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Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

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Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Post publishes a lot of disreputable trash that's outright false or unproven It doesn't matter. This strawman is presented every time this topic comes up. It's not about the quality of the Post's journalism. It's about whether Twitter should restrict it. I've been reading the Post off and on for the last 40 years, and you are correct that it is a rag. But it is a newspaper. A newspaper with a better reputation for re…

The post and fox news are absolutely light weight versions of the national enquirer. Regardless, Twitter can do what Twitter likes. You can start your own Twitter if you like. Twitters rights are as precious as fox news's.

>Regardless, Twitter can do what Twitter likes.

Hopefully not for much longer, and what a sad day that will be for corporate bootlickers.

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if censorship itself causes hate speech? Hate speech existed before Twitter and will likely persist after it. Other social networks that allegedly do not practice content moderation also have identifiable hate speech content in them.

If you're going to reduce the argument solely to twitter, then can't you say the same for any other alleged "cause" on twitter being censored? And therefore take your argument up with the parent poster instead of me?

We are not discussing the right of a private company to refuse service. We are discussing Twitter's right to refuse service to the NY Post for posting misleading information with the goal of interfering in a presidential election.

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Post publishes a lot of disreputable trash that's outright false or unproven It doesn't matter. This strawman is presented every time this topic comes up. It's not about the quality of the Post's journalism. It's about whether Twitter should restrict it. I've been reading the Post off and on for the last 40 years, and you are correct that it is a rag. But it is a newspaper. A newspaper with a better reputation for re…

The post and fox news are absolutely light weight versions of the national enquirer. Regardless, Twitter can do what Twitter likes. You can start your own Twitter if you like. Twitters rights are as precious as fox news's.

It what sense are they lightweight not heavyweight?

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want Twitter to curate what ideas and speakers I'm exposed to, in the same way that I don't want my local library to ban certain books or Google to delist websites that it decides are bad Those analogies are flawed, so I'll just address the issue directly. I do want Twitter to curate things, by filtering out news from biased sources with questionable alliances and borderline journalistic practices. I want the…

Wouldn´t it be better to have two options when you log in to Twitter? Safe space Twitter and wild west Twitter. Then all sensitive people can log into a pink bubble and the rest of us can enjoy uncensored reality. Most people should realize that very few would choose the pink bubble. The line should be drawn at illegal content in the wild west Twitter. You should trust other people to have the same ability as yoursel…

    Wouldn´t it be better to have two options when 
    you log in to Twitter? Safe space Twitter and 
    wild west Twitter.

    Then all sensitive people can log into a pink 
    bubble and the rest of us can enjoy uncensored 
    reality. Most people should realize that very 
    few would choose the pink bubble.
Even the name would be... problematic. I think they would be more accurately named "sane Twitter" and "ram malicious conspiracy disinformation from suspect sources and fake Viagra ad Twitter."

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Section 230 needs updating, badly. I personally find value in entities like Hacker News, Twitter, StackOverflow, etc that curate their content. I of course do want transparency there. I also value utterly unfiltered sources. But, I do not need or want every source to be unfiltered. Then everything becomes a firehose of utter garbage. I think there is room for both. But it just makes zero sense to me to essent…

Just to clear the air, I am not a fan of the Post or the particular content that earned it its recent block. I agree that it's Twitter's platform, and they should be able to curate it as they see fit. Here's how I see it: if I wrote a letter to the editor to a popular US newspaper calling for an ethnic pogrom, they published it, and it incited riots or violence, that news paper would get tar sued out of it. They are…

> if I wrote a letter to the editor to a popular US newspaper calling for an ethnic pogrom, they published it, and it incited riots or violence, that news paper would get tar sued out of it.

This is simply not true.

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting downvotes for this, not because there's any solid argument against what I'm saying, but because people are upset. The reason why I had to say something is because the GPs comment highlights much of what is wrong with online discourse. That 'The New York Post has more merit than people afford it' might be worthy claim, but making a bunch of loud baseless claims isn't the way to convince people of it.

It's not people being upset, it's that talking about irony and juxtaposition is not helpful. Making a simple case is a lot more effective than vague comments on other people's cases.

> It's not people being upset

If it wasn't they would have critiqued my comment as you have. But instead it was a string of drive-by down-votes.

> it's that talking about irony and juxtaposition is not helpful

I think it is important to point out bad faith dialogue wherever it is seen. And that's what I did, by pointing out the contradictions in the moral stance made, and then the poster completely disregarding them in the same breath.

> vague comments on other people's cases.

They weren't vague at all, they were very specific. The poster was making a rhetorical play rather than furthering the discussion, and I pointed it out with direct quotes.

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does matter! Twitter and Facebook swore that they would limit this kind of garbage rumor mill information for the election. if NYP would have showed how they verified the information then twitter would have let them spread the info. Twitter is a private company and they are trying to be more responsible about slowing the spread of disinformation. This is a good thing and not a bad thing.

> NYP would have showed how they verified the information then twitter would have let them spread the info. Did Twitter or Facebook ever ask The Atlantic to "show them how they verified the information" about Trump calling war heroes "losers" and "suckers"? https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-a... That story was based on 100% anonymous sourced. Unverified, unverifiable by definition. People who…

Twitter's official reason for blocking the account is because it has refused to delete a tweet linking to what the tweeter claims are stolen private photos and documents. Not because of fake news.

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clear the air, I am not a fan of the Post or the particular content that earned it its recent block. I agree that it's Twitter's platform, and they should be able to curate it as they see fit. Here's how I see it: if I wrote a letter to the editor to a popular US newspaper calling for an ethnic pogrom, they published it, and it incited riots or violence, that news paper would get tar sued out of it. They are…

> if I wrote a letter to the editor to a popular US newspaper calling for an ethnic pogrom, they published it, and it incited riots or violence, that news paper would get tar sued out of it. This is simply not true.

I’d be very interested in learning more about this then. Is the only thing keeping full page ads calling for people to kill BLM protestors out of the papers the papers’ own sense of decency?

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#699
post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can appreciate the deeply principled stand people on HN tend to make about this issue. I know there is a libertarian streak here around the access to content and information. I don't share those values, and think unchecked distribution of manipulated content creates a worse outcome for our society; I'd argue it is more inherently dystopian than straight-up government censored speech, which of course is not what's a…

Everyone might have to start considering and addressing the needs of these people instead of ignoring them. The reason people are so exploitable is because those in power, who have intelligence and access to good information, seemingly despise the masses. At the very least dismiss them with contempt and ignore them. The correct answer is to treat everyone as a worthy person, regardless of their intellectual prowess.…

> The contempt a person must have for their fellow man in order to deem them as unworthy of free speech, is gut wrenching

You don't know me. That you feel I have so much contempt for my "fellow man" because of this disagreement of ours is wild. I may just as well bemoan - in equally bad faith - your contempt for honesty, transparency, or reality.

At no point have I argued that anyone should be prevented from free speech, yet there your accusation sits. My argument that purveyors of socially-distributed content have some level of responsibility for the real-world impacts this creates, particularly on marginalized communities that are often not sharing/consuming this information and only victimized by it. Did I say anyone should be prevented from expressing themselves? No. Neither do I offer solutions because I am not an expert. But I don't believe a completely "hands-free" approach is viable because of how easy it is to manipulate content, trick people, and use tricks to ensure your message is spread in non-natural ways (e.g., bot farms). That is not "contempt" for the intellectual prowess of others, it's a recognition of the reality we've already seen; I'm not immune to it and neither are you.

I find your seemingly dogmatic belief well-intentioned (a courtesy you certainly did not apply to me) yet naive, hopeful but damaging. I believe - wholeheartedly - that the position I take is much more respectful of people and communities than yours. Because I'm not taking an ivory tower principled stand as if there are no real world implications. There have been, there are, there will be.

Maybe I'm wrong. I'm willing to admit that. But this isn't merely an intellectual exercise for me as I feel it often is for so many.

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#700
post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By contrast, the NYP actually did explain how they got the emails: from a laptop dropped off and signed for by Hunter Biden himself at a PC repair shop. Yes, from a man who happens to be legally blind and can't verify who dropped it off. What are the priors on that? Turning up a week before the election? The was supposed to be a professional servicing a machine, he violated his clients privacy for his own purposes,…

> Yes, from a man who happens to be legally blind and can't verify who dropped it off. Still more verifiable sources than the Atlantic and NYT stories, which were based on zero verifiable sources. > Turning up a week before the election? The Atlantic and NYT stories were also published very recently, also a few weeks before the election. > The was supposed to be a professional servicing a machine, he violated his cli…

One difference is that NYT isn't publishing the documents, only claims about them. Twitter doesn't censor unverifiable claims, such as the Presidents own claims about his tax returns.

The Post refuses to take down the link to what they claim are private photos and documents.

It seems pretty clear that they prefer to keep the conversation focused on the censorship of private photos (which they can then conflate with censorship of their corruption allegations) instead of on the mix of nothingburger and likely faked evidence against Joe Biden.

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