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Comment by Daishiman | Hacker News Reader

No, parlor wasn't even doing a "good enough job". It wasn't doing _anything_. It's financial backers supported everything with regards to its users going into a violent frenzy.

There really is nothing contentious here, unless you feel that if you know that a group is organizing in your platform with the intent of staging a coup then you're in your right to just let them go about it.

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I had an account there for about six months before it went offline. It wasn't a particularly interesting or compelling website. Most people viewed posts of affiliates; there were some memes but most of it was just conservative talking points. The average post being "this person or movement is a jerk because..."

I personally never witnessed any violent discussion on Parler. Again, the website was less compelling than Twitter in all ways; it was more like a news website. I have seen more provocative comments on other forums.

I have personally witnessed violent statements on Twitter over several years usually coming from leftists such as AOC. Part of this is due to the comments being easier to read on Twitter than Parler. I assume bad behavior on Parler was deep in the comments, but the website didn't make those easy to read.

I thought the Parler takedown seemed random. They were used as a scapegoat. If you were a normal user, you used it to hear a different viewpoint but you still lurked on Twitter some because there was no real discussion happening on Parler.

I'd appreciate it if you could avoid the term "leftist" in future - this may be a cultural thing, but here in the UK, it's almost always used as a derogatory slur. I get the impression that's also true in NA, but forgive me if that isn't the case.

Can you provide an example of a violent statement posted on Twitter by AOC?

Not to mention that "leftist" is necessarily relative to some other position. In the UK (not to mention continental Europe!), "left" means something rather different than in the US...

I won't use leftist again. My anger at censorship is coming out. The proper academic term is postmodernist; at least that's what the Cynical Theories book by Primose mentioned.

I told my husband I would stop looking at Twitter since it upsets me so I'm handcuffed to find specific proof there. But, I was primarily referring to the list tweet where AOC mentioned gathering republicans who worked for Trump. There have been other similar sentiments expressed by her to punish people over time; she has an activist side which can get aggressive for a Congresswoman.

To be fair AOC isn't the worse I've seen as far as Twitter threats. The worst I've seen is the guy who acted like the controversial professional Mike Adams's suicide was good who is currently a North Carolina professor. Also, there were tweets against Rand Paul which were violent after he got attacked by a neighbor. There have also been tweets for years mostly by random accounts threatening Trump; Gab has organized all the data.

I appreciate the reply. Here in the UK I look on with a mixture of sorrow and fear. Events happening across the pond right now are some of the scariest I've witnessed in my life, but I'm acutely aware of similar issues here if not, mercifully, anything like the same kind of tension. I just want deescalation. I want calm heads and kind hearts to prevail. We need to listen to ourselves less and each other more. Stay safe, America — every last one of you.

Do you have examples of "violent statements on Twitter" by e.g. AOC? Not trying to doubt you at all, just broadening perspectives.

They don't exist. Full stop.

Before I started reading AOC's tweets, the right's view of her had seeped into my brain. I didn't know why, but I had a slightly negative view of her.

Once I actually read her views expressed in her tweets I was shocked how reasonable she was. In 100's of tweets I've never seen her say anything that I thought was even remotely radical.

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1324807776510595078

Now change Trump for Biden and you tell me about it

Did you link to a different tweet than you intended? You appear to be arguing that it’s “violence” for a public figure not to be able to disappear past public statements which they now regret. Her position that they should take responsibility for what they said is something most children learn pretty young.

"Is anyone archiving these Trump sycophants for when they try to downplay or deny their complicity in the future? I foresee decent probability of many deleted Tweets, writings, photos in the future"

Yes, show me where in those words you find violence. I see someone wanted to hold the enablers of DJT accountable.

> I see someone wanted to hold the enablers of DJT accountable.

So around 40% of the American population. The left loves to talk about the right-wingers doing dog-whistles, this is one from the left. Your commentary also come across as naive or disingenuous when in those days AOC just one of several left-wing politicians and personalities calling for the creation of undesirable lists (again that 40%) to ,when the time comes, get them to pay for enabling Trump. All these within the highly violent BLM protests context.

I asked for evidence. What was provided was insanely weak.

Again, put up some evidence that is equal to the charge: show us violent rhetoric.

" I believe injustice is a threat to the safety of all people. Because once you have a group that is marginalized and marginalized and marginalized … once someone doesn’t have access to clean water, they have no choice but to riot." AOC,2020

"Our election was hijacked. There is no question. Congress has a duty to #ProtectOurDemocracy & #FollowTheFacts." https://twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi/status/864522009048494080

Nancy Pelosi 2017

"When this nightmare is over, we need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It would erase Trump’s lies, comfort those who have been harmed by his hatefulness, and name every official, politician, executive, and media mogul whose greed and cowardice enabled this catastrophe."

Robert Reich,2020

https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1317614803704115200

BTW show me a tweet from Trump calling for violence, seeing how stringent are your standards and how adamant you are that only the right calls for violence you must have examples a plenty.

But I am wasting my time here.You know it and I know it. You have your mind made up.

1. Explanation of why people riot. No call for violence.

2. Russia interfered with our election. Not even close to a call for violence.

3. Not even close to a call for violence.

Trump calls for violence? Easy:

https://www.vox.com/21506029/trump-violence-tweets-racist-ha...

That was just the first google hit.

A half-assed google search wont do. Give me a tweet. These are dark times when I find myself defending Donald Trump against the sycophants of powerful tech barons,consciously willingly to abandon basic democratic ideas like free speech, surrendering them to private entities whose interests are totally misaligned with the public, especially the poor. All of this, "to own the right". The US is fucked beyond repair.

> I have personally witnessed violent statements on Twitter over several years usually coming from leftists such as AOC.

I am very curious for an example of an AOC tweet that you considered a violent statement.

I am thinking you must have a very different definition of "violent statement" than I do, and I'm curious to learn more about it by example. Because I read a lot of AOC, and have never seen anything I would remotely consider a violent statement. But you may consider things differently, what exactly "violence" means, let alone in a statement, is to some extent not entirely set in stone, I agree.

Can you provide an example (or three) of a violent statement from AOC you have personally witnessed, as you say?

She is a real person, it seems only fair to provide an example when making such an accusation.

I can't speak for OP, but #guillotines is a perennially popular hashtag among the Chapo-sphere on Twitter. And those Tweets, let alone the user, are almost never removed.

We might have a different definition of violence; I find it to be a spectrum with multiple levels.

I consider cancel culture a form of violence. There was a tweet from AOC suggesting making a list of all those who worked under Trump; I presume she wants to cancel them. This was dangerous since she was a Congresswoman. There was also a tweet where she voiced support for the riots this summer.

To be fair to AOC, she is not the worst I have seen.

Also, to be fair to Twitter, I bet there is a ton of right side violent speech I just personally haven't seen much of it.

I have personally witnessed violent speech on the postmodern side on Twitter because I'm more tuned into people calling for censorship. It's a topic I'm following.

I think the main reason I didn't see it on Parler was because the comment section is hard to read.

Can you provide the specific tweets so we know what you're talking about?

But yes, if you consider "making a list" to be violence, I guess we do have different understandings. I hope you apply this understanding in all directions, to your political compatriots too, telling them they are being violent (presumably in an undesirable way) when they do things like make lists? Or wait, you just presume that she was going to do something? Yeah, I"m curious to see the tweet. It sounds like a lot of presuming...

But cause if AOC isn't the worst you have seen... why did you use her as an example? Like, everyone is always using AOC as an example, when to me she's like one of the smartest and kindest politicians I know, from her utterances. Regardless of what you think of "cancel culture", she's not even a very good example of it, she's not the paragon of cancel culture, that's not really what she does at all. I think it's very unfair to AOC.

And yet, everyone wants to use her as an example. (Including by 'presuming' extra things she hasn't actually done!) Why? If you recognize she's not actually a great example of what bothers you, why did you mention her name as the only specific name example you mentioned?

This is one of the things AOC said which impressed me which I think is literally the opposite of "cancel culture": https://www.vice.com/en/article/ne8wjg/watch-aoc-give-a-dire...

It's easy to find the AOC list tweet our riot tweet if you google it; I'm currently taking a break from twitter.

AOC was the first that came to mind. Regarding her list, I believe at the time twitter users were citing a law saying what she was recommending was getting close to being illegal. They called it citizen intimidation, yet with more formal wording.

AOC wasn't the best example. The best examples were people saying it was good Rand Paul had been injured by his neighbor and the professor saying Mike Adams suicide was good.

I hadn't seen the AOC tweet you linked. It does appear uniting at first, yet when I looked closer I saw a familiar persuasion trick. It seems like she's applying the argument that anyone who has certain beliefs is a white supremist.

One of the most divisive things these days is labeling all people with conservative beliefs racist. It seems racist has become a catch-all term for anything postmodernists disagree with.

Calling someone racist means you don't listen to them and you can cause them to lose their reputation even if the claims don't have merit. The parody account Titania McGrath helps outline how the definition of racism has changed.

You made a very specific, very inflammatory claim.

>I have personally witnessed violent statements on Twitter over several years usually coming from leftists such as AOC.

Kindly provide the evidence or admit your claim was mistaken.

A clearer more accurate statement than the parent statement would be:

I have personally witnessed violent statements on Twitter over several years. Postmodern leaders, such as AOC, have encouraged low levels of violence using the Twitter platform.

This definition of violence is meant to describe violence as a spectrum which includes the destruction of property and destruction of job prospects of conservative individuals.

As far as I know, AOC has NOT tweeted the worst levels of violence. I apologize for using AOC as the primary example. If I could edit the parent statement I would because she is NOT the best example. It is also possible there is a less inflammatory word to describe cancel culture and property destruction than violence; I don't want to mix two things up.

The AOC tweets I was referring are below:

- Encouraging riots.

AOC, protests/riots threat: https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1334184644707758080

"The thing that critics of activists don’t get is that they tried playing the “polite language” policy game and all it did was make them easier to ignore."

- Encouraging cancel culture.

AOC list tweet, is now deleted but was widespread. https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/132481791745673625...

Other tweets I've seen:

Mike Adams bashing soon after suicide before burial: https://twitter.com/ProfeRandolph/status/1286440502271901707

Most Rand Paul violent tweets were deleted. Most were anonymous. This is where Kelly Paul states her memories of the tweets. https://twitter.com/KelleyAshbyPaul/status/13483463720434524...

Hang Mike Pence as recent example. Most of these were deleted. https://twitter.com/TeaPainUSA/status/1348828960679997440

>I consider cancel culture a form of violence

OK snowflake

For the benefit of others, let me explain.

It's about scale. A disagreement that should stay between a small group of people and often could be solved by mediation, a conversation, or community service ends up being a national event.

An individual who has a specialized skillset loses the ability to be economically viable. They might not be able to get another job in the field.

Often, they are being used as a scapegoat.

If you make it impossible for a person to get a job in his or her field because you disagree with what they say, that's a form of violence. If you're going to economically eliminate someone in a scaled way, make sure it's worth it; it should be a last resort. This is really about scale.

To extend on that... the entire premise of parler was that everyone was censoring them too much(for similar calls for violence) so they needed a platform that was immune from that. well when your entire premise is flawed from the start it's not a stretch to see that they would be targeted from that like stormfront.

That's a stretch.

Millions feel censored and diminished.

You don't get to the level parler got purely because the few extreme users felt censored.

You saw a minority of users taking free speech too far.

This wasn't Amazon, Google's or Twitter's place to act. This was a job for the police and the FBI and really the fact they intervened at all is just so fucking American.

World police that nobody bloody wants.

Sounds like reasonable open internet regulation, like the type that "The Left" has been fighting to get for decades, would have really been something useful for Republicans to not oppose simply because of its popularity among the left.

Instead, we are left with mega corporations being the arbiters of their own platforms, Just like those supporting deregulation wanted.

the stuff they were posting on parler was probably illegal[0][1] and parler specifically didn't moderate their violent or seditious rhetoric. (though they did moderate anything that didn't align with their groupthink)

0: https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/rioting-and-in...

1: https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/sedition.html

i know the dead comment below won't see this and likely doesn't care but for posterity they were absent in their moderation for many weeks and were knowledgeable of it from the get go: https://twitter.com/cambrian_era/status/1349371372384841730

No, Parler was doing plenty of moderation. They actively suppressed opposing left-wing view points. It was a pure far-right agitation machine.

> It's financial backers supported everything with regards to its users going into a violent frenzy.

The financial backers of Facebook supported the company a lot through its enabling of the Rohingya genocide. But, then again, the Rohingya are not white, nor Christian, and they don't live in a country that can be a potential source of expats (like the UK or Australia, nice, good countries), only of immigrants.

There are lots of horrible things on Parler from what I’ve seen (I don’t have an account, I’ve just seen screen shots). The most egregious example was the post from Trump attorney Lin Wood calling for Pence to be executed by firing squad. It was up for days, and only taken down when this all blew up.

I find it hard to understand why that should not be allowed to be said. I know it's in extremely bad taste, but still...

You're wondering why making threats of violence against a person or trying to rally a credible threat against them isn't permitted under the first?

I would have to see the exact text, but the way it was mentioned up in this thread it didn't sound like either of those.

He didn't call for him to be executed: https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/01/02/06/37509512-9105875-...

Ah, so it's a load of bullshit. As I imagined.

What is he proposing then?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErGzmjYWMAI_POS?format=jpg&name=...

Thanks for sharing that, I hadn't seen that post.

I can see how you would take it that way, but honestly people have been saying a lot worse on the internet for a long time now.

I believe he's saying that we should have military tribunals to try and execute traitors, but of course those words were implied, not explicitly said.

I agree it's inflammatory for sure, but after all the crap I've seen on the internet, this is hardly a post to justify removing the entire platform this was posted on.

And after the tribunals are setup and operational and people are getting executed - would it be enough then? Or not quite yet still? What's your "this is enough, guys" point? Do you have one?

We got mighty close this time, didn't we? Do we need to get "closer"? Should Nancy Pelosi have had to be captured by some "patriot" with zip-ties and an AR-15?

No, you misunderstand. I don't want a mob to hold a tribunal. I want a real military tribunal that follows all procedures, exposes their crimes and then punishes them.

The masses long for justice while the elite and elite-wannabes try to convince themselves that the system isn't completely broken.

> I want a real military tribunal that follows all procedures, exposes their crimes and then punishes them.

Exposes which crimes exactly? Don't tribunals normally take place after you've got a good idea of what the crimes are?

> The masses long for justice while the elite and elite-wannabes try to convince themselves that the system isn't completely broken.

The multi-millionaire son of a multi-millionaire, truly the only person that knows the hardships put upon everyday americans. It's such a shame our hero was hoodwinked by all those nasty corrupt people who just happened to run his campaign, legal team and otherwise generally surround him...

You have opinions. I have opinions. It's easy to jump to conclusions.

We should have trials to get to the truth instead of smearing people for having money and being successful. If we assume the worst about people because they were born into a wealthy family where does that leave us?

You don't believe the swamp could be that corrupt. I do. Is it ok for me to hold that opinion? Is it ok for me to speak it, or will I be silenced for wrong think?

> We should have trials to get to the truth

You're still being cryptic about this. I'll ask you again what the basis of these trials should be? who and what should we be investigating?

I'm aware of a few trials that have already happened, my favourites:

Paul Manafort, former campaign chairman of the Trump campaign sentenced to 7.5 years in prison[1]. Collusion with suspected Russian operatives, lying about that collusion. Sentenced separately in Virginia for ~4 years for bank fraud, tax fraud, and hiding foreign accounts[2].

Michael Cohen, former personal attorney to Donald Trump sentenced to 3 years in prison. "charges involving campaign finance violations, tax evasion and lying to Congress"[3].

A fun list of the rest of the swamp dwellers that have been charged or convicted[4].

> If we assume the worst about people because they were born into a wealthy family where does that leave us?

We aren't assuming the worst about people born into a wealthy family. We're asserting that they cannot relate to those born into a lower or middle class family.

> You don't believe the swamp could be that corrupt. I do. Is it ok for me to hold that opinion? Is it ok for me to speak it, or will I be silenced for wrong think?

You're intentionally ignoring the fact that the man who told you there was a swamp is entirely surrounded by people found guilty of some form of fraud or corruption...

[1] https://www.axios.com/paul-manafort-sentenced-years-prison-r...

[2] https://www.axios.com/paul-manafort-sentenced-prison-mueller...

[3] https://www.axios.com/michael-cohen-prison-sentence-mueller-...

[4] https://www.yourtango.com/2020336767/trump-associates-have-b...

> We're asserting that they cannot relate to those born into a lower or middle class family.

That's a big leap to make. I'm sure we have much different narratives we find to be true, but Trump is basically filling stadiums wherever he goes. Maybe he relates to the lower and middle classes better than you are giving him credit for.

> You're intentionally ignoring the fact that the man who told you there was a swamp

To be fair, you have no idea how I came to believe there is a swamp. I thought that long before Trump became president for a variety of reasons.

I'm not going to get into the details of what I believe. There's just too much to cover. I'm not claiming that I could persuade you that I am right. We are on the sidelines in all this. We are in the middle of an information war, and probably have been our entire lives.

It does neither incite or produce imminent lawless action, nor likely to incite or produce such action.

Twitter contains worse.

No, it's a violent call to action in front of an angry mob willing to commit violence.

Well, it's illegal in the US for one: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/871

There's also the fact that an angry mob overran the US Capitol while chanting "Hang Mike Pence" as a direct result of Lin and Trump's posts/comments

I hope no one ever posts a horrible thing like calling for the death of a politician on twitter.

and i think a key point about this particular example is that Lin Wood is a very visible public figure. This wasn't a single crazy comment buried in a long thread that a moderator could have missed. If there was any good-faith effort by Parler to moderate content, it would have caught the Lin Wood rant.

For reference, this was on Twitter & Parler. Twitter didn't take him down for at least a week.

Similarly, I've seen people regularly call for violence on all sides and not be removed from Twitter.

The reality is that the moderators are overwhelmed, etc.

Too busy to moderate Trump's inner circle.

Twitter, though, at least has moderators, and makes an effort to remove threatening content from its service. The speed and efficacy of Twitter's abuse team is a topic for debate, but they have (and enforce) policy.

Parler famously had no such policy, that's why it was so attractive to the insurrectionists. The CEO, even after January 6th, went on record that he didn't feel it was Parler's responsibility to moderate user-generated content at all. Whatever last-minute olive branch they tried extending to AWS regarding a potential future volunteer moderator system obviously wasn't sufficient for Amazon.

Twitter and Facebook took how many years and millions of dollars to scale up a moderation strategy? I guarantee they weren't worrying about moderation at Parler's scale.

Twitter didn't take him down for a week, but they took that post down faster (I think). I regularly report twitter posts that are similar to that - violence mostly. It often takes two or three days, but they do get them taken down.

Here are some examples that are just as egregious:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErTzgBxXcAAuTkC?format=jpg&name=...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErTzgBuXYAAB4y2?format=jpg&name=...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErTzgB3XIAcffGC?format=jpg&name=...

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