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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

#701

Post by calinet6 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #560
leppr wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Recognizing the satire, I agree with the implicit critique that you're making. That said, I think we also have to recognize that there is no true vacuum of discourse - ie. > There has to be a way to keep people in line with our society's values while still giving them an impression of freedom. Even if this is not what we're moving to with public schooling, it is essentially what we're moving to in the private sphere…

That last point is the kicker to me.

We need to start understanding that there is no such thing as a natural state of freedom; there is only freedom from and freedom to, within specific environmental constraints and power structures. We are always influenced--the question is just what influences we want to prevent, design, or control and which we want to leave undesigned or "free."

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

#702

Post by throwawayxyz987 »

pessimizer wrote: post #631
indymike wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a misunderstanding. Social platform users have little reason to leave one platform for another. Censorship is one of those few reasons. Censorship 8s at a very simple level telling those with different thoughts to go start a tribe somewhere else. Twitter isn't making good decisions. The killed Vine and gave Musicaly and then TikTok oxygen. Their censorship is giving rise to competitors.

Parler censors energetically also, it's just that it's owned by Breitbart rather than amoral profit-seeking VCs. The VCs censor whatever gets anyone upset, especially powerful people who can cause them legislative, legal, or tax trouble. Parler's owners censor sex and other things that don't agree with their ideological line, probably anti-racism, anti-military/police and positive depictions of the socialized functio…

VC funded Twitter is a de-facto left activist outlet. CEO Jack Dorsey has admitted as much, though I don't see much action into fixing the blatant bias in their hiring pipeline. For all the 'diversity problem' they like to complain about, their workforce is a 99% left echo chamber. 'Diversity and inclusion' is a political shibboleth used to keep out people with different perspectives, excluding half the country that is conservative, and being intentionally biased into hiring and promoting individuals from the 8% of the country that qualifies as 'progressive activist'.

https://www.vox.com/2018/9/14/17857622/twitter-liberal-emplo...

> Twitter is so liberal that its conservative employees ‘don’t feel safe to express their opinions,’ says CEO Jack Dorsey.

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/31/18039528/tech-employees-polit...

> Employee donations to midterm candidates by party

> Twitter 98.7% Democratic

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/facebook-twitter-employees-...

> Twitter employees donated $347,270, or 98.99% of total federal donations, to Democrats, making individual donations of $200 or more. Meanwhile, only $3,556, or 1.01%, of federal donations from Twitter employees went to Republicans.

https://psmag.com/news/the-seven-political-tribes-of-america

Progressive Activist 8%

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

#704

Post by Scharkenberg »

0x445442 wrote: post #605
matwood wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First? No. Most prolific? I think so. He's also one of the first to make heavy use of direct social media, which is different than mass media of old. Notice also I didn't say Trump, but POTUS in general. What do we want to do here going forward? Should the POTUS be treated differently than a private citizen? What this current period reminds me of historically is McCarthyism, except we have the POTUS lobbing baseless…

The problem is not all the claims you might consider baseless actually are and neither you nor I have any way of really knowing.

Gaslighting now?

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

#705

Post by bxk1 »

calinet6 wrote: post #684
leppr wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem with your arguments is that they are full of assumptions of things that you say are good for society and humanity, while we don't actually have a scientific understanding of what the humanity is for to even be able to decide what is good or not to get there. Which, of course, makes all the arguments imply a power in someone's hands to decide what is "good" for humanity and society or what they are for as long as it's not "primitive dopamine hit engagement driven advertising", but someone more aligned with your ideals. I hope you can see how this is not much different from somebody else you don't align with having that power.

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

#706

Post by raffraffraff »

vp8989 wrote: post #547
alexilliamson wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am guessing the difference is the level of control of the echoes.

Well presumably the parent to my comment is implying that echo chambers are only problematic if they are "imposed" upon you by "the algorithm", which I would disagree with. The problem is that people have become hyper-partisan en masse and whether they arrived there because of "the algorithm" or because they intentionally filter out sources they disagree with ... it doesn't really matter. https://www.allsides.com/fil…

Absolutely. Apparently CSPAN's coverage of the US election was far more even-handed, but people want to watch Fox or CNN because they're drawn to the smell of blood from the tribal war. People love to band together with their tribe to hate other tribes. It's sad because when you look at the basic needs of all people, they're the same. And when you put a reasonable Democrat into a room with a reasonable Republican, ban any talk of party affiliations and just discuss those basic needs they'll agree more than they disagree. The internet is a marvel, but humans didn't evolve the ability to stay rational in large numbers, so ultimately I think we're better off without it.

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

#707

Post by sdenton4 »

pessimizer wrote: post #631
indymike wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a misunderstanding. Social platform users have little reason to leave one platform for another. Censorship is one of those few reasons. Censorship 8s at a very simple level telling those with different thoughts to go start a tribe somewhere else. Twitter isn't making good decisions. The killed Vine and gave Musicaly and then TikTok oxygen. Their censorship is giving rise to competitors.

Parler censors energetically also, it's just that it's owned by Breitbart rather than amoral profit-seeking VCs. The VCs censor whatever gets anyone upset, especially powerful people who can cause them legislative, legal, or tax trouble. Parler's owners censor sex and other things that don't agree with their ideological line, probably anti-racism, anti-military/police and positive depictions of the socialized functio…

Indeed. My experience wading into the comment sections of conservative places is that they've been far /more/ censorship-friendly than the baseline.

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

#708

Post by forest_dweller »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #178
forest_dweller wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Tech platforms are uncomfortable with certain viewpoints expressed on their platforms and seek to limit these viewpoints. Back in the late 2000s and early 2010s many of these large companies billed themselves as open platforms where you can express yourself. Twitter's Jack Dorsey said in 2012 that "We are the free speech wing of the free speech part". Now he says it was joke. The terms of service on these platfo…

> As for "over turning democracy". They see that there was a lot of odd things that seemed to happening upto and including election night. Wow, seems like the people who voted for a candidate who said that mail-in voting was a hive of fraud for six months before an election were less likely to vote by mail, leading to a huge number of mail-in ballots being cast for the opposing candidate. Odd. Like I'm not sure where…

> Wow, seems like the people who voted for a candidate who said that mail-in voting was a hive of fraud for six months before an election were less likely to vote by mail, leading to a huge number of mail-in ballots being cast for the opposing candidate. Odd.

That isn't what they are complaining about though e.g There are saying that some areas have very high turnout (over 95%) in specific counties. Even in countries with mandatory voting you don't get past 95% of the population voting. I haven't looked into these claims myself. So I have no idea if they are true.

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

#709

Post by jimbob45 »

grey-area wrote: post #110
ceilingcorner wrote: post #98

Big Tech and Big Media really overplayed their hand this time, IMO. Millions and millions of people are now skeptical and looking for an alternative, even from Fox News. It might not be to Parler, or to the next site after that, but fragmentation will continue to happen. Facebook and media at large only have power if they have viewers, which is a far less stable resource than iron, or oil, or other corporate mainstay…

2020, or more likely 2016 will perhaps be seen as a turning point in the fortunes of the US Republic, when the democracy began to unravel, the law was used as a weapon against enemies, and the rule of law was replaced by mob rule with different factions warring in the streets. The parallels between the US at this moment and pre-war Europe or Rome at the time of the Catiline conspiracy are striking - the centre cannot…

Bullshit, buddy. Ant getting target-tanked by China means America is still the best place for innovation and risk-taking.

Every generation thinks they have it the worst.

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

#710

Post by npsimons »

tomjen3 wrote: post #567
npsimons wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do we get back from where we are now ? I have to admit, my social skills are lacking, my patience is low; and the problem just seems so vastly overwhelming that I can't imagine where to even begin.

Reinstitute the draft, or national service where every young kid has to spend a year fighting along side people they didn't know before hand, far from home. Or spend a year traveling the US doing worthwhile projects (fixing up broken jungle gyms in schools) again with people they didn't know. It is a little bit less likely that you dislike heartland America when you spent a year working with Fred the Farmboy before y…

(Replying again as I can't seem to edit my original).

> It is a little bit less likely that you dislike heartland America

This is a strawman. Relatively few people "dislike" heartland America in and of itself. The objection has always been to people voting for bigotry, and on top of that, it's always to their own detriment, plus it is all too common that it is "heartland America" that are the ones who need to exercise more empathy and are the most likely to disparage "others" and outsiders because they are not exposed to them. There's a reason people become more liberal and in favor of progressivism as they move towards higher population centers and become more educated and exposed to the rest of the world.

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