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The market provides though. There are are tons of sites for alternative and niche content, and new sites come up all the time. Complaining that you don’t have

The market provides though. There are are tons of sites for alternative and niche content, and new sites come up all the time. Complaining that you don’t have a ready made audience is pretty weak. You need to hustle for this stuff. People used to xerox and give away zines for an audience. As the Pirate Bay founder said recently[0], it’s embarrassing how easily people are giving up. It’s almost as if they don’t want to actually put the stuff out there, but rather be held up as martyrs. Pirate Bay and SciHub are still up, and have multiple billion dollar corporations actively gunning for them socially, legally, and extra legally. It can be done. [0] https://www.vice.com/en/article/3an7pn/pirate-bay-founder-thinks-parlers-inability-to-stay-online-is-embarrassing https://www.vice.com/en/article/3an7pn/pirate-bay-founder-th...

seanp2k2 6y ago
This. I believe that the problem has more to do with most users relying on platforms that are fundamentally advertising companies, and content that doesn’t go well next to an ad gets removed because it becomes a direct threat to revenue. Video sites exist which show very graphic violence, among other things not allowed on YouTube. They’ve been around for years. The issue, I guess, is that they tend to run ads for sketchy business, as they’re the only ones willing to put their name next to that content. The problem IMO isn’t so much that free speech is in jeopardy as the financial incentives of the incumbents are not aligned to support some of the things people want to say. It can be done, people are just being lazy instead of creative.
- jonathankoren 6y ago
  Well, that’s the thing with being ostracized. Reputable people don’t want anything to do with you, and so you’re left with only the disreputable ones. It’s like there’s a whole generation of engineers that don’t realize that you can actually buy a computer instead of just rent someone else’s.

seanp2k2 6y ago

This. I believe that the problem has more to do with most users relying on platforms that are fundamentally advertising companies, and content that doesn’t go well next to an ad gets removed because it becomes a direct threat to revenue. Video sites exist which show very graphic violence, among other things not allowed on YouTube. They’ve been around for years. The issue, I guess, is that they tend to run ads for sketchy business, as they’re the only ones willing to put their name next to that content. The problem IMO isn’t so much that free speech is in jeopardy as the financial incentives of the incumbents are not aligned to support some of the things people want to say. It can be done, people are just being lazy instead of creative.

jonathankoren 6y ago
Well, that’s the thing with being ostracized. Reputable people don’t want anything to do with you, and so you’re left with only the disreputable ones. It’s like there’s a whole generation of engineers that don’t realize that you can actually buy a computer instead of just rent someone else’s.