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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

#831

Post by georgeecollins »

supportlocal4h wrote: post #450
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.

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 some…

That is a very apples to oranges comparison. For example, in the case of Iraq (a terrible moral mistake and embarrassment for the US in my opinion), the President, his administration, and most of the media really believed the Iraqi's were making weapons of mass destruction. They were extremely biased, and they suppressed the counter argument. All bad, I am not trying to defend it, but not the same. The other historical examples you give are all different in their own way. But in almost every case (except Watergate) they involve some reputable people who in good faith believed what they were saying.

No knowledgeable person believes what Trump is saying about mail in ballots. I don't think he believes it. This is really different.

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

#833

Post by VWWHFSfQ »

root_axis wrote: post #811
rmtech wrote: post #781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A private company that has a monopoly on speech is no longer a private company, it's essentially an unelected and unaccountable part of the permanent government. You need to think about entities based on their properties, not the labels that are attached to them. That ought to be obvious to people who program for a living; think of a private company with a speech monopoly as the good old .txt.exe scam. You're attachi…

I am so tired of this disingenuous line of argumentation. Twitter is not at all like a government, it is a private business that offers a free service which you are under no obligation to use, it has no army or legal authority over your life, stop acting like what gets posted or removed from twitter is anything other than a bullshit triviality.

How does this reconcile with the laws of many euro countries compelling website forums to delete content that they deem objectionable? Most recently France passed such a law[0].

> There are multiple levels of fines. It starts at hundreds of thousand of euros but it can reach up to 4% of the global annual revenue of the company with severe cases.

How can these euro countries claim to be free societies when they restrict the most basic element of personal freedom?

It's not just France. Several of the euro countries have laws like this.

[0]: https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/14/france-passes-law-forcing-...

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

#834

Post by georgeecollins »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #487
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.

I feel like the only people who think Twitter is a credible fact checker of the President are not the people who would believe anything the President says anyways.

This isn't about who is persuaded by what. It is about what responsibilities the media has to the public.

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

#836

Post by caminante »

root_axis wrote: post #654
giancarlostoro wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I looked at the wiki for §230 of the CDA.

It appears that removing the liability shield for social media platforms[0] is a popular position for both Republicans and Democrats by a wide margin. Nothing has transpired, yet.

However, the §230 is nuanced. There's case law where the liability shield defense has been rejected. See the defamatory information issues [1] where the site merely editorialized the headlines and was deemed a publisher.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...

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

#837

Post by jliptzin »

If he doesn't like it, he could easily have one of his supplicants build a twitter clone for his rage tweeting. There is nothing hard about building a twitter clone, the only hard part is getting the users in the door, but that'd be easy for him with 40% of the country treating him like he's a god.

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

#838

Post by all-fakes »

shiado wrote: post #227

How can the "private platform so they can do whatever they want" crowd reconcile their views on election interference using social media in 2016 with this latest move by Twitter? If they can do what they want with their platform why did it matter in 2016 and why does it not matter now?

What views are you insinuating that I have on "election interference using social media in 2016"?

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

#839

Post by saym »

jliptzin wrote: post #837

If he doesn't like it, he could easily have one of his supplicants build a twitter clone for his rage tweeting. There is nothing hard about building a twitter clone, the only hard part is getting the users in the door, but that'd be easy for him with 40% of the country treating him like he's a god.

I was surprised to see Gab as a top reply to one of his tweets. Gab has a verified Twitter account, and it was offering itself as an alternative to the 'censorship'.

I don't find it surprising, but do find it sad. Few people understand how the internet works, and that there's probably an alternative to every platform, utility, or library out there.

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

#840

Post by jdashg »

umvi wrote: post #813
jdashg wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. "W…

What western democracies really need is an entire government segment dedicated to fact-checking. We could call it the "Department of Truth" (or "Ministry of Truth" in UK) and it would be responsible for labeling things on social media as true or false using little fact checker badges.

Don't strawman.

We literally have agencies that enforce degrees of truthfulness today, such as the FDA, FCC, and FTC. Our legal system is explicitly designed around determining degrees of truth in the courts.

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