Big Tech Taking Advantage of a "Tragedy"

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Which is why I don't use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, or a whole host of sites. But AOL has already done that. Didn't work out too well for them. As far as publishing information, you don't need any of these sites to do that.

But as far as "controlling" what information we have available to us, they don't care as long as it is addictive. Their algorithms already point us to more and more extreme information. Do a search and click and more similar information will be presented. Start down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and and will get more and more extreme content. These social media companies did not grow because they wanted to control content, they grew because they didn't. Now we have Q anon members of Congress. We had people turning up to pizza joints with guns because the internet said Hilary Clinton was run a pedophile ring out of it. And look at the extreme sources members use at WP to support their own crazy conspiracies.

With power comes responsibility. Information is power. Look how Fox News uses disinformation to run their business. They make tons of cash and they don't have to be held accountable.

See, you're actually going in the opposite direction here. I'm saying they're going to start censoring things that may seem innoculous now, or silencing people they don't like. You're heading in the opposite direction on the spectrum into flat out criminality and trying to equate it.

Yes, child pornography and snuff films are highly illegal.

I'm talking about words. Ideas. And the idea that speech and print must be controlled before allowing the peasantry (that being us) to read or write them.



I would start with Google. Break it up into a series of smaller holding companies, allowing others to compete. I avoided Apple phones because it's all Apple-controlled. I find Android phones are effectively Google phones. Everything suggests you use the Google app. You can work around that, but it's difficult. It would be nice if Android simply had a generic Android app store that made no suggestions on which apps can and can't be downloaded, a choice now made by a powerful third party.

Any competitors to any of the major players shouldn't be deliberately blocked or barred. Twitter wants to ban some people. These larger companies (Google and Apple) are hiding competition to Twitter alternatives. Let the people decide. Don't tell them they can't visit a website because the competitor they play ball with might not like its users.

Nor do I, but I've realized how important these websites can be in reporting the daily news at this era in history.


AOL was a whole other thing. It belonged to a different era of dial-up before everything became high-speed fiber-optic cable or satellite Internet.


I disagree. It's the "main" sites where the masses get their information from. If these main sites are going to broad-brush ban content and people they don't like for whatever reason, then I'm worried about who controls what information we can/can't access (despite some weirdos out in the general populace). Like, Orson Wells may have been a bit irresponsible for his radio hoax in the 1930s, but I don't think he's entirely to blame for the people who showed up to a cornfield with guns ready to battle aliens. And that was a joke presented as fact, different situation. What we're seeing is control of opinionated content. It troubles me.


Agreed, which is why I'm concerned about POWERFUL players censuring and controlling information, and getting approval to filter information allegedly in the name of the 'for the public good.'


Not a fan of that network, but it seems no different from the rest. The others put liberal slants on things, Fox is more conservative (like AM radio). From a business perspective, they're the "detractor." Content-wise, it's all the same as far as I can see.

But those are major news networks to which we, the commoners have no access. It's fear them not even allowing us the Internet. And my fellow peasants seem to be applauding this.

So you seem to agree an open and unregulated internet is dangerous. You also don't want regulation. What is your solution?

Last edited by Jiheisho on 10 Jan 2021, 1:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

What about people talking about child porn, like just putting up words that one could use to find illegal photos and movies. Should that be allowed? Or just the ideas that of how children "like" what is done to them.

Perhaps it looks like the opposite direction, but I think that there is a bit of a thin line between the people being censored and criminality. Spreading misleading information and telling people to take part in acts of violence or terrorism should be illegal.




Everything suggests to use Google because the Google search engine is the most effective. A search engine that allows me to quickly swap between general searches, image searches, picture searches and maps. Said maps that were a heavy investment thing that allows one to look at even what the street is due to 360 degree cameras. It has been very helpful before when I had to do research that required me to search specific kinds of businesses, see what their buildings were like and take down other information. I would rather have these features work together rather than have to go to several different sources where I can have the map and search engine work alongside each other.

Maybe there is something to say about YouTube being bought by Google, but as a general practice both Google and YouTube are such a fundamental part. Other platforms are free to do better, but Bing is not there, no video sharing sites meet my needs, and again Parler is made by reactionaries that were too toxic for other platforms. Parler is not an innocent victim.

But I am not even saying there are no possible examples. Vaush for example was banned from Twitch because he dared to criticise Palestine, something that was more in line with actions of Trump's government, rather than some mysterious cabal. Again, the real threats of unlawful restrictions are going to come from pressures of governments, not from tech companies that for some nefarious reason single out reactionaries because of some grand agenda.

Homophobes are getting de-platformed because they are horrible to gay people, not because they are a free thinker that must be kept in check for a master plan.

I believe that things like freedom of speech do not extend to cases like yelling fire in a crowded theatre, things where people can make a strong prediction that their words might make people act out in ways that get people hurt. The truth is that a lot of these people being "censored" are essentially doing that. They are doing things like saying that the election was stolen and implying that someone has to go do something, that something being an act of violence.

Perhaps your argument is against who gets to decide that, but someone has to decide that there is a line at some point. If there is an unjust example of censoring, then bring it to the plaza of public discussion, a lot of content creators I follow often face things like copyright strikes and demonetization, things that come from discussing media and other things like refuting the terrible nature of purity culture. You are free to mention their cases for a terrible trend, if their views can be defended.

^^^to the both of you:

I think illegal content is just that, illegal. And there are laws against those things. The actual governments and their law say they're illegal. Mainly child pornography and snuff films. Same thing as ransomeware attacks and hacking, these are actual "things" or actions. Again, I'm specifically talking words.

And that's the thing. The government didn't say it was illegal to speak your political minds, the forum did. And while I'd agree that a small forum like this one can have it's own rules of engagement and terms of service, I believe when any ONE forum becomes big enough to have this kind of persuasion (and other tech giants are favoring said forum), then something must be done. We agree on this.

Your responses have been to silence and censure anyone or anything these power Tech companies see fit. I take the opposite approach. These companies wield too much power. Censorship is not the answer. Trustbusting is.

Yes, regulate the Internet by having the government go after the big "tech giants," NOT by allowing the corporations themselves to police policy. My whole post has been about corporatocracy, not any one political belief.

But how does simply breaking up the companies control content? Because they have a great deal of power, but don't seem to want to control content--the reason we are here.

Okay, we'll go back to Trump...again. Trump incited a riot, IN PERSON, with a group of people physically PRESENT. Agreed. Same as someone physically walking into a crowded theater and yelling "FIRE" in person. To say printed words are comparable is scary and makes me think that you, without knowing it, are in the book-burning club. Seriously. There's a lot of stuff you might not like to hear. Free speech means not being silenced because it offends some (regardless of the topic, I am not just talking Trump and want to move beyond him already. He's being used as the "tragedy" because people are still hung-up on him...as I keep seeing in this thread).



I disagree with their claims, but respect their right to state their beliefs about an election being stolen. I don't think they should ever be held accountable for actions of crazy people citing they acted because of what they thought was implied. I DO NOT BLAME JD SALINGER FOR JOHN LENNON'S ASSASSINATION nor think Catcher in the Rye or any of his works should be burned because one guy did something crazy-stupid.



I'm trying to bring it to a plaza, however small, known as Wrong Planet. There is indeed a line. It is moving more and more into traditionally (and rightfully) free territory, as I've been saying. You guys keep citing things that are way over the line...like snuff/child porn. I'm not even debating those things. Yet you keep going further back in the line to justify its encroachment.

Breaking up companies prevents that ONE market-cornering company from controlling which content they do and don't want shared. We're moving in the direction of censorship.

By the way, what country are you from?

Well, I believe that the ones who should get to decide what should be allowed on the platform are the people themselves, barring objections by the government. And I don't think the majority of people on these platforms want calls to arm by a man who was in power and does not want to lose his power, or even be fact checked.

I am sure that you understand that theatrically Nazis should not be given a platform to spread their messages of hate.

This comes back to the ideals of free speech and who controls what can and can't be said. I'm not surprised an Australian wouldn't fully understand this. But I don't care. I still have some of that American civics class in me and am amazed at what I'm seeing.

Has anyone in this thread googled into Facebook's investors?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Q-Tel

So, you think the idea of written words being comparable to in person speaking is ridiculous, but your entire claim is about these platforms being essentially the public form and thus all speech should be allowed. It is a bit of a contradiction that you think these words have as little power to not be like spoken language, but that these spaces should be protected as if they are such places anyway.




You don't think people should be held responsible for the actions that they primed in others to perform. Alex Jones is one such example of a person who you could directly link to the actions of people did for things like the Pizzagate scandal and the harassment of parents whos kids were killed in a massacre because he told people it was fake. Alex Jones has only got away with it so far because he somehow convinced a court that his character was all an act, when really it should be obvious it is not. Thus why Alex Jones has been kicked off of platforms that know how dangerous he is.




Perhaps they are extreme, but I think it does to show that there are things that certainly should not be allowed. What examples do you have of things that are rightfully free territory that is being trodden on, because I can give examples that have been traditionally wrongfully trodden on, that are only now being given some freedom. It is all a part of that moving line. As being gay has become allowed, being anti-gay would get pushed away. There are such things as negative rights, where the rights for some things can interfere with the greater rights of another, such as the right to have a slave interferes with someone's right to not be one.

Why would be being Australian mean that I would not understand?

I am not sure you understand what "freedom of speech" fully entails. I would like for you to point to the time when free speech worked as it should. Is it when people could be arrested for talking about communism, fighting for equal rights, fired from a job for talking about gay people, and so on.

I can't say I agree. First off, "anti-Trumpism", if that can even be considered a coherent collective, is, by its very nature, the antithesis of a cult. Secondly, who's being silenced? The orange ape got banned from Twitter and Facebook, but both sites explained why they banned him. Can you point out a case of someone being silenced without cause?