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A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

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Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#231

Post by Latteland »

colordrops wrote: post #227
evrydayhustling wrote: post #152

Reading this article is like watching someone beat the ocean with a stick. What would it look like for an "anti-deplatforming" initiative to succeed? All ideas have equal access to all platforms? Just the big ones? The objective is so poorly formed, it's not even wrong. A platform's identity and ability to attract an audience are determined by the activities they accept / cultivate, not vice versa. Infowars wanted to…

> Gab would like to use Stripe or Paypal because they are trusted payment providers, but those networks felt they'd stop being trusted payment providers if they let Gab stay on. What does that even mean "stop being trusted payment providers"? If their API works and payments go through, that seems trustworthy to me.

I assume it means the mass of people might stop using those services (like paypal) because they don't want to support sites that talk about racist things like happens with gab. gab is different than say reddit to me because while reddit might have some people posting racist things or threatning to kill someone or rape them, but reddit will ban them or the group - but allowing for that kind of speech ends up appearing to be the main reason for a site like gab to exist.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#232

Post by oh_sigh »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #160
stcredzero wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise, almost no one cares what a Jehovah's witness has to say. The US government coming in and telling a private entity, no you must tolerate free speech on your property is historical fact and precedent. There is a lawsuit where a company owned this mining company town, including all of its roads and sidewalks. A Jehovah's witness won a lawsuit on the basis of the First Amendment, enabling her to walk about that…

Ain't gonna happen in this case, for two reasons: 1. Jehovah's witnesses tend not to shoot up synagogues, whereas an otherwise typical member of Gab did. 2. Antisemitism isn't a protected class. I can see from your comments that you are one of those, "I'd defend to the death your right to say it," people. I must admit, I would not defend to the death someone's right to spew hate toward Jews. That's not my hill to die…

If that guy was an "otherwise typical" user of gab, and gab has ~500,000 active users(per wikipedia), why hasn't there been more than one story about gab-user-gone-wild in the media?

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#233

Post by nradov »

hakfoo wrote: post #228
amputect wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the alternative to "build your own platforms" though. Are you willing to compel Stripe by threat of force to keep processing credit cards for nazis? Are you willing to completely torpedo freedom of association, as long as the people demanding your company continue associating with them are sufficiently monstrous?

What makes the 'deplatforming' threat viable is that so many critical aspects of an online business are a choice between private-enterprise players. Stripe or Authorize.net. AWS or DigitalOcean. GoDaddy or Namecheap. As you suggest, they have no individual legal obligation to serve a business that may cause bad press/high risk/whatever. But when you can enough of them pointing in the same direction, it creates the ch…

I don't want my tax money used for that. Not because I object to the content, but because it's a waste of money and government officials have more important things to focus on.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#234

Post by oh_sigh »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #225
pppaul wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you OK with most Muslims not using the internet, because their values are radically different from non-muslims (treatment of women, gays, atheists) and they have a fairly high rate of terrorism compared to other ideologies? It's likely that the internet and places like GAB or whatever site you don't like, is a good place to de-radicalize people as well. and you can't even have a place to de-radicalize when the pe…

Muslims are not a coherent whole like your opening statement might make out.

Neither are gab users though. It's not like there is a "hates jews" requirement in the TOS to sign up.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#235

Post by oh_sigh »

dragonwriter wrote: post #171
stcredzero wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lawsuit where a company owned this mining company town, including all of its roads and sidewalks. A Jehovah's witness won a lawsuit on the basis of the First Amendment, enabling her to walk about that town and distribute her pamphlets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBozijndSLc Originally, it was widely recognized by US jurisprudence, though property rights and freedom of association are important, the Fi…

> There is a lawsuit where a company owned this mining company town, including all of its roads and sidewalks And when a single company has similar control over the internet, even for a particular group of people such that they are otherwise unreachable (as AT&T once did nationalky over telephone communications), Marsh v. Alabama might be relevant (It might not, since active relaying is not the same of not denying ac…

> And when a single company has similar control over the internet, even for a particular group of people such that they are otherwise unreachable

ICANN?

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#236

Post by nradov »

mattsfrey wrote: post #192
tptacek wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stormfront is still up and running. They had a hard time getting access to the same QOS and pricing as do sites that companies actively want to host, but at some point we're complaining that white nationalists don't get FRAND terms, and it's a little hard to get worked up about that. Gab ran Twitter for White Nationalists off Digital Ocean, Azure, and who knows where else. Gab's users have a disconcerting tendency to…

Again, details.. What if every single domain company decides to blackball them? What do they do then? Nothing, they are off the internet.

Domain names aren't mandatory. IP addresses still work.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#237

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

oh_sigh wrote: post #226
comex wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to jump to the idea of compulsion. If there were an established social norm that "platform platforms" should make an active attempt to be viewpoint-neutral, chances are that enough of them would voluntarily follow that norm to allow platforms like Gab to continue operating. If the norm isn't established, well, good luck passing a law to force anyone to follow it. Right now, the trend seems to be against such…

And - how or why would I care that stripe processed infowars transactions, unless I was actually in the process of buying something from infowars?

The issue isn't whether you in particular care or not.

The issue, as I'm reading the parent comment, is that it's beginning to appear that no one is willing to stand up and say "look, it's not that I support this or that view, it's just that, well, if people are going to spout nonsense it might as well be here where can all observe them", because doing so would be so against current social normal it would be irresponsible.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#238

Post by ubernostrum »

stcredzero wrote: post #212
ubernostrum wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of Free Speech is to enable all sides of any issue to have their say And that freedom includes the freedom to say "I don't want to be associated with you". Any "anti-deplatforming" is, of necessity, forced unwilling speech. Which is sort of the opposite of what "free speech" people should be standing up for. If someone doesn't want to lend you their soapbox, the solution is not to put a gun to their h…

Any "anti-deplatforming" is, of necessity, forced unwilling speech. Which is sort of the opposite of what "free speech" people should be standing up for. No, the "relaying" or "transmission" argument is just a dishonest gambit in 2018. Only idiots believe YouTube thinks everything some YouTuber might say on their own channel. Should AT&T have had the right to cut off phone calls containing speech they didn't like? Th…

If a baker has deeply-held religious beliefs, can they refuse to bake cakes for people with different religious beliefs? If not, why can't online platforms decide not to do business with people whose beliefs or actions they find distasteful? If so, can you articulate a meaningful difference between the two cases?

And that's without getting into the issue where you've just effectively rolled back CDA 230. Why shouldn't sites be able to make and enforce rules for the use of their platforms? And how small can a platform be and still have you put the government's gun to its head and force them to act the way you want? If I run a web site where people can discuss things, are you going to send a SWAT team to my house and have them shoot me unless I stop kicking out Nazis?

For all the hand-wringing you want to do over what is, in the end, an exercise of the right of free association (which includes the right not to associate), you seem completely unconcerned with the kinds of horrific consequences that would come from forcing everyone to provide a platform to the whole world. So maybe first you should practice what you preach -- start tithing in support of causes you hate, listening to lectures in support of those causes, and going out in public carrying signs and banners for those causes. After all, by not doing that, you're already censoring them, and that's horrible!

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#239

Post by fzeroracer »

stcredzero wrote: post #215
fzeroracer wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, my point is that I think you're wrong. I don't believe it was ever widely recognized by US jurisprudence and I want you to cite your claims that prove it was. Preferably from a neutral source. Because as far as I can tell, it only explicitly applied to company towns, which means you bringing it up in this argument is entirely moot. And again, you miss the distinction. A private person has the right to prevent peo…

I don't believe it was ever widely recognized by US jurisprudence and I want you to cite your claims that prove it was. Take it up with Rekieta Law. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBozijndSLc

I won't because as I tried to allude to earlier, he's an incredibly biased and poor source of any sort of information. One glance at his twitter and youtube account told me everything I need to know.

Again, give me a neutral source and I'll be more than happy to debate you.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#240

Post by MrLeap »

stcredzero wrote: post #121
CamperBob2 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because being banned from Twitter is totally like being sent to a gulag.

Granted, I'd rather you only take my speech than my physical freedom and my life. However, if society starts taking away practical freedom of speech, who is going to speak up? Why wouldn't the big companies and the government just pressure Google and Facebook to get everyone to shut up about it? This is why freedom of speech is foundational.

I appreciate the fight you're fighting, friend. Free speech has become inconvenient, so long live the tyranny of the feudal corporation apparently? It's pretty gross.
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