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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

#201

Post by beaner »

darkerside wrote: post #190
beaner wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment contains no information about the veracity of the content in question. It's a straight-up ad hominem.

Correct, it is ad hominem, which is appropriate in a discussion about the respectability of a journalist institution, which this is.

This is a clever shift from discussing the respectability of the reporting at hand, to discussing the respectability of the reporting institution.

Your claim that a failure to issue retractions is an admission of failure in accountability is true - when the reporting needs retractions.

So far, there's no evidence that the reporting does.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#202

Post by hackyhacky »

kodah wrote: post #186
mmsmatt wrote: post #152

This has got to be Taibbi click-baiting pro-Trump subscribers. He buries his admission that Trump's Biden/Burisma narrative is a lie so deep in the piece, you really have to trudge through a lot of hand-wringing drivel to find it. You can read 90% of this piece thinking that Taibbi is clearly sympathetic to the Republican narrative, and he gives no indication otherwise!

I didn't get that vibe at all. To me Taibbi sounds like someone like me: a resident of the Democratic party who is willing to criticize the ends as well as the means of both parties. This sort of conviction is not looked upon very highly by our "free" society.

I think your reading of Taibbi is correct. Unfortunately, articles like this feed into the currently fashionable victim mentality of the Republican party, wherein they contend that big tech unfairly suppresses news from conservative sources, and that there's a grand conspiracy afoot to protect Biden. I don't think that's true, but that is how this will play out in that particular fever swamp.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#203

Post by jkhdigital »

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…

“pretty obviously intentionally planted misinformation disguised as news”

I am astonished at your blinding confidence in your ability to distinguish misinformation from news. You must be a Facebook content moderator ::snicker::

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#204

Post by Covzire »

r00tanon wrote: post #200

Drivel. No sensible person believes blocking QAnon nonsense is a "scandal." For many reasons, not the least being that it is also the very definition of "unsubstantiated" as is this Hunter Biden story. Applying editorial standards (finally) to some of the more outrageous content posted on social media platforms is no more controversial than that of print media's choice to do so. The term "social media" is a complete…

Where does the article mention QAnon?

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#205

Post by jkhdigital »

commandlinefan wrote: post #141
kenjackson wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Well, ok, but can you find any other instance of a story that could have used some verification being suppressed by Twitter and Facebook at the same time?

Ding ding ding and this is the tl;dr of Taibbi’s article

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#206

Post by TwoBit »

platz wrote: post #108
timoth3y wrote: post #96

Many are confusing "censorship" with "content moderation". The difference is very important. Censorship is when you are prevented from publishing on your own platform. Content moderation is when a platform owner choses what can be published on theirs. Twitter decided they did not want their platform used to spread what they considered to be Russian disinformation and propaganda, but they in no way prevented the NY Po…

> what they considered to be Russian disinformation and propaganda was it?

I don't know about Russian involvement, but it was clearly a right wing attempt to meddle in the election to achieve a last minute bomb on their opponent like in 2016.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#207

Post by kodah »

hackyhacky wrote: post #188
kodah wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem here is something new, as Matt points out. Law enforcement, tech companies, and the news media are operating under on some type of cooperating agreement which is not transparent to users or the creators of content. In normal human society you know the binds that bond, this is a reasonable expectation, and an expectation that even been challenged in the law. As the law infinitely expands, who am I (as a co…

If your point is that the originators of the Biden story are shocked and confused that it's being suppressed in an opaque tech cooperating agreement, they shouldn't be: the story is being suppressed because it's at best illegally obtained data, and at worst deliberately falsified; and in either case, it's now being used by bad actors in an attempt to manipulate the results of the election. There's no mystery here: Tw…

As Matt stated, and really the whole point of the article, the Biden story doesn't matter. Forget about charging Biden with any wrong-doing for a moment and see what this relationship and mechanism between law enforcement, tech companies, and media entities is for its merits: The same mechanism that autocratic governments use for control and operated in the name of "the public good".

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#208

Post by TwoBit »

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…

Fox News has been suppressing the truth for 20 years now and where are the complaints about that?

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#209

Post by chroem- »

mrfusion wrote: post #191

> Both the government and private companies can censor stuff. But private companies are a little bit scarier. They have no constitution to answer to. They’re not elected. They have no constituents or voters. All of the protections we’ve built up to protect against government tyranny don’t exist for corporate tyranny. - Aaron Swartz

It gets better (worse?) though: reddit has removed any references to Aaron Swartz from its list of founders.

https://www.redditinc.com/

> Reddit was founded in 2005 by two college friends.

> Steve Huffman, Co-Founder/CEO

> Alexis Ohanian, Co-Founder

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#210

Post by akhosravian »

krapp wrote: post #199
mrfusion wrote: post #191

> Both the government and private companies can censor stuff. But private companies are a little bit scarier. They have no constitution to answer to. They’re not elected. They have no constituents or voters. All of the protections we’ve built up to protect against government tyranny don’t exist for corporate tyranny. - Aaron Swartz

I mean, I can switch social media platforms a lot more easily than I can switch governments, and corporations don't have a monopoly on violence which would allow their tyranny to lead to torture, gulags and mass graves, but OK. I guess being banned from a forum is much much worse than being sent to the re-education camps.

You could switch off Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Twitch, but for all but the most influential of people the folks you interact with won’t follow.
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