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Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

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

#681

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Nah, I don't need large news organizations to do anything. If you walked up to me today and gave me the latest spiel about how Kamala Harris was born in Kenya to a two-headed alligator man, I'm going to walk away. Online it's not so easy to walk away, so I prefer that you have alligator man conversations with other alligator man enthusiasts.

> If you walked up to me today and gave me the latest spiel about how Kamala Harris was born in Kenya to a two-headed alligator man, I'm going to walk away. Except most of the so called "conspiracy theorists" don't talk about that stuff at all. They normally talk about how "this information Y is being supressed from the public because this will undermind the governments policy on X". People always bring up the crazy…

I'm sure this is how they perceive themselves and I'm sure they spend at least a few hours to talk about this stuff. But in my experience, the SNR is low. It's hard to find the new MKULTRA hidden in the pizzagate, qanon, and birtherism.

And ultimately, that's it. But be my guest: go be informed about subtle government interference by the guys who are convinced that Democrats are injecting old people with SARS-CoV-2 so they can steal their identities to vote.

And obviously the 'you' is a "generic you"¹. It doesn't mean you specifically, dude. Substitute with "one" m.m. if you find it confusing. It's not an insult targeted at you. It is an insult targeted at the loons that seem to populate every one of these "free speech" sites: voat, gab, whatever.

¹ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_you

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

#682

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No. That’s not what Twitter does. That’s something some clients do , unfortunately including the official Twitter clients. I just see tweets from those I follow, in chronological order, with no ads. If I saw ads, “recommended” or “trending” etc., I’d get off that client in a hurry.

Twitter indeed works like that. You’ve used the star menu to set your feed to chronological, which is not the default.

I don’t use any client from Twitter (such as the official Twitter app or the Twitter dot com website) and I’d probably rather stop using Twitter than use one of them.

That’s my point: Twitter isn’t half as good if using the official clients.

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

#683
post #487
post #217

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Well some have tried. There was a civil war about it.

Exactly. Many of the people who make civil war/anti south jokes are the same people who want California to secede, which makes no sense. In its simplest form, the civil war wasn't fought because the north thought slavery was bad. It was fought because several states tried to leave the United States.

> Many of the people who make civil war/anti south jokes are the same people who want California to secede

Citation needed.

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

#684
post #480

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I see it as the opposite: this may be how a technical network is supposed to work, but it's not how a society is supposed to work. The internet has created the ability for any given subculture to discover instant validation and reinforce their beliefs into a tribe, which further solidifies and extremifies those beliefs. It's a psychological power almost equivalent to a nuclear reaction: beliefs and ideas that might h…

Censorship is the last-resort solution. Ideally, you'd want to have control over people's education and social structures to prevent deviation before any censorship is even needed. It's a real shame, because it seems we had reached a peak with the advent of mandatory state school and television. Now things are going downhill with more and more diverse subcultures allowed to build upon themselves and explore the limit…

Very funny; not arguing for censorship here, but for the design of social media technology that reinforces humanity and not primitive dopamine hit engagement driven advertising. What people say is not the problem.

Anyway, we are already in a balanced system that keeps people in line with society's values while still giving them an impression of freedom. The question is just which direction you go from there.

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

#685
post #668

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You're right. The way we design our social platforms has a gigantic impact on how people see each other, and talk to each other, and the impact that has on us. Perhaps the problem isn't the self-reinforcement, but rather the platforms being designed more on instantaneous engagement and addiction rather than talking and human-level discussion. We've devolved internet discourse into very simplistic, unintelligent, inst…

We have, and the users, for the most part, chose the screamy, thirsty, censored, algorithmic ones.

The worst argument for designing an experience is that users want it.

We can do far better.

But I get your point. Realistically this has to be a societal change that demands better social media platforms, not something just thrown into the market with no demand.

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

#686

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Nah, you stay on the main sites and get mainstream videos of a dude skating on a street lipsyncing to Fleetwood Mac. Which is like 3x better than the latest theory about the alien overlords and their pyramid eyes that have hacked our voting machines.

thrasher and big brother in their heyday wouldn't even be allowed on mainstream social media, nor would nearly anything steve rocco ever touched. skateboarding has always been by and for 16 year old shitposters

And yet, today, it's all on the much maligned Tik Tok.

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

#687

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> Or if its actually some shady privately funded project by billionaires seeking to influence elections. Let's not jump to conclusions, otherwise we are as guilty of the credulity we are casting on them (Soros bucks, anyone?). Until there is hard evidence of this, please don't bandy it about.

"Rebekah Mercer is funding Parler, the social-media app touted by Republican politicians and pundits that conservatives are flocking to" https://www.businessinsider.com/rebekah-mercer-funds-parler-... "[Robert] Mercer played a key role in the campaign for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union by donating data analytics services to Nigel Farage. He is also a major funder of organizations supporting right-wing…

Dan Bongino also owns a stake in Parler.

They aren't remotely for free speech either, by the way. I started an account there, disagreed with someone (I guess one of the wrong people to counter), and was banned within 10 minutes for wrongthink.

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

#688
post #584

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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…

“The couple initially gave $250 million to the nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), which has set up a grant program that funds local government efforts to expand voter access, including drive-through voting, temporary staffing support, equipment to process ballots and applications and nonpartisan voter educations”

God forbid people be able to exercise the right to vote.

“A conservative legal group, Thomas More Society, has filed lawsuits in eight states, including the presidential battlegrounds of Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and Iowa, seeking to block the grants from going through”

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

#689

I really don't think Twitter's problem is "not right-wing enough". Woke Twitter hasn't produced any great thinkers, because the core concept discourages it. Conservative Twitter would be the same. In fact, modern conservatism seems to mostly be paranoia. If I was going to make a social media platform (I know, this is YC... it's not my sphere of interest but maybe it should be), I'd rate limit everyone to one post per…

We already had a social network that favored long posts (not sure whether by design or culturally): Google+.

I remember it as a haven for gasbags who were overly fond of their own verbiage; essentially a write-only medium.

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

#690

In mid October I deleted almost all my tweets and likes (but Twitter being so shit they are still showing my likes except it’s not liked anymore lol) and have not been tweeting anything anymore. I found Twitter too toxic, it made me angry with people for no reason, so I deleted all my tweets and the app. No more notifications, no more “just checking Twitter quickly”. I now go to Twitter like once a day just to have a…

I long for the old IRC days...when you can open a room on DalNet and talk to a small group of like minded people about what you are interested in and curious about..invite/kick those who get obnoxious. It was cozy and I’d give anything to get an online community where we all get along and where it’s ok to be open to new ideas.

Most of the BBS and IRC rooms I frequented had little to no moderation. Flamewars occurred, but everyone eventually calmed the fuck down..you just have to let it burn out almost like how you’d allow a child to have his tantrum and then it’s back to life as usual.

I think moderation and rules are making communication worse. Anyone who has been in a marriage or a relationship can maybe attest to the fact that in the fiery instances where we don’t sit down and ‘figure out rules of engagement’ burn out fast. When there are rules for the emotional pressure valves to be released, arguments and disagreements become nested and multi layered.

In today’s world..we are all toddlers and/or married to each other on social media and Twitter, FB et al have become our nannies creating and putting out meltdowns and tantrums at the same time.

Having said that, IG is still my favourite. Except that they are allergic to images of certain parts of the human anatomy and sometimes even onions can be too sexy for their nipple detection algorithms..but otherwise it’s brimming with joy and positivity.

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