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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

#281
Politicians turning social media sites into publication houses holding them accountable for content on their platforms. Politicians can now control the narrative by penalizing social media sites for non compliance. Social media sites have their moats widen.

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

#283

Why is everyone ignoring @jack's official explanation for why Twitter blocked the specific link from being shared? This is the one falsifiable action Twitter clearly took. Twitters official policy is to not allow publication of hacked material or information with Personally Identifying Information - and this material was hacked and had unredacted personal email addresses. I haven't seen any reasonable arguments again…

I don't think we should ever take the CEO's official explanation of the reason something happened unless its under oath with clear evidence, otherwise its just PR.

When PR is strategically relevant, the official explanation is a strategic move. So, yes, you should pay attention in this case, even if it's not the whole story.

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

#284
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "unchecked misinformation" alternative hasn't really been working out so well either, for what it's worth.

I don't think it's working nearly as badly as you think.

President Trump. I think it's gone pretty fucking badly.

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

#285
The Washington Post tried to verify the authenticity of the claims made by the blocked article... and so far they have found ZERO evidence supporting the story:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/14/hunter-bi...

This bit, in particular, suggests that the blocked article actually deserves to be blocked:

> The New York Post published PDF printouts of several emails allegedly taken from the laptop, but for the “smoking-gun” email, it shows only a photo made the day before the story was posted, according to Thomas Rid, the author of “Active Measures,” a book on disinformation. “There is no header information, no metadata.” The Washington Post has not been able to independently verify or authenticate these emails, as requests to make the laptop hard drive available for inspection have not been granted.

--

EDIT: After some thought, I flagged the OP, because the more we upvote or comment on any story about the original blocked article, the more free exposure it gets -- which is exactly what the author of the blocked article wants. I hope the mods delete or hide this thread.

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

#286

Ahhh: 1. We must censor terror propaganda and child abuse to avoid harm & because it's the law 2. We must censor stormfront and the far right because it's the right thing to do 3. We must censor covid misinformation because it could kill people 4. We must selectively censor news reporting for political candidates we are aligned with because it's probably false. ---- we are here now 5. We must remove all news critical…

The Murdoch news empire has fluctuated between 5 and 6 on that scale for as long as I can remember.

Not trying to excuse Facebook and Twitter's behavior here, but let's not let social media become a scapegoat while News Corp continues to run rampant.

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

#287

I have no idea what happened during the early 2010s. I grew up during the late 90s (born in late 80s) learning about the internet and its philosophies. Allowing Free speech still is the hill I'd like to die on. But the new generation of people, even here on HN and the internet hacker personalities I used to align with have turned so pro-censorship that I don't believe I'm in a proper reality/timeline anymore.

It's censorship that benefits their power structure or preferred power structure. It's easy to demand freedoms when others have them and you are fighting to gain them. Once that freedom or power has been achieved, some simply turn out to have not been concerned about gaining it for everyone but just for themselves and their group. Talk of fairness wasn't genuine, it was a means to a end for them to gain what they wanted with no concern for everyone else.

The real folly in all of this is the assumption that these tools will always be in their hands and will never end up turned against them. History shows that this is almost always a poor assumption and that the reversal of power often happens both sooner and faster than ever imagined.

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

#288

Ahhh: 1. We must censor terror propaganda and child abuse to avoid harm & because it's the law 2. We must censor stormfront and the far right because it's the right thing to do 3. We must censor covid misinformation because it could kill people 4. We must selectively censor news reporting for political candidates we are aligned with because it's probably false. ---- we are here now 5. We must remove all news critical…

1. We can't censor because of slippery slope 2. Idiots elect clown because of propaganda 3. Hundreds of thousands of people die from preventable catastrophe. I don't disagree with you but this is not an acceptable answer.

So dimissive, people selected who aligned with their needs.

Their vote is as valid as yours.

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

#289

I have no idea what happened during the early 2010s. I grew up during the late 90s (born in late 80s) learning about the internet and its philosophies. Allowing Free speech still is the hill I'd like to die on. But the new generation of people, even here on HN and the internet hacker personalities I used to align with have turned so pro-censorship that I don't believe I'm in a proper reality/timeline anymore.

What twitter does has nothing to do with the NY Posts' free speech. Just as NYP is free to say whatever they want, Twitter is free to silence it on their platform. Freedom of speech and the first amendment is to restrain the federal government from prohibiting speech. That is the hill to die on, as it protects twitter's right to do what it wants to do with its platform.

An orthogonal issue is social platform monopoly or oligopoly, and that we need more options and better competition.

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