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  • #91
    Gee... people who have worked for big tech companies will be involved in the new administration... If they are qualified, I have no problem with that.
    It would be an improvement over many of the non qualified people that Trump had on his team.
    Keep on Civin'
    RIP rah, Tony Bogey & Baron O

    Comment


    • #92

      Pirate Bay Founder Thinks Parler’s Inability to Stay Online Is ‘Embarrassing’

      Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi calls Parler’s face plant in the wake of its deplatforming 'embarrassing,' driven by 'egotism.'

      As one of the original co-founders of The Pirate Bay, Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi knows a little something about keeping controversial services online. Kolmisoppi and his colleagues spent decades battling a global coalition of corporations, governments, and law enforcement agencies intent on wiping the file sharing website from the face of the internet. Unsuccessfully.

      Kolmisoppi took to Twitter this week to share some thoughts on Parler’s recent deplatforming for failing to seriously police death threats and illegal content before and after the fatal Capitol riots.

      “The Pirate Bay, the most censored website in the world, started by kids, run by people with problems with alcohol, drugs and money, still is up after almost two decades,” Kolmisoppi said. “Parlor and gab etc have all the money around but no skills or mindset. Embarrassing.”

      Parler, part of a growing echosphere for rightwing conspiracy theories, is primarily financed by hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah. But the company’s deep pockets haven’t been able to assuage the concerns of companies unwilling to do business with a toxic enabler of hate speech in the wake of last week’s violent riot.

      While Parler has found a new provider in the far-right enablers over at Epik, the service isn’t expected to get back online anytime soon, in large part because, according to CEO John Matze, companies with enough firepower to host the platform don’t want to be associated with bigotry.

      Platforming white supremacy and hate speech is a tougher proposition than serving users pirated copies of the Prince discography. But Kolmisoppi was quick to laugh at the fact that despite being backed by billionaires and parts of the US government, Parler didn’t seem remotely prepared for the justified firestorm it found itself at the center of.

      “The most ironic thing is that The Pirate Bay’s enemies include not just the US government but also many European and the Russian one,” he said. “Compared to gab/parlor which is supported by the current president of the US and probably liked by the Russian one too.”

      Over the years, Kolmisoppi and The Pirate Bay crew explored no limit of strategies to keep its servers operational and out of the reach of law enforcement and the entertainment industry, even when that meant hiding them in caves and submarines, or even using low-orbit drones to redirect users to hidden regional servers hosting torrent indexes and trackers.

      The organizations shift to magnet links in 2012 helped make it more difficult to take offline. And despite numerous trials, fines, multi-country IP address blockades, police raids, and even a stretch in prison, the website he originally co-founded on a shoestring budget remains more or less operational.

      In contrast, Parler lost its primary cloud service provider and simply disappeared, seemingly incapable of any adaptation. Meanwhile, thanks to sloppy coding and substandard security standards, researchers are hard at work scraping publicly-available Parler data to help identify platform users who thought it might be fun to flirt with violent sedition on live television.

      “In all honesty, the reason we did The Pirate Bay was to bring freedom and take back control from a centralised system,” Kolmisoppi said. “The reason that Gab et al will fail is because they're just whining *****es that have only one ideology: egotism. Sharing is caring y'all.”

      In more recent years, Kolmoisoppi has moved on to fund Njalla, a privacy-centric domain name registration service. One he says was already asked to host Parler, and refused.

      “Of course we wouldn't,” Kolmisoppi said. “We're pro human rights, which includes the right to not be killed by extreme right wing terrorists.”


      MAGAts are not the best and brightest.

      Comment


      • #93
        Originally posted by Ming View Post
        Gee... people who have worked for big tech companies will be involved in the new administration... If they are qualified, I have no problem with that.
        It would be an improvement over many of the non qualified people that Trump had on his team.
        That's because you have no problem with Big Tech operating as de facto government. You just pretend to not understand that that's what's happening. But if that's the best you've got then go for it I guess.
        I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
        - Justice Brett Kavanaugh

        Comment


        • #94
          Originally posted by Kidicious View Post
          That's because you have no problem with Big Tech operating as de facto government. You just pretend to not understand that that's what's happening. But if that's the best you've got then go for it I guess.
          Gee... you make it sound like Corporations have never had a say in government before...
          Politicians have been bought and paid for by Big Business ever since people needed big money to run for office.
          Pharma, Oil, Healthcare, Telecommunications, Financial, Big Tech... you name it, they have spent big bucks lobbying and contributing to candidates for years.
          And gee, what a surprise, people who have succeeded in Business (or not) are being added to an Administration.
          Well what do you expect, a bunch of losers with no experience being added to the team.
          EVERYBODY that has served or will serve in an Administration has some bias... fact of life.
          That doesn't mean they are "operating as de facto government"
          OH, and is "de facto government" the term of the day being sprouted by your Alt Right web sites
          And the story you posted does mention that there will be others on the team that are critics...




          Keep on Civin'
          RIP rah, Tony Bogey & Baron O

          Comment


          • #95
            That's a kind of whataboutism, which I wouldn't have a problem with if you were pointing out hypocrisy, but you aren't. It's just a junk argument, weasel words.
            I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
            - Justice Brett Kavanaugh

            Comment


            • #96
              Facebook Groups Say They Were Censored Just for Using the Word ‘Men’

              Tag group admins claim that anything even remotely negative about men gets automatically flagged or taken down. The same doesn't seem to apply to posts disparaging or even threatening women.

              If you spend a decent amount of time on the Internet, it’s hard not to come across Facebook tag groups. Tag groups are Facebook groups with seemingly bizarre names, such as “This post is so relatable I’m going to show it to my therapist”, or “sounds stoned and wholesome but okay”. These group names sound like comments so they can be tagged in the comment sections of relevant posts.

              But while they may seem to be all fun and games, over the years, tag groups have emerged as a space for people to have open and safe dialogue about the issues we face as a society. Many tag groups are dedicated to discussing everyday injustices in the patriarchal world that we live in, including mansplaining, emotional abuse, and manipulation of the other genders by men. And with its unevenly enforced hate speech policies, Facebook seems to be cracking down on that.

              It was in 2019 that Facebook groups first started going private or even secret (where one could only join by invitation), for fear of being reported, or “zucced” for their content. “Zuccing” is when a Facebook group is invaded by bad actors who post porn or other content banned by Facebook, report that content, and, in turn, get the group deleted.

              The situation has only worsened over time. Last year, group admins noticed that comments were being removed for violating Facebook’s standard for hate speech for seemingly simply mentioning the word “men”.

              “Posts and comments started being removed around October 2020,” Carla Davis*, 26, tells VICE. She is one of the admins of the group “The bar for men is so low it’s a tavern in hades”. Having started in May 2019, the group discusses society’s reactions to men's actions, wherein they’re put on a pedestal for doing the bare minimum at the expense of others. “At first it was just a few comments, but then it started happening more often. Now content is being removed almost every day.”

              Initially, this also led to confusion among members, who thought they were being censored by the admins themselves. Most of these groups were specifically formed to filter out the gendered hate that most social media platforms have become a cesspool of, and provide vulnerable communities a safe space to rant about their experiences. It would obviously be a shocker then if they began to censor their own members.

              “I would get notifications from Facebook itself saying a post or member comment has been deleted,” says Ashley Brooks*, admin of another group that calls out cisgender men’s practice of taking up space in discourse around issues that aren’t about them. “We can’t always see what it is, only sometimes. It gets very frustrating, especially when the post is not problematic at all and members get upset thinking we are the ones censoring them.”

              While the censored comments and posts reported on groups like the ones Davis and Brooks run were vastly different in their content and context, one thing was in common: They all made references to men.

              In the past, Facebook’s hate speech policies have raised eyebrows for banning women for using phrases like “men are trash” and “men are scum” to express their frustration, especially when the #MeToo movement first started. When these stories came to light, Facebook responded by saying, “We understand how important it is for victims of harassment to be able to share their stories and for people to express anger and opinions about harassment – we allow those discussions on Facebook. We draw the line when people attack others simply on the basis of their gender.”

              However, facebookjailed.com, a website founded by comedian Kayla Avery after she was banned for using these phrases, found a double standard. While compiling stories of people being banned by the platform, it turned out that while Facebook claims to protect people being attacked for their religion, sexuality, or gender, users posting threats of lynching, violence against women, and using the copycat phrase “women are trash” have all escaped the ban. These are not isolated incidents, and Avery has coined the term “Facebook jail” to refer to the hypocritical void that women’s angry or sarcastic comments about men are exiled to, but men’s hateful remarks and outright threats of harm miraculously escape.

              Another example illustrated by facebookjailed.com was when comedian Amy Shanker decided to test Facebook by writing "women are scum" and got her friends to report it. While these reports weren’t acted on by Facebbok, a report by comedian Rae Sanni on a comment by another user who said "kill yourself n*****” was completely ignored.

              More and more people are noticing that in cases like these, the same phrase, with the use of “men” or “women” being the only variable, is treated differently by the algorithm. What Facebook has an issue seems not to be the use of words like “pigs” or “trash” or “scum”; it seems to have a problem with the use of them to refer to men. As public scrutiny around these policies increases, they seem to have only gotten stricter and more irrational, admins of groups formed specifically to protect oppressed groups’ right to vent insist.

              “The phrase ‘men are trash’ has been a known target for a long time. But now it’s getting ridiculous. There was one (deleted comment) recently that literally just said ‘I dislike men’,” says Lauren Smith*, 30, also an admin of multiple such groups. She attributes some of the comments and posts being reported to organised efforts by men’s right activists, incel and red pill groups. These groups are increasingly radicalising online and perpetuating violence. Incels are misogynists who are deeply suspicious and disparaging of women and blame them for denying them their right to sexual intercourse. The Red Pill is a community on Reddit, spreading across the Internet, that was built on the belief that women have it better than men.

              “They target this group and the others we run, and mass report posts. And because Facebook has been asking for ‘feedback’ for its algorithm, I guess this is the result. Anything remotely negative about men gets automatically flagged and removed by Facebook,” says Smith.

              These actions by Facebook are reflective of a major debate that has gathered momentum as more people use social media to share their opinions: Is the use of phrases like “men are trash/scum” okay? The mere utterance of these phrases works as an incantation to summon hordes of disapproving men, ready to fight it out with chants of “not all men…”. And when Facebook begins classifying them as hate speech, it’s doing pretty much the same thing.

              But no one really means all men when they say “men are scum”. These phrases have become akin to slogans that those wronged by men use to express anger and discomfort, which are bound to arise after the global movement detailing stories of all the messed up ways in which men use their privilege and power to assault vulnerable people. These phrases have also become a way for people to cope with traumatic experiences, and are often also used harmlessly for the purpose of humour, which is a classic coping mechanism for many.

              When a woman shares a meme saying “men suck” or “all men are useless”, that’s the end of that. There’s nothing more they can do, and chances are, they’re definitely not threatening violence or harm to any specific men, unlike most men who take offence to these statements and explain in graphic detail what they’re going to do to women.

              The fact of the matter is that regardless of what women say about men, it’s men who are privileged and enjoy enough power to continue to have the upper hand in society. So when Facebook classifies these phrases as hate speech, it’s ignoring these power dynamics that lie at the centre of our social systems. “That is Facebook making a decision that misogyny and racism are equal to misandry and ‘reverse-racism’ and they’re ignoring the power structure,” says comedian Marcia Belsky, who has also made it to Facebook jail many times for harmless comments.

              The fear of being reported and censored for voicing their anger has resulted in men being banned from many online spaces, so as to put the spotlight on those oppressed. But many groups do allow men to join, as long as they are inclusive and open to learning different perspectives that don’t align with their opinion. One might suspect then that “bad actors” with the intent to make trouble slip through the filtering mechanisms that the groups have in place and mass report these posts, as the admins of “the bar for men…” feared initially. This could eventually lead to the group being zucced, something that group admins often have to warn members about. But over time they’ve become sure that it’s not members of the group who are reporting the posts, they mostly have the great Zucc himself to blame for this specific act of censorship.

              “If it was a member, we would see a notification saying ‘so and so reported a piece of content’ or ‘you have a moderator alert’,” says Smith.
              So how have these groups tried to circumvent this obstacle and escape censorship that only seems to be getting progressively worse?

              First, Smith’s group is trying to keep its 8,000+ members in the know about what’s going on.
              “We have put out a pinned post/announcement saying that unless you receive a notification saying the group admins/moderators removed something, it was not us,” says Brooks, who’s in her mid-30s. “We do not expect people to censor themselves in a private group that we have worked so hard to cultivate and want to make sure everyone has a voice.”

              Owing to these efforts to promote free expression, there is no way these groups want to stop people from discussing the issues they’ve faced with men, whom one of the admin refers to as “the trash gender”. So they’re trying to find workarounds. They’ve asked members to refer to men by calling them anything but the m-word. So it is now common for members to use “m3n”’, “ñ€m”, “m~ń”— anything that tricks the algorithm into believing there’s nothing going on there. But AI might be a step ahead already.

              “It is hard to keep up with the algorithm as it has learned to recognise many of the common alternative spellings of 'men',” says Davis, whose group has over 12,000 members.
              “One of the ways we work around it is our hashtags. On Mondays we allow posts that show men behaving badly, and we call it ‘men suck Monday’, but since we cannot write that out, we use the hashtag #msm,” she says, while also pointing out that many groups have even been removed because they had the word “men” in their name.

              With members scattered all across the world, these groups act as a meeting place for them, and the interactions they have and the perspectives they learn here become a part of their lives beyond the Internet. And so, policies like these spark fears of a future where similar censorship and self-censorship might seep into the IRL world, making it tougher for people to talk about experiences of oppression and mistreatment.

              In December 2020, Facebook revealed that it has been working on overhauling its hate speech algorithms, reversing years of so-called “race-blind” policies. Under Project WoW—an effort by Facebook to better detect and delete content that it considers “the worst of the worst”— deletion of comments and posts mentioning “whites,” “men,” and “Americans” will be ranked at a lower priority than those targeting historically marginalised groups such as Muslims, the LGBTQ+ community, Blacks, and Jews. VICE tried to contact Facebook about this, but did not receive a response.

              While this announcement might come as a momentary relief, it doesn’t allay the fears of group admins who spend a considerable amount of time trying to encourage opinionated discourses and addressing members’ frustration when their posts are wiped off the face of the earth.

              Davis says, “Seeing how many comments are deleted by Facebook, usually for no apparent reason, makes us worry that the group will be removed entirely one day. It may just be a Facebook group, but we have created a community here that many people seem to enjoy. It also points to a bigger issue of women's voices being shut down when trying to speak up against the patriarchy.”
              https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvx5...en-hate-speech

              Big Tech Brother supporting the Patriarchy

              Comment


              • #97
                Originally posted by Kidicious View Post
                That's a kind of whataboutism, which I wouldn't have a problem with if you were pointing out hypocrisy, but you aren't. It's just a junk argument, weasel words.


                Weasel words...



                Just because there are more Pro Big Tech people being added to the administration than Anti Big Tech people doesn't mean they will be "operating as de facto government."
                Using that logic, I guess the PRO LIFE people were "operating as de facto government" under the Trump administration..
                Or that Rich People were "operating as de facto government" under the Trump administration

                So try again... your whole the sky is falling and that BIG TECH will be running the government is just hype.
                Keep on Civin'
                RIP rah, Tony Bogey & Baron O

                Comment


                • #98
                  It's not just that. Big Tech is going after Biden’s political opposition.

                  I mean this is the same thing you did with the spying. Nonsense.
                  I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
                  - Justice Brett Kavanaugh

                  Comment


                  • #99
                    And Trump sicked his DOJ on his political opponents... and you had no problem with that...

                    And just because somebody can count doesn't mean that Big Tech will be "operating as de facto government"
                    Talk about total nonsense.
                    But keep sprouting the pablum that your alt right sites are feeding you
                    Keep on Civin'
                    RIP rah, Tony Bogey & Baron O

                    Comment


                    • Kidlicious
                      Kidlicious commented
                      Editing a comment
                      Of course I didn't have a problem with the legitimate government doing its job.

                  • Originally posted by Kidicious View Post
                    That's a kind of whataboutism, which I wouldn't have a problem with if you were pointing out hypocrisy, but you aren't. It's just a junk argument, weasel words.
                    I don't think yoiu had a problem with Trump making a Coal/Oil lobbyist head of the EPA ... followed by another Coal/Oil-Lobbyist, when the first one fell into disgrace because of enriching himself too much through his office
                    Tamsin (Lost Girl): "I am the Harbinger of Death. I arrive on winds of blessed air. Air that you no longer deserve."
                    Tamsin (Lost Girl): "He has fallen in battle and I must take him to the Einherjar in Valhalla"

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Proteus_MST View Post

                      I don't think yoiu had a problem with Trump making a Coal/Oil lobbyist head of the EPA ... followed by another Coal/Oil-Lobbyist, when the first one fell into disgrace because of enriching himself too much through his office
                      I only know a little about that because I'm not much of an environmentalist, either do I care much about the energy industry. You are just making a blind assumption that I'm for corruption in government to cover for Biden’s corruption without actually defending Biden. Correct me if I'm wrong, but those people you are talking about didn't go after Democrats to prevent them from political representation.
                      I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
                      - Justice Brett Kavanaugh

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by Ming View Post

                        And how exactly are they violating the American Constitution?
                        While people have the "freedom of speech"... the constitution does not give people the right to FORCE others to repeat what they say or provide them with a platform to say it. Companies have the right to set rules, and enforce them how ever they wish as longs as the rules and how they enforce them is not against the law. And unless the law changes, these social media platforms are not breaking any current law.
                        You shut-down any communication channels for your democratically elected president be it TV-chanells or social networks (his account is banned not only on Twitter, but on other 12 major sites as well, including youtube).

                        You have started a witch hunt against his followers.

                        And you still see no problem with a violation of the 1st amendment?
                        GREAT!!!

                        The modern US of A is worse than USSR of 1937!
                        The only difference is that Soviets back then called their dissenters "an enemies of the State", while you call them "domestic terrorists".
                        Last edited by Serb; January 14, 2021, 12:57.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Ming View Post

                          Believe me when I say, I will if I want to... like what has been done in the past.

                          When you go beyond reason, and are no longer entertaining, it will indeed happen
                          Believe me when I say - I don't FKN care!!!

                          You would do me a favor with a ban, that would save me a lot of time I waste on brainless zombies here.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by Serb View Post

                            You shut-down any communication channels for your democratically elected president be it TV-chanells or social networks (his account is banned not only on Twitter, but on other 12 major sites as well, including youtube).

                            You have started a witch hunt against his followers.

                            And you still see no problem with a violation of the 1st amendment?
                            GREAT!!!
                            You seem to be having problems with the 1st Amendment...
                            Because this isn't a violation of anything (under current laws)
                            He can say whatever he wants (within legal limits) even if they are total lies and BS. Nobody is stopping him.
                            However, there is no law that says private companies need to provide him with a platform to do so.
                            So before you rant about 1st Amendment violations, a protection not offered to you in your country, learn what it is.
                            Keep on Civin'
                            RIP rah, Tony Bogey & Baron O

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Serb View Post

                              Believe me when I say - I don't FKN care!!!

                              You would do me a favor with a ban, that would save me a lot of time I waste on brainless zombies here.

                              Believe me when I say - I don't care what you care.
                              And if you want to save a lot of time, just stop posting. Nobody is putting a gun to your head to post here (unless somebody is)
                              Keep on Civin'
                              RIP rah, Tony Bogey & Baron O

                              Comment

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