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Comment by pr_nik | Hacker News Reader

The gameplan might be to build a direct connection between the vast financial resources of the republican party and their ability to influence online audiences. This has already worked quite well with the Super PACs which amount to unlimited anonymous donations to parties or candidates. This was declared legal based on the 1st amendment in 2010. The same goal could be pursued here: cite 1st amendment and rule by decree that fact-checking violates 1st amendment principles, fight it out up to the supreme court (which is firmly in republican hands) and then write it into law for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, sue social media providers for ridiculous sums if they provide fact-checking prior to the election. Technically, you still have a democracy, albeit one that is no longer united in its perception of reality.

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Fact-checking is itself freedom of speech. Notices of fact-checking references is freedom of speech as well. Content was not removed in those instances, and a private platform has private rules. A legitimate President must abide by the same Laws of the land as everyone else, and not expect special treatment or to censor speech that fails to please own ears. The latter is dangerously working against the Constitution and 1st Amendment.

Notices of fact-checking can be given as a reply to his Tweet. Just like everyone else. Twitter has its own account to rebut anyone if it wants to. If Twitter starts fact-checking by invading his personal virtual space then why don't I, a regular user, have the same tools available at my disposal? I also have issues with some politicians in my country who tweet nonsense/falsehood and would like to have my opinions attached to their tweet. Is that possible? If not, why not? Okay if that is too much power in the hands of a user then why isn't Twitter applying the same policy to politicians all around the World? Which other politician is Twitter doing the same to? If it is singling out Trump then it is "special treatment" meted out by Twitter to a politician.

Do you see how quickly the cookie crumbles? What Twitter has done has a chilling effect. If it cannot justify on what policy it decided to attach a notice to a politicians tweet it won't stand a chance in convincing that it is just a platform and not a publisher/editorial. Especially if it targets a single politician and the rule was not used for any other politician.

Visiblity of fact-checking is within Twitter's private domain to control. It could be a separate post, shown above everyone else's. It makes little sense to make special laws micro-managing technical designs of private platforms.

That someone blatantly bullies people and lies on such a platform, would get anyone else banned or at least posts moderated. Lying/deception, defamation and "hate" speech is not protected speech. Some of it may even be punishable by Law.

Twitter still has the option to ban the president. This is not censorship either. Prudent moderation is being performed daily on many social platforms.

Maybe it is time to review the power of social media platforms (so I do see your point).

Though, I suspect a prudent review would end unfavourably for bullies, trolls and liars, at the very least for unprotected speech and especially speech violating established Law.

> That someone blatantly bullies people and lies on such a platform, would get anyone else banned or at least posts moderated

Exactly. So Twitter should have shown it has the balls and banned Trump "just like everyone else". It had the policy backing it up. It wouldn't have caused Twitter to be dragged into this controversy of becoming a biased publisher instead of a neutral platform.

> Lying/deception, defamation and "hate" speech is not protected speech. Some of it may even be punishable by Law.

Yes it is. But Twitter is not the Judge, Jury or Executioner. You have the courts for it.

> Twitter still has the option to ban the president. This is not censorship either. Prudent moderation is being performed daily on many social platforms.

Nope. That doesn't cut it. Your hatred for Trump cannot be a justification for misuse of power by Twitter. If Twitter tries to be an arbiter then it loses the ability to call itself a platform. It can either allow/disallow posts. It cannot decide to add to/edit/remove the post in question. This makes it an editorial/publisher and no longer a platform.

You may think both are the same thing. Both are "moderation". Nope. Imagine you are in a debate and you are the "moderator" of the debate. You have these rights: allow the speakers to speak when their turn comes, disallow speakers from speaking about certain topics. If the debate goes South you have every option to stop the debate. You can kick out a speaker if you feel the speaker is not adhering to the rules. All this is valid and is part of "moderation" as the speakers have come on your "platform".

But just because they are on your "platform" does not mean you have acquired rights over them. They are still individual entities. Now imagine if you are a "biased" moderator. You do not like a speakers point and you decide to add to/edit/change it. But you do not want the speaker to stop talking (lest you be accused of bias) so you instead take a sticky note, write down your counter opinion and attach it to the speakers forehead. Would the speaker be okay with that? Now that is invading that speaker's personal space. Just because you are a moderator you do not get to own the speaker or add to/edit/change his words. You can ask the speaker to leave (or ban) which is perfectly within your right. But you cannot have a notice stuck to his opinion. Then you are not a platform. An editorial does precisely that: edits out the bad parts, fixes the language, makes it better for consumption, fact checks, ensures that it isn't held liable for any wrong doings and then and only then will it allow the content to be published.

My guess is: The problem for an American company banning the president would be they now need to establish same rules for everyone, thus banning most modern opportunists and even some loudmouth influencers. Politically, they'd need to ban most politicians, leading next to just outright banning all political speech. Twitter as a private entity is free to do so with their own platform. However, there's no way to avoid a slippery slope if the company's platform policies start getting entangled into politics. Since the company can never "win" this way or avoid suicide, they choose to do what they can as mandated to combat fake news while trying to stay neutral. You can be sure they have an army of legal specialists behind them on this approach.

Btw, calling out a bully and liar to be a bully and a liar, is not "hatred", when it can be so easily documented.

> So Twitter should have shown it has the balls and banned Trump "just like everyone else". It had the policy backing it up. It wouldn't have caused Twitter to be dragged into this controversy of becoming a biased publisher instead of a neutral platform.

It would have caused Twitter to be dragged into a much bigger controversy instead. Which you're right, they probably should, but have so far proven afraid to do so.

The 1st amendment isn't the issue here. The issue is Facebook pretending to be a publisher when it is in fact much more like a newspaper editor. You don't get to run a private company with unparalleled influence over US politics and not play by the rules of other media companies.

Actually, the issue is that his primary campaign strategy consists of saying completely unsubstantiated bullshit, and that the introduction of any kind of fact checking would fly in it's face.

What rules do newspaper editors have to play by, exactly? Most of the major outlets are 24/7 propaganda machines. Calling any particular politician out on lying is hardly controversial for them, depending on who the politician in question is.

I don't buy this. If Clinton had won, she would have went after Facebook with tough regulations over Russians using that platform to influence the election. Both parties see Twitter and Facebook as a problem because they change the power landscape.

If you want to know what rules newspapers follow, ask a journalist about their laws and ethics rules and ask a lawyer about publisher rules. I can't give legal advice.

That is just two sideism. No other recent administration has behaved in as petty, insecure, and personally vindictive a manner as this one.

Hell, half of the 2016 campaign was about jailing the other candidate. Nobody else in any of the recent races has behaved in such a way. No president since Nixon is so quick to fly off the handle over being called out on what they are saying. If Biden were running on a Jail Trump campaign in 2020 (since it is now politically acceptable to do that sort of thing, I guess), you may have a point that the two sides behave the same way. They don't.

As for journalists - do you seriously think most of the talking heads on Fox News follow journalistic ethics? If you do, I don't think conversation is necessary - because we don't have a common understanding of either the content of Fox programming, or of ethics.

I was calling out the partisan perspective on this ("the federal government only does bad things because Trump is bad"). Call me whatever you want but I don't think the world revolves around Trump. Most people in the federal government just keep doing their jobs as usual and he doesn't have the interest or competence to interfere.

>Hell, half of the 2016 campaign was about jailing the other candidate . . .

That's not what we're talking about. People (who don't actually care about free speech in principle) are saying that this is a free speech violation in principle (legally, it is sound). The FCC might attempt to treat social media companies like newspapers. This is not a big deal. Bad orange man has not censored newspapers. Your tweets are safe.

> Most people in the federal government just keep doing their jobs as usual and he doesn't have the interest or competence to interfere.

Is this executive order one of those cases?

You think Trump is demanding that Twitter appoint an editor to vet (and maybe fact check) all his tweets before publishing them, like a newspaper editor would?

I think that is not what Trump is asking for.

Twitter already arbitrarily approves, edits, and removes content. It seems like he wants the FCC to treat them like a publisher.

I sincerely doubt he'd be drafting this order if, say, Joe Biden's tweets were the ones getting fact-check labels added to them. I can see it being a step towards Trump/Republicans using such an order to suppress criticism though; let's say... a Democrat campaign ad that attacks Trump or calls him out.

Either way, the only intention behind this drafted order is entirely self-serving. It's a complete knee-jerk reaction.

> Twitter already arbitrarily approves, edits, and removes content.

By doing this Twitter is behaving as a publisher. Then why should Twitter not be treated like one?

> The 1st amendment isn't the issue here.

From wikipedia[1] (my emphasis):

> The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prevents the government from making laws which regulate an establishment of religion, prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.

Also, called it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322683

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_...

If you don't like it, speak on another platform that doesn't edit and censor user content.

My point is that the government passing laws because they don't like what's happening on a platform is textbook first amendment. That you can leave the platform has no bearing on the first amendment. The first amendment says "the government CANNOT do this". It doesn't say "it can't do this, unless users can leave".

Believe it or not posting the first amendment isn't a unique message that no one has heard before. I'm not sure why it's relevant here. Of course the government is upset about something. We pass laws to fix problems. If we see no problem, we don't pass a law.

The White House wants the FCC to treat certain social media companies as if they were newspapers. That's it. Do you think there is a first amendment issue with how the government is treating newspapers right now?

> I'm not sure why it's relevant here. Of course the government is upset about something. We pass laws to fix problems. If we see no problem, we don't pass a law.

It's relevant here because the constituion is the highest legal document in the country. Something that republicans selectively forget.

Hold on... do you know what Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is about? Do you know what protections it gives to companies and what happens if you're treated like a publisher?

>Something that republicans selectively forget

ok... Go tell it to a Republican then.

Admittedly, that is one big issue. But from a purely political angle, Trump is trying to control the narrative to increase chances of re-election. This narrative will have to include undercounted COVID-19 fatalities, and understated economic effects of the failure to contain the pandemic. It cannot work if it is presented side-by-side with best estimates of actual numbers. Suppressing these numbers is the obvious goal here and leveraging money and political power over the legal system are the means.

I don't buy this. Both sides have been calling for regulation ever since Russians used Twitter and Facebook to meddle in the 2016 election. These are unaccountable companies with unparalleled influence on our elections. If they influence which lawmakers get chosen, they should have to follow minimum standards of conduct.

Fact-checking is protected free speech. Introducing fact-checking links are one of many remedies for external meddling that social platforms have done since last election, ie. to combat "fake news". This juvenile reaction from a president is working against the population making informed decisions made up of facts, not manipulative deceptive made-up unsustantiated statements. As the president also tries to suppress voter engagement, one might even conclude the current administration is working as if anti-democratic as well. The intentions seems to be; to work for oneself and fire everyone else.

All social media sites effectively curate content by dictating what is allowed on the platform and what is not, and removing content which doesn't meet those requirements.

This isn't just about facebook and twitter, it's about every site that allows user generated content, reddit, Hacker News, Instagram, heck even Stack Exchange counts, I'd imagine.

As long as those sites curate according to their transparent terms of use these rules wouldn't apply to them.

I'd argue there's no such thing as "transparent terms of use" that wouldn't be open to legal challenge. Twitter and facebook have terms of use, they're as transparent as any other site in that regard.

Reddit has banned whole sub-reddits and shadowbanned others, Hacker news has human mods who make qualitative decisions to curate conversations on this site.

This hits every forum, every newsgroup, every site that has user generated content.

That's not at all how the law reads.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected;

Moderation does not have to be systematic, transparent, unbiased, or applied fairly.

The combined parts 1 and 2 of the "Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material" mean that you are not responsible for the speech you host, but you can also not be compelled to host speech you choose not to host.

> The 1st amendment isn't the issue here.

First amendment is the issue, what do you think "publisher" vs "platform" is about? It's about who should be sued for bad speech. What happens if FB is responsible for everything you say? More censorship. What happens if you are responsible for everything you say? Less disclosure.

Right now we have a situation where the platform owner can collect the fruits of popularity, while the platform users experience basically no-liability gossip. More speech, but are we healthier as a society for it? Maybe sometimes the answer isn't always making sure we have more free speech.

Also I'm not sure how lawsuits help out in the world of little people, because only big people can sue, and they only sue big targets.

That is not what I think is the issue. The issue is that Twitter is behaving like an editorial. What Twitter did is effectively singling out a politician for his views without any regard for being unbiased (which is what a platform should be). I don't see Twitter attaching disclaimers to the tweets issued by any other politician or World leader. I can give multiple instances of politicians in my country misusing Twitter to spread propaganda and outright lies. If Twitter wanted to rebut Trump it could have done it by commenting under the Tweet just like everyone else. The moment Twitter assumes an editorial role upon itself it is no longer a platform but a publisher.

> The gameplan might be to build a direct connection between the vast financial resources of the republican party and their ability to influence online audiences

Assuming that there is some "game-plan" is far fetched. If Twitter hadn't done this there wouldn't be a hue and cry in the first place. No one asked Twitter to attach its own opinion to the tweet. It did it on its own volition.

The fact is that Twitter is heavily tilted towards the left. Jack Dorsey is himself a self-declared left-leaning liberal. India has had its fair share of random banning of right-leaning accounts with those accounts not violating any Twitter policy. After hue and cry those accounts are reinstated. Once reinstated, there is no explanation given as to why the account was banned in the first place and why the account was reinstated. And it has happened multiple times!

If you are going to preach about democracy and fair play then first start at home. Else it will just reek of hypocrisy. And people hate hypocrisy more than lies. At least you know when someone is lying. But you never know when someone is being a hypocrite until you dig his/her past!

Instead of digging into the distant past and guessing intentions, one can just fact-check them and make informed decisions at elections based on facts, not self-serving unsubstantiated claims. One needs to use a first filter first.

But how is Twitter qualified as a fact checker/arbiter? Twitter just cannot assume that role onto itself unless it is specifically chosen to be one and has reported itself as one to the relevant authorities. And once it does that, it binds itself to the regulations that govern an arbiter. Will Twitter subject itself to such regulations?

And who decides whether the citations are factual? Does Twitter decide it? If Twitter decides it then isn't it behaving like a Quasi-Judicial body? If it is like one then it is no longer a platform. You cannot call yourself a "platform" and then suddenly decide to change the character of your business and behave like an arbiter. There is a reason why you mention your nature of business while setting up your company. That way the authorities know what regulations will apply to you. If Twitter is behaving like a publisher and the publishing regulations do not apply then you are creating a monster in the process! And for what justification? Just to take on a politician whose term is fixed? Twitter is going to exist even when Trump isn't the President. By allowing Twitter to get away with this you are going to be setting a precedent for other companies to behave in a similar fashion. Then what is the point of rules and regulations? No one will follow it. Every company will decide to modify its nature of business as it sees fit.

Fair question in isolation.

However, are providing fact-checking links really being an arbiter when it's just a link to fact-checking sources? You could criticise those sources as biased, but as fact-checking, one would also need to find flaws in the facts-check itself for it to be anything substantial, and not just FUD-raising.

The extra notices could also have been separate posts by Twitter, or any other method/design of informing users. Twitter is mandated to inform or remove possible factual errors in their platform, in order to combat fake news and undue external political influence.

There is no right for anybody to tell blatant lies and to suppress fact-checks as protected by free speech laws. Some of it are not lies and not that exhaggerated, so it's hard to draw solid lines in the sand. Fact-checking seems a reasonable alternative. Mitigations have already been mandated after last election to combat fake news. Twitter being the owner of both platform and expression of content, is the final decisionmaker of their own social media platform, unless violating Constitution, regulation or laws. This expression is probably mostly covered by 1st Amendment and property laws.

> However, are providing fact-checking links really being an arbiter when it's just a link to fact-checking sources?

Everything drastic starts off with a minor tweak. A minor change. These minor changes in a business' character add up to create a monster in the end. And we all know how companies keep changing policies that give them more and more control. We want the exact opposite. These are platforms for a reason. That is the beauty of it. If you want to tamper with people's opinions then you are no longer a platform. You are an editorial. You just cannot use a space you have given to someone to add your own views. There is no two ways about it. Even if they are a private company, they have a public platform that is used by everyone. And with that kind of power comes greater responsibility.

Whether Trump lies or not, the mandate for electing an alternative is always with the People of the United States. But you have no alternative to Twitter when it comes to ease of instant communication with millions of followers. What Twitter has done has a chilling effect. Adding notices now depends on some employee inside Twitter. Today it is Trump, tomorrow it can be someone else. It all depends on that employee's mood/feeling/bias. And as far as fact-checking is concerned we know how easy it is to "manufacture facts". Manufactured facts were used for waging Wars. Some of them on fellow humans. Some others on drugs like Marijuana. And those manufactured facts were never cross checked.

Some others are even worse. Let us take WHO for instance. What do you say for this: https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152

"Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China"

We all knew there was clear evidence of human-to-human transmission because of the lockdown imposed in Wuhan, the number of people falling sick and the rapid construction of hospitals by the Chinese Government. Yet WHO chose to lie. Did Twitter try to fact check this? This tweet is still on the platform. We all know now that it was a lie from the start. This lie put millions to suffer and killed hundreds of thousands of people around the World. Yet Twitter isn't doing anything. Not even attaching a "Fact Check" against that monstrous lie.

> Twitter is mandated to inform or remove possible factual errors in their platform, in order to combat fake news and undue external political influence. > Mitigations have already been mandated after last election to combat fake news.

Who mandated Twitter to take on this role? The US Government? I haven't come across any law that mandates social media companies to combat fake news/undue external political influence. If you have any reference I would be happy to read more about it.

Good points. We laughed at those "news" from China, though that was a blip against a hurricane of contagion escalation for anybody following regular news stories. USA gov has own Intelligence reports that would be even ahead of the news as well.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=no+clear+evidence+who

There was a huge debacle at the time with Facebook CEO visiting different countries' authorities and the Cambridge A. scandal:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=social+media+combat+fake+news+cong...

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=social+media+combat+fake+news

Though active admin moderation on social media, forums and even news sites has a long history before that as well.

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