The Progressive Purge Begins: Tech’s stampede will lead to more populist anger | Hacker News Reader

The Progressive Purge Begins: Tech’s stampede will lead to more populist anger

wsj.com

37 pointsBostonian58 comments

I think this one from Vice arrives at an opposite conclusion. I think they're covering at least similar things?

https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media-bans-...

This is from 2018 & talks about Alex Jones.

“We’ve been running a research project over last year, and when someone relatively famous gets no platformed by Facebook or Twitter or YouTube, there's an initial flashpoint, where some of their audience will move with them” Joan Donovan, Data and Society’s platform accountability research lead, told me on the phone, “but generally the falloff is pretty significant and they don’t gain the same amplification power they had prior to the moment they were taken off these bigger platforms.”

But what we are seeing here is deplatforming of organizations and people that represent the leadership of a much more mainstream movement that includes a huge fraction of the U.S. - half the country voted for trump! So this is one of those things where a difference of degree becomes a difference of kind. I don't think this is going to end well.

[edit] - as an nuclear engineer - that study you cited reminds me of perturbation theory. You make a small tweak to the system and develop a model to fit how such small changes affect the larger system. But perturbation theory conclusions don't scale accurately up to "large" perturbations. If you pull the control rods a tiny bit in a subcritical reactor - you get higher neutron-multiplication factor for your existing/present neutron sources. So you might think that if you pull the rods 10 times as far, you get 10 times the multiplication - but you'd be wrong. If you pull them 10 times as far you go super critical and then you get like 1,000,000,000 times as much multiplication.

I don't think everyone who voted for trump is aligned with the most seditious followers....at the end of the day there are really only two parties to vote for and a lot of different issues lumped into those two parties...single issue voters (e.g.,those against abortion) are going to vote for the Republicans. It also wasn't half the country, it was less than half of everyone who voted which was ~25% of the country. While it's still a substantial number of people I think saying that its half the country and that they all support the most heinous party leaders is disingenuous.

I do wonder if we're going to end up with a fractured Republican Party after this, or even a new third party with a base made up of all those most seditious followers. From what I can see happening, it seems pretty likely. I'm not sure what the consequences might be for all of us if that happens.

Personally,I would like to see this happen in both parties. A seperate party for tea party fatalists and a seperate party for leftist-progressives. I think such a change would be helpful for better parsing out where each proportion of the populations values lie outside of the RNC/DNC framework.

Democrats are too diverse to agree internally, and Republicans seem to be co-opted by disruptive movements. More parties could change the discussions toward policy and projects.

If the "most seditious followers" leave to form a third party, then the Republican Party can become a normal, center-right party. That's not a bad outcome.

Duverger's Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law) provides insight as to why this is unlikely to happen.

Yeah, but when someone's "preferred" side (even if they didn't really like them) is being steam-rolled like this many of those people are not going to be okay with it - not the least of which is because of the authoritarian/dystopian precedent being set. This could be a path to a 1-party system. China and Russia are good examples of how well 1 party systems turn out. I think anybody who doesn't want a 1 party system should be concerned about all this.

The general party isn't being steam rolled though? The GOP held more seats than expected in the house and senate.the general party still has robust representation. They are just deplatforming the most extreme members who seem to be the most predisposed to violence.

California is a one-party system and has been for 20 years. I don't really like that model, but it seems to have worked at least in the medium term.

Things might be different at national level, though. States have to deal with more nuts-and-bolts practical issues, so that grounds the politicians somewhat. National issues tend to be more idealistic, so one-party rule could become extreme.

California is not a one party system. It has republican representatives both in the state and national legislatures. It has had one-party rule for a long time, and whether it has “worked” is far from clear. On the contrary, the beleaguered opposition has meant that the government is increasingly running with things that have mostly symbolic or political value rather than work together to solve urgent problems such as the deplorable housing situation and fragmented public transit.

No, it's not a one-party system, at least not in the case of Russia. It's just that anyone from the "wrong" parties can't use any mass media to get their message out.

If the tech companies want to short-circuit the right's ability to organize from now until the 21st, that's kind of reasonable, given recent events. Past that, though? They need to be very careful about continuing this. If they do, they need rationales and policies that are clearly stated, and clearly seen to be applied in an unbiased manner.

This also fits with the argument that they're not being de-platformed due to political beliefs, but because of violations of the law and the terms of service.

I know several conservatives who voted for Trump not because they love the guy, but because in the two-party system he's more closely aligned with their personal views on things like immigration, taxes, military, etc. I'd also argue that for the average American, the Trump of 2016 wasn't exactly an extremist hoping to overthrow the government.

The American political climate has polarized both sides. It's really unfortunate that in some circles, someone can't say or express conservative views without being lumped into the radical right-wing Trump Patriots. Similarly, some can't express liberal views without being lumped with radical left-wingers. And as a result of this, de-platforming the right-wing extremist is commented on as "silencing half the country" which just isn't true.

If your country does become a one party system; join that party and change it from the inside.

Did any of the companies loose a lot of stock value after de-platforming Alex Jones?

You're talking about a very complex phenomenon. I don't think predicting what will happen is an easy thing in this situation. Also, Alex Jones is a special case, because he was overwhelmingly and universally de-platformed. This stuff might work differently when the de-platforming is also ideologically bifurcated (i.e. they are not universally de-platformed).

Also, you have to ask yourself:

While pushing a community underground might decrease their reach significantly, does it radicalize them, and increase the overall potential violence for society?

"Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one."

—A. J. Liebling

In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God consciousness and never ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion?

We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber.

MLK Jr., 1963

"don't refuse to do business with them because they're violent thugs! that'll make them act like violent thugs!" is a very stupid line of argument.

This is a great quote and I think is very relevant to what's been happening over the last few weeks. I'm no Trump fan - nor a fan of the actions of people at the capitol. But trump never asked for anyone to be violent or occupy the capitol. But he and related organizations (i.e. parler) are being treated as such. Seems a bit disturbing to me. The arguments used to try to shut up MLK Jr. in the 60s are the same arguments being used to shut up Trump. Heaven knows we don't need to hear more of what he has to say. But I'll defend his right to say it. And nobody needs to rehash "but these are private companies" crap. Their doing this to appease the full-stack blue fed gov't coming in. So, in a way, it kind of is government motivated censorship.

you misunderstood me.

Parler’s defenders kvetching about their failure to maintain business contracts with their partners is disingenuous, and can and should be recognized for the bad faith slime that it is.

In the context of “letter from a birmingham jail”, trump and co. are more robber than robbed.

I see your point now, but your comment above (MLK's quote) comes across as saying the opposite.

It sounds like it's saying that Trump et al are okay, they're just exercising their right to speak, and if people are violent in return then we should punish those violent offenders.

But I suppose in reality you're saying the tech companies are okay, they're just exercising their right to police their own platforms, and if people are violent in return then we should punish those violent offenders.

Specifically, I think that appeasement is a real stupid justification for decisions made one way or the other, and I'm not persuaded by that argument in general. (https://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/dane_geld.htm..., for another fine literary reference)

In this case, justifying continuation of parler's services because "if not, the people that just shit in the rotunda are going to do something worse" is in fact a strong argument for doing the opposite and posting the national guard outside the capitol building for a week, which is what's actually happened.

In the long run, is it going to stop them? No. In the short term, is it going to really hamstring the potential for a reprise of this insanity on the 20th? Yep!

No - I recognized what you were saying by your last non-quote bit at the bottom. I was just pointing out that this quote really supports (IMO) the "trump-side" of this whole issue.

in context, it doesn’t.

Ungated: https://archive.is/ZBkbs

I'm sure others are struggling with the question of, what would an insightful view of this topic look like?

Any meta-understanding that undermines anyone's existing beliefs triggers a political immune response of predictable talking points, and opinions that are all generally the same shape. The observations are indistinguishable from projections, and the anecdotes use received language that originates from sources designed to create sensation and outrage.

Political discussions are not held to a standard of reason, they are only about activating allies or neutralizing opposition. What would a genuinely new and honestly valuable perspective on this topic look like?

I’m surrounded by neighbors who still proudly display their Trump flags. They’re incredibly nice people who have never heard of Stripe, AWS or Parler and don’t own Twitter accounts.

When we see video of hundreds of people storming the capital, or dozens of violent online posts, let’s not forget that their are lots of Trump supporters who don’t participate in or like the drama of recent weeks and aren’t as integrated with “Big Tech”. They’re traditional Fox News watching Republicans for whom their content and information has been uninterrupted. These bans are tangential to their everyday experience.

For us in tech, it probably feels more direct as we’ve personally interacted with these platforms.

They're going to hear about how big tech is conspiring to censor and take down their man though. This stampede is going to tick off a lot of moderate, "incredibly nice" people that would have otherwise been fine.

That might be true, but then what? How do they boycott / protest these companies they’re already not involved with and don’t really understand?

Maybe Amazon is the most exposed if the media is able to adequately explain how AWS and Amazon are related.

They have money. And children. And grandchildren. Those things equal influence. They also have votes.

Sure, but you can only vote once and they already vote every election, so they can’t change their behavior there.

I suppose they could donate more but my neighbors still flying their Biden flags have money as well. For them, these events and tech bans have only justified their world view of how dangerous Trump is.

If the result on both sides is donating and voting and raising children that seems pretty consistent with the past few centuries of American politics. So, not much will change?

That's a fair point. However, it's a matter of how angry each side gets. There is some critical level of anger that provokes unrest and strong reaction.

> There is some critical level of anger that provokes unrest and strong reaction.

Very true. I guess it's a fine line between being objective and being pragmatic. We don't want other people's anger to put pressure on our moral compass, but we don't want massive unrest either.

Where does this leave someone like me, politically?

I am essentially a moderate libertarian, but the LP is a party of idealists afraid to actually implement their ideas, out of fear that the real world might tarnish their purity.

Republicans are essentially broken. Trump took over completely, got rid of everyone else, and then now he's gone. Not sure what's left, but at this point it doesn't seem promising.

Democrats seem OK on paper, but (feel free to disagree with the following) seems to be getting taken over by people who don't actually like the country, its culture, and frankly a large number of its people. Many of the policies being proposed seem more likely to go the way of Venezuela than Denmark. I am not saying most Democrats are this way, but the powerful ones in the party seem to be. EDIT: let me add that I don't feel welcome in the Democratic party unless I toe the far-left line on every issue. If I out myself as a libertarian, I feel like I'd be pushed away from polite society as fast as Alex Jones.

And I don't feel this type of discussion can really happen many places (aside from HN maybe) because the left is completely in control of all media now, and all education.

Schrodinger's Tech Sector - rightist/libertarian and leftist/progressive at the same time, which one it is depends on when and who's observing!

Paywalled and very click-baity title. Is this a serious newspaper?

WSJ ceased to be a serious newspaper when Murdoch bought it. But of course, almost half of the country voted for 2020 Trump, so almost half of HN probably likes him even today. So you will see this and more like this being upvoted.

WSJ's opinion pieces are horseshit but their reporting is still top-class. To be fair, most opinions are horseshit to people who dont enjoy that flavor of horseshit.

I agree that WSJ is a great newspaper / publication for those of us who consume business / market news on a regular basis.

I never even click on the WSJ opinion section.

It should be noted that WSJ has always held to the fact that there is no substantiated evidence of voter fraud throughout the articles written around the election. Again, not speaking to the opinion section (bc I've never read it).

This is the opinion section, which is what went down the tubes post Murdoch acq. The actual business/finance sections are still good.

I find it very interesting how extremists now attempt to appear as moderate. For instance, take the submitter of the story:

Says it's not worth it to fix global warming: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25358094

Says the rich should be able to get the vaccines before others by paying to skip the line: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25472334

Says the rise in people identifying as transgender is due to "peer pressure": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25348701

And that's just over the last few weeks or so.

Of course, no comment at al condemning the attack on the capitol, but when the attackers and their supporters face backslash, suddenly they scream murder.

It's interesting how the Democrats have chosen to move against Trump and his supporters. They have no interest in bringing the country together, they are doing everything they can to divide it. The Tech companies, the media and even Pelosi and Schumer are really setting things up for a massive confrontation. For some reason they don't feel like they need to think about the 70 million plus that Voted for Trump.

Cancel Culture, shaming voters/supporters, Tech companies deciding what one side can say, etc. These folks will not be silenced, they will react and it won't be pleasant.

Junk away...

Not everything is “the democrats” or “the republicans” yet, sometimes it’s just “the lawyers” trying to cover the companies potentially very-exposed backside.

This is the real reason. These removals can be viewed through a conspiratorial lens, but in reality this is just companies taking the opportunity to remove legally problematic communities while they have the political support for it.

I started reading hacker news regularly about 1.5 years ago and one of the main reasons I liked it was there seemed to be fewer comments like these than Reddit in addition to the interesting tech content.

Lately, it’s been just as bad. This comment is completely pushing a political narrative that relies on selective interpretation.

I started reading it circa 2008, created my account in 2009.

In a way, HN is still a reflection of society, although more civil due to pg (then) or dang (now) moderation, plus the fact that a lot of users knew each other back then.

Nowadays, I'm constantly amazed at how the right is able to turn ANYTHING into someone else's fault. The right divides the country ("let's own the libtards", "the election is a sham", etc) but no, it was the left! The right does a coup, but no, it is the left that cannot let bygones be bygones.

Do they think we are dumb? are they dumb? what is going on?? Black is white is black, war is peace, etc. etc. and no one even blinks at this.

Their unsuccessful, bloody coup and treason will be punished by legal recourse. The impeachment is already started up again to prevent deranged voters from dictating a second term. No one is blinking in the face of violence. Remain strong and resist.

Civil discussion is still possible if you refuse to feel ashamed for rejecting falsehoods, which may be the weakness we have taken on in trying to remain compassionate to other voices on HN, which emboldens evil.

I'm just surprised at how close the US came to stop being a democracy. A bit more planning about what to do when they breach the capitol, a few more Qanon captains across the river at Ft Myer, or a few 100ks more Trump supporters here and there in the polls, and things would look very different now.

And of course, this is just the beginning. Right-wing extremists now this; the sooner we realize that we are against an enemy that wants to overthrow democracy, the sooner we put a better fight against it.

>Do they think we are dumb? are they dumb? what is going on?? Black is white is black, war is peace, etc. etc. and no one even blinks at this.

It's a very old trick.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” - Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister (possibly apocryphal)

Well, a lot of the articles being posted push a political narrative along with subtle comments like yours that seem to suggest the opposing view.

Yeah this article should not have been posted.

And btw you’ve hit the nail on the head. that’s the thing, I firmly believe the poster I replied to is wrong and a lot of other uncharitable descriptions. It’s hard to let such bad claims just stand unanswered.

This type of article and that type of post I replied to is just asking for contention.

I don’t come to hacker news for that sort of asinine online argument. If I feel like that, there’s a hundred subreddits I could visit.

> setting things up for a massive confrontation

There just was a massive confrontation, and the Republicans lost the Presidency and the Senate. Democratic leadership isn't afraid of another one.

I don't think we should assign blanket responsibility to the Democrats here. There is a powerful segment, including the media, cheering this on. But I believe most Democrats just want to move on.

The media doesn't want this to end because they are at an unprecedented level of power right now. They have just become the gatekeepers of thought; a monopoly of like-minded people in control of the truth. As soon as things queit down, dissent will resume (if there is any freedom left), but for now they are on top of the world. They want to keep this going, and will stop at nothing to prevent quiet.

Funny how you mention all the things the 'left' is doing while omitting an actual coup d'état where more than a few people died. "Bringing the country together" is only possible when the extremist no longer have the loudest voice.

I'm not on board with all the virtue signaling coming from tech and the left, but you lost me at 4 years of continuous lies and storming the capital.

However, the other take on this is that half the country is unhappy enough that it culminated in storming the Capitol. Sure, they may not look very presentable or act very civilized. But they have numbers, power, and anger. Sweeping this fact under the rug is not going to help.

This is what I don't get about these discussions. Any time someone says "the liberals are not interested in uniting the country" someone comes back with "but these people are rednecks and they are bad!" They are still part of the same country (for now) and if it is to stay a country the leadership is going to have to figure out how to talk to them. Because the process by which these people become not part of the same country anymore is called civil war.

OK, so the question is why? The proximate cause is that they were told, baselessly, from all sides of their media bubble, that the election was stolen. Many of the rioters also were followers of a bizarre conspiracy theory/alternate reality game that tells them that this is all part of a giant master plan.

The media and political environment has not been serving its function of properly informing citizens so that they can make informed voting choices, and so you have people trying to overthrow the government based on lies.

Now, not everything people believed in the pre-internet media environment was factual either, but there was rough agreement as to consensus reality. Even in the last contested election, the 2000 one, people roughly agreed on the basic facts (butterfly ballots, hanging chads, etc), even if they didn't agree on what should be done about it.

I don't have a solution for this problem, but it is a very serious one.

People tend to fall for conspiracy theories and charlatans when they are desperate. We call a large swath of the country "flyover states". These people feel like what they are doing is the only way to make themselves heard. We respond by doing more to silence them. This is not going to end well.

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