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Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

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Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#161

Post by shadowgovt »

frockington1 wrote: post #92
sp332 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is specifically on a tweet calling the validity of the election into question. It's blatantly wrong, but he needs his base to believe him when he says the election is rigged.

Hasn't the other side been #NotMyPresient and throwing a tantrum about the validity of the last election? Trump is not a trailblazer in this regard

(a) imagining there's one "other side" is a fallacy. There are multiple interest groups. Some more aligned with the President and his administration, some less.

(b) you'll have to be more specific about what you mean, but the "tantrum" I've heard is that the system as set up over-represents land over people, not that the result is illegitimate. A legitimate result in a badly-crafted system is materially different from claiming the process as designed is compromised.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#162

Post by majewsky »

frockington1 wrote: post #92
sp332 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is specifically on a tweet calling the validity of the election into question. It's blatantly wrong, but he needs his base to believe him when he says the election is rigged.

Hasn't the other side been #NotMyPresient and throwing a tantrum about the validity of the last election? Trump is not a trailblazer in this regard

I'm observing from the outside (read: the other side of the Atlantic), but my understanding is that people who say #NotMyPresident do it because of either a) a perceived lack of shared values between them and the president or b) in reference to him losing the popular vote, like several other presidents before him.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#163

Post by raziel2p »

sparkie wrote: post #132
Traster wrote: post #36

I think this is going to be a discussion thread that is almost inevitably going to be a shitshow, but anyway: There are people who advocate the idea that private companies should be compelled to distribute hate speech, dangerously factually incorrect information and harassment under the concept that free speech is should be applied universally rather than just to government. I don't agree, I think it's a vast over-re…

> dangerously factually incorrect information Here's the problem. Who is doing the fact checking? Who fact checks the fact checkers? The world isn't black and white. State press releases are not facts. There is no authority that is the arbitrator of truth.

As long as the sources can be checked, challenged, and counter-opinions can be voiced, I personally don't think it matters that much. It's the blind acceptance of statements and accusations that match our existing world view that we need to combat, I think.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#164

Post by seerbetter »

josefresco wrote: post #142
djohnston wrote: post #79

The head of integrity has unabashedly showcased his strong political bias on Twitter, and I suspect things will begin going poorly for either him or Twitter shortly.

Turns out, people with important jobs that require impartiality (like judges) have real, personal, opinions and feelings.

He dismissed the entire Midwest as lunatics to be ignored. There’s a lot of hackers and engineers and amazing companies in the Midwest.

He’s mindless in his opinions. He’s not against a policy or a politician. He’s separating society.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#165

Post by gonzo41 »

dvtrn wrote: post #146
tuna-piano wrote: post #133

There's an unsolved conundrum I haven't heard mentioned yet. After the 2016 election, there was a thought that too much false information is spreading on social media. This happens in every country and across every form of communication - but social media platforms seem particularly worrysome (and is particularly bad with Whatsapp forwards in some Asian countries). So what should the social media companies do? Censor…

Media literacy and criticism classes in middle school?

This worked in the scandi countries but i feel like in the places where Fox news exists it'll be hard to get on the curriculum.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#167

Post by frockington1 »

sp332 wrote: post #14
haunter wrote: post #7

>Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices Not wrong tho especially if you just look at the mainstream media

Andrew Bosworth, a top corporate executive considered a confidant of Zuckerberg, said in a post in December that Facebook was “responsible for Donald Trump getting elected” in 2016 through his effective advertising campaign https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/20/faceboo...

I'm sure they would have taken credit regardless who won. Have to keep the ad money flowing

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#168

Post by akhilcacharya »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #156

I hope he goes through with it, then gets dragged for abuse of power. But that's not likely to happen; the president has too much power, and there are no checks and balances in place. He is only still in power because his party voted to keep him in a sham 'trial', and they only voted in favor because else their party would look divided.

It's remarkable that Trump has consistently been against free-speech but still has the support of a non-trivial number of self-described "libertarians" like Thiel. This is in the 1st amendment sense as saying he wants to open up libel laws in 2016 [0] to his comments on video games [1] and flag burning [2] to in the broader sense in his anger at the kneeling protesters [3].

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/26/do...

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/fact-check-tru...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/15/no-braine...

[3] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-nfl...

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#170

Post by kauffj »

However you feel about this, Twitter did it in pretty much the worst way possible.

1. They had someone with a clear history of strong anti-Trump and anti-Republican sentiment take the action (https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/126545757821512499...)

2. Twitter chose a prediction rather than a factual statement to fact check ("Mail-In Ballots will be..."). Why not start with a truly factually wrong statement about the past?

3. They picked something that is actually debatable! A bipartisan committee concluded it carried some risks in 2005: https://www.wsj.com/articles/heed-jimmy-carter-on-the-danger...

The notion that a company can ever be trusted to "fact check" (aka determine objective truth) is just completely laughable. The closest we can come is labeling agent beliefs about truth ("X says Y is false").

Doing nothing would be better than doing this. Even better would be building solutions that allow community-based (and ideally personalized) derivations of consensus (this is what we're doing at LBRY).

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