Implicitly comparing a terrorist organisation like ISIS with a large chunk of the US electorate (more people have voted Trump the second time round compared to the first) it's pretty damn dangerous, nothing good can come out of it.
Politics need moderation from falsehoods and slander, and should be about policy, goals and reasons behind the projects.
Edit: I am only criticizing the juxtaposition of being elected and being compared to terrorists. The example itself is of no interest to me.
And that treating that as terrorism is a bad idea. Because they're going to get even angrier?
Failed coup attempt? What?!
That was not a coup attempt and that is not how a coup works. No matter how often CNN repeats that it was.
A coup attempt is when an armed force (the army and/or rebels), preferably with the help of politicians/lawyers/outside money/big business and the media, deliberately and violently organize to throw over and take over a government for the long term.
How can you even? Jeez, the brain washing is mind blowing to be honest. I find the media and the people who eat it up to be about a 1000x scarier than a bunch of dressed up unorganized people taking selfies inside the capitol.
There is also a picture of a fully masked person carrying zip ties designed for tying hands and feet.
There is another video where a police officer is being crushed against a door.
A police officer died from injuries sustained from, if I recall correctly, being hit by pipes.
The police had found and siezed Molotov cocktails.
There was also a pipe bomb found at the DNC and RNC. (People were saying Mike Pense is a traitor, if you weren't aware)
These events aren't just some unorganised people taking selfies and were widely reported.
Which news outlets did you follow that didn't mention this?
I think it says a lot that taking steps to limit violent hate rhetoric is seen as "suppressing conservatives".
If the two cannot be separated then it is in fact time to dismantle that political movement.
Conspiracy theorists who are calling for violence against elected officials and an an abandonment of democratic processes are being deplatformed.
What I would love to finish with is "That second group is only a small percentage of the first". Sadly, that's actually not the case.
Well, then we must fall onto another maxim. Truth and reality does not have a political bias. Regardless of how many tens of millions of Americans believe that Trump is the real winner of the 2020 election, it doesn't change reality.
A comparable tens of millions believe in angels, do not think that humanity has any role in climate change, and that vaccines cause autism.
They're wrong about all these points too.
It's the oldest excuse in the book. And exactly why universal free speech is needed. Because otherwise that same excuse will be made every time.
Alternatively, I guess there simply will never be free speech and people will always have to fight to get heard.
Also any opinion ever in the history of humanity could be interpreted as being "terrorist content" by someone.
Are you seriously implying we should be going back to a modern version of book burning?
I just can't get my head around how apparently the majority of people seems to be back at "censorship is good", us good they bad.
Parler has failed to moderate extremist content and is acting as a platform for radicalizing new users.
Apple, Google, Amazon, and Twitter have a decided independently that the lost revenue and maga tears are worth not having to host far right terrorists.
Parler can host itself if it wants, nobody has made it illegal to be a gaping asshole.
Parler made choices as a product to host virulent seditionist rhetoric without moderation and are facing the consequences.
If they had structured their product and infrastructure better, and made an attempt to moderate themselves they wouldn't be in this position.
Free market capitalism's a bitch right?
It is their platform.
Free speech is freedom from the government not private companies.
It's just pure entitlement.
Users can install alternative app stores or apps directly on Android phones. Or even they could buy a Linux phone like the PinePhone and install whatever they want.
But no, they want the audiences built by private companies.
It's funny how those who decry communism so much want state control of businesses.
And to note, users on Parler are advocating blowing up AWS data centers: https://twitter.com/JohnPaczkowski/status/134811382832466739...
I fully support the rights of private companies to do that.
People are also entitled to be critical of such moves and to look for alternatives. That's all.
What if Google would openly support fascism. Would you also defend their right to do so, because they are a private company? Would you happily continue to use their products? Or would you prefer to have an alternative?
What is universal free speech except a desire to have the government dictate what companies can have on their platform?
If Google supported fascism, yes, I would want an alternative. I wouldn't support them.
I would sell my phone. I wouldn't be surprised if they started removing apps that didn't conform to their ideology.
But here's the thing. This social network does not moderate people posting about killing their political enemies.
I would not defend your hypothetical Google's right to support a hateful ideology.
Edit: with "universal free speech" I just mean it has to be legal to say things. I am not generally in favor of regulating companies. At the moment they are mostly regulated to censor stuff, though. While I think it also agrees with their own ideology (see Zuckerberg's personal statement), governments have also threatened the social networks if they don't cenor according to the wishes of the governments. (I know about the hate speech laws in Germany, not sure what is the current state of affair in the US).
Long ago the same applied to water suppliers, electricity suppliers, railroad networks, phone networks.
Each and every time, once these private companies accumulated disproportional amount of power over people, these private companies were forcibly split, nationalized, and/or heavily regulated. This happened on behalf of the people who elect governments to do so.
Do you think modern Apple and Google are very different from Bell System in 1982?
I'd argue that democracy can only work if there are mechanisms to protect the minorities from the majority. Because otherwise democracy always ends up as oppression.
That was OK. Happened in 1932-1933, and it was not a landslide victory, with only 33-44% of votes. The Holocaust and WW2 were not OK, but they happened in 1941-1945 and 1939-1945 respectively, long after the democratic institutions in Germany were dismantled in 1933-34.
> I'd argue that democracy can only work if there are mechanisms to protect the minorities from the majority.
Not sure I follow. Do you think Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Jack Dorsey and other shareholders of FB/Alphabet/Twitter are a minority who need protection from being oppressed?
All I am saying is that "the elected government did so" does not automatically make it OK or the right thing to do.
Personally I am not a fan of government intervention in private companies.
Many people in this discussion have made the point that for example Parler could simply move their servers elsewhere. Likewise, nothing forces people to use Google, Facebook or Twitter.
They can, and they probably will. Gonna take time. Pretty sure they did not expect a coordinated attack from Amazon, Apple and Google at the same time.
> nothing forces people to use Google, Facebook or Twitter.
You’re commenting on hacker news. This means you’re using a PC, or maybe a phone or tablet. Some (likely private) company is selling you electricity you use to power these devices.
Would you be happy if that company cuts your electricity because they don’t like your political views?
If no, what do you think is the key difference from Google, Facebook or Twitter doing their censorship?
Not by much. Especially Google, among other things you gonna replace smartphones of 50% of the population.
> But even that doesn't seem impossible.
Exactly. And if there's no key differences, why we regulate them so differently? Utilities can't discriminate based on political views.
It is common for people to get banned from Parler for things as simple as questioning the evidence “supporting” various conspiracy theories.
So don’t complain when the entire site gets taken offline due to breaching various terms of service regarding “do not use our platform for terrorism.”