Comments by "Titanium Rain" (@ChucksSEADnDEAD) on "Social Media as Social Control." video.

Not his quote, apparrently.
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It doesn't hinge on any assumption. I had this account permanently deleted for "hate speech" and I managed to appeal. I have a pretty good idea of what caused it and someone got butthurt over a joke. Now when engaging with someone I have to think "can I be my normal self and trash talk a bit or I have to handle this with kid gloves?" or else there go my playlists, etc. I can think. I don't care if I get downvoted (apparently downvoting doesn't even do anything anymore on YT comments). But my behavior has already been altered because I'm forced to play by a set of rules that first get interpreted by a bot, then some moderator farm in a developing country, and I have to worry if what I say can be misinterpreted as something that goes against the rules by these systems all because someone got salty and decided to report me. "I don't think there's anything insidious going on on the fountain pens subreddit, for example." - But there is. Not in a way that matters, but there is. A community can rally behind one fountain pen and call everyone who disagrees an heretic. It hardly influences the world at large but if you had a bad experience with Company X and think Company Y is better, you're fighting an uphill battle.
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@tkmonson "Your personal experience does not match everyone else's experience." - What does that even mean? Yeah, I had a personal experience with my ban, but even the people who burn through multiple accounts on twitter or whatever and don't care end up changing some of their behavior so they can last longer and engage more people. I'm not just interjecting some specific anecdote, this is almost universal. I was part of the Deterrence Dispensed subreddit and the nuking of that place had repercussions on other subreddits, which now take care to not do the same things that allowed Reddit to come up with a BS excuse to nuke the place. It's a shock collar and punishment discourages certain behaviors. "Yes, they CAN do that, but they don't." - But they do. I've seen this happen on communities about anything. You enter a subreddit, try to explain why someone's wrong, instantly banned. Or if they're nicer, you get downvoted to hell. "All human groups have the potential for good or bad." - Whoa, tremendous piece of information. Sure, groups can be good or bad. That's not the point at all. The problem is when you create these levers that drop treats and shock collars that punish, and condition people to the point that dissent is seen as an assault on the place that needs to be dealt with. In traditional social situations people can have simple disagreements and still be polite towards one another and if you're in a group you can always talk things over. I'll say it, we're not meeting each other on neutral ground. People reading this thread are probably more likely to agree with me than you. The thing is, this is YouTube so nobody gives a shit, I could get 50 likes and that wouldn't affect you at all. But if we had an argument on reddit in my home turf you could get ganged up on and lose a ton of karma for every post. You can say "I'm smarter than this, the numbers don't affect me" but if you then want to post on a subreddit that requires a minimum karma to post, you'll either have to farm it (probably just post Trump's face and text saying "Blonald Drumpf is the worst!") or create a new account. And you'll be more careful with your disagreements with that account. Right there your behavior is already being manipulated to fall in line, even if you consciously recognize you're walking on eggshells and that account isn't the real you.
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@tkmonson "move on and do something else" - Where do you think you are? "go look for a place where you can be yourself." - You find a place and that place is denied hosting. You find a new host and now that host is threatened by payment processors. Want a place? Step one is creating your own bank. "you are ultimately the one choosing to do it" - Again, that's the rationalization part. Humans are really good at it. It doesn't matter what your choice is. You were forced to make one, when you shouldn't have to. That choice already took control away from you. "they are only forcing you to change your behavior on that platform or subreddit" - So? You're not able to disseminate your ideas or disagreements. Just by forcing you to wear a mask, the social control aspect already won because now you can't propagate dissent by convincing others with your arguments. "Treats only control you if you eat them uncontrollably" - This is cope. The treats in this case control what people see. "Shock collars only work if you put them on. " - The only way to not put them on is to abandon social media. Congratulations, you've arrived at the same conclusion we did except through the most roundabout way.
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@tkmonson I'm sorry but to follow the logical train of thought hosting is indeed needed. If your first response to social control is running away and rejecting society as society becomes increasingly networked, you're just proving my point. "Just go outside and talk to people" - This is an admission of defat. You've already exposed how social control on the web creates a paradigm where the Skinner box promotes the good opinions by allowing them an audience of millions, and forces the bad opinions to be spread by word of mouth. Right there you're proving my point for me, but you think you're arguing about "muh freeze peach" and don't even realize you're describing exactly how social media shapes society. "all you need is a server that runs a discussion forum program, no payment required" - Payment is indeed required. Server costs are a thing. And even if you run your own server you need a domain name registrar. But it doesn't matter. You've already ran towards the little forum, while society remains in the big social media platforms. The fact that your forum can be nuked at any time by servers or payment processing companies is just the cherry on top. "it's refusing to be bothered by things like downvotes, hostile replies, or bans" - Downvotes don't only have a psychological impact, but they hide content and prevent users from interacting on certain subreddits, etc. You can refuse to get bothered, but the feedback loop continues. All your rambling about free speech and muh private business shows you don't even understand what you're talking about. You want to talk about free speech and private business, we can do that somewhere else. We're talking about social control, and so far you've described exactly how society is controlled through social media while talking about something else.
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@tkmonson "A natural political solution" - This transcends politics. "Ending net neutrality would be the true social control, and we should prevent that at all costs. " - But that's not what Net Neutrality is. NN is simply ISPs not being able to promote and disincentivize the use of certain services. Net Neutrality is essentially, if I'm torrenting next door to you while you try to play online games, our ISP is prohibited by law from letting your data cut in front of mine even though your use of the internet is time sensitive and mine isn't. That's all it is. Somehow NN advocates (big tech) managed to fool normies into thinking it protects the consumer when in reality it just protects tech monopolies.
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@tkmonson This is not about what any of us wants. Social media is a Skinner box, period. Don't get stuck in the debate club mentality when that's not what's happening here.
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