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Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

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Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#491

Post by [deleted] »

jessaustin wrote: post #112
crocodiletears wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been the reality for people on the political fringes for some time now. Unfortunately nobody's been paying attention to it due in large part to the commentariat/journalistic class's willingness to encourage and provide cover for this behavior as a matter of political expedience. Another example: Messenger's been blocking links to joebiden.info (this may have changed, it's been six months since I've checked)

I'm glad HN didn't block that link. I've learned a great deal that will affect my vote in the upcoming election.

[deleted]

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#492

Post by shlant »

reificator wrote: post #154
IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> will now normalize all kinds of behavior by platforms of all kinds big and small Slippery slope is a falacy , just like "correlation proves causation", to pick one HN somehow likes. Was there any doubt of their technical ability to delete and otherwise change content on their network in every which way? No, of course not. Was there any doubt that it would be legal? None whatsoever... Nothing has changed, except one…

> Slippery slope is a falacy, just like "correlation proves causation", to pick one HN somehow likes. I've seen too many "if this happens then that will be next" come true to write every use off just because your 9th grade teacher said it was fallacious. For instance the U.S. legal system leans very heavily on the concept of "precedent". Slippery slopes are baked into the system. I don't think you can just pull out t…

don't worry! there's a fallacy for that too!

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-fallacy-fallacy

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#493

Post by shlant »

knaq wrote: post #369
hackyhacky wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Fabricating damaging information on the eve of an election is easier than ever, and impossible to correct. Allowing propagation of such fabrications is to be complicit with the bad actors responsible. Disinformation could be tolerated if we, as a society, have the time and means to determine its veracity. But with the ticking clock of an election, disinformation is too easy. Some countries have laws prohibit…

That just moves the date, because responses hit that deadline. Without your proposed law: Stuff shows up 2 weeks before the election. With a 10-week blackout: Stuff shows up 12 weeks before the election. (2 weeks before the blackout)

this is a good point, but I would not be surprised if the more recently someone hears a piece of information, the more impactful it is on their decisions. I would attribute this to not only individuals memory but also the amount of distractions within the 10 weeks (in your example) that would take away peoples focus.

Just an inclination, not sure how much of this would be supported by the literature if there is any

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#494

Post by RhysU »

vkou wrote: post #412
RhysU wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But let's not pretend that Twitter and Facebook hold information monopolies with equivalent power to the government's ability to censor. Those private entities can censor in excess of the government. They are scarier.

All that a private entity can do is toss you off their platform. If every single private website threw you, and your views off the internet tomorrow, you'd return to the age of tyranny and darkness... That ~every human being on earth lived in prior to ~1995. The horror! In contrast, your government can kill or imprison you, if you say something it doesn't like - but for some strange reason, nerd culture spills gallon…

I do not worry about my particular government unjustly killing or imprisoning me.

The platforms can deny me a voice, can allow lies about me to circulate in my absence, and can cause a mob with pitchforks to metaphorically show up outside my door. Job, career, ability to support my family, place in any community? All gone.

My government owes me constitutional behavior and is answerable for violating it. The platforms owe me nothing and are answerable for nothing.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#495

Post by etripe »

barumi wrote: post #416
Synaesthesia wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're unaccountable and significant centers of power (unaccountable to the public), yes maybe not with the power of the government, but approaching it. Is that the kind of rule we want?

> Is that the kind of rule we want? It's the kind of rule you have since, well, ever. Does anyone expect to force a private publisher such as the NY Post or even NY Times to publish content against the will of their editorial board just because you see fit? This issue has absolutely zero to do with censorship. A random publisher not posting something is not censorship. It's literally the editorial board's job to deci…

They can either be editorialising, in which case they're a publication, or they can be censoring as a platform. They're not currently regulated like a publication, so they must be censoring, then.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#496

Post by unishark »

mschuster91 wrote: post #478
unishark wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The millions of people locked up in prison would see it as more than a technicality. Personally I'm much more nervous about screwing up some details in following the govt's rules versus a private company. Getting banned by Google/Facebook and losing all your data in the cloud is just the modern equivalent of losing everything when your hard drive dies. The way to mitigate this danger is the same.

> Getting banned by Google/Facebook and losing all your data in the cloud is just the modern equivalent of losing everything when your hard drive dies. The way to mitigate this danger is the same. No it's not. A HDD failing or getting lost? That can be guarded against with backups. With getting banned by Google or Facebook? When all your accounts, your identity is tied to that address/account and you get banned, you…

> No it's not. A HDD failing or getting lost? That can be guarded against with backups.

Exactly. Back up your cloud data.

> With getting banned by Google or Facebook? When all your accounts, your identity is tied to that address/account and you get banned, you cannot be reached anymore by people who don't know that you got screwed over.

I thought the fact that I consider this perspective to be absurd was kind of obviously built in to my statement.

You can use a new email to contact people. Especially when you have your backups.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#497

Post by zo1 »

krapp wrote: post #199
mrfusion wrote: post #191

> Both the government and private companies can censor stuff. But private companies are a little bit scarier. They have no constitution to answer to. They’re not elected. They have no constituents or voters. All of the protections we’ve built up to protect against government tyranny don’t exist for corporate tyranny. - Aaron Swartz

I mean, I can switch social media platforms a lot more easily than I can switch governments, and corporations don't have a monopoly on violence which would allow their tyranny to lead to torture, gulags and mass graves, but OK. I guess being banned from a forum is much much worse than being sent to the re-education camps.

The methods have changed, the motivation and net result is the same: opinion and thought control.

Tech has made it impersonal, clinical, obfuscated, random and ubiquitous. There is no need to "send people to gulags" or torture them in order to suppress their ability to sow dissent amongst their peers. That is the sole purpose, even if it's algorithmic and emergent without a central "dictator" controlling what can or can't be said. Essentially only approved opinions and movements are allowed to gather steam, no different to the movement of dissent and mistrust of the government that had to be stemmed previously using gulags.

So yes, you are 100% right it's not the same and we are not being sent to re-education camps. But that doesn't mean certain individuals are not being persecuted through "random" algorithms that target and marginalize them. As another poster here mentioned, censorship does not need to be absolute for it to have an effect. You also mentioned network effects earlier: I would urge you to consider what "network effects" are occurring due to mild and moderate censorship that is not absolute.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#498

Post by jessaustin »

pjc50 wrote: post #480
jessaustin wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad HN didn't block that link. I've learned a great deal that will affect my vote in the upcoming election.

So will you vote for the guy with the worse record of sexually harassing women instead? Have you looked at all the corresponding inappropriate gifs of Trump? Remember the "grab her by the pussy" statement? The whole Stormy Daniels fiasco? Joe Biden is a terrible candidate. He's just not as bad as Trump. The fact that America is in that stupid position is its own fault.

I haven't voted for either face of the status quo party, for president, in the last twenty years. This time around I'm going Green. I think Creepy Joe is kind of fun, but I have no doubt that the inexorable drumbeat for sanctions and wars will intensify when he is president. We still haven't left Syria, so whoever it is on the "democrat" side of the party who has such a hard-on for pipelines will get to kill more innocents there. Even better for them, Trump has destroyed the one decent diplomatic thing Obama did (Iran), so they won't have to pretend not to undermine the work of their "own side". (Keep in mind that Syria and Iran are allies, even though Republicans pretend to hate Iran while Democrats pretend to hate Syria.)

I don't vote for lesser evils. Because of that I never have to regret how I voted.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#499

Post by zo1 »

cm2187 wrote: post #486
comex wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The email didn't say "thanks for the meeting with your father"; it thanked Hunter for "inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father", wording that leaves it ambiguous whether the meeting had already occurred or was in the future. This is important because, even if it is authentic, it does not necessarily contradict Biden's claim that (according to his schedules) no such meeting occurred.

Biden's claim is that there is no trace of the meeting in the diary, but they did mention that the meeting could have happened informally. So they didn't claim no such meeting occurred. I am a bit puzzled that there wouldn't be a log of who comes in and out of government buildings. It should be easy to prove whether the said executives were at least in the building over that period or not.

Or better yet: Body cams for all politicians. Or camera + audio recordings of all government rooms and corridors. All encrypted, hashed and archived with a very specific and difficult to fake process that can "unseal" them.

I don't think I'm a genius or anything, but why aren't we putting really smart people on this problem and giving them plenty of funding? I constantly think we're just a few steps away from putting in a small set of technological solutions that would over time solve all our political/criminal problems.

E.g. Just imagine a world where all politicians, CEOs, major figure-heads are safely and securely recorded constantly. Think of all the ridiculous talking points and "Scandals" that would go away, be disproven, or never occur at all.

Re: Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story

#500

Post by jessaustin »

zimpenfish wrote: post #446
chrisco255 wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's Politico's Quint Forgey quoting the Director of National Intelligence that the laptop (source of the emails) is in the FBI's possession and that it is authentically Hunter's: https://twitter.com/QuintForgey/status/1318166732419235841 Here's Fox saying the same thing, quoting a Federal Law Enforcement Official: https://twitter.com/SeanLangille?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcam ... Here's a signed MacBook Repair quote…

Worth noting that DNI Ratcliffe is the most unqualified DNI to be appointed (and only managed to get appointed on his second try by a minority), is a Trump loyalist, lied in his bio (disqualifying, I'd say) and appears to follow QAnon (but that could be for work purposes.) The zerohedge URL is truncated and consequently doesn't work. > And here's the NYPost article itself, excerpts included: Show us the DKIM headers…

...DKIM...

My understanding is that the purported emails were sent to Biden. He can't really do anything to control what is sent to him, so verifying that these emails were sent doesn't really prove anything. If he had forwarded the emails in a way that indicated his agreement, or if they had been sent by someone else connected to the candidate, that would be a situation in which DKIM would be relevant.

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