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Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

bbc.com

701–710 of 732 posts

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an oversimplification, and I'm not sure what you are referencing w.r.t "embarrassing things". > Why not?... Do you not believe all Americans are equal before the law? I think the absurdity of your suggestion speaks for itself.

> absurdity Interesting. What is absurd about the people understanding exactly what the government is doing?

It's not interesting. You know exactly why it would be absurd for everyday Americans to be able to have access to things like nuclear weapon launch codes or schematics, or be able to post the location of CIA operatives on Tik Tok, or know the exact locations and deployment schedule for military forces, or where the president would be at any given hour, or... any number of things. If you take your line of reasoning/questioning here to its conclusion you'd also wonder why can't an American walk on to an airfield and fly a Blackhawk away? What's so absurd about people using the things their tax dollars pay for? To deny that scenario is to admit that the government has the ability to keep things away from citizens, and you can clearly see how this extends to military or national security secrets as well.

Framing this as "what's so wrong with the lil ole' people knowing a few things the government is hiding" is disingenuous at best. And if you wanted to make a concrete argument about "no secrets" you would make an attempt to do so abstracted away from the current geopolitical reality of the world because it's extremely obvious why this not only wouldn't ever occur but also shouldn't occur in the reality that we experience today. Idealism is only useful to the extent that it is also pragmatic. A better principle here would be something like maximizing the amount of information that American citizens have access to (why limit it to Americans and America though? Why can't I have access to all Chinese documents?) excluding national defense capabilities or some realistic parameter/line.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the only point about the laptop -- to smear Biden.

But it was a true story? You don’t want to hear about true bad things if they are about people you like?

The only part of the story that's true is that Hunter Biden was given money with the expectation that he'd have political influence over his father. There's zero evidence to show that happened.

Turnabout is fair play: are you willing to hear true bad things about the people you like?

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But he didn't. The point I'm trying to make is the whole point of the story was to insinuate Joe Biden had an active part in this. Yes, Hunter, his adult son who he doesn't control, was engaged in a corrupt enterprise. There's zero proof Joe was involved but yet you hold on to the story like it matters. The story is pure election interference, hoping to be a repeat of Buttery Males. You all are proof that the only th…

https://nypost.com/2022/08/05/joe-biden-met-chinese-energy-e... Trump’s corruption and Biden’s corruption are both relevant to voters.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220816171221/https://www.washi...

No evidence of actual corruption by Joe Biden.

Again, if there was he should be prosecuted accordingly. Nobody is above the law, right?

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://nypost.com/2022/08/05/joe-biden-met-chinese-energy-e... Trump’s corruption and Biden’s corruption are both relevant to voters.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220816171221/https://www.washi... No evidence of actual corruption by Joe Biden. Again, if there was he should be prosecuted accordingly. Nobody is above the law, right?

Sure, crimes should be prosecuted. There is enough questionable evidence here that voters should know about, the information should not have been suppressed.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no net positive impact from social networking services, or indeed any other medium powered by advertising where the operators thereof have realized that hatred can be monetized. People have always disagreed with one another and clashed over political views... but only in the last 15 years have people been so polarized, and I think we can directly attribute it to conditioning as a direct result of participati…

Families around the world and across continents have been able to keep in touch due to social networks. For all the deserved hate, some good has come.

Families kept in touch prior to that with little things called Email and Phone Calls and Snail Mail. Ad-driven networks were never necessary.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> absurdity Interesting. What is absurd about the people understanding exactly what the government is doing?

It's not interesting. You know exactly why it would be absurd for everyday Americans to be able to have access to things like nuclear weapon launch codes or schematics, or be able to post the location of CIA operatives on Tik Tok, or know the exact locations and deployment schedule for military forces, or where the president would be at any given hour, or... any number of things. If you take your line of reasoning/qu…

The first words of the Constitution are “we the people” which identifies that sovereign power from which the government derives its power and legitimacy.

I do not wish to abolish secrets - merely to make it clear that US citizens are the rulers of the country and therefore nothing should be kept from them. I can imagine many ways that could be done without the kinds of dire consequences you extrapolate.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not interesting. You know exactly why it would be absurd for everyday Americans to be able to have access to things like nuclear weapon launch codes or schematics, or be able to post the location of CIA operatives on Tik Tok, or know the exact locations and deployment schedule for military forces, or where the president would be at any given hour, or... any number of things. If you take your line of reasoning/qu…

The first words of the Constitution are “we the people” which identifies that sovereign power from which the government derives its power and legitimacy. I do not wish to abolish secrets - merely to make it clear that US citizens are the rulers of the country and therefore nothing should be kept from them. I can imagine many ways that could be done without the kinds of dire consequences you extrapolate.

It sounds to me like you’re just speaking in generalities. I can just say “we the people” decided that this information should not be given to citizens except on a need-to-know basis as described by the institutions that we created.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'm saying is that this is a heuristic, not an algorithm, and that you should blame Facebook, not "the algorithm"

No the algorithm prefers to push unverified clickbait.

Unverified clickbait gets more engagement. Almost by definition you get engagement from the people who identify with the unverified clickbait because it reinforces their world-view, and engagement from the people who recognize it as unverified clickbait because it challenges their world-view.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220816171221/https://www.washi... No evidence of actual corruption by Joe Biden. Again, if there was he should be prosecuted accordingly. Nobody is above the law, right?

Sure, crimes should be prosecuted. There is enough questionable evidence here that voters should know about, the information should not have been suppressed.

It wasn't suppressed, it just wasn't amplified.

You're demonstrating exactly why: because you don't care about corruption you just hate the other candidate. And that's the only value of the story, is for you to complain about it.

If there was evidence that Biden Sr. was corrupt his supporters would turn on him.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You asked for numbers of a population that has no census, I stated that it was significant, which is the point in question. I can prove that those people exist and then it's a matter of threshold. E.g, "how many atoms in that falling piano" -- "enough to kill you if it hits you". You could have stated all of that without insult. I probably travel in different circles than you do, but Americans voting from the motiv…

I said silly, not stupid. No insult implied -- we all sometimes ask "wrong" questions. Clinton actually was the better choice; in fact, technically one of the most qualified candidates in history (trained lawyer, 8 years in the white house next to the president, a stint as US senator and then as secretary of state). Versus a reality teevee "billionaire" with a long track record of (likely) criminal behavior and clear…

> Clinton actually was the better choice; in fact, technically one of the most qualified candidates in history

Personally speaking, I did not like how she and her colluders ran down the Sanders campaign. Their characterization of his supporters as sexists and racist was fundamentally, profoundly dishonest. They could have addressed his policy proposals, but went the other way.

This led me to understand that this would be what we could expect from her Presidency. Before that, I was open to Clinton.

After her loss, I had been hoping for a Democratic party introspection about the way they had run this campaign and a house cleaning. Instead, we got enablers, diversion and outright lies. A shuffling of the worst actors, but no purge. Extremely disappointing. We still have never had an honest accounting for that debacle, and I remember and distrust every news outlet and commentator that repeated those lies.

I want to be clear that I did not vote for Trump, either. But he was not the worst President in my living memory. That honor goes to the President who lied to the public in order to get us into two (2) ruinous, useless wars and did not adequately prepare successfully for the occupation. Honestly, not having tentacles throughout government is a bonus, to my mind.

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