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Stripe bans Trump campaign

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Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#711

Post by roenxi »

trustfundbaby wrote: post #279

I was on the fence about this, but reading the comments convinced me it was the absolute right decision. The fact that all these institutions just allowed this horrible hateful speech for four years, in the name of free speech etc, despite all the harassment, harm (mental and otherwise) it caused to so many people in America actually emboldened so many to the extent that now that they crossed this invisible line, the…

> ...the fact that a small group of rioters were just a few feet away from irreversibly staining American history with the blood of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in the chain of command of the United states of America...

Let me ask for a quick accounting here - what is the evidence for this? My understanding is 100% of the gun deaths were from guns in the hands of law enforcement officers who were perfectly capable of defending themselves when pushed. There are a bunch of instantly iconic photos [0] with basically no weapons in the hands of protestors. They clearly didn't plan on breaching the Capitol or they'd have realised that they were all about to go to jail forever.

This is a not a mob out for literal blood.

[0] https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/capitol-mob-deaths/ind...

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#712

Post by anigbrowl »

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…

It really won't. It'll be cited as a the grievance that drove them over the line in manifestos or court testimony, but generally people are radicalized by themselves or peers and then cast around for an exterior excuse afterwards. The grievances vary with circumstances, the target or out-group disliked by the extremist person stays the same.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#713

Post by Jackson12 »

This is a really bad idea. I'm more sympathetic to Twitter. Even under the First Amendment there's no right to say things that aren't true. Which is more the issue than incitement. But this goes way too far:

Companies with business before the US and foreign governments should not be making these decisions. The potential for corruption is absolutely huge. Do we really want Tik Tok deciding what the US President can and can't say.

This is going to further erode trust in US institutions. To believe Trump isn't lying about the election you have to think there's a massive conspiracy to keep him out of power. Well...

Banning people from sharing beliefs doesn't make them less popular. Banning racist speech has NOT worked in Europe.

This is disproportionate to what Trump actually did. This is not to downplay the seriousness of a riot inside the Capitol Building. The timing and nature of the act are repugnant and the people who did it deserve to spend some quality time in federal prison. Trump's false rhetoric about the election being stolen undoubtedly (and foreseeably) motivated these people. But I don't think what he said can be fairly read as advocating what happened. There was no threat whatsoever of the government being overthrown. Trump and people like him will ultimately find a way around these actions. And once they do they will cease to be effective. Individual states can probably step in and ban this sort of thing. And I fully expect most Red States to have done so by the end of the year. These tools should be preserved for a true emergency. Which this isn't.

The right solution to the issue of disinformation is changing libel laws. NYT vs Sullivan was probably a mistake. And several states have criminal libel laws that could have plausibly been applied here.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#714

Post by Grimm1 »

ineedasername wrote: post #503
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…

I don't see how it's anti competetive. The free market advocates on HN would say that other people will create other companies and gain the market share current companies have turned down. Or that existing niche companies will find an expanded market serving them. It's also important to note that companies aren't cutting ties with Trump because of his political ideology, they're cutting ties with him because there's…

That's exactly my stance as a free market advocate. I heavily think it's the wrong move to grant some special status to these existing companies.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#715

Post by lliamander »

trustfundbaby wrote: post #279

I was on the fence about this, but reading the comments convinced me it was the absolute right decision. The fact that all these institutions just allowed this horrible hateful speech for four years, in the name of free speech etc, despite all the harassment, harm (mental and otherwise) it caused to so many people in America actually emboldened so many to the extent that now that they crossed this invisible line, the…

The left (including prominent politicians and media figures) are more than willing to provide cover or excuse political violence conducted for their side, and left-wing extremists used FB, Twitter, etc. to coordinate their actions over the past summer.

This is not about removing "hate". This is about removing political opposition.

The WalkAway campaign's FB page was removed, despite no violent content.

The Articles of Unity project has been deplatformed from Twitter (and I believe FB) for a while with no justification and absolutely no hateful content whatsoever.

Yes, there are many high-profile targets that seem easy to justify, but a much larger swath of those affected are completely unjustifiable.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#716

Post by licebmi__at__ »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #485
hilbertseries wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without an uncensorable currency, any political adversary -- especially an incumbent -- can just coerce payment processors into blocking payments to their opponents through threats of imprisonment or violence against a handful of executives. How is this a good faith argument. You’ve jumped a situation where somewhere is being deplatformed and banned from various services for encouraging violence. To someone will us…

Russian opposition is tamest of the tame, yet, it is routinely deplatformed and prosecuted, guess for what, calls for extremism and violence! And a large portion of population believes that to be true, because government controls most sources of information. I think US might look exactly same in a few years. The mighty benevolent Party will care for thankful citizens, with the exception of a few outcasts who can't ev…

One could also construct an argument about some groups like ISIS recruiting and calling for violence in social media, claiming to fight for freedom and against evil, and create a false slippery slope that America might be equivalent to the caliphate in the next 70 years.

I could argue that with all the defects in the Russian political climate, I would prefer to live that kind of regime than something equivalent to an ISIS caliphate, but I consider both arguments fallacious and more akin to scare tactics.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#717

Post by nobody9999 »

jo032 wrote: post #122
nobody9999 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What you are saying is word for word the libertarian argument against the civil rights act ("if we have to bake a cake for gay weddings, what if wants a cake for their child bride!"). I happen to disagree with it as it applies in the real world No. I'm not. Please don't put words in my mouth. I'll try to boil it down to as few words as possible: If the government can take away your rights, then they can take away mi…

again I'm not making a legal argument but a moral one. >If the government can take away your rights, then they can take away mine too. I don't support that and will defend your rights as vigorously as my own, whether I agree with you or not. This applies to Stipe and Paypal too. They can arbitrarily prevent anyone from operating an online business. The libertarian view that you should care more about their right to d…

>The libertarian view that you should care more about their right to do that than individuals who will lose their livelihoods with no recourse, is something I'll never understand and we'll never come to agreement on.

I'm not sure why you bring that up, since that's not a position that I've advocated, nor is it one that I support.

I find your repeated strawman[0] arguments quite tiresome.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#718

Post by joshuamorton »

mavidser wrote: post #696

This isn't sitting well with me at all. Of course it had to be done, but I also think it's a scary precedent. First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no…

The "they" in the poem is the people who stormed the Capitol building, not Stripe. The "me" is, say, Marco Rubio or Mitch McConnel: a conservative, willing to hitch themselves to an authoritarian for a while, but who ultimately finds the authoritarian policies too distasteful (and that the leaders policies are dangerous, even to someone who was initially a moderate ally or supporter of the leader).

And I mean this quite seriously. Neimoller, the author of the poem was at least somewhat anti-Semitic and a Nazi and a supporter of Hitler until the mid 1930s.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#719

Post by albertgoeswoof »

roenxi wrote: post #711
trustfundbaby wrote: post #279

I was on the fence about this, but reading the comments convinced me it was the absolute right decision. The fact that all these institutions just allowed this horrible hateful speech for four years, in the name of free speech etc, despite all the harassment, harm (mental and otherwise) it caused to so many people in America actually emboldened so many to the extent that now that they crossed this invisible line, the…

> ...the fact that a small group of rioters were just a few feet away from irreversibly staining American history with the blood of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in the chain of command of the United states of America... Let me ask for a quick accounting here - what is the evidence for this? My understanding is 100% of the gun deaths were from guns in the hands of law enforcement officers who were perfectly capable of defend…

There were gallows, bombs, armour, zip ties and guns brought to the protest. On many of the videos you can hear the trump supporters shouting cries to kill certain members of the government, calling them traitors. Oh and they beat a police officer to death.

If they had found a senior official I don’t think they would have been safe.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#720

Post by zepto »

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.

Perhaps they’ll become less integral to the process.
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