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Capitol riots to set pretext for more internet censorship

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    #62
    truth and logic
    Registered Users Posts: 26 ✭truth and logic


    The conspiracy is that many supposedly unconnected companies all acted in unison to ban Trump and related entities.

    The companies acted like a cartel, and used their dominant position to destroy their enemies.

    I think we need to include political viewpoint as a protected characteristic in the discrimination legislation. That would make the world a crazy place but this current situation is also making the world crazy.


    There is no full solution here and I can prove that mathematically. People will always disagree, and disagreement is the root of this problem. Therefore, this problem (of disagreement leading to unrest and to violence) cannot be fully solved, by anyone, at any time, except God in heaven apparently, and even that is questionable.


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    #63
    Dohnjoe
    Registered Users Posts: 17,783 ✭✭✭✭Dohnjoe


    truth and logic wrote: »
    The conspiracy is that many supposedly unconnected companies all acted in unison to ban Trump and related entities.

    The companies acted like a cartel, and used their dominant position to destroy their enemies.

    I think we need to include political viewpoint as a protected characteristic in the discrimination legislation. That would make the world a crazy place but this current situation is also making the world crazy.


    There is no full solution here and I can prove that mathematically. People will always disagree, and disagreement is the root of this problem. Therefore, this problem (of disagreement leading to unrest and to violence) cannot be fully solved, by anyone, at any time, except God in heaven apparently, and even that is questionable.

    Or that a US president incited a mob to attack Congress. The log that broke the camel's back so to speak and what we're seeing is a response to that

    Business and social media platforms have also moved quickly on other scenario's, e.g. MeToo, George Floyd. Pre-existing conditions that culminated in significant event. They don't seem like pre-planned conspiracies either, more like reactions.


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    #64
    Smacruairi
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,481 ✭✭✭Smacruairi


    Dohnjoe wrote: »
    Thanks for presenting some sort of conspiracy, albeit a vague one

    Using this logic, would you also say Boards.ie is part of this conspiracy? Like Twitter, FB, etc it's also a private social media platform and like them it regularly blocks/bans posters for certain views, e.g. in politics threads, many Trump supporters have been blocked, ergo it's part of the same agenda?

    I'm not actually a conspiracy advocate, but I am concerned at the power social media tech companies have in general. I joined the thread to follow along with the arguments, so you don't need to try to combat me on points in a rather disrespectful tone. I presume that was not your intention.

    However, to engage in good faith on your point. I don't think boards, as part of the whole Journal umbrella, is part of an international conspiracy, no. Their moderation team is unpaid as far as I can see which straight away minimises coercive power, but it is quite transparent in how it applies its bans. I also don't see why an Irish site would want to influence American politics.

    Boards seems to allow all forms of debate and engagement which don't break the law. If someone talks bollix, it allows it to be disproven, rather than banning it. Twitter however seems to clamp down on certain individuals while allowing others to speak without sanction.

    Eg the Titania McGrath parody account regularly endures suspensions for posting humorous hypocrisies. The comedian Stephen Crowder was demonitised on YouTube for his right wing comedic views which he demonstrated did not break YouTubes agreement. Then you have the Donald being banned but the Ayatollah being allowed call for genocide.

    I agree, if its truly a private platform, then by all means, have your own rules. However, if you claim that private privilege, then you should be responsible for what you permit. Take the Irish Times journalist who posted several times about male teachers in Carlow Sexualising students, despite the fact that this was shown not to be the case. No sanction. Nancy Pelosi in 2017 tweeted "Our election was hijacked. There is no question. Congress has a duty to #ProtectOurDemocracy & #FollowTheFacts.". This was not subjected to a Twitter sanction. Sarah Jeong, a journalist posted disgraceful racist language, and she still has her account. These are untruths that damage, and they are permitted,and yet twitter is not sued because they claim they are merely a platform.. But you can't be a platform if you censor certain content.

    So by allowing a very severe slant to exist in their "platform", a platform which demonstrably influences the zeitgeist, tech companies are gaining a foothold in controlling politics. I don't believe that this should be allowed but it seems that some people want to allow tech companies that power. When you have Facebook, amazon, and Google all acting on one motion, I find that rather alarming.


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    #65
    Detritus70
    Registered Users Posts: 724 ✭✭✭Detritus70


    Thinkingaboutit wrote: »
    Parler seems to have been an upgraded Wordpress site using an unregistered demo software for user registration, which its joke security was breached (content scraped) and could lead to a possible mass doxxing the result as it required personal identification for activities like group chat. This might be one example where cancel culture might do something good. Whoever was responsible for its security (the earlier Ron Watkins, QAnon mess was an earlier example) should maybe take up market gardening and stay away from computers.

    Parler was a floating turd and thank god the chain was pulled. It was stinking up the joint.


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    #66
    Dohnjoe
    Registered Users Posts: 17,783 ✭✭✭✭Dohnjoe


    Smacruairi wrote: »
    I'm not actually a conspiracy advocate, but I am concerned at the power social media tech companies have in general. I joined the thread to follow along with the arguments, so you don't need to try to combat me on points in a rather disrespectful tone. I presume that was not your intention.

    However, to engage in good faith on your point. I don't think boards, as part of the whole Journal umbrella, is part of an international conspiracy, no. Their moderation team is unpaid as far as I can see which straight away minimises coercive power, but it is quite transparent in how it applies its bans. I also don't see why an Irish site would want to influence American politics.

    Boards seems to allow all forms of debate and engagement which don't break the law. If someone talks bollix, it allows it to be disproven, rather than banning it. Twitter however seems to clamp down on certain individuals while allowing others to speak without sanction.

    Eg the Titania McGrath parody account regularly endures suspensions for posting humorous hypocrisies. The comedian Stephen Crowder was demonitised on YouTube for his right wing comedic views which he demonstrated did not break YouTubes agreement. Then you have the Donald being banned but the Ayatollah being allowed call for genocide.

    I agree, if its truly a private platform, then by all means, have your own rules. However, if you claim that private privilege, then you should be responsible for what you permit. Take the Irish Times journalist who posted several times about male teachers in Carlow Sexualising students, despite the fact that this was shown not to be the case. No sanction. Nancy Pelosi in 2017 tweeted "Our election was hijacked. There is no question. Congress has a duty to #ProtectOurDemocracy & #FollowTheFacts.". This was not subjected to a Twitter sanction. Sarah Jeong, a journalist posted disgraceful racist language, and she still has her account. These are untruths that damage, and they are permitted,and yet twitter is not sued because they claim they are merely a platform.. But you can't be a platform if you censor certain content.

    So by allowing a very severe slant to exist in their "platform", a platform which demonstrably influences the zeitgeist, tech companies are gaining a foothold in controlling politics.

    Is one way of viewing it. Another is that tech companies are getting more involved in mitigating extreme views. And that extreme views are gaining a foothold in mainstream politics.

    Ironically due to the unfettered nature of social media platforms..

    Either way I don't think there's some grande conspiracy here, rather a sea-change in approach to this sensitive issue


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    #67
    truth and logic
    Registered Users Posts: 26 ✭truth and logic


    Ok, so the fundemental problem is exposure to other people's ideas, which are very different from your own ideas. In the past that type of contact was minimised as different types of people lived in different places.

    Now, everyone lives on the internet, and so our different ways of living and our different ways of thinking are causing huge problems.

    People tend not to like other people's ideas and ways of living, if they're sufficiently different from their own. That leads to disagreement which cannot be resolved. Eventually the dam breaks and chaos ensues.

    Good fences make good neighbours but I don't know how to apply that online.


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    #68
    ShatterAlan
    Registered Users Posts: 2,807 ✭✭✭ShatterAlan


    Detritus70 wrote: »
    The same as people being banned from Online platforms.


    You've completely missed the entire point, haven't you?


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    #69
    ShatterAlan
    Registered Users Posts: 2,807 ✭✭✭ShatterAlan


    Fighting Tao wrote: »
    The times would edit and censor what they print too. They would generally be more severe than Twitter as the times wouldn’t even provide access to their platform in the first place.

    It is not a private companies responsibility to provide a platform for people to say what they want. If someone wants that ability then they should create their own platform.


    And that's EXACTLY what Parler did in 2018. They set up their own platform. In the past several months and leading up to the US elections it enjoyed unprecedented popularity and success. It embraced a much more open freedom of speech credo and much less repressive policing measures than the Silicon Valley tech giants. It has effectively been crushed by Twitter/Apple/Google.


    Here's an article by Glenn Greenwald that you might want to read:


    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56171.htm


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    #70
    Fighting Tao
    Registered Users Posts: 6,483 ✭✭✭Fighting Tao


    ShatterAlan wrote: »
    And that's EXACTLY what Parler did in 2018. They set up their own platform. In the past several months and leading up to the US elections it enjoyed unprecedented popularity and success. It embraced a much more open freedom of speech credo and much less repressive policing measures than the Silicon Valley tech giants. It has effectively been crushed by Twitter/Apple/Google.


    Here's an article by Glenn Greenwald that you might want to read:


    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56171.htm

    They piggybacked on other companies infrastructure. That is their mistake. Apple own iOS, Google own Android etc. They said that they would abide by the rules set by those companies, but they did not. The companies were very lenient allowing them flaunt the rules for so long.


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    #71
    Smacruairi
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,481 ✭✭✭Smacruairi


    Fighting Tao wrote: »
    They piggybacked on other companies infrastructure. That is their mistake. Apple own iOS, Google own Android etc. They said that they would abide by the rules set by those companies, but they did not. The companies were very lenient allowing them flaunt the rules for so long.

    But when these companies have a monopoly on infrastructure, it's prohibitive. They can't use ios or android, the only 2 players in the market as far as I can see, and amazon denied them servers apparently. So literally what else can they do?

    Again I'm not a user of Parler, and by all accounts I'm not missing out on much, but I think that this seems like a cartel trying to corner the use of the Internet, which influences everyone on the planet almost.


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    #72
    Fighting Tao
    Registered Users Posts: 6,483 ✭✭✭Fighting Tao


    Smacruairi wrote: »
    But when these companies have a monopoly on infrastructure, it's prohibitive. They can't use ios or android, the only 2 players in the market as far as I can see, and amazon denied them servers apparently. So literally what else can they do?

    They can do what used to be done. Travel from town to town by horse and cart and shout from a soap box. No one has the right to say or do as they wish on other peoples property.

    Alternatively they could use some of the grifted money and set up their own servers etc.


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    #73
    King Mob
    Registered Users Posts: 25,226 ✭✭✭✭King Mob


    Smacruairi wrote: »
    But when these companies have a monopoly on infrastructure, it's prohibitive. They can't use ios or android, the only 2 players in the market as far as I can see, and amazon denied them servers apparently. So literally what else can they do?

    Again I'm not a user of Parler, and by all accounts I'm not missing out on much, but I think that this seems like a cartel trying to corner the use of the Internet, which influences everyone on the planet almost.

    It's very easy to install programs on android without google market.
    It's also possible to make a web based service.

    There's also plenty of other places where they can get the servers they need.
    But no one has to deal with them if they don't want to.

    And there's nothing stopping them from developing their own infrastructure.

    The complaint seems to be that they don't get access to the ready made services and built in far reaching customer base more than "free speech."


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    #74
    Dohnjoe
    Registered Users Posts: 17,783 ✭✭✭✭Dohnjoe


    ShatterAlan wrote: »
    And that's EXACTLY what Parler did in 2018. They set up their own platform. In the past several months and leading up to the US elections it enjoyed unprecedented popularity and success. It embraced a much more open freedom of speech credo and much less repressive policing measures than the Silicon Valley tech giants. It has effectively been crushed by Twitter/Apple/Google.

    Parler is also full of extremists and loons abusing it's free speech to promote hate and violence. But you conveniently forget to mention that part. Few companies anywhere want anything to do with it.


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    #75
    Fighting Tao
    Registered Users Posts: 6,483 ✭✭✭Fighting Tao


    Claiming this is a conspiracy is like claiming that it is a conspiracy if I was barred from every pub on a street for repeatedly causing trouble in them.


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    #76
    Smacruairi
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,481 ✭✭✭Smacruairi


    Fighting Tao wrote: »
    Claiming this is a conspiracy is like claiming that it is a conspiracy if I was barred from every pub on a street for repeatedly causing trouble in them.

    It isn't, you're still not recognising the difference I have made several posts back. Please engage with me on the difference between a platform and a publisher if you wish to try to make that facile argument.

    If local shops, which are private entities, refused to serve Donald as they disagreed with him, would you support them? If bakeries refused to bake him a cake in support of twitter, would you support that too?


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    #77
    Dohnjoe
    Registered Users Posts: 17,783 ✭✭✭✭Dohnjoe


    Smacruairi wrote: »

    If local shops, which are private entities, refused to serve Donald as they disagreed with him, would you support them? If bakeries refused to bake him a cake in support of twitter, would you support that too?

    If they disagreed with his politics, no.
    If he abused their services, yes.


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    #78
    ShatterAlan
    Registered Users Posts: 2,807 ✭✭✭ShatterAlan


    Dohnjoe wrote: »
    Is one way of viewing it. Another is that tech companies are getting more involved in mitigating extreme views. And that extreme views are gaining a foothold in mainstream politics.

    Ironically due to the unfettered nature of social media platforms..

    Either way I don't think there's some grande conspiracy here, rather a sea-change in approach to this sensitive issue


    The conspiracy has been clearly pointed out to you which you have grudgingly accepted yet you just can't let it go.


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    #79
    silliussoddius
    Registered Users Posts: 3,735 ✭✭✭silliussoddius


    The internet is forever.
    https://twitter.com/parlertakes/status/1349243756881403905


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    #80
    ShatterAlan
    Registered Users Posts: 2,807 ✭✭✭ShatterAlan


    Detritus70 wrote: »
    Parler was a floating turd and thank god the chain was pulled. It was stinking up the joint.


    And who gets to determine what apps/platforms can exist and which ones can't?


    It think the majority would agree that Jaws 3 is a floating turd of a movie. Does that mean it's ok to ban it?


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    #81
    Dohnjoe
    Registered Users Posts: 17,783 ✭✭✭✭Dohnjoe


    ShatterAlan wrote: »
    The conspiracy has been clearly pointed out to you which you have grudgingly accepted yet you just can't let it go.

    Great, which post number? this one? https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=115900400&postcount=36

    That isn't a conspiracy, it's just a rambling world view of yours.


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    #82
    King Mob
    Registered Users Posts: 25,226 ✭✭✭✭King Mob


    ShatterAlan wrote: »
    And who gets to determine what apps/platforms can exist and which ones can't?


    It think the majority would agree that Jaws 3 is a floating turd of a movie. Does that mean it's ok to ban it?
    Cool so all the racists can come over to your house and use your garden to erect a billboard with all their views on it.

    No reason you could stop them. You don't get to determine what platforms can exist and which ones can't after all.


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    #83
    EyesClosed
    Registered Users Posts: 1,453 ✭✭✭EyesClosed


    Smacruairi wrote: »
    It isn't, you're still not recognising the difference I have made several posts back. Please engage with me on the difference between a platform and a publisher if you wish to try to make that facile argument.

    If local shops, which are private entities, refused to serve Donald as they disagreed with him, would you support them? If bakeries refused to bake him a cake in support of twitter, would you support that too?

    Like a bakery refusing to make a cake for a gay couple?


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    #84
    ShatterAlan
    Registered Users Posts: 2,807 ✭✭✭ShatterAlan


    Fighting Tao wrote: »
    They piggybacked on other companies infrastructure. That is their mistake. Apple own iOS, Google own Android etc. They said that they would abide by the rules set by those companies, but they did not. The companies were very lenient allowing them flaunt the rules for so long.


    That's not what happened. The knives were being sharpened for Parler some time ago. Parler afforded its users much higher degrees of privacy and freedom of speech than the SV tech giants. It also prevented monetization of user details to third parties. It was an upstart competitor and was subsequently crushed. Apple gave Parler 24 hours to change its policies and then effectively took the phone off the hook when Parler tried to reply.


    Whatever happened at Capitol Hill was for the most part orchestrated via Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. None of those arrested were Parler account holders.


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    #85
    silliussoddius
    Registered Users Posts: 3,735 ✭✭✭silliussoddius


    ShatterAlan wrote: »
    That's not what happened. The knives were being sharpened for Parler some time ago. Parler afforded its users much higher degrees of privacy and freedom of speech than the SV tech giants. It also prevented monetization of user details to third parties. It was an upstart competitor and was subsequently crushed. Apple gave Parler 24 hours to change its policies and then effectively took the phone off the hook when Parler tried to reply.


    Whatever happened at Capitol Hill was for the most part orchestrated via Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. None of those arrested were Parler account holders.

    And you know this because?


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    #86
    ShatterAlan
    Registered Users Posts: 2,807 ✭✭✭ShatterAlan


    Dohnjoe wrote: »
    Parler is also full of extremists and loons abusing it's free speech to promote hate and violence. But you conveniently forget to mention that part. Few companies anywhere want anything to do with it.


    So is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube.


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    #87
    ShatterAlan
    Registered Users Posts: 2,807 ✭✭✭ShatterAlan


    Fighting Tao wrote: »
    They can do what used to be done. Travel from town to town by horse and cart and shout from a soap box. No one has the right to say or do as they wish on other peoples property.

    Alternatively they could use some of the grifted money and set up their own servers etc.


    So you're effectively saying that the internet is the property of Google/Apple/Amazon.


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    #88
    King Mob
    Registered Users Posts: 25,226 ✭✭✭✭King Mob


    ShatterAlan wrote: »
    So you're effectively saying that the internet is the property of Google/Apple/Amazon.
    Again, there's nothing stopping them from setting up their website on other servers or starting their own.

    No company is obligated to provide a service to them, especially when they are unwilling and unable to abide by simple rules.


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    #89
    Dohnjoe
    Registered Users Posts: 17,783 ✭✭✭✭Dohnjoe


    ShatterAlan wrote: »
    So is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube.

    Yes but these have stricter rules. Parler rules are far less strict, which has made them to go to for the far-right.


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    #90
    ShatterAlan
    Registered Users Posts: 2,807 ✭✭✭ShatterAlan


    Fighting Tao wrote: »
    Claiming this is a conspiracy is like claiming that it is a conspiracy if I was barred from every pub on a street for repeatedly causing trouble in them.




    No it ISN'T and this has been pointed out time and time again. You just can't seem to get it into your head or you refuse to because your ego won't let you.


    Your pub analogy is weak. A better analogy would be that you open your own pub on the street but the handful of owners of the other pubs burn your premises to the ground and run you out of town because they don't look kindly on the fact that their punters are migrating to your establishment and they don't like the competition.


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    #91
    Smacruairi
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,481 ✭✭✭Smacruairi


    EyesClosed wrote: »
    Like a bakery refusing to make a cake for a gay couple?

    Exactly,same logic only flipped. That bakery refused to make one as they disagreed with their views (wrongly in my opinion) and got sued and destroyed by the media. They were a private business too, but the public mindset was completely different for most people. Funny that.


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