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Or maybe they are private businesses run by people like you and me who like to have a say in what is published on their platform? For a community that is very
by GuiA 9y ago
Or maybe they are private businesses run by people like you and me who like to have a say in what is published on their platform?
For a community that is very pro-company founders, I have a hard time getting a lot of the kneejerk reactions here.
Should physical stores not have a right to decide what they want and don't want to sell? Why should it be any different for Google's digital store?
Even if their reason is "the 3rd pixel on the 2nd row of their app icon is too red for our liking, we're taking it down", they're perfectly in their right. You, of course, are also perfectly in your right to not do business with them, or even launch your own competing business.
- joelrunyon 9y agoI don't think that's the argument free speech advocates are making. The argument is that facebook/twitter as well as some of these other platforms cloudflare/app stores, etc are a form of speech & they have a somewhat debateable stronghold on facilitating speech. So, when they deny speech to a specific group of people, they're not just denying service, but denying speech. The argument is debateable, but that is why people are upset, not that they don't think companies can act however they like towards their customers.
- Overtonwindow 9y agoTo add to that argument, GAB, StormFront, and other websites and services like it have been around a LONG time. Since the internet began. Yet we are only now seeing a reaction from those platforms that host such content. Why? What made Gab and Stormfront ok two weeks ago, but not ok now? That's the hypocrisy that needs greater focus.
- nl 9y agoWith a name like "Overton Window" I suspect you are entirely aware why. To spell it out: the Overton window has moved to a point where people matching in the streets with Nazi flags yelling about killing Jews is not beyond the pale.
- GuiA 9y agoWell, the national news wasn't filled with pictures of people marching in the open streets with nazi flags 10 years ago, for starters.
- flukus 9y agoIt was though. The neo Nazi movement was a lot bigger in the 90s than it is now.
- nl 9y agoNot in the US it wasn't. But there’s one huge difference: These newer offshoots have been far more successful than we could ever have dreamed. When you see crowds of hundreds marching through the streets with their faces uncovered, when white supremacist leader Richard Spencer holds a press conference a few days after a woman was killed by one of his fellow travelers and hosts reporters in his home, it becomes clear just how much more terrifying this new generation of extremists is. They’re savvier than we were. Better connected. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/18/former-neo-nazi-charlottesville-terrifies-me-215502 http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/18/former-neo...
- flukus 9y agoCrowds of hundreds isn't a lot. Crowds of hundreds from all over the country is absolutely nothing, you'd get more Muslim extremists from a small fraction of the population. I hope you're as worried about Islamic extremists as you are about Nazi ones?
- nl 9y agoI hope you're as worried about Islamic extremists as you are about Nazi ones? Of course. I think all violent extremism is despicable.
- CaptSpify 9y agoJust because they legally are allowed censor speech doesn't mean that nobody is allowed to criticize them for it.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- lj3 9y ago> or even launch your own competing business. That's what Gab did when they were banned from Twitter. Now an alliance of tech companies are banning it en masse, even though they are far more benign than some of the other apps on the Apple store and Google Play store (4chan, for example). This isn't about freedom of expression. This is a coordinated attack against an emerging alternative tech industry.