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It must feel pretty surreal to be someone that is constantly moving to different communication apps and instantly finding them pulled by anyone and everyone. W

by ve55 6y ago

It must feel pretty surreal to be someone that is constantly moving to different communication apps and instantly finding them pulled by anyone and everyone. We've seen an escalation of this from higher-level platforms (obviously Twitter can ban an account if they desire) to medium-level platforms (I suppose Apple gets to pick what I can do on my own phone even if it feels a bit wrong), but I'm curious if this will also escalate to low-level platforms (will hosting companies, registrars, or even ISPs start taking similar actions on a regular basis?). At this point it appears to be in a bit of a feedback loop as well, since it's obvious that deplatforming groups will make them feel persecuted and even more upset, which then makes them more likely to be deplatformed by whichever platform they move to next. Could this escalate even past low-level companies and result in decentralized, uncensorable, and end-to-end encrypted technologies having action taken against them (as more users, including some that are radicalized, seek them out)? I certainly hope not, but I have no faith in our government's various administrations here to begin with, especially given that we are likely only at the beginning of these types of conflicts. (Obligatory note that I am not defending any given platform, group of people, or anything of that matter, as I find it much more interesting to talk about how systems like this may play out instead)

cryptoz 6y ago
It seems to be that these platforms were quite outrageously accepting any content at all being published on their platforms, including direct personal threats and incitements to violence. If these groups want to not be deplatformed every few years, they ought to moderate the content. That seems to be all Apple is asking for here - just moderate out the illegal content and you can come back. That only seems hard to do for conservative groups - everyone else seems to at least try to moderate, even if they do it unevenly or not quickly enough, they try. These deplatformed companies and actors don't ever seem to even try to moderate. I don't feel bad for them, personally.
- ghgdynb1 6y ago
  I understand your sentiment, but the thing to realize is that the point you’re responding to is about decentralization and whether this will be an accelerant for the transition to a more distributed tech ecosystem. It’s not about how anyone feels about the parties involved in any particular case.
  - cryptoz 6y ago
    I don't agree that there is the feedback loop that exists in the OP's post. Deplatforming is not some inescapable negative feedback loop that these people can't get out of. It is the result of criminal behavior. If the criminal behavior stops, the deplatforming stops. We already have processes in our society to reduce and hopefully eliminate criminal actors.
tmpz22 6y ago
> Could this escalate even past low-level companies and result in decentralized, uncensorable, and end-to-end encrypted technologies having action taken against them? Americans drop a loser like a brick. Taking Parler off the app stores seriously de-legitimizes their cause and their celebrity. If you read Apple's language [1] its very clear Apple believes Parler is operating in extremely bad faith, that they either lack the ability to moderate or are only doing so as a temporary token gesture. This means Parler's user demographic will become more and more full of fringe radical elements that scare off the silent majority less radical crowd. [1]: "Your response also references a moderation plan “for the time being,” which does not meet the ongoing requirements in Guideline 1.2 – Safety – User Generated content"
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  > This means Parler's user demographic will become more and more full of fringe radical elements that scare off the silent majority less radical crowd. The only way to contain fringe elements is to allow them to identify themselves and be prepared when they demonstrate intent to perform harmful acts (“terrorism”). The polite silent majority will go home, the extremist minority will go to prison if they overstep legal boundaries.
  - ericmay 6y ago
    One thing to consider is recruitment of more people through exposure. “Radicalization” is a thing. I’m not sold on this action either way, just providing what I believe to be something worth considering.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      Nope, you’re spot on. Diversions are critical for folks who might be on the path to radicalization, who can be reasoned with, who can critically think, and who can be brought back from the edge. Not everyone is a lost cause, and the effort must be put forth collectively.
      - 6y ago
afavour 6y ago
From my understanding of the reasoning behind deplatforming I think there comes a point where it isn’t worth chasing any more. The aim isn’t to remove the sites entirely, but to make it difficult enough to find that people won’t just stumble across them or seamlessly follow a link to them. Last I heard Stormfront still exists on Tor and presumably still serves a dedicated audience. But I imagine it has a considerably larger problem attracting new readers than it used to.
- crocodiletears 6y ago
  That is the strategy, but the problem is that it produces an exhaust of increasingly angry people with fewer and fewer ties to society, with each distillation cycle. Even though you're filtering out the less-radical and committed members of a population, you're also priming everyone left behind to be more sympathetic to the excesses of the people who stuck around. These were tolerable outcomes for already fringe communities. But as the technique is scaled up to impact increasingly broad segments of the population, I believe it creates something increasingly large, and increasingly dangerous dangerous.
  - sangnoir 6y ago
    > That is the strategy, but the problem is that it produces an exhaust of increasingly angry people with fewer and fewer ties to society, with each distillation cycle That's not a problem, unless you feel society ought to "save" everyone from themselves (as opposed to protecting society at large from bad actors). I share your sentiments, but the current US prison system tends towards isolating bad actors: no real effort is expended to reduce recedevism, with the goal being punishment rather than rehabilitation.
    - crocodiletears 6y ago
      It's also a problem if you produce too many of them.
      - sangnoir 6y ago
taylorlapeyre 6y ago
My money is on urbit becoming a haven for these people. If you're constantly getting de-platformed, Urbit has a lot going for you. Decentralized, unregulated, unmoderated chat that’s hard to get into and fully anonymous, with a "burn it down" attitude throughout. I've been in there, they already welcome similar types. Symbolic imagery in the form of "sigils" already is a way to show support for certain concepts/places/people in a highly reproducible but obscure way. It really feels like it's only a matter of time. You're already seeing it with tweets like this from within the community: https://twitter.com/default_friend/status/1347696446288633864 https://twitter.com/default_friend/status/134769644628863386...
- giancarlostoro 6y ago
  Urbit looks gimicky. Maybe something you can buy an SD card for a Raspberry Pi for or something simple enough would be far more likely to become popular, especially if you sell a ready to run setup. Imagine more people running their own Fediverse instances.
  - taylorlapeyre 6y ago
    I don't disagree, but for what it's worth, they are recently making it a lot easier to get on: https://tlon.io https://tlon.io
    - theshrike79 6y ago
      The example on the page "Art Discussion" is so cringe. They know exactly what kind of crowd free speech first platforms draws. And it most definitely isn't someone discussing the Q3 results of their art gallery or the merits of Hoffmann's art style.
- trident5000 6y ago
  The only things that take off are those that are beyond easy technically for the end user. Thats why this will never work at least in mass.
krona 6y ago
'Deplatforming' isn't effective as a strategy if the platform/medium/resource isn't exclusive or scarce in some way. Twitter/Facebook are virtual social-media monopolies. Android/App Store platforms are distribution monopolies for mobile Apps. Hosting companies? ISPs? Book publishers? Not so much, although things aren't moving in the right direction on those fronts. Cloud platforms come to mind.
- xref 6y ago
  > Twitter/Facebook are virtual social-media monopolies People repeat this a lot which is ironic because they’re doing it on HN. Or Reddit. Or Disqus. Or innumerable other special interest forums. I don’t even have an FB/Twitter account but spend plenty of time interacting online.
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    Generally, to be interesting for anti-trust legislation, a company does not need to have absolute control of the market. It needs to have just enough not to worry about competition. Which is a position where Twitter/Facebook are. They tend to acquire all interesting startups that could threaten them.
    - gretch 6y ago
      Define “the market” though. Why is it that tik tok can not exist and suddenly become a huge phenomenon in just a few years and Facebook can do nothing about it? That to me clearly says that FB doesn’t have a monopoly unless you define the market to be so tightly focused on what they control it becomes tautological
Simplicitas 6y ago
Apple: “Parler has not taken adequate measures to address the proliferation of these threats to people’s safety. We have suspended Parler from the App Store until they resolve these issues.” Seems pretty reasonable in light of what we've witness Wednesday Jan 6th at the Capitol. Why would we want to interpret this reaction as being an escalation or an all-out assault on the 1st Amendment?
- pldr2244 6y ago
  As another illuminative poster above noted, it increases the “victimhood” and “specialness” that Parler participants feel. They want to interpret this in fully combative terms. It’s quite scary how they see the world through such a lens. I feel Apple and Google performed the lesser of two evils here. Only time will tell though.
Proven 6y ago
> At this point it appears to be in a bit of a feedback loop as well, since it's obvious that deplatforming groups will make them feel persecuted and even more upset, which then makes them more likely to be deplatformed by whichever platform they move to next. No one can deplatform me. I use Gab on iOS from my phone and pad and Apple can kiss my ass. I don't even have to use iOS either. In fact the next phone isn't going to be iOS, just to make sure their get the message. I had skipped Parler and their app just to make sure I don't have to deal with the censoring idiots from Apple again - that decision has already paid back. Millions have moved to Gab whose service runs on Gab-owned physical servers. Gab doesn't depend on Silicon Valley Deep State Democrats, and their app is OSS (although you don't need the app, you can use Gab from the browser), thank you very much!
tarkin2 6y ago
> It must feel pretty surreal to be someone that is constantly moving to different communication apps and instantly finding them pulled by anyone and everyone. It will feel exhilarating. It will enhance their victimhood, increase emotional attachment to their cause and serves to prove, to them, that "the man" is trying to unjustly suppress them and that they must group together, somehow, and rise up. And will make them, even more, vulnerable to manipulation by those who want a mob. And there are many. I support the suspension, since it incites violence. And I'm worried where society now heads. When a large number convince themselves they are unjustly oppressed they will justify all kinds of horrors in the name of defence from the whatever bete noire is chosen for them.
- wincy 6y ago
  It’s really annoying as someone interested in hearing what fringe voices have to say even if I disagree with them. I’m constantly having to try to figure out where to go if I want to break out of the liberal echo chamber.
  - Bud 6y ago
    Um, er, uh, um, did Fox News headquarters get nuked while I wasn't looking? Let's not pretend that this content is hard to find. It's not.
    - zaroth 6y ago
      Ah yes, we’ve found the next target!
  - nfRfqX5n 6y ago
    still plenty of it on twitter and 4chan
    - crocodiletears 6y ago
      Twitter and 4Chan are generally for bareknuckle flamewars, and low-effort shitposts. In short, they're the least useful elements of the fringe, and their producers are easy to find because half their fun comes from ignoring bans, and pseudononymously transgressing social norms. The content that is constantly forced to move is dialogue, and ideological exchange. The useful stuff. If you want to follow those discussions, you have to pay constant attention, and be prepared to run through social media accounts and platforms like tissue platform, or socially engineer yourself into multiple encrypted chats.
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
You can always use a web site so long as DNS is working and even then there are options. It's more surreal that the internet has devolved into a medium for proprietary apps designed to capture as much of people's identity as possible. Access via web empowers the end user to control what data they send and receive. You'd think these wannabe revolutionaries would get on board with it.
- ayende 6y ago
  If you want to kill websites, don't traget the DNS, target the certificates. If Let's Encrypt bans a site, for example, as well as the other CAs, it is effectively dead. But there are hundreds of CAs... Of course, if Google says that of your CA accepts a particular site they will remove you from Chrome... So this come back to overly centralized systems
  - indigodaddy 6y ago
    They could just go plain text no?
  - anfilt 6y ago
    Browsers still let you load even self signed certs, they just warn you.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      Right, but then you are limited to the people who know how to do that, not the people who want to hear you.
jmull 6y ago
> it appears to be in a bit of a feedback loop as well, since it's obvious that deplatforming groups will make them feel persecuted and even more upset To me it seems obvious the feedback works in the opposite direction. Deplatforming disrupts the feedback bubbles that radicalize these people. I personally think they should be allowed to have their space anyway, if they can refrain from inciting violence. But I would certainly absolutely refuse to do business with them, and have no problem with others making the same decision. People have the right to their repugnant ideas. They don’t have the right to force others to help promote them.
- jfim 6y ago
  > To me it seems obvious the feedback works in the opposite direction. Deplatforming disrupts the feedback bubbles that radicalize these people. I'm not too sure about that. For people who are already radicalized and believe that there's a conspiracy of some kind working against them, wouldn't that just "prove" that there is such a conspiracy? I agree that deplatforming will prevent future people from being radicalized, but what about the people who already are? The whole pizzagate incident shows that there are definitely people who believe all kinds of conspiracy theories, and are convinced enough to act on them. I wonder what the solution for that is, though.
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    > I wonder what the solution for that is, though. Ironically, maybe Trump showed us the right solution with his tirade against section 230. i.e. the end of the social media platforms.
  - bra-ket 6y ago
    radicalization is now part of mainstream culture, but I don’t understand the double standard, giving e.g. the “white supremacists” conspiracy by the left prime time on all the networks, but censoring conservatives (and they have no lack of dumb conspiracies of course), but why only one side is silenced and shut down? Free speech apparently is only free if it agrees with the ‘party line’ these days.
- 6y ago
Reedx 6y ago
They could ban Signal too. Edit: Signal is now #1 on the app store. Speech that was removed will obviously just migrate and be encrypted. Though not as public, the actual speech is still going to be communicated between people and groups. So why wouldn't Signal be next?
- sigzero 6y ago
  They would have to apply that metric to ALL communication apps. I don't think it would fly.
- Bud 6y ago
  I wish people would stop making this claim without supporting it in any way. It's kind of a ludicrous claim. Signal bears no resemblance to Parler, and there are various other reasons why this analogy is poorly drawn, like the fact that Signal's traffic is entirely private and Apple would no way of knowing the contents of said traffic, and the fact that Signal could not possibly "moderate" said traffic for the same reason.
  - j8hn 6y ago
    You make a good point. Though I have to agree with Snowden when he says this will be remembered as a turning point in the battle for control over digital speech. A good argument could be made we don't need end to end encryption without a back door. And in this environment, there may be little political opposition.
    - dovin 6y ago
      A lot of the speech that's being labeled as "inciting violence" on Parler would feel different if it was spoken privately. The fact that it's being communicated publicly puts it in a different category, almost like you're saying it on TV or in the proverbial town square. I don't think this is setting any sort of precedent for attacking private communications.
      - j8hn 6y ago
apta_ 6y ago
It's due to extreme virtue signaling, basically cancel culture. These companies have to behave alongside the social pressure or else they're going to lose revenue.
- cauthon 6y ago
  I didn’t think “don’t lynch the Vice President” was an extreme position, but maybe I’m out of touch
  - apta_ 6y ago
    They can ban individual accounts calling for violence (which happens on both the extreme left and extreme right). But it's only socially acceptable to ban one of those, the other gets a free ride.
    - Daishiman 6y ago
      No. What is this garbage whataboutism of "both the extreme left and extreme right"?
      - apta_ 6y ago
        You don't think the radical left is a problem that the far right is feeding off of? Then the cycle goes on. They both feed off each other.
        Daishiman 6y ago
        No, I don't. And I frankly don't care much for your example. My grandfather was a Pole who had to fight Nazi invaders, and I have no reservations about him having to put a few bullets over them. Nazis and fascists do not want a free and fair society. They delight in the violence of it and have no interest in a marketplace of ideas.
        apta_ 6y ago
siruncledrew 6y ago
Companies want to cover their asses and protect their own interests. Customers are essentially paying for usage of a company's services and don't actually own anything besides their own code and IP. If company decides it's worth it to them to remove customer, then they will do that. Companies have no reason to care what their customers do, as long as it doesn't adversely effect the company (see also: Apple clamping down on companies avoiding the 30% revenue cut). I think what will be interesting to watch is how the government responds with legislation/mandates. Will the government require they can ask for people be removed as customers from certain companies? Or require companies share data about customers with the government? Or give the government a backdoor API? In the name of using it for good, in some ways it makes sense. Then, how does one trust the government to only use the tools for good - and who judges what "good" is? If a 17 year old gets the keys to a Ferrari to only drive to school at 35mph, can they be trusted with that responsibility?
nightski 6y ago
While so many comments are applauding this move to me this entire deal has been a massive wake up call. I always knew in the back of my head, but now it is right in front of me just how much power these tech platforms have. It's not about Parler (have never used it). Or any of the specific people banned. Just the fact that we have had a president addicted to social media shows how bad things have become. For me, it's time to unsubscribe. It's not like they have brought me great benefit anyways, if anything the opposite. I wonder if any others will come to the same conclusion.
- temp8964 6y ago
  I guess there is something unique to social media. If someone is using its own website + bbs (hosted on its own sever) to communicate those messages, I am not sure what the tech companies can do. In theory, Apple + Google + Microsoft can ban the website at the OS level, so nobody can really access those messages. Technically, they can do this to Parler now.
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    ISPs and telecoms can ban you. Banks can ban you from having a bank account. Visa can ban you from transacting on their network. These things are already happening. You can build your own website, but you can't build your own internet. You can't build your own banking system.
    - kristofferR 6y ago
      I disagree with your last paragraph. Crypto is basically it's own banking system and while you can't build your own internet you'll always be able to run your own (often encrypted) protocol on top of it (IPSF etc) the existing one. It's more about the web than the internet really. The web can be unfree quite easily. Unless we go full China and implement a Great Firewall other protocols can always exist on the net.
      - Consultant32452 6y ago
rajacombinator 6y ago
Yep. BTC boys will be in for a rude awakening when the all-seeing eye turns their way.
kyle_martin1 6y ago
“... it's obvious that deplatforming groups will make them feel persecuted....” It is persecution. per·se·cu·tion - hostility and ill-treatment, especially because of race or political or religious beliefs.
- nedudal 6y ago
  You have to stop telling yourself that fasciscm is a political believe.
- hallgrim 6y ago
  They are not deplatformed for their political beliefs, but for their non-moderation of calls for violence. If this happens to be what somebodies politics is about, tough luck. But it’s not the same as persecution.
  - kyle_martin1 6y ago
    Twitter does not moderate equally. So why would you expect anyone else to?
steve76 6y ago
Romney, McCain, Bush, Dole, Bush, Reagan, Ford all got it worse. The dirty secret of politics? This is battle on the Serengeti. There are no sides, no code of conduct. A tweet can start a riot. What a joke. 0.25% interest rate increase, these hypocritical petty rich fools go on a bread line. Probably lead to 5 week social security checks, hurting the most vulnerable the most, but America is not going to be old forever. Perhaps they can cut back on the heroin. Normal Americans held back from fighting thieves and arsonists unleashed on them by their leadership. As soon as election was over, they struck back, and mercifully compared to what they themselves went through, most of who are poor and out of the fight. Soon you will be doing this to each other, if you haven't already. Americans just have to stay out of it. Take the free money, save it while everyone chases the spotlight maiming each other in the process. What's telling is how so many people bought the hype, thinking this time is any different than what everyone has been doing to each other always. Empathy, the burden of knowledge.
treeman79 6y ago
Family and friends I haven’t talked to in 10+ years are calling and texting me. Giving me current addresses. Making sure everyone has paper maps in case things get worse. These are people that don’t normally follow politics at all. A lot of of people are freaking out. Never seen anything like this here. Feels like Arab Springs.
- tmpz22 6y ago
  That sounds like doomsday prepping. If a social media platform plastered with calls to violence gets deplatformed, and you start doomsday prepping because it really impacts you that much, then you are probably knee deep in the conspiracy theory BS that made parler popular in the first place.
  - razius 6y ago
    The trend is your friend until it ends
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    People don't doomsday prep because they are currently being impacted, they prep because they are concerned that they might be impacted in the future. Now, you can paint these people as all being conspiracy theorists, but consider that they may be more like people that are concerned that the government is spying on them–which is less "I am a terrorist and this concerns me" and more of a "wait, they can do that? (Granted, they are currently only doing it to terrorists, but this still concerns me…)"
- yew 6y ago
  Sounds like you know a lotta Nazis. Why does everyone here know so many Nazis?
bigtiger 6y ago
Your comment is prescient, I think. The race against the clock has begun. If we haven't seen the last of these extremist groups, then they're on the fast track to the crypto underbelly of the internet (whether they realize that or not). I hope the inevitable federal and international crackdown sees wide success before these groups go dark.
- j8hn 6y ago
  Just the more reason for the government to crack down on anonymized speech and transactions.
jessehattabaugh 6y ago
I'm okay with inconveniencing shitheads. If they are frustrated with how difficult it is to be a shithead, they can always stop being a shithead.
newguy1234 6y ago
I am a conservative and right now in the community there is talks of using high-anonymity tools like TOR to go completely underground. We're trying to educate everyone on how to use these tools as quickly as possible.
- vnlpz 6y ago
  Joe Biden tried to introduce the infamous Clipper Chip in 1991 (see page 63): https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/28754/59822564-MIT.pdf?sequence=2 https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/28754/5982256... Now that Silicon Valley corporations fall over themselves to appease the Democrats, perhaps he has a second chance.
loceng 6y ago
There was a thread I saw on thedonald.win - a popular pro-Trump self-hosted Reddit fornicate - where a commenter stated that Twitter's action of banning Trump itself was an act of inciting violence. The problem is I'm not sure you can reason with illogic like that, especially people who're angry and have been manipulated for years to decades to more or less blindly hate, lacking critical thinking and/or integrity behind their thinking - and will more than likely be quickly ban if calmly pointing out the definition of inciting, and likewise pointing out that Twitter is a private platform - and the internet is reflexively neutral in America. You're correct though the deplatforming will be inflammatory, but the self-made bubble filter these communities of like-minded people are already on a runaway train that's only going to stop when real world circumstances don't allow them to just ban the confrontation digitally, when reality will hit them. As I posted elsewhere, there's a lot of healing necessary due to multi-generational dis-ease progression - healing to open people's hearts and minds, so they can develop their critical thinking and logic that's influenced by the heart to develop empathy; I discuss this further in a comment from yesterday - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25702673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25702673
thewindowmovie5 6y ago
Even though i agree with you and, in this particular case I have a hard time sympathising with Parler. After recent events and posts calling for more violence and the response of the enforcement agency last time despite having known that MAGA goons would try to disrupt the vote, I cannot think of another solution than what the tech companies are doing. Just to provide context, this is coming from a person who strongly believes these tech companies must be broken down. The events at the capitol have made me angry and the fact that 70 million people support this is just disappointing.
- dgellow 6y ago
  Where do you get the information that 70mio people support capitol’s events? That sounds way too high.
  - vaulk 6y ago
    The same place any disingenuous left winger gets it: the number of people who voted for Trump in 2020 (actually 74 million).
- falcrist 6y ago
  What if we simply said that what tech companies are doing may be the right thing in this case, but it really shouldn't be up to them to decide. IMO these actions are coming too late, which shows that Google, Apple, Amazon, etc aren't responsible enough to have this kind of control.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > What if we simply said that what tech companies are doing may be the right thing in this case, but it really shouldn't be up to them to decide. I think the exact opposite: it may be wrong (I don't think it is, but I think there is legitimate debate), but it absolutely should be up to them to decide the rules for their platforms.
    - falcrist 6y ago
mesozoic 6y ago
It has already escalated. AWS is a hosting company and is booting off Parler.

by ve55 6y ago

cryptoz 6y ago

It seems to be that these platforms were quite outrageously accepting any content at all being published on their platforms, including direct personal threats and incitements to violence. If these groups want to not be deplatformed every few years, they ought to moderate the content. That seems to be all Apple is asking for here - just moderate out the illegal content and you can come back. That only seems hard to do for conservative groups - everyone else seems to at least try to moderate, even if they do it unevenly or not quickly enough, they try. These deplatformed companies and actors don't ever seem to even try to moderate. I don't feel bad for them, personally.

ghgdynb1 6y ago
I understand your sentiment, but the thing to realize is that the point you’re responding to is about decentralization and whether this will be an accelerant for the transition to a more distributed tech ecosystem. It’s not about how anyone feels about the parties involved in any particular case.
- cryptoz 6y ago
  I don't agree that there is the feedback loop that exists in the OP's post. Deplatforming is not some inescapable negative feedback loop that these people can't get out of. It is the result of criminal behavior. If the criminal behavior stops, the deplatforming stops. We already have processes in our society to reduce and hopefully eliminate criminal actors.

tmpz22 6y ago

> Could this escalate even past low-level companies and result in decentralized, uncensorable, and end-to-end encrypted technologies having action taken against them? Americans drop a loser like a brick. Taking Parler off the app stores seriously de-legitimizes their cause and their celebrity. If you read Apple's language [1] its very clear Apple believes Parler is operating in extremely bad faith, that they either lack the ability to moderate or are only doing so as a temporary token gesture. This means Parler's user demographic will become more and more full of fringe radical elements that scare off the silent majority less radical crowd. [1]: "Your response also references a moderation plan “for the time being,” which does not meet the ongoing requirements in Guideline 1.2 – Safety – User Generated content"

toomuchtodo 6y ago
> This means Parler's user demographic will become more and more full of fringe radical elements that scare off the silent majority less radical crowd. The only way to contain fringe elements is to allow them to identify themselves and be prepared when they demonstrate intent to perform harmful acts (“terrorism”). The polite silent majority will go home, the extremist minority will go to prison if they overstep legal boundaries.
- ericmay 6y ago
  One thing to consider is recruitment of more people through exposure. “Radicalization” is a thing. I’m not sold on this action either way, just providing what I believe to be something worth considering.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Nope, you’re spot on. Diversions are critical for folks who might be on the path to radicalization, who can be reasoned with, who can critically think, and who can be brought back from the edge. Not everyone is a lost cause, and the effort must be put forth collectively.
    - 6y ago

afavour 6y ago

From my understanding of the reasoning behind deplatforming I think there comes a point where it isn’t worth chasing any more. The aim isn’t to remove the sites entirely, but to make it difficult enough to find that people won’t just stumble across them or seamlessly follow a link to them. Last I heard Stormfront still exists on Tor and presumably still serves a dedicated audience. But I imagine it has a considerably larger problem attracting new readers than it used to.

crocodiletears 6y ago
That is the strategy, but the problem is that it produces an exhaust of increasingly angry people with fewer and fewer ties to society, with each distillation cycle. Even though you're filtering out the less-radical and committed members of a population, you're also priming everyone left behind to be more sympathetic to the excesses of the people who stuck around. These were tolerable outcomes for already fringe communities. But as the technique is scaled up to impact increasingly broad segments of the population, I believe it creates something increasingly large, and increasingly dangerous dangerous.
- sangnoir 6y ago
  > That is the strategy, but the problem is that it produces an exhaust of increasingly angry people with fewer and fewer ties to society, with each distillation cycle That's not a problem, unless you feel society ought to "save" everyone from themselves (as opposed to protecting society at large from bad actors). I share your sentiments, but the current US prison system tends towards isolating bad actors: no real effort is expended to reduce recedevism, with the goal being punishment rather than rehabilitation.
  - crocodiletears 6y ago
    It's also a problem if you produce too many of them.
    - sangnoir 6y ago

taylorlapeyre 6y ago

My money is on urbit becoming a haven for these people. If you're constantly getting de-platformed, Urbit has a lot going for you. Decentralized, unregulated, unmoderated chat that’s hard to get into and fully anonymous, with a "burn it down" attitude throughout. I've been in there, they already welcome similar types. Symbolic imagery in the form of "sigils" already is a way to show support for certain concepts/places/people in a highly reproducible but obscure way. It really feels like it's only a matter of time. You're already seeing it with tweets like this from within the community: https://twitter.com/default_friend/status/1347696446288633864 https://twitter.com/default_friend/status/134769644628863386...

giancarlostoro 6y ago
Urbit looks gimicky. Maybe something you can buy an SD card for a Raspberry Pi for or something simple enough would be far more likely to become popular, especially if you sell a ready to run setup. Imagine more people running their own Fediverse instances.
- taylorlapeyre 6y ago
  I don't disagree, but for what it's worth, they are recently making it a lot easier to get on: https://tlon.io https://tlon.io
  - theshrike79 6y ago
    The example on the page "Art Discussion" is so cringe. They know exactly what kind of crowd free speech first platforms draws. And it most definitely isn't someone discussing the Q3 results of their art gallery or the merits of Hoffmann's art style.
trident5000 6y ago
The only things that take off are those that are beyond easy technically for the end user. Thats why this will never work at least in mass.

krona 6y ago

'Deplatforming' isn't effective as a strategy if the platform/medium/resource isn't exclusive or scarce in some way. Twitter/Facebook are virtual social-media monopolies. Android/App Store platforms are distribution monopolies for mobile Apps. Hosting companies? ISPs? Book publishers? Not so much, although things aren't moving in the right direction on those fronts. Cloud platforms come to mind.

xref 6y ago
> Twitter/Facebook are virtual social-media monopolies People repeat this a lot which is ironic because they’re doing it on HN. Or Reddit. Or Disqus. Or innumerable other special interest forums. I don’t even have an FB/Twitter account but spend plenty of time interacting online.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  Generally, to be interesting for anti-trust legislation, a company does not need to have absolute control of the market. It needs to have just enough not to worry about competition. Which is a position where Twitter/Facebook are. They tend to acquire all interesting startups that could threaten them.
  - gretch 6y ago
    Define “the market” though. Why is it that tik tok can not exist and suddenly become a huge phenomenon in just a few years and Facebook can do nothing about it? That to me clearly says that FB doesn’t have a monopoly unless you define the market to be so tightly focused on what they control it becomes tautological

Simplicitas 6y ago

Apple: “Parler has not taken adequate measures to address the proliferation of these threats to people’s safety. We have suspended Parler from the App Store until they resolve these issues.” Seems pretty reasonable in light of what we've witness Wednesday Jan 6th at the Capitol. Why would we want to interpret this reaction as being an escalation or an all-out assault on the 1st Amendment?

pldr2244 6y ago
As another illuminative poster above noted, it increases the “victimhood” and “specialness” that Parler participants feel. They want to interpret this in fully combative terms. It’s quite scary how they see the world through such a lens. I feel Apple and Google performed the lesser of two evils here. Only time will tell though.

Proven 6y ago

> At this point it appears to be in a bit of a feedback loop as well, since it's obvious that deplatforming groups will make them feel persecuted and even more upset, which then makes them more likely to be deplatformed by whichever platform they move to next. No one can deplatform me. I use Gab on iOS from my phone and pad and Apple can kiss my ass. I don't even have to use iOS either. In fact the next phone isn't going to be iOS, just to make sure their get the message. I had skipped Parler and their app just to make sure I don't have to deal with the censoring idiots from Apple again - that decision has already paid back. Millions have moved to Gab whose service runs on Gab-owned physical servers. Gab doesn't depend on Silicon Valley Deep State Democrats, and their app is OSS (although you don't need the app, you can use Gab from the browser), thank you very much!

tarkin2 6y ago

> It must feel pretty surreal to be someone that is constantly moving to different communication apps and instantly finding them pulled by anyone and everyone. It will feel exhilarating. It will enhance their victimhood, increase emotional attachment to their cause and serves to prove, to them, that "the man" is trying to unjustly suppress them and that they must group together, somehow, and rise up. And will make them, even more, vulnerable to manipulation by those who want a mob. And there are many. I support the suspension, since it incites violence. And I'm worried where society now heads. When a large number convince themselves they are unjustly oppressed they will justify all kinds of horrors in the name of defence from the whatever bete noire is chosen for them.

wincy 6y ago
It’s really annoying as someone interested in hearing what fringe voices have to say even if I disagree with them. I’m constantly having to try to figure out where to go if I want to break out of the liberal echo chamber.
- Bud 6y ago
  Um, er, uh, um, did Fox News headquarters get nuked while I wasn't looking? Let's not pretend that this content is hard to find. It's not.
  - zaroth 6y ago
    Ah yes, we’ve found the next target!
- nfRfqX5n 6y ago
  still plenty of it on twitter and 4chan
  - crocodiletears 6y ago
    Twitter and 4Chan are generally for bareknuckle flamewars, and low-effort shitposts. In short, they're the least useful elements of the fringe, and their producers are easy to find because half their fun comes from ignoring bans, and pseudononymously transgressing social norms. The content that is constantly forced to move is dialogue, and ideological exchange. The useful stuff. If you want to follow those discussions, you have to pay constant attention, and be prepared to run through social media accounts and platforms like tissue platform, or socially engineer yourself into multiple encrypted chats.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago

You can always use a web site so long as DNS is working and even then there are options. It's more surreal that the internet has devolved into a medium for proprietary apps designed to capture as much of people's identity as possible. Access via web empowers the end user to control what data they send and receive. You'd think these wannabe revolutionaries would get on board with it.

ayende 6y ago
If you want to kill websites, don't traget the DNS, target the certificates. If Let's Encrypt bans a site, for example, as well as the other CAs, it is effectively dead. But there are hundreds of CAs... Of course, if Google says that of your CA accepts a particular site they will remove you from Chrome... So this come back to overly centralized systems
- indigodaddy 6y ago
  They could just go plain text no?
- anfilt 6y ago
  Browsers still let you load even self signed certs, they just warn you.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Right, but then you are limited to the people who know how to do that, not the people who want to hear you.

jmull 6y ago

> it appears to be in a bit of a feedback loop as well, since it's obvious that deplatforming groups will make them feel persecuted and even more upset To me it seems obvious the feedback works in the opposite direction. Deplatforming disrupts the feedback bubbles that radicalize these people. I personally think they should be allowed to have their space anyway, if they can refrain from inciting violence. But I would certainly absolutely refuse to do business with them, and have no problem with others making the same decision. People have the right to their repugnant ideas. They don’t have the right to force others to help promote them.

jfim 6y ago
> To me it seems obvious the feedback works in the opposite direction. Deplatforming disrupts the feedback bubbles that radicalize these people. I'm not too sure about that. For people who are already radicalized and believe that there's a conspiracy of some kind working against them, wouldn't that just "prove" that there is such a conspiracy? I agree that deplatforming will prevent future people from being radicalized, but what about the people who already are? The whole pizzagate incident shows that there are definitely people who believe all kinds of conspiracy theories, and are convinced enough to act on them. I wonder what the solution for that is, though.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  > I wonder what the solution for that is, though. Ironically, maybe Trump showed us the right solution with his tirade against section 230. i.e. the end of the social media platforms.
- bra-ket 6y ago
  radicalization is now part of mainstream culture, but I don’t understand the double standard, giving e.g. the “white supremacists” conspiracy by the left prime time on all the networks, but censoring conservatives (and they have no lack of dumb conspiracies of course), but why only one side is silenced and shut down? Free speech apparently is only free if it agrees with the ‘party line’ these days.
6y ago

Reedx 6y ago

They could ban Signal too. Edit: Signal is now #1 on the app store. Speech that was removed will obviously just migrate and be encrypted. Though not as public, the actual speech is still going to be communicated between people and groups. So why wouldn't Signal be next?

sigzero 6y ago
They would have to apply that metric to ALL communication apps. I don't think it would fly.
Bud 6y ago
I wish people would stop making this claim without supporting it in any way. It's kind of a ludicrous claim. Signal bears no resemblance to Parler, and there are various other reasons why this analogy is poorly drawn, like the fact that Signal's traffic is entirely private and Apple would no way of knowing the contents of said traffic, and the fact that Signal could not possibly "moderate" said traffic for the same reason.
- j8hn 6y ago
  You make a good point. Though I have to agree with Snowden when he says this will be remembered as a turning point in the battle for control over digital speech. A good argument could be made we don't need end to end encryption without a back door. And in this environment, there may be little political opposition.
  - dovin 6y ago
    A lot of the speech that's being labeled as "inciting violence" on Parler would feel different if it was spoken privately. The fact that it's being communicated publicly puts it in a different category, almost like you're saying it on TV or in the proverbial town square. I don't think this is setting any sort of precedent for attacking private communications.
    - j8hn 6y ago

apta_ 6y ago

It's due to extreme virtue signaling, basically cancel culture. These companies have to behave alongside the social pressure or else they're going to lose revenue.

cauthon 6y ago
I didn’t think “don’t lynch the Vice President” was an extreme position, but maybe I’m out of touch
- apta_ 6y ago
  They can ban individual accounts calling for violence (which happens on both the extreme left and extreme right). But it's only socially acceptable to ban one of those, the other gets a free ride.
  - Daishiman 6y ago
    No. What is this garbage whataboutism of "both the extreme left and extreme right"?
    - apta_ 6y ago
      You don't think the radical left is a problem that the far right is feeding off of? Then the cycle goes on. They both feed off each other.
      - Daishiman 6y ago
        No, I don't. And I frankly don't care much for your example. My grandfather was a Pole who had to fight Nazi invaders, and I have no reservations about him having to put a few bullets over them. Nazis and fascists do not want a free and fair society. They delight in the violence of it and have no interest in a marketplace of ideas.
        apta_ 6y ago

siruncledrew 6y ago

Companies want to cover their asses and protect their own interests. Customers are essentially paying for usage of a company's services and don't actually own anything besides their own code and IP. If company decides it's worth it to them to remove customer, then they will do that. Companies have no reason to care what their customers do, as long as it doesn't adversely effect the company (see also: Apple clamping down on companies avoiding the 30% revenue cut). I think what will be interesting to watch is how the government responds with legislation/mandates. Will the government require they can ask for people be removed as customers from certain companies? Or require companies share data about customers with the government? Or give the government a backdoor API? In the name of using it for good, in some ways it makes sense. Then, how does one trust the government to only use the tools for good - and who judges what "good" is? If a 17 year old gets the keys to a Ferrari to only drive to school at 35mph, can they be trusted with that responsibility?

nightski 6y ago

While so many comments are applauding this move to me this entire deal has been a massive wake up call. I always knew in the back of my head, but now it is right in front of me just how much power these tech platforms have. It's not about Parler (have never used it). Or any of the specific people banned. Just the fact that we have had a president addicted to social media shows how bad things have become. For me, it's time to unsubscribe. It's not like they have brought me great benefit anyways, if anything the opposite. I wonder if any others will come to the same conclusion.

temp8964 6y ago
I guess there is something unique to social media. If someone is using its own website + bbs (hosted on its own sever) to communicate those messages, I am not sure what the tech companies can do. In theory, Apple + Google + Microsoft can ban the website at the OS level, so nobody can really access those messages. Technically, they can do this to Parler now.
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  ISPs and telecoms can ban you. Banks can ban you from having a bank account. Visa can ban you from transacting on their network. These things are already happening. You can build your own website, but you can't build your own internet. You can't build your own banking system.
  - kristofferR 6y ago
    I disagree with your last paragraph. Crypto is basically it's own banking system and while you can't build your own internet you'll always be able to run your own (often encrypted) protocol on top of it (IPSF etc) the existing one. It's more about the web than the internet really. The web can be unfree quite easily. Unless we go full China and implement a Great Firewall other protocols can always exist on the net.
    - Consultant32452 6y ago

rajacombinator 6y ago

Yep. BTC boys will be in for a rude awakening when the all-seeing eye turns their way.

kyle_martin1 6y ago

“... it's obvious that deplatforming groups will make them feel persecuted....” It is persecution. per·se·cu·tion - hostility and ill-treatment, especially because of race or political or religious beliefs.

nedudal 6y ago
You have to stop telling yourself that fasciscm is a political believe.
hallgrim 6y ago
They are not deplatformed for their political beliefs, but for their non-moderation of calls for violence. If this happens to be what somebodies politics is about, tough luck. But it’s not the same as persecution.
- kyle_martin1 6y ago
  Twitter does not moderate equally. So why would you expect anyone else to?

steve76 6y ago

Romney, McCain, Bush, Dole, Bush, Reagan, Ford all got it worse. The dirty secret of politics? This is battle on the Serengeti. There are no sides, no code of conduct. A tweet can start a riot. What a joke. 0.25% interest rate increase, these hypocritical petty rich fools go on a bread line. Probably lead to 5 week social security checks, hurting the most vulnerable the most, but America is not going to be old forever. Perhaps they can cut back on the heroin. Normal Americans held back from fighting thieves and arsonists unleashed on them by their leadership. As soon as election was over, they struck back, and mercifully compared to what they themselves went through, most of who are poor and out of the fight. Soon you will be doing this to each other, if you haven't already. Americans just have to stay out of it. Take the free money, save it while everyone chases the spotlight maiming each other in the process. What's telling is how so many people bought the hype, thinking this time is any different than what everyone has been doing to each other always. Empathy, the burden of knowledge.

treeman79 6y ago

Family and friends I haven’t talked to in 10+ years are calling and texting me. Giving me current addresses. Making sure everyone has paper maps in case things get worse. These are people that don’t normally follow politics at all. A lot of of people are freaking out. Never seen anything like this here. Feels like Arab Springs.

tmpz22 6y ago
That sounds like doomsday prepping. If a social media platform plastered with calls to violence gets deplatformed, and you start doomsday prepping because it really impacts you that much, then you are probably knee deep in the conspiracy theory BS that made parler popular in the first place.
- razius 6y ago
  The trend is your friend until it ends
- saagarjha 6y ago
  People don't doomsday prep because they are currently being impacted, they prep because they are concerned that they might be impacted in the future. Now, you can paint these people as all being conspiracy theorists, but consider that they may be more like people that are concerned that the government is spying on them–which is less "I am a terrorist and this concerns me" and more of a "wait, they can do that? (Granted, they are currently only doing it to terrorists, but this still concerns me…)"
yew 6y ago
Sounds like you know a lotta Nazis. Why does everyone here know so many Nazis?

bigtiger 6y ago

Your comment is prescient, I think. The race against the clock has begun. If we haven't seen the last of these extremist groups, then they're on the fast track to the crypto underbelly of the internet (whether they realize that or not). I hope the inevitable federal and international crackdown sees wide success before these groups go dark.

j8hn 6y ago
Just the more reason for the government to crack down on anonymized speech and transactions.

jessehattabaugh 6y ago

I'm okay with inconveniencing shitheads. If they are frustrated with how difficult it is to be a shithead, they can always stop being a shithead.

newguy1234 6y ago

I am a conservative and right now in the community there is talks of using high-anonymity tools like TOR to go completely underground. We're trying to educate everyone on how to use these tools as quickly as possible.

vnlpz 6y ago
Joe Biden tried to introduce the infamous Clipper Chip in 1991 (see page 63): https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/28754/59822564-MIT.pdf?sequence=2 https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/28754/5982256... Now that Silicon Valley corporations fall over themselves to appease the Democrats, perhaps he has a second chance.

loceng 6y ago

There was a thread I saw on thedonald.win - a popular pro-Trump self-hosted Reddit fornicate - where a commenter stated that Twitter's action of banning Trump itself was an act of inciting violence. The problem is I'm not sure you can reason with illogic like that, especially people who're angry and have been manipulated for years to decades to more or less blindly hate, lacking critical thinking and/or integrity behind their thinking - and will more than likely be quickly ban if calmly pointing out the definition of inciting, and likewise pointing out that Twitter is a private platform - and the internet is reflexively neutral in America. You're correct though the deplatforming will be inflammatory, but the self-made bubble filter these communities of like-minded people are already on a runaway train that's only going to stop when real world circumstances don't allow them to just ban the confrontation digitally, when reality will hit them. As I posted elsewhere, there's a lot of healing necessary due to multi-generational dis-ease progression - healing to open people's hearts and minds, so they can develop their critical thinking and logic that's influenced by the heart to develop empathy; I discuss this further in a comment from yesterday - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25702673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25702673

thewindowmovie5 6y ago

Even though i agree with you and, in this particular case I have a hard time sympathising with Parler. After recent events and posts calling for more violence and the response of the enforcement agency last time despite having known that MAGA goons would try to disrupt the vote, I cannot think of another solution than what the tech companies are doing. Just to provide context, this is coming from a person who strongly believes these tech companies must be broken down. The events at the capitol have made me angry and the fact that 70 million people support this is just disappointing.

dgellow 6y ago
Where do you get the information that 70mio people support capitol’s events? That sounds way too high.
- vaulk 6y ago
  The same place any disingenuous left winger gets it: the number of people who voted for Trump in 2020 (actually 74 million).
falcrist 6y ago
What if we simply said that what tech companies are doing may be the right thing in this case, but it really shouldn't be up to them to decide. IMO these actions are coming too late, which shows that Google, Apple, Amazon, etc aren't responsible enough to have this kind of control.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > What if we simply said that what tech companies are doing may be the right thing in this case, but it really shouldn't be up to them to decide. I think the exact opposite: it may be wrong (I don't think it is, but I think there is legitimate debate), but it absolutely should be up to them to decide the rules for their platforms.
  - falcrist 6y ago

mesozoic 6y ago

It has already escalated. AWS is a hosting company and is booting off Parler.