I'm a member of Parler and expected to see useful interesting content, but it seems to be a lot of Facebook & Twitter refugees who got suspended for various reasons (mostly political flame bait and misinformation) and now they vent their conspiracy theories on there with little resistance from the platform. What does Kanye expect to get from this purchase?
Perhaps he has been convinced of power and influence he will have, also, he seems unable to behave/remain on Twitter. Mainly I'm sure it's a great way for the owners of Parler to get a payout based upon "Ye"'s current mental state and money.
What does he expect to get? His very own echo chamber. He’s not satisfied surrounding himself with sycophants in person, he has to do it online as well.
exactly what he's getting... menchies in the press and general attention lol
aside from that, he might try to leverage this to appeal to MAGAs for some political play in the future too - the 'white lives matter' shirt shenanigans is further evidence of his desperation for attention & desire to appeal to a certain demographic
That's the primary problem with "free speech" platforms, isn't it? They attract people who were kicked from other platforms, and it makes sense to infer that those people, on average, make the site a less desireable place to be (the ultimate reason they were kicked from their origin in the first place)
I'm inclined to agree. I certainly value free speech, but I don't think I would want to run a free speech platform. I think I would want to moderate content in order to cultivate fruitful discussion, which is maybe a kind of censorship in some strict sense, but the motives between moderation and censorship (as we colloquially think of them) are different--moderation says "this isn't productive or respectful" and censorship says "we want to squash discussion of those ideas to the extent we are able". That said, I appreciate that the line is often blurry, and a lot of authoritarian types will censor under the pretense of moderation
I'm a fairly strong libertarian, but moderation is more or less a mandate in the face of malware distribution, if from nothing but strictly reducing potential legal liability. I think the challenge from a site owner/operator's perspective ultimately boils down to how one chooses to defines the term "harm".
Greater transparency, with clear examples of what is allowed, and what is not allowed for each category of moderation would probably be helpful for more sites to implement.
Just a guess but I would imagine he is looking for a bigger fan base and career revival. Maybe subconsciously an echo chamber?
If I could afford to buy these platforms I totally would. Then I would make Netflix series that delve into all the conspiracies given that I would own the rights to the conversations. Every season would revolve around the most popular narratives. Every topic would be on the table and not just surface coverage, I would hire many investigative journalists and private investigators. Sites like Reddit and 4chan would try hard to influence my episodes and I would totally let them. The end goal? Make money of course, and also let the world see how random and disingenuous public platforms can be and how easy it is to manipulate the masses or in some cases how half-truths can be molded into conspiracy.
In that case, perhaps boost his career and revenue? Are celebrities willing to strive for immortality at great expense? It's hard for me to get into a celebrities head.
> I'm a member of Parler and expected to see useful interesting content
I’m wondering why you expected that? So far, every free-speech-maximalism platform has very quickly become an alt-right conspiracy platform, why would parler be different?
I mean, for a good chunk of the last decade, there was plenty of stuff that was pretty squarely in the Overton Window which was being suppressed because it wasn't sufficiently left-wing.
* A progressive data analyst at Civis Analytics Tweeted research on the efficacy of non-violent protests, and left-wing activists pressured his employer into firing him.
* A progressive journalist with The Intercept published an interview with a black man who felt that police brutality was a problem, but would have liked to see more attention for other problems in his community--similarly, activists (including coworkers) pressured his employer to terminate him until he eventually resigned.
* A university professor used a Chinese word that sounds vaguely like a slur in English, and the university was pressured into suspending him.
* A utility worker accidentally made the "OK" gesture, and activists pressured his employer into firing him.
* A boy wore a MAGA hat and the entirety of the mainstream media along with several celebrities sent a frothing mob after him, his parents, and his school falsely claiming (despite hours of publicly available video evidence) that he was participating in a racist tirade against a Native American elder and Vietnam veteran.
* A Google employee responded to a request on an internal message board with criticism of Google's hiring policies (specifically addressing how the company could foster more diversity), and left-wing activist employees pressured Google into firing him, and virtually the whole of the mainstream media falsely claimed he published an "anti-diversity screed" as a memo to the company.
No doubt Parler has become a right-wing hub, but for a good while anything that wasn't toeing the most extreme left-wing party line was considered to be "far-right extremism". There was some pretty legitimate demand for a free-speech platform, and I'm strongly of the opinion that if we were more tolerant to discussing some of these topics out in the open (which is in part to say, if our institutions were more aspirationally neutralist and objectivist), then fewer people would have found answers from far-right folks, and we would have less far-right extremism than we do today.
Kanye's apparently been hanging out with conservative pundit Candace Owens (the two wore matching "White Lives Matter" shirts at his recent fashion show, she's evidently been acting as his publicity agent, and he repeated several of her talking points about George Floyd on his Drink Champs interview); Owens' husband, George Farmer, is CEO of Parler. So there appear to be some interesting interpersonal entanglements here that are possibly driving this decision.
LOL.. if it's anything like his music device it will suck. Hopefully he can find some good talent to manage it and make it into something useful, but it was the dumbest social media platform that I've ever tried.
I tried out Parler early on, and for whatever reason its algorithm thought I hated Jews and that I would appreciate seeing content like that. Or, that's the predominant content that was available at the time. I have not been back.
Given Kanye's recent statements regarding Jews and my experiences with the platform, this announcement is eyebrow raising.
I don't think it's an algorithm problem so much as a population/corporate operating problem.
You can't really have a business plan of "all speech is allowed" without attracting a significant number of nazis/racists/anti-Semites. (see, the chans).
Of course, the issue with attracting that group is it causes exactly what happened to you to happen more generally. A reasonable person sees the garbage, says "I don't want to be here" and leaves. Hence the reason you see so many complaints about censorship for platforms that do have a stronger policing.
The nazis have places to talk, but they struggle to get their message in front of a wider non-nazi audience. This is why I'm always fairly dubious about censorship complaints.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 64.6 ms ] threadaside from that, he might try to leverage this to appeal to MAGAs for some political play in the future too - the 'white lives matter' shirt shenanigans is further evidence of his desperation for attention & desire to appeal to a certain demographic
Greater transparency, with clear examples of what is allowed, and what is not allowed for each category of moderation would probably be helpful for more sites to implement.
A platform to vent political flame bait, misinformation, and their conspiracy theories with little resistance
If I could afford to buy these platforms I totally would. Then I would make Netflix series that delve into all the conspiracies given that I would own the rights to the conversations. Every season would revolve around the most popular narratives. Every topic would be on the table and not just surface coverage, I would hire many investigative journalists and private investigators. Sites like Reddit and 4chan would try hard to influence my episodes and I would totally let them. The end goal? Make money of course, and also let the world see how random and disingenuous public platforms can be and how easy it is to manipulate the masses or in some cases how half-truths can be molded into conspiracy.
Kayne's career hasn't declined (unlike maybe his mental health)? His music seems he's as popular as ever.
The ability to post legal speech publicly when he wants?
I’m wondering why you expected that? So far, every free-speech-maximalism platform has very quickly become an alt-right conspiracy platform, why would parler be different?
Well I'm not sure why you expected useful interesting content. The whole point of Parler is to be a home for these far-right extremists.
Good moderation is important on platforms where anyone can post anything otherwise misinformation and conspiracy theories will spread.
* A progressive data analyst at Civis Analytics Tweeted research on the efficacy of non-violent protests, and left-wing activists pressured his employer into firing him.
* A progressive journalist with The Intercept published an interview with a black man who felt that police brutality was a problem, but would have liked to see more attention for other problems in his community--similarly, activists (including coworkers) pressured his employer to terminate him until he eventually resigned.
* A university professor used a Chinese word that sounds vaguely like a slur in English, and the university was pressured into suspending him.
* A utility worker accidentally made the "OK" gesture, and activists pressured his employer into firing him.
* A boy wore a MAGA hat and the entirety of the mainstream media along with several celebrities sent a frothing mob after him, his parents, and his school falsely claiming (despite hours of publicly available video evidence) that he was participating in a racist tirade against a Native American elder and Vietnam veteran.
* A Google employee responded to a request on an internal message board with criticism of Google's hiring policies (specifically addressing how the company could foster more diversity), and left-wing activist employees pressured Google into firing him, and virtually the whole of the mainstream media falsely claimed he published an "anti-diversity screed" as a memo to the company.
No doubt Parler has become a right-wing hub, but for a good while anything that wasn't toeing the most extreme left-wing party line was considered to be "far-right extremism". There was some pretty legitimate demand for a free-speech platform, and I'm strongly of the opinion that if we were more tolerant to discussing some of these topics out in the open (which is in part to say, if our institutions were more aspirationally neutralist and objectivist), then fewer people would have found answers from far-right folks, and we would have less far-right extremism than we do today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M06S2aBUNDk
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33232099
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33231563
Given Kanye's recent statements regarding Jews and my experiences with the platform, this announcement is eyebrow raising.
You can't really have a business plan of "all speech is allowed" without attracting a significant number of nazis/racists/anti-Semites. (see, the chans).
Of course, the issue with attracting that group is it causes exactly what happened to you to happen more generally. A reasonable person sees the garbage, says "I don't want to be here" and leaves. Hence the reason you see so many complaints about censorship for platforms that do have a stronger policing.
The nazis have places to talk, but they struggle to get their message in front of a wider non-nazi audience. This is why I'm always fairly dubious about censorship complaints.
Then I learned about him on wikipedia.
Now I wish I remained dumb.
The myspace reboot did not seem to go so well.