Free Speech
Along with the political views regarding the events in Charlottesville, there is another side worthy of being discussed. Social Media's obligations regarding the First Amendment.
I recently listened to a podcast from "The New York Times", one of their journalists created a Discord account and joined a server dedicated to the "Alt-Right". He used the information gathered from his investigation during the interview.
Unfamiliar with Discord? Think of it as a relatively new piece of software used for communication online. A better version of Skype and a much better version of Ventrilo.
Within the server, users were openly discussing the "Unite The Right" rally. Its location and time. What participants were expected to wear. They made sure everyone knew to bring a tiki torch. A now symbolic item quickly turned in use to mock recent protestors.
The transcripts clearly proved people on the server were embarrassed by the KKK and wanted to have a clear distinction between them. At the same time, they used a unique feature on Discord, to create custom emojis to use. Several ones depicting President Trump, his widely used "MAGA" (Make America Great Again) slogan, and even Adolf Hitler.
After the events in Charlottesville, Discord CMO Eros Resmini made the following statement:
Along with this statement, several Discord servers dedicated to "Alt-Right" ideologies and their followers were shut down and removed.
This isn't the first time a social media platform has deemed end user's intentions as a violation of their terms of service. Milo Yiannoupolos was banned from Twitter for similar infractions. Calls for President Trump to be banned from Twitter invoke ToS guidelines but, have fallen short so far.
The First Amendment doesn't account for social media. Especially when Freedom of Speech continues to be taken at face value. "I'm in America, therefore, I can say whatever I want.", not always proven to be true. Don't yell fire in a church, or crowded theater as someone once said. Additionally, no one gets to choose how others react to comments.
You don't get the benefit of having your cake and eating it too when it comes to Freedom of Speech, either. You will hear offensive language, quite often. You don't have to look far to find it.
At the end of the day, social media platforms are businesses. Some of them are even publicly traded at this time. The one thing they all have in common, is they require a certain amount of revenue to stay open and operational. Hate speech, inciting violence, and generally being an "internet edgelord" takes away from what these businesses are trying to create and build. These types of groups have been a hindrance for a long time, the powers behind social media are finally showing signs of engaging in combat against them.
I recently listened to a podcast from "The New York Times", one of their journalists created a Discord account and joined a server dedicated to the "Alt-Right". He used the information gathered from his investigation during the interview.
Unfamiliar with Discord? Think of it as a relatively new piece of software used for communication online. A better version of Skype and a much better version of Ventrilo.
Within the server, users were openly discussing the "Unite The Right" rally. Its location and time. What participants were expected to wear. They made sure everyone knew to bring a tiki torch. A now symbolic item quickly turned in use to mock recent protestors.
The transcripts clearly proved people on the server were embarrassed by the KKK and wanted to have a clear distinction between them. At the same time, they used a unique feature on Discord, to create custom emojis to use. Several ones depicting President Trump, his widely used "MAGA" (Make America Great Again) slogan, and even Adolf Hitler.
After the events in Charlottesville, Discord CMO Eros Resmini made the following statement:
Discord was built to bring people together through a love of gaming and our mission is to connect positive communities who share this appreciation. We unequivocally condemn white supremacy, neonazism, or any other group, term, [or the] ideology that is based on these beliefs. They are not welcome on Discord. While we don't read people's private servers our Terms of Service explicitly forbid harassment, threatening messages, or calls to violence. When hatred like this violates our community standards we act swiftly to take servers down and ban individual users. The public server linked to AltRight.com that violated Those terms was shut down along with several other public groups and accounts fostering bad actors on Discord. We will continue to be aggressive to ensure that Discord exists for the community we set out to support - gamers.
Along with this statement, several Discord servers dedicated to "Alt-Right" ideologies and their followers were shut down and removed.
This isn't the first time a social media platform has deemed end user's intentions as a violation of their terms of service. Milo Yiannoupolos was banned from Twitter for similar infractions. Calls for President Trump to be banned from Twitter invoke ToS guidelines but, have fallen short so far.
The First Amendment doesn't account for social media. Especially when Freedom of Speech continues to be taken at face value. "I'm in America, therefore, I can say whatever I want.", not always proven to be true. Don't yell fire in a church, or crowded theater as someone once said. Additionally, no one gets to choose how others react to comments.
You don't get the benefit of having your cake and eating it too when it comes to Freedom of Speech, either. You will hear offensive language, quite often. You don't have to look far to find it.
At the end of the day, social media platforms are businesses. Some of them are even publicly traded at this time. The one thing they all have in common, is they require a certain amount of revenue to stay open and operational. Hate speech, inciting violence, and generally being an "internet edgelord" takes away from what these businesses are trying to create and build. These types of groups have been a hindrance for a long time, the powers behind social media are finally showing signs of engaging in combat against them.
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