Live data from Hacker News

Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

play.google.com

581–590 of 880 posts

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m going to lend your neighbours a huge sound system so they can use their free speech to play the darkest industrial techno outside your door at 4am. I’m obviously joking, but would it be okay for me to use my platform this way? If not, why not?

Or you could simply not install Parler.

Until people whose brains have been melted by Parler influencers start calling you with death threats because they believe you’re a treasonous antifa instigator.

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#582
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost like there was some sort of catalyst event that occurred very recently that would provoke such a response. /s

Months of violent rioting in the streets? 2/3rds of democrats believing Russia hacked and changed vote counts in 2016? The hypocrisy is unbelievable. This will not end well.

Elizabeth Warren still has on her campaign website a section where she calls the US election system a joke:

https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/strengthening-democracy

>The harsh truth is that our elections are extremely vulnerable to attack: Forty-two states use voter registration databases that are more than a decade old. Laughably, in 2019, some still use Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Twelve states still use paperless machines, meaning there’s no paper trail to verify vote counts. Some states don’t require post-election audits. And ten states don’t train election officials to deal with cybersecurity threats. This is a national security threat, and three years after a hostile foreign power literally attacked our democracy, we’ve done far too little to address it.

I mean, even this very place always had a history of distrusting voting machines, etc.

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Nonsense This is the free market in action. No one is forcing Google or Twitter or FB to do anything; I think they've been very restrained. The libertarians should be happy that it's commercial companies shutting Parler down and not govt. It's only when the president incites violence in an attempt retain power that these commercial entities acted.

They may be able to do it legally and it would still be wrong thing to do. Queue discussion about "Google or Twitter or FB" having it both ways as publisher and platform.

Parler is not going to be shut down now. Whoever made this decision, just literally gave them Trump base users on a silver platter.

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#584
post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If wal-mart stops selling a brand of ice cream, is that censorship? Is it censorship that wal-mart doesn't sell playboy in their store? If not, then why is the removal of an app from the app store censorship? The world wide web still exists. Parler is still on the internet. Seems like there should be some acknowledgement that there's a difference between refusing to actively participate in distributing content and ce…

I think a better analogy is saying, oh, you've banned newspapers, but who cares, you can still talk to people in person. Which is to say, it's true, & that's a good thing, but that doesn't mean that the censorship itself isn't bad. The most effective, most powerful communication medium that exists right now is native apps for social networks on smartphones. If 100% of that medium is controlled and censored by two com…

If a newspaper is promoting killing and owning the libs and overthrowing the government it has gone from reporting the news to promoting death and violence which has never been acceptable for the free press.

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#585
post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to remember another group calling for the killing of politicians and cops recently. Huge protests, rioting, burning down police precincts. Some three letter acronym I can't remember...

Its amazing you can take the message of "cops shouldn't kill people" and spin it to be about killing the cops. It's a view of the world detached from reality.

whoa its crazy when I wrote "amen & awomen" somebody flagged it. looks like HN isn't really immune to the madness that is gripping America.

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#586
post #233

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.

I seriously can't identify with this viewpoint. There's no censorship here- parler still exists, people are still free to share their (abhorrent) viewpoints there, Google is just choosing not to amplify the voices of people that have proven themselves capable of and prone to violence. All the pearl-clutching over free speech is totally overblown.

It's important to distinguish that "not deleting something" is NOT the same as amplifying it.

Amplifying it would be pasting images and links to Parler all over the Google Play splash page and all over the Google Play website, sending emails to all its gmail users to download Parler, or inserting Parler ads into some % of its ad impressions.

They aren't doing that. "Leave it alone" is not the same thing as amplification, that's literally the distinction that is made in Section 230.

The ONLY thing being asked for is that Parler polices itself (or the authorities get involved where appropriate), and that Google and Apple leave it be because all they do is serve as the conduit to get it onto the device they control.

That is the way the world SHOULD work. No it doesn't give you the adrenaline rush of enforcing your desires on the world, but that's not a good thing to be enabling in the first place.

If they had no control over the stores used to get apps on devices, the whole question would be moot. Their duopoly leads to this issue. Frankly, that control should be taken away.

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, the solution needs to be a guarantee of transfering your account to another provider. We can do it with phone numbers, we can do it with banks (at least in Europe). I don't see a reason why we couldn't apply the same on social media and auth providers. Banned from "login with apple"? I should have a right to transfer my account to "login with google/facebook/my own server" and it should work. The same…

You might be interested in the "fediverse" then. One instance can ban you but you can make an account in others and still interact with people from your old instance.

Why is the fediverse / mastodon not picking up all these users? How did Parler even get the jump on them?

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#588

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.

I can understand the viewpoint you have, though I don't agree with it. Radical ideas have always looked for ways to spread around and influence people. As in with any idea, there are good ones (Why should a worker not have paid holidays, or days off, or have work life balance, education rights, voting rights, etc) and bad ones (the ones we see espoused by many radical right wingers like the claimed inferiority of the…

This is pretty well put. I definitely agree with your points here.

I would like to point out that Nazism and Stalinism are localized versions of the same thing: fascism. trump is the current leader of American Fascism. He should have his voice on major platforms cut off.

What people don't seem to realize about democracy is that fascism is the weak point.

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

A {hosting, domain, ssl} company doesn’t have to accept another company as a customer. What about the hosting company’s freedom of speech rights? If a hosting company doesn’t want to host your site, that’s their decision. If they don’t want to be associated with a site or app or spend their resources, that’s their decision. These aren’t regulated monopolies that have to serve all customers. Now, if you want to claim…

That's interesting.

Do you feel the same way about a company refusing to serve Jews or Blacks? Is it their right?

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#590
post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[flagged]

You have lost a sense of perspective. People storming the capital was symbolic act ( with some violence ). Move by Google will likely have repercussions beyond that violence and that storm. Some of us horrified, because that song is always the same.
Post reply on HN