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Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

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Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#971

Post by mullingitover »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #840
mullingitover wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When one side says it's raining and the other says it's sunny, it's not 'losing the ability to consider multiple sides of an issue' when you look outside and report to the public that one side is lying.

When one side says it's raining and the other says it's sunny, there's no point in censorship, since one side is obviously wrong.

If only every case of lying were so simple for the public to understand.

The NY Post story pushes the repeatedly-debunked claim that Biden pushed for the Ukraine prosecutor to be fired in order to protect his son. It has been fact-checked to death and found to be a lie. One side (the Trump campaign) continues to push this lie. The NY Post, owned by Trump henchman Rupert Murdoch, is pushing that lie in the article.

I don't see why Twitter and Facebook have to be neutral on their platforms when it comes to spreading lies in the run-up to a major election. The NY Post is a tabloid and this story has not been verified by any reputable news site. Banning this story is on par with banning a tabloid story that Biden is conspiring with Martians. It's a net good.

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#972

Post by Tycho »

libraryatnight wrote: post #644
Tycho wrote: post #361

Crux of the issue is that everyone knows there’s a double standard. Why do they co-ordinate to block this story and not the countless other “unverified” scoops? Because it threatens a protected politician.

What other countless unverified scoops?

Every story based on the word of unnamed sources, for a start.

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#973

Post by no-s »

_qulr wrote: post #864
rufusroflpunch wrote: post #839

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people need to come to terms with the fact that the USA isn’t immutable and no government lasts forever. A divorce is coming and it’s better for everyone if it’s peaceful when it happens.

> I think people need to come to terms with the fact that the USA isn’t immutable and no government lasts forever. I agree with this. The Constitution is outdated in the extreme. We're long overdue for something new. > A divorce is coming and it’s better for everyone if it’s peaceful when it happens. A divorce? I don't think that's going to work. Who gets custody of Wisconsin?

>>A divorce? I don't think that's going to work. Who gets custody of Wisconsin?

Some warlord from Michigan?

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#974

Post by amadeuspagel »

mullingitover wrote: post #971
amadeuspagel wrote: post #840

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When one side says it's raining and the other says it's sunny, there's no point in censorship, since one side is obviously wrong.

If only every case of lying were so simple for the public to understand. The NY Post story pushes the repeatedly-debunked claim that Biden pushed for the Ukraine prosecutor to be fired in order to protect his son. It has been fact-checked to death and found to be a lie. One side (the Trump campaign) continues to push this lie. The NY Post, owned by Trump henchman Rupert Murdoch, is pushing that lie in the article. I…

> If only every case of lying were so simple for the public to understand.

> Banning this story is on par with banning a tabloid story that Biden is conspiring with Martians.

This is the contradiction that I'm trying to get at: To justify censorship by claiming at the same time that something is obviously wrong (like the claim that Biden is conspiring with Martians) and that the public can't understand that it's wrong (though it presumably could understand that Biden isn't conspiring with Martians).

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#975

Post by amadeuspagel »

moron4hire wrote: post #956
amadeuspagel wrote: post #880

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A neutral recommendation engine is one that simply recommends things that I'll probably like, based on other things I liked without any human interference.

A human had to program it, so there is no such thing as "without human interference".

Do things like neutral law, rule of law not men, etc. mean something to you? Would you also say that that's nonsense because humans created the law?

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#976

Post by mullingitover »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #974
mullingitover wrote: post #971

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only every case of lying were so simple for the public to understand. The NY Post story pushes the repeatedly-debunked claim that Biden pushed for the Ukraine prosecutor to be fired in order to protect his son. It has been fact-checked to death and found to be a lie. One side (the Trump campaign) continues to push this lie. The NY Post, owned by Trump henchman Rupert Murdoch, is pushing that lie in the article. I…

> If only every case of lying were so simple for the public to understand. > Banning this story is on par with banning a tabloid story that Biden is conspiring with Martians. This is the contradiction that I'm trying to get at: To justify censorship by claiming at the same time that something is obviously wrong (like the claim that Biden is conspiring with Martians) and that the public can't understand that it's wron…

Ok, let's try something easier to understand: Let's say that rather than conspiring with aliens, the Post was ginning up a story that Biden conspired with bin Laden and was secretly behind 9/11, and they produced some highly suspect documents to back this up. No reputable news outlets verify the story. The Biden campaign produced evidence contradicting the story. And let's say the Post did this not just any random time, but as millions of people are actively voting in an election.

That's what this is - a pretty blatantly false tabloid story being pushed by Rupert Murdoch, the closest thing the world has to a cartoon villain, during the voting process in a major election. In the time it would take to conclusively debunk the story to the public, the damage would already be done. This is straight out of the 2016 election playbook, where disinformation was pushed as voting was happening.

I'm sorry, but I can't bring myself to clutch pearls over a disreputable tabloid being treated like a disreputable tabloid. If anything it would be good for journalism if they banned the Post from the site forever.

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#977

Post by takeda »

onionisafruit wrote: post #402
benmmurphy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn’t prove they were authentic. It would just prove they were sent through gmail’s servers. If you trusted gmail then it would prove the username, time and content was legitimate. All it looks like to me is some Russian username. I don’t see how it ties to a real person. I haven’t read the article so maybe the post explains that bit.

It could prove it was sent through gmails servers on April 17, 2015. There aren’t many people who would know the importance of the meeting five years ago. It would narrow the list of possible senders.

That information would still be meaningless unless we could prove that this e-mail is authentic. `v.pozharskyi.ukraine@gmail.com` - why would an Ukrainian citizen have "ukraine" in their e-mail address?

There are so many other red flags (in addition whether this e-mail was really send, and the account belongs to that person) for example if Hunter responded to it (if they had his laptop surely they could get that from outbox? Why somebody who cares enough about their laptop to get it to repair (if you have plenty of money, more likely you'll get a new one) not care about getting it back?

This would prove that gmail indeed sent the e-mail, but it wouldn't prove that the e-mail wasn't created few minutes earlier.

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#978

Post by takeda »

jtbayly wrote: post #682
srtjstjsj wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two possibilities: Either it's really a hack or it's a felonious attempt to manipulate an election. Or it's both -- a hack of personal private photos and also fake emails feloniously manipulating an election. Either way, a ban is appropriate. Saying "if it's true, it's ban able for X" without out bothering to say that obviously it's bannable if it's false, isn't saying it's true. How could Twitter even know…

So Wikileaks should have been suppressed?

You think their AWS account wasn't cancelled after they leaked pentagon cables?

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#979

Post by takeda »

paganel wrote: post #197
Hamuko wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? Because the factuality of the story seems like a pretty big deal here. If it's completely bogus, how is it different from any of those Russian trollfarm posts that the US government was worried about?

> Because the factuality of the story seems like a pretty big deal here. WMD were non-factual, but even so nobody got censored back then (worse, nobody went to prison for going to war on non-factual information).

WMD information was provided by government officials and it was official government position on it, the news were reporting what officials said and provided.

This is not even remotely close.

Re: Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting

#980

Post by takeda »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #32
Hamuko wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? Because the factuality of the story seems like a pretty big deal here. If it's completely bogus, how is it different from any of those Russian trollfarm posts that the US government was worried about?

It's different because it was written by a major American newspaper. Twitter should not be exercising editorial control over the news.

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

The fist sentence has a word "tabloid" in it. It's not reputable source of news by any stretch.

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