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A key difference would be that it is easier to replace the services of Google, Facebook and Twitter than of power providers. But even that doesn't seem impossible.

"Not sure I follow. Do you think Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Jack Dorsey and other shareholders of FB/Alphabet/Twitter are a minority who need protection from being oppressed? "

All I am saying is that "the elected government did so" does not automatically make it OK or the right thing to do.

Personally I am not a fan of government intervention in private companies.

Many people in this discussion have made the point that for example Parler could simply move their servers elsewhere. Likewise, nothing forces people to use Google, Facebook or Twitter.

Not sure what you are going on about. Yes, they can do that. Nobody denies that. Doesn't mean everybody has to like it.

Choosing not to host it because of the content. Of course it is censorship. That people can perhaps publish their opinions somewhere else does not imply that it is not censorship.

The argument that it must be good because the government was elected by the people is not a good one. People elected fascists in Germany. They elect socialist regimes on a regular basis. It's not automatically good because the majority looks for it.

I'd argue that democracy can only work if there are mechanisms to protect the minorities from the majority. Because otherwise democracy always ends up as oppression.

100% sure that is bullshit. It is already illegal to call for somebody to be killed. If that was a major thing on Parler, it would be a case for the police, not for the Google mods.

Edit: with "universal free speech" I just mean it has to be legal to say things. I am not generally in favor of regulating companies. At the moment they are mostly regulated to censor stuff, though. While I think it also agrees with their own ideology (see Zuckerberg's personal statement), governments have also threatened the social networks if they don't cenor according to the wishes of the governments. (I know about the hate speech laws in Germany, not sure what is the current state of affair in the US).

I never said Apple or Google are not entitled to censor stuff.

I fully support the rights of private companies to do that.

People are also entitled to be critical of such moves and to look for alternatives. That's all.

What if Google would openly support fascism. Would you also defend their right to do so, because they are a private company? Would you happily continue to use their products? Or would you prefer to have an alternative?

Apple and Google just censored a whole social network. How can you claim it is just "people calling for violence"?

It's the oldest excuse in the book. And exactly why universal free speech is needed. Because otherwise that same excuse will be made every time.

Alternatively, I guess there simply will never be free speech and people will always have to fight to get heard.

I think some of the whales could make the price tank, at least temporarily. They include some governments who seized thousands of BTC from criminal operations.

But I think the same applies to many stocks. If Musk of Bezos would sell off a majority of their shares in their own companies, it would perhaps also move the price.

At the moment, crashes in Bitcoin can also be seen as a good thing because it helps give more people access to Bitcoin. It's even possible that some of the stakeholders (whales with thousands of BTC) occasionally deliberately induce crashes for exactly that purpose.

Because it is not so easy to manipulate the price, presumably.

It depends on the trading volume. For many "altcoins" or "shitcoins" it may be true, because they have low trading volume. Bitcoin probably less so these days.

True

How can you manipulate the price?

I suppose there are now some whales, including governments that seized BTC from criminals, that could induce a crash by selling thousands of BTC within a short frame of time. But that may be true for many stocks as well.

But they were detecting 2 out of 4, not 2 out of 2. I think you are incorrect.

Valve perhaps?

37signals probably.

What happens if you simply decline to attend?

How do you sync and preserve your SMS? Whenever I migrate phones, it is always the most painful part.

Named doctors would be a start. Media doing some checking would also be a start. Some person looking like a doctor making claims on YouTube is not sufficient.

None of those reports citing the alleged doctor actually checked with the hospitals.

Maybe that should be the minimum: actually checking the situation, rather than repeating some random claims.

Remind me in two weeks.

German hospitals are also overwhelmed in some places during flu season. And the German system is not "stable", either, it has its own problems.

There should be more awareness about what is going on in hospitals all year round. Media hype can make everything extreme.

And there are many theories to explain, for example NY morgues may have been overflowing because morgue owners were afraid to accept people who died from Covid.

Is there actual evidence that people died because they couldn't receive care? Even in Italy I have not seen the evidence, just YouTube videos of some alleged doctors making such claims.

Serious question. I would love to see evidence of people dying because they couldn't receive care (in the Western world).

I don't think the evidence is clear. There are countries that were unsuccessful with their lockdowns, and countries were numbers were decreasing (because of lockdown or other reasons is unclear).

Then there is China, whose numbers can't be trusted. And some remote island states seem to have done well. Most interesting case perhaps Taiwan (which incidentally also belongs to China).