The issue of free speech in private and social media.

[Big War Bird]

Way to go! I am totally not convinced that the media is not colluding against Trump now that they have colluded to all run these editorials against Trump. Bravo.

Meanwhile, Facebook, YouTube and other social media companies are carrying out a digital Night of the Long Knives against Trump allies.

Posts moved from the "Enemies of the People" thread. ~Abdülmecid I

[The spartan]

Way to go! I am totally not convinced that the media is not colluding against Trump now that they have colluded to all run these editorials against Trump. Bravo.

Meanwhile, Facebook, YouTube and other social media companies are carrying out a digital Night of the Long Knives against Trump allies.

Do you mean Info Wars?

[Aexodus]

Do you mean Info Wars?

He means bias against conservatives and right wingers in general by those companies.

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/...-jrs-spokesman

[The spartan]

He means bias against conservatives and right wingers in general by those companies.

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/...-jrs-spokesman

Quote from article:

“This isn’t evidence of a pattern of anti-conservative bias since some Republicans still appear and some don’t. This just appears to be a cluster of conservatives who have been affected,” said New York Law School Professor Ari Ezra Waldman, who testified at the House Judiciary Committee’s April hearing on social media filtering and is the author of Privacy as Trust: Information Privacy for an Information Age. “If anything, it appears that Twitter’s technology for minimizing accounts instead of banning them just isn’t very good.”

The umbrella of conservatives seems to house more trolls than the liberals do; a la Info Wars, Mike Cernovich and so on. Heck part of what conservatives like so much about Trump is that he is a troll.

I bring up Info Wars because that is the big entity that is being blocked by numerous social media platforms recently, but it is hardly a journalistic outlet (read: not at all). Conservatives just really, really want to be victims even when they have control of the government.

[Aexodus]

I find that hard to believe to be honest.

Zucc is also guilty https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...servative-news

[The spartan]

I find that hard to believe to be honest.

Zucc is also guilty https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...servative-news

I am sure you do. If your ideology is more inclusive to trolls, and trolls are getting shut down, I would expect there to be a disproportionate effect on the users. Info Wars is not a journalistic group, we should not be lamenting their loss.

[Aexodus]

I’ve never watched Infowars in my life, but various right or even sometimes center people are censured on social media.

You know about the silicon valley bias right?

[The spartan]

I’ve never watched Infowars in my life, but various right or even sometimes center people are censured on social media.

Do you have an example of moderates being censured?

You know about the silicon valley bias right?

Probably not in the same way you think about, no.

[Big War Bird]

Robert Spencer has been blacklisted by Mastercard for Allah's sake.

[The spartan]

Robert Spencer has been blacklisted by Mastercard for Allah's sake.

And that is your evidence for censorship of Conservative Media?

[Big War Bird]

What possible reason would Mastercard have to blackball Robert (not Richard) Spencer?

Gavin McInnes banned from Twitter with no reason given.

Carl Benjamin was booted from Twitter a while back too with no reason given.

Facebook cancelled a live stream from a reporter covering the Unite the Right rally.

Do you even want to get into how Twitter changed it Verified Badge to exclude certain people it doesn't like?

Jack Dorsey says he’s rethinking the core of how Twitter works

Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey said he is rethinking core parts of the social media platform so it doesn’t enable the spread of hate speech, harassment and false news, including conspiracy theories shared by prominent users like Alex Jones and Infowars.

"Hate speech" is code talk for criticism of Democrats.

[The spartan]

What possible reason would Mastercard have to blackball Robert (not Richard) Spencer?

I have not seen a statement from them as to their reasoning yet, so I don't know. He is not an uncontroversial figure, however, so I would imagine something regarding his rhetoric about the "Counter-Jihad" movement. However, I don't think Mastercard can effectively censor anyone.

Gavin McInnes banned from Twitter with no reason given.

I am reading that he was banned for his association with the Proud Boys movement and their previous activities.

Carl Benjamin was booted from Twitter a while back too with no reason given.

My guess would be for some of the incredibly controversial things he discusses.

Facebook cancelled a live stream from a reporter covering the Unite the Right rally.

Which reporter and what was the context?

Do you even want to get into how Twitter changed it Verified Badge to exclude certain people it doesn't like?

Do you have examples of this being used for censorship?

Jack Dorsey says he’s rethinking the core of how Twitter works



"Hate speech" is code talk for criticism of Democrats.

Uhuh, that doesn't sound paranoid at all. The Left couldn't even touch the right when it comes to coded phrases.


This is how I see it: the Right is incredibly comfortable harboring toxic individuals and extremists. None of the people you listed are remotely close to "moderate" or centrist in their viewpoints, they are all controversial. Twitter goes years without regulating their own platform and are now trying to reduce the amount of toxicity that exists there (a la Info Wars and the like) which targets some of these accounts. These accounts were not removed for being conservative or expressing conservative viewpoints, plenty of conservative media voices exist on facebook, twitter, and youtube. Moderate Conservatives are just desperately in need of house cleaning so that the extremists don't fall under their umbrella. FFS, the white supremacist rally in charlottesville was called "Unite the Right Rally". I don't even think any of the people you listed represent any mainstream Conservative views. Conservatives are still posting all over twitter and their viewpoints are still there, this really is just coming off as a desperate ploy for victimhood.

If the argument were that some reasonable conservatives are getting caught up in trying to get rid of the toxic accounts, I could much more easily persuaded that that could be the case. But, the argument that twitter is trying to purge conservative ideas from their platform is, uh, much less reasonable.

[Aexodus]

If it’s got to the point Congress had to grill Zuckerburg over conservative censorship, there’s clearly something or other strange happening http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/...ial-media.html

[Big War Bird]

Forgive me for doubting your wise judgement is saying who is and isn't a reasonable conservative and who can and cannot have credit cards and social media pages.

My guess would be for some of the incredibly controversial things he discusses.

Are you even listening to yourself? Controversial things are the things worth talking about.

Which reporter and what was the context?

Again are you listening to yourself?

[Vanoi]

Free and open dialogue is already possible. There are other means to talk to people and get any kind of message out besides social media.

I don't get the complaining about certain people being banned from social media. The First Amendment does not extend to social media nor should it. They accept terms and conditions when they signed up for those social media sites. They can ban you for any reason if they want.

Robert Spencer founded JihadWatch. He's an Islamaphobe who is described as a hate leader by the SPLC and ADL.

Gavin McInnes is the founder of the Proud Boys, a far-right group that's pretty controversial.

Carl Benjamin is an anti-feminist, anti-PC who probably got banned for being such an .

[Aexodus]

But should they be allowed to be the arbiters of political speech when they have a monopoly on how we communicate and organise online?

[Vanoi]

That's the point. They don't have monopoly. You can create your own social media. An example being the social media platform Gab which was created as an alternative to Twitter and to support free speech. It's mostly used by White supremacists and the alt-right. You do not need social media to convey your ideas to the public.

I'll say it again. Social media platforms are not the government. They can't infringe on your free speech rights. You agree to a set of terms and conditions the second you use those platforms. You have to follow their guidelines and rules and in turn you get to use their platforms for whatever reason you have.

[Big War Bird]

Go to your app store and download Gab. I will wait. (Hint you won't find it, its been removed by Apple and Google.

[Aexodus]

Social media is the no. 1 way of sharing information. How exactly am I going to reach the public on Gab? Do you think corporations should have this kind of influence on the flow of information?

[Vanoi]

You can reach the public through many other means. Advertisements on the internet and TV are great examples.

These corporations only control what's on there social media platforms as they should since it's their ing social media platform they created. They don't control the flow of information itself.

Social media is not the only way to reach the public or share information.