Asmongold is not my favorite but this is complete bullshit
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Asmongold recently put out a video with comments pertaining to the Israel / Palestine war. The way he expressed his views were insensitive and impulsive (par for asmongold--he can be unfiltered and not pc), this is true.
Twitch has now banned him, a completely inappropriate response.
This isn't about Asmongold - trust me, I avoid servers he plays on. I appreciate the guy from afar.
Companies have been overreaching on free flow of ideas and information for 20 years. This is less about asmongold and more about how our internet experience and culture is being destroyed.
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Google search used to return the best search results. Now companies buy their way to the top of search results (sponsored content) degrading search results substantially. A bed of nails can be returned as top result for "best cozy mattress" just because that company paid money to be sponsored.
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User tracking means you only see content relevant to you by any one company's standard. However, they highly exploit that, while also selling everything you've done, or have been on the internet, and anyone you've interacted with. This means:
- you are a product that companies use to sell without compensation
- what you see is controlled leading to censorship of information that impacts your decision making
- you become more and more vulnerable to scams, identity theft as AI programs learn to impersonate you or people you know to get more personal information (social engineering has gone AI!)
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Companies are able to revoke their services at any point, but mostly over not having an opinion that aligns with their political affiliation. Amazon has removed a business' cloud service account, taking a website business over night. Twitch, YouTube, etc will ban a streamer from their platform, destroying their income, etc. Imagine a world where your belief system violates a large companies' belief system, and they destroy your business. Being able to financially destroy a business that fast should be illegal.
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Actions like twitch reduces the diversity of content. When people live in fear of repercussions like this, authenticity goes out the door. People need money to eat so naturally, it's not a choice to stay on the "right" side of the lines that get drawn. However, nobody can even see the line and that line is quite different from person to person. It's not ok.
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Social friction is how we evolve. Change starts with hard conversations, debates, and disagreements. Someone has to start the conversation though, and content creators are a huge opportunity to do that. But we can't tie their hands.
I don't want to bring politics into this forums - that is not the call out here. It is more of...this has to stop. Doesn't matter what your beliefs are, they are under fire with crap like this.
I pinged elon on my twitter account here. I'm that pissed that I'm posting something like that will make me un-hireable (that's fine, prob gonna stay self-employed) in the future:
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