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I guess you could argue Facebook should be shutdown as parlor was. Although parlor was only used for hate, Facebook didn't do anything to stop it either. I thi

I guess you could argue Facebook should be shutdown as parlor was. Although parlor was only used for hate, Facebook didn't do anything to stop it either. I think a big issue is how facebooks algo (and others) are built for maximum profit which at the same time also radicalizes people in their filter bubble.

9front 6y ago
Maybe "parlor was only used for hate" but Parler, no. There is questionable content on Parler as much as is on Twitter, Facebook, etc.
- thelean12 6y ago
  Parlor was created in response to hate moderation on other platforms. It's not too far off to say "Parlor was created as a space for hate". Only used for hate is obviously wrong, but that doesn't change much.
  - yters 6y ago
    unfortunately, "hate speech" seems to be defined as "whatever makes me upset" where "me" is a group accepted by tge platform e.g. there are prolife groups that say nothing negative against any people, but get banned for explaining the facts behind abortion and who does it
    - safog 6y ago
      Have you been on /r/The_Donald at all? Or are you just making whatever you'd like up?
      - yters 6y ago
        sure, they might be hate speech, but seems no worse than what i see on daily kos however, i am talking about an entirely separate group that goes out of its way to not say anything hateful and not condone violence due to tragic occurrences in the past, yet gets banned due to pointing out inconvenient and very uncomfortable truths if free speech cannot protect uncomfortable yet unhateful speech, it is worthless
        elbrian 6y ago
        Could you provide a couple examples of the types of groups you're referring to?
        yters 6y ago
        yes, prolife groups in the past abortionists have been shot due to what prolifers have said, so now they go out of their way to avoid anything hateful and violence inducing, yet they are getting deplatformed en mass in the fallout from 6 Jan, which is entirely unrelated to their messaging
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        jandrese 6y ago
        Is there an example of an anti-abortion group being deplatformed that you can point me towards? I saw Reddit banned a number of subreddits on Jan 6, but I don't specifically recall any of them looking like anti-abortion subreddits.
        yters 6y ago
        I am wrong about deplatforming in response to 6 Jan. However, prolife groups are regularly deplatformed without presenting misinformation or hate speech.
        patagurbon 6y ago
        Can you point to one?
        yters 6y ago
        live action is one well known one https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Action_(organization)#Social_media https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Action_(organization)#S...
  - lazyjones 6y ago
    > Parlor was created in response to hate moderation on other platforms. Actually most people there seem to perceive it as an alternative to the biased nature of Twitter. They didn't want to get banned on Twitter for something that's being tolerated when done by left-leaning groups.
  - Nacdor 6y ago
    > Parlor was created in response to hate moderation on other platforms. Again, not true. Parler was created in response to biased moderation of other platforms and was intended to be bipartisan.
spaced-out 6y ago
To be fair though, Facebook is now a lot more aggressive at removing radical political groups/content.
- papaf 6y ago
  Facebook is not co-operating with the genocide investigation: https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/how-facebook-is-complicit-in-myanmars-attacks-on-minorities/ https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/how-facebook-is-complicit-in...
MrMan 6y ago
I think Facebook should be broken up but I havent heard any good ideas yet regarding how to somehow regulate social networks. Beyond hate speech, I dont see any reason to limit what people can say. Somehow limiting how the network connects people, or how content propagates, seems like the key. Only FB has done the social experiments at scale to know how to engineer this, which is faintly ironic.
- unethical_ban 6y ago
  It is a tough nut to crack. Social media as we know it today brings some benefits. I thank some aspects of "woke" twitter for making me realize the reality of several societal ills, pulling me out of the "theory only" political alignment that is Libertarianism (IMO). Letting everyday people, including the poor, minorities, and targeted groups, have a direct platform to share their story with the world, is a positive thing. In other words, good-faith usage of the platform. Clearly, there is flipside. Private Facebook groups to share hate speech or otherwise echo awful thoughts. Legions of bots controlled by political organizations or nation-states trying to divide and conquer a population. It is a losing battle to moderate these platforms. Facebook has no inherent right to exist as it does, or rather, make a profit as it does - and I wonder if extreme measures, such as a partial repeal of section 230, should be considered. Like all laws, small-p-progressive measures should be taken. Small and medium websites should not necessarily be held liable for content posted by others. But as a network grows to have hundreds of millions of users, perhaps they should? I'm not sure either.
  - MrMan 6y ago
    I am not on twitter, deactivate my FB accounts. Not a boycott, rather an attempt at quarantine. I want to remain friends with my friends at both ends of the political spectrum. I feel that if we collectively understood social graph theory better we could propose tweaks to make these networks more "fair" and by fair I dont mean with a respect towards a point of view, but rather less likely to create emergent, undesirable social phenomena like ISIS, genocide, white nationalist rebellion. But I have never seen any papers that explore these topics, on the other hand my interests have been elsewhere.
  - 6y ago
rvz 6y ago
Even if you wanted to, Facebook can't be de-platformed. They are entrenched in the internet and own their own data centres, are also themselves domain registrars and members part of the ICANN.
- pmlnr 6y ago
  Anything can be de-platformed.
- spoonjim 6y ago
  Ultimately if someone with guns and tanks decides to deplatform you, it’s happening unless you can get your own guys with guns and tanks to protect you.
- Uhhrrr 6y ago
  Also, our economy might not be able to handle the spike in productivity if it were to go away.
- drak0n1c 6y ago
  Market entrenchment is an unfortunate side effect. The oligopolistic old guard can weather or ignore such criticism against themselves and lobby for their own Section 230 protections, while using such to eliminate small market entrants.
- mr_toad 6y ago
  ISPs and other networks could in theory refuse to peer with them. But from what we’ve seen in the past their behaviour would have to be especially egregious for this to be even contemplated.
tootie 6y ago
The distinction is that Facebook are failing in their moderation efforts while Parler prohibits themselves from even trying. There's also the face that Facebook has such an enormous footprint of positive or neutral content. It would be like shutting down air travel because some planes crash.
- trident5000 6y ago
  Is this not an absurd standard considering section 230 exists? Where the govt literally tells platforms to not moderate? From my understanding Parler has been taking down explicit calls for violence but the bar is just high.
  - GavinMcG 6y ago
    > From my understanding Parler has been taking down explicit calls for violence but the bar is just high. Amazon pulled the plug specifically because they were not doing so. https://www.gadgetsnow.com/tech-news/read-amazons-letter-to-social-networking-app-parler-on-its-removal/articleshow/80206778.cms https://www.gadgetsnow.com/tech-news/read-amazons-letter-to-...
    - trident5000 6y ago
      You cant really be using a letter from the company that dropped them as a source. Of course they are going to say all of this. Twitter just recently let hang mike pence trend for a while until it was taken down. Did they act fast enough? This is all subject to interpretation. We just had a summer of riots that caused quite a bit of destruction, did they act fast enough there? Again, there isnt a science to this, its highly discretionary.
      - GavinMcG 6y ago
        > You cant really be using a letter from the company that dropped them as a source. Sure you can. That letter almost certainly was vetted by Amazon's legal department. Not everything is a grand conspiracy.
deleted 6y ago
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deleted 6y ago
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jimbob45 6y ago
Should we shut down radio too, since radio is frequently used in guerilla warfare? The technology isn’t the problem - the people feeling violent is. How very American is it that we want to immediately stamp out dissenting voices rather than actually solving the problem that these people disagree with (whatever it may be).
- MartinCron 6y ago
  I don't really care to try to "solve the problem" that white supremacists have.
  - jimbob45 6y ago
    I’m speaking more broadly. I don’t feel inclined to solve ISIS’ problems either but they’re not going to go away unless we sit down with them. Hardline stances seem nice until people get hurt and progress isn’t made.
  - imwillofficial 6y ago
    And that’s how things escalate.
    - MartinCron 6y ago
      So what is your alternative? Do we need to bend over backwards to appease the guys in “six million wasn’t enough” shirts? How much political legitimacy should we give to people who are all-in on ridiculous conspiracy theories? How much attention to Holocaust deniers deserve? Do flat-earthers deserve equal time in geography class?
      - imwillofficial 6y ago
        So you are lumping several groups together who have nothing to do with one another except the fact that you disagree with them. So the first step in deescalation would be to understand their grievances. What are the big issues they care about? Why do they care about them? Is there a common ground? The more you call regular Americans who’s parents and grandparents fought and died fighting Germany, Nazi’s, the more you show that you not only don’t understand them and their views, you show you have no interest in learning about their views. Remember what happened last time there was taxation without representation? The more you sum up large swaths of people with simple labels, the more you show your own bigotry and lack of empathy. First try to understand, then find common ground. These people are here to stay, we can either cooperate with them or fight them. Is the best armed population group on the planet the one you want to corner into armed conflict?
marcusverus 6y ago
> Although parlor was only used for hate I encourage everyone to keep an eye out for these casual little calumnies, presented without evidence.
- tathougies 6y ago
  Right. I used parler to do such things as follow EWTN. I stopped using Twitter for this sort of thing because I figured that -- with EWTN's stance on the trans issue -- it was only a matter of time before they were banned (there had been talk of banning JK Rowling for similar tweets at the time, so it's a reasonable fear). I joined parler to not have to worry about this. This constant belittling of anyone who does not completely toe the line of whatever ethical system has taken over Twitter to classify people like me -- a brown man with immigrant parents -- as white supremacists is scary, dystopian, and insane.
  - jandrese 6y ago
    As a counterexample you claim to have joined Parlor because Twitter wouldn't let you hate transsexuals openly? This is supposed to support the premise that Parlor had a use for something other than to amplify hate speech?
    - xupybd 6y ago
      This is where it gets interesting and the devil really is in the detail on this one. If you define hate speech according to this: The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states that "any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence shall be prohibited by law". You are saying that this group cannot broadcast a message if that message tells transsexual people that they cannot be transsexual and be approved of by this groups god. Yet broadcasting such messages is a core part of their religion. So are you now discriminating against that religion in an effort to avoid discriminating against transsexual people? If that is so then your comment could be classed as hate speech. I don't think it should be but I do think this highlights the risks and the need to limit what we consider hate speech. That to err on the side of free speech is the safer option.
notahacker 6y ago
> Although parlor was only used for hate, There's your difference. Facebook is a network for a couple of billion people to communicate over which incidentally serves to amplify some of their hate. Parler is a niche network to provide a safe space for stuff too extreme for the likes of Facebook. (and no, Parler shouldn't be forcibly 'shut down' either, but it's unsurprising businesses don't want to transact with it)
AniseAbyss 6y ago
Parlor refused to moderate. Facebook at least makes an honest attempt to. And in case you haven't noticed governments across the world are stopping Facebook. Zuckerberg has been questioned in Washington and Brussels.
esja 6y ago
"Parlor [sic] was only used for hate" What does this mean exactly? All the content on Parler was hateful? Or something else?
jandrese 6y ago
Wasn't Parlor created explicitly because Facebook and Twitter started fact checking content on its platform and white supremacists were feeling unjustly targeted simply because their posts were being flagged as being nonfactual? It's not like they were going to start checking their sources or having any introspection. That's for wimps and losers.
99_00 6y ago
It's impossible to believe that Facebook, Twitter, iPhones, and Google weren't in major ways used by the perpetuators and organizers of the assault on the capital to facilitate their criminal conspiracy and actions. Selective enforcement of rules is being used to against political positions and, let's face it, competing platforms. >Although parlor was only used for hate, I don't think that is in evidence.
- temp8964 6y ago
  Anytime you look at the trending hashtags on Twitter they are always divisive and hatred. Even when unify was trending, the top twitters and top comments are the ones against unification, like "we don't unify with nazis".
  - tonfreed 6y ago
    What's considered a Nazi just keeps gradually expanding. Twitter seems at that point where any white male is a Nazi, and any woman that loses weight is enabling the white males so are therefore Nazis as well. I'm curious to see what happens when Biden refuses to meet with any of the BLM radicals and the more senior Democratic members of congress reign in the young ones like AOC, these people have outlived their usefulness now that Trump's out 3and I don't think they're going to like what comes next.
- BoorishBears 6y ago
  Site A has a TOS that bans hate speech Site B is just like Site A, but with less reach. However, their TOS allows hate speech as long as it's not tortious So on Site A a comment spamming nig**r will get you banned, and on Site B it is a-ok as long as it doesn't mention anyone's name. - Site B should be expected to have more hate speech. Additionally even if Site A gets hate speech, it's providers are more likely to give it leeway since it's not by design that hate speech appeared. Meanwhile Site B, by the very virtue of it's design becomes a lightning rod for hate speech not allowed on Site A, and it is understandable providers are not on board with it.
  - 6y ago
tomcam 6y ago
> Although parler was only used for hate I would love to see proof of that completely unsupportable statement. Obviously all social media sites are used for hate. Maybe they were used a higher percentage of the time, I don’t know. But your statement does nothing to add to the discourse and does a considerable amount to harm it.
- COGlory 6y ago
  Which is exactly the problem with trying to put a box around these things, and classify tools as the problem. The problem is people, not platforms, and trying to sort platforms into "full of hate" and "not full of hate", especially with some sort of coherent, crossable line that gets you shut down is never going to work, let alone work equitably.
victor106 6y ago
Also remember that Facebook is (partly?) to blame for the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential Election.
iujjkfjdkkdkf 6y ago
> only used for hate This reminds me of "BitTorrent is only used by illegal downloaders", "bitcoin is only used by criminals" etc.
- polemic 6y ago
  Where's the lie.
  - Alupis 6y ago
    >>> only used for hate >> This reminds me of "BitTorrent is only used by illegal downloaders", "bitcoin is only used by criminals" etc. > Where's the lie. Right here: https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspios_full_armhf/images/raspios_full_armhf-2020-12-04/2020-12-02-raspios-buster-armhf-full.zip.torrent https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspios_full_armhf/images/... There are all sorts of legitimate use cases for torrents, including downloading large linux distro install images.
    - lrossi 6y ago
      Many games have been using as well BitTorrent to distribute their installation files.
      - Alupis 6y ago
        It's a fantastic download protocol for anything large, has the possibility of being "paused" or resumed later, allows for content integrity checking, etc... such as video game files.
        PurpleFoxy 6y ago
        I think these days no games use BitTorrent anymore since it’s easier to distribute your own files now and users do not like unexpected large amounts of data usage which can slow down their other applications and use up their data cap
    - 6y ago
rodgerd 6y ago
There has been a persistent campaign by people to get Facebook to take responsibility for the consequences of allowing this sort of thing - in this instance, they have served the same role that certain radio stations did during the genocides in Rwanda. None of this is news to folks who have been grappling with the responsibilities of social media companies, the tension between the value of grass-roots organising (often positive, as we've seen in the likes of the Arab Spring, or Hong Kongers agitating for their rights) as it pivots into these kind of actions. The sudden interest in this mostly ends up looking like concern trolling from people who have been comfortable enjoying the dominance of "their side" in the political process for decades; "their side" in the overwhelming media presence directly controlled by, or underwritten by, the Mercers, Murdochs; the think tanks underwritten by the Kochs, and so on. I find it hard to grant much credibility when folks who have, for example, seemed comfortable with the idea that bakers should be able to turn away wedding cakes because of the sexual orientation of the purchaser, or that employers ought to be able to refuse contraceptives to employees because of the religious opinions of the owners now suddenly affecting concern for a slow-motion genocide in a country they likely couldn't locate on a map yesterday.
lxe 6y ago
Parler was used to sell t-shirts by fake trump accounts.
whoisthemachine 6y ago
The difference is no single entity can likely "shutdown" Facebook, since it likely runs its own servers, or has multiple back-ends in case one shuts down.
gdilla 6y ago
Shut down by who? Parlers vendors dropped them. They weren’t shut down by the feds.facebooks little vendors are free to take a stand and drop their biggest customer, sure. Facebook rolls it’s own infrastructure so it would take federal overreach to shut them down. This ain’t China, however.

9front 6y ago

Maybe "parlor was only used for hate" but Parler, no. There is questionable content on Parler as much as is on Twitter, Facebook, etc.

thelean12 6y ago
Parlor was created in response to hate moderation on other platforms. It's not too far off to say "Parlor was created as a space for hate". Only used for hate is obviously wrong, but that doesn't change much.
- yters 6y ago
  unfortunately, "hate speech" seems to be defined as "whatever makes me upset" where "me" is a group accepted by tge platform e.g. there are prolife groups that say nothing negative against any people, but get banned for explaining the facts behind abortion and who does it
  - safog 6y ago
    Have you been on /r/The_Donald at all? Or are you just making whatever you'd like up?
    - yters 6y ago
      sure, they might be hate speech, but seems no worse than what i see on daily kos however, i am talking about an entirely separate group that goes out of its way to not say anything hateful and not condone violence due to tragic occurrences in the past, yet gets banned due to pointing out inconvenient and very uncomfortable truths if free speech cannot protect uncomfortable yet unhateful speech, it is worthless
      - elbrian 6y ago
        Could you provide a couple examples of the types of groups you're referring to?
        yters 6y ago
        yes, prolife groups in the past abortionists have been shot due to what prolifers have said, so now they go out of their way to avoid anything hateful and violence inducing, yet they are getting deplatformed en mass in the fallout from 6 Jan, which is entirely unrelated to their messaging
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        jandrese 6y ago
        Is there an example of an anti-abortion group being deplatformed that you can point me towards? I saw Reddit banned a number of subreddits on Jan 6, but I don't specifically recall any of them looking like anti-abortion subreddits.
        yters 6y ago
        I am wrong about deplatforming in response to 6 Jan. However, prolife groups are regularly deplatformed without presenting misinformation or hate speech.
        patagurbon 6y ago
        Can you point to one?
        yters 6y ago
        live action is one well known one https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Action_(organization)#Social_media https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Action_(organization)#S...
- lazyjones 6y ago
  > Parlor was created in response to hate moderation on other platforms. Actually most people there seem to perceive it as an alternative to the biased nature of Twitter. They didn't want to get banned on Twitter for something that's being tolerated when done by left-leaning groups.
- Nacdor 6y ago
  > Parlor was created in response to hate moderation on other platforms. Again, not true. Parler was created in response to biased moderation of other platforms and was intended to be bipartisan.

spaced-out 6y ago

To be fair though, Facebook is now a lot more aggressive at removing radical political groups/content.

papaf 6y ago
Facebook is not co-operating with the genocide investigation: https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/how-facebook-is-complicit-in-myanmars-attacks-on-minorities/ https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/how-facebook-is-complicit-in...

MrMan 6y ago

I think Facebook should be broken up but I havent heard any good ideas yet regarding how to somehow regulate social networks. Beyond hate speech, I dont see any reason to limit what people can say. Somehow limiting how the network connects people, or how content propagates, seems like the key. Only FB has done the social experiments at scale to know how to engineer this, which is faintly ironic.

unethical_ban 6y ago
It is a tough nut to crack. Social media as we know it today brings some benefits. I thank some aspects of "woke" twitter for making me realize the reality of several societal ills, pulling me out of the "theory only" political alignment that is Libertarianism (IMO). Letting everyday people, including the poor, minorities, and targeted groups, have a direct platform to share their story with the world, is a positive thing. In other words, good-faith usage of the platform. Clearly, there is flipside. Private Facebook groups to share hate speech or otherwise echo awful thoughts. Legions of bots controlled by political organizations or nation-states trying to divide and conquer a population. It is a losing battle to moderate these platforms. Facebook has no inherent right to exist as it does, or rather, make a profit as it does - and I wonder if extreme measures, such as a partial repeal of section 230, should be considered. Like all laws, small-p-progressive measures should be taken. Small and medium websites should not necessarily be held liable for content posted by others. But as a network grows to have hundreds of millions of users, perhaps they should? I'm not sure either.
- MrMan 6y ago
  I am not on twitter, deactivate my FB accounts. Not a boycott, rather an attempt at quarantine. I want to remain friends with my friends at both ends of the political spectrum. I feel that if we collectively understood social graph theory better we could propose tweaks to make these networks more "fair" and by fair I dont mean with a respect towards a point of view, but rather less likely to create emergent, undesirable social phenomena like ISIS, genocide, white nationalist rebellion. But I have never seen any papers that explore these topics, on the other hand my interests have been elsewhere.
- 6y ago

rvz 6y ago

Even if you wanted to, Facebook can't be de-platformed. They are entrenched in the internet and own their own data centres, are also themselves domain registrars and members part of the ICANN.

pmlnr 6y ago
Anything can be de-platformed.
spoonjim 6y ago
Ultimately if someone with guns and tanks decides to deplatform you, it’s happening unless you can get your own guys with guns and tanks to protect you.
Uhhrrr 6y ago
Also, our economy might not be able to handle the spike in productivity if it were to go away.
drak0n1c 6y ago
Market entrenchment is an unfortunate side effect. The oligopolistic old guard can weather or ignore such criticism against themselves and lobby for their own Section 230 protections, while using such to eliminate small market entrants.
mr_toad 6y ago
ISPs and other networks could in theory refuse to peer with them. But from what we’ve seen in the past their behaviour would have to be especially egregious for this to be even contemplated.

tootie 6y ago

The distinction is that Facebook are failing in their moderation efforts while Parler prohibits themselves from even trying. There's also the face that Facebook has such an enormous footprint of positive or neutral content. It would be like shutting down air travel because some planes crash.

trident5000 6y ago
Is this not an absurd standard considering section 230 exists? Where the govt literally tells platforms to not moderate? From my understanding Parler has been taking down explicit calls for violence but the bar is just high.
- GavinMcG 6y ago
  > From my understanding Parler has been taking down explicit calls for violence but the bar is just high. Amazon pulled the plug specifically because they were not doing so. https://www.gadgetsnow.com/tech-news/read-amazons-letter-to-social-networking-app-parler-on-its-removal/articleshow/80206778.cms https://www.gadgetsnow.com/tech-news/read-amazons-letter-to-...
  - trident5000 6y ago
    You cant really be using a letter from the company that dropped them as a source. Of course they are going to say all of this. Twitter just recently let hang mike pence trend for a while until it was taken down. Did they act fast enough? This is all subject to interpretation. We just had a summer of riots that caused quite a bit of destruction, did they act fast enough there? Again, there isnt a science to this, its highly discretionary.
    - GavinMcG 6y ago
      > You cant really be using a letter from the company that dropped them as a source. Sure you can. That letter almost certainly was vetted by Amazon's legal department. Not everything is a grand conspiracy.

deleted 6y ago

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deleted 6y ago

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jimbob45 6y ago

Should we shut down radio too, since radio is frequently used in guerilla warfare? The technology isn’t the problem - the people feeling violent is. How very American is it that we want to immediately stamp out dissenting voices rather than actually solving the problem that these people disagree with (whatever it may be).

MartinCron 6y ago
I don't really care to try to "solve the problem" that white supremacists have.
- jimbob45 6y ago
  I’m speaking more broadly. I don’t feel inclined to solve ISIS’ problems either but they’re not going to go away unless we sit down with them. Hardline stances seem nice until people get hurt and progress isn’t made.
- imwillofficial 6y ago
  And that’s how things escalate.
  - MartinCron 6y ago
    So what is your alternative? Do we need to bend over backwards to appease the guys in “six million wasn’t enough” shirts? How much political legitimacy should we give to people who are all-in on ridiculous conspiracy theories? How much attention to Holocaust deniers deserve? Do flat-earthers deserve equal time in geography class?
    - imwillofficial 6y ago
      So you are lumping several groups together who have nothing to do with one another except the fact that you disagree with them. So the first step in deescalation would be to understand their grievances. What are the big issues they care about? Why do they care about them? Is there a common ground? The more you call regular Americans who’s parents and grandparents fought and died fighting Germany, Nazi’s, the more you show that you not only don’t understand them and their views, you show you have no interest in learning about their views. Remember what happened last time there was taxation without representation? The more you sum up large swaths of people with simple labels, the more you show your own bigotry and lack of empathy. First try to understand, then find common ground. These people are here to stay, we can either cooperate with them or fight them. Is the best armed population group on the planet the one you want to corner into armed conflict?

marcusverus 6y ago

> Although parlor was only used for hate I encourage everyone to keep an eye out for these casual little calumnies, presented without evidence.

tathougies 6y ago
Right. I used parler to do such things as follow EWTN. I stopped using Twitter for this sort of thing because I figured that -- with EWTN's stance on the trans issue -- it was only a matter of time before they were banned (there had been talk of banning JK Rowling for similar tweets at the time, so it's a reasonable fear). I joined parler to not have to worry about this. This constant belittling of anyone who does not completely toe the line of whatever ethical system has taken over Twitter to classify people like me -- a brown man with immigrant parents -- as white supremacists is scary, dystopian, and insane.
- jandrese 6y ago
  As a counterexample you claim to have joined Parlor because Twitter wouldn't let you hate transsexuals openly? This is supposed to support the premise that Parlor had a use for something other than to amplify hate speech?
  - xupybd 6y ago
    This is where it gets interesting and the devil really is in the detail on this one. If you define hate speech according to this: The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states that "any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence shall be prohibited by law". You are saying that this group cannot broadcast a message if that message tells transsexual people that they cannot be transsexual and be approved of by this groups god. Yet broadcasting such messages is a core part of their religion. So are you now discriminating against that religion in an effort to avoid discriminating against transsexual people? If that is so then your comment could be classed as hate speech. I don't think it should be but I do think this highlights the risks and the need to limit what we consider hate speech. That to err on the side of free speech is the safer option.

notahacker 6y ago

> Although parlor was only used for hate, There's your difference. Facebook is a network for a couple of billion people to communicate over which incidentally serves to amplify some of their hate. Parler is a niche network to provide a safe space for stuff too extreme for the likes of Facebook. (and no, Parler shouldn't be forcibly 'shut down' either, but it's unsurprising businesses don't want to transact with it)

AniseAbyss 6y ago

Parlor refused to moderate. Facebook at least makes an honest attempt to. And in case you haven't noticed governments across the world are stopping Facebook. Zuckerberg has been questioned in Washington and Brussels.

esja 6y ago

"Parlor [sic] was only used for hate" What does this mean exactly? All the content on Parler was hateful? Or something else?

jandrese 6y ago

Wasn't Parlor created explicitly because Facebook and Twitter started fact checking content on its platform and white supremacists were feeling unjustly targeted simply because their posts were being flagged as being nonfactual? It's not like they were going to start checking their sources or having any introspection. That's for wimps and losers.

99_00 6y ago

It's impossible to believe that Facebook, Twitter, iPhones, and Google weren't in major ways used by the perpetuators and organizers of the assault on the capital to facilitate their criminal conspiracy and actions. Selective enforcement of rules is being used to against political positions and, let's face it, competing platforms. >Although parlor was only used for hate, I don't think that is in evidence.

temp8964 6y ago
Anytime you look at the trending hashtags on Twitter they are always divisive and hatred. Even when unify was trending, the top twitters and top comments are the ones against unification, like "we don't unify with nazis".
- tonfreed 6y ago
  What's considered a Nazi just keeps gradually expanding. Twitter seems at that point where any white male is a Nazi, and any woman that loses weight is enabling the white males so are therefore Nazis as well. I'm curious to see what happens when Biden refuses to meet with any of the BLM radicals and the more senior Democratic members of congress reign in the young ones like AOC, these people have outlived their usefulness now that Trump's out 3and I don't think they're going to like what comes next.
BoorishBears 6y ago
Site A has a TOS that bans hate speech Site B is just like Site A, but with less reach. However, their TOS allows hate speech as long as it's not tortious So on Site A a comment spamming nig**r will get you banned, and on Site B it is a-ok as long as it doesn't mention anyone's name. - Site B should be expected to have more hate speech. Additionally even if Site A gets hate speech, it's providers are more likely to give it leeway since it's not by design that hate speech appeared. Meanwhile Site B, by the very virtue of it's design becomes a lightning rod for hate speech not allowed on Site A, and it is understandable providers are not on board with it.
- 6y ago

tomcam 6y ago

> Although parler was only used for hate I would love to see proof of that completely unsupportable statement. Obviously all social media sites are used for hate. Maybe they were used a higher percentage of the time, I don’t know. But your statement does nothing to add to the discourse and does a considerable amount to harm it.

COGlory 6y ago
Which is exactly the problem with trying to put a box around these things, and classify tools as the problem. The problem is people, not platforms, and trying to sort platforms into "full of hate" and "not full of hate", especially with some sort of coherent, crossable line that gets you shut down is never going to work, let alone work equitably.

victor106 6y ago

Also remember that Facebook is (partly?) to blame for the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential Election.

iujjkfjdkkdkf 6y ago

> only used for hate This reminds me of "BitTorrent is only used by illegal downloaders", "bitcoin is only used by criminals" etc.

polemic 6y ago
Where's the lie.
- Alupis 6y ago
  >>> only used for hate >> This reminds me of "BitTorrent is only used by illegal downloaders", "bitcoin is only used by criminals" etc. > Where's the lie. Right here: https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspios_full_armhf/images/raspios_full_armhf-2020-12-04/2020-12-02-raspios-buster-armhf-full.zip.torrent https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspios_full_armhf/images/... There are all sorts of legitimate use cases for torrents, including downloading large linux distro install images.
  - lrossi 6y ago
    Many games have been using as well BitTorrent to distribute their installation files.
    - Alupis 6y ago
      It's a fantastic download protocol for anything large, has the possibility of being "paused" or resumed later, allows for content integrity checking, etc... such as video game files.
      - PurpleFoxy 6y ago
        I think these days no games use BitTorrent anymore since it’s easier to distribute your own files now and users do not like unexpected large amounts of data usage which can slow down their other applications and use up their data cap
  - 6y ago

rodgerd 6y ago

There has been a persistent campaign by people to get Facebook to take responsibility for the consequences of allowing this sort of thing - in this instance, they have served the same role that certain radio stations did during the genocides in Rwanda. None of this is news to folks who have been grappling with the responsibilities of social media companies, the tension between the value of grass-roots organising (often positive, as we've seen in the likes of the Arab Spring, or Hong Kongers agitating for their rights) as it pivots into these kind of actions. The sudden interest in this mostly ends up looking like concern trolling from people who have been comfortable enjoying the dominance of "their side" in the political process for decades; "their side" in the overwhelming media presence directly controlled by, or underwritten by, the Mercers, Murdochs; the think tanks underwritten by the Kochs, and so on. I find it hard to grant much credibility when folks who have, for example, seemed comfortable with the idea that bakers should be able to turn away wedding cakes because of the sexual orientation of the purchaser, or that employers ought to be able to refuse contraceptives to employees because of the religious opinions of the owners now suddenly affecting concern for a slow-motion genocide in a country they likely couldn't locate on a map yesterday.

lxe 6y ago

Parler was used to sell t-shirts by fake trump accounts.

whoisthemachine 6y ago

The difference is no single entity can likely "shutdown" Facebook, since it likely runs its own servers, or has multiple back-ends in case one shuts down.

gdilla 6y ago

Shut down by who? Parlers vendors dropped them. They weren’t shut down by the feds.facebooks little vendors are free to take a stand and drop their biggest customer, sure. Facebook rolls it’s own infrastructure so it would take federal overreach to shut them down. This ain’t China, however.