If wal-mart stops selling a brand of ice cream, is that censorship? Is it censorship that wal-mart doesn't sell playboy in their store?
If not, then why is the removal of an app from the app store censorship? The world wide web still exists. Parler is still on the internet.
Seems like there should be some acknowledgement that there's a difference between refusing to actively participate in distributing content and censorship.
I think a better analogy is saying, oh, you've banned newspapers, but who cares, you can still talk to people in person.
Which is to say, it's true, & that's a good thing, but that doesn't mean that the censorship itself isn't bad.
The most effective, most powerful communication medium that exists right now is native apps for social networks on smartphones. If 100% of that medium is controlled and censored by two companies, that means those two companies exert a massive influence on what kinds of communication society as a whole will have.
If you believe in the general principle of free speech (not just strict legal interpretations of say the 1A), that's not a good thing.
We did this to ourselves by integrating Google/Apple products into our every day life. 20-15 years ago we didn’t have any of it and still led mighty fine lives. Yes, private companies are free to do this stuff to us, but we only have ourselves to blame.
This is more akin to Walmart not selling certain magazines or books because they don't like their (political) content. You could also compare it to when the Catholic Church had a black list of "heretical" books and pressured their removal. Both are legal, but maybe not desirable?
There are tens (hundrends?) of alternative ways of selling ice-cream other than walmart, there are 2 ways to to get access to Parler for most people, either through the browser or an app - you're cutting off the easiest way for most people to gain access to that content through a phone - do you see the difference between what's happening and your analogy?
This is assuming services like Cloudflare and hosting services won't cut Parler - they've done this before
Give me an ability to buy ice cream in a different store, and I would have no problem with that. However, on Apple devices you are locked to AppStore, and modern Android devices, while still giving you an ability to sideload apps, have severe limitations on their functionality without access to google play services (chiefly, push notifications are a must for any communication app)
Suppose Google releases an update to Chrome that prevents it from loading problematic websites. What really is the difference, in your mind, between removal from the app store and what I described? Or would you also find that scenario acceptable?
When Hollywood voluntarily removed certain movies and ideas during the black list it was justified for the same reason these bans are justified: these ideas are harmful to society. And it was deemed censorship. In fact it’s an archetypal example of censorship. Government action isn’t required unless you’re talking about the 1A.
And this is yet another escalation on the road that started with “we’re just going to censor tweets that literally say the sky is green.” Google has banned an entire social network.
It’s exactly what social conservatives did back when they controlled the levers of government and industry in the mid-20th century. They prevented liberals from spreading their ideas, because that could cause social unrest, violence, etc. (And there was violence, such as anarchist leftist bombings.)
> If wal-mart stops selling a brand of ice cream, is that censorship?
If WalMart sold ice cream to white people, but not to black people, that would be pretty awful both morally and it would be illegal.
The thing with speech is it is inherently attached to a person. There is no speech in a vacuum. Google has basically said that certain people shouldn't be able to speak. As politics is a personal belief like religion, it is sad it is not a protected civil right. But that's what this is--saying certain people can express their beliefs, but others can't.
You have Wal-Mart, Target, Wal-greens, CVS, BestBuy, MicroCenter, tons of mom-and-pop stores (until all the world leaders drove all of them to bankruptcy due to COVID)
Say you had two stores: Walmarket and Toget. That's it. That's all you got. Toget stops telling a brand of ice cream and you literally cannot sell it anywhere else other than Toget and Walmarket because someone would have to drive 2 hours out of their way each time to buy your Ice Cream.
I seriously can't identify with this viewpoint. There's no censorship here- parler still exists, people are still free to share their (abhorrent) viewpoints there, Google is just choosing not to amplify the voices of people that have proven themselves capable of and prone to violence. All the pearl-clutching over free speech is totally overblown.
Just because you have to go directly to the website doesn't mean it's censored. Google, Apple, FB, Twitter, etc are not in the business of supporting outlier extremism in our society. Claiming censorship because they don't want to platform that stuff is ridiculous.
Imagine a Jewish-owned store being forced to sell nazi paraphernalia because not selling it is censorship. The users of parler or gab are just mad these huge companies are taking a stand. Engaging with their tantrum only gives them a platform, even if it's just a small personal one, and is clearly bad. Do we argue with crazies on the street yelling "The end is nigh!" every day? No.
It's important to distinguish that "not deleting something" is NOT the same as amplifying it.
Amplifying it would be pasting images and links to Parler all over the Google Play splash page and all over the Google Play website, sending emails to all its gmail users to download Parler, or inserting Parler ads into some % of its ad impressions.
They aren't doing that. "Leave it alone" is not the same thing as amplification, that's literally the distinction that is made in Section 230.
The ONLY thing being asked for is that Parler polices itself (or the authorities get involved where appropriate), and that Google and Apple leave it be because all they do is serve as the conduit to get it onto the device they control.
That is the way the world SHOULD work. No it doesn't give you the adrenaline rush of enforcing your desires on the world, but that's not a good thing to be enabling in the first place.
If they had no control over the stores used to get apps on devices, the whole question would be moot. Their duopoly leads to this issue. Frankly, that control should be taken away.
You have to discern what people here are really outraged about - and sadly, it's not free speech or constitutional rights or any real high principle. Those are just intellectual cover.
After all, you don't see people clamoring in shock and about "unsettled" feelings regarding the moderation that happens here on HN.
It is censorship when those preventing freedom of speech are monopolies.
When a small number of companies make it difficult to communicate via our main communication device, and there are no viable alternatives, then a fundamental right is being suppressed.
There is no marketplace of ideas when there is no marketplace,
> choosing not to amplify the voices of people that have proven themselves capable of and prone to violence
Then why not ban Twitter as well? I could show you hundreds of tweets from little known left-wing activists inciting violence during the BLM protests. This double standard tells us that the rationale given for banning Parler is just an excuse. The real reason is that executives in these companies are doing what their most vocal employees and the liberal media are pressuring them to do.
This decision, in and of itself, doesn't seem particularly unprecedented or untoward to me. Every store, including the Google Play Store, has a right to choose what products it wants to carry, for pretty much any reason whatsoever, including for political reasons. It's probably pretty difficult to find copies of The Turner Diaries in your local Barnes and Noble, and I'd be even more surprised to find a copy of The Vagina Monologues in a Lifeway.
What makes this scary is not that stores are choosing what products to sell. What makes it scary is that, at least in this segment of the economy, there are exactly two stores, and picking at least one of them to shop at is very nearly a precondition for participating in modern society. This gives Google and Apple a degree of influence over peoples' lives that one could quite reasonably recognize as quasi-governmental, and that is worrisome.
I own a kindle fire tablet. I wanted to use an app from a competing service, but alas it wasn’t in the Amazon App Store. No problem though, I installed the google store on my tablet, and downloaded it. Side loading would have also worked.
Isn’t this what android users have boasted of for so long to apple fans? There isn’t only one store. In the case of Parlor, you can probably just use a browser even.
Natural rights existed all governments all religions and all systems. Create a system that diminishes natural rights and by the Organic Law, it is our duty to alter or abolish such systems.
Censorship opposes the free market of ideas. Maybe it's a private company, but it doesn't make sense to use that principle to justify a behavior that kills free markets, economic or not.
At best it's hypocritical, taking advantage of competition at the market level, but then preventing that competition within your company, then praising one and condemning the other. It's not consistent, platforms need to be platforms and let the information flow instead of control it.
It's not really a free market that's why these tech companies all have anti trust investigations. This is censorship. It's just censorship lots of us agree with.
The free market approach requires antitrust. It's disingenuous to defer to free market rules when we have big government and big tech so deeply entrenched and largely unchecked.
Why does one mean it isn't the other? Clearly it's both. It's just not government censorship, for which there's a bit of text in the US bill of rights.
We spent the last four years waxing philosophical about how social media influenced the 2016 election, I think it's time to admit that these aren't _just_ private companies and there's a very real risk that this wave of censorship has far-ranging consequences.
Large companies are part of an industrial–congressional complex, with lobbying and political contributions on one side, political approval and threats of regulation on the other.
Just because something is done by a private company, it doesn't mean that it's not the state or the government wielding its power. In the current political climate, and given how intertwined corporations and state power are in the US, trying to maintain a crisp distinction between private companies and public authority is itself comical.
Exactly this. If I start a private enterprise, I'll be damned if somebody dictates that they have a private right to do or say some particular thing on services I pay hosting for.
Corporations are not beholden to pleasing every single individual.
the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.
Private companies in the same sense that Marx described democratic capitalism as the best outcome for corporations because it provides the illusion of separation while being unduly connected through monetary incentives?
It's corporate censorship and not government censorship. Corporate censorship is legal to a point. We see now Corporate and State are highly aligned in every possible way. The party Big Tech supports now has control over the House, the Senate and the Executive Branch.
In which fantasy world is the consolidation of power ever good for a democracy?
Newspapers and magazines have always had a choice who or what to print in their papers. TV and radio stations have always had a choice who or what to air. Why shouldn't social media companies have the same liberties?
Social media companies are protected by Section 230 while newspapers and magazines aren't. If social media companies are going to act like newspapers and magazines then they shouldn't be shielded from liability for their content.
There was no "network effect" deterring me from dropping the NYT. These social media platforms, and the internet in general-- which are entirely "private"-- are the new public square.
Twitter, Facebook, et al just excluded leading conservative voices from the public square.
But it's different. There was a time when anyone could start a newspaper. There was a time when people had FM transmitters in their backyard. It became more expensive and the FCC started slicing up FM spectrum so everyone wouldn't trample over each other.
Media was once free and then collapse to be owned by ABC, NBC, CBS and a few dozen newspapers.
This was originally about network neutrality, but it applies to what we're seeing right now:
I’m going to lend your neighbours a huge sound system so they can use their free speech to play the darkest industrial techno outside your door at 4am.
I’m obviously joking, but would it be okay for me to use my platform this way? If not, why not?
What is the alternative? Do you think that the government should nationalize private companies? Or perhaps they should dictate to them who should be their clients? If a company like Google doesn't want to do business with Parler, that is their right. That is free market. If the market didn't agree with it, the free market forces would make sure that Google dwindles and another company replaces them.
Google and Apple have a duopoly. In the wake of 2016 we collectively agreed that Big Tech has the ability to influence elections, now is the time to think about how to protect our democracy.
My take is simple: either treat social media conglomerates like we do telecom or break them up like we did AT&T.
I think it's wonderful. Push them to the edges where they belong. Let them make their own platform to spread lies and hate, it will make them easier to find. They are going to commit acts of hate and ignorance with or without general platforms, why let it reach the mainstream. Make those who drift towards it work for it. Google is well within their rights as a company to do it.
- Twitter has suspended both General Michael Flynn, President Trump's first National Security Adviser, and attorney Sidney Powell. Also less know users.
- Twitch and Snapchat disabled Trump's accounts.
- Shopify took down two online stores affiliated with the president.
- YouTube says it's accelerating its enforcement of voter fraud claims against President Trump and others based on Wednesday's events.
- TheDonald.win lost a host (but has backups)
- Facebook has banned Brandon Straka and removed his #WalkAway campaign on the site, an initiative consisting of over half a million users.
Edit:
Not sure why a list of facts is being downvoted?
The ways to profit from Trump are shrinking and the chances his vindictive actions can affect companies have vanished. So there is no longer a good reasons to associate with his toxic brand. Companies can virtue signal with little to no repercussions now.
Never let a good crisis go to waste. I think we are seeing the beginning of a purge of a certain line of thought from the internet, using a few crazy people as the catalyst.
A lot of pedants are telling you it's not censorship and they are technically correct, these private platforms are within their rights to decide how they are used. And many people have raised concerns before about what it means that we've given so much power to these platforms. I hope this goes down as the time the big platforms overplayed their hand and made people realise that even though we have turned over so much power to them, they do not have the same constraints or responsibilities as government, and as private businesses can act arbitrarily according to their prerogative.
While they may be pedants, I am anally right. On a personal level I think those who chime in to cry that it's not censorship are myopic fools.
It is absolutely censorship. It's textbook, dictionary, censorship. Take wikipedia's great opening paragraph:
>Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies.
In my opinion it's especially egreoious, requiring remedy, if the censorious actor has a large amount of control over a medium of communication. In this case google dwarfs perhaps governments.
> telling you it's not censorship and they are technically correct
No, they are technically incorrect. As other posters have pointed out, it literally is censorship. Whether a private company or government is doing it is irrelevant to the definition of that term.
"true threat" is where you have actual proof those threats arent empty rhetoric, like you know, people shouting about overthrowing the government and then storming Parliament while armed, with resulting causalities.
I share your feeling “this is not going well”. Most of the comments here seem polarized and emotionally driven - yet these censorships are worrying even if they look like the right thing to do.
I can understand the viewpoint you have, though I don't agree with it.
Radical ideas have always looked for ways to spread around and influence people. As in with any idea, there are good ones (Why should a worker not have paid holidays, or days off, or have work life balance, education rights, voting rights, etc) and bad ones (the ones we see espoused by many radical right wingers like the claimed inferiority of the black race and the superiority of the white race)
Now, 74 million Americans voted for a vision of trump, that mixes a lot of good ideas with some very terrible ones. And out of the 74 million voters for him, I am sure many of them voted for the promise of jobs, stability, incomes, etc. Unfortunately, a significant & vocal minority of his supporters have shown hard right and often immoral ideas.
In the past, messaging and reach was a carefully cultivated art practiced by seasoned politicians and ideologists.
Today, the situation is different. It is very very easy to gather people into a group, isolate them and radicalize them. You see it happening everyday on the social media.
What, then, is the solution to this? It is a problem because a society must be coherent and move forward together, otherwise it fractures and implodes from within.
For a society, there are many aspects that affect it's prosperity. Jobs, distribution of wealth, prevalence of opportunities, justice, etc.
If you have allow one small section of ideologues hijack the conversation and demand for continuation of radicalization, that society will collapse. Just think about Nazism, Stalinism, etc. All those societies had one thing in common, the ability to radicalize and brainwash population.
So what about Parler? Banning is the right thing to do.
Out of those 74 million who voted, they have avenues like FB, Twitter, IG, etc to engage and communicate.
That small group who wants to radicalize the society, have their voices cut off, and that is how it should be.
This is pretty well put. I definitely agree with your points here.
I would like to point out that Nazism and Stalinism are localized versions of the same thing: fascism. trump is the current leader of American Fascism. He should have his voice on major platforms cut off.
What people don't seem to realize about democracy is that fascism is the weak point.
So then, can a restaurant refuse service, to filter what kind of customers would allow to let in, let's say on criterias like: only men, only white people, everybody but gay people? It's a private business after all. Especially if they are still available to deliver without any filter.
Neither do I but frankly it doesn't matter. People don't have what it takes to listen, to speak up, or to just stop bein idiots. They only see part of the painting, they don't see the big picture.
Have you bothered to look at the content on Parler? It's full of speech that is not protected by the US 1st, such as threats to kill political leaders and eminent calls for violence. There are also tons of neo-Nazis calling for the deaths of Jews and other minorities.
Parler need to remove this content. This isn't Google and Apple censoring political views. It's a demand for Parler to remove illegal content.
I don't know about Google, but Apple just told them they needed to moderate speech which incites violence (and maybe hate speech?). This isn't remotely like China where they are censoring people who post images of a stuffed bear with a vague resemblance to Trump.
The purge has been happening for years. I hate how people on HN is praising this. There are literally few alternatives for the average person apart from Google and eyeProducts. I have a PinePhone, but what percentage of America can truly put in the effort to use one? <1%.
If you cannot install an run your own software on a device, you do not own the device.
You cannot praise the removal of Gab or Parlor now and complain later when they take everything else from you. They can increase the Apple developer fees whenever they want. What happens when they start charging you $2,000 a year or $4,000 a year for the right to publish apps? What happens when the two big platforms decide no one can push an app unless their platform has full moderation.
What happens when Google and Apple, for your safety, say all user contributed content must go through their "spam" filter first for any apps?
This is horrific. You may not like Parlor, but it will not stop here. This is a dangerous place we are in and we should all be horrified by it. People are horrified right now, but they're focused on the wrong thing.
Other way round: anyone on the left is used to unfair treatment. The app reporting drone strike locations was banned years ago. Apple caused tumblr to self-destruct. Just this time the policy is actually in our favor.
Unlimited incitement to violence is not sustainable. Banning them for this is the start; America is going to have a long uncomfortable process of dealing with its media.
Are you at all worried about the possibility that America could have another civil war because a sufficiently large proportion of Americans are radicalized in uncensored, insufficiently moderated communities? Facebook's own research found “64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools” and that most of the activity came from the platform’s “Groups You Should Join” and “Discover” algorithms: “Our recommendation systems grow the problem.” [0]
We just suffered a textbook seditious conspiracy against the United States, which was planned on Parler and thedonald dot win. Is there a chance that Google's decision to remove Parler from their app store will only throttle the spread of Parler? Have you heard of the slippery slope fallacy? [1] And if so, why doesn't the prohibition of apps for child pornography produce the harms you cite?
First, this is strawman bullshit. Don't bring up app prices in a culture war.
What you're witnessing is culture expressing itself, rooted in history, the law, the zeitgeist of the people. And right now the culture is drawing a line in the sand and saying, "don't do that (bigotry, racism, ignorance)". You are free to be on this side of the line or you can start a revolution. So far the good guys are winning. Not Dems or Republicans, but sane people.
> If you cannot install an run your own software on a device, you do not own the device.
ADB doesn't require individual clearance from Google, you can install any apk you like. In fact you don't even need ADB, you can just install an apk downloaded from the web if you uncheck "only verified sources" in settings. Google is merely removing Play Store convenience (and distribution channel safety). Providing that Play Store convenience costs them real dollars for computing resources and they chose to not do that anymore for the app in question.
In most countries in the world, you can go to jail for saying the wrong thing. This includes countries which are, for all practical purposes, freer than the USA -- like Germany, which hasn't renazified since WWII in part because of its hate speech laws.
So no, not everybody recognizes that unfettered expression is a universal good. There are places which have already experienced the danger of free-speech absolutism.
I think one potentially positive outcome is increased knowledge of side-loading apps. Granted, this really only exists as an option on Android but Fortnite demonstrated the feasibility of this approach. If side-loaded apps gain traction it might break the Google Play store monopoly.
> If you cannot install an run your own software on a device, you do not own the device.
I agree with this, and your analysis of the inaccessible cost of those devices people truly can own and control. However, I do not think this is an accurate parallel to the many horrifying political events of this week.
Where were all of the free speech absolutists a decade ago when Twitter, Facebook and Google started removing Islamic content from their platforms under the guise of dealing with extremist content? I seem to recall them cheering those companies on.
I disagree. This is great, because it illustrates the problem you're citing.
Without this use case people won't realize why open source matters, or phones without control matters, etcetc. While i don't agree with Trump or his party actions, this definitely is waking thousands of people up to how easily even Americans are censored.
This realization is crucial to privacy focused applications, imo.
This is the free market in action. No one is forcing Google or Twitter or FB to do anything; I think they've been very restrained. The libertarians should be happy that it's commercial companies shutting Parler down and not govt. It's only when the president incites violence in an attempt retain power that these commercial entities acted.
I haven't seen the right screaming when there's Republican legislators passing anti-BDS legislation all over. That's the purest form of censorship targeting primarily people on the left and yet crickets.
Maybe the so called free speech absolutists are not as principled as they say.
The country went down this path as soon as the Senate refused to convict Trump.
We are now at the point where we have to block violent fascists from organizing the overthrow of our democracy, and that requires deplatforming. We had a peaceful resolution to this in February of 2020, but the GOP chose this path instead.
I'm basically seeing 4 posts about "kill <group/group-leader>" and otherwise standard speeches... and then someone later posts screenshots about Jan 20 re-org posted on twitter..
It seems like the basic political discourse you find on twitter, fb and every other social media system, both red and blue posters, at pretty much the same level of intelligence; I'm really not seeing anything there that doesn't equally merit the banning of, well, every other social media app.
Are you reporting it? Is something happening when you do?
The content isn’t the issue. The question is: would Twitter moderate that content when it breaks their ToS? Apple and Google consider Twitters moderation efforts good enough.
Just a cursory glance on Twitter finds the same kind of unmoderated content but towards conservatives. Two wrongs don't make a right. But let's not act like these platforms are bastions of fair moderation. They are leftist corporatists, tried and true.
Ah, we’ve had nonsense like that all over the internet for decades.
Liberal pundits are saying similar about conservatives ... elected officials call for disruption in the street, 4chan has crazy stuff, yaddha yaddha.
We have incitement and conspiracy laws. We have an FBI and Secret Service that really take this stuff seriously and are well financed. If anything these posts make it easier for them to keep an eye on the tiny percentage of loudmouths that might actually do something.
There’s a cost to all this ease of expression, to be sure. Maybe people can be radicalized more easily, and that sucks.
But we’ve built this whole society on erring in favor of more free expression, and by and large this value has been a tremendous success, where the downsides are absolutely crushed by the up side.
Nothing will be an unmitigated good but in this case it’s pretty clear where the balance lies, and what these companies are doing -as we speak- isn’t the winning choice, for anyone involved.
"In order to protect user safety on Google Play, our longstanding policies require that apps displaying user-generated content have moderation policies and enforcement that removes egregious content like posts that incite violence. All developers agree to these terms and we have reminded Parler of this clear policy in recent months. We're aware of continued posting in the Parler app that seeks to incite ongoing violence in the U.S. We recognize that there can be reasonable debate about content policies and that it can be difficult for apps to immediately remove all violative content, but for us to distribute an app through Google Play we do require that apps implement robust moderation for egregious content. In light of this ongoing and urgent public safety threat, we are suspending the app's listings from the Play Store until it addresses these issues." Google Spokesperson
edit: axios attributes the statement** to José Castañeda
> our longstanding policies require that apps displaying user-generated content have moderation policies and enforcement that removes egregious content like posts that incite violence.
So they don't allow browser apps? You can access parler/gab/tdw from Chrome.
It’s pretty coincidental that all of these tech companies are having epiphanies simultaneously now that Democrats will control the house/senate/and presidency.
The interesting question is whether they are doing it out fear of anti trust action from Democrats or weren’t doing it for the last four years out of fear of Republicans.
I'm curious why so many Democrats were allowed to encourage the BLM riots (more than 25 dead, $2 billion in property damage) without so much as a peep from Google, Twitter, Facebook or any other tech giant. Kamala Harris said "they should not stop" and helped with a bail fund for the people who were involved with them.
I think protest is a fundamental requirement of democracy, and as Chris Cuomo himself reminded us: protest aren't always peaceful [1]. It seems like a lot of Democrats are conveniently forgetting that all of a sudden.
The parent comment is in every single thread in some form. It's almost like a narrative is being pushed. But yes, I distinctly remember a national tragedy like none other happening a few days ago.
"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."
-Some guy from some political party
Blocking parler does jack shit in stopping people’s ability to coordinate violence. Mass texts, email chains, WhatsApp, signal, 4chan boards, etc are all there.
The threats haven’t been hypothetical all year. Dozens have died, 100s maimed, $2 billion in property damage.
Kamala Harris said,
> "They're not gonna stop, and everyone beware, because they're not gonna stop," she added. "They're not gonna stop before Election Day in November, and they're not gonna stop after Election Day."
> "Everyone should take note of that, on both levels, that they're not going to let up — and they should not. And we should not," she concluded.
I believe neither group are terrorists, but one side cannot be labeled a terrorist without implicating the other under the exact same label.
In Portland, in Seattle, in D.C.
The only difference is the scale of damage and death, which is orders of magnitude higher on one side.
This is EXACTLY why this is bad. If you censor the narrative, then you get to control it and history tells us that the first thing you'll do with it is mislead the masses.
Google and Apple control the means by which the vast majority of the world can access software. This is not like Twitter banning from a platform, this is preventing users from accessing a platform in the first place.
Sci-Hub also being suspended by Twitter for the farcical reason of 'counterfeiting.' I've never seen a fake paper on Sci-Hub ;-)
Remember, it's not about leftism winning per-say, it's corporatism. They are now emboldened to tighten their grasp on the narrative so they can make record profits while destroying the intellectual fabric of America.
Exactly. Tech companies are realizing there will be blowback from having a mob of rioters in the Capitol building posting selfies and videos. The government will be wanting those images.
Not surprising, if other companies are doing it they now know its safe for their profits to do it too. They also know that hes leaving office soon so they dont have to worry about getting legislated into trouble.
And all the members of the Trump administration bravely resigning in protest when they were going to be out of jobs in less than two weeks. Patriots, truly!
There was an attack on congress on Tuesday. Multiple accounts are talking up similar violence on Parler as we speak. People are calling it out all over the internet.
I mean... what do you want to happen here? The right wing got carte blanche to spread violent rhetoric for years on these platforms in ways that we would have called "terroristic" and "radicalizing" in other contexts. And it went too far. So... do we just ignore it?
I just can't understand how your mind goes to a routine election result and not a failed coup attempt as the reason behind this.
How _incredibly timely and coincidental_ that now that Trump will lose much of his relevance and the Dems are in control all these platforms suddenly found a backbone.
I don’t agree. The President was just caught red handed asking Georgia to make up votes for him, and he caused an attack on the US Congress. People are actually dead because of the things he said — inciting an overthrow of the government.
Even our allied governments are saying he caused the riots. You can’t say the entire world is wrong, every single human being is deep state.
> The President was just caught red handed asking Georgia to make up votes for him
Did you listen to the entire phone conversation and not the 4 minute clip? That's quite not what happened. Trump laid out all his claims and was asking them to accept investigating anything that cloud make up his very narrow margin.
Another fun fact about that call, it was a Settlement Call. That was literally protected by attorney/client privileged. Barnes, a civil rights attorney who does federal cases, and who is currently contracted by the Trump team, talks about it here(starting at 54:49):
It is not possible to downvote this comment and also be a good human being. Any downvoter of this should be sick with themselves over such shameful behavior.
The best I could hope is that it’s some sick-minded person downvoting just to troll. The idea that a right-minded HN viewer seriously down votes this is absolutely unconscionable and completely beyond the pale.
It’s literally the same as downvoting a comment that says “racist murder is wrong.” Literally!
With the new War on Domestic Terror(TM) ramping up, I think the tech companies see a business opportunity for a private-public partnership to save the republic.
We can silence dangerous speech with no concerns about the 1st amendment (it's a private platform after all). All your Whatsapp chats can now be mined by Facebook (which the NSA will have access to as well). And the switch that controls social media communications is safely in the hands of Zuckerberg.
It's all coming together perfectly. Well... perfectly for big tech.
They were domestic terrorists and they will stand trial. And whoever organized the event will hopefully be tried for treason. With a punishment that is appropriate for that crime.
If you run a social network and can’t keep up with moderation for calls for violence you shouldn’t be allowed to be in business. This goes for the big tech companies as well.
Reddit seems to have just as much illegal content. All of this just seems like empty virtue signaling by tech companies way too late to actually change anything.
I don't know much about parler, but Reddit just removed r/donaldtrump and banned the most egregious mod of r/conspiracy. It's also a much bigger site, so there are going to be more people talking on it, but they are at least taking steps to prevent this kind of content.
Most of the big tech companies have been taken over by activist employees anyways. Look at coinbase. They had to do a purge just to get rid of the employees that weren't working and focusing on non-company issues instead.
Palantir also had to completely leave because there was so much pressure being put on them in the valley.
Yes and virtue signalling that will only drive a large segment of public opinion highly against them. I'm completely against Trump but doing a mass political purge of everything associated him will only prove a lot of the things his rabid followers say about social media platforms as true. I'm just hoping it won't be followed by employee retribution for holding political views that agreed with the president. We don't need more division in this country.
I'm downvoting you because you know the answer to those questions. You know exactly what speech is protected by the 1st and what isn't. Parler is not removing illegal speech, therefore their apps are being taken down. It's pretty simple.
> We're sorry, the requested URL was not found on this server.
Is this link right? How about a link to an article instead? What is Parler? Why is it suspended? What is the story for those of us who are just tuning in now?
Parler is an app many of the American Conservatives go to now that their speech is restricted on Facebook and Twitter. But Apple (and Google) don't like how Parler was used to organize the protests/riots at The Capitol.
Parler is where people who were too openly racist for Reddit or Twitter go, because they won't get kicked off for planning coup attempts, or opining that Hitler did nothing wrong.
Apparently the modern state of both American "conservatism" and a chunk of newsy posters feel that Google and Apple should be forced to host them.
Parler is a twitter competitor. After Donald Trump and several other people were banned from Twitter and Facebook, people were thinking about moving over to Parler.
After about a day Google and Apple banned Parler from their appstores. Four big tech giants Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter - they are cooperating and coordinating in destroying people they don't like.
At this point this fourheaded beast is the most powerful force on this planet.
Good for them for not bothering with the half-assed CYA nonsense Apple is doing. "Give us a moderation plan in 24 hours" is just such a ridiculously unmeetable demand (at least if they require that plan to be anything close to actually feasible) that it's just pointless. Just kick them off.
And to the people complaining about censorship, this is an app that was literally used to plan a violent attack on the capitol. Some things should be censored.
> And to the people complaining about censorship, this is an app that was literally used to plan a violent attack on the capitol. Some things should be censored.
Wait until you find out what the text messaging apps are used for.
“This was used in an attack” is a bullshit excuse to banish something. WhatsApp and signal have enabled countless terrorist actions and they are still up.
Twitter, Facebook, Whatsapp etc. are all used to plan violent attacks, murders, burglaries and so on - all communication tools are used to do harmful acts, should we ban them all?
Crazy that people are ok with what's been happening in the last few hours
people are actively cheering and celebrating the woman who got shot yesterday.
it's really insane how people who claim they are champions for human right and diversity rapidly descend into the inhumanity that they themselves blame the very country for.
If I was in America right now, I would get the hell out immediately. This is literally like watching the cultural revolution unfold step by step.
Twitter got all the spotlights, others try to rush onto stage before the audience stops applauding. Corporate decisionmaking structures at Google are clearly slower than a Zuckerberg whim, but their lag is surprisingly low.
Personally, I think it's a bit sad that Twitter with the hard tweet removal is effectively protecting Trump from being judged for his statements by the general public. The radicals got the messages anyways, but superficial observers are supported by the remove in any "bad but harmless" perception of Trump they might have.
Readit News
If not, then why is the removal of an app from the app store censorship? The world wide web still exists. Parler is still on the internet.
Seems like there should be some acknowledgement that there's a difference between refusing to actively participate in distributing content and censorship.
Which is to say, it's true, & that's a good thing, but that doesn't mean that the censorship itself isn't bad.
The most effective, most powerful communication medium that exists right now is native apps for social networks on smartphones. If 100% of that medium is controlled and censored by two companies, that means those two companies exert a massive influence on what kinds of communication society as a whole will have.
If you believe in the general principle of free speech (not just strict legal interpretations of say the 1A), that's not a good thing.
This is assuming services like Cloudflare and hosting services won't cut Parler - they've done this before
"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
And actually, the more I think about it, this is a more apt analogue to what's happening with Paler then first engages the mind...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_a_tree_falls_in_a_forest#:~....
And this is yet another escalation on the road that started with “we’re just going to censor tweets that literally say the sky is green.” Google has banned an entire social network.
It’s exactly what social conservatives did back when they controlled the levers of government and industry in the mid-20th century. They prevented liberals from spreading their ideas, because that could cause social unrest, violence, etc. (And there was violence, such as anarchist leftist bombings.)
If WalMart sold ice cream to white people, but not to black people, that would be pretty awful both morally and it would be illegal.
The thing with speech is it is inherently attached to a person. There is no speech in a vacuum. Google has basically said that certain people shouldn't be able to speak. As politics is a personal belief like religion, it is sad it is not a protected civil right. But that's what this is--saying certain people can express their beliefs, but others can't.
censorship of viewpoints you disagree with means you don’t understand the point of freedom of speech.
Say you had two stores: Walmarket and Toget. That's it. That's all you got. Toget stops telling a brand of ice cream and you literally cannot sell it anywhere else other than Toget and Walmarket because someone would have to drive 2 hours out of their way each time to buy your Ice Cream.
You have Android, iOS and PinePhones.
Just because you have to go directly to the website doesn't mean it's censored. Google, Apple, FB, Twitter, etc are not in the business of supporting outlier extremism in our society. Claiming censorship because they don't want to platform that stuff is ridiculous.
Imagine a Jewish-owned store being forced to sell nazi paraphernalia because not selling it is censorship. The users of parler or gab are just mad these huge companies are taking a stand. Engaging with their tantrum only gives them a platform, even if it's just a small personal one, and is clearly bad. Do we argue with crazies on the street yelling "The end is nigh!" every day? No.
Amplifying it would be pasting images and links to Parler all over the Google Play splash page and all over the Google Play website, sending emails to all its gmail users to download Parler, or inserting Parler ads into some % of its ad impressions.
They aren't doing that. "Leave it alone" is not the same thing as amplification, that's literally the distinction that is made in Section 230.
The ONLY thing being asked for is that Parler polices itself (or the authorities get involved where appropriate), and that Google and Apple leave it be because all they do is serve as the conduit to get it onto the device they control.
That is the way the world SHOULD work. No it doesn't give you the adrenaline rush of enforcing your desires on the world, but that's not a good thing to be enabling in the first place.
If they had no control over the stores used to get apps on devices, the whole question would be moot. Their duopoly leads to this issue. Frankly, that control should be taken away.
After all, you don't see people clamoring in shock and about "unsettled" feelings regarding the moderation that happens here on HN.
When a small number of companies make it difficult to communicate via our main communication device, and there are no viable alternatives, then a fundamental right is being suppressed.
There is no marketplace of ideas when there is no marketplace,
People are calling for AWS to drop Parler, and Parler has already come out and said if this happens, then Parler itself is gone forever.
Then why not ban Twitter as well? I could show you hundreds of tweets from little known left-wing activists inciting violence during the BLM protests. This double standard tells us that the rationale given for banning Parler is just an excuse. The real reason is that executives in these companies are doing what their most vocal employees and the liberal media are pressuring them to do.
What makes this scary is not that stores are choosing what products to sell. What makes it scary is that, at least in this segment of the economy, there are exactly two stores, and picking at least one of them to shop at is very nearly a precondition for participating in modern society. This gives Google and Apple a degree of influence over peoples' lives that one could quite reasonably recognize as quasi-governmental, and that is worrisome.
Isn’t this what android users have boasted of for so long to apple fans? There isn’t only one store. In the case of Parlor, you can probably just use a browser even.
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That word isn’t only applicable to state actions, and nor should it be.
Whether a private company suppresses communication or the government does it, it’s still censorship.
At best it's hypocritical, taking advantage of competition at the market level, but then preventing that competition within your company, then praising one and condemning the other. It's not consistent, platforms need to be platforms and let the information flow instead of control it.
So are Baidu and Tencent.
Large companies are part of an industrial–congressional complex, with lobbying and political contributions on one side, political approval and threats of regulation on the other.
Just because something is done by a private company, it doesn't mean that it's not the state or the government wielding its power. In the current political climate, and given how intertwined corporations and state power are in the US, trying to maintain a crisp distinction between private companies and public authority is itself comical.
Corporations are not beholden to pleasing every single individual.
the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.
It is censorship. But not all censorship is bad.
Maybe Facebook can join and block in WhatsApp too.
Hey it's free market, private company product yay!
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In which fantasy world is the consolidation of power ever good for a democracy?
Twitter, Facebook, et al just excluded leading conservative voices from the public square.
Media was once free and then collapse to be owned by ABC, NBC, CBS and a few dozen newspapers.
This was originally about network neutrality, but it applies to what we're seeing right now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP_3WnJ42kw
I’m obviously joking, but would it be okay for me to use my platform this way? If not, why not?
My take is simple: either treat social media conglomerates like we do telecom or break them up like we did AT&T.
Social media companies are indeed large communication platforms. There are a lot of similarities, even if they aren't exactly the same.
Or do you believe that our existing laws that apply to phone companies are somehow a tyrannical infringement on their rights?
Who could have possibly predicted it?
- Twitter has suspended both General Michael Flynn, President Trump's first National Security Adviser, and attorney Sidney Powell. Also less know users.
- Twitch and Snapchat disabled Trump's accounts.
- Shopify took down two online stores affiliated with the president.
- YouTube says it's accelerating its enforcement of voter fraud claims against President Trump and others based on Wednesday's events.
- TheDonald.win lost a host (but has backups)
- Facebook has banned Brandon Straka and removed his #WalkAway campaign on the site, an initiative consisting of over half a million users.
Edit: Not sure why a list of facts is being downvoted?
It is absolutely censorship. It's textbook, dictionary, censorship. Take wikipedia's great opening paragraph:
>Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies.
In my opinion it's especially egreoious, requiring remedy, if the censorious actor has a large amount of control over a medium of communication. In this case google dwarfs perhaps governments.
No, they are technically incorrect. As other posters have pointed out, it literally is censorship. Whether a private company or government is doing it is irrelevant to the definition of that term.
"true threat" is where you have actual proof those threats arent empty rhetoric, like you know, people shouting about overthrowing the government and then storming Parliament while armed, with resulting causalities.
Radical ideas have always looked for ways to spread around and influence people. As in with any idea, there are good ones (Why should a worker not have paid holidays, or days off, or have work life balance, education rights, voting rights, etc) and bad ones (the ones we see espoused by many radical right wingers like the claimed inferiority of the black race and the superiority of the white race)
Now, 74 million Americans voted for a vision of trump, that mixes a lot of good ideas with some very terrible ones. And out of the 74 million voters for him, I am sure many of them voted for the promise of jobs, stability, incomes, etc. Unfortunately, a significant & vocal minority of his supporters have shown hard right and often immoral ideas.
In the past, messaging and reach was a carefully cultivated art practiced by seasoned politicians and ideologists.
Today, the situation is different. It is very very easy to gather people into a group, isolate them and radicalize them. You see it happening everyday on the social media.
What, then, is the solution to this? It is a problem because a society must be coherent and move forward together, otherwise it fractures and implodes from within.
For a society, there are many aspects that affect it's prosperity. Jobs, distribution of wealth, prevalence of opportunities, justice, etc.
If you have allow one small section of ideologues hijack the conversation and demand for continuation of radicalization, that society will collapse. Just think about Nazism, Stalinism, etc. All those societies had one thing in common, the ability to radicalize and brainwash population.
So what about Parler? Banning is the right thing to do.
Out of those 74 million who voted, they have avenues like FB, Twitter, IG, etc to engage and communicate.
That small group who wants to radicalize the society, have their voices cut off, and that is how it should be.
If you're only exposed to right-wing media, you only see left-wing radicalisation.
Both tribes are convinced that the other is dangerously radical.
I would like to point out that Nazism and Stalinism are localized versions of the same thing: fascism. trump is the current leader of American Fascism. He should have his voice on major platforms cut off.
What people don't seem to realize about democracy is that fascism is the weak point.
Your freedom to not listen or associate with someone is part of the First Amendment and applies to corporations as much as it applies to you.
People get to say or not say whatever they want, you get to listen or not listen to whoever you want.
A corporation you have chosen to rely on still gets to choose they want to associate with, arbitrarily even.
When the corporation messes up, we can try pressuring them into compliance with our ideals.
What the corporation did is in compliance with my ideals. Good luck with yours.
Parlour can still distribute itself as a web app, no problem.
It is a clear and present danger.
Parler need to remove this content. This isn't Google and Apple censoring political views. It's a demand for Parler to remove illegal content.
If you cannot install an run your own software on a device, you do not own the device.
You cannot praise the removal of Gab or Parlor now and complain later when they take everything else from you. They can increase the Apple developer fees whenever they want. What happens when they start charging you $2,000 a year or $4,000 a year for the right to publish apps? What happens when the two big platforms decide no one can push an app unless their platform has full moderation.
What happens when Google and Apple, for your safety, say all user contributed content must go through their "spam" filter first for any apps?
This is horrific. You may not like Parlor, but it will not stop here. This is a dangerous place we are in and we should all be horrified by it. People are horrified right now, but they're focused on the wrong thing.
Unlimited incitement to violence is not sustainable. Banning them for this is the start; America is going to have a long uncomfortable process of dealing with its media.
We just suffered a textbook seditious conspiracy against the United States, which was planned on Parler and thedonald dot win. Is there a chance that Google's decision to remove Parler from their app store will only throttle the spread of Parler? Have you heard of the slippery slope fallacy? [1] And if so, why doesn't the prohibition of apps for child pornography produce the harms you cite?
[0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-it-encourages-di...
[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fallacies/
What you're witnessing is culture expressing itself, rooted in history, the law, the zeitgeist of the people. And right now the culture is drawing a line in the sand and saying, "don't do that (bigotry, racism, ignorance)". You are free to be on this side of the line or you can start a revolution. So far the good guys are winning. Not Dems or Republicans, but sane people.
ADB doesn't require individual clearance from Google, you can install any apk you like. In fact you don't even need ADB, you can just install an apk downloaded from the web if you uncheck "only verified sources" in settings. Google is merely removing Play Store convenience (and distribution channel safety). Providing that Play Store convenience costs them real dollars for computing resources and they chose to not do that anymore for the app in question.
Businesses don’t have any right to force other businesses to carry their products.
In most countries in the world, you can go to jail for saying the wrong thing. This includes countries which are, for all practical purposes, freer than the USA -- like Germany, which hasn't renazified since WWII in part because of its hate speech laws.
So no, not everybody recognizes that unfettered expression is a universal good. There are places which have already experienced the danger of free-speech absolutism.
This is an act of great escalation in an already dicey situation.
I hope I'm wrong when I say this will likely beget more violence.
I agree with this, and your analysis of the inaccessible cost of those devices people truly can own and control. However, I do not think this is an accurate parallel to the many horrifying political events of this week.
Without this use case people won't realize why open source matters, or phones without control matters, etcetc. While i don't agree with Trump or his party actions, this definitely is waking thousands of people up to how easily even Americans are censored.
This realization is crucial to privacy focused applications, imo.
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This is the free market in action. No one is forcing Google or Twitter or FB to do anything; I think they've been very restrained. The libertarians should be happy that it's commercial companies shutting Parler down and not govt. It's only when the president incites violence in an attempt retain power that these commercial entities acted.
Maybe the so called free speech absolutists are not as principled as they say.
Dead Comment
We are now at the point where we have to block violent fascists from organizing the overthrow of our democracy, and that requires deplatforming. We had a peaceful resolution to this in February of 2020, but the GOP chose this path instead.
1. Trump is a popular public figure that has been tweeting against Democrats for the past decade.
2. Trump runs for office, and immediately starts calling into question mainstream media and election integrity.
3. Trump wins the election, and his voters accept his premise that the media cannot be trusted. They turn to him as their sole voice of reason.
4. Given that they believe everything spoon fed to them by Trump, they cannot accept alternatives.
5. The voice of Trump is amplified by his followers across the internet (and this is aided by complicit Republican in and out of government.)
6. When Trump wins, they believe that he won the election. When he loses, they cannot accept it and instead choose to believe the word of Trump.
Should this voice of Trump be forced by the U.S. government to be supported by every public and private corporation to continue the Trump movement?
Would drowning out all other media and sources of information be the ideal way forward for the United States?
[1] https://twitter.com/YourAnonCentral/status/13473740754552299...
It seems like the basic political discourse you find on twitter, fb and every other social media system, both red and blue posters, at pretty much the same level of intelligence; I'm really not seeing anything there that doesn't equally merit the banning of, well, every other social media app.
[1] https://twitter.com/slpng_giants/status/1347190280492089344
Well that is one way to normalize Facist murderous wrecks and their abhorrent ideas.
The content isn’t the issue. The question is: would Twitter moderate that content when it breaks their ToS? Apple and Google consider Twitters moderation efforts good enough.
https://twitter.com/CustomsFatman/status/1163877317208264705...https://twitter.com/kxxtcxcxxnx/status/1322190172872712192?s...https://twitter.com/AlmightyBoob/status/97830880193691649?s=...
https://twitter.com/CustomsFatman
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Liberal pundits are saying similar about conservatives ... elected officials call for disruption in the street, 4chan has crazy stuff, yaddha yaddha.
We have incitement and conspiracy laws. We have an FBI and Secret Service that really take this stuff seriously and are well financed. If anything these posts make it easier for them to keep an eye on the tiny percentage of loudmouths that might actually do something.
There’s a cost to all this ease of expression, to be sure. Maybe people can be radicalized more easily, and that sucks.
But we’ve built this whole society on erring in favor of more free expression, and by and large this value has been a tremendous success, where the downsides are absolutely crushed by the up side.
Nothing will be an unmitigated good but in this case it’s pretty clear where the balance lies, and what these companies are doing -as we speak- isn’t the winning choice, for anyone involved.
and how many times has that led to storming the US Capitol building with guns and bombs?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eQzLcO5qhY
"In order to protect user safety on Google Play, our longstanding policies require that apps displaying user-generated content have moderation policies and enforcement that removes egregious content like posts that incite violence. All developers agree to these terms and we have reminded Parler of this clear policy in recent months. We're aware of continued posting in the Parler app that seeks to incite ongoing violence in the U.S. We recognize that there can be reasonable debate about content policies and that it can be difficult for apps to immediately remove all violative content, but for us to distribute an app through Google Play we do require that apps implement robust moderation for egregious content. In light of this ongoing and urgent public safety threat, we are suspending the app's listings from the Play Store until it addresses these issues." Google Spokesperson
edit: axios attributes the statement** to José Castañeda
* https://twitter.com/viaCristiano/status/1347705178699558912
** https://www.axios.com/capitol-mob-parler-google-ban-826d808d...
So they don't allow browser apps? You can access parler/gab/tdw from Chrome.
The interesting question is whether they are doing it out fear of anti trust action from Democrats or weren’t doing it for the last four years out of fear of Republicans.
I think protest is a fundamental requirement of democracy, and as Chris Cuomo himself reminded us: protest aren't always peaceful [1]. It seems like a lot of Democrats are conveniently forgetting that all of a sudden.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/202...
The hypocrisy is unbelievable. This will not end well.
More like excuse :)
Dead Comment
Blocking parler does jack shit in stopping people’s ability to coordinate violence. Mass texts, email chains, WhatsApp, signal, 4chan boards, etc are all there.
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Kamala Harris said,
> "They're not gonna stop, and everyone beware, because they're not gonna stop," she added. "They're not gonna stop before Election Day in November, and they're not gonna stop after Election Day."
> "Everyone should take note of that, on both levels, that they're not going to let up — and they should not. And we should not," she concluded.
I believe neither group are terrorists, but one side cannot be labeled a terrorist without implicating the other under the exact same label.
In Portland, in Seattle, in D.C.
The only difference is the scale of damage and death, which is orders of magnitude higher on one side.
If they make their own platform like we tell them to, we'll just ban that too, haha.
Google and Apple control the means by which the vast majority of the world can access software. This is not like Twitter banning from a platform, this is preventing users from accessing a platform in the first place.
Remember, it's not about leftism winning per-say, it's corporatism. They are now emboldened to tighten their grasp on the narrative so they can make record profits while destroying the intellectual fabric of America.
So no surprise their actions are motivated by greed and future prospects of movement in share price.
In Hinduism, there is a saying - "Yatha Raja, Tatha Praja", meaning "As the King, So the subjects"
That is why the highest echelons of power need to be held by those with Honesty, Integrity & those who are compassionate.
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I mean... what do you want to happen here? The right wing got carte blanche to spread violent rhetoric for years on these platforms in ways that we would have called "terroristic" and "radicalizing" in other contexts. And it went too far. So... do we just ignore it?
I just can't understand how your mind goes to a routine election result and not a failed coup attempt as the reason behind this.
How _incredibly timely and coincidental_ that now that Trump will lose much of his relevance and the Dems are in control all these platforms suddenly found a backbone.
That’s such a dumb meme because obviously tons of people disagree on what intolerance is.
Even our allied governments are saying he caused the riots. You can’t say the entire world is wrong, every single human being is deep state.
Did you listen to the entire phone conversation and not the 4 minute clip? That's quite not what happened. Trump laid out all his claims and was asking them to accept investigating anything that cloud make up his very narrow margin.
Another fun fact about that call, it was a Settlement Call. That was literally protected by attorney/client privileged. Barnes, a civil rights attorney who does federal cases, and who is currently contracted by the Trump team, talks about it here(starting at 54:49):
https://youtu.be/bnevIjvohvQ?t=3276
The best I could hope is that it’s some sick-minded person downvoting just to troll. The idea that a right-minded HN viewer seriously down votes this is absolutely unconscionable and completely beyond the pale.
It’s literally the same as downvoting a comment that says “racist murder is wrong.” Literally!
We can silence dangerous speech with no concerns about the 1st amendment (it's a private platform after all). All your Whatsapp chats can now be mined by Facebook (which the NSA will have access to as well). And the switch that controls social media communications is safely in the hands of Zuckerberg.
It's all coming together perfectly. Well... perfectly for big tech.
1. Illegal content is not allowed.
That’s it.
“It’s hard” is not an excuse.
Parler is not the "anything goes" website that people like to conflate with Gab.
Palantir also had to completely leave because there was so much pressure being put on them in the valley.
Don't forget that they banned ChapoTrapHouse along with The_Donald way back when
When Trump says "we need to fight hard!", is that illegal? What if he says, "Go back to the Capitol and start shooting!"? Is that illegal?
FWIW that was our policy at reddit for a long time too. There is a whole lot of nuance to it that is really hard to deal with.
The fact is any moderation will be subjective and imperfect. How can making more complicated subjective rules help at all?
Is this link right? How about a link to an article instead? What is Parler? Why is it suspended? What is the story for those of us who are just tuning in now?
Apparently the modern state of both American "conservatism" and a chunk of newsy posters feel that Google and Apple should be forced to host them.
After about a day Google and Apple banned Parler from their appstores. Four big tech giants Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter - they are cooperating and coordinating in destroying people they don't like.
At this point this fourheaded beast is the most powerful force on this planet.
And to the people complaining about censorship, this is an app that was literally used to plan a violent attack on the capitol. Some things should be censored.
Wait until you find out what the text messaging apps are used for.
“This was used in an attack” is a bullshit excuse to banish something. WhatsApp and signal have enabled countless terrorist actions and they are still up.
Remember when the Christchurch shooter streamed his rampage on Facebook? Why hasn't Facebook been banned yet?
Crazy that people are ok with what's been happening in the last few hours
it's really insane how people who claim they are champions for human right and diversity rapidly descend into the inhumanity that they themselves blame the very country for.
If I was in America right now, I would get the hell out immediately. This is literally like watching the cultural revolution unfold step by step.
This is exactly the rhetoric used to ban Twitter in other countries. Funny how things are turning.
really scary that there are Americans who think like this.
Or was that a dream?
We have a whole criminal justice system, well staffed and well funded, that addresses this concern.
Personally, I think it's a bit sad that Twitter with the hard tweet removal is effectively protecting Trump from being judged for his statements by the general public. The radicals got the messages anyways, but superficial observers are supported by the remove in any "bad but harmless" perception of Trump they might have.