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Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

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Re: Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

#151

In mid October I deleted almost all my tweets and likes (but Twitter being so shit they are still showing my likes except it’s not liked anymore lol) and have not been tweeting anything anymore. I found Twitter too toxic, it made me angry with people for no reason, so I deleted all my tweets and the app. No more notifications, no more “just checking Twitter quickly”. I now go to Twitter like once a day just to have a…

I'm a longtime lurker on Twitter, the list of people I follow is well-curated. If someone looks like they cause me more trouble than insights, I unfollow or even block them with little hesitation. In this form, Twitter is working great for me. Needless to say that I stay away from politics (and related topics) as much as possible.

Re: Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

#153
As much as I would like to see this happen, I don't think it is going to happen this time around either... or ever.

We've seen this movie before. Minds, Gab, Patreon alternatives, Voat, all of this has been done with no success.

Whatever you open to the public will be infiltrated by the enemy. I think the new model is to do it secretly in closed groups away from the public, preferably local groups where you meet with people in person, have strict rules and only sign up new users via strong referrals: family members, close friends etc. Once some of them work well, they can be franchised. A very good example of this is Freemasonry.

Yes, such social networks will be much slower and decentralized but they will be much more effective and better for the members long-term.

Re: Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

#154
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the problem is that sooner or later some of these people will start to act out their radicalized beliefs with very ugly results.

That started happening long ago with Anders Breivik. And possibly earlier examples.

I never implied it didn't, but in recent years there always seems to be a ready supply of fresh grist for this particular mill.

Re: Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

#155
post #134

No one wants to spend time on the Internet listening to a bunch of randos talking about how the Jews are secretly lizard people manipulating the elections except other such crackpots. These platforms are lightning rods. Let these people go there and convince each other of their fringe conspiracy theories. Freedom of association and all that. If they will stop polluting normal places with their crackpottery we're all…

Well that's a charitable way to talk about the 70M American who voted Republican. This is always a good rule - when your theory is that half of the population are "crack pots", the issue might be you, not them.

Nah, I know a few Republican voters and none of them have decided to dedicate their life to explaining how Obama's secret police are waiting in the wings to take over America and the only tool that can stop them is a dollar store katana.

Re: Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

#156
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was specifically talking about Mexicans crossing the border illegally. Are you saying majority of people who cross the border illegally are good people? Most "good people" don't have to cross the border illegally. They can get a U.S. visa and never leave. The people who will definitely not get a U.S. visa to do that is those have a criminal record in their own country, so their only option is to cross the border i…

Very few people can get US visas without work sponsorship. The green cards are rationed, aren't they? Similarly, there is little proof that a significant fraction of the people crossing the border have criminal records for things other than immigration law.

You don't need a long term visa to come in legally. You only need one to stay legally long-term.

Re: Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

#157

Are there any good information how advertising works in this network? From my experience its easy to convince "free-speechers" to buy things - think gold investment, self defense equipment, prepping, everything with the US flag colours on it.

If you want to make a quick, but cynical buck, start on Facebook. My Facebook feed was full of pins, shirts, mugs, and posters of Ruth Bader Ginsberg with a tacky Notorious B.I.G. crown on her head for weeks after her death. Sometimes they’d even say “Rest In Power” whatever that means. They must have been selling like hot cakes.

Same was happening on Twitter for quite a while with 2 bots chatting to each other on every popular thread about Trump: "just drinking from this ", "OMG, where did you get that", "".

I expect they made lots of money there if they outsourced to print on demand.

Re: Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

#158
post #121

Big Tech and Big Media really overplayed their hand this time, IMO. Millions and millions of people are now skeptical and looking for an alternative, even from Fox News. It might not be to Parler, or to the next site after that, but fragmentation will continue to happen. Facebook and media at large only have power if they have viewers, which is a far less stable resource than iron, or oil, or other corporate mainstay…

I have to agree that big tech really messed this one up. Their attempt at regulating speech on their platforms (entirely their own right to do however they want) has resulted in both sides being pissed . I had commented on this a while ago that it was like War Games - the only way to win this game was not to play at all. The second they started being the arbitrator of speech they were guaranteed to piss people off. T…

I dont think Big Tech got every call right, but I really don't see how they please both sides here.

Especially when one side, from the top down, considers everything other than sycophantic praise for its leader to be 'fake news', and the other side has some people opining that even reporting things the other side says without qualification is irresponsible journalism.

If anything, I'd say hindsight makes some of their more dubious decisions (slapping content warnings on stuff deemed to be aimed at undermining the democratic process) look better.

Re: Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

#159

Big Tech and Big Media really overplayed their hand this time, IMO. Millions and millions of people are now skeptical and looking for an alternative, even from Fox News. It might not be to Parler, or to the next site after that, but fragmentation will continue to happen. Facebook and media at large only have power if they have viewers, which is a far less stable resource than iron, or oil, or other corporate mainstay…

The problem is- that they never invested in growing healthy engagement instead of enragement. Instigating a tribal warfare climate to push adds is just to easy of a business model.

Then the goat was chosen to moderate the cabbage and here we are. If the predictions hold, the ironic end will be, some CEOs blown up by a terrorism wave they helped to create. Thus ended the lesson and the revolution can now eat its kids

Re: Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

#160
post #121

Big Tech and Big Media really overplayed their hand this time, IMO. Millions and millions of people are now skeptical and looking for an alternative, even from Fox News. It might not be to Parler, or to the next site after that, but fragmentation will continue to happen. Facebook and media at large only have power if they have viewers, which is a far less stable resource than iron, or oil, or other corporate mainstay…

I have to agree that big tech really messed this one up. Their attempt at regulating speech on their platforms (entirely their own right to do however they want) has resulted in both sides being pissed . I had commented on this a while ago that it was like War Games - the only way to win this game was not to play at all. The second they started being the arbitrator of speech they were guaranteed to piss people off. T…

Lets not forget that much of the 2016 fake news boom on Facebook was agitated for by US conservatives.

Facebook had a news team that hand-curated top stories (to stop obvious lies going viral). As was the nature of these young news teams, they were more liberal than the average viewer of Fox News. Prominent media personalities on Fox News, as well as US senators agitated that this was biased against conservatives.

Facebook then fired all the editors, and obvious fake news took over the site, with predictable results (who would have thought that the Pope would endorse Trump?).

This incident is important context. Also note that the most engaging content on FB is right-wing conservative content, not left-wing content.

Like, FB tried desperately hard to avoid regulating speech on their platform, but both sides demanded it, leaving them in a position where both groups of partisans think they are biased towards the other side.

> And even before all that crap below up, they had the gov't taking a long and hard look at the anti-trust problem. The platform censorship just threw gasoline on that smoldering fire.

The conflation of these two things makes me very said. There are 100% huge anti-trust concerns around Big Tech, but the censorship crap is a sideshow that will end up preventing any bi-partisan action on this (if I was a super-cynical policy exec at these companies I might even say, just as planned....).

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