Cutter wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 23:51:
Tomas, you're conflating personal censorship and legal censorship. When your parents tell you not to swear, yes, that is technically censorship but it's not at all the same thing as being forbidden protected speech under penalty of law. One gets you grounded for the weekend the other sends you to prison illegally.

Parler's business model is one of, ostensibly, 'free speech'. Well too bad for them that no one told them that there's no such thing as "free speech" in America. There is only, and has only ever been, "protected speech" in America. And with protected speech there are limits to what you can say, and potential legal liability for the things you say. In short you're allowed to criticize things you don't like but you are not entitled to a platform to dispense those criticisms either. Otherwise I could call your employer and tell them you're a pedophile and you'd have no legal recourse to do anything whether it was true or not. And do you really believe for even one second that anyone should be able to say whatever they like no matter how fucking crazy or hateful or illegal it is?

All these companies that have refused to have anything to do with Parler owe them nothing legally or morally. They have no responsibility or obligation to them in any way, shape, or form. And not a single one of them is stopping Parler from doing business or limiting their protected speech. Them refusing to do business with Parler is not a violation of their protected-speech. That's no different from you coming into my restaurant dressed as Hitler and telling me I have no choice but to serve you. Really? So where do my rights come in to it? See, if that happens, I point to the sign by the entrance as I'm escorting you from the premises, "The Management Reserves The Right To Refuse Service". I don't have to give you a reason why. I don't want on you on my property so out you go. Your rights end where mine begin. Feel free to stand on the sidewalk and cry about it all you like, your rights haven't been violated. You need to learn a little something about law.

Uhm, no I'm not conflating them. The fact that censorship can come from multiple sources was my exact point. I am bothered when people make up definitions for words that aren't accurate, like suggesting that what AWS and others did was not censorship. I suppose we could imagine that their basis for doing what they did may not have been to censor what was taking place, I mean, that goes against what they have publically stated, but regardless of all that, and irrespective of the correctness or legality of it, censorship occurred. Unless I'm mistaken, I've also never stated that I think they were wrong in doing so. My argument has been about how this affects things from here on out as our society and technology evolve (including how we communicate as humans).

In regards to the rest of your post, I agree with it. I'm not sure what I've said to convince you otherwise. It is starting to feel like you aren't even reading my posts. My point has been and still is that there is a change in technology and with it there should be some discussion regarding how that is affecting a great number of things including, but not exclusively our first amendment rights. I'm under no false impression that we have complete freedom of speech, nor have I ever stated such.

Edit: lost my temper today. Embarrassing, but I'll survive.

This comment was edited on Jan 12, 2021, 22:33.

edaciousx wrote on Jan 12, 2021, 03:49:
Social media needs to be classified and regulated as a public utility. Social media should only restrict speech that posses imminent threat, not hate. You're allowed to speak out against something you aren't happy about, the left had 4 years calling everyone on the right stupid white national Nazis which is hate speech.

With everything the left has done to the right, I only see further escalation. And yes, the right has their faults too but there is significantly more blame on the left for our current situation.

That's fine on being a public utility but that isn't where we are at today. "Posses Imminent Threat", well that is where we are at right now, we have warning of formations at all capitol's. We have a president that wants to be a lifelong dictator, in fact I would make him show up at the inauguration, to me I wouldn't even have one currently in the traditional manner, all those lawmakers and not the president in one place, it's a tactical failure and on top of that we know law enforcement supports the president overall and they can't be trusted as anyone can see at this point from just last week alone. I feel all those are true and imo that is imminent. So then what we are seeing to me seems justified under your definition. You have to error on the side of caution, we are talking about overthrowing the gov't. If not this, then what?

Agreed fujijuice.

I want to add again, of all the places that let people talk politics (on topic or not) and it has people on both sides, I swear and I don't know how or why but this place seems to handle it the best. I know overall it leans a bit one way, but it never goes nuclear like any other place does.

It is truly amazing. People go on the internet and think they are entering a land of magic where they can do or say whatever they want without repercussions. If you were to suggest they walk down to the local grocery store and behave the same way and they would think you are the crazy one. Seriously, walk down to the grocery store, don't even go inside, stand out front and spout some of the crazy shit you say online, like violently marching on the capital of the country you claim to love. I guarantee you will be removed by some sort of authority figure and you will not return the next day with a bunch of politicians complaining about censorship, because that would be stupid and everyone would laugh at you. Now pretend you were warned for two months and had a guy next you trying to add context to what you are saying but then you started threating him to. Are you going to say grocery stores need to be regulated for free speech? I honestly don't even know anymore with some of these so called 'Americans'.

The analogy works for Parler as well. A grocery store opened up down the street said you can come inside and threaten whoever you want, they don't care. Unfortunately the landlord is now liable so he cancelled the lease. Free speech?

edaciousx wrote on Jan 12, 2021, 03:49:
Social media needs to be classified and regulated as a public utility. Social media should only restrict speech that posses imminent threat, not hate. You're allowed to speak out against something you aren't happy about, the left had 4 years calling everyone on the right stupid white national Nazis which is hate speech.

With everything the left has done to the right, I only see further escalation. And yes, the right has their faults too but there is significantly more blame on the left for our current situation.

If I walk into your house, or your business, and start screaming at everyone you'd kick me out. Why is this different?

Hell, look at blue's. We ban spammers. Under your rule, they're just expressing themselves and not violent. The forums get overrun with spam, become unusable, and you're happy because someone once compared white supremacy policy to the Nazis.

It's so short sighted. And, Jesus, the Capitol riot was full of Nazi shirts, so how wrong is what you're so outraged over?

Government does not owe anyone a free with no liability global megaphone, unless of course you let something like public cable and government sponsored media platforms exist (remember local access cable?) which the right has apoplexy about any time anyone tries to start one up.

The way the internet is structured it is all private. Private individuals have no responsibility to transmit every Tom, Dick and Harry's wack job manifestos. Censorship, yea, come into my house, it's my rules, and say something objectionable and I am within my rights to boot your out.

All the Trumpoloons whining about censorship is hilarious to watch, so clueless, just more emotional ranting with no basis on law or fact.

Hate implies an emotional aversion often coupled with enmity or malice.

Hate is not acceptable form of communication, the very definition of hate speech is:
"public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation."

Social media needs to be classified and regulated as a public utility. Social media should only restrict speech that posses imminent threat, not hate. You're allowed to speak out against something you aren't happy about, the left had 4 years calling everyone on the right stupid white national Nazis which is hate speech.

With everything the left has done to the right, I only see further escalation. And yes, the right has their faults too but there is significantly more blame on the left for our current situation.

Tomas, you're conflating personal censorship and legal censorship. When your parents tell you not to swear, yes, that is technically censorship but it's not at all the same thing as being forbidden protected speech under penalty of law. One gets you grounded for the weekend the other sends you to prison illegally.

Parler's business model is one of, ostensibly, 'free speech'. Well too bad for them that no one told them that there's no such thing as "free speech" in America. There is only, and has only ever been, "protected speech" in America. And with protected speech there are limits to what you can say, and potential legal liability for the things you say. In short you're allowed to criticize things you don't like but you are not entitled to a platform to dispense those criticisms either. Otherwise I could call your employer and tell them you're a pedophile and you'd have no legal recourse to do anything whether it was true or not. And do you really believe for even one second that anyone should be able to say whatever they like no matter how fucking crazy or hateful or illegal it is?

All these companies that have refused to have anything to do with Parler owe them nothing legally or morally. They have no responsibility or obligation to them in any way, shape, or form. And not a single one of them is stopping Parler from doing business or limiting their protected speech. Them refusing to do business with Parler is not a violation of their protected-speech. That's no different from you coming into my restaurant dressed as Hitler and telling me I have no choice but to serve you. Really? So where do my rights come in to it? See, if that happens, I point to the sign by the entrance as I'm escorting you from the premises, "The Management Reserves The Right To Refuse Service". I don't have to give you a reason why. I don't want on you on my property so out you go. Your rights end where mine begin. Feel free to stand on the sidewalk and cry about it all you like, your rights haven't been violated. You need to learn a little something about law.

Tomas wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 16:44:

Cutter wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 16:21:

Tomas wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 15:00:
I understand what you're trying to say, but what you said is just wrong. It's 100% censorship, but done by entities other than government. Sure, it's legal, but it's not necessarily good for our republic.

Holy blue flaming Jesus on a pogo stick! How many times must it be said? It's not fucking censorship if a private business refuses to do business with you. Censorship is when a government, or prior to the modern world, religion, prevents you from speaking your mind upon pain of punishment for breaking that edict. Like Galileo would have been subject to an inquisition and torture as well as excommunication if he didn't recant heliocentrism - he did, under threat of torture. That's fucking censorship.

Private companies refusing to do business with a business who's business model is making money from violent, seditious psychos isn't censorship. That's just good business. None of them have shut Parler down or put it out of business. Parler has no right to private telecommunication lines. They can either run their own lines or use fucking carrier pigeons, no one is stopping them from doing that but they're are owed nothing when it comes to providing them a platform for what they want to do.

censorship noun

cen·​sor·​ship | \ ˈsen(t)-sər-ˌship
\
Definition of censorship

1a : the institution, system, or practice of censoring They oppose government censorship.
b : the actions or practices of censors especially : censorial control exercised repressively censorship that has … permitted a very limited dispersion of facts— Philip Wylie
2 : the office, power, or term of a Roman censor
3 : exclusion from consciousness by the psychic censor

It's literally the definition of censorship. It can also be "good business" (twitter lost 12% of its value over the weekend, mind you, so maybe it wasn't good business), but that doesn't mean it's not censorship. Censor isn't by itself a "bad" word, but it does mean the suppression or deletion of things considered objectionable. That is literally what was done. I don't see why the definition bothers you so much. Because Twitter and other companies censored someone doesn't mean they did anything wrong legally, but the legality of it doesn't make it not censorship.

Yep I have no problem calling it censorship, it just shows me not all censorship is bad, in fact we've known that our whole live, there has been plenty of accepted censorship our entire lives.

This comment was edited on Jan 11, 2021, 23:12.

RedEye9 wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 16:28:

Beamer wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 16:17:
Wow.

There's so much wrong there.

Let's start with tying in the softball shooting. If we're going to mention everything someone on one side did, even if it wasn't connected to the two sets of protests we're discussing, how can we not mention that the right wing body count is infinitely higher than the left wing?

Infinity higher.

Beam
Are you using that facts and logic thing again. You should know by now that doesn't work.

Quick question.
Would Timothy James McVeigh have been a proud thing?
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building
168 killed, Oklahoma City bombing. April 19, 1995

wtf_man wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 17:09:

Beamer wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 16:58:
Yes, when you create something predominantly for illegal purposes, or you fail to put in good faith efforts to curb illegal usage, this is what happens.

By Who's opinion that this happened with the platform in question? Yours? Or Your Side of Politics? You really think 3 tech companies should have that kind of power??? Wow!

And you all think the Right wing is fascist?
Extremism on either side is fascist, and the double standards are dangerous.

Fascism is government control

So a government forcing a private company to allow it to violate TOS is fascism. That company shutting down the government doing so is not

If you are getting your news from Facebook, Twitter, Parler or Cucker Tarlson
YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

Verno wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 17:34:

wtf_man wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 16:52:
A whole platform was silenced by 3 tech companies.

A dangerous platform hosting illegal content that it made little to no effort to police. And the platform wasn't silenced, they built their stack around AWS and that's on them. They can self-host like Gab, no one is stopping them. I don't care if it's 2 app providers or 20, none of them should be forced to host content that could make them liable or that violates their TOS. Parler was given multiple warnings and shrugged them off. That's on them.

The slippery slope arguments might make sense around here if we weren't already tumbling down the mountainside, pushed by idiots who do not care about laws and rules.

When we silence dialogue and see our own neighbors as the enemy we have lost our way.

You can't have a dialogue when one side refuses to engage and chooses alternate realities and violence. I made the same arguments four years ago when Hillary spoke about deplorables. I was wrong.

Regardless of everything I've posted today I agree with most of what you said. The last statement though gives me pause. I think that perhaps too often the fringes are manipulated to appear as if they represent the majorities beneath them.

Anyhow, I think that's it for me on here for today. I sincerely hope you all are having a good day regardless of everything going on in life. There's a lot of good out there if you look for it as well.

It is possible to respect all perspectives and at the same time recognize when a perspective is simply delusional. For whatever reason we pretend like it's hard to do. I look back at many conversations with my step-sister now and wonder why I didn't just say "that's fucking bullshit" instead of letting it pass. I now realize that over the years I have been unintentionally feeding her delusions by not calling her out on some of her political bullshit. Every time she said something and any of us just rolled our eyes and let it go when we knew it was crap she was taking that to mean "see..it's not crazy or they could have said so!"

All of that said, I am decidedly undecided about Parler. I agree with what Verno said almost word for word. I also think that law enforcement and corporations know violence is coming between now and the 17th and they are trying everything they can to minimize both it and their liability. These companies don't want their brands attached to this movement in the history books.

Orogogus wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 17:17:
I was under the impression that this was the endgame of conservatives' proposed revocation of the CDA's Section 230 protections. Removing those protections wouldn't prevent censorship, it would make censorship mandatory since otherwise platforms would be sued for illegal content. So that was something I didn't really get, since conservatives were already complaining about censorship. Were they hoping to take antifa offline, or was it just a way to stick it to Big Tech regardless of the result?

I don't know what their exact aim was, other than being able to sue if they felt there was some sort of bias.

Just to be clear... technically, I am registered non-partisan and I'm a fiscal conservative... In other words, I am anti-spending outside of government's means, yet pro-choice, for example.

I don't agree with revoking 230.
I do agree with revising 230 to define more in depth of what is a publisher vs. not. It's too vague.
I actually agree with Zucker-head (as much as I think he's a pompous ass) that the companies should not be left to police themselves or figure it out for themselves (As far as speech is concerned).

wtf_man wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 16:52:
A whole platform was silenced by 3 tech companies.

A dangerous platform hosting illegal content that it made little to no effort to police. And the platform wasn't silenced, they built their stack around AWS and that's on them. They can self-host like Gab, no one is stopping them. I don't care if it's 2 app providers or 20, none of them should be forced to host content that could make them liable or that violates their TOS. Parler was given multiple warnings and shrugged them off. That's on them.

The slippery slope arguments might make sense around here if we weren't already tumbling down the mountainside, pushed by idiots who do not care about laws and rules.

When we silence dialogue and see our own neighbors as the enemy we have lost our way.

You can't have a dialogue when one side refuses to engage and chooses alternate realities and violence. I made the same arguments four years ago when Hillary spoke about deplorables. I was wrong.

Beamer wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 16:58:

wtf_man wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 16:52:

Beamer wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 16:45:

Ok. Who was banned for things that aren't TOS violations?

A whole platform was silenced by 3 tech companies. Not Individuals that were violating TOS.

This is the same as if Twitter was hosted on Amazon, and the apps hosted on Apple and Android were completely and suddenly removed because Twitter wasn't fast enough at getting the small percentage (compared to the entire platform) of illegal content (death threats, etc.) removed.

Yes, when you create something predominantly for illegal purposes, or you fail to put in good faith efforts to curb illegal usage, this is what happens.
Over time we've seen this happen plenty, and usually for things that go up bragging about having no censorship. The Silk Road bragged about having no censorship. It was used mostly to sell drugs, and a few people purchased the services of hitmen (who may or may not have been hitmen, and who I don't think actually killed anyone, but they still took the money for the murder.) It was taken down.

Cheat programs for popular online games get taken down all the time.

This is as American as it gets. It's a mix of law and order - follow them or you get shut down, and capitalism - if you start creating more trouble than income you bring in for your vendors, they'll pretty happily sever ties.

Hey, Beamer. I don't think it's fair to suggest Parler was created for predominantly illegal purposes. I feel I should disclose that I have the app installed on my phone but I only used it once to see what it was and found nothing there of value to me personally. However, what I did see wasn't illegal in any way. Were there people on there I found repulsive in their opinions? Yes. Were there people on there I agreed with? Yes, as well. Were there groups on there who were committing illegal acts? I didn't see any, but from what's been shared as news since it sounds like it. I think you can probably find peole of that sort on any decent sized communication platform. The issue here isn't the legality of AWS shutting it down. The issue is in how and why they did shut it down. As they did, they instantly silenced millions of people who had done nothing wrong. Is AWS within their legal rights to do so? Yes. But doing something simply because it's legal doesn't make it a good idea.

Many people no longer receive a news paper or have access to the daily news on TV. The internet and its various platforms are where many if not most people now get their news and information and equally as important, these are the places their share their voices. While that is in itself no less than moderately terrifying, these platforms, the Twitters and Parlers are equivalent to the public forums of our day. I believe it is critical that we find better ways to manage them without stomping on voices with which we don't agree. That, too, would be as American as it gets. When we silence dialogue and see our own neighbors as the enemy we have lost our way. If we are proponents of American ideals we should be constantly striving to protect and understand the under-represented voices and those who feel marginalized.

FYI: If anyone who posted something questionable on Parler on the 6th thinks that they're safe now, think again. The entire site was scraped for all posts made on the 6th. It will be made available for historical researchers and law enforcement on the Internet Archive.

Every Deleted Parler Post, Many With Users' Location Data, Has Been Archived
Link

So, If a baker has a TOS then they don't have to bake a cake for someone whom they don't agree with?

wtf_man wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 16:52:
A whole platform was silenced by 3 tech companies. Not Individuals that were violating TOS.

This is the same as if Twitter was hosted on Amazon, and the apps hosted on Apple and Android were completely and suddenly removed because Twitter wasn't fast enough at getting the small percentage (compared to the entire platform) of illegal content (death threats, etc.) removed.

I was under the impression that this was the endgame of conservatives' proposed revocation of the CDA's Section 230 protections. Removing those protections wouldn't prevent censorship, it would make censorship mandatory since otherwise platforms would be sued for illegal content. So that was something I didn't really get, since conservatives were already complaining about censorship. Were they hoping to take antifa offline, or was it just a way to stick it to Big Tech regardless of the result?

Beamer wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 16:58:
Yes, when you create something predominantly for illegal purposes, or you fail to put in good faith efforts to curb illegal usage, this is what happens.

By Who's opinion that this happened with the platform in question? Yours? Or Your Side of Politics? You really think 3 tech companies should have that kind of power??? Wow!

And you all think the Right wing is fascist?
Extremism on either side is fascist, and the double standards are dangerous.