Big Tech Authoritarianism

[Destination]

I don’t agree or disagree with any position but everyone should be able to voice theirs and everyone should be able to read and understand any opinion or fact.
It is truly disturbing.
1984 was meant to be fiction

I disagree entirely, retarded **** should not be given the same platform as reality.
Opinions are one thing, but before twitter the village idiot had a very low footfall and catchment area, unfortunately very loud village idiots can now appeal to all those who are too impressionable to form an opinion.
The US has manipulated its citizens for a great many years, but banning outright lies and calls to hatred when continually uttered is not censorship, its removal of idiocy.

 

[Theophany]

Are we not being lead in that direction by those claiming to be fighting Fascism? who tore down historical statues? who bans books/users and all manner of things that don't agree with their point of view (deemed to be 'offensive')? who is trying to disarm the population?

Why do people who believe to be fighting authoritarianism/fascism or whatever cheer on billionaire corporation owners who in unison now act like them?

No.

In other news, Sainsburys are authoritarian diktats for not carrying Tesco brand doughnuts in their stores.

 

[Nerusy]

This is actually a very interesting development.

Twitter has become a vital part of communication for for both private and public sector.

Yes president's formal means of communication with the masses is through a press conference but de facto twitter is used as a more quick form of communication.

This vital form of communication is in complete control of a private entity.

This entity has effective control on who to silence. Now we can argue that this is a private company and can refuse their service to anybody, it is their right but reality is not that simple, twitter has become a vital part of communication infrastructure, which is used by the public sector as well.

So although yes, Trump lies, he manipulates the crowds and he may have instigated the attack on US Capitol I am not sure it is right for a private company to block communication infrastructure.

We can all agree that it is great that twitter suspended his account specifically because he is Trump but then this becomes a precedent does it not? Twitter now has the power to limit official's forms of communications effectively reducing their ability to communicate with the electorate (compared to other politicians that are allowed to continue using this platform and hence have an advantages since election is essentially a popularity show/ PR project).

I do not think private companies should be able to silence elected officials. This seems wrong.

With this precedent set, Twitter can continue silencing those who they view as undesirable and in this day and age being able to communicate on twitter is vital to gather public support. So Twitter will essentially have the power to influence elections.

This is not a simple thing, this is a dangerous precedent. On the hand one could argue that the media always had that power and that nothing really changed, daily fail and the sun influenced the electorate before and will continue to do so, so why does it matter that twitter has joined the big boys club.

 

[Hagar]

In other news 90% of twitter content is fake news.

 

[SquirrelMadness]

The people who say "it's a private company they can do whatever" are so stupid beyond belief. It's like their brains are incapable of seeing the future ramifications of this move.

Now that Dems have so much control the ban hammer will come down hard. They are even thinking about deplatforming Fox and some other news networks from the infrastructure side (cable service providers).

We will be seeing Cloudflare, ISPs, app stores etc... kick more and more websites off just because they allow "wrong" political views or unfiltered opinions.

Mark my words now they will be targeting comments sections next and forums to the point where all information (including opinions) is only what they want you to see.

 

[Rroff]

No.

In other news, Sainsburys are authoritarian diktats for not carrying Tesco brand doughnuts in their stores.

Ah but they are carrying Henderson Group products so they can't be authoritarian.

The people who say "it's a private company they can do whatever" are so stupid beyond belief. It's like their brains are incapable of seeing the future ramifications of this move.

Now that Dems have so much control the ban hammer will come down hard. They are even thinking about deplatforming Fox and some other news networks from the infrastructure side (cable service providers).

We will be seeing Cloudflare, ISPs, app stores etc... kick more and more websites off just because they allow "wrong" political views or unfiltered opinions.

Mark my words now they will be targeting comments sections next and forums to the point where all information (including opinions) is only what they want you to see.

Yeah many people can't see the ramifications sadly until it hits them in the face - I've lost count of the number of times in more trivial things people have defended measures, when people have spoken out against them, which down the road have eventually impacted them at which point they kick off...

 

[gailjon]

Parler, because its a cesspit of malcontents, conspiracy nutters and extremists.

Isn't every social media platform like this to some extent? It seems that way whenever I briefly and rarely look at Facebook/Twitter, etc. In fact, any platform that allows comments from the general public. Just look at the comments sections under BBC news for example.
I don';t support Trump, but there are some far worse comments being made every day by random members of the public and they don't seem to be banned.

 

[Theophany]

words

@POTUS, the official channel for presidential communications is still live. His personal account, which is not an official White House channel of communication, has been cut off. You're misrepresenting this.

Twitter is free to ban whatever tripe-spewing, ****-flinging retard they want. Trump falls neatly into that category. What's more, he's still tweeting his insane bile and garbage through the @POTUS account.

The people who say "it's a private company they can do whatever" are so stupid beyond belief. It's like their brains are incapable of seeing the future ramifications of this move.

Now that Dems have so much control the ban hammer will come down hard. They are even thinking about deplatforming Fox and some other news networks from the infrastructure side (cable service providers).

We will be seeing Cloudflare, ISPs, app stores etc... kick more and more websites off just because they allow "wrong" political views or unfiltered opinions.

Mark my words now they will be targeting comments sections next and forums to the point where all information (including opinions) is only what they want you to see.

Wow, it's almost like the unfettered capitalism the Republicans have such a Reagan-sized hard on for is working against them. Funny that.

 

[Nitefly]

I agree there is a concern with tech companies saying who can and can’t speak, but on balance I don’t think it strictly really applies to the president in this instance, who has many other ways to communicate with the people - like all other presidents before him.

 

[Nerusy]

@POTUS, the official channel for presidential communications is still live. His personal account, which is not an official White House channel of communication, has been cut off. You're misrepresenting this.

To my knowledge he is trying to use this to circumvent the ban and these twits are being deleted by twitter. So they are effectively censoring him so the points in my post still stand.

Twitter is deciding what the public will see, this is a form of control, control by a private company of what the president can or cannot say. And yet again yes in this case most people will agree that it is great in Trump specific case but what a lot of people here are saying is that this is a massive precedent (specifically to Twitter because this type of thing already existed in conventional mass media, ie Bernie was ignored by the US mass media or bombarded with anti-Bernie propaganda)

 

[Kenai]

I do not think private companies should be able to silence elected officials. This seems wrong.

The question is - is it more, less or equally wrong than a private company being obliged to publish the communications of elected officials regardless of content? That's not necessarily a better precedent to set.

 

[SquirrelMadness]

The guys in power (that includes media and big tech) will take advantage of the libertarian views on free markets. The right/center of politics believe in free-markets hence they think these tech giants should be allowed to censor. The left only believe in free markets when their personal freedom is at stake; otherwise they are strongly against it. It's because of this difference in opinion that ordinary non-political people, libertarians, and those on the right, will walk straight into the trap of authoritarianism without doing anything to stop it.

 

[Nerusy]

The question is - is it more, less or equally wrong than a private company being obliged to publish the communications of elected officials regardless of content? That's not necessarily a better precedent to set.

Personally, I think free flow of information (as long as it is not illegal) is better than private companies having more influence on the public sector. This is of course opens another can of worms, which can be debated at length as well.

 

[Kenai]

To my knowledge he is trying to use this to circumvent the ban and these twits are being deleted by twitter. So they are effectively censoring him so the points in my post still stand.

Twitter is deciding what the public will see, this is a form of control, control by a private company of what the president can or cannot say. And yet again yes in this case most people will agree that it is great in Trump specific case but what a lot of people here are saying is that this is a massive precedent (specifically to Twitter because this type of thing already existed in conventional mass media, ie Bernie was ignored by the US mass media or bombarded with anti-Bernie propaganda)

Twitter is deciding what the public will see on Twitter - not universally - to this end they can only 'control' what the president can or cannot say on Twitter.

It's unfortunate for Trump that he chose to use Twitter as one of his primary communication channels, rather than something more within his own control but Twitter's reach in terms of controlling speech only extends as far as Twitter itself does. Whilst they are no doubt a big player in social media, they are not the be all and end all in social media communication.

 

[Ryan-3]

Pretty sure if you read their terms, they can do what they want with any account on their platform. With his following, if he snapped and started issuing orders they'd hold these places accountable.

Sturgeon's Law applies to social media pretty well also.

 

[Nerusy]

Twitter is deciding what the public will see on Twitter - not universally - to this end they can only 'control' what the president can or cannot say on Twitter.

It's unfortunate for Trump that he chose to use Twitter as one of his primary communication channels, rather than something more within his own control but Twitter's reach in terms of controlling speech only extends as far as Twitter itself does. Whilst they are no doubt a big player in social media, they are not the be all and end all in social media communication.

As I previously made the point, twitter is de facto form of mass communication despite being a private company. A crude analogy - think of it as a one and only power plant under private control that can extort the populace for electricity (not entirely correct analogy but gets the point).

If today twitter is one of the main forms of gathering political support (and it can be argued that Trump was successful in large part due to his Twitter engagement with the electorate) then blocking this form of communication is direct influence/ interference of US politics.

 

[Theophany]

As I previously made the point, twitter is de facto form of mass communication despite being a private company. A crude analogy - think of it as a one and only power plant under private control that can extort the populace for electricity (not entirely correct analogy but gets the point).

If today twitter is one of the main forms of gathering political support (and it can be argued that Trump was successful in large part due to his Twitter engagement with the electorate) then blocking this form of communication is direct influence/ interference of US politics.

Because Trump chose to use it as his platform. This is entirely a problem of his own making. If he didn't have the compulsion to brain fart every half thought he has in 144 characters and controlled communication through the WH press office, this wouldn't be an issue. But he didn't.

 

[Kenai]

As I previously made the point, twitter is de facto form of mass communication despite being a private company. A crude analogy - think of it as a one and only power plant under private control that can extort the populace for electricity (not entirely correct analogy but gets the point).

If today twitter is one of the main forms of gathering political support (and it can be argued that Trump was successful in large part due to his Twitter engagement with the electorate) then blocking this form of communication is direct influence/ interference of US politics.

Twitter is one of many current forms of mass communication and in terms of user base, not at the top of the tree. You could argue maybe it is for a specific style of social media but that's starting to move the goalposts a bit really. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and even Snapchat I think, all outnumber Twitter in terms of user base. In your crude analogy, Twitter is a big power station but it's absolutely not in the realms of being 'one and only', it's one of many and not the biggest of them.

Twitter was only instrumental in garnering support and becoming a communication key for Trump, because Trump chose to use it pretty much exclusively, initially presumably because of the lack of oversight on what he was able to say. He could have built up his following on a different platform but didn't.

Hell, as such a successful business man, he could have produced his own platform.

 

[Calabi]

Have you even read the reason why they are banning him. It's because his latest Tweets could be and were being interpreted as instigation for another attack. Free speech only goes so far, and also this is on a private platform, there's a possibility Twitter could be culpable/liable in any subsequent events that are advertised by the individuals on there platform.

edit: Also its not really a communications platform that would be something like Whatsapp or Messenger. Its an advertising platform where you can advertise your opinion to everyone. Not everyone should be entitled to that. Not all opinions are

 

[SquirrelMadness]

Today it's Twitter, tomorrow it's Facebook, the day after it's Youtube.

Well they can make their own platforms...

The next week Parlor is threatened by app stores and hosts to impose strict censorship or be kicked off, then Minds, then 4chan etc...

Well they can use Russian companies...

The next week nationwide "Parental Controls" are established (like they already did in UK with xxx) which blacklists these websites so you can only access them with VPN

etc...

It doesn't stop at Twitter, but giving Twitter the green light to do this will keep the virus spreading.

Stopping the flow of information has happened throughout history, the internet made it hard... now they figured out a way to do it.