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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.

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.
  - zozbot234 6y ago
    > 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. We've seen this happen in the U.S. too with the recent conservative shift from Twitter to Facebook and Parler. If Parler does go down due to AWS pulling the plug, we will again see a shift to a new platform - it's a matter of where and when, not if.
    - shripadk 6y ago
      > We've seen this happen in the U.S. too with the recent conservative shift from Twitter to Facebook and Parler. If Parler does go down due to AWS pulling the plug, we will again see a shift to a new platform - it's a matter of where and when, not if. Exactly right! No platform is permanent. No company is permanent.
      - salawat 6y ago
        No Representative or incarnation of the Government is permanant either, yet there's so much uproar hhere about threats to $current_political_figure To be honest, I just think this is how political infrastructure restabilizes. Heavy is the head on which sits the Crown [and vulnerable the neck], as they say. Once impedance mismatch hits critical levels, out come the fangs. Fangs coming out either prompts more impedance mismatch (crackdowns and self-preservation plays by established actors), prompting more crazy, or people start getting the message, and stability is trended back toward. It's the most simultaneously fascinating and horrifying dynamic equilibrium problem I've ever witnessed play out in my life.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Aunche 6y ago
  I can see the benefit of deplatforming, but I don't see what the benefit of the AWS ban would be. There are plenty of cloud service providers out there, so little more than a temporary inconvenience.
  - viraptor 6y ago
    All of them have pretty similar ToS to AWS. They really don't have that many options. And no, going bare metal is not great either - colo / ISPs can deny you service. (which if they're trying to be sneaky they may find out after buying hardware and transporting it)
  - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
    You would think so, but I believe the owner of Parler has already stated that he can’t find anybody willing to host him.
    - shripadk 6y ago
      I haven't seen the CEO of Parler release any such statement. ---- Rate limited so editing my reply for comment below Thanks for the link. I couldn't find it. If this is the situation then it's extremely bad. The entire situation is fucked up. We literally are in a Censorship era. But the silver lining is that now there will be serious efforts into creating a decentralised internet that isn't controlled by any Big Tech Cartel. In the same way Bitcoin was a response to 2008 economic crises. This crises will create strong alternative platforms. No doubt about it. It's no longer a matter of if but when. Incentives for an alternative internet have never been stronger.
      - Pfhreak 6y ago
        https://deadline.com/2021/01/parler-ceo-says-service-dropped-by-every-vendor-and-could-end-the-company-1234670607/amp/ https://deadline.com/2021/01/parler-ceo-says-service-dropped... > “We’re going to try our best to get back online as quickly as possible. But we’re having a lot of trouble because every vendor we talk to says they won’t work with us. Because if Apple doesn’t approve and Google doesn’t approve, they won’t.”
- im3w1l 6y ago
  Yes. Every time one platform gets banned the right wingers get more and more isolated, more and more relationships become severed, they get more and more lonely. Combined with pandemic quarntines this will be mental tortue and completely destroy them. They simply wont be able to ever come back from this.
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  This isn't independent research and I assure that the "left" has now much more political enemies than, say, 2015. It had an immense backfire effect, you just weren't able to quantify it yet.

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.
- zozbot234 6y ago
  > 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. We've seen this happen in the U.S. too with the recent conservative shift from Twitter to Facebook and Parler. If Parler does go down due to AWS pulling the plug, we will again see a shift to a new platform - it's a matter of where and when, not if.
  - shripadk 6y ago
    > We've seen this happen in the U.S. too with the recent conservative shift from Twitter to Facebook and Parler. If Parler does go down due to AWS pulling the plug, we will again see a shift to a new platform - it's a matter of where and when, not if. Exactly right! No platform is permanent. No company is permanent.
    - salawat 6y ago
      No Representative or incarnation of the Government is permanant either, yet there's so much uproar hhere about threats to $current_political_figure To be honest, I just think this is how political infrastructure restabilizes. Heavy is the head on which sits the Crown [and vulnerable the neck], as they say. Once impedance mismatch hits critical levels, out come the fangs. Fangs coming out either prompts more impedance mismatch (crackdowns and self-preservation plays by established actors), prompting more crazy, or people start getting the message, and stability is trended back toward. It's the most simultaneously fascinating and horrifying dynamic equilibrium problem I've ever witnessed play out in my life.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Aunche 6y ago
I can see the benefit of deplatforming, but I don't see what the benefit of the AWS ban would be. There are plenty of cloud service providers out there, so little more than a temporary inconvenience.
- viraptor 6y ago
  All of them have pretty similar ToS to AWS. They really don't have that many options. And no, going bare metal is not great either - colo / ISPs can deny you service. (which if they're trying to be sneaky they may find out after buying hardware and transporting it)
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  You would think so, but I believe the owner of Parler has already stated that he can’t find anybody willing to host him.
  - shripadk 6y ago
    I haven't seen the CEO of Parler release any such statement. ---- Rate limited so editing my reply for comment below Thanks for the link. I couldn't find it. If this is the situation then it's extremely bad. The entire situation is fucked up. We literally are in a Censorship era. But the silver lining is that now there will be serious efforts into creating a decentralised internet that isn't controlled by any Big Tech Cartel. In the same way Bitcoin was a response to 2008 economic crises. This crises will create strong alternative platforms. No doubt about it. It's no longer a matter of if but when. Incentives for an alternative internet have never been stronger.
    - Pfhreak 6y ago
      https://deadline.com/2021/01/parler-ceo-says-service-dropped-by-every-vendor-and-could-end-the-company-1234670607/amp/ https://deadline.com/2021/01/parler-ceo-says-service-dropped... > “We’re going to try our best to get back online as quickly as possible. But we’re having a lot of trouble because every vendor we talk to says they won’t work with us. Because if Apple doesn’t approve and Google doesn’t approve, they won’t.”
im3w1l 6y ago
Yes. Every time one platform gets banned the right wingers get more and more isolated, more and more relationships become severed, they get more and more lonely. Combined with pandemic quarntines this will be mental tortue and completely destroy them. They simply wont be able to ever come back from this.
raxxorrax 6y ago
This isn't independent research and I assure that the "left" has now much more political enemies than, say, 2015. It had an immense backfire effect, you just weren't able to quantify it yet.