Trump signs executive order targeting Twitter after fact-checking row | Hacker News Reader

Trump signs executive order targeting Twitter after fact-checking row

bbc.com

42 pointsabootstrapper28 comments

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A prominent person lied, the venue he lied in had a small correction link appended (without modifying the original statement), his access to the platform wasn't restricted, and I am don't know where there problem is supposed to be. It's a painfully obvious attempt to manufacture outrage and victimhood in a demoralized constituency.

It will work too.

He’s successfully portrayed himself - and his supporters - as under attack.

By the liberal elite, cnn, china, lbgqt, etc. Now he will add twitter to the list.

He’s told America they’re under attack. And only he will fight back.

He can do no wrong as long as he continues to convince Americans there’s a cultural war against them.

And to distract from the 100,000 dead bodies.

https://www.theonion.com/white-house-press-secretary-trump-s...

What about the estimated 62,000 dead bodies from the current flu season, why doesn't he need to "distract" from them?

Answer: because they haven't been editorialised by the likes of the NYT to promote an agenda. Which brings us neatly back on topic.

Two years ago was one of the worst on record, and still didn't quite hit 62,000 dead, "only" 61,099[0]. Last year was more "normal" with 34,157 deaths[1]. From everything I've read, current CDC estimates for this flu season are between those two numbers, and the 100k and counting COVID-19 deaths are in addition to those.

The flu sucks, but making up numbers doesn't help anybody. Taking the highest-possible value from the range "24,000 – 62,000"[2] at the end of the flu season is not a good comparison to the at-least 100,000 COVID-19 deaths nowhere near the end of "COVID-19 season."

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-e...

>the estimated 62,000 dead bodies from the current flu season

Source?

> ...small correction link appended (without modifying the original statement)

'A Twitter spokesman said Mr. Trump's tweets about mail-in ballots "contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labeled to provide additional context."'

That is called "editorializing", and it distinguishes a publisher from a platform. Wanna "provide additional context"? Well you better start doing it for every single user contributing to your publication, but maybe do that after you bulk up on corporate lawyers - because your curated content firehose is going to attract the litigious type.

I can't tell whether or not you're suggesting that this would be a bad thing, but I'd be all for every verified account of an elected official to be subject to this process.

You want to go back to the network television gatekeeping model? I don't think that will go over too well, which is especially bad since they'd have to pare down the user base to a manageable size for their board of editors. The reverberations generated by that echo chamber will be amazing.

The problem with editorializing is that this would remove Twitter's liability protection as a platform. When Twitter starts editorializing, they're taking the stance of a publisher, and they become liable for everything they didn't editorialize.

The protection afforded to them right now, as a platform, means they (Twitter) cannot be sued for defamation (as an example) when they fail to moderate claiming (as an example) that Hillary Clinton is a pedophile. Editorializing would remove this protection.

Why do it for everyone? This was clearly for the benefit of correcting mis-information which was trying to influence democratic voting by a political figure trying to undermine the legal voting rights to benefit their own re-election at a mass scale. I believe that is a reasonably good thing to protect regardless of where on the political spectrum one sits (except maybe totalitarianism)..

Because you can't selectively act as a publisher when it suits you while enjoying the legal protections afforded to a platform, you have to pick one.

> This was clearly for the benefit of correcting mis-information

To be clear, they provided "additional context" to somebody's opinion - by linking to someone else's opinion. No statistics provided, no attempt at addressing the troubling events going on with NJ mail-in ballots...

> I believe that is a reasonably good thing to protect regardless of where on the political spectrum one sits

How about we stick with the law. This has been a long time coming, not just for twitter - but Google and Mastercard... the debanking has been going on for a while.

> A prominent person lied

If what he said was a lie then all the tweets about the gender pay gap are lies (as an example).

Where are the fact checks on those tweets?

Choosing who to fact check based on political alignment certainly seems to push twitter into publisher territory.

The publisher / platform dichotomy that everyone seems to be referring to: do you actually believe it makes sense to categorize entirely as one or the other? Is there no gray area allowed for organizations dealing with literally millions of people that aren’t necessary the same way ISPs are?

Astounding to me that nuance isn’t allowed in this discussion

> Is there no gray area allowed for organizations dealing with literally millions of people?

There is plenty of grey area - but as soon as you start pushing politics with your platform you have well and truly crossed the line.

The tech giants get special protection because most people see the grey.

Pushing politics lol. They’re just pointing out when a POLITICIAN lies.

Twitter is like a library - they don’t create their own content but that doesn’t mean they have to give every ignorant fool a soap box to stand on.

The tech giants are the biggest risk to democracy of the decade - and you are equating them with being a library.

You can’t talk about nuance when we aren’t even reading the same book.

ISPs have a tiny fraction of the power of big tech.

The problem is that the Republican party has systematically gerrymandered and disenfranchised voters for decades under the guise of voter verification in Dem strongholds, and now they've been publicly called out.

Why do Republicans hate democracy so much?

Sunlight is quite the disinfectant.

Here's one list:

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/stat...

No need to be partisan: for systematic disenfranchisement, see the Constitution, which predates the party to which you are opposed by a good half century.

As far as hating democracy goes, I found some good Republican ideals here: http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/pierce.... "Republicans, on the contrary, are for both the man and the dollar; but in cases of conflict, the man before the dollar."

> am don't know where there problem is supposed to be

The problem is that Twitter is supposed to be a platform. But by appending to user-generated content, regardless of their good intentions, they've crossed the line from platform to reviewer-editor.

Furthermore if you read the "fact check" statements in this instance, they too are primarily subjective opinions. Only one statement contained any statistical data and it was irrelevant. So Twitter was further editorialising by implying that some other users' opinions were more significant.

I'm sure this is totally benign and definitely isn't intended to cause any chilling effects on criticism of the President.

The Trump administration is corrupt, sycophantic, and philistine.

This was inevitable given the way that Twitter and other large platforms have behaved. They want to hide behind the idea of platform neutrality so that they can't be held responsible for everything posted on their site, since it's impossible for them to check every post. At the same time, they want to be able to step in when something offensive to the tastes becomes too prominent.

This EO puts an end to that. Either you exercise editorial control or you don't; no more "editorial responsibility only when we feel like it".

It doesn't do anything. It directs agencies he doesn't control to do things they can't do. All it does is distract and and seem intimidating to Twitter and Facebook. He's just a bully.

Isn’t the problem that the tweets are factually incorrect? I don’t think it has anything to do with offensiveness in this case.

I’m not sure about that. I don’t like the toxic nonsense the president posts, but I can also not like the toxic nonsense e.g. esr posts on his website, while simultaneously thinking his web host would be wrong for editing his pages full of toxic nonsense against his will.

I think this EO will be a net benefit for free expression online. I was expecting it to be a terrible tyrannical anti-free-press power grab, but, having read it, it does not appear to be that.

This does not necessarily put an end to it, if it does end up putting an end to it, it does not extent only to the US and effectively legislating world wide internet and, if it is shown it has teeth, in the end it might have the end effect of killing _all_ online moderation. Surely, if you moderate, _some_ moderation is better than _no_ moderation.

And even if you moderate something, it will be absolutely impossible to moderate everything. Basically, it dooms you platform. You'll err on the side of caution and become YouTube+DMCA takedowns now.

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