Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

text.npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

641–650 of 889 posts

Re: Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

#641

Post by dane-pgp »

npsimons wrote: post #481
hntossaccount12 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect we will continue to see services that unbundle social media's hottest topics. Social media may have created an outrage economy -- a subset of the attention economy. But like ebay, craigslist, etc, the social media platforms' broad focus means their product can't specialize when strong trends emerge. The outrage will be unbundled by niche companies. I actually think this is a good thing. Seeing conspiracy th…

> Nobody mistakes the tabloids in the checkout aisle for a legitimate newspaper. This is the first good argument I've heard for the alt-right abandoning platforms with some standards of veracity, and it's an excellent idea. Sort of like how everyone knows what 4chan is about, and the moment you hear someone repeat some Qanon stuff you know you can stop listening.

'Did you ever hear the Tragedy of Qanon the wise? I thought not. It's not a story the Liberal Media would tell you. It's a Conservative legend.'

(Please note, I'm not equating Conservatives with the Sith, here. I'm making the point that a story being censored can make it seem more interesting and more credible, even if it is heard from a source that is deemed disreputable by some).

Re: Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

#642

Post by mensetmanusman »

threeseed wrote: post #318
coldtea wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You can be against censorship and also be against the type of racist, xenophobic, sexist etc content you find unchecked on places like Parler, Gab, 4chan.

Kind of like how you can be against crime and also against prisons.

The fact is that every decision is a balance of consequences.

Re: Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

#643

Post by cblconfederate »

jb775 wrote: post #584
cblconfederate wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It s still a good way to follow current events by following specific people or journalists. Switching to chronological mode, aggressively unfollowing the rude people who think that their technical knowledge allows them to plaster their opinions on your face, and changing my location to burundi did it for me.

> It's still a good way to follow current events This is where the major problem lies and you don't even realize you're complicit in it. The "current events" blasted out on Twitter are curated by Twitter admins to only show what they want to show. They place heavy over-weighting on events and discussion that they want everyone to see. They hide hashtags they don't want trending. They don't show a pure list of what's…

> current events" blasted out on Twitter are curated by Twitter admins

I didnt even know that it exists. I meant twitter users that cover current events (like wars), that you can find by searching or through other social media. It works like a telegraph office. I agree that algorithms range from plain bad and lazy to dangerous. If one thinks that what's trending on twitter is reality, they are delusional

Re: Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

#645

Post by calinet6 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #566
calinet6 wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a gripe, it's a reality. I have no horse in this race other than the systemic outcome. Censorship (or official annotation, let's call it) was an attempt to curb the tribalism or put some controls on the spread of it; I'm certainly saying that it will not work. I can't imagine alternative solutions at this time, but we need to. It will likely be some sort of system we can't yet imagine, and it will likely nee…

It is concerning that you have "no horse" in a race over whether there should be American censorship. It's as if the centrists have thrown away liberalism, which makes no sense to me given that liberal values are immensely popular among the public.

By saying I have no horse in the race, I'm saying that I'm trying to take an objective viewpoint on what is happening and what impact that has, not that I have no opinions or moral positions on the matter. Keep those separate.

Keep in mind also that censorship is a government matter: the government should not censor people; that's enshrined in the 1st amendment. But private platforms and companies have every right to design their communications systems the way they see fit, and I expect them to do so ethically with societal impact in mind.

I expect soon the government will need to enter into this race and take some wider action, but I don't know what that will be, nor how it will play with our constitution. It's going to be a wild ride as the psychological nuclear weapons we've created duke it out with the individual rights principles we've laid in stone hundreds of years ago. I can only hope we design some systemic solution that does not require that fight to take place.

And just to give an idea of the solution type I have in mind: right now the social network systems we have are optimized for addiction and engagement of content, and quick viral spread of content with minimal thought. Could we instead design systems that are more about human communication and understanding? Could we alter our existing platforms to tune down the addictive tribal dopamine hit in their nature? I bet that would have a large impact.

In other words, simply censoring speech without considering the design of the technology would be foolish. The platforms, not the speech, are the problem.

Re: Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

#646

Post by sonotathrowaway »

philjohn wrote: post #623
concordDance wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um... you don't normally get an objective account of why someone was banned from the banned person in question. Don't just take a claim like this as the whole story, they are generally in "tidied up" form. You'd want the text of the post, the person's posting history on the forum in question, a list of warnings etc and a copy of the forum rules to even approach a reasonable judgement.

They also label most discussions now as "Flaired users only!" and to get flair you have to prove you're a conservative. It's not about free speech and being oppressed, it's a literal safe space - which is fine, but selling themselves as the opposite of that just makes them look foolish.

To be clear, /r/conservative forces potential commenters to hold interviews with current members to vet their ideological purity. If at any point they flip-flop on an issue they will ban you for ideological impurity if you do not flip-flop your position accordingly. It may well be the most heavily censored board on Reddit.

Re: Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

#647

Post by AHappyCamper »

> "even though there is no evidence for these allegations of systemic anti-conservative bias"

This is simply not true. Twitter blackballed the Hunter Biden laptop story and locked you out of your account if you DARED to tweet a link to it, saying that it violated their code of not publishing hacked material. It was not hacked. But they happily allowed news outlets to publish Donald Trump's hacked alleged tax returns (we never received a source, so quite dubious).

Re: Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

#648

Post by drilldrive »

jacquesm wrote: post #620
drilldrive wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why I believe a dutiful representation of the 1st amendment in the Internet includes anti-botting measures, since bots flood the town-hall with un-measured broadcasting, shuttering out any and all active speech. But beyond anti-botting and one or two other very minor holds, a public forum should have no other restrictions of moderation. There is an exact restriction needed for the moderation to itself…

The problem you will run into is that the 1st amendment is a US thing and the internet is a global thing.

Well all the major internet firms are based in the United States, if they want to hold to foreign markets they would need to hold separate divisions in separate countries, or in coalition dealings. There is a reason USA law Section 203 debates (which doesn't address the core problem) are so contentious regarding Social Media.

Re: Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

#649

Post by gameswithgo »

0x445442 wrote: post #498
LatteLazy wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree broadly though I'd add two caveats: They can't do that AND profess to support free speech within their club. I think people should be able to form their groups as they like. But that doesn't mean that that group is a healthy place or that it doesn't harm wider society. I'm also not clear whether this is a group of people forming under their own initiative (as is their democratic right). Or if its actually som…

The problem is when Reddit shuts down r/conservative because they don't agree with the opinions on the sub.

why is that the problem? r/conservative can start any club they like. reddit can run any business they like.

Re: Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

#650

Post by sonotathrowaway »

baby wrote: post #627
LatteLazy wrote: post #223

It’s worth noting that the first thing Parler did was start censoring anyone unsupportive of their form of conservatism. They’re not offering freer speech, they’re offering a safe space. Maybe that’s a seller, maybe it’s not, but it’s an important distinction. This is really just /r/conservative taken to its logical conclusion.

I remember the same happening to reddit conservatives floating to voat

That happened after /r/DonaldTrump began calling for the murder of police officers in Democrat controlled areas and reddit held that calls for violence violated their TOS.
Post reply on HN