Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms • Hacker News Board

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

#551

Post by staycoolboy » Wed, May 27, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

dvtrn wrote: post #146

tuna-piano wrote: post #133

There's an unsolved conundrum I haven't heard mentioned yet. After the 2016 election, there was a thought that too much false information is spreading on social media. This happens in every country and across every form of communication - but social media platforms seem particularly worrysome (and is particularly bad with Whatsapp forwards in some Asian countries). So what should the social media companies do? Censor…

Media literacy and criticism classes in middle school?

I used to think this was the answer.

I now think the problem with this is a lack of standards. It is documented that textbook manufacturers publish different history and science texts based on the region of the country regarding the civil war or evolution.

Not to be a nihilist, but what makes you think underfunded schools that struggle to teach basic reading will teach media literacy and criticism with any success? and will be supported by publishers that feel the same way?

I also think critical thinking is VERY hard. Harder than people imagine. It is hard to teach, hard to deploy, hard to practice. I'm not sure even 20% of the population could muster the brain power required to sift through today's onslaught of zone-flooding garbage.

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

#552

Post by jdashg » Wed, May 27, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

metrokoi wrote: post #425

Almost no one is ever happy with fact-checking, it often just leads to more disputes about whether or not the fact-checking is correct or warranted. To me it seems much more efficient to simply teach people not to take anything posted on social media seriously and to better think for themselves. One may say that the president should be an exception because of the number of people he reaches, but what about a famous a…

We have tried teaching people not to believe everything they read on the internet already. We need solutions that actually work.

It's wishful thinking at best to believe that Twitter replies can effectively refute arguments. They don't establish public dialog unless the OP retweets the responses. You can't call it a dialogue if, effectively, there's only one person talking. Even simple refutations fail on Twitter.

"We can't fact check one person because it'd be hard to do the same for a large number of people" is classic perfect-as-enemy-of-good. We get huge bang-for-buck by handling some obvious outliers and known bad actors, and that's worth doing.

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

#553

Post by remarkEon » Wed, May 27, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

ceilingcorner wrote: post #295

1. Is Twitter going to fact-check every political figure? Every public figure with more than a million followers? 2. Who decides what is a viable source? As a part of their "fact check", Twitter linked to CNN, which is almost as bad as Fox News these days. This really isn't helping their case for supposed neutrality. 3. I don't like Trump, didn't vote for him, and find his tweets embarrassing. But I don't need Twitte…

>But I don't need Twitter to tell me what to think.

I think what this discussion is revealing is that a lot of people, and a lot of people that work it tech it seems, actually do want someone to tell them what to think. Which may be part of the baseline or mean human condition. Thinking and deciding for yourself is hard, and when other people think and decide for themselves in a different way than you it seems to generate an immune response and a reaction that calls for intervention from above.

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

#554

Post by im3w1l » Wed, May 27, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #349

djohnston wrote: post #79

The head of integrity has unabashedly showcased his strong political bias on Twitter, and I suspect things will begin going poorly for either him or Twitter shortly.

If fact-checking the President when he says untrue things is "strong political bias," there are larger problems than the fate of one employee at Twitter.

People who call Trump a racist tangerine [0] and scream about "ACTUAL NAZIS IN THE WHITE HOUSE" [0] are the exact type of extremists that would support election fraud because "it's justified to stop ACTUAL NAZIS", and use their position of power to cover it up.

[0] https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/126545757821512499...

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

#555

Post by chadlavi » Wed, May 27, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

krn wrote: post #299

I wonder, at point is Twitter supposed to block the user for constant spread of disinformation on its platform? Or would that violate the user's right to "free speech"? Could the user protect himself by claiming, that he is simply expressing "his own opinion"?

Free speech means the government can't come after you for statements. Anyone claiming a company is infringing on their free speech is at best ignorant of, and at worst purposefully misconstruing, the bill of rights. You have no right to post whatever you want on a private company's platform, they can ban you whenever and for whatever reason they want.

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

#556

Post by astronautjones » Wed, May 27, 2020, 6:00 PM UTC

root_axis wrote: post #550

Finnucane wrote: post #391

It's pretty obvious that DT is not going to shut down the very platforms he relies on for his political survival. Even he's not that stupid. Nor does he have any real regulatory authority that could be employed that wouldn't also bite him back. So this is just him trying to bully the platforms into letting him say whatever without being exposed to any criticism or being called out for bullshit.

DT doesn't "rely on twitter for his political survival", any platform he goes to all his supporters would happily follow while gleefully trashing twitter on their way out the door. > Nor does he have any real regulatory authority that could be employed that wouldn't also bite him back I'm not convinced of that. Trump has repeatedly shown he is willing to exercise executive authority to the fullest extent possible and…

> DT doesn't "rely on twitter for his political survival", any platform he goes to all his supporters would happily follow while gleefully trashing twitter on their way out the door.

they wouldn't, and even if they did it would be a helpful change. society's legitimization of twitter (a brand whose logo is on so many unrelated products, billboards, flyers, advertisements etc) is what makes his disinformation on that platform dangerous.

if he's siloed to somewhere that is obviously just for his supporters, it will have far less of a dangerous effect. people made the same threat about alex jones, and deplatforming him was absolutely a positive for society.

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

#557

Post by tmaly » Wed, May 27, 2020, 6:02 PM UTC

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…

On masks as a good idea, I am still a little concerned with touch transmission. I see people without gloves touching their mask. This is totally contaminating the mask.

I would really like a settled question on whether mail and groceries are safe to touch. There was a study that came out saying the virus could exist on different surfaces for different periods of time. News reported last week that CDC update the website that indicated that the study was flawed. Soon after the CDC added clarification which still leaves the conclusion open. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/s0522-cdc-updates-co...

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

#558

Post by dang » Wed, May 27, 2020, 6:03 PM UTC

We changed the URL from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-threatens-close-social... to one that doesn't contain an auto-playing video. (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322719, but the comments have been moved thence hither).

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

#559

Post by somestag » Wed, May 27, 2020, 6:04 PM UTC

donw wrote: post #445

Loughla wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

To go even deeper, using your example...

What counts as "injured" or "killed"? If shots are fired and the resulting human stampede kills 4 people, does that count as 4 mass shooting deaths? Obviously the shooter is at fault, but these details affect the interpretation of events.

My undergrad was in statistics. In our capstone course, my professor had us read journal articles and discuss the statistical analyses within. I remember one study we read (peer reviewed, a couple dozen citations), and my professor's take away was, "I can't say it's wrong, but based on the data they gave, I can't for the life of me figure out how they reached their statistical conclusions." So yeah, it's a "fact" that the researchers reached a certain conclusion, but the conclusion itself is not fact.

I don't believe in post-truth, but "Facts are facts; truth is truth" is a philosophical statement, not a practical one. And even then, we have an entire field of philosophy to iron out those details, which we call epistemology.

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

#560

Post by gouggoug » Wed, May 27, 2020, 6:06 PM UTC

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 guess the issue is "getting a strike". Sure, if your posts are misinformation, why not add a label that says so.

But giving a strike? That's going too far and your case highlights why: you can't make a joke anymore.

A strike is stifling free speech whereas a label is just informative. It might be biased, it might not be, but it doesn't prevent you from expressing yourself, be it by making a joke or spreading accurate information or spreading ridiculous conspiracy theories.