37 ms·

YouTube bans Steve Bannon's podcast channel

420 points by jimmy2020 6y ago

tpmx 6y ago
I'm not even in the US, but all of this banning makes me really curious about what's being banned and why. Something that some of you may have missed: This banning thing already moved into the infrastructure/cloud services layer (AWS): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25707959 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25707959
- ryanSrich 6y ago
  So many posts are getting brigaded this weekend. Removing this one now too.
  - zionic 6y ago
    This really strengthens/validates everyone who told him to attack big tech sooner.
    - Krasnol 6y ago
      How would that have helped him? He relied on "big tech" to deliver his world view.
    - jimmy2020 6y ago
      he didn't. He thought they are by his side. How Tim Cook Won Donald Trump’s Ear> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-tim-cook-won-donald-trumps-ear-11570248040 https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-tim-cook-won-donald-trumps-...
- refurb 6y ago
  You make a really good point. It’s basically the Streisand Effect. A bunch of people who didn’t even know who Steve Bannon is are going to go and find out now.
  - glandium 6y ago
    And GP's link, which is about Parler, is another example. I hadn't heard of Parler before it was banned.
    - philosopher1234 6y ago
      Yes, there will be a short boost to parler and bannon, and then a long deafening silence. These bans will be effective.
      - shripadk 6y ago
        It won't be. These bans and policies have been going on for a really long time. It is just hitting the US now. It has been happening in India for far too long. Big Tech monopoly has gone unchecked all this while. At least I am happy to see my fellow Indians uninstalling WhatsApp and moving to Signal. The more such alternative services the better. This stronghold of Big Tech on what internet should be has to end and it will end.
        Pfhreak 6y ago
        Research actually backs up that deplatforming does reduce audience sizes for an outlet. Which makes sense of you believe that some listeners will simply not have the interest in jumping over to a new platform. Repeat several times and with every platform shift the audience reduces.
        shripadk 6y ago
        > Research actually backs up that deplatforming does reduce audience sizes for an outlet. This research was done at a time when there was little to no backlash against Big Tech. When you factor in a billion+ people moving from one platform to another it is not the platform that is deplatforming users but it is the users abandoning the platform. I have seen it happen multiple times in my life: From Yahoo Messenger to Orkut, from Orkut to Myspace, from Myspace to Facebook. I have witnessed these shifts happen in India and it is crazy how quickly these platforms that had an established presence lose their dominance literally overnight. I bet that research you refer to hasn't included the Indian psyche in the mix. We move in hordes. All it takes is for one trusted and respected family member or relative to suggest jumping ship. Everyone just follows the leader blindly. Those companies that understand this psyche of Indians and cater to this mindset will do extremely well in India. But it is a double-edged sword. We don't have attachments to any platform. If we see that the platform is going against us, repeatedly, we just shift en-masse. I have seen it happen numerous times to know this time is no different (the most recent one that comes to mind is public orchestrated ban on TikTok after the Indo-China clashes. The Government was forced to ban TikTok after a majority of Indians demanded that it be banned). In few months WhatsApp will lose its dominance completely. The shift has only just begun. If you don't believe me you can save this HN comment and revisit it in a few months from now.
- csa 6y ago
  [Note: Trying to present this as factually as possible.] According to what the companies say: - The President incited some people last week to engage in violent behavior at and towards Congress. - There is evidence that further violence is being planned via a variety of platforms. - The platforms are attempting to limit their exposure to facilitating such actions. Some people think that the companies have ulterior motives. I will leave it to you to decide what you think the real reasons are.
  - garbagetime 6y ago
    Here's an important question: would it be a good thing or a bad thing if it was very difficult to make plans involving violence on the internet?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - bra-ket 6y ago
      there's a good precedent, just send everyone guilty of thoughtcrimes to Gulag, problem solved.
      - dang 6y ago
        We've banned this account for abusing HN with ideological flamewar and ignoring our many requests to stop. We ban accounts that do that, regardless of which ideology they're for or against. We especially ban accounts that have been using HN primarily for that, as yours has. That's a key indicator of bad-faith use of the site, and is obviously against the rules. When this came up yesterday, someone raised the common objection "why not just ban all politics then?" If anyone has that question, the thread is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25711241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25711241 https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
- disown 6y ago
  A stronger element of the power structure is silencing another. It's simple as that. Look at the relentless pro-censorship brigading on most social media. Lots of money, power and influence is being applied here. If this was china or russia, we'd call it a soft "purge". They'd call it promoting "harmony" or "protecting the people". Not sure what we are going to call it. Seems like whatever battle Trump and his faction was waging behind the scenes the last 4 years failed and he simply failed to win over enough power/influence to his side. We'll never know what really happened, we can just guess. But feels like history is happening. I don't think any of us have lived to through anything like this. I know I certainly haven't.
  - greesil 6y ago
    Have you considered that it's not brigading, but a broad swathe of unrelated people genuinely feeling a certain way?
    - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
      A broad swathe of unrelated people systematically manipulated into feeling a certain way. This has been going on since Bush 2.0's 8 years of assault on the truth.
      - greesil 6y ago
        I genuinely can't tell which side you're taking about, one, or the other, or both. I feel like there are crazy people everywhere, ranging from the hyper woke to honest to god nazis. But one group decided to storm congress (which I still haven't wrapped my head around, I'm mentally living in the beforefor times) and by supporting the rule of law I must now be on the side that's not that, even if I have to share the bus with the nutters who believe in "censoring" and thought policing.
        chordalkeyboard 6y ago
        > But one group decided to storm congress (which I still haven't wrapped my head around, I'm mentally living in the beforefor times) Before 2018? https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1047935416182235136 https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1047935416182235136
- josephorjoe 6y ago
  what’s being banned is systematic destruction of people’s willingness to believe facts in order to support a world view that is inconsistent with facts. why it is being banned is that it has convinced people to attack the government because they believe the government has done things (for example, “stealing elections”) that it has not done. big tech has apparently decided that they do not want to be blamed when the government has to shoot a bunch of delusional people to stop them from committing violent crimes based on lies
  - olah_1 6y ago
    Violent riots have happened many times based on media lies. That part is not novel.
    - josephorjoe 6y ago
      agreed. nothing novel about people lying to convince other people to do something. what’s novel is the centralized nature of social media (in terms of # of people reached from a single source) and the fact that some incredibly wealthy companies control these sources and face an existential risk if their platforms are used to create enough civil unrest that whoever ends up controlling the government is convinced that these companies are too dangerous to leave unregulated.
      - Osiris 6y ago
        Exactly. These companies want to avoid government regulation / oversight. They are taking proactive actions to lessen the blame that would be assigned to them and thus (hopefully) avoid future regulatory action.
        brg 6y ago
        The problem I see is that they are walking directly in to oversight through their concerted actions. They are going to end up being labeled public utilities (identity, max comm, public market have already been labeled so).
- tpmx 6y ago
  The AWS banning is what really concerns me. It's a clear escalation. First it's the app level (breached by Apple and Google), then the infrastructure level (breached by AWS - although there are alternatives here. Next up is DNS, I guess? And after that, routing. The ultimate Internet Death Penalty.
  - edbob 6y ago
    > What's left after that? We're also seeing the refusal of legal representation, which seems nearly unprecedented. At some point, the only thing left will be civil death [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_death
    - cptskippy 6y ago
      This isn't about people having their civil liberties taken away. The social network bans are businesses protecting themselves from people whom threaten their business. Like a fast food restaurant refusing to serve customers who smoke crack in the restaurant. The platform and infrastructure bans are also businesses protecting themselves but not from people, rather from other businesses. This is on level with U-haul banning drug cartels from renting their trucks. No one's civil liberties are being taken away
      - mech422 6y ago
        Indeed, no business wants to carry unnecessary liability. Funny, Didn't see all this crying about censorship when MC & Visa cut off pornhub... edit: just to be clear, I mean when MC & Visa decided pornhub was a potential liability, they cut them off. When companies decide Trump or Parler are a liability - they do the same - they cut them off. Thats just capitalism.
        throwaway3699 6y ago
        I don't agree that it's 'just capitalism'. Just because I acquire a piece of private property does not necessarily give me the right to do anything I want with it. I can't clobber you over the head with a product I bought just like how many countries have laws to say I can't kick you out of private property that's also a public square.
- SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
  What I’m interested in is how many people here are applauding the banning while liberal voices like Glenn Greenwald, and the ALCU are decrying it. I’m sure some of my conservative friends would laugh if I told them this site makes me look like Regean in comparison to some others. All good fun of course. I believe that everyone is entitled to their opinion and ones I disagree with shouldn’t be hidden, but that itself is just my opinion.
  - longtimegoogler 6y ago
    Even if those opinions call for murdering journalists? Like many countries in Europe, calls for violence should be illegal. It's also pretty easy to not care about these things if your are a white conservative male and not the target of these things.
- colechristensen 6y ago
  The far right not-so-fringe elements led by the president tried to overthrow the government last week. If it had gone slightly differently they could easily have murdered a large chunk of the legislature. As a result there’s been a wave of deplatforming of the voices that helped encourage that culture. It is indeed unfortunate that this came to pass but it was a necessary response. When you test the limits and protections, you ultimately change the nature of them. This is why you really want to avoid doing so in a free society because then you’re faced with the negatives of being forced to restrict freedoms to prevent that test from happening again and facing the threat of the next time someone trying, them having learned the lessons of how to test the limits much more effectively.
- rasz 6y ago
  Huge simplification: After four years someone finally mustered courage to punch the Nazi, and others swiftly followed.
Wolfenstein98k 6y ago
This stuff makes me really, really suspicious. At this point, the reason for deplatforming is that someone accused a bad thing on the opposite party. It would be ludicrous to ban anyone blaming the events at the Capitol on Trump and/or Republicans, even if you earnestly believe that's unfair. There is no objective case for blaming it on anyone except the individuals doing it. Anything beyond that is subjective, and you get your hands dirty really quick (ie try arguing that the Scalise shooting - by a Bernie volunteer against Republican congressmen - is completely divorced from Bernie, but the Capitol events are completely tied to Trump). Ergo this amounts to banning people - almost all on one side of politics, even if a fringe thereof - for saying things that appear to be untrue. Not even a hint of violence or a call thereto, just an opinion that is believed to be wrong. Are we quite sure we're happy with people losing their income and livelihood and brand and platform, just because the tech companies don't agree with their claims? Do you know how many smaller, left-of-centre groups will quickly get caught up in that once they join this discussion around unionising the workforce of the tech giants? You may despise Bannon, and I find it hard to believe he's an earnest actor, but think through the steps for how this happened. He's being banned for an opinion, entirely separate from any risk to anyone, and to argue otherwise (ie an implicit call to violence against the blamed party) would open you up to the claim that blaming anything in the last week on Trump is a call to violence against the president and/or his supporters, and is thus equally bannable. Is that reasonable? Should all opinions on this topic result in permanent banning and deplatforming?
- DethNinja 6y ago
  Is there any proof they are not already banning left-wing hosts? I feel like at this point they are banning everyone against the status quo. Anyway I feel like this is a blessing in disguise, stuff like this can cause Tech giants to lose huge market share in the long term future. It is good that people are forming other organic communities completely separate from Google/FB/Twitter.
  - jimmy2020 6y ago
    pushing people to form organic communities is conservative populist demand
agumonkey 6y ago
2021 seems to going for 'year of the ban'
avalys 6y ago
Bannon said on this podcast that he would mount Anthony Fauci and Christopher Wray’s “heads on pikes” outside the White House as a “warning to other bureaucrats.” This was a few months ago. I presume he has been saying similar things since then. For years, the defense of these assholes has been “Oh, that’s just rhetoric, it’s not meant to be taken literally.” Well, we’ve just seen what happens when it gets taken literally. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
- FFRefresh 6y ago
  You mention that what he said was taken 'literally', so is it your insinuation that Bannon's 'heads on pikes' comments directly led to heads being placed on pikes at the Capitol? Also, are you in favor of sanctioning and deplatforming for anybody who uses rhetoric that when taken literally would mean some sort of violence? Even if those espousing such rhetoric fall on different parts of the political spectrum? After all, we've seen what happens when it gets taken literally.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
  I had socialist/communist/anarchist friends throughout college talk about the need to use guillotines.
- drogon2020 6y ago
  It’s a figure of speech. Grow up.
  - dang 6y ago
    We've banned this account for trolling. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - Mashimo 6y ago
bryan0 6y ago
The headline has important context: “YouTube bans Steve Bannon's podcast channel hours after Rudy Giuliani appeared on an episode and blamed the Capitol siege on Democrats” At some point the lies need to stop.
- brighton36 6y ago
  These are opinions though. It may be untrue, but you're going to find yourself with a ministry of truth. "Who decides" who gets charged with the crime. These opinions can be entertained. After all, most trump supporters are clearly enraged by democrats.
  - scsilver 6y ago
    There is no ministry being erected, just a bunch of private parties not willing to get dragged into the mud.
    - laretluval 6y ago
      No official ministry, but the private parties appear to be acting with a great deal of coordination.
      - grzm 6y ago
        When a hurricane hits the coast, you'll find that a lot of people happen to board up their windows as well. A common set of pressures can provoke the same response from different people working independently. No coordination needed.
      - justforyou 6y ago
        Zeitgeist is not coordinated.
      - anigbrowl 6y ago
        Google round earth conspiracy
      - 6y ago
satya71 6y ago
YouTube could take its engagement algorithm down a notch, thus reducing radicalization by many orders of magnitude. Otherwise, it's just playing whack-a-mole.
- prawn 6y ago
  They could at least shortlist quality content and make only that content eligible for algorithmic recommendations, rather than seemingly all sorts of scraps like now.
  - aeternum 6y ago
    How do you quantify quality without manually choosing only a few mainstream content producers?
    - satya71 6y ago
      Just show people what I watch! Joking aside, I think they have some sharp minds that can tackle this.
    - prawn 6y ago
      I'm sure they can choose more than a few. Hire to scale that up. Probably wouldn't need to make it at the video level - flag the better creators first. For subjects without recommendations, let people search to find their next video.
- Osiris 6y ago
  It's very easy to find articles that find that suggestion/engagement algorithms for YouTube, and presumably Facebook and others, pushes people toward more and more radical (extreme) content. https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/10419/9404 https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/10419/... https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/algorithms-take-over-youtube-s-recommendations-highlight-human-problem-n867596 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/algorithms-take-ov... https://theconversation.com/youtubes-algorithms-might-radicalise-people-but-the-real-problem-is-weve-no-idea-how-they-work-129955 https://theconversation.com/youtubes-algorithms-might-radica...
univalent 6y ago
Should have banned him after the 'heads on pikes' comment. Late as usual.
- blisterpeanuts 6y ago
  And should Maxine Waters have been banned after she exhorted her followers to harass Republicans? "Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd, and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere." What kind of civilized person would advocate this type of behavior, much less a member of Congress? And why is this acceptable when Bannon's (admittedly nasty) comment isn't?
  - Barrin92 6y ago
    probably deserves at least some degree of moderation but still qualitatively different from calling for someone's 'head on a spike' in particular given that Bannon is speaking to an audience that has members who would likely take that literally. But sure in general you're right, calls for harassment shouldn't be tolerated either.
  - greesil 6y ago
    If you think there was an implied threat of violence, then yes.
  - AaronFriel 6y ago
    The context for Maxine Waters comment was that a Trump Administration official had a bad experience at a restaurant, while that administration was in the process of separating children from families resulting in over 500 still being separated today. That administration official lied to the American public about this policy, and Waters felt that it was our civic duty to tell officials like them that in the administration wherever they go they should feel bad. Note that at no point were these administration officials threatened with violence, just people telling them they're bad people.
  - jetpks 6y ago
e40 6y ago
The lies are 100% of the reason the capital riot happened, so yes, they do need to stop. Fox News lies every single day. What do we expect from a population of people that only hear these lies, day in and day out? They're going to react just like they did on 1/6.
- FFRefresh 6y ago
  What's your proposal for how Fox News should be handled, given they "lie every single day"? Should Fox News have their licenses removed, and be taken off the air & internet?
  - hadrien01 6y ago
    In the UK, Fox News had to cease broadcasting because it had breached multiple times due impartiality rules[0]. In the US, some are advocating for a return of the fairness doctrine. [0] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/fox-news-stops-airing-uk-a-look-at-ofcom-rulings-1033789 https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/fox-news-stops-airing...
  - drogon2020 6y ago
    So do all the news networks. What’s your plan for that.
  - cgrealy 6y ago
    Most countries have a broadcasting standards authority of some sort. If you claim to be a news channel, then some measure of accuracy is not an unreasonable imposition. That said, given the increasing irrelevance of broadcast TV, I don't see how removing their licence would achieve much.
  - greatgirl 6y ago
    This is literally how it used to work before the FCC removed the FCC fairness doctrine in 1987. Fox news was then founded in 1996.
    - zerocrates 6y ago
throwarayes 6y ago
I’m curious what the legal liability is for platforms that host content that “incites violence”[1] 1 - I realize this can range anywhere from emotional calls to protest up to the “clear and imminent danger” doctrine. And the specifics of the “inciting” and context around it certainly matter too.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  Depending on the hosts knowledge, and the specific crimes of violence, and the exact relation of the content to the crimes — and concrete organization of a violent attack on a joint session of Congress in an attempt to coerce a preferred result in the tally of the electoral votes, to pick a not-quite-random example, would seem very much to qualify — there is a risk of criminal liability under 18 USC Sec. 2339A, Providing material support to terrorists.
wyck 6y ago
Driving groups of people more underground to use protocols and services which are hard to ban is a good tactic overall? That will eventually put a bullseye on the whole internet.
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  It does make it harder for them to recruit.
matz1 6y ago
What interesting is how all these company act in the same way, why don't some company/platform took the opportunity to act the opposite to differentiate themselves ? I believe there is still large enough market for people who oppose this silencing.
- AI_WAIFU 6y ago
  Isn't that exactly what Parler is doing? The reason it doesn't work is because network effects and collective action make businesses that try uncompetitive. Go against the grain and all of a sudden everyone you were trading with that made your business feasible drops you. If any other businesses try to support you in their place, they'll also be singled out and get the same treatment.
- notadev 6y ago
  Because all of their workers are coordinating these actions with one another. That also explains why most of the comments around these political issues have tons of absurd pro-censorship stances on places like HN. They're the same people.
  - rainyMammoth 6y ago
    interestingly I have had private chats with some Silicon Valley tech workers lately that find those bans and censorship repulsive but are too afraid to state this publicly. I'm wondering if this is not the result of the ultra loud vocal minority once again?
    - matz1 6y ago
      If that true then they kind a deserve it, when the majority didn't use their number as strength to do something but it then they deserve to lose.
      - busterarm 6y ago
        The problem is that the pro-censorship crowd is openly using the internal open communication channels with full support and engagement from both HR and upper management. Having numbers doesn't equate to having equal or greater power.
rubyist5eva 6y ago
The only reason tech companies are doing this is because the democrats have a trifecta and they want to be in their good graces in order to avoid regulation. It's not about decency, it's about power.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  it's arguably the inverse of this. They're doing it because they don't feel threatened by a Republican administration any more. With or without specific regulation threats the workforces and often also leaders of these companies would have done it years ago.
  - rubyist5eva 6y ago
    Democratic members of congress have repeatedly called for the breakup and/or regulation of "big tech", just for different reasons.
    - gameswithgo 6y ago
      As a liberal in big tech, I can assure you the primary motivation is that we are 1. horrified by trump, always have been 2. aren't concerned that trump will unilaterally end our business if we oppose him anymore 3. are extremely concerned about american democracy and our lives, given the way trump has convinced almost half the country that the election was rigged, which has encouraged them to almost kill an entire branch of our government AND BEAT ONE POLICE OFFICER TO DEATH WITH AN AMERICAN FLAG WHILE CHANTING THE MUTATIONAL ANTHEM we in big tech are not robots, sir.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - hellgas00 6y ago
        Do you remember Russiagate? How half the country literally believed that Trump was a puppet of Russia, and that Russia had hacked the election. Hilary Clinton wrote a book about it. I will say that Trump should act with more tact and decorum, but just months ago CHAZ was a literal autonomous zone acting outside of the laws and authority of the city of Seattle. Nobody should have had their ability to communicate freely online taken away because of it, but fascists apply mental gymnastics to affirm one moral stance against another depending on the person commiting the crime.
dpatru 6y ago
Consider this in context: No ban for fighting the wars in Iraq, Libya, Iran, Afghanistan, etc. No ban for torturing people or extraordinary rendition. No ban for mass illegal spying on Americans and lying about it. No ban for droning wedding parties or hospitals. But if you dare to suggest that a political party, that cheated Bernie Sanders out of the nomination and spent the last four years lying about how Trump, the only living President who hasn't started a new war, was a Russian agent, may have had something to do with a "coup" attempt which could only benefit them politically, then you are too dangerous and must be banned.
- hellgas00 6y ago
  This is the crux of it all. Spend a second to think critically about what is going on outside of the news media echo chamber and it becomes apparent it's not about a moral stance, it's about controlling narratives and exerting power against their political enemies.
- Nemrod67 6y ago
  I fear we went over the edge this last year, there might not be any way left to speak to the other side now. And I say that as a French dude. It is going to end badly for everyone.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
cosmiccatnap 6y ago
https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
clarkmoody 6y ago
> At some point the lies need to stop. It's politics. Everything is lies.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- LimaBearz 6y ago
  Yeah but this one wasn’t about telling your partner they look good in that shirt. We are talking about rhetoric that lead to an insurrection on the Capitol and the death of 5 Americans. I don’t quite understand why every one of these events devolve into high reductive free speech or slippery slope arguments. What is going to take for the people start accepting some personal responsibility? From where I sit I see a group of people not accepting responsibility for some truly heinous acts perpetrated by their own “tribe” (for lack of a better word), so others are coming in and cleaning up their mess. If that’s unacceptable or don’t like how it’s being done, then perhaps the most disarming thing would be to accept some personal responsibility, grab a mop and start cleaning your room.. not “it was the Democrats fault” has Rudy put it
  - nradov 6y ago
    I don't support the insurrectionists but they are far from being a tribe. If you listen to interviews with them there was a huge diversity of motivations. The crowd included anarchists, neo-nazis, rabid Trump supporters, constitutionalists, revolutionaries, people who honestly (but wrongly) believe the election was stolen, etc. The whole scene was chaos with no real organized tribal leadership.
  - atypicaluser 6y ago
    > Rhetoric that led to an insurrection... A situation that some term an 'insurrection' and others term a 'riot'. Trouble is, who's right? Who has the authority to make an objective claim on this? For half-a-year before last week, those on the other side (the so-called insurrectionists and insurrectionist-adjacent) claimed that situations like the Minneapolis protests, the CHAZ, the Portland protests, the Chicago protests, the Atlanta protests, etc. (all together which ended in at least a couple dozen deaths and hundreds of millions in property damage) were riots and insurrections, whereas most media establishments (your NYTs and your MSNBCs) insisted these were 'mostly peaceful' protests. Both sides agreed something was happening--they disagreed on what to call it. In defense of the many who view the situation as a riot as opposed to an insurrection, it's hard to make the case for insurrection when (1) police waved rioters into the Capitol in places, (2) Capitol cops felt so unthreatened by the situation that they posed with rioters for selfies and (3) the Senators were similarly besieged (sans deaths) during the Kavanaugh hearings eighteen months ago... with no one (amongst Democrats) calling this an insurrection. But, as Democrats are the victors, they will write the histories. So it goes.
sn41 6y ago
As a liberal and a person who believes in the milk of human kindness against all contrary evidence, I do have a problem with this overenthusiasm. When the trifecta becomes republican, will liberal podcasts be banned? There must be some arbitration. I believe flagging and moderation and proscribing individual videos is better than banning channels outright and deplatforming.
- gameswithgo 6y ago
  >When the trifecta becomes republican, will liberal podcasts be banned? If they incite violence perhaps they will >I believe flagging and moderation and proscribing individual videos is better than banning channels outright and deplatforming. That may indeed be a better course of action, though when you have habitual offenders, in this case bannons channel got 4 warnings, its a huge burden on you to keep checking each and every video, and the violence gets incited while you spend time checking.
  - sn41 6y ago
    Fair enough. I did not know that there were earlier warnings. A three-strike rule sounds fine.
  - casefields 6y ago
    If they've been convicted in a court of law for incitement, then many of us wouldn't have much of a problem.
    - Artistry121 6y ago
      No company or individual should have to carry rhetoric inciting violence until a court of law engages. Responsibility is not solely on the courts - corporations and people can make decisions on what is right without courts. Especially when the person is obviously saying it -“behead Fauci”. Bannon has a way to get his message out - he has his own media organization. Many people don’t feel like what Bannon is doing is right and don’t need a court of law to tell them. Courts of law defended slavery - people made decisions prior to the courts interference to change that. Small government requires the ability of private groups to choose their own moral stances.
tptacek 6y ago
I think we can't reasonably be doing front page stories every time one of these things gets reported. It's going to keep happening. Different people have different feelings about that, but we've had thousands of front-page-thread comments on much more important stories than Bannon's dumb podcast channel. At some point we should just refer back to those threads. I don't need to see Bannon's culpability litigated on HN; we're getting to Politico levels of granularity here.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  You know, stories don't just get to the front page on their own. If people stop upvoting them, they won't make it to the front page.
  - bitcharmer 6y ago
    Isn't it enough that all other social media are vividly discussing it? I'm from Europe and slowly getting tired of this. It is not what I come to HN for. Not everyone lives and breathes America.
    - pmiller2 6y ago
      There's a link under every headline that says "hide". Use it, and you won't see these stories anymore.
      - bitcharmer 6y ago
        I'm aware of this, but I don't want to have to hide half of HN's front page. It wasn't the case until recently.
        pmiller2 6y ago
        Then, you should be using the link that says "flag" instead.
  - baby 6y ago
Guthur 6y ago
So many politicians are guilty of misrepresenting the truth or even downright lies; the last two Democrat candidates have been guilty of outright lies as well. Who will be the arbiter of this blurry line of truthfulness.
- sumedh 6y ago
  > Who will be the arbiter of this blurry line of truthfulness. Is there any proof that the rioters wearing Auschwitz Tshirts, carrying Trump and Confederate flags who were told by the President that he loves them were Democrats?
  - Guthur 6y ago
    My point is not that they were telling the truth, just that both sides tell blatant lies. And career politicians will have racked up a bewildering history of lies and mistruths. YouTube, Twitter or whatever are private property but they are increasingly being used for political discourse on both sides this would not be a probably except that the parent companies are very obviously partisan in they're application of "rules".
    - sumedh 6y ago
      > just that both sides tell blatant lies. This is the old both sides are equal argument which is wrong. Can you please give a source where a democrat President wanted to "find the votes by putting pressure on election officials or when he told violent protestors that they are good people and the President loves them?
      - Guthur 6y ago
        So some lies are ok, just not the ones you don't like. How are we measuring this scale please? I'm uncertain.
        sumedh 6y ago
        Are you saying that Trump did not put pressure on the Georgia official to find the votes, was that not Trump on the call. Did Trump not tell the rioters that he loves them and that they are special?
S_A_P 6y ago
I read things like this and it really makes me sad. I don’t agree with Steve Bannon or Rudy Giuliani on a lot of things. I also don’t agree with their equivalent person on the left. In fact I am skeptical of most “career politicians”. I really wish we could switch what politics is about. Currently we (meaning news channels and Twitter/internet folk) want to dunk on the other tribe and show them how wrong and stupid they are. Can’t we all try to find consensus and compromise? I know that I personally don’t have enough knowledge and experience to know what’s right for all people at all times. Life can be complicated. Let’s have some compassion folks.
- sumedh 6y ago
  > I also don’t agree with their equivalent person on the left. Just out of curiosity who is their equivalent person on the left? > Can’t we all try to find consensus and compromise? What consensus and compromise do you want when the President of the US wants to "find" the votes or when calls the rioters good people and we love you?
  - S_A_P 6y ago
    That’s just it. A lot of people of all political persuasions are reasonable and rational. I don’t think the current administration is at all. I’m a generally middle of the road guy that has a general viewpoint of live and let live. The problem is we are letting fringe opinions dictate the narrative.
    - wtfiswiththis 6y ago
      Can't help but notice you didn't answer this: >Just out of curiosity who is their equivalent person on the left?
      - avs733 6y ago
        It’s funny how that never gets answered... I really am befuddled at the inability of people to avoid beng taken in by bad faith arguments like this.
qwerty456127 6y ago
Never heard of him (I'm from Europe and generally uninterested in politics), now I'm really curious about what did he actually say in his podcast and in fact am listening to it already. I seriously wonder how much generally pro-dem or apolitical people are going to find themselves Trump-curious or even Trump-sympathizing after all these bans and removals. I have almost no doubt there is going to be such effect, the only question is the scale. This is so obvious it almost seems a trap, like if president Trump himself had secretly ordered to ban him.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  It seems unlikely that there are people in the US with any interest in politics that aren’t already well aware of who Trump, Bannon, and Guliani are.
  - konjin 6y ago
    You would be very surprised at the number of people who have tuned out completely.
    - MrMan 6y ago
      Yay for them
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
ulfw 6y ago
Took 4-6 full years (if including the primaries) and 30,000 lies to grow a conscience. Not like any of these lies have been new. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claim...
- strogonoff 6y ago
  > Took 4-6 full years (if including the primaries) and 30,000 lies to grow a conscience. Arguably, it took election results. Easier to do what is right when the wind blows the right way.
  - protastus 6y ago
    > Arguably, it took election results. Easier to do what is right when the wind blows the right way. That's why valor only exists in the presence of opposition. Facebook, Twitter, Google and AWS had 4-6 years to make the same choice made in the last few days. Yet they refused, again and again.
  - chongli 6y ago
    No I think a violent insurrection in the Capitol was the tipping point. Up until then, all of the dangers associated with the rhetoric was theoretical.
    - torwayburger 6y ago
      They arrested a bunch of people in Michigan over a plot on the governor, no? We moved out of the theory a while ago.
      - TheGRS 6y ago
        I'm still fairly upset that the outrage wasn't louder over that, but recent events have at least pulled that event back in the spotlight.
        6y ago
dataminer 6y ago
Not a comment on to the ban, but trying to gain perspective on the overall heated environment. I wonder, if there are more than 2 political parties representing different view points in Congress will that help in decreasing polarization?
- lovecg 6y ago
  The argument has been beaten to death so I’m probably not saying anything new to most people here, but two parties is the only stable configuration. In a first-past-the-post system, the smaller parties after the first two will be very quickly eliminated or consolidated (this includes the limiting case of no parties, where everyone is a party of one). On the other hand, if you have one large party it will eventually splinter due to internal discord and a lack of a common enemy. There have been brief periods in time when there were more than two significant parties in the US. Just after the constitution was written is one — it didn’t take long for parties to be established. Another example was the time period around when the Whig party disintegrated and the Republican party was established. There was the moment in that fallout in 1856 when the Know Nothing party got a few electoral votes, on a platform that is a direct ideological ancestor of Trumpism.
  - djur 6y ago
    This is called [Duverger's law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law) in political science. The effect is increased by how relatively small the US legislature is -- there are more members of the UK House of Commons than there are US Representatives and Senators combined! This makes it more difficult for third parties to develop in regional strongholds. (The US also doesn't have the strong regionalism that bolsters third parties in Canada and the UK, for that matter.) My understanding is that the presidential system also tends to favor two-party politics. The Federalists and Democratic-Republicans formed from pro- and anti-administration factions during Washington's presidency, while the Democrats and Whigs formed in support and opposition to Jackson.
  - Mashimo 6y ago
    > In a first-past-the-post system, the smaller parties after the first two will be very quickly eliminated or consolidated I think the questions is, would switching away from first-past-the-post system to something that fruits more parties help in decreasing polarization?
alphabettsy 6y ago
He had accounts banned after calling for the beheading of Fauci and FBI director Wray just a couple of months ago. https://www.timesofisrael.com/twitter-bans-former-trump-adviser-bannon-for-call-to-behead-fauci-fbi-chief/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/twitter-bans-former-trump-advi... We should stop pretending like this is about conservative ideology, it’s about creating an environment for violence with lies and repeated calls for violence coming from Trump associates. Nobody is calling for the deplatforming of John Kasich or Mitt Romney.
- casefields 6y ago
  Putting heads on a pike and making heads roll, are idioms for firing or dismissing accountable public officials. Unless of course something thinks he's a Hitler in training just waiting for his chance at the Fourth Reich.
  - alphabettsy 6y ago
    Watch the video. It doesn’t appear to be a euphemism.
sebastianconcpt 6y ago
Censorship is the seed of genocide. Change my mind.
yenwodyah 6y ago
I'm surprised it wasn't banned already, tbh.
scelerat 6y ago
Doesn't Steve Bannon already have an entire media network he helped build, Breitbart? He can post his podcast there.
throwitaway1235 6y ago
The biggest new LOL of all time is liberals posting "the events of 1/6" as if it's comparable to 9/11 or something. If obnoxious stupidity had an event horizon, this would be it.
- casefields 6y ago
  NY state Sen. John Liu sparks outrage with tweet calling Capitol siege scarier than 9/11: https://nypost.com/2021/01/09/ny-state-sen-john-liu-explains-tweet-saying-capitol-siege-was-scarier-than-9-11/ https://nypost.com/2021/01/09/ny-state-sen-john-liu-explains... ‘Infamy’: Chuck Schumer Compares Capitol Chaos To Pearl Harbor: https://www.dailywire.com/news/infamy-chuck-schumer-compares-capitol-chaos-to-pearl-harbor https://www.dailywire.com/news/infamy-chuck-schumer-compares... Do a search for these and notice how it's only right wing media reporting of them. Had Trump or republicans made such embarrassing comparisons they would be in every mainstream publication as being out of touch morons.
christmm 6y ago
I only watch CNN, they are a beacon of truth in a swamp of compromised and for profit media.
johnnujler 6y ago
All technology is political. All politics is not political. Politics is a social technology.
ecmascript 6y ago
All these people at HN applauding these kinds of actions scares me. People seem to really think it's fine to kick Trump of Twitter, ban parler but have no issues with Iran leaders, north korea youtube channel etc. I think this is censorship. There is no viable alternative to Youtube and that is the main issue. If there was 3 services as large as youtube, I would have no issue with the exclusion from one of them but now there aren't. Fuck big tech and their censorship.
jamisteven 6y ago
There is an all out war right now from big-tech on conservative everything. Ushering in authoritarianism like its 1984. Parler blocked by iOS app store and google play, AWS removing their servers from its platform, youTube banning Bannon's podcast. There are plenty of people, groups, and politicians, for example the ayatollah of Iran, chinese state media etc that should pose far more of a threat to the world than some conservatives, but that doesnt support the Liberal narrative so they get to stay. Welcome to dystopia.
- tim333 6y ago
  I think people are fine with small c conservatism. It's trying to overthrow democratic elections that's bad whether it's Trump or Maduro or whoever.
- Artistry121 6y ago
  In response to right wing terrorism en masse attacking the Governor in Michigan and the US Capitol _one_ right wing podcast host with a history of calling for violence was deplatformed. Hardly an all out war. Many right wing folks have strongly benefited from YouTube and these platforms - including Trump. Dave Rubin, Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, Prager U, Alex Jones... All conservatives aren’t banned. This is a straw man. Bannon has called for violence many times - and violence has happened. No company is obligated to support this. He has his website Breitbart to continue his action. If this were an “all out war” the others wouldn’t be benefiting from the YouTube algorithm of Twitter. It doesn’t seem like banning the open calling for violence is a feature of a dystopia.
dustingetz 6y ago
ban facebook, youtube and twitter for relentlessly optimizing engagement and creating the circumstances where emergent hatred was inevitable
whatever1 6y ago
We have the responsibility to protect free speech rights, that is people's right to express their opinion publicly. The internet equivalent of this is to ensure that everybody (who has not lost this right at court) should not be denied access to the internet and setting up a webpage to express their opinion. Net neutrality could cover the above. It is not our responsibility to ensure that every lunatic, child abuser or whatever can have their content promoted via content platforms.
vicpara 6y ago
Another typical US approach to public opinion: cleanse the news channel of annoying opinion bearers instead of educating the masses to apply critical thinking and getting them acquainted with a larger spectrum of ideas. How funny to have this coming from a country that advertises freedom of speech as its core values. People with radical ideas and from the extreme ends of any spectrum deserve the be maintained in the conversation and deserve a voice. Always. The issue isn't they have a voice therefore banning them cannot be an acceptable solution. The large number of people that resonate with those extreme ideas are either in deer life conditions or massively uneducated. Why not start debugging the problem there? Silencing voices is never a good idea. It's also quite a shame you allow Google/Youtube/Twitter/FB and other big commercial tech companies to decide on your behalf what is socially acceptable and what is not. These are the same companies training your brain with their apps to respond to their commercial interests. Also, there is a gigantic space between demanding people to take any type of action and becoming violent. Maybe you should stop all Hollywood productions that involve people threatening/killing/inciting each other to commit acts of any sort of violence too. Lastly, the American society, does cultivate from early days fanaticism. As a European that lived in US for the last 12 years you cannot not see this. Fanatical support for your local sports team, high school team, university, political party and/or faction, city and country is something that is being cultivated and developed from the youngest age. People take pride in bearing a label for generations the label being anything from political affiliation to sport team fans. Continuing the tradition is being perceived as more important than the ideals/ideas one stands for under that particular label.
Udik 6y ago
BTW, throwing this out here. I guess many republicans are pretty outraged at the moment with Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc. Those companies feel safe because a democrat won the elections and they don't have to be afraid of reprisals. But what happens in three years when a new electoral campaign starts? How wary will these companies be of the chance of a new republican president? How much of their power will they use to prevent such a possibility from happening?
elisbce 6y ago
The democracy and freedom of political views and speech in the US is now dead. It is like these days the Democratic Party represents the good guys and the GOP represents the bad guys. Anyone who agrees with some of the conservative ideology, or remotely disagrees with the Democrats will be alienated, labeled, draws anger, and eventually banned, silenced, fired from work and face retaliation.
- Artistry121 6y ago
  There are a variety of YouTube personality with right leaning views that have built their entire reputation on the site. OAN, Fox, Shapiro, Peterson and more grew through use of YouTube and still do. And they do get labeled and have anger built against them - but they also label and build anger against others. That’s how things work on all sides. Bannon routinely calls for violence - against members of all parties. Free speech is not dead and this is not even a case of free speech. YouTube has banned other people calling for violence. Companies can choose what to promote.
tomerbd 6y ago
So long free speech and thanks for all the fish.

420 points by jimmy2020 6y ago

tpmx 6y ago

I'm not even in the US, but all of this banning makes me really curious about what's being banned and why. Something that some of you may have missed: This banning thing already moved into the infrastructure/cloud services layer (AWS): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25707959 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25707959

ryanSrich 6y ago
So many posts are getting brigaded this weekend. Removing this one now too.
- zionic 6y ago
  This really strengthens/validates everyone who told him to attack big tech sooner.
  - Krasnol 6y ago
    How would that have helped him? He relied on "big tech" to deliver his world view.
  - jimmy2020 6y ago
    he didn't. He thought they are by his side. How Tim Cook Won Donald Trump’s Ear> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-tim-cook-won-donald-trumps-ear-11570248040 https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-tim-cook-won-donald-trumps-...
refurb 6y ago
You make a really good point. It’s basically the Streisand Effect. A bunch of people who didn’t even know who Steve Bannon is are going to go and find out now.
- glandium 6y ago
  And GP's link, which is about Parler, is another example. I hadn't heard of Parler before it was banned.
  - philosopher1234 6y ago
    Yes, there will be a short boost to parler and bannon, and then a long deafening silence. These bans will be effective.
    - shripadk 6y ago
      It won't be. These bans and policies have been going on for a really long time. It is just hitting the US now. It has been happening in India for far too long. Big Tech monopoly has gone unchecked all this while. At least I am happy to see my fellow Indians uninstalling WhatsApp and moving to Signal. The more such alternative services the better. This stronghold of Big Tech on what internet should be has to end and it will end.
      - Pfhreak 6y ago
        Research actually backs up that deplatforming does reduce audience sizes for an outlet. Which makes sense of you believe that some listeners will simply not have the interest in jumping over to a new platform. Repeat several times and with every platform shift the audience reduces.
        shripadk 6y ago
        > Research actually backs up that deplatforming does reduce audience sizes for an outlet. This research was done at a time when there was little to no backlash against Big Tech. When you factor in a billion+ people moving from one platform to another it is not the platform that is deplatforming users but it is the users abandoning the platform. I have seen it happen multiple times in my life: From Yahoo Messenger to Orkut, from Orkut to Myspace, from Myspace to Facebook. I have witnessed these shifts happen in India and it is crazy how quickly these platforms that had an established presence lose their dominance literally overnight. I bet that research you refer to hasn't included the Indian psyche in the mix. We move in hordes. All it takes is for one trusted and respected family member or relative to suggest jumping ship. Everyone just follows the leader blindly. Those companies that understand this psyche of Indians and cater to this mindset will do extremely well in India. But it is a double-edged sword. We don't have attachments to any platform. If we see that the platform is going against us, repeatedly, we just shift en-masse. I have seen it happen numerous times to know this time is no different (the most recent one that comes to mind is public orchestrated ban on TikTok after the Indo-China clashes. The Government was forced to ban TikTok after a majority of Indians demanded that it be banned). In few months WhatsApp will lose its dominance completely. The shift has only just begun. If you don't believe me you can save this HN comment and revisit it in a few months from now.
csa 6y ago
[Note: Trying to present this as factually as possible.] According to what the companies say: - The President incited some people last week to engage in violent behavior at and towards Congress. - There is evidence that further violence is being planned via a variety of platforms. - The platforms are attempting to limit their exposure to facilitating such actions. Some people think that the companies have ulterior motives. I will leave it to you to decide what you think the real reasons are.
- garbagetime 6y ago
  Here's an important question: would it be a good thing or a bad thing if it was very difficult to make plans involving violence on the internet?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - bra-ket 6y ago
    there's a good precedent, just send everyone guilty of thoughtcrimes to Gulag, problem solved.
    - dang 6y ago
      We've banned this account for abusing HN with ideological flamewar and ignoring our many requests to stop. We ban accounts that do that, regardless of which ideology they're for or against. We especially ban accounts that have been using HN primarily for that, as yours has. That's a key indicator of bad-faith use of the site, and is obviously against the rules. When this came up yesterday, someone raised the common objection "why not just ban all politics then?" If anyone has that question, the thread is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25711241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25711241 https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
disown 6y ago
A stronger element of the power structure is silencing another. It's simple as that. Look at the relentless pro-censorship brigading on most social media. Lots of money, power and influence is being applied here. If this was china or russia, we'd call it a soft "purge". They'd call it promoting "harmony" or "protecting the people". Not sure what we are going to call it. Seems like whatever battle Trump and his faction was waging behind the scenes the last 4 years failed and he simply failed to win over enough power/influence to his side. We'll never know what really happened, we can just guess. But feels like history is happening. I don't think any of us have lived to through anything like this. I know I certainly haven't.
- greesil 6y ago
  Have you considered that it's not brigading, but a broad swathe of unrelated people genuinely feeling a certain way?
  - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    A broad swathe of unrelated people systematically manipulated into feeling a certain way. This has been going on since Bush 2.0's 8 years of assault on the truth.
    - greesil 6y ago
      I genuinely can't tell which side you're taking about, one, or the other, or both. I feel like there are crazy people everywhere, ranging from the hyper woke to honest to god nazis. But one group decided to storm congress (which I still haven't wrapped my head around, I'm mentally living in the beforefor times) and by supporting the rule of law I must now be on the side that's not that, even if I have to share the bus with the nutters who believe in "censoring" and thought policing.
      - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
        > But one group decided to storm congress (which I still haven't wrapped my head around, I'm mentally living in the beforefor times) Before 2018? https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1047935416182235136 https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1047935416182235136
josephorjoe 6y ago
what’s being banned is systematic destruction of people’s willingness to believe facts in order to support a world view that is inconsistent with facts. why it is being banned is that it has convinced people to attack the government because they believe the government has done things (for example, “stealing elections”) that it has not done. big tech has apparently decided that they do not want to be blamed when the government has to shoot a bunch of delusional people to stop them from committing violent crimes based on lies
- olah_1 6y ago
  Violent riots have happened many times based on media lies. That part is not novel.
  - josephorjoe 6y ago
    agreed. nothing novel about people lying to convince other people to do something. what’s novel is the centralized nature of social media (in terms of # of people reached from a single source) and the fact that some incredibly wealthy companies control these sources and face an existential risk if their platforms are used to create enough civil unrest that whoever ends up controlling the government is convinced that these companies are too dangerous to leave unregulated.
    - Osiris 6y ago
      Exactly. These companies want to avoid government regulation / oversight. They are taking proactive actions to lessen the blame that would be assigned to them and thus (hopefully) avoid future regulatory action.
      - brg 6y ago
        The problem I see is that they are walking directly in to oversight through their concerted actions. They are going to end up being labeled public utilities (identity, max comm, public market have already been labeled so).
tpmx 6y ago
The AWS banning is what really concerns me. It's a clear escalation. First it's the app level (breached by Apple and Google), then the infrastructure level (breached by AWS - although there are alternatives here. Next up is DNS, I guess? And after that, routing. The ultimate Internet Death Penalty.
- edbob 6y ago
  > What's left after that? We're also seeing the refusal of legal representation, which seems nearly unprecedented. At some point, the only thing left will be civil death [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_death
  - cptskippy 6y ago
    This isn't about people having their civil liberties taken away. The social network bans are businesses protecting themselves from people whom threaten their business. Like a fast food restaurant refusing to serve customers who smoke crack in the restaurant. The platform and infrastructure bans are also businesses protecting themselves but not from people, rather from other businesses. This is on level with U-haul banning drug cartels from renting their trucks. No one's civil liberties are being taken away
    - mech422 6y ago
      Indeed, no business wants to carry unnecessary liability. Funny, Didn't see all this crying about censorship when MC & Visa cut off pornhub... edit: just to be clear, I mean when MC & Visa decided pornhub was a potential liability, they cut them off. When companies decide Trump or Parler are a liability - they do the same - they cut them off. Thats just capitalism.
      - throwaway3699 6y ago
        I don't agree that it's 'just capitalism'. Just because I acquire a piece of private property does not necessarily give me the right to do anything I want with it. I can't clobber you over the head with a product I bought just like how many countries have laws to say I can't kick you out of private property that's also a public square.
SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
What I’m interested in is how many people here are applauding the banning while liberal voices like Glenn Greenwald, and the ALCU are decrying it. I’m sure some of my conservative friends would laugh if I told them this site makes me look like Regean in comparison to some others. All good fun of course. I believe that everyone is entitled to their opinion and ones I disagree with shouldn’t be hidden, but that itself is just my opinion.
- longtimegoogler 6y ago
  Even if those opinions call for murdering journalists? Like many countries in Europe, calls for violence should be illegal. It's also pretty easy to not care about these things if your are a white conservative male and not the target of these things.
colechristensen 6y ago
The far right not-so-fringe elements led by the president tried to overthrow the government last week. If it had gone slightly differently they could easily have murdered a large chunk of the legislature. As a result there’s been a wave of deplatforming of the voices that helped encourage that culture. It is indeed unfortunate that this came to pass but it was a necessary response. When you test the limits and protections, you ultimately change the nature of them. This is why you really want to avoid doing so in a free society because then you’re faced with the negatives of being forced to restrict freedoms to prevent that test from happening again and facing the threat of the next time someone trying, them having learned the lessons of how to test the limits much more effectively.
rasz 6y ago
Huge simplification: After four years someone finally mustered courage to punch the Nazi, and others swiftly followed.

Wolfenstein98k 6y ago

This stuff makes me really, really suspicious. At this point, the reason for deplatforming is that someone accused a bad thing on the opposite party. It would be ludicrous to ban anyone blaming the events at the Capitol on Trump and/or Republicans, even if you earnestly believe that's unfair. There is no objective case for blaming it on anyone except the individuals doing it. Anything beyond that is subjective, and you get your hands dirty really quick (ie try arguing that the Scalise shooting - by a Bernie volunteer against Republican congressmen - is completely divorced from Bernie, but the Capitol events are completely tied to Trump). Ergo this amounts to banning people - almost all on one side of politics, even if a fringe thereof - for saying things that appear to be untrue. Not even a hint of violence or a call thereto, just an opinion that is believed to be wrong. Are we quite sure we're happy with people losing their income and livelihood and brand and platform, just because the tech companies don't agree with their claims? Do you know how many smaller, left-of-centre groups will quickly get caught up in that once they join this discussion around unionising the workforce of the tech giants? You may despise Bannon, and I find it hard to believe he's an earnest actor, but think through the steps for how this happened. He's being banned for an opinion, entirely separate from any risk to anyone, and to argue otherwise (ie an implicit call to violence against the blamed party) would open you up to the claim that blaming anything in the last week on Trump is a call to violence against the president and/or his supporters, and is thus equally bannable. Is that reasonable? Should all opinions on this topic result in permanent banning and deplatforming?

DethNinja 6y ago
Is there any proof they are not already banning left-wing hosts? I feel like at this point they are banning everyone against the status quo. Anyway I feel like this is a blessing in disguise, stuff like this can cause Tech giants to lose huge market share in the long term future. It is good that people are forming other organic communities completely separate from Google/FB/Twitter.
- jimmy2020 6y ago
  pushing people to form organic communities is conservative populist demand

agumonkey 6y ago

2021 seems to going for 'year of the ban'

avalys 6y ago

Bannon said on this podcast that he would mount Anthony Fauci and Christopher Wray’s “heads on pikes” outside the White House as a “warning to other bureaucrats.” This was a few months ago. I presume he has been saying similar things since then. For years, the defense of these assholes has been “Oh, that’s just rhetoric, it’s not meant to be taken literally.” Well, we’ve just seen what happens when it gets taken literally. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

FFRefresh 6y ago
You mention that what he said was taken 'literally', so is it your insinuation that Bannon's 'heads on pikes' comments directly led to heads being placed on pikes at the Capitol? Also, are you in favor of sanctioning and deplatforming for anybody who uses rhetoric that when taken literally would mean some sort of violence? Even if those espousing such rhetoric fall on different parts of the political spectrum? After all, we've seen what happens when it gets taken literally.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
I had socialist/communist/anarchist friends throughout college talk about the need to use guillotines.
drogon2020 6y ago
It’s a figure of speech. Grow up.
- dang 6y ago
  We've banned this account for trolling. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - Mashimo 6y ago

bryan0 6y ago

The headline has important context: “YouTube bans Steve Bannon's podcast channel hours after Rudy Giuliani appeared on an episode and blamed the Capitol siege on Democrats” At some point the lies need to stop.

brighton36 6y ago
These are opinions though. It may be untrue, but you're going to find yourself with a ministry of truth. "Who decides" who gets charged with the crime. These opinions can be entertained. After all, most trump supporters are clearly enraged by democrats.
- scsilver 6y ago
  There is no ministry being erected, just a bunch of private parties not willing to get dragged into the mud.
  - laretluval 6y ago
    No official ministry, but the private parties appear to be acting with a great deal of coordination.
    - grzm 6y ago
      When a hurricane hits the coast, you'll find that a lot of people happen to board up their windows as well. A common set of pressures can provoke the same response from different people working independently. No coordination needed.
    - justforyou 6y ago
      Zeitgeist is not coordinated.
    - anigbrowl 6y ago
      Google round earth conspiracy
    - 6y ago

satya71 6y ago

YouTube could take its engagement algorithm down a notch, thus reducing radicalization by many orders of magnitude. Otherwise, it's just playing whack-a-mole.

prawn 6y ago
They could at least shortlist quality content and make only that content eligible for algorithmic recommendations, rather than seemingly all sorts of scraps like now.
- aeternum 6y ago
  How do you quantify quality without manually choosing only a few mainstream content producers?
  - satya71 6y ago
    Just show people what I watch! Joking aside, I think they have some sharp minds that can tackle this.
  - prawn 6y ago
    I'm sure they can choose more than a few. Hire to scale that up. Probably wouldn't need to make it at the video level - flag the better creators first. For subjects without recommendations, let people search to find their next video.
Osiris 6y ago
It's very easy to find articles that find that suggestion/engagement algorithms for YouTube, and presumably Facebook and others, pushes people toward more and more radical (extreme) content. https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/10419/9404 https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/10419/... https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/algorithms-take-over-youtube-s-recommendations-highlight-human-problem-n867596 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/algorithms-take-ov... https://theconversation.com/youtubes-algorithms-might-radicalise-people-but-the-real-problem-is-weve-no-idea-how-they-work-129955 https://theconversation.com/youtubes-algorithms-might-radica...

univalent 6y ago

Should have banned him after the 'heads on pikes' comment. Late as usual.

blisterpeanuts 6y ago
And should Maxine Waters have been banned after she exhorted her followers to harass Republicans? "Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd, and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere." What kind of civilized person would advocate this type of behavior, much less a member of Congress? And why is this acceptable when Bannon's (admittedly nasty) comment isn't?
- Barrin92 6y ago
  probably deserves at least some degree of moderation but still qualitatively different from calling for someone's 'head on a spike' in particular given that Bannon is speaking to an audience that has members who would likely take that literally. But sure in general you're right, calls for harassment shouldn't be tolerated either.
- greesil 6y ago
  If you think there was an implied threat of violence, then yes.
- AaronFriel 6y ago
  The context for Maxine Waters comment was that a Trump Administration official had a bad experience at a restaurant, while that administration was in the process of separating children from families resulting in over 500 still being separated today. That administration official lied to the American public about this policy, and Waters felt that it was our civic duty to tell officials like them that in the administration wherever they go they should feel bad. Note that at no point were these administration officials threatened with violence, just people telling them they're bad people.
- jetpks 6y ago

e40 6y ago

The lies are 100% of the reason the capital riot happened, so yes, they do need to stop. Fox News lies every single day. What do we expect from a population of people that only hear these lies, day in and day out? They're going to react just like they did on 1/6.

FFRefresh 6y ago
What's your proposal for how Fox News should be handled, given they "lie every single day"? Should Fox News have their licenses removed, and be taken off the air & internet?
- hadrien01 6y ago
  In the UK, Fox News had to cease broadcasting because it had breached multiple times due impartiality rules[0]. In the US, some are advocating for a return of the fairness doctrine. [0] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/fox-news-stops-airing-uk-a-look-at-ofcom-rulings-1033789 https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/fox-news-stops-airing...
- drogon2020 6y ago
  So do all the news networks. What’s your plan for that.
- cgrealy 6y ago
  Most countries have a broadcasting standards authority of some sort. If you claim to be a news channel, then some measure of accuracy is not an unreasonable imposition. That said, given the increasing irrelevance of broadcast TV, I don't see how removing their licence would achieve much.
- greatgirl 6y ago
  This is literally how it used to work before the FCC removed the FCC fairness doctrine in 1987. Fox news was then founded in 1996.
  - zerocrates 6y ago

throwarayes 6y ago

I’m curious what the legal liability is for platforms that host content that “incites violence”[1] 1 - I realize this can range anywhere from emotional calls to protest up to the “clear and imminent danger” doctrine. And the specifics of the “inciting” and context around it certainly matter too.

dragonwriter 6y ago
Depending on the hosts knowledge, and the specific crimes of violence, and the exact relation of the content to the crimes — and concrete organization of a violent attack on a joint session of Congress in an attempt to coerce a preferred result in the tally of the electoral votes, to pick a not-quite-random example, would seem very much to qualify — there is a risk of criminal liability under 18 USC Sec. 2339A, Providing material support to terrorists.

wyck 6y ago

Driving groups of people more underground to use protocols and services which are hard to ban is a good tactic overall? That will eventually put a bullseye on the whole internet.

amanaplanacanal 6y ago
It does make it harder for them to recruit.

matz1 6y ago

What interesting is how all these company act in the same way, why don't some company/platform took the opportunity to act the opposite to differentiate themselves ? I believe there is still large enough market for people who oppose this silencing.

AI_WAIFU 6y ago
Isn't that exactly what Parler is doing? The reason it doesn't work is because network effects and collective action make businesses that try uncompetitive. Go against the grain and all of a sudden everyone you were trading with that made your business feasible drops you. If any other businesses try to support you in their place, they'll also be singled out and get the same treatment.
notadev 6y ago
Because all of their workers are coordinating these actions with one another. That also explains why most of the comments around these political issues have tons of absurd pro-censorship stances on places like HN. They're the same people.
- rainyMammoth 6y ago
  interestingly I have had private chats with some Silicon Valley tech workers lately that find those bans and censorship repulsive but are too afraid to state this publicly. I'm wondering if this is not the result of the ultra loud vocal minority once again?
  - matz1 6y ago
    If that true then they kind a deserve it, when the majority didn't use their number as strength to do something but it then they deserve to lose.
    - busterarm 6y ago
      The problem is that the pro-censorship crowd is openly using the internal open communication channels with full support and engagement from both HR and upper management. Having numbers doesn't equate to having equal or greater power.

rubyist5eva 6y ago

The only reason tech companies are doing this is because the democrats have a trifecta and they want to be in their good graces in order to avoid regulation. It's not about decency, it's about power.

Barrin92 6y ago
it's arguably the inverse of this. They're doing it because they don't feel threatened by a Republican administration any more. With or without specific regulation threats the workforces and often also leaders of these companies would have done it years ago.
- rubyist5eva 6y ago
  Democratic members of congress have repeatedly called for the breakup and/or regulation of "big tech", just for different reasons.
  - gameswithgo 6y ago
    As a liberal in big tech, I can assure you the primary motivation is that we are 1. horrified by trump, always have been 2. aren't concerned that trump will unilaterally end our business if we oppose him anymore 3. are extremely concerned about american democracy and our lives, given the way trump has convinced almost half the country that the election was rigged, which has encouraged them to almost kill an entire branch of our government AND BEAT ONE POLICE OFFICER TO DEATH WITH AN AMERICAN FLAG WHILE CHANTING THE MUTATIONAL ANTHEM we in big tech are not robots, sir.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - hellgas00 6y ago
      Do you remember Russiagate? How half the country literally believed that Trump was a puppet of Russia, and that Russia had hacked the election. Hilary Clinton wrote a book about it. I will say that Trump should act with more tact and decorum, but just months ago CHAZ was a literal autonomous zone acting outside of the laws and authority of the city of Seattle. Nobody should have had their ability to communicate freely online taken away because of it, but fascists apply mental gymnastics to affirm one moral stance against another depending on the person commiting the crime.

dpatru 6y ago

Consider this in context: No ban for fighting the wars in Iraq, Libya, Iran, Afghanistan, etc. No ban for torturing people or extraordinary rendition. No ban for mass illegal spying on Americans and lying about it. No ban for droning wedding parties or hospitals. But if you dare to suggest that a political party, that cheated Bernie Sanders out of the nomination and spent the last four years lying about how Trump, the only living President who hasn't started a new war, was a Russian agent, may have had something to do with a "coup" attempt which could only benefit them politically, then you are too dangerous and must be banned.

hellgas00 6y ago
This is the crux of it all. Spend a second to think critically about what is going on outside of the news media echo chamber and it becomes apparent it's not about a moral stance, it's about controlling narratives and exerting power against their political enemies.
Nemrod67 6y ago
I fear we went over the edge this last year, there might not be any way left to speak to the other side now. And I say that as a French dude. It is going to end badly for everyone.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

cosmiccatnap 6y ago

https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/

clarkmoody 6y ago

> At some point the lies need to stop. It's politics. Everything is lies.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
LimaBearz 6y ago
Yeah but this one wasn’t about telling your partner they look good in that shirt. We are talking about rhetoric that lead to an insurrection on the Capitol and the death of 5 Americans. I don’t quite understand why every one of these events devolve into high reductive free speech or slippery slope arguments. What is going to take for the people start accepting some personal responsibility? From where I sit I see a group of people not accepting responsibility for some truly heinous acts perpetrated by their own “tribe” (for lack of a better word), so others are coming in and cleaning up their mess. If that’s unacceptable or don’t like how it’s being done, then perhaps the most disarming thing would be to accept some personal responsibility, grab a mop and start cleaning your room.. not “it was the Democrats fault” has Rudy put it
- nradov 6y ago
  I don't support the insurrectionists but they are far from being a tribe. If you listen to interviews with them there was a huge diversity of motivations. The crowd included anarchists, neo-nazis, rabid Trump supporters, constitutionalists, revolutionaries, people who honestly (but wrongly) believe the election was stolen, etc. The whole scene was chaos with no real organized tribal leadership.
- atypicaluser 6y ago
  > Rhetoric that led to an insurrection... A situation that some term an 'insurrection' and others term a 'riot'. Trouble is, who's right? Who has the authority to make an objective claim on this? For half-a-year before last week, those on the other side (the so-called insurrectionists and insurrectionist-adjacent) claimed that situations like the Minneapolis protests, the CHAZ, the Portland protests, the Chicago protests, the Atlanta protests, etc. (all together which ended in at least a couple dozen deaths and hundreds of millions in property damage) were riots and insurrections, whereas most media establishments (your NYTs and your MSNBCs) insisted these were 'mostly peaceful' protests. Both sides agreed something was happening--they disagreed on what to call it. In defense of the many who view the situation as a riot as opposed to an insurrection, it's hard to make the case for insurrection when (1) police waved rioters into the Capitol in places, (2) Capitol cops felt so unthreatened by the situation that they posed with rioters for selfies and (3) the Senators were similarly besieged (sans deaths) during the Kavanaugh hearings eighteen months ago... with no one (amongst Democrats) calling this an insurrection. But, as Democrats are the victors, they will write the histories. So it goes.

sn41 6y ago

As a liberal and a person who believes in the milk of human kindness against all contrary evidence, I do have a problem with this overenthusiasm. When the trifecta becomes republican, will liberal podcasts be banned? There must be some arbitration. I believe flagging and moderation and proscribing individual videos is better than banning channels outright and deplatforming.

gameswithgo 6y ago
>When the trifecta becomes republican, will liberal podcasts be banned? If they incite violence perhaps they will >I believe flagging and moderation and proscribing individual videos is better than banning channels outright and deplatforming. That may indeed be a better course of action, though when you have habitual offenders, in this case bannons channel got 4 warnings, its a huge burden on you to keep checking each and every video, and the violence gets incited while you spend time checking.
- sn41 6y ago
  Fair enough. I did not know that there were earlier warnings. A three-strike rule sounds fine.
- casefields 6y ago
  If they've been convicted in a court of law for incitement, then many of us wouldn't have much of a problem.
  - Artistry121 6y ago
    No company or individual should have to carry rhetoric inciting violence until a court of law engages. Responsibility is not solely on the courts - corporations and people can make decisions on what is right without courts. Especially when the person is obviously saying it -“behead Fauci”. Bannon has a way to get his message out - he has his own media organization. Many people don’t feel like what Bannon is doing is right and don’t need a court of law to tell them. Courts of law defended slavery - people made decisions prior to the courts interference to change that. Small government requires the ability of private groups to choose their own moral stances.

tptacek 6y ago

I think we can't reasonably be doing front page stories every time one of these things gets reported. It's going to keep happening. Different people have different feelings about that, but we've had thousands of front-page-thread comments on much more important stories than Bannon's dumb podcast channel. At some point we should just refer back to those threads. I don't need to see Bannon's culpability litigated on HN; we're getting to Politico levels of granularity here.

pmiller2 6y ago
You know, stories don't just get to the front page on their own. If people stop upvoting them, they won't make it to the front page.
- bitcharmer 6y ago
  Isn't it enough that all other social media are vividly discussing it? I'm from Europe and slowly getting tired of this. It is not what I come to HN for. Not everyone lives and breathes America.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    There's a link under every headline that says "hide". Use it, and you won't see these stories anymore.
    - bitcharmer 6y ago
      I'm aware of this, but I don't want to have to hide half of HN's front page. It wasn't the case until recently.
      - pmiller2 6y ago
        Then, you should be using the link that says "flag" instead.
- baby 6y ago

Guthur 6y ago

So many politicians are guilty of misrepresenting the truth or even downright lies; the last two Democrat candidates have been guilty of outright lies as well. Who will be the arbiter of this blurry line of truthfulness.

sumedh 6y ago
> Who will be the arbiter of this blurry line of truthfulness. Is there any proof that the rioters wearing Auschwitz Tshirts, carrying Trump and Confederate flags who were told by the President that he loves them were Democrats?
- Guthur 6y ago
  My point is not that they were telling the truth, just that both sides tell blatant lies. And career politicians will have racked up a bewildering history of lies and mistruths. YouTube, Twitter or whatever are private property but they are increasingly being used for political discourse on both sides this would not be a probably except that the parent companies are very obviously partisan in they're application of "rules".
  - sumedh 6y ago
    > just that both sides tell blatant lies. This is the old both sides are equal argument which is wrong. Can you please give a source where a democrat President wanted to "find the votes by putting pressure on election officials or when he told violent protestors that they are good people and the President loves them?
    - Guthur 6y ago
      So some lies are ok, just not the ones you don't like. How are we measuring this scale please? I'm uncertain.
      - sumedh 6y ago
        Are you saying that Trump did not put pressure on the Georgia official to find the votes, was that not Trump on the call. Did Trump not tell the rioters that he loves them and that they are special?

S_A_P 6y ago

I read things like this and it really makes me sad. I don’t agree with Steve Bannon or Rudy Giuliani on a lot of things. I also don’t agree with their equivalent person on the left. In fact I am skeptical of most “career politicians”. I really wish we could switch what politics is about. Currently we (meaning news channels and Twitter/internet folk) want to dunk on the other tribe and show them how wrong and stupid they are. Can’t we all try to find consensus and compromise? I know that I personally don’t have enough knowledge and experience to know what’s right for all people at all times. Life can be complicated. Let’s have some compassion folks.

sumedh 6y ago
> I also don’t agree with their equivalent person on the left. Just out of curiosity who is their equivalent person on the left? > Can’t we all try to find consensus and compromise? What consensus and compromise do you want when the President of the US wants to "find" the votes or when calls the rioters good people and we love you?
- S_A_P 6y ago
  That’s just it. A lot of people of all political persuasions are reasonable and rational. I don’t think the current administration is at all. I’m a generally middle of the road guy that has a general viewpoint of live and let live. The problem is we are letting fringe opinions dictate the narrative.
  - wtfiswiththis 6y ago
    Can't help but notice you didn't answer this: >Just out of curiosity who is their equivalent person on the left?
    - avs733 6y ago
      It’s funny how that never gets answered... I really am befuddled at the inability of people to avoid beng taken in by bad faith arguments like this.

qwerty456127 6y ago

Never heard of him (I'm from Europe and generally uninterested in politics), now I'm really curious about what did he actually say in his podcast and in fact am listening to it already. I seriously wonder how much generally pro-dem or apolitical people are going to find themselves Trump-curious or even Trump-sympathizing after all these bans and removals. I have almost no doubt there is going to be such effect, the only question is the scale. This is so obvious it almost seems a trap, like if president Trump himself had secretly ordered to ban him.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
amanaplanacanal 6y ago
It seems unlikely that there are people in the US with any interest in politics that aren’t already well aware of who Trump, Bannon, and Guliani are.
- konjin 6y ago
  You would be very surprised at the number of people who have tuned out completely.
  - MrMan 6y ago
    Yay for them
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

ulfw 6y ago

Took 4-6 full years (if including the primaries) and 30,000 lies to grow a conscience. Not like any of these lies have been new. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claim...

strogonoff 6y ago
> Took 4-6 full years (if including the primaries) and 30,000 lies to grow a conscience. Arguably, it took election results. Easier to do what is right when the wind blows the right way.
- protastus 6y ago
  > Arguably, it took election results. Easier to do what is right when the wind blows the right way. That's why valor only exists in the presence of opposition. Facebook, Twitter, Google and AWS had 4-6 years to make the same choice made in the last few days. Yet they refused, again and again.
- chongli 6y ago
  No I think a violent insurrection in the Capitol was the tipping point. Up until then, all of the dangers associated with the rhetoric was theoretical.
  - torwayburger 6y ago
    They arrested a bunch of people in Michigan over a plot on the governor, no? We moved out of the theory a while ago.
    - TheGRS 6y ago
      I'm still fairly upset that the outrage wasn't louder over that, but recent events have at least pulled that event back in the spotlight.
      - 6y ago

dataminer 6y ago

Not a comment on to the ban, but trying to gain perspective on the overall heated environment. I wonder, if there are more than 2 political parties representing different view points in Congress will that help in decreasing polarization?

lovecg 6y ago
The argument has been beaten to death so I’m probably not saying anything new to most people here, but two parties is the only stable configuration. In a first-past-the-post system, the smaller parties after the first two will be very quickly eliminated or consolidated (this includes the limiting case of no parties, where everyone is a party of one). On the other hand, if you have one large party it will eventually splinter due to internal discord and a lack of a common enemy. There have been brief periods in time when there were more than two significant parties in the US. Just after the constitution was written is one — it didn’t take long for parties to be established. Another example was the time period around when the Whig party disintegrated and the Republican party was established. There was the moment in that fallout in 1856 when the Know Nothing party got a few electoral votes, on a platform that is a direct ideological ancestor of Trumpism.
- djur 6y ago
  This is called [Duverger's law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law) in political science. The effect is increased by how relatively small the US legislature is -- there are more members of the UK House of Commons than there are US Representatives and Senators combined! This makes it more difficult for third parties to develop in regional strongholds. (The US also doesn't have the strong regionalism that bolsters third parties in Canada and the UK, for that matter.) My understanding is that the presidential system also tends to favor two-party politics. The Federalists and Democratic-Republicans formed from pro- and anti-administration factions during Washington's presidency, while the Democrats and Whigs formed in support and opposition to Jackson.
- Mashimo 6y ago
  > In a first-past-the-post system, the smaller parties after the first two will be very quickly eliminated or consolidated I think the questions is, would switching away from first-past-the-post system to something that fruits more parties help in decreasing polarization?

alphabettsy 6y ago

He had accounts banned after calling for the beheading of Fauci and FBI director Wray just a couple of months ago. https://www.timesofisrael.com/twitter-bans-former-trump-adviser-bannon-for-call-to-behead-fauci-fbi-chief/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/twitter-bans-former-trump-advi... We should stop pretending like this is about conservative ideology, it’s about creating an environment for violence with lies and repeated calls for violence coming from Trump associates. Nobody is calling for the deplatforming of John Kasich or Mitt Romney.

casefields 6y ago
Putting heads on a pike and making heads roll, are idioms for firing or dismissing accountable public officials. Unless of course something thinks he's a Hitler in training just waiting for his chance at the Fourth Reich.
- alphabettsy 6y ago
  Watch the video. It doesn’t appear to be a euphemism.

sebastianconcpt 6y ago

Censorship is the seed of genocide. Change my mind.

yenwodyah 6y ago

I'm surprised it wasn't banned already, tbh.

scelerat 6y ago

Doesn't Steve Bannon already have an entire media network he helped build, Breitbart? He can post his podcast there.

throwitaway1235 6y ago

The biggest new LOL of all time is liberals posting "the events of 1/6" as if it's comparable to 9/11 or something. If obnoxious stupidity had an event horizon, this would be it.

casefields 6y ago
NY state Sen. John Liu sparks outrage with tweet calling Capitol siege scarier than 9/11: https://nypost.com/2021/01/09/ny-state-sen-john-liu-explains-tweet-saying-capitol-siege-was-scarier-than-9-11/ https://nypost.com/2021/01/09/ny-state-sen-john-liu-explains... ‘Infamy’: Chuck Schumer Compares Capitol Chaos To Pearl Harbor: https://www.dailywire.com/news/infamy-chuck-schumer-compares-capitol-chaos-to-pearl-harbor https://www.dailywire.com/news/infamy-chuck-schumer-compares... Do a search for these and notice how it's only right wing media reporting of them. Had Trump or republicans made such embarrassing comparisons they would be in every mainstream publication as being out of touch morons.

christmm 6y ago

I only watch CNN, they are a beacon of truth in a swamp of compromised and for profit media.

johnnujler 6y ago

All technology is political. All politics is not political. Politics is a social technology.

ecmascript 6y ago

All these people at HN applauding these kinds of actions scares me. People seem to really think it's fine to kick Trump of Twitter, ban parler but have no issues with Iran leaders, north korea youtube channel etc. I think this is censorship. There is no viable alternative to Youtube and that is the main issue. If there was 3 services as large as youtube, I would have no issue with the exclusion from one of them but now there aren't. Fuck big tech and their censorship.

jamisteven 6y ago

There is an all out war right now from big-tech on conservative everything. Ushering in authoritarianism like its 1984. Parler blocked by iOS app store and google play, AWS removing their servers from its platform, youTube banning Bannon's podcast. There are plenty of people, groups, and politicians, for example the ayatollah of Iran, chinese state media etc that should pose far more of a threat to the world than some conservatives, but that doesnt support the Liberal narrative so they get to stay. Welcome to dystopia.

tim333 6y ago
I think people are fine with small c conservatism. It's trying to overthrow democratic elections that's bad whether it's Trump or Maduro or whoever.
Artistry121 6y ago
In response to right wing terrorism en masse attacking the Governor in Michigan and the US Capitol _one_ right wing podcast host with a history of calling for violence was deplatformed. Hardly an all out war. Many right wing folks have strongly benefited from YouTube and these platforms - including Trump. Dave Rubin, Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, Prager U, Alex Jones... All conservatives aren’t banned. This is a straw man. Bannon has called for violence many times - and violence has happened. No company is obligated to support this. He has his website Breitbart to continue his action. If this were an “all out war” the others wouldn’t be benefiting from the YouTube algorithm of Twitter. It doesn’t seem like banning the open calling for violence is a feature of a dystopia.

dustingetz 6y ago

ban facebook, youtube and twitter for relentlessly optimizing engagement and creating the circumstances where emergent hatred was inevitable

whatever1 6y ago

We have the responsibility to protect free speech rights, that is people's right to express their opinion publicly. The internet equivalent of this is to ensure that everybody (who has not lost this right at court) should not be denied access to the internet and setting up a webpage to express their opinion. Net neutrality could cover the above. It is not our responsibility to ensure that every lunatic, child abuser or whatever can have their content promoted via content platforms.

vicpara 6y ago

Another typical US approach to public opinion: cleanse the news channel of annoying opinion bearers instead of educating the masses to apply critical thinking and getting them acquainted with a larger spectrum of ideas. How funny to have this coming from a country that advertises freedom of speech as its core values. People with radical ideas and from the extreme ends of any spectrum deserve the be maintained in the conversation and deserve a voice. Always. The issue isn't they have a voice therefore banning them cannot be an acceptable solution. The large number of people that resonate with those extreme ideas are either in deer life conditions or massively uneducated. Why not start debugging the problem there? Silencing voices is never a good idea. It's also quite a shame you allow Google/Youtube/Twitter/FB and other big commercial tech companies to decide on your behalf what is socially acceptable and what is not. These are the same companies training your brain with their apps to respond to their commercial interests. Also, there is a gigantic space between demanding people to take any type of action and becoming violent. Maybe you should stop all Hollywood productions that involve people threatening/killing/inciting each other to commit acts of any sort of violence too. Lastly, the American society, does cultivate from early days fanaticism. As a European that lived in US for the last 12 years you cannot not see this. Fanatical support for your local sports team, high school team, university, political party and/or faction, city and country is something that is being cultivated and developed from the youngest age. People take pride in bearing a label for generations the label being anything from political affiliation to sport team fans. Continuing the tradition is being perceived as more important than the ideals/ideas one stands for under that particular label.

Udik 6y ago

BTW, throwing this out here. I guess many republicans are pretty outraged at the moment with Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc. Those companies feel safe because a democrat won the elections and they don't have to be afraid of reprisals. But what happens in three years when a new electoral campaign starts? How wary will these companies be of the chance of a new republican president? How much of their power will they use to prevent such a possibility from happening?

elisbce 6y ago

The democracy and freedom of political views and speech in the US is now dead. It is like these days the Democratic Party represents the good guys and the GOP represents the bad guys. Anyone who agrees with some of the conservative ideology, or remotely disagrees with the Democrats will be alienated, labeled, draws anger, and eventually banned, silenced, fired from work and face retaliation.

Artistry121 6y ago
There are a variety of YouTube personality with right leaning views that have built their entire reputation on the site. OAN, Fox, Shapiro, Peterson and more grew through use of YouTube and still do. And they do get labeled and have anger built against them - but they also label and build anger against others. That’s how things work on all sides. Bannon routinely calls for violence - against members of all parties. Free speech is not dead and this is not even a case of free speech. YouTube has banned other people calling for violence. Companies can choose what to promote.

tomerbd 6y ago

So long free speech and thanks for all the fish.