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

bbc.com

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

#311

Post by manigandham »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #300
manigandham wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the scale and centralization of power with social media. Global conglomerates serving billions where moderation is controlled by a few individuals with absolute control and no accountability. This is a major issue as these networks are quickly becoming a critical medium of communication and expression in this century.

But what if some of those small communities engage in no-no think? How can we allow those with no-no think to co-exist with our world? Shouldn't they be stamped out of existence for the good of everyone else who doesn't have no-no think? Sadly the above is a very common belief structure now. It's a product of utopian thinking where if just this one more enemy can be destroyed, peace will fall upon the Earth and all w…

I would much rather go back to a series of small private communities with known members, much like how the physical world still has neighborhoods and groups of friends.

It still has plenty of idea sharing but enough social friction to support proper filtering and decorum.

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

#312

Post by swalsh »

prudhvis wrote: post #223

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.

When guns were flint locks, the amount of damage one person could do was pretty limited. When machine guns became generally available (and i'm aware $200 is not "generally available" in 1920). That changed. These weapons were introduced to "force multiply" an individual.

Before the internet, the amount of damange a single guy with free speech could do was pretty limited. But with the internet, we're all force-multiplied. This message is probably going to be read by hundreds of people. Maybe thousands. In meat space, i'd have to be standing in a large concert hall for that kind of audince.

I still believe in free-speech, and frankly I also believe regular individuals should be able to buy machine guns. But I don't blame people for having some hesitation about that. Crazy people exist... and force-multiplying those individuals can cause a lot of harm to society. I'm very pro-speech, but I respect that we might need to have a conversation about it.

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

#313

Post by tick_tock_tick »

cs702 wrote: post #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…

I mean they didn't break the story and it's based on something physical I'd be surprised with those conditions if they could "independently verify" anything in <24 hours.

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

#314

Post by hartator »

cs702 wrote: post #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…

> There is no header information, no metadata.

It has been a day that the article is online. We'll have these soon enough. Biden hasn't say this email is not real when asked. Which is a better proof than header information which can be faked as email sending can be done from any email to any email.

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

#315

Post by codecrusade »

rtx wrote: post #293
jungletime wrote: post #183

@Jack thinks China is going to win the war, and already picking sides. There are reasons why being Neutral is a bad option, if you read Machiavelli. "Do not be Neutral" https://www.obtaineudaimonia.com/do-not-be-neutral-prince-ni...

That's why this election is so important. It will chart our paths for next 100 years.

China invasion of US. Sad.

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

#316

Post by cryptoz »

nradov wrote: post #305
sailingparrot wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New technologies brought new challenges. There was no social network in the 2000s and before. No retweet button, no "curated" timeline that showed you what you "like". YouTube did not try to push more videos like the ones you watched previously until the mid 2010s. Free speech does not have the same meaning as before. Before it just meant that you could say whatever you wanted. Now people use it implicitly to mean th…

We had AOL message boards and similar forums with free amplification before social media.

The difference in scale is so astronomically large that using 'amplification' for both of these cases is misleading at best.

How many AOL users were there, total, in the 90s? Now, how many Twitter users are there, today? It's not even a fair fight.

That's only one metric, another would be trust, and clout, and others. The president tweeting is different from a random AOL user posting to a message board. Totally different beasts.

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

#317

Post by millzlane »

prudhvis wrote: post #223

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.

The internet is still in it's current form the same internet with the same philosophies.

You can always host your own website and say whatever the hell you want.

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

#319

Post by suyash »

prudhvis wrote: post #223

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.

I'm with you, solutions that come to me are:

1. Creating a level playing field by setting clear standards of what is allowed vs what is now allowed for all social media. Gov bodies are the ones to do this as companies have proven they can't self police themselves.

2. Break up big tech - too much power in their hand that they are absuing. This would be painful though for the stakeholders and won't happen easily as there are lot of vested interests.

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

#320

Post by ironman1478 »

There have been some comments here about censorship and I think they are coming from a good place. However, I really think people are only looking at things from their perspective. I think a lot of people here are skeptical in a healthy way and can use inference to figure out if something written on the internet is truthful and correctly framed. A lot of people do not have those skills. I think these platforms need some form of censorship because clearly people are taking things they read randomly as fact and it's clearly having a damaging effect on society (see qanon). This specific instance definitely straddles the line between necessary/unnecessary removal (I think the content should be published) but let's please not act like this is the norm. It's an outlier. People are abusing these platforms to spread hateful and dangerous ideas and it's working because most people aren't internet literate.

It is scary to see this (my parents lived through communist Romania), but I think to act like a lot censorship/removal of content on these platforms is unjustified is clearly disingenuous.

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