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Actually, Parler has been use to literally plan an overthrow of the US government. That's why it's banned. So far, Parler and its associates have come a lot cl

Actually, Parler has been use to literally plan an overthrow of the US government. That's why it's banned. So far, Parler and its associates have come a lot closer to dismantling American democracy than Iran ever has. That's why they get taken more seriously. Neither Twitter, nor Apple, nor Amazon want to be responsible for the rise of a fascist regime in the US. Too often, you can't see the rise of authoritarianism until its too late. This time, we saw it in time. I commend these companies for taking a stand, despite the obvious backlash they'll suffer as a result.

eplanit 6y ago
Uh, the "rise of authoritarianism" is the tech companies acting -- at the moment that Congress confirmed Biden's win -- to silence conservative voices (yeah, yeah, private companies, I know). Twitter and Facebook have given Marxism (i.e. BLM) a platform during these past few years, whose explicit goal is to dismantle American democracy. We're indeed seeing the rise of authoritarianism...I think you're confused as to who the authoritarians are.
- hackyhacky 6y ago
  A private company cannot be authoritarian. Authoritarianism is a form of government. BLM is not anti-democracy, while those who invaded the Capitol obviously are. If you consider the silencing of organized threats to overthrow the US government by neo-Nazis and Confederates to be acts against "conservative voices," this tells us a lot about what "conservatism" means now.
  - eplanit 6y ago
    When a private company acts in union with, on behalf of, and/or in support of the regime and its political objectives, it is part of the authoritarian system. I think you'd say the same of Twitter were it aligned with the right instead of the left.
  - StellarTabi 6y ago
    > A private company cannot be authoritarian. Almost all private companies are authoritarian. Examples of non-authoritarian companies might include co-ops.
    - jackthehammer 6y ago
      Then why does it feel like authoritarianism when Twitter and Facebook remove all content from and lock out the President of the United States and any of his supporters?
- davewritescode 6y ago
  You're the only one who's confused. BLM is both a sentiment and a real political organization. The sentiment is overwhelmingly popular whereas the actual political movement is not. You're attempting to lump them together in a way that most people don't It's really hard to argue that conservative voices are completely silenced when the have the largest network news television station in the country. Take a look at the New York Times best seller list sometime and look at how many conservative authors make the list. Yes, you can't spread fake bullshit on Twitter anymore about how the election was stolen but even that would've been ok until 5 people died trying to overthrow the capital. Actions have consequences, and unfortunately for conservatives those consequences are a purge from social media as big business seeks to distance itself from radical right-wing politics. Democracy won here, sorry.
  - eplanit 6y ago
    If you read your first sentence, you might see how funny it actually is: "You're the only one who's confused. BLM is both a sentiment and a real political organization. The sentiment is overwhelmingly popular whereas the actual political movement is not." Yeah, that's not confusing at all. Kind of like "Hey, 'Defund the Police' doesn't mean defund the police" Maybe the organizers should hire (better) PR firms.
    - davewritescode 6y ago
      BLM has fantastic PR for an organization that has pretty far left views. That was exactly my point. People are generally positive towards to main stated goals of the organization, preventing police abuse against black people. It resonates with their own experience and the experience of black people they know. You're trying to conflate the detailed political views of an organization with people who tend to agree that Black people need to be treated like human beings by police officers. I also agree, 'Defund the Police' is a shit term for Police Reform.
    - wavefunction 6y ago
      Can't reply to davewritescode but... BLM as a political movement believes that American law enforcement disproportionately targets black citizens with violence disproportionate to the alleged crimes or situations in which the violence occurs. This is not a far left view in my opinion, as someone who hold "far-left"/left-libertarian views on a variety of subjects. "Defund the police" has been proposed by some people who share this core beliefs proposed by the BLM movement as a way to reduce the disproportionate violence against black citizens in the US. Unfortunately, I think it is a vaguely and poorly phrased slogan because I have seen that for some it means abolishment of law enforcement and for many others it means restructuring the funding of law enforcement to provide alternative public services to people who are having a mental health crisis, for example. The idea of reducing law enforcement budgets or redirecting some of the resources currently budgeted for law enforcement to alternative public services doesn't seem to me to necessarily consist of a "far-left" policy either, though that is because I think the notion of reducing law enforcement violence when unwarranted should and is a concern of people of most citizens other than a distinct minority. Of course we are all awash in the propaganda and media messaging of disparate groups with various agendas so understanding all of this in a shared and cohesive manner as a society is messy and somewhat difficult, but well-worth trying.
cabalamat 6y ago
> Parler and its associates have come a lot closer to dismantling American democracy than Iran ever has The USA isn't really a democracy. For it to be democratic it would have to use more democratic voting systems than FPTP and the electoral college. It's an oligarchy, but by the ruling class, which includes the big tech companies. > Neither Twitter, nor Apple, nor Amazon want to be responsible for the rise of a fascist regime in the US. Unless it's one where they are in charge. It's self-evidently impossible for Trump and the red tribe to overthrow the US system of government, they simply don't have control of enough of the levers of power. It would be a lot easier for Biden/Harris and the blue tribe to do so, as they control a lot more of the levers of power (e.g. academia, journalism, big tech).
- hackyhacky 6y ago
  An armed mob very nearly did succeed in overthrowing the government. And I suspect we haven't seen the last of them. We have the closest thing to a democracy that any country has. I'm not going to split hairs about what a "real" democracy is. The fact is, our democracy is good enough that we, the people, (barely) stopped a fascist leader from maintaining power for the indefinite future, despite his very sincere desire to hold on to that power.
  - starkd 6y ago
    To be fair here, they didn't come anywhere near overthrowing anything. One woman protestor got shot by a CP officer. Three had medical emergencies (e.g. heart attacks). A CP officer died from a heart attack after getting hit in the head. A tragedy, yes, that never should have happened, but it wasn't organized enough to take over anything.
    - valuearb 6y ago
      Five minutes difference and they could have captured or killed half of congress. Then it becomes martial law time, with Trump retaining power. How close is that?
      - 6y ago
halfjoking 6y ago
"Storming the capital" had as much legitimacy as the "raid on AREA 51." Those people dressed like Huck Finn Braveheart had as much chance of overthrowing the US government as memelords did kidnapping an alien and bringing intergalactic peace. This feels like 9/11 all over again. You got the worst legislation in US history as a result of 9/11. (the Patriotic Act) What's going to be the Patriotic Act for the internet now everyone is convinced we are being attacked? We know they want to get rid of Section 230. How bad is the law going to be that replaces it?
- hackyhacky 6y ago
  Really? They overwhelmed police and entered the building. The Vice President was moved to a "secure location." If they had arrived 5 minutes earlier, they'd have entered the House full of representatives, who could have been killed or taken hostage. We were a hair's width away from losing democracy and you can't take it seriously. We are, literally, being attacked by fascists, anarchists, and neo-Nazis. As I said, it's hard to see these things until it's too late. What happened on Wednesday was nearly the end. If you still don't see it, you're wearing blinders.
  - vangelis 6y ago
    I doubt any of the StopTheSteal group has read Kropotkin or spouts on about mutual aid. Interesting characterization there...
  - halfjoking 6y ago
    It was on purpose. Like I'm saying powerful people want to convince America we are being attacked. The best way to do that is to make it look like a real threat. They basically left the front door open, where BLM protesters got tear gas immediately. Do you disagree that the response to the two groups of protesters was a little uneven? The only difference in our opinions is that I think the response was on purpose. Huck Finn Braveheart is not a criminal mastermind. The number of protesters were miniscule compared to the BLM protesters. If the secret service and police actually wanted to stop them it would have been very easy.
starkd 6y ago
Respectfully, I think you missed the point. There are many voices on parler not out to overthrow anything. You may disagree with them, but they are within the mainstream of political debate. The power of a tech oligarchy to take out its competitor is a serious violation of anti-trust law. There are less ham-fisted approaches to dealing with illegal activity. The DOJ and FBI have effective means to do it.
- r00fus 6y ago
  Now that the Parler dataset has been harvested - we may actually get to see how many of those voices were rational.
- MartinCron 6y ago
  If you're within the mainstream of political debate, you have no problem existing on mainstream social networks.
  - starkd 6y ago
    But, as a consumer, they have the right to choose the platform they want to be on. Twitter and Facebook have their problems. The element of user choice should be a constant incentive to improve.
    - MartinCron 6y ago
      Of course, I was responding to the sentiment of "You can't discuss conservative views on (platform x)!" which is generally untrue.
- hackyhacky 6y ago
  Whether or not there are some rational voices on Parler is beside the point: Parler is not moderating the voices that support and plan actual violence. That means that any company that supports Parler, including Apple and AWS until recently, is potentially also complicit in that violence. Those companies have warned Parler that they need to moderate, and Parler has not acquiesced. Apple and Amazon absolutely have the legal right to not do business with anyone, for any reason; and they have the ethical obligation to not do business with anyone openly proposing violence.
reddog 6y ago
I've read that Twitter and Facebook were used more than Parler to orchestarate the capital takeover. But, being founding members of the high tech corporate cartel, they will never get banned. Your right though -- you often can't see the rise of authoritarianism until its too late. Sometimes it comes from the place you least expect.

eplanit 6y ago

Uh, the "rise of authoritarianism" is the tech companies acting -- at the moment that Congress confirmed Biden's win -- to silence conservative voices (yeah, yeah, private companies, I know). Twitter and Facebook have given Marxism (i.e. BLM) a platform during these past few years, whose explicit goal is to dismantle American democracy. We're indeed seeing the rise of authoritarianism...I think you're confused as to who the authoritarians are.

hackyhacky 6y ago
A private company cannot be authoritarian. Authoritarianism is a form of government. BLM is not anti-democracy, while those who invaded the Capitol obviously are. If you consider the silencing of organized threats to overthrow the US government by neo-Nazis and Confederates to be acts against "conservative voices," this tells us a lot about what "conservatism" means now.
- eplanit 6y ago
  When a private company acts in union with, on behalf of, and/or in support of the regime and its political objectives, it is part of the authoritarian system. I think you'd say the same of Twitter were it aligned with the right instead of the left.
- StellarTabi 6y ago
  > A private company cannot be authoritarian. Almost all private companies are authoritarian. Examples of non-authoritarian companies might include co-ops.
  - jackthehammer 6y ago
    Then why does it feel like authoritarianism when Twitter and Facebook remove all content from and lock out the President of the United States and any of his supporters?
davewritescode 6y ago
You're the only one who's confused. BLM is both a sentiment and a real political organization. The sentiment is overwhelmingly popular whereas the actual political movement is not. You're attempting to lump them together in a way that most people don't It's really hard to argue that conservative voices are completely silenced when the have the largest network news television station in the country. Take a look at the New York Times best seller list sometime and look at how many conservative authors make the list. Yes, you can't spread fake bullshit on Twitter anymore about how the election was stolen but even that would've been ok until 5 people died trying to overthrow the capital. Actions have consequences, and unfortunately for conservatives those consequences are a purge from social media as big business seeks to distance itself from radical right-wing politics. Democracy won here, sorry.
- eplanit 6y ago
  If you read your first sentence, you might see how funny it actually is: "You're the only one who's confused. BLM is both a sentiment and a real political organization. The sentiment is overwhelmingly popular whereas the actual political movement is not." Yeah, that's not confusing at all. Kind of like "Hey, 'Defund the Police' doesn't mean defund the police" Maybe the organizers should hire (better) PR firms.
  - davewritescode 6y ago
    BLM has fantastic PR for an organization that has pretty far left views. That was exactly my point. People are generally positive towards to main stated goals of the organization, preventing police abuse against black people. It resonates with their own experience and the experience of black people they know. You're trying to conflate the detailed political views of an organization with people who tend to agree that Black people need to be treated like human beings by police officers. I also agree, 'Defund the Police' is a shit term for Police Reform.
  - wavefunction 6y ago
    Can't reply to davewritescode but... BLM as a political movement believes that American law enforcement disproportionately targets black citizens with violence disproportionate to the alleged crimes or situations in which the violence occurs. This is not a far left view in my opinion, as someone who hold "far-left"/left-libertarian views on a variety of subjects. "Defund the police" has been proposed by some people who share this core beliefs proposed by the BLM movement as a way to reduce the disproportionate violence against black citizens in the US. Unfortunately, I think it is a vaguely and poorly phrased slogan because I have seen that for some it means abolishment of law enforcement and for many others it means restructuring the funding of law enforcement to provide alternative public services to people who are having a mental health crisis, for example. The idea of reducing law enforcement budgets or redirecting some of the resources currently budgeted for law enforcement to alternative public services doesn't seem to me to necessarily consist of a "far-left" policy either, though that is because I think the notion of reducing law enforcement violence when unwarranted should and is a concern of people of most citizens other than a distinct minority. Of course we are all awash in the propaganda and media messaging of disparate groups with various agendas so understanding all of this in a shared and cohesive manner as a society is messy and somewhat difficult, but well-worth trying.

cabalamat 6y ago

> Parler and its associates have come a lot closer to dismantling American democracy than Iran ever has The USA isn't really a democracy. For it to be democratic it would have to use more democratic voting systems than FPTP and the electoral college. It's an oligarchy, but by the ruling class, which includes the big tech companies. > Neither Twitter, nor Apple, nor Amazon want to be responsible for the rise of a fascist regime in the US. Unless it's one where they are in charge. It's self-evidently impossible for Trump and the red tribe to overthrow the US system of government, they simply don't have control of enough of the levers of power. It would be a lot easier for Biden/Harris and the blue tribe to do so, as they control a lot more of the levers of power (e.g. academia, journalism, big tech).

hackyhacky 6y ago
An armed mob very nearly did succeed in overthrowing the government. And I suspect we haven't seen the last of them. We have the closest thing to a democracy that any country has. I'm not going to split hairs about what a "real" democracy is. The fact is, our democracy is good enough that we, the people, (barely) stopped a fascist leader from maintaining power for the indefinite future, despite his very sincere desire to hold on to that power.
- starkd 6y ago
  To be fair here, they didn't come anywhere near overthrowing anything. One woman protestor got shot by a CP officer. Three had medical emergencies (e.g. heart attacks). A CP officer died from a heart attack after getting hit in the head. A tragedy, yes, that never should have happened, but it wasn't organized enough to take over anything.
  - valuearb 6y ago
    Five minutes difference and they could have captured or killed half of congress. Then it becomes martial law time, with Trump retaining power. How close is that?
    - 6y ago

halfjoking 6y ago

"Storming the capital" had as much legitimacy as the "raid on AREA 51." Those people dressed like Huck Finn Braveheart had as much chance of overthrowing the US government as memelords did kidnapping an alien and bringing intergalactic peace. This feels like 9/11 all over again. You got the worst legislation in US history as a result of 9/11. (the Patriotic Act) What's going to be the Patriotic Act for the internet now everyone is convinced we are being attacked? We know they want to get rid of Section 230. How bad is the law going to be that replaces it?

hackyhacky 6y ago
Really? They overwhelmed police and entered the building. The Vice President was moved to a "secure location." If they had arrived 5 minutes earlier, they'd have entered the House full of representatives, who could have been killed or taken hostage. We were a hair's width away from losing democracy and you can't take it seriously. We are, literally, being attacked by fascists, anarchists, and neo-Nazis. As I said, it's hard to see these things until it's too late. What happened on Wednesday was nearly the end. If you still don't see it, you're wearing blinders.
- vangelis 6y ago
  I doubt any of the StopTheSteal group has read Kropotkin or spouts on about mutual aid. Interesting characterization there...
- halfjoking 6y ago
  It was on purpose. Like I'm saying powerful people want to convince America we are being attacked. The best way to do that is to make it look like a real threat. They basically left the front door open, where BLM protesters got tear gas immediately. Do you disagree that the response to the two groups of protesters was a little uneven? The only difference in our opinions is that I think the response was on purpose. Huck Finn Braveheart is not a criminal mastermind. The number of protesters were miniscule compared to the BLM protesters. If the secret service and police actually wanted to stop them it would have been very easy.

starkd 6y ago

Respectfully, I think you missed the point. There are many voices on parler not out to overthrow anything. You may disagree with them, but they are within the mainstream of political debate. The power of a tech oligarchy to take out its competitor is a serious violation of anti-trust law. There are less ham-fisted approaches to dealing with illegal activity. The DOJ and FBI have effective means to do it.

r00fus 6y ago
Now that the Parler dataset has been harvested - we may actually get to see how many of those voices were rational.
MartinCron 6y ago
If you're within the mainstream of political debate, you have no problem existing on mainstream social networks.
- starkd 6y ago
  But, as a consumer, they have the right to choose the platform they want to be on. Twitter and Facebook have their problems. The element of user choice should be a constant incentive to improve.
  - MartinCron 6y ago
    Of course, I was responding to the sentiment of "You can't discuss conservative views on (platform x)!" which is generally untrue.
hackyhacky 6y ago
Whether or not there are some rational voices on Parler is beside the point: Parler is not moderating the voices that support and plan actual violence. That means that any company that supports Parler, including Apple and AWS until recently, is potentially also complicit in that violence. Those companies have warned Parler that they need to moderate, and Parler has not acquiesced. Apple and Amazon absolutely have the legal right to not do business with anyone, for any reason; and they have the ethical obligation to not do business with anyone openly proposing violence.

reddog 6y ago

I've read that Twitter and Facebook were used more than Parler to orchestarate the capital takeover. But, being founding members of the high tech corporate cartel, they will never get banned. Your right though -- you often can't see the rise of authoritarianism until its too late. Sometimes it comes from the place you least expect.