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Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

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Re: Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

#201
post #77
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying that he called for beheading is deliberately misunderstanding what he said. "Put their heads on pikes", "heads will roll", etc., are hyerpbolic phrases, and shouldn't be taken literally. It'd be like saying that someone should get kicked out of office is threatening to physical harm, or that saying someone should be fired means their belongings should be thrown out of the office and set on fire.

Something strange seems to have happened to America in the past ten or so years. People seem to have become hyper-literal and unable to detect any sarcasm, hyperbole, etc. I wonder whether this is due to spending more and more time communicating via the written word.

We're all familiar with the figurative meaning of "heads on pikes". This not a problem of reading comprehension or not understanding hyperbole or sarcasm. The problem is Bannon himself ruled out the figurative, hyperbolic meaning of the saying when he said it. Here's the complete quote:

"Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci. Now I actually want to go a step farther...I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes".

So please explain to me. What does "heads on pikes" mean if the person who said it has discounted the "fire in disgrace" interpretation of the saying? This is a serious question. What do you think it really means, taking the entire quote into context?

(funnily this is a rare instance where a quote that sounds fine out of context takes on a sinister note when surrounding quotes are included)

EDIT: I see downvotes, but no answers to what I thought was a very simple question.

Re: Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

#202
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a coastal thing, plus it's not a stretch to think that big tech is in the pockets of Democrats when Facebook told the Obama campaign "we're on your side", and google had executives crying on stage after Trump won.

> It's a coastal thing Why do New York and California vote so heavily blue?

Because of the major cities in each state. Parts of New York are very red. those parts just aren't urban.

Re: Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

#203
Why were even Zuckerberg and Dorsey there? It seems like it should be a debate within the senate - they clearly cannot do anything but complain, whatever FB/Twitter does. They'd need to agree between themselves on something first, then they can talk to the social media companies (who were now just in a useless crossfire).

Re: Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

#204
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, surely they could change things essentially overnight if they wanted to. I’m not sure how far “they didn’t expect this to happen” goes as a defense.

How would they change though? As the original comment stated, they're being asked to do contradictory things by different parties. The defense isn't that "they didn't expect this to happen," it's that there's no way for them to win. People can't agree on what they did wrong if anything.

Sure, at this point various groups want very specific accommodations to "patch" specific perceived problems. But I think it's pretty clear that the overall problem is the algorithms which boost the distribution of certain kinds of content. Yes, conservatives get upset if posts are removed or flagged as inaccurate, but I don't think liberals would deem that necessary if it weren't the case that every doctored video that fits a conservative political agenda gets distributed to millions of people instantly. (Feel free to swap "conservative" and "liberal" in that previous sentence with whatever you like, the particular groups aren't important to my argument.)

Re: Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

#205
post #63
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Josh Hawley often promotes the meme that Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube censor conservatives and conservative politicians. I have an extremely difficult time taking people like him seriously in a world where Facebook refuses to ban Steve Bannon when he calls for Dr. Fauci to be beheaded, yet twitter does so without issue. But then again, Twitter refuses to address covid-19 misinformation, and allows politicia…

Saying that he called for beheading is deliberately misunderstanding what he said. "Put their heads on pikes", "heads will roll", etc., are hyerpbolic phrases, and shouldn't be taken literally. It'd be like saying that someone should get kicked out of office is threatening to physical harm, or that saying someone should be fired means their belongings should be thrown out of the office and set on fire.

He said he'd put their heads on spikes on the corners of the White House as a warning to others which is not a figure of speech. How is that figurative in any way other than he hasn't done it. Nothing Fauci has done deserves that sort of violent rhetoric either.

Re: Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if footballers could just stop struggling against one another then maybe they could all agree on which direction the ball should go. There's no room for agreement here. The sides are Republicans: stop censoring us Democrats: please censor Republicans even more

I love your characterization of the Republican party as just honest people who get censored by the big bad censoring Democrats. Let's take this election for example. Republican leaders and officials have jumped on the misinformation train and are now peddling unfounded claims of election and voter fraud. Twitter keeps suppressing those tweets and tagging them as fake, this in turn makes the Republicans mad because th…

Please do not use HN for ideological and political battle. We ban such accounts, as I just described upthread.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

#207
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm curious what other people think the informational value of these hearings are. Considering that they are not even under oath, precisely zero. They can lie to the lawmakers' faces with no recourse. I very distinctly remember Jack telling congress the time before last that they "do not shadowban", and then screenshots of their admin dashboard were leaked[1] that show they explicitly did have multiple kinds of sha…

The witnesses are under oath. Everyone that testifies before Congress is under oath and lying would constitute a federal crime. Interestingly the questioners, in this case the Senators, are not under oath and they can say whatever they’d like. Regardless of how false or nonsensical.

> Interestingly the questioners, in this case the Senators, are not under oath and they can say whatever they’d like.

That parallels to attorneys in a trial. Although in a trial there are some limits to questions that can be asked. In a Congressional hearing, the witnesses don't have anyone who can specifically raise an objection on their behalf, they just have to wind down the clock.

Honestly, most of these hearings would be better conducted via letters. Then you wouldn't get nearly so many "I would have to get back to you" answers, often without serious followup.

Re: Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

#208
post #89
post #28

Let me give a preview for anybody who can’t tune in: Democrats all say that disinformation is a threat to democracy. Republicans say that freedom of speech is essential to our democracy. Jack and Mark preface every answer with “senator thank you for this question” and don’t answer anything. They both insist that the humans making editorial decisions are somehow impartial. Republicans yell a lot. Somethings they say d…

The greatest trick social ever played was convincing everyone their neighbor is the enemy while the rich and powerful silently rape this country.

Could you please not do the denunciatory-escalatory-ideological-fulminatory thing here? We're trying for a different kind of conversation.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you should reread the comment below? It doesn't mention "creepy", and says something quite different from what you got from it.

Right, "creepy" is the word you used above. You're welcome to entertain an eccentric definition of "freedom of speech" that doesn't include one of the major freedom of speech issues of our time. It's just very odd.

At least now you're mocking my actual opinion.

That's probably all the progress we'll make here :)

Re: Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

#210
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is doing what I wish all services would do with misinformation. Avoid putting misinformation into feeds, attempt to direct people to rectifying information, but let the misinformation exist so as not to martyr it

Twitter is martyring information now as well. When Trump tweeted misinformation about the election they physically blocked the tweet from being commented on and being viewed.

I do not recall this. They blocked commenting, but you could still view the tweet if you clicked on it.
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