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Facebook and Twitter Cross a Line in Censorship

theintercept.com

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Re: Facebook and Twitter Cross a Line in Censorship

#51

Post by mistermann »

silexia wrote: post #17
nilkn wrote: post #4

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.

Spin is trying to show the blocking of the fake news article as something Biden was a part of. Obviously, Biden himself had no say or knowledge of the ridiculous article being blocked. 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, Twitt…

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

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech#Origins

Freedom of speech and expression has a long history that predates modern international human rights instruments. It is thought that the ancient Athenian democratic principle of free speech may have emerged in the late 6th or early 5th century BC. The values of the Roman Republic included freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Concepts of freedom of speech can be found in early human rights documents. England's Bill of Rights 1689 legally established the constitutional right of freedom of speech in Parliament which is still in effect.

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

The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prevents the government from making laws which regulate an establishment of religion, or that would prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5th_century

The 5th century is the time period from 401 to 500 Anno Domini (AD) or Common Era (CE) in the Julian calendar. The 5th century is noted for being a period of migration and political instability throughout Eurasia.

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Considering how often this specific foundational topic (and many others like it) comes up on HN, and the amount of disharmony it creates within the community, it would be an improvement if we had some sort of a FAQ that is appended to the HN Guidelines, and an additional related guideline:

"Please exert some reasonable effort to not say things that are objectively not true."

Yes, there would be a period of adjustment, Rome wasn't built in a day, but holy smokes how antagonistic do things have to get around here before we do something? And if we don't, how far away is it that HN starts to get in on the censorship game?

Re: Facebook and Twitter Cross a Line in Censorship

#52

Post by Amezarak »

iaw wrote: post #33
woo01 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The emails have already been confirmed to be real, at least some of them. The technician spoke on record about getting the laptop from the owner who abandoned it, and by law became his. There are gaps in the story that need to be investigated, but who the heck are Facebook and Twitter to make that call minutes/hours after the story broke?? This is not some weird obscure conspiracy story. The other thing here is the d…

DKIM? Link to independent (non-tabloid) confirmation?

I am curious about the very high bar for evidence people have for this story. It definitely appears to be higher than the bar set for the other side, which is regularly based on anonymous sources and secondhand hearsay.

There are plenty of photographs of Hunter Biden from the drive, which were obviously not in wide circulation, of him doing drugs and apparently other illegal activity. This would seem to be evidence supporting the idea that the drive did belong to him. So now we have to believe that false information has been mixed with true information.

But on the other hand, we do actually know that Hunter Biden was receiving 50k/month from Burisma, and he had no qualifications and a very questionable past. Nobody disputes this. Nobody needs this harddrive story to know there was corruption going on, based on this information alone. Ukranian energy companies are not searching the streets for random American crackheads to hire for exorbitant sums. He was hired because of his connections. The only question is the exact nature of how it went down, and if it matters to you.

The only information it adds is that Joe Biden allegedly makes Hunter Biden give him half his income and some alleged details of some meeting - not anything particularly salacious. It definitely appears political for Facebook and Twitter to shut down this story - there are a lot of weaker stories that get a pass every day.

Re: Facebook and Twitter Cross a Line in Censorship

#53

Post by Amezarak »

iaw wrote: post #48
woo01 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There you go - I hate to quote fox news but NYT and others refuse to investigate this matter: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hunter-biden-china-email-so... More importantly - the Biden campaign HAS NOT said the emails are fake.

Not sure if you watched the video at the top of that page but the word "allegedly" was emphasized in describing the emails provenance. Where's the verification?

The story the GP linked begins with Fox News confirming another party on the email chain corroborates at least that set of emails.

> One of the people on an explosive email thread allegedly involving Hunter Biden has corroborated the veracity of the messages, which appear to outline a payout for former Vice President Joe Biden as part of a deal with a Chinese energy firm.

Re: Facebook and Twitter Cross a Line in Censorship

#54

Post by noxer »

kobayashi wrote: post #5

I strongly disagree. This thread breaks down the ridiculous nature of the claim and makes clear why the spread of (likely purposeful) misinformation in the lead up to one of the most impactful elections in US history. https://twitter.com/dantoujours/status/1316844679783223297?s...

So your argument for censorship is that the story how they got the data is made up and therefore the data should be hidden from the public? You know there are thousands of reasons why such a story was made up. Maybe to cover up that they where illegally obtained or whatever. These stories are the default other than a simple "anonymous source". Anyway the media and the people do not need to care how the data was obtained. We are not using them as evidence in court or anything the like. It only matter if its true and in no way can censorship help figuring that out. Also the evidence that the data is legit is overwhelming.

Re: Facebook and Twitter Cross a Line in Censorship

#55

Post by noxer »

iaw wrote: post #32
indy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That thread questions how the data was acquired, not any of the claims against Hunter Biden

If the data was acquired through an alternative means then what was stated doesn't that raise questions about the validity of the claims against Hunter Biden? I mean, liars are gonna lie about more than one thing.

You mean if the laptop was stolen instead of abandoned? that would change what exactly? Or do you wanna imply that someone wrote these emails and fabricated the photos? because that's just delusional at this point.

Re: Facebook and Twitter Cross a Line in Censorship

#56

Post by senectus1 »

2bitencryption wrote: post #25
kobayashi wrote: post #5

I strongly disagree. This thread breaks down the ridiculous nature of the claim and makes clear why the spread of (likely purposeful) misinformation in the lead up to one of the most impactful elections in US history. https://twitter.com/dantoujours/status/1316844679783223297?s...

Not saying it's not accurate, but if you want to debunk a news publication, I think a more reliable source is needed than some guy on Twitter... "The claims in that news publication were totally fake and deserve to be censored -- here, check out this Twitter user who has the real truth!" In other words, when debunking an article as true/false, I think extra rigor needs to be put into the debunking -- you can't debunk…

agree but the same amount of "trust" needs to be leveled at Rudi G as well. its not like he's a proven reliable source of truth...

Re: Facebook and Twitter Cross a Line in Censorship

#57

Post by messick »

Jerry2 wrote: post #13

No matter who wins in November, both the FB and Twitter will face massive regulatory scrutiny and they won't come out the same from that process. 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 journali…

His whole schtick is “it was all a Russian hoax!” with Trump. He is the opposite of objective. And wrong.

Re: Facebook and Twitter Cross a Line in Censorship

#58

Post by messick »

knaq wrote: post #24
nilkn wrote: post #4

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.

It's funny that I can't be sure what you mean by "unlikely to cost him the election". That can be taken two ways. Either nobody minds him taking foreign money, or he's already doomed and thus nothing can cost him the election.

Nobody who isn’t too far gone on the Trump Train thinks the bribery story is anything but horse shit. That’s what “unlikely to cost him the election” means.

Re: Facebook and Twitter Cross a Line in Censorship

#59

Post by ardy42 »

2bitencryption wrote: post #25
kobayashi wrote: post #5

I strongly disagree. This thread breaks down the ridiculous nature of the claim and makes clear why the spread of (likely purposeful) misinformation in the lead up to one of the most impactful elections in US history. https://twitter.com/dantoujours/status/1316844679783223297?s...

Not saying it's not accurate, but if you want to debunk a news publication, I think a more reliable source is needed than some guy on Twitter... "The claims in that news publication were totally fake and deserve to be censored -- here, check out this Twitter user who has the real truth!" In other words, when debunking an article as true/false, I think extra rigor needs to be put into the debunking -- you can't debunk…

> Not saying it's not accurate, but if you want to debunk a news publication, I think a more reliable source is needed than some guy on Twitter...

It really depends on the news publication's reputation. The New York Post (the original source) is a tabloid and (for instance) Wikipedia does not consider it reliable, so there's not a lot of reason to trust it too highly:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per...:

> There is consensus that the New York Post is generally unreliable. A tabloid newspaper, editors criticise its lack of concern for fact-checking or corrections, including a number of examples of outright fabrication.

Also I think anyone can credibly point out inconsistencies and highlight the implausibility of certain statements, like the twitter thread does, because those can be easily evaluated. It'd be much harder to take grant the same credibility to a random person's statement that some specific other thing happened.

Re: Facebook and Twitter Cross a Line in Censorship

#60

Post by ardy42 »

node-bayarea wrote: post #2

They crossed a long time ago! They should have worked like phone lines, just a medium

> They crossed a long time ago! They should have worked like phone lines, just a medium

Yes, they should have just been private point-to-point communication mechanisms. Unfortunately, they decided to be broadcasters instead.

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