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Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

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531–540 of 880 posts

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#531
post #233

Wow, is this the great purge? I don’t support certain people, but man I don’t think this is going to end well. This censorship just seems crazy to me.

I seriously can't identify with this viewpoint. There's no censorship here- parler still exists, people are still free to share their (abhorrent) viewpoints there, Google is just choosing not to amplify the voices of people that have proven themselves capable of and prone to violence. All the pearl-clutching over free speech is totally overblown.

It is censorship when those preventing freedom of speech are monopolies.

When a small number of companies make it difficult to communicate via our main communication device, and there are no viable alternatives, then a fundamental right is being suppressed.

There is no marketplace of ideas when there is no marketplace,

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#532

Wow, is this the great purge? I don’t support certain people, but man I don’t think this is going to end well. This censorship just seems crazy to me.

I can understand the viewpoint you have, though I don't agree with it.

Radical ideas have always looked for ways to spread around and influence people. As in with any idea, there are good ones (Why should a worker not have paid holidays, or days off, or have work life balance, education rights, voting rights, etc) and bad ones (the ones we see espoused by many radical right wingers like the claimed inferiority of the black race and the superiority of the white race)

Now, 74 million Americans voted for a vision of trump, that mixes a lot of good ideas with some very terrible ones. And out of the 74 million voters for him, I am sure many of them voted for the promise of jobs, stability, incomes, etc. Unfortunately, a significant & vocal minority of his supporters have shown hard right and often immoral ideas.

In the past, messaging and reach was a carefully cultivated art practiced by seasoned politicians and ideologists.

Today, the situation is different. It is very very easy to gather people into a group, isolate them and radicalize them. You see it happening everyday on the social media.

What, then, is the solution to this? It is a problem because a society must be coherent and move forward together, otherwise it fractures and implodes from within.

For a society, there are many aspects that affect it's prosperity. Jobs, distribution of wealth, prevalence of opportunities, justice, etc.

If you have allow one small section of ideologues hijack the conversation and demand for continuation of radicalization, that society will collapse. Just think about Nazism, Stalinism, etc. All those societies had one thing in common, the ability to radicalize and brainwash population.

So what about Parler? Banning is the right thing to do.

Out of those 74 million who voted, they have avenues like FB, Twitter, IG, etc to engage and communicate.

That small group who wants to radicalize the society, have their voices cut off, and that is how it should be.

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#533
post #219
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's legal for entities outside the government to censor things. IANAL so if I'm wrong let me know. But my understanding is that censorship is perfectly fine for any company.

It also use to be legal to deny people based on their skin color. Just because something is legal doesn't make it right.

Is Google refusing to distribute Parler different from the NYT refusing to publish an article I send them?

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can the bans (being de-platformed) be more horrific than the actual violence that's occurred?

This is going to sound incredibly cold and callous, but the comparison needs to be made. One woman was shot. 4 others died for medical reasons. One was a heart attack. One was a police officer. Tragic deaths, to be sure. And the photos really do feel horrific. But do single digit casualties justify all this? Gang violence and crime kills way more people and police officers on a daily basis. Are we really setting the…

When it comes to communication channels, you choose how you get your information. Each person, individually, makes that choice. If you think that big tech is problematic for getting your information, it's not because they are making it more difficult to consume and participate on Parler. It's because it gives them too much control over information. The choice then is to your information elsewhere. People sharing disinformation on social media has been a grave issue long before the event on January 6, 2021.

When it comes to that event, the real horror is not "single digit casualties" and that is a naive lens to use here. Disrupting a core institution of our representative democracy - certifying the election results for the President of the United States - in an attempt to overthrow the votes and will of the citizens is horrific and chilling.

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#536

Wow, is this the great purge? I don’t support certain people, but man I don’t think this is going to end well. This censorship just seems crazy to me.

The country went down this path as soon as the Senate refused to convict Trump.

We are now at the point where we have to block violent fascists from organizing the overthrow of our democracy, and that requires deplatforming. We had a peaceful resolution to this in February of 2020, but the GOP chose this path instead.

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you must have a native mobile app, you can download it from alternative stores. Or Parlour can just distribute as a web app. Businesses don’t have any right to force other businesses to carry their products.

> Or Parlour can just distribute as a web app. Okay. Then hosting providers refuse to host. Payment processors refuse to process your payments for web services. Your domains are revoked. Your SSL certs are revoked. Where does this end? If they have the power to, and they've justified it this far, why wouldn't they keep going?

You just described the coordinated takedown of Alex Jones from Apple, Twitter, Facebook, Google, Cloudflare et al in less than 2 hours.

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#538
post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to remember another group calling for the killing of politicians and cops recently. Huge protests, rioting, burning down police precincts. Some three letter acronym I can't remember...

Its amazing you can take the message of "cops shouldn't kill people" and spin it to be about killing the cops. It's a view of the world detached from reality.

Amen. I mean Awomen.

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#539
post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a better analogy is saying, oh, you've banned newspapers, but who cares, you can still talk to people in person. Which is to say, it's true, & that's a good thing, but that doesn't mean that the censorship itself isn't bad. The most effective, most powerful communication medium that exists right now is native apps for social networks on smartphones. If 100% of that medium is controlled and censored by two com…

Nonsense. The better analogy is that the newspaper has banned certain people who have written articles inciting violence. Or maybe an even better analogy: the movie theater has taken the microphone away from the person telling those in the crowded movie theater to start punching each other.

Do you think only Trump himself has been affected by this? Even just on topic for this forum they're talking about an app used by thousands (or more, I honestly have no idea since I don't use Parler) of people. Do you think all of those people have incited violence? What about Parler itself? All inciting violence?

Re: Google suspending Parler from the Google Play store

#540

Wow, is this the great purge? I don’t support certain people, but man I don’t think this is going to end well. This censorship just seems crazy to me.

I don't know about Google, but Apple just told them they needed to moderate speech which incites violence (and maybe hate speech?). This isn't remotely like China where they are censoring people who post images of a stuffed bear with a vague resemblance to Trump.
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