Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by trident5000 1990 days ago
There are plenty of extremists on Twitter and Facebook. Thats where the double standard is. People organized on twitter when they stormed the white house and the pres went into a bunker as an example. Facebook is accused of much worse in foreign countries currently.

The reason Parler was banned is because all these corporations are very aware they are under the anti-trust microscope. This was a favor to the new party in power in hopes of getting something back.
2 comments
a_band 1990 days ago
Absolutely, we all know that Twitter and Facebook have been far greater vehicles for the political unrest that's been growing for the last four years. Parler is a convenient scapegoat.
link
jorblumesea 1990 days ago
While I absolutely agree with the idea that every social media has extremes, I completely disagree with the end conclusions.

Other social media services do not actively shape the debate through intense political moderation. There's no "Post tsar" the validates the political health of things that people host.

Meanwhile on Parler...

https://twitter.com/donk_enby/status/1347939939120533506

https://twitter.com/donk_enby/status/1346565749977051136

It's literally, a far right wing propaganda machine and any other interpretation of this is misinformed.

link
trident5000 1990 days ago
Sounds like hyperbole to me. Again we can flip this to "twitter is a left wing extremist platform" quite easily by finding the right tweet snapshots and pointing to prior events. And nobody knows the exact algos or moderation mechanisms for any of the platforms, the screenshots you linked say essentially nothing even with whoever that person is narrating. Im not saying hes wrong, but I'm certainly not taking it at face value. On other platforms there are similar reward systems. Blue check-marks for instance, and shadow banning is obviously a thing.
link
jorblumesea 1990 days ago
I don't think the argument isn't that other platforms don't have things like "verified" and "shadowbanned". It's the connotations attached to them. On Twitter, just about anyone can get verified. Shadowbanning requires a serious fuck up (for example, Trump was only banned after inciting a riot).

Seems that Parler has taken a very different approach. Attaching political goals and ideology to the business model of a social network.

Pretty good write up here: https://www.wired.com/story/parler-app-free-speech-influence...

link