Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]
thehill.com
thehill.com
* Question 1: Why did you put labels on the president's tweets? What gives you the right to determine that? Putting a label on is completely outrageous!
* Question 2: You labelled the presidents tweet as 'potentially misleading' - but this didn't go far enough, as it was fully misleading! Why are you not harsh enough on fake news?!
There needs to be a separate task of trying to work out what on earth it is that the aim/goal actually is.
Maybe before Tahrir Square that was true, but they've been at this fulcrum for ~9 years now. They know what they're doing and what their part is in the play staging today.
Twitter et. al. have been a political force for most of their existence. The only thing that has changed is that while in their early years, their political effects were concentrated in the developing world in faraway lands, in recent years they have started affecting western politics as well. Many people who praised the earlier effects are condemning the latter. But the fundamental forces and processes are the same; it is the target that has changed. And Twitter has known it was political at least since 2009, when revolutions were named after it and multiple countries blocked it from their internet for the fear of the havoc it may cause.
Also, realistically no one's gonna care too much if you ban one of those millions of people without a voice, but good luck trying to censor the president.
I don't think Twitter revolutions were free of propaganda. I am sure all the superpowers and regional powers were fanning the flames of discontent and trying to steer the results in their favourite direction. The excuse many countries gave for blocking Twitter was that it was a foreign propaganda tool. I am not saying the entire thing was foreign agents and propaganda. I am saying that there was some of that then as it is now. We have just learned to see it, because now the propaganda is directed at us and we have a clearer view.
Entire networks of bots spreading misinformation get removed every once in a while, but you won't see the same happening with world leaders purposefully spreading lies.
Also, almost all of the people who have large followings in Twitter have large followings in real life. That is, they are people in power trying the use the platform to disseminate their propaganda.
In the case of the Twitter revolutions, they are revolutions in far away countries that align with American geopolitical interests, so an American would be inclined to agree with it (due to media, society, their own material interests) and consequently rationalize it.
Social Media literally turns every important, nuanced discussion into propaganda. Until we all realize that and decide to collectively reject it at an ideological level, it’s gonna be a rough road.
This is somewhat disingeneous. Twitters efforts in the developing world were only to make sure everyone had access, and nobodys voice was squashed. It didnt bow down to dictatorial takedown requests, and allowed dissenters voices to be heard, thus enabling the revolutions that followed.
The game they are playing now is arbitrating content, and putting labels on things to guide the narrative. Regardless if they are right or not, as they are in the case with Trump its a very, very different game.
1) That they are arbitrating content, like what you mentioned with Trump
2) That they are not arbitrating content enough, giving platform to climate change denialism, conspiracy theories, far right radicalization, and genocide [0].
So sure, they can return to their original stance and censor nobody. I don't think people would be too happy with them when the world gets more genocide-y and violent protests break out fuelled by conspiracy theories regarding the health of the elections.
So to recap: moderating and not moderating content on their platforms are both subject to serious criticisms. Right now, social media companies are trying to strike a balance, but the result is that they are angering both sides. If they choose a side (all content is allowed / we will moderate the content as closely as HN is moderated), they other side will be angrier at them. They were happy not doing moderation when the negative impacts were only affecting non-western countries, but now that it is also affecting western countries, they are more clearly seeing the negative sides and they have moved more to the middle.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...
The kinds of problems social media has exposed are problems that society isn't able to deal with and the people who were just looking for a quick buck, without needing to do much work, are caught in the middle of it. Corporate structures were never intended to regulate the speech of billions of people in thousands of legal jurisdictions, but that's exactly the situation Facebook is now in.
I don't know if there is a good solution to the problems of social media short of simply outlawing it.
Twitter intentionally puts irrelevant tweets from people you don’t follow into your feed.
Edit: Oh no it's Lindsey Graham, so probably more grandstanding.
Edit 2: Editorializing here, they're threatening to take away section 230 safe harbor protections as a punishment for "censoring" right wing content using the pretext of youth health.
I tend to agree that their primary function is public shaming, though.
https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1328461277971288067?s=20
Josh Hawley is a US Senator for Missouri.
I have an extremely difficult time taking people like him seriously in a world where Facebook refuses to ban Steve Bannon when he calls for Dr. Fauci to be beheaded, yet twitter does so without issue. But then again, Twitter refuses to address covid-19 misinformation, and allows politicians to generally say whatever they want, conservative or no. All while youtube does nothing about qanon conspiracy videos flooding the platform.
It's just a shame that american politicians now have to be hardline partisans to the point where they will lie right into the microphone to toe the party line.
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"I'd actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I'd put the heads on pikes, right, I'd put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you're gone — time to stop playing games. Blow it all up, put [Trump aide] Ric Grenell today as the interim head of the FBI, that'll light them up, right."
Jack Maxey, the podcast's co-host, responded: "Just yesterday there was the anniversary of the hanging of two Tories in Philadelphia. These were Quaker businessmen who had cohabitated, if you will, with the British while they were occupying Philadelphia. These people were hung. This is what we used to do to traitors."
To this Bannon replied: "That's how you won the revolution. No one wants to talk about it. The revolution wasn't some sort of garden party, right? It was a civil war. It was a civil war."
--------
I think it's pretty fair to characterize this as "literal". It's hard to read this (or listen to it, it was originally in audio form) and not think they're legitimately mulling over the possibility of executions.
However, we've seen plenty of instances where this kind of rhetoric can enable the less stable elements of the population. Pizzagate resulting in a guy holding up a pizza shop he was convinced had child sex slaves in the basement immediately comes to mind. A plot to kidnap a governor comes to mind. Fantasizing about running over protesters, and then James Alex Fields Jr. doing just that and murdering Heather Heyer comes to mind.
It's hard to know where to draw the line. Twitter and Facebook will find it very difficult to detect hyperbole, sarcasm, etc. And neither platform seems interested in spending their billions to hire the type and number of people required for proper monitoring.
"Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci. Now I actually want to go a step farther, but I realize the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man. I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes".
I'd be inclined to believe your interpretation but he himself has already ruled out the figurative meaning of the phrase "pikes on head" with the first sentence in that quote, by saying he wants to "go farther" than that. Beyond firing, how exactly can you "make an example" of an employee?
It could be a non-plausible death threat though. And it's probably glorification of violence. I'd hate to be an arbiter of policies like this though. There's a line here between legally sanctionable speech (which I don't think this quote is), and what Twitter allows on its site.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/10/31/whitey...
There's certainly some interpretation there, but the bar for legal sanctions on a death threat in the US is pretty high, and I don't think this meets it. It's not too far off though, a couple of different word choices, and it might be.
"Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci. Now I actually want to go a step farther...I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes".
So please explain to me. What does "heads on pikes" mean if the person who said it has discounted the "fire in disgrace" interpretation of the saying? This is a serious question. What do you think it really means, taking the entire quote into context?
(funnily this is a rare instance where a quote that sounds fine out of context takes on a sinister note when surrounding quotes are included)
EDIT: I see downvotes, but no answers to what I thought was a very simple question.
"Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci. Now I actually want to go a step farther, but I realize the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man. I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes, right, I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats."
You're saying "pikes on heads" is a figure of speech, meaning firing and making an example of them. But he's saying "let's go beyond just firing". So what does "heads on pikes" mean in the context of the quote? Seriously, I'm trying to understand. How does one make an example of an employee you're displeased with, beyond firing them? Write really mean tweets about them? Fuck with their pensions? What?
If no answer is given, have the next questioner ask the same question again.
At some point, that's going to get under even Zuckerberg's skin.
If a CEO can't answer a question posed by Congress, running out the clock shouldn't be a viable strategy.
"Mr. Zuckerberg, I don't feel you answered my colleague's point. Let me ask again..."
Why do the American people care about the next question, if the previous question wasn't answered? Which is more important, more questions or answers?
That quote is exactly what I mean by passive aggressive cloaking actually. You won't get the answers you want if the questioning process is adversarial as it turns into "Don't talk to the police." or deposition style of being unhelpful as possible instead of trying to actually inform because of incentives.
Zuckerberg isn't dumb. If he's repeating rote memorized passages, it's specifically to run the clock down.
I agree with you.
They need to get the cameras out of congress. Everyone involved in these hearings is mining them for clips for their campaign ads and it's sickening.
It is the cameras you have to thank for finding out that they are posturing and grandstanding.
Really I would expect standing up to the fringes in their wings would be a popularity boosting move but party poltical machine alienating one as .
In the presence of cameras, politicians become instagram celebrities.
Or we could save ourselves the trouble and ask ourselves why it is that we don't allow cameras in those places to begin with. And then we could extend that reasoning to Congress. Turns out treating your government like a reality tv show is a bad idea.
Removing the cameras isn't going to fix everything...but it will be a positive change.
The system operates as it is designed to.
Removing cameras from these hearings could make them more productive. But I don't know how useful these types of hearings could be.
Considering that they are not even under oath, precisely zero. They can lie to the lawmakers' faces with no recourse.
I very distinctly remember Jack telling congress the time before last that they "do not shadowban", and then screenshots of their admin dashboard were leaked[1] that show they explicitly did have multiple kinds of shadowbans.
[1]: https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgxd3d/twitter-insider-acces...
Disregard that first sentence, apparently they are all sworn in by default. It's just that perjury is barely ever pursued.
Interestingly the questioners, in this case the Senators, are not under oath and they can say whatever they’d like. Regardless of how false or nonsensical.
At the last hearing, for instance, Jack Dorsey said that they do not shadow ban, but later pictures appeared of their administrative interface and certainly that capacity was there. An outright lie and yet he isn't even interrogated on this. Wouldn't there be arrests and trials if it truly was a federal crime?
Look at the prosecution of Roger Clemens. Why the hell was Congress holding hearings about steroid use in baseball?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/5-people-who-lied-...
That parallels to attorneys in a trial. Although in a trial there are some limits to questions that can be asked. In a Congressional hearing, the witnesses don't have anyone who can specifically raise an objection on their behalf, they just have to wind down the clock.
Honestly, most of these hearings would be better conducted via letters. Then you wouldn't get nearly so many "I would have to get back to you" answers, often without serious followup.
Of course it doesn't help that many of the questions are ill-informed in their own right.
On the other hand, the meetings of the government should be open and transparent by default.
Don't rely on politicians to do direct questioning of witnesses. Politicians have the wrong incentives, and generally lack the skills, to do anything other than grandstand in public meetings.
Legal fact-finding, including the questioning of witnesses, should be done by lawyers and subject matter experts.
I want to hear from conservatives why they think most of (if not all) of big tech is "in the pockets of the Democrats". Why do all of these software engineers/IT field workers typically end up as left-leaning? Is it a matter of education/intelligence? Empathy? I feel like the split has to be at least 85% Democrat / 15% Republican in IT.
I do think the prevailing educational system K-12 and the universities have a strong tilt to the left - generally ahead of the country. I also suspect most people simply inherit these default settings as their view points.
Why do New York and California vote so heavily blue?
1. "Actually you under-estimate the number of conservatives in tech, they just keep quiet about it because conservative opinions are being oppressed"
2. "For example, a great many twitter posts by Donald Trump have been flagged as false or inciting violence. This shows tech companies won't let you say the things half the population thinks!"
3. "Larry Ellison and Elon Musk love Trump's policies!"
4. "Tech workers often support conservative policies like freedom, opposing government waste and avoiding needless over-regulation. Many tech companies like Uber embody conservative ideals, as do Silicon Valley voters through Prop 13 and Prop 22"
5. "Tech workers often oppose liberal policies like rent control, mandatory hiring diversity, and inheritance taxes on multi-million-dollar homes"
6. "Claims the party is anti-intellectual and anti-science are fake news, how could so many republicans run successful campaigns if they weren't smart? Anyone who seems stupid is actually a genius making a 2000-IQ five-dimensional-chess move. Sadly a lot of tech workers have fallen for the lies of the fake news media."
1. The candidate pool is biased - in terms of demographics, under-30, college-educated, coastal-city individuals are dramatically skewed to the left. I think as IT workers get older, have families, and high paying jobs and education become more accessible to rural areas, we'll see a shift to the center.
2. Tech companies are in the spotlight of the "culture wars" - if your platform is an echo chamber for the narratives of the media, those narratives will eventually become descriptive of your company's identity.
3. H1-B visas and outsourcing is great economics for tech companies. This also reinforces the imperative for domestic workers and company culture to be highly inclusive.
4. More of a soft-factor, I think since most of tech's growth happened under Obama, there was an incentive for companies that were still finding their culture to align themselves with the administration and ruling powers at the time.
5. I think all of the above has pushed tech culture to a critical mass where those in the consensus will actively purge non-conformists.
--
A side-note, but another strange feature of tech culture is how the industry started off as more libertarian/anarchist, and I don't think my answers above explain the catalyst of this cultural 180. Curious what others think the reason behind this might be?
Other than decreasing taxes and anti-abortion position, I can't think of anything else that conservatives support which wouldn't be unreasonable by their own system.
The goal is to get statements into public record and pin down the answers to be used later. Ideally congress would delegate this job to top lawyers who would go list of questions very methodologically.
Making these hearings public and televised has made them into a show. Congressmen make questions that are more like statements in order to please their voters and lots of value is lost.
We are talking about people who are testifying in the Senate hearings. Those people who raise their hand and then sit face towards congressmen.
All the while, Section 230 is being held hostage even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the content moderation these companies currently perform. Few in elected office seem to have much regard for the 1st Amendment. At this point there's clear bipartisan support for curtailing the Section 230 protections that make these discussions possible.
Democrats all say that disinformation is a threat to democracy.
Republicans say that freedom of speech is essential to our democracy.
Jack and Mark preface every answer with “senator thank you for this question” and don’t answer anything. They both insist that the humans making editorial decisions are somehow impartial.
Republicans yell a lot. Somethings they say damn and hell, which are both now acceptable curse words.
Democrats don’t yell and spend their time flattering the witnesses and saying something about election interference.
Nothing happens.
People continue getting more divided and hating each other more so that these two men can get unfathomably wealthy.
The end.
(Bonus points if Ted Cruz says something about the constitution electing presidents, not Silicon Valley tech companies.)
As a society we need to first understand the problem, then decide on what, if anything, we want to do to fix it. Fixes would most likely take the form of some sort of regulation.
E.g. something like where in Canada, some percentage of media has to be from a Canadian source. That law is very contentious in Canada, but you could imagine a similar law for any system that does content recommendation. E.g. some percentage of the content has to be sampled from the total body of content, and not come from the recommender. Something like this might address polarization, but disinformation is a thornier problem.
In any case, it needs to start first with understanding what is going wrong. Things like Mozilla's media bubble study is a good start. From that we need to form policy. There is no role for CEO opinions in all of this.
This is how I see social media. (I realise a lot of HN folk work in this area)
These CEOs brought social media into our world, and I expect them to take resposibility for it. If they are unwilling or unable to take responsibility, then I'm OK for The State to do that for them - like you said with regulations. Currently it looks like they don't want to take resposibility for the destruction they have caused.
Sorry for the rant - but I'm seeing first hand the negative effects of QAnon/Consipracy Theories/Extreme Politics within family members.
I cooked eggs this morning. There is a diversity of wonderful eggs and even some bad eggs. Is the Twitter service a) the eggs, b) the pan, c) the stove, or d) the hen-to-table service of providing a delicious breakfast?
Hearings have four audiences in decreasing order of importance: voters, regulators, the hearing participants and legislators.
If you believe these men are irredeemable sociopaths, ask questions that show voters and regulators (e.g. prosecutors) that.
There is a growing pressure to require your companies to do something similar, and publish the algorithms and metrics you use to keep people on your services longer.
Would you support this movement?
2) Do you believe your products are addictive (this was already asked. I hope it gets asked more.)
3) What does it mean to you for something to be true? Could you give an example of something that you find to be uncontroversially true?
There might be even more good questions; possibility too many.
What's the best way to crowdsource such good questions and select a good sample and bring it to the attention of whoever organizes such hearings?
Growing pressure from who? I've occasionally seen these suggestions within niche tech communities, but I've never heard a layperson suggest something remotely similar to this. I'm also unsure how useful it would be. How detailed would such disclosures be? Even if they list "We use this machine learning algorithm", that algorithm description seems like it would be largely meaningless without the training data (which I don't think you could convince them to publish at all).
> Do you believe your products are addictive?
What company CEO _wouldn't_ say yes to this? It feels, to me at least, like a fluff question that you already know the answer to and won't yield any interesting insight into the company or how the CEO thinks about the product.
> What does it mean to you for something to be true? Could you give an example of something that you find to be uncontroversially true?
I think this is a much better question, although I worry that it might yield itself to some "gotcha" moments from Senators. For example, if one of the CEOs were to say "The sky is blue", I think you might get a lot of Senators saying "Well what if it's raining". That might not be the best example, but just something off the top of my head.
I agree that it might be hard to come up with a unequivocal definition of what is and is not true, as that's ultimately a complicated philosophical question, but I think we can approximate truth by relying on a variety of sources who we know will do their due-diligence on research and are examining the full context of issues.
Mark never admits a single failing and remarks on how "meaningful" your interaction with his service is.
Like yeah - smoking crack is pretty meaningful when you're a crack addict.
Live, after each merge/release.
I know this sounds like splitting hairs on message boards, but I can guarantee you that all of these people who have been called to testify have been briefed heavily by squads of lawyers.
Since the engagement algos/infinite scroll/like button/follower counts etc are meddling with the brains reward mechanisms, what determines such meddling is psychologically safe?
2. What would you suggest the US Government do to help your company support free speech around the world, including in countries where it's limited?
3. Many of the negative effects of your platforms have been blamed on private ranking and/or broadcasting algorithms. What kind of transparency will you commit to with regards to these algorithms?
2. Is that limited to historic memories, such of people, or does it extend to the irrational, where you can see things that aren't real or don't exist yet? I suppose this could also include audio manifestations.
3. Are you aware of any means available which would completely halt all corporate and service functions of the entity you helped create and unleash on the world?
I suppose the last one is a bit of a leading question, but given the seriousness of their actions, meh.
you're describing a "deal with the devil". who do you propose is the "mafia" like entity they're dealing with that will "break their legs" if they back out of their job? Epstein blackmail maybe?
One side says the right wants to use force of government threaten breaking up companies whose speech policies they disagree with. The other side arguing that left-wing social media companies have so much power they can essentially censor opposing views.
Edit: clarity
My entire point is that you were using such a vague straw man that it's impossible to know which direction you meant it. That's why I intentionally showed how it can be a straw man in either direction.
Also, I've been watching the hearing. So you're correct, I suppose -- that's how I was able to accurately summarize. I'm assuming from comment history that you have a libertarian bent, so I'd imagine you're on this side of government staying the hell out of regulating social media companies? But who knows? That's my point.
The Democrats want more effort made by social media companies to fight what they perceive as online misinformation... and are asking for more suppression of speech on social media platforms.
Nobody is hiding the ball here. These are direct statements made in the opening remarks by the leadership of both parties.
No, my statement was not ambiguous - unless you haven't listened to what is being said by the mainstream representatives of both parties.
My view is that these companies are privately run and online communities should be free to run them as they wish. If, say, Christian Mingle wants to ban atheists from using the platform to spread their message, they should be allowed to do that without suddenly taking on liability for things like copyright infringement. If a woodworking community wants to ban discussion of politics, they should be allowed to do that without retribution. If a dating website wants to ban people who say gross things in a first message, there's nothing wrong with allowing them to exist and compete in the marketplace.
If I, as a user of social media, want to belong to a community that removes misinformation around the election, government shouldn't ban such a platform from allowing to exist (since without 230, that'd essentially be impossible). Companies should compete on an equal footing and shouldn't be penalized due to whatever speech policies they favor. It's not government's job to enforce neutral speech codes.
That said, I know some folks disagree and favor government taking a more active role in speech regulations in order to make sure nobody is banned from social media. While both Democrats and Republicans are pushing for changes, mostly only one side favors using the threat of law to enforce their will. It's not that you're genuinely concerned about things like copyright infringement -- you're clearly in favor of laws that would force social media companies to choose between removing the ability of its users to post without a legal review, or using the speech policy you favor, knowing they'll choose the latter. (Since, with so many posts, they couldn't exist with the former.)
You continue to indicate that you haven't actually listened to the arguments made.
The Republican argument is not about whether or not a company can censor information on their platform. In no way is it about the government's "banning" the existence of such a platform.
It's about whether or not the government should blanket protect companies from normal legal liability when they make publishing/editorial decisions over their users' content. That's what Section 230 does.
If Section 230 is removed or amended to the liking of Republicans, it won't be the government that punishes Twitter for their editorial/censoring decisions - it will be everyday people who can make a libel case based upon harm that Twitter caused them. Why should everyday people not be allowed their day in court if they can make a legitimate case of harm as a result of Twitter or Facebook policies?
Please explain why my woodworking community should be responsible for a user libeling another user about, say, their professional woodwork just because the forum has a "no politics" rule, for example. Or even a "politics sure but no Nazis" rule. What sense does this make? Let private companies compete in the marketplace. If folks don't like policies, they can switch services. No need to rewrite 230 to punish or reward companies based on their speech policies.
But that's not the way it works. In reality, moderators don't know legal libel when they see it to the point that they should be automatically indemnified. We see in day-to-day life that not everyone who is accused of being a Nazi or a racist is one in fact. Sometime the accusation of being a Nazi is itself the libel, and if your woodworking moderators are participating in the perpetuation of that libel; then they should be held to account.
If your woodworking community, through moderation, decides to weigh in on user comments through moderation, badging, or editing; then it should be liable for any libel that it amplifies through its policies. If a person can show actual damage from those policies in court, then why should your woodworking community get a pass?
I think the key dishonesty in your comment, whether you're aware of it or not, is this idea that "moderation, badging, or editing" is what would be "amplifying" libel. What sense does that make? How does removing a post that, say, promotes the KKK in a woodworking forum have anything to do with a user possibly-falsely claiming in the public forum that "Joe's Tables and Chairs" doesn't use walnut like they claim?
It's a bizarre claim you're making to justify tremendous government overreach in forcing tiny forums and a billion other websites like it on the web to adopt your preferred speech policies.
Edit: And by the way, I'm being very generous with my examples. For one, I'm assuming you're okay with removing ILLEGAL content, such as child porn, without the website owners being subject to lawsuits for libel and other things -- since they're required to remove those things regardless of 230. But also, what about very legal porn? Or what if a Nintendo Switch game forum removes somebody who posts "first!" as a reply to every thread?
If I'm misreading you, and your preferred policy is instead that these websites should be responsible for claims THEY make -- such as, if the owners call a user a Nazi -- well that's already CURRENT LAW! 230 doesn't grant protection there now. But they're not calling people Nazis -- also, I don't think that lawsuit would go far for reasons based in libel law -- so this never comes up. If you're saying they're "implying" people are Nazi's simply by removing content based on hate speech policies, again, 230 doesn't really apply there. It'd still fail under our libel laws, and any suit would fail on the merits.
Now, maybe you want to rewrite libel laws, too! That'd be a big government approach to even FURTHER regulate free speech, but it'd be difficult to write a law that made it possible to be sued just for implying somebody is a Nazi for something they wrote. Certainly it wouldn't pass Constitutional muster, so you'd have to rewrite the Constitution, too. The only Justice who has shown any openness to re-interpreting libel laws to further restrict speech is Justice Thomas and you'd have to go FAR beyond what he's called for.
The other side is saying not to actively invite violence. I'm pretty sure those are not equivalent positions.
[0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/11/trump-advisor-te...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretchen_Whitmer_kidnapping_pl...
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52496514
[3] https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-race-and-...
Ha. "Agreed" only in the most superficial way. You might have caught people saying it occasionally.
If you follow civil liberties debates and the politics thereof you know there's often a gap between what politicians (or just ordinary people) say about freedom of speech and what they actually believe and do. In the US the politics of things like compelling public schoolkids to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, to give a perennial example, are illustrative of this. (there are tons of examples involving obscenity laws, etc.)
I don't think it has anything substantial to do with freedom of speech issues.
Obscenity laws and flag burning are better examples.
Occasionally being compelled to say something is also bad, but a separate issue to me.
(after reading your comment below I think I get it. It's one of the infringements of freedom of speech that you're willing to tolerate because it's merely "creepy?" If so, that's illustrative of the larger point I was trying to make about people treating freedom of speech hypocritically.)
It doesn't mention "creepy", and says something quite different from what you got from it.
You're welcome to entertain an eccentric definition of "freedom of speech" that doesn't include one of the major freedom of speech issues of our time. It's just very odd.
That's probably all the progress we'll make here :)
As a result, seems like a good thing that these hearings broadcast different views on these issues so that the public can know how those views differ. Then, after knowing those views, people get to weigh in during election seasons. In this very recent election, of course, the public weighed in and likely delivered divided government, so we can expect some changes but nothing transformative.
I don't think show hearings are necessarily bad. They can serve a valuable purpose, so long as they aren't the only thing being done.
We need to break out of the GOP/Dem stranglehold if we want to change this behavior. That stranglehold is not desired by the electorate and is also not up for a vote.
Congress is full of decrepit baby boomers that don't know/don't care to know shit about technology.
And I love how they are afforded the right to answer these questions from the comfort of their homes. Make them go to DC!
The real takeaway is they should disseminate the transcriptions not the videos. One thing I feel comfortable generalizing about is, everyone should fucking read more.
Spin is out the window. Straight up lying with easily disprovable claims is in.
Anyway, I dont think the speculation is off the mark, since every previous session was pretty much just like what user said. Also, judging from this feed I'm reading, its not even far off.
But now it is front page on Foxnews.com
https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/hawley-presses-zucker...
"I don't want the government to take over the job of telling America what tweets are legitimate and what are not. I don't want the government deciding what content to take up or put down -- I think we're all in that category -- but when companies have the POWER of governments..."
The word "but" obliterates everything that came before it...
What if you had the option to switch between moderation algos on the fly in the client?
One of the best things I saw relating to social media was on a HN comment a while ago. Reverse chronological content posted directly by your friends / people you follow should be considered part of the platform. Recommendations pushed in your face by an algorithm should be considered publishing.
They both just seem to be versions of spam filters to me. The real power that Twitter would have is a historical dataset that could influence the weight of certain users' content in recommending/rejecting to a viewer. Algos are only as good as the data behind them, right?
> Recommendations pushed in your face by an algorithm should be considered publishing.
Interesting distinction!
Dorsey & Zuckerberg are voluntarily testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/breaking-the-news-...
https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1328461277971288067?s=20
Josh Hawley is a US Senator for Missouri. Supposedly he will ask questions about his information.
Technically they're incorrect. AP and NBC are by no means official sources for the results of US elections. The Electoral College is the official source for the results of US elections.
In this way, Twitter itself spreads disinformation - and somewhat dangerous disinformation at that, as the media most definitely should not have any official control over the election.
A "call" is what happens before the electors meet to vote. To suggest that you need to wait until January 6th or whenever in order to "call" the election is absurd.
The Electoral College meets December 14.
The Electoral College determines the winner.
Any 'result' before the EC determines the winner is a preliminary result.
Your objections seem overly pedantic, to be honest.
But it's dangerous to present the media as being an official source of election results.
In this important event, I can only focus on how whoever wrote that doesn't know what "momentarily" means.
> North American at any moment; very soon: my husband will be here to pick me up momentarily.
Now that you know that this is correct usage of the word, perhaps it will be less distracting the next time you see it used that way.
https://reddit.com/r/confidentlyincorrect is a treasure trove of such cases