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Comment by AussieWog93 | Hacker News Reader

I think if all independent voices were banned from large platforms, people would just move elsewhere. I'm not saying that the large platform would collapse, but that a more independent platform would operate in parallel and take care of peoples' desire to both create and consume independent content.

It's a cycle that's been going on since at least the 19th century (via pamphlets), and I don't see it stopping any time soon.

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The problem with "elsewhere" is, that "elsewhere" is marked as sexist, racist, far-right, nazi-, and free speech is marked as bad. Sites like parler lose their hosting, sites lose their domains, their apps are rejected by the app stores, and soon there is no "elsewhere" to go, atleast not for "the masses".

World is big. As long as there's a browser without built-in censorship (malicious websites filter, kek...) and world-wide Internet, that's not an issue. Parler can always host in Russian data center, for example, who could care less about US politics shenaningas, just like Russian dissidents are hosted in EU data centers.

World is big, but eg. mobile ecosystem is basically google and apple, and both banned the parler app.

You don't need app for something like Parler app. It might be more convenient (and even that's questionable, Reddit app is terrible compared to website), but it's not necessary.

One way to look at it is that "elsewhere" is a protest pen, just like in the physical world where there is a plan to host this year's G7 protests in Plymouth, 76 miles away from the G7 venue [1].

[1] https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/mp-fears...

And then that new platform goes the way of Parler (dropped by hosting providers) or Voat (infested by witches) or just spammed/DDOSed to death if they try not to rely on the advanced anti-spam infrastucture that's necesaaru on the modern web.

the key difference of this time is network effect. People aren't going to move elsewhere, and instead they (more precisely - their brains) will be slow boiled like that frog.

Of course, the draw card is that people can add their comments and feel like they're involved.

You don't want anyone else actually reading the great unwashed's comments, though!

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