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Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

reuters.com

181–190 of 259 posts

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> given that they are in effect, judge and jury on their own private platform You say this like it's some weird, bizarre thing. Who else should be judge and jury by default on a private platform? Should there be some government committee any time a new social media company starts up? In any case, to answer your question: if the issue is that they've become too powerful, and there's a reasonable case to make there, th…

You can actually sue in court (in America) if a business kicks you out for protected reasons. So we don't need a governmental committee- we have the courts to arbitrate our cases for us.

Politicians aren't a protected class under US discrimination laws. A politician banned from Facebook would generally have no legal grounds to sue.

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#182
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump spitballed about injecting disinfectants into people's lungs. He didn't say that individual people should do it, but he did say that doctors should test it out. > And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lu…

More to the point, everyone is ignoring this part: > And is there a way we can do something like that Trump isn't a scientist, he had a vague understanding and was asking others if this made any sense.

Trump had just gotten done watching a presentation on how surfaces could be disinfected with chemicals that the average person knows to be extremely toxic (such as bleach). His takeaway was that maybe doctors should try injecting those extremely toxic chemicals into patients. I was amazed that the president of the United States thought this might possibly be a good idea. But let's pretend, for a moment, that it was actually a reasonable suggestion: why was the president even spitballing possible CoVID-19 treatments on live television? The whole spectacle was just absurd, and I think the White House recognized that, because this was the last press briefing the task force gave for months, and when they started up again, Trump was not present.

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're just exemplifying the point. Who says you have to announce something a specific way first time? Back in the days it would be "you can't just publish trial papers, it has to go through the church"

> Who says you have to announce something a specific way first time? Technically, at our current World state, government regulations say that. And yeah, you have to have the correct credentials and submit your paper to the correct institutions. Superficially, the system is architectured exactly like the one you are complaining, while in a deeper level every component works in a completely different way. What in pract…

Which government regulations are those? Could you please provide a CFR citation?

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously they can and they do. We are discussing whether that is a good thing overall, which is further complicated by the political issues surrounding Venezuela and its current.. dual government.

My personal opinion is that after reaching a certain size of audience, the rules should be different - e.g. Facebook should be required to keep all points of views, even if they disagree with them, as long as they are legal. But until the rules are not changed it is what it is.

Legal where? Legal in the USA? Or legal in Venezuela and Saudi Arabia?

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#185
post #12

People should start thinking twice before using US-controlled platforms/services/anything.

You say US-controlled, but I can't think of a country that would be better than the US in this regard. European countries are not the biggest fans of free speech. And then you have China, Russia, etc. which are even worse.

With federated protocols (like Mastodon) you don't need to trust a third party country. All countries can be part of the same universe, but each one controls their own data.

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#186
post #37

Conventional wisdom in the US is that Maduro is a ruthless, violent dictator, who has suppressed opposition, smuggled drugs, funded terrorism, violated human rights, etc. But that doesn't get you kicked off Facebook. Facebook and Twitter happily provide platforms to violent, human rights abusing regimes. ...but recommend one snake oil cure for Covid-19, and suddenly the hammer drops, I guess? Interesting priorities.

Don't expect consistency: they just do whatever they think other people want them to do. You're expecting a higher level of thought than is really present. Their 'moral' guidepost is just whatever the blob of upper middle class fashionable opinion is.

Or rather they do whatever seems least likely to upset their major advertising customers. And that's not a bad thing: they have a business to run.

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US hasn't been a neutral third party in any worldwide matter since WW1. The U.S's foreign policy is aggressively selfish (which is good for US citizens)

I agree with everything but the last part. Invading Iraq got 6,000 Americans killed and did nothing to help US citizens outside of a corrupt few.

That's hard to determine, I think. The wars aren't isolated actions that make or lose money, they're embedded in a frame work, that, at large, has probably been very beneficial. More influence, better trade deals, technological dominance, economic advantages. The average wage in the US is significantly higher than in most of Europe, so average citizens probably do profit.

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> recommending bleach injections This is a mischaracterization.

Sure, whatever you say. Here's the quote since apparently we've all forgotten: >"A question that probably some of you are thinking of if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposedly we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said supposing you brou…

Cedars-Sinai Hospital is studying a device that shines ultraviolet light inside lungs as a potential COVID-19 treatment.

https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/cedars-sinai-statement...

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#189
post #99

I worry about this kind of censorship. There is no guarantee that the WHO is right either. Remember that the entire group of doctors thought blood letting was a good idea. How can we be sure that modern science doesn't have significant gaps in understanding either? Remember how the majority thought the housing market was too big to crash? I'd much prefer no censorship and let people decide for themselves. What we sho…

> What we should be doing is trying to raise everyone's critical thinking game How do you propose we do that, and what do you propose while waiting for the day where that's the case? The proliferation of Q lunatics and anti-vaxxers shows that we're not really there and there are real-world deadly consequences to "letting people decide for themselves". When it comes to public health, most people can't decide for thems…

> How do you propose we do that, [...] ?

Stop lying to them.

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#190

I worry about this kind of censorship. There is no guarantee that the WHO is right either. Remember that the entire group of doctors thought blood letting was a good idea. How can we be sure that modern science doesn't have significant gaps in understanding either? Remember how the majority thought the housing market was too big to crash? I'd much prefer no censorship and let people decide for themselves. What we sho…

Im not disagreeing or anything but is bloodletting a bad thing? Genuinely asking. I thought it was known regenerating ones bloodcells is a good thing. Is that erroneous? Last time I went to a blooddrive I was browsing a pamphlet that contained some benefits of giving blood aside from helping others in need.

There is some limited evidence that excess iron could be a risk factor for heart disease. This may be part of the reason why menopause seems to increase the risk of heart disease in women, even after adjusting for age. So it's possible that blood letting could be beneficial from that standpoint, but it remains unproven. And there don't appear to be any significant risks from occasional blood donation.
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