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Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

bbc.com

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Re: Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

#411

Post by partiallypro »

tootie wrote: post #398
intrasight wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly - blocking it just brought it to the front page.

You're assuming Twitter's intent is to bury the story. Their intent is to not be involved or liable.

But they are explicitly not liable, that's why their position makes no sense...in fact their curation/censorship for this news event could make them liable for -other- posts that are completely unrelated.

One of my takes is that Twitter leadership is completely incompetent. Facebook didn't censor the story completely, Twitter did. Twitter is arguably one of the most valuable (if not the most valuable) platforms for news in the entire world...yet they can barely make any money. This isn't the first time Twitter has massively botched something so simple. It really comes down to a detached CEO, and incompetent leadership.

Re: Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

#412

Post by whimsicalism »

Fauntleroy wrote: post #232
Tallasatree wrote: post #214

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. We've been watching this happen for a few years now, and some of us are actively paving the road.

The "unchecked misinformation" alternative hasn't really been working out so well either, for what it's worth.

I'm pro-management of information on platforms but anti-this sort of management for these purposes.

Public health misinformation, sure. News articles? Hm.

I think it is stupid to not vote for Biden over something like this. But, I also don't think the articles I've seen "debunking" the NYPost article have been very compelling.

Re: Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

#413

Post by addicted »

prudhvis wrote: post #223

I have no idea what happened during the early 2010s. I grew up during the late 90s (born in late 80s) learning about the internet and its philosophies. Allowing Free speech still is the hill I'd like to die on. But the new generation of people, even here on HN and the internet hacker personalities I used to align with have turned so pro-censorship that I don't believe I'm in a proper reality/timeline anymore.

You say on HN which has highly moderated comment threads.

So suppressing free speech is only ok if it’s done by unpaid volunteers (never mind that free speech as such never existed, since you still had all sorts of restrictions include libel, defamation, fire in a theater, etc kind of restrictions).

Re: Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

#414

Post by SaintGhurka »

nobody9999 wrote: post #323
CivBase wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this constitute hacking? The repair shop almost certainly retains ownership of unclaimed deviced after some period of time. The shop owns the laptop. The data is theirs to do with as they please and they chose to publish it (at least, that's the story). No hacking necessary.

>How does this constitute hacking? IIUC, the idea is that the whole thing was a setup from start to finish: 1. Burisma emails were hacked; 2. Hunter Biden's iCloud account was hacked; 3. They bought a Mac, dumped a bunch of the hacked photos, along with some real hacked emails and some forged ones; 4. Sent someone over to the computer shop with the frame up on the laptop already in place; 5. Either the store owner wa…

That seems like an extraordinarily risky undertaking. You would certainly be found out and face real consequences.

Remember the guy got the FBI involved, which would make the whole operation a federal crime.

Re: Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

#415

Post by alacombe »

Gerardo1 wrote: post #227
centimeter wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter adopted this policy because they know that progressives are more likely to be compromised by leaked information

...are you suggesting that progressives have more "dirty laundry" than conservatives in general? Or that conservatives are more likely to dox people?

> ...are you suggesting that progressives have more "dirty laundry" than conservatives in general?

Yes. For one thing, if there ever collusion in 2016, it came from the Democrats now established pay-for-play policies, selling US influence to the highest bidder. Once again, knowledge of these actions required multiples hack/leaks to be disclosed.

Re: Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

#416

Post by donmcronald »

adventured wrote: post #294
cheeze wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you can logical fallacy all you want here but this isn't what OP said at all. I'm not agreeing one way or another, but holy weak argument.

It's good to hear we can't publish any leaked information about Trump's tax returns, re the NY Times, a story Twitter intentionally allowed to run at max distribution, along with dozens of prominent anti-Trump stories that ended up being baseless over the last four years which the media happily concocted. Everyone here knows exactly what's going on and it's rotten as can be.

Which publication do you think has better journalistic integrity? NY Post or NY Times?

Do you think those screenshots of emails were well vetted given the simplicity of verifying email header info if it had been published?

Re: Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

#417

Post by giardini »

abootstrapper wrote: post #376
prudhvis wrote: post #223

I have no idea what happened during the early 2010s. I grew up during the late 90s (born in late 80s) learning about the internet and its philosophies. Allowing Free speech still is the hill I'd like to die on. But the new generation of people, even here on HN and the internet hacker personalities I used to align with have turned so pro-censorship that I don't believe I'm in a proper reality/timeline anymore.

Is it “free speech” to deliberately create a misleading story/propaganda for your advantage, then spend money on fake accounts to astroturf your propaganda and give it fake credibility on third party corporate services? — That sounds beyond the intent of “free speech” to me. BTW, I use to run “blue ribbon campaign” banners on my 90s era webpages. So I understand where you’re coming from.

You're describing what's long been called a "confidence game".

Re: Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

#418

Post by whiddershins »

abootstrapper wrote: post #376
prudhvis wrote: post #223

I have no idea what happened during the early 2010s. I grew up during the late 90s (born in late 80s) learning about the internet and its philosophies. Allowing Free speech still is the hill I'd like to die on. But the new generation of people, even here on HN and the internet hacker personalities I used to align with have turned so pro-censorship that I don't believe I'm in a proper reality/timeline anymore.

Is it “free speech” to deliberately create a misleading story/propaganda for your advantage, then spend money on fake accounts to astroturf your propaganda and give it fake credibility on third party corporate services? — That sounds beyond the intent of “free speech” to me. BTW, I use to run “blue ribbon campaign” banners on my 90s era webpages. So I understand where you’re coming from.

It falls within free speech, because otherwise the institution which determines whether the speech is what you describe becomes too powerful.

The correct way to deal with this is probably twofold: to have a variety of organizations which determine what is untrue, and to somehow figure how to make them seem credible.

Those organizations should probably operate independently of the companies actually implementing their blocking algorithms, and obviously of each other.

Then we need a diverse enough set of communications channels that each can make independent determinations how they filter communications on their platform, referencing the analysis of various organizations in the first paragraph.

This would maybe make for more controlled environments while not having universal censorship of controversial ideas.

Re: Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

#419

Post by stevebmark »

prudhvis wrote: post #223

I have no idea what happened during the early 2010s. I grew up during the late 90s (born in late 80s) learning about the internet and its philosophies. Allowing Free speech still is the hill I'd like to die on. But the new generation of people, even here on HN and the internet hacker personalities I used to align with have turned so pro-censorship that I don't believe I'm in a proper reality/timeline anymore.

I would rather see you work on removing US libel and slander laws, and petitioning Germany to make it legal to make nazi salutes again, which are more direct free speech issues, instead of private platforms doing what they want with their private platforms.

Re: Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims

#420

Post by closeparen »

Cookingboy wrote: post #254
prudhvis wrote: post #223

I have no idea what happened during the early 2010s. I grew up during the late 90s (born in late 80s) learning about the internet and its philosophies. Allowing Free speech still is the hill I'd like to die on. But the new generation of people, even here on HN and the internet hacker personalities I used to align with have turned so pro-censorship that I don't believe I'm in a proper reality/timeline anymore.

> Allowing Free speech still is the hill I'd like to die on At this rate it will be the hill that the civilization dies on. The whole "absolute free speech is a sacrosanct human rights for everyone" is an ideal that simply would not scale with the 21st century civilization. Most users around here grew up firmly believing that value, and it is further reinforced by American/Western exceptionalism, so I can see how thi…

This sounds nice in abstract. Let's walk it two steps towards the concrete:

1) Our elected officials suppressing the voices they believe are most dangerous to our society.

2) Donald Trump shutting down The New York Times.

This seems like a move that would jumpstart the entropy snowball, not slow it down.

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