Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims • Hacker News Board

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

#491

Post by mattigames » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 10:04 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #429

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…

You’re mischaracterizing how free speech was viewed in the recent past. “Free speech” (as a cultural value, I’m not talking about the first amendment) was about the marketplace of ideas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketplace_of_ideas . It meant a free market in ideas, where the dominant ideas arise from competition. What you call “amplification” is just something that makes the marketplace more efficient—it allow…

That's not how it works in reality, in reality a lot of gullible people who before internet would have spend their whole lives without hearing the "flat earth theory" now have access to internet and are quickly influenced by a lot of stupid theories because they are pretty bad at distinguishing bad ones from good ones; although just to be clear that is more a failure of the education system than anything else (e.g Japan has near 0 flat-earthers unlike America)

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

#492

Post by joe_the_user » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 10:04 PM UTC

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 too started the Internet in the 90s and I was post 20 then.

I also have seen "weaponized trolling" in the last ten years that seems to make the world a good deal worse. The way climate change denial has gotten legs from combination of the average person's poor thinking and the particular dynamics of electronic communication. I see bots on my FB feed activating now, pushing propaganda that makes me chuckle but certainly push some morons to actions.

Putting aside the point that Twitter/FB own the medium. Someone is going to manage any given medium. Is "throttling" censorship? Because the NY Post story never was made unavailable, it was just throttled, it just slowed down, slowed down enough that the rebuttal was made available at the same rate as the original story.

There are junctures where "free speech" can't really be a criteria - Oliver Wendel Holmes' "Shouting fire in a crowded theater" is the epitome of such examples (and these can be misused, in fact Holmes' made his example to misuse it, justifying repression against those who oppose WWI). Is spread viral false news on the eve of an election in the "fire" or the "freedom" category? Honestly, throttling seems like a good compromise if we're looking for the simple free availability of information. But when information is the coordination, activation and/or manipulation of people at scale, talking about freedom stops meaning a lot.

Suppose there's a fire, and a hurricane, and an epidemic and an economic crisis and different things shouted will save some people and trample other people. What category is "shouting" "you don't need a mask, come shop before I go bankrupt"? Etc.

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

#493

Post by 0xC0ncord » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

nobody9999 wrote: post #323

CivBase wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wa…

Even if that scenario is true, there is zero evidence to corroborate it, nor has there been any concluded official investigation into the matter. I don't think it's fair for Twitter to execute that portion of their policy based on assumption alone.

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

#494

Post by cfmcdonald » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 10:06 PM UTC

hintymad wrote: post #345

swalsh wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-multipl…

Never owned gun, and never thought of owning one, until this year, precisely when politicians told us, on TV, that calling 911 is a privilege, and when politicians condoned publicly looting and robbery and violence and abolishing police. I never felt so much need to own many guns and train for tactical shooting to defend my family when needed.

Seems like an overreaction. No one has actually abolished any police force in the U.S., AFAIK. The Minneapolis city council made some noise about it, but most of them regret it and nothing has come of it.

Any guns you own are statistically more likely to kill/injure your family than protect them.

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

#495

Post by tayo42 » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 10:06 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #472

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 are not talking about next video suggestion here. We are talking about censoring direct messages or feeds people deliberately follow. Tech companies inserting their political bias in direct communications. Not amplification.

You're still free to send a text, write a letter, call. Twitter and facebook aren't public utilities.

I saw an interesting comparison the other day. If this was a message board from the early 2000s, and the moderator was deleting posts, you move on, not throw a giant fit about free speech using some one else server.

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

#496

Post by zaroth » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 10:06 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #472

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 are not talking about next video suggestion here. We are talking about censoring direct messages or feeds people deliberately follow. Tech companies inserting their political bias in direct communications. Not amplification.

This is a crucial point. We are not talking about someone coming to my house and blaring Tweets with a bullhorn.

If I follow @NYPost then I want to hear what they tweet. Twitter may have every right to censure them, but it’s the wrong thing to do, and people are rightly incensed about it.

If I want to retweet a @NYPost article to my followers that is my business. And my followers can gladly listen or unfollow.

Twitter’s faux rationale about “hacked materials” sticks coming just days after NYTime’s story on Trump tax returns.

If these monopolistic social networks want to interfere in public & private messages on their platform to the benefit of particular political candidates they shouldn’t be doing it with the benefit of Section 230 immunity and/or should be scrutinized for making campaign contributions in-kind, like how National Inquirer got hit with charges for their buy&bury on Trump’s affair.

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

#497

Post by pcmoney » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

nkurz wrote: post #201

pcmoney wrote: post #147

I don't understand why this is so controversial. You cannot reveal personal details of someone on Twitter (email, phone number etc.) The article contained unreacted personal info so should be blocked. You also cannot link directly to hacked/obtained without consent material on twitter. The article contained screenshot of the material so should be blocked. You CAN link to material that discusses hacked/obtained withou…

This is a reasonable enough comment, but adding it four times into the thread makes it spam. Please delete some of the copies.

Having a bunch of replies on the thread that don't bother to read the terms of use or the explanation of the ban is spam as well. Spam fighting spam? Spamalot?

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

#498

Post by syshum » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

canjobear wrote: post #450

rayiner wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re mischaracterizing how free speech was viewed in the recent past. “Free speech” (as a cultural value, I’m not talking about the first amendment) was about the marketplace of ideas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketplace_of_ideas . It meant a free market in ideas, where the dominant ideas arise from competition. What you call “amplification” is just something that makes the marketplace more efficient—it allow…

I understand the theoretical argument, but empirically do you think the quality of ideas that people believe has increased from (say) 2000 to 2020? It seems like there's a lot more going on than just faster dissemination, and the way information travels these days might have introduced new asymmetries and inefficiencies.

I do, but I also do not use or consume content from Either Facebook or Twitter so....

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

#499

Post by BurningFrog » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

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…

Listen more to what people do than what they say.

There is always a good sounding explanation, especially from those with full time PR people on staff.

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

#500

Post by patcon » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

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.

First, I'm not for or against any specific actions in saying this, but...

I'd say that if your views on what censorship is haven't changed as the actual social medium of thought has (over 20 years), then you're perhaps being dogmatic about censorship. Ideas around censorship came about when the social medium that mobilized thought were MUCH more viscous.

Like imagine a physical surface on some liquid medium, in which its initial properties were such that a small force rippled to such a degree due to viscosity. You'd generally know the forces other points would feel when event Y happened so much distance away. But if suddenly the liquid developed very different properties, and now waves travelled differently through it, you must respond by adapting (or at least CONSIDER adapting). Whatever science or activity or measurement was happening on that surface before, that would need to be adapted or changed or even discarded. One's views on how to navigate the environment must change to respond to such an important change in the mediating layer.

Sorry if that's a bit of mixed metaphor, but I truly feel it's more than light analogy. Anyhow, be well!