Rayvin

Once Twitter moved, Amazon had to? Once facebook did, Google had to? I'm not sure I'm going to be convinced of this, it looks pretty clear cut to me that it was co-ordinated.

Parler could have taken the same action though, it notionally agrees to the same principles as I understand it. The difference is that it had no opportunity to do so in the same way that twitter and facebook have had. I'm not really calling it a conspiracy either, at least in the sense that conspiracies denote something nefarious, whereas this is more an act of righteousness. I'm merely looking at 5 technological giants all deciding within 24 hours of each other to delete Trump supporters en masse, along with an outsider site that is less guilty than several of the 5 major players in getting us to the point we're at, and concluding that they probably all have lines of communication open between them in order to co-ordinate their actions to inflict maximum damage. As for 'why not do it in the Obama years' - this sort of implies that you think my view here is that big tech are working hand in hand with the democrats and politicians. I don't think that. The democrats have said next to nothing about Trump supporters and appear to be turning all their energies towards taking down Trump himself. Big tech are a law unto themselves IMO and they're on the front lines of the culture war. They've found a moment wherein they can do some serious damage to 'the other side' and they've taken it. Also, arguably the democrats and certainly big tech, are definitely not left wing. This is the revenge of the centreground. And it has my complete support because it demonstrates a will to actually do something about the out of control right wing after years of placating them. What I wouldn't give for something similar to happen over here.

But then why would Amazon, Google and Apple be involved in this. They're not overexposed here, certainly not ahead of Twitter and Facebook. I can see the argument but I think a significant part of this is shutting down as many Trump supporters as possible at least until Biden is sworn in, potentially to prevent them organising again. It's just too much, too fast, for it not to have been co-ordinated. I mean they've kicked the shit out of Parler from all sides, simultaneously. And it's not actually as big a problem for right wing radicalisation (in terms of sheer numbers) as facebook or twitter themselves. Why haven't they been kicked out of the app store? Because they're part of 'big tech' and 'big tech' appear to move as one on all things political. Anyway, yes, they should have done this ages ago - and frankly, both twitter and facebook should be getting the shit kicked out of them too. I hope they drown in committees.

Yeah don't disagree with any of this. It's no different.

I could buy the notion that they're enforcing terms of service if it hadn't all just kicked off at once. Twitter have banned 70,000 accounts since the riot, and the President (who they went to court against a couple of years ago to insist that everyone be able to see what he writes) - not before, since. Amazon takes down Parler, Google and Apple remove it from the app store, Facebook goes on similar purges. So for your version to be true, these companies would have to have been failing to enforce their own terms of service through wilful negligence, and when everything went down they realised they were hopelessly overexposed and needed to suddenly act like they gave a damn. Or no one was posting any fascist stuff until the riots kicked off. I could see it if it had just been twitter. All of them in there together, idk. Looks co-ordinated to me.

Well the extremist left and right are two sides of the same coin, so yeah they would be concerned. Although having said that, I've never seen any suggestion that the left has intended to overthrow government. It's worth noting that various world leaders, including respected ones like Angela Merkel, have expressed alarm at silicon valley coming together for the silencing of Trump. I'm only mentioning this to indicate that I'm not out here on a limb when I say that this is censorship. Even the Mexican president has called it out, and I can't imagine he's a big Trump fan. Fwiw, shutting down access to people and closing off dialogue because it's coming from the far right/fascists is 100% still the right thing to do, but 100% still censorship. So I agree with this: I guess we can agree that it's a co-ordinated political act, as Gloom implies by grouping them together. And that free speech must stop when fascism starts. So we are all totally in agreement on this, other than the word censorship, bizarrely - which is think is just because of the pejorative connotations. I don't see the harm in calling it what it is - necessary, positive, censorship. The kind that you need to apply to children because they lack the maturity and wisdom to understand what they're saying and doing.

That is unenviable.

What makes you think their bottom line has been challenged? No one cares anymore man, no one was gonna desert Twitter because they didn't ban Trump. Or Facebook. Parler wasn't taken down by Amazon before the capitol storming despite having all the same ammo available to them. They needed the excuse. I'm not sure why we're arguing this really anyway - I believe it's necessary and justifiable censorship because someone has to do or say something to stop this misinformed populist bullshit. You think private companies are taking people offline en masse because they're following all their usual processes and the timing is coincidental. Either way, we both agree that it needs to happen. Also either way, the entirety of the online right wing is claiming they are being oppressed and that this is censorship of their views. Even the left has raised eyebrows (likely out of concern that they're next). To repeat, I'm fully on board with it anyway. I'm long past caring about being reasonable in this complete shitshow the right have foisted on us.

Yeah but it's a very co-ordinated strike. It's clearly politically motivated and I say this as someone who is actually on board with it. They could have done this at any point over the years but now there's blood in the water, they've all gone in together. They're attempting to close the right out because they now feel they can get away with it. And frankly, more power to them.

Yeah this is the thing - yes this probably is censorship and yes that should ring some alarm bells, but frankly, these people are believing absolute horseshit day in and day out, and I'm personally at a loss as to what the other options are. "Sunlight is the best disinfectant" does not hold true if big chunks of the population are actively keeping themselves in the dark anyway. I would have argued against this once upon a time, but at this point I think the consequences of letting them run unchallenged are just too great.

Parler is being forcibly shut down by big tech - Amazon won't host it, 25 other companies have turned it down and their own lawyers have dropped them. The establishment is really trying to destroy the populists here. I'm not convinced this is the way to it but it is at least some form of action and on that basis I think I'm on board.

Honestly I was thinking to myself that we don't have the technology in place to make voting feasible and safe at the moment so it wouldn't surprise me hugely. A 6 month raincheck would be ok I think.

I'm not particularly doing ok myself if that's any mitigation, and I will vote - I'll be going SNP (which is as good a non-Tory vote as you can get in Scotland). Brexit has had a fantastically damaging impact on both my personal and professional life - the industry I predominantly work within has been slammed with cuts, job losses and redundancies, so much so that I've not been able to find permanent employment now for two years - as a consequence I've been working freelance in consulting which has just about managed to keep my head above water but prevents me from building towards any kind of stability or getting a foothold at all - I'm also relying on generosity to some extent here and there so all in all, it's been professionally (and psychologically) devastating. I'm also in a relationship with someone who is an EU citizen who doesn't qualify for permanent settled status (although thank Christ we got pre-settled status, but she has some particular health considerations that I'm not entirely sure she's entitled to be able to handle over here anymore and trying to figure the whole bastard thing out is driving me up the wall). So please don't think I'm just sitting in my ivory tower being uncompromising for the sake of the argument, I'm not. Starmer is the one abandoning me, not the other way around. And I get his reasons, but my situation and the situation of a number of people I care about isn't improved remotely by a pro-Brexit Labour party and I don't see why my voice in all this shouldn't matter. This argument is just my argument backwards, which is fair enough but there's not much further we can go with this. In my view, he's not going to win over a significant number of red wall voters and he's potentially going to cost himself a significant number of urban remain voters. I am certain that the calculation is based on the fact that Labour smashed those seats so hard he can afford to lose them, but I reckon total votes is going to drop for Labour next time out. Not entirely sure this is a positive sign for the party. Trying to talk to two sides that, ideologically, are fucking miles apart. It's not just Brexit either. It's "patriotism", it's values, climate change, lockdowns, the future of the economy, Britain's place in the world, all of it. It is an irreconcilable divide IMO. Even if the Tories literally sink the country, I don't think it'll matter.

If Brexit is TOXIC for labour, why is he taking a position on it? What's the plan for keeping the remainers onboard? Hope they're pragmatic enough to just ignore the very strong feelings many of them have about both the issue and how we got here? I think he's fucked either way, which is why he may as well stick with what he believes in and attempt to be convincing with it. This is just pandering and he's free to do it, but the cost of that pandering is my vote at the very least, and from the conversations I've been having, I'm not alone. You might be right about this of course but you're incredibly unlikely to be right to the extent that he actually wins the next GE - so again, why do it?

Renton gets it Not that I don't understand the desire for compromise from everyone else, but yeah.

Combination of not bothering to vote and going for the Greens? Who are now apparently ahead of the LDs. There'll be an option.

It's no skin off my nose particularly given where I am at the moment, but I think don't think this strategy is going to work. To win back those Brexit voters he'd have to get into bed with someone like Farage. Which I still think would be a fairly viable way forward (other than it would never happen), rallying everyone around a PR movement. Pragmatic if deeply unpleasant, but that appears to be the order of the day anyway. I think he's going to lose a significant number of young remain voters with this when push comes to shove, combined with making very little ground in the red wall areas. He's alienating the Corbynite left who hate him anyway, unfairly, and the also risking the centrist sub-40s who don't want to pander to the people who have fucked us in the first place. Not sure the culture war is going to let him have his compromise.

Right, but on the other hand I just read this comment in the Independent - it's a real gamble and I don't disagree with much of any of this: "Remarkable naivety and lack of vision - having clearly learnt nothing from the past 5 years (and beyond), Starmer is nailing his weather-stained and wind-tattered flag to the populist mast. The reason for doing so is clear - what will prove to be a futile attempt to regain the Tory votes from the red wall. Opinion polls have shown that a substantial number of these voters have already abandoned the Tories, while the more polarised voters will never return to Labour anyway - so Starmer is chasing a very difficult 10% of the Labour vote, at the expense of alienating the vast majority of Labour voters (whilst virtually ensuring the annihilation of Labour in Scotland), a significant number of whom will now vote for other parties more closely aligned to their beliefs, playing straight into the Tories hands, by splitting the opposition vote. And the bigger picture is even more shameful - a Labour leader aligning themselves to the policies of the far right, to garner the support of a small (and ageing) minority of the electorate. And, needless to say, unless Labours position has changed by the time of the next GE, they will not be getting my vote."

I don't disagree with any of that but I still feel betrayed.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/10/keir-starmer-accepts-end-of-eu-free-movement-in-brexit-reversal "Keir Starmer has abandoned the commitment to free movement of people in the European Union he made to Labour members during the party’s leadership contest." The sole reason I voted for him.

I could see this happening, a few of the talking heads have put it forward.

So Parler is being taken off app stores and there seems to be a real crack down happening from the big tech on the right. Once upon a time I would have decried this as a dangerous precedent taking us towards censorship but frankly, even if it is eventually turned on the left, I think it's probably worth it to stop the right escalating things further.

Does sound like me

I'll add incidentally that there is a sudden groundswell of right wing, populist talking heads going on about setting up parties to "represent the working class". It's happening here and in the US, and it wouldn't surprise me if it spreads. The left has to be very careful to hold on to those working class voters or we're going to see a re-run of the 1930s IMO. Another decade of austerity, lockdowns that they don't understand the science behind, and relentless right wing shit about immigrants, coupled with rampant patriotism, and I think that's where we potentially end up. So Biden, Clinton, Starmer, whoever - they need to get out ahead of this somehow. If I was Biden I'd be cracking down on social media like I was running a totalitarian state.

That sounds about right - and yes, it has. At the time I saw Trump as a possible pressure release on nationalism. The notion that the right would see how godawful he was and realise that this kind of shit wasn't the answer. Clearly some Americans have indeed seen this given the record numbers of turnout to stop his re-election, but ultimately I can't claim to have been right in any sense, given that record numbers also voted for Trump. What I didn't predict was that fake news would only get worse, and that the polarisation of the two sides would become more important than what they were even fighting about (to the Trumpists at least). I mean, no thinking person should actually be capable of watching a Trump press conference and fully buy into what he's saying. It's so transparently fake that I don't believe it's possible to even be hoodwinked into it. My fear was that we'd be at a point sort of like this, but after 4 years of Clinton during which time the right would organise and the threat would grow. It's impossible to know for sure but given that Trump clearly isn't the real enemy behind this, I don't think we should imagine that this will all settle down without him. Remember at the time we were seeing populists coming to power all over the place - it's not going to go away because Trump has been defeated. But on balance, clearly nothing positive has come from him having won versus my alternative scenario, and so we may as well have had 4 years of stability and adult politics. Therefore yes, Clinton would have been a better outcome even with respect of my concerns at the time (and clearly in all the normal ways anyway). I will still argue she was the wrong candidate to choose though, for the Democrats.