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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

#441

Post by crispyambulance »

dathinab wrote: post #298
Ididntdothis wrote: post #235

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…

> On the one hand I don’t think we should leave it up to companies like Twitter to censor things. True, but the think is Twitter did not censor his post . They added a "fact-check" hint that just pointed out that he was speaking made up thinks containing a link to an informative article. This is very different to censorship. People can still freely decided to believe him, or read the facts and don't or read the facts…

Twitter made a pragmatic choice.

They realize that simply deleting the posts in question and banning the user (Stable Genius) would have a serious backlash from the hard-right. They did what they feel was the next best thing, which is to call out the garbage for what it is by slapping an unremovable label on it. It sort-of seems like a "win", they get to smack-down the asshole, yet not "censor" him.

Unfortunately Stable Genius is playing a different game.

It's a game where outrage, even when directed at him, actually HELPS him. It gives him yet another grievance to trot around, yet another distraction for the public, more leverage for his base, more grist for his vitriol. Meanwhile other republicans will use this cover to continue to cram through unpopular and self-serving greedy agendas, in "shock doctrine" style.

The thing is Twitter is not news, it has no loyalty to the public or the truth. It is a purely money making enterprise, like any other corporation. Jack Dorsey and the board can do whatever the F they want.

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

#442

Post by beart »

giardini wrote: post #337
gjulianm wrote: post #174

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.

Under a doctrine of free speech, politics has no "clearly false messages". There are only "messages". You are, however, allowed to state that a message is "clearly false". Thus if you wish to say that the world is flat, then you are allowed to say so, and others are allowed to state their supporting or opposing arguments on the same topic on the same forum, and everyone is allowed to listen.

> Under a doctrine of free speech, politics has no "clearly false messages".

I'm really not following this argument. If something is stated with a political purpose, it cannot be false?

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

#443

Post by michaelt »

teknopaul wrote: post #166
jdhn wrote: post #124

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

That would be a USA Great Firewall. It would require some re-branding to get the US population to accept it

We're gonna build a wall, and make Cyberspace pay for it.

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

#444

Post by catalogia »

hunter2_ wrote: post #323
neuland wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Why wouldn't we? Pseudonyms? Reddit is considered social, I think, and that tends to be even more difficult to map to IRL identity. Edit: just barely not inb4!

Perhaps it would be easier to enumerate the things that aren't social networks. Does the postal system constitute a social network, at least in the literal sense of those words? Maybe! It's a network that facilitates social interactions after all.

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

#445

Post by donw »

Loughla wrote: post #261
itchyjunk wrote: post #151

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…

Oh, I would disagree with that.

It is amazingly easy to lie with statistical "facts", through careful sampling, use of technical language, and overly broad or narrow definitions: https://medium.com/@hollymathnerd/how-to-defend-yourself-fro...

I could write a "factual" article claiming hundreds of mass shootings in 2020 (obviously false). I just need to define a "mass shooting" as an incident where four or more people are injured (no deaths required).

Or an equally "factual" article claiming that zero mass shootings in 2020 (also obviously false). I just need to define a "mass shooting" as an incident where twenty or more people are killed.

Exact same dataset, two different and mutually exclusive "facts".

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

#446

Post by russellbeattie »

Twitter's leadership is a bunch of cowards who are only now taking the smallest steps to do something about Trump's lies and demagoguery. They should have banned him years ago.

I stopped using Twitter on January 20th, 2017. I had been a user since they started, but I went through and programatically deleted every tweet, like, follower, etc. I now just have my name and I never use the site. I wish more people would do the same. Don't delete your account, just stop using it.

If Twitter had just held everyone on their platform to the same standards, I would be somewhat accepting of them as a neutral platform for free speech. But they decided to ignore the threats, lies, bullying, name calling, racism, sexism and more coming from not just Trump, but all of his followers. So they can go to hell for all I care now.

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

#447

Post by tzs »

exabrial wrote: post #205

I once got a strike on social media for posting an article about a German doctor that recommended whiskey to cure covid19. It was a joke, and any reasonable adult would know this is false. It's hard for me to feel sorry for companies that go down the fact checking route with algorithms; It always ends up causing more damage than value. 12 years ago we didn't have this problem, and I think that's mostly related to the…

> I once got a strike on social media for posting an article about a German doctor that recommended whiskey to cure covid19. It was a joke, and any reasonable adult would know this is false.

There are a heck of a lot of non-reasonable adults on social media.

Unless something is very explicitly and prominently labeled as a joke or satire, in a way that won't get separated from it when it is re-shared by your downstream viewers, there's a good chance quite a few people will not catch on that it is not intended to be true.

Social media can be particularly bad in this regard because it often encourages only spending a short time reading each individual post. It pushes breadth over depth.

> 12 years ago we didn't have this problem, and I think that's mostly related to the fact there was some UX resistance to hitting the "reahare" button.

I'm not sure that is most of it, but it contributes to increasing volume in people's feeds, pushing the breadth vs. depth balance toward breadth so makes things worse.

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

#448

Post by NicoJuicy »

JeremyNT wrote: post #402
NicoJuicy wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It only feels different now because this President's image is based on such bluster. He's speaking to his people in the way that they like. A lot of past US Presidents were likely no more competent, but their images demanded that they appear such. Reagan was probably suffering from dementia. JFK was high most of the time. It's just that the PR strategy for those guys was different because their public personae were g…

> A lot of past US Presidents were likely no more competent.

I haven't seen the current president be competent in anything. What a difference with Obama.

Even his "business" instincts he likes to claim is nothing more than a name licensing scheme and a "mommy foundation" ( * ) sponsored with daddy's money.

* Trump organisation used to be called " Elizabeth Trump & Son" in 1923 :)

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

#449

Post by Beltiras »

zaroth wrote: post #267
Beltiras wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big murky middle where you can't really tell but in the case of what Trump is complaining about an informed observer would come to a conclusion really quickly.

Voter registration rolls are pretty notorious for being out of date and unreliable. Personally I don’t have a problem with anyone who wants to vote by mail being able to request a ballot. Most states already allow no-excuse absentee ballets. I think the problem arises when the State automatically mails ballots to every registered voter at an address. If too many ballots show up at a house because someone requested it…

I don't know how the implementation of mail-in voting is in the States. Here's how I would implement it:

1. Ballots contain: a ballot, a serial number, a small envelope and a large envelope. 2. The voter fills in the ballot and stuffs in the small envelope and closes it. 3. Voter now needs to get a code from a webpage and add to the serial number card. Here's the part where infrastructure in Iceland is excellent. Nigh everyone has personal electronic certificates on their phones so authentication is easy. I must admit I have no idea how easy or hard this would be in the States. 4. Puts the small envelope and the serial number card in the large envelope and closes it. 5. Mails in the large envelope. 6. Precinct opens the large envelope and validates the serial number. If it is valid, puts the small envelope in box headed for counting. 7. Count the votes. Declare results. 8. Investigate the "bad serials and validation number".

There are fun things to think about doing to increase confidence in the voting process. In this scheme I describe the validation code could be a hash of the serial and a salt. Then you could actually release all the validation cards so voters can actually verify that their ballots were counted.

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

#450

Post by supportlocal4h »

gjulianm wrote: post #174
itchyjunk wrote: post #151

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…

> 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.

Imagine if a U.S. president were to flagrantly make up a claim that some other country was developing weapons of mass destruction. Imagine that there was no way to verify this claim. Imagine that the president insisted on invading said country on the basis of the unsupported claim.

Do most people still expect that someone in that position will not post clearly false messages, specially when those messages affect something as fundamental as the death of thousands of people and the overthrow of a government?

Iran contra, Watergate, Vietnam, ...

Is there any trust left?

It's bewildering that the answer is, "Yes". It's discouraging that so many presidents have so often deceived the people so horribly. It's much much more discouraging that the people don't learn.

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