Remember when Rudy was “America’s Mayor”? When he was standing stoic on SNL helping us feel good after 9/11? Now he’s the fool with hair dye dripping down his face calling press conferences outside a porn shop. Or his star witness is drunk Xanax’d out Karen reciting online conspiracy theories before congress. And now he’s not even getting paid. He got chumped.
Decades of federal pound me in the butt prison looks like a certainty for those who entered the Capitol: Big gun charges will hit once Trump is out of office I bet.
Not to get too political on a political discussion... I was listening to some right wing talk radio this morning report with glee that one “leftist agitator” was arrested and how the left “just can’t stop stepping on the rake”. I lol’d. It was pretty funny.
Which is why Fox News needs to be deplatformed immediately. They are going to incite another terrorist attack. Cable and satellite providers need to decide if they really want to be associated with domestic terrorism, deranged conspiracy theories, and violent extremism. The direction Fox has gone in lately is extremely dangerous and isn't something that deserves a mainstream platform. They're also risking having the FBI and federal prosecutors come after them for sedition. They would stop if they knew what was good for them. Trump ruined his life and reputation by not knowing when to shut up. Will Fox News be next? I'm all for the right having a voice. But what's going on right now would be the equivalent of the left giving the stage over to some violent communist terrorist group like Khmer Rouge or something.
Left wing activists/ terrorists have been rioting and harming people for quite some time. Even alternative progressive media like TYT has got people killed such as with Gavin Long, who used to do videos on YT discussing TYT's cop bashing videos (I've seen them and thought the guy was a nutcase; I'm sure they've been scrubbed now) before he went out and actually murdered police himself. Most of the media pushed fake stories like the "hands up don't shoot" nonsense and a myriad of other dishonest stories to get people riled up and inflame racial tensions. Most of the corporate media is diseased, manipulative, and deeply corrupt. I wish it was just Fox News, but it definitely is not.
@bfun Lack of moderation on social media is a big part of the problem. These platforms don't enforce their rules all that much. There's way too much extremist stuff within easy reach of weak-minded people, and it's turning some of them into brainwashed nutjobs. Add incitement of violence and deliberate spread of misinformation that rarely get moderated and you've got a dangerous mix. I'm a big believer in deplatforming. Send this stuff to the fringes of the internet where it belongs and where it can't radicalize lots of dumb people. It doesn't violate anyone's 1A rights. This is literally capitalism. Companies deciding not to do business with dangerous people. Some viewpoints don't deserve a mainstream platform. And once this stuff is harder to find it loses a lot of its power. Otherwise sane, normal people rarely follow it to the fringes. And when they aren't bombarded with it constantly, they tend to deradicalize on their own.
The "it's a private company and they can do whatever they want" position sounds strikingly similar to what I've heard from the Koch Bros for quite some time, a sentiment that seems to have suddenly become very popular with the authoritarian left within the past few years. Seems like there are massive monopolistic corporations making decisions about what constitutes acceptable ideas and who is able to communicate with others. Big tech companies have FAR too much power currently. If you disagree, try to picture how you'd react if they were overwhelmingly pro-Trump or some other individual you find to be immensely distasteful politically and aggressively pushed their views and censored dissent from them. When I was a kid, the ACLU actually used to defend the free speech of groups like Westboro and the Klan, yet miraculously these fringe weirdos did not take over the world. In fact, they barely exist at this point. Most of the attention these groups were getting was from the corporate media with sensationalized bullshit, not because they weren't censored heavily enough. Most people don't give a fuck about those clowns censored or not. Westboro has their own social media accounts and even their own website. When was the last time you thought about them? Extremist fundamentalist Christian groups, which usually included some combination of "American," "family," and "Christian" in the title and pretty much a guarantee they blamed every problem in history on gay people, tried to censor and ban everything in the 80s and 90s because it was "obscene" and "profane." How prominent and influential are these groups now? Pretty much the reverse of everything they pushed is now popular, particularly acceptance towards LGBT rights, these religious wingnuts' biggest nightmare.
Free speech is fine but there are limits. A platform erring on the side of caution when its user is inciting riot and insurrection is kind of par for the course. If they have a violation of the t&c then what do you expect? They have to sue every user YouTube demonetizes? People were calling for Trumps removal from Twitter for years for various violations. Mirror accounts reposting the exact content of his account were disciplined and suspended and/or banned. It is also no secret that they held him to a different standard because he was the president. This is akin to the editorial section of a newspaper. No one is obligated to publish and distribute anything anyone says. Paper, ink, and gasoline cost money just like bandwidth, storage space, and development. These platforms have as much power as you give them. I get it, you got to keep up with Jones’ and whoever from high school. But you can’t plan a revolution without getting banned. Or arrested. There is a difference between people plotting to assassinate elected officials and people just hating on the gays. Misinformation on the election is crying fire in a crowded movie theater. Will our rights get eroded? We all live through the pre and post 911 patriot act world. It sucks but this is what happens when people go running around crying wolf all the time. This is why we can’t have nice things, because some people don’t know how to behave like an adult.
And weren’t those westboros stalking funerals and such? That is literally the definition of American free speech — stand on the corner and shout your nonsense and you cannot be put in jail. Social media is a vastly different scenario.
Social media is the equivalent of giving these people space in a newspaper or on TV. In fact I'd say it has a much greater reach than either of those things and it doesn't have the same level of moderation. Newspapers and TV shows have producers, editors, and legal teams making sure things don't get out of hand. Westboro and the KKK were fringe groups that you had to go way out of your way to find and nobody would have given them space in a newspaper or on TV to spread their hate. Basically they never would have had a platform in the first place. If they had been given a large platform I have no doubt they would have radicalized large numbers of people. White Nationalism is nearly identical to the ideology of the Klan, and it has radicalized a huge group of people because it was given a huge platform. People in general are really dumb and really easy to brainwash with propaganda. Also if you force a company to provide a platform, you are actually infringing on that company's right to free speech. Or at least that's currently how our laws work. I'm going to say something that you are going to find distasteful. I think smart people have a duty to protect dumb people from bad ideas and misinformation. As covid has demonstrated, misinformation can get you killed. Deplatforming is a way for us to do this with our current laws.
Westboro was on the news all the time when I was a kid. The media also pushed lots of Klan scares despite the organization itself withering. Newspapers are also not worldwide and providing input from any individual citizen from their laptop or phone. Some people run their businesses through social media. It's a lot closer to a utility or telephone communication at this point. Imagine if you were denied phone service because you were suspected of being a radial Biden supporter. Right. What sort of situation are we going to be in if this clownshow becomes the main outlet for information? It's not just violent Nazis who are being banned and censored, and eventually more people you might like or agree with will also be banned and censored, and not for the reasons you expect or find to be justified. That's just the way free speech works. You have to deal with a few fringe loons to actually have the freedom to say what you want. I'm really not concerned about debating white supremacists or radical leftists for that matter. I have many times, and they are on the wrong side of the facts. Why are we scared to debate morons who are going to get stomped into the ground any real debate? Many of the Westboro loons were actually attorneys and typically managed to say and express what they wanted. No one really cares now, and society has moved further and further away from their loony ideas such as the anti-gay bullshit. Censorship didn't destroy them. It was barely even a factor. Far superior values and ideas did. Many of the censorship advocates of the 80s and 90s were fundamentalist Christian wingnuts, and they had real influence in government at that time. Very little of their vile ideas were censored, yet their ideas utterly failed. Western society is the most pro-gay rights it has ever been, a welcome change to how things were 20 to 25 years ago. Censorship had almost nothing to do with it.
Doing a news story about Westboro or the Klan isn't the same thing as turning the stage over to their ideology. They can say whatever they want. They can rave on the street corner with the other derelicts. I'm talking about taking away the stage and the megaphone. A more recent and more relevant example would be Alex Jones. He had a cult of followers who did horrible things like harass the families of murdered school children from Sandy Hook. Deplatforming was very effective in taking him down. You don't hear much about him. He has lost his ability to radicalize new people. He was driven to the fringes of the internet and hardly anyone followed him there. He can still say whatever he wants. We just aren't giving him the stage he once had.
Of course arrest the violent dullards who rushed the Capitol or organized that abortion. That is happening, and those clowns are done. Most of the recent purging was not related to that. Some people just discussing this topic, most of whom are vehemently against it, are getting demonetized, banned, ect. My concern is I don't want all the discussion to come from mainstream media and social justice activists. Enforcement of these ambiguous terms of service is incredibly inconsistent and at the whim of multinational corporations. I've seen vile shit from terrorists and gangs up on social media, yet people mocking activist journalists with the innocuous phrase "learn to code" were instantly banned. Mobs of activist loons are permitted to endlessly torment dissenters, but retaliation (of the legal, verbal manner) will get you purged. I think this is going to have many undesirable, unintended consequences down the road that will affect everyone.
I’ll be honest. This barely effects me. I cut cable out years ago, only have poorly maintained (as in not checked in years) Facebook/Twitter/whatever accounts, and get my news from Apple news and some far left subreddits. I am well entertained but rather uninformed outside of election years. So when I hear about people getting booted for whatever on Instagram, I think “why you tying your life to the gram?” not “rights are being restricted”. It’s a matter of perspective. I suppose if I was trying to make a living off being internet famous, or trying to show off my confederate flags and African savanna kills for clout... yeah it could feel like my freedoms were being trampled. But are they really? One thing you brought up, [mention]AKS [/mention], that I hadn’t considered was the comparison to a phone company. It’s an interesting analogy. Personally, I compare them to the postal service. But I suppose social media platforms are a blend of the two plus some newspaper mixed in. Really a unique beast in terms of communications. I think the answer is if people feel damaged by uneven applications of the tos, they can litigate. Washington state has laws against discrimination over political affiliation, maybe others do too. A better, more American solution? Take your business elsewhere. Or better, don’t even play that game. Like I said, I haven’t and I’m none the lesser for it. But I’ll stick to the argument that unless they are discriminating against a protected group then they can probably do whatever they want. The free speech thing doesn’t really apply here and it would be very tricky to prove anyways. And although it’s an interesting comparison, these aren’t utilities, you don’t get municipal Facebook like running water or electricity. Hell, you don’t even pay for it. And get ready for more of it. Cancel culture is here to stay. Gen Z is the most tolerant generation yet, and the least tolerant of intolerance. Each year the kids lean into the SJW style more. And I fear that, for better or worse, the right wing conservative is being painted as intolerant. They are the new Parent/Teacher group going after sexy lady wrestlers in the 90s. Or whoever went after Nintendo for putting shrooms in kids games in the 80s. Yes, they’ve become everything they vowed to destroy. Honestly, I blame copyright laws. It’s made it very easy to take down content at the drop of a hat. They’d rather just remove the offending material than risk the lawsuit. And if all the kids want something and are reporting it or whatever, you bet your ass the company’s are going to comply. They can’t risk the data/user loss.
no joke. these people screaming omg muh free speech being taken away don't even know what that means. hell, twitch streamers are dealing with the fact that they're banning people for just saying the word simp there now. when you're using someone else's platform, you play by their rules.
Just build your own Facebook or Twitter? That's quite obviously not something many have the resources to do. Even those that have tried to create competition can get choked out of existence via monopolistic practices, i.e., larger companies can just yank the infrastructure right out from under you (collude to block payment, advertising, distribution of your app, block you from using servers, ect.) unless you also build all those things from the ground up yourself, also an enormous cost very few are capable of doing. It barely affects me directly also. The majority of what is being purged are views I don't particularly like. I do not have a Twitter account, and I check my Facebook account 2 or 3 times per year. My concern is a few enormous corporations deciding what the rest of the world is allowed to say and who can say it, and I do not believe their moderation and curation have my best interests or anyone else's best interests as high priorities.