They really need to be explicit about why they did this. Twitter and Facebook have been right about banning DJT and the "Stop The Steal" conspiracists, but they've also spent social capital by doing it, and their reserves are very, very low.
(I think Ron Paul is a problematic character and not at all the idealist he's portrayed as by his fervid followers, but that doesn't matter here in the least).
>Twitter and Facebook have been right about banning DJT and the "Stop The Steal" conspiracists
How so? You call them conspiracists and they might very well be. In fact, let's say they are 100% conspiracists.
If "real conspiracists" are OK to be banned, how would you discern conspiracists from realists that tell it like it is?
Just because Twitter and Facebook says so?
There has been no shortage of actual stolen elections and/or election fraud worldwide (and one would presume, in the US historically).
Would Twitter by OK to ban people complaining about stolen elections in some Latin American country (where we can all agree that they might very well be stolen)?
> how would you discern conspiracists from realists that tell it like it is?
> Would Twitter by OK to ban people complaining about stolen elections in some Latin American country
This seems to suggest that because we can't always tell facts from lies, we must never act on information as being factual. That to me just seems wrong.
> Would Twitter by OK to ban people complaining about stolen elections in some Latin American country (where we can all agree that they might very well be stolen)?
They indeed were (e.g. Maduro in Venezuela is a recent one). I hope Twitter doesn't ignore such situations. There will always be a need for biased and subjective action.
> There has been no shortage of actual stolen elections and/or election fraud worldwide (and one would presume, in the US historically).
One should be really careful when talking about election fraud, to not confuse widespread systematic outcome-changing fraud (which is extremely rare) from instances of fraud (which is almost universal in any election but usually doesn't matter).
Anyone who's always willing to take the gun in hand or instigate others to do it before any evidence is presented either way is dangerous for society and for democracy. And by evidence I mean more than pizza-gate type allegations on FB or Twitter.
This being said just "not agreeing" with someone is not a reason for censorship.
The facts are, the most recent US presidential election was not stolen, as confirmed by judges, experts, people in the administration, bipartisan states. It's ridiculous to claim that it was "stolen".
That has absolutely nothing to do with elections where there is actual doubt and irregularities, and where people can rightly say elections were "stolen" or influenced or cheated.
At the same time, I wish people didn't jump to conclusions just yet. Yes, it could possibly be FB gone wild and starting weird blanket banning. It could be a mistake. It could be an organised group mass-reporting the account to make it banned and prove a point. (organised mass-reporting is relatively common) There's so many options.
I suspect and hope this will be reverted very quickly.
On Ron Paul? For some reason, I can't imagine any amount of mass reporting leading to the ban of other prominent politicians, even AOC would be banned ten times if special protections didn't exist
When this thread first dropped, that's what I thought too. But here's a question. Ron Paul is one of the most well known libertarian and free-speech politicians. He is being limited during a free-speech controversy. If this is indeed "just a mistake", how long time is reasonable for Facebook to find and fix this?
If it takes more than 24h - and we are approaching that - but the US is sleeping so let's allow for that, their inaction starts to look malicious.
In what way have they been right? What has he written that is against their policies, or against a sane policy? Like I legitimately want to hear, what adequate reasons to you think they had to ban him? I haven't been able to find any, at all.
Or is your definition of "right" just referring to the fact that it's their private platform and they can ban whoever they want based on their own political views?
Not a fan of Ron Paul but this doesn't sit right. It doesn't appear that he has advocated violence or insurgency.
I wouldn't have a problem with legislation requiring disclosure of specific reasons for locking users out of their accounts, once a social media company, payment provider, or other online service provider reaches a certain size. Of course, under libertarian principles, Ron Paul would object to such a law, but that's where we are nowadays. Lots of ideological chickens coming home to roost.
I don't see it either. I also don't see how there's an ideological conflict. Ron Paul's site has been ambivalent-to-favorable about the attempt to overturn the election, and maybe that's the new issue Facebook has. Whatever it is, they should disclose it, or just walk the ban back --- people get randomly banned, temporarily, from Facebook all the time.
I listen to Ron Paul all the time, not even once i have listened him to be racist or hateful to anyone, or advocate for violence. Actually this is what i dislike him the most, that he is too peaceful, almost against all wars. Other subjects he comments usually, is the climate change that it may be true, but most probably not man-made, he is not favor at all the compulsory vaccination because it is totally unscientific, and that most of the covid measures are totally authoritarian.
However silencing the political opposition is always a necessary step we have to make, so as to have a good functional democracy.
A good politician is never blatantly racist, that's political suicide.
Anyway, it's not enough to "not be racist", that's like the default, like "being nice to others" is. What are you when you're not nice? Just "there"? No, you're a prick.
When it comes to racism, if you're not openly against it, you condone it, and you're part of the problem.
Take Trump; in his position, he can take down the extreme right paramilitary organizations, the Proud Boys, the KKK, the conservative churches, etc. But he chooses not to, instead dogwhilstling his approval and support; statements like "stand back and stand by", encouraging the crowds to storm the Capitol, etc etc etc. He knows he'd be booted out hard if he starts to hard-R his way through speeches, but dogwhistles have no consequences, and inaction has no direct consequences.
Because if they don't, they will rack up really bad reputation for crushing people wantonly and acting as judge, jury and executioner over their livelihoods, without even giving a clear idea what constitutes a fatal offence.
If they don't it'll just add to the duopoly break up argument.
It's also easy to be be complacent when it's not our views under attack, but all you need is the thought exercise of how this will be abused when the other side takes power.
I look forward to the EFF and the ACLU getting their pages shut down then. Even they've come out and stated that we should be chilled with Parler's shutout.
>Yes, this is partly an attempt to erase the Trump movement from the pages of history, but it is also an attempt to silence any criticism of the emerging political consensus in the coming Biden era that may come from progressive or antiwar circles.
Getting banned right after saying this just shows that he's right. Combined with how DNC blocked Sanders and Gabbard, the next four years is going to be very bad for the rest of the world.
Exactly. As someone from Europe I shiver at the thought of trump leaving the presidency. Biden will restart the wars and flood Europe with economic migra... I mean refugees once again.
> the next four years is going to be very bad for the rest of the world
As someone from the ROTW I can tell you we're thrilled that Trump is leaving. It's been 4 years of uncertainty, foul rhetoric, blatant lying and cronyism. Trump sought the line and the line was drawn. Would it be better if it hadn't come to it? Yeah I think so. But we're waaaaay past that.
> Because no army – not even Big Tech partnered with Big Government - can stop an idea
This is more hopeful than conclusively factual. It seems pretty clear that platform owners believe very strongly that they can and should or must. It’s the must part that concerns me. Jack’s free-speaking interviews don’t imply any personal desire for censorship. He’s even spoken to the need for a decentralized Twitter.
Maybe the most important part of this quote is that Ron Paul explicitly implies a partnership where none so far is understood, and at this point such an implication is certainly on the fringe of conspiracy theories. And if you think about all of the POTUS death threats that have built massive audiences on the platform, it’s an extremely confusing and/or deeply troubling accusation. Who is this ‘Big Government’, and why would they seem to hate the one person that most Americans most closely associate with that term?
I guess the big question is whether censorship exists to protect powerless people from lies, or powerful people from the truth.
> President Trump’s permanent ban from Twitter and other outlets – was shocking and chilling, particularly to those of us who value free expression and the free exchange of ideas. The justifications given for the silencing of wide swaths of public opinion made no sense
That's all I need to read in order to dismiss anything further that he says.
A cynic would say that tech companies are ingratiating themselves with the new power, the Democrats, in order to get clemency on the anti-trust probes everyone was expecting for 2021.
Oh yeah, but when the pendulum swings the other way in a couple of years (and it will) they will be screwed. For Republicans, corps have clear that they have a side and its against Republicans.
It's the disadvantage of corporations getting into politics.
What prevents Big Tech from occupying the Chinese market is the fact that the Chinese leadership does not trust them to toe the line perfectly. That won't change with a change in the White House.
Reinstating net neutrality will be a good thing. Shelving that mostly helped ISPs, who've now expanded their anti-competitive zero-rating practices to broadband.
> has anti-China policies, which reduces Big Tech's customer base.
Biden has already said he will not reverse the China policy - quite the contrary, unlike Trump who only resorted to bullying tactics (aka trade/tariff war), Biden intends to work out a China policy with allied countries (i.e. NATO / European Union) that will aim at changing the abusive practices China is doing, per https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/02/opinion/biden-interview-m... .
These kinds of actions only fan the big tech conspiracy flames, but surely if it's true that he never actually received a violation, then his account got 1000s of reports and was auto-locked.
Readit News
(I think Ron Paul is a problematic character and not at all the idealist he's portrayed as by his fervid followers, but that doesn't matter here in the least).
How so? You call them conspiracists and they might very well be. In fact, let's say they are 100% conspiracists.
If "real conspiracists" are OK to be banned, how would you discern conspiracists from realists that tell it like it is?
Just because Twitter and Facebook says so?
There has been no shortage of actual stolen elections and/or election fraud worldwide (and one would presume, in the US historically).
Would Twitter by OK to ban people complaining about stolen elections in some Latin American country (where we can all agree that they might very well be stolen)?
This seems to suggest that because we can't always tell facts from lies, we must never act on information as being factual. That to me just seems wrong.
> Would Twitter by OK to ban people complaining about stolen elections in some Latin American country (where we can all agree that they might very well be stolen)?
They indeed were (e.g. Maduro in Venezuela is a recent one). I hope Twitter doesn't ignore such situations. There will always be a need for biased and subjective action.
> There has been no shortage of actual stolen elections and/or election fraud worldwide (and one would presume, in the US historically).
One should be really careful when talking about election fraud, to not confuse widespread systematic outcome-changing fraud (which is extremely rare) from instances of fraud (which is almost universal in any election but usually doesn't matter).
This being said just "not agreeing" with someone is not a reason for censorship.
The facts are, the most recent US presidential election was not stolen, as confirmed by judges, experts, people in the administration, bipartisan states. It's ridiculous to claim that it was "stolen".
That has absolutely nothing to do with elections where there is actual doubt and irregularities, and where people can rightly say elections were "stolen" or influenced or cheated.
I suspect and hope this will be reverted very quickly.
Well, Facebook did jump to conclusions and even moved to action and banned people.
So "jumping to conclusions" is the least people can do in return...
>I suspect and hope this will be reverted very quickly.
That would still be at the mercy of FB, a bad precedent, and perhaps "testing the waters" to see how far they can take it atm.
If it takes more than 24h - and we are approaching that - but the US is sleeping so let's allow for that, their inaction starts to look malicious.
In what way have they been right? What has he written that is against their policies, or against a sane policy? Like I legitimately want to hear, what adequate reasons to you think they had to ban him? I haven't been able to find any, at all.
Or is your definition of "right" just referring to the fact that it's their private platform and they can ban whoever they want based on their own political views?
Essentially, supporting a violent insurrection into the capital building was the line.
Dead Comment
I wouldn't have a problem with legislation requiring disclosure of specific reasons for locking users out of their accounts, once a social media company, payment provider, or other online service provider reaches a certain size. Of course, under libertarian principles, Ron Paul would object to such a law, but that's where we are nowadays. Lots of ideological chickens coming home to roost.
However silencing the political opposition is always a necessary step we have to make, so as to have a good functional democracy.
https://www.google.com/search?q=ron+paul+racism&oq=ron+paul+...
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Anyway, it's not enough to "not be racist", that's like the default, like "being nice to others" is. What are you when you're not nice? Just "there"? No, you're a prick.
When it comes to racism, if you're not openly against it, you condone it, and you're part of the problem.
Take Trump; in his position, he can take down the extreme right paramilitary organizations, the Proud Boys, the KKK, the conservative churches, etc. But he chooses not to, instead dogwhilstling his approval and support; statements like "stand back and stand by", encouraging the crowds to storm the Capitol, etc etc etc. He knows he'd be booted out hard if he starts to hard-R his way through speeches, but dogwhistles have no consequences, and inaction has no direct consequences.
But do they? Because you feel like it? Or because they have some real obligation?
Next phase, antitrust trials.
It's also easy to be be complacent when it's not our views under attack, but all you need is the thought exercise of how this will be abused when the other side takes power.
Oh wait, we all know that won't happen.
Getting banned right after saying this just shows that he's right. Combined with how DNC blocked Sanders and Gabbard, the next four years is going to be very bad for the rest of the world.
As someone from the ROTW I can tell you we're thrilled that Trump is leaving. It's been 4 years of uncertainty, foul rhetoric, blatant lying and cronyism. Trump sought the line and the line was drawn. Would it be better if it hadn't come to it? Yeah I think so. But we're waaaaay past that.
Dead Comment
This is more hopeful than conclusively factual. It seems pretty clear that platform owners believe very strongly that they can and should or must. It’s the must part that concerns me. Jack’s free-speaking interviews don’t imply any personal desire for censorship. He’s even spoken to the need for a decentralized Twitter.
Maybe the most important part of this quote is that Ron Paul explicitly implies a partnership where none so far is understood, and at this point such an implication is certainly on the fringe of conspiracy theories. And if you think about all of the POTUS death threats that have built massive audiences on the platform, it’s an extremely confusing and/or deeply troubling accusation. Who is this ‘Big Government’, and why would they seem to hate the one person that most Americans most closely associate with that term?
I guess the big question is whether censorship exists to protect powerless people from lies, or powerful people from the truth.
That's all I need to read in order to dismiss anything further that he says.
Their actions have huge consequences and we're not even pressuring them to explain why they're doing what they're doing.
It's the disadvantage of corporations getting into politics.
- rescinded net neutrality, which helped FAANG companies.
- threatened to break up Big Tech.
- has anti-China policies, which reduces Big Tech's customer base.
The new administration may be reversing all of the above.
Biden has already said he will not reverse the China policy - quite the contrary, unlike Trump who only resorted to bullying tactics (aka trade/tariff war), Biden intends to work out a China policy with allied countries (i.e. NATO / European Union) that will aim at changing the abusive practices China is doing, per https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/02/opinion/biden-interview-m... .
Dead Comment
Everyone needs to chill out.
It's just about how all these left-wing platforms are acting at the same time to silence those they disagree with.
Dead Comment