Facebook Censors the Left

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We weren't arguing.

My mistake, then.  I'm sorry.

^ After reading this: Apparently, after becoming a moderator, I'm not supposed to be a member with a human face any more. Just a uniform.
Sad, but maybe that's how it works.

What I have tried to imply is that all people in authority have their figurative "finger on the 'Smite' button", and that anyone openly disagreeing with a person in authority risks being 'Smote'.

People in authority include, but are not limited to: parents, teachers, coaches, drill instructors, police officers, judges, D&D dungeon masters, and website moderators -- arguing with any of them will always get results, just not always the result you need ... or want.

This is just good, common sense.

The problem with Facebook is relatively new although not unique - ie. the task is so large that they can't staff for it and so they have the tuning of algorithms banning people 'without right to appeal' on the other side. The Jim Rutt / Stoa discussion (and his banning) seems to have a lot to do with the algorithms showing holes in the understandings that their programmers have of what's actually happening. As this continues we'll likely keep seeing out of the way groups who are completely anodyne (like Game B) having their moment with the algorithms and strange patterns of account suspension or cancellation.

It's very science fictiony when I think of how many different authors, projecting their thoughts on problems of the future, trying to logically grapple with machines and robots that were obtuse enough to make us want the bureaucrats they replaced back.

The group whose page Facebook shut down was the UK's Socialist Worker Party. It's more likely that Facebook shut down the SWP's page for their criticisms of Israel than for their support for BLM.

The following article from an apparently far-left website might shed some light

I have always had problems with computers because computers cannot understand nuances or that there are different issues out there. I prefer to talk to a real live human. Now they use a algorithms to ban people and this is annoying because then you have to wait to get to a real live human or figure out a way to contact the website like find customer service or a phone number or see if you can file an appeal because then you get a real live human to look at it. But you gotta wait days and sometimes your request can be ignored and it could be because they are short staffed or backed up.

Don't get me started on voice menus lol.

So a couple other problems this opens up:

1) Ban without review means your out of the system without recourse.
2) Just deeply considering how power generally works in human interactions (especially group vs. group), when it's not a competence hierarchy its often about theft of personal opportunity by various games of hidden cost and it's about figuring how to take things away from people who are gullible or who can't assess those hidden costs (for example with Facebook - it's free because you are the product, your information gets collected and farmed out to advertisers).

One of the problems with being on Facebook is just how much leverage there is in their direction and then, by convenience and being 'free', if it becomes the de facto commons as they've herded public discourse to places like Facebook and Twitter on convenience much like most online commerce has accrued at Amazon. They can ban all sorts of people - with plausible deniability (which is the gold-standard in corruption) that the algorithms aren't perfect. It's not so much a question of whether there's a conspiracy theory, more like it's a golden opportunity and if any political party or governmental three-letter organization can use that to control public discourse why would they pass that up. The trouble is - if they aren't yet they likely will be in the near future.

We really need to figure out how to do our commons differently because, at least for now, it seems we've rolled ourselves into a bit of a trap.

I'm also not suggesting that people don't have individual responsibility to watch their own backs or to size up the situations they get themselves into (although sadly - those who do can typically count on being quite lonely in their effort). The student debt crisis is an even darker story but similar in that a kid who ends up signing for a $200K loan for an ivy league degree in underwater basket weaver and doesn't take that dollar amount seriously enough is at fault, but at the same time if the student loan system is also doing what it can to prey on late teens - that also seriously needs to be addressed, particularly before it ends up wrecking our economy a few decades down the road because so many would-be entrepreneurs are single at 40 and living with their parents because they're still paying off college tuition.

What I am trying to do is at least help people frame the problem adequately and part of that involves discussing these angles for anyone whose not familiar with them.

It's sad that you can react so hysterically to Jimmy Dore merely talking to people. Leftists shouldn't even talk to someone like Tucker Carlson now?

And as for the Boogaloo Boys, they are a group of anti-government libertarians who turned up to the BLM protests to protect the BLM protestors against the police. They are such a strange bunch, appearing almost out of nowhere, that it's almost hard to believe the FBI didn't have a hand in their creation. But whatever they are, they are plainly not the "white supremacists" that certain sections of the mainstream media make them out to be, and that you apparently believe them to be. And even if they were, so what if Jimmy Dore spoke to them? Two or three decades ago, merely talking to people like that would hardly have provoked the sort of hysterical reaction you are displaying here.

It is not so much as just talking to someone like Tucker or a Boogaloo Boy, it is doing so without challenging them. It is legitimising Tucker's point of view, accepting the narrative he is putting forward at face value as the same one that Jimmy is advocating for, when Tucker has a long history of dishonest arguments that hide his own agenda. He is a man that was practically acting as Donald Trump's personal propagandist, doing things like spreading fearmongering of caravans. And on this subject is wrongly attributing the bans of Right wing figures as some sort of Left wing monopoly of social media.

And the same with the Boogaloo Boy, it was not so much that he just talked to him, but he accepted everything the guy said without challenging on anything at all, such as that they were pro something when a little bit of research shows this guy really was not. Characterising with him that these are just freedom lovers of all kind that will protect the BLM protesters, when their actual desire right in their name is that they actually want another (violent) revolution, and their actual goal in taking part in the protests was to try and drum up as much friction as they could. Other protesters even tried to get rid of the Boogaloo Boys from their protests because their whole thing about showing up armed and such was to try and provoke the police into cracking down on the protests, for their goal of creating national tension for their idea of another civil war. Some research into the guy Jimmy interviewed shows that he really was not a supporter of BLM. They wrap themselves in so much in irony and internet meme culture to hide what their actual intentions, characteristic of something from 4chan, that Jimmy's readiness to play into his narrative doing exactly what they want to hide their alt-right goals.

Jimmy practically could have just created a pipeline from anti-liberals that follow him, straight into the alt-right. Something that should be understood by listening to the people who have said how they fell into the alt-right and somehow managed to escape it.

It's amazing the disinformation regarding section 230 and the publisher\platform distinction which exists...


Source: https://nypost.com/article/what-is-section-230-and-why-was-it-created/

In simple terms, a "platform" is simply a neutral (ideally) site (or service) which "hosts" or allows others to "publish" material on it, with minimal restrictions (witin "acceptable standards", removing illegal material, etc.), and as such is not liable for what 3rd parties may publish on the platform.

A publisher, on the other hand, can be held liable for what they publish, and are generally differentiated from a "platform" where they produce their own content and\or actively edit\moderate 3rd party items.

Sites such as Facebook and Twitter, while initially "platforms" in that they permitted "anyone" to post, are slowly moving (have moved?) into publisher territory with their recent editing of posts (appending "warnings", hiding content), which puts them at greater risk of losing the immunity they have under section 230... SCOTUS looks like it may be inclined to possibly address this at some point in the future:

Source: https://lawstreetmedia.com/tech/scotus-rejects-malwarebytes-certiorari-justice-thomas-invites-section-230-case/

Indeed, it is amazing. For example, you have tried to claim that the distinction exists by citing a right-wing tabloid, and even that says that “platforms” are allowed to moderate their content, and yet you still maintain that they are not allowed to moderate their content.

Why did you bother citing the NYP article if it explicitly contradicts your position? You even quoted the section that contradicts your position, and yet stated your position anyway!

No, Twitter and Facebook moderating their content is neither new, nor something which “moves them towards being a publisher”. It is a right which the law specifically grants to platforms. Even your own tabloid article says as much.