Parler Was Allowed Back In The Apple App Store Because It Will Block 'Hate Speech,' But Only When Viewed Through Apple Devices
from the fracturing dept
Last month we noted that Apple told Congress that it was allowing Parler's iOS app to return to its app store, after the company (apparently) implemented a content moderation system. This was despite Parler's then interim CEO (who has since been replaced by another CEO) insisting that Parler would not remove "content that attacks someone based on race, sex, sexual orientation or religion." According to a deep dive by the Washington Post, the compromise solution is that such content will be default blocked only on iOS devices, but will be available via the web or the sideloaded Google app, though they will be "labeled" as hate by Parler's new content moderation partner, Hive.
Posts that are labeled “hate” by Parler’s new artificial intelligence moderation system won’t be visible on iPhones or iPads. There’s a different standard for people who look at Parler on other smartphones or on the Web: They will be able to see posts marked as “hate,” which includes racial slurs, by clicking through to see them.
Hive is well known in the content moderation space, as it is used by Chatroulette, Reddit and some others. Hive mixes "AI" with a large team of what it refers to as "registered contributors" (think Mechanical Turk-style crowdsourced gig work). Of course, it was only just last year that the company announced that its "hate model" AI was ready for prime time, and I do wonder how effective it is.
Either way, this is interesting for a variety of reasons. One thing we've talked about in the past with regards to content moderation is that one of the many problems is that different people have different tolerances for different kinds of speech, and having different moderation setups for different users (and really pushing more of the decision making to the end users themselves) seems like an idea that should get a lot more attention. Here, though, we have a third party -- Apple -- stepping in and doing that deciding for the users. It is Apple's platform, so of course, they do get to make that decision, but it's a trend worth watching.
I do wonder if we'll start to see more pressure from such third parties to moderate in different ways to the point that our mobile app experiences and our browser experiences may be entirely different. I see how we end up in such a world, but it seems like a better solution might be just pushing more of that control to the end users themselves to make those decisions.
The specific setup here for Parler is still interesting:
Parler sets the guidelines on what Hive looks for. For example, all content that the algorithms flag as “incitement,” or illegal content threatening physical violence, is removed for all users, Peikoff and Guo said. That includes threats of violence against immigrants wanting to cross the border or politicians.
But Parler had to compromise on hate speech, Peikoff said. Those using iPhones won’t see anything deemed to be in that category. The default setting on Android devices and the website shows labels warning “trolling content detected,” with the option to “show content anyway.” Users have the option to change the setting and, like iOS users, never be exposed to posts flagged as hate.
Peikoff said the “hate” flag from the AI review will cue two different experiences for users, depending on the platform they use. Parler’s tech team is continuing to run tests on the dual paths to make sure each runs consistently as intended.
Of course, AI moderation is famously mistake-prone. And both Parler and Hive execs recognize this:
Peikoff said Hive recently flagged for nudity her favorite art piece, the “To Mennesker” naked figures sculpture by Danish artist Stephan Sinding, when she posted it. The image was immediately covered with a splash screen indicating it was unsafe.
“Even the best AI moderation has some error rate,” Guo said. He said the company’s models show that one to two posts out of every 10,000 viewed by the AI should have been caught on Parler but aren’t.
I do question those percentages, but either way it's another interesting example of how content moderation continues to evolve -- even if Parler's users are angry that they won't be able to spew bigotry quite as easily as previously.
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Filed Under: content moderation, hate speech, ios, platforms
Companies: apple, hive, parler
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I don’t get why they’re angry — they still have 4chan and 8kun, so they can spread bigotry and hate there all the live-long day.
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Peikoff said Hive recently flagged for nudity her favorite art piece, the “To Mennesker” naked figures sculpture by Danish artist Stephan Sinding, when she posted it
Is this really an example of a mistake by the AI?
It's a bit unclear what Paler's nudity policy is here, there is an exception for "(1) photographs or videos portraying stylized sculptural art—i.e., sculptural works that neither look realistic, nor focus primarily on genitalia."
While "To Mennesker" des not focus on genetalia, it's unclear whether "looks realistic except for the color" satisfies the first requirement or not.
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Re:
It's anything to be angry about for them.
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Blind Spot
Normally, Techdirt would heavily criticize a hardware manufacturer for dictating what can and cannot be done by users on its equipment. From game modding, to right of repair, to software anti-piracy measures, to encryption, the ability for users to operate their own devices as they see fit is usually sacrosanct.
But not here, because of leftist politics.
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Re: Blind Spot
I saw the contributor and the title and at first I thought he was posting about himself...
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No loss
Oh, well. Apple is for elitists anyway.
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Re: Blind Spot
You did Nazi that?
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Ten bux says you’d be overjoyed if Twitter was subjected to the same treatment Parler received, and all “because of leftist politics”.
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Re: Blind Spot
[Projects facts not in evidence]
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Re: Blind Spot
Normally, Techdirt would heavily criticize a hardware manufacturer for dictating what can and cannot be done by users on its equipment. From game modding, to right of repair, to software anti-piracy measures, to encryption, the ability for users to operate their own devices as they see fit is usually sacrosanct.
Koby, your reading comprehension skills suck. We still think users should be able to do what they want. Read the rest of the post.
But also, Apple does have a right to control its own marketplaces, which are not third party devices.
But not here, because of leftist politics.
Why do you keep insisting we are leftists? I have told you directly that I am not. It's almost like you can't hold an intellectually honest discussion so you have to insist they must be a part of a group you want to smear.
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Re: No loss
So's Parler. Just a different group of elitists. Your point being?
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Re: Re: Blind Spot
To be fair to Koby - and it is more than a little tempting to make no such effort - there are a fair number of regulars here who show signs of leftist tendancies. Such as contemptuous post about Elon Musk, not because of wildly inappropriate tweets (which he definitely posts from time to time) nor because of his wildly inaccurate estimates (Elon time, anyone?) , nor even sometimes less than stellar treatment of his employees (everyone back to work, ignore that raging pandemic), but, as near as I can fathom, from jealousy and dogmatic hatred of anyone more successful that they are.
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So what?
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Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
Uhh, do you have any examples of that, because while I might have missed something from what I can remember any contempt I've seen towards him has been based upon what he's said/done.
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Whoops, you're supposed to keep that part silent guys
Admitting that hate speech is on their platform but they're merely going to be flagging it for certain devices kinda guts any claims that they have any sort of objections to it and aren't merely doing so to get back on the app store, and as for Apple's part in this they aren't coming out looking much better for accepting that plan as it makes clear that their issue wasn't hosting an app with that sort of content but merely that it might show up on their devices.
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Re:
Because they can't radicalise people as easily on those sites anymore because people know what they are. Qanon promoters had a lot more success recruiting people when they stopped directing people to 8kun for Qdrops because lonely grannies went there, got called slurs or exposed to porn and ran away, so they switched to aggregators as their first exposure to the madness instead, it made it seem more respectable.
Parler was intended to be a more grown up version of those radicalisation cesspools, but it's useless if they can't go all out normalising threats and slurs.
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Re:
With credit to the recent article that brought up the term as always they're not angry about the 'restriction' on their free speech but their free reach.
What's the point in being an asshole if the only platforms that will have them are populated by people like them after all, they want on the platforms that people actually use.
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Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
Please explain how posting something contemptuous about someone is "leftist tendencies"? How do you logically connect that? Do you want me to point out all the right wingers who are also contemptuous of Musk's accomplishments? Do they also show "leftist tendencies"?
Seriously, your whole argument is one giant logical fallacy so you can point fingers and say "damn those lefties". And "lefties" in this context means people not on the far right it seems, which encompasses a majority of the political spectrum.
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Re: Re: Blind Spot
If you're even slightly to the left of Pinochet, to a lot of the online right you're a communist Leninist socialist Marxist muslim Maoist Trotskyite Aliniski-ist scary Breitbart buzzword salad who wants to end capitalism and take away whatever they value most from their ever shifting definition of freedoms that only really apply to them. You should both be mocked and feared for being in the pocket of big tech while somehow being anticapitalist and for being responsible for whatever their grievance du jour is even though said grievance didn't exist until someone they liked from twitter got banned for being a racist.
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Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
'People hate Elon Musk for no reason if you ignore all the many, many valid reasons they have to hate him, clearly it must be jealousy of his success.'
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Re:
Oh, there will be plenty of misses by the moderation AI. But Parler is a pretty target rich environment for flagging hateful speech.
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Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
Such as contemptuous post about Elon Musk, not because of wildly inappropriate tweets (which he definitely posts from time to time) nor because of his wildly inaccurate estimates (Elon time, anyone?) , nor even sometimes less than stellar treatment of his employees (everyone back to work, ignore that raging pandemic), but, as near as I can fathom, from jealousy and dogmatic hatred of anyone more successful that they are.
That has never happened on this site.
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Re: Re: Blind Spot
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Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
So, leftists are just people who don't like people more successful than they are? Got it.
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Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
Oh, so now Democrats are the Left. LMFAO.
"Censorship" blah blah blah, cool imaginary analysis bro.
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lol you think the democratic party is leftist
they’re barely centrist
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Re: Blind Spot
The App Store belongs to Apple. The phone in my pocket belongs to me. Do you not understand the difference?
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Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
[Projects facts not in evidence]
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Re: Blind Spot
"Normally, Techdirt would heavily criticize a hardware manufacturer for dictating what can and cannot be done by users on its equipment"
This has nothing to do with hardware, it's the software that's doing the restricting. Therefore, it's just a software platform choosing who to associate its business with, which is the same exact argument that's used in every other argument you misrepresent. People who don't like this can jailbreak their phone, or buy from one of Apple's many competitors.
Now, do you have any arguments that don't rely on misrepresenting the very words you're quoting?
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Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
"there are a fair number of regulars here who show signs of leftist tendancies"
Yes, people who understand facts and reality do tend to swing that way. But, any sane, rational counter-arguments that are based in reality are always welcome.
Does anyone have such things, or do we have to pretend that Koby's hallucinations are the same as real world facts in order to not be accused of partisanship?
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Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
It's funny that you think that the corporate party that's centre-right on the global scale is on the "left".
Do you have any more jokes, because that one's hilarious.
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Re: Re: Blind Spot
It's the same old argument - when the facts don't support an argument, lie about them and hope that nobody on a tech site understands the difference between hardware and software. Then, run away when challenged and pretend he won the argument on the next thread.
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Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
You have one point of data which proves nothing. It's like saying "I saw you had blue car on your driveway, just must love blue cars since I haven't seen you have a red one parked there", which makes you an idiot.
Oh, you care to back that up with actual facts or is it your feelings that are shining through?
You call yourself a "green", but you say all the "right" things even though the Greens are left of the Democrats on the political scale.
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Nah, they'll most likely view the hate flag as a badge of honor and actively write/seek out such posts.
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Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
And why is that? Because they are rambling idiots that live in their own faux reality. We've already got enough of those in the form of commenters such as yourself.
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Re: Whoops, you're supposed to keep that part silent guys
It's also funny to consider they admit to NOT removing "content that attacks someone based on race, sex, sexual orientation or religion." leaving out political affiliations. So you can be damn sure they'll still censor critics of the whiner-in-chief lame duck president.
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How to get banned in five words: 'He lost, get over it.'
I have little doubt that nothing will trigger the hammer faster on that cesspit than someone mocking their Dear Leader, his cultists and/or pointing out that he lost the popular vote by millions, again, but the electoral college wasn't enough to save him this time.
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Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
"You've literally had a Democrat Congressman be a guest editor."
Only in america would a democrat be considered "leftist". You people are so deep into the rabbit hole that Bernie fscking Sanders would be considered a european centrist.
It's just that in comparison to the american right-wing even the nazis - prime example of right-wing-gone-real-wrong - come off looking like american center-right these days.
Your political views are that skewed and you've normalized political views which went out of fashion in the early 20th century in most of the rest of the world.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
"You people are so deep into the rabbit hole that Bernie fscking Sanders would be considered a european centrist."
Sanders' main positions are promoting the same kind of democratic socialism that much of Europe was built on after WWII, and healthcare reform that's so natural here that even Thatcher's Conservative government didn't dare suggest they wanted to mess with it while she was pushing hardcore Reaganomics.
If that's the "left", then it's concerning what the far right consists of...
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Masnick, what are you on about now??
"Techdirt isn't left wing"???
Liar, the only people who believe you are those who've never read a single Techdirt article.
You spent the last four years kvetching endlessly about kkk nazi literal hitler POTUS Trump. You and your writers spent all of 2020 supporting violent anti-White riots. You personally write an article several times per week about how "conservatives are working the refs" when they say they'd prefer not to be censored by Big Tech. Who do you spend more time complaining about, self-described conservatives or self-described liberals?
There is a right wing. There is a left wing. And there are centrists (fencesitters) and libertarians. Your crew regularly complains that libertarians are just right wingers in sheep's clothing. So which one are you? You claim you've told Koby directly you're not a leftist. Okay, so that's what you say you're not. Now tell us what you are .
Your gaslighting is amusing. In 2021, that word is commonly misused. In this case it follows the strict book definition.
You're a leftist. Why does your own political position embarrass you?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
Does Techdirt spend more time complaining about self-described conservatives or self-described liberals?
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"So what"??
Uhh, did you not read Masnick's comment?
The 'so what' is that Masnick just said that Techdirt is not left wing.
How do you guys keep your stories straight in this alternate reality you've created, where the definition of words change not just in the same paragraph, but often in the same sentence ?
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The problem is that AI moderation has two error rates, not one. The one he describes is the false-negative rate, the rate at which it mistakes a fail for a pass. The other that he doesn't mention is the false-positive rate, the rate at which it mistakes a pass for a fail. The two tend to go hand-in-hand: to reduce the false-negative rate you usually have to increase the false-positive rate and vice-versa. That's why you'll often have your doctor have you get a medical test and when the results come back they'll tell you they need you to come in for another test. The first one is a screening test that's fast and cheap and has a low false-negative rate, so if it comes back clean you're definitely clean. If it comes back positive they need to run a more sensitive (hence more expensive and time-consuming) test to get the real results, helped by the population for it having a much higher percentage of actual positives.
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"Why do you keep insisting we are leftists? We're not."
We've seen Masnick and his writers and his commenters lie a lot .
But this is by far the most bold-faced, standalone lie I believe I've ever seen Masnick make.
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Why are leftists afraid to call a spade a spade?
Unlike Masnick, I am not embarrassed by my political worldview, and will state unequivocally that I'm right wing.
I personally would be overjoyed if all Big Tech, which is monolithically anti-White far left wing, were subject to any actual restrictions, no matter how slight.
Odin willing, it'll get what's coming to it. Sadly, this shan't be in our lifetimes. I predict it'll be up to the 3 x great-grandchildren of current actual Americans to see justice through.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
It's true that many - actually, most - Republican politicians live in a faux reality (where they pretend to be conservatives and not just anti-White pro-war pro-censorship neocon RINOs.)
But do you deny that Techdirt lives in a faux reality, where Masnick's lie that Techdirt is a non-leftist website is not widely mocked?
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Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
Instead of ad hominems, can you address the commenter's point, Paul?
Do you deny that the cellphone in his pocket belongs to him? Do you think he stole it, or is perhaps leasing it?
It's impossible to ever have adult conversations with you guys when you simply ignore attempts at dialogue.
Let me guess... you think his question is "JAQing off", or whatever intersectional newspeak is in vogue with you INGSOC reps these days.
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Re: Re:
I wonder if you guys actually believe that random websites are "radicalizing" the youth nowadays.
No, what's radicalizing - your leftist newspeak term for White children who want the countries their ancestors built for them back - these kids is your leftist authoritarian behavior that is doing its best to erase their people from the Earth.
When the day arrives to finally face the consequences of your actions, they'll be sure to remind you that your brought it on yourselves. You'll first deny it, then beg for mercy.
But your actions will have seen to it that mercy is a mistake their people will never make again.
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Re: Re: Blind Spot
I also have to disagree with Koby's statement, though not for the reasons you state.
I don't believe I've ever seen Techdirt take a stance that didn't side fully with whatever Big Tech wants to do. (If you don't count Stone's position that paraphilic pornography shouldn't be restricted by anybody.)
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Re: Re: Whoops, you're supposed to keep that part silent guys
"Lame duck president"?
Do you not know what 'lame duck' means? Or do you not know that it's May?
You're almost five months late.
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Re: How to get banned in five words: 'He lost, get over it.'
Normally I think the "living rent free in your head" meme is a silly 'our-sidism', like heckling the opposing sportsball team.
But as the months after January tick by, you guys seem dead set on making it more and more true.
You're obsessed with Donald Trump. I can't think of a more appropriate word. OBSESSED.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
You need to keep a closer eye on your auto-correct.
That was presumably supposed to read "political views that lost all credibility in the early 20th century".
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Re: Re: How to get banned in five words: 'He lost, get over it.'
You might think or wish that was the case but nah, now that he has no direct political power the only time I bother to waste effort thinking about that loser and the even more pathetic people who follow him is when articles like this come out and a chance to laugh at him and/or his cultists presents itself, outside of that neither he nor they are worth wasting time thinking about.
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…says the guy so obsessed with a website he hates for no reason other than someone quoted Barack Obama at him a decade ago that he shitposts to the tune of hundreds of spamfiltered attempts at commenting every day.
I know this is rich coming from me, but seriously, Brainy: Get a life.
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Re: Re: Re:
[Hallucinates facts not in evidence]
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Re: Why are leftists afraid to call a spade a spade?
[Hallucinates facts contrary to reality]
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Re: "So what"??
The articles aren't. If the users show leftist tendencies that's not Techdirt's responsibility to stifle or encourage. If this bothers you that much why not bring more of your rightist buddies to post here?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
Techdirt spends its time complaining about idiots. It's not Techdirt's responsibility to break its back looking for idiotic liberals because you think the conservative idiot count is too high.
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Re:
You guys spent the last four years claiming that Trump would build the wall, arrest Hilary, and make the coronavirus disappear. Of course, none of those promises actually happened, but you still go on your knees clamoring to occupy the spot between his legs. It'd be funny if it wasn't pathetic.
What was the phrase you used on anyone who disagreed with you? "Fuck your feelings", right?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
Don't make us trawl back four years of articles to look for the comments you and your team made, Hamilton. Because you'd lose.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
Of course I do.
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Re: Re: Re:
Hey everyone, you can stop looking! I found the radicalized looser!
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Re: Why are white supremacists always cowards?
That's one whopper of a rewriting of "right-wing and white supremacists are bad for business".
Anyway, do go on and complain that you aren't allowed to take a shit everywhere you like. Btw, did you know that it's scientifically proven that white supremacists on average have less cognitive capacity when compared to the general population? Ie. they are stupid? It kind of explains a lot.
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Re: Why are white supremacists always cowards?
That you can't tell the difference between an a writer and commenters is entirely a you-problem. I do wonder how you manage to function in real life if you miss such basic distinctions.
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Re: Why are white supremacists always cowards?
You are a racist that doesn't like a spotlight shining on your and your klan-buddies shitty behavior and the above post it the result. Anything not fitting into your myopic worldview is considered left-wing.
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Re: Context sensitivity = zero
Instead of looking for an argument, try to understand the context which you seem to be particularly bad at. If you engaged just a tiny bit more of your grey matter you would have understood that Paul agreed with the comment.
It's impossible to have an adult conversation with people like you since you aren't here for the conversation, you are here to grind an axe.
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Re: Re: Re:
lol, what? When you guys lost your shit after your boi Trump failed the election, you couldn't even muster a protest that lasted longer than the BLM parades you love to bitch about so much. If BLM was Pewdiepie, your efforts were like a couple of boomer grandparents discovering shitposting on Facebook for the first time. After which your main man Trump quickly threw your team under the bus for the shitty PR.
You have a shit definition of mercy and an even shittier definition of not-mercy.
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Re: Re: Why are leftists afraid to call a spade a spade?
LOL, yeah... one of the biggest complaints about "big tech" is generally that they're way too white, to the point where racial bias is accidentally implemented in things like facial recognition because they don't do enough testing on non-white populations.
Although, he might be correct about the "left wing" part, if only because his type always seems to consider basic verifiable facts to be "left wing". That's why they always whine about fact checkers, facts themselves are biased against their world view.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
"the radicalized looser"
The word is loser, although given how many loose screws this guy has, I'll allow the other word here.
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Re: Re: Why are white supremacists always cowards?
"I do wonder how you manage to function in real life if you miss such basic distinctions"
I've not seen any evidence that he does.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
"Does Techdirt spend more time complaining about self-described conservatives or self-described liberals?"
If there's 2 restaurants in town - one providing high quality fish and vegetable dishes, while the other serves low quality steaks that are handled so poorly that customers get food poisoning by eating there daily - it doesn't mean that there's an anti-meat bias when people mostly complain about the second one.
The same applies here. Right-wingers are doing way more stupid shit to complain about, so they get talked about more. TD also reports on left wingers (both actual left-wingers and the centrist conservatives you people pretend are leftists) when they do something worth complaining about. There is no indication of bias just because you give them more material.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
"Instead of ad hominems, can you address the commenter's point, Paul"
I did, I'm sorry that you were too stupid to understand the comment.
"Do you deny that the cellphone in his pocket belongs to him?"
That has nothing to do with whether the software operating system has a restriction on it that he can remove or change if he dislikes it. The hardware has nothing to do with the problem he has, unless he decides that altering the OS is too hard for his uneducated mind and he would prefer to buy a handset with his preferred OS pre-installed. Therefore, his statement that there's some hypocrisy because an article written about software is different to previous articles about hardware is a bad attempt at attacking the site from someone who doesn't understand the tech.
Oh, and depending on his phone contract, he may only be leasing it, so even you're stupid attempt to put words in my mouth doesn't have the effect you think it does.
"It's impossible to ever have adult conversations with you guys when you simply ignore attempts at dialogue."
No, it's impossible because you're too busy erecting strawmen to gather basic reading comprehension skills.
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Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
"I don't believe I've ever seen Techdirt take a stance that didn't side fully with whatever Big Tech wants to do"
Yes, you do have a way of ignoring articles that don't support your current hallucinations.
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Re: Re: Context sensitivity = zero
Ah, I missed the part where our resident moron thought I was disagreeing with AC's statement, rather than agreeing with him about Koby's idiocy. and (correctly, it seems) noting that he'd never bother to reply once we all pointed out how wrong he was.
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Re: Re: How to get banned in five words: 'He lost, get over it.'
"You're obsessed with Donald Trump"
Despite losing the election by 8 million votes after the least popular and most deadly administration in modern history, the man still has millions of supporters who are actively kicking out members of the party who dare tell the truth about his loss and are apparently trying to encourage a run in 2024.
It's nice not to have to deal with the moron having actual direct power over the lives he was destroying while he was in office, but we still can't ignore him. All it takes if for voters to become complacent after a few years of competent leadership fixes the things he broke, or for the active attempts at voter suppression to bear fruit, and we're back to dealing with him again.
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Re: Re: Re: How to get banned in five words: 'He lost, get over
"now that he has no direct political power"
Not direct, but you have to be ignoring some important developments recently if you think he has no power. For example, Liz Cheney recently being ousted for daring to admit the truth about his election loss. Or, how about this quote from Lindsey Graham:
The man didn't build a team of supporters, he built a cult, and those don't go away just because their public face lost power.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: How to get banned in five words: 'He lost, get o
Oh I wouldn't argue that he has no power, whether republican politicians realized it or not before it was too late by letting him run unchecked he turned a large chunk if not the majority of the republican party into his own personal cult which leaves him with a lot of power over it, my point is merely that at the moment he's stuck going through intermediaries and has no direct political power in the form of passing laws and power over agencies, and while his cultists seem to be happy to dance to his tune(whether through being on board or realizing that standing up to him is likely to kill any republican political career at this point as you pointed out) he's currently stuck getting others to do his dirty work which reduces the amount of damage he can cause.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: How to get banned in five words: 'He lost, g
"he's currently stuck getting others to do his dirty work which reduces the amount of damage he can cause"
Yes, but sadly that amount of damage is way greater than the zero it should be. Usually, when someone fails as badly as he did, it's a cue for the party to regroup, to examine what led to the failure and adjust accordingly. The twice-impeached, single term president in any other era would quickly become a pariah, but here we see the opposite.
My concern here is not that Trump is going to be a Machiavellian figure behind the scenes and getting his minions to do his bidding. The problem is that 72 million voters saw the damage he did and said "we want more". The Republicans are already doing as much as they can to suppress the voting rights of anyone who didn't vote for him. It's a real possibility that if the typical mid-term drop in turnout followed by apathy in the face of a competent but imperfect Biden term takes place, they could retake the government. Only this time with a Trump cultist who's not as incompetent as he was.
He may not be currently capable of direct damage as he was, but I think it's folly to ignore him just because he's no longer in the position to do so. People are already doing some highly questionable things to placate him, and even if the threat of him running again in 2024 doesn't come to pass, his continued influence cannot be ignored.
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Re: Re: Re:
"your leftist newspeak term for White children who want the countries their ancestors built for them back"
It's always nice to see the white supremacist outing themselves so openly. Makes for a bit of fresh air against the backdrop of you Very Fine People always bending over backwards to avoid showing where you're really from.
It's somehow sentimental to see the old traditional nazi values observed, including your classical old move of calling everyone not an outright racistg a "leftist".
"You'll first deny it, then beg for mercy."
I have no doubt that when your ilk comes to power again - which I guess will happen somewhere, someday - then indeed a great many people will be begging for mercy when you start building the camps. And wondering why they didn't stand up for the socialists, unionists and jews when you came for them.
"...that is doing its best to erase their people from the Earth."
Well, I guess I'm speaking for a lot of other white people when I say that you and your kind does indeed deserve to be erased from this earth along with your twisted ideology of white power.
Your time ended in the 18th century, dipshit. You had a brief flare of glorious resurgence in the 1930's to 1940's but that was it. Even in the US it's going to be real hard to maintain the belief in racial purity once The Great Melting Pot has done its job to there's hardly going to be a caucasian in america without a few genetic markers right out of Africa or Asia.
I guess the future for the next few generations White Power has left is going to be finding a way to legalize incest to keep the blood pure or some similar bullshit.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Not just any loser. Given his "blood and soil" rant I'd say he's still unaware his boys lost the game back in 1945.
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Re: Why are leftists afraid to call a spade a spade?
"Unlike Masnick, I am not embarrassed by my political worldview, and will state unequivocally that I'm right wing. "
Except that you follow that up pretty badly by then providing proof you are not on that scale at all. Nazism and Racism has little to do with left or right in political reality.
"monolithically anti-White far left wing"
Ah, this is how you people describe any media which isn't all about "rassenschande" and "blut und boden"?
"I predict it'll be up to the 3 x great-grandchildren of current actual Americans to see justice through."
Ah, there I have some dire news for you. By that time it's going to be hard to find all that many ethnic caucasians in the US at all. I'm sure the various shades of brown-skinned congresspeople will be happy to let the last Klan community in the Ozark hills live in peace until the inbreeding finally catches up with you.
"Odin willing, it'll get what's coming to it."
Spoken out of the nordics here; Stop fscking appropriating our old divine myths and twisting them. No viking, ever, gave two shits about the color of someones skin.
Here's the truth. You aren't right-wing, you aren't worshipping the old asa, you aren't "predicting" shit.
You are simply a hopeless loser so bereft of gorm the one and only thing you still think you can take pride in is the color of your skin, something for which your caramel-colored great-grandchildren will be profoundly embarrassed, if they think of you at all. And to escape reality you seek refuge in the sort of wishful thinking which is a nightmare to anyone not fundamentally broken.
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Re: Masnick, what are you on about now??
It amazes me that some people are so short-sighted and stupid that they cannot even fathom that other people might not be simple mindless sheep (like themselves) and are able to contemplate important issues above and beyond which side of the aisle it came from.
I've been reading this site for well over 10 years and in my opinion, it is neither left nor right. Mike's opinions have always been based on logic and facts. I've seen him rip into both sides for stupid ideas and I've seen him praise both sides for good ideas.
With the way the Republicans are acting lately, I can sort of understand that opinions based on logic and facts would be considered a leftist thing these days.
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Re: Re: Re: Blind Spot
You've literally had a Democrat Congressman be a guest editor.
We did? When? We've had Congressional Representatives on the podcast. Not as guest editors.
How many Republican Congressmen have you had? Zero.
We've had an interview with Jerry Moran, Republican Senator. We had former Rep. Chris Cox on the site to talk about 230. We've had Republicans on the site and would have others.
Our general rule is we'll talk to anyone who has good tech policy ideas, and we'll mock anyone who has bad policy ideas. We've criticized Democrats and Republicans and praised Democrats and Republicans.
You seem to have an issue with selectivity bias.
Siding with Internet censorship every time it's done for the Left™ reasons every single time and calling censorship "content moderation" only when the Left does it makes it glaringly obvious.
We've done no such thing.
TechDirt is a Democrat run organization pretending to be neutral.
I run it and am not a Democrat.
And I say this as a Green.
Yeah, sure you are.
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Re: Re: Re:
Better than you being a "lame fuck"...
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Looks like they found a compromise.
Though I wonder how long it will take for this to be forced onto other developers. A lot of community apps have adult sections you can get through on iOS. This is that slippery slope of censorship.
If this is one time only time it works. Nobody denies some (some) of Parler’s users are problematic. Especially neo-nazis and militant christians.
The concern is if then extends to, say, deviant art, SanK, comixology.
Will Stella need a different version for iOS?
Or GTA?
Will they extend this Amazon?
I just purchased Breaking the News. How long before it can’t be used on my kindle account?
Will they block buying DVDs that they don’t agree with?
I’m glad Parler got back on the platform so their users can have an app again. But if this is a model to the future we all need to be worried.
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Re:
"This is that slippery slope of censorship."
No, it's not. If you bought into the iOS walled garden, then you chose to have the apps filtered by Apple's app store teams from the moment you bought into it. If you dislike this, you have numerous other options, although those choices do not include your usual call for property rights to be removed if you don't like how someone is exercising them. You claimed to have changed your mind on this issue, but you seem to be going down that road again...
"The concern is if then extends to, say, deviant art, SanK, comixology."
All of those have different issues, but the standard would probably be the same - if they repeatedly refuse to obey the rules of the platform, they may be removed from the service and users will have to use some other methods to access the sites.
Remember - despite the right wing's desperate attempts to rewrite history, Parler were not removed for political viewpoints. They were removed because they refused to follow moderation rules. Enforcement of this was sped up due to their potential involvement in a violent attempt to overthrow democracy, but they were facing pushback well before action was taken.
"How long before it can’t be used on my kindle account? Will they block buying DVDs that they don’t agree with?"
That's down to Amazon. I'm not sure what's sillier - your "slippery slope" fallacy now including a company that's not involved in the decision you're paranoid about, or the fact that you're willingly buying books on Kindle (the only major eBook platform that has actually removed books from libraries, AFAIK. I'm assuming you're not talking about the BBC podcast.).
If you're so paranoid about "big tech" and platforms exercising their own rules, why are you buying from Apple and Amazon instead of their many competitors?
"But if this is a model to the future we all need to be worried."
The model that's been set here is that "people who repeatedly break the ToS of a service may have access to that service removed until they agree to fix their ToS breaking". The only reason you need to be worried is if you depend on regularly breaking the rules, and you're too stupid/lazy to understand the options you have to access the site in different ways.
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Re: Re:
“… fallacy now including a company that's not involved in the decision you're paranoid about,…”
Parler is modifying the service on iOS devices for iOS users.
There’s nothing stopping such restrictions on “objectionable” content from moving to other apps.
This item or link can’t be shown on iOS devices?
like I said it appears they reached a compromise that works for them.
I just hope they didn’t open up a mass censorship purge across the Apple platform in doing so.
I don’t use social apps to any real degree.
Like epic and it’s game if Apple boots you your gone.
You modify it or you don’t. Maybe you come back, maybe you don’t.
I didn’t cry about Parler being kicked out of the App Store. (I did complain about them being not finding a host period). I simply pointed out my opinion as to why it happened.
I happen to like the convenience of Amazon and the quality of Apple.
I can separate a company from the political views of its board.
My concern is simple. For a long time Apple allowed user content apps to maintain their entire system within app: as long as the “objectionable” material was hidden away from standard view access.
The Parler deal here changes that.
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Re: Re: Re:
"Parler is modifying the service on iOS devices for iOS users."
That's their decision. They could make a blanket change to their service for all users. Instead, they are taking account of different requirements across different platforms and offering different service levels depending on where you access them.
This is actually quite a common thing across all types of services and product, it's just that you don't normally notice it because the right-wing outrage machine is not telling you to angry about it. TV manufacturers often release different model revisions to different retailers depending on agreements and standards. If you buy a Coca Cola in Europe you're not getting the same recipe because there's different standards around HCFS and the market prefers actual sugar. If you don't like the differences, you can shop around for the one that meets your needs, they just might not be the cheapest, most convenient, etc.
"I just hope they didn’t open up a mass censorship purge across the Apple platform in doing so."
Your constant misuse of the term "censorship" is your own problem, and is your choice to use that platform instead of the alternatives
"I don’t use social apps to any real degree."
Yet you spend a lot of time whining about what you've been told happens there.
"I happen to like the convenience of Amazon and the quality of Apple."
So, you've chosen to use 2 companies you're paranoid about, instead of supporting other companies who won't do what you're scared of. That's your choice, it just rings a bit hollow when you say how scared of "censorship" you are, but you choose to give your money to the only company (to my knowledge) that has actually retroactively removed purchases on 1984 from Kindles.
"For a long time Apple allowed user content apps to maintain their entire system within app"
I'm not sure what you're saying here. Some apps are little more than HTML5 wrappers for the normal website, some have been build for the store from scratch. Either way, any moderation typically happens on the server end, not the app end. All that's happening here is that Parler are treating the traffic from the iOS app differently, and they may have have inserted some extra code into the app to avoid people spoofing the headers and bypassing their rules.
That's not a fundamental change at all, it's only being highlighted here because Parler were such a high profile example of a company thumbing their noses at the rules before they were kicked off originally.
"The Parler deal here changes that."
It doesn't change anything fundamentally, and you've chosen to be affected by Apple's choices even though you have options to avoid that. That's your choice, I'm just not convinced that you are arguing honestly, when you're in essence complaining about a level of control that Apple have had since they launched the app store. Then, choosing to continue using them even though there are competitors that literally cannot force the level of control that Apple does.
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“…right-wing outrage machine is not telling you to angry about it.“
Here we go again. Partisanship nonsense.
“If you buy a Coca Cola in Europe you're not getting the same recipe “
Tru. I prefer Mexican imports for both coke and Pepsi.
And my friends from Japan often send me new flavours.
“ Your constant misuse of the term "censorship"”
Your 2030 progressive ignorance of what the term comes from is my issue.
I don’t misuse the term. I simply abide by the 1850-some year old usage.
“So, you've chosen to use 2 companies you're paranoid about, …”
Uh, no.
Show me a single case in history where I’ve even in interpretation said I was paranoid about either.
Let’s see, Amazon allows all but the most extreme of porn to be sold via their services.
And Apple makes the most secure, most usable, most reliable, most open source base commercial systems today.
You are using your own misclassification to lump me in with alt-right because you simply can’t accept college educated people chose US security and superiority over one-world-equality.
—oh, the 1984 logic! Lol. Lmfao. Hold on whilst I recover.
Copyright issues.
Parlohas taken the community moderation (much like this site uses) and thrown it out for Apple users with specific intentional banishment on a platform basis.
Anyone that “reads into” anything I said is a brainwashed partisan fool.
I was quite clear.
My only, ONLY, concern is Parler may have opened the door for disrupting apps I DO use.
If you really can’t understand the new layout of Parler must remove this post on our platform, how that can concern someone as to Amazon must block this DVD or Book…
This isn’t political for me. Never was, never will be.
It’s a genuine concern outside of politics.
To be clear, again, on another thought:
If this expands beyond Parler then rhat service just managed to screw over millions of Apple users for it’s own goals of maintaining acceztona few thousands.
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"Here we go again. Partisanship nonsense."
Only to the feeble minded who believe in binary nonsense. To the educated, there is a wide spectrum of political beliefs. However, the people who spout the nonsense you so regularly repeat are generally centred around the right wing from which you have previously admitted to getting most of your news.
"Your 2030 progressive ignorance of what the term comes from is my issue."
For example, the usage of the term "progressive" as a derogatory term, something that's only come up fairly recently after people like you were told that "liberal" was something negative, and others had to adjust language to get through to people who would instantly reject any intelligent idea marked as such. I wonder which word you'll be told to abuse next?
"I simply abide by the 1850-some year old usage."
So, out of the multiple definitions of the word, and ignoring the constantly fluid nature of language, you've chosen to view to online world through a lens created 140 years before the medium you're complaining about existed? Easier than adjusting to the reality you live in, I suppose.
"Show me a single case in history where I’ve even in interpretation said I was paranoid about either."
We are in a thread where you're complaining about a slippery slope that may occur at some point in the future. That does sound like paranoia to me, but granted I haven't opened up a Victorian era dictionary to check the old definition.
"Let’s see, Amazon allows all but the most extreme of porn to be sold via their services"
Not really, they curate a lot of stuff that appears on first party services. They do have features where third parties can offer things for sale without being pre-vetted, but things regularly get taken down for violating those policies.
"And Apple makes the most secure, most usable, most reliable, most open source base commercial systems today."
In large part because their OS is based on UNIX, and because their app store is heavily curated. They regularly remove apps which violate their policies for many reasons, and this is why the positive you applaud exists.
"lump me in with alt-right"
Partly because you unironically use terms like "alt left", which was invented by the alt right to distract from what that term was originally coined to describe, and to fool the unintelligent into thinking that the political spectrum is binary.
If you don't like being lumped in with them, stop parroting their talking points.
"My only, ONLY, concern is Parler may have opened the door for disrupting apps I DO use."
No doors have been opened. Apps will continue to be regularly compared to the app store policies, and violators will be removed. If the policies change so that apps you use are removed, that's down to the policy change, not anything that your political allies on Parler did to be allowed to be let back on after repeatedly violating the terms of use.
"how that can concern someone as to Amazon must block this DVD or Book…"
They already do that with DVDs (try selling a used Arrow Video title through the marketplace without prior approval, for example) and they are the only company who have retroactively removed books from devices.
This isn't the slippery slope you're pretending it is, it's just that your feeble mind can't believe that the company you're using already has a history of this stuff.
But, it doesn't matter. Neither Apple not Amazon is promising to have 100% of everything ever created available on their services, and they have terms of use which can get people who violate those terms removed. They always have, it's just that you're suddenly noticing because the right-wingers who feed you talking points have decided it's a major issue for them because one of their own suddenly faced consequences. If the app in question was a trans rights and support forum, you'd be told to believe how great it was that they has such control over their platform.
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Re:
“ 140 years before the medium you're complaining about existed? ”
Just shy of 2000 years ago.
I’ve never had a problem with Amazon or Apple. So your publicly drawing me into something I’m not part of.
“ unironically use terms like "alt left", which was invented by the alt right”
Alternative left. That being the far left movement, the progressive movement, which has slid well beyond the historical Democrat core.
(Not so) funny how people who champion “association” and non-binary politics are the ones incapable of recognising how quick they are to class anyone who disagrees with them.
Most of my Arrow (and other VHS tapes) come from Amazon 3rd party sellers. And I’ve sold quite a few through Amazon as well.
You either have no idea what you’re talking about, or you are misunderstanding the policies.
And if you are referring to the large number of distributors who have opted to use DVD and BD recordable media to create format-compatible releases (and avoid the patent monopoly fees of pressed media)? Amazon has no problem with selling used copies. As long as the title is already in their database.
Any hassle on new titles is simply to protect them from the copyright monopoly by making sure pirate titles aren’t sold through the service.
I have never complained about apple’s terms for listing. And I champion the booting of epic. I didn’t really care about Parler.
I’m more annoyed they came back with an agreement that has the potential to expand to other apps. Prior to Parler hiding stuff out of immediate reach was good enough to make Apple happy.
I don’t want epic back either. The lawsuit has the unlikely potential to make a mess of the safe and secure ApplePay system.
My issue here is the agreement drastically changed the rule. We went from hiding material but not blocking it—To blocking it completely.
This is an issue Parler created. And I’m not happy they came back like this. I’d rather they just be off the platform.
I have little doubt this change is because of Parler and epic, and (nonsense) antitrust cases.
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Re: Re:
"Just shy of 2000 years ago."
Huh. You specified 1850, and the English language didn't exist 2000 years ago. I wonder what you mean.
"Alternative left. That being the far left movement, the progressive movement, which has slid well beyond the historical Democrat core."
Globally, the Democrats are nowhere near the left. Practically, the Democrat platform has consistently shifted right in an attempt to placate the right that insists that even considering programs that have worked in many other places are tantamount to communism, even though that's not happened elsewhere they have been used. Meanwhile, the term "alt left" only started appearing after some people on the right realised that the "alt right" term coined by Richard Spencer in order to rebrand Nazis and white supremacy was being noticed, and tried to inject some "both sides" nonsense.
"Most of my Arrow (and other VHS tapes) come from Amazon 3rd party sellers"
I have a hard time believing that you're a fan of the same cult video label I am, but I respect you for supporting them if you are. However, when I tried pruning my collection a while ago, Amazon told me I was not allowed to sell them in the Marketplace unless I met some very strict criteria, and eBay downright blocked my sales minutes after posting because the covers were too graphic. My response was to find an alternative avenue, not to whine about how unfair they were. Well, I did complain, but I didn't even consider trying to force them to host the listings against their will.
"I have never complained about apple’s terms for listing"
It's the very subject of this conversation. Apple have rules, which include rules about moderation. Parler repeatedly violated them, and thus were removed. They were reinstated when they agree to abide by them.
"My issue here is the agreement drastically changed the rule. We went from hiding material but not blocking it—To blocking it completely."
That's really not what happened. There's a lot of apps that have been removed because, for example, they went through the approval process only offering public domain movies then switched to full on piracy of new movies after approval. Apple removing those apps was not a statement on how they deal with PD apps, it was a simple case of dealing with contract violations.
"This is an issue Parler created"
Parler have created no situation other than choosing to moderate one platform differently to another. Which is not new. Also, not something that Apple are doing.
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Re: Re: Re:
“… You specified 1850…”
— term. I simply abide by the 1850-some year old usage.—
The term comes from the pre-imperial Roman act of sorting the taxes and laws based on counts of people. That would be Latin, not English.
It’s derived from he even older Tuscan verb, to separate.
Actually the word Consinpus is the source for both censor and separate.
“Globally…” the United States Democrat political party isn’t global.
The Current Democrats have been splitting since the late 70s. That After the 30s-50s era had most conservatives leave for the Republican Party, among others.
There are two very easily recognisable wings in the party. The right end bottom up redistribution Dems, and the all-or-nothing socialist greens.
Much like the 3 groupings in the Republican Party, the all-or-nothing conservative Christians, the big business capitalists, and the protective conservatives.
Both parties are held together with string and lately we’ve seen fracturing. The Sanders mess made the split in the Dems public record.
The second Trump impeachment made it clear Reps aren’t United.
You and others point out regularly politics isn’t binary. I’m an issue voter, not a party soldier. Generally I vote Democrat
But protectionism and property rights (followed closely by right to maintain arms) keeps me fluid.
I’ve always liked Arrow, Impact, SubRosa, BrainDamage…
My issues with censorship come directly from my he films I enjoy.
Most of Arrow’s covers are flippable. Same with Hacksaw and SubRosa.
I’ve never had an issue with Amazon on content.
eBay on the other hand… can be annoying.
If you jump through it he hoops for the adult section though you’ll find all sorts of old Horror, Fantasy, and SciFi mixed in with the porn.
More experienced collectors tend to dig in there to keep out of issues with the rules.
I don’t have an issue here with Apple. My issue is with Parler.
They have changed Apple’s goal line.
If this new premise (of blocking on platform, not hiding), which is not part of the current rule set, becomes a new rule because of this agreement it is, yes, Apple’s choice; but such a situation was not something considered before Parler.
“ Also, not something that Apple are doing.”
Exactly my point.
Sankaku, Deviant Art, Daily Motion, Comixology, etc etc
All required you to opt in to “objectionable” content on the web site first. Then the material was available in app.
Parler changed the status quo on this.
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