Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure called “Cloudflare”

The opposite of 'fallacy' - it's literally happening all around you:

1) We now have major corporate support for 'social claims' with brands backing (and cashing in) on celebrities for their politics, not their skill at 'whatever', and supporting some causes surrounding a lot of public disruption. These have led to some groups trying to 'ban' others.

2) The attempted influencing of electoral outcomes via 'bad information' from outside agents, agitators, along with a plethora of information - with no guidance other than the whims of CEOs. There's all sorts of 'banning' on FB and YouTube and it's all pretty grey, often it can have major consequences.

3) CEO's brought to congressional hearings for these issues - this is a sign that 'ban' culture is now a top concern.

4) Weekly national 'pop culture wars' over which brand has transgressed which group, promoted widely in the press, resulting in calls for bans of some products or services.

5) 'Social concern' as the primary legitimacy for populism, even among those who are supposed to be popular for their acting, music, or athletics. In the last 10 years - ever 'celeb' has embarked upon a 'personal branding campaign' to imbue themselves with moral authority. There was always a little bit of this - but now it's 'the thing'. Go and have a look at social media, try 'Kristen Bell'. Every few posts are about some kind of moral concern. Otherwise: they could get the ban. A host of globally respected individuals had to sign an piece in Harper's. This is basically 'shocking' to anyone of a certain age, because intellectuals and their ilk used to be the one's fighting for freedom of expression against the authorities - now, 'ban' culture has infiltrated their organisations and become a populist issue.

6) There are disruptions and protests around what would be normal, common, mundane events: 'The Joker' review by the Daily Beast was entitled: "Everything About the Joker was Absolutely Infuriating". The 'infuriating' parts had nothing to do with the film, but rather the supposed politics of the film. The DB and others wanted the film to not be released is it were. There are weekly arguments over who can play who in film, supposed issues of representation, wars over the composition of selection committees - often resulting in the 'cancelling' of individuals.

Twitter and social media have created the ability for agitators to move giant waves of people in an emotional, populist direction, resulting in quite a lot of effort to ban, cancel, disassociate.

It's far worse than ever before, and it's going to be worse before it gets better.

I see no pathway for it 'getting better' anytime soon, because the pathways to outrage have formed, hardened and are now part of our culture.

Individually - yes - most of us are getting sick of it - but that won't change the fact of the activity in the news, on Twitter, and journalists 'calling for the resignation' of so and so for this and that with the basic moral impetus of 'someone on Twitter said it, therefore, that's how America feels'.

CloudFlare, Facebook - your startup - does not want to deal with this, there needs to be some kind of collective clarity.

[1] https://www.thedailybeast.com/everything-about-joker-is-abso...

Ah, and there is the ugly, authoritarian, Stalinist argument right there.

"We only ban, denounce, destroy those who are GUILTY of Hate Crimes, so how could you have any worry about that?"

People are banned all day long on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Stripe, comments sections etc. for any and all sorts of made up reasons that have nothing to do with hate speech. And FYI you can say things that are essentially hate speech, but in a political context may not be, so it's fine i.e. "White People Are a Disease" is a common thing on Twitter. No problems there apparently.

And speaking as a former German resident, they have some real Nazis there, none of this kind of 'made up suff' like in the US.

This is a problem that needs to be addressed.

'Freedom of Expression' is the #1 Amendment to the US Constitution and the #1 thing in the relatively new Canadian constitution (#11 in EU) for a very good reason: it took thousands of years for 'every day people' to be able to speak their minds without being shot.

We can't leave this issue up to corporate CEO's, mostly trying to read the Twitter tea leaves.