Tech Giants Shutting Down Violent Social Media Cesspools

[zapatos]

9 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

If you go into Walmart they can't kick you out for the views you hold, and tell you to go find another store.

 

My understanding is that they can do exactly that. 

They cannot refuse service based on race, color, religion or national origin. Nor can they refuse service based on other specific state anti-discrimination laws (sexual orientation is getting more protection lately), but other than that they pretty much have free rein.

Edited January 11, 2021 by zapatos

[iNow]

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

Nowadays apparently all you need to do is post fiction somewhere and folks are going to run with it.

It seems to depend quite a bit on who posts it and where. Some select few get anointed as messiahs and their word is gospel regardless of how absurd their words become.

Add to this mix growing up religious and thus having a predisposition for accepting things as true without evidence, slight tendencies toward mental illness, and the fact that acceptance of one conspiracy makes you more likely to accept others.

Teach people to reject fact checkers, treat all news as fake, avoid dissenters and listen only to the tribe, and manufacture reality nonstop, then voila! Cults and Scientology and QAnon and Trumpism is born 

[Sensei]

4 hours ago, CharonY said:

Nowadays apparently all you need to do is post fiction somewhere and folks are going to run with it.

..but it's the result of poor education..

Stupid people are easy/easier to manipulate than smarter/well educated..

 

Somebody heard that "vaccines contain Mercury", from other source heard about toxicity of Mercury element, and made from it vaccination conspiracy theory.

From two truths (in some circumstances), they added them together and made lie ("lie" is wrong word! If somebody truly believes in something, it is not lie.. maybe better would be "accidental self misinformation", or "taking too quickly and far-reaching conclusions")

Now, how to reverse this madness?

 

Banning them on social media is a bad idea. It won't stop them from believing in these nonsenses. You will have the illusion that they (people) do not exist, unable to speak freely about what they truly believe. Throwing garbage under the carpet, and then "see? How clean!" is a poor house cleaning method.. Trash has not disappeared.. You just hid them. And lost control over what, where and to who they will say.

Banning applications which are just used to spread these nonsenses, just because they don't want to introduce censorship, is even poorer idea.

That's exactly what D.T. did! China did not want to listen (obey) U.S. , so he banned Huawei from using US IT companies technologies.

Google/Amazon/Apple did exactly the same with Parler, what D.T. did with Huawei.

 

In the case of anti-vaxxers, there should be made professional documentary, freely distributed on YouTube, how some people from couple true information about Mercury element made entire vaccination conspiracy theory and anti-vaxxers movement. And if somebody on social media is talking about vaccines, documentary should be displayed to next social media reader, explaining how they get to this (mis)belief and movement...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal_and_vaccines

If somebody is on purpose spreading misinformation like flat-Earth videos, anti-vaxxers, etc. etc. . they do it to earn money from ads.. Disable ads on such videos and they will stop making them on purpose and for money..

[MigL]

Liked Arnold's video, INow.
Maybe he still has aspirations to become President, although even if he could, he's getting too old.

He was somewhat contradictory though.
At first saying we should not pledge allegiance to the President or the Party, but to the nation and its ideals.
While finishing with asking people to pledge allegiance to President-elect J Biden.
Chances are slim to none, but if he turns out to be an ass like D Trump, both parties should do what is best for the nation, and get rid of him.

The 'old' way to 'control' platforms/businesses was with your money or patronage, JC.
If you didn't like/agree with the service you took your business elsewhere, and if enough people did that, the business/platform failed.
These days, it's all about liabilities, lawsuits, and trying to control others through legislation.

I assume the Mercury you're talking about is the preservative, Thimerosal, Sensei.,
I've been putting drops in my eyes, containing that preservative, several times daily, for the last 25 years.
And, other than the silver colored eyes, I'm still fairly normal.
Aren't I, guys ?

[iNow]

1 hour ago, MigL said:

He was somewhat contradictory though.
At first saying we should not pledge allegiance to the President or the Party, but to the nation and its ideals.
While finishing with asking people to pledge allegiance to President-elect J Biden.

I went and checked. That's not what he said. He said we support you in bringing our country back together and wish you great success. Not that we should be allegiant to Biden, but to the need for healing. 

 

9 hours ago, Sensei said:

Somebody heard that "vaccines contain Mercury", from other source heard about toxicity of Mercury element, and made from it vaccination conspiracy theory.

From two truths (in some circumstances), they added them together and made lie ("lie" is wrong word! If somebody truly believes in something, it is not lie.. maybe better would be "accidental self misinformation", or "taking too quickly and far-reaching conclusions")

This is a good point. Most of the "best" lies out there contain elements of truth... it makes them more believable, and it's how that truth gets twisted or "orders of magnitude" effect get ignored that makes them easier to accept. 

9 hours ago, Sensei said:

Stupid people are easy/easier to manipulate than smarter/well educated..

Correct as a general trend, but I promise you I know far too many well educated people who are currently deeply entrenched in Trumpistan... several with advanced degrees and even JDs. Poor education is correlated, but not causative or prerequisite. 

9 hours ago, Sensei said:

Disable ads on such videos and they will stop making them on purpose and for money..

This would help, and I appreciate your point about blocking these sites being problematic in principle. I also think we need to avoid being rigid with our principles and adjust to the situation.

Your argument is a bit like saying we should let forest fires burn because suppressing them makes them stronger in the long-run. That's a totally valid point, however right now the fires are burning down peoples homes and we need to extinguish those, too. They're not mutually exclusive, and we need to do both. We can't just say "let the houses burn... we need to let nature be nature." There's a balance to be found somewhere in the middle. 

In much the same way, we need to discourage this type of thinking with reason and education exactly as you suggest, but we also need to suppress its spread into the fertile minds of others... It is it's own type of virus... a virus of the mind... and we need to socially distance it, too. Shutting down the sites is a type of vaccination... not 100% effective, but slows the spread... We can't just rely on herd immunity as more and more people get infected with this type of thinking. 

Edited January 11, 2021 by iNow

[MigL]

27 minutes ago, iNow said:

There's a balance to be found somewhere in the middle. 

Balances usually involve compromises.
Where the options are not clear cut, but there is some ( subjective ) judgement to be made, someone will come along and 'pervert' that judgement process to favor their personal cause.

If drug use automatically gets you a jail sentence, everyone caught with drugs goes to jail.
If there is 'judgement' involved and 'circumstances', affluent white people don't go to jail; poor minorities do.

If you're an idiot who listened to the President, and some Republican leaders, and stormed the Capital Building, you go to jail.
The President will most certainly NOT go to jail ( for this ), but will probably get a multi-million dollar book deal, a movie, and an even more successful reality TV star career.
And all those Republicans who supported him ( trying desperately to cling to power, while damaging the nation and democracy ) and encouraged the insurrection, will not go to jail, and will probably be re-elected.

[iNow]

5 minutes ago, MigL said:

Where the options are not clear cut, but there is some ( subjective ) judgement to be made, someone will come along and 'pervert' that judgement process to favor their personal cause.

It's a good point you make. I'm also not convinced there's a good way around it. These judgements will always be subjective. At best, we set guideposts and a framework to think through these things, but it will always be handled on a case-by-case basis.

 

@swansont posted a link earlier today that touches on this (while he shared it in context of moderation here at SFN, it applies here, too):

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210108/17022646023/not-easy-not-unreasonable-not-censorship-decision-to-ban-trump-twitter.shtml

Quote

...the problem with this framing is that it assumes that there are some magical rules you can put in place and then objectively apply them always. That's never ever been the case. The problem with so much of the content moderation debate is that all sides assume these things. They assume that it's easy to set up rules and easy to enforce them. Neither is true.

...

The platforms have rules because it gives them a framework to think about things, and those rules are useful in identifying both principles for moderation and some bright lines.

But every case is different.

 

[toastywombel]

Those who say deplatforming doesn't work and it instead only amplifies the public sentiment who are in favor of said persons being deplatformed, I would just like to point you to Alex Jones. A perfect example of how deplatforming someone does infact work. Since being deplatformed Jones has had a considerable drop in influence and money. Which I think is a good thing. 

Now the monopolistic practices that lead to the vast majority of public internet communications to be content controlled by a few companies is problematic. Also the undemocratic means in which this content is regulated and monetized is also problematic, but these I feel in order to prevent companies like twitter and facebook to be the arbiters of truth in social media, breaking them up by using existing anti-trust and anti-monopolistic laws is a better way to do that. I find many of the people who get upset that conservatives get banned from youtube and twitter are also the very same people who support politicians who allowed those companies to have so much power in the first place, and they don't care about the power dynamic instead they care about the fact those companies are attacking their politics. Typical "i dont' care about an issue until it personally affects me" conservatives and free marketeers.

 

It is a weird dynamic seeing so many conservatives attack these companies disingenuously from the left, calling for them to be broken up. Especially Tucker Carlson types, Some don't remember his old days on crossfire, back then he was a 100 percent Greenspan marketeer, now hes some populist. Its also not in the pursuit of better working conditions for workers or fairer and equal pay, its about "I wanna be able to say what I wanna say to make money off people".

 

 

BTW first post here in like better part of a decade so hello all lol.

Edited January 11, 2021 by toastywombel

[John Cuthber]

The moment may be past, but I rather liked the analogy that's doing the rounds.

Imagine that Facebook is a Christen Bakery and Trump is a gay wedding cake.

 

 

[J.C.MacSwell]

1 hour ago, John Cuthber said:

The moment may be past, but I rather liked the analogy that's doing the rounds.

Imagine that Facebook is a Christen Bakery and Trump is a gay wedding cake.

 

 

Is this gay wedding cake promising to show up at the wedding, but won't because it hopes there might be a free for all brawl?

[Ken Fabian]

I think popular entertainment and the distorted representations of "reality" it provides -  probably contributes; people spend a lot of time in the fantasy land of media news, entertainment and advertising  - and the lines between those are increasingly blurred. They are also more and more tailored and targeted, to engage the hopes and fears and beliefs various sectional groups of people hold, such that any editorial balance is not within the 'feeds', but with the diversity of different 'feeds'; increasingly our preferred views get reinforced unless we make an effort to sample other sources of information. I think our societies have always run in step with and promoted rather fanciful and self serving and self congratulatory stories of "how things work"; heroes rising up, taking matters into their own hand, saving the innocent, the day, the nation, and exacting revenge, is a popular theme anytime. But with partisan media - who was it predicted the political parties of the future will be media companies? - other media telling it differently to a different audience are portrayed as enemies and untrustworthy, preventing, not enabling an informed, balanced view, let alone treating differences as legitimately different opinion.

The supposed Constitutional "right" to take up arms against their own government may add to willingness of fired up citizens to engage in direct action in the USA, in ways other nations with elected governments and rule of law do not - I say "supposed right" because it would only be a right ever upheld if the revolution succeeds... making the USA no different to any other nation, where insurrection is always criminal, with the notable exception of where it succeeds.

[J.C.MacSwell]

9 hours ago, MigL said:

Liked Arnold's video, INow.
Maybe he still has aspirations to become President, although even if he could, he's getting too old.

He was somewhat contradictory though.
At first saying we should not pledge allegiance to the President or the Party, but to the nation and its ideals.
While finishing with asking people to pledge allegiance to President-elect J Biden.
Chances are slim to none, but if he turns out to be an ass like D Trump, both parties should do what is best for the nation, and get rid of him.

The 'old' way to 'control' platforms/businesses was with your money or patronage, JC.
If you didn't like/agree with the service you took your business elsewhere, and if enough people did that, the business/platform failed.
These days, it's all about liabilities, lawsuits, and trying to control others through legislation.

I assume the Mercury you're talking about is the preservative, Thimerosal, Sensei.,
I've been putting drops in my eyes, containing that preservative, several times daily, for the last 25 years.
And, other than the silver colored eyes, I'm still fairly normal.
Aren't I, guys ?

Anti trust laws have been around for 100+years, because this did not always work.

I will agree that it (your "old way") Is certainly preferred in a fair and open market, when that reasonably exists.

The media platforms such as facebook and twitter should be subject to the same laws as other media, at least to the degree they edit their content.

Why give them a pass?

Edited January 12, 2021 by J.C.MacSwell

[iNow]

I tend to prefer letting markets decide this, too. Where things get rather more complicated is when state actors, foreign governments, and militaries are actively engaged in operations to sow discord and strife on those platforms. 

[ScienceNostalgia101]

On 1/11/2021 at 5:56 PM, John Cuthber said:

The moment may be past, but I rather liked the analogy that's doing the rounds.

Imagine that Facebook is a Christen Bakery and Trump is a gay wedding cake.

What I'm wondering is...how is the converse less hypocritical? How is it that social media is allowed to discriminate based on customers' political opinions, while bakeries aren't allowed to discriminate based on who their customers are dating?

[John Cuthber]

12 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

bakeries aren't allowed to discriminate

They are.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/us/politics/supreme-court-sides-with-baker-who-turned-away-gay-couple.html

That's- kind of- the point I was making.

 

Edited January 13, 2021 by John Cuthber

[ScienceNostalgia101]

Gah, forgot to follow up on how that case turned out. Never mind, then.

 

Yeah, if they won that one I guess they don't have as much of a leg to stand on when libs won this one.

[John Cuthber]

There's also a difference between ordering a  cake and inciting insurrection...

[swansont]

3 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

What I'm wondering is...how is the converse less hypocritical? How is it that social media is allowed to discriminate based on customers' political opinions, while bakeries aren't allowed to discriminate based on who their customers are dating?

Perhaps because sedition and insurrection is not merely "political opinion" And neither are threats of mayhem and/or death? 

 

[swansont]

On 1/11/2021 at 1:49 AM, Sensei said:

Banning them on social media is a bad idea. It won't stop them from believing in these nonsenses. You will have the illusion that they (people) do not exist, unable to speak freely about what they truly believe. 

There's a point to this - that having them out in the open identifies them, but there's also the problem of organizing and coordinating their violence, and companies not wanting to associate themselves with a coup attempt.

[iNow]

We also have evidence of how preventing their use from these platforms DOES reduce and even eliminate the spread of their ideas. See, for example, what happened with Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos... how their revenues dried up and their audiences scaled down in size by several orders of magnitude. 

[iNow]

6 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

No, the impeachment is not off topic. It is closely tied to whether or not what these people did constitutes protected speech.

I created this thread, and I'm directly telling you it's off-topic. Please take these queries here instead: 

 

 

If you're unable or unwilling to comply voluntarily, I'll report your post so it's done for you. Thanks.

[J.C.MacSwell]

18 minutes ago, iNow said:

I created this thread, and I'm directly telling you it's off-topic. Please take these queries here instead: 

 

 

If you're unable or unwilling to comply voluntarily, I'll report your post so it's done for you. Thanks.

It seems relevant to me. Why don't you report it? The fact that you created the thread doesn't entitle you to moderate it.

[iNow]

Me: This is the topic I want to discuss

Others: Discuss topic

Others later: It's sorta kinda related to this other topic

... another page of off-topic responses on that other topic...

Me: Guys, this isn't the topic I'd hoped to explore. It's interesting, this just isn't the right place

Reported. Hoping to split the 2nd impeachment of DJT comments into a separate thread and keep this one focused on businesses deplatforming him. 

[swansont]

!

Moderator Note

To clarify things here, iNow is correct - the thread starter has a significant say in what is off-topic (absent an effort to just dodge uncomfortable questions, which is not the case here) and if someone shows up and insists on discussing a tangential topic, that is hijacking.

It's also true that in most cases you can quote a post or link to a thread when you start a new thread to provide context and discuss that tangent (additional rules/limitations apply if that's in speculations)

 

 

[iNow]

Snapchat permanently banned Trumps account today, too. 

The city of New York has backed out of all contracts with the Trump organization.

Marriott and many other companies have pulled contributions from all congress people who opposed certifying Biden’s win.

I’m pretty sure Hertz just said they would even rent Trump a car and Nathan’s wouldn’t serve him a hot dog.

Okay... that last one was made up, but wow!