For me, it's time to unsubscribe. It's not like they have brought me great benefit anyways, if anything the opposite. I wonder if any others will come to the same conclusion.

During the week when more people are working, more tech focused news/projects tend to be shared and discussed.

Give it another week and then decide if it’s all groupthink.

I still find it alarming that so many people perceive these actions as sincere attempts at harm-reduction. Regardless, it is a pleasant to see both sides being represented in the discussion.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25711525

Which is in itself the Dunning-Kruger effect. A tiny minority of people actually have expert level understanding and knowledge. The vast majority of people who think they have expert level understanding just fail to recognise how large their field actually is.

You can be considered a subject-matter expert for recruitment and employment purposes, and it still never be close to the truth. For most practical business purposes it will be true, but it still wont be the reality.

I didn't recognise that distinction until after I had 12 years experience in my field, and met someone who absolutely blew my mind with their level of knowledge and understanding (and declared themselves to be a subject-matter noob).

For all intents and purposes, he's still an expert to everyone else.

I think the line between expert and imposter syndrome is closer and more context based than people realise.

The only option seems to be copious and wide reading of data yourself, and then applying that to your own life, while ensuring you provide a veneer that passes muster to those physically around you, unwilling to do the same, and at odds with your personal conclusion.

Easier said than done, when a large portion of your time is spent taking care of mundane work/family matters.

This breakage in trust of the 'common good' by 'experts' in their field - leaders, law enforcement, health, merchants, ensures that the path of least resistance is the "blind belief" in local leadership and their chosen 'expert' supporters.

From all the networks I participated in, HN is by far most quality-oriented and while the balance of political opinion is different from US average, there is neither mob rule nor cancel culture rampant.

And that’s from someone who got fed up, left for a few years, then returned.

Edit: just don’t tell any jokes. Take that to Reddit :D

In theory, Apple + Google + Microsoft can ban the website at the OS level, so nobody can really access those messages. Technically, they can do this to Parler now.

You can build your own website, but you can't build your own internet. You can't build your own banking system.

It's more about the web than the internet really. The web can be unfree quite easily. Unless we go full China and implement a Great Firewall other protocols can always exist on the net.

https://bisq.network/

Suppored payment methods:

    Advanced Cash
    AliPay
    Cash Deposit
    Chase QuickPay
    Face to face (in-person)
    Faster Payments
    HalCash
    Interac e-Transfer
    Japan Zengin Furikomi
    MoneyBeam (N26)
    MoneyGram
    National bank transfer
    Perfect Money
    Popmoney
    PromptPay
    Revolut
    SEPA
    SEPA Instant
    Swish
    Transfer with same bank
    Transfer with specific banks
    Uphold
    US Postal Money Order
    WeChat Pay
    Western Union
    Zelle

It's so funny. Whenever people say you can't do X with crypto, there is always something they don't know about that proves them wrong.

I'm trying not to fall into a "Survivorship bias" here but I made 10s if not 100s of trades on LocalBitcoin years ago without issue. I wasn't meeting at people's houses or in some dark alley, I was in the Kroger (grocery store) parking lot or even inside Kroger or the Mall. I don't disagree with your point that fiat->crypto is not as easy as some people pretend it is but I just wanted to push back a little bit on the second part of your statement.

A major issue seems to be literal lies and disinformation spreading over social media which makes that divide appear to be much greater than it actually is. If these blatant lies can be prevented then the left and right will have a much easier time coming to political compromises when running the country. Having shared primary ballots would also help a lot to prevent the most radical wings of each party from dominating, because then each party’s candidate would have to appeal to all voters rather than their own.

Shared primary ballots is a good start, but it seems like the most meaningful change to our political system would be implementing a system of ranked voting (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting). Among other things, that would help break the two-party nightmare cased by first-past-the-post voting.

http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/elections/approval_voting_lwv...

St. Louis in November passed approval voting. ( https://electionscience.org/press-releases/diverse-coalition... )

I think the lies and conspiracies are just a manifestation or side effect of the social and political divide. Its like imagining someone you already hate. "They're plotting against me", "they're going to get me", "they probably spilled that milk on purpose to piss me off", etc. And I think there is some substance to the hate, not to the conspiracy, but I see that our society has gotten to this point for real reasons and disagreements that can't be compromised on

edit: typos

Does anyone actually trust big tech at this stage? I thought it was just a case of how much you distrust them.

You say you fear they’ll do so, but if they’re being forced out of society — what choice do they have but to build their own?

They've been creating smaller more exclusive communities for years. They have their own youtube news and fan/media channels, they have their own internet personalities and figureheads even among the mainstream (like dr disrespect, who seemed to be popular with right-leaning gamers I know), they tend to congregate in various indie games (especially war and FPS games), they have their own forums and online spaces (e.g. private discords; thedonald reddit clone, alternate subreddits; parler; 4chan, which is older than any of this but decidedly more right wing nowadays than I remember 10 years ago), and so forth. The problem is that they feel these spaces and communities are under attack. Parler, while I don't disagree with the right of FAANG companies to decouple from parler, is just the latest space that's "under attack".

This isn't unique to Parler, I've seen the right complain about this in gaming, movies and comics (like Star Wars), tabletop games, etc. for years and I know people who were otherwise apolitical but shifted to the right because they felt their hobbies and fanbases were being (unfairly) criticized and changed by outsiders specifically from the left-wing who don't appreciate the original characteristics. And I even agree to some degree that it's hard to have your own space without being attacked. For example, recently I am somewhat aware that Hololive idols, basically asian/japanese game and lifestyle streamers using 3D avatars, have been under (what I think is) undue scrutiny from some feminists for being sexist, pandering to pedophiles, and fueling misogyny. I've seen similar attacks on anime and on some games. Personally I think there's more of a racial element, given western phobia towards asians, in a lot of these attacks and criticisms because extra criticism seem to be targeted at japanese or asian media, but in any case, people on the right think it's mostly political and the political divide has not only worsened it's caused people to take sides and move from a localized feuds (fighting over media like anime and Star Wars) to a broader battle (politics, values, belief systems). And as far as I've observed, this tracks with their attempts and successes at creating increasingly broader alternative platforms. From having their own spaces within larger communities to creating alternative platforms, like parler, or hijacking sites like 4chan, and actually making them viable, unlike earlier attempts (like voat). As of January 6 I think we've come to the point where enough people have aligned politically on the right that they're going to want their own real world society, and not just an online one. Shutting down parler is just going to accelerate the sentiment imo, because as far as I've seen people kind of quantize their world views when (they believe) they're under attack, and group up. They don't become more understanding and broader minded, they become more tribal.

So if the right wants their own society just let them have it before internet fights become real ones. Personally I think it's still a small amount of people, my experiences are just anecdotal based on what I've seen in communities I was part of and people I know, but I think the sentiment is growing rapidly and trying to shut things down isn't working, at best it's a roadblock that pushes problems down the road, at worst it makes people go underground and become more competent at hiding in plain sight.

edit: My fear in particular is that they'll resort to wide scale political, maybe racial, violence. Not that they want right-wing spaces. I'm asian, a lot of us already kind of self-segregate and I don't see any issue with it to be frank. I know integration is important in the US but I don't see a problem with people wanting their own safe space where they're left alone, although it's sad it's come to the point where people attack the capitol.

But to equate all right-wing speech with terrorism seems to be succumbing to a self-fulfilling prophecy while at the same time justifying the very actions you're opposing.

I'm not equating it to terrorism, I'm saying that they have indicated they want separate systems and, really, a separate society. If you take right-wing talking points at face value, what we have now is a shaky middle ground, a society wherein the powers that be both reject them and also employ regulations that make it difficult for newcomers to make their own banks, lay internet cables, etc. which is why you see right wing memes about "make your own google, make your own banks, etc". And these aren't new talking points, one of Trump's promises going into his presidency was to get rid of as many regulations as he could in general: financial and economic, environmental, governance, etc. and democrats/the left are usually blamed for loving regulations. So if that's the case, split the country and let them do what they want with their government, from scratch. It's not like I'm saying we should go around and take all their belongings and march them down to Florida or something and leave them like cavemen. I make it sound trivial because I'm not an expert or anything, but for the purposes of this discussion I think it's a better alternative to civil conflict and I don't see how we're going to fix the divide.

If we truly want inclusive political discourse, we need to acknowledge the validity of traditional conservative viewpoints while drawing a clear distinction between those viewpoints and reactionary terroristic violence. With this understanding in mind, newspapers such as the NYTimes have long featured conservative columnists with critical viewpoints. Perhaps such mainstream publications should try harder to do this.

I'm not really disagreeing but I think we're past the point where publications matter. Social media has created this new world where you're able to discover people you didn't even know existed. In the past you might know your neighbors and accordingly, you'd move to a neighborhood that suited your tastes. For example, that's basically what white flight was (I'm trying to be brief, not insensitive), it's real, that's how people act. And they'd remain in their local bubble and only have a vague idea of the rest of the world, neatly summarized by the news. People would get mad at ideas and vague demographics, and occasionally figureheads like politicians and public businessmen.

Now, on "public" social media like twitter, you can find virtually anyone who has a certain belief or is a certain way and just yell at them for existing or thinking a certain way. You and your friends can pick them out for doing something and mob them on social media, dox them and get them fired, and attack every social aspect of their life. This isn't even unique to politics per se, this happened to a woman who made a terrible joke about AIDS and Africa, among many other people for non-political reasons like being accused of crimes or plagiarizing art. And this is in ADDITION to getting mad at ideas and demographics and figureheads. So the divide that used to be vague has been refined to an individual level, and to make things worse people categorize each other and place them into enemy tribes based on beliefs and people they follow on social media. You follow Biden on twitter? You're a "demoncrat" and you're the enemy. If you follow Trump you're a "nazi" and you're the enemy. You liked some youtuber personality that's this way or another and you're automatically a SJW or a white supremacist, etc. It's borderline impossible to escape and you don't even have to be a part of social media anymore, it's become somewhat normalized to pick individuals out for their wrong doings and have an online mob use any means of communication they can, not just the internet, to attack you. You're unfortunately suspected of being the Boston Bomber because some guy saw bad photos and created a psychotic conspiracy that put you in the middle? A literal international mob from around the world is coming to harass your family and make them miserable even though you'd been dead before the event occurred. Now, mobs certainly happened in the past at smaller, local levels, and they did target individuals often to even worse effect (e.g. lynching), but the digital space has made discovery of individuals easier than ever before and made it borderline impossible to hide your presence.

edit: formatting

It’s important to look at the context around those bans.

The most recent ban from the companies you’ve listed was Visa banning PornHub. They did so because of the amount of underage and non-consentual content on the website.

Yes, companies can ban you in theory, but everything indicates that they do so only in extreme circumstances, like hosting child porn or terrorist content (which is essentially what Parler is being banned for).

This is very much untrue. Most of the conservatives (including the non-conservative called Donald Trump) banned from the main platforms are further from terrorist content than AOC is.

Perhaps this is all inevitable with the nature of the internet, but I have lost a bit of my faith in our institutions to maintain an environment that highlights our common humanity, even when we disagree.

Americans drop a loser like a brick. Taking Parler off the app stores seriously de-legitimizes their cause and their celebrity. If you read Apple's language [1] its very clear Apple believes Parler is operating in extremely bad faith, that they either lack the ability to moderate or are only doing so as a temporary token gesture. This means Parler's user demographic will become more and more full of fringe radical elements that scare off the silent majority less radical crowd.

[1]: "Your response also references a moderation plan “for the time being,” which does not meet the ongoing requirements in Guideline 1.2 – Safety – User Generated content"

Apple should have the right to control what they distribute through their app store; this is undeniable in my mind. A reasonable, though not as obviously sound, argument could be made that at some level of scope and scale its alright to sell general purpose hardware limited to one operating system which delegates control over executable code to the manufacturer. I believe its also clear that Apple is far past any values of scope and scale where this is reasonable for them, specifically.

No one in these comments is talking about Google. Same thing happened with Fortnite; the conversation is all about Apple. This is a signal that the issue here really isn't their decision to allow or ban specific apps; its the core platform decision to allow or ban application distribution channels.

That might explain why it looks like all of the comments are about one or the other.

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25708142

Think of iOS devices like gaming consoles with a GSM chip and you'll have a better analogy.

You can't install your own software on an Xbox, Playstation or Switch without going through some hoops. Neither can you get any random piece of software in their stores without complying with their rules.

It's the exact same thing with iOS.

Firstly, the iPhone is used predominantly as a general purpose computing device, whereas a console is definitely not.

Secondly, pretty much every console has been locked down, whereas it's very new for a GP computing device to be this locked down.

Like, I understand the argument here, but the scale of people using only an iPhone makes it dangerous to give Apple this much power.

Imagine if MS could do this back in the 90s on Windows, would that have been acceptable?

It was not acceptable and they were forced to display a browser selection pop-up, on a OS that already freely allowed users to install whatever browser they wished.

Contrast this with Apple's iOS, where they somehow get away with not allowing any other browser engine than Safari's Webkit.

In Europe. I once tried to uninstall IE in 2005, and it was a complete comedy of errors that lead to me re-installing Windows.

I think what's better for the consumer, and society in general I suppose, is to treat them as general computing devices. Especially as we see them converge with PCs (e.g. tablets with keyboards replacing laptops).

Consider the following: If you had to pick only one, would you replace your PC with a gaming console, or a smartphone? I worry the vast majority of people would choose the smartphone, and as such we would have replaced the open PC culture we have now with a closed, proprietary culture.

I do feel they're an interesting analogue; they sell hundreds of millions of units, the scale is there, but why do I, if no one else, hold them to a different standard than phones? At the end of the day, I do hold them to a different standard, even if I don't have a fully logical argument for why.

I'm satisfied enough with three reasons, though none represent a fully logical argument.

First, they have very limited scope. Every game console does one thing: play games. Some game consoles do a second thing: watch movies and tv. There are platform features to support those goals (parties, voice chat, friends, etc), but that's effectively it.

In comparison, phones have undefined potential scope. They're used for everything anyone could need computing for, usually only limited by the screen size, input systems, processing power, and in the iPhone's case, Apple's 2010s attitude about what your phone is for.

Second, that limited scope described above is wholly "non-critical infrastructure". I love gaming; definitely more than most people. I have a Series X and a PS5 sitting next to my TV, while I'm typing this on a PC with a RTX 2070. Gaming can lead to some very powerful, life-changing moments for some people, and its been a godsend during this pandemic for many. But, its still Just Gaming.

I would define both Communication and News, among others, as computing scopes which are critical infrastructure; these are both things people use their phones for, and they're both scopes which Apple has a demonstrated history of assaulting on the iPhone.

Third, there's very little conversation from actual stakeholders concerning game consoles changing. I try to keep apprised with the games industry, and by extension how game developers feel about the major platforms; the discussion about Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo opening their platforms simply isn't happening. While they do have final control over what is allowed to be played on each console, even with the physical disc market, there's very few incidents of them abusing that control to restrict distribution of a game that desired distribution on each console. There certainly are games which haven't even attempted approval and would be shut down (steam has many anime porn games like this), but the problem certainly isn't as severe as on iOS (due to the limited scope, combined with specialized development skillset, combined with individual investment necessary to get a game working on each platform, I imagine).

There's a second argument, the Fortnite one, that secondary marketplaces aren't just necessary for freedom of speech, but also for revenue. All of these companies force games to use their IAP frameworks, which I'm sure takes something around 30%. Its definitely strange to me that Epic railed against Apple for the same policies they accept freely on Xbox, PS4, and Switch, and I have a less cogent explanation for this; either (1) they should be fine paying that tax to gain access to the platform, or (2) they shouldn't be, and thus should take issue with every platform exerting that control. Unfortunately, the reality is probably (3) Sony owns 2% of Epic, Epic cuts special deals with every platform, and those deals have kept them happy for now, despite not applying to the majority of game developers, and Apple is actually in the right on this specific issue in never giving special deals.

Its important to remember that the way Apple and Google treat game developers is, frankly, garbage. That previous statement I made about Apple never giving special deals actually isn't true: Amazon uses their own IAP framework for digital purchases on Kindle and Prime Video. Fortnite is definitely the same scale as these use cases, but they couldn't negotiate a special deal. Google allows applications to use whatever IAP framework they want (IIRC), but not Games; Games have to use Google's 30% tax IAP framework. Due to these policies, Google and Apple are both Top 5 "Gaming Companies" by revenue, despite not producing a single game. By comparison, real gaming platform holders (Sony, MS, Nintendo) negotiate all the time, and find middleground that keeps developers happy.

This conversation is, of course, happening every day with iOS. Nearly every app developer has a story about how Apple has slighted them. Most experience a weird review and recover from it. Some don't. Many have similar stories concerning Google and the Play Store, but its a far less interesting narrative because there are alternatives for Android users and developers. In fact, the best selling Android devices come with an alternative store pre-installed (Galaxy), all of the first-party apps on Samsung phones are distributed and updated through there (in other words, its users use it), and you can go download Fortnite there right now.

So, its not the "exact same". Its similar enough to where I keep an open mind, and I'm ready to join the cerebral fight for mindshare if the need for openness in consoles should occur, but I don't feel we're there yet. The first thing I'd need to see is actual game developers rally against a platform; maybe that isn't happening due to fear of retribution, but I think even considering that we'd be hearing anonymous rumblings, and I'm not even hearing that.

This has been going on since the App store first launched. I remember speaking up about this years and years ago. There were two sides, and well, we know which side one: people just accepted that Apple gets to dictate what goes on the iPhone.

So at this point, I have no sympathy for anyone who suddenly realizes: "Hey, what are we doing? What are we allowing?"

Every cheered when Apple prevented Flash from running on the device. And then porn apps. And then cheap "flashlight" apps. Or apps that did nothing except cost $1000 for a JPEG of a red gem. Guess what? This is the end result.

So I always look for sincerity when people propose fighting back against this now. Because now that it affects them, they want a change, but do they really want change, or are they just being selfish. And it's always selfish. People are fighting for their piece of the pie.

The "fuck you, got mine" attitude.

> No one in these comments is talking about Google.

Google I can side load apps freely. Others can operate stores and do this. Google does not have this problem.

Considering that Facebook and Twitter can't effectively moderate their platforms (algorithms don't work well and human moderation is too expensive) I doubt Parler could either, even if they wanted to.

What an odd statement.

If that were true, Parler would have no reason to exist. After all, it's raison d'etre is specifically to allow people to get away from the perceived censorship on the major social media platforms.

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, etc, etc, all struggle with the issues of content moderation. The perfect example is Facebook pulling down a journalist photo of, if memory serves, a naked girl in a warzone as CP when obviously it was not.

Yup, these systems are imperfect.

But I think it's pretty silly to claim they're completely worthless or ineffective and therefore moderation simply cannot be done, and Parler is therefore off the hook.

Heck, HN has commenting rules/guidelines. Are you suggesting those shouldn't exist and any system to enforce them is pointless?

This is clearly a strawman argument and frankly such an already polarized statement that I'm not sure there's any point replying.

But, I will say this: I'll bet if Parler simply took threats of violence and incitement on their site seriously and agreed to move to proactively remove that kind of content, they wouldn't be in this position.

Unfortunately, their entire pitch as a platform is to not moderate at all. To that end, their CEO has outright stated they will not moderate their site in any way, and as a result there's some truly scary content on that site from individuals who are literally advocating for the murder of those they view as political enemies.

And if not calling for murder and violence is "cultural orthodoxy", well, I guess I'm pretty orthodox and I'd hope you are, too.

As for Parler, their position on moderation always put them in direct violation of the Amazon/Google/Apple ToS for their various services.

The real mystery is why nothing was done to this point.

Unfortunately objective reality is extremely polarizing in 2021. Calling for murder and violence is illegal and should be prosecuted under the law.

>The real mystery is why nothing was done to this point.

Its no mystery why monopolistic tech giants have moved in unison to silence and censor anyone who opposes the narrative pushed by the ruling elite. Extremely low-information people take this to mean silencing Trump and his ignorant followers. Informed people understand that voices across the political spectrum, from advocates for Palestinian rights to journalists who push back against war propaganda, have been silenced by tech giants at the behest of powerful interests. Fortunately, low-information people who numerically dominate our society and mindlessly bleat the propaganda they have been programmed with have nothing to fear from the new totalitarianism. Until of course they get branded as a "Nazi" by having the wrong friend or the wrong relative, or being at the wrong place at the wrong time, or being flagged by a nameless, faceless algorithm that has been "flawlessly" programmed to seek out "Nazis" and ensure that they aren't able to participate in society. Of course when you are unpersoned by a tech giant, and your bank account is cancelled, and you are put on a no fly list and you are restricted from participating in society in every other way, you can always contact the powers-that-be and easily get the situation cleared up, just like all the people who are summarily banned from Google or Facebook without an explanation, right?

Such a standard is on it face politically slanted towards banning conservative/right speech more than left speech

So how would you classify these?

Advocating for killing "commie Democrat traitor politicians":

https://www.reddit.com/gallery/kua9fq

Advocating for bombing Amazon:

https://i.imgur.com/WcwH3F1.jpg

Advocating for attacking Apple stores:

https://i.redd.it/8bcbvebwz6a61.png

Oh, and by the way, that first guy (JuarezTX) has many more posts along those lines.

So, thoughts? Is it more "subjective analysis" to consider these posts to be incitement to violence? Should Parler be removing these?

Your first link is 404, so I can not comment on it

The second likely would not rise to the level of a "True Threat"

The third I think likely would / should be bannable as that is close enough for me to consider it a True Threat.

Apple's complaint was the Parler was not aggressive enough in removing posts, not that they were not removing posts at all

Apple, Google, and Amazon all have a very clear political bias in their enforcement of their own rules, I am not sure how this could even be debatable anymore.

I can easily cherry pick comments from Twitter, Facebook, etc that have the same or stronger lang around incitement to violence only towards groups like the Police, or other unpopular groups... This level of aggressive enforcement does not seem to be present if the target of the incitement is unpopular

My purpose wasn't to cherry pick, it was to understand what your line is re free/legal speech.

The fact the second one isn't a direct call to action but just an implication, and therefore you think it's fine, is useful information. It tells me that your bar and mine are definitely not the same.

I'll bet you also don't think Trump encouraged the rioting the other day because he didn't explicitly say "hey everyone, riot now!"

Which is of course what makes Trump so effective. Decades of litigation have taught him the artform if plausible deniability. Never say what you want. Imply it and let folks put two and two together

Of course, in the case if Parler, there's no shortage of folks who lack similar instincts and therefore say the quiet part loud...

> I can easily cherry pick comments from Twitter, Facebook, etc that have the same or stronger lang around incitement to violence

The difference is the CEO of Parler has ruled out moderating that kind of content, including the examples I've cited here, whereas every other site removes it.

So the situation simply isn't comparable.

> This level of aggressive enforcement does not seem to be present if the target of the incitement is unpopular

Okay, so where are your examples? I'd be happy to provide my opinion if you'd like.

I have outlined what my line is, True Threat [1], is a legal standard: "‘True threats’ encompass those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals. . . . Intimidation in the constitutionally proscribable sense of the word is a type of true threat, where a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death.” [1]

>>I'll bet you also don't think Trump encouraged the rioting the other day because he didn't explicitly say "hey everyone, riot now!"

I dont actively follow Trump's (or any other) twitter feed, I largely view Twitter as a cesspool just like I view Parler and all other Social Media including Facebook, Gab, even Reddit at this point. Mostly because each platform ends up becoming an ideological echo chamber for the most extreme views of their founding ideology, for the major platforms that ends up being left authoritarianism, for many of the alt-tech that ends up being right authoritarianism..

Since I am not authoritarian at all, left or right, those platforms hold little interest for me and I generally avoid those places. So I can not speak to all of Trump's tweets, though I do believe the partisan machine has generally applied the least favorable reading of all his public comments over the last several years and often time claim "dog whistles" far too often to the point where my general position is one of "Boy who cried wolf" when I see these types of comments.

My belief in this was reinforced by twitter's very very weak justification for their permaban [2]. The posts they highlighted in their justification were not something I would consider to be bannable speech

>>whereas every other site removes it.

Which I also explained due to Parler's very different position on what constitutes bannable speech, they take the same position that generally favor i.e all Legal Speech should be allowed, if a person could not be arrested and jailed for the speech then it should be permitted.

Now I have a feeling you also want the law to be changed to the point where people can be jailed more aggressively for their speech not simply be banned from a popular website. One of the reasons I generally oppose popular platforms banned unpopular speech is that fact that the law often follows popular opinion, thus it is popular to ban speech today it will not be long before the overton window shifts where maybe we need to water down the protections of legal speech, to the point where we are tossing people in cages for their unpopular speech.

As a individualist, libertarian advocating for Geo-Libertarian public policies my opinions are often viewed as unpopular, it concerns me that we are attempting to create safe spaces and echo chambers online where no dissenting opinions are welcome, and if you say an unpopular thing you are painted as a racist, bigot, sexist or some other immoral designation. For example I have been called a racist simply because I oppose income based taxation.

>>Okay, so where are your examples?

Just go back to the BLM protests/riots there we all kinds of calls for violence that went unchallenged. Then there is antifa, hell for a time there was popular subculture around "Punch a Nazi" and of-course all conservatives were "Nazi's"

[1] https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1025/true-threats

[2] https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspensio...

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/27/764879242/nra-was-foreign-ass...

Democrats have called everyone from sitting US presidents to Tulsi Gabbard a "Russian Asset". This is more than likely another false alarm.

What are all these Russian assets meant to be doing anyway? Promoting an excessively calm world peace with strong ties between Russians and Americans? Russia hasn't been a credible threat to the US for 30 years. Nobody is accusing all these assets of actually doing anything. There isn't a path for how Russia is going to take advantage of the US. Anything Russia can do, China can do 3 times over.

The time that they were an appropriate punching bag is long since past.

>There isn't a path for how Russia is going to take advantage of the US

Maybe the plan is to sow discord among NATO allies, cause division among US citizens, make democratic processes such as voting appear unreliable, etc.

And if there are worries about division between US citizens, possibly Amazon, Apple and Google need to be probed for Russian connections. Suppressing the speech of the sitting president is going to be quite divisive and makes the democratic process look extremely unreliable.

There is no reason to be concerned if people have connections to Russia is the point here. The top examples of problems on your mind are kinda trivial compared to what the US does to itself.

The only way to contain fringe elements is to allow them to identify themselves and be prepared when they demonstrate intent to perform harmful acts (“terrorism”). The polite silent majority will go home, the extremist minority will go to prison if they overstep legal boundaries.

I’m not sold on this action either way, just providing what I believe to be something worth considering.

It seems like people denying a problem exists is creating massive inertia against solutions to even the most apparent and emotionally salient problems (mass shootings, COVID, etc).

Are these companies acting preemptively from fear of being later assigned culpability?

The people really deeply devoted to these movements will remain, but many others will just lose interest if it becomes inconvenient.

The constant rejection isolates and estranges the proselytizer from normal society.

Does it though? 21% of voters approved of storming of the Capitol. That's not something that can be cancelled by banning a single app. I can see these bans biting the liberals in the back the next time Republicans take control of the federal government.

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

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/09/23/trump-amer...

That also aligns with around 20% of voters supporting Nixon after Watergate. I think we should do our best to make sure that number stays at around 20% and does not grow; for if it does it imperils the whole democratic system of government that we take for granted.

I wholeheartedly agree that authoritarianism is a threat to democracy, though.

Pretending that it's exclusive to the political right is not favorable to democracy.

If it's difficult to use the thing and the content skews more and more extreme, existing users may continue to get more radicalized, but new users don't offset attrition rates and eventually it dies off.

To me it seems obvious the feedback works in the opposite direction. Deplatforming disrupts the feedback bubbles that radicalize these people.

I personally think they should be allowed to have their space anyway, if they can refrain from inciting violence.

But I would certainly absolutely refuse to do business with them, and have no problem with others making the same decision. People have the right to their repugnant ideas. They don’t have the right to force others to help promote them.

What option do I have then — go to the town square and voice my views? Even going to the town square is illegal in some cases these days, what with COVID restrictions.

I think this is an incredibly dangerous slippery slope, especially given how much our devices act as our "second brains" already.

Is it problematic that people take social rejection as a reason to further radicalize? Sure - but such is human existence - and where is their personal responsibility to observe their social environment and alter their behaviors/beliefs if they are unhappy with the results they are receiving?

But from a policy perspective on the ground, I think the ideal of freedom of speech should eclipse the concerns of private platforms wherever possible. But this is not to say we should not police the boundaries of free speech. In fact, if we had a more strict enforcement policy about unprotected speech like direct threats (such as L. Lin Wood's declaration that people should execute Mike Pence by firing squad [0]), we might not need these platform interventions at all.

[0]: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/secret-service-says-...

Maybe we need a "C-SPAN/NPR of social media".

Let's say if these companies are monopolies. Should they still hold the same power?

The main exception is utilities which generally operate as natural monopolies. They should be (and generally are — this is isn’t a new idea) regulated to only be allowed to deny service for limited, specific reasons. There’s room for improvement here. ISPs are relatively new to being treated as utilities and many ordinary regulations that should be in-place are missing.

You don't need it because if you don't do anything wrong you don't really need it.

All the precedents here are well established.

Explicit, credible calls for violence have never been protected speech. Parler’s own TOS forbid it. No moderation effort can be perfect, but we don’t need to argue in this case whether their moderation is sufficient. A violent insurrection was openly discussed and organized by thousands on Parler and then they went and did it. Lin wood called for the execution of the Vice President and many of his followers attempted to do just that.

In terms of the limits on a person or business to control with whom they will do business, utilities — ISPs in this case — should be regulated so they can only deny service for specific, limited reasons. They generally are, though I know this needs improvement.

Beyond that, businesses and individuals should have wide latitude to decide who to do business with.

What concerns me is the strange inversion freedom of speech has undergone in the Trump era. Instead of protecting the people from the government, it’s now invoked to protect the government — and supporters of the current administration — from the people. Now it means suppressing ordinary liberties like the right to not support people, content or speech you don’t want to.

If.

The whole reason why they got banned in the first place was because of the incitement.

There have been all sorts of crazy things said since the US election (and before), and there weren't any bans, just "possible misleading statement" tags.

BLM’s mission is to strengthen democracy and justice with the unfortunate side effect of the fringe propagating violence. The core and leadership would rather the violence and property damage wasn’t taking place.

Trump is an authoritarian who is trying to subvert democracy, and his supporters consider violence to not only be acceptable but to be a necessary virtue.

If it were possible to remove disinformation, violence, and property destruction from each movement, BLM would still have an important message, while on the MAGA side I’m not sure what values would remain. What’s the coherent message beyond spite toward the left?

The protestors mission was to prevent the subversion of democracy.

I don't think using one side being mistaken about whether their actions help with their mission as a justification for surpression is fair.

As for the general MAGA message? I'm not red tribe and have no friends who are so take what I say with a grain of salt:

* The USA has gotten worse.

* Immigration is bad and one of the reasons for the USA decline.

* Our (Red tribe) economic interests are not being defended or advanced.

* Red tribe social norms and interests are not being advanced or defended by the centres of power. E.g. values related to family.

* Acceptance and promotion of alternative sexual expressions is bad for the world.

* Globalism is bad.

I agree and like Black Lives Matter because they have a valid point to make, and while it's unfortunate that there are fringe elements causing property damage and there have been instances of violence, that's not central to their mission and most people I know who support Black Lives Matter are against violence and property damage.

I dislike Trump because he's corrupt, incompetent, racist, sexist, a sociopath, and an authoritarian. I feel like it's a valid position to be against those things. However, any politician on any end of the political spectrum can be all those things, so setting those aside, let's look at his actual policies: the only one I can think of is isolationism.

I mean I'm mostly just repeating myself. Feel free to make a counterargument.

I take it "punch a Nazi" wasn't popular in your circle then?

Btw: I think Trump is an incomptent, a populist and a con man. But he's no more racist and sexist than the average american.

Jeez, I hope that's not true.

The BLM leaders were saying "we are marching/gathering to protest police brutality". However things got out of hand. Violence was not their intent. See also the false flag operations against BLM:

* https://www.cbsnews.com/news/twitter-fake-antifa-acount-whit...

The folks on Parler are saying "we need to hang the traitor Pence". And this has been going on for months:

> “Will you and several hundred more go with me to DC and fight our way into the Congress and arrest every Democrat who has participated in the coup?” Holland posted on Friday. “We may have to shoot and kill many of the Communist BLM and ANTIFA Democrat foot soldiers to accomplish this!!!”

* https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/11/cops-n11.html

> One of Lang Holland’s posts reflected Donald Trump’s baseless allegations that the presidential election he lost to Joe Biden was stolen, and said: “Death to all Marxist Democrats.”

> Holland, who led the police department in Marshall, Arkansas, also wrote “take no prisoners” and “leave no survivors”.

* https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/09/local-arkans...

> In a popular thread referencing a Trump tweet promoting the debunked conspiracy theory of election fraud, one user asked, "what if Congress ignores the evidence?"

> "Storm the Capitol," was a popular reply.

> Five days later, on January 6, as pro-Trump militia proceeded to do exactly that, the mood on thedonald.win switched to jubilation and outright defiance of police, with thousands joining "watching party" message threads.

> "This is what Trump told us to do!" a top post in one of these threads read.

* https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-01-08/us-capitol-st...

Do you see the difference?

If I could be satisfied that he was the leader then I can acknowledge that as an important difference.

Today they appear to be a bunch of navy seal white power dudes with guns. Scary. That culture kept growing outside of the spotlight in a creepy dark corner.

Apparently their current leader is of Cuban descent as was most of the people in the segment. Out of the eight members in the video, six of them previously voted for Obama.

I don't know too much about them except from what I saw on Vice. Is it really a group of white supremacists?

edit: Reference: The Right-Wing Latinos of Miami: Proud Boys and Refugees https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Qa1f29diE

However, I think deplatforming them has made them more radical. I think that we are going to see this more and more, by isolating people and forcing them to go into places where there are no public postings, nobody is going to see how radical they get. You are going to lose some people but the really dangerous people will wind up reinforced in their belief that they are being persecuted, and if they think they have nowhere to go and nothing to hope for, I think we are going to start seeing some real ugly violence.

There's an adage that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and that's obviously been missing in the long winter of the past few years.

I don't think these two concepts are in opposition. Of course, exposure to a toxic ideological viewpoint is poisonous for the recipient, and may in fact entice them to become more toxic themselves (if they are swayed by said reasoning). But a crucial part of the societal contract is to tolerate such toxic viewpoints so as to have the opportunity to redeem those who hold them. In other words, by eating a little bit of the poison ourselves, we are granted the opportunity to save that person from their own poison, by showing compassion and empathy towards them.

People who have hate in their hearts are not entirely bad people. Everyone was once a child, everyone has experienced the mystery of simply existing, almost everyone has experienced love (whether from their parents or someone else), most people enjoy art and music. Evoking our shared humanity and showing compassion for others allows us to break down their toxic ideologies and even reform them to be beacons of compassion themselves.

Perhaps the best and most compelling anecdote to promulgate this way of thinking is Daryl Davis, who, through his talents and love of music, has reformed many of the most hateful people in our country — members of the KKK. I would recommend this TED talk by him, titled "Why I, as a black man, attend KKK rallies": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw. It really encapsulates the power of this viewpoint.

The crucial element here is ensuring that we have channels of communication that allow for this sort of compassionate understanding... I fear that the compression of thought foisted upon us by social media platforms and online communication tools obscures the basic reality of our shared suffering, joy, intrigue, and humanity. These important facets of communication can be lost to the aether of technology, and our true intentions are thereby belied by the incorrigibly weak substrate of written language.

As a note, I think we have discussed the topic of free speech in another thread before. It's good to "see" you again :)

Apocryphal means that the origin of the story is doubtful.

I think you might mean "the adage is incorrect" here.

On the other hand, similarly, an extremist exposed to non-extremists' propaganda potentially may be affected by it as well, decreasing the amount of overall extremism.

Or perhaps the total amount of extremism stays the same and instead it is spread out over large number of people, removing "spikes".

I do not know if it is true. But just an idea to consider - the discussed process of de-platforming removes _two-way_ communication method.

That does not seem obvious to me AT ALL. Most radical movements in history had no access to the Internet and relied on personal contact to radicalize, e.g. preachers in mosques. This also creates deeper bonds among the members.

If the result of deplatforming from Twitter is that the organization shifts to "meat world", you probably have a more dangerous opponent on your hands.

I'm not too sure about that. For people who are already radicalized and believe that there's a conspiracy of some kind working against them, wouldn't that just "prove" that there is such a conspiracy?

I agree that deplatforming will prevent future people from being radicalized, but what about the people who already are? The whole pizzagate incident shows that there are definitely people who believe all kinds of conspiracy theories, and are convinced enough to act on them.

I wonder what the solution for that is, though.

Ironically, maybe Trump showed us the right solution with his tirade against section 230. i.e. the end of the social media platforms.

I think it will push them off to even more obscure platforms, and the ones that do make it there will be much more extreme and dangerous. They'll be harder to monitor as well.

At some point, a show of force might be necessary.

I find it very hard to believe that people get the impression that Trump was the fascist when you are over here advocating for a fascist method of silencing opposition groups.

Violence and persecution is never the answer.

Now it's basically dead. Was it the deplatforming? Did the world just move on? Nobody knows.

It will feel exhilarating. It will enhance their victimhood, increase emotional attachment to their cause and serves to prove, to them, that "the man" is trying to unjustly suppress them and that they must group together, somehow, and rise up.

And will make them, even more, vulnerable to manipulation by those who want a mob. And there are many.

I support the suspension, since it incites violence. And I'm worried where society now heads.

When a large number convince themselves they are unjustly oppressed they will justify all kinds of horrors in the name of defence from the whatever bete noire is chosen for them.

The content that is constantly forced to move is dialogue, and ideological exchange. The useful stuff. If you want to follow those discussions, you have to pay constant attention, and be prepared to run through social media accounts and platforms like tissue platform, or socially engineer yourself into multiple encrypted chats.

I'm not the only one who now has the urge to participate in society as little as possible.

But optimistically, 80% of Republicans surveyed said they opposed the break in (88% overall). If promoters of hate have to go underground, fewer people will follow them. Not only because of the hurdles to get there and broadcast their message, but the hate will be more concentrated and vile.

A lot of of people are freaking out.

Never seen anything like this here. Feels like Arab Springs.

The aim isn’t to remove the sites entirely, but to make it difficult enough to find that people won’t just stumble across them or seamlessly follow a link to them.

Last I heard Stormfront still exists on Tor and presumably still serves a dedicated audience. But I imagine it has a considerably larger problem attracting new readers than it used to.

Even though you're filtering out the less-radical and committed members of a population, you're also priming everyone left behind to be more sympathetic to the excesses of the people who stuck around.

These were tolerable outcomes for already fringe communities.

But as the technique is scaled up to impact increasingly broad segments of the population, I believe it creates something increasingly large, and increasingly dangerous dangerous.

That's not a problem, unless you feel society ought to "save" everyone from themselves (as opposed to protecting society at large from bad actors).

I share your sentiments, but the current US prison system tends towards isolating bad actors: no real effort is expended to reduce recedevism, with the goal being punishment rather than rehabilitation.

I think that need to communicate without external interference is at least as strong in people as the need to light up a joint. Even in China, where controls on communication are very strong, people manage to find a way to circumvent the limits. Much more so in other autocratic regimes, such as Iran.

Drug offenders are more likely to become low-level criminals, check out of society, unemployed, or impoverished. They may also be more likely to latch onto fringe groups that offer them an identity or sense of empowerment, but that latching isn't deterministically going towards any particular group.

They're imprisoned for a crime that they likely know is bullshit, but the thing they're imprisoned for is amoral to them, and a personal matter. Smoking weed or doing opiates is not a coherent commentary on the social order. Becoming a drug user is a matter of weighing the risks vs the rewards that come with it in the moment you choose to start. They likely just want to live their lives.

When they are caught and punished, they are locked up, and afforded no freedom of movement whatsoever.

Their punisher is the government, a massive byzantine machine with power which society has collective assumed to be legitimate (anarchists excluded). The enforcers of those laws may be dicks, but they are as much an extension of that somewhat legitimate power as the sympathetic public defender you may be about to receive.

Systematically and repeatedly cutting the communications ties of a massive political block for the behavior of their worst actors has a very different effect.

The locus of their concerns is by its very nature external, they already have a collective conception of who their opposition is, and the people repeatedly cutting them from their social circles are not only unelected, but entirely lacking in political legitimacy despite their massive power. They perceive that what they do is much less an indicator of whether they'll be affected than who they might possibly be with.

I believe that this creates an ample breeding grounds for the next generation of domestic terrorists in a manner that gives them concrete grounds for their sense of isolation, while simultaneously creating an ambient corps of collaborators and sympathetic allies in society at an unprecedented scale.

Parler is by no means a niche application. One of my bosses, a milquetoast Republican who was entirely contemptuous of the Capitol incident, and was talking about regretting his vote for Trump afterwards has it on his phone, because he fancied a Twitter alternative for conservative ideas. He has no conception that he might be a potential domestic terrorist. All he'll perceive is that 'Democrats' in 'big tech' are trying to ban the opposition party now that they've secured all three branches of the government.

To him, violent extremists will increasingly look like freedom fighters, and a mild sense of annoyance at 'progressive tech' will increasingly become an awareness of a perceived institutional threat to his way of life.

The key distinction is between people who seek out certain content and people who stumble across it passively (in a morning car commute, say). The latter can actually be de-radicalized and de-programmed much more easily, and it's a worthwhile task to do so. Trumpism is a cult, and so the deprogramming methods have to be similar to recovery from a cult (and not the typical arguments that we see on facebook and such which are completely useless & worse)

That's the reason for why it was removed, not simply because Apple doesn't like conservatives as they will claim.

I think what will be interesting to watch is how the government responds with legislation/mandates.

Will the government require they can ask for people be removed as customers from certain companies? Or require companies share data about customers with the government? Or give the government a backdoor API?

In the name of using it for good, in some ways it makes sense. Then, how does one trust the government to only use the tools for good - and who judges what "good" is?

If a 17 year old gets the keys to a Ferrari to only drive to school at 35mph, can they be trusted with that responsibility?

Edit: Signal is now #1 on the app store. Speech that was removed will obviously just migrate and be encrypted. Though not as public, the actual speech is still going to be communicated between people and groups. So why wouldn't Signal be next?

A good argument could be made we don't need end to end encryption without a back door. And in this environment, there may be little political opposition.

Were those insurgents domestic terrorists?

What if it is to be found that they primarily used Signal for example to communicate their plans with each other?

No, but don’t think it can. But you can try.

Seems like it wouldn't bet too hard for it to become a social network.

It is persecution.

per·se·cu·tion - hostility and ill-treatment, especially because of race or political or religious beliefs.

https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/28754/5982256...

Now that Silicon Valley corporations fall over themselves to appease the Democrats, perhaps he has a second chance.

If Let's Encrypt bans a site, for example, as well as the other CAs, it is effectively dead.

But there are hundreds of CAs...

Of course, if Google says that of your CA accepts a particular site they will remove you from Chrome...

So this come back to overly centralized systems

Seems pretty reasonable in light of what we've witness Wednesday Jan 6th at the Capitol.

Why would we want to interpret this reaction as being an escalation or an all-out assault on the 1st Amendment?

You're already seeing it with tweets like this from within the community: https://twitter.com/default_friend/status/134769644628863386...

Regardless, as of recently they are making everything a one-click process: https://tlon.io

They know exactly what kind of crowd free speech first platforms draws. And it most definitely isn't someone discussing the Q3 results of their art gallery or the merits of Hoffmann's art style.

Hosting companies? ISPs? Book publishers? Not so much, although things aren't moving in the right direction on those fronts. Cloud platforms come to mind.

People repeat this a lot which is ironic because they’re doing it on HN. Or Reddit. Or Disqus. Or innumerable other special interest forums.

I don’t even have an FB/Twitter account but spend plenty of time interacting online.

That to me clearly says that FB doesn’t have a monopoly unless you define the market to be so tightly focused on what they control it becomes tautological

Parler spends most of its moderation effort removing accounts of leftists who argue or make fun of right-wingers on that site. Someone who never even posted anything got their account banned over a screenshot. Yet they refuse to remove calls of violence against elected officials?

I don't even like Mike Pence. But I don't think he should die! He should just retire!

How can they face jail, if they are FBI operatives, acting on direct orders?

I means, are we supposed to believe, that FBI — the same FBI that surveils entirety of Internet and have backdoors in FAANG — fails to catch a whiff of ongoing revolts?! And police just yields Capitol to bunch of protesters?!? And they say, that Russian FSB is heavy on theatrics...

I would say Amazon removing Parler due to a TOS violation is preferable to locking up thousands of people in federal prison.