So is google going to start censoring my email now? I have friends in islamic and other authoritarian regimes that deal with this sort of thing. So ironic in the effort to fight fascism big tech becomes fascist. Doubleplusgood doublespeak!
Stripe bans Trump campaign
771–780 of 1001 posts
Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign
#772Earlier quoted context omitted.
The irony of this is that you’re so close to being right, but you’re focusing on the wrong group. On Wednesday an armed mob literally rushed the Capitol because people didn’t vote the way they wanted them to, with the intent to just force them. It might end up being a “self-defeating travesty”, but only time will tell. But you seem more worried about a virtual “mob”, which frankly seems insanely out of touch at the m…
> armed mob I donno if I'm just blind but I keep hearing 'armed' but I haven't seen any photos of the mob carrying guns or baseball bats as claimed by the media. The only photo that showed anything was the guy climbing over the seats with zip-ties which were apparently taken from a bag left by a police offer? Not saying you're wrong just feel like the photos / videos, vs what people are saying, seem to contradict eac…
I found these with a 10 second web search. There were many more results with similar information.
According to this[0]:
"More than 60 people were arrested, at least 50 police were injured, and officers confiscated guns, pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails."
And this[1]:
"An Alabama man allegedly parked a pickup truck packed with 11 homemade bombs, an assault rifle and a handgun two blocks from the US Capitol building on Wednesday for hours before authorities ever noticed, according to federal prosecutors.
Another man allegedly showed up in the nation's capital with an assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition and told acquaintances that he wanted to shoot or run over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, prosecutors said."
[0] https://www.npr.org/sections/congress-electoral-college-tall...
[1] https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/feds-p...
Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign
#773Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. Inst…
> Nobody said anything about BLM. That was just you.
Oh, okay. I had thought I had seen Donald Trump try several times during his speeches to conflate ANTIFA with the BLM movement in order to discredit BLM. Considering we know that a certain number of Trump's base will follow him all the way to treason, I hope you can understand why I might believe they were tricked into thinking this was true.
A reputable source would still be appreciated though. Thanks.
Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign
#774For those who haven't seen any of my annoying mentions of it yet, large threads on HN are currently paginated for performance reasons (yes we're working on it) so you need to click More at the bottom of the thread to get to the rest of the comments—or like this:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25722027&p=2
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25722027&p=3
Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign
#775Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 monste…
> 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.
The exact same thing happened when radio was first invented, Nazism rose to power in tandem with mass media that allowed for direct manipulation of people's emotions on a scale that was impossible prior to that.
Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign
#776Earlier quoted context omitted.
And it's no coincidence that Russian dissident Alexei Navalny spoke out against big tech conspiring together to censor Trump. He sees exactly what they're doing and knows where it leads. All big tech has to do now is tighten the screws further, and they can use their new standard to wipe out any challenger from the right half of the political spectrum before they ever gain traction (whether in media, with payment pro…
Your narrative is so false, it isn't even funny. The most liked and tweeted content on Twitter and Facebook skews heavily towards the right. Fox news is the most watched news show in this country. Your spin on the whole situation is a gross distortion of what is happening.
No one said the left's agenda is the popular agenda. The fact a single news station can be the most popular by being a slight political outlier is just indication of how controlling the left needs to be to enforce their view of reality.
Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign
#777There 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…
It is incredible that people on HN can be against Visa/Mastercard banning payments to Wikileaks or Pornhub, against PayPal making arbitrary decisions about their customers, but somehow in support of Stripe banning Trump. All of these companies are providing utility services, and they should all be regulated as if they were public agencies. They should have to uphold the freedom of speech and other principles enshrined in our system of laws, because these organizations are so powerful and influential that they might as well be government agencies. The services they provide are completely fundamental and necessary today, and the fact that they are operated by private entities does not mean that we cannot require them to do what is right by implementing our nation's founding principles. If we can regulate power utilities or force all businesses to shutdown during a pandemic, we can absolutely update our laws to regulate these companies, require them to uphold the first amendment, and provide due process. We should also definitely revamp our anti-trust laws and break them up where possible, so that there is real competition and choice.
Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign
#778The debate here seems like fuel for antitrust issues. A single company deciding not to do business with someone (over actions, not innate stuff like protected classes) should be fine, but when you let them get to be a backbone service, then issues surface like those discussed by everyone here. If google, for example decided to stop surfacing trump stuff in results, that could be a real issue. Not because it’s google…
Stripe is hardly a “backbone” service. There a dozens of different payment processors out there, many of them much larger than Stripe. There’s absolutely nothing preventing the Trump campaign from using a different payment processor. It would be a different matter if Visa and MasterCard had blocked them.
But arguably CloudFlare is such a service and it is still hosting quite a bit of content that actively incites to violence on inauguration day. I won't link to it here though.
Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign
#779Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think you're hearing me. I said I don't give a mosquito's dick about either of you. If you want to burn down your neighborhoods, go right ahead. You go to the Capitol to commit violence, it's an entirely different story. A coup is orders of magnitude more serious than street violence. You act as though thugs beating each other up in the streets is the same as thugs coming to the capitol to beat up our senator…
I don't know why you are talking to me as if I have any influence, but the contrast of your concern for the well-being of politicians with your apparent disregard for the well-being of innocent civilians is disquieting.
Again, I think you're still not hearing me. Politicians are, for the most part, liberals and conservatives. I don't give a mosquito's dick about any of them as people. As Constitutionally elected representatives of the people of the US, however, they mean everything. Especially while they are implementing the transfer of power mandated by the Constitutional order.
If you have trouble understanding this distinction, that's OK. No one really needs you to understand it. Just stay away from them, and we shouldn't have any problems.
Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign
#780Earlier quoted context omitted.
Democrats have challenged electors for dumb reasons before. It's their right. Get a grip.
They didn't tell millions of people that the election had been outright stolen. Not even in 2016 when it pretty much was.
It’s weird that you say no one said the the election has been stolen, yet you also say it pretty much was. Did you just wake up one morning and think maybe there was something askew with the election and go and do tons of investigative work on your own? Or did someone tell you that?
There’s lots to criticize Trump about, but what you wrote is wrong and not in a minor way.