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Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

arstechnica.com

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Re: Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

#11

Post by onion2k »

tremon wrote: post #5
mschuster91 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

There have been plenty of free platforms that have not turned out like that. HN, for example.

HN, for example.

HN isn't really a 'platform'. The reach for a post on HN is tiny. There needs to be a critical mass of people before something can really be called a platform.

And HN posts are moderated, both by the mod team using their tools, and by the users using flagging and votes. It's quite far from being 'free'. You can say anything you want in theory by it won't remain visible for very long.

Re: Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

#12

Post by rvz »

mschuster91 wrote: post #4
Clubber wrote: post #2

Good news, now if we can just get rid of all the domestic spying and police overreach, we might resemble a semblance of a free society rather than an analog of it.

[flagged]

How exactly? That's quite an unfounded overreaction and exaggeration as typically found here on HN. Close to conspiracy level. Surely you meant Meta who actually profited from an actual genocide [0].

But other than that, finally there is a real alternative to Twitter but again owned by Meta. It just means the town-hall and outrage will move to on large social network linked to Instagram and Meta.

It will degrade into a Nazi hellscape anyway. Just like Facebook once did.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-...

Re: Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

#13

Post by scarface_74 »

LatteLazy wrote: post #3

>But Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump nominee at US District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, granted the plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction imposing limits... 1. Him being a trump nominee makes me suspicious, but also sad that that is the effect and that papers need to list who nominated a judge. 2. Granting a preliminary injunction is a long way from winning a case. 3. There is pressure and th…

I’m definitely not a fan of Trump and I was also suspicious. But after reading the article, I don’t see anything objectionable with it especially with the carve outs.

But censorship pressure very much happened on “both sides”.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/elon-tru...

Re: Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

#14

Post by HEmanZ »

FeteCommuniste wrote: post #8
tremon wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been plenty of free platforms that have not turned out like that. HN, for example.

Is HN “free?” How heavy of a hand do the mods have here? (I genuinely don’t know the answer to that question.)

The mods have a heavy hand, stuff gets loudly or silently removed all of the time. Dang seems to work full time at it, and I suspect he’s not the only one on the team doing so

Re: Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

#15

Post by tpush »

mschuster91 wrote: post #4
Clubber wrote: post #2

Good news, now if we can just get rid of all the domestic spying and police overreach, we might resemble a semblance of a free society rather than an analog of it.

[flagged]

Twitter is not a Nazi hellscape.

Re: Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

#16

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

edit: link to pdf[1]

[1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/75e9f7a3-da4e-45af-...

The two big pieces that appear to be driving this coverage are, if true, the following:

"suppressing negative posts about the economy", "suppressing negative posts about President Biden" and, apparently, parodies

There are others, but you could technically claim there is some non-POTUS benefit there so it does not look self-serving.

All in all, so far it is pretty damning, but the private-public partnership has been hailed by some as the best thing since sliced bread ( I am absolutely not joking -- it was only a week since I listened to a Canadian official discussing how well it works for their organization ).

I am not a Trump supporter and I am glad, but I can't help but wonder how much of that is just laying groundwork for 2024 elections.

Re: Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

#18

Post by Guthur »

The problem i believe we are coming to is that all secular governance eventually replaces the role once taken by church and religious philosophy.

It starts to become the arbiter of moral truth and with out any real moral center it can only but fail spectacularly. The second and third political theories of racial and social idealogies more rapidly succumb to this due to a more overt desire to place the state at this moral centre. But I feel liberalism is ultimately doomed to the same fate, just more by accident.

No matter how individual everyone seems to think they are they still seem to want some sort of collective morality. Maybe because we mostly need to live some sort of relational existence and in the absence of anything else a collective morality will fill that void, but when that reality is so grounded in human will it can get quite corrupted quite quickly.

Re: Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

#19

Post by hgsgm »

LatteLazy wrote: post #3

>But Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump nominee at US District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, granted the plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction imposing limits... 1. Him being a trump nominee makes me suspicious, but also sad that that is the effect and that papers need to list who nominated a judge. 2. Granting a preliminary injunction is a long way from winning a case. 3. There is pressure and th…

If this a jury trial, or will the same judge makes the final trial ruling?

The cited behavior is egregious, with Flaherty issuing orders and requesting specific takedowns, and doing so in an unprofessional and threatening manner that shows he is unfit for office. It's clear overreach beyond broadcasting the Executive's concerns about public health and requesting that companies do their part to help.

The injunction may go too far in the other direction (but it is temporary), in the final ruling maybe less limiting to the Administration, but behavior like Flaherty's should be reined in.

Re: Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

#20

Post by doitLP »

> Doughty said that one Flaherty [White House director of digital strategy] message in February 2021 accused Facebook "of causing 'political violence' by failing to censor false COVID-19 claims." Flaherty also wrote in a July 2021 email to Facebook, "Are you guys fucking serious? I want an answer on what happened here and I want it today."

Sure sounds like a relationship where the power only goes one direction and the Flaherty was very comfortable demanding whatever he wanted.

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