methods and results continue to play a key part in our intelligence services' activities. Some people just don't want to hear how rotten and untrustworthy their society's key institutions have become I suppose.
Here's one paragraph that I found particularly unpleasant from the article:
"After he was stripped naked, interrogators 'lined up' one-by-one to slam Baluchi's head into plywood - and, on occasion, concrete - walls over and over again, until they became 'fatigued,' whereupon another would take their place, in sessions lasting up to two hours. A CIA operative interviewed by the Inspector General claimed this method was 'meant more for 'sensation' than to hurt the detainee,' and 'simply made a big noise.'"
It troubles me for a few reasons:
- It seems unlikely that decision-makers approving 'enhanced' interrogation would be aware of the methods used -- because as illustrated here, they're a disgrace -- and so it implies that the site operated without accountability
- It's documented[1] that no useful intelligence was gathered as a result of these actions
- It's (presumably?) taxpayer funds that pay for this, so there should be transparency so that citizens can debate and decide whether they support it
- It seems to imply an organizational structure that allows -- or provides for -- some people without any moral or sympathetic core to be employed in the (largely senseless) hurt of other human beings
To me, those aren't behaviours that should be acceptable in a 21st century organization, regardless of location. So that's what I don't like about the article -- but I do appreciate the ability to read it.
(from reading more about the publisher, it may indeed have some problems - whether financial censorship makes sense probably depends on the weight of evidence and reasoning behind that)
[1] - https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/mar/14/cia-black-site-d...
I happened to comment on a photo of an 'iron lung' on the front page saying that I hadn't seen one of those in over 50 years. The next day I saw that I had been banned from some obscure subreddit that I had never even heard of. Seems the subreddit with the photo on the front page was one of the pro-Trump subreddits.
When I complained about that, my complaint post was 'disappeared'.
If Reddit are going to be so up themselves, I can do without them. So I do.
The land of 'free speech' isn't, as far as social media is concerned.
Some of those corporations are comparable to small nations in size and wealth.
On the subject of Russian propaganda; https://old.reddit.com/r/EuropeanSocialists
There are lots of jacobinmag.com submissions with lively discussions in comments as well, and not that many complaints about the reporting (comparable to the usual media sources).