I was hoping this was a request to carry CSPAN in HD.
Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]
391–400 of 602 posts
Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure how that demonstrates QAnon members are not generally trapped in right-wing echo chambers. Are yoga practitioners exempt from right-wing echo chambers?
> I'm not sure how that demonstrates QAnon members are not generally trapped in right-wing echo chambers. Are yoga practitioners exempt from right-wing echo chambers? I suppose a significant number of yoga teachers/influencers could be secret dittoheads, but the idea kind of beggars belief. One of the interesting things about QAnon is that it offered on-ramps to groups outside the stereotype of people would go for su…
Are yoga practitioners usually liberal? Is that a thing? My perception has always been that yoga communities tend to attract those interested in "alternative medicine", a group which certainly has its own share of echo chambers. Given the apparent ideologically-insular nature of both groups, I'm not surprised that there would be overlap between the them.
Echo chambers are not a new phenomena, but they have certainly become more powerful with the rise of the internet. Never before have we been so easily able to surround ourselves with groups of like-minded individuals. But what I find even more concerning are algorithmically-driven content feeds which are tailored to suite the preferences of each individual user.
Algorithmically-driven, tailored content feeds basically automate the creation of echo chambers. It all sounds well and good to the user - after all, they get access to more of the type of content they prefer. However, those feeds almost inevitably learn to always provide the user exclusively with content that reinforces their preexisting ideas and opinions. They'll eagerly spread things like QAnon if it results in increased user engagement.
I don't think there's anything particularly special about QAnon compared to any other politically-charged conspiracy group. I think they just got lucky and once they passed a certain threshold of popularity, the algorithms did what they do best.
Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]
#393Earlier quoted context omitted.
Democrats were proponents of free speech when Republicans controlled the media, culture, and institutions. Increasingly, the media, culture, and institutions are controlled by progressive Democrats (and I think there is a growing schism between liberals and progressives on this front), and traditional liberal ideas of the free exchange of information have no more value.
Which is exactly why no matter where you land politically, you should be 100% in favor of fighting for free speech for yourself and the other side.
I think there’s a disconnect here. Does free speech have to include someone knowingly purposely spreading misinformation with the intent to deceive people? Or someone speaking with the explicit intent to harm another person?
Because I think nobody should be able to silence your thoughts, ideas or opinions but those things don’t encompass all speech.
Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]
#394I’m deeply concerned about disinformation, it’s a major problem. Politics has always had spin, and many issues are complex and it can be easy to state things too emphatically to press your case. Accusations of lying are everyday in politics. But recently flat out knowingly lying with the specific intent of deceiving people has become normalised. It’s a serious threat. This is precisely the wrong way to tackle it thou…
> But recently flat out knowingly lying with the specific intent of deceiving people has become normalised. It’s a serious threat.
It's literally propaganda. A Russian tactic called the firehose of falsehoods.
The trick is making the truth politically related, so the real truth doesn't matter anymore.
And people can just say it's a "x" opinion to dismiss it. It's unfortunately pretty effective as we've seen...
Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]
#395The letter complains about Fox and OANN's partisan and inflammatory rhetoric, with supporting citations to sources on the left who trade heavily in partisan and inflammatory rhetoric. Just three citations in you get to Karen Attiah, Washington Post's Global Opinions Editor: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jun/29/karen-attia... > “White women are lucky that we are just calling them ‘Karen’s,’ and not calling…
> It's fair to say that Maddow has an opinion show, not a news show.
The general format (it is varied from occasionally) is a commentary/interview show that uses news stories, generally presented as straight news and to journalistic standards, to provide context for the interviews and commentary.
> these rules
Who has proposed rules?
Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]
#396Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fire extinguisher attack turned out to be BS. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/capitol-police-officers-...
Does that meet the standard for being an unverified conspiracy theory? It seems that the story came from a source they were keeping anonymous (fairly conventional in journalism, especially when reporting things in real time) and was promptly updated as more news came in. It's worth noting that there is fairly extensive video of an unhelmeted officer getting hit in the head with a fire extinguisher thrown during a bra…
The update clearly shows that a “fact” was not reported and what was reported was a rumor that could not be verified because it was in no way ever true. I’d expect sober reporting to stick to assertions with real documentation or multiple unrelated attestations of direct knowledge. I’d also expect that a news outlet would treat assertions made by police or any organization as objectively often false and always self-interested. As it stands it is all click-bait manure and the retractions are just legal CYA.
Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
We just want people to admit that the reason was a lie
This is a silly conclusion. If a gang member and a methodist get into a bar fight, do you think the fair thing is for the bar to ban both gang members and methodists? No -- it is entirely reasonable to treat fringe groups that foster fringe ideas differently than large diverse groups.
Since the fringe people were on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube it seems like we should be banning them not Parler.
Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
You see the issue here then, right? Government cannot limit your Free Speech, for the reason I (and you) pointed out. So... short of any alternative tools, the Government sets out to intimidate private companies into censoring on the Government's behalf. What more... it's not "The Government" - it's a political party that happens to be in power right now and is seeking to censor the other political party through mean…
You're deliberately mixing "Twitter bans me" with "Government imprisons me" and pretending they are the same thing so you can describe it as " private companies are allowed to limit free speech don't you see! " which is a misleading and incorrect description. You said " When these CEO's enact new policies that censors "Right-Think", it'll be totally okay because it's not the Government limiting Free Speech - private…
Twitter banning an account at the behest of the government is absolutely censorship. Sure Twitter is free to ban me. But Twitter is free to allow me to speak without retribution from the government.
The government has no business threatening companies to silence people.
Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]
#399Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> The Chinese room argument says otherwise, and it behooves us as homo sapiens to pay attention. > I'm not sure what this sentence means. I really should have said the implication of the Chinese Room thought experiment - intelligence arises from the constructive behavior of systems, distinct from their mechanical execution. As a (presumed) homo sapien, you should be interested in maintaining the existence of our own…
> You keep asserting that organizations are no different from individuals, while completely ignoring every way I've pointed out how organizations differ from individuals. I'm asserting that organizations are no different from individuals in the eyes of the law . That's what we're talking about here. The law explicitly protects the freedom to associate, and has no point of view on what the size of a valid association…
> If you go back and read my comments, I've not once made any prescriptions of what is "desirable" or what "should" be; I am strictly making descriptive statements about what currently "is"
When talking about ideals and values, the wider context is what should be. Explaining the current law and its current application is straightforward, and isn't particularly worthwhile without a larger point. I don't see where your comments disclaim that you're only describing the current legal interpretation as opposed to physical reality or how things ought to be, which means that you're advocating for the status quo.
But sure, taking your comments as pure factual description of the legal situation - thanks for explaining the rationale leading to part of the problem of corporate entities becoming emergently unaccountable to us humans. If you'd care to discuss the problems with this, please go back and read my previous comments in their intended framework.
Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]
#400I think many US americans despise the german approach to censorship of speech. Here in germany, we have not freedom speech but freedom of opinion, which makes a very crucial distinction. There are two kinds of statements, descriptive and normative ones. Descriptive statements explain "as is" relationships like "this door is blue" or "2 + 2 = 5". It does not matter if the statement is false or not. Normative statement…
First of all, "insults" are not excluded from free speech protections in the US, except in very narrow circumstances.
Second, the distinction between normative and descriptive statements, as you define them, is not always clear-cut. As a simple example, is which bucket is "I think these doors are the same color" when said about a red and green door? What about (to use your example, but with a slight tweak), "I think all are criminals"? Note that the "I think" was implicit in your phrasing, though maybe the implicit vs explicit distinction matters.
Third, even for statements everyone agrees are descriptive there may be widespread disagreement as to whether they are true. Example: "Donald Trump is a criminal." The US approach to this is to generally try to avoid having the government be the arbiter of truth, with some narrow exceptions for libel and the like. The German approach, as you note is different, not least due to different historical experiences. Which approach is better depends a _lot_ on circumstances and culture and norms and so forth. The German one places a lot more trust in the government not abusing it's truth-determination power than the US one does.