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Post by robeiae on Jan 12, 2021 7:16:42 GMT -5
I can't even, anymore.
So now it's the job of the Federal Government to educate the masses, to instruct them on how freedom works? WTF is wrong with the educated people in this country?
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Post by robeiae on Jan 17, 2021 8:53:48 GMT -5
thehill.com/homenews/house/534045-ocasio-cortez-congress-looking-into-ways-to-rein-in-disinformationBut she also says this: I noted in the Trump impeachment thread that I thought members of Congress were truly afraid for their lives during the Capitol Hill riots and I think that fear is informing some of their positions, like the one AOC is offering above. Matt Taibbi said the following to someone in a discussion about the destruction of Parler: One of the replies was this: To which I replied with what I think is the counter-point, something that far too many people are just unwilling to accept: And that applies equally to what AOC is talking about. It sucks that people lie on the internet and on social media, but they lie everywhere else, too. There's not a big-government, technocratic solution to this issue, imo, apart from actually going down the road to Nineteen Eighty Four.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2021 18:31:24 GMT -5
To some extent, I agree with you. There aren’t always going to be workable solutions to deal with these issues. I do think that people fail to understand how the 1st Amendment works. One is guaranteed a right to freedom of speech - one is not guaranteed access to a private forum in which to engage in it. So, IMO, social media companies can ban any speech they don’t like, with the only consequence being a response from the marketplace. Apple, Google, & Amazon can refuse to associate with Parler if they choose... again, consequences to come from the marketplace.
Of course, it is in the best interests of these companies to foster an open forum where free speech is accommodated to some extent, but it’s not a requirement. They also have some obligation to police their own forums when it comes to the speech.
It’s an interesting dilemma. How can we prevent dangerous disinformation from spreading? Should we? I think it’s dangerous to let it fester in the dark, but the echo chambers that are created on social media can be equally dangerous.
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Post by prozyan on Jan 17, 2021 19:47:23 GMT -5
To some extent, I agree with you. There aren’t always going to be workable solutions to deal with these issues. I do think that people fail to understand how the 1st Amendment works. One is guaranteed a right to freedom of speech - one is not guaranteed access to a private forum in which to engage in it. So, IMO, social media companies can ban any speech they don’t like, with the only consequence being a response from the marketplace. Apple, Google, & Amazon can refuse to associate with Parler if they choose... again, consequences to come from the marketplace. Of course, it is in the best interests of these companies to foster an open forum where free speech is accommodated to some extent, but it’s not a requirement. They also have some obligation to police their own forums when it comes to the speech. It’s an interesting dilemma. How can we prevent dangerous disinformation from spreading? Should we? I think it’s dangerous to let it fester in the dark, but the echo chambers that are created on social media can be equally dangerous. This is true, with the caveat that Amazon with AWS, Twitter, and Facebook (and to a lesser degree Microsoft with Azure) exercise near complete control over certain aspects of the social media arena and online content in general. If there isn't a viable option available in the free market, I don't think the point hold up as well. |
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Post by michaelw on Jan 17, 2021 20:10:46 GMT -5
I'd probably argue that Twitter is doing people a favor by kicking them off the platform, but I'll concede that's not very strong as a purely legal argument.  |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2021 21:37:52 GMT -5
[This is true, with the caveat that Amazon with AWS, Twitter, and Facebook (and to a lesser degree Microsoft with Azure) exercise near complete control over certain aspects of the social media arena and online content in general. If there isn't a viable option available in the free market, I don't think the point hold up as well. When I referred to consequences in the marketplace, I was referring to backlashes against those companies for the actions they take. There are numerous alternatives to AWS. www.guru99.com/aws-alternatives-competitors.htmlAnd, again, the 1st Amendment does not guarantee access to a social media platform. That’s simply not the way the Constitution works. People who bully, harass, spout hate speech, engage in seditious behavior, spread dangerous falsehoods... they do so at risk of losing access to social media - and when that happens, there is no violation of free speech. |
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Post by prozyan on Jan 17, 2021 22:17:01 GMT -5
[This is true, with the caveat that Amazon with AWS, Twitter, and Facebook (and to a lesser degree Microsoft with Azure) exercise near complete control over certain aspects of the social media arena and online content in general. If there isn't a viable option available in the free market, I don't think the point hold up as well. When I referred to consequences in the marketplace, I was referring to backlashes against those companies for the actions they take. There are numerous alternatives to AWS. www.guru99.com/aws-alternatives-competitors.htmlAnd, again, the 1st Amendment does not guarantee access to a social media platform. That’s simply not the way the Constitution works. People who bully, harass, spout hate speech, engage in seditious behavior, spread dangerous falsehoods... they do so at risk of losing access to social media - and when that happens, there is no violation of free speech. You are speaking of individuals, where you are correct. Last I checked, Parlor was neither an individual nor engaged in any conduct determined illegal by any Federal or State laws. There are plenty of provisions providing protections against monopolistic practices. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2021 23:24:39 GMT -5
Parler was not taken down by any government entity. Because Parler was not moderating it’s content (I had a Parler account, and saw livestreams counting down to the storming of the capital, saw many dangerously violent threads, participated in several threads that quickly devolved into seditious threats of violence), this apparently violated the terms of service for these other companies. That’s not a monopolistic takedown, Parler messed up in how they set up their service and got called out for it, losing the necessary backbone to continue. They could pop up again with a different backbone - hopefully having learned something about necessary moderation.
These companies have the right to enforce their terms of service, yes?
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Post by robeiae on Jan 18, 2021 8:09:33 GMT -5
I have a Parler account, too. Honestly, I think it's a shitty platform. I never used it. But this idea that Parler is--or was, I guess--the wild west is, I think, being overstated. The Capitol Hill riots were also planned on Facebook and Instagram, but no one's platforming them or otherwise cutting them off at the knees (could anyone actually do that?). Regardless, it's true that Amazon's, Google's, and Apple's decision to destroy Parler has little to do with free speech (though it has a lot to do with a free market). But the idea that the government can and should figure out how to curtail mean people on the internet, well that has a shit-ton to do with the First. And that's what AOC and other appear to be calling for, with these ideas of a special commission or cabinet post that will decide what speech is and isn't appropriate for us all, when it comes to the 'net.* As to twitter doing people a favor by kicking them off twitter, I agree. I'm sooooo happy I fully disengaged from Facebook. And while I'm on twitter--and have been for a long time--I've never really gotten sucked in. Seriously, I have less than 8000 tweets across ten years, and most of those were in the early years, really. I see--hell, I know--people who have been on there for less than half that time, but have 50k or more tweets. Boggles my mind. * I wonder if everyone can agree that one of the original goals of the internet--the free and open exchange of ideas and information--is now absolutely dead. |
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Post by robeiae on Jan 18, 2021 8:36:47 GMT -5
I think its absolutely kind of sad and scary that there exists such a large chunk of the populace who actually believe total bullshit, who actually think that they're fighting for "freedom" or some such thing when they act like dangerous jackwagons, but I don't know that there's a government solution to eliminating "wrong-think," so to speak. And if there is, I don't know that I want to be a part of a society that institutes it. Look at this bit from Stelter's show: www.cnn.com/videos/business/2021/01/17/how-to-cover-the-information-crisis--and-curb-it.cnn/video/playlists/business-reliable-sources/Stamos is actually talking about how "conservative influencers" in cable news should be deplatformed, if possible. He also talks about how some YouTubers have bigger audiences than daytime CNN, YouTubers who are dangerously radical according to him, which makes one wonder why he isn't calling for YouTube to be deplatformed. And if that's not enough, he essentially equates some Repubs in Congress with ISIS. And Stelter, dimly lit clown that he is, just goes along with it all. Is this really where we should be going? Here's a thread from Greenwald on that clip: In one reply, someone asks the question, "Is this actually all about Joe Rogan?" LOL. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2021 8:59:53 GMT -5
I never said Parler was the Wild West - Parler was the microblogging equivalent of 4Chan. I never said Twitter was doing anyone “a favor.” The difference between Parler and Facebook/Instagram is that the latter did something in response. Parler was unable to do anything about the violent content on it’s service. Apparently, it didn’t have the correct procedures or mechanisms in place to address the content that violated its own rules. According to Amazon’s response to Parler’s lawsuit, Parler admitted that it had a backlog of over 26,000 reports of content that allegedly violated its terms of service. cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/gov.uscourts.wawd_.294664.10.0_1.pdfWith regard to the goals of the internet, I think this falls squarely under the meme: “this is why we can’t have nice things.” Also, Stamos doesn’t say the government should do anything, he says the tech companies need to do more to address the issues on their platforms. |
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Post by robeiae on Jan 18, 2021 9:11:16 GMT -5
Did Facebook and Instagram do something, though? Did they do enough? Again, it's clear both were used to organize the violent Capitol Hill riots, and I'm pretty sure both--and twitter--were used to organize a lot of the violence and looting over the summer (in fact, I think there are examples of people telling other where to go for the best looting on all of these platforms).
Someone who believes this kind of stuff can and should be "moderated out" of FB, IG, and twitter could argue quite easily that these platforms failed to learn any lessons from the summer, otherwise how would they get used all over again to organize a violent protest in DC? If Parler deserves what it got, the others are just as deserving, imo. Of course, they're much bigger than Parler, they have more influence in DC and on Wall Street, and that's the real difference, which is so rich with irony, from an ideological standpoint.
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Post by robeiae on Jan 18, 2021 9:16:58 GMT -5
LOL, sometimes I'm just right there, in the moment (by accident, of course). Here's Mika and Joe having a fit about FB and how it's responsible for the violence and how it could have done something a long time ago, but didn't:
There's making my point, re someone who believes what they believe: they're actually being consistent in that regard. But I think they're deeply wrong.
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Post by Optimus on Jan 18, 2021 9:19:48 GMT -5
I never said Twitter was doing anyone “a favor.” You're right, you didn't. MichaelW did, though (with his tongue firmly planted in cheek) and Rob appears to have been responding to him in that paragraph. |
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Post by robeiae on Jan 18, 2021 9:22:35 GMT -5
I never said Twitter was doing anyone “a favor.” You're right, you didn't. MichaelW did, though (with his tongue firmly planted in cheek) and Rob appears to have been responding to him in that paragraph. Correct. Sorry for any confusion (and my tongue was somewhat in my cheek, as well). |
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