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

Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

eshoo.house.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 602 posts

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#141

Post by betterunix2 »

mjevans wrote: post #133
cool_dude85 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disagree. We can censor, for example, child pornography, bomb-building tutorials, and revenge porn. I'm not going to fight against censoring them on the grounds that allowing them to be censored will allow anything else to be censored too.

Incorrect. We can __prosecute__ against those who break the law. We __must not__ censor, because that is the slippery slope; all the more so when it is done without judicial oversight in an adversarial review system.

That is a distinction without a difference. You are talking about the mechanics of censorship.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#142

Post by jandrese »

CivBase wrote: post #52

> Experts have noted that the right-wing media ecosystem is “much more susceptible...to disinformation, lies, and half-truths.” Citation from the PDF: https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/o... That book does not cite any evidence for that assertion. Here's the relevant excerpt: > IN THE PRECEDING three chapters we examined the propaganda feedback loop, how it forms, and how it facilitates disinf…

> no more than 30 percent of the American population inhabits the insular, propaganda-rich right-wing media ecosystem, indicate that whatever one thinks of the result of the 2016 election, it could not have been purely the result of right-wing propaganda.

30% of the total American population could be 46% of the voting population. But this is a straw man argument, it would only take 1 counter example to disprove a statement like that, and you could certainly find a person like that.

The comment about how Fox News has not spent years spewing misinformation simply because it is only talking about "Stop the Steal" nonsense is missing the forest for the trees. You can find examples of baseless hyperbolic fearmongering on Fox News every year (and indeed every month) going back to its inception. Migrant caravans about to overrun our borders. BLM protestors setting entire cities on fire. Secret pedophiles operating out of fast food restaurants.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#143

Post by kryogen1c »

njharman wrote: post #35

Judging what is and is not misinformation must always be in the hands of the people. Never the hands of authorities whether those be government or corporate. Why must fight all censorship. Because once you allow "a thing" to be censored, it becomes possible to censor "any thing". Things in the past which were labeled misinformation and would have been suppressed for even longer (or forever) under current social attit…

> Things in the past which were labeled misinformation

I know that item-level thinking like this is necessary to gain emotional traction with people, but this issue is just so obvious at a systems-level.

the idea that we, right now the instant youre reading this, have discovered 100% of what there is to learn and 0% of what we know is wrong is so painfully, horrifically, obviously stupid (we've had computers for thirty years now, we're probably good for ETERNITY, right?). we both WANT and NEED a mechanism for dissenters and disinformation. misinformation is combat with MORE discussion, not less!

scientific consensus is not arrived at when every scientific paper says the same thing. this is a fundamentally wrong view of science and also reality. on any given topic, the corpus includes opposing conclusions. eventually we figure out why and discern the underlying principles.

to say anything but this is to make the existential case that people are not to be trusted with their own free will.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#144

Post by pfortuny »

hpcjoe wrote: post #110
pfortuny wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From "how many people" to "what people" there is only a single step. And it is very very very easy to take it. That a congressperson makes this kind of question speaks volumes about him. Unbelievable .

I know I'll be downvoted for this, but fundamentally this definition[1] includes "and forcible suppression of opposition". In what way is this letter not the first step in this direction? I'm no fan of the previous president. Really didn't like him. But this ... this attempt at shutting down of opposition communication, is the hallmark, the signature of nascent oppression. And a slide into fascism/socialism/etc. [1]…

Saying that you will be downvoted guarantees it.

You are right but it is best not to mention the beast, in my opinion.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#145

Post by setpatchaddress »

hpcjoe wrote: post #118
BitwiseFool wrote: post #4

"How many of your subscribers tuned in to Fox News, Newsmax, and OANN on U-verse, DirecTV, and AT&T TV for each of the four weeks preceding the November 3, 2020 elections and the January 6, 2021 attacks on the Capitol? Please specify the number of subscribers that tuned in to each channel ." Does this strike anyone else as a nakedly partisan move?

Worse than that, it is an attempt at intimidation. Given today's climate, it would not surprise me if it works. Look at it this way. The capital riot on 6-Jan was planned and discussed on Youtube, facebook, and twitter. Apparently, barely a mention on Parler. Yet Parler was excoriated and deplatformed for it, and for not policing its comment sections. Yet Youtube, facebook, and twitter have faced no consequences for…

This is disinformation.

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/2021/02/01/civil-war-...

https://nypost.com/2021/01/16/aoc-slams-facebooks-mark-zucke...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/twitter-blocks-qanon-accounts-c...

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#146

Post by ineptech »

pfortuny wrote: post #98
BitwiseFool wrote: post #4

"How many of your subscribers tuned in to Fox News, Newsmax, and OANN on U-verse, DirecTV, and AT&T TV for each of the four weeks preceding the November 3, 2020 elections and the January 6, 2021 attacks on the Capitol? Please specify the number of subscribers that tuned in to each channel ." Does this strike anyone else as a nakedly partisan move?

From "how many people" to "what people" there is only a single step. And it is very very very easy to take it. That a congressperson makes this kind of question speaks volumes about him. Unbelievable .

"Gosh, that's only one step away from something worse" is true of literally everything anyone has ever done.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#147

Post by bpodgursky »

minikites wrote: post #95
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #92

Scary stuff, I feel like I'm slowly watching as the U.S turns into a one party state, and enforced by the government itself. We argue about how it's okay for private companies to censor whatever they feel like, but what if it's the government pressuring them to do so? They themselves in this letter mention that 50% of Americans get their news from TV, and many American's have one choice of Cable provider, and even if…

Which party is the "one party" here?

Probably the one with the presidency, house, senate, most of the media, and social media content moderation.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#148

Post by [deleted] »

LatteLazy wrote: post #115

Does anyone have any proposals for dealing with mass misinformation other that aren't censorship? I mean specific ideas, not just "people need to be more decerning"? I ask because I don't like censorship but I feel we're approaching a point where we have censorship and democracy or we don't have democracy anymore. And I like democracy... * information isn't glamorous, so unless we redesigned the whole media market it…

[deleted]

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#149

Post by asterialite »

macspoofing wrote: post #108
asterialite wrote: post #49

I think the crux of the issue is not freedom of speech, but rather determining what counts as harmful disinformation. I imagine we all agree that disinformation should be curbed; the point of contention is precisely where we should draw the line. The violent, seditious sentiments present in America today are a direct result of people being permitted to pander dangerous lies with no consequences, lies which have cause…

>I imagine we all agree that disinformation should be curbed Who decides what is 'disinformation' or 'misinformation'? You? The Democratic representatives? Jack Dorsey? No thanks. I think I'd like to make up my own mind. Your politics also shine through your comment which also betrays your biases. Free speech is hard when it's speech you don't like and used by your political opponents .. isn't it.

> Who decides what is 'disinformation' or 'misinformation'? You? The Democratic representatives? Jack Dorsey? No thanks.

You are restating what I said almost word for word — but still disagreeing. Somehow. Everyone probably agrees that disinformation must be curbed; not everyone agrees on what exactly disinformation is.

You seem to think I'm biased against Republicans. This is the case. You seem to be biased against Democrats. That is the point. We have biases, and as such cannot agree on what the objective truth really is. That's why determining whether something is true, misinformation, or disinformation is hard.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#150

Post by rayiner »

maxerickson wrote: post #122
rayiner wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that many people think that, but it gets the chronology precisely backwards. CNN has been on the air since 1980. Fox News didn't even exist until 1996, and didn't become popular until 2000. Fox News is a response to media bias,[1] not the other way around. [1] And by "bias" I don't necessarily mean open bias. CNN wasn't partisan in the 1990s like it is today. But it still provided news filtered through a libe…

You've misquoted the survey, inverting the result. Republicans think religion does more good than harm at that rate, and the other way around for the other guys. That it was a typo is clear enough from the rest of your comment. CNN isn't partisan though, they are just sensationalists. Like I think you could treat Ron Johnson like a jackass and not be partisan, and they don't even do that, they act like he is a straig…

Thanks corrected.
Post reply on HN