Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms • Hacker News Board

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#571

Post by mathdev » Wed, May 27, 2020, 6:22 PM UTC

VBprogrammer wrote: post #101

Can this even be considered a free speech issue? They aren't deleting his tweet, only displaying it alongside a fact check. Of course you can try to call into question the impartiality of the fact check but that is a long way from not deciding not to show the content.

A fact check would be fine if it led to objective analyses of some sort, or even Wikipedia. But when I clicked it, it displayed some highly partisan sources, including a CNN article with its usual "Trump bad" vitriol. Maybe it was an algorithm's fault, but it didn't work at all.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#572

Post by krn » Wed, May 27, 2020, 6:23 PM UTC

chadlavi wrote: post #555

krn wrote: post #299

I wonder, at point is Twitter supposed to block the user for constant spread of disinformation on its platform? Or would that violate the user's right to "free speech"? Could the user protect himself by claiming, that he is simply expressing "his own opinion"?

Free speech means the government can't come after you for statements. Anyone claiming a company is infringing on their free speech is at best ignorant of, and at worst purposefully misconstruing, the bill of rights. You have no right to post whatever you want on a private company's platform, they can ban you whenever and for whatever reason they want.

In other words, the only reasons for Twitter not ban such a user are 1) business (that he might be driving a substantial amount of traffic); and 2) PR (that banning him would bring much more negative than positive coverage for the company)?

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#573

Post by dqpb » Wed, May 27, 2020, 6:25 PM UTC

Traster wrote: post #36

I think this is going to be a discussion thread that is almost inevitably going to be a shitshow, but anyway: There are people who advocate the idea that private companies should be compelled to distribute hate speech, dangerously factually incorrect information and harassment under the concept that free speech is should be applied universally rather than just to government. I don't agree, I think it's a vast over-re…

Where does speech about religion fall? There are people on all sides who would consider the others to be spreading "dangerously factually incorrect information".

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#574

Post by elicash » Wed, May 27, 2020, 6:26 PM UTC

frockington1 wrote: post #81

shadowgovt wrote: post #66

Not every day a sitting President threatens a media outlet for exercising their freedom of the press, but it's not the first time it's happened. Of course, most Presidents have been constrained by some modicum of understanding that their oath to uphold the Constitution applies to the whole thing.

Is Twitter a media outlet? If they want to be classified as such it might make them susceptible to slander lawsuits

Please read this article: https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/21/18700605/section-230-inte...

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#575

Post by Barrin92 » Wed, May 27, 2020, 6:26 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #540

asdff wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's as simple as toning down the virulance and addiction potential that has been baked into social media over the years. Revert to chronological feeds based on timestamp alone, and not sorting based on how many inflammatory comments and shares they have. Ban more pages that produce and share these misinformed posts. These are problems that these engagement algorithms themselves created, and social media companies ar…

I don't think reverting to chrono content makes sense. If popularity doesn't influence what's top-of-feed, then we'll just be flooded with un-interesting content. Imagine if HN or Reddit didn't sort by popularity? Everyone would need to sort through /new. ...that's not scalable. What would be better would be to reward controversial content. If lots of people downvote something, and also lots of people upvote, then ma…

>that's not scalable

and therein lies the problem. The issue is the scale in the first place. Twitter et al produce so much garbage because they're designed towards virality outside of any human scale.

Bring social networks down to the size that a community can coherently operate in and you've diminished the problem.

HN arranges by popularity but actually in a fairly limited way. There's no scores shown and the downvotes are capped, and most threads you can actually read through because they've got less than 200 comments or so.

Do the same for Facebook or twitter. Limit connections, hide visible upvotes or likes, cap the number of people something can be shared with by one user, make people choose who they are in contact with, which immediately puts scarcity and value on connection and communication. Obviously there is no commercial incentive for these companies to do this, who live off the entropy they generate.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#576

Post by anewdirection » Wed, May 27, 2020, 6:27 PM UTC

jmull wrote: post #272

djohnston wrote: post #79

The head of integrity has unabashedly showcased his strong political bias on Twitter, and I suspect things will begin going poorly for either him or Twitter shortly.

the real shame is that integrity is a politically biased position now.

Which neither Twitter nor Trump posess in great margin.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#577

Post by stale2002 » Wed, May 27, 2020, 6:28 PM UTC

localhost wrote: post #570

0x5002 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have struggled with both points of the argument for a while now. In general, I'm inclined to agree with your assessment that this would be a glaring overreach on the side of the feds. It's also apparent that social networks have a tendency to cater massively to one side of the increasingly divided political spectrum, as proven with experiments like Gab. I've always liked the idea of having a Twitter clone that base…

Here is the entire text of the first amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Note that it says that CONGRESS cannot make a law that abridges freedom of speech. It says nothin…

You are missing other laws that already enforce standards on certain platforms, that are similar to the concept of free speech.

Those laws are called common carrier laws.

It is already illegal for many communication platforms, that a subject to certain classifications, to discriminate on the basis of the content of the speech that they distribute.

Common carrier laws are not controversial. Few people would argue that we should get rid of common carrier laws.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#578

Post by jasonlotito » Wed, May 27, 2020, 6:28 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #566

0x5002 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have struggled with both points of the argument for a while now. In general, I'm inclined to agree with your assessment that this would be a glaring overreach on the side of the feds. It's also apparent that social networks have a tendency to cater massively to one side of the increasingly divided political spectrum, as proven with experiments like Gab. I've always liked the idea of having a Twitter clone that base…

The obvious way around both of these arguments is to offer consumers more choices. If someone is censored from a particular platform, there needs to be another that they can use. There are a tiiiiny number of companies that are controlling global communications, and that should make us all uncomfortable. Being banned from one restaurant in town, should not mean you're banned from all restaurants in the world.

There are other platforms. The issue isn't the platforms, they want the audience from one platform on other platforms as well. Consumers have the choice to use those other platforms, and people do actively use those other platforms. They just don't necessarily bring the same audience.

> Being banned from one restaurant in town, should not mean you're banned from all restaurants in the world.

So is the suggestion that I should be forced to serve people I don't want to serve?

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#579

Post by shadowgovt » Wed, May 27, 2020, 6:28 PM UTC

im3w1l wrote: post #554

shadowgovt wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If fact-checking the President when he says untrue things is "strong political bias," there are larger problems than the fate of one employee at Twitter.

People who call Trump a racist tangerine [0] and scream about "ACTUAL NAZIS IN THE WHITE HOUSE" [0] are the exact type of extremists that would support election fraud because "it's justified to stop ACTUAL NAZIS", and use their position of power to cover it up. [0] https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/126545757821512499...

What's he covering up? Twitter has provided sources for their fact-check. The President is more than welcome to provide sources for his fraud claims any time he chooses. Via Twitter. Same medium that is fact-checking him.

The fact he says what he does un-sourced, and people believe him because he speaks from the authority of his office, is the troubling thing.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#580

Post by chlodwig » Wed, May 27, 2020, 6:33 PM UTC

wccrawford wrote: post #529

chlodwig wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not at all a solved problem. Fact-checking has the ancient "who watches the watchers" problem. Who facts checks the fact-checkers? And more broadly, censoring harassing tweets has the problem that a lot of activism looks a lot like harassment, and censoring "conspiracy theories" looks a lot like powerful people censoring those speaking truth to power. For anyone who believes that Twitter should be in the busine…

I fail to see how 8, 9 and 11 harass a particular person but 10 doesn't? Can 15 really sue the person for defamation? Regardless, IMO, the DNC is part of the government and therefore open to public criticism, especially anonymously. This goes for all the other statements here about government bodies and officials. I'm having trouble processing "tech-bro" as something worth censoring, but I have to admit it's derogato…

I fail to see how 8, 9 and 11 harass a particular person but 10 doesn't?

Woops. It was 9 that arguably wouldn't be harassing a particular person if the article they were commenting on was about how the person had been convicted in a court of law. My thinking is that signal boosting something bad someone has done is not harassment if they have actually been convicted of a felony.

Can 15 really sue the person for defamation? Regardless, IMO, the DNC is part of the government and therefore open to public criticism, especially anonymously.

The DNC could sue the person, but under current American libel laws, which are very strict, they would probably lose. Basically as long as the person can show some grounds for honestly believing the claim, however stretched or flimsy, the person is not liable. Libel laws in other countries are less strict.

But it leads me to wonder: Don't all descriptions of a certain group of people end up falling into that category? Where does the line stop? People will (and have, historically) just start using the non-derogatory descriptions as derogatory ones if you censor the ones they currently use.

I think the rule would be that if you are referring to a group that is a protected class (sex being a protected class) then you should use the word that that group uses to call itself. Or the very least, a neutral term, not a term invented by critics. So with "tech bro", it was not a term coined by men in tech themselves, it was coined by people who were criticizing male tech culture, and so should not be allowed.

It's always going to be a bit subjective, and there will be churn of epithets over time, but even reducing the number of derogatory epithets used by 95% is still better than nothing.