Dang, and the other two moderators whose nicknames I don't know : My condolences for the last days, and thank you !
Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support
341–350 of 1001 posts
Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support
#342Parler wasn't some innocent social media site that happened to have some disgusting content on it. The disgusting content was literally its reason for existing, despite all of the bland "we're just a free speech site" stuff. And I have yet to hear anyone discuss how "anything goes" and social media do not mix. It's much easier to turn a community toxic than it is to keep it healthy, and healthy communities (of any so…
A lot of this is true, but I believe. I'm guessing you aren't from the USA, but here, "disgusting content" is completely covered under the concept of freedom of speech. Our Supreme Court has already ruled that there's no Constitutional idea of "hate speech". The concept of freedom of speech is here to protect things that other people think are despicable. This whole deplatforming thing will have vast unintended conse…
Free speech doesn't apply to non-government resources. A company can ban any speech they want. Plus there is speech that isn't protected, like certain violent threats, which is the biggest problem with Parler.
Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support
#343Parler wasn't some innocent social media site that happened to have some disgusting content on it. The disgusting content was literally its reason for existing, despite all of the bland "we're just a free speech site" stuff. And I have yet to hear anyone discuss how "anything goes" and social media do not mix. It's much easier to turn a community toxic than it is to keep it healthy, and healthy communities (of any so…
I’ll address your second point:
We do need to think about the precedents we are setting with respect to free speech. It’s possible that action might be needed in the short term to moderate these channels. But we must also consider the longer term in a world that is rapidly evolving.
I’m less concerned about specific, currently existing platforms like Parler, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. These “social media” platforms are mere trinkets and could go away and society would carry on. In moderating or completely dissolving them we lose little.
I am more concerned about the nature of communication when the channels of communication are centrally controlled and/or controlled by private entities. We have no idea how digital communications will evolve or how important they could become.
Our lives are increasingly become digital… Imagine a world 50 or 100 or X years from now when people never leave their homes (except perhaps through VR?) and nearly all human interaction is via digital means. There’s a good chance those digital means will be run by private entities. So if we want to preserve the liberties we have today we need to think about how those would be protected in the future, and that means being careful about what precedent we set today.
Are we really willing to have all of our communication moderated or potentially terminated in a such a future?
It’s true that we might need to take action in the present, but let’s not forget that we are simultaneously shaping our futures.
Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support
#344Parler wasn't some innocent social media site that happened to have some disgusting content on it. The disgusting content was literally its reason for existing, despite all of the bland "we're just a free speech site" stuff. And I have yet to hear anyone discuss how "anything goes" and social media do not mix. It's much easier to turn a community toxic than it is to keep it healthy, and healthy communities (of any so…
>> Parler wasn't some innocent social media site that happened to have some disgusting content on it. The disgusting content was literally its reason for existing, despite all of the bland "we're just a free speech site" stuff.
I don't know if that's true. I downloaded the app a few months ago to check it out. I followed some of the same folks I followed on Twitter (I guess you'd call them center-right?) and it was basically civil discourse about politics.
I didn't see anything "disgusting" and I didn't work hard to avoid it. Granted I didn't spent a ton of time in the app and didn't explore deeply, but the claim that it was just filled to the gills with something terrible doesn't ring true to me.
Unless the definition of disgusting is "someone who may not have voted for Biden" - but I don't share that definition and I don't think most sane people do.
Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
I poked around on it some, and noticed something ... disturbing. I saw what I assumed were bots posting a lot of garbage links to 'articles' like "Obama compound raided!" and "8 Democrats switch to Republican Party" (that actually happened in Feb 2020, but the link was to an undated rerun and the link was posted.. 2 days ago?). The links were to such trustworthy sites as 'firstusanews.us' (made up, but all variants l…
> the only way to get 'badged' is to use the mobile app and take a picture of govt ID (driver license, passport, etc). Some people have argued, based on this, that Parler was set up by the NSA to get data on people. Hoovering up data from social media is certainly the sort of thing the NSA would do.
Other people/organizations besides government intelligency agencies could use that data for their own gain.
One example would be cambridge analytica...
Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the only way to get 'badged' is to use the mobile app and take a picture of govt ID (driver license, passport, etc). Some people have argued, based on this, that Parler was set up by the NSA to get data on people. Hoovering up data from social media is certainly the sort of thing the NSA would do.
It's also a pretty good argument against anonymity being the cause of toxicity, considering these chucklefucks were literally uploading their legal identity so they could then shitpost about genocide. Actually why the flying fuck would someone think it is a good idea to plan an insurrection on this site in the first place?? It's like opposite day opsec
The key to this kind of insurrection is that it is a privilege escalation. If they sufficiently upset normal process, enough emergency control goes to Trump, he will protect them (why stop pardoning now) and make sure all future elections are too risky and anyone who objects and sides with the principals of the republic is fired.
Turkey and Russia are good examples of how this attack works. It relies on a large number of people, possibly even a majority, to overthrow the republic with a populist government with no rules the leader can't change or selectively enforce. The leader shuts down one threat to himself at a time, making his control permanent.
IMO the military is obligated to arrest Trump for treason, which was the turkish backstop, and after a few rounds Turkey finally missed the last time. So once it is used, you have to patch your system to drop privileges from the Presidents office for the next round.
Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support
#347Parler wasn't some innocent social media site that happened to have some disgusting content on it. The disgusting content was literally its reason for existing, despite all of the bland "we're just a free speech site" stuff. And I have yet to hear anyone discuss how "anything goes" and social media do not mix. It's much easier to turn a community toxic than it is to keep it healthy, and healthy communities (of any so…
Many movies, music, and other forms of art are chock full of 'disgusting content'. Should we take those of the Internet? There are lunatics out there that will believe anything they read whether it is couched as fiction or not.
Our right to say and read what we want cannot be determined by the lowest common denominator of what is 'acceptable'. That is how you arrive at an authoritarian monoculture, fast.
The only correct response to disgusting speech is good speech used to tear it down. Both sides here, (I am not a part of either) have dug in so deep that they essentially live in two different realities or dimensions. When perception and the interpretation of the world differs so much between two groups there eventually becomes a point where they cannot coexist. This is where we are headed if we don't start trying to find common ground instead of the current environment of complete, unquestioned intolerance of the other.
Self examination is what the world needs right now.
Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the only way to get 'badged' is to use the mobile app and take a picture of govt ID (driver license, passport, etc). Maybe the entire site is just an FBI honeypot for right-wing extremists? (It's obviously not an NSA honeypot, because they could afford to self-host.)
With a double lawyer of tinfoil you can ask "maybe the site is just a honeypot for a foreign government?"
This twitter thread[1] suggests that it's possible. But probably best to take it with a grain of salt.
Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support
#349The worst thing about Parler is the bots. I browsed it a bit out of curiosity, a huge portion of the content is obvious bot. I looked into this further, and apparently Parler doesn’t bother blocking or banning bots unless the FBI or police contact them.
Parler really is just a haven for nonsense and conspiracy theories. My finger in the wind guess is 40-60% bots.
Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was also curious about Parler but, when going to sign up, it asked for my phone number. Ummmm, no thank you. That kind of association is like going to a protest with your cellphone. Pretty easy to get the wrong kind of association attached to you.
> That kind of association is like going to a protest with your cellphone. Pretty easy to get the wrong kind of association attached to you. "We're in! We're in! Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!" https://www.businessinsider.com/derrick-evans-capitol-siege-...
I had a good laugh looking at that :D