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> "I don’t understand what’s wrong with owning your platform to exercise your speech rights." MLK and the civil rights movement didn't own their own platform.

> "I don’t understand what’s wrong with owning your platform to exercise your speech rights." MLK and the civil rights movement didn't own their own platform. The LGBT rights movement didn't own their own platform. The women's rights movement didn't own their own platform. Would you have been okay with them being swept under the rug? It's not as if people in power didn't want to.

AdamJacobMuller 6y ago
The bigger problem is "define platform" Don't like twitter censorship, make your own twitter. Ergo, Parler. Oh, but, that's not "your" platform, that's built on AWS's platform. So AWS can deplatform you. What's next, if Parler sets up in a datacenter with their own physical servers are people going to attack their colocation/transit/peers or their DNS provider or their domain registrar or their SSL certificate issuer? Is LetsEncrypt a platform? The biggest issue IMO is that with this you're centralizing all the idiotic and dangerous opinions and putting them in a huge echo chamber where they only ever see (mostly stupid) opinions of people they agree with. It's accomplishing the some of the goal the de-platformers want (they don't want to see the dumb content) but the content is still there, just more fringe and more radical and now they can rightfully complain about suppression of their opinions.
- ALittleLight 6y ago
  Oh, your phone app is banned? Just make your own phone, hardware and software.
  - njarboe 6y ago
    Check out: https://puri.sm/products/ https://puri.sm/products/
    - AdamJacobMuller 6y ago
      I don’t feel like purism is a viable alternative. it’s very expensive for what you’re getting and in all respects that i’ve heard the software is not up to par and the ecosystem is effectively non-existent. I have yet to try one personally and might soon in spite of the price tag, i would love to be wrong but i don’t think i am.
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        > I don’t feel like purism is a viable alternative. it’s very expensive for what you’re getting and in all respects that i’ve heard the software is not up to par and the ecosystem is effectively non-existent. Let's go through these. It's basically brand new so there aren't a lot of third party apps. If you're the sort of person who loves installing the app for your Smart Toaster on your phone, you may not like this. But you get 95-99% of the value out of a phone if it can make phone calls, message people and has a web browser. Most apps are crap. They also have plans to support Android apps in the not too distant future. The hardware is slower than similarly priced hardware. But again, does this really matter? You're not mining Bitcoin or rendering feature length motion pictures on your phone, are you? Which leaves the price. It's high because they're still not making them in huge volumes. It means the early adopters will be people with money. But that's good; people with money attract developers etc. And once the volumes are higher the price will come down. But this is all kind of chicken and egg. It's not impossible but it's hard and they may or may not succeed. If your point is that isn't already viable for everyone, that's certainly true.
  - AdamJacobMuller 6y ago
    Phone apps are more complex. My concern is less apple banning things and far more when apple and google operate in lockstep. there is a fundamental misunderstanding in the app store review world, it was highlighted when google banned element(??) the matrix client. will apple ban IRC clients because they can connect to bad servers with universally objectionable content? will they ban SSH clients because they can be used to hack? With the last big ban controversy (fortnight) I was firmly in the pro walled garden camp, but, now i’m no longer seeing where the big duopoly draws the line and i don’t like it.
    - ALittleLight 6y ago
      I think part of the problem is that much of our laws and intuitions are built for a time when there were competitors or they are designed for local marketplaces rather than internet scale businesses. If my grocer is a jerk, I can go to a different grocery store. If this mechanic is always giving me dubious advice I can find a different one. Modern businesses, at internet scale, really aren't that way though. They are much more "winner take all". Maybe there are one or two winners, but when they win they really do take almost all the market share. And for most of the developed world simultaneously. I can kind of get my own phone. Someone else in this thread mentions Purism. I could also get a rooted Android phone and install a version of Android that takes out Google. What I can't do, effectively, is make my own app, if the duopoly would prefer I not. I could put my app in a private app store or offer it to the kinds of people who use Librem phones, but the market there is too small to run a successful business. Google (via Android) and Apple are effectively both a monopoly, they sell/control almost all of the phones, and a monopsony, they control almost all of the supply of phone users.
  - mrweasel 6y ago
    Well... Yes, that's one very valid cause of action. It might not be the only way forward, it depends on a lot of things. There's absolutely nothing standing in the way of PornHub introducing a phone, because they want to adult apps to be allowed. Want to sell adult content on Instagram, but you're not allowed? Go build onlyfans.com.
- hoseja 6y ago
  >they don't want to see the dumb content I don't think that's the point. They want to feel the warm satisfaction of righteous fury and enemy defeated.
phs318u 6y ago
I'm not sure that's really true. They did not have unfettered access to the media "platforms" of the day. And they did create their own platforms. Lookup the long history of black newspapers and radio stations. In your last line you almost prove the opposite of your point. Yes, people in power didn't want to, and yet - despite not having unfettered access to the platforms of the day - they were not swept under the rug. My view is that's because they had a critical mass of people that cared enough that they literally couldn't be swept under any rug.
mannykannot 6y ago
I am not sure you are making the point you intended to. These movements were opposed by powerful elements, they did not own the largest platforms, and yet they prevailed. Any movement that depends on the most powerful elements of society to secure it a platform is at grave risk of becoming dependent on them.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> MLK and the civil rights movement didn't own their own platform. Yes, they largely either did or relied on convincing platform owners, not relying on platform entitlement. Now, they and the allies they convinced didn't own a single centralized platform, it was a decentralized network with big nodes like Rev. Dr. King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, and small nodes like the individual members of the movement, which relied substantially on person-to-person face-to-face grassroots mobilization.
eyelidlessness 6y ago
> MLK and the civil rights movement didn't own their own platform. [... etc ...] And they didn’t demand publication by others’ platforms either. They demonstrated in public spaces, often at great personal risk because they didn’t have equal access to public spaces. Edit: sibling comment said even better, yes they did own their own platforms. > Would you have been okay with them being swept under the rug? It's not as if people in power didn't want to. Maybe you should stop “they”ing me. I’m not other than the groups that you’re using for your point. I’m directly a part of all of the movements you mention, either directly affected or in solidarity. And while you’re at it stop with the past tense. In none of these cases did any movement demand to be published by someone else’s platform. All have tried to gain recognition sometimes seeking publication. But none have such entitlement to expect to be in someone else’s mouth against their will.
oilbagz 6y ago
These entities didn't own their own platforms? Really? Maybe they weren't handed a platform on a plate, like we are today, but that is entirely the point: I think they did have their own publications and financed their own media. That's how they became a movement in the first place. You can't get mass acceptance at scale from your target demographic without building a platform. I think the examples you gave are of people who struck out to build their own platforms, and did so successfully. This is why we even know about them in the first place, thankfully.

AdamJacobMuller 6y ago

The bigger problem is "define platform" Don't like twitter censorship, make your own twitter. Ergo, Parler. Oh, but, that's not "your" platform, that's built on AWS's platform. So AWS can deplatform you. What's next, if Parler sets up in a datacenter with their own physical servers are people going to attack their colocation/transit/peers or their DNS provider or their domain registrar or their SSL certificate issuer? Is LetsEncrypt a platform? The biggest issue IMO is that with this you're centralizing all the idiotic and dangerous opinions and putting them in a huge echo chamber where they only ever see (mostly stupid) opinions of people they agree with. It's accomplishing the some of the goal the de-platformers want (they don't want to see the dumb content) but the content is still there, just more fringe and more radical and now they can rightfully complain about suppression of their opinions.

ALittleLight 6y ago
Oh, your phone app is banned? Just make your own phone, hardware and software.
- njarboe 6y ago
  Check out: https://puri.sm/products/ https://puri.sm/products/
  - AdamJacobMuller 6y ago
    I don’t feel like purism is a viable alternative. it’s very expensive for what you’re getting and in all respects that i’ve heard the software is not up to par and the ecosystem is effectively non-existent. I have yet to try one personally and might soon in spite of the price tag, i would love to be wrong but i don’t think i am.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      > I don’t feel like purism is a viable alternative. it’s very expensive for what you’re getting and in all respects that i’ve heard the software is not up to par and the ecosystem is effectively non-existent. Let's go through these. It's basically brand new so there aren't a lot of third party apps. If you're the sort of person who loves installing the app for your Smart Toaster on your phone, you may not like this. But you get 95-99% of the value out of a phone if it can make phone calls, message people and has a web browser. Most apps are crap. They also have plans to support Android apps in the not too distant future. The hardware is slower than similarly priced hardware. But again, does this really matter? You're not mining Bitcoin or rendering feature length motion pictures on your phone, are you? Which leaves the price. It's high because they're still not making them in huge volumes. It means the early adopters will be people with money. But that's good; people with money attract developers etc. And once the volumes are higher the price will come down. But this is all kind of chicken and egg. It's not impossible but it's hard and they may or may not succeed. If your point is that isn't already viable for everyone, that's certainly true.
- AdamJacobMuller 6y ago
  Phone apps are more complex. My concern is less apple banning things and far more when apple and google operate in lockstep. there is a fundamental misunderstanding in the app store review world, it was highlighted when google banned element(??) the matrix client. will apple ban IRC clients because they can connect to bad servers with universally objectionable content? will they ban SSH clients because they can be used to hack? With the last big ban controversy (fortnight) I was firmly in the pro walled garden camp, but, now i’m no longer seeing where the big duopoly draws the line and i don’t like it.
  - ALittleLight 6y ago
    I think part of the problem is that much of our laws and intuitions are built for a time when there were competitors or they are designed for local marketplaces rather than internet scale businesses. If my grocer is a jerk, I can go to a different grocery store. If this mechanic is always giving me dubious advice I can find a different one. Modern businesses, at internet scale, really aren't that way though. They are much more "winner take all". Maybe there are one or two winners, but when they win they really do take almost all the market share. And for most of the developed world simultaneously. I can kind of get my own phone. Someone else in this thread mentions Purism. I could also get a rooted Android phone and install a version of Android that takes out Google. What I can't do, effectively, is make my own app, if the duopoly would prefer I not. I could put my app in a private app store or offer it to the kinds of people who use Librem phones, but the market there is too small to run a successful business. Google (via Android) and Apple are effectively both a monopoly, they sell/control almost all of the phones, and a monopsony, they control almost all of the supply of phone users.
- mrweasel 6y ago
  Well... Yes, that's one very valid cause of action. It might not be the only way forward, it depends on a lot of things. There's absolutely nothing standing in the way of PornHub introducing a phone, because they want to adult apps to be allowed. Want to sell adult content on Instagram, but you're not allowed? Go build onlyfans.com.
hoseja 6y ago
>they don't want to see the dumb content I don't think that's the point. They want to feel the warm satisfaction of righteous fury and enemy defeated.

phs318u 6y ago

I'm not sure that's really true. They did not have unfettered access to the media "platforms" of the day. And they did create their own platforms. Lookup the long history of black newspapers and radio stations. In your last line you almost prove the opposite of your point. Yes, people in power didn't want to, and yet - despite not having unfettered access to the platforms of the day - they were not swept under the rug. My view is that's because they had a critical mass of people that cared enough that they literally couldn't be swept under any rug.

mannykannot 6y ago

I am not sure you are making the point you intended to. These movements were opposed by powerful elements, they did not own the largest platforms, and yet they prevailed. Any movement that depends on the most powerful elements of society to secure it a platform is at grave risk of becoming dependent on them.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> MLK and the civil rights movement didn't own their own platform. Yes, they largely either did or relied on convincing platform owners, not relying on platform entitlement. Now, they and the allies they convinced didn't own a single centralized platform, it was a decentralized network with big nodes like Rev. Dr. King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, and small nodes like the individual members of the movement, which relied substantially on person-to-person face-to-face grassroots mobilization.

eyelidlessness 6y ago

> MLK and the civil rights movement didn't own their own platform. [... etc ...] And they didn’t demand publication by others’ platforms either. They demonstrated in public spaces, often at great personal risk because they didn’t have equal access to public spaces. Edit: sibling comment said even better, yes they did own their own platforms. > Would you have been okay with them being swept under the rug? It's not as if people in power didn't want to. Maybe you should stop “they”ing me. I’m not other than the groups that you’re using for your point. I’m directly a part of all of the movements you mention, either directly affected or in solidarity. And while you’re at it stop with the past tense. In none of these cases did any movement demand to be published by someone else’s platform. All have tried to gain recognition sometimes seeking publication. But none have such entitlement to expect to be in someone else’s mouth against their will.

oilbagz 6y ago

These entities didn't own their own platforms? Really? Maybe they weren't handed a platform on a plate, like we are today, but that is entirely the point: I think they did have their own publications and financed their own media. That's how they became a movement in the first place. You can't get mass acceptance at scale from your target demographic without building a platform. I think the examples you gave are of people who struck out to build their own platforms, and did so successfully. This is why we even know about them in the first place, thankfully.