I got fed up with they cheered the demise of Parler.
Parler was the most popular download on Android and Apple app stores by far, and some BS article made a completely unsupported claim that insurrectionists organized on Parler, an assertion proven false at this point, but Google and Apple jumped at the chance to ban the app. Then AOC made a public statement excoriating Amazon for allowing Parler to rent space on their servers, so Jeff Bezos obediently kicked them off.
And TechDirt celebrated this blatant censorship of online discourse, 100% taking the side of the globalist oligarchs and establishment government authoritarians over a little start-up company that had become the most popular social media app download in America.
Dude, it's 2021. You might want to check up on what the ACLU does lately. HINT: They went woke, and routinely ignore civil rights violations when the target is conservatives.
But... this is techdirt. They will support ANYTHING - censorship, reeducation camps, spying and warrantless search and seizure, indefinite detention, etc.,etc. as long as the target is "the right wing" or even "right-wing adjacent". I've seen it over and over. They'll even support wealthy oligarchs that are known to exploit working class labor as long as they're "woke".
So it's weird to see them taking the other side on this. Not like they have any principles.
You do realize that Democrats are pressuring companies to do censorship for them, right? There is a hearing today in the House, where broadcast companies will be pressured into banning Fox News, Newsmax, and OAN.
That's government censorship. Courts have already decided it's illegal.
Speech is useless when there is no practical way for it to be heard.
And it's not just private companies making decisions on their own - it's the political party currently in power pressuring companies to censor unapproved messages.
You're hallucinating. Donald Trump did not say that.
Lots of other people said he said that, and lots of people insist it's true and that they heard it. It's a lie repeated so often that people like you believe it.
The blood spilled was done by the people in power in that case as well. The only death was one of the "insurrectionists" (...) killed by a guardian of the rulers.
All the other deaths were heart attacks, strokes, and other health issues that occurred in the area.
Because AM radio has EXACTLY THE SAME reach as all of the Internet, and the oligarchs that control it?
Or, is it true that I can send a Tweet, and it is almost instantly available to anyone in the world? And if a small group of wealthy children can control whether that message can actually arrive anywhere or go into /dev/null of whatever communications equipment they control, that's just like not being able to tune into a specific terrestrial AM radio station?
But they're doing the bidding of Democrat office holders. There is a hearing today in which broadcasters will be brought in and required to justify continued broadcasting of conservative-leaning news outlets. It's a transparent attempt to get broadcasters to ban viewpoints unapproved by the political party in power.
Thanks for proving my point: It doesn't matter how much evidence is provided, it will be dismissed away by redefining terms.
The problem with the oft-quoted canard of "Well they're private companies they can do what they want," is that we are now seeing they are not just doing what they want, they are doing what government agents are pressuring them to do. In the last go-around, Virginia Senator Mark Warner prepared a lengthy white paper called “Potential Policy Proposals for Regulation of Social Media and Technology Firms,” that among other things considered making the tech giants more susceptible to tort claims, as well as beefing up FTC authority over the firms. This was the sword raised over the head of Silicon Valley as it considered whether or not it had a duty to implement those Senatorial demands for plans to prevent the “foment of discord.”
In the current round, the House Commerce Committee is holding a hearing today with FCC-regulated entities requiring them to justify why they broadcast Fox News, Newsmax, and OAN. Do you think this will NOT affect what they decided to censor and what they do not? Do you think this interference in content management of broadcast companies is in line with the First Amendment?
This is the old argument that you can still stand in a park and shout your message.
It's the idea that you have free speech, but it's not practical. If you can't actually practice free speech, you don't have speech like everybody with establishment-approved messages.
Speech is dangerous because ideas are dangerous. The idea that peasants did not need to pay a priest for blessings from God were very dangerous - they tortured and killed people for expressing such a view.
Spilling blood is done by authoritarians in power, not by people with dangerous ideas.
It's not that there "is no evidence" of anti-conservative bias, it's that all the evidence is dismissed by people on the far left by redefining terms and calling normal mainstream opinions "misinformation and hate," which of course will always be a subjective judgement.
We saw clearly when the tech oligarchs covered up for Biden when the story of Hunter's laptop came out, and the oldest newspaper outlet in the country (the New York Post) was banned from Twitter. The excuse was misinformation, there were phony statements that Russia was involved, but in fact even to this day there is no evidence that anything they reported was fake, or that there were any hacks involved.
We also watched when Apple, Google, and Amazon appeared to collude by simultaneously cancelling the most popular app on Apple's platform, Parler, and deleting their services after January 6th. That in spite of evidence that the vast majority of coordination of rioters that day occurred on Facebook, not Parler.
Yesterday Matt Crowder was suspended from Twitter for simply investigating voter addresses from voter roles and finding many of the addresses did not exist. Crowder made no claims of fraud or rigged election, only the facts that he uncovered of illegitimate addresses on the voter rolls.
The most compelling evidence has been the numerous experiments where people took tweets from left-leaning accounts and repeated exactly the same tweet, but replaced "Trump" with "Biden" or "Cuomo" and watch their tweets deleted and their account suspended, while the original tweet using the same language stayed up weeks or months later.
Another organization conducted an extensive study of Google search. One of the most compelling results of that study showed that for people that did searches that indicated they were Democrats started getting reminders about election day in the weeks running up to the election, while users posing as conservatives got no such notifications.
The question of whether social media companies harbor an anti-conservative bias can’t be answered conclusively because the data available to academic and civil society researchers aren’t sufficiently detailed. Existing periodic enforcement disclosures by Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are helpful but not granular enough to allow for thorough analysis by outsiders.
Usual suspects like TechDirt are pulling out all the stops to make the American public believe that Antifa doesn't exist. It's all a myth, there is no such organization. You're deluded if you think there is.
Meanwhile, in downtown Seattle, Antifa has taken over capital hill, including city all and the 6th precinct police division, Antifa-branded Twitter accounts are sending out messages asking for food and "more armed activists."
Re: In all Techdirts "wisdom"
I got fed up with they cheered the demise of Parler.
Parler was the most popular download on Android and Apple app stores by far, and some BS article made a completely unsupported claim that insurrectionists organized on Parler, an assertion proven false at this point, but Google and Apple jumped at the chance to ban the app. Then AOC made a public statement excoriating Amazon for allowing Parler to rent space on their servers, so Jeff Bezos obediently kicked them off.
And TechDirt celebrated this blatant censorship of online discourse, 100% taking the side of the globalist oligarchs and establishment government authoritarians over a little start-up company that had become the most popular social media app download in America.
It's just gone downhill from there.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Why complain
No, just off-topic from the point I was making. Not really disagreeing with your comment.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Why complain
You expect me to prove a negative? Negative.
It's on you to find one (ONE - JUST ONE) civil rights case the ACLU has taken on in the last 10 years where they defended someone to the right of AOC.
I'll wait.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Why complain
Dude, it's 2021. You might want to check up on what the ACLU does lately. HINT: They went woke, and routinely ignore civil rights violations when the target is conservatives.
Re: Re: Why complain
Well, sure, I agree.
But... this is techdirt. They will support ANYTHING - censorship, reeducation camps, spying and warrantless search and seizure, indefinite detention, etc.,etc. as long as the target is "the right wing" or even "right-wing adjacent". I've seen it over and over. They'll even support wealthy oligarchs that are known to exploit working class labor as long as they're "woke".
So it's weird to see them taking the other side on this. Not like they have any principles.
Why complain
I don't get it. They're going to use it to go after "right wingers" and "potential insurrectionists" in the military.
Why would you be against it?
Re:
You do realize that Democrats are pressuring companies to do censorship for them, right? There is a hearing today in the House, where broadcast companies will be pressured into banning Fox News, Newsmax, and OAN.
That's government censorship. Courts have already decided it's illegal.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Speech is useless when there is no practical way for it to be heard.
And it's not just private companies making decisions on their own - it's the political party currently in power pressuring companies to censor unapproved messages.
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/i-cant-stand-fox-news-but-censoring-94b
Re: Re: Evidence
You're hallucinating. Donald Trump did not say that.
Lots of other people said he said that, and lots of people insist it's true and that they heard it. It's a lie repeated so often that people like you believe it.
Seems like you're the cult member, here.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Thanks for not being the Gestapo, I guess?
The blood spilled was done by the people in power in that case as well. The only death was one of the "insurrectionists" (...) killed by a guardian of the rulers.
All the other deaths were heart attacks, strokes, and other health issues that occurred in the area.
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-false-and-exaggerated-claims
Re: Re: Evidence
I still have seen nothing that indicates it was disinformation or that anything about the story was untrue.
If you have anything to add other than "OMG it was RUSSIA RUSSIA," maybe you should present it.
Re: Re: Evidence
Because AM radio has EXACTLY THE SAME reach as all of the Internet, and the oligarchs that control it?
Or, is it true that I can send a Tweet, and it is almost instantly available to anyone in the world? And if a small group of wealthy children can control whether that message can actually arrive anywhere or go into /dev/null of whatever communications equipment they control, that's just like not being able to tune into a specific terrestrial AM radio station?
Re:
But they're doing the bidding of Democrat office holders. There is a hearing today in which broadcasters will be brought in and required to justify continued broadcasting of conservative-leaning news outlets. It's a transparent attempt to get broadcasters to ban viewpoints unapproved by the political party in power.
Re:
Thanks for proving my point: It doesn't matter how much evidence is provided, it will be dismissed away by redefining terms.
The problem with the oft-quoted canard of "Well they're private companies they can do what they want," is that we are now seeing they are not just doing what they want, they are doing what government agents are pressuring them to do. In the last go-around, Virginia Senator Mark Warner prepared a lengthy white paper called “Potential Policy Proposals for Regulation of Social Media and Technology Firms,” that among other things considered making the tech giants more susceptible to tort claims, as well as beefing up FTC authority over the firms. This was the sword raised over the head of Silicon Valley as it considered whether or not it had a duty to implement those Senatorial demands for plans to prevent the “foment of discord.”
In the current round, the House Commerce Committee is holding a hearing today with FCC-regulated entities requiring them to justify why they broadcast Fox News, Newsmax, and OAN. Do you think this will NOT affect what they decided to censor and what they do not? Do you think this interference in content management of broadcast companies is in line with the First Amendment?
Re: Re:
This is the old argument that you can still stand in a park and shout your message.
It's the idea that you have free speech, but it's not practical. If you can't actually practice free speech, you don't have speech like everybody with establishment-approved messages.
Re: Re: Thanks for not being the Gestapo, I guess?
Speech is dangerous because ideas are dangerous. The idea that peasants did not need to pay a priest for blessings from God were very dangerous - they tortured and killed people for expressing such a view.
Spilling blood is done by authoritarians in power, not by people with dangerous ideas.
Evidence
It's not that there "is no evidence" of anti-conservative bias, it's that all the evidence is dismissed by people on the far left by redefining terms and calling normal mainstream opinions "misinformation and hate," which of course will always be a subjective judgement.
We saw clearly when the tech oligarchs covered up for Biden when the story of Hunter's laptop came out, and the oldest newspaper outlet in the country (the New York Post) was banned from Twitter. The excuse was misinformation, there were phony statements that Russia was involved, but in fact even to this day there is no evidence that anything they reported was fake, or that there were any hacks involved.
We also watched when Apple, Google, and Amazon appeared to collude by simultaneously cancelling the most popular app on Apple's platform, Parler, and deleting their services after January 6th. That in spite of evidence that the vast majority of coordination of rioters that day occurred on Facebook, not Parler.
Yesterday Matt Crowder was suspended from Twitter for simply investigating voter addresses from voter roles and finding many of the addresses did not exist. Crowder made no claims of fraud or rigged election, only the facts that he uncovered of illegitimate addresses on the voter rolls.
The most compelling evidence has been the numerous experiments where people took tweets from left-leaning accounts and repeated exactly the same tweet, but replaced "Trump" with "Biden" or "Cuomo" and watch their tweets deleted and their account suspended, while the original tweet using the same language stayed up weeks or months later.
Another organization conducted an extensive study of Google search. One of the most compelling results of that study showed that for people that did searches that indicated they were Democrats started getting reminders about election day in the weeks running up to the election, while users posing as conservatives got no such notifications.
The question of whether social media companies harbor an anti-conservative bias can’t be answered conclusively because the data available to academic and civil society researchers aren’t sufficiently detailed. Existing periodic enforcement disclosures by Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are helpful but not granular enough to allow for thorough analysis by outsiders.
Neutrality
What happened to wanting neutrality from Internet Corporations?
Most people would prefer fairness, I think.
gaslighting
Usual suspects like TechDirt are pulling out all the stops to make the American public believe that Antifa doesn't exist. It's all a myth, there is no such organization. You're deluded if you think there is.
Meanwhile, in downtown Seattle, Antifa has taken over capital hill, including city all and the 6th precinct police division, Antifa-branded Twitter accounts are sending out messages asking for food and "more armed activists."
Ballot harvesting
Ballot harvesting is the biggest threat to election integrity ever implemented in America.
And, guess what?
Advising people to break the law by lying on a government form, is against the law. So the Texas Attorney General's office is simply quoting the law.
Some people think that "any means necessary" means they can ignore the law. Think again.
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