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

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

#601

Post by sergiotapia »

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.

"Man Who Agrees With The Media, Universities, Corporations, And Hollywood Thinks He's Part Of The Resistance" - https://babylonbee.com/news/counter-cultural-rebel-believes-...

I was born in 89, I don't remember things being this way. It feels artificial and forced, like some foreign state is having their way with public influence in our country and by extension the world. Sickening. Free speech should be free, and I'm surprised people in the tech industry feel opposite.

I wonder, do they really feel this way? Or do they pretend, to go with the flow and not be labeled a racist?

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

#602

Post by throwawaygh »

notadev wrote: post #339
snowwrestler wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wordpress.

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

#603

Post by StanislavPetrov »

nostromo wrote: post #426
nemo44x wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speech is considered violence by some people. It has been this way since the late 80's but it was confined to certain subcultures that weren't taken too seriously. But they have taken over certain institutions, like the university (and increasingly big-tech), and own that platform and teach this as esteemed fact rather than an opinion. And it's dangerous because when you equate speech with violence then how far are w…

> But they have taken over certain institutions, like the university (and increasingly big-tech) And the media, which is increasingly opposed to free speech. Today we're seeing journalists talk about how other journalists should be banned from the public square by powerful corporations. They seemingly aren't bright enough to pause and wonder if this will ever be used against them. And this is being done under the ban…

>Today we're seeing journalists talk about how other journalists should be banned from the public square by powerful corporations. They seemingly aren't bright enough to pause and wonder if this will ever be used against them.

One of the issues is calling media personalities who read from teleprompters, "journalists". Call them actors, call them media spokespeople, but they aren't engaging in anything that can be construed as, "journalism". Further, it isn't in the interest of corporate media outlets to hire people who are smart. They want people who sound articulate, look good on camera and repeat the talking points that they are told to repeat. What we see on cable outlets these days shouldn't be considered, "news" so much as infotainment. By now, most people, regardless of their political affiliation (if any) understand that society has largely gone off the rails, and in their desperation they are left with an appeal to authority to make things better and restore a patina of "normality". It is dangerously seductive to suggest to people who are desperate to end the chaos that if we just silenced the "bad" people things would be okay (leaving unsaid who determines who is bad and what we are allowed to think and say).

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

#604

Post by jorblumesea »

saurik wrote: post #325
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…

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 al…

If you choose to follow disinformation posted by a hostile nation state, is that a right to free speech or free amplification? What if those voices argue harmful or destructive effects on you and your society?

I guess the line is so blurred because often these aren't "people" but often institutions, governments and those intending to shape public opinion, even bots in some cases.

You're talking about it like Twitter is censoring someone specifically but it's so much more complicated and nuanced than that.

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

#605

Post by username90 »

hardtke wrote: post #551
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…

Stepping outside the US, there is evidence that misinformation spread of Facebook (including WhatsApp) was directly responsible for the Rohingya genocide and forced migration [1]. At what point do these platforms have an obligation to not allow themselves be used for such campaigns? [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...

Letting Facebook censor WhatsApp is like censoring SMS. Should we let private companies censor SMS messages?

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

#606

Post by mikenew »

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…

> People were also stopped from sending the article in a private direct message

In this instance, the solution has already reached beyond the realm of "don't allow certain things to be amplified". You literally cannot share this information even in a private 1-on-1 chat.

> we go back to uncurated things

Yeah. The more I reflect on things the more I think social networks are just a thing that shouldn't exist. Although, of course, here we are on hacker news talking about it. So IDK. Maybe you just can't unring that bell and we're just screwed.

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

#607

Post by moksly »

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.

Your 90ies must have been very different from mine. IRC operators, forum moderators and what not happily banned people back then. It’s not like you could even take your bullshit to your own channels or sub forums if it was bad enough, because you’d get network banned.

Things have changed though. In the 90ies you would have been laughed off the internet if you seriously suggested the earth was flat. Conspiracy theories back then weren’t making people shoot up pizza places or plan to kidnap governors. Today we’re seriously seeing diseases we defeated come back and kill thousands of people because of anti-vaccine Facebook groups.

So yeah, people around you have likely changed, because free speech doesn’t work when it has no consequences. And I’m not talking about putting people in prison, I’m talking about laughing them back to their caves so their infectious collective stupid doesn’t ruin democracy. If it’s not already too late.

I used to be right with you on that free speech hill, but like so many other people I just got sick of all the anti-vaxxers, Holocaust deniers and whatever scumbags who cause harm, abusing it. And it’s not like they don’t have freedom of speech just because they get banned from popular platforms. Just like the 90ies, they are free to set up their own.

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

#608

Post by tossAfterUsing »

donmcronald wrote: post #545
rbetts wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was born in 1974. Netscape's browser (what became Mozilla) was released my junior year of college. It was a cute alternative to gopher and ftp. Then, newspapers were published once or twice a day. Magazines weekly or monthly. Publishers worked as editors, fact-checkers, and curators (with their various agendas, of course). The original miracle of internet free speech was the promise that anyone could become a publi…

> Now we are trying to figure out how to manage real time publishing platforms that can't (or won't?) validate identity, won't take responsibility for fact-checking, are open to targeted manipulation by adversaries, and are capable of distributing damaging lies and propaganda with little oversight or financial consequences. The identity validation part is worth repeating. I'm not a fan of real names, but I'd consider…

> I'd consider opting in to an identity that follows me between platforms so I could build a reputation.

same.

consider scuttlebutt.

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

#609

Post by linuxhansl »

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.

We always used to disagree on topics, and argued passionately over these. But we (mostly) agreed on facts and what is true and what is not - and then argued conclusions or actions.

What is different these days is that we simply deny the facts, provide "alternate facts", or simply lie about facts. As a result we no longer agree on a basic basis of truth, truth has become a belief or a choice.

That is toxic, since it is used to simply avoid meaningful discussion. It is a fundamental change in how we conduct our discourse. And so new measures are needed.

Rather than censoring speech, I'd prefer fact checking, which may or may not amount to the same.

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

#610

Post by andrewprock »

jpttsn wrote: post #258
Fauntleroy wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "unchecked misinformation" alternative hasn't really been working out so well either, for what it's worth.

Hits and misses. It worked great for Galileo.

Could you clarify what you mean by "it worked great" here?
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