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Perhaps mine is a bit of a strange/controversial view among the HN crowd Actually yours is the predominant view of those on the left and HN in general - “they

Perhaps mine is a bit of a strange/controversial view among the HN crowd Actually yours is the predominant view of those on the left and HN in general - “they are private companies so deal with it”. From a purely legal perspective, that view is almost certainly correct. The issue is a societal one. Half the country isn’t just going to sit down and shut up because a few liberal billionaires told them to. They’ll create alternatives, and then we will have not just a philosophically divided country, but effectively two Internets - one for conservatives and one for liberals. Where does it end from there? Do hotels and restaurants in California demand to see proof that you are a registered Democrat before you are allowed to patronize them? Do liberal employers start carrying out mass firings of conservative employees? We are seeing the beginnings of a country of ~300 million people being cracked in two, on a much deeper level than has ever happened before. I can’t think of something less American than a bunch of business owners ganging together to strangle the life out of a small business because they disagree with the politics of some its users.

jacobr1 6y ago
Right, we are talking about social norms. The social norm for most transaction commerce seems to be, that if the fees are paid and the services isn't "abused" (in a criminal sense) then the private beliefs of the purchaser don't matter. The grocer should still sell lettuce to heinous racists. But we are starting to break that norm, beginning with the natural wedges: commerce where the service or product _IS_ enabling the purchasing in a direct way. The question is if we can stop at _direct_ enablement or whether it will continue to indirect forms. A scary example would be for Square to start refusing to process payments for ideological reasons.
- spollo 6y ago
  I suppose one could argue your scary example has already occurred. I believe stripe cut off Donald Trump [1]. As a non-American, I don't really care about Trump and may be a bit ignorant here, but I find the big tech companies cutting him off under "inciting violence" a bit of a stretch. To me, it's actually extra scary to cut off a politician's fundraising for disagreeing with their "politics". [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/stripe-stops-processing-payments-for-trump-campaign-website-11610319116 https://www.wsj.com/articles/stripe-stops-processing-payment...
  - nobody9999 6y ago
    >it's actually extra scary to cut off a politician's fundraising for disagreeing with their "politics" Except that's not what happened. Stripe didn't cut off the Trump campaign's ability to raise funds. They didn't block access to their bank accounts. They didn't freeze their assets. Rather, one company (and they aren't even close to the largest player in that industry) chose not to process online credit card transactions for them. The Trump campaign has many other online payment processors that it can do business with. They can still accept donations via many other means (checks, bank transfers, cash, etc., etc.). A single company (which is just a group of people) decided they didn't want to do business with another group of people. Stripe, it's shareholders and employees are under no obligation to do business with anyone. And the fact that the customer is a political entity strengthens that, as their right to support (or not) any particular political entity, candidate or position is integral to a free society.
    - hackinthebochs 6y ago
      >Rather, one company... chose not to process online credit card transactions for them. I don't see how people can make this argument with a straight face. If you accept that this one company should be allowed to decide to cut off someone for ideological reasons, you tacitly accept that all companies could cut someone off for the same reason. Hiding behind it being "only one" right now is to use a technicality to dodge having to defend the principle you are implicitly advocating. The action isn't more right or wrong because one or more company is doing it--you either defend the principle at full usage or you disavow it.
      - nobody9999 6y ago
        >I don't see how people can make this argument with a straight face. If you accept that this one company should be allowed to decide to cut off someone for ideological reasons, you tacitly accept that all companies could cut someone off for the same reason. I'm not people. I'm just me and don't represent anyone else except myself. As for it being "just one company," that isn't really important. It could be 10 or 100 or 1000 companies and I'd say the same thing. And not because of the content of the political views being (or not) supported. It has nothing to do with any of that. If the government can force Stripe (or anyone else) to support a particular (it doesn't matter which one either) viewpoint by forcing them to associate with a person or group they don't wish to associate with, then they can force me (or you, for that matter) to do the same. I can't and don't speak for anyone else. For me, it's about specific constitutional rights. I don't and won't support abridgement of those rights for anyone, whether I agree with them or not. If you believe that it's just fine for persons or organizations to have their freedom of association rights abridged, then you are anti-freedom and stand in opposition to the liberties and ideals in my constitution. And if that's true, then so be it. But don't try to pretend that your argument is anything other than an anti-liberty, anti-democratic (small d) one.
kenjackson 6y ago
> Actually yours is the predominant view of those on the left Actually it is the predominant view, left and right. Except in this specific case, where the right doesn't like it. > We are seeing the beginnings of a country of ~300 million people being cracked in two, on a much deeper level than has ever happened before. The Civil War may beg to differ. The real issue is that we've never reconciled the divergent view point from that war. Race is still the largest dividing factor in this country and this incident was about race (and ego) more than anything else.
- downandout 6y ago
  Except in this specific case, where the right doesn't like it. Show me an instance where anything remotely close to this happened - right leaning businesses banding together to take a left-leaning business entirely offline by cutting off all services to them. I’ll wait. Civil War... The Civil War occurred at a time when actual physical war was the predominant way that societal differences were settled. That is no longer the case, except perhaps in the minds of some of the idiots that stormed the Capitol. But on an intellectual level, this event with Parler is akin to an act of modern civil war. When you endeavor to kill an organization, are you not in a sense declaring war on them? Further, was this action not designed to frighten others into getting in line with the ruling party, lest they suffer the same fate? While no guns were used, those seem very similar to the actions normally taken by those engaging in civil war.
  - confidantlake 6y ago
    AWS deciding to no longer host Parler is not an act of civil war, modern or otherwise.
    - downandout 6y ago
      You’re right. But Apple, Google, and Amazon all colluding for the singular purpose of warning others that conservative speech will get their businesses instantly killed by the largest and most powerful companies on earth? That sure is.
  - 6y ago
nobody9999 6y ago
>Where does it end from there? Do hotels and restaurants in California demand to see proof that you are a registered Democrat before you are allowed to patronize them? Do liberal employers start carrying out mass firings of conservative employees? Except those are false equivalences. It's not "conservatives" that are the problem. And they aren't. They have just as much right as anyone else to their point of view, political preferences and to advocate for them as anyone else. However, those who would use violence, intimidation and lies to advance their political goals are not conservatives. Or liberals. They are, at best criminal thugs and, at worst, radical insurrectionists bent on destroying our constitutional republic and the rule of law. And calling such folks out for their behavior isn't a slap at "conservatives," because those who are honest when they call themselves that (at least in the US) want to preserve our constitutional system of government and the rule of law. Don't conflate the two. Because they aren't even remotely similar.
ryantgtg 6y ago
> Where does it end from there? That escalated quickly! Given that being “censored” by sites like Twitter is also a big complaint of the far left (because it has happened a lot), my hope is that splintering to alternative sites won’t be so binary. Having 40 Twitter clones seems better to me than having just one or two.
Can_Not 6y ago
> I can’t think of something less American than a bunch of business owners ganging together to strangle the life out of a small business This is the most American thing I can think of if you remove the last bit about "because of politics".
BlueTemplar 6y ago
"giant private companies can do whatever they want" is a much more rightist stance than a leftist one. And pretty anti-liberal too.

jacobr1 6y ago

Right, we are talking about social norms. The social norm for most transaction commerce seems to be, that if the fees are paid and the services isn't "abused" (in a criminal sense) then the private beliefs of the purchaser don't matter. The grocer should still sell lettuce to heinous racists. But we are starting to break that norm, beginning with the natural wedges: commerce where the service or product _IS_ enabling the purchasing in a direct way. The question is if we can stop at _direct_ enablement or whether it will continue to indirect forms. A scary example would be for Square to start refusing to process payments for ideological reasons.

spollo 6y ago
I suppose one could argue your scary example has already occurred. I believe stripe cut off Donald Trump [1]. As a non-American, I don't really care about Trump and may be a bit ignorant here, but I find the big tech companies cutting him off under "inciting violence" a bit of a stretch. To me, it's actually extra scary to cut off a politician's fundraising for disagreeing with their "politics". [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/stripe-stops-processing-payments-for-trump-campaign-website-11610319116 https://www.wsj.com/articles/stripe-stops-processing-payment...
- nobody9999 6y ago
  >it's actually extra scary to cut off a politician's fundraising for disagreeing with their "politics" Except that's not what happened. Stripe didn't cut off the Trump campaign's ability to raise funds. They didn't block access to their bank accounts. They didn't freeze their assets. Rather, one company (and they aren't even close to the largest player in that industry) chose not to process online credit card transactions for them. The Trump campaign has many other online payment processors that it can do business with. They can still accept donations via many other means (checks, bank transfers, cash, etc., etc.). A single company (which is just a group of people) decided they didn't want to do business with another group of people. Stripe, it's shareholders and employees are under no obligation to do business with anyone. And the fact that the customer is a political entity strengthens that, as their right to support (or not) any particular political entity, candidate or position is integral to a free society.
  - hackinthebochs 6y ago
    >Rather, one company... chose not to process online credit card transactions for them. I don't see how people can make this argument with a straight face. If you accept that this one company should be allowed to decide to cut off someone for ideological reasons, you tacitly accept that all companies could cut someone off for the same reason. Hiding behind it being "only one" right now is to use a technicality to dodge having to defend the principle you are implicitly advocating. The action isn't more right or wrong because one or more company is doing it--you either defend the principle at full usage or you disavow it.
    - nobody9999 6y ago
      >I don't see how people can make this argument with a straight face. If you accept that this one company should be allowed to decide to cut off someone for ideological reasons, you tacitly accept that all companies could cut someone off for the same reason. I'm not people. I'm just me and don't represent anyone else except myself. As for it being "just one company," that isn't really important. It could be 10 or 100 or 1000 companies and I'd say the same thing. And not because of the content of the political views being (or not) supported. It has nothing to do with any of that. If the government can force Stripe (or anyone else) to support a particular (it doesn't matter which one either) viewpoint by forcing them to associate with a person or group they don't wish to associate with, then they can force me (or you, for that matter) to do the same. I can't and don't speak for anyone else. For me, it's about specific constitutional rights. I don't and won't support abridgement of those rights for anyone, whether I agree with them or not. If you believe that it's just fine for persons or organizations to have their freedom of association rights abridged, then you are anti-freedom and stand in opposition to the liberties and ideals in my constitution. And if that's true, then so be it. But don't try to pretend that your argument is anything other than an anti-liberty, anti-democratic (small d) one.

kenjackson 6y ago

> Actually yours is the predominant view of those on the left Actually it is the predominant view, left and right. Except in this specific case, where the right doesn't like it. > We are seeing the beginnings of a country of ~300 million people being cracked in two, on a much deeper level than has ever happened before. The Civil War may beg to differ. The real issue is that we've never reconciled the divergent view point from that war. Race is still the largest dividing factor in this country and this incident was about race (and ego) more than anything else.

downandout 6y ago
Except in this specific case, where the right doesn't like it. Show me an instance where anything remotely close to this happened - right leaning businesses banding together to take a left-leaning business entirely offline by cutting off all services to them. I’ll wait. Civil War... The Civil War occurred at a time when actual physical war was the predominant way that societal differences were settled. That is no longer the case, except perhaps in the minds of some of the idiots that stormed the Capitol. But on an intellectual level, this event with Parler is akin to an act of modern civil war. When you endeavor to kill an organization, are you not in a sense declaring war on them? Further, was this action not designed to frighten others into getting in line with the ruling party, lest they suffer the same fate? While no guns were used, those seem very similar to the actions normally taken by those engaging in civil war.
- confidantlake 6y ago
  AWS deciding to no longer host Parler is not an act of civil war, modern or otherwise.
  - downandout 6y ago
    You’re right. But Apple, Google, and Amazon all colluding for the singular purpose of warning others that conservative speech will get their businesses instantly killed by the largest and most powerful companies on earth? That sure is.
- 6y ago

nobody9999 6y ago

>Where does it end from there? Do hotels and restaurants in California demand to see proof that you are a registered Democrat before you are allowed to patronize them? Do liberal employers start carrying out mass firings of conservative employees? Except those are false equivalences. It's not "conservatives" that are the problem. And they aren't. They have just as much right as anyone else to their point of view, political preferences and to advocate for them as anyone else. However, those who would use violence, intimidation and lies to advance their political goals are not conservatives. Or liberals. They are, at best criminal thugs and, at worst, radical insurrectionists bent on destroying our constitutional republic and the rule of law. And calling such folks out for their behavior isn't a slap at "conservatives," because those who are honest when they call themselves that (at least in the US) want to preserve our constitutional system of government and the rule of law. Don't conflate the two. Because they aren't even remotely similar.

ryantgtg 6y ago

> Where does it end from there? That escalated quickly! Given that being “censored” by sites like Twitter is also a big complaint of the far left (because it has happened a lot), my hope is that splintering to alternative sites won’t be so binary. Having 40 Twitter clones seems better to me than having just one or two.

Can_Not 6y ago

> I can’t think of something less American than a bunch of business owners ganging together to strangle the life out of a small business This is the most American thing I can think of if you remove the last bit about "because of politics".

BlueTemplar 6y ago

"giant private companies can do whatever they want" is a much more rightist stance than a leftist one. And pretty anti-liberal too.