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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

#371
post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bunch of rednecks who broke into a building after a protest event ended, stayed between the red velvet ropes once inside, and left hours after being told to do so with no shots fired at security. Id hardly call that much of an insurrection attempt. "but they had zip ties" there has never been a gov overthrow fought by some guy who brought zip ties.

A poor execution does not make it less seditious. The goal was to undermine or intimidate a democratic process entwined with the leadership of our nation. I would argue that's pretty clearly insurrection.

Like when the white house was stormed over the summer and the pres went into a bunker? Was that an attempted overthrow?

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

#372
post #257

That is the most depressing part for me - how easily American society is scared into giving up their freedom ideals. Turns out they don't have to be threatened with overwhelming force. They don't need to be threatened with death, starvation or torture. They don't need to be threatened by economic ruin or untold suffering. No, the richest and most safe civilization ever existed on the face of the planet is ready to gi…

On the other hand, I'm amazed by how easily people are handwaving away what was a hairs breath from the murder and kidnapping of multiple elected officials, not to mention constitutional crisis/breakdown. > TV and Twitter that told them there was an "insurrection" It meets the definition though. There seems to be a lack of willingness to acknowledge an attempted coup as a coup, or a failed insurrection as an insurrec…

Nobody was going to kidnap and murder anyone. And there wasn't constitutional breakdown - nothing broke down. The electoral college was delayed by several hours. That's it. Surely it's a huge egg on the face of security apparatus to let that happen, but pretending it somehow broken the constitutional government is nonsense.

> There seems to be a lack of willingness to acknowledge an attempted coup as a coup

Because there was no coup. There was a large act of hooliganism - which is despicable, but nobody tried to change the constitutional government of the US, and nobody of the rioters could, how do you envision it - the horned guy sits behind Pelosi's desk, or steals Pelosi's podium, and now he's the king of the USA and we are all his loyal subjects? There's literally no imaginable way one could perform an actual coup - i.e. take the power into one's own hands - this way. So let's stop talking nonsense.

> It's uncomfortable to realize how close we came to really bad things

You mean like being shown a picture of the horned guy in the Capitol, as opposed to actual war, starvation, disease, torture and death, which nobody really cared about ever? Again, the priorities are way askew here - which I can only attribute to unprecedented safety of US civilization and the citizens being so accustomed to this hyper-safety that they react to minuscule events as if their very existence were threatened.

> Erm, Russians are 100% implicated in stoking civil unrest

Whatever Russians "stoked", it didn't make anyone to give up on the concept of free speech. But most of actual (as opposed to imagined and murkily) Russian propaganda targeted at the US that we've seen is so incredibly idiotic that the only thing it could "stoke" is an uproarious laughter. it's not like it's hard to find - they posted it on Facebook. It is hilariously idiotic. Check them out: https://www.iagreetosee.com/russian-facebook-ads-presented-c... My favorite is rainbow Bernie.

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

#373
post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, I'm amazed by how easily people are handwaving away what was a hairs breath from the murder and kidnapping of multiple elected officials, not to mention constitutional crisis/breakdown. > TV and Twitter that told them there was an "insurrection" It meets the definition though. There seems to be a lack of willingness to acknowledge an attempted coup as a coup, or a failed insurrection as an insurrec…

I tend to call a failed murder attempted murder. I think the distinction is important due to the difference in outcomes. One someone is dead the other does not result in death. I think insurrection and coups are similar. One you have a toppled government the other you do not. Things aren't that bad. I really small number of people did something stupid. The country is divided and has some healing to do but it's not ov…

Right, and attempted murder is still the same sort of thing as murder, just without the success. Claiming that a failed insurrection was "nothing of the sort happening" is wrong. It absolutely was something of the sort.

> Things aren't that bad

I didn't say they were. I said we were very close to them being very bad. There's a big difference.

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

#374

A portion of your citizens were called to storm your nations capital by a President who refuses to accept the results of a democratic election. The very foundation of your democracy has been eroded. Do not pretend the people who are frightened of these actions are overreacting. Democracy is a fragile thing, and you have a portion of your population who attempted to take a hammer to it. Don't pretend this is a narrati…

A bunch of rednecks who broke into a building after a protest event ended, stayed between the red velvet ropes once inside, and left hours after being told to do so with no shots fired at security. Id hardly call that much of an insurrection attempt. "but they had zip ties" there has never been a gov overthrow fought by some guy who brought zip ties.

They smeared feces, stole laptops, broke windows, killed a police officer and got one of their own killed. People with bullhorns directed their fellows to the next target.

It was an insurrection attempt by incompetents and LARPers, but absolutely an insurrection attempt.

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

#375
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…

The Epstein case and QAnon are separate things. If QAnon decides to include Epstein as a part of their fiction, that doesn't make QAnon real.

My suspicion is that QAnon is an alternative reality game created by imageboard trolls. But then foreign adversaries saw in it a potential to subvert the US and they decided to amplify it as much as they could. This suspicion is not based on any hard evidence, but I think it is plausible.

Foreign adversaries from troll farms spend their entire day finding ways to cause harm and troll farms are a cheap way to inflict that harm. Unlike the cold war era, they don't have to pay operatives to travel to the US, they just need social network accounts. Remember when Russia interfered with the US election by buying ads in social networks? Those ads are available here:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2018/05/10/thousands-rus...

All these ads have the objective of amplifying any narrative that is against the best interest of the US. Make everyone angry, make people fight each other, cause economic harm, amplify dissent, diminish governance. And everyone is falling for it, again:

- Foreing trolls amplifying antivaxxers and antimaskers have the objective to make everyone sick and stretch lockdowns forever so that the US economy is ruined.

- Foreign trolls amplifying racists and race baiters have the objective of divide the US into groups and make them fight each other, as well as diminishing trust in the government.

- Foreign trolls amplifying anti-science discourse also have the objective of make people skeptical about science, drive people away from science, with the added bonus of making people fight each other, incentivize pollution, demoralize the population, etc.

However, those foreign adversaries could not be successful if it wasn't for one person: Trump. Foreign adversaries love Trump because he is the person that promotes division and infighting. Trump denies climate change. Trump said vaccines cause autism. Trump said you should inject yourself with bleach, and downplayed the coronavirus. Trump uses racist dog whistling... Trump is the wet dream of any foreign intelligence service, he did more harm to the US than the KGB could ever do throughout the entire cold war. If you voted for Trump, you are not a patriot, you're a giant chump... and if you cannot see it now, there's no hope for you.

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

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bunch of rednecks who broke into a building after a protest event ended, stayed between the red velvet ropes once inside, and left hours after being told to do so with no shots fired at security. Id hardly call that much of an insurrection attempt. "but they had zip ties" there has never been a gov overthrow fought by some guy who brought zip ties.

"stayed between the red velvet ropes once inside" This is a lie.

The point being they didnt cause some stand off or try to burn the place down. They woddled in there, went places they shouldnt have been, and left. Im not defending actions but pointing out the hyperbole.

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

#377

A portion of your citizens were called to storm your nations capital by a President who refuses to accept the results of a democratic election. The very foundation of your democracy has been eroded. Do not pretend the people who are frightened of these actions are overreacting. Democracy is a fragile thing, and you have a portion of your population who attempted to take a hammer to it. Don't pretend this is a narrati…

A bunch of rednecks who broke into a building after a protest event ended, stayed between the red velvet ropes once inside, and left hours after being told to do so with no shots fired at security. Id hardly call that much of an insurrection attempt. "but they had zip ties" there has never been a gov overthrow fought by some guy who brought zip ties.

And can you please remind me - did they bake cookies for everyone or killed a police officer?

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

#378

A portion of your citizens were called to storm your nations capital by a President who refuses to accept the results of a democratic election. The very foundation of your democracy has been eroded. Do not pretend the people who are frightened of these actions are overreacting. Democracy is a fragile thing, and you have a portion of your population who attempted to take a hammer to it. Don't pretend this is a narrati…

A bunch of rednecks who broke into a building after a protest event ended, stayed between the red velvet ropes once inside, and left hours after being told to do so with no shots fired at security. Id hardly call that much of an insurrection attempt. "but they had zip ties" there has never been a gov overthrow fought by some guy who brought zip ties.

It was not nearly as vanilla as you make it sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6uSYhyFao4

It's pretty long since it covers the build up and call for violence the day prior, but if you want a TL;DW, skip straight to 59:02

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

#379
post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're (correctly) scared because they've seen how many of them would support the insurrection.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25828247 Let's say there were people who support violently overthrowing US government (I personally don't think there were many at Capitol on Jan 6, but I am willing to entertain your point and even go much further than that). In fact, we know such people existed, long before today, but let's say there are more of them. How that changes anything? There always were hundreds of mill…

Please consider how immersed in the QAnon belief system the whole thing is. The scary thing is how large amounts of people are apparently willing to attack democracy (broadly against their own interests) on the impetus of completely baseless hogwash.

Society apparently has little defense against this sort of viral, distributed cult and people are scrambling. I'm pretty sure that ad-hoc ostracism effected by large social media companies isn't the best approach, but the cost of not doing anything is terrible.

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

#380

A portion of your citizens were called to storm your nations capital by a President who refuses to accept the results of a democratic election. The very foundation of your democracy has been eroded. Do not pretend the people who are frightened of these actions are overreacting. Democracy is a fragile thing, and you have a portion of your population who attempted to take a hammer to it. Don't pretend this is a narrati…

A bunch of rednecks who broke into a building after a protest event ended, stayed between the red velvet ropes once inside, and left hours after being told to do so with no shots fired at security. Id hardly call that much of an insurrection attempt. "but they had zip ties" there has never been a gov overthrow fought by some guy who brought zip ties.

Did the velvet ropes extend all the way into the senate chamber? Or up the steps where that cop led the rioters? Your comment is so stupid I almost can’t believe I’m responding to it, but I fear that if you don’t get any refutation you’ll continue to believe the nonsense you wrote down.
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