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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

#681

Post by nradov »

saurik wrote: post #325
sailingparrot wrote: post #264

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…

I agree wholeheartedly: the "right to free speech" is not the same as a "right to be heard", but we have managed to conflate the two with all of this "free amplification", as you describe; there is a big difference between someone getting to say something to their followers and that content being broadcast and even recommended by Twitter to random people. I personally believe that if a website has a recommendation al…

Liable in what sense? Who would have standing to sue? The New York Post hasn't suffered any damages. (US courts don't consider loss of potential revenue from hypothetical newspaper sales or web traffic to be damages.)

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

#682

Post by zelon88 »

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.

People are purposely spreading misinformation on these platforms and dumb people are eating it up. It is causing an intelligence crisis in the country because anyone can register a $20 domain, throw a WordPress blog on it, post some fake partisan smut and have it go viral.

You have freedom of speech. You don't have freedom to build a cult out of gullible people. Back in the 1990s when we were kids the only people on the internet were people smart enough to be there. Misinformation didn't have the reach it does now because the surfing public was mostly techie people with above average intelligence.

The bar has been dropped and now everyone is on the internet. There's "proof" of every concept on the internet. And no central repository for truth that everyone trusts.

There's a difference between being pro-speech and being anti-weaponization-of-falsehoods.

And then there's the issue of Facebook spending billions of dollars on code and infrastructure. How would you like it if you developed a social network, discovered that terrorists were using it as part of their deception campaign, and then have the government FORCE you to participate in the terrorist plot that you, your shareholders, and your engineers don't agree with? How is that fair to Facebook, who invested their resources into developing the entire platform? Maybe before the GOP wants to use disinformation campaigns they should have thought about developing their own distribution network beforehand? I mean you can't seriously be mad at Facebook for being good at capitalism, can you?

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

#683

Post by btbuildem »

rayiner wrote: post #429
sailingparrot wrote: post #264

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…

You’re mischaracterizing how free speech was viewed in the recent past. “Free speech” (as a cultural value, I’m not talking about the first amendment) was about the marketplace of ideas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketplace_of_ideas . It meant a free market in ideas, where the dominant ideas arise from competition. What you call “amplification” is just something that makes the marketplace more efficient—it allow…

That's lofty and all, but all we got in the end was Boaty Mc Boatface.

Turns out the most popular things will be the most inane -- by definition, because they appeal to most people. And so we amplify beige slurry.

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

#684

Post by dmix »

They'd go mask off eventually. Much easier when it's hundreds of small influential 'thought leaders' and other high volume conversation. No on asks twice.

Surprised they went for such a high profile piece (Not that NY Post is high profile, but the accusations are significant and the places that would run such an anti-Biden piece are getting thinner).

And I say that not giving a shit who wins the US election but as someone worried about these unchecked and extremely powerful censorship power we're giving these big firms. The trendline has been very apparent to anyone paying attention, and its not even classically partisan but certainly of a certain ideology.

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

#685

Post by foolinaround »

sangnoir wrote: post #185

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…

1) Was this Twitter policy new as in the last few days?

2) If not, how did they treat the NYT's Trump tax papers ( clearly hacked from some sources, since it was not revealed). For all one knows, at the time of release, it could have been fake?

3) Does twitter/FB have processes to identify hacked material?

For these reasons, @jack's explanation is not being accepted.

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

#686

Post by rhino369 »

canjobear wrote: post #450
rayiner wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re mischaracterizing how free speech was viewed in the recent past. “Free speech” (as a cultural value, I’m not talking about the first amendment) was about the marketplace of ideas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketplace_of_ideas . It meant a free market in ideas, where the dominant ideas arise from competition. What you call “amplification” is just something that makes the marketplace more efficient—it allow…

I understand the theoretical argument, but empirically do you think the quality of ideas that people believe has increased from (say) 2000 to 2020? It seems like there's a lot more going on than just faster dissemination, and the way information travels these days might have introduced new asymmetries and inefficiencies.

Same as it always was. My Trump supporting uncle on facebook was just a Pat Buchnnan supporting uncle at a bar.

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

#687

Post by mechnesium »

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.

Just wait until dang comes and censors you for inciting a flame war about free speech.

(Just kidding dang, please don’t ban me. I’m just salty about previous incidents.)

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

#688

Post by nobody9999 »

0xC0ncord wrote: post #493
nobody9999 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Even if that scenario is true, there is zero evidence to corroborate it, nor has there been any concluded official investigation into the matter. I don't think it's fair for Twitter to execute that portion of their policy based on assumption alone.

> Even if that scenario is true, there is zero evidence to corroborate it,

I'm not saying that there is.

That's just my understanding of Twitter's reasoning, not a defense of them or anyone else.

Don't shoot the messenger, eh?

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

#689

Post by heartbeats »

montagg wrote: post #621
nemo44x wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speech is considered violence by some people. It has been this way since the late 80's but it was confined to certain subcultures that weren't taken too seriously. But they have taken over certain institutions, like the university (and increasingly big-tech), and own that platform and teach this as esteemed fact rather than an opinion. And it's dangerous because when you equate speech with violence then how far are w…

There is absolutely speech that is violence, and it is typically not protected by free speech. Harassment, yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, calling for literal violence against others, these are allowed to be regulated (in the US) and understood broadly to be dangerous.

>Harassment

That is not regulated in the capacity of speech.

>yelling "fire" in a crowded theater

That line is from a 1919 court case about whether you could oppose the draft.

>calling for literal violence against others

This is permitted under Brandenburg v. Ohio. Calls to illegal action are only prohibited if they are (1) intended to cause illegal action, (2) reasonably likely to produce such action and (3) imminent.

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