Live data from Hacker News

Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

bbc.com

281–290 of 732 posts

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#281
post #251

It's depressing how dismissive people are of the story. Don't let hatred, bias and mainstream media take over your critical thinking abilities. When you open yourself up to news from all sides, you can form a better picture and opinion on what's going on. The biases from law enforcement and the media are clear to anyone with an open mind.

Well it would help if news outlets that report about it wouldn’t use slurs about the subject they are reporting about or at least write their articles with proper sources instead of „commentaries“.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The heuristic/algorithm is Facebook's creation, so they (including possibly you?) are to blame either way. I think GP is pointing out the fact that there being no clear rules or accountability on what gets surfaced on our timelines allows much more subtle and virtually undetectable ways to suppress information than previously. It all can be easily hidden behind the magic/complexity of the all-knowing "algorithm". I d…

What is the difference between this and a moderator on Reddit manually deleting a post?

This would be more like shadow banning but in a way that can never be proven, or even detected in the first place. The post would just be surfaced less. Since there's no visibility on what gets surfaced when, it's a way to nudge public opinion on different issues without any accountability.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#284
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The laptop was all over the news at the time. But the news said it was Russian misinformation.

My skepticism of the media didn't quite reach the level it should have at the time.

At least there is telegram for real news am I Right?

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#285
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be surprised if they were real, but there is not a dispute that Hunter is a recovering drug addict. That doesn't mean that a laptop exists with incriminating evidence of illegal activity or the President's knowledge of it.

So what’s in the laptop that doesn’t truly matter is real, but the information in the laptop that does truly matter is fake? That’s quite a pragmatic approach. For what it’s worth, the NYT and the Feds have acknowledged the laptop and the data on it is quite real. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/us/politics/hunter-biden-...

They have acknowledged that some of the data on it is quite real, and were able to verify many emails. As your link confirms, they also found that folders with names like "Biden Burisma" and "Salacious Pics Package" were added in September 2020...

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#286
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The laptop was real, yes, Weren't only some emails authenticated? The details on how the Washington Post authenticated them weren't enough to make me trust that they knew what they're doing. Email is famously unencrypted in a lot of its transit; could it have been sniffed? Could Biden have been the victim of spyware that captured the emails? It may very well be real, but the story about how it got to the press is b…

I thought the FBI had the laptop. How are all these other people claiming to have copies of the hard drive?

The easiest thing to get traction would just to release it anonymously but it never happened. There was that tiny 4chan leak but it basically was nothingburger.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#287
post #12

This is the great fear of many come to pass - censorship by algorithm. Facebook didn't outright ban sharing of the Hunter Biden laptop stories like Twitter did, they instead tweaked their algorithm to prevent the story from spreading. We found out about it this time because Zuckerberg owned up to it, but what about next time? For all we know, Facebook, Google and Twitter are doing this right now on a range of other s…

It looks a lot like what newspapers have been doing forever. And other forms of media. The most novel part of this story is the existence of the Joe Rogan Experience which is broadcasting unvarnished opinions of the relevant CEO to explain what is happening (big improvement!).

The 2nd most novel part is that this form of massaging the news happens by choosing what personal communication can pass unmolested through a local community.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#288
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest reading the articles before writing in the comments: > Facebook did not completely ban sharing of the article, but instead limited how much its algorithm automatically shared it to other people for a week, while third-party fact-checkers tried to verify the reporting. So while people could post the article and discuss it, it was less likely to spread organically to new users.

So, the "tweak" was to make it spread as much as a regular post on FB Funny...

Maybe Hunter Biden should have boosted that article /s

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#289
post #166
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I read the article, it doesn't suggest the FBI knew the story about Hunter Biden's laptop was true at the time, so the claim that they were "suppressing true stories," while technically correct, is a disingenuous framing of events. It seems the FBI didn't order Facebook to suppress that story specifically, rather they warned Facebook generally about misinformation and propaganda, and Facebook (along with everyone…

You're missing the forest for the trees. The content of the laptop is not the point in question. The ability of the FBI and the media to bury a factual story right before an election is the problem. If the sides had been flipped and the FBI said potentially negative news about Trump was "disinformation" (without proof) I'd be just as concerned. And take a look at the NYTimes article from Oct 2020. It details the fact…

But they didn’t do any of the things you accuse them of…

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? If anything it's a story only in the US. Pretty sure the "lose of respect" mostly occured during Trump's presidency.

The things that happened and were said by Trump during his presidency was so unfathomably bad that I don't think the US will recover its status abroad for a long time. It doesn't matter who gets to be president next. The fact that a grifting Russia-owned mobster with an equally grifting family got elected to the highest office in (arguably) the world, is still hard to believe to this day.

For other countries Trump was normal US president. His worst thing by far was withdrawal from Iran nuclear deal.
Post reply on HN