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MSNBC: Parler Does Censor, Removes Users, and Really Hates Trolling (msnbc.com) 187

Posted by EditorDavid from the free-as-in-beer dept.
For seekers of a right-leaning free-speech utopia, "Parler may turn out to be, in the end, a false refuge," warns Marc Ambinder at MSNBC: First — sorry, folks — Parler does censor. It removes users, regularly. It does not actually seem to tolerate hate speech, and because it's a much smaller platform, it might even be more efficient in finding and exorcising it than the social giants. Oh, and the founders really, really don't like trolling. This includes the sort of trolling that feeds the outrage cycles on Twitter, the trolling that includes scatology and expletives and "unrelated comments." [Parler also says they'll enforce their rules against obscene user names, any kind of pornography, and even the spamming of "people trying to speak" with "unrelated comments"] Also, dog poop. Parler doesn't like dog poop...

On Wednesday, [Parler CEO Dan Bongino], of all people, had to knock down what might have been Parler's first piece of conservative-on-conservative viral misinformation: a screenshot of a Fox News chyron alleging that George Soros was actually the owner of Parler. "Friends," Bongino wrote on Twitter (!), "This is a photoshopped image. THIS IS NOT REAL. There are people who are desperate to take down Parler who are spreading BS hoping you'll buy it. I OWN PARLER. This is the 4th or 5th time I've had to fight back against this stuff."

Sorry, Dan. It won't be the last.
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MSNBC: Parler Does Censor, Removes Users, and Really Hates Trolling More

MSNBC: Parler Does Censor, Removes Users, and Really Hates Trolling

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  • But, but!!! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I thought private companies can't censor!

    • You are either being sarcastic or are very confused.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Kisai ( 213879 )

      This company is learning quickly that "I'm going to make the free speech a pillar of my platform" can't be the only pillar it has.

      In an ideal situation, the censorship would run on the client-end of the communication pipe. eg "don't show me anything about trump" would just hide everything said by trump, featuring trump, and even coded about trump. The latter is the problem as people who don't like him have 100's of euphemisms for him, lot of them vulgar. Likewise, you'd probably want to auto-filter posts t

      • Re:But, but!!! (Score:5, Funny)

        by arglebargle_xiv ( 2212710 ) on Sunday November 15, 2020 @09:23PM (#60728690)

        a screenshot of a Fox News chyron alleging that George Soros was actually the owner of Parler.

        Oh that is inspired! Exactly what the right normally does to everyone else, and in particular using their favourite bogeyman Soros for the troll is genius. It's gonna take me awhile to get the grin off my face...

    • the trolling that includes scatology and expletives

      First they came for my scatology, and I said nothing...

  • The more things change (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anachronous Coward ( 6177134 ) on Sunday November 15, 2020 @11:38AM (#60727234)

    the more they stay the same.

    • Re:The more things change (Score:5, Insightful)

      by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Sunday November 15, 2020 @11:47AM (#60727270) Journal

      No one is going to provide you with a platform for free where you can be arbitrarily shitty. Why would they? There's literally no incentive for them to do so, market wise, ethically, or any other way.

      • Re:The more things change (Score:5, Interesting)

        by MMC Monster ( 602931 ) on Sunday November 15, 2020 @12:28PM (#60727364)

        Sure there's an incentive.

        A nation-state that wants to fan the flames of hate in the U.S. would find this an extremely cheap way to do it.

        Pretty sure we can name three countries off the top of our heads that would pay 100 times the cost of the website to keep it up and running indefinitely.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          It would be counter productive, all the asshats in one place nicely quarantined where the damage they can do is limited.

          The reason the Russians want to be on Facebook, the reason the freeze peach warriors want to be on Twitter, is that's where the action is and that's where they can reach people.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by dfghjk ( 711126 )

            It's not mutually exclusive, having one does not preclude the other. Propagandists what to reach and control everyone, including the devoted.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dfghjk ( 711126 )

          Yes, and we've just gone over 4 years with literally that.

        • "Social media|" sites have such a huge potential upside some investors are willing to buy into them even with a low chance of explosive growth leading to a massive IPO.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • /pol is the last bastion of free speech

  • https://www.linkedin.com/in/jm... [linkedin.com]

    it aint hard to use the frelling internet these days. This is news for nerds?

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday November 15, 2020 @11:54AM (#60727290)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:When you accept everyone, you get the worst. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Sunday November 15, 2020 @12:01PM (#60727310) Journal

      Back in the day I saw mailing lists and Usenet groups, and later. Some of the early web forums, essentially destroyed because trolls and flamers were allowed to get out of hand, either because moderators were weak, or they believed that free expression was paramount over at least some modicum of decent and reasonable behavior. Sooner or later any online posting service is going to have to reign things in or watch more reasonable contributors just leave. And if your model includes advertising revenues then you risk advertisers walking away.

      Now maybe Parler is a Russian front. In which case it's not interested in money or fair play. But at that point it's going to have a pretty limited audience. The fact that it is pushing back against at least some trolling suggests it doesn't want to get so toxic all it becomes a qanon echo chamber.

      • Re:When you accept everyone, you get the worst. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Frank Burly ( 4247955 ) on Sunday November 15, 2020 @12:38PM (#60727396)
        It looks like Parler is funded by the Mercer family, of Cambridge Analytica fame

        to provide a neutral platform for free speech as our founders intended,” and that “the ever increasing tyranny and hubris of our tech overlords lead the fight against data mining” and online free speech.

        https://www.theverge.com/2020/... [theverge.com]

        Yes, it is funny that they complain about data mining

        I think it is safe to say that they don't expect to make money. But they want a safe space for conservatives to exchange bad ideas and made up crap without liberals shouting them down. I think it is destined to become either a ghosttown or a hellscape, and the absolute worst of the Right will eventually claim that Parler sold out and is no different from Twitter.

        But they're making other parts of the internet better, so I wish them luck.

    • True, but the Vulnerable are SO vulnerable that the mere idea of an unprotected space gives them anxiety. Eventually they grab their pitchforks and attack, because simply avoiding such places is just not enough for them.

    • When you create something where everyone is welcomed, the rational people stay away because they will get drowned out and the irrational people will come because they know they can say whatever crazy shit they want.

      FTFY

    • This is why the top sites are all going down the pan. Being all-inclusive is flat out a bad idea. It sounds good and very idealistic on paper but it just doesn't work (in practice) because the people who run the most useful services, by and large, are dedicated admins who (by necessity) don't have much of a life outside of their specialism. When less dedicated people get involved, everything tends to go wrong very fast.

      Facebook is a perfect example of this. Its original focus required you to have a minim

    • It's not "the vulnerable" it's everyone who isn't a sucker for punishment.

      Given the choice between being yelled at by aggressive shitposting n@zis and not, most people naturally choose the latter.

  • Trolling rolls both ways (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Sunday November 15, 2020 @12:04PM (#60727324)
    There are left-wing trolls, and there are right-wing trolls. Trolling knows no boundaries. For every scamdemic and pizza gate troll working to piss of lefties, there's someone going after the righties. Now that Parler is a concentrated, easily-identifiable grouping of right-wingers, they will absolutely be a target. If Parler actually winds up being something other than a flash in the pan, they will need to apply rules to the conversation. It's been shown over and over: people without rules or constraint simply become monsters. Left, right, whatever.

    I wish that the Republicans in congress had realized this basic psychological fact 3 years ago and put a leash on their president. Now there's a guy who OBVIOUSLY needed some external constraint to keep him in line. Not a single shred of internal self-control in that brain. The conservative attitude of "we love macho male executives with unlimited power" prevented them from applying any pressure whatsoever. It's ironic - if senate Republicans had leaned on him hard enough to force him to moderate his mouth just a tiny bit, they might still have the white house. Trump came very close to winning. If he had pissed off SLIGHTLY fewer people, he'd probably have a second term.

    • I won't deny there are left-wing and right-wing trolls, but generally the left are sloppy and disorganized about it, whereas the right conduct master-classes in it. [motherjones.com]

      • Because the right HAS to troll, that's the only way they can get things done. They have no legitimate arguments.

    • Re:Trolling rolls both ways (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 ) on Sunday November 15, 2020 @01:28PM (#60727504)

      "There are left-wing trolls, and there are right-wing trolls."

      False equivalency. Also, there are non-political trolls. It is well known that a primary goal of the right wing is to "own the libs", there is no opposing motivation.

      "Left, right, whatever. "

      There goes the false equivalency again. We've seen the monsters, they aren't "left, right, whatever".

      • Re:Trolling rolls both ways (Score:5, Insightful)

        by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Sunday November 15, 2020 @02:09PM (#60727602)
        I understand the concept of fake equivalency, and in this case it really isn't. The country is split almost perfectly down the middle. For every liberal who feels the right-wingers are racist monsters, there is a conservative who thinks that left-wingers are socialist antifa. My opinion is that Trump was the worst president since Nixon and the GOP needs a stint out of power, but anyone who writes off half the country is being dumb.

        I live in a purple state. I know this for a fact. What feels reasonable to one side sounds like trolling to the other. The professional trolls know no politics. They troll on whatever wedge issue they think will make the most disruption. For the past few years, yeah, they've been hammering at gullible right-wingers who somehow think that Trump stood up for the little man mmmmrrffff hahhahhhahhhah omg I can't say that without laughing. But, in any case, wait a year or two and it could change.

        I'm really worried that it's going to take some kind of major war or catastrophe to shock us back to being reasonable. I really hope it doesn't come to that but it feels like huge chunks of society are feeling like a fight.

      • Re:Trolling rolls both ways (Score:5, Insightful)

        by chiguy ( 522222 ) on Sunday November 15, 2020 @10:23PM (#60728782) Homepage

        It's a false equivalence. Racist vs Socialist are not equally bad.

        You hate me because of my race. I hate you because you hate me and my race. These attitudes are not equally bad.

    • There are left-wing trolls, and there are right-wing trolls.

      Both need each other to justify their own extremism, unreasonableness, and even violence. Sort like a perverted Ying/Yang.

    • There are left-wing trolls, and there are right-wing trolls.

      The true troll knows no political affiliation. The art of trolling is to get a rise out of people. A good troll, for example would select a left wing position to annoy the righties, but get it really wrong so it annoys the lefties too. It's a shame that just being a dick now counts as trolling.

      • Yeah, I do hate that "trolling" is a lost art. Back in the day there used to be really, really good trolls. Now if you are an excellent troll nobody notices, because there's always some far shittier posts before and after yours to get worked up about and focus on. A good troll reads as authentic upon a quick skim, and that doesn't require an angry reply.

    • Re:Trolling rolls both ways (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Sunday November 15, 2020 @03:48PM (#60727820)

      Also, there's a very strong streak of The-Ends-Justify-The-Means mentality going on. There are some people I feel willing to remove democracy as long as they can ban abortion or remove all constraints on gun ownership of any type. Just like there are some on the far left willing to remove democracy as long as they can get socialism. And a lot of people who just want a very strong authoritarian leader as long as that leader is on their side, even if it means tearing down a balance of power between courts/legislature/executive.

      American it turns out, was not a unique country. We have plenty of citizens just like the people who keep voting for Putin, because a strong leader is all they want. A strong leader is easy to understand, no complexities of politics, no deal making, no compromising, no head scratching when you look at a ballot. It's simpler. Sure they oppress people but they only oppress the other half of the country.

      • Re:Trolling rolls both ways (Score:5, Insightful)

        by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Sunday November 15, 2020 @04:51PM (#60727982)
        Thats something where the sides are NOT equivalent. The dems are very fractious, willing to openly criticize their own, break ranks, and disagree with other liberals in public. The republicans are VERY LOCKSTEP. No matter what they might think privately, there was a grand total of 14 republicans that were willing to openly criticize Trump. And most of those were either ejected from the party, or left before they could be tarred and feathered. When you join the GOP you pretty much accept that you will wear a muzzle in public. Kinda funny, for republicans, wearing their muzzle is fine but wearing a cloth mask with a US flag across the front is apparently evil socialism.

    • For every scamdemic and pizza gate troll working to piss of lefties, there's someone going after the righties.

      And yet you can name two well known right-wing trolls, but can't seem to name a single left-wing troll that anyone knows about.

      Yaz

  • Well, that's not a surprise. Every centrally controlled system will have a restrictive governance. It's probably necessary...at least I haven't been able to think of any way around it, and I don't like centralization of power. Which creed you follow merely determines which out groups you select to penalize.

    The benefit of things like Diaspora https://diasporafoundation.org... [diasporafoundation.org] is the lack of centralized control, but this also tends to eliminate the benefits of network interaction. It's not a surprise that

  • It's also owned and run by the Mercers (Score:3)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Sunday November 15, 2020 @12:15PM (#60727340)
    e.g. a pair of billionaires. Or at least they're a very large investor (in case you want to pretend that being a primary investor is really any different than an owner in terms of control).

    Always, always, always follow the money.

    • e.g. a pair of billionaires.

      Oh, you mean some of those elites the Fox tabloid keeps talking about. Funny how these folks are swarming to a place run by the people they're supposed to hate.

      It's almost as if they're too uneducated to realize they've been duped.

  • How utterly AWFUL for them. Can't care.
  • Well as a Trump supporter (with reservations), I tend to criticize the Left's censorship when it comes to almost every social media platform out there, be it Twitter, Facebook or Reddit.

    Now it's time the Right got some of my flak.

    Parler: How could you? Why do this? You had the opportunity to learn from EVERY OTHER platform, and distinguish yourself from them in a very crucial way (that LOTS of people want), and yet you go and do they same they do - censor on a whim. You champion free speech on your ho

    • Re:Censorship knows no bounds (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Sunday November 15, 2020 @01:09PM (#60727454)

      Head over to voat.co to see what social media turns into without moderation or censorship.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Twinbee ( 767046 )
        Yet Slashdot's okay?

        The reason Voat is the way it is because Reddit banned dozens of such far right communities and Voat just happened to be a Reddit-like site in feel, and the ONLY place allowing free speech, so of course they all went there. However, that phenomenon will happen less and less as more social media sites stand up for free speech instead of leaving the burden to a SINGLE site.

        • Yet Slashdot's okay?

          Slashdot has both a kind-of-working moderation system and some nominally benevolent oversight, which puts it doubly ahead of most sites but is still kind of sad.

          The reason Voat is the way it is because Reddit banned dozens of such far right communities and Voat

          ...didn't.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Twinbee ( 767046 )

            didn't

            Point being is if another free speech Reddit clone cropped up, you'd have a much more balanced range of views across the full spectrum, just like Reddit would have been, if they didn't ban any subs there: Far left to Left to Center to Right to far right.

            Voat unfortunately needed to be a 'sacrifice' in that sense. The site was a lot better (and more popular) before Reddit kicked off the far right communities where they evacuated to Voat.

  • If there is an overlord, he's gonna abuse it.
    If he doesn't, powerful people will make him do it.

    It must be a *protocol*. Not a piece of software. That's only coming with it to get things started.

    And it must be super-appealing to luddites and Joe Sixpacks too. And not some weird fringe thing that looks like it too because its designers have no confidence nor marketing skills. Otherwise you're vasting time and resources.

  • I seem to recall posting this story [techdirt.com] which says the exact same thing. If you go to Parler and post the exact same thing the MAGA crowd was posting on Twitter, you will be removed because, you know, safe spaces and all that.

    It is hilarious to see the same people who whined they were being "censored" now doing the censoring for innocuous and clearly harmless posts. The only reason the posts are being removed is because of how thin-skinned these fascists are. Can't take any criticism whatsoever.

    The next time

  • So... Paler has a TOS... just like ever other site (Score:3)

    by Noishkel ( 3464121 ) on Sunday November 15, 2020 @01:36PM (#60727524)

    This entire article reads like a pretty obvious hit-piece and I can't see why anyone even fall of it at this point. One of the big arguments for mass de-platforming of controversial or just conservative personalities on social media is the argument that 'they're a private company' and thus can have whatever TOS they want. From day one Parler said they wanted to be for free speech but they never said that there were no rules at all on the site.

    This article reads like someone that took their ideal of journalism from their reading of Saul Alinsky 'Rules for Radicals'. Try to hold your enemies to their own standers while ridiculing them about it.

  • I joined yesterday ... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by CaptainDork ( 3678879 ) on Sunday November 15, 2020 @02:04PM (#60727594)

    ... and it's a mess.

    It is littered with ads. Not surprising, is it? Traditional social media platforms don't allow for spam, but Parler is "free speech."

    Most of the crap is porn: webcams, photos, videos ... stuff not allowed elsewhere.

    Hilariously, there are accusations against members as being plants by the Biden organization and calls for members to block those.

    I picked a few names at random and outed them as being lurkers and sleepers and spies. Don't know if they really were or not, but I kicked the ant pile.

    The rest of the shit is boring echo chamber crap about ancient conspiracy theories, denigration of out-of-bubble persons, and information that's useless as tits on a boar.

    --

    Predictably, screenshots of internal bickering appear on Twitter and Facebook.

    What's the point of Parler?

    Very little.

    • What's the point of Parler?

      Imagine how much better the internet would be if all the stupid people voluntarily walled themselves off inside their own garden.

      That's the purpose of Parler.

      • Imagine how much better the internet would be if all the stupid people voluntarily walled themselves off inside their own garden.

        It's honestly, not as great as you make it sound. It's not like they're locked in there. So imagine a bunch of people who don't believe in the germ theory of disease, so they lock themselves up in close quarters together. You initially think, "great, they've quarantined themselves." But what actually happened is that if only a few of them were sick in the beginning, that spreads like wildfire in their little community...and they're not locked in there, so they get out and go shopping and each of them all go

  • Oh yeah? (Score:3)

    by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ) on Sunday November 15, 2020 @02:22PM (#60727634) Journal

    "There are people who are desperate to take down Parler who are spreading BS hoping you'll buy it. I OWN PARLER. This is the 4th or 5th time I've had to fight back against this stuff."

    Oh you poor downtrodden victim.

    • There is potential truth in what he's saying. Back when 8chan had gamergate forums, anyone who posted doxx was banned and anyone who even suggested harassing a named individual had their thread shitposted to death and deleted. The fate of those posts and threads of course did not reach the twitter screencaps. There was even a copypasta that made pro-pedophilia arguments which were completely off-topic and posted purely to screenshot and say "Look at these glabberhabbers defending pedos!"

  • Oh, so a platform built with the sole purpose of hating others is having internal problems?

    ME SO SHOCKED.

  • People aren't moving over to Parler because Twitter isn't letting them post scat porn.
  • The whole model is completely broken by design. It encourages stupid behaviour from low information idiots and people looking for unearned fame. Just burn them all down already, they've done far more damage than good.

  • Americans scream from the rooftops that freedom of speech is a left-wing thing, yet every site that proclaims that they support free speech and do so in practice always turn extreme right.

    8chan, Voat, and Gab to name a few.

  • Somewhat worrying (Score:3)

    by Joe2020 ( 6760092 ) on Monday November 16, 2020 @08:44AM (#60729784)

    In the past did one simply ignore misbehaviour and thereby avoided giving the wrong people any attention. Today however do people more often fight, censor and ban as a response. This has given the wrong people power by politicising free speech. This is a somewhat worrying trend inside our western cultures, who in the past were mocking tyrants and dictators and things like the Chinese internet firewall, but now we are trending towards more control ourselves, mainly because we have forgotten how not to give attention to the wrong people.

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