Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by KineticLensman » Wed, May 27, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

itchyjunk wrote: post #151

Hm, is fact checking solved problem? I remember someone here had their game flagged just because it referenced SARS-CoV-2. I hear almost daily horror stories of youtube algo's screwing up content creator. As a human, I still struggle a lot to read a paper and figure out what I just read. On top of that, things like the GPT2 from OpenAI might generate very human like comment. Is there no way to consider social media a…

> Ask some oracle what "fact" is and shun every other point of view

Because the 'correct answer' to many questions is 'it depends...'. You enumerate the advantages and disadvantages of various options and pick an option that satisfies some sort of evaluation function (which may depend on your point of view). Some of the advantages and disadvantages are facts while others are probabilities.

This of course doesn't work well in short form media or for people who like things simple.

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

#202

Post by wincy » Wed, May 27, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

c0wardthr0waway wrote: post #71

"Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices" Reddit is the best example of that. I don't want to defend him but look at every single news and politics related sub from /r/news, /r/worldnews, /r/politics etc. But that happens here too. Honestly I blame the upvote downvote system more. Reddit and HN are both really wrong with it

I posted a few random comments to the_donald right after the election and it took years before I didn’t have a good chance of getting a really nasty message about how I was a Nazi when leaving comments anywhere else.

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

#203

Post by luckydata » Wed, May 27, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #183

The oddest part of of this whole thing is that Trump supporters are typically the personal freedoms above all else crowd. Yet Trump openly talks about having/wanting authoritative, dictator level power.

A very long winded way to write “racists”

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

#204

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 27, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

bt1a wrote: post #100

rlyshw wrote: post #72

Honestly just more proof that we need decentralization of the Internet. Handing over control of our digital platforms and identities to 3rd party for-profit companies is not the way the internet should work.

Aye but with no one in charge, how can the masses protect themselves against ever-increasing disinformation campaigns?

[deleted]

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

#205

Post by exabrial » Wed, May 27, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

I once got a strike on social media for posting an article about a German doctor that recommended whiskey to cure covid19. It was a joke, and any reasonable adult would know this is false.

It's hard for me to feel sorry for companies that go down the fact checking route with algorithms; It always ends up causing more damage than value.

12 years ago we didn't have this problem, and I think that's mostly related to the fact there was some UX resistance to hitting the "reahare" button.

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

#206

Post by SuperFerret » Wed, May 27, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

If Trump stops lying he won't have a problem.

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

#207

Post by nautilus12 » Wed, May 27, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

akhilcacharya wrote: post #168

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…

In this instance is he really against free speech though? Seems like the struggle seems to be between his freedom of speech and twitter's. It all comes down to the question of whether twitter is a "publisher" with the freedom to edit/change content users post on its site. Seems like they want to be treated as both when its convenient for them.

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

#208

Post by cwhiz » Wed, May 27, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

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…

>So the question remains - do you, or how do you lessen the spread of misinformation?

The easiest is to get rid of bots and control who can tweet. Anyone can create an account but to tweet you need to prove your identity. Bots are the real issue. Trump lying on social media is a problem but it's not fundamentally dissimilar to him lying on TV or at a campaign rally. He is a liar and whatever platform he is on he will use it to lie. The problem is all the bots masquerading as humans making people think and believe that the lies are mainstream facts.

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

#209

Post by dashundchen » Wed, May 27, 2020, 1:51 PM UTC

akhilcacharya wrote: post #168

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…

Or the guns rights activists barely flinching at "Take the guns first, go through due process second". Just trying to imagine their reaction if the previous officeholder had said that.

The anger at the kneeling protestors is especially revealing considering the debate centered around whether the private NFL could interfere with the expression of the players.

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

#210

Post by IgorPartola » Wed, May 27, 2020, 1:51 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #183

The oddest part of of this whole thing is that Trump supporters are typically the personal freedoms above all else crowd. Yet Trump openly talks about having/wanting authoritative, dictator level power.

They really aren’t for personal freedom. That group is basically hoping he stays on as a dictator because they believe he is the only one who can save the nation. I wish I was kidding.