15 ms·

The chilling effect is real. Even if service is reinstated, the precedent is now that major platforms can arbitrarily censor your news stories for weeks, shut d

by pdog 5y ago

The chilling effect is real. Even if service is reinstated, the precedent is now that major platforms can arbitrarily censor your news stories for weeks, shut down your servers, and remove your apps from their app stores. Why would anyone build anything remotely controversial on these platforms?

zepto 5y ago
“Remotely controversial” might be an exaggeration.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- sneak 5y ago
  Tumblr's alt-porn community would like to disagree.
  - zepto 5y ago
    Would they? What have they got to do with this?
    - 1123581321 5y ago
      Tumblr made it difficult to view NSFW content to appease the App Store. https://mashable.com/article/tumblr-bans-adult-content-policy/ https://mashable.com/article/tumblr-bans-adult-content-polic... There are some parallels as Tumblr similarly could not control its content sufficiently to both allow most of it and also ensure the problematic content did not persist. Just explaining, not defending either social network or Apple.
      - zepto 5y ago
        Ok but that isn’t ‘anything remotely controversial’.
        1123581321 5y ago
        Presumably advocates of NSFW content on large social networks don’t see a problem with it. Hopefully you see where the other user was coming from now; not looking for you to agree with them.
        zepto 5y ago
        I do but I think their point wasn’t well made, and is frankly misleading and wrong. There are very specific kinds of content that lead to these kinds of bans. Pornography and organizing violence are amongst them. It isn’t about controversial content.
        jonwithoutanh 5y ago
        But that's not really true, for example reddit has a massive amount of porn and yet none of the reddit apps get banned.
        zepto 5y ago
        Why do you think that is?
newacct583 5y ago
This is wildly underplaying what actually happened. Parler wasn't "censored" because it contained "new stories" that were "remotely controversial". Parler was blocked because of rampant unmoderated violent content that correlated with real world political violence. Look, when you have major thought leaders on your platform calling for the VP to be executed, you need to expect some repercussions when a mob takes the rotunda screaming "Hang Mike Pence!".
- zepto 5y ago
  > when you have major thought leaders on your platform calling for the VP to be executed This doesn’t seem sufficient to me. Given that the US has the death penalty at all, how can we declare that it is not ok for people to call for it when they believe a crime has been committed? Organizing an extrajudicial mob to carry it out, is another thing entirely, but just calling for it seems like it can’t be enough.
  - newacct583 5y ago
    > This doesn’t seem sufficient to me. Nonetheless it did to Twitter, and it seems like a very reasonable position. I mean, fine, if the free-speech-above-all-reason crowd wants to literally call for people to be killed and excuse that with "but AKSHOOALLY we're talking about the legal government exercise of the death penalty", then... OK. I think there's a reasonable argument that you have a first amendment right to do it. But fuck right off with your demands to do it on MY platform, because AKSHOOALLY the first amendment constrains only the government and not my right to publish what I want on my hardware.
    - kokanator 5y ago
      Make sure your aim isn't to justify your own beliefs. Seems like this is calling for what your are opposed to an it isn't censored. https://twitter.com/hashtag/killcops?lang=en https://twitter.com/hashtag/killcops?lang=en
      - 5y ago
tekstar 5y ago
Oh please. Laws exist, platforms must ensure their customers follow the laws, and when a customer refuses to remove illegal content or implement a moderation policy the platform has the choice to accept the liability or remove the customer. Proof is right here, with some moderation changes they let Parler back in.
- GoldenMonkey 5y ago
  Laws exist? How about protecting free speech and other points of view. It's clearly a right vs left viewpoint. And so political. We can easily list how much worse facebook is in terms of supporting dictators, supporting the CCP, censoring stories on Uyghurs. Not allowing political discourse on alternative viewpoints besides what is in their leftist bubble.
  - kingnothing 5y ago
    Free speech protects you from the government, not private companies.
    - noofen 5y ago
      These "private companies" are monopolies.
    - dahfizz 5y ago
      The first amendment protects against Congress specifically. But you as a human have the right to free speech, and that right needs to be protected against private individuals/ corporations as well. If McDonalds blew up your house, you would sue for property damages instead of shrugging and saying "well it wasn't the government, so I guess they didn't violate my property rights after all." Whether what Apple did here is actually a violation of one's right to free speech is a pretty tenuous argument. But that is the argument you should be responding to.
- Aerroon 5y ago
  When will Google and Apple start moderating Chrome and Safari? Those are their apps. Therefore they should be held accountable for all the unmoderated content you can find on them, right? Or are some apps/publishers more equal than others? If Brave becomes more popular, will they also get removed for "unmoderated content"?
kemiller2002 5y ago
This has always been the case. Book publishers can refuse to publish your manuscript, newspapers don't have to post your reply. Censorship in one form or another has always been there.
- kokanator 5y ago
  The difference here is social platforms claim they are not publishers under section 230. "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider" Therefore the correlation does not work. Part of the intent for section 230 was to allow free open discussion without the platform being liable. But once they begin to curate the content ( nice way to say censor ) they are no longer performing under section 230.
hugi 5y ago
Blocking an app explicitly used by terrorists to organize a coup/assault on the Capitol might be considered justifiable by some.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- symlinkk 5y ago
  I heard some of them were using Safari, Apple should remove Safari from iPhones too so everyone is safer.
- kokanator 5y ago
  Most of the planning was actually performed on Twitter. This has be substantiated by the FBI.
  - commandlinefan 5y ago
    Neither was it an attempted coup nor much of an assault. The protesters even dispersed voluntarily - if it has been an actual insurrection, the national guard would have arrested the participants that day. As it is, they're still trying to figure out who was even there.
    - beardedetim 5y ago
      > Neither was it an attempted coup nor much of an assault I don’t know man, seeing them beat an officer sure seems like it was an assault to me. > As it is, theyre still trying to figure out who was even there Except for the hundreds of people that video tapes themselves, I’m assuming?
    - butt_hugger 5y ago
      Oh shut up fascist.
      - dang 5y ago
deanCommie 5y ago
I mean Parler hosted credible death threats and actual fascists. Not hyperbolistic "everyone I disagree with is a Fascist"s, but proper worshippers of Adolf Hitler and his agenda. And - this is the more important detail - they took no effort to moderate this. This isn't a slippery slope situation, this is the full on iceberg. Short of child pornography I can't imagine a more easier case to justify a ban from the perspective of a private enterprise.
- zionic 5y ago
  So? Those “fascists” probably use web browsers and email too. Should chrome/gmail be pulled from the App Store because google refuses to moderate their creations?
- eudajmonia 5y ago
  If you are going to make such claims, then at least try and be objective about it. Let's start with the toxic hellfire that is Twitter, I'm sure no credible death threats exist there, right?
  - cozuya 5y ago
    Whataboutism. Every. Single. Time. Over and over, unabated. But What About Twitter
    - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
      You know "Whataboutism" isn't a magic word that lets you ignore an argument, right? If Twitter has extremist content (or death threats, or racism, or whatever) and isn't banned, then that is evidence that that's not the real reason for another app to have been banned. Weak evidence? Maybe. Open to argument about proportions of "bad" content? Absolutely. But still evidence.
      - sofixa 5y ago
        > You know "Whataboutism" isn't a magic word that lets you ignore an argument, right? If Twitter has extremist content (or death threats, or racism, or whatever) and isn't banned, then that is evidence that that's not the real reason for another app to have been banned Parler were banned for refusing to properly moderate ( while having no problem with moderating any content they disagreed with), not for having hateful content. When you report similar content on Twitter or Facebook, they usually do something. So yes, this is classic and very useless whataboutism. Don't you have anything meaningful to add to the conversation?
kokanator 5y ago
Tech censorship is real. To say the censor only a small list of items is misleading. https://censortrack.org/ https://censortrack.org/
amazingman 5y ago
The chilling effect is real, and after the Parler-fueled insurrection it was entirely necessary. I’m close to a free speech absolutist, but not actually one. Sometimes the barbarians really are at the gate.

by pdog 5y ago

zepto 5y ago

“Remotely controversial” might be an exaggeration.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sneak 5y ago
Tumblr's alt-porn community would like to disagree.
- zepto 5y ago
  Would they? What have they got to do with this?
  - 1123581321 5y ago
    Tumblr made it difficult to view NSFW content to appease the App Store. https://mashable.com/article/tumblr-bans-adult-content-policy/ https://mashable.com/article/tumblr-bans-adult-content-polic... There are some parallels as Tumblr similarly could not control its content sufficiently to both allow most of it and also ensure the problematic content did not persist. Just explaining, not defending either social network or Apple.
    - zepto 5y ago
      Ok but that isn’t ‘anything remotely controversial’.
      - 1123581321 5y ago
        Presumably advocates of NSFW content on large social networks don’t see a problem with it. Hopefully you see where the other user was coming from now; not looking for you to agree with them.
        zepto 5y ago
        I do but I think their point wasn’t well made, and is frankly misleading and wrong. There are very specific kinds of content that lead to these kinds of bans. Pornography and organizing violence are amongst them. It isn’t about controversial content.
        jonwithoutanh 5y ago
        But that's not really true, for example reddit has a massive amount of porn and yet none of the reddit apps get banned.
        zepto 5y ago
        Why do you think that is?

newacct583 5y ago

This is wildly underplaying what actually happened. Parler wasn't "censored" because it contained "new stories" that were "remotely controversial". Parler was blocked because of rampant unmoderated violent content that correlated with real world political violence. Look, when you have major thought leaders on your platform calling for the VP to be executed, you need to expect some repercussions when a mob takes the rotunda screaming "Hang Mike Pence!".

zepto 5y ago
> when you have major thought leaders on your platform calling for the VP to be executed This doesn’t seem sufficient to me. Given that the US has the death penalty at all, how can we declare that it is not ok for people to call for it when they believe a crime has been committed? Organizing an extrajudicial mob to carry it out, is another thing entirely, but just calling for it seems like it can’t be enough.
- newacct583 5y ago
  > This doesn’t seem sufficient to me. Nonetheless it did to Twitter, and it seems like a very reasonable position. I mean, fine, if the free-speech-above-all-reason crowd wants to literally call for people to be killed and excuse that with "but AKSHOOALLY we're talking about the legal government exercise of the death penalty", then... OK. I think there's a reasonable argument that you have a first amendment right to do it. But fuck right off with your demands to do it on MY platform, because AKSHOOALLY the first amendment constrains only the government and not my right to publish what I want on my hardware.
  - kokanator 5y ago
    Make sure your aim isn't to justify your own beliefs. Seems like this is calling for what your are opposed to an it isn't censored. https://twitter.com/hashtag/killcops?lang=en https://twitter.com/hashtag/killcops?lang=en
    - 5y ago

tekstar 5y ago

Oh please. Laws exist, platforms must ensure their customers follow the laws, and when a customer refuses to remove illegal content or implement a moderation policy the platform has the choice to accept the liability or remove the customer. Proof is right here, with some moderation changes they let Parler back in.

GoldenMonkey 5y ago
Laws exist? How about protecting free speech and other points of view. It's clearly a right vs left viewpoint. And so political. We can easily list how much worse facebook is in terms of supporting dictators, supporting the CCP, censoring stories on Uyghurs. Not allowing political discourse on alternative viewpoints besides what is in their leftist bubble.
- kingnothing 5y ago
  Free speech protects you from the government, not private companies.
  - noofen 5y ago
    These "private companies" are monopolies.
  - dahfizz 5y ago
    The first amendment protects against Congress specifically. But you as a human have the right to free speech, and that right needs to be protected against private individuals/ corporations as well. If McDonalds blew up your house, you would sue for property damages instead of shrugging and saying "well it wasn't the government, so I guess they didn't violate my property rights after all." Whether what Apple did here is actually a violation of one's right to free speech is a pretty tenuous argument. But that is the argument you should be responding to.
Aerroon 5y ago
When will Google and Apple start moderating Chrome and Safari? Those are their apps. Therefore they should be held accountable for all the unmoderated content you can find on them, right? Or are some apps/publishers more equal than others? If Brave becomes more popular, will they also get removed for "unmoderated content"?

kemiller2002 5y ago

This has always been the case. Book publishers can refuse to publish your manuscript, newspapers don't have to post your reply. Censorship in one form or another has always been there.

kokanator 5y ago
The difference here is social platforms claim they are not publishers under section 230. "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider" Therefore the correlation does not work. Part of the intent for section 230 was to allow free open discussion without the platform being liable. But once they begin to curate the content ( nice way to say censor ) they are no longer performing under section 230.

hugi 5y ago

Blocking an app explicitly used by terrorists to organize a coup/assault on the Capitol might be considered justifiable by some.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
symlinkk 5y ago
I heard some of them were using Safari, Apple should remove Safari from iPhones too so everyone is safer.
kokanator 5y ago
Most of the planning was actually performed on Twitter. This has be substantiated by the FBI.
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  Neither was it an attempted coup nor much of an assault. The protesters even dispersed voluntarily - if it has been an actual insurrection, the national guard would have arrested the participants that day. As it is, they're still trying to figure out who was even there.
  - beardedetim 5y ago
    > Neither was it an attempted coup nor much of an assault I don’t know man, seeing them beat an officer sure seems like it was an assault to me. > As it is, theyre still trying to figure out who was even there Except for the hundreds of people that video tapes themselves, I’m assuming?
  - butt_hugger 5y ago
    Oh shut up fascist.
    - dang 5y ago

deanCommie 5y ago

I mean Parler hosted credible death threats and actual fascists. Not hyperbolistic "everyone I disagree with is a Fascist"s, but proper worshippers of Adolf Hitler and his agenda. And - this is the more important detail - they took no effort to moderate this. This isn't a slippery slope situation, this is the full on iceberg. Short of child pornography I can't imagine a more easier case to justify a ban from the perspective of a private enterprise.

zionic 5y ago
So? Those “fascists” probably use web browsers and email too. Should chrome/gmail be pulled from the App Store because google refuses to moderate their creations?
eudajmonia 5y ago
If you are going to make such claims, then at least try and be objective about it. Let's start with the toxic hellfire that is Twitter, I'm sure no credible death threats exist there, right?
- cozuya 5y ago
  Whataboutism. Every. Single. Time. Over and over, unabated. But What About Twitter
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    You know "Whataboutism" isn't a magic word that lets you ignore an argument, right? If Twitter has extremist content (or death threats, or racism, or whatever) and isn't banned, then that is evidence that that's not the real reason for another app to have been banned. Weak evidence? Maybe. Open to argument about proportions of "bad" content? Absolutely. But still evidence.
    - sofixa 5y ago
      > You know "Whataboutism" isn't a magic word that lets you ignore an argument, right? If Twitter has extremist content (or death threats, or racism, or whatever) and isn't banned, then that is evidence that that's not the real reason for another app to have been banned Parler were banned for refusing to properly moderate ( while having no problem with moderating any content they disagreed with), not for having hateful content. When you report similar content on Twitter or Facebook, they usually do something. So yes, this is classic and very useless whataboutism. Don't you have anything meaningful to add to the conversation?

kokanator 5y ago

Tech censorship is real. To say the censor only a small list of items is misleading. https://censortrack.org/ https://censortrack.org/

amazingman 5y ago

The chilling effect is real, and after the Parler-fueled insurrection it was entirely necessary. I’m close to a free speech absolutist, but not actually one. Sometimes the barbarians really are at the gate.