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ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

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Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#111
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occupy Wall Street ended because of its own dysfunction.

I don’t mean what literally happened to it, I mean what happened to the values it represented. It’s barely been a decade and now the left has done a 180 on its relationship to corps.

The values it represented were never turned into anything coherent, which is part of why it collapsed.

There are many problems with corporations and capitalism to be address. Being generally ‘anti-corporate’ just isn’t useful.

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#112
post #4

I don’t care what side your politics are. When corporations can so easily control the voice of the elected leader of a country (one who has genuine legitimate support or about half of the country), I become very scared for the future. Corporations should not have more power than the elected officials.

I remind you that the capitol is also full of elected officials, and the president sent a mob to attack them.

That crossed a line and that's why he was banned.

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#114

Maybe it would help if someone on the internet condescendingly pointed out to them that the first amendment doesn't apply to private platforms. I mean I know that's not what they're talking about at all, but it's what always seems to happen in these discussions.

At what point do these massive corporations effectively become a government? They govern what you can say, think and buy.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/government

> the political direction and control exercised over the actions of the members, citizens, or inhabitants of communities, societies, and states; direction of the affairs of a state, community, etc.; political administration

> the form or system of rule by which a state, community, etc., is governed

Social media corporations influence what they'll allow to be said through their platform, and by means of their algorithms and the effects it has on your feeds and advertisements, they influence what you think and buy.

They do not rule your actions. They do not control laws, enforcement, government spending and military command. Certainly at the size and wealth of many corporations, they do heavily influence legislation though, and that certainly is worth examining.

But individuals have a choice whether or not to use social media. I'm just one person: I use Instagram but only follow a few people that post photos I like (I'll unfollow if a lot of posts diverge from photography), I avoid Facebook feeds completely and mostly avoid Twitter although the past few days have been an exception - I only visit one or two tech-related subreddits. This is just right now at a moment in time. Five years ago I would've said I use Facebook daily and Twitter extremely rarely and what is Reddit, and I've posted a few photos on Instagram but it doesn't really interest me. It's always a shifting landscape. (I once had a Google+ profile...)

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#115
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parler can be sideloaded on Android.

What happens when Amazon drops them from AWS?

Buy some servers and set it up yourself, switch to digital ocean, find more classic service providers. What you thought AWS was the only way to host shitty websites?

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#117

“Start your own Twitter then!” ... they do. “Google bans Parler, conservative Twitter. Apple gives them 24 hour notice to moderate more speech or be banned.”

Yes, start your own twitter is a cop out because no one is willing to accept that they are listening to crazy things.

Plus this IS the free market solution that American speech norms are ok with. Businesses can choose who they give their services to.

If google doesn't surface results that's their choice. Drive business to duck duck go and Bing.

VOAT, Parler, are not havens of conservative/ neo-liberal, small government economic discussion. If you want that go to an actual economics forum, or get a economist/WSJ/BB subscription.

They aren't getting removed because they have "conservative" thought. They're getting removed because people sharing death threats, Nazi apologia, holocaust denial and organizing to stop other people from existing is generally handled by anti terror teams.

While saying this is usually unpopular on boards with a largely American user base - in many other countries this wouldn't even be a question.

Additional note - many people who read these debates have never gone to those sites, and will be swayed by people who come up here and say they visit those sites.

Be wary of false reports and equivalencies. I've recently condemned the actions of the_donald, and linked to evidence of their efforts to subvert r/all.

The response I received was that organized attempts to subvert reddit, and brigade the front page are the equivalent of other subs organically having their content rise to the front page.

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#118
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but do you? When Twitter suspends your speech do you have a press office to get your word out? If they dare to do it to the president you think they have any reservations about censoring anyone else?

yes, because if they censor too much then parler or any other startup can easily rise up and compete. the barrier to entry is very very low here if there are pissed off users ready to flee. parler being a prime example

But that was banned as well from app stores. There aren't any free, open platforms out there to my knowledge; and if there are, they so obscure, so hard to get into, that might as well not count them as existing.

And you don't own your phone. You have 0 access to it, you can only do with it what the vendor allows you to. The market economy argument just doesn't hold in actual practice, despite its theoretical validity.

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#119
I generally agree private businesses are free to do what they want. However, when private businesses have so much control over how society communicates and operates, like Twitter, limits need to be put in place over what should be allowed. Twitter, Google, Reddit... all of them have become virtue echo chambers, if you don't agree with the main conversation or how the leaders of the company feel, your silenced by being banned, voted down, and hidden.

Something needs to change.

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, because if they censor too much then parler or any other startup can easily rise up and compete. the barrier to entry is very very low here if there are pissed off users ready to flee. parler being a prime example

No, Apple is trying to ban the alternative product that has been created.

Parler has banned all liberal, communist, and eco friendly speech.

It’s an alternative to Twitter but it got there by being more restrictive.

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