[HN Gopher] Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page o...
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Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19
Author : ibraheemdev
Score : 132 points
Date : 2021-03-27 13:45 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| Lazare wrote:
| Conventional wisdom in the US is that Maduro is a ruthless,
| violent dictator, who has suppressed opposition, smuggled drugs,
| funded terrorism, violated human rights, etc.
|
| But that doesn't get you kicked off Facebook. Facebook and
| Twitter happily provide platforms to violent, human rights
| abusing regimes.
|
| ...but recommend _one_ snake oil cure for Covid-19, and suddenly
| the hammer drops, I guess? Interesting priorities.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| They have a specific policy against bad medical advice (which
| is easy to determine), but not against being a ruthless
| dictator (which can be very subjective). Seems consistent to
| me.
| hetspookjee wrote:
| Aren't human rights transgressions also easy to determine? Or
| the harmful lies that Trump slung into the world during his
| presidency? Facebook is consistent on whom to censor as long
| as the censored don't hold too much sway over Facebook, like
| Trump did near the end of his presidency.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I'm with you, but one is something that someone on the
| other side can claim "is just an opinion", the other can be
| backed by scientific evidence. As far as speech goes,
| censoring the latter is a lot easier to justify than
| censoring the former.
| wpasc wrote:
| Bad medical device is easy to determine?
|
| Are masks effective or ineffective against covid? Are fats
| good or bad for you? Are carbs bad for you? How many times a
| day should you eat? How much cholesterol in your food
| matters? What's the perfect amount of water to drink? Is
| veganism healthy? is paleo healthy?
| nouveaux wrote:
| No it's not easy but why would Facebook be bad at it? They
| can consult with the worlds best. Is there any reason to
| believe they have performed poorly in this regard?
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > But recommend a snake oil cure for Covid-19, and you'll be in
| real trouble.
|
| Except if you're in a position to get _them_ in trouble.
| Remember that Trump (mostly) got away with this while in
| office.
| tpmx wrote:
| I've seen plenty of covid-19 snake oil cures being advertized
| on prominent Reddit subreddits without consequences, so there's
| that.
| alkonaut wrote:
| I can kind of see the difference possibly being that Politics
| is slow moving. Journalists will call out bad behavior and
| other journalists will call out bad journalism.
|
| With some events - such as the pandemic, or the aftermath of
| the US election, information doesn't have time to pass through
| the normal cycle. The damage is already done if a lie gets
| viral the wrong way. It's better to suppress one truth and one
| lie (overreact) then.
|
| The key differentiator isn't "how bad is this" but "how
| damaging is it if this information reaches X million people in
| 48 hours?".
| luckylion wrote:
| Following that line of thought, the best option for
| journalists is to only tell the truth if it coincides with
| "what's best to tell the public" and lie otherwise.
|
| I believe that centrally planning "public opinion" is similar
| to centrally planning the economy. It's alluring because it'd
| solve so many problems, it takes a gigantic ego to think one
| was able to, and it usually doesn't end well.
| alkonaut wrote:
| > Following that line of thought, the best option for
| journalists is to only tell the truth if it coincides with
| "what's best to tell the public" and lie otherwise.
|
| Journalists wouldn't remain credible (and thus relevant)
| that way.
|
| This isn't about states centrally planning opinion. This is
| about everyone's duty to not do harm by relaying bad
| information. That includes journalists who should properly
| vet information - but not resort so self-censorship, as
| well as social media that shouldn't let "a lie travel half
| way around the globe before the truth can get its boots
| on".
| mountainb wrote:
| Don't expect consistency: they just do whatever they think
| other people want them to do. You're expecting a higher level
| of thought than is really present. Their 'moral' guidepost is
| just whatever the blob of upper middle class fashionable
| opinion is.
| nradov wrote:
| Or rather they do whatever seems least likely to upset their
| major advertising customers. And that's not a bad thing: they
| have a business to run.
| agumonkey wrote:
| First issues are fully political, the oil thing is mostly
| medical, it's less sensitive.
| varispeed wrote:
| Facebook is a private platform, so they should be able to censor
| whatever they want as long as it is not discriminatory against
| protected characteristics.
| annadane wrote:
| Good god am I fucking sick and tired of the 'they're a private
| platform' argument
| caseyscottmckay wrote:
| What is a solution? Facebook is a private company, so they
| can do business as they please within the confines of
| applicable laws and regulations. Those laws and regulations
| say they can censor as they please on their platform. Should
| we enact laws forcing private platforms to give everyone a
| voice?
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Perhaps. It's definitely a conversation worth having, given
| the advancements in public speech through social media.
| There is no reason to believe that 200-year-old laws should
| be the end of the conversation.
| varispeed wrote:
| What if the law said that operator of a platform cannot
| delete user content, as long as it does not break the law
| and shouldn't artificially limit its exposure? In the
| event that the platform runs out of space they should be
| allowed to charge people reasonable amount for the space.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| henryjcee wrote:
| comedically broke take isn't it
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Especially since eventually the winds will change, as they
| always do, and the "but it's a private company" crowd will
| find little argument against these same companies as they
| press the censoring boot against their necks. Creating a
| monster just ends up with that monster running out of
| control destroying everyone but they naively believe
| they'll always have it on a tight leash.
| dtauzell wrote:
| Should be allowed to censor but we should still discuss if
| each particular instance is a good idea or not.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Obviously they can and they do. We are discussing whether that
| is a good thing overall, which is further complicated by the
| political issues surrounding Venezuela and its current.. dual
| government.
| sthnblllII wrote:
| Venezuela does not have a duel government. It has a
| government that won the UN certified election and an
| opposition leader that receives 100% of the US media
| industry's support.
| varispeed wrote:
| My personal opinion is that after reaching a certain size of
| audience, the rules should be different - e.g. Facebook
| should be required to keep all points of views, even if they
| disagree with them, as long as they are legal. But until the
| rules are not changed it is what it is.
| nradov wrote:
| Legal where? Legal in the USA? Or legal in Venezuela and
| Saudi Arabia?
| pumaontheprowl wrote:
| Probably true in the US. But this is a global platform making
| decisions about foreign leaders. I highly doubt this same legal
| reasoning applies to every jurisdiction in which they do
| business.
|
| Regardless, the more interesting question here is not whether
| this is technically legal but whether it _should_ be legal.
| Obviously, there is a lot of social good that can be done by
| allowing platforms to ban obvious scammers. But it 's far from
| obvious to me that this is scam. And furthermore since Maduro
| is a head of state, it's important to the health of the
| democracy for the people to know what he is thinking.
| Klinky wrote:
| You want the US Government to legislate a law that mandates
| Twitter and Facebook cannot deactivate the accounts of
| foreign leaders/government officials?
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Well, this was once true of, say, television networks,
| telephone companies, electricity providers. But, they had too
| much power (mostly due to network effects), and so they were
| made into a special kind of private company, called a
| "utility". They still got to make a profit, but their actions
| were controlled by an elaborate web of rules and regulations,
| which were sure not perfect, but they were better than letting
| Thomas Edison decide if you could have electricity or Alexander
| Graham Bell decide if the contents of your telephone call were
| allowed or not.
| drummer wrote:
| Because the WHO is the only source of truth...
| olivermarks wrote:
| It's a disgrace that the USA, founded on a constitution that
| defends free speech, has globalist private companies operating
| out of the USA gagging opinions and dissent while blatantly
| amplifying factions and ideas it is aligned with. They have every
| right as a S230 regulated company to do this, but we have no
| other free speech places to go as alternative services are closed
| down.
|
| We are going to see Trump create a parallel social media universe
| platform shortly that will be a disaster for unity, beliefs and
| the credibility of what's left of the 'corporate entertainment
| media' as Tulsi Gabbard calls the oligarch owned omnipotent
| corporate 'news 'channels.
| hetspookjee wrote:
| Luckily we soon have Facebook's Supreme Court deciding whom to
| censor or not. https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-
| technology/inside-t...
| Izkata wrote:
| Carvativir is the same as (according to Wikipedia) or derived
| from (according to other sites) carvacrol. From this, it took me
| five minutes to find evidence that we should actually investigate
| this and can't just dismiss Maduro as wrong:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3768712/
|
| > Carvacrol alone exhibited high antiviral activity against RV
| with a SI of 33, but it was less efficient than the oil for the
| other viruses. Thus, Mexican oregano oil and its main component,
| carvacrol, are able to inhibit different human and animal viruses
| in vitro. Specifically, the antiviral effects of Mexican oregano
| oil on ACVR-HHV-1 and HRSV and of carvacrol on RV justify more
| detailed studies.
|
| Even just on Wikipedia, it mentions apparently well-known
| antimicrobial effects, which sounds like it may help with
| secondary pneumonia caused by COVID (so even putting aside the
| possibility of antiviral effects, it may help reduce some
| symptoms): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carvacrol#Toxicology
| shpongled wrote:
| Killing viruses or bacteria in vitro is a vastly different
| thing than killing them in vivo. Also, if you want to cite some
| evidence, Braz J Microbiol might not be the best source.
|
| https://xkcd.com/1217/
| Izkata wrote:
| > Killing viruses or bacteria in vitro is a vastly different
| thing than killing them in vivo.
|
| > https://xkcd.com/1217/
|
| Carvacrol is a component of oregano oil, a common herbal
| supplement. This is one case where the XKCD strip is clearly
| wrong.
|
| > Also, if you want to cite some evidence, Braz J Microbiol
| might not be the best source.
|
| Is the Brazilian Journal of Microbiology not trusted or
| something?
| tryonenow wrote:
| It was the same story with hydroxychloroquine, which was a
| promising treatment until trump made the mistake of mentioning
| it publicly.
|
| These purely ideologically driven non-experts in media and tech
| have absolutely no business playing gatekeeper with censorship.
| They're doing far more harm than good.
| cabirum wrote:
| People should start thinking twice before using US-controlled
| platforms/services/anything.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| ... unless they want to reach people. Try publishing an app
| while avoiding the AppStore and the PlayStore - your audience
| will be fairly limited. Same thing if you're a politician
| (especially one not currently in office) and an US-controlled
| service happens to be popular in your country.
|
| On the other hand, though, I doubt that much of this is actual
| government influence. Most of these actions are probably done
| based on the personal biases of the moderation team of the
| platform. These are surely a bit influenced by whatever opinion
| the current government tries to push, but they will not
| necessarily align with the current agenda. And this is not
| really an US problem; in fact, in terms of government influence
| on private companies, the US is probably one of the better
| countries.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| > And this is not really an US problem; in fact, in terms of
| government influence on private companies, the US is probably
| one of the better countries.
|
| Only because influence typically goes the other way around in
| the US. But you're talking about a country whose banking
| system derives most of its value from government guarantees.
|
| https://anderson-review.ucla.edu/bank-guarantees/
| Sebb767 wrote:
| I don't want to say the US is great, it isn't. The point is
| no country is great. A company residing in a country will
| _always_ be somewhat dependent on that countries government
| and all of them have some form of subpoena, some form of
| secret agency or some politicians shoddy enough for
| backroom dealings. But some countries are worse.
|
| My usual tip in these situations would be to use something
| under control of a government which does not have much
| interest in your dealings, but as a politician you're in
| the unfortunate position that a) basically any country will
| have a basic interest in your dealings or at least be very
| close to a superpower that does and b) you'll have to go
| out and seek your voters, which does not leave you much
| choice.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| It is unfortunate, but US shot itself in the foot by proving
| that it is not willing to be a neutral third party, which it
| was perceived as in the 90s.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| They (social media companies) were given an ultimatum: censor
| or be broken up. It's almost explicit in the Congress/Senate
| hearings.
| geoduck14 wrote:
| Do you have a source? I really want to read up on this.
| seoaeu wrote:
| There's a balance though. You might have more power if you're
| perceived as neutral, but actually using power is inherently
| non-neutral
| ativzzz wrote:
| The US hasn't been a neutral third party in any worldwide
| matter since WW1. The U.S's foreign policy is aggressively
| selfish (which is good for US citizens)
| MikeUt wrote:
| It's good for owners of defense industry companies. For the
| average citizen it's probably a net loss. The Iraq War
| alone cost about $6,300 per US citizen.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_Wa
| r
| sthnblllII wrote:
| I agree with everything but the last part. Invading Iraq
| got 6,000 Americans killed and did nothing to help US
| citizens outside of a corrupt few.
| luckylion wrote:
| That's hard to determine, I think. The wars aren't
| isolated actions that make or lose money, they're
| embedded in a frame work, that, at large, has probably
| been very beneficial. More influence, better trade deals,
| technological dominance, economic advantages. The average
| wage in the US is significantly higher than in most of
| Europe, so average citizens probably do profit.
| young_unixer wrote:
| You say US-controlled, but I can't think of a country that
| would be better than the US in this regard. European countries
| are not the biggest fans of free speech. And then you have
| China, Russia, etc. which are even worse.
| angio wrote:
| With federated protocols (like Mastodon) you don't need to
| trust a third party country. All countries can be part of the
| same universe, but each one controls their own data.
| radiator wrote:
| Perhaps there will be more than one, then. There will be
| different ideologies which will be protected and different
| ones which will be censored on each one of them. In total
| there might be more freedom of speech.
|
| A teacher in high school told us: to the question "which
| newspaper should I read?" the answer is "not one single
| newspaper".
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Have to wonder how long before non-US alternatives pop up and
| the US loses control of this industry segment. There are
| already regional alternatives to many of the US's biggest tech
| companies, so international alternatives might be next. How
| long before there's a tiktok of Google, where US and western
| consumers go to a Chinese or Russian source without even
| considering what the US companies have to offer anymore.
| Obviously companies in those countries will have their own
| local biases, but mostly on matters internal to those countries
| that aren't typically relevant to US and western users.
| [deleted]
| dirtyid wrote:
| Has the panel of experts on censoring political leaders convened
| yet or is FB is doing bans on whims until then.
| andred14 wrote:
| The reality is FB has been bought by the pharma/vackz companies
| and deletes anything contrary to this program however factual it
| may be.
|
| How about FB worry about itself and we adults will determine what
| is right and wrong for ourselves? As it always has been?
|
| FB has "moderated" 100% facts and science that I have posted in
| the past just because the information does not suit the current
| narrative of fear and destruction.
|
| This is wrong and should motivate you to find other platforms.
| danaos wrote:
| I guess they complied [1]
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1375543592018657285
| StreamBright wrote:
| The beginning of the next era of humanity. Corporations wield
| more power than governments.
| pumaontheprowl wrote:
| A lot of this is starting to remind me of the way Galileo and
| Darwin were treated for announcing their breakthroughs. I know
| nothing about this drug Maduro is touting, but I can't help
| worrying that one of these days somebody is going to find an
| actual cure and the world will never know about it because big
| social media companies exile them for wrongthink.
| Klinky wrote:
| Social media already reminds me of an era where the town
| idiot's voice is amplified louder than the Darwins' or the
| Galileos'.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| They laughed at Jesus. They laughed at Ghandi.
|
| But they also laughed at Bozo the clown.
| [deleted]
| dannyw wrote:
| You don't announce the discovery of a miracle cure via social
| media, you announce it via clinical trial papers.
| splithalf wrote:
| Peer review is "social media."
| appleflaxen wrote:
| the medium you use does not establish the truth of your
| claim.
| dpweb wrote:
| The problem with that is, if it's not amplified on social
| media, it doesn't exist.
|
| There were trials where it was shown that sufficient Vitamin
| D levels (most people are deficient) is very effective in
| preventing COVID. It got minor attention, but no-one is
| pursuing it on a widespread basis. Maybe it works maybe not,
| but even if there were clinical trials, it gets crowded out
| by what's being widely circulated in the media.
| sofixa wrote:
| It must be your bubble/country, because in France it has
| been said and recommended by the Health Ministry that it
| probably helps, and doctors prescribe supplements with
| Vitamin D _en masse_.
| lupire wrote:
| Vitamin D has been recommended forever for general health
| and is available over the counter. Nothing is stopping
| people from taking and giving vitamin D in huge doses.
| capableweb wrote:
| You're just exemplifying the point. Who says you have to
| announce something a specific way first time?
|
| Back in the days it would be "you can't just publish trial
| papers, it has to go through the church"
| klyrs wrote:
| Yes, back in the day, the church would censor evidence that
| it disagreed with.
|
| Today, we demand evidence to back up claims whether or not
| we want to believe them.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > Who says you have to announce something a specific way
| first time?
|
| Technically, at our current World state, government
| regulations say that. And yeah, you have to have the
| correct credentials and submit your paper to the correct
| institutions.
|
| Superficially, the system is architectured exactly like the
| one you are complaining, while in a deeper level every
| component works in a completely different way. What in
| practice means that it right now works quite well (could
| improve, but it works), but it's just a series of isolated
| institution failings (instead of a full system failure)
| away from becoming like the other. So, well, keep those
| institutions in check, but unless somebody comes up with a
| better system design, there's little point on complaining
| about it.
| nradov wrote:
| Which government regulations are those? Could you please
| provide a CFR citation?
| pessimizer wrote:
| The World Fact Check Act of 2023.
| iends wrote:
| Social media isn't really the proper avenue for vetting
| science.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Social media companies aren't really the proper vetters of
| science.
| crakhamster01 wrote:
| They don't claim to be. All they're doing is applying
| existing scientific consensus to new, unverified claims. If
| after going through legitimate peer review, this treatment
| Maduro is touting proves to be effective, you can be sure
| it will be allowed into the discussion as well.
|
| Social media companies take on immense legal liability when
| they allow high-profile figures to promote unproven medical
| treatments. The current approach obviously loses a lot of
| nuance, but the alternative is opening themselves up to
| litigation when, for example, users ingest fish tank
| cleaner after hearing from the President that there's a
| miracle drug which goes by the same name [1].
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/52012242
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| In a sense, we already had some taste of tech-powers-that-are
| blocking information that ended up being true ( Biden's Hunter
| drug issues ).
|
| edit: I am going to add some sources, since I am not certain
| why the downvoting is taking place on this particular comment.
| Not sure how the statement is controversial.
|
| [Biden himself admits issues with
| drugs]https://www.businessinsider.com/hunter-biden-opens-about-
| add... [Same thing only in his
| book]https://people.com/politics/hunter-biden-to-release-
| memoir-d...
| nullserver wrote:
| It makes Biden look bad.
|
| If the issue had gotten full press coverage if _might_ have
| flipped some states.
|
| It's also a reminder that tech companies can now decide
| elections. Angry denial is easier then rational thought.
| lupire wrote:
| "Hunter Biden's drug issues" were never blocked.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I guess I will bite. What was blocked then?
| scythe wrote:
| People promoting ivermectin have been making claims with
| appropriate expressed confidence. It seems to have decent
| evidence, too.
| Kalium wrote:
| It's worth bearing in mind that Galileo was not treated poorly
| for his scientific advances. He was treated poorly because his
| scientific claims tended to run in advance of what he could
| prove, because he made an ass of himself when his peers pointed
| this out, and then he went on to antagonize the temporal powers
| that be.
| [deleted]
| abhinav22 wrote:
| Not sure about this - I don't think government leaders or anybody
| should be censored.
|
| Better to have public health messages as part of the platform
| than to censor
|
| It's a fine line between hate and misinformation and dissent
|
| (Clearly the content in question is wrong; but in other cases,
| WHO and others been proven incorrect - eg on masks and asymptotic
| transmission)
|
| Don't know what the answer is, we don't want echo chambers of
| misinformation, but we want to live in a democratic society
| too...
| gameswithgo wrote:
| Well then you can pay for some servers for people to post text
| and leave up the text that you think is reasonable.
| geoduck14 wrote:
| Like Parler?
| jamesgreenleaf wrote:
| Another problem is that something like this can function as
| "evidence" for the claim. There are large groups of people who
| believe that censorship like this validates a worldview in
| which powerful interests are censoring true information in
| order to maintain control. It's similar to the Streisand Effect
| or "Banned in Boston" but for belief rather than attention.
|
| It seems like the better solution is to have an outpouring of
| discussion around how and why the claim is wrong. Let others
| ridicule the statements, rather than shutting down discussion.
| You'll never convince everyone, but at least you'd avoid the
| validation-by-censorship effect.
|
| I could be wrong on this though. I don't really have any
| evidence or data that would show doing it one way is better
| than the other. I suppose I simply prefer open discussion.
| mistermann wrote:
| > There are large groups of people who believe that
| censorship like this validates a worldview in which powerful
| interests are censoring true information in order to maintain
| control. It's similar to the Streisand Effect or "Banned in
| Boston" but for belief rather than attention.
|
| Similarly, there are large groups of people that believe
| there are large groups of people who believe that censorship
| like this validates a worldview in which powerful interests
| are censoring true information in order to maintain control.
| The degree to which the respective beliefs of these two
| groups of people are actually correct, _is unknown_.
|
| I suspect that the group of people _that believe this_ is
| considerably smaller than the other two groups, at least in
| Western cultures.
|
| I believe this phenomenon is (at least in part) what Hindus
| refer to as Maya.
|
| https://www.hinduwebsite.com/hinduism/essays/maya.asp
| lupire wrote:
| It's a hard problem. Liars can spam lies much faster than
| honest people can debunk it.
| BaseS4 wrote:
| To counter this we should preemptively ban people just to
| make sure no one lies ever again.
| anovikov wrote:
| Thing is, any substantiative discussion will be way too
| complex for most people who could fall to these conspiracy
| theories, to understand, and they will arrive to a conclusion
| like "these Jews are trying to look too smart and bullshit
| us".
|
| Sadly, this asymmetrical warfare from authoritarian nations
| hits the right point: it forces us to either let
| misinformation flow and people become manipulated by it, or
| to revert to authoritarian measures by gradually chipping
| away freedom of speech.
| postmeta wrote:
| or increase transparency and demand accountability from
| platforms amplifying messages without transparent
| traceability of information.
| hrktb wrote:
| One issue is that it's asymmetrical. Made up statements have
| more resonance and shocking value than well thought rebuffs
| or ridicule.
|
| If you accuse your opponent of eating babies at breakfast,
| other parties will have a hard time to find something as
| punchy, and some minority of people will swallow your
| statement. Throw around enough of these and you'll have a
| large base covered, with your opponents left scrambling for
| boring or after the fact retorts that won't have the same
| reach.
| aetherson wrote:
| And that is why you, yourself, believe lots of wrong things
| like this, right?
| hrktb wrote:
| I think that yes, I am effectively exposed to random
| baseless lies, and only a few of the voices crying foul
| will ever reach my eyes.
|
| For instance I read a headline about future rising petrol
| prices due to the stuck Evergreen boat, and honestly I
| have no idea how true it is, don't care enough to go down
| the rabbit hole, but still remembered it as an
| information, and might subconsciously be influenced by it
| on some decisions.
|
| This is less likely to happen on fields I have decent
| interest or expertise in, but that only represents a tiny
| fragment of the information we consume everyday.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| You would only have an outpouring of discussion as to why the
| claim is wrong if you are 100% certain the claim is wrong.
|
| Last spring the CDC and the WHO were consistently wrong on
| masks, on asymmetric spread, etc on just about everything.
|
| Maybe the experts themselves don't even trust what is
| supposedly the truth anymore.
| concordDance wrote:
| > It's a fine line between hate and misinformation and dissent
|
| "Hate" is a pretty Orwellian[1] word in this context, with a
| meaning pretty far from its usage a couple of decades ago.
|
| Most usage I've seen has a distictively political bend.
|
| E.g. "X are stupid and science proves it!" is not hate when X
| is "conservatives" but is when X is "muslims".
|
| [1] see the section on meaningless words:
| https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_poli...
|
| > Don't know what the answer is, we don't want echo chambers of
| misinformation, but we want to live in a democratic society too
|
| If we want less echo chambers we'd need to stop censoring and
| banning those who disagree with us, otherwise they go
| elsewhere, encountering those similarly ostracized and form a
| natural echo chamber.
| sofixa wrote:
| I don't think anyone claims that "X is stupid" is hate,
| regardless of how broad or nonsensical X is.
|
| X should die, or X are vile subhumans stealing our jobs, or
| we should rape X, or X are raping our dogs is hate.
| pitay wrote:
| Do remember that something like 'fossil fuels are
| destroying the environment' would be called 'hate speech'
| if power shifted a bit. 'Hate' is an emotive term used to
| bypass peoples thinking so that criticism of certain things
| can be disposed of by emotion rather than evidence. People
| bringing up evidence of malfeasance could be called 'hate
| filled' people, have what they say aggressively censored,
| so that other people only hear these are 'hate filled'
| people and what they say be buried so that inconvenient
| information doesn't come out.
| sofixa wrote:
| There's an expression in my native language which,
| directly translated, is something along these lines:
|
| "If my grandma had a rotor, she'd be a helicopter". I
| think it perfectly encapsulates your "slippery slope"
| argument, that if today we accept that saying you want to
| rape someone on Twitter is hate that needs to be stopped,
| tomorrow saying that processed foods are bad will be hate
| as well. Do you even realise how stupid your argument
| sounds? We're not talking about criticism. Were Nazis
| "criticizing" Jews? Do racists "criticize" other "races"?
| No, they hate them, and there is a pretty heavy
| difference between the two.
| concordDance wrote:
| > Do racists "criticize" other "races"?
|
| The word "racist" seems to have a thousand subtly (and
| not so subtly) different meanings depending on who is
| using it. I think this is a good example of the
| phenomena.
|
| Do you think it impossible that someone could believe
| that Chinese people are more intelligent than Nigerians
| due to genetics without hating them? Or do you just think
| said person would not necessarily be racist?
| pitay wrote:
| Yes, another way to discredit someone with a valid
| concern is use name calling as the basis of their
| argument, just like what the parent post does here.
| School yard bullies used named calling to socially
| destroy the reputation of their victims and isolate them.
| Adults use the same name calling to do the same thing,
| they just use different words.
| concordDance wrote:
| I have definitely seen "Muslims are stupid" be called hate
| speech.
|
| Though you might have different standards... Would you say
| "So called transwomen are not women!" is hate speech?
| [deleted]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| We have a mechanism for this. It's defining protected classes.
| I don't see an argument for putting Maduro's speech into a
| protected class.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Strong disagree, at this point people have choosen sides and
| any attempt to influence people one way or the other will look
| either pathetic, at an absolute best, or hamfisted if you don't
| roll a natural 20.
|
| And you really don't want more hamfisted attempts to educate
| people to your way of seeing the world unless you also want to
| repeat january 6th.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| Then they can spout whatever they want through their official
| channels. Facebook doesn't need to and isn't obligated to host
| their content.
|
| In this case, Facebook can do what they please. Any uproar
| should be directed at the government which can go about using
| official channels as they please (press conferences, news
| releases, official government web pages)
| [deleted]
| codabool wrote:
| WHO statement on masks was misleading but I didn't see it as
| wrong (only wrong in the sense that they should focus on
| people's perception of their statements). They said that there
| was no evidence that masks help. Which was true at the time.
| They paired that statement with suggestions use a variety of
| prevention methods.
|
| The statement from Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove that symptomatic
| patients being "very rare" was definitely wrong. But she back
| tracked the next day and said it only possible they are rare
| and was aware of the 40% models which have now come out to be
| much closer to the truth.
| ergocoder wrote:
| This is like your wife coming home and shout "there is no
| evidence that I cheated on you today". It's the truth, but
| wtf?
|
| WHO has been extremely incompetent in communicating with
| public. Their tweets were shockingly bad and misleading.
| alkonaut wrote:
| You don't really need to worry about drawing the line between
| facts and lies just because you remove the 10% most blatant
| disinformation. It doesn't make Facebook the final arbiter of
| truth.
|
| There are things that are controversial or debated and Facebook
| and others stay away from that.
|
| Advocating injecting bleach or eating albinos to cure Covid is
| one thing while arguing the amount of asymptotic transmission
| is another thing entirely.
| bopbeepboop wrote:
| Okay -- but in practice, channels on YouTube and Facebook
| merely mentioning COVID have to resort to euphemisms due to
| the extreme censorship.
|
| So your claim they "stay away from" controversial or
| genuinely disputed topics is plain wrong: they censor those
| topics heavily on FB and YT to shape narratives -- from COVID
| to Amber Heard beating her spouse.
|
| Your idealized "just a little" censorship has already been
| exceeded -- showing why it's impractical as a political idea:
| it's inherently unstable.
| wincy wrote:
| Does Facebook ban controversial statements such as "children
| should be given hormone blocking therapy if they request it,
| regardless of the wishes of their parents, even if it
| sterilizes them" or "transgender women should be allowed to
| go to/volunteer at battered women's shelters". Espousing the
| opposing viewpoint is a fast track to getting banned from
| Twitter/Facebook or wherever else.
|
| Note I'm not making a judgement about these statements,
| merely using them as examples of things that absolutely won't
| get you kicked off of Facebook for advocating.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| That will not happen, it's not about enforcing morality,
| it's about strengthening an ideology by erasing competing
| messages.
| nawitus wrote:
| Agree, but Facebook has also removed things that are not "10%
| most blatant disinformation".
| m45t3r wrote:
| There is a big difference between OMS and populist leaders like
| Maduro/Bolsonaro/Trump.
|
| What OMS said about masks and asymptomatic cases were the best
| we known about the pandemic at the current time (we still
| didn't have many studies on how the virus propagated). Once it
| became clear that masks helps and asymptomatic cases are super
| spreaders, OMS changed the tone quickly.
|
| Populist leaders say things about remedies that study after
| study shown that there is no efficacy and they never change
| their tone because it would mean they're wrong. Instead, they
| simple jump for the next "miracle" solution.
| m45t3r wrote:
| Also, context matters. OMS avoided recommending masks at the
| start of the pandemic since no study showed the efficacy of
| it, and there was no mass production of masks yet. So
| recommending it for general population would only generate
| shortage of masks for those who needed (frontline medics and
| nurses treating the cases). So this is why they're so against
| it.
| briandear wrote:
| > and there was no mass production of masks yet
|
| But that's not what they said. Fauci said "healthy people
| do not need to wear masks." So he either lied then or is
| lying now. The reason for the lie is irrelevant. If healthy
| people should wear masks, the lack of production capability
| doesn't change the fact.
|
| If masks work and Fauci knew they worked, then his
| statement that healthy people don't need masks was
| scientific fraud.
|
| His exact words: "There's no reason to be walking around
| with a mask. When you're in the middle of an outbreak,
| wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better
| and it might even block a droplet, but it's not providing
| the perfect protection that people think that it is. And,
| often, there are unintended consequences -- people keep
| fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face."
|
| That statement was either patently false, or it was true
| and his current statements are patently false.
|
| Did he lie in order to protect mask supplies? Did some new
| groundbreaking study come out during the next few months?
| Of course not. So why would a rational person trust
| anything coming from Fauci given that we don't know if it's
| the truth, or just some manipulative statement based on
| whatever the political need happens to be at the time? To
| be even more cynical, ask oneself why certain older mask-
| related research papers have been censored?
|
| https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/data-
| do-...
| Xylakant wrote:
| > So he either lied then or is lying now.
|
| There's also the option that he was wrong and learned/was
| educated. A lot of scientific progress works like that.
| "He lied" implies intention.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| So how many scientific studies about mask efficacy were
| completed to change the scientific consensus during those
| two months when we had a mask shortage and were being
| told that masks only protect doctors?
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Sorry, but when you are the chief advisor in a national
| crisis you don't get to learn on the job.
| bryan0 wrote:
| > That statement was either patently false, or it was
| true and his current statements are patently false.
|
| You're actually missing the correct option which is that
| scientific consensus has shifted on this issue. Science
| is a process for the truth and conclusions can change
| with more evidence.
| e2021 wrote:
| People keep saying this, but it doesn't make it true. The
| consensus of public health officials changed for sure,
| but I haven't seen any evidence that the science changed
| at all
| bryan0 wrote:
| Science has been changing on this as the research becomes
| more nuanced for the current pandemic
|
| For example:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8
| clairity wrote:
| > "His exact words: ...."
|
| what fauci said was true (given tolerance for the natural
| ambiguity inherent in speech). in most cases, masks have
| been, and continue to be, primarily a palliative and
| signaling device, not a mitigation. for healthcare
| workers, it's actually an augmentative mitigation used
| with other imperfect mitigations in controlled
| circumstances to get the best possible outcomes from
| their use. masks are poorer mitigations in most general
| circumstances in comparison to the easier alternative
| that is (context-specific) distancing.
|
| at various points, he's buckled to the prevailing
| political winds to keep his job, but that particular
| statement was a moment of lucidity and frankness. it
| threatened the dominant mediopolitical narrative, so he
| eventually backed off.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| I'm guessing most people here will have no idea what you mean
| by OMS - the English name is WHO (World Health Organization).
| lucian1900 wrote:
| I don't think you can really compete right-wing leaders
| beholden to private industry like Bolsonaro & Trump to left-
| wing anti-imperialist leaders that advocate for workers like
| Maduro.
| alkonaut wrote:
| What flag an authoritarian claims he'a waving isn't very
| interesting. If you come to power by pointing at an enemy
| of "imperialism and capitalism" or "migrants and socialism"
| makes no difference. Authoritarian regimes are all the
| same.
| lucian1900 wrote:
| Who convinced you Maduro is "authoritarian"? I find that
| more interesting to explore.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Maduro convinced me, that's who. Specifically, Maduro's
| behavior in office for the last N years, and even more
| specifically, his behavior toward opposition parties.
| (Imagine Trump having Biden arrested in April 2020 on
| some transparently fake charges, so that Biden can't
| conduct a campaign. Trump wins the 2020 election, though
| there were "irregularities" in the vote. Then he
| dissolves Congress. Then in 2023, Trump arrests whoever
| the leading Democrat candidate is. Would that be
| authoritarian? I would say, absolutely yes.)
|
| I think it's more interesting to ask, who convinced you
| that Maduro is _not_ authoritarian? And, what possible
| evidence would change your mind?
| lucian1900 wrote:
| The same opposition that illegally declared itself the
| government after losing an election? The one that
| attempted to smuggle US weaponry into the country under
| the guise of humanitarian aid? The one that attacked and
| killed poor black people in the streets? The one that
| bribed military personnel to betray the country? The one
| that welcomed a (thankfully incompetent) US coup attempt?
| It's not like Guaido was arrested on the spot. He was
| free to continue breaking the law as due process was
| being followed.
|
| Also worth considering the constant sanctions and threat
| of invasion by the US that Venezuela is subjected to. Of
| course capitalist-owned media will smear a revolution of
| poor, black and indigenous workers against the former
| slave owning colonisers.
| alkonaut wrote:
| The people who study and report on Venezuela did.
|
| If you find the topic interesting there is actually quite
| a lot of material
|
| https://www.diva-
| portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1387787/FULLTEXT...
|
| https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5mj6j3t8
|
| https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/authoritarian
| -su...
| lucian1900 wrote:
| There are other sources too, like
| https://thegrayzone.com/category/venezuela/ or https://ww
| w.telesurtv.net/SubSecciones/en/country/venezuela/ or
| https://venezuelanalysis.com
| alkonaut wrote:
| Really? I post some recent academic papers and you
| respond with "yeah but what about Telesur?". I have to
| stop wasting my time trying to discuss politics online.
|
| > Telesur works as a propaganda network for the
| governments of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro (Wikipedia)
|
| I'm sure their coverage has the very best quality.
| lucian1900 wrote:
| You posted some right-wing propaganda. For anyone else
| reading, I offered an alternative.
|
| And if you'll take Wikipedia as fact, it's unlikely
| you'll find much truth.
| alkonaut wrote:
| "Right wing propaganda"?
|
| You are welcome to either a) promote a set of research
| articles or materials of similar quality from reputable
| sources, or b) come across as thinking that basically all
| reputable mainstream media _and_ universities in liberal
| democracies are sources of "right wing propaganda".
|
| Looking at your post history I know the answer already
| (It's a bit hard to read considering most of your posts
| are so for voted the font is almost invisible). If you
| are on a crusade to convince people that undemocratic
| regimes foster trustworthy media while Swedish
| universities produce right wing propaganda I think you'll
| find it's going to be hard work.
|
| I wish this site gave people a reputation cooldown so
| enough downvotes resulted in a 48h ban.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Maduro is a left-wing anti-imperalist in name only. Don't
| buy the propaganda that they release about how great he is.
| Venezuela wouldn't be a failed state if he were even half
| as corrupt as he is.
|
| Left wing politics in south america is used as a
| shibboleth. It's smoke and mirrors - not genuine anti-
| imperalism.
| lucian1900 wrote:
| Better to blindly repeat CIA propaganda instead?
| jayd16 wrote:
| You have it backwards. We should be worried about being forced
| to broadcast political messages we think are lies.
|
| The real problem is that Facebook is in a position of such
| power and market control that moderation feels like censorship.
| postmeta wrote:
| True! We need to demand accountability from platforms for
| amplifying messages without transparent traceability of
| information.
| mc32 wrote:
| Obviously Maduro is a problematic despotic leader, but who are
| Facebook to be arbiters of thrush and falsehood?
|
| We've gone down the path of good intentions that leads to hell.
|
| Does this not interfere with self determination? Is there one
| true north now? Have Facebook found all truth?
|
| This is getting ridiculous.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| For their own platform? Facebook is, obviously. How is this
| even a question?
|
| It's not like a head of state doesn't have plenty of power to
| send messages through other means. Since when are private
| actors obligated to let them speak on private platforms?
| whydoyoucare wrote:
| Facebook doing it of its own volition is one thing, and I'd
| argue they are within the right to do so. Government
| pressurizing Facebook to censor stuff is entirely other
| ballgame, which poses a bigger risk, and nobody seems to be
| paying attention to. (Most attention is given to the
| content being censored, not the actors behind the
| censorship).
| vixen99 wrote:
| Facebook has 2.7 billion users or 34% of world population.
| Out of interest, I'm curious to know if, given that they
| are in effect, judge and jury on their own private
| platform, there is _any_ % level of penetration at which
| you might change your view? It appears you 'd set no limit
| at all.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > given that they are in effect, judge and jury on their
| own private platform
|
| You say this like it's some weird, bizarre thing. Who
| else should be judge and jury by default on a private
| platform? Should there be some government committee any
| time a new social media company starts up?
|
| In any case, to answer your question: if the issue is
| that they've become too powerful, and there's a
| reasonable case to make there, then I'd say the answer is
| to either break them up or support alternatives, not have
| the government barge in and micromanage how they run the
| particulars of their business. I don't think there's some
| obvious right answer for "how tightly should a social
| networking company restrict what people say", so the best
| possible answer from a societal level is to help choices
| flourish and let consumers choose.
|
| _Every_ platform has some 'censorship' -- even Parler
| banned porn, and got rid of left wing 'trolls'. The only
| real way around it is to not have a platform so much as a
| protocol, like email.
| adolph wrote:
| > private platform
|
| From where does the idea of "private" come? Is it to
| distinguish its controllers from that which is government
| controlled?
| geoduck14 wrote:
| You can actually sue in court (in America) if a business
| kicks you out for protected reasons. So we don't need a
| governmental committee- we have the courts to arbitrate
| our cases for us.
| nradov wrote:
| Politicians aren't a protected class under US
| discrimination laws. A politician banned from Facebook
| would generally have no legal grounds to sue.
| loveistheanswer wrote:
| >How is this even a question?
|
| >Since when are private actors obligated to let them speak
| on private platforms?
|
| This is the same argument slave owners used to defend their
| "private property", and that business owners used to ban
| black people from their private property.
|
| So, judging by the history of human rights, it's a
| perfectly valid question
| jayd16 wrote:
| Except we did decide a private business can refuse
| service unless its specific discrimination of a protected
| class. If anything this analogy proves the opposite of
| your argument.
| loveistheanswer wrote:
| Are you implying we've reached the pinnacle of human
| rights, and can no longer progress or regress?
| tomjen3 wrote:
| >For their own platform? Facebook
|
| That is an American pow, that is not shared in Europe or
| China.
| bordercases wrote:
| Since they scale out to the infrastructural capabilities of
| governments yet our bound to the interests of their
| stakeholders, not users or citizens.
| BaseS4 wrote:
| How the hell is a despot problematic?
| ezconnect wrote:
| Crazy people don't know they are crazy. Facebook from now on will
| decide what is correct and what is wrong, even though they don't
| know what is correct and what is wrong.
| Craighead wrote:
| Is the world flat? How do you know?
|
| Your logic is flawed.
| d3nj4l wrote:
| Wait, Trump promoting chloroquine as a miracle cure and
| recommending bleach injections were okay, but Maduro doing the
| same can get him banned?
| concordDance wrote:
| > recommending bleach injections
|
| This is a mischaracterization.
| whymauri wrote:
| Sure, whatever you say. Here's the quote since apparently
| we've all forgotten:
|
| >"A question that probably some of you are thinking of if
| you're totally into that world, which I find to be very
| interesting. So, supposedly we hit the body with a
| tremendous, whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful
| light, and I think you said that hasn't been checked, but
| you're going to test it. And then I said supposing you
| brought the light inside the body, which you can do either
| through the skin or in some other way. (To Bryan) And I think
| you said you're going to test that, too. Sounds interesting,
| right?"
|
| >"And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in
| one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that,
| by injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it
| gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the
| lungs, so it'd be interesting to check that, so that you're
| going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds
| interesting to me. So, we'll see, but the whole concept of
| the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That's pretty
| powerful."
| auganov wrote:
| UV light is a disinfectant and experimental treatments have
| proposed inserting a UV light into the lungs via mouth, or
| yes, literally injecting it into veins. Whether that's a
| good idea is another question.
| nradov wrote:
| Cedars-Sinai Hospital is studying a device that shines
| ultraviolet light inside lungs as a potential COVID-19
| treatment.
|
| https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/cedars-sinai-
| statement...
| concordDance wrote:
| You know what's missing from that quote? Trump recommending
| injecting bleach.
|
| Though I thank you for getting the full quote, it raises
| the level of discourse. My excuse for not doing so is I was
| in a rush.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| Trump spitballed about injecting disinfectants into people's
| lungs. He didn't say that individual people should do it, but
| he did say that doctors should test it out.
|
| > And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in
| a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something
| like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because
| you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number
| on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So,
| that, you're going to have to use medical doctors with. But
| it sounds - it sounds interesting to me. So we'll see.
|
| The specific disinfectants Trump was talking about were
| bleach and isopropyl alcohol. Trump's comments came right
| after a presentation by the undersecretary for Homeland
| Security about using these specific disinfectants to clean
| surfaces. Trump then genuinely appeared to think it might be
| a good idea to try these disinfectants out inside the human
| body. Anyone can watch the video and judge for themselves
| whether Trump was being sarcastic, as he later claimed - I
| think it's obvious that he was completely serious.
|
| * C-SPAN: https://www.c-span.org/video/?471458-1/president-
| trump-coron...
| Izkata wrote:
| More to the point, everyone is ignoring this part:
|
| > And is there a way we can do something like that
|
| Trump isn't a scientist, he had a vague understanding and
| was asking others if this made any sense.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| Trump had just gotten done watching a presentation on how
| surfaces could be disinfected with chemicals that the
| average person knows to be extremely toxic (such as
| bleach). His takeaway was that maybe doctors should try
| injecting those extremely toxic chemicals into patients.
| I was amazed that the president of the United States
| thought this might possibly be a good idea. But let's
| pretend, for a moment, that it was actually a reasonable
| suggestion: why was the president even spitballing
| possible CoVID-19 treatments on live television? The
| whole spectacle was just absurd, and I think the White
| House recognized that, because this was the last press
| briefing the task force gave for months, and when they
| started up again, Trump was not present.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| So as the commenter said, a mischaracterization.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| A slight mischaracterization (doctors should do it,
| instead of people should do it themselves), and the
| original does not make Trump look any better.
|
| Edit: Looking again, OP did not misrepresent Trump's
| comment at all. Trump did clearly recommend that doctors
| try injecting disinfectants (including bleach) into
| patients.
| whymauri wrote:
| That's what I find most incredible about this thread and
| the confidence of the person denying something Trump said
| _on the record_. It hasn 't even been a year and we're
| already forgetting the dumpster fire that was the
| original response to COVID.
| sofixa wrote:
| "alternative facts"
|
| As someone said, we're living in the post-truth era.
| concordDance wrote:
| Who denied anything Trumo said on record?
| concordDance wrote:
| I think it's important to differentiate saying X should
| be investigated as a treatment and X is a viable
| treatment.
|
| When I hear "Trump recommending bleach injections" what
| I, and I think most people, understand from it is Trump
| recommending everyday people inject themselves with
| bleach as a cure for covid, not Trump saying doctors
| should investigate whether injecting bleach would cure
| covid. And the former is clearly not what Trump was
| communicating
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| This was during the peak of the first wave, in mid-April
| 2020. The president was up on stage improvising about how
| injecting patients with bleach or isopropyl alcohol might
| be a good treatment. I think most people were just
| shocked that a man who would even consider that as an
| idea had somehow become president of the most powerful
| country on Earth.
| timmytokyo wrote:
| How does anyone read what he actually said and not
| instantly think "moron".
| concordDance wrote:
| I can (and did) also think that, but that's not relevant
| here.
| lupire wrote:
| Trump is so incoherent and self-contradictory that any
| characterization is necessarily a mischaracterization.
| He's "not even wrong" in human form.
| klyrs wrote:
| > He didn't say that individual people should do it, but he
| did say that doctors should test it out.
|
| Only, people regularly think that they're smarter than
| doctors, and will self-medicate based on suggestions of
| somebody they trust. We saw people die because Trump
| boosted hydroxychloroquine -- he should have known at that
| point in time that people would follow his suggestion. And
| guess what? Thousands of people followed his advice on
| disinfectant/bleach.
|
| https://time.com/5835244/accidental-poisonings-trump/
| pjc50 wrote:
| Everyone's fighting the last war.
|
| They knew that wasn't OK, but were unwilling to do anything
| about it, and fear no reprisals from Maduro.
| alexwennerberg wrote:
| At least he still has his Mastodon account
| https://mastodon.social/@Nicolas_Maduro
| chmod600 wrote:
| Can we just all agree that censorship is bad?
|
| All this "nuance" about censorship vs deplatforming, or worries
| about misinformation, just sound like rationalizing something we
| know is wrong.
|
| This power is always abused. It's always just another way to say
| "sure, I believe in democracy, so long as I get to 'educate' you
| and prevent you from hearing anything that might change your mind
| about who to vote for".
|
| Religion is "misinformation". How long before that is censored as
| well?
|
| Fundamentally, people scared of misinformation are people scared
| of diversity. They believe there's one right answer and that
| everyone must agree.
| postmeta wrote:
| I agree that censorship of science is bad.
|
| Giving powerful people a free megaphone for their opinions and
| anecdotal bs is also bad.
|
| Nobody believes there is one right answer, but amplifying
| stupid is a recipe for disaster.
| chmod600 wrote:
| It's not a megaphone. A megaphone forces people to hear
| whether they want to or not, and drowns out others trying to
| speak. A facebook page does neither.
| fancyfish wrote:
| Censoring Maduro, effectively a dictator, is absolutely the
| right thing to do here despite the effect being overblown (it's
| a Facebook page after all). There is no reason to require a
| private platform to host any and all content, telling Facebook
| that once a page is created it must stay.
|
| Forbidding Facebook from controlling its own platform is a
| slippery slope.
| chmod600 wrote:
| I didn't say FB should be forced to do anything. I am just
| saying that what they are doing is bad.
| tmux314 wrote:
| Facebook is acting on behalf of the US's long-term, bipartisan
| effort to undermine any Latin American government that doesn't
| grant its corporations access to that nation's resources. More
| specifically, the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations have
| undermined the Venezuelan government in many ways, including
| supporting coup attempts.[1]
|
| I'm not arguing that I support what Maduro said. He has an awful
| record as a leader. I'm arguing that this is the natural result
| of social media censorship. It's censorship by the US government
| by proxy.
|
| Here is a simple test to see if the above statement is true:
| would Facebook censor a world leader as swiftly and as severely
| if this were a leader of an allied state, or even a leader within
| our own government?
|
| [1] https://theintercept.com/2020/05/09/venezuela-coup-regime-
| ch...
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Say you are successful tech Billionaire. Watching your other
| billionaire friend's hubris get the better of him, and decide to
| take up flying only to crash into the ground. You go through some
| phase of self reflection, and realize you won't live forever, and
| so decide you can make the world a better place. You consult some
| self help books, listen to some new age mysticism, and read some
| exciting woke ideas about gender and critical theory. You are now
| ready to do "good". You fund every fringe woke charity, you pay
| forward for the right candidates. But as hard as you try, there
| are still these every day common folk, simple minded kind, that
| don't agree with all the goodness you are trying to foist onto
| the world. They make rude comments in online forums, doubt your
| every move, and they even have candidates that plays up to their
| ignorance. You seeth with disgust, and a bit of despair. Finally
| you decide the best way forward, is to not to give these people a
| platform to speak their simple minds. So you censor the internet,
| kick of their political leaders, and decide that in order for the
| world to be a better place, you must control the narrative. To
| win, you must control their simple minds. Its you and your allies
| that must write the truth of what the simple minded folk should
| think.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| You say this all as a joke or as a way to impress upon people
| the risks of wokism - but every type of justification for
| someone having more power over another comes down to someone
| claiming that their form of running the state is better than
| others - and that uneducated idiots _shouldn 't_ hold power.
|
| This isn't leftism gone wrong - this is the allegory of the
| cave.
| nullserver wrote:
| Some people advocate for authorities to have less power over
| others.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| And no one wants to elect them. How do anarchists and
| libertarians do in elections? Oh right pretty terrible
| everywhere. You know it's bad when your best
| counterarguments are the zapistas or like catalonia circa
| the 1930s
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| A shallowly cynical take, if I've ever seen one.
|
| What comments like this do their best to ignore, is that many
| people, perhaps most, agree that platforms bear some
| responsibility for managing misinformation and the like. But
| arguing that point requires targeting popular will, instead of
| an unpopular rich dude. Much easier to demonize someone few
| people like, than debate a position held by many in earnest.
| umvi wrote:
| I would argue many people (if not most) _don 't_ want
| platforms to be arbiters of truth. Because it's very hard to
| arbitrate truth in an unbiased manner. And more often than
| not truth arbiters eventually fall into the trap of promoting
| their own agendas.
| macspoofing wrote:
| I would argue that people don't want the platforms to
| adjudicate THEIR views and THEIR side. They are fine with
| the other side getting the shaft. The woke, mainstream
| media and Democrats, the groups that are succeeding in
| pushing Twitter and Facebook and social media to increase
| censorship are doing it because it's advantageous to them
| because either their political opponents are being
| suppressed, or, as is the case with NY Times and other
| mainstream outlets, it leads to financial advantages (more
| views, more clicks, therefore more money).
|
| It's also dismaying that even those on the left (as few as
| they are) that are against this kind of censorship, are
| against it because it could be used against them in the
| future (and it will) ... and not because it's the moral and
| ethical thing to let your political opponents have a
| platform to make their case.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| People say that in the abstract, but in practice they
| actually do want that.
|
| It's the same way Americans want the government to be small
| and non-interfering until you're talking about specific
| policies that actually sound pretty good, like stimulating
| the economy by handing people money.
|
| People don't want Facebook to be arbiters of truth, until
| you get people spreading dangerous anti-scientific
| conspiracy theories and the like; then suddenly they
| believe Facebook should've done more.
| macspoofing wrote:
| No. This is revisionist.
|
| This isn't Zuckerberg's doing. Up until recently Zuckerberg
| wanted as little moderation and censorship as possible. This
| mirrors the libertarian ethos of all the founders of modern
| tech companies. All of them (from Facebook, to Twitter, to
| Reddit, etc.) wanted to be just a platform for ideas. After
| Trump's election there became a concerted pressure campaign by
| woke culture, mainstream media and Democratic party against
| Facebook and other social media companies to moderate and ban
| anybody who doesn't conform to their particular narrative.
| Social Media was blamed for Hillary's loss. Social Media was
| blamed for Russian misinformation. Social Media was blamed for
| giving a platform to right-wing media and Trump supporters. We
| saw the end-result of this in the run-up to last year's
| election where Facebook and Twitter actively banned and
| suppressed Hunter Biden stories (which was applauded by many
| here as well). Stories that were true, by the way.
|
| So no. Don't think for a second this is Zuckerberg. He never
| wanted this. None of the tech companies wanted this .. but here
| we are.
| nannal wrote:
| This argument might be more appealing if we hadn't just come
| through a pandemic that an unnamed group of people were more
| than happy to describe as a hoax.
|
| There's the myth of election theft if you needed a second
| example.
|
| There really is a lot of 'misinformation' (outright lying) on
| social media.
| macspoofing wrote:
| This is a great illustration of the point I'm making. Thank
| you for providing a crystal clear example of how we got
| here.
|
| >This argument might be more appealing if we hadn't just
| come through a pandemic that an unnamed group of people
| were more than happy to describe as a hoax.
|
| Yes. If you give people a platform they'll say all kinds of
| things, true, untrue, and, partly true.
|
| Regarding COVID, what's interesting is social media
| companies decided that anything that goes against WHO
| guidelines is a hoax, even if you have credible
| epidemiologists having a discussion. WHO is staffed by very
| good people who are experts in their fields, but WHO is a
| human organization that is susceptible to political
| influence and regular human faults. For example, I don't
| fully trust any conclusion the WHO reaches when it comes to
| COVID and China. I just don't. I'm glad WHO exists and they
| do a lot of good work, but I don't want WHO dictating
| (directly or by proxy) which opinions I am allowed to hear.
|
| The implicit argument you're also making is that if you
| just ban your political opponents promulgating views you
| think are false (and some many be false), those views will
| go away. That's not going to happen. All you did was
| increase mistrust and increase conspiracy thinking.
|
| >There's the myth of election theft if you needed a second
| example.
|
| By who exactly? Because up until this election, EVERY
| election that Democrats lost was because of election theft,
| through either Russian misinformation, or voter
| suppression, or gerrymandering, or voter id, or systemic
| racism or unicorns. EVERY.SINGLE.ONE. Trump's election was
| deemed as stolen by huge swaths of Democratic politicians
| (including Hillary) and voters.
|
| Oh but those are credible 'election theft' allegations
| because they come from YOUR political side. It's the other
| side that gets everything wrong. Your allegations against
| 'election theft' shouldn't be suppressed, but theirs
| should. Right?
|
| >There really is a lot of 'misinformation' (outright lying)
| on social media.
|
| And you're afraid that your reasoning abilities are so
| feeble that you don't trust yourself to see this
| misinformation lest you be affected by it? And therefore
| you need a low-paid, 20-something, intern-censor to tell
| you what you should and shouldn't see.... You may be OK
| with that, but I'm not.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Hillary conceded literally in day one. The democrats who
| said "not my president" shut up and stopped protesting
| after a month.
|
| You're trying so hard to make it seem like this is a both
| sides problem but we all know that it isn't. Political
| rehtoric is far different than actually taking the
| capital over.
|
| Plus - the democrat lost elections due to it being
| "stolen" narrative you claim is being fostered by the
| democrats is more likely being fostered by the democrats
| political enemies. I don't believe bernie sanders is
| begging his supporters to stay home because bernie got
| screwed on super delegates in 2016 or 2020. Most of the
| "not my president" crap might as well have been from
| russian bots with how effective it is for democrats. So,
| maybe you should celebrate democratic incompetence since
| you dislike them so much...
| macspoofing wrote:
| >Hillary conceded literally in day one.
|
| She did ... and since that time has been going around
| claiming Trump is an illegitimate president and the
| election was stolen. Here's one source[1] but honestly,
| there are hundreds.
|
| >The democrats who said "not my president" shut up and
| stopped protesting after a month.
|
| No. That's a lie. Huge swaths of Democratic politicians,
| voters and media have made direct claims about the 2016
| election being stolen (and any election they lost).
|
| >Plus - the democrat lost elections due to it being
| "stolen" narrative you claim is being fostered by the
| democrats is more likely being fostered by the democrats
| political enemies.
|
| No. That's a lie. Even now the new Georgia election law
| is being characterized by Democrats as a way to steal
| future elections. But these kinds of claims were being
| made after every election as far back as I can remember
| (I can remember the claim of presidency being 'stolen' in
| the 2000 election, certainly the 2004 election with
| voting machines being hacked, up until now). Stacy Abrams
| lost by 50 thousand votes and still claims that election
| was stolen. It's so normal for Democrats to make those
| claims nobody even bats an eye anymore. It's so accepted.
|
| You have a blind spot for your side. You can see
| everything the other guys are doing wrong, but you don't
| see your guys doing anything wrong. And that's the
| problem here. You don't want tech companies to censor
| everyone by the same standards. You want double-
| standards. You want them to censor by YOUR standards.
|
| [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-
| clinton-trum...
|
| "Hillary Clinton dismissed President Trump as an
| "illegitimate president" and suggested that "he knows"
| that he stole the 2016 presidential election in a CBS
| News interview to be aired Sunday."
| marcinzm wrote:
| This misses the part where Facebook got massive complaints and
| government investigations over not doing anything to prevent
| the spread of certain information. You can't have it both ways.
| llaolleh wrote:
| I worry about this kind of censorship. There is no guarantee that
| the WHO is right either. Remember that the entire group of
| doctors thought blood letting was a good idea. How can we be sure
| that modern science doesn't have significant gaps in
| understanding either? Remember how the majority thought the
| housing market was too big to crash?
|
| I'd much prefer no censorship and let people decide for
| themselves. What we should be doing is trying to raise everyone's
| critical thinking game.
| abhinav22 wrote:
| > I'd much prefer no censorship and let people decide for
| themselves. What we should be doing is trying to raise
| everyone's critical thinking game.
|
| Indeed, raising everyone's critical abilities is a great idea.
| Hopefully it gets done
| tartoran wrote:
| Im not disagreeing or anything but is bloodletting a bad thing?
| Genuinely asking. I thought it was known regenerating ones
| bloodcells is a good thing. Is that erroneous? Last time I went
| to a blooddrive I was browsing a pamphlet that contained some
| benefits of giving blood aside from helping others in need.
| nmz wrote:
| It isn't, the practice stopped in the 19th century or so, its
| still used for some ailments but its not a cure all as they
| used to believe 200 years ago.
|
| https://maximumfun.org/episodes/sawbones/sawbones-
| bloodletti...
|
| PS: Fun fact, George Washington was killed because of blood
| letting. they basically bled him to death.
| nradov wrote:
| There is some limited evidence that excess iron could be a
| risk factor for heart disease. This may be part of the reason
| why menopause seems to increase the risk of heart disease in
| women, even after adjusting for age. So it's possible that
| blood letting could be beneficial from that standpoint, but
| it remains unproven. And there don't appear to be any
| significant risks from occasional blood donation.
| sofixa wrote:
| > What we should be doing is trying to raise everyone's
| critical thinking game
|
| How do you propose we do that, and what do you propose while
| waiting for the day where that's the case? The proliferation of
| Q lunatics and anti-vaxxers shows that we're not really there
| and there are real-world deadly consequences to "letting people
| decide for themselves". When it comes to public health, most
| people can't decide for themselves because they lack the
| medical background needed to understand the science and decide.
| alacombe wrote:
| > How do you propose we do that, [...] ?
|
| Stop lying to them.
| sofixa wrote:
| Good, let's try to convince anti-vaxxers, Q people, Covid-
| deniers and what not of that, it will surely work!
|
| Of course it won't, because people tend to listen to other
| people due to a variety of reasons ( personal charisma,
| luck, circumstances, etc.). We wouldn't have cults and
| science deniers otherwise.
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