I’m sorry but this isn’t Reddit, you can’t just claim a platform was specifically built for terrorism because you’re upset.
It has definitely attracted an alt-right crowd, but “specifically built to enable terrorism” is some ridiculous cable-news-level propaganda.
I’d much rather this conversation be about free speech and where lines can be drawn — and it bothers me that platforms can be taken down everywhere because of an unrelated group that happened to use them for something horrible. What about Signal? It’s been getting lots of popularity recently — what if it comes out that the terrorists are on Signal now, and there’s nothing they can do to be moderated because of the encryption. Will Signal be taken down for refusing to add a backdoor?
If you build a platform specifically to house/attract people who were banned from typical platforms because they had a tendency towards promoting violence, then I would argue that you are very much enabling (possibly even encouraging) their behavior. I believe that is a pretty logical sequence, and a clear line to draw.
There are very few people who earnestly want an unmoderated place of discourse, because those serve very little functional purpoae. Eventually most people will find something either irrelevant to their interests or personally repugnant presented to them and will go back to a place where there is some degree of moderation in place so that they can consistently find thing that interest and engage them. Why are you on HN and not one of these wholly unmoderated forums? Even curation of topics is a form of moderation, not to mention HN's strict approach to actually thoughtful commentary. The people who earnestly want a wholly unmoderated space are increasingly likely, depending on their desire for it, to be one of those people engaging in something so boorish that it got them removed from moderated spaces.
Furthermore, there is no small amount of irony in you saying you'd rather talk about free speech right after telling someone what they can or cannot claim.
> there is no small amount of irony in you saying you'd rather talk about free speech right after telling someone what they can or cannot claim.
You can't make those claims and expect people to take you seriously without backing them up.
> There are very few people who earnestly want an unmoderated place of discourse, because those serve very little functional purpoae.
Do you mean unmoderated or simply moderated to your specific standards?
Parler was never unmoderated.
You are defending deplatforming, while simultaneously telling people to go to different platforms if they want different standards of moderation. Do you see how this doesn't work?
You're right, it's not Reddit, and "because you're upset" would take it in that direction. Let's not.
> it bothers me that platforms can be taken down everywhere because of an unrelated group that happened to use them for something horrible
Does it bother you that many people are calling for exactly that wrt Facebook right now? I just checked comment history and saw no evidence of that, but I figured I'd ask instead of pretending to be psychic.
> Will Signal be taken down for refusing to add a backdoor?
I don't think anyone, including Apple or Google, considers Signal to be in the same category that requires moderation. Why not? Because there's this commonly applied but never defined distinction between public and private communication. Facebook is considered public, even though some communications there can be private. Signal is considered private, even though you can form pretty large groups of people who are nearly (but not completely) strangers. I wish someone would codify the difference, and its implications wrt moderation/takedown requirements. The lack of clarity around such issues is why both posters and platforms can claim immunity while toxic content spreads.
It has definitely attracted an alt-right crowd, but “specifically built to enable terrorism” is some ridiculous cable-news-level propaganda.
I’d much rather this conversation be about free speech and where lines can be drawn — and it bothers me that platforms can be taken down everywhere because of an unrelated group that happened to use them for something horrible. What about Signal? It’s been getting lots of popularity recently — what if it comes out that the terrorists are on Signal now, and there’s nothing they can do to be moderated because of the encryption. Will Signal be taken down for refusing to add a backdoor?