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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

#161

Post by hackyhacky »

googthrowaway42 wrote: post #153
hackyhacky wrote: post #147

[I posted this comment as a child of another comment below, but I think it's important enough to this discussion that I'm reposting it here.] To have a sensible conversation, we have to acknowledge what the alleged Biden emails are: at best, stolen information; and at worst, intentionally manipulated or fabricated information. In either case, the information is being released now for the explicit goal of altering the…

At "best" they're evidence of extreme corruption that compromises US national security. The allegations and evidence points to many insider dealings with CCP linked Chinese companies including what appear to be unreported loans from Chinese banks.

A cursory reading of the both the data itself and the circumstances by which it came to light will reveal that your interpretation is highly improbable.

You can believe what you like. But don't ask me to believe that a person took 3 laptops to a repair company in a state where he doesn't live; that the said company was operated by a blind person; that the security camera footage of the delivery of the laptops was erased; that the laptops were unintentionally forgotten there; and that they somehow found their way into the hands of one Rudolph Giuliani.

To believe that story, you have to be gullible or complicit.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#162

Post by googthrowaway42 »

hackyhacky wrote: post #161
googthrowaway42 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At "best" they're evidence of extreme corruption that compromises US national security. The allegations and evidence points to many insider dealings with CCP linked Chinese companies including what appear to be unreported loans from Chinese banks.

A cursory reading of the both the data itself and the circumstances by which it came to light will reveal that your interpretation is highly improbable. You can believe what you like. But don't ask me to believe that a person took 3 laptops to a repair company in a state where he doesn't live; that the said company was operated by a blind person; that the security camera footage of the delivery of the laptops was era…

Where are you getting this idea that 3 laptops were dropped off to this repair company? There was one laptop.

The repair shop is in Delaware, where Joe Biden was a senator for many decades and where the Bidens have held various political positions for many decades.

I suspect that you really don't understand the story that well. That is understandable considering the insane amount of gaslighting, misinformation, and censorship that is going on around it.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#163

Post by srtjstjsj »

rootusrootus wrote: post #4

I certainly hear a lot more talk about the suppression than the actual story (excluding the non-stop spew from Trump, I tuned him out a long time ago), so Twitterbook's attempts at suppression seem to have backfired. Taibbi may think it's under-reported, but even my non-tech acquaintances know about this scandal.

That's just bad math.

You're hearing more about the supression than the suppressed story? That suggests the suppression worked.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#165

Post by chroem- »

zachware wrote: post #138

I'm definitely not one closed off to this story, I think it's important. That said I think "we" tend to forget that platforms like Twitter are private companies, we don't really have a "right" to post anything to them. Now if the government had ordered this moderation, that's where the idea of rights and first amendment comes into play. If we're not happy about the moderation we don't have to use the moderating platf…

> Now if the government had ordered this moderation, that's where the idea of rights and first amendment comes into play.

That may be the latest popular interpretation of the bill of rights, but it is absolutely not in the original spirit of its authors. They were defined as "inalienable rights" granted to all people. In other words, your essential human rights to free expression don't get waived depending on who the offending party is.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#166

Post by cwhiz »

dang wrote: post #92
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.

Users flagged it. That's usually what happened. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24890813

I know that users flagged it. That’s exactly my point. Users wanted to bury this.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#167

Post by hackyhacky »

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…

I agree. Fabricating damaging information on the eve of an election is easier than ever, and impossible to correct. Allowing propagation of such fabrications is to be complicit with the bad actors responsible.

Disinformation could be tolerated if we, as a society, have the time and means to determine its veracity. But with the ticking clock of an election, disinformation is too easy.

Some countries have laws prohibiting any political news stories in the run-up to an election for precisely this reason.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#168

Post by srtjstjsj »

hackyhacky wrote: post #151
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…

They're not suppressing the article because it's wrong, but because it's pretty obviously intentionally planted misinformation disguised as news. Twitter has a choice: either they can suppress it; or they can be pawns of whatever bad actors are creating this disinformation. It's a hard choice, and clearly it's a struggle that as a society we have to deal with. Right now, creating and distributing disinformation is ea…

You may be right in practice, but according to Twitter the claimed reason was hacking/doxing, not misinformation -- in fact, the opposite of misinformation!

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#169

Post by srtjstjsj »

kenjackson wrote: post #133
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 delaying the story until it could be somewhat verified is reasonable. I actually read it minutes after it was posted on the NY Post and my first thought was that it sounded like it shouldn’t have been published. I literally thought they’d retract it. I think the internet is breaking into various niche groups. I fully expect there soon to be completely partisan social networks. That’s probably the best way to…

The NY Post writing staff agreed with you, so the editors published the story with a fake byline.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#170

Post by hackyhacky »

crocodiletears wrote: post #14
eyeball wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s crazy that they’re even blocking links to the ny post article via direct message. What’s next? Email? Will we have to resort to signal and other encrypted direct messaging methods to have open discussion? Or run your own mail server end hope your recipient doesn’t use one that censors? Creepy stuff.

This has been the reality for people on the political fringes for some time now. Unfortunately nobody's been paying attention to it due in large part to the commentariat/journalistic class's willingness to encourage and provide cover for this behavior as a matter of political expedience. Another example: Messenger's been blocking links to joebiden.info (this may have changed, it's been six months since I've checked)

Do you really think that it's out of "political expedience" that sites are blocking links to probable foreign disinformation? Or is it out of a moral interest in not being pawns of the bad actors who stand behind it?

This kind of disinformation is dangerous, and we are vulnerable to it precisely because we value freedom of speech. That doesn't mean that we're morally obligated to value all speech equally. Obviously false and dangerous speech should be suppressed. Twitter (and other sites) is taking a moral stand, not an expedient stand.

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