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

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#501

Post by jessaustin » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 12:54 PM UTC

nl wrote: post #358

joejohnson wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely a distinction between liberal media (the NY Times, MSNBC, etc) and left media (Jacobin, Democracy Now!, Current Affairs, etc) and this distinction is made by Taibbi. Your ignorance on the subject is not shared by everyone.

This distinction is neither as clear nor as absolute as you appear to believe. Classical liberalism[1] is an economic stance somewhat similar to the economic views of libertarianism in the US. This is distinct from social liberalism which is what "liberal" commonly means in the US, which mostly overlaps with what could be called "progressive politics". "Classical Liberalism" is confusing in the modern context, so it…

All this yacking about "well in America words have different meanings" (as if anyone on earth has been able to escape the onslaught of USA media) only makes it clear how unfamiliar all these nerds are with Taibbi's work. Taibbi is an actual leftist, and therefore has been attacked by liberals. If you search you can find absolutely ridiculous slander written about him in HN comments in the last several years.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#502

Post by arkh » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 12:56 PM UTC

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…

> Allowing propagation of such fabrications is to be complicit with the bad actors responsible.

Years of "sources says" later disproved. Russia this, Russia that. And it's only now that we should stop propagation of unverified stories?

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#503

Post by cm2187 » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 12:57 PM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #499

cm2187 wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biden's claim is that there is no trace of the meeting in the diary, but they did mention that the meeting could have happened informally. So they didn't claim no such meeting occurred. I am a bit puzzled that there wouldn't be a log of who comes in and out of government buildings. It should be easy to prove whether the said executives were at least in the building over that period or not.

Or better yet: Body cams for all politicians. Or camera + audio recordings of all government rooms and corridors. All encrypted, hashed and archived with a very specific and difficult to fake process that can "unseal" them. I don't think I'm a genius or anything, but why aren't we putting really smart people on this problem and giving them plenty of funding? I constantly think we're just a few steps away from putting…

That was tried (recording the oval office for historical purposes). Then it was immediately weaponised by the political opponents and the recording system promptly removed.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#504

Post by nradov » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 1:04 PM UTC

skinkestek wrote: post #429

nradov wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Election meddling in general isn't a crime. It's not something the government could charge the site owner for, unless they somehow violated campaign finance laws.

> It's not something the government could charge the site owner for, I didn't mean the site owner did election meddling, rather than Facebook when thet selectively block sites like this.

That is still not a crime.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#505

Post by zo1 » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 1:29 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #503

zo1 wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or better yet: Body cams for all politicians. Or camera + audio recordings of all government rooms and corridors. All encrypted, hashed and archived with a very specific and difficult to fake process that can "unseal" them. I don't think I'm a genius or anything, but why aren't we putting really smart people on this problem and giving them plenty of funding? I constantly think we're just a few steps away from putting…

That was tried (recording the oval office for historical purposes). Then it was immediately weaponised by the political opponents and the recording system promptly removed.

Are you just adding some historical context and additional information? Or are you saying that to dismiss my idea/suggestion?

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#506

Post by skinkestek » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 1:33 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #504

skinkestek wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not something the government could charge the site owner for, I didn't mean the site owner did election meddling, rather than Facebook when thet selectively block sites like this.

That is still not a crime.

Ok then. You might very well be right.

But what is the rule then? Manipulating social media in front of an election is only illegal if you are a foreigner?

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#507

Post by sleepysysadmin » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 1:35 PM UTC

If your father is rich and powerful like Biden, you are inevitably going to find yourself in positions of privilege. Someone whose intent is to gain access to your father will bring you money bags.

Hunter Biden has a bachelors degree in history and no real life experience. He got himself a very nice position that he clearly didn't earn.

During the primary when this Burisma thing came out originally; NYPost no doubt investigated it and found much more information. Then sat on it until the most damaging moment. Very unlikely that these are lies and really the Biden campaign hasn't denied it. The reality is that Joe Biden was probably too busy to see his son selling his influence. Joe Biden is probably quite innocent, his silver spoon son on the other hand...

Then Twitter pulled the censorship trigger a little too fast. You can see the bias for yourself. Wikipedia calls this whole Burisma thing an unevidenced conspiracy theory. Is it really unevidenced? An objective viewer can see the evidences. Is it really a conspiracy theory? I really don't think so.

MSNBC's response to this burisma ordeal is to assert that the NY Post is a tabloid that regularly reports known false stories. They never really attacked the evidences or story. They just outright attacked the ny post calling it unreliable.

This is such a great story though. You can use it to identify your echo chamber. the polls seem to be saying biden is going to win HUGE. My echo chambers I am in seem to think Trump is literally hitler who is killing mexicans. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-is-trailing-so...

November 4th is going to be an exciting day to see if my echo chambers are right or wrong.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#508

Post by sleepysysadmin » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 1:46 PM UTC

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…

I would say you're proposing a false dichotomy. There are 4 options or more.

In the case of Twitter, in order to maintain their "good samaritan" the extent of their "content moderation" is quite specficic.

any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.

The NYPost article was damaging a political opponent to be sure. It was not obscene, lewd, filthy; though clearly twitter allows porn so these are immediately ruled out. It wasn't violent by any means.

Was it harassing or otherwise objectionable? Well I think there's some good debate possible but that debate is cut off immediately because the "content moderation" must be done in good faith. This very clearly is violated.

So Twitter did not content moderate as per the laws they must obey. Therefore we now have 2 options. Twitter loses platform protections and becomes directly liable for any and all content they publish aka any anonymous person posting. OR they stop their censorship.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#509

Post by cm2187 » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 1:51 PM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #505

cm2187 wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was tried (recording the oval office for historical purposes). Then it was immediately weaponised by the political opponents and the recording system promptly removed.

Are you just adding some historical context and additional information? Or are you saying that to dismiss my idea/suggestion?

Well, I think it will result into the same consequences. It would be immediately weaponised by the political opposition and would be retired almost as soon as it was introduced.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#510

Post by abnry » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 1:52 PM UTC

objectivetruth wrote: post #297

abnry wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

It is an analogy, and it's already established we aren't discussing law. The question is the principles, causes, and reasons at play and how they relate to other principles, causes, and reasons.