I don't understand Social Media, Part Two: "Do people really feel Social Media is a Right?"

[Dwarvenhobble]

The fundamental fallacy of Laissez-Faire Economics is that while the government can't interfere, there are little to no checks and balances on the companies themselves. You'll get a slap on the wrist like the break up of Facebook because of a monopoly, but most companies start from humble beginnings and the successful ones own lobbying firms to get their tax breaks complete with the government applauding their acts on one hand and accepting their bribes with the other.

Big Corps are either going to invent new avenues with shiny new brand names that don't point back to the parent, or use their tax breaks for Mergers and Acquisitions existing properties.

That's Capitalisms.

But I wasn't issued my state-ran telephone number and decided that I wanted the private option. A phone is a device that I didn't make using a service that I don't have. If we want to get into the weeds, it is bullshit that I can't even use radio waves and I must be regulated by the FCC if I want to. But barring that, the companies erected the towers, has use of a satellite, has their CDMA or GMS network, and then does the maintenance for it. When I buy a phone, I'm paying for their services. And they are supposed to provide it as long as I keep the payments up. When money exchanges hands, they have a contract to uphold as well as I do.

No money, no phone.

And from there, I can enjoy a little more freedom than Twitter or these public things. I'm not paying for it, the companies involved don't owe me anything. I am there at their liking. Given that they aren't actually getting anything from me and they formed the company as a business venture, and not an altruistic endeavor, they can cut me off at any time it becomes prudent to them. That's Capitalism.

Ah but they can make it very hard for you to pay.
Banks aren't obliged to provide service, nor are credit / debit card companies. You'll have to go to one of the buildings and pay cash if companies wanted to make it awkward for you. Hell that is if private companies will sell you a handset or repair stuff if it breaks etc.

Because they are idiots who think the US Constitution applies everywhere.

And when I say everywhere I mean everywhere. Which includes not only outside of the US, and it territories, but also the Internet.

Because the spirit of it should. The argument of "Well private companies can do what they like" well you now have none of the constitutional rights and the only rights are whatever has been written into law. That means should a private company want to give you a private trial on their premises and do what they want to punish you then they could.

 

[Agema]

Because the spirit of it should. The argument of "Well private companies can do what they like"

I think you're missing an important point here. It's not that private companies can do what they like. It's that entities have rights - including Facebook, Twitter, etc. - which entitle them to be able to do various things with their own stuff. You're talking about taking away their rights.

 

[Houseman]

It's that entities have rights - including Facebook, Twitter, etc. - which entitle them to be able to do various things with their own stuff. You're talking about taking away their rights.

Maybe companies shouldn't have those rights, just like they don't have the right to discriminate based on race.

 

[Dreiko]

If you develop your social media presence in the sense that it's how you make a living, it's tied to your right of property, so in that sense yeah they kinda are. After a certain point you should be protected by unlawful cancellation in the same way you're protected from unlawful termination at a workplace.

(this is a pro-consumer, anti-corporation, pro little-people, anti-1% position, it is a way of thought that stems out of left wing principle, even if in practice it also helps nazis too, even if it ONLY helps nazis, it's still a left-wing principle, we should uphold it)

 

[Revnak]

If you develop your social media presence in the sense that it's how you make a living, it's tied to your right of property, so in that sense yeah they kinda are. After a certain point you should be protected by unlawful cancellation in the same way you're protected from unlawful termination at a workplace.

(this is a pro-consumer, anti-corporation, pro little-people, anti-1% position, it is a way of thought that stems out of left wing principle, even if in practice it also helps nazis too, even if it ONLY helps nazis, it's still a left-wing principle, we should uphold it)

Principles are meaningless. That being said, I stand by my no social media stance. The number of genocidal acts made possible by social media outweigh their non-existent benefits.

 

[Dreiko]

Principles are meaningless. That being said, I stand by my no social media stance. The number of genocidal acts made possible by social media outweigh their non-existent benefits.

You can't have an identifiable ideology without principles. If you're not tied to principles then anyone can claim to be part of any group and purport that whatever actions they take and beliefs they hold are in accordance with that group. Only by marrying ideologies to specific principles that must be held by adherents do we imbue them with meaning. Otherwise there's no point to an ideology since without principles guiding it anyone who believes anything can be part of it, and you can have members with conflicting, mutually exclusive views be parts of the same group and claim to be the real representatives of it.


It's like saying that I stand by your no social media stance too, but as there's no principles I am actually for social media in my way of standing against them. If you don't establish the principle of antagonism towards social media and if you don't uphold that into perpetuity, your stance against them has no meaning beyond optics.

It's like that with other stuff too. You gotta uphold the foundational basis of your purported positions (principles) for your positions to remain tenable.

 

[SilentPony]

Maybe companies shouldn't have those rights, just like they don't have the right to discriminate based on race.

This might be one of the few things we agree on. Corporations have too many rights, including being treated as citizens, and Citizens United should be revoked, and large social media companies should be forced to break up and monopolies destroyed.

 

[CM156]

The number of genocidal acts made possible by social media outweigh their non-existent benefits.

Other than what happened in Burma, do you have any other examples? Legit wondering. I know it's enabled violence but I hadn't heard of any other genocides

 

[Eacaraxe]

I'm going to point out every flaw inherent to capitalism and go "Isn't this what you all wanted?".

Erm, being one of those filthy godless commies myself, no it absolutely is not my position and absolutely not what I want. Ask a sex worker what they think about credit card companies having the power right now to unilaterally shut down entire industries and leave significant portions of the workforce in the cold, overnight, whilst engaging in de facto asset seizure entirely absent court order and with zero legal recourse -- in the name of "harm reduction".

I say nationalize 'em all, and chuck the whole lot of investors and executives in federal supermax.

This is the system that people hold onto and say "WELL IT'S BETTER THAN ANYTHING ELSE WE HAVE.

You'll have to ask that of someone who actually believes that.

The same people on the Right who are usually decrying Trump's banning the loudest are in conflict with the very thing they supposedly treasure more than anything else: The Unregulated Might of Laissez-Faire Capitalism. It perplexes me.

The same people on the "left" who are saying "this is really a fight against authoritarianism!", are lining up around the block to defend big tech without an iota of irony or consideration for the potential ramifications of their own positions. What perplexes me is liberals' tendency to go balls-to-the-wall Randroid the moment an industry pays even the mildest of lip services to causes they superficially, performatively champion.

I am not bewildered by the autonomy that a business that produces a free service (meaning that the customer isn't paying, but their actual involvement will somehow produce revenue) has over that service.

Ain't free, they're monetizing your data and metadata. You're the commodity, "free" service is the hook, line, and sinker.

Thereby their dictation on how you are to use that service seems like it should rest in the purview of the company itself, as long as said rules don't interfere with the laws of Government in which they operate in.

You mean, things like forced arbitration clauses?

 

[Shadyside]

Social media and capitalism is the best and worst thing ever.

 

[09philj]

By and large, corporations shouldn't be expected to host speech which runs counter to any laws or precedents regarding malicious communications, since they are likely to cause harm and could bring the corporation into disrepute even if it is not specifically liable for disseminating said communications. So, libel and slander, defamation, incitement, fighting words, conspiracy, threats against the person or a group, and other material likely to cause distress (EG unsolicited goatse), among other things, could reasonably considered valid targets for automatic removal. So should things that fall outside the remit of the platform in question (Like, I don't know, putting the communist manifesto on a knitting forum) Conversely, given the amount of power that corporations have, there should probably be protections in place to ensure that material is not removed merely because it is considered controversial. (E.G. material dealing with LGBT+ issues, fringe politics, unusual sexual preferences, hacking, or legal use of weapons)

 

[I can't enter my old name]

What I'm trying to wrap my head around is why people are so angry at the decision of removing a man who lead a cult to an angry insurrection? Like somehow, that made them aware that the rules might actually apply... and they shouldn't. That removing someone's ability to scream their nonsense on the internet will somehow dehumanize them.

If you're going to ban him from all mainstream social media platforms, it's a media blacklist. I'm sure Donald Trump can post on VK, like how some American journalists who angered the wrong people can guest on RT, but it's censorship of political speech.

It's not the greatest analogy, but the reason China censors their internet is security and to prevent speech inciting violence. They have the freedom of speech in their constitution, except it doesn't count for anything with these rules. Also in addition to the state owned IP providers, censorship is also done by websites and hosting services themselves, for the fear of being legally responsible for any violence that resulted from the content they hosted.

However the US doesn't need firewalls or legal responsibility, because conglomerates own most news outlets or can just SEO your "fake-news" website into oblivion. As long as the general public is unaware of the things that would really throw a wrench in the system, everything functions as planned. The managed democracy works as intended, and those not christened by the power elite won't get elected.

Not being able to access Social Media really means what? Social Media isn't a given right. That's why we're not given handles at birth or when we become teenagers or whatever. There isn't a social media part of the government that must make sure our social media rights are held.

No but you are being encroached by corporations that own 90% of media trying to control what you can and can't see. Whatever is left, they're not happy with. When corporations want to start censoring things for safety and democracy, you should immediately be suspicious, especially when those same corporations have been ignoring their own rules and subverting democracy.

You should be extremely suspicious when these same corporations either come from the AT&T monopoly, or have been manufacturing such fine American products such as the GAU cannon, F4 Phantom, B52 bomber, Huey, Minuteman, Tomahawk, Patriot, M1 Abrams etc etc.

 

[Trunkage]

Snip

Oh god. Go back to your old avatar. That looks horrible

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

So, quick question:
Who here is both mad at social media sites for kicking off people they don't like but is also against net neutrality?

 

[CM156]

Oh god. Go back to your old avatar. That looks horrible

It's a deliberate choice. It's the point of Biden's career that I most agree with.

Who here is both mad at social media sites for kicking off people they don't like but is also against net neutrality?

Is anyone here against Net Neutrality?

 

[Shadyside]

Oh god. Go back to your old avatar. That looks horrible

CM156 is a conservative Democrat, so it's a lot better than Pence and Trump.

Edit: user banned on request

 

[CM156]

CM156 is a conservative Democrat.

I'm not, though. At least I don't identify as such.

 

[Trunkage]

It's a deliberate choice. It's the point of Biden's career that I most agree with.

Is this about the time of the disappeared Frost interview (about that time when he tried to be nominated for a short time)?

Becuase he was certainly more critical of politicians and corruption during that interview

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

The funny thing is that Republicans were pushing for social media companies to be held legally responsible for what was posted on them (mostly so Papa Trump could spend the rest of his life suing them for libel) but when Amazon dumped Parler because it wouldn't stop users from posting illegal things (for which Amazon could potentially be held legally responsible), Republicans cried foul.

 

[CM156]

Is this about the time of the disappeared Frost interview (about that time when he tried to be nominated for a short time)?

Becuase he was certainly more critical of politicians and corruption during that interview

It's from this interview: