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Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

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Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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 tha…

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!

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

“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 po…

>Once you start fact checking where does it end?

With all the facts being checked?

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#313

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 st…

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.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#314
post #211

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 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.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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?

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.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#316

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 a…

> 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 i…

How can a statement about the future be empirically wrong?

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#317
post #124

Putting aside concerns about overreach government powers, would ending social media as we know it really be a bad thing?

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…

>(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?

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#318
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.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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 tha…

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.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#320

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 st…

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.

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!

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