BF2S Forums Freedom of Speech, the Internet, and You

every single site and service has a terms of use. you accept it when you sign up to them. if i was banned from facebook messenger for posting racist memes in a white supremacist group, i'd only be able to say: fair enough, i clicked 'accept and agree' on your terms and conditions when i applied.

they haven't been banned for 'expressing opinions'. these groups were WARNED and WARNED many times, trump especially. how many average users do you think get the number of express warnings that trump's personal account got? he had special treatment for months, if not years. he's hardly been treated badly by twitter jack. he rode roughshod all over their established terms of use on any number of occasions. for the last three months they've had a team almost permanently tasked with flagging his posts as 'inaccurate' or 'unfounded' ffs. who the fuck else gets that treatment? again, this is his PERSONAL account, mind you, the TRUMP BRAND, not the official POTUS account. talk about special privileges. isn't everyone meant to be equal in a democracy too? uh hu!

nobody is banned for expressing opinions within the realms of free speech. all of these services are quite careful to distance themselves from illegal activities, though, like organizing terror. it's no different from a server host company wanting to keep child porn off its systems, or eBay wanting to kick off scammers.

any service is free to set-up whatever conditions its wants, within the bounds of the law and legal discrimination. if a dating site only wants rich middle-aged people, they can vet users. if a social network stipulates that they don't want hate groups congregating there to talk about 'pizza restaurant pedophiles' and 'raping AOC', they're in their rights to do that.

that the social networks have u-turned on their own frankenstein monster creation is a breakthrough. yes, it does have ramifications and yes some parts of it are worrying. the social networks are obviously, on one level, just trying to avoid being broken up by the government or dragged into another interminable run of senate hearings. they have aided and encouraged this sort of echo-chamber, febrile, champing-at-the-bit-type discussion. it is partly a monster of their own creation. but if they now want to start enforcing their own community guidelines, i say: good. zuckerberg similarly u-turned on their policy of moderating and fact-checking advertisements, after years of mendacious ad campaigns fed voters with lies. to which i can only also say: good, about time.

it's a private company cleaning up its act, not free speech in democracy dying a death.

Last edited by uziq (2021-01-13 02:28:24)

i do think the tech companies are too big and too influential, i have said this many times here before, and for similar reasons i hugely restrict my own usage of them and haven't been involved in the now hugely politicized facebook or twitter feed universe for 5+ years.

hearing it coming from you after you've denigrated them as echo-chambers full of lesbian woke trans activists is pretty funny, though.

there are even some people who would propose nationalizing and taking over the social networks, and considering them as a public good.

the power of the social network companies is a pressing problem for all sorts of reasons. the amount of 'soft power' the US has in places like india, for instance, where facebook is THE de facto tool of choice for just about every day-to-day interaction, is huge. facebook could turn off its services in india and it would be like detonating an EMP bomb over the country.

the number of times i have linked some thread on twitter here that had some interesting commentary or critique, and you have shot it down as 'woke twitter bs' or whatever, is hilarious. now it's the cornerstone of democracy and the marketplace of ideas, the great athenian forum ... hahaha.

whereas:
a) social media platforms want to do things without any of the traditional restrictions and regulations other groups that normally do those things are subject to.
b) social media platforms have a problematic grip on the attentions of too many people.
c) you still do not need a social media platform to express your opinion.

it's a way to reach many people, sure, but not the only way. being banned by twitter is not the same thing as chopping off someone's fingers and bolting a ball gag to their face. abide by the rules of the platform as they're free to make them.

trump got special treatment because, well, he's the president. forget stupid twitter bans, he's slipped out of legal trouble on numerous occasions.

why does one need to connect with the world population? even a politician?

how did politicians connect with their bases before, i don't know, 2015? was representative politics essentially flawed and rubbish before tweeting was a thing? what happened to town halls, drop-in surgeries, letters, parliamentary sessions, state media?

why is twitter suddenly the Most Important Thing Ever and an authoritarian dystopic nightmare?

seems to me the new social media ecology is not suitable for matters of high state and serious importance. we should have never descended to this level, anyway, with populist demagogues live-tweeting their every passing thought to a rabid base of followers. that's not the way to conduct responsible, level-headed politics in an advanced democracy.

you use the analogy of a 'forum' repeatedly: well the roman fora weren't where matters of state and official politics were decided. it was the space for open debate and discussion amongst the populace. politicians have nothing to do with it.

Last edited by uziq (2021-01-13 05:29:33)

Social Media was great before boomers showed up. I fondly remember the days of teens posting ratchet crap to their myspace. Now a lot of social media is politics. I put people on mute if they get too political. This is doubly so if you are a right winger. I am not going to let my social media be held hostage by Trump propaganda. Facebook is supposed to be the place where you keep your old hookups and crushes on the back burner.

^ very correct reading.

i mean, america as a whole is a very young and credulous body-politic. it is still incredibly evangelical and millenarian in outlook. we've all read the much-recycled statistics about how many americans believe in angels being real. the QAnon eschatology is just re-heated jesus freak stuff, just like the 'millennium bug' was an hysterical technoid fantasy of the same. a large part of the american population are just primed and ready for this Revelations-type stuff.

Last edited by uziq (2021-01-13 08:16:41)

call of duty reality.

it's a perfect illustration. a bunch of people fawning over a military vet navy SEAL and singling out a working-class woman of colour for their odium.

AOC really seems to terrify the Jays of this world. an intelligent, eloquent, self-determined young woman, wow!

let's worship the fat-necks from the military instead! HOOAH!

I feel like people trying to hype someone as the "Republican answer to AOC" are missing why people like her. People don't just like her because she is pleasant to look at and good at social media. A lot of people like her because she advocates for policies that people think will improve their lives. A Republican by virtue of their political beliefs will be unable to win over those people even if they looked like a chubby Metal Gear Solid character.

Sarah Palin was received with probably as many or more Republican hubba hubbas as the patronizing offers of "oh, she's a smart cookie." The criteria for a Republican AOC is of course going to hinge on this.

i honestly see nothing radical about AOC's agenda. she would be considered a mainstream politician in much of europe.