Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story • Hacker News Board

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#291

Post by jakelazaroff » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 2:32 AM UTC

chroem- wrote: post #282

jakelazaroff wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We already have a significant amount of legal precedent to compel a private business to serve certain groups. Those protected groups were legally enshrined in the first place to extend them the same rights that everyone else already enjoyed by common custom, not to create a new group of people with elevated privileges. In my opinion, it's time that we now legally enshrine the common custom of a right to service as we…

I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make. What group has elevated privileges, and what group is being discriminated against that needs protecting?

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#292

Post by mellosouls » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 2:32 AM UTC

hackyhacky wrote: post #211

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 respect Swartz a lot, and he makes many good points. But let's not pretend that Twitter and Facebook hold information monopolies with equivalent power to the government's ability to censor. As proof, consider that we are having this conversation right now, about an article that was published and is freely, legally available online to anyone with a web browser. You can disagree with Twitter's editorial choices, but…

I think that is an optimistic view.

Consider that an overwhelmingly partisan ownership and stewardship of the majority of media, (whether left or right - currently, as the example in the article it's liberal left) has a more insidious power to control the narrative and push counterpoints to the margins until they die naturally, partly because there is in that situation a de facto monopoly.

Government-censored material never actually dies, and has a habit of being leaked (or released on change of government) and causing scandals; Silicon Valley etc-suppressed material has a habit of being sidelined into the anaemic and eccentric irrelevance of the cancelled and the crackpots, and by the time we realise some of them are actually worth listening to, the damage is done.

Especially in the context of a society where "speech is free", and egregious censorship is assumed not to exist, this is arguably even more damaging - the idea that suppression exists is itself dismissed by the mainstream and chattering classes; that isn't necessarily the case in a country under authoritarian, censoring governance.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#293

Post by abnry » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 2:32 AM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #281

googthrowaway42 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech is a moral principle. Content moderation decisions can adhere to this principle or not. Removal of viagra bot spam from a blog comment section is a clear example where content moderation adheres to the principles of free speech. Removing content on a platform like Twitter simply because the Silicon Valley elitists/leftists that run Twitter don't like it is not in keeping with the principle of free speech…

How does removing “Viagra bot spam” adhere to the moral principle of free speech? Why does the New York Post get special moral privileges that Bob’s Viagra Store does not? This is the frustrating thing about this debate: one side tries to position itself as “anti-censorship”, when really that position only extends to cover speech they care about.

Because the one is an obvious expression of carnal desires and greed while the other is at least ostensibly about ideology and truth.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#294

Post by hackyhacky » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 2:33 AM UTC

j8hn wrote: post #289

hackyhacky wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prohibit…

So, what do you suppose? Prohibition of political news stories leading up to an election? Have you heard of an October surprise? "On October 20, 1880, shortly before the 1880 presidential election, a forged letter was published purportedly written by James A. Garfield voicing support for Chinese immigration to the United States. At the time, most white Americans opposed Chinese immigration and both presidential candi…

> So, what do you suppose? Prohibition of political news stories leading up to an election?

That's exactly what I propose, precisely because October surprises are not in the best interest of democracy.

Many countries [1] prohibit all political news stories during their election cycle. An added benefit of this policy would be to limit the length of the election cycle.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_silence

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#295

Post by mjfl » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 2:34 AM UTC

mjfl wrote: post #290

Thought I would post some of the contents of the suppressed articles. They seem falsifiable through financial transaction records: > A tranche of emails from a hard drive belonging to Hunter Biden — published exclusively by The Post last week — revealed how the scandal-scarred son tried to leverage his family connections to land lucrative deals overseas and boost his Burisma pay. > Speaking before reporters at a Marr…

It certainly seems very corrupt to me for any founder of a company to withdraw any significant amount of the invested capital as cash.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#296

Post by tchock23 » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 2:35 AM UTC

rootsudo wrote: post #24

darkerside wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would consider retractions a mark of respectability, and the failure to issue them a tacit admission of failure in accountability.

A sign of respect, but the NYpost was never given that option and immediately went into suppression, and it did not turn out to be false information. 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 res…

Can you provide a source that confirms it was not false information?

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#297

Post by objectivetruth » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 2:35 AM UTC

abnry wrote: post #285

Spooky23 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your analogy is broken. Clever to try to compare Twitter to discrimination though. In all of the situations, the principals have broad discretion to make choices about their property. Alice can turn away people with credit problems. Bob can require a specific handicap to play. Carlos can choose to not loan money to high risk professions. They cannot say “no black people at my apartment complex”, “no golf if you are J…

But isn't the sort of sneaky racism exactly what people claim is such a problem today? There's not overt claim of inferiority or an explicit denial of opportunity, but yet there is still "systemic racism". The analogy is that Twitter can't censor stories that benefit republicans, but if the "reasons" for censoring always seem to work against republicans and are applied inconsistently, then perhaps things aren't as th…

Republicans aren't a "race" and political preference isn't a "protected class" in the US (with a couple minor exceptions).

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#298

Post by j8hn » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 2:37 AM UTC

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)

Yikes, I never really paid attention to how creepy and inappropriate he was with little girls and young women.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#299

Post by Spooky23 » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 2:38 AM UTC

abnry wrote: post #285

Spooky23 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your analogy is broken. Clever to try to compare Twitter to discrimination though. In all of the situations, the principals have broad discretion to make choices about their property. Alice can turn away people with credit problems. Bob can require a specific handicap to play. Carlos can choose to not loan money to high risk professions. They cannot say “no black people at my apartment complex”, “no golf if you are J…

But isn't the sort of sneaky racism exactly what people claim is such a problem today? There's not overt claim of inferiority or an explicit denial of opportunity, but yet there is still "systemic racism". The analogy is that Twitter can't censor stories that benefit republicans, but if the "reasons" for censoring always seem to work against republicans and are applied inconsistently, then perhaps things aren't as th…

It can be, and the line may move. Sometimes “systematic racism” or similar arguments are thrown about without context, or with a local context that doesn’t make sense to others.

The republicans have a serious problem, and it isn’t Twitter. Blaming media outlets for not paying attention to things is a well worn if dubious path. It’s hard to give credence to with this story given the provenance of the information and obvious problems.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#300

Post by TravHatesMe » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 2:41 AM UTC

crocodiletears wrote: post #240

hackyhacky wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

Journalists and commentators are the ones acting out of political expediency. The platforms themselves are a mixed bag, occasionaly banning content that represents legitimate disinformation, but often suppressing information that's contextually true, or conflicts with an existing broader social narrative which the moderator required to inspect the content has bought into. The human moderators are often inconsistent.…

Happy to see people think for themselves and form their own opinion. Good balance in your comment. You left room for doubt and rationally stated the reasons behind your opinion. Refreshing. Thank you.