>BigTech has just now gone nuclear in their censorship efforts
Who's being censored? Twitter, Facebook etc. are private platforms and they've been banning users who break their TOS throughout their histories.
Who's being censored? Twitter, Facebook etc. are private platforms and they've been banning users who break their TOS throughout their histories.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(Yes, the GP comment started it by including flamebait, but it's not necessary to take the bait, and the guidelines ask everyone to resist that.)
Trump got clapped not because of censorship, but because social media platforms decided to no longer exempt him from their TOS because of his position. Any normal person posting similar content would have been banned ages ago. Besides, he is the POTUS who can go on TV any time he wants. Thinking that he cannot get his message out there is ridiculous.
Alright, so finally after a few seemingly innocuous arguments you took your mask off. A person who believes storming the Capitol was not organized by Trump at this point would be able to find a justification to anything he says or does.
Big Tech, Inc., with its algorithms that promote radical right-wing content, also seems suspect.
To me the solution to all of these problems is to break up conglomerates and monopolies. Let's have more decentralization and more "small is beautiful" tech, like the chat system presented here. Let a million flowers blossom, smothering the aforementioned toadstool. (Wandering off to look at installing Cabal).
I mean if you don't like it, you could always just go pick up your own water...or install underground pipes to a local water source.
...now you know how it feels for anyone on the opposite side of your argument.
The good ol' democrat mantra: "Never let a good crisis go to waste."
I'm doubtful there is no clause in your city's/county's/municipality's/state's, etc. that allows them to interrupt service without cause. That's why terms of service exist.
Now I'm genuinely curious to find out what terms of service you agreed to with the private water company. What type of settlement do you live in?
Also, yes, you would not be provided water/electricity/cable/internet/pudding if you broke their terms of service. Apart from not paying your bill and perhaps willful destruction of their equipment, I'm having a hard time trying to come up with how else one breaks the terms of service for utility services. That sounds completely normal to me.
Additionally, people do go without certain utilities in times of economic hardship - this is nothing new. We're not guaranteed access any such services.
Or, more likely, is it only when companies are doing things you agree with that you'll claim they have absolute power and authority? If you understand history, you might see the flaw in this logic.
It is unfortunate that you don't understand the distinction between inciting violence via either direct calls for such or indirectly by repeating the same unfounded lies of "a stolen election" VS political speech/civil rights, which have not been abrogated (there are plenty of conservative commentators on Twitter, some of whom I follow).
As for my background, I am an immigrant from a post-communist Eastern European country, live in the US in the South and finished with political science and journalism degrees. Can assure you my appreciation of civil rights is intact.
As a general rule, even when situations like this occur, I lean on the side of caution, so I understand the slippery slope argument you're making. There will continue to be a national discussion about what the limits are in the still-uncharted world of social media and the limits of expression vs. platform and publisher rights, but your alarmist view is, IMO, over the top.
I mean after the election a poll showed 68% of voters had never even heard of the Hunter Laptop, because BigTech started banning anyone who dare even mention it. So don't be fooled that the censorship is to stop violence, it's to achieve political goals, and has been ratcheting up for the past 6 years. Twitter was canceling people for life even for daring to say such crazy things as "There's only two sexes."
Cancel culture has been getting out of hand for a long long time now, and people have had all they're going to take of it.
Now the left has gotten so brazen they're conspiring to shut down entire internet companies under these same false pretenses. And you have the audacity to call this "alarmist". Wow.
If internet service providers can shut down speech they disagree with, by going after the servers, then we're no longer living in a democracy.
You present this as if Parler is being shut down because people there have the wrong opinion on tax rates.
People on Parler are planning violent fascist overthrow of government, which is illegal. Why would Amazon be obligated to host sites that cater to terrorists?
People on the left are allowed to call for violence and say all kinds of racist things hate filled things, but if someone on the right even says something like "There are only two sexes" that's enough to get banned for life. The only reason the democrats all deny the existence of any double-standard is because MSM and BigTech happen to be in their tribe, so they all dare not call out one of their own.
I would like to complete the discussion on the previous point before moving on to another topic of discussion.
If a politician organizes a peaceful rally and violent people show up and do violent things, and you blame the politician for the violence, then I'm curious about something.... Do you hold the Democrats responsible for all the violence of 2020 when we had cities burning down, and the MSM saying things like "Who ever said protests had to be peaceful"
The Democrats calling the capitol mob a "coup de tat attempt" is absolutely hilarious and just shows their complete lunacy in their attempt to vilify the other side, even when they're clearly just being absurd. It was a mob who were let into a building. Hell they didn't even damage any of the priceless paintings. If anyone's to blame is was the security who let the doors get breached when their job was to guard the building with machine guns.
Remember, AT&T is also incapable of stopping criminals from conspiring using text/telephone messages...and based on your logic the Feds could just shut down AT&T and blame AT&T for being "complicit". No obviously that's moronic. Wake up and stop giving our rights away. Eventually you're going to loose your own.
The whole point of Parler is to be a safe haven for speech that has already been banned elsewhere, for the same reason. It was doomed from the start.