The No Kings Takedown Is Why You Shouldn't Rent Your Megaphone from Zuck

Unfortunately the truth is, way too.many people use Facebook and Instagram way too much, and oftentimes you need to cast a wide net so you can reach people where they are.

• fallinghawks · 7 hours ago

  It's a combination of ignorance and indifference. One of my social groups is around a sport, no necessity for knowledge around technology, and they will never ever leave Facebook. Those roots got laid down 15+ years ago and I would guess about 40% use FB as their sole social media, and another 50% use 1-2 other sites e.g. Instagram or Tiktok, types that are well known. The rest are aware of the existence of other sites and can explore more widely.

>And then actually use them That is the main issue. I am on mastodon but following someone on another instance of mastodon is not easy for "regular people". Until that is solved people will stick to items like twitter and meta. AFAIK, most people on Bluesky are on the "main" instance, so that tends to end up being a centralized community which can suffer from the same issues.

• metabagel · 7 hours ago

  Mastodon has a serious discovery problem. IIRC, searches are only within your own instance, except for hashtag searches. This appears to have been an intentional design decision to prevent brigading / pile-ons. For me, I found it too difficult to locate "my peeps" on other instances, so I switched to Bluesky.

  • empyrrhicist · 7 hours ago

    I like it for my use case. It's more like the community around forum instances in the old days. The internet is too big.

    • metabagel · 7 hours ago

      I found it to be an absolute chore to find people that I had been following on Twitter.

• JoeOfTexas · 7 hours ago

  Bluesky isn't allowed in Texas without verifying your age with Kids Web Services (KWS). X doesn't have that requirement.

I don't use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok. I feel like people at least need to go on strike once in a while. Stop using those shitty services for a few days or a week so the landlords will make them slightly less shitty.

• hackyhacky · 7 hours ago

  For many people, those shitty services are the only way they stay in touch with friends and family.

  • dockd · 7 hours ago

    People seem to forget about the phone function on their phones. Maybe this doesn't work across countries, but No Kings is only USA, right?

    • mock-possum · 6 hours ago

      I do not care for phone calls

  • metabagel · 7 hours ago

    I miss out on all the big and little announcements. Sometimes, a family member will forward information to me about a death or a graduation. I find out about these things when I find out about them, just like we used to before the internet. I dropped Facebook when I realized that their app was snooping on who I called and who called me.

    • skeeter2020 · 7 hours ago

      >> I find out about these things when I find out about them, just like we used to before the internet. How does that work? People post on FB or IG, AND THEN phone you / write a letter? doubtful...

      • metabagel · 7 hours ago

        I usually find out much later, and possibly never. This is how things were before the internet. We didn't know everything going on in everyone's life. In the case of major events, my brother usually lets me know, for example the death of an aunt. Everyone close to me knows I don't use FB, so if they want me to be aware of something in particular, they can text or call me.

        • NetMageSCW · 5 hours ago

          So you push your avoidance of FB to those that care about you to work harder to keep you informed? Not very nice.

      • john_strinlai · 7 hours ago

        > How does that work? People post on FB or IG, AND THEN phone you / write a letter? doubtful... why is this doubtful? i am also disconnected from fb/ig/etc. and that is exactly what happens. family or close friends make a post for something important, and i get a call or text. for smaller stuff i get caught up at some point whenever we next talk on the phone for a regular catch up.

  • marcosdumay · 6 hours ago

    The only one of those that allows you to stay in touch with somebody is Instagram. And only barely.

  • THansenite · 6 hours ago

    That's what it started out as, for sure. However, is it really "staying in touch" these days or is it simply reacting to and maybe adding a response to whatever status or content was placed in your feed. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some anti-Facebook snob looking down on everyone else. But I have greatly reduced my use of the platform and only really use it for some groups I'm part of. While I do interact with family and friends, saying I use Facebook to "stay in touch" these days is a bit of a reach in most cases.

  • mrguyorama · 6 hours ago

    I think a lot of people feel like social media scratches the social itch they are feeling. I think that is simply an illusion though. I have high social needs, and no amount of social media ever fed them in a healthy way. Just because you are hungry, doesn't mean you should immediately reach for the bag of chips. It's important to reflect how often you do so, and whether that is getting you where you want to be in life. It's hard but really really important. A lot of people say they are very lonely despite spending all their time on social media. They then change nothing. It doesn't work

    • NetMageSCW · 5 hours ago

      It doesn’t work for you. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for millions of others.

  • tdeck · 3 hours ago

    Frankly this kind of premature excuse making won't get us anywhere. People say they're concerned about the rise of fascism or oligarchy but when it comes to pushing back, even the smallest bit of inconvenience is too much. The Montgomery bus boycott lasted 381 days. People walked miles and organized carpools to work for over a year. Now we can't even imagine making the sacrifice to send our friends and family an SMS, let alone getting them to download Signal when they kinda don't want to.

• balarjin · 7 hours ago

  In what sense are they shitty? They are actually usable by normal people. This is a big reason they are popular. I don't like (most of) the content on those sites. This is not surprising. The content is aimed at people who can't use Signal. Such a person is different from me in many ways.

  • metabagel · 7 hours ago

    Facebook is cluttered with ads and distracting posts (not from your friends and family). If you use it often enough, you probably stop seeing how terrible it is. Try looking at it with fresh eyes sometime. Twitter boosts Elon Musk and the things he is interested in. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/15/elon-musk... I don't have specific complaints about Instagram or TikTok, other than the algorithm is controlled by oligarchs.

  • pixl97 · 7 hours ago

    >In what sense are they shitty? Widespread algorithmic control and corporate spam spreads architecture? >They are actually usable by normal people. Usability is just one dimension. If your site is perfectly usable, yet steals your credit card number and sells it to the highest bidder, it is still a shitty site, just not in usability. >This is a big reason they are popular. Really FB/Meta became popular long before they were at their current level of shittiness. Really FB wrote the modern book on new levels of shittiness like selling social graphs and tracking people along with connecting all kinds of other data and stealing information from your phone with overly huge permissions and data gathering.

• profdevloper · 6 hours ago

  Hey metabagel! It's me, Mark Zuckerberg, please come back! Our Q4 earnings report will be due before you know it and our board will have my feet to the literal FIRE if you're not on our platform(s). Please reconsider!

  • armchairhacker · 5 hours ago

    This is, literally (with the politician's name and elections instead of Zuck and earnings), political ads. In big red font, with an accusatory or distraught image of the politician. Seriously, Mark Zuckerburg doesn't really care that one person left his platform, but he actually would prefer you stay...because if enough do it will affect earnings. But you should leave Facebook not to upset Zuck, but to stop upsetting yourself with what's on there.

also, of course, no one should use or let their loved ones use meta’s Muse. even OAI and Ant are better options

Oof 500... Kind of hurts/helps the point, but yeah generally, you should run your own website? Is this the return of the old web?

• metabagel · 7 hours ago

  They run their own website, but they need to reach people where they are, which is on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, and Elon Musk's Feed. https://www.nokings.org

• kobalsky · 6 hours ago

  even if they were despicable, kiwifarms is case study for this, you can't give yourself a platform, they were DDOSed into oblivion when cloudflare dropped them, donations were blocked by payments processors, etc.

> But there is a better solution: build tools that are open, decentralized, and user controlled. And then actually use them instead of just giving more power to Mark Zuckerberg to shut down a protest organization’s account in the middle of one of its big protests. The problem with that is people are "lazy": they're typically not going to expend extra effort that's not needed to solve the problem in front of them. It's pervasive, and it's one of the big reasons "friction" reducing technology can be really problematic: it turns necessary behaviors into issues of self-discipline (e.g. exercise becomes forcing yourself to haul yourself to the gym regularly in your spare time, instead just walking everywhere because you have to in order to go about your day). So, IMHO, if you want people to use "open, decentralized, and user controlled" tools in 2026, you have to ban the centralized alternatives . Otherwise you're yelling at clouds, as most people will default to the lowest friction alternative they have access to.

• metabagel · 7 hours ago

  I tried to get a family member to use Signal, and she eventually gave up on it, because she couldn't handle switching back and forth between Messages and Signal. It's very difficult to get people to migrate to better platforms when they have that mindset.

  • james_marks · 7 hours ago

    You're asking the family member to make their life worse in the immediate term. If you want people to adopt your thing, it's got to make their life easier, right now, full stop.

    • 10111001 · 7 hours ago

      > If you want people to adopt your thing, it's got to make their life easier, right now, full stop. But somewhat counterintuitively, you can do that by making their life a little harder first. For example: leave Facebook/WhatsApp, refuse to communicate over SMS. Have good reasons for each, so you don't come off as unnecessarily difficult. Explain that Signal is far more secure and private than either and just as easy to use. Then using Signal is making it easier to communicate with you . It worked for me. I left the whole Facebook ecosystem about 10 years ago, but never deleted my account. I left it up as a tombstone that makes it very clear I'm not there and tells people how to contact me.

  • ninalanyon · 7 hours ago

    That's why we need to separate the protocol from the UI. There is absolutely no good reason why the different platforms should disallow communication with each other. I used to use a multiprotocol client, Pidgin, to chat with people on a couple of different platforms. But of course now a lot of chat is on things like Facebook and Google Chat which are supported only by plugins. But even that is still not enough because I will have to have an account on each of the platforms. Chat really needs to be like email or SMS; you ought not to need an account with the provider of the person you are sending messages to.

    • mooreds · 7 hours ago

      Jabber would like a word: https://jabber.org/ But seriously, there's zero incentive for the folks building these clients to make them interoperable. In fact there may even be disincentive, since the more folks they have on their platform, the more valuable the platform is.

      • metabagel · 7 hours ago

        The EU forced Apple to use USB-C on iPhones, because it was stupid and wasteful for people to have two different types of chargers in their home for their small electronic rechargeable devices. Government does have the power to regulate things like this. They would need to be educated to understand the importance and benefit of it.

        • NetMageSCW · 5 hours ago

          Apple changed to USB-C after Lightning was ten years old, exactly as they promised ten years before. The EU regulation didn’t force Apple to do anything, its deadline was a couple years after Apple switched, and Apple assisted in the creation of USB-C and after they had already switched their laptops.

        • jimmydorry · 5 hours ago

          The EU was actually on the path to forcing everyone to use micro-USB. Thankfully Apple (and others) pioneered USB-C (bringing what it learnt from developing the lightning connector) in the time it took the EU to go from making all of the phone makers sign a Memorandum of Understanding to making it legislation. Now the EU is frozen in time, stuck on USB-C for the forseeable future. The economics to make a device dual port (USB-C and something new) aren't there, so we're not likely to ever see an improvement on USB-C... in an alternative timeline, we could have been stuck on the even worse micro-USB. Bringing it back to the topic on hand, this is very much an area I wouldn't want to see a heavy handed EU legislate something that just further cements the incumbants and makes everything worse forever... just like mandatory micro-USB would have been. I can totally see the EU legislating something like a mandatory Meta communication protocol with compulsory attestation from Meta servers.

    • betterunix2 · 7 hours ago

      There is one good reason: abuse. Think about how long it took to get email spam under control (and even so it remains a problem). Think about the ongoing problems with spam phone calls. Now pretend you are someone with no technical background, someone who only sees the UI and does not really understand what happens behind it -- you are not seeing spam on closed systems, you are seeing spam on open systems, what are you going to choose? Also keep in mind that there are worse forms of abuse than spam.

    • giantg2 · 6 hours ago

      "There is absolutely no good reason why the different platforms should disallow communication with each other." Maybe aside from the increased attack surface and trust issues...

  • MisterTea · 7 hours ago

    I don't understand why having more than one chat app is too much for some people. I use signal, whatsapp, discord, irc, google chat, email and messenger without complaint. I can't force people to use my platform of choice so I have to compromise and use what they do with little to no notice on my end. Sure, I am not happy with this situation but I accept it and move on while keeping an eye out for alternatives.

    • CoastalCoder · 7 hours ago

      Maybe related to how much brain space they're willing to spend on that facet of life? There are certainly parts of my life that would be more optimized if that weren't a constraint.

      • MisterTea · 6 hours ago

        What brain space? These apps take seconds to install and get an account connected. After that you forget it exists until someone messages you.

        • dpkirchner · 6 hours ago

          Consider the opposite direction: what if you want to message someone? What if you haven't messaged them in a while? Imagine you have seven messaging apps installed, some of the names you've forgotten ("Discord", is that obviously a messaging app?). Imagine you know that they're reachable somewhere just not exactly where.

          • MisterTea · 5 hours ago

            I honestly have never had this issue. It's really about focus and effort. If the person is important enough, I will most likely remember how to contact them. I also mostly use email for all important communications so that remains searchable. The other chat apps are all for casual friends and acquaintances that if lost, well so be it.

            • NetMageSCW · 5 hours ago

              None of my older relatives use email. They can text however (or iMessage, since it is transparent). Not everyone cares so little for friends and acquaintances.

        • mingus88 · 6 hours ago

          And what if you want to contact someone? Are they on signal or WhatsApp or telegram? Or is it discord? Which server? How can I find that thing someone sent? Let me just open all those apps and start searching I think you underestimate how little tolerance the average person has for this kind of friction. These huge platforms win because everyone is on them and it all just works.

        • sodapopcan · 6 hours ago

          You are speaking as someone who gives a shit about technology. Many people don't. "Just another account" is a big ask for many, as lots of people don't have password managers. There are a whole shit ton of people who want to use as few apps as they can. Even lots of tech-savvy people, myself included, feel this way. > After that you forget it exists until someone messages you. Until you get a random notification asking you to take steps to keep your account active or whatever. You may not care about this, but many people get stressed out about this kind of thing.

    • SoftTalker · 6 hours ago

      Every app you add to your phone is another potential vulnerability. I'm not installing a random discord or irc app just because that's someone's preferred platform. In fact I haven't installed any chat/message apps at all, I use the Messages app from Apple.

  • mingus88 · 6 hours ago

    The network effect is powerful. But we also need to be honest with ourselves. Signal is an objectively worse client than Messages, especially when the average person does not value privacy.

• balarjin · 7 hours ago

  Apparently, activists need something that is "open, decentralized, and user controlled". Those activists choose to use facebook. That tells me they are at least one of two things: 1. Too stupid to make a plan that could possibly work 2. Too lazy to execute on a plan that could possibly work Knowing this is a useful signal. It tells me their judgment is terrible, and I should not listen to them ;)

  • whoiskevin · 7 hours ago

    ah yes. Because they don't know technology their movement has no useful information for you and you already know better than all of them. Amazing.

  • estearum · 7 hours ago

    Above all, activists need something that other people are on. TFA (and you) are just discounting the power of network effects. Tells me that your judgment is poor and I should not listen to you ;)

    • verdverm · 7 hours ago

      I would consider myself an activist, but not the Blue MAGA variety. Too much of the issue is people still think they can change minds online. In reality you are just chanting to the base, a negative feedback cycle for bad ideas that do not resonate with those outside your group. Instead, go to where people all are, real life in the real world. I go out and talk to people all the time. I listen to them before telling them. I'm more interested in getting people talking than I am in changing their minds (right now) and providing them with ideas they are unlikely to hear online. I see my "sapphire gals" (retired nokingers) becoming less extreme, not repeating the shallow talking points. I hear them asking new questions. Talking and working with others in person is 100x better.

      • estearum · 7 hours ago

        Sure, I agree with all that. I don’t think it’s mutually exclusive with the need to be able to organize large gatherings of loosely connected people.

        • verdverm · 5 hours ago

          We were able to organize large groups of loosely connected people before social media. Women's sufferage and the Civil Rights movement are two notable examples. Speedrunning the moon landing after Sputnik and Kennedy's assasination another.

          • estearum · 5 hours ago

            Yes? I’m not sure what you’re arguing or what you think I’m arguing.

    • spwa4 · 7 hours ago

      And you are expecting countries to play by the rules when their existence in under threat. The EU will get people off Google, off Facebook, off fucking Pinterest even if it means moving back to Teletext. (yes, there were "irc channels" on telext)

      • estearum · 7 hours ago

        Idk who you’re talking to or what you’re talking about. I certainly don’t “expect” (in the normative sense) countries to continue relying on these services. Breaking network effects is hard, but I wouldn’t blame a country for trying and I’d probably be happy with them succeeding (to the extent they facilitate free expression of their people).

      • NetMageSCW · 5 hours ago

        China does that - how is that working out for their population?

        • spwa4 · 4 hours ago

          Of course, the huge difference is that China also actually invests in replacing them with something. EU doesn't and only France has given it the least of efforts. But that won't stop EU countries from just outlawing these services.

  • john_strinlai · 7 hours ago

    3. they are non-technical people who go where an audience already is

    • verdverm · 7 hours ago

      The problem here is the audience is largely their own group and the opposite extreme looking for fodder or to troll. It's the same for both extremes.

  • skeeter2020 · 7 hours ago

    This is overly harsh; it starts with the (flawed IMO) perspective that people are dedicated "professional" activists rather than amateurs from many different backgrounds who come together around something they care about and grow/evolve/deppen over time. It makes complete sense that they use tools in front of them AND don't necessarily get -what are quite subtle angles to most - all the issues with their use. It doesn't make them lazy or stupid, but if you have the skills & talents to help with this yet do nothing you might be projecting...

  • 10111001 · 7 hours ago

    > Apparently, activists need something that is "open, decentralized, and user controlled". Those activists choose to use facebook. That tells me they are at least one of two things: > 1. Too stupid to make a plan that could possibly work > 2. Too lazy to execute on a plan that could possibly work Your comment is a pretty good example of what not to do: society/technology makes good choices harder, so flog individuals about their lack of self-discipline when they don't do yet-another hard thing. People only have so much time and self-discipline, have some empathy. The only thing the flogging does is give the flogger the chance to feel unjustifiably superior. > Knowing this is a useful signal. It tells me their judgment is terrible, and I should not listen to them ;) What you're doing is a generalized method to dismiss anything and anyone: 1. Find a thing. 2. Search for some aspect that isn't perfect. Viciously criticize that aspect. 3. Dismiss the whole thing on account of that aspect. The only thing that using Instagram tells me about these activists is that they weren't setting out to solve some ideological communication technology problem. They had other priorities.

  • metabagel · 7 hours ago

    They need to reach people where they are, so basically all the platforms where people hang out. It's not the activists who are lazy - it's people in general, who continue to use FB even though it is cluttered with ads and other distractions.

  • AcerbicZero · 7 hours ago

    It really doesn't matter how you get to the most important take away, as long as you get there :)

  • snickerbockers · 7 hours ago

    It's because the corporations were all banding together to censor their opponents a few years ago, so they got used to the idea that large corporations are your friends. The left took an opportunistic stance on this instead of a principled one, despite the fact that they're the side that on paper is supposedly opposed to letting corporations turn into pseudo-governments.

  • betterunix2 · 6 hours ago

    More likely these activists chose the most convenient platform for getting their message out. IG is popular and that makes it an obvious choice. Also keep in mind that activists will generally use what they are already familiar with, and Facebook runs three of the most popular platforms i.e. platforms that activists were probably already using before they became activists. The only reason activists would switch to something else is if Facebook gives them a reason to do so. I doubt this one incident is enough of a reason.

  • zdp7 · 6 hours ago

    They don't organize over Instagram. One of many social accounts had issues. Around 3000 communities participated. They are doing fine.

• 2OEH8eoCRo0 · 7 hours ago

  Repeal section 230. If they want to shape speech for their own agenda then they should be liable. Right now they have it both ways. They have the users, money, and data and they speak through their moderation decisions while being legally immune from consequences.

  • verdverm · 7 hours ago

    We need something different than "repeal 230" because this is largely believed to be something that will chill speech. Platforms will take down speech out of an abundance of caution. I'm not exactly sure what the answer is, but we can place two constraints 1. Anyone can say anything online, free speech for individuals 2. Algorithms that act as "editors" are not free speech and should be regulated. Perhaps the answer is to say that social media algorithms can only be chronological and M0% from your direct network. Reposts and quotes seem to be one of the core features that enable virality and dog piling. We need to "slow the spread" - to borrow a phase from one of our least favorite times. Another thing we need is a privacy preserving method for proving humanism online.

    • 2OEH8eoCRo0 · 7 hours ago

      I disagree that it would chill speech (we also thought Section 230 as-is would work) but I also like your suggestions as a compromise. Maybe the algos outside of what you mention should not get 230 immunity?

    • amanaplanacanal · 6 hours ago

      I'm not sure it's possible. Platforms want to be an enticing place for advertisers. Spam, porn, and bots, are all free speech. It's a hard problem.

      • verdverm · 6 hours ago

        Banning targeted advertising is higher on my list of priorities. That business line is one of the most toxic for humanity. Let's go back to placement advertising.

  • richwater · 7 hours ago

    You Facebook et al. to be _more_ aggressive in their content takedowns (out of concern for liability)? You do realize that will accomplish the exact opposite of what you're trying to achieve right?

  • toss1 · 7 hours ago

    And they literally exercise more editorial control and reach than any magazine or newspaper editorial board ever did. Section 230 was a Trojan Horse. If they want to be treated like an innocent carrier (i.e., telco), they must kill their algorithms. No news media company writes or says the reports of the journalists they publish or broadcast, but they are nevertheless responsible for that content. If social media wants to control the algorithmic feed for profit, they must be like any media, "fully responsible for their content", and must be held accountable for it.

    • Whoppertime · 6 hours ago

      I've never had a phone company disconnect a phone call because they didn't like what I was saying https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54552101 Twitter was stopping people from tweeting or sending direct messages containing links to the New York Post article about Hunter Bidens Laptop in October of 2020. They put their thumb on the scale.

  • jmyeet · 6 hours ago

    I've thought about this a lot. Section 230 essentially differentiates content sites into two categories, which I refer to as: 1. Publishers. Think CNN, NYT, WaPo, etc. These are first-party sites; 2. Platforms. Think any social media site. They host user generated content ("UGC"). Section 230 doesn't use this exact language. But what it does is remove the strict liability from UGC for (2). So if I post something defamatory on Facebook, Meta isn't liable as long as they satisfy their obligations for moderation, takedowns, etc. My opinion is that social media sites are essentially cheating. They're now a third category. They enjoy the benefits of being a platform while acting like a publisher. Think about it this way: let's say a group of users make 1000 posts supporting Ukraine and 1000 posts supporting Russia in the current war. Posts from some of each might make defamatory of erroneous or intentionally false claims. But I, as the platform, use algorithms to surface certain posts and suppress others through a newsfeed, a recommendation panel or whatever. I can tweak that algorithm to surface the pro-Ukrainian posts or the pro-Russian posts. I am essentially taking a position and acting like a first-party publisher but I don't have strict liability issues. So I don't think we need to repeal Section 230. I think we need to treat content suppression and promotion as being a publisher because that's what you are.

    • 2OEH8eoCRo0 · 6 hours ago

      Well said, I concur. There is so much different information being posted that the platform can "say" anything it wants via moderation knobs without liability.

• betterunix2 · 7 hours ago

  The problem is not that people are lazy; the problem with open systems is that they are much harder to moderate and people want effective moderation. Usenet was open, decentralized, and wound up dying because there were too many problems with moderation and white supremacists etc. would show up and flood NGs with their nonsense. There are also legal issues that kill decentralized/user-controlled systems. Copyright and child abuse are the most prominent, along with terrorism and drug trafficking. Who gets sued or prosecuted when the system is open, decentralized, and user-controlled? The users, and that's why peer-to-peer filesharing died, why so few people are willing to host a Tor exit node, etc. Before talking about banning centralized systems we need to talk about updating the legal system so that it does not force centralization, which is a much bigger project and much harder to get right.

  • thesuitonym · 7 hours ago

    The moderation problem wouldn't have been hard to solve on USENET, it's just that nobody wanted to do it. It could work exactly like moderation does on Mastodon, where each admin is responsible for the content on their server(s). There isn't a technical reason why you couldn't do that, and even give individuals moderation rights on specific lists. Of course, this only affects your particular news server, but it lets the white supremacist post their insane ramblings over on Giganews, while you and I read less toxic version of the thread over on Cozy News. If you don't like the moderation on your server, go find another one. > that's why peer-to-peer filesharing died p2p file sharing is still huge, though. Most people just put their seedboxes behind a VPN to avoid getting DMCA notices.

• insane_dreamer · 6 hours ago

  > So, IMHO, if you want people to use "open, decentralized, and user controlled" tools in 2026, you have to ban the centralized alternatives. Otherwise you're yelling at clouds, as most people will default to the lowest friction alternative they have access to. I disagree. You don't have to ban the centralized alternatives (which is problematic) -- but you do have to make the alternative as frictionless as possible.

can't even take this shit seriously anymore. for years when the left controlled twitter they ruled with an iron fist. twitter, meta (then FB), instagram, youtube, would somehow "completely randomly" come to the same conclusions to deplatform people all at once. even now, britain arrests people for wrong think social media posts. people like james damore lost his job for saying the most innocuous milk toast shit you could imagine. and everyone was fine with it, so long as they were the ones calling the shots. all the bullshitting about complaining about centralization, third party this and that, freedom of speech, can't take that shit seriously. somehow they uniquely find only violations of these from people in the "other" side of the aisle. it's just so exhausting and obviously bad faith engagement. and the right isn't really any better, they do the same thing, just flipped. i think it's about time we mostly just admit: libertarians are fools (that used to be me LOL), and nobody in western culture genuinely cares about "free speech". everything they support is free speech, everything they dislike is "hate speech" (notice how the narrative changed). it's all so obvious to anyone who zooms out and looks at the larger trends. just get over it and embrace authoritarianism. just be honest about who you are.

• slibhb · 7 hours ago

  A strong culture of free speech is the clear solution to the problem you're describing. I.e. when both political factions censor, the only solution is a strong preference for free speech regardless of who is in power.

  • 010ED67913 · 7 hours ago

    that's like saying the solution is for everything to just be perfect. well of course. the problem is, that's not a realistic solution. the whole "No kings" movement in itself is an example of this. trump isn't a king nor is he trying to be, and most of the shit he does is rather milk toast. yet where were the "no kings" protestors when we were discussing forced vaccines? oh that's right, most supported it. where were the "my body my choice" people when we were discussing forced vaccines or else you can't work and feed your family? or yeah as it turns out in that case, it's not really your choice (in any realistic sense). if the No Kings people truly want to be taken seriously, the best thing they can do is just admit they are wrong about their whole schtick. unfortunately the chances of that happening are exactly zero % since pride stands in the way. watch and observe. literally nobody believes in free speech. people believe in policies and agendas, and "freedom" is just a tool used to push it. the right wing does this, especially in economics, all the time, where they want the rich to be "free" to fuck the poor. take a step back, observe the trends, and be honest with yourself, and it will be quite obvious that freedom itself is just a tool used in politics, nobody actually believes in it as an end to aspire to. this isn't 1980 anymore. milton friedman is long gone.

    • slibhb · 7 hours ago

      I believe in free speech. It doesn't take "perfection," actually the opposite.

• squeegmeister · 7 hours ago

  Found the bot

  • marknutter · 7 hours ago

    Calling people "bots" was also a favored tactic of the left. Seems it's still in fashion.

    • squeegmeister · 2 hours ago

      When someone is spreading messages of “both sides bad” and “western ideas bad”, my assumption is it’s a bot

  • 010ED67913 · 7 hours ago

    sounds like i hit a nerve.

It's a good sign when people have to resort to protesting a one hour suspension of one social media account to get worked up about corporate tyranny.

• hackyhacky · 7 hours ago

  No, there are lots of other reasons to be upset about corporate tyranny.

• verdverm · 7 hours ago

  It was only an hour because people spoke up

That's why I organized my protest on mastodon. No one showed up but my subscribers told me how awesome it was that I organized it.

• verdverm · 7 hours ago

  I didn't even know about it until I heard it on HN a day later. I went to a NoKings in the flesh instead of cosplaying from social media.

  • jimmydddd · 7 hours ago

    Without the discussion getting crazy, as a participant, do you think No Kings is poorly named? For an outsider like myself, it seems like a confusing movement. I mean the guy was elected, so obviously not a king. And couldn't even change the name of the art center, so not that powerful. So the king thing seems misplaced? And when they ask the people at the protest, they can't seem to articulate what the point is, except they don't like the guy's policies and conduct.

    • notyourwork · 7 hours ago

      Kings disregard democracy and do what they want. This is precisely what this elected official continues to attempt to do. No kings is a reminder that he and all other elected officials are not kings.

      • mangodrunk · 6 hours ago

        The No Kings protesters seem to want to disregard democracy because they don't like the current president. Repeatedly claimling the sky will fall given an election result seems to be undemocratic. Which certainly goes both ways, but right now it is the democrats who have fallen into this line of thinking. What has he done that is any more undemocratic than previous presidents?

        • verdverm · 6 hours ago

          > What has he done that is any more undemocratic than previous presidents? Can you recall any other instance where FoxNews boycotted the White House press pool in support of left wing media outlets? That is unprecedented as far as I know. What did Trump do that inspired FoxNews to make this choice?

          • erulabs · 5 hours ago

            The executive (1/3rd of the government) being capricious with the press is _undoubtedly_ embarrassing and unamerican, but is so far away from the behavior of a true monarch that the name "no kings" is still farcical at best.

            • verdverm · 5 hours ago

              That's one example, there are daily reminders to why "NoKings" has staying power as a movement, compared to the Indivisible brand. I suggest watching a full segment from the oval office, listen to the things that preoccupy his mind. I do agree there is a ton of hyperbolics in NoKings / Indivisible / the left. I work within these organizations, enduring it, to temper their messages and opinions. Minds are moved in real life while biases are reinforced online. It's hard to forget there is another human with different experiences when you sit face to face.

              • erulabs · 5 hours ago

                Oh my parents and their partners go to all the no kings rallies. I can see the size of the movement dwindling over time. I'm very happy someone is attempting to temper though, because, as I've said for a decade now, the hyperbolics drive way more support for your opponents than they do for your cause.

                • verdverm · 5 hours ago

                  Both extremes are shrinking, independents grow. This is a good thing. The far left and hard right do not represent the majority of people. Occupy Oligarchy, we are the 99%

                  • erulabs · 5 hours ago

                    Heck yeah, I appreciate you!

                    • verdverm · 5 hours ago

                      The way out starts with community. I cannot understate how much getting involved has positively impacted my life. We have to interact with those different from us if we are to find collaboration and compromise.

            • serf · 4 hours ago

              'the press' is seen as a pillar of democracy, without which the rest of things fall apart. it's more important than you make it seem.

          • mangodrunk · 5 hours ago

            Here are some things Obama did that were unprecedented or very concerning regarding the press: * Obama extensively used the Espionage Act to uncover government sources used by the press and also against the press directly * Obama secretly subpoenaed the phone calls of AP reporters * Obama didn't allow or severely restricted photojournalists I don't think that it is good to ban the media from the White House, and I do think the much of the criticism is fair, but to then claim that this is undemocratic is wrong.

            • verdverm · 5 hours ago

              Both parties, the oligarchy , are the problem. Power continues to concentrate in the President, Congress does nothing. SCOTUS polls marginally better, the Press has ceased fulfilling their role. Wealth inequality reached an all time high in America. We The People are furious for varied and valid reasons. Occupy Oligarchy, we are the 99%

              • mangodrunk · 5 hours ago

                I do think there's a problem and certainly agree with the general sentiment. I also do think we probably have it better than most other countries. So, perhaps we can deal with the oligarchy and fraud within our system. I do think that is what led many to vote for Trump, in that they feel failed by both parties and Trump was an outsider, similar to Bernie's ascendance.

                • verdverm · 5 hours ago

                  I agree, I have not heard it put better than The Tyranny of Merit by Michael Sandel. It goes beyond party politics to the failures of Liberal Democracy stemming from its own success. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp5qsEuUOWo

        • myersj · 5 hours ago

          > disregard democracy because they don't like the current president What, specifically, do you think this means? Do you think they're trying to install a new government without a vote? Or is "disregard democracy" just word salad nonsense that you're repeating for some reason?

          • mangodrunk · 5 hours ago

            Yes, they (some democrats and No Kings protesters) seem to want to do some very undemocratic things. I am very concerned with much of the rhetoric on the left. I used to be more concerned with the right.

            • verdverm · 4 hours ago

              I agree the far left says concerning things, as I do the hard right. The difference to me today is I see intentional cruelty to our fellow humans by those currently in power. Especially from the likes of Pete Hegseth and Stephen Miller.

        • libertine · 5 hours ago

          I don't think any other president promoted anything like January 6, and doesn't recognize an election of a president to this day - undermining democracy, the same democratic system that elected him twice. Just that alone is enough I think. But you can also see his disgust to western democracies, and his fascination with autocracies, the vast majority of them are extremely incompetent - thank God for that at least.

        • glompers · 5 hours ago

          Naming taxpayer-funded public facilities for a living politician has been historically unusual in America. LaGuardia Airport and Shushan Airport in New Orleans were both named for sitting politicians because they were strongmen or allied with strongmen. Living ex-presidents were not fair game until the partisan late 1990s. It was still done primarily as a posthumous tribute. Naming taxpayer-funded facilities for a sitting president who hopes to find a way to run again was not done under Franklin Roosevelt and has always remained drastically outside of the Overton Window. While in office, Trump has now directed attention to making the following public items promote his personal brand, name, image or likeness: US Passports, US entry visas, US Naval class of vessels, US Institute of Peace federal building, National Park entry passes, and currency struck by the US Mint; Moreover, presidential staff have confirmed that the president has asked for New York Penn Station to be renamed for himself before he would agree to release congressionally approved federal funds for its improvement. He also explored having Washington Dulles International Airport renamed for him; since then, his supporters have renamed Palm Beach International Airport (IATA PBI) for him and changed the IATA designation to DJT. The president recently diverted over $22MM from Homeland Security and Border Protection to pay for television commercials featuring himself talking about causes dear to himself. I have not tracked whether this spending went to all major broadcast networks or was directed to be spent at networks that the president considered deserved the tax money. The third commercial "was virtually identical to an ad for Trump's Republican reelection campaign in 2024 and showed him walking down a hallway as his voice can be heard warning of a 'final battle' against 'globalists' and 'warmongers'." The president has reportedly agreed not to continue spending government money on this series but refuses to reimburse taxpayers the $22MM.

          • AnimalMuppet · 4 hours ago

            All true, and all both alarming and disgusting... with one nit. In 1926, coinage was struck with the image of the sitting president, in honor of the nation's 150th anniversary. It turns out that Trump on coins for the 250th anniversary has precedent. The rest of it... yeah. Appalling, especially when you put it all together like that.

            • verdverm · 3 hours ago

              > In 1926... Populism and nationalism were on the rise, much like today. Hopefully we reflect on history and don't do another world war.

          • mangodrunk · 2 hours ago

            Naming stuff after himself is certainly a good demonstration of his narcissistic tendencies and is tactless. I do think the criticism over this is fair but I don’t consider it that high on my list of priorities given it doesn’t materially affect anyone. We should probably have limits, and a good demonstration of that is the failure to rename the Kennedy Center. I do agree that the ads should be criticized, but there is precedent for previous presidents having done something similar, not that it makes it above scrutiny but rather not so bad.

        • gamblor956 · 3 hours ago

          What has he done that is any more undemocratic than previous presidents? You're joking right? In just the past 48 hours he attempted to remove over 20,000 people from the voter rolls. A preliminary check of the data revealed that more than half of these people were born in the U.S. and thus were automatically entitled to vote. Last week he attempted to denaturalize a sitting U.S. legislator based on supposed irregularities in her immigration paperwork from when she was a child...even though the paperwork had been reviewed without issue by the federal government when it was first submitted and again to confirm her eligibility for office at the start of her first term (which began during Trump's first term). He has openly mused about using the Secret Service to assassinate people he doesn't like. For the past 2 years, he has been threatening to jail and murder his opponents, and ordered his DOJ to prosecute his opponents for made-up crimes.

          • mangodrunk · 2 hours ago

            Do you not consider it damning that so many shouldn’t be on the voter rolls? Ilhan Omar certainly seems to have very concerning immigration records and given that a judge has signed the search warrant. I think you have gone into conspiracy theory territory that I’m not familiar with.

      • giantg2 · 6 hours ago

        "No kings is a reminder that he and all other elected officials are not kings." It would be great if the "other elected officials" part turns out to be true, but my in my experience I don't see that happening. Have there been any policy proposals out of No Kings that would create better oversight and accountability?

        • verdverm · 4 hours ago

          There are ideas for how to improve representation, which comes first. I do not get the feeling that current elected officials are interested in ceding their position, power, and prestige. One of the good ideas are expanding ranked choice voting. One of the bad ideas is justifying gerrymandering because the other side is doing it too. Roughly only 10% of House seats are actually competitive. This is a problem that needs fixing.

          • giantg2 · 50 minutes ago

            Yes, but have any of those ideas come out of the No Kings or actively promoted by the movement?

            • verdverm · 38 minutes ago

              yes, they are talked about regularly

      • CodeWriter23 · 6 hours ago

        Please, cite examples.

        • verdverm · 5 hours ago

          January 6, 2021 is well known. There are numerous examples leading up to, on the day, the years after, and even the first weeks of 2.0 - all interconnected - all anti-democratic. "NoKings" is one identity for the resistance to autocratic tendencies and the backslide of democracy seen globally. We does not need to be so literal, step back to see the full picture.

          • CodeWriter23 · 1 hour ago

            What specifically on January 6th, 2021? Asking people to remain peaceful and respect law enforcment is criminal in your book? (Twitter immediately censored these tweets on that day, btw) https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1346912780700577792?s=2... https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1346904110969315332?s=2...

            • verdverm · 1 hour ago

              Go rewatch the rally, there are plentiful anti-democratic statements. Then watch the riot and explain to us how more than 100 officers were injured and why the people who did that deserved pardons, please, I am curious for the current justifications on the hard right

            • AnimalMuppet · 1 hour ago

              How about the part where he was pushing Pence to certify the "alternate electors" instead of the real ones? There's a reason some of the protesters were chanting "hang Mike Pence", and it's not because they disliked his haircut.

      • aeternum · 6 hours ago

        Hundreds of executive orders okay only when my guy is in charge

        • jimmydddd · 6 hours ago

          Agreed. A No Executive Orders protest would be more clear and would be one I could get behind. It does seem like it would be good to limit the scope of Executive orders. Like, many were asking, how can he just close down the department of education with an exacutive order? Oh, it's because the department of education was formed by an excutive order of an earlier president in the first place.

          • nradov · 5 hours ago

            The scope of Executive Orders is already limited by the Constitution. What additional limitations are you asking for? In some cases Presidents have issued orders that exceeded their legal authority. The effects of those are eventually blocked by the judicial system, although that necessarily takes some time.

            • Crunchified · 4 hours ago

              Well, a president should certainly be held accountable for any executive order that is overturned on constitutional grounds. Not only should the president have (and use) plenty of legal counsel to avoid this, but a president stepping beyond constitutional bounds is acting illegally which (a) none of us should and (b) ought not go unpunished.

              • nradov · 4 hours ago

                Held accountable how? Like a fine or something? Maybe a strongly worded reprimand from the judiciary to be added to the president's formal HR employment record?

                • verdverm · 4 hours ago

                  > strongly worded reprimand from ... Chucky Cheese specializes in this /s !/s

        • FireBeyond · 5 hours ago

          DHS literally telling federal court judges that they are going to continue extraditing someone in face of a court order not to, that they are not going to turn a plane around. ICE refusing to make officers available to law enforcement for investigation of issues. A lot more happening than "making executive orders", though kudos to Trump for trying to sign executive orders that even his own DOJ are not just illegal, but unconstitutional.

        • myersj · 5 hours ago

          Do you think making things up and attributing them to other people is more or less constructive than replying to what they actually said? Do you usually get a great response when you go for cute X clapbacks, or... what?

      • gosub100 · 6 hours ago

        He's not attempting he's fucking doing it. Which to me signals deeper problems with our supposed "system of checks and balances" that we're taught since grade school. The system was specifically designed to prevent this, and yet it's happened. Whether Trump is impeached or imprisoned or whatever is secondary to plugging the holes he used to do this in the first place.

        • verdverm · 5 hours ago

          While I agree with you, there is also the fact that America chose Trump 2.0 - something we should try to understand and learn from. We, the credentialed elite (most people do not have a college degree), have failed to help our neighbors and fellow citizens. The advent of the computer changed how automation impacted society. We (majority of HN audience) benefitted immensely, rising in wealth and social acclaim, while at the same time failing to create new tasks for regular people, who's jobs we replaced with technology.

      • jimmydddd · 5 hours ago

        But you can just vote them out. End of story. No Kings. Maybe I'm just too literal in my thinking.

        • verdverm · 5 hours ago

          Keep an eye on the Texas Senate race and what happens if Talarico wins. Paxton has granted himself the ability to investigate election fraud as the sitting AG. Let's see if the will of the people is honored, or if the king steps in too.

        • romanows · 5 hours ago

          I can't vote anyone out alone, so groups/ideas like No Kings seek to collect people around some general organizing principle. Involved people are more likely to vote and it's possible that you highlight the issues for people who aren't aware or energized enough to vote. Plus, protests can influence other people in government, outside of elections.

        • delecti · 5 hours ago

          There was an attempted self-coup last time he was voted out. I think it's pretty reasonable to be extra reactive to anti-democratic tendencies from him.

    • r3trohack3r · 7 hours ago

      More confusing, they change the name of the protest when they organize in places that actually have a king.

      • jareklupinski · 7 hours ago

        > they change the name of the protest when they organize in places that actually have a king why tho? it's No King_s_ you can have one

      • MentalM · 6 hours ago

        Sounds pretty humiliating.

    • jl6 · 7 hours ago

      Maybe the best time to express disapproval of kings is before they happen.

    • verdverm · 6 hours ago

      NoKings has name recognition. I volunteer with my local Indivisible, but people know this name far less. Trump acts like a king, even if he was elected. He gets tributes and requires deference, clearly visible from the foreign and corporate donations, and behavior of the Republican Party. Or take the "super intelligence" thing, him dictating what a technology shall be called, lest you become an ENEMY OF AMERICA. Or the repeated attempts to silence the media. If we consider the Kennedy Center you brought up, Trump's name was on there, then removed by court order. His response was to close it in spite. The Kennedy Center remains closed to this day, until he gets his way. Trump has tried to violate most of the Bill of Rights. There are reasons people see every day for why NoKings sticks and resonates. I do agree NoKings (and broadly the far left) have really bad messaging, a product of echo chambers (imo). I suspect the Democrats will learn the wrong lessons from the midterms... sigh.

    • dylan604 · 6 hours ago

      One of the first AI slop nonsense coming out of the White House was Trump wearing a crown on a mock Time magazine cover with "Long Live The King" printed on it. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/29/the-slopagan...

    • goatlover · 6 hours ago

      No Kings is a catchall for no tyrants or authoritarians. It's what the founding fathers were worried bout when setting up the US representative democracy with checks and balances and a constitution. They didn't want a president to act like a tyrant or a king.

      • verdverm · 6 hours ago

        Reading the Federalist Papers these days feels quite ominous. So many passages describe Trump to a T.

        • kefirlife · 6 hours ago

          And somehow the federalist society folks stick their head in the mud and make up some nonsensical interpretation, violating the clear and obvious interpretation, to justify further eroding rights and democracy. A party of greedy and traitorous fools taking down the country they pretend to love, enriching themselves at every step.

        • ModernMech · 5 hours ago

          They were describing their experience dealing with kings and people who want to be kings. King is a personality type, not only a role. In more clinical settings they’re called narcissistic sociopaths, which is what Trump has proven himself to be, so that’s why we call him a king. Sometimes their title is “dictator”, sometimes it’s “emperor” or “fuhrer” or “chairman”. In this case his title is “president”, but he acts like a king, so that’s why we say we don’t want kings. This applies equally to wannabe kings.

          • verdverm · 3 hours ago

            Yup, people can get hung up on specific words instead of seeing the category with term de jour. Saw this super interesting interview the other day. The Students - What the Greeks would call our government. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=205IdzGJMJs

        • samatman · 5 hours ago

          I do not believe you have been "reading the Federalist Papers". I do believe you read a blog post where someone told you there were passages which "describe Trump to a T". This one, probably: https://archive.thinkprogress.org/how-hamilton-warned-in-the...

          • verdverm · 3 hours ago

            I suspect you have projected instead of responding to the best possible interpretation I suspect you did a quick search to find something you thought would back up this projection https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2SD8nzsQzIHnOi2zSTwP... (readings) Since I write almost zero code these days, I have far more time for reading and writing human.

      • aeternum · 6 hours ago

        Would the founding fathers support a wealth tax and do you?

        • goatlover · 5 hours ago

          I don't think they had a wealth tax back then, but if that's somethings the voters had wanted their representatives put into law, I don't see why not. And yes I do support it to prevent even great concentrations of wealth across generations. But what is that have to do with No Kings being a protest against the president acting like a tyrant?

        • gamblor956 · 3 hours ago

          The UK had a wealth tax back then in the form of a land value tax paid by landowners. Several of the colonies had general property taxes on land, buildings, and physical property which continue today. Given that "capital" was not a thing back then and wouldn't be for almost 200 years, these property taxes were in effect wealth taxes.

    • tempfile · 6 hours ago

      > I mean the guy was elected, so obviously not a king. The point of the protest is to prevent him from making himself a king. > And couldn't even change the name of the art center, so not that powerful. This is really weak cherry picking. He has successfully removed medical care from millions of Americans, started foreign wars of aggression, destabilised several countries, probably tanked US international reputation for a generation... he is incredibly powerful.

      • verdverm · 5 hours ago

        Trump did actually get the name changed, then a court said take it down, so he closed the arts center down in spite, which it remains to this day

        • ModernMech · 5 hours ago

          You could argue he did change the name: the name “Kennedy” is nowhere to be found on the building. The Kennedy Center is in state of existing but also not. It’s mandated to exist, it’s funded, there’s laws and courts that say it should be opened and operational… and yet, it isn’t because one man doesn’t want it to be.

    • tarr11 · 6 hours ago

      they could have gone with NoTrump which would have had the correct connotation (at least for Bridge Enthusiasts)

      • verdverm · 2 hours ago

        I'm using "Occupy Oligarchy" now, which has an even more correct connotation (imo) and is a fun hommage to another movement.

    • techblueberry · 6 hours ago

      Is it really confusing? Like first of all I would call a person who tries to pass the checks and balances of a democracy, even if they fail, the target of the ideals or “no kings” And while we can disagree with the extent to which any one act or bribe elevates someone to dictator, and whether or not all the accusations are true, can you not understand why someone caught up in the narrative ecosystem happening over the past few years may develop the perspective that Trump is trying to consolidate power? Also “no folks who incrementally Test the limits of power and fail” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

      • krapp · 4 hours ago

        A common bad faith political tactic is an attempt to derail conversation and reframe it around linguistic pedantry, to discredit an activist movement by pretending not to comprehend its rhetoric. The same thing happened with "Black Lives Matter" and "Defund the Police." Instead of talking about actual issues, all of the oxygen was taken up with futile attempts to litigate the specific meanings of these terms.

      • kentm · 4 hours ago

        > Like first of all I would call a person who tries to pass the checks and balances of a democracy, even if they fail, the target of the ideals or “no kings” Its incredibly frustrating to talk to people that take the position of "Well eventually they gave up after pressure from the courts and legislature, so no harm no foul." There's a difference between doing things that have a reasonable legal basis that the courts disagree with and what much of this administration was doing -- sometimes fragrantly ignoring court orders until D politicians got involved to pressure compliance. Using the 2020 coup attempt as an example, yes, the courts shot down his attempts. The issue is that *he even tried* -- the attempt was transparently not good-faith concern about election integrity.

    • roughly · 6 hours ago

      I’m glad this situation doesn’t affect you personally, and I hope that continues, but history suggests it won’t.

    • JayNitram · 6 hours ago

      I just watched Trump talk for 5 minutes sitting at the desk in the oval office about how he gets to choose what he likes and the blathering about a seriously good question being 'fake news'. The president acting like a petulant toddler makes me feel like the name couldn't be more appropriate.

    • unethical_ban · 6 hours ago

      He tried to overturn an election, his destruction of executive agencies is both unprecedented in scope and illegal in manner, he breaks the law constantly to enrich himself, and he repeatedly ignores the will of the legislature. It isn't "I don't like his tax rates, he's a king". His conduct is anti-democratic.

      • jauntywundrkind · 5 hours ago

        The Project 2025 agenda (only that latest in a long series of Heritidge Foundation plots), to destroy thr federal government to shatter universities, to generally keep the government from functioning, in a desire to pull people towards libertarianism, towards disbelieving in government, was terrifying to America during the election. Terrifying. No one wanted it. But Trump disavowed it, said that's not what he was running on. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/29/us/politics/trump-project... Today though, this plan to destroy the government is in full effect. It's had remarkable success with the quadfecta of GOapnhouse & Senate doing nothing, allowing the president to seize the power of the purse, enact recisions, whatever. And the partisan hack joke of Florida election recount denier "justices" enabling him at every turn, using shadow docket rulings at an unheard of rate to step in to deny the regular courts their normal motion of things, to forward dear leader along. Executive power we have no belief they will continue to espouse when it's a Democrat in a hopefully less gilded tacky ass White House. Project 2025's progress undoing America & governance has been a horror. https://www.project2025.observer/en

        • MC995 · 5 hours ago

          > was terrifying to America during the election. Terrifying. No one wanted it. If you can't separate your personal opinion from a factual statement like this, you're not someone worth listening to.

          • verdverm · 3 hours ago

            You might consider the guy who organized the Project 2025 paper, as well as several authors, sit or talk with Trump every day. If you have familiarity with the contents, you can see the actions towards their goals. Russ Vought and Stephen Miller are notable examples. These people are not hiding this fact, they ar rather proud and loud about it. What they have also done is convince a number of people to go out and disavow the connection on their behalf.

            • MC995 · 2 hours ago

              What are you trying to say though? What you said has nothing to do with my comment. You said it was "terrifying to America" and "No one wanted it". That's your opinion. It's your opinion that you stated as a fact. I think a lot of people wanted it. I personally know many people who were excited about it and wanted it. It may be terrifying to leftists, but certainly not to America as a whole.

              • verdverm · 2 hours ago

                > You said it was "terrifying to America" You might slow down and stop reacting emotionally. I'm not the same person. > not to America as a whole Most Americans now favor changes to the government which would require constitutional changes. They may not all use the same words, but there is a significant consensus things are very broken. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/07/28/most-amer...

              • jauntywundrkind · 1 hour ago

                It's weird how terrorists trying to blow up the nation with guns and bombs get such a bad rap, but the people actively proudly working to dismantle and tear down America within don't suffer the same wrath. I agree with your original statement. Some people did want this. Some small percent. Who are traitors to America, who want to destroy it. I don't think those people deserve anything but antipathy and to be persecuted as traitors.

    • giantg2 · 6 hours ago

      Most political movements (and arguments) in the US use hyperbole. No Kings is hyperbolic to show disapproval of Trump's actions. This single-sided bias on a conceptual is also a hall mark of most political movements in the US. It's fine if someone takes a similar action that I see as good, but it's bad if I think it's bad. Before I get hated out of existence, please note that I don't like either party or political tactics in general because they've devolved into politically commercialized populism without any empathy or critical thought. Just as an example, deportations under Trump are roughly on trend with Obama, Trump targeting activities are similar to Obama targeting conservative groups with the IRS, Obama lied in the SoTU about the gender wage gap, Obama was hard on journalists (highest prosecutions?) Like Trump has been, and Obama ignored court orders such as issuing immigration permits in violations of a order similar to Trump ignoring orders. I could sit here and hope that any of these abuses results in better oversight, but that would be naive based on the history. Edit: if you're going to disagree, at least contribute to the discussion.

      • AnimalMuppet · 4 hours ago

        Deportations under Obama may have been approximately equal to under Trump. Obama did it without nearly so much violence, though. Obama lied in the SoTU. Um, OK? I mean, we should expect better than that, but are you seriously saying that Obama lied as much as Trump does? For me personally, the single biggest thing was January 6, the whole "alternate electors" thing, and Trump pressuring Pence to accept the alternate (fake) ones. That was a full-blown attempt to steal an election that he lost. That I do not forget and do not forgive. And if you can show me something Obama did that's on that scale, well, I'll be surprised.

        • giantg2 · 40 minutes ago

          "Deportations under Obama may have been approximately equal to under Trump. Obama did it without nearly so much violence, though." Is there good data for that or is it observation bias? I'm not saying scale is the same. I'm saying that these abuses will continue to happen without accountability. The scale argument is not an excuse, merely a manifestation of cognitive dissonance. Plenty of lies and corruption on any president if you care to look. https://lists.grabien.com/list/complete-guide-scandals-obama...

          • verdverm · 16 minutes ago

            > Is there good data for that or is it observation bias? In fact there is, these numbers are published by the government. Trump has still not averaged what Obama did, nor topped the the greatest numbers of all time, so Obama is still greater than Trump, much to Midas's chagrin I suppose, given how much Trump talks about Obama, like Obama lives rent free in Trump's head. /s !/s One example: https://latinonewsnetwork.com/community/who-deported-more-mi...

    • b3ing · 6 hours ago

      Trump posted on twitter/x several AI pictures of himself as a king, that’s where the name comes from

    • Larrikin · 6 hours ago

      Which specific interview are you referring to where a person couldn't articulate a response to a very simple question?

    • pdpi · 5 hours ago

      I would go further than that. A bunch of European countries (including all of Scandinavia) are constitutional monarchies, and they don't devolve into the sort of anti-democratic behaviour we're all seeing from Trump. As a UK resident, I would prefer if the UK were a republic on general principle, but I fail to see the monarchy causing any real large-scale harm to society (individuals like Andrew notwithstanding). The real point they should be making is "no more despots". Some despots are kings, but some are styled presidents, such as Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un. Also, legitimately elected or appointed officials become despots all the time. Hitler had a plurality (but not outright majority) of votes in 1932. Salazar was an MP and minister of finance, and actually legitimately tried to resign from that role several times over many years before he was eventually nominated to the role of prime minister. Ferdinand Marcos won the Philippine presidential election in 1965 with some amount of intimidation, and the Philippines only formally became a military dictatorship under his rule in 1971. In many ways, that's the scariest scenario — people who legitimately get elected to power, and then use that power to solidify their illegitimate rule.

      • rootusrootus · 4 hours ago

        > As a UK resident, I would prefer if the UK were a republic on general principle, but I fail to see the monarchy causing any real large-scale harm to society (individuals like Andrew notwithstanding). I'm not a UK resident [obviously] but I thought the parliament was explicitly superior to the monarchy? Isn't the monarchy essentially cultural theater at this point, for centuries now? The moment the king causes a crisis by stepping out of his very narrow lane, one Act of Parliament could make the monarchy a memory, right? I suppose he could refuse ascent then, and that would be a legitimate constitutional crisis.

        • pdpi · 3 hours ago

          Yeah, it's a mostly ceremonial role. But that's my point, really — it's not the title, it's the behaviour. I would argue that, even though it's not my preference, there is real political value in the monarchy today still. E.g. Charles's speech to Congress[0] has a certain weight to it that wouldn't be there if Charles were an elected leader instead of a monarch. 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCUZWnX8JIM

    • deathanatos · 5 hours ago

      He's referred to himself as a "dictator". CPAC put out imagery likening him to Caesar. He's referred to himself as "King" and put out that ridiculous AI generated image of him as a king. He put out that ridiculous AI generated image of him as Jesus (and then later gaslit reporters about it). Him and his campaign have repeatedly stated ideations for an (unconstitutional) third term "and beyond". > except they don't like the guy's policies and conduct. That too, but his conduct rises above "policies I don't like"; he has shown direct contempt for the other branches of our government. For example, his administration has essentially dismantled or destroyed various functions in violation of the Constitution: take USAID as an example here: USAID is an agency created de jure by Congress, yet it has been de facto dissolved by the administration. We all learned, I think, in grade school, that the job of the executive is to implement the laws passed by Congress. From an article at the time about it: > “The President does not have constitutional authority to ignore a statute that establishes a department or agency,” says Saikrishna Prakash, a law professor at the University of Virginia. He holds the judicial branch in contempt too: quite literally any time any judge does anything he disagrees with, the judge is blasted as "left-wing radical", even and including cases where the judge was a GOP-appointee. Further examples include ignoring judicial orders and depriving people of access to the courts by physical force (see the many cases of the administration's removal of people from the country; to put it one way: "For depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury", or "The Government’s argument, moreover, implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U. S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene" — Justice Sotomayor, joined by Kagan & Jackson.)

  • JohnMakin · 5 hours ago

    And now you're likely on some kind of watch-list or database, and accomplished approximately nothing except making yourself feel morally superior to others. Congratulations! Much winning.

    • verdverm · 4 hours ago

      > accomplished approximately nothing I spread the words of Michael Sandel to hundreds of left wing people, so they might come back towards the center. That they might acknowledge their complicity in creating the situation we find ourselves in. The constituents of NoKings is far more diverse than you know. Try joining us next time to see with your own eyes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp5qsEuUOWo > making yourself feel morally superior to others One might wonder if your comment here falls into this category.

      • JohnMakin · 4 hours ago

        You have no idea of my politics, and this post reads as nonsense.

        • verdverm · 3 hours ago

          Please reflect on how this comment of yours relates to your prior comment to which I replied, and how others might perceive to to be equally applicable there. I do not understand where I said anything about your politics, can you tell me where or how? I thought I was replying to your perspectives on NoKings There are a lot of heated comments here today, we all need to chill a bit. Why did you choose the words you did in your first reply to me?

• Aurornis · 7 hours ago

  At least you didn’t organize on BlueSky, where nobody would show up but you’d be villainized by 100 people for some minor transgression they found in your post.

  • greedo · 6 hours ago

    Maybe it's just my feed, but I haven't seen this type of dogpiling on Bluesky.

    • Aurornis · 6 hours ago

      The problem is big enough that BlueSky is stepping up to take action against it https://bsky.app/profile/safety.bsky.app/post/3mukm26duos2c Amazingly, the top replies to their post about targeted harassment are from accounts trying to redirect anger at several accounts that are common targets for dogpiling. It's deeply baked into the BlueSky culture and I don't know how it came to be like that. I've tried to prune my feed to keep it out, but now the problem is that journalists I follow eventually find themselves targeted by a BlueSky dogpiling campaign and leave the platform. EDIT: A lot of responses are trying to blame the dogpiling victims are saying the problem doesn't exist. Let me give you one recent example, where Rick Brewster made a proof of concept of Paint.NET running on Wine and got dogpiled so hard that he deleted the post and backed out: https://bsky.app/profile/rickbrew.bsky.social/post/3muiv4phe...

      • paconbork · 6 hours ago

        > I don't know how it came to be like that. The earliest bluesky users tended to be the most toxic users of old Twitter, it's not too surprising

        • MSFT_Edging · 6 hours ago

          A lot of the dogpiling is from people who come out and say some dumb shit and demand respect. When they get ridicule for their ridiculous take, they play the victim. That being said, there's also the tumblr->twitter->bluesky contingent who have always loved dogpiling and they're mostly there because the site doesn't have musk boosting nazi posters.

          • Aurornis · 6 hours ago

            > A lot of the dogpiling is from people who come out and say some dumb shit and demand respect. When they get ridicule for their ridiculous take, they play the victim. Literally victim blaming. The recent high profile example was a person who made a proof of concept of Paint.net on Wine and got dragged across the website so hard he felt he had to delete it, apologize, and abandon the project: https://bsky.app/profile/rickbrew.bsky.social/post/3muiv4phe...

            • c0nducktr · 5 hours ago

              > A lot of the dogpiling is from people who come out and say some dumb shit and demand respect. When they get ridicule for their ridiculous take, they play the victim. Literally victim blaming. --- If you say something outrageous in the 'public square' and you get mocked for it by the public, how are you a victim? I don't know why that would happen to someone trying to make a paint.NET clone, but that's also certainly not the type of post the person you replied to was talking about.

              • Aurornis · 5 hours ago

                > I don't know why that would happen to someone trying to make a paint.NET clone, but that's also certainly not the type of post the person you replied to was talking about You’re not seeing it. Everyone who dogpiled the Paint.NET on Wine guy also thought they were doing legitimate mocking of a guy who said the wrong thing in a public square. The people who didn’t like AI thought it was valid to create a harassment campaign against him for using AI as part of his process. The people who thought all things Microsoft must be opposed thought it was valid to create a harassment campaign for making a Microsoft product work in more places. Everyone in each of these campaigns thought their crusade was valid and the victim brought it upon themself. That you can see it being invalid in some cases is getting close to realizing why it’s a problem. Not everyone agrees on what’s right or wrong, but these public shaming campaigns serve to try to force everyone who disagrees out of the platform to strengthen the echo chamber. You’re already noticing that you’re outside of the acceptable echo chamber thoughts because you don’t understand why the Paint.NET project would attract harassment. If you supported that guy and your post got traction, you too could get dogpiled. Do you think you would have said anything “outrageous” in the public square by questioning why anyone would criticize that guy?