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

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

#221

Post by AgentME »

olivermarks wrote: post #188
dragonwriter wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Nothing about section 230 says that platforms have to publish what people say, or that they are unable to moderate or editorialize the content:

>This legal protection can still hold even if a blogger is aware of the objectionable content or makes editorial judgments.

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

#222

Post by function_seven »

bigbubba wrote: post #112
function_seven wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Google is different. They hold a monopoly on search that I think should be broken up. I have big problems with the power Google wields in finding things online. But, going back to my previous comment, it would in a way be a good thing if Google started capriciously "disappearing" sites like this, in a high-profile manner. It would accelerate the move to other search providers and bring a more diversified Internet…

The GP's Google example concerns thermostats, not search. Google doesn't have a thermostat monopoly. Is it therefore okay for Google to remotely deactivate the thermostats of people they've decided to dislike?

If they were just a thermostat company, then yeah. They could say “we don’t provide climate control services to the GOP”, or whatever. (Contact law covers how to handle refunds for devices already purchased, etc. I’m talking about the core issue of companies being able to choose their customers)

But, because they have a monopoly in search, they can abuse it to dictate terms in other sectors. That’s what I have a problem with.

It’s also a story we’ve seen recently, where some poor user gets their Google Cloud acct locked, and loses their YouTube videos as a result. Those stories are what convinced me that Google needs to be chopped up.

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

#223

Post by barumi »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #70
blhack wrote: post #19

To the people constantly saying that twitter is a private company and should be allowed to do whatever they want: Would you support the same idea around electrical power? If the power company providing the power to the office at the NyPost decided that they had a political disagreement with them, would it be okay to just cut off their power? NyPost could just make their own power, of course, by purchasing a generator…

A better analogy: Twitter is like Fedex refusing to deliver your packages based on your politics, not the electrical utility company.

>>Twitter is like Fedex refusing to deliver your packages (...)

In case you don't know, FedEx or pretty much any delivery company are free to refuse shipping your parcels.

A cursory googling is enough to allow you to discover fedex's shipping guidelines.

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

#224

Post by pvg »

Apparently unverified and unreleased tax returns are important for the public interest, but direct evidence of high-ranking US politician’s family member receiving a highly paid position without prior credentials is not of concern to the American public.

There has been plenty of widely reported, direct evidence of the latter, it's not even a matter of dispute. The NYP piece was not 'direct evidence' of that. This is a pretty unserious piece of analysis, if you can call it that.

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

#225

Post by wow_yes »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #212
tomcam wrote: post #169

Those of you who think locking the account was a good idea should remember you won’t always be in the majority.

Or on the side that Twitter thinks is the good side.

We are on the right side of history - progress always is. People like me are much more trustworthy because we're not motivated by greed, but for the desire for a better world.

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

#226

Post by fuckyah »

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…

What happened to freedom of press? This is clearly censorship. Period.

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

#227

Post by ch4s3 »

olivermarks wrote: post #87
tomp wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Interesting... after reading this, I immediately thought: same as Zero Hedge (also often criticised). But then again, that shouldn't be a surprise - b…

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 isn't an agreement, it's a section of the Communication Decency Act.[1] There is no prohibition on the publisher "meddling", or moderating. Section 230 was specifically carved out to encourage voluntary content moderation on the nascent internet.

It states that hosting or republishing someone else's speech does not make you the speaker, even if you moderate. Which is to say that just because Twitter locks down accounts or stops a link from being shared, they still are not the Speaker (legally) of anything their users post. That's it, that basically the whole thing.

[1]https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230

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

#228

Post by munk-a »

influx wrote: post #180
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…

I'm curious what your thoughts are on the NY Times pushing false information that led to the second Iraq War? Should they get penalized on Twitter after pushing a narrative that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths? From the NY Times itself ( https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/world/from-the-editors-th... ) "But we have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some…

I think the pro-establishment lean of media back in the day (and advocacy for the Iraq war is a great example) is really the heart of the problems we've got today. Society and media is reacting to the overly heavy censorship of established platforms - but what we're seeing today with widely embraced conspiracy theories is pretty dangerous to society.

Was the Iraq war a one-off event where media held far too much trust and abused it? Is it just the continuation of a pattern of media being used as a tool of the state (either wittingly or unwittingly)? I'm leaning toward the second option but I still don't know if the inherent pro-establishment bias you get with large media conglomerates outweighs the benefits of vetted news.

The only thing I can say for sure is that public media funding (like PBS and the like) to subsidize the cost of media companies ends up having rather little effect on those outlets' biases, while forcing media to depend on corporate sponsorship absolutely does corrupt the messaging delivered to the populace at large. So I'm not certain what our media landscape should look like, but I'm definitely against people who decry any government sponsorship of news as being political mouthpieces - public radio and tv should form part of our news digest, their funding is diverse enough to allow them to freely criticize both national and local governments and while it probably won't yield the really valuable investigative journalism we need to fight corruption it's definitely part of the solution.

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

#229

Post by timdev2 »

tathougies wrote: post #143
function_seven wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is not a utility. It is not common infrastructure. The Internet is, and I would not be okay with Internet access being terminated over political disagreements. But individual services? Sure, why not? For those who argue that Twitter is a de facto common platform, well these decisions are moving them away from that role. The more they exercise their own prerogatives in removing content, the more they're no lon…

> Twitter is not a utility. It is not common infrastructure. Great, then they should not be subject to section 230 protection, which protects them from liability from user-generated content. If they are a private publishing site, they should be entitled to all the privileges and responsibilities of such sites, as well established in the common law.

Not everything that isn't a common carrier is a traditional publisher. Bars, for example.

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

#230

Post by ethagnawl »

blhack wrote: post #44
function_seven wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is not a utility. It is not common infrastructure. The Internet is, and I would not be okay with Internet access being terminated over political disagreements. But individual services? Sure, why not? For those who argue that Twitter is a de facto common platform, well these decisions are moving them away from that role. The more they exercise their own prerogatives in removing content, the more they're no lon…

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. But that actually doesn't even damage the argument: would it be okay if Google decided that they didn't like NyPost's politics, so they disabled the functionality of all of their ne…

If it's critical infrastructure, then it should be regulated. Right?
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