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Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

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Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you must have a native mobile app, you can download it from alternative stores. Or Parlour can just distribute as a web app. Businesses don’t have any right to force other businesses to carry their products.

> Or Parlour can just distribute as a web app. Okay. Then hosting providers refuse to host. Payment processors refuse to process your payments for web services. Your domains are revoked. Your SSL certs are revoked. Where does this end? If they have the power to, and they've justified it this far, why wouldn't they keep going?

Is this not “the market” deciding it doesn’t want to entertain this business? As a society it’s totally reasonable for us to draw the line at intolerable behaviour, we’re not obliged to put up with platforms that enable hate and vitriol, just as we don’t tolerate violence in the street.

If a business closes because nobody is interested in buying their products, or a club disbands because nobody is interested in joining, or a pub bars a patron who’s starting fights and nobody blinks an eye. The same thing happens on the internet and suddenly it’s the end of the world.

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't exactly an attack; it was a bunch of protesters, trespassing into the building during a very important session. Illegal and wrong, mind you, but hardly a terrorist attack that it's being painted as. A group of kooks and extremists who should have, and could have, been kept out by proper policing. The Capitol police really screwed up. Actually in a way it's good that it happened; exposed some major security…

> It wasn't exactly an attack Then why was congress evacuated? Why are multiple people on camera screaming "Where is Pence?!" and threatening to hang him? Why was that cop killed? That's ridiculous, sorry. It was a chaotic attack, sure. And surely there were some people there who just wandered in with the crowd and didn't want to hurt anyone. But this is an attack on congress. Be real.

I'd say it was mostly peaceful, especially compared to the riots.

Certainly didn't last as long, it cost less in property damage, less people died, and less neighborhoods burnt down.

Maybe we can ban both sides from social media and have no Twitter.

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#573

Wow, is this the great purge? I don’t support certain people, but man I don’t think this is going to end well. This censorship just seems crazy to me.

A lot of pedants are telling you it's not censorship and they are technically correct, these private platforms are within their rights to decide how they are used. And many people have raised concerns before about what it means that we've given so much power to these platforms. I hope this goes down as the time the big platforms overplayed their hand and made people realise that even though we have turned over so muc…

While they may be pedants, I am anally right. On a personal level I think those who chime in to cry that it's not censorship are myopic fools.

It is absolutely censorship. It's textbook, dictionary, censorship. Take wikipedia's great opening paragraph:

>Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies.

In my opinion it's especially egreoious, requiring remedy, if the censorious actor has a large amount of control over a medium of communication. In this case google dwarfs perhaps governments.

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not censorship, private businesses have the right to decide what they sell in their stores. Parlour can still distribute itself as a web app, no problem.

Then it's still censorship; private businesses simply have the right to censor.

If you’re going to call it censorship if Walmart refuses to sell a product I make, then you are really watering down what that word means.

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#575
post #322

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Other way round: anyone on the left is used to unfair treatment. The app reporting drone strike locations was banned years ago. Apple caused tumblr to self-destruct. Just this time the policy is actually in our favor. Unlimited incitement to violence is not sustainable. Banning them for this is the start ; America is going to have a long uncomfortable process of dealing with its media.

Exactly -- I love the pearl-clutching tone of these of slippery-slope complaints: "Just you wait, leftists! One day the power of the state shall be visited upon you, and then you'll see! How would you feel if the government censored you, infiltrated your gatherings, and sidelined you from mainstream society? Hmmmmm?"

> pearl-clutching

Pearl clutching? Odd. I've heard people say that all summer long about those afraid of the "peaceful protests" turned violent riots that burned down cities and devastated business. This violence was encouraged by all types of politicians on the left and all the big media networks as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eQzLcO5qhY

A small number of people at an almost entirely non-violent rally, a rally where the president encouraged people to "walk down to the capitol house" .. walk, not riot or loot or burn, a small number of people did something horrifically stupid. Most just walked around, a smaller percentage destroyed stuff. Everyone one of them should be charged if they did.

But you know what I also saw? "Pearl Clutching." Every senator and congressman afraid out of their mind because the villages had come into the castle. The peasants were in the kings court, and the village idiot with a racoon on his head was sitting at the seat of The King's Hand playing with her royal gavel.

You cannot possibly talk about the violence on the 6th, without addressing the fact that the media went on and on and on about praising all the violent "peaceful protestors" all summer long.

It did not matter at all when it was the business owners, the minimum wages workers who lost the jobs at stores now condemned, or those losing everything in lockdowns while Pelosi showed America her ice cream collection in her $14k kitchen setup.

But now that they were causing some minor damage, 1/1000 of the damage the democratic left supporters did on inauguration day 2014:

https://youtu.be/BXR3d22BhHs

It's suddenly the worst thing on the planet! Unprecedented even!

America has a long history of its citizens taking federal buildings. The Black Panthers, with an armed militia, took the California Capitol in the 1970s and no one died.

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#576

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The purge has been happening for years. I hate how people on HN is praising this. There are literally few alternatives for the average person apart from Google and eyeProducts. I have a PinePhone, but what percentage of America can truly put in the effort to use one? If you cannot install an run your own software on a device, you do not own the device. You cannot praise the removal of Gab or Parlor now and complain l…

First, this is strawman bullshit. Don't bring up app prices in a culture war. What you're witnessing is culture expressing itself, rooted in history, the law, the zeitgeist of the people. And right now the culture is drawing a line in the sand and saying, "don't do that (bigotry, racism, ignorance)". You are free to be on this side of the line or you can start a revolution. So far the good guys are winning. Not Dems…

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Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The country went down this path as soon as the Senate refused to convict Trump. We are now at the point where we have to block violent fascists from organizing the overthrow of our democracy, and that requires deplatforming. We had a peaceful resolution to this in February of 2020, but the GOP chose this path instead.

To be clear, we had another peaceful resolution to this on November 3rd, but unfortunately the President refuses or at best refused to accept this.

Trump has been warning us since the beginning that he wouldn't accept a loss, and instead take the country down with him.

I think most of us didn't fully realize until this week the consequences of not conceding would be this bad.

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#578

Wow, is this the great purge? I don’t support certain people, but man I don’t think this is going to end well. This censorship just seems crazy to me.

The website is still accessible, right?

Until they get booted from their ISP or can’t get DDOS protection.

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you at all worried about the possibility that America could have another civil war because a sufficiently large proportion of Americans are radicalized in uncensored, insufficiently moderated communities? Facebook's own research found “64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools” and that most of the activity came from the platform’s “Groups You Should Join” and “Discover” algorithms: “Ou…

The proposition that free and open discussion creates civil war is frightening. If we are prepared to believe such a thing, then we have no democracy to protect.

Incitement isn't permitted by any interpretation of the 1st amendment.

The current state of affairs offers nothing more granular than shutting down all of Parler in response to their failure to moderate this speech effectively.

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#580
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The threats haven’t been hypothetical all year. Dozens have died, 100s maimed, $2 billion in property damage. Kamala Harris said, > "They're not gonna stop, and everyone beware, because they're not gonna stop," she added. "They're not gonna stop before Election Day in November, and they're not gonna stop after Election Day." > "Everyone should take note of that, on both levels, that they're not going to let up — and…

I won't bother with your bizarre argument, but you are flagrantly taking Harris' words out of context. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/08/13/fac...

I don’t know if you realize you’re making exactly my point.

This “fact check” is the kind of laughable gaslighting that got us here. The YouTube videos speak for themselves. The death toll speaks for itself.

> Colbert: ”I know there are protests still happening in major cities across the United States, I'm just not seeing the reporting on it that I had for the first few weeks,"

The “protests” were violet mobs which destroyed property and killed people. The media made up a narrative of “fiery but mostly peaceful protest” while buildings (and people’s livelihoods) literally burned in the background.

$2 billion dollars of damage.

> This isn’t going to stop.

Police shot in the head, doused with gasoline, government buildings burned into the ground.

> This is a movement I’m telling you.

City capitol buildings invaded. Throngs calling for the removal of the elected leader of Seattle. City blocks occupied for days by an armed insurgent force.

> they're not going to let up — and they should not. And we should not," she concluded.

Ted Wheeler seems to be finally coming around to this, god knows how it took him so long;

> “My good-faith efforts at de-escalation have been met with ongoing violence and even scorn from radical Antifa and anarchists,” Wheeler said in a New Year’s Day press conference. “In response, it will be necessary to use additional tools and to push the limits of the tools we already have to bring the criminal destruction and violence to an end.”

Like I’ve been saying for the last two days, you can either say people like Kamala are inciting violent protest that was actively ongoing when they made these statements, and you can hold Trump to the same standard yesterday. Or you can let Kamala off the hook, but then you let Trump off at the same time.

You can’t hold Trump to one standard and Kamala to another. You can’t call yesterday an insurrection and last year a summer of love.

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