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> 1. Tech platforms are uncomfortable with certain viewpoints expressed on their platforms and seek to limit these viewpoints. Back in the late 2000s and early
by forest_dweller 6y ago
> 1. Tech platforms are uncomfortable with certain viewpoints expressed on their platforms and seek to limit these viewpoints.
Back in the late 2000s and early 2010s many of these large companies billed themselves as open platforms where you can express yourself. Twitter's Jack Dorsey said in 2012 that "We are the free speech wing of the free speech part". Now he says it was joke.
The terms of service on these platforms appears to be enforced selectively, information appears to be selectively censored and a lot of the time it appears to be based on their politics. Also a lot of internet jokes that have been around for years are being censored because the people doing the moderation don't understand the odder internet subcultures.
So It isn't just tech platforms being uncomfortable with certain viewpoints. It a combination of things that make it seem that these companies are censoring viewpoints (some not even that extreme) on one side of the political spectrum. That is what people are complaining about.
> people flock to “community bubbles” like Parler, TheDonald, etc where they feel welcome.
This isn't true. People are removed from platforms and go to another service where they won't be censored or banned and then a bubble forms.
> 3. This marginalisation leads to increasing extremism; going from the likes of “immigrants bad” we saw in 2016 to disputing and attempting to overturn democracy.
This is a strawman of what these people believe. The vast majority of American conservatives and Trump supporters I know don't say "immigrants are bad". They said "Illegal Immigrants are bad". There is a very important difference. The former is clearly xenophobia, the latter is not.
As for "over turning democracy". They see that there was a lot of odd things that seemed to happening upto and including election night. They feel that there has been voter fraud. Whether that is true or not I have no idea and it looks like it will be settled in court. But they believe they are preserving democracy not overturning it.
- mcphage 6y ago> This isn't true. People are removed from platforms and go to another service where they won't be censored or banned and then a bubble forms. I’m not sure the bulk of the people currently flocking to Parler were ones who were removed from Twitter, Facebook, or Reddit. Especially when they use those sites to announce their move.
- forest_dweller 6y agoI said "censored or banned". Enough people are getting censored and they are moving. A lot of people that were conservative talking heads that were banned went on parler as that really is the only alternative that is getting traction at the moment. So I am quite sure that there is a good bulk of people that are going there for those reasons. In anyevent it feels that a line has been crossed.
- ThePreacherMan 6y agoYou are an idiot.
- dash2 6y agoThat's not how we argue on this forum. Please take a look at the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- disgruntledphd2 6y ago> As for "over turning democracy". They see that there was a lot of odd things that seemed to happening upto and including election night. Wow, seems like the people who voted for a candidate who said that mail-in voting was a hive of fraud for six months before an election were less likely to vote by mail, leading to a huge number of mail-in ballots being cast for the opposing candidate. Odd. Like I'm not sure where these people were getting their news, but literally every news paper pointed out that this would happen, and it did.
- forest_dweller 6y ago> Wow, seems like the people who voted for a candidate who said that mail-in voting was a hive of fraud for six months before an election were less likely to vote by mail, leading to a huge number of mail-in ballots being cast for the opposing candidate. Odd. That isn't what they are complaining about though e.g There are saying that some areas have very high turnout (over 95%) in specific counties. Even in countries with mandatory voting you don't get past 95% of the population voting. I haven't looked into these claims myself. So I have no idea if they are true.
- disgruntledphd2 6y agoSame day registration appears to account for most of this. Normally the registered voters count is from the start of a month, so same day registration can make the numbers look really weird.
- forest_dweller 6y agoAs I said. I don't know. I am not even an American. However that is one of many things that were quite odd.
- amanaplanacanal 6y agoI don’t think you have captured their take on immigration correctly. If it is only illegal immigration that is bad, that would mean that changing the law to make them legal would solve the problem. But that’s not what they want.
- coldtea 6y agoThis is not even an argument. They don't say illegal immigrant is bad as a legal status (so that merely changing the law to make everyone legal would make it ok). They say that illegal immigrants are bad for the same reason that the lawmakers made a distinction between legal and illegal immigrants: to place quota, immigration criteria, and so on.
- wyoh 6y agoYou don't need a separate platform for bubbles to form.