Comment by kiawe_fire | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kiawe_fire | Hacker News Reader

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At some point this becomes about what is right for society versus what you can legally get away with and what you feel like doing because you can.

Is this, legally, a free speech issue on its own? No, and I support Amazon’s right to “nope” out of anything they want.

But in the current context of the rush to also prevent open Trump support in other areas like payment processing, and the way the media is hellbent on trying to inextricably link Trump support with terrorism, it should be apparent that there’s a larger effort in play here, that feels highly politically motivated.

What bothers me at this point isn’t whether Amazon has the legal right to do this (they do).

What bothers me somewhat is that there is a clear chilling effect that is intended across the board for a huge portion of the country.

What bothers me even more, is that so many intelligent, well intentioned people are practically giddy about it.

We don’t all have to agree politically in any capacity, but I would at least hope we would have enough empathy to judge this in the context in which any reasonable person would see this on the other side, and be willing to advocate, at the very least, that we do this carefully and with respect for our fellow neighbors. Instead, I see absolute celebration about what can very fairly be seen (whether rightly or wrongly) as an attempt to ostracize millions of Americans.

The worst part about the giddy, gleeful way in which they are shutting down these echo chamber apps is the complete lack of thought as to how this impacts and further radicalizes the users. I have a brother who is into Qanon and Alex Jones. All of this just feeds into and cements the narrative, and pushes him into alternative platforms where he is even less likely to hear or see more mainstream view points.

It literally makes the problem that the people supporting this are CLAIMING they are trying to solve worse. I think it works wonderfully for the problem they are ACTUALLY solving, which is to cement an image of normal members of the political opposition as radicals on the verge of terrorism.

I spoke to my brother last night.

In an utterly predictable fashion, the Parler shutdown has made him worse. It turns out that when multiple global corporations collude to halt the communications of people who think they are being persecuted by a colluding body of global corporations, it makes their movement stronger. Who would have thought?

I have some family members who are similar.

In the past, I would be able to help talk people through their conspiracy theories to come to a logical conclusion that what they were hearing was too big, too harmful, or otherwise incapable of accomplishing anything to actually be true.

That approach is becoming harder the bigger this becomes.

I think perhaps you are correct, but I think we have come to the realization that people like your brother are gone and not likely to come back without serious help (medication, therapy, etc.) Just being exposed to other points of view does not seem to cure them.

So given that, the only reasonable conclusion I can come up with this that this is essentially an enemy force living in our country - thousands of terrorists and perhaps millions of terrorist sympathizers. Our only goal at this point is to deny them aid, support, and the tools to organize effectively.

Like it or not, we have entered into an era of asymmetric warfare with what amounts to a terroristic cult in the United States.

"I think perhaps you are correct, but I think we have come to the realization that people like your brother are gone and not likely to come back without serious help (medication, therapy, etc.) Just being exposed to other points of view does not seem to cure them."

This is exactly part of the problem: The hyper-dramatic reaction to a mob of political extremists that forcibly took over a public government building that occurred when the mob was right-wing, and when the building was the DC Capitol, that didn't at all occur when entire neighborhoods, court houses, police precincts, and Federal Courthouses had the exact same occurrence, with a minimal reaction from the press.

My brother isn't mentally ill, anymore than the people dressed in black shooting green lasers in the eyes of Federal officers guarding the Federal Courthouse in Portland are mentally ill. If anyone had bothered to focus on the dangerous radicalization when it was people who they happen to agree with politically, maybe we'd be a bit further ahead on countering it. Instead, we waited until it was people on the other side of the spectrum to notice how dangerous the echo chambers have become, and will label these people members of a cult, without acknowledging the absolute nut jobs on our own side. I was in Portland over the summer, and the crowds around the courthouse were mirror images of the crowds around the capitol. The amount of derangement on display was equivalent. Instead of MAGA gear, it was all black bloc gear, but that's about the only difference.

You are clearly a part of this sectarian viewpoint, because I'm sure you're going to tell me numerous reasons why ONLY these people are terrorists, and not the people who occupied several city blocks of Seattle with assault rifles for months over the summer (with no permission from the residents). I view them all as lunatic, dangerous terrorists, whether they have a MAGA hat or BLM shirt on, provided they are engaging in destruction of property or violence.

I had multiple friends text me from Chicago, etc., about how the media wasn’t covering what was going on right around them.

To me, it boils down to something simple? There are apparently two groups of people who will lie to you about whether it’s raining outside right now. One group just tried to overthrow the government, so I’m obviously hoping they lose. But that doesn’t make me thrilled about the other group using this as an opportunity to press their advantage and further dominate media outlets.

> It turns out that when multiple global corporations collude to halt the communications of people who think they are being persecuted by a colluding body of global corporations, it makes their movement stronger. Who would have thought?

A great point. I have yet to hear any response at all to this problem from the pro-censorship camp, much less a convincing one.

Every attempt to solve the problem creates more problems.

It's not just the Qanon/Alex Jones folks. It pushes center-right people to hold ranks.

Only because they're being spun up.

Trump's opposition is going to be giddy about Trump's downfall and Parler's removal, the same way Trump's supporters were giddy when Trump won. It is not reasonable to expect the mass of political partisans on Facebook and Twitter to adhere to a code of civility.

If your principles are altered by the behavior of strangers on Twitter, they aren't really principles, right?

> Trump's opposition is going to be giddy about Trump's downfall and Parler's removal

Sure. But seeing how many of these “giddy” people are blue checkmarks at real news organizations makes folks antsy about conservative news outlets (including mainstream ones) coming under attack as a response to the the Capitol Hill riot.

That's fair and it's a real problem I have with CNN, who I trust at this point slightly less than I trust MSNBC (who I trust not at all). But to take a counterexample: Tim Alberta, who wrote for The National Review, is very close to conservatives (his book _American Carnage_ is fantastic and incredibly well-sourced) is just as open about his personal opposition to this administration. This will sound glib, but a real problem we have in this moment is that there are two sides and one of them is simply correct.

> the way the media is hellbent on trying to inextricably link Trump support with terrorism.

Trump has moved himself outside of the system of American democracy and to this day refuses to acknowledge a democratic election result[1]. So yes, actively supporting him at this point is supporting an end to American democracy, pretty objectively. Linking the overthrow of the democratic order with terrorism, just after a mob entered the capitol and successfully interrupted the democratic order for multiple hours, doesn't feel a huge leap.

Being conservative isn't linked with terrorism. Being libertarian isn't linked with terrorism. Supporting somebody who rejects democracy is linked with terrorism. It's seems pretty clear cut to me.

[1] He said that a new administration will enter office but never that it does so rightfully based on a legitimate election.

> Supporting somebody who rejects democracy is linked with terrorism

No. "Rejecting democracy," a position held by myriad political currents, each of which probably means something different by the term, is basically a run-of-the-mill ideological position. (It's not one that I hold personally, in case anyone is thinking about downvoting for "extremism.")

You know what's linked with terrorism?

Terrorist acts. That is: sporadic acts of intense, spectacular violence and devastation designed to rock and destabilize some existing political order. Usually but not always from "below" (sometimes it's literally from above, like from a B-52).

I'm concerned pretty deeply, but very, very far from being terrorized by the pathetic spectacle at the Capitol. One reason for that is I don't take the extremely hyperbolic US press as literally as so many seem to.

> No. "Rejecting democracy," a position held by myriad political currents

Terrorism is subjective relative to the system in power. And I said "linked to" not "is". Having the opinion isn't terrorism. But giving money or vocal support to people who then invite others to or themselves try to violently overthrow a form of government is - from the subjective perspective of people in the current system - closely linked to terrorism. If they had succeeded in installing Trump as the continued leader in a post-democratic US, it wouldn't have been terrorism. Because they would've been judged under the new system of government. But they didn't succeed so far. So from the perspective of a post-Trump democratic government, it was terrorism. Terrorism doesn't mean every single person is scared afterwards, so your personal feelings towards it aren't the defining factor.

Nah, you're just letting the definition of terrorism float all over the place, like everybody else. Terrorism is whatever you don't like. Terrorism is bad guys. This is Bush playbook stuff.

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