[HN Gopher] Twitter deletes China embassy's Xinjiang 'emancipati...
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Twitter deletes China embassy's Xinjiang 'emancipation' tweet
Author : farseer
Score : 224 points
Date : 2021-01-10 14:00 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| mc32 wrote:
| They probably didn't set out to do this. To become the Ministry
| of Truth, but this is where they are now.
|
| They've become Pravda. They've become CCTV.
|
| The irony is probably lost on them. This is so sad. Welcome home
| 'Granma'.
| yibg wrote:
| Is removing harmful content becoming ministry of truth? Not
| like some content wasn't removed already (child porn, terrorist
| content etc). Things that society have deemed harmful and
| illegal. So a line has already been drawn. So is the concern
| just about where that line should be? Surely the argument isn't
| there should be no line right?
| mc32 wrote:
| Correct, there is a legal line.
|
| Now, I grant you that many people around the world for
| whatever reason, take their positions too far and outright
| sew deception, violent hate, fraud, etc. So it's very
| complicated. But given the importance and breadth, I don't
| think we should allow these companies to set agendas: "Thou
| shalt not have a conversation over this and that."
|
| Conspiracies may have negative impact, but people should be
| allowed to discuss them because as history has uncovered some
| conspiracies were in retrospect reality.
| cambalache wrote:
| And a big portion of this site readership, willingly or not,
| are the neo-apparatchik. Plus ca change...
| perennate wrote:
| The problem with no moderation and NOT deleting obvious
| misinformation and fake news is that social media platforms
| would then be overrun by bot accounts. Because of the strong
| capabilities of automation on the Internet, protecting free
| speech on the Internet does not have a clear solution. What is
| clear is that deleting obvious misinformation such as this
| tweet is in the public interest.
| chrononaut wrote:
| This seems to be an overreaction, particularly when you have
| the option not to use it. Just like the majority (of Americans)
| choose not to use other "free speech" platforms in part because
| of the disinformation, propaganda, and bots roam free.
| naeemtee wrote:
| I'm impressed people keep making the "option not to use it"
| argument. Our lines of communication are monopolized. "Just
| don't use Facebook/Twitter/Amazon" is an irrelevant argument
| since there are no alternatives.
| [deleted]
| andrewclunn wrote:
| Sure there are. You can use Parler... oh wait they were
| just banned by Google, Apple, and Amazon. I'm sure this
| isn't any kind of collusion though. Free Market, yeah!
| Pfhreak wrote:
| You can absolutely love comfortably and normally in the US
| without Facebook or Twitter. It's more challenging to avoid
| Amazon entirely, but you can easily avoid supporting them
| directly.
| enriquto wrote:
| How does this argument go? Pravda was not "the ministry of
| truth" because soviet citizens had the option to not write in
| it (or read it)? I really do not understand what you want to
| say.
| dahfizz wrote:
| > you have the option not to use it.
|
| I think this misses the point.
|
| Twitter, Facebook, etc cover a majority of Americans. These
| social media platforms have a significant effect on the
| beliefs and values of their users. Divisive, outraging
| content drives engagement. This leads to the curation of echo
| chambers that work to continually galvanize and outrage
| users.
|
| I have made the choice not to use social media, but a large
| majority of Americans do. Since we live in a democracy, this
| gives companies like Twitter and Facebook a non-trivial
| amount of control over elections and legislation.
|
| I don't think this can be ignored with the quip "just don't
| use the platforms". These platforms have the ability to form
| public opinion, and that is a problem for democracy that we
| as a society need to solve.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| So what would you suggest? Allow users to incite riots and
| violence on all platforms?
|
| Ultimately free speech means nothing if the legislature can
| be stormed with the intent of kidnapping/murdering members
| of the process.
| perennate wrote:
| The power of these corporations is a big issue, but the
| deletion of obvious misinformation and fake news such as
| the tweet in question here is clearly in the public
| interest. If anything, future regulation of social media
| platforms would likely include provisions that force the
| social media platforms to delete misleading content like
| this tweet.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| > I have made the choice not to use social media, but a
| large majority of Americans do. Since we live in a
| democracy, this gives companies like Twitter and Facebook a
| non-trivial amount of control over elections and
| legislation.
|
| I think this ascribes a lack of self-determinism that I see
| in a lot of these arguments. We (the people) give Twitter
| and Facebook that control. If they have violated the norms
| we (the people) have set in such a way that we want to take
| that power back, we can. This seems self-evident since you
| are a non-user.
| justicezyx wrote:
| Forced birth quota have already prevented 400mm births over it's
| cause [1]. How many lives that actually translate into is outside
| of my knowledge scope.
|
| Chinese government should receive much bigger and larger scale
| criticisms. To prevent them applying the policy to other
| ethnicity groups.
|
| But given the geographical situation, I doubt anyone is going to
| seriously challenge China. No one did that when China was weaker
| and more cooperative, no one can do that when China becomes
| strong and assertive.
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34666440
| f6v wrote:
| > Beijing is alleged
|
| The essence of tech giants: censorship based on allegations.
| hker wrote:
| Earlier Twitter labeled Trump's more questionable tweets, instead
| of outright deleting them.
|
| I wonder if Twitter could do the same here.
|
| Although I disagree with this tweet of China embassy, I want it
| to be shown to the world for others to judge. If nothing else, we
| can learn how frequently the China embassy tweets questionably.
|
| Labeling it seems right.
| jtdev wrote:
| It would seem that Twitter is fearful of the CCP, and simply
| removed the tweet rather than engage with the CCP in a more
| confrontational way like labeling their tweets.
| btown wrote:
| Forced sterilization is violence, and the glorification of it by
| _any_ actor is glorification of violence. Certainly this
| highlights the power that a platform like Twitter has to silence
| people, but this _specific_ deletion is not inconsistent with
| Twitter 's policies, and it is not _itself_ indicative of further
| movement down a slippery slope. But it does make it even more
| important for journalists to have systematic ways of holding
| Twitter to account should it overstep in the future.
| beaunative wrote:
| Is it a violence when a woman's sole purpose is produce babies
| for her husband? Is it so when it's done in the name of social
| norms and cultural convention?
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Meanwhile, in Canada... forced sterilization of indigenous
| First Nation women (Native Americans):
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/forced-sterilization-la...
|
| They're not isolated cases.
| bigpumpkin wrote:
| The post by the Chinese embassy is not advocating for forced
| sterilization. Rather, it is disputing the claim that forced
| sterilization is happening and saying the decline in birth rate
| is due to choice by the Uyghur women.
|
| Twitter's decision therefore takes a stand on what the "truth"
| is.
| perennate wrote:
| That forced sterilization is happening is fact. Twitter isn't
| taking a "stand" on what the truth is (it is telling that you
| put truth in quotes). Twitter is simply deleting tweets that
| spread misinformation, whether the misinformation is about US
| election claims or pretending that there isn't a genocide
| happening in Xinjiang. Actions such as this that deter the
| spread of fake news on social media platforms are needed
| because bot accounts that rapidly repeat false statements are
| possible on the Internet.
| gher-shyu3i wrote:
| We know what the truth is in this case. This is a holocaust
| happening in front of us and no one is doing anything.
| hungryhobo wrote:
| from what evidence? he said she said? because the data is
| showing no such thing. if you rather trust data than
| rhetoric.
| gher-shyu3i wrote:
| Actual evidence: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-
| china-50511063
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-23/video-uyghurs-
| shaved-...
|
| This is holocaust level work.
| hungryhobo wrote:
| The BBC link shows a leak without context. And with some
| balant mistranslations
|
| The ABC link shows a random video uploaded and verified
| as 'authentic' by someone who sits at his home watching
| Google maps. If that's the level of evidence required for
| Holocaust then it's a lost cause to reason with you.
|
| also to add, there are 12 million uighur in china, if the
| claim of genocide on 3 million of uighur is true, that
| means 1 in 4 uighur are slaughtered. Xinjiang to this day
| is open for visits for foreigners, there are zero reports
| of refugees in neighboring countries. If the there is
| indeed a holocaust going on, then these evidence should
| be easy to find right? and you probably wouldn't need to
| rely on "leaks" and videos verified by a 22 year old
| "goolge map" expert.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| Thank you for pointing out that the article explicitly states
| the Chinese position as "The changes were not caused by
| 'forced sterilization' of the Uygur population". While a
| tweet advocating forced sterilization might be violence, a
| tweet saying "We agree forced sterilization is bad, and we
| are not doing it" is not violence. The justification for
| removal must lie elsewhere.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| The problem with the Chinese government is that it's
| illegal to investigate the truth behind any statement so
| there's no way to know if what they say is true.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| This is not true.
|
| Twitter is not an arbiter of truth and never was. Their
| policies are clear.
| free_rms wrote:
| Does twitter censor US policy-maker's tweets when they
| trumpet the power of western values to liberate muslim
| women?
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| Do you go to twitter when you need an opinion on your
| back surgery? Or how to fix a broken tool? Or if your
| symptoms are covid19 or not?
|
| They are not an arbiter of truth or an authority.
| free_rms wrote:
| OP and myself are making the case that, by dipping into
| politics and labelling certain opinions, rhetoric and/or
| factual claims as "unacceptable", they're making
| themselves exactly that.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| Websites are moderated all the time - that doesn't make
| them arbiters of truth. I fail to see the actual
| argument.
| OwlsParlay wrote:
| It's the inevitable consequence of policing Trump's tweets.
| Either you police everything, or you're a hypocrite.
|
| This is not intended to judge how true the original article
| by the way, for future downvoters.
| Udik wrote:
| But of course they won't police everything, just what
| doesn't put them in trouble if they do so. Good luck with
| deleting a tweet from Netanyahu praising how ethical is the
| Israeli army.
| enriquto wrote:
| > glorification of violence (...) not inconsistent with
| Twitter's policies
|
| Oh, please. Twitter's application of its policies is
| outrageously inconsistent, even for high-profile U.S.
| officials. Otherwise, how come the many people who openly
| defend the extra-judicial killings by the U.S. military (from
| Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump) have yet a twitter account?
| And I'm not saying anything about tweets supporting the violent
| overthrow of several governments worldwide; those are tolerated
| because they align with U.S. interests. Twitter _is_ the
| ministry of truth of the U.S.A. and its main mouthpiece.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Hillary Clinton has never ordered killings by the U.S.
| Military. As Secretary of State, or as First Wife, she would
| never have had that authority.
| enriquto wrote:
| I didn't say that. Just that she celebrated and defended
| publicly such killings (e.g., those of Gaddafi, the bin
| Laden family, etc).
|
| EDIT: https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/77354520080
| 7534592
|
| (This tweet by Hillary Clinton glorifies an extrajudicial
| killing in foreign territory, with the opposition of the
| country where it happened, and at the same time manages to
| sneak in some falsehoods. The text is: "When our SEALs took
| out bin Laden, they brought the terrorists' families to
| safety first. That's American honor. " This is false, since
| several members of the bin Laden family died in the attack,
| including women and children. I'm not saying that killing
| bin Laden was wrong, just that Twitter policies are wildly
| inconsistent regarding violence and falsehood.)
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Hillary tried to stand up to Panetta over drone killings
| and back up her ambassador in PK and Obama threw her
| under the bus.
| KMag wrote:
| > As a non-state actor, he was not protected by any laws
|
| He was not entitled to any protection afforded uniformed
| combatants, but I'm pretty sure it still would have been
| against the Geneva Conventions to kill him with sarin,
| for instance.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| We were in a state of military conflict with Libya, which
| was openly hosting and funding dozens of terrorist groups
| dedicated to attacking the U.S. and American citizens.
|
| The U.S. wasn't behind the killings of Ghadaffi. Ghadaffi
| was killed by his own bodyguards after Ghadaffi's own
| citizens overthrew their government in a civil war
| spurred by resistance movements in neighboring countries
| arising from despots incarcerating and assassinating
| political opponents.
|
| The U.S. was behind the killing of Bin Laden. He
| organized the single largest terrorist attack against the
| U.S. in history. As a non-state actor, he was not
| protected by any laws, therefore, killing him was not
| illegal nor was it extradjudicial. This has been the
| state of international law for over a century, as
| codified in the Geneva Conventions and the amendments and
| followup conventions. If you have issues with
| international law, take that up with the Hague.
|
| _This is false, since several members of the bin Laden
| family died in the attack, including women and children.
| I 'm not saying that killing bin Laden was wrong, just
| that Twitter policies are wildly inconsistent regarding
| violence and falsehood.) _
|
| Bin Laden's sons were killed in the attack and one of his
| son's wives, but no children were killed. They were not
| just innocent collateral damage; they were killed in the
| attack while resisting U.S. forces. The non-resisting
| members of the family are alive today to talk about what
| happened because we didn't kill them.
| 8note wrote:
| So if the next Dalai llama was hiding in the US, would it
| be ok for the Chinese government to fly in special forces
| to assasinate him?
|
| I imagine bin laden was still protected by Pakistani
| laws, same as people inside the US are protected by US
| laws, even if they've pissed off some other country
| throwaway45349 wrote:
| I think the poster means that Hillary Clinton has a habit
| of glorifying violence, as do most US politicians.
| Miner49er wrote:
| Twitter doesn't apply this evenly though. If _any_ call to
| violence is supposed to be removed. Every tweet calling for the
| arrest of Trump (or anyone) also needs to be removed.
|
| Edit: not sure if this is allowed but I'm curious why I am
| being downvoted? Is there some logic I'm missing here? Or I
| guess people just think state-sanctioned violence should be
| allowed? If so, wouldn't this tweet by China be fine, since
| this violence is being done by the Chinese state?
| ojnabieoot wrote:
| The difference between
|
| - an illegal mob ransacking Congress in an attempt to
| overthrow an election, and
|
| - a constitutional arrest of a criminal president (e.g. by
| the House Sergeant-at-Arms, or by the FBI under Mike Pence's
| and the Cabinet's order via the 25th Amendment)
|
| should not need an explanation.
| Miner49er wrote:
| I never mentioned the Capitol protest? I'm talking about
| this tweet by China. This is state sanctioned violence (by
| China) and so is arresting someone.
|
| Twitter is clearly drawing a line somewhere about what
| violence is okay, and what violence isn't, and it's not
| particularly clear where it is and if there is any bias.
| ojnabieoot wrote:
| I was referring to your comment about arresting Trump -
| Twitter's line is clearly about "legal" state violence.
| This wouldn't be murder or forced sterilization or a coup
| d'etat. But it could be a legal (or even legally murky)
| military action, and certainly the arrest of someone like
| President Trump, who is subject to many good-faith
| allegations of serious violent crimes, and should be
| arrested to face trial for them.
|
| It is worth noting that "state-sanctioned" violence does
| not always mean legally-sanctioned violence, since state
| actions can easily be criminal, or at least lawless.
|
| - The Capitol Hill mob was illegal violence, albeit
| state-sanctioned (by endorsement of the president)
|
| - Arresting the president (either under Congressional
| authority or the 25th amendment) would be _legal_ state-
| sanctioned violence
|
| - Although nominal Chinese law is somewhat authoritarian
| with regard to ethnic minorities and Muslims, the reason
| the Xi regime is so desperate to cover up and
| propagandize the concentration camps is that they are
| illegal under Chinese and international law
| neogodless wrote:
| Why are you categorizing arrests of individuals that broke
| the law as violence?
| Miner49er wrote:
| It is violence whether they broke the law or not. We have
| as a society mostly deemed it to be acceptable violence. It
| doesn't mean that it's not violence though.
|
| You're really saying that forcing someone to the ground at
| gunpoint, handcuffing them, and dragging them to jail where
| they'll be locked up and can't leave isn't violence?
| neogodless wrote:
| You're changing the goal posts to redefine "arrests." To
| arrest someone is to enforce the law. You can be
| peaceably arrested, unless you resist arrest, which is
| further violating the criminal code.
| Miner49er wrote:
| A peaceful arrest is still done under the threat of
| violence though and is still violent. By this logic if I
| go to a bank with a gun and say, "give me all your money"
| and they comply without a fight it's not violent?
|
| Edit: plus my first comment described a peaceful arrest,
| not someone resisting.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| If you believe that Justice means something, then there is a
| difference between Just violence and Unjust violence. Even a
| single state can produce both Just violence (locking up
| criminals or criminal instigators) and Unjust violence
| (extra-judicial killings or forced sterilization).
| Miner49er wrote:
| I agree, but by allowing some calls to violence and not
| others, Twitter is placing itself as a judge of what
| violence is justifiable and what isn't.
|
| This is basically what politics is - deciding how to fairly
| apply violence. So Twitter is taking a political stance by
| only removing some calls. And an especially strong stance
| if they are going to start judging nation states.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Yes, Twitter is obviously doing that.
|
| Personally, I find that it would be far more fair for
| Twitter and FB to allow these accounts but to add
| editorial notes to their tweets/posts explaining that the
| company believes strongly that these are falsehoods, or
| something similar. Even the current "This claim about
| election fraud is disputed" seems somewhat disingenuous
| to me.
| Miner49er wrote:
| Yeah, I would rather Twitter outright ban accounts then
| just randomly remove tweets.
|
| I do think a label is the best solution, especially for
| accounts that represent a real person or entitity and
| aren't anonymous.
| beerandt wrote:
| I know this isn't a popular opinion, but for the sake of
| sharing:
|
| I'm of the belief that _any coercion_ with the intent to
| disuade women from having any (or more) kids is ethically
| wrong, (except for some very very limited cases). Govt really
| shouldn 't have a heavy influence on what is a family decision.
|
| While I'm all for educating poor areas in order to increase
| quality of life... if one of the stated goals of that education
| is to reduce the number of that populations offspring, then
| there are some tough ethical questions about such a program
| that need to be answered.
|
| And that's before you even get into the "targeted minority"
| aspects.
|
| And yes, I get that one easy way to "improve quality of life"
| is to have fewer kids (I personally disagree), and I get that
| educated couples often have fewer kids...
|
| but if that's where the bulk of the QoL bump is coming from...
| Then that's just straight up population control going by an
| alias with better branding.
| tasuki wrote:
| > I'm of the belief that any coercion with the intent to
| disuade women from having any (or more) kids is ethically
| wrong, (except for some very very limited cases). Govt really
| shouldn't have a heavy influence on what is a family
| decision.
|
| What about government policies that persuade women to have
| _more_ children? Are those ethically ok?
| beaunative wrote:
| Why is population control inherently wrong? sustainable
| envrionment and forever exploding population is a pair of
| inherently conflicting goals, at least while we still only
| inhabit earth. We have to acknowledge there is a maximum
| which this planet can handle. Even if we do regard having
| children as a very personal right, we must acknowledge the
| collective effect is not within our control, not in the near
| future.
| chongli wrote:
| This is "population control" targeted at a specific ethnic
| and religious minority, not population control in general.
| China is trying to crowd out the Uighur population by
| settling ethnic Han Chinese from elsewhere in the country
| and by imprisonment and forced sterilization of the
| population. This campaign meets the UN criteria for
| genocide.
| beaunative wrote:
| It was very clear that the one child policy targeted the
| whole population, and ethnic minorities are generally
| allowed more leeway than Han Chinese.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| China's Uighur policy isn't "One family one child."
|
| It's sterilization, so that Uighur families _can 't have
| children._
|
| EDIT: HN won't let me respond, probably due to the
| automatic moderation controls kicking in on this article,
| so here's an example of the forced sterilization policy
| indiscriminately targeting all Uighur women:
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/04/muslim-
| minorit...
| beaunative wrote:
| Where did you read that? If I read it correctly, they
| used sterilization on couples who already have children
| at the limit allowed. I won't call it _can 't_
| godelski wrote:
| So I was going to reply to the parent but after thinking a
| little more I think I have a better good faith
| interpretation. I think they used "coercion" instead of
| "persuasion" because it is a stronger word (implying
| forcing or threatening). So if we read their comment that
| way I don't think they disagree with you or would be
| against even encouraging things like planed births and
| making birth control widely available.
| beaunative wrote:
| You might not be wrong. Though after rereading it, I'm
| convinced that it was suggested in that comment
| popluation control is wrong regardless. Note the
| paragraph on education. So in that framework, providing
| education with the intention of reducing birth would be
| unethical. How moderate or non-coercive of a means are we
| talking about?
| godelski wrote:
| That's true, but hard to tell when the person hasn't
| responded. I tend to try (key word) to use the strongest
| form of someone's argument (not that I think you're
| talking about their weakest form).
|
| But what I was originally going to say is that the
| language gets really fuzzy really fast. Like you could
| argue that sex education is a form of persuasion (though
| I wouldn't say coercion) and is easily argued as a form
| of population control. But I think many of us would call
| that beneficial. I'd say the same with free/cheap and
| easy access to forms of birth control. I'd say that
| enables more choice. But if we're talking about a
| counseling center that guilt trips someone into having
| the child or not having the child I'd call that coercion
| and I don't think that's right. But others would call
| that persuasion and education. So I think this gets messy
| really quick and a bit of expanding on the thought for
| clarification is needed.
| Alkhwarizmi wrote:
| Who are you to decide who gets to live or not!? Population
| control of any kind must be made illegal.
| dgellow wrote:
| There is a quite strong correlation between level of
| education and number of birth per women. The best way to
| "control" population growth is to give easy access to a
| good education and birth control solutions (I mean condoms
| and the pill). No coercion required.
| beerandt wrote:
| I'm opining/arguing that if you make this statement:
|
| >The best way to "control" population growth is...
|
| Then provide some level of govt incentive to reach that
| goal, it's still coercion (or if you prefer,
| manipulation), even if the incentive is 1st order
| positive effects, and the stated goal/result is a 2nd or
| 3rd order effect.
|
| Thinking about it, I keep coming back to preditory
| lending/selling tactics or dark-pattern manipulation
| (except the UI is your life choices) as comparisons, but
| I haven't worked out exactly why, yet, other than it
| bothers me in a similar way. Moreso, since it's
| government.
| endominus wrote:
| That's a rather strange position to hold. It brings in
| issues related to both the Prisoner's Dilemma and the
| Tragedy of the Commons. To whit, each individual
| reproductive group may desire more offspring, but each
| successively larger generation consumes more resources.
| Given a (for the foreseeable future) finite amount of
| resources, unrestricted population expansion is net
| harmful to society as a whole, even as large families may
| be beneficial (i.e. result in greater happiness) for
| individual groups.
|
| It's a coordination problem. Everyone wants to act in the
| way that maximizes their happiness/success/utility, but
| in doing so acts in a net-negative way. One of the
| premier purposes of government is to solve coordination
| problems. Why is it unethical for the government to solve
| this coordination problem?
|
| Or, more concretely, why does my right to have a dozen
| children trump my children's right to have sufficient
| resources left to them to live a happy life?
| beaunative wrote:
| In a sense, law-making is all about providing incentives.
| How's birth control any different than other aspects of
| life? I'd say that's a quite broad definition of
| coercion/manipulation.
| dgellow wrote:
| There is no manipulation. You offer better choices to
| people than they currently have, such as access to good
| education and tools they are free to use to manage their
| personal life (e.g condoms). As a side-effect it is
| expected that the number of birth per woman will reduce
| over time.
|
| People are free to use or not birth controls if they want
| or not children, same for the education. People aren't
| tricked in reducing the amount of children they have.
| Data in developed countries seems to point that when
| people are better educated and have the tools to decide
| for children, they get them later in life and in less
| quantity (without considering other factors, such as
| religious communities that have more children per woman
| than average).
| jbay808 wrote:
| That's true, but this is also an attempt to a moral
| question with a pragmatic empirical answer. The problem
| with this is the data can always change.
|
| How would your opinion change if that correlation were
| found to disappear in the coming decades? Or if it
| actually began to reverse (for example as populations
| shift to being more urban where kids are expensive and
| access to assisted reproduction depends on wealth)?
| dgellow wrote:
| I don't know.
| [deleted]
| acct776 wrote:
| We have exactly the same opinion, it seems.
|
| Except, you missed the part where, if someone's free to run
| up the score with 4, 6, or 10 children...they also have the
| freedom to watch them starve if they can't support them.
|
| I don't know that better planners should be forced into
| subsidizing bad family planning/no family planning.
| [deleted]
| flycaliguy wrote:
| Aren't most of these programs designed to prevent unwanted
| pregnancy? Is it unethical to assist people in preventing a
| mistake?
| OwlsParlay wrote:
| The argument would be, what is the intent of the CCP in
| pushing this program, gien the evidence of coercion from
| Uyghur camp survivors. Is it as virtuous as state media
| argues? Doubtful.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| CCP pushed birth control for everyone in China (at least
| publicly)
| grenoire wrote:
| Unwanted pregnancies can be prevented through education.
| This is not something that _must_ be done in teenage years,
| there are adults who are unaware of contraceptives or don
| 't have access to them. Permanently preventing someone from
| having children is immoral, the alternative is actively
| being ignored by the govt. in question.
| [deleted]
| arthur2e5 wrote:
| Family planning did and still does mean something coercive
| in China for most people. To them it's about paying a fine
| for extra kids, and when local govt gets angry forced birth
| control. People hid kids for a reason.
|
| The policy has historically allowed exceptions for ethnic
| minorities, but looking at news stories they have been
| physically putting birth control devices in Uyghur women
| without consent too. The state perfected its art of
| surveillance by testing on minorities; it's no surprise
| they also perfected some other human rights violations from
| experience with Han people.
|
| (There are cheap condom programs, but the entire country
| just doesn't talk about sex. You get few safe sex talks,
| and all these stuff end up as balloons for kids and
| hairbands. Combined oral contraceptives are cheap and OTC,
| but the culture is heavily against "unnecessary use of
| western medicine", especially for the cheap
| ethinylestradiol/levonostrogel kind because "cheap means
| bad". So you end up with good women's bodily autonomy on
| paper and terrible execution, even without the violations.)
| [deleted]
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| Why is forced sterilization more objectionable than forced body
| modifications that commonly happen?
|
| That it be worse than, for example, forced foreskin removal or
| teeth correction would only follow from the axiom that
| reproduction is a higher goal that all should have.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| You can't really genocide a minority group with circumcision.
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| Genocide is the killing of men who are currently alive.
|
| If one can say that one can kill a man who has not yet been
| conceived, by stopping his hypothetical future birth, then
| every form of contraception is murder, nay, the simple
| election not to have sex or otherwise procreate is then
| murder.
| croissants wrote:
| Do you not see the difference between forced
| sterilization (removing a person's ability to procreate)
| and contraception (giving a person the ability to have
| sex without procreating, which they can choose to change
| later)?
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| Of course I do, simply not by the argument that forced
| sterilization is genocide, an argument which necessitate
| that one can "kill" a not yet existing man by stopping
| his future existence.
|
| The argument of genocide of course does not imply that
| the man who is sterilized is killed so long as he be
| allowed to live after the sterilization, but rather that
| his future, hypothetical offspring is, because it would
| now never come to be.
|
| The comparison I made was with forced foreskin removal
| and forced dental correction, something that can also not
| be undone.
| xxpor wrote:
| The UN definition of genocide, note point D:
|
| any of the following acts committed with intent to
| destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical,
| racial or religious group, as such:
|
| (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious
| bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c)
| Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life
| calculated to bring about its physical destruction in
| whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to
| prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly
| transferring children of the group to another group.
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| Then I see nothing wrong with genocide _per se_ if (d)
| fall under it, for by this definition, the Dutch
| goverment 's plan to hand out free condoms to teenagers
| is a form of genocide, as it is a measure intended to
| stop births within the group of Dutchmen.
|
| As usual, U.N. definitions are made without much thought,
| and quickly lead to the absurd when being held to even
| the slightest of inspection -- it is almost as if it be a
| forum of very emotional men, who put very little thought
| into what they are doing.
|
| If we say that stopping future births rather is
| problematic, then most forms of sex education are
| problematic.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| > the Dutch goverment's plan to hand out free condoms to
| teenagers is a form of genocide, as it is a measure
| intended to stop births within the group of Dutchmen.
|
| That would be perhaps true if the Dutch government were
| planning to give out free condoms only to white people or
| only to black people or only to blonds or only to
| christians etc. If they are universally giving out
| condoms, then they are obviously not trying to destroy
| any particular ethnic or national group inside their own
| country - the obvious limit to the UN definition.
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| Say a proof of citizenship be required.
|
| Then they are only giving them out to the "ethnicity"
| called "the Dutchman".
|
| But this another matter of why I'm never very impressed
| with any definition that names the pseudoscientific
| concept of "ethnicity" -- it is of course entirely an
| arbitrary thing what is and isn't classified as a
| separate "ethnicity" much like how the difference between
| a dialect and a separate language is of course one of
| politics, not science.
|
| If only the province of Frisia were to have a plan for
| handing out such condoms, would that qualify as genocide
| of the Frisians then, which some claim is a different
| ethnicity for historical reasons? Are the inhabitants of
| each city perhaps a different ethnicity?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| You continue to conflate "handing out condoms" with
| forced sterilization. The two are not the same thing.
|
| If you _permanently and compulsorily sterilized_ everyone
| in Frisia, yes, that 'd be a genocide. Giving them
| condoms they can voluntarily and reversibly use is not.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| In some extreme cases, it may turn out that a country is
| attempting to reduce a particular population by providing
| what appears as benefits. Probably free condoms are far
| too voluntary and ineffectual to come even close, but
| still - if anyone attempted it with the distinct intent
| of reducing some specific population, it could be
| somewhere in the neighborhood of ethnic cleansing.
| xxpor wrote:
| I'd say there's a clear distinction with condoms around
| reversibility. You have to affirmatively choose to use a
| condom every time you have sex.
|
| If the government were giving out free vasectomies or
| tubal ligations to certain ethnic groups and not others,
| that would be a wildly different story.
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| No, I don't conflate the two at all.
|
| I'm simply saying that by the U.N.'s definition of
| "genocide", handing out condoms can be construed as such,
| and that the definition is therefore not worth much, or
| rather, that following it's definition, genocide is not
| problematic _per se_ , as it does not necessarily involve
| the involuntary taking of human life.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Only if "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in
| part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".
|
| Free condom initiatives typically do not have that
| intent.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| I would argue that a plan for handing out condoms only
| with proof of citizenship could be suspect of an attempt
| at ethnic cleansing. Similarly, if the central government
| of the Netherlands passed a law to hand out free condoms
| only in some particular province that may be suspect as
| well, especially one that has been considered of a
| different ethnicity.
|
| However, if the local authorities in Frisia were to
| implement such a plan, that would be closer to the first
| case of universal measures, since the authorities in
| Frisia shouldn't be expected to hand out condoms in other
| provinces. Of course, if it turned out that the measure
| was in fact planned by the central government and passed
| off as a local idea, that would again move the needle
| towards being suspicious.
|
| In general, intent matters - that is why the law can't be
| formalized mathematically. If a country is targeting some
| group that it has historically considered "different"
| (regardless of how questionable the difference is) with
| some kind of measure which may have negative
| consequences, that measure should receive scrutiny, and
| the context should be identified. For example, giving
| poor people condoms may be an attempt at population
| control in one country, while in another country it may
| be a democratically enacted benefit.
|
| We are far away from providing mathematically clear
| definitions of legal concepts such as genocide, murder,
| theft, fraud and anything you like. There are always
| surprising subtleties, and intent and context are always
| going to be a part of the definition.
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| > I would argue that a plan for handing out condoms only
| with proof of citizenship could be suspect of an attempt
| at ethnic cleansing. Similarly, if the central government
| of the Netherlands passed a law to hand out free condoms
| only in some particular province that may be suspect as
| well, especially one that has been considered of a
| different ethnicity.
|
| >However, if the local authorities in Frisia were to
| implement such a plan, that would be closer to the first
| case of universal measures, since the authorities in
| Frisia shouldn't be expected to hand out condoms in other
| provinces. Of course, if it turned out that the measure
| was in fact planned by the central government and passed
| off as a local idea, that would again move the needle
| towards being suspicious.
|
| This is a distinction you make, but not a distinction the
| U.N. definition makes, which shows that you, much as I
| do, do not find the definition credible.
|
| The U.N. definition does not factor in supranationality
| as a condition.
|
| > In general, intent matters
|
| Perhaps, but that difference is not given in the U.N.
| definition.
|
| > that is why the law can't be formalized mathematically.
|
| Then the definition should have never been offered as a
| rebuttal.
|
| > If a country is targeting some group that it has
| historically considered "different" (regardless of how
| questionable the difference is) with some kind of measure
| which may have negative consequences, that measure should
| receive scrutiny, and the context should be identified.
| For example, giving poor people condoms may be an attempt
| at population control in one country, while in another
| country it may be a democratically enacted benefit.
|
| All of this goes far beyond the original definition and
| is quite _ad hoc_.
|
| I suspect that if further challenges and exceptions be
| raised against all these further rules, that more _ad
| hoc_ rules are further and further added.
|
| > We are far away from providing mathematically clear
| definitions of legal concepts such as genocide, murder,
| theft, fraud and anything you like. There are always
| surprising subtleties, and intent and context are always
| going to be a part of the definition.
|
| Indeed we are, so perhaps the definition should not have
| been offered as if it actually be meaningful and the U.N.
| should drop the praetence of it's having "definitions"
| and "rules" for what is clearly simply "we rule on a case
| by case basis, mostly on our gut feeling."
|
| And that is too how laws work. I find that in practice
| the written text of the law is largely irrelevant _vis a
| vis_ the gut feeling of whatever man vested with the
| power to interpret the law and I believe that not much
| would change in practice if entire law books were simply
| replaced with "The judge may do as he will and punish
| what he finds immoral on a case by case basis."
|
| Rule of law is almost always a veil for rule of men.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| >> In general, intent matters
|
| > Perhaps, but that difference is not given in the U.N.
| definition.
|
| Yes, it is. The UN's 1948 Convention on the Prevention
| and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines it
| explicitly with intent in mind:
|
| "... genocide means any of the following acts committed
| _with intent to destroy_ , in whole or in part, a
| national, ethnical, racial or religious group..."
| tsimionescu wrote:
| > Perhaps, but that difference is not given in the U.N.
| definition.
|
| Of course it is! The definition explicitly says "any of
| the following acts committed with the intent to [...]".
|
| One more thing that the definition says that I hadn't
| even noticed and that significantly simplifies my
| examples, and immediately makes your example clearly NOT
| genocide, is that point (d) talks about _imposing_
| reproductive restrictions, which offering free condoms
| will never do.
|
| > All of this goes far beyond the original definition and
| is quite ad hoc.
|
| Yes, I was going beyond the strict definition of genocide
| and exploring similar concepts. The idea of defining what
| "ethnic groups" etc. means by historical precedent is
| probably the exact intent of the UN definition, though.
|
| > And that is too how laws work. I find that in practice
| the written text of the law is largely irrelevant vis a
| vis the gut feeling of whatever man vested with the power
| to interpret the law and I believe that not much would
| change in practice if entire law books were simply
| replaced with "The judge may do as he will and punish
| what he finds immoral on a case by case basis."
|
| This is completely wrong for 99% of law, and might be
| slightly true for a few aspects of criminal law. In 99%
| of cases, the judge is ruling entirely on the law, there
| is no moral cause to be explored.
| [deleted]
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Because it is forced?
|
| In general, actions done to children by their parents (or
| with their parents' expressed, unequivocal consent) are not
| considered "forced" except in cases where the harm is large.
| So, male circumcision or teeth corrections or vaccinations
| are not "forced" on the children, because they are acts that
| their parents consider are beneficial to the child.
|
| However, if the state were to force children to be
| circumcised or have their teeth aligned regardless of their
| parents' desires, then most people would object to that.
|
| Even more importantly, any actions which affect someone's
| ability to use their body in a normal way are generally
| considered abhorrent. That is why male circumcision is
| usually tolerated, while female circumcision is an
| abomination, even if done by one's parents. Forced
| sterilization is obviously in the second case, since it is
| terminally preventing someone from performing one of the 3
| fundamental components of life.
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| > Because it is forced?
|
| Obviously so is forced foreskin removal and forced tooth
| correction, so I fail to see that point.
|
| > In general, actions done to children by their parents (or
| with their parents' expressed, unequivocal consent) are not
| considered "forced" except in cases where the harm is
| large. So, male circumcision or teeth corrections or
| vaccinations are not "forced" on the children, because they
| are acts that their parents consider are beneficial to the
| child.
|
| I see, so it would be fine of the parents were the ones
| forcibly sterilizing them rather than the government.
|
| I find that absurd: I for one am in favor of government-
| mandated vaccinations and find this to be a very desirable
| thing opposed to letting parents be the ones to decide.
|
| > However, if the state were to force children to be
| circumcised or have their teeth aligned regardless of their
| parents' desires, then most people would object to that.
|
| Yes, which I find absurd.
|
| It matters not to the man whose body was irreparably
| altered whence the order to do so came -- it's a rather
| shallow comfort to then be told that it was fine because it
| was the will of one's parents rather than the government's.
|
| > Even more importantly, any actions which affect someone's
| ability to use their body in a normal way are generally
| considered abhorrent. That is why male circumcision is
| usually tolerated, while female circumcision is an
| abomination, even if done by one's parents. Forced
| sterilization is obviously in the second case, since it is
| terminally preventing someone from performing one of the 3
| fundamental components of life.
|
| Yes, you call it fundamental which goes right back to that
| it only holders water if one considers reproduction a
| higher goal that all must aspire to.
|
| And with "all", one can argue roughly half of all; I've
| noticed that he moral queasiness of sterilization of the
| male seems to be quite a bit lower than with sterilization
| of the female -- as if that not be rooted in some belief
| that a female's primary function is to be a reproductive
| engine: _close your eyes and think of England_.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| > Yes, you call it fundamental which goes right back to
| that it only holders water if one considers reproduction
| a higher goal that all must aspire to.
|
| Reproduction is a fundamental function of your organism,
| whether you chose to use it or not (for example, I am not
| going to reproduce). Any entity forcefully removing your
| body's ability to perform any of its fundamental
| functions is obviously abhorrent. If the state were
| seeking to remove your ability to see or your ability to
| consume food or excrete it, would you find that a matter
| of definitions?
|
| By contrast, male circumcision and teeth straitghening
| are essentially cosmetic differences. Male circumcision
| is more problematic (and it is certainly not considered
| anywhere close to normal in most of the world), but even
| there the harm is minimal - being able to cover one's
| glans with one's foreskin is not a significant ability
| that anyone could claim has a significant effect on their
| life (of course, the risks of complications associated
| with the procedure itself are a different matter).
|
| > I've noticed that he moral queasiness of sterilization
| of the male seems to be quite a bit lower than with
| sterilization of the female
|
| I have no idea where you have seen this. I haven't even
| seen the sex or gender of the person being potentially
| sterilized discussed at all in any discussion of the
| horror of forced sterilization. Certainly nowhere in this
| thread or even the deleted tweet.
|
| Overall, you seem to want to either make some kind of
| eugenic argument for forced sterilization (which I
| consider so abhorrent it's not even worth arguing
| against), OR some kind of strange more-liberal-than-thou
| argument that reproduction shouldn't be given some
| special place (which no one is, it's just that
| reproduction is the ONLY function of the body that anyone
| seems to think it might be ok to take from you for some
| strange reason - it isn't, anymore than gouging your eyes
| or removing your inner ear would be).
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| > Reproduction is a fundamental function of your
| organism, whether you chose to use it or not (for
| example, I am not going to reproduce). Any entity
| forcefully removing your body's ability to perform any of
| its fundamental functions is obviously abhorrent. If the
| state were seeking to remove your ability to see or your
| ability to consume food or excrete it, would you find
| that a matter of definitions?
|
| And what test or criteria might you use to decide what is
| and isn't a "fundamental function of one's organism"?
|
| > By contrast, male circumcision and teeth straitghening
| are essentially cosmetic differences.
|
| It is not so much the result of both that I find
| problematic as the painful methodology by which they are
| achieved.
|
| Cutting up a man _sans_ any anaesthesia, sewing him back
| up, and leaving him otherwise alive but with a scar is
| also merely cosmetic; it was, however, rather painful for
| him.
|
| > I have no idea where you have seen this. I haven't even
| seen the sex or gender of the person being potentially
| sterilized discussed at all in any discussion of the
| horror of forced sterilization. Certainly nowhere in this
| thread or even the deleted tweet.
|
| It has been well discussed and noted that physicians seem
| to be far more willing to perform elective sterilizations
| on males than on females and find some kind of greater
| moral fault with the latter than the former.
|
| > it isn't, anymore than gouging your eyes or removing
| your inner ear would be).
|
| And I would submit that most, if not nigh all human
| beings when given the dilemma of either surrendering
| their reproductive capacity or an eye, would surely pick
| the former.
|
| It's telling that human beings willingly surrender their
| reproductive capacity all the time, but I have seldom
| heard of a man who decided to have a healthy eye removed
| simply because he wanted himself rid of it.
|
| So yes, I consider removing a man's reproductive capacity
| to be quite trivial and inconsequential compared to
| removing his eye.
|
| Which of both would you choose?
| tsimionescu wrote:
| > It is not so much the result of both that I find
| problematic as the painful methodology by which they are
| achieved.
|
| Sure, that is something to discuss. In the case of teeth,
| most parents in most of the world only have their
| children go through procedures that are likely to be
| important for their health (even if the child may not
| like the procedure). Male circumcision is also not
| something I condone personally, and it is relatively rare
| in most of the world outside some ethnic/religious
| groups.
|
| > It has been well discussed and noted that physicians
| seem to be far more willing to perform elective
| sterilizations on males than on females and find some
| kind of greater moral fault with the latter than the
| former.
|
| We are discussing forced sterilization here in general.
| When you are talking about male elective sterilization,
| do you mean vasectomy? Because then, one reason why
| surgeons may be more willing to go through with it is
| because it is (at least theoretically) reversible, so it
| constitutes a smaller decision than surgical female
| sterilization, which is always definitive.
|
| It is also true that historically doctors have felt far
| more entitled to make decisions for women's bodies than
| for men's, so I do expect that this shamefully persists.
|
| > So yes, I consider removing a man's reproductive
| capacity to be quite trivial and inconsequential compared
| to removing his eye. > Which of both would you choose?
|
| This is not about choice - that is the whole point. The
| population we are talking about is not given any choice -
| the state is deciding to change the way their body works,
| against their own interests.
|
| Even more importantly, while taking away someone's
| reproductive capacity may be a smaller apparent harm than
| taking away their eyes, it is a much, much worse harm
| over the long term of the community. Literally destroying
| the Family as a core part of their community is going to
| destroy their old age, and it is an explicit attack on
| their culture.
|
| > It's telling that human beings willingly surrender
| their reproductive capacity all the time, but I have
| seldom heard of a man who decided to have a healthy eye
| removed simply because he wanted himself rid of it.
|
| You will find very, very few human beings permanently
| surrender their reproductive capacity willingly EXCEPT
| for those who are essentially finished with it - people
| with at least one, but likely several children. True,
| there are likely slightly more people who willingly
| permanently give up their reproductive capacity than
| people who have an eye removed, but the reason is also
| obvious: there is absolutely nothing to gain from having
| an eye removed, while giving up your reproductive
| capacity allows you to have unprotected sex without the
| possibility of expensive, hard to care for children.
|
| > And what test or criteria might you use to decide what
| is and isn't a "fundamental function of one's organism"?
|
| There are many ways to come up with a definition that
| will include reproduction but not include crooked teeth
| or the foreskin. In fact, reproduction is so fundamental
| that we usually define life as being primarily related to
| reproduction - that is, any chemical substance that can
| simply reproduce itself is usually at least a candidate
| for being considered a form of life (the minimalist
| definition is just a fixed physical form and reproduction
| + heredity).
|
| So while many functions of a living organism are more or
| less "fundamental", reproduction is almost the only one
| you can't debate away.
|
| Now, if looking strictly at one individual organism, it
| is true that reproduction becomes much less fundamental,
| so I am assuming that this is the angle you are thinking
| from. But I don't think this is the right way of looking
| at it when considering whether a medical procedure could
| be justly forced on an entire population.
| beerandt wrote:
| >Under current rules, couples in China are allowed to have up to
| two children, with couples in some rural areas allowed up to
| three.
|
| Aren't recognized "ethnic minorites" (or however they phrase the
| term) exempt from this law? Uighurs, Tibetans, etc.
|
| At a minimum, I thought the limit was higher (than the historic
| limits for _not-minority_ families).
|
| Can anyone confirm or point to authoritative info in english?
| claydavisss wrote:
| Awesome! Locking an entire generation into an echo chamber makes
| it so much easier to get away with things in real life!
| canada2020 wrote:
| Twitter sits at the very top of a stack of technologies. Clearly
| the internet providers shouldn't ban specific content, AWS should
| not either. Since Twitter is the most user facing, does that give
| it more responsibility to regulate the actual content on its
| platform? If not Twitter, who (if anyone) has the right to
| regulate content on the internet?
| undersuit wrote:
| >Clearly
|
| Why?
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| There could be an intermediary status between hoster and editor
| : a "displayer" would not be liable for what its users do. It
| _would_ (unlike a hoster) be liable for the moderating choices
| that he decides to do.
|
| There might be additional requirements to benefit from the
| hosting status : of size, power, economic model, &c.
|
| https://www.laquadrature.net/2018/10/16/un-tiers-mediaire/ (fr)
|
| (Some of this has now been implemented in the EU.)
| splaytreemap wrote:
| Twitter censoring content is only a problem because they have a
| near monopoly in their domain and present themselves as a
| platform for everybody. There's no national discussion about HN
| moderation because it's a much smaller website with relatively
| few users.
|
| Just in general, if Twitter really believes their platform has
| the power to induce violence and alter elections, then why are
| we allowing a small number of unelected Twitter execs complete
| control to determine how that power is used?
|
| Jack Dorsey's vote shouldn't be worth orders of magnitude more
| than yours and mine just because he's the CEO of a
| communications platform.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| I can't wait until Twitter has exactly two users after they have
| banned and kicked out everyone. Jack Dorsey and Vijaya Gadde can
| tweet their views to the world about how TWTR thinks we should
| live our lives.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| What China is doing (eugenics) is clearly immoral, and should be
| condemned.
|
| What fewer people is aware of is that the US has a prominent
| historic role when it comes to the "development" of eugenics.
|
| Let's take this horrible book, for example... "The blood of the
| nation: A study of the decay of the races through the survival of
| the unfit":
|
| https://archive.org/details/bloodofnationstu00jorduoft/page/...
|
| This book inspired many eugenics programs that took place in the
| 20th century, including the ones in Nazi Germany.
|
| Who wrote this? No other than the founding president of Stanford
| University, David Starr Jordan. From California.
|
| You would expect Americans at the time to be horrified by this
| book? Not precisely. He received honorary degrees by multiple
| American universities, and he has a plethora of things named in
| his honor.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Starr_Jordan#Monuments_a...
|
| And we could be talking about this all day. The US is also
| responsible for the mass sterilization of Latinas, with a special
| emphasis in Puerto Rico. By 1965, 34% of Puerto Rican women aged
| 20-49 had been sterilized.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I wonder if Twitter will also remove the feeds from the
| presidents of Iran, Russia, and NK if they want to quell calls to
| violence.
| f311a wrote:
| Russian president does not use the internet at all. There is
| nothing to block.
| kitotik wrote:
| Do you have any citations you can share?
| gurkendoktor wrote:
| Excuse the source, but this article has a bit of context
| about Khameini's tweets and the repeated call for their
| deletion:
|
| https://nypost.com/2020/07/30/twitter-execs-refused-
| request-...
|
| This tweet is particularly famous:
|
| https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1263749566744100864
|
| Honestly I don't think Twitter's removal of the Xinjiang
| tweet had anything to do with foreign policy at all, it just
| made feminism look bad, which _does_ actually crush birth
| rates (even if that 's not what happened in Xinjiang). Right-
| wing Twitter was exploiting the CCP tweet for this alone.
| kitotik wrote:
| That tweet seemed more like espousing a belief or opinion
| than a direct call to action of any sort.
| gurkendoktor wrote:
| From his other tweets it looks like a call to action to
| me, although he has clarified that it's not a call for a
| massacre. This tweet seems to sum it up:
|
| https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/126355187287238656
| 2
|
| I have no opinion on or knowledge about the situation in
| the Middle East, but I found these tweets interesting in
| terms of what is allowed on Twitter.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Reading through all of these twitter issues lately I still
| scratch my head how we got to a place where a medium like
| Twitter, which I've always found to favour the trite and
| flippant, has become some sort of semi-official mouthpiece for
| governments and politicians.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| Twitter is on a show-and-tell mission since recently after it
| deplatformed Donald Trump.
| cutitout wrote:
| I think one man's flaw might be another man's feature in this
| case:
|
| > The following extract shows how a messaging client's text
| entry could be arbitrarily restricted to a fixed number of
| characters, thus forcing any conversation through this medium
| to be terse and discouraging intelligent discourse.
| <label>What are you doing? <input name=status
| maxlength=140></label>
|
| -- https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/input.html#attr-
| input...
| [deleted]
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Don't take anything said on Twitter at face value, and repeat
| this to anyone repeating anything said on Twitter (including
| websites that might include Tweets). Hopefully they will, at
| some point, get the memo ?
| freebuju wrote:
| Take this as you will but you may(or may not) be aware that
| twitter is nowadays regarded as a news source by mainstream
| media journalists
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Yes, journalists are one of the the most important people
| that should get this memo. I've been telling them this at
| any opportunity for years now. Funnily, Trump getting
| banned hurts my case.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| Twitter (and Facebook) might have problems and ill effects on
| large numbers of people, but they are a reliable way of getting
| a message out to a group of people--in the case of Twitter, to
| anyone (even if you don't have a Twitter account, you can visit
| https://twitter.com/AccountName for updates).
|
| Could the government have built such a system by commission for
| the public good (after all it was directly involved in the
| Internet, the substrate thereof), or is this something that was
| only able to coalesce with private capital, markets, and profit
| motive?
| derwiki wrote:
| It's faster than traditional means and they can craft the
| narrative completely (unlike newspapers, TV news)
| charlus wrote:
| This is the main reason. Twenty years ago it was very hard to
| get your message as Government out there to the people, with
| media being the only conduit to do so, of course with their
| own agenda. Now if you want to communicate a point, or refute
| something, you can hop on Twitter and sort it out.
| thwarted wrote:
| It would be just as fast to give high level officials a
| textbox and a submit button that adds content to a web page.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| But if people are only reading on social media, then they
| will only see it when someone else posts it there (e.g. a
| newspaper). Or I'll read it from a newspaper and it's still
| filtered through someone's perspective, unless it's an op
| ed. To reach people directly, you need people to be
| regularly checking wherever you post. Probably what GP
| meant by being able to create the narrative better on
| social media.
| thwarted wrote:
| People won't continuously reload a web page that is a
| political leader's stream of thought?
|
| Something can be a highly currated narrative and be
| accessible to everyone. Shit, people even have web
| browsers on their phones and computers these days. Social
| media in general, and Twitter in particular, does not
| encourage the creation of highly currated narratives.
|
| We should probably invent a publish-subscribe distributed
| protocol for this, maybe some kind of Really Simple
| Syndication.
| pimlottc wrote:
| You can use the word "should" all you want, but the fact
| is that Twitter is where most people are today. And when
| you're trying to your message out, that matters.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| This is what makes me roll my eyes at anyone who says
| getting kicked of Twitter is being "silenced". Make a web
| page and you have broader and more direct reach than almost
| anyone on Earth 20 years ago.
| acct776 wrote:
| But not today.
| bigwavedave wrote:
| > But not today.
|
| Exactly. That was kind of like telling a content creator
| to build a web site and post videos there after getting
| kicked off YouTube. Sure, only a fraction of their
| fanbase will start using their site to consume their
| content, but hey, at least they have a broader reach than
| almost anyone on Earth had 20 years ago.
| polote wrote:
| Didn't that start actually when Trump became president?
| InitialLastName wrote:
| The governments and politicians got more trite and flippant to
| match.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| The full tweet was as follows:
|
| "Study shows that in the process of eradicating extremism, the
| minds of Uygur women in Xinjiang were emancipated and gender
| equality and reproductive health were promoted, making them no
| longer baby-making machines. They are more confident and
| independent."
| Udik wrote:
| Twitter spokesman on the same tweet Thursday 7: "This Tweet is
| not in violation of our policies", after being asked about it by
| an Ars Technica journalist.
|
| Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/twitter-says-
| it-...
| jijji wrote:
| they seem to more of a publisher/editor of content than a passive
| platform allowing its users freedom to express their opinions.
| iridium_core wrote:
| The tweet might be disagreeable, but it is still an important
| statement from a foreign Government. Twitter has no right to be
| 'Ministry of Information'.
| refurb wrote:
| This is what I said a year ago. You can't moderate speech and
| come out the other side looking like a hero. You will only come
| be hated by everyone.
| evgen wrote:
| Better to be hated by everyone than counted among the nazis.
| You _can_ moderate speech, but the first step is to stop
| caring about the opinions of the chattering classes such as
| is found on HN (or on Twitter for that matter.)
| loveistheanswer wrote:
| Indeed. The Catholic Church successfully moderated speech
| for centuries for the completely benevolent cause of saving
| people's souls from the eternity of hell fire which awaited
| them if they were to fall victim to misinformation
| 8note wrote:
| Twitter is definitionally a ministry of truth. They can show
| every tweet to everyone, so they have to pick and choose who
| sees what tweets.
|
| Any sorting or recommendation algorithm makes a choice about
| what ideas should be signal boosted and which ones should be
| hidden.
|
| You visit twitter to see twitter's take on what's important
| Miner49er wrote:
| I agree. I'd rather Twitter ban people then just arbitrarily
| remove random tweets. It's not like the tweets aren't still out
| there somewhere. They just have decided they don't want the
| average person to be able to see them.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The problem with this statement is that there's a literal
| "ministry of information" involved, in the Orwellian sense of a
| controlling censor, and it's the Chinese government:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Industry_and_Infor...
| perennate wrote:
| A ministry of information would jail and possibly harvest the
| organs of those sending the information. As far as I know,
| Twitter has not arrested and harvested the organs of anyone
| working in the embassy.
| [deleted]
| tomc1985 wrote:
| They have every right because they are a private corporation.
| Joke's on China if they think they can post freely without
| being questioned.
|
| There are not enough people holding the Chinese government's
| nose to the shit they're dropping.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| Did you have a problem with Twitter banning ISIS propaganda
| pages and recruiters?
| himinlomax wrote:
| I have a problem with people who believe this propaganda had
| any net effect, except for railing up some people (which
| probably was the intent.)
| vladTheInhaler wrote:
| Language is how we construct our shared reality. When you
| let language like this go unchallenged, it gives legitimacy
| to the worldview it endorses.
| simlevesque wrote:
| How can you say that when there are hundreds of confirmed
| cases of ISIS radicalizing people from the internet ? Why
| do you have a problem believing that ?
| FentanylFloyd wrote:
| terrorism, and recruiting for terrorists is against the law
| mc32 wrote:
| Do you have a problem with Twitter banning foreign enemies?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I think that was precisely their point?
| mc32 wrote:
| I'm asking for a stance.
|
| I think in a democratic society we accept certain
| structures and laws. If the government declares a group
| an enemy of the state, then I think it's fair to comply
| with that law. Making your own laws is not though.
|
| However, just the other day there was hooplah about
| GitHub not allowing access from Iran. So it's like people
| want to eat their cake and also have it.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| I think this is actually a great point because it shows
| how much grey there is in something you're trying to make
| black and white.
|
| China is not declared a foreign enemy by law and yet the
| US government is actively using banning and sanctioning
| their otherwise legally operating companies. If they're
| not a foreign enemy, do they not have rights in the US?
|
| This whole thing is only shades of grey. Pretending it is
| black and white makes an honest conversation about it
| impossible.
| mc32 wrote:
| The China situation is complicated by the unfair nature
| of commerce with them. They can ban Twitter. Google etc.
| Rip off IP and so on.
|
| So while not an enemy, they do engage in anticompetitive
| activities and we should counter them.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| But what if our companies are breaking Chinese law (like,
| not filtering searches), and that's why they've been
| banned?
| mc32 wrote:
| It's true and in that case unless it breaks US law, these
| companies should comply with local regulation.
|
| Now that becomes complicated when you deal with
| authoritarian regimes whose local laws may significantly
| violate international law (severe human rights
| violations, etc).
|
| But that's only half the deal. The other are the one
| sided onerous and coercive terms applied to
| foreign/international companies.
|
| There are two main possibilities of why Google almost
| pulled out completely from China. One was safeguarding
| IP, the other is that at the time they cared a bit more
| about their ideals.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Twitter doesn't make their own laws. They have a
| privately owned platform and can choose how to manage it
| to some degree. Just like a restaurant can kick you out
| if you don't act responsibly.
|
| It might be different if Twitter had a monopoly on social
| networks, but that's not the case.
| leereeves wrote:
| >> Do you have a problem with Twitter banning foreign
| enemies?
|
| > I think that was precisely their point?
|
| Is China our enemy?
| mech422 wrote:
| They agreed to the TOS like everyone else...
|
| If people don't want 'big tech' to be 'Ministry of Information'
| stop using them as such? The Chinese government has plenty of
| channels they could use instead.
| Udik wrote:
| How did the tweet violate the TOS exactly?
| Udik wrote:
| Twitter spokesman Thrusday evening:
|
| "This Tweet is not in violation of our policies".
|
| Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-
| policy/2021/01/twitter-says-it-...
| iso8859-1 wrote:
| The article linked by OP says Twitter did not explain it,
| but since Trump was banned for violation of the
| Glorification of Violence guideline, maybe it applies here
| too.
|
| https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-
| policies/glorification...
| [deleted]
| leereeves wrote:
| What channels could they use instead?
| mech422 wrote:
| The comment I was responding to seems to have been deleted,
| so I'm gonna leave this here:
|
| TBH, I don't know and I don't care...
|
| Twitter, FB, and even HN are not government agencies, and
| it's really getting tiresome to hear people complain they
| should act like one. I don't even use social media outside
| of imgur and HN. Its really getting annoying listening to
| whining about how so and so can't use their favorite echo
| chamber any more.
|
| What happened to the conservative stronghold position that
| companies can refuse service as they see fit? Hell, isn't
| jack a buddhist? Maybe he's just started banning stuff that
| offends his religious beliefs? (As far as I know, he's
| still the majority owner of twitter, so he can basically
| call the shots.)
|
| In short, there is no 'right to be on XXX' (FB, twitter,
| whatever) and private companies can and will de-platform
| you for a variety of reasons.
|
| ps - thanks for the link. Sounds more like trying to
| justify the Uygur persecution then anything else.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Weibo?
| loceng wrote:
| Sorry but this is a moot point. The real question to ask is
| do you think it's a good idea or fair to give equal access
| to Americans and those in nations with free speech, when
| we're not allowed or able to say what we want to the people
| of China?
| hungryhobo wrote:
| yes, isn't that the whole point of free speech?
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| The Chinese government has its own foreign-language
| websites and even multiple foreign-language newspapers.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| I see people asking this question, let me flip it around:
| where is the guarantee (implicit or explicit) that in a
| free society we are owed a channel to broadcast a message?
| mc32 wrote:
| I think when you set out to become ubiquitous, gobble up
| competitors in your space and advertise yourself in order
| to gain more followers to cement your network effects.
|
| It's like denying someone electricity. Sure we can do
| without. But society is now set up such that not allowing
| someone to use electricity is beyond the pale.
|
| Social media has made themselves indispensable and as
| such they owe access to whomever they've extended access
| to, unless the users violate local laws.
| mech422 wrote:
| >>I think when you set out to become ubiquitous, gobble
| up competitors in your space and advertise yourself in
| order to gain more followers to cement your network
| effects.
|
| By that logic, MS Windows licenses should be free and
| Wal-mart should be forced to stay in every location it
| killed off all the competitors. Maybe home depot and ikea
| too?
|
| But MS windows isn't free, and box stores close
| locations. TBH, I find these 'mostly monopolies' a lot
| more disturbing then social media companies.
| [deleted]
| stale2002 wrote:
| If Walmart colluded with all the other major grocery
| stories to ban anyone who wants to raise their taxes, for
| example, then I would find that pretty horrifying as well
| and would advocate for laws to prevent that.
|
| Fortunately, we aren't seeing such actions yet, so we
| don't really have a large need for such laws. But yes, if
| such actions happened, then that would be bad and we
| should make that illegal.
| dbsmith83 wrote:
| > I think when you set out to become ubiquitous, gobble
| up competitors in your space and advertise yourself in
| order to gain more followers to cement your network
| effects.
|
| You mean, be successful?
|
| > It's like denying someone electricity.
|
| Like electricity? That's a laughable assertion.
|
| Thankfully you are completely mistaken about what the law
| is.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| I was hoping to find middle ground in this conversation
| but if you truly believe the ability to tweet or post on
| Facebook is indispensable, I'm not sure we will.
| mc32 wrote:
| It may not be exactly indispensable now, but they want to
| become such. In that light I think in ten years when they
| are your bank and whatever else, I think they will be
| indispensable.
|
| In any case, I'm willing to listen.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| Alright:
|
| > It's like denying someone electricity.
|
| In some parts of the United States being denied utilities
| can (and does) lead to death as a result of exposure. I
| don't believe comparing this to deplatforming from the
| internet is a good faith argument.
|
| > It may not be exactly indispensable now, but they want
| to become such.
|
| So they're not now, but they want to be, so we need to
| treat them like they are? That's like saying we should
| apply monopoly laws to every company in a market because
| they're trying to grow. When Twitter has a monopoly on
| the distribution of speech, I'll agree with you. In the
| meantime, even without social media, there are more ways
| to deliver a message than there ever have been in the
| history of mankind.
|
| As has been mentioned over and over the last few days,
| freedom of speech means you have the right to say it, not
| the right to broadcast it.
|
| > In that light I think in ten years when they are your
| bank and whatever else
|
| I say this semi-sarcastically, but when I can't spend my
| money because I've been deplatformed from twitter, I
| screwed up more than them.
| julianmarq wrote:
| > In some parts of the United States being denied
| utilities can (and does) lead to death as a result of
| exposure. I don't believe comparing this to deplatforming
| from the internet is a good faith argument.
|
| Without getting into the point of the conversation[1],
| taking the most extreme interpretation of someone else's
| words and argue against that would be the no good faith
| argument in this case, IMO. The HN guidelines encourage
| to steelman the other person's point and argue against
| that; you seem to have done the opposite.
|
| In other words, the other person didn't argue that
| removing access to social media was akin to killing you
| (like it would be for a few people if they didn't have
| access to electricity), but that it would be a huge
| inconvenience (like it would be for most people if they
| lost access to electricity).
|
| [1]: I'm starting to not see the point in discussing the
| merits of free speech or what constitutes free speech or
| censorship. I believe free speech is fundamental, and for
| that reason it's anyone's prerogative to think otherwise.
| Getting into that discussion at all is also a bit ironic.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| You know, you're right. My perception of the argument's
| merits clouded my judgment as to whether the argument was
| made in good faith.
| mech422 wrote:
| It won't let me comment on your longer reply below. I
| just wanted to say, this:
|
| >>there are more ways to deliver a message than there
| ever have been in the history of mankind
|
| really resonates with me - its a lot easier now then it
| ever was with "letters to the editors" or "public access
| cable" or whatever other medium you pick. Even getting a
| ham license and taking your message global is easier then
| before.
| Retric wrote:
| The irony of that statement is the CCP couldn't use Twitter
| in China as they had already blocked it. So, they must
| already use other channels by choice.
| [deleted]
| headShrinker wrote:
| This really should be the top comment. China's comments
| on our democracy are always filled with so much irony
| it's laughable.
| leereeves wrote:
| It's equally ironic that we're celebrating as a similar
| Firewall is imposed on us, while criticizing theirs.
|
| It's not much of an improvement if we just have a
| privately owned Firewall.
| headShrinker wrote:
| Agreed. With each movement and gyration I feel a
| metaphorical boa-constrictor wrapping tighter and tighter
| around our freedoms. I can put myself on both sides of
| most arguments, while my emotional attachment is to a
| democratic socialist leaning. The implications for tech
| determining how, where, what and why to every aspect of
| our daily lives is deeply concerning. Freedom of speech
| has always had limits and those limits are essential to
| democracy. Those limits were deeply debated among legal
| scholars for decades before decisions were made.
|
| Now I feel we are making quick brash moves in a moment of
| excitement and drunkin power, with no judicial oversight.
| In our collective hangovers we will begin to realize the
| true ramifications of tech companies deciding what is
| fair speech and fair thought at its inception, way before
| a movement, momentum or Legal judicial oversight is even
| possible.
| [deleted]
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| - A press release.
|
| - Their own website.
|
| - (self-published) books and/or periodicals
|
| - Email
| [deleted]
| brighton36 wrote:
| No one reads the tos. Clicks are not agreements.
| mech422 wrote:
| Guess they should start then ?
|
| Entering into a contract ('creating an account') is
| probably something you shouldn't do without reading the
| terms.
| Negitivefrags wrote:
| Let he who has read all the TOS agreements they are
| subject to cast the first stone.
| brighton36 wrote:
| Probably not. If 'everyone knows' the TOS is merely a
| conspiracy thrust upon 'us'. Then, it'll cease being
| enforceable. Respect for the rules is not required. It's
| merely a courtesy society offers, when the rules are
| 'fair'.
| mech422 wrote:
| "laws are merely a conspiracy thrust upon us..." Good
| luck with that logic in your murder trial... :-P
|
| "copyright is merely a conspiracy thrust upon us", so its
| perfectly fine to pirate software.
|
| Also, any code I make public will be under terms _I_ find
| acceptable - what 'everyone knows' really doesn't factor
| into the equation. You're not entitled to set usage terms
| for my work.
|
| Oh, and respect for the rules IS required - or you get
| de-platformed. For examples see half of HN's front page
| :-P
|
| edit: formatting - need more coffee
| bigbob2 wrote:
| I understand your point but I'm not sure what the TOS has
| to do with a murder trial... The parent never said
| anything about all laws being a conspiracy.
| mech422 wrote:
| The parent implied the mere fact that 'everyone knows'
| something is a 'conspiracy' is enough reason for it to
| 'cease being enforceable'. We have both civil and
| criminal laws, and I listed examples of both?
|
| edit: actually, I didn't...copyright is a criminal
| offense too, I think ? "up to 5 years in jail" ?? oh
| well, my bad.
| dbsmith83 wrote:
| Lie.
|
| > The user must click a button or check a box. This action
| helps confirm the user's agreement of the terms.
|
| https://www.upcounsel.com/are-website-terms-and-
| conditions-l...
| hyperdimension wrote:
| You know, starting a reply to someone with the single
| word (sentence?) 'Lie' is not terribly friendly and may
| not lead to the constructive discussion we all come here
| to enjoy.
|
| It's not just you either; I've seen comments with
| 'False.' strewn around this site and it sounds (to me)
| equally as cold.
|
| Just a friendly note. You're neither a liar nor is your
| comment false.
| dbsmith83 wrote:
| To me, simply saying "False." with a link is not any
| colder than saying "That is false." or "that is untrue,
| see this ___", etc..
|
| I admit, I agree that "Lie." was a little on the cold
| side. I find that when people blurt out something so
| obviously and verifiably false that they are either being
| lazy or facetious which also does not "lead to a
| constructive conversation". Perhaps if I had the ability
| to downvote it I would have done that and moved on. Not
| an excuse, just an explanation.
| hyperdimension wrote:
| Fair point; I see what you mean. It just seems like all
| it takes is just a few words, and the tone changes
| dramatically though the meaning remains the same.
|
| I just see it a lot here and I pay (way too much)
| attention to the words/phrases people use, and that one
| bothers me especially for whatever reason.
| undersuit wrote:
| Yes they do!
|
| https://twitter.com/en/tos
|
| >By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the
| Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free
| license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce,
| process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and
| distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution
| methods now known or later developed (for clarity, these rights
| include, for example, curating, transforming, and translating).
| consumer451 wrote:
| > Twitter has no right to be 'Ministry of Information'.
|
| Twitter did not prevent them from stating anything. Twitter
| employees simply decided they want to have no part in this. Are
| you saying they should be forced to publish this tweet?
|
| The logic here escapes me.
| Fellshard wrote:
| They did not publish the tweet. They provided the tools for
| the tweet to be published. There is a distinction, as they
| had no hand in the act of creating the tweet itself.
| consumer451 wrote:
| > There is a distinction
|
| It is a distinction with no real meaning to me, in this
| case.
|
| If I was an employee at Twitter working to expand the reach
| of my platform, and the platform was being used to brag
| about genocide, then I would feel partly responsible for
| normalizing that behavior.
| Fellshard wrote:
| Then I encourage you to continue to develop distinctions
| and nuance, because this cuts many ways.
| consumer451 wrote:
| Thank you, I will.
| plasticxme wrote:
| Twitter is a private sector business in the US with terms that
| include reserving the right to remove any content for any
| reason. They have every right to.
|
| If you don't agree with it, for moral reasons or otherwise,
| you're free to provide your own service.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| Parler tried to start their own service and look what is
| happening to them.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| Parler would be fine if its members didn't consistently
| incite violence.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| Are there a larger percentage of violent comments on
| Parler than Facebook or Twitter? I haven't seen any
| evidence of that.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| I think frequency will be hard to prove right now, but
| when you have things like this, they are completely
| justified. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a
| duck, it's probably a duck.:
|
| "Parler, the "free speech" social network, reportedly
| removed a post by Lin Wood, in which the pro-Trump lawyer
| threatened violence against Vice President Mike Pence.
|
| "Get the firing squads ready. Pence goes FIRST," wrote
| Wood, according to Mediate. "
|
| https://news.yahoo.com/parler-removed-violent-mike-
| pence-170...
| andrewclunn wrote:
| Do you people just copy paste this exact comment, and replace
| "Twitter" with whatever social network, ISP, payment
| processor in question exists? Did you oppose the Civil Rights
| Act, which forced restaurants for example to serve blacks? Do
| you think there's anyone here who isn't aware that Twitter is
| a private company?
|
| You add nothing to the conversation when you do this, you
| just reiterate a neo-liberal talking point that even most
| self identifying libertarians disagree with now.
| purplecats wrote:
| okay mr oligopolist
| brighton36 wrote:
| Twitter runs on public infrastructure. It's beholden to the
| community in the same way trucks are.
| bigpumpkin wrote:
| They sure have the right to. But I also have the right to
| criticize their decision.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Section 230 was created when Twitter (and the likes) were
| much less important for public discourse.
|
| I'm willing to bet that it's going to be amended, just like
| the EU version of it was.
|
| Consider this precedent :
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama
|
| > The Court rejected that contention, noting that ownership
| "does not always mean absolute dominion." The court pointed
| out that the more an owner opens his property up to the
| public in general, the more his rights are circumscribed by
| the statutory and constitutional rights of those who are
| invited in.
|
| In its conclusion, the Court stated that it was essentially
| weighing the rights of property owners against the rights of
| citizens to enjoy freedom of press and religion. The Court
| noted that the rights of citizens under the Bill of Rights
| occupy a preferred position. Accordingly, the Court held that
| the property rights of a private entity are not sufficient to
| justify the restriction of a community of citizens'
| fundamental rights and liberties.
| Negitivefrags wrote:
| That's a really interesting case and surprisingly relevant
| to today's situation. I've never seen a good argument for
| being able to counter a companies ability to decide who to
| service under today's laws before. People usually
| concentrate on the idea that new regulation is required.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| This case is completely different and not relevant.
|
| Twitter has terms of service - that in and of itself is not
| equivalent to a sidewalk opened for all to use.
| stale2002 wrote:
| You can look at phone companies then, for a similar
| example.
|
| It is illegal, due to common carrier laws, for a phone
| companies to engage in certain actions. They are actually
| forced to accept certain customers.
|
| These existing laws that apply to phone companies could
| be expanded to apply to other forms of communication
| networks.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| It's a bad example - phone conversations are relatively
| private and not meant for public consumption.
|
| If this was P2P messaging I'd agree. But that's not the
| case here.
| turbonoobie wrote:
| I agree, but this needs to be sorted with regulation, and not
| blaming Twitter for doing bad when they're able to do what they
| want on their platform.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Principled response: Twitter should ban completely ban foreign
| governments who don't allow free speech for their citizens.
| eplanit wrote:
| But banning domestic users for their free speech is ok?
| Pfhreak wrote:
| That'd ban everyone. Is there a country that permits fully
| free speech? Certainly not the US. What about Germany?
|
| So now you are back in the position of making a judgement
| call about whose laws permit free enough speech. There's no
| black and white line to draw here.
| nabla9 wrote:
| There is clearly visible line to be drawn.
|
| Difference in free speech between countries is not some
| linear continuum that gets gradually fuzzier when you get
| closer to Russia, Saudi Arabia and China. It varies a
| little, countries have idiosyncrasies, then there is big
| discontinuity.
| Pfhreak wrote:
| Yeah? In Denmark you can be fined for language that is
| insulting or degrading. Germany bans political parties.
| In Italy speech against the honor and prestige of the
| president is forbidden. South Korea strictly limits
| speech around elections. In Australia there is no
| constitutional protection of free speech and media
| (particularly depicting violence) is regularly censored.
|
| Now let's start going through the other countries and
| tell me how this isn't a spectrum. Where does Malaysia
| fall on your bright line? Turkey? The Philippines? Iran?
| Thailand? Belarus? Brazil? Egypt? Eritrea?
|
| I guarantee you that attempting to draw a bright line
| will absolutely run into fuzzy edges and judgement calls.
| YarickR2 wrote:
| define "free speech". Or you arr using it in the USA sense ?
| farseer wrote:
| The enitity that tweeted this statement forecibly sterlized
| women and is presenting the results as "emancipation". This
| isn't disagreeable, its monsterous and diabolical. The same
| limits that apply to serial killers presenting their handiwork
| on twitter apply here as well.
| himinlomax wrote:
| I'd rather have this not censored and for the whole world to
| see than swept under the rug.
|
| Censorship is not a solution, it's the problem. Both in China
| and in Silicon Valley.
| wazoox wrote:
| > The enitity that tweeted this statement forecibly sterlized
| women
|
| Do you have the slightest evidence for this? Census data
| shows that Uighur population doubled in the past 30 years,
| because this population hasn't been subjected to the "one
| child policy" among other things.
|
| This is a war of propaganda, from both side. None is
| particularly more believable than the other. proceed with
| caution.
| notadog wrote:
| https://apnews.com/article/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| I was interested to learn that this policy only dates
| back to 2014, rather than being some longtime oppression.
| I had thought it was more similar to America's
| relationship with the Native Americans.
|
| > For decades, China had one of the most extensive
| systems of minority entitlements in the world, with
| Uighurs and others getting more points on college
| entrance exams, hiring quotas for government posts and
| laxer birth control restrictions. Under China's now-
| abandoned 'one child' policy, the authorities had long
| encouraged, often forced, contraceptives, sterilization
| and abortion on Han Chinese. But minorities were allowed
| two children -- three if they came from the countryside.
|
| Anyway, a world where China's tweet is up and this link
| is the first reply to it strikes me as far better, in
| discourse and the availability of truth, then a world
| where I know I'm only allowed to read this article and
| China cannot defend themselves.
| farseer wrote:
| This is a good source that summarizes some of the primary
| accounts: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/01/china-
| documents-uighur-...
|
| I am afraid this isn't propaganda unlike the above tweet.
| La1n wrote:
| Written by Adrian Zenz. I am sorry but if you really want
| to convince me/someone something isn't propaganda Adrian
| Zenz isn't the person to link. He is ultra religious and
| wrote some questional material before he felt "lead by
| God" against China, and has had quite a few times were we
| spread fake news.
|
| I find it weird to denounce one as propaganda but not
| look into who wrote this. A lot of the anti China sources
| are based on his or US and/or weapon manufacturers funded
| sources.
| [deleted]
| w14 wrote:
| If that's true, then is it not better the tweet stays up and
| is challenged?
|
| In this case the fact the tweet was taken down made
| headlines, but if censorship like this is becoming the norm,
| as it looks like it is, then these issues potentially get no
| exposure or discussion.
|
| That seems more dangerous to me.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > If that's true, then is it not better the tweet stays up
| and is challenged?
|
| I used to agree with this line of thinking, but I believe
| the past dozen years or so of the information age have made
| it abundantly clear that simply having the truth on your
| side and making a rational case for it is not even remotely
| sufficient to counter the spread of misinformation.
|
| Honestly, I'm not sure that free speech as a concept will
| be able to survive the information age. It seems as though
| any society holding it sacrosanct might be doomed to
| collapse from divisive pressure both internal and external.
| I hope I'm wrong about that, but only time will tell, and
| interesting[0] times they will be.
|
| [0] In the apocryphal chinese curse sense of the word, if
| that wasn't obvious.
| AndrewUnmuted wrote:
| You're correct, having the truth on your side and making
| a rational case for it is...
|
| > not even remotely sufficient to counter the spread of
| misinformation.
|
| However, allowing the tweet to be removed - _especially_
| when its consequences are so critical - takes away the
| only tool we have at our disposal. It may not be enough,
| but the conclusion we ought to reach from this should be
| that we need more of it, not less of it.
|
| Worse, it makes the situation murky by placing a veil
| over the initial communication, because the tweet's
| effect of having been seen has already occurred.
| Obfuscating this information after it has already seen
| the light of day adds to its dark powers and makes
| disinformation harder to stop.
| loveistheanswer wrote:
| >the past dozen years or so of the information age have
| made it abundantly clear that simply having the truth on
| your side and making a rational case for it is not even
| remotely sufficient to counter the spread of
| misinformation.
|
| Hasn't that been the case for all of human history?
| julianmarq wrote:
| _> I hope I 'm wrong about [society being doomed to
| collapse because of free speech]_
|
| I'm confused, then why did you say this?
|
| > _I used to agree with this line of thinking_
|
| Unless I'm misinterpreting this, you seem "not to longer
| agree" with the merits of free speech. If so, then why do
| you hope to be wrong about it eventually disappearing?
|
| _> the past dozen years or so of the information age
| have made it abundantly clear that simply having the
| truth on your side and making a rational case for it is
| not even remotely sufficient to counter the spread of
| misinformation._
|
| Even if I agreed with this--which I don't--the answer to
| this hypothetical reality is _definitely_ not to start
| removing _actual_ information.[1]
|
| For instance, having tweets like that exist would be good
| counterevidence to all to apologia of certain bad actors
| that goes around, even here in HN.
|
| _> Honestly, I 'm not sure that free speech as a concept
| will be able to survive the information age_
|
| Usually the first ones silenced are the ones promoting
| censorship. That's what I'd usually say anyway, but it is
| pointless; I would be silenced eventually too and I _don
| 't_ want to be silenced, even if it happens to me after
| it does to the ones who are "inadvertently" asking to be
| silenced.
|
| _> It seems as though any society holding it sacrosanct
| might be doomed to collapse from divisive pressure both
| internal and external._
|
| Do you have historical evidence to back up this claim?
|
| All in all, my hope is that we find easier, better ways
| for people to fact check, instead of removing data
| wholesale. Language is the basis of civilization, so
| restricting communication is not the way to go. Improving
| it is the way to move forward; it has always been so, I
| think.
|
| [1]: And to note, I'm not saying that what was said in
| that tweeted article wasn't an awful lie. The information
| is not the content, the information is the fact that it
| was said at all.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > Unless I'm misinterpreting this, you seem "not to
| longer agree" with the merits of free speech. If so, then
| why do you hope to be wrong about it eventually
| disappearing?
|
| I still believe in the merits of free speech as regards
| reasoned good-faith open debate and communication, what
| has changed is that it is now clear to me that bad-faith
| propaganda without regard for reason cannot be countered
| by reason, and that such communication is in fact
| significantly dangerous.
|
| > Even if I agreed with this [that misinformation can't
| be countered with reason] --which I don't-- the answer to
| this hypothetical reality is definitely not to start
| removing actual information.
|
| If recent events haven't convinced you, I honestly don't
| know what will. I don't see any way around having to
| remove the underlying (mis)information in order to
| prevent its spread. Events have shown that merely tagging
| misinforamtion as such is not effective, and that's
| without getting into an argument about who gets to judge
| what is and isn't misinformation.
|
| > Do you have historical evidence to back up this claim?
|
| You mean aside from the increasingly violent divisiveness
| of politics in the past dozen years? Not really. I'm not
| intending to prove it exhaustively in my post so much as
| to say that it seems like it might be the case. I welcome
| evidence to the contrary.
|
| > All in all, my hope is that we find easier, better ways
| for people to fact check, instead of removing data
| wholesale.
|
| People have many methods to fact check right now, but it
| has been shown that people prefer to ignore information
| that runs counter to what they want to be true. People
| can be lead to water but can't be made to drink, it
| seems. Indeed, the information age has made fact checking
| more accessible than it has ever been in history, yet we
| have seen recently that people will attempt to overthrow
| the government based on outright fabrication and even
| call for the hanging of an otherwise politically aligned
| individual for disagreeing with them.
| julianmarq wrote:
| _> I still believe in the merits of free speech as
| regards reasoned good-faith open debate [...] such
| communication is in fact significantly dangerous._
|
| These two sentences cannot be true at the same time; one
| is either in favor of free communication or one isn't.
| There are many ways to name the idea of "I'm okay with
| speech as long as I deem it to be in good faith/not
| dangerous", but free speech is _not_ one of them.
|
| It's the entire point: "I might hate what you say, but
| I'll defend your right to say it."
|
| _> If recent events haven 't convinced you, I honestly
| don't know what will._
|
| Why would anything convince me of the idea that something
| I deem to be the basis of progress in civilization, is
| actually not so?
|
| To give an example: The church had significant power--
| even over the state in vast swathes of Europe--in the
| middle ages, and they were pretty censorious. Yet the
| renaissance still happened, in no small part thanks to
| the printing press and the huge boost it gave to the
| sharing of knowledge.
|
| Interestingly, the reformation also happened around that
| time, and with it brought quite a few religious wars,
| with both groups making claims that don't sound all that
| unlike to "the other side is spreading falsehoods and
| there's no other way to stop them".
|
| Nowadays, catholics and protestants seem to be mostly
| okay with each other, and I'm sure today's conflicts will
| eventually become a thing of the past too. But it will
| not be thanks to censorship.
|
| _> that 's without getting into an argument about who
| gets to judge what is and isn't misinformation._
|
| This is an argument _against_ your point, not in favor of
| it, I think. Who 's the arbiter of what's misinformation?
| Twitter or any of the other gigantic and "evil"[1]
| corporations?
|
| _> You mean aside from the increasingly violent
| divisiveness of politics in the past dozen years?_
|
| Interesting, many claim that misinformation is at fault
| of that divide. Just as many instead claim that it's
| siloing, filter bubbles and echo chambers the real
| culprit.
|
| _> I 'm not intending to prove it exhaustively in my
| post so much as to say that it seems like it might be the
| case. I welcome evidence to the contrary._
|
| But the burden of proof is on the one who affirms, not on
| the one who denies. Believing something just because it
| seems like it might be true and because one hasn't looked
| for counterevidence can be unfalsifiable. To wit, one
| might just believe it and that's that.
|
| Which is, of course, one's prerogative. Free speech and
| all that; everyone is free to believe anything.
|
| _> People have many methods to fact check right
| now.[...] Indeed, the information age has made fact
| checking more accessible than it has ever been in
| history_
|
| Case in point. There might be many ways to fact check and
| it might be more accessible, but clearly not _enough_ ,
| for whatever reason. For example, in this case, if it
| were easier and faster, you could have more readily
| looked for evidence of your "any society holding free
| speech as sacrosanct is doomed to collapse" claim, I
| think.
|
| [1]: Well, they're "evil" as long as the discussion is
| not about free speech but instead about any of the
| _other_ unethical things they do. When the subject is
| censorship, many people are in their favor, it seems.
| tingol wrote:
| You're missing the main point, our fact-checking has
| never been so fast and efficient, but the point is people
| just ignore it (e.g. fake ballots being burned, debunked
| minutes later and millions still believe it).
| julianmarq wrote:
| What point am I missing exactly? I don't understand how
| that sentence is apropos.
|
| Sure, fact-checking has never been so "fast or
| efficient"... But it clearly is still not yet fast or
| efficient, or perhaps promoted, _enough_.
|
| But even that aside, I don't understand what's the point
| I apparently missed. I can only think that the
| implication is that fact checking already is as good as
| it'll _ever_ be and, even assuming that that was true (it
| isn 't), then we should just give up on free speech and
| resign ourselves to censorship? Well, I didn't "miss"
| that point, I just don't agree.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| It's better because Twitter doesn't want to spread their
| propaganda even if it's rebutted.
|
| Not to mention the population most affected by this _can
| 't_ challenge it _since they 're being decimated by forced
| re-education camps where they are sterilized by the same
| government that tweeted this_
|
| It's a little tone deaf to ask why it being challenged is
| preferable in light of that isn't it?
|
| -
|
| This is getting so old so quickly in the last few days.
|
| I'll take the flak from people insisting the traction here
| is totally organic and has nothing to do with current
| events and that I'm just trying to derail things with
| "orange man bad":
|
| This wouldn't have made front page as quickly before
| Trump's suspension. A quick search shows out of the last
| few months this post already has more points than any other
| twitter removal post.
|
| Their removal of an entire campaign wasn't even a blip:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/technology/twitter-
| chines...
|
| At the end of the day Twitter left a President's account
| along for 4 years through hundreds of violations of their
| platform, petty insults, vague threats to entire nations,
| etc.
|
| They finally blinked when that person led to 5 casualties
| after a mob attacked the Capitol.
|
| -
|
| For the slippery slope to matter, there needs to be a
| slope.
|
| Twitter has demonstrated their extreme restraint in
| censoring anything remotely deemed as official.
|
| People can keep forcing this angle of how "dangerous" it is
| that they're willing to remove only the most egregious
| instances of rules violations on their private platform but
| it's just not true.
|
| It's their right that was cemented by the Supreme Court
| because some lady didn't want to bake cakes for gay people,
| and the discretion in applying that right is excellent.
|
| You can talk about hypotheticals where they go off the deep
| end and start censoring everything... but by that logic the
| US government can go off the deep end and start censoring
| print media. Nothing is immune from doomsday hypotheticals.
| IkmoIkmo wrote:
| They're not, but they can be ministry of their terms and
| conditions, which don't allow blatant propaganda posts
| (regardless of whether it's from a citizen or from a government
| representative) that claim victims of forced sterilisation are
| simply emancipating and choosing to have fewer children as an
| explanation for dropping birth rates.
|
| China is free to publish its nonsense on its own channels. why
| should Twitter agree to be a propaganda platform for China?
|
| Twitter can't police every post, but if a post gets a million
| views and is a blatant lie about human rights abuses, it's a
| bit silly to argue they should let that slide because it's an
| 'important statement from a foreign government'.
|
| If the NYT tweets about this statement, and attaches the proper
| context based on generally accepted standards of proper
| journalism, it wouldn't have been an issue. You can talk about
| things without being a propaganda piece. Hitler advertising in
| the NYT in the WW2 shouldn't be accepted. Journalists writing
| about something Hitler said and putting it in the context
| (i.e., mentioning the human rights abuses), is fine. Apologies
| for the obligatory nazi reference but it makes explaining the
| principe so much easier, even if China isn't as bad.
| gxnxcxcx wrote:
| The obligation to apologize for nazi references in one's
| rhetoric went out the window the moment actual nazis started
| getting mainstreamed into politics again.
| emptyparadise wrote:
| Instead of policing what Twitter can and can't allow on its
| website, we should look at the root of the issue: the global
| public square should not be controlled by a single corporation.
| brown9-2 wrote:
| which single company controls the global public square?
| YarickR2 wrote:
| The root of the issue is there should be no single global
| public square
| emptyparadise wrote:
| Exactly! Decentralization is the only viable long term
| solution here.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| The newspapers and TV news stations also won't publish the most
| offensive statements from foreign leaders (or even local ones)
| either.
|
| You could possibly argue that things like email or telephones
| won't censor people, but if foreign governments tried regularly
| calling us to send propaganda, they'd get blocked.
| dna_polymerase wrote:
| It's not Twitter's fault that they are your only source of
| information. You can go elsewhere, they are a private company
| and owe you jack-shit.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| That's not completely true. We (society) allow these
| corporations to exist and make money off of us, so there's a
| worthwhile discussion to have about what should be done about
| corporations that don't hold our values.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| The problem is that there's no middleground. Either you don't
| play the "ministry of information" role and have to live with
| the fact that eventually your platform will turn into a more
| chaotic 4chan, or you start removing particularly excessive
| content at which point you crossed the only line that can be
| clearly defined.
|
| This is one of the reasons I think old-school forums are
| superior in terms of "web hygiene". You have a group of
| moderators, each responsible for a clearly defined section and
| a userbase small enough so rules are still enforceable. And the
| people running it are not an untouchable megacorporation.
| eznzt wrote:
| >your platform will turn into a more chaotic 4chan
|
| You might be surprised to know most 4chan boards are very
| tightly moderated.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| I didn't write it very clearly, I guess "unmoderated" would
| have been a more fitting term. Especially as my main point
| was about the need of moderators so the community doesn't
| turn into a toxic pit.
| fvdessen wrote:
| Since this tweet comes from the chinese embassy of the USA,
| it seems to me that this is diplomatic matters and should be
| handled by the government. For example the USA government
| could apply diplomatic sanctions to the embassy if they do
| not delete the tweet. I find it very strange that the twitter
| moderation team is acting in stead of the foreign affairs
| department.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| If it's diplomatic matters they should have used the usual
| diplomatic channels. They instead posted it on a privately
| owned platform they themselves banned in their own country.
|
| Twitter has to obey the law, other than that they don't owe
| that embassy anything.
| emptyparadise wrote:
| If we're going to treat Twitter like a public utility,
| let's just nationalize it and get rid of the oligopoly.
| Although I'd rather have it broken apart into a bunch of
| federated websites with a hard requirement to never break
| federation (GTalk/XMPP style) with the rest of the open
| web.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Twitter is not an arm of the US government. It's like
| saying I don't have the right to choose what is published
| in my newsletter [0].
|
| [0] I don't actually have a newsletter.
| perennate wrote:
| Twitter has the right (and, really, an ethical obligation)
| to deter the spread of misinformation by malicious actors.
| This tweet implicitly makes the false claim that mass
| sterilization in Xinjiang is voluntary, and its deletion
| will mitigate the impact of the misinformation and fake
| news.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| If China sent it as a statement to every newspaper and
| television channel in the US, do you think they should be
| required to run it as a story?
| free_rms wrote:
| Terrible analogy, newspapers and stations have limited
| space for what they cover and it's an editorial decision
| to choose to run something over something else.
|
| Twitter could just let the tweet exist for people who
| personally choose to follow the Chinese US embassy at no
| cost to other tweets. I mean, it's from a national
| government's embassy, their angle is not hidden at all.
|
| Now they open themselves up to all sorts of questions,
| are they softer on the Saudis? On Israel?
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Why is US company Twitter obligated to perform postal
| services for a foreign government?
| free_rms wrote:
| It's more effort to ban a post than to just leave it up.
|
| Getting into picking and choosing which foreign
| governments are allowed to post, and which messages
| they'll countenance, at additional expenses for their mod
| team? Twitter has a foreign policy?
| ericmay wrote:
| > it seems to me that this is diplomatic matters and should
| be handled by the government
|
| You'd obviously see similar arguments about keeping Trump's
| account. What if the leader of a country calls for
| violence? Keep it because diplomacy?
|
| As someone else mentioned and I now agree with, Twitter
| isn't an arm of the government. It's a U.S. company that
| has rules. Government officials can use any platform they
| want to get their message out. Companies can mostly do
| whatever they want with their own platforms.
| valuearb wrote:
| Foreign embassies have no right to abrogate the private
| property rights of US citizens or businesses.
| rsynnott wrote:
| This seems backward. The government has no business
| censoring the Chinese embassy. However, the embassy has no
| particular right to force platforms to disseminate its
| propaganda.
|
| Honestly, this sort of action just seems like a return to
| the status quo; you can say what you want, and people who
| read a lot of embassy press releases might see it, but good
| luck finding a newspaper who'll cooperate if it's abhorrent
| stuff like this.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| I guess it will make Trump feel a bit better ...
| julienreszka wrote:
| Why are they censoring this. We need to know what's happening
| there! Stop hiding the reality of what they stand for!!!
| m3kw9 wrote:
| People here complaint about moderation is being moderated here,
| and they are OK with it. OK meaning they are not actively pushing
| back on such moderations.
| julienreszka wrote:
| I don't think that the reality. You can check yourself here:
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
| runawaybottle wrote:
| I suppose Twitter will learn what real censorship is from the o.g
| CCP very soon.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Twitter
|
| > Twitter is blocked in China
|
| > According to the official verdicts as of 2020, hundreds
| Chinese were sentenced to prison due to their tweeting,
| retweeting and liking on twitter.
|
| I don't think they'll be all that surprised.
| h_anna_h wrote:
| Isn't twitter banned in china? I think it would be fair that
| since chinese "peasants" can't use it then the chinese "elite",
| companies, and government should not be able to either. I for one
| would support twitter banning them, let them taste their own
| medicine.
| La1n wrote:
| Sure, but then ban their account and all ips. Not just tweets
| that you don't think line up with US version of the truth.
| dustinmoris wrote:
| I am astonished by how many people claim that China has forcibly
| steralised women. It might very well be, but I have not seen any
| evidence yet.
|
| Don't we learn anything from our past mistakes? Still waiting for
| anyone to find mass destruction weapons in Iran.
|
| Standing up for human rights is great, but there is a fine line
| between being a good activist and being ignorant, uninformed and
| imperialist. A private US company cannot decide for the rest of
| the world if China has violated humans rights if there is no
| evidence for it.
| farseer wrote:
| https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/01/china-documents-uighur-...
|
| There are primary sources available that are the basis of this
| report.
| newacct583 wrote:
| > I am astonished by how many people claim that China has
| forcibly steralised women. It might very well be, but I have
| not seen any evidence yet.
|
| While yes, it's true it's very difficult to get solid data out
| of remote and tightly-locked-down regions of totalitarian
| states...
|
| Let's be honest: if you wanted to Tweet something that
| convinced the world you were sterilizing Uighurs, this is what
| you would Tweet. "Pay no attention to that marked change in
| birth rate, that's just because our women are so happy now!"
| Yikes.
| dustinmoris wrote:
| If I was an evil authoritarian leader secretly steralising
| women then I'd not tweet anything and tell all my other
| minions to not tweet anything that would raise questions.
|
| But irrespective of what I would do myself, this tweet does
| neither prove for or against such actions and therefore it's
| not Twitter's role to silence it. Let our governments and
| independent investigative journalists do their work and give
| us a counter view if they disagree with that tweet. There was
| no need for Twitter to get involved. I think they did that to
| balance their editorial decision on Trump and to please both,
| the democratic party as well as the republican because social
| media companies fear that new legislation could harm them and
| so they try to appeal to everyone now.
| dbsmith83 wrote:
| https://jamestown.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Zenz-Intern...
| lightgreen wrote:
| Slightly different version is still there:
| https://twitter.com/ChineseEmbinUS/status/134722475548574924...
| justinzollars wrote:
| So what.
|
| One has more political freedom using Chinese social apps than one
| has using American social apps.
| redflame8 wrote:
| I'm over 18, can I turn safe-search off?
| cptnapalm wrote:
| Neither in the article nor the comments: Twitter previously
| issued a statement saying that this did not violate their policy.
| Twitter also justified allowing the calls for genocide by the
| Ayatollah on their platform.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/twitter-says-it-...
|
| https://jewishjournal.com/news/worldwide/319713/twitter-offi...
| ZoomerCretin wrote:
| I can't understand why this newspaper would make such an
| outrageous claim and cite tweets which very clearly disprove
| the point just made. Am I missing something, or does the
| Ayatollah not call for genocide in those tweets?
|
| To those downvoting, I urge you to read the tweets linked. If I
| am wrong, simply quote the portion of these tweets which
| specifically makes a call for genocide and I will be delighted
| to be proven wrong.
| hu3 wrote:
| Seems pretty clear to me:
|
| "Why should & how can #Israel be eliminated? Ayatollah
| Khamenei's answer to 9 key questions."
|
| https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/531366667377717248
| ZoomerCretin wrote:
| "What does elimination of Israel mean in the viewpoint of
| Imam Khomeini?"
|
| "The only means of bringing Israeli crimes to an end is the
| elimination of this *regime*. And of course the elimination
| of Israel *does not mean the massacre* of the Jewish people
| in this region. The Islamic Republic proposed a practical &
| logical mechanism for this to international communities."
|
| I have a hard time understanding why so many people equate
| Israel with Israelis. Many people are opposing the Chinese
| government. Do you also equate their calls to end China's
| government with a call to genocide against all Chinese?
| chloerei wrote:
| Make the charges and then not allow the defendant to speak.
| farseer wrote:
| Chinese are not allowed to use twitter thanks to the CCP. That
| is the twisted irony here.
| jtdev wrote:
| When will our leaders actually condemn China (not some toothless
| virtue signaling) and stop the flow of money from American
| consumers to the CCP?
|
| Vote with your wallet, stop buying Chinese products. Stop
| supporting this clearly evil regime.
| conanbatt wrote:
| Not buying chinese products harms chinese producers. It won't
| make a dent to the billionaire politicians that decide and
| execute on concentration camps.
| jtdev wrote:
| That's entirely false. Less sales from Chinese producers to
| the U.S. without question weakens the CCP.
|
| Would we have been so flippant about buying products from the
| third reich???
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| Banning Trump means they also have to take action against things
| like this.
| gnusty_gnurc wrote:
| Now do the WHO!
| rainworld wrote:
| Oh no, they said the quiet part out loud.
|
| Newsflash, the entire global west is sub-replacement and mostly
| has been for decades. South Korea just hit a stunning, absolutely
| suicidal TFR of 0.85. And it's only going to get worse.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| So what's going to happen to those nations in the long term?
| Are they just going to slowly die off until they get replaced
| by immigrants?
|
| Suggesting this possibility somehow got me banned in several
| subreddits. There's something going on here.
| rainworld wrote:
| _The future belongs to those who show up._
|
| Yes, there's something going on and you are not supposed to
| talk about it in polite society--or anywhere at this point.
| brighton36 wrote:
| If it's not superficial, it's offensive. Only prestigious
| people are licensed to have an opinion that's not
| superficial.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| There's no long-term plan.
|
| Even the immigrant plan sucks, because there are very few
| countries worldwide which aren't on a trajectory to reach
| replacement TFR within a decade.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > absolutely suicidal TFR of 0.85
|
| The implications of high global population are also (with
| tongue planted firmly in cheek) "suicidal."
|
| With the exception of figuring out how to care for elderly with
| a declining population, there are many advantages to a
| declining population. Specifically, the planet only has so many
| natural resources. We can only pollute so much. If we had
| significantly less people, things like limited resources and
| pollution wouldn't be that big of a deal.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| > If we had significantly less people, things like limited
| resources and pollution wouldn't be that big of a deal.
|
| The people the world does have vary in resource consumption
| and pollution by like 50x (Bahrain vs developing African
| nations).
|
| How we develop, and the technologies we invent to live
| sustainably, makes a dramatically bigger difference than how
| many people we have.
|
| And likely, an inverted age pyramid makes it far, far harder
| to invent these technologies, as our political systems become
| gerontocracies, science ossifies, and all our resources are
| pumped into taking care of the ever-growing elderly.
| mantap wrote:
| Twitter has become a place for extremism. Once politicians
| figured out that they can say anything they want on Twitter, and
| that their supporters or sock puppets will spread it around like
| it's the best thing ever, it encourages extremism.
|
| People talk about free speech, but free speech has never meant
| freedom from moderators. Twitter is well within their rights to
| place limits on allowable content, just as there are limits to
| allowable content on HN.
|
| The Chinese embassy is well within _their_ rights to make these
| comments on their own website.
| awb wrote:
| This is exactly why WordPress became so popular. You own and
| control your own content.
|
| When you choose to create or consume content on a 3rd party
| platform, you're agreeing to their terms and conditions, which
| often includes some scenarios where they can block or censor
| your content or access. Complaining about that after the fact
| is pretty silly.
|
| The "I'm leaving X and moving to Y" is a temporary solution.
| Substack, Parler, Spotify, etc. aren't any better in the long
| run, they're just newer and offer a temporary reprieve. You've
| still hitched yourself to a wagon and are along for the ride.
| Maybe that ride is better for you, but don't think for a minute
| that you're in the driver's seat.
|
| You're not truly free until you own the distribution network.
| Or an owner-less blockchain publishing network might eventually
| work as well.
| gher-shyu3i wrote:
| > Twitter has become a place for extremism
|
| Not just twitter. I feel the fact that social networks keep
| recommending interests to the users (groups of shared interests
| or profiles of shared interest) will by definition lead to
| recommending more and more extreme content, further pushing the
| divide. Make no mistake, what's happening now in the US is not
| only the fault of Trump as the leftist narrative is pushing,
| it's both extremes feeding off of each other. They keep blaming
| each other without anyone willing to step back and try to reach
| a common ground.
| iso8859-1 wrote:
| > The Chinese embassy is well within their rights to make these
| comments on their own website.
|
| Why? It is on the dot-org TLD, doesn't it have to abide by the
| dot-org rules?
|
| According to this article[0], specific threats of violence are
| not allowed.
|
| [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/opinion/dot-org-
| domain.ht...
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