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Stripe bans Trump campaign

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Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#701

Post by skc »

As a complete outsider to US politics I'm still struggling to understand why so many people are upset at "Big Tech" about this.

I think what all the de-platforming efforts show very clearly is that people inside these companies, taking their cues from what is most likely a majority of their employees and probably most importantly...customer base, don't want to be associated with certain types of behavior.

Maybe it's driven by greed, maybe ethics...doesn't really matter. They've done the analysis and they've all decided that it's ultimately bad for the company long term.

From all the complaints, one would think that these CEO's just woke up one day decreed these bans due to their own personal feelings.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#702

Post by kepler1 »

vladTheInhaler wrote: post #681
lliamander wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that first requiring proof of voter identification? I'm sure plenty of Trump supporters would be down with this plan.

The thing about voter ID is that it isn't inherently a bad idea, as long as you make it really cheap (ideally free) and convenient to get one . If republicans were actually interested in election integrity and civic participation, they wouldn't keep accidentally forgetting that part. But they're not, so in practice it ends up acting as a tool for discrimination and disenfranchisement.

>The thing about voter ID is that it isn't inherently a bad idea...

This is very true. The same people who often argue loudly for privacy, security, are willing to have a hole in the election system, probably the more important of any of those things.

Up to now, it's been "well, there's very little fraud going on", as if that makes it fine to ignore. Showing ID to vote in our most fundamental democratic process is NOT a stupid or crazy idea. And it has become the rallying cry of the paranoid and conspiracy believers.

Fault the Democrats for letting themselves be accused of voter fraud in the name of not making it hard to vote (solution: give everyone the IDs they need, easily, as suggested), and fault the Republicans for using voter ID as a way to make it harder to vote (solution: stop being underhanded jerks).

And lastly, I have to fault the people who can't get their shit together enough once per 5 or 10 years (ID expiration timescale) for such an important piece of identification and key to so many other things. How do they get through life every day if they can't even do this one thing that infrequently? And sadly, how bad a situation is it that your party has to rely on these people to get you over the majority line?

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#703

Post by newacct583 »

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…

> why wasn't this done earlier? What changed? The US Capitol riots is the specific moment that made them all wake up?

Um... yes? Isn't that the most obvious hypothesis? Occam's razor is a good rule for a reason. Abstract concerns about propriety and truthfulness are one thing. An actual assault on the seat of government is very much another.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#704

Post by gfodor »

gher-shyu3i wrote: post #393
rglover wrote: post #259

Maybe I'm being naive but it seems like a larger problem is being ignored here that I feel I should call attention to. This is going to piss people off and some of those people are going to be real, nothing-to-lose extremists. Actions like these though seemingly harmless in the short-term are going to radicalize the exact person/type of people that you do not want to radicalize. Because a lot of high-ranking SV folks…

> This is going to piss people off and some of those people are going to be real, nothing-to-lose extremists Sometimes certain things need to be dealt with by force, there's no way around it. It seems that that freedom of speech is not the cause of stability, but stability gives rise to (certain degrees) of freedom of speech. It's a slippery slope, but each country has to have a moral basis on which to decide where t…

The words you just wrote about necessary force are the same ones coming out of the mouths of those you wrote them about.

It should be obvious where this road leads unless we have a leader wake us up.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#705

Post by Grimm1 »

nmfisher wrote: post #585
igetspam wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The private entities are not the justice department. They are not the judiciary. They are not lawyers and they are not juries. They do not require criminal conviction before taking action. Your question is irellevant. But to give you a partial answer anyway: Many criminals are never convicted. Many _known_ criminals are never convicted, due to lack of undeniable proof. Some criminals are convicted on lesser crimes, j…

The question is not “what legal power does Twitter have”. I’m not saying they legally can’t kick him off their platform. The discussion is whether they should be able to kick someone off their platform who has been convicted of no crime, because of how integral they have become to the political process.

Yes, because you don't have to be convicted of a crime to have done something wrong and regardless it doesn't matter. Twitter can kick someone off for whatever reason they want. That's something currently protected in our law.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#706

Post by stale2002 »

ShamelessC wrote: post #408
refurb wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that same definition the antifa riots are terrorism too then? Politically motivated violence - throwing explosives, setting buildings on fire, etc. Yet I haven't heard that word used at all.

The "ANTIFA" riots? Can you cite a source for this claim that the black lives matters protests were propagated in any sort of widespread, organized concerted effort by "ANTIFA"? I hear this claim often from Trump supporters but as far as I can tell, they either heard it on talk radio or Fox News. Considering Fox News' coverage of Trump prior to the election, I don't exactly consider them a reliable source. If you cou…

> for this claim that the black lives matters

Nobody said anything about BLM. That was just you.

Instead the previous poster was likely refering to the violence and death that happened, at places like the Seattle Cap hill autonomous zone.

Such events included many self identified anarchists. And there absolutely were shootings attacks on a government building during those anarchist riots.

Nothing to do with BLM. Instead, people are referring to the actions taken by anarchists.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#707

Post by j8hn »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #418
imperio59 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I buy this argument as the law currently stands, but this is also such a moral double standard (Colorado bakery for instance). Also, how far do we go with this reasoning? Stripe and PayPal refuse service so they're supposed to "Go build their own" (it costs billions to create a new service like stripe or PayPal that can compare). AWS shut you down? Build your own data center... (Again, costs millions or billions). Wh…

For the article in question, they are banning someone who blatantly committed criminal acts against the state. Literally an attempt by the president to overthrow the government. Treason is a crime that's enforceable with a death penalty.

Can you substantiate your claims?

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#708

Post by AnHonestComment »

jevgeni wrote: post #657
beltex wrote: post #641

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” — George Orwell, Animal Farm I understand the moves by Stripe, Twitter, and co. However, I would argue that the long term implications set by this precedent are much worse. When the Snowden story first broke back in 2013, many on HN argued that, hey it's all good, I have nothing to hide, and I trust our President. Three short years later, who took…

Americans didn’t Weimar-Republic into a fascist regime this time, thankfully. The prevailing idea on HN is however “let’s have no regulation than bad regulation”... Guys, there’s such thing as good regulation.

[dead]

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#709

Post by ohnohell »

eejit_compiler wrote: post #234
ohnohell wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument went out the window when Amazon started infrastructure bans. "Build your own..." What? Internet? Country?

Amazon aren't the only provider of hosting services, even if they are one of the largest. It's entirely doable to shift providers, even in the face of censorship - The Pirate Bay is one long-running example of this.

I'm not sure how you missed the point by that much. Infrastructure bans are a thing now. You can't produce an app to compete with Twitter and Facebook if you don't have access to scalable infrastructure. Moving to a different host to get canceled there isn't a solution.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#710

Post by nobody9999 »

gfodor wrote: post #678
nobody9999 wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook, Twitter, et al are not public squares. You can speak all you want in public spaces, on your own property (whether that be your home, your blog or your mastodon instance) mostly without limit. But Facebook, Twitter, Google, HN or any other private organization is under no obligation to host or amplify your speech. The government can't censor you and you may speak your mind in public spaces. You may also do s…

Claiming they are not public squares is correct and says very little. When capitalism revealed its ability to create abusive monopolies, we created new laws to mitigate those harms. When the whole worlds discourse flows through a few centralized social media companies, as a society we are free to imagine new legal concepts and regulations to deal with the unforeseeable consequences of these new phenomena.

>When the whole worlds discourse flows through a few centralized social media companies, as a society we are free to imagine new legal concepts and regulations to deal with the unforeseeable consequences of these new phenomena.

Where did I say that wasn't appropriate?

I strongly believe that those big social media companies not only have too much power and influence, but that their business models are exploitative and morally repugnant.

Which is why I don't use them. At all.

In fact, I detailed[0] how I thought this issue should be dealt with the other day.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25688032

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