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Platforms systematically removed a user because he made "most wanted CEO" cards
- echelon 2y agoI'm not a fan of this guy's message at all, but the fact that you can be so easily and totally de-platformed should be a clarion call for everyone. Platforms wield too much power and can wholly and totally destroy us. Run afoul of their rules just once (or maybe even not at all), and your business or identity gets totally erased with no recourse. This is a shameful and scary state for us to be in. Serfs of the platforms. If the political zeitgeist continues to become even more extreme, you might get silenced for questioning the origins of a virus, being LGBT, or expressing displeasure at a certain political candidate or business leader. Left or right. It should be impossible to remove someone from banking, PayPal, Shopify, social media, etc. -- unless they're actively breaking federal law. And even then, there should be a legal process in place to reclaim your identity and real estate. If legislation won't help us, then we need to build peer-to-peer (not federated) systems that will.
- chatmasta 2y agoI can understand the decision of a platform to remove the business account, or the posts of that account, which are promoting the sale of an item that’s basically inciting terrorism. But the decision to also ban his personal account seems like an overreaction.
- echelon 2y agoI absolutely detest this person's message and think they're a deeply flawed human being, but the power asymmetry and mechanisms to de-person are orders of magnitude more terrifying. This is 1984 type stuff. The banking pieces probably fall afoul of AML/CTF rules, which is fine. But the social media bans, total wipe of accounts, no process in place for restitution, and no communication are literally mechanisms of de-personing.
- semiquaver 2y ago> literally mechanisms of de-personing A person is not the same thing as their social media account. “Literally de-personing” is usually called murder and is already illegal.
- mschuster91 2y agoThey are referring to 1984 where any hints on your existence got erased from public knowledge. And I think that there are a few cases where that happened in real life as well, IIRC under Stalin.
- snakeyjake 2y agoI find the act of banning someone from tiktok being equated with "de-personing" them extremely interesting. I think we have very different perspectives on what it means to be human, how much all of this (waves around hand in the general direction of social media) is worth, and what is important. I value tiktok, and all other social media platforms, at nothing. $0.00, maximum. If you built your business on them, you fucked up. If you use them for news, you fucked up. And if you feel that they are needed or important, you DEFINITELY fucked up.
- lesuorac 2y agoThe problem is that many governments are starting use social media as official platforms. Want to know of road closures? Better check the relevant DoTs Twitter pages.
- chatmasta 2y agoThat’s a legitimate problem, but it’s one that you should take up with DoT, not Twitter. For critical services it may even be illegal, since you can’t access Twitter pages without logging into Twitter, and you can’t signup to Twitter without passing a CAPTCHA and other user-hostile gating mechanisms.
- semiquaver 2y ago> It should be impossible to remove someone from banking, PayPal, Shopify, social media, etc. One of the freedoms enshrined by the first amendment is the right to choose who you associate with. This also applies to businesses. It’s absurd to suggest that every company should be forced to do business with every person. As a freelancer I can choose my clients. I would hate to live in a world where a bad client could force me to continue to work with them unless they broke the law.
- scotty79 2y ago> This also applies to businesses. That's a very bad idea. Because then you have to create a myriad of laws that forbids discrimination on ever growing number of things. It turns ensuring everybody's basic economic freedom into a game of lagging whack-a-mole. If a business advertises a product or a service to the public with a price they shouldn't be allowed to refuse the product or a service to anybody willing to pay the price.
- foolswisdom 2y agoThat's true until you become big enough that common carrier regulations apply to you. Besides, how does the first amendment enshrine that?
- foolswisdom 2y agoTo frame it differently, if you want people and businesses to do whatever they want, you need to make sure that the businesses they depend don't become platforms without meaningful competition. But of course the dream of every company is to be so big that they essentially own the market / space.
- linksnapzz 2y agoQuite literally the Rockefeller/Buffett/Gates playbook. "Competition is a sin!"
- semiquaver 2y ago> how does the first amendment enshrine [the right of association] Courts have interpreted “assembly” to include this right. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt1-8-1/ALDE_00013139/ https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt1-8-1/ALD...
- EA-3167 2y agoI don't disagree with your message, but man... I disagree with the idea that putting together a hit-list in the style popularized by the US military in Afghanistan and Iraq is protected speech. There's a MASSIVE and obvious 1st amendment issue here, but in the sense of "Incitement to murder isn't covered under the 1st amendment" sense. So yes, our reliance on platforms which can cut us off is a problem, the chilling effect on online speech is a problem. But not over this.
- wnoise 2y agoNormally to be covered under "incitement", it has to be a call for imminent unlawful behavior.
- EA-3167 2y agoA hit-list of specific individuals seems like it falls under that category, doubly so when it's clearly intended to be a "continuation" of the UHC CEO assassination.
- idlewords 2y agoThe guy also posted "the CEO must die" to his Instagram.
- undersuit 2y agoMaybe you should apply HN comment etiquette outside of HN. >Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. The strongest good faith interpretation of "the CEO must die" is that it is not a call to action for murdering "the CEO". But we'll let the author clarify: >“The CEO is more than an individual it is a figurehead of the capitalist order,” he wrote. “When we say the ceo must die, we mean the structure of capitalism must be broken.”
- idlewords 2y ago
- themaninthedark 2y ago>you might get silenced for questioning the origins of a virus I think we sped past that mile marker a long time ago. We have been warning that speech moderation and rules about "distasteful speech" and the like would end up hurting those who were advocating for it but I guess it requires a generational learning event. I guess until it gets bad enough that we decide that ideas regarding free speech and censorship should apply to corporations we are left with what Mr. Munroe had to say: https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
- idlewords 2y agoThe cards have a human-shaped shooting target on the back. The platforms did absolutely the right thing here.
- ceejayoz 2y agoIt's not like they came up with the idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most-wanted_Iraqi_playing_cards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most-wanted_Iraqi_playing_card...
- stickfigure 2y agoTwo considerations make this different: * The backs of the Iraqi cards are just a WANTED stamp. * The people on the Iraqi cards are military targets in an ongoing war. The rules are different for civilians.
- Miner49er 2y ago> The people on the Iraqi cards are military targets in an ongoing war. The rules are different for civilians. It's violence either way, you just find it a more acceptable violence.
- carlosjobim 2y agoThose military targets on the cards were fully expected to do their greatest effort to kill or neutralize the card issuers and the card holders. Should I expect these CEOs to do the same thing?
- ceejayoz 2y agoStatistically, denials of medical care are highly likely to have killed more Americans than the ~2k Americans killed in Iraq by enemy fire over a ~20 year period.
- 2y ago
- throaway89 2y agoThings like this is why I've been telling (less tech-savvy) friends to get off the internet for 5+ years now. There is just no way to stay clear of corporate control for the average person, regardless of your political opinions.
- tedunangst 2y ago"The corporations don't want me to say this on the internet, so fine, I didn't want to say it anyway!"
- throaway89 2y agoNot what I said.
- reaperducer 2y agoThings like this is why I've been telling (less tech-savvy) friends to get off the internet for 5+ years now. To your knowledge, has it worked with anyone? I find that the more I warn people about the invisible problems of the internet, the less they care to change. But perhaps you are more persuasive than I.
- throaway89 2y agoNo it has not! It is very scary. I have family members that grew up not caring anything about technology, never owning a computer, being indifferent and criticizing the younger generation for being so tech-addicted. Now they bring their ipad to bed every night, crow about their reddit comments, and generally act as if the internet is essential to their happiness, or is letting them make their mark on the world. I think that if you grew up using technology pre-2000, or are generally tech-savvy you can easily see the problems and they scare you because you understand the ways that things have changed so drastically. Windows 11 (for one example) doesn't even allow you to set up your computer without being connected to the internet? That's an objectively bad decision as far as a computer product goes; the ONLY benefit is to Microsoft and their data-collection business! But if its normal to you, it's "not a big deal." "Why are you complaining?" I can be very persuasive, ive been told. But people today are addicted. There is no doubt. You can see the fear in their faces as they try to come up with reasons why "they" are the exception, as if they are different from every other person.
- NoGravitas 2y agoIf you'd still like to follow him, I'm told by reliable sources that he is now on REDNote (Xiaohongshu).
- brickfaced 2y ago[flagged]
- redleggedfrog 2y agoCue Streisand effect in 3...2...
- stickfigure 2y agoIt's not the classic case of Streisand effect, because I don't think the tech platforms (to the extent that they can be anthropomorphized) care one way or another about the popularity of these cards. They just don't want the liability of being involved in their production and dissemenation. If someone else wants to take that on, it's somebody else's problem. Either way, removing the cards from _their_ platform accomplishes their goal.
- cowpig 2y agoWhat liability are you referring to?
- stickfigure 2y agoMaybe you don't remember this? https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb... Or this? https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/21/how-misinformation-whatsapp-led-deathly-mob-lynching-india/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/21/how-misin...
- cowpig 2y agoFacebook never paid any reparations for the Rohingya genocide, and that was a genocide organized on their platform. So I don't see how one could think some "most wanted" playing cards could create a liability?
- stickfigure 2y agoFacebook took an enormous reputational hit over those events. They still receive bad press about them to this day. They Do. Not. Want. stuff like that on their platform. Goodwill is literally an accounting line item. And do you really think, if something like that happened in the US, that Facebook wouldn't get sued? Maybe they win, maybe not, but someone would definitely try.
- anonymous344 2y agowho owns these seevices? yup! the 0,001, even have great influence what's removed from tiktok
- bitwize 2y agoAnd the right wants us all to believe THEY'RE the ones unfairly being deplatformed for what they say...
- jcarrano 2y agoI usually agree with EFF, but this clearly crosses a limit of promoting and glorifying violence. In this case the user is clearly in violation platform TOS.
- ceejayoz 2y agoI'd note this doesn't meet the legal limit of promoting violence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action (This strict standard saved Trump on Jan 6, incidentally.)
- Miner49er 2y agoThose rules are always applied inconsistently. Nearly all political statements are violent or are calls to violence, but if the violence is deemed acceptable violence then it probably wouldn't even register as violent by a person reading them. For example, "we need to deport illegal immigrants" is a call for violence if you think about it, it's just violence through one of the acceptable channels - law enforcement. The same is true of statements about war, whether it be in support of Ukraine, Israel, Palestine, etc. Maybe the violence is self-defense, but doesn't change the fact it is violence. You don't see platforms removing these violent statements, because it's "acceptable" violence, but what violence acceptable is malleable. It changes in society over time, and it's different depending on who you ask.
- baggy_trough 2y agoRounding up somebody and detaining them is not violence.
- spencerflem 2y ago???????
- baggy_trough 2y agoDo you have a question?
- babypuncher 2y agoBillionaires sure do love their free speech when it lets them flood us with blatant misinformation to their benefit. But as soon as it's used to criticize them they throw a massive fit.
- bsnnkv 2y agoBesides these cards, ComradeWorkwear also has some great shirt designs. I got this one for the gym[1]. [1]: https://www.comradeworkwear.com/products/swoletariat-tee https://www.comradeworkwear.com/products/swoletariat-tee
- fzeroracer 2y agoOf course, a lot of these platforms have no problem with such things against minorities or people without power. But if you're a CEO you've gotta be protected at all costs, you poor thing. I wonder if they even realize they're responsible for this environment they've festered.
- motohagiography 2y agoI don't think this case is a meaningful test of speech codes. The cards and culture-jammer stuff in general are tactics from a simpler time. Imagine if they released card decks for the DNC, NGOs, political staffers, the EU, etc. The world has changed. If someone put your face on a card, you would use what ever means of recourse was available as well.
- ycombinatrix 2y agoWhere can I purchase the cards?
- schmookeeg 2y ago"To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize"
- Lvl999Noob 2y agoIt sounds like these CEOs are as tired of peaceful activism as we are of them. They are stopping all soft attempts thus making it clear that they want hard action to be taken.