Big Tech Authoritarianism

[stockhausen]

. . . So one side advocates lockdowns, masks, vaccines, and the other side is saying corona doesn't exist, dont wear a mask, and vaccines are killing us. They are two sides of the same coin. The truth is in the middle . . .

I don't imagine that you are saying that there is a "Middle position" between Covid does exist and Covid does not exist

I can accept that different people might have different views on the efficacy and appropriateness of different ways to deal with it.

I can understand that social media platform should allow deranged people to assert nonsense such as "The Earth is flat"; I categorically do not agree that social media platform should allow deranged people to put forward ideas that are actually dangerous - e.g. "Drinking bleach is good for you", "The vote was stolen, invade the heart of Government", etc.

 

[mmj_uk]

God bless Poland.

 

[stockhausen]

God bless Poland.

I believe that Poland is considered to be somewhat racist these days; somehow I don't think that any deity will be blessing Poland any time soon.

 

[BowdonUK]

It is in the Amazon response to Parler's legal action.

Where is the bomb planning posts though? I know there as been some whacky conspiracy posts on Parler. But that is different to people actively plotting terrorism, which is illegal.

Amazon and Twitter sign a deal at the end of December.
Amazon kicks off Parler in early January.

Amazon won't lose business if Parler remained on their servers.

I don't imagine that you are saying that there is a "Middle position" between Covid does exist and Covid does not exist

I can accept that different people might have different views on the efficacy and appropriateness of different ways to deal with it.

I can understand that social media platform should allow deranged people to assert nonsense such as "The Earth is flat"; I categorically do not agree that social media platform should allow deranged people to put forward ideas that are actually dangerous - e.g. "Drinking bleach is good for you", "The vote was stolen, invade the heart of Government", etc.

I'm saying that people should be able to have the conversation about Covid and other issues. Social media companies have become the gatekeepers of the public square and seem answerable to no one.

I wonder if the people defending these companies would do the same if the right wing billionaires bought all the main ones out and said if you are against them then you are no longer welcome on their platforms. There would be no where else to go.

That was the point the former ACLU guy was saying. The one deciding what hate speech is won't be you. If you're happy for either the government to define it, or unaccountable private companies, then that is your choice.

 

[dlockers]

Not sure where you are heading with this. Your point is the same, that you believe social media needs to be moderated by a higher being but that higher being can't be the social mediacompanies nor the government, because that is also a problem. So there isn't an easy or exactly right answer. I don't think anyone is defending the companies to your headline point about they need watching/regulation but there are a whole bunch of people that think Trump being banned is hysterical and well-deserved. Then there is a whole bunch of retort about him not using precisely racist words or black and white calling a coup. Blah, rinse and repeat. I think it is done?

 

[Dinosaur]

Where is the bomb planning posts though? I know there as been some whacky conspiracy posts on Parler. But that is different to people actively plotting terrorism, which is illegal.

There were posts alluding to blowing up AWS data centres, not exactly a very sensible thing to discuss on any social media platform...

Oh, and not to mention plots to rape and torture politicians...

(all of this was in Amazon's legal response, it's not hard to find)

Amazon and Twitter sign a deal at the end of December.
Amazon kicks off Parler in early January.

I think you're putting 2 and 2 together and getting 5.

 

[dlockers]

God bless Poland.

You know Poland as a country is in an absolute mess, right?

Germany is even refusing to extradite people there because of the corruption in their government:
https://www.euronews.com/2020/03/09...ropean-arrest-warrant-due-to-fair-trial-fears

 

[Colonel_Klinck]

After having watched a view videos about Parler as I'm not on there, can you tell me how people are discussing/planning or organising some pretty serious stuff? From the videos I've watched it seems like a copy of Twitter. So how is like and sharing posts organising pretty serious stuff?

I used to visit a couple of big right-wing forum sites back in the day when I was a younger man and I've never seen anyone plotting bombs. The main filth I've seen these days is on Twitter, a most recent example is that woman from LBC, Shelagh Fogarty, urging the police to shoot the Capitol Hill protesters, a tweet she deleted and apologised for. But never received a twitter ban or suspension, or any job repercussions.



I agree with mostly what you are saying here. But the thing that is different from the old days is to now merely to ask questions is getting people lumped in with extremist groups. The mob is too quick to paint a whole backstory on someone because of a question they asked. A lot of issues these days aren't absolutes, yet people tend to simplify issues in to either be black and white. So one side advocates lockdowns, masks, vaccines, and the other side is saying corona doesn't exist, dont wear a mask, and vaccines are killing us. They are two sides of the same coin. The truth is in the middle and is always debated by intelligent people. But what we have is unaccountable private businesses dictating the narrative of the conversation. They shouldn't be doing that. The main problem I see with social media is the tribal attitude of people. If they were less hostile to people of the opposite opinion and engaged them in conversation then that is the way to neutralise extremism. There will always be those two opinions but the extremist element will have been removed. Sadly, I think it is more a cultural problem these days that people are less tolerate of a different view and its being shown on social media.

Now Republicans and Democrats alike want to rein in Big Tech
https://www.ft.com/content/e7c1a64f-b2d9-423b-a86c-f36d1c4e71b7

Social media has made extremism far far worse. Youtube and Facebook imo the two worst offenders to the general public as a whole. Reddit, 8Chan etc might be where the seeds of some of these views and conspiracy theories like QAnon first grew but they spread to the wider public on YouTube and Facebook. Social media allowed these views to spread in the name of free speech, in truth though they allowed it because it kept their numbers growing, profit before any duty to society as a whole.

As for the bold bit I highlighted, what is the alternative? If the market doesn't dictate what is allowed on these platforms who or what should? As I said they allowed it because they were seeing market share growth and so company value growth. You certainly really don't want government dictating what they can and can't have on their platforms other than illegal content of course. They can't force them to carry speech as the 1st amendment protects companies as well as people. So the market is now speaking and maybe what happened on the 6thin DC has been a wake up call to both these companies, their advertisers and politicians that this extremist speech on both sides of the political spectrum and the normalisation of conspiracy theories into wider society is a very dangerous thing that could very easily lead to a breakdown of society. When a Murdoch sends out a statement saying media needs to stop spreading lies and misinformation you know that what happened last week has scared the **** out of the establishment. As it should.

I would definitely be in favour of the big tech companies having anti-trust take a long hard look at them. Maybe Section 230 needs updating. I'm not going to lie though, I'm in favour of speech that is extremely divisive disappearing from mainstream social media, there is and will always be a place for it on the internet, it just shouldn't be in people's faces unless they actively go looking for it. In the short term some accounts and people will get swept up in the purge as the companies scramble to try and come to terms with what happened and what Trump has done to a large percentage of US citizens and their belief that US democracy has been rigged.

 

[Colonel_Klinck]

God bless Poland.

I do worry about you when you sing the praises of a hard right populist government. Some of their views are abhorrent. It really isn't a government that cares about people's rights.

 

[FoxEye]

I believe that Poland is considered to be somewhat racist these days; somehow I don't think that any deity will be blessing Poland any time soon.

"Considered to be racist" by whom?

 

[stockhausen]

. . . I'm saying that people should be able to have the conversation about Covid and other issues. . . .

In principle I would agree. However, where this "conversation" involves peddling lies (e.g. Covid is a myth inspired by Bill Gates to implant nanochips in the world population) or is actually dangerous (e.g. it is safe to drink bleach) I think that people should be having the "Conversation" in the privacy of their own head, ideally in a locked and padded room.

I believe that Germany is unenthusiastic about people denying the Holocaust - of itself possibly not dangerous but I would say that it does involve lying and I can quite understand why a conversation about it is banned.

Maybe Governments and Multinational Corporations are not best positioned to determine what conversations should be permitted but I would argue that Social Media companies (and OcUK come to that) are perfectly entitled to determine to what conversations they will give the oxygen of publicity.

 

[FoxEye]

Anyone who thinks it's a good idea to drink bleach (lol) probably isn't long for this world anyhow. The next thing on their bullet list is probably "investigate putting own head in microwave".

Unfortunately those most vulnerable to that degree of disinformation* are the people who lack the critical thinking ability to look for an alternative source, or verify what they're being told. To a certain extent you can't protect people from themselves.

*None of us are immune to disinformation but there are degrees of stupidity..

 

[dlockers]

"Considered to be racist" by whom?

Peer reviewed scholars and independent bodies, mostly.

 

[BowdonUK]

In principle I would agree. However, where this "conversation" involves peddling lies (e.g. Covid is a myth inspired by Bill Gates to implant nanochips in the world population) or is actually dangerous (e.g. it is safe to drink bleach) I think that people should be having the "Conversation" in the privacy of their own head, ideally in a locked and padded room.

Seeing people make bizarre statements about subjects doesn't make me believe them. Does it you?

I believe that Germany is unenthusiastic about people denying the Holocaust - of itself possibly not dangerous but I would say that it does involve lying and I can quite understand why a conversation about it is banned.

It's a controversial stance Germany as taken on that subject. It's unfortunately not solved holocaust denial.

Maybe Governments and Multinational Corporations are not best positioned to determine what conversations should be permitted but I would argue that Social Media companies (and OcUK come to that) are perfectly entitled to determine to what conversations they will give the oxygen of publicity.

The law distinguishes large companies from small companies. A lot of the laws ISP's follow are exempt from the smaller ISP's. I think rules should be appropriate to the size and objective of the website. OcUK isn't claiming to be a free speech website. The equivalent would be if OcUK started banning AMD conversations because they were pro Intel. They could do it. But would it be the morally right thing to do?

I'm not in favour of either Governments or Multinational Corporations, though I'd have to pick the government if they were the choices because I can elect someone else if they make the wrong decision. Though ideally we want a bipartisan law.

 

[BowdonUK]

I would definitely be in favour of the big tech companies having anti-trust take a long hard look at them. Maybe Section 230 needs updating. I'm not going to lie though, I'm in favour of speech that is extremely divisive disappearing from mainstream social media, there is and will always be a place for it on the internet, it just shouldn't be in people's faces unless they actively go looking for it. In the short term some accounts and people will get swept up in the purge as the companies scramble to try and come to terms with what happened and what Trump has done to a large percentage of US citizens and their belief that US democracy has been rigged.

I can agree with what you mean here. I remember when Facebook first came to be known, there were groups that said "we're going to use this to our advantage". It became free publicity. I think that people didnt realise how powerful and influencial social media sites would become so they have gone along unchecked.

It'll be interesting the outcome of what the Democrats put forward soon about it. I think there needs to be some checks and balances to allow all views to be discussed in a non-extreme way. Because when it gets to the point that regular views and people are being shut out of accounts then that encourages extremism.

 

[olivier renault]

I'm guessing it makes yeeting Parler of the Internet all OK then. It's for a good cause.

 

[Colonel_Klinck]

I'm guessing it makes yeeting Parler of the Internet all OK then. It's for a good cause.

They got dropped because they refused to moderate their platform. Their contract with Amazon said they had to remove certain speech like death threats, they refused to do so. No shortage of right wing billionaires. He should get the Mercer family of Koch family to fund a cloud server for right wing social media and they can take the liability risk when someone carries out a murder or attack that was encouraged on the platform.

 

[FoxEye]

I'm guessing it makes yeeting Parler of the Internet all OK then. It's for a good cause.

Hah. I had to look up two words that I'd never heard before to make sense of that sentence. Now I realise "of" == "off"

"Yeeting", haha.

 

[mmj_uk]

I went for a job interview the other day what with the massive lock down unemployment I was desperate for anything, reading the employment contract it said that I would have to subjucate myself to the sexual whims of management, well I mean it's a private corporation they can do whatever they want amirite?

If a corporation can just ignore the 1st amendment of the US Constitution then why should they be constrained by any other laws or human rights aimed at protecting people from oppression?

 

[Colonel_Klinck]

I went for a job interview the other day what with the massive lock down unemployment I was desperate for anything, reading the employment contract it said that I would have to subjucate myself to the sexual whims of management, well I mean it's a private corporation they can do whatever they want amirite?

Shock horror (not) no you are not right and you've not grasped it at all.

You went for a job interview at McDonalds and when you read the employment contract it said that they could fire you for your actions outside of the work place (including online) if they reflect badly on McDonalds. You then go online, make death, rape threats or racist comments, these comments are then shared, McDonalds are made aware of this, they even ask you to stop making such comments before firing you, you refuse, keep making them, they fire you. The end.

You can of course make it that you are not an employee but a contractor or supplier for them, the end result is the same.