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Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

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Re: Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

#131

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #89
dkackman11 wrote: post #48

Maybe getting rid of professional journalism, and crowd sourcing the news via secret algorithms, isn't such a great idea after all...

The “professional journalists” aren’t that great either. The field has been overtaken by 20 year olds. Even Matt Yglesias, who has spent most of his career to the left of Democrats as a whole, has been grumbling on his podcast about journalists these days failing to respect the difference between journalism and advocacy. Matt Taibbi (who I don’t like as a person but who is at least a real journalist) has written an e…

It is super weird to read a comment about the difference between advocates and journalists holding Matt Taibbi out as a "real journalist". Taibbi is the apotheosis of the journaladvocate you're talking about. He's also a lot of other things that you don't like about journalism; for instance, see his coverage of financial engineering topics during the "sucking blood funnel days" of the 2008 crisis, for some Crichton Amnesia Effect fodder.

As always I'll point out that the real controlling law for all this stuff --- the quality of journalism, the quality of advocacy, the quality of software engineering, law, medicine, whatever --- is Sturgeon's.

Re: Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

#132

Post by lanstin »

stvswn wrote: post #113
wesleywt wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think its correct to delibrately spread a false story about Hunter Biden? Is this type removing false information censorship?

The provenance of the documents is fishy. They could have easily been hacked. But, what portions of the actual story are false? The Biden campaign's refutation was not to say that the emails were doctored. They only said that they have checked the official schedule of Joe Biden from the day in question and there is no mention of a meeting with the Burisma executive (they don't say categorically that he did not meet w…

Your priors are wrong - the evidence and the people presenting it have the burden of proof not the people saying this is more bullshit from a desperate group of people who have consistently lied for years.

Re: Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

#133

Post by koolba »

lanstin wrote: post #122
zalkota wrote: post #106

Here's a list of various hoaxes/leaks/etc. that the big tech social media companies allowed and did not censor, even though they took action in this instance: https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/15/11-hacks-leaks-and-hoax ... This list seems like strong proof that the we cannot trust these social media companies to be neutral actors. They shouldn't be given controlling power to the digital public square.

Who thinks any corporation is a neutral actor? And did the government make Twitter popular? The people that use Twitter granted that power as is their right. The people are free to setup decentralized publication systems if that is better. Twitter doesn’t really owe you an explanation of the different standard they use at different times.

I don’t expect people who are lobbying on behalf of a candidate to be unbiased. They’re clearly not and they admit it.

But if an org is going to fly the flag of neutrality then they’ll get called out for crap like this.

Re: Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

#134

Post by [deleted] »

stvswn wrote: post #107
cowmoo728 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A modern macbook pro has a T2 security chip and disk encryption on by default. It's possible that a random repair shop owner could read your emails if you turn off disk encryption or disable password auth, but that's even more far fetched. edited It seems this particular mac doesn't have the T2 chip. It would still have disk encryption on by default.

I thought of this. The serial number of the laptop is included in the grand jury summons docs released by the New York Post. The serial number can be used to lookup the model. It was a mid-2017 macbook pro, the T2 chip started shipping in 2018 models.

[deleted]

Re: Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

#135

Post by rayiner »

cirgue wrote: post #85

Hot take: they should do more of this, not less. As a medium it’s fundamentally distortionary, what is popular on Twitter is as much a function of the peculiarities of its ranking algorithm as it is of the material significance of the information. The less people trust twitter popularity as an indication of importance, the better off society is, and the more diverse the online media ecosystem can be.

The idea that Twitter and Facebook can do this in a “non-distortionary” way is unrealistic. Peoples’ personal biases are too strong.

The “fact check” websites used to be great. Now, they wander way over “fact checking.” The worst abuses are when they provide “context” or challenge assumptions. Conservatives and liberals are not working from the same assumptions, and have a different set of contextual facts top of mind on different issues. The fact check organizations are pretty good about checking the actual assertion, but reveal bias through what contextual facts they provide and what assumptions they do or do not challenge. Another way they cross the line is “fact checking” obvious rhetoric: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/10/trumps-exaggerated-claims-...

> At a rally in Sanford, Florida, President Donald Trump made the exaggerated claim that his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, “voted to obliterate” Puerto Rico’s pharmaceutical manufacturing industry.

As Biden would say, “c’mon man.” How many times has a politician said stuff like “they sent your jobs to China?” Did anyone fact check Biden’s assertion that Romney would “put [Black people] back in chains?” They explain the vote by saying things like: “at the time, eliminating the provision was seen as striking a blow against “corporate welfare.” Seen by who? They also note that the bill “also raised the minimum wage.” This isn’t “fact checking,” it’s the counter-narrative from the Biden campaign.

Re: Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

#136

Post by verroq »

ffggvv wrote: post #124

i remember during the BLM Riots, we had stories going around that jacob blake was just "breaking up a fight" between two women. when it turns out he had just finished robbing someone he'd previously sexually assaulted with her kids in the house. and twitter let it trend i remember they had a video of gunshot sounds trending with a description saying that an innocent 16 year old girl was shot by police when in reality…

You might as well delete most liberal media as well since anytime they mention a crime being committed and they omit the race of the perp you can assume they aren’t white. If they are white they will shout it from the rooftops.

I watched Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine and I’d assume that for some reason these journalists thought that they can fix racism just not mentioning the race of the perpetrators.

Re: Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

#137

Post by ffggvv »

Simulacra wrote: post #35

I just don’t get it, what is Twitter so afraid of? It’s already a cesspool of flame wars and misinformation, I’m growing deeply concerned about their need to interject themselves into news stories like this.

they’re scared of hack journalists blaming them if a republican ever wins again. like 2016

Re: Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

#138

Post by lanstin »

goodluckchuck wrote: post #74
cowmoo728 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if FB and Twitter are in contact with some of the national intelligence agencies. US intelligence officials talking to NYT suggest that this "leak" is a forgery by the GRU. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/14/us/politics/hunter-biden-...

So, you're listening to the people to said Iraq had WMDs?

No, the Republicans have definitely lost credibility. I think it’s a safe prior that anything a Republican says about weird convoluted plots this close to an election should be discounted.

Re: Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

#139

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #135
cirgue wrote: post #85

Hot take: they should do more of this, not less. As a medium it’s fundamentally distortionary, what is popular on Twitter is as much a function of the peculiarities of its ranking algorithm as it is of the material significance of the information. The less people trust twitter popularity as an indication of importance, the better off society is, and the more diverse the online media ecosystem can be.

The idea that Twitter and Facebook can do this in a “non-distortionary” way is unrealistic. Peoples’ personal biases are too strong. The “fact check” websites used to be great. Now, they wander way over “fact checking.” The worst abuses are when they provide “context” or challenge assumptions. Conservatives and liberals are not working from the same assumptions, and have a different set of contextual facts top of min…

I don't think it's the sites wandering that's the problem; it's that they're all inexorably pulled from being color commenters to being refs, and once they become refs, people start to work them. It's hard to think of a way you could run a fact checking site without this dynamic playing out, because the better you are, the more people will depend on you as a referee.

Re: Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

#140

Post by ketzo »

mcfly1985 wrote: post #112
benmw333 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question - How does that make it legitimate? In our eyes (the viewers) or twitter's terms&cond?

Twitter allows all sorts of garbage claims about Trump from mainstream media sources which simply cite "anonymous sources". Most recently the NYTimes claimed to have Trumps tax returns - without evidence verifying the authenticity. Over the last few years, Russiagate relied almost entirely on "anonymous sources" - and we all know how that turned out.

> and we all know how that turned out.

With a bunch of Trump campaign and administration officials admitting in federal court to collaborating with Russian government?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates...

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