[alsetmusic]

This reminds me of a discussion with a parent who was distressed about Parler being deplatformed. She was never on it, but her choices of news media told her this was “bad”.

I argued that threats of violence were viable on the platform. She didn’t seem to believe me. I later sent screenshots of violent rhetoric that I found with a quick web search. No response.

There are people who refuse the validity of reality right up until they can’t anymore. Then silence.

[downandout]

If you’re referring to me being silent, the discussion seems to have made my point for me. I didn’t see the need to further interject. But here’s my take...

If you listen to mainstream media, you’ll see them telling their audience that Parler was “deplatformed” because the planning for the Capital attack occurred there - in fact you would get the impression that the planning only occurred there. Yet it turns out that Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter users also engaged in this behavior, and most of it occurred on Facebook.

There are two possible explanations for this. The first is that these “news” sources are knowingly lying to their audience about the reason big tech colluded to kill Parler. The second is that they believe what they are saying, which means that there is a new standard by which we decide whether or not social networks are allowed to operate - if attacks are planned on a given platform, big tech colludes to instantly shut it down.

We know that as of this morning, Facebook is still fully operational. So we either have “news” sources openly lying to their almost exclusively Democratic audience, or there is extreme hypocrisy in the way that big tech applies the new “Parler Standard”. It is one or the other, and neither of these say good things about our society.

[dragonwriter]

> If you listen to mainstream media, you’ll see them telling their audience that Parler was “deplatformed” because the planning for the Capital attack occurred there

I do listen to, and read, mainstream media (and others), and I haven't seen that explanation. I've seen lots of people on the right attributing it vaguely to the MSM to lead into arguments against it, but that's the only place I've seen that explanation of the deplatforming, rather than the failure to moderate when unacceptable content was identified.

> in fact you would get the impression that the planning only occurred there.

Again, no, I've seen plenty of references to planning elsewhere, social media and otherwise, in the MSM. Again, this is a frequent thing I've seen people with a right-wing media preference attribute without detail to the MSM, but not actually seen in the MSM.

[downandout]

Read this video description [1]. "NBC’s Anna Schecter reports that extremists are recalibrating and planning for January 20th even though their preferred app to plan, Parler, was shut down". Does that not directly say that Parler was the "preferred" app for the planning of right-wing election violence? I won't spend all morning detailing the rest of them (there are too many), but arguing that mainstream media is not saying that planning occurred on Parler is about as ridiculous as Kamala Harris' argument that the US Supreme Court has no jurisdiction over California jails - an argument she made when she was trying to keep nonviolent prisoners in custody in direct violation of a Supreme Court order [2].

The larger point, though, is the hypocrisy surrounding the continued operation of Facebook while Parler was shutdown. The first paragraph of this [3] pretty much says it all:

"Parler all but vanished from the internet this week. Major tech platforms, including Apple and Amazon, booted the social network popular with the far-right for what the companies said was a failure to moderate incitement and violent rhetoric on its service that contributed to last week's deadly Capitol riots."

Does the report we are discussing in this thread not clearly underscore the fact that Facebook also failed to "to moderate incitement and violent rhetoric on its service that contributed to last week's deadly Capitol riots"? If that is the standard by which all social networks are judged, then should Facebook not meet the same fate? It's hypocritical that they are still online today.

Are you arguing that Facebook is not guilty of the exact same crime for which Parler was executed?

[1] https://www.msnbc.com/ali-velshi/watch/far-right-extremists-...

[2] https://prospect.org/justice/how-kamala-harris-fought-to-kee...

[3] https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/12/tech/parler-online-violence/i...

[dragonwriter]

None of your reports communicates either of the two claims you attributed as consistent messages of the mainstream media uphtread:

(1) that Parler was deplatformed because planning for the Capitol attack took place on the platform, (taking your best swing, you've managed to find an article presenting the incitement—not planning—cause for deplatforming as being specifically about incitement for the Capitol attack.)

(2) Planning for the Capitol attack took place exclusively on Parler, (the closest you got to this was the claim that Parler was a “preferred” app for planning for extremist groups, not that it was the exclusive venue for planning the attack)

[downandout]

That’s not my “best swing”. It was an example that I found in 30 seconds of Googling. There are countless others.

Again, I don’t really understand your argument here. This is something that you often see on HN. People going deep into the woods, disputing minutiae while avoiding the entire point of the thread because there is no argument to be had. Combined with the upvote/downvote system, it’s an effective tactic. It silences opinions you disagree with by pushing them deep into threads where few will read them. But it is destructive to our community and makes debate on here absolutely pointless.

There is hypocrisy in the Parler situation, and it is disingenuous to say otherwise. Planning of attacks and general violence advocacy, from both the left and the right, occur daily on Facebook, just as it may have in the darker corners of Parler. The only difference is that Facebook is still operating, and Parler is not.