Today Senate Republicans held a hearing titled "Stifling Free Speech: Technological Censorship and the Public Discourse." It was the second such hearing to be held in Congress in the past six months — in September, House Republicans put on a similar show, lambasting Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
[...] To the extent that these hearings have any basis in actual events, as Hirono notes, they tend to involve isolated cases in which some conservative-leaning person or organization is temporarily suspended from a service, or does not appear in search results, or is not being promoted sufficiently by a site's recommendation features. And while unintentional bias often is baked into algorithms, as this recent study of Facebook's ad products suggests, no research has ever suggested that Republicans have been disadvantaged on social media platforms.
In fact, as I often like to point out, Fox News typically gets more engagement on Facebook than any other publisher. Still, that's just one data point. How do partisan pages fare across the social network?
A study today published by Media Matters for America attempts to answer that question. Over 37 weeks, the authors measured engagement — likes, comments, and shares — across left- and right-leaning pages. What did they find?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02 2020, @08:41PM (10 children)
The uniparty: oh noes! We've lost control of the narrative!
Dems: It's all that fake Russian news on facetwit! Exterminate the First Amendment! Exterminate! Exterminate!
Reps: It's all that fake socialist news on facetwit! Exterminate the First Amendment! Exterminate! Exterminate!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02 2020, @08:46PM (8 children)
Donald Trump is the first President in 30 years that is not a member of the UniParty.
This is why the Democrats and most Republicans tried and keep trying to sink him.
The mutual-grift system has been exposed!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02 2020, @08:51PM (2 children)
It's telling when the neocons from Obama and Bush oppose trump
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02 2020, @11:06PM (1 child)
Notice Trump has been resisting getting involved in Middle East wars but he STILL has to make support for Israel his leading foreign policy issue at the moment. Oh well. As long as we stay out of another pointless war.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02 2020, @11:59PM
That may come natural to him. He made his fortune building homes for ultraorthodox jews to live close to their guru in Brooklyn, and he has family that married jewish people.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Saturday October 03 2020, @05:05AM (2 children)
Won't mean much unless the reelection rates dip below 90%. Nobody is really opposing Trump. They all benefit from his chaos. His a democrat on a republican ticket. The "UniParty" (I call it the coalition) will still receive 95% of the vote. Despite all the corruption even fewer people are looking for or advocating any alternatives than before. And money is flowing in like mad. The Party appears to be doing very well.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @07:49PM (1 child)
He's not a Democrat in any known sense. Thanks for your deep thinking on this though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @08:59PM
He most certainly is! And Hillary is one of his closet business associates. Is it coming together for you yet? Or will you stay in denial indefinitely?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @09:10PM
Not a member of the UniParty? Which Trump are you talking about?
The President Trump I know of cut taxes on regular Americans a tiny bit and on the rich a lot, just like President Bush or President Reagan. He grew the budget deficit like crazy, just like basically all of the previous Presidents. He kept military spending at ridiculous levels, just like all of the previous Presidents, and didn't even try to cut it. He's implemented policies blocking or removing GLBTQ+ rights, just like Republican Presidents before him. He cut environmental protections and expanded mineral and drilling access for companies, just like recent Republican Presidents. He didn't cut back any of the Patriot Act surveillance on US citizens, just like all of the recent Presidents.
Trump's policies on immigration, aside from separating parents from children, deported fewer people than Obama did in Obama's first four years in office. Current border policy, save for separating parents from children, dates back to 1996.
Trump's trade war with China cut the US trade deficit 1.7% last year, which is notable, but in the same year US manufacturing jobs declined, so he cut imports of goods manufactured in China without stimulating US manufacturing.
So tell me again, how is this guy not in the UniParty? He IS the UniParty, the only difference is that he's the first UniParty candidate since maybe Eisenhower that conservatives love this much.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday October 03 2020, @09:23PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jimbrooking on Saturday October 03 2020, @12:36AM
I agree with both on this (a first for me!): eliminate facetwit as they threaten American Democracy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02 2020, @09:06PM (5 children)
Only left and right leaners? So they left out the perfectly fairly unbalanced SoylentNews? So sad.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 02 2020, @09:14PM
I absolutely love that. If this were my blog as one clueless AC is wont to say, I'd immediately steal it without remorse.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Friday October 02 2020, @11:48PM (2 children)
Not only left and right leaners. Leaning over is bad these days as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @12:42AM (1 child)
Lean in! Lean forward! Lean is better than fat! A leaning stone gathers no funk. Better to have leaned and lost, than never to have leaned before. Leaning tower of Comet Ping Pong Pisa!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @02:28PM
https://youtu.be/TtsohB7RgDE [youtu.be]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @10:17AM
How unbalanced? If unbalanced, you're just enemy of both.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pe1rxq on Friday October 02 2020, @09:10PM (6 children)
Social media does not have a left or right bias. They have a bias for whatever generates the biggest profit.
And for profit from social media you need outragious posts and thriving bubbles.
If they get to extreme (either left or right) the platform will distance itself from the content, but nothing more.
They might censor a few left or right, but only as a token for 'we really care' or they will make the Zuckerbot say another 'Sorry'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02 2020, @11:32PM
Which is sucking up to the Big Finance.
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday October 03 2020, @12:04AM
I doubt it. In the end, companies are run by a few managers who do or don't get their nightly sex base on their partners preferences and constant drilling.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @07:36PM
As it turns out, social media is not that different from normal media, just harder to control because average joe is participating in spreading it, not just consuming.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @09:17PM (2 children)
Agreed. I would add that this seems to be a problem even when you remove advertising and profit as a factor. I joined the Mastodon open source social network a few years ago, and the Diaspora open source social network too, and on both there are people spending hours every day raging about news content and sharing it. So even though nobody in the product chain was making a cent from outrageous posts and filter bubbles, they were still happening.
So I deleted those accounts, just like I deleted my Facebook and Twitter accounts earlier. Now I'm off all social media unless you count SN - and I usually don't log in.
It seems like the innate nature of digital social media drives humans towards tribal thinking. Maybe it would work better if you built a social network without a "like" or "dislike" or "share" button, so all of the interactions are direct discussions and you don't get roped into games related to amassing karma (or likes, or Whuffie, or social credit, or whatever) and viral content. But maybe it's an inescapably flawed concept.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2020, @12:20AM (1 child)
Forums without comment moderation exist, but they usually end up with opaque administrative moderation. Go completely anonymous, you get 4chan. Require accounts, but only post anonymously... I'm not sure that's been tried, but it would probably fall into the trap of administrative oversight soon enough (due to liability WRT stuff like child porn etc, moderation powers will be necessary unless the site operator is willing to burn).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2020, @12:37PM
Good points. More generally, what I'm trying to find is a social network design that preserves the desirable aspects - connecting with people and sharing interesting content - without causing tribalism or leading users to be effectively addicted.
On further reflection, I don't think my suggestions for removing the like button and removing reshares are sufficient. I got my start in social networking in IRC in the 1990s, and I spent thousands of hours chatting with people. The domain was too new to be flooded with spam and abuse - or if it was, the moderators were diligent because I never saw it. There was no karma and no reshares. And I was still hooked.
And here it is, a beautiful Sunday morning and I'm on SN instead of doing something productive.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 02 2020, @09:15PM (19 children)
https://gab.com/ [gab.com]
Love them, hate them, or anything in between - these people were literally hounded off of every platform owned or controlled by Big Tech and the Dem friendly main stream media.
That fact alone discredits the author.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02 2020, @10:14PM
Gab is still up? Wasn't it discovered that it was actually run by the FBI domestic terrorism team? Just saying.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Friday October 02 2020, @11:08PM (3 children)
Those people were hounded for being assholes. Threatening people, knowingly spreading the kind of lies that it's only possible to believe if you leave your brain at home, in some cases actually inciting illegal activity such as doxxing or swatting.
I don't care if they're left or right, anybody engaged in that kind of behavior must be cast out for the good of civilization.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02 2020, @11:26PM (2 children)
Now find anything in your list in which D-aligned activists do not heavily partake on a daily basis.
We can perfectly agree on that. What we cannot agree on, is studiously overlooking that kind of behavior exhibited by the so-called "left".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02 2020, @11:58PM (1 child)
So? D-aligned activists who engage in such behaviours are given twitter timeouts the same as anyone else. The difference is they don't get butthurt and try to go make their own echo chamber, and instead self-police (not necessarily with good intent!) so avoid being kicked off of the popular platforms.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @03:00AM
The entire MSM is their echo chamber.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday October 03 2020, @05:14AM
Too bad for the democrats all that "bias" doesn't translate into a bigger lead, huh? It's still 50/50, right where they like it.
Propaganda is bullshit. It is a scapegoat. The problem is idiot believers.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday October 03 2020, @08:24PM (12 children)
What a delightful way to describe a toxic community that caused multiple hosts to reject them. You're an artist, man.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 03 2020, @08:41PM (11 children)
Your argument resembles arguments by the Stasi to justify persecuting people who wanted out of East Germany. It's also very much like Chinese propaganda that promotes "harmony" and the like. Ditto with the Soviet, and I don't even have to go Godwin on you.
If you aren't willing and able to hear other people's opinions, then you're not really a proponent of free speech. "I approve of language that I approve of" is not "free speech".
Now, to go even further: Not only were these people kicked off of every platform on the web, they have also faced difficulty in leasing services and equipment on which to launch their own platform. Ultimately, it was necessary that they buy their own servers, housed in their own buildings, set up and run by their own staff.
Worse yet, VISA decided that they would not process payments to GAB. https://news.gab.com/2020/06/19/gab-blacklisted-by-visa/ [gab.com]
There is no justification for that, aside from outright criminal activity.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday October 03 2020, @09:06PM (3 children)
You'll have to remind me if Facebook or Twitter actually promised anything about Free Speech. I always thought it was: "Cater to your narcissistic side.", not "fuck the Crown." Maybe they did, but I don't recall anything like that leading up to me signing up for either of those services and it's worth pointing out that my accounts existed before either of those two entities went down the ad-revenue path. I do recall Slashdot, however, claiming that or at least strongly implying they were about Free Speech... I often wondered if that was their way of saying: "We don't feel like coding this site to allow you to edit your comments." Heh.
Mmm hm. Yes, that's exactly the picture I saw in my head when these companies had to broom out some of their userbase when advertisers supporting the business started leaving. /s
Well, you are right about that... criminal activity is what caused certain groups to have to move. If you don't know what I mean then I suggest you broaden your news sources.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 03 2020, @09:52PM (2 children)
Collectively, they have become the Town Square. Monopoly laws can be a bitch. There are various investigations and possible legal action in the works. If, 150 years ago, a city had contracted with a private contractor to maintain the town square, could that contractor theoretically limit free speech in the square? That scenario resembles what I see today.
In and of itself, that partial sentence tells us much of what is wrong with the internet today. Advertisers shouldn't be running anything. I didn't vote for any of them, none of them were appointed by congress, the rat bastards don't pay your or me for the personal data they harvest. They are ripping us all off, is the only reason they have money to use to silence the voices they don't like.
I wouldn't have much argument left, if that were entirely true. Pushing drugs, advocating murder, calling for the overthrow of government, child porn and porn. But that isn't true for very many of those banned.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday October 03 2020, @10:01PM (1 child)
You're basically just describing being on the wrong-end of the "invisible hand". If you weren't inaccurately labeling it you'd be less exhausted by moving goal posts.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 03 2020, @10:24PM
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/02/facebook-google-and-twitter-ceos-to-testify-before-congress-oct-28.html [cnbc.com]
That, and dozens of other articles indicate that gubbermint is not happy with the Big Three. Europeans are in on the act as well. It's time if not past time that tech was brought to rein, and made to understand that they don't run things.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @09:21PM (5 children)
There are hundreds of millions of conservatives active on Facebook and Twitter, free speech rights intact. It's only the people inciting the murder of blacks, or GLBTQ+, or whatever that are getting banned.
As they say, your right to free speech doesn't extend to being able to scream "fire" in a crowded theater.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 03 2020, @09:41PM (4 children)
1 - not true.
2 - "I didn't stand up when they came for the Jews . . . "
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday October 03 2020, @09:56PM (3 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 03 2020, @10:25PM (2 children)
I recall posting a theoretical that involved rental properties. I don't rent, it's too damned much bother in the best of times.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2020, @12:34AM
I think too many people have a shaky grasp of English for even obvious hypotheticals, sarcasm, or joking to not be read as literal on the internet. It's even worse in real life when people of different dialects mix though...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2020, @09:28PM
Oh boy, you totally said you rent properties. Now it is a hypothetical? Just how full of shit are you anyway?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2020, @06:56AM
Like taking an AR-15, illegally, across state lines to kill someone? Oh, my dear and profoundly stupid Runaway, the criminality has more than been proved. Proud boys attempting to kill (not very good at it, being right wing pussies). And attacks on Synagogues and Walmarts, and schools? These people are not just assholes, they are neo-nazi fucktard right-wing nut-job criminal assholes, who need to be shot down on site like the mad dogs they are. Do you have a problem with that, you accessory to murder? Post your address here, and we will see to it that the proper authorities, and not your wet-dream Oaf Keepers, will show up at your door to take you in for some, um, "re-education". Unless, of course, they have to keep their knee on your neck for a bit too long, or if they have to come to a "emergency stop" with the van, or perhaps not watch the cameras while you auto-asphyxiate. Fuck your white privilege, Runaway, and the Mormon White Horse it rode in on.
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 02 2020, @09:17PM (15 children)
You mean to tell me The Verge, a Vox property, published a FA saying there's a bias against their loony shit rather than against the folks who keep getting (shadow)banned for opposing their lunacy? Say it ain't so! They would never let ideology get in the way of informing people of the truth!
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by meustrus on Friday October 02 2020, @11:12PM (3 children)
Wow, the people claiming there is bias are the same people they're claiming are hurt most by that bias. Clearly there is a conflict of interest here.
I wonder how we can sort out whether it's a conflict of interest or if it's a valid conclusion. Maybe something involving, I don't know, lots of data and rigorous scientific analysis. Somebody should get on that.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday October 03 2020, @03:27AM (2 children)
Maybe one of these days somebody will. The garbage they're reporting on is not even sort of what everyone who isn't super-mega-woke is talking about though. Nobody cares how many people like, follow, and obey FNC, they care if ordinary folks are getting shadowbanned or outright banned for saying something that wasn't woke enough.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by aristarchus on Sunday October 04 2020, @06:59AM (1 child)
Like happens to aristarchus submissions on a daily basis on SoylentNews! TMB joins the #freearistarchus!!!1!! movement! Hooray!!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 04 2020, @01:59PM
Well we're certainly not going to charge for you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @08:28PM (3 children)
I've been shadow-banned for criticizing you, Buzzard. My proof of that is that nobody ever replies to my posts criticizing you, therefore nobody is seeing them and since you have the power to do so you must be.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 04 2020, @02:00PM (2 children)
Nah, everyone just knows you're an idiot.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2020, @03:10PM (1 child)
I appreciate your assistance, I just needed help finding the "words". ;)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 04 2020, @05:25PM
You can always look at the source if you like. There isn't any shadowbanning code in there. And I'm certainly not going to go through all the headaches necessary to write it, even were I so inclined towards censorship.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2020, @03:08PM (6 children)
Nobody has been shadow banned, "everyone just knows they're idiots".
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 04 2020, @05:27PM (5 children)
Look at the source. We couldn't shadowban anyone even if we wanted to without me spending a month of mornings coding and then several more debugging. And you're just not important enough for even a single morning worth.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2020, @09:31PM (1 child)
What a shitty admin, can't even SSH into the server and directly edit site code. So sad.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 05 2020, @12:59PM
See above Re: the amount of work it'd take. Noob.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2020, @10:37PM (2 children)
Our lil role-play about the accusations of shadow banning is pretty much how it went down with the complaining-conservatives you brought up. Your improv was great, thank you for participating!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 05 2020, @01:01PM (1 child)
Except the major social media platforms do have the code necessary, have all admitted to using it, and far, far beyond ample evidence is around to prove exactly what bias it is being used with. So, no, not even slightly similar.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2020, @01:39PM
It was mostly whining.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Friday October 02 2020, @09:53PM
Meanwhile in Russia, the government is launching a streaming service called Nyetflix, where you can watch content guaranteed not to have been censored in the U.S. of A.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02 2020, @10:35PM
I have it on good authority from snopes that Google, Facebook and twitter are not censoring people. They would never do that. They are only removing hate speech and we can all agree that is bad. /s
(Score: 5, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 02 2020, @10:52PM (17 children)
Tech censorship is about hate speech. They hate speech, especially free speech.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02 2020, @11:16PM (9 children)
Remember the Internet before social media oligopolies? You could put up a webpage and say what you wanted. Speech was not censored nor as blantantly political. THEN... the political operatives, "normies", and Big Tech came. The centralization makes a great chokepoint for controlling speech that the old network of independent webpages never had. Of course, good luck with your own webpage these days. If the Jews don't like it (apologies to live and let live Jewish people), they will make sure you are taken down. They'll do it by getting your domain name registrar to yank your domain or by telling credit card companies to not allow you to conduct business. Again, not a whole lot of competition in the domain name registrar or credit card company industry, is there? Yet another modern chokepoint.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02 2020, @11:19PM
To add clarification: the only sin you must commit is to voice anything other than support for far Left bullshit.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @12:06AM
Yes, I remember. Fresh in my mind too, because I still do this by myself.
Granted, I have not offended an important blue check yet, but I think I could find hosting in my budget around the world.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @12:51AM (6 children)
Go fuck yourself, Nazi! Crawl into a hole, before the Fuel-air bombs come, if you think that will save you! Your speech is not speech, it is violence, and it will be met with violence! The entire armed might of the United States of America stands ready to take down racist fucks like yourself whenever necessary.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Vocal Minority on Saturday October 03 2020, @11:03AM (4 children)
I like to imagine that these ACs are all the same person :)
If you want to visualise the history of the internet, picture an AC yelling at themselves...forever
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @06:31PM (1 child)
Heh, that's a pretty funny image of a one-person play all right.
Also fits your username. :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2020, @07:02AM
Could be. But also could be the voice of reason, the voice of the majority? How do you tell the screeching of radical minority, from the outrage of a rational majority, pray tell? It could be like Anonymous, of which the Cowards are members. They are legion. Expect them. AC's Rule, Motherfucked!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Monday October 05 2020, @12:16AM (1 child)
We need a mechanism to distinguish AC. Perhaps the server should distinguish ACs by IP number. But to remain anonymous, it should not publish the IP number; instead, it should number them conseutively within each discussion. So we might see AC1 arguing with AC2, and can tell whether AC3 supports AC1 or AC2 or neither, and know that it's not AC3 replying to AC2, but it's AC1 again pretending to be an independent supporter of AC1's opinion.
(Score: 2) by The Vocal Minority on Saturday October 10 2020, @03:34AM
That's actually not a bad idea. Not perfect but it would raise the bar a bit and cut down on the more tiresome AC fuckery. Only problem is it will not distinguish two ACs behind the same VIP/NAT/VPN/TOR exit node, which may still in some cases have privacy implications ("Hey why is this other AC behind the same home NAT as me?").
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @06:46PM
Shut up, you stupid brainwashed bitch. The initiation of violence was, and is, from the Bolshevik Jews and the Goi slave states.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday October 03 2020, @05:17AM
Well, yeah, they hate anything that's free. They want to charge you for it.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday October 03 2020, @08:32PM (5 children)
They hate their ad-revenue going down because their consumers are fleeing their services, tired of associating with anti-inclusive assholes. If you want to argue with me about that then please do us both a favor and pause for a moment to think about why Slashdot really removed their anonymous posting. If you're going to try to characterize that as a movement to destroy free speech then you're just doing an exercise in creative writing.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 03 2020, @08:55PM (4 children)
Slashdot? I think that most of us, liberal, conservative, D, R, progressive, or whatever else can agree on what happened to slashdot.
They were sold off. The people buying it decided that slashdot should be making a lot more money. A LOT more money. So they started whoring slashdot to anyone interested in fucking slashdot. Then beta. Many revolted against beta, and many of us said "goodbye". I haven't been on slashdot for a couple years, but it seems that the newest owners are still intent on turning slashdot into a cash cow. Banning AC? Does slashdot now have a CoC? Hmmm, a search doesn't turn one up, but ironically it finds this article: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/10/22/1940234/codes-of-conduct-speech-bans-are-poor-strategy [slashdot.org]
Also, ironically, slashcode is still present that would allow AC posting.
Slashdot is a bag of worms. They may profess to support freeze peach, but they do not. What they support is $$$$$$
buck feta
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @09:08PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 03 2020, @09:37PM (2 children)
So, advertisers have replaced the Stasi.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2020, @07:07AM
And Runaway is replacing the Schutzstaffel, the protection force for the far-right white supremacist Trump regime. Traitor. Our fathers, and our father's fathers, and our father's father's fathers, fought against collaborators like you. You will meet a similar fate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2020, @11:06PM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Saturday October 03 2020, @12:14AM (2 children)
It is obvious that social "media" for us now is what used to be "air" for free speech when we got our rights. It can't be limited in any way by private interests.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday October 03 2020, @12:20AM (1 child)
The issue is really simple. They agreed to free speech long ago because when one speaks, only a few other idiots around her can hear. However, right now using the new "air" I can scream so loud that the whole planet will hear me. That's what they can't tolerate so they employ Zuker to censor me.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2020, @07:09AM
I can't hear you, legont! Or rather, I can hear you, but your racist white supremacist shit makes no sense! Could you rephrase? I am assuming you are not crazy, but your free speaking is giving me pause.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by HiThere on Saturday October 03 2020, @02:39AM (3 children)
If they were serious about avoiding censorship they'd be addressing it as a monopoly problem. Network effects get serious when one player dominates more than 60% a market. So break up facebook and google and microsoft and....
If you have lots of players, they'll have different policies, and so no point of view will be censored. Of course, this won't break up "bubbles" or "silos" or whatever term you prefer for social echo chambers. Which is a serious problem that is causing social instability, but which I've got no clue about the proper way to deal with.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Saturday October 03 2020, @02:34PM
This.
This is why I don't tend to engage in political talk with either side, because once I bring up "break up companies with monopolistic behaviors" and "No more than a certain percentage of business can go to one company", both sides tend to freak and tell me I don't understand.
This logic you stated is obvious and simple and yet the majority of loud mouths don't get it. I would argue that after a certain amount, no company should get more than 5% of the business. (Much lower than your 60%.) It's easier said than done, and there is much detail to be worked out, but I think it's a laudable goal.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @02:44PM (1 child)
There is no serious problem causing social instability. People have already congregated into groups and cliques, but now these groups are delimited by ideology rather than geography. This is the dream of globalization, it was always meant to be this way. Of course the powerful have attempted to predict and guide the process to their own ends, that's the whole point of power. The drive for censorship comes from the fear of losing control over the narrative.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @02:45PM
*people have always congregated...
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @03:04AM (1 child)
This guy figured it out. [archive.is]
Background:
Al-Qaeda [blogspot.com] built up a money-laundering successor to BCCI [historycommons.org] and were invited [bibliotecapleyades.net] to present it to the Royal Institute for International Affairs, also known as Chatham Whorehouse. That was way back in 1992.
The Muslim powers mix and match charity and support for terrorism. [globaldonorsforum.org] They don't give a shit if someone funds the Taliban or Hamas, they're still invited to the party. If you're in the CI industry, there are red flags all over that group of "philanthropists". And they call their work "Social Justice."
The British Foreign & Commonwealth Office has a team dedicated to supporting Hamas. [archive.org] They call themselves Avaaz, also known as SumOfUs, also known as Purpose, also known as B Team, also known as MoveOn.org, also known as the Service Employees Union International, also known as the George Soros network. Their advisors [ngo-monitor.org] include al-Haq [ngo-monitor.org] which is the PFLP and al-Shabaka [archive.org] which is Electronic Intifadah, the BDS campaign, Hate 'Em Bazian, and the director of knowledge systems at McKinsey, the contractor that runs the CIA. Great job keeping the country safe, fellas.
The "Palestinians" [archive.org] are all Nazis [archive.org], in case anyone is unaware of that. Britain has deputized their entire spy ring as British agents, and somebody's probably getting kickbacks from the Muslims for this. And if you look back to that first link [blogspot.com] they're a part of al-Qaeda.
So this group is sponsored by Britain (officially) and some specific Brits:
McKinsey, Olayan, and Purpose (Avaaz) ran the McKinsey Social Initiative [foundationcenter.org] with Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka [iol.co.za] who took over UN Women and then leveraged it to turn the entire United Nations into a "feminist missionary organization". [archive.org] This had nothing to do with protecting women but was about 1) getting all of the Saudi agents reputations as "feminists", and 2) getting everyone used to having crazy people censor everything so that no one fights back when the Muslims go after whoever they feel like censoring tomorrow.
UN Women ran the Broadband and Gender Working Group [archive.is] where Microsoft, Intel, the Carlyle Group, etc all agreed that the Saudi British Bank's freak show should be allowed to run all of their companies. They may have been helped by large paychecks from Saudi royalty [mideast-times.com], or they may have been encouraged by the Rothschild cabal [archive.org] (featuring Dominic Barton of the McKinsey Social Initiative) that put the screws on everyone doing business with "the four companies that control the world" [humansarefree.com].
At the same time, the same crew was running America's national security. Back in 2011 the US government discovered that al-Qaeda's Somali affiliate al-Shabaab was operating in Minneapolis. The Democratic Party's response was to call Peter King racist for bringing it up [archive.is], end all investigations of al-Qaeda, and replace them with a "countering violent extremism" program which amounts to paying the Avaaz network to call anyone they want a white supremacist. This was so successful that they expanded the program to have al-Qaeda train gullible college students [archive.is] to recognize "hate speech".
So around 2014 the dorks on 4chan found out that al-Qaeda was censoring the entire internet, was sponsored by Microsoft, and was trying to sneak their agents into a "Serious Games" program to develop training materials for the US Army. That's what Gamergate was about. People thought they were Russians at first, given all of the communist slogans they were using. They were. [unfoundation.org] Russia was helping out. And Russia's co-conspirators [archive.is] were quickly identified by the WSJ, which has never turned up in any report on Russian influence on the 2016 election.
People leaked. Every corporate media agency knows that Clinton and Obama gave the entire Internet to al-Qaeda and Russian spies and paid them out of the national security budget to harass random political opponents. They all approve.
With Clinton and Obama out of office, Democrat AGs continue to order social media companies to allow Avaaz to censor them. [kiwifarms.net]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @06:33PM
> That's what Gamergate was about.
Of all the amusing mischaracterizations you present, that one still manages to stand out, heh.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @05:06AM
Regardless if bias exists or not, ask the questions:
1. Members of which ideology tend to be in circumstances where they could censor messages of other ideologies?
2. Members of which ideology tend to prefer censorship instead of other means?
3. Members of which ideology tend to cause bigger trouble if they don't get their way?
4. Members of which ideology tend to group up instead of handle problems individually?
Or in another formulation:
If one ideology is aggressive in spreading it's message and suppressing the oppositions', while another is passive, which one will overpower the other?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by VLM on Saturday October 03 2020, @02:42PM (9 children)
Dying platforms always move left.
Newspapers (remember those?), news magazines, boomer pro sportsball, TV, social media... all that stuff going hard left as viewership numbers crater.
You could learn "facebook is dying" by noticing the demographics and use patterns, but its simpler to just watch for leftism, then you know the odds are excellent of it swirling around the drain.
Dying platforms always aspire to fundamentalist religion, which is usually for a variety of reasons leftist. VERY rare occasion like AM radio it'll be Christian (or more like Jewish neocon) right wing fundamentalism.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @07:57PM
Unhinged right wing nutjobs always see the world moving left, as they career off into irrelevant rambling.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @08:55PM (6 children)
Big surprise. The left grows by accepting more people, the right ... doesn't, instead they make 'enemies' out of people that look different than them and rally around that concept to get votes. It's kinda like making friends in grade school by making fun of the fat kid. The left has a larger potential market, the right is easier to make a quick buck off of but it's cannibalistic... and I don't mean that literally.
I'll put it another way: If you take the top 50 cities by population size in the USA, ~35 of those are Democratically lead and the rest aren't even all Republican. I want to say it's 10 and the rest are independent but I don't have the exact numbers in front of me right now. Larger communities need a broader, longer-term view. Like... Climate Change, for example, and larger populations need that point of view to effectively govern. Movies avoid foul language to reach a broader audience, same concept for news-related-services doing as you describe.
Now I doubt you'll stop and go: "I think I see what you mean...", so I'm just going to leave a few questions for you to ponder: Did the caravan arrive and make you lose your job? Did gay marriage lead to you marrying a dog? Did Obama take your guns away? Do you feel safer that the wall has some construction work going? (hint: It's in its beginning phases and not in a state right now to stop a single person for the same reason a building under construction can't keep out the rain. Oh... and you probably don't know that some people snuck into the country posing as one of the pickup trucks used in constructing the wall... it has a negative score right now.) Did you get a raise because the stock exchange went up? Did Obamacare collapse the economy? Was ebola a big thing to Americans, if yes did you arrive at that conclusion before 2020? Do the reasons to invade Iraq stand the tests of time with you, please try to recall how the government attempted to sell that war to you. Is climate change looking less like a big deal today vs. ten years ago? Oh and a word to the wise- being dishonest about any of this will hurt you a lot more than it'll hurt me.
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 04 2020, @02:21PM (5 children)
HA! Hahahahaha! That's fucking hilarious in its audacity.
Lemme splain to you, since you're obviously clueless. You know those boomers you're always okaying? Yeah, they went to great bother for everyone to have equal rights. The Gen-X folks you ignore? We grew up hearing equality preached from Mr. Rogers and Sesame street on out. The problem is your stupid asses aren't after equality, you're after privilege. Not "$foo folks are privileged because they do better than $bar folks on average with equal protection under the law" but "we want to have some actual private law for $bar" privilege. Your bitch asses are anti-equality and you're going to be fought by anyone actually interested in justice. You know, justice that doesn't need an adjective that requires a lengthy bullshit explanation because it's fucking self-evident.
So, yeah, that's why anyone wanting equality is conservative on the issue. They want to conserve the equality we already had against you little morons who are trying to fuck it all up out of misplaced guilt and extreme stupidity.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2020, @03:56PM (4 children)
Every time you lot show hostility to a group of people, you reduce the number of people who can vote for your preferred party.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 04 2020, @05:28PM (3 children)
I don't have a party, so that's not particularly relevant.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2020, @07:00PM (2 children)
You're biased enough towards Republicans that it applies.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 05 2020, @01:03PM (1 child)
Incorrect. I am biased against Democrats. It's not a boolean thing, you do not have to belong to a side.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2020, @03:35PM
Nearly your entire statement is 100% true. You are biased against Democrats and one does not have to belong to a side. However, neither of those describe your actual preferences, the most likely explanation being you're afraid of how undefendable your position is and "well I don't belong to a party" is an easy out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2020, @07:02AM
The good news is that the more you share your true feelings the more people step left. Thanks boyo.