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America's internet is splitting along party lines

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Re: America's internet is splitting along party lines

#91

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

sanderjd wrote: post #89
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a private association when the extent of a reach of a given entity rivals that of a nation-state? I am not disagreeing with your argument in principle. There has to be balance. Right now, that balance is out of whack.

Yes. The public can choose to create a legal structure that does not let private entities grow so large, but we have not chosen to do so, and that choice does not mean that private entities are de facto public.

Those structures already exist. They are typically categorized under anti-trust category. The issue is that between regulatory capture, revolving door, dual party system and average voter distracted by carefully selected social issues, the choice is theoretical.

I am not automatically arguing they should be public. I am saying they should be cut down to size.

Re: America's internet is splitting along party lines

#92

Post by nunez »

idk I don't have data to back this, but I feel like the Internet was always split between "party lines". You can always find what you want to find on the Internet, regardless of whether it's "right" or "wrong."

Hell, Google Maps represents countries completely differently depending on where you're using the product. Hell, Google isn't even really a thing in China! That's a huge part of Western internet that is represented completely differently elsewhere.

Re: America's internet is splitting along party lines

#93

Post by blaser-waffle »

scythe wrote: post #48
periphrasis wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet most unaffiliated voters “lean”, often very strongly, towards one party or the other. Most estimates put true independent/swing voters at only 3-4% of the electorate.

There's a big equivocation between your post and GP's: "American" => "voter". But people who are not well-represented by the two major parties are probably less likely to vote.

If they're not Americans then how are they voting?

Re: America's internet is splitting along party lines

#94

Post by tablespoon »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #90
tablespoon wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It's not actually wrong: you just have to realize that words have different meanings. The internet is simultaneously: a TCP/IP network and the collection of applications built on top of that network that people use. The first meaning is technical jargon, the second is a more colloquial meaning. Technical meanings are not more correct than other kinds of meanings. > OK fine, but going with this logic is how you get…

Sorry, I don't follow. Colloquial diction is unacceptable in business, legal, and engineering contexts because it causes confusion. Using laymen terms such as "internet" in a headline yields more misinformation and confusion about what the system actually is. I agree colloquial word choice is not wrong for a blog, however applications are not the network, and they will need to do better if they want my click.

Colloquial may be the wrong term, think "non-technical" instead.

> Using laymen terms such as "internet" in a headline yields more misinformation and confusion about what the system actually is.

No it doesn't. It's just a fact that "internet" has technical and non-technical definitions that diverge somewhat. That ship sailed a long time ago, and no amount of pedantic complaining will change it.

And frankly, it's not reasonable to expect laymen to understand how their applications work at a technical level (e.g. distinguish between the internet and the web). It's incumbent on the people who do understand those distinctions to adapt to their audience and the multiple definitions in use.

Re: America's internet is splitting along party lines

#95

Post by drewcoo »

scythe wrote: post #48
periphrasis wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet most unaffiliated voters “lean”, often very strongly, towards one party or the other. Most estimates put true independent/swing voters at only 3-4% of the electorate.

There's a big equivocation between your post and GP's: "American" => "voter". But people who are not well-represented by the two major parties are probably less likely to vote.

Because the very least of two evils is neither.

Re: America's internet is splitting along party lines

#96

Post by kebman »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #60
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are degrees of difference between moderation and censorship. At one end of the spectrum, it makes Keanu Reeves not exist in China and books banned in former USSR republics; at another, it makes 4chan look like reasonable chaps by comparison. I am saying it is fascinating, because the label implies fervor of sorts that irrationality disliked on HN. The term was designed to work in HN. What is fascinating to me t…

> What is fascinating to me that even here, propaganda spreads well. of course it does. even the "freedom of speech should be absolute" is propaganda.

No it's not. It's a normative opinion. The opinions against it all have horrible repercussions and difficult questions to answer such as "who should be in charge of moderating or censoring?" and "how can we trust them?"

The first one is always "my party" and the latter answer is always "because they protect my interests, and your interests doesn't count."

Meanwhile most people agree that cursing, pornography or spam - and things otherwise clearly outside the bounds of the law - should be censored. And perhaps also obvious ad hominems. But that's not what we're discussing right now. Instead we're discussing whether a Democrat should have the right to speak on a Republican forum and spread Democrat opinions there. Today that is precluded because "it's a private enterprise."

Meanwhile if freedom of speech was better governed, you would have to defend against flaws and lies with facts and logic instead of censorship, or even moderation.

But then there isn't anything precluding private enterprises from making such a place. And I happen to think people would flock to such a place. There would certainly be a lot to win for the enterprise to have so many people there, but so far the only model that seems to have worked is one where all those masses are somehow guarded against each other in sub-forums, such as on Reddit or even on Facebook. But perhaps Musk can revolutionize Twitter? What do you think?

Re: America's internet is splitting along party lines

#97

Post by grapeskin »

briandear wrote: post #80
periphrasis wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony of course being that the American political demographic, MAGA, with the biggest grievances regarding tech “censorship” also appear to be most willing to make excuses for or deny Russian war crimes.

Ukraine has stationed soldiers in schools. Russia bombed schools for that reason. Is Ukraine committing war crimes? I am not pro-Russia by any stretch, but the actions taken by both sides in that war aren’t so black and white. Watching this war as a dispassionate observer, it’s a study in propaganda. Zelensky broadcasting using a green screen to make it look like he’s on the streets for instance. The famous “I don’t…

> Read the North Korean News Agency sometime. The language isn’t much different than how the western media frames the Ukraine War. One sided, with a strong propaganda diction.

May as well just go ahead and believe North Korean propaganda at this rate. Maybe the world is covering up the truth. We haven't been there so we really can't know though (honestly).

You can go and watch Putin's speeches directly. He goes from saying it's to simply protect Russians in Donbass, to saying it's actually to stop NATO's expansion (countries should be free to choose their alliances--people ally with NATO because they don't want Russia invading their country, and invading their country only makes NATO seem more necessary), to saying it's really that Ukraine is entirely controlled by Nazis and needs to be de-nazified... by sending in the nazi Wagner mercenary group to kill a country run by a Jewish president who pretended to be gay on TV, to outright denying the historical existence of the Ukrainian people or their country and that it's just supposed to be Russian territory. All these speeches were in the span of literal days and show he just gave up on trying to hide his actual reasons.

You can completely ignore all western media if you like. You can completely assume all of what Ukraine says is absolute lies. All you need to do is listen to the words directly out of Putin's mouth and it's immediately obvious that it's the most transparent bullshit to justify a land grab that there ever was.

Re: America's internet is splitting along party lines

#98

Post by jaegerpicker »

bluescrn wrote: post #31
jaegerpicker wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No Corporation has decided anything like that. Corporations are responding to their customers requesting those users to not be tolerated. This isn't Twitter banning anyone because they want to. It's Twitter deciding that enough users have decided that tolerance has run its course. They were in response to campaigns of users to deplatform those who we consider harmful.

Corporations seem to be responding to tiny but very vocal mobs of activists. These groups don't necessarily represent the majority point of view.

Are you sure? I know a huge number of users that advocate for Users that expose bigoted views or misinformation to be de-platformed. See the recent Joe Rogan podcast push. That wasn't a tiny percentage of users.

Re: America's internet is splitting along party lines

#99

Post by periphrasis »

briandear wrote: post #82
periphrasis wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question would be a lot easier to resolve if the major MAGA thought leaders would stop making excuses for genocide. Anecdotally, my dad is MAGA-leaning right, and while he opposes the invasion and is happy to see the Russian army destroyed, his immediate response when I brought up the mass graves was “how much of that is propaganda though?”. Skepticism about what we are told about a war is always warranted, but r…

What overwhelming evidence? At this point it’s allegations. The crimes haven’t actually been investigated. They should be. But “overwhelming evidence” should be rephrased as “lots of allegations.”

Now also corroborated by radio intercepts: https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/possible-eviden...

Re: America's internet is splitting along party lines

#100

Post by throwaway82652 »

Jtype wrote: post #71
throwaway82652 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>content defined as prohibited by law They weren't wrong, deleting illegal content is exactly what they were doing. Revenge porn is illegal in almost all US states.

They were wrong about a crapload of things. They completely censored the Biden Laptop story and called it Russian propaganda. Twitter and facebook banned accounts that posted links to the story, for example. Just because you don't want to believe it doesn't mean it isn't true.

No, again they weren't wrong. Where did I say I don't believe something? My statement was that these sites don't want to host links to illegal revenge porn. They were absolutely not wrong to delete that, and I bet you would feel the same way if it was revenge porn of you or your loved ones that was being shared so indiscriminately. We're here talking about the story, and I've probably heard about this story thousands of times in the last year, so any statement about it being censored is complete nonsense. Please avoid this type of rhetoric.
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