Hello everyone, I come here today to let you all know, that Flash, the original web media player, has finally been laid to rest.
This is truly the most awful thing happening in the world right now, hundreds of thousands of porn games will no longer be playable, crudely made animations made 20 years ago are now completely unusable in their native format, all for the sake of "Security" I want you to seriously consider the implications of an entire format being pulled just because the original creator said that's what they wanted. Imagine if Toshiba and Philips up and decided they no longer wanted people to have VCR's due to them having the ABILITY to be used as a weapon, so they take every VCR ever made and destroy them for your safety. It doesn't matter if you paid for it, they made the format and by God you just can't be trusted with it anymore.
That's what Adobe did, they pulled the plug on an entire artform. An entire generation of creative works is now gone as far as the casual viewer is concerned.
Moving something that you don't like to another platform for the sake of "security" (I.E. CONTROL!) is something that shouldn't happen in a free society, it's not right.
Don't just scoff and say "well you can still see it, you just need to do X and Y"
THAT'S NOT THE POINT! Putting up barriers to these works is wrong, it's just another form of... some word that starts with "C"
You can claim it's fine, but what happens when it's something YOU care about being taken down? Or a creator YOU like being squelched?
You need to recognize that the fundamental rights of all creators, AND viewers should be inalienable.
Submitting to a giant corporation, and them telling you which rights you can and can't have or express is complete lunacy.
I don't like every flash ever made, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve to exist.
It's not just that they stopped supporting it, that's one thing. I can understand that they want to move on and create other things. But they didn't just let it die on it's own, they KILLED it.
They up and removed something that millions of people people followed, entire groups of people made connections based on their love for flash. And one company can just flip a switch and kill it for everyone? How ubiquitous does a commodity need to be before it's warranted regulation by elected officials? We regulate everything else; Oil, Logging, Hospitals, water, radio, TV, banks, all of these companies need to abide by specific rules so as to not obtain a.... another word I'm forgetting that starts with the letter "M", I think a board game is named after it...
Anyways, why is it OK for platforms to be the final say so in what rights a creator has? A water company needs to give fresh water and not charge too much, a gas company can't just decide to shut someone's heat off just because they don't trust the occupant, why can Adobe shut down an entire platform, and disenfranchise millions of people?
But that's fine right? They're a private company and it's THEIR software, their website. Anyone who wants to see old flash movies can just go somewhere else, it's not like every other company would conspire against that one thing, right?


OH WAIT...

---

thanks for reminding me.

gone ahead and found ways to play all the old flash games again.

bless the preservation efforts by people

Yeah fond memories of a lot of nice nostalgic flash videos and games from high school days.

It's a shame things didn't work out for it.

---

It's okay, DoMaya; as long as you don't do so in a way that violates the rules, you can talk about how Google and other companies are no longer doing business with Parler (that's what this is actually about, right? If you really are just talking about Flash, I'll delete this post). Talking about Parler doesn't in and of itself warrant a ban. Frankly, I've been trying to gather my thoughts on the matter myself.

Based on my admittedly limited understanding of existing laws, the tech oligopoly are within their rights to refuse service to Parler. However, I'd rather not leave it at that, as the "this is what the law says" argument only really addresses whether or not what's going on is legal, not whether or not it's right.

One thing I'm trying to put into words is the difference between being able to do something and being allowed to do something and how that difference relates to the idea of freedom. As an example, let's say I want to say that blue jays are beautiful. Whether or not I have a social media account, I am allowed to say that blue jays are beautiful. A social media account enables me to say it in the "presence" of more people than would normally be possible, though. Depriving me of a social media account thus reduces my capacity to inform other people of the beauty of blue jays without outright forbidding me to do so. What I'm less sure of is the extent to which the expanded ability to express myself provided by said account is in and of itself a freedom that the government should protect. Taken to its logical extreme, such a freedom would entail other users being forbidden to block me and whatever platform I use being forbidden to ban me, regardless of how obnoxious I might become. As far as private companies providing me with a platform is concerned, I'm not convinced the government should be able to forbid them to ban me or other users of the platform to block me.

The issue at hand doesn't just deal with individual users' freedom of expression, though. The incitements of violence on Parler that got it into this mess have gotten people killed. As I understand it, Apple stopped doing business with Parler because the latter refused to clamp down on posts inciting violence and that other companies had similar reasons for cutting ties. I'm no fan of violence and prefer peaceful solutions whenever possible, but I don't deny that circumstances sometimes make violence the only means of bringing about justice. That said, I'm unsure of what a consistent policy with regards to what kind of incitements of violence are acceptable would entail, so I can't in good conscience fault Apple and Parler's other former service providers for imposing a blanket policy against such things.

What bugs me about all this is that there were almost certainly people on Parler who did not in any way try to incite violence (e.g. making bellicose posts, sharing bellicose posts); they lost their use of Parler because other users were causing trouble and Parler refused to crack down on it. From a practical standpoint, I understand why it came to that, but it still stinks. Court Records has automated anti-spambot measures that outright prevent large numbers of spambots from registering (needless to say, some still get through), but every now and then, a human whose IP address is in a bad "neighborhood" is also prevented from registering. Words cannot express how much it bothers me that our automated anti-spambot measures prevent even one human from registering, but we would be teeming with spambots if we did away with that layer of our defenses. Within the past day, more than three hundred registration attempts were automatically blocked and while I can't prove my assumption to be correct, I think it's safe to assume that the overwhelming majority of those would-be users were spambots. Apple and Parler's other former service providers were in a similar situation; while there were probably plenty of users on Parler who weren't causing problems, a lot were and Parler refused to take sufficient action against them.

I suspect a forum overrun by spambots will ultimately be abandoned by its human users as it becomes increasingly tedious for humans to engage in conversations there. The situation is far more serious on Parler, though; users there were engaging in behavior that can get and has gotten people killed. Turning a blind eye to a spambot infestation is lazy and self-destructive. Turning a blind eye to incitements of violence puts outsiders in danger. Users' freedom of expression is important, but so are the lives of those whom certain elements on Parler have called for violence against. I'm inclined to support prioritizing the latter in this particular case. A corpse might arguably have freedom of expression, but it is incapable of exercising it. By contrast, a living person deprived of their access to Parler can still express themself by other means. Were there an option that restrained the guilty without harming the innocent, I'd be all for it, but no such option exists, so I'm instead inclined to support what I see as the lesser of two evils. Those who truly had nothing to do with Parler being taken offline have my empathy all the same, for what little it's worth.

I could also touch on questions of the circumstances under which private companies should be permitted to deny service to clients for what they deem bad behavior (or as the case may be with Parler, violating the companies' terms of service), but I get the impression you're concerned more about individual Parler users' now-diminished capacity to express themselves.

---

The problem with the Parler ban is that it's discriminatory, and very clearly breaks anti competitive practices.
No one cracked down on the multiple people who endorsed the BLM riots, which had far more casualties AND property damage than the capital hill raid.
I condemn BOTH actions, but this almost religious love/hate for politicians is what disgusts me the most. Why do people think the politicians are beyond reproach? I don't care WHO'S side they're on, a politician's life isn't worth any more than anyone else's.
I really can't wrap my head around it, where was the outcry for the BLM riots? How do people not see that BOTH groups claimed to be disenfranchised? Don't we patronize blacks (and the other people who joined in) by saying they just couldn't control their anger? One of these three HAS to be true:
1. Both actions were equally vile, but we care more about politicians than common folks.
2. Trump/Conservative supporters are being discriminated against
3. BLM riots were incited by left leaning politicians and websites.

I don't care about politics anymore, I just want the worship of politicians to end, because THAT'S what's causing the violence.

Not the Democrats
Not the Republicans
Not the Cops, blacks, illegal aliens, China, Russia, Italy now apparently?
We're putting the lives and beliefs of our leaders above our own, when they've shown time and time again that they don't care about us.
And this is the question/statement I've been asking (and pointing out) to everyone just so overjoyed that Biden got elected; What changed in YOUR life that was directly caused by Trump?
What changed in YOUR life that was directly caused by Obama? or Bush?
US FIGHTING amongst each-other is the only thing that's changed our lives, they don't want us to co-operate. This is all about class difference, and this crackdown on conservative websites/personalities is just proof. "Squelch the cretins who DARED to threaten US!" (I've seen reports of some far left accounts being banned too, and I don't have my head so far up my own ass to think it's fine when it happens to THEM)

The spirit of America was born of a rebel, not a rebel to law, or God, or even it's fellow man.
But a rebel to people far away telling you how to live your life; Machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts.
Don't worship these machines.
I'm not telling you not to vote, and definitely not to go full blackpill. Nihilism is the death of the soul.
I'm saying that your code of ethics and conduct shouldn't come from the same people trying to control you.
A wrong is not a right, no matter what those false idols tells us.

---

Hmm I don't think it's the politicians are more important souls than any other as much as processes are more important that people. I think we can all agree that Democracy is a treasured practice in our cultures and is probably more important than what any one person wants. That's the difference for me.

I do think "whataboutism" with the BLM movement is...not valuable because the motives were entirely different. If you want to break it down into sheer quantities then that's not really a great measure because it ignores the values and intents behind what happened.

BLM was a mostly peaceful movement from my understanding to stand up against systematic oppression. Alongside that movement were some opportunists who looted.

The Trump Insurrection was a coordinated and motivated attempt to overthrow democracy and was violent from the outset with people preparing and coordinating for violence.

So with your three choices I think the first one is inaccurate, it's about the what and why the events happened. The BLM protests happened for good reasons and weren't an attempt to destroy Democratic processes. The Insurrection happened for terrible reasons and could have had terrible implications for Democracy.

As for the 2nd one? I don't think I'd call it discrimination as much as "recognition". I don't want to hire a racist as a counsellor for POC so in the hiring processes I'd likely reject someone who is open about racist beliefs. From what I can see of the description of it, discrimination requires that the process is "unjust." If there's good sensible reasons behind the process then I don't think discrimination follows, it's just a wolf whistle to try and make a reasonable process seem unreasonable. For Parler and the other bans that have occurred it's a natural consequence of people being open about values that are not supported by society at large and these being recognised. It's like if you come in my house, you obey my rules and if you don't you leave. Parler didn't moderate appropriately and a lot of people have made their values clear and so have been asked to leave. Yes there may be innocent souls banned by this but there are alternative platforms, and said innocent souls would probably want to distance themselves from platforms with dangerous values. Any step to make it harder for the far-right to organise is important especially when there's speculations of a further attack, any disruption to communications is borderline a tactical operation at that point.

Yeah I don't think politicians should be idealised the way Trump should be but this isn't about worshipping the individuals in congress, it's about the process that they tried to disrupt.

As for what changed in my life since Trump got defeated? I breathe a lot easier now about the moral soul of the world I guess. A political shift away from an ideology that seeks out hate and pushes people away. There's plenty in the UK still to deal with that I hate and many who were inspired by Trump's brand of politics. I hope that seeing Trump defeated at the height of his power will show these other politicians that cults do not work and deter people from trying that again (or at least in the short term put pressure on Boris Johnson as he's losing a strong ally in America). I'm not in America so nearly nothing material changed. Still I relax a lot more knowing things will get better. I wouldn't expect anything to change yet given the inauguration hasn't happened but I look forward to more enfranchisement for American citizens and maybe more crackdowns on social justice matters. At the least I just don't want a President who seeks division everywhere. The absence of Trump alone is an improvement because his words and rhetoric were a poison.

---

It's really hard to have a discussion with someone just parroting when they see on the news, who lacks the self awareness to accuse fans/followers of Trump as being in a cult...

Your entire statement, from BLM being "mostly peaceful" to the "INSURRECTION" that almost happened at capital hill, with less than 100 people actually entering the building.

How does the thousands of people protesting outside the capital with only 100 going inside not make it "mostly peaceful"?

"They're not going to stop after election day, and they SHOULD not"
How is this NOT inciting violence?

Everyone says Trump is racist, yet they never cite anything, they just take it as a given that the orange bad man the news told them was racist... is racist.

His actions certainly don't reflect that, which of his policies repealed the 13th amendment? Well one of his policies helped promote "Excellence and Innovation at historically black universities" Or maybe the First Step Act a system implemented to help prisoners actually get out of prison, which as of November 2019 had released over 3000 people.
More minorities voted for trump in 2020 than did in 2016, at least the New York Post, National Review, and News Week claim so.
Are you going to tell me now they just have internalized racism?

Politicians don't radicalize people, the news does.

---

I mean I could argue with you Dom but I don't think it'd be worthwhile man. I worry about you and how extreme you have become but I remember a time you never got this wound up about stuff and I think your poetry is great. Got a lot of respect for you.

But if we can't agree on a basic reality then there's no point. It's awful convenient if all my news and things I've heard is lies but everything you hear is true. If there's nothing we can agree on there then I don't think there's a point discussing it.

I mean this in itself is a problem, because I could cite stuff and argue but I feel everything I cite would just be "Oh did you hear that on the news?" So by not fighting the point folks might be like "Well there it is! They've got nothing!" but I just don't think there's anything I could say that'd get through to folks, and it might be exhausting to do so. So my only real hope is that results change things. That folks who are furious and afraid see that things can be ok in a new Era over the next few years, then Trump can just become another ex-president and life can go on.

I'm worried for you man, and for a lot of Americans who as you put it, worship politicians now. I think it's going to take a lot of work for things to adjust but I hope you're doing ok.

---

Warning Friendly reminder to be cool. I'll let this exchange slide, but you both need to refrain from explicitly or implicitly accusing each other of... "parroting their preferred sources," shall we say?

I'll have more to say on the actual topic at hand in a moment; I only just got back from work and figured I should get the "be cool" reminder out ASAP.

Edit: Okay... While I do think the topic of how people with different political views choose which sources to trust is a discussion worth having, I'd like to set that matter aside for now and come back to it if there ends up being a disagreement over the relevant facts due to conflicting sources--and even then, we'd only need to address which sources we're willing to trust for the purposes of this discussion.

Going back to your response to my own post, DoMaya, I'd like to start with your claim of anti-competitive behavior and work from there rather than juggle multiple topics at once. Are you asserting that Amazon and the other tech giants have violated one or more laws against anti-competitive practices or would you rather just discuss what those laws should entail? My understanding is that Parler is suing Amazon over the latter's decision to stop hosting it and included allegations of anti-competitive behavior in its complaint, so as far as the letter of the law is concerned, I'm inclined to just wait and see what the courts decide rather than try to argue that what Amazon did was or wasn't legal. I can attempt to draw conclusions based on my own lay understanding of existing laws or the understanding of one or more certified experts on said laws, but what ultimately matters is what the courts decide, not what we or any experts we cite claim the law says. As such, unless you happen to be particularly well-versed in business law (for example, if you're a lawyer who specializes in that area of the law), I don't think there's much (if anything) to be gained from either of us debating whether or not the tech giants' actions violate any existing laws.

The spirit of the law strikes me as a more worthwhile topic here. I'm no fan of monopolies and oligopolies and am frankly all for the government forcing Amazon and the other big guys to split up into smaller companies even if there are technically obscure startups that prevent them from controlling the whole market (I'm not holding my breath, but it could happen now that Senator Sanders and other progressives have more clout in Congress). I think it goes without saying that regardless of the companies' reasons for showing Parler the door, their decision to do so does hurt Parler's business, thus benefiting its competitors. I'm not convinced that that on its own is sufficient to call the decision anti-competitive, though; if their goal was to drive Parler out of the social media market entirely, be it because they object to the politics of its userbase or because they want Twitter to have less competition, then yes, they absolutely engaged in anti-competitive behavior as far as I'm concerned, but the key is proving that that was their goal. From what I recall reading, the companies in question gave Parler's refusal to crack down on violent rhetoric as their reason for ceasing business with it. It's certainly possible that one or more of the companies lied about that, but once again, the key is proving it.

So... what would prove it to me?

The strongest proof in my eyes would be internal communications from those behind the decision to stop doing business with Parler. If, for example, there was correspondence from and/or a recording of whoever in Amazon decided to cut Parler off and they explicitly say in said correspondence and/or recording that they were cutting Parler off over its right-wing userbase and/or to stifle Twitter's competition, then that would be pretty damning evidence if its authenticity could be verified (though it would only apply to Amazon, not other companies). It's worth keeping in mind, though, that said individual simply speaking ill of Parler's userbase or acknowledging that Twitter benefits from the ban is not proof here; acknowledging the potential effects of an action does not prove that any particular one of those effects is the goal of said action. There are also issues of quote-mining to consider; I won't name names, but I know of at least one "news outlet" that is prone to selective editing and other dishonest methods, so depending on the source, I'm not guaranteed to take alleged internal communications at face value. I understand that Parler is suing Amazon over this whole mess, though, so if such communications exist, Amazon would have to turn them over to the court during the discovery process. A court accepting such communications into evidence would be pretty strong proof of their authenticity in my eyes.

If other clients have been let off the hook despite the same behavior, proof of it would certainly help Parler's case. If, for example, it could be proven Twitter had a serious problem with users making bellicose posts, uses the same service provider that cut Parler off, and like Parler refused to crack down on said posts, yet wasn't cut off over it, then that would certainly make it look as though the service provider in question was playing favorites. Unless I'm mistaken, no individual piece of evidence would prove this, but rather multiple connected pieces of evidence; there would have to be at the very least data on the content of the posts on Twitter, records of Twitter's moderation, and records of Twitter's business with the service provider in question. The data in particular could be a sticking point, depending on the data-gatherer's methodology; it's not unheard of for people with dishonest goals to deliberately use a methodology that skews the data in such a way that benefits their narrative, after all.

...[sigh] So I guess if we're to continue down this road, we'll need to figure out which sources we're both willing to trust or else we'll get nowhere as far as evidence or the lack thereof is concerned until any lawsuits relating to the matter are done. I leave it up to you to decide whether or not you want to continue with this part of the discussion or set it aside in favor of something else, DoMaya.

---

>How extreme I'VE become
Oh boy, pigeonholing at it's finest. I dare to support individual liberties so that must mean I'm dangerous huh?
I didn't change (that much), It just became acceptable to be intolerant to anyone even remotely right of center.

I'm not claiming every news article I agree with is 100% true, I'M willing to admit my ignorance on certain facts. But that's because I don't tie my identity to my political leaning. (I tie it to my autistic infatuation with video games)

The only reason I continue talking about politics like this is knowing that no matter what happens, no matter who wins or loses, this rhetoric, (from BOTH sides!) Isn't helping anyone.
Despite my pride, I make concession after concession. And I'm still called a goddamn extremist?

How about you actually attack my argument, or my sources, rather than attack my person?





Regarding the banning of Parler, my opinion on it more pertains to conservatives being singled out of social media as a whole.
I'd like to cite a similar discussion we all had, but apparently our roles have reversed.
Remember this?

My position was that the shop should have the right to deny CATERING

You all claimed that this is discrimination against gays.

Do we now say that it's fine for a company to discriminate? Or are conservatives not a part of a protected class, so that makes it fine?

I'd really like some clarification on this.


Also, side note: Please don't think I'm trying to dredge up 6 year old topics for a "gotcha!" moment, some of my views HAVE changed.


I suppose I should have made it more clear that this is a cry against censorship as a whole, a position I DEFINITELY have held onto for a long time. Frankly, I had no idea parler even existed (most of my news is from 4chan after triple checking anything they post has at least a half credible source and talking with people IRL)
But seeing websites like AR15.com being kicked off of GoDaddy's servers, and Trump's twitter being removed, I thought it was at least worth bringing up.

The CEO of Twitter had a meeting leaked. I don't trust Veritas (I don't know anything about them) but evidence of them trying to influence people is there.

---

Could you please drop the matter of Pierre calling you extreme? Yes, what he said was uncalled for. I agreed to let it and your talk of him just parroting what he sees on the news slide, but that was assuming you both would return to the topic at hand.

Moving on...

The laughably-named "Project Veritas" has a well-documented history of selective editing. They were actually exactly whom I had in mind when I mentioned dishonest "news sources." Nothing they say should be taken at face value and any evidence they present should be presumed tampered with until proven otherwise.

I appreciate you clarifying your reason for objecting to Parler being shown the door. Questions of discrimination on the basis of political views have frankly bothered me for a while. A 100% consistent position still eludes me. I currently try to draw the line based on questions of whom a particular ideology seeks to harm and/or is okay with harming in any way, as well as how immediate a threat of harm any particular statement brings. "Harm" in this context can mean something as severe as killing or something as relatively mundane as a private business denying service to the target. We here at Court Records forbid the display of Nazi imagery because Nazism advocates genocide, to use a relatively cut-and-dry example.

In the case of Parler, as I mentioned, the companies who cut Parler off objected to large enough swaths of its userbase advocating violence against the US government and Parler choosing not to crack down on posts advocating said violence. While I don't doubt that many of the people advocating said violence truly believed that the election was stolen and that violence was the only way to right this alleged wrong, the rumors of Biden stealing the election are almost certainly false per the courts, Trumps' own lawyers' refusal to submit supposed evidence of fraud in court, and multiple news outlets retracting claims of fraud. Since the violence in question is against an entity that is innocent of the allegations against it, I'm perfectly fine with Parler banning users for advocating the violence in question, just as I'm fine with Twitter doing the same to any users advocating election-related violence against the government. I've already brought up my own misgivings about Parler's service providers stepping in due to the latter's refusal to crack down on violent content despite ultimately being okay with the companies' decision, so I hope you're okay with me not repeating myself on the matter. I'm not familiar with the AR15.com matter, so I'll have to look into it in greater detail before forming any sort of position on it. As for Trump's Twitter ban, I'd avoided that because the focus was on Parler.

I couldn't find any information on the source's biases, but TLDR News, a YouTube channel, recently touched on questions of social media's relationship with right-wing voices in one of their videos. My own judgment is that the channel might have a left-wing bias, albeit nowhere near on the same level as, say, the Huffington Post. The sources I usually turn to when trying to ascertain a source's bias and accuracy or lack thereof have no information on the channel yet, which is why I'm currently relying on my own judgment.

Building off of what the video says about potential innocent reasons for right-wing accounts being more prone to getting banned, I suspect that the core of the issue revolves around questions of terms of service and moderation. Twitter's stated reason for banning Trump, for example, revolves around his posts qualifying as a violation of their terms of service. On its own, this checks out, though it raises two different questions for me:

1. Is Twitter, to the best of its ability, enforcing its rules consistently? The video from TLDR News does raise the possibility of right-wing posts simply being more likely to be reported due to more of the userbase being left-wing, which in turn would almost certainly lead to right-wing accounts accounting for a disproportionate number of bans and suspensions. Speaking from my personal experience moderating here on Court Records, a rule-breaking post that goes unreported is unlikely to result in punishment unless someone on the staff happens across it in a timely manner. That's why it's so important for regular users to be able to report posts for rule violations. Considering how many users Twitter has, I doubt its moderation team is large enough for them to be able to comb through every post in search of violations. If it could be proven that the moderation staff was deliberately prioritizing right-wing posts, that would be another story.
2. Are Twitter's terms of service just? Having discussed voter ID laws and gerrymandering elsewhere, I'm all too aware of how those in positions of power can twist the law (or in this case, the terms of service) to benefit their goals at the expense of justice. This one's harder for me to nail down, as it ultimately delves into questions of why any given rule exists, and while I can certainly speculate, I can't claim to have any actual insight into the reasoning behind any particular rule in Twitter's terms of service. It's entirely possible that Twitter designed the terms of service to disproportionately suppress right-wing voices, but I currently find it more plausible that the right currently is simply more prone to making posts that violate the terms of service.

All of what I've said about Twitter here can also be applied to other social media platforms, as well as to companies that provide essential services to said platforms. I don't have enough information to be confident in answering either of the questions I presented, though; I instead raise them to help explain why I don't think it's necessarily as simple as right-wing voices being censored just for being right-wing.

---

I watched the video, it seemed fairly sincere about wanting to be neutral. I started to write a long rant on it but decided just to leave a small comment.

I'm glad to see that while we may not agree on the topic, we can at least end a discussion without one of us (usually me) being banned.
I'm curious as to how the trial itself will end, and what that means for the future of the internet.
Just like during the net neutrality days, the laws of the web are dictated by people who don't fully understand it.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (the root of almost all parts of this debate) will more than likely be brought up. (You'll recognize this as one of the things Trump wanted changed so much)
Essentially it says that websites hosting an open forum can't be held accountable for things posted there by an outsider, (like if a bot started posting images of underage kids here on CR, none of the staff is liable).



Was Parler taken down in good faith? Are the Conservatives being squelched in good faith?

Maybe I'm just getting old, I remember the good old days of a wild west internet. Back when having a place to communicate with your friends wasn't actually a carefully designed platform that causes addiction and gives us all depression. They should all be like me and be depressed their waifu isn't real.

---

rip flash and air they shall never be updated again

---