01-10-2021, 09:14 AM
So Parler is now suffering the serious consequences of their free speech stance: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/joh...parler-aws
I don't have a lot of sympathy for their business being potentially destroyed by this.
To be fair, their moderation stance has become much more controversial given the way the insurrectionists used low-moderation online services to plan and coordinate. On the other, I can see where it's all a reaction of all these social and online services, already effectively under threat of antitrust action (Amazon told to become a sales portal and stop making their own products and spin off the web services for example) and the calls to repeal Section 230 and treat them like full-on publishers responsible for all content (and the unpalatable choice of close down those same services or engaging algorithmic moderation that will silence a whole lot of people or having to create old-school media gatekeeping and a small fraction of new content going forward).
On the one hand, better late than never, on the other hand, too little, too late, significant damage has already been done at this point. I also question how permanent the moderation shift is actually going to be; will Twitter, for instance, finally start evenly and completely enforcing their TOS regardless of following and skin color? Will YouTube finally insist on facts over opinion full-time for channels that purport to talk about news and current events? Eyeballs have always been way too highly rated a traffic metric on the sites. I only have a YouTube channel because I want to share the things I make (it'd be nice if it could be a side hustle), and I don't have accounts on anything else that can be considered Social Media (I closed my Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter accounts years ago over a lot of the stuff that they're now being called to task about, and have no intentions of going on Twitch).
Like Parler, if any of them have their business broken up or forced to make other changes and abide by significant restrictions like being 100% responsible for the content on their platforms that make it much harder to make money or datamine, I really would have no sympathy for them at this point; they only really make changes when the (legal ramifications) gun is held to their collective head, and all too often those changes come at the expense of people who are not White and Rich and Male and Straight and finding ways to be Toxic Edgelords despite any restrictions handed down.
I don't have a lot of sympathy for their business being potentially destroyed by this.
To be fair, their moderation stance has become much more controversial given the way the insurrectionists used low-moderation online services to plan and coordinate. On the other, I can see where it's all a reaction of all these social and online services, already effectively under threat of antitrust action (Amazon told to become a sales portal and stop making their own products and spin off the web services for example) and the calls to repeal Section 230 and treat them like full-on publishers responsible for all content (and the unpalatable choice of close down those same services or engaging algorithmic moderation that will silence a whole lot of people or having to create old-school media gatekeeping and a small fraction of new content going forward).
On the one hand, better late than never, on the other hand, too little, too late, significant damage has already been done at this point. I also question how permanent the moderation shift is actually going to be; will Twitter, for instance, finally start evenly and completely enforcing their TOS regardless of following and skin color? Will YouTube finally insist on facts over opinion full-time for channels that purport to talk about news and current events? Eyeballs have always been way too highly rated a traffic metric on the sites. I only have a YouTube channel because I want to share the things I make (it'd be nice if it could be a side hustle), and I don't have accounts on anything else that can be considered Social Media (I closed my Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter accounts years ago over a lot of the stuff that they're now being called to task about, and have no intentions of going on Twitch).
Like Parler, if any of them have their business broken up or forced to make other changes and abide by significant restrictions like being 100% responsible for the content on their platforms that make it much harder to make money or datamine, I really would have no sympathy for them at this point; they only really make changes when the (legal ramifications) gun is held to their collective head, and all too often those changes come at the expense of people who are not White and Rich and Male and Straight and finding ways to be Toxic Edgelords despite any restrictions handed down.