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Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

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Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#601

Post by riffic »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #525
riffic wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> the phone company was (historically) a monopoly Phone companies are natural monopolies on account of the cost of building out a physical network and network effects. Social media has similar dynamics. The only difference is there is no requisite physical layer.

Twitter and Facebook are not natural monopolies in the same way that Ma Bell was. I'm failing to see the similar dynamics you allude to.

Is there a network effect? Sure. Did MySpace, Friendster, AOL, CompuServe etc have those first mover advantages as well? Where are they now?

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#602

Post by ALittleLight »

whatever1 wrote: post #599

Whatever it takes to get rid of a tyrant. The guy has repeatedly shown that he has no appreciation for the institutions, the unity of the nation, democracy or the election process itself. He will do whatever he can to stay in power. We should make sure he does not succeed.

Strive not too long with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and gaze not too long into the abyss lest the abyss gaze back at you.

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#603

Post by drewrv »

Covzire wrote: post #100

Let'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…

> Let's be honest, the only people screaming for censorship are firmly on the left.

This year the president has sued to stop publication of two books because they embarrassed him, one from John Bolton and another from Mary Trump.

This year police in cities across the country have opened fire on journalists.

These are legal and physical attacks, on journalists and publishers, coming from government officials. Social media moderation policies are interesting and important. But if you see censorship and attacks on free speech only coming from one side, you should probably diversify your media diet.

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#604

Post by Karunamon »

TameAntelope wrote: post #597
Karunamon wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they do the right thing? By engaging in the censorship of a large newspaper and at least one politician, the resulting streisand effect amplified the message far beyond what it would have gotten had they left it alone. If the goal was to suppress disinformation, they failed miserably.

I think the goal was to minimize the impact of news without adequate sourcing on the US presidential election, and I think that goal was achieved. The conversation is about censorship and truth, not really Hunter Biden and Burisma. Admittedly, there may be a cost to pay for that, and it's possible it was a long-term bad decision, but their goal seems to have been met.

That news is now being hosted directly by the house judiciary committee on a .gov site. I don't think they did a very good job of preventing the spread, nor do I think this would have happened had they just kept their hands off.

https://twitter.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/1316485994548547586

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#605

Post by remarkEon »

bosswipe wrote: post #476
jimmydorry wrote: post #411

Absolutely agree, but I don't think this is the tipping point yet. An important line was crossed, but it will probably take a bit more before there is enough political capital to do something. On the other hand, if the party benefiting from this move gets into power, that might be enough to stop any change from happening.

What happens if the party that is attacking our democracy by spreading disinformation in the last few weeks of the election gets into power?

This comment is indicative of the absolute sea change that has happened over the last four years with how we treat speech and journalism.

Gone are the days when if you read a story and thought it was BS, you ignored it and moved on. Or when a politician says something dumb, that's obviously untrue or a distortion, you just laughed and said "what an idiot".

Today, these things are "disinformation" and are "an attack on our democracy". This is a severe escalation, and I think what it's priming us all to do is reject Free Speech as a principle wholesale and replace it with an "official" narrative that is approved ahead of time (approved by who exactly, that remains to be seen).

All politicians spread "disinformation". That's the nature of politics: framing the facts of a story, or distorting them, to support your preferred narrative to get elected. Same goes for all partisan journalism, and the same goes for "mainstream" outlets that still have their own narrative they like to push for their own reasons. Somehow we're still so shell-shocked from 2016 that we've escalated every little bit of political tomfoolery to be a literal attack on the democratic institution itself. It's just bizarre.

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#606

Post by petee »

Amezarak wrote: post #577
petee wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because a sitting president has a personal influence and stake in the articles creation and publication, used as a tool to undermine an opposition candidate. Its plain obvious election interference, and the repercussions are staggering, thats the difference.

That is not on the slightest bit strange or unusual. It’s what every President, campaigning nominee, and various administration official have been doing with the press for centuries. Indeed if anything, this President and his campaign have been at this rather less than usual, probably because of his extremely adversarial attitude toward the press. I’m really astonished at the reaction to it.

Even if it's not strange to you, are you not atleast bothered that it's so common and accepted, as you seem to suggest? You come across as being totally ok with that...an attitude I don't understand

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#607

Post by frogpelt »

_qulr wrote: post #280
blhack wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes you do. You pay with your attention and with your ability to understand the world around you. Twitter is an extremely powerful bit of technology that can basically make you believe anything. As a trade for entertainment/dopamine: you are allowing it to.

> Twitter is an extremely powerful bit of technology that can basically make you believe anything. I don't believe this.

Then they've already got you.

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#608

Post by justinzollars »

Rapzid wrote: post #584
justinzollars wrote: post #569

When I was in high school, our network had software, perfectly branded as "Net Nanny" installed which prevented us from visiting certain websites. It was totally lame. I can't understand why my generation wants to recreate Net Nanny on facebook and twitter. It just adds to the 2020 feeling that everything, all at once, is completely falling apart.

Why didn't you just go to a different high school?

I went to public school, man

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#609

Post by toomuchtodo »

dahfizz wrote: post #594
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it just poured liquid oxygen on the "reform section 230" fire you're seeing from both sides of the aisle - one using the censorship reason, the other using the disinformation reason The GOP is prioritizing § 230 reform. Given their likely fall from power and prioritization of the SCOTUS confirmation, as well as Democrat control of the House and its focus on stimulus bills, the short-term threat is minute. From an a…

I'm curious why you seem so confident in a widespread democratic victory when the republicans did so well in 2016? EDIT: for those unaware, not only did the republican party take control of the House, Senate, and Presidency in 2016. They also made big gains in state elections. In fact, the republican party had a 'trifecta' (house, senate, and executive) in 25/50 states. It was a very significant shift in power: https…

Many polls are showing a Biden win is above 80% probability, the House is solidly Dem, and a possible sweep in the Senate. Make of that what you will.

Its a fair point that polls missed in 2016. 2020 has kicked the hornet’s nest (rather, the last four years), voter turnout appears to be higher than previous years, and I’d bet an expensive bottle of bourbon current polls align close to what results will be (with modeling lessons learned from 2016).

Tangentially, quite a few Trump voters have simply aged out over the last four years (roughly 1.8 million voters over the age of 55 die each year). Broadly speaking, much older voters skew conservative compared to younger cohorts (per Pew Research), hence the confidence in a shift towards the left across branches in government representation during this election cycle. GOP support is quite literally dying out.

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/03/907433511/trumps-base-is-shri...

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/03/01/the-generati...

https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-chance-taking-senate-fore...

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/12/biden-tops-270-poli...

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#610

Post by rmrfstar »

Felz wrote: post #507
rmrfstar wrote: post #13

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

Wouldn't DKIM verification require having the public key of Gmail from 2014 on hand? I looked up some old 2014 era emails I got from gmail and it looks like they were using the "20120113" selector at the time, which is no longer available through DNS query.

There are historical DNS data vendors, as there are historical WHOIS data vendors. Also, Google would almost certainly respond to a journalistic inquiry about a cryptographic signature. Follow-up of this kind is what we should expect from journalists.
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