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

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

#651

Post by golemiprague » Wed, May 27, 2020, 7:41 PM UTC

kitd wrote: post #605

0x5002 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have struggled with both points of the argument for a while now. In general, I'm inclined to agree with your assessment that this would be a glaring overreach on the side of the feds. It's also apparent that social networks have a tendency to cater massively to one side of the increasingly divided political spectrum, as proven with experiments like Gab. I've always liked the idea of having a Twitter clone that base…

FWIW, the BBC World Service podcast "The Compass" [1] has an excellent series on free speech by the veteran BBC journalist Robin Lustig. I highly recommend it. He covers tech companies, universities, blasphemy laws, etc. [1] - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p035w97h/episodes/downloads For me, free speech is fundamentally about trying to rectify the injustice of an imbalance of power between those in authority and t…

It's pretty ironic but you miss the fact that the the ones in authority right now are indeed google, twitter, facebook etc. They are in control of the information you see and can curate what you call an "established opinion". Global leaders tweet don't carry any authority if you don't support their view, it is the perception of general opinion those tech companies create with their algorithm that creates this authority. Certainly, assigning CNN as the Washington Post as "fact checkers" is not a good start or stringent, it is simply touting an opinion which is not going to change anything because no Trump supporter takes the CNN seriously.

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

#652

Post by standardUser » Wed, May 27, 2020, 7:46 PM UTC

There seem to be some upside down priorities here. Many folks seem to be arguing that its an unacceptable form of censorship for a private platform to annotate content it allows others to post. Meanwhile, I'm seeing barely a mention of the fact that the President of the United States has threatened to use government power to shut down an entire sector of the economy devoted to communication. The latter is almost certainly a violation of the Constitution. The former, almost certainly not.

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

#653

Post by cryptonector » Wed, May 27, 2020, 7:46 PM UTC

unexaminedlife wrote: post #617

Somehow technology needs to help bridge the divide here. Literally the ONLY argument that needs to be had is "what are facts and logic". Unfortunately not enough people know what these are, which is severely hampering our country's ability to function as a democracy.

Complete objectivity is impossible. This is why Ayn Rand's Objectivism philosophy was so broken. It's not just that humans can't be completely objective -- any AI can't be either, and you can't write have a human write an algorithm that yields 100% objectivity. It can't be done. There is no short-cut. The arguments have to be had. Consensus/democracy/institutions is all we've got, and we have to and will make that work.

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

#654

Post by root_axis » Wed, May 27, 2020, 7:46 PM UTC

giancarlostoro wrote: post #565

Traster wrote: post #36

I think this is going to be a discussion thread that is almost inevitably going to be a shitshow, but anyway: There are people who advocate the idea that private companies should be compelled to distribute hate speech, dangerously factually incorrect information and harassment under the concept that free speech is should be applied universally rather than just to government. I don't agree, I think it's a vast over-re…

I wasn't going to post anything because of the direction HN seems to lean and because they get enraged about these sort of discussions. Hear me out and feel free to respond instead of shunning me out. The bigger issue is these platforms only get those free speech protections because they're platforms. The moment they start editing content like this, they become editors to a publishing platform, and they should be hel…

> The bigger issue is these platforms only get those free speech protections because they're platforms. The moment they start editing content like this, they become editors to a publishing platform, and they should be held liable for all that they've published. You can't just have your cake and eat it too, today they make you happy to censor the evil orange man, tomorrow they may censor those you support.

No, this is totally incorrect.

> No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider" (47 U.S.C. § 230)

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

#655

Post by cryptonector » Wed, May 27, 2020, 7:46 PM UTC

collegecamp293 wrote: post #23

Twitter has opened a whole can of worms. There are several official state agencies with their propaganda PR arms on Twitter. Will they fact check them too and risk being banned in those countries?

Spoiler alert: no.

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

#656

Post by cryptonector » Wed, May 27, 2020, 7:48 PM UTC

myspy wrote: post #111

Well, Facebook and Twitter are currently used in cyberwarfare to destabilise western democracies and the result is pretty impressive, because it works. Give people their Facebook but remove the algorithms from the timeline and close all groups to make it harder for people to spread misinformation and group together to celebrate it. Or close it all together, social media doesn't have that many upsides. My observation…

Social media can't not have algorithms for limiting what you get to see, otherwise you'd be swamped with items on your timeline and you'd stop using them. Oh, I see what you're doing. Yes, they should get rid of the algorithms!

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

#657

Post by INTPenis » Wed, May 27, 2020, 7:49 PM UTC

I'm not saying this is related in any way but in the last few days I've seen a lot of toots from new users introducing themselves to the fediverse. And a lot of them are mentioning twitter.

I hope this means we finally get some big profile names in the fediverse. A lot of celebrities are talking about the issue but I have yet to see anyone mention valid alternatives.

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

#658

Post by watwut » Wed, May 27, 2020, 7:49 PM UTC

gameswithgo wrote: post #602

mathdev wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fact check would be fine if it led to objective analyses of some sort, or even Wikipedia. But when I clicked it, it displayed some highly partisan sources, including a CNN article with its usual "Trump bad" vitriol. Maybe it was an algorithm's fault, but it didn't work at all.

How do you objectively report on trump without it painting him in a bad light?

It seems to me that general media are sanitising Trump speech, go out of way to find coherent meaning or sense where original statement had only a little. One could argue they are making him look better despite disliking him.

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

#659

Post by unexaminedlife » Wed, May 27, 2020, 7:50 PM UTC

cryptonector wrote: post #653

unexaminedlife wrote: post #617

Somehow technology needs to help bridge the divide here. Literally the ONLY argument that needs to be had is "what are facts and logic". Unfortunately not enough people know what these are, which is severely hampering our country's ability to function as a democracy.

Complete objectivity is impossible. This is why Ayn Rand's Objectivism philosophy was so broken. It's not just that humans can't be completely objective -- any AI can't be either, and you can't write have a human write an algorithm that yields 100% objectivity. It can't be done. There is no short-cut. The arguments have to be had. Consensus/democracy/institutions is all we've got, and we have to and will make that wo…

Not sure we're disagreeing here. But, an important point would be that we should be striving for objectivity. In Trump's world objectivity is not a goal. To him it's an obstacle.

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

#660

Post by cryptonector » Wed, May 27, 2020, 7:50 PM UTC

brodouevencode wrote: post #524

Readers beware: it's basically useless to argue either side of this position because the level of nuance, complexity, and convolution involved in such a discussion is beyond the limits of what a threaded comment board can accomplish.

And yet the argument must be had.