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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

#331

Post by macinjosh »

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…

Perhaps, instead of outlawing new technology and modes of communication, we should produce more speech to teach people how it works so they don't get sucked in by an algorithm and believe everything they read.

Those editorial boards you speak of get things wrong constantly. Limiting who can respond to them in front of an (at least) equally large audience is dangerous and a disservice to all, especially minorities.

Limiting who can publish and the size of their audience is categorically a violation of free speech. There is no daylight there.

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

#332

Post by AlexandrB »

notadev wrote: post #309
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…

Wouldn't the obvious choice be to let everyone have the same access to free amplification? No one is being forced to listen, and I'd rather have the ability to ignore what I don't want to see/hear instead of a bunch of 20 somethings Engineers deciding for me.

Whenever I see a comment like this, I have to point out that they are already deciding what you want to see and hear. On most of the platforms in question you're being suggested content by a bunch of algorithms that you can't inspect, understand, or control. And while it's not censorship, drowning signal in a flood of noise is not that different.

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

#334

Post by swalsh »

meroes wrote: post #274
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.

So HN can't remove posts either because that violates free speech? I grew up on the internet too and forum bans were always a thing. You haven't convinced me this is different.

The president doesn't make major annoucements using HN. The fact is, Twitter has taken on a different role.

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

#335

Post by Daishiman »

notadev wrote: post #309
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…

Wouldn't the obvious choice be to let everyone have the same access to free amplification? No one is being forced to listen, and I'd rather have the ability to ignore what I don't want to see/hear instead of a bunch of 20 somethings Engineers deciding for me.

It's impossible because amplification is a zero-sum game. There's a limited amount of attention per human being. Thus everyone vying for attention is competing in this game, and any criteria for choose one amplified voice over the other necessarily results in bias.

It is a completely unavoidable artifact of our attention span and mortality, with no possible workaround. Hence why curation and bias becomes the value propositions.

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

#336

Post by theklub »

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.

"Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me" Was the phrase I grew up on. Seems like the opposite today where we allow looting and riots but saying the wrong thing gets you in trouble.

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

#337

Post by the_why_of_y »

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?

This is incorrect. The 3 letter agencies refused to say this, which is why Paul Wolfowitz had to create the Office of Special Plans inside the Pentagon so that there was an intelligence agency that produced the sort of analysis results that the White House wanted.

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

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

#338

Post by intrasight »

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…

It's a web site so you can't delete it ;)

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

#339

Post by notadev »

snowwrestler wrote: post #275
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.

It's 100% inline with free speech to let a given website decide what they want to publish. Even if it is a very popular website. If they make bad decisions, then people can go to competitors; it's as easy as typing in a different URL. That's how the Internet--and open societies in general--are supposed to work. What it looks like to me--someone who has been on the Internet since before the turn of the century--is tha…

Where does one go when Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube seem to take these steps in tandem? The joke of "go make your own social network" has been tried with places like Parler and Gab, but they get banned from app stores, ironically blocked from technically, but not ideologically, decentralized services like Mastodon, or even dropped from web hosts. The open Internet is dead.

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

#340

Post by wesleywt »

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.

A government entity cannot censor your speech. But YouTube definitely can. They are a private entity.
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