CrossFit Storms Off Facebook and Instagram (techspot.com) 223
"CrossFit, the branded workout regimen, deleted its Facebook and Instagram pages earlier this week and explained the reasoning through an impassioned press release," reports the Verge.
TechSpot has more details: In a press release, CrossFit revealed the breaking point: the deletion of the Banting7DayMealPlan user group, without warning or explanation. Banting is an alternative high-fat low-carb diet with no set meal times or processed foods, and its Facebook group had 1.65 million users, including 1 million from South Africa. The group mostly posts testimonials and discusses the merits of the diet or how it might be implemented. While the group has been reinstated (still without explanation), CrossFit is right to call into question why Facebook removed it in the first place. While Banting is probably inadvisable, groups advocating for it have a right to exist.
Still, that's far from the only reason CrossFit abandoned the platforms...
CrossFit sees itself as a community of 15,000 affiliates and millions of individuals against "an unholy alliance of academia, government, and multinational food, beverage, and pharmaceutical companies," according to their press release -- so they may be feeling vulnerable. CrossFit, Inc. defends relentlessly the right of its affiliates, trainers, and athletes to practice CrossFit, build voluntary CrossFit associations and businesses, and speak openly and freely about the ideas and principles that animate our views of exercise, nutrition, and health...
Facebook and its properties host and oversee a significant share of the marketplace of public thought... Facebook thus serves as a de facto authority over the public square, arbitrating a worldwide exchange of information as well as overseeing the security of the individuals and communities who entrust their ideas, work, and private data to this platform. This mandates a certain responsibility and assurance of good faith, transparency, and due process. CrossFit, Inc., as a voluntary user of and contributor to this marketplace, can and must remove itself from this particular manifestation of the public square when it becomes clear that such responsibilities are betrayed or reneged upon to the detriment of our community.
CrossFit says they're "suspending" all activity on the platforms while they investigate "the circumstances pertaining to Facebook's deletion of the Banting7DayMealPlan and other well-known public complaints about the social-media company," adding that CrossFit "will no longer support or use Facebook's services until further notice."
TechSpot has more details: In a press release, CrossFit revealed the breaking point: the deletion of the Banting7DayMealPlan user group, without warning or explanation. Banting is an alternative high-fat low-carb diet with no set meal times or processed foods, and its Facebook group had 1.65 million users, including 1 million from South Africa. The group mostly posts testimonials and discusses the merits of the diet or how it might be implemented. While the group has been reinstated (still without explanation), CrossFit is right to call into question why Facebook removed it in the first place. While Banting is probably inadvisable, groups advocating for it have a right to exist.
Still, that's far from the only reason CrossFit abandoned the platforms...
CrossFit sees itself as a community of 15,000 affiliates and millions of individuals against "an unholy alliance of academia, government, and multinational food, beverage, and pharmaceutical companies," according to their press release -- so they may be feeling vulnerable. CrossFit, Inc. defends relentlessly the right of its affiliates, trainers, and athletes to practice CrossFit, build voluntary CrossFit associations and businesses, and speak openly and freely about the ideas and principles that animate our views of exercise, nutrition, and health...
Facebook and its properties host and oversee a significant share of the marketplace of public thought... Facebook thus serves as a de facto authority over the public square, arbitrating a worldwide exchange of information as well as overseeing the security of the individuals and communities who entrust their ideas, work, and private data to this platform. This mandates a certain responsibility and assurance of good faith, transparency, and due process. CrossFit, Inc., as a voluntary user of and contributor to this marketplace, can and must remove itself from this particular manifestation of the public square when it becomes clear that such responsibilities are betrayed or reneged upon to the detriment of our community.
CrossFit says they're "suspending" all activity on the platforms while they investigate "the circumstances pertaining to Facebook's deletion of the Banting7DayMealPlan and other well-known public complaints about the social-media company," adding that CrossFit "will no longer support or use Facebook's services until further notice."
Faceboot (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Faceboot (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Faceboot (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Faceboot (Score:5, Insightful)
That's an incredibly lazy and/or naive question
The answer is "plenty" or "more than plenty" or at the very least "far more than any alternative"
Go out in the real world and in find out how many ambulatory flesh-and-blood humans have a Facebook and/or Instagram account that they could follow a Crossfit page with, if they wanted to.
In the same survey, find out how many have an account on a competitor's site that they could follow a Crossfit page with, if they wanted to.
Oh, you found a few tumblr and twitter users? Pfft.
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That doesn't refute the above post at all.
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It works for Facebook.
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Companies are supposed to supplement their marketing with social media, not be slaves to it.
If your marketing hat is hung squarely on the Facebook rack, you deserve everything that comes with that ignorance.
I would love to live on a planet where this was still true, but it simply isn't. The economics of online interaction have changed significantly over the last 15 years, thanks to the consolidation that's occurred and the rise of both Big Data and Big Tech. Facebook and Google together control the vast majority of all online advertising; if you're not using them you're basically not advertising.
Print journalism? While Craigslist clobbered the classified ads market that was keeping local papers afloat, major p
Re: Faceboot (Score:2)
Re:Faceboot (Score:5, Informative)
Given the numbers of people quoted as "active" on Facebook (1.56billion) even if Facebook is lying about 90% of them (which I doubt) it is still the biggest active general purpose community on a single platform.
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still the biggest active general purpose community on a single platform.
True, but Crossfit is important enough for many people that they could build their own social network. Imagine hordes of CrossFitters with +5 Insightful and +5 Severely Injured posts...
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That doesn't really make a lot of sense. If someone on Facebook is sufficiently interested in CrossFit to join a CrossFit group, they're interested enough to join a separate CrossFit message board. If they can't figure out how, they're not going to be on Facebook either.
Of course, people in to CrossFit but opposed to Facebook can only participate if the CrossFit board is separate.
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You might understand technology, but you don't understand people.
Re: Faceboot (Score:2)
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Exactly. CF could use FB to drive traffic to their own site that they set up their own way, with apps for every device, the whole shebang. They should have taken this encounter with FB as a stimulus to start building their own site and announce it when it's done. No awkward goodbyes or lockouts then.
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So make the sign-up procedure the same as facebook.
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They did, but it increased Facebook sign-ups without any advantage to "them". The steps :
1. Open www.facebook.com
2. Enter name, surname, password, phone number, age etc.
3. Wait for email from Facebook to confirm email ID
4. Confirm email ID
5. Use Facebook instead of CrossFit
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I'm getting it just fine. On the other hand, there's the current situation where they have nothing on Facebook, nothing of their own. Or the situation before, they had something on Facebook, then one day someone whizzed in Facebook's Wheaties, so they suddenly had nothing.
People into Crossfit are obsessive enough that there has been a significant occurrence of rhabdomyolysis [wikipedia.org]. They don't let that stop them, why would entering an email and picking a password be a roadblock?
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This is a text only forum. If you rear something stupid sounding, it is likely just your own digestive process. It's probably pretty loud and distorted based on the current location of your ears.
Re: Faceboot (Score:2)
And is your municipality notably better managed since the advent of social media? Or would the loss of Facebook only result in civil servants with more time on their hands?
Re: Faceboot (Score:1)
Social media is a lot like a horror movie in slow motion.
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Marketing is a numbers game and you go where the people are. One time, they were on AOL. Then, they were on mySpace. Right now, they're on Facebook/Instagram. Tomorrow, they'll be on something else. But still, you have to go where the people are.
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All of the people reachable are on the Internet. That is where you have to go.
When people were on AOL (at least for a good while), they were not on the Internet.
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Re: Faceboot (Score:2)
This whole scenario seems a bit.. hmm.. ridiculous. I'm not sure why anyone would entrust Facebook to do that, it sounds like a terrible idea. What of CrossFit's responsibility in maintaining a healthy marketplace of ideas? They seem to have, at least for the time being, pulled their partnership with FB. A good start, but the momen
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Yes you do. What the fuck are you talking about? You have the right to demand to know what color underpants Zuckerberg is wearing today.
You don't necessarily have a right to an answer but you can demand whatever you want.
Re: Faceboot (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook can't have it all. They can't be considered not resposible for content (i.e. not editors) and then edit content and vice versa.
Either they are resposible and edit content or they aren't and can't edit content.
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Re: Faceboot (Score:1)
Yes, private corporations can be as fascist as they want... but in the end, they're still fascist. Don't forget that
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Facebook is a private company. They can allow or disallow anyone on their platform, just as you can allow or disallow anyone into your home.
But we still have a right to know why a given deletion took place. This is not a right that we want Facebook to confer on us, but a right that we as users assert. If it is not respected, users will retaliate in ways determined by local culture. Americans will leave the platform for Gab.ai, Europeans will fine it bazillions of Euros, and Asians will firewall it out.
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But we still have a right to know why a given deletion took place.
No, you have the privilege to know. They are still a private company and there is no law that grants you a "right".
Americans will leave the platform for Gab.ai
Who?
Europeans will fine it bazillions of Euros
Nope, it's not a law in Europe either.
and Asians will firewall it out.
Why would firewall owners care?
On a tangent about rights (Score:2)
> there is no law that grants you a "right"
Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech
the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Note it doesn't say "Congress shall grant a right"; it
Typo: can't take away (Score:2)
That should be:
A person can't take away your rights, because they didn't create them and give them to you. A person can only violate your rights or respect them.
That's alao why the Bill of Rights says consistently says "the right", not "a right". It commands government to not violate the pre-existing right, not to create a new right.
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Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech
Look I know companies are a favorite among the government and have a lot of lobbying, but calling Facebook "congress" is a real stretch.
Now when you're done quoting a piece of paper that literally has no implications for a non-government entity, I'd like to invite you back to the conversation.
Not about Facebook, about rights (Score:2)
I don't know if you noticed my subject line, but I was talking about rights, not about Facebook.
A law (or indeed a company) can respect your rights or violate your rights, they can't grant rights. You don't necessarily have a right to post to Facebook. That's not an issue of law, though. Laws don't create rights, only protect them or violate them.
How can you tell for sure? Suppose on Monday the government purported to pass a law saying you're not allowed to criticize Ilhan Abdullahi Omar. Three days late
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No, you have the privilege to know. They are still a private company and there is no law that grants you a "right".
What people don’t realize about the net neutrality issue is that it basically means treating your ISP as a public utility. It would become illegal for an ISP to discriminate among customers, just as it would be illegal for an electric company to refuse service to Crossfitters.
When we get net neutrality for ISPs, the inevitable next step being clamored for by users will be to treat the most popular social media companies as public utilities also. Disclosure won’t be an issue the, because deplatfo
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If a company sells stock on the exchange, then they are NOT a private company.
Facebook is a PUBLICATION company.
You know there is a big difference in the definition of the term "private" when talking about stock vs non stock and when talking about laws that cover the government right? I mean those stock market listed companies are literally known as "the private sector".
"The stupid is strong with this one."
You have an incredible sense of self awareness, the only real question is if you knew you were stupid why did you post at all? Don't share that stuff man.
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Americans will leave the platform for Gab.ai, Europeans will fine it bazillions of Euros, and Asians will firewall it out.
Americans have demonstrated that they most definitely won't move to Gab. Research suggests the site only has about 20k active users, out of 800k registered. If you want to talk about dormant accounts and bots, that's an even worse ratio than Facebook, and suggests people sign up thinking it's a free speech utopia and then quickly discover it's a hell hole.
EU fines... Hard to see how that would work, there are some provisions for having decisions reviewed or explained but they mainly pertain to automated pro
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Parler will allow any typed out opinion on any topic, but it will not allow "obscene" material such as Bazzers' latest POV vid.
So they still censor content, they just censor out the content you disapprove of.
The correct amount of censorship is like the correct amount to strychnine in a punch bowl.
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Wrong. Facebook is a private company. They can allow or disallow anyone on their platform, just as you can allow or disallow anyone into your home. Facebook doesn't owe you an explanation for anything they do, and you have no "right" to demand an explanation.
And those who don't like how they behave have a right to delete their account and storm off - which is precisely what has happened here. So your point is?
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You want to advocate for something you believe in, fine, no problem. Do it on your own website at your own expense
FB is a private company, but when such companies gain a significant share of the market, they rightly come under closer scrutiny, and if necessary antitrust measures or other additional restrictions come into play. And FaceBook has such a monolopy. Not on online public forums; as you say, anyone can start their own, and the barrier to entry is lower than ever. They do however have a monopoly (or sizable market share) on the audience.
Crossfit put it very well: "Facebook and its properties host and overs
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Just because millions of people are using facebook, doesn't mean any of them are viewing your page or are even aware that it exists.
The same applies to the internet, even more people use the internet and there are many pieces of software you could put on a server and host with no guarantee that anyone will look at it.
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FB is basically today's Angelfire or Geocities...
No, those were just popular hosting companies (despite GeoCities' attempts at the creation of communities).
FB is much more like today's AOL prior to browser dominance. Yes, you might technically have access via PPP or SLIP to get on the Internet with a separate app (and AOL's in-app browser sorta functioned), you spent most of your time within that walled garden, and content providers who may have had their own home pages (Pathfinder, anyone?) had to advertise and push deep content (ie. articles) directly t
Crossfit? (Score:2)
Never heard of them. And everyone that I know that uses facebook uses it mainly for relatives and friends. Not a town square where strangers are allowed...
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Two words, Ivan; two word: Subsistence Garden.
It doesn't have to be this bad.
Re: Crossfit? (Score:5, Informative)
None, but they way the GP wrote his post doesn't give you the full story: Crossfit actively advocates excess exercise using terms like AMRAP (As many rounds as possible - doing as much of an exercise as possible) or RFT (Rounds for Time - doing exercise as quickly as possible).
And we're not talking like HIIT here (High Intensity Interval Training). Even that kind of exercise says you shouldn't go beyond 90% VO2 max heart rate and shouldn't do it more than 3 times a week. No, Crossfit will advocate setting an exercise and absolutely ruining yourself with it. Like the "Mary" workout which gives you a selection of 3 workouts, a 20min time and the AMRAP challenge, where you will see people actually throwing up on themselves while they try to do their 400th situp for the session.
Crossfit is the type of exercise which considers vomiting normal until you build up to the level of the other jocks in the gym. It's a truly bizarre body ruining cult.
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Nope. You wrote:
"they were advocating forms of exercise known to extremely dangerous if done to excess"
I wrote:
"Crossfit actively advocates excess exercise"
Missing word in your comment aside, my local gym also advocates forms of exercise known to be extremely dangerous if done to excess, but they are very careful to not advocate doing those forms of exercise excessively. There's a big difference and that is the extra part of the story that was missed and which made your point weak an welcoming to senseless
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Well, they may not have heard of them, but they've probably seen and heard these large groups of people over-exercising together, loudly.
It simply gets more creepy when you find out it is a company, not a sports team or college intramural activity.
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You know those egg shaped rocks that Gwyneth Paltrow sells women to cram up their vaginas? Crossfit is that same level of legitimacy except towards food.
Exactly.
"CrossFit sees itself as a community of 15,000 affiliates and millions of individuals against "an unholy alliance of academia, government, and multinational food, beverage, and pharmaceutical companies," according to their press release
*facepalm*
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Kinda like climate change?
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Re: Crossfit? (Score:2)
Wtf are you talking about? What success Cross Fit has is down to religion not nutrition. Anyone fighting against "academia" does not know the first thing about nutrition.
Re: Crossfit? (Score:2)
The Grain Brain? You really are an under-informed moron, aren't you...
Listen to nutritionists. Not fear mongers looking to make millions of dollars riling up idiots on Facebook into buying their book.
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I'm not sure why you'd say that. Anybody who lives at the gym is going to get pretty good at it, provided they actually eat. I've known gym rats who existed on ten thousand calories a day of McDonalds.
Re:Crossfit? (Score:5, Funny)
If a vegan joins crossfit, which will they tell you about first?
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I don't know if I've ever heard anyone announce their atheism.. (not counting famous people of course, i just mean regular people)
Maybe its a regional thing? In the US, despite the legal separation of church and state, religion and Christianity in particular is incredibly pervasive and seeps into many aspects of life and culture in a way I found very strange when I lived in America. In the UK it's the opposite, we have a state church, but attendance is down year on year and there are a lot of people who si
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Re: Americans have a very twisted "atheism". (Score:2)
Troll modded, but no rebuttal to explain how I am at all wrong. Losers...
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I'm thinking that people who live in a certain kind of cave have heard of it. You probably watch reality television too
Someone got angry... (Score:1, Funny)
Most likely they diet has triggered one of the crazies at FB that censors "wrongthink" - maybe the fact that its "meat" diet so its against vegans? Or perhaps it doesn't include soy and other things that include estrogen so its seen as anti-women (everything is anti-women nowdays)?
birds of a feather (Score:1)
Inadvisable? (Score:3)
While Banting is probably inadvisable,
Really? Banting has a long history in SA (and elsewhere), plenty of evidence behind it, and won over Dr. Noakes from being a supporter of diets far closer to the status quo based on research. Offhanded editorializing like the above didn't belong in the article quoted.
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Banting has a long history because it started in 1800. Now, that said, you talk about "winning over Dr. Noakes" as if this was some coup, when in reality he's yet another in a long line of folks cashing in. Now, I'm not against keto-style diets when done with approval of an actual doctor/nutritionist/dietician, but I AM against acting like a guy who tweeted the following holds any fucking weight:
In August 2014, Noakes sent a tweet to his 46,000 twitter followers which said: "Dishonest science. Proven link b
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If you want somebody with a PhD giving a statement, I can do that: This sounds like really dangerous advice.
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Wrong. A Euro STEM Master's is in actual reality worth more than most US PhDs. Ho to the very best US universities and you get parity, but not below. I have seen that in action. Numerous times. An European PhD it is, on average, taking longer as well, at least in the STEM field. This is just some unsophisticated, facts-ignorant US cultural arrogance. For your information, my second adviser was from the US and pretty high profile in his field. He let me pass with flying colors, while my primary adviser (Euro
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While Banting is probably inadvisable,
Really? Banting has a long history in SA (and elsewhere), plenty of evidence behind it, and won over Dr. Noakes from being a supporter of diets far closer to the status quo based on research. Offhanded editorializing like the above didn't belong in the article quoted.
What? Who is this Dr. Noakes whose conversion to the Banting diet is apparently supposed to convince me?
Oh, he's a doctor famous for advocating the Banting diet [wikipedia.org], so his gravitas as an important expert don't seem quite so large.
And looks like he might be an anti-vaxxer tweeting out videos by Wakefield as well. Which isn't diet related, but doesn't really give confidence in his ability to evaluate evidence.
Re: Inadvisable? (Score:2)
There's nothing wrong with viewpoint journalism. There's even nothing wrong with gonzo journalism. They are both legitimate forms of journalism.
What's wrong is seeking out only one viewpoint to select which journalists you will read.
Re: Inadvisable? (Score:2)
That's fine if you want to be an elitist snob and refuse to consider the New Yorker and Rolling Stone to be journalism, but real journalists are aware of something called an "editorial".
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That is true. But isn't an editorial supposed to be labelled as such ? There are additional labels signifying opinions e.g. Op-Eds, "opinion" label etc. But excluding those, would you disagree with the statement that good journalism only states facts leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions ?
Re: Inadvisable? (Score:2)
If you are asking me if Charles Bukowski was a terrible journalist, I'd have to say no. Sometimes a fact-based story has more truth than an enumeration of the facts. A talented journalist can tease out parallels and compress information in ways that are more informative to the reader than a simple chronological timeline with associated on-the-record quotes from PR drones.
Re: Inadvisable? (Score:2)
As for labeling op-eds, that's a newspaper thing, not a journalist thing. No need to label something an op-ed in Rolling Stone. We know already. Also no reason to label a blog post an op-ed.
Re: Inadvisable? (Score:2)
Sometimes a fictional novel has more truth than one or more fact based newspaper articles. Sometimes a poem, or a painting has more truth. That has no bearing on the subject.
It's a company?!? (Score:3)
I should make a Xerox of this article.
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You probably confused them with cross-trainers, the sneaker style that can be used on the track or on a court. Or cross-training, where you practice one sport to improve your skills in a different one.
Sometimes though cross-training just means using a stair-stepper or elliptical trainer that has the words "cross" and "trainer" in the model name.
Re: It's a company?!? (Score:2)
Yeah, I think the only reason I know what it is is because I live in a downtown area with two local CrossFits who leave their giant bay doors open like a gallery of pathetic athletic losers.
This is awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
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More groups need to do this to show Facebook and Youtube to not mess with content without good reason. I hope there is a mass exodus. I am just amazed by governments around the world trying to shutdown content these days. You'd think this generation would be open more to content online than less. Everyone from the left, right, even center is like TAKE THAT DOWN ITS OFFENSIVE. I'm not even blaming entirely these hosting platforms its not like they can say no in every case. You saw New Zealand foaming at the mouth over their video leak. Even passed entire legislation to ban content outright over one incident. It's like everyone lost their fucking backbone all at once lately.
TPTB are frightened that people might use the internet to come together to take some of their individual autonomy back. Power is a zero-sum game. They don't want to lose any of their power, and so attempt to manipulate public perceptions and information while removing anything and anyone from public discourse that threatens the narratives they favor.
A threat to any one of their narratives is a threat to all of their narratives, so even a nutrition/diet/exercise regimen that falls outside of "accepted" norms
Is Crossfit the American Falun Gong? (Score:2)
Cultish as this regimen may be, why does Zuckerberg want to drive tanks over it?
Re: Is Crossfit the American Falun Gong? (Score:2)
Because he can.
What was that old maxim about absolute power?
Told you (Score:2)
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How dare they step into your exclusive turf!
What did they expect? (Score:4, Insightful)
You use someone else's platform, you are beholden to their whims. You have no control over it whatsoever.
Host your own server and your own forum if you want any control over it.
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Some ceo / tlla at crossfit bought into the bullshit that they do not do 'it' the 'cloud' eg amazon/cloudflare et all does it for them instead. Possibly being unwilling to pay they set up social media accounts and probably thought that would do mission accomplished.
If google and facebook got taken down you would see a very broken internet in the west until collective action.
mega kim dot coms cloud provider is still mired in new Zealand / american courts.
I can see why managements love the cloud but do not
Don't skip leg day (Score:2)
You need fit glutes to project this kinda butthurt.
Re: So basically, they peddle really bad advice? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Ah well, I prefer fact-based. Of course, many people look at me funny for some of the decisions I make. My students (part-time lecturer) to love this approach though, because the get the full rationale behind things.
You are perfectly correct about how this works for the general public, of course.
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Well, fortunately, I don't have an SJW "side". I can just watch the show from a distance and marvel at how stupid the players are.
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Well, if one works for a company that is in some way furthering the alt+Left agenda, then, yeah, one may well just be, to all intents and purposes, a puppet.
You'e a puppet already and the best part is you don't even realise it yet.
Re: Fucking awesome... (Score:2)
Religious persecution complexes are usually only found in Christian communities. It's telling that's it's "Cross" fit.
Re: Strange antics at Facebook (Score:2)
Because one is grossly inaccurate misinformation and one is a joke?