You have never been guaranteed a venue on the internet. You have always punched your ticket on any platform - including the one that we're typing on now - by colouring within the lines of the powers that be. Sometimes the lines will change, and what was acceptable or tolerated is suddenly outside the window. Sometimes (most of the time?) these lines move for fairly cynical reasons.
Don't like it? Make your own platform or find one that's happy to host you. That's not censorship - that's internet culture. There are very few places on the internet that are committed to free speech absolutism - 4chan comes to mind, back in the day. Free speech absolutists are trying to assert the right to free speech absolutism on every platform which is a new thing, and disruptive, and not particularly useful.
I understand Parler is back up on non US servers. Good for them. Truly. I'm happy that they've found a place to have their discussions. I'm also happy that they've set up shop in a place that is fair game for the entire law enforcement and intelligence apparatus in case they try to plan more insurrections.
You've blasted a talking point in response to an assertion that I did not make. There is a significant distinction between a platform choosing to censor, and acting like all platforms have some duty to censor. There are many such calls for the latter in this thread.
FWIW I have previously argued that platforms have a moral obligation to carry less popular speech, but I'm done arguing that after the "stop the steal" propaganda campaign. What's happening now is inevitable, and the real solutions for Freedom are mandated interop (mitigating Metcalfe's law), and/or p2p communications (which has always been the correct answer before AJAX was even a term, albeit economically non-lucrative)
> I'm also happy that they've set up shop in a place that is fair game for the entire law enforcement and intelligence apparatus in case they try to plan more insurrections.
There's that authoritarianism peeking out - "they can go their own way, but we'll hit them with a bigger stick". From a technical perspective, being outside the US seems harder to surveil. US users will continue to use HTTPS and post public comments, so nothing changes there. Meanwhile the session traffic from foreign troll farms becomes invisible. Pushing social media away from domestic firms is actually a national security misstep, IMO.
You have never been guaranteed a venue on the internet. You have always punched your ticket on any platform - including the one that we're typing on now - by colouring within the lines of the powers that be. Sometimes the lines will change, and what was acceptable or tolerated is suddenly outside the window. Sometimes (most of the time?) these lines move for fairly cynical reasons.
Don't like it? Make your own platform or find one that's happy to host you. That's not censorship - that's internet culture. There are very few places on the internet that are committed to free speech absolutism - 4chan comes to mind, back in the day. Free speech absolutists are trying to assert the right to free speech absolutism on every platform which is a new thing, and disruptive, and not particularly useful.
I understand Parler is back up on non US servers. Good for them. Truly. I'm happy that they've found a place to have their discussions. I'm also happy that they've set up shop in a place that is fair game for the entire law enforcement and intelligence apparatus in case they try to plan more insurrections.