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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

#361

Post by nl »

nl wrote: post #283

> from the similarly-leaked “black ledger” story implicating Paul Manafort, to its later-debunked “repeated contacts with Russian intelligence” story It's astonishing to me that Taibbi (who's work I've always enjoyed) isn't aware that - far from debunked - this has been confirmed. The Republican led Senate Intelligence committee report[1] was released in September and covered this in extensive detail. It's a long rea…

Whilst it is anti-HN policy to comment on downvotes, I think on this particular story the irony of being heavily downvoted with no responses should be noted.

Suppression is a bigger scandal indeed.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#362

Post by pushrax »

dlp211 wrote: post #279
googthrowaway42 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about political opinions, I'm talking about highly connected political operatives in positions of power within these companies. Liz Bourgeois would be an example of such a person. She was Assistant Press Secretary at the DNC and prior to that was a Legislative Correspondant for Nancy Pelosi and Debbi Wasserman Shultz. Now she works as "Director, Strategic Response Communications" at Facebook.

This would be a valid criticism if these companies didn't hire top tier operatives from both parties and donate substantial amounts via their PACs to both.

Even if completely neutral with respect to the two parties, the effect of social media as a transport for political information means it has a high involvement in political activity.

Don't pretend those two parties form an ideal set of alternatives; they have many common problems maintained by their duopoly.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#363

Post by ed25519FUUU »

slimed wrote: post #198
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!

It's not a surprise that you can't understand Taibbi if your only lens of analysis is Red Team vs. Blue Team.

Unfortunately I think this really nails why the content of the laptop is so difficult for many people to come to terms with.

We all know corruption happens at all levels in Washington, but if the contents of the laptop are true, it means a serious loss of ground in the culture war (potentially game over). It can’t be true and must not be true. To keep the game going we need to shut our eyes and wait to be rescued by a comfortable escape hatch narrative.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#364

Post by crocodiletears »

skinkestek wrote: post #341
crocodiletears wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> that a Chinese billionaire had slipped Juliani a hard drive containing information that might be incriminating to Biden's Questions: why would the Chinese do that? Or do you mean a Chinese billionaire did it without the involvement of the government? Or do you think their recommendation of Biden is a calculated move to get people to vote for Trump?

My understanding is that he was a billionaire on the outs w/Xi's administration, however I only recall that much because it seemed like an interesting assertion at the time, but didn't look into it, nor did I bother remembering the source, because it was while I was skimming a bunch of articles and posts at once trying to keep abreast of the Burisma controversy. So I would take it with a significant grain of salt.

Whether or not China would support the action is opaque to me. Trump's trade policies have massively reframed our relationship to the country, but whether or not that's been a positive thing for factions within the CCP is well beyond my knowledge or means to learn.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#365

Post by knaq »

pavlov wrote: post #325
jsu32 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was really fun to watch half (liberal) Twitter claiming this was disinformation (i.e. false information) and the other half - including Twitter itself - claiming it was hacking (i.e. absolutely true information, albeit one they shouldn't have their hands on). I feel most people don't care about the facts, they care about their opinions which is now part of their identity. This is not good at all.

You've got this wrong. The ban on publishing personal information from hacks doesn't apply only when it's "absolutely true". It's about the claimed provenance, not the veracity. If I made a tweet that reads: "Here's some juicy extracts from jsu32's personal diary, I stole it from their hard drive" — it would fall under Twitter's policy, regardless of whether I ever stole your hard drive or not.

There certainly wasn't a hack. At worst there could be a copyright issue, but political stuff is very strongly protected for fair use. The drive legitimately changed ownership, according to the repair contract, after 90 days of abandonment.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#366

Post by rendall »

rashkov wrote: post #193
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!

This is something he does in all of his recent political writing, to the point that I had to go and search for articles where he’s unambiguous about his political stances. Even after finding those, I never quite felt like I’m looking at the same political reality as him, and ended up unsubscribing. I’m sympathetic to the substance of his writing, so maybe that’s just what non-partisan writing looks like and it’s too…

"maybe that’s just what non-partisan writing looks like and it’s too strange to read in this media environment"

This.

One must get beyond the idea that one team is unambiguously worse. In a way, Taibbi writes almost exclusively about the tendency of Americans to ignore the misbehavior of their own side and exaggerate that of the other.

There are lots and lots of articles informing the rank-and-file how to interpret contemporary events; how to discuss the Bidens' corruption, for instance (usually: bring up the Trumps' corruption, but often outright denial and shaming anyone who discusses it)

People who appreciate Taibbi are those who can hold at least two narratively contradictory facts in mind at the same time; eg that both the Bidens and the Trumps are corrupt; without leaping to defend one or the other.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#367

Post by googthrowaway42 »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #360
googthrowaway42 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To accept the legitimacy of the principle of freedom of speech is to make a value judgement. If you want some pure criteria you can use to make content moderation decisions, then the purest criteria is no content moderation at all. You can remove obvious spam (e.g. viagra advertisements posted by bots) and still adhere to principles of free speech. Advertisements posted by bots are not written by human beings acting…

> Advertisements posted by bots are not written by human beings acting in good faith in the pursuit of truth. So if Twitter didn't believe that the New York Post article was written by people acting in "good faith in the pursuit of truth", it's okay to censor? The intentions of the speaker and the value of their speech are subjective. It's fine to argue that we should be okay with censoring some thing you don't like.…

> you're just arguing for others to adopt your own boundaries of what's acceptable

By virtue of operating under the principle of respecting free speech you are making a value judgement and asserting a set of values. There is no panacea or pure criteria you can use besides no content moderation at all. I give the example of spam posted by bots as what I think is an obvious and non-controversial example of content that can be removed that doesn't violate the principle of free speech. Another example might be someone who simply replies "f* you" to every comment on a thread.

I don't know how to further explain this or qualify this. I think you just fundamentally don't understand or haven't actually reflected on what I'm saying.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#368

Post by bialpio »

hackyhacky wrote: post #294
j8hn wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Election silence is unenforceable and becomes muddy in the era of the internet - with elections in USA, who do you sue if UK news outlet runs with some story? Who has jurisdiction? Besides, reporting news itself is usually still allowed as long as it is not political agitation ("Biden did something bad" is ok, "vote Trump" is not). I've been tempted to test this by posting agitation to Facebook from the USA (Poland still has election silence) or showing up with slogans to the polling stations (you can still vote when abroad in a few places set up by consulates), but I still like to visit my family from time to time.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#369

Post by knaq »

hackyhacky wrote: post #167
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…

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…

That just moves the date, because responses hit that deadline.

Without your proposed law: Stuff shows up 2 weeks before the election.

With a 10-week blackout: Stuff shows up 12 weeks before the election. (2 weeks before the blackout)

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#370

Post by ed25519FUUU »

I pretend for a minute that the shoe is on the other foot. If the special counsel’s office got ahold of Hunters laptop, I have zero doubt that it would have been an absolute blood bath. There would be wall-to-wall MSM coverage and Hunter would probably already be under arrest.

Common people really do see the two tiers of justice happening here. Anyone who looks will see, especially if they have no dog in the culture war. The connected and political elite do whatever they want. The true whistleblowers and challengers are destroyed, either financially or via character assassination/slander or both.

It can’t be ignored forever, something will give.

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