Live data from Hacker News

Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

nationalreview.com

41–50 of 1001 posts

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, i definitely agree that as a private company Twitter is well within its rights to censor what it believes is "misinformation" but an important line has been crossed today by Twitter and Facebook. A story about potential corruption of a candidate for the US president has been censored by two of the largest information brokers in the world. Also interestingly, no denial from Joe Biden about the authenticity of thes…

> Also interestingly, no denial from Joe Biden about the authenticity of these emails. Wouldnt that be the first thing you'd do if this wasnt true? I assume most politicians at the presidential candidate level have some sort of PR team that works to come up with some official response to these sorts of controversies

"JOE BIDEN SPOKESMAN ANDREW BATES hits back at the N.Y. POST STORY, via NATASHA BERTRAND and KYLE CHENEY: “Investigations by the press, during impeachment, and even by two Republican-led Senate committees whose work was decried as ‘not legitimate’ and political by a GOP colleague have all reached the same conclusion: that Joe Biden carried out official U.S. policy toward Ukraine and engaged in no wrongdoing. Trump Administration officials have attested to these facts under oath.

“The New York Post never asked the Biden campaign about the critical elements of this story. They certainly never raised that Rudy Giuliani - whose discredited conspiracy theories and alliance with figures connected to Russian intelligence have been widely reported - claimed to have such materials. Moreover, we have reviewed Joe Biden’s official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place.”

idk, read for yourself

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook-pm/2020/10/14/...

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#43

Robert Graham [1] pointed out that if the emails are authentic, they can be trivially verified via DKIM. That the email metadata was not released implies the emails are either inauthentic, or that the post did not contact someone with basic competence in computer forensics. Either possibility seriously undercuts the article's credibility. [1] https://twitter.com/ErrataRob/status/1316407424648179717

I wrote the story off this morning. The Ukraine stuff didn’t stick to Trump and there’s no reason to think it would be any stickier on Biden.

If Twitter is censoring DMs of it though, then there must be something to it.

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#44
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's honestly irrelevant about the credibility of the emails and other data at this point, its the blanket censorship of this article that's now the real story.

Is it? Because the factuality of the story seems like a pretty big deal here. If it's completely bogus, how is it different from any of those Russian trollfarm posts that the US government was worried about?

they didn't censor the completely made up hysterectomy story.

also: c-f "russia"

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#45
post #12

Whatever your perspective, directly verifiable censorship like this is just begging for legal trouble and monopoly investigations. Tactically speaking, I would say this is a massive mistake from Twitter.

Technically Facebook did it first: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24778053

[deleted]

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#46
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? Because the factuality of the story seems like a pretty big deal here. If it's completely bogus, how is it different from any of those Russian trollfarm posts that the US government was worried about?

It's different because it was written by a major American newspaper. Twitter should not be exercising editorial control over the news.

Isn't it distribution control rather than editorial control?

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also interestingly, no denial from Joe Biden about the authenticity of these emails. Wouldnt that be the first thing you'd do if this wasnt true? I assume most politicians at the presidential candidate level have some sort of PR team that works to come up with some official response to these sorts of controversies

"JOE BIDEN SPOKESMAN ANDREW BATES hits back at the N.Y. POST STORY, via NATASHA BERTRAND and KYLE CHENEY: “Investigations by the press, during impeachment, and even by two Republican-led Senate committees whose work was decried as ‘not legitimate’ and political by a GOP colleague have all reached the same conclusion: that Joe Biden carried out official U.S. policy toward Ukraine and engaged in no wrongdoing. Trump Ad…

I mean I don't particularly have much stake in whether its true or not, I'm just saying I'm not shocked he's not responding to it immediately for vaguely similar reasons to why people tell you not to talk to the police without a lawyer, whether you're innocent or not.

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's honestly irrelevant about the credibility of the emails and other data at this point, its the blanket censorship of this article that's now the real story.

Twitter is perfectly within their rights to remove content they consider to be spam or not fit quality guidelines as is the case here. Not really sure since when Twitter is required to host and aid in the spread of garbage

[deleted]

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#50
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's different because it was written by a major American newspaper. Twitter should not be exercising editorial control over the news.

Isn't it distribution control rather than editorial control?

Limiting distribution to filter out what you don't want to rise to the top has the same effect as explicitly picking winners.

Think of it like shooting the tires of all the cars you want to lose in a race. Sure you didn't push the winner across the finish line, but you made it damn near impossible for anyone else to even get there.

Post reply on HN