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Post #1242251

Author
Jay
Parent topic
Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1242251/action/topic#1242251
Date created
22-Sep-2018, 2:32 PM

moviefreakedmind said:

Jay said:

moviefreakedmind said:

The deplatforming of Alex Jones
Alex Jones was deplatformed in a coordinated effort by major media companies. Agree with him or not (I don’t watch the guy, I know him mostly from the whole Sandy Hook thing and some memes), having corporate entities who are powerful enough to instantly erase someone’s online presence because the company’s management doesn’t agree with their views should concern everybody, regardless of politics or personal feelings.

Who cares though, right? It’s Alex Jones. That guy’s insane! The point is that everyone should care when major publishing platforms can shape political discourse by silencing or amplifying certain voices. Anyone who claims to be concerned about Russian interference in our elections via social media and isn’t concerned about what happened to Alex Jones is making their decisions based on ideology and not law or right vs. wrong.

I agree that the coordinated banning of Jones was disturbing for all the reasons that you pointed out, but let’s be honest about why he was banned. He repeatedly slandered people. He claimed that the parents of Sandy Hook were participating in a hoax shooting. His platform falsely accused an innocent man of committing the Parkland shooting (whose survivors he also slandered by claiming were crisis actors). He sells scam, false-hope supplements. He’s seemingly called for the death of Mueller at least once, among other people that he claims (by name and without evidence) are child-molesters. I find the coordinated ban disturbing, but there’s a case to be made that Alex Jones’ content may not even be legal, which is why they banned him. It had nothing to do with him being conservative or with management not agreeing with his views. And I don’t see how corporate interests in this case are evidence of wackos controlling the left. I, as with some other leftists, are advocating that the first amendment be applied to massive platforms like Youtube. I don’t see any solution like that coming from anyone on the right, who support those corporations’ ability to coordinately shut people down, even if they don’t like it.

Some people on the right are talking about forcing First Amendment protections on social media (I’ve seen it mentioned on Twitter quite a bit), but it shouldn’t be surprising that the idea would get little traction in the mainstream since it goes against practically everything Republicans support: free market solutions, minimal regulation, etc.

Right, that’s a flaw of Republicanism. Their ideology doesn’t have an answer to this problem.

I have mixed feelings about it. Do I think YouTube and Twitter are large enough that banning content producers causes undue harm not only to the content producer, but people in general? Yes. Would I ever want that type of regulation applied to myself as someone who runs an online community? Probably not, although I imagine a feeling of relief washing over me knowing that I’d never have to police another forum post 😉

If Jones were convicted of a crime, I might feel differently. He hasn’t been, though. My concern lies with the notion that it’s only the “bad guys” who will be shut down. I don’t trust Google and YouTube to filter my content. That’s what my brain is for. If they want to be publishers, then be publishers, not censors. Let audiences and advertisers decide what content survives.

I agree wholeheartedly. That’s why the incident disturbed me. My point, however, was that the censorship was not based on political ideology or personal disagreement, but the legal implications of Jones’ insanity.

To be fair, we don’t know that. He was banned for what he said. Whether it was because of ideological differences or legal concerns (or both), no one knows.

YouTube demonitization
The frequent and unexplained demonitization of YouTube videos in order to rob them of their income should also be concerning. Many videos by “conservatives” (i.e., anyone not openly left) are flagged as problematic either by community reports or YouTube’s own moderators. Conveniently, they remain flagged—and therefore unable to earn advertising revenue—until a further manual review is performed. The videos often have advertising revenue reinstated, but they don’t get the revenue they missed while they were flagged, only future revenue. Most videos from popular YouTubers get most views right after they go live, so most revenue is lost.

When I say “overrun”, it’s kind of a sloppy way of saying that real people’s lives are being affected by emotional assholes with an axe to grind; even if the “wackos” are a minority, they’re loud enough that some companies are listening and the position of the party is shifting.

How is this leftism? I’ll give you some great left-wing examples that have been demonitized. The Amazing Atheist, David Pakman, Secular Talk, Thunderf00t, The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder, Jimmy Dore, among others. You’re framing this issue inaccurately; you’re leaving out half of the demonitization’s victims, and I get why, because those “classical liberal” outlets have framed it that way too. I used to think the same way, but those guys that I mentioned are far leftists that got destroyed by demonitization. The narrative that the right wing is singled out doesn’t hold up when you examine who all gets affected. Demonitization doesn’t discriminate and has been across the board on Youtube, even in apolitical channels. The only survivors have been corporate outlets. Claiming that only your side is affected, as the rightwing is doing, is dishonest no matter which side is doing it. Realizing that we’re actually all in the same boat in this case is the only way to put a stop to it.

I don’t see how those examples, only one of which is even arguably an example of leftist bullshit, could possibly lead anyone to thinking that the leftwing is overrun by wackos. I think it’s held back by corporatists, if anything.

I’d be willing to bet that most of the content producers you mention found themselves demonetized for saying
things that run counter to left-wing ideology.

Nope, that’s not what happened. They’ve been demonitized because, unlike corporate outlets, they say what they want. It’s not just them, it’s apolitical channels that aren’t left or right. Everyone is getting demonitized and it isn’t because they deviate from leftist thought patterns.

Can you provide some more info on them or point to specific videos so I don’t have to watch all their content in order to figure out what they said that got them demonetized?

Those who are left-leaning but have some views that are traditionally (or even more recently) seen as conservative often adopt the label of “classical liberal” to separate themselves from a left wing that is increasingly irrational and emotionally driven.

Classical liberalism is a laissez-faire, conservative ideology. That’s not a recent evaluation of it. The people using it as a way to separate themselves from the left are misusing it because if they’re actually classical liberals then were never on the left. I also agree that there is an irrational segment of the left, particularly the one that cares more about culture and language than policy and economics, but how is that any different than the right? How is the left more irrational and emotionally driven than Trump’s portion of the rightwing?

It’s not. I’m a centrist, remember? The biggest change in my political views over the last several years is the realization that the left isn’t automatically “on the right side of history”. Both sides have their insane fringes, and the fringes have shifted the boundaries of what’s conservative vs. liberal. The fringes are destroying our ability to meet in the middle and progress as a society. Add dying traditional media who are desperate for clicks into the mix and you have a disaster.

They do, but by that logic you surely can’t deny that the insane fringe is running the right. The Trump crowd controls the White House and Congress. The reason I forget that you’re a centrist is because you have a clear sympathy towards the people on the right doing the exact same thing you chastise the left for. Forgive me for being confused by that obvious bias. I am a leftist. I don’t doubt that my pro-left bias shows and I don’t pretend to be a centrist. If you’ve read this thread, you’d know how I feel about centrists. 😉

I don’t know where you get this idea that I sympathize more with the right than the left. I sympathize with those who present rational ideas and are labeled as extremists by those who disagree with them. When I’m talking about the stuff I see on the left that caused me to walk away, I’m not saying the right doesn’t do the same thing. It saddens me to come to terms with the fact that the left is as bullshit-ridden and disingenuous as the right, which is why I beat on them so hard.

Your defense of their identity politics is a perfect example of sympathizing with them. You don’t present a similarly sympathetic view on leftist identity politics.

Again, I’m not seeing what identity politics I’m defending. When Rubin, Peterson, Owens, etc. bring up race, it’s always to say “race doesn’t matter” or “stop talking about race”. I’m genuinely not following you here.

I think part of the problem is that you keep referring to the Trump crowd as the fringe when the man got 60+ million votes. That’s not fringe. The fringe definitely supports him, but people don’t become president with only fringe votes. His support among Republicans is insanely high. Seems to me that being on the left and having an irrational hatred of Trump go hand in hand, which makes any Trump supporter “fringe” in comparison.

Trump and his supporters are fringe. Trump voters aren’t necessarily fringe.

Can you explain the difference between a “Trump supporter” and a “Trump voter” in practical terms? He got the votes and in pretty much every poll he has high approval from Republicans across the board. When you talk about Trump and his supporters, you don’t seem to draw any such lines between the fringe (i.e., the minority) and everyone else who voted for him.

dahmage said:

Jay, what trouble in Linux land are you alluding too.

I read about linus’ stepping away to work on his acerbic leadership style, but it seems like you are saying he was better that way? That sometimes to be great we need to be verbally abussive? Or put another way, that being verbally abussive is fine as long as you are great?

But you say that there is trouble brewing…

This is why relying strictly upon mainstream media for news means you get half the story.

Yes, Torvalds issued a blanket apology for his previous behavior, and no, I don’t think verbally abusing colleagues is fine. I never said that. I’ve worked for/with verbally abusive people and the stress can be unbearable.

The problem is that in his remorse, he decided to implement a CoC written by a social justice activist that incorporates the kind of thought/speech policing I’ve come to expect from that crowd, and now there are some on Twitter who are poring over old tweets and mailing lists written by code contributors in order to find material they deem offensive so they can attack these contributors and get them retroactively disciplined and possibly removed from the core team. Remember what happened to James Gunn? If you had a problem with that, you should have a problem with this.

The real trouble is that the GPLv2 license under which Linux is maintained allows developers to rescind previous code commits from the repository. The idea being floated around is for devs to threaten to remove huge chunks of code written over many years in retaliation for any sanctions, leaving gaping holes in the kernel and basically nuking it. Anyone running Linux would be obligated to remove that code from their machines under the license or face copyright lawsuits. This kind of uncertainty and instability can have a very negative effect on Linux as a whole. How many devs who aren’t currently a target will walk away because they don’t want to risk having their careers ruined over a possible future accusation? How many potential future contributors will decide not to participate in the project because they don’t want their politics used against them?

Frankly, I don’t want people who prioritize their politics over code quality maintaining the software that we all depend on to safely and securely transmit our personal data. I don’t give a shit if they’re offended by a rape joke made on a mailing list 10 years ago. If they don’t have the mental fortitude to withstand an off-color joke, they have no business writing critical software the entire world depends on.

Also, anyone who called Sandy Hook a hoax and did all the shit Alex Jones did is a complete price of shit and shouldn’t be waived off like you just did. Seriously.

I didn’t wave it off. Its offensiveness just isn’t relevant to the free speech discussion. If what he said isn’t illegal, then it falls under free speech protections, regardless of how you or I feel about it.