I don’t either. But I’m not sure I see a problem with Twitter saying we don’t want people saying that on our site either. In most of the bars around me no one would blink an eye (or be surprised) to hear a white supremacist going off on how tough it was for a white man. But in a different bar 20 miles away maybe that owner doesn’t really want that guy ranting about it and tells him to take a hike.
The internet is a massive place. If I want to listen to Nazi rants I can do it in numerous places. I’m not sure I’m that bothered that T-Nation has banned some people for crossing the line in those areas before.
T-nation may not even fall under section 230 for all we know. This isn’t even taking into account the amount of traffic and public reliance on them for a myriad of things in their lives compared to the large social media corporations. I don’t think it’s a good example to use.
I wasn’t talking about Facebook. I was talking about Parler. That is, the company that created a forum where you can say anything and was forced out by AWS, Apple, and Google. The tech giants weren’t acting in their capacity as content providers. They were acting in their capacity as infrastructure providers. This is an important distinction that I think needs to guide the legal framework in this area.
As I started to say above, to me the distinction is not popularity but rather content provider vs. infrastructure provider. Admittedly, there are a lot of gray areas. However, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that T-nation is much more of a content provider than Facebook is. For the most part, Facebook doesn’t provide content. It just facilitates the spread of content htat others have created. While these forums also theoretically do this, T-nation itself is creating content and is actually not so much interested in sharing content created by others, although it doesn’t so much care so long as the content is not created by competitors.
It’s far more nefarious than just that not everything can be fact checked. For instance, prior to the election, I shared a clip of statements that Joe Biden had made stating that he was going to eliminate or significantly regulate fracking if elected. The clips were not doctored and they had enough context to make it clear what Biden was talking about. It was labeled by Facebook as misleading and lacking context. The summary of the fact checking explanation was that Biden has stated he is not going to ban fracking and denied ever saying that he was. In short, the so called fact check was that Biden denied saying it and therefore sharing a clip where he said it was misleading. I appreciate that a lot of the stuff is automated, but someone trained the computer. And the computer seems to have a bias.
@H_factor Are you just looking for things to disagree with, or do you have a clear stance on this set of issues?
You said I mischaracterized your stance as being in favor of online censorship. You clarified this to mean that you’re in favor of websites setting their own terms, which seems to mean you don’t want section 230 revisited.
It is hard for me to pin down what you believe, which makes it hard to have a discussion.
Are you in favor of the status quo where we have social media information gatekeepers working on behalf of the Democrats? Do you believe my premise is wrong? If so, explain.
BTW, I never called you unintelligent. I said you lacked knowledge and vocabulary regarding firearms, which is a totally fair take on you. I and especially @Silyak have raised some rather deep concerns that go far beyond your basic notion that websites ought to set terms. You’re totally skipping all of those and asking distracting questions about the fringes of this issue. I’m not saying this to be mean, but to be helpful.
You should especially consider the terms that a person like Crowder agreed to years ago are far different than the terms he’s expected to agree to today. This is after he’s become a successful independent content creator on YouTube, operating under YouTube’s terms the entire time.
Now he needs a lawyer to keep it going. I used to love YouTube, and it still is a deeply hypocritical guilty pleasure I still enjoy. They just need to hang up the woke cape and get back to being the marvel of the 00’s that made YouTube one of the great American Websites on the Frontier of the Internet.
Why would I be looking for things to disagree with? I’ve merely said I’m not sure if I think it’s a problem or not. I think those who always take hard stances on complicated issues are usually wrong. The answer is often in the middle. And these are very complicated issues that are often changing with each year.
How do we know we have this? It would seem very unlikely to me that in something as massive as social media with thousands upon thousands of places to interact with people that they are all working on behalf of Democrats. Are some of the bigger ones more likely to lean Dem. yeah from what I’ve read that’s fair. But is it always a massive conspiracy? They stole the election and now they are stealing speech? Republicans have controlled the bankers money for years in terms of donations and I’m not sure I’d say banks are doing anything particularly nefarious towards the other side.
That kinda got the outcome I figured. Fun internet experiments.
You’re getting a little worked up so maybe a good night sleep will make you feel better. Shit ain’t that serious man. Besides if either of us really lose our cool t-nation will boot us off and we will have to go at it on about a million other places.
It’s pretty serious for people reliant on social media corporations for various things which directly or indirectly derives them income, actually.
YouTube takes a large share of ad revenue and has used the excuse before that customers generally don’t buy ads for videos with certain content to censor them. However, such content developers have other sources of revenue such as sponsors and/or monetary support from their audience on other platforms like Patreon.
Ironically, like Facebook, they also have to approve the content of any ads I buy for clients.
I’ve not even touched on the business activities I use certain social media services for like communication with clients and storage of large amounts of data (some of which have been paid for). If my account gets fucked with for whatever silly reason, it’s going to be a pretty large hassle for me, to say the least.
While, again, I don’t have too much a problem with this because I always have backup plans, I’d seriously question whether they fall under section 230.
A really outstanding couple of posts dude. Well written.
But is this true? Yes they removed the app from their stores. But Parler had already become a household name because it was in the news so much. As long as they could put their app on their own website they could be viable, specifically because they were being sought out by people discontent with FB, et al.
Parler’s ISP and other service providers backed out of providing service when the heat got too much for them, so I would put them more at fault than anyone for disrupting the material business operations of the company. And Parler could probably sue for breach of contract there - but they weren’t killed off by Google and Apple IMO.
Market pressures operate both ways. I think you’re right in that Google/Apple were operating as infrastructure providers here but I don’t know the terms of service for the app stores. If they have a clause that declares they can pull your app for any reason at their leisure then I don’t know how you can argue the legality of their action (for the record again I don’t know their terms for the store). But again, Parler was only undone when their service providers pulled out. And they’re operational again.
I don’t think you can make the argument that the lack of infrastructure provided by Google/Apple killed Parler. Their infrastructure was actually fine until service providers pulled away. Name recognition was not a problem since they were already in the news almost daily.
I do think the fact checking is a problem. It’s a good goal but models are only as good as they are trained to be.
I agree with you here. I think it is infinitely more likely that Facebook employees mostly left leaning people, and that these same left-leaning people have been responsible for the fact-checking algorithms employed thus far. Is this a problem? Yes. However it’s not the same as “working for the Democrats”. To me this is a much more likely scenario, where a person or teams bias has shaped the machine learning models employed. It wouldn’t be the first time.
To me this is the more interesting question. I do not think it is fair for any content providers to operate under one set of assumptions for years and then subsequently be quickly switched to a different set of criteria.
Yeah, I mean, if you maintain consistency all the way, then I know what I should or should not do and I’d respect the rules even if I’m using them mainly for free without any monetary incentives.
Hell, I respect the rules on this site even though I’m not even reliant on it for any financial gain. At the very least, it’s a form of basic courtesy to me since I’m using it for free and I don’t buy any products. But, again, I do not think this site can be used as an example when we’re talking about the topic on hand.
With regard to social media giants, if I can’t even fucking understand or keep up with the rules, especially when you introduce new ones highly open to subjectivity, and it results in income loss after you have made me dependant on your services to the point that it has dictated the development of any part of my business model to any degree AFTER you have also already derived a substantial amount of profit AND audience conversion* through ME prior to this, then it’s not only a shitty thing to do, it’s also a good case for a lawsuit if you decide to fuck with me.
*Getting viewers to sites like Youtube from other platforms didn’t/doesn’t just happen in a vacuum. While I’m not disregarding their extremely well designed site infrastructure in any way, a significant amount of viewers have been attracted to the site because they followed certain content creators and then they get hooked because they find other content of interest due to YouTube’s algorithm.
EDIT:
On a micro level, we can talk about how fucked up landlords who arbitrarily increase prices of leases for businesses for whatever reasons are. Few would disagree with this. Why is is so hard to simply understand how fucked up certain practices these social media giants engage in that result in similar outcomes are?
Even if one doesn’t agree they should be regulated(such as myself, for now at least), at least acknowledge how fucked up they can be sometimes.
I meant the discussion on here isn’t serious. I used to get super worked up on here talking politics. But I’ve mellowed. We’ve discussed a million things on here time and time again. Anyone who still wants to be posting in the next decade will do the same. And we will be arguing the same stuff. Heck we hardly have anyone that posts her compared to back in the day. It’s just not worth getting worked up over.
Isn’t this the same as newspapers and tv?
The thing to keep in mind in America with any political topic is the only side that is mad about something is the side that perceives they are being hurt. If President Obama was banned from Twitter in 2013 would any of these people be up in arms? They will fake like they would be just as outraged but we know better. They would be defending the free market and saying he’s free to go elsewhere.
Look at Citizens United. Did Republicans talk about how awful it was that a few Uber wealthy people might be able to control the information that comes out of political campaigns? Of course not. They were benefiting from the big money at the time and all of that was just fine. Both sides are constantly outraged at all the unfair stuff one side is doing. But the moment it may be benefiting them they are all totally cool with it.
All that defending corporations and all the free speech and free association that protects them which was argued during Citizens United all needs blown up today. And it’s all because Republicans thought that helped them and this social media stuff doesn’t. Democrats of course are just as big on the hypocrisy side as both parties (and party voters) don’t really give a shit about stuff if it’s helping them out.
Yes, it is. But they’re consistent and any major changes will be made known with sufficient clarity since you’re paying such high prices for them.
And since ads are much cheaper on social media, especially when you’re taking a targeted approach, we have lots of different variations and buy them much more frequently, which results in more scrutinizing and the need to keep up with all the changes in policies.
I’m not sure but I’ll take your word for it lol. However, I was not talking about US politics. Something like Facebook is used by almost every country in the world for various purposes. I was talking about their processes from a practical and legal/legislative POV.
Not sure how much you know about the Parler case, but, yes, absolutely the prime culprit here is AWS (Amazon Web Services). Pulling the plug on hosting Parler was really what took them down. Even if you can’t get the App (getting an app without the App Store on iPhone is not something most iPhone users are familiar with and is intentionally difficult), you could always run the website in a browser on either desktop or mobile if the site hadn’t gone down.
But it wasn’t some mom and pop ISP that freaked out and took them down. It was Amazon.
And yes, they did sue for breach of contract. A judge denied Parler’s request for a temporary restraining order at which point the case became more or less academic. Frankly, the fact that Amazon’s legal argument was taken seriously by a judge is somewhat appalling. Essentially, the contract said that they had to give Parler 30 day notice before cancelling service. Amazon argued that they had not cancelled service but had instead suspended service indefinitely with no intention of ever restoring it. How’s that for a “justice” system? The ability of lawyers to subvert the plain meaning of words undermines my faith in justice.
I don’t think the platforms should be in the business of deciding what is “fake news”. They were wrong on the origins of the virus and protected the Chinese from even a discussion of their culpability. It’s looking more and more like they were wrong about hydroxychloroquine.
“Causal modeling establishes that weight-adjusted HCQ and AZM therapy improves survival by over 100%.”
How many lives could have been saved if people were allowed to discuss even the possibility that it helped?
“This case is about Parler’s demonstrated unwillingness and inability to remove from the servers of Amazon Web Services … content that threatens the public safety, such as by inciting and planning the rape, torture, and assassination of named public officials and private citizens,” Amazon wrote to the court.
“AWS notified Parler repeatedly that its content violated the parties’ agreement, requested removal, and reviewed Parler’s plan to address the problem, only to determine that Parler was both unwilling and unable to do so,” Amazon added.
Amazon said that since November, it reported to Parler more than 100 instances of content promoting violence, including calls to hang, shoot or kill Black and Jewish people, lawmakers, tech CEOs, police officers and others.
It also looks like Parler couldn’t uphold their own standards:
During one of the calls, according to Amazon’s filing, Parler’s CEO reported a backlog of 26,000 reports of content that violated its community standards but remained posted.
that definitely explains why I didn’t remember accurately. That’s a pretty significant window that it was banned content though. I had just remembered hearing people talk about the lab leak theory a lot last summer. I didn’t realize it was banned previously.
What’s interesting to me, and the most troubling thing about the ban, is that it came so early, back when we didn’t know fucking anything. There clearly wasn’t any evidence that DISPROVED the lab theory. And it was banned anyway. That’s pretty fucked. I don’t generally have a problem with, say, Facebook’s moderation when it comes to trying to limit Russian influence via propaganda. I think that’s important. But this isn’t the same thing, and it’s pretty shameful that they took this position on something that we don’t actually know the answer to.
agreed. We need more of him. He’s willing to call out anyone.
