Trump suing Big Tech, writes opinion piece in WSJ

[donkdowndonedied]

It isn't about porn directly but is about porn indirectly. In a strong Republic laws can not be arbitrary.

Trump has so many documented lies. It isn't purely ideological. We'll disagree and thats why porn is relevant. Either they can't censor or they can. Who is to say that porn is worse than inciting violence to the extent we have recently seen?

Ideologically neutral? Who decides that? How do you codify that? How about when the ideal in "ideological" is violence etc? Government now for forcing private entities to publish such?

For real?

Foaming at the mouth to give government more power.

Literally.

Fuck it all. If this is the mainstream conservative view then seriously let the monkeys fucking consume themselves. Enjoy your minions of dwai types breeding like the lemmings they are. We won't see where this nshit ends up.

edit - And LOL and dictating yourself outside of this. Platform vs publisher. And you are not a platform because you are small? ie not "big tech" ? Give me a break.

I think you're misunderstanding what I'm advocating.

I don't think the government should be in the business of determining neutral ideology, nor should platforms be in the business of censoring "untruths". As you said, this is arbitary and can't be codified into proper law.

Laws do need to be strong and specific, but this can be done under the plan I proposed.

It's very simple. In order to be considered a platform, you cannot censor information based upon its quality. This means no censorship based upon something being supposed "misinformation", "dangerous", "misleading", etc. You can, however, censor based upon entire categories of information. For example, you could censor porn, advertising, links to potentially harmful software, illegal material, posts providing personal identifying information (with a clear definition of what that means), threats of violence, slurs, etc.

So you can make a rule saying "no porn" or "no n-word" on your platform, and still be considered a platform.

You CANNOT make a rule saying "no misinformation" or ban US public officials from using your platform because you think they're "dangerous".

Simple, right?

And just to protect smaller websites from being overly burdened with these rules, the above could be codified to only apply to websites with at least X number of active users, where an active user is defined as one who makes at least one post per week. You could set X very high, to where only the huge platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc would be affected.

What would your objection be to this?

I think it is a bit crazy. TBH I'm sorta happy with the censoring. So much stupid shit floating around. Call it censoring or whatever, but I hate to see people in my country telling me the virus is fake or whatever other dumb shit. My objection is that it isn't needed and these companies should be able to do what they wish as thats the whole point behind private enterprise. How do we know how the company's value is determined?

You're telling me that a group of rightwing people could sign-up on some service and because their sheer force in numbers, the service has to basically let them do as they please?!?

I don't think the government should force anyone to publish the speech of anyone else. These categories of the allowed type of censorship is still relatively arbitrary although you've done a decent job mapping out categories.

The currennt laws seem reasonable to me.

[donkdowndonedied]

dude I find my own sources. I love how you bring up Hunter Biden's laptop though, that absolute banger of a nothingburger. Even if Hunter did all the shit one the laptop and it wasn't planted by some Russian operative as a trap for the ever so clever Guiles to find, so fucking what? dude did some drugs and banged some whores, I personally am beyond whatever the family embarrassment does & personally think it's a slimy tactic to get public opinion on your side. The fact that it was released so close to the election showed that it was just a hatchet job. A sloppy sloppy one.

Freedom of speech means freedom from the government to infringe on free speech, so if government stepped in and forced these companies to allow Trump to post, wouldn't that be violating THEIR freedom of speech by forcing them to post shit that they do not want to say? That is not fascist that is a private company deciding they do not want to deal with Trump's bullshit. If this was a restaurant and they banned the guy from eating there that is their decision, whether or not it is warranted? Maybe. Maybe not. Private company though, no one in the government is stopping Trump from communicating. I haven't checked up on it in awhile but you guys have parler still so you should be good to go

I predict that Trump's lawsuit will fail hard, once again showing his lack of understanding of the constitution & law in general

You seem to be conceding that the Hunter Biden laptop story could have affected the election, yet you have no problem with social media companies getting in cahoots to censor that (true) story?

Wow.

Lots of mental gymnastics here to justify censorship on your side of the fence.

Censorship can exist from non-government entities, too. Giant social media sites are the 2010s/2020s equivalent of a massive public square. Even if a private company owns it, each of these function as a way that a large percentage of people in the country get their information.

It's different than something like PFA, where it could be (correctly) argued that the public influence is almost nil, and therefore I should have the freedom to delete what I want. PFA is like my house, whereas Twitter is like a giant public gathering.

Censorship is censorship, whether it's directly government sponsored, or whether it's done by giant social media in order to push a preferred candidate and/or suck up to certain figures in exchange for preferential treatment later.

As a liberal, you should want the full and free exchange of ideas, and not make excuses to shut out the side you don't like.

This is why the older liberals, who are still largely pro free speech, are shaking their heads as to what their party has become.

Free speech is not just a matter of legality. It's a powerful concept and belief system. Either you support the free exchange of ideas, and free expression of the opposition, or you don't. There's no such thing as, "I support free speech, EXCEPT if it's hate speech, misinformation, or from a politician I think is evil."

Do you censor any links to other site's ?

If you do, well then clearly you are not for the free exchange of ideas even though you're claiming otherwise.

My position is that hate speech should be allowed. I'm not sure how those laws work TBH. I don't think any private entity should be compelled by government to publish someone else's hate speech.

[Dan Druff]

If there was a viable alt platform out there with similar exposure then there’s no arguement however your in denial if you claim FB Twitter haven’t got a stranglehold on social media which has become a media outlet akin to TV and Radio and both are regulated by the Feds themselves. They’ve become behemoths which affect the flow of information to the masses and they are dictating the political slant which is allowed and what is not. Even when the fairness doctrine was gutted which forced equality it still allowed for alternative viewpoints to be heard on another outlet for the public. What FB and Twitter have done is literally imposed a gag order on anything that isn’t woke culture and politically skewed to the political whims of Jack Dorsey and Suckerberg among others.

Conservatives trying to make this a point about 230 but reality is they just don't like their President being prevented from using a tech service aka being censored by that service.
Lots of places dictate political slant. FoxNews, CNN, both do it to a high degree.

TV and Radio are totally different as they're given licenses to airwaves but even then I'm not sure how that matters.

There is no "literal gag order on anything that isn't woke culture". People say anti-PC stuff all the time, but yes I know what you mean.

Regardless this is mostly just sour grapes. I don't understand how it is a conservative view to force a private entity to broadcast the speech of others.

If not porn, then violence, or overt hate speech, they're all valid reasons to deny someone a chance to speak on your platform.

I'm more concerned with Parlor being kicked off the various services than I am about Facebook/Twitter censoring.

I didn't even like Parler, but yes that was a good example of left wing hypocrisy.

Left: "Go make your own Twitter if you don't like it!!!"

Right: "Okay, here's our own Twitter. It's called Parler."

Left: "OMG, Amazon needs to ban this immediately, it's full of hate and misinformation!!!!11"


You are assuming too much about "conservatives". I don't care about Trump himself. I care about censorship. I've been pro-free-speech my entire life, even when that wasn't a cool position to take as a conservative 30 years ago.

Today's conservatives ARE free speech oriented for the most part. So it's more about the assault on their ability to disseminate their point of view than it is about Trump, at least for most.

[donkdowndonedied]

Conservatives trying to make this a point about 230 but reality is they just don't like their President being prevented from using a tech service aka being censored by that service.
Lots of places dictate political slant. FoxNews, CNN, both do it to a high degree.

TV and Radio are totally different as they're given licenses to airwaves but even then I'm not sure how that matters.

There is no "literal gag order on anything that isn't woke culture". People say anti-PC stuff all the time, but yes I know what you mean.

Regardless this is mostly just sour grapes. I don't understand how it is a conservative view to force a private entity to broadcast the speech of others.

If not porn, then violence, or overt hate speech, they're all valid reasons to deny someone a chance to speak on your platform.

I'm more concerned with Parlor being kicked off the various services than I am about Facebook/Twitter censoring.

I didn't even like Parler, but yes that was a good example of left wing hypocrisy.

Left: "Go make your own Twitter if you don't like it!!!"

Right: "Okay, here's our own Twitter. It's called Parler."

Left: "OMG, Amazon needs to ban this immediately, it's full of hate and misinformation!!!!11"


You are assuming too much about "conservatives". I don't care about Trump himself. I care about censorship. I've been pro-free-speech my entire life, even when that wasn't a cool position to take as a conservative 30 years ago.

Today's conservatives ARE free speech oriented for the most part. So it's more about the assault on their ability to disseminate their point of view than it is about Trump, at least for most.

I'm not sure what the leftwing hypocrisy is, but having these sites (Parlor) disallowed at the service provider level is a bit concerning. I'm basically a conservative in that I prefer fewer laws, but clearly at times more laws are needed.

Not sure what I'm assuming about conservatives, but the guys screaming about censorship are doing so because they are being attacked. I don't see anyone else but conservatives complaining about 'big tech'. Almost solely Trump supporters. Maybe Trumpers would be more fitting?

After giving this seemingly heart-felt speech about being for free speech, I asked a simple question and that is do you censor links to other sites? How is that any different? If you do, then learly there is something more here than some burning desire for total free exchange of ideas.

You are into free-speech but I don't see why you think the government should force you to allow characters (we won't bring up names) back. Oh yea, you're a small site so it doesn't count? You act like twitter is the only way for Trump to reach his supporters. I'd be more concerned if email started being censored as that is more like a utility. Twitter just makes brainless easy communication simple and thus people somehow feel entitled to the service. When it costs nothing to disseminate information, you tend to get information worth nothing or worse. There are still countless other ways and platforms to communicate with people.

[Dan Druff]

I didn't even like Parler, but yes that was a good example of left wing hypocrisy.

Left: "Go make your own Twitter if you don't like it!!!"

Right: "Okay, here's our own Twitter. It's called Parler."

Left: "OMG, Amazon needs to ban this immediately, it's full of hate and misinformation!!!!11"


You are assuming too much about "conservatives". I don't care about Trump himself. I care about censorship. I've been pro-free-speech my entire life, even when that wasn't a cool position to take as a conservative 30 years ago.

Today's conservatives ARE free speech oriented for the most part. So it's more about the assault on their ability to disseminate their point of view than it is about Trump, at least for most.

I'm not sure what the leftwing hypocrisy is, but having these sites (Parlor) disallowed at the service provider level is a bit concerning. I'm basically a conservative in that I prefer fewer laws, but clearly at times more laws are needed.

Not sure what I'm assuming about conservatives, but the guys screaming about censorship are doing so because they are being attacked. I don't see anyone else but conservatives complaining about 'big tech'. Almost solely Trump supporters. Maybe Trumpers would be more fitting?

After giving this seemingly heart-felt speech about being for free speech, I asked a simple question and that is do you censor links to other sites? How is that any different? If you do, then learly there is something more here than some burning desire for total free exchange of ideas.

You are into free-speech but I don't see why you think the government should force you to allow characters (we won't bring up names) back. Oh yea, you're a small site so it doesn't count? You act like twitter is the only way for Trump to reach his supporters. I'd be more concerned if email started being censored as that is more like a utility. Twitter just makes brainless easy communication simple and thus people somehow feel entitled to the service. When it costs nothing to disseminate information, you tend to get information worth nothing or worse. There are still countless other ways and platforms to communicate with people.

Any forum censoring links to other sites is preventing competing sites from getting free advertising. That's not censorship of speech.

Do you see me ever censor a single post regarding political ideology here? No. 100% of all left wing political posts have remained on PFA.

That's the difference between free speech on a platform (ideologically neutral) and having rules about the type of content allowed (no free advertising for other services).

I'm not advocating laws against deleting content and banning users. I'm advocating laws against huge sites only, forbidding censorship or banning based upon perceived trufhfulness or impact on the community. Simply put, only categories of content could be disallowed (doxxing, spam, porn, etc), but the quality of posts in allowed categories (politcs or COVID, for example) could not be a factor in deletion.

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and maybe now Tiktok are really the only ways to engage in communication with the masses. No other service is large enough. If you want to reach the masses, you need one of those. Sure, Trump can start his own blog, but it wouldn't have nearly the reach of an existing huge platform like Twitter. If you are going to derive the benefits of being a massive platform with massive political influence, then you will need to operate under different rules than smaller sites. I would gladly give up a lot of my "rights" as a site owner if I could get Twitter's traffic in exchange!

[sonatine]

your answer is very confusing.


like my stock market gambling forum is censored but ... what other forum is censored exactly because of your 'free advertising' concerns?

[Dan Druff]

your answer is very confusing.


like my stock market gambling forum is censored but ... what other forum is censored exactly because of your 'free advertising' concerns?

I was afraid if I even addressed this, it would open up a can of worms I don't really want to open again, especially in this thread.

I've explained my reasoning before. Any forum which seems to be functioning as a replacement for PFA -- whether intentionally or unintentionally -- won't be allowed to be linked here. It's the same reason why you can't show up at McDonald's and hand out flyers for your burger place down the street. I did allow the link, and then it got abused by friends of yours, who encouraged people to quit PFA and go there. I'm over it and not bitter about it, but I'm not making that mistake again.

I don't believe there is enough traffic in this niche community to support two or more active forums. It will simply fracture and kill the community, and if it doesn't, it would result in one of the two sites ending up a ghost town. I can't stop people from starting their own sites, but I'm not going to allow PFA to be used as an agent of its own destruction.

I find it absurd that I'm even having this discussion again. I'm basically being asked why I'm not making it easier for others to start their own site and take my traffic.

[sonatine]

hoser does answer make sense to you?

im not sure it makes sense to me.

its a finance forum, why would any of the core users here post here less by simply knowing conversations about scalping SPX futures were taking place there... and why would forums like boris and skatz _not_ be censored, when they literally provided the exact sort of environments / conversations you had here?

its hard to believe that one person trolling you, whom you have since offered to unban, could really be at the heart of such a sweeping, heavy handed act of censorship.

[Dan Druff]

BTW, to show that I'm not holding a grudge about any of this, I even approached one of the people banned earlier this year over this whole matter, and offered to unban them.

I thought maybe I'd stick out an olive branch and let bygones be bygones. I wasn't asking for any apologies, admissions, or promises regarding future behavior. I simply asked if they wanted to come back.

However, I got a snide response along the lines of, "I'm not telling you whether I want to return or not. You can unban me and see what happens,."

I told them that I am not playing childish games like this, and that I simply was making an offer to put all of this behind us, and wanted to know if they were interested.

I got a similar snide response, and then they blocked me. Oh well. I tried.

[donkdowndonedied]

your answer is very confusing.


like my stock market gambling forum is censored but ... what other forum is censored exactly because of your 'free advertising' concerns?

I was afraid if I even addressed this, it would open up a can of worms I don't really want to open again, especially in this thread.

I've explained my reasoning before. Any forum which seems to be functioning as a replacement for PFA -- whether intentionally or unintentionally -- won't be allowed to be linked here. It's the same reason why you can't show up at McDonald's and hand out flyers for your burger place down the street. I did allow the link, and then it got abused by friends of yours, who encouraged people to quit PFA and go there. I'm over it and not bitter about it, but I'm not making that mistake again.

I don't believe there is enough traffic in this niche community to support two or more active forums. It will simply fracture and kill the community, and if it doesn't, it would result in one of the two sites ending up a ghost town. I can't stop people from starting their own sites, but I'm not going to allow PFA to be used as an agent of its own destruction.

I find it absurd that I'm even having this discussion again. I'm basically being asked why I'm not making it easier for others to start their own site and take my traffic.

Well you sort of asked for this conversation with your post insisting freedom of speech is an all or nothing affair and you're either for it or not. I'm not going to rub your face in it, because you do a good job with this place, but clearly you don't want to be told how to run your own site.

When I was younger, the standard conservative answer would be 'well if you don't like it you're free to choose another option'. Now conservatives dying for government intervention and going through tons of mental hoops to justify their new found desire for government intervention. It is even more ironic if you try to actually determine what Trump stands for and apply it to this mess.

[Dan Druff]

hoser does answer make sense to you?

im not sure it makes sense to me.

its a finance forum, why would any of the core users here post here less by simply knowing conversations about scalping SPX futures were taking place there... and why would forums like boris and skatz _not_ be censored, when they literally provided the exact sort of environments / conversations you had here?

its hard to believe that one person trolling you, whom you have since offered to unban, could really be at the heart of such a sweeping, heavy handed act of censorship.

Boris and Skatz both preexist this site, and none of their owners or users are making any kind of attempt to push them as a form of a PFA replacement. Also, in the publicly viewable areas of the forums, Skatz has 1 post in past 10 days, and Boris has zero. Suffice to say their time has come and gone. When boris made an attempt to replace DD in 2009, I banned the link there for the exact same reason.

When your site was just a "finance site", I allowed the link, if you remember. However, in early 2021 it changed to what appeared to be a push to steal PFA's Flying Stupidity traffic, and the general tone of the forum switched from stocks to something very similar to here. The final straw was when the link was outright spammed here with instructions to leave PFA and go there.

I don't think anyone in my spot would have kept allowing the link to be posted at that point.

In general, I decided awhile ago that all links are allowed, except ones for sites which are (or recently were) attempting to replace PFA, or ones which are outright spam or trying to directly harm me in some way.

[nunbeater]

hoser does answer make sense to you?

im not sure it makes sense to me.

its a finance forum, why would any of the core users here post here less by simply knowing conversations about scalping SPX futures were taking place there... and why would forums like boris and skatz _not_ be censored, when they literally provided the exact sort of environments / conversations you had here?

its hard to believe that one person trolling you, whom you have since offered to unban, could really be at the heart of such a sweeping, heavy handed act of censorship.

Boris and Skatz both preexist this site, and none of their owners or users are making any kind of attempt to push them as a form of a PFA replacement. Also, in the publicly viewable areas of the forums, Skatz has 1 post in past 10 days, and Boris has zero. Suffice to say their time has come and gone. When boris made an attempt to replace DD in 2009, I banned the link there for the exact same reason.

When your site was just a "finance site", I allowed the link, if you remember. However, in early 2021 it changed to what appeared to be a push to steal PFA's Flying Stupidity traffic, and the general tone of the forum switched from stocks to something very similar to here. The final straw was when the link was outright spammed here with instructions to leave PFA and go there.

I don't think anyone in my spot would have kept allowing the link to be posted at that point.

In general, I decided awhile ago that all links are allowed, except ones for sites which are (or recently were) attempting to replace PFA, or ones which are outright spam or trying to directly harm me in some way.

but you're infringing upon their constitutional rights to free speech

[Dan Druff]

Boris and Skatz both preexist this site, and none of their owners or users are making any kind of attempt to push them as a form of a PFA replacement. Also, in the publicly viewable areas of the forums, Skatz has 1 post in past 10 days, and Boris has zero. Suffice to say their time has come and gone. When boris made an attempt to replace DD in 2009, I banned the link there for the exact same reason.

When your site was just a "finance site", I allowed the link, if you remember. However, in early 2021 it changed to what appeared to be a push to steal PFA's Flying Stupidity traffic, and the general tone of the forum switched from stocks to something very similar to here. The final straw was when the link was outright spammed here with instructions to leave PFA and go there.

I don't think anyone in my spot would have kept allowing the link to be posted at that point.

In general, I decided awhile ago that all links are allowed, except ones for sites which are (or recently were) attempting to replace PFA, or ones which are outright spam or trying to directly harm me in some way.

but you're infringing upon their constitutional rights to free speech

We will let the Supreme Court decide.

[Sloppy Joe]

BTW, to show that I'm not holding a grudge about any of this, I even approached one of the people banned earlier this year over this whole matter, and offered to unban them.

I thought maybe I'd stick out an olive branch and let bygones be bygones. I wasn't asking for any apologies, admissions, or promises regarding future behavior. I simply asked if they wanted to come back.

However, I got a snide response along the lines of, "I'm not telling you whether I want to return or not. You can unban me and see what happens,."

I told them that I am not playing childish games like this, and that I simply was making an offer to put all of this behind us, and wanted to know if they were interested.

I got a similar snide response, and then they blocked me. Oh well. I tried.

LOL at being almost 50 and choosing to live your life like this.

[MumblesBadly]

BTW, to show that I'm not holding a grudge about any of this, I even approached one of the people banned earlier this year over this whole matter, and offered to unban them.

I thought maybe I'd stick out an olive branch and let bygones be bygones. I wasn't asking for any apologies, admissions, or promises regarding future behavior. I simply asked if they wanted to come back.

However, I got a snide response along the lines of, "I'm not telling you whether I want to return or not. You can unban me and see what happens,."

I told them that I am not playing childish games like this, and that I simply was making an offer to put all of this behind us, and wanted to know if they were interested.

I got a similar snide response, and then they blocked me. Oh well. I tried.

LOL at being almost 50 and choosing to live your life like this.

The hilarious part is when Druff said he’d “STICK OUT an olive branch” as a sign of peacemaking, when the proper idiom is to “OFFER an olive branch”.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us...h/olive-branch

[Walter Sobchak]

TWITTER IS A PRIVATE COMPANY! THEY CAN DO WHAT THEY WANT!


BAKE THE CAKE FOR THE FAGS THOUGH!

I’m not sure if Newsmax told you, but you won the gay cake case.

[Walter Sobchak]

Nobody in the government is forcing those PRIVATE companies to ban Trump and his anti-democractic allies from using their PRIVATELY offered services! And nobody in the government is preventing Trump and his allies from forming their own PRIVATE companies to compete with the existing “Big Tech” companies. So, unless you are going to argue that those PRIVATE companies are providing natural monopoly services which should be regulated as public utilities, then you are calling for Big Government to unfairly encrouch on the “free market”, and THAT is something conservative governments aren’t supposed to do!

No, I'm calling for a certain legal protection to be removed from these companies, as they are directly violating the spirit of such protection.

The spirit of the law was to prevent companies allowing an open forum of expresion to get sued for things their users post. The spirit of the law specifically excluded companies which utilize editorial control of their content, because at that point it's no longer a free and open platform.

Twitter and Facebook are not free and open platforms. They are highly ideologically biased, and edit/ban ideological material they dislike. That's their right, but they need to lose the platform protection if they are going to act in such a fashion.

They need to choose. Section 230 or ideological censorship, but not both.

If section 230 disappeared you’d have to shut down this site immediately.

[nunbeater]

but you're infringing upon their constitutional rights to free speech

We will let the Supreme Court decide.

like with the election?

[Dan Druff]

No, I'm calling for a certain legal protection to be removed from these companies, as they are directly violating the spirit of such protection.

The spirit of the law was to prevent companies allowing an open forum of expresion to get sued for things their users post. The spirit of the law specifically excluded companies which utilize editorial control of their content, because at that point it's no longer a free and open platform.

Twitter and Facebook are not free and open platforms. They are highly ideologically biased, and edit/ban ideological material they dislike. That's their right, but they need to lose the platform protection if they are going to act in such a fashion.

They need to choose. Section 230 or ideological censorship, but not both.

If section 230 disappeared you’d have to shut down this site immediately.

I am pro section 230, but I think it shouldn't apply to large social media unless they are ideologically neutral. I feel they should be under certain restrictions which I named in a previous post, in order to keep their section 230 protection, whereas the rest of the websites (including this one) shouldn't be under the same restrictions, given their much lesser influence on public opinion.

[ToasterOven]

Boris never banned links to Donkdown. Even when the traffic at Boris was high and getting more premium content than Donkdown.

Isn't it better to just say you run your site the way you want to instead of stabbing at these incomprehensible equivocations.