Social Media Watch Thread

Cyrano · Post by **Cyrano** » 12 Jan 2021 22:58

I won't argue with you, you are entitled to your opinion. Expressing it here on BRF is a privilege, not a right. Getting others posters to respond depends on the interest & quality of your argument, its not a right either

srikandan · Post by **srikandan** » 12 Jan 2021 23:05

So you actually made an argument in your posts is it? Interesting how manage to hide it effectively. As I said, you need to be more specific as to what is exactly wrong to claim you have an argument I can and will provide references to points that you claim are wrong or incorrect. If you cannot even state what is wrong in what I wrote, I am not sure you have anything useful to say. You are muteworthy.

vijayk · Post by **vijayk** » 13 Jan 2021 00:17

https://populist.press/gab-ceo-pulls-of ... ncredible/
Gab CEO Pulls Off The Impossible For Trump… INCREDIBLE!

vera_k · Post by **vera_k** » 13 Jan 2021 00:21

So social media is splitting into pro-Trump (Gab, Parler) and pro-Biden (Twitter, Facebook) camps. Logical evolution to the national level splits earlier.

Ambar · Post by **Ambar** » 13 Jan 2021 00:26

Gab's interface is so much better than parler's. Parler's faded lettering, buggy buttons and confused UX gave me a headache navigating. Gab on the other hand have clearly showed they are not only serious but also had the foresight setting up their own servers instead of relying on 3rd party cloud providers and backing up the twitter account of their biggest crowd puller.

gpurewal · Post by **gpurewal** » 13 Jan 2021 00:58

Tanaji wrote:
Cyrano wrote:
False. BigTech doesnt own the internet. DNS servers and their owners public & private do. The rest like apple & Google are ecosystems, they are indeed oligarchies at present. I have no ideology here, these oligarchies are vulnerable to future competition and Govt intervention.

I was merely pointing out that those who are against regulation are crying when it doesnt work in their favour.
You are adding semantics here. The point is that tech companies are making judgements on what services they will provide on ideological grounds. Today none of the US ISPs were willing to provide connectivity to Parler. Facebook is blocking all posts with “stop the steal” in it. The point here is that you are gloating because your ideology stands to gain right now, but businesses can change and will change based on what makes money for them. Tomorrow it will be your ideology that is blocked, what will you do then?

The storming of the Capitol was the tipping moment that I believe forced the hands of the companies. If the so called "protestors" just exhaled their mephitic oratory outside the Capitol steps, then the tech companies would have done pretty much nothing.

That being said, if one believes that technology companies should not have the right to censor, then regulation needs to be put into place. Furthermore, how and where will the regulations be enforced?

vera_k · Post by **vera_k** » 13 Jan 2021 01:06

^ Addressing the part about how and where regulations be enforced. Wire tap, encryption and media laws exist already with plenty of precedent. Social media has operated by claiming that the data plane is different and therefore invulnerable to wire tap (remember Blackberry?) or otherwise not amenable to policing. Regulating social media as a telecom service would be one possible legal solution.

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 13 Jan 2021 01:12

gpurewal wrote:
The storming of the Capitol was the tipping moment that I believe forced the hands of the companies. If the so called "protestors" just exhaled their mephitic oratory outside the Capitol steps, then the tech companies would have done pretty much nothing.

That being said, if one believes that technology companies should not have the right to censor, then regulation needs to be put into place. Furthermore, how and where will the regulations be enforced?

Actually I am more cynical: tech companies realised which was the wind was blowing and changed tune rapidly. They realised Donnie boy is not going to be around and the Dems will be in full control, especially as regards repercussions for their monopolistic behaviour. Lets be realistic: Twitter growth has been fuelled at least partly by MAGA types while Facebook has been propelled by similar and anti vaccine nutcases... Now that these are no longer in fashion, the tech companies came down on them and hard.

What regulations to enforce.. if that was as simple a question for a nobody like me to answer it would have been done already. Net neutrality would be a good start.... What I do know is Facebook banning anything with “stop the steal” is giving it too much power.

gpurewal · Post by **gpurewal** » 13 Jan 2021 01:19

vera_k wrote:^ Addressing the part about how and where regulations be enforced. Wire tap, encryption and media laws exist already with plenty of precedent. Social media has operated by claiming that the data plane is different and therefore invulnerable to wire tap (remember Blackberry?) or otherwise not amenable to policing. Regulating social media as a telecom service would be one possible legal solution.

I'm all for that but, what the hard question to answer is the social media company flying the "flag of convenience" for a lack of a better phrase. Working in IT, I have to scour all the services my organization is interested in with regards to data flow and storage. I nearly had a heart attack when my company decided to get cloud email scanning, and I saw that data storage and traffic flow was happening in America instead of Canada.

Here in Canada, the regulations state that all Canadian information has to be stored on Canadian soil but, it only applies to public organizations. Private organizations can skirt this by saying that main company is headquartered somewhere else. The laws really have not kept up with the technologies. I believe that in order to regulate and police the tech companies, it needs to be done at a higher authority, like the UN. However, that opens up a whole new can of worms like sovereign nations rights.

vera_k · Post by **vera_k** » 13 Jan 2021 01:24

Local infrastructure can be created the same way as for telecom. This is happening to some extent with data centers. Cost and affordability is the main concern with taking this to a logical end.

gpurewal · Post by **gpurewal** » 13 Jan 2021 01:27

Tanaji wrote:
gpurewal wrote:
The storming of the Capitol was the tipping moment that I believe forced the hands of the companies. If the so called "protestors" just exhaled their mephitic oratory outside the Capitol steps, then the tech companies would have done pretty much nothing.

That being said, if one believes that technology companies should not have the right to censor, then regulation needs to be put into place. Furthermore, how and where will the regulations be enforced?
Actually I am more cynical: tech companies realised which was the wind was blowing and changed tune rapidly. They realised Donnie boy is not going to be around and the Dems will be in full control, especially as regards repercussions for their monopolistic behaviour. Lets be realistic: Twitter growth has been fuelled at least partly by MAGA types while Facebook has been propelled by similar and anti vaccine nutcases... Now that these are no longer in fashion, the tech companies came down on them and hard.

What regulations to enforce.. if that was as simple a question for a nobody like me to answer it would have been done already. Net neutrality would be a good start.... What I do know is Facebook banning anything with “stop the steal” is giving it too much power.

100%, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I truly believe that these companies need to be reigned in, and I believe by splitting them into smaller companies using antitrust laws would be a good start, since if they are smaller, they will wield less power and be more susceptible to go down under due to scummy business practices.

Najunamar · Post by **Najunamar** » 13 Jan 2021 02:25

I think regulations alone may not be as effective as getting viable alternatives coupled with some provisions- for instance even empowering people to void some of these T&Cs which are now an all or nothing, could make it mandatory to separate these.

KLNMurthy · Post by **KLNMurthy** » 13 Jan 2021 06:05

srikandan wrote:
...

That does not answer any of the points made. Pretending you know more is not an argument, just sounds like bombast from someone who does not have a valid response. laws and rules change with the times, and free speech protections are mainly for political speech, since that is the lifeblood of constitutional democracies. People no longer interact face to face -- they do it online. So the "town square" has taken a new form in the past decade, and blocking people out of this "town square" is a significant change in how political expression has changed due to technology.

These things do not need expertise in the US constitution as you seem to imply. These free speech protections apply to most functioning democracies within limits.

I don't see you making any points really; only making vague blanket statements about "free speech protection", which are also oddly specific in saying that it is "mainly for political speech." Where did you get that? Where does it say that US free speech protections are mainly for political speech? Nowhere, that's where.

Please check the wording of the 1st amendment: "Congress shall make no law ..." Here it is, in its entirety:

First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Nothing about political speech. Just speech, period.

It doesn't grant any rights as such; instead the right is assumed to be inherent and God-given; it prohibits the US government from interfering with free speech, using its power to pass & enforce laws. That't it. The rest (private companies should allow free speech etc.) has 2 flavors: the courts extending the restrictions on government to government entities like public schools etc. (somewhat) and the integration of free speech into popular life by way of convention and culture--people who are accustomed to government not interfering with their right to say what they want are going to think badly of a company that crushes free speech, which is bad for business, so private entities like to go easy on curbing free speech but do so when they have to.

Someone saying you don't really know what you are talking about isn't wrong when your posts make it clear that you actually don't know what you are talking about and keep insisting on things that just aren't so.

KLNMurthy · Post by **KLNMurthy** » 13 Jan 2021 06:25

Najunamar wrote:I think regulations alone may not be as effective as getting viable alternatives coupled with some provisions- for instance even empowering people to void some of these T&Cs which are now an all or nothing, could make it mandatory to separate these.

At least in the US, I don't see T&Cs changing from the all-or-nothing mode.

Antitrust laws to regulate and break up the tech giants are more than likely in the next few years, with bipartisan support.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 13 Jan 2021 07:12

KLNMurthy wrote:Antitrust laws to regulate and break up the tech giants are more than likely in the next few years, with bipartisan support.

I am not that sanguine, especially when these same folks overwhelmingly supported the incoming administration during elections. 80% plus funding for Joe Biden came from Wall Street folks. Paint me cynical when it comes to Wall Street and Politician nexus. It is there in every country in the world to an extent. But the US is a special case because the country is politically and militarily most powerful and which rubs off on the companies which are located in the US. I am not complaining as I am a US citizen.

vijayk · Post by **vijayk** » 13 Jan 2021 18:12

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-ugan ... KKBN29H17I

Uganda bans social media before election

Good template

Ban all social media 3 months before election

Another legislation could be that Android and Apple phones have to indicate when crowds are gathering one place for Police to check what's going on. Same legislation for whatsapp/FB/Twitter

vijayk · Post by **vijayk** » 14 Jan 2021 02:07

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/12/google- ... ments.html

YouTube suspends Trump’s account, barring uploads and comments

Google has suspended President Donald Trump’s YouTube account and formally warned the White House about its use of the world’s largest video platform.

The company said Tuesday night that Trump uploaded content that violated its policies, giving it an automatic one strike, which leads to a minimum seven-day suspension from uploading new content. It said it is also disabling the comments section.

The company did not specify which videos violated its policies but said it was “content” that included comments Trump made Tuesday morning. YouTube said it violated policies that prohibit content for inciting violence.

Donald J. Trump’s YouTube account has 2.77 million subscribers and typically posts several videos a day from him and from right-wing media stations.

I hope they are setting up quietly a committee and coming up with legislation ... on data, data sharing, grievances, liabilities, algorithms and protocols

ashbhee · Post by **ashbhee** » 14 Jan 2021 04:18

Have any of you checked out India subreddit form in reddit.com. It is extremely hostile to Indians/ Hindus / current govt. 99 % of the posts that get posted is Anti - Indians/ Hindus / current govt.

https://www.reddit.com/r/india/

IndraD · Post by **IndraD** » 14 Jan 2021 04:41

wapp double standards, easy on EU & US, wants to steal every data from India

vimal · Post by **vimal** » 14 Jan 2021 05:26

ashbhee wrote:Have any of you checked out India subreddit form in reddit.com. It is extremely hostile to Indians/ Hindus / current govt. 99 % of the posts that get posted is Anti - Indians/ Hindus / current govt.

https://www.reddit.com/r/india/

Checked out the farmer protest thread and same nutcase Khalistis nonsense about how they've for centuries brought empires to their knees.
Some sane voice reminded that Punjab is majority SC/OBC along with sizable Hindus who hate the upper caste politics of jutt Sikhs.

m_saini · Post by **m_saini** » 15 Jan 2021 09:54

Google admits to removing local news content in 'experiment'

Internet search giant Google has admitted that it has been intermittently blocking some Australian news sites from search users.

In recent days internet users have reported Australian news sites disappearing from Google's search function, with old content and links being displayed.

Not exactly social media but does throw some light on the 'experiments' being run on users.

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 15 Jan 2021 21:19

Bringing down empires? Didn’t they collaborate (aka serve) with the British empire?

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 16 Jan 2021 04:10

jamwal · Post by **jamwal** » 16 Jan 2021 13:52

Most of reddit is leftist to ultra leftist type. Majority of India related sub-reddits are controlled by muslims, extreme leftists and in some cases extremely racist foreigners.
/r/India - is worst and people get banned for writing anything pro-India or pro-Hindu.
/r/worldnews - pro-India news is either heavily downvoted or removed. Same moderators as /r/india and their alt accounts.
/r/Delhi /r/mumbai /r/bangalore and some other city specific subreddits: moderated by same /r/india moderators since 2 years and same atmosphere as /r/india
/r/hindi - had muslim moderator who peddled urdu. Was forced to stop after users raised a stink and moved out.
/r/sikh - Mostly anti-India and rabidly anti-Hindu.

4chan better, they are racist towards everybody. Reddit with it's harebrained userbase is the typical green haired SJWs with multiple genders.
It a classic example of hypocrisy of lestists and islamists. They demand full rights only when they are in minority. Once they have any power, they do their best to silence all dissenting opinions.

Cyrano · Post by **Cyrano** » 17 Jan 2021 01:24

I don't get it... So Fox, OAN etc are the most truthful US networks ? Hannity & Tucker are the hosts with most integrity ?

Najunamar · Post by **Najunamar** » 17 Jan 2021 01:44

Cyranoji, Truthful US News networks? Now you are talking in Oxymorons. US propaganda machine is just a bit slicker than Goebbels and the bumbling Indian media. At least in India you see quite a lot of people expressing contrarian views and not getting hounded for it.

Cyrano · Post by **Cyrano** » 17 Jan 2021 01:45

The question to be asked is not why Twitter, Facebook et al have banned Trump now. The question is why did they wait until it boiled over into riots on the Capitol ? They should have flagged his lies and rabid comments or issued bans ages ago.

Trump used Twitter & other SM as a way to insult, outrage, stir controversy, a 24 hrs circus show which attracted audiences world over. They benefited significantly from it. Now the cost/benefit is likely to go -ve, plus some belated sense of responsibility after Capitol riots, so they banned him.

As Trump's case shows, Govts need to avoid overly depending on SM platforms. Especially one like Twitter which drives and is driven by asynchronous trigger reactions (of highly triggerable people) that are quickly separated from context.

SM is far from being representative of the society and is a very unreliable and often misleading source of gauging IMPORTANCE of issues ("trending" mostly means some random crap that got picked up by many) and does not represent the overall public sentiment on an issue and forms no basis for analysing if and how one should respond to something when in position of responsibility.

Cyrano · Post by **Cyrano** » 17 Jan 2021 01:53

Najunamar wrote:Cyranoji, Truthful US News networks? Now you are talking in Oxymorons. US propaganda machine is just a bit slicker than Goebbels and the bumbling Indian media. At least in India you see quite a lot of people expressing contrarian views and not getting hounded for it.

What I observe is each network has its audience more or less set, and they pander to it. SM platforms in the name of "personalising content" feed you with more of the same and you fall into a loop. If you watch your favourite network, see only what YT & FB suggest to you, follow only those people whom you agree with on Twitter and meet only those you know from such groups, your are building your own Truman Universe (the Jim Carrey one).

I think people the world over are realising this. My prediction (and hope) is that there will be increasing demand for news as-it-is and more unbiased content (relatively speaking that is) and we will see some platforms emerge in that space in the next year or two.

gpurewal · Post by **gpurewal** » 17 Jan 2021 04:24

jamwal wrote:Most of reddit is leftist to ultra leftist type. Majority of India related sub-reddits are controlled by muslims, extreme leftists and in some cases extremely racist foreigners.
/r/India - is worst and people get banned for writing anything pro-India or pro-Hindu.
/r/worldnews - pro-India news is either heavily downvoted or removed. Same moderators as /r/india and their alt accounts.
/r/Delhi /r/mumbai /r/bangalore and some other city specific subreddits: moderated by same /r/india moderators since 2 years and same atmosphere as /r/india
/r/hindi - had muslim moderator who peddled urdu. Was forced to stop after users raised a stink and moved out.
/r/sikh - Mostly anti-India and rabidly anti-Hindu.

4chan better, they are racist towards everybody. Reddit with it's harebrained userbase is the typical green haired SJWs with multiple genders.
It a classic example of hypocrisy of lestists and islamists. They demand full rights only when they are in minority. Once they have any power, they do their best to silence all dissenting opinions.

r/chodi is probably the best for the Indian crowd, since it labels itself as a free speech thread, and I have seen all shorts of posts and comments there.

Ramu · Post by **Ramu** » 17 Jan 2021 05:05

Someone did a detailed traffic analysis of r/india.
80% of the confirmed traffic by posters and commenters is not from India. 60% came from us and uk. Mods are not indians. Anyone new to reddit gets sucked into this without knowing. People tried to take back the control of Mods but can't for some reason. I found r/indiaspeaks to be a more balanced representation of India related topics.

darshan · Post by **darshan** » 17 Jan 2021 05:12

Cyrano wrote:The question to be asked is not why Twitter, Facebook et al have banned Trump now. The question is why did they wait until it boiled over into riots on the Capitol ? They should have flagged his lies and rabid comments or issued bans ages ago.

Does not question lie more towards why SM platforms haven't started banning various political entities within India that employ similar tactics to cause riots? For example, muslims aren't capable of witnessing free speech on social media, cause riots and kill. When are they banning all muslims?

bharathp · Post by **bharathp** » 17 Jan 2021 06:25

what is the resistance to start an india specific type SM forum? BR can be the mouthpeice of such a forum. add a few more such forums and we may as well get critical mass. with all the b'luru hype, we have enough power to be a powerhouse of such apps.

AkshaySG · Post by **AkshaySG** » 17 Jan 2021 06:51

bharathp wrote:what is the resistance to start an india specific type SM forum? BR can be the mouthpeice of such a forum. add a few more such forums and we may as well get critical mass. with all the b'luru hype, we have enough power to be a powerhouse of such apps.

Not so much resistance as the fact that an India specific SM type forum doesn't achieve much ,Its fine if you want to talk amongst similar minded individuals without the fear of ban/de-platforming but doesn't change the overall outlook or combat the misinformation being peddled on the major sites . The leftists/liberals will stick with their Twitter/reddit/instas and have a free reign there .Its still more beneficial to combat misinformation where more people can see it and maybe some get influenced by them than just confine oneself to corners of the internet .

AkshaySG · Post by **AkshaySG** » 17 Jan 2021 07:04

Ramu wrote:Someone did a detailed traffic analysis of r/india.
80% of the confirmed traffic by posters and commenters is not from India. 60% came from us and uk. Mods are not indians. Anyone new to reddit gets sucked into this without knowing. People tried to take back the control of Mods but can't for some reason. I found r/indiaspeaks to be a more balanced representation of India related topics.

r/India and r/pakistan subs were created on the same day and by the same people who still mod them , An analysis showed that a ton of posters were common in both subreddits and had also huge commonality with r/izlam , r/muslim etc etc ...Doesn't take a genius to figure out what's what
Anyone who even jokes about this gets banned let alone actually questioning the sub . Its a big echo chamber and the mods like it that way

This kinda stuff is not exclusive to Indian subs tho , After a long investigation it was found that many political subs especially those related to presidential candidates and elections were big astroturfing campaigns whose focus was elevating Bernie as the democratic candidate and destroying Biden as one .Even meme subs and accounts have now gotten in the act as marketing analysts have seen just how influential memes have become

bharathp · Post by **bharathp** » 17 Jan 2021 11:29

AkshaySG wrote:
bharathp wrote:what is the resistance to start an india specific type SM forum? BR can be the mouthpeice of such a forum. add a few more such forums and we may as well get critical mass. with all the b'luru hype, we have enough power to be a powerhouse of such apps.
Not so much resistance as the fact that an India specific SM type forum doesn't achieve much ,Its fine if you want to talk amongst similar minded individuals without the fear of ban/de-platforming but doesn't change the overall outlook or combat the misinformation being peddled on the major sites . The leftists/liberals will stick with their Twitter/reddit/instas and have a free reign there .Its still more beneficial to combat misinformation where more people can see it and maybe some get influenced by them than just confine oneself to corners of the internet .

as much as RWs or centrists need to counter their opponents PoV, they also need a "safe space" of their own. there is certainly a need for a centrist or RW place. case in point - BR is also thriving for many years. I actually find BR to be more acomodative of even left wing PoV so long as they dont hurt indic views (the farm protest discussion with mansingh ji is a great example where mansingh ji was able to put his views forward and no one was allowed to make a personal remark on him).
we basically need a BR version of SM. I am willing to sponsor some amount of the server costs.

jamwal · Post by **jamwal** » 17 Jan 2021 13:27

Check Bharat Ganrajya

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 18 Jan 2021 08:25

Cyrano wrote:I don't get it... So Fox, OAN etc are the most truthful US networks ? Hannity & Tucker are the hosts with most integrity ?

The convention for asking rhetorical questions is to suffix the end ? with a !. For example,

I don't get it... So Fox, OAN etc are the most truthful US networks?! Hannity & Tucker are the hosts with the most integrity?!

FTFY

darshan · Post by **darshan** » 19 Jan 2021 01:53

Tencent-backed Hike, once India’s answer to WhatsApp, has given up on messaging
https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/18/tence ... messaging/
...
Hike Messenger, backed by Tencent, Tiger Global and SoftBank and valued at $1.4 billion in 2016, earlier this month announced that it was shutting down StickerChat, its messaging app. (StickerChat users saw notifications about it late last week.)

The startup, founded by Kavin Bharti Mittal, this month pivoted to two virtual social apps called Vibe and Rush, said Mittal, who is the son of telecom giant Airtel’s chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal.
....
Hike also attempted to build its own operating system through acquisition of a startup called Creo. In 2018, Hike launched Total OS that aimed to cater to users with low-cost Android smartphones and slow internet data.
...

vera_k · Post by **vera_k** » 25 Jan 2021 00:27

308 Pakistan-based Twitter handles trying to disrupt farmers rally

Time to block Twitter until after the rally is complete.

IndraD · Post by **IndraD** » 25 Jan 2021 01:17

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... 1611508547

whatsapp becomes victim of whatsapp university!

Wapp claims no where they ever indicated they will sell end users or their chats yet massages widely circulated on wapp implied wapp is coming after your money bhaago, and users actually left in droves