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Donald Trump is starting a messy fight with the entire internet

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Re: Donald Trump is starting a messy fight with the entire internet

#21

Post by fareesh »

mrgreenfur wrote: post #20
fareesh wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without getting into the weeds of the discussion, is it really dangerous to suggest that there may be potential for election fraud through mail-in ballots? Is it simply assumed that this is some kind of hack-proof process? Strange to find that kind of sentiment in this community, assuming that's what being suggested. This is an election with multiple candidates, if he is lying, his political opponent can reply and po…

It's fine to suggest it if you have evidence, but fearmongering baseless claims is extremely dangerous. I believe they already have terms to avoid lots of dangerous language that incites hate/violence, do you disagree with those too? I think when these platforms become mouthpieces for one way communications, like this case, they deserve criticism for what is said.

Is it not sufficient to discuss the potential for abuse in such a scenario? Does one necessarily need evidence of prior abuse to voice their concern about a potentially broken system?

For instance, in this case the ballots are being automatically mailed to everyone who is registered to vote. Today my roommate is registered to vote. Tomorrow he hypothetically dies of COVID-19. Day after tomorrow, his ballot arrives in the mail. I sign his signature and cast his vote. Fraud.

We are in a status quo where otherwise healthy people are dying by the hundreds and thousands on a weekly basis, plus the other hundreds and thousands dying of typical causes. Their ballots are all being mailed out. Can you explain how the system will be protected from the abuse I am describing? Do I need to provide you with evidence that this is happening before I am allowed to criticize the proposed system?

Anyway - now I have described some hypothetical ways in which the system can be abused. Now I reckon that someone who is better informed about this can reply to this comment and correct wherever I am mistaken and provide references as to how what I am saying is incorrect.

Should a technology company that is running a social media platform now network with expert committees of all topics to provide arguments against electoral candidates whenever they posit something similar to what I have outlined above?

Why is it not better to let their opposing candidates do it themselves? How about a feature where the opponents' replies are pinned below the tweet?

Re: Donald Trump is starting a messy fight with the entire internet

#22

Post by Gibbon1 »

downerending wrote: post #19
Gibbon1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Lenny Bruce and Carlin would say they were never dog whistling violence.

If you impute nefarious motives to all around you, communication collapses, and civilization will soon follow.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

So exactly what an I supposed to impute from that?

Re: Donald Trump is starting a messy fight with the entire internet

#23

Post by downerending »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #22
downerending wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you impute nefarious motives to all around you, communication collapses, and civilization will soon follow.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic... So exactly what an I supposed to impute from that?

That he's kind of a jackass sometimes.

Re: Donald Trump is starting a messy fight with the entire internet

#24

Post by Gibbon1 »

downerending wrote: post #23
Gibbon1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic... So exactly what an I supposed to impute from that?

That he's kind of a jackass sometimes.

Like this?

https://www.nytimes.com/1933/01/31/archives/hitler-puts-asid...

Re: Donald Trump is starting a messy fight with the entire internet

#25

Post by Mirioron »

kilo_bravo_3 wrote: post #16
Mirioron wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that Twitter should either moderate the content and be (partly) responsible for it, or it should not moderate the content and not be (partly) responsible for it.

This is impossible. People who want this want the actual, literal, impossible. And I don't understand it. Well, I do, mostly it's bigots wanting free reign to be bigots in someone else's house with a little bit of the ideologically inflexible thrown into the mix. So I should say I don't understand the people who want this. Not only that but if conservatives do what they are threatening to do, that will lead to an alm…

Why would that cause instant censoring? It could go the other way too. Content doesn't get censored. No more games by websites like Twitter where they "accidentally" censor one political side over and over. (Or vice versa elsewhere.) The idea is that if these websites get special protections that regular people don't, and are big enough to essentially be the town square, then the values the society itself accepts are what should guide it. In this case that would be free speech.

Just to be clear, I'm not necessarily arguing for this. I'm just trying to explain how else this might work.

Re: Donald Trump is starting a messy fight with the entire internet

#26

Post by kilo_bravo_3 »

Mirioron wrote: post #25
kilo_bravo_3 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is impossible. People who want this want the actual, literal, impossible. And I don't understand it. Well, I do, mostly it's bigots wanting free reign to be bigots in someone else's house with a little bit of the ideologically inflexible thrown into the mix. So I should say I don't understand the people who want this. Not only that but if conservatives do what they are threatening to do, that will lead to an alm…

Why would that cause instant censoring? It could go the other way too. Content doesn't get censored. No more games by websites like Twitter where they "accidentally" censor one political side over and over. (Or vice versa elsewhere.) The idea is that if these websites get special protections that regular people don't, and are big enough to essentially be the town square, then the values the society itself accepts are…

Let’s say hacker news could be sued for me posting a comment threatening to kill you and refusing to remove it.

Because in many states (maybe all?) they can be.

Remember, websites are only given immunity if they fail to remove “sueable” content.

Will they (hacker news):

a. Prescreen all comments, like a publisher prescreens manuscripts, or

b. Just do away with user-submitted content, or

c. Let everyone say whatever they want in an orgy of freedom with no moderation whatsoever?

Privately owned media sites will never, ever be a public square just because people use them the same way my yard isn’t a public square because you can walk across it on the way to ring my doorbell so you can ask to put a campaign sign in my grass.

Is the President of the United States of America sharing a video calling for the death of his political opponents a “sue worthy” event? What if he gave a speech saying that? Or published a presidential decree calling for it?

Some people see bigots saying “whatever dude it was just a satire joke” for what it is: bullshit.

Re: Donald Trump is starting a messy fight with the entire internet

#27

Post by Mirioron »

kilo_bravo_3 wrote: post #26
Mirioron wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that cause instant censoring? It could go the other way too. Content doesn't get censored. No more games by websites like Twitter where they "accidentally" censor one political side over and over. (Or vice versa elsewhere.) The idea is that if these websites get special protections that regular people don't, and are big enough to essentially be the town square, then the values the society itself accepts are…

Let’s say hacker news could be sued for me posting a comment threatening to kill you and refusing to remove it. Because in many states (maybe all?) they can be. Remember, websites are only given immunity if they fail to remove “sueable” content. Will they (hacker news): a. Prescreen all comments, like a publisher prescreens manuscripts, or b. Just do away with user-submitted content, or c. Let everyone say whatever t…

They would pick c. All the legislators have to do is set a minimum size and certain exceptions on what can be removed, eg above 100 million users and remove off-topic and spam. HN and 99% of websites would be unaffected, but Twitter, Facebook et al would have to be more hands off in moderation.

If you own a giant piece of land and the government wants to build a highway over a part of it, it's still possible for them to legally do it, even if you refused.

Re: Donald Trump is starting a messy fight with the entire internet

#28

Post by kilo_bravo_3 »

Mirioron wrote: post #27
kilo_bravo_3 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s say hacker news could be sued for me posting a comment threatening to kill you and refusing to remove it. Because in many states (maybe all?) they can be. Remember, websites are only given immunity if they fail to remove “sueable” content. Will they (hacker news): a. Prescreen all comments, like a publisher prescreens manuscripts, or b. Just do away with user-submitted content, or c. Let everyone say whatever t…

They would pick c. All the legislators have to do is set a minimum size and certain exceptions on what can be removed, eg above 100 million users and remove off-topic and spam. HN and 99% of websites would be unaffected, but Twitter, Facebook et al would have to be more hands off in moderation. If you own a giant piece of land and the government wants to build a highway over a part of it, it's still possible for them…

Then you’re saying that some speech is more free than others.

And they won’t pick c, at least not after the first round of lawsuits.

As far as highways go, I don’t follow the analogy. The government has to pay me for any land they take. Do you think that they’ll buy twitter just so conservative bigots can have somewhere to go and be bigoted?

Re: Donald Trump is starting a messy fight with the entire internet

#29

Post by prepperpotts »

dang wrote: post #12

Many threads on this. Some with comments: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... At this point we should probably wait until something actually happens, and then hopefully the discussion will have details to be grounded in.

sorry, i totally missed those. thank you!

Re: Donald Trump is starting a messy fight with the entire internet

#30

Post by prepperpotts »

fareesh wrote: post #21
mrgreenfur wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fine to suggest it if you have evidence, but fearmongering baseless claims is extremely dangerous. I believe they already have terms to avoid lots of dangerous language that incites hate/violence, do you disagree with those too? I think when these platforms become mouthpieces for one way communications, like this case, they deserve criticism for what is said.

Is it not sufficient to discuss the potential for abuse in such a scenario? Does one necessarily need evidence of prior abuse to voice their concern about a potentially broken system? For instance, in this case the ballots are being automatically mailed to everyone who is registered to vote. Today my roommate is registered to vote. Tomorrow he hypothetically dies of COVID-19. Day after tomorrow, his ballot arrives in…

no one denies that voter fraud is possible. the more important question is whether voter fraud is a serious threat to the voting process, and there's no evidence of this.

collecting ballots from the mailboxes of dead people is not exactly a scalable enough way to rig an election for the democrats to warrant serious concern — especially considering how the hardest-struck communities vote democratic anyway. and besides, if you wanted to request a ballot for your sick roommate to perpetuate voter fraud, you could already pull that off in most states.

mail-in-ballot fraud concern-trolling is a long-established propaganda effort that doesn't have to be addressed on a case-by-case basis

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