Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

melovedata.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

671–680 of 763 posts

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

#671

Post by shard972 »

frollo wrote: post #615
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The NYPost (or basically any news outlet and their readers) became dependent on Twitter on their own choice (or on their own laziness), I'm curious what exactly you think they could have done to not end up here. I'm not aware of Twitter even offering a paid service that they could use, and network effects mean that failing to publish on Twitter just means that fewer people will see your stuff.

Most news outlets used to have RSS feeds which, once upon a time before it was removed from a lot of big websites (such as news outlets), allowed lots of people to get a feed of what was published. It worked for a lot of years and, if kept up and published, it could probably have given Twitter a run for its money. You could share the feeds you followed or even build public feeds from that (there are stil a bunch of t…

What an asinine comment. Not in a million years do you believe that the NYpost keeping RSS feeds around would have created a network effect, forget it being even in same universe of scale as the networks currently being discussed.

Maybe you don't know what the network effect is then i guess I forgive you, but otherwise, why if your so concerned about false information would you just make shit up like that?

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

#672

Post by munk-a »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #658
munk-a wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely yea - especially since we're sorta leaning that way in America right now. But I think that that risk is coming out of undemocratic qualities of our government rather than the democratic ones. I really really want to dump FPTP voting since I think it inevitably leads to two party systems and that two-party partisan us vs. them politics is what lets authoritarianism grow.

Thanks for the reply. My perspective is that democracy is a type of authoritarianism, or at least closely related because the elections are decision-forcing processes that result in the losing side not getting what they want. How would you reconcile this?

I don't think you really can, we all live in a society and compromises need to be made for all of us to enjoy a moderate amount of freedom while not impinging on that of others. We don't currently live in a society that comes close to maximizing freedom for everyone (freedom of opportunity is denied to the majority of folks in the US and elsewhere) but I think we're on the right general path to eventually approach a Star Trek future.

I really appreciate parliamentary governments over the hot mess the US has - I think you get a lot better representation especially when no one party has a majority. If everyone is in a minority then you have consensus through coalitions of different fractions and it gets a lot closer to each skinny slice of the nation getting a legitimate say. The more slices you have the better your representation of the public will (up to, ultimately, true popular democracy) but as a society we probably want either majority or strong majority decisions to guide us and that's just conceptually incompatible with no one getting their free-will stomped on.

This hits a really deep point on the topic of freedom - I have the right to not be murdered, but that right comes at the cost of anyone who wants to murder me... restrictions of rights are necessary for greater general societal rights.

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

#673

Post by varispeed »

anthonypasq wrote: post #430
varispeed wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what it has to do with right/left wing. Free speech should exist regardless of your economic or social views and should be protected with the force of law.

how is forcing a company to platform your views free speech?

Platforms should welcome users of any background and views. Company shouldn't be able to ban someone based on their views and opinions. If user will violating T&C or the law then company should be able to remove the account.

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

#674

Post by unishark »

rbanffy wrote: post #652
unishark wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They constantly, if unevenly, exercise their right to ban hate speech and what causes it. And what causes it?? What if censorship itself causes hate speech?

> What if censorship itself causes hate speech? Hate speech existed before Twitter and will likely persist after it. Other social networks that allegedly do not practice content moderation also have identifiable hate speech content in them.

If you're going to reduce the argument solely to twitter, then can't you say the same for any other alleged "cause" on twitter being censored? And therefore take your argument up with the parent poster instead of me?

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

#675

Post by originalvichy »

keiferski wrote: post #118

Honestly, I see this kind of action as good. The sooner the population at large realizes that Big Social aren't neutral players in the marketplace of ideas, the better. We need decentralized solutions, ASAP, and the only way that's going to happen is when normal people start caring.

Any marketplace is dependent on the people acting in good faith and in favour of the marketplace. It is naive to think that marketplaces are immune to bad actors and that bad actors should be allowed to thrive.

There's a reason there are basically no "freedom of speech, marketplace of ideas" sites that a) don't have a single ounce of moderation done by people and b) are popular.

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

#676

Post by robertlagrant »

h0l0cube wrote: post #663
h0l0cube wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Post publishes a lot of disreputable trash that's outright false or unproven > It doesn't matter. This strawman is presented every time this topic comes up. I can't ignore the irony here that you complain about straw-manning of the OP by cherry-picking the only negative comment in spite of the 99% of commentary in favor. Edit: I also can't ignore that the plaint of pervasive "echo chamber hyperbole" is juxtaposed…

Getting downvotes for this, not because there's any solid argument against what I'm saying, but because people are upset. The reason why I had to say something is because the GPs comment highlights much of what is wrong with online discourse. That 'The New York Post has more merit than people afford it' might be worthy claim, but making a bunch of loud baseless claims isn't the way to convince people of it.

It's not people being upset, it's that talking about irony and juxtaposition is not helpful. Making a simple case is a lot more effective than vague comments on other people's cases.

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

#677

Post by robertlagrant »

LifeIsThermal wrote: post #659
JohnBooty wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want Twitter to curate what ideas and speakers I'm exposed to, in the same way that I don't want my local library to ban certain books or Google to delist websites that it decides are bad Those analogies are flawed, so I'll just address the issue directly. I do want Twitter to curate things, by filtering out news from biased sources with questionable alliances and borderline journalistic practices. I want the…

Wouldn´t it be better to have two options when you log in to Twitter? Safe space Twitter and wild west Twitter. Then all sensitive people can log into a pink bubble and the rest of us can enjoy uncensored reality. Most people should realize that very few would choose the pink bubble. The line should be drawn at illegal content in the wild west Twitter. You should trust other people to have the same ability as yoursel…

Ironically, Twitter is already like this with follows and likes allowing people to construct their own bubbles.

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

#678

Post by thu2111 »

rbanffy wrote: post #605
NeverFade wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You admit it's a rag, that publishes some of the lowest quality journalism. It's also very politically biased, in a way that damages the very fabric of society. Restricting its reach is the responsible thing to do in their case. Let's just let tech monopolies determine what information we can or cannot communicate. Definitely nothing wrong will come of it. In fact, it's "the responsible thing to do"! Also, stating…

> Let's just let tech monopolies determine what information we can or cannot communicate. Definitely nothing wrong will come of it. The NY Post can still publish their materials on Gab or Parler. Their intended audience is probably there already. > It may not be a top newspaper, but it's also far from being the worst paper in the US. It's a Murdoch rag, with the usual Murdoch standard for quality and ethics. Lower th…

You mean they can use the sites that are also censored by Google and Apple via their app stores?

What people on these threads never seen to think about is, how long until Chrome starts blocking "misinformation"? Would you be making the same arguments then because, someone could theoretically download a separate web browser that nobody has ever heard of?

The problem with these arguments is there's no obvious end to them. They are very much a slippery slope. It ends with people who want to criticise the Democrats having to build their own internet out of their own cables and radios, which would be a de-facto China-style totalitarian society.

The problem is the sort of people who now work for these tech firms are fundamentally untrustworthy, and appear to have kicked out or 'converted' the people who used to work there who were. We are now left with a big pile of infrastructures and institutions that are controlled by political extremists.

Unfortunately this means that if Biden does win his critics will claim his win wasn't legitimate/fair, just like Trump's critics claimed about Russia. Except "Trump won because of Russia" was investigated deeply and there was nothing there, whereas tech company censorship is plain as day and visible for all to see.

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

#679

Post by thu2111 »

mox1 wrote: post #595
chrisstanchak wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Twitter is a private company. They constantly, if unevenly, exercise their right to ban hate speech and what causes it. So is Verizon. Do you want to live in a world where your phone gets turned off if they don't like the conversation?

You have no intrinsic right to a mobile telephone, so we do live in this world. If it made business sense for them to do this, they would. Call in a few threats to local businesses or SWAT someone and see how long it takes for your phone to get disabled.

Twitter disabling the NY Post doesn't make 'business sense' under any conventional definition of business, unless you consider election manipulation for the benefit of one political party to have near unlimited business upside.

What we're dealing with here is not ordinary abuse control of the sort that isn't controversial, and it's a false equivalence to connect the two. It's outright suppression of doing anything that might harm the political left.

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

#680

Post by thu2111 »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #214
olivermarks wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your link supports GP's assertion. There is no rubicon to be crossed. Both the letter and the intent of Section 230 is to allow Twitter and Facebook to moderate however they wish. (Although the fact checks are authored by them, and therefore don't fall under Section 230; Twitter would be liable if they were shown to be defamatory).

Fact checks on Facebook at least aren't authored by them. They come from third party "fact checkers" of dubious legitimacy.
Post reply on HN