[HN Gopher] Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting
___________________________________________________________________
Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting
Author : henriquez
Score : 259 points
Date : 2020-10-14 19:54 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nationalreview.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nationalreview.com)
| [deleted]
| moron4hire wrote:
| I don't know what's going on with the article in question, but I
| read this:
|
| > Facebook announced it would limit the sharing of the story
| while fact-checkers reviewed the piece.
|
| And immediately realize, this is it. Facebook is a publisher, not
| a platform.
| donmcronald wrote:
| Paraphrasing for a HN comment I saw a while back. A reverse
| chronological feed of your friends' posts is a platform. A
| recommendation engine is a publisher. That makes a lot of sense
| to me.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| Aside from the censorship issue, Twitter is making a mockery of
| its own policy. Twitter is ostensibly blocking this article under
| their, "no hacks or leaks may be linked to" policy, while only a
| couple of weeks ago the story about the Trump tax returns
| (derived from a leak) was all over Twitter without being
| suppressed at all. If Twitter is going to arbitrarily choose
| which news to censor it should do so without using the fig leaf
| of a policy that Twitter itself openly violates.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Twitter isnt required to be impartial, they are allowed to
| editorialize to their preference like all the media does.
| There's a certain anomaly in the US that doesn't provide other
| media with the same legal protections, but that's something to
| work on
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| Twitter isn't required to be impartial, but you'd think
| they'd want to avoid openly painting themselves as lying
| hypocrites. If they are going to censor news they don't like,
| they'd be better off just censoring it rather than putting on
| the patently false charade of pretending they have a standard
| which is being violated. A simple, "we reserve the right to
| remove any and all content posted" would suffice, instead of
| pretending to be impartial arbiters of truth.
| blhack wrote:
| I've said before and I will continue saying: twitter CANNOT be
| the arbiter if truth. It will NEVER work, and trying to do so
| will be their undoing, but not before they make the problem they
| think they're solving infinitely worse.
| extropy wrote:
| Welcome to the new world.
| reaperducer wrote:
| I've known the New York Post as a rag for as long as I've been
| alive, but I still occasionally buy a copy.
|
| But I when I see Twitter and Facebook deciding they have better
| journalistic judgement than a major newspaper, it seems that the
| world is upside down.
| shiado wrote:
| This kind of mess is why I respected Wikileaks so much for all
| those years including the 2016 leaks. Leaking is an art that
| requires dumping verifiable and irrefutable documents to as many
| people as possible so they can independently investigate them.
| These plant jobs in partisan media will never be received
| credibly.
| cryptica wrote:
| I have a feeling that Facebook wants Trump to be elected. I think
| Mark Zuckerberg may have discovered how to play "Good cop, bad
| cop" this year.
|
| First, he played good cop trying to protect free speech while his
| employees played bad cop trying to censor. That was just a test
| to see how people reacted. To see if people perceived Mark
| Zuckerberg better after this.
|
| Now Facebook is playing bad cop so that Trump can be the good cop
| and win the election.
|
| Facebook is benefiting from inflationary monetary policy and
| Trump being eyeballs deep in debt will ensure that inflationary
| policy continues. Trump is not going to let the economy tank on
| his watch.
|
| If Biden wins, he will let the economy tank early in his term and
| blame it on Trump.
|
| BTW, Spotify also played "Good cop, bad cop" with its employees
| this year related to Joe Rogan. Again, Spotify management playing
| good cop letting Joe Rogan express himself and Spotify employees
| playing bad cop wanting him censored.
| cryptica wrote:
| Good to see the downvotes coming in as predicted. I must have
| got this right. The tech elites are all banding together as
| always.
| throwawaymanbot wrote:
| Its a fake story anyway, there should be repercussions for
| publishing hackjobs. This is a good start.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| I can't really wrap my head around about how shortsighted of a
| move this is.
|
| Just two weeks ago(!) there was a hearing about Section 230 and
| Facebook and Twitter were saying it was necessary, and they
| submitted testimony about misinformation at that hearing.
|
| They've now blown any credibility they had left with half of
| Congress, possibly more, and have attracted 10x the attention and
| 10x the perceived credibility to the article.
|
| How did they not expect this to blow up in their face?
| dang wrote:
| We changed the URL from
| https://twitter.com/sohrabahmari/status/1316446749729398790 to an
| article with more information. If there's a more informative
| source, we can change it again.
|
| Edit: I've changed it from
| https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/facebook-twitter-block-the-pos...
| to what looks like it may be a more neutral source. Other users
| have supplied these related links:
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-post-hunter-joe-bid...
|
| https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/email-reveals-how-hunter-biden...
| dionian wrote:
| Thanks for the transparency. I sincerely mean it
| chillee wrote:
| One issue now is that the title mentions Facebook but the
| linked article does not, which is somewhat confusing.
| rectang wrote:
| For a counterpoint on why this story is likely BS:
| https://talkingpointsmemo.com/fivepoints/5-points-on-why-the...
| partiallypro wrote:
| It likely is BS, but not definitely. Even some of the points
| in the TPM article aren't very strong (I'm sorry, but
| journalists mocking the story isn't a point.) But, even if it
| is, it's not the role of Facebook to decide it is or isn't,
| when it is not verify-ably false. Instead they should just
| elevate critics of the article/scoop like the article you
| linked.
| dx87 wrote:
| Also the point about the backstory not making sense. It
| basically says "The Biden Campaign checked Biden's
| schedule, and said that Biden didn't attend an illegal
| meeting at that time". The rush to cover and dismiss the
| story makes it seem more likely that it's true (I have no
| idea either way), than if people could just write it off as
| another crackpot story from the NY Post.
| rectang wrote:
| > _Even some of the points in the TPM article aren 't very
| strong_
|
| The people who prepared the NY Post piece had plenty of
| time to prepare. Now the story is rocketing around at the
| speed of the internet; but it takes time to refute
| authoritatively.
|
| Twitter, Facebook, HN, and similar channels will have
| spread the story regardless of its truth or untruth. They
| are vulnerable to propaganda, similar to how open relays
| are to spreading spam.
| runarberg wrote:
| Extraordinary times calls for extraordinary actions. The
| coming US election is no small deal, and we have seen in
| past elections how bad actors have been using social media
| to undermine democracy (including but not limited to
| influencing elections). You really can't blame Twitter and
| Facebook here for taking the more radical step against an
| obvious smear campaign that blatantly fails the smell test.
| I'm sure if this story turns out to be true, we will hear
| about it from more reliable media, at which point the
| social media companies can offer an apology and release the
| links to this article.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| We absolutely can blame them. Twitter and Facebook have
| repeatedly taken the position that there's no need to
| reform section 230 or otherwise strongly regulate their
| moderation, because they're very dedicated to the idea of
| free discourse and would never abuse their power. If they
| now feel that free discourse is dangerous and shouldn't
| be allowed, they should let the country know that so that
| we can make regulatory decisions accordingly.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| > But, even if it is, it's not the role of Facebook to
| decide it is or isn't, when it is not verify-ably false.
| Instead they should just elevate critics of the
| article/scoop like the article you linked.
|
| Facebook will do whatever provides the greatest return for
| their shareholders - they have no duty to Constitutional
| values. That is the only thing that will drive their
| decision making, so obviously they decided the long term
| risks of letting Trump abuse their platform with propaganda
| outweighs the short-term blow back from conservatives, who
| appear likely to be out of power in 4 months anyways.
|
| If the public wants a role in how Facebook should handle
| this type of thing, then Congress needs to stop play-acting
| and starting writing legislation.
| smokebutnofire wrote:
| A few things take make these emails a bit more credible:
|
| 1. "And I went over, I guess, the 12th, 13th time to Kiev.
| And I was supposed to announce that there was another
| billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment
| from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take
| action against the state prosecutor. And they didn't.
|
| So they said they had -- they were walking out to a press
| conference. I said, nah, I'm not going to -- or, we're not
| going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no
| authority. You're not the president. The president said -- I
| said, call him. I said, I'm telling you, you're not getting
| the billion dollars. I said, you're not getting the billion.
| I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six
| hours. I looked at them and said: I'm leaving in six hours.
| If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money.
| Well, son of a bitch. (Laughter.) He got fired. And they put
| in place someone who was solid at the time."
|
| - Joe Biden on a Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating
| Burisma, the firm that paid Hunter Biden. (source:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCF9My1vBP4&t=78s)
|
| 2. The photos of Hunter Biden with a crack pipe that were
| included. (Scroll down: https://www.the-
| sun.com/news/1629764/joe-biden-hunter-emails...)
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| Which of these points do you find persuasive?
| donmcronald wrote:
| Email headers would trivially prove if that was actually an
| email sent via gmail. The rest of the email account would
| do a lot to back up the claim it was actually his laptop.
| likeafox wrote:
| I question if the National Review is really the best home for
| this story.
| pseudo0 wrote:
| The Yahoo article that you've linked appears to be a
| republication of an article from the National Review
| (https://www.nationalreview.com/news/twitter-cites-hacked-
| mat...). Perhaps it would make more sense to link to the
| original source?
| dang wrote:
| Ok, changed to that from https://news.yahoo.com/twitter-
| cites-hacked-materials-policy.... Thanks!
| dmode wrote:
| Maybe NY Post should try to publish something objective rather
| than being a rag mouthpiece for a terrible human being
| yalogin wrote:
| I don't know how I feel about it given how blatantly the current
| administration lies and the lengths they are willing to go to
| manufacture lies. Given that scenario, should we not just assume
| that everything they say is a lie until proven otherwise?
| bgorman wrote:
| There is a lot of circumstantial evidence here. Why would
| Hunter biden be paid thousands of dollars a month to work at a
| random Ukrainian energy company other than to provide access to
| Joe Biden. Hunter Biden has no expertise running a energy
| utility.
| croissants wrote:
| Isn't the likeliest explanation that 1) random Ukrainian
| energy company paid Hunter Biden for access to Joe Biden, and
| 2) the payments were not useful in actually getting access to
| Joe Biden? "Thousands of dollars a month" doesn't seem like
| "get close to a former VP/future presidential candidate"
| money.
|
| (Of course, this explanation isn't exactly a good look
| either, but at this point it's a choice between imperfection
| options, and one seems a lot less imperfect.)
| luckylion wrote:
| Do companies pay princelings large sums of money without
| getting anything in return? I believe it's usually
| understood that they get something in return, even if that
| something is just not getting into trouble (as is the way
| in China, if you want no road blocks in your enterprise,
| you better hire some high official's kid).
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Trying it and having it be successful in obtaining the
| desired access are very different things, though.
| oyra wrote:
| good idea. applicable to both sides, actually. libs lied all
| about russian collusion, for instance.
| patrickaljord wrote:
| Here's the article for those wondering
| https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/email-reveals-how-hunter-biden...
| reilly3000 wrote:
| This is a colossal failure of a scam to discredit Biden. There
| was no chain of custody, the proported email had tons of tell
| tale signs of being faked, and NYPost posted exif data that
| undermined their whole claim. They even used ints for ids
| allowing a lot of unpublished docs out.
|
| https://twitter.com/russelneiss/status/1316398928850452481
|
| https://twitter.com/russelneiss/status/1316402052885606400
|
| https://twitter.com/marcusjcarey/status/1316386740794425344
|
| National Review is part of the disinfo apparatus. Take anything
| they say with a pound of salt.
| atlgator wrote:
| Facebook recruiters keep messaging. I keep ignoring.
| dddddaviddddd wrote:
| Context: https://news.yahoo.com/twitter-cites-hacked-materials-
| policy...
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-post-hunter-joe-bid...
| [deleted]
| Plough_Jogger wrote:
| The article in question can be found here:
| https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/email-reveals-how-hunter-biden...
| tootie wrote:
| What a bizarre story. Unidentified person drops off a damaged
| computer at a repair shop and never comes back. Hard drive
| contains lots of salacious info about Hunter Biden. Repair shop
| decides the correct course of action is to give it to Rudy
| Giuliani. That is fishy as hell.
| croissants wrote:
| Why is this being downvoted? As far as I can tell from
| reading the article, this is an accurate summary. The
| provided evidence that said laptop is genuinely connected
| with Hunter Biden is 1) a Biden sticker on the laptop, 2) the
| fact that it's a Delaware repair shop, and 3) a pornographic
| video featuring somebody who "appears to be" Hunter Biden.
| What about this is convincing evidence?
| dmode wrote:
| This thread is getting heavily brigaded
| tootie wrote:
| They're also declaring a "smoking gun" of Hunter peddling
| influence when the only data point is an email from a
| Ukrainian to Hunter saying that he was looking forward to
| meeting the Vice President. There doesn't seem to be any
| message from Hunter, and Joe has already said his official
| schedule is public record and no meeting ever happened.
| remarkEon wrote:
| What's amusing about this whole thing to me is that
| Facebook and Twitter dropping the ban hammer on this
| piece will Streisand the hell out of it. If they'd left
| it alone, it would've been lost in the news cycle with
| everything else going on and no one would remember it in
| a week. Now the story is, once again, "Big Tech censors
| conservatives".
| mullingitover wrote:
| It's already lost in the news cycle. Not trending on
| twitter. Impotently reverberating on Parler.
| remarkEon wrote:
| Sure is for me, multiple variations of it. I'm not signed
| in (don't have an account), and am in a private window on
| firefox w/ cookies cleared.
| donmcronald wrote:
| > Steve Bannon, former adviser to President Trump, told The
| Post about the existence of the hard drive in late September
| and Giuliani provided The Post with a copy of it on Sunday.
|
| I want to see the raw emails.
| [deleted]
| creaghpatr wrote:
| They also locked the NY Post's Twitter account
|
| https://twitter.com/noahmanskar/status/1316459416414302208?s...
| esotericimpl wrote:
| They posted 3 hours ago.
| pseudo0 wrote:
| Often Twitter will lock the creation of new tweets, and
| require the manual deletion of the offending tweet before you
| can continue posting. I suspect that's what happened in this
| case, rather than an outright account suspension.
| [deleted]
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| The NY Post editor is Sohrab A _h_ mari, and his account
| https://twitter.com/SohrabAhmari remains unsuspended.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Sohrab is a conspiracy theorist nutball who fled a
| religious dictatorship in Iran and now openly advocates for
| a Christian monarchy for the US.
| remarkEon wrote:
| LOL I read Sohrab pretty regularly but have not seen him
| advocate for a Christian Monarchy in the US (though would
| love to read that piece). He had a pretty big dust-up
| with David French over, among other things, whether
| conservatives should continue being nice to the left as a
| sort of game theoretical experiment. Other than that,
| he's kind of boring.
| hirundo wrote:
| There's a recurring argument on social media censorship that
| goes: "you wouldn't want the telephone company censoring phone
| conversations would you?" And the response is along the lines:
| "these are hardly private conversations, any tweet can go viral
| and be seen by millions".
|
| This story breaks that mold in that it involves social media
| censoring private conversations via DM. If you think that's OK
| for Twitter on its platform, is it also OK for AT&T on its phone
| network? For Google on Gmail?
| optimuspaul wrote:
| I don't pay for twitter, I don't have any reasonable
| expectations for a SLA regarding anything including DMs. Just
| like I have no responsibility to listen to people on soapboxes
| on street corners, and soap companies have no responsibility to
| provide soapboxes to anyone to shout from.
| blhack wrote:
| Yes you do. You pay with your attention and with your ability
| to understand the world around you.
|
| Twitter is an extremely powerful bit of technology that can
| basically make you believe anything. As a trade for
| entertainment/dopamine: you are allowing it to.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| > Twitter is an extremely powerful bit of technology that
| can basically make you believe anything.
|
| I don't believe this.
| [deleted]
| riffic wrote:
| The difference between the telephone company and Twitter is
| that the phone company was (historically) a monopoly - the
| _only game in town_. Use their wires or get lost. It required
| common carrier neutrality by regulation.
|
| Twitter (and every single commercial _social media_ space) is
| not the above, and can do what it wants on its service. It 's
| not a public utility.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| This seems like an incomplete summary. Shipping companies are
| subject to similar common carrier regulations, even though
| they're not monopolies, because "just hire some random guy to
| drive your packages around" isn't a feasible replacement. In
| a country where almost everyone with any serious media
| presence is on Twitter, it's unreasonable to tell certain
| arbitrary subsets of the media that their thoughts are off
| limits.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| It's not just Twitter, it's also Facebook. (I believe
| Facebook was actually the first to take action.) What if
| Google does it too?
|
| In the past few years, we've seen these big tech companies
| operate in a manner that seems collusive. They follow each
| other's cues. One company is the first to censor, and then
| the other companies follow very quickly with the exact same
| censorship. (The quick collective action tends to dilute the
| criticism against any single one of those companies.) It's
| not just one company doing what it wants, it's all the major
| players doing the same form of censorship.
| riffic wrote:
| I don't really care about Twitter or Facebook to be honest.
| It's not the only game in town.
|
| I'd be more concerned if I bought server hosting from AWS,
| stood up a WordPress blog about my thoughts on capitalism,
| socialism, sports, and dogs, and Amazon decides to suspend
| my account due to my writings.
| Solvitieg wrote:
| Even if you opt-out from Twitter, etc.
|
| Your political leaders and journalists are tuned in.
|
| Thus your life is still affected.
| spoopyskelly wrote:
| They will do that if your postings are wrongthink enough.
| And your registrar will fuck your domain too. See:
| stormer, 8chan, etc.
| riffic wrote:
| you know what, that's absolutely true. But you have a
| better chance of remaining online with your wrongthink
| than by remaining on a platform such as Twitter,
| Facebook, etc.
|
| See: stormer, 8chan, etc.
| free_rms wrote:
| You should have done that instead of posting this comment
| on hacker news, then. Entry 1, "a reply to
| lapcatsoftware".
|
| Why use social media?
| riffic wrote:
| While referring to a hypothetical blog, you wrote:
|
| >You should have done that
|
| In a way, the New York Post can do exactly this:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24781812
|
| These media corporations _really_ should be paying
| attention to the changing landscape of open web
| standards. Their entanglement with corporate _social
| platforms_ for eyeballs will be their own undoing.
| free_rms wrote:
| I'd love to see open standards proliferate for that
| reason.
|
| In our current world, they haven't, and you're responding
| here on a corporate social platform. Because that's where
| the people are.
|
| What if it were your ox being gored?
| free_rms wrote:
| The combination of twitter and Facebook are a huge percentage
| of public conversation. "Just go start your own twitter" is
| missing the point.
|
| How would you feel if they had banned all talk of russian
| conspiracies the last few years? Would you be making the
| property rights argument still?
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >How would you feel if they had banned all talk of russian
| conspiracies the last few years? Would you be making the
| property rights argument still?
|
| Yes. Because otherwise the Russians (or anyone else) could
| do so on my property and I would have no recourse.
|
| The appropriate way to handle this is to vote with your
| feet/wallet.
|
| Besides, Twitter and Facebook's revenue model is so
| incredibly evil and exploitative, folks should leave there
| even if they weren't blocking whatever it is that you think
| is important.
|
| I did nearly seven years ago and I'm much happier for it.
| kube-system wrote:
| I really hope AT&T starts censoring these damn spam calls. I've
| had 5 today.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >I really hope AT&T starts censoring these damn spam calls.
| I've had 5 today.
|
| I got one (Verizon) just as I started reading the comments
| for this post. :(
|
| There are solutions[1], but you'll need to wait until next
| July[0],at least in the US. It's not a complete solution, but
| it should take care of the vast majority of scam calls.
|
| [0] https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication
|
| [1] https://transnexus.com/whitepapers/stir-and-shaken-
| overview/
| ianai wrote:
| They can't. Because that actually is a technology not built
| to be moderated.
| bigbubba wrote:
| If they had to give me five dollars for every spam call
| that got through, I bet they'd find a way to stop it.
|
| T-mobile already classifies these calls as 'Scam likely'
| and they've never seemed to misclassify any, so obviously
| it can be done.
| ars wrote:
| > and they've never seemed to misclassify any
|
| They do, my local politician robo-calls all his
| constituents with info, and T-Mobile always flags his
| calls as spam.
|
| I guess in a way it's spam since it's unsolicited? But
| it's real info, and relevant to the local people he's
| calling, and keeping people informed is part of his job.
| kube-system wrote:
| Not yet, at least.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN
| im3w1l wrote:
| It's gone so far now that nothing can surprise me anymore. If
| Facebook and Twitter made a joint announcement that Zuckerberg
| won the 2020 election and that Jack Dorsey will be his vp, and
| that anyone disputing this, whether in public or private or off
| platform will be banned - even that would not surprise me. If
| people went along with it so as not to be cut off from their
| likes and "influence", even that would not surprise me.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Can anyone with a Twitter confirm this is happening? I assume
| Twitter will stop censoring it once this goes viral.
|
| Edit: Politics entirely aside. We need the truth on Twitter's
| actions before we lose the chance.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| It's happening to me, although I heard from a friend that a few
| people can still post the link for some reason. I get an error
| message saying the link is banned when I try to tweet it
| myself, and an interstitial warning me it's unsafe when I click
| on any existing link to it.
| throwawa3495 wrote:
| can confirm, it's still happening as of right now for the
| following url: https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/email-reveals-how-
| hunter-biden...
| dilap wrote:
| Yeah, I just tried it, I got:
|
| > We can't complete this request because this link has been
| identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially
| harmful. Visit our Help Center to learn more.
|
| NPR reporter:
|
| > From Twitter spox: "In line with our Hacked Materials Policy,
| as well as our approach to blocking URLs, we are taking action
| to block any links to or images of the material in question on
| Twitter."
|
| https://twitter.com/shannonpareil/status/1316452038465724417
|
| Which is completely nonsense as a reason; you can, to use just
| one of a million examples, freely post this story on twitter:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-tru...
|
| Facebook is also suppressing the story.
|
| Quite remarkable.
| fernandotakai wrote:
| >> From Twitter spox: "In line with our Hacked Materials
| Policy, as well as our approach to blocking URLs, we are
| taking action to block any links to or images of the material
| in question on Twitter."
|
| that's a huge lie. the brazilian version of the intercept got
| actual hacked info from federal judges/prosecutor's
| cellphones and twitter did absolutely nothing -- hell, it was
| on our trending topics for weeks (search for "vaza jato").
|
| we know it was hacked because brazil's federal police got the
| hackers.
|
| seems like twitter really loves to pick-and-choose when to
| apply their hacked material policy.
| calibas wrote:
| Isn't there a major antitrust case pending against Facebook &
| Twitter? This doesn't seem like a good move on their parts.
| throwaway4715 wrote:
| Facebook is NOT blocking the Post from posting. They are limiting
| sharing. This headline is a good example of way it may have been
| the right move. Misinformation spreads fast.
| whateveracct wrote:
| HN is full of unwitting Trump/conspiracy theory enablers with
| their high-minded bottomless "benefit of the doubt" schtick.
| Zpalmtree wrote:
| yesss please tell me what to believe twitter
| Karunamon wrote:
| They literally locked their account.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _corruption by a major-party presidential candidate, Biden._
|
| I thought this was a Hunter Biden story?
| djsumdog wrote:
| The story involves Hunter and his father and alleged family
| corruption.
| partiallypro wrote:
| It's not just that, they (Twitter) were actively suspending
| people that were posting the article from Google/Bing cached
| pages. They have also seemingly prevented the story from trending
| very high or very long.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Whatever your perspective, directly verifiable censorship like
| this is just begging for legal trouble and monopoly
| investigations. Tactically speaking, I would say this is a
| massive mistake from Twitter.
| luckylion wrote:
| > directly verifiable censorship like this is just begging for
| legal trouble and monopoly investigations.
|
| If Biden loses. If he wins, it might very well do the opposite.
| rhino369 wrote:
| I wouldn't bet that the GOP never gets back in power at the
| DOJ.
| rhino369 wrote:
| It's probably also amplifying the story.
| spoopyskelly wrote:
| Back in the day everyone was laughing at idiots doing
| Streissand Effect shit and now they are being praised for
| censorship.
| koolba wrote:
| Technically Facebook did it first:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24778053
| [deleted]
| tootie wrote:
| This is what I don't get. People are screaming for digital
| channels to not allow disinformation even though they are just
| a passive communication channel. Is anyone screaming at
| printing presses for printing the NY Post? It's a garbage
| publication and this information is at least suspicious, but
| why are we holding Twitter to such a high standard of integrity
| and not actually journalists?
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > Is anyone screaming at printing presses for printing the NY
| Post?
|
| You...you mean screaming at the NY post for printing itself?
| Yes, people do that constantly.
| tootie wrote:
| Hahaha. You're not wrong.
| Covzire wrote:
| Let's be honest, the only people screaming for censorship are
| firmly on the left. Controlling "disinformation" is a dog
| whistle for censorship, hoping that average citizens don't
| realize what they're really after. We all know who is going
| to be the moderators in flagging "disinformation" and we all
| know which ideology they overwhelmingly favor. I'd sooner
| trust a pyromaniac as fire chief of my local county than I
| would trust big tech companies to manage "disinformation" on
| my behalf.
| tootie wrote:
| I don't think that's a fair judgement at all. Not when the
| right is actively attacking honest journalism at its source
| while also screaming about anti-conservative bias on social
| media every time they filter disinformation. I would also
| not at all categorize deplatforming disinformation as
| censorship either. Nor incitement to violence. I only agree
| in that it's not a job that any of these companies are
| setup to handle.
|
| EDIT: https://www.npr.org/2020/05/27/863011399/trump-
| threatens-to-...
| p1necone wrote:
| Assuming you're from America - your right is absolutely
| bugfuck insane and blatantly corrupt and the fact that
| you're talking about them as if they're not seriously
| affects my ability to take you seriously.
|
| What is with all these people talking as if the American
| right and left are just two regular sides of the same
| political coin without addressing the massive elephant in
| the room.
| Covzire wrote:
| Thanks for the reply I guess, and the clear reminder why
| so many had to die both in NA and Europe for the first
| amendment to become a reality.
| bleepblorp wrote:
| The only reason measures to curb disinformation would have
| a partisan impact is because conservative parties
| (throughout the industrialized world, not just in the US)
| use disinformation strategies far, far more than do other
| parties.
|
| Center-left/left parties use reality to galvanize their
| base voters into action. Their voters are people who aren't
| pleased with what's happening in their countries and want
| to change it for the better.
|
| In contrast, right wing parties overcome the inherent
| unpopularity of their revealed policy platforms (running on
| platforms of cutting taxes on the very rich while making
| life harder for the average person _is not popular_ ) by
| using disinformation to make a stated platform based on
| fabricated wedge issues.
|
| As such, restricting disinformation will have a partisan
| impact. Within the US, there is no Democratic equivalent to
| Qanon, so anti-disinformation measures that impact the
| likes of Qanon will have no impact on the Democratic party
| whatsoever. This, however, isn't a bad thing.
|
| Functioning societies can have zero tolerance for
| 'alternative facts.' Disagree over goals and
| interpretations, but facts must be accepted by all.
| Democracy requires an informed electorate and there can be
| no functioning democracy when one side is free to invent
| its own version of reality.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Well yea, the left wants misinformation to be
| labeled/censored because they're no willing to lie like the
| right does. Once the left catches on to the need o create
| their own fake news you'll see this from both sides.
| Covzire wrote:
| Are you absolutely sure you would notice when the left
| 'catches on' and starts creating their own fake news?
|
| You might be able to spot it when there is a constant
| parade of anonymous sources that never seem to provide
| any actual proof for bombshell claims meant to hurt Trump
| etc.
|
| Or maybe various newspapers and cable outlets will run
| hundreds of stories and thousands upon thousands of hours
| of ill-sourced coverage into the opposite allegations
| against Trump, that he would be colluding with some
| foreign actor, say, i don't know, Russia?
|
| Maybe prominent Democrat house members might make claims
| again and again to the media that they had seen first
| hand evidence of collusion with Russia. Maybe the jig
| would be up when, under oath they would be asked the same
| questions and they were suddenly not so sure, nor could
| they produce any evidence.
|
| It would be tricky, for sure.
| dx87 wrote:
| At the VP debate Kamala Harris repeated the lie that
| Trump called covid a hoax. Niether party has a monopoly
| on lying to their base.
| youthbrigade wrote:
| He said it at a rally on February 28th.
|
| Source: Video on c-span
| https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4865556/user-clip-trump-
| this-...
| cmdshiftf4 wrote:
| >this is just begging for legal trouble
|
| Fingers crossed.
| leoh wrote:
| Yikes, Streisand effect here
| [deleted]
| icpmacdo wrote:
| They are also censoring it being sent in direct messages. This is
| probably the most farcical gift tech has ever given the GOP
| woeirua wrote:
| I think the NY Post story is going to be discredited pretty
| quickly, and even if it is true, it's nothing new.
|
| That said, I think Twitter massively overreached on their efforts
| regarding this particular story. It would have been far more
| effective to just label these tweets as containing potentially
| misleading information. The story would have died out tomorrow
| and life would've gone on. Instead this has blown up in their
| face spectacularly and directly lends credibility to the idea
| that they have their finger on the scale for Biden. If Trump wins
| reelection I imagine that he will immediately use the full force
| of the DOJ against Twitter.
|
| At this point, Twitter might as well just lean into it, and go
| all out for Biden. They're damned if they do, and damned if they
| don't, so might as well pick a side and hope that you're on the
| winning side.
|
| FB might get off here for only "slowing down" the spread of the
| article, but maybe not.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| I 'm really glad that social media are discrediting themselves.
| Censorship has been going on for years but the blatant covid-
| powered covert misinformation along with the blatant suppression
| of competitors might finally turn off enough people away from
| them. I always though of them as the continuation of reality-show
| trash TV , which always had an audience but nowhere near to the
| proportions it has today (even if it's dressed up with makeup and
| ironed suits). If people learn to finally shut up and listen
| instead of shouting it will be a good thing for public life. Or
| they may just realize there's no way to agree and everyone goes
| their own way. Both are better than a fruitless stalemate.
|
| (easy with the flagging guys. half the comments here are flagged.
| You re supposed to flag spam not anything that you wish wasnt
| there. wishful thinking isnt gonna help your cause)
| rmrfstar wrote:
| Robert Graham [1] pointed out that if the emails are authentic,
| they can be trivially verified via DKIM.
|
| That the email metadata was not released implies the emails are
| either inauthentic, or that the post did not contact someone with
| basic competence in computer forensics.
|
| Either possibility seriously undercuts the article's credibility.
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/ErrataRob/status/1316407424648179717
| dsaavy wrote:
| Absolutely this can be trivially verified and needs to be.
| Release the emails if they're real so they can be verified. But
| also, isn't it the same thing with Trump's tax returns? All
| I've found so far is that the New York Times obtained copies,
| but they haven't actually released them to the public to be
| verified. If anyone can find the actual copies I'd like to see.
|
| We need to take all of the press releases about "leaks" with a
| grain of salt, because I keep seeing "leaks" without actual
| content or verification. It's bullshit and why places that
| provide the actual contents of leaks are so important. Yes,
| certain publications are more trustworthy than others
| historically, but that doesn't mean they get an indefinite pass
| on providing verified information.
| spamizbad wrote:
| The interview with the repair shop owner is also reduces this
| story's already dwindling credibility:
| https://www.thedailybeast.com/man-who-reportedly-gave-hunter...
| taxicab wrote:
| To be fair, the fact that it was published by the New York Post
| already seriously undercuts the article's credibility.
|
| Edit: and also the fact that it was written in collaboration
| with the President's personal lawyer.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| I wrote the story off this morning. The Ukraine stuff didn't
| stick to Trump and there's no reason to think it would be any
| stickier on Biden.
|
| If Twitter is censoring DMs of it though, then there must be
| something to it.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| Why would Twitter allow sharing something in DMs that they
| block in tweets? I'm sure this is just their normal policy -
| block things platform wide.
| ojnabieoot wrote:
| > then there must be something to it.
|
| That "something" is almost certainly "the NY Post story has
| profound credibility problems, to the point that it may very
| well be a hoax, and Jack Dorsey is still reeling from his
| personal moral complicity in the flawed 2016 election."
| [deleted]
| beervirus wrote:
| Have you ever read an article in the mainstream press that
| spent space publishing metadata?
| daveevad wrote:
| don't forget this is politics and the campaign is asking the
| other campaign to make a statement that the emails are
| inauthentic.
|
| revealing the dkim signatures at a later point would be twice
| as effective from a political and public opinion standpoint.
| throwawa3495 wrote:
| it's honestly irrelevant about the credibility of the emails
| and other data at this point, its the blanket censorship of
| this article that's now the real story.
| alkonaut wrote:
| In a normal situation, publication would be followed by
| scrutiny, possibly correction, more information. Incorrect
| information isn't such a big problem then.
|
| One major problem right now is that it's 3 weeks from an
| election. Scrutiny and fact checks would risking being only
| after the election. I'm happy to see the requirements for
| credibility tightened right now, for issues related to the
| election.
| gscott wrote:
| Considering many people have already voted and probably do
| not care about this issue it would be unlikely to affect
| the outcome of the election anyway.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| How could that be true when the general consensus is that
| Comey's reopening of Hillary's case greatly swung the
| 2016 election?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That trick is probably less likely to work this second
| time around.
|
| Not that it has stopped Pompeo from teasing more Hillary
| emails in recent weeks, of course.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Is it? Because the factuality of the story seems like a
| pretty big deal here. If it's completely bogus, how is it
| different from any of those Russian trollfarm posts that the
| US government was worried about?
| paganel wrote:
| > Because the factuality of the story seems like a pretty
| big deal here.
|
| WMD were non-factual, but even so nobody got censored back
| then (worse, nobody went to prison for going to war on non-
| factual information).
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| It's different because it was written by a major American
| newspaper. Twitter should not be exercising editorial
| control over the news.
| davismwfl wrote:
| It could be easily argued while they are not rewriting
| the story they selectively choose the facts they present
| as "fact checked" information. In the recent past both FB
| and Twitter have linked to "fact checked"
| articles/sources that represented only the narrative they
| wanted you to read. If they wanted to show neutral
| behavior they could have linked to articles that
| represented both sides of an argument which would keep
| their independence and educate their audience better
| since rarely is one side 100% correct.
| drcongo wrote:
| Is the NY Post considered a serious newspaper over there?
| SamReidHughes wrote:
| Yes, it's a serious newspaper.
|
| But it is known to use sans serif fonts and hire people
| that went to public schools.
| rabuse wrote:
| Is information being gated by private universities, that
| only the elite have access to? This may have had validity
| in the pre-internet era, but information is everywhere
| now. There's nothing wrong with "public education".
| throwawa3495 wrote:
| >hire people that went to public schools.
|
| You say this like it's an insult.
| kthxbye123 wrote:
| No, it's universally considered a far-right tabloid,
| similar to the Daily Mail or the Sun in the UK.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| It's one of those papers in the strange intersection of
| "mainstream tabloid". It's clearly not serious, as you
| can see from a quick glance at their typical cover pages,
| but it's also not one of the papers everyone knows is
| untrustworthy schlock.
| frob wrote:
| The New York Post is not a serious newspaper; it is a
| sensationalist tabloid. Sometimes the NYPost will report
| on real news, but I believe absolutely nothing they
| report until it is verified by the New York Times,
| Washington Post, LA Times, or other major broadcast
| outlet with actual journalistic standards.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Agreed, and I don't mean to imply any sort of endorsement
| of the NY Post.
| trident1000 wrote:
| None of them are serious. NY Times made a big deal out of
| trumps taxes when everyone knows depreciation offsets
| revenue in real estate, its 101 stuff. You get taxed when
| you sell the asset which happens infrequently but in
| large magnitude. Most people in the industry were
| laughing at the gaslighting they did on that story but
| they fooled their little pawn readers. Just one example
| out of many. Every news source is full of shit even the
| ones that are supposed to be reputable.
| whateveracct wrote:
| You realize the real story re: Trump's asset depreciation
| is that he reported one valuation to the govt and one to
| his banks when seeking loans, right?
| trident1000 wrote:
| The story headline that was coordinated and gaslight was
| "trump didnt pay any tax". Everything else was anecdotal,
| I didnt look into this specific matter because I was
| rolling my eyes from the start. If they cant be honest
| about the main story I'm not following them for the rest
| of the allegations.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Reporting one set of finances to the government and
| another to banks is a crime.
| trident1000 wrote:
| We have no information on this except what the NYT's
| reports in half truth. For instance if there was a time
| gap between reporting that could cause a mismatch as
| finances change over time. You can also have retroactive
| amendments as almost every major company has which are
| reported in different years. I havent dug deep into this
| as its not an important topic for me but I just wouldnt
| take the around the edges reporting at face value from a
| source as biased as the times.
| shripadk wrote:
| > New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, or other
| major broadcast outlet with actual journalistic
| standards.
|
| "Actual journalistic standards" yeah right! They
| literally carried out a fake news story about Nick
| Sandmann without any sort of verification. CNN settled
| 250 million $ lawsuit followed by Washington Post. Other
| publications are in the line next. They have zero
| credibility... especially after causing irreparable
| damage to a child's reputation by labelling him a racist
| when he was anything but. The real racists at the rally
| were those who accused this kid of racism. For full video
| of the actual altercation you can watch here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwNyOD8FIQk and decide
| for yourself.
|
| Demonstration 1 of so called "Journalistic Standard": htt
| ps://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/24/business/media/washington
| ...
|
| and
|
| Demonstration 2 of so called "Journalistic Standard":
| https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-new-york-times-
| rollin...
| shripadk wrote:
| To all those who are downvoting me for showing the actual
| truth and defending a child from fake accusation of
| racism I have just one question: is your bias towards
| your favorite news outlets such that you will disregard
| even the truth that is staring at your face? What about
| basic human decency where a child is being vilified and
| called a racist without any form of actual verification?
| Don't you down-voters have any shame in siding with these
| news outlets that are in it just for money and nothing
| else? They have zero moral compass and would readily use
| a child for their 15 seconds of viral content. Yet you
| down-voters support them! So blinded by ignorance!
| Unbelievable!
| spoopyskelly wrote:
| You aren't allowed to go against the propaganda arm of
| the Democratic Party here.
| gotoeleven wrote:
| Im genuinely curious what journalistic standards you
| think these mainstream outlets possess after all the
| Russia nonsense. Can you point to an example of any
| recent story where these outlets have displayed "actual
| journalistic standards"?
| Hamuko wrote:
| Isn't it distribution control rather than editorial
| control?
| koolba wrote:
| Limiting distribution to filter out what you don't want
| to rise to the top has the same effect as explicitly
| picking winners.
|
| Think of it like shooting the tires of all the cars you
| want to lose in a race. Sure you didn't push the winner
| across the finish line, but you made it damn near
| impossible for anyone else to even get there.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Yeah, but that's still not editorial control. And maybe
| we do actually want Twitter to pick some winners. I don't
| think the platform needs any more death threats, Russian-
| backed misinformation campaigns or other bullshit.
| rightbyte wrote:
| What if Russian missinormation is a Russian
| misinformation campaigne to induce paranoia and there are
| no actual misinformation ...
|
| How about a straight forward algorithm for the feed
| instead of some hugely adbiased mess.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I don't think so. You could perhaps make an argument that
| banning _all_ NY Post articles would be distribution
| control, although even then I 'm skeptical. But if I
| picked up a physical copy of the New York Post, and found
| that the newsstand had snipped just this one article out
| with a pair of scissors, I'd call that an unambiguous act
| of editorial control and censorship.
| s9w wrote:
| they didn't censor the completely made up hysterectomy
| story.
|
| also: c-f "russia"
| jtbayly wrote:
| Of course the factuality is a big deal. But Twitter didn't
| discover the story was false and then remove it. Rather
| they decided that because the information came from a hack
| that it couldn't be posted on their site. If anything they
| confirmed it was true by doing this.
|
| Magine if they had applied this to WikiLeaks.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Twitter is perfectly within their rights to remove content
| they consider to be spam or not fit quality guidelines as is
| the case here.
|
| Not really sure since when Twitter is required to host and
| aid in the spread of garbage
| throwawa3495 wrote:
| Oh, i definitely agree that as a private company Twitter is
| well within its rights to censor what it believes is
| "misinformation" but an important line has been crossed
| today by Twitter and Facebook.
|
| A story about potential corruption of a candidate for the
| US president has been censored by two of the largest
| information brokers in the world. Also interestingly, no
| denial from Joe Biden about the authenticity of these
| emails. Wouldnt that be the first thing you'd do if this
| wasnt true? lol
| the_only_law wrote:
| > Also interestingly, no denial from Joe Biden about the
| authenticity of these emails. Wouldnt that be the first
| thing you'd do if this wasnt true?
|
| I assume most politicians at the presidential candidate
| level have some sort of PR team that works to come up
| with some official response to these sorts of
| controversies
| throwawa3495 wrote:
| "JOE BIDEN SPOKESMAN ANDREW BATES hits back at the N.Y.
| POST STORY, via NATASHA BERTRAND and KYLE CHENEY:
| "Investigations by the press, during impeachment, and
| even by two Republican-led Senate committees whose work
| was decried as 'not legitimate' and political by a GOP
| colleague have all reached the same conclusion: that Joe
| Biden carried out official U.S. policy toward Ukraine and
| engaged in no wrongdoing. Trump Administration officials
| have attested to these facts under oath.
|
| "The New York Post never asked the Biden campaign about
| the critical elements of this story. They certainly never
| raised that Rudy Giuliani - whose discredited conspiracy
| theories and alliance with figures connected to Russian
| intelligence have been widely reported - claimed to have
| such materials. Moreover, we have reviewed Joe Biden's
| official schedules from the time and no meeting, as
| alleged by the New York Post, ever took place."
|
| idk, read for yourself
|
| https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook-
| pm/2020/10/14/...
| Covzire wrote:
| Why would they have documented illegal/potentially
| illegal activity in the "official schedule" anyway? The
| claim that the official schedule somehow supports the
| rebuttal is pretty flimsy.
| the_only_law wrote:
| I mean I don't particularly have much stake in whether
| its true or not, I'm just saying I'm not shocked he's not
| responding to it immediately for vaguely similar reasons
| to why people tell you not to talk to the police without
| a lawyer, whether you're innocent or not.
| throwawa3495 wrote:
| that's a fair point, just if its not true its pretty easy
| to say "not true, fake news" instead, what the answer
| that's provided is "we checked the schedule and didn't
| see it there" which is kinda suspicious.
|
| Like the censorship of "misinformation" would be more
| persuasive then I think.
| mcphage wrote:
| > just if its not true its pretty easy to say "not true,
| fake news" instead, what the answer that's provided is
| "we checked the schedule and didn't see it there" which
| is kinda suspicious.
|
| Wait, so you're saying that providing an alibi as to why
| the claim is impossible is _more suspicious_ than
| dismissing it as fake news without a defense? I 'm not
| sure how else to interpret what you're saying, so please
| correct me if I'm wrong, but that position is
| mindboggling to me.
| throwawa3495 wrote:
| Just because it wasn't on Biden's "official" schedule,
| doesn't mean it didn't happen. My point is that saying
| "the meeting didnt happen" is less suspicious than saying
| "We checked the official schedule and find no record that
| the meeting happened"
|
| Bc, of course, light bribery probably does not go down
| when you're on the official schedule
| mcphage wrote:
| "The meeting didn't happen" isn't what you said in your
| previous comment.
| throwawa3495 wrote:
| I dont understand what we are arguing abt anymore. You
| can see the Biden campaign's response in the above and
| draw your own conclusions
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >Wouldnt that be the first thing you'd do if this wasnt
| true?
|
| If i was Joe Biden and the yellow press came after me
| honestly I'd do exactly what Joe Biden does and ignore
| them rather than giving them oxygen.
|
| If people like Biden or Clinton responded every time
| someone tries to capitalise on some bullshit attached to
| their name they'd not be doing anything else
| spoopyskelly wrote:
| Biden is ignoring them because he has no idea what's
| going on, not because of some grand strategies.
| throwawa3495 wrote:
| Biden put a "lid" on speaking directly to the press
| today. idk folks, i was born at night but it wasn't last
| night.
| [deleted]
| quest88 wrote:
| But what should be done about tech enabling the spread of
| false information?
| rmrfstar wrote:
| Both are relevant, and both are concerning.
| benmmurphy wrote:
| It wouldn't prove they were authentic. It would just prove they
| were sent through gmail's servers. If you trusted gmail then it
| would prove the username, time and content was legitimate.
|
| All it looks like to me is some Russian username. I don't see
| how it ties to a real person. I haven't read the article so
| maybe the post explains that bit.
| donmcronald wrote:
| It would be immediately obvious if they were a poor quality
| fake though. Like if someone typed it up in Word and exported
| it to PDF they wouldn't be able to produce the DKIM
| signature.
| troughway wrote:
| Much like the HN thread that applauded FB getting rid of some
| thousands of accounts related to "right wingers", QAnon, et
| cetera, I equally applaud this admirable move.
|
| I hope that FB, Twitter, Google, Cloudflare and others continue
| to block and close accounts to prevent the intervention of
| democracy as much as possible.
|
| A similar case to this may have been the reason why Hillary
| Clinton lost the presidential election in 2016. So these are all
| parties who are trying to right the wrongs here done by
| destructive state actors from abroad.
|
| These are all companies who own the servers that this content
| sits on, and it's well within their rights to get rid of it if
| and when they wish to.
|
| If you don't want your content removed from there, then don't
| post there and don't use their services. Simple as that.
| partiallypro wrote:
| Right, but what if the story is 100% legit, and the people
| interfering in democracy are actually FB, Twitter, Google and
| Cloudflare? All of which are heavy lobbyists, and have their
| own interests at heart. Shouldn't they just be elevating
| journalists that are casting doubts on it, or going in to try
| to confirm or refute the story...instead of just outright
| blocking something that isn't verifiably false? This isn't
| remotely the same as QAnon or antivaxxing, as that are
| verifiably false.
| dionian wrote:
| They been steadily ramping up their efforts to silence voices. It
| starts with the people you dont like, the Alex Jones and the
| Richard Spencers. And now it's come to censoring news, while
| using Orwellian excuses like "fact-checking" and "harmful
| content".
|
| This must be stopped and it must be stopped now. Trump is right,
| we should remove their special FCC protections.
|
| The American People do not need Silicon Valley to tell us what we
| can and cannot read.
| throwawa3495 wrote:
| weird that there is actually no mention of these materials being
| hacked from anywhere though, or did I miss that?
|
| It seems like this computer shop fellow voluntarily gave over
| this hard drive only after the computer in question became his
| property (as a result of someone not collecting the computer and
| not paying the bill)
|
| LOL now this post has been flagged wtfff
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| It's worth noting that HN flags are user-sourced, so unlike on
| Twitter that doesn't necessarily reflect administrators
| stepping in to kill the discussion.
| throwawa3495 wrote:
| yes fair, was only suggesting that this controversy kind of
| feeds on itself and will keep growing.
| likeafox wrote:
| >It seems like this computer shop fellow voluntarily gave over
| this hard drive only after the computer in question became his
| property (as a result of someone not collecting the computer
| and not paying the bill)
|
| To say this strains credulity would be be a massive
| understatement.
| jboggan wrote:
| As of yesterday if you had told me that Twitter would start
| banning NY Post stories from its platform I would have told
| you that it strains credulity.
| throwawa3495 wrote:
| wait though, bc i really dont see it in any of these
| articles:
|
| who has been hacked?
| the_only_law wrote:
| Interestingly they failed to stop discussion of it from becoming
| a top trending item.
| Plough_Jogger wrote:
| Also interesting that they provided a dedicated summary of the
| topic for the related trending hashtag
| https://twitter.com/search?q=%23HunterBiden&src=trend_click&...
| gotoeleven wrote:
| I think at this point it might be easier for Twitter and Facebook
| to just provide a list of pre-approved messages you're allowed to
| send to their platforms.
| benmmurphy wrote:
| I think it is crazy that twitter has gone down this path. Being
| the arbiter of truth makes their job much harder and doesn't seem
| to have a big upside. If they have an agenda they want to push
| the upside might be there but otherwise it's just a perpetual
| shitshow.
| ojnabieoot wrote:
| I mean, their previous path was "it's fine for us to profit
| handsomely from dishonest propaganda since we're not personally
| responsible for it, even if that propaganda gets implicated in
| the theft of an election or a genocide campaign." This turns
| out to have its own issues! And it's not specifically about a
| leftist/progressive agenda: it is plain unethical to profit off
| propaganda which you know to be deceitful and dangerous,
| regardless of what political intent.
|
| While it is true that Twitter has cracked the whip against the
| right far more than the left since they started regulation of
| misinformation, this is reflective of Twitter being _unbiased_
| - the problem is the 21st-century Western right.
| runarberg wrote:
| Just step back a little and consider the alternatives here. NYP
| is pretty obviously smearing for a major civil event here, a
| civil event that has the potential of causing serious harm to
| the second largest democracy in the world. If the social media
| companies would just allow this smearing to go unhindered, they
| are basically saying: "We don't care if bad actors use our
| platform to undermine our democracy," which is nuts.
| TMWNN wrote:
| >NYP is pretty obviously smearing for a major civil event
| here
|
| What makes this "obviously smearing"?
| runarberg wrote:
| 1. The sensationalism of the original title. The accusation
| here is that the candidate's son introduced a Ukrainian
| businessman to him. This is hardly a smoking gun evidence
| against the father doing anything wrong.
|
| 2. There is no evidence that the emails are in fact real,
| and nothing is even offered to that extent.
|
| 3. The article does not come from a reputable news source.
| In fact it comes from a news source with serious damage to
| it's reputation.
|
| 4. No other major news outlet is picking this story up,
| further undermining the credibility of the article.
|
| If I was a social media company I wouldn't want to touch
| this with a 10 meter pole.
| extropy wrote:
| 0. Event with high reputation impact potential, just
| before the election.
|
| Seriously we should have a 4 week quiet period. So people
| can sort out though all the dirt and make sense of what
| is real.
|
| This just pushses everyone into sensory overload to blind
| out any rational thought.
| googthrowaway42 wrote:
| Any attempt to bring information to light that is harmful
| to the Cathedral is considered smearing.
| michannne wrote:
| We live in a country where we have elected officials and laws
| to deal with individuals and organizations that undermine our
| democracy. I don't need some random collective of people
| headquarted in a random state to decide those things for me.
| mullingitover wrote:
| Conservatives: we don't need the government censoring
| things! Trust the free market
|
| Free market: __censors things __
|
| Conservatives: no, not like that
| runarberg wrote:
| > We live in a country where we have elected officials and
| laws to deal with individuals and organizations that
| undermine our democracy.
|
| This is not entirely true. I'm not sure what the law is on
| slander (which would be the law in question here, I
| believe), and if social media companies would be breaking
| the law if they allow slander to be distributed on their
| platform.
|
| But regardless if it turns out that the story is bogus, and
| the NYP is charged with slander, but this article had a
| widespread distribution and is successful in swaying voters
| on a false claim. Then the damage to democracy is quite
| significant, but the NYP gets away with a fairly minor
| charge of slander.
| Karunamon wrote:
| Social media companies _would not_ be breaking the law in
| this case, because of section 230. The slandered party
| can seek a court order to compel the disclosure of the
| original poster 's identity, and another to get the
| libelous post yanked, but the platform is explicitly
| immune.
| extropy wrote:
| Things are changing. If last 4 years has shown us anything,
| it's that we cannot control the "news" anymore.
|
| There needs to be a new solution. And this is a step
| towards that. Might be the wrong step...
| djsumdog wrote:
| Facebook, Twitter, Reddit et. al. are now in Orwell's land of
| "Ministry of Truth" .. they are telling the people what is
| reliable "news" and what is not.
|
| It's getting pretty insane out there.
| WalterGR wrote:
| No.
|
| The Ministry of Truth and the protagonist of 1984, it's
| employee, were engaged in revising the written record to make
| it match what the Party wanted in the present.
|
| They were also the only source of information.
|
| Twitter is not doing the former and isn't the latter, so
| equating it with Minitrue is 100% factually incorrect.
| dsaavy wrote:
| Reddit absolutely revises written record, like this:
| https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/23/reddit-huffman-trump/
|
| So I'd certainly say Reddit is at least comparable.
| Additionally, I see fact checks on tons of conservative
| posts on Facebook and Twitter (rightfully so most of the
| time). But the same procedure isn't followed for liberal
| posts.
|
| I haven't seen any possible misinformation warnings on
| Facebook or Twitter for something like: people claiming the
| BLEXIT supporters at Trump's recent speech were paid.
| According to ABC News, some supporters travel and
| room/board were paid (but they didn't release any of the
| emails, just allegedly quoted them). So it would be
| misleading to say that BLEXIT supporters were paid to
| attend the speech, it should be labeled as a "possibly
| misleading" statement like the claims from the right
| typically are. I mean, the emails haven't even been
| released and/or verified as existing and people are just
| running with it because it's ABC?
|
| Edit: would love to know why I'm getting downvotes for
| providing a comment with a source and a different
| viewpoint?
| djsumdog wrote:
| Sure not everything matches up. The Ministry of Truth was
| government, but in America the same type of group exists
| and it's private. They don't have to rewrite history.
| They're rewriting the present.
| WalterGR wrote:
| _They 're rewriting the present._
|
| That's typically referred to, at its most specific: fact
| checking, less specifically: news reporting, and most
| generally: making a claim of fact... when one disagrees
| with the check, report, or claim.
| tootie wrote:
| That's only true if they are doing it in bad faith. And if
| they were controlling information at the source. You can
| still easily find this story on nypost.com. I agree this is
| dangerous territory for Twitter, but it's 100% within their
| rights to do so. They can censor content completely
| arbitrarily if they want. Consumers will vote with their
| feet. Either they like this or they don't.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >That's only true if they are doing it in bad faith.
|
| Every tyrant ever thought they were doing what was good.
| Nobody ever does bad things just to be evil. They do them
| because they honestly believe the end justifies the means.
| We tend to give a pass to actions taken toward ends we
| agree with.
|
| To quote a cartoon out of context:
|
| "Even Hitler cared about Germany or something"
|
| Edit: Found it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySgshytcIv0
| jim-jim-jim wrote:
| It has a clear upside. I don't think it's a secret at this
| point that the values of Silicon Valley are in sync with those
| of the right wing of the Democratic party. These companies are
| acting in their self interest.
|
| We can make appeals to the ideal of free speech or point out
| instances of hypocrisy all we want, but it's a futile and
| demoralizing thing to focus on. It probably makes more sense to
| view Facebook and Twitter as media outlets with their own
| editorial agendas, just like the Washington Post, Economist,
| Daily Mail, etc. And then disengage if their agenda is at odds
| with yours.
| quest88 wrote:
| It's not as crazy if you think of all the people who yell
| "Something should be done about big tech enabling the spread of
| false information!!!!!".
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| If I was a Twitter or Facebook investor, I have one question:
|
| What did you expect was going to happen?
|
| Honestly. Did nobody have the foresight at Facebook or Twitter to
| think that this wouldn't blow up? Did nobody think, just once,
| that this might invite regulatory action or be in news headlines?
|
| And if honestly nobody thought this might happen, I'd want the
| entire management and "safety" team replaced for having no
| foresight for their actions whatsoever.
| likeafox wrote:
| What's the probability that the story they're blocking is 100%
| bullshit? And if they have evidence or signals of that, does
| that weigh in to your opinion on their intervention?
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| The majority of things on Twitter and Facebook are bullshit.
| How many politicians and "pundits" are allowed to blatantly
| lie on Twitter? Not sure why this is different.
| likeafox wrote:
| It's a newspaper collaborating with the president's
| personal lawyer, who is already the subject of
| investigations into persons in violation of the Foreign
| Agent Registration Act, during the run up to an incredibly
| contentious election after these networks - Facebook and
| Twitter- have already been accused of allowing rampant
| disinformation campaigns. If they had reason to believe
| that the information was part of a malicious campaign, I
| can see why that might spur them to action.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| > It's a newspaper collaborating with the president's
| personal lawyer
|
| The President is still allowed to tweet almost anything
| he wants, so this is still very selective censorship.
| likeafox wrote:
| Evidently Twitter feels that gives him special
| privileges, but they've been flagging his posts as
| possible misinformation for months. Clearly they're
| trying to find a way to navigate a difficult situation. I
| think they should be erring toward better control of
| disinformation, certainly not being more laissez-faire
| about a problem that is destroying the world.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| > I think they should be erring toward better control of
| disinformation,
|
| Maybe Twitter should just shut down for a month. That's
| my point, there's _so much_ untruth on Twitter, even
| specifically related to politics and the election, that
| it 's just impossible to intelligently "curate" the
| platform. There's no apparent principle in what they
| allow and what they don't.
|
| > certainly not being more laissez-faire about a problem
| that is destroying the world.
|
| It wasn't a story about climate change, or nuclear
| proliferation.
| aokiji wrote:
| He published a video (still on YouTube) with a unifying
| message after the death of George Floyd. Jack Dorsey on
| Twitter deleted it on the basis of copyright claims. If
| copyright had been truly infringed, it would have been
| taken down from YouTube.
|
| Twitter is just an extreme example of a social media
| platform acting like a publisher and applying blatant
| censorship.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| Is that Cohen when you say Trump's lawyer? Do you have a
| source for that out of interest? It smells a bit like
| that National Review article Cohen planted about Cruz's
| dad killing JFK or something in 2016.
| likeafox wrote:
| I'm referring to Giuliani, who is the New York Post's
| source for these alleged emails and photos, acting as a
| supposed intermediary for a repair shop employee.
| Giuliani has been tasked for two years with digging up
| dirt on Biden, and every single story he has pushed has
| in my view, been outright fabricated agenda pushing based
| on narratives spun by dubious third parties.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| I was just looking it up to correct myself, looks like
| Cohen is back in prison so.. probably not him :) yea
| Giuliani, makes sense, I'd be amazed if it's not just an
| outright fabrication.
| vl wrote:
| Pitchforks are out, once current election circus is over, they
| will come for FB, Twitter and YouTube. Politicians on either
| side are scared and don't want such strong entities have
| control over information.
| lumost wrote:
| Regulation of online media is all but inevitable.
|
| Historically all media sources were directly compared by
| individuals and groups. You used to get the paper from a news
| stand/paper boy and could glance at all the headlines in
| comparison to each other, your colleagues knew what the
| tabloids were running and what the different takes on the
| headlines were. In the radio and TV age, a small number of
| commentators were directly compared by channel surfers on the
| nightly news.
|
| We're now in an unfortunate scenario where individuals only see
| algorithmically curated bubbles of news and facts that
| reinforce their world views regardless of those facts
| correspondence to reality. They've elected politicians that
| parrot those facts and world views back to them.
|
| Breaking down these bubbles or removing the peddlers of
| alternate facts is required for a functional society (as well
| as a healthy platform). Neither of these actions is likely to
| be well received by all parties.
|
| History does not look kindly on governments that denied
| reality.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I don't have a compelling argument for why you're wrong, but
| it really seems like this is a weightier claim than you're
| giving it credit for. If social harmony is a sufficient
| reason for censorship, is there any basis left for objecting
| to the Great Firewall?
| lumost wrote:
| I don't believe social harmony is a sufficient reason for
| censorship _or_ that censorship is the correct approach.
| There are many potential remedies including.
|
| - Mandatory content identifiers tags on content/claims for
| unfactual or unverified reporting reaching more than X
| people.
|
| - Identifying frequent reporters of misinformation and
| identifying them as such when presenting/resharing
| information.
|
| - Reducing the spread of misinformation in algorithmic
| sources such as newsfeeds/search rankings.
|
| None of these approaches removes or censors the content,
| but they do identify it and help place it in the
| appropriate context. In the 90s I had to go looking for
| claims that the president had dinner with aliens every
| Tuesday, today such news articles are pushed via feeds.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| That makes a lot of sense to me.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| They probably expected it would go over like the Alex Jones
| thing or the warning messages on Trump's tweets, with a brief
| burst of interest followed by adjustment to the new consensus
| that some censorship is justified for the sake of social
| harmony. (And they may yet be right - there were headlines
| about those two things too.)
| cft wrote:
| The just consequence should be that they should be considered
| publishers, rather than the republishers. And thus lose their
| 230 protection from civil litigation.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| Isn't the entire point of 230 to allow platforms to be
| moderated without being treated as publishers?
| cft wrote:
| No, the original point of 230 was to allow platforms to
| republish user content without bearing civil liability for
| such content.
| dodobirdlord wrote:
| No, the point was to allow platforms to republish user
| content _and moderate it_ without bearing civil liability
| for the content. Case law prior to section 230 had
| established that platforms only had liability if they
| engaged in moderation, but had no liability if they did
| not moderate in any way. Section 230 was created to
| address that absurd result of existing law. Protecting
| platforms that engage in moderation is the _whole point_
| , platforms that don't moderate are already protected.
| This is why nobody has suggested that AT&T would have
| civil liability for posts on Facebook even though their
| wires carry the post to you. Dumb pipes don't accrue
| liability.
| [deleted]
| trident1000 wrote:
| Its not even enough. Big tech is too dangerous to not
| regulate. When they literally decide if politicians get
| elected or not by controlling what the voters see, weve
| crossed the line.
| trident1000 wrote:
| They are utilities at this point I hope they get treated this
| way. The monopolistic public square of debate cant have kings
| in charge.
|
| Also can you imagine what would happen if big tech oligopolies
| teamed up with one political party for a "I scratch your back
| you scratch mine" situation. You could have a 1 party political
| system for eternity and essentially remove the democratic
| system.
|
| The threat of big tech oppression is significant. And if you
| watched the movie "the social dilemma" the oppression and
| political strong arming by big tech is already happening in
| countries outside the US.
| [deleted]
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| Also in this category of "did you actually think this through":
|
| Andy Stone, of the Facebook communications department, calling
| for fact checks while gloating about reducing its circulation.
|
| https://twitter.com/andymstone/status/1316395902479872000
|
| (n.b. "gloating" is interpretation -- if it is not the case
| that this is gloating then a key problem is that this tweet
| leaves itself very open to this interpretation.)
| [deleted]
| tboyd47 wrote:
| They probably have been doing this for a while, and this was
| just the first time they got called out for it.
|
| Regulatory action has been in the works for some time. Whether
| or not it goes through depends only on politics. The mainstream
| media already doesn't like them for eating their lunch. Twitter
| has nothing to lose by doing this. It will damage Facebook's
| brand identity as being a "free speech" platform, but that's
| about as factual as Google's "don't be evil" brand or Apple's
| "privacy first" brand.
| bjourne wrote:
| This time they went too far though. Banning Alex Jones? He's
| a crackpot. Banning Mila Yannipopoulus? He trolled people.
| Censoring Trump tweets? Ok... Censoring the very much
| anticipated October surprise involving Hunter Biden? No way.
|
| I don't think anyone either on the left or the right thinks
| this move was a good idea. It will just make the Hunter Biden
| story blow up even harder.
| throwaway316943 wrote:
| Streisand effect in 3, 2, 1...
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Actually, Twitter has one massive thing to lose: Section 230.
| Already, senators are taking this as the perfect reason to
| repeal or reform 230, and that would directly impact twitter.
|
| Remember how there were hearings about 230 just two weeks
| ago? Twitter just shot themselves and their arguments for 230
| in the foot with this. Which again begs the question from an
| investor's point of view: What did you expect was going to
| happen? Did you seriously not think this would affect the 230
| debate?
| tzs wrote:
| Repeal of section 230 would probably result in Twitter
| blocking a lot more things than they do now.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Yeah, remember when they didn't let anything about Wikileaks
| get shared on their platforms?
| ccn0p wrote:
| Ya, they have. Every major social network censors constantly
| and they get called out all the time but because the
| censoring favors a liberal agenda the mainstream media
| doesn't want to talk about it because they're also hugely
| biased (as are tech companies). Read Left Turn by Tim
| Groseclose or watch one of many people who talk about. I
| always like Larry Elder's perspective [1][2].
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJAQ2QB6WVQ [2]
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-CugJieq2I
| Arthanos wrote:
| This post has a very odd tone, as if a private company
| enforcing their policy to remove unverified & leaked personal
| correspondence of a private citizen is some unquestionable
| moral wrongdoing that's apparently going to blow up. Surprised
| to see this as at the top, on HN.
|
| National Review is a conservative wing-nut website trying to
| turn this non-story into fuel for their censorship culture war.
| ballenf wrote:
| Been years since I read anything from National Review, so I
| was surprised to see them called a "conservative wing-nut
| website".
|
| Even the wikipedia entry for them seems to counter that
| assessment pretty strongly:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Review
| free_rms wrote:
| The pentagon papers were unverified and leaked.
|
| More recently and less impressively, the entire world of
| Russia-gate stuff was unverified and leaked
|
| Would you say the same if that stuff was censored?
| jtbayly wrote:
| How in the world can anybody dispute this!?!
|
| Add WikiLeaks to the list too.
|
| People can down vote all they want, but doing so just
| confirms that the only way to satisfy them is for Twitter
| to pick sides and apply its rules evenly unfairly on behalf
| of one political party.
| daveevad wrote:
| > their policy to remove unverified & leaked personal
| correspondence
|
| do you think their policy is evenly applied across their
| platform?
| taxicab wrote:
| Not only that, but IMO context matters here. We are 20 days
| away from the election. People are standing in lines to vote
| as we speak.
|
| If this was published at any other time (and the material for
| the story has apparently existed since December) the public
| and the professional media would have had time to scrutinize
| it, discuss its shortcomings, etc.
|
| But, as Winston Churchill said "A lie gets halfway around the
| world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." We
| can't do that and being complicit in spreading misinformation
| in the middle of an election is, I'm sure, still a strong
| memory that social media companies have from the 2016
| election.
|
| My guess as to how this will go is that it will take a week
| or two to authoritatively discredit the article, but by then,
| if left unchecked, the article will have already done its
| damage. The cynic in me says that the originators of the
| article already know that there isn't truth there and that
| this is the point of releasing it while people are voting.
| dexen wrote:
| Those weren't hacked or leaked. The story is much simpler,
| and the provenance of the files is not in question:
|
| _By falsely claiming the records were hacked, rather than
| the legal property of the repair shop following payment
| default by Hunter Biden, Twitter is itself deliberately
| spreading false information to justify its illegal election
| interference._ [1]
|
| --
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1316484977928941570
| kthxbye123 wrote:
| The provenance of the files is not questioned by far-right
| political operatives like Sean Davis who are pushing this
| story in the first place, but to anybody with half a brain
| cell and an ounce of skepticism the whole story stinks.
| Just listen to this interview with the owner of the repair
| shop these files purportedly came from, who changes his
| story about a half-dozen times in the span of sixty
| minutes:
|
| https://www.thedailybeast.com/man-who-reportedly-gave-
| hunter...
|
| It's not even clear that it was Hunter who dropped off the
| laptops in the first place!
| blhack wrote:
| Did twitter censor all stories regarding the claim that Trump
| paid $750 in taxes?
|
| In case the point I'm making isn't obvious: the NYT never
| published their source for that, and still haven't. If
| twitter is removing stories for having dubious sources, then
| that story should not pass muster either.
|
| If they're removing stories for having "hacked" (or in the
| case of both this story about Hunter Biden, or Trumps taxes:
| "leaked") sources, then discussion of BOTH of these stories
| should be banned.
| rabuse wrote:
| Exactly, and it's now spouted as a "fact" in multiple
| online communities I frequent.
| rhino369 wrote:
| The media commonly relies on second hand accounts of leaked
| documents ("persons familiar with the contents of [X]
| document"), including private documents.
|
| Something like this has never been censored before.
|
| It's not like they are taking down a post from a nobody. The
| NY Post is a major publication.
|
| It's twitter saying they know better than the NY Post. That
| is a major step that I don't think has ever been taken
| before.
| JungleGymSam wrote:
| So sayeth Arthanos!
| mizzack wrote:
| not coincidentally on trending:
|
| Streisand Effect
| annexrichmond wrote:
| Facebook also censors joebiden.info in private messages
| paganel wrote:
| Works for me on the desktop version, i.e. it isn't censored, I
| haven't checked though in their direct Facebook Messenger app.
| Also, am not from the US, have sent the joebiden.info link for
| testing to my gf who's also not from the US.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| I'm struggling to see how this story is evidence of anything.
|
| Steve Bannon--one of Trump's chief cronies--provided a mixed bag
| of allegedly stolen content from a laptop with some easily
| contrived "evidence" against Biden and Trump.
|
| There don't seem to be any direct ties even to Hunter Biden, let
| alone his dad. Publishing this is a gift to Trump.
|
| History may not repeat itself, but it sure rhymes.
| [deleted]
| galkk wrote:
| I'm Ukrainian citizen and I'm truly outraged about entire Hunter
| Biden/Burisma story.
|
| Vultures, praying on a weak country.
| eranimo wrote:
| Really confused why right-wing disinformation is trending on
| Hacker News
| esja wrote:
| Tech censorship is extremely relevant to many people here, both
| professionally and personally.
| spoopyskelly wrote:
| Don't worry, it will go back to left-wing disinformation with
| the next news cycle.
| spoiler wrote:
| This whole post looks like "50 Shades of Comments" with all the
| mixed levels of downvotes.
| madrox wrote:
| This seems like an interesting corollary to the Streisand Effect,
| where shutting down means of spreading information makes the
| information spread further.
| bgorman wrote:
| The fact that this article is flagged is alarming. This is a
| relevant news story directly related to how technology companies
| influence public perception.
|
| Like it or not, the New York Post is a widely distributed
| newspaper in the US.
|
| Once the precedent for censoring a newspaper has been established
| there is nothing stopping facebook for censoring more "upscale"
| conservative newspapers like the WaLl Street Journal or the
| Financial Times.
| collective-intl wrote:
| +1
|
| I don't know why you are being downvoted, I think HN's flagging
| system is another way we are being censored.
|
| Just this summer, I remember multiple articles with important,
| true contributions to our understanding of covid that got
| flagged.
|
| We are losing the ability to consider multiple sides of an
| issue.
| holler wrote:
| I can't comment on their system, and as a long-time HN user
| overall I find it a great place to have discussion on varied
| topics. That said, I'm working on a new alternative site and
| welcome you to check it out. It's called sqwok.im and it's a
| sort of hybrid between Twitter & Slack/Discord, where each
| post has a chatroom instead of a comment thread. In beta mode
| and welcome feedback.
| throwaway4715 wrote:
| Parent might be flagged because Facebook didn't censor
| anything. Twitter did.
| dx87 wrote:
| > Twitter's actions came after Facebook announced it would
| limit the sharing of the story while fact-checkers reviewed
| the piece.
|
| The link says Facebook did censor it.
| cmdshiftf4 wrote:
| >We are losing the ability to consider multiple sides of an
| issue
|
| Seems to be long gone, to be honest. We're now at a point
| where people are de-humanizing those on a different side of
| an issue to themselves. We unfortunately know what the next
| step is.
| mullingitover wrote:
| When one side says it's raining and the other says it's
| sunny, it's not 'losing the ability to consider multiple
| sides of an issue' when you look outside and report to the
| public that one side is lying.
| reaperducer wrote:
| They came for the rando blog, and I said nothing...
|
| They came for the New York Post and I said nothing...
|
| They came for the (dnja$4 NO CARRIER
| donatj wrote:
| But they didn't block stories about Trump's stolen tax returns?
| Is there any sort of non-political justification?
| aeortiz wrote:
| because they could be verified.
| donatj wrote:
| Afaik the returns have not been verified.
| 9HZZRfNlpR wrote:
| But twitters response was they don't allow "hacked materials"
| so it's bs.
| riffic wrote:
| The ActivityPub standard and network exists. Nothing (absolutely
| _nothing_ ) is stopping the tabloid from running its own instance
| on nypost.com
|
| edit: and I wanted to reply to a comment here referring to
| section 230 but their comment got flagged and I am unable to
| reply to them. Not really sure why it was flagged but whatever,
| HN does what it does.
|
| My reply to that commenter would be that there is nothing
| stopping Congress-critters from standing up their own ActivityPub
| infra as well. A 'congress.gov' presence on the Fediverse would
| look pretty spiffy.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > Not really sure why it was flagged but whatever, HN does what
| it does.
|
| If you truly beleive the comment didn't deserve to be flagged
| (this does unfortunately happen sometimes, especially on
| threads like this) you can vouch for it if you have showdead on
| riffic wrote:
| vouch early and vouch often.
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