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Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

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Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#261

Post by jsu32 »

To people claiming Twitter was right:

- was this disinformation (i.e. emails were fake?)

- or, was this hacking (i.e. the emails were real but NY Post shouldn't have them?)

Twitter clearly claimed the latter, in other words they were confident the emails were real as soon as the story broke out (!!!)

Impressive journalism on their behalf, but to put sarcasm aside, this is why it's impossible to censor in real time. There is no time to evaluate a story in minutes so your biases (or, worse, corruption) needs to fill the void.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#262

Post by mjfl »

14 years ago free speech was one of the most celebrated rights in the hacker community. That's why things like Wikileaks were built. Today, several people in this thread seem to believe that the info on Hunter Biden's laptop should be repressed because it is "stolen info". What have we come to?

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#263

Post by diego_moita »

The only "scandal" here is that Russians and Republicans are once more trying to recreate the "leaked emails" hitjob that worked so well against Hilary Clinton. This is classic F.U.D.[1], just 2 weeks before election.

If the media gives credibility for this kind of cheap hack, what morals do they have to criticize QAnon? If they want to have credibility then they should act responsibly.

It is not censorship because it is not imposed by government. It is called editorializing and that is exactly the job of a newspaper editor.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty,_and_doubt

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#264

Post by googthrowaway42 »

ketamine__ wrote: post #253
googthrowaway42 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Drivel. No sensible person believes blocking QAnon nonsense is a "scandal. The fact that you conflate QAnon with this story indicates an extremely myopic and unrefined understanding of the world. This story was first published by the NY Post, not by someone on 8chan. These are completely unconnected things in terms of which communities are the source of this story.

Let's not pretend that stealing a laptop and publishing its content is journalism that is worthy of protection. Yes, it is illegal and unlike baseless conspiracy theories this is a crime that should be prosecuted.

My understanding is that it wasn't stolen. The repair bill was never paid and after 90 days under Delaware law it became legal property of the repair shop owner.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#265

Post by jakelazaroff »

chroem- wrote: post #189
jakelazaroff wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no “offending party”. Freedom of speech means speech cannot be compulsory. What would be contrary to the “original spirit” would be forcing Twitter and Facebook to amplify speech they don’t want to.

Your implication is that Twitter and Facebook are human beings, and I think a majority of people would contest that idea. What I am saying is that the authors of the bill of rights did not intend for a person's human rights to go away the moment they are persecuted by an entity other than the United States federal government.

The New York Post is also not a human being, for that matter. But I wasn’t implying that.

People want to use Twitter’s property to spread a message, and Twitter said no. That’s not “persecution”, it just means they have to find some other way to do it. If I get kicked out of a bar because I say something the owners don’t like, I’m not being persecuted — even if I think it’s unfair.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#266

Post by gnusty_gnurc »

hackyhacky wrote: post #218
gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #34

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.

> 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. If that's true, why oppose censorship?

Because it’s a tool of authoritarians - and morally wrong?

Would you say the same thing about the drug war?

Just because it fails to achieve its goals, doesn’t mean I should support it. There’s destruction in its wake.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#268

Post by jsu32 »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #255

If Twitter must publish all posts then doesn't it mean that New York Post must also publish all the letters that are sent to its "From the Readers" -page (assuming there is such)? Twitter is like a newspaper whose content comes only from its readers. It does not mean it has to publish everything. It does have a moral prerogative to not spread misinformation. Misinformation hurts the public. Twitter must make the deci…

Twitter has been claiming it's not a newspaper or editorial organization. They are legal benefits for Twitter to NOT be a newspaper. That's why they need to claim an objective reason for censoring/fact checking a specific story.

So, I understand what you say but Twitter would beg to differ with you.

Also network effects are harder to come by in newspapers. Imagine if there was one newspaper that had 100x the readership of the second most popular one. That'd be considered a threat to democracy.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#269

Post by onecommentman »

stonogo wrote: post #260
RhysU wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But let's not pretend that Twitter and Facebook hold information monopolies with equivalent power to the government's ability to censor. Those private entities can censor in excess of the government. They are scarier.

Get back to me when Twitter has the power to round up everyone who read a given story and have them executed in the street, because that's what government censorship can look like. It's not limited to some partisan nerd toggling a flag in a database somewhere. I think you should probably take this opportunity to re-evaluate the relative powers of these entities.

I think the discussion is focusing on levels of the US government and what has been experienced by the public under that government since its founding. Actual exercised power by US governmental entities.

The discussion of other governments will probably lead this thread into a swampy delta and it will lose its motive force.

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