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Comment by deanCommie | Hacker News Reader

Trump voters aren't being deplatformed.

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.

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Apple and Google just censored a whole social network. How can you claim it is just "people calling for violence"?

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.

A social network that hosts terrorist content.

Every social network ever in the history of humanity has hosted terrorist content.

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.

What is and what is not protected speech has been pretty clearly defined over the years. Honestly though it doesn't matter because these are private companies.

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.

They didn't censor anything, they chose not to host it.

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.

Choosing not to host it because of the content. Of course it is censorship. That people can perhaps publish their opinions somewhere else does not imply that it is not censorship.

They didn't touch their content, they just made a choice as a business not to allow it on their platform.

Free market capitalism's a bitch right?

Not sure what you are going on about. Yes, they can do that. Nobody denies that. Doesn't mean everybody has to like it.

Apple and Google are private companies.

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 never said Apple or Google are not entitled to censor stuff.

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?

"And exactly why universal free speech is needed. Because otherwise that same excuse will be made every time."

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.

100% sure that is bullshit. It is already illegal to call for somebody to be killed. If that was a major thing on Parler, it would be a case for the police, not for the Google mods.

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).

> Apple and Google are private companies. It is their platform.

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?

The argument that it must be good because the government was elected by the people is not a good one. People elected fascists in Germany. They elect socialist regimes on a regular basis. It's not automatically good because the majority looks for it.

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.

> People elected fascists in Germany

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?

"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.

> Parler could simply move their servers elsewhere

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?

A key difference would be that it is easier to replace the services of Google, Facebook and Twitter than of power providers. But even that doesn't seem impossible.

> easier to replace the services of Google, Facebook and Twitter

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.

Parler was set up specifically to provide a place where Trump supporters could discuss sedition, terrorism, and make plans to prevent a handover of power in the case that Trump lost the election.

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.”

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