[canofbars]

Yep I think its fine that parler is getting booted based on the content that is getting posted. Lets not pretend that all these companies are trying to squash people of a certain political group, they are simply banning users posting borderline illegal and violent content. You can quite easily use mainstream social media as long as you aren't posting about how someone should be beheaded.

[nostromo]

> You can quite easily use mainstream social media as long as you aren't posting about how someone should be beheaded.

https://thehill.com/sites/default/files/blogs/kathygriffintw...

[tptacek]

Literally no person in the entire world believed this was an appeal for people to behead Donald Trump.

[gfodor]

You’re a lot smarter than this, so my reaction to this is wondering why you would say this.

[tptacek]

Say more? I'm being sincere.

[gfodor]

There is absolutely no way you can be certain of the beliefs of the whole world in response to something. It’s hard enough to even feel confident you truly know the beliefs of a single person.

That alone is true, but this imagery itself is so grotesque that we ought to assume it led to a change in the degree of motive to cause harm. If you don’t believe me, consider a thought exercise where the identity of the person involved is exchanged with someone who did end up assassinated this way. Would it be reasonable to conclude this influenced it?

[tptacek]

That doesn't seem at all plausible to me. Further, I don't think you can point to lots of serious "behead Trump" chatter in the opposition; conversely, I can easily point you to "hang Pence from the tree outside the Capitol" postings that were not kidding.

Anyways, we probably understand each other at this point and don't need to belabor this, even if we don't agree with each other.

[adolph]

Here is a previous case of someone who took action that on the face of it was only egged on in hyperbolic political talk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Congressional_baseball_sh...

[tptacek]

Can you cite a source on the connection between Kathy Griffin and the guy who shot Scalise?

[adolph]

As far as I know there isn't any documented. However your claim is "Literally no person in the entire world believed this was an appeal for people to behead Donald Trump." I think you are overstating the wide range of interpretations humans often have.

Like many assassins, the person who fired on a congressional sports practice did appear to be motivated by political animus that on the face of it would not include shooting up the players on a ball field. But that is what the person did. This is similar to the attempted assassination of the Arizona congressperson in response to the Alaskan politician's crosshair advertisements.

As a reasonable person it is difficult to understand that folks might not share your views because as a reasonable person one's views seem logical and well grounded. That is totally understandable.

[1MachineElf]

>You can quite easily use mainstream social media as long as you aren't posting about how someone should be beheaded.

Is that so? Curious, because I was seeing a lot of guillotine memes from leftists last month.

[tptacek]

When the leftists guillotine someone, this will become a more persuasive argument.

[adolph]

Ironically

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/08/jeff-bezos-guilloti...

[1MachineElf]

Dispite my disagreeing with you and feeling pretty shafted by the removal of Parler, don't take it personally - you're an open source contributer who has earned my respect.

[verwyrelevant]

Isn't the whole point of this "deplatforming" to stop incitement?

[tptacek]

Yes, after concrete evidence that the incitement is sincere, or being materially interpreted as sincere.

(For the record: I think the guillotine imagery is as offensive as the Pinochet helicopter stuff, which is to say, extraordinarily offensive, and I think less of anyone who uses it. That's easy for me to say though, because I'm also not a leftist.).

[acdha]

Did they name people, places, or times? A key factor in free speech legal cases is how credibly threatening something is — someone telling a friend “I’m going to strangle you!” after they get rickrolled is clearly not but someone saying “On <date>, we’re going to <place> to kill <politician>” is enough that the Secret Service might want to talk with you.

Another factor is the climate: nobody is using guillotines anywhere now but mass shootings are sadly common.