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Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

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Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#381
post #362

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Man you picked the wrong analogy for this forum! Guns are a form of self expression here, so it's like the 1st and 2nd amendment added together

Hah. I recently had a conversation with someone who pointed out that it is really odd to see guns as anything but a tool. As in, how weird would it be if someone formed their whole identity around their affinity for hammers or wrenches or winches or chainsaws? But when you see a “gun guy” you are like “yup, that’s America”.

That's what the Second Amendment, the close relationship between the NRA, Republican Party and conservative Christianity, and two hundred years of the South romanticizing the archetype of the militiaman patriot watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants will do.

Guns should be seen as just a tool, they should be legal but heavily regulated, they don't need their own Constitutional amendment. The basic premise of the Second Amendment became obsolete once the US had a standing army.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t a gun debate. If you want, I’ll rephrase: guns are mostly used to kill living beings, or to target practice so that one may get better at killing living beings. They don’t have a domestic function like knives do: you can’t cook or clean with them.

> They don’t have a domestic function like knives do Hunting for sustenance, depending on where you live

I don’t disagree with that, but there are large categories of guns that are completely unsuitable for that purpose: handguns (except very specific cases), automatic weapons like used by the military, grenade launchers, mortars, sub machine guns, tactical nukes, etc.

But we were talking about Parler and Facebook. I am sure some people have used Parler for things other than far right propaganda, but can you honestly make the point that it wasn’t its primary use case?

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post like this that remind me the people seriously believe there aren’t just the same number of crazies on the right and left. That “your side“ has all of the “reasonable people” and is “morally right”, what an amazing coincidence. You only want one side to have to “own“ their crazies. That isn’t how it works. Neither side should be thought of or represented by their “crazies”, that isn’t anywhere near good fait…

I mean, currently one 'side' is lead by a guy who's still in complete denial that he lost the election, against all available evidence, so this may not be as 'both-sides'-y as you seem to believe.

That just means that one side has a crazy who is currently in power. It doesn't mean that the other side doesn't have just as much crazy.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#384
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As usual, no one bothered to properly archive it and people took screenshots instead. So unfortunately, neither archive.today nor wayback machine has it and the last capture before that was in 2016. But even Snopes confirms it, if you don't want to take my word for it.

Snopes link for the curious: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/merriam-webster-barrett-se... Is there a regularly updated official list somewhere of newly-considered-offensive words so one can proactively update one's vocabulary?

Other than regularly following Twitter drama or joining some Discord echo chamber, I honestly don't think there is any reliable way to know what is now considered offensive and what is not. The reason why All Lives Matter is considered racist is literally based on some obscure web comic about burning houses from years ago and everyone will get angry at you if you don't understand what the hell are they even talking about. Oh and by the way, silence == violence, so it's not like staying apolitical will help you much.

https://static.attn.com/sites/default/files/allhousesmatter....

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#385
post #69

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Although I am concerned about the 1A and big tech being the arbiters of it, it seems like such a system has yet to go to production (probably never will). I understand that there are technical, financial, and legal complexities that are much more nuanced than 'FB doesn't care, as long as they can profit from potentially dangerous content' and 'FB just wants to suppress any speech which doesn't align with their neo-li…

I don't think the NSA was engineered with internet / social networks scale though. But they were already failing in the 9/11 days soo..

I mean, PRISM was a post 9/11 thing and yeah, Snowden's leaks directly noted Facebook, YouTube, etc. There is really no telling what exactly is out there, but we know the NSA has massive Data Centers and a massive budget. Basically, even the most personal private information about literally any citizen is just a FISA Warrant away. Things posted in a public forum are a cakewalk.

Maybe they aren't doing anything novel with this data, whatever, this is beside the point. The point is, we can't really count on the State to regulate this stuff, even though, you know, creating and enforcing laws is literally the reason the state exists...

IDK, I hesitantly have to side with big-tech on this, but this is a problem that the State either can't fix, or will not fix.

The internet is a wonderful thing, but it is also very dangerous. Having unfettered access to information, be it true or false, can wield some horrible side effects when such a large swath of the population lacks basic BS detection, critical-thinking and like, base level understanding of civics. Do we need a Vanguard? I wouldn't trust one coming from either side of the aisle in the current climate. Seems like 'censorship' from the platforms is the only viable solution I can see, but that can take a pretty dark turn. At least if it's a private company, you can always leave, create your own thing or find something else...for now.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#386

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Not being sarcastic, but a lot of them are honest-to-god cultists; their connection with concrete reality is tenuous at best. They think that Q is real, and that Trump had secret information about vague evilness being done by Congress (eating babies or similar) that was going to be revealed when they got into the Capitol. Then they were going to arrest them all and execute them as punishment for their alleged crimes.…

This post like this that remind me the people seriously believe there aren’t just the same number of crazies on the right and left. That “your side“ has all of the “reasonable people” and is “morally right”, what an amazing coincidence. You only want one side to have to “own“ their crazies. That isn’t how it works. Neither side should be thought of or represented by their “crazies”, that isn’t anywhere near good fait…

The 9/11 truthers were left wingers. The Bernie Bros seem pretty cult-like. Obama certainly had a bit of a cult-of-personality around him at the beginning of his first term.

The difference is that on the right the inmates are currently running the asylum, and a significant portion of the right wing media / messaging apparatus has been pushing this stuff.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#387
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knives can be used to kill people. But a lot more knives are used in cooking. So we see knives as tools that are relatively rarely used to do bad things and mostly used for good things. Guns are mostly used to kill people. So we see them as tools only useful for that purpose. That’s why you can buy a set of knives on Amazon but not a 10 pack of Glocks. Facebook is seen closer to knives. Parler was mostly guns.

this is literally the worst parallel I've ever heard. guns are deterant against serious bodily harm. You've obviously never been in a situation when someone else was threatening your life. A better assumption is maybe Parler was a deterant from suppression. I love how parler criticism existed in 24hrs after "trump" ban. I was on the platform for months non of this hainiss violence or racism was ever in my feed.

Parler was a bunch of people who got run out of places Reddit for being too extreme. It was to maintaining democracy what a housewife on Facebook loving a meme that said “upvote for awareness” was to curing cancer. I mean look at the end result: people unironically brought confederate flags into the US Capitol and called themselves patriots. That is in no way different than flying the British flag there. “Hurdur, my ancestors fought against the American troops in the revolution. Y’all aren’t true patriots, I am. Go colonies!”

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#388
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s why you can buy a set of knives on Amazon but not a 10 pack of Glocks. No, it's because Amazon doesn't sell guns. There's also no reason to own 10 of the same firearm - it's not like you're setting your dinner table with handguns. As for guns being "mostly used to kill people", that's just not true. My gun collection has only been used to kill paper targets and, occasionally, deer. Properly used they are no…

Same with cloud services deplatforming.It's free advertisement for the competition. When I heard about AWS denying service I immediately looked into alternatives that could be used

Used for what?

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, currently one 'side' is lead by a guy who's still in complete denial that he lost the election, against all available evidence, so this may not be as 'both-sides'-y as you seem to believe.

That just means that one side has a crazy who is currently in power. It doesn't mean that the other side doesn't have just as much crazy.

Sure. But that’s a pretty weird digression when we’re talking about one specific group of crazies that just attempted an insurrection and got 5 people killed in the Capitol.

When the crazies on the left do something crazy, we can talk about them. But in this context bringing up such a “both sides” argument smacks of whataboutism.

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