
Planet of the Censoring Humans - dilap
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/planet-of-the-censoring-humans
======
partyboat1586
People who advocate censorship because it currently favours their views will
get a big slap in the face when priorities change.

They feel like they are in control and saving the world. In reality the
platforms are in control and choose to favour them for now.

~~~
tetris11
I'm hoping the volatile, constantly side-switching nature of censorship will
ultimately drive people to more decentralised news and web sources like
mastodon and ipfs

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keiferski
_”But the practical impact of speech controls is always to advance the
interests of the ruling class.”_

That pretty much sums it up. Google, Facebook, etc. were once the underdogs,
fighting against the established media companies of the world (all of whom
absolutely censored their own content.) They’ve mostly succeeded and now are
in the driver’s seat, so they are acting in a predictable fashion.

It’s just the cycle of life: open-minded underdog replaces monolithic
incumbent, until it becomes the monolith and gets replaced by someone else.
The YouTube of 2030 is shaping up to be decidedly neutered and boring, and I’m
sure someone else will be ready to eat their lunch.

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mark_l_watson
Very good read. I subscribe/support Taibbi so I got this in an email
yesterday. I hope he gets enough support as an independent investigative
reporter so that he can write about things that most news businesses won’t
cover.

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frabbit
_The significance of the Moore incident is that it shows that a long-
developing pattern of deletions and removals is expanding. The early purges
were mainly of small /fringe voices on either the far right or far left, or
infamously fact-challenged personalities like Alex Jones._

Unfortunately the ludicrousness of Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Google,
Cloudflare etc setting themselves up as arbiters of truth or morality will
come back to bite them.

Having done it once for "good reason" they will need to justify themselves to
whoever is in power as to why they cannot do it for "other pressing reason".

If they cannot position themselves simply as operators of a mechanism that
allows individuals and groups to act as their own publishers then they are a
threat to us.

Time to get rid of them. I do not need to be protected from the opinions of
anyone. I can make my own mind up.

~~~
im3w1l
> Having done it once for "good reason" they will need to justify themselves
> to whoever is in power as to why they cannot do it for "other pressing
> reason".

They want to be in this position. Because then they can sell narrative control
at a steep price. Compliments their advertising offerings nicely. They can't
charge outright, that would be too bad of a look. But they can do favor for
favor.

------
runawaybottle
Why can’t Michael Moore just put the film on his website? He needs Youtube
too?

~~~
im3w1l
Allow me to quote some hacker news thinkers. "Deplatforming works." "didn't
just impact the individuals, it reduced the behavior site-wide." This is what
they hope will happen this time around too. That not only will Michael Moore
become poor and unsuccessful. Other people will see his fate and never dare to
question the narrative again.

He can put the film on his website. But even then "deplatforming works". If it
didn't, why would activists try taking him down?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18765913](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18765913)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19811297](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19811297)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18285832](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18285832)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22205504](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22205504)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23266932](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23266932)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23244652](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23244652)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23351391](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23351391)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19504550](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19504550)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20781422](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20781422)

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jonnypotty
Great analysis. Makes me sad

