Somebody, quick, fetter those conversation already!
Unfettered conversations are taking place on Clubhouse, an invitation-only app that lets people gather in audio chatrooms.
What?! People are engaging in conversations unmonitored by their social betters?
Insanity!
The platform has exploded in popularity, despite grappling with concerns over harassment, misinformation and privacy.
Misinformation.
Like people who repeat things they read in The New York Times?
Or, anywhere else for that matter?
It's interesting that a media organ that exists not only under the protections of the Constitution but the protections of a culture in which free speech has been revered is not particularly eager to see those protections extended to people not in their employ. It's almost as if it's not a matter of principle to them.
Not to worry, Clubhouse is on the case, heeding the warnings of the Times and others.
In Sunday's Clubhouse discussion, Mr. Davison said the company has explicit rules against spreading misinformation, hate speech, abuse and bullying. The start-up said last year that it was adding advisers and safety features and empowering moderators.
To be clear, it's not that The New York Times opposes unfettered conversations, they are are in fact quite fond of them.
As long as they take place in other countries.
Yet Clubhouse has also enabled people living under strict censorship in countries such as China and Turkey to speak freely about many topics.
China has since banned Clubhouse which should not at all be compared to Parler being all-but destroyed because that's totally different so stop thinking that.
The Clubhouse app itself, still available only by invitation and at the moment exclusive to the iPhone, incorporates an innovative form of communications they call, "audio," in which members use their actual voice to send information, while at the same time others employ a sense known as "hearing" to receive that information.
Or, as one commenter on the article put it:
We are truly living in amazing times as the titans of tech usher us into the future with stunning innovations on a daily basis. Oh wait, never mind. This app is basically a revamp of dumb 1-900 party lines from the 1980's.
Some years ago I was doing yard work streaming a baseball game through the MLB app on my iPhone, using billions of dollars of infrastructure, the miracles of miniaturization and mathematical and technical wizardry to recreate... what I was doing 50 years ago with a transistor radio.
But hey, I was out of market, so...
Doesn't matter. Everyone is talking about Clubhouse!
Elon Musk joined!!
And he invited Vladimir Putin!
If you'd like to get one of the coveted invites so that you too can engage in increasingly monitored audio conversations with others, you can check to see if there is a member already on who can send you one (much like Gmail in the very early days), get on their wait list, or go to eBay where there is a vibrant market for them.
Then again, you could always just have a conversation with your neighbors. Those are still totally unfettered.
Okay, what was that eBay link again?...
