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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

#711

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.

>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.

It turns out being able to lie at scale is a more credible and more immediate threat to society than nuanced restrictions on the flow of information.

If you play any Town of Salem style game, you know that being able to call out and dissuade low effort, poor quality information is a way to improve pro-social discourse. Are there issues with selecting what counts as anti social information? Yes. Which is why restrictions are typically exceedingly narrow.

However the ambit of what restrictions are justifiable runs along a spectrum; even amongst western democracies, there is a dramatic difference in what is acceptable and what is not. Germany, for instance, has exceedingly strong restrictions on pro-nazi speech. The US, by contrast, places a far higher immediate value on freedom of speech, to the point that it struck down campaign finance laws as being of lesser importance.

Times change and people are noticing that the result of the pendulum being so far swung in one direction on this issue has caused tremendously deleterious effects.

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

#712
post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter's "rules" would have stopped huge stories like The Pentagon Papers, Panama Papers, Watergate, etc from being posted on their platform. The statement read like it was typed up by an intern that didn't communicate with the legal team or any logical person. (edited for clarification)

Why? Watergate was largely built off journalistic work not hacked materials, obviously deep throat was inside the FBI but he was never quoted

>obviously deep throat was inside the FBI

Which is still a huge moral difference. I would have hoped that HN would be one community that would understand the difference between a whistleblower leaking data to journalists to expose a crime versus an outsider committing a crime in order to acquire data to leak for their own political gain. But I guess I shouldn't expect that considering many people here think Snowden, Manning, and Assange are all of equal moral standing.

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

#713

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.

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…

Okay so maybe we need to start regulating AI, or machine-curated content, or recommendation systems, but not stamping out one of the cornerstones of western intellectual culture. Free speech is certainly more important than YouTube’s engagement metrics.

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

#714

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…

How does this constitute hacking? The repair shop almost certainly retains ownership of unclaimed deviced after some period of time. The shop owns the laptop. The data is theirs to do with as they please and they chose to publish it (at least, that's the story). No hacking necessary.

Not following the details of the story, but has anyone suggested that Hunter dropped off the laptop himself?

Stealing a laptop and causing a bit of damage to initiate a costly repair, then leaving it with a shop under an assumed name seems like a solid Mitnick-level hack to me.

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

#715

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…

The Steele Dossier was widely spread on Twitter and was debunked.

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

#716
post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it forces wikileaks to redact the CC details of innocent bystanders then I'm all for it.

I believe they did that without needing promting from Twitter's policy censoring political speech

Twitter would've never picked up on it because the database I'm thinking of that they leaked was basically just a list of donors (i.e. leaking democrat data fits their priors https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks...)

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

#717
post #712
post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Watergate was largely built off journalistic work not hacked materials, obviously deep throat was inside the FBI but he was never quoted

>obviously deep throat was inside the FBI Which is still a huge moral difference. I would have hoped that HN would be one community that would understand the difference between a whistleblower leaking data to journalists to expose a crime versus an outsider committing a crime in order to acquire data to leak for their own political gain. But I guess I shouldn't expect that considering many people here think Snowden,…

The phrase "for their own political gain" describes one of those people much better than the other two

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

#718
post #712
post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Watergate was largely built off journalistic work not hacked materials, obviously deep throat was inside the FBI but he was never quoted

>obviously deep throat was inside the FBI Which is still a huge moral difference. I would have hoped that HN would be one community that would understand the difference between a whistleblower leaking data to journalists to expose a crime versus an outsider committing a crime in order to acquire data to leak for their own political gain. But I guess I shouldn't expect that considering many people here think Snowden,…

Did the Panama Papers expose a crime? Who decides whether a crime has occurred? I would say that Snowden exposed a crime (perjury) by James Clapper. Manning (IMO) exposed war crimes.

Similarly, I think that it was in the interest of the public to report when it was discovered that Trump only paid $750 in taxes (despite not committing a technical crime!) or that Hillary Clinton received some debate questions in advance (again, not a crime!).

This standard that Twitter is applying appears to have no clear line of enforcement, nor does the principle you've put forth.

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

#719

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this constitute hacking? The repair shop almost certainly retains ownership of unclaimed deviced after some period of time. The shop owns the laptop. The data is theirs to do with as they please and they chose to publish it (at least, that's the story). No hacking necessary.

>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…

If that were true, we would already be hearing denials about those emails. The fact that we haven't, indicates to me that they are instead going to tack on the "official Biden schedule shows he didn't meet with this guy" line because the emails are legit.

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

#720
post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I guess banning content on a private platform by its private owner is totally okay, at least legally. Banning content with double standards, though, makes the platform editorial, which means people should be able to sue the company left and right. And hacked in what way? Didn't the repair shop owner take ownership of the computer after repeatedly asking for payment but not getting it? Didn't the owner give t…

The rest of your polemic aside, specifically what do you think makes Twitter more susceptible to lawsuits here?

I'm assuming it's a reference to the fact that engaging in editorial conduct voids a platform's section 230 safe harbor.
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