Recovery time objective missed by four weeks, but Parler is back online Social network Parler is back online, five weeks after Amazon Web Services told the service company it had breached its terms of service, and therefore shut down its servers. AWS declined to serve the social network in the days after the riot at the US Capitol, saying Parler users' posts "clearly encourage and incite violence …
I predict very little success for Parler - the unwashed masses are still hanging around on Twitter, and everyone else who got banned or was on Parler when it went down has moved to Gab, which has been around longer and has proven to be more resilient, as they actually own all the infrastructure.
Parler made it's name due to someone desperately requiring an alternative to Twitter/FB and the Cancel Culture.
Unfortunately for them Amazon etc decided it was against their money maing policies to host them. So they got cancelled... Ironic that that what what Parler were fighting against...
The Twitterati will continue as usual but I get the impression that there is now a growing push against the Cancel Culture, I think intelligent people are waking up and starting to reject the tiny minority who use very loud bullying tactics. Equilibrium is slowly being restored (at least in the UK and a little bit in the US )...
Again this will go against Parler as it's raison d'etre is becoming a little bit less usefull...
Anyway, I am glad that they are back, simply for the reason that it's important for all that alternative solutions do indeed exist..
Twitter/FB win whichever way the pendulum swings...
Nobody is saying that right-wingers aren't allowed to express a point of view.
However, when you degenerate things down to blatant threats of violence, this is going beyond simply expressing a "point of view". Companies are under no obligation to give you a platform from which to threaten violence against other people.
Parler were given numerous warnings about unacceptable conduct before having their hosting pulled. This isn't "bullying", it's simply enforcing your T&Cs - terms that Parler were well aware of when they signed up with AWS in the first place.
Free speech also means the freedom not to say or publish things you don't agree with. Forcing Amazon to host Parler would violate their free speech rights.
So just like that you've made it harder for gay weddings to source cakes despite current actual law that disagrees with you?
Homosexuals are a protected minority. If you sell wedding cakes you cannot refuse to sell purely because the purchasers are homosexuals.
Republicans are not a protected minority. You can legally exercise your freedom of association by not selling to or hiring Republicans.
Evangelicals are a protected minority. You cannot refuse them business purely because they are evangelicals. You can refuse to host them every time the make death threats or plan violence.
It isn't.
You can be as prejudiced as you like against Republicans, Democrats and members of Green Party (if you can find one in the USA). Some Republican tried to sue his employer because (according to him) he was fired for being a Republican. The case died promptly because that is a perfectly legitimate reason for firing someone.
"he was fired for being a Republican. The case died promptly because that is a perfectly legitimate reason for firing someone."
Cue the backlash against the blatantly corrupt Republicans in five, four, three...
[or as Trump once was famous for saying: you're fired]
Isn't it kind of problematic for a democracy if you can't be excluded on lots of sensible reasons, but you *can* be excluded on who you vote (and advocate) for? Doesn't that create problems for democratic expression and formation by allowing the corporate "voice" to significantly impact the public debate? This is basically saying that the free speech rights of Amazon outweigh the free speech rights of Parler's 15 million users. How is that democratic?
"Isn't it kind of problematic for a democracy if you can't be excluded on lots of sensible reasons, but you *can* be excluded on who you vote (and advocate) for? Doesn't that create problems for democratic expression and formation by allowing the corporate "voice" to significantly impact the public debate?"
This has always concerned me. Why should a left-winger get fired for working for a right-winger boss or vice versa? If they try and peddle their opinions in work time to customers or when it's been made very plain "no political talk" then maybe there's a case, but otherwise it should come under unfair dismisal.
In the UK the law is the same, but can be challenged at a tribunal:
"Political beliefs and groups
It is not automatically unfair to dismiss someone because of their political beliefs or political groups they belong to, but a tribunal might find this unfair."
Source: https://www.gov.uk/dismiss-staff/unfair-dismissals
This is basically saying that the free speech rights of Amazon outweigh the free speech rights of Parler's 15 million users. How is that democratic?
Free speech is not absolute; the freedom is to not have your speech be impinged on by government legislation. Amazon exercising their free speech to not host Parler has not impinged on Parler's users right to free speech.
It has impinged their ability to have a platform, but no-one has a right to a platform.
If free speech is a right in itself considered in isolation, that makes sense. But if you're considering free speech as a useful principle necessary to democratic decisionmaking, then it matters a lot less *who* is the reason why your freedom of speech is abridged.
The baker's didn't have to make the cake because they said it was against their religious beliefs.
That was piting one constitutional right against another.
The whinny minority folks were told to go find someone else to bake there cake, like they should have done in the first place.
if we are speaking about UK and USA court cases and 'gay wedding cakes' - in both instances cases went to the respective supreme court. In both cases the ruling was that a private business can't be forced to provide a cake with a message on it that they found offensive. So not selling me a cake you would sell anyone else because you don't like my sexual politics is against the law, as it should be. But I can't order you to sell me a cake with a slogan that offends you - which is good, because I don't want to have to sell you a cake that espouses things offensive to me.
But typical right-wing snowflake claiming (falsely) to be a persecuted minority while propping up the golf club bar.
No - you are behind the times - the original discoverers of the wild snowflake thought they had identified a new species, and that it was of the sub-genera left (and also young). However more recent studies have found that though there are left wing snowflakes, they are very much a minority. Turns out that by far the largest population of wild snowflakes are more elderly and more right wing than had been thought. You can usually spot them by their distinguishing characteristics of refusing to face reality, living inside media bubbles and whinging about their persecution while being overwhelmingly the most favoured and pampered generation.
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Cancel culture is a company cutting you off when you explicitly break their T&Cs on which their service to you is conditional.
Don't like it, set up a company without those T&Cs. See how long it lasts, before you're having to moderate, cancel accounts in the same way, or sued to oblivion under laws that have existed for decades by facilitating hate speech, etc.
"Cancel culture" is the phrase used by people who expect service from companies who don't want to provide those kind of people with that kind of service, even for money. It's like the playground-phrase used when someone doesn't want to do something stupid in concert with the speaker, so they just call them out as "cancel culture" when in fact the other person just doesn't want to do what you want them to do.
"Cancel culture" used to be called "violation of the terms of service". And the terms of service haven't changed much in decades.
"Cancel Culture" is a label invented by spin doctors and propagandists. It exists to sell the idea that people using collective action to stop them from abusive and often illegal behavior is a violation of the abusers rights. This is especially problematic during a time of deeply entrenched dysfunction in the government, where people can't rely on the government taking prompt of effective action to address problems that they face. Claiming that his is anti-conservative bias is BS, it's being propped up to cover ongoing abusive and often illegal activity that is coming very disproportionately from the right side of the aisle. I say this as a card carrying republican.
The idea that other people and companies are required to cater to and amplify the messages of toxic blowhards has no legal basis in the US system of law. Most of the 1st amendments protections apply to the government, not companies, and not other citizens in that regard. In fact those parties are protected from compelled speech just like everyone else.
The attempts to twist the first into an all encompassing get out of jail card by right wing media and politicians are a legal farce. The jan 6th speech was a prime example. No one stopped idiots like Giuliani from speaking(prior restraint), but they can be held accountable for incitement they committed.
Parler will fail because it's users will refuse to stop committing, endorsing, and inciting illegal activity. That will cause them to get bounced from host to host until they either go out of business or the trolls drive out all the other users and it becomes a dark net site. Sadly this is the life cycle of almost every "Free speech" company. The idea of a for-profit company doing this doesn't have a business model other than fleecing investors and setting a pile of money on fire.
The good news is free speech is still happening online, even if it's on IRC.
"Cancel Culture" is what the right wing used against us until we got too big for them to censor us any more. They invented the letter-writing campaign to the FCC. They invented the Hays Code. They invented the police attacks on LGBTQ people. They invented systemic racism.
And now they've invented the cutesy "Cancel Culture" name when we've turned on them.
Well, they can whine all they want. They're still gonna get canceled. They invented it, but it's now our weapon to be used for good and against hate.
You mean like what right wing media has been doing all these years? Refusing to air facts that oppose their viewpoints, and having paid opinion pieces masquerading as "news".
Besides, January 6th showed everyone around the world how much the right wing favours aggressive cancel culture.
"No "Cancel culture" is a bullying tactic that is used in order to ensure that other points of view are not heard."
I think that depends on who/what is being cancelled. I'm a bit rusty on my history, but the last time the kind of people who say "The Jews will not replace us" were given a platform, it didn't end well?
> No "Cancel culture" is a bullying tactic that is used in order to ensure that other points of view are not heard.
We've heard your point of view, and it sucks goat ass.
Now go cry in a corner about how oppressed you feel because the rest of the world doesn't subscribe to your Neo-Fascist psychosis.
""Cancel culture" is other people exercising their free speech rights to say that they disagree with you."
It's one thing to say "you're an idiot and I utterly disagree with your entire mentality".
It's quite another thing to scream and shout until they person's email decides it's less fuss to ditch that person. That isn't disagreement, it's bullying. And if you really want to guide a wayward person around to your way of thinking, I really don't see how trashing their career is going to make them (or anybody who has similar opinions) want to consider any other point of view.
Disagreement is a fact of life. Career sabotage is an entirely different proposition, and cancel culture is all about the "cancelling". Clue in the name.
Has this ever happened before? We should be told. I can't believe that anyone ever had their career ruined because of religion or race or sexual orientation or politics? Whatever next - vetting employees and black-listing them for trade union membership perhaps?
If corporations profess that they are 'morally' obliged to put the interests of shareholder and profit above society and any other value, they shouldn't be surprised when society uses the weapons of boycott against them - after all it's just the free market, working freely.,
Firing someone because of race or sexual orientation is wrong because that is not something the employee can change.
Firing someone because of their political opinions is legal. If someone brings their political opinions to work and that causes problems, by all means try explaining but if the disruption is persistent go straight to "your fired" as you have legitimate cause. In theory people can change the political opinions. It may be a rare occurrence but it really has happened.
This goes double if the 'job' is you-tube pundit. Google does not even have employer responsibilities. It has terms of service. Google can apply those terms unevenly at a whim. Basing you career on you-tube has risks that are well publicised. You accept those risks if you choose that career. Google has no duty to provide a career for people who (ab)use their service.
That's still a dodge, peoples accounts aren't shut down just because of whining excessively, it's often after someone has crossed the established lines of threats, abuse, and hate speech, or things like spreading dangerous misinformation about the current pandemic. This stuff kills people. Not even in the same league as what conservatives are holding up when the wail about Cancel Culture.
That's not to say FB especially isn't trigger happy blocking accounts, but that's hit plenty of non-celebrity accounts left, right, and center. FB sucking isn't a justification so selectively protect the far-right misinformation machine. And yeah, large numbers of conservatives have been blocked because large numbers of conservatives have been mislead into spewing dangerous and occasionally insane conspiracy theories. Plenty of those accounts were also in breech of the ToS for other reasons, like being Bots or breaking the spamming rules.
As an aside, the people stoking the Alt-Right rage machine don't have your best interests in mind. If you are spreading their message, they are using you as cannon fodder. You will end up eating the consequences while the cheerleaders point the finger at you when the heat comes. Just look at the fallout from DC. If you want to help the conservative cause, stay on the right side of the facts and fight for issues with real substance. There are plenty of them.
Coring out the issue of free speech to make a coat to cover up lies, disinformation, and conspiracy theories isn't helping. The conservative movement was doing far better before it became a social media driven propaganda machine. We just need to go back to being, oh you know, ACTUAL conservatives. That includes holding Justice as an important issue and holding people accountable.
"Cancel Culture" is... simply a phrase to be avoided because just using the phrase puts you in an instant flame war. It should specifically be avoided when discussing actual deplatforming unless you are deliberately trying to to alienate or troll the very people you are trying to convince.
I mean, I can't believe I'm writing this but...starting to get the idea that some of my friends don't seem to understand that communication starts with words that have an agreed-upon meaning.
Cancel Culture
AKA the freedom of speech that other people have to tell you to stop being objectionable.
File alongside "Conservative voices are being silenced".
Dan55
So these people never got cancelled.
https://www.rt.com/usa/492454-joe-rogan-canceled-again/
Joe Rogan
JK Rowlings
Chris Prat
Gina Carano
Jordan Peterson
Brett Weinstein
Simply because their views don't correspond to the Hard Left's current agenda.
Oh and here is another , a very ironic example due to the fact that the reporter, just like yourself, claimed initially that Cancel Culture doesn't exist
https://dailycaller.com/2021/02/10/the-guardian-columnist-nathan-robinson-fired-tweeting-joke-us-aid-israel/
Yes, most of these people have the capacity to rebound because they are finacially solid, but when this happens to less successfull people their lifes can be destroyed.....
Presumably you call it the Hard Left because you jumped out the Overton window a while back. But anyway, I'll humour you, please tell me what the Hard Left's current agenda is.
Thank you for not marking up your HTML, it means I'm not tempted to copy and paste the addresses of sketchy websites to my browser's address bar to open them. I'm as likely to open RT or Daily Caller as I am Breitbart.
So you think that the list of people that I cited weren't deplateformed or cancelled ? They are only a subset of what I can think of from the top of my head.
I don't personaly agree with all that this list of people have to say but by not giving them a voice, it simply means that I refuse to evolve..
"You cannot have that aspect of free speech and also the protection afforded a common carrier. The two are mutually exclusive."
Let's say I agree with that. No problem. The people choosing not to provide services aren't common carriers. AWS is not a common carrier. Youtube is not a common carrier. If I have the power to invite people to speak somewhere, I am not a common carrier. Few of these places are common carriers. You want to argue common carrier, find someone who was put offline by one, which means an ISP or telco, and wasn't disconnected for breaking a law. If you only want to argue common carrier because you're failing to get agreement otherwise, then it's not helping you if you haven't considered what common carriers are.
Nobody has to give you a voice. You can stand on a soapbox on Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park and scream into a megaphone all you want but nobody has to stand there in front of you and listen.
If nobody is giving someone a voice, perhaps their voice isn't worth the time of day or is objectionable?
"The right to platform only those people you agree with is a free speech right."
That's closer to Propoganda platform than a Free Speech platform.
"If nobody is giving someone a voice, perhaps their voice isn't worth the time of day or is objectionable?"
That's for for the audience to decide not the platform..
If the major platforms simply become Echo Chambers then what purpose do they serve other than as means for the owner to distribute the self interests or idealogies of whoever provides the finance. Fundemantally the opposite of what Free Speech should have to offer ?
Social networks already an echo chamber because they prize engagement above all else so the algorithm shows you things it thinks you already like.
That aside, they still should have the final say on what views are acceptable and what aren't as they are private businesses and they can decide if they want to publish certain views or decide not to. If they decide that they don't want to be a cesspit like Gab, they should not be obliged to be one and people should not be obliged to use a social media network which is a cesspit like Gab.
what purpose do they serve other than as means for the owner to distribute the self interests or idealogies of whoever provides the finance
So, er, like all forms of media, then? Well, at least you've got there in the end.
In summary, private organisations are not forced to give anyone a platform, and people are not forced to listen to them. If nobody wants to listen to you, tough luck.
Now perhaps the Tory party's attempts to force a platform for only certain views is more worrying, wouldn't you agree?
That's closer to Propoganda platform than a Free Speech platform.
Both Khaptain and the SkySilk CEO fall in to the same ideological hole when discussing free speech; the first amendment does not grant universal free speech, and it was not meant to. It only protects your speech from being legislated against by government.
If you publish a newspaper, then you get to decided what goes in it; you aren't required to publish letters from people you don't want to. If you run a web host, you get to decide what customers you are prepared to host .That is free speech.
Free speach is not a "be fair to everyone" situation. SkySilk may think that by allowing Parler to be hosted by them, they can be in a position where they are neither condoning nor condemning the content on Parler, but (free speech again) its their choice whether to host this content, which is de facto condoning the content.
And our own conservative media outlets aren't the worst offenders of blocking opposing views? Ditto for conservative controlled forums and social media. Try to support the claim that /r/thedonald wasn't the pinnacle of cancel culture by blocking any account that made a single post they didn't agree with.
This tempest in a teacup is just because the most toxic elements of the conservative movement are constantly blaming the left for the the same stuff they are themselves guilty of. Literally branding anti-fascists as fascists takes some stones and an unhealthy dose of Orwellian double think. Anti-fascist rioters and looters are bad because they are rioters or looters. That does not make them fascists. This attack on "Cancel Culture" is just cover to suppress other peoples rights to object to an extremist agenda from the wing-nut side of the party.
As one of the endangered species of conservative trying to address these issues I'm sick of chasing my own side around with a mop and bucket cleaning up the mess.
Don't like it? Start your own platform...
Oh, Parler did. What's the problem?
If you go to a somewhere in real life and I spout abuse at you for your ideology/sexuality/colour/creed or maybe I'm a SJW hassling you for a perceived infraction and not being 100% woke, you have two options
1) ask that I be removed form the place (sounds like deplatforming as I have a right to my speech!)
2) go elsewhere - maybe somewhere with better clientele? (better enforced T&Cs, less idiots) - a safe space maybe?
Try the 'how would I like it' test and see if unmoderated hate speech is really what you want.
In real life I could be a 200lb mixed marshal artist who would kick your ass if you retaliate in which case I am a bullying asshole - what is the difference with being an asshole online? Only that you don't need the physical attributes
Probably depends on their employment contract. Most companies try and stay out of their staff's personal life -but contracts of employment frequently have a 'reputation' clause and a 'criminal conviction' clause. Mine does, and if I stood on a soap box and slagged my employer off I imagine it wouldn't end in a handshake from the MD and a gold watch.
I notice your first link is to RT. That is the new name for Russia Today and is state news channel of the Hardest Left country you can find on this planet. You are quite literally echoing the Hard Left's current agenda.
Yet again: your heroes are free to speak. They are not free to shout the message from my bedroom window (or Amazon infrastructure). If any of them try I will exercise my right to freedom of association by showing them the door.
I don't like Cancel Culture. I support free speech, but I believe there need to be some controls. If there weren't, we'd have a lot more wars. I prefer the person speaking to take responsibility for what they say, but some people won't, so I think any platform needs some sort of control to prevent abuse.
I believe that people should have the right to express their beliefs, but others should have the right to question or even disagree with those beliefs , politely. This is where Facebook and Twitter (and presumably Parler, but I never registered for that, so can't verify) fail. I've seen people being threatened with death by people that disagree with them. More often than not, they've been right wing.
The left also do that, but not so much. Their weapon of choice generally appears to be cancelling or deplatfoming people. Note, generally I do disagree with that as well.
All this bullshit about removing statues and monuments to people who did anything remotely bad. We shouldn't be airbrushing them out of history. Teach people about them, and what they did. Don't remove them.
People have argued that Facebook et al have been unduly harsh on the right wing. I'd argue the opposite. Yes, to some extent, I've gone looking for things like Trump, but I've actually had death threats from right wingers on Facebook. Never had anything stronger than an expression of disappointment from a left winger.
You have the constitutional right to prevent Loser Trump from holding a rally in your back garden without your permission. By withholding such permission you are not preventing him from having rallies, only restricting where he can have them. What makes you think it is sane to take that right away from others?
> All this bullshit about removing statues and monuments to people who did anything remotely bad.
> We shouldn't be airbrushing them out of history. Teach people about them, and what they did.
> Don't remove them.
I'm not in favour of removing them from history. How could we learn from their mistakes if we hide them ?
But where they occupy a place of honour, such as the name of a building or a prominently-placed statue, I think it's reasonable to show our disgust by placing them in a museum - an actual repository of history, not an airbrush - rather than in pride of place.
Their work is more problematical, Rowling being a good example. Since her work doesn't, as far as I'm aware, make any comment on trans people I see no reason to cancel that. But it's common to provide a platform for people who have produced well-known and appreciated work : we don't have to do that if it's likely to disseminate unacceptable views.
We deal with Hitler in this way and, by and large, it's successful. We don't ban Mein Kampf - we allow it as an object lesson. We do ban far-right groups who disseminate those views. It hasn't resulted in complete suppression of those groups but they have remained a minority, at least in Europe.
What this ends up saying is : you cannot make simple rules about free speech. It requires thought, judgement and open discussion.
"Cancel culture" is just the latest iteration of the delusional story certain US conservatives tell themselves to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions. They agree to the same rules as everyone else when they sign up for Twitter/FB, immediately proceed to act as if those rules don't apply to them, get banned after multiple warnings, yet somehow it's because they were conservative, not that they were acting like a giant arsehole and repeatedly breaking the rules. They need to STFU, take their own advice about personal responsibility, and then rejoin the rest of us in reality.
The question is how much it matters, really. Any public post on either Parler 2.0 or Gab (and I bet they've added Stormfront in their dragnet now too) will go straight into the data hoover of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.
It might be that Gab has better OpSec than Parler had so the security services may have less data available to them. Though the 70 TB of public data that researchers had safeguarded from Parler before it was taken down should be quite useful to find a link between someone's old account on Parler and their new account on Gab. And considering many of the attackers on January 6th were stupid enough to document and broadcast their actions I suspect many will just have kept their screen name when switching from Parler to Gab.
On top of that, researchers explain the lower levels of interaction on Parler by its policy of banning people whose opinions weren’t right-leaning enough. That makes it a great marketing funnel to find extremists (and there is an argument that that was Parler’s main goal, to create an addressable market for extremist ideas) but there is some evidence that echo chambers reduce interaction. What is there to argue (or troll) if everyone is like-minded already? Quite a chunk of their target audience is active online to “pwn the libs/jews/blacks/gays/whatever” and if a platform filters out those with a different view then there is little to troll. It might lead to more radicalization but not more interaction.
Unless Gab can attract (and keep!) people with a broader range of views than Parler did, it will suffer the same fate of just being an online echo chamber but not a fertile hunting ground for people who are just looking for people to wind up.
And his cultists will follow. He'll need somewhere to play the victim card once he starts getting hit with civil lawsuits from all the cops injured on Jan. 6, and is indicted for attempted election interference in Georgia, and tax/bank fraud in New York, and who knows what all on a federal level.
The day he goes silent on Parler, because he's behind bars where he belongs or too broke to afford a cell phone, will be a great day for America.
Judging from the organization’s name, my guess is that he seeks a constitutional convention per Article V. of the US constitution. (That article provides two methods through which the constitution can be amended; to date, the constitutional convention method has not been used since the constitution’s creation in 1787.)
The word "Patriot" is one of those words that should set off some alarm bells. It's almost 250 years ago since Samuel Johnson said that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" and its use has not improved since then.
It has since been joined by words such as "Freedom" and "Free speech" that almost appear to have taken on a new meaning, sometimes the opposite of the original meaning. There are some good, age old, initiatives that use the word "Freedom" but nowadays when I see a new think tank or organisation using the word freedom in their name or mission it's often meant to curtail someone else's freedom, not give it.
It's a bit like those names of American bills that are put through Congress, they often portray to do the exact opposite from what it says on the tin. "The Defense of Marriage Act" banning a lot of people from getting married...
The word "Patriot" is one of those words that should set off some alarm bells. It's almost 250 years ago since Samuel Johnson said that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" and its use has not improved since then.
As I remember it, it was a comment on scoundrels not on patriotism. (Scoundrels like Pitt the Elder.)
Patriot is what they went back to when Nationalist started to fall flat. Nationalist is worse, but it really doesn't matter what you call it. Fascist propagandists gonna propagandize, and wing-nut militia gonna hate the government.
They could rebrand at the Peaceful Happy Bunny Party, not gonna make them less than 10lbs of horseshit in a 5 pound sack.
But hey, if the word "patriot" is a big enough fig leaf to cover up conspiracy to commit kidnapping, why go to the effort?
The more a particular group, right or left, feels the need to try to claim that they're patriotic or whatever else, the more you can bet they are exactly the opposite of that. The more a group claims to be about free speech and freedom, the more they mean freedom to express only ideas they agree with, and the more they claim to be patriots the more likely they are to be advocating for the violent overthrow of the government. Maybe worst of all, are the groups that claim to want to limit the government, since they're almost always the first ones in line for a government handout the second things go a bit pear shaped, and first to say that the government should be enshrining their particular brand of bigotry and racism into law.
I'm sure that's a sentiment many people will agree with - right up to the moment that they're libelled.
Either speech has consequences - in which case ultimately there is also responsibility - or it doesn't - in which case it's irrelevant whether people are heard.
I guess now it remains to be seen if Parler's plan for volunteer content moderation is enough to stop them eventually being kicked off Skysilk for breach of their T&Cs. As if Skysilk end up getting too many abuse to the hosting provider for illegal content hosted on Skysilk servers that Parler fails to deal with then Skysilk will no doubt decide its not in their interest to carry on hosting them.
On social networks, the only way to judge someone is by their posting history, which is why it's time to start criticising Disqus for allowing its users to hide theirs, and for allowing the sort of language that got Parler into trouble. They also have a sleazy feature to let moderators block posters who they disagree with, such that their comments seems to have been posted, but only the poster can see them. Then of course, the Trump supporting web sites that take advantage of that feature make a big deal about cancel culture! Unsurprisingly, Disqus provides no way to contact them about this.
Disqus still exists? Who knew? I bailed on them years ago. So long ago that my login was a Gmail account, and I haven’t had a Gmail account for a Very Long Time ™. I bailed because I noticed that I was seeing a lot of posts from just a few posters… and that posts refuting those elite few seemed to just vanish softly, silently away. Not just my posts, either, I would see a post and when I came back later it would be gone. But the post it had been a reply to would still be there. And there would be more posts supporting it. I concluded that they weren’t interested in a discussion and left. I did not try to moan about it to the mods; their site, their rules. I did not try to moan about it elsewhere; this is my first and last post on the topic. I just bailed. And I couldn’t go back even if I wanted to, I no longer have that Gmail account. And unlike some, I won’t be generating a new account to try to get around moderation. I just left.
Hmm. Perhaps some might profitably follow my example.
Disqus, as I understand it, doesn't operate as a single social platform, but as a comment box on any one of many Web sites. A problem is that from a commenter's point of view, Discus refers inquiries to site admins, but site admins install Disqus in order to not do any comment admin. This means that if there's an issue, which there is, no one will, ah, discuss it with you, or for instance, tell you where it came from. Oh well.
For instance, setting up with a Yahoo! e-mail account didn't work. I don't know why, but I suspect that Disqus merely ignores Yahoo! but does not tell you so.
Oh, there is an antifa, it's just a lot smaller than people on the right think, and mostly is involved in Doxxing skinheads in the pacific northwest.
All those people in black your freaking out about are just opposition protesters. Just like not every newb in a Guy Fawkes mask was a L337 Anon Haxor back during the Great Recession. When a protest gets big enough, the new just start dressing like crowd they see on TV.
Real Antifa isn't a threat to real conservatives.
Fake Antifa is a paper tiger, used to scare old people and sell yet another lie.
Not remotely a real argument.
We as conservatives need clean up our side, whether or not they do. Our side being accountable isn't dependent on what the other side does. Not that left leaning looters are rioters can(or are) getting a free pass, they are getting jail time. Also keep in mind a bunch of those "black clad looters" were organized crime operations. Ever stopped to wonder why they kept hitting pharmacies night after night, and across state lines?
Stopping the corruption in our side is like cutting out a tumor. If the left doesn't follow suit, they will suffer the same consequences we are now, ending up as a life support system for cancer. That's not a reason for us to destroy the conservative movement by letting it rot from within.
But I'm sure if you ask the cancer it will have a different opinion than me.
Active accounts that cite racism or violence , so why are they OK ?
Ayatollah Incites violence
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/no-twitter-did-not-suspend-ayatollah-khamenei-irans-supreme-leader-656414
BLM incites violence
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blm-accused-of-spreading-hate-in-tweet-on-west-bank-6dbhdcfkk
Your link for BLM very clearly does not say what you say it says. The president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews accused BLM of spreading hatred, not inciting violence - after a BLM twitter feed made comments about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. BLM stand right beside you when they claim they are "gagged of the right to critique Zionism".
You do remember kindergarten don'tt you Khapitain - 'two wrongs don't make a right'? Or maybe that's not coming up till next year once you have the whole shoe lace tying thing sorted.
1. 'BLM' isn't an organisation. It's a decentralized political movement.
2. Antifa similarly is a 'movement' not an organization.
3. The thing about movement's is anyone can use their hashtag and basically say anything they want.
4. There are hotheads in the BLM and Antifa movement's - wow, who would have thought?
5. The opposite of Antifa is fascist.
6. The opposite of Black Lives Matter isn't 'All lives matter'- it's 'Black lives don't matter'
Selfawarewolf much?
Disagreeing with the Israeli policy in Palestine is not the same as being antisemitic, Khameni is not ok, and you shouldn't take what the modern Zionist movement says at face value anymore than Hamas or Hezbollah.
The BLM movement isn't centered on those issues either, they just aren't turning away from the problems they see without speaking about it.
Not really a good faith argument to paint people fighting for equal rights in the US with the Khameni brush is it? Or you know, stop copy and pasting your arguments of a crib sheet and actually think for yourself for bit?
"Oliver Dowden, the Culture Secretary, has invited the leaders of 25 of the country’s leading heritage bodies and charities to a meeting on February 23 to tell them “to defend our culture and history from the noisy minority of activists constantly trying to do Britain down”.
Don't be deceived by this culture war claptrap about censorship. It is being pursued with a parallel effort to force a particular point of view, under threat of having funding removed if the required patriotic propaganda is not disseminated. Removal of funding for views they don't like of course being a form of government censorship. They're proposing removal of funding for student unions that don't allow certain opinions to be expressed at the same time as they propose the removal of funding if the "correct" patriotic opinions are not expressed at museums and other heritage sites.
A source in Oliver Dowden's department, originally cited by the Telegraph and quoted here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/14/government-to-appoint-free-speech-champion-for-universities-heritage-history-cancel-culture
Does anyone from Bristol know if they've made any progress on finding out who damaged the Alfred Fagon statue?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-53011774
This Government seems very keen on protecting statues, and surely All Statues Matter.
"[Skysilk] reserves the right to refuse service to customers or End Users engaged in the dissemination of material that may cause us to be subject to attacks on our network, or that while technically legal, run counter to our corporate principles. This type of content may include, but is not limited to, racist, pornographic, hateful material or those which create customer service or abuse issues for us,"
But then they go on to say...
"We do not review, edit, censor, or take responsibility for any information customers or End Users may create."
Still, it amuses me that there are so many people who believe that freedom of speech only applies to them, and that there are limits to it.
Trump is done with now, so the fans of that "site" (and I use the term loosely, as I consider it and its content to be far below human norms or averages) can rant away all they like. They and their "Great Leader" are now just footnotes in history save for any follow-on charges and/or convictions now that he is no longer protected by the Presidency. The states are already lining up their ammunition, especially New York State and Georgia. :)
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