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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

#971
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…

As a side question, how do you feel about spam blockers? I don't mean this question in bad faith, and I support spam blocking, but spam blocking seems incompatible with a free-speech absolutist position.

The analogy is invalid. Spam is something nobody wants to receive, by definition. The people on Parler voluntarily wanted to communicate with each other but were prevented from doing so by a third party.

A formulation of freedom of speech that might be useful to contemplate is Article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Deplatforming by a third-party that isn't part of the conversation definitely runs afoul of the "seek (and) receive" part of that ideal.

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

#972

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m trying to figure out if anyone actually want to heal societal schisms? And the measure of that is what folks are willing to compromise on?

What do you think we should compromise on? (Asking because curious, and from the long thread that followed this it seemed like you'd actually have an opinion).

I think compromising on immigration would have the biggest effect on defusing tensions.

I think Biden is doing an admirable job keeping a lid on the reprisal/deprogramming talk. The media should follow his lead. Obama's administration fought a bunch of gratuitious fights, like suing nuns. I anticipate Biden will keep people on a tighter leash, just as a longtime legislator who is going to be thinking harder about the fights he wants to pick.

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

#973

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What censorship? The president himself was saying the election was stolen from him for two months and that was basically the only thing the nightly news talked about (other than COVID) every day. At some point we should be able to say "Enough, evidence or GTFO," without being accused of silencing discussion. We're way past that point.

How is the video in Georgia debunked? They sent observers home (even a big newslet posted this on Twitter at that time), counted the ballots afterwards and Biden had a spike. And btw I am from Germany, so I am on neither "camp".

No you saw a conspiracy theory peddled by Rudy Giuliani, the man in charge of the Trump legal challenge to the election.

The video is so wrongly interpreted, Republicans were the first one to debunk it. It's important to note, in a video, when someone leaves the screen or the room... you can't assume they've been sent home.

More info here: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/dec/04/facebook-p...

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

#974
post #830

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like you've been using this site primarily for political battle. That's not what HN is for, and it destroys what it is for, so we ban accounts that do it (regardless of their politics). Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stop doing this.

From your comment (on a different story): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25843947 > All: I know this is a little late, but those of you posting ideological flamewar comments to this thread are breaking the site guidelines. We're trying to avoid hellfire here, and we're banning accounts that feed it. Please don't feed it. > HN is not for all types of discussion. It is specifically for curious conversation . Here…

I don't see how it helps the orderliness of the planet to post in a disorderly way to HN. It's not so hard to stick to the site guidelines if you choose to.

I don't want to ban you but we really need you to post more thoughtfully (or put it this way: only post when you're able to post thoughtfully) and err on the side of respecting others.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#975
post #772

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Inciting violence and overthrowing a government is already as illegal as child pornography is Doing it is illegal, advocating for it is explicitly legal. Most of this discussion is about the latter.

No, that's not right. See Brandenburg v. Ohio - incitement is explicitly not legal, per the Supreme Court. The classic qualifying line is "imminent lawless action".

The Supreme Court found that Brandenburg's 1A rights were violated. The "imminent lawless action" doctrine was protecting his ability to advocate for violence.

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

#976

Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of contract law combined with acceptable use policies, IMO. #unpopularopinion

I might have been downvoted for my views, but I note that Parler's preliminary injunction has been dismissed — of course the judge understands contract law and Amazon's AUP much better than the HN downvoters.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/judge-rejects-pa...

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

#977
post #974

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your comment (on a different story): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25843947 > All: I know this is a little late, but those of you posting ideological flamewar comments to this thread are breaking the site guidelines. We're trying to avoid hellfire here, and we're banning accounts that feed it. Please don't feed it. > HN is not for all types of discussion. It is specifically for curious conversation . Here…

I don't see how it helps the orderliness of the planet to post in a disorderly way to HN. It's not so hard to stick to the site guidelines if you choose to. I don't want to ban you but we really need you to post more thoughtfully (or put it this way: only post when you're able to post thoughtfully) and err on the side of respecting others. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> I don't see how it helps the orderliness of the planet to post in a disorderly way to HN.

I think it is plausible that if rational, computer programming types could regain the ability to discuss culture war topics at a level of discourse that has some regard for what is actually true (as opposed to mistaking one's ideological/heuristic opinion for fact, and losing one's temper when someone dares to ask "is that true?"), perhaps:

a) you wouldn't have to pass out so many warnings

b) we here at HN could perhaps bring some rationality to these issues, and perhaps come up with some solutions

c) if (b) succeeds, perhaps other communities could learn too

> It's not so hard to stick to the site guidelines if you choose to.

I assume it is this one that you believe I have violated: "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity."

Am I "pushing an ideology" when I ask someone if their ideological and rarely factual (but stated factually) comment is actually true? To me, engaging in "political or ideological battle" is pushing(!) an opposing political/ideological idea. I may at times point out an opposing idea, but I do not do it on ideological grounds, I do it on epistemological grounds.

> I don't want to ban you but we really need you to post more thoughtfully (or put it this way: only post when you're able to post thoughtfully) and err on the side of respecting others.

Dang, have you read any of the conversations I have been involved in, have you read the comments of the people whom I have engaged in discussion with? I simply cannot wrap my head around how it is I who should be posting more "thoughtfully", or need to "respect others". Go read for yourself! Compare what I say to others, and compare what they say to me. Compare the quality of the content of other's posts to what I say in response. Peruse the historic voting on my comments (90%+ of my comments get precisely "-1" - isn't that a coincidence!), versus the thoughtfulness/respectfulness of the comments.

On culture war topics, this place has become not much better than what you'd find in /r/politics.

Where is the thoughtfulness? Where is the concern for, or curiosity about, what is true?

If you have actually perused my history, and this is your take on the relative behavior here, that I, the one who is exerting effort to discuss these topics in an evidence-based manner, am the one you shall pick out of the crowd to be given a warning, then I will be absolutely shocked.

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

#978
post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the actual judgement from ECHR: [1] It is an interesting reading - it gives a very different impression than the article. According to the document, she claimed Muhammad was a pedophile in a series of seminars "Basics of Islam" that pretended to be objective courses but were organised by a far-right political party. The judgement also mentions that saying something offensive or untrue on purpose and then claim…

> but not on bases of what someone allegedly done hundreds of years ago when societal standards were different Guess we can't legally criticize people for owning slaves now.

Oh I'm sure you can. The ruling doesn't say that.

The ruling says that when you do it in context of pretend-seminar that's far right propaganda, and you do it mostly to to anger and hurt people to divide society - then when you get fine of 480 EUR your human rights are not violated.

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

#979

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think free speech is a very difficult pill to swallow when it's not convenient for your own agenda. As soon as one side makes an exception then the other side can, all the way to full censorship of each other's opposing sides. This is fascinating to observe in political chat rooms and message boards where anyone submitting a dissenting opinion is called a spy or troll and will be banned until there are no dissenter…

It is a difficult pill to swallow because convincing someone they are going down the wrong path where free speech reigns requires nuance, knowledge of subject, listening, empathy, and tact. All things people are too lazy to do now, especially politicians, teachers, media, and media gatekeepers, who are the worst offenders of this, and simply wish to drive eyeballs, create a monopoly for their crappy ideas, and rile u…

Yeh this feeling of watching a comet resonates. I have a theory that we arrived at this point because sadness, anxiety, and loneliness in the world has increased due to social media and people's reward systems being messed up. People will usually rage when there is something else in their life that is not going quite right. Anyway, just a theory. I love reading back stories of those who have ventured from the center to a further right/left position and why. Honest accounts including other things going on in their lives. Because these stories aggregated are the reason why things are the way they are.

So yes, more face to face, less social media / news addiction.

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

#980
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

QAnon has almost nothing to do with Epstein.

QAnon exists because 10-25% of the US population will believe total fantasies, especially those that are biased towards their worldview.

It's about 55% in uncivilized countries.

We are animals, trying to be human. Most of us aren't fully with it. Rationality is a new concept.

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