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Am I the only one being very smug about all this? Not only am I glad the president is gone, but watching everyone who otherwise defends free markets tooth and n

Am I the only one being very smug about all this? Not only am I glad the president is gone, but watching everyone who otherwise defends free markets tooth and nail get mad when the free market does what it's supposed to do is very gratifying also.

tertius 6y ago
Does what it's supposed to do. In your view, how so?
- conception 6y ago
  The businesses in question found it to be bad business to keep the president on their platform so they removed him. They aren’t being altruistic.
  - jpxw 6y ago
    You seriously think that Twitter decided to ban Trump because they think they will make more money if they do? Seems very unlikely to me. Trump draws massive traffic to Twitter.
  - nostromo 6y ago
    Said business is cozying up to the party taking control of the house, senate, and presidency. It has nothing to do with any market.
    - grahamburger 6y ago
      As they are free to do. The right tend to be the ones defending the rights of companies to do whatever they want, and it has bit them this time.
      - tertius 6y ago
        Yes, but companies don't normally do whatever they want... This action has nothing to do with free market economics.
        grahamburger 6y ago
        Sure it does. They made this decision based on what they thought would be best for their company, by both satisfying advertisers and buying favor with the new administration. They balanced those benefits against the users they'll lose based on this decision and decided it was worth it. Maybe we'll get lucky and find that they were wrong, and that this move causes enough public backlash to give other social networks a chance to thrive (if we're really lucky, maybe even decentralized ones!)
        tertius 6y ago
        That's your guess. The only information we have is that it was internal pressure too be a "better company."
  - tertius 6y ago
    Define bad business. Get down to brass tacks so we can see if the argument holds up.
refurb 6y ago
You’re smug about Zuckerberg and Dorsey having that much control over political discourse in this country?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- nojito 6y ago
  Why are you advocating for government control of the internet? It's shocking that hackernews has turned so far astray.
  - chr1 6y ago
    Why is the choice between government control and supporting censorship by tech companies? One can be against government control out of fear that government will use that to do something unintended, and at the same time condemn the destructive behaviour of these business owners. The situation with freedom of speech is remarkably similar to the situation with religious freedom in England of 1600s. Like they have learned to not bring their sacral beliefs into everyday life, because that causes the society to fail, we need to learn that escalating the political fight too much is dangerous, and universal freedom of speech is game theoretically the right strategy.
economusty 6y ago
You are only smug because it supports your team, if the democrats were censored you would throw a tantrum.
- mattnewton 6y ago
  This feels like pure conjecture honestly. There are plenty of left wing voices that have been kicked off twitter and reddit for making calls for violence, but mainstream democrats have not caused that liability for platforms they use.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
nostromo 6y ago
The mirror opposite of a hypocritical set of positions is another set of equally hypocritical positions. We’ll see how fond the left is when a new set of “counter terrorism” laws, corporate censorship, and the free market when it gets used on the next round of BLM protestors, to pick an example at random. Not to mention how suddenly the far left is suddenly concerned about Twitter’s civil rights — something reaffirmed by their least favorite opinion: Citizen’s United. Nobody should fool themselves: neither party has a consistent set of principles.
- courtf 6y ago
  How's life been under that rock this past year?
  - konjin 6y ago
    Great, the patriot act finally expired.
- mattnewton 6y ago
  > We’ll see how fond the left is when a new set of “counter terrorism” laws, corporate censorship, and the free market when it gets used on the next round of BLM protestors, to pick an example at random. That has been happening? https://theintercept.com/2018/03/19/black-lives-matter-fbi-surveillance/ https://theintercept.com/2018/03/19/black-lives-matter-fbi-s... Pretty much has been happening forever too. Many voices "on the left" have always been under surveillance since we started surveiling our citizens, and were often economically blackballed on the free market as well. Also this seems like false equivalences between people saying we should change how policing works vs we should overturn the results of our election through force. We have actual armed insurrectionists on one hand storming the capitol with zip cuffs and illegally carried firearms. You are asking how we would feel if we treated BLM, the people who want their tax dollars to go to alternatives to policing, like we treated those people inciting the capitol riot. Honestly it would probably be an improvement.
  - listless 6y ago
jpxw 6y ago
Just because companies in a free market should be legally free to censor people, doesn’t mean they should do it. The sheer number of people who can’t grasp this basic point is staggering.
- m00x 6y ago
  So you think HN/Reddit comments should be unmoderated?
  - jpxw 6y ago
    No. There’s a role for moderation, in removing comments which are off-topic or illegal. My issue is with “moderation” where you just remove content you disagree with politically.
    - tomrod 6y ago
      Political disagreement in some contexts is illegal. I've seen some real gems from ParlerWatch, people wanting to roast the wives and children of liberals on open spits to teach them the danger of liberalness. Liberal means free, btw.
      - IncRnd 6y ago
        You can find that sort of trash on Parler, Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere - from people of many political stripes.
        tomrod 6y ago
        Yes, but higher density with the GOP and other nationalism-focused groups. It's just a natural outcome of the different ideologies. One is bound by hate over decrease in privilege, the other is a broad coalition to make lives better for folks who then get frustrated and vent online (and sometimes in the streets).
    - mreome 6y ago
zug_zug 6y ago
I try pretty hard not to take joy in others' frustrations because it's a sure-tail sign of tribalism, but it sure seems like there are a lot of these discussions popping up on HN and if anything the tone-deafness of it all certainly isn't helping me find some middle ground.
geodel 6y ago
I think there will be millions like you. And everyone likes free market when it works or start to work in their favor. So no surprise there.
proc0 6y ago
That's an anarcho-capitalist, free market purist position. Most people agree some regulation is needed to prevent bad actors. Social media keeps changing their policies, while not really adhering to it, not to mention it is intrusive to begin with. It is only consistent to regulate them like we do other large sectors like food, and energy, plus there is precedent for breaking up big tech from a couple decades ago. There's also something not mentioned very often, these apps are "free" and lose money at first, but they sell your information and now they control the conversation, something most people are not in a position to decide or even know about, of course until it's too late and you have your life in their servers. Imho, this is a conflict of interest similar to private healthcare insurance, where the profit and the wellbeing of the human involved (sometimes the customer, sometimes the product) is not the #1 priority, and as a result a large enough company has the scale to damage a large number of people.

tertius 6y ago

Does what it's supposed to do. In your view, how so?

conception 6y ago
The businesses in question found it to be bad business to keep the president on their platform so they removed him. They aren’t being altruistic.
- jpxw 6y ago
  You seriously think that Twitter decided to ban Trump because they think they will make more money if they do? Seems very unlikely to me. Trump draws massive traffic to Twitter.
- nostromo 6y ago
  Said business is cozying up to the party taking control of the house, senate, and presidency. It has nothing to do with any market.
  - grahamburger 6y ago
    As they are free to do. The right tend to be the ones defending the rights of companies to do whatever they want, and it has bit them this time.
    - tertius 6y ago
      Yes, but companies don't normally do whatever they want... This action has nothing to do with free market economics.
      - grahamburger 6y ago
        Sure it does. They made this decision based on what they thought would be best for their company, by both satisfying advertisers and buying favor with the new administration. They balanced those benefits against the users they'll lose based on this decision and decided it was worth it. Maybe we'll get lucky and find that they were wrong, and that this move causes enough public backlash to give other social networks a chance to thrive (if we're really lucky, maybe even decentralized ones!)
        tertius 6y ago
        That's your guess. The only information we have is that it was internal pressure too be a "better company."
- tertius 6y ago
  Define bad business. Get down to brass tacks so we can see if the argument holds up.

refurb 6y ago

You’re smug about Zuckerberg and Dorsey having that much control over political discourse in this country?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nojito 6y ago
Why are you advocating for government control of the internet? It's shocking that hackernews has turned so far astray.
- chr1 6y ago
  Why is the choice between government control and supporting censorship by tech companies? One can be against government control out of fear that government will use that to do something unintended, and at the same time condemn the destructive behaviour of these business owners. The situation with freedom of speech is remarkably similar to the situation with religious freedom in England of 1600s. Like they have learned to not bring their sacral beliefs into everyday life, because that causes the society to fail, we need to learn that escalating the political fight too much is dangerous, and universal freedom of speech is game theoretically the right strategy.

economusty 6y ago

You are only smug because it supports your team, if the democrats were censored you would throw a tantrum.

mattnewton 6y ago
This feels like pure conjecture honestly. There are plenty of left wing voices that have been kicked off twitter and reddit for making calls for violence, but mainstream democrats have not caused that liability for platforms they use.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

nostromo 6y ago

The mirror opposite of a hypocritical set of positions is another set of equally hypocritical positions. We’ll see how fond the left is when a new set of “counter terrorism” laws, corporate censorship, and the free market when it gets used on the next round of BLM protestors, to pick an example at random. Not to mention how suddenly the far left is suddenly concerned about Twitter’s civil rights — something reaffirmed by their least favorite opinion: Citizen’s United. Nobody should fool themselves: neither party has a consistent set of principles.

courtf 6y ago
How's life been under that rock this past year?
- konjin 6y ago
  Great, the patriot act finally expired.
mattnewton 6y ago
> We’ll see how fond the left is when a new set of “counter terrorism” laws, corporate censorship, and the free market when it gets used on the next round of BLM protestors, to pick an example at random. That has been happening? https://theintercept.com/2018/03/19/black-lives-matter-fbi-surveillance/ https://theintercept.com/2018/03/19/black-lives-matter-fbi-s... Pretty much has been happening forever too. Many voices "on the left" have always been under surveillance since we started surveiling our citizens, and were often economically blackballed on the free market as well. Also this seems like false equivalences between people saying we should change how policing works vs we should overturn the results of our election through force. We have actual armed insurrectionists on one hand storming the capitol with zip cuffs and illegally carried firearms. You are asking how we would feel if we treated BLM, the people who want their tax dollars to go to alternatives to policing, like we treated those people inciting the capitol riot. Honestly it would probably be an improvement.
- listless 6y ago

jpxw 6y ago

Just because companies in a free market should be legally free to censor people, doesn’t mean they should do it. The sheer number of people who can’t grasp this basic point is staggering.

m00x 6y ago
So you think HN/Reddit comments should be unmoderated?
- jpxw 6y ago
  No. There’s a role for moderation, in removing comments which are off-topic or illegal. My issue is with “moderation” where you just remove content you disagree with politically.
  - tomrod 6y ago
    Political disagreement in some contexts is illegal. I've seen some real gems from ParlerWatch, people wanting to roast the wives and children of liberals on open spits to teach them the danger of liberalness. Liberal means free, btw.
    - IncRnd 6y ago
      You can find that sort of trash on Parler, Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere - from people of many political stripes.
      - tomrod 6y ago
        Yes, but higher density with the GOP and other nationalism-focused groups. It's just a natural outcome of the different ideologies. One is bound by hate over decrease in privilege, the other is a broad coalition to make lives better for folks who then get frustrated and vent online (and sometimes in the streets).
  - mreome 6y ago

zug_zug 6y ago

I try pretty hard not to take joy in others' frustrations because it's a sure-tail sign of tribalism, but it sure seems like there are a lot of these discussions popping up on HN and if anything the tone-deafness of it all certainly isn't helping me find some middle ground.

geodel 6y ago

I think there will be millions like you. And everyone likes free market when it works or start to work in their favor. So no surprise there.

proc0 6y ago

That's an anarcho-capitalist, free market purist position. Most people agree some regulation is needed to prevent bad actors. Social media keeps changing their policies, while not really adhering to it, not to mention it is intrusive to begin with. It is only consistent to regulate them like we do other large sectors like food, and energy, plus there is precedent for breaking up big tech from a couple decades ago. There's also something not mentioned very often, these apps are "free" and lose money at first, but they sell your information and now they control the conversation, something most people are not in a position to decide or even know about, of course until it's too late and you have your life in their servers. Imho, this is a conflict of interest similar to private healthcare insurance, where the profit and the wellbeing of the human involved (sometimes the customer, sometimes the product) is not the #1 priority, and as a result a large enough company has the scale to damage a large number of people.