Live data from Hacker News

Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

bbc.com

421–430 of 732 posts

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#421
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> scary to think that just 2 to 3 corporations have the power to construct a false reality around us whats truly scary is not just the limited number but the fact that these corps are always aligned in the same political direction.

You know what is also scary, that most of higher education is also aligned in the same political direction. It's almost as if there is some correlation that comes with education

That correlation has to do more with self selection rather than some natural order.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#422
post #9

Not censorship to suppress falsehoods (or actual national secrets) but to suppress a true story. How are actions like this not a violation of the first amendment to the US constitution? The Federal Government suppressing speech. Where is the Justice Department's investigation? It seems like egregious overstepping. Remember when Qwest refused the FBI requests to phone data and we all hailed them for sticking to princi…

Interesting citation on Qwest. Does anyone remember what happened to Nacchio & the top brass shortly after the revelations? Convicted of insider trading, for crimes every other Baby Bell participated in, all the way back to the founding of American Telephone & Telegraph.

Another selective enforcement example; anyone remember when Fife Symington took the National Guard to the Grand Canyon during the federal shutdown? Convicted of accounting malfeasance, for practices that every developer in the modern world uses to pay the bills between project payments.

Trump, well let's agree he's no angel, but he is the primary focus of the latest vendetta from the deep state. Anyone who harms or endangers the deep state will be subjected to this kind of attack. No conspiracy theories, required.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#423
post #198
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's scary to think that just 2 to 3 corporations have the power to construct a false reality around us I do believe it's been this way for a while. Noam Chomsky wrote Manufacturing Consent in 1988. (There's a movie out there created in 1992 if you don't want to read the book). Basically the same factors at work then are the same factors at work today -- just escalated with an algorithm. There is an objective reali…

Manufacturing Consent on YouTube: https://youtu.be/EuwmWnphqII

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#424
post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government controlled media and censorship, what could possibly go wrong?

US Government is bound by first amendment, at least in theory

Suppose USGOV takes over Facebook, then is it bound by 1A for all users? Or just those in US jurisdictions?

You'd surely need it to be taken over by a supra-national body like the UN, given it has a supra-national user base.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[...] support current Russian and its invasion to Ukraine. I picked a random video with Chomsky [1] about the topic and he calls the invasion a criminal act against international law in his first sentence. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=68Rh1tKx98k

There are tons of interviews and videos where he blames the U.S. and NATO for the war and sais that Ukraine must make concessions to the invaders, so yes that means being a supporter of the invasion and the regime that perpetrated it. If he is fully aware of the extent of the damage he is doing or it's just his misguided convictions, that's a different story.

If suggesting that there have been NATO actions that influenced Putins decision amounts to support of the invasion you would also have to talk to the current CIA director about treason. In 2008 he wrote the "NYET MEANS NYET: RUSSIA'S NATO ENLARGEMENT REDLINES" cable.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#426
post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government controlled media and censorship, what could possibly go wrong?

US Government is bound by first amendment, at least in theory

Exactly. As long as Facebook is a private corporation, the First Amendment protects their right to arbitrarily censor the speech on their platform however they wish.

The way state-controlled media censorship has turned out in other countries is well-known, but having our public spaces controlled by a patsy of the government, who is not subject to the same restrictions as the government even in theory, is not a better outcome.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/10/americas-image...

No doubt Trump pulling US troops out of Europe ticked off the EU.

Doesn't mean it was the wrong decision.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#428
post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about if instead, we nationalize Facebook. The public square should not be owned by a private corporation. If that's not possible, yes: Facebook should be destroyed.

Government controlled media and censorship, what could possibly go wrong?

It is apparently already like that with Facebook, but the government has a layer of plausible deniability. If the FBI can show up and tell Mark Zuckerberg to censor a story, that means Zuckerberg is effectively a state actor.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#429
post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government controlled media and censorship, what could possibly go wrong?

US Government is bound by first amendment, at least in theory

Not really. As the owner of a site, the government controls its own speech and is not under any obligation to show “both sides” of an argument. Sure, it can’t only show your comment vs mine, but it can definitely choose which propaganda to spread.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law protects small sites, too. It also makes users responsible for their own words, which is legitimate. Without 230, Facebook would become liable for defamation lawsuits unless it basically censored everything but the most bland content. You could "hack" the law by saying it only applies to companies with market cap less than 100bn. This is how some laws have been written in the past to specifically jeopardize p…

How about if instead, we nationalize Facebook. The public square should not be owned by a private corporation. If that's not possible, yes: Facebook should be destroyed.

Nationalizing social media is a solution... It would never happen even though many problems with the current system would be solved. Freedom of Speech, 4th amendment rights, and it wouldnt necessarily have to be profitable so it defeats the current ad driven hate machine. Third party doctrine would no longer apply and so on.

There is a precedent for it with USPS. When a national postal service was created it was done with the realization of the ability for corruption if a service like that was in private hands. Benjamin Franklin knew this because he often read mail being passed around for intelligence, etc.

Benjamin Franklin was like an honest Mark Zuckerberg in that respect.

Post reply on HN