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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

#431

Post by eternalban »

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…

> But we've now done the experiment in a big way

But this is not the case. I am sincerely puzzled to read this by you. When did we have communication not subject to control by any central authority? Usenet?

And we’re still operating — since 1947 — under a national security regime that has practically unaccountable “agencies” that are definitively in the “information” business.

We have yet to see what unfettered communication, operating in a political environment where NO agency operates in the dark and is above the law.

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

#432

Post by smsm42 »

Lazare wrote: post #394
smsm42 wrote: 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…

I agree with almost everything you say except... > a bunch of talking heads on TV and Twitter that told them there was an "insurrection" (nothing of the sort happened of course) It didn't succeed, and in retrospect, it didn't look very effective. Many (but by no means all) of the participants were clowns. However, it was absolutely an attempt. People died in an attempt to storm a seat of government and install a diff…

> However, it was absolutely an attempt

Attempt at what? Takeover of the power in the US? B-u-l-l-s-h-i-t.

> People were chanting "hang Mike Pence",

People chant a lot of shit. People were chanting "hang Trump" for four years, nobody ever called it an insurrection. Before that, they were chanting against Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc. Nobody ever has been hanged. Pretending not to understand the difference between chanting slogans and actually hanging somebody is silly.

> And they did this, let's reiterate, in an attempt to overturn the election.

There's no possible way of overturning any election this way. It's like I point a finger at you and say "bang!" and you'd claim I tried to murder you with a gun. It is literally impossible to change result of the election by jumping on a desk in a Congress. It was an act of protest, that went out of the way and grew violent, but it is no more insurrection than pointing a finger is gun violence. Let's not mimic an idiot school principal that calls the police on a elementary schooler that shows the other kid a finger gun and complain about "gun violence". There were no attempt to overthrow anything because it's not possible to overthrow anything this way.

> But words have meaning, and the word "insurrection" means precisely this.

Nope, the word "insurrection" means armed violent action in order to overtake the government, and this is no more insurrection than finger gun is a mass shooting.

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

#433

Post by [deleted] »

compiler-guy wrote: post #387
babesh wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. As long as there is potential for other powers to grow or counteract it, you have a chance to course correct. Isn’t that what a vote is good for?

A vote isn’t good for anything if violent extremists can overturn an election.

[deleted]

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

#434

Post by throwaway894345 »

smsm42 wrote: 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…

I was listening to NPR yesterday and they had some former general (or someone) talking about how the capitol riots are similar to Iraq. They compared the IEDs at the capitol to the IEDs that NATO troops faced in Iraq and how various right-wing groups could be considered "insurgents" not unlike the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Of course, we might expect NPR and other media outlets to be sensationalist. Blah blah blah about the digital media environment and its market incentives. But otherwise intelligent people parrot this sort of thing as well, calling them terrorists and insurrectionists (and yeah, I'm sure some technical argument can be made for these things, just like critics of the BLM riots made technical arguments for why those rioters were terrorists, but questionable technicalities don't merit responses in proportion to bonafide terrorism or insurrection).

There's a lot of stuff to actually criticize here: a violent riot incited by the POTUS over false pretenses, directed at the capitol, leaving several dead. It's already bad, but we can't seem to content ourselves with reality, we have to go further. We have to compare a bunch of MAGA rioters with actual insurgents.

Man, I really don't like this sort of race-to-the-bottom-ism, where whatever reprehensible thing the other side does becomes permission for our side to lower our own moral bar ("Why are you criticizing us?! Can't you see that what they're doing is worse?!"--never mind that I'm criticizing 'them' as well, and in proportion). At some point we have to come up from our outrage binger and realize that we can't just steamroll half the country; we have to figure out how to get along (and if you find yourself about to type, "get along with literal Nazis?!", you've missed the point).

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

#435

Post by stolen_biscuit »

smsm42 wrote: post #404
stolen_biscuit wrote: post #330

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…

> The very foundation of your democracy has been eroded. That would be a crappy democracy if it could be eroded by a bunch of idiots taking an unauthorized Whitehouse tour. Fortunately, absolutely nothing happened to the democracy and it proceeded on its course. What could actually erode the democracy is nation giving up on free speech. That'd be a real sign of nation in severe distress. > I don't listen to your news…

>> I don't listen to your news

>Maybe you should, then you'd know nothing happened to the democracy.

>>> because of TV picture and a bunch of talking heads on TV and Twitter that told them there was an "insurrection"

Which is it?

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

#436

Post by Ericson2314 »

nickysielicki wrote: post #395
stolen_biscuit wrote: post #330

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…

> The very foundation of your democracy has been eroded. Anyone who has studied American history knows that there's been a fairly recent revisionist movement to convince everyone that our republic is actually a democracy. The truth is that this country has always been a republic. The founders of our government hated tyrannical democracy. Hamilton: "It has been observed by an honorable gentleman, that a pure democracy…

Good. Better a democracy than the republic, I don't care what they thought in 1790 when we knew far less political science than we do now.

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

#437

Post by _underfl0w_ »

heimatau wrote: post #277
Aerroon wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Free expression is chaotic. The founding fathers(FF) knew this. The FF created a system of government that acts as a society consciousness. Allowing for passion (the House) but having frontal lobe mechanisms (the Senate guards against the mob mentality). The recent insurrection happened specifically because of the laziness/apathy/intentional (take your pick, I'm certain one is true) of the Congress. It was their jo…

> The founding fathers(FF)

Nitpick: why define a new acronym that you only use once? Just remove the acronym definition and change the single instance to the full word.

Also, comparing BLM to QAnon is an... odd choice.

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

#438

Post by slg »

smsm42 wrote: post #404
stolen_biscuit wrote: post #330

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…

> The very foundation of your democracy has been eroded. That would be a crappy democracy if it could be eroded by a bunch of idiots taking an unauthorized Whitehouse tour. Fortunately, absolutely nothing happened to the democracy and it proceeded on its course. What could actually erode the democracy is nation giving up on free speech. That'd be a real sign of nation in severe distress. > I don't listen to your news…

I can't believe this needs to be said, but the fact it failed doesn't mean the danger wasn't real.

Some members of the mob were actively looking to kill the people who were 2nd and 3rd in line for the presidency. Let's not pretend that there was zero danger to democracy.

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

#439

Post by refurb »

PradeetPatel wrote: post #328
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…

You can still be a champion of free speech without tolerating hate speech. In fact, one may even say that deplatforming hate will achieve a greater level of free speech - due to the lack of misinformation and violent ideologies.

Exactly. Freedom is actually slavery because you’re at risk of the dangerous language floating around. By eliminating dangerous language we’re all safer and therefore more free.

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

#440

Post by gjs278 »

stolen_biscuit wrote: post #330

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…

lmao. keep your opinion to whatever worthless country you currently reside in. america is fine.
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