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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

#161

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.

While I agree that the liberal-run tech firms are biased against conservative news sources, I think it is only fair to point out that the list you link is compiled and presented by a conservative organisation that has apparently been under criticism for its own approach to covid reporting (see the wiki page; and yes, I think wikipedia seems often liberal-biased), and can not be considered a neutral voice in this part…

I would encourage folks to resist the urge to put up blinders based on the URL. Particularly where, as here, the source is just collecting publicly-available documents and links. You’re not being asked to trust the author’s synthesis of a bunch of facts. You can check the underlying links yourself. Obviously conservative organizations have more of an incentive to compile this sort of thing. That doesn’t make it in and of itself unreliable.

Also, “conservative” and “liberal” are relative terms. Journalists are vastly more liberal than the public as a whole, so any news outlet that covers things from a middle ground perspective is labeled “conservative.”

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/media-bias-lef...

In an ASU study of financial journalists, people who labeled themselves “very liberal” or “liberal” outnumbered those who labeled themselves “conservative” or “very conservative” 13:1.

I’m not saying that this makes liberal reporters bad, or biased in the sense of willful prejudice. But liberals and conservatives have different assumptions, have different sets of facts they consider salient to different issues, etc. When a liberal reporter covers Sanders’ suggestion of $60,000 minimum teacher pay, the facts that come to mind might be things like how the income gap between teachers and other college-educated professionals is bigger in the US than in other countries. To a conservative, the first thing that might come to mind is that US teachers are already paid well above the OECD average. Both facts are true (American teachers are paid more than British teachers, but American programmers are paid a lot more). These differences inevitably come out in the reporting. Just because an outlet is writing from a conservative point of view doesn’t mean it’s trying to manipulate or deceive people.

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

#162
post #23

The story reeks from top to bottom. The owner of the repair shop that allegedly received the laptop from Biden is a super far right conspiracy theorist. To the point where he literally believes that the Clintons are out to kill him for the information he has [1]. The whole story is that this is Hunter Biden's laptop, but in reality some random dude dropped it off and the owner said that "he had a medical condition th…

1. That the FBI subpoenaed the laptop is sort of interesting. That usually requires a grand jury, doesn't it? But this is really weird: >During the subsequent summer and fall, Mac Isaac said he became alarmed after browsing through the computer's files. He claims he then spoke with an associate more versed than him in the law and in current events. >That unnamed person then contacted the FBI, Mac Isaac said. >Federal…

Racists will do what they are wont to do.

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

#163
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?

Just curious, what do you make of the Biden photos with a crack pipe found on the laptop too. Are those fake? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8842709/Joe-Bidens-...

Do you have any proof they came from the laptop and not a hacked icloud account or insert many other possible sources?

Pretty obvious the guy who claimed to have obtained the laptop is fabricating the whole story: https://www.thedailybeast.com/man-who-reportedly-gave-hunter...

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

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that the liberal-run tech firms are biased against conservative news sources, I think it is only fair to point out that the list you link is compiled and presented by a conservative organisation that has apparently been under criticism for its own approach to covid reporting (see the wiki page; and yes, I think wikipedia seems often liberal-biased), and can not be considered a neutral voice in this part…

I would encourage folks to resist the urge to put up blinders based on the URL. Particularly where, as here, the source is just collecting publicly-available documents and links. You’re not being asked to trust the author’s synthesis of a bunch of facts. You can check the underlying links yourself. Obviously conservative organizations have more of an incentive to compile this sort of thing. That doesn’t make it in an…

I agree with most of that, but wrt "blinders" was careful to word my comment so that people had eyes open...

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

#165
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Democratic politicians are the loudest ones calling for their breakup, ie. Bernie, AOC, Warren. Incidents like this may make Republicans a lot more interested in breaking up Facebook and Twitter...

If the populace as a whole thinks large corporations have too much power and want to spread the power out more, that’s certainly a coherent position. Run your email servers and lobby for anti-trust suits. The internet can certainly support a distributed model.

Well, I was thinking of it more as politicians playing politics than as them caring about what the populace as a whole thinks.

But certainly we can handle a distributed model. There's plenty of people who think it would work better (socially, not just technically).

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

#166
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 A…

Completely disagree. You just don’t like like Taibbi because you wear your politics on your sleeve and you just don’t like some of the things he’s uncovered in recent years. He’s just part of the prior generation of journalists with the old goals and a great writer with a great sense of humor. The “blood funnel” line about Goldman Sachs was both creative and hilarious.

Sturgeon’s law (most stuff is crap) does little to shed light on the massive CHANGES to journalism in recent years. Of course 90%+ don’t even realized it like you.

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

#167
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. That the FBI subpoenaed the laptop is sort of interesting. That usually requires a grand jury, doesn't it? But this is really weird: >During the subsequent summer and fall, Mac Isaac said he became alarmed after browsing through the computer's files. He claims he then spoke with an associate more versed than him in the law and in current events. >That unnamed person then contacted the FBI, Mac Isaac said. >Federal…

Racists will do what they are wont to do.

racists?

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

#168
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the title refers to it as "bias" rather than "censorship". "free market" is a larger concept than "bias", although you can be biased while still operating within the context of a free market. Still, censorship doesn't have anything to do with the government, although the U.S. explicitly forbids government censorship.

You mean bias like Rush Limbaugh or FoxNews bias? Where other ideas are not only never presented, they are openly mocked? And that happens mind you, on the PUBLICLY OWNED airwaves and spectrum....

"airwaves and spectrum.... "

If we really start considering media, a lot of taxpayer money worldwide went to broadband Internet infrastructure, so Twitter and friends do not play on a completely private field either.

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

#169
Why is everyone accepting the unstated assumption: that a child's actions (if the dubious allegations were true) should reflect on the parent?

Corruption of blood is even prohibited by the Constitution and for good reason.

Eve if Hunter Biden did something wrong that doesn't really have anything to do with Joe Biden. There also isn't even a tiny hint that Joe Biden's position on Russia vs Ukraine has changed at any point.

Is Trump liable for everything his kids say and do? Or the obvious influence peddling they're doing right now?

The whole premise of this is to smear someone by familial association. So in that light it's garbage from the start. In my mind the connection to Giuliani makes it even more likely to be entirely fabricated, but taken at face value it's a worthless conspiracy theory story clearly dropped at the last minute to attempt to sway the election.

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

#170
post #30
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s literally not the definition of censorship: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censorship Otherwise the phrase “government censorship” would be redundant. And that’s why the Hollywood Production Codes were a kind of censorship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code And the idea that criticizing censorship when private organizations do it is “whining” is quite odd. Not everything…

You do realize that the literal meaning and the legal meaning are two separate things, right? Censorship in a privately owned entity is 100% legal. As is bias...

I thought you said private entities can't censor? Now you're saying they can, but it's legal. So which is it?
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