Well, now you've backed down from "Speech is dead" and "[treat Amazon] more like the electric company" to "I disapprove of this action Amazon took, but I think it's their right to do it, and no one should stop them." Your earlier rhetoric doesn't seem to line up with what you've clarified your position to be!

So you:

• support government intervention on the grounds of antitrust issues
• consider the topic of this conversation, i.e. AWS/Google/Facebook de-platforming Parler, an antitrust issue

but say that

• people are wrongly assuming that you support government intervention in the issue that this entire conversation is about?

If you think AWS should not de-platform Parler, but don't think that the government should stop them, then what exactly do you think should be happening?

Personally I do think there are significant anti-trust issues surrounding the way big tech operates and the amount of power they have that will necessitate some amount of government regulation (net neutrality stuff is the most clear cut example) but I don't have the slightest clue what you think should be happening because your arguments in this thread have been all over the place.

Hahahhahahhahaahhaahha

Did you really just say this?

Then you have no argument at all. You've granted the actual speech from Trump or Parler isn't worth amplifying. Certainly you wouldn't publish Farrakhan if you were a news website. So if you are not making a claim that the government should require major platforms to host unpopular speech there is no legal or moral reason why AWS's labor/capital should be required to amplify speech they disagree with.

lol:

umm It's not unheard of. Maybe not as a matter of course--but if they see you're up to various illegal things(and depending on the area that can change--more lax in say ca for certain things) they may report it to the cops. When they're(utility&cable guys etc) accessing their equipment and see a dead body/meth lab/grow/stealing electricity etc you think they just turn a blind eye? Hell, tons of people were/are against even the idea of smart meters for various reasons including privacy--plenty to read on google.

Oh ya, definitely no heads of companies binging on christianity/rightwing stuff and guys like bill bonner and the gang

First, the whole thing about me supporting government intervention was a straw man created by Goofy, and since we are using this word now, "amplified" by Wookie and others.....


For all intents and purpose, free speech on the internet is dead. Right now, we are essentially at the whims of Apple and Google deciding what's unacceptable speech on the internet.

What should be happening? **** if I know, it doesn't matter, people want it this way, so here we are. However, you have to convince people it's an issue before you start talking about solutions. The people arguing with me do not think it's an issue Parler got shut down.

Right, the only position one can hold ITT is whether the government should intervene or not, or whether it's legal/illegal.

If it is true, it's quite funny. A bit sad, but mostly funny.

I can also pretty much guarantee that the absolutely last thing Republican campaign operatives wants is for people to be blocked from Facebook or Twitter. Parler was a side-gig, that shoddy city hall you have to speak at because it is just about big enough and the mayor is a friend of a cousin, so you deliver some half-digested copy of whatever talking points you used elsewhere. Facebook and Twitter is the equivalent of yesteryears' televised speech that can also reach people who didn't necessarily support you to begin with.

Party of Personal Responsibility acolyte over here lmao

Once again, becasue you thought I was using the electric company (in order to correct your analogy) as an example of a utility, when I was actually using it as an example of a service provider is not a gotcha. Especially when it's been explained 5 ****ing times to you. Continuing to imagine that I meant a utility and everything that entails is just you beating a straw man, to death.

This is one of the most bizarre posts I've ever seen. Nothing to do with the content, that's fairly standard, but how on earth did you manage to put your name on the quote of my post and have it linked to a post you made 8 hours ago?

Because you have a habit of walking into a discussion that's been convoluted by MrWookie and Goofy, and then blaming me for it. Then when I show you my first post, you say, "oh I did not read that".

I don't know how I did the editing to make it like that.

Except they're not like the electric company in the slightest. The distinguishing feature of an electric company is that they are a public ****ing utility that is heavily regulated by government.

There's an obvious reason you never responded to this post:

Is an electric company a service provider?

That's not true. A person could keep flip flopping and spouting gibberish like you are.

As I previously pointed out, this is not the death of free speech, unless you only care about the free speech of these Nazis and seditionists. Big Tech has been censoring people on their platforms for some time now, especially far leftists. That you find this particular incident the last straw says something about your allegiances.

And no, it's not just about convincing people there is a problem. You should have a plausible solution, and all the obvious ones violate your core principles. Of course people should be asking "OK, what do you want?" when you're whining about a problem that may not have a solution you'd ever support.

Not really, you can say something ala "I think shutting down Parler was wrong and dangerous". People might disagree with you, but it is still an opinion.

But to argue from principle is tougher territory. First of all Parler isn't some free speech high cause. It's an aggressive data-mining tool to sell population sets to political campaigns and lobbyists, done behind a veil of private sponsorship by interests that might be purely political. It was paid for by the same people who ran Cambridge Analytica, which could be reasonably be described as an attack on democracy and ran on ethical standards that made even Facebook flinch.

There is also plenty of people in this thread which would agree with you that big data should be looked at and that regulation should be considered.

It's also a bit hard to take conservative politicians seriously when they complain about being censored, when it is apparent from how they talk that they already think like influencers and have enormous political hitting power on social media. Far more than their political counterparts hold as individuals. In fact their effective opponent in the capitalist marketplace right now is public opinion

I was asking you!

Umm, I don't think I have ever said anything like that in a conversation with you. It's very, very rare that I post in this forum without having read the entire thread and in this case it was clearly implied that I had read the whole thread given I said "your arguments in this thread have been all over the place"

This is also a complete non sequitur, the post this is replying to was not anything to do with the conversation in the thread, it was me being completely baffled that your post contained a quote with my text, your name, and a link to a post from 8 hours.

Seperate Google android business with their search business, then separate their app business from their android business. In Apples case, separate their OS from their hardware business, separate their app business from the rest.


Speech has been dead for awhile, I've railed against cancel culture, and the ilk for a long time, as if this is not just one more chapter in that says more about your need to attack my allegiances, as always, make it about me.

I don't know how I edited it like that.

Godaddy kicked ar15.com. I am not a fan of this regardless of which side you are on. It is a very slippery slope and the person who posted on the first page about if Murdoch had won is right on the money.

Right, his definitions for everything are ****ing bizarre and then he gets upset when other people don't adhere to his definitions. Riots are okay in places that are "uncivilized" for his bizarre definition of "civilized" (Hong Kong not included!). Deplatforming Parler is an "antitrust violation" for reasons of "competition", when none of the companies involved in this deplatforming compete with Parler. When pressed, HIV "doesn't have time" to explain.

Do you want this to be forced on them by the government? For them to do it voluntarily (which would obviously never happen)?

Also you know that Android is an open system and you can already install third party app stores if you want, right?

I wonder how many conservatives were pitching a fit when a conservative senator was trying to run howardstern off the air via the fcc back in the day Surely it must've bothered them when trump hired the same guy to be his roving religious ambassador spreading those same kinda religious values around the whole world