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Facebook Says It Is Removing All Content Mentioning 'Stop the Steal'

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Re: Facebook Says It Is Removing All Content Mentioning 'Stop the Steal'

#431

Post by dang »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #300
dd36 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eliminating dissent?!?

Sure, watch as Biden berates black leaders. Tells one she can't read. Once you secure power, you don't necessarily like sharing it. Its like splitting the loot between thieves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3G7n21p0kY Lenin after securing power, quickly killed off or imprisoned people in his own communist party that he deemed might pose him a threat. Sadly this included most of the well meaning people and idealist…

Please stop using HN for ideological battle. Regardless of which ideology you're battling for, it's not what HN is for, and it destroys what it is for.

You've been doing it a lot lately, and we ban that sort of account. I'm not going to ban you right now, because you've also been posting good comments. But if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and fix this, we'd appreciate it.

Re: Facebook Says It Is Removing All Content Mentioning 'Stop the Steal'

#432

Post by cudgy »

giantg2 wrote: post #235
arsome wrote: post #161

Are we really so stupid that we cannot see through this kind of thing and need to actively censor it to have civilized society continue to function? When do we just give up on democracy completely?

I completely agree. I would like to see some of the other replies here comment on how democracy can function if the citizens are incompetent/stupid. If they can't be trusted to be knowledgeable, then how can they make informed decisions, including voting? And of course, who decides which people hold legitimate positions and which people are ignorant?

This was considered and known by the framers of the Constitution.

House of Representatives was designed to allow for direct election and therefore allow for the “stupid” (as you call it) common man to influence government. Most of the other branches (e.g. judicial, executive, and the Senate) were appointed by the supposedly “non-stupid” members of legislatures and judicial boards.

The answer to the last question is no one should decide who is ignorant, as the thought of having someone decide this is well ... ignorant.

Re: Facebook Says It Is Removing All Content Mentioning 'Stop the Steal'

#433

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

ffggvv wrote: post #379
BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And everyone else can exercise their freedom of speech by calling out the flaws logical inconsistencies in your criticisms of the content moderation. > imo free speech is a human right and corporations shouldn’t oppress it even if they legally can. just like they shouldn’t discriminate even if they legally could Private people and companies are under no obligation to offer their help and services to people who wish t…

you haven’t pointed out a logical inconsistency. please point out the inconsistency in my statements: 1. Companies are legally free to ban anyone they want. (in fact i side with right of the christian baker refusing to make cakes for gay weddings) 2. Companies shouldn’t ban people for their political opinions or restrict them from expressing them. It’s evil and immoral and horrifying behavior, but not illegal. if the…

> imo free speech is a human right and corporations shouldn’t oppress it even if they legally can. just like they shouldn’t discriminate even if they legally could

Let's say I (or my company) hosted an online message board, and a thread was brought to my attention with messages like "We need to hunt down every last Democrat senator and put a bullet in their head!", with replies like "Amen! I'll bring my rifles" and "What time should we meet?".

You'd better believe I'd "oppress" such speech and ban the users, and you'd be severely hard-pressed to convince me that such a response is a human rights violation. Those messages, or whatever fabricated claims were used to justify the threats therein, don't constitute "political opinions" just because political parties and politicians are named. Likewise, outright false/fabricated claims that "the Democrats" fraudulently/secretly changed the result of the 2020 election are, in no way, "political opinions" -- rather, they are statements of (false) fact, meant to incite viewers to violence for the fabricator's gain.

For me to un-publish such posts from my web site cannot be considered discrimination against a political group; it's refusal to allow my servers to help conspirators commit a violent crime. If you want to brand something as "horrific" here, it should be the posts I described and not the take-downs.

Re: Facebook Says It Is Removing All Content Mentioning 'Stop the Steal'

#434

Post by courtf »

dang wrote: post #429
_fhnu wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25743214 and please stop using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. That's a failure mode for this site and we ban accounts that do it, regardless of which politics they're battling for. We have to ban them in order to have a chance of surviving for the purpose the site exists for. Btw, generalizations like "HN has always had a libertarian/right leaning na…

Sorry for contributing to the awfulness of the past week. Not sure I have it in me to stay civil with these topics so I'll just have to avoid looking at them I think.

Re: Facebook Says It Is Removing All Content Mentioning 'Stop the Steal'

#435

Post by giantg2 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #420
giantg2 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have some charts or data on degrees conferred per year as a percent of the population? Also, it looks like percent of the population with a degree is higher now than ever. https://www.statista.com/statistics/184272/educational-attai...

US BLS, Census, ad NCES have comprehensive stats, with summaries at Wikipedia,[1] and whilst in overall numbers you're probably correct, there are some counterarguments. - Through the 1960s and possibly early 1970s, a solidly middle-class lifestyle remained possible without a college education. Apprentice and vocational tracks were abundant and viable. - US Census data show a Bachellors-level local maximum attainment…

But how is this a response to the comment below in the context of voters being educated and your initial response being that the peak was the peak was 1945-1985?

"Do you think there was a time when the majority of the population were college educated? Or realistically had access to college education?"

It seems overall the education of the population has risen, although it might not be as high quality. Also, this lower quality can lend itself to higher attainment (eg college entrance exams being more lax). Also, 1945-85 you would have higher number of people who never went to high school because 8th grade was considered sufficient when they were a child. So just through demographic change (sadly, those older people dying off) and an increase in the job market's demand for higher credentials we can see the level of education has risen over time, resulting in the most educated populace we've seen.

Re: Facebook Says It Is Removing All Content Mentioning 'Stop the Steal'

#436

Post by graeme »

tim44 wrote: post #393
graeme wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who use profanity and personal insults tend to heavily degrade the quality of a forum. And when banned, they react angrily and make alternate accounts again and again. A shadowban reduces the incentive to dodge bans via new usernames. Reddit mods don’t have Ip address access or other tools, so shadowbans are a necessary tool. You weren’t banned for speaking contrary to the mainstream. You were banned for insul…

Hey I broke the rules, what can I say. But that wasn't really the point. This is also an interesting take on profanity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13412107 But let me actually amend my comment above here, it wasn't even that bad, the actual words were "lying a#s." I just felt like there was an interaction that didn't need to happen because people see different sets of comments, my original comment being not…

Yeah I actually do think that the profanity can indicate more honesty. The trouble is, if it’s also combined with a personal attack on others it inflames conversations. Two people can then rile themselves up and derail an entire thread.

Of course the comment replying to you did the same thing: made a personal attack on you, and it derailed you into a personal attack with swearing.

Re: Facebook Says It Is Removing All Content Mentioning 'Stop the Steal'

#437

Post by graeme »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #403
graeme wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who use profanity and personal insults tend to heavily degrade the quality of a forum. And when banned, they react angrily and make alternate accounts again and again. A shadowban reduces the incentive to dodge bans via new usernames. Reddit mods don’t have Ip address access or other tools, so shadowbans are a necessary tool. You weren’t banned for speaking contrary to the mainstream. You were banned for insul…

Is it true that a very active participant on Reddit was shadow banned a while back, and he didn't realize it for two years?

Happens every day. Mods can do a form of shadowbanning on a specific subreddit. So the very active and unaware can keep posting and posting and not know.

I don’t necessarily think this is unreasonable if used judiciously against the type of account which has shown unwillingness to heed rules or mod warnings.

Re: Facebook Says It Is Removing All Content Mentioning 'Stop the Steal'

#438

Post by aeortiz »

lancesells wrote: post #152
tannhaeuser wrote: post #112

That's not censorship. It's Fb's and other social media's desperate attempt to appease new government to prevent strong legislation, such as being held liable for their user's content, forced real names, regulation, and breakup.

Yes, the question really is are they liable for the violence that's produced through their algorithms?

The day they replaced our time-based feeds to display more ads via algorithms, the clock started ticking...the alarm is now ringing.

Re: Facebook Says It Is Removing All Content Mentioning 'Stop the Steal'

#439

Post by jrs235 »

evanelias wrote: post #316
arsome wrote: post #161

Are we really so stupid that we cannot see through this kind of thing and need to actively censor it to have civilized society continue to function? When do we just give up on democracy completely?

For historical context, it may be worth noting that the framers of the US constitution did not envision having direct popular election of the President [1], nor of senators [2]. To be clear, I'm not indicating that the framers had the right idea about this. Rather, just mentioning that the risks of under-informed general populace exercising direct democratic election has been under consideration since the nation's fo…

To be fair, the founders established the federal government to be a government for/of the states. It was established to manage and negotiate the affairs and disputes between the states (like the EU today). Each state was it's own sovereign "country" and upon ratifying the Constitution voluntarily gave up limited sovereignty to the federal government. There's a whole ton more to unpack here and yes, the original folks allowed suffrage (at the federal and individual state levels) were the "nobles" (landowners) who from what I know and can ascertain where almost exclusively white men.

Re: Facebook Says It Is Removing All Content Mentioning 'Stop the Steal'

#440

Post by jrs235 »

eznzt wrote: post #227
jowsie wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you checked the news the last few days? Plenty of people out there are stupid enough to fall for this and much worse.

Which is exactly the point. Why keep being a democracy when we don't trust the voters to do the right thing?

We use to call representatives, particularly Senators, Statesmen. They were elected to represent the interests of their State [government] and not that of the people or themselves.
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