Censorship?


NeedleinA
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3 hours ago, Godless said:

Screenshot_20210109-055224_Twitter.thumb.jpg.cdc5a90e1dbcbeffca736f9700163f52.jpg

In principle, I agree 100%. However, this is a  false equivalence. A single small bakery that serves pastries to 5,000 customer annually that is competing against 100+ other small bakeries is not comparable to 3 social media giants that dominate their industry.

Legally speaking... I don’t think there are any issues... however there does seem to be some unaddressed moral issue that might need to be addressed by the law. Social media has become the new main stream form of communication and in many cases has become the new town square or town forum. When a company succeeds so much that it displaces essential aspects of life, then in my opinion there ought to be laws to safe guard human rights. This is the issue people are having.

The spread of ideas and discourse is owned by FB, Instagram, and Twitter. They are essentially in control of what ideas can spread.
 

Imagine if Amazon, Walmart, and Kroger became so big that it became the only option to get food and water. Then they started saying “You can’t shop here unless you affirm that abortion is a morally good human right, anything other than this is domestic terrorism”. As a business, they can do this legally, but there will be countless people that will be barred from getting essential food and water. Then you may say “but smaller markets can open up that cater to those that don’t believe abortion to be morally acceptable” and I would agree... in principle... however, what we are seeing with the social media market is that these super power corporations have had such a huge control over the ideologies that are spread, that they are stomping out any competition that has different views (enter Parler). Twitter removed Donald trump because they defined his tweets as being instigating violent protests. We don’t even need to go into how other people’s twitters are still going and strong despite supporting other organizations that have been rioting for years. The issue is that they are falsely defining something as being evil. 
 

“We shouldn’t punch people in the face... unless they are a Nazi, it’s ok to punch Nazis... and everyone I disagree with is a Nazi”
 

Amazon, Walmart, and Kroger can band together with their many customers and call on the government to shut down these domestic terrorist based stores that are popping up. 
 

The issue with the censorship and de-platforming is not a legal issue. I think we all agree the companies have the right to decide how to run their business. The issue is that these companies have entered a new frontier of business. and because of this, no laws have been made for companies on their situation.
 

Deplatforming someone on FB or Twitter or preventing companies like Parler to exist has the same effect as driving out people with anti-slavery views, Mormons, and woman suffer age supports in the pre-modern eras

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On 12/14/2020 at 6:22 AM, JohnsonJones said:

I actually agree with the idea about Internet companies and even to a lesser degree, medical providers.

Then the government ought to cover the cost of medical school (says the mother of a soon to be med school graduate. Whoa baby- those student loans!! 😵)

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Guest Godless
10 hours ago, Fether said:

Legally speaking... I don’t think there are any issues... however there does seem to be some unaddressed moral issue that might need to be addressed by the law. Social media has become the new main stream form of communication and in many cases has become the new town square or town forum. When a company succeeds so much that it displaces essential aspects of life, then in my opinion there ought to be laws to safe guard human rights. This is the issue people are having.

I'm old enough to remember communicating without social media, and I'm not particularly old. We've grown incredibly used to these services (some might say dependent), but I wouldn't call them essential. 

Quote

Imagine if Amazon, Walmart, and Kroger became so big that it became the only option to get food and water. Then they started saying “You can’t shop here unless you affirm that abortion is a morally good human right, anything other than this is domestic terrorism”. As a business, they can do this legally, but there will be countless people that will be barred from getting essential food and water. Then you may say “but smaller markets can open up that cater to those that don’t believe abortion to be morally acceptable” and I would agree... in principle... however, what we are seeing with the social media market is that these super power corporations have had such a huge control over the ideologies that are spread, that they are stomping out any competition that has different views (enter Parler). Twitter removed Donald trump because they defined his tweets as being instigating violent protests. We don’t even need to go into how other people’s twitters are still going and strong despite supporting other organizations that have been rioting for years. The issue is that they are falsely defining something as being evil. 
 

“We shouldn’t punch people in the face... unless they are a Nazi, it’s ok to punch Nazis... and everyone I disagree with is a Nazi”
 

Amazon, Walmart, and Kroger can band together with their many customers and call on the government to shut down these domestic terrorist based stores that are popping up. 

Did you just compare grocery stores, retailers that sell commodities that are essential for human survival, to internet platforms that didn't exist 20 years ago? Not only that, but you did it on a web-based site that isn't affiliated with any of the major media companies. Interesting.

Quote

The issue with the censorship and de-platforming is not a legal issue. I think we all agree the companies have the right to decide how to run their business. The issue is that these companies have entered a new frontier of business. and because of this, no laws have been made for companies on their situation.

I agree that this is a new frontier from a legal standpoint, and it'll be interesting to see how things shake out.

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12 hours ago, Godless said:

I'm old enough to remember communicating without social media, and I'm not particularly old. We've grown incredibly used to these services (some might say dependent), but I wouldn't call them essential. 

Did you just compare grocery stores, retailers that sell commodities that are essential for human survival, to internet platforms that didn't exist 20 years ago? Not only that, but you did it on a web-based site that isn't affiliated with any of the major media companies. Interesting.

I agree that this is a new frontier from a legal standpoint, and it'll be interesting to see how things shake out.

Information is essential for Human Survival.. Knowing where to find food, shelter, etc is about information as is everything else we might choose to do. If certain platforms have become dominate providers of information then yes that is an issue.  I am also old enough to remember other forms of communication that wasn't social media as well, I do not see very many of those left standing, and those that are are but shadows of there former selves (including this site).

Legally and morally... if companies want immunity to what other might say and do with there services (aka common carrier) then they can not control or restrict users or content except in the most common and general ways.  If however they wish to control the content/message then they should be liable for that content.

At this point I would love to see people sue the crap out of Facebook/Twitter etc. For all the hateful and violence promoting posts they have not removed.  Since they have abandon the pretenses of being a common carrier they should not have the protections of such.  Such arguments made in the court of law would be how we shake this out

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On 1/9/2021 at 9:41 AM, carlimac said:

Then Maxine Waters and AOC should be thought of as a gay wedding cake, too. Why are their inciting violence videos allowed to stay up? This is the problem that is painfully obvious. Facebook and Twitters rules aren't applied evenly or fairly. It's plain as day.

It's because we live in a double standard world. It is OK for BLM, Antifa, Democratic platform to encourage, entice, promote (even fit the bill for release of criminals), and use Facebook, Google, Apple, and other outlets for their violence. We live in a very hypocritical society. If all things were issued fairly, no one would be having a complaint. If Facebook, Apple, Google, etc...called out the violence that happened for 7 months they might have a leg to stand on. But no, they encouraged it, supported it, and did nothing against those who enticed it. BLM an known marxist organization, that initiated and assisted with violence still have a Twitter account. Go figure -- shocker -- not. 

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17 hours ago, Godless said:

Did you just compare grocery stores, retailers that sell commodities that are essential for human survival, to internet platforms that didn't exist 20 years ago? Not only that, but you did it on a web-based site that isn't affiliated with any of the major media companies. Interesting.

This issue is as essential as the right to vote. Not as essential as have a small business make a wedding cake for a wedding

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20 hours ago, Godless said:

I'm old enough to remember communicating without social media, and I'm not particularly old. We've grown incredibly used to these services (some might say dependent), but I wouldn't call them essential.

I'm old enough to remember when people had to go around on foot and bicycle instead of cars.  But what would it be like if you were denied the use of cars simply because of your political persuasion?  Cars are NOT essential.  But it gives one a HUGE advantage in the working market.  

We could get by on phone calls and door knocking instead of social media.  But we would be at a HUGE disadvantage getting our message out.

All this with a complacent attitude of taking rights away.

Anyone who says this is not a free speech issue is burying their heads in the sand and bathing in schadenfreude. When they came for the Jews, I said nothing because I was not a Jew...  When they came for me, there was no one to speak for me.

I know.  I said I was going to stay away from political speech.  I did.  But then a thread was shut down because I dared to make a legal analysis and provide historical background to a Constitutional principal.  That was what raised alarm bells. 

Predictions:

  • All conservative news outlets (TV and Radio) will have pressure put on them to change their message.
  • Those who hold out will soon begin seeing their sponsors cowing in fear of boycotts.
  • All small websites will be afraid of the same things happening to them.

Don't believe me?  Watch how soon this thread gets shut down because it is political.  And this is a conservative group of moderators.

I still stand by my original statement that we will probably be a lot happier staying away from politics in our conversation.  That is still true.  But when I take a look at this type of thing (censorship by Google and Apple) happening, I realize staying silent is what will destroy us much more than the "uncomfortable" conversations that arise due to political debate.

Everything will be shut down.  We're going to lose our ability to ever win another election again.  Jus watch how much happens in the next 24 months.  Watch what is lost.

Then watch how everything will be blamed on Republicans and "Trump hold-outs" even though the Democrats control EVERYTHING unhindered by opposing voices.

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@Carborendum, I like your analogy of modern social media technology to automobiles.  It’s remarkable how quickly a new innovation or convenience becomes something whose loss can substantially affect one’s quality of life.  

It may be worth noting that 3H’s recently-resurrected no-politics rule has less to do with either muzzling a certain political persuasion or insulating ourselves against allegations of “inciting resurrection” (edit:  INsurrection) than theological/communitarian concerns.  The discussion was routinely getting “spirited” enough that people were leaving the forum (in some cases, with wounded testimonies), and a decision was made that this particular forum is better off without that kind of thing.

In a broader sense, on the deplatforming issue:  I agree that Facebook et al have a right to decide who can and who can’t use their service.  The trouble is, they've wriggled out of a lot of lawsuits over the fact that their services have been used in the commission of various torts—negligence, libel, interference with business expectation, infliction of emotional distress, wrongful death—on the theory that “hey, we’re just a public forum—we can’t reasonably be expected to monitor content created by millions of third parties”.

If Facebook now decides that they can shut down Trump and his most obscene cronies—okay.  But they need to understand that every business owner whose shop was looted in a BLM riot—every Israeli whose kid died in a schoolbus bombing—every Chinese Muslim woman who was subjected to an involuntary hysterectomy by her government—every school kid who lost a scholarship after being falsely called a “racist”—the family of every middle schooler who committed suicide after prolonged cyberbullying—may now be arguing in a court of law that Facebook should be held jointly and severally liable for the lies told and the accusations made and the people radicalized via its users.

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On 12/29/2020 at 7:59 PM, NeedleinA said:

Looking for an alternative to the censored results of Chrome/Google search engine?

FYI: I use Firefox browser (not Chrome) with the DuckDuckGo search engine (not Google) instead.

Firefox, IIRC, forced out one of its bigwigs because he was a Mormon who supported Prop 8.  I think he was involved in founding the Brave browser, which I was using for a while.

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10 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Firefox, IIRC, forced out one of its bigwigs because he was a Mormon who supported Prop 8.  I think he was involved in founding the Brave browser, which I was using for a while.

Well dang... what browser do others use?

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1 hour ago, NeedleinA said:

Well dang... what browser do others use?

[Update] Brendan Eich is apparently not a Mormon (though he was drummed out of Firefox for supporting Prop 8).

Ive heard good things about Brave.  I, as a not-particularly-tech-savvy user, just didn’t happen to dig the user interface—at least, I don’t hate Chrome (which I have to use for work anyways) enough to get used to it.  

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Guest Godless
3 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

It may be worth noting that 3H’s recently-resurrected no-politics rule has less to do with either muzzling a certain political persuasion or insulating ourselves against allegations of “inciting resurrection”, than theological/communitarian concerns.  The discussion was routinely getting “spirited” enough that people were leaving the forum (in some cases, with wounded testimonies), and a decision was made that this particular forum is better off without that kind of thing.

I've thought about this a great deal in recent months. Obviously, I'm not particularly invested in peoples' testimonies, but I'd hate to see someone's faith shaken by endless (and ugly) political squabbles. At a certain point, it paints a pretty nasty picture for those who might be investigating the church and stumble into the forums. So I absolutely support cracking down on that sort of thing, and I apologize for any contributions I may have made to the ugliness.

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But they need to understand that every business owner whose shop was looted in a BLM riot—every Israeli whose kid died in a schoolbus bombing—every Chinese Muslim woman who was subjected to an involuntary hysterectomy by her government—every school kid who lost a scholarship after being falsely called a “racist”—the family of every middle schooler who committed suicide after prolonged cyberbullying—may now be arguing in a court of law that Facebook should be held jointly and severally liable for the lies told and the accusations made and the people radicalized via its users.

FWIW, I would fully support such lawsuits, and I think a lot of others on "my side" would as well. We have a love-hate relationship with social media, and Facebook in particular. 

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On 1/9/2021 at 8:34 AM, carlimac said:

Then the government ought to cover the cost of medical school (says the mother of a soon to be med school graduate. Whoa baby- those student loans!! 😵)

I think MORE than that, they should open up medical schools.  One reason some occupations these days are able to charge so much for the education as well as for the occupation is because they purposefully LIMIT how many can join.  They schools limit how many can enter the medical profession.  It's like diamonds, there are many out there but they limit the number that can go on the market thus raising the expenses for them all around, making money for all involved with the exclusion of most of those at the source (which actually are probably making less money as miners and operators than they would be otherwise, but as they are normally owned by those who do the wholesale later, they are seen as expendables).

NOW...onto something else.  It is no secret that I'm not a real conservative in relation to those here.  I'm normally an independent (though many here would consider me liberal) and recent actions have caused me GREAT alarm...talking from an independent's standpoint...

Trying to remain non-political here, but I think we are seeing more signs of the time.  With what has happened with Parler (Nunes is expressing some of what I feel at the moment, you can look that up as that's too political to post here) I think we are seeing the squashing of free speech.  YES, I agree, they are free companies and private enough, but this is COORDINATED and furthermore, is targetting a group of people specifically in their attack, coordinated via different platforms and groups to effectively ban their ability to talk or communicate.  What's worse, is though there are some connections that could be made, these are fringe connections rather than what I would call unified connections.  Racketeering seems to be going on in some degree here.

Why I find this applicable to us is the question of where this stops.  This could be seen as a test to see if they can get away with killing off forms of communications to those they do not like.   I do not represent what I see as the general membership in the Church today.  A great majority of the members (Whether one likes it or not, or even admits it or not) is conservative.  At this point I think there is a movement that is trying to push the governments to go after conservatives and others.  Where does it stop?

A similar excuse that was just used to silence 4 million people in the US could be done VERY easily to the 6.5 million membership base of the Church in the US (though it is probably more like 4 million or less that are active)...a very similar number.  Does the Church website run on it's own servers and cloud or is it on AWS?  I know the apps are given out through Google store and Apple store...is there any other way to get the apps should those sites choose to wage war against the church?  I could see a similar approach taken towards the Church and all other Christian religions in the near future (people may laugh, but things we never would have though could have happened several years ago are now occurring in front of our own eyes).

I think seeing what is happening that someone in the church should take serious consideration of the Church's options at this point should they come for it.  The Church (at least from what I understand about it) has had a BIG RED TARGET on it by certain groups in California, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, and Utah since the Prop. 8 activities they did several years back.  There are probably those hopping on point to do the same thing to the Church's social media resources and apps that we utilize.  I'd imagine at least a few are watching what happens here very closely to see if it is successful, and if so to then try to replicate it against more groups they dislike.  I imagine the Church would be one of those groups. 

If that happens, what could/can we do in that instance?

 

PS:  I am STILL against undoing 230, I see this issue as a separate item than what 230 covers.  I think it centers on different businesses now coordinating to deny service (can be seen as criminal when different businesses ALL cooperate to force a specific price,product or action without competition as well as perhaps trying to use their power to coerce and force another to do what they wish [aka...look up racketeering] in what might be seen in a criminal context).  There are plenty of things going on here that would count as criminal in my book, but the fact that it is happening so blatantly in front of us is what is alarming.  It is an unequal application of their own rules...in a way that could easily be applied to any they do not like.  Seeing the hostility towards the Church by many groups, I could easily see groups trying to apply this against us (the Church) in the near future...and THAT is probably what ALARMS ME MOST about this situation.  Our numbers (of active members) are probably on par with the group they just tried to silence...so considering the comparable numbers...thinking about it actually gets me MORE concerned.

 

Edited by JohnsonJones
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Guest Godless
5 hours ago, Carborendum said:

I'm old enough to remember when people had to go around on foot and bicycle instead of cars.  But what would it be like if you were denied the use of cars simply because of your political persuasion?  Cars are NOT essential.  But it gives one a HUGE advantage in the working market.  

If you drive a car recklessly and dangerously, you lose your driving privileges.

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55 minutes ago, Godless said:

If you drive a car recklessly and dangerously, you lose your driving privileges.

I agree, but to drive this home, what is happening is people are defining “driving a car with a religious bumper sticker” is driving reckless because religious people believe in God and don’t care if they die.

And flipping a religious person off and cutting them off is not considered reckless because religious people are already dangers to us all.

The standards they claim to be upholding is not consistent with what is being done.

Supporting and encouraging Riots that are destroying neighborhoods is not considered “calling for violence” but calling an election illegitimate is?

THAT is the issue.

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Guest Godless
8 hours ago, Fether said:

Supporting and encouraging Riots that are destroying neighborhoods is not considered “calling for violence” but calling an election illegitimate is?

Calling the election illegitimate became a call for violence when hundreds of "protestors" stormed into our nation's capitol to stop the certification of said election. There were death threats made publicly towards Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi in the days leading up to and following the riot. Lin Wood, who was quickly condemned by GOP leaders after suggesting that Mike Pence would be arrested and face a firing squad if he didn't intervene on the 6th, posted this on Parler after the breach. Parler broke their non-censorship policy and removed it, but not before it was "echoed" (the Parler equivalent of retweeting) over 8000 times. Meanwhile, plenty of similar posts were left up because they came from less prominent accounts (and possibly bots, see below).

capitol-extremist-reactions-04-lin-wood-630w.jpg.c830fac0b57ba7118a069adfbfe40945.jpg

 

This next bit may be wandering into conspiracy theory territory, just know that I'm trying not to jump to any definitive conclusions. These are just observations that I'm trying to substantiate.

To the best of my knowledge, the only prominent conservative accounts to be removed from Twitter were those of Lin Wood, Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, Donald Trump, and Steve Bannon. Melania and the kids still have their accounts, as do far right voices like Guiliani, Hannity, Shapiro, Kirk, and Coulter (just to name a few that I've checked in on).

A lot of the bigger conservative voices on Twitter have been using their (unrestricted) accounts to complain that they've lost hundreds (in some cases thousands) of followers. It's no secret that Twitter has a bot problem, automated accounts that are programmed to target certain hashtags and buzzwords and tweet inflammatory things on those subjects. Twitter will occasionally ID and purge accounts like this en masse. Sometimes they announce these purges before they happen, but not always. And it's worth noting that the bot accounts promote conservative ideas (and attack liberal ones) to a very disproportionate degree, and it's not even close. It's entirely possible that a small portion of the accounts purged last week belonged to actual humans that were talking a little bit too much like Lin Wood, but it's likely that a majority of the accounts that were purged were bots. The only "real" people I know of that got axed are the ones named above and a couple of parody accounts that probably got a little carried away in their online caricaturizing of the far right. Accounts like that tend to follow a lot of prominent conservative accounts.

So in summary, these masses of followers that conservatives are complaining about losing are potentially made up of bots, people who were following them for parody material, and people who think that the only thing wrong with what happened Wednesday is that the attempt to subvert a Constitutional act of Congress was unsuccessful. Again, this is just speculation. I could be off base. If you know of any real people that have been purged from social media, I'd be very interested to hear about it.

Edited by Godless
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39 minutes ago, Godless said:

Calling the election illegitimate became a call for violence when hundreds of "protestors" stormed into our nation's capitol to stop the certification of said election. There were death threats made publicly towards Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi in the days leading up to and following the riot. Lin Wood, who was quickly condemned by GOP leaders after suggesting that Mike Pence would be arrested and face a firing squad if he didn't intervene on the 6th, posted this on Parler after the breach. Parler broke their non-censorship policy and removed it, but not before it was "echoed" (the Parler equivalent of retweeting) over 8000 times. Meanwhile, plenty of similar posts were left up because they came from less prominent accounts (and possibly bots, see below).

capitol-extremist-reactions-04-lin-wood-630w.jpg.c830fac0b57ba7118a069adfbfe40945.jpg

 

This next bit may be wandering into conspiracy theory territory, just know that I'm trying not to jump to any definitive conclusions. These are just observations that I'm trying to substantiate.

To the best of my knowledge, the only prominent conservative accounts to be removed from Twitter were those of Lin Wood, Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, Donald Trump, and Steve Bannon. Melania and the kids still have their accounts, as do far right voices like Guiliani, Hannity, Shapiro, Kirk, and Coulter (just to name a few that I've checked in on).

A lot of the bigger conservative voices on Twitter have been using their (unrestricted) accounts to complain that they've lost hundreds (in some cases thousands) of followers. It's no secret that Twitter has a bot problem, automated accounts that are programmed to target certain hashtags and buzzwords and tweet inflammatory things on those subjects. Twitter will occasionally ID and purge accounts like this en masse. Sometimes they announce these purges before they happen, but not always. And it's worth noting that the bot accounts promote conservative ideas (and attack liberal ones) to a very disproportionate degree, and it's not even close. It's entirely possible that a small portion of the accounts purged last week belonged to actual humans that were talking a little bit too much like Lin Wood, but it's likely that a majority of the accounts that were purged were bots. The only "real" people I know of that got axed are the ones named above and a couple of parody accounts that probably got a little carried away in their online caricaturizing of the far right. Accounts like that tend to follow a lot of prominent conservative accounts.

So in summary, these masses of followers that conservatives are complaining about losing are potentially made up of bots, people who were following them for parody material, and people who think that the only thing wrong with what happened Wednesday is that the attempt to subvert a Constitutional act of Congress was unsuccessful. Again, this is just speculation. I could be off base. If you know of any real people that have been purged from social media, I'd be very interested to hear about it.

I’m willing to accept that the claims of an illegitimate election were inciting violence. What I am not willing to accept is that supports and encouraging of the “protests” and riots was NOT a call for violence when the prior was.
 

Again, It’s all about inconsistency in their application of policy.

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1 hour ago, Godless said:

Calling the election illegitimate became a call for violence when hundreds of "protestors" stormed into our nation's capitol to stop the certification of said election.

This is false, factually incorrect. Whether or not the election was illegitimate, asserting that it was so was not calling for violence.

Suppose, purely for the sake of argument, that Trump was correct in his claim and the election was actually illegitimate. In that case, are you seriously saying that telling the truth about the election is a call for violence?

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