Crux of the issue is that everyone knows there’s a double standard. Why do they co-ordinate to block this story and not the countless other “unverified” scoops? Because it threatens a protected politician.
Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting
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Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Twitter is an extremely powerful bit of technology that can basically make you believe anything. I don't believe this.
Then why does it matter if they censor things or not?
It's a matter of freedom.
The standard argument is that freedom of speech only applies to governments, but that's based on an outdated assumption. In human history, we've never before had individual companies like Facebook and Twitter that are so enormous and have so much control over our public speech. (2.7 billion and 330 million monthly active users, respectively.) They have become "the town square of the world", so to speak. Facebook and Twitter are not literally governments, but they're actually larger than many governments, with a larger population and more wealth than many nations. There's nothing special about governments with regard to freedom of speech except that it has always been assumed governments are the only entities with enough individual power to significantly restrict free speech. That assumption is no longer true. Indeed, the whole motivation behind this particular act of censorship is the idea that these platforms are so powerful that they can change the outcome of the election of one of the largest nations on Earth. I'm not sure I believe that, but it's clear in any case that Facebook and Twitter are not just normal "private companies". They're not little moderated discussion forums. They have effectively (unfortunately) become the public sphere.
Twitter once locked me out of my account because I made a joke about bitcoin. Their stupid "algorithms" got me. And the only reason I was able to get my account unlocked was that I personally knew a Twitter engineer. I don't trust Jack or Zuck even one tiny bit to exercise the vast power they have to silence millions of people. It's not even a question of whether I agree with the NY Post article: the story is probably bullshit. But so were the news stories about Iraq having WMD. How about suspending the NY Times account too? How about suspending every news outlet that has published a debunked story? "Anonymous sources tell us that yadda yadda."
By design, Facebook and Twitter allow everyone in the world to post anything they want. That includes lies. If they can't accept the consequences of the platform they created, then they should shut down. But as long as they exist, with the size of their user base, they are simply too big and too powerful to be allowed to restrict our freedom of speech.
Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting
#363There's a recurring argument on social media censorship that goes: "you wouldn't want the telephone company censoring phone conversations would you?" And the response is along the lines: "these are hardly private conversations, any tweet can go viral and be seen by millions". This story breaks that mold in that it involves social media censoring private conversations via DM. If you think that's OK for Twitter on its…
>> is it also OK for AT&T on its phone network? For Google on Gmail
Twitter is a closed-system and not a utility, and I guess that makes all the difference.
Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is this being downvoted? As far as I can tell from reading the article, this is an accurate summary. The provided evidence that said laptop is genuinely connected with Hunter Biden is 1) a Biden sticker on the laptop, 2) the fact that it's a Delaware repair shop, and 3) a pornographic video featuring somebody who "appears to be" Hunter Biden. What about this is convincing evidence?
They're also declaring a "smoking gun" of Hunter peddling influence when the only data point is an email from a Ukrainian to Hunter saying that he was looking forward to meeting the Vice President. There doesn't seem to be any message from Hunter, and Joe has already said his official schedule is public record and no meeting ever happened.
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Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting
#365Whatever 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.
No, they're just extremely confident there will be no consequences. They're doing Biden a solid here, and now he owes them.
Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting
#366Let's be honest, the only people screaming for censorship are firmly on the left. Controlling "disinformation" is a dog whistle for censorship, hoping that average citizens don't realize what they're really after. We all know who is going to be the moderators in flagging "disinformation" and we all know which ideology they overwhelmingly favor. I'd sooner trust a pyromaniac as fire chief of my local county than I wou…
disinformation is a dog whistle for censorship, but fake news is...? Censorship for thee but not for me.
"Fake news" is an attempt to discredit news stories. It's fundamentally different from disallowing them to be shared.
Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting
#367I don't pay for twitter, I don't have any reasonable expectations for a SLA regarding anything including DMs. Just like I have no responsibility to listen to people on soapboxes on street corners, and soap companies have no responsibility to provide soapboxes to anyone to shout from.
I'm not sure what the analogy is between DMs and soapboxes on street corners.
In any case, I have to say censoring DMs is just too far for me to accept.
I've put in a decent amount of effort to curate my Twitter feed so that it's useful to me, but I can't keep using a service that will arbitrarily decide what private communications I'm allowed to have on their service. I guess I'm out, as much as I hate to do it.
Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting
#368There's a recurring argument on social media censorship that goes: "you wouldn't want the telephone company censoring phone conversations would you?" And the response is along the lines: "these are hardly private conversations, any tweet can go viral and be seen by millions". This story breaks that mold in that it involves social media censoring private conversations via DM. If you think that's OK for Twitter on its…
The difference between the telephone company and Twitter is that the phone company was (historically) a monopoly - the only game in town . Use their wires or get lost. It required common carrier neutrality by regulation. Twitter (and every single commercial social media space) is not the above, and can do what it wants on its service. It's not a public utility.
> Twitter (and every single commercial social media space) is not the above, and can do what it wants on its service.
Not exactly. The public has the right to have all laws applied fairly. The social media platforms have enjoyed the rights of a neutral forum without the liabilities that come with being a publisher. Yet the platforms act like a publisher, deciding what is seen or not seen, and the public directly or indirectly suffers as a result. This is a pretty clear case of actual rights being violated, despite the distracting narrative of "muh private company".
Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not just Twitter, it's also Facebook. (I believe Facebook was actually the first to take action.) What if Google does it too? In the past few years, we've seen these big tech companies operate in a manner that seems collusive. They follow each other's cues. One company is the first to censor, and then the other companies follow very quickly with the exact same censorship. (The quick collective action tends to di…
I don't really care about Twitter or Facebook to be honest. It's not the only game in town. I'd be more concerned if I bought server hosting from AWS, stood up a WordPress blog about my thoughts on capitalism, socialism, sports, and dogs, and Amazon decides to suspend my account due to my writings.
Another reply more or less had the same response I had, which is that it's entirely possible for you to start blogging about certain topics (some could be approached from a capitalism/socialism discussion starting point, even) and be shut down by AWS. I'd like to add a bit more though. Deplatforming is commonplace, by all parties with a platform, and its causes aren't just written comments but also artwork and legal commercial goods.
More than the examples the other comment noted, though, I prefer the depressing/amusing history of Gab as they stepped on just about every single centralized service rake and had it hit them in the face for things some of its user base typed. Going through its wiki history page, I'm even seeing some I missed. Here's a list: Apple (iOS app store), Google (play store), Twitter (API), Asia Registry (domain name), Microsoft (Azure), Stripe, PayPal, GoDaddy, Medium, Joyent (hosting), Backblaze, Coinbase, Square, most Mastodon instances (federation won't necessarily save you) and popular Mastodon mobile apps, Mozilla (Firefox addon), Google again (Chrome addon), Visa.
At the end of the day, yes, anyone can spin up Tor or I2P or Freenet or whatever to talk unhindered, they can participate in commerce with decentralized crypto-coins. And despite the struggles one can still find Gab/4chan/the others on the clearnet and participate in the subset of things that got them in trouble for hosting. It only takes a very moderate amount of active will, and you'll have all you want. That it's not exposed passively to people on other platforms is probably no great loss. Still I think it's worth caring a bit about these things as indicators of changes in culture and, following culture, law, even if you like me don't particularly care much if you're reduced to keeping a private journal because no one will host any of your thoughts because of a subset of your thoughts at some point in time.
Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting
#370There's a recurring argument on social media censorship that goes: "you wouldn't want the telephone company censoring phone conversations would you?" And the response is along the lines: "these are hardly private conversations, any tweet can go viral and be seen by millions". This story breaks that mold in that it involves social media censoring private conversations via DM. If you think that's OK for Twitter on its…
>> is it also OK for AT&T on its phone network? For Google on Gmail Twitter is a closed-system and not a utility, and I guess that makes all the difference.
As far as I can tell Internet is not a utility either in the U.S. so what's your point?