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It seems all those deplatforming started really recently with trump/parler and turned into a witch hunt. It's now totally out of control and we start to look li

It seems all those deplatforming started really recently with trump/parler and turned into a witch hunt. It's now totally out of control and we start to look like CCP

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
petre 6y ago
I wish Google and Apple are going to be hit with fines and regulation in the EU because of this once the comissioners have better things to occupy themselves with other than the pandemic.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  If you look at any legislation that’s been proposed to address this, in the EU or anywhere else, it hasn’t been anything that’s going to make the situation any better. Lots of governments around the world are very upset that these cartels have the ability to restrict people’s access to the internet without any oversight or due process. But that’s not because they think it’s harmful for peoples access to these services to be taken away without any oversight or due process, they just want to be the ones wielding that power.
  - golemiprague 6y ago
    They should be the ones wielding the power because they are elected and if we don't like their decision we can vote someone else in, we don't have any right to vote who runs Google. The whole thing is a slippery slope started by the left which they still support. Hopefully it will all crumble the same way the USSR did, but it might take time.
  - throwdbaaway 6y ago
    Exactly. If a chat service is banned in some authoritarian countries, that's the strongest signal that it is indeed secure.
    - AmericanChopper 6y ago
      Widely recognized “authoritarian” countries are hardly the issue here. Western democracies have been trying to usurp this power from the tech cartels for quite a while now. “Hate speech” laws have been successfully normalized in many countries already. The latest push has been to legally regulate “misinformation”. The EU has already started the process of establishing a government authority to regulate the truth. Then again, they’ve been trying to ban E2EE for years as well, so perhaps authoritarianism is the issue...
  - petre 6y ago
    I'm not talking about acces to the internet but about app store monopoly. It's similar with MS shipping IE bundled with Windows for which they got fined.
walrus01 6y ago
Element and Parler are nothing alike. Element is a chat client. It's an empty piece of software for use with your own choice of server. Element is to a chat server, as Thunderbird is to an email server. It's basically a glorified IRC client. It contains no content of its own. Parler was basically a curated, centrally run, Facebook-message-board-replacement for neonazis, antisemites, qanon conspiracy theorists, and the lunatic fringe of the alt-right.
- sbierwagen 6y ago
  You posted an identical comment here? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25967058 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25967058 Copying and pasting posts is generally discouraged.
  - walrus01 6y ago
    Yes I did, and I intend to leave it up. I don't really have any personal compunctions about a mild breach of the rules when calling out apologists of Parler and the Mercers.
Thorentis 6y ago
We really are seeing the cultural revolution of technology. The era of open innovation and freedom of expression is over. And because both sides of politics can only see as far as the next election, they will just use this to their advantage to deplatform their opponents. And who loses? The proles, of course.
- powersnail 6y ago
  It might be a possible opportunity for alternative platforms to grow. Before, network effect makes Twitter/Google Store/AWS etc dominant over alternatives, because everybody could be on there. There is no reason to use XXX, because why not Twitter. Now that they make it clear that they are not unbiased moderator, and they remove apps/people from their platform, a bunch of people become refuge. Alternative stores and social media become viable, because they could grab those audience. I can see that in the next few years, we will have more fractured platforms. > because both sides of politics can only see as far as the next election, they will just use this to their advantage to deplatform their opponents Meanwhile, there are other countries.
KirillPanov 6y ago
Do you think the CCP is a) happy about this or b) unhappy about this I'll give you three guesses.
- js4ever 6y ago
  c) not happy nor unhappy, probably they just noticed that US also started to use same recipes to mute any deviant or discordant voices. Next step could be to replicate GFC
- jimworm 6y ago
  They have to be happy on average. It's like being in a race where all the competitors started running in different directions, but eventually finding that the others have turned around to follow your target, effectively giving you a head start. To spell it out more clearly, here is a great place for one's opponents/competitors to be stuck in - authoritarian enough to eliminate any advantages of liberty, but not authoritarian enough to be efficiently coordinated.
vbezhenar 6y ago
But Google is a private company and can decide who they want to see in their stores. Right?
- fendy3002 6y ago
  It's not that simple. Let's say that Google sell a tv half or even a quarter the price of normal tv, but it can only access channels authorized by google, and the authorized channels can change anytime. Furthermore it can only access consoles and devices only authorized by google. At first, the authorization is very permissive and the unauthorized channels or devices are very rare. People begin to buy the tv, and channels begin to optimize their content around it. Other tv lose their market share, and begin to adapt "google tv" architecture to sell their own to survive. After 10 years google begin to unauthorize some channels, in prefer to their own which launched 3 years before, as well as consoles in preference to stadia. The ban is same with these similar cases, where it's framed as illegal content, or error. But it's happening often. Is google in the wrong here? IMO it's debatable.
  - icelancer 6y ago
    That was the parent's point - made via sarcasm.
    - fendy3002 6y ago
      I know, for me it's just an interesting case where there are no clear / definitive answer. Both sides have good arguments and it's hard to determinate who is wrong.
- kubanczyk 6y ago
  Yes, this legal void needs to end. If you have a majority of some market, there need to be additional legal responsibilities.
pessimizer 6y ago
No, it started with facebook being myspace with nazis and nudity banned; developed through a few waves of Google search reprioritization and the sanitization of Reddit(i.e. normie 4chan); eventually became open bans of radical Islam, Russian/Chinese political speech and commentary, leading into the Great Youtube Demonetization. The Trump/Parler ban is largely the chickens coming home to roost; that crowd energetically supported all of this that wasn't personally against them, a lot of the modern US right is second-generation inspiration from the anti-Islam "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy and people like Pamela Geller (long forgotten.) Another anti-Islamic precursor to this has also been the constant anti-Palestinian activism at every university, and a good example of the career direction of the people who energetically participated in that is Bari Weiss, who now cries about cancel culture (which is both real, and responsible for her entire career.) Now, with all the recently converted lefty Millennials minted over the last two elections still mostly seeing the world through the lenses of Obama Democrats, they've come to agree that the only real problem is that not enough people are censored. That's unanimity from left, right, and center.
Traubenfuchs 6y ago
The coordinated banning of the president of the USA across all mainstream platforms was just the beginning. It's like they were afraid, previously. Now they found out they can deplatform everyone they want and no one can really stop them!
olefoo 6y ago
In the wake of an unprecedented attack on the core institutions of a democracy; forums and websites that were being used to plot violence against lawmakers are discovering that all available sources of pressure on them to change their behavior are being exercised? The Parler dudes are just lucky that they haven't been arrested for material support of terrorism yet.
- js4ever 6y ago
  Twitter and Reddit where used as well, chrome, internet ... even electricity ... None of them where shutdown. So IMHO shooting element was too much.

It seems all those deplatforming started really recently with trump/parler and turned into a witch hunt. It's now totally out of control and we start to look like CCP

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

petre 6y ago

I wish Google and Apple are going to be hit with fines and regulation in the EU because of this once the comissioners have better things to occupy themselves with other than the pandemic.

AmericanChopper 6y ago
If you look at any legislation that’s been proposed to address this, in the EU or anywhere else, it hasn’t been anything that’s going to make the situation any better. Lots of governments around the world are very upset that these cartels have the ability to restrict people’s access to the internet without any oversight or due process. But that’s not because they think it’s harmful for peoples access to these services to be taken away without any oversight or due process, they just want to be the ones wielding that power.
- golemiprague 6y ago
  They should be the ones wielding the power because they are elected and if we don't like their decision we can vote someone else in, we don't have any right to vote who runs Google. The whole thing is a slippery slope started by the left which they still support. Hopefully it will all crumble the same way the USSR did, but it might take time.
- throwdbaaway 6y ago
  Exactly. If a chat service is banned in some authoritarian countries, that's the strongest signal that it is indeed secure.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    Widely recognized “authoritarian” countries are hardly the issue here. Western democracies have been trying to usurp this power from the tech cartels for quite a while now. “Hate speech” laws have been successfully normalized in many countries already. The latest push has been to legally regulate “misinformation”. The EU has already started the process of establishing a government authority to regulate the truth. Then again, they’ve been trying to ban E2EE for years as well, so perhaps authoritarianism is the issue...
- petre 6y ago
  I'm not talking about acces to the internet but about app store monopoly. It's similar with MS shipping IE bundled with Windows for which they got fined.

walrus01 6y ago

Element and Parler are nothing alike. Element is a chat client. It's an empty piece of software for use with your own choice of server. Element is to a chat server, as Thunderbird is to an email server. It's basically a glorified IRC client. It contains no content of its own. Parler was basically a curated, centrally run, Facebook-message-board-replacement for neonazis, antisemites, qanon conspiracy theorists, and the lunatic fringe of the alt-right.

sbierwagen 6y ago
You posted an identical comment here? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25967058 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25967058 Copying and pasting posts is generally discouraged.
- walrus01 6y ago
  Yes I did, and I intend to leave it up. I don't really have any personal compunctions about a mild breach of the rules when calling out apologists of Parler and the Mercers.

Thorentis 6y ago

We really are seeing the cultural revolution of technology. The era of open innovation and freedom of expression is over. And because both sides of politics can only see as far as the next election, they will just use this to their advantage to deplatform their opponents. And who loses? The proles, of course.

powersnail 6y ago
It might be a possible opportunity for alternative platforms to grow. Before, network effect makes Twitter/Google Store/AWS etc dominant over alternatives, because everybody could be on there. There is no reason to use XXX, because why not Twitter. Now that they make it clear that they are not unbiased moderator, and they remove apps/people from their platform, a bunch of people become refuge. Alternative stores and social media become viable, because they could grab those audience. I can see that in the next few years, we will have more fractured platforms. > because both sides of politics can only see as far as the next election, they will just use this to their advantage to deplatform their opponents Meanwhile, there are other countries.

KirillPanov 6y ago

Do you think the CCP is a) happy about this or b) unhappy about this I'll give you three guesses.

js4ever 6y ago
c) not happy nor unhappy, probably they just noticed that US also started to use same recipes to mute any deviant or discordant voices. Next step could be to replicate GFC
jimworm 6y ago
They have to be happy on average. It's like being in a race where all the competitors started running in different directions, but eventually finding that the others have turned around to follow your target, effectively giving you a head start. To spell it out more clearly, here is a great place for one's opponents/competitors to be stuck in - authoritarian enough to eliminate any advantages of liberty, but not authoritarian enough to be efficiently coordinated.

vbezhenar 6y ago

But Google is a private company and can decide who they want to see in their stores. Right?

fendy3002 6y ago
It's not that simple. Let's say that Google sell a tv half or even a quarter the price of normal tv, but it can only access channels authorized by google, and the authorized channels can change anytime. Furthermore it can only access consoles and devices only authorized by google. At first, the authorization is very permissive and the unauthorized channels or devices are very rare. People begin to buy the tv, and channels begin to optimize their content around it. Other tv lose their market share, and begin to adapt "google tv" architecture to sell their own to survive. After 10 years google begin to unauthorize some channels, in prefer to their own which launched 3 years before, as well as consoles in preference to stadia. The ban is same with these similar cases, where it's framed as illegal content, or error. But it's happening often. Is google in the wrong here? IMO it's debatable.
- icelancer 6y ago
  That was the parent's point - made via sarcasm.
  - fendy3002 6y ago
    I know, for me it's just an interesting case where there are no clear / definitive answer. Both sides have good arguments and it's hard to determinate who is wrong.
kubanczyk 6y ago
Yes, this legal void needs to end. If you have a majority of some market, there need to be additional legal responsibilities.

pessimizer 6y ago

No, it started with facebook being myspace with nazis and nudity banned; developed through a few waves of Google search reprioritization and the sanitization of Reddit(i.e. normie 4chan); eventually became open bans of radical Islam, Russian/Chinese political speech and commentary, leading into the Great Youtube Demonetization. The Trump/Parler ban is largely the chickens coming home to roost; that crowd energetically supported all of this that wasn't personally against them, a lot of the modern US right is second-generation inspiration from the anti-Islam "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy and people like Pamela Geller (long forgotten.) Another anti-Islamic precursor to this has also been the constant anti-Palestinian activism at every university, and a good example of the career direction of the people who energetically participated in that is Bari Weiss, who now cries about cancel culture (which is both real, and responsible for her entire career.) Now, with all the recently converted lefty Millennials minted over the last two elections still mostly seeing the world through the lenses of Obama Democrats, they've come to agree that the only real problem is that not enough people are censored. That's unanimity from left, right, and center.

Traubenfuchs 6y ago

The coordinated banning of the president of the USA across all mainstream platforms was just the beginning. It's like they were afraid, previously. Now they found out they can deplatform everyone they want and no one can really stop them!

olefoo 6y ago

In the wake of an unprecedented attack on the core institutions of a democracy; forums and websites that were being used to plot violence against lawmakers are discovering that all available sources of pressure on them to change their behavior are being exercised? The Parler dudes are just lucky that they haven't been arrested for material support of terrorism yet.

js4ever 6y ago
Twitter and Reddit where used as well, chrome, internet ... even electricity ... None of them where shutdown. So IMHO shooting element was too much.