I'm not talking about banning a person, I'm talking about big tech working in concert to take out other platforms. The fact the very people who argue these giant billionaire companies only interest is greed, and how much they steal from consumers, think these companies are making a moral decision when they get rid the of a pesky platform is mind boggling.

Who thinks that? I think these companies are making decisions that are in their private best interest, not because they're trying to enforce some "moral good". Who here has said otherwise? I know you'd never invent strawmen, since you get so bothered when people do it to you...

What do you think their private interest is? It's actually the exact opposite of the free exchange of ideas, but rather an exchange of their ideas.

If me and you tried to run a Leninist newspaper, and we allowed editorials advocating for armed revolution and articles containing lists of who to execute in government, do you think we would be able to make it a widespread newspaper?

I think we would run into problems making it a big newspaper pretty fast. We might find a small printing house willing to take us on or even perhaps even run it in a minimal scale with printing inhouse, but I don't think we would find much in the way of industrial scale printing. Similarly, I don't think we would be able to be stocked in major chains or have delivery deals with major logistics companies, but would probably have to rely on small-scale delivery.

There is a difference between free speech and amplification of speech (even if they are related), and regardless of how many political pundits try to make the claim, this isn't something new to the digital era. It has been the case since the printing press. Amplification of speech has historically been the domain of business in almost any country that allows for business, and thus subject to the whims of business.

It is the price for government largely keeping out of this domain. In countries where we do see the government monopolize amplification or regulate such amplification to make an effective monopoly, free speech rarely benefits.

Democrats: This company NEEDS to make me the cake I want, damnit!

Also Democrats: Lol, all the tech guys banned Trump because of what he said, LOLOLLOL trumpkins

Everyone who wants to just agree with their team sucks.


Back to the topic:I've gone back and forth on this a lot in the last couple days. In a vacuum, idgaf about Trump as an individual being banned, but there seems to be such a double standard here that it's difficult to determine how it isn't a political stance, which is worrisome to me. There are too many posts from left leaning politicians/other world leaders that go un touched for it not to be. As a mostly right leaning person, I'm also worried that the end game here is pretty simple, because the Dems now control basically all forms of MSM, big tech, education, etc-basically any way to control messaging. I've generally thought the Dems suck at strategy, but if this was always their endgame, it was played brilliantly by them.

Another fear I have is that this radicalizes the far right even more. Seems likely tbh.

My ultimate hope is that eventually the far right cedes, the far left gets cut off, and we can somehow get a third party out of this with ideals closer to the majority of what most American's want/need, and not what makes politicians the most money. Seems unlikely, though.

I dont know the details but no surprise if the usa consitution, as with guns, makes good solutions impossible.

We have to strike a balance between the rights of people/companies to access internet platforms/social media with content laws and other regulations. Social media companies then manage it and people can appeal to the regulator, the courts or the law makers as appropriate if they have a grievence.

I'll answer this, but first I'm curious what you think it is. After all, you just had your mind BLOWN because you thought lefties believed Amazon was trying to enforce some moral good here:

So clearly you think they have other interests driving their actions here. What do you think those are?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group

The idea that "Dems" control tech companies is pretty hilarious (love "education" being thrown in here too, why not)

Like with the intelligence services, trump is so bad he has made those we should always be very wary of seem like the reliable/trustworthy omnes.

Hopefully once trump is gone people will remember the dangers and recognise we must not cement power in the hands of a few big companies or their mega rich owners. Not even if the current ones seem okay.

It is fair to flip the example on its head, for sure.

But, we can also find examples where they more than likely agree. If a digital platform turns a blind eye to the worst kind of pornography, neither the right nor the left would have much qualms about it being deplatformed.

Like I wrote in an earlier post, this isn't a new thing even if pundits try to tell us it is. Printing presses and media have largely been run by business since they were introduced, and the amplification of some piece of speech, whether paper, records, tape, film, BBSes, web pages, web sites etc. has therefore almost always been subject to the whims of business.

The implied consensus has pretty much always been that this amplification is separate from the speech. Me and you can have a view and we can state that view, but we won't necessarily find it easy to find a newspaper to print our Op-Ed in.

That's not what's happening here, not at a macro level. A small group of companies are deciding who can have newspaper (in the case of parler), becasue they essentially control distribution of all newspapers (internet newspapers).

So you agree that banning Trump is a good thing? The only way to address stuff like banning parler is stronger laws on net neutrality, which republicans are strongly against. Or I should say were. Perhaps that has changed now that it impacts them.

im all aboard the nationalize the internet train and treat it like a public utility. feel free to hop on confused conservatives, and dumbass libertarians.

yeah sinclair broadcasting group is the biggest brainwashing opperation in the world, and it is solidly right wing nutjob.

this is like devin nunes on while live on FOXNEWS to MILLIONS OF PEOPLE saying that he is being silenced and his voice being taken away..

Sure, do you want to force printing companies to print a newspaper where one 1% of editorials advocate ethnic cleansing?

i assume this dumbassery as been dealt with already but,

discrimination and bigotry=not okay.
saying we dont want to do business with you/host you BECAUSE you are a hateful bigot=ok.

hope that clears everything up

You all care more about the more micro events. In the grand scheme of things banning Trump the person is, and will be irrelevant. He might be the poster boy for why to ban someone, but banning one of the worst people, really does not speak to the issue.

A person like Trump not getting banned ensures radical leftist have a voice. At some point, this need to have corporations put earmuffs on everyone is going to crush progressives. It's inevitable.


With all that said, the need to tamp down Trump has come at the expense of others. So, was banning Trump good, but it did not stop, does not stop with him? In a vacuum maybe it was, but it's hurts, non-extremist apolitical people. Is it worth it?

Louis Farrakhan has been an extremist for a very long time. I'm not quaking in my boots because he is allowed to tweet.

The issue of you wanting to be able to tell private companies what to do (but only when "what to do" is "platform Nazis")? Yeah, we'll get on that right quick

Need to shut down electronic communications then. It's the only way you are going to prevent the propagation of stuff you don't like. Are we going to have cell companies fire customers becasue they don't like what their customers are saying, using their services?

This is not what I'm arguing, but you should ask yourself why you must interject yourself in everyone of my conversations I have here.

What kind of reverse slippery slope argument is this? "You can't deplatform Parler because it won't be effective unless you actually delete the internet"? LOL

(deplatforming Parler seems just fine, actually!)

Well this one is easy. It's because you respond to him.

Have some self-control, grasshopper.

I think it is clear that by not answering, you know very well that the answer is no. You would not advocate that government should force a printing company to print our hypothetical newspaper.

That's not my answer. My answer is your question is irrelevant.

I'll show you, should AWS monitor the content of their traffic, and censor the content? Right now your answer is yes, because of your attempt at reductio ad absurdum.

Now, my logical ad absurdum is the people who distribute electronic communications/media should monitor the content of their traffic and restrict usage of digital communication and media when their customers use it to say stuff they find extreme.


Where do these companies draw the line? Who else will be disenfranchised as a result of this monitoring and removing of unacceptable content? What's unacceptable content? Who decides? Turns out, most unacceptable content is already illegal, so if there is an issue, someone can report them to the police. What's occurring now is, a powerful group of corporations are trying to move more stuff into that category, almost unilaterally. That power is going to be leveraged to remove way less extreme stuff. As I said before, you can talk about the extreme example, but you are inadvertently suggesting these companies should spy on their customers and remove them if their communications is unacceptable to the company.

You are not going to tell me everyone on Parler was an extremist. You are not going to tell me an organization has an ethical obligation to spy and moderate their customers because FANG said so.