On our way to Biden's Inauguration (Trump #119)

[Roussette]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4128420-Capitol-Hill-and-the-next-2-weeks-Trump-118?watched=1&msgid=103459695#103459695

Here we are on our fast moving theads

www.vice.com/en/article/jgqbex/parler-is-gone-but-hackers-say-they-downloaded-everything-first

...
And the possibility of everything coming out has scared some Trump supporters.

“Bad news. Left extremists have captured and archived over 70TB of data from Parler servers. This includes posts, personal information, locations, videos, images, etc,” a Telegram account called North Central Florida Patriots said on Monday morning.

“The intent is a mass dox and a list to hold patriots ‘accountable’. It is too late to scrub your data, and it’s already archived. There is nothing you can do to prevent what’s already happened. All you can do is prepare for the fallout. Accountability may come in many forms for our free speech, doxing, jobs might be called, addresses leaked and people coming to your house, etc.”
...

[quote LunarSea]This says quite a lot about Carter - can't exactly imagine the current incumbent doing this at 95:
thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/464705-jimmy-carter-back-to-building-homes-for-habitat-for-humanity[/quote]
Or at any time of Trump's life, to be fair.
Am I nuts to be considering Trump is the epitome of evil?

www.cnbc.com/2021/01/11/germanys-merkel-hits-out-at-twitter-over-problematic-trump-ban.html?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=Main&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1610382172

@DGRossetti

www.vice.com/en/article/jgqbex/parler-is-gone-but-hackers-say-they-downloaded-everything-first

...
And the possibility of everything coming out has scared some Trump supporters.

“Bad news. Left extremists have captured and archived over 70TB of data from Parler servers. This includes posts, personal information, locations, videos, images, etc,” a Telegram account called North Central Florida Patriots said on Monday morning.

“The intent is a mass dox and a list to hold patriots ‘accountable’. It is too late to scrub your data, and it’s already archived. There is nothing you can do to prevent what’s already happened. All you can do is prepare for the fallout. Accountability may come in many forms for our free speech, doxing, jobs might be called, addresses leaked and people coming to your house, etc.”
...

What does dox mean please?

When you 'dox' somebody you reveal personal details publicly.

Thierry Breton's whole piece in Politico, from which CNBC chose to quote, has a rather different thrust from the CNBC piece.

Worth reading whole thing, but here's an excerpt.

Thierry Breton: Capitol Hill — the 9/11 moment of social media
The Capitol Hill riot exposes the fragility of our democracies — and the threat underregulated tech companies can pose to their survival.
www.politico.eu/article/thierry-breton-social-media-capitol-hill-riot/

If there was anyone out there who still doubted that online platforms have become systemic actors in our societies and democracies, last week’s events on Capitol Hill is their answer. What happens online doesn’t just stay online: It has — and even exacerbates — consequences “in real life” too.
[...]
Last week’s insurrection marked the culminating point of years of hate speech, incitement to violence, disinformation and destabilization strategies that were allowed to spread without restraint over well-known social networks. The unrest in Washington is proof that a powerful yet unregulated digital space — reminiscent of the Wild West — has a profound impact on the very foundations of our modern democracies.

The fact that a CEO can pull the plug on POTUS’s loudspeaker without any checks and balances is perplexing. It is not only confirmation of the power of these platforms, but it also displays deep weaknesses in the way our society is organized in the digital space.
[...]
Europe is the first continent in the world to initiate a comprehensive reform of our digital space through the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act, both of which the European Commission tabled in December. They are both based on one simple yet powerful premise: What is illegal offline should also be illegal online.

(My post refers to the CNBC piece lionheart linked just above.)

"The fact that a CEO can pull the plug on POTUS’s loudspeaker without any checks and balances is perplexing. It is not only confirmation of the power of these platforms, but it also displays deep weaknesses in the way our society is organized in the digital space."

Hmm. That a CEO allowed POTUS's loudspeaker to sound loud and clear without question for years whilst he was spouting absolute tripe and ultimately fomenting civil war is also perplexing to me.

www.cnbc.com/2021/01/11/germanys-merkel-hits-out-at-twitter-over-problematic-trump-ban.html?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=Main&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1610382172

I don't know how much incentive the tech companies have to change although I have seen some stand up and demand changes.

As usual the $$$ might be as much of an incentive as any moral, political or ethical considerations.

www.msnbc.com/stephanie-ruhle/watch/-it-doesn-t-look-good-to-be-in-business-with-terrorists-kara-swisher-on-corporations-pulling-gop-donations-99268165562?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma

What is illegal offline should also be illegal online.

The problem is that at the moment CEOs of digital platforms, not elected governments are effectively deciding what is legal.

Personally, I think the problem Twitter (etc) made for themselves (I suspect greed here) is that they started looking at who was posting, not what was being posted. Which is why the Trump ban now starts to look "iffy".

They admitted this themselves last week - they'd allowed Trump far more license than Joe Bloggs would have got. Which to my ears sounds perverse. But than I hold my elected officials to a very high standard. They shouldn't need license to spout bollocks.

And I'm a tiny little bit sceptical about the "need" to do anything about Twitter (etc) when in the UK newspapers can run headlines about judges such as "ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE" plus print any amount of bollocks from people like Boris, Gove and Farage without a single comeback. So when papers are regulated, let's look at Twitter (etc).

@merrymouse

What is illegal offline should also be illegal online.

The problem is that at the moment CEOs of digital platforms, not elected governments are effectively deciding what is legal.

How so, pray tell ?

the problem Twitter (etc) made for themselves (I suspect greed here) is that they started looking at who was posting, not what was being posted
THIS

I remember when Google's mission statement was do no harm. A pretty shit mission statement I remember thinking, as it was couched in a negative. All these massive tech companies have done immeasurable harm as they have not been regulated in the way TV films or newspapers were. Why do the same rules not apply to them? I remember Mary Whitehouse being roundly mocked for wanting censorship in the 80s, but my god, what we have now, an utterly deregulated social media is vile, degenerate and so so dangerous.

I really hope this is a massive wake up call to these huge companies but cynically I doubt it as it's all about traffic, and controversy sells. I don't known what the answer is but there needs to be a reckoning and accountability.

Well exactly. I think Breton has articulated the issues very well, including the deep weaknesses about how society is organized in digital space.

Coming up with answers is of course rather harder. In terms both of deciding what ethically an organized society might look like in digital space; and, separately, of making that happen.

Good luck to him. We need this work done... Heaven knows I can't imagine how.

I suppose societies faced this when the printing press emerged, but none of the solutions have been terribly satisfying. IIRC, the reason a printer's name and city must by law appear on a book is so that C16th and C17th states could prosecute printers and track down anonymous authors for sedition or for heresy, as Galileo experienced.

The issue of who gets to decide what is printed/published/distributed really has been with us a loooong time.

I feel so weary right now with all the outright lies flying about on social media, about Trump, Covid, the vaccine etc. I long for the days when we had a few trusted sources of information and everyone saw roughly the same thing so we all had a shared reality. Sort of. But now, pp can literally choose what they want to believe, and you can't run a society like that when we need shared values as Brexit has shown in the UK.

WHAT IS THE ANSWER??

I suspect a large part of the organizing will come in removing the fig-leaf of "we're a platform".

It's been the big get-out clause since the emergence of highly connected digital space.

Facebook, etc, have said" "We're not publishers, we're a platform."
Uber said, "We're not a taxi company, we're a platform."

Uber got told to jog on by a London judge, who said essentially (and apologies I'm too lazy to look up the quote): "You're in the business of carrying customers from A to B in vehicles you provide to the customer on request. You are therefore a taxi company and regulated by taxi regulations, no matter how much sophistry you spout."

Facebook, Google et al are about to be told that they are publishers, and brought under existing expectations for publishers.

I'm aware of arguments against doing that. But it's also fair for governements to say, "We tried it your way; and look what happened."

Bit of a rant, but looking at the footage of the police fighting the protesters, WHY were they not training arms on them, as we clearly saw them do with BLM protesters in the summer? They were fighting them off with batons which his what we see in the UK.

x-posted.

My post reads like a reply to yours, Destinysdaughter. But it's just a prediction of what I think will happen. Rather than a judgement on whether this is a good answer.

Was watching CNN this afternoon and one senator ( or congressman, not really sure of the distinction tbh) said that the more details and footage are coming out of the storming of Capitol Hill, the angrier and angrier the senators on both sides are getting, now knowing how close it could have come to mass carnage

How so, pray tell ?

Because a very small number of tech companies have outsize influence. I’m thinking about current discussions about anti-trust law.

I’m very comfortable with the idea that Jeff Bezos should be able to decide not to host parler on Amazon.

I’m not comfortable with the idea that by default Jeff Bezos and a couple of other men have the power to effectively decide which platforms can operate.

@Destinysdaughter

I feel so weary right now with all the outright lies flying about on social media, about Trump, Covid, the vaccine etc. I long for the days when we had a few trusted sources of information and everyone saw roughly the same thing so we all had a shared reality. Sort of. But now, pp can literally choose what they want to believe, and you can't run a society like that when we need shared values as Brexit has shown in the UK.

WHAT IS THE ANSWER??

People could always choose what to believe. There have been some pretty wacky beliefs around. But a less globalised world and a lack of mass communication and platforms like Twitter meant that it was harder to spread your word and believes could be more confined. Also monarchs/governments/the church could clamp down on things they believed were treasonous or heretical with torture and death (of course some countries are still doing this but in the west it is deemed less acceptable...)

Plenty of politicians ready to pick up the baton.

thehill.com/homenews/house/533625-newly-sworn-in-gop-rep-deletes-twitter-account-after-suspension-following

I feel so weary right now with all the outright lies flying about on social media, about Trump, Covid, the vaccine etc.

The problem is that outrage sells, and the truth is often boring.

Even the BBC is guilty of monetising outrage manufactured by known liars - look at the guests on Question Time.