Twitter to ban political advertising • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#801

Post by kmlx » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 10:54 AM UTC

kmlx wrote: post #778

moksly wrote: post #666

In Denmark we have laws in place that hold news paper editors responsible for printing truth. They don’t always succeed, but they try to, and when they do fail they admit it and apologise. This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years. It’s also allowed for different sides of things, because you can interpret things like socioeconomic statistics and facts differently and wr…

> This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years. i assume this is sarcasm, as society has historically been mostly illiterate and unschooled. right now is when we are the most informed in the history of humankind.

for people downvoting, the great "schooling of society" started in the 1940s-50s: https://ourworldindata.org/literacy

till then most people around the world didn't know how to read and write.

my own eastern european country had an illiteracy rate of 95% in 1920.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#802

Post by Erlich_Bachman » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 10:57 AM UTC

ralusek wrote: post #685

moksly wrote: post #666

In Denmark we have laws in place that hold news paper editors responsible for printing truth. They don’t always succeed, but they try to, and when they do fail they admit it and apologise. This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years. It’s also allowed for different sides of things, because you can interpret things like socioeconomic statistics and facts differently and wr…

The lowest level of truth telling is stating facts, but even stating facts can be extremely manipulative. If I were to say: "2x as many white Americans were killed by police as black Americans in 2018." This a true fact. If I take note of the fact that black Americans only constitute 13% of the population, then I can say "A black American is 2.3x as likely as a white American to be killed by police." This is also a t…

> So not only are facts capable of telling a narrative, but it gets much more complicated once you start introducing conclusions.

"start introducing conclusions".

So not just stating facts after all?

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#803

Post by yodsanklai » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 10:57 AM UTC

ralusek wrote: post #685

moksly wrote: post #666

In Denmark we have laws in place that hold news paper editors responsible for printing truth. They don’t always succeed, but they try to, and when they do fail they admit it and apologise. This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years. It’s also allowed for different sides of things, because you can interpret things like socioeconomic statistics and facts differently and wr…

The lowest level of truth telling is stating facts, but even stating facts can be extremely manipulative. If I were to say: "2x as many white Americans were killed by police as black Americans in 2018." This a true fact. If I take note of the fact that black Americans only constitute 13% of the population, then I can say "A black American is 2.3x as likely as a white American to be killed by police." This is also a t…

> but even stating facts can be extremely manipulative

Another thing is the choice of facts you decide to state. All media have a bias in what type of news they decide to cover. Usually they pick stories based on what their audience wants to hear. I don't think there's a solution, besides trying to be more critical about medias in general.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#804

Post by kortilla » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 10:59 AM UTC

akie wrote: post #739

ralusek wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lowest level of truth telling is stating facts, but even stating facts can be extremely manipulative. If I were to say: "2x as many white Americans were killed by police as black Americans in 2018." This a true fact. If I take note of the fact that black Americans only constitute 13% of the population, then I can say "A black American is 2.3x as likely as a white American to be killed by police." This is also a t…

> In America, we understand that there is absolutely nothing more dangerous than an entity that feels entitled to control what is true. It might make things easier, and it might actually produce better results so long as the entity doing so is competent and benevolent, but nearly every structure in America is meant to serve as a bulwark for the cases in which the entity in power is precisely the sort that you do not…

> This is such blatant and obvious nonsense.

Calm down. This isn’t productive to discussion.

> that have been built into your system, you have ended up with a nation where the most powerful person

For being the most powerful person, he doesn’t get much done and is in the process of potentially being impeached. Sounds like an argument in favor of the checks and balances and an argument in favor of less power being concentrated at the federal level in general.

> publicly broken all the norms and all the rules

Publicly broken “all the rules”, really? Methinks you’ve been drinking some koolaid.

> Wouldn't it be great if you would have a powerful centralized body that can say "Ehm, you guys keep on telling outrageous lies

Absolutely not. A ministry of truth that dictates what people say and answers only to politicians is about the worst and least imaginative solution to the problem.

> What you don't seem to take into account in your comment is that centralized bodies can protect the weak from the powerful. If you only have decentralized entities, it's survival of the fittest

False dichotomy. State-level governments in the US are very capable of handling many of the responsibilities that have amassed at the federal level.

If you think more centralization is better, why not have a single world government that decides what is true? The government choosing what is true is working pretty well for China, why don’t we just let them take over control?

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#805

Post by kortilla » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 11:01 AM UTC

toxik wrote: post #792

brigandish wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is a supremely American way of looking at the world. It's based in European, and more specifically, British Enlightenment thinking, the apotheosis of which (with regard to freedom of speech) is On Liberty[0] by John Stuart Mill, an Englishman. To quote: > THE TIME, it is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defence would be necessary of the "liberty of the press" as one of the securities against corrupt or tyrann…

This to me seems not far from ayatollahs quoting scripture to justify their positions and policies. Surely thought has progressed in the last two hundred years?

> Surely thought has progressed in the last two hundred years?

Nope, that’s not how it works. People consistently keep retrying ideas for government and economics over and over because they get tempted by promises while ignoring history because “this time it’s different”.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#806

Post by Invictus0 » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 11:03 AM UTC

yoavm wrote: post #784

ralusek wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lowest level of truth telling is stating facts, but even stating facts can be extremely manipulative. If I were to say: "2x as many white Americans were killed by police as black Americans in 2018." This a true fact. If I take note of the fact that black Americans only constitute 13% of the population, then I can say "A black American is 2.3x as likely as a white American to be killed by police." This is also a t…

But these really aren't the type of lies that people consider fake news. Yeah, all the things you've written are facts, and their interpretations are what we call opinions. I agree with you that all of these statements, since they're true, should be allowed without a question. People still need to think and be critical. I just took a look at a long list of lies by your current President. It has nothing to do with fac…

Every president has lied; they have reasons to do it. Maybe it's to avoid revealing classified information, or to gain a political or geopolitics advantage. It doesn't matter; lying is an essential part of statecraft.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/the-history-of-lies-on...

Edit: I would appreciate if whoever is downvoting can please explain why they are doing so.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#807

Post by kortilla » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 11:05 AM UTC

silvester23 wrote: post #775

ralusek wrote: post #753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is obviously an upside and a downside. The platitude that "freedom isn't free" is something that seems to be lost on critics of the effects of liberty. I don't think the free speech absolutism present in the US was ever meant to suggest that there isn't such thing as undesirable speech, but rather that the potential for tyranny under regulated speech is a danger well worth avoiding at any cost. In addition to t…

> To frame the right to free speech in regards to whether or not it is "working out" is not a particularly American frame of reference. The principle that individuals should express themselves as they see fit, and that this is the foundation for a free and open society, is essentially square one. When I said "working out", I wasn't talking so much about which effects free speech is having (although that is a question…

> Could being attacked on twitter by the president for something you say not be construed as a very real retaliation by the administration and thus a curtailment of free speech?

No, someone talking to you in a public forum, even in a hostile fashion, is not a curtailment of free speech. It’s just free speech.

Free speech isn’t the right to not have your feelings hurt.

If Trump attacking people worked on Twitter, there wouldn’t be any democrats left in office at this point.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#808

Post by meisterbrendan » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 11:06 AM UTC

moksly wrote: post #666

In Denmark we have laws in place that hold news paper editors responsible for printing truth. They don’t always succeed, but they try to, and when they do fail they admit it and apologise. This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years. It’s also allowed for different sides of things, because you can interpret things like socioeconomic statistics and facts differently and wr…

Can you talk more about how those laws work in Denmark?

I’m extremely interested in the idea that a society has incentivized both a robust free press and accountability to speak the truth...

If that is the case it seems like those lessons would be very useful to democracies the world over.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#809

Post by claudiawerner » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 11:06 AM UTC

toxik wrote: post #792

brigandish wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is a supremely American way of looking at the world. It's based in European, and more specifically, British Enlightenment thinking, the apotheosis of which (with regard to freedom of speech) is On Liberty[0] by John Stuart Mill, an Englishman. To quote: > THE TIME, it is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defence would be necessary of the "liberty of the press" as one of the securities against corrupt or tyrann…

This to me seems not far from ayatollahs quoting scripture to justify their positions and policies. Surely thought has progressed in the last two hundred years?

It has, but due to the orthodoxy of thinking in terms of the liberal conception of human rights in the US Constitution, other voices aren't listened to much - their views are different to the orthodoxy such that they are considered heretical and against liberty.

It's a circular argument in the sense that because liberty and freedom are defined for the mainstream framework, any outside framework, in order to be accepted by adherents of the mainstream framework, must provide a vision compatible with the existing framework.

We're stuck in a hole in terms of what can be done outside academia in the real world.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#810

Post by navigatesol » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 11:07 AM UTC

yoavm wrote: post #784

ralusek wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lowest level of truth telling is stating facts, but even stating facts can be extremely manipulative. If I were to say: "2x as many white Americans were killed by police as black Americans in 2018." This a true fact. If I take note of the fact that black Americans only constitute 13% of the population, then I can say "A black American is 2.3x as likely as a white American to be killed by police." This is also a t…

But these really aren't the type of lies that people consider fake news. Yeah, all the things you've written are facts, and their interpretations are what we call opinions. I agree with you that all of these statements, since they're true, should be allowed without a question. People still need to think and be critical. I just took a look at a long list of lies by your current President. It has nothing to do with fac…

>I just took a look at a long list of lies by your current President.

The idea that one side tells lies, and the other only truth is part of the problem here.

>You can't argue that it's some interpretation, or just half of the picture or anything like that. It's simply a bunch of words phrased as a fact but they never happened.

"Russian collusion" appears to fit this description, yet I still read about it every day.

The entire political game is composed of stretching the facts to control the narrative. If you see it as one-sided, you're not paying attention.