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Weird, because I keep hearing about the alternative platforms getting kicked offline. Krebs has a story about trying to kill 8chan right now. Gab had its paym

by Natsu 6y ago

Weird, because I keep hearing about the alternative platforms getting kicked offline. Krebs has a story about trying to kill 8chan right now. Gab had its payment processing suspended, etc. Now, right now, it's hard to blame platforms for wanting to get rid of Nazis. Nobody wants a Nazi on their front lawn. But in the long term, having capitalist oligarchs with control over most of the public's ability to communicate with each other does not seem like a good plan. The people who lead the companies won't be there forever and in the future, one of the leaders with all the control over what people can and cannot say may be a Nazi or perhaps someone in power will convert to one. I'd like to believe that's unthinkable, but not thinking about things like this doesn't seem like a very solid plan. Maybe we should limit how much power and control any one media agency can have over public discourse. And yes, the government's power over that should also be limited.

mullingitover 6y ago
> Weird, because I keep hearing about the alternative platforms getting kicked offline. Krebs has a story about trying to kill 8chan right now. Gab had its payment processing suspended, etc. 8chan hosting is a legitimate liability concern. This is not an apples to apples comparison of businesses operating in good faith with reasonable policies and practices. I don't see the slippery slope. "If someone is able to shut down our unabashed cesspool, eventually they're going to start coming for sites that aren't cesspools!"
- Natsu 6y ago
  This is not a slippery slope argument, it's "what happens if we permit all this power to rest with a few people and one of them converts to or gets replaced by a Nazi in the future."
  - mullingitover 6y ago
    This seems to assume that this power is some permanent, unearned thing. The internet is a cruel master - look no further than Tom from MySpace or Jerry Yang from Yahoo!. The power they possess was given to them by their users, and one day those users will find a new platform as they have always done. This isn't some Ma Bell situation where it's illegal to build another phone company.
    - Natsu 6y ago
      > This seems to assume that this power is some permanent, unearned thing. It doesn't have to be permanent to be harmful. Suppose, I dunno, the Koch brothers somehow managed to buy Google (or maybe the Saudis, it doesn't matter really) and simply took over the existing power structure to use it for evil. Yes, maybe everyone would work to migrate, but it's hard not to think they could do some bad things in the mean time. > This isn't some Ma Bell situation where it's illegal to build another phone company. Well, if the alternatives get treated like the examples given up thread, that's quite an uphill battle, because you may not be able to get an ISP, payment processor, IP addresses, domain names, etc. Having to remake the entire infrastructure again makes some of these things natural monopolies even if it's not exactly illegal to build another one, network effects are still a pain.
      - mullingitover 6y ago
        > Well, if the alternatives get treated like the examples given up thread, that's quite an uphill battle, because you may not be able to get an ISP, payment processor, IP addresses, domain names, etc. Calling those particular sites 'alternatives' is ridiculous. There are legit competitors to the big social media sites that aren't cesspools of child porn and hate speech, and those are doing fine. Arguably the biggest up and coming competition, Tiktok, isn't being assailed on free speech grounds but over national security fears.
- mistermann 6y ago
  > 8chan hosting is a legitimate liability concern. Some plausible excuse can always be found. > This is not an apples to apples comparison of businesses operating in good faith with reasonable policies and practices. Humans are incredible capable at "reasoning" (framing, rationalizing) things to any desired perspective or conclusion. > "If someone is able to shut down our unabashed cesspool, eventually they're going to start coming for sites that aren't cesspools!" Those are you words, not the words someone else has said in this thread. You did say this though: > There are plenty of alternative platforms, which conservatives are constantly failing to lure anyone to. The person who replied to this assertion noted some examples of such alternative platforms being interfered with - and of course, a "reasonable" reason can typically be manufactured (imagined) within seconds. And all of this does not take into consideration that visibility of speech largely varies per platform. No, you do not have a "right" to be on a platform, but that is orthogonal to the question of whether the broadcast of certain ideas is being forcefully limited by the employees or executives of large platforms (completely within their current rights).
  - mullingitover 6y ago
    > The person who replied to this assertion noted some examples of such alternative platforms being interfered with Those are alternative platforms to twitter in the same way that a strip club is an alternative entertainment venue to your local movie theater. The alternatives to twitter for people who are not of ill repute are places like Parler and Mastodon, and they're doing just fine and the tyrannical hand of the free market has not crushed them. They're relative failures in the marketplace, but the market doesn't owe them success simply because they have different/lower moderation standards.
    - yeetawayhn 6y ago
      > Those are alternative platforms to twitter in the same way that a strip club is an alternative entertainment venue to your local movie theater. I'm assuming this comparison is supposed to have some rhetorical value to it? Otherwise it just comes off as puritan gatekeeping.

by Natsu 6y ago

mullingitover 6y ago

> Weird, because I keep hearing about the alternative platforms getting kicked offline. Krebs has a story about trying to kill 8chan right now. Gab had its payment processing suspended, etc. 8chan hosting is a legitimate liability concern. This is not an apples to apples comparison of businesses operating in good faith with reasonable policies and practices. I don't see the slippery slope. "If someone is able to shut down our unabashed cesspool, eventually they're going to start coming for sites that aren't cesspools!"

Natsu 6y ago
This is not a slippery slope argument, it's "what happens if we permit all this power to rest with a few people and one of them converts to or gets replaced by a Nazi in the future."
- mullingitover 6y ago
  This seems to assume that this power is some permanent, unearned thing. The internet is a cruel master - look no further than Tom from MySpace or Jerry Yang from Yahoo!. The power they possess was given to them by their users, and one day those users will find a new platform as they have always done. This isn't some Ma Bell situation where it's illegal to build another phone company.
  - Natsu 6y ago
    > This seems to assume that this power is some permanent, unearned thing. It doesn't have to be permanent to be harmful. Suppose, I dunno, the Koch brothers somehow managed to buy Google (or maybe the Saudis, it doesn't matter really) and simply took over the existing power structure to use it for evil. Yes, maybe everyone would work to migrate, but it's hard not to think they could do some bad things in the mean time. > This isn't some Ma Bell situation where it's illegal to build another phone company. Well, if the alternatives get treated like the examples given up thread, that's quite an uphill battle, because you may not be able to get an ISP, payment processor, IP addresses, domain names, etc. Having to remake the entire infrastructure again makes some of these things natural monopolies even if it's not exactly illegal to build another one, network effects are still a pain.
    - mullingitover 6y ago
      > Well, if the alternatives get treated like the examples given up thread, that's quite an uphill battle, because you may not be able to get an ISP, payment processor, IP addresses, domain names, etc. Calling those particular sites 'alternatives' is ridiculous. There are legit competitors to the big social media sites that aren't cesspools of child porn and hate speech, and those are doing fine. Arguably the biggest up and coming competition, Tiktok, isn't being assailed on free speech grounds but over national security fears.
mistermann 6y ago
> 8chan hosting is a legitimate liability concern. Some plausible excuse can always be found. > This is not an apples to apples comparison of businesses operating in good faith with reasonable policies and practices. Humans are incredible capable at "reasoning" (framing, rationalizing) things to any desired perspective or conclusion. > "If someone is able to shut down our unabashed cesspool, eventually they're going to start coming for sites that aren't cesspools!" Those are you words, not the words someone else has said in this thread. You did say this though: > There are plenty of alternative platforms, which conservatives are constantly failing to lure anyone to. The person who replied to this assertion noted some examples of such alternative platforms being interfered with - and of course, a "reasonable" reason can typically be manufactured (imagined) within seconds. And all of this does not take into consideration that visibility of speech largely varies per platform. No, you do not have a "right" to be on a platform, but that is orthogonal to the question of whether the broadcast of certain ideas is being forcefully limited by the employees or executives of large platforms (completely within their current rights).
- mullingitover 6y ago
  > The person who replied to this assertion noted some examples of such alternative platforms being interfered with Those are alternative platforms to twitter in the same way that a strip club is an alternative entertainment venue to your local movie theater. The alternatives to twitter for people who are not of ill repute are places like Parler and Mastodon, and they're doing just fine and the tyrannical hand of the free market has not crushed them. They're relative failures in the marketplace, but the market doesn't owe them success simply because they have different/lower moderation standards.
  - yeetawayhn 6y ago
    > Those are alternative platforms to twitter in the same way that a strip club is an alternative entertainment venue to your local movie theater. I'm assuming this comparison is supposed to have some rhetorical value to it? Otherwise it just comes off as puritan gatekeeping.