Are we really okay with the big tech companies having this much power? We just saw Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon collective destroy a competitor and censor a sitting President. Perhaps in these specific cases, they are justified. But these are actions that ought to be taken by governments, not businesses.
As someone who works in “big tech”, I don’t think we should have this power, especially when so selectively and reactively applied. We’ve all already heard all of the debates and I don’t wish to rehash it all. I’ve heard a lot of great arguments on all sides of the issue (and there are more than two), but the purpose of my comment is just to say that opinions within our community are not uniform. Not many of us speak our minds about it, unless we agree with the mainstream perspective of “this is fine ”.
I’d like to see more of a constitutional framework establishing some type of due process and equal access, personally.
We’re currently the sole arbitrators of who is allowed to speak to the world and who is not. And for all those who say “they’re welcome to go use a different platform”, well they did, and look what happens. Apple, Google, and Amazon can simply destroy a community within minutes, and we all applaud because we detest this particular community.
> We just saw Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon collective destroy a competitor
Highly problematic.
> We just saw Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon censor a sitting President
What are you talking about? He's the president. If he has something to say, there are a million ways for him to get the message out.
> But these are actions that ought to be taken by governments
A government compelling a person (or a private company) to publish something is in violation of the law in many countries, often a constitutional law (Example: That violates the first amendment quite clearly, in the USA). I also think most folks would find that highly suspect.
Bigger companies shutting out smaller ones is highly problematic, but then laws do exist to stop this (anti-trust laws). These probably need an update. Whatever update they get, if they prevent Parler's shutdown they went too far. I'm pretty sure that shutdown wasn't about 'eliminating' a competitor at all.
The analogy I've been using amongst friends/family, is that "big tech" has gone nuclear. The Bomb has gone from being a hypothetical to a reality. And no matter how much we do or don't agree with this particular target/application, we have to be aware that there's no putting this genie back in the bottle, and this is going to be an option in all future "wars".
It's a tortured and over-dramatic analogy, but I find it the easiest way to communicate the divide between not particularly wanting to defend this particular target, but still being uneasy that The Bomb even exists.
Maybe we should think about this in the opposite way - when a person tries overthrow the government they should be arrested. The problem isn't that people on twitter are getting banned from twitter from advocating/planning the murder of members of congress. It's that they're not getting arrested.
If we actually had functioning law enforcement for this stuff then we could actually have a proper discussion about what legal content what should be moderated and how.
If you only provide a forum, and give moderation power to users (block other users, select what they want), then let whatever speech happens there to happen.
However, if you (as a forum provider, social network, whatever) select the content to be viewed and promoted (either using a proprietary algorithm or human discretion), or you are optimizing for engagement, then you are responsible for moderation failures and suspensions.
You seem to be making an argument to nationalise these companies? Or are you making an argument that private companies shouldn't be able to decide who they provide services to?
There are thousands of better examples of Google etc having too much power than their eventual refusal to deal with the most famous and powerful man in the world, a man who can 100% rely on his every move being publicised in minute detail. It's a strange time for people to start caring about this stuff.
I am troubled by it, but has anything really changed? There have been mass purges of users before spam bots, accounts liked to the Islamic state, etc. Multiple hosting providers terminated Gab's services.
Usually large companies don't take action like this until they are under public scrutiny and have something to loose.
The mess the US is in right now can in some ways blamed on the way way it's democracy works: candidates can win elections with a plurality of the vote. This incentivizes highly partisan activities like gerrymandering and makes it more difficult for 3rd party to gain traction.
Most states and localities have closed primaries, meaning you need to be registered with a party to vote for a candidate. This takes power away from the people and puts it in the hands of the parties.
If the US puts measures in place that disincentivize partisan politics, we'll see less of the activity that comes along with it.
> But these are actions that ought to be taken by governments, not businesses.
I fully agree. And let's not ignore that leaders of the free world are pretty shocked by what's happening.
- German canceler, Angela Merkel: “This fundamental right can be intervened in, but according to the law and within the framework defined by legislators — not according to a decision by the management of social media platforms,” https://apnews.com/article/merkel-trump-twitter-problematic-...
- French minister, Bruno Le Maire: "Digital regulation should not be done by the digital oligarchy itself . . . Regulation of the digital arena is a matter for the sovereign people, governments and the judiciary." https://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/usa/presidentielle/donald-...
- Mexico president, Manuel Lopez Obrador: "‘Let’s see, I, as the judge of the Holy Inquisition, will punish you because I think what you’re saying is harmful,’” López Obrador said in an extensive, unprompted discourse on the subject. “Where is the law, where is the regulation, what are the norms? This is an issue of government, this is not an issue for private companies.”"https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/mexico-lea...
Should a president be allowed greater freedom of speech than a normal person?
These companies have been censoring certain groups for ages. One of my exes who self-identifies as an anarcho-Communist has been angry with what she sees a Facebook’s anti-left political censorship for at least seven years; and if you see her censorship as justified given her politics, there’s also stuff like this: https://andrewducker.dreamwidth.org/3936987.html
People have been begging for these companies to censor threats of violence for ages (meme is something like “Twitter: What changes would you like? Users: Remove the Nazis; Twitter: Timeline now scrolls sideways, likes are now called florps”)
The consensus response until now has been that corporations are private and have the right to kick off whoever they want. When I have suggested that their power to do so needed to be constrained the way governments are and for similar reasons, I got a lot of flack for it.
That said, I don’t have the American attitude to freedom of speech as an end in itself, rather I value it as an instrumental goal, so I’m a lot more comfortable with some censorship than many people on Hacker News, even though I still want as little as possible. As little as possible just isn’t “none” in my opinion.
It's a scary power for sure, given how centralized around a few services to have a voice that the Internet has become. Of course, there are more resilient solutions like Mastodon or even Darknet but they are geek solutions that the public are not aware of or care for. The discoverability of those from the websites Google Search, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok is basically zero.
I think one problem for those services is that if they'd allow this until explicit government action, they'd risk being completely overrun by very vocal antidemocratic crowds of people. Twitter recently banned 70,000 QAnon accounts besides Trump and then they couldn't do that either. Hell, Twitter already struggles and the atmosphere over there right now, despite all this, is really not all that great. Going by Twitter, you'd sometimes think that extremist groups had like 30% of the public vote...
> Are we really okay with the big tech companies having this much power?
Yes, absolutely. An alternate reading is that a sitting president ignored for years the contracts he agreed to when signing up to those services, and now he's not president they're finally getting around to enforcing those contracts.
It's not just big tech. It's pretty much every company that has any sort of business ties with the movement. It's really a bad example to point out because this isn't a few monopolistic companies cutting off his voice. It's practically every company in existence.
How do you propose countering Trump's power to whip up anger and hate on the far right with his lies?
COVID has taught me that single-minded commitment to human freedom is harmful in the long run, and that the curtailment of freedoms and exercise of power -- even absolute power -- is necessary to preserve the public good in certain situations. A dangerous demagogue like Trump, allowed to run loose on private platforms, presents a huge risk to those platforms and the nation itself.
> Perhaps in these specific cases, they are justified
Not justified at all. Nothing can justify censoring a sitting President and destroying a small competitor. America is on the wrong path. This I say as a observer of American politics. Big Tech has too much power in its hands now.
But is it censoring though, vs just not letting them use their services?
I don't visit facebook or twitter or apple sites at all, but I still see a lot of what Trump says in the news (e.g. BBC et al).
Have Facebook/Twitter/Apple censored Trump when I still hear his views all the time? Have Facebook et al got a lot of "power" here when really they have changed nothing for people like me?
Disclosure: I don't have any strong opinions on Trump or American politics in general.
I would take Parler as a test case off the table, as per their CEO even their bank and payment providers, and law firms, and mail and text providers all cancelled on them. Are you going to turn into a cash business?
It does seem like supporting the actions of a man deliberately provoking violence to overthrow a democratic result in a extra legal fashion should face consequences.
If Twitter and Google are now governments in their own right though I must have missed it. Just because the US is a dysfunctional plutocracy doesn't mean a few billionaires should have such control over what are modern day phone networks. Everything old is new again!
Big tech would be wise to bring down the walled gardens and implement federated protocols where possible not just where is necessary. Otherwise the world has new governments to interact with. I wonder how long that state I'd affairs can stand.
>It does seem like supporting the actions of a man deliberately provoking violence to overthrow a democratic result in a extra legal fashion should face consequences.
And when we have banned the accounts of all people that have supported the riots and the violence in the summer I could probably agree. But in my opinion there were minor to none punishments for condoning the violent, not only the non violent protests.
Maybe this is a ploy, maybe the tech companies want to be publishers and 230 to be changed. They have already invested the huge sums to set up a moderation infrastructure.
Then they won't have to worry about up-starts because they will first have to deal with the huge burden of creating a expensive content moderation system.
VC decks will have a section on content moderation plan. How they will solve this.
To me this seems like the tech companies are lobbying for regulation.
IANAL but in my understanding 230 is based on providers being proactive themselves and taking reasonable steps. They have very clear ToS laid out, and they are expected by same 230 to act on them. And bear with me, if they consider somebody does call for rioting using their platform, why's so unexpected from them to enforce said ToS? You could argue if you want to whether there was a call for riots or not, but if for the sake of argument we can pretend there was, they had to react precisely like this.
If this is their ploy it's a bad one. The US is currently a convenient place to base tech companies, but if the law makes it too difficult then people will just start tech companies outside of the US and block US users if necessary.
What I find funny is that something like Apple News that does have moderation in place (seasoned editors manually curating cross-sections of news sources)—you can actively read whatever Trump says there as his press releases will be widely covered by all forms of media from every corner of the political spectrum.
Not to say I think there's any ploy.
But I find it just a little funny that there seems to be a great deal of overlap of those who are decrying what they call censorship by online chat platforms—who they previously praised as the new alternative to "censorship" traditional media (who haven't "censored" anything).
Would you want to be forced to do business with someone you didn't want to work with? Why try to force a tech company to do it then?
Tech companies are private enterprises just like a bar. And just like a bar can refuse service to anyone outside of a small set of protected classes. If you get kicked out of one bar, just go to another or start your own.
Seems less than coincidental they banned him until the inauguration. I would really like to hear what specifically in the videos he posted caused them to ban him - or whether they just viewed it as an obvious route for him to repeat what he had done on twitter, and chose not to let it get to that level.
Well twitter banned him, among other reasons, because his tweet “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.” "may also serve as encouragement to those potentially considering violent acts that the Inauguration would be a “safe” target, as he will not be attending." [1]
Which seems to be somewhat scraping the bottom of the barrel of credibility, as is some of the other reasoning. Some other gems:
- "The use of the words “American Patriots” to describe some of his supporters is also being interpreted as support for those committing violent acts at the US Capitol."
- "The mention of his supporters having a “GIANT VOICE long into the future” and that “They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” is being interpreted as further indication that President Trump does not plan to facilitate an “orderly transition” and instead that he plans to continue to support, empower, and shield those who believe he won the election."
I think they kinda fucked up letting him back on in the first place and are now left nit picking two mostly benign tweets because they don't know what else to do. The most egregious tweets were not the two they cite.
I still believe the solution is to handle social media like email. Have a common protocol that all providers use, have multiple providers, allow providers to remove abusers, and give users the ability to block.
That's my problem with this type of censorship - now I want to know what was so bad YouTube felt the need to remove it. If it's that bad and was said by the President, it seems like it may be something I should know, but now I can't easily know. Why do tech companies get to decide what information the average person can or can't easily see? Part of the blame is on Trump for posting all this stuff on these websites instead of somewhere like whitehouse.gov.
Let's say he hypothetically called on his supporters to commit a terrorist attack at the inauguration. Now Youtube is putting anyone who attends the inauguration in danger, because they are withholding information from them.
I was able to find the video which triggered the suspension. Google didn't help me find it, by the way. Strictly speaking, he doesn't call for violence but instead tells people to go home in peace.
What he does say is that the election was fraudulent. This seems to be the illegal utterance. And by "legal", I mean a rule laid down by the relevant authority.
I feel like Donald Trump is not the good example to argue against the power to deplatform. He is an internet troll who calls for violent action to overthrow the elected government. You can't be tolerant of that kind of intolerance, or your democracy will not survive it.
In general though, I feel like deplatforming someone is something you should be able to challenge in front of a judge, just like being refused entry to a public business is something you can challenge in front of a judge. For healthy online debate, you need to have the ability to remove trolls from a platform, but the standard of who is or is not a troll cannot be set by the platform itself.
TV News channels kept on aggressively fact checking Trump, I just don't know if it had any impact on the real danger of people believing his lies.
These moves would eventually lower trust in Big Tech among conservatives to a point that more conspiracy theories will rise.
This makes methink we are about to see a Golden Age of conspiracy theories. Something that makes 'Q Annon' stuff look like peer reviewed paper in science.
Where’s the line? Do I need to think about unplugging my Google Home Mini? For the record, when I said I’d kill for some sushi, I didn’t mean it literally.
The problem for me is ignoring the idea of debating with the intent to find the middle ground for common good.
Populism is not invented by Trump or the radical right. Populism is an instrument for ignoring the debate by giving an "accessible storyline" to the people.
You can exercise your critical thinking by listening to these two gentlemen.
Commenting on previous videos that were not in violation of terms of service have been disabled “indefinitely”. Same situation with Facebook/Instagram, but I’m not aware if there was a term of service violation there.
Is this censoring Donald Trump, his supporters, bots, or his opposers?
Consider that Jake and Logan Paul’s channels are still up despite repeat offenses including the Japan suicide forest video.
Many of these companies have held terms of conduct which condone enabling violence on their platforms. While they have failed to moderate the entirety of their platform, it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t de-platform the cause of the coup attempt.
Trump has many avenues to address the nation, of which he had no hesitation to use when he made claims that the election was stolen - how many of you stayed up election night to watch this?
Not to mention as I write this Republicans are saying we shouldn’t impeach Trump because of “peace and unity” after a Munich Putsch-like attempt. Just now I read an article that panic buttons were disabled during the coup attempt, and some of the participators were given a full tour on Jan 5th to prepare.
Reach on these platforms indoctrinates people into an extremist movement. These companies do not need to serve individuals if it violates their terms of conduct. It is not unconstitutional for them to do so. This is the responsibility they hold given the impact of their platforms.
[+] [-] jasonlfunk|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rzz3|5 years ago|reply
I’d like to see more of a constitutional framework establishing some type of due process and equal access, personally.
We’re currently the sole arbitrators of who is allowed to speak to the world and who is not. And for all those who say “they’re welcome to go use a different platform”, well they did, and look what happens. Apple, Google, and Amazon can simply destroy a community within minutes, and we all applaud because we detest this particular community.
[+] [-] rzwitserloot|5 years ago|reply
Highly problematic.
> We just saw Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon censor a sitting President
What are you talking about? He's the president. If he has something to say, there are a million ways for him to get the message out.
> But these are actions that ought to be taken by governments
A government compelling a person (or a private company) to publish something is in violation of the law in many countries, often a constitutional law (Example: That violates the first amendment quite clearly, in the USA). I also think most folks would find that highly suspect.
Bigger companies shutting out smaller ones is highly problematic, but then laws do exist to stop this (anti-trust laws). These probably need an update. Whatever update they get, if they prevent Parler's shutdown they went too far. I'm pretty sure that shutdown wasn't about 'eliminating' a competitor at all.
[+] [-] soneil|5 years ago|reply
The analogy I've been using amongst friends/family, is that "big tech" has gone nuclear. The Bomb has gone from being a hypothetical to a reality. And no matter how much we do or don't agree with this particular target/application, we have to be aware that there's no putting this genie back in the bottle, and this is going to be an option in all future "wars".
It's a tortured and over-dramatic analogy, but I find it the easiest way to communicate the divide between not particularly wanting to defend this particular target, but still being uneasy that The Bomb even exists.
[+] [-] Traster|5 years ago|reply
If we actually had functioning law enforcement for this stuff then we could actually have a proper discussion about what legal content what should be moderated and how.
[+] [-] js8|5 years ago|reply
If you only provide a forum, and give moderation power to users (block other users, select what they want), then let whatever speech happens there to happen.
However, if you (as a forum provider, social network, whatever) select the content to be viewed and promoted (either using a proprietary algorithm or human discretion), or you are optimizing for engagement, then you are responsible for moderation failures and suspensions.
[+] [-] sanitycheck|5 years ago|reply
There are thousands of better examples of Google etc having too much power than their eventual refusal to deal with the most famous and powerful man in the world, a man who can 100% rely on his every move being publicised in minute detail. It's a strange time for people to start caring about this stuff.
[+] [-] hahamrfunnyguy|5 years ago|reply
Usually large companies don't take action like this until they are under public scrutiny and have something to loose.
The mess the US is in right now can in some ways blamed on the way way it's democracy works: candidates can win elections with a plurality of the vote. This incentivizes highly partisan activities like gerrymandering and makes it more difficult for 3rd party to gain traction.
Most states and localities have closed primaries, meaning you need to be registered with a party to vote for a candidate. This takes power away from the people and puts it in the hands of the parties.
If the US puts measures in place that disincentivize partisan politics, we'll see less of the activity that comes along with it.
[+] [-] kome|5 years ago|reply
I fully agree. And let's not ignore that leaders of the free world are pretty shocked by what's happening.
- German canceler, Angela Merkel: “This fundamental right can be intervened in, but according to the law and within the framework defined by legislators — not according to a decision by the management of social media platforms,” https://apnews.com/article/merkel-trump-twitter-problematic-...
- French minister, Bruno Le Maire: "Digital regulation should not be done by the digital oligarchy itself . . . Regulation of the digital arena is a matter for the sovereign people, governments and the judiciary." https://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/usa/presidentielle/donald-...
- Mexico president, Manuel Lopez Obrador: "‘Let’s see, I, as the judge of the Holy Inquisition, will punish you because I think what you’re saying is harmful,’” López Obrador said in an extensive, unprompted discourse on the subject. “Where is the law, where is the regulation, what are the norms? This is an issue of government, this is not an issue for private companies.”"https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/mexico-lea...
[+] [-] ben_w|5 years ago|reply
These companies have been censoring certain groups for ages. One of my exes who self-identifies as an anarcho-Communist has been angry with what she sees a Facebook’s anti-left political censorship for at least seven years; and if you see her censorship as justified given her politics, there’s also stuff like this: https://andrewducker.dreamwidth.org/3936987.html
People have been begging for these companies to censor threats of violence for ages (meme is something like “Twitter: What changes would you like? Users: Remove the Nazis; Twitter: Timeline now scrolls sideways, likes are now called florps”)
The consensus response until now has been that corporations are private and have the right to kick off whoever they want. When I have suggested that their power to do so needed to be constrained the way governments are and for similar reasons, I got a lot of flack for it.
That said, I don’t have the American attitude to freedom of speech as an end in itself, rather I value it as an instrumental goal, so I’m a lot more comfortable with some censorship than many people on Hacker News, even though I still want as little as possible. As little as possible just isn’t “none” in my opinion.
[+] [-] jug|5 years ago|reply
I think one problem for those services is that if they'd allow this until explicit government action, they'd risk being completely overrun by very vocal antidemocratic crowds of people. Twitter recently banned 70,000 QAnon accounts besides Trump and then they couldn't do that either. Hell, Twitter already struggles and the atmosphere over there right now, despite all this, is really not all that great. Going by Twitter, you'd sometimes think that extremist groups had like 30% of the public vote...
[+] [-] DanBC|5 years ago|reply
Yes, absolutely. An alternate reading is that a sitting president ignored for years the contracts he agreed to when signing up to those services, and now he's not president they're finally getting around to enforcing those contracts.
[+] [-] ionwake|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bcrosby95|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitwize|5 years ago|reply
COVID has taught me that single-minded commitment to human freedom is harmful in the long run, and that the curtailment of freedoms and exercise of power -- even absolute power -- is necessary to preserve the public good in certain situations. A dangerous demagogue like Trump, allowed to run loose on private platforms, presents a huge risk to those platforms and the nation itself.
[+] [-] shripadk|5 years ago|reply
Not justified at all. Nothing can justify censoring a sitting President and destroying a small competitor. America is on the wrong path. This I say as a observer of American politics. Big Tech has too much power in its hands now.
[+] [-] redis_mlc|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] wtfiswiththis|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mattlondon|5 years ago|reply
I don't visit facebook or twitter or apple sites at all, but I still see a lot of what Trump says in the news (e.g. BBC et al).
Have Facebook/Twitter/Apple censored Trump when I still hear his views all the time? Have Facebook et al got a lot of "power" here when really they have changed nothing for people like me?
Disclosure: I don't have any strong opinions on Trump or American politics in general.
[+] [-] watwut|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] threatofrain|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marksbrown|5 years ago|reply
If Twitter and Google are now governments in their own right though I must have missed it. Just because the US is a dysfunctional plutocracy doesn't mean a few billionaires should have such control over what are modern day phone networks. Everything old is new again!
Big tech would be wise to bring down the walled gardens and implement federated protocols where possible not just where is necessary. Otherwise the world has new governments to interact with. I wonder how long that state I'd affairs can stand.
[+] [-] ReptileMan|5 years ago|reply
And when we have banned the accounts of all people that have supported the riots and the violence in the summer I could probably agree. But in my opinion there were minor to none punishments for condoning the violent, not only the non violent protests.
[+] [-] atc|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] godmode2019|5 years ago|reply
Then they won't have to worry about up-starts because they will first have to deal with the huge burden of creating a expensive content moderation system.
VC decks will have a section on content moderation plan. How they will solve this.
To me this seems like the tech companies are lobbying for regulation.
[+] [-] soco|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mantap|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 52-6F-62|5 years ago|reply
Not to say I think there's any ploy.
But I find it just a little funny that there seems to be a great deal of overlap of those who are decrying what they call censorship by online chat platforms—who they previously praised as the new alternative to "censorship" traditional media (who haven't "censored" anything).
[+] [-] ceilingcorner|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] runawaybottle|5 years ago|reply
They will trade favors.
[+] [-] rapsey|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkl95|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] silexia|5 years ago|reply
Tech companies are private enterprises just like a bar. And just like a bar can refuse service to anyone outside of a small set of protected classes. If you get kicked out of one bar, just go to another or start your own.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Traster|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cheph|5 years ago|reply
Which seems to be somewhat scraping the bottom of the barrel of credibility, as is some of the other reasoning. Some other gems:
- "The use of the words “American Patriots” to describe some of his supporters is also being interpreted as support for those committing violent acts at the US Capitol."
- "The mention of his supporters having a “GIANT VOICE long into the future” and that “They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” is being interpreted as further indication that President Trump does not plan to facilitate an “orderly transition” and instead that he plans to continue to support, empower, and shield those who believe he won the election."
I think they kinda fucked up letting him back on in the first place and are now left nit picking two mostly benign tweets because they don't know what else to do. The most egregious tweets were not the two they cite.
[1]: https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspensio...
[+] [-] jinpa_zangpo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Miner49er|5 years ago|reply
That's my problem with this type of censorship - now I want to know what was so bad YouTube felt the need to remove it. If it's that bad and was said by the President, it seems like it may be something I should know, but now I can't easily know. Why do tech companies get to decide what information the average person can or can't easily see? Part of the blame is on Trump for posting all this stuff on these websites instead of somewhere like whitehouse.gov.
Let's say he hypothetically called on his supporters to commit a terrorist attack at the inauguration. Now Youtube is putting anyone who attends the inauguration in danger, because they are withholding information from them.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] 838812052807016|5 years ago|reply
What he does say is that the election was fraudulent. This seems to be the illegal utterance. And by "legal", I mean a rule laid down by the relevant authority.
[+] [-] dkobia|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Joeri|5 years ago|reply
In general though, I feel like deplatforming someone is something you should be able to challenge in front of a judge, just like being refused entry to a public business is something you can challenge in front of a judge. For healthy online debate, you need to have the ability to remove trolls from a platform, but the standard of who is or is not a troll cannot be set by the platform itself.
[+] [-] RickJWagner|5 years ago|reply
How is this different?
https://twitter.com/speakerpelosi/status/864522009048494080?...
[+] [-] strategyanalyst|5 years ago|reply
These moves would eventually lower trust in Big Tech among conservatives to a point that more conspiracy theories will rise.
This makes methink we are about to see a Golden Age of conspiracy theories. Something that makes 'Q Annon' stuff look like peer reviewed paper in science.
[+] [-] peytn|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nbzso|5 years ago|reply
You can exercise your critical thinking by listening to these two gentlemen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsWndfzuOc4
[+] [-] alephnan|5 years ago|reply
Is this censoring Donald Trump, his supporters, bots, or his opposers?
Consider that Jake and Logan Paul’s channels are still up despite repeat offenses including the Japan suicide forest video.
[+] [-] mkl95|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fsociety|5 years ago|reply
Trump has many avenues to address the nation, of which he had no hesitation to use when he made claims that the election was stolen - how many of you stayed up election night to watch this?
Not to mention as I write this Republicans are saying we shouldn’t impeach Trump because of “peace and unity” after a Munich Putsch-like attempt. Just now I read an article that panic buttons were disabled during the coup attempt, and some of the participators were given a full tour on Jan 5th to prepare.
Reach on these platforms indoctrinates people into an extremist movement. These companies do not need to serve individuals if it violates their terms of conduct. It is not unconstitutional for them to do so. This is the responsibility they hold given the impact of their platforms.