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Stripe bans Trump campaign

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Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#521

Post by systemvoltage »

npunt wrote: post #508
systemvoltage wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am also worried. It feels like Big Tech flourished in last 4 years with advertisement revenue while staying hush about these issues, but all of a sudden they have an epiphany now. Big Tech leaders are selfish, cowards, clueless and just as vulnerable as the government leaders. They were interested in milking billions in Ads from these hate speech, particularly Twitter. If I were employees at these big companies, I…

Self-preservation was certainly a part of why there was inaction, as was financial motive. I also think they were rather naïve about their roles & responsibilities and the real world consequence of their own platforms, as well as lacking in a sophisticated understanding of how to do content moderation or even politics. These topics are both very old (social organizing, radicalization, usenet), and very new (primary m…

In their defense, I agree with you that this is a first time when global internet connectivity + social media + hatespeech cocktail has become poisonous to our societal health.

We need to deeply think about all this - allowing peaceful, objective, conservative opinions and policy (such as the Lincoln Project) while condemning hate speech, violence, white supremacy and other racist behavior.

"He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee. " - Nietzsche.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#522

Post by jcranmer »

sircastor wrote: post #177
dataflow wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stripe and Twitter are pretty clearly the latter. They might be the latter, but I wouldn't consider it obvious. Regarding social media, we've gotten to the point where even US Visa applications ask for social media handles (and I understand they consider it as a negative datum if you don't provide one). And we're also at the point where some companies won't provide you with respectable service unless you @ them on…

Wasn't there a sort-of reverse issue a year or two ago, when the President was blocking people on twitter and a court ruled that he was violating their 1st amendment rights? Is it exclusively because of his office? Could it be construed the other direction?

Yes, it's exclusively because of his using his Twitter account as an official outlet for government statements.

Trump has appealed the decision to SCOTUS, which is still considering whether or not hear it [1]. Given that Trump's Twitter account is now banned, I suspect SCOTUS will dismiss the motion as mooted.

[1] See https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/trump-v-knight-f... for the docket information.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#523

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

systemvoltage wrote: post #481
npunt wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point about the 'invisible line' is astute. We're in a crisis of perception and reality right now, and this has caused many to lose sight of the very real lines that we have agreed upon to preserve society and democracy. I think the other important factor here is we are in a very vulnerable moment right now because we are in the midst of a transition of power. It takes time to transfer the apparatus and operatio…

I am also worried. It feels like Big Tech flourished in last 4 years with advertisement revenue while staying hush about these issues, but all of a sudden they have an epiphany now. Big Tech leaders are selfish, cowards, clueless and just as vulnerable as the government leaders. They were interested in milking billions in Ads from these hate speech, particularly Twitter. If I were employees at these big companies, I…

I respectfully disagree. For better or for worse, Trump was the President of the United States. Yes, Biden won the election, but nearly 47% of the vote went to Trump. How do you think the conservative (and even not-so conservative) part of the electorate would have reacted if Trump was kicked off Twitter before the election?

While Trump is technically still POTUS, he is now seen as trying to undermine the rightful, peaceful transition of power to the next president, and what's important is that viewpoint is not only believed by the left, but now huge swaths of politicians and the electorate who at least gave Trump tacit support.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#524

Post by Dylan16807 »

flowside wrote: post #386
mopsi wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Attempts to turn this into a debate about political censorship are not being made in good faith But it is political. This summer saw widespread political violence, including attacks on government institutions, not to mention billions in property damage, but the mainstream reaction to that was "Show me where it says protests are supposed to be polite and peaceful"[1] with massive support for the riots from Silicon V…

None of these companies severing ties with Parler or other far-right presences are making political decisions. These are all business decisions, because they are businesses. I've explained this elsewhere, but what if a boycott were to start because the company refused to cut ties with Parler? They should just eat the loss? No, in any market, people vote with their dollars, and the vast majority of tech customers just…

Everything a company does is a business decision. But it can also be a political decision.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#525

Post by astura »

koolba wrote: post #349
astura wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stripe (and every other credit card processors) have long refused to do business with a broad amount and types of businesses. For example, Stripe themselves don't serve most travel sites. https://stripe.com/blog/why-some-businesses-arent-allowed It's a super common practice to deny some customers for basically all financial services companies.

If they stopped providing services to all political campaigns that’d be comparable.

If you read the blog post I linked to you'd see there are various exceptions that Stripe makes in most categories and they make business justifications for each exception.

It's in Stripe's best interest to deny services to Trump because coups and unstable governments are just bad for business. That's why the business lobbying group the The National Association of Manufacturers is calling for invoking the 25th Amendment

This is part of their statement:

“This is not the vision of America that manufacturers believe in and work so hard to defend. Across America today, millions of manufacturing workers are helping our nation fight the deadly pandemic that has already taken hundreds of thousands of lives. We are trying to rebuild an economy and save and rebuild lives. But none of that will matter if our leaders refuse to fend off this attack on America and our democracy—because our very system of government, which underpins our very way of life, will crumble.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/business/national-associa...

Financial services companies have always chosen their customers carefully, If there were antitrust concerns with this they would have already been addressed - because this is SOP.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#526

Post by briandear »

throw0101a wrote: post #465
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #95

There is a difference between bank accounts, Visa/MasterCard access and Internet service, on one hand, and App Stores, Twitter accounts and payment providers, on the other hand. The First Amendment promises both free speech and free assembly. Core to the latter is the freedom not to assemble. This freedom is regulated. You can’t refuse to do business with protected classes. But political affiliation is not a protecte…

> But political affiliation is not a protected class. Perhaps these bans are happening not because of political affiliation but due to the messages these particular people (e.g., Trump) are espousing. Parler go banned because it's full of message calling for (e.g.) Mike Pence to be hanged and other such things, and Parler isn't / can't do much about it, and its infrastructure providers (AWS, app stores) do not want a…

Maxine Waters called for her supporters to harass government officials. She’s still on Twitter. A Bernie Sanders supporter ambushed and shot a US Congressman and yet no penalties to various Sanders organizations. Supporters of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard are on Twitter. Mumia Abu-Jamal, a convicted murderer of cops is even on Twitter! AOC stormed and occupied Pelosi’s office in a climate protest in the Capitol and she’s on Twitter.

Notice a pattern? Left wing heroes can say anything they want and Twitter doesn’t ban them.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#527

Post by ineedasername »

crx07 wrote: post #128
awat wrote: post #64

Not to be reductionist but I don’t see this as a totalitarian issue. This is a free market decision. $Company decides to sever ties with another organization. That choice can be good, bad, reactive, overreactive, misguided, etc but it’s still a market participant choice. Market remains open for other market participants to make other choices.

On one hand it feels completely appropriate and even deserved. On the other, yes, this is unfortunately a path to a very serious totalitarian issue. Situations like this one underscore the future importance of cryptocurrencies. Without an uncensorable currency, any political adversary -- especially an incumbent -- can just coerce payment processors into blocking payments to their opponents through threats of imprison…

Going from bans due to ToS violations all of the way to government coercion of executives through imprisonment is an enormous leap in logic. There's quite a few steps along that path in between.

And if course given that bitcoin has to be sent and received, if we ever arrived at your dystopia, bitcoin would not help: the political rival would simply jail the executive for receiving bitcoin payments instead of USD currency. Bitcoin isn't preventing your dystopia.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#528

Post by briandear »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #513
adventured wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is flooded with calls for violence 24/7. Exclusively left wing celebrities openly call for violence all the time on there, nobody does anything about it. That has been going on for the past four years non-stop. Actor Peter Fonda called for violently assaulting Trump's underage child on Twitter in 2018 (his account was not permanently banned), and that's very typical posting from leftist celebrities on Twitter…

> Thousands of violent posts were in the "Hang Mike Pence" Twitter trend that was going on the other day. That trended because Trump supporters built a gallows and chanted “Hang Mike Pence” at the Capitol on Wednesday.

Twitter still allowed the hashtag.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#529

Post by derptron »

freeone3000 wrote: post #492
eternalban wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If alternative chat, payment, etc. are prevented from being created, that is not a "free market" decision. This smells like a politically aligned cartel, with key companies enjoying de facto monopoly positions in effect legislating what is and what is not acceptable. Right now, we haven't heard from ISPs. The entire suite of services that are controlled by the monopoly FANGs can be recreated, including clouds and clo…

It will likely be pleasant for the vast majority of people, who have no objectionable views one way or the other. It might even be better, not having to deal with the constant disruption.

Your backbone is missing

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#530

Post by dnissley »

doktrin wrote: post #504

If I had a dime for every time I read some pearl clutching comment about the big brother slippery slope on HN, I could have retired by now. In all these years, the only actual existential danger to society to materialize are precisely the entities that are now being deplatformed. Excuse me if I don't take all this hand wringing on behalf of unstable insurrectionists seriously.

When half the country is so resentful of the other half that it starts to act out, is escalating that situation the best option?

Or perhaps you let them vent for a bit (mostly harmlessly, but not entirely) and then try to engage with them and bring them back to reality?

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