11–20 of 68 posts
They crossed a long time ago! They should have worked like phone lines, just a medium
I don't think it would work that well. Phone conversations are private and so there won't be much pressure to crack down on hateful or false conversations. Social media is very public. I'd say it's closer to radio than telephone.
I don't think that this article really contributes much more to the conversation. I expect discussion here to be just a rehash of the above.
As a side note, I became aware of Glenn Greenwald after the Snowden affair and I have been following his writings ever since. He is one of the sharpest minds in journalism today and is also one of the most objective journalists I've come across. In the past 4 years journalism has become extremely polarized and it's next to impossible for many of them to remain objective. As soon as one declares their opinion on something, they're skewered by the side opposing the issue. Somehow, Glenn has managed to remain largely objective.
The idea that Facebook and Twitter have to censor content sometimes, but then need to be some protector of free speech in others, and apply this across the board in some magically apolitical way is ridiculous. Censoring speech in inherently political Surprise surprise, the political party who gets to censor more content in their favor supports it and the political party who gets more of their content censored takes t…
The first amendment right to free speech doesn't compel any company (whether publicly traded stock or privately owned) to give you a free publishing platform.
The NYT reported that US intelligence officials picked up on conversations that there was to be an October surprise [0] that was designed to throw a monkey wrench in the US election.
It would be straight up dangerous to society if the false narrative created by a Russian disinfo was allowed to spread, and in that sense, the containment makes more sense. You might not have to agree with it completely, but you can't say that this is merely big tech partisanship. Glenn Greenwald doesn't even bother to mention this probability and simply paints it as big tech simply favoring one side, when there is clearly more to the issue.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/14/us/politics/hunter-biden-...
This Biden story was unlikely to cost him the election. But censoring it is going to be prime fuel for the right leading into the election and is a much bigger story than what was censored. This was a stupendously naive move.
Also, this articles headline is inaccurate. Facebook and Twitter are private organizations and have a right to not allow certain things without it being censorship. Restaurants can keep out people known to defecate on the floors, Twitter and Facebook can stop By post garbage.
Censorship by nature is something a government does, not a private entity. Wikipedia doesn't censor articles, it just edits stuff.
The first amendment right to free speech doesn't compel any company (whether publicly traded stock or privately owned) to give you a free publishing platform.
They crossed a long time ago! They should have worked like phone lines, just a medium
I don't think it would work that well. Phone conversations are private and so there won't be much pressure to crack down on hateful or false conversations. Social media is very public. I'd say it's closer to radio than telephone.
This is part of the "mistake" of the social media companies. Rather than emphasizing cohesive friend groups, they (particularly Facebook) defaulted everything to be as widely visible as possible.
They crossed a long time ago! They should have worked like phone lines, just a medium
I don't think it would work that well. Phone conversations are private and so there won't be much pressure to crack down on hateful or false conversations. Social media is very public. I'd say it's closer to radio than telephone.
For me, democracy has 4 pillars that must be independent, and currently are not is most countries: executive, legislative, judicial and media. The 4th one is controversial but nonetheless necessary for the country to be a democracy.
Democracy without equal speech time for all parties isn’t a democracy – it is like Singapore, a single-party democracy.
Finally, we must have a population who is educated enough to read ambiant news and distinguish false from truth. If you say that is impossible, you advocate for the people’s decision being taken by a central organization, aka not people’s decision. Educating people enough is entirely possible; For example people are routinely exposed to scam and a rule of life is never to fall down into scam. Only a few % of pop fall for it and it is fine. Democracy is based on the same people. You precisely shouldn’t prevent people from being exposed to fake news, otherwise they become ultra gullible (which may be what you want, in the end...).
All in all, what leftists call fake news or debunked news are often... falsely debunked, by journalists who try to present alternative facts, which the people are getting tired of. It’s ok, we understand they don’t want to lose grip of the leadership.