Deplatform Parler good or bad?

[szechuan]

I think the challenge is more than just about free speech.
That said, it is also a censorship issue. They are trying to silence the right.

They are not silencing the Right, plenty of Right Wingers are still on Twitter. They're Silencing people who break TOS.

[Zan15]

I think the challenge is more than just about free speech. Closing down Parler, esp by the big 3 (Apple, Google, Amazon) is kind of a monopolistic move.

no it isn't because none of the 3 are monopolies in any of the particular industries that are involved.

How can Apple be a monopoly with google....both being gigantic...competing against each other.
Amazon has Microsoft Azure, IBM, etc etc etc

Hell they can go sign up for Alibaba Cloud!!


I think the word you are looking for is anitcompetitive, not monopolistic.
But of course that would require actual proof they worked together in an anti competitive way, and we all know the folks on the right hate having to provide proof. Its easier to scream CENSORSHIP.....MONOPOLY because they are worth a trillion dollars.....!!!

I That said, it is also a censorship issue. They are trying to silence the right. The problem though, deplatforming, silencing, closing Parler, etc... doesn't make these people go away. It just makes them find new and creative ways that we don't know about it communicate and plan.

.

Wait how can it be both a censorship issue and silencing them if you just said it doesn't make them go away and they can still communicate????
You are falling all over your words.

[anyaka21]

no it isn't because none of the 3 are monopolies in any of the particular industries that are involved.

How can Apple be a monopoly with google....both being gigantic...competing against each other.
Amazon has Microsoft Azure, IBM, etc etc etc

Hell they can go sign up for Alibaba Cloud!!


I think the word you are looking for is anitcompetitive, not monopolistic.
But of course that would require actual proof they worked together in an anti competitive way, and we all know the folks on the right hate having to provide proof. Its easier to scream CENSORSHIP.....MONOPOLY because they are worth a trillion dollars.....!!!





Wait how can it be both a censorship issue and silencing them if you just said it doesn't make them go away and they can still communicate????
You are falling all over your words.

bottom line, I'm a free speech advocate, plain and simple. You can try and pigeonhole that weirdly into rightwing ideology, but free speech has zero left/right. And if you want to get technical, I'm more Bernie Bro. But with that also said, I'm more on the side of that we need to get rid of left/right argumentation because all that does is divide. If you call something an issue that is left or right, then all it does is pit one side against the other and if you are for something, then you are on that side, and by default then that makes the other side your enemy. For example, one progressive idea that's starting to breach the gap is Universal Healthcare. People for all walks of life in the US are starting to realize it isn't a left/right issue. 70% of americans are in favor of it, regardless of politics. If it was only a one sided issue, then only half the population would be for it, and as thus demonized. Granted, it's still demonized in the MSM and elite echelons, but something that is supported by most americans. But you hear it constantly on the Rep/conservative side that it's a socialist thing, and as thus if you are on that side you should hate it.

That said, and back to free speech. You can most definitely silence people on social media. But that does not make them go away. They still exist just because you've taken away their voice on a platform or closed down the platform. They will find a way to communicate with each other that is not in the public eye. And in many ways that is a lot more dangerous than a social media platform. Hell, it's also been said that it's taking the feds a lot longer to find the Capitol Hill rioters now that Parler has shut down too. Thus, better to know where you enemy is than to not and have them planning in secret.

Further, shutting it down also in pseudo-whacked out minds like the Trumpian Duck Dynasty LARPers Association, add legitimacy to their cause because why shut them down if there wasn't a grain of truth to their beliefs. Or at least thats the typical thought process. And in many ways only tends to radicalize people further. So if you really want a full on insurrection, this is really the way it starts.

[Zan15]

That said, and back to free speech. You can most definitely silence people on social media. But that does not make them go away. They still exist just because you've taken away their voice on a platform or closed down the platform. They will find a way to communicate with each other that is not in the public eye. And in many ways that is a lot more dangerous than a social media platform. Hell, it's also been said that it's taking the feds a lot longer to find the Capitol Hill rioters now that Parler has shut down too. Thus, better to know where you enemy is than to not and have them planning in secret.

Further, shutting it down also in pseudo-whacked out minds like the Trumpian Duck Dynasty LARPers Association, add legitimacy to their cause because why shut them down if there wasn't a grain of truth to their beliefs. Or at least thats the typical thought process. And in many ways only tends to radicalize people further. So if you really want a full on insurrection, this is really the way it starts.

Strange the FBI et all seem to be doing a good job catching criminals whom already do not use the public social media to play their criminal activities

Harder, sure. But that is what they are there for.


Sure it might radicalize those whom are already hardcore, but you lose the support of the tens of millions who just supported you because now they are out of the loop of the crazy. It mitigates how far the cult can spread and how quickly.

[Endus]

Twitter is a public forum. MMO-champ is a public forum. My house is not a public forum. I could turn my house into one, and invite people in to discuss how socialism is superior, but I choose not to, because I don't want that in my house. Twitter and MMO-champ can remove people from their forum as they wish, which is censorship. Just like not wanting people in my house talking about socialism is censorship. Their option is to then go somewhere else and talk about that stuff.

I would disagree with that description of "public forum", since it's an explicitly revokable privilege and those spaces are not public spaces in the same sense as roadways or public parks. But that seems like a waste of time.

The real point is that what you're describing as "censorship" is both completely normal practice and a laudable one at that. It isn't something to raise a fearmongering specter over.

Once you admit that a bar owner can kick out a customer for bothering other patrons, you've acknowledged that censorship's just fine and nobody should care if you say "but that's censorship".

But if it was so easy for Parler to just host their own website, why haven't they? Have they just 'given up'? Or are there other things at play here?

The only other things at play, here, are that Parler's admin team are pretty bad at maintaining their own site and lack the resources to build what they want.

Which isn't anyone's fault or responsibility but their own.

They aren't entitled to anything beyond what they're already getting right now.

I think we are ignorant to all the answers, however it is very scary to me that so many people agree that "bad people" shouldn't have the right to speech, because who defines "bad"?

See, this is where you pull a sneaky bit of deliberately dishonest horseshit.

We were talking about "censorship", in the sense of being kicked out of a privately-owned establishment for breaking that establishment's rules on conduct.

Now you're trying to talk about people's right to free speech, which isn't even a factor to the first bit. You've moved the goalposts to dishonestly bring in people's rights, which are not in any respect affected by these decisions.

Kicking parler off app stores and off AWS's servers has no effect on anyone's right to speech. None. All Parler's users and their owners are still just as free to say whatever the fuck they want to. That hasn't been harmed at all.

Right to free speech does not include any right to a platform or audience. Nor does it include any protection from consequences by anyone but the government. It covers your right to stand in the street and scream at the sky. It does not mean anyone needs to listen to you, it does not mean anyone needs to help you broadcast your message, and it does not mean your neighbours shouting at you to fuck off or your boss firing you because you embarrassed him are in any way an impact on your freedoms.

Hold on.

There's clearly some flaw, but it might be that the flaw is not the arguments brought forth - but the hidden additional arguments that the other person is inserting.

If you're not detailing all your premises, then you're being unclear about your argument. An argument based in logic means you have to list your premises and draw conclusions from those premises, and only those premises. If you left something out, that's you making a mistake, and your argument, as stated, does not follow to begin with.

So, perhaps the flaw in the argument is that publishing on a web-site isn't like yelling in someone's house.

You'd have to define in what material sense it's any different. Note the word "material". There are obvious irrelevant differences, but that doesn't mean they're relevant to the argument.

In general we have a problem with figuring out how to treat social media platforms as the currently form some odd middle-ground: social media aren't publishers responsible for what is published on their platforms (as if they were a newspaper - as I understand repealing section 230 would put them in the same category), but they are not allowed to be completely hands-off either (as a phone-company is required to be - afaik) and can take actions against some behavior but not against others.

I fundamentally and deeply disagree that there is any problem at all, or even any middle-ground. It's like a bar owner, or any privately-owned public space. If a customer starts making violent threats, it isn't the bar owner's responsibility or fault. If he fails to take action against that patron, though, kicking them out or calling the police or what have you, he might become liable. Same with social media; you're not responsible for what users say, but if it's reported and you take no action, you might become responsible, for letting it continue.

Section 230 just details this distinction clearly, to forestall anyone claiming that they're akin to a print publisher, who reviews content before publication.

The idea that Twitter is a public space for public use is just . . . wrong. It's no more "public" than a bar. If you arse around, you can and will be told to piss off. It is open to the public, but that's not quite the same thing.

- - - Updated - - -

That said, and back to free speech. You can most definitely silence people on social media. But that does not make them go away. They still exist just because you've taken away their voice on a platform or closed down the platform. They will find a way to communicate with each other that is not in the public eye. And in many ways that is a lot more dangerous than a social media platform. Hell, it's also been said that it's taking the feds a lot longer to find the Capitol Hill rioters now that Parler has shut down too. Thus, better to know where you enemy is than to not and have them planning in secret.

Further, shutting it down also in pseudo-whacked out minds like the Trumpian Duck Dynasty LARPers Association, add legitimacy to their cause because why shut them down if there wasn't a grain of truth to their beliefs. Or at least thats the typical thought process. And in many ways only tends to radicalize people further. So if you really want a full on insurrection, this is really the way it starts.

Honestly, look at the last 8-12 years. Social media was largely run as permissively as you could hope. And the nutcase fringe groups exploded in size and radicalization. This is why these companies are starting to crack down; they realize those lax standards have contributed to this radicalization.

It's not like these people are good at hiding. The FBI can locate whatever services they're using to communicate just fine, and you'll have less innocent posts to winnow through to boot. Just because they're not on the biggest services around doesn't mean they're acting in secret; Parler was not remotely secret.

[Rasulis]

Are the FAAMG companies monopolistic? Not in the strictest sense since they are competing against each others. However their tentacles do extend to multiple markets to the extent that has never been seen before. We are talking global level here. Not just the US. Here is an example of Google's business empire. That list covers everything from operating system, search engine, streaming service, smart car tech, e-mail, laptop/desktop, mapping, fitness, cloud computing, etc.

[Endus]

Are the FAAMG companies monopolistic? Not in the strictest sense since they are competing against each others. However their tentacles do extend to multiple markets to the extent that has never been seen before. We are talking global level here. Not just the US. Here is an example of Google's business empire. That list covers everything from operating system, search engine, streaming service, smart car tech, e-mail, laptop/desktop, mapping, fitness, cloud computing, etc.

I feel it's also important to point out that natural monopolies aren't automatically a bad thing. In many cases, particularly with services like Google's, monopolies emerge not because of any bad behaviour by the company, but because of consumer preference, alone. Youtube isn't king because it's pushed competitors out, it's kind because people prefer Youtube to those competitors. The higher number of videos and the great access to user uploads is the draw that makes it the biggest. If you split Youtube up into Atube and Btube, then after a short period of settling out, one of the two would be back to Youtube's size and the other would be failing or dead. The only way to prevent that would be to restrict user choice, and say "no, you live West of the Mississippi, you get Btube, not Atube. If you live East of it, vice versa." And that seems way worse than what these companies are doing, a much bigger restriction on personal freedoms.

It's one thing if a company is acting maliciously to keep competitors from challenging its position.

It's quite another if users don't want the competitors, because they prefer the big-name option.

Especially since that's a position that's fickle; MySpace ruled early social media, until Facebook emerged and everyone left MySpace. That's all it takes; a new competitor that actually attracts most customers, and the current market leader is done.

[Shalcker]

They are not silencing the Right, plenty of Right Wingers are still on Twitter. They're Silencing people who break TOS.

Which were what... 1%? 0.01%? 0.0001%? of Parler's population.

[TigTone]

Which were what... 1%? 0.01%? 0.0001%? of Parler's population.

What’s your point?

[Zan15]

Are the FAAMG companies monopolistic? Not in the strictest sense since they are competing against each others. However their tentacles do extend to multiple markets to the extent that has never been seen before. We are talking global level here. Not just the US. Here is an example of Google's business empire. That list covers everything from operating system, search engine, streaming service, smart car tech, e-mail, laptop/desktop, mapping, fitness, cloud computing, etc.

damN monopoly in FONTS....BREAK THEM UP!!!

[Egomaniac]

Which were what... 1%? 0.01%? 0.0001%? of Parler's population.

100% of parler broke AWS ToS.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article...zon-parler-aws

Amazon's letter to Parler

Dear Amy,

Thank you for speaking with us earlier today.

As we discussed on the phone yesterday and this morning, we remain troubled by the repeated violations of our terms of service. Over the past several weeks, we’ve reported 98 examples to Parler of posts that clearly encourage and incite violence. Here are a few examples below from the ones we’ve sent previously: [See images above.]

Recently, we’ve seen a steady increase in this violent content on your website, all of which violates our terms. It’s clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service. It also seems that Parler is still trying to determine its position on content moderation. You remove some violent content when contacted by us or others, but not always with urgency. Your CEO recently stated publicly that he doesn’t “feel responsible for any of this, and neither should the platform.” This morning, you shared that you have a plan to more proactively moderate violent content, but plan to do so manually with volunteers. It’s our view that this nascent plan to use volunteers to promptly identify and remove dangerous content will not work in light of the rapidly growing number of violent posts. This is further demonstrated by the fact that you still have not taken down much of the content that we’ve sent you. Given the unfortunate events that transpired this past week in Washington, D.C., there is serious risk that this type of content will further incite violence.

AWS provides technology and services to customers across the political spectrum, and we continue to respect Parler’s right to determine for itself what content it will allow on its site. However, we cannot provide services to a customer that is unable to effectively identify and remove content that encourages or incites violence against others. Because Parler cannot comply with our terms of service and poses a very real risk to public safety, we plan to suspend Parler’s account effective Sunday, January 10th, at 11:59PM PST. We will ensure that all of your data is preserved for you to migrate to your own servers, and will work with you as best as we can to help your migration.

- AWS Trust & Safety Team

Seems to me that if the amount of users posting this content was as small as you suggest...Parler should have been able to handle it easily.

[Forogil]

If you're not detailing all your premises, then you're being unclear about your argument. An argument based in logic means you have to list your premises and draw conclusions from those premises, and only those premises. If you left something out, that's you making a mistake, and your argument, as stated, does not follow to begin with.

People rarely list all of their assumptions, case in point:

You'd have to define in what material sense it's any different. Note the word "material". There are obvious irrelevant differences, but that doesn't mean they're relevant to the argument.

No, the ones making the argument that social media is just like someone's house have to logically prove that assumption; because otherwise the argument doesn't hold.

Your premise - your job to prove it.

The idea that Twitter is a public space for public use is just . . . wrong. It's no more "public" than a bar. If you arse around, you can and will be told to piss off. It is open to the public, but that's not quite the same thing.

That is an ideal world, but what if the bar only kicks out certain races for that (without saying why, of course)?

And consider this scenario:

A presidential candidate makes it clear that they want to heavily tax ads on social media and cable-TV (it seems they narrowly wins the presidential race but there are irregularities). Twitter, Facebook etc first adds a disclaimer to all posts by that candidate saying that the win-claims are disputed, and then bans the candidate.

Would you still think that it's fine?

[Rasulis]

damN monopoly in FONTS....BREAK THEM UP!!!

Lol! That's probably how most companies that used to make money with commercial fonts feel. You just can't compete with free.

- - - Updated - - -

I feel it's also important to point out that natural monopolies aren't automatically a bad thing. In many cases, particularly with services like Google's, monopolies emerge not because of any bad behaviour by the company, but because of consumer preference, alone. Youtube isn't king because it's pushed competitors out, it's kind because people prefer Youtube to those competitors. The higher number of videos and the great access to user uploads is the draw that makes it the biggest. If you split Youtube up into Atube and Btube, then after a short period of settling out, one of the two would be back to Youtube's size and the other would be failing or dead. The only way to prevent that would be to restrict user choice, and say "no, you live West of the Mississippi, you get Btube, not Atube. If you live East of it, vice versa." And that seems way worse than what these companies are doing, a much bigger restriction on personal freedoms.

It's one thing if a company is acting maliciously to keep competitors from challenging its position.

It's quite another if users don't want the competitors, because they prefer the big-name option.

Especially since that's a position that's fickle; MySpace ruled early social media, until Facebook emerged and everyone left MySpace. That's all it takes; a new competitor that actually attracts most customers, and the current market leader is done.

I agree with your post. I just want to note that dethroning FB is going to be a lot harder than MySpace. Just like Google, FB is an amalgamation of over 60 interconnected business enterprises.

I'll just link this here. Over 61 Facebook Products & Services You Probably Don’t Know which range from social media, analytic, business, merchandising, virtual reality, gaming, etc.

Last year, Reels, Shop and Marketplace alone generated 3 billion in revenue in the US. The US is not even Marketplace biggest market. It is the dominant platform for peer-to-peer trading in Asia, Africa and South America by far.

[Egomaniac]

That is an ideal world, but what if the bar only kicks out certain races for that (without saying why, of course)?

That would be a violation of the human rights act.

Luckily for Big tech "People that violate ToS" are not considered a protected class.

And consider this scenario:

A presidential candidate makes it clear that they want to heavily tax ads on social media and cable-TV (it seems they narrowly wins the presidential race but there are irregularities). Twitter, Facebook etc first adds a disclaimer to all posts by that candidate saying that the win-claims are disputed, and then bans the candidate.

Would you still think that it's fine?

Sure, that would be bad.

But Twitter doesn't count the votes. Facebook doesn't certify the results. So they could say "The Win claims are disputed"...but they would have no authority to actually change the results.

[Endus]

People rarely list all of their assumptions, case in point:


No, the ones making the argument that social media is just like someone's house have to logically prove that assumption; because otherwise the argument doesn't hold.

Your premise - your job to prove it.

Axioms and premises are different things. For one.

For two; that they're the same in this is pretty much a given; they are both privately-owned establishments and there is no meaningful, relevant difference between the two with reference to this issue.

That is an ideal world, but what if the bar only kicks out certain races for that (without saying why, of course)?

Technically illegal, as it's a violation of protected class legislation, but generally impossible to prove without a confession or a lot of supporting evidence, like a comprehensive analysis of who is asked to leave, and isn't, and why/why not.

But this is also irrelevant to the point, since Twitter couldn't ban a user for "being black" for the same reasons; the same answer holds true of both cases, and there is no separation, so this doesn't serve to present any meaningful difference.

And consider this scenario:

A presidential candidate makes it clear that they want to heavily tax ads on social media and cable-TV (it seems they narrowly wins the presidential race but there are irregularities). Twitter, Facebook etc first adds a disclaimer to all posts by that candidate saying that the win-claims are disputed, and then bans the candidate.

Would you still think that it's fine?

I'd say it's entirely within their rights.

Which isn't the same thing.

It's within your rights to call a toddler having a tantrum a "fucking stupid asshole", but you'll probably get yelled at if you say that to someone's misbehaving kid at a supermarket. It's a dick move.

This is why nobody cared when r/The_Donald was banning people willy nilly for "being Democrats" or "challenging the God-King Trump" or whatever. It's stupid bullshit, but within their rights, it just means we'll consider them assholes and go on with our day.

[Shalcker]

100% of parler broke AWS ToS.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article...zon-parler-aws

Amazon's letter to Parler

Seems to me that if the amount of users posting this content was as small as you suggest...Parler should have been able to handle it easily.

There are no numbers to make such judgement. Not even percentage of posts still unhandled.

There was supposedly 10 million accounts on Parler.

[Kathranis]

I think the more you attempt to silence people, the more radical those people become. Allowing ignorance to face the light of truth is the best way to dissolve ignorance.

This is cute sentiment, but evidence seems to indicate that no amount of fact checking was able to deter the propaganda disseminated by right wing media over the last several months, which resulted in millions of people believing the results of our presidetial election were fraudulent. In fact, they decried fact checking as censorship and "fake news."

It's dangerous. Those people who stormed the capitol and those who support it were not won over by your light of truth. They reject any media that contradicts their narrative. For them ignorance is the light.

And most of them still believe the conspiracies. Their narrative continues to warp to accomodate their needs, and they continue to become increasingly radicalized, increasingly dangerous.

You are free to have conversations with them, but at this point many cannot even be rehabilitated without a fucking professional psychologist.

[Felya]

There are no numbers to make such judgement. Not even percentage of posts still unhandled.

There was supposedly 10 million accounts on Parler.

Has a murderer ever argued that they were innocent 99.9% of the time?

[Egomaniac]

There are no numbers to make such judgement. Not even percentage of posts still unhandled.

There was supposedly 10 million accounts on Parler.

Doesn't matter. Parler could have had 10 accounts or 10 million

The percentage of users of parlor breaking Parler's ToS is immaterial.

Parler itself failed to live up to the ToS of Amazon, Google, and Apple.

[Elegiac]

Has a murderer ever argued that they were innocent 99.9% of the time?

No but we have had Shalcker and Krakan unironically using this argument: