Alt Tech

dmgtz96

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Jul 13, 2020
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I skimped the topic quickly. How about reddit. Seems to be pretty level-headed.
Not a good suggestion tbh. A lot of reddit is highly liberal leaning, and the Conservative subreddit is the butt of jokes from other subreddits (including r/politics, r/leopardsatemyface, r/subredditdrama). r/conservative recently put out a statement where they basically claim they're biased, on the correct side of history, and got a lot of crap for that.

My point is that reddit is still a super liberal US Silicon Valley tech site, and it's not a place where people unhappy with other mainstream tech will feel welcome unlike actual alt tech sites.
 
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Macker

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Sites like Parler might have started off with moderate conservatives and good "free speech" protections, but the more they grow the more they'll attract the dangerous let's go storm the US Capitol types.
This is my thought exactly.

I think it goes without saying that the overwhelming majority of people are pro free speech, however with that comes the fact that you have to deal with extremists. I can't imagine any normal person saying that the likes of hate preachers such as Anjem Choudary shouldn't have been locked up because it is a violation of his freedom of speech.

Society in general has progressed to a point where there is a rough baseline of what is acceptable and what is not; it varies from country to country but generally speaking isn't wildly different. When people deviate from these norms in the past, it was never a massive issue because in a room full of enough people their frankly ludicrous views would be shut down in an instant. Today things are different, we live in a world of social media where ideas spread like wildfire, for better or worse.

Anybody who has ever engaged with any kind of extremist/fringe views will know that they operate on misinformation/the distortion of truth. The problem that arises is that to have an honest debate with someone who doesn't 1. believe in objective reality and 2. is able to spread their word faster than any sane person can rebuke it is a recipe for disaster.

It takes an order of magnitude more time and effort to rebuke bullshit than it does to spread it. This is an undeniable fact.

This is where policing and fact checking come in. Sometimes it can be, and is heavy handed. Other times it isn't heavy handed enough. Who draws the line? We all do, collectively as a society.

[edit] I am habitually against facebooks move into sharing data with whatsapp, etc; however it would be hypocritical of me to leave facebook based on that as they already have all my info there. There's nothing I use whatsapp for other than group chats and spamming friends with shit memes.

I genuinely think a bigger stance needs to be taken against governments overreach into individuals data rather than private corporations. Theresa May's snoopers charter/the five eyes agreement for example is totally unacceptable in my opinion. I'd consider voting for people who would extricate us from those.,

My two cents.
 
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Jetflag

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Jul 17, 2020
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The one that came with XenForo software (oEmbed) + the s9e extension that adds support for more websites.
check pm, i've send you some code that came along the embed options of Rumble.
 
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Jetflag

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This is where policing and fact checking come in.

Private corporation (with an ideological leaning) policing and Private corporation fact checking (with an ideological leaning), and thats where the problem lies in part, at least for me.

Sillicon valley, its defacto internet monopoly and the way it operates as a Kartel is by no stretch of the imagination unbaised or neutral, no matter how much they claim they are in press statements from their CEO's. their actions speak to the contrary. Notable recent example: The banning of Liberatarian senator Ron Paul for no reason other then "violation of community standards" (not specifiying which, what or even so much of a warning had it been the case).

Lets, For the sake of argument, say that I agree on the premise that fact checking where applicable is desirable (which i don't think is the case in politics many a times, but that aside)

Would you agree that this, Aswell as internet policing, should at least be done by a non-partisan, non profit and shall we say, "diverse" institute (in terms of ideological leaning)?

I don't know how about you, but I do not trust "fact checks" by private corporations with a profit model of selling data and growing globally, for one, their political preferences will be (at least party) based on that.

(this is aside from the argument on whether or not private companies should be allowed to do so or not by the way)
 
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dmgtz96

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Would you agree that this, Aswell as internet policing, should at least be done by a non-partisan, non profit and shall we say, "diverse" institute (in terms of ideological leaning)?

I don't know how about you, but I do not trust "fact checks" by private corporations with a profit model of selling data and growing globally, for one, their political preferences will be (at least party) based on that.
Yes. I wouldn't trust Vox or Fox News to fact check stuff, but I would trust FactCheck.org and snopes.
 
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Jetflag

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Yes. I wouldn't trust Vox or Fox News to fact check stuff, but I would trust FactCheck.org and snopes.
I don't, or at least not to the same degree as I distrust Vox or Fox,

Factcheck.org is a private foundation founded by Walter Annenberg with various political ties, and Snopes has beenlocked in a nasty legal dispute since 2017 on charges of fraud.

That being said, I do take a lot of their stuff for granted when it comes to mundaine claims or UFO conspiracy's & such.. but they're still private enterprises or at least funded by and, in case of Snopes, directly contracted by Facebook.
 

dmgtz96

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I don't, or at least not to the same degree as I distrust Vox or Fox,

Factcheck.org is a private foundation founded by Walter Annenberg with various political ties, and Snopes has beenlocked in a nasty legal dispute since 2017 on charges of fraud.

That being said, I do take a lot of their stuff for granted when it comes to mundaine claims or UFO conspiracy's & such.. but they're still private enterprises or at least funded by and, in case of Snopes, directly contracted by Facebook.
Hold up. Are you implying that you're only going to trust the fact-checker if it's a public company?
I wouldn't say Snopes being contracted by Facebook has anything to do with how reliable or trustworthy Snopes is.
 

Jetflag

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Hold up. Are you implying that you're only going to trust the fact-checker if it's a public company?
I wouldn't say Snopes being contracted by Facebook has anything to do with how reliable or trustworthy Snopes is.

no, I'm not going to trust a fact-checker is its a company, period. why should I if there's a profit incentive involved?

and especially in the US where companies and politics are (rather) heavily intertwined in terms of funding/ packs back&forth ?

If your biggest client, in case of Snopes and Facebook for instance, Tells you. "you need to alter that a little bit or else we're pulling out our share holders" how can you remain truly objective to truth as your output?
 
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Jetflag

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This is the fundamental problem with private "fact checkers" and fact checkers in general by the way and why i'm weary of them.

I've considered the potential idea of a non-profit foundation as part of say, a government institution, but even then you're still not going to get rid of top down incentive depending on which government is seated.

the only way I can see it work is by adopting a rigourous p2p review system across multible platforms.
 
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dmgtz96

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This is the fundamental problem with private "fact checkers" and fact checkers in general by the way and why i'm weary of them.

I've considered the potential idea of a non-profit foundation as part of say, a government institution, but even then you're still not going to get rid of top down incentive depending on which government is seated.

the only way I can see it work is by adopting a rigourous p2p review system across multible platforms.
Exactly, a fact checker without political ties and no potential outside interests is a pipe dream. A non-profit still has to get the money from somewhere, which is what happens with fact check.org
 
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Jetflag

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Exactly, a fact checker without political ties and no potential outside interests is a pipe dream. A non-profit still has to get the money from somewhere, which is what happens with fact check.org
yup,. which is why I don't take their word as gospel/trust them, (as a single entity), and, at best, cross reference them with other sources to make up the "truth" for myself, if you will.

Thats another thing that bothers me on a more personal level about fact-check sites, they "lazyfy " me in the sense that it doesn't encourage looking/researching any further then what X site has (apparantly) done for you already.

that being said I still think they're usefull for like said, mundaine claims/ quick checks.
 
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dmgtz96

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yup,. which is why I don't take their word as gospel/trust them, (as a single entity), and, at best, cross reference them with other sources to make up the "truth" for myself, if you will.

Thats another thing that bothers me on a more personal level about fact-check sites, they "lazyfy " me in the sense that it doesn't encourage looking/researching any further then what X site has (apparantly) done for you already.

that being said I still think they're usefull for like said, mundaine claims/ quick checks.
I just realized I mainly use snopes for random stuff that circulates on social media, like those viral posts about chemicals for covid or whatever that you know are garbage but you just want to double check. Never really used it for politics except for maybe a couple of Trump's tweets (and anything Trump related will have a lot of supporting related articles across multiple sites).

I agree in that it shouldn't be the only fact-checking tool you use. I remember a post about the covid vaccine that circulated in Whatsapp in Mexico, and it seemed fake but it wasn't on snopes. Had to search for an official statement from the government office to "fact check" the claims in that post, which turned out to be fake and were debunked a few days later by the government itself.
 
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dmgtz96

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Jul 13, 2020
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check pm, i've send you some code that came along the embed options of Rumble.
Just noticed that you're fairly tech-literate and know what the heck you're talking about. You mentioned you were an architect, correct?
What's your background with programming/coding/software dev? Did you take a couple of computer science courses in college? I am genuinely curious
 
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Jetflag

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Well, not quite. Tried doing it that night, but for some reason it just wouldn't work.
ah aigh, well bollox then, i'm just going to set up a new free vimeo account, plenty of extra spam email adresses lol