We have to talk about Twitter banning US President
Donald Trump, because it is truly unprecedented. Twitter has justified its reasoning by stating
that his comments undermined the election results and encouraged acts of violence.
Twitter explained that Trump’s statements and presence on the platform could endanger an orderly
transition of power for President-elect Joe Biden. Twitter's actions have both received praise and
criticism. Many criticize the social media platform for taking too long to block the
account. In 2020 alone, Trump made several false claims regarding the election, COVID;
and also tweeted violent comments in violence in light of the Black Lives Matter protests.
So maybe you care about where I stand, and here’s me looking to get in trouble by saying it.
Should you have the liberty to think what you want, and express your opinion,
as controversial as it might be? Yes. Does that extend to racism, or hate speech? Sadly,
if that’s what you think, yes. That problem is not fixed by not letting people speak.
According to the First Amendment, the government must protect that liberty,
and countries where that liberty isn’t guaranteed, are simply not considered ‘FREE’.
BUT, that does NOT mean that the Twitters, the Facebooks, the Youtubes of the world need to
host and provide a platform for that hate speech to thrive. All of these are private companies,
with very clear TERMS OF SERVICE, that you agree when signing up.
While these companies seem like the internet, they are not. They are private businesses
and the set of rules has been established. Does that give Jack Dorsey or Mark Zuckerberg
the power to ban the President of the United States from their platform? It does. If ANYONE
violates the terms of service they agreed to, then they should be banned. I think the math is simple.
Is that too much power? Probably. But we give those companies that power by being their users.
And, in this specific case, I don’t believe they're abusing it. As a matter of fact,
it probably took them too long. The problem is, when almost half the country
agrees with what the President says (at least enough to vote for him), then banning him isn’t
that simple. You are quite literally upsetting almost half the population who believe him.
It seems that finally, a mob entering the capitol was the straw to break the camel’s
back to break. Finally, people are starting to distance themselves from Trump, so finally,
the backlash of banning him is manageable. I DON’T think that the right of Free Speech
is being violated. Many of the people who advocate for free speech are simply looking for a platform
where hate speech isn’t censored. And that’s a completely different thing.
That is precisely Parler’s premise, which is our second news of the day.
Tech giants ban Parler. Parler is a Twitter-like
platform with the premise of free-speech. That is quite literally their motto. However,
it’s become a haven for, you guessed, it, hate-speech! Where extreme points of view,
now deplatformed from other social media platforms, can thrive.
After Twitter cracked down on the President and many of the accounts that used it to organize the
events in the Capitol last week, Parler had become one of the top downloads in Apple's App Store.
CEO John Matze had openly aimed for it to become a place where people could say anything they wanted.
Well, just like with Twitter and President Trump, Parler is now facing bans as well.
Amazon Web Services, who hosted their servers, is the latest tech giant to ban the microblogging
and social networking platform. The Verge reported that, on January 9th, Amazon announced that it
would suspend the controversial site after a group of Amazon Web Services employees demanded that the
company cut ties with Parler, which included no longer providing web services to the platform.
Amazon's decision to end its relationship with Parler follows Google and Apple,
and their respective App Stores- in what have been chaotic recent
weeks in the worlds of social media and politics. Matze has also openly denounced the events
as a coordinated attack by Big Tech. He remarked that Parler was too successful, too fast and that
these actions to ban the platform are nothing more than an attempt to kill the competition.
After the news that Big Tech was parting ways, Matze admitted that
all of its vendors, email and text message service providers, and even the company's
lawyers had abandoned Parler's ship. Why? Liberty works both ways,
Matze! Remember that baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple? Escalated to the
Supreme Court. Court ruled in favor of the baker. Well, you don’t get to pick when law
applies to you. AWS has the liberty to refuse hosting your hate-filled site on their servers.
Alright. Let’s cut to lighter stuff. Signal sees an influx of users.
The messaging service Signal has seen an increase in new users this past weekend.
Two events contributed to this migration, mainly Elon Musk's tweet on January 7th,
in which he just said: "Use Signal." Mashable reported that such was the
app's demand that the verification codes suffered delays across several providers.
Another important reason people migrate to Signal is that Whatsapp, owned by Facebook,
recently announced new privacy conditions. All users have to accept the new privacy policy,
making it clear that Whatsapp will share data with Facebook. Those who
don't agree to these conditions will no longer be able to use the app.
Signal has stood out from other messaging apps due to its focus
on privacy, to the degree that many consider it the gold standard in messaging privacy.
Ben Lovejoy from 9to5 mac wrote a fantastic piece last week calling for the obvious answer to this:
Apple should bring iMessage to Android. Such a missed opportunity.
GoDaddy under fire after tricking employees Last but not least, Domain giant GoDaddy has
faced severe criticism these past two weeks due to its unusual practices. The
Verge reported that, in late December, GoDaddy sent employees a fake email that
informed them they'd receive a holiday bonus. But there was no bonus. The email was a phishing
test. The employees who clicked on the email had to take a training course on social engineering.
Forbes reports that around 500 employees clicked on the email,
with high hopes of receiving the $650 bonus. Though phishing tests are standard in the tech
industry, critics highlight that it's unethical to offer money in said tests.
GoDaddy later issued a statement highlighting how serious the company is when it comes to
security. The spokesperson also said that the company had apologized to employees.
If you ask me, that was a brilliant idea. If you work cybersecurity at a company,
and you fall for phishing, then maybe you should work cybersecurity at that company.