Reason Shows How To Properly Respond To A Questionable Social Media Takedown: By Calling It Out
from the speak-up dept
Content moderation at scale is impossible to do well. I will keep repeating this point forever if I must. Now, I recognize that when you're on the receiving end of a content moderation decision that you disagree with, it's natural to feel (1) angry and (2) that it's a personal affront to you or a personal attack on your view of the world. This is a natural reaction. It's also almost certainly wrong. The trust and safety teams working on content moderation are not targeting you. They have policies they are trying to follow. And they need to make a lot of subjective calls. And sometime they're wrong. Or sometimes you just have a different view of what happened.
The publication Reason recently had a video pulled down from YouTube, and rather than freaking out and talking about how YouTube is "out to get" them, they instead wrote an article that clearly said that they support YouTube's right to make whatever content moderation decisions it wants, but also calmly explained why they think this decision was probably a mistake. As the article notes:
It remains essential to defend YouTube's right to make poorly reasoned and executed content moderation decisions; any government regulation of speech on social media is likely to backfire and hamper the free exchange of ideas. But it's also essential to recognize and critique censorious overreach if we want the market to respond to such errors. And a healthy market response is exactly what we need when the boundaries of acceptable discourse are being hemmed in by large companies susceptible to political pressure.
And, frankly, it's not that difficult to make some educated guesses on how the video ended up being moderated. It was a video from early in the pandemic about self-described DIY biohackers looking to see if they could create their own vaccines for COVID. Given what was known about COVID-19 at the time, and the speculative/experimental nature of DIY biohacking, some of the thoughts and ideas were probably a bit out there. The video described people who were trying to create their own "knockoff" versions of the mRNA vaccines (which have now proven to be massively successful), in part because of the (certainly at the time) reasonable belief that the FDA would be impossibly slow in approving such vaccines. In retrospect, that didn't really happen (though there are arguments about how the FDA could have moved even faster).
So, you can easily understand how a content moderation review of the content of such a video might flag it as potentially medical misinformation -- or even potentially dangerous. After all, it's talking about injecting a non-FDA approved "vaccine" (and one that, at the time, was highly experimental and hadn't gone through rigorous clinical trials). But, within the context (when it was done, what was being said, how it was framed), there's a strong argument that it should have been left up (and, indeed, has certain historical relevance to talk about the various approaches that people were considering early in the pandemic).
But, this is the very nature of content moderation and why we consider it so impossible to do well at scale. Context is always so important, and that can even include temporal context. Without thinking about the context when the video went up, it could appear to be more questionable a year and a half later. Or not. It's all pretty subjective.
But, Reason's response is the correct one. It's not blaming YouTube. It's not taking the decision personally, or acting like its viewpoints were systematically targeted. It recognizes that opinions may differ, that YouTube has every right to manage its platform how it wants, but also that Reason can use other means to push a response and counter-argument. If only others who felt similarly wronged were willing to do the same.
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Filed Under: content moderation, more speech, section 230, takedowns
Companies: reason, youtube
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Maybe it's you
Moderation is almost never going to be personal on all but the smallest of platforms but for those that do think a given act or string of acts of moderation is a personal attack against them it's probably a good idea to do a little self-reflection and ask themselves why a business, which by it's very nature wants as many people as possible using it's service/product doesn't want them around.
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Impractical
Most people do not have the means to call out a big tech platform, as Reason can. Or, at least not individually. Desire for the breakup of large social media platforms and section 230 reform is the collective "call out" of big tech by the little guys for the wrongdoing that has been experienced.
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Anyone can go to Blogger or Neocities or Tumblr or whatever and fire off a “hey, YouTube fucked up and here’s why” post any day of the week. What the average person doesn’t have — and isn’t entitled to — is the audience/reach that Reason does. Reforming 230 won’t give them that. Neither will “punishing” Facebook, Twitter, etc. for daring to moderate in a way where they can keep the most people possible using the service.
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Re: Impractical
[Asserts facts not in evidence]
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Reddit suspended my account permanently because of a comment that was deemed against their terms.
This comment was 10 years old. It was one of tens/hundreds of thousands. There is no way that some admin decided to go through the backlog and stumbled upon it.
Someone purposely dug through comment history (they were targeting me), and reported it. Heckler's veto.
Whatever theoretical moderation you seem to imagine, all I know is that it's a worthless shitshow designed to create echo chambers and corporate-friendly PR facades. Little fucking Potemkin Villages.
The left constantly whines about how it's corporations who abuse us, that have the real power. That governments are good. So why then should we prohibit government from censorship, and ignore what amounts to that from the corporate side of things? I've heard people whine (here too) that if I don't like it, I can go make my own platform.
Until, you know, that gets pulled from app stores, until all the major infrastructure wholesalers refuse to let my host connect to the internet, until the datacenters tell me to get lost. It's difficult to reconcile all this with a "get your own platform" attitude I've heard lately.
I don't think you're a hypocrite, Masnick. But somewhere deep down, you're just not being honest with yourself.
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If and when those companies do get the power to stop you from speaking your mind anywhere under threat of legal action/violence, we can start worry about their ability to censor.
Governments have the power necessary to infringe upon your First Amendment rights. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Google, and the like don’t. Get booted from Reddit and you can go to any other service you like and bitch about your allegedly unfair ban there.
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Re:
Software does that sort of search all the time, and the lists of words changes all the time. it was impersonal that you got caught by some change to the software.
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Re:
I'm not sure what it is you're saying. Do you have some delusions that it's still like the 1920s, that I can stand on a soapbox and be heard? That anything matters other than the internet in today's world?
We just went through a fucking plague where we weren't even supposed to see other people in our homes, that lasted well over a year.
These companies have had the ability to effectively silence people for years/decades at this point. And they've started exercising that power.
Any counter-argument is plainly illogical, denialist, and short-sighted. Though they might be silencing people you despise now, what makes you so special that they won't dare do it to those you'd rather hear from at some point in the future when they become inconvenient?
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Re: Re:
This is improbable. For one thing, if it were true, then I would have expected a larger purge to have happened within the past week, one notable enough to be remarked upon... there and elsewhere. For another, unless they've got some nextgen AI brewing, there's no plausible keyword search that might have found it. Finally, the timing of it is too suspicious, it coincides with several other posts of mine within 18 hours that are the sort that trigger this sort of retribution.
I know for a fact that the admins have a reporting system for comments, that someone glances at each report, and that the reporting system is at least on occasion abused.
On the other hand, you present no evidence that there are keyword searches, or that the keyword searches changed recently enough that I would have been caught on it (on Monday), or that these would be underwhelming enough that the various subreddits wouldn't be screeching about the results of that. This is at best speculative.
I see no reason to give the benefit of doubt here. Companies aren't people, and only people deserve the benefit of doubt.
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Re: Re:
[Projects hallucinated facts not in evidence]
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The First Amendment protects your rights to speak freely and associate with whomever you want. It doesn’t give you the right to make others listen. It doesn’t give you the right to make others give you access to an audience. And it doesn’t give you the right to make a personal soapbox out of private property you don’t own. Nobody is entitled to a platform or an audience at the expense of someone else.
You don’t have a right to “free reach”. Nobody does. Learn to accept that.
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The person who reported you may have had a personal issue with you. The moderation system, however, did not.
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Why shouldn't they blame YouTube? YouTube made the bad decision and it's every bit their responsibility.
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Re:
TLDR:;
Reddit has a spam filter
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Because YouTube moderation isn’t biased against Reason. Because YouTube has a right to decide what speech will and won’t be hosted by YouTube. Because Reason can use other outlets to host the speech YouTube booted.
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Re: Re: you do argue like a five year old
“Any counter-argument is plainly illogical, denialist, and short-sighted.”
That’s the adult version of no touchbacks
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Re: Re:
Yes, exactly this. Up to and until the day you can no longer stand on a soap box and be heard, your 1st A rights have not been violated by a private company. AND!!! Even then, unless it's the gov't taking away your soap box, your rights still haven't been violated.
And if you think that is wrong, please point to the section of the 1st A that states you are guaranteed an audience no matter where you want to go and speak. I'll wait....
Also, most people who are not assholes, do not get perma banned from social media. Temporary, yes, mistakes can be made, by both a user and a service, but to get to the level of a permanent ban, you have to be raging bigoted asshole.
Alex Jones is a perfect example. He is a raging asshole, and deserves to be banned from all social media. But you want to know something, he still has a platform, he still can be heard, and people who want to listen to him, still have a place to go. So please tell me how his rights have been infringed vis-a-vis the 1st amendment. Again, I'll wait....
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Re:
Your claim is that the system can be fair and impersonal, when the people who compose the system aren't?
That's rich. What other mislogic can you gift us with today?
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Re: Re:
Though they might be silencing people you despise now, what makes you so special that they won't dare do it to those you'd rather hear from at some point in the future when they become inconvenient?
The only ones I still see crying about being excluded, are people who typically ask for exactly that.
You know the ones I mean...Civil War 2.0, we're taking OUR country back, Murica - love it or leave it...those types. I guess I just don't understand why they don't stick it to 'big tech' by taking their shit and leaving. If these are such popular opinions, you'd think they wouldn't be whining so much about using a service with people that they obviously dislike.
I mean, there's always Frankspeech, Gab, Parler - all there for assholes to congregate with like-minded assholes in pursuit of all the freeze fucking peach they want.
It's not that you don't have choices. You're just tired of being around other assholes like you, amirite?
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Re:
Indeed, no one was forced to listen. It's doubtful many were.
It certainly implies that it does, when we live in a world where companies have amassed the power to deny audiences to anyone and everyone they like.
For that matter, given that corporations can only exist given the grant of government existence (the government of Delaware, no less!), this is even more true. These monstrosities can't be born but with the government's approval.
What property? Which piece of real estate are we talking about? What physically tangible objects are you speaking of?
If there exists another kind of property, then how is it that these companies are allowed to go in and buy it all up, and deny the ownership to people like me? They've done this already, it's no longer hypothetical.
Your arguments are inane and childish.
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Re: Re: Re:
Companies aren't people, and only people deserve the benefit of doubt.
Companies can have religious beliefs. Just ask Hobby Lobby. Why would the owners of social media platforms not be afforded the same?
Maybe they hate assholes. I could get behind a religion that preaches that. Bulletproof, impossible to dispute, and protected by the 1st Amendment, as I'm sure you know.
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Fixed
I was able to fix this article with a chrome extension called word replacer II.
Here's how it should read: https://i.imgur.com/huhQo2M.png
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Re: Re:
If there exists another kind of property, then how is it that these companies are allowed to go in and buy it all up, and deny the ownership to people like me? They've done this already, it's no longer hypothetical.
They bought up all the social media web property? You can't buy stock in social media?
How does it feel to be so impotent, in addition to being stupid for making such a ridiculous statement?
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Re: Euphemisms
Is "the little guys" an euphemism for loudmouth assholes now?
Also, how about you give us examples of these wrongdoings? Are you going to flake out on this request again? You haven't bothered to give us this even though you repeat that argument frequently. If it's such a big problem you should have no problem at all backing your argument up.
TL;DR: Put up or shut up Koby.
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Re:
So you can give us examples of this that proves that they are doing this in a systematic way?
As I told Koby, put up or shut up.
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No, it doesn’t. You have no right to make anyone else listen to, host, or publish your speech. If someone wants to do any of those things, they have to make that decision of their own free will — they can’t be coerced by the government into doing so.
…on their property. That a smaller platform may not have a potential audience the size of Twitter or Facebook is irrelevant.
I refer to the servers on which user data is stored, including the speech they post.
Does “Big Tech” own every Mastodon instance, from mastodon.social to queer.party? Does “Big Tech” own Neocities, too? Does it own Gab and Parler, 4chan and 8kun, and every other website and service that could reasonably be considered some form of social interaction network?
And even if they did own all those SINs (which they don’t), so what? You’re literally not guaranteed a spot on any of them. And you can still buy/rent a server and host your own speech through your own website.
If my arguments are bad, yours are even worse.
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Fair? No. Impersonal? Yes.
I once used an anti-queer slur on Twitter in a discussion about anti-queer attitudes. Twitter later suspended me until I deleted that tweet (which I did). I didn’t take that suspension personally because it was likely an automated action based on specific keywords (in this case, the anti-queer slur).
Moderation is often an impersonal experience — especially when it’s automated. That you take such moderation personally, or think of it as a sign of some nefarious conspiracy to silence…whoever from saying…whatever, is your problem.
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Yes, yes, you think your feelings about censorship are more important than actual facts — sing a new song already, you worn-out 1950s jukebox.
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Re: Re:
Pre-Internet that claim would have been true, as publishers were very selective in which authors they published. Post Internet, that is not true, as there are sites on the Internet where almost anything can be published.
Also, Freedom of Speech, and Freedom of the press, (the press in the days that the amendment was written meant the printing press), only say that the government will not stop you speaking and/or publishing at your own expense. Nowhere does that say, or even imply, that anybody has to provide you with an audience, or assist you in anyway to get your words out.
What you keep claiming is that your rights to free speech override a property owners, which include things like computers, to control the use of their own property.
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Re:
Here's the thing, do you still stand behind what you wrote then or not? The other thing, let this be a learning experience that saying some things on the internet can have repercussions in the future.
Also, does it matter if someone reported your comment or if an automated system twigged on it? You still wrote the thing that got you banned in the end.
The interesting thing here is that getting banned from reddit usually has a very high bar which makes me think what you said must have been pretty egregious. There is no Potemkin Villages, it's just you who want to blame others for something you did.
I see you fail to understand some basic concepts. One, you think the left is everyone not on the far right or people who don't agree with your political views which is just a reflection of your very simple us vs them mentality. Two, reasonable people realize that you can critique corporations for the bad things they do and demand action for that while also hold the view that not everything they do are bad. That also include the view that everyone should be treated the same for the same action.
If someone's stated views or actions are so abhorrent or extreme that no one wants to be associated or do business with them, who's fault is it?
I've yet to see a site that operates within the accepted broad political spectrum being totally removed from the internet in the way you describe.
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Re: Fixed
Tell me this, if you go into Walmart, act like an asshole, and are subsequently kicked out, have you been censored?
How about this white dude here, https://twitter.com/davenewworld_2/status/1408155744738983939?s=20 harassing a black man for no apparent reason. He was asked to leave, i.e. kicked out of Walmart; was he censored?
How is being kicked off of social media any different?
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Re: Re: Re:
What property rights confer if I were to buy shares of Facebook? Would they be then obligated to let me post comments there?
We're all quite clearly talking about the "rights of use" of the social media inherent in owning it. Not the "rights to dividends" of owning stock (and as near as I can tell, these companies don't even confer that when you buy their shares).
You're too confused to have an intelligent conversation on this subject.
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Yeah, and since you don’t own Facebook, you’re not entitled to use it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
We're all quite clearly talking about the "rights of use" of the social media inherent in owning it.
So a 'right' you don't have, for 'property' you don't own?
Protip: if people don't understand you, the problem isn't necessarily them. In this case, it's that your 'message is a jumble of convoluted shit. You're the one saying you can't own 'property' because it's 'all bought':
If there exists another kind of property, then how is it that these companies are allowed to go in and buy it all up, and deny the ownership to people like me? They've done this already, it's no longer hypothetical.
It's becoming pretty clear how you got your stupid ass banned from Reddit, though...
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Re: Maybe it's you
stares in wanna bet
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Re: Re:
“It certainly implies that it does, when we live in a world where companies have amassed the power to deny audiences to anyone and everyone they like.”
I’d love to see that backed up by any kind of legal ruling. I mean there aren’t any, but I’d love to see you try.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
“You're too confused to have an intelligent conversation on this subject.”
The level of projection on this comment is amazing.
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Re: Re: Fixed
It's just that assholes doing assholery things and then being treated as assholes hurt their feelings which makes them feel like victims, and if they are victims there must be a perpetrator somewhere that has to be punished.
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Re: Re: Fixed
Getting kicked out of walmart is because of property rights and laws about trespassing.
Being censored for wrongthink has nothing to do with trespassing.
False equivalence.
Why can't you just admit that it's censorship and you just agree with it?
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Re: Re: Re: Fixed
Exchanging 'being a giant asshole that nobody wants to associate with' with 'wrongthink' might seem like a clever way to otherword what the OP is saying, but in the end, the problem is that those crying about censorship are typically just assholes.
It's only censorship if you can't go fuck off and take your asshole opinions somewhere else.
You can, and should instead of whining like a bitch that you can't be an asshole to anyone you want.
Asshole.
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'Oh, you know the sort of wrongthink...'
Exactly, doesn't everyone know that people have a right to be assholes without consequence and that anyone attempting to apply consequences are censorious tyrants attempting to punish people for thinking and saying the wrong things?!
What is the world/country coming to that a person can't be a gigantic asshole without people calling them out on it and showing them the door, truly the downfall of our civil society itself must be just around the corner...
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And if Twitter, Facebook, etc. had the power to censor you by way of denying you the right to speak freely anywhere, you might have a point.
But they can’t.
So you don’t.
Three things.
It’s not censorship.
If what Twitter does is censorship, Parler does it too, and I believe Parler has the same right as Twitter to ban speech it doesn’t want to host (like, say, leftist political speech).
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Re: Re: Re: Fixed
If you sit at home all day and "wrongthink" really, really hard in the general direction of Youtube, I can guarantee that you will never be censored.
Now, writing stuff down on Youtube's servers... well, you can't just paint your petty slurs all over people's property, now can you?
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Re: Re: Re: Fixed
Give me an example of somebody being "censored" for "wrongthink".
And it must be provable that it was because of "wrongthink" and not "being an asshole online".
Just one.
I'll wait.
Until you can provide that example, I will continue to believe that people get kicked off of social media because they are generally acting like assholes. And social media has every right to kick them out, just like Walmart has the right to kick people out for being an asshole.
But what it all boils down to, is that normal everyday people, such as the majority found here, are not assholes online and can participate freely on social media. Its the assholes like you, who complain about people getting kicked off social media for being assholes, don't really grasp the fact that you are indeed, acting like an asshole.
And somehow I have a feeling that, in the video linked above, you probably think the white dude was doing nothing wrong and that Walmart should not have kicked him out, or that he was kicked out for reasons other than being a racist asshole.
Also, go back and read my comment above to give you another explanation about how being kicked off social media is not being censored.
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Re: Impractical
"Desire for the breakup of large social media platforms and section 230 reform is the collective "call out" of big tech by the little guys..."
It's hilariously stupid of you to claim it's the little guys that want that.
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Re: Re: Re: Fixed
"Being censored for wrongthink has nothing to do with trespassing."
Breaking the rules you agreed to when signing up for an online service, or acting like an asshole on said service, has everything to do with trespassing.
You think you're pretty clever by throwing around words like "wrongthink", but really you just want be able to act like an asshole without consequences.
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Re: Re: Re: Fixed
Has never been more than drug-induced paranoid hallucination
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Re: Impractical
"...section 230 reform is the collective "call out" of big tech by the little guys for the wrongdoing that has been experienced."
Translation: "Racists, bigots, and other deplorable people have been thrown out of other people's private property and are now demanding the state seize that property because their brittle little egos can't take the fact that no one likes a bully".
As usual, Koby...every time you try talking about 230 you devolve into the worst kind of Newspeak. Forget bringing facts to the table, you can't even make an argument without reversing reality and basic logic.
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Re: Re:
"These companies have had the ability to effectively silence people for years/decades at this point. And they've started exercising that power."
No, they haven't. Thanks for persistently bringing up Russel's Teapot once again.
Facebook, Google...any other company running a social platform, is big only because the vast majority of the clientéle does not want a certain minority view of racists and bigots around.
That doesn't mean racists and bigots can't speak. They can build their own platform - in fact, they have - and speak as much as they like, using their own rules to keep liberal and progressive speech away instead - which they do.
"Do you have some delusions that it's still like the 1920s, that I can stand on a soapbox and be heard?"
And in the 1920's no one had the right to demand the newspapers and printers carry their message. You could have your soapbox but it would only reach the world if you could use it to gather an audience. No one is owed an audience. Not then, and not now.
Did you have any argument to make which wasn't based in bad faith, false premises and flawed analogies?
"My argument is plainly illogical, denialist, and short-sighted."
Fixed that for you, Baghdad Bob.
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Re: Re: Re: Fixed
"Being censored for wrongthink has nothing to do with trespassing."
You mean "getting kicked out of facebook because you're on their damn property doing things they don't approve of"?
You alt-right shitwits really do keep trying to reverse common logic. You aren't owed an audience. Not on Facebook, not in a Bar or Restaurant, not in any other social platform. You are in someone else's property and if they tell you certain behavior is not ok then you abide by those rules or get shown the door.
I swear, why do you nuts even keep trying when your own arguments keep revealing that "free speech" isn't your issue - "free Reach" is. Your monumental butthurt that no one wants to hear you out doesn't entitle you to laws which force private property owners to inflict you on their clients who do not want anything to do with you.
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Re: Re:
"we live in a world where companies have amassed the power to deny audiences to anyone and everyone they like"
They've always had that power, as they have in the physical world. Your problem is that they don't like you and people who think like you, and you're experiencing the pain of being unpopular. It happens to a lot of us, but you should examine why you're unpopular rather than whine about how it's unfair that the cool kids can kick you out, as they have always been able to do.
"What physically tangible objects are you speaking of?"
Believe it or not, even "the cloud" resides on physical property that someone owns. At the end of the day you're accessing a server that someone owns and administers, and they have the say about what's allowed there, barring violation of some law.
"how is it that these companies are allowed to go in and buy it all up, and deny the ownership to people like me?"
Nobody's stopping you from owning things, and there's a huge amount of property these companies don't own. But, if you "rent" space on Twitter or Facebook or whatever by setting up an account there, you abide by their rules.
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Re:
"Twitter later suspended me until I deleted that tweet (which I did)"
Wait... you mean you didn't go on Fox, Infowars, Breitbart, OANN and Parler to loudly complain about how you'd been "silenced"? You took... basic responsibility for your own actions and did the bare minimum to resolve the situation, understanding that since it's their house they set the rules no matter how you feel about them? Huh.
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Re: Re:
"Here's the thing, do you still stand behind what you wrote then or not?"
I get the feeling that he does, but I do wonder what it was. I suspect the only surprise is that he wasn't banned earlier, though we'll never know without more info. I also suspect that while he claims it was one comment out of thousands that got him banned, there was probably a trend (or, he just got kicked out along with a purge of pedo or the_donald type subreddits, and he likes to pretend t was for a single comment).
"There is no Potemkin Villages, it's just you who want to blame others for something you did."
Even if there were, so what? Nobody has the right to use Reddit, let alone specific subreddits, and nothing on there is completely unique. Most popular subreddits revolve around posting links to other sites/subs and talking about them, so unless you have a need to access a particular discussion it's irrelevant, and the people participating in that discussion have every right to kick you out of it if they want to.
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Re: Re: Re: Fixed
"Being censored for wrongthink has nothing to do with trespassing."
But, you getting kicked off a particular piece of private online property and being told to take you "wrongthink" (why do I assume abusive racism?) elsewhere has everything to do with trespassing. Just because Facebook doesn't need to call the cops to escort you off their premises at gunpoint does not mean the same standards don't apply.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Says the one suggesting that buying 5 shares of Facebook is somehow a solution to the problem, or even relevant to the discussion.
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Re: Re: Re:
If I were merely unpopular, there would be no need to moderate this. The issue has been (since Trump was elected, or possibly before) that sometimes the people that are disliked are actually popular. It's about denying them the audience that they would naturally attract, is it not? Not banning them from a platform where they find no audience willing to listen to them.
I believe that the karma on the account was north of 400,000. This isn't some karma-farming thing, but simply what happens with accounts opened in 2006... the slow accumulation of that score's probably inevitable.
I'm experiencing no discomfort, except at the idea that things are changing in ways that don't bode well for the future.
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Re: Re:
What a liberal snowflake, amiright?
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If? lol
Why can't you just admit that it's censorship and you just agree with it?
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You can ask the question over and over again, but you’re going to get either the response I gave you last time or this one:
I don’t believe moderation is censorship because believing that would make me an entitled asshole who believes in “free reach”. If I believed Twitter could violate my First Amendment right to speak freely, I could justify believing the ideas of “Twitter owes me a spot on Twitter”, “Twitter shouldn’t be able to delete my speech”, and “Twitter should make other people listen to me”. I don’t believe in any of those things because I’m not an entitled asshole.
Also: Moderation doesn’t violate your First Amendment rights. If and when it does, we can discuss moderation being censorship. But right now, it doesn’t. So I can’t do that.
Also also: What specific speech are you worried about being “censored”? Please be more specific than “conservative speech” with your answer.
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Why can't you just admit that it's censorship and you just agree with it?
Because having someone else call it censorship just so you can continue your 'poor, poor me...I'm the victim here...when am I ever going to catch a break, so I can be a whiny little asshole wherever I want' narrative is just plain bullshit.
If you're getting kicked off of social media, fuck off to Frankspeech, Gab, Parler, Telegram, or wherever else you perpetual victims gather to lament your constant victimhood. I don't go there and complain about the abject stupidity of the average 'conservative' - why would I want to be around people that don't like me? You should ask yourself the same question between your fits of complaining.
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Why does it seem weird to you that other people have honesty and integrity?
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You could have just made a new account but then I guess you wouldn't get to write diatribes about how severely you've been victimized by reddit.
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Allahu Akbar!
The U.S. must return to the gold standard now! The U.S. must adopt the gold standard again now!
The U.S. must decrease its military-budget to 10-billion-dollar per year now. Or, the U.S. must decrease its military-budget to 1% of its GDP now.
The U.S. must take Monroe Doctrine now. The U.S. must withdraw American Forces from all Foreign Countries now. Stop America's doing its all wars now!
I love 99% of African-Americans and the U.S.
Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Germany must reduce Japan's, China's, Taiwan's, Hong Kong's and Germany's taxes now!
Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Germany must issue a lot of construction bond now!
Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Germany must stimulate Japan's, China's, Taiwan's, Hong Kong's and Germany's domestic demands now!
Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Germany must loosen Japan's, China's, Taiwan's, Hong Kong's and Germany's monetary policies now!
The U.S. must tighten its monetary policy now!
As a result, Dollar value will rise!
The U.S. will have trade surplus!
Allahu Akbar!
Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Germany, Wall Street, American Politicians, American-top1%, American Military Industry and FRB are fascism, totalism, axis, evil axis.
Fascism is an enemy of humankind.
Islamists' true enemies are Trump, Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Germany, FRB, Top1%, Wall Street, American Military Industry and DOD!
Japan is the country which has been promoting Globalization!!!
American Revolutionary War!
Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and Japanese-bureaucrats are the main largest promoters of FTA.
Wall-Street, American-top1%, American-Military-Industry and FRB are colluding with Japan and Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI).
American Politicians, US DOD, Wall-Street, American-top1%, American-Military-Industry, FRB, Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Germany are enemies of American99%.
American Politicians, US DOD, Wall-Street, American-top1%, American-Military-Industry, FRB, Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Germany are enemies of mankind.
Tax the rich! Tax Wall Street!
Allahu Akbar!
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Damn, Hamilton's really been hitting the meth these days...
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"Why can't you just admit that it's censorship and you just agree with it?"
For the same reason he can't admit that it's a tomato salad?
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Someone being popular doesn’t — and shouldn’t — make them wholly immune from the rules of a given service. Anyone who violates the rules should receive the proper punishment, be they a rando with an anime avatar or a sitting president.
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It shouldn't, but unfortunately it does. A regular in a bar is given more leeway than some random tourist, the guy who knows everyone in town is treated different to a stranger, Spielberg's opinion on a movie is treated differently to some unknown critic.
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"The issue has been (since Trump was elected, or possibly before) that sometimes the people that are disliked are actually popular"
Popular with whom? One of the regular issues that comes up is that people in certain echo chambers have a hard time understanding that the things they say within that echo chamber are not popular outside of it.
"I believe that the karma on the account was north of 400,000."
Which is meaningless without knowing how it was gathered and why the ban happened. If you made a lot of popular comments on tech related subjects then got banned for saying something offensively racist in a politics argument, the karma doesn't mean shit.
"I'm experiencing no discomfort, except at the idea that things are changing in ways that don't bode well for the future."
Or, they're changing in ways that are beneficial to a majority of people, you just don't like that you're no longer on the popular side of the argument. Without specifics I can't address your particular problem, but if you made a lot of homophobic jokes, for example, and you've found they're no longer acceptable as society has decided that gays have rights too, the fact that a lot of people used to agree with you doesn't mean anything. In the eyes of a lot of people, that's the correct direction to be moving in.
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I didn’t say the you fucking idiot.
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Eh, he copypastes that bomb of trigger words every now and then hoping that eventually the FBI will catch TD in a botnet and come haul Mike away.
It's all Baghdad Bob has left.
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