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

reuters.com

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

#241

Post by alkonaut »

lucian1900 wrote: post #240
alkonaut wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Maduro isn’t starving his people, that’s US sanctions. Putin is a social democrat that brought back the healthcare system after the shock therapy enforced by the US. I’m not excusing crimes, I’m explaining you are being consistently lied to. Media in imperialist countries has a vested interest in perpetuating an incorrect but monstrous image of anyone opposed. Were the missing WMDs in Iraq and the Nayirah testimony n…

You point to various wrongs committed elsewhere in the world when the discussion was about whether there is Authoritarian rule in Venezuela. I interpret the deflection as a silent acknowledgement. You aren’t even attempting to convey any sense of non-authoritarian rule (freedom of press, independent judiciary, no demonizing of opposition, use of law by the executive, clear separation between executive and military etc). All you are doing is saying “yes but what about X”.

Is there or is there not a reasonable independent media in Venezuela? It’s as a simple as that! If there is (including for foreign “imperialist” interests of course!) then I’d say the country is under authoritarian rule.

Perhaps the world is being lied to and the smelly imperialist orgs like RSF make up these lies about disappearing journalists and suppressed opposition media?

I think the key thing here is: non-authoritarianism would mean (for example) free press and of course opposition. That in turn obviously includes media and opposition pushing what can be seen as foreign interests (what you’d call imperialist). Taken together that means: Venezuela has two options: either thriving pro-US media and political organizations OR authoritarian and undemocratic rule. Which one is it?

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

#242

Post by totony »

postmeta wrote: post #194
chmod600 wrote: post #191

Can we just all agree that censorship is bad? All this "nuance" about censorship vs deplatforming, or worries about misinformation, just sound like rationalizing something we know is wrong. This power is always abused. It's always just another way to say "sure, I believe in democracy, so long as I get to 'educate' you and prevent you from hearing anything that might change your mind about who to vote for". Religion i…

I agree that censorship of science is bad. Giving powerful people a free megaphone for their opinions and anecdotal bs is also bad. Nobody believes there is one right answer, but amplifying stupid is a recipe for disaster.

I would argue it's not amplifying if everyone else has a megaphone.

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

#243

Post by totony »

dannyw wrote: post #19
pumaontheprowl wrote: post #17

A lot of this is starting to remind me of the way Galileo and Darwin were treated for announcing their breakthroughs. I know nothing about this drug Maduro is touting, but I can't help worrying that one of these days somebody is going to find an actual cure and the world will never know about it because big social media companies exile them for wrongthink.

You don't announce the discovery of a miracle cure via social media, you announce it via clinical trial papers.

>clinical trial papers

There are multiple occasions in history where a landmark paper was laughed at just to be proven right later. It hardly matter the medium you use to publish.

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

#244

Post by tomjen3 »

Xylakant wrote: post #210
tomjen3 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but when you are the chief advisor in a national crisis you don't get to learn on the job.

I don’t consider that a reasonable stance. New things happen all of the time, all people need to learn on the job. Scientific consensus at the beginning of the COVID pandemic was limited, transmission vectors largely unknown. There must be room for unknowns even for top advisors.

I admit it is not a reasonable stand, it comes from a deep level of fustration with how slowly the politicians are rolling things out and with how confident they sound when they are not doing anything.

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

#245

Post by andrepd »

wincy wrote: post #93
alkonaut wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t really need to worry about drawing the line between facts and lies just because you remove the 10% most blatant disinformation. It doesn’t make Facebook the final arbiter of truth. There are things that are controversial or debated and Facebook and others stay away from that. Advocating injecting bleach or eating albinos to cure Covid is one thing while arguing the amount of asymptotic transmission is anoth…

Does Facebook ban controversial statements such as “children should be given hormone blocking therapy if they request it, regardless of the wishes of their parents, even if it sterilizes them” or “transgender women should be allowed to go to/volunteer at battered women’s shelters”. Espousing the opposing viewpoint is a fast track to getting banned from Twitter/Facebook or wherever else. Note I’m not making a judgemen…

Is it? Give me an example of such a thing happening.

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

#246

Post by lucian1900 »

alkonaut wrote: post #241
lucian1900 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maduro isn’t starving his people, that’s US sanctions. Putin is a social democrat that brought back the healthcare system after the shock therapy enforced by the US. I’m not excusing crimes, I’m explaining you are being consistently lied to. Media in imperialist countries has a vested interest in perpetuating an incorrect but monstrous image of anyone opposed. Were the missing WMDs in Iraq and the Nayirah testimony n…

You point to various wrongs committed elsewhere in the world when the discussion was about whether there is Authoritarian rule in Venezuela. I interpret the deflection as a silent acknowledgement. You aren’t even attempting to convey any sense of non-authoritarian rule (freedom of press, independent judiciary, no demonizing of opposition, use of law by the executive, clear separation between executive and military et…

I'm trying to describe to you a pattern of behaviour where US enemies get attacked under the guise of supposed human rights, democracy and freedom. Based on past cases, surely you can see how regardless of the reality, concerns about "authoritarianism" can be used to serve the extraction of super-profits from the working class of the global south?

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

#248

Post by fukmbas »

chmod600 wrote: post #191

Can we just all agree that censorship is bad? All this "nuance" about censorship vs deplatforming, or worries about misinformation, just sound like rationalizing something we know is wrong. This power is always abused. It's always just another way to say "sure, I believe in democracy, so long as I get to 'educate' you and prevent you from hearing anything that might change your mind about who to vote for". Religion i…

Lol you're the minority bud. And yes please censor religion, it is to blame for most of this shit.

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

#249

Post by m45t3r »

tsimionescu wrote: post #53
m45t3r wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a big difference between OMS and populist leaders like Maduro/Bolsonaro/Trump. What OMS said about masks and asymptomatic cases were the best we known about the pandemic at the current time (we still didn't have many studies on how the virus propagated). Once it became clear that masks helps and asymptomatic cases are super spreaders, OMS changed the tone quickly. Populist leaders say things about remedies t…

I'm guessing most people here will have no idea what you mean by OMS - the English name is WHO (World Health Organization).

Yeah, thanks for the correction.

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

#250

Post by claudiawerner »

chmod600 wrote: post #191

Can we just all agree that censorship is bad? All this "nuance" about censorship vs deplatforming, or worries about misinformation, just sound like rationalizing something we know is wrong. This power is always abused. It's always just another way to say "sure, I believe in democracy, so long as I get to 'educate' you and prevent you from hearing anything that might change your mind about who to vote for". Religion i…

> Can we just all agree that censorship is bad?

Not really; there are both many reasons why censorship is sometimes good, and why attempts to defend freedom of speech on the principle of democracy is not as persuasive as it would seem at first. Many powers can also be abused, and indeed have been in the past, from food and drug regulation to anti-terrorism measures. The fact that it can be abused is not in itself a great argument against the power.

There are also good reasons to bring religion into the discussion too, and whether it should be an exceptional part of freedom of speech. Some religious speech (in particular of parents to their impressionable children) should be second guessed as deserving of protection. Nevertheless, it's also a matter of degree. Most of the elements of religion are not so much misinformation as they are unknowables or taken on faith.

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