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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

#571

Post by throwawaymanbot »

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.

No one is totally stopping you from saying whatever racist/misogynist/Russian disinformation stuff you want. BUT... this private company does not have to be obliged or subjugated to your speech whims. I see no violation of anyones rights. Just a private company exercising its rights in its policy. I wish people would Stop whinging.

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

#572

Post by throwawaymanbot »

chmod600 wrote: post #540
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…

But Twitter blocked direct messages, too. Your argument somewhat makes sense for FB, depending on the details. But Twitter outright censored this content.

[dead]

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

#573

Post by ed25519FUUU »

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.

What’s stranger to me is that people who spent their whole lives distrustful of the US intelligence apparatus suddenly found the CIA and FBI above reproach in 2016.

The entire Russian hacking the elections in 2016 narrative should be a black pill to every technical person in 2020. Did you ever even find out what that “back channel from Trump Towers to Alfa Bank” ever was?

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

#574

Post by tabtab »

Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #479
donohoe wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its is not censorship. No censorship has taken place. The article still exists on the NY Post web site and their newspaper. Their audience is still sizable. Their article included personal information and was consistent with policies that have been in place for almost a year. Twitter is not a public utility in the way that phone services are. They were (rightly) criticized along with others for letting mis-informatio…

But that standard has never been used before and was manually engaged here. Trump's taxes were repeatedly shared and there are photos of the content (not to mention the content itself, which is far more private than an email address). This standard has never been applied like this, and you can still link to the Web Archive version without limitation - same content. It's also not "limitation of deliberate misinformati…

Re: "Trump's taxes were repeatedly shared..."

That's kind of comparing apples to oranges. One is a public figure, the other not. And is tax info comparable to email addresses? I'm not saying whether or not it's fair, only that it's very different kinds of personal information being compared here. Equivalency is hard to establish.

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

#575

Post by RIMR »

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 the fundamental issue with what you're saying here is that it assumes that privately owned social networks are places where free speech matters.

These are curated spaces, and they are not run democratically, they are run capitalistically. Twitter isn't even in the business of providing a forum for speech. They're in the business of serving ads.

Your free speech cannot be infringed by a corporation, as the corporation does't gatekeep anything but access to their platform that they own. Your right to speech exists separate from their platform or their permission to use it.

And if you believe in the free market, you can't complain that the largest social networks gravitate towards political ideologies that are most friendly to their profits. You also have no obligation to participate in those networks if they don't offer you a space that you enjoy participating in.

Just because the social networks that cater to you are smaller doesn't mean your rights are being infringed upon. It just means your ideas are less successful in a free and open marketplace of ideas.

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

#576

Post by thisiscorrect »

donohoe wrote: post #449
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.

Its is not censorship. No censorship has taken place. The article still exists on the NY Post web site and their newspaper. Their audience is still sizable. Their article included personal information and was consistent with policies that have been in place for almost a year. Twitter is not a public utility in the way that phone services are. They were (rightly) criticized along with others for letting mis-informatio…

How is failing to send private messages which contains ideas you disagree with not censorship? You've limited the definition to "taking down the originate reference" but that's too limited.

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

#577

Post by gshulegaard »

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 would second this and take it a step further and point out that the right to free speech is not the right to freely say whatever you want. This is particularly sticky when it comes to misinformation.

Currently we have systems which make misinformation more dangerous (primarily via amplification) and a bunch of people conflating free speech with the freedom to say whatever you want. I think what we still need to explore is whether or not there is a responsibility on individuals to be factually accurate when engaged in amplified speech. What does that even mean? Do you simply need to believe what you are saying at the time? Or is the standard higher? Is this responsibility shifted if you provide a citation (where the responsibility of the cited source shoulders some of the responsibility for your derivative thoughts)?

It's a particularly thorny issue. One that isn't necessarily new, but is particularly acute in contemporary times. I am against censorship, but I also recognize certain trends which seem to be deepening divides and strengthening conspiracy theories in our society.

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

#578

Post by TedShiller »

Censorship is a can of worms. If you do it for one side, you have to do it for the other side as well. Or don't do it at all.

It's not so much that I'm against censorship. It's more that I don't believe it can be implemented successfully.

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

#579

Post by throwawaylolx »

crazygringo wrote: post #379

> However, it is highly unusual for an article published by one of the mainstream popular newspapers to be treated in this way. That's a bit of a stretch. The NY Post is a tabloid [1]. Tabloids are technically newspapers, but they aim primarily to sensationalize [2]. Tabloids are nothing like the NY Times or Washington Post, which attempt to present objective, unbiased news. (Now you may argue that they fail at that…

I don't see how anything you said should contradict or even relate to the BBC statement you quoted--the statement seems perfectly fine, accurate, and objective.

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

#580

Post by throwaway2048 »

glenstein wrote: post #528
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 don't think I agree that they are mischaracterizing how free speech understood, and I don't think that distinction you are drawing identifies a new idea incompatible with what they are saying. Free speech encompasses a lot of things depending on what you want to emphasize, including a notion in a healthy democracy the best ideas survive critical scrutiny. As other have mentioned, I think however plausible that conc…

Two keys to an actual functional market place, as you allude to, involves both good faith engagement (you aren't going to convince somebody deliberately out to cause harm to stop with a well reasoned argument) and critical evaluation (something that is practically non existent on most of the internet)
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