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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

#731

Post by throwawayAXH79 »

KorematsuFred wrote: post #543

As an insider I see the distinct apathy of big tech towards this single issue which I see as their Achilles heel. Big tech has failed to lay out the foundational principles they will use to perform moderation and have deliberately kept everything pretty shaky. I suspect this is because the tech companies themselves face following problems. 1. Workplaces are increasingly progressive and does not respect the diversity…

“ Leadership is increasingly immigrant driven who often do not understand full implication of their policies and decisions.”

As an immigrant myself... spot on. It’s taken me a decade to understand a bit of the US, appreciate it’s branches, and I’m from Canada!

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

#732

Post by nickysielicki »

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…

> It's 100% inline with free speech to let a given website decide what they want to publish.

Imagine I make a website where I censor everything except pro Trump memes. Is that a bastion of free speech, compared to a website where I allow, y'know, actual free speech and discourse?

I can't stand when people try to conflate the first amendment with freedom of speech. Nobody is (seriously) arguing that websites shouldn't have the legal freedom under our government to limit speech to whatever they desire. What we're arguing is that these platforms ought to value free speech as a principle and act impartially. Of course they have, and should have, the freedom to censor whatever they want for whatever reasons they want. But they should have the integrity not to.

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

#733

Post by qqqwerty »

SaintGhurka wrote: post #414
nobody9999 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

That seems like an extraordinarily risky undertaking. You would certainly be found out and face real consequences. Remember the guy got the FBI involved, which would make the whole operation a federal crime.

There is no shortage of Republican operatives that will risk jail time to further their cause. See [1] for example.

And regarding the FBI, they were hoping that the FBI would open some sort of investigation, which would give the issue much more credibility. But that failed, so plan b was to just hand it over to NY Post.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/1/21497823/jacob-wohl-jack-...

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

#734

Post by RonanTheGrey »

kevin_nisbet wrote: post #635
saurik wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm also curious on another aspect, as I don't believe "right to free speech" is meant in any way to imply a lack of liability for damages caused by that speech. If I convince millions of people that Example companies widgets kills kittens, when I have no reason to believe that to be the case, I would be held liable for the damage to the brand. But the pseudo-anonymous nature of the internet and most platforms, and e…

> I'm also curious on another aspect, as I don't believe "right to free speech" is meant in any way to imply a lack of liability for damages caused by that speech.

It depends what you meant. The law doesn't give carte blanche to say whatever you want, however you want, either. Your example above is what libel and slander laws are about. People make (probably millions) of false claims about companies daily and none of them rise to the level of a credible accusation largely because they're done anonymously. Someone who could actually "convince millions of people" probably has at least SOMETHING damning, and if they don't, the backpressure from everyone else is going to be pretty intense. That's actually _normal_. Desirable.

_Some_ speech _does_ require freedom from damage because otherwise the direct effect is the chilling effect. Political speech is specifically one type of such speech. The internet really has forced us to look carefully at what kinds of speech warrant that protection and which don't and we clearly haven't figured it out yet.

But certainly giving that power to private companies - and removing it from the hands of the people, the government, the law, the courts, and posterity -- is _definitively not_ the right way to do it.

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

#735

Post by eitland »

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…

> 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 think the idea is that if this is the rule, a lot of Republicans think it has already been broken a number of times against them.

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

#736

Post by throwawayAXH79 »

subpixel wrote: post #79
throwmeaway_pls wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’ve certainly changed my vote. Wow.

Oh please. Taking steps to fight disinformation is enough to drive you into the disinformation camp?

Your dismissive of OP’s reasoning. That tends to reinforce people’s position.

My wife is a registered Democrat who’ll be voting for Trump in a swing state. As recently as six months ago she loathed Trump.

Her stated reason is that she doesn’t feel like she can be herself, have her own opinions, among Democrats anymore.

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

#737

Post by shostack »

johndevor wrote: post #715
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…

The Steele Dossier was widely spread on Twitter and was debunked.

That's news to me. Can you cite a credible source for the debunking? I'd love to read more.

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

#738

Post by djsumdog »

tayo42 wrote: post #506
rllearneratwork wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Misinformation and hate speech are clearly important issues. But loosing free speech would be a colossal mistake. I used to live in a country with no free speech, trust me the USA in its current state is hundred million times better and more just. Free speech is just super fundamental. So, in my opinion, nothing restricting free speech is acceptable - the downsides of that are just too enormous. We need to learn to l…

No one in america is restricting your free speech. Go buy server space and write what ever you want.

Until every cloud provider on the planet removed your site and disallows you to even register a domain name:

https://battlepenguin.com/politics/the-new-era-of-corporate-...

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

#739

Post by ww520 »

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…

The more reason to break up these corporations.

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

#740

Post by fareesh »

shostack wrote: post #737
johndevor wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Steele Dossier was widely spread on Twitter and was debunked.

That's news to me. Can you cite a credible source for the debunking? I'd love to read more.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-10-01/steele...
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