People who actually intend to harm you don't tell you about it, especially not in public. They just do it.
Threats in public are designed to make you feel fear. Even if you know that the threat is empty, it's difficult to just put it out of your mind. As is the case here: Matze is almost certainly in no danger. But there is still a chance, so he hides from it.
In a better world, we'd prosecute everybody making violent threats, and that would be the end of it. In practice, practically none of these threats ever turn into violence, and law enforcement organizations generally ignore them. They'd be overwhelmed if they didn't.
In this world, having the death threats removed does, in fact, make me feel safer -- because the threat itself is the primary harm. It's often possible to remove the threats before I see them, by looking closer at the users who make them. Even if they can't remove it before I see it, leaving it up informs other users that this is allowed.
As I said, I'd much rather have the FBI take death threats seriously. But since they won't, removing them (and preventing users from making more) is better than leaving it there.
> Threats in public are designed to make you feel fear. Even if you know that the threat is empty, it's difficult to just put it out of your mind.
Regardless of the intentions of the one making the threat, if the threatened person knew with 100% certainty there was no real danger, then they would not feel fear. For example, if we receive an anonymous threat and then we learn that the person who made it was a 3rd grader on another continent. If we feel fear after receiving some seemingly empty threat, then it's because at least subconsciously we believe there is now some non-zero chance of facing danger.
My point was that it's not hypocritical for him to be upset about receiving online threats. It's the fact that people are making threats that's scary, not whether or not moderators are removing them.
Matze doesn't seem to be able to reconcile these two conflicting ideas.
- "free speech" meaning everything should be published on wildly accessible platforms, including death threats and organizing attacks against individuals.
- "personal privacy" where no one knows his address, largely so that he can avoid death threats and stop folks from organizing attacks.
Here's their guidelines. However, I'm not sure these were the final rule. Matze said other rules at various points (like no porn, banning antifa users, etc) and also at one point claimed anything legal goes, so it's hard to say what ended up being enforced.
Here was their terms of service [1], as of 2021-01-09, converted from PDF to text.
Here was their community guidelines [2], also as of 2021-01-09, converted from PDF to text.
They also had an Elaboration-on-Guidelines.pdf. I tried to do that one, but pastebin.com said it contained offensive material and could only be made private, but the option to make private pastes was greyed out. I assume that is because I do not have an account.
My PDF of that, grabbed on 2021-01-10, looks like it identical to the one Miner49er posted.
Not only him, but all of the free speech advocates have this incongruity.
You may notice that in this thread there isn't the usual volume of free speechers "falling over themselves" to comment. All of the boring absolute free speech comments we had to endure when violent speech was being removed from Facebook/Twitter and now they are dead silent when it involves Parler.
Kind of illustrates a politically held position and not a rationally held one.
The final spate of complaints about Parler before Apple and Amazon kicked them off the internet (loosely speaking) included the frequent presence of Parler posts with death threats (against Pence, Pelosi, etc)
As someone in the pro-censorship camp (private censorship, at any rate) I find it exasperating that Matze sees no parallel.
> As someone in the pro-censorship camp (private censorship, at any rate) I find it exasperating that Matze sees no parallel.
Their "reasoning" nowadays seems to consist of self-serving double standards, false equivalencies, trolling, and conspiracy theories. It's exasperating, but to be expected.
Let me be super clear: if real, that’s awful, inexcusable, and indefensible.
But it also seems kind of inevitable:
1. Create an environment where seriously unstable conspiracy theorists hang out.
2. Get hacked so that the people from #1 see the personal information you collected about them, including their government IDs, leaked to the public.
3. Act shocked when the people from #1 decide that you must be cooperating with the “deep state” to oppress them, and therefore you’re the enemy.
Death threats seem like the logical outcome of #1. And again, that’s not OK. No one deserves to live in fear. However, it seems highly personally risky to get involved with the kind of folks who’d flock to an app that promises zero moderation. Lots of normal, decent people might want to use Parler for all sorts of normal, decent reasons so please don’t interpret that as me saying “Parler users are terrorists” because that’s not at all what I think. But you if asked me where scary people were likely to hang out, that would be on my short list.
It’s a little hard to tell who’s threatening him. He mentions the group “UGNazi”, but they’re a hacking group whose violence track record seems to be that one of the members killed his girlfriend, and while that’s awful doesn’t seem like it makes them a physical danger to others.
While searching for more sources, I noticed that most of the papers reporting this story are either right-leaning (Fox, Epoch Times, etc.) or tabloids (Daily Mail). If there’s a report from someone more authoritative like AP, I haven’t seen it yet.
Was it right wingers engaging in the "mostly peaceful protests" that led to dozens of deaths and many more injuries, over a billion in property damage, and lasted for 6+ months?
Was it right wingers who said if they see their political enemies "in a restaurant, in a Department Store, in a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd! You push back on them! You tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere!”
Or
"you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere!"
Or for
"unrest on the streets”
Or said that the rioting/looting/arson was
"not gonna stop before election day in November, and they’re not gonna stop after election day. They’re not gonna let up and they should not.”
Or
“I just don’t even know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country. And maybe there will be"
Or simply call their political opposition "Nazis" and then, separately, explain violence against Nazi's is justified?
> Was it right wingers engaging in the "mostly peaceful protests" that led to dozens of deaths and many more injuries, over a billion in property damage, and lasted for 6+ months?
It was in many cases right-wingers (in some cases, IIRC, specifically associated with and motivated by the Boogaloo movement) committing violent acts concurrent with the actually-peaceful protests. They weren't actually participating with the protests, though.
Ah, interesting. Whatever could have prompted the boogaloo boys to burn down those buildings, smash those banks and Starbucks, and Rob those Foot Lockers?
Let's leave this to experts to figure out the legal framework for similar cases in the future.
I personally think it was wrong. Parler ban is just the type of stuff that countries like China or Iran do and we condemn or even sanction them for it.
What happened, and is happening, didn't start over the night and the lack of moderation on Parler wasn't the root cause.
We should hold those resourceful politicians with their megaphones accountable for what they advocate and how they exploit people on social media.
36 comments
[ 76.0 ms ] story [ 836 ms ] threadPeople who actually intend to harm you don't tell you about it, especially not in public. They just do it.
Threats in public are designed to make you feel fear. Even if you know that the threat is empty, it's difficult to just put it out of your mind. As is the case here: Matze is almost certainly in no danger. But there is still a chance, so he hides from it.
In a better world, we'd prosecute everybody making violent threats, and that would be the end of it. In practice, practically none of these threats ever turn into violence, and law enforcement organizations generally ignore them. They'd be overwhelmed if they didn't.
In this world, having the death threats removed does, in fact, make me feel safer -- because the threat itself is the primary harm. It's often possible to remove the threats before I see them, by looking closer at the users who make them. Even if they can't remove it before I see it, leaving it up informs other users that this is allowed.
As I said, I'd much rather have the FBI take death threats seriously. But since they won't, removing them (and preventing users from making more) is better than leaving it there.
Regardless of the intentions of the one making the threat, if the threatened person knew with 100% certainty there was no real danger, then they would not feel fear. For example, if we receive an anonymous threat and then we learn that the person who made it was a 3rd grader on another continent. If we feel fear after receiving some seemingly empty threat, then it's because at least subconsciously we believe there is now some non-zero chance of facing danger.
My point was that it's not hypocritical for him to be upset about receiving online threats. It's the fact that people are making threats that's scary, not whether or not moderators are removing them.
- "free speech" meaning everything should be published on wildly accessible platforms, including death threats and organizing attacks against individuals.
- "personal privacy" where no one knows his address, largely so that he can avoid death threats and stop folks from organizing attacks.
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rikfE6...
Here was their community guidelines [2], also as of 2021-01-09, converted from PDF to text.
They also had an Elaboration-on-Guidelines.pdf. I tried to do that one, but pastebin.com said it contained offensive material and could only be made private, but the option to make private pastes was greyed out. I assume that is because I do not have an account.
My PDF of that, grabbed on 2021-01-10, looks like it identical to the one Miner49er posted.
[1] https://pastebin.com/FTFMh4ad
[2] https://pastebin.com/a1mCqq6b
You may notice that in this thread there isn't the usual volume of free speechers "falling over themselves" to comment. All of the boring absolute free speech comments we had to endure when violent speech was being removed from Facebook/Twitter and now they are dead silent when it involves Parler.
Kind of illustrates a politically held position and not a rationally held one.
As someone in the pro-censorship camp (private censorship, at any rate) I find it exasperating that Matze sees no parallel.
Their "reasoning" nowadays seems to consist of self-serving double standards, false equivalencies, trolling, and conspiracy theories. It's exasperating, but to be expected.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/10/hang-mike-pe...
As well, it is being argument that the tech companies are working at the governments behest in their censoring. See: https://www.wsj.com/articles/save-the-constitution-from-big-...
But it also seems kind of inevitable:
1. Create an environment where seriously unstable conspiracy theorists hang out.
2. Get hacked so that the people from #1 see the personal information you collected about them, including their government IDs, leaked to the public.
3. Act shocked when the people from #1 decide that you must be cooperating with the “deep state” to oppress them, and therefore you’re the enemy.
Death threats seem like the logical outcome of #1. And again, that’s not OK. No one deserves to live in fear. However, it seems highly personally risky to get involved with the kind of folks who’d flock to an app that promises zero moderation. Lots of normal, decent people might want to use Parler for all sorts of normal, decent reasons so please don’t interpret that as me saying “Parler users are terrorists” because that’s not at all what I think. But you if asked me where scary people were likely to hang out, that would be on my short list.
I honestly don't know, but I personally assumed the death threats came from people who simply didn't like that Parler existed in the first place.
While searching for more sources, I noticed that most of the papers reporting this story are either right-leaning (Fox, Epoch Times, etc.) or tabloids (Daily Mail). If there’s a report from someone more authoritative like AP, I haven’t seen it yet.
Was it right wingers who said if they see their political enemies "in a restaurant, in a Department Store, in a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd! You push back on them! You tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere!”
Or
"you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere!"
Or for
"unrest on the streets”
Or said that the rioting/looting/arson was
"not gonna stop before election day in November, and they’re not gonna stop after election day. They’re not gonna let up and they should not.”
Or
“I just don’t even know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country. And maybe there will be"
Or simply call their political opposition "Nazis" and then, separately, explain violence against Nazi's is justified?
Hint: the answer is no.
It was in many cases right-wingers (in some cases, IIRC, specifically associated with and motivated by the Boogaloo movement) committing violent acts concurrent with the actually-peaceful protests. They weren't actually participating with the protests, though.
I personally think it was wrong. Parler ban is just the type of stuff that countries like China or Iran do and we condemn or even sanction them for it.
What happened, and is happening, didn't start over the night and the lack of moderation on Parler wasn't the root cause.
We should hold those resourceful politicians with their megaphones accountable for what they advocate and how they exploit people on social media.