Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by saalweachter » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 11:11 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #160

voodootrucker wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think banning online advertising causing these sites to charge their users for the service would right a lot of wrongs automatically, when the free market can start to kick in and do it's job. It makes it so Facebook's product becomes online photo sharing, instead of it's current product which is manipulation and addiction. https://www.wired.com/story/why-dont-we-just-ban-targeted-ad...

>I think banning online advertising So you want to limit speech in the name of protecting free speech?

Don't worry, it's only other people's speech.

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

#232

Post by zarkov99 » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 11:12 PM UTC

matchbok wrote: post #173

zarkov99 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are mis-informed here, or perhaps your definition of hate speech is different from mine. Parler was created because there was a perception that the moderation at Twitter was heavily slanted against conservatives. Many respectable people joined Parler, though, again perhaps we have different definitions of respectable. Parler has a moderation mechanism which is manual, not automatic as in Twitter, and like…

[flagged]

"our problem". you are funny.

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

#233

Post by mcguire » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 11:12 PM UTC

ardy42 wrote: post #197

whatshisface wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why a future collapse into tyranny of a country in Europe would have to involve a revival of the symbols of any particular defeated regime. If they needed symbols for propaganda purposes, they'd draw from legal symbol pools, like Roman culture. (It "worked" once...) More likely, they would draw from contemporary symbols that already had positive sentiment associated with them. The point being, it's not cl…

> I don't see why a future collapse into tyranny of a country in Europe would have to involve a revival of the symbols of any particular defeated regime. In the US, at least, the current (seemingly unsuccessful) slouch towards tyranny definitely does involve the revival symbols of a particular defeated regime: the Confederacy ( https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/us/Kevin-Seefried-arreste... ). Though it might not rea…

It might also be worth pointing out that those flashpoints were originally put into place deliberately, in a mostly failing attempt to bring the country back together, and then left in place until they went off.

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

#234

Post by myWindoonn » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 11:13 PM UTC

MikeUt wrote: post #102

myWindoonn wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dissatisfa…

You're discussing law as it currently stands, while the original poster proposed changing the law.

To what end are you arguing? Do you honestly think that the 6th Amendment will be repealed, or that strict scrutiny will suddenly not be applied when appropriate?

(I suspect that this entire comment thread was started in order to try to pull a rhetorical gotcha, and you didn't actually expect somebody to respond to your words as written, but hopefully you've learned some constitutional law on this beautiful sunny MLK Jr. Day.)

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

#235

Post by cm2187 » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 11:13 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #144

pmlnr wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it's obvious from the context, but examples include denying the holocaust being a crime.

I don't see why a future collapse into tyranny of a country in Europe would have to involve a revival of the symbols of any particular defeated regime. If they needed symbols for propaganda purposes, they'd draw from legal symbol pools, like Roman culture. (It "worked" once...) More likely, they would draw from contemporary symbols that already had positive sentiment associated with them. The point being, it's not cl…

The best example is that right after the holocaust and "never that again", half of the western political spectrum turned a blind eye to the various genocides and crimes against humanity happening in the communist block. Clearly no lesson was learnt. The two great totalitarian ideologies of the XX century have a lot in common. These laws that target one but ignore the other are I think at best misguided if not cynical. The French equivalent of those laws was proposed by the French communist party...

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

#236

Post by blacksmith_tb » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 11:14 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #160

voodootrucker wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think banning online advertising causing these sites to charge their users for the service would right a lot of wrongs automatically, when the free market can start to kick in and do it's job. It makes it so Facebook's product becomes online photo sharing, instead of it's current product which is manipulation and addiction. https://www.wired.com/story/why-dont-we-just-ban-targeted-ad...

>I think banning online advertising So you want to limit speech in the name of protecting free speech?

Limiting corporate speech in the name of protecting individual speech seems like a reasonable proposal to me.

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

#237

Post by cortesoft » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 11:15 PM UTC

Aerroon wrote: post #146

lisper wrote: 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…

Free expression is chaotic. It always has been and it always will be. It will always have lies and misinformation, some people will even believe the lies. But this is also the beauty of free expression - it prevents anyone from using it to enact total control. Speech that is free will always seed doubt against ideas, regardless whether those ideas are true or false. It's an avenue that allows anything to be questione…

> But this is also the beauty of free expression - it prevents anyone from using it to enact total control.

This is the really tricky part, though... absolute free expression only prevents people from enacting total control if it persists; however, free speech is not something that can’t be undone.

This is a form of the paradox of tolerance. If people use their absolute free speech to push lies and propaganda that allows them to gain enough control to then suppress future free speech and maintain their own power, we are no longer protected by free speech.

Even if you believe truth always eventually wins out if free speech is allowed, that doesn’t mean that we won’t hit a point along that path where free speech is restricted, and our meandering path towards truth suddenly stops.

Now, I don’t think restricting free speech is the answer, but we can’t pretend that it is impossible for people to use their power of free speech to prevent free speech in the future.

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

#238

Post by ThrowawayR2 » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 11:15 PM UTC

NationalPark wrote: post #134

hartator wrote: post #49

I don’t get all the anti free speech comments here. I rather live in a country with real free speech but no democracy than the reverse. You can’t have democracy without free speech.

Sigh. I am unbelievably tired of people setting this up as "pro free speech" vs "anti free speech". It's inflammatory (who proudly calls themselves "anti-free speech"? It's bad faith just to say that. Anyway.) and it's misleading. Most critically, almost everyone fundamentally agrees that censorship is a good thing, in principle. Even the most extreme "free speech" oriented websites remove spam, illegal pornography,…

> "spam, illegal pornography, and deliberate impersonation"

Please stop repeating this tired meme. All of things in that list are off-topic or outright against the law; nobody wants to receive those things. The topic is and always was removal of unpopular speech that is

1) on-topic

2) between consenting parties who consciously wanted to send and receive those messages

3) mostly not illegal. (Yes, of course, the illegal parts should have been prosecuted.)

The fact that the discussion being deplatformed is unpopular or deplorable still doesn't justify a uninvolved third-party stepping in to disrupt it.

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

#239

Post by alexfromapex » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 11:15 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #212

Playing the devil's advocate here: is this really "exceptional power"? Before the Internet, fringe, extremist political movements had essentially the same options as every other minor interest group: local groups, physical, mailed newsletters, maybe magazines, booths at whatever kind of group meetings, and maybe news media coverage. All of those options still exist. So the modern state of things hasn't removed anythi…

> All of those options still exist.

Not really, not during the pandemic in locked down areas.

Also, tech plays a much bigger role today than it did in the heyday of Geocities et al. Combine it with the willingness of other tech forms of censorship like Facebook banning groups and organizing events and Visa banning financial transactions and you have total censorship.

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

#240

Post by AndrewBissell » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 11:16 PM UTC

jariel wrote: post #185

millzlane wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You bring up a good point. I don't engage with folks like that. I assume they're already indoctrinated or an influencer from outside of the country or a troll. If I'm feeling empathetic I might try to appeal to the human in them. Edit: If you're asking me as if I were the host of the free speech platform. I guess I would allow everything except anything that violated criminal law. And would keep a law firm on retaine…

It doesn't matter who you engage with. If 10% of Americans are convinced that QAnon is behind the scenes running the show, and they believe that, and act on it in a variety of ways, then it's a huge problem. I suggest with the election, COVID and QAnon together we are probably already feeling the results of mass misinformation. It's an ugly problem because none of us really want to suppress people for saying somethin…

QAnon is as successful as it is because it is tapping into the cognitive dissonance created by things like federal mishandling of the Epstein case (slow walking allegations made since the 90s, the 2007 sweetheart deal which granted immunity to any unnamed co-conspirators, not having raided Epstein's New Mexico ranch to this day, etc), as well as the fact that wealthy and powerful elites continued to associate with him long past the point his predations had become an open secret, and they have suffered no professional or legal repercussions whatsoever.

The mainstream media says "he killed himself and was a one-off and all these rich people just wanted to solicit charitable donations and there's nothing more to see here," and anyone with two skeptical brain cells to rub together can see that's a lie and (if they are actually moved by the horrendous circumstances of the Epstein case to find out the truth) they go searching for alternative sources of information, at which point they're often easy game for disinfo merchants of various stripes who gain a foothold simply by not insisting they're crazy for even asking the questions in the first place.

The insistence that this is purely a problem of "mass misinformation" seems almost belligerently blinkered to the broader context and reasons why our society's institutions have lost credibility and trust.