Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#571

Post by tetrometal » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

efdee wrote: post #422

tetrometal wrote: post #378

What is unbelievable about that? It's completely reasonable. People were pissed about lack of election transparency. All they wanted were real audits of the election, but all they got was "Shut up, go home, there's no evidence, stop looking into things."

Every single case got struck down by judges. People were pissed about a lack of election transparency that wasn't actually there. If the opinion of judges wasn't enough to convince them, what makes you think that of an auditor would make a difference?

I think the truth will eventually come out. I HOPE that those claiming sufficient fraud to effect the election are dead wrong. The alternative would be a nightmare. That's why the media and big tech shouldn't have buried their head in the sand.

"Every single case got struck down by judges" is not a new argument to my ears. Do you think most of those judges heard actual evidence, or were throwing cases out on procedural grounds? Have you considered that question?

Has Matt Braynard's work been heard and responded to?

What are the responses to these?

https://spectator.us/reasons-why-the-2020-presidential-elect...

https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/23/5-more-ways-joe-biden-m...

Look at this "fact check", does it seem reasonable to you? https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2020/12/fact-check-video-...

Here's a response to it: https://gellerreport.com/2020/12/no-the-georgia-vote-countin...

I think 90% of all these concerns are likely to be dismisable. But they haven't even been examined, and I have a deep and abiding fear of the remaining 10% actually having merit.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#572

Post by dionian » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

_cbb1 wrote: post #489

charia wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So uh, who's going to be the arbiter of what exactly constitutes intolerant or harmful speech? You? Me? Facebook? The government? Twitter? Whoever gets the power to define what's acceptable and not acceptable speech is given too much power. You might trust that arbiter now, tomorrow, but do you honestly believe their incentives will always remain pure?

I don’t think any of this is a good idea but I propose that they create a blockchain voting system for policies on their platform like this.

Yeah right. Stakeholders and investors wouldn't approve of such democracy on their platform.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#573

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

chasd00 wrote: post #395

rat87 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah I'm sure this had nothing to do with the attempted coup

coup is a bit much. this happens from time to time at the state level, protesters push their way into chambers. they should have just been arrested, the police dropped the ball.

This went a bit further than a protest I would think.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#574

Post by jeffbee » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

disease wrote: post #237

jccalhoun wrote: post #132

When people say anonymity online is bad and that having people use their real names would make people more polite, I point them to facebook comments.

Google tried using real names on youtube briefly and it had no affect in reducing white supremacy or conspiracy theories in its comments.

That was just a side-effect of organizational stupidity. The guy they put in charge of "social" was 100% committed to the real names thing and also dedicated to the internal turf war of either taking over or shutting down any product that seemed to have "social features". So youtube comments temporarily became just a foreign feature of Google+, rendered out of context. After they showed that bozo the door, youtube went back to their old comments system.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#575

Post by newacct583 » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

charia wrote: post #310

th0ma5 wrote: post #231

All of these HN comments are defending shouting "Fire!" falsely in a theater under the guise of it being a slippery slope before all speech is lost. I have lost a lot of respect for these slippery slope arguments because they are easy to make and ignore the obvious problem which is that some speech shouldn't be tolerated... Especially intolerant or harmful speech.

So uh, who's going to be the arbiter of what exactly constitutes intolerant or harmful speech? You? Me? Facebook? The government? Twitter? Whoever gets the power to define what's acceptable and not acceptable speech is given too much power. You might trust that arbiter now, tomorrow, but do you honestly believe their incentives will always remain pure?

> who's going to be the arbiter of what exactly constitutes intolerant or harmful speech?

Someone needs to do it, though. You don't get free license to incite violence anywhere, and no one thinks that's a good idea. You can't do it here on HN. You can't do it on Reddit. Why should you be able to do it on Facebook?

Now, sure, there's a question as to whether Trump's posts yesterday went quite as far as you think they'd need to be considered "inciting violence". But that's a judgement call. You don't want Facebook carrying a call to attack congress, you just think that's not what Trump did.

But if there is a call for a mob to sack the seat of government and attack a joint session of congress, I think we all agree that Facebook should be allowed to censor the fuck out of that.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#576

Post by Shivetya » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

wyldfire wrote: post #275

technofiend wrote: post #241

I know Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit and all the rest don't count as broadcast media but I feel like we got here in part because the 1987 elimination of FCC's fairness doctrine slowly allowed a shift in how we communicate with each other. We went from specious claims and conspiracy theories being the subject matter of newsletters to their public broadcast to millions via talk radio ~and Fox News~, thus allowin…

I suspect that the fairness doctrine change is more of a symptom than a cause. The FCC will have close to zero impact on twenty first century media. I don't know how or even if we can fix this.

Nor should it.

It would require the FCC to apply to content produced outside of the US and consumed within. That will never fly. The age of where the fairness doctrine was needed is long gone.

With the democratization of the media which was completed with the ascent of the internet both governments and established media players; some of which were merely mouth pieces for various political factions; lost their ability to control the message but most importantly lost the ability to control the truth.

The issue faced now is insuring that people have the opportunity to identify information authenticity without having to go back to the situation where we were just expected to trust what we were told.

News, information, whatnot, is now world wide and governments all over will do their best to control what you can see and say and it is up to everyone to make their job harder if not impossible. the only way to a free society is by not allowing governments to control the truth

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#577

Post by captain_price7 » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #547

charia wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So uh, who's going to be the arbiter of what exactly constitutes intolerant or harmful speech? You? Me? Facebook? The government? Twitter? Whoever gets the power to define what's acceptable and not acceptable speech is given too much power. You might trust that arbiter now, tomorrow, but do you honestly believe their incentives will always remain pure?

As was said, this is just a slippery slope argument. Which is especially odd considering the platforms already have all the power they need. There is no more power to give.

> There is no more power to give

Ability to censor top level politicians, deciding what constitutes acceptable and what needs to be censored is not the kind of power they used to have.

Edit: bit clarification

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#578

Post by bra-ket » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

NE2z2T9qi wrote: post #535

tshaddox wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems more interesting that a software platform like this would be expected to treat a president of a country different than a normal person. Should the queen of England get even more privileges to break rules on the platform? And the peerage somewhere below that (but still much higher than the common folk)?

And what rules exactly did Trump break? He explicitly did not call for violence. It seems like you want people silenced if they question the official narrative. That's precisely antithetical to free-speech ideals. Do you know how often I've seen Republicans called Nazis? Or evil? Or that they need to be eliminated? I don't go crying to Facebook to censor opinions I don't like.

exactly, but the lefties are lost cause at this point after years of brainwashing. I have never seen so many people so deep in 'alternate reality'.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#579

Post by URSpider94 » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #485

awb wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the election results became apparent cable outlets have begun cutting away from the President’s speeches and tech companies have begun censoring the President’s speech. Absolutely nothing has changed in the President’s speech or behavior since his 1st speech announcing his candidacy 5 years ago. We needed a John Hancock 5 years ago that was willing to draw a line on violent speech and disinformation regardless…

Context matters. What Trump did over the last 5 years pales in comparison to what he is doing now. The effortless transition of power is the most fundamental and sacrosanct process in a democracy. And everyone has an obligation to defend it.

I'd argue that there's actually no difference in his behavior. Trump has been consistently divisive, untruthful and inflammatory since day one. What has happened is that his sustained behavior has radicalized a significant fraction of the population to the point that they are convinced that everyone else is lying to them and there's a massive conspiracy against their god-leader. I don't want to run afoul of Godwin's Law here, but if you ever wonder how people ended up following leaders like Stalin, Franco or Mussolini - it was a process of years. People who called this out as dangerous from day one were ridiculed as alarmists or partisans.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#580

Post by danhak » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

throwawaysea wrote: post #533

minimaxir wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Inciting a coup" is a pretty unambiguous bar for harmful speech.

Can you share a specific piece of evidence where Trump is inciting a coup?

The video where he says "You're special! We love you!" to his followers as they actively besiege the U.S. Capitol and ransack congressional offices. That good enough?