Big Tech Authoritarianism

[FnG]magnolia said:
I don't think this is how words work.
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Agreed, it certainly isn't.

Twitter can ban whoever they like

Amazon Web Services can work with whoever they like. Seeing as the extreme right fringe of the US has been planning coups, violence, and other things on there, I have a feeling many of those crying out about the Twitter ban and AWS removal would have a different take if it was BLM protestors planning such things on a left wing equivalent of Parler.
 
Wegason said:
Agreed, it certainly isn't.

Twitter can ban whoever they like

Amazon Web Services can work with whoever they like. Seeing as the extreme right fringe of the US has been planning coups, violence, and other things on there, I have a feeling many of those crying out about the Twitter ban and AWS removal would have a different take if it was BLM protestors planning such things on a left wing equivalent of Parler.
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Yep they'd be demanding Amazon be investigated by DOJ and Congress. The noise the right would be making now would be off the decibel scale. They would be milking it night and day.

Funny that they love the market until there is an insurrection by their side and then they are outraged that the market wants nothing to do with them.
 
I really dont care if the speech is legal or not, if they are promoting lies and propaganda like Trump or anyone else, they deserve being deplatformed. We have seen the result of 4 years of lies, America is trashed and will take a long time to restore any kind of normalcy. There are quite literally millions of people who believe Trumps lies, what is the answer to that other than taking away his toys. You cant reason with these people, go try it on gab, they are quite literally radicalised.
 
chroniclard said:
I really dont care if the speech is legal or not, if they are promoting lies and propaganda like Trump or anyone else, they deserve being deplatformed. We have seen the result of 4 years of lies, America is trashed and will take a long time to restore any kind of normalcy. There are quite literally millions of people who believe Trumps lies, what is the answer to that other than taking away his toys. You cant reason with these people, go try it on gab, they are quite literally radicalised.
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Politics in the US is mad tho.

It's more like a rivalry between two football teams than actual, grown-up politics.

The UK isn't far behind, but the US shows just how polarised a nation can become if the politics becomes boiled down to a dichotomy between two diametrically opposed parties.

Which is also pretty much what we have, thanks tot he magic of FPTP, a completely antiquated electoral system which needs to be retired to the history books.
 
chroniclard said:
"Online misinformation about election fraud plunged 73 percent after several social media sites suspended President Trump and key allies last week, research firm Zignal Labs has found, underscoring the power of tech companies to limit the falsehoods poisoning public debate when they act aggressively."

Misinformation went down after Twitter banned Trump - The Washington Post
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Whilst that is all fine and good it also highlights just how much power these firms have influencing people. They may have made a right decision now but there will always be an agenda at the top of these companies. Eventually they will use it for personal gain when something doesn't go their way.
 
I don't know what they are going to do about these social platform companies. When the internet first happened, it was fantastic, it gave the people a voice. But now it's being abused. The problem is that you can't have "freedom of speech" because just as a country with no laws, there are those who take advantage of others. You could say that's their fault for being gullible, but as Trump has shown, it's possible for completely innocent people to die when others believe the lies. Just as we have laws to protect people against burglars we, I am afraid, need laws to protect them against blatant misinformation. This is something that is extremely difficult to achieve and I have no idea how they will do it but one way or another they need to change things. Just as freedom of speech never gave people the right to attack each other personally, it should not allow people to blatantly lie or drum up any sort of violence.
 
adam cool dude said:
Whilst that is all fine and good it also highlights just how much power these firms have influencing people. They may have made a right decision now but there will always be an agenda at the top of these companies. Eventually they will use it for personal gain when something doesn't go their way.
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Sounds almost like newspapers for the last few centuries. Or trades unions.
 
Colonel_Klinck said:
Yep they'd be demanding Amazon be investigated by DOJ and Congress. The noise the right would be making now would be off the decibel scale. They would be milking it night and day.

Funny that they love the market until there is an insurrection by their side and then they are outraged that the market wants nothing to do with them.
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Perfectly put and summarised, love that analysis.
 
adam cool dude said:
Whilst that is all fine and good it also highlights just how much power these firms have influencing people. They may have made a right decision now but there will always be an agenda at the top of these companies. Eventually they will use it for personal gain when something doesn't go their way.
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So just like newspapers, trade unions and cable news in the US?
 
adam cool dude said:
Whilst that is all fine and good it also highlights just how much power these firms have influencing people. They may have made a right decision now but there will always be an agenda at the top of these companies. Eventually they will use it for personal gain when something doesn't go their way.
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Does it show the power of influence these firms have over people? They provide a platform, they don't supply the content. It is individuals and groups that are spreading the lies and propaganda that are influencing people. That and that people spend so many hours a day on these platforms and believe what they read or watch rather than face checking. The platforms algorithms defiantly are responsible of pointing people towards more extreme content to keep them engaged though.
 
I find all the 'wait until the shoes on the other foot' comments funny, as Twitter banned quite a few BLM activists and has also banned lots of people on 'the left' when they've violated their ToS.

Weirdly, none were outraged at Twitters actions at the time....
 
Colonel_Klinck said:
Does it show the power of influence these firms have over people? They provide a platform, they don't supply the content. It is individuals and groups that are spreading the lies and propaganda that are influencing people. That and that people spend so many hours a day on these platforms and believe what they read or watch rather than face checking. The platforms algorithms defiantly are responsible of pointing people towards more extreme content to keep them engaged though.
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You pretty much got it, despite some contradictions. You suggested that individuals and groups are "spreading the lies and propaganda" and thus posit that they (individuals or groups) are responsible, yet you then go on to say that people spend lots of time on "these platforms" and that the "algorithms defiantly are responsible of pointing people towards" (distribution/broadcasting), which posits responsibility on the platform. So you recognise that the platform and method of delivery is exactly what is doing the "spreading". What you are describing in the end is exactly the problem. Let's take the Google App and it's feed as an example, which uses an algorithmic mechanism for presenting content to the user. Then consider the company behind the platform, which is super left-leaning. Then consider any biases and deliberate efforts by the platform to intervene, as seen before. Then consider there are upwards of 2.5 billion Android devices, a huge chunk of which could come shipped or have the Google App installed presenting such content via "swipe right". What do you make of that?
 
FirebarUK said:
You pretty much got it, despite some contradictions. You suggested that individuals and groups are "spreading the lies and propaganda" and thus posit that they (individuals or groups) are responsible, yet you then go on to say that people spend lots of time on "these platforms" and that the "algorithms defiantly are responsible of pointing people towards" (distribution/broadcasting), which posits responsibility on the platform. So you recognise that the platform and method of delivery is exactly what is doing the "spreading". What you are describing in the end is exactly the problem. Let's take the Google App and it's feed as an example, which uses an algorithmic mechanism for presenting content to the user. Then consider the company behind the platform, which is super left-leaning. Then consider any biases and deliberate efforts by the platform to intervene, as seen before. Then consider there are upwards of 2.5 billion Android devices, a huge chunk of which could come shipped or have the Google App installed presenting such content via "swipe right". What do you make of that?
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Sorry I don't buy that these platforms are "left leaning". They go out of their way to walk the tightrope between left and right. There might be more high profile hard right wingers getting kicked off but who is the left wing equivalent of say Alex Jones? And he wasn't kicked off because he's right wing, he was kicked off because he constantly broke the TOS, he also spreads lies and disinformation. If there is a left wing equivalent then I'd have no issue with them being kicked off as well. These people are a cancer on society. Their lies now have over a 1/3rd of the US population believing the election was stolen and a significant percentage believing that there is a cabal of Democrats and rich Hollywood types who run the world, sex traffic children and eat those children in satanic rituals. Like it or not something needs to be done or there is going to be a blood bath. You can't rationalise with people that indoctrinated.

On the algorithm, people want to be pointed towards content they might like. There is nothing wrong with that, in fact its what makes these platforms popular. The problem is when they were pointed to content that became more and more extreme so as to keep them on the site. That is a problem and although they say they've fixed it (YouTube) they need to do more. I think they will all be scrambling now to do a lot more as they know they played a part in the insurrection that took place on the 6th and there is more violence to come.
 
FirebarUK said:
. . . Then consider the company behind the platform, which is super left-leaning. . . .
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Do you have any basis at all for your assertion that "the company" (by which I presume you mean Google) is super left-leaning?

Seriously, I do think that you should sit down and consider how you come up with these incredibly strange ideas.
 
stockhausen said:
Do you have any basis at all for your assertion that "the company" (by which I presume you mean Google) is super left-leaning?

Seriously, I do think that you should sit down and consider how you come up with these incredibly strange ideas.
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It isn't Breitbart, therefore it is left, duh.
 
So first people have been driven to hate Trump so much that they have cheered on authoritarianism by corporations and big tech, now those same corporations (CNN etc) are equating Trump voters with domestic terrorists. hmm, where have I seen this kind of persecution of a group before... Thank god Biden is the unity candidate.
 
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