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Regardless of your political persuasion, you should be concerned about this. Massive multinational corporations having this much power over our speech is not h

• babelfish 6y ago
  Apple, and any other multinational corporation, is under no obligation to host inflammatory hate speech seeking to incite an insurrection against the US Govt.
  • konjin 6y ago
    So why haven't they banned twitter for hosting Chinese government accounts?
    • babelfish 6y ago
      Can you link me to a Chinese government official’s Twitter account calling for an insurrection in the United States while spewing derogatory hate speech against minorities?
  • jpxw 6y ago
    If I had a dollar for every time someone made this point... The issue isn’t whether they have the right to deplatform. The issue is whether they _should_.
    • babelfish 6y ago
      Of course they should. Why shouldn’t they remove platforms that almost solely contain hate speech and insurrectionist content? Half the stuff said on Parler could constitute a hate crime, and frankly, they should have been removed from the App Store/Play Store ages ago.
      • klmadfejno 6y ago
        I would agree. I don't think apple should be allowed to prevent side loading. And certainly not accessing things from email. But by all means, if you're running a curated store of apps, don't sell tickets to the white supremacist show
  • holler 6y ago
    What would you call this? https://twitter.com/adbusters/status/1288193793267625984 https://twitter.com/adbusters/status/1288193793267625984
    • babelfish 6y ago
      That should clearly also be removed.
• cryptoz 6y ago
  > Massive multinational corporations having this much power over our speech is not healthy. Who has power over my speech? I have iPhone, Android, Ubuntu, Mac and other tech. My speech is not limited in any way. I can write down notes on paper if I want. I can write down content freely today as I could yesterday. What corporation out there has any power over my speech, much less "too much power"? Edit: I seem blocked by HN temporarily (for opposing viewpoints? I don't know but I can't post any more!) so to respond to the post below me here is an edit: Trump should hold a press conference if he wants to say something. It can easily be streamed on the internet. No president before 2007 had access to Twitter and they could still get the word out online if they wanted to.
  • jpxw 6y ago
    Let’s say Trump wants to send a message to the country using the internet right now. How does he do it? Think about it, and then tell me that these corporations don’t have power over our speech.
    • landryraccoon 6y ago
      He calls a press conference, and Fox News, ONN, the New York Times and a host of other media sources listen to the press conference, then publish his remarks on the internet.
      • abernard1 6y ago
        Maybe he should fax some people while he's at it. Possibly send some good ol' newsletters to people's mail. Folks, this is "get on the back of the bus" behavior. People in a free society should be able to use modern, first-class services if other people can.
        • landryraccoon 6y ago
          It is very hard for me to see the President of the United States as an unfairly persecuted, powerless individual without the ability to get his message out.
• chapium 6y ago
  Apple shouldn't be obliged to host bile, but they have cornered themselves by being the only way to install apps.
• landryraccoon 6y ago
  Free speech has limits, does it not? The US Supreme Court has ruled that one cannot, for example, falsely scream fire in a crowded theater. I would assume that calls for the violent overthrow of the US government in order to overturn an election at the very least should be considered as equally dangerous as screaming fire in a crowded theater.
  • jpxw 6y ago
    If you think Trump incited violence, that is a crime which should be decided in a courtroom, and not in Mark Zuckerberg’s office. For what it’s worth, I don’t think what Trump said was incitement, or even close to it. Irresponsible? Yes. Incitement? No.
    • landryraccoon 6y ago
      I agree that this should be decided in a courtroom. If Trump wishes to sue Twitter or the US Government, he is more than free to do so. However, I think both his case and yours is undermined by the very, very strong circumstantial evidence that after his lawyer, Giuliani, called for "trial by combat" and he said that he would personally lead the crowd in a march on the Capitol on Jan 6th the violent insurrection actually took place is a very strong argument that he incited the uprising. Furthermore, the fact that even as these Trump supporters were occupying the Capitol he said that he "loves them", that also undermines any argument that he did not incite sedition.
    • zadokshi 6y ago
      This is why social media platforms are anti competitive and in risk of anti trust lawsuits. You don’t get to twist trumps words and then ban the @POTUS account just because he threatens to create a competing platform. No reasonable person could take that as incitement. So the only logical answer is anti competitive behaviour, or political manipulation/interference.
    • andrei_says_ 6y ago
      What trump did was incitement using carefully constructed language giving clear instructions while maintaining denialability. There’s no way you believe he was doing anything else. You’re basically pushing for the denialability part by pretending to be innocently surprised. No.
• djakaitis 6y ago
  Inciting violence should not be defended as free speech. In fact it’s not considered free speech. Let alone the fact the usage being blocked violates the very clear terms of service.
  • perryizgr8 6y ago
    Inciting violence is free speech, by definition.
    • landryraccoon 6y ago
      You don't think limiting free speech to speech that does not incite illegal violence is not a reasonable limitation?
      • perryizgr8 6y ago
        Any limitation to speech implies that speech was never free, by definition. So, there is no reasonable limitation that preserves the "free" part of "free speech".
        • landryraccoon 6y ago
          Let's consider some implications of what you're saying. - Slander and libel are restrictions on free speech. - Restrictions on any type of public insult, racial slur, hate speech or other derogatory speech are restrictions on free speech. - Any restriction on the advertising of explicit pornography or illegal activities would also be a restriction on free speech. If your argument is that absolute, then no, I don't support absolute free speech without qualification. I can't prove it, but I would assume that the majority of the population would rightfully take the same position that free speech should not utterly absolute with no restriction at all.
          • perryizgr8 6y ago
            It doesn't matter if the majority thinks like me or not. That's the point of free speech, to let people think and speak freely. If you're against free speech, you have every right to be, but don't try to justify it by twisting words. Just say it: I do not support free speech.
• Finnucane 6y ago
  The real problem is not so much that they can do this, which is of course entirely legal, but that a few companies have such concentrated market power. People seem to regard Twitter as some kind of essential service, but it's just fucking Twitter. In the days when there were dozens of book publishers just in New York, if one turned you down, you could go somewhere else. Now there's four. I mean, it's actually kind of nuts to consider that Twitter has somehow 'silenced' President [expletive deleted], when he still has a whole press corps at his disposal and could call a press conference at any moment.
  • bavell 6y ago
    Agreed, I just can't take Twitter seriously. I can see it's value for quick and cheap communication but it's always seemed like more of a quaint narcissistic toy... I'm pretty darn cynical about social media in general though and I know my views are in the minority.
  • ben509 6y ago
    > The real problem is not so much that they can do this, which is of course entirely legal... Not "entirely" legal. All these companies claim to be neutral, and while I think they genuinely try to be, for various reasons they aren't able to stick to that standard. The point of contracts is that you give up certain rights. On Monday, I can't sleep in all day because I've got an agreement to work. I have to set aside some money for rent because I signed a lease. What these companies are doing may be legal in practice, because of the difficulties in litigating, but it's never entirely legal to make promises and then break them, whether they're through contracts, terms, or even marketing claims and advertisements. When they make those claims, they voluntarily give up their right to say anything they like. Being able to give a right up is part of having it in the first place. Twitter could change their terms to say, "we will ban or block people we have political differences with, or when bad PR is making us feel uncomfortable." Then banning people for those reasons would be 100% legal, because they would have reserved that right.
• zug_zug 6y ago
  It's hard to read any of these arguments in good-faith. A single person has enough power to incite a mob that threatens the life of our government officials. That seems like "too much power" to me. A mob consisting of .001% of the US population threatening our cabinet seems like "too much power" to me. Until we have a better way to figure out what causes that sort of conspiracy-theory mania, deplatforming is a million times better than insurrection.
  • bavell 6y ago
    By that logic, we need to immediately deplatform everyone though, right? Since any single person has that capability? Why wait until it happens, kick everyone off now! On a more serious note, if a single person can raise a mob, that mob must have already been angry and out for blood in the first place which points to deeper underlying problems than just "this one person has too much power". The real solution is to address the underlying cause for the unrest and anger felt by the mob. Any other "solution" is at best a temporary bandaid.
    • wrs 6y ago
      Why do you say this as if that single person and his enablers haven’t been revving up this mob for years? The mob is angry about totally counterfactual nonsense that only exists because it was deliberately spread using the platform. That is the “underlying cause”. Don’t confuse what this mob is angry about with all the actual legitimate reasons there are to be angry.
      • sharatvir 6y ago
        Everyone concern trolling over these things always brings up hypotheticals in an attempt to debate principals while fully ignoring everything that has actually happened in the real world.
      • bavell 6y ago
        Trump won in 2016 because the "mob" was already revved up and angry at a lot of the unfortunate legislation and narratives that already existed. He just capitalized and preyed on the existing outrage. Yes, he and Fox and many other grifters added fuel to the fire, no question. But it's a mistake to just write off the millions upon millions of honest and good people who have been shafted by the system and are rightfully pissed while neoliberals and neocons crap all over them.
• TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  As opposed to massive multinational corporations controlling traditional media? I'd be willing to bet almost anything that the latter have been far more demonstrably toxic than all but the darkest corners of the Internet. Because they have a huge captive audience and have been operating as toxic bad faith actors lying and pandering to the prejudices of low information audiences for decades now. We don't just need a conversation about Twitter, or even about Google. Or Apple. We also need a conversation about Fox and the rest, and the fact that a tiny handful of corporations control TV content, movies, music, book publishing, print of other kinds, and so on. In the bigger picture, Twitter is practically a small indie platform.
  • throwawaysea 6y ago
    > Twitter is practically a small indie platform Just to be clear, Twitter has over 320M users. That's more users than the population of all but 3 nations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen... They are the massive multinational corporation controlling media, and a small number of Silicon Valley progressives should not be trusted with that degree of cultural and political influence and power over the world.
    • trident5000 6y ago
      Its not even a corporation its literally 3 people ultimately as Elon Musk pointed out just today.
  • bavell 6y ago
    I'm sure Twitter loves to be seen as a small indie platform because then they can shift the blame elsewhere when in fact they have far more influence than is reasonable for a healthy democratic society. I agree with your point about Fox et al.
• yalogin 6y ago
  Political affiliations don’t come in the picture when it comes to sedition and insurrection. We should have been unanimous in praising this move but unfortunately that is not the case
• user-the-name 6y ago
  Actually, I am pretty happy about people taking the threat of far-right extremism seriously. Last time we didn't take it seriously, 6 million perished in extermination camps. I'd like for that to not happen again. I think that is a bit more important than what apps you can run on your phone.
  • jpxw 6y ago
    If you take the time to study why and how the Nazis became popular and came into power, you’ll realise why suppression of public sentiment is so dangerous.
    • user-the-name 6y ago
      Actually, you won't find anything of the kind. Only if you wilfully set out to misinterpret history will you find anything like that. Hitler came into power because he was allowed to spread his message. Because he was given chance after chance to speak. Because he was given a platform.
      • volkk 6y ago
        the argument you're presenting, at its core, is "if you dont give an evil person a chance to be evil then they wont succeed," which is correct, except how are you to interpret who is evil and who will be successful at being evil? and how do you do that fairly? it seems to be an impossible problem to solve from my POV and removing comms from various groups willy nilly because we're too scared that humanity is too stupid practice critical thinking and not give in to evil thought is a slippery slope. there has to be other ways?
        • user-the-name 6y ago
          I don't think that at this point in history, right now, there is much trouble identifying who is evil.
          • 6y ago
• twoheadedboy 6y ago
  I strongly, strongly disagree. The "free and open internet" is a farce and only existed decades ago because nobody had any idea what they were doing yet. We cannot allow people easy access to radicalization.
• JohnTHaller 6y ago
  Parler refused to remove calls to violence. If I were Apple, I wouldn't want them in my app store either.
  • trident5000 6y ago
    Right, but they just put a huge target on their back for something that was already an issue....being a monopoly/duopoly. Whatever you want to call it nobody can effectively compete in the app store territory.
• sanguy 6y ago
  This is true. The latest from Twitter, claiming that by Trump stating he will not attend the Biden inauguration, he is somehow insinuating that Biden is an illegitimate president and encouraging retaliation and therefore cause for a permanent ban is completely contrived to justify them doing what they wanted to do. This is nothing more than pandering to those about to assume power. As we all know Twitter, Facebook, Google/YouTube have been summoned to the senate many times to testify over privacy and such issues. I am quite sure they are working hard to ensure the future administration is a bit more lenient. We should be more worried over the thousands of other vocal conservatives and constitutionalists who have been deleted in the past 48 hours. This is silencing freedom of political choice. EDIT: Downvotes shows that cancel culture is alive and well.
  • lambda_obrien 6y ago
    Not really, you can still choose to have whatever views, you can walk into the town square and shout your views, you can pass out flyers, you can do a lot. You can still vote for whom you want, without telling everyone, you can run for office, you can start a petition, etc. The newspaper was never forced to print whether was sent in. A book publisher never had to publish a book they didn't want to, and a social media site isn't required to host your content. They're no political freedom being taken here.
    • sanguy 6y ago
      Pretty hard to have a voice during COVID times without social media?
      • lambda_obrien 6y ago
        A few thousand people just had a big protest, I think it's easy enough. Also, covid-19 will end someday. The hot takes here are getting rediculous.
• decebalus1 6y ago
  > If they can do this to a sitting President of the US, they can do it to every single one of us. I've seen this exact statement on various other platforms from conservative commentators. And it's basically horseshit. Now you're concerned? Seriously? Google accounts have been locked out with no recourse for years, apple bans apps left and right and facebook 'moderates' posts based on some interesting thresholds. I find it disingenuous to suddenly care about this when Trump finally gets kicked off twitter and a horde of extremists are blocked from inciting violence against the government. You wanted free markets? Here they are. If you have a problem with it, move to a different platform. Build your own platform. Host it yourself. Nobody owes you anything. And guess what? Because of the republican led FCC, the ISPs can block your extreme right-wing website. Total freedom for the ISP to do whatever the fuck they want.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• Delmania 6y ago
  Parler was created in response to Twitter banning several far right personalities. People are more than capable of overcoming the big tech companies and finding ways to get their message out. Maybe the leader of a nation shouldn’t continually question an election and encourage his supporters to commit insurrection?