Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#181

Post by asdff » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 7:12 PM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #95

orf wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Twitter is an infrastructure on top of which thousands of services are run. It's a notification service, it's a messaging server, it's an authentication/identify verification service, it's a news dissemination and discussion service, etc. It's all of these, except private. It's a privately run notification/messaging/authentication/identity/verification service. Just one that is widely used. That doesn't make it "pu…

Your ISP and phone provider are private/non-state-owned entities too. The corporation providing the service doesn't matter, it's the how the service itself is used by the public. And social media is now at the same level as phones and internet.

Not the case. 96% of americans have a cell phone: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/

22% of americans have had a twitter account: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/04/24/sizing-up-tw...

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#182

Post by setpatchaddress » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 7:12 PM UTC

droffel wrote: post #107

olivermarks wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes - I've found Zerohedge to be scarily accurate over time! Depends on your political allegiances I suppose but my mother taught me when i was kid to always read the financial press - 'follow the money to find out what the b@stards are thinking' was her old line. (she used to work for the UK tory party in the '50's, despised them). ZH is what many city of London and wall street minions read live on their bloomberg…

> scarily accurate As the saying goes, Zerohedge has predicted 28 of the last 4 recessions. They have a consistently bearish bias (which rarely seems to play out), and ties to the Russian state, which brings into question the motivations behind their criticisms of the US (not that I'm the biggest fan myself). All of that said, ZH introduced me to a lot of economic literature and concepts I likely wouldn't have been e…

You've really got to be careful with this sort of thing. This is how Rush Limbaugh got into otherwise sane people's hearts and minds: he explained how the legislative process worked in accessible language.

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#183

Post by newbie578 » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 7:13 PM UTC

Twitter should be careful as they curate more and more content. If you start curating content so much, at one point people will start expecting that from you and you will be liable for way much content than they can handle.

I for one cannot wait for Dorsey and his crew to get a taste of their own medicine, since it doesn't matter if I disagree with GOP (let's face it, this is again a right vs left issue), I still believe they have a right to free speech.

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#184

Post by thereare5lights » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 7:13 PM UTC

cjjuice wrote: post #101

quacked wrote: post #6

The Post publishes a lot of disreputable trash that's outright false or unproven, but more and more often, it seems that they release primary sources of information (especially videos) much earlier than other news outlets will, if the other news outlets do so at all. There have been multiple times when I've seen an insane video of something happening spreading around Twitter or WorldStar or some other "raw video" agg…

It should not be the job of the social media companies to be judge and jury for truth. Let the people decide for themselves what is true and false. Basically the social media company argument is... we think people are too dumb to figure out what is "real" or not so we are going to censor. That to me is an extremely damning view of the common person. But then, everywhere on the platform.. "make a plan to vote". So you…

> That to me is an extremely damning view of the common person.

Isn't it self evident by now that most people lack critical thinking skills?

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#185

Post by dilap » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 7:13 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #26

The Post still hasn't deleted the offending tweet. Those are the rules: on a first violation of posting someone's personal information without permission you get your account locked until you delete the tweet.

But Twitter has officially stated it was a mistake to block posting of the link to the Post's story.

So why is the Post's account still locked?

More generally, it does not appear Twitter is impartially enforcing standards against leaking private information. There are no problems posting stories to Trump's illegally-leaked tax returns, or Melania's phone calls, for example.

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#186

Post by munk-a » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 7:13 PM UTC

goalieca wrote: post #173

La1n wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That to me is an extremely damning view of the common person. But fake news has been spreading a lot, while maybe not in your circles it does still happen. And retraction or an apology article will not be spread as widely due to the fact that a lot of fake news is specifically inflammatory to be spread quickly and widely.

The truth is often not black and white and doubly so when in the context of persuasion. When you start censoring information for accuracy then you're only getting one person's version of the truth which is even worse because now you're putting a gold stamp on it!

That is a really really big danger here - but it's also how American media worked for a really long time. It comes with an enormous inherent pro-establishment bias but I think it's valid to view that bias as possibly being the lesser of evils.

I'm still on the fence personally, this is a really hard problem.

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#187

Post by koolba » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 7:13 PM UTC

quacked wrote: post #6

The Post publishes a lot of disreputable trash that's outright false or unproven, but more and more often, it seems that they release primary sources of information (especially videos) much earlier than other news outlets will, if the other news outlets do so at all. There have been multiple times when I've seen an insane video of something happening spreading around Twitter or WorldStar or some other "raw video" agg…

Nothing in your comment says the information is fake or false. In fact, the Biden campaign and his son Hunter have not denied any of the information either.

Given that Twitter has allowed people to publish anything and everything about Trump regardless of source (or lack thereof), this is a clear cut case of bias to push their preferred candidate.

A different take on the same idea, Google now adds "fact checks" when searching for videos of Biden, in his own words, describing his flip flopping position on fracking. Try it for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=biden+fracking

I'd love to know what other fact checks they've added. I can't find an explicit list. I submitted an Ask HN to see if anyone knew how to get that list. But that post was flagged as some people may feel that information is too dangerous to disclose.

Both actions are clearly driven by bias. Whether they're allowed to do it on a private platform is a separate topic. But you can't claim to be for free speech when the only speech you suppress or "clarify" is that which is negative to your candidate of choice.

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#188

Post by olivermarks » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 7:13 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #167

olivermarks wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes - I've found Zerohedge to be scarily accurate over time! Depends on your political allegiances I suppose but my mother taught me when i was kid to always read the financial press - 'follow the money to find out what the b@stards are thinking' was her old line. (she used to work for the UK tory party in the '50's, despised them). ZH is what many city of London and wall street minions read live on their bloomberg…

> Separately I view Twitter as breaking section 230 free speech regulatory agreements in meddling with what they 'publish' Section 230 was overtly adopted so that platforms would make efforts to censor content that they found to be objectionable; there are no "free speech regulatory agreements" associated with it. It is the only surviving part of a law whose sole and entire purpose was internet censorship, the rest o…

https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230

Twitter (and FB) have crossed the rubicon in editorializing other people's posts with 'fact checks' (sic), shadow bans and public bans.

Practically the opposite of the free speech maxim 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it' and alarmingly close to totalitarian use of their publishing power.

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#189

Post by guscost » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 7:13 PM UTC

La1n wrote: post #156

guscost wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is absolutely not why Twitter acted in this case, and everyone knows it.

You don't have to imply things, it's more useful to the discussion to just say it. Do say the quiet part out loud so people can actually interact with a comment like this.

Sure: Twitter is trying to tip the election in favor of Biden. When the shoe was on the other foot, they never blocked news outlets (no matter how trashy) that promoted anonymous accusations without evidence, or shared illegally-obtained information.

The laptop and its contents seem to have been obtained legally in this case, and even if the whole thing reeks of parallel construction, they are not even honestly enforcing their stated rule (which again, does not seem to apply when it benefits the other faction).

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#190

Post by zdragnar » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 7:14 PM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #95

orf wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Twitter is an infrastructure on top of which thousands of services are run. It's a notification service, it's a messaging server, it's an authentication/identify verification service, it's a news dissemination and discussion service, etc. It's all of these, except private. It's a privately run notification/messaging/authentication/identity/verification service. Just one that is widely used. That doesn't make it "pu…

Your ISP and phone provider are private/non-state-owned entities too. The corporation providing the service doesn't matter, it's the how the service itself is used by the public. And social media is now at the same level as phones and internet.

How the "public" uses the service is irrelevant; the legal regulations are all based on what the service is.

Social media is fundamentally different from ISPs and other utilities- there are some protections and restrictions under section 230 (for now) but number of customers does not a utility make.