Coordinated bans everywhere. Build your own platform they said.
They'll just instruct them to download the APK on their phones instead, just like Epic games did for Fortnite.
Even so, I think it will only get worse. They'll also move to encrypted chat apps instead. So when will Signal and Telegram be targeted and banned from the App Store or Google Play Store?
Twitter moderates user content. They have suspended or banned a large number of accounts for calling for violence, or even for wishing ill upon people (e.g., a lot of people got suspended for Tweeting when Trump got COVID that they hoped he would die from it).
Parler does not. There are numerous accounts on Parler calling for the killing of Pelosi, Biden, Pence, Chief Justice Roberts, assorted judges that ruled against Trump's lawsuits, state and local election officials, Republican governors and legislators who are not fighting hard enough for Trump, and numerous others. There were numerous accounts their calling for storming the Capital on January 6th and stopping the electoral vote counting using any force necessary to achieve this.
In short, Twitter is not banned because Twitter tries to comply with Apple's and Google's requirements to moderate user content and remove threats of violence, and Parler is getting banned because they do not.
There is a plethora of similar content to be found on Twitter so that is not the reason.
The mentioned platforms also moderate user content, they just have different guidelines. Both claim to follow the law in that they take down content which violates it. Both claim that only illegal content is taken down. That is, as far as I can see, in line with the expectations for a platform to be considered a "common carrier" and as such be freed from liability for its users' content. Platforms which go beyond this by moderating on different grounds run the risk of being considered publishers and as such to be held responsible for their users' content. If Apple and Google put further demands on those platforms the question becomes who eventually is responsible for user content, this might end up being Apple and Google. That, in turn, should make developers think twice whether they benefit from being on those platforms. The alternative is to deploy to the web without any "native" apps (which often are not much more than rehashed web apps to begin with) which opens their product to a wider user base without needing to bend to the will of third parties.
This would be a good thing in my opinion. The time for "native" apps has come and gone, the time for the web has been there for a long time but this might just be the push needed to convince developers to make it their prime focus. This goes especially for communications-focused products since those derive their usefulness from being connected to the 'net anyway. There is still a place for native apps - offline mapping, offline media players, hardware-interfacing apps like Wifi-scanners, step counters etc - but those tend not to be the ones which end up in hot water anyway.
As someone who enjoys technology and liberty this is a very disturbing development. We do not have a well diversified portfolio of options of tools and platforms for communication due to corporations monopolizing and conspiring together to concentrate power.
Web is as open and free as it has ever been. Arguably more so given that the barrier to entry e.g. cost for creating and promoting a site has come down. And we have examples such as Parler and TheDonald.win.
You just don't have a right to demand that the Facebook and Apple's of the world help to amplify your voice.
threeseed, I do not believe that you have an accurate mental model of the world or technology and social platforms in particular.
It could be argued that "the web is as open and free as it ever has been", but I do not think this argument could be made honestly. Even though many of the mechanisms for accessing websites exist as they did many years ago, the "surface area" of the internet that most people are able to discover and access is significantly reduced due to search engine algorithms (which are monopolies) and advertisement allowing individuals to pay for traffic and attention. Moreover, in the present moment we are near a peak level of intrusive data collection and surveillance.
Do you truly believe that the web for the average user in 2020 is as free as the web for the average user in 2000? Please give it some thought (15-30 minutes of quiet reflection) and let me know what you think.
>the "surface area" of the internet that most people are able to discover and access is significantly reduced due to search engine algorithms
On the contrary, Facebook promoting incendiary content because people (angrily) highly engage with it vastly increases the surface area of the internet. Fringe sites get much more attention than they ever could before Facebook existed.
Is there any argument for anti-competitive behavior here? It's weird because Google/Apple don't directly compete with Parler or other alternate social media sites, but they are clearly in the same bed with those who do, Facebook, Twitter.
For instance Jack Dorsey recently admitted that his employees coordinate with employees at the other big tech companies on moderation actions.
I'm just wondering what if any legal courses these actions could take?
There is absolutely nothing competitive about coordinating about moderation policies.
If Twitter and Facebook software engineers were coordinating about what rules to define in their respective orgs for a company-wide JavaScript linter then that would not be considered anti-competitive.
That is precisely what content moderation policies are — rules to prevent filthy code from perpetuating. Filthy code can sometimes come in the form of incitements to violence. Other times it’s a recursive function with no base case.
That's true re: moderation. I guess I'm more curious about the fact that Google/Apple have an effective monopoly on "app stores". I need to read the details but what were the exact violations that caused Parler to be removed? Can they be reinstated if they resolve the issue? The timing is what feels suspicious and politically motivated.
Maybe they’re not coordinating and they’re just cowardly. Alex Jones should have been pre-banned the moment anyone ever heard of him. The fact that he wasn’t was a clear indication that these platforms either didn’t know who he was, didn’t think he’d get the audience he did, or were simply afraid of the blowback.
That's also what I thought. Instead of using fire extinguishers, FB/Apple/Google are adding more gasoline to the fire.
This is going to radicalize people (especially conspiracy theorists) who now think have actual, indisputable "proof" these companies are there to get them.
This is my main worry. I’m not worried about Parler getting taken down, they have no intrinsic right to have access to these stores hosted by private entities. They can self host, or find someone willing to host them, or implement moderation so they don’t have people calling for the death of senators on their service.
But I am worried this will light a fuse towards further radicalization.
Radicalization because they're too lazy or too dumb or whatever to create their own platform. I'd be mad too if I couldn't harass folks and spread my hate easily.
Twitter now allows me to follow a diverse group of people who promote a different set of norms, value and ideas. It shows me how other people think and I'm exposed to that.
That cross pollination isn't going to happen when every tribe has it's own platforms.
The end-game is naturally to associate "sideloading" (i.e. downloading and installing software from anywhere yourself... the way it used to be), jailbreaking, and other activities --- possibly up to and including general-purpose computers --- with terrorism/racism/far-right extremism/etc.
Yesterday was merely a very convenient moment for all of Big Tech to start the squeeze.
The people who want to see Trump commit a coup and were disappointed that the sedition on the 6th failed to effect that were already calling for violence on the 20th. While they won't succeed in effecting the coup on the 20th either, there is a very real chance that violence will happen and people will die as a result.
Those people were already planning for violence before any of the deplatforming started. The only way you're going to deescalate the situation is either to give in to the terrorists and give them a Trump coup, or you're going to have to convince them that violence is not going to be tolerated and the underlying grievance is not worth it. The latter probably requires Trump (and only Trump can be the standard bearer at this point, and I'm not even sure he could pull this off) admitting that the election was not fraudulent and that he has been lying to his supporters, in addition to calling for legal punishments to those that committed violence in his name. If you haven't noticed, those were pretty much the exact opposite of what he chose to do in the brief time he had access to Twitter today.
Lately I have discovered that progressive web apps can work quite well on mobile devices, to the point that they can be undistinguishable from native apps. I wonder if PWAs will become more common as a result of the divided political spectrum.
off topic, but as a developer, I still have not figured out what is the difference between a website and a "progressive web app". I just don't get why a bunch of different features makes websites any different. It really just sound like a marketing buzzword too me, not backed by any meaningful technical paradigm change. What makes them 'progressive'?
To me the problem with webapps in general or (rich internet applications) is that the developer has very little control over caching or storage since it's very dependent on the whims of browser engine.
Not that I want to promote getting parler on more screens, but for the purpose of general tech education the term “progressive web app”/PWA is used for websites which include a manifest for installation as a “native” app on supporting platforms, and offline functionality when used locally without a network connection. They’re “indistinguishable” from native apps because they’re basically electron for phones, except standards-based.
A progressive web app is just a regular website (typically a SPA but not necessarily) that typically takes advantage of a few newer web APIs that can make it behave more native app like when those APIs are supported.
The bitcoin folks correctly point out that if cash were invented today it would be made illegal. I suspect that if unmoderated conversation with strangers were invented today it would face a similar fate.
Those sites were, or since then, have made active attempts to prevent these things from happening.
Parler has no moderation and the CEO doesn’t believe they are accountable for anything that happens on or because of their app. Ergo, if I allow someone to build a bomb in the privacy of my own home, I’m not guilty because I didn’t actually build the bomb and deploy it.
Facebook deleted and moderated the shooters content. Twitter and youtube also both delete and moderate content that violates reasonable TOS that overlaps with apples and googles terms of service. Comparison isn’t even remotely the same. Parler had posts inciting violence and refuse to moderate
Now I need to stick to my free speech principles, even though parler censors it's users and is a general shit show of self re-ebforcing misinformation and racism...
I am not sure how you're seriously considering this comparison. The actions by Apple, Google or Twitter are not a massacre on the political enemy (in fact, I don't consider companies to have political enemies beyond the SEC and other regulatory instances). It's not even a call to murder anyone.
On the other hand, the "Nacht der Langen Dolche" was a coordinated massacre of (among others victims?) political enemies, with the goal to reinforce the political power of a discriminatory regime (which, just to be perfectly clear, was governed by an ideology that openly planned and then proceeded to kill of millions of human beings).
That killing blow on the German democracy is a different league, even compared to the recent attack on democracy the world witnessed in DC (an attack on the elected representatives of the US, fueled by the elected president, so there are some parallels, but not the ones you intended to point out?).
Some (imho much too large) companies getting their act together and moving in against hate speech and people outright calling for the killing of their political enemy, however, is not about murdering people. (I guess[!] it's about covering their ass, because mentioned regulatory instances will investigate why it became so easy to spread wild murder fantasies across the Internet and into the real world. With, surprise, people getting killed and democracy seriously endangered).
This is a coordinated silencing political enemies, with the goal to reinforce the political power of a discriminatory regime.
You are banned on Twitter and Facebook, you can not have your own app, your web hosting will drop you (they call on Cloudflare to drop thedonald), they'll revoke your domains and ssl certificates... Literally giving you no options at all to speak online, CCP style.
So the only difference here is that the political opponents are merely silenced instead of massacre. To think of it further, if you control all sources of information, you can not stop at silencing, no one will know if you kill them anyway - and even if they do, and somehow post about it, just write 'this has already been debunked', and a nice factcheck banner.
This is an incredibly sad day for all world and a turn for the worse. You'll see.
I respectfully disagree. To put this straight, I am all in on free speech (which is one of our basic rights). Entirely independent on whether I agree with the content or not. However, at some point most countries realized that it is not okay to speak some things. Most of these things essentially revolve around planning to kill people, or violently fighting results of fair elections.
Yes, both is happening on the Internet for ages, and yes, it will always happen, no matter what. But the radicalization of the past years culminated in the events of the last days. We can either tolerate that and wait until these actions destroy our democracies (this effect is called the "Paradox of Tolerance"; if you don't know it, look it up), or carefully act against it.
Asking Parler to moderate content to not call for violence and putting an end to spreading lies about the election result is legitimate and in the interest of all of us, it is such a careful act. Now Parler has the choice to become a platform for conservative thinkers and opionions - or a platform of hate fueling violence against "others". Blocking the former would be grave mistake, as you say yourself. As for blocking the later, I think I made my point clear.
Over & out, unless you make a really good counter argument.
Paradox of tolerance is a hypocritical bullshit, I commented about it a couple of hours ago [1]
As for blocking calls for violence. I stand on a position that allowing such calls is an acceptable price for a free speech. I come from Russia, where all restrictions on free speech are made on the pretemse of 'calls to extremism', people who are against Putin are jailed, and sentenced, for exactly this. So no, I've seen where this road leads to. If people gather on Parler to storm the Capitol, find them using police measures and prosecute them. It's harder than bans, but has much fewer harmful side-effects, like eventual authoritatian state.
Or put it otherwise: A lot of these people believe that the "vote has been stolen" from them. The way a lot of those people look at the world, their actions are the only the logical consequence. Now, you say it is okay to prosecute them, but it is not okay to prevent false information to be spread? But if you tolerate lies and hate, then why do you not tolerate people acting on these? Look in the mirror, and you'll see the Paradox of Tolerance staring right back at you.
If you need personal positions: Even here in Germany (in the past we were pretty good at ignoring the inconvenient truths, one should think we [and the world?] may have learned from that) some people honestly believe those Q crap of how rich people living virtually forever due to some substance that's harvested from literal child abuse (and obviously the gov is in on it). I-forgot-half-of-the-BS fighting against robots under the surface of the earth? Got you covered (also, the gov is in on it, obviously). Immigrants come here to replace the old populace? Those people believe that, and, needless to say, the gov is in on this as well.
Last but not least: Covid is a fake, and the vaccine actually is a chip that looks very much like the circuit of a guitar effect pedal and not like a real IC? You bet the gov is doing that (with the help of Bill Gates).
And, I repeat: Some people are believing this. They think the world is exactly like that. And of course they think someone should really do something about it.
You see where this is leading? Bad actors seeding lies and misinformation for their end (overthrow the gov and put those in charge who "spread the truth"). Of course you can jail the occasional shooter (politicians and synagogues are targets of choice), but by letting these bad actors continue "in the name of tolerance", you're creating a society which is tolerant in theory, but in practice you might need to be careful what you say because you end up on the wrong end of a baseball bat (lucky you) or bullet (less nice than the bat). This doesn't happen over a year, but in the long game, this will end badly. Oh, and yes, this is: The Paradox of Tolerance.
It's not like we're talking about minimum wage or the right amount of social welfare here. I mean, one can argue about these and there is no objective truth of what's best - at least none that we can measure without a time machine and/or infinite multiverses.
There is no argument for censorship, suspension or banning, based on our 1st amendment—- on any of the multiple platforms doing so.
I came on here just to check what the “young intellectual tech” community thinks— I consider myself part of it. I’m a 20-something female, born in the heart of Silicon Valley, and have been heavily involved in tech during my short career.
Heads up: This isn’t animal farm, this is 1984!
I never post on here and stopped reading awhile ago due to the one-minded propaganda I consistently find on the site these days (i was a lurker a longtime before i made this account) but I feel compelled to share my opinion because these times matter, and us young (and old) folks matter.
Amen and a-women? Welcome to the best addition to New Speak. Please look that up if you don’t know what it is. Have you zoomed out on how Big (and Little) Tech had subtle involvement here? And how they may be affecting how you’re thinking? I can personally say after having deleted social media for almost 2 years, and combing through different sources (time consuming)- I feel very differently now than I did four years, or eight years ago. See my links below.
“I don’t like Trump” and “not being a Trump supporter,” standing behind Big Tech — the badges of honor on Hacker News. But here’s my practical advice: be very careful who you’re choosing. Everything in life is a trade off— even who’s in the White House, who’s in office, who you’re casting your votes for, the apps you use, and the companies you give your money and support to.
Another piece of advice: for some laughs, and practical news these days, check out AwakenwithJP and Brett Pella :-) (seriously all their videos are pretty good, especially JP!)
Another piece: Hear other perspectives “i was wrong about the Democratic Party,” Georgia H.
Finally, I’ll close with this recommendation: “when the plague arrives,” NTD.
Hope you hackers open your big brains, put your thinking caps on and leave confirmation bias in the past.
So far he wrote about the riots in DC by Trump supporters. He hasn't mentioned the banning of Trump on social media or Parlor from the Apple and Google stores.
The government didn't do it. Noone is arresting anyone for group think or saying what they want. People are just kicking them out of their houses. Don't like it? Build your own house, make your own rules. Fund your own cause.
The government doesn’t need to do it, since it has been replaced on a lot of matter by corporations. Never in history companies held that much power on people’s life. Arguing for deplatforming because "muh private" is missing the fact democracy emerged to limit the most powerful entity at the time (government). Now that companies are the most powerful element of society, their power needs to be limited as well.
They're not the most powerful. They're just the most popular. There is a difference. They have ZERO control over your life. I know because I don't use any of them and I live just fine.
Really? I find it hard to believe you don’t use anything for a big company. No credit/debit card, no bank account, no car, no electricity, no smartphone? To be clear I wasn’t just speaking of a few US tech companies but enterprises like the fortune 500 or the CAC40 which have a enormous power on people’s life.
Makes sense. But mail order still exists. At least we can still say what we want to promote change without fear of arrest from our government. If the argument is just. I'm sure it will do well on it's own. Democracy isn't perfect but it's better than the alternatives.
Oddly enough, if Storm Front tried to put an app on the Google Play Store, I don’t think many would be up in arms over it being removed.
Yet when they remove an app used to coordinate the invasion of the capitol building by people with pipe bombs, molotovs, guns, zip ties, bats, etc. it’s suddenly not acceptable? An app that has people openly calling for death to US congressional leaders and the Vice President, and the president elect?
Twitter, Youtube and Facebook were also used to coordinate last years Antifa/BLM riots that caused 25-ish deaths, hudreds or thousands of injuries, uncountable financial damage to government, local businesses, homes yet this was never a problem.
Also cartels and terrorist groups have used these platforms to spread their propaganda for a decade now with barely any censorship.
What are they being robbed of? Parler.com is still up and perfectly accessible from a mobile browser. The app should also continue to function for those who already have it.
Until your domain is revoked, you get kicked off by your host, you get financially censored, etc, etc. When are people going to admit big tech has too much power?
You are generalizing all the protesters based on what some of them did. The woman who did get murdered was unarmed. And Arthur Chu isn't just talking about the people at the capitol - he's talking about all trump supporters.
They'll just instruct them to download the APK on their phones instead, just like Epic games did for Fortnite.
Even so, I think it will only get worse. They'll also move to encrypted chat apps instead. So when will Signal and Telegram be targeted and banned from the App Store or Google Play Store?