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

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

#451
post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So HN can't remove posts either because that violates free speech? I grew up on the internet too and forum bans were always a thing. You haven't convinced me this is different.

I've been here over 10 years and I don't really recall seeing anything other than blatant spam or crap removed in that time. Maybe I've just not seen it happen. But, the way things seem to have worked here (very well I might add) is that when enough of the community disagrees, things get downvoted to death and if you don't have "Show dead" enabled, you don't see them. Your choice. I've had show dead enabled as long a…

> I've been here over 10 years and I don't really recall seeing anything other than blatant spam or crap removed in that time.

Well, besides the usual "who decides what's 'blatant spam or crap'?" response to the "it's only bad stuff that gets censored", I'd suggest you haven't really been paying attention, then. Take a look at dang's comment history[1] and you'll see a lot of warnings before ban but also plenty of bans and references to previous bans, usually for substantive, not spam, reasons.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang

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

#452

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 have no idea what happened The fundamentals of free speech are just easier to uphold when the forum (Internet) is much smaller and the participants (hacker culture, chat rooms) are more uniform. Both the size of the forum and the diversity of the participants has changed - that's what happened.

I'm not sure the diversity matter so much as the scale. Once you've got a very large audience, it becomes possible to scale abuse on it.

When each community is small, you have to put in a lot more work to say, spread disinformation so there's natural censorship on it.

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

#453

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.

Free speech is dead. When you have a mass of people who are hysterical, and not willing to get into a debate, that's what is happening.

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

#454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 100% inline with free speech to let a given website decide what they want to publish. Even if it is a very popular website. If they make bad decisions, then people can go to competitors; it's as easy as typing in a different URL. That's how the Internet--and open societies in general--are supposed to work. What it looks like to me--someone who has been on the Internet since before the turn of the century--is tha…

Where does one go when Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube seem to take these steps in tandem? The joke of "go make your own social network" has been tried with places like Parler and Gab, but they get banned from app stores, ironically blocked from technically, but not ideologically, decentralized services like Mastodon, or even dropped from web hosts. The open Internet is dead.

TDW is the most successful alternative social network at the moment and it got hugely popular very quick despite being blocked.

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

#455
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So obviously no Wikileaks or any “sources inside the $agency with access to information” (but with no clearance to leak) cannot be published on Twitter any more, right? No guessing in who poisoned Navalni, etc... Got it!

Exactly. I guess banning content on a private platform by its private owner is totally okay, at least legally. Banning content with double standards, though, makes the platform editorial, which means people should be able to sue the company left and right. And hacked in what way? Didn't the repair shop owner take ownership of the computer after repeatedly asking for payment but not getting it? Didn't the owner give t…

The rest of your polemic aside, specifically what do you think makes Twitter more susceptible to lawsuits here?

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

#456
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So obviously no Wikileaks or any “sources inside the $agency with access to information” (but with no clearance to leak) cannot be published on Twitter any more, right? No guessing in who poisoned Navalni, etc... Got it!

Exactly. I guess banning content on a private platform by its private owner is totally okay, at least legally. Banning content with double standards, though, makes the platform editorial, which means people should be able to sue the company left and right. And hacked in what way? Didn't the repair shop owner take ownership of the computer after repeatedly asking for payment but not getting it? Didn't the owner give t…

> Banning content with double standards, though, makes the platform editorial, which means people should be able to sue the company left and right.

Unless Section 230 gets repealed, it's the exact opposite, actually.

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

#457
post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New technologies brought new challenges. There was no social network in the 2000s and before. No retweet button, no "curated" timeline that showed you what you "like". YouTube did not try to push more videos like the ones you watched previously until the mid 2010s. Free speech does not have the same meaning as before. Before it just meant that you could say whatever you wanted. Now people use it implicitly to mean th…

Who gets to choose who gets pick the things amplified or not? In today's world these folks get to have a strong influence over how people are influenced. Handling this well is very important. If people misuse that position than they can and will cause people to be influenced certain ways because of it.

> Who gets to choose who gets pick the things amplified or not?

I get that you're asking this question rhetorically, but the "obvious" answer is the correct one: the people that own and operate the amplification system as their business model get to pick. Why should it be otherwise?

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

#458
post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New technologies brought new challenges. There was no social network in the 2000s and before. No retweet button, no "curated" timeline that showed you what you "like". YouTube did not try to push more videos like the ones you watched previously until the mid 2010s. Free speech does not have the same meaning as before. Before it just meant that you could say whatever you wanted. Now people use it implicitly to mean th…

Who gets to choose who gets pick the things amplified or not? In today's world these folks get to have a strong influence over how people are influenced. Handling this well is very important. If people misuse that position than they can and will cause people to be influenced certain ways because of it.

Perhaps a better question than “who gets to choose which things get amplified?” is “who is liable for the consequences of amplifying certain things?”

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

#459

Why is everyone ignoring @jack's official explanation for why Twitter blocked the specific link from being shared? This is the one falsifiable action Twitter clearly took. Twitters official policy is to not allow publication of hacked material or information with Personally Identifying Information - and this material was hacked and had unredacted personal email addresses. I haven't seen any reasonable arguments again…

If you don't want to get dox'd.. get better opsec

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

#460
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The media has been pedaling the Russian collusion story for 4 years and you don't seem to care because it fits your priors and political agenda. The bigger lesson here is that everybody is ready to accept censorship as long as they are not bearing the (immediate) costs of it.

"The media has...", really? There's no coordinated media, there are several media corporations (like Twitter, BBC, News Corp (NY Post owner)) with their own bias and their own audience.

>there's no coordinated media

Ahem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=x6U2Un5kEdI

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