[HN Gopher] Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms
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Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms
Author : patd
Score : 427 points
Date : 2020-05-27 12:21 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| pseingatl wrote:
| Don't forget that the largest shareholders of Twitter, after its
| own founders are the government of Saudi Arabia acting though
| Walid bin Talal. Censorship is not unknown in Saudi Arabia.
| ojbyrne wrote:
| Oh?
| https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?s...
| 2019-nCoV wrote:
| > Twitter has now shown that everything we have been saying about
| them (and their other compatriots) is correct. Big action to
| follow!
|
| https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12656495454107443...
|
| $TWTR already down 5%.
| christiansakai wrote:
| I actually don't mind if this happens. Just close social media
| already.
| pwdisswordfish2 wrote:
| One alternative is to ban politicians from using these private
| websites as "official pulpits". As private websites they are
| under no legal obligation to allow anyone to use them. If
| politicians want to communicate with constituents, then let them
| do so through government websites. Why does the US government not
| create its own "Twitter" service? Government websites are subject
| to laws and regulations that private websites are not. Unlike
| private websites they would be required to honour free speech
| protections under existing US law.
|
| As we know, the private websites have incentives to allow
| politicians to use them as pulpits because it drives "engagement"
| and, in some cases, because they want to sell political ads or ad
| services.
| haunter wrote:
| >Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence
| conservatives voices
|
| Not wrong tho especially if you just look at the mainstream media
| ianleeclark wrote:
| Last I checked, Fox news had higher ratings than the other
| mainstream channels.
| throwaway_pdp09 wrote:
| Kind of baffling to read this. Do you actually believe that
| because you want to feel hard done by, or do you have any
| facts?
|
| Also do you feel it is wrong for media to report that something
| is incorrect if it verifiably is?
| [deleted]
| sp332 wrote:
| _Andrew Bosworth, a top corporate executive considered a
| confidant of Zuckerberg, said in a post in December that
| Facebook was "responsible for Donald Trump getting elected" in
| 2016 through his effective advertising campaign_
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/20/faceboo...
| frockington1 wrote:
| I'm sure they would have taken credit regardless who won.
| Have to keep the ad money flowing
| sp332 wrote:
| Possibly, yeah. But given that they ran millions of dollars
| worth of his ads, claiming that he was "totally silenced"
| is a bit silly.
| [deleted]
| methehack wrote:
| I don't have to let trump stand on my front porch and scream lies
| at top volume, and twitter doesn't either. Twitter is protected
| by the first amendment here, not trump.
|
| Twitter's platform is private, not public. Twitter should waste
| no more time in making that crystal clear.
|
| If you own the printing press, you get to decide what you print.
| If it were otherwise -- if the government, or anyone else, could
| control what we said and didn't say with our private resources --
| well, that's not anywhere any of us really wants to live.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| 1. Is Twitter going to fact-check every political figure? Every
| public figure with more than a million followers?
|
| 2. Who decides what is a viable source? As a part of their "fact
| check", Twitter linked to CNN, which is almost as bad as Fox News
| these days. This really isn't helping their case for supposed
| neutrality.
|
| 3. I don't like Trump, didn't vote for him, and find his tweets
| embarrassing. But I don't need Twitter to tell me what to think.
| remarkEon wrote:
| >But I don't need Twitter to tell me what to think.
|
| I think what this discussion is revealing is that a lot of
| people, and a lot of people that work it tech it seems,
| actually _do_ want _someone_ to tell them what to think. Which
| may be part of the baseline or mean human condition. Thinking
| and deciding for yourself is hard, and when other people think
| and decide for themselves in a different way than you it seems
| to generate an immune response and a reaction that calls for
| intervention from above.
| akhilcacharya wrote:
| I'm old enough to remember when conservatives accused the left of
| being against "free speech".
| anewdirection wrote:
| It switches sides every 15-25 years, as youd notice, surely.
|
| Parties have little in common with what they were even 20 years
| ago.
| nullc wrote:
| If _anyone_ else used twitter the way Trump does, twitter would
| have removed them from the platform long ago.
|
| I thin that their transparently profit motivated move in treating
| him so differently-- by not banning him-- weakens their moral
| case against regulation.
|
| Twitter's relationship with Trump isn't about anyone's right to
| free speech, it's about twitter's income stream.
| busymom0 wrote:
| Twitter team which is doing "fact checks" is severely biased and
| factually wrong.
|
| Twitter's "Head of Site Integrity" Yoel Roth boasts on his
| LinkedIn that he is in charge of "developing and enforcing
| Twitter's rules".
|
| > "He leads the teams responsible for developing and enforcing
| Twitter's rules"
|
| Here's a few of his tweets:
|
| > Massive anti-Trump protest headed up Valencia St. San
| Francisco.
|
| > I'm just saying, we fly over those states that voted for a
| racist tangerine for a reason.
|
| > The "you are not the right kind of feminist" backlash to
| yesterday's marches has begun. Did we learn nothing from this
| election?
|
| > Yes, that person in the pink hat is clearly a bigger threat to
| your brand of feminism than ACTUAL NAZIS IN THE WHITE HOUSE
|
| > How does a personality-free bag of farts like Mitch McConnell
| actually win elections?
|
| > "Today on Meet The Press, we're speaking with Joseph Goebbels
| about the first 100 days..." --What I hear whenever Kellyanne is
| on a news show
|
| This same person doesn't stand up to his own purity tests:
|
| > It wouldn't be a trip to New York without at least one big
| scary tranny.
|
| > "Trans is a category worth being linguistically destabilized in
| the same way we did gay with 'fag,'" he wrote. "Sorry, but I
| don't subscribe to PC passing the buck. Identity politics is for
| everyone."
|
| Twitter's "fact check" is literally wrong. Until few years ago,
| every one agreed that mail-in ballot has massive fraud:
|
| Just 1 week ago: Close Results In Paterson Vote Plagued By Fraud
| Claims; Over 3K Ballots Seemingly Set Aside - A county spokesman
| said 16,747 vote-by-mail ballots were received, but the county's
| official results page shows 13,557 votes were counted -- with
| uncounted ballots representing 19%
|
| https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/close-results-in-pater...
|
| > "votes cast by mail are less likely to be counted, more likely
| to be compromised & more likely to be contested than those cast
| in a voting booth, statistics show."
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-vote-...
|
| In 2004, Jerry Nadler (Democrat) asserts that paper ballots,
| particularly in the absence of machines, are extremely
| susceptible to fraud:
|
| https://streamable.com/tbzu47
|
| Future head of the Democrat Party Debbie Wasserman Schultz
| opposing mail-in ballots due to the risk of election fraud in
| 2008:
|
| https://streamable.com/2tyqp1
|
| West Virginia Mail Carrier Charged With Altering Absentee Ballot
| Requests:
|
| https://time.com/5843088/west-virginia-mail-carrier-fraud-ab...
|
| Also Twitter's Trump 'Fact Check' Does Not Disclose Company
| Partnered with Groups Pushing Mail-In Ballots.
|
| -----------
|
| https://twitter.com/yoyoel/status/822654925217873921
|
| https://twitter.com/yoyoel/status/823312544425132033
|
| https://twitter.com/catfashionshow/status/298477704666300416
|
| https://twitter.com/yoyoel/status/890812999874691073
|
| https://twitter.com/yoyoel/status/823260235796094978
| krn wrote:
| I wonder, at point is Twitter supposed to block the user for
| constant spread of disinformation on its platform? Or would that
| violate the user's right to "free speech"? Could the user protect
| himself by claiming, that he is simply expressing "his own
| opinion"?
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| Public figures have it harder when it comes to using the "it's
| just my opinion" argument.
|
| YOU can claim vaccines are a fake, and that's bad, but won't
| have harder consequences on you.
|
| A medical doctor can't claim the same thing without losing
| their position as a medical doctor; they kinda lose a bit of
| that "it's just my opinion" card as part of the
| responsibilities they have with society.
| chadlavi wrote:
| Free speech means the government can't come after you for
| statements. Anyone claiming a company is infringing on their
| free speech is at best ignorant of, and at worst purposefully
| misconstruing, the bill of rights. You have no right to post
| whatever you want on a private company's platform, they can ban
| you whenever and for whatever reason they want.
| krn wrote:
| In other words, the only reasons for Twitter not ban such a
| user are 1) business (that he might be driving a substantial
| amount of traffic); and 2) PR (that banning him would bring
| much more negative than positive coverage for the company)?
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Can this even be considered a free speech issue? They aren't
| deleting his tweet, only displaying it alongside a fact check. Of
| course you can try to call into question the impartiality of the
| fact check but that is a long way from not deciding not to show
| the content.
| m-p-3 wrote:
| And if he decided to "close" Twitter, it would actually be a
| clear case of censorship from the government and a violation of
| free speech.
|
| Twitter is merely labelling a tweet as being factually
| incorrect, it's not hiding the content.
| Bombthecat wrote:
| But isn't that what all the tweets under the tweet from
| president probably do? They correct him? What would be the
| difference?
|
| The difference would be one is a company, the other a real
| person. No need for the company to get involved.
|
| People who ignore the correctios and other tweets will ignore
| the company anyway.
| nsgi wrote:
| At least until recently the top tweet appearing under
| Trump's tweets was the one about John Mcafee giving away
| bitcoins, so I'd say that mechanism isn't working very
| well.
| voxl wrote:
| What are you trying to argue? That the company shouldn't
| bother because the factual information _might_ be present
| below Trump?
|
| Surely you understand that the company posting a fact
| checker is a more credible source, and that there are
| _plenty_ of twitter users who, even if they disagree with
| Trump, may not be aware of the facts.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Well, it wouldn't be, because he _couldn't do it_. He's not a
| dictator, despite apparent aspirations.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| Real question: As the head of the Federal executive branch,
| who would stop him?
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Well, considering how huge that branch is, if he didn't
| stop once the courts ordered him to, Congress could
| remove him from office, and he'd be "escorted" out of the
| White House by the Secret Service.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| Didn't Congress already impeach the president but the
| Senate voted to keep him in office?
| sanderjd wrote:
| Yes, the House impeached him, but the Senate did not
| convict and remove him.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Yes. But ignoring the courts would be a different thing:
| incompetence. See the 25th Amendment SS 4[0]:
|
| > Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either
| the principal officers of the executive departments or of
| such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit
| to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the
| Speaker of the House of Representatives their written
| declaration that the President is unable to discharge the
| powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall
| immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as
| Acting President.
|
| > ...
|
| Basically, if Congress decides Trump is incompetent,
| Pence will _immediately_ become President. No impeachment
| trial will be necessary. And if Trump refuses to leave
| the White House at that point, he will be forcefully
| removed. Whether that'll actually happen remains to be
| seen; Section 4 has never been invoked since its
| ratification.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-
| fifth_Amendment_to_the_...
| three_seagrass wrote:
| The President was brought up for incompetence to Congress
| in 2017 when he fired FBI director Jame Comey after Comey
| refused the President's request to drop the election-
| meddling investigation involving the President's personal
| friend. It's right there in the wikipedia article. The
| President got a pass. How would this be any different?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| If I understand correctly, it takes more than the
| President being charged with incompetence. It takes the
| Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet agreeing.
| That didn't happen, not by a long shot.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| Considering the President surrounds himself with people
| who only support him, such as firing all the IG's that
| were investigating any Republican party members, what's
| to keep that from happening again in this instance?
| [deleted]
| dlp211 wrote:
| Judges in every district, appeals court, and the SCOTUS.
| An injunction would be put in place not more than an hour
| after such a deceleration by the POTUS was made.
| evan_ wrote:
| have you not been paying attention? Those things you
| mentioned have been increasingly reseated with Trump
| loyalists.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Genuine question: What would happen if there was a
| massive conspiracy to just plow through with the plan
| despite the injunction? Sure, Congress could impeach him
| again and "convict" him, but what if the people with the
| power to _literally_ remove him refused to cooperate?
|
| I know this is a very massive hypothetical, but it's one
| I've wondered for a while. Basically, as the head of one
| of the branches, he could have subordinates forcefully
| removed, but who'll forcefully remove him in this case?
| mediaman wrote:
| There's no mechanism to make it happen.
|
| It would have to happen through the courts, and the
| courts won't allow it.
|
| They can bully Twitter and threaten to e.g. withhold
| federal contracts (though even this runs into legal
| trouble) but how does the executive branch just "shut
| down" a platform?
|
| You can't just send in the FBI and put a halt on things.
|
| This will just be more of his mindless rage that a
| certain portion of the population gobbles up. His real
| goal is to discredit Twitter et al, which is unlikely to
| have much impact.
| kmonsen wrote:
| As long as the senate doesn't cooperate there is no way
| apparently to remove or have any influence over the
| president or the executive branch. He is just making sure
| he doesn't step too far so the GOP will consider voting
| against him. I think this would go too far, but have
| thought so many times before.
|
| The good news is that the presidency (and the leader of
| the executive branch) is very time limited. The
| constitution is so clear that there is no wiggle room at
| all, no matter what happens between now and January next
| year, the only way he stays in power is by winning the
| election. Also it seems pretty clear there will be a
| democrat as acting president if we fail to vote for a new
| one, but that is mostly coincidences and luck this time
| around.
|
| The last four years have shown that there are no real
| checks and balances and they depend on one party keeping
| its own members in line, and that the GOP have moved far,
| far, to the right as they are loosing the potential to
| win fair elections. Winding this down is not going to be
| pleasant, and in the long run we desperately need
| reforms. Also it seems like the current best case is that
| the GOP get voted out everywhere, but that is also a
| terrible outcome, we need a real opposition party and
| competition of ideas.
| jefftk wrote:
| You're describing a coup. We haven't had one in the US,
| but many other countries have. In a coup it starts to
| matter a _lot_ who has the actual power and where their
| loyalties lie.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
| X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
| Typically it's the military that holds the real power
| once a coup starts.
| pasquinelli wrote:
| It's a silly question because the senate wouldn't convict
| him.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Well, yes, it's a silly question. I'm essentially asking
| what would happen in a coup (as other people have said it
| is), and that's not going to happen in the US anytime
| soon it seems. But it doesn't mean we can't ask, "what
| would probably happen?"
| Bombthecat wrote:
| I don't think it's massively hypothetical. It can happen
| and can get real, real quick.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| >What would happen if there was a massive conspiracy to
| just plow through with the plan despite the injunction?
|
| In real terms, what are you imagining here? Trump having
| the NSA execute a DDOS against Twitter? I feel like you
| have to get to some pretty fantastical action-movie type
| plots to make this happen.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Remove their DNS records.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Again, how? Cyberattack, court order, or people with
| guns?
| evan_ wrote:
| Doesn't have to be that complicated. The DOJ announces an
| investigation into Twitter advertising practices. They
| get a friendly judge to issue some kind of injunction
| against showing ads for the duration of the
| investigation. No more revenue. Whether they actually
| find anything is irrelevant.
|
| Or just stir up a frenzy against Jack and other Twitter
| executives and wait for some nutjob to kill a few of them
| in their homes. "Will no one rid me of this turbulent
| tech exec?"
| baddox wrote:
| DDOS? It would be much simpler: a few people with guns.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| Trump sending armed federal/military agents to all the
| Twitter buildings on US soil in order to shut them down
| is even more Hollywood than NSA DDOS.
| zeckalpha wrote:
| When in the course of human events...
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce
| it." Presidents have ignored the Supreme Court before and
| suffered no consequences.
| rsynnott wrote:
| They haven't ignored _impeachment and removal_, though,
| which is what the post you're replying to suggests.
| rsynnott wrote:
| That's essentially a coup; it's how democracies die. I
| think it's highly unlikely that the security and military
| services would go along with a coup over _Twitter_.
|
| In this bizarre hypothetical, Twitter would presumably
| just fail over to servers outside the US, as would all
| other significant tech companies. Or, y'know, California
| might secede. It's such a weird proposition that it's
| hard to speculate about.
| [deleted]
| tathougies wrote:
| > Twitter is merely labelling a tweet as being factually
| incorrect, it's not hiding the content.
|
| I think it really depends on what you view twitter as. If
| it's a communications platform, like your phone, then yes
| 'merely labelling a tweet' is as troubling as your phone
| company deciding to shut your call off when you mention to a
| friend that you're going to vote for Biden. If Twitter is a
| publishing platform, then it certainly can expose its
| editorial bias, but one must really consider whether or not
| it should have to pay its writers.
| nkassis wrote:
| > "shut your call off"
|
| I fail to see how those two are equivalent, shutting off
| would be removing the tweet, they did not do that. Labeling
| something is not equivalent to censuring the tweet or
| cutting off communication.
|
| Warning users is similar to phones letting you know they
| think a caller is spam.
| tathougies wrote:
| > Warning users is similar to phones letting you know
| they think a caller is spam.
|
| This is a device feature, not a company one (I think at
| least). Plus spam has a clear meaning of unwanted
| commercial messages. I still receive calls from political
| campaigns regularly, and I would hope my phone company
| did not take it upon themselves to stop that.
| kgin wrote:
| It would actually be the first action in this whole story
| that would truly fall under the definition of "prohibiting
| the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
| speech"
| danShumway wrote:
| Not only does it not seem to be a free speech issue to me, from
| my point of view this is basically the best-case scenario for
| avoiding censorship of contentious issues on dominant platforms
| like Facebook/Twitter. It's the obvious conclusion to arguments
| like, "the way to deal with bad speech is with more good
| speech."
|
| Twitter saw speech they disagreed with, and they fixed it with
| more speech. They haven't censored any of Trump's arguments,
| they didn't delete his tweets. They just added their own
| commentary on top of them. That's what Republicans have always
| claimed they wanted. Argue that people are wrong, don't censor
| them. Don't throw people off the platform, add a fact-check.
|
| I grew up listening to Republicans rail against the Fairness
| Doctrine, and I basically agreed with them on that point.
| Forcing private broadcasters to act like they were neutral on
| every issue was problematic. But now apparently that's flipped
| and free speech means forcing a private company not to take
| sides on any issue, even when taking a side doesn't require
| censoring or restricting anyone else's speech.
|
| Any Republican that was genuinely anti-censorship would be
| cheering Twitter's move, even if they disagreed with the
| content of this particular fact-check.
| FriendlyNormie wrote:
| You belong in a ditch somewhere.
| cheaprentalyeti wrote:
| And twitter doesn't do this with leftist speech that's
| wrong/inaccurate propaganda for the sake of propaganda, like
| (oh, for instance) today someone was posting a photoshopped
| picture of one of the recent reportedly abusive cops in a
| "Make America White Again" red hat.
|
| So wave the bloody shirt, that's AOK, but say that vote by
| mail facilitates fraud, and you get a personalized "We Don't
| Think So!" message from twitter.
|
| Twitter hosts outrage mobs that have the stated goals of
| getting people fired, and it has caused people I was
| following to quit the platform.
|
| They simultaneously want to exercise editorial discresion
| while not being liable for for all the outrageous or outright
| wrong speech they do host.
| danShumway wrote:
| > exercise editorial discresion
|
| Adding a fact-check link to a Tweet is not censorship.
| Nobody took Trump's link down. And Twitter has a 1st
| Amendment right both to comment on what it wants to comment
| on, and to avoid commenting on what it doesn't want to
| comment on -- regardless of what their reasoning behind
| those decisions is.
|
| Again, Republicans should be applauding this. Open dialog
| is what you wanted, right? You wanted no censorship, just
| open debate. Well that's what you got. Twitter didn't
| censor the post, they debated it. And they have every right
| to do so.
|
| If your argument is that Twitter needs to be 100%
| politically neutral every time it makes a comment on
| anything, and that its editorial staff shouldn't have the
| ability to form opinions or choose what they comment on,
| then that's the Fairness Doctrine, regardless of what you
| want to call it.
|
| It is of course also legal for Twitter to choose how they
| outright censor content because of Section 230, but I give
| Republicans a little bit more slack over objecting to that
| protection, since at least Section 230 isn't literally a
| Constitutional right. But anyone who wants to complain that
| companies should be required to be "fair" when adding
| _political annotations_ is not someone who supports the 1st
| Amendment.
| chowchowchow wrote:
| so? you're free to not use the service; it still isn't a
| free speech issue in terms of limiting expression.
| giantrobot wrote:
| One of the coolest features of the web is the hyperlink.
| You can provide one of these "hyperlinks" to another site
| as a way to back up assertions you're making or to provide
| context.
|
| A great place for one of these "hyperlinks" would be to
| show everyone this photoshopped picture you're talking
| about. Not everyone follows whatever sites you'd consider
| to be "news".
|
| And no, I'm not going to do the legwork and search for
| random articles trying to figure out what the fuck you're
| talking about.
|
| You also might want to consider that a person with legal
| power, say a government official, might be held to a higher
| standard of informational accuracy than some rando posting
| a photoshopped picture.
| cheaprentalyeti wrote:
| Here's a hyperlink with the example Bloody Shirt that was
| being waved around, along with how the poster thinks it
| was made.
|
| https://twitter.com/RationalDis/status/126568173109454848
| 0
| giantrobot wrote:
| A random tweet isn't context! Not everyone is drinking
| from the shit pipeline that is Twitter. All I got from
| that Tweet was some guy isn't another guy?
|
| Provide some co text like a news article or something. If
| you _can 't_ provide some context for people to
| understand maybe that's the signal to you that whatever
| random shit you're talking about doesn't quite rise to
| the level of seriousness of the President spewing
| unsubstantiated bullshit as claims of fact.
|
| If you think some "leftist" was making absurd claims of
| fact or saying demonstrably untrue things, report them to
| Twitter asking for their post to be flagged.
| [deleted]
| mathdev wrote:
| A fact check would be fine if it led to objective analyses of
| some sort, or even Wikipedia. But when I clicked it, it
| displayed some highly partisan sources, including a CNN article
| with its usual "Trump bad" vitriol. Maybe it was an algorithm's
| fault, but it didn't work at all.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Would an AP article similarly critical of the president's
| remarks been more acceptable?
| SaltyBackendGuy wrote:
| > Would an AP article similarly critical of the president's
| remarks been more acceptable?
|
| Seems like it would be more acceptable.
|
| (sorry for the ads)
|
| CNN: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cnn/
|
| AP : https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/associated-press/
| FillardMillmore wrote:
| Whether reporting on Trump objectively makes him look
| 'bad' obviously depends on the content being reported on.
| The objective reporting (meaning, nothing but the facts,
| no insinuations or implications past what we can garner
| from the facts) on something like Trump tweeting about
| Joe Scarborough's possible culpability in the death of
| his intern might make him look bad while reporting of
| Trump's efforts to pull troops from abroad back home
| might make him look good.
|
| The problem though, as I think some of the posters above
| have touched on, is how can Twitter effectively account
| for media biases in a way that will not make them look
| biased? I suppose that's just begging the question of:
| should they care if they appear biased?
|
| One thought I've had is that perhaps, for every tweet
| that Twitter decides to put a 'fact-check' on, they could
| link to three different sources of information - one with
| a well-established left-bias, one with a well-established
| right-bias, and one without any well-established bias.
| Just an idea, I'm sure that'll probably present problems
| as well.
| zo1 wrote:
| That's a step in the right direction. But both sides of
| the political media coin are biased in that they don't do
| fact-based reporting only.
|
| Let's look at the tweet from the linked article and see
| how reporting should happen:
|
| >"Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally
| silence conservatives voices" "We will strongly regulate,
| or close them down, before we can ever allow this to
| happen. We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in
| 2016."
|
| 1. Republicans claim social media platforms silence
| conservative viewpoints. 2. Donald Trump intends to
| regulate/close them down if they are engaging in this, or
| prevent them from doing so with regulation. 3. Donald
| Trump claims that social-media platforms tried to do
| something in 2016 (insinuating that they meddled with the
| election).
|
| I don't know about you but I would love actual
| investigative journalism to look at the above points as
| it's so loaded and could practically swing elections if
| confirmed and people decided to act on it.
|
| So the items they need to do for the above facts:
|
| 1. Track down some legitimate poll of how Republicans
| feel about this. Find peer-reviewed studies that look at
| data-dumps or reports by the media companies. Send emails
| to social-media companies with details, request data
| about the makeup of account actions or bans, etc. If <
| 50% of republicans feel this way, call him out on it. <--
| that sort of thing is fact-checkable for Twitter.
|
| 2. Talk about the options that Donald Trump has.
| Investigate the legality about it, consult some lawyers,
| showcase a poll on the matter, investigate how Common-
| Carrier laws might apply to this, etc. The media should
| assume he is right and play that out. What if Donald
| Trump is on to something and the statistical facts are
| being hidden. Investigate. Make a note of this and write
| an article in half a year about how it disappeared from
| his campaign so he broke his promise/commitment. Hold him
| accountable, help people see the things that they may
| have forgotten, be the voice of clear-headed reason and
| good outcomes for all involved.
|
| 3. Really, same as the above on some level. It's been
| almost 4 years, there is bound to be a plethora of peer-
| reviewed sources and concluded outcomes. Mention the
| outcomes of some of the claims during the 2016 election,
| track down some polls and tie it all together. They're
| supposed to provide insight and a big-picture view of it
| all.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| How do you objectively report on trump without it painting
| him in a bad light?
| dahfizz wrote:
| > How do you objectively report on trump without it
| painting him in a bad light?
|
| You are missing the point. Using objective reporting to
| paint a bad person in a bad light is exactly what "the
| media" should do.
|
| I went to cnn's homepage and clicked on this article[1].
| Lets look at the first paragraph:
|
| > President Donald Trump's use of the bully pulpit to defy
| his own government's advice on face coverings has turned
| into the era's latest ideologically motivated assault on
| science and civility. His noncompliance is a symbol of his
| refusal to adopt the customary codes of the presidency
| during a crisis and his habit of turning even a dire
| national moment to political advantage.
|
| You can't possibly call that objective reporting. The
| factual content is _true_ , but _highly_ highly subjective
| and filled with inflammatory language.
|
| Saying "Trump refuses to wear a facemask in defiance of
| $HealthExpert's advice" is objective. Calling that act "an
| assault on science and civility" is a heavily inflammatory
| and subjective stance.
|
| To be clear, I don't disagree with CNN here. Trump is being
| dumb. But you can't pretend like CNN is objective or
| unbiased.
|
| CNN, like all news media, is a private, profit seeking
| corporation who will pander to their audience to generate
| ad revenue. And there is nothing inherently wrong with
| that. But turning around and treating this multi-million
| dollar corporation as the sole arbiter of absolute,
| objective truth is plain foolish.
|
| [1]https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/26/politics/donald-trump-
| covid-m...
|
| EDIT: Some argue that this is an opinion piece and so my
| point is invalid. Up in the top left corner, this article
| is marked as "Analysis by $Author" instead of just "by
| $Author". They don't label it as an opinion, and they don't
| place it differently on their home page. It is an analysis
| on current events, written by a CNN reporter, hosted on the
| CNN front page. This is an explicit endorsement of the
| content of the article, and it's crazy to say that CNN is
| absolved of all journalistic integrity because this article
| is an "analysis" versus "regular" news. The _only_
| difference is the addition of the single word "Analysis"
| hidden in the top left corner. This article is clearly
| meant to be treated as any other.
|
| I suppose that is the problem with using examples, though.
| People would rather pick apart the example rather than face
| the larger claim. Without examples, of course, the point
| would be dismissed as unsubstantiated. It's just not
| possible to change people's minds, I guess.
|
| EDIT 2: This is what an actual opinion piece looks like:
| https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/21/opinions/trump-racist-
| tweet-m...
|
| They disclaim that the article is the authors opinion, they
| host it in the opinions section, and have opinion in the
| header, etc. The article I linked is _not_ an opinion
| piece.
| bradford wrote:
| The piece is marked as 'Analysis by Stephen Collinson'. I
| tend to think that's an opinion piece and treat it
| appropriately. You call it unfair, non-objective
| reporting. You fail to identify that it's not reporting
| at all: it's an opinion piece.
|
| I believe that the unclear identification of an article
| as 'news' or 'opinion' is a general problem with media.
| The demarcation was usually clear in the print media,
| it's often not clear in the digital media. I'd love to
| see improvement.
|
| I often ask for examples of the press treating Trump
| unfairly, and I'm _always_ (not sometimes, _always_ )
| given links to opinion pieces. The public can't seem to
| discern between the two, which points to a general
| problem of media illiteracy. This illiteracy is then used
| to draw false conclusions about the media as a whole, and
| your post is doing the same.
| dahfizz wrote:
| See my edits. The article I chose as an example is
| absolutely _not_ an opinion piece.
| bradford wrote:
| Ok, would you say that it is analysis a la definitions
| provided here?
| (http://thespeakernewsjournal.com/difference-news-
| opinion-ana...)
|
| I'll admit that the piece you linked blurs the line
| between analysis and opinion. You assert that it's not an
| opinion piece, but I'd assert that it's absolutely _not_
| news, it 's _not_ reporting, and the larger points of my
| parent comment still stand: I don 't think it's fair to
| point poeple to this piece and say "look how unfair CNN
| is".
| mullingitover wrote:
| You clicked on an opinion article and caught the vapors
| when you found that it contained an opinion.
| dahfizz wrote:
| This is an "Analysis", not an opinion. This is what a CNN
| opinion piece looks like:
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/21/opinions/trump-racist-
| tweet-m...
|
| It is at a /opinions/ url, it has the word "Opinion" in
| the header, and it has this disclaimer above the article:
|
| > The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own
|
| Most importantly, it is not posted directly on the CNN
| home page. You have to click a link to go to the opinions
| section to see opinion articles.
|
| The article I chose as an example is _not_ an opinion
| piece. It is presented to the user the same way every
| other news piece is, just with the word "Analysis"
| tacked on in the corner. No reasonable person would say
| "Oh, this is just an _analysis_ , I shouldn't take it
| seriously".
| mullingitover wrote:
| > It is presented to the user the same way every other
| news piece is, just with the word "Analysis" tacked on in
| the corner.
|
| The word 'Analysis' is right there in the title on their
| web site, it's not confusing in the slightest to a
| reasonable person imho.
| dahfizz wrote:
| The word 'Analysis' appears once, under the title (not in
| it), in a much smaller and greyed out font. Very few
| people would notice it, IMHO.
|
| And even if they did, I don't see how that changes
| anything. This is CNN's analysis of the news, and it has
| all the problems I outlined in my original comment. This
| is not disclaimed as the author's own opinion, it is
| CNN's explanation of the news, and it is filled with
| subjectivity and inflammatory content.
|
| You would have to be incredibly dishonest with yourself
| to read that article and not conclude that CNN is biased
| against Trump.
|
| And I reiterate: I don't think bias in media is
| inherently bad. But it is foolish to think that private
| media corporations are unbiased, altruistic arbiters of
| the complete and objective truth. This is the point I am
| making, but I suspect you would rather continue to
| nitpick the examples I have chosen rather than engage in
| a good faith discussion.
| mullingitover wrote:
| I went to https://www.cnn.com/politics and the article
| title is right there: "Analysis: Trump takes his war on
| masks to new lows." The "Analysis" is even in bold font.
|
| > You would have to be incredibly dishonest with yourself
| to read that article and not conclude that CNN is biased
| against Trump.
|
| I read it as a non-values neutral piece, and that is not
| a slant against Trump so much as it's a stance against a
| pattern of behavior with harmful ramifications for the
| country's public health. Do you think there's a neutral
| ground between recklessly endangering public health for
| political gain versus not doing that?
|
| > But it is foolish to think that private media
| corporations are unbiased, altruistic arbiters of the
| complete and objective truth.
|
| I don't know who you're arguing with on this point.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| It's not just CNN saying that the President is lying
| about mail-in voting.
|
| There's a long list of news organizations:
|
| https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384
| zo1 wrote:
| Sure but that does not make it okay necessarily. Did you
| read what the OP said? The news sources are all opinion
| with bias and artistic flare for effect, sprinkled with a
| few dabs of factually correct details to maintain the
| aura of "legitimate news source".
| btilly wrote:
| You are not responding to the content of what you are
| replying to.
|
| It is irrelevant how many true things CNN says, or how
| broadly other organizations agree with them. CNN is still
| not presenting things in an objective way. Which means
| that those you would like to convince will flip the bozo
| bit because of the bias, and never even hear the
| evidence.
|
| Note that we seldom notice bias in others when it matches
| our own. So CNN's bias is invisible to its core audience.
| Just as Fox News' bias is invisible to theirs. But it
| can't be missed by anyone whose biases differ, or who are
| actively looking for whether things are presented with
| bias.
|
| But http://gatewayjr.org/how-a-popular-media-bias-chart-
| determin... gets it right. CNN skews liberal, and isn't
| particularly accurate. It is better than Fox News...but
| not by much.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| >You are not responding to the content of what you are
| replying to.
|
| That's because the content I am responding to is a red
| herring to the question of Twitter's actions.
|
| This derailment into "Is CNN biased?" is not relevant
| when the majority of news organizations are in agreement
| about the president lying in the tweet.
|
| Further muddying the waters with claims that it's all
| just an "opinion" anyways is also non-sequitur because
| there are definitive facts about mail-in voting showing
| otherwise:
| https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384
| dahfizz wrote:
| My comment was a direct reply to my parent, who asked a
| fair question about how media is to deal with Trump. I
| make no greater claims about this specific situation and
| I am not derailing a discussion, I am directly answering
| an interesting question. If anything, _you_ are derailing
| a discussion about news media bias with the red herring
| of "but Trump bad".
|
| For you to say that its wrong to discuss media bias
| because Trump did a bad thing is dishonest at best. Yes,
| Trump is acting a fool on Twitter as he always is. That
| does not mean that the news media is beyond reproach and
| it is wrong to call into question their biases.
| golemiprague wrote:
| And where are in this list the media outlets that support
| his claims like Fox, OAN or Breitbart? And why the length
| of the list matters? We all know most media outlets are
| on the left, if you make a long list of farmers they
| might be on the right. The length of the list is
| meaningless when it is more about opinions than "facts".
| watwut wrote:
| It seems to me that general media are sanitising Trump
| speech, go out of way to find coherent meaning or sense
| where original statement had only a little. One could argue
| they are making him look better despite disliking him.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| One way is showing what multiple experts and news sources
| say about the facts, such as the Washington Post, The Hill,
| Forbes, the ACLU, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, ABC News,
| Fortune Magazine, Vox, MSNBC, Huffington Post, and the
| Christian Science Monitor.
|
| Which Twitter did -
| https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384
|
| This focus on complaining about just CNN is a red herring.
| mamon wrote:
| In which alternative universe is Wikipedia objective? From my
| experience it is far-left, sometimes deliberately spreading
| fake news if it fits their narrative. This is especially
| visible in articles about politicians and historical events.
| FillardMillmore wrote:
| I thought Wikipedia was built on user contributions and
| user provided citations? Do you have any sources that would
| indicate that the Wikimedia Foundation is far left?
|
| If it truly was far left, why doesn't Wikipedia host pages
| of Pol Pot and Stalin filled with praise? Or, in lieu of
| praise, at least apologism?
| [deleted]
| oliveshell wrote:
| "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
|
| -Stephen Colbert, at the 2006 White House Correspondents'
| Dinner
| _jal wrote:
| It must be utterly exhausting to believe the vast majority
| of other humans are conspiring against you.
| dang wrote:
| (We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322571)
| paultopia wrote:
| _constitutional law professor with a phd in political theory
| slowly raises hand_
|
| No, it cannot even be considered a free speech issue (except
| insofar as Trump proposes to censor Twitter). Those of us in
| the con law/democratic theory community, and everyone else in
| the universe who is even semi-rational, use them term
| "counterspeech" to describe what Twitter did.
|
| Traditionally, counterspeech is seen as the virtuous
| _alternative_ to censorship---as the thing that us snotty free
| speech people tell those who call for their opponents to be
| censored to do instead. John Stuart Mill would jump up and down
| and pop champagne in celebration of what Twitter did.
| __s wrote:
| If Trump can levy something vs Twitter then soon enough he'll
| be using the same mechanism to say fake news is censoring him
| when they report on what he's saying
| sabujp wrote:
| "Close" doesn't refer to the social media platform as close , the
| social media platform itself is a closely-integrated platform
| rather than a closed one.
| exabrial wrote:
| I once got a strike on social media for posting an article about
| a German doctor that recommended whiskey to cure covid19. It was
| a joke, and any reasonable adult would know this is false.
|
| It's hard for me to feel sorry for companies that go down the
| fact checking route with algorithms; It always ends up causing
| more damage than value.
|
| 12 years ago we didn't have this problem, and I think that's
| mostly related to the fact there was some UX resistance to
| hitting the "reahare" button.
| gouggoug wrote:
| I guess the issue is "getting a strike". Sure, if your posts
| are misinformation, why not add a label that says so.
|
| But giving a strike? That's going too far and your case
| highlights why: you can't make a joke anymore.
|
| A strike is stifling free speech whereas a label is just
| informative. It might be biased, it might not be, but it
| doesn't prevent you from expressing yourself, be it by making a
| joke or spreading accurate information or spreading ridiculous
| conspiracy theories.
| SuperFerret wrote:
| I'm sure Trump was just joking!
| nkkollaw wrote:
| Well, I don't think it can be see as a positive even if human
| beings are the ones to fact-check.
|
| Who is someone working for Facebook or anyone else to flag my
| messages because they think they're not factual?
|
| This is crazy.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| If you think the fact checker is wrong, you're welcome to
| provide your view -- fact checking is better than censorship
| and absolutely needed on social media to hinder its use for
| control at the population level (Cambridge Analytica style
| control).
| nkkollaw wrote:
| Thanks for your permission to provide my view.
| donw wrote:
| > I once got a strike on social media for posting an article
| about a German doctor that recommended whiskey to cure covid19.
|
| You mean I've been taking all this medication for _nothing_?
| IanCal wrote:
| Unfortunately the idea that alcohol can kill the virus (if you
| drink it) is taken seriously by some, and has resulted in more
| than 700 deaths in Iran
| https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/iran-700-dead-drinkin...
| clairity wrote:
| alcohol does kill viruses, so it should be taken seriously.
| the falsehood is that drinking alcohol will kill viruses in
| your body without doing other harm. the missing intuition is
| the deleterious effects on the body and the lack of targeting
| once therein.
|
| our biological systems are infinitely complex and shouldn't
| be arbitrarily subject to whims of fashion or fear. the panic
| and frenzy whipped up by media and politicians, rather than
| information and intuition-building, are principally at fault
| here.
| jmull wrote:
| Not sure algorithms are the problem in this case. I haven't
| seen your post of course, but as you describe it I'd have
| flagged it as covid19 misinformation.
|
| I'd probably understand that you posted it as a joke, but I'd
| also know that regardless of your intentions, many people would
| not understand the joke.
|
| I think you probably earned your strike.
| ojnabieoot wrote:
| Literally hundreds of people, including children, have died
| drinking bootleg alcohol being hawked as a COVID-19 cure. It is
| simply not the case that "any reasonable adult" knows your joke
| is a joke - that may be the case in developed countries where
| people have reliable access to actual doctors. But in
| developing countries this has been a serious problem.
|
| Misinformation kills innocent people. A harsh no-tolerance
| policy is acceptable given this is the worst global health
| crisis in 100 years.
| neonate wrote:
| People are now seriously arguing that jokes should be
| censored, and by algorithms no less? This is an extreme
| position.
|
| Why not put them in jail as well, at least until the danger
| is passed? I mean, they're killing innocent people with their
| misinformation and this is the worst global health crisis in
| 100 years.
| devtul wrote:
| We could fine/punish people if they post misinformation, even
| implement a kind of points system where the person has some
| societal rights given or taken, like being banned from
| sharing, commenting, doing any type of publishing on the
| internet.
|
| Would that be too harsh? For sure it would prevent needless
| deaths.
| ojnabieoot wrote:
| Let's address the reality of the situation first. I am not
| interested in playing this stupid game where the private
| acts of private corporations suddenly become the acts of
| government.
|
| A private content publisher is allowed to moderate the
| stuff they publish. Simon and Schuster rejecting my novel
| is not censorship. This principle includes highly
| permissive content publishers like Facebook and Twitter. I
| don't think anyone here is seriously arguing that the Klan
| deserves a Facebook group. Obviously it's well within
| Facebook's rights as both an online business and a
| publicly-accessible service to kick the Klan out. So I am
| really not seeing what is so authoritarian about removing
| misinformation about public health - the only way your
| argument is even remotely defensible is if you wrap it up
| in a ridiculous thought experiment. And being banned from
| Facebook for posting conspiracy theories is no more
| Stalinist than being banned from Chuck-E-Cheese for booing
| Munich's Make Believe Band.
|
| To get to your actual point:
|
| Shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater when there is no fire
| will land you in jail. Lying about the efficacy of your
| pharmaceutical company's medications will (or should) land
| you in jail. And a successful libel/slander lawsuit can
| ruin you. Some of these legal issues are thorny and I have
| mixed feelings on them (until recently Canada has highly
| repressive libel laws). But certainly lying pharma
| executives who get people killed should go to jail.
| Certainly the guy who pranked the crowded theater should be
| held criminally liable for the resulting stampede. Free
| speech is not and had never been the same thing as freedom
| from consequences of speech.
|
| If it's just some guy ranting on the street then yes,
| congratulations, the state should leave him alone.
| jungletime wrote:
| I don't think its as simple as that. Many of these large
| companies do so much business with the government, and
| comply to so many government rules already, at some point
| you have to wonder to what degree they are separate at
| all. If lockheed Lockheed Martin, Planatir, or Boeing
| ceased getting government money, they would probably not
| exist. And if Facebook and Twitter really became anti
| establishment, their stock would tank, and most likely
| would quickly be taken over or bankrupted.
| yesco wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_
| the...
| thamer wrote:
| Wow. I was going to ask for a source since your mention of
| hundreds of deaths sounded so unbelievable, but it was very
| easy to find: > Iran: Over 700 dead after drinking alcohol to
| cure coronavirus
| https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/iran-700-dead-
| drinkin...
|
| Crazy what people will do due to misinformation.
|
| There were some news reports after Trump's suggestions to use
| disinfectant as a COVID-19 cure that hundreds of people had
| _called_ health services to ask if it was indeed a legitimate
| way to get rid of coronavirus. Now I 'm wondering how many
| didn't call and just went ahead with the "treatment".
| exabrial wrote:
| Completely disagree.
|
| My audience, my friends and family, are all educated
| reasonable adults.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| There's no way for a moderator to know all that, and take
| it into account.
| tzs wrote:
| > I once got a strike on social media for posting an article
| about a German doctor that recommended whiskey to cure covid19.
| It was a joke, and any reasonable adult would know this is
| false.
|
| There are a heck of a lot of non-reasonable adults on social
| media.
|
| Unless something is very explicitly and prominently labeled as
| a joke or satire, in a way that won't get separated from it
| when it is re-shared by your downstream viewers, there's a good
| chance quite a few people will not catch on that it is not
| intended to be true.
|
| Social media can be particularly bad in this regard because it
| often encourages only spending a short time reading each
| individual post. It pushes breadth over depth.
|
| > 12 years ago we didn't have this problem, and I think that's
| mostly related to the fact there was some UX resistance to
| hitting the "reahare" button.
|
| I'm not sure that is most of it, but it contributes to
| increasing volume in people's feeds, pushing the breadth vs.
| depth balance toward breadth so makes things worse.
| OliverJones wrote:
| A "conservative" government threatens to shut down private
| businesses. Wait, what?
|
| Maybe the billionaire hotel magnate from New York should arrange
| a leveraged buyout of the business he doesn't like, and shut it
| down when he owns it.
| shmageggy wrote:
| Seems nonsensical like most of what Trump does, until you
| accept that he operates on the third axis of the political
| compass: how flattering or critical something is to Trump.
| C1sc0cat wrote:
| Its not real "conservative" views that get censored is it its
| entryist far right views.
|
| Its like in the UK when Corbyn's crank supporters claim ultra
| far left positions are main steam labour views when they are
| not.
| catalogia wrote:
| Corbyn is ultra far left? The way he was getting slandered as
| some sort of neonazi, I assumed he was considered too
| rightwing or something.
|
| British politics can be confusing to outside observers..
| tehwebguy wrote:
| There was a concerted effort to smear him from within his
| own party, it's not surprising that you got that
| impression.
|
| Edit: There is even a sister reply to this comment
| repeating the same nonsense, from a Google employee.
| Misinformation winning again.
| C1sc0cat wrote:
| Yep full he's full Tankie - more interested in turning
| Labour into a niche party and dreaming of a revolution.
|
| The sort who sell papers calling on the UK to help Assad
| crush the counter revolutionary's under the tracks of
| tanks.
| endtime wrote:
| He's the Islamic terrorist sympathizer type of anti-Semite,
| not the neo-Nazi type. We get it from both sides.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Just to distance myself from the current "conservative"
| establishment, I would argue that their views are not
| conservative so much as they are a relatively newer form of
| fascism. Typically with fascism there is nationalism that
| prioritizes the citizens of the nation above all else, but with
| this new "conservatism" in the US, the nationalism is a bit
| more race-based. But other than that it's much more close to
| fascism than what we in the US typically considered
| "conservatism".
|
| Maybe we need a new word for it altogether?
| SauciestGNU wrote:
| >the nationalism is a bit more race-based
|
| You could almost say it's a white nationalism. But really I
| think it's less about race and more about capital and
| political fealty. Loyalty to the seats of power above all
| else, and your value to the party and its "society"
| determined relative to your capital holdings.
| yc-kraln wrote:
| Ethnofascism or Ethnopluralism...
| krapp wrote:
| >Maybe we need a new word for it altogether?
|
| It's called the "alt-right[0]."
|
| And at the fringe of the fringe, right-wing
| accelerationism[1].
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right
|
| [1]https://www.vox.com/the-
| highlight/2019/11/11/20882005/accele...
| dang wrote:
| We changed the URL from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-
| threatens-close-social... to one that doesn't contain an auto-
| playing video. (via
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322719, but the comments
| have been moved thence hither).
| SuperFerret wrote:
| If Trump stops lying he won't have a problem.
| programmarchy wrote:
| He won't do any such thing. This is just red meat for his base to
| distract them from the fact he hasn't done anything for them.
| beepboopbeep wrote:
| Ok. Do it.
|
| As with all things trump, the man spends his days flailing about
| from one tantrum to the next with no actual focus or initiative.
| Bluster all day, every day.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I notice this post is flagged.
|
| HN will do what it do, but I can't escape the feeling that in an
| era where a President uses Twitter, HN will become less relevant
| as a technological discourse destination if it lacks the will to
| touch the ramifications of technology and politics combined.
| majewsky wrote:
| We have enough forums that allow or encourage political
| discussions and then inevitably devolve into hyper-partisan
| shitshows (Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc.). It's nice to have
| a refuge that's mostly free from this dynamic.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Good point. I respect the right of people to have a safe
| space. I hope HN can continue to be one.
|
| These are interesting times we live in, with a President
| leveraging modern communications technology in a way that
| hasn't really been seen since the fireside chat era of the
| Roosevelt administration.
| Arubis wrote:
| For those missing the context, Twitter didn't actually remove or
| censor anything; they added a small call-out next to a
| politically motivated tweet.
|
| Trump responded in an aggressive manner that can be perceived as
| threatening. That's one discussion, and one I'm not currently
| capable of engaging in rationally.
|
| The other discussion is whether Twitter did right in this case.
| Rather than tell Twitter they're out of place, I actually think
| they did the right thing, provided they're willing to do it
| _more_, to shift towards having this performed by a group with
| some transparency around it, and to reference sources when they
| do so.
|
| Seeing politicians I can't stand called out in public for lying
| is deeply satisfying, but won't change my mind about anything.
| I'd be interested in seeing what happens when fact checks on all
| politicians are considered expected & there's a purported neutral
| party doing so. Can that be done without the process itself being
| eaten alive by political agendas? Would I personally be open to
| fact checks on politicians that I myself favor, and would it
| change my perspective on them? It feels worth trying to find out.
|
| Ultimately, even if we end up deciding that an approach is
| unworkable, I applaud anyone willing to at least try to clean up
| our discourse right now. It's ugly enough to have created a
| divide that will eventually threaten violence at scale if not
| addressed.
|
| Edit: curious why the downvotes; this was deliberately civil.
| whatshisface wrote:
| I feel like if Twitter fact-checked one tweet from a high-
| profile Democrat for every one they did of a high-profile
| Republican, there would be a lot less outcry over the
| situation. I know the president happens to be a high-profile
| Republican, and as a result he's a more salient target for
| fact-checking, but lying and being wrong are both bipartisan
| strategies. The accusation is that Twitter is almost completely
| staffed by Dem voters and that they're biased as a result.
| Everyone knows the premise of that accusation is true, so a
| little formal knod to dispel the conclusion would be welcome.
| Arubis wrote:
| My emotion-driven reaction here ("ha! They'd run out of lies
| from side A before scratching the surface with side B!") is
| _exactly_ why trying something like this would be a good
| move.
| JMTQp8lwXL wrote:
| It is deeply satisfying to watch politicians get fact checked,
| especially when this reaffirms our world view. It's simply
| another tool in the toolkit for social media platforms to get
| us involved. To wield this more effectively to maximize
| engagement --which is an unsurprising move for social media
| companies, given their profit incentive to maximize ads-- the
| companies could choose to show individual fact-checks from a
| user's opposing political party only. I agree that fact checks
| don't change people's opinions, because people do not care if
| their world view is based in lies or reality, all that's
| important to the average social media consumer is the
| affirmation.
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| It really isn't about fact checking. No social media company is
| in position to do so, especially when dealing with unknown. It is
| about blocking the message, which IMHO is the same thing as tired
| old deplatforming. I am not taking sides here, but would it not
| be fair to have every journalist and politician who keeps
| tweeting about the Russian collision marked for fact checking or
| banned now that "official" sources disagree?
| thepangolino wrote:
| That would be hilarious to watch. Unfortunately we all know
| that's not happening.
| hadtodoit wrote:
| If companies want to allow user generated content they should
| be liable for moderating it. The legal protections that these
| companies have thrived on should be repealed. They don't seem
| to have trouble removing content they disagree with so illegal
| content shouldn't be any more difficult.
| baq wrote:
| nobody is in a position to declare any fact truth. it's
| impossible almost by definition.
|
| that doesn't mean that it isn't possible for some facts. in
| fact, i believe social media are among the best positioned to
| do so for surprisingly many facts.
| jwalgenbach wrote:
| What a maroon.
| qubex wrote:
| Moron?
| overlordalex wrote:
| Likely a reference to a Bugs Bunny catch-phrase:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NYFq7ZJg4c
| Eldandan wrote:
| I always thought maroon was actual slang for "idiot", when
| in fact it was just a cartoon rabbit ironically
| mispronouncing the word moron.
| krapp wrote:
| Bugs Bunny is also the reason "nimrod" has become slang
| for an inept person. Nimrod in the Bible is a powerful
| warrior and capable hunter, but Bugs used it ironically
| against Elmer Fudd.
| [deleted]
| Finnucane wrote:
| It's pretty obvious that DT is not going to shut down the very
| platforms he relies on for his political survival. Even he's not
| that stupid. Nor does he have any real regulatory authority that
| could be employed that wouldn't also bite him back. So this is
| just him trying to bully the platforms into letting him say
| whatever without being exposed to any criticism or being called
| out for bullshit.
| dathinab wrote:
| Sure, but such bullying is rather dangerous.
|
| Normally such threads come from people which are somewhat in
| the process or trying to de-mantel a democracy. So a US
| president saying something like that is quite worrying even if
| his intentions are not to undermine the US democracy.
| cryptonector wrote:
| There's bullying and there's bullying. Some Presidents have
| used the IRS against their opponents. If this President uses
| only rhetoric, then I'm fine with that. Also, pushing rule-
| making authority at the FCC or FTC is not over the line the
| way using the IRS is.
| techntoke wrote:
| That is exactly his intentions. He is an idiot for using
| Twitter in the first place. He should have been advocating
| for a decentralized Internet where his followers could live
| in a bubble catered to them.
| seph-reed wrote:
| Holy fuck A+!
|
| Almost every time I hear people call Trump stupid, I cringe
| a bit expecting them to follow it up with examples of their
| inability to deal with trolls and "why can't everyone get
| along."
|
| I really wish everyone could get along, but life isn't so
| sweet yet.
|
| What you suggested was a better way to troll, thereby
| proving you understand the shit bag, and his game. You are
| legitimately smarter than Trump at his own game, and that
| is something I've seen pretty much nowhere.
|
| Thank you so much for existing.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| Aren't the algorithms probably better at curating that
| bubble than people would be themselves though? If I started
| using Twitter and I followed Trump, a few people posting
| weird pro-Trump memes about him at the top of the comments
| on his tweets, and pro-Trump media, wouldn't the algorithm
| curate me a pretty nice bubble feed? Twitter always spam my
| feed with random things people I follow liked/replied to,
| surely they'd do the same for people with that sort of
| account too?
| root_axis wrote:
| DT doesn't "rely on twitter for his political survival", any
| platform he goes to all his supporters would happily follow
| while gleefully trashing twitter on their way out the door.
|
| > _Nor does he have any real regulatory authority that could be
| employed that wouldn 't also bite him back_
|
| I'm not convinced of that. Trump has repeatedly shown he is
| willing to exercise executive authority to the fullest extent
| possible and the courts have repeatedly affirmed his ability to
| do so. I'm not sure what kind of "bite back" you expect, but
| that kind of thing has never been an obstacle for Trump. At the
| end of the day I think you're right that he's bullying them,
| but I think it's wrong to believe that he won't actually go
| after them if they do not comply with his demands or at the
| very least retract the fact-check and praise him
| astronautjones wrote:
| > DT doesn't "rely on twitter for his political survival",
| any platform he goes to all his supporters would happily
| follow while gleefully trashing twitter on their way out the
| door.
|
| they wouldn't, and even if they did it would be a helpful
| change. society's legitimization of twitter (a brand whose
| logo is on so many unrelated products, billboards, flyers,
| advertisements etc) is what makes his disinformation on that
| platform dangerous.
|
| if he's siloed to somewhere that is obviously just for his
| supporters, it will have far less of a dangerous effect.
| people made the same threat about alex jones, and
| deplatforming him was absolutely a positive for society.
| root_axis wrote:
| > _they wouldn 't_
|
| I mean the influencers would never voluntarily cede a
| legion of followers but they'd absolutely and vocally
| support Trump if he moved to a different platform and all
| his fans would create accounts on that new platform if they
| didn't have one already.
|
| > _society 's legitimization of twitter..._
|
| We're in complete agreement there, it's a tough cultural
| problem, not sure how we solve it without just teaching the
| next generation to be highly skeptical of social media
| platforms.
|
| > _he 's siloed to somewhere that is obviously just for his
| supporters, it will have far less of a dangerous effect_
|
| I don't think it makes much difference, it costs nothing to
| just "exist" on twitter even if you engage primarily on a
| different platform, twitter would just become one of many
| targeted dumping grounds for all the crap they cook up in
| the silo. Honestly I'm surprised it hasn't happened
| already, but I think it's their next logical step,
| something like a mainstream 4chan.
| learc83 wrote:
| >and all his fans would create accounts on that new
| platform if they didn't have one already.
|
| I have plenty of family who are Trump supporters and not
| one of them has a Twitter account.
| root_axis wrote:
| What's your point? Obviously not every Trump supporter
| has a twitter account.
| ojnabieoot wrote:
| The salient comparison is Bezos and WaPo. Even if Trump can't
| attack a newspaper directly, he can (and has) attacked other
| business ventures to try to force censorship - hit AWS hard
| enough that Bezos interfere with his newspaper to get Trump off
| his back. Given yesterday's WSJ story about Facebook, it seems
| to be working.
|
| One tactic I think is likely to come from Barr and the DOJ is a
| corrupt selective enforcement of anti-trust laws - decide
| Twitter and AWS are monopolies but Facebook and Microsoft are
| not.
| dathinab wrote:
| Twitter being a monopoly but Facebook not would be totally
| ridiculous in more than one way.
|
| EDIT: Just to be clear I'm not saying your post is
| ridiculous, but Trump is. And yes the following is somewhat
| sarcasm END EDIT.
|
| Let me guess next Mercedes and BMW have a oligopol on cars
| and china will be classified as a company with an monopol on
| cheap products.
|
| The crazy/scary think is that I believe Trump would totally
| cable of doing it if he get's the legal power and time to do
| so...
| ProAm wrote:
| Twitter will kowtow to the President here. He is the reason alone
| Twitter survived the last 6 years and they have shown publicly
| that politicians and celebrities play by different rules on their
| platform.
| bearjaws wrote:
| In the last 15+ years we have heard this same story, "X
| platform wouldn't exist without Y user". This has never turned
| out to be true for any large scale social media platform. For
| the platforms that have failed, it was always a better platform
| that took their place, not one single user causing a mass
| migration.
|
| Look at the_donald, which had a mass migration off of Reddit,
| and everyone said Reddit was going to shutdown without their ad
| revenue. Still waiting...
| ProAm wrote:
| I agree but I really think Trump saved Twitter. The company
| was for sale and couldn't find a buyer remotely interested.
| They couldnt find anyone willing to take the CEO seat so they
| asked Jack Dorsey to come back. They were in the dumps as a
| company until Trump started to tweet like a madman. I really
| do believe that Trump saved Twitter. I dont remember people
| thinking Reddit would fail if they lost the_donald subreddit?
| carapace wrote:
| (I think we need a semantic refactoring tool for threads like
| this one to extract the minimal graph of argument-and-counter-
| argument; DRY for discussions.)
| iron0013 wrote:
| I'm seeing a couple of red herrings dominate these comments,
| which really have no relevancy to the issue at hand.
|
| 1. The veracity of twitter's fact checking. This absolutely does
| not matter, since Twitter may host or refuse to host whatever
| they want on their own website, including incorrect fact checks
| if that's how they get their jollies (not that there's any
| evidence that their fact checks have been incorrect so far,
| because there isn't). On the other hand, Trump doesn't have the
| same right, because he doesn't own Twitter.com
|
| 2. Hate speech, and whether it is ever justified. Again, this
| doesn't matter. Twitter has the right to remove (or visibly flag
| as the case may be) any post they want on their website, for any
| reason they want. They might do so because a post is hate speech,
| but they'd be just as firmly within their rights to do so for any
| other reason.
|
| I think all of the confusion in these comments exists because the
| law is very simple, but many folks here don't like the
| conclusion:
|
| 1. Twitter may fact check, flag, or remove the posts of Trump or
| any other user completely at their discretion, even if their fact
| checking turns out to be incorrect. Nothing about this violates
| Trump's first amendment rights in any way.
|
| 2. I had hoped this was obvious, but in case it's unclear to you,
| Trump and the US government absolutely do not have the power to
| shut down or punish Twitter in any way just because they don't
| like the way that Twitter has fact checked Trump's posts. This
| would in fact (obviously) violate Twitter's first amendment
| rights.
|
| Finally, there is no legal distinction between a "platform" and a
| "publisher" that in any way restricts the control that a business
| has over their own website. Anyone who claims otherwise is simply
| incorrect, and not worth listening to.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Forget about the free speech albatross. To me, what Twitter is
| doing looks like a clear case of election interference. They are
| basically giving free ads to the opposition of Trump. He tweets
| something, they annotate it with a link to media sources that are
| heavily biased toward the democrats.
|
| Will they be giving the same treatment to @joebiden? He has been
| known to lie and plagiarize throughout his political career.
|
| Who qualifies as a reliable source for fact checking? I see links
| to sources like CBS and CNN, neither of which are known as
| bastions of truth, and both of which have failed many fact checks
| themselves, in recent memory.
| myvoiceismypass wrote:
| If Biden lies in a tweet, they should flag it!
|
| I suspect, however, that he does not have the time to sit
| tweeting trash all day long while "leading" this country.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Just looking at Biden's twitter timeline, I see plenty of
| tweets that could be "fact checked," if we're using Trump's
| voter fraud claim as an example of what needs to be checked.
| Yet somehow, I doubt any of them will.
|
| Examples:
|
| - "36,000 Americans could be alive today if President Trump
| had acted sooner." [This is entirely speculative and
| impossible to prove, similar to Trump's mail-in voting claim]
|
| - "The hard truth is Donald Trump ignored the warnings of
| health experts and intelligence agencies, downplayed the
| threat COVID-19 posed, and failed to take the action needed
| to combat the outbreak." [This is false, and certainly not a
| "hard truth". He took early action including closing the
| borders to China, which Joe Biden deemed xenophobic at the
| time.]
|
| - "I've said it before, and I'll say it again: No company
| pulling in billions of dollars in profits should pay a lower
| tax rate than firefighters and teachers." [This is highly
| misleading, and could benefit from context, e.g.
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/does-amazon-really-pay-no-
| taxes...]
|
| - "In the middle of this crisis, President Trump is trying to
| cut food assistance. It's morally bankrupt." [This is
| misleading. He's not cutting food assistance; the USDA is
| attempting to add a work requirement to SNAP benefits.]
|
| - "In the middle of the worst public health crisis in our
| lifetime, President Trump is actively trying to terminate
| health insurance for millions of Americans. It's
| unthinkable." [Highly misleading if not outright false.]
|
| Are any of these black-and-white false? No. But neither is
| what Twitter is fact checking Trump for. If they were to
| apply fair standards, they would "fact check" Biden too. But
| they won't. And we all know why. Maybe it has something to do
| with the fact that the person in charge of this new policy
| has called Trump a "nazi" and a "racist tangerine."
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| So much simpler: one guy says outlandish, easily disproven
| things 100 times a day. Its just shooting fish in a barrel
| - lazy.
| iso1631 wrote:
| They give free ads to Trump by providing him a platform in the
| first place! He doesn't have to use that platform.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > To me, what Twitter is doing looks like a clear case of
| election interference.
|
| I'll be sure to look for the DNC ads on Fox, if they're not
| told they're unwelcome.
|
| Or pro-choice messaged ads in conservative religious
| publications.
|
| Hey, Fox could even agree to run Trump ads for free.
|
| None of those things are election interference.
| myspy wrote:
| Well, Facebook and Twitter are currently used in cyberwarfare to
| destabilise western democracies and the result is pretty
| impressive, because it works.
|
| Give people their Facebook but remove the algorithms from the
| timeline and close all groups to make it harder for people to
| spread misinformation and group together to celebrate it. Or
| close it all together, social media doesn't have that many
| upsides. My observation from more than ten years with those
| tools.
|
| No idea where the problem lies in Twitter but marking tweets with
| lies and conspiracy stuff is a step in a good direction.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Social media can't not have algorithms for limiting what you
| get to see, otherwise you'd be swamped with items on your
| timeline and you'd stop using them. Oh, I see what you're
| doing. Yes, they should get rid of the algorithms!
| qubex wrote:
| Wasn't it Voltaire who said " _I disapprove of what you say, but
| I will defend to the death your right to say it_ "?
|
| Nonetheless, this is pretty much par for the course for what the
| world has come to expect.
|
| Edit: It turns out that though phrase is often attributed to
| Voltaire, it was actually Evelyn Beatrice Hall, as noted by the
| poster below, to whom I am grateful for the correction.
| krapp wrote:
| Actually, no, turns out it was Evelyn Beatrice Hall[0].
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Beatrice_Hall
| qubex wrote:
| Thanks, I stand corrected.
| tootie wrote:
| When Voltaire was alive the French government was a monarchy
| that employed official censors that had the authority to
| prevent criticism of the church or state from being published
| by anyone. That kind of censorship is explicitly illegal under
| the first amendment. There is really no precedent for the mass
| publication of free-flowing content from anyone in the world
| prior the 1980s that would be relevant.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Would he defend your right to say it _in his living room_ ,
| though?
|
| (Let's also not lose sight of the fact that Trump hasn't even
| had his tweets deleted or censored in any fashion. Just a note
| added underneath.)
| qubex wrote:
| Clearly broadcast and social media are a new occurrence that
| needs to be factored into the discussion somehow, and if you
| were to argue that applying Enlightenment political theory to
| the current situation is an anachronism, I would tend to
| agree.
|
| I'd also like to see social media and search engines
| legislated as utilities... but I'm in the EU so my opinion
| scarcely matters, to be perfectly honest.
| Reelin wrote:
| > I'm in the EU so my opinion scarcely matters, to be
| perfectly honest
|
| That's not really true (I say this as an American). Sure,
| the US government is highly unlikely to change their
| policies based on what people living in the EU think. That
| doesn't mean the EU can't legislate such things within
| their own borders though. There's no technological reason a
| search engine or social media platform couldn't be based in
| the EU; for example, Qwant exists (https://www.qwant.com).
| doublesCs wrote:
| Cue republicans outraged at the president's attack on the first
| amendment.
|
| ..
|
| Lol joking, they love it.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| Not like there's any real impact here. Now if Twitter were in
| the cake business, it'd be a national security imperative to
| defend their rights as a private entity.
| scarface74 wrote:
| And this is the government that the HN crowd is screaming to
| "regulate tech"?
| rlewkov wrote:
| A private company is not obliged to publish anyone's Tweets, blog
| posts, opinions, etc and it is not a violation of free speech.
| [deleted]
| freen wrote:
| Obligatory xkcd https://xkcd.com/1357/
| hn2017 wrote:
| A new controvery for Trump so people ignore his previous
| Controversy of the Week. More airtime for Trump, it's a repeat of
| 2016. Unfortunately.
| _aleph2c_ wrote:
| This could be an extinction level event for the right. They have
| managed to circumvent the conventional media by going directly to
| the masses. If social media is mediated by the highly educated,
| and typically left leaning staff; there will be no way for the
| right to send out there message. The left leaning staff think
| they are doing the right thing, but what they are doing will
| extinguish the oxygen to the other side.
| falcolas wrote:
| Free speech is not just an American constitutional right; many
| countries throughout the world consider free speech to be a human
| right.
|
| So, yeah, many of us get a bit worked up when people are kicked
| off platforms, because they are being silenced, sometimes to the
| point of being shut out of the modern internet entirely (when
| their rights to a DNS address are comprehensively removed).
|
| Hate speech and lies are terrible, but they're not the only thing
| being silenced.
| Traster wrote:
| Okay, so I think there's some nuance there, I think there's a
| pragmatic line to draw - I don't think someone has a right to
| say anything on twitter, I just don't think that's twitters
| role is to be neutral. But I think there's a line where we go
| from a product that's curated and moderated - something like
| twitter, to something that is truly infrastructure. The DNS
| example is great, I don't think a DNS company should be able to
| refuse to service based on the content that's being served
| because the role of the DNS is simply to resolve a name to an
| address. What's served on that address is immaterial. I think
| we draw a bright line between those two types of things,
| although I'm sure it's more difficult than that when we're
| trying to design a law.
| falcolas wrote:
| If Twitter wants control over what's published on their site,
| then they give up their rights (their 'free harbor'-alike
| protections) to not be held responsible for the content they
| censor and let through.
|
| Twitter _et al_. are where modern speech happens. They pushed
| themselves into this position, and thus upholding the human
| right to free speech also falls upon them.
|
| So long as Twitter is not shut down, then ___perhaps_ __some
| government oversight (to the limit of holding Twitter
| responsible for what and who they censor) is appropriate.
|
| Free speech, in this case, trumps my intense dislike of our
| current administration.
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| >If Twitter wants control over what's published on their
| site, then they give up their rights (their 'free
| harbor'-alike protections) to not be held responsible for
| the content they censor and let through.
|
| Where is this in US law? Are you confusing DMCA safe harbor
| issues with speech?
|
| All platforms take control over content - otherwise they
| could not remove child porn, PII, etc., and they don't lose
| DMCA safe harbor exemptions, which only applies to
| copyrighted items posted by users.
| falcolas wrote:
| It appears like you are conflating the removal of illegal
| content with the censorship of legal content. Two very
| different concepts.
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| I didn't conflate anything. You claimed Twitter loses
| "rights" by exercising control over content, and I asked
| where you got that idea. Where is the law that backs your
| claim? Do you have one?
| nkassis wrote:
| It doesn't have to be a black and white a binary choice as
| you suggest. Maybe that's what you'd like because it makes
| the rule easier to grasp but it's possible to allow a
| threshold on how much they can interfere before things get
| to a point where a heavy handed solution like government
| involvement is needed to regulate them.
| Stranger43 wrote:
| But at what point does an service cross from being an
| platform in an competitive market to an crucial part of the
| infrastructure used by an society for communication?
|
| If twitter/facebook is allowed to serve as a primary means
| for an government organisation/department to serve as the
| primary way which it communicate it's not to hard to argue
| that that line have been crossed where it have to act as an
| "open access" common carirer, from an pragmatic real world
| stand point.
|
| Putting an purely technical definition as the core of this
| debate is arguing over how many angels can fit on an pin
| needle, and not of any real value for deciding what kind of
| society we want.
| RandomTisk wrote:
| Then Twitter has to lose their protections as a 'carrier' and
| become a publisher with all the regulation that goes along
| with being a publisher.
| Traster wrote:
| No they don't. People seem to have this idea that either
| you should be liable for nothing and control nothing or
| liable for everything control everything. The point of
| these platforms is that whilst they're allowing users to
| post under limited conditions, they don't have any pre-
| publication editorial control. That is a material
| difference from a publisher. They also aren't totally
| agnostic to content (like a DNS service). This attempt to
| hold user-generated content to the same standard as news
| organisations is clearly ridiculous and I don't know why
| people keep trying to apply it. It's a great way of
| ensuring that no level of regulation will ever be applied -
| since the suggested level of regulation completely destroys
| the business model of several hundred billion dollar
| businesses.
| falcolas wrote:
| This concept is already enshrined in law, the concept of
| free harbor. So long as a service provider doesn't do
| their own curation, they are not held responsible for the
| content that is posted. However, if they do curate, then
| they are responsible.
|
| Applying this to Twitter, Facebook et al. is not that big
| of a leap.
|
| > completely destroys the business model of several
| hundred billion dollar businesses
|
| They are not entitled to their business model, especially
| not at the price of trampling upon something broadly
| considered to be an inherit human right.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| >So long as a service provider doesn't do their own
| curation, they are not held responsible for the content
| that is posted.
|
| Except they are held responsible if they don't curate.
| Look at laws like SESTA to see how platforms that don't
| self-curate content that could sexualize minors are
| legally liable.
|
| I'm not saying SESTA is bad, I'm saying this idea that
| platforms need to be hands-off towards curation to
| maintain safe harbor protection is not true.
| falcolas wrote:
| You're conflating removing illegal content with removing
| legal content that someone doesn't like.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| Which is exactly the point, that platforms who do not
| self-curate some types of user-generated content _are
| not_ protected by safe harbor laws.
|
| Your idea that safe-harbor laws only apply to platforms
| who don't self-curate is absurd precisely because there
| is illegal content they, the platforms, can be held
| liable for instead of the users.
| originalvichy wrote:
| Even in the case of DNS, you can still use a local hosts file
| to use a human-readable name.
| dang wrote:
| (We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322571)
| ianleeclark wrote:
| > So, yeah, many of us get a bit worked up when people are
| kicked off platforms, because they are being silenced,
| sometimes to the point of being shut out of the modern internet
| entirely (when their rights to a DNS address are
| comprehensively removed).
|
| Why is it bad that were refusing to let something like
| stormfront operate in polite society? Your free speech
| absolutism is dangerous.
|
| You can't debate an inherently bad-faith interlocutor, so
| dealing with Nazis points "out in the open," "in the
| marketplace of ideas," will not work. It will only legitimize
| their viewpoint as one worthy of consideration, thus debate.
| It's cool and good what happened to them.
| kortex wrote:
| Such a tough subject.
|
| The problem is this tactic is consistently agaisnt many
| dissident publications, often on pro-democratic ones by
| autocratic countries. So what/where do you draw the line for
| "this speech is unacceptable so we won't propagate DNS
| entries for it", and who draws it? USA? ICANN? The host
| country? Each DNS gets to pick and choose?
|
| Going in the other direction, if this speech is so bad, why
| don't ISP's just ban the IP? We could do like Youtube
| automated takedowns, only it's a packet blackhole.
|
| At the expense of pushing the satire, what we really need is
| Deep Packet Free Speech Inspection (tm). All packets are
| inspected by a blockchain-powered AI in the cloud for
| acceptibility and lack of Nazi content. All servers which
| respond to HTTPS must escrow TLS keys to enable Freedom
| Audits.
|
| If allowing an operator to have DNS records or an IP address
| "legitimizes" them, then we need some full-blown worldwide
| consortium which determines the (il)legitimacy of each and
| every domain. Who has votes in this consortium? What if China
| wants to put the kabash on some Uyghurs because of
| "Terrorism" but Netherlands want to keep it up. Sounds like a
| beaurocratic nightmare.
| ianleeclark wrote:
| > Sounds like a beaurocratic nightmare
|
| Okay, give me the keys and Ill do it.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| There's an extremely easy line to draw: "if you run the
| server, you make the rules".
|
| If you run a DNS server, you're free to refuse to carry any
| record you want. And people are free to use or not use your
| DNS server, based on its policies. (There are various DNS
| servers that purport to block ads and malware, for
| instance.)
|
| If you run a blog, you can choose to not allow comments at
| all, or moderate them as you see fit. If someone wants to
| reply in a way you don't want to host, they can respond via
| their own blog.
|
| If you run a hosting company, you can (and should) refuse
| to host spammers, malware, people launching DDoS attacks,
| and so on.
|
| If you run an email server, you can choose to reject spam.
|
| Many interesting and desirable policies happen at the meta-
| level, based on that fundamental principle along with
| freedom of association. People will choose which servers to
| use based on the nature and quality of moderation; it's one
| of the defining aspects of a service.
| AgentME wrote:
| Domains do get taken down sometimes already without that
| international bureaucratic nightmare consortium that you're
| proposing. I'm not sure your solution sounds good.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| You debate an inherently bad-faith interlocutor, not to win
| the debate with them, but to win the _audience_. The thing
| is, something like stormfront is out there, whether twitter
| or whoever carries them or not. I 'd like their drivel to be
| clearly exposed as drivel, and clearly understood to be
| drivel by everyone, so that when they get exposed to it in
| some unexpected way (they follow an innocent-looking link or
| whatever), then they take one look, think "Oh yeah, that
| garbage. Yeah, they make it sound good, but it's still
| trash." That happens when the stuff is publicly challenged
| and refuted, not when it's hidden away.
| neaden wrote:
| Yeah, that's not how it works at all. People who start
| watching the Qanon videos in their Youtube reccomendations
| aren't going to then get swayed by your eloquent speech,
| they are going to get sucked into a whole alternate world
| where your arguments are just dismissed as part of the
| conspiracy.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| My point was that they should be exposed to why this
| stuff is garbage _before_ they start watching Qanon, so
| that, when they stumble onto a Qanon video, they aren 't
| swayed by the video's eloquent(?) speech or dazzling(?)
| logic.
| ianleeclark wrote:
| > My point was that they should be exposed to why this
| stuff is garbage before they start watching Qanon
|
| You're effectively calling for some sort of cultural
| revolution that stamps out anti-Semitism through proper
| education. Seriously we've tried this with other topics,
| all they're going to do is say you're indoctrinating
| children, then you'll inevitably fall into a defensive
| position where you feel like you have to back it up with
| numbers and eloquent arguments. Bam, they've won because
| there will always be a first movers advantage with
| information: your opponent can now make an outrageous
| claim that people see, internalize, and then never see
| your rational follow-up to. You're all so incredibly
| terrified of censorship when the real terror is right in
| front of your eyes: a torrent of information, engagement,
| and half-consumption.
|
| This is so incredibly tedious. I see the same thing that
| I'm describing here happen with any number of semblance
| of social progress: homosexuality, trans rights, even
| marijuana legalization. This cyclic pattern has to be
| hell, I can't fathom any other possible explanation for
| such a thoroughly trained helplessness.
| neaden wrote:
| How do you do that though? If someone doesn't know what
| QAnon is why would they watch a video debunking it? If
| you have mass media doing take downs of it that will just
| inspire a certain segment of the population to believe it
| because "Look how THEY don't want you to know this!" The
| sad thing is that tech, especially Youtube and Facebook,
| have through their algorithms promoted these conspiracy
| theories since QAnon conspiracy theorist watch a lot of
| videos and comment a lot which are the metrics they
| promote.
| ianleeclark wrote:
| I'm going to point you to the entire European history as a
| counter point. Take your pick of any pogrom, forced
| relocation, or whatever, and you'll always find people
| speaking out against it. It didn't do any good.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| Jean-Paul Sartre called this out half a century ago when
| faced with the alt-right of his time:
|
| >Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of
| the absurdity of their replies. They know that their
| remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are
| amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is
| obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in
| words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even
| like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous
| reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their
| interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since
| they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to
| intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely,
| they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some
| phrase that the time for argument is past.
| magicalist wrote:
| This is the opposite of what your parent comment is
| arguing...
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Not entirely. I think you can interact with people doing
| what Sartre describes, and do so in a way that other
| people can see what is going on - can see the phoniness
| and gamesmanship of the anti-Semite.
|
| You're not going to persuade people who are playing that
| game. They're just going to keep playing the game, and
| enjoy the fact that they're "winning" (in their own
| terms). But I think you can make it so that they lose in
| the battle for hearts and minds.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >Free speech is not just an American constitutional right; many
| countries throughout the world consider free speech to be a
| human right.
|
| Although virtually none do so in unrestricted fashion. Hate
| speech, racism, genocide denial and so on aren't protected by
| free-speech in the overwhelming amount of legislations even in
| countries with a liberal tradition, and just like any other
| right free speech is subject to limitations.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Just to be absolutely clear, the United States is one (yes,
| unique) case that _does_ protect all of the types of speech
| you listed here.
| jdashg wrote:
| Incitement isn't protected speak though. It's not
| unabridged, nor black and white.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| Of those listed, yes, but SCOTUS has ruled that speech
| whose expression causes harm is not protected by the first
| amendment - i.e. your photos of children performing sexual
| acts are not protected by the first amendment.
|
| The first amendment is not a blank check to express
| anything you want in the U.S.
| VeninVidiaVicii wrote:
| Correct. Twitter may be silenced altogether for exercising
| journalistic integrity.
| shiado wrote:
| How can the "private platform so they can do whatever they want"
| crowd reconcile their views on election interference using social
| media in 2016 with this latest move by Twitter? If they can do
| what they want with their platform why did it matter in 2016 and
| why does it not matter now?
| beart wrote:
| I can't directly answer the question. However, I think what
| complicates this issue is the political actors involved.
| Twitter may be a private platform, but when the President posts
| a Tweet, that is very much a public, political, government
| message.
|
| For example, a federal judge barred Trump from blocking
| followers, despite Twitter being a private platform.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/23/trump-cant-block-twitter-fol...
| rtkwe wrote:
| The big difference here is the judge was restricting Trump as
| a government actor from doing something while the Twitter
| side of things is Twitter doing something on their own
| platform. Trump very much was using Twitter as the official
| place for announcements for a while and if it's the official
| place to learn government policy you can't block people from
| seeing it.
| adrianN wrote:
| When Trump closes down social media we can finally go back to the
| version of the Internet were people just had personal blogs and
| you curated your "feed" yourself by subscribing to their RSS.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| Readers beware: it's basically useless to argue either side of
| this position because the level of nuance, complexity, and
| convolution involved in such a discussion is beyond the limits of
| what a threaded comment board can accomplish.
| cryptonector wrote:
| And yet the argument must be had.
| 5Qn8mNbc2FNCiVV wrote:
| Offtopic: The difference of reading newssites with and without
| JavaScript enabled is so insane, it's crazy how my flagship phone
| on a 200k WiFi connection grinds to an halt on the first few
| seconds (apart from the jarring experience of jumping content)
| systematical wrote:
| Uh huh...
| jdhn wrote:
| Putting aside concerns about overreach government powers, would
| ending social media as we know it really be a bad thing?
| rcurry wrote:
| But you can - just don't use it.
| neuland wrote:
| Although it's impossible to put the genie back in the bottle,
| social media has had a net negative effect on a LOT of people.
| There's people that have had a big positive effect to. So, it's
| not obvious where it ends up on net if that even matters.
|
| But, yeah. There's a lot of people that would be better off not
| on social media. But it's so addictive that they can't help
| themselves.
|
| I, for one, have stopped using social media (unless you
| consider HN social). And I've had a lot less friends because of
| it. But it's been a huge improvement in my mood and outlook on
| life.
| Loughla wrote:
| >(unless you consider HN social)
|
| Yes, yes it is. What else would it be? What's the difference
| between sites like HN and reddit, and facebook?
| rtkwe wrote:
| I think one place HN falls short of what I think of as
| social media is that there's no following of individual
| accounts, that creation of networks and personalized feeds
| feels like part of the core of what separates social media
| from simpler forums. Reddit was closer to just forums as
| well but subreddits allowed you to more directly curate and
| associate between groups, now every user basically has
| their own little subreddit they can post on and people can
| follow and join.
| neuland wrote:
| Yes, so that's why I somewhat included it. But, it's
| definitely on the lighter side of social I think.
|
| On HN, it's a lot tougher to follow specific people, though
| it's cool to see posts and then follow up with what they've
| recently posted or commented.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| > unless you consider HN social
|
| Why wouldn't we? Pseudonyms? Reddit is considered social, I
| think, and that tends to be even more difficult to map to IRL
| identity.
|
| Edit: just barely not inb4!
| catalogia wrote:
| Perhaps it would be easier to enumerate the things that
| _aren 't_ social networks. Does the postal system
| constitute a social network, at least in the literal sense
| of those words? Maybe! It's a network that facilitates
| social interactions after all.
| neuland wrote:
| Yeah, that's why I only somewhat included it. It's tougher
| to follow specific people. But it is possible if you keep a
| list yourself of interesting accounts and check in later on
| what they've posted.
|
| But the dynamic is definitely different and seems a lot
| more anonymous unless you are a really high profile account
| like antirez, patio11, drewdevault, or a CEO of some well
| known company or startup.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I could do without Facebook and Twitter, but what counts as
| social media? Does Stack Exchange count? Hacker News? Email?
| [deleted]
| drewmate wrote:
| We probably need a more detailed vocabulary for describing
| various types of social media. In my opinion, the most
| insidious forms of social media share three attributes:
|
| * Broad reach - they are accessible to and used by a
| population broadly for public communication rather than a
| specific subset of the population or private communication.
|
| * Optimized for engagement - Content is personalized and
| optimized for individual engagement. Compare this to a stream
| of content organized by time (email inbox) or basically time
| with minimal voting/decaying (HN)
|
| * Feedback is quantifiable and visible - Likes, retweets,
| upvotes (ie, engagement metrics) are countable and displayed
| to users. I think this gets at something deep in the human
| psyche and encourages users to chase those metrics.
|
| It turns out that in systems with all three (FB, Twitter),
| you create enormous echo chambers that only occasionally
| flare up into outrage when they inevitably leak to a broader
| audience. This is great for engagement but pretty self
| evidently bad for society.
|
| Lots of sites fit somewhere on this spectrum (including HN
| and Stack Exchange) but have basic safeguards to prevent the
| worst types of behavior. But this is usually because they
| aren't profit motivated to slide all the way to one side on
| the three factors above.
| raziel2p wrote:
| How? Forbid all of it? Forbid what, exactly - any app that
| allows communication between more than 1 person?
|
| Even if Twitter were to go bankrupt tomorrow, something else
| would come to replace it.
| eloc49 wrote:
| Get rid of section 230
| jtbayly wrote:
| Making public comments anywhere online impossible? I don't
| think that's helpful.
| jdhn wrote:
| If Trump actually closed it (not going to happen), then
| something may come along to replace Twitter, but it certainly
| wouldn't act like Twitter.
| w0m wrote:
| Why wouldn't it? Proven good formula and a hole in the
| market. A dozen clones would spring up immediately.
| croon wrote:
| Because the government closed something that acted
| exactly like it before?
|
| Aka chilling effect.
| ImprobableTruth wrote:
| Social media can only survive because of safe harbor
| provisions. If sites become responsible for the content they
| host, social media as we know would instantly die out.
| shultays wrote:
| You are not forced to follow or interact poeple you
| disagree with.
| orian wrote:
| Funny you say, but on social platforms we know you are
| kind of forced, through suggestions and ads.
| raziel2p wrote:
| Newspapers "force" you to read articles by their writers
| and ads as well... This has nothing to do with social
| media.
| anewdirection wrote:
| Newspapers are curated and responsible for what they
| publish.
| rwmj wrote:
| So would a vast number of things. github, blogs, cloud,
| public web hosting of almost any kind.
| ImprobableTruth wrote:
| Sure. I'm not saying that I think it would be good, just
| that it's possible.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Just so we're clear: Hacker News is social media.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| Are message boards / BBS / forums?
| danShumway wrote:
| Yes.
|
| I don't want to be dismissive, if you have some kind of
| distinction you're trying to get at, I'm open to hearing
| it. But I personally don't see a big conceptual difference
| between Reddit and a forum, other than that one of them
| happened to get bigger. And I'm pretty skeptical of using
| size as a criteria here, because it would force us to say
| that Google+ and MySpace stopped being social media at some
| point when they dipped in popularity.
| teknopaul wrote:
| That would be a USA Great Firewall. It would require some re-
| branding to get the US population to accept it
| michaelt wrote:
| We're gonna build a wall, and make Cyberspace pay for it.
| Mindwipe wrote:
| Trump would have no intention of ending social media. He just
| wants to end social media that doesn't do what he wants.
|
| And yes, that would be an overwhelmingly bad thing.
| [deleted]
| ecmascript wrote:
| I think it would be great and I pretty much long for it. It's
| so obvious that even if it may be an overreach, there is such
| malpractice going on from all major social media players.
|
| __Youtube __: Censors youtubers, documented in so many cases.
| It also gives "authoritarian news" a heavier weight in the
| algorithm. Removes comments with "communist bandits" in
| Chinese.
|
| __Twitter __: Seriously bans people if they say the wrong
| pronoun
|
| __Reddit __: A few people controls the majority of big
| subreddits, bans people with conservative views outright. Bans
| people that _upvote_ stuff that they don 't like. The have
| removed, banned hundreds of subreddits and users in the last
| few months. While they have chinese owners.
|
| __Facebook __: Surprisingly the best of the bunch when it
| comes to serving every viewpoint imo. But they have had huge
| privacy implications just so many times.
|
| But even so, I am very torn on the subject. The best thing
| would probably to force these companies not to
| censor/ban/remove people based on opinions. But the best thing
| for the world would most likely for these social media sites to
| not exist in the first place.
|
| Personally I think social media sucks but I think most people
| are not ready to live without it either.
| dionian wrote:
| I'll believe Twitter's new actions are pure once it starts fact-
| checking politicians of all stripes.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| From a free speech/free press standpoint, private company Twitter
| absolutely has the right to editorialize Trump's tweets, while
| Trump trying to silence Twitter would be the government
| infringing on the right to free speech/press.
| nautilus12 wrote:
| But if that were true then they would be personally liable in a
| court of law for tweets that break the law. Seems like they
| want to be treated as both an "editor" with the right to change
| user content and "just a distribution platform". They can't
| have it both ways.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| What about from an FEC regulations standpoint? Does Twitter
| have the right to insert DNC messaging into Trump tweets
| without the DNC disclosing the donation?
| FireBeyond wrote:
| That would be in violation of electoral law, and the moment
| Twitter does that, I'm sure there will be a repercussion.
| It's also quite the leap, even from here.
| sabertoothed wrote:
| Exactly. It is just another lie that Twitter would be "stifling
| free speech". Free speech was not stifled: Trump could even say
| what he wanted even though it is a private platform.
| rodiger wrote:
| When referring to free speech, it is common to refer to the
| moral backbone of freedom of speech (strong entity shouldn't
| be able to silence the masses) instead of just the
| legal/constitutional definition.
| 2019-nCoV wrote:
| Twitter brought this upon themselves. It's going to be 2016 all
| over again.
| squarefoot wrote:
| How curious. I don't recall him reacting the same way when he was
| on the receiving side before the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
| [deleted]
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| I feel like we are slowly reaching the state the movie
| "Idiocracy" describes. I feel very torn about this. On the one
| hand I don't think we should leave it up to companies like
| Twitter to censor things. On the other hand I find it hard to
| believe that the president is constantly claiming things without
| any evidence backing up. It started with the claims of millions
| of illegal voters in 2016 and the commission they started
| disbanding quietly after finding nothing. And now publicly
| spreading rumors about killing somebody.
|
| It's insane how little respect the US has for the integrity of
| its political system. As long as it may hurt the "other" side
| everything is ok without regard to the damage they are constantly
| doing the health of the system.
| dathinab wrote:
| > On the one hand I don't think we should leave it up to
| companies like Twitter to censor things.
|
| True, but the think is Twitter _did not censor his post_. They
| added a "fact-check" hint that just pointed out that he was
| speaking made up thinks containing a link to an informative
| article.
|
| This is _very_ different to censorship. People can still freely
| decided to believe him, or read the facts and don 't or read
| the facts and still believe him.
|
| It's comparable with threaten to shutdown or control printed
| press when a specific new letter complained that what he says
| is complete makeup and wrong.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| Twitter made a pragmatic choice.
|
| They realize that simply deleting the posts in question and
| banning the user (Stable Genius) would have a serious
| backlash from the hard-right. They did what they feel was the
| next best thing, which is to call out the garbage for what it
| is by slapping an unremovable label on it. It sort-of seems
| like a "win", they get to smack-down the asshole, yet not
| "censor" him.
|
| Unfortunately Stable Genius is playing a different game.
|
| It's a game where outrage, even when directed at him,
| actually HELPS him. It gives him yet another grievance to
| trot around, yet another distraction for the public, more
| leverage for his base, more grist for his vitriol. Meanwhile
| other republicans will use this cover to continue to cram
| through unpopular and self-serving greedy agendas, in "shock
| doctrine" style.
|
| The thing is Twitter is not news, it has no loyalty to the
| public or the truth. It is a purely money making enterprise,
| like any other corporation. Jack Dorsey and the board can do
| whatever the F they want.
| nautilus12 wrote:
| For people that treat a "Fact Check" as an automatic "filter
| out this information" (I think there is a huge subset of the
| population that does, people don't thoughtfully take into
| account Fact Checks, they just treat them as a rebuke), it
| has the net effect of censorship. The move by twitter is kind
| of dumb in that sense because the population has already
| polarized into groups that think anything trump says is
| false, and those who do not. They are just basically putting
| an official seal on which side of that argument they land.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| This is ridiculous. The whole free speech argument is that
| people can decide for themselves when they have access to
| more information. Marketplace of ideas and all.
|
| Now adding information is somehow bad? There is no
| consistency in this argument.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Allowing him to post on their service with a counterpoint
| stitched right underneath his misinformation is far
| preferable for him to alternatives they could choose.
|
| Those alternatives would be "censorship" (in some sense;
| not any real legal sense).
|
| This is not censorship.
| username90 wrote:
| What is the difference between this and the top tweet
| response posting the same response as always happened
| before with his tweets? The only thing we learned is that
| Twitter is no longer even trying to be impartial.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Twitter hasn't been trying to be impartial since the time
| they chose not to enforce their TOS when the US elected
| Trump, so that's nothing new.
|
| The difference is that Twitter's editorial voice differs
| from the voice of some Twitter user.
| [deleted]
| aiwowp wrote:
| Trump's claim was that there _will be_ fraud if we have mail
| in ballots.
|
| Unless Jack Dorsey knows the future, I'm not sure you can
| fact check something that hasn't happened yet.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| This is such a bizarre and useless take. So now I can claim
| that gravity will turn off tomorrow, and because you don't
| know the future you just have to sit there quietly and let
| me spread obvious misinformation?
|
| Trump is making an extraordinary claim. He must back up
| that claim, whether that's by revealing that there's a true
| plot against him; referencing historical data; or something
| else.
| whoo wrote:
| It's extraordinary to claim there will be an uptick in
| fraud if we do large scale mail in voting in the US?
|
| Even the above linked claim in snopes says fraud is more
| common with mail in ballots.
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| They set up a commission in 2016 and found nothing so
| they closed it quietly. But they are still making the
| same claims. To me this shows that they have no interest
| in establishing hard facts. Trump says whatever benefits
| him as long as he can get away with it.
| ryebit wrote:
| His claim wasn't that there will be some amount of fraud...
| it was that they won't be "anything less than substantially
| fraudulent" (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/126
| 52558351245393...).
|
| Claiming mail-in votes will be majority fraudulent, and by
| implication that the entire vote is invalid... is a much
| stronger claim, which IMO requires much stronger proof.
|
| Given that mail-in ballots have been in used for a long
| time, there's a good history of data, so it's not
| predicting the future out of nothing, but based on past
| evidence.
|
| The twitter fact-check link in fact goes into that precise
| thing.
| 2019-nCoV wrote:
| How many fraudulent votes constitutes a substantial
| amount? What percentage?
| safog wrote:
| Did you read the entire thing first?
|
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mail-in-ballot-voter-
| fraud...
|
| What's True
|
| While no U.S. government agency officially compiles state-
| by-state data on voter fraud, and requirements for mail-in
| voting vary by state, analysis by elections experts shows
| that fraud is slightly more common with mail-in voting than
| in-person voting at polling places.
|
| What's False All types of voter fraud in U.S. elections is
| minuscule in comparison to the number of ballots cast,
| according to elections experts. Taking that into
| consideration, it is problematic to make comparisons
| between types of ballot-casting systems and erroneous to
| claim mail-in voting "substantially" increases the risk of
| fraud.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| Interesting thing to consider..
|
| If fraud is more common with mail in voting and some
| states (or everyone?) converts entirely to mail in
| voting, how much will fraud increase overall?
|
| Will it increase enough to change the overall results?
| With Michigan and Wisconsin being decided in 2016 by less
| than 1% of the vote, there's not much margin for error,
| fraud, or mistakes.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| another issue I don't see brought up in generalist areas
| is electronic voting machines. closed source / unaudited
| / unauditable software in voting machines - what % of
| fraud exists in those, and how would we even tell? lots
| of posturing about 'mail in' stuff right now, but
| compared to electronic machines used in many districts,
| I'd still prefer mail-in paper ballots.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| Agreed. The entire system and the people involved must be
| open for audit and review.
|
| Imagine what happens when $countryX realizes that bribing
| a few mailmen is even more cost effective than
| misinformation campaigns?
| 2019-nCoV wrote:
| > experts shows that fraud is slightly more common with
| mail-in voting than in-person voting at polling places
|
| So where is the line between slightly and substantial?
| Jarwain wrote:
| Where it makes a difference in the vote at hand? Or, more
| likely, well before that
| 2019-nCoV wrote:
| How would anyone know what number of votes constitutes
| that difference until Nov 3?
| growlist wrote:
| snopes? Really?
| luma wrote:
| By your reasoning, what he said was not true in the sense
| that it cannot be verified.
| [deleted]
| aiwowp wrote:
| Right, neither claim can be falsified until after the
| fact, so why add a "fact check" ? We won't know the
| implications of large scale mail in voting in the US
| during a particularly charged election until after its
| happened
| [deleted]
| 101404 wrote:
| I think that's just symptoms of the real problem: the extremely
| profit oriented media industry.
|
| Senselessly creating and reporting on "conflicts" and
| "scandals" makes them the most money. Trump is just playing
| their game.
| zentiggr wrote:
| Trump plays no game but his own. There is no world to him
| except what he perceives, even more so than 99.9% of people
| his own self-supporting delusions drive his entire existence.
| No one can puncture that bubble, at least not that I've seen.
| 101404 wrote:
| I am surprised how people can still have this simplistic,
| lazy view. Including most "journalists".
|
| Anyways, by downvoting you already showed that you don't
| care about open discussions. Good luck with that.
| zentiggr wrote:
| Simplistic? I've been reading investigative reports of
| his very narcissistic, unstable behavior for decades.
| He's no different in office, just far more visible.
|
| He's not playing a media game when he praises every
| network that talks him up, and calls everyone else Never
| Trumpers, conspiracies, and fake news.
|
| That's a narcissist who can't accept ever being wrong.
| Have you ever seen how he waffles and grabs at any straw
| any time he's told to his face that something he said or
| tweeted was blatantly wrong? It's very obvious,
| diagnosable behavior.
|
| Not simplistic at all. More like all too well informed,
| and honestly afraid of what his personality cult might do
| even beyond the damage they've already caused.
| smt88 wrote:
| > _It started with the claims of millions of illegal voters in
| 2016_
|
| No, it started long before that. Trump's political profile came
| about from being the most famous advocate of Birtherism[1] --
| promoting the idea that Barack Obama is not American and
| demanding his birth certificate.
|
| He later reached a plurality of Republican primary polls by
| saying that undocumented Mexican immigrants are rapists and
| murderers[2].
|
| Trump has been a conspiracy theorist for years now.
|
| 1.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_citizenship_consp...
|
| 2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-
| checker/wp/2015/07/...
| mistermann wrote:
| > He later reached a plurality of Republican primary polls
| _by_ saying that undocumented Mexican immigrants are rapists
| and murderers[2].
|
| He later reached a plurality of Republican primary polls
| _while_ saying...
|
| If you use "by" it _implies causation_ , something no one is
| able to know, whereas "while" accurately points out that the
| two events only occurred simultaneously.
|
| Now I'm not sure if you were just writing casually, and I
| fully expect that now that I've pointed out this "minor"
| technical shortcoming in your statement you will see my
| point, and I'm in no way implying that you _had a strong
| intent to_ imply a cause and effect relationship between
| these two events...but please don 't underestimate the
| potential significance the _aggregate effect_ millions of
| _seemingly_ minor slip-ups _like this_ (this is only one
| example, and only one form) can have on the _collective
| consciousness_ (aggregate of the internal mental models of
| all people) of the members of national and global societies
| when individual members of those societies are subjected to
| it over a long period of time. If you now think about it, it
| may _seem_ like you "know" how large of an effect it has,
| but you actually have _literally no way_ of knowing with
| certainty and accuracy what the actual effect is.
|
| The world is incredibly complex, filled with all sorts of
| randomness and incredibly counter-intuitive events, _but this
| is not how we perceive it_. We perceive the world as
| _extremely_ structured and organized, as if mostly everything
| "adds up", but only because our brain evolved to provide
| _this illusion_ to our consciousness. This "good enough"
| illusion rose to the top over all other evolutionary paths
| that were tried, _under the set of conditions in existence at
| the time they evolved_. If conditions (variables) changed
| significantly, would we be shocked if a formerly highly
| trustworthy ML /AI model started producing less accurate
| predictions? I don't think so. Then why should we be
| surprised if the biological AI in our minds exhibits similar
| behavior when the inputs undergo a fundamental change? To me,
| this would be the equivalent of believing in magic of some
| sort.
|
| People's (that includes you and me) perception of the world
| _is formed based on the information_ they consume - _all of
| it_. It may _seem_ (clear as day, and in full UHD+
| resolution) that your personal worldview is based solely on
| strict evidence and logic, but the fact of the matter is,
| this is not how the human mind works. Sure, some minds are
| better at it than others, but the exact degree to which that
| is true _is also unknowable_ , and making judgements on
| relative capability are subject to the very same phenomenon I
| point out.
|
| I will wrap this up with a challenge: for the next month,
| read not just the news, but also all the general
| conversations _and individual comments in social media
| forums_ from your normal perspective, and then also from this
| perspective. _Carefully consider(!)_ when people are
| discussing a complicated, _massively multivariate_ issue,
| whether the discreet observations and assertions that people
| make are actually _knowably true, "first-principle" facts_,
| or if they are actually _predictions_ produced by an
| amazingly sophisticated AI model. This will not be easy, _at
| all_...it will be very difficult and require extreme
| discipline (you are literally fighting against nature), but
| the results may be incredibly interesting (perhaps one of the
| most interesting things you have encountered in years), if
| you are willing(!) to give it a serious try.
| smt88 wrote:
| > _If you use "by" it implies causation_
|
| I intended to imply causation. I deeply enjoyed your not-
| at-all condescending lecture about how gullible, biased,
| and imprecise I am, though. In return, I will advise you
| not to be presumptuous about internet strangers'
| intelligence.
|
| > _something no one is able to know_
|
| Untrue. What if you just asked voters, "Why did you vote
| for Trump?" Or what if you asked them, "What issues are
| important to you?"
|
| Some of the best predictors of Trump support were:
|
| - support for building a wall to prevent undocumented
| immigration from Mexico[1][2]
|
| - anxiety about immigration in general[1]
|
| - a belief that the US is, was, and must remain a white,
| Christian nation[3]
|
| In fact, a majority of Republicans see immigrants (legal or
| not) _in general_ as being a net-negative on society[4].
|
| There is a reason Trump's rallying cry was "build the
| wall". There is a reason he is the candidate of choicee for
| white nationalists (which is not to say that I'm claiming
| that all of his supporters are white nationalists). Most
| Americans agree with me, though[5].
|
| 1. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-
| tank/2016/08/25/5-facts-abo...
|
| 2. https://news.virginia.edu/content/center-politics-poll-
| takes...
|
| 3. https://www.prri.org/research/white-working-class-
| attitudes-...
|
| 4. https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2015/09/28/chapter-
| 4-u-...
|
| 5. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/05/most-
| amer...
| mistermann wrote:
| > I intended to imply causation.
|
| Oh, ok. Would you mind then explaining _in detail_ how it
| is you came to know(!) what was and was not the
| _comprehensive_ , multivariate motivation of all the
| people who voted in Republican primary polls, and how you
| managed to measure/calculate _accurate_ values for each
| variable (or at least this one single variable, for each
| person, or even the aggregate for the overall group)? I
| mean this question literally, not rhetorically.
|
| > I deeply enjoyed your not-at-all condescending lecture
| about how gullible, biased, and imprecise I am, though.
| In return, I will advise you not to be presumptuous about
| internet strangers' intelligence.
|
| I made no personal criticisms of you, or and presumptions
| about internet strangers intelligence. Rather, this is
| just a manifestation of the very things I was referring
| to.
|
| >> something no one is able to know
|
| > Untrue. What if you just asked voters, "Why did you
| vote for Trump?" Or what if you asked them, "What issues
| are important to you?"
|
| a) no one has done that, at scale, and in a form where
| very specific conclusions (like yours) can be formed
|
| b) even when people answer a question "truthfully", it
| does not necessarily reflect true cause and effect, which
| are largely determined by neurological processes in the
| subconscious mind, that even the very best
| neurologists/psychologists barely understand, and that
| even the person in possession of the mind is not privy
| to. As an example, does it seem you _know_ , absolutely,
| that the specific things you write here are True(!),
| absolutely? And yet, if I ask for epistemically sound,
| confirmable quantitative evidence, are you able to
| provide any, that does not consist of, or rely heavily
| upon, a narrative?
|
| > Some of the best predictors of Trump support were...
|
| These are all attempts to _measure and understand_
| reality (based in part on some discrete "measurements",
| assembled into a persuasive narrative form). They are not
| reality itself. But, this is not to say these these
| measurements _are not_ accurate - perhaps they are even
| _very_ accurate - I am simply stating that it is unknown
| how accurate they are.
| pipingdog wrote:
| Except that President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert
| Camacho had the capacity to realize there was someone smarter
| than he was and appointed him to solve the problem at hand.
| nojito wrote:
| >On the one hand I don't think we should leave it up to
| companies like Twitter to censor things.
|
| Education != censorship. The tweets were never deleted.
|
| This is exactly what we need today when everyone blindly trusts
| what they read online because they _like_ the person who says
| it and tell their audience that anyone saying differently is
| _lying_
| zentiggr wrote:
| I find it incredibly easy to believe that the president is
| constantly claiming things without any evidence backing him up.
|
| It started decades before the 2016 illegal voter claims, and
| has been a flagrant, constant, malignant part of his
| personality since childhood.
|
| Research the constant streams of lawsuits and other allegations
| against him, his companies, and many of his closer associates.
|
| And then wonder how someone can screw up so badly that they run
| a _casino_ into bankruptcy. A money printing factory, and it
| was so badly managed that it folded.
|
| And this is who the "disaffected" voted in.
|
| I only hope that this little episode is the shock to the system
| that wakes up enough people. But there's too many Trumpers for
| me to think that's happened.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Has there ever been a time in history where politicians
| weren't slimy lying weasels? I feel like a lot of people came
| of age during the Obama era, which had a friendly media, and
| never realized the truth about how presidents usually are
| until we got to the Trump era and the media started doing its
| job again. Does anyone remember how we got in to Iraq?
| zentiggr wrote:
| I came of age with Reagan in office, I've seen plenty of
| politicians.
|
| How many other presidents have had a lifetime of lying
| publicly and being caught at it over and over for decades,
| and still lying and spouting obviously false BS, over and
| over, throughout a lifetime?
|
| Every other prior president that I have any knowledge of
| their lives prior to office, has never displayed the level
| of inability to see anything but what they want to, and an
| inability to see facts and corrections as anything but
| personal attacks.
|
| He is a classic narcissist, unlike anyone that's ever held
| the office before.
|
| Johnson is the only other one I can think of who ever
| reached near this level of unstable behavior.
|
| > the truth about how presidents usually are
|
| No, Trump is unique in the history of the office. Bush
| doesn't hold a candle to Trump's personality disorder.
| Saying so fails to acknowledge just how critically self-
| absorbed and malignant his behavior is.
| nkingsy wrote:
| I've been watching Mrs. America, and it does a great job of
| showing an earlier, developing version of wedge politics
| leading up to the Reagan revolution. Where we are now feels
| like the inevitable conclusion to the process of eschewing
| norms for political gain.
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| "Where we are now feels like the inevitable conclusion to the
| process of eschewing norms for political gain."
|
| Agreed. Congress should be ashamed of themselves.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| I couldn't disagree more-- with the "slowly" part, that is. As
| some people might say, "there are no brakes on the Trump
| train". Enjoy the show!
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I mostly agree, and I for one would welcome the rock as
| president, so maybe I'm part of the problem. However, any time
| I catch myself thinking that the idiots have taken over[1] I am
| reminded of this XKCD[2] from over 10 years ago, and I try to
| knock myself down a peg
|
| [1] NOFX reference, I normally wouldnt refer to anyone as an
| idiot, especially on HN which is where I come to feel dumb by
| comparison.
|
| [2] https://xkcd.com/603/
| asabjorn wrote:
| > the president is constantly claiming things without any
| evidence backing up
|
| [to those voting down: these are convicted cases of voter
| fraud. If you are in favor of fact-checking these cases
| demonstrate the core question: who deserve this power?]
|
| Let's fact check these fact checkers.
|
| Here are some cases convicted in court of election fraud, a lot
| of them involve fraudulent use of absentee ballots
| https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/p...
|
| And there is also a problem with the chain of trust, since 28
| million mail-in ballots went missing in the last four
| elections:
| https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/24/28_mil...
|
| Or what about the mail carrier recently charged with meddling
| with the ballot requests in his chain of trust?
| https://www.whsv.com/content/news/Pendleton-County-mail-carr...
|
| And if you think politicians would never cheat, a Pennsylvania
| election official just plead guilty to stuffing the ballot box.
| He was paid by candidates that I believe won:
| https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/05/21/doj-democrats-...
| mgkimsal wrote:
| "Although there is no evidence that the millions of missing
| ballots were used fraudulently, the Public Interest Legal
| Foundation, which compiled the public data provided from the
| Election Assistance Commission, says that the sheer volume of
| them raises serious doubts about election security."
|
| So... no evidence of fraudulent use.
|
| 28 million out of how many? "almost 1 in 5". so roughly 150
| million ballots mailed out over multiple years and elections,
| and < 20% are not returned. Or something else?
|
| What does "unaccounted for" mean? They knew they were mailed
| out. All I can divine from that is 'not returned'.
|
| "There's little doubt that as the number of mail-in ballots
| increases, so does fraud."
|
| Yet, right above that in the article, it says of the 28
| million - "no evidence of fraud". How many more mail-in
| ballots do you need to get evidence of fraud? 200 million?
| 300 million?
|
| What is the insinuation? People are mailing their ballots
| back, but they're getting "lost"?
|
| It seems that when there's evidence found - as in, criminal
| investigations turn up fraud and people are charged and
| prosecuted - "there's evidence of fraud!". When no evidence
| is found... that's also evidence that it's going on, but not
| discovered yet. That's how I read this hysteria over 'mail in
| ballots'.
| asabjorn wrote:
| > So... no evidence of fraudulent use.
|
| First link has plenty of people convicted of voter fraud
| using absentee ballots: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/wh
| itehouse.gov/files/docs/p...
|
| > 28 million out of how many? "almost 1 in 5". so roughly
| 150 million ballots mailed out over multiple years and
| elections, and < 20% are not returned. Or something else?
|
| The second link was there to provide data on what happens
| to absentee ballots along the chain of trust. As you said
| 1/5 is unaccounted for.
|
| The third link is one court case of a mail man meddling
| with absentee ballots, and admitting to doing so. It shows
| the chain-of-trust of mail system is much weaker than what
| we expect with in-person voting.
|
| Would you be happy if 1/5 of the people that showed up at
| the voting office was unaccounted for?
|
| > It seems that when there's evidence found - as in,
| criminal investigations turn up fraud and people are
| charged and prosecuted - "there's evidence of fraud!".
|
| Seems like you commented without inspecting all evidence or
| in bad faith when you ignore the evidence in the first link
| of convicted cases of absentee ballot fraud, then state
| this.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| didn't ignore it - was responding specifically to
| text/headline of one of the other articles, which pretty
| clearly had "28 million" as the click bait, then later
| says "no evidence of fraud was found".
|
| What does "unaccounted for" mean?
|
| "Would you be happy if 1/5 of the people that showed up
| at the voting office was unaccounted for?"
|
| huh? how does that compare to ballots mailed out that
| were not returned? Again - "unaccounted for" is...
| nebulous. If 100m were mailed out, and 20m were not
| returned... are they "unaccounted for"?
|
| There's context missing here. What are the historical
| averages?
|
| If in any given year, 20% of mailed out ballots are not
| returned, and that's pretty average for 10-15-20 years...
| 20% "unaccounted for" is a non-issue. If the average is
| 4%, and in one election it's 20% or more... yeah, that's
| an issue that needs investigation. That information was
| not provided in the articles I saw, instead they just
| appear to rely on "big" numbers.
| asabjorn wrote:
| > didn't ignore it - was responding specifically to
| text/headline of one of the other articles
|
| Why did you move on from the comment most relevant to the
| topic of the fact check? Fact check disputed evidence of
| absentee voter fraud, and firs link shows evidence.
|
| I put the first link first to establish a common frame
| that the fact checkers were wrong, and the second-to-
| third are more advanced topics.
|
| First link demonstrates the question we should ask: Who
| deserve the power of determining what is true or not?
| Does a committee at twitter deserve that power?
|
| > What does "unaccounted for" mean?
|
| That is the crux of the problem with the mail in ballot
| chain of trust, isn't it?
|
| You wouldn't have to ask this question at a physical
| voting spot, where this would be irregular and systems
| are in place to document the chain-of-trust to the degree
| necessary for voting.
| asabjorn wrote:
| I find it absolutely ridiculous that this is being voted
| down. news.ycombinator.com is not what it used to be, or
| maybe I've changed.
|
| I guess this demonstrates the tactics that is highly
| unfavorable to help people make up their own mind:
|
| 1) mislead by ignoring evidence, pushing a narrative using
| "authoritative sources" that fall far short of objectivity
| standards
|
| 2) if #1 fail vote down (shadowbanning, downvotes, etc etc)
|
| 3) if #2 fail censor and ban.
|
| 4) if #3 fail tell people to ignore those showing contrary
| evidence, by without evidence claiming they belong to bad
| group X or because they can't possibly understand due to
| having identity characteristic Y
|
| This is so boring and trite. It should be clear to everyone
| at this point that enough people are awake to these tactics
| to force a discussion on equal terms. With all truths on the
| table.
| thatwasunusual wrote:
| > On the one hand I don't think we should leave it up to
| companies like Twitter to censor things.
|
| Is it really _censorship_ to fact check tweets? I mean, Twitter
| hasn't _removed_ (i.e. censored) any tweets from Trump, just
| added an annotation.
| nkkollaw wrote:
| Yes, of course it is. Most people will all of a sudden ignore
| someone's message.
|
| I have no idea why anyone would argue in favor of Twitter.
| When has it become required to be an expert in the field to
| be granted the privilege of leaving a comment on a forum?
| When has it become unacceptable to lie? People lie all the
| time. Advertisements lie to you, politicians lie to you, your
| mom lies to you.
|
| It's really annoying that the truth police is going to go and
| check your tweets or comment--even if you ignore the fact
| that the line between facts and opinions isn't always easy to
| see. Even facts like Taiwan being its own country or part of
| China or the Armenian genocide can be denied, and people
| should be able to say that--and perhaps rightfully get shit
| for that, but still be able to say it.
|
| We're going back to the Middle Ages, where if you say Earth
| isn't flat or God doesn't exist (replace with global warming
| isn't caused by humans, Covid-19 is man-made), you're
| executed.
|
| Sad.
| thatwasunusual wrote:
| > Yes, of course it is. Most people will all of a sudden
| ignore someone's message.
|
| Because Twitter adds an annotion to a statement? An
| annotation that leads to facts/more information?
|
| Why?
|
| > When has it become unacceptable to lie?
|
| If a world leader does that, it needs to be addressed.
| Would you accept all the information that comes out of
| other countries, for example North Korea?
| nkkollaw wrote:
| > Because Twitter adds an annotion to a statement? An
| annotation that leads to facts/more information?
|
| Why should Twitter do that. They're a tech company and
| are in no position to add to anyone's statements--
| specially a world leader's.
|
| > If a world leader does that, it needs to be addressed.
| Would you accept all the information that comes out of
| other countries, for example North Korea?
|
| It already gets address at the next elections. Even if it
| doesn't, are you saying that Twitter is the right
| institution to address lying from world leaders?
|
| Does the leader of North Korea post on Twitter? Why are
| you comparing the leader of the freest country with the
| most oppressive?
|
| So many questions...
| nmfisher wrote:
| Let me get this right - you're saying everyone should have
| the freedom to spread lies, half-truths or misleading
| statements, but that noone should have the freedom to call
| them out on it?
|
| Twitter isn't requiring anything from anybody to comment on
| anything. They're just putting forward their own opinion.
| Much like Trump is putting forward his. The only difference
| is that people trust Twitter more than the current POTUS.
| nkkollaw wrote:
| > Let me get this right - you're saying everyone should
| have the freedom to spread lies, half-truths or
| misleading statements, but that noone should have the
| freedom to call them out on it?
|
| Twitter should decide what business they're in. If
| they're a platform for people to discuss ideas, they
| should stay out of expressing their opinion, absolutely.
| What's next, is Microsoft going to fact-check what you're
| saying while you talk on Skype and add a message over
| your voice?
|
| > The only difference is that people trust Twitter more
| than the current POTUS.
|
| That's so cool! Perhaps you've found who can beat Trump
| in 2020--Twitter. I thought there was no hope, but
| maybe...
| mplanchard wrote:
| There's a difference between you or I saying something
| incorrect (willfully or not) on the Internet and a world
| leader doing the same. Twitter already distinguishes famous
| people, world leaders, etc. in a variety of ways. It seems
| reasonable that this would be one of them, given that the
| potential reach and impact of anything they say far, far
| exceeds that of your average Tweeter.
| nkkollaw wrote:
| Is there, though? Why should Twitter be in charge of
| deciding who's a world leader or famous enough to get
| checked?
|
| Who is Twitter to fact-check world leaders?
|
| When world leaders rarely tell the truth, how can anyone
| realistically think that such a system could even work,
| even if it made sense?
| bostik wrote:
| Well, here's the funny bit: Twitter doesn't _need to
| decide_. If someone in a major power, such as a G20
| member country, is in a government position, they are a
| world leader. And because things are always contested,
| that same category can be extended to high-ranking
| members of opposition.
|
| I'm going to take you at your word and accept that world
| leaders rarely tell the truth: so they should ALL get the
| same treatment then. But instead of stamping their output
| with just "fact-check this", why not unilaterally label
| all of it with: "may contain lies, omissions and half-
| truths"?
| nkkollaw wrote:
| > why not unilaterally label all of it with: "may contain
| lies, omissions and half-truths"?
|
| Even if Twitter's motive was to help its users, that's
| just common sense. Does Twitter have such a low opinion
| of its users that it needs to treat them like 5-year-
| olds?
| dspillett wrote:
| Yes, how sad that incorrect facts will no longer stand
| unquestioned...
|
| If I'm wrong I _like_ being corrected. It means I learn
| something. Of course if I think the correction is incorrect
| then things get a bit more complex and a longer discussion
| will ensue.
| nkkollaw wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| Also, if they're false it should be easy to correct them.
|
| Anyone who thinks about this for more than 20 seconds
| will see that this is about control, not protecting poor
| Twitter users who supposedly can't decide for themselves.
| DavidVoid wrote:
| Use * text * (but without spaces) to italicize text btw.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> Is it really _censorship_ to fact check tweets?_
|
| Not at all. Free speech in both cases. He is free to say what
| he thinks, we (us as individuals, Twitter as a company,
| everyone) are free to say we think he is talking complete and
| utter balderdash if that is what we think.
|
| A president trying to silence Twitter's statement about what
| he has said by intimidating them _is_ an attempt at
| censorship though.
| [deleted]
| ecmascript wrote:
| No but it's literally censorship to remove people from
| Twitter because they use the correct gender pronoun for a
| biological sex.
|
| Where are the fact-checking in all those cases, I wonder?
| nkkollaw wrote:
| Good point.
|
| Leftists think you're misgendering someone who thinks he's
| a woman if you call her a biological man, normal people see
| it the opposite way (that doesn't mean you need to not be
| nice and call her "she", but actually thinking one can
| change biological sex is insane).
|
| That's why everyone should be able to say whatever they
| want, and people can discuss the merits of what's been
| said.
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| "Fact checking" is a nice exercise and somewhat helpful but a
| lot of people say half baked or stupid things all the time,
| including myself. Part of a healthy discourse is the ability
| to say questionable things and having a discussion.
|
| Once you start fact checking where does it end? A lot of
| people have different views on different things and there is
| no clear right or wrong.
|
| What I would like to see is that the US political system
| starts fact checking itself and stop spreading
| misinformation. This should be done out of self respect.
| heurist wrote:
| Public officials choose to live a live under intense
| scrutiny and should expect to be challenged on their
| positions and able to provide well-reasoned arguments for
| their opinions and actions. "Fact checking" is a necessary
| component of a functional democracy. As small and local
| news outlets die en masse from the social media takeover,
| someone needs to pick up the slack.
| _never_k wrote:
| >Once you start fact checking where does it end?
|
| With all the facts being checked?
| heurist wrote:
| This is a tough position for Twitter because they now
| have to fact check practically all of his tweets. Any
| tweet not checked will be seen either as tacit
| endorsement by Trump's political opponents or 'undeniable
| truth' by some portion of their users regardless of
| validity.
| whatshisface wrote:
| I imagine he's suggesting that it will end with all the
| opinions being checked.
| dspillett wrote:
| Nothing wrong with that, particularly if those opinions
| are communicated in a way that makes them look like
| statements of fact.
|
| Someone being able to say "I think your opinion is wrong"
| is no less a freedom of speech matter than someone being
| able to state an opinion in the first place. Freedom of
| speech does not, or at least it should not, give special
| privilege or protection to the first person who speaks.
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| The line between fact and opinion can become very blurry.
| Whatever you do there will be a lot of issues that can't
| be fact checked.
| [deleted]
| JMTQp8lwXL wrote:
| The most actionable decision one can make is to vote for
| candidates who don't make us test these questions.
| Academically, it's somewhat intriguing, but in terms of actual
| leadership, there are more pressing issues. (Unless your wedge
| issue is testing political free speech by government officials
| on private platforms. Then, by all means, have at it).
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Reaching Idiocracy is a pretty big understatement.
|
| To be honest, it feels that the president should have a
| babysitter, if you look at his constant tweet tirades.
| chartpath wrote:
| What kind of oversight could even work though? We have the
| Queen in my neck of the woods but that is not exactly
| accountable and never does anything to check poor governance
| and only rips off taxpayers. We also have non-confidence
| votes which can bring down a Prime Minister, and it seems to
| work (in minority governments at least).
|
| How can a separation of powers approach still check itself?
| Like different term limits, VP powers, congressional army?
| Banning factions or breaking up parties that get too big,
| banning private donors? Rooting for the American experiment
| to get sorted!
| ISL wrote:
| The difficulty here is that Congress has, for various
| reasons, not stepped up to do its job.
|
| There are millions of people better-qualified to do the job
| of President, but a sufficient number of Congresspeople
| have decided, for reasons I only partially fathom, that
| Trump is somehow preferable to Pence.
|
| Responsibility for America's debacles, and now, in part,
| the death of a hundred-thousand people, lies at McConnell's
| feet, not Trump's. Trump's lack of qualification for the
| job has been on display since before he took office.
| McConnell, on the other hand, clearly knows exactly what he
| is doing.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Euh, with T.? A babysitter who can forbid him things that
| are "not decent", most people learn it when they are a
| toddler/teenager.
|
| It's named "common decency" for a reason.
|
| Nobody is going to teach their kids to unleash their
| bulldog when someone does not agree with you ;)
| mistermann wrote:
| > What kind of oversight could even work though? We
| have...that is not exactly accountable and _never does
| anything to check poor governance_...
|
| > _How can a separation of powers approach still check
| itself?_
|
| If you approach the problem (and it is in fact a very real
| problem) from an engineering/computing perspective, would a
| possibly useful approach be to develop an AI that consumes
| all (or as much as possible) relevant data, and then spits
| out instances of events where accountability is lacking?
| Tune it on the overly eager side so it spits out lots of
| false positives along with legitimate issues, and then a
| bipartisan committee that consists of representatives from
| various factions (government, corporate, unions, finance,
| law enforcement & military), _as well as the general
| public_ to sort through what comes out.
|
| This would obviously be a _fairly_ major undertaking, but
| nothing beyond all sorts of other things we do on a regular
| basis I wouldn 't think, and from the amount of news
| stories and forum comments on the matter, I think the
| problem is big enough to spend a fair amount of time and
| money on coming up with some solution.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > What kind of oversight could even work though?
|
| Some New Confucians and Neo-Reactionaries argue that this
| kind of basic oversight should be provided by a novel
| council/board of "wise scholars", or people with real
| intellectual accomplishments which are not under serious
| dispute-- appointed with very long, perhaps lifetime terms.
| There's really no equivalent to this in the U.S. other than
| perhaps the Supreme Court, but the House of Lords in the
| U.K. is quite similar and does not currently have much of a
| political role, so it could be repurposed with relative
| ease.
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| You can't have hard rules to achieve this. In the end it's
| a matter of integrity and ethics to guide actions. You
| can't write that down as an algorithm. Unfortunately it
| seems the system is set up for psychopaths who don't know
| no limits as long as they can profit.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| It only feels different now because this President's image is
| based on such bluster. He's speaking to his people in the way
| that they like.
|
| A lot of past US Presidents were likely no more competent,
| but their images demanded that they appear such. Reagan was
| probably suffering from dementia. JFK was high most of the
| time. It's just that the PR strategy for those guys was
| different because their public personae were groomed for
| different expectations.
|
| Well that, and neither had Twitter.
|
| Idiocracy is an easy pull and rings true because of outward
| appearances, but the reality is (and probably always has
| been) closer to Vonnegut's _Player Piano_ or Kubrik 's
| _Doctor Strangelove_.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| > A lot of past US Presidents were likely no more
| competent.
|
| I haven't seen the current president be competent in
| anything. What a difference with Obama.
|
| Even his "business" instincts he likes to claim is nothing
| more than a name licensing scheme and a "mommy foundation"
| ( * ) sponsored with daddy's money.
|
| * Trump organisation used to be called " Elizabeth Trump &
| Son" in 1923 :)
| caseysoftware wrote:
| Idiocracy is premised on the idea that dumb people have more
| kids than smart people:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP2tUW0HDHA
|
| Based on the positive reaction to the "birthrates are at all
| time low!" article last week, it looks like most of the HN
| crowd is happy about it:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23246734
| pinopinopino wrote:
| >Idiocracy
|
| Or how they call it on the right side: Clown World. Guess
| nobody is happy with the current affairs.
| WaxProlix wrote:
| From what I've seen, "clown world" can refer to perceived
| injustices like white women choosing black men as partners
| more than the incompetence or silliness of our president (or
| other world leadership).
| pinopinopino wrote:
| Of course, it is colored by the viewpoints of the other
| side. But there are also connections, like the idiotic
| emphasis on consuming. And they laugh about the
| incompetence of Bernie Sanders (getting cucked all the
| time!) or "Creepy" Joey. Same abstraction, other
| implementation.
| simias wrote:
| I understand what you mean but I'm always frustrated when I see
| Idiocracy brought up in these discussions. Idiocracy is fine if
| you view it as a light satirical comedy but if you take it
| seriously to talk about politics it has very sinister
| undertones.
|
| For one thing it's extremely classist, throughout the movie
| popular culture is seen as fodder for dumb people while high
| culture if for clever people. Beyond that it also says that,
| effectively, dumb people and poor people are the same thing (as
| exemplified by the "white trash" segment at the start of the
| movie) and that dumb, poor people are bound to breed dump, poor
| people (and apparently they do that a lot) while clever people
| would breed other clever people (but they don't do it
| because... reasons). So social determinism taken to the limit.
|
| I mean just look at this intro:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwZ0ZUy7P3E
|
| What are examples of clever people? Darwin, Beethoven and Da
| Vince.
|
| Examples of "degeneracy"? A girl in skimpy clothes, wrestling
| and a... woman with boxing gloves? Because clearly "panem et
| circenses" is a novel concept.
|
| Then we go to say "with no natural predators to thin the herd,
| we began to simply began to reward those who reproduced the
| most and left the intelligent to become an endangered species".
| So we're now talking full-on eugenics. Also Beethoven was well
| known for fending packs of wolves in his youth, proving his
| evolutionary superiority.
|
| And I'm this point I'm literally one minute into the movie and
| I could go on and on and on. At best it's elitist, at worst
| it's much darker than that.
|
| If you like the movie as a funny comedy then be my guest, but
| please stop bringing it up in political discussions. If
| anything it's a symptom of the very thing you're decrying: a
| dumbed down, unnuanced caricature of political discourse.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| What's sad is that the movie was meant as a joke. (I think?)
|
| And here we are? How did this happen?
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| This is not the first time that what was thought of as satire
| was actually an astute observation. This happened a lot under
| communism. A lot of jokes were just plain facts.
| pinopinopino wrote:
| The rabbit hole goes deeper.
|
| If the movie describes reality then it does it pretty well
| and then apparently reality can be described as a joke.
|
| If the movie satires reality and we cannot discern the satire
| from reality then reality was already a joke to begin with,
| we just didn't know.
|
| The question is not how did we get here or how did this
| happen? But how do we get out of here? :)
| Communitivity wrote:
| Trivia bit: The writer behind Idiocracy feels the same way,
| saying he never expected it to become a documentary.
|
| Details in https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-
| know/270642-idi...
| user982 wrote:
| Compared to our present reality Idiocracy was actually utopic:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmZOZjHjT5E
| mindslight wrote:
| President Camacho delegated to experts, led people to keep them
| cohesive, and actually solved a problem. No, this demented
| clown is something else - a manifestation of hyperpolarizing
| social media driven by longstanding authoritarianism. It seems
| that absolutely nothing matters as long as the "other side" is
| upset, even while it hurts everyone. Responding to a public
| health emergency shouldn't even be a political issue, but it's
| been dragged into this post-truth realm where everything is up
| for debate. And so the Party continues to line up behind a
| "leader" that led us straight to catastrophe. Meanwhile 100,000
| Americans have died in the real world, with the economy in
| shambles for the next year as we're stuck distancing.
| quantum_state wrote:
| clear sign of stupidity ... nothing else needs to be said ...
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| About bloody time twitter.
| foobar_ wrote:
| This should have happened a long time ago. Flag people / tweets
| but don't taken them down. Ignore flagged tweets. Create public
| black lists of spammers/trolls.
|
| People are still waiting for twitter to clear up all the bots.
| From what I am aware the challenge is not bots but people
| masquerading 1000s of accounts manually, so it's actually a
| misnomer to call them bots.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| What amazes me about the US, is that there's no accountability
| for any actions.
|
| If I start lying to me team at work, I'll have a very
| uncomfortable meeting with my boss.
|
| If our sales people start lying to clients, the company may get
| dragged into courts.
|
| If head of state lies when publicly addressing the country in
| many other countries, they'll be held accountable before
| congress.
|
| But US seems to be about absolute freedom, and not about
| following ANY rules, no matter how basic. I never get why people
| accept such a system.
| zestyping wrote:
| Call his bluff. Suspend his account.
| tuna-piano wrote:
| There's an unsolved conundrum I haven't heard mentioned yet.
|
| After the 2016 election, there was a thought that too much false
| information is spreading on social media. This happens in every
| country and across every form of communication - but social media
| platforms seem particularly worrysome (and is particularly bad
| with Whatsapp forwards in some Asian countries).
|
| So what should the social media companies do? Censor people?
| Disallow certain messages (like they do with terrorism related
| posts)?
|
| They settled on just putting in fact check links with certain
| posts. Trust in the fact deciding institution will of course be
| difficult to settle. No one wants a ministry of truth (or the
| private alternative).
|
| So the question remains - do you, or how do you lessen the spread
| of misinformation?
| cwhiz wrote:
| >So the question remains - do you, or how do you lessen the
| spread of misinformation?
|
| The easiest is to get rid of bots and control who can tweet.
| Anyone can create an account but to tweet you need to prove
| your identity. Bots are the real issue. Trump lying on social
| media is a problem but it's not fundamentally dissimilar to him
| lying on TV or at a campaign rally. He is a liar and whatever
| platform he is on he will use it to lie. The problem is all the
| bots masquerading as humans making people think and believe
| that the lies are mainstream facts.
| jobigoud wrote:
| Misinformation spreads a lot human-to-human too. Like on
| Whatsapp or Facebook for example.
| cwhiz wrote:
| It does but that also happens in real life outside of
| digital spaces. It's not something you can control.
|
| How much did this "reopen America" botnet influence
| national discussion? People don't innately expect a Twitter
| or Facebook user to be a bot. We have to remove these bot
| accounts.
|
| https://www.cs.cmu.edu/news/nearly-half-twitter-accounts-
| dis...
| metrokoi wrote:
| What would be required to prove your identity? Would you be
| able to tweet anonymously, or must you tweet under that
| identity? There are some issues with that, for example people
| without government identification would not be allowed to
| tweet. Perhaps you could use unique fingerprints, but that
| turns into a huge privacy concern and I can never see that
| being accepted. Maybe there are some unique bio-markers that
| could be used which people feel would be irrelevant or
| otherwise useless enough to not be an invasion of privacy.
| cwhiz wrote:
| Drivers license, utility bill, phone number, credit card,
| etc. The same types of things that other services ask you
| to provide to prove that you are a real person.
|
| Tweeting anonymously is a non-starter unless they can
| curtail the bot problem in some other way. If they could
| curtail the bot problem then they would be doing it already
| and we wouldn't be having this discussion.
|
| Half the content on Twitter and Facebook is from bots. I
| would say this is the most fundamentally urgent problem to
| solve to protect Democracy in this country.
| ll931110 wrote:
| That would be deal breakers with whistleblowers (Edward
| Snowden).
| three_seagrass wrote:
| The NYT is doing a special podcast on this topic right now.
|
| In one of their episodes, they interview the CEO of YouTube
| about what they're doing to stop the spread of misinformation
| on web content platforms like their own.
|
| Her response is that they're no longer tailoring their
| recommendation models or carousels based purely on engagement
| alone, but also based on potential harm or impact, because the
| common misinformation preys on being highly engaging. The
| biggest example of this is how YouTube is dealing with Covid-19
| misinformation, that the "COVID-19 news" carousel on the home
| page doesn't get much engagement but is important for people to
| stay informed.
|
| It's a good listen if you have the time:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/podcasts/rabbit-hole-yout...
| asdkhadsj wrote:
| As a straw man for discussion; I'm not too familiar with what
| Twitter is doing, but in an _ideal world_ I think the solution
| would look something like what Twitter sounds like. Notably,
| posts containing objectively false information would be
| flagged, but not necessarily censored.
|
| With that straw man though, it's fairly easy to poke holes. How
| do we ever even implement that? Even if we ignore the sheer
| volume of posts, a single post is often difficult to fact
| check. The lie can be subtle, but even worse is the human
| language and how much room there can be for misdirection,
| dishonesty, etc.
|
| In my spare time I work on a project _(not even close to
| release lol)_ with the goal of easing information sharing,
| retention, etc - as I figure part of the problem to the current
| age is a lack of information. Wikipedia is great, but it 's
| quite large form discussion and I think we need better tools to
| help us document our own conclusions. BUT, even in all the
| effort I've put towards this tool I haven't dreamed of
| quantifying the truthiness.
|
| I just don't see how we're going to cope with these sort of
| truth problems. It concerns me. It feels like information is a
| tool of war these days, and I am concerned we're losing.
| jobigoud wrote:
| One avenue that has been taken by Youtube for example with
| the Coronavirus news is to not try to detect lies/truths but
| just detect the controversial topic and add a banner under
| the video with a link to official sources. It's much simpler
| to implement. A disadvantage is that it becomes so ubiquitous
| that people probably don't care about the link.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| At least they try to detect the topic. Reddit's app has for
| some time been permanently showing a "look at
| /r/coronavirus" banner at the top of the default Home tab.
| I'm not exactly sure how they're moderating that or
| whatever, but the fact it's there all the time doesn't seem
| to reduce conspiracies flying around the rest of their site
| and they don't make any effort to attach it to them posts.
| [deleted]
| zarkov99 wrote:
| Its a big problem. On the one hand social media companies are
| utterly unsuitable for the role of arbitrers of truth. All they
| do is enforce the fashionable, safe truths, which might end up
| not being safe or true. On the other hand there is definitely
| disinformation out there, carefully crafted to achieve specific
| goals. We need a sort of peer review for social media, some
| sort of trust network that you can use to assess the
| reliability of information. The fact check is one such
| mechanism, though who checks the checkers is still a issue..
| mhucka wrote:
| In the case of Facebook at least, there is evidence they
| knowingly allow their algorithms to promote divisive content:
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-it-encourages-
| di...
| zarkov99 wrote:
| Of course they do, they are a for profit company not some
| enlightened beings we should delegate our sense making to.
| The whole social media revolution is a net negative and
| human culture has not caught up to this yet.
| snarf21 wrote:
| To be fair, this isn't a new problem. Historically, newspapers
| had a similar control. It is interesting because most people
| _want_ to be in an echo chamber. We as humans long to belong.
| We don 't want to be completely wrong. Newspapers mitigated
| this by having multiple layers of editorial control and
| attempting to only put people in control who value truth,
| although that isn't absolute. The difference with Twitter is
| that anyone can spew anything and to large audiences and the
| network effect is huge. Back in the day, a newspaper printing
| garbage in Tulsa probably had no influence in Seattle. That is
| no longer the case.
|
| The interesting thing that I think Jack Dorsey should respond
| directly to Trump's tweet about regulation is "I'm sorry you no
| longer find Twitter useful. Feel free to use a competitor's
| product." The main reason that the social networks haven't
| clamped down is that they need the eyeballs and controversial
| figures generate a lot on both sides (hate/love).
| mightybyte wrote:
| I imagine I'll get downvoted for this, but I think it needs to
| be said. Perhaps one way to lessen the spread of misinformation
| is to not operate services that limit messages to 280
| characters. The world is not black and white. Meaningful topics
| are almost always nuanced and do not lend themselves to pithy
| sound bites. Let me demonstrate my point in a provocative way:
|
| ===== The world would be a better place if Twitter did not
| exist. =====
|
| Note the lack of caveat, nuance, or elaboration here. It's not
| conducive to making the argument in a compelling and convincing
| way, especially not in the ways espoused by Hacker News. People
| who agree with that statement are going to agree. People who
| don't are going to be outraged.
|
| If you do agree with the above the real question is what to do
| about it. Does the problem lie with the people at Twitter? With
| capitalism? With democracy? With the particular implementation
| that is the United States? Is this just something inherent to
| human nature? Or is the internet to blame? There are no simple
| answers to these questions. But perhaps the mediums that we use
| to have the discussions have a substantial impact on the
| conversation.
| asdff wrote:
| It's as simple as toning down the virulance and addiction
| potential that has been baked into social media over the years.
| Revert to chronological feeds based on timestamp alone, and not
| sorting based on how many inflammatory comments and shares they
| have. Ban more pages that produce and share these misinformed
| posts. These are problems that these engagement algorithms
| themselves created, and social media companies are too timid to
| actually solve for fear of affecting stock price.
| cabalamat wrote:
| > toning down the [...] addiction potential that has been
| baked into social media over the years
|
| That hurts the bottom line so the social media companies
| won't do it unless they are forced to.
|
| > Revert to chronological feeds based on timestamp alone
|
| At the very least this should be an option (and not one that
| is automatically reset every time you view a page -- I'm
| looking at you facebook).
| redisman wrote:
| Right, the actual fix is to change their core business model
| which they'll never do.
| koheripbal wrote:
| I don't think reverting to chrono content makes sense. If
| popularity doesn't influence what's top-of-feed, then we'll
| just be flooded with un-interesting content.
|
| Imagine if HN or Reddit didn't sort by popularity? Everyone
| would need to sort through /new. ...that's not scalable.
|
| What would be better would be to reward controversial
| content. If lots of people downvote something, and also lots
| of people upvote, then maybe it needs more attention, not
| less?
|
| So that rather than creating ever-more-extremist bubbles,
| people are more likely to see opinions that make them force
| them to appreciate other points of view.
| cabalamat wrote:
| > Imagine if HN or Reddit didn't sort by popularity?
| Everyone would need to sort through /new. ...that's not
| scalable.
|
| Reddit gives people the choice, so you can sort by new if
| you want to.
|
| Choice is good, right?
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >that's not scalable
|
| and therein lies the problem. The issue is the scale in the
| first place. Twitter et al produce so much garbage because
| they're designed towards virality outside of any human
| scale.
|
| Bring social networks down to the size that a community can
| coherently operate in and you've diminished the problem.
|
| HN arranges by popularity but actually in a fairly limited
| way. There's no scores shown and the downvotes are capped,
| and most threads you can actually read through because
| they've got less than 200 comments or so.
|
| Do the same for Facebook or twitter. Limit connections,
| hide visible upvotes or likes, cap the number of people
| something can be shared with by one user, make people
| choose who they are in contact with, which immediately puts
| scarcity and value on connection and communication.
| Obviously there is no commercial incentive for these
| companies to do this, who live off the entropy they
| generate.
| dvtrn wrote:
| Media literacy and criticism classes in middle school?
| cryoshon wrote:
| critical thinking classes from kindergarten through the end
| of college.
|
| i have developed a loose curriculum for the latter half of
| that pipeline, but getting the education uniformly
| distributed throughout the public mind market is the hard
| part.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| Im sorry, but what does a critical thinking class even
| mean?
|
| If you aren't being taught critical thinking already in
| English, History, and Math then what are you being taught?
|
| Isn't that the entire point of those classes?
| dvtrn wrote:
| As I said in another comment I fear the thread I've
| started here may be suffering from some creep. "Media
| literacy" as a topic definitely exercises the critical
| thinking muscles of the brain as a specific and applied
| school subject, but if the discussion people would rather
| have is the vague call to "teach kids critical thinking"
| and left at that, then I gotta go because that's a
| conversation that is far less precise and will get really
| weird really fast.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| I'm not who you were replying to but I think what people
| typically mean is instead of just being told X is true
| you help people come to the conclusion that X is true.
| One of the best way to do that is to understand both
| sides of an issue and come to the conclusion that one
| side is correct. Not only does it cause people to
| understand why they believe something but it causes them
| to understand why people on the opposite side of this
| topic believes what they do.
|
| Many people are guilty of not actually understanding why
| people believe what they do. They will read arguments by
| people on their side but won't read the best arguments
| made by the opposite side. They will instead read the
| arguments by either people who make crappy arguments or
| by people on their own side explaining the opposition's
| view. This typically results in awful, often strawmen
| arguments for the opponent's views.
|
| If teachers could set up debates between students on
| topics I think it would be good. Ideally, the student
| should disagree with the side they are supposed to
| defend, though isn't always possible. This will force
| them to look up the views held by the other side. The
| teacher should understand the best arguments on both
| sides and should step in when arguments are being made
| incorrectly or when a student misses a good response.
|
| This of course would often times not work well because
| teachers don't understand their opponent's views so I am
| not sure how to actually handle this. You could possibly
| have a teacher with a different view help moderate the
| debate, but there is a disproportionate amount of
| teachers who are liberal (I've seen some studies that put
| it at over 80%) so it would not always be practical.
|
| This doesn't always work on every topic like math, but it
| could be helpful in both English (for meaning behind
| books, poems, etc) and various history topics.
|
| I am sure there are additional ways to help students
| learn critical thinking but this could be a good way if
| teachers are actually able to present both sides in a
| fair way.
| nerdkid93 wrote:
| 1,000 times yes! In elementary and middle school, I had
| weekly learning from our school librarian on seeking the
| truth through a consensus of multiple sources. She taught us
| how to properly use Wikipedia as a source for finding other
| sources.
|
| Crash Course (the YouTube channel) published a short series
| last year on Navigating Digital Information (https://www.yout
| ube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtN07XYqqWSK...). I really
| appreciated its pointers for how to deal with social media.
| dvtrn wrote:
| Ah thank you for the recommendation! Big fan of Crash
| Course and really big fan of PBS Digital Studios in
| general.
| staycoolboy wrote:
| I used to think this was the answer.
|
| I now think the problem with this is a lack of standards. It
| is documented that textbook manufacturers publish different
| history and science texts based on the region of the country
| regarding the civil war or evolution.
|
| Not to be a nihilist, but what makes you think underfunded
| schools that struggle to teach basic reading will teach media
| literacy and criticism with any success? and will be
| supported by publishers that feel the same way?
|
| I also think critical thinking is VERY hard. Harder than
| people imagine. It is hard to teach, hard to deploy, hard to
| practice. I'm not sure even 20% of the population could
| muster the brain power required to sift through today's
| onslaught of zone-flooding garbage.
| dvtrn wrote:
| _I now think the problem with this is a lack of standards._
|
| That's fair, it's certainly one of many hurdles that this
| sort of a solution would have to face.
|
| _Not to be a nihilist, but what makes you think
| underfunded schools that struggle to teach basic reading
| will teach media literacy and criticism with any success?
| and will be supported by publishers that feel the same
| way?_
|
| Well I'd probably answer that by starting out with an
| inquiry on how nihilism is a factor in what is a completely
| valid question about implementation? A school's ability to
| fund this kind of program from textbooks to technology to
| training staff and instructors has to be considered, this
| type of educational program doesn't happen in vacuum.
|
| So I'd say you're right to ask questions about the
| disparity in school funding and how it would affect a media
| literacy curriculum-even if I'm not sure it's particularly
| accurate to describe such questions as "nihilist", they're
| completely _necessary_. But by no means am I intending to
| make any sort of value judgement about how successful this
| school or that school will be by merely suggesting taking a
| stab at introducing media literacy into public schooling.
|
| To the questions of publishers, excellent question again.
| Maybe there are some models already out there worth
| exploring and iterating upon to maximize the value across
| the various school systems and school models (public,
| montessori, et al), a few people have commented that there
| are comparable programs where they live, I'd be curious to
| see if there are systems worth replicating in this thought
| experiment.
|
| I think you raise excellent points here, all things said.
| bonoboTP wrote:
| Funding is a red herring, it's not primarily about money.
| The whole framework of school is not geared towards this,
| because there is just not enough teachers who have the
| capability to teach something like this. They themselves
| aren't the brightest minds. Now, higher salaries could in
| principle make teaching jobs more attractive to the best
| minds, but it would require a huge social change, not
| just shuffling the budget around a little bit.
|
| And from the children's side: It's already extremely hard
| to teach kids anything at a deeper level, especially
| those ones who will later on become susceptible to
| misinformation. If I look at my Facebook feed,
| schoolmates who got bad grades around age 10 are the ones
| sharing fake quiz results, horoscope stuff, "you won't
| believe what THIS person..." articles, listicles, racist
| stuff etc. Sure it's just correlational, but I think we
| don't have much better ways than we currently do in
| school.
|
| If we could go back in time and design some critical
| thinking curriculum, are you sure you could teach
| something useful to those struggling 10-year-olds, that
| would keep their adult selves away from Internet
| bullshit?
| dvtrn wrote:
| _If we could go back in time and design some critical
| thinking curriculum, are you sure you could teach
| something useful to those struggling 10-year-olds, that
| would keep their adult selves away from Internet
| bullshit?_
|
| Yes. That's why I made the suggestion to begin this
| thread with. What those 10-year-olds who grow-up to
| become adults (as we all do) do with that information is
| impossible to ever truly know, but I think _something_ of
| value could be taught, yes, absolutely.
|
| But I disagree that funding is a red-herring, no it's not
| _solely_ about the money, but as I said: curriculum
| implementation does not happen in a vacuum. It 's
| relevant, and I don't see many useful discussions about
| _implementation specifically_ happening without it. If
| there 's a discussion to be had about the ethics or
| merits of media literacy, sure money probably doesn't
| carry as much weight--but I'm trying to speak as broadly
| as possible on the topic to avoid the trappings of
| turtles-all-the-way-down kvetching about the stylistics
| over how the discussion is framed.
| bonoboTP wrote:
| It would be interesting to see such a curriculum in the
| concrete, perhaps some country has something like that.
|
| For example, we had something approximating it in
| Hungary, in history class. The very fist history lesson
| we had, was on historical sources, how historians work,
| "who benefits?", how you can know that a coin saying
| "minted in 350 BC" must be fake etc. And then later it
| was all facts and gospel, no critical presentation of
| different possibilities and interpretations and framings.
| Because it would be overwhelming.
|
| But to actually train critical thinking, all classes
| should be redesigned in this manner, encouraging kids to
| poke holes in the material, but teachers can barely
| venture out of the confines of the curriculum. An
| elementary school physics teacher won't be able to
| explain things to you the same way a professor could if
| you raise some criticism or find a plothole in the
| simplified lie-to-children presentation. They'll just
| say, "that's how it is, memorize it".
|
| It's a very difficult problem and hardly scalable.
| dvtrn wrote:
| Someone suggested below that it was working in their
| countries, but the comment got flag-killed not long after
| it was posted. If that person is still following the
| thread hopefully they'd be willing to share their
| experiences on it and what the success metrics look like.
|
| _That said..._
|
| Reading other more recent comments though I think we're
| drifting a bit here and introducing some creep into my
| initial suggestion: critical thinking and media literacy
| certainly have some overlap in the types of class and
| even perhaps overlap in topic, but I'm unsure if I'd
| necessarily agree that 'media literacy' as a school topic
| needs to go all the way down the rabbit hole of of
| unpacking "critical theory" and "how to think critically"
| just to hold courses on what I initially and deliberately
| called 'media literacy and criticism'.
|
| Your points are nonetheless well met, however-it
| definitely is a difficult nut to crack, and I can't help
| but wonder if it's a type of thing where if the immediate
| benefits maybe don't come from _solving_ the problem but
| manifest as external results from simply looking at
| existing similar curricula and going from there-to maybe
| lower the initial hurdles of implementation that you and
| others spoke of? What do you think?
| bonoboTP wrote:
| What are example topics of media literacy that you would
| cover? How to check the URL bar? How to look for
| institutional affiliations in an article? Give them a
| whitelist of publications they can trust? Warn them to
| look out for bad spelling (what if they themselves cannot
| spell well?)?
|
| Perhaps tell them a story and ask them to rewrite it such
| that the bad guy comes out looking like the good guy and
| vice versa, or similar manipulations and framing
| exercises. To pick out manipulative phrases from
| presidential speeches, like peace, democracy, our great
| nation etc. But that would directly conflict with what
| they hear in other classes. Or perhaps use the example of
| dictatorial propaganda, text and posters alike, point out
| manipulative stuff.
|
| Perhaps one interesting thing would be to peek behind the
| curtains. To tell them how news are made, how books are
| produced, how science works, what is peer review, how
| they can look up the original primary source (but this is
| too advanced for kids...). That books and knowledge and
| articles don't just fall out of the sky, they are
| deliberately produced with goals in mind.
|
| I fear that ultimately it would devolve into a "don't
| believe everything you read, kids!", similar to "don't do
| drugs" lectures.
| dvtrn wrote:
| Example topics:
|
| * How to source and read cited sources of online
| publications
|
| * Copyright, fair use, associated topics (memes would be
| a great way to capture the attention of a middle schooler
| and would be a perfect tangent to these topics)
|
| * Print and online advertising, how print markets have
| changed and evolved with the new digital landscape and
| the influence advertising and money has on content
| production (Youtuber's and patreons, again, a topic
| relevant to a young captive mind and one they're familiar
| with)
|
| There's genuinely NO shortage of boilerplate contemporary
| lesson plans all across the internet covering "media
| literacy" as an applied subject matter for young minds-
| such that I don't really believe this to be as difficult
| of a teachable subject as many people commenting here are
| trying to make it out as being[0]
|
| [0] https://mediaeducationlab.com/topics/Teaching-Media-
| Literacy
| bonoboTP wrote:
| To properly think critically you'd have to even question
| what school teaches you. The framework of school as an
| institution, it's purposes, it's origins. If you're lucky,
| your parents teach you how the real world relates to
| school, how teachers are just normal people, and aren't
| experts, that schools are operated under a certain
| ideological agenda, either governmental or from the owners
| of the private institution. That even experts aren't truth-
| oracles and have disagreements. That in complicated
| questions, like history, different countries may teach very
| different stories in school. And that your school's version
| is also not unbiased.
|
| I don't see how you can teach the essence of critical
| thinking when it's in itself a fiercely individualistic
| don't-just-trust-the-authority idea.
|
| If you teach it as such, you will get people to believe in
| any and all crackpottery because "I learned not to trust
| school and experts, I now found the actual truth that my
| school has repressed in this creationist UFO book on how
| aliens built the pyramids".
|
| The other option is to teach them not to trust anything
| that comes from "unapproved" sources, only believe your
| government institutions, UN orgs etc. This may seem like a
| good baseline for the average person but it's just appeal
| to authority and not critical thinking.
|
| I think there is just no such thing as "critical thinking"
| that could be taught _as such_ , in itself. You have to go
| to the object level. If you want to dispel creationism, you
| have to teach biology and talk about how we know what we
| know about evolution _and make sure people deeply
| understand it in their bones_ and they don 't just
| regurgitate what they think you expect of them. It's the
| same in every subject. If you want people not to believe in
| magic healing crystal energy vibrations and parapsychology
| and homeopathy, you have to get them to understand some
| principles of real medicine and real physics (with
| equations and exercises all that). Only someone who has
| firm foundations on the object level, can successfully
| apply critical thinking.
|
| One thing that _could_ be taught though is propaganda
| techniques, marketing psychology, how it relates to the
| brain 's reward systems, how ads are designed and
| monitored, A/B testing and tracking in cell phones,
| addiction. How cults form, the human biases that cult
| leaders use, a lot of stuff about human behavior, social
| psychology, trust, different personality types. Fallacies,
| pitfalls of thinking. But all these are very meta and
| again, to have a good grasp of these, you need a good
| actual base on the object level.
|
| Most of actual critical thinking in the real world looks
| like "wait a minute, that doesn't _feel_ right according to
| my model of how the world works ". It's not really by
| matching things against a shortlist of logical fallacies
| that you had to memorize for some test.
| effable wrote:
| To add to this: you have to rely on authorities in a
| sense. I trust that Einstein's theory of General
| Relativity is true because I trust in the scientific
| consensus. I trust that the claims made by climate
| scientists are true because I trust in the peer review
| process. Now, of course, all of these people can be
| wrong. But I, as an individual, only have a limited
| number of years to live and I cannot verify every single
| of piece of information for myself. Ergo, I have to
| decide to trust certain authorities, at least partially
| if I want to do anything useful with my life.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| I'd agree, with one caveat: there have been plenty of cases
| where groups push political or other controversial causes via
| the schools systems (see: the "teach the controversy" and
| "intelligent design" cases of trying to classify a deistic
| creation story as backed by science). I can easily see a
| world where media literacy classes are hijacked to teach the
| opposite of what ideally should be taught, in order to serve
| the needs of a few politicians rather than society as a
| whole.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| This worked in the scandi countries but i feel like in the
| places where Fox news exists it'll be hard to get on the
| curriculum.
| dvtrn wrote:
| That strikes me as all the more reason to shoot for it.
| thebouv wrote:
| You're expecting a lot out of a country still trying to
| get Creationism taught in schools as an alternative
| scientific theory.
| dvtrn wrote:
| Yes I am. Having high expectations fits within my
| personal framework of citizenry. It's fine if yours
| doesn't, plurality is perfectly fine.
|
| The poster asked what could be done. I'm at least trying
| to answer the question.
|
| Do you have solutions? Share them! Let's discuss.
| bobbytherobot wrote:
| Sure, I'm all for teaching it. It would still face the same
| issues as other education topics. Use science as an example.
| It is taught in schools. And yet, we still have a strong
| anti-science culture in the U.S.
| mcculley wrote:
| I have been wondering how one would teach enough evolutionary
| psychology and neuroscience to children to make them less
| susceptible to memetic engineering. Now that we have gone
| from human marketers to automated systems working to
| influence purchases and votes, traditional media criticism
| seems insufficient.
| dvtrn wrote:
| That's an interesting question, though I suppose my
| response would be media literacy and criticism doesn't have
| to necessarily imply _traditional_ media in a singular
| breadth. In suggesting media literacy it was encompassing a
| spectrum.
|
| Still: good question!
| mcculley wrote:
| I'm definitely not suggesting that "media criticism" is
| the wrong term. Just that people need a lot more
| background to understand what "media" actually is.
| dvtrn wrote:
| Maybe an approach to this could follow the model of
| algebra and calculus?
|
| Students who take and show competency in pre-algebra
| qualify to move on to higher level maths building
| foundational knowledge for the more complex systems.
|
| It wouldn't necessarily have to be 1:1 in the model and
| structure of classes, but that's my thinking. Media
| literacy shouldn't be a one semester course, maybe not
| even a one year course, but instead a component of a
| radically different educational framework that informs
| our young students how to critique, analyze and reason
| their way through the digital frontier.
|
| By no means would this kind of shift in education be
| _easy_ , but in my mind ease is as much a threat to
| progress than hardship in some cases.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Absolutely.
|
| It's always surprising to me to see tech folks disparage
| humanities studies, then seem flabbergasted at how to fight
| problems like disinformation/misinformation. IMO, studying
| language, literature, and criticism are critical skills for
| operating in a culture that is flooded with information.
|
| In terms of what we can do right now... I've been following
| Mike Caulfield on Twitter (@holden) and he is doing some
| interesting work on developing mental tools that school kids
| can use to evaluate the information that comes to them in
| social feeds.
|
| https://twitter.com/holden
| yesplorer wrote:
| Whatsapp forwards is largely a solved problem. Now you can't
| forward whatsapp messages to more than 5 people at a go. And if
| you try doing 5 people at a time consecutively, your account is
| automatically deleted even before you reach 30 total forwards.
|
| Some people adopted a strategy of adding users to a group and
| dropping whatever message they have but that too is solved by
| allowing only known contacts to add you to groups.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Your solution is to ban humans from talking to more than 5
| others at once?
| metrokoi wrote:
| It is an interesting solution if nothing else. What about
| capping the number of users or followers to 100 or 1000
| other people? That is closer to how humans interacted for
| the vast majority of history since the development of
| language. If you think about it, it's extremely unnatural
| for single people to have direct communication to millions
| of people. Information can still spread from social group
| to social group. I don't endorse the idea, but I would be
| interested to see how it might work and how information
| would spread and ideas change.
| JimDabell wrote:
| Forwarding WhatsApp messages is a tiny subset of "talking
| to people".
| stickfigure wrote:
| The subject of this thread is "how do you lessen the
| spread of misinformation?" across all of social media,
| and the parent claims that whatsapp has largely solved
| this problem. So we're talking about applying these
| restrictions _much_ more broadly.
| yesplorer wrote:
| you can talk to hundred people at at time. You just can't
| forward the same message to more than 5 people at the time.
| What's the problem with that?
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| They can talk to more than 5 people at once, just not
| through the WhatsApp platform. I take it you think email
| spammers are also unjustly treated too.
| [deleted]
| legolas2412 wrote:
| I would be fine with a public ministry of truth. Atleast we
| will have the free speech rights.
|
| Wo have given too much power to these private companies.
| giarc wrote:
| Social media companies don't necessarily need to take a stand.
| Label any tweet with the word 'vaccine/vaccination' with a link
| to the WHO (or insert users country health ministry) info on
| vaccines. There is obiviously a lot of topics to cover (voting
| rights, flat earth, conspiracy theories etc) but isn't the
| thing tech companies can do well is things at scale?
| nmz wrote:
| You can also go backwards, The problem with social media is
| that anyone can comment on it. and that's not a desirable
| trait for complex discussions. I can't tell how many times
| I've seen a news article and the top post in a forum like
| here or reddit be some expert explaining the article and
| indicate the failures of it. This is solvable, a social media
| for experts, every single link given a rating on its
| truthfulness. by actual non-anonymous experts. or hell, you
| can scrape for the link on twitter, have a database of
| professionals who have commented on twitter on the article
| and indicate what they said about it. Anyway, I'm just
| spitballing now so I'll stop.
| hammock wrote:
| Is this comment a joke? Are you a bot? You haven't heard these
| issues mentioned before? The proposed conundrum is a major
| fixture of the mainstream discourse.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Focus on the last line...
|
| > how do you lessen the spread of misinformation?
|
| ...and provide constructive content please.
| brighton36 wrote:
| There's nothing we can do. We should stop pretending otherwise.
|
| This it it. We did it. There is nothing for us to do, but
| celebrate.
| pfraze wrote:
| I think we're trapped in a structural innovation problem.
| Social media, no matter how it started, is now the pipeline for
| information. The internet is displacing old media forms but
| stalling out on that development.
|
| The system is stuck in two local maximums: news publishers
| which use their own web properties as some kind of
| newspaper/television hybrid, and social media platforms which
| conceive of media as only posts, votes, & comments. They're
| both "monolithic architectures" (so to speak) which lack the
| kind of modularity or extensibility that would enable
| innovation.
|
| On the Internet, we should be looking at information within the
| context of general computation. There are data sources
| (reporters, individuals, orgs) which get mixed with signals
| (votes, fact-checks, annotations) and then ranked, filtered,
| and rendered. An open market would maximize the modularity and
| extensibility of each of these components so that better media
| products can be created.
|
| The social platforms are in a difficult position because they
| have total control over what's carried on their platforms, and
| so they want to assert a position of neutrality -- which is why
| they're adamant they're not media companies. But if they're
| controlling any part of the pipeline other than compute and
| hosting, they're not a neutral platform. They're a part of the
| media.
|
| The way we've historically walked the tight-rope of
| misinformation vs censorship is to create an open market for
| journalism so that there's accountability through the system. I
| don't think we'll have an open market until we componentize
| social media and stop seeing journalism and the design of
| social media as two distinct things.
| cwperkins wrote:
| Its evident to me that our strategy to combat misinformation is
| not going great at the moment. I've been on Reddit for over 13
| years and the site has gone through many changes.
|
| What if we changed our thinking from removing/flagging bad
| content to fostering rich discourse?
|
| I'll use r/politics for example, I currently do not think there
| is productive or rich discourse being had there. If you have had
| a different experience please let me know.
|
| I think for the political arena it would do us good to try to
| emulate the US House of Representatives where representatives are
| given equal time to address the floor. In this way you will be
| exposed to other perspectives. The ways we can achieve this are
| similar to the approach NYT has taken to comments. You can still
| sort comments by most recommended, but there are also "Featured
| Comments". Featured Comments are chosen by a team at NYT,
| presumably from ideologically diverse perspectives, and they
| choose comments that are insightful and rich in information
| without toxicity. Does anyone else think that would be a good
| idea?
|
| I think its important because I truly believe Americans are far
| more alike then different and just about everyone feels like they
| are under attack or have been violated. Its time to heal and
| listen and understand that we are in it together and the people
| that we really should be castigating are the people filled with
| prejudice to the point where they have shut themselves off from
| hearing other perspectives. I believe there is a vast middle in
| the USA, but its currently getting drowned out and it should have
| a louder voice.
| adjkant wrote:
| > What if we changed our thinking from removing/flagging bad
| content to fostering rich discourse?
|
| So swapping a hard problem for an even harder one?
| Do4oolu5 wrote:
| Is it really a technical problem, though?
|
| If the majority of people _want_ to fight and is more willing
| to act in bad faith to hurt the opponent / win the argument
| rather than willing to correct their opinion by discovering
| facts, I don't think any technical solution could, nor should,
| try to correct that ("nor should", because it could quickly
| turn into some sort of oppression).
|
| That being said, I commend you for looking for such solution,
| if only because masses' mood swings faster than technical
| solutions are implemented, and your features will be there when
| people are fed up with constant conflicts.
| cwperkins wrote:
| I think it is to some extent. The "Tyranny of the Majority"
| on internet forums pushes people to finding safe spaces for
| them. It's great that you can find subreddits for your
| interest and I even think they should exist for political
| ideologies, but I think it would do us a big service to see
| the main political arena to be more like the US House of
| Representatives.
|
| For me, I see the main problem is that we need to create
| demand for fair and balanced news sources. I really don't
| like when you only hear about perceptions of other
| perspectives from pundits/activists, instead of hearing the
| opinion from its source. I think this is breeding prejudice.
| I think there is a vast amount of misrepresentation and the
| backlash we see is from people who often don't feel like they
| have the proper avenues to express themselves.
|
| I try to be part of the solution, by paying for subscriptions
| for Bloomberg and WSJ. Its a hard problem, that's for sure.
| cryptonector wrote:
| > What if we changed our thinking from removing/flagging bad
| content to fostering rich discourse?
|
| "The answer to bad speech is more speech."
|
| Brilliant people who have said this or some trivial variation
| thereof: - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis
| Brandeis: https://prospect.org/culture/remedy-speech/
| - U.S. President Barack Obama https://www.answers.com/Q
| /Who_said_answer_bad_speech_with_more_speech - Penn
| Jillette https://bigthink.com/in-their-own-words/why-
| the-solution-to-bad-speech-is-always-more-speech - Google
| CEO (then) Eric Schmidt
| https://www.news18.com/news/india/the-answer-to-bad-speech-is-
| more-speech-googles-eric-schmidt-598251.html
|
| Lots of people who want to suppress speech they don't like then
| respond that this is not enough. E.g.,
| https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/9sel59/cmv_th...
| jbeam wrote:
| >I'll use r/politics for example, I currently do not think
| there is productive or rich discourse being had there. If you
| have had a different experience please let me know.
|
| The top post on r/politics on Super Tuesday was about Sanders
| winning Vermont. There was no discussion to be had about Biden
| absolutely cleaning up.
| _never_k wrote:
| >I think for the political arena it would do us good to try to
| emulate the US House of Representatives where representatives
| are given equal time to address the floor.
|
| This is a weird example. Representatives don't listen to each
| other. The speeches are for their constituents.
|
| >Featured Comments are chosen by a team at NYT, presumably from
| ideologically diverse perspectives, and they choose comments
| that are insightful and rich in information without toxicity.
|
| Agreed, the solution to the problems caused by getting rid of
| gatekeepers is to bring back gatekeepers. How do you do it with
| something like twitter though, where there were no gatekeepers
| to begin with?
| [deleted]
| RyanGoosling wrote:
| Good.
| dekhn wrote:
| This isn't really news because Trump doesn't have the power to do
| this, and none of the people with the power want to do it. I
| think people really need to learn to tune out (and not amplify)
| Trump's ravings.
| dakna wrote:
| Brilliant move by Trump's team forcing Twitter into this. He can
| now visibly blame another media outlet and continue building the
| narrative that the election results need to be challenged in case
| he lost. While also making sure voter turnout is high enough
| because his base thinks they need to "fight" this because it's
| deemed unfair.
| Kephael wrote:
| Why doesn't Twitter "fact check" the fake photo of the MN Cop in
| discriminatory clothing that's been trending on Twitter all day?
|
| https://twitter.com/search?q=%22Make%20Whites%20Great%20Agai...
|
| They are working as editors which does not provide them FCC
| section 230 protection.
| mabbo wrote:
| > Public Service Announcement: The Right to Free Speech means the
| government can't arrest you for what you say. It doesn't mean
| that anyone else has to listen to your bullshit or host you while
| you share it.
|
| > The 1st Amendment doesn't shield you from criticism or
| consequences.
|
| > If you're yelled at, boycotted, have your show cancelled, or
| get banned from an internet community, your free speech rights
| aren't being violated. It's just that the people listening to you
| think you're an asshole, and they're showing you the door.
|
| https://xkcd.com/1357/
| dx87 wrote:
| That's such a stupid comic. The 1st Amendment doesn't give you
| a right to free speech, it says they won't take away your
| right.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| The comic correctly spells out some of the implications and
| limitations of the first amendment.
| gtCameron wrote:
| https://stratechery.com/2019/tech-and-liberty/
| devurand wrote:
| I think the position of this article requires a poor
| assumption with regards to the "marketplace of ideas." It
| assumes a majority of rational, fact-checking, good-faith
| actors which is just not the case in the real world. And
| without that particular check in place, falsehoods gain an
| undeserved advantage in the "marketplace of ideas."
| gtCameron wrote:
| So in this view, who gets to determine who is a "rational,
| fact-checking, good-faith actor" who should enjoy the
| privilege of free speech, and conversely, who should not
| have those same rights?
| padseeker wrote:
| Am I the only one that sees the irony that
|
| A) Twitter, a private company, was merely adding a warning to his
| tweet which doesn't restrict his speech at all, and has long been
| defended by conservatives that private companies restricting
| speech is not a violation of the first amendment
|
| AND
|
| B) Trump threatened to use the powers of government to stop
| someone from violating his speech that is not protected by the
| first amendment is ACTUALLY VIOLATING THE FIRST AMENDMENT?
| qubex wrote:
| I'm an outsider (not American, don't live in America) so I'm
| almost not entitled to have an opinion on the matter, but it
| always strikes me as fairly odd when people of one persuasion or
| another rail against the 'bias' that they perceive against them
| in one circumstance or another (including media coverage).
|
| _Of course_ people see bias against them. It's classical
| confirmation bias: every time something goes their way, it's
| unremarkable, but as soon as something doesn't, it's noticeable.
|
| Isn't it equally possible --nay, _probable_ even, especially in
| this case-- that the perceived bias is only the prevailing
| opinion of the majority against whom one is in a minority?
| happytoexplain wrote:
| This is basically true. Liberal or conservative, everybody I
| talk to who can communicate ideas without injecting vitriol
| into every word agrees that 90% of "censorship" of
| conservatives is just censorship of standard low-value hateful
| garbage, and that genre of speech, while committed on all
| sides, is highly overrepresented by conservatives, which makes
| life hard for the majority of conservatives who are rational.
| barbacoa wrote:
| PragerU has their content taken down and/or restricted on a
| regular basis from big tech platforms. Their videos express
| generic and cliche conservative ideas and values. While many
| people may not agree with what they say it is a far stretch
| to call it "low-value hateful garbage".
| [deleted]
| anthonypasq wrote:
| A large portion of Republicans dont believe in climate
| change.
|
| Generic and cliche conservatives ideas ARE "low-value
| hateful garbage." In case of climate change, they are
| actively interested in expediting the collapse of civilized
| human life on earth. These people are a threat to society
| and deserve to be taken down for spreading dangerous lies.
| cowmoo728 wrote:
| It's important to note that youtube is not removing prageru
| videos, it was just hiding them from being suggested
| automatically unless you opt in to "non-restricted". There
| are plenty of parents that would object to their toddlers
| watching videos about the death penalty or abortion.
| "Liberal" videos about these topics were similarly
| restricted. All of the prageru videos are still accessible.
|
| It is also the case that being restricted limits
| monetization on those videos, but advertisers don't want to
| be associated with those topics.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| This is a great perspective.
|
| Americans get too bogged down in the muck to look up to realize
| what's actually going on around them or be aware of just how
| hypocritical they are.
| 2019-nCoV wrote:
| He's the only one being fact checked. And they chose CNN (most
| antithetical news source) to "debunk" his claims.
|
| https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384
| thebouv wrote:
| You may want to look up your word choices. They don't mean
| what you think they mean.
|
| What are they antithetical to? I mean .. what are you even
| trying to say here?
| jjuel wrote:
| Does the source matter when what he says is provably false?
| BTW I am all for them fact checking ALL of the politicians.
| qubex wrote:
| You mean 'unethical'? 'Antithetical' means "opposed to".
| thebouv wrote:
| It was a bigly word choice.
| qubex wrote:
| "I know words. I have the best words." -- Sadly, an
| actual quote by President Donald J. Trump.
| 2019-nCoV wrote:
| Redheads really are rampant with insecurity aren't they.
| palsir wrote:
| are you an AI? Your dev should check out GPT-2, it's much
| more coherent than the current model.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| > so I'm almost not entitled to have an opinion on the matter
|
| I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with you here. The US is such a
| prominent nation, that can make or break the economies other
| countries, depending on their political actions.
|
| I've seen a lot of this "It's US politics, so none of your
| business" writing when criticizing Trump - but fact is that
| most countries are not perfectly de-coupled from each others.
| The US relies on some countries, while other countries relies
| on the US.
|
| Sure, you do not have any right to vote for him, but you sure
| as hell are entitled to voice your opinion on him.
| qubex wrote:
| I most definitely do have an opinion on him, and a very
| negative one at that. However, I try to keep that as reserved
| as possible for a number of reasons, including:
|
| - Manifesting my like or dislike of the man immediately
| places one side or the other of tribal warfare, and that is
| precisely what I'd like to see less of;
|
| - In my experience Americans are extremely testy and
| sometimes downright hostile when foreigners express opinions
| about their governance (the whole foundational process, at
| least as it is taught today, was of a rejection of ties to
| the Old Wolrd and its old, flawed ways)... I've even had
| people berate me online for being a condescending neo-
| imperialistic foreigner meddling in their affairs 'proving'
| that the Democrats are traitors who sell out America's
| interests to foreigners (because if foreigners prefer
| Democrats, it must be because they get something in return);
|
| - I sometimes get somewhat annoyed at others when they bring
| up "pizza, pasta, mafia" caricatures of my own home country
| (Italy) so I always wonder how much of what I think I 'know'
| is simply stereotype.
|
| For all these reasons, I prefer to be as impartial as I
| possibly can.
| umvi wrote:
| I have Italian friends on FB constantly voicing their
| criticisms of US government. It just strikes me as
| massively hypocritical when Italy's government is a
| complete train wreck. It's easy to criticize, it's harder
| to lead by example.
|
| My instinct is to reply "Then show us how it's done with
| your own government. It isn't easy, is it?"
| collegecamp293 wrote:
| Twitter has opened a whole can of worms. There are several
| official state agencies with their propaganda PR arms on Twitter.
| Will they fact check them too and risk being banned in those
| countries?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It's a moral question that Twitter has to answer for
| themselves; are they willing to risk getting banned in those
| countries? Are they willing to risk having the government of
| the country they operate from shut them down?
|
| I mean I want to say they should let that happen, but the US is
| toothless in that the population wouldn't revolt if it
| happened. Twitter would end but nothing would change.
|
| But it's not going to go there, Twitter will sit with the
| government, they'll make a deal, some palms will be greased and
| they will bow to their government overlords.
|
| Companies are fucky like that; on the one hand they influence
| public discourse and voting behaviour, on the other they're
| morally flexible and will grovel for their government masters
| if they get to earn money there (see also Google and China,
| Hollywood films and China, etc).
| shadowgovt wrote:
| The easiest way for them to answer it is not to answer it.
|
| They're an American company and can choose to justify fact-
| checking only the US President if they want. It's not like
| hypocrisy has bothered them in the past; it clearly didn't
| bother them when the US elected a troll and they fixed the
| glitch of their own TOS suggesting he be banned from their
| service by modifying the TOS to have a carve-out for
| "newsworthiness."
| cryptonector wrote:
| Spoiler alert: no.
| qubex wrote:
| That's probably why they've delayed taking this stance for so
| long. They have, after all, typically refrained from "fact-
| checking" leaders or politicians in other countries too. I
| assume it's just got to a point where they're no longer to (in
| their good conscience) offset readership/users with the
| promulgation of highly questionable statements.
|
| And to be perfectly honest, I'm all for it, especially if
| they've done this (and will do this more broadly, as you
| suggest) despite expecting to take a substantial 'hit' to their
| bottom line.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| Somewhere in a another universe there exists alternative facts.
| tom-thistime wrote:
| I don't always see eye-to-eye with the President, but closing
| down social media platforms sounds like a win for the country.
| Tough, bitter medicine but exactly what we need in the long term.
| KKKKkkkk1 wrote:
| I'm wondering how the all-important stock market is going to
| react to this. Similarly to many other impulsive ill-conceived
| actions, the president is actively engaged in wealth destruction.
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| If major platforms become regulated to legally ban censorship,
| this could actually be a good thing... These platforms could
| become more like public utilities.
|
| Although it also sounds like it would be great for entrenched
| incumbents and cause barriers to entry.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| I hope he does.
|
| These gigantic centralized silo monopolies that recreate the
| experience of AOL online.
|
| They have way more power than any American (or any other country)
| company should have in the world. Their reach is global, what
| they do, impacts millions of people who have no say whatsoever.
|
| I long for a much more distributed system. (Doesn't have to be
| some fancy federated system.
|
| I would be happy with real competition by a few hundred companies
| distributed around the world.
|
| Closing down, or neutering the behemoths would be the most useful
| thing Trump will ever do.
|
| He will soon realize that he cannot, or maybe he just forgets
| about it, or maybe he tries and the supreme court strikes it
| down. I cannot imagine how much money is flowing from the silos
| to lobbyists in Washington right now.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| He's extremely unlikely to take real action because Twitter is
| his primary channel for reaching his political base. It's not
| guaranteed they'd migrate to where else he may choose to go
| (ever helped a relative figure out how to install a Zoom-alike
| videoconferencing app on their phone? Like that, but multiplied
| by millions of people. The science of engagement and stickiness
| tells us about half wouldn't bother to follow if they had to
| install one more app to hear the President's words).
| avsteele wrote:
| The problem Twitter is going to face has nothing to do with
| Trump.
|
| By doing 'fact checking' like this they they open themselves up
| to the charge that anything that doesn't have the little (!)
| meets some standard. Expect 10x more people @jack,
| @twittersupport etc... every time they see something they find
| misleading.
|
| This is a bad move.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Written above "utterly unsustainable". I can see no long term
| win here, esp when the arbiter they chose clearly has his own
| issues.
| heurist wrote:
| I could see partnering with independent journalist corps to
| investigate flagged tweets. Guessing They'd only do it for
| verified accounts. They'd have control over the corp quality
| and bias, so could offer a reasonably neutral fact checking
| service if they choose to.
|
| Interesting to see public information warefare playing out in
| real time.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I absolutely want to agree with you, but we've already seen
| controversial fact checkers ranging from, politifact,
| Snopes, mediamatters, Hillary Clinton's campaign, and in
| this instance Twitter's own employee with his own colorful
| statements.
|
| The issue becomes with what fact checkers omit, who's
| statements are scrutinized and whose are the ignored as
| "jokes", what part of a statement they choose to focus on,
| or any sort of perspective at all. If you're an adult you
| know that life is shades of gray.
|
| Was Biden being racist when he said "you ain't black" if
| Blacks don't vote for him? How would a fact checker
| properly handle this?
|
| "Fact checking" even with the best intentions, is it game I
| don't think we want to play.
|
| > Interesting to see public information warefare playing
| out in real time.
|
| Agreed
| heurist wrote:
| It's not easy, that's for sure. But this is also not a
| new problem. The field of journalism exists to address
| these complicated issues, which emerge from basic human
| communication rather than any recent technological
| advancement. In a real sense, truth is whatever society
| wants it to be and every attempt to fact check will be a
| political battle shrouding/suppressing potential physical
| violence. I'm not sure what the solution is other than
| our society finding a baseline of common truth first
| before addressing points where we differ.
|
| Also, the US previously had the fairness doctrine which
| seems to have worked well in comparison with this era
| without it (though I have not done much research into it,
| and I can see how an administration like the one we have
| today would abuse it).
| A-Train wrote:
| Believe it or not but Sasha Baron Cohen made a great argument to
| everyone who thinks that Twitter should not interfere with
| freedom of speech.
|
| Basically quoting Sasha's argument "freedom of speech is not the
| freedom of reach". Spreading lies, hate and false information is
| everyone's right if they do it in their home alone but they
| shouldn't be allowed to reach bigger audiences.
|
| Video here: https://youtu.be/PVWt0qUc0CE
| legolas2412 wrote:
| Very much disagree. If I cut your reach to 0, I denied you the
| freedom of speech. If cut your reach in half, I still affected
| your freedom of speech.
|
| The question is whether fb/Twitter should be subjected to
| freedom of speech restrictions or not
| ausbah wrote:
| As usual he is just playing the victim when people call him out
| on his lies. What makes it different and worth watching is when
| the platform instead of a user does it.
| fuckSocialMedia wrote:
| Good. Fuck social media.
|
| Probably way more beneficial to humanity to destroy social media
| than lay waste to the economy with these dubious COVID-19
| lockdowns.
| thebouv wrote:
| So he just admitted that fact checking is suppressing
| conservative voices?
|
| That's awesome.
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| "Fact" Checking.
| frockington1 wrote:
| Biased fact checking would be and would be par for the course
| for many "news" organizations on both sides
| krapp wrote:
| He's also admitted that voter suppression is the main reason
| Republicans even get elected[0].
|
| God help us if we ever get a competent authoritarian into
| office who's cunning enough not to say the corrupt part out
| loud.
|
| [0]https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/30/trump-
| vot...
| thebouv wrote:
| The corrupt part out loud is a distraction from the hidden
| corruption.
| loceng wrote:
| It seems to not matter though as his supporters either 1)
| don't watch the sources sharing the truth, 2) don't have
| critical thinking mechanisms for integrity, and/or 3) decide
| it's "fake news" without critical thinking trying to
| determine if Trump is the propagandist or whomever Trump
| claims is the "fake news."
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| To your point, Trump being out in the open with his BS is
| probably what his base likes. I have family members who think
| that he is a great president, go figure.
|
| BTW, I view most politicians from both parties, DNC, and RNC
| to be corrupt, controlled by special interests.
|
| Not to go to far afield here, but I will vote for either a
| democrat or republican based on public records of who their
| donors are. Turns out that based on this criteria I usually
| vote for Democrats but not always.
| freshpots wrote:
| "I view most politicians from both parties, DNC, and RNC to
| be corrupt, controlled by special interests." the problem
| with this is the scale of it as it is not equal.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| "Controlled by special interests" is half the story.
|
| The other half is to realize that in the US representative
| democracy, the people who change policy are the ones who
| are dedicated enough to the task to make a career out of
| it, at the expense of other things they could be doing.
| Because the system isn't managed by the will of the people;
| it's managed by the will of the subset of the people who
| put the (quite large amount of) effort in to be known and
| heard. Most Americans don't even do the base work of
| showing up to vote in every election (and the turnout
| numbers are too low to explain that effect by voter
| suppression alone).
|
| Those with other things to do and not enough time to be
| devoted full-time to policy-craft label those who do
| "special interests."
|
| The NRA is a special interest, but so is the ACLU. And the
| NAACP. And the AFL-CIO. And the EFF.
| cheeseomlit wrote:
| You call it voter suppression, other people call it election
| integrity. If ballot harvesting is allowed and you don't need
| an ID to vote then fraud becomes much easier.
| standardUser wrote:
| There seem to be some upside down priorities here. Many folks
| seem to be arguing that its an unacceptable form of censorship
| for a private platform to annotate content it allows others to
| post. Meanwhile, I'm seeing barely a mention of the fact that the
| President of the United States has threatened to use government
| power to shut down an entire sector of the economy devoted to
| communication. The latter is almost certainly a violation of the
| Constitution. The former, almost certainly not.
| meragrin_ wrote:
| Perhaps they see it as targeting a political figure because of
| political differences rather than trying to prevent the spread
| of misinformation. I'm not seeing any annotations on a number
| prominent members of Congress spreading misinformation.
|
| Where in the US Constitution does it say presidents cannot
| threaten companies? Obama had his share of threats. I'm sure
| they could find a suitable legal issue with Twitter targeting
| Trump while ignoring members of Congress.
| standardUser wrote:
| "Obama had his share of threats."
|
| Cite two.
| RandomTisk wrote:
| That is exactly how I see it. I see it as silicon valley
| employees taking it upon themselves to try to get the last
| word in with Trump's message. Linking to CNN and WP was just
| beyond the pale.
| thephyber wrote:
| > Where in the US Constitution does it say presidents cannot
| threaten companies?
|
| The Articles of the US Constitution aren't an enumerated list
| of illegal actions. It's the wrong place to look for
| limitations of presidential power.
|
| I love that our expectations of the current president are so
| low that we will use excuse them because "the previous
| presidents did it too!" You aren't actually saying what he's
| doing is legal; you are simply increasing the importance of
| precedent over the statutory restraints of power -- it's a
| _very_ dangerous argument to make.
| tossAfterUsing wrote:
| Mhm.
|
| Also missing from the parts of the discussion i've yet read, is
| the question of what sort of software we're using.
|
| At the risk of using a buzzword, decentralized comms could
| reduce the risks of constitutional shutdown. And maybe even be
| better.
| fixmycode wrote:
| I hope they name it mastodon.gov
| itchyjunk wrote:
| Hm, is fact checking solved problem? I remember someone here had
| their game flagged just because it referenced SARS-CoV-2. I hear
| almost daily horror stories of youtube algo's screwing up content
| creator. As a human, I still struggle a lot to read a paper and
| figure out what I just read. On top of that, things like the GPT2
| from OpenAI might generate very human like comment.
|
| Is there no way to consider social media as unreliable overall
| and not bother fact checking anything there? All this tech is
| relatively new but maybe we should think in longer time scale.
| Wikipedia is still not used as a source in school work because
| that's the direction educational institution moved. If we could
| give a status that nothing on social media is too be taken
| seriously, maybe it's a better approach.
|
| Let me end this on a muddier concept. I thought masks was a good
| idea from the get go but there was an opposing view that existed
| at some point about this even from "authoritative" sources. In
| that case, do we just appeal to authority? Ask some oracle what
| "fact" is and shun every other point of view?
| tmaly wrote:
| On masks as a good idea, I am still a little concerned with
| touch transmission. I see people without gloves touching their
| mask. This is totally contaminating the mask.
|
| I would really like a settled question on whether mail and
| groceries are safe to touch. There was a study that came out
| saying the virus could exist on different surfaces for
| different periods of time. News reported last week that CDC
| update the website that indicated that the study was flawed.
| Soon after the CDC added clarification which still leaves the
| conclusion open.
| https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/s0522-cdc-updates-co...
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > Ask some oracle what "fact" is and shun every other point of
| view
|
| Because the 'correct answer' to many questions is 'it
| depends...'. You enumerate the advantages and disadvantages of
| various options and pick an option that satisfies some sort of
| evaluation function (which may depend on your point of view).
| Some of the advantages and disadvantages are facts while others
| are probabilities.
|
| This of course doesn't work well in short form media or for
| people who like things simple.
| chlodwig wrote:
| It is not at all a solved problem. Fact-checking has the
| ancient "who watches the watchers" problem. Who facts checks
| the fact-checkers? And more broadly, censoring harassing tweets
| has the problem that a lot of activism looks a lot like
| harassment, and censoring "conspiracy theories" looks a lot
| like powerful people censoring those speaking truth to power.
|
| For anyone who believes that Twitter should be in the business
| of fact-checking, or censoring harassing or disinformation,
| tell me which of these should be fact-checked or censored:
|
| 1. "Don't wear masks. They don't work and take away masks from
| healthcare workers."
|
| 2. "The government is lying about whether masks work or not
| because we don't have enough masks for everyone."
|
| 3. "Masks help. Everyone should be wearing masks, wear a home-
| made mask if we don't have enough store bought ones."
|
| 4. "Fact: coronavirus is not airborne"
|
| 5. "Coronavirus is airborne."
|
| 6. "Scientists think Hydroxychloroquine might be effective in
| treating coronavirus, link here: "
|
| 7. "Scientists think treating men with estrogen might be
| effective in treating coronavirus, link here: "
|
| 8. "Look at this video of this Karen calling the police and
| lying because a black man who just told her to leash his dog.
| Do better white women."
|
| 9. "Look at this article about this Shylock who scammed
| thousands of seniors out of their retirement money. Do better
| Jews.
|
| 10. "Look at this Laquisha and her five kids taking over the
| bus and screaming and disturbing all the other riders. Do
| better black women."
|
| 11. Look, another tech-bro mansplaining and whitesplaining why
| racism isn't really a thing. I can only stomach so much of this
| ignorance.
|
| 12. "Under the Trump administration, there are actual Nazi's in
| the White House."
|
| 13. "Trump is a traitor against his country, he criminally
| colluded with Russia to rig the election."
|
| 14. "Representative Scarborough killed his intern."
|
| 15. "There is a paedophilia blackmail network that is pulling
| the strings behind the Democratic party."
|
| 16. "There is no precedent that anybody can find for someone
| who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free"
|
| 17. "The United States is the highest taxed nation in the world
| -- that will change."
|
| 18. "Michael Brown was murdered by a white police officer in
| Ferguson, Missouri."
|
| 19. "If Democrats were truly serious about eradicating voter
| fraud, they would severely restrict absentee voting, permitting
| it only when voters have a good excuse, like illness."
|
| 20. "Absentee voting is to voting in person as as a take-home
| exam is to a proctored one. And just as teachers have reported
| a massive cheating as a result of moving to take-home tests
| during coronavirus, we can expect massive fraud as we move to
| mail-in ballots."
|
| Here are my answers if I was running Twitter: I would not fact-
| check any of these statements. I would censor the one's using
| derogatory racial language that is 8, 9, 10, and 11. Also 8, 9
| and 11 should be banned for harassing a private citizen. For
| the potentially defamatory statements -- 12, 13, 14 and 15 --
| if made by a real-name account they should be let stand and the
| offended person or organization can sue in court for defamation
| if they think it is false. If made by an anon account, the
| statement should be removed if reported.
| wccrawford wrote:
| I fail to see how 8, 9 and 11 harass a particular person but
| 10 doesn't?
|
| Can 15 really sue the person for defamation? Regardless, IMO,
| the DNC is part of the government and therefore open to
| public criticism, especially anonymously. This goes for all
| the other statements here about government bodies and
| officials.
|
| I'm having trouble processing "tech-bro" as something worth
| censoring, but I have to admit it's derogatory and aimed at a
| particular stereotype, and so it's in the same category as
| the other statements. But it leads me to wonder: Don't all
| descriptions of a certain group of people end up falling into
| that category? Where does the line stop? People will (and
| have, historically) just start using the non-derogatory
| descriptions as derogatory ones if you censor the ones they
| currently use.
| chlodwig wrote:
| _I fail to see how 8, 9 and 11 harass a particular person
| but 10 doesn 't?_
|
| Woops. It was 9 that arguably wouldn't be harassing a
| particular person if the article they were commenting on
| was about how the person had been convicted in a court of
| law. My thinking is that signal boosting something bad
| someone has done is not harassment if they have actually
| been convicted of a felony.
|
| _Can 15 really sue the person for defamation? Regardless,
| IMO, the DNC is part of the government and therefore open
| to public criticism, especially anonymously._
|
| The DNC could sue the person, but under current American
| libel laws, which are very strict, they would probably
| lose. Basically as long as the person can show some grounds
| for honestly believing the claim, however stretched or
| flimsy, the person is not liable. Libel laws in other
| countries are less strict.
|
| _But it leads me to wonder: Don 't all descriptions of a
| certain group of people end up falling into that category?
| Where does the line stop? People will (and have,
| historically) just start using the non-derogatory
| descriptions as derogatory ones if you censor the ones they
| currently use._
|
| I think the rule would be that if you are referring to a
| group that is a protected class (sex being a protected
| class) then you should use the word that that group uses to
| call itself. Or the very least, a neutral term, not a term
| invented by critics. So with "tech bro", it was not a term
| coined by men in tech themselves, it was coined by people
| who were criticizing male tech culture, and so should not
| be allowed.
|
| It's always going to be a bit subjective, and there will be
| churn of epithets over time, but even reducing the number
| of derogatory epithets used by 95% is still better than
| nothing.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I would fact check 4 only if it was posted by Trump or
| someone with a similar level of authority and following. As
| far as I can tell that's the only one that is provably false.
| chlodwig wrote:
| What's incredible is that #4 itself was a fact-check by
| none-other-than the World Health Organization, back on
| March 29th --
| https://twitter.com/who/status/1243972193169616898
|
| Now in fairness this was before airborne transmission was
| as well established [1]. The Tweet came 45 minutes before
| the LA Times article documenting airborne transmission at a
| choir practice. But still -- it is unforgivable that they
| said, "Fact: COVID19 is NOT airborne" rather than saying,
| "We don't know."
|
| And it really shows the dangers with Youtube's policy of
| banning coronavirus related videos that contradict World
| Health Organization advice -- there is no magic pixie dust
| that makes the WHO an infallible authority, and like any
| bureaucracy, they are subject to increasing rot and
| incompetence over time.
|
| [1] Actually, to be more specific, it seems this whole
| "airborne" versus "droplet" transmission distinction that
| the WHO was adhering to is a false dichotomy and that it is
| much more of a messy gradient than sharp distinction.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Retroactive fact checking is an interesting question.
| Should social media fact check content that was shown to
| be false after it was posted? I'd say yes.
| chlodwig wrote:
| They could detect if the post is still getting
| significant search traffic, and if so, do the fact check.
|
| Even before we knew about the Seattle choir, Twitter
| could have given the tweet a fact-check in the form,
| "Actually, there is conflicting evidence and we are not
| sure to what extent it is airborne." But of course on
| what authority does Twitter make that fact check? There
| are no easy answers.
| gadders wrote:
| It's certainly not a solved problem when the "Head of Site
| Integrity" has a history of anti-Trump tweets and called the
| President a Nazi.
|
| And that's just the head of the team. You can see the hard-left
| and pro-Antifa affiliations of the team outlined here:
| https://nickmonroe.blog/2019/11/28/dear-jack-twitter-is-poli...
| dboreham wrote:
| Any intelligent moral person is going to have "a history of
| anti-Trump tweets" if they're a Twitter user, which
| presumably someone who works for Twitter would be. Same logic
| goes for calling a person acting like Nazis a Nazi.
| jki275 wrote:
| Quite the flame bait there, you're claiming that half the
| country is not intelligent or moral.
| lovich wrote:
| If those follow a standard bell curve, wouldn't it make
| sense for half the country to be below the average on
| those aspects?
| jki275 wrote:
| Assumes a LOT of facts not in evidence.
| gadders wrote:
| I'm not sure that that is a reasonable point of view.
| mgoetzke wrote:
| pro-Antifa means Pro Anti-Fascist which means to organise
| some movement against fascism.
|
| Would we really want people to be the inverse ? Meaning would
| we like them to be more fascist or accepting of fascism ?
|
| What exactly happened that AntiFa has become a group that
| people don't support ? Maybe I missed something there.
| chlodwig wrote:
| And the Berlin Wall was the "Anti-Fascist Protection
| Rampart." Who could be against a wall to protect against
| incursions of fascism? What are you a fascist yourself?
|
| I'm going to form a group called the "anti-baddies
| alliance." Who could be for "baddies"? And we are going to
| combat "baddies" "by any means necessary", including taking
| over the streets, punching people we decide are real bad
| baddies, agitating to get baddies de-platformed. Who could
| be against this? Would we want the inverse? Do we want
| people to be more bad or more accepting of baddies? (Also,
| while we say we are just "anti-baddies", we will also
| unofficially have a set of positive beliefs about how
| society should be radically restructured that almost all of
| us share to some degree, and that we continually agitate
| for. But if we get called out on this, we will deny it and
| just say, "hey, we're just anti-baddies, who is against
| being anti-baddie"?
| fetbaffe wrote:
| Anyone not believing in the Deutsche Demokratische
| Republik must be anti-democracy, thus fascist.
| fetbaffe wrote:
| Pro-Life means Pro-Humans which means to organize some
| movement against death.
|
| Would we really want people to be the inverse? Meaning
| would we like them to accept more of death?
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Antifa is best known for their violent intimidation of
| political dissidents.
| SkyBelow wrote:
| This is assuming entities match their names. We only have
| to consider the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to
| see that is not the case.
| jungletime wrote:
| By that logic Uranus was named after your anus. See simple.
| And "The Ministry of Truth" always said true things. And
| the "Vice and Virtue Ministry" was a noble institution.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_and_Virtue_Ministry
|
| Why? because things and people are always named after what
| they are! See Biggus Dickus
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx_G2a2hL6U
| gadders wrote:
| I think it depends on how you define "Fascist". Is it
| people that actually go around attacking people of colour?
| Or is it just a synonym for anyone not a Bernie-Bro?
|
| I think people also have a problem with the violent methods
| employed by Antifa, such as beating up unarmed journalists.
| Feuilles_Mortes wrote:
| "Antifa" is highly decentralized, with as many autonomous
| groups as you can count affiliating themselves with the
| movement. This sort of sentiment sounds a bit like when
| out-of-touch news anchor refer to "the hacker known as
| 4chan". Many pacifists identify with "antifa".
|
| In general, provocative and non-defensive violence seems
| to be a strategy employed by a small minority of people
| involved in the anti-fascist movement. As is usually the
| case, the loudest voices are amplified, so the small
| amount of provocative violence is highlighted by the news
| media, as well as by the critics of the anti-fascist
| movement.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > What exactly happened that AntiFa has become a group that
| people don't support ?
|
| The rise of right-wing, racist, nationalist, jingoist,
| corporatist strong-man authoritarianism.
|
| I think there's a shorter term for that...
| bananabreakfast wrote:
| Yes, fact checking a single vocal and influential individual on
| everything they say is indeed a solved problem!
|
| We've been doing it for years, on every president and
| congressman in America.
|
| There are such things as indisputable falsehoods. And when
| important people relay them as the truth there are dozens of
| fact checking organizations that exist only to call these
| individuals out and hold them accountable to their word.
|
| The fact that Twitter has started doing this with one specific
| individual is neither new nor innovative.
| null0pointer wrote:
| One nuance about facts is that they change over time as we
| learn more about whatever the fact is about. Take SARS-CoV-2
| for example, our best scientific knowledge about it has changed
| significantly since the start of the year. Some _facts_ from
| January would be considered _misinformation_ now. You might say
| that the actual facts are the underlying truth, but even that
| doesn't help. Our current view on the underlying truth are what
| is widely considered to be factual. The underlying truth can
| also change, for instance as the virus evolves and takes on
| different characteristics. Fact checking is most definitely not
| solved and I would posit that it's fundamentally intractable.
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| >Hm, is fact checking solved problem?
|
| It doesn't need to be a solved problem to provide value by
| flagging highly questionable content. And many statements are
| known to be false or misleading, and providing info to people
| who don't know better is a step in a positive direction.
| throawy1234 wrote:
| I was in the social media support for one of the candidates
| during the Democratic primaries. Because of that we had direct
| access to twitter and the DNC social medial group.
|
| We noticed David Rothkop who had a decent size following and
| contributed to MSNBC and the DailyBeast was a registered
| foreign agent of the United Arab Emirates [1]
|
| David Rothkopf had made some wild accusations against two
| presidential candidates who were most critical of Saudi Arabia
| and the United Arab Emirates.
|
| We asked Twitter multiple times that if anyone is a registered
| foreign agent and is constantly commenting on the US primaries
| and elections, that twitter should flag that account with some
| indicator or icon.
|
| All Twitter's government public relation person did was to give
| us some lip service and didn't do anything about it.
|
| [1] https://efile.fara.gov/docs/6596-Exhibit-AB-20180927-1.pdf
| freen wrote:
| What is truth anyway?
|
| You say you are a person, I say you are a banana. Who are you
| to dispute my facts?
|
| So strange that the right has decided to cargo-cult the worst
| bits of post-modernism.
| nkurz wrote:
| > You say you are a person, I say you are a banana. Who are
| you to dispute my facts?
|
| I'm not quite sure about your intent, but I think this is a
| more effective phrasing:
|
| "You say you are a person, but I say you are a banana. As a
| banana, who are you to dispute my facts?"
| jtbayly wrote:
| Or maybe " _What_ are you to dispute my facts? "
| staycoolboy wrote:
| > As a human, I still struggle a lot to read a paper and figure
| out what I just read
|
| Has this always been the case for you? or just in the past few
| years?
|
| I didn't care about news until the first gulf war. Then
| something flipped a switch in my brain and I could not get
| enough news. When news broadcasters started adopting websites
| in the 90's, I was like a junkie.
|
| I don't recall significant partisan division over Gulf War I,
| but I do recall a hard left/right split with the house takeover
| by Gingrich in 1994, and then the Clinton impeachment. Late
| 1990's is where things started to become bifurcated (remember,
| I wasn't paying attention in the 70's and 80's so it could have
| been as bad).
|
| Fast forward to mid 2010's and suddenly there are too many
| websites with "news" combined with SEO and recommendation
| algorithms spouting demonstrable nonsense that I can't help but
| hear Steve Bannon's "Flood the zone with shit" argument.
|
| Because it is working on me. I am over-educated (an engineering
| patent attorney for a top silicon company), I get paid to be a
| critical thinker. Facts and news just are clearly under assault
| from the zone-flooding angle to the point where being critical
| wears me to the bone.
|
| Was this intentional, or is this a consequence?
|
| Has the zone been successfully flooded as Bannon commanded?
| heurist wrote:
| I think it's a natural effect of internet expansion. Stick 7B
| humans in a room together and you'll get a lot of noise
| because the world is a big place and events are literally
| happening everywhere all at once. Some find opportunity in
| that because the real world power is still trapped in
| spatially localized social networks and the internet can't
| reliably pierce that realm. Secrets are valuable.
|
| The noise we interact with is the intersection of waves
| created half a world away and the waves we create or come
| into contact with locally. The best perspective to maintain,
| in my opinion, is that local is the most important. If you
| were under immediate threat of death (eg a stranger with a
| knife in your home), you probably wouldn't care what's
| happening in DC, you'd be 100% focused on the danger in front
| of you. I measure that as "more important". The problem is in
| distant or murky danger, where you don't want to be caught
| off-guard. You have to be able to gauge your ability to adapt
| and achieve safety in comparison to the magnitude of danger,
| then limit your anxieties. Do what you can to be prepared and
| accept the rest. (This is what I have learned from a lifelong
| anxiety disorder).
|
| There is also no general mechanism for making sense of the
| massive amount of information being produced, so it's
| overwhelming. Google attacks the problem as an indexing tool
| (I'm sure they're attempting to become a generally
| intelligent agent). Wikipedia is a curated collection of
| humanity's abstract knowledge. Neither describes causality of
| arbitrary macroeconomic events though. If there was one
| broadly accepted source of truth then we'd all cling to it
| like a life raft.
| llcoolv wrote:
| > I thought masks was a good idea from the get go but there was
| an opposing view that existed at some point about this even
| from "authoritative" sources.
|
| This is a very valid comment, especially when the chief source
| on truth in this case - WHO - changed their stance on this
| several times. Not to mention that their director general is a
| "former" high-ranking communist terrorist - something that
| doesn't make his organization appear too credible and something
| I am not really OK with.
| jfk13 wrote:
| > high-ranking communist terrorist
|
| That's quite an accusation; do you have a source for it?
| llcoolv wrote:
| Thank you for the question and starting a discussion
| instead of cowardly downvoting like those robots do - I
| would suggest to look up the wikipedia articles from three
| months ago on Tedros Adhanom and Tigray People's Liberation
| Front. Unfortunately today even the founder of Wikipedia
| admitted that the site neutrality is compromised by leftist
| activists[1].
|
| There are also articles on The Guardian and NYT[2][3]. In
| the right wing and independent media it looks even more
| gross[4][5].
|
| 1. https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/05/26/wikipedia-co-
| found...
|
| 2. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/22/ethiopia
|
| 3. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/health/candidate-who-
| dire...
|
| 4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu3lm0W6saU
|
| 5. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/was-who-director-
| tedr...
| [deleted]
| augustt wrote:
| What a fucking joke that Breitbart article is. Wikipedia
| is biased because they state global warming as fact?
| Because Trump's page has more scandals (no shit) than
| Obama?
|
| Linking to that article says so much about you.
| llcoolv wrote:
| @augustt Did you even read the article? Those comments
| are direct quotes of Wikipedia's founder and it is not
| Breitbart's reasoning there.[1] Your abysmal reading
| comprehension and the fact that you chose ad-hominem as
| initial approach tells everything about you.
|
| BTW you won't get a different opinion from the other co-
| founder either - J Wales is an old libertarian and he
| also stands right where an intelligent man of integrity
| should be standing.
|
| 1. https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-
| biased/
| augustt wrote:
| Yes I understand how quotations work. Not sure why it
| coming from someone who hasn't been involved in the
| project for 18 years is supposed to carry any more weight
| than usual Breitbart garbage.
| Loughla wrote:
| > Ask some oracle what "fact" is and shun every other point of
| view?
|
| This statement concerns me, greatly. Its implication is that
| facts are merely point of view statements. That is just, well,
| it's just wrong.
|
| Facts are facts. The truth is the truth. They don't care what
| your beliefs are. If it is empirically true, then it is true.
|
| Why and when did it become okay to hand-wave and dismiss
| anything you didn't believe in, personally, just because you
| don't believe in it? What is this world?
| im3w1l wrote:
| The truth is out there but you don't know it, I don't know
| it, Trump doesn't know it and Biden doesn't know it. We will
| all have strong beliefs and they will be rooted in our
| different ideologies.
| every wrote:
| Facts can be inconvenient and falsehoods comforting. We are
| dealing with people after all...
| crysin wrote:
| It's the human world and this has always been the case.
| Humans as a whole have never been 100% rational.
| 2019-nCoV wrote:
| How can a statement about the future be empirically wrong?
| 13415 wrote:
| You wait long enough and then check whether the prediction
| was true? If not, the prediction was false.
| Loughla wrote:
| I don't know what that even means.
|
| We're talking about facts established by research,
| indicating they have occurred in the past. I don't know
| what you're talking about.
| 2019-nCoV wrote:
| No, we're talking about an election in the future that
| hasn't happened yet.
| catalogia wrote:
| Tomorrow gravity is going to reverse and fling you into the
| sun.
| GenerocUsername wrote:
| If gravity were reversed you would actually be flung away
| from the sun. I ask you to please be correct and factual
| at all times. This is a discussion on the internet after
| all.
| catalogia wrote:
| I see you understand.
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| So if the president says "The sun won't rise tomorrow", we
| can't reject that statement out of hand?
| 2019-nCoV wrote:
| You'd be wise too, but you wouldn't be rejecting it
| empirically.
| nkozyra wrote:
| "Empirical" does not mean exclusively present
| observation. It includes reacting to observed patterns a
| priori, for example.
| jmoss20 wrote:
| ...observed patterns a priori?
| nkozyra wrote:
| As in a priori observations can instruct an empirical
| conclusion.
| 2019-nCoV wrote:
| Only ex post...
| sergiosgc wrote:
| Easy. A "statement" can't be wrong, but a "prediction" of
| the future must be built on a predictive model that has
| worked in the past, and the model must be fed parameters
| rooted in reality. Failing that, it is wrong.
|
| If Trump's statement about fraud is not predictive, then it
| is fiction and meaningless instead of wrong.
| koheripbal wrote:
| If all policitians' twitter accounts required that all
| their statements submitted a "predictive model" to
| reinforce their tweet - then at least your argument would
| make logical sense.
|
| In this case, it just seems like Twitter disagrees with
| him. They aren't really arguing facts.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Its implication is that facts are merely point of view
| statements._
|
| No, its implication is that _claiming_ that something is a
| "fact" does not mean it actually _is_ a fact. Which is
| perfectly true.
| Gollapalli wrote:
| >Facts are facts. The truth is the truth.
|
| My immediate reaction to such sentiments is that the ones who
| hold them would have imprisoned Galileo and poisoned
| Socrates. We can comfortably say that the truth exists. We
| cannot so comfortably say that we know what it is.
| banads wrote:
| "To know that you do not know is the best. To think you
| know when you do not is a disease. Recognizing this disease
| as a disease is to be free of it."
| donw wrote:
| Oh, I would disagree with that.
|
| It is _amazingly_ easy to lie with statistical "facts",
| through careful sampling, use of technical language, and
| overly broad or narrow definitions:
| https://medium.com/@hollymathnerd/how-to-defend-yourself-
| fro...
|
| I could write a "factual" article claiming hundreds of mass
| shootings in 2020 (obviously false). I just need to define a
| "mass shooting" as an incident where four or more people are
| injured (no deaths required).
|
| Or an equally "factual" article claiming that zero mass
| shootings in 2020 (also obviously false). I just need to
| define a "mass shooting" as an incident where twenty or more
| people are killed.
|
| Exact same dataset, two different and mutually exclusive
| "facts".
| 13415 wrote:
| You're making a strong statement in favor of fact checking.
|
| People can lie with statistics and people can lie without
| statistics. The latter is much easier, but the former is
| possible, as you lay out.
|
| That's why we need to check whether an alleged fact is
| true, or at least can be confirmed from multiple sources of
| evidence so it can be accepted as true for the time being.
| We can also check statistics for anomalies and errors.
| Statisticians do that all the time.
|
| All of that is fact checking.
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| I just read the short book "How To Lie With Statistics"
| this year and it holds up incredibly well despite being
| nearly 70 years old!
| somestag wrote:
| To go even deeper, using your example...
|
| What counts as "injured" or "killed"? If shots are fired
| and the resulting human stampede kills 4 people, does that
| count as 4 mass shooting deaths? Obviously the shooter is
| _at fault_ , but these details affect the interpretation of
| events.
|
| My undergrad was in statistics. In our capstone course, my
| professor had us read journal articles and discuss the
| statistical analyses within. I remember one study we read
| (peer reviewed, a couple dozen citations), and my
| professor's take away was, "I can't say it's wrong, but
| based on the data they gave, I can't for the life of me
| figure out how they reached their statistical conclusions."
| So yeah, it's a "fact" that the researchers reached a
| certain conclusion, but the conclusion itself is not fact.
|
| I don't believe in post-truth, but "Facts are facts; truth
| is truth" is a philosophical statement, not a practical
| one. And even then, we have an entire field of philosophy
| to iron out those details, which we call epistemology.
| sanderjd wrote:
| In this example, the empirical facts are "hundreds of
| incidents where four or more people are injured" and "no
| incidents where twenty or more people are killed". Those
| facts still exist. The different definitions of "mass
| shooting" are spin, which obscures facts, but does not
| eliminate them. Yes, it is hard to pierce the spin to find
| the facts, but the facts are there somewhere.
| NewEntryHN wrote:
| You are talking about the conceptual notion of a "fact",
| which is out of human reach. Outside of mathematics,
| labelling anything as a fact is an opinion, and the label is
| considered okay as long as everyone involved has a high
| confidence about this opinion.
|
| For example, if you let an apple fall down to the ground and
| you say "The apple fell to the ground", then you can't really
| know whether it's a fact or not, because you don't have
| access to the official logs of the Universe where it would be
| recorded that "An apple fell to the ground". So you have to
| trust your senses (and for example the fact that you're not
| under hallucination or visualizing an illusion) to put some
| confidence into this belief. If you know you're not under
| drug usage and if there are other witnesses of the event,
| then you'll have a very high degree of confidence into the
| idea that the apple indeed fell on the ground, so much
| confidence that you would consider it a fact.
|
| When it comes to complex questions about society and
| everything that we can read on the news, such degree of
| confidence is very rare. In the end, the threshold at which
| you consider something to be "a fact" is subjective and for
| this reason I think all this "facts aren't opinions" thing is
| dangerous, because it gives the illusion that what we call
| "facts" are absolute and binary, whereas it's often things we
| just have a high confidence about, and so it opens the door
| to slide our standard of what a fact is.
|
| What matters is that our view of the world shouldn't be
| shaped by what we hope or believe the world _should_ be, but
| by what it really _seems_ to be. And that is sufficient
| enough without having to get on one's high horse with
| "facts".
|
| I don't question the casual usefulness of the word "fact" in
| appropriate contexts, but when the discussion at hand
| precisely handles the very nature of what is a fact and what
| isn't, we need to dig down the true implications of the word.
| dcwca wrote:
| >If you know you're not under drug usage and if there are
| other witnesses of the event, then you'll have a very high
| degree of confidence into the idea that the apple indeed
| fell on the ground, so much confidence that you would
| consider it a fact.
|
| As soon as you start talking about what happened with those
| other witnesses, the group begins influencing the way each
| other remember what happened, and the narrative becomes
| more "real" than the actual memory. The more time that
| passes, and the more times the story of the apple falling
| from the tree is told, the more reinforced the narrative
| becomes, regardless of how the apple got to the ground.
| anewguy9000 wrote:
| there is no such thing as truth as such; instead there are only
| theories and their predictive power (you could be in the
| matrix). so the best thing we have is the scientific method --
| as individuals, we can all apply scientific _thinking_.
| Beltiras wrote:
| There's a big murky middle where you can't really tell but in
| the case of what Trump is complaining about an informed
| observer would come to a conclusion really quickly.
| zaroth wrote:
| Voter registration rolls are pretty notorious for being out
| of date and unreliable.
|
| Personally I don't have a problem with anyone who wants to
| vote by mail being able to request a ballot. Most states
| already allow no-excuse absentee ballets.
|
| I think the problem arises when the State _automatically_
| mails ballots to every registered voter at an address.
|
| If too many ballots show up at a house because someone
| requested it, there's a paper trail. If too many ballots show
| up at a house automatically, there's zero paper trail to be
| able to tell if they were all filled out and mailed back,
| besides the overall voter participation rate going up, which
| surely it will do.
| [deleted]
| Beltiras wrote:
| I don't know how the implementation of mail-in voting is in
| the States. Here's how I would implement it:
|
| 1. Ballots contain: a ballot, a serial number, a small
| envelope and a large envelope. 2. The voter fills in the
| ballot and stuffs in the small envelope and closes it. 3.
| Voter now needs to get a code from a webpage and add to the
| serial number card. Here's the part where infrastructure in
| Iceland is excellent. Nigh everyone has personal electronic
| certificates on their phones so authentication is easy. I
| must admit I have no idea how easy or hard this would be in
| the States. 4. Puts the small envelope and the serial
| number card in the large envelope and closes it. 5. Mails
| in the large envelope. 6. Precinct opens the large envelope
| and validates the serial number. If it is valid, puts the
| small envelope in box headed for counting. 7. Count the
| votes. Declare results. 8. Investigate the "bad serials and
| validation number".
|
| There are fun things to think about doing to increase
| confidence in the voting process. In this scheme I describe
| the validation code could be a hash of the serial and a
| salt. Then you could actually release all the validation
| cards so voters can actually verify that their ballots were
| counted.
| pacala wrote:
| There several problems with mail-in voting systems,
| including your proposal. On top of my head:
|
| * The tampering envelope is extended to weeks instead of
| hours.
|
| * There is a non-zero risk of vote secrecy violation.
|
| * There is a non-zero risk of voter pressuring.
|
| Coming from a country that earned the right to vote
| through violent revolt, it is strange how established
| democracies, especially the US, are cavalier with
| weakening the voting process: vote on a Tuesday [???], no
| paper trail voting machines [???], mail-in voting [???].
| Beltiras wrote:
| I'm in a country where the right to vote is not under
| attack (yet at least). The Republicans have been doing
| their level best to reduce the number of voters and
| slicing the electorate into favorable lots
| (gerrymandering). Now it would be nice if the US could
| just hold elections in a similar manner to (most)
| European nations and just allow all citizens to vote (no
| registration needed) and some states are moving that way
| [0]. This effort is one of the fronts of that war where
| people want to preserve their right _to_ vote. It 's
| especially relevant now in this strange year of social
| distancing. The concerns you cite are all valid and some
| have mitigations. VBM is usually not mail-in but mail-out
| ballots. You get your ballot by mail, fill it in then go
| to the post-office or some designated location to hand in
| the ballot. It has round about the same chances for
| corruption as a regular paper election. If you could at
| that location invalidate your ballot and get a new one
| then voter pressuring goes away too. That leaves secrecy
| violation. If there's nothing that links serial numbers
| with voters (it's just the signature that validates the
| ballot), then there's no chance of secrecy violation.
|
| In a perfect world I would execute elections in the same
| manner we do in Iceland. Voting booth, paper ballots,
| pencils for marks. We have a presidential election this
| summer and everyone was worried if COVID would suppress
| the vote. Looks like it won't since we only have 2 active
| cases and new cases are almost none (can't find the
| numbers atm but iirc we had 7 new cases in the month of
| May).
|
| [0]: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-
| reports/auto...
| pacala wrote:
| I believe we are mostly on the same page. Voting should
| be in person, on paper, on a weekend day. It can be done,
| even in covid times.
|
| One more thought: Simple >>> Complex.
|
| Small variations in a technically correct process may
| break some of its properties. The more complex the
| process, the easier is to inject variations, some of them
| adversarial. If gerrymandering is to be taken as an
| example, this can be taken to quite some extremes by two
| sides driven to win the zero-sum game at all costs. But
| even in absence of that, bugs happen.
|
| To nitpick one detail, I'm not persuaded by the secrecy
| violation prevention argument. You either prevent secrecy
| violation by anonymization, or you prevent vote fraud by
| keeping a link between the voter and the ballot. You
| can't have both at the same time. In person voting
| minimizes the bounding box of anonymization: in space, at
| the ballot box, and in time, the election day. Hopefully
| both parties afford to have observers during this space-
| time interval. As you spread out the voting process, both
| spatially and temporally, it becomes increasingly
| impractical / too expensive to maintain observers of the
| entire process.
| michaelt wrote:
| Seems to me the solution there is to fix the voter
| registration rolls, rather than to make voting harder for
| people who are already on the rolls.
| makomk wrote:
| The trouble is that fixing the voter registration rolls
| means removing names from them, and the other American
| political faction - the Democrats and all the others
| opposed to Trump - push a different vote rigging
| narrative where every name removed from the list is a
| vote that's been suppressed by the Republicans. This
| happens even when the supposed voters both haven't voted
| in years and haven't actually been removed from the rolls
| or made ineligible to vote.
|
| In particular, I recall there being a very popular
| article/blog post that went hugely viral on Twitter
| comparing Trump's election margins in key states with the
| number of supposedly "suppressed" votes in that election,
| allegedly demonstrating that Trump won the election that
| way, where it was clear that the author knew the supposed
| voter suppression scheme wouldn't even work as described.
| Part-way through, after the breathless claims about
| hundreds of thousands of voters, was a careful ass-
| covering disclaimer about how what actually happened to
| voters on the purge lists which would supposedly stop
| them from voting would depend on the state. That
| disclaimer was because, in at least one of those key
| states Trump had to win and probably all, being put on
| the list didn't stop people from voting at all - they
| just had to confirm or update their address when they
| went to vote.
| gjulianm wrote:
| > Is there no way to consider social media as unreliable
| overall and not bother fact checking anything there?
|
| The issue is that this is not just a random social media post,
| it's coming from the President of the US, and most people
| expect that someone in that position will not post clearly
| false messages, specially when those messages affect something
| as fundamental as the election process.
| jcroll wrote:
| Democratic elections are supposed to be the failsafe for that
| no?
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Democratic elections rely on the demos being informed of
| the truth.
|
| Recent election winners have used social media to present,
| more effectively than using just the press, a preferred
| narrative that has - IMO - conned the electorate and won
| narrow wins for parties/people based primarily on
| falsehoods.
|
| You can't preserve democracy by relying solely on
| elections.
|
| Those who seriously, and serially, abuse the system also
| attack the ability of people to post/make their vote. Again
| happening the ability of the demos to choose their
| candidates.
|
| In some countries the system stands markedly against a
| fuller democracy - by use of things such as electoral
| colleges, or first-past-the-post voting systems.
|
| TL;DR see para.3
| username90 wrote:
| In a direct democracy like Switzerland, yes. In a very
| indirect democracy like the United States there is
| basically nothing you can do if your representatives are
| not doing their job properly except wait for the next
| election and hope the candidates get better.
| dylan604 wrote:
| There is the recall option
| orian wrote:
| Nope, they only provide a peaceful way to replace the man
| in charge instead bloodbath.
| asdf21 wrote:
| Yes, that's the failsafe
| noelwelsh wrote:
| No, it's not.
| giardini wrote:
| Under a doctrine of free speech, politics has no "clearly
| false messages". There are only "messages". You are, however,
| allowed to state that a message is "clearly false".
|
| Thus if you wish to say that the world is flat, then you are
| allowed to say so, and others are allowed to state their
| supporting or opposing arguments on the same topic on the
| same forum, and everyone is allowed to listen.
| beart wrote:
| > Under a doctrine of free speech, politics has no "clearly
| false messages".
|
| I'm really not following this argument. If something is
| stated with a political purpose, it cannot be false?
| gadders wrote:
| I think the argument is that political arguments are
| rarely of the "The sky is blue" category, but more along
| the lines of (and I'm making up an example here). "The
| economy has never been better"
|
| There are several ways you could measure this - is it
| based on the S&P Index? Rising GDP? Income inequality
| reducing? Low unemployment? Balance of Payments? Not all
| of those measures may be true at once, and if they're not
| true which one is the correct measure?
|
| The relative importance could vary from person to person.
| Somebody with, say, a large pension fund might see the
| S&P Index as the most important measure. Somebody else
| might view it as income inequality.
|
| You could argue a case for each one, and each voter would
| have to make up their own mind as to whether they agree
| with the statement.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Free speech (a la First Amendment) has limits. Case in
| point: the FTC and deceptive advertising; The courts have
| repeatedly held that deception is not protected speech.
|
| A good way of looking at rights is: yours end when it
| begins harming someone else. For example, one can
| "assemble"[^a] and protest, but once you start getting
| violent, your right to protest is gone and you'll probably
| be arrested.
|
| Tangent:
|
| However, there is a controversial reading of the concept of
| free speech (concept, not First Amendment), and that is:
| what about monopolies silencing you? Most people would
| agree that removing a disorderly person from your
| restaurant is ok, but where do you draw the line when it
| comes to monopolies?
|
| As in, what if a restaurant chain owned 90% of the
| restaurants (all brands included) in the country, and they
| banned you because they didn't like the words coming out of
| your mouth?
|
| I don't know the answer to that.
|
| ----
|
| [^a]: quotes because the First Amendment refers to it as
| "assembling"
| misun78 wrote:
| "Yours end when it begins harming someone else" is in
| itself a slippery slope and a dangerous precedent used by
| folks to limit free expression. How exactly do you define
| "harm"? Does emotional or mental or spiritual/religious
| harm count? If so you are one step closer to a complete
| dismantle of the first amendment.
|
| Hence I think that statement should be extremely narrowly
| applied to direct physical violence (and threat of), and
| that's it. Anything more and you are just masquerading as
| wanting to censor speech under the guise of that highly
| exploitable statement.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| It's for sure a slippery slope, but it seems to be the
| way the courts have ruled. Thankfully, they've generally
| taken it case by case (except for the Miller Test), and
| (generally) rejected the concept of "prior restraint".
| It's why I said it's a good rule of thumb, not an
| absolute.
|
| > Does emotional or mental or spiritual/religious harm
| count?
|
| Actually, it depends. Sometimes yes; sometimes no. Anti-
| bullying laws are very much a thing, but then there's the
| Westboro Baptist Church (where the courts have ruled
| their hate speech is protected).
|
| Wikipedia has a list of "free speech exceptions"[0].
| Among those include fraud (sometimes in the form of
| depriving someone of property through lies), CP (harm to
| minors), threatening the President, and others.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_spe
| ech_exce...
| UncleMeat wrote:
| And he wasn't prevented from saying anything. We got more
| speech here, not less.
| danbruc wrote:
| _Under a doctrine of free speech, politics has no "clearly
| false messages"._
|
| Free speech and the correctness of a message are orthogonal
| concerns - the Earth is flat is a false claim no matter
| whether there is free speech or not and neither supporting
| nor opposing arguments have any bearing on that fact, they
| may however influence other people accepting or rejecting
| it.
| username90 wrote:
| The message isn't clearly false. See this article for
| example:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-
| vote-...
|
| > Yet votes cast by mail are less likely to be counted, more
| likely to be compromised and more likely to be contested than
| those cast in a voting booth, statistics show. Election
| officials reject almost 2 percent of ballots cast by mail,
| double the rate for in-person voting.
|
| You could say that 1% increase in problems is small, but in
| close elections that could easily be considered huge.
| JMTQp8lwXL wrote:
| Ballots get rejected for all sorts of reasons, as the
| article mentions, fraud and errors. A double rejection rate
| can't be 100% attributable to fraud. Here's what the
| President claimed:
|
| > There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be
| anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes
| will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally
| printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of
| California is sending Ballots to millions of people,
| anyone..... ....living in the state, no matter who they are
| or how they got there, will get one. That will be followed
| up with professionals telling all of these people, many of
| whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for
| whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!
| safog wrote:
| > The Governor of California is sending Ballots to
| millions of people, anyone..... ....living in the state,
| no matter who they are or how they got there, will get
| one
|
| This is also patently false - they're sending out ballots
| to registered voters, not everyone regardless of how they
| got there.
|
| > That will be followed up with professionals telling all
| of these people, many of whom have never even thought of
| voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a
| Rigged Election. No way!
|
| Who are these "professionals"?
|
| I thought that according to the right, Americans were
| perfectly capable of making life / death decisions for
| themselves and those around them during an active
| pandemic. So a trivial thing such as misinformation
| should be easy to deal with for them.
| TeaDrunk wrote:
| Although I'm no trump supporter, it would be incorrect to
| assume there is no democratic push to get out the vote.
| Vote Save America ( https://votesaveamerica.com/ ) is run
| by Crooked Media, who are most well known for having
| Obama officials running podcasts like Pod Save America
| and Pod Save The World (as well as noted black activist
| Deray hosting Pod Save The People). This is clearly a
| group that wants to get Trump out and they are actively
| organizing to encourage calling, texting, donating to
| democratic campaigns in swing states, and pushing for
| mail-in voting.
|
| (Disclaimer: I am pro mail-in voting and lean leftist in
| my political beliefs. I am merely disagreeing that there
| are no pushes to encourage people to vote that are also
| anti-trump.)
| DFHippie wrote:
| Sure. And if Trump only meant that people will campaign
| against him he sure has a roundabout way of saying it.
| wwweston wrote:
| Also worth noting that every election cycle there _are_
| professionals hired by party officials and ambitious
| candidates to tell millions of people how to vote.
|
| They're called "campaigns."
|
| And they work especially well on the kind of people who
| think Trump's posture of outrage is in response to
| genuinely outrageous behavior.
| whatshisface wrote:
| What's the line between "we have the best burgers in the
| world," and actually lying? You'll notice that Mr. POTUS
| said "less than substantially," whch barely means
| anything. Maybe he thinks 2% is "more than
| substantially." You can't lie if you phrase everything in
| a way that doesn't say anything.
| foogazi wrote:
| No what Mr. POTUS said was
|
| > There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be
| anything less than substantially fraudulent
|
| Translation: 100% certainty that Mail-In Ballots are
| substantially fraudulent
|
| Where do you get the 2% from?
|
| > Maybe he thinks 2% is "more than substantially"
|
| We don't know what he thinks - we know what he wrote. And
| he didn't write a "maybe 2% chance of fraud"
|
| He specified a 100% certainty of substantial election
| fraud
| JMTQp8lwXL wrote:
| The phrase does indeed say something. "anything less than
| substantially fraudulent" means near and total fraud.
| Claiming ~100% of mail-in ballots are fraudulent is
| baseless and untrue.
| whatshisface wrote:
| I just don't see how you can go from "anything less than
| substantially" to 100%. You can't go from "substantially"
| to _any_ percentage.
|
| For an example, I could pull the same trick on your
| comment. I could try and convince people that "does
| indeed," implies 100% confidence, and then I could point
| out that since from a Bayesian perspective you should
| never reach 100% confidence, you can't know what you're
| talking about. Obviously nobody would buy that, because
| it's not you that wrote down 100%, it was me.
| gjulianm wrote:
| You're getting entangled in the details. It's clear from
| his tweets that what he means is that mail-in ballots
| will cause a rigged election. We shouldn't trust rigged
| elections, so he's saying that if the election includes
| mail-in ballots, it will be untrustworthy.
|
| In order to make that reasoning (you could say that
| arguments are not false or true, they're just arguments)
| he's using false (CA will not be sending ballots to
| "anyone") and unsubstantiated (mail-in ballots have been
| working for years without extended robberies and forging,
| why would this be any different?) claims.
|
| You can search and reason about the words so that
| "technically" he isn't lying. But the actual message he's
| sending is very, very clear.
| JMTQp8lwXL wrote:
| What does 'substantial' mean? "of considerable
| importance, size, or worth.". We further constrain the
| definition with 'anything less than'. So what we're
| saying is, 'of an especially considerable importance,
| size of worth'. Okay, well, what does that mean? It has
| to be a number large enough to influence the election
| result, but there's no evidence election results have
| flipped elections due to enough fraudulent mail-in
| ballots. With this interpretation, the numeric quantity
| does not matter, but the impact does, yet it is still
| untrue.
| pfraze wrote:
| It's pointless to quibble about what POTUS is getting at.
| He clearly intends to claim "mail-in voting is
| fraudulent." The question of whether it's a lie has more
| to do with whether his claim is accurate.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| The difference is that everyone knows "we have the best
| burgers in the world" is subjective, and therefore, not
| true. When it comes to statistics (read: not subjective
| measures), it's possible to lie.
| ken wrote:
| Specificity. It's an existing exception in advertising
| law (or so I've been told). Anyone can claim "we have the
| best burgers" -- and many restaurants do -- because it's
| non-specific. Ironically, if you were to attempt humility
| by claiming "we have the _second-best_ burgers ", that
| becomes a specific claim, and you'd need research to
| support it.
|
| "The Governor of California is sending Ballots to
| millions of people, anyone living in the state" is a
| specific claim, and would need to be supported. It's a
| different category of claim than merely boasting "I am
| the best president".
| duskwuff wrote:
| There's also some room in the law for puffery in
| advertising, which includes the use of vacuous statements
| like "the best".
| UncleMeat wrote:
| He obviously doesn't think it is 2% because 2% in
| California would be nowhere close to "rigging the
| election" (his words).
| dboreham wrote:
| So "dark patterns" are ok?
| dathinab wrote:
| > many of whom have never even thought of voting before,
| how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged
| Election. No way!
|
| So basically he is _afraid of more people voting_? Like
| how is a election where more people then ever vote
| rigged? Like wtf.
|
| This might fall in line with the analysis of <forgot name
| sorry> which claimed that election results are more based
| on which people vote and which don't then on swing voters
| and that swing voters are pretty much irrelevant.
|
| If this is true and it turns out that an majority of
| voters in the US is more on the side of the democrats
| then a voting method which makes more people vote could
| indeed cause a long term defeat of the republicans _in a
| fair democratic non rigged manner!_
| jungletime wrote:
| > Like how is a election where more people then ever vote
| rigged?
|
| Lets say the states decide to send out mail in ballots to
| all members of a house hold. A parent intercepts the
| ballots and fills them out on behalf of the kids or
| grandparents, or even the previous tenants. All of a
| sudden casting multiple votes becomes much easier by a
| single person.
|
| In a more cynical situation, the ballots are intercepted
| and returned filled out by party members.
| dboreham wrote:
| Of course he's afraid of people voting: he and his party
| are only in power because people don't vote.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Partially correct. He's in power because the left didn't
| vote as much as they could've, but he's also in power
| because his party's constituents overwhelmingly supported
| him and went out in droves to vote for him. Hillary
| thought she had a sure win, so she didn't campaign in
| some states; Trump seized those opportunities and won
| more support.
| the_gastropod wrote:
| And just to beat this dead horse slightly more: The US
| does not have democratic elections. Clinton won by that
| measure. Trump won because we value some people's votes
| more than others.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| You're right with regard to your first point: we _don't_
| have directly democratic elections; We have
| representative (indirect) elections (a la the Electoral
| College).
|
| With regards to your other point: Hillary did _not_ win
| the election, no matter how you spin it. She won the
| _popular vote_ , but that means nothing in terms of who
| becomes President (read: who wins).
|
| We also don't "value some people's votes more than
| others." The Electoral College votes based on the way
| that state's populace votes, and every electorate's vote
| is equal. However, each state can have their own rules
| regarding how those votes are distributed: some states
| are winner-takes-all at the state level, while Maine and
| Nebraska are winner-take-all at the district level.
|
| One can argue whether the Electoral College should exist
| at all, but it's worth keeping in mind _why_ it was
| created: we are a union of _states_ (United _States_ of
| America), not a homogenous unit (United America?).
| the_gastropod wrote:
| > Hillary did not win the election, no matter how you
| spin it.
|
| I didn't say she did. I said she won the _democratic
| election_ , which you call the popular vote. It's the
| same thing.
|
| > We also don't "value some people's votes more than
| others."
|
| This is another tomato tomahhto splitting of hairs. A
| Nebraskan voter's vote is worth about 3.4 Californian
| votes. If you don't consider that as "counting some
| people's votes more than others", I don't know what to
| tell you. We can argue about whether you think _that is a
| good idea_ (aka have the electoral college debate). But
| there should be no debate whether we do systematically
| prefer some voters over others.
| karatestomp wrote:
| Actual political scientists 100% for sure do not split
| hairs like that unless there's a reason they're trying to
| distinguish between two flavors of democracy and there's
| risk of confusion, and would definitely describe any part
| of the American election system as falling under the
| umbrella of "democratic". For one thing, it's not some
| kind of club with very strict rules for inclusion and
| being _in_ or _out_ is super important in some kind of
| way, and for another it would mean almost no systems or
| parts of systems would be "democratic" so we'd just have
| to invent another word to take over the _very useful_
| role that word serves now.
|
| [EDIT] to be clear it's fine to think some parts of our
| election systems suck (they definitely fucking do) but
| "it's not democratic" isn't a very useful, meaningful, or
| even _clear_ objection, _per se_.
| anewdirection wrote:
| I often hear it stated as "We disliked Hillary so much,
| we voted for someone worse".
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| You can phrase it that way. But it's a deceptive
| statement. For the most part, people don't switch parties
| they vote for. They just choose not to vote instead. So
| taken in aggregate, you could say "we disliked Hillary so
| we voted for someone worse".
|
| But the more accurate statement is that some groups of
| people decided not to vote at all because they disliked
| Hillary, and other groups of people decided to show up
| and vote.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| > way. But it's a deceptive statement. For the most part,
| people don't switch parties they vote for.
|
| You are forgetting that most Americans are self-
| proclaimed independents and not sworn to support either
| of the two parties.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Most independents reliably vote one party or the other.
| The number of "true" independents, who will frequently
| switch the party they vote for, is about 10%.
| bdcravens wrote:
| Not "most": it's a plurality, not a majority (31/37/28
| D/I/R)
|
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
|
| If you look at the week by week numbers, you see
| variance; I suspect most independents lean one way or
| another, but their willingness to commit in a poll varies
| based on various affairs.
| pavlov wrote:
| The American voters' approach to government often reduces
| to "cutting off the nose to spite the face."
| bdcravens wrote:
| I would say it's as much a result of flaws in the
| electoral college system. States like Texas and
| California are way too large for a winner-take-all to
| reflect voter will.
| [deleted]
| nostromo wrote:
| It much be nice to be able to read the minds of non-
| voters and decide how they would have voted if they had
| bothered to.
| gjulianm wrote:
| Trump didn't say "it will lead to more problems", he said
| that "There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be
| anything less than substantially fraudulent". There's
| absolutely no evidence of that, and it's not true that "The
| Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of
| people, anyone living in the state".
|
| There's no justification at all for that tweet. He's saying
| that mail-in votes will lead to substantially fraudulent
| elections, eroding the trust in the process. One could even
| consider what he's saying as dangerous to the democratic
| system itself.
| rhizome wrote:
| > _Yet votes cast by mail are less likely to be counted,
| more likely to be compromised and more likely to be
| contested than those cast in a voting booth, statistics
| show._
|
| "Statistics show." Yeah, no, that's not how it works.
| Evidence shows, and there isn't any, or the New York
| freaking Times would describe it.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| It's a bunch of nonsense. Oregon has been using vote by
| mail since like 1981. The kind of fraud the president is
| fear mongering about doesn't happen there.
|
| If other states see higher problem rates in their vote by
| mail, it's likely a selection effect due to vote by mail
| being not the main method.
| donarb wrote:
| That article was 8 years old an deals mostly with people
| who vote absentee.
|
| States like Oregon and Washington have systems in place to
| make sure every ballot is counted. You get 18 days to send
| in your ballot, you can check online to see if your ballot
| has been received. If not, you have plenty of time to
| request a new one.
|
| Oregon has been voting by mail for almost 20 years. In that
| time they have sent out about 100M ballots with only 12
| cases of voter fraud found.
| pacala wrote:
| The ability to check one's ballot status implies that the
| ballot is tied to one's identity. How does the system
| guarantee vote secrecy?
|
| Edit. From Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elect
| ions_in_Oregon#Balloting
|
| Ballots packs are mailed to every registered voter 14 to
| 18 days before the election. When the ballot pack comes
| in the mail, it includes: An official
| ballot A secrecy envelope A ballot return
| envelope
|
| After filling out the ballot the voter then places the
| ballot in the secrecy envelope, then inside the return
| envelope and must then sign it in a space provided on the
| outside return envelope. This is then either mailed back
| through the US mail with first class postage, or dropped
| off at any County Elections Office or a designated
| dropsite. Ballots must be received in a County Elections
| Office or a designated dropsite by 8pm on Election Day
| (postmarks do not count). If the ballot arrives at the
| County Elections Office after 8pm on Election Day, it is
| not counted.
|
| Once received, an Elections Official at the elections
| office where the ballot is received will compare the
| signature on the ballot return envelope to the signature
| on the voter registration card to verify that the voter
| is registered to vote. Once verified, the secrecy
| envelope containing the actual ballot is removed and
| polled with the other ballots. Once the "polls" close at
| 8pm on Election Day, the ballots are removed from their
| secrecy envelopes and counted.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| "Vote secrecy" refers to the inability for an attacker to
| know _who you voted for_ , not _that you voted_. Checking
| whether your vote was counted gives you an answer to the
| latter, not the former. In other words, it's not possible
| to prove _who you voted for_ after the fact unless you
| took pictures (or some other copy).
| pacala wrote:
| What keeps an attacker from: Open the
| ballot envelope and the secrecy envelope Note who
| you voted for Pack the secrecy envelope and the
| ballot envelope Use the vote information in
| whatever way they see fit
|
| ?
|
| Variation: Hey grandpa Joe, I'm here to
| help you vote Note who you voted for Help
| you pack the secrecy envelope and the ballot envelope
| Use the vote information in whatever way they see fit
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| I don't know how other states do it, but I'm assuming
| you're given a "ballot ID" that your vote is associated
| with (instead of your name). So if someone opened your
| vote-by-mail ballot, all they'd have is your ballot ID,
| so they wouldn't know who voted for who.
|
| Also, what stops someone from doing that with the current
| voting system? We have computers do the counting with
| little to no oversight; They could easily be programmed
| to report people who "voted the wrong way."
|
| With regards to your variation, that's an inherent
| weakness of vote-by-mail, yes. There's not much that can
| be done about that other than outlawing vote-by-mail.[^a]
|
| [^a]: Due to the way the Constitution is written, the
| power to decide the method of voting is not with the
| federal government. As such, the Tenth Amendment
| delegates that power to the states. Meaning, the power to
| require "secret ballots" rests with the states, and many
| do not have such requirements in their Constitutions. It
| also means that the federal government can't outlaw vote-
| by-mail without a Constitutional amendment.
| pacala wrote:
| A political machine that can make use of the 'who did Joe
| voted for' information is likely to have access to the
| ballot id database and link 'ballot id 43abfd32' to Joe.
|
| On voting machines, good point. We should not use voting
| machines either.
| chipotle_coyote wrote:
| Then what exactly should we do? Physical ballot boxes? We
| can imagine all sorts of ways to tamper with votes that
| way, surely. Even if there's a paper trail, doesn't
| somebody somewhere have the ability to tamper with it? We
| can surely propose a flaw in every possible voting
| system, can't we?
|
| It seems to me your criticisms very much fall into
| "letting the perfect be the enemy of the good" territory.
| States have conducted some version of vote-by-mail or
| absentee balloting for decades, and there's no evidence
| I'm aware of that either of these have, _in practice,_
| materially increased voter fraud. Furthermore, studies on
| existing voter fraud conducted by groups like the Brennan
| Center for Justice and the Heritage Foundation have
| concluded the incident rates are around 0.0025% -- and
| that 's the high end of the estimates. Even if your
| concern that a push to move most states to vote-by-mail
| in the 2020 election causes that number to go up
| substantially proves valid, how likely is it, truly, that
| it increases by the _two orders of magnitude_ it would
| take to bring it up to a quarter of a percent -- _and_
| that such an incredible increase goes essentially
| unnoticed and unchallenged?
| pacala wrote:
| Exactly. We should not trade off the weakening of the
| voting process for convenience. The voting process
| deserves to be as strong as we can possibly make it. In
| person, on paper, on a weekend day.
| golf1052 wrote:
| With the processes already in place for states that have
| vote by mail is their fraud rate actually higher than
| states that have in person voting?
|
| This is a cost benefit analysis, there are known upsides
| with no proven downsides and the only downsides seem to
| be unproven.
| pacala wrote:
| * Voting is the cornerstone of democracy. It is the one
| place where it's not worth cutting costs for convenience.
|
| * Trust but verify. I'm not aware of a cost-effective way
| to monitor mail-in voting. Suppose I want to observe the
| process. Do I need to sleep in the voting collection room
| for 18 days in a row to monitor that no one is messing
| with the ballots? What about the post office? What about
| the post truck?
|
| The argument 'is the _proven_ voter fraud higher when
| using voting process X vs process Y ' cuts both ways. I
| haven't seen evidence to conclusively _prove_ that
| proprietary voter machines with no paper trail tamper
| vote counts. And yet most people agree that paper trail
| voting is a much more trustworthy approach.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_monitoring
| golf1052 wrote:
| >Trust but verify. I'm not aware of a cost-effective way
| to monitor mail-in voting. Suppose I want to observe the
| process. Do I need to sleep in the voting collection room
| for 18 days in a row to monitor that no one is messing
| with the ballots? What about the post office? What about
| the post truck?
|
| In King County, Washington where I live they record and
| livestream all ballot handling during elections [1] and
| the drop boxes themselves are designed with security in
| mind [2]
|
| 1. https://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/elections/about-
| us/security... 2. https://crosscut.com/2019/10/these-
| ballot-boxes-keep-your-vo...
| taborj wrote:
| > Oregon has been voting by mail for almost 20 years.
|
| But here is what people seem to gloss over -- Yes, Oregon
| has been voting by mail for almost _40 years_ in fact.
| But it wasn 't just _done overnight._ In fact, the
| process started before most here were born; in 1981 mail-
| in voting was allowed at the local level[0], and it wasn
| 't until 6 years later that it was determined to be
| something Oregon would do every year. And it wasn't until
| 2000, nearly 20 years later, that presidential elections
| were included.
|
| What we're talking about for _this_ election cycle is
| drastically and suddenly switching the method of voting,
| not phasing it in over 40 years like Oregon did. When you
| make a drastic change like that, the situation is ripe
| for failure and abuse, because the people and systems in
| place are not equipped to handle the situation. Frankly,
| they don 't even know what they're getting into until
| they're into it, and a major election is not the time to
| find out that the whole system is messed up.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote-by-mail_in_Oregon
| bruceb wrote:
| Technology has also grown leaps and bounds since 1981.
|
| Oregon may have taken a long time as it was a leader.
| Charting the unknown. States enabling more mail in voting
| now have well established examples to follow. Its hardly
| "drastically" changing anything.
| plorkyeran wrote:
| Fortunately California isn't going from zero to 100%
| vote-by-mail in one shot _either_. I 've been voting by
| mail in California - including for presidential elections
| - for 15 years now, and it wasn't a new thing when I
| started.
| GenerocUsername wrote:
| FOUND
| chlodwig wrote:
| _The message isn 't clearly false. See this article for
| example;_
|
| Seriously. I am getting a "we have always been at war with
| East Asia" vibe from this latest uproar.
|
| If you use Google search tool to look up "mail-in voting
| fraud" and limit the search to before April 1st, you get a
| lot of concerned articles from NPR, NY Times, Propublica,
| etc, that mail-in voting fraud is a problem to worry about,
| and that expanding mail-in voting might lead to more fraud
| (and they also think Republicans will benefit from this
| expansion): https://www.google.com/search?q=mail-
| in+voting+fraud&source=...
|
| But then Trump tweets about and there is a 180 and now it
| is disinformation to claim that a massive increase in mail-
| in voting will lead to a massive fraud problems.
|
| Two old quotes are interesting to me:
|
| From NY Times in 2012:
|
| > "Absentee voting is to voting in person," Judge Richard
| A. Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the
| Seventh Circuit has written, "as a take-home exam is to a
| proctored one."
|
| From Pro Publica in March 2020 (
| https://www.propublica.org/article/voting-by-mail-would-
| redu... ):
|
| > "To move from a couple of thousand to a couple of million
| requires an entirely different infrastructure," said Tammy
| Patrick, a former county election official who is now a
| senior adviser at the nonprofit Democracy Fund in
| Washington, D.C.
|
| Just from those two quotes, it is not at all unreasonable
| to extrapolate and predict that massively increasing mail-
| in voting on a tight schedule is going to be a huge
| fricking problem. I don't know what the answer is, and I
| don't which party is going to benefit more. And even if you
| think Trump is wrong, he is still making a prediction that
| is based on real concerns, which is something that
| politicians do all the time, it is not a blatant error of
| fact.
| pacerwpg wrote:
| Those articles appear to have a much more measured
| critique of any problems than what the President has been
| actively tweeting.
| chlodwig wrote:
| I will look forward to Twitter adding fact-check links
| every time a major politician makes an exaggerated,
| hyperbolic, or extreme prediction on Twitter.
| noelsusman wrote:
| That's not what he said. He claimed the election will be
| rigged and also claimed California is sending ballots to
| non-voters.
| soco wrote:
| There are countries using mail ballots since like forever.
| I don't think even Trump can claim Switzerland was
| undemocratic or forged.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| I feel like the only people who think Twitter is a credible
| fact checker of the President are not the people who would
| believe anything the President says anyways.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| This isn't about who is persuaded by what. It is about what
| responsibilities the media has to the public.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| While this feels like it's true in the broad strokes, and
| it is certainly a good quip, it's important to remember
| that there are always going to be people on the border
| between one and the other, who can easily be influenced to
| fall a certain way if they believe a certain exclamation or
| falsehood.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| I don't believe those people matter politically. Every
| election there's a lot of rhetoric about "undecided
| voters" but in practice the campaigns don't care about
| those people. I know undecided voters isn't exactly what
| you're talking about, but I think the concept applies.
|
| The real effort is in getting your historic/likely
| supporters to show up rather than stay home. If someone
| is a big Biden supporter, there's almost nothing you can
| say that will get them to vote Trump. And vice versa. So
| your hope is to get your likely Biden supporter
| angry/scared/whatever enough to get off their butt and
| vote. That's what these things are about. That's why
| Trump says crazy flamboyant things. It's why Twitter
| never fact checks things like the gender pay gap, perhaps
| the most debunked concept in all of economics.
|
| For me, seeing the world through this lens results in a
| lot more things making sense. It's especially true now
| that information/news is so siloed. People in power can
| say basically anything they want as long as it's
| emotionally aligned with their team. And their team will
| never know they've been lied to, because they don't watch
| the other side's rebuttals. For example, Twitter is fact
| checking Trump on this mail in ballot fraud issue in the
| same week that there's multiple examples of mail in
| ballot fraud in the news. But the people who think
| Twitter is a reasonable source to fact check Trump will
| never see that, so they will get away with it.
| supportlocal4h wrote:
| Imagine if a U.S. president were to flagrantly make up a
| claim that some other country was developing weapons of mass
| destruction. Imagine that there was no way to verify this
| claim. Imagine that the president insisted on invading said
| country on the basis of the unsupported claim.
|
| Do most people still expect that someone in that position
| will not post clearly false messages, specially when those
| messages affect something as fundamental as the death of
| thousands of people and the overthrow of a government?
|
| Iran contra, Watergate, Vietnam, ...
|
| Is there any trust left?
|
| It's bewildering that the answer is, "Yes". It's discouraging
| that so many presidents have so often deceived the people so
| horribly. It's much much more discouraging that the people
| don't learn.
| newen wrote:
| Propaganda machine at work. Americans will always believe
| it is the best and most moral country in the world even if
| it the exact opposite.
| [deleted]
| georgeecollins wrote:
| That is a very apples to oranges comparison. For example,
| in the case of Iraq (a terrible moral mistake and
| embarrassment for the US in my opinion), the President, his
| administration, and most of the media really believed the
| Iraqi's were making weapons of mass destruction. They were
| extremely biased, and they suppressed the counter argument.
| All bad, I am not trying to defend it, but not the same.
| The other historical examples you give are all different in
| their own way. But in almost every case (except Watergate)
| they involve some reputable people who in good faith
| believed what they were saying.
|
| No knowledgeable person believes what Trump is saying about
| mail in ballots. I don't think he believes it. This is
| really different.
| jmeyer2k wrote:
| Somewhat off-topic, but it's funny you mention Iran contra
| and not Operation Ajax [1] where the CIA literally
| distributed propaganda and overthrew the Iranian
| government.
|
| This lead to huge stability in Iran and the middle-east and
| arguably lead to the rise of Al-Qaeda and a super unpopular
| right-wing religious government in Iran that they have now.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C
| 3%A9ta...
| czzr wrote:
| What exactly is your position? That no one should believe
| any statement from any politician ever and so there is no
| reason to demand that politicians live up to any standards?
|
| How exactly is a society with those principles supposed to
| function?
| mc32 wrote:
| All modern administrations maybe aside from Jimmy
| Carter's have had shenanigans going on. None of them are
| clean. So it's clear there will be lies from everyone.
| Some intentional, some mistaken.
|
| That said. I don't see a solution to this dilemma. It has
| no satisfactory solution.
| krapp wrote:
| Calling a President out on their lies seems like a
| satisfactory solution to me.
|
| Unfortunately, the modern political climate is such that
| even that is considered censorship. We can't even dare
| claim that lies exist, because obviously no one person or
| institution can be trusted to define what is and isn't
| truth without an ulterior motive.
|
| So the only politically correct solution is to assert
| that all politicians are equally (maximally) corrupt, all
| statements are equally valid, all attempts at nuance are
| motivated by partisan hypocrisy, and any possible
| solution is a slippery slope to an Orwellian dystopia, so
| we have no option but to simply let the fire burn.
|
| Although I must say, it is strange how none of this
| seemed to be the case prior to 2016.
| bzb3 wrote:
| We can do that or we can sit and wait for the electorate
| to pick a president who never lies.
|
| Only one of the two is realistic.
| supportlocal4h wrote:
| A: no one should believe any statement from any
| politician ever
|
| B: don't demand that politicians meet standards
|
| Your argument (not mine): A -> B
|
| Then you argue that B is dysfunctional so A leads to
| dysfunction.
|
| Can you not imagine some C such as
|
| C: demand that politicians live up to some standard
|
| Wherein A->C makes everything better?
|
| The fact that you concocted B to discredit A is a logical
| fallacy called "strawman".
|
| Either you already understood this, but hoped for an
| audience that did not, or you didn't even realize what
| you had done. I point it out here for your possible
| benefit and for the possible benefit of anyone else who
| doesn't understand this flawed reasoning. I apologize to
| everyone who recognized it immediately and has then
| suffered through this response.
| bananabreakfast wrote:
| Your "strawman" was very clearly directly implied by what
| you said. And the fact that you just attacked the
| argument instead of just responding like a normal person
| does not help your case.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| You seemed to have missed the context that you're arguing
| the "against" position in a thread about social media
| fact-checking, i.e. a "demand that politicians live up to
| some standard [of truth]"
|
| Language has implied meaning, it's one of the maxims of
| conversation in the field of linguistics, of the
| Cooperative principle [1].
|
| If you're going to immediately jump to technical
| dissection of a conversation, you should probably
| consider the relevant field first.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle#M
| axim_of...
| icelancer wrote:
| "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it" is up
| there as well.
|
| https://www.politifact.com/article/2013/dec/12/lie-year-
| if-y...
| palsir wrote:
| Fact checking is far from a solved problem. The can of worms
| that Trump opened when he started the "fake news" conversation
| is still very much open.
| newacct583 wrote:
| Trump didn't start that "conversation". "Fake News" was a
| term originally intended to reflect the false "news-like"
| advertisements that were being purchased on social media
| (primarily Facebook, and primarily targetting conservative
| users). Trump appropriated it as a way to label unflattering
| news coverage from mainstream sources.
| pyronik19 wrote:
| Hardly just unflattering, MSM pushed the "Russia" narrative
| for 3 years and there was literally nothing there. Hard to
| call that anything other than fake news. In fact its
| looking more and more like the actions from the Obama admin
| were likely highly corrupt and there will likely people
| going to jail. Just recently the media has been reporting
| that Trump called the virus a "hoax", which was a complete
| lie.
| llcoolv wrote:
| Yet another post, that is 100% factually correct and
| still gets downvoted into oblivion by the leftist bots.
| LOL.
| mhucka wrote:
| Here are some facts about the investigation into Russian
| interference in the 2016 election:
|
| 1. A total of 34 individuals and 3 companies were
| indicted by Mueller's investigators. A total of 8 have
| pleaded guilty to or been convicted of felonies,
| including 5 Trump associates and campaign officials.
| Here's a Wall Street Journal article about the
| convictions: https://www.wsj.com/articles/mueller-
| indictments-whos-who-15... Also, here's a long Wikipedia
| article about the whole investigation: https://en.wikiped
| ia.org/wiki/Special_Counsel_investigation_...
|
| 2. When the Mueller report was about to be released,
| Attorney General Barr wrote a memo to Congress that
| purported to summarize the principal conclusions. Trump
| and Republican supporters seized on this to claim Trump
| was exonerated. In fact, Mueller explicitly stated that
| he did not exonerate Trump. Further, in a subsequent
| letter of his own, Mueller stated that Barr's memo "did
| not fully capture the context, nature, and substance" of
| the investigation. (Washington Post article here:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
| security/muell...)
|
| 3. A bipartisan report from the US Senate affirms the
| findings by US Intelligence agencies about Russian
| interference in the 2016 election. Here's a Wall Street
| Journal article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/senate-
| report-affirms-u-s-intel...
|
| There are many more findings, but I tried to be concise
| in response to the specific claim that there is "nothing
| there".
|
| When the investigation began and Mueller was appointed,
| Republicans praised him. (C.f. Fox News article:
| https://www.foxnews.com/politics/robert-mueller-
| appointment-...). Now they claim the investigation was
| either unlawful, or that FBI investigators were
| criminals, or similar. One does not need to take my or
| anyone else's word for what Mueller's team reported. You
| can get the redacted report from the government or even
| Amazon, and read it for yourself. You can also get the
| Senate committee's report from the government and read it
| for yourself. It is clear to me (and should be clear to
| anyone who has read the report or followed the story)
| that it is a flat-out lie to say there is "nothing
| there", and that Trump supporters have shifted from
| welcoming a fair investigation into Russian interference
| to attacking the investigators. And that's where we are
| now.
| free_rms wrote:
| We had 2 billion-dollar campaigns operating for a year.
|
| Russia had some paid shit posters and a 100k Facebook ad
| spend.
|
| Blaming Russia is just a cop-out. No need to hold
| ourselves accountable, it was those damn Russians!
| alwayseasy wrote:
| So you just go on hn to answer without reading the posts
| you answer to?
| mytherin wrote:
| I'm curious what you mean by "literally nothing there",
| considering dozens of people have been charged and found
| guilty/jailed with crimes relating to the investigation,
| many of which were part of the Trump administration or
| working closely together with them [1]. Paul Manafort,
| the chairman of Donald Trumps' 2016 campaign is currently
| serving a 7.5 year prison sentence relating to this
| investigation.
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-
| interactive/2018/dec/...
| llcoolv wrote:
| > Paul Manafort, the chairman of Donald Trumps' 2016
| campaign is currently serving a 7.5 year prison sentence
| relating to this investigation.
|
| "He was convicted on five counts of tax fraud, one of the
| four counts of failing to disclose his foreign bank
| accounts, and two counts of bank fraud."
|
| So, he was convicted of tax fraud and bureaucratic
| discrepencies. While factually related to the
| investigation, none of these charges has nothing to do
| with what the investigation was about.
| newacct583 wrote:
| I don't know the source you're quoting, but it's pure
| spin. The tax fraud and reporting violation were in
| _direct service_ to the need to hide his foreign payments
| from Russian interests. You 're also forgetting his
| guilty pleas for failing to register as a foreign agent
| (Russia again) and witness tampering (which is criminal
| obstruction of justice!).
|
| This is all directly related to his work for Russia and
| Russian interests, in exactly the same way that Al
| Capone's famous tax evasion conviction was the result of
| his operation of a criminal organization.
| llcoolv wrote:
| Apologies, the source is wikipedia's page on Paul
| Manafort[1]. Also the article says he was involved with
| Yanukovich, not with Putin, but still in the worst case
| this is in the equivalent to the Biden-Poroshenko
| tape[2].
|
| Tax fraud rendering you guilty of all the bad things you
| were ever accused of is not really sound logic. Also, I
| am not really defending Manaford - tbh after reading more
| on him, this whole Ukrainian foray seems to be one of his
| lesser offenses. But for example in the case of
| Flynn/Trump where prosecutors were taped discussing how
| they need to "find him guilty of anything or provoke him
| to cross the law", there is no doubt of bias.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Manafort
|
| 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lA3oOo1oZc
| newacct583 wrote:
| > Tax fraud rendering you guilty of all the bad things
| you were ever accused of is not really sound logic.
|
| The contention above was that there was "literally
| nothing to" Russian interference in the 2016 election.
| Manafort's convictions for activities related to his
| attempts to hide his Russian influence is clear evidence
| to the contrary.
|
| I don't see anyone saying this makes Manafort guilty of
| "all the bad things he was ever accused of". But it makes
| him guilty of hiding Russian influence in the 2016
| election, which was the point to be demonstrated.
| llcoolv wrote:
| How could they be related to something that did not stand
| in court, in other words did not legally happen? This is
| quite the contradiction.
| mytherin wrote:
| Interesting, didn't know about that. Thanks for the info.
|
| Then perhaps you can give me some more clarification:
|
| * What about the Russian troll farms running fake pro-
| Trump social media accounts?
|
| * What about the hacking of Clinton's email server and
| strategic release of those emails right before the
| election (even though the e-mails ended up containing
| nothing incriminating)?
|
| * What about the many people lying/obstructing justice
| that were investigated? Why were so many people caught
| lying if there was nothing to hide?
|
| Honestly curious, I'm not from the US so I don't have a
| horse in the race and I don't know that much about the
| investigation, but it seems to be quite obvious
| _something_ fishy is going on there. Whether or not Trump
| 's team was personally involved is another matter, but it
| seems obvious Russia meddled in the election extensively
| to assist Trump in winning. That alone seems quite
| alarming to me.
|
| It also feels like you are defending it primarily because
| it happened to someone on _your_ team, and you would not
| be defending it if the situation were reversed and, say,
| Clinton was assisted by China or something like this,
| even if she had no part to play in the assistance.
| llcoolv wrote:
| * What about the Russian troll farms running fake pro-
| Trump social media accounts?
|
| Until there is no hard evidence, those troll farms are
| conspiracy theories. Besides, these days the left press
| is so ridiculously biased that NYT, Guardian, etc could
| easily qualify as troll farms.
|
| * What about the hacking of Clinton's email server and
| strategic release of those emails right before the
| election (even though the e-mails ended up containing
| nothing incriminating)?
|
| You mean the "e-mail server" (lol) which was "hosted" at
| her bedroom? You do realise that here of all places there
| is probably the highest number of people to see how
| ridiculous this is.
|
| * What about the many people lying/obstructing justice
| that were investigated? Why were so many people caught
| lying if there was nothing to hide?
|
| There is always something to hide, the question is were
| they guilty of what they were accused or not. Also after
| this appeared:
|
| 'What is our goal?' one of the notes dated January 24
| 2017 - the day of the interview - read. 'Truth/Admission
| or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him
| fired?'
|
| I would not give too much credibility to those
| investigators.
|
| 1. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8271953/Unsea
| led-me...
| mytherin wrote:
| * Until there is no hard evidence, those troll farms are
| conspiracy theories.
|
| As far as I see reading about the report, there were
| multiple indictments made against several Russian
| entities and nationals for online campaigns supporting
| Donald Trump [1]. They were (obviously) not prosecuted,
| but the evidence is there, otherwise there would be no
| indictments.
|
| [1] https://www.businessinsider.com.au/mueller-indicts-
| russians-...
|
| * Besides, these days the left press is so ridiculously
| biased that NYT, Guardian, etc could easily qualify as
| troll farms.
|
| This feels to me like you are not diversifying your news
| sources at all, and are only reading biased right-wing
| news and using that to feed your existing biases. The
| left wing media is not anymore biased than the right wing
| media, and there exists a scale of bias on both sides
| (there exists both ridiculously biased left wing media
| and ridiculously biased right wing media and everything
| in between).
|
| I suggest you diversify where you get your news from to
| get a clearer picture of the world. Try to keep more of
| an open mind. Nothing good comes from blindly following
| one side or the other - both sides have plenty of good
| and plenty of criminals.
|
| * You mean the "e-mail server" (lol) which was "hosted"
| at her bedroom? You do realise that here of all places
| there is probably the highest number of people to see how
| ridiculous this is.
|
| Plenty of people have a private e-mail server at home for
| one reason or the other. This was blown up way out of
| proportion. Partisanship has heavily clouded your
| judgement here.
|
| * There is always something to hide, the question is were
| they guilty of what they were accused or not. Also after
| this appeared:
|
| * 'What is our goal?' one of the notes dated January 24
| 2017 - the day of the interview - read. 'Truth/Admission
| or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him
| fired?'
|
| * I would not give too much credibility to those
| investigators.
|
| This seems like a conspiracy theory to me. Weren't the
| investigators Republicans themselves?
| llcoolv wrote:
| On top of that if there was evidence behind all
| indictments, then we would not need judges, only
| prosecutors. It is up to the court to decide if "there is
| evidence" or not.
| mytherin wrote:
| Incorrect. Evidence is evidence. Anyone can judge
| evidence for validity. You could look up the evidence
| right now and judge it yourself. It only carries _legal_
| implications if a court prosecutes, but that does not
| mean the evidence does not exist or that a crime did not
| occur if a court did not prosecute.
| llcoolv wrote:
| Thanks for taking the time to critique my psyche, reading
| habits and personality. It would have been somewhat
| better if you stuck to the topic in stead of lowly as
| hominem, but in some cases this is too much to expect :D
| :D
| mytherin wrote:
| I'm not trying to win any arguments - calling it an ad
| hominem makes no sense. Just trying to understand your
| perspective and make you realise your own biases. People
| too often blame the other side of their biases (in your
| case, "left wing is biased") without being aware of their
| own.
| [deleted]
| hraedon wrote:
| Mueller went out of his way to say that his investigation
| did not exonerate Trump, and realistically the only
| reason more people did not go to jail (and a lot of
| people went to jail, including one of Trump's campaign
| managers) is because key players were successful in
| obstructing justice.
|
| Like, you can be skeptical of the idea that the Russian
| interference was decisive in the election without
| dismissing the very real lawbreaking that happened.
| jtbayly wrote:
| I'd say Trump appropriated it to point out how
| untrustworthy the "real" news is. And he was and is right
| about that in general, even if he's often wrong.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Hmm, Trump's use seems to entirely have been to label
| things that are true that he wants [his supporters] to
| deny are true? Someone levels a factual criticism against
| him, they get thrown out and he says it's "fake news".
|
| Worse, for me in the UK, his success got adopted by UK
| Tories, now we also have a people in positions of power
| who just dodge hard questions and where possible exclude
| press as punishment. People in power who lie and aren't
| held to account. It's diabolical -- but by subverting the
| rule of law they're able to continue.
| dathinab wrote:
| There is a _huge_ difference between a algorithm which detect
| potential fake news and adds a banner like "find information
| about <topik> here", "this is likely faktual wrong", etc. And a
| algorithm which removes the content outright.
|
| With other words:
|
| - fact check => removal == bad especially if automatised,
| basically censorship
|
| - fact check => warning + link to some source + maybe slightly
| less visibility in search (but _still_ visible and potentially
| still even first result) == ok, people still can make their own
| opinion there is basically no censorship.
|
| (Side note, yes I'm aware that even "non" censoring methods can
| have a minimal censoring effect due to peoples laziness, but
| it's quite limited and IMHO acceptable especially if linked
| sources are objective.)
| newacct583 wrote:
| > If we could give a status that nothing on social media is too
| be taken seriously
|
| The subject at hand are public statements from the president of
| the United States. How exactly does one not "take that
| seriously"? Given the gravity of the situation: if it's wrong,
| and you know it's wrong, surely you have a responsibility to
| tell people it's wrong. Right?
|
| > Ask some oracle what "fact" is and shun every other point of
| view?
|
| How is Trump being "shunned" here? Twitter put a correction
| link at the bottom of his tweet.
| jameskilton wrote:
| Is no-one going to talk about how this is _explicitly_ what
| "freedom of speech" means? That Trump is one of the few people
| that "freedom of speech" _doesn 't_ apply, because it's
| protection FROM HIM doing exactly this kind of thing.
|
| Twitter has every protected right to criticize the president
| (which they should have been doing a whole lot more of but that's
| a different discussion). That's the _whole point_ of "freedom of
| speech" in our Bill of Rights. Our government literally cannot do
| what Trump wants to do, and to try to say that he can is to
| explicitly say that the Constitution is meaningless and void.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > Trump is one of the few people that "freedom of speech"
| doesn't apply
|
| No, Trump is one of the few people that the _first amendment of
| the constitution of the United States_ doesn 't apply. Free
| speech is broader than any specific law, whether you think
| people deserve it or not.
| akhilcacharya wrote:
| You mean the first amendment being trampled on by a president
| threatening legal action against a private company?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| The first amendment isn't a catch-all freedom-of-
| consequences thing; if (to use a straw man argument)
| Twitter did not remove ISIS propaganda, the US government
| would shut down.
|
| While technically proclaiming the virtues of joining an
| army to fight for them can be considered freedom of speech
| and should be protected, in practice it's not because
| they're a deplorable terrorist organization.
| ImprobableTruth wrote:
| This argument makes me pretty uneasy, since it seems like
| it can essentially be used to censor whatever you want.
| If e.g. the people fighting for climate justice get
| branded as ecoterrorists, wouldn't removing their
| 'propaganda' be ok under that line of thought?
|
| I think the right to free speech isn't some enshrinement
| of the right to spew garbage, but the realization that
| restrictions of free speech can very easily be turned
| against 'good' causes.
| [deleted]
| shadowgovt wrote:
| There's an extremist viewpoint on free speech that it is a
| categorical good, divorced from any societal utility or harm,
| which elevates it almost to a point of religion.
|
| It's always interesting to me when I observe it in action,
| because not even the US legal system---a system that, among
| the systems of the world, enshrines free speech as more
| untouchable than most nations---agrees with this absolutist
| premise.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| (I've moved my comment to the intended parent comment):
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322672
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Except that leftists and libs have their own sort of low-
| value hateful garbage. Which usually doesn't get censored or
| "fact-checked" on Twitter.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| If Twitter's going to have a fact-checking feature, using
| it exclusively for Presidents and not the userbase at large
| feels like a fine use of it.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| True, but Twitter's hypocrisy doesn't relate to my point.
| But you're totally justified in that confusion, because my
| comment that you're replying to somehow ended up on the
| wrong parent. Here it is in the correct location:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322672
|
| Edit: To clarify, I'm saying it doesn't relate because my
| point is that deleting hateful garbage off a private
| platform isn't censorship, and Twitter should fix their
| hypocrisy by deleting all hateful garbage with equal
| veracity, rather than the alternate fix, which would be to
| allow it all.
| [deleted]
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Except that leftists and libs have their own sort of low-
| value hateful garbage.
|
| Any of similar prominence to the _President of the United
| States_?
| unexaminedlife wrote:
| Somehow technology needs to help bridge the divide here.
| Literally the ONLY argument that needs to be had is "what are
| facts and logic". Unfortunately not enough people know what these
| are, which is severely hampering our country's ability to
| function as a democracy.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Complete objectivity is impossible. This is why Ayn Rand's
| Objectivism philosophy was so broken. It's not just that humans
| can't be completely objective -- any AI can't be either, and
| you can't write have a human write an algorithm that yields
| 100% objectivity. It can't be done. There is no short-cut. The
| arguments have to be had. Consensus/democracy/institutions is
| all we've got, and we have to and will make that work.
| unexaminedlife wrote:
| Not sure we're disagreeing here. But, an important point
| would be that we should be striving for objectivity. In
| Trump's world objectivity is not a goal. To him it's an
| obstacle.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Certainly we should be striving for objectivity. But our
| political divisions run deep, and many people have a hard
| time seeing the other side's point of view. Your assertion
| that "[i]n Trump's world objectivity is not a goal" is
| indicative that you aren't open to the possibility that
| he's being more objective than you think, therefore, if
| your view is less objective than you think, then clearly
| you're part of the problem. Of course, maybe you're right,
| but you don't seem open to the possibility that you're
| wrong. And _that_ simply illustrates my point about the
| difficulty of arriving at objective truth in matters where
| we 're so deeply divided.
| unexaminedlife wrote:
| I may seem "closed" to the possibility that Trump is
| being more objective than me. Then again we all have over
| 3 years of observations on which to base our conclusions.
|
| I will be interested, and open-minded, when reading your
| treatise explaining how one could conclude that Trump has
| been an objective reasonable President.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Ah, but I wouldn't argue that he's an objectively
| reasonable President. I would argue that there are people
| who believe that he is, and that we all have to be open
| to the possibility that either (or even both) sides are
| similarly objective as to their view of that question.
| jjuel wrote:
| It is crazy to see how well he knows his base and how to get them
| to rally close to an election. Making them think everything is a
| liberal bias against them, and if they don't vote for his big
| government agenda they will receive a big government agenda. This
| is just one more way for him to get his base to believe
| everything he says versus people who actually prove what he says
| is a lie. He wants state run media and social media just like
| China. As much as he talks about hating China he would love to be
| China.
| hn_check wrote:
| "It is crazy to see how well he knows his base"
|
| There's a very loud contingent of his base right here on HN.
|
| Weren't all of the nuts supposed to have migrated to Gab or
| whatever? They stay on Twitter because they seek legitimacy,
| and know that if they're all together the critical mass of
| idiocy would be overwhelmed and they would be seen for what
| they are. Instead you have the fake PhD lady, guy who pisses in
| his own mouth, and the liar-in-chief all debasing Twitter in an
| unending torrent.
|
| The internet is decentralized. These people can go elsewhere.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| Welcome to politics, where the rhetoric is made up and truth
| doesn't matter.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| It isn't that he has a special insight into his base, he is
| just willing to abandon any sense of truth or decency to flame
| it. That is what is remarkable about him.
| busymom0 wrote:
| > any sense of truth
|
| The very "fact check" twitter claims to have done is wrong. I
| have provided sources in my previous comments.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| One can hate or like Biden, but he put it perfectly: This is
| a prostitution of the presidency. Nothing more, nothing less.
|
| Republicans are willing to look away, and let Trump run
| rampant, if it means that they'll get their part in return
| (judges, etc.)
|
| Trump, in turn, will say anything. He has no restrains, and
| knows this - he can say absolutely anything, and no-one
| within will do or say anything.
|
| Right now, the presidency (for Trump) is a case of survival.
| He needs to remain in power, in order to escape whatever
| civil charges he'll face.
|
| For his own sake, Trump should have never ran for Presidency.
| He hates his job, and got lost in his own ego.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| Dude you sound delusional
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Well, has Trump learned his lesson?
| aerovistae wrote:
| which part of that is delusion?
| sp332 wrote:
| And this is specifically on a tweet calling the validity of the
| election into question. It's blatantly wrong, but he needs his
| base to believe him when he says the election is rigged.
| frockington1 wrote:
| Hasn't the other side been #NotMyPresient and throwing a
| tantrum about the validity of the last election? Trump is not
| a trailblazer in this regard
| refurb wrote:
| Headline: _Hillary Clinton: Trump is an 'illegitimate
| president'_
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-
| trum...
| shadowgovt wrote:
| (a) imagining there's one "other side" is a fallacy. There
| are multiple interest groups. Some more aligned with the
| President and his administration, some less.
|
| (b) you'll have to be more specific about what you mean,
| but the "tantrum" I've heard is that the system as set up
| over-represents land over people, not that the result is
| illegitimate. A legitimate result in a badly-crafted system
| is materially different from claiming the process as
| designed is compromised.
| majewsky wrote:
| I'm observing from the outside (read: the other side of the
| Atlantic), but my understanding is that people who say
| #NotMyPresident do it because of either a) a perceived lack
| of shared values between them and the president or b) in
| reference to him losing the popular vote, like several
| other presidents before him.
| raziel2p wrote:
| "The other side" has been pointing out how broken the
| electoral college is, not claiming that Trump is president
| on illegal grounds.
| mydongle wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23329443
| alistairSH wrote:
| There's a massive difference between...
|
| 1. Questioning whether the Electoral College (and its
| tendency to devalue votes in some states) has a place in
| the modern US.
|
| 2. Questioning whether the election itself is completely
| rigged (via fraudulent votes).
|
| #1 is the question many liberals have been asking. #2 is
| thee claim that the entire GOP has been making for years,
| despite their own investigations never turning up more than
| a few individuals voting fraudulently (but never systematic
| fraud perpetrated by the political left, as they claim).
| cheeseomlit wrote:
| Mail-in ballots make it much easier to commit voter fraud, I
| don't see how anyone could possibly argue to the contrary.
|
| https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/p.
| ..
| mythz wrote:
| It's got nothing to do with voter fraud which is another
| conspiracy tagline for his base to hang their propaganda
| on. His whole intent is to make it harder to vote and
| reduce voting % as much as possible in order to amplify his
| rabid base votes who will move heaven and earth to vote and
| keep their racist dear leader in power.
|
| This isn't news to anyone, he's openly said Republicans
| would never be elected again if it was easier to vote.
| AshleyGrant wrote:
| So you're telling me that The Heritage Foundation, a
| conservative think-tank, set out to prove how rampant an
| issue voter fraud is (as this is a seeming tent-pole of
| Trump's push to delegitimize any election that goes against
| him) and they came up with a whopping 1,285 cases across
| the entire US?
|
| What I see is that they've proven that voter fraud is not a
| problem in the United States. And, by extension, that there
| is no problem with mail-in-balloting leading to voter
| fraud. Looking at two states that only vote by mail, they
| have 27 cases of voter fraud in THE LAST TWENTY YEARS.
|
| Voter fraud, whether in person or by mail, IS NOT A
| PROBLEM. It's simply Trump working to sow the seeds of
| insurrection should he lose in November.
| sp332 wrote:
| "There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be
| anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes
| will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally
| printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of
| California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone
| living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got
| there, will get one. That will be followed up with
| professionals telling all of these people, many of whom
| have never even thought of voting before, how, and for
| whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!"
|
| The claim is not that it's easier to commit fraud. The
| claim is that allowing vote-by-mail compromises the
| integrity of an election. That's why it's important to show
| that voter fraud is quite rare (your link includes cases
| back to 1990 at least) and has a fairly high chance of
| being detected. Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and
| Utah conduct elections entirely by mail. Trump voted by
| mail!
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Well I read that document you've provided as strong
| evidence that mail in voting is safe. You've sourced a
| document that is from the "mail voting is unsafe" team, and
| they've only been able to find a very few number of such
| cases, spanning thirty years (it goes back to 1990 at
| least), and almost all of those cases were caught before
| the votes affected the outcome.
|
| Can you maybe explain your thinking?
|
| Have you done the math? The document you reference is
| absent of impact analysis, even vague on the numbers. 1,071
| incidents but how many actual votes? How many votes were
| actually cast? How many were caught before they were
| counted? Let's take Alabama. 14 reports, but actually first
| four are all the same incident. So 11 reports. Not off to a
| good start there. Nine of the remaining were single
| instance voting. Two were a conspiracy. One conspiracy was
| caught, in 1994 when it occurred, but is labeled as
| "Disposition: 2005", which I initially assumed meant that
| they were caught in 2005, and had gotten away with it. But
| in fact they were caught at the time because they submitted
| 1,400 votes in a county of 7000 people. The one that got
| away with it was caught _at the time_ , and earned the role
| of a city commissioner of a city of 68,000 people. And yet
| the person was elected anyway, despite the evidence. So
| you've got "14" incidents, that are really only 11, and
| only 1 that got away with in a small city election where
| even they were caught yet allowed to win. So with just this
| one state, of the 14 claimed, there was only 1. So for 1071
| that's 76. Over 30 years. There are 20,000 cities in the
| usa. So ~600,000 elections of all sizes they found 76
| instances of successful fraud, and only in non-state-wide
| elections. And that's just me spending thirty minutes with
| your primary document.
|
| What's interesting is that the Heritage Foundation didn't
| publish that math. Didn't get into detail.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| [citation needed; editor rejected source as unreliable]
| alistairSH wrote:
| Trump himself votes by mail, as does most of his family.
| Should we throw out their votes as well?
| freshpots wrote:
| A Heritage Foundation paper from the White House website.
| What a reputable source....
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/26/review-
| tr...
|
| Many states already do mail-in ballots and they're much
| more secure than the sketchy voting machines currently in
| use: https://qz.com/1783766/these-voting-machine-security-
| flaws-t...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| If you actually skim that document, the vast majority are
| simple single-vote "pleaded guilty to the charge of
| knowingly voting while ineligible" scenarios. They had to
| go back _twenty years_ to find a thousand of these, out of
| billions of votes cast during that period.
| RandomTisk wrote:
| What was blatantly wrong about it?
| camccar wrote:
| Nothing. Facts don't matter Only feelings. His tweet hurt
| our feelings
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Mail-in ballots don't generally increase the instances of
| election fraud. All of the "what ifs" have been
| investigated in the states that have had general-populace
| mail-in for years and been found not to occur in either (a)
| numbers that sway the election or (b) numbers
| distinguishable from in-person fraud (which is usually of
| the form "person not eligible to vote, but voting office
| screwed up and granted them a card" or "person moved and
| failed to notify election boards of the relocation; voted
| in the wrong district").
| busymom0 wrote:
| I have provided plenty of sources in my other comment on
| why "Mail-in ballots don't generally increase the
| instances of election fraud" is 100% wrong:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23331091
| RandomTisk wrote:
| Every election has at least one story of rampant
| incompetence and/or outright fraud where one person is
| able to alter hundreds to thousands of votes. For
| elections where it can literally be 50.2% to 49.8%, it
| can make all the difference.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Rampant incompetence isn't the same as fraud, and one
| would still have to make the case that we lose hundreds
| of envelopes more often than we have an entire data-store
| go missing (or, for that matter, than we have a fleet of
| digital voting machines crash and deny access to the
| polls to face-to-face voters for hours).
| RandomTisk wrote:
| Then the tweet wasn't 'factually incorrect' as was
| claimed, perhaps unsubstantiated given past performance
| isn't a guarantee of future performance but certainly
| election security is nothing to turn a blind eye to.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I'm not sure where you're getting the "factually
| incorrect" claim; "unsubstantiated" is the actual
| terminology Twitter used:
|
| "Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots
| will lead to voter fraud"
| ikeyany wrote:
| Please do not spead false information on HN. The tweet in
| question is:
|
| > "There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be
| anything less than substantially fraudulent."
|
| Twitter labeled it as unsubstantiated, and provided a
| link to facts on mail-in ballots. Even if they didn't,
| _his tweet is factually incorrect_.
| busymom0 wrote:
| I have provided plenty of sources in my other comment on
| why 100% factually correct:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23331091
| RandomTisk wrote:
| Which part are you asserting is factually wrong, that the
| election that hasn't happened yet will have
| "substantially fraudulent" mail in ballots?
|
| Or are you asserting that mail-in-ballots are secure or
| secure-enough to maintain the American democracy?
| ikeyany wrote:
| Mail-in ballots have existed for decades in elections all
| across the country and no one has questioned their
| legitimacy. If you accept the results of elections that
| have occurred prior to today, then there is no basis for
| the argument that mail-in ballots are illegitimate all of
| a sudden.
| RandomTisk wrote:
| The problem isn't their legitimacy, it's that there have
| been numerous stories about one or very few persons
| affecting hundreds or thousands of votes, basically like
| an amplification attack on democracy. When mail-in
| ballots are only a small percentage of the overall votes
| it's not as large of an issue. What Trump asserted was
| simply that we'll see a sharp increase in the number of
| fraudulent votes because the attack surface is going to
| be exponentially larger.
|
| Trump's assertion is based on the notion that mail-in-
| ballots see higher rates of fraud than in-person. It's
| not difficult to see why that would be the case, but I
| will concede I don't have first hand numbers.
|
| The insidious thing about this situation is that there is
| now a lot of anger on both sides. If cooler heads had
| waited a bit longer, collected real data on the rates of
| voter fraud, actually addressed Trump's concerns about
| stolen/forged ballots rather than calling him a liar and
| linking to puff pieces from two of his biggest and
| unfairest outlets, we would stand a better chance at
| resolving this amicably.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| Last I checked they posted a bunch of 'fact-checkers'
| (read: CNN blogosphere interns) remarks. Trump could
| probably say the SKY is blue and there will be a Marty
| Moss-Coane sound alike on the news tomorrow about how
| trump is losing his mind and clearly is colorblind.
| ilikehurdles wrote:
| That's not what he posted. You've invented a strawman and
| are now arguing against a hypothetical scenario that
| plays out only according to the rules your mind has made
| up for it.
| fchu wrote:
| Mmm citation needed here.
| rchaud wrote:
| The powers that be in Beijing and China must be pinching
| themselves; none of their predecessors had gotten this fortunate,
| for this long. Every day the US leadership appears committed to
| demolishing its outward image of a prosperous and stable
| democratic order. Meanwhile, they can continue running roughshod
| over political opposition and bullying their neighbours, totally
| unopposed.
|
| Russia has used the past 15 years to take South Ossetia, Abkhazia
| and Crimea and cement Putin's now-lifetime grip on domestic
| institutions.
|
| China, free of US pressure has refined its global logistics and
| supply chains, increased its military buildup and has becomes the
| world's go to vendor for 5G solutions. While also keeping Taiwan,
| HK, Xinjiang and South China Sea firmly under its thumb.
|
| Meanwhile, the US stumbles from crisis to crisis, with a good
| chunk of its 99% literate population now thinking that mail-in
| ballots, a cornerstone of its voting system are rife with fraud,
| and that wearing masks is a political stance.
|
| Oh, and Hacker News, in response to the country's chief
| executive's blustering about closing down social media, ponders
| if fact-checking is a 'solved problem'.
| heurist wrote:
| American dominance was pure luck after escaping from WWII
| unscathed and in a relatively strong financial position. The
| major economically prodictive technologies we rely on today
| came of age in the first half of last century and we used them
| to build an inefficient glass castle without considering the
| deleterious effects of rapid population growth or
| hyperconnectedness of human minds.
|
| The political order the US created under those circumstances is
| unraveling. Americans across the US should be focused on making
| the communities they live in food-secure and energy-
| independent. It's time to plan for environmental and economic
| resilience. The next century will be rocky and the US is
| unprepared. The US will not be the largest producer in the
| world, but if we can revitalize local production then we can at
| least be the hardest to kill. The revolution we need it
| localism.
| rchaud wrote:
| > The revolution we need is localism.
|
| Agreed. All politics is local after all. The problem is that
| the economic incentives are pointed in the polar opposite
| direction. Startups can't get funding if their ambitions are
| limited to their city, or even within the borders of their
| country.
|
| As was mentioned in an article I can't locate, a lot of the
| world's top technical talent is stuck working at well paid
| jobs, on products that simply don't matter relative to the
| challenges humanity is facing.
| heurist wrote:
| Startups are hard but if we want to escape the cult of
| Silicon Valley, we need to put in the effort and make
| progress without them. It's so strange to me as someone
| living thousands of miles from California and New York, I
| know more names of people popular in San Francisco, Los
| Angeles, and NYC than in my own state. How did that come to
| be, what can be done to fix it? I believe there is
| relatively low-hanging fruit that can start making a dent
| in these problems.
|
| I also don't feel bad for tech talent getting fat off ad
| revenue. There are alternatives that contribute more to
| society but you have to be willing to sacrifice for them.
| gotoeleven wrote:
| Fact Check: Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| Twitter's leadership is a bunch of cowards who are only now
| taking the smallest steps to do something about Trump's lies and
| demagoguery. They should have banned him years ago.
|
| I stopped using Twitter on January 20th, 2017. I had been a user
| since they started, but I went through and programatically
| deleted every tweet, like, follower, etc. I now just have my name
| and I never use the site. I wish more people would do the same.
| Don't delete your account, just stop using it.
|
| If Twitter had just held everyone on their platform to the same
| standards, I would be somewhat accepting of them as a neutral
| platform for free speech. But they decided to ignore the threats,
| lies, bullying, name calling, racism, sexism and more coming from
| not just Trump, but all of his followers. So they can go to hell
| for all I care now.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I hope he goes through with it, then gets dragged for abuse of
| power. But that's not likely to happen; the president has too
| much power, and there are no checks and balances in place. He is
| only still in power because his party voted to keep him in a sham
| 'trial', and they only voted in favor because else their party
| would look divided.
| akhilcacharya wrote:
| It's remarkable that Trump has consistently been against free-
| speech but still has the support of a non-trivial number of
| self-described "libertarians" like Thiel. This is in the 1st
| amendment sense as saying he wants to open up libel laws in
| 2016 [0] to his comments on video games [1] and flag burning
| [2] to in the broader sense in his anger at the kneeling
| protesters [3].
|
| [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
| fix/wp/2016/02/26/do...
|
| [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/fact-check-
| tru...
|
| [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/15/no-
| braine...
|
| [3] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-
| nfl...
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Thiel seems to want to use Trump to break the US system of
| government because he thinks that's the only way to move
| forward. He's disrupting.
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| I don't believe that at all. Thiel just wants whatever
| makes the most money for him. He isn't looking out for the
| rest of the country.
| nautilus12 wrote:
| In this instance is he really against free speech though?
| Seems like the struggle seems to be between his freedom of
| speech and twitter's. It all comes down to the question of
| whether twitter is a "publisher" with the freedom to
| edit/change content users post on its site. Seems like they
| want to be treated as both when its convenient for them.
| rtkwe wrote:
| His speech is still there it just has a commentary beside
| it. Nothing in 230 requires a company to be either neutral
| or hands off with user content to get protection from civil
| liabilities for moderation.
| dashundchen wrote:
| Or the guns rights activists barely flinching at "Take the
| guns first, go through due process second". Just trying to
| imagine their reaction if the previous officeholder had said
| that.
|
| The anger at the kneeling protestors is especially revealing
| considering the debate centered around whether the private
| NFL could interfere with the expression of the players.
| jki275 wrote:
| public expression, on the NFL's property, under the NFL's
| name... Nobody believes Kapernick should be denied the
| right to say and do what he wants to say and do, but if I
| take actions contrary to my employer's best interests, on
| company time and property, my company can't restrict my
| right to speak, but they can sure tell me I can't do it on
| their property anymore, and they can terminate my
| employment as well.
|
| As for the gun issue, nobody in the gun crowd liked that
| comment from him. Some have even argued they're not going
| to vote for him going forward as a result. But when the
| alternative is people who literally believe that the second
| amendment doesn't exist, doesn't say what it says, and
| don't believe that the SCOTUS rulings that have come down
| on it have any effect, what choice do they have?
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Because in Trump's case, the slippery slope of "first they
| came for" doesn't apply.
|
| They know exactly who he doesn't want having guns, and why,
| and it's not them, and they agree, so there's a strong
| silence.
| luckydata wrote:
| It's surprising only if you take them at face value. I don't
| and I'm never surprised, it's all quite predictable actually.
| holtalanm wrote:
| our two party system is a national disgrace.
| philipkglass wrote:
| I think that "fighting terrorist propaganda" is actually the
| origin of social media building tools for moderating politics.
| Most people seem to date it to the 2016 US presidential election,
| presumably because they weren't following Middle East politics as
| closely as US politics.
|
| I really saw a chilling effect in r/SyrianCivilWar after the rise
| of ISIS. Media showing graphic violence would remain on the site
| for several more years -- r/WatchPeopleDie was removed only last
| year -- but videos considered to be "supporting" ISIS (even if
| only because they showcased recent advances by ISIS or allies)
| started being removed from Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, and other
| places. I think that even LiveLeak eventually started removing
| some of these videos. Reddit itself started banning pro-ISIS
| posters.
|
| There was plenty of all-sides hand-wringing before 2016 that
| social media wasn't doing enough to suppress terrorist
| propaganda.
|
| "After the recent spate of terrorist attacks inspired by the so-
| called Islamic State, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have
| called for greater cooperation from social media companies like
| Facebook, YouTube and Twitter in combating hate propaganda."
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/08/how-social-media-cos-try-to-...
|
| The social networks banned a _lot_ of content that would be legal
| to publish in the United States. They went well above and beyond
| removing only the "imminent lawless action" speech that falls
| outside of First Amendment protections. And with good reason.
| Plenty of lawmakers were ready to make their lives miserable if
| they _didn 't_ take an aggressive anti-terrorist stance.
|
| It's fun to daydream about big American social media companies
| removing only such speech as would be unprotected by the First
| Amendment. But sites like YouTube have _never_ offered that much
| latitude. Even in the pre-Google days YouTube didn 't allow porn
| -- not even perfectly legal, mainstream porn. And of course it's
| perfectly legal to advertise locksmith and dental services but I
| don't want platforms overrun with high volume advertising for
| those businesses either. Finally, both Republican and Democratic
| legislators were talking less than 5 years ago about how social
| media had a responsibility to curb terrorists' propaganda,
| regardless of the stronger protections enshrined in the First
| Amendment.
|
| I don't really like where we are with social media, but I wish
| that the discussions we had around these issues on HN were more
| historically grounded instead of centering on partisan
| polarization around the 2016 presidential election and its
| aftermath.
| wsatb wrote:
| The comments here are surprising, to say the least. I just ask
| that some of you actually take a step back and realize what
| you're defending here.
| thebouv wrote:
| The comments defending the fact checking?
|
| Or the comments defending it is okay for big government to step
| in and threaten to close a private company over fact checking?
| wsatb wrote:
| The latter.
| [deleted]
| hn_check wrote:
| Are they surprising?
|
| HN is an absolute cesspool of alt-right "Conservatives" [1]. If
| you want AGW denial, unfettered capitalism, and as of late
| COVID denial, this is your place. These people have fully
| committed to the cult of Trump. dang is wonderfully enabling by
| never censuring their speech, but immediately
| banning/hiding/shadowbanning anyone who counters them.
|
| 1 - There is _nothing_ conservative about Trump, beyond that he
| occasionally throws a bone to his enablers in the Senate and
| congress, and some hilariously transparent appeals to his
| evangelical base. I am historically a conservative, but
| Trumpism, and his brainless followers, has completely destroyed
| the title and it 's something that now we have to hold almost
| in shame, just as Trump's cult calls the foundation of the
| Republican party -- the people who made it -- "RINOs". Trump
| appeals to contrarian bottom-feeders who think they're owning
| the libs or some other nonsense.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Obviously, based on his history, it is just a reaction, but not
| necessarily an idle threat. I am both hesitant and interested at
| the same time. It is a little like his stance on FISA. It it
| clear any changes are just to benefit, but some of the power held
| by FISA and social media should be curbed.
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| Any media source that earns its revenue via advertising must be
| considered entertainment.
|
| Fact checking entertainment is nonsense.
| koolhead17 wrote:
| Trump exists because of social media.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Not every day a sitting President threatens a media outlet for
| exercising their freedom of the press, but it's not the first
| time it's happened.
|
| Of course, most Presidents have been constrained by some modicum
| of understanding that their oath to uphold the Constitution
| applies to the whole thing.
| frockington1 wrote:
| Is Twitter a media outlet? If they want to be classified as
| such it might make them susceptible to slander lawsuits
| elicash wrote:
| Please read this article: https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/21/
| 18700605/section-230-inte...
| shadowgovt wrote:
| If the Trump election campaign wants to sue Twitter for
| libel, they're welcome to try. The President has already
| tried suing the New York Times for libel for publishing an
| op-ed he didn't like.
| askl56 wrote:
| The problem inevitably has flared up: Twitter's head of integrity
| leading this push has previously tweeted that Trump is a Nazi and
| accused the flyover states of being racist.
|
| https://twitter.com/Liz_Wheeler/status/1265463081997484032
|
| This isn't going to end well, and unless Twitter is going to
| exercise this impartially (which is impossible given a human is
| involved), they are going to lose their platform status, and
| justifiably so.
| Stubb wrote:
| Archive link in case Twatter tries to edit history:
|
| http://archive.is/QlbCF
| javagram wrote:
| > This isn't going to end well, and unless Twitter is going to
| exercise this impartially (which is impossible given a human is
| involved), they are going to lose their platform status, and
| justifiably so.
|
| This isn't how the law works, and Trump's enemies, the
| Democrats, control the House of Representatives.
|
| Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects the
| ability of online services to moderate content, this has been
| repeatedly upheld by the courts. The only way it could change
| is if the Senate, House, and President agree on a new law and
| pass it.
|
| If you want to learn more,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...
| josefresco wrote:
| To clarify, he didn't call Trump a Nazi. He said there are
| "actual Nazis in the White House" which could be a reference to
| staff or appointees.
| askl56 wrote:
| Regardless, that would need to be fact checked?
| ChrisLTD wrote:
| What's "platform status"?
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| I'm assuming Section 230?
| rtkwe wrote:
| People have read a lot into section 230 that they want to
| see there to imply there's some distinction between
| unmoderated (AKA 'platform status') and moderated
| platforms. In fact the only thing it really does is provide
| that 1) providers or users can't be held liable things
| users say and 2) if you voluntarily moderate your service
| you aren't incurring a civil liability.
|
| Check the text yourself [0] there's nothing in there about
| having to either be a complete free zone or even to
| moderate neutrally to get protection from civil
| liabilities. Personally I wish they'd take a tougher stance
| but legally they don't have to and I /really/ don't think
| it's a good idea to legally require them to because the
| definition of what is and isn't moderation worthy will
| change on a dime. [1]
|
| [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230
|
| [1] Especially under the 'unitary executive' theory which
| is used a lot to try to undermine any congressional
| restrictions or accountability on the executive branch.
| That means the interpretation and enforcement can and will
| switch overnight every 4-8 years.
| jonfw wrote:
| You can either be a 'platform' for other people to speak,
| where you aren't held responsible for the content you host,
| or you can be a 'curator' where you control the content and
| are responsible or what you host.
|
| The trouble with Twitter (in some people's view) is that they
| play both sides- they're just a public platform when there is
| something illegal that they're hosting, but they're a curator
| when they don't like what you've posted.
| ChrisLTD wrote:
| Doesn't just about every platform, forum, blog comment
| section, etc. do this? It seems untenable not to allow
| moderation.
| jonfw wrote:
| I agree and I'm generally anti-regulation of the media.
|
| But the argument would be that your average forum, blog
| comment section, etc. isn't one of the most important
| mediums of communication in the world's leading
| superpower's democracy
| fooblat wrote:
| You can also be both.
|
| Like every newspaper website that has a comment section.
| They are responsible for the parts they publish but not the
| user generated comments. There is no legal requirement to
| be one or the other.
|
| For whatever reason, most people seem to get this
| backwards.
|
| Here is the relevant legal code Section 230 C1: "No
| provider or user of an interactive computer service, a
| platform, shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of
| any information provided by another information content
| provider."
|
| There is nothing in the law that says a publisher is
| responsible for user generated contact (even if they
| moderate it). In fact the law says just the opposite.
|
| Edit: added note in parenthesis
| jonfw wrote:
| Who cares? This is about ethics, not laws. If you are a
| proponent of this argument you would just advocate for
| changing the law
| ImprobableTruth wrote:
| >There is nothing in the law that says a publisher is
| responsible for user generated contact. In fact the law
| says just the opposite.
|
| I think you're misunderstanding the section. A publisher
| of content is very much responsible for it. After all, it
| says that "no provider [...], a platform, shall be
| treated as the publisher" i.e. a platform is not a
| publisher (so therefore a platform is not liable).
|
| However, if you stop being just a 'platform', you could
| become liable for the content you host. I think
| moderation in general is fine, but if you started
| curating the content I think you could get in trouble.
| fooblat wrote:
| This is not how the experts explain it. Section 230 is
| not about splitting providers in publishers and
| platforms. That is the common misunderstanding. The Verge
| has done several articles on this very subject[0].
|
| 0. https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/21/18700605/section-23
| 0-inte...
| ImprobableTruth wrote:
| Section 230 is not about splitting them, but the first
| amendment itself already makes that distinction (as your
| article points out).
|
| I think the article's headline "says it doesn't matter if
| you're a publisher or a platform" is incorrect, because
| if sec 230 eliminated that distinction it would be in
| conflict with the first amendment. The interviewee also
| never makes this claim. It's more so that current rulings
| of section 230 simply say that you don't "publish" but
| "platform" user generated content.
|
| As far as I know the contention is where the limits of
| this are. There definitely is a point where it stops,
| since a digital magazine very much is a publisher and
| responsible for the articles it puts out. Some people
| think heavily curating already means that it's not just
| user generated content, while others think it's fine.
|
| In the end, I think this is something that will
| eventually be decided by a (supreme?) court ruling. Trump
| won't get to decide this alone, but I don't think it's
| impossible for him to escalate this.
| dvtrn wrote:
| Blue Check mark.
| whatever1 wrote:
| What is the justification?
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Repost from duplicate post:
|
| Obviously, based on his history, it is just a reaction, but not
| necessarily an idle threat. I am both hesitant and interested at
| the same time. It is a little like his stance on FISA. It it
| clear any changes are just to benefit the president with other
| benefits being an afterthought, but some of the power held by
| FISA and social media should be curbed
| laumars wrote:
| Direct link to Tweet (TC doesn't really add any detail and people
| have moaned about their cookie-consent dark patterns before):
|
| https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12656016113107394...
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| Nitter link (for anyone who doesn't like opening Twitter
| links):
| https://nitter.net/realDonaldTrump/status/126560161131073945...
| ycombonator wrote:
| Let's face it Silicon Valley is run by leftists. Nothing to see
| here move on.
| onion2k wrote:
| He won't though, obviously.
| sp332 wrote:
| Complaining loudly that social media platforms are "biased" is
| a way to get special treatment without any official enforcement
| action.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Indeed, hence why Facebook fired their reviewers for public
| content during the 2016 campaign.
|
| But given that that worked out so well, I'm sure there's no
| problem :P
| Communitivity wrote:
| Good luck with that (not). Today we have decentralized social
| networks specifically designed to combat that kind of censorship,
| and other problems with centralized control.
|
| For videos, see https://joinpeertube.org or https://libry.tv
|
| For micro-blogging, see https://joinmastodon.org
|
| For photos, see https://pixelfed.org
|
| For others, see https://fediverse.party/
| jmull wrote:
| Adding a link to a factual counter-argument is not censorship.
| Even adding a link to a non-factual, non-sensical rant is not
| censorship.
|
| You're actually suggesting that posting dissenting information
| is censorship?!?
|
| Black is white! Good is bad!
| modwest wrote:
| it's not censorship. not even close. good grief.
| INTPenis wrote:
| I'm not saying this is related in any way but in the last few
| days I've seen a lot of toots from new users introducing
| themselves to the fediverse. And a lot of them are mentioning
| twitter.
|
| I hope this means we finally get some big profile names in the
| fediverse. A lot of celebrities are talking about the issue but I
| have yet to see anyone mention valid alternatives.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| Trump stated an opinion about what he personally believes will
| happen if mail-in ballot use is expanded. He might be incorrect,
| but Twitter singling this out to promote opposing opinions is by
| no means "fact checking."
|
| This is a campaign contribution with a real economic value that
| should be calculable. So let's just let the FEC figure out the
| value of this contribution and all of the existing regulations
| will apply.
| Animats wrote:
| Twitter must have automation for this, since they do it for
| tweets generally. How do they do that? Anybody know?
| cyberowl wrote:
| Gonna play some devil's advocate
|
| Freedom of speech is a concept, and a legal definition in the US.
| It's true that Twitter has no _legal_ obligation to uphold free
| speech since it's not a government entity.
|
| But if you support the _concept_ of free speech, Twitter is
| stiffing conversation by playing a moral judge on what is
| considered truth and what's considered lies.
|
| The Constitution was written 200 years ago without any of the
| today's technology. Back then, all "speech" happens either live
| in person, or by individual printing presses. Government back
| then was the biggest threat to the concept of free speech, so
| it's indoctrinated in the constitution as a legal concept.
|
| Today, public discussion space has moved onto social media
| platforms. Government is no longer the biggest threat to speech
| (because of the Constitution), but private companies like
| Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc who can just ban anyone at will
| and cause them to lose the ability to reach their followers. If
| you want to protect free speech as a concept, then we need to
| update our legal concept to include any platform or service
| that's identified as critical to public discussion.
|
| Similar to how electricity companies are regulated as utilities
| companies because they're so crucial to people's daily lives,
| social media platforms should be regulated as speech platforms
| because they're so crucial to today's conversations happening in
| society.
|
| This is the hard truth. You won't like it because you hate the
| man. But it's the truth / end devil's advocate
| c0wardthr0waway wrote:
| "Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence
| conservatives voices"
|
| Reddit is the best example of that. I don't want to defend him
| but look at every single news and politics related sub from
| /r/news, /r/worldnews, /r/politics etc.
|
| But that happens here too. Honestly I blame the upvote downvote
| system more. Reddit and HN are both really wrong with it
| wincy wrote:
| I posted a few random comments to the_donald right after the
| election and it took years before I didn't have a good chance
| of getting a really nasty message about how I was a Nazi when
| leaving comments anywhere else.
| jaybeeayyy wrote:
| How is reddit silencing conservative voices? Downvotes don't
| count. There's plenty of conservative and right leaning
| subreddits with a lot of activity.
|
| Just because there's not as much traction or acceptance among
| the users of reddit for conservative or right-wing ideas,
| comments etc. doesn't mean Reddit itself is actively silencing
| voices. You can't force people to not downvote things they
| don't like or agree with.
| raziel2p wrote:
| The very same Reddit where criticism frequently gets you banned
| or censored in subreddits like /r/conservative ?
|
| Just because the majority in a particular community disagrees
| with you doesn't make you censored or silenced.
| standardUser wrote:
| There is trend in American conservatism to take increasingly
| hostile and indefensible positions, and that trend has been met
| with counter trend that increasingly marginalizes those voices.
| Arguing for limited government is not likely to get a huge
| reaction from any given public platform. But arguing in favor
| of debunked conspiracy theories that make false allegations or
| defending the president's frequent personal attacks on
| individuals can and probably should be met with downvotes. Just
| like any personal attack should be.
| frockington1 wrote:
| Case and point being the valid point you raised being down
| voted into the gray. Upvote/Downvote systems just encourage the
| side with the most free time to be the only opinion seen. I
| think this may be part of the reason so many people on Reddit
| and Hacker News are routinely surprised by election results.
| Echo chambers do not represent the real world
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Reddit literally censors the actual Donald Trump campaign
| subreddit: it's hidden behind a scary warning screen and
| demonetized https://old.reddit.com/r/The_Donald . Hilarious.
| They don't even pretend to be unbiased or to care about their
| userbase that's equally on both sides of the political
| spectrum.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Reddit resisted doing that for _years_ , until the violations
| of Reddit's site-wide rules became too blatant and widespread
| to continue ignoring.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Where the "violations" of Reddit site-wide rules involved
| having lots of users and being able to push stuff up to the
| frontpage merely by upvoting it, like any other subreddit
| would. Of course when /r/politics does it, they don't call
| it "violating site-wide rules".
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/26/18759967/reddit-
| quarantin...
|
| > Media Matters for America pointed out posts where
| r/The_Donald members fantasized about or encouraged
| violence related to Oregon's recent climate change vote
| where Republican lawmakers fled the state Senate to
| prevent a climate change bill from passing, one of them
| even implying that he would respond to any police action
| with violence. r/The_Donald members posted comments like
| "none of this gets fixed without people picking up
| rifles" and "[I have] no problems shooting a cop trying
| to strip rights from Citizens." The posts were later
| removed.
|
| Various other bits of misbehavior ensued: https://en.wiki
| pedia.org/wiki/R/The_Donald#Quarantine,_restr...
|
| > In November 2019, the subreddit's moderators attempted
| to evade Reddit's imposed quarantine by reviving and
| promoting a subreddit called r/Mr_Trump. This subreddit
| was banned by Reddit's administrators in accordance with
| its policy that "attempting to evade bans or other
| restrictions imposed on communities is not allowed on
| Reddit." Days later, Reddit's admins warned the
| subreddit's moderators about trying to out the alleged
| White House whistleblower in the Trump-Ukraine scandal in
| violation of Reddit's rules on harassment and inviting
| vigilantism.
|
| and Reddit bans the left-wing equivalents for similar
| actions:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/us/politics/bernie-
| sander...
|
| > Over the summer, the "Chapo Trap House" message board,
| which has nearly 153,000 members who chat about the news
| and memes of the day, was censured by Reddit, which hosts
| it. The page now has limited reach and is in a sort of
| digital purgatory, where it remains.
| standardUser wrote:
| This is because it is littered with personal attacks, lies
| and defamation. When the president pushes unsubstantiated
| conspiracy theories and makes constant attacks against
| private citizens, that crosses the line regardless of party.
| Being unbiased does not mean promoting/supporting vile
| personal attacks.
| jaybeeayyy wrote:
| I don't believe the Donald Trump campaign has officially
| recognized that subreddit as being a part of their
| campaign...
|
| but they also did the same quarantine to r/Chapo_Traphouse, a
| leftist podcast subreddit, so I'm not sure why you think it's
| not equal. Did you not know about Chapo being quarantined?
| ianleeclark wrote:
| They had to quarantine that sub because of a tidal wave of
| pro-shooting-cops posts whenever a bunch of Oregonian
| Republicans skipped town to hide in the woods with
| paramilitaries.
| rlyshw wrote:
| Honestly just more proof that we need decentralization of the
| Internet. Handing over control of our digital platforms and
| identities to 3rd party for-profit companies is not the way the
| internet should work.
| bt1a wrote:
| Aye but with no one in charge, how can the masses protect
| themselves against ever-increasing disinformation campaigns?
| [deleted]
| ccsnags wrote:
| If there is control over information, how do the masses
| protect themselves against disinformation campaigns coming
| from official sources?
|
| Conspiracy theories and baseless nonsense is the price you
| pay to be able to criticize those in power. It is a price
| worth paying.
| AgentME wrote:
| Independent fact checkers not associated with government
| authorities (like what Twitter is doing in this case) seems
| like one solution.
|
| I'm really bugged by the leap of logic that fact checkers
| will supposedly always parrot the government line, when
| even this specific thread itself is about a fact checker
| existing that's going against the president's line.
| [deleted]
| sparkie wrote:
| Idea: put a monetary cost on publishing information.
| Receiving spam should be profitable. Disinformation campaigns
| will be costly.
|
| If the information is useful and worth reading, the viewer
| will pay back the publisher, an amount which covers the
| initial publishing cost and additional revenue for the
| publisher.
|
| Conversely, if the information is garbage or incorrect, the
| viewer will not pay the fee and it will be a loss for the
| publisher.
|
| The payments can be small, cheap and fast via Bitcoin's
| Lightning Network.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Equivalent to silencing poor people, which was probably not
| your intention.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> Disinformation campaigns will be costly._
|
| Then the rich most likely win, whether they are right or
| wrong.
|
| And given How wrong Trump is on many things (including what
| he himself has said in the past) that is not going to be a
| good thing. Yes there will be popular gatherings where many
| people put in a bit to counteract disinformation from small
| groups of well funded individuals (or just one well funded
| individual) but those things take with organised
| orchestration or luck (often both) to be successful, more
| so than the actions of smaller groups or individuals.
|
| While this would reduce individual knuckle-draggers
| shouting from the rooftops because they feel slighted, and
| would reduce knee-jerk reactions somewhat, it wouldn't
| shift the balance of power significantly at all at the top
| end, it would just change how score is kept.
|
| _> If the information is useful and worth reading ... if
| the information is garbage or incorrect_
|
| This has exactly the same problem as the current situation:
| how do the people who currently believe (and propagate)
| misinformation behave any differently under this scheme?
| They might not forward the misinformation as much due to
| the cost, but that same will happen with provable facts
| because the cost is universal so the current balance
| probably wouldn't be upset.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| Mass disinformation campaigns become more expensive and
| difficult to orchestrate if you have to target them at
| zillions of decentralized forums, each with their own
| moderation policies and local cultures.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| But you don't have to do that, any more than an invading
| army has to occupy all centers of power at once. And people
| aren't going to spread across zillions of decentralized
| forums because people put value on network effects, and
| larger networks are worth more than small ones.
|
| Thus Facebook isn't one giant blob of people yelling at
| each other, but has huge numbers of groups where people can
| meet, while also being able to find/contact almost anyone
| else. Of course I participate in small decentralized forums
| relevant to my specific interests/hobbies, but I don't
| _only_ watch those, and you probably don 't either. That
| would be like only ever reading local news and skipping
| news about your state/country/international events. You
| _can_ do that but you 'll be putting yourself at a big
| disadvantage, which most people prefer not to do.
| polytely wrote:
| Well in the case of mastodon, I found an instance with an
| owner whose judgement I trust.
|
| I think the main problem with twitter is scale: Because the
| network allows you to reach the whole world it also is a big
| target for disinformation networks and the sheer volume of
| posts makes it uneconomical to moderate.
|
| If you look at mastodon, the instance I'm on has about 600
| monthly active users. That's pretty easy for an admin to
| handle. If a bunch of users show up orchestrating a disinfo
| campaign the admin would notice, and if an instance is a
| source of disinfo it can be blocked.
|
| Instance will stop federating with other instances if they
| are too much to deal with, so admins are incentivized not to
| grow beyond what they could moderate, to maintain access to
| the fediverse.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| This is only a problem if you believe the public education
| system isn't doing its job to create thoughtful, educated
| people with an understanding of the world around them.
| javagram wrote:
| Trump could start his own Mastodon or Gab server for his
| legions to follow him on. His campaign certainly has the
| resources.
| jkingsbery wrote:
| As a Republican and as an American, it pains me to have that man
| as the standard barer. Even when he makes a point that I think
| main-stream circa 2006-2014 Republicans would have agreed with,
| he does it in such a bad, ham fisted, way that nothing changes.
| Even though Trump spent almost his entire adult life as _not_
| conservative, he 's now what people associate with the term. But
| he's not "conservative" in any sense of the word: he's not
| conservative in temperament, he's not conservative in his use (or
| threat to use) of government power, he's not seeking to conserve
| any precedents. It makes it impossible to make any sort of debate
| on the actual point, because everything becomes about him.
| czzr wrote:
| Will you still vote Republican? Just curious, please ignore
| this question if you think it too personal or impertinent.
| asabjorn wrote:
| > the president is constantly claiming things without any
| evidence backing up
|
| [reposting here, since someone keeps voting down me providing
| facts on convicted cases of voter fraud. Isn't this against the
| philosophy of this site?]
|
| Let's fact check these fact checkers in this case.
|
| Here are some cases convicted in court of election fraud, a lot
| of them involve fraudulent use of absentee ballots
| https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/p...
|
| And there is also a problem with the chain of trust, since 28
| million mail-in ballots went missing in the last four elections:
| https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/24/28_mil...
|
| Or what about the mail carrier recently charged with meddling
| with the ballot requests in his chain of trust?
| https://www.whsv.com/content/news/Pendleton-County-mail-carr...
|
| And if you think politicians would never cheat, a Pennsylvania
| election official just plead guilty to stuffing the ballot box.
| He was paid by candidates that I believe won:
| https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/05/21/doj-democrats-...
| mrlonglong wrote:
| I'm getting extremely tired of his Twitter tantrums. I suspect
| many feels the same way. I shan't shed not one tear if he get
| voted out in the November elections.
| GordonS wrote:
| I'd be fed up if he wasn't the president of the USA. The fact
| that he is, and constantly spouts stuff like this, and gets
| away with it, is... _terrifying_.
| orwin wrote:
| I'm really not outraged by that fact that twitter burst the
| Donald Trump info bubble, but the fact that they don't do the
| same thing when a member of an opposite party is also partial
| with the truth is a bad sign. Tbh they should have started with a
| controversial anti-trump statement before enforcing this in
| trump.
|
| Also they should not have called that "fact checking" or
| "debunking".
| hobs wrote:
| Why? Trump's absolutely the reason for the need here -
| politicians have always lied, but it would probably be more
| useful if twitter or anyone marked when he was telling the
| truth; you'd have a much smaller dataset to manage.
| sp332 wrote:
| What's a better word?
| swebs wrote:
| "Rebuttal" would work better. Calling it a fact check implies
| "I'm right, you're wrong. The debate is over."
| dbbk wrote:
| Calling it a fact check implies that there are facts. Facts
| are real things, they are not up for debate.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| This is silly. Everyone knows there are facts. What
| you're replying to assumes this already.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > Everyone knows there are facts.
|
| The notion of "post-truth politics" is one of the major
| issues of the day. "Everyone knows there are facts" is
| not actually a given in modern discourse.
| raziel2p wrote:
| As it should be, with a fact check (at least if the fact is
| demonstrably false).
|
| "Debates" (insofar as that concept even exists on a
| platform like Twitter) started on false grounds should not
| be allowed to continue.
|
| If I make a claim "A, therefore B, therefore C", and A is
| demonstrably false, I'm not going to insist we keep
| discussing B and C for the sake of not "ending the debate".
| I should be forced to either concede or find a new line of
| reasoning.
| baggachipz wrote:
| Crybaby cries, news at 11.
| nxpnsv wrote:
| Why not just kick him off for tos violation and be done with it.
| That would be an article worth reading...
| yedpodtrzitko wrote:
| I can imagine a lot of people would start boycotting Twitter
| after that. Fewer users and their activity means fewer ads
| displays means fewer $$$ for Twitter.
| nxpnsv wrote:
| Hmmm If they also launched some paid model at the same time,
| I'd consider paying...
| node-bayarea wrote:
| He is the President of the United States! And 50% of the people
| like his policies (if not his personal behavior)
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| "his policies"?
|
| This is something I don't understand about current politics,
| a leader uses their people to create greatness. If it's
| "Trump's policies" wth is everyone else in the political
| system doing? In the UK we get "Boris says" but it's quite
| clear all policy decisions are being made under Cummings, and
| he gets them presumably from liaison with Tory donors.
|
| Trump/Boris clearly know nothing about medicine,
| epidemiology, public health care so if ideas actually there's
| they should probably be rejected.
|
| Why this focus on individuals, as if one person should be
| holding power in a democratic government. That's clearly
| wrong.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| Only a little under 25% of the US affirmatively voted for him
| in the 2016 election (a little over 25% voted for his
| opponent, and roughly 50% chose to not vote at all). Included
| in that 25% would be people who either voted against his
| opponent, or voted on a single issue that overrode all other
| considerations (in the US, blocking legal abortions is the
| single biggest driver of these voters).
| metrokoi wrote:
| If people chose not to vote, I don't think their opinion
| matters too much. Excluding people ineligible to vote and
| people who didn't vote out of protest, although a better
| choice would have been to write in a vote.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Because Twitter changed its TOS specifically to legitimize
| Trump's violations of the earlier version.
|
| Trump is working the refs even though they are already very
| much in his favor.
| kauffj wrote:
| However you feel about this, Twitter did it in pretty much the
| worst way possible.
|
| 1. They had someone with a clear history of strong anti-Trump and
| anti-Republican sentiment take the action
| (https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/126545757821512499...)
|
| 2. Twitter chose a _prediction_ rather than a _factual statement_
| to fact check ( "Mail-In Ballots will be..."). Why not start with
| a truly factually wrong statement about the past?
|
| 3. They picked something that is actually debatable! A bipartisan
| committee concluded it carried some risks in 2005:
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/heed-jimmy-carter-on-the-danger...
|
| The notion that a company can ever be trusted to "fact check"
| (aka determine objective truth) is just completely laughable. The
| closest we can come is labeling agent beliefs about truth ("X
| says Y is false").
|
| Doing nothing would be better than doing this. Even better would
| be building solutions that allow community-based (and ideally
| personalized) derivations of consensus (this is what we're doing
| at LBRY).
| fantastisch wrote:
| Agreed. Pretty much asking for an intervention. Practically
| begging for a crackdown. Larger plan?
| nautilus12 wrote:
| Wow a comment that isn't just calling trump a racist and is
| calmly laying out the facts....
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I don't understand why this is downvoted. You laid out good
| reasons to explain twitter did this in the worst possible way.
|
| Do people here just not want to see it regardless of its
| factual nature? That seems like the eventual issue with "fact
| checking" social media posts.
| tinco wrote:
| Of all the things Trump has said, why add a fact check on this
| point that includes all kinds of vagueness?
|
| How is it a fact that mail-in ballots will not lead to rigged
| elections? Just that there's no evidence to support it doesn't
| mean it can't be true (however unlikely). If we're really to
| police politicians, surely it should be only on absolutely
| logically false points?
|
| The point about that only registered votes will receive ballots
| and not just anyone might be a real correction, but it sort of
| depends on who can be a registered voter, I don't know the
| details of that. It also seems like a relatively minor point.
|
| And the third correction is just horrendous. Trump targeted
| California, and they add a "get the facts" that other states also
| exist. How is that categorically relevant? Obviously Trump is
| concerned with leftwing influence, so he's singling California
| out, it's most certainly valid.
|
| So Twitter releases what's possibly the most culturally
| significant feature they've released in 10 years, and they fuck
| up 2 out of 3, and the only one they might have gotten right has
| not enough information and seems to be minor?
|
| To me it seems there's only 2 rational explanations: whoever made
| the check the facts did so without oversight or involvement of a
| committee, and will be fired, or Twitter simply does not want to
| actually do this, and tries to get out of the public pressure to
| do so by making a weak attempt and then giving up. I hate to be
| cynical, but the first one option just doesn't seem very likely
| given the gravity of the situation.
|
| edit: if I was the CEO of Twitter and I would have given the
| final 'go' on the "what you need to know" it would have looked
| like this:
|
| - In the state of California only registered voters receive
| ballots.
|
| So: no hear-say about evidence that is missing, no accusing a
| politician of lies and definitely not naming that politician in
| every line. Just the facts, and let the reader figure out how
| that reflects on the tweet the politician made.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > Just that there's no evidence to support it doesn't mean it
| can't be true (however unlikely).
|
| That's the thing. If there is no evidence to support it, it
| cannot be asserted as an unequivocally true statement. Trump
| doesn't claim that it "might" be true, or he "believes" it to
| be true, he says, effectively, "this is the unarguable truth".
| And Twitter says "not so fast".
| tinco wrote:
| But the whole idea of democracy is that we elect politicians
| based on their beliefs and ideals. We pick either
| conservative or progressive, not based on any evidence of
| their efficacy but on our feelings about those views. And the
| idea is then that the aggregate of those feelings (especially
| over time) leads to a prosperous and stable nation.
|
| Maybe I have to yield this point, and say that Twitter should
| also call out politicians on making baseless statements.
| (Which will be all of the time because twitter doesn't have a
| very neat way of including footnotes, and politicians are not
| known to publish tweets as academic papers) but even then the
| commentary should be something like:
|
| - the trump administration has not published evidence to
| support the statement that mail-in ballots lead to rigged
| elections.
|
| Which is _very_ different from just saying it 's a false
| claim in my opinion.
| nocitrek wrote:
| If you cannot see major bias of media and tech giants towards
| liberal agenda, you have missed what ~ 60M americans noticed
| before casting their vote for Trump. It is an effort to influnce
| US elections (which failed in 2016). I see nothing wrong with
| Trumps post.
| swebs wrote:
| Also, put giant quotes around "liberal". These people are anti-
| gun and anti-free speech.
| andybak wrote:
| I've always been worried that the inevitable drift to the
| right that accompanies getting older would force me to
| acknowledge that I was now a conservative. Fortunately
| conservatives have hurtled to the right faster than
| decrepitude could propel me in the same direction.
| Hokusai wrote:
| +1
|
| Thank you for expressing that deep and insightful though in
| such a nonchalant and funny way.
| sp332 wrote:
| "These people" meaning... the majority of American voters?
| swebs wrote:
| No.
|
| >major bias of media and tech giants
| classified wrote:
| Who would have thought that being a massive a-hole can be such a
| successful brand? Trump misses no opportunity to demonstrate his
| unwavering commitment to despotism. He will make a great dictator
| once his presidency runs out.
| Traster wrote:
| I think this is going to be a discussion thread that is almost
| inevitably going to be a shitshow, but anyway:
|
| There are people who advocate the idea that private companies
| should be compelled to distribute hate speech, dangerously
| factually incorrect information and harassment under the concept
| that free speech is should be applied universally rather than
| just to government. I don't agree, I think it's a vast over-reach
| and almost unachievable to have both perfect free speech on these
| platforms and actually run them as a viable business.
|
| But let's lay that aside, those people who make the argument
| claim to be adhering to an even stronger dedication to free
| speech. Surely, it's clear here that having the _actual_ head of
| the US government threatening to shut down private companies for
| how they choose to manage their platforms is a far more
| disturbing and direct threat against free speech even in the
| narrowest sense.
| 0x5002 wrote:
| I have struggled with both points of the argument for a while
| now. In general, I'm inclined to agree with your assessment
| that this would be a glaring overreach on the side of the feds.
| It's also apparent that social networks have a tendency to
| cater massively to one side of the increasingly divided
| political spectrum, as proven with experiments like Gab. I've
| always liked the idea of having a Twitter clone that bases
| their philosophy on the 1st amendment, but in reality, all it
| did was to attract the polar opposite of the /r/politics
| subreddit (to put it lightly), rather than to facilitate free
| and open discourse.
|
| On the other hand, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube et al are
| undoubtedly massively influential on the public opinion and
| their corporate position on political topics - Yoel Roth's
| recent tweets serve as a decent example, showing clearly that
| this person cannot be an objective "fact checker" - essentially
| create a public forum where I am not able to exercise my first
| amendment rights (and, legally speaking, rightfully so). I
| cannot help but to find this very concerning.
|
| YouTube (despite numerous issues with their interpretation of
| free speech), for instance, starting linking Wiki articles
| under videos that cover certain topics or are uploaded by
| certain channels. Videos by the BBC show a notice that the BBC
| is a British public broadcast service, simply informing the
| viewer about the fact that any bias they might encounter can be
| easily identified (feel free to switch "BBC" with "RT"). I've
| found that to be a decent middle ground between outright
| suppressing views by a corporation pretending to be the
| authority on certain topics and broadcasting everything without
| any context.
| bosswipe wrote:
| Yoel Roth who? Oh, after some googling it looks like Fox News
| has picked the target for the latest Two Minutes Hate.
| localhost wrote:
| Here is the entire text of the first amendment:
|
| "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
| religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
| abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the
| right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition
| the Government for a redress of grievances."
|
| Note that it says that CONGRESS cannot make a law that
| abridges freedom of speech. It says nothing about individuals
| or companies abridging freedom of speech for others.
| mcfly1985 wrote:
| I'm old enough to remember when the left was up in arms
| because a private bakery didn't wish to bake a cake for a
| gay couple. It's hilarious watching those same people now
| argue in support of twitter. They must all be oblivious to
| their cognitive dissonance.
| stale2002 wrote:
| You are missing other laws that already enforce standards
| on certain platforms, that are similar to the concept of
| free speech.
|
| Those laws are called common carrier laws.
|
| It is already illegal for many communication platforms,
| that a subject to certain classifications, to discriminate
| on the basis of the content of the speech that they
| distribute.
|
| Common carrier laws are not controversial. Few people would
| argue that we should get rid of common carrier laws.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| Common carrier laws apply to the unbiased transportation
| of information over networks, they do not guarantee
| hosting of information by private parties or access to
| their audience.
|
| Example:
|
| - CC laws guarantee that if you are able to host your
| speech on your own server that ISPs have to route
| information requests to it.
|
| - CC laws do not guarantee you can force Reddit to host
| your speech on their own private servers or force Reddit
| to give you broadcast access to their audience.
| stale2002 wrote:
| The point being that phone systems really aren't that
| different than Twitter or Facebook.
|
| I am arguing that common carrier laws already exist, and
| are not controversial.
|
| And that it really isn't much of a stretch to change and
| expand our existing, uncontroversial, common carrier
| laws, so as to apply to other things that really aren't
| much different than our phone system.
|
| Even if those laws have yet to be slightly updated to
| apply to the modern era yet.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| Phones systems are information transportation systems
| that handle information requests.
|
| Phones systems are are not platforms to host speech -
| i.e. CC laws can't force me to play your phone recording
| in my private home when someone calls me.
|
| You talk about how established Common Carrier laws are,
| but that's precisely what they're established for -
| _transportation_. Hence the word _carrier_. CC laws were
| originally for unbiased trucking and rail transportation,
| and do not guarantee that you can force a private
| warehouse to store your goods.
| vageli wrote:
| > Phones systems are information transportation systems
| that handle information requests.
|
| > Phones systems are are not platforms to host speech -
| i.e. CC laws can't force me to play your phone recording
| in my private home when someone calls me.
|
| > You talk about how established Common Carrier laws are,
| but that's precisely what they're established for -
| transportation. Hence the word carrier. CC laws were
| originally for unbiased trucking and rail transportation,
| and do not guarantee that you can force a private
| warehouse to store your goods.
|
| But here we have an example of Twitter modifying
| communications in transit (by attaching additional
| information that is not metadata and not part of the
| original message). This would be like the post office
| marking letters from you as "do not open" in bold red
| letters before they reached the receiver.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| 1) The president's message was not modified.
|
| 2) Twitter isn't a post office, it's a privately owned
| website. They do not handle transportation requests for
| information on the internet, just their own private
| servers meaning they are not a common carrier.
|
| 3) Even if you conflate twitter with being a privately
| own post office, CC laws do not prevent them from putting
| "Toxic" stickers on any toxic waste being handled by
| them.
| vageli wrote:
| Would it be acceptable to you if your ISP inserted
| warnings for emails you sent? I understand we have "spam"
| classifications but this goes beyond that and is done
| client-side and I can modify my client to not mark
| messages as spam. Would you consider the addition of a
| warning to all emails you sent a modification of your
| message?
|
| Your point of "toxic" labelling is interesting. I think
| there is a difference in the non-physical realm though as
| "toxic" as it applies to ideas is subjective.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > You talk about how established Common Carrier laws are
|
| I am saying that these laws are uncontroversial, and it
| would only require a slight expansion and change to them,
| to order for them to cover very similar things, that
| aren't that much different than what CC laws currently
| cover.
|
| Yes, I understand that CC laws don't technically apply to
| what I am talking about. I am instead saying that it
| would only be a slight change, to make them apply, and
| therefore not as big of a deal as people are making it
| seem.
|
| > but that's precisely what they're established for -
| transportation
|
| I don't see how telephone companies transporting your
| phone calls is much different than twitter transporting
| your tweets. Yes, it is not exactly the same. It is
| slightly different. But only slightly.
|
| > CC laws can't force me to play your phone recording
|
| > do not guarantee that you can force a private warehouse
| to store your goods.
|
| The private warehouse, or end phone user, in the twitter
| example, would be the end user. Twitter, is arguably,
| transporting your messages. And then the end user is not
| forced to keep it.
|
| So even if CC laws were changed to apply to twitter, the
| end user would not be forced to keep their tweet. They
| could delete it, or not follow you, or whatever.
|
| Just like how if I make a phone call to someone, they
| still receive the phone call, but you don't have to pick
| of the phone. The same argument could be applied to
| tweets.
|
| > Phones systems are are not platforms to host speech
|
| They have to transport speech. In the same way that
| twitter transports speech.
| njudah wrote:
| There is about 70 years of established case law on this.
| For a primer, read Technologies of Freedom.
| (https://www.amazon.com/Technologies-Freedom-Belknap-
| Press-It...)
|
| All that said, the concept of where and how to apply
| common carrier is of course controversial, hence the
| entire net neutrality debate. If an ISP isn't required to
| carry content the idea of an information service (ie
| Twitter) being required to is borderline absurd.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > there is about 70 years of established case law
|
| I have stated multiple times that I am aware that CC laws
| do not currently apply to these situations.
|
| I am instead saying that these laws could be slightly
| changes, because, philosophical, there isn't much of a
| difference between a phone calls, and tweets or FB
| messages.
|
| > is borderline absurd.
|
| Apparently people don't think it is absurd to force phone
| companies to carry most phone calls.
|
| And IMO, there isn't much difference, philosophically
| between a phone call and tweets or a FB message, even if
| our laws haven't been changed slightly to apply to them
| yet.
| localhost wrote:
| IANAL but common carrier laws are there to protect the
| carrier. e.g., people can use a telephone to plan a
| crime, but you cannot hold the phone company responsible
| for that crime. So the phone company does not
| discriminate otherwise they lose common carrier
| protections.
|
| Regardless, I was responding to the 1st amendment claim
| by the GP.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > but you cannot hold the phone company responsible for
| that crime
|
| Sure. But now imagine if we applied the same provisions
| to twitter or facebook. We could say that if they don't
| follow common carrier status, then we can hold them
| responsible for any crime done on their platform.
|
| This is would almost effectively the same thing as
| forcing them to follow common carrier laws. And it would
| have the same _effect_ as requiring them to follow the
| 1st amendment, but doing it in a round about way.
|
| It is not exactly the same as using the 1st amendment.
| But it is close enough.
|
| Because, TBH, we already use these laws for commication
| platforms, such as phone companies.
| ummonk wrote:
| That's the first amendment, not the concept of free speech.
| The concept of free speech can apply to private and public
| spaces, just as it can apply to government regulation of
| speech.
| kitd wrote:
| FWIW, the BBC World Service podcast "The Compass" [1] has an
| excellent series on free speech by the veteran BBC journalist
| Robin Lustig. I highly recommend it. He covers tech
| companies, universities, blasphemy laws, etc.
|
| [1] -
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p035w97h/episodes/downloads
|
| For me, free speech is fundamentally about trying to rectify
| the injustice of an imbalance of power between those in
| authority and the ordinary citizen. During the Enlightenment,
| the authorities were monarchs, but even before that, the
| origins of free speech can be seen in the Reformation, the
| authorities being the established Church and the battles
| being eg the right to a Bible in your own language or the
| right to worship without priests.
|
| In modern times, authorities can be just straightforward,
| well, _authoritarian_. Global leaders & business people who
| tweet or post on FB carry an authority _ex officio_ that make
| their proclamations much more acceptable to the neutral
| reader. That in itself is a dangerous situation and Twitter
| or FB absolutely need to take control. If these companies
| want us to take them seriously as champions of free speech,
| they have to play their role to help restore that balance of
| power, by being _far_ more stringent about fact-checking the
| tweets of those global leaders than they would be for
| ordinary posters.
|
| Those right-wingers who love to proclaim themselves champions
| of free speech are really objecting to the Tyranny of the
| Majority. That is not an authority that requires a rebalance
| of power. It is just an established opinion.
| golemiprague wrote:
| It's pretty ironic but you miss the fact that the the ones
| in authority right now are indeed google, twitter, facebook
| etc. They are in control of the information you see and can
| curate what you call an "established opinion". Global
| leaders tweet don't carry any authority if you don't
| support their view, it is the perception of general opinion
| those tech companies create with their algorithm that
| creates this authority. Certainly, assigning CNN as the
| Washington Post as "fact checkers" is not a good start or
| stringent, it is simply touting an opinion which is not
| going to change anything because no Trump supporter takes
| the CNN seriously.
| 2019-nCoV wrote:
| To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are
| not allowed to criticise.
| legolas2412 wrote:
| > If these companies want us to take them seriously as
| champions of free speech, they have to play their role to
| help restore that balance of power, by being far more
| stringent about fact-checking the tweets of those global
| leaders than they would be for ordinary posters.
|
| What about the executive and majority stockowners of these
| companies, and how they might abuse their power?
|
| I would rather prefer a federated structure like email.
| Anybody can choose their own clients to generate their own
| biased/unbiased feeds, and with plugins for fact checking.
|
| Elizabeth Warren had a position on making the big tech
| companies open platforms. That was along the same lines,
| and would provide a far better solution than handing off
| the power to control people off to FB and Twitter execs
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| >In modern times, authorities can be just straightforward,
| well, authoritarian.
|
| This is one of my biggest pet peeves with the current
| political climate. _Everyone forgets the Y axis on the
| political compass!_ This is why people who understand that
| both parties are authoritarian could see past the
| Russiagate and other bullshits but most of the country
| couldn 't.
|
| If one is still falling for the left/right paradigm one
| won't be able to understand the bigger picture at play.
| It's much more about authoritarianism vs libertarianism.
| Veen wrote:
| > Those right-wingers who love to proclaim themselves
| champions of free speech are really objecting to the
| Tyranny of the Majority. That is not an authority that
| requires a rebalancing of power. It is just an established
| opinion.
|
| A tyranny of the majority--which you appear not to
| understand is a bad thing[0]--is a disaster and precisely
| what modern democratic institutions seek to avoid. It
| always leads to the repression of minorities, whether
| that's ethnic minorities, religious minorities, or
| political minorities. I doubt you would be much in favor of
| tyranny by a majority of a different political persuasion.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority
| kitd wrote:
| You're right that I worded it wrong. I was trying to say
| that they see it as a tyranny of the majority, whereas it
| is it is just a majority opinion.
| jules-jules wrote:
| If you think the BBC is an arbiter of free speech, I have a
| bridge to sell.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lLcpcytUnWU
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| What bugs me is that so many people always jump straight to
| the most base and rudimentary catch phrase arguments on the
| topic. It's always "private companies != free speech for
| others, just for them" or the opposite "we should be able to
| say whatever whenever", inevitably followed up by a "but you
| don't have a right to consequence/response free speech"...
| it's tiring and shallow thinking on the subject.
|
| I just ctrl+f'd for "public forum" and yours was the first
| hit. One thing in particular I would like to comment on is
| that post-Trump's election I started listening to some of my
| SO's legal field podcasts because I wanted less sensational
| analysis. I very distinctly remember a series on the Opening
| Arguments one where they went into some depth about why
| Twitter should be legally considered a limited public-forum
| (this was in response to some other Trump-Twitter hubbub at
| the time).
|
| So, just granting that, how does potentially being a "limited
| public forum" change it's rights and responsibilities to it's
| users? What about the heavy US government involvement in
| these companies, how could that change the analysis? What
| about the fact that dominate platforms are able to control
| the narrative due to that domination? Doesn't that completely
| fuck up the free speech concept? "Everyone uses X, but you
| can't because we don't like you, so you can have your free
| speech over there in that corner where nobody is." What kind
| of dangers in the long run does this present? Why do these
| companies so easily fall into models of censorship, and what
| kind of future would that mean for the public? (not looking
| to actually get into the convo necessarily, I'm commenting on
| the meta of the discussion and wish these kinds of questions
| were being asked more)
|
| I personally hate youtubes banner for controversial shit. It
| always links to some shitty ass Wikipedia thats been heavily
| controlled/edited. Wikipedia is just not a good source of
| info on controversial topics, (though looking through
| revision history certainly can add context of what is
| "missing").
| caseysoftware wrote:
| It's further complicated by the people who sued Trump for
| blocking them. They won, he had to unblock them.
|
| Considering they could log out (or open a private tab) and
| view the content, obviously it wasn't _access_ to the
| information that was fundamental but the act of the
| President taking a step to reduce someone 's access.
|
| With that in mind, the underlying host taking a similar
| action is either a) Okay because it's their system? or b)
| Bad because they're blocking or altering the message?
|
| We're in this really weird spot of free speech vs private
| property vs public forum vs free access vs..
| SkyBelow wrote:
| This is a point of concern I have that I rarely see
| others bring up. The problem with A is that it creates a
| loop hole as all the next government official has to do
| is pick a host that aligns with their own views to
| communicate to the masses.
|
| Imagine a future president picks a Catholic forum to make
| the same sort of announcements that Trump currently does,
| specifically a catholic forum that bans any advocacy of
| pro-choice discussion. It is relatively easy to find a
| similar forum on any side of a modern hot button
| political issue.
| ip26 wrote:
| _On the other hand, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube et al are
| undoubtedly massively influential on the public opinion_
|
| You could have said the same thing about the press fifty or
| sixty years ago.
| SkyBelow wrote:
| >I've always liked the idea of having a Twitter clone that
| bases their philosophy on the 1st amendment, but in reality,
| all it did was to attract the polar opposite of the
| /r/politics subreddit (to put it lightly)
|
| Well, a few other crowds did move to it but were quickly
| banned under the argument that their speech did not count as
| speech and thus wasn't protected. I remember it being quite a
| humorous (ironic?) twist for a company claiming to champion
| free speech.
| tootie wrote:
| Even if you take the most libertarian view of free speech,
| the proper recourse would be to sue and let the courts decide
| and/or work with Congress on explicit legislation on the
| responsibilities of content hosters. Declaring that he would
| use his executive authority to punish a private company for
| personal injury is dangerously authoritarian in my view.
| koheripbal wrote:
| The obvious way around both of these arguments is to offer
| consumers more choices. If someone is censored from a
| particular platform, there needs to be another that they can
| use.
|
| There are a _tiiiiny_ number of companies that are
| controlling global communications, and that should make us
| all uncomfortable.
|
| Being banned from one restaurant in town, should not mean
| you're banned from all restaurants in the world.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| _There are a tiiiiny number of companies that are
| controlling global communications, and that should make us
| all uncomfortable._
|
| I don't think that quite describes the situation. Those
| with no money often have no recourse against Google,
| Facebook or CNN. But those with money whether individuals
| or corporation (even outside the media world), have many
| ways of shaping opinion, whether that shaping is public
| relations, SEO, media-creation or legal action.
|
| Just during the time that Facebook has attempted to spread
| the standard, cautiously wide mainstream view of covid and
| the shutdown through their information center, I've
| received an ocean of polarizing false-claims about Covid
| and the shutdown through sponsored ads. Those ads cost
| money and they certainly show how today, money, any money,
| has a voice.
| Animats wrote:
| There are a tiny number of big companies in each field now.
| Usually four or less. Four big banks. Four big cable
| companies. Last week it became clear that only four big
| meat companies are left. Still five big movie studios,
| although ViacomCBS is much smaller than the big four.
| neaden wrote:
| Right, but if you dress in a shirt with a Swastika you're
| going to get banned from every restaurant in town pretty
| quickly, and I don't think that is a bad thing.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| If each one came to that decision separately, then sure,
| ban them. The problem arises when a company controls,
| say, 90% of the restaurants. And then ban you for no
| reason.
| mullingitover wrote:
| It's not a problem if people frequent the popular
| restaurants by choice. Maybe regular people aren't fans
| of restaurants whose main differentiating feature is
| their "swastika shirts welcome" sign.
| neaden wrote:
| So when Twitter starts to ban people for no reason, let's
| object then. The idea that we all have to start when they
| are banning Nazi's because of some slippery slope is
| ludicrous.
| [deleted]
| nsajko wrote:
| I know that you really meant Nazi insignia when saying
| "Swastika", but it still may interest you to see this
| page (with many pictures):
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika
|
| Swastikas have a rich cultural history from long before
| NSDAP.
|
| EDIT: to all the down-voters, I am not sure why the down-
| votes, but I suspect doing a Web search for "japan
| swastika" or similar may enlighten you.
|
| EDIT2: FTR, I did not think of my post as some supposed
| big revelation, rather I mostly wanted to share my
| appreciation for the various Swastika forms (as old
| graphical art); and also thought banning Swastikas in
| general might be insensitive to Asians.
| duskwuff wrote:
| > EDIT: to all the down-voters, I am not sure why the
| down-votes
|
| Probably because the point you're trying to make here is
| 1) nitpicking a detail of a hypothetical example which
| wasn't particularly relevant to the discussion, and 2)
| the "but it's not always a symbol of hate" argument is a
| rather common neo-Nazi talking point.
| croon wrote:
| I downvoted you primarily because it is irrelevant to the
| point GP was making. On top of that I didn"t find it
| interesting as I think it's fairly wide known that they
| co-opted the icon.
| Talanes wrote:
| You're not being down-voted because people don't believe
| you. You're being down-voted because you de-railed a
| discussion to insert a commonly-known fact as if it were
| some big revelation. We all know the swastika has a
| history outside Nazism, just like we know that you are
| unlikely to encounter an out-of-context swastika in the
| western world.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| There are other platforms. The issue isn't the platforms,
| they want the audience from one platform on other platforms
| as well. Consumers have the choice to use those other
| platforms, and people do actively use those other
| platforms. They just don't necessarily bring the same
| audience.
|
| > Being banned from one restaurant in town, should not mean
| you're banned from all restaurants in the world.
|
| So is the suggestion that I should be forced to serve
| people I don't want to serve?
| gvjddbnvdrbv wrote:
| > So is the suggestion that I should be forced to serve
| people I don't want to serve?
|
| It's not as crazy an idea as it sounds. You may already
| be forced to. You cannot not serve people based on a
| protected characteristic.
| croon wrote:
| Let me know when any of the big social media platforms
| start banning specific minorities and you'll have a
| point.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| I was referring to not protected classes of people.
|
| For example, I have the right to refuse to serve someone
| who has written bad checks at my establishment, for
| example.
|
| Or I have the right to refuse service to someone who has
| caused harm to my clients.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Racists are not a protected class
| Stranger43 wrote:
| The current US law regarding restaurants is in fact that
| an commercial establishment have very little freedom to
| refuse to save people based on who they are.
|
| The problem with social media is that the big platforms,
| like the post office or your ISP often ends up as an
| natural monopoly that can be just as dangerous to your
| political freedoms as any out of control government
| department by virtue of being just as powerful in the
| real world.
| dlp211 wrote:
| > The current US law regarding restaurants is in fact
| that an commercial establishment have very little freedom
| to refuse to save people based on who they are.
|
| To be clear, current US law protects things that one can
| not change about themselves eg: race --and even this is a
| bit of an oversimplification (see being gay or a woman)--
| but it in no way prevents a restaurant from serving
| someone because of the attire they are wearing or the
| speech they are speaking.
| btilly wrote:
| Or their profession.
|
| A classic example being that it is permissible to refuse
| to rent an apartment to a lawyer. (And in fact this is
| common in some places.)
| hootbootscoot wrote:
| exactly, think of a bartender refusing to serve a
| problematic former client a drink, or the bouncers not
| letting them in, due to them being specifically
| sanctioned. private business absolutely has the right to
| refuse service to people over their behavior or expressed
| intentions.
|
| the US first amendment protects against GOVERNMENTAL
| infringement.
|
| in terms of this Twitter tempest-in-a-teapot, they ALSO
| have a right to free speech and Trumps demonstrably FALSE
| claims can absolutely be addressed, labeled as false, and
| that is an absolute right to free speech that Trump has
| already threatened with specious "governmental action"
| which PRECISELY violates both the letter and the spirit
| of the first amendment!
|
| Trump is violating it!
| jasonlotito wrote:
| > The current US law regarding restaurants is in fact
| that an commercial establishment have very little freedom
| to refuse to save people based on who they are.
|
| I was referring to non-protected classes of people.
|
| For example, I have the right to refuse to serve someone
| who has written bad checks at my establishment, for
| example.
|
| Or I have the right to refuse service to someone who has
| caused harm to my clients.
|
| Which leads back to my question: Should I be forced to
| serve these people?
| all2 wrote:
| [EDIT] I'd love to hear a counter argument to go with the
| down votes. Have I failed to add any substance to this
| conversation? [/EDIT]
|
| > So is the suggestion that I should be forced to serve
| people I don't want to serve?
|
| Well, yes. Like a utility company.
|
| It doesn't matter who is hooked up to the
| water/sewer/internet/etc., they get service. I think the
| platform/publisher debate needs to actually be had.
|
| Right now Twitter/FB/etc. are acting like publishers
| (silencing some, ignoring others) rather than platforms.
| If they are going to take responsibility for what is on
| their platform, they need to take _full_ responsibility
| (a publisher). Or, they need to take _no_ responsibility,
| as far as that goes under the law (a platform, which I
| here conflate with utility).
|
| As it stands, _all_ of the major social media companies
| are biased to the US left, and they cater largely to the
| left [0][1]. When they silence, they silence the US
| political right. Or comments that are critical of the
| CCCP[2]. Or legitimate medical opinions about
| Covid-19[3].
|
| [0] https://dailycaller.com/2017/08/11/conservative-and-
| independ...
|
| [1] https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/social-media-
| companie...
|
| [2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/05/youtube-
| auto-del...
|
| [3] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/youtube-
| facebook-spli...
| thebouv wrote:
| > essentially create a public(1) forum where I am not able to
| exercise my first amendment rights(2) (and, legally speaking,
| rightfully so(3)). I cannot help but to find this very
| concerning.
|
| (1) Private forum, displayed in the public. (2) Those rights
| protect your speech from being suppressed BY THE GOVERNMENT.
| (3) Correct if you meant legally as a private company running
| a private forum, they can manage the content as they see fit,
| including fact checking the POTUS. Or incorrect if you meant
| you have a legal right to exercise your speech on their
| platform free of their rules.
| [deleted]
| anewdirection wrote:
| Privately owned areas are still often public (as opposed to
| publicly owned) spaces in the physical relam. While the
| digital is indeed different, you seem overly dismissive of
| this fact by omission and unnessarry capitolization.
| awinder wrote:
| capitalization, if we must nit, we must nit it right.
| throwanem wrote:
| Why should that be clear? Judging them by their actions rather
| than their words, it's quite plain that "free speech
| extremists" are no such thing, except inasmuch as it applies to
| them. They demand to be free to say whatever they like, and
| they demand everyone else be required to listen while they do
| it.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| They ARE free to say whatever they like; their problem is
| that they then have to face the consequences.
|
| I mean I can say whatever I want on this platform as well,
| but if I cross a line my posts will be hidden and eventually
| my account blocked. And that is fair, it's what I agreed to,
| and not only that but it's morally just.
|
| The free speech extremists confuse freedom of speech with
| protection from consequences.
|
| Interestingly, Trump and some other celebrities on Twitter
| have had special protection from said consequences.
| [deleted]
| a0zU wrote:
| I mean by that logic you could say that China has free
| speech but anyone who speaks out against the government
| just has to 'face the consequences' of being put in prison.
| anthony_romeo wrote:
| The obvious difference is that Twitter isn't the
| government.
| bredren wrote:
| It is not, though this gets at the subtext of this whole
| thing: companies with greater power than many national
| governments.
|
| Tech CEOs can now influence the public as much or more so
| than any politicians. So this is fundamentally about
| power to influence.
|
| Trump is mad because he thinks he is and should be the
| most powerful person on the planet. This action stands in
| contrast to that.
| bananabreakfast wrote:
| Companies do not have the power to throw people in jail
| or legally kill with a military.
| vageli wrote:
| > Companies do not have the power to throw people in jail
| or legally kill with a military.
|
| Blackwater is a private enterprise and arguably is able
| to legally kill (and is in a sense a form of private
| military). Beyond that obvious example, private police
| agencies have existed in the US for some time.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_police_in_the_Uni
| ted...
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Um... What is the United Fruit Company?
| pinkfoot wrote:
| > They ARE free to say whatever they like; their problem is
| that they then have to face the consequences.
|
| This is the definition of free speech that North Korea
| likes.
| throwanem wrote:
| Don't be absurd. One might with equal justice say that
| yours is the definition of free speech that Stormfront
| likes.
| pinkfoot wrote:
| Ok I'll bite: how is "you are free say what you want but
| you may have to face a firing squad" and different in
| experience to "you cannot say any of these things, if you
| do you will face a firing squad" ?
|
| The whole POINT of 'free speech' is that there are no
| consequences.
|
| (And no you shouldn't be allowed to shout 'fire' in a
| theatre).
| throwanem wrote:
| Your last two statements contradict one another, but also
| make clear that you recognize your appeal to absurdity
| for what it is. Do you think no one else will?
| pinkfoot wrote:
| Er, because I am not a supporter of unfettered free
| speech.
|
| But I also wont bend the definition either. That's where
| the problems start.
| anthony_romeo wrote:
| Does Twitter have firing squads?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Ok I'll bite: how is "you are free say what you want
| but you may have to face a firing squad"
|
| That's not the consequence here.
|
| The consequence is "other private parties might choose
| not to relay your speech or continue association with
| you, exercising their own rights to free speech and
| association."
|
| Me not allowing you to use my resources to magnify the
| reach of your message isn't analogous to the state
| subjecting you to capital punishment.
|
| > The whole POINT of 'free speech' is that there are no
| consequences.
|
| No, the whole point is that the state doesn't have their
| thumb on the scale, allowing ideas to succeed or fail by
| their ability, or not, to attract support from private
| actors. Legislation in which the state intervenes to
| prevent private consequences through the exercise of free
| speech are not only on their face contrary to free
| speech, but sabotage the operation of the marketplace of
| ideas.
| lordlimecat wrote:
| The definition of free speech that stormfront likes is
| also the one that the supreme court has upheld and that
| is necessary for a thriving marketplace of ideas.
|
| Bad, ignorant, hateful ideas are bad because they are
| wrong; if they were true, you would not call facts "bad".
| That being the case, the correct response is to defeat
| them with truth-- not censorship, whether state or
| privately enacted. Censorship is just admitting that you
| dislike the ideas but cannot argue them down with reason
| and are resorting to the cudgel.
| magicalist wrote:
| > _also the one that the supreme court has upheld_
|
| the Supreme Court certainly has not upheld compelled
| speech. And internet theories about private services as
| de facto public forums continue to be defeated in court
| (PragerU v Google being the most recent example).
| all2 wrote:
| > you would not call facts "bad"
|
| But we do. Any facts that cast certain religions (but not
| others!), or certain lifestyle choices (but not others!)
| in a bad light are considered _____-ophobic. Bad.
|
| Facts are routinely politicized and made out to be evil.
|
| > Censorship is just admitting that you dislike the ideas
| but cannot argue them down with reason
|
| This is true. And this is why it is so hard to have an
| honest debate. Many people in the United States (perhaps
| elsewhere?) think with their feelings, and not facts or
| reason. The videos of people screaming over the top of
| presenters on college campuses are case-in-point.
|
| The world as a whole is marching towards the cudgel. Hate
| speech laws are a manifestation of this. What remains is
| the removal of an individual's right to defend their
| life. After that we have tyranny.
| legolas2412 wrote:
| > But we do. Any facts that cast certain religions (but
| not others!), or certain lifestyle choices (but not
| others!) in a bad light are considered _____-ophobic.
| Bad. Facts are routinely politicized and made out to be
| evil.
|
| So true! People should consider why we call politically
| correctness that. We don't call them facts or truth, but
| that they can be said and not hurt "feelings".
| take_a_breath wrote:
| ==The world as a whole is marching towards the cudgel.
| Hate speech laws are a manifestation of this. What
| remains is the removal of an individual's right to defend
| their life. After that we have tyranny.==
|
| In my view, the most powerful person in the world
| unilaterally shutting down companies he disagrees with is
| much closer to tyranny.
| all2 wrote:
| > In my view, the most powerful person in the world
| unilaterally shutting down companies he disagrees with is
| much closer to tyranny.
|
| If he succeeds, it is definitely a step in that
| direction.
| _jal wrote:
| Doesn't have to succeed. That would of course be worse,
| but the threat alone does a lot of work.
|
| How many media outlets are thinking twice before possibly
| attracting his ire?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > They ARE free to say whatever they like; their problem is
| that they then have to face the consequences.
|
| Specifically, the consequence of other people exercising
| the same freedom of speech, including by deciding not to
| relay certain speech of the self-styled "free speech"
| advocates.
| rhizome wrote:
| Why do the opinions of hypothetical groups of people carry any
| weight? Make your arguments in concrete terms, like: Trump is
| full of shit whether people agree with him or not, and if Trump
| _does_ try anything it is going to have so much splash damage
| against other websites that he would run the risk of being sent
| with a SpaceX capsule into the sun...by everybody.
| hadtodoit wrote:
| If companies are going to self-moderate their platforms then
| they should not receive any kind of legal protection from user-
| generated content. I wholly believe companies have every right
| to dictate what is on their platform but they cannot have it
| both ways. If you can afford to moderate content you disagree
| with, you can do so for illegal content as well.
|
| If I own a store and someone injures themselves on the premises
| I am held liable for that. I did not force that person to enter
| the store but the benefits of having a store outweighed the
| risks. Why should internet companies receive special treatment?
| They should be 100% liable for what happens on their "premises"
| if they are going to take the risk of allowing user-generated
| content.
| RubberSoul wrote:
| Store owners, at least in the US, are not 100% liable for
| injuries on their property. Their liability depends on
| several factors, which include the reasonableness of their
| behavior and the behavior of the visitor.
| tootie wrote:
| Do they have protection right now? Platforms are already held
| responsible for illegal activities and are subject to
| requests by law enforcement and copyright holders. They're
| generally given a chance to respond to a request, challenge
| requests through channels and listen to appeals. But they
| would eventually be culpable if they weren't compliant.
| hadtodoit wrote:
| Sounds like you're referring to DMCA where as I was
| referring to heinous crimes like drug/sex/child
| trafficking. They do have protection right now in either
| case.
| tootie wrote:
| I'm referring to both. But in both cases, the content
| hosts don't get punished instantly. They are served with
| notice of offending content and given a chance to comply.
| The host and the creator both have avenues of appeal. At
| least, in the US they do. It varies country to country.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Because the scale makes this nearly impossible. Or rather,
| extremely expensive to the point where only the biggest of
| companies can do so, and at the cost of real-time
| information.
| hadtodoit wrote:
| How often are people bootstrapping a social media site?
| That's not something you rollout with a tight budget. Most
| websites do not allow user-generated content. This won't
| have nearly as big of an effect on the sector as you think.
|
| Whether they are paying people or writing automated systems
| to remove content they disagree with, these companies
| argued for this legal protection on the grounds of
| protecting free-speech, and now that they want to restrict
| it they don't deserve those same protections.
| beart wrote:
| If you take that to the extreme, then someone running a forum
| for young kids would not be allowed to remove pornographic
| material, lest they be held liable for all other
| inappropriate content that gets posted.
| bredren wrote:
| This presumes equal weight of all content. Some content gets
| far more attention and thus must face a higher degree of
| scrutiny. This is the only way to curate at scale.
|
| Apple does this with the App Store, where it is possible to
| get away with breaking app store rules if the app is not
| downloaded very often. It is not worth the time and energy
| for Apple to challenge apps that no one is downloading in the
| first place.
|
| On twitter, with regard to illegal content it also has to
| matter the degree. How illegal / and reprehensible is it? How
| often is this tweet being requested?
| hadtodoit wrote:
| Twitter has some automated method of determining whether a
| tweet is NSFW and it is very accurate to the point where I
| didn't even realize they allowed that content. They can
| figure out how to filter illegal content as well.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| This is clearly incredibly complicated and hinges on all kinds
| of nuanced definitions that are not yet universally accepted,
| such as "what is twitter?" As a thought experiment, though, if
| Twitter is not a publisher, then I think it would be acceptable
| for the government to sanction it for failing to provide "equal
| time." That is not the same as the government sanctioning it
| for airing or failing to air the type of content that the
| government wants. The latter is clearly an overstep, but the
| former is currently accepted doctrine.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| Of all the crazy shit Presidents say on the path to literally
| murdering hundreds of thousands of people in other countries,
| it amazes me that the thing that upsets people is Trump
| bloviating about doing something to a big evil capitalist mega-
| corp which he is clearly not going to do.
| sparkie wrote:
| > dangerously factually incorrect information
|
| Here's the problem. Who is doing the fact checking? Who fact
| checks the fact checkers?
|
| The world isn't black and white. State press releases are not
| facts. There is no authority that is the arbitrator of truth.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| Moreover, twitter has demonstrated its inability to do this
| already. From their repudiation of the claims made about
| mail-in ballots:
|
| >Trump falsely claimed that mail-in ballots would lead to "a
| Rigged Election.
|
| We don't know if the claim is false; it hasn't happened yet.
| It could have said unlikely, improbable, whatever. Making
| this statement, however, is just as charged as the one it
| opposes.
| raziel2p wrote:
| As long as the sources can be checked, challenged, and
| counter-opinions can be voiced, I personally don't think it
| matters that much. It's the blind acceptance of statements
| and accusations that match our existing world view that we
| need to combat, I think.
| sparkie wrote:
| And how do you challenge an opinion?
|
| By giving your own.
|
| In other words, we just need more speech, not more
| restrictions on speech.
|
| -- reply to below because I'm restricted and at comment
| limit (ironic, eh?)
|
| > Isn't that exactly what Twitter did? They left the speech
| up, and added a note below it expressing their opinion that
| a particular link demonstrates that the tweet was not
| factual.
|
| Anybody can reply to a comment on twitter and cite the
| facts, and people can reply to those comments and contest
| or argue them. The specific difference is Twitter's "fact
| checking box" cannot be replied to - which makes them the
| ministry of truth.
|
| All Twitter had to do was create a @twitterfactchecks
| handle and reply to the posts in question - perhaps
| promoting their reply to the top so that it is most
| visible, but then people could reply to @twitterfactchecks
| contesting their opinion (a fact check is always an
| opinion, if you didn't get what I was hinting at above.)
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Isn't that exactly what Twitter did?
|
| They left the speech up, and added a note below it
| expressing their opinion that a particular link
| demonstrates that the tweet was not factual.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Anybody can reply to a comment on twitter and cite the
| facts, and people can reply to those comments and contest
| or argue them. The specific difference is Twitter's "fact
| checking box" cannot be replied to - which makes them the
| ministry of truth.
|
| Surely you see the irony of your trying to regulate how
| Twitter formats their free speech on their own platform?
| SkyBelow wrote:
| >There are people who advocate the idea...
|
| One thing that I hope people remain aware of is that there are
| a number of different arguments in play and while sometimes
| they have similar outcomes in specific situations, they often
| wildly differ.
|
| For example, there is the argument that Twitter is not to be
| considered just a private company, as decided by a court when
| Trump was not allowed to block other accounts. The argument
| would be that twitter blocking a user entirely would be
| restricting their right to interact with their government
| officials through an official channel. Now, if Twitter blocked
| such a user from interacting with everyone except government
| officials, then that would be acceptable because the person is
| still allowed to interact with government officials through
| official channels. Also Twitter would be able to stop acting as
| an official government channel by ending any accounts that
| count as such and free to fully block a user thereafter.
|
| This is not the same argument that you are talking about, but I
| do commonly see people treating it as the same.
| centimeter wrote:
| I think the actual conservative pain point is that they
| (correctly) observe that freedom of association (i.e.
| businesses get to choose their customers) only seems to apply
| when it benefits progressives - contrast Google evicting
| milquetoast conservatives from Youtube with no legal
| repercussions versus that baker in Colorado getting sued a
| bunch of times for not wanting to bake gay, satanist, etc.
| themed cakes. There are plenty of examples along these lines.
|
| In general, the last 50-60 years have seen private individuals
| and businesses stripped of their rights to turn away customers,
| in the US mostly under the guise of the CRA, FHA, etc. YouTube
| finds itself remarkably (and unsurprisingly) unrestrained by
| these kind of (progressive) laws.
| tootie wrote:
| There's ample for why it's illegal to discriminate against
| classes of people. Imagine business in the 20s with signs
| saying "Irish need not apply" or "No dogs or Jews". The
| recent case with the baker was extending the protection of
| human rights to gay couples.
|
| Any "conservative" content that has been kicked off of
| platforms like YouTube has been specifically targeted not for
| political reasons but because they were spreading hate speech
| and/or dangerous disinformation. Things like racism, sexism,
| religious intolerance, specific accusations (ie Joe
| Scarborough is a murderer) or dangerous disinformation (ie 5G
| causes Coronavirus) are not intrinsic to any group of people.
| There's still plenty of content around mainstream
| conservatism that can be viewed freely.
|
| I think any attempt to argue a slippery slope isn't valid.
| People aren't computers and just because you can't apply a
| mathematically rigorous distinction between these kinds of
| speech doesn't mean that a reasonable person can't easily
| distinguish them.
| centimeter wrote:
| > The recent case with the baker was extending the
| protection of human rights to gay couples.
|
| So is it a "human right" to use a business's services even
| if they don't want you to, or not? Be consistent. If it is,
| it's a human right violation to politically deplatform
| people.
|
| > has been specifically targeted not for political reasons
|
| This is _obvious_ bullshit to anyone who follows youtube
| /twitter/facebook censorship drama. Tons of people have
| been deplatformed without having e.g. harassed anyone.
|
| > they were spreading hate speech
|
| Is this supposed to impress us? That something someone said
| falls under this recently-made-up category that
| coincidentally includes a bunch of factual rightist talking
| points?
|
| > There's still plenty of content around mainstream
| conservatism
|
| I'm sure you feel that way, but conservatives certainly
| don't agree with you.
|
| > I think any attempt to argue a slippery slope isn't valid
|
| There's not a slippery slope argument here - YouTube,
| Twitter, and others have deleted content that many
| conservatives think is _obviously fine and within the
| bounds of civil discourse_.
|
| Here are two related things that came up in my feed
| literally today:
|
| https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/5/26/21270290/yo
| u...
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1201181
| defen wrote:
| > The recent case with the baker was extending the
| protection of human rights to gay couples.
|
| He offered to sell them a pre-made cake (in compliance with
| non-discrimination laws). The question was whether he could
| be compelled to perform an act of speech (custom-making a
| cake) that violated his sincerely-held religious beliefs.
| mullingitover wrote:
| It was a work for hire service that he refused, the
| speech argument is pretty flimsy (to me at least). To me
| it's like trying to say that your hedge trimming service
| is a creative act, and thus speech, so your landscaping
| company can deny service to a same-sex couple. I guess
| reasonable people can disagree, but we wouldn't be as
| conflicted it it was an interracial couple that he was
| denying services to. I doubt history will be kind to that
| SC decision.
| defen wrote:
| In general, trimmed hedges don't inherently convey a
| meaningful message, but if you asked someone to trim the
| hedges into a message that violated your sincerely-held
| religious beliefs then I think the same principle would
| apply.
|
| > we wouldn't be as conflicted it it was an interracial
| couple that he was denying services to
|
| I don't believe you would be able to make a "sincere
| religious conviction" argument against it - I'm not aware
| of any mainstream religions that prohibit interracial
| marriage as part of their doctrine (as opposed to an
| epiphenomenon of the cultural practices of the people who
| make up the group).
| mullingitover wrote:
| > I don't believe you would be able to make a "sincere
| religious conviction" argument against it
|
| People have used sincere religious arguments against
| interracial relationships for decades if not centuries.
| The reason it's not invoked now is because we've had a
| couple generations where the law of the land was
| obviously morally superior to the scriptures, to the
| point it's not seriously debated anymore.
| defen wrote:
| As far as I am aware, there is nothing in the scriptures
| of any major religions regarding interracial marriage
| (which makes sense, since the modern conception of race
| didn't exist thousands of years ago when most of them
| were written). So I'm not sure what "sincere religious
| belief" those people would have been using in their
| arguments - just being a Christian doesn't automatically
| make any sincere belief you hold a religious one. Many
| religions do have scriptural prohibitions against
| homosexuality, however.
| damon_c wrote:
| Hedge trimming can be done by anyone with a hedge
| trimming machine. This baker made beautiful unique
| artistic cakes that were a product of his own life and
| experiences and sensibilities. Also, a wedding cake
| specifically celebrates a matrimony whose existence the
| baker would deny. Any hedge trimming service that
| satisfied those qualifications would indeed possibly be
| subject to the same controversy.
|
| Regardless of the context of this case, it's odd that the
| state can now seemingly force someone to engage their
| creativity and artistic sensibility for any reason. It is
| now federal judicial precedence that he must lawfully
| create a satisfyingly beautiful cake for anyone who=
| asks. What if it's not beautiful enough? Is that
| punishable by law? Who judges the beauty?
|
| Probably the baker should have just made a half assed
| cake...
| [deleted]
| mullingitover wrote:
| > I think the actual conservative pain point is that they
| (correctly) observe that freedom of association (i.e.
| businesses get to choose their customers) only seems to apply
| when it benefits progressives
|
| When conservatives run businesses and want to do hateful
| things, they get in trouble with the law. When liberals run
| businesses and don't let conservatives do hateful things on
| their platform, they don't get in trouble with the law! So
| unfair.
|
| The difference is that conservatives have (correctly) been
| stripped of their ability to legally commit human rights
| abuses. A web site refusing to host your content for reasons
| not related to your race or religion, but instead based on
| the content of your character, is absolutely not a human
| rights abuse.
| Avicebron wrote:
| But who get's to arbiter the content of one's character?
| And by what metrics are so perfect they won't be abused or
| change in 5 years?
| mullingitover wrote:
| > But who get's to arbiter the content of one's
| character?
|
| Only you get to make the decisions that define your
| character. Others observe your choices and choose to
| associate with you, or not to.
|
| > And by what metrics are so perfect they won't be abused
| or change in 5 years?
|
| There are no metrics. The free, global, unfiltered
| publishing platform is free to decide that they just
| don't like you. Nobody is entitled to free unfiltered
| publishing of their content.
|
| I should note that if you're willing to pay, there's
| basically nothing that you can't get published on the
| internet. For some reason people get the 'free' in free
| speech confused with zero-cost. You can publish whatever
| repugnant material you like, you just don't necessarily
| get the eyeballs that some believe they're entitled to.
| legolas2412 wrote:
| So, discrimination on political lines is fine as it is
| based on the content of your character?
|
| Btw, political discrimination is illegal.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > Btw, political discrimination is illegal.
|
| The Levering Act disagrees with you. The government
| itself has been forcing people to swear they're not
| members of the communist party for decades.
| kube-system wrote:
| > they (correctly) observe that freedom of association (i.e.
| businesses get to choose their customers) only seems to apply
| when it benefits progressives
|
| This can be mostly likely summed up as self-selection bias.
| Discrimination laws are not being applied unequally to people
| of differing political opinions. It is much more common that
| people's political identities are self-chosen based on their
| own personal identity and experiences.
| centimeter wrote:
| The actual dominating selection bias is that
| "discrimination laws" were an authoritarian progressive
| political strategy, so they align most closely with
| authoritarian progressive beliefs and interests.
| kube-system wrote:
| So was social security and a ton of other laws, but
| that's pretty irrelevant in today's politics.
|
| As far as politics _today_ is concerned, I would sure
| hope that both conservatives and liberals both agree that
| is it wrong to deny service based on someone 's
| membership in a protected class.
| m0zg wrote:
| This right here gentleman is in charge of what Twitter deems
| "factually correct" and "safe" for you:
| https://twitter.com/yoyoel/status/796186371408789505
|
| Just wonderful, absolutely unbiased human being, 100% "site
| integrity" guaranteed:
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8361349/Head-Twitte...
|
| So no, let's not "lay that aside".
| croon wrote:
| Can you point to any false fact-checks?
| m0zg wrote:
| I can easily point out the lack of fact checks on
| statements made by people from the "correct" side of the
| political spectrum. Charlottesville hoax is spoken of as a
| fact by the likes of Joe Biden, for example.
| croon wrote:
| I have no idea what "Charlottesville hoax" is, but
| googling it leads me to a book by an author I can't find
| any information on, claiming that the Charlottesville
| riots didn't actually happen.
|
| I"m hoping you are not suggesting the same? If so, we"re
| not even operating in the same reality.
| m0zg wrote:
| It's unbelievable how much the US populace has been
| gaslit by liberal media if you _still_ don't know it.
| This refers to "fine people on both sides" comment
| deliberately taken out of context. Here's what Trump
| actually said:
|
| "So you know what, it's fine. You're changing history.
| You're changing culture. And you had people -- and I'm
| not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white
| nationalists -- because they should be condemned totally.
| But you had many people in that group other than neo-
| Nazis and white nationalists. Okay? And the press has
| treated them absolutely unfairly."
|
| Direct quote, you can easily find a full transcript and
| see for yourself. Yet you didn't even know this existed.
| You're being lied to every day and you don't even know
| it.
| arrrg wrote:
| It's factually irrelevant since no facts are expressed.
| That's just opinion.
|
| I guess the racist part could be arguable, but that's more
| opinion than fact.
| m0zg wrote:
| That's factually very relevant, in fact, because you know
| which "facts" will be picked and chosen by this
| "executive", in spite of the pretense of impartiality.
| croon wrote:
| Extending benefit of the doubt: Are "some" facts worse
| than no facts?
|
| What facts (either real or hypothetical) do you believe
| are missing?
| throwaway4715 wrote:
| All these people who bought iphones for the curated app store
| talking about how Twitter shouldn't be allowed to curate their
| product. Perhaps Twitter is big _because_ it curates its
| product. That's what people want.
|
| The threat to force private entities to toe the line is the
| only speech issue here. If you think people want unedited
| speech then I believe Gab could use some of your money.
| mandelbrotwurst wrote:
| Twitter has been increasing the amount of curation /
| censorship as they have grown.
|
| Arguing that Twitter users must prefer said curation /
| censorship because Gab exists doesn't hold up because Twitter
| has other obvious advantages, like a massive network effect.
| yibg wrote:
| Also, in this case no one is being censored. It's not like the
| president isn't allowed to post and is having his "freedom of
| speech" taken away. This is more like his speech is being
| responded to, and he doesn't like that others can challenge
| what he's saying. The very antithesis of free speech.
| isoskeles wrote:
| Applied unequally. Reminds me of these old fact checks during
| the election:
|
| https://www.factcheck.org/2016/09/trump-pence-acid-wash-
| fact...
|
| > Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump __falsely
| __claimed Clinton "acid washed" 33,000 personal emails to
| delete them, calling it "an expensive process." __The FBI
| said Clinton's tech team used BleachBit, which is a free
| software program. It does not use chemicals. __
|
| These sorts of "fact checks" are blatant horse shit that
| always go in one direction. Some "challenge", the very
| antithesis of any sort of good faith discussion on the facts.
| [deleted]
| threatofrain wrote:
| I feel that because web tech advanced more quickly than much of
| society, a vacuum of power developed and Google was forced to
| step in. If Google had its way, it wouldn't police any content
| and it would illegally host HBO shows like Game of Thrones --
| when you try to hold them responsible, Google would pass off
| all burden to the offending individual. That's how YouTube used
| to run.
|
| Other industries have things like the FCC or the FDA where
| companies can say, "Look, we did our due diligence, the FDA
| approved our drug."
| nsgi wrote:
| Didn't Google develop Content ID voluntarily, though? It's
| not like anyone forced them to. Though I guess it may have
| been to avoid the threat of regulation
| dynamite-ready wrote:
| Do you think digital media needs a state run mediator? I
| think it's probably time.
|
| We've become quite protective of the data that's collected by
| digital products for fear of a concentration of power.
|
| But then we all see the internet as a great 'leveller', and
| we don't want to disturb that balance.
|
| The likes of the FDA (or your local equivalent) work at a
| certain scale... Perhaps civilly agreed constraints can be
| applied to companies who have managed to cultivate a userbase
| of a certain size.
|
| Like a 'tax' of a kind on the amount of 'trash' you're
| allowed to ignore, before the police physically ensure you
| and your users can't abuse state infrastructure for whatever
| your nefarious purpose is.
| dqpb wrote:
| Where does speech about religion fall? There are people on all
| sides who would consider the others to be spreading
| "dangerously factually incorrect information".
| rmtech wrote:
| A private company that has a monopoly on speech is no longer a
| private company, it's essentially an unelected and
| unaccountable part of the permanent government.
|
| You need to think about entities based on their properties, not
| the labels that are attached to them. That ought to be obvious
| to people who program for a living; think of a private company
| with a speech monopoly as the good old .txt.exe scam.
|
| You're attaching the label "not government" to Google, but in
| terms of properties it is like the government. YouTube has
| openly admitted to manipulating video results despite it
| costing them money to do so. Their monopoly position is so
| strong that the YouTube leadership rules us like a
| dictatorship.
|
| I would prefer it if these tech monopolies were simply broken
| up. But failing that, they need to obey the first amendment or
| be shut down in the US.
|
| Europe is a different beast, but I think the UK at least should
| adopt the US first amendment.
| effable wrote:
| So what's the criteria for ascertaining that a company, like
| Twitter, has a monopoly on speech and why does that make it
| like a government? Unless you are claiming that the US
| government has a monopoly on speech - meaning that anything
| the US government does not want said, cannot be said in
| public which is certainly not true in this case since the
| head of the US government is threatening to shut down Twitter
| over something they "said".
| Avicebron wrote:
| Sheer size is a form of monopoly and government. If a
| company can't be tipped out of your position by a scrappy
| startup like Youtube, arguably Twitter, then the people
| have to step in to start making decisions about what it
| gets to do.
| root_axis wrote:
| I am so tired of this disingenuous line of argumentation.
| Twitter is not at all like a government, it is a private
| business that offers a free service which you are under no
| obligation to use, it has no army or legal authority over
| your life, stop acting like what gets posted or removed from
| twitter is anything other than a bullshit triviality.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| How does this reconcile with the laws of _many_ euro
| countries compelling website forums to delete content that
| they deem objectionable? Most recently France passed such a
| law[0].
|
| > There are multiple levels of fines. It starts at hundreds
| of thousand of euros but it can reach up to 4% of the
| global annual revenue of the company with severe cases.
|
| How can these euro countries claim to be free societies
| when they restrict the most basic element of personal
| freedom?
|
| It's not just France. Several of the euro countries have
| laws like this.
|
| [0]: https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/14/france-passes-law-
| forcing-...
| bananabreakfast wrote:
| No company has a monopoly on speech. Especially not twitter
| of all places...
| banads wrote:
| Has any group of people in history ever had so much control
| over public discourse at such a large scale as Facebook, or
| Twitter?
| root_axis wrote:
| Facebook and Twitter do not control public discourse.
| asjw wrote:
| They also do in the form of moderation, (secret)
| algorithms and suggestions based on (undisclosed)
| advertisers
| banads wrote:
| Then who controls the code that their platforms run on,
| and how is FB able to conduct emotional manipulation
| experiments?
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/ev
| ery...
| root_axis wrote:
| If you don't want to be manipulated by Facebook then
| don't use it. Yes, Facebook is very popular. Anyway,
| don't use it.
| Avicebron wrote:
| Is shaping it by selectively removing it a form of
| control?
| root_axis wrote:
| Operational control of a website does not equate to
| control of public discourse. Other things exist on the
| internet besides social media.
| banads wrote:
| >control: the power to influence or direct people's
| behavior or the course of events
| Avicebron wrote:
| This is seems to indicate they are stepping into a form
| of control.
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/ev
| ery...
| [deleted]
| craftinator wrote:
| I really appreciate your approach to this argument. You really
| cut through any strawman fallacies by pointing out that there's
| a debate along a spectrum about what protecting free speech
| entails, but that the President needs to have limitations in
| his power over private companies. I think this final point is
| not debatable in a legal context; he does not legally have that
| power.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Darn right he does not have the power.
|
| Either the president does not know the constitutional limits
| on his power, or he knows them but still thinks it's a good
| idea to claim power that he does not have. I'm not sure which
| is worse.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| >Either the president does not know the constitutional
| limits on his power, or he knows them but still thinks it's
| a good idea to claim power that he does not have. I'm not
| sure which is worse.
|
| Or he knows what he is allowed to do and is just saying
| stupid crap like he usually does. Trump doesn't have a
| filter and just says/tweets whatever pops into his head.
| This could be another example of that.
| beart wrote:
| Trump loves twitter. If he actually had a problem with it,
| he could just stop posting.
|
| So I think it's more of a third choice - He doesn't care if
| he has the power, he's just creating chaos and conflict to
| excite his base, as he has been doing for years.
| scythe wrote:
| >private companies [...] free speech
|
| One thing that seems relevant in the discussion about speech
| restrictions on social media is the fact that most if not all
| of the major websites are deliberately set up to maximize user
| engagement. The site is designed, measured and iterated on in
| order to induce users to comment as much as possible.
|
| _That_ practice seems to be incompatible with unrestricted
| speech. Eventually people run out of nice things to say.
| Facebook 's policy is very obviously "if you don't have
| anything nice to say, say something anyway, we want money".
| Free speech has been sustainable historically because it's
| natural for people to think before they say something
| controversial, but now we have websites that actively undermine
| that built-in filter.
| bilekas wrote:
| This is not to point fingers and be an ass but people in the US
| need to realize the difference between a right and a privilege
| when it comes to free speech.
|
| You have the right to free speech. That's not disputed. You are
| entitled to it. However you don't have the right to distribute
| that free speech on a private companies platform, that's a
| privilege offered by the owners not a entitlement.
|
| It's very simple. Like it or not, that's your constitution.
|
| Lets just play this out.. The president of the US (a supposed
| conservative) closes down one of the largest private companies
| in the US.. Not for doing something illegal as with `SilkRoad`
| for example.. But for practicing their own business policies.
|
| Does that sound right to anyone ?
| cma wrote:
| > There are people who advocate the idea that private companies
| should be compelled to distribute hate speech, dangerously
| factually incorrect information and harassment under the
| concept that free speech is should be applied universally
| rather than just to government.
|
| The companies would also presumably have to allow commercial
| spam.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| And on the flipside, these companies have grown to the point
| they could be considered a public utility or even monopoly.
| There certainly is precedent for governments compelling utility
| providers to not restrict their services arbitrarily.
| learc83 wrote:
| There are companies that come close to that point (Google
| comes to mind), but Twitter certainly isn't at that level.
| thephyber wrote:
| You are playing word salad with lots of different concepts
| and it looks like you are making hypotheticals with what we
| _could_ make companies do.
|
| Companies growing does not make them into utilities.
| Utilities are providers of very specific commodity services
| which are specifically defined by statutory law.
|
| Monopolies (as in anti-trust law) are companies which abuse
| their power to hurt the consumer. Traditional anti-trust law
| doesn't work against social media companies because consumers
| pay no cash for the transactions. We could change anti-trust
| law, but since there is no analog, it's not clear what we
| would change it _to_.
|
| > There certainly is precedent for governments compelling
| utility providers to not restrict their services arbitrarily.
|
| There is also precedent for governments to uphold a concept
| of "decency" (the same government that defines it as "I know
| it when I see it") which communities can judge for
| themselves, without a written definition. I, personally,
| don't see the judgements that social media companies make as
| "arbitrary" (they do have written ToS and they attempt to
| give their content moderators guidelines/baselines for
| judging decisions).
| kgin wrote:
| I think it's even more concerning than that.
|
| Threatening to shut down private companies -- not for limiting
| speech, not for refusing to distribute speech -- but for
| exercising their own right to free speech alongside the free
| speech of others (in this case the president).
|
| There is no right to unchallenged or un-responded-to speech,
| regardless of how you interpret the right to free speech.
| prox wrote:
| Because that would be the territory of authoritarian kings,
| the ideological reason the US was founded. Trump sees himself
| king, not president.
| briefcomment wrote:
| Can you read his mind? If not, how can you tell the
| difference between a tyrant and a troll (and even a savvy
| negotiator)? One way is to see what actually happens. My
| bet is that no social media company will be shut down
| because of this.
| paulgb wrote:
| Making threats to use your power as commander-in-chief
| against the free speech of a private company is not
| "trolling" or "negotiation", it's creating a chilling
| effect on speech whether he goes through with it or not.
|
| I doubt he would shut Twitter down (if only because he
| needs it more than it needs him), but I don't doubt for a
| second that he would use the executive branch to
| retaliate against them.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect
| nwienert wrote:
| I don't see a chilling effect. If anything it's a heating
| and dividing effect, but certainly this isn't making
| people quieter about the debate.. see this comment thread
| for proof.
| lazugod wrote:
| It's not chilling random Internet commentators. It's
| chilling actions by large platforms to have or keep any
| principles.
| bananabreakfast wrote:
| This has nothing to do with people and their debate. This
| is a direct threat to a company to violate their free
| speech which, in itself, is a crime not unlike directly
| threatening violence against a person.
| briefcomment wrote:
| That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking
| at it is that he's telling Twitter to "cut their crap". I
| would bet about half the country sees it that way, and
| agrees with him too.
| timsneath wrote:
| To add to that, Twitter shares dropped significantly on
| opening and ended the day down -2.75%. By contrast, the
| S&P rose 1.5% today. In the absence of other confounding
| variables, this would suggest investors see a material
| effect of his words.
| nwienert wrote:
| I dropped Twitter stock not because I think they will be
| regulated (they may) but because I think this was just a
| stupid move, and shows they aren't making good business
| decisions.
| paulgb wrote:
| > shows they aren't making good business decisions.
|
| I mean, I could have told you that when the already part-
| time CEO announced he'd move to Africa for a year :)
| 2019-nCoV wrote:
| They excel at bad decisions. This person is the "head of
| site integrity" at Twitter: https://twitter.com/LevineJon
| athan/status/126545757821512499...
| simonsarris wrote:
| That's silly, compare TWTR to other small cap tech and
| its pretty much in-line for the day (eg, PINS, CHWY,
| SHOP). It's also fairly in line for QQQ. There's no
| evidence that trump's tweet changed anything about
| Twitter's price movement today.
| Reedx wrote:
| He's obviously a troll and engaging in kayfabe[1]. This
| is what he's been doing since the moment he announced his
| candidacy, and people keep taking the bait over and over
| again. He throws out bait (a shocking statement) and the
| media bites on it every time. That's the strategy to
| control the narrative and stay in the headlines 24/7.
|
| As usual, nothing will actually happen except further
| polarization of the political tribes as they continue to
| partake in this WWE reality TV show.
|
| 1. https://www.edge.org/response-detail/11783
| favorited wrote:
| Of course no social media company will be shut down over
| this. Trump couldn't shut down Twitter even if he wanted
| to.
| adventured wrote:
| The US Government could easily bankrupt Twitter. I doubt
| the Trump Administration is smart enough to figure out
| how to do this, but here is how easy it would be.
|
| Twitter frequently selectively enforces its own terms of
| service. They punish some users and then intentionally
| let other users get away with atrocious behavior with no
| consequences. I've witnessed this across hundreds of
| various Twitter accounts over the last several years, so
| the number of times this happens must be rather epic.
| Numerous agencies of the US Government can choose to
| pursue Twitter for that. Twitter will find it impossible
| to correct their chaotic, selective, biased approach to
| how they treat their users so very differently. Angency N
| from the government slaps Twitter with an increasing fine
| each time they fail to properly, equitably enforce their
| terms of service. Start at $100 million and double it
| with every violation. Twitter will be bankrupt before a
| month is out.
|
| Twitter would get on their knees and beg for mercy almost
| instantly. The US Government can break any corporation it
| wants to, anytime it wants to.
|
| If the Trump Admin wants to be really devious, Nixonian,
| they'll target the executives operating the companies.
| Sending the IRS & Co. to make their lives a living hell.
| These companies will capitulate instantly.
|
| Just ask the PRISM companies how this works in reality:
| you have no choice but to bow. It all depends on how
| nasty the Feds are prepared to get.
| mthoms wrote:
| The end result would be a non-US company taking Twitter's
| place.
|
| Then the US Gov't would be back at square one. Only
| worse.
| dekhn wrote:
| We can't read his mind but we can generate a fairly
| accurate model based on what he says. He has openly
| admired the powers of tyrants in multiple countries, and
| hinted that he would like to continue to be president
| after his term completes. Based on my read of his text,
| it seems like he sincerely believes things like "Kim Jong
| Un is a good guy and he deserves to continue running
| North Korea".
|
| Of course no social media company will be shut down over
| this- Trump has absolutely zero power in this regard (I
| think half of Trump's frustration is in realizing how
| little power a president truly has).
|
| Anyway, he doesn't think he is a king. He thinks he is an
| _emperor_.
| mc32 wrote:
| Attaching a disclaimer to the speech of another though is not
| straightforward. Will they get into the business of fact
| checking everyone over certain number of followers? Will they
| do it impartially world-wide? How can they even be impartial
| world wide given the different contradictory points of view,
| valid from both sides? Cyprus? What's the take there?
| tw04 wrote:
| I love the theoretical situation that doesn't exist as a
| justification for not doing the right thing. This isn't a
| "different points of view" - this is the leader of the
| United States LYING on their platform, and them choosing to
| provide a link to FACTUAL INFORMATION. There is no
| "contradictory point of view" - he claimed there was
| massive voter fraud and there's literally 0 proof to back
| up his claim and mountains of evidence to counter it.
| eanzenberg wrote:
| As they move into a "publisher" role, they will be liable
| in count.
| root_axis wrote:
| You're wrong. Stop spreading misinformation.
|
| > _No provider or user of an interactive computer service
| shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any
| information provided by another information content
| provider " (47 U.S.C. SS 230)_
| moralestapia wrote:
| >You're wrong. Stop spreading misinformation.
|
| Be a bit more tolerant of other people's point of view.
|
| Anyway, I think you are misinterpreting the intention of
| that sentence. It basically means that, in principle, the
| behavior of being a "provider or user of an interactive
| computer service" does not imply that it is "the
| publisher or speaker of any information provided [...]".
| But that does not exempt them from being the actual
| publisher, and all the rights/obligations that go with
| it.
|
| Trivial example: Someone publishing its work on the web
| (hence becoming a "user of an interactive computer
| service") does not imply that they lose copyright; even
| though they "shall [not] be treated as the publisher or
| speaker of any information provided [...]".
|
| Again, IANAL, but I read a lot of copyright, safe harbor
| law, DCMAs, etc... and it goes like that.
| danShumway wrote:
| > Anyway, I think you are misinterpreting the intention
| of that sentence.
|
| They're not wrong. Every single time Section 230 comes
| up, there's somebody here arguing that Section 230
| doesn't actually mean that companies can choose who they
| want to censor without becoming a publisher.
|
| But it does. That was the explicit point of Section 230,
| and that's how Section 230 has played out in legal courts
| ever since it was established.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communic
| ati...
|
| ----
|
| But of course, that entire debate about Section 230 is
| irrelevant here because Twitter hasn't censored anybody,
| and I haven't seen anyone give a clear reason why
| neutrality requirements on _commentary_ wouldn 't be
| outright unconstitutional, regardless of what Section 230
| says.
| root_axis wrote:
| > _Be a bit more tolerant of other people 's point of
| view._
|
| Why would I tolerate a blatant falsehood?
|
| > _that does not exempt them from being the actual
| publisher, and all the rights /obligations that go with
| it._
|
| With respect, you're totally misinformed. Social media
| websites do not fall under any kind of "publisher"
| obligation, this is a totally made up meme that people
| spread online.
|
| Now, if you want to argue that we should change the laws
| so that these websites would fall under some kind of
| publisher obligations, I would disagree, but that would
| at least allow room for "tolerance of other people's
| point of view". However, in terms of the _actual law_ you
| and the parent are unequivocally incorrect.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >Social media websites do not fall under any kind of
| "publisher" obligation
|
| No one said they did. But also Section 230 does not imply
| that they're exempt of that, in the case they become such
| a thing. And remember that those rights/obligations are
| acquired the moment they are exercised.
|
| Consider the following:
|
| Twitter (the platform), on its official twitter account
| (on their own platform) decides to publish something
| which has legal repercussions. Are they exempt of them
| because of that statement on Section 230? No, not at all.
| cgy1 wrote:
| They don't have to because they would've banned and will
| continue to ban anyone else who's tweeted the type of stuff
| that Trump's tweeted. They've only gotten into this
| situation because they've refused to ban or suspend Trump's
| account.
| awb wrote:
| Fairness is an impossible outcome but a worthwhile pursuit.
|
| There are tons of edge cases with free speech, but we
| almost certainly want the free market to experiment with
| potential solutions. It would be great if there were
| attempts at a free speech Twitter, a free of hate Twitter,
| free of disinformation Twitter, etc. and let the chips fall
| where they may.
| Talanes wrote:
| What requires them to be impartial?
| moralestapia wrote:
| It's not a "requirement" but by policing/editing content
| (other than what is explicitly illegal) you open yourself
| to a whole new set of obligations/liabilities that no one
| really wants to deal with.
|
| IANAL but an example could be:
|
| Someone posts a pirate ebook on their facebook profile.
| They can hide behind the "yeah but it was the user"
| harbor.
|
| vs.
|
| Someone posts a pirate ebook on a facebook profile,
| facebook staff thinks it's cool and puts it on a special
| themed section called "Pirate picks from today". They
| will be in trouble.
| 2019-nCoV wrote:
| Open a history book.
| Talanes wrote:
| A history book would seem an odd place to find
| legislation.
| 2019-nCoV wrote:
| A great place to see what lies ahead for a divisive
| society
| pasquinelli wrote:
| What is a divisive society?
| Avicebron wrote:
| A society that can't agree on what a divisive society is.
| In all seriousness, when actors with influence on public
| thought are having public arguments about politics,
| social roles, virus response plans. Now you can argue
| society has always been divisive, but instead of an
| Athenian public square with have platforms with millions
| of people getting involved. Amplified divisiveness.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| as long as they are not using limited public goods (e.g.
| part of the EM spectrum to broadcast), then from my
| perspective they can do anything they want assuming it
| doesn't break another law.
|
| now if they want to use limited public goods, well then
| there's a role for the FCC or something like it...
| seerbetter wrote:
| There's tons of fraud and bad acts in mail in voting but I 100%
| support allowing it and fixing the systems.
| clairity wrote:
| it's clearly impossible for trump to shut down twitter. he
| doesn't know how his own government works and doesn't care to
| know, because his goal is entirely self-promotion and personal
| profit. he's not a hard person to figure out.
|
| it's more concerning that people are taking it seriously enough
| to create so much chatter. it's not even a free speech issue,
| insofar as twitter is not a government entity. there's
| literally no 'there' there.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I wasn't going to post anything because of the direction HN
| seems to lean and because they get enraged about these sort of
| discussions. Hear me out and feel free to respond instead of
| shunning me out.
|
| The bigger issue is these platforms only get those free speech
| protections because they're platforms. The moment they start
| editing content like this, they become editors to a publishing
| platform, and they should be held liable for all that they've
| published. You can't just have your cake and eat it too, today
| they make you happy to censor the evil orange man, tomorrow
| they may censor those you support.
|
| Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
|
| We're seeing with YouTube that they're deleting posts against
| Communist China:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23324695
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221264
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23317570
|
| Worse what happens when you cross Facebook imposing Chinese
| censorship on the whole world?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13018770
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12479990
|
| What happens when Google is used to push liberal bias?
|
| Vimeo deletes videos claiming such bias from Google despite
| clear evidence in video:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20302010
|
| "If we break things up, we can't stop Trump" replace Trump with
| _any_ political candidate you 've ever supported by the way to
| understand why this sort of thing is dangerous:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20265502
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20697780
|
| I am sure I will get into fire for this comment, considering my
| citations were flagged to death because people don't agree with
| others. But mark my words, if the tables were flipped and they
| were censoring all your favorite candidates, you'd be outraged
| and against anything that would hinder free speech.
|
| If you take away anything from this post be sure to be this:
|
| Twitter, Google, Facebook etc are considered "platforms" the
| moment they editorialize content, they become publishers.
| Platforms are protected for obvious reasons, they cannot
| reliably contain every single thing a user posts, but a
| publisher dictates what is published, and is definitely liable
| for what they publish. These platforms want to be hybrids, but
| that gives them dangerous power to push agendas _as they claim
| they are trying to stop._
| carapace wrote:
| > editing content
|
| Twitter are not editing they are editorializing.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Sorry for the poor grammar, English is my second language.
| root_axis wrote:
| > _The bigger issue is these platforms only get those free
| speech protections because they 're platforms. The moment
| they start editing content like this, they become editors to
| a publishing platform, and they should be held liable for all
| that they've published. You can't just have your cake and eat
| it too, today they make you happy to censor the evil orange
| man, tomorrow they may censor those you support._
|
| No, this is totally incorrect.
|
| > _No provider or user of an interactive computer service
| shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any
| information provided by another information content provider
| " (47 U.S.C. SS 230)_
| acomjean wrote:
| You can say whatever you want, however theses companies don't
| have to provide you a platform to do so.
|
| Especially if they determine its not in their financial
| interest.
| Gollapalli wrote:
| 100%
| thebouv wrote:
| They will never understand your point.
| latedecember wrote:
| They will never understand the pain of having red hair
| either.
| chlodwig wrote:
| Free speech for all political factions on major public forums
| is the cooperate-cooperate quadrant of the prisoner's dilemma.
| If forums controlled by the blue faction defect and start
| censoring the red faction, the red faction needs to threaten to
| retaliate in order to scare the blue faction into cooperating
| again. It's simple tit-for-tat. This is game theory 101.
|
| _Surely, it 's clear here that having the actual head of the
| US government threatening to shut down private companies_
|
| The United States President has neither the authority nor power
| to start censoring Twitter on his own. Right now, Jack Dorsey
| has far more power over allowed public speech in America than
| Donald Trump.
| metrokoi wrote:
| Almost no one is ever happy with fact-checking, it often just
| leads to more disputes about whether or not the fact-checking is
| correct or warranted. To me it seems much more efficient to
| simply teach people not to take anything posted on social media
| seriously and to better think for themselves. One may say that
| the president should be an exception because of the number of
| people he reaches, but what about a famous actor with millions of
| followers? Or Elon Musk? What would the line of acceptable
| influence be in order to make someone fact-checkable? The set of
| fact-checkable people could be very large, and the manpower
| required to fact check all of them formidable.
|
| One may also argue that the president harms our country's image
| but again, senators and congressmen represent us as well and can
| also influence large amounts of people.
|
| That does not mean he must go uncontested; people can still
| dispute everything he says by responding (the original form of
| fact-checking). The discussion should instead be about whether or
| not political figures should be able to block people. I remember
| that was an issue a while ago, and I'm not sure where it is now.
| ngngngng wrote:
| It took all of 5 minutes for fact checking to become just as
| broken as the fake news it was trying to correct. Trump will
| clearly say something, and then I'll see people share directly
| conflicting fact checkers, one that says he said it, and one
| that says the words never left his mouth.
|
| And just like before the fact checkers, people believe what
| they want to believe, nothing more, nothing less.
| jdashg wrote:
| We have tried teaching people not to believe everything they
| read on the internet already. We need solutions that actually
| work.
|
| It's wishful thinking at best to believe that Twitter replies
| can effectively refute arguments. They don't establish public
| dialog unless the OP retweets the responses. You can't call it
| a dialogue if, effectively, there's only one person talking.
| Even simple refutations fail on Twitter.
|
| "We can't fact check one person because it'd be hard to do the
| same for a large number of people" is classic perfect-as-enemy-
| of-good. We get huge bang-for-buck by handling some obvious
| outliers and known bad actors, and that's worth doing.
| anewdirection wrote:
| So when 'fact checkers' end up with a right-wing bias will
| that still seem prudent? History is full of people in power,
| expanding their powers only to see their opposition use them
| more effectively against them.
| umvi wrote:
| What western democracies really need is an entire government
| segment dedicated to fact-checking. We could call it the
| "Department of Truth" (or "Ministry of Truth" in UK) and it
| would be responsible for labeling things on social media as
| true or false using little fact checker badges.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| > simply teach people not to take anything posted on social
| media seriously and to better think for themselves
|
| clearly there is nothing simple about this
| holler wrote:
| > teach people not to take anything posted on social media
| seriously and to better think for themselves.
|
| Most underrated comment in this thread...
| artur_makly wrote:
| If this happens, we can always make better Trump tweets:
| http://TrumpTweets.io
| vmchale wrote:
| What a petty weeniehead. Acts like a child, he's the President of
| the United States.
| frays wrote:
| I wonder what percentage of people in the tech community voted
| this guy in...
|
| And I wonder how many of these people will vote him in once
| again... How can there be so many smart people in the US yet this
| guy ends up as their leader?
| fareesh wrote:
| The existence of such a diversity of views on whether or not the
| statement was factual or not factual is enough of a good reason
| to see why this feature is not a good idea.
|
| The discussion being had between diverse perspectives is not
| helped when the platform starts flagging things with its own
| hand-picked opinion.
| phkahler wrote:
| If Twitter wants to fact check, fine. But posting links to pieces
| by anti-Trump news outlets is not fact checking.
| whateveracct wrote:
| Calling normal news outlets "anti-Trump" is just falling for
| his crybully antics.
| phkahler wrote:
| Not really. They do have a bias. Regardless of that it's
| still not fact checking.
| whateveracct wrote:
| It's not black and white. Framing them as "anti-Trump"
| makes it seem like they are extremist against Trump. If
| anything they are "anti-Trump" because 1) Trump is anti-
| them and 2) they report on his plain daylight criminality.
| djohnston wrote:
| The head of integrity has unabashedly showcased his strong
| political bias on Twitter, and I suspect things will begin going
| poorly for either him or Twitter shortly.
| adwww wrote:
| lol what, he is biased for pointing out misinformation from a
| prominent public figure, after years of Twitter being
| criticised for allowing false information to proliferate?
| djohnston wrote:
| No no, he is biased from his own Twitter history. It is clear
| he despises Trump and conservatives more generally. I don't
| have a dog in this fight, but I would certainly pause to
| consider the ramifications of this individual being the
| source of truthiness for Twitter b
| shadowgovt wrote:
| We'll see how it goes. It certainly wouldn't be the first
| time someone with strong personal biases was put in a
| position to editorialize on someone else's signal.
| plehoux wrote:
| I think he is referencing those tweets: https://twitter.com/L
| evineJonathan/status/126545757821512499...
| radiator wrote:
| Wow! I would say, unless Twitter has double standards, it
| should fact-check the tweets of its own "head of
| integrity".
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Twitter obviously has double standards; has for years.
| Remember when the US elected a troll and Twitter
| responded to calls they enforce their own TOS by
| modifying the TOS to have a carve-out for
| "newsworthiness?"
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| That's attacking the person rather than the action - were
| the fact checking moderations wrong?
|
| Sure, their personal political bias should put them up to a
| greater level of scrutiny; but it they can still fact check
| without bias.
|
| So, have they?
| remarkEon wrote:
| I think it's a much greater stretch to pretend that this
| person's obvious political bias doesn't leak into the
| "fact checking" they choose to do - or not to do, which
| is kind of the bigger issue. They may "correctly",
| ignoring the philosophically charged issue of "correct",
| fact check a certain politician but choose to ignore a
| different politician's statements that would otherwise be
| noted as incorrect under the same or similar standard.
| free_rms wrote:
| The appearance is disqualifying on its own.
|
| They're gonna get dragged for these tweets any time they
| fact check anything, even if their judgment is always
| impeccable.
| surfpel wrote:
| > They're gonna get dragged for these tweets
|
| They'll get dragged for doing anything that doesn't align
| with X party. If not his tweets than something else.
|
| Not saying people shouldn't have common sense about what
| they post on a public forum tho...
| free_rms wrote:
| Yeah, but why hand them ammo. Like you say.
|
| I'm pretty sure most judges would recuse if they had
| statements like that surface.
|
| Sections (a) (1) and especially (a) (5) here, for
| example: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_
| responsibili...
| adwww wrote:
| ha oh, in that case that's a bit of an own goal from
| Twitter.
|
| Although I doubt he put that fact checking warning up all
| on his own, there must have been a policy in place that
| senior management agreed to, and legal have presumably
| okayed.
| noworriesnate wrote:
| It is not misinformation to be concerned about mail-in
| ballots. There have been screw ups with mail in ballots in
| the past. For example: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/st
| ory.php?storyId=964371...
|
| For more stories just google "Military main-in ballots lost"
| gonzo41 wrote:
| Everyone hates change. Twitter wants to live in the future so
| it has to change and show behaviors more like the news and
| information service it currently is, And trump and others
| don't want twitter to change because currently they can
| communicate with bubbles isolated from reality.
|
| I really don't like twitter for all the crap and bots that's
| on there. I think it's a terrible format. But I think we are
| in a middle time, were new publishers and formats are rising
| at the same time as traditional media is falling. Hopefully
| larger publisher's and media organizations such as Facebook,
| Google and Twitter take the power and responsibility they
| have seriously.
| nojito wrote:
| twitter is a private organization. Regulating the speech of
| private organizations is a dangerous slope to be on.
| fantastisch wrote:
| When private organizations are regulating the speech of the
| population? It's a necessary slope.
|
| Because doing it without centralized government control is
| bad. But regulation of speech can be good. Take a look at
| https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1189120.shtml for an
| interesting discussion.
| akhilcacharya wrote:
| As a hill to die on though, it's certainly revealing!
| alharith wrote:
| Private organization that enjoys the legal protections of a
| platform. Reclassify them as a publisher. Can't have it both
| ways.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Private organization that enjoys the legal protections of
| a platform. Reclassify them as a publisher. Can't have it
| both ways.
|
| You absolutely can, and that's even been a norm in the US
| since CDA Section 230 was implemented specifically to make
| that possible, within certain bounds, which Twitter sits
| well within.
|
| Admittedly, that's been progressively chipped away
| recently.
| alharith wrote:
| Yes I am aware of CDA section 230. Another way of saying
| what I said is I think CDA section 230 needs to be
| repealed, or define exemptions that don't allow the type
| of draconian actions places like Twitter, Google, and
| Facebook are taking against free speech to qualify for
| protection under the act.
|
| Joe Biden is for the idea: https://www.nytimes.com/intera
| ctive/2020/01/17/opinion/joe-b...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > or define exemptions that don't allow the type of
| draconian actions places like Twitter, Google, and
| Facebook are taking
|
| The government being selective about which expressive
| choices by a platform operator are get favorable
| treatment under law rapidly gets into violations of
| actual Constitutional free speech protections, unlike the
| private actions that people are making fake "free speech"
| claims about.
| alharith wrote:
| By the same token, the government enacting legislation
| that gives these same tech companies blanket protection
| over the clear bias they institute is by extension
| limiting free speech by government law. In other words,
| the government passed a law that enabled others to limit
| free speech. Wonder if this angle has been tried in court
| yet?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > By the same token, the government enacting legislation
| that gives these same tech companies blanket protection
| over the clear bias they institute is by extension
| limiting free speech by government law.
|
| No, it's not. _Permitting_ private bias without
| government consequence is the definition of free speech.
| Restricting it is contrary to free speech, and is
| permitted only to the extent that it fits within
| recognized Constitutional limitations on the right of
| free speech.
| nojito wrote:
| Yup I agree. Internet companies have enjoyed the cost
| benefits from being classified as both a platform and a
| publisher.
|
| It was clever of them to convince the internet community
| that it's about "free speech" when it's actually always
| about the costs.
| bardworx wrote:
| Maybe an ignorant question but how would classifying
| Twitter as a publisher solve the issue?
|
| I'm guessing you mean that they should be held accountable
| for what people post there? Or is there a different angle
| I'm not seeing?
| alharith wrote:
| This article does a good job of explaining the issue (if
| you can stomach viewing an article on a conservative
| site, I know many here can't, but the information is
| good)
| https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/social-
| medi...
|
| Here's also some history on the law
| https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230/legislative-history
|
| Also preempting the brigade downvoting anything that has
| the word 'conservative' in it by pointing out that Joe
| Biden is actually for this idea as well (middle of
| article when he starts talking about the Facebook
| hearings and CDA 230):
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/17/opinion/jo
| e-b...
| orwin wrote:
| I can rewrite your post:
|
| ```
|
| This article does a good job of explaining the issue
| https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/social-
| medi...
|
| Here's also some history on the law
| https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230/legislative-history
|
| This is not a conservative-only point of view: Joe Biden
| is actually for this idea as well (middle of article when
| he starts talking about the Facebook hearings and CDA
| 230): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/17/opin
| ion/joe-b...
|
| ```
|
| You are allowed to be informative without being
| obnoxious. I was not aware of this issue and the article
| on theamericanconservative have an interesting point of
| view. The tone you used however will make most people
| here ignore or dismiss you. Yes, there is an anti-
| conservative bias on HN, but most people will still read
| an argument even on breibart if it is good.
|
| I understand the concern of the article but imho
| cancelling 230 might cripple them, and the propostion of
| state regulation will make them lost their power
| overseas. Will it allow other, european, asian or SA
| platforms to emerge? If the answer is yes it might have
| interesting side effects.
| alharith wrote:
| Cancelling 230 IMO is the wrong thing to do as well, but
| it, at minimum, needs to be modified to lay out some sort
| of "minimum neutrality / anti-bias criteria" and
| provisions for holding these Tech companies accountable
| -- something like 3 strikes and you're out -- you lose
| your platform status -- hey! kind of how like they treat
| the rest of us! Bonus points if we can algorithmically
| determine it so they lose it without human input or
| consideration of context and then have to beg not to be
| "deplatformed" by yelling for help from an actual human
| on other social media sites.
| bardworx wrote:
| Thanks for the links and diversity of sources.
| spinach wrote:
| Twitter already regulates speech though, to their own agenda.
|
| I got into the gender debate recently (a big mistake), and so
| many gender critical people get suspended or banned just for
| believing in reality (that males can't be women) and standing
| up for women's rights. A man (Zuby) got suspended for simply
| saying 'dude' to someone. People get their accounts deleted
| for 'misgendering' people.
|
| Twitter is already, hardly a bastion of free speech.
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| > Twitter already regulates speech though, to their own
| agenda.
|
| Are you saying that if someone has a website, they
| shouldn't be allowed to set the rules for that site. Are
| you going to allow me to post whatever I want on your
| website?
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Not parent commenter, but ... Actually, I think certain
| sites are so prolific as to basically amount to public
| spaces and that we should have agreed principles by which
| they can[|not] moderate an individual's speech, because
| they effectively can have a real effect on a person's
| ability to "speak" in "public".
| badRNG wrote:
| Perhaps certain sites _became_ prolific due in part to
| the moderation decisions they make for their platforms.
|
| For instance, there are other sites that take a very
| different moderation strategy (4chan comes to mind.) If
| Twitter developed a moderation strategy like Voat or
| 4chan, likely people would leave for a company that
| utilized a different moderation style. Then you'd be
| wondering why there isn't "free speech" on _that_
| platform.
|
| This gets to the root of the issue, the crux of the
| argument isn't whether one is entitled to have a public
| space to spread ideas, but whether one is entitled to a
| platform by which their ideas can be spread. A platform
| whose ubiquity is paradoxically dependent on that
| platform's ability to moderate what type of discourse is
| permitted.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I'm not advocating for the right to a platform.
|
| The ability to control the "public" spaces gives one
| effective control over "speech". That's a lot of power.
|
| Having that power entirely outside of democratic control
| troubles me.
| badRNG wrote:
| > _The ability to control the "public" spaces gives one
| effective control over "speech"._
|
| Let's suppose, for instance, that Twitter is deemed large
| enough to be a "public forum" and no longer makes
| moderation decisions outside of removing illegal content.
| The clear, obvious consequence for such a decision would
| be that most people would cease to use Twitter. It would
| no longer be a "public space" because that "public" would
| no longer be there.
|
| People would stop using Twitter for the same reason the
| public doesn't use 4chan. Anecdotally, I don't want to be
| harassed for my sexuality on Twitter. I wouldn't feel
| safe, or want to participate in a site that allows open
| attacks against people due to their gender identity,
| race, or religion. And let's not kid ourselves, the
| "conservative" view points being "censored" on Twitter
| aren't really "conservative" views at all, it's just hate
| speech, harassment, and attacks against marginalized
| people. Even semi-famous self-described fascist content
| creators continue to use Twitter above radar, provided
| they don't explicitly distribute hate speech on the
| platform.
|
| Marginalized people of every form would find another
| place that _is_ moderated to flock to. That would become
| the new "public place" that so-called "conservatives"
| would wish to invade.
| crimsoneer wrote:
| If that's the case, maybe the government should buy them
| out at market price and then it can do whatever it wants.
| badRNG wrote:
| I can immediately think of sites that are open to gender
| critical discussion. Voat, 4chan, and many other message
| boards exist for such. It isn't a topic I'm particulaly
| interested in, but if you start there I'm sure you can find
| more spaces where that type of discussion is accepted and
| embraced.
|
| "Freedom of speech" isn't freedom to force private
| businesses to provide a platform for your content. There
| are plenty of businesses besides Twitter that will provide
| a platform for the type of discourse you are looking for.
| driverdan wrote:
| > and so many gender critical people get suspended or
| banned just for believing in reality (that males can't be
| women) and standing up for women's rights
|
| Good. They _should_ be banning bigots. Don 't like it?
| Start your own service where bigots can roam free.
| epistasis wrote:
| Sorry, what "bias" is that?
| josefresco wrote:
| Turns out, people with important jobs that require impartiality
| (like judges) have real, personal, opinions and feelings.
| palsir wrote:
| but judges are publicly accountable, while corporations (and
| their agents) can do what they want. Comes back down to the
| publisher/curator debate.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| You can hold private companies accountable via secondary
| boycott. It's more complicated but it can be done.
| anewdirection wrote:
| 'Are held' and 'can be done' are obscenely different to
| conflate them.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| Correct. Also, you won't be dragged to a keyboard
| connected to a computer logged in to Twitter at gunpoint,
| but you sure will be dragged to court to face a judge at
| gunpoint. There are different standards of accountability
| that match the standards of compulsion and violence.
| seerbetter wrote:
| He dismissed the entire Midwest as lunatics to be ignored.
| There's a lot of hackers and engineers and amazing companies
| in the Midwest.
|
| He's mindless in his opinions. He's not against a policy or a
| politician. He's separating society.
| epistasis wrote:
| I'm from the midwest. I usually get fucking pissed when
| people call them flyover states, caused major friction with
| a cofounder for years.
|
| But seeing this mislabeled as "bias" has got to be the
| silliest and most hyperbolic over-reaction I've ever seen.
|
| It's somebody being a minor asshole on Twitter. That is not
| bias of any substantial sort.
|
| Feelings are important, but as somebody who does get his
| (overly sensitive) feelings hurt by that statement, I'm at
| least mature enough to place it in context.
|
| We need to grow up as a society. There are faaaaaar worse
| actual biases on display everyday on Twitter, from people
| with far more power. We have a president who's threatening
| to use his own political bias to shut down or regulate
| companies based _only_ in what he perceives as politics.
| anewdirection wrote:
| I am as annoyed by all the feelings getting hurt as you
| are, but this guy is directing a sizeable amount of money
| in some backward intra-nationalist way, which only slows
| down progress, even if it is 'only perception'. It is
| open bigotry plain and simple.
| devtul wrote:
| The amount of leeway given to one side of the political
| spectrum is what causes this whole heated political climate.
|
| Whenever some known person from the "right side of history"
| says something clearly bad, there are always comments like
| yours "but but but", whereas when the source is on the "wrong
| side of history" it is taken as final and irrefutable proof
| of their evilness and no amount of perspective or depth is
| allowed.
|
| Things will get better when we can give a level headed non-
| partisan response to statements like
|
| >Today on Meet The Press, we're speaking with Joseph Goebbels
| about the first 100 days...' - What I hear whenever Kellyanne
| is on a news show.'
| shadowgovt wrote:
| If fact-checking the President when he says untrue things is
| "strong political bias," there are larger problems than the
| fate of one employee at Twitter.
| djohnston wrote:
| That isn't the bias, check his Twitter history there are
| links all over this thread
| im3w1l wrote:
| People who call Trump a racist tangerine [0] and scream about
| "ACTUAL NAZIS IN THE WHITE HOUSE" [0] are the exact type of
| extremists that would support election fraud because "it's
| justified to stop ACTUAL NAZIS", and use their position of
| power to cover it up.
|
| [0] https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/126545757821512
| 499...
| shadowgovt wrote:
| What's he covering up? Twitter has provided sources for
| their fact-check. The President is more than welcome to
| provide sources for his fraud claims any time he chooses.
| Via Twitter. Same medium that is fact-checking him.
|
| The fact he says what he does un-sourced, and people
| believe him because he speaks from the authority of his
| office, is the troubling thing.
| im3w1l wrote:
| I'm not saying he _is_ covering anything up right now.
| But as I argued, IF there were anything to cover up, his
| bias means that he would. Since he 's gonna say nothing
| is up whether it is or isn't I'm just gonna tune it out
| entirely. It carries no signal.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Biased signal is still signal.
|
| A data source that only reports facts that support its
| theory is still reporting facts. I think, rather than
| tune it out, combining it with other sources gives a
| richer picture.
| jmull wrote:
| the real shame is that integrity is a politically biased
| position now.
| anewdirection wrote:
| Which neither Twitter nor Trump posess in great margin.
| socrates1998 wrote:
| I mean, social media should be more regulated and laws should
| definitely be enacted to hold those companies more liable for the
| content that is published on their platforms. The problem is that
| I definitely do not want Trump deciding on how to do it.
|
| Right now, social media is a pretty bad cesspool. No one takes
| the blame for allowing sociopaths to dominate those platforms.
| aty268 wrote:
| Twitter banning Conservatives from the platform for fair talking
| points is far more concerning than the government threatening to
| punish companies for silencing their users.
|
| Clearly competition is not solving this problem. So should the
| federal government do something about it? Maybe.
| zachware wrote:
| This gets to the issue of property rights. It's not unlike the
| tribal debate over mask requirements in private businesses.
|
| If you are a conservative you believe in property rights. Thus,
| private companies can make whatever rules they want...with their
| property...and if I don't agree with them, I go elsewhere.
|
| The same is true with Twitter. So it makes this whole fiasco so
| hypocritical. If you claim to be a conservative but you don't
| respect a business' right to set its own rules, you're a
| charlatan.
| nraynaud wrote:
| In a lot of European countries nazi speech is forbidden, and I
| would posit that it works: the police murders less minorities,
| the difference in earnings and life expectancy are narrower, and
| generally violent deaths are lower.
|
| Maybe it's time for the US to become a member of the
| international community, by adopting common codes.
| anewdirection wrote:
| So censoring hitler online means less police violence?
|
| Please do show me the data.
|
| Baseless nationalism is just as unwelcome from any country as
| it is fron the USA. Stop it.
| nraynaud wrote:
| "Europe" is not a nation, this word is like garlic for the
| nationalists.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Police shootings in the U.S. do not happen because Nazis get to
| speak in the U.S.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Free speech includes adding labels for fact checking.
|
| But yeah, what would you expect from such an bully. It's the only
| thing he has proven to be good at, being rude and attack fast.
| Lol
|
| What a president, I would be deeply ashamed.
| matwood wrote:
| The oddest part of of this whole thing is that Trump supporters
| are typically the personal freedoms above all else crowd. Yet
| Trump openly talks about having/wanting authoritative, dictator
| level power.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Because what they don't say (at least always; some will) -
| "they are for personal freedoms _they_ believe in, not
| necessarily _all_ or _yours_".
| luckydata wrote:
| A very long winded way to write "racists"
| IgorPartola wrote:
| They really aren't for personal freedom. That group is
| basically hoping he stays on as a dictator because they believe
| he is the only one who can save the nation. I wish I was
| kidding.
| mancerayder wrote:
| First, some government authorities (such as at airports) ask for
| social media information. Employers can, as well, when doing
| background checks.
|
| Next, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have become de-facto
| presence for political figures, companies and individuals. Erased
| from here, they cease to exist. Almost like scrubbing a Google
| search result.
|
| The above points COMPEL the U.S. government and any other
| government to consider the possibility that they are now a public
| utility (like electrical companies) and an _essential service_.
| The argument that they are private companies and therefore should
| forever be removed from the jurisdiction of the 1st Amendment (in
| the case of the U.S.), since this only applies to government, is
| extremely antiquated. Did smartphones and Presidential tweets
| exist in 1776?
|
| If electrical companies and railroads can be regulated and for-
| profit, then why would "my company, I do what I want" magically
| apply forever to Faceook, Twitter and Instagram?
|
| I am NOT defending what Trump was quoted saying here. I AM making
| a case that we need to update our legal framework to account for
| modernity. And to account for a heretofore unpredictable and
| unfathomable technological achievement of an instant network of
| human ideas and presence that is controlled by a few California
| companies. I'd bet money that the question will be considered in
| the coming few years by the high courts, and there's a non-zero
| chance they'll agree with what I've just said.
| markvdb wrote:
| How do you even fact check a powerful cognitive dissonance
| generator? Because that's what Trump is.
|
| Trying to fact check that kind of person makes no sense. The man
| himself makes no sense, and he knows. He's a troll and also the
| US president.
| bardonadam wrote:
| He tweeted his threat to shutdown Twitter, gotta love this.
| sp332 wrote:
| Twitter has refused to enforce their terms of service on
| accounts from various heads of state. They pretty much earned
| this. ("I didn't think leopards would eat _my_ face, " sobbed
| the woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces
| Party.)
| shadowgovt wrote:
| He has to. He doesn't have another media outlet where he's as
| directly visible to his primary constituency as he is on
| Twitter.
| bardonadam wrote:
| Ironic, isn't it?
| czzr wrote:
| Fox News?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| swebs wrote:
| Good, I hope this forces them to decide whether to be neutral
| platforms or publishers. They've been having their cake and
| eating it too for far too long.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I hope they take Trump head-on, and declare an affirmative
| right to freedom of the press that does not violate safe-harbor
| policy.
| anewdirection wrote:
| Why? Thats the whole problem.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| The problem is that sites (that users can choose to use or
| refrain from using) have a right to freedom of the press
| and protection against libel / slander lawsuits for also
| re-hosting information that third parties post through
| them?
|
| I don't think that's a problem. Sounds like working-as-
| intended.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/21/18700605/section-230-int
| e...
| tzs wrote:
| If that's a reference to the protections under section 230 of
| the Communications Decency Act, it doesn't work that way. The
| whole point of section 230 was to say that being non-neutral
| does _not_ subject a platform to liability for content supplied
| to that platform by users.
|
| I'm not sure why, but a lot of people seem to think it is the
| opposite: you have to be neutral to be protected. There was a
| court case that ruled that way before section 230. Congress
| wrote 230 specifically to reverse that.
| wegs wrote:
| For the most part, I support platform neutrality. I don't agree
| with all the Google censorship of misinformation and
| "misinformation" on their platforms. I think Facebook should have
| less evil algorithms (it seems designed to encourage
| polarization), but I wouldn't want censorship or commentary their
| either.
|
| This case is an exception. Twitter drew a line in the sand. It is
| in exactly the right place.
|
| The PoTUS is threatening to shut down elections in November: he
| seems to be doing everything in his power to have a national
| emergency then when people can't vote, to shut down post offices,
| and to ban voting by mail. Any other problems with the PoTUS, we
| should address in the ballot box and through citizen activism
| (not through corporate activism). But when the PoTUS tries to
| shut down the ballot box or shut down citizen activism, that's
| different.
|
| I don't think he's likely to be successful, but I didn't think
| coronavirus would hit us this hard either. In January, it was a
| manageable billion-dollar problem. We did nothing. Now, it's a
| multi-trillion dollar problem. Right now, Trump trying to cancel
| the election is a manageable problem too; by his personality, if
| he doesn't get traction, we're done. He'll move on. But if he
| does get traction, we'll have a completely different scale of
| problem on our hands.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > It is in exactly the right place
|
| If they start fact-checking everybody, it is. Otherwise,
| they're just campaigning for the other side.
| aabhay wrote:
| They have been fact checking other people. It was precisely
| that they weren't fact checking trump.
| loceng wrote:
| The internet itself needs to be the platform that is neutral,
| and then allowing the freedom of people to have private
| corporations - "digital land" they own - and can therefore
| moderate how they choose to govern, thereby giving individuals
| the freedom to decide who they use, give their attention to,
| and support financially.
|
| There are separate issues like economies of scale that don't
| allow a completely level playing field - however a monthly UBI
| where part of it is required to be allocated to be used for
| digital services (e.g. pay for Facebook vs. being bombarded by
| manipulative ads) would allow everyone to afford costs of
| bandwidth-CPU usage etc to take that burden off of private
| companies and would level the playing field.
|
| Similarly these massive platforms like Facebook wouldn't have
| grown to their scale if people's data and networks were
| completely mobile with no friction, therefore it would be a
| competitive battle based on governance and not merely
| difficulty, laziness, leading to strong defensible network
| effects.
| 50ckpuppet wrote:
| "The PoTUS is threatening to shut down elections in November:"
|
| linkage ??
| wegs wrote:
| If there's a public health crisis, and people can't safely
| leave homes and can't vote by mail, there is no meaningful
| election.
|
| Right now, he's:
|
| * Doing everything in his power to have a public health
| crisis (which means people can't go out to vote)
|
| * Working to bankrupt the USPS so people can't vote by mail
|
| * Threatening to go after states which support vote-by-mail
| (that's the tweet and similar statements -- withholding
| federal funding to states which vote by mail)
|
| That's a concerning set of signals.
|
| That's not a verbal threat like a declaration of war, if
| that's the link you're looking for. It's a threat like when a
| country conducts military drills on your border, or like when
| there's a new virus outbreak on the other side of the world.
| Problems might or might not materialize, but you should take
| actions to be ready both to minimize the odds of problems,
| and in case they do.
|
| Our current PoTUS is an opportunist. He hedges and hangs out
| ideas to see if they'll get traction. If he gets any traction
| on an idea, he exploits it very effectively. If he doesn't
| get traction, he moves on. That has upsides and downsides,
| but in this case, it's to everyone's advantage that he
| doesn't get traction.
|
| And the response should be very similar. If a country appears
| to be preparing to invade, you prepare to defend yourself.
| That doesn't mean you need to be obnoxious about it or try to
| provoke a war (politeness pays), but you do want to respond
| to the threat.
|
| I apologize if I was imprecise in my wording. The word
| 'threat' has multiple meanings. I don't want to vilify the
| PoTUS, but I do want to make sure the checks-and-balances
| stay in place. That take vigilance against threats, both real
| and potential.
| whateveracct wrote:
| "Logical" HNers will say that those bullets don't amount to
| a bad faith attack on the election. They basically give
| Trump the benefit of the doubt.
|
| You can't give authoritarians the benefit of the doubt.
| They'll take that inch and turn it into miles and miles.
|
| Trump is well beyond benefit of the doubt bankruptcy.
| wegs wrote:
| They don't amount to an attack. They amount to a threat.
|
| Threats to our democracy need to be checked.
|
| This isn't about Trump or about giving or not giving
| someone the benefit-of-the-doubt. If it were Obama,
| Warren, Bush, or whomever else, I wouldn't want to give a
| path to cancelling an election either. The PoTUS doesn't
| have that kind of power, and it the PoTUS is making moves
| suggesting that kind of power grab, they need to be
| checked on it by the rest of the system, whoever it is,
| and regardless of intent.
|
| That's the point of checks-and-balances: they're
| something we should be able to agree on regardless of
| whether we trust the individual. They're about the system
| and not about the person.
| heurist wrote:
| Fully agree with this post. This administration does not
| have the public good at heart. Democracy must be sustained
| at any cost, and one particular political party (with power
| stolen through gerrymandering and stonewalling) led by one
| particular authoritarian (who is strongly supported by
| criminal foreign oligarchs and Americans who hate race
| mixing) is doing all it can to erode fundamental democratic
| institutions. That anyone supports these brazen power grabs
| is extremely disconcerting to me.
|
| Recommendation: "Hiding in Plain Sight" by Sarah Kendzior:
| https://www.amazon.com/Hiding-Plain-Sight-Invention-
| Erosion-...
| jki275 wrote:
| There isn't one. It's just fearmongery.
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