8 ms·

This whole thread is going to be: * I'm not a liberal but.. * I'm not a conservative but.. * Twitter may be a private company, but.. * Freedom of speech but

This whole thread is going to be: * I'm not a liberal but.. * I'm not a conservative but.. * Twitter may be a private company, but.. * Freedom of speech but... If there is a new view point on how to analytically break such news down that would be great to hear indeed!

echelon 6y ago
Money and power has found a way to hack the first amendment. Algorithms are amplifying the most inflammatory messages on both sides to increase engagement.
- dannyw 6y ago
  Money and power has always hacked the first amendment. Before the internet, a few corporations controlled all media a person would be exposed to.
  - loopz 6y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_cross-ownership_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_cross-ownership_in_the...
- inZGBl 6y ago
  Is this the endgame of the attention economy? If I show you a picture of a cat and evidence of an existential threat, which are you most likely to pay real attention to? The black box is always going to optimize for the worst aspects of humanity. The best aspects simply aren’t worth enough money.
sigmaprimus 6y ago
How about doing a thought experiment for a minute? Trump told what are generally considered incorrect opinions on corona virus prevention. Eg: Hydroxy Chloroquine works, masks don't and so on... His followers then parroted and posted these comments on social media and were promptly defunded, suspended and even banned for breaking Eula terms. Because Covid is serious and far too important to risk endangering others lives with misinformation like that...fair enough. The campaign rolls on only now a significant portion of Trump's most vocal supporters are no longer able to voice their support and encourage people to vote for him due to being punished for spreading false info that Trump told them regarding Covid, or is that the real reason? Maybe the plan was to silence the right's voice all along but Covid presented itself at an oppertune time, the left leaning social media companies took full advantage and Trump and his followers walked right into the trap! Could that be why right wing supporters might want to find a new forum to express themselves? Somewhere that they wont have their voices taken away right before an election that they feel passionate about? Just a different thought from an outside observer with no skin in the game.
- EdwardDiego 6y ago
  Why would FB and Twitter be plotting to "silence the right's voice?"
  - Grustaf 6y ago
    Is this a serious question?
    - sverhagen 6y ago
      There's plenty of opinion out there that the leadership of these companies themselves are right leaning, even if the average silicon valley employee isn't. I don't know. But maybe they are also just hoping to be neutral. Maybe it's good business to not alienate half of your marketplace. Maybe there's some aspect of genuine principle there. If you believe that can't exist, how is it possible that right leaning state governments ever can verify the election in favor of a left leaning candidate? I'm naive in so many ways, but I need some hope to stay alive.
      - Grustaf 6y ago
        Except for Peter Thiel and possibly Musk, what silicon valley big-shot is not (very) explicitly left-wing?
        acdha 6y ago
        That very much depends on the issue in question. Most of them are pro-gay rights, for example, because that is either a win or neutral for people they care about but if you’re talking about issues which have a direct financial impact (tax rates, corporate liability, privacy or workers rights, etc.) you’ll unsurprisingly find big differences. When you look at the money that the big tech company PACs spend it tends to skew towards whoever is in power or promises the least regulation, like most other industries.
    - sigmaprimus 6y ago
      Not really, just a thought experiment. Truth is I can still see both sides of the political argument, possibly even more so the libratarian point of view, which is a fairly safe place to be ATM. I believe for bad or worse though that many people have gotten caught up in the frenzy a bit too much during this election cycle and have made morality comprimising decisions on both sides. Maybe it's the Rona driving it, after all so many people have died from it, and the US went to war over 911. Rona is literally exponentially worse as far as the death toll goes, so IDK what is to come but emotions are raw for sure. I have tried to stay out of the discussions, (taken Dang's advice and waited for things to cool down) then a hit job story about another platform comes out like this one and tries to politicize Parler. So unfortunately I got sucked into the politics too and foolishly weighed in.
Grustaf 6y ago
The top comment right now is neither. It’s “good riddance, all conservatives are antisemitic crackpots”.
- flyinglizard 6y ago
  As a Jewish person I’d say that none of this political polarization is beneficial for us. It’s not that one side has intrinsically safer qualities for Jews. With the work of ADL and many prominent Jewish figures in the past century, anti-semitism had kind of a special status where it’s taboo even when it’s very nuanced, on both the left and right sides of the aisle. It’s drowning in the cultural discourse now. When 70 million voters are labeled “racist” - or at least supporting “racist policies” - the word loses its deterrence altogether.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    America used to be an explicitly racist county where the majority of voters supported bans on interracial marriage and segregation in schools as recently as the 1960s. There's nothing absurd or unlikely about racist voters being a large fraction of the country.
  - odessacubbage 6y ago
    the aclu was pretty much built out of support from the jewish community and jewish lawyers who understood that free expression is the strongest protection any minority has against the state and will of the of the majority. the rights i enjoy today exist in a large part because of their tireless work and they have my eternal gratitude. bad ideas never go away, though the words and the arguments for them may change. we cannot censor away the problem, the only defense is a vigorous and open forum of debate where everything can be challenged.
heresie-dabord 6y ago
The Electoral College and First-Past-The-Post distort the voters' interest in favour of a two-party system that encourages dogmatic thinking; US voters want to express themselves but they lack information and critical thinking; Not all information is good; Journalism is dying and the advertising business distorts people's perceptions for profit; Taxes are needed but the lucid, rational discourse needed to make good public policy is absent; It is hard to cultivate the citizenry in the above conditions; the political system is starved of courageous and intelligent politicians; panderers have a significant demographic to exploit. tldr: US public discourse has attained a toxic equilibrium. But it is profitable for some.
- brandonr49 6y ago
  I have absolutely no idea why this is downvoted. My sympathies.

echelon 6y ago

Money and power has found a way to hack the first amendment. Algorithms are amplifying the most inflammatory messages on both sides to increase engagement.

dannyw 6y ago
Money and power has always hacked the first amendment. Before the internet, a few corporations controlled all media a person would be exposed to.
- loopz 6y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_cross-ownership_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_cross-ownership_in_the...
inZGBl 6y ago
Is this the endgame of the attention economy? If I show you a picture of a cat and evidence of an existential threat, which are you most likely to pay real attention to? The black box is always going to optimize for the worst aspects of humanity. The best aspects simply aren’t worth enough money.

sigmaprimus 6y ago

How about doing a thought experiment for a minute? Trump told what are generally considered incorrect opinions on corona virus prevention. Eg: Hydroxy Chloroquine works, masks don't and so on... His followers then parroted and posted these comments on social media and were promptly defunded, suspended and even banned for breaking Eula terms. Because Covid is serious and far too important to risk endangering others lives with misinformation like that...fair enough. The campaign rolls on only now a significant portion of Trump's most vocal supporters are no longer able to voice their support and encourage people to vote for him due to being punished for spreading false info that Trump told them regarding Covid, or is that the real reason? Maybe the plan was to silence the right's voice all along but Covid presented itself at an oppertune time, the left leaning social media companies took full advantage and Trump and his followers walked right into the trap! Could that be why right wing supporters might want to find a new forum to express themselves? Somewhere that they wont have their voices taken away right before an election that they feel passionate about? Just a different thought from an outside observer with no skin in the game.

EdwardDiego 6y ago
Why would FB and Twitter be plotting to "silence the right's voice?"
- Grustaf 6y ago
  Is this a serious question?
  - sverhagen 6y ago
    There's plenty of opinion out there that the leadership of these companies themselves are right leaning, even if the average silicon valley employee isn't. I don't know. But maybe they are also just hoping to be neutral. Maybe it's good business to not alienate half of your marketplace. Maybe there's some aspect of genuine principle there. If you believe that can't exist, how is it possible that right leaning state governments ever can verify the election in favor of a left leaning candidate? I'm naive in so many ways, but I need some hope to stay alive.
    - Grustaf 6y ago
      Except for Peter Thiel and possibly Musk, what silicon valley big-shot is not (very) explicitly left-wing?
      - acdha 6y ago
        That very much depends on the issue in question. Most of them are pro-gay rights, for example, because that is either a win or neutral for people they care about but if you’re talking about issues which have a direct financial impact (tax rates, corporate liability, privacy or workers rights, etc.) you’ll unsurprisingly find big differences. When you look at the money that the big tech company PACs spend it tends to skew towards whoever is in power or promises the least regulation, like most other industries.
  - sigmaprimus 6y ago
    Not really, just a thought experiment. Truth is I can still see both sides of the political argument, possibly even more so the libratarian point of view, which is a fairly safe place to be ATM. I believe for bad or worse though that many people have gotten caught up in the frenzy a bit too much during this election cycle and have made morality comprimising decisions on both sides. Maybe it's the Rona driving it, after all so many people have died from it, and the US went to war over 911. Rona is literally exponentially worse as far as the death toll goes, so IDK what is to come but emotions are raw for sure. I have tried to stay out of the discussions, (taken Dang's advice and waited for things to cool down) then a hit job story about another platform comes out like this one and tries to politicize Parler. So unfortunately I got sucked into the politics too and foolishly weighed in.

Grustaf 6y ago

The top comment right now is neither. It’s “good riddance, all conservatives are antisemitic crackpots”.

flyinglizard 6y ago
As a Jewish person I’d say that none of this political polarization is beneficial for us. It’s not that one side has intrinsically safer qualities for Jews. With the work of ADL and many prominent Jewish figures in the past century, anti-semitism had kind of a special status where it’s taboo even when it’s very nuanced, on both the left and right sides of the aisle. It’s drowning in the cultural discourse now. When 70 million voters are labeled “racist” - or at least supporting “racist policies” - the word loses its deterrence altogether.
- pjc50 6y ago
  America used to be an explicitly racist county where the majority of voters supported bans on interracial marriage and segregation in schools as recently as the 1960s. There's nothing absurd or unlikely about racist voters being a large fraction of the country.
- odessacubbage 6y ago
  the aclu was pretty much built out of support from the jewish community and jewish lawyers who understood that free expression is the strongest protection any minority has against the state and will of the of the majority. the rights i enjoy today exist in a large part because of their tireless work and they have my eternal gratitude. bad ideas never go away, though the words and the arguments for them may change. we cannot censor away the problem, the only defense is a vigorous and open forum of debate where everything can be challenged.

heresie-dabord 6y ago

The Electoral College and First-Past-The-Post distort the voters' interest in favour of a two-party system that encourages dogmatic thinking; US voters want to express themselves but they lack information and critical thinking; Not all information is good; Journalism is dying and the advertising business distorts people's perceptions for profit; Taxes are needed but the lucid, rational discourse needed to make good public policy is absent; It is hard to cultivate the citizenry in the above conditions; the political system is starved of courageous and intelligent politicians; panderers have a significant demographic to exploit. tldr: US public discourse has attained a toxic equilibrium. But it is profitable for some.

brandonr49 6y ago
I have absolutely no idea why this is downvoted. My sympathies.