Comment by godelski | Hacker News Reader

Comment by godelski | Hacker News Reader

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There's this weird train of thought going around that I don't understand. If terrorists or criminals are talking in large groups, as they did on Parler, they might as well be in plain text. The point is that an average person can get into that conversation (be radicalized) and then become part of that mob. If the CIA/FBI/NSA can't get into those groups then they should be all removed because of gross incompetence and we've been overestimating their influence by several orders of magnitude for the last 50 years. We hear stories about agents infiltrating groups all the time. So what's the issue here? That they have to infiltrate and can't passively monitor? The only thing this stops is dragnet operations where small group terrorists are plotting together. Which historically we've seen that this isn't effective because it's just adding more hay to the haystack.

I'd contrast this from a platform like Parler where they actively encouraged extremists to adopt their platform. It is one thing to say "free speech" as a dog whistle and another thing to say "free speech" in the true meaning. Parler sought out extremists from the get go, Signal has been focusing on mass adoption. There's a big difference.

> Parler sought out extremists from the get go

Can you share evidence of this? Because it clashes with all the messaging I've seen from Parler.

It’s literally funded by the Mercer family.

The messaging for this and Gab may thinly suggest otherwise, but it’s clear what these communities target, and it absolutely is the dog whistle version of free speech.

I'm having a hard time finding an ad since everything is being pulled, but they advertised to sites like Breitbart and Info Wars and even included the enforcements in several ads I saw. That's specifically catering to extremist groups.

But I'll point to videos I can find which aren't as bad. If anyone can find the original ads that I mentioned I'd appreciate a link. Here[0] Ingram mentions radicals like Alex Jones and Candice Owens mentioning that it is a social network specifically for conservatives. It is easy to find plenty of videos like this where they consistently talk about it being a social media platform for conservatives. Here's one where the CEO complains about fact checking the president[1]. He does end struggling to suggest that Parler is gaining diversity, but also says that Twitter is a Biden community in the same sentence. But I've never been one to think that Twitter was specifically targeting conservatives. But you'll find that a lot of these interviews do still focus around the politics of the issue. Compare that to Signal's much more neutral stance on the matter.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6iyAt1Ydpc

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8IcjsFHwc8

Edit: Downvoters, would you mind explaining? Is it that I no longer have a direct link to Parler using Info Wars/Alex Jones and Breitbart as endorsements? Or do you not think those are extremist websites?

Alex Jones and brietbart are sensationalists, not extremists.

If you cannot understand your own tone, maybe you need to take a step back and consider you may be part of the problem (being unable to regulate your emotions and have a neutral conversation)

> Alex Jones and brietbart are sensationalists, not extremists.

Can you expand on this? I understand Breitbart more since people like Milo were more clearly trolls. But Alex Jones frequently talks about conspiracy theories and is promoting the current insurrection (see below). But if many extremists frequent your sites then maybe the line is pretty blurry and you should expect others to confuse them. And to quote from an article that is on Info Wars' front page (in its entirety)[0]

> They continue twisting the occupation of our nation’s Capitol by frustrated citizens and using it to destroy anyone that stands in their way.

> As DC Mayor Bouser lords over her potential future state with a 15 day emergency order following the Capitol Building siege, the National Guard, including 1,000 soldiers from New York, are stationed in the nation’s Capitol to protect the illegitimate inauguration of the Manchurian Candidate Joe Biden while the old establishment propaganda ratchets into full protection mode and the defenders of the New World Order crawl out of their holes to justify the plague that is exterminating liberty.

How do you differentiate this from extremism? Reading words like "occupation", "illegitimate inauguration", "New World Order", and "exterminating liberty" seem to me like extremist views. I'm not sure how you differentiate the two, but saying that a deep state rigged the election and calling those who attacked the capital "frustrated citizens" is in my view an extremist stance. These words encourage those actions. Extremists always use inflammatory language, so where is the line drawn? When does sensationalism because extremism? When you have followers that act on your words? I feel like we're there.

[0] https://www.infowars.com/posts/selling-the-illusion-of-insur...

You would not respond with a book of text about a comment about the taliban (extremists). But Alex Jones gets you to write a thesis.. that’s sensationalism. Something that bothers you but not everyone.

https://twitter.com/donk_enby claims to have downloaded all of Parler and has been posting screenshots as she goes.

"the lack of moderation on Parler is not the issue. they actually have very robust moderation tools and all new users start out shadowbanned until enough of their post get approved for rightthink by their user moderators"

She also claims that influencers were being paid to post material without disclosing the payments. The FTC frowns on this. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/02/how-parler-app-plans-to-make... talks about this.

Basically, the idea was to get attention and make sure that it was a safe space for people who believed certain things, making sure that different viewpoints wouldn't be heard.

That might not be their messaging but that's what they were doing. Assuming this is true, of course.

> safe space for people who believed certain things

What were these things? How right was too right, how left was too left?

> It is one thing to say "free speech" as a dog whistle and another thing to say "free speech" in the true meaning.

Saying that free speech doesn't count if you're not using it the right away, is literally the exact opposite of the concept. It's the same reason the ACLU has spent so much money defending literal Nazis.

Sorry, that's not what I was trying to convey here. "Free speech as a dog whistle" is people using the term free speech but not actually meaning it. More of a "free speech for me, but not for thee," but the second part isn't explicitly said. I do mean dog whistle, which is covert speech. But speech can only be covert (undertone) if there is a non-covert overtone (otherwise it wouldn't be hidden). So why I'm criticizing here is because the CEO said that Twitter is a place of cancel culture, which comes a lot from users, but said that that can't happen on Parler and then just targeted extremist right wing groups to adopt the platform. He flies under the flag of free speech but the intent was to create a network where right wing extremists could talk within a bubble. There's nothing wrong with that (except for the extremist part) but that isn't exactly free speech focused, that's a niche focus. There's a big difference if you develop a product and it is adopted by a certain group verses if you specifically target that group, use their language, go on their platforms, and actively encourage that group to adopt your platform without even making any attempt to get other groups to join. Essentially Parler said Twitter is a left wing echo chamber and wanted to create a right wing echo chamber. The intent was never to create a free speech platform, the intent was to create a right wing platform. Intent matters.

To clarify on the dog whistling part more, let's think about a recent example. Conservatives have frequently said that free speech is one of the most important things (Fox News, Trump, etc, not your neighbor). But then these groups also advocated for kicking athletes out of the country for kneeling in protest[0]. The president used his position of power to lead a boycott against a private organization[1]. The hypocrisy here is about that there is no right form of protest if you don't agree with me but even extreme forms of protest are okay if you do agree with me. Someone who says that is not actually advocating for free speech no matter how often they use the term. You saw organizations and the president saying that this wasn't a protest and that if it was they should do it another way. Then you see BLM and say that they should have protested peacefully and we would have solved the problems. From a different perspective you can see this as protesting escalating from peaceful to more disruptive and including violence. We see the "two sides" arguments (Charlottesville), encouraging supporters to run Biden's vehicle off the road[2], encouraging kidnapping of a governor[3], and I can go on (do we need to talk about the several cases at the Oregon capital?). Free speech isn't unlimited. Nor is "free speech for me and not for thee" free speech either.

If free speech is unlimited for one group but not for another, that is not free speech it is a dog whistle.

You can call a cat a dog but that doesn't make a cat a dog. And it doesn't matter if you take your cats on walks or you teach it to play fetch or other tricks or convince a bunch of people it is a dog, it is still a cat at the end of the day and won't ever be a dog.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44232979

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/sep/22/donald-trump-n...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/31/biden-harris...

[3] https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/27/politics/trump-gretchen-whitm...

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