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Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

taibbi.substack.com

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Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#31

Post by luckylion »

chowchowchow wrote: post #19
gotoeleven wrote: post #8

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.

> Companies hire people in useless positions all the time you know.

Yeah, they're called princelings, it's very common in China. If you want to do business, you hire the child of a high-ranking party member, pay them large sums of money for zero work and then you get all the permits you need.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#32

Post by threatofrain »

disown wrote: post #22
darkerside wrote: post #10

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…

Wildfire also spreads much faster on the web. If the idea that a particular professor or candidate is sexually exploitative becomes viral, can you really undo the damage?

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#33

Post by missedthecue »

tracer4201 wrote: post #13
haltingproblem wrote: post #2

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…

The liberal wing was upset that state and non state actors influenced the 2016 election by manipulating social media. Now, Twitter is working to suppress some content that they believe is a repeat attempt — the October surprise if you will. I don’t have strong opinions on whether it’s right or wrong, but I don’t think this is a scandal. Twitter is a private company. You don’t have a constitutional right to write what…

Should T Mobile or Verizon be able to censor your phone calls and text messages if they don't like the content? After all, they're private companies as well.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#34

Post by gnusty_gnurc »

The left is obsessed with suppressing anything that’s “dangerous” cause they think the lowly under-class can’t be trusted to review information and form opinions.

If they had less authoritarian instincts, they’d realize that prohibitions generally spectacularly fail. I suspect any of the things they wanted to ban just got attention they never would have otherwise due to the Streisand effect.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#36

Post by luckylion »

cwhiz wrote: post #28

It is the people who want suppression of information. Twitter and FB are responding to user demand. 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.

That's just some users though, and I'm 99% sure they don't want others to see it, because they believe knowing about it might damage their political side. I'm sure they have good intentions and believe that the end justifies the means and if suppression of truth is required to let the good guys win, then so be it.

Of course, everybody generally thinks they are the good guys, and once you're going down the road of "everything is allowed because my goals are good", you're not going to stop until somebody else stops you.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#37

Post by joejohnson »

This story has “62 points” and was posted 43 minutes ago (at the time I’m posting this comment) but as soon as I read the story and hit back in the browser, it was pushed off the first three pages of articles. What happened? Did this story get flagged? There’s lots interesting discussion here.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#38

Post by PaulAJ »

darkerside wrote: post #10
haltingproblem wrote: post #2

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…

The truth is not a social construct. Either Hunter Biden received that "thanks for the meeting with your father" email or he didn't.

Importance is a social construct. If that email is what it puports to be, then whether it is important is a point of view.

The media don't (mis)lead us by telling us lies, they do so by deciding which parts of the truth are important enough to tell us.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#39

Post by nabla9 »

gotoeleven wrote: post #20
nabla9 wrote: post #6

There is no clear principles or policies for censorship or suppression for economic or political reasons. Until there is, we must look each case as single instance. That case was hilariously crude attempt at influencing and creating false narratives. The whole thing collapsed quickly but it still had huge impact. Mixing something real and something false makes people accept falsehoods. Censoring obvious falsehoods li…

Could someone just explain in simple words why everyone keeps calling this story false or debunked or whatever? Everyone keeps downvoting me and I don't know why. It seems like to debunk this story you'd have to have a journalist do some journalism and figure out why all these companies were giving hunter biden money.

The Burisma story have been repeatedly found to be false.

Trump Revives False Narrative on Biden and Ukraine https://www.factcheck.org/2020/10/trump-revives-false-narrat...

Trump's conspiracy theories thrive in Ukraine, where a young democracy battles corruption and distrust. We talked with two dozen leaders and investigators in Ukraine. They all agree the claims against Joe and Hunter Biden are baseless. Yet they persist. https://eu.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/world/2019/10/10/trump...

The facts behind Trump’s bogus accusations about Biden and Ukraine - Trump claims Biden threatened Ukraine to aid his son’s business interests. The facts suggest otherwise. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/23/20879611/j...

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The latest NY Post story is just crazy.

Man Who Reportedly Gave Hunter’s Laptop to Rudy Speaks Out in Bizarre Interview https://www.thedailybeast.com/man-who-reportedly-gave-hunter...

Hunter Biden’s alleged laptop: An explainer https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/14/hunter-bi...

What we know — and don't know — about Hunter Biden's alleged laptop https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hunter-biden-laptop-new-york-po...

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#40

Post by akvadrako »

gotoeleven wrote: post #20
nabla9 wrote: post #6

There is no clear principles or policies for censorship or suppression for economic or political reasons. Until there is, we must look each case as single instance. That case was hilariously crude attempt at influencing and creating false narratives. The whole thing collapsed quickly but it still had huge impact. Mixing something real and something false makes people accept falsehoods. Censoring obvious falsehoods li…

Could someone just explain in simple words why everyone keeps calling this story false or debunked or whatever? Everyone keeps downvoting me and I don't know why. It seems like to debunk this story you'd have to have a journalist do some journalism and figure out why all these companies were giving hunter biden money.

Nobody can discredit it so they suppress it. It’s the same thing Twitter did for the same reasons.

For starters it doesn’t even need to be discredited — it just needs to be denied, which it hasn’t been. I mean the basic facts like the authenticity of the laptop/emails or the meeting.

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