Planet of the Censoring Humans

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/planet-of-the-censoring-humans

by dilap • 6 years ago

34 10 6 years ago

taibbi.substack.com

Very good read. I subscribe/support Taibbi so I got this in an email yesterday. I hope he gets enough support as an independent investigative reporter so that he can write about things that most news businesses won’t cover.

jonnypotty• 6 years ago

Great analysis. Makes me sad

partyboat1586• 6 years ago

People who advocate censorship because it currently favours their views will get a big slap in the face when priorities change.

They feel like they are in control and saving the world. In reality the platforms are in control and choose to favour them for now.

tetris11• 6 years ago

I'm hoping the volatile, constantly side-switching nature of censorship will ultimately drive people to more decentralised news and web sources like mastodon and ipfs

runawaybottle• 6 years ago

Why can’t Michael Moore just put the film on his website? He needs Youtube too?

commandlinefan• 6 years ago

See, the “censorship is OK because it’s a private company” people always say this - and it’s strictly correct - but the only reason Moore can still put the film on his website is because the censor mob hasn’t figured out a way to stop him from doing that, too... yet.

im3w1l2• 6 years ago

Allow me to quote some hacker news thinkers. "Deplatforming works." "didn't just impact the individuals, it reduced the behavior site-wide." This is what they hope will happen this time around too. That not only will Michael Moore become poor and unsuccessful. Other people will see his fate and never dare to question the narrative again.

He can put the film on his website. But even then "deplatforming works". If it didn't, why would activists try taking him down?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18765913

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19811297

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18285832

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22205504

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23266932

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23244652

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23351391

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19504550

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20781422

keiferski• 6 years ago

”But the practical impact of speech controls is always to advance the interests of the ruling class.”

That pretty much sums it up. Google, Facebook, etc. were once the underdogs, fighting against the established media companies of the world (all of whom absolutely censored their own content.) They’ve mostly succeeded and now are in the driver’s seat, so they are acting in a predictable fashion.

It’s just the cycle of life: open-minded underdog replaces monolithic incumbent, until it becomes the monolith and gets replaced by someone else. The YouTube of 2030 is shaping up to be decidedly neutered and boring, and I’m sure someone else will be ready to eat their lunch.

frabbit• 6 years ago

The significance of the Moore incident is that it shows that a long-developing pattern of deletions and removals is expanding. The early purges were mainly of small/fringe voices on either the far right or far left, or infamously fact-challenged personalities like Alex Jones.

Unfortunately the ludicrousness of Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Google, Cloudflare etc setting themselves up as arbiters of truth or morality will come back to bite them.

Having done it once for "good reason" they will need to justify themselves to whoever is in power as to why they cannot do it for "other pressing reason".

If they cannot position themselves simply as operators of a mechanism that allows individuals and groups to act as their own publishers then they are a threat to us.

Time to get rid of them. I do not need to be protected from the opinions of anyone. I can make my own mind up.

im3w1l2• 6 years ago

Having done it once for "good reason" they will need to justify themselves to whoever is in power as to why they cannot do it for "other pressing reason".

They want to be in this position. Because then they can sell narrative control at a steep price. Compliments their advertising offerings nicely. They can't charge outright, that would be too bad of a look. But they can do favor for favor.

Planet of the Censoring Humans

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