Stripe bans Trump campaign • Hacker News Board

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#921

Post by jf22 » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 2:27 PM UTC

prepend wrote: post #910

jf22 wrote: post #888

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people make up these companies. It's not like there is a secret cabal of left-leaning tech owners that get together and make decisions like this.

In the case of Facebook and Google, their founders have voting majority shares and literally control the companies. It’s not a secret cabal of left-leaning owners, it is a publicly known set of left-leaning tech owners. I’m not saying they act evilly, but Facebook is literally controlled by one person who cannot be outvoted by every other owner. And Google is controlled by two as well [0]. [0] https://fortune.com/201…

Ok, that doesn't mean there is a cabal of party operatives and big tech working together...

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#922

Post by jf22 » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 2:28 PM UTC

alecbz wrote: post #903

jf22 wrote: post #888

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people make up these companies. It's not like there is a secret cabal of left-leaning tech owners that get together and make decisions like this.

It's not an explicit conspiracy but there are incredibly strong political bubbles in the US.

Yes, of course, that's how humans work. But these bubbles are often considered as a singular group moving as one, when in reality they are separate organizations and individuals who agree with each other.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#923

Post by jf22 » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

nec4b wrote: post #904

jf22 wrote: post #887

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The Democratic party and its business lackeys See this is part of the problem. You are lumping together two different organizations that are nothing alike as somehow part of the same cabal. Many different people from many different groups and organizations are reaching the same conclusion about Trump and the rise of violent right wing extremism. Different parts of society are agreeing, and then in each of these part…

I'm not the one lumping them together, they lumped themselves together the same way unions and the Democratic party did a long time ago. Revolving doors, clientelism, business opportunities, power struggle,...

What? People who agree and have a common interests are not immediately part of a group who move as one.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#924

Post by alecbz » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 2:33 PM UTC

jf22 wrote: post #922

alecbz wrote: post #903

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an explicit conspiracy but there are incredibly strong political bubbles in the US.

Yes, of course, that's how humans work. But these bubbles are often considered as a singular group moving as one, when in reality they are separate organizations and individuals who agree with each other.

Sure. But my point is that it's not correct to go from "multiple independent organizations think this way" to "basically everyone must think this way", as if those multiple organizations represent a random sample of the population.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#925

Post by ashtonkem » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 2:33 PM UTC

doubleunplussed wrote: post #631

ashtonkem wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly? Breaking the law. Good news!

Did Parler break the law? Or just their users? In either case, is Amazon acting on legitimate orders from law enforcement, or are they taking the law into their own hands? Other than your comment, I've yet to hear anyone imply this is a legal, rather than a moral, matter. Edit: I see this is the Stripe thread, not the AWS/Parler thread. I agree Trump has broken the law, though it is true that even criminals have regu…

I think that it’s likely that Trump crossed the incitement line, and that he’s also vanishingly unlikely to be prosecuted for it. If he gets prosecuted, they’ll probably stick to easier to prove charges.

That being said, setting the line at illegal behavior being the thing that can get you banned might feel correct, it creates all kinds of weird problems.

First, the law is not designed to be the description of all that is worthy of condemnation. The law is designed as a back stop; it’s the state saying “this behavior is so bad that we need to curtail your freedoms”. The founding fathers explicitly believed that the marketplace of ideas should take care of things, and being ostracized is absolutely part of that.

If companies can cut contacts only for law breaking, then there will be all kinds of pressure to legislate every single aspect of human behavior. I doubt you’d like that, I know I wouldn’t.

Second, there are all kinds of unpleasant behavior that is and always will be legal. Selling guns is legal, as is pornography. Walking around and calmly saying racial slurs to everyone is also legal. Would you deny Starbucks the right to exclude patrons that call everyone a racial slur? Would you attempt to make that illegal? Someone would. Would you obligate every social platform to allow pornography and make eBay sell guns? After all, it’s legal to sell guns.

Third, if the only way you can get kicked off a platform is by breaking the law, this makes companies the social deciders of illegality. While they won’t turn into courts, in the public eye a lot of people will assume that being kicked off means that a law was broken. You do not want the ability for Amazon to accuse people of crimes, trust me.

If you fear that Amazon or whoever has too much power here, then the appropriate legal tool is anti-monopoly laws, not to create some new burdensome system with all kinds of bad side effects.

> In either case, is Amazon acting on legitimate orders from law enforcement, or are they taking the law into their own hands?

The irony is that in attempting to defend freedom, you’ve expressed a shockingly authoritarian sentiment. Law enforcement does not get to tell companies who they can and cannot do business with, and giving them that ability is horrifying.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#926

Post by Artistry121 » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 2:39 PM UTC

raxxorrax wrote: post #862

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…

To be honest, I firmly evaluate this behavior as negative irrespectable of the legal issues. It might look clear in the case of Trump. Freedom of speech is something civil society defines and the refusal to let people speak is something I regard very negatively. Never would have thought to say something like this in 2015, but the opposition to Trump looks inept as does this behavior from Stripe. They just didn't have…

It’s not a legal issue. People and companies have the freedom to put what they want on their websites or not.

Trump just stood up and asked for his people to go to the capitol - one of his former campaign managers called for beheading members of government.

Calling out his lies - a la politifact and many others - hasn’t worked to deradicalize. Fact check verifications next to the content haven’t. So - just shutting off the calls for violence and lies are the next step.

“Opposition to Trump looks inept”(?) The opposition just swept congress and the presidency, crushed the popular vote, and even members of his party are strongly against his actions. Ineptitude is the Trump’s legal challenges against the election and the “4 Seasons Total Landscaping” fiasco.

Trump can raise funds in many ways. He can get checks. No one is required to allow someone to raise funds on their site - let freedom ring!

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#927

Post by gruez » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 2:39 PM UTC

sam36 wrote: post #658

ShamelessC wrote: post #408

Earlier 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…

Yea, 6 months of coordinated riots and the "right" is the problem https://fukkot.com/riots/all/ Oh and Biden won less counties than Hillary, which was already low for her (hence her loss). Biden under performed in every state except for 5 key swing states and even then it was only a "win" because a never before seen amount of mail in ballots were used. Perhaps they were fake, or perhaps people that would never set fo…

>Oh and Biden won less counties than Hillary, which was already low for her (hence her loss).

why is this relevant? electoral college votes (and population, if you care about the popular vote) isn't distributed by counties.

>Biden under performed in every state except for 5 key swing states

Can you define "underperformed"?

>Perhaps they were fake, or perhaps people that would never set foot in a voting place were fine with circling "biden" on a mail in ballot and dropping it back in the mail box. Still against state law either way.

If you're going to go with the election fraud claim, at least provide evidence rather than just beating around the bush. Also, please cite how "people that would never set foot in a voting place were fine with circling "biden" on a mail in ballot and dropping it back in the mail box" is against state law.

>Oh and very few ballots were contested due to signature mismatches. Funny because Obama won his senate seat in the 90's by having a team canvas all of his competitors primary ballots and had them whittled down until he was the only one running for the office that year.

How is this relevant? Is there a process for invaliding signatures that the republicans haven't invoked? Do democrat voters' signatures get invalidated at a higher rate than republicans? Is the "normal" invalidation rate high enough to surpass biden's lead in the key states?

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#928

Post by mariodiana » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

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…

When we're talking tech giants, like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and so forth, it strains credulity to think that there isn't some connection between what they do and currying political favor. Politicians are holding a big hammer over the heads of these giants, in terms of laws, regulations, and even tax and trade policy. On paper, they are private enterprises making decisions that are within their right, as opposed to governments censoring speech and prohibiting association. The reality is almost certainly more complicated, and involves nuanced levels of political pull, "understandings," and backroom deals.

These tech giants have made themselves into a lattice on which modern society attaches itself, and their pervasiveness will only continue to grow in 21st century America. We risk them being in bed with government. And when nominally private, major industry is aligned with government to effect political ends, there's a word for that, and we've seen that before.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#929

Post by hairofadog » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

sam_goody wrote: post #918

BlanketLogic wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a non-sequitur right? Twitter , Google and Apple via their app stores, and now stripe are refusing to doing business not with a political party. They are refusing to doing business with people who have committed alleged(?) crimes. The _actions_ by a group of people are resulting in these bans. Not the group's affiliation. Am I missing something here?

I dunno. BLM may claim not to be responsible for the horrendous roiots and crime that has been committed in its name across America. Trump may claim that he is not responsible for the tiny (in proportion) riots that happened in DC. (IMO, they are both responsible, thus making BLM the one with more blood on its hands. But nobody asked me.) BLM may claim that it is in their rights to fight law and order if it causes ha…

One of the many issues I have with the arguments equating the Black Lives Matter protests to the Trump protests last week is that people tend to want to compare this one single Trump event to all protests nationwide over a period of months. If we’re doing an apples-to-apples comparison, here’s the Black Lives Matter DC protest: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/06/06/large-...

...or, conversely, we should compare damage and lives lost during Black Lives Matter protests to all damage and lives lost by Trump-supporting white supremacists.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#930

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #263

Tokkemon wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop downplaying a literally terrorist attack on the nation's Capitol.

It's entertaining how the left was so critical of the use of the word "terrorist" when talking about the War on Terror, but then immediately started throwing it around when it politically expedient.

[deleted]