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For some odd synapse firing reason this quote popped into my mind while reading your comment: "It tells me that goose-stepping morons like yourself should try

For some odd synapse firing reason this quote popped into my mind while reading your comment: "It tells me that goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of BURNING them!" - Henry Jones - Last Crusade - Not wishing to insult you but you want to get rid of a service that you personally dislike. Newsflash: Many people don't share that opinion. (And I'm frankly almost as tired of hearing it as I am tired of hearing about the amazing benefits of crypto currencies.)

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
just because we are all tired of this fight is no reason that the fight and outrage should stop. if anything it means that FB has won and US propagandists have achieved their goal: exhaustion of the enemy. anyone in this thread arguing in defense of FB has never supported the #DeleteFacebook movement in the first place (perhaps because they're eyeing a job in that firm or are already working there). It doesn't change the fact that facebook (and other BigTech) needs to be fought like cancer: Either we survive BigTech by fighting it perpetually to the teeth or it's going to kill us (in some cases quite literally - see Rohinga or similar). the problem is larger than FB. it's rampant in all areas of BigTech and chances are high many here are guilty for working on the destruction of society. See for example Stripe (an "innocent" payment processor) which processes payments for the Proud Boys: https://www.ourfreedomfunding.com/campaign/19/freespazzo-dominic-pezzola https://www.ourfreedomfunding.com/campaign/19/freespazzo-dom... https://www.ourfreedomfunding.com/campaign/23/financial-aid-for-ethan-nordean-rufio https://www.ourfreedomfunding.com/campaign/23/financial-aid-... See also Cloudflare which is happy to protect such sites as the one above (and has a history of doing so): https://www.fastcompany.com/90312063/how-cloudflare-straddles-its-role-as-privacy-champion-and-hate-speech-enabler https://www.fastcompany.com/90312063/how-cloudflare-straddle... The real problem comes from having a small highly paid and entitled circle of Tech people in the US be the arbiter of truth and social values worldwide.
- headmelted 6y ago
  Your suggestion is fighting fascism with fascism, and it reads like maybe you don’t realise that? “BigTech needs to be fought like cancer”. When did we all agree to this?
  - DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
    calling me a fascist is a cheap shot and I'm not going to respond to it - not because it offends me but because it's a boring argument that doesn't engage with my point.
    - cecja 6y ago
      Dude you are a fascist.
    - headmelted 6y ago
      Sigh. No-one called you a fascist. It's worth understanding what fascism is though.
  - bbarnett 6y ago
    One cannot change human nature, but instead, must engineer a society which uses our nature as a plus, not minus. FB is a detriment to society, but this is primarily due to capitalism's flaws, which entices profit above all, and even punishes those who stray from this dogma. (A board must remove a CEO not on mandate, shareholders will sue if they do not, etc...). Everything has flaws, needs to be tweaked, no engine runs without maintenance. We handle this aspect of capitalism with regulation, patching an inherent flaw where required. Banning a social network would only see it pop up elsewhere, perhaps in a place like China or Russia, with all of the censorship and state controlled manipulation this implies. Think Facebook is bad? Imagine all of Facebook's issues, with no spam control, no privacy legislation, plus members of the state on the board, and state sensors filtering posts, and injecting state approved data. Destroying Facebook is ... nuts. Instead, create a level playing field for all via regulation, tweaking and fixing the for-profit motivation which leads to bad societal outcomes. (And, keep positive for-profit motivations, edited to clarify I am not anti-profit.) Fix, repair, improve, do not destroy.
- rswail 6y ago
  "guilty for working on the destruction of society." is a big stretch. Stripe processing payments for the Proud Boys is a failure of regulation of the Proud Boys, not of Stripe. Canada has declared the Proud Boys a terrorist organization. If they had bank accounts in Canada, the banks would not be allowed to keep them open or to deal with them. Neither would Stripe. I don't know what the situation is where someone uses a Canadian-bank issued credit card to buy something or transfer funds to the Proud Boys in the US. That would be similar to using it to transfer funds to Al Queda or ISIS if they had a bank account. Cloudfare are not "happy" to protect those sites, but they are also committed to not censoring unless absolutely necessary and in accordance with the law. So the tech examples you quote are about enforcing laws, not requiring big tech to somehow police itself by "fighting it like cancer".
spurgu 6y ago
Interestingly the same people arguing for removing/regulating/moderating FB also heavily criticize China's censoring politics.
- mantap 6y ago
  There's a difference between wanting to ban something because it is a threat to your autocracy and wanting to dissolve something because it is too powerful and abusive. Punching down vs punching up. I think most people of that persuasion just want to break up large tech companies though, not ban them outright.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago

just because we are all tired of this fight is no reason that the fight and outrage should stop. if anything it means that FB has won and US propagandists have achieved their goal: exhaustion of the enemy. anyone in this thread arguing in defense of FB has never supported the #DeleteFacebook movement in the first place (perhaps because they're eyeing a job in that firm or are already working there). It doesn't change the fact that facebook (and other BigTech) needs to be fought like cancer: Either we survive BigTech by fighting it perpetually to the teeth or it's going to kill us (in some cases quite literally - see Rohinga or similar). the problem is larger than FB. it's rampant in all areas of BigTech and chances are high many here are guilty for working on the destruction of society. See for example Stripe (an "innocent" payment processor) which processes payments for the Proud Boys: https://www.ourfreedomfunding.com/campaign/19/freespazzo-dominic-pezzola https://www.ourfreedomfunding.com/campaign/19/freespazzo-dom... https://www.ourfreedomfunding.com/campaign/23/financial-aid-for-ethan-nordean-rufio https://www.ourfreedomfunding.com/campaign/23/financial-aid-... See also Cloudflare which is happy to protect such sites as the one above (and has a history of doing so): https://www.fastcompany.com/90312063/how-cloudflare-straddles-its-role-as-privacy-champion-and-hate-speech-enabler https://www.fastcompany.com/90312063/how-cloudflare-straddle... The real problem comes from having a small highly paid and entitled circle of Tech people in the US be the arbiter of truth and social values worldwide.

headmelted 6y ago
Your suggestion is fighting fascism with fascism, and it reads like maybe you don’t realise that? “BigTech needs to be fought like cancer”. When did we all agree to this?
- DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
  calling me a fascist is a cheap shot and I'm not going to respond to it - not because it offends me but because it's a boring argument that doesn't engage with my point.
  - cecja 6y ago
    Dude you are a fascist.
  - headmelted 6y ago
    Sigh. No-one called you a fascist. It's worth understanding what fascism is though.
- bbarnett 6y ago
  One cannot change human nature, but instead, must engineer a society which uses our nature as a plus, not minus. FB is a detriment to society, but this is primarily due to capitalism's flaws, which entices profit above all, and even punishes those who stray from this dogma. (A board must remove a CEO not on mandate, shareholders will sue if they do not, etc...). Everything has flaws, needs to be tweaked, no engine runs without maintenance. We handle this aspect of capitalism with regulation, patching an inherent flaw where required. Banning a social network would only see it pop up elsewhere, perhaps in a place like China or Russia, with all of the censorship and state controlled manipulation this implies. Think Facebook is bad? Imagine all of Facebook's issues, with no spam control, no privacy legislation, plus members of the state on the board, and state sensors filtering posts, and injecting state approved data. Destroying Facebook is ... nuts. Instead, create a level playing field for all via regulation, tweaking and fixing the for-profit motivation which leads to bad societal outcomes. (And, keep positive for-profit motivations, edited to clarify I am not anti-profit.) Fix, repair, improve, do not destroy.
rswail 6y ago
"guilty for working on the destruction of society." is a big stretch. Stripe processing payments for the Proud Boys is a failure of regulation of the Proud Boys, not of Stripe. Canada has declared the Proud Boys a terrorist organization. If they had bank accounts in Canada, the banks would not be allowed to keep them open or to deal with them. Neither would Stripe. I don't know what the situation is where someone uses a Canadian-bank issued credit card to buy something or transfer funds to the Proud Boys in the US. That would be similar to using it to transfer funds to Al Queda or ISIS if they had a bank account. Cloudfare are not "happy" to protect those sites, but they are also committed to not censoring unless absolutely necessary and in accordance with the law. So the tech examples you quote are about enforcing laws, not requiring big tech to somehow police itself by "fighting it like cancer".

spurgu 6y ago

Interestingly the same people arguing for removing/regulating/moderating FB also heavily criticize China's censoring politics.

mantap 6y ago
There's a difference between wanting to ban something because it is a threat to your autocracy and wanting to dissolve something because it is too powerful and abusive. Punching down vs punching up. I think most people of that persuasion just want to break up large tech companies though, not ban them outright.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]