Donald Trump

a bit of a complex area imo... i'm not so much interested in the freedom of speech angle. as already said, there are T&Cs when you sign up. For me the issue is where this all ends up... whilst I cannot argue with removing dangerous people off mainstream channels, I think there is also a risk that their followers also go underground (not just a few fruitbats, we're talking tens of millions of actual voters...) and that all remaining lines of communication die. A bit like people who joined cults. Do you write them off or chip away in the hope some will come back? The idea of 2 parallel worlds not even exposed to each other scares me because that's the recipe for eventual civil war. I know that sounds melodramatic and yes extremism is undeniably weakened when loony tunes don't have easy access to each other, but those who are fanatical will always find a way through. do we want all these people hanging around on darkwebs out of view?
 
ElrowLovers said:
No matter what you think of Trump and what happened at the Capitol...
Big Tech companies enforcing arbitrary censorship is a serious concern.
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You're so wrong it's not even funny. They are private companies and can boot anyone at any time for any reason. You aren't entitled to use them, ESPECIALLY if you inciting a mob to cause harm.
 
Springal said:
Agreed.

Donald Trump backed a bakery that did not want to deal with a customer- because they requested a wedding cake for a gay marriage. He said it was their business and they could choose what customers they wanted to work with.

So how can Donald Trump be annoyed with a private company that has chosen to ban users who have been in multiple breaches of it's T&Cs?

Having a social media account is not some kind of 'freedom of speech' divine right. He can find or seeing as he is a successful businessman even build his own platform to spew his bile.
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Nailed it on the head.
 
CasaNegron said:
Trump is a big baby. I deal with relatively wealthy people and I come to the conclusion that consistent complaining is how they eke out a marginal advantage that accumulates wealth over time. Sad but true.

100% agree that websites and social media platforms are private property, unless they hold a monopoly position (or move in concert). At that point, they become a utility.

I am not as worried about Facebook and Twitter, as much as the hosting services. MySpace and AOL were big social media platforms at one point, and Yahoo was king of search (and a lot of other stuff), until it wasn't. I could start a social media company tomorrow, specializing in 'Bum Pics' ?, and censor anyone who believes boobs are better!

Mmmm, wide hips... (stares off to the horizon)

Back to my point, I do imagine that it is much more difficult to build or buy the infrastructure to host said website. I don't know how many providers are out there, honestly. I know there are right-wing alternatives to FB/Twitter, but big-tech is moving to make access to their apps difficult (removing from google/apple app stores) and refusing to host their sites (Amazon).
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Internet traffic is actually ready regulated by utilities as they can't prevent content (ie landline service providers), they got booted by the website hosting companies. Nothing stopping them from starting their own hosting company and putting it up that way. I fully assume there will be a Russian or Chinese hosting platform that'll have them up by the end of the week (the irony will of course be lost on the users).

FB is about as close to a monopoly as we've seen so far, they have fb messenger, what's app, and Instagram. And they bought those specifically to control the market. I expect they'll be forced to divest those in the next couple of years.

I for one shall fight you on booty > boobs tho. Duel? Pistols at dawn?
 
B_Falls said:
I fully assume there will be a Russian or Chinese hosting platform that'll have them up by the end of the week (the irony will of course be lost on the users).
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:lol:

B_Falls said:
I for one shall fight you on booty > boobs tho. Duel? Pistols at dawn?
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If stuck on a deserted island... booty would win the day, and night. However, as a freak, I have a (soft?) spot for middle aged women with fake tits. Much like my politics, my other preferences are a bit hard to to put in a box.
 
Apparently a group of people on Twitter managed to grab like 70tb worth of stuff from the Parler servers before it went down and it’s being shared with the authorities, and it turns out the verification for the users on that site was to upload a photo of their drivers license and social security numbers, so all the government needs to do to find more terrorists from last week is to look at that data ?
 
Also the US does not have freedom of speech. Try and apply for a visa where you have to handover social media account details to the TSA, and see how ‘freedom of speech’ works out for you if you questionable content or criticism against the US authorities

techcrunch.com

U.S. has denied entry to some because of others' social media

Travelers are increasingly being denied entry to the United States as border officials hold them accountable for messages, images and video on their
techcrunch.com techcrunch.com
 
Johnny Vodka said:
This is worrying. The US military/police is likely stuffed full with these people. What side would they take if forced to contain a violent mob of angry Trumpers?

Army investigates psyops officer for role in Washington on day of Capitol riot | US Capitol breach | The Guardian

It's not hard to imagine things getting much worse.
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Given the voting public is split as below, you can pretty much assume the assume the military and police are the same, minimum, but more likely more Trumpist.

1610443403688.png
 
B_Falls said:
You're so wrong it's not even funny. They are private companies and can boot anyone at any time for any reason. You aren't entitled to use them, ESPECIALLY if you inciting a mob to cause harm.
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I'm not wrong. I was expressing my serious concern. I did not say anything about what happened at the capitol.
And saying I am wrong does not make you or anyone else look better.

It's about the arbitrary censorship in the bigger picture. Where do the private companies draw the line? Do they decide what is normal behaviour? I've seen all kind of censorship happening on twitter and facebook this year. It's not just Trump.
Big Tech is deciding what are image of the world is...and if you don't like it you can go somewhere else...however other big tech companies are banning the "somewhere else" from their app stores. You can't make this shit up.
 
ElrowLovers said:
I'm not wrong. I was expressing my serious concern. I did not say anything about what happened at the capitol.
And saying I am wrong does not make you or anyone else look better.

It's about the arbitrary censorship in the bigger picture. Where do the private companies draw the line? Do they decide what is normal behaviour? I've seen all kind of censorship happening on twitter and facebook this year. It's not just Trump.
Big Tech is deciding what are image of the world is...and if you don't like it you can go somewhere else...however other big tech companies are banning the "somewhere else" from their app stores. You can't make this shit up.
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But Donald Trump has proven in the past he is of the opinion that Private companies can choose who they do and don't work with. So there is no argument here really.... as you say, you can't make this shit up
 
Springal said:
But Donald Trump has proven in the past he is of the opinion that Private companies can choose who they do and don't work with. So there is no argument here really.... as you say, you can't make this shit up
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Again, it's not about Trump. Right wing politicians (I get it, right is a dirty word here apparently) are getting blocked or censored all the time. We even had a Dutch politician quoting actual dutch covid numbers banned from LinkedIn on the suspicion of fake news.
So big tech companies are deciding what is fake news and what is not?

How long before it hits the things we like to talk about. How long before talking about drugs is prohibited on a forum because private company X that hosts the forum decides it does not want to be associated with it?

Anyway, just like Trump is out of the office, I'm out of this thread, too much virtue signaling.
 
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