Google Bans Parler from the Google Play Store
twitter.com
twitter.com
They'll just instruct them to download the APK on their phones instead, just like Epic games did for Fortnite.
Even so, I think it will only get worse. They'll also move to encrypted chat apps instead. So when will Signal and Telegram be targeted and banned from the App Store or Google Play Store?
I mean, they could always just open their phone's browser and go to parler.com. Apps might be gone but it's not like they're unreachable.
Or should they ask Siri and look it up on safari?
Regardless, the same could be said for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Amazon, Gmail, and countless other apps.
But nobody would be cause that's just being facetious.
They won't.
Because neither is promoting the use of its platforms for illegal behaviour. Or refusing to take responsibility if such behaviour is found.
Parler CEO said "I don't feel responsible for any of this and neither should the platform".
They won't. The question is why Twitter is allowed on these platforms but not Parler or Gab or whatever other Twitter-competitor.
Parler does not. There are numerous accounts on Parler calling for the killing of Pelosi, Biden, Pence, Chief Justice Roberts, assorted judges that ruled against Trump's lawsuits, state and local election officials, Republican governors and legislators who are not fighting hard enough for Trump, and numerous others. There were numerous accounts their calling for storming the Capital on January 6th and stopping the electoral vote counting using any force necessary to achieve this.
In short, Twitter is not banned because Twitter tries to comply with Apple's and Google's requirements to moderate user content and remove threats of violence, and Parler is getting banned because they do not.
The mentioned platforms also moderate user content, they just have different guidelines. Both claim to follow the law in that they take down content which violates it. Both claim that only illegal content is taken down. That is, as far as I can see, in line with the expectations for a platform to be considered a "common carrier" and as such be freed from liability for its users' content. Platforms which go beyond this by moderating on different grounds run the risk of being considered publishers and as such to be held responsible for their users' content. If Apple and Google put further demands on those platforms the question becomes who eventually is responsible for user content, this might end up being Apple and Google. That, in turn, should make developers think twice whether they benefit from being on those platforms. The alternative is to deploy to the web without any "native" apps (which often are not much more than rehashed web apps to begin with) which opens their product to a wider user base without needing to bend to the will of third parties.
This would be a good thing in my opinion. The time for "native" apps has come and gone, the time for the web has been there for a long time but this might just be the push needed to convince developers to make it their prime focus. This goes especially for communications-focused products since those derive their usefulness from being connected to the 'net anyway. There is still a place for native apps - offline mapping, offline media players, hardware-interfacing apps like Wifi-scanners, step counters etc - but those tend not to be the ones which end up in hot water anyway.
Twitter's content policy explicitly bans several things that are not illegal [1] [2] [3].
[1] https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/hateful-condu...
[2] https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/glorification...
[3] https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/medical-misin...
I do not imagine that this will end positively.
Web is as open and free as it has ever been. Arguably more so given that the barrier to entry e.g. cost for creating and promoting a site has come down. And we have examples such as Parler and TheDonald.win.
You just don't have a right to demand that the Facebook and Apple's of the world help to amplify your voice.
It could be argued that "the web is as open and free as it ever has been", but I do not think this argument could be made honestly. Even though many of the mechanisms for accessing websites exist as they did many years ago, the "surface area" of the internet that most people are able to discover and access is significantly reduced due to search engine algorithms (which are monopolies) and advertisement allowing individuals to pay for traffic and attention. Moreover, in the present moment we are near a peak level of intrusive data collection and surveillance.
Do you truly believe that the web for the average user in 2020 is as free as the web for the average user in 2000? Please give it some thought (15-30 minutes of quiet reflection) and let me know what you think.
On the contrary, Facebook promoting incendiary content because people (angrily) highly engage with it vastly increases the surface area of the internet. Fringe sites get much more attention than they ever could before Facebook existed.
I think we're past the point were we have to admit social media and the tech monopolies aren't just websites anymore.
Twitter deletes people who have opinions different than theirs.
Apple is trying to delete a free speech platform.
Google already did.
Biden and Democrats in charge are cheering it on.
Fascism is here and it’s the 'liberal' left.
For instance Jack Dorsey recently admitted that his employees coordinate with employees at the other big tech companies on moderation actions.
I'm just wondering what if any legal courses these actions could take?
If Twitter and Facebook software engineers were coordinating about what rules to define in their respective orgs for a company-wide JavaScript linter then that would not be considered anti-competitive.
That is precisely what content moderation policies are — rules to prevent filthy code from perpetuating. Filthy code can sometimes come in the form of incitements to violence. Other times it’s a recursive function with no base case.
This is going to radicalize people (especially conspiracy theorists) who now think have actual, indisputable "proof" these companies are there to get them.
But I am worried this will light a fuse towards further radicalization.
What I see happening is Pillarisation [1].
Yesterday was merely a very convenient moment for all of Big Tech to start the squeeze.
De-escalation takes 2, and Trump does not appear to be de-escalating.
Those people were already planning for violence before any of the deplatforming started. The only way you're going to deescalate the situation is either to give in to the terrorists and give them a Trump coup, or you're going to have to convince them that violence is not going to be tolerated and the underlying grievance is not worth it. The latter probably requires Trump (and only Trump can be the standard bearer at this point, and I'm not even sure he could pull this off) admitting that the election was not fraudulent and that he has been lying to his supporters, in addition to calling for legal punishments to those that committed violence in his name. If you haven't noticed, those were pretty much the exact opposite of what he chose to do in the brief time he had access to Twitter today.
To me the problem with webapps in general or (rich internet applications) is that the developer has very little control over caching or storage since it's very dependent on the whims of browser engine.
A progressive web app is just a regular website (typically a SPA but not necessarily) that typically takes advantage of a few newer web APIs that can make it behave more native app like when those APIs are supported.
Unfortunately fascism won.
shutting down free speech is one of the hallmarks of fascism, and it happens before your very eyes.
Was Facebook banned from app stores when shooters live streamed on their platform?
Was Twitter banned from app stores when calls for violence against Nick Sandmann were spreading?
Was Youtube banned from app stores when it was discovered that child predators were lurking in the comments and exploiting underage children?
Parler has no moderation and the CEO doesn’t believe they are accountable for anything that happens on or because of their app. Ergo, if I allow someone to build a bomb in the privacy of my own home, I’m not guilty because I didn’t actually build the bomb and deploy it.
Now I need to stick to my free speech principles, even though parler censors it's users and is a general shit show of self re-ebforcing misinformation and racism...
Gone.
I can't find the official statement. The tech journalist is the best I could do.
Some (imho much too large) companies getting their act together and moving in against hate speech and people outright calling for the killing of their political enemy, however, is not about murdering people. (I guess[!] it's about covering their ass, because mentioned regulatory instances will investigate why it became so easy to spread wild murder fantasies across the Internet and into the real world. With, surprise, people getting killed and democracy seriously endangered).
You are banned on Twitter and Facebook, you can not have your own app, your web hosting will drop you (they call on Cloudflare to drop thedonald), they'll revoke your domains and ssl certificates... Literally giving you no options at all to speak online, CCP style.
So the only difference here is that the political opponents are merely silenced instead of massacre. To think of it further, if you control all sources of information, you can not stop at silencing, no one will know if you kill them anyway - and even if they do, and somehow post about it, just write 'this has already been debunked', and a nice factcheck banner.
This is an incredibly sad day for all world and a turn for the worse. You'll see.
Yes, both is happening on the Internet for ages, and yes, it will always happen, no matter what. But the radicalization of the past years culminated in the events of the last days. We can either tolerate that and wait until these actions destroy our democracies (this effect is called the "Paradox of Tolerance"; if you don't know it, look it up), or carefully act against it.
Asking Parler to moderate content to not call for violence and putting an end to spreading lies about the election result is legitimate and in the interest of all of us, it is such a careful act. Now Parler has the choice to become a platform for conservative thinkers and opionions - or a platform of hate fueling violence against "others". Blocking the former would be grave mistake, as you say yourself. As for blocking the later, I think I made my point clear.
Over & out, unless you make a really good counter argument.
As for blocking calls for violence. I stand on a position that allowing such calls is an acceptable price for a free speech. I come from Russia, where all restrictions on free speech are made on the pretemse of 'calls to extremism', people who are against Putin are jailed, and sentenced, for exactly this. So no, I've seen where this road leads to. If people gather on Parler to storm the Capitol, find them using police measures and prosecute them. It's harder than bans, but has much fewer harmful side-effects, like eventual authoritatian state.
Or put it otherwise: A lot of these people believe that the "vote has been stolen" from them. The way a lot of those people look at the world, their actions are the only the logical consequence. Now, you say it is okay to prosecute them, but it is not okay to prevent false information to be spread? But if you tolerate lies and hate, then why do you not tolerate people acting on these? Look in the mirror, and you'll see the Paradox of Tolerance staring right back at you.
If you need personal positions: Even here in Germany (in the past we were pretty good at ignoring the inconvenient truths, one should think we [and the world?] may have learned from that) some people honestly believe those Q crap of how rich people living virtually forever due to some substance that's harvested from literal child abuse (and obviously the gov is in on it). I-forgot-half-of-the-BS fighting against robots under the surface of the earth? Got you covered (also, the gov is in on it, obviously). Immigrants come here to replace the old populace? Those people believe that, and, needless to say, the gov is in on this as well. Last but not least: Covid is a fake, and the vaccine actually is a chip that looks very much like the circuit of a guitar effect pedal and not like a real IC? You bet the gov is doing that (with the help of Bill Gates).
And, I repeat: Some people are believing this. They think the world is exactly like that. And of course they think someone should really do something about it.
You see where this is leading? Bad actors seeding lies and misinformation for their end (overthrow the gov and put those in charge who "spread the truth"). Of course you can jail the occasional shooter (politicians and synagogues are targets of choice), but by letting these bad actors continue "in the name of tolerance", you're creating a society which is tolerant in theory, but in practice you might need to be careful what you say because you end up on the wrong end of a baseball bat (lucky you) or bullet (less nice than the bat). This doesn't happen over a year, but in the long game, this will end badly. Oh, and yes, this is: The Paradox of Tolerance.
It's not like we're talking about minimum wage or the right amount of social welfare here. I mean, one can argue about these and there is no objective truth of what's best - at least none that we can measure without a time machine and/or infinite multiverses.
I came on here just to check what the “young intellectual tech” community thinks— I consider myself part of it. I’m a 20-something female, born in the heart of Silicon Valley, and have been heavily involved in tech during my short career.
Heads up: This isn’t animal farm, this is 1984!
I never post on here and stopped reading awhile ago due to the one-minded propaganda I consistently find on the site these days (i was a lurker a longtime before i made this account) but I feel compelled to share my opinion because these times matter, and us young (and old) folks matter.
Amen and a-women? Welcome to the best addition to New Speak. Please look that up if you don’t know what it is. Have you zoomed out on how Big (and Little) Tech had subtle involvement here? And how they may be affecting how you’re thinking? I can personally say after having deleted social media for almost 2 years, and combing through different sources (time consuming)- I feel very differently now than I did four years, or eight years ago. See my links below.
“I don’t like Trump” and “not being a Trump supporter,” standing behind Big Tech — the badges of honor on Hacker News. But here’s my practical advice: be very careful who you’re choosing. Everything in life is a trade off— even who’s in the White House, who’s in office, who you’re casting your votes for, the apps you use, and the companies you give your money and support to.
Another piece of advice: for some laughs, and practical news these days, check out AwakenwithJP and Brett Pella :-) (seriously all their videos are pretty good, especially JP!)
Another piece: Hear other perspectives “i was wrong about the Democratic Party,” Georgia H.
Finally, I’ll close with this recommendation: “when the plague arrives,” NTD.
Hope you hackers open your big brains, put your thinking caps on and leave confirmation bias in the past.
More seriously, it will be curious to see what he thinks of all this recent unrest as it relates to free software and such.
So far he wrote about the riots in DC by Trump supporters. He hasn't mentioned the banning of Trump on social media or Parlor from the Apple and Google stores.
Yet when they remove an app used to coordinate the invasion of the capitol building by people with pipe bombs, molotovs, guns, zip ties, bats, etc. it’s suddenly not acceptable? An app that has people openly calling for death to US congressional leaders and the Vice President, and the president elect?
Also cartels and terrorist groups have used these platforms to spread their propaganda for a decade now with barely any censorship.
https://cdn.cnsnews.com/styles/article_big/s3/2021-01/Arthur...
But two wrongs don’t make a right.