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I agree, twitter suppression made the story bigger. The NYPost has issued much fewer retractions than NYT and CNN, yet, Twitter does not attack those institutions. Ironic, considering the founder of the NYPost and his opinions on market economies.
I would consider retractions a mark of respectability, and the failure to issue them a tacit admission of failure in accountability.
I fear Taibbi is right, the suppression by Twitter, irrespective of the merits and veracity of NY Post's report, will now normalize all kinds of behavior by platforms of all kinds big and small. Which will then incentivize governments to take on the platforms. This also raises issues of unequal treatment - say the NY Post report was factually wrong - why pick on the NY Post only? Why not the hundreds of other "news o…
I think you're right, but I don't think the previous status quo was tenable either, and maybe even more problematic. Disclaimer: these are opinions. We allow mainstream press, owned by allies of a politician, to make outlandish claims unverified in the weeks leading up to an election. This has always been "correctable" in the past, in a world where articles could be retracted or condemned, particularly by even more m…
Isn't it actually easier to correct the record with social media since you can correct it immediately and reach the people immediately? Whereas with newspapers, you'd have to wait days/weeks and have to search the tiny section they reserve for corrections?
It's what made newspapers such great tools of propaganda. You push misinformation, spread it and then "retract" quietly relatively unseen.
Edit:
> If the idea that a particular professor or candidate is sexually exploitative becomes viral, can you really undo the damage?
My point is that it's easier to "unring the bell" via social media than via newspapers. We are discussing the "previous status quo" : A newspaper writes a lie. How do you "unring the bell"? You have to wait until the next time you publish - which varies depending on whether you are a daily, weekly, monthly.
Whereas in the social media era, you can just post on facebook, twitter, etc your retraction. The retraction is immediate and can be as visible as you want it to be.
Yeah the censorship is bad and further reduces trust in the media and tech companies (though its already at zero for many people). But isn't the story here that the vice presidents son was being paid millions of dollars by chinese, ukrainian, and other companies for .. something? It's not his business accumen, right? What could they possibly be paying him for other than access to his dad? Is there any other reasonabl…
It's a lot of money for a person, but it's not a lot for a business. It's a cheap insurance policy to stay on the "good side" of someone who operates, even privately, in the quid pro quo seeking way that Trump does very publicly.
Either he’s better at hiding his crimes than Muller and the Democrat party is able to investigate them, or gasp they can’t actually find anything because there is nothing...
I agree, twitter suppression made the story bigger. The NYPost has issued much fewer retractions than NYT and CNN, yet, Twitter does not attack those institutions. Ironic, considering the founder of the NYPost and his opinions on market economies.
I would consider retractions a mark of respectability, and the failure to issue them a tacit admission of failure in accountability.
Meanwhile, CNN and NYTIMES post content and retract it in higher amounts, and they never were surpressed, locked out of their account or even had twitter force to fix "itself" by now agreeing that they'd "wouldn't" remove content but now just "flag it."
That, is not respect, that is an alliance.
At what point do we look to capitalism as a driving factor for misinformation spreading? Media outlets are incentivized to bring in clicks/shares/likes. They're not incentivized to research stories sufficiently, so...a shaky lead from a sketchy source but a super compelling headline? Of course that gets published. Taking this as some anti-conservative war from the tech industry is super misleading.
Yes, in a way, but also obviously not. If that was their only/primary driver, they'd go all click bait all the time. They wouldn't report things that aren't loved by the masses.
They clearly do, so clicks/shares/likes can't be their primary things.
I do believe that it's partially right, it's just not number one. Number one is agenda, and within the pool of stories that benefit the agenda of the company, they choose what generates most engagement.
Yeah the censorship is bad and further reduces trust in the media and tech companies (though its already at zero for many people). But isn't the story here that the vice presidents son was being paid millions of dollars by chinese, ukrainian, and other companies for .. something? It's not his business accumen, right? What could they possibly be paying him for other than access to his dad? Is there any other reasonabl…
And? I don’t think the NYP story was supposed to be a bombshell that Hunter Biden got jobs because his last name was Biden. That may be unfair but that particular point is not even the subject of the New York Post story. Companies hire people in useless positions all the time you know.
That alone is worth the tech companies risking their reputations and livelihoods of all their employees / partners! Trump cannot win! He’s eeeeeeeevil!!!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're right, but I don't think the previous status quo was tenable either, and maybe even more problematic. Disclaimer: these are opinions. We allow mainstream press, owned by allies of a politician, to make outlandish claims unverified in the weeks leading up to an election. This has always been "correctable" in the past, in a world where articles could be retracted or condemned, particularly by even more m…
It’s completely correctable. If fb/Twitter wanted to, they could track every person who saw a piece of “wrong” information, and plaster the retraction in front of their face.
This post has been flagged. People don’t want to see or hear about this. HN may, or may not, remove it. Either way, there are HN users who want this removed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're right, but I don't think the previous status quo was tenable either, and maybe even more problematic. Disclaimer: these are opinions. We allow mainstream press, owned by allies of a politician, to make outlandish claims unverified in the weeks leading up to an election. This has always been "correctable" in the past, in a world where articles could be retracted or condemned, particularly by even more m…
> With social media, the genie is out the bottle with that initial statement, and there's no way to set the record straight anymore, let alone in two weeks before an election. Isn't it actually easier to correct the record with social media since you can correct it immediately and reach the people immediately? Whereas with newspapers, you'd have to wait days/weeks and have to search the tiny section they reserve for…
Isn't removing it making its point?