There is no reason to give elected officials a free pass. It biases elections by giving them an even bigger microphone than the other people running. Apply the same standards to all.
Do you honestly not realize that this is the exact issue being debated? Whether the "standards" are being applied fairly and consistently irrespective of political affiliations? And whether the "standard" itself is loaded to censor certain relatively mainstream but not Silicon Valley viewpoints?
What you're saying reminds me of an anti-gay marriage argument I heard: "Hey, I'm straight and I don't have the right to marry a man. A gay guy doesn't have the right to marry a man either. Look at that: the same standard applies to all. Everything is fair!"
I'm not particularly aligned to either democrats or republicans, but I've looked at "fact-checks" by supposedly neutral parties and they're often absolute garbage. Not only is the "research" superficial, what is chosen to be fact-checked vs. what isn't fact-checked is transparently biased. The "same standard" does not appear to be applied to all.
Given the debatable nature of these questions, I think common sense would say it's better to let voters and the marketplace of idea arbitrate rather than social media companies. And, as a general matter, I'm shocked people are still so into censoring in 2020. Isn't censoring books/ideas/speech something we laugh at given how consistently wrong it tends to be? I'd say censoring is silly at best and evil at worst.
Got some numbers behind this?
Another bias of yours is assuming that I was for censorship. I argued only that the same standard be applied. That can mean no censorship too.
The views expressed in this case were
"When the shooting starts, the looting starts"[0]. Which, while perhaps not Trump's intent, can reasonably read as encouragement (or incitement, or glorification) of violence toward people.
> the marketplace of idea
Twitter is a part of the marketplace of ideas, is it not? Their actions are simply an action taken as part of the marketplace of ideas.
> What you're saying reminds me of an anti-gay marriage argument I heard.
To the unoppressed, equality looks like oppression. That's true whether the unoppressed is a straight man or a person who can threaten others with violence without consequence. So yes, the two situations are very similar.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_looting_starts,_the_s...
Do you not see how I could just as easily use your empty standard to ban tweets saying “A riot is the language of the unheard.” -- a quote I largely agree with? This quote explains rioting as a consequence of oppression. But if I was as easily triggered as you, I'd have it banned since it "can reasonably [be] read as encouragement (or incitement, or glorification) of [rioting]" a definitionally illegal act.
And frankly, your interpretation of the Trump tweet is not reasonable. The most reasonable, common-sense interpretation is one linking severe consequences to severe actions. Does the phrase "When you play with fire, you're going to get burned" glorify burning people?
> Twitter is a part of the marketplace of ideas, is it not?
In the standard notion of a marketplace, you let decentralized end-users gravitate toward things they like and avoid things they don't like. If Trump's speech is so offensive, then let END-USERS decide to block his content or barrage his comments with condemnation or vote him out of office. Instead, you're advocating for a major centralized "authority" to make the decisions about tweets that should and shouldn't be seen, whether or not they're popular with the end-users. Yes, if they disagree that strongly with the censorship, those end-users can leave the platform, but that's analogous to "well, if you don't like it, then you can just leave". If people like something, they're rather fight to keep it good than let other people "ruin" it.
> ...whether the unoppressed is a straight man or a person who can threaten others with violence without consequence...
Mobs breaking windows, lighting things on fire, and stealing is violence. It exposes people to tremendous danger and tremendous injustice. Saying that violence begets violence should hardly be a controversial idea. I certainly don't think Trump's tweets are helpful in anyway. I think they're incredibly tone deaf and unhelpful. But I'm not going to cry to Twitter or Facebook and demand it be blocked.
I'd ask that you respect the guidelines of HN and refrain from using needlessly charged language like "triggered". I'm not "triggered". I have views that differ from your own. Triggered has a specific meaning, either implying a traumatic response (as in "The loud noise triggered my PTSD") or it can be used to mean something like "offended"). I, personally, am not "offended" by Trump's statement, at least not in the colloquial sense. I'm disappointed by it, sure, but not offended. He didn't insult me. Since we're discussing language and semantics, let's be precise, yes?
> "When you play with fire, you're going to get burned" glorify burning people?
Fires are not intelligent beings with free will. You cannot, by definition, encourage a fire to burn someone. So while shouting "yeah, burn him" at a fire would not be inciting violence, shouting "yeah, shoot him" would be.
I'll also note that context plays an important role in how we understand statements. For example, if I, an individual sitting at my computer, say "protestors deserve to be shot", while that's a rather crappy opinion for an individual to hold, I cannot take action on it. It isn't threatening. On the other hand, when a representative of the government says the same thing, we must take that same statement much more seriously because the government does have the ability to shoot protestors. The same thing applies if I make the same statement while standing with a firearm across the street from a group of people protesting. In context, the same statement can have very different connotations.
Further, Trump specifically has made no effort to differentiate between peaceful and violent protestors. As an example, he retweeted[0] an article[1] claiming that park police cleared peaceful protestors out of Lafayette Park. That article was based on a series of tweets that at the time concluded that park police didn't use tear gas and were unaware of the president's movements, but now include more context, that Secret Service agents may have used tear gas, and that the clearing of the area was ordered directly by AG Barr.
So we have a President who has the power to fire on people, and has used that authority to use weapons of war on peaceful, non-looting, non-violent demonstrators. And who actively tries to blur the line between peaceful and violent protest (as do police forces when they escalate at demonstrations).
So the statement has to be taken in that context.
> And frankly, your interpretation of the Trump tweet is not reasonable. The most reasonable, common-sense interpretation is one linking severe consequences to severe actions.
So let's dive into this. I'd agree, if I were to make the same statement sitting here in front of my screen, it would be mostly an observational take. A terribly worded observation, but an observation. However, I do not have the ability to order people to shoot protestors. Trump does (and in a sense he did: Trump's AG ordered police and soldiers to fire tear gas at peaceful protestors to clear the room for a photoshoot).
In other words, an observation made by a person without power to follow through is a threat when made by a person who can. And Trump does have the power to follow through on his threat.
> In the standard notion of a marketplace, you let decentralized end-users gravitate toward things they like and avoid things they don't like.
Indeed, and twitter is a participant in the marketplace. Twitter itself is not "the marketplace of ideals". There are other places to speak. The idea that every participant in the marketplace must themselves also be a marketplace is antithetical to the idea of a marketplace. You can argue that twitter or facebook has positioned themselves as a marketplace, but they've clearly never really done that. Both have always had moderation and speech policies. They were just speech policies you agreed with (for example: certain uses of certain words have always been banned on both platforms).
> If people like something, they're rather fight to keep it good than let other people "ruin" it.
And you're welcome to do that. And others in the marketplace can listen, or not. Don't praise the marketplace of ideas on one line, and lament it the next when things don't go your way.
> Mobs breaking windows, lighting things on fire, and stealing is violence.
And I didn't say otherwise, but I think you've missed the point. I'll clarify:
The number of people who say that citizens on the streets who are acting violently should face no consequences is very limited. It's isolated mostly to anarchist and anarcho-marxist circles. People who commit violent crimes, indeed, deserve to face consequences.
But that goes both ways. Officers and forces who shoot unarmed, peaceful protestors should face consequences. There are hundreds of incidents of that happening in the past week.
If you have two groups, one who commits violence and is punished, and one who commits violence and is not, the one that isn't getting punished probably isn't oppressed, but the one getting punished might be. If you have two groups, one who commits violence and isn't punished, and one who commits no violence and is punished, well then something is very wrong. And one of those groups probably is oppressed. When the peaceful people are speaking out about being oppressed, and the response is to punish them, well the irony is palpable at that point.
So yes, a president who can threaten violence and face no consequences is not oppressed. While the citizens on the streets, citizens whom he is supposed to represent but is instead threatening with violence, they might just be oppressed.
[0]: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12679733693513605...
[1]: https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/02/media-falsely-claimed-v...
[2]: https://twitter.com/AugensteinWTOP/status/126779133614663680...
> Apply the same standards to all.
I find these statements at odds. People can say what they want and it may or may not be inaccurate or misleading or accurate or truthful. Giving elected officials "a free pass" to do just that _is_ applying the same standard to all.
Elected officials have a microphone because of the political system and the endemic elevation of these regular, flawed, people to a status above the common man (same with police and a number of other power hierarchies in the USA).
Here’s an idea... if you don’t like what somebody writes online, don’t read it.
Do people really think that censoring, or even annotating, the President’s words will change how people feel about them? Like someone is going to read Trump’s message, think “oh right, mail-in ballots could lead to voter fraud,” then read an annotation from CNN and conclude “oh never mind, Trump lied.” On the contrary, it will lead to further entrenchment of division as they retreat to the comfort of their pre-existing views.
Are people serious about this?? It seems obvious that the most likely outcome of censorship or editorializing is more entrenchment of views and pre-existing beliefs, not less. Nobody who is already listening to Trump is going to suddenly stop because Twitter or Facebook shows them a CNN article next to a “fact check” label.
It’s just so ridiculous, I can’t believe we are actually having this conversation. What happened to teaching people critical thinking and not to believe everything they read on the internet? And what the heck is “violent speech?” Just close the page if you don’t like it. My goodness.
As far as changing minds goes, I think there's a swath of voters who sit in the political middle and they don't fact check. The swath is large enough that they can influence elections. It's critical to make sure they don't get influenced by politicians who make up facts on the spot.
A friend of mine and I commiserated last week about the difficulty of debating with people on political issues. We noticed that people can make up "facts" quicker than we can fact check. You would think that the onus would be on the person making an argument to provide proof. But that standard of argument is long gone. The proof seems to always be on the person who says, "No, I don't think that's right."
Herein lies the rub. It’s extremely rare that a politician is tweeting about something so black-and-white that the tweet can be provably true or false. There is almost always a gray area between fact and opinion. In fact, people tend to vote for politicians because they agree with their interpretation and prioritization of a set of facts. So I think you’ll find the vast majority of political tweets reside in this gray area, because otherwise they wouldn’t be political in the first place.
And if “provably false” is the standard for editorializing, then Twitter picked a terrible example to set as the precedent. The tweet they “fact checked” was Trump making a prediction about the future. Namely, he was suggesting that mail-in ballots could lead to increased voter fraud. Not only is this an opinion, but it’s a projection about something that has not happened yet. By definition, it cannot be provably false.
I can't believe that people are criticizing an organization for exercising it's right to free speech. Like this wasn't even a case of removal of content. It was literally taking a sign and sticking another sign below it. It's something that the government would be allowed to do to a private citizen. It's that far away from censorship. And yet.
And most importantly, who decides what is a lie?
Either take 230 away from the company and no-one can lie on the platform, or stop censoring/altering users and allow everyone to say what's in their legal right to say.
There's a meme about nothing being true on the internet, why do we need a Ministry of Truth now?
Surely that will lead to much more content deleted to avoid lawsuits? Why is that a desirable outcome?
Can’t you imagine Mark and Jack telling Republican senators: “We wanted to enable free speech, we told you so, but you took away the protections around that so we had no choice but to turn the moderation dial to 11.”
I wonder about those different platforms. They already exist — Gab simply isn’t that popular. Revoking Section 230 would expose Gab to a “Thiel vs Gawker” situation: a billionaire could sue them into extinction. That doesn’t seem desirable at all.
If FB's status changed, Gab could theoretically become more popular. Not all new platform/publishers would be the equivalent of a Gawker and thus raise the ire of a billionaire. There are plenty of independent journals, magazines, blogging platforms, etc that don't get sued out of existence.
Please don’t make accusations of astroturfing. It’s rude and against the HN guidelines. Why? Because the majority of the time, it’s not true. I don’t work at or have any connection to Microsoft, but a week ago, I was accused of astroturfing for them because I did not agree that them open sourcing stuff is EEE.
The problem isn't that people "don't like" what elected officials say. It's that people often take what elected officials say as truth without even considering that it might be false (they must be Smart and Good if they're in office, right?)
Fact checking and censoring prominent figures isn't going to affect people who already have strongly held beliefs. But it will make a difference to people who are impressionable or vulnerable or don't know any better.
Well educate them on that instead of trying to control the information flow. History taught us that will always backfire.
The US is a rich country. If anything, using percentage of GDP understates just how much we spend on education. For primary & secondary education (everything before college), there are only four countries in the world that spend more per student than the US: Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, and Norway. For post-secondary education (college and grad school), the US spends more per student than any other country.[2]
If you look at other metrics such as the percentage of adults with college degrees, or the percentage of adults who graduate high school, the US has never done better.[3][4] If you look at PISA scores, we're very close to the OECD average and that number hasn't changed much over time.[5] (Like most developed countries, absolute scores have slowly decreased over time. It's not clear why this is happening.)
If people have been working for decades to destroy public education, they're doing a very bad job of it.
1. https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/public-spending-on-educati...
2. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp
3. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2017/cb17-51....
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_...
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_St...
I teach in college. I was born early sixties. My daughter teaches math in high school. Recently I showed her my math books from my old high school. Her response: No way that my students could follow this.
Where I teach we have to give extra classes in basic math (I'm in STEM).
We're definitely sliding. Reading seems to be sliding worse even.
By the way, I don't think there is much of a correlation between how much a country spends on education and the quality of it.
I'll defend their right to be stupid.
I won't prevent people from learning rather I won't force them to learn if that what they prefer.
>A democracy requires an educated electorate, so you are anti-democracy?
Democracy doesn't require an educated electorate, it only require majority. If the majority is 'stupid' (stupid is relative) then stupid it is.
A democracy ruled by an ignorant majority winds up as authoritarian, but you already knew what that quote I paraphrased means. Keep deflecting.
No, unless you force somebody to put that link.
>A democracy ruled by an ignorant majority winds up as authoritaria
If majority wants authoritarian then authoritarian it is, thats democracy.
Also: a quite effective assault at climate action using misinformation, violent riots, a movement campaigning for civil war, ridiculous medical advise by the US president leading to deaths during a pandemic, etc.
This all happened and permanently changed the debate. Free speech is poisoned these days and we can't simply ignore that.
Even if that is the case, it shouldn’t mean we give up on free speech and allow it to be effectively eliminated “so it can be saved”. Free speech with some censorship is just censorship.
A robust public debate is how ideas are fairly brought out and given an opportunity to thrive or die. Having Twitter or a government or “fact checker” or any other person/organization in the middle adding their outsized influence to the picture brings the whole debate out of balance. Why is Jack’s voice worth 1000x more than yours? Because he’s more “enlightened”?