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I'm distressed and saddened at how many of the free speech proponents on HN are treating the events of January 6 as if it was just another protest and not an ex

by jp57 6y ago

I'm distressed and saddened at how many of the free speech proponents on HN are treating the events of January 6 as if it was just another protest and not an existential threat to the republic. The president's followers said for weeks that "the storm" was coming Jan 6. Nobody took them seriously. Look what happened. The president and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and other followers incited it. Yes the execution of the insurrection was ham-fisted, and it failed to prevent the electoral count from completing, but that's irrelevant. If the mob had managed to find and destroy the electoral certificates, or if the flex-cuffs guys had captured members of congress, we would be talking about something very different now. The president has a history of responding to setbacks by doubling down. His followers have now begun talking about returning with arms. Only fools would assume that these threats are idle talk or jokes. The western liberal value of free speech has never extended to incitement of violence. My assumption is that the leaders of Apple, Google, and Amazon don't want to provide a platform for sedition.

oliv__ 6y ago
OK, but given that all of the above is true, do you think that deplatforming Parler helps or hurts the overall situation? What do you think the "deplatformed" people are going to do? Just quit because "oh no our website is gone"? This event is just fueling the fire IMO.
- spamizbad 6y ago
  I feel like deplatforming because of a TOS violation is much better than "The world's a better place if we deplatform you"
- ehsankia 6y ago
  They won't have a unified place to plan for their next attack in a few days? Where do you think they planned their attack for January 6? Deplatforming has proven to work, if anything heavily slow down the spread of misinformation. What's the last time you heard about Milo?
  - DonHopkins 6y ago
    Milo who? ;) (That's a RHETORICAL QUESTION!!! Don't anybody dare answer!!!)
  - ancientworldnow 6y ago
    The planning wasn't done there, just bloviating. The planning was done on telegram and signal (and to a lesser extent Keybase and wire). Lots of people doing osint on the events could tell you that. Interestingly, the banning of all these accounts has caused the size of the telegram groups to increase dramatically and the discourse to get much more violent.
    - KMag 6y ago
      As I've suggested elsewhere, I think 1-month to 3-month suspensions are much better than lifetime bans. Suspensions keep followers hanging around the mainstream platform, where you can suggest centrist content to them. A lifetime ban gets rid of all carrots and all future sticks the platform can offer.
      - true_religion 6y ago
        Sure, but do we really want to platform to take an active and knowing hand in shaping politics? Right now they have an effect through algorithms, but their actions don’t seem to be coordinated towards any goal other than increasing engagement with the platform. This is actively different than pitching centrist content to extremists because the platform owners are centrists themselves. What if the platform owners become extremists like Parler?
        KMag 6y ago
        Up until 3 or 4 years ago, I was nearly a free speech maximalist. Now, it seems clear that society is poorly equipped and adjusting poorly to social media. I think giving more control to centrist platforms is the least bad of all the bad options I see. I'm not sure how to mitigate the long-term risks introduced, but the bifurcation of society appears to be a slow motion car crash in progress. I'd love to be convinced that there are better options, especially if they allowed me to move closer to free speech maximalism. I think it would help to change middle school and high school civics curricula by adding cognitive biases, logical fallacies (including some basic statistical fallacies), and other tools to better handle social media.
- hxegon 6y ago
  I'd encourage you to read "Talking with strangers". There's a section in there about the anchoring effect, which basically talks about how if you increase patrols in the worst parts of town and get crime there down, it mostly doesn't just move "elsewhere". These people had good reasons for being drawn to parler and while it won't stop anybody, it's a significant blow I think.
  - KMag 6y ago
    The counter-argument is that the main draw of Parler was deplatforming (of people who weren't calling for violence) on mainstream platorms. In hindsight (and for some, in foresight), finding some pool of center-left content to suggest to viewers of far-right social media personalities, and center-right content to suggest to viewers of far-left social media personalities probably would have been a much better long-term solution. I also think you'd want to have 1-month or 3-month suspensions for suggesting violence, rather than full deplatforming, to reduce the number of followers who jump to more extreme platforms. Edit: actually, I think you'd one pool of center-left and center-right content to show to both extremes, to make the medicine taste less bitter.
- titzer 6y ago
  But realistically, these people have been violating the ToS for a long time. Late enforcement is better than no enforcement. Give them an inch and they'll take a mile. It's true. The only thing that truly changes behavior is consequences. Arrests for in-person insurrections, trials, convictions, deplatform, disrupt, and I would even say enforce the laws that we do have against incitement of violence, which means arresting people who are posting hateful shit online. This whole thing needs to be busted. Not doing anything because they might be "upset" is tantamount to surrender. Then they literally are holding us hostage. That cannot be tolerated.
  - jlj 6y ago
    Agree, and will add that this should be backed by LEO's tracking online posts inciting violence to people's doors, arresting them, and letting courts decide if it's a free speech issue.
  - KMag 6y ago
    I absolutely agree as far as arrests and convictions for violence, incitements to violence, and conspiracies to commit violent acts. However, I think deplatforming is a poor long-term solution. Deplatforming on mainstream platforms inspired and fueled the rise of Parler. Deplatforming gets rid of all carrots and all future sticks the mainstream platform has against a given extremist. I think 1-month to 3-month suspensions are more likely to keep followers around, where the mainstream platform has an opportunity to suggest a mixture of center-left and center-right content to them, and provide carrots to rehabilitate extremist publishers. As I've posted elsewhere, taking Parler offline is probably a necessary short-term solution to an acute threat, but I think it's rarely the right long-term solution. Edit: I'm fine being downvoted, but if you have a good counter-argument, please post it or a link to it. Try to change my mind instead of just venting your anger.
- ink 6y ago
  I agree with you, but I also don't know what else these companies should do. What happened on Jan 6th was coordinated on a lot of these platforms (including Parler). It seems like the answer to all these types of issues comes down to education at some point. Not that we all need to learn the same point of view, but that we should learn how to think critically. The people who took part in the insurrection on the capital honestly believe a lot of falsehoods propagated on networks like Parlor, FB, Twitter. They aren't all acting in bad faith. Seems like these networks/platforms have been forced to take the actions they did because people – all of us to some degree or another – choose what we want to believe, wether there's any evidence or not.
- three_seagrass 6y ago
  Fear of retaliation is how facism thrives. Deplatforming hate groups works.
- DonHopkins 6y ago
  Do you think that extinguishing the fire of your house burning down helps or hurts the overall situation of arson?
- TeaDrunk 6y ago
  From what I understand, deplatforming actually works to deradicalize people because every time you deplatform, the actual radicalized group lessens. For example, randos from twitter who went to parler to follow their favorite alt-right opinion producer but otherwise don't care about politics probably won't want to follow them a second time and will end up entering less radicalized spaces and then deradicalizing themselves. At the end you have a small group of severely sick people who can only be helped by therapy, but prevent mass unrest of otherwise normal people who got radicalized only because getting radicalized was as easy as joining a platform.
- austhrow743 6y ago
  If we're giving that the above is true then the US is basically at war with these people. It's an insurrection. "If we cut our enemies communications then that's just fueling the fire" is not something you say mid war. You cut and code break and infiltrate and capture and kill and anything else because the time for "deplatforming" and "fuel on fire" and any other business as usual peace time political concept is irrelevant. That game isn't being played any more, the violence game is. It's like you're playing chess with someone and they just got up and shoved you, and you punched them, and then a bunch of onlookers are all "well what if they had played knight to f4? Would you punch then!? Punching shouldn't be allowed in chess!". Except the chess game ended when they got up and shoved you. Treating these people as political opponents ended when they broke in to the Capitol building with guns and bombs with the stated intent of killing politicians. They're enemies of the state and therefore enemies of institutions that exist thanks to that state and any individual that likes that state.
- Qub3d 6y ago
  Vice did a very interesting look into this question following the deplatforming of Alex Jones[1]. As is evident from their article title -- "Deplatforming Works" -- the data seem to say it works. As for the specific concern you mention, they look into it as well: "'The good that comes with deplatforming is, their main goal was to redpill or get people within mainstream communities more in line with their beliefs, so we need to get them off those platforms,” Robyn Caplan, a PhD student at Rutgers University and Data and Society affiliate, told me on the phone. “But now we’ve put them down into their holes where they were before, and they could strengthen their beliefs and become more extreme.' The question is whether it’s more harmful to society to have many millions of people exposed to kinda hateful content or to have a much smaller number of ultra-radicalized true believers." [1]: https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media-bans-work https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media-bans-...
ehsankia 6y ago
They had zipties, bombs, weapons and gallows. Can you imagine if one of those people who've spent 2 years reading hateful news about AOC would've done if they managed to make it to her office? Honestly January 6 could've ended much worse, and if something isn't done to put a break to the vitriot going unchecked on Parler, it very well may happen. These people were recruiting and planning everything on Parler, doxxing and sharing information. This is what happens when a platform goes unmoderated. People like to think that a 100% free speech platform is great, but every instance of it I've seen has devolved into child porn, doxxing and violence.
- three_seagrass 6y ago
  The NYT Daily podcast yesterday had some insightful info from some of their reporters on the ground. The president was basically communicating with the mob through Twitter. Ten minutes after Trump tweeted that his VP was a coward and a traitor, the mob that had invaded the Capitol started chanting, "Give us Pence". This is as the U.S. VP is also being evacuated.
  - diryawish 6y ago
    “Coward and a traitor.” Is that an actual quote or are you editorializing?
    - true_religion 6y ago
      The actual Tweet is “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country”. I do also recall that he called out Pence during the speech leading to the riot as well. However the thing that stood out the most to me at that speech is that his son said they would make the party the “Trump Republican Party”, which seemed to indicate a coming purge. Now at the time, I thought it would be a nonviolent purge, but considering the riot I am not sure what was actually intended since his followers took that to mean Pence should be hanged.
- tpirx 6y ago
  By what measure are you attributing all of this to any App specifically? What if 60% of the violent offenders were radicalized via Twitter? If this were a court case all of the platforms would be implicated. On what ground will you stand on to prevent another crypto war? [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars
kyle_martin1 6y ago
If you support free speech then quit gaslighting and support freedom of speech. This kind of comment is toxic.
- warent 6y ago
  This harkens back to the very old analogy of why you're not allowed to scream "Fire!" or "There's a bomb!" in a movie theater, and that restriction isn't considered an infringement on free speech. Ergo it is possible (e.g. to deplatform a member of high authority) without it being an infringement on free speech. Also your comment doesn't really point out specific flaws in their argument. All you do is tack insulting words onto it without any meaningful substance.
  - kyle_martin1 6y ago
    Last time I wrote an intelligent argument... I was voted into oblivion because HN is a liberal, white male group think echo chamber. Silent downvoting is not exactly conducive to productive conversation with different opinions. So I’d rather not waste my time...
    - Consultant32452 6y ago
      "A riot is the language of the unheard" ~ Martin Luther King Jr In this one instance, I hope he was wrong.
      - throwaway201103 6y ago
        All the people who voted for Trump and who think the vote was rigged feel unheard. Dr. King was quite perceptive.
        dang 6y ago
        We've banned this account for political flamewar. That's not what this site is for, and we ban accounts that do it regardless of which politics they're battling for. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. This is a site for thoughtful, curious conversation on topics of intellectual interest—not bashing enemies.
thedieiscast 6y ago
Sorry but this all on you and the left. This is the bed you made. It started from day one of Trump's 2016 campaign, where the Obama administration spied on the Trump campaign against Hillary. Then came the completely fake impeachment trial, the fake and absurd allegations that Trump pissed on Russian hookers and all kinds of stupid shit. The years of one-sided MSM attacks against Trump that were almost entirely made up. The months of riots and deaths from Antifa and BLM that were sanctioned by the mayors of the democrat cities. The complete change of election laws so that now half of the country doesn't trust the election because it is just dropping ballots off in a bin on the side of the road. The silicon valley cartel working together to ensure all conservative voices were silenced. Google literally not giving election day notifications to conservatives until they were caught out. You brought this on yourselves, and now there will be nothing but violence and hell until America probably no longer exists. You elected a guy whose son is paid millions by China. You, the left, wanted to do whatever it took to get Trump out of the whitehouse, and that includes ending the republic itself. Half of the country no longer trusts any of these institutions. Lie in the bed you made.
drieddust 6y ago
> The western liberal value of free speech has never extended to incitement of violence. I have 3 questions: 1. If people can't revolt than why American constitution have second amendment? 2. If people can't raise against the government, then what was BLM and ANTIFA rioters doing for months? Don't you think this bunch was much more disciplined than BLM/ANTIFA? 3. These tech companies keep sucking up to China,Iran, and even Malaysia why? I am not an American so just curious why this one sided censure feel ok? Edit: added last sentence.
- ahstilde 6y ago
  Re: #2, when did the violent parts of the BLM protests enter the seat of national government with intent to harm?
  - drieddust 6y ago
    Why you think killing random innocent on the street, burning private properties is ok but storming a government building is not? Killing random people to make a political statement is terrorism. Isn't it?
    - sanp 6y ago
      Ok. Can u tell me the death till associated with BLM (not attributed to police)? I can - 0.
      - kortilla 6y ago
        The deaths in chaz, where police were explicitly banned.
      - abernard1 6y ago
        25. And $1B in damage. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/americans-killed-protests-political-unrest-acled https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/americans-kill...
deleted 6y ago
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- deleted 6y ago
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paulddraper 6y ago
> not an existential threat to the republic. Because it wasn't. Not even close. Snowden materials demonstrated a threat to the republic. This is nothing by comparison. Inexplicably lax security allowed a mob to get access to the Capitol building and break the windows and fight and take selfies with police (including a few tragic deaths), a bad situation that was corrected within hours. It's like saying the protests of Summer 2020 put Minneapolis in existential danger, or Seattle in existential danger. > If they even TRY to replace RBG we burn the entire fucking thing down. > Sep 18, 2020 https://twitter.com/rezaaslan/status/1307107507131875330 https://twitter.com/rezaaslan/status/1307107507131875330 You could make such wild claims (and many on the other side HAVE), but hopefully most people understand that for what it actually is. --- There's so much exaggeration and hyperbole on all sides, and this just proves provides more evidence for conspiracy theories. It might be your moral right to fan the flames of this fire, but I wish you wouldn't. The solution to bad speech is more speech, not less. EDIT: And let's say you're right, that there's large amounts of open unironic sedition in the US. I doubt forcing it onto Gab or elsewhere is really a net win. Revolutions happen when people believe they do not have a voice. It's mindboggling to think that removing people's ability to speak is going to make people less violent. You're taking away their peaceable recourse and leaving them with unpeaceable options. What do you think is going to happen?? That just so backwards from what should be the goal. Proponents of free-speech intuitively realize this. --- WHAT WAS WORSE: The Reichstag fire, or the reaction to it?
- three_seagrass 6y ago
  What do you think an existential threat to the republic would look like?
  - temp8964 6y ago
    Is Osama Bin Laden really really bad? Yes. Was he an existential threat to the U.S. He wishes. Were the mob capable as Osama Bin Laden? Not even close. Even if they did explode the whole congress building, it is far far far far away from an existential threat to the republic.
  - paulddraper 6y ago
one2know 6y ago
If you are so afraid of some ephemeral threat, tell us, did you support mail in voting and ignoring state election laws? Because if you are not worried about that, then you really don't give a shit about this country.
- catlifeonmars 6y ago
  I’m not sure I understand how the OP supporting mail in voting is relevant.
  - one2know 6y ago
    They are extremely afraid, freaked out, or paranoid that people are going to use Parler to somehow overthrow the government. But, they were not afraid that people were going to use unverified mail in ballots and ballot stuffing to overthrow the government. In reality we all know their fear is a ruse and this is a power grab.
    - lumpenprole 6y ago
      In reality we all know that you care more about bullshit voter fraud than actual voter suppression.
    - catlifeonmars 6y ago
      My understanding is that repeatedly, the courts have shown that allegations about widespread voter fraud are unfounded. Do you have evidence to the contrary?
    - zepto 6y ago
      We have evidence a mob organized on parler to attempt to hang the Vice President. We have no evidence at all of voter fraud.
- DonHopkins 6y ago
  Please don't parrot Trump's propaganda and talking points here. You're not the judge of who gives a shit about this country.
NE2z2T9qi 6y ago
And what do you think would have happened to Minneapolis or the Portland courthouse or the White House during the summer riots if there had not been a more competent security response? What happened at the Capitol was serious. So was what happened over the summer. But over the summer I heard nothing by "mostly peaceful protests" as literally billions of dollars of damage was caused and numerous deaths were racked up. Captiol protesters break some windows and I hear nothing but "violent rioting insurrectionists". Back during the summer, Trump being secured in a shelter because of the riot security risk was LAUGHED at by the left. They accused him of being a coward for being taken to a bunker due to the risk of BLM protesters who burned a church across from the White House. Where's the same media laughing at the Congressional representatives fleeing from the people they're supposed to represent?
- chillwaves 6y ago
  Trump was never in danger.
- bananabreakfast 6y ago
  Broke some windows? They beat a police officer to death with a fire extinguisher. They entered congress with zip ties, semi-automatic weapons, and placed pipe bombs at the DNC & RNC.
throwaway201103 6y ago
Because if there was one thing it wasn't, it wasn't an "existential threat to the republic." Hyperbole like this make it hard to talk about the rest of it reasonably. It was a protest gone off the rails, with a few bad actors, and an embarrasing lack of preparedness by the Capitol Police on that day of all days, given what has been going on all year.
- na85 6y ago
  >It was a protest gone off the rails, with a few bad actors, and an embarrasing lack of preparedness by the Capitol Police on that day of all days, given what has been going on all year. Those "few bad actors" had weapons and tried to interrupt the certification of the new president. They may be idiots because of their poor planning but their intent was obvious to anyone who hasn't drank the kool-aid.
  - WindyLakeReturn 6y ago
    And previously a few bad actors attempted to assassinate a number of GOP representatives, yet we didn't see a comparable reaction. I also seem to recall there were people staging faked but realistic looking beheadings of Trump which was celebrated as free speech.
    - na85 6y ago
      Ah yes, whataboutism, HN's favourite refuge when confronted with unassailable arguments.
  - throwaway201103 6y ago
    I don't think anyone (certainly not me) is denying some intent of at least a core of instigators to create a disruption, at minimum. They should be identified, charged with their crimes, and stand trial.
- tenpies 6y ago
  I really find it fascinating how the US media finds the exception and pretends it's the norm. It's something out of psy-ops. ONE demonstrator had zip ties, therefore "they had zip ties". Sure, many were armed and who fired the sole single lethal shot that day? Law enforcement. How is that for peaceful? The "four people died" narrative is also very telling. One demonstrator was shot by police. One law enforcement officer died of injuries - although details have been very vague. The other two deaths? One heart attack and one unrelated condition. At this point I expect the US media to attribute every single death in DC on that day to these demonstrations just so they can pretend it was an extremely lethal event. The people "stormed the Capitol" and what did they do once they had it? They took selfies and then left peacefully. That's not a coup or an insurrection, that's a disorganized demonstration that went too far because Capitol police could apparently not keep doors closed. But I understand. The US media has been priming people for 5 years for this. They've been running influence campaigns and promoting violence the minute Trump won. They spent 3 years talking about Russian collusion and then didn't say a thing when it was proven false. Could you imagine if the Russian collusion narrative had been treated the same way the electoral fraud narrative has been treated?
jlj 6y ago
> The western liberal value of free speech has never extended to incitement of violence Here is the court precedence behind this in the US. "Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court interpreting the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[1] The Court held that the government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action"" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio
- wyuenho 6y ago
  You've said it, this ruling only applies to the government. Private companies are not bound by this case law.
  - Qub3d 6y ago
    Likewise, private companies are not required to host any speech, as long as they aren't discriminatory against a protected class. Cory Doctrow put it best: Let these companies ban whomever, for whatever (legal) reason. Then, push for anti-trust and decentralization, because the REAL problem is we have an oligopoly controlling social media.
ravenstine 6y ago
The founding of America was based on insurrection. This western liberal value of speech you speak of is in your imagination because there's no where in the US constitution that says free speech is defined as anything except violence. Any decisions we made on interpreting free speech since its inception are purely arbitrary. It may be true that those companies don't want to platform sedition, but what if rightful sedition cannot be achieved without being provided a platform? In that case, is it then up to companies to pick and choose which sedition movements they support by virtue of allowing them on their platform?
- sanp 6y ago
  Yes. If you believe in a libertarian "absolute free speech" principle you should also let private companies decide who they let on their platform. You cannot have it both ways.
WindyLakeReturn 6y ago
>I'm distressed and saddened at how many of the free speech proponents on HN are treating the events of January 6 as if it was just another protest and not an existential threat to the republic. Could you present an explanation for why? > If the mob had managed to find and destroy the electoral certificates, Then nothing different would happen because this particular part of the vote is a formality. Well, the news would be even more one sided on this, but nothing else. >or if the flex-cuffs guys had captured members of congress Assuming worse case and he actually killed someone, why would it be much different than attacks in the past like the one at the soft/baseball game. As you said, that it failed is irrelevant to the intended goal. >The western liberal value of free speech has never extended to incitement of violence. Yes it has. First, there is political speech which is going through the most proper channels to enact violence. If you get a law passed, you are forcing people to comply under threat of violence. Talking about changing laws is very central to free speech and includes protecting people pushing even the most cartoonishly evil laws. But on a more general since, still sticking to US law, the courts have allowed for calls to violence in general and have been very limited in how they restrict it. For example look at all that was said during the summer that was encouraging of riots (not the things said in support of the protests, but said in support of the riots). That is still largely protected free speech. And on an even more general scale, the concept of free speech does apply to what the founding fathers were discussing leading up to and during the revolutionary war. Sure, Britain's laws would have punished them for it, but the value of free speech that let them rebel is something that was understood and accepted by those forming the new government.
- sanp 6y ago
  If you are going with what the founding fathers wanted then you should be comfortable with PRIVATE (as in not the government) companies doing whatever the hell they want within their terms of service. No contract has been breached when Apple, Google, Amazon deplatformed Parler. If you want to make this into "but they control speech on the internet with their reach..." then it is no longer about "what the founding fathers" wanted and you should be willing to make this a non-absolutist argument in which case it is mo longer clear cut that restricting this speech is bad.
DarmokJalad1701 6y ago
#1,2 and 3 in the Presidential line of succession were in the building when this happened. How is this anything but serious?
- kortilla 6y ago
  And they would have all been replaced by the various states. The constitution outlines succession for this reason.
  - abenga 6y ago
    Are you seriously using "we can replace them" as an argument why killing the VP, Speaker, etc. is not that serious?
    - kortilla 6y ago
      It’s serious from a murder, terrorism, disruption perspective. It’s not a serious threat to the republic though.
illuminati1911 6y ago
” The western liberal value of free speech has never extended to incitement of violence. My assumption is that the leaders of Apple, Google, and Amazon don't want to provide a platform for sedition.” This illogical lie get spammed here on every single news discussion about this event, yet no one has still answered why did those platforms allow leftwing/blm terrorists and other violent organizations spread their hate for years? ”Western liberal values” seem to only apply when it doesn’t harm the agenda and interests of the people who vote for the ”right” party.
- astrange 6y ago
  There haven’t been left-wing terrorists in the US since the Weather Underground. (Who were so ineffectual most of them blew themselves up and we let the rest become obscure college professors.) If you think there’s been any in the last few decades you should turn off your TV since it’s lying to you.
  - imcoconut 6y ago
    Do you believe there have been any right wing terrorists in the US in the last few decades?
    - astrange 6y ago
      Yes, there were some yesterday.
    - grzm 6y ago
      Interpreting "last few decades" as within the last 30 years, Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph make the cut. - 1995 Murrah Federal Building in OK - 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing Post 2001, Wikipedia has quite a list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_terrorism#Post-2001 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_terrorism#Post-2001 I could see arguing some of these are crimes committed by right-wing groups as opposed to terrorist acts, but others clearly are terrorism.
  - FFRefresh 6y ago
lliamander 6y ago
January 6 was a "mostly peaceful" protest.
- Hamuko 6y ago
  How many "mostly peaceful" protests end up with five dead?
  - lliamander 6y ago
    Where were you this past summer? "Mostly peaceful" was the way the corporate press described the summer riots that left dozens dead and did billions of dollars in property damage. And the rioters were bailed out by politicians including the incoming VP.
    - Hamuko 6y ago
      That doesn't really answer my question.
      - lliamander 6y ago
        It actually does. I mean, I didn't give you a specific number of such "mostly peaceful" protests, and they didn't necessarily result in exactly 5 deaths, but it is clear that the protest on the 6th was not the only such protest to result in people dying even with the past year.
nickysielicki 6y ago
> I'm distressed and saddened at how many of the free speech proponents on HN are treating the events of January 6 as if it was just another protest and not an existential threat to the republic. You know what else is an existential threat to the republic? A growing group of congresspeople who openly question fundamental American values like the right to bear arms, freedom of association, freedom of religion, a punitive justice system, and the non-redistribution of wealth. Those seditious traitors have been growing in numbers for the past decade. (See what I did there?) All I'm really saying is you should not act like there wasn't build up to this from both sides. This country is trying to decide whether it likes being wealthy more than it likes being free, and for the people who were never particularly wealthy in the first place, it's hardly a choice at all. What do you expect them to do, just take it? When have Americans ever done that?
ttt0 6y ago
You cannot base your judgement on emotions, especially in times like this. > His followers have now begun talking about returning with arms. Only fools would assume that these threats are idle talk or jokes. I don't understand why it is so surprising for anyone, but this is what happens when you're trying to censor people. Banning Trump and censoring his supporters was a mistake, because it's basically like a declaration of war. If the social media waited like a month into the Biden presidency, Trump supporters would scream about the Big Tech into the ether and everything would die down eventually, but instead they decided to do it at the worst possible moment.
- tracer4201 6y ago
  This doesn’t make sense to me. Is Twitter or Facebook basically a fundamental human right in the US? Is losing Twitter like losing your ability to own a firearm? The whole “censorship” label seems quite entitled at best. These are private companies. They are under no obligation to let someone’s crazy uncle talk about hanging the VP of the US or overthrowing Congress. Donald J Trump has every opportunity to call into Lou Dobbs, Judge Jeanine, Sean Hannity, or Fox News. He can publish directly on Brietbart. He also has the podium in the WH press room, which he doesn’t like to use, and for a decent chunk of the Presidency, had no daily press briefing. The American liberals cry over the smallest thing, and the conservatives are equally, or perhaps worse entitled cry babies. Twitter owes American individuals absolutely nothing. They’re a business. Presumably they don’t want to get sued because we already knew people were using Twitter to plan another attack on American elected officials and Twitter did nothing.
  - abernard1 6y ago
    His argument wasn't a legal one, it's a practical one. The majority of Republicans believe that their votes were stolen at the ballot box. They then got on their soap box to try to peacefully protest this outcome, which is legal, and what politics is about. They were cancelled and shut down at every avenue trying to exercise speech and protest. It doesn't matter that it's the legal right of Twitter to do this, it's that it is an extraordinarily demotivating action. When people try the ballot box, and then the soap box, they've got one box left. Alienating and dehumanizing people is not an effective recipe for civil peace, even if it's a legal one.
asxd 6y ago
Since 2016 I've tried very hard to understand and empathize with the baffling behavior of staunch Trump supporters. Certainly not to support their politics, but to restore some sense of stability to my world view--that people are generally sympathetic. This especially hit home when hearing my wonderful parents' supporting Trump's hateful rhetoric. I'm now starting to think that his message is in fact too dangerous to even try and rationalize. The people that follow them are feeling something I don't understand, but there's just no excuse to humor them any longer. His rhetoric is tearing us apart, and it needs to end. For god's sake, the hate needs to end.
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  He says things that resonate with their beliefs. America is great, America is good in the world, a strong America is a good thing, get out of foreign wars, get out of bad trade deals, bring back jobs, cut taxes. He did a lot of these things. He was completely unlike any other politician. He didn't try to waffle on both sides of every issue. He spoke his mind, in a brash, rude, blue-collar New York kind of way. He called people names. I never heard real hate in the things he said, though if you wanted to hear it, I'm sure you did.
  - asxd 6y ago
    Thanks for this. I suppose the reason people follow him is often because of his politics, not all of which I disagree with. But I think the hatred he inspires is packed into his rhetoric, and that's what I take issue with.
- whotfru 6y ago
  You may not be able to rationalize their thinking, but you do need to live in the same country together. If your hope is that now that you've lost patience; they can be pummelled into submission, you may be going down an even darker path... Some kind of concessions, and a demonstration that Biden is not what they feared might a good start. Or.. you can have them banned off the internet, thrown off planes, fired from their jobs etc.. sounds like a good plan.
vowelless 6y ago
For years these platforms have been getting rid of Islamist content. And thats a good thing. How is this any different? Is it because it is so close to home? Probably.
throwaway2021a 6y ago
>I'm distressed and saddened at how many of the free speech proponents on HN are treating the events of January 6 as if it was just another protest If I'm honest, maybe I'm just a little inured to the events of this year? We had events like the CHAZ where groups of armed protesters declared American soil autonomous, numerous people died, and it took authorities a month to shut the protest down. I agree... the events of 1/6 "feel" different (certainly the response has been), but I'm struggling to understand why, and that alights in the skeptic in me. Is it just that one cause is deemed righteous, and the other is deemed not? Just as happy as most to see Donald go, but it's hard to not see this reaction formation on behalf of the left / big tech as manufactured outrage and advantage seeking. (Genuinely conflicted -- feel free to correct me.)
disown 6y ago
Censoring a president is far greater a threat to the republic than some silly protest. People like you exploiting a silly pathetic protest to justify censorship is the threat to the republic. I'd rather have the protests than censorship by tech companies. It is not for a bunch of unelected tech elites to decide whether our elected leaders speak. That's not their job. Once we hand over that power to a bunch of tech elites, then we have the end of the republic. Nobody voted for Amazon, Apple, Google to be our hall monitors. If there is a "threat to the republic", then it's the job of the political leaders and law enforcement to deal with it. Not Tim Cook, not Zuckerburg and certainly not the idiots at CNN, foxnews or other media companies. The collusion between tech and news industry is the greatest threat to the republic. Not some pathetic protest that amounted to nothing. Have you ever bothered to ask who elected the tech industry to be our masters? Do you really want a bunch of unelected tech elite controlling our lives? Do you want these people to be lords over our elected leaders?
paulddraper 6y ago
> free speech proponents on HN are treating the events of January 6 as if it was just another protest and not an existential threat to the republic. Let me tell you a little story: On February 27, 1933 communist Marinus van der Lubbe set fire to the Reichstag, the home of the German parliament. He and four communist leaders were arrested. The event supported the earlier claims of the National Socialist Workers Party, that Germany was on the verge of a communist revolution and only majority by them could stop it. At the urging of Chancellor Adolf Hitler, President Paul von Hidenburg immediately issued the Reichstag Fire Decree, suspending civil liberties such as freedom speech, freedom of the press, public assembly, and the secrecy of the post and telephone. The government arrested large numbers of communists, including members of parliament. In their absence, the Nazis and their allies, the Germany National People's Party, achieved a majority in the legislature. Exactly one month after the Reichstag fire, they passed the Enabling Act to help them against the seditious communists by giving the Chancellor the power to pass laws without parliamentary approval. Soon after, President Hindenburg died and the President's office was merged with that of the Chancellor Hitler, making Hitler the head of state and the executive, or "Führer und Reichskanzler." But......the important thing is that they successfully addressed the insurrectionists' attack on the Capitol!
whiddershins 6y ago
In 1967 the black panthers invaded the California capitol building armed with rifles. Over the summer of 2020 protestors laid siege to the Federal building in Portland for 100 days straight. I can list tons of riots and violent direct actions that have happened over the years. Read about the NOW bombing in Philadelphia. Oklahoma City. Waco. The Weather Report. On and on and on. Elevating the Jan 6th direct action, however scary, tragic, and misguided it might be, to some higher level of ‘coup’ or ‘insurrection’ isn’t rational. It is another chapter in a long line of crazy events happening around political conflict in the US. As such, it doesn’t, in my opinion, warrant rethink everything.
- jp57 6y ago
  The events you list are similar in form but different in substance. The substantive difference is that none of the above events were supported and encouraged by a sitting president seeking to overturn his own election loss. It is a violent, physical attack, directed and abetted by the executive against the legislature to prevent it from carrying out its constitutional duty. That is an existential threat to the republic. A lot of people here are looking at the house on fire and worrying about the water damage from putting it out.
- ModernMech 6y ago
  How many riots can you list where the rioters were specifically targeting a joint session of congress, with the VP in attendance, for the explicit purpose of overturning the legitimate US presidential election at the behest of the current US president? What exactly do you think a coup attempt is?
ModernMech 6y ago
> If the mob had managed to find and destroy the electoral certificates You have a lot of replies so sorry if someone else said this, but this wouldn't have been much of a big deal. There are 6 copies of the electoral certificates: one sent to the VP, one sent to the SOS, 2 sent to a federal judge from the state, and 2 sent to a US archivist. I don't know which copies they were using on 1/6. Maybe the VP's? But if they destroyed them, we have others.

by jp57 6y ago

oliv__ 6y ago

OK, but given that all of the above is true, do you think that deplatforming Parler helps or hurts the overall situation? What do you think the "deplatformed" people are going to do? Just quit because "oh no our website is gone"? This event is just fueling the fire IMO.

spamizbad 6y ago
I feel like deplatforming because of a TOS violation is much better than "The world's a better place if we deplatform you"
ehsankia 6y ago
They won't have a unified place to plan for their next attack in a few days? Where do you think they planned their attack for January 6? Deplatforming has proven to work, if anything heavily slow down the spread of misinformation. What's the last time you heard about Milo?
- DonHopkins 6y ago
  Milo who? ;) (That's a RHETORICAL QUESTION!!! Don't anybody dare answer!!!)
- ancientworldnow 6y ago
  The planning wasn't done there, just bloviating. The planning was done on telegram and signal (and to a lesser extent Keybase and wire). Lots of people doing osint on the events could tell you that. Interestingly, the banning of all these accounts has caused the size of the telegram groups to increase dramatically and the discourse to get much more violent.
  - KMag 6y ago
    As I've suggested elsewhere, I think 1-month to 3-month suspensions are much better than lifetime bans. Suspensions keep followers hanging around the mainstream platform, where you can suggest centrist content to them. A lifetime ban gets rid of all carrots and all future sticks the platform can offer.
    - true_religion 6y ago
      Sure, but do we really want to platform to take an active and knowing hand in shaping politics? Right now they have an effect through algorithms, but their actions don’t seem to be coordinated towards any goal other than increasing engagement with the platform. This is actively different than pitching centrist content to extremists because the platform owners are centrists themselves. What if the platform owners become extremists like Parler?
      - KMag 6y ago
        Up until 3 or 4 years ago, I was nearly a free speech maximalist. Now, it seems clear that society is poorly equipped and adjusting poorly to social media. I think giving more control to centrist platforms is the least bad of all the bad options I see. I'm not sure how to mitigate the long-term risks introduced, but the bifurcation of society appears to be a slow motion car crash in progress. I'd love to be convinced that there are better options, especially if they allowed me to move closer to free speech maximalism. I think it would help to change middle school and high school civics curricula by adding cognitive biases, logical fallacies (including some basic statistical fallacies), and other tools to better handle social media.
hxegon 6y ago
I'd encourage you to read "Talking with strangers". There's a section in there about the anchoring effect, which basically talks about how if you increase patrols in the worst parts of town and get crime there down, it mostly doesn't just move "elsewhere". These people had good reasons for being drawn to parler and while it won't stop anybody, it's a significant blow I think.
- KMag 6y ago
  The counter-argument is that the main draw of Parler was deplatforming (of people who weren't calling for violence) on mainstream platorms. In hindsight (and for some, in foresight), finding some pool of center-left content to suggest to viewers of far-right social media personalities, and center-right content to suggest to viewers of far-left social media personalities probably would have been a much better long-term solution. I also think you'd want to have 1-month or 3-month suspensions for suggesting violence, rather than full deplatforming, to reduce the number of followers who jump to more extreme platforms. Edit: actually, I think you'd one pool of center-left and center-right content to show to both extremes, to make the medicine taste less bitter.
titzer 6y ago
But realistically, these people have been violating the ToS for a long time. Late enforcement is better than no enforcement. Give them an inch and they'll take a mile. It's true. The only thing that truly changes behavior is consequences. Arrests for in-person insurrections, trials, convictions, deplatform, disrupt, and I would even say enforce the laws that we do have against incitement of violence, which means arresting people who are posting hateful shit online. This whole thing needs to be busted. Not doing anything because they might be "upset" is tantamount to surrender. Then they literally are holding us hostage. That cannot be tolerated.
- jlj 6y ago
  Agree, and will add that this should be backed by LEO's tracking online posts inciting violence to people's doors, arresting them, and letting courts decide if it's a free speech issue.
- KMag 6y ago
  I absolutely agree as far as arrests and convictions for violence, incitements to violence, and conspiracies to commit violent acts. However, I think deplatforming is a poor long-term solution. Deplatforming on mainstream platforms inspired and fueled the rise of Parler. Deplatforming gets rid of all carrots and all future sticks the mainstream platform has against a given extremist. I think 1-month to 3-month suspensions are more likely to keep followers around, where the mainstream platform has an opportunity to suggest a mixture of center-left and center-right content to them, and provide carrots to rehabilitate extremist publishers. As I've posted elsewhere, taking Parler offline is probably a necessary short-term solution to an acute threat, but I think it's rarely the right long-term solution. Edit: I'm fine being downvoted, but if you have a good counter-argument, please post it or a link to it. Try to change my mind instead of just venting your anger.
ink 6y ago
I agree with you, but I also don't know what else these companies should do. What happened on Jan 6th was coordinated on a lot of these platforms (including Parler). It seems like the answer to all these types of issues comes down to education at some point. Not that we all need to learn the same point of view, but that we should learn how to think critically. The people who took part in the insurrection on the capital honestly believe a lot of falsehoods propagated on networks like Parlor, FB, Twitter. They aren't all acting in bad faith. Seems like these networks/platforms have been forced to take the actions they did because people – all of us to some degree or another – choose what we want to believe, wether there's any evidence or not.
three_seagrass 6y ago
Fear of retaliation is how facism thrives. Deplatforming hate groups works.
DonHopkins 6y ago
Do you think that extinguishing the fire of your house burning down helps or hurts the overall situation of arson?
TeaDrunk 6y ago
From what I understand, deplatforming actually works to deradicalize people because every time you deplatform, the actual radicalized group lessens. For example, randos from twitter who went to parler to follow their favorite alt-right opinion producer but otherwise don't care about politics probably won't want to follow them a second time and will end up entering less radicalized spaces and then deradicalizing themselves. At the end you have a small group of severely sick people who can only be helped by therapy, but prevent mass unrest of otherwise normal people who got radicalized only because getting radicalized was as easy as joining a platform.
austhrow743 6y ago
If we're giving that the above is true then the US is basically at war with these people. It's an insurrection. "If we cut our enemies communications then that's just fueling the fire" is not something you say mid war. You cut and code break and infiltrate and capture and kill and anything else because the time for "deplatforming" and "fuel on fire" and any other business as usual peace time political concept is irrelevant. That game isn't being played any more, the violence game is. It's like you're playing chess with someone and they just got up and shoved you, and you punched them, and then a bunch of onlookers are all "well what if they had played knight to f4? Would you punch then!? Punching shouldn't be allowed in chess!". Except the chess game ended when they got up and shoved you. Treating these people as political opponents ended when they broke in to the Capitol building with guns and bombs with the stated intent of killing politicians. They're enemies of the state and therefore enemies of institutions that exist thanks to that state and any individual that likes that state.
Qub3d 6y ago
Vice did a very interesting look into this question following the deplatforming of Alex Jones[1]. As is evident from their article title -- "Deplatforming Works" -- the data seem to say it works. As for the specific concern you mention, they look into it as well: "'The good that comes with deplatforming is, their main goal was to redpill or get people within mainstream communities more in line with their beliefs, so we need to get them off those platforms,” Robyn Caplan, a PhD student at Rutgers University and Data and Society affiliate, told me on the phone. “But now we’ve put them down into their holes where they were before, and they could strengthen their beliefs and become more extreme.' The question is whether it’s more harmful to society to have many millions of people exposed to kinda hateful content or to have a much smaller number of ultra-radicalized true believers." [1]: https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media-bans-work https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media-bans-...

ehsankia 6y ago

They had zipties, bombs, weapons and gallows. Can you imagine if one of those people who've spent 2 years reading hateful news about AOC would've done if they managed to make it to her office? Honestly January 6 could've ended much worse, and if something isn't done to put a break to the vitriot going unchecked on Parler, it very well may happen. These people were recruiting and planning everything on Parler, doxxing and sharing information. This is what happens when a platform goes unmoderated. People like to think that a 100% free speech platform is great, but every instance of it I've seen has devolved into child porn, doxxing and violence.

three_seagrass 6y ago
The NYT Daily podcast yesterday had some insightful info from some of their reporters on the ground. The president was basically communicating with the mob through Twitter. Ten minutes after Trump tweeted that his VP was a coward and a traitor, the mob that had invaded the Capitol started chanting, "Give us Pence". This is as the U.S. VP is also being evacuated.
- diryawish 6y ago
  “Coward and a traitor.” Is that an actual quote or are you editorializing?
  - true_religion 6y ago
    The actual Tweet is “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country”. I do also recall that he called out Pence during the speech leading to the riot as well. However the thing that stood out the most to me at that speech is that his son said they would make the party the “Trump Republican Party”, which seemed to indicate a coming purge. Now at the time, I thought it would be a nonviolent purge, but considering the riot I am not sure what was actually intended since his followers took that to mean Pence should be hanged.
tpirx 6y ago
By what measure are you attributing all of this to any App specifically? What if 60% of the violent offenders were radicalized via Twitter? If this were a court case all of the platforms would be implicated. On what ground will you stand on to prevent another crypto war? [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars

kyle_martin1 6y ago

If you support free speech then quit gaslighting and support freedom of speech. This kind of comment is toxic.

warent 6y ago
This harkens back to the very old analogy of why you're not allowed to scream "Fire!" or "There's a bomb!" in a movie theater, and that restriction isn't considered an infringement on free speech. Ergo it is possible (e.g. to deplatform a member of high authority) without it being an infringement on free speech. Also your comment doesn't really point out specific flaws in their argument. All you do is tack insulting words onto it without any meaningful substance.
- kyle_martin1 6y ago
  Last time I wrote an intelligent argument... I was voted into oblivion because HN is a liberal, white male group think echo chamber. Silent downvoting is not exactly conducive to productive conversation with different opinions. So I’d rather not waste my time...
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    "A riot is the language of the unheard" ~ Martin Luther King Jr In this one instance, I hope he was wrong.
    - throwaway201103 6y ago
      All the people who voted for Trump and who think the vote was rigged feel unheard. Dr. King was quite perceptive.
      - dang 6y ago
        We've banned this account for political flamewar. That's not what this site is for, and we ban accounts that do it regardless of which politics they're battling for. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. This is a site for thoughtful, curious conversation on topics of intellectual interest—not bashing enemies.

thedieiscast 6y ago

Sorry but this all on you and the left. This is the bed you made. It started from day one of Trump's 2016 campaign, where the Obama administration spied on the Trump campaign against Hillary. Then came the completely fake impeachment trial, the fake and absurd allegations that Trump pissed on Russian hookers and all kinds of stupid shit. The years of one-sided MSM attacks against Trump that were almost entirely made up. The months of riots and deaths from Antifa and BLM that were sanctioned by the mayors of the democrat cities. The complete change of election laws so that now half of the country doesn't trust the election because it is just dropping ballots off in a bin on the side of the road. The silicon valley cartel working together to ensure all conservative voices were silenced. Google literally not giving election day notifications to conservatives until they were caught out. You brought this on yourselves, and now there will be nothing but violence and hell until America probably no longer exists. You elected a guy whose son is paid millions by China. You, the left, wanted to do whatever it took to get Trump out of the whitehouse, and that includes ending the republic itself. Half of the country no longer trusts any of these institutions. Lie in the bed you made.

drieddust 6y ago

> The western liberal value of free speech has never extended to incitement of violence. I have 3 questions: 1. If people can't revolt than why American constitution have second amendment? 2. If people can't raise against the government, then what was BLM and ANTIFA rioters doing for months? Don't you think this bunch was much more disciplined than BLM/ANTIFA? 3. These tech companies keep sucking up to China,Iran, and even Malaysia why? I am not an American so just curious why this one sided censure feel ok? Edit: added last sentence.

ahstilde 6y ago
Re: #2, when did the violent parts of the BLM protests enter the seat of national government with intent to harm?
- drieddust 6y ago
  Why you think killing random innocent on the street, burning private properties is ok but storming a government building is not? Killing random people to make a political statement is terrorism. Isn't it?
  - sanp 6y ago
    Ok. Can u tell me the death till associated with BLM (not attributed to police)? I can - 0.
    - kortilla 6y ago
      The deaths in chaz, where police were explicitly banned.
    - abernard1 6y ago
      25. And $1B in damage. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/americans-killed-protests-political-unrest-acled https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/americans-kill...

deleted 6y ago

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paulddraper 6y ago

> not an existential threat to the republic. Because it wasn't. Not even close. Snowden materials demonstrated a threat to the republic. This is nothing by comparison. Inexplicably lax security allowed a mob to get access to the Capitol building and break the windows and fight and take selfies with police (including a few tragic deaths), a bad situation that was corrected within hours. It's like saying the protests of Summer 2020 put Minneapolis in existential danger, or Seattle in existential danger. > If they even TRY to replace RBG we burn the entire fucking thing down. > Sep 18, 2020 https://twitter.com/rezaaslan/status/1307107507131875330 https://twitter.com/rezaaslan/status/1307107507131875330 You could make such wild claims (and many on the other side HAVE), but hopefully most people understand that for what it actually is. --- There's so much exaggeration and hyperbole on all sides, and this just proves provides more evidence for conspiracy theories. It might be your moral right to fan the flames of this fire, but I wish you wouldn't. The solution to bad speech is more speech, not less. EDIT: And let's say you're right, that there's large amounts of open unironic sedition in the US. I doubt forcing it onto Gab or elsewhere is really a net win. Revolutions happen when people believe they do not have a voice. It's mindboggling to think that removing people's ability to speak is going to make people less violent. You're taking away their peaceable recourse and leaving them with unpeaceable options. What do you think is going to happen?? That just so backwards from what should be the goal. Proponents of free-speech intuitively realize this. --- WHAT WAS WORSE: The Reichstag fire, or the reaction to it?

three_seagrass 6y ago
What do you think an existential threat to the republic would look like?
- temp8964 6y ago
  Is Osama Bin Laden really really bad? Yes. Was he an existential threat to the U.S. He wishes. Were the mob capable as Osama Bin Laden? Not even close. Even if they did explode the whole congress building, it is far far far far away from an existential threat to the republic.
- paulddraper 6y ago

one2know 6y ago

If you are so afraid of some ephemeral threat, tell us, did you support mail in voting and ignoring state election laws? Because if you are not worried about that, then you really don't give a shit about this country.

catlifeonmars 6y ago
I’m not sure I understand how the OP supporting mail in voting is relevant.
- one2know 6y ago
  They are extremely afraid, freaked out, or paranoid that people are going to use Parler to somehow overthrow the government. But, they were not afraid that people were going to use unverified mail in ballots and ballot stuffing to overthrow the government. In reality we all know their fear is a ruse and this is a power grab.
  - lumpenprole 6y ago
    In reality we all know that you care more about bullshit voter fraud than actual voter suppression.
  - catlifeonmars 6y ago
    My understanding is that repeatedly, the courts have shown that allegations about widespread voter fraud are unfounded. Do you have evidence to the contrary?
  - zepto 6y ago
    We have evidence a mob organized on parler to attempt to hang the Vice President. We have no evidence at all of voter fraud.
DonHopkins 6y ago
Please don't parrot Trump's propaganda and talking points here. You're not the judge of who gives a shit about this country.

NE2z2T9qi 6y ago

And what do you think would have happened to Minneapolis or the Portland courthouse or the White House during the summer riots if there had not been a more competent security response? What happened at the Capitol was serious. So was what happened over the summer. But over the summer I heard nothing by "mostly peaceful protests" as literally billions of dollars of damage was caused and numerous deaths were racked up. Captiol protesters break some windows and I hear nothing but "violent rioting insurrectionists". Back during the summer, Trump being secured in a shelter because of the riot security risk was LAUGHED at by the left. They accused him of being a coward for being taken to a bunker due to the risk of BLM protesters who burned a church across from the White House. Where's the same media laughing at the Congressional representatives fleeing from the people they're supposed to represent?

chillwaves 6y ago
Trump was never in danger.
bananabreakfast 6y ago
Broke some windows? They beat a police officer to death with a fire extinguisher. They entered congress with zip ties, semi-automatic weapons, and placed pipe bombs at the DNC & RNC.

throwaway201103 6y ago

Because if there was one thing it wasn't, it wasn't an "existential threat to the republic." Hyperbole like this make it hard to talk about the rest of it reasonably. It was a protest gone off the rails, with a few bad actors, and an embarrasing lack of preparedness by the Capitol Police on that day of all days, given what has been going on all year.

na85 6y ago
>It was a protest gone off the rails, with a few bad actors, and an embarrasing lack of preparedness by the Capitol Police on that day of all days, given what has been going on all year. Those "few bad actors" had weapons and tried to interrupt the certification of the new president. They may be idiots because of their poor planning but their intent was obvious to anyone who hasn't drank the kool-aid.
- WindyLakeReturn 6y ago
  And previously a few bad actors attempted to assassinate a number of GOP representatives, yet we didn't see a comparable reaction. I also seem to recall there were people staging faked but realistic looking beheadings of Trump which was celebrated as free speech.
  - na85 6y ago
    Ah yes, whataboutism, HN's favourite refuge when confronted with unassailable arguments.
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  I don't think anyone (certainly not me) is denying some intent of at least a core of instigators to create a disruption, at minimum. They should be identified, charged with their crimes, and stand trial.
tenpies 6y ago
I really find it fascinating how the US media finds the exception and pretends it's the norm. It's something out of psy-ops. ONE demonstrator had zip ties, therefore "they had zip ties". Sure, many were armed and who fired the sole single lethal shot that day? Law enforcement. How is that for peaceful? The "four people died" narrative is also very telling. One demonstrator was shot by police. One law enforcement officer died of injuries - although details have been very vague. The other two deaths? One heart attack and one unrelated condition. At this point I expect the US media to attribute every single death in DC on that day to these demonstrations just so they can pretend it was an extremely lethal event. The people "stormed the Capitol" and what did they do once they had it? They took selfies and then left peacefully. That's not a coup or an insurrection, that's a disorganized demonstration that went too far because Capitol police could apparently not keep doors closed. But I understand. The US media has been priming people for 5 years for this. They've been running influence campaigns and promoting violence the minute Trump won. They spent 3 years talking about Russian collusion and then didn't say a thing when it was proven false. Could you imagine if the Russian collusion narrative had been treated the same way the electoral fraud narrative has been treated?

jlj 6y ago

> The western liberal value of free speech has never extended to incitement of violence Here is the court precedence behind this in the US. "Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court interpreting the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[1] The Court held that the government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action"" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio

wyuenho 6y ago
You've said it, this ruling only applies to the government. Private companies are not bound by this case law.
- Qub3d 6y ago
  Likewise, private companies are not required to host any speech, as long as they aren't discriminatory against a protected class. Cory Doctrow put it best: Let these companies ban whomever, for whatever (legal) reason. Then, push for anti-trust and decentralization, because the REAL problem is we have an oligopoly controlling social media.

ravenstine 6y ago

The founding of America was based on insurrection. This western liberal value of speech you speak of is in your imagination because there's no where in the US constitution that says free speech is defined as anything except violence. Any decisions we made on interpreting free speech since its inception are purely arbitrary. It may be true that those companies don't want to platform sedition, but what if rightful sedition cannot be achieved without being provided a platform? In that case, is it then up to companies to pick and choose which sedition movements they support by virtue of allowing them on their platform?

sanp 6y ago
Yes. If you believe in a libertarian "absolute free speech" principle you should also let private companies decide who they let on their platform. You cannot have it both ways.

WindyLakeReturn 6y ago

>I'm distressed and saddened at how many of the free speech proponents on HN are treating the events of January 6 as if it was just another protest and not an existential threat to the republic. Could you present an explanation for why? > If the mob had managed to find and destroy the electoral certificates, Then nothing different would happen because this particular part of the vote is a formality. Well, the news would be even more one sided on this, but nothing else. >or if the flex-cuffs guys had captured members of congress Assuming worse case and he actually killed someone, why would it be much different than attacks in the past like the one at the soft/baseball game. As you said, that it failed is irrelevant to the intended goal. >The western liberal value of free speech has never extended to incitement of violence. Yes it has. First, there is political speech which is going through the most proper channels to enact violence. If you get a law passed, you are forcing people to comply under threat of violence. Talking about changing laws is very central to free speech and includes protecting people pushing even the most cartoonishly evil laws. But on a more general since, still sticking to US law, the courts have allowed for calls to violence in general and have been very limited in how they restrict it. For example look at all that was said during the summer that was encouraging of riots (not the things said in support of the protests, but said in support of the riots). That is still largely protected free speech. And on an even more general scale, the concept of free speech does apply to what the founding fathers were discussing leading up to and during the revolutionary war. Sure, Britain's laws would have punished them for it, but the value of free speech that let them rebel is something that was understood and accepted by those forming the new government.

sanp 6y ago
If you are going with what the founding fathers wanted then you should be comfortable with PRIVATE (as in not the government) companies doing whatever the hell they want within their terms of service. No contract has been breached when Apple, Google, Amazon deplatformed Parler. If you want to make this into "but they control speech on the internet with their reach..." then it is no longer about "what the founding fathers" wanted and you should be willing to make this a non-absolutist argument in which case it is mo longer clear cut that restricting this speech is bad.

DarmokJalad1701 6y ago

#1,2 and 3 in the Presidential line of succession were in the building when this happened. How is this anything but serious?

kortilla 6y ago
And they would have all been replaced by the various states. The constitution outlines succession for this reason.
- abenga 6y ago
  Are you seriously using "we can replace them" as an argument why killing the VP, Speaker, etc. is not that serious?
  - kortilla 6y ago
    It’s serious from a murder, terrorism, disruption perspective. It’s not a serious threat to the republic though.

illuminati1911 6y ago

” The western liberal value of free speech has never extended to incitement of violence. My assumption is that the leaders of Apple, Google, and Amazon don't want to provide a platform for sedition.” This illogical lie get spammed here on every single news discussion about this event, yet no one has still answered why did those platforms allow leftwing/blm terrorists and other violent organizations spread their hate for years? ”Western liberal values” seem to only apply when it doesn’t harm the agenda and interests of the people who vote for the ”right” party.

astrange 6y ago
There haven’t been left-wing terrorists in the US since the Weather Underground. (Who were so ineffectual most of them blew themselves up and we let the rest become obscure college professors.) If you think there’s been any in the last few decades you should turn off your TV since it’s lying to you.
- imcoconut 6y ago
  Do you believe there have been any right wing terrorists in the US in the last few decades?
  - astrange 6y ago
    Yes, there were some yesterday.
  - grzm 6y ago
    Interpreting "last few decades" as within the last 30 years, Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph make the cut. - 1995 Murrah Federal Building in OK - 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing Post 2001, Wikipedia has quite a list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_terrorism#Post-2001 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_terrorism#Post-2001 I could see arguing some of these are crimes committed by right-wing groups as opposed to terrorist acts, but others clearly are terrorism.
- FFRefresh 6y ago

lliamander 6y ago

January 6 was a "mostly peaceful" protest.

Hamuko 6y ago
How many "mostly peaceful" protests end up with five dead?
- lliamander 6y ago
  Where were you this past summer? "Mostly peaceful" was the way the corporate press described the summer riots that left dozens dead and did billions of dollars in property damage. And the rioters were bailed out by politicians including the incoming VP.
  - Hamuko 6y ago
    That doesn't really answer my question.
    - lliamander 6y ago
      It actually does. I mean, I didn't give you a specific number of such "mostly peaceful" protests, and they didn't necessarily result in exactly 5 deaths, but it is clear that the protest on the 6th was not the only such protest to result in people dying even with the past year.

nickysielicki 6y ago

> I'm distressed and saddened at how many of the free speech proponents on HN are treating the events of January 6 as if it was just another protest and not an existential threat to the republic. You know what else is an existential threat to the republic? A growing group of congresspeople who openly question fundamental American values like the right to bear arms, freedom of association, freedom of religion, a punitive justice system, and the non-redistribution of wealth. Those seditious traitors have been growing in numbers for the past decade. (See what I did there?) All I'm really saying is you should not act like there wasn't build up to this from both sides. This country is trying to decide whether it likes being wealthy more than it likes being free, and for the people who were never particularly wealthy in the first place, it's hardly a choice at all. What do you expect them to do, just take it? When have Americans ever done that?

ttt0 6y ago

You cannot base your judgement on emotions, especially in times like this. > His followers have now begun talking about returning with arms. Only fools would assume that these threats are idle talk or jokes. I don't understand why it is so surprising for anyone, but this is what happens when you're trying to censor people. Banning Trump and censoring his supporters was a mistake, because it's basically like a declaration of war. If the social media waited like a month into the Biden presidency, Trump supporters would scream about the Big Tech into the ether and everything would die down eventually, but instead they decided to do it at the worst possible moment.

tracer4201 6y ago
This doesn’t make sense to me. Is Twitter or Facebook basically a fundamental human right in the US? Is losing Twitter like losing your ability to own a firearm? The whole “censorship” label seems quite entitled at best. These are private companies. They are under no obligation to let someone’s crazy uncle talk about hanging the VP of the US or overthrowing Congress. Donald J Trump has every opportunity to call into Lou Dobbs, Judge Jeanine, Sean Hannity, or Fox News. He can publish directly on Brietbart. He also has the podium in the WH press room, which he doesn’t like to use, and for a decent chunk of the Presidency, had no daily press briefing. The American liberals cry over the smallest thing, and the conservatives are equally, or perhaps worse entitled cry babies. Twitter owes American individuals absolutely nothing. They’re a business. Presumably they don’t want to get sued because we already knew people were using Twitter to plan another attack on American elected officials and Twitter did nothing.
- abernard1 6y ago
  His argument wasn't a legal one, it's a practical one. The majority of Republicans believe that their votes were stolen at the ballot box. They then got on their soap box to try to peacefully protest this outcome, which is legal, and what politics is about. They were cancelled and shut down at every avenue trying to exercise speech and protest. It doesn't matter that it's the legal right of Twitter to do this, it's that it is an extraordinarily demotivating action. When people try the ballot box, and then the soap box, they've got one box left. Alienating and dehumanizing people is not an effective recipe for civil peace, even if it's a legal one.

asxd 6y ago

Since 2016 I've tried very hard to understand and empathize with the baffling behavior of staunch Trump supporters. Certainly not to support their politics, but to restore some sense of stability to my world view--that people are generally sympathetic. This especially hit home when hearing my wonderful parents' supporting Trump's hateful rhetoric. I'm now starting to think that his message is in fact too dangerous to even try and rationalize. The people that follow them are feeling something I don't understand, but there's just no excuse to humor them any longer. His rhetoric is tearing us apart, and it needs to end. For god's sake, the hate needs to end.

throwaway201103 6y ago
He says things that resonate with their beliefs. America is great, America is good in the world, a strong America is a good thing, get out of foreign wars, get out of bad trade deals, bring back jobs, cut taxes. He did a lot of these things. He was completely unlike any other politician. He didn't try to waffle on both sides of every issue. He spoke his mind, in a brash, rude, blue-collar New York kind of way. He called people names. I never heard real hate in the things he said, though if you wanted to hear it, I'm sure you did.
- asxd 6y ago
  Thanks for this. I suppose the reason people follow him is often because of his politics, not all of which I disagree with. But I think the hatred he inspires is packed into his rhetoric, and that's what I take issue with.
whotfru 6y ago
You may not be able to rationalize their thinking, but you do need to live in the same country together. If your hope is that now that you've lost patience; they can be pummelled into submission, you may be going down an even darker path... Some kind of concessions, and a demonstration that Biden is not what they feared might a good start. Or.. you can have them banned off the internet, thrown off planes, fired from their jobs etc.. sounds like a good plan.

vowelless 6y ago

For years these platforms have been getting rid of Islamist content. And thats a good thing. How is this any different? Is it because it is so close to home? Probably.

throwaway2021a 6y ago

>I'm distressed and saddened at how many of the free speech proponents on HN are treating the events of January 6 as if it was just another protest If I'm honest, maybe I'm just a little inured to the events of this year? We had events like the CHAZ where groups of armed protesters declared American soil autonomous, numerous people died, and it took authorities a month to shut the protest down. I agree... the events of 1/6 "feel" different (certainly the response has been), but I'm struggling to understand why, and that alights in the skeptic in me. Is it just that one cause is deemed righteous, and the other is deemed not? Just as happy as most to see Donald go, but it's hard to not see this reaction formation on behalf of the left / big tech as manufactured outrage and advantage seeking. (Genuinely conflicted -- feel free to correct me.)

disown 6y ago

Censoring a president is far greater a threat to the republic than some silly protest. People like you exploiting a silly pathetic protest to justify censorship is the threat to the republic. I'd rather have the protests than censorship by tech companies. It is not for a bunch of unelected tech elites to decide whether our elected leaders speak. That's not their job. Once we hand over that power to a bunch of tech elites, then we have the end of the republic. Nobody voted for Amazon, Apple, Google to be our hall monitors. If there is a "threat to the republic", then it's the job of the political leaders and law enforcement to deal with it. Not Tim Cook, not Zuckerburg and certainly not the idiots at CNN, foxnews or other media companies. The collusion between tech and news industry is the greatest threat to the republic. Not some pathetic protest that amounted to nothing. Have you ever bothered to ask who elected the tech industry to be our masters? Do you really want a bunch of unelected tech elite controlling our lives? Do you want these people to be lords over our elected leaders?

paulddraper 6y ago

> free speech proponents on HN are treating the events of January 6 as if it was just another protest and not an existential threat to the republic. Let me tell you a little story: On February 27, 1933 communist Marinus van der Lubbe set fire to the Reichstag, the home of the German parliament. He and four communist leaders were arrested. The event supported the earlier claims of the National Socialist Workers Party, that Germany was on the verge of a communist revolution and only majority by them could stop it. At the urging of Chancellor Adolf Hitler, President Paul von Hidenburg immediately issued the Reichstag Fire Decree, suspending civil liberties such as freedom speech, freedom of the press, public assembly, and the secrecy of the post and telephone. The government arrested large numbers of communists, including members of parliament. In their absence, the Nazis and their allies, the Germany National People's Party, achieved a majority in the legislature. Exactly one month after the Reichstag fire, they passed the Enabling Act to help them against the seditious communists by giving the Chancellor the power to pass laws without parliamentary approval. Soon after, President Hindenburg died and the President's office was merged with that of the Chancellor Hitler, making Hitler the head of state and the executive, or "Führer und Reichskanzler." But......the important thing is that they successfully addressed the insurrectionists' attack on the Capitol!

whiddershins 6y ago

In 1967 the black panthers invaded the California capitol building armed with rifles. Over the summer of 2020 protestors laid siege to the Federal building in Portland for 100 days straight. I can list tons of riots and violent direct actions that have happened over the years. Read about the NOW bombing in Philadelphia. Oklahoma City. Waco. The Weather Report. On and on and on. Elevating the Jan 6th direct action, however scary, tragic, and misguided it might be, to some higher level of ‘coup’ or ‘insurrection’ isn’t rational. It is another chapter in a long line of crazy events happening around political conflict in the US. As such, it doesn’t, in my opinion, warrant rethink everything.

jp57 6y ago
The events you list are similar in form but different in substance. The substantive difference is that none of the above events were supported and encouraged by a sitting president seeking to overturn his own election loss. It is a violent, physical attack, directed and abetted by the executive against the legislature to prevent it from carrying out its constitutional duty. That is an existential threat to the republic. A lot of people here are looking at the house on fire and worrying about the water damage from putting it out.
ModernMech 6y ago
How many riots can you list where the rioters were specifically targeting a joint session of congress, with the VP in attendance, for the explicit purpose of overturning the legitimate US presidential election at the behest of the current US president? What exactly do you think a coup attempt is?

ModernMech 6y ago

> If the mob had managed to find and destroy the electoral certificates You have a lot of replies so sorry if someone else said this, but this wouldn't have been much of a big deal. There are 6 copies of the electoral certificates: one sent to the VP, one sent to the SOS, 2 sent to a federal judge from the state, and 2 sent to a US archivist. I don't know which copies they were using on 1/6. Maybe the VP's? But if they destroyed them, we have others.