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Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

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Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#91
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they are wrong as evidenced by many Supreme Court rulings. Find any point of view and I'll find a group of people that take that view to an untenable extreme. The only reason they have that view is because they live in a world where its not a reality. If it were those people would likely be dead due to a pandemic of gun violence.

> And they are wrong as evidenced by many Supreme Court rulings. Right. Because the Supreme Court never makes a mistake, never reverses itself, and is completely immune to political influence. If your best argument for being optimistic about the future of civilization is the Supreme Court then you've just made my point for me.

I think you made your point, or lack there of, when you considered my point invalid due to the lack of absolute perfection and infallibility of Supreme Court rulings. Absolutist thinking is generally a sign of a weak argument.

Oh yeah, "as evidenced" doesn't mean "due to" as well. You might want to work on your reading comprehension there. The Supreme Court is mearly ratifying what the majority of Americans will accept. And handing everyone an M60 ain't it.

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#92
post #74
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was watching Legal Eagle discussing if Trump incited the mob / insurrection https://youtu.be/XwqAInN9HWI and he goes over some previous cases of “incitement of violence” and it’s crazy how high the bar is. On the other hand, tech companies can very quickly take down illegal content, like child pornography or people singing Happy Birthday. I do think they have the technical chops + content moderators to at least try…

> consider that someone with millions of followers is basically planning acts of violence with a retweet So by your standard, would https://twitter.com/rezaaslan/status/1307107507131875330 count as planning acts of violence, or would he need more followers first, since he's not at "millions" yet?

It's not quite a plan, is it? Like, what exactly are they asking people to burn? "It"? And it's not necessarily advocating violence, either; while arson is terrible and destructive, it is not necessarily violence against people.

It's pretty well short of actually calling people to violent acts. The wording would need to be more specific.

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#93
post #11

I gotta say, recent events have left me shaken to my core. I thought I believed in free speech, to the point where I started a company dedicated to providing privacy and communications products that were not subject to control by any central authority (that turns out to be very hard!) But watching the events of the past few years unfold I am no longer convinced that this would really make the world a better place. I…

I think free speech ends at specific threats or calls to violence. Call me the n word all you want. But if you threaten my life you should be stopped. Either by the police or by me. I think free speech is necessary, but not free speech to harass or threaten violence. Free speech including the vile and negative won't make the world a better place. Arguing against the bad ideas will. But I do not think it's the burden…

> I think free speech ends at specific threats or calls to violence. Call me the n word all you want. But if you threaten my life you should be stopped. Either by the police or by me.

Then what about lies? The real problem of the last few years is that really blatant lies have been remarkably successful in the "marketplace of ideas" and quite hard to effectively argue against (if you disagree, try using facts and reason to convince a QAnon believer that the world isn't run by Satan-worshipping pedophile Democrats who Trump & Muller are secretly preparing to defeat in a blaze of glory). Those lies are fuel for those "specific threats or calls to violence."

I think a lot of the conventional beliefs around free speech make assumptions that may not be as true now as they were in the past (e.g. most of the participants will act in good faith (or at least have some shame) and act reasonably, and that any participants that don't will be quickly identified and ostracized). The error is sort of like classical economics theories incorrectly assuming people will be rational economic actors when they often aren't.

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#94
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> consider that someone with millions of followers is basically planning acts of violence with a retweet So by your standard, would https://twitter.com/rezaaslan/status/1307107507131875330 count as planning acts of violence, or would he need more followers first, since he's not at "millions" yet?

It's not quite a plan, is it? Like, what exactly are they asking people to burn? "It"? And it's not necessarily advocating violence, either; while arson is terrible and destructive, it is not necessarily violence against people. It's pretty well short of actually calling people to violent acts. The wording would need to be more specific.

I hope the judge in my trial will be as charitable in their interpretation of my words, as you are to Reza Aslan's.

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#95
post #11

I gotta say, recent events have left me shaken to my core. I thought I believed in free speech, to the point where I started a company dedicated to providing privacy and communications products that were not subject to control by any central authority (that turns out to be very hard!) But watching the events of the past few years unfold I am no longer convinced that this would really make the world a better place. I…

The problem I have with this line of reasoning is that it isn't free speech that's the issue here, it's got far more to do with the echo chambers and feedback loops of social networks. However the solution to the social networks have created is to allow those very same social networks to have total authority over what speech is permitted online.

It's fairly obvious by now to most people that these companies are biased, and even if you don't believe so yourself, the fact they have no reason not to be bias should be worrying enough. How do we explain why extremists like Richard Spencer are on Twitter, but the president of the US and Alex Jones is not? It seems if Twitter's goal is to protect you from extremists they do an awful job, but if their goal is to protect you from popular right-wing commentators they do a fairly good one.

The same is true for platforms. The vast majority of the content on Parler was relatively benign, while Twitter and Facebook hosts far more content which we might consider "extremist". However, platforms like Facebook are too big to have to worry about being deplatformed so instead we distract ourselves by talking about how we should ban a bunch of irrelevant platforms that won't make an ounce of difference in the fight against extremism.

I also think we need to put the last few years into some perspective. The domestic extremism we've seen in the US isn't really happening in Europe. Yeah, we have some far-right and far-left parties, but we always have. I live in the UK and just a few decades ago we had ethno-nationalists organising and staging terror attacks daily during The Troubles. In the 1900s we had the rise of various communist and facist groups all over the West which were arguably far more concerning than anything we've seen in recent years. So how exactly does the last few years stand out from anything we've seen in even recent history? It's different for sure, but it always is.

Finally, I sometimes wonder how much of this panic over the dangers of free speech is manufactured. Free speech has always come at a cost, but we've always understood the alternative where a few elites have the power to forcibly suppress speech is far worse. Perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems to me that social media and much of the media have decided that what happened in the US capitol is far worse than anything that happened earlier this year when entire neighbourhoods were destroyed and police officers were being shot dead in cold blood because of lies and misconceptions being spread on social media. I saw very little talk back then about how we need to ban left-wing platforms or censor left wing activists. I personally saw several people I knew tweeting "ACAB" and suggesting violence is necessary in the summer who are now tweeting how awful the violence in the Capitol was, despite it being far less substantial in terms of deaths, destruction and casualties. I know these aren't bad people too, so I can only assume it was the media which convinced them that the endless rioting, looting and police murders were nothing new or anything to worry about, while a group of protestors storming the capitol has gone too far and that something urgently needs to be done about free speech. I don't mean to make this a right vs left thing, I'm just trying to point out how a lot of the panic over free speech seems to be manufactured, or at least leveraged to further political goals.

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#96
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you could being by asking yourself why a "central authority" is inherently more wise and capable of deciding what people are allowed to think and say than individuals themselves? Does the ability to seize power and become the central authority denote inherent wisdom or morality? History is littered with examples of societies where communications were overseen by a central authority, from Nazi Germany to the S…

I don't know why a central authority works better. But it seems to be manifestly true if you look at human history that it works better once you try to scale society beyond the tribe. (At least by my personal quality metric. But I acknowledge that I am strongly biased by the fact that I'm a rich white guy in a society dominated by rich white guys, so I'm definitely open to alternative ideas. But unfettered free speec…

>I don't know why a central authority works better. But it seems to be manifestly true if you look at human history that it works better once you try to scale society beyond the tribe.

Hundreds of millions of people who have been murdered in wars organized by central authorities would probably have a different opinion.

> The burden of covid, for example, is falling disproportionately on people of color in no small measure because of denialism.

If you think that the poorest and most marginalized people in society are the ones who stand to gain from a concentration of absolute power among a centralize governing authority, I urge you to learn some history.

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Parler has hosted content no worse than Twitter or Facebook or thousands of other sites. Nonsense. Parler was created because Twitter and Facebook were moderating content. If Twitter and Facebook hadn't been moderating hate speech, Parler would not exist. Posting voices and content which is banned on Twitter and Facebook is the single unique "Feature" of Parler. Over the months, Amazon has been in contact with Parl…

> Parler was created because Twitter and Facebook were moderating content. > If Twitter and Facebook hadn't been moderating hate speech, Parler would not exist. I don't think it's fair to claim Parler was created because Twitter and Facebook moderate hate speech. For example, the Hunter Biden story was actively suppressed on both Twitter and Facebook, essentially confirming long-held beliefs that social media platfor…

Twitter and Facebook both have done a horrible job moderating hate speech. Both in terms of over-moderating in some places and under-moderating in others.

But they actually moderate their content, and while there have been a few knee jerk reactions, they've mostly erred on the side of leaving things up rather than the reverse.

Parler has knowingly left threats of rape, murder, and torture on their site indefinitely. The contrast is stark here.

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's their right to spew whatever they want. Just because it's worthless doesn't mean we should stop it. I personally think every single conversation in Twitter is absolutely worthless, maybe even has negative value. Does that give me the right to shut down Twitter? No. I value free speech so if people want to waste their time spewing nonsense, that is their right.

I think this point of view neglects the emergent properties of a society where millions of people can spew nonsense all at once, at the speed of light, using AI assisted audience targeting. Crackpots and liars have existed since the beginning of time but never before has a technology been designed to so readily amplify and reenforce their nonsense. Never before has a technology been so adept at hiding from you that t…

I think the issue is rather the visibility of the nonsense, as a global species we are still adapting to this new communication medium

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#99
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not quite a plan, is it? Like, what exactly are they asking people to burn? "It"? And it's not necessarily advocating violence, either; while arson is terrible and destructive, it is not necessarily violence against people. It's pretty well short of actually calling people to violent acts. The wording would need to be more specific.

I hope the judge in my trial will be as charitable in their interpretation of my words, as you are to Reza Aslan's.

Sure; they'd probably apply strict scrutiny [0]. In the USA, speech is typically protected by default; the burden of proof is on the prosecution to show that the speech was harmful.

Seriously, have you never heard an angry American yell that they are frustrated with the status quo and would like to "burn it down" [1]? It is a common refrain and generally taken as a hyperbolic statement about the speaker's dissatisfaction with the actions of the government.

Finally, if you're in the USA, you have the right to a trial by jury if you're accused of crimes [2]; you do not need to worry that some appointed judge will find your speech harmful, but rather that a panel of your peers will unanimously agree that your speech is harmful.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn_It_Down

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Amendment_to_the_United_...

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#100
post #11

I gotta say, recent events have left me shaken to my core. I thought I believed in free speech, to the point where I started a company dedicated to providing privacy and communications products that were not subject to control by any central authority (that turns out to be very hard!) But watching the events of the past few years unfold I am no longer convinced that this would really make the world a better place. I…

The trouble is when people conflate “free speech” with “absolute prohibition on any societal, cultural, or personal means of making any value judgment about any speech, as well as any mechanism whatsoever to encourage any type of speech and discourage any other type of speech.” It’s this “speech agnosticism” version of “free speech” that worries me.

> The trouble is when people conflate “free speech” with “absolute prohibition on any societal, cultural, or personal means of making any value judgment about any speech, as well as any mechanism whatsoever to encourage any type of speech and discourage any other type of speech.” It’s this “speech agnosticism” version of “free speech” that worries me.

And that "speech agnosticism", ironically, is actually a rejection of free speech. Free speech only really can work if the members of society act as a filter for bad stuff.

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