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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

#321

Post by ryantgtg »

shrubble wrote: post #269
sangnoir wrote: post #185

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…

Did Twitter block the NYT story on Trump's taxes, which they did not have any official authority for having?

Do you not know the answer to your question?

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

#323

Post by nobody9999 »

CivBase wrote: post #200
sangnoir wrote: post #185

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…

How does this constitute hacking? The repair shop almost certainly retains ownership of unclaimed deviced after some period of time. The shop owns the laptop. The data is theirs to do with as they please and they chose to publish it (at least, that's the story). No hacking necessary.

>How does this constitute hacking?

IIUC, the idea is that the whole thing was a setup from start to finish:

1. Burisma emails were hacked;

2. Hunter Biden's iCloud account was hacked;

3. They bought a Mac, dumped a bunch of the hacked photos, along with some real hacked emails and some forged ones;

4. Sent someone over to the computer shop with the frame up on the laptop already in place;

5. Either the store owner was complicit from the beginning, or they just used him as a dupe.

The above may or may not be true. But again, IIUC that's the line that Twitter is taking.

If that's what Twitter believe (or can credibly claim to believe), then they're executing the policies in their TOS.

I'm not saying it's true, and I'm not saying it ain't. That's just my understanding of Twitter's stand on this.

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

#324

Post by foobarian »

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.

You have the right to speak freely, but you do not have the right to make me listen. s/me/FB/ you get the idea.

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

#325

Post by saurik »

sailingparrot wrote: post #264
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.

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…

I agree wholeheartedly: the "right to free speech" is not the same as a "right to be heard", but we have managed to conflate the two with all of this "free amplification", as you describe; there is a big difference between someone getting to say something to their followers and that content being broadcast and even recommended by Twitter to random people. I personally believe that if a website has a recommendation algorithm that should be considered an editorial decision they are making and they should be liable for the content they recommend (and much more so than they are today: the same level of standard we hold a newspaper to should apply); but, if a user merely posts something and people have to actively choose to follow the poster, then that's on them (as the website is acting as a utility connecting consenting parties). Doing it like this (which might even be the status quo of the law if Section 230 is repealed, btw) changes what kinds of apps can be built and what businesses models are viable "at scale", but almost certainly for the better: apps that work like how Instagram used to--where you just saw content from exactly who you followed in the order they posted it... something many (if not maybe even most) users preferred but which was clearly less profitable for Facebook--seem like they should be fine and you should get to post whatever you want to the people who opted in to hear what you had to say. People who generally like recommendation systems try to defend all of their algorithmic amplification, and then the sometimes-arbitrary-feeling censorship seemingly required to make them universally viable, but here we see Twitter taking the ridiculously extreme position to even block private messages... the regulatory fallout of this political decision is going to be fascinating to watch.

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

#326

Post by hartator »

sailingparrot wrote: post #264
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.

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…

> I believe free amplification is terrible

It's exactly what they were saying at the invention of the printing press. Amplification becoming too cheap. Maybe being on the side of censorship is always being on the wrong side of history no matter the issue. Can you remember one time in history where we now like "thanks god they censor these thoughts!"?

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

#327

Post by realmod »

CivBase wrote: post #189
gok wrote: post #146

It's frustrating Twitter and Facebook won't just say the truth: "This is a blatant attempt at disinformation by politicians who have repeatedly attacked our employees, and we don't want it. It's our web site, stop trying to tell us what our own rules are. Go spread your nonsense somewhere else. If you think this is a 230 violation sue us."

Reading through these HN comments, it is amazing to me how many people have already concluded the NY Post story is either obviously true or false. But I agree with the gist of your point. Social media platforms should stop pretending to be unbiased disinformation watchmen. It's their platform and they don't have to justify squat. If people want free speech, they can go somewhere else. On that note, I really do think…

The contradictory statements by the so-called shop owner, who provided the emails, and the past behavior of Guiliani all points towards it very likely being false. And them holding this information until 3 weeks before the election points, after having it for over a year, further points it to being false informations.

And the nail in the coffin is the simple fact that they decided to release a PDF-image of the emails instead of simply giving the raw email with its metadata which would allow us to instantaneously confirm it. Literally all they have to do is post the metadata.

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

#328

Post by bosswipe »

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 think a big part of the backlash is because of 4chan culture going mainstream. 4chan's idea of finding weaknesses in society and attacking them "for the lulz" has been adopted by right wing youth culture. The culture war has lost all morals. I've asked friends that knowingly disseminate false information why they do it and they see themselves as part of an all out political war where anything goes. I don't see how democracy can function in such an environment where nobody knows what is real or fake.

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

#329

Post by doktrin »

DevKoala wrote: post #290

Incredibly disappointed. I had never seen such a concerted effort to hide information in the USA. Is this how it feels to live under the CCP’s control?

> Is this how it feels to live under the CCP’s control?

This is an overly dramatic comparison that trivializes the Chinese surveillance state.

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

#330

Post by seneca »

rebolek wrote: post #297
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 was born in late 70's in Czechoslovakia so I remember the communist regime with its propaganda. I'm all for free speech but when I see propaganda I want to smash it with a steel tube which probably makes me pro-censorship. I still want to believe in the ideals of Internet as I've encountered it back in 1994 but that would require ideal people and we're not ideal. So some rules are needed.

And what would happen if the communists you hate so much were the ones deciding what gets censored?
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