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Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

reuters.com

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Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#501

Post by dang »

kibwen wrote: post #241
forgingahead wrote: post #107

There used to be a guy on Twitter/Facebook/other social media who kept harping about how the system was rigged....

Yeah, real funny that guy, if only someone would put him in a position of ultimate power I'm sure he'd un-rig the system real quick, and definitely not spend four years with his thumb up his ass laughing with his rich buddies at the gullible rubes who appointed him.

Please don't take HN threads further into political flamewar, regardless of how provocative another comment is or you feel it is.

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

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#502

Post by dang »

WClayFerguson wrote: post #497
dang wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop posting ideological flamebait. You've done a ton of it in the last 24 hours, it's not what this site is for, and we ban accounts that do it—regardless of which flavor you favor or how strongly you feel about it. Fortunately your recent account history doesn't show much of this before the current episode, and many of your comments seem downright excellent. That's great. Please go back to that and don't do…

I have no idea whether you're an admin, or just a prankster "dang", but it's true no one should kick the progressives while they're down. The important thing is they now realize BigTech censorship is a problem for all Americans, and not just conservatives.

I'm an admin and unfortunately I have to ban people who contribute to destroying this place. You did a lot of that in the last 24 hours. I don't think that's hard to see. I don't want to ban you, so please go back to using HN as intended so I don't have to.

> The important thing is they now realize

If you want people to realize something, you need to explain it to them patiently and respectfully, and include a certain amount of overlap with what they already know and feel. That's a totally different mode of communication than flaming rhetoric. People don't learn when beaten with flaming sticks (verbally any more than physically). They just go rigid, double down, and lash back. If you actually want them to learn, that is the worst way to make it happen.

Flaming is something we do to other people, not for them. We do it for ourselves, to vent our anger and frustration (not that it really helps us either, but it at least provides a little temporary relief). That's partly why it contributes to destroying communication and community. We want communication and community here, so please do the opposite from now on.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#503

Post by WClayFerguson »

root_axis wrote: post #370
WClayFerguson wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the scale that matters. Once a company starts serving many millions of people, and becomes a nationwide backbone for some type of communications like Twitter, Facebook, Amazon services, email providers, telephone companies, etc. then it needs to be illegal for them to engage in discrimination and censorship based on political ideology. Nobody's saying you can't run a small Federated server on Mastodon, for examp…

Lumping in the phone companies with social media companies is fallacious. The phone companies and ISPs control a finite resource in the physical environment to the exclusion of other companies. Websites are not like this, they are decentralized nodes on a virtual network, the popularity of one node does not impact the capabilities or accessibility of other nodes. Arbitrary standards of popularity aren't a good metric…

Right, that's the obvious argument against gov't regulations, that applies to all monopolies and is exactly what you'd expect their lawyers will say. My counter to your argument is that Twitter is "effectively" a monopoly, even though smaller competitors exist.

Any monopoly can claim that since were all in a free market system, it's merely customers making free choices that's causing an incorrect "appearance" of a monopoly to exist. But you can ask any journalist, legislator, or other public figure if there's another 'competitor' that can provide what Twitter provides, and the answer is simply "no".

If we were talking about gaming consoles or some other type company the monopoly perhaps wouldn't matter, but we're talking about communications infrastructure for the entire nation, and frankly world. We simply cannot let a handful of unelected overlords censor the world.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#504

Post by WClayFerguson »

dang wrote: post #502
WClayFerguson wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea whether you're an admin, or just a prankster "dang", but it's true no one should kick the progressives while they're down. The important thing is they now realize BigTech censorship is a problem for all Americans, and not just conservatives.

I'm an admin and unfortunately I have to ban people who contribute to destroying this place. You did a lot of that in the last 24 hours. I don't think that's hard to see. I don't want to ban you, so please go back to using HN as intended so I don't have to. > The important thing is they now realize If you want people to realize something, you need to explain it to them patiently and respectfully, and include a certai…

Actually the only one making a nuisance of themselves on this thread is you 'dang'.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#505

Post by adamcstephens »

wvenable wrote: post #475
adamcstephens wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many people, rightly or wrongly, Facebook has become a de facto way to communicate socially and for their business. It has become to big to make the sole decisions on who can and cannot be on the platform. It should be treated as a utility, just like phone and internet companies should be.

This is a poor argument. Facebook provides an HTML form and database for free and lots of people use it so it's a utility? That argument doesn't hold a lot of water. Phone and Internet requires literal physical infrastructure that crosses public and private property, you pay for it, and they are natural monopolies because of that. Facebook is nothing by comparison.

No, Facebook provides a social network with billions of users and businesses relying on it for communication. Facebook requires literal physical infrastructure that is distributed around the US and the world, with interconnections in between. The two massive data centers they just built near me make that pretty damn clear.

Perhaps you may not like the suggestion that I offered, but you’re minimizing what Facebook has become and what it takes to run at that scale.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#506

Post by wvenable »

adamcstephens wrote: post #505
wvenable wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a poor argument. Facebook provides an HTML form and database for free and lots of people use it so it's a utility? That argument doesn't hold a lot of water. Phone and Internet requires literal physical infrastructure that crosses public and private property, you pay for it, and they are natural monopolies because of that. Facebook is nothing by comparison.

No, Facebook provides a social network with billions of users and businesses relying on it for communication. Facebook requires literal physical infrastructure that is distributed around the US and the world, with interconnections in between. The two massive data centers they just built near me make that pretty damn clear. Perhaps you may not like the suggestion that I offered, but you’re minimizing what Facebook has…

You are mischaracterized the situation to make your point. Facebook's infrastructure is all private and not at all unique. The interconnections are the Internet. Anyone can compete with Facebook. You can't create your own telephone poles or run your own railways but you can certainly do everything that Facebook is doing.

As for the businesses that rely on it -- they choose to use that platform, for free, knowing exactly what they're getting into. There are thousands of times more businesses that do not rely on Facebook than those that do. Facebook is not some key infrastructure; if it all went away tomorrow it's a minor inconvenience at worst.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#507

Post by Rapzid »

piva00 wrote: post #373
Rapzid wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want to know what it looks like is happening now though? It looks like these peeps are weaponizing the sub to their own benefit in the name of "sticking it to the man". Everything about this smacks of a massive, crowd sourced "market manipulation" under the guise of righteousness. All the people screaming "YOLO I can't care if I lose X" seem to be missing the fact that their money isn't "lost"; it is ending up in…

From what I gather in WSB (I lurk there a lot) it seems more that a lot of people are very aware that money will change hands, might go into other rich people's pockets but they simply don't care, if they fuck up one or more rich folks while enriching others, they don't care. If some normal people make a lot of money out of this they are happy enough. It's fascinating to see how many people really just want to fuck w…

I suspect a lot of people are just trolls trying to convince others to jump in so they can improve their positions.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#508

Post by adamcstephens »

wvenable wrote: post #506
adamcstephens wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Facebook provides a social network with billions of users and businesses relying on it for communication. Facebook requires literal physical infrastructure that is distributed around the US and the world, with interconnections in between. The two massive data centers they just built near me make that pretty damn clear. Perhaps you may not like the suggestion that I offered, but you’re minimizing what Facebook has…

You are mischaracterized the situation to make your point. Facebook's infrastructure is all private and not at all unique. The interconnections are the Internet. Anyone can compete with Facebook. You can't create your own telephone poles or run your own railways but you can certainly do everything that Facebook is doing. As for the businesses that rely on it -- they choose to use that platform, for free, knowing exac…

Phone lines are privately owned, not publicly. Yes the locality may own the poles, but it may not either. They are leased or granted access to the right of way.

Facebook also owns at least some of its own interconnects.

It is fine with me if you disagree on principle, but to act like anybody can just create the network effect of Facebook and compete is frankly ridiculous.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#509

Post by wvenable »

adamcstephens wrote: post #508
wvenable wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are mischaracterized the situation to make your point. Facebook's infrastructure is all private and not at all unique. The interconnections are the Internet. Anyone can compete with Facebook. You can't create your own telephone poles or run your own railways but you can certainly do everything that Facebook is doing. As for the businesses that rely on it -- they choose to use that platform, for free, knowing exac…

Phone lines are privately owned, not publicly. Yes the locality may own the poles, but it may not either. They are leased or granted access to the right of way. Facebook also owns at least some of its own interconnects. It is fine with me if you disagree on principle, but to act like anybody can just create the network effect of Facebook and compete is frankly ridiculous.

You're splitting hairs about phone lines -- you know what I'm talking about.

You talk like Facebook was the first ever social network and didn't start out of dorm room. You talk like there aren't any other social networks right now. Or that there aren't other media companies.

What's the end game here? What exactly do you want? The inability to moderate? Nationalized? Broken up? I guarantee you can't come up with a single remedy that isn't ridiculous.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#510

Post by root_axis »

WClayFerguson wrote: post #503
root_axis wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lumping in the phone companies with social media companies is fallacious. The phone companies and ISPs control a finite resource in the physical environment to the exclusion of other companies. Websites are not like this, they are decentralized nodes on a virtual network, the popularity of one node does not impact the capabilities or accessibility of other nodes. Arbitrary standards of popularity aren't a good metric…

Right, that's the obvious argument against gov't regulations, that applies to all monopolies and is exactly what you'd expect their lawyers will say. My counter to your argument is that Twitter is "effectively" a monopoly, even though smaller competitors exist. Any monopoly can claim that since were all in a free market system, it's merely customers making free choices that's causing an incorrect "appearance" of a mo…

Someone is always going to be the biggest, you can't just label something popular as a monopoly and then say "the smaller competitors don't count", of course they count, the entire problem with a monopoly is that competitors can't survive because the monopoly has exclusive control of the market, but this isn't the case with websties, if my site has 10 million users it isn't in any way impacted by the fact that another site has 100m users.
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