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I feel like this argument is setting up a false dichotomy between saying it's the platforms' legal right and just throwing up your hands up and declaring "who c

I feel like this argument is setting up a false dichotomy between saying it's the platforms' legal right and just throwing up your hands up and declaring "who care?" Plenty of activities are legal, but censured by cultural norms. Prohibiting your users from participating in a discussion, because you don't like their political views should at least be recognized as a shitty thing to do. That doesn't mean there's a simple legal solution. But at the very least the users, from any part of the political spectrum, should be pissed off that the overlords in Mountain View have decided that certain ideas are too dangerous for their little brains.

tstrimple 6y ago
> Prohibiting your users from participating in a discussion, because you don't like their political views should at least be recognized as a shitty thing to do. Framing this as purely based on political views is disingenuous at best. No one is getting banned because they don't like the tax rate, or because of their view on universal healthcare.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > Framing this as purely based on political views is disingenuous at best. No one is getting banned because they don't like the tax rate, or because of their view on universal healthcare. Exactly right. Nothing would have happened to Parler if its userbase wasn't substantially affiliated with a mob that literally attacked the democratic process because they didn't like the result. I'm sure someone's thinking that the correct response to that is have the government police forces battle with the mob until it changes its mind of its own accord, rather than have (non-government) society take action against the root causes of the mob, like Parler. However, that's undesirable for reasons that should be obvious.
  - yellowapple 6y ago
    > However, that's undesirable for reasons that should be obvious. Not to mention entirely ignorant of the very notion of our government being ostensibly "by the people, of the people, for the people" - i.e. the government itself being a representation of society. So if society itself is broadly rejecting some viewpoint on its own, then it's kind of pointless for the government to get involved.
- Kusoneko 6y ago
  Everything is a political view these days.
- dcolkitt 6y ago
  It doesn't matter what it is. It's not the job of the people who assemble my phone to decide the content on the device. Their job is to shut up and move the bits through the pipes, not to have political opinions. People adopted app stores for security and stability- not political content moderation. The fact that they've decided to reinvent themselves as editorialists is as outrageous as if my mailman decided to tear out pages from my magazine subscriptions, if my cable company decided to black out specific television shows, or if the carmaker decided to censor radio stations it didn't like.
  - vinay_ys 6y ago
    Do you insist that a news channel or entertainment channel pickup every news item or program that is pitched to them? Do you expect the magazine to carry every article written and sent to them? I think the way the world is today is that the smart phone as a product is like this magazine or tv channel and the mobile network is the underlying common neutral infra. And the apps are like the news items or articles or serial programs in this analogy.

tstrimple 6y ago

> Prohibiting your users from participating in a discussion, because you don't like their political views should at least be recognized as a shitty thing to do. Framing this as purely based on political views is disingenuous at best. No one is getting banned because they don't like the tax rate, or because of their view on universal healthcare.

ardy42 6y ago
> Framing this as purely based on political views is disingenuous at best. No one is getting banned because they don't like the tax rate, or because of their view on universal healthcare. Exactly right. Nothing would have happened to Parler if its userbase wasn't substantially affiliated with a mob that literally attacked the democratic process because they didn't like the result. I'm sure someone's thinking that the correct response to that is have the government police forces battle with the mob until it changes its mind of its own accord, rather than have (non-government) society take action against the root causes of the mob, like Parler. However, that's undesirable for reasons that should be obvious.
- yellowapple 6y ago
  > However, that's undesirable for reasons that should be obvious. Not to mention entirely ignorant of the very notion of our government being ostensibly "by the people, of the people, for the people" - i.e. the government itself being a representation of society. So if society itself is broadly rejecting some viewpoint on its own, then it's kind of pointless for the government to get involved.
Kusoneko 6y ago
Everything is a political view these days.
dcolkitt 6y ago
It doesn't matter what it is. It's not the job of the people who assemble my phone to decide the content on the device. Their job is to shut up and move the bits through the pipes, not to have political opinions. People adopted app stores for security and stability- not political content moderation. The fact that they've decided to reinvent themselves as editorialists is as outrageous as if my mailman decided to tear out pages from my magazine subscriptions, if my cable company decided to black out specific television shows, or if the carmaker decided to censor radio stations it didn't like.
- vinay_ys 6y ago
  Do you insist that a news channel or entertainment channel pickup every news item or program that is pitched to them? Do you expect the magazine to carry every article written and sent to them? I think the way the world is today is that the smart phone as a product is like this magazine or tv channel and the mobile network is the underlying common neutral infra. And the apps are like the news items or articles or serial programs in this analogy.