In this case, who is saying "we should stop the public from seeing that?" Not Biden. His campaign folks said "it's not true." I'm unaware of any calls from Biden to censor anything. Ever.

Please do correct me if I'm wrong.

I know it's been an insane 4 years, but, for Trump, this isn't true. He said, in his first year, he wanted to stated to take NBC off the air[1]. It's a message that he's been saying since before he took office. Understandably, taking a billion dollar corporation off the air is a lot more difficult than wiping an anonymous poster online, but to imply that "Fake News" is entirely just criticism is just complete ignorance of what the man has been saying for years.

>I'm not taking the side of Trump or anyone at all by saying that criticism is different than censorship, that's just a fact. Your argument is not in good faith if bringing that up to you is considered an implicit support for Trump, or anyone really.

If someone says the only people screaming for censorship are firmly on the left, how am I supposed to argue that point without focusing on Trump?

I'm not bringing this up because I want you to vote Biden or not vote for Trump, but to dispel this notion that "censorship" is exclusively some far left/right tool of oppression. My personal view is that these platform should do whatever they want, just like how HN mods run Hn the way they feel, and no private platform is "obliged" to give you a platform no matter how large they are. Regardless the _government_ should be limited in power to tell private companies in what they should and should not publish. To this day, there has been no _US government_ pressure to "censor" legal political posts - it's been entirely private actors who have taken censorship action. However to suggest that one side is 100% free speech and the other side are coming to take your "free speech" is misrepresenting what both sides.

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

Huh?

You state that criticism is different than censorship. I agree.

However, I don't get the connection here. Calling something "fake news" or calling it "disinformation" are both criticisms. In fact, those terms are pretty much synonymous.

Which is irrelevant to the issue.

Twitter and Facebook are limiting distribution of this particular piece. Which is certainly akin to censorship. However, It's Twitter and Facebook taking these actions, not "most people."

Based on the details I've read (and thanks to this post, I've read quite a few), this story doesn't really pass the smell test, and may well be "disinformation."

Will you now accuse me of advocating censorship?

What if I'd said it was "fake news" instead? Am I advocating censorship now?

Calling for censorship would be something like "Don't let anyone see that!" Or "These monsters need to be silenced!"

There's a difference.

Unfortunately, we're all wrapped so tightly because, you guessed it, Twitter and Facebook (and others) use exactly those sorts of tricks to rile us up, to boost engagement and make more advertising dollars.

Which leaves us fighting each other over which synonym is worse.

In truth, most people are kind, decent human beings who just want to have a decent life. Sure, we disagree about a few of the details concerning how to have a decent life, but we agree about many more details.

The interactions of a bunch of really small groups who want to influence us for their benefit (whether that be for political power, profit or both) are laughing all the way to the bank as we tear each other apart.

Let's not let them do that any more, as we're only hurting ourselves.