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Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

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

#161

Post by Terretta »

apostacy wrote: post #126
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…

Lets of course also not forget the biggest one, COVID. COVID was fake news, until it wasn't. Previous weeks (months?) were spent suppressing warnings about it. I specifically remember being banned for saying that people should wear face coverings. In February I tried saying that people should think twice before taking the subway or going to Lunar New Year. January 2020, there was overwhelming evidence that something…

To be fair, that wasn’t “corporate America”, that was the Minister of Unhealth, usually called the Surgeon General:

"Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can't get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!"

https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2020/05/Screen-Shot-2020-05-1...

The tweet made no sense: if you’re a member of the public, COVID cleverly renders masks ineffective, so leave them for healthcare providers where COVID magically can’t bypass the masks?

The only things more annoying than pretending COVID could discriminate by profession were (a) the additional six to nine months of pretending it wasn’t airborne, and (b) company annoyance with remote work and individual boredom with staying home overriding caution even as the spread hits rates not seen since March/April 2020.

And this is where Corporate America comes in — they are by and large refusing to acknowledge the revision in guidance around it being airborne, since this would require more investment to make safe the butts-in-seats management preferred by non-practitioners in middle and senior levels of firms.

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

#162

Post by engineer_22 »

hpcjoe wrote: post #114
axaxs wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is -very- partisan, and equivalent to poking a wasp nest with a stick. The country is very, very divided, not just between D vs R but also progressive vs...everyone else. I wish I had the answers(surprise, I don't), but I feel we should find some commonality, some give and take, and get on a path toward a semblance of unity. Trying to silence your opposition is what I'd call the complete opposite of that approach.

I think the only way to handle this is to stand up for common sense, and call out those attempting to use 1984 as a playbook. To shine the disinfecting light of day upon things like this. To vote the idiots who push this crap, out. This could be making sure you primary them, recall them, or elect other persons. Seriously, allegiance to political parties is not what I am looking for in my elected reps. I want them to…

-> I want them to work on behalf of me.

Sorry pal, Citizens United screwed up any chances of that.

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

#163

Post by hcurtiss »

macspoofing wrote: post #99
qntty wrote: post #15

Is anyone else confused at how this is legal? I have no expertise in law, but my understanding is that the Supreme Court has agreed with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama that. > Racial discrimination in state-operated schools is barred by the Constitution and "[i]t is also axiomatic that a state may not induce, encourage or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally fo…

>Is anyone else confused at how this is legal? I They can't legally force the companies to comply and they know that but it doesn't matter. This is a threat: "If you don't do what we tell you to do, we'll make your life miserable". If the companies don't willingly comply, then they can launch a FUD PR campaign through activist non-profits orgs and claim that these companies are hosting hate speech. Too cynical?

Not sure why you're being downvoted. That's precisely how it works.

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

#164

Post by linuxftw »

protonfish wrote: post #88
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…

"The People" believe whatever information has been promoted the most. To claim that we should do nothing to stop malevolent organizations from radicalizing vulnerable citizens is reckless. To lay the blame on individuals to fight this is victim-blaming. We need to battle this industrialized con artistry with whatever power we have - including police, courts, and laws. Throwing up our hands because "censorship bad!" i…

Who is 'we'? I don't wish to be included in 'we' and I prefer that the group of 'we' not be in charge of much of anything.

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

#165

Post by leesalminen »

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.

Agreed. If something is explicitly illegal, then that’s grounds for censorship. If something isn’t explicitly illegal, then it shouldn’t be censored. The First Amendment in the US provides for nearly limitless free speech, with very few exceptions. That’s how we should police speech online.

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

#166

Post by opwieurposiu »

bqe wrote: post #125
opwieurposiu wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is plenty of evidence of voting irregularities. An irregularity only becomes fraud when it was done with criminal intent. The overarching issue with normalization of censorship is that it becomes difficult to tell when evidence does not exist and when it does exist but was censored. https://hereistheevidence.com/

That website is not a quality source of information. Media Bias/Fact Check rates it as questionable, low quality, and far to the right: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/here-is-the-evidence/

Mediabiasfactcheck.com Claims that hereistheevidence.com is "low quality", because it links to "low quality" sources. But Mediabiasfactcheck has links to those same sources, so by it's own argument Mediabiasfactcheck is "low quality".

Please don't take the above argument too seriously, my point is that so many of the fact check orgs are riddled with logical fallacies. In this case we have guilt by association, ad hominem, argument from authority, and appeal to motive.

I think a fact check system that did not rely on logical fallacy would be quite useful, however I have yet to find one.

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

#167

Post by leesalminen »

jefft255 wrote: post #151
mjevans wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If I understand correctly, you're claiming that we __must not__ censor child pornography? Isn't prosecution a form of censorship anyways? I think what you're saying is a textbook example of a slippery slope fallacy.

Following the law is a slippery slope? I’m pretty sure the parent is saying that because child pornography is explicitly illegal, it can (and should) be censored.

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

#168

Post by korethr »

qntty wrote: post #15

Is anyone else confused at how this is legal? I have no expertise in law, but my understanding is that the Supreme Court has agreed with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama that. > Racial discrimination in state-operated schools is barred by the Constitution and "[i]t is also axiomatic that a state may not induce, encourage or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally fo…

I'm not confused as to how it's legal. I'm quite sure it's not. However, it seems to me that except in rare cases, no matter the color of the tie worn by the politician, nominal legality is not an impediment. There's an ideological opponent out there who must be publicly punished for his wrongness as an example to anyone else who might dare be wrong, and while the Constitution forbids various explicit means of doing so, there are myriad implicit ways of approaching the same goal.

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

#170

Post by AnthonyMouse »

rayiner wrote: post #61
omgwtfbyobbq wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so far been in the hands of the courts, and like you said, they don't determine what's free speech based on whether something makes us feel bad. Per bhupy, their specific criteria is whether the speech is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action". If the misinformation on certain media outlets is considered by the courts to have incited the insurre…

> If the misinformation on certain media outlets is considered by the courts to have incited the insurrection , then it may not be considered free speech. The legal standard for "inciting or producing imminent lawless action" is given by Brandenburg v. Ohio . In that case, which upheld speech openly advocating for violence against specific groups to be protected speech. It overturned an Ohio law that had been directe…

Related:

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/congress-escalates-pressure...

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