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Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

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953 pointsjaredwiener1,293 comments

I know Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit and all the rest don't count as broadcast media but I feel like we got here in part because the 1987 elimination of FCC's fairness doctrine slowly allowed a shift in how we communicate with each other.

We went from specious claims and conspiracy theories being the subject matter of newsletters to their public broadcast to millions via talk radio ~and Fox News~, thus allowing people to descend into their own bubbles without ever having their views challenged. Now people seem to rely on social media to give them the same experience. When challenged too much people just pull up stakes to insulate themselves: voat, parler, and private facebook groups are only three recent examples.

It'll be interesting to see if whoever replaces Ajit Pai holds a different view on public intercourse over the airwaves.

Edit: Well as some people have pointed out, Fox News would have been exempt from the Fairness Doctrine as a cable network, i.e. it doesn't use the public spectrum.

As Wikipedia says "The channel was created by Australian-American media mogul Rupert Murdoch to appeal to a conservative audience, hiring former Republican media consultant and CNBC executive Roger Ailes as its founding CEO." So my personal view that Fox (among others) is responsible for a) exposing millions to fact-free content without opposing views and b) people got used to that and don't like it when it's challenged created the bubble we have today. I'm wrong that the Fairness Doctrine would have prevented Fox, although it might have prevented talk radio.

Even if the fairness doctrine hadn't been eliminated administratively, it's very plausible it'd have been overturned by SCOTUS anyway. Not that'd I agree with that, but given the way the court has gone on corporate "free speech"...

The only reason the fairness doctrine could even plausibly exist constitutionally was because radio and tv were broadcast media using a public good (spectrum). Cable TV, newspapers were not affected and the internet likely wouldn’t have been affected either.

Yeah exactly. We might not have had Rush Limbaugh in the mid-90s, but we still would have had Fox News or whatever.

That always felt like a dubious standard. Parkland is a public good, but the Supreme Court would insta-smackdown any FD-style restriction on political speech in parks.

The nature of each "public good" could be evaluated to determine what was appropriate to ensure all citizens equal access to a public good.

FD just required a media outlet to make sure the media basically gave another candidate the opportunity to access, it didn't actually require equal time, not unless that candidate wanted to, or in the case of advertisements was willing to buy them.

Certainly parkland should be equally available to members of different political parties, but it's not like you have to use the same standard either: the nature of a "public good" would determine the nature of what fair equal access meant. For airwaves it's one thing. For a limited physical resource it's another.

Parkland is a limited physical resource.

But limited in a different way than radio spectrum.

So is radio spectrum. Regardless, as I said, you determine for each "public good" what appropriate fairness means. You don't back down from it just because doing the right thing isn't as easy as doing the easy thing.

Right, so you haven't identified what's different about one that makes the FD the right answer in one case.

What's the reasoning for the distinction? How is spectrum over the air a public good but spectrum over wires not?

The broadcast spectrum is considered a limited-supply public property, so the FCC (or other national equivalents) issues licenses allowing organizations (or standards) to use parts of it.

Wires are not limited supply in any meaningful sense (just install more), and in many parts of the world, not even public property.

You must cross public property ie roads to install a large scale wired network. That said, it’s a difference in scale creating a difference in kind.

The involves being granted easements, which are also not a limited public good in the general case.

> just install more

It's so hard to take that seriously (e.g., exactly how many sets of cables per home is reasonable? and how often can people be expected to change them?), but even if I somehow do:

How is that different from, say, electric power, as far as constitutionality goes? We have the Federal (Water) Powers Act, FERC, etc. that regulate power distribution (among other things). I would've thought these are all easy to constitutionally justify the regulation of based on other clauses (like the Commerce Clause).

"more" in this context can mean "reach more locations" or "increase the bandwidth to existing locations". I'm not aware of bandwidth issues requiring much more than an update maybe once in 50-100 years. For example, where I live in rural NM, the houses around here presumably got paired telephone wires on the order of 50-100 years ago, and then within the last 10-15 years they got rewired with multi-twisted-pair cables that easily get to 50Mbps. While in 80 years that might not be considered sufficient, I doubt anyone will seriously suggest another round of recabling within that time frame.

But anyway, you really seem to be missing the fundamental point here: there is no limited "spectrum" for wiring in the sense of multiple possible parties who want to use "parts of it" for various purposes. If you assign the XMHz to YMHz band of the electromagnetic spectrum to some purpose, it's gone, it cannot be used for anything else, by anyone else, across a potentially vast geographic area. There's no equivalent for this in the context of digital (or analog) data moving down wires.

We gave up on the fairness doctrine because it didn't work. It forced news media to give equal time to the 1% of crackpots who disagreed with the 99% of scientists on a number of topics, including climate science. It was always going to go this way, regardless of the fairness doctrine existing or not.

The whole point was so government officials could decide what was fair, and what wasn’t.

So full blown censorship by controlling who gets access.

I suspect that the fairness doctrine change is more of a symptom than a cause.

The FCC will have close to zero impact on twenty first century media.

I don't know how or even if we can fix this.

I'm sure it's a symptom of something but my point was Fox News (which was established in 1996 according to Wikipedia) could never have been born prior to 1987.

What happened yesterday in Washington, DC may prove a counterpoint to 1st amendment claims that all speech should be allowed, regardless of consequences.

Edit: I see I was wrong about Fox as it is a cable network and not broadcast over public airwaves. I still think their viewers are insulated from opposing viewpoints and that's part of the problem.

The fairness doctrine never applied to cable channels. The only reason it was plausibly Constitutional was the use of the airways, which are considered a public resource. Private cables strung by private companies into private homes were never regulated by the fairness doctrine.

Fox is broadcast over the air in many areas

The programming on Fox broadcast channels is different than Fox News, which is specifically transmitted via cable or satellite and, legally, not via public airwaves. Fox broadcast channels are subject to the same laws as other broadcast channels.

Yes, but the stuff that people find most objectionable- the Fox opinion shows, Hannity etc- have their home on Fox-the-cable-channel. They might get picked up on some Fox affiliates (though I doubt it, they're the special sauce that gets people to pay for cable), but the engine of the thing is the cable channel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Broadcasting_Company

is different than

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News

which is not available on any terrestrial OTA channels

I stand corrected about cable networks. But my thesis that allowing one-sided broadcasting of views still stands: it insulates people from contrasting views and makes them uncomfortable with having those views challenged. I'm not suggesting we go the route of state run media, but state regulation of media may come about thanks to what happened yesterday.

Seems to me, at least on cable, people are only as insulated as they want to be. They can always change the channel to one of any of several hundred others. There are more views being expressed on cable than were ever allowed on the airwaves during the fairness doctrine era.

Some of those channels are spewing hateful horseshit, but with dozens of channels to choose from, you can't blame the medium for people being insulated. They keep the dial tuned to Fox News because they like it.

Unfortunately I don't think it's that black-and-white. Fox News is a small part of the information bubble, which includes other sources like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. And there's evidence that social media addiction is real. So the content is feeding into a positive feedback loop that prevents people from regulating their ability to tune into something else.

This doesn't absolve the viewers from responsibility, but it also doesn't place it entirely on their shoulders.

Nor should it.

It would require the FCC to apply to content produced outside of the US and consumed within. That will never fly. The age of where the fairness doctrine was needed is long gone.

With the democratization of the media which was completed with the ascent of the internet both governments and established media players; some of which were merely mouth pieces for various political factions; lost their ability to control the message but most importantly lost the ability to control the truth.

The issue faced now is insuring that people have the opportunity to identify information authenticity without having to go back to the situation where we were just expected to trust what we were told.

News, information, whatnot, is now world wide and governments all over will do their best to control what you can see and say and it is up to everyone to make their job harder if not impossible. the only way to a free society is by not allowing governments to control the truth

Matt Taibbi talks about all this in his book Hate Inc. The 24/7 news networks needed new stuff to sell since the USSR was out. Turns out just general outrage at every little thing works good.

Oh, thanks. I'll put that book on the to-read pile.

I noticed this last night. I mostly watch local news, but I put on CNN during the voting last night, and while the BBC was sorta talking over the voting going on in the background, CNN gave up on it entirely and it was just 5 people spouting outrage.

Even when it's outrage I agree with, it angers me.

And indeed who voted and who spoke and how they spoke was far more consequential to our country than hot air from 5 random commentators. I was watching PBS NewsHour and saw people like Representative Cawthorn give very calculated speeches that were very disturbing if you read between the lines.

This is why I spent the night watching the C-SPAN streams, where they prioritized (and seem to always do) live footage, both of the debates and the chaos. They also spent most of the rest of the time taking phone calls from randos on a public line, and the views expressed in those calls really illuminated the breadth of public opinion at the moment (obviously with selection bias of who felt inclined to call in).

Down the line, I can read other people's thoughtful analysis of what people said and how people voted and evaluate it in the context of having seen it live, rather than from having heard Michael Barbaro's quick-cut package in the morning.

I rate everything Taibbi writes and says very highly, his substack is very of the moment, informed and perceptive.

Regarding Facebook indefinitely suspending Trump, #bigTech can modulate exposure of politicians and aspects of their personalities and platform positions highly effectively - suppressing and amplifying for unknown 'fairness doctrines' of their own making.

An example is Gabbard's response to Clinton on Twitter, whose 'likes' are modulated down to circa 250k regularly. You can 'like' it dozens of times but each time you return your 'like' has usually been removed.

https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1185289626409406464

The bigger point regardless of whether you approve of Gabbard or Clinton - #bigTech is able to amplify or sideline anyone as the Trump blackballing illustrates. This is alarmingly like the anti communist witch hunts and blackballing in the 1950's

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/on-trump-the-capitol-and-the-d...

Have you actually watched Fox News lately? Right wingers are leaving it in droves because except for a few pundits (Tucker Carlson etc) They are too moderate. Most of the craziness is on social media these days and right wing news sites on the web

it's not that Fox News became "moderate" , they became just another left-wing propaganda hub like CNN and WaPo , except for very few commentators like Tucker and Ingraham.

Their elections coverage was a disaster as well. I think they are in identity crisis of sorts.

How do I know you're delusional? You think Fox News is a "left-wing propaganda hub".

There appear to be a substantial group of people who are soc convinced that certain leaders can do no wrong, so any outlet that calls those leaders on anything is inherently exposed as socialist propaganda.

why was their election coverage a disaster? because they called AZ first?

You are cracking me up. I haven't laughed so hard out loud in front of my computer in years. Thank you!

There's nothing moderate about them. They're just not sufficiently extreme for the taste of those audiences. They fell under scrutiny that some of their smaller competitors aren't facing, so they're trying to maintain plausible deniability, which means the crowd of extremists has to go elsewhere to get their rage fix.

Moderation and extreme-ness exist on a continuum. Being not sufficiently extreme is being too moderate by definition.

You're assuming a relative scale, I'm assuming an absolute scale.

Traditional TV and Print News Media gets the most eyeballs when they are controversial. Fox, CNN, MSNBC all do everything they can to coddle their specific segment. They phrase and comment on the news in a way that'll either excite their segment when they think it'll benefit and soften the blow whenever they think it'll hurt.

And no, none of them appeal to a general audience. The ads that each network displays will tell you exactly who their specific audience is.

Twitter's audience is narrow: Most of the people I know (across countries, religions, genders, professions) do not have a Twitter account. So, they make decisions that suit their userbase, which is significantly narrower than Facebook's.

Facebook user base is closer to the general public. Unfortunately, their platform also enables an echo chamber. So, they have a tough job to do and in this regard. They have to be careful about whom to censor. Whatever they choose will be closer the law. I think they're trying their best.

I tend to think that the business model of a cable news room is pretty fundamentally broken.

Insofar as you value investigative journalism or pieces with some depth, you will be disappointed by organizations that host ESPN style shout fests, but they're produced for exactly the same reasons.

It's cheap to make garbage filler content. When you see that all of the channels are deeply flawed, it's because they're incentivized to be flawed in exactly the way that they are.

Curiously, John Oliver (say what you will about his biases) has found a way to fund real investigative journalism. This marks an interesting counterpoint to the 24 hour news room which extends what comedy central (daily show etc) had begun

John Oliver is also focused on a sub-segment and is also at least misleading at times.

There are no sources of information that are credible with more than 45-55% of US Gen pop. We really need a source that can at least be relied upon as accurate source by 70-80% to avoid total collapse of democratic order in US.

Find a business model that works for independent journalism, then.

Advertising pays more with more controversy. Patronage (having a rich person pay the journalists) comes with strings. Consumers appear willing to pay for journalism only when it supports their political beliefs.

Yeah, the solution isn't to find a single fount of truth we can all sup from. We are where we are because that mid-century model was fragile. Not to mention it allowed Americans to overlook any wrongs that didn't blip on the radar of the NorthEast intellectual hegemony.

The real solution is a healthy ecosystem of independent news.

We're trying! https://blog.nillium.com/why-were-building-forth/

Interesting! What business model are you going for?

Think of it sort of Twitter-meets-Substack.

It's still advertising/freemium, but with some big differences. We syndicate out the internal updates that reporters are already writing within their own newsroom, so while they work on their current formats, we just piggyback off of existing work. Then we revenue share from those ads/subscriptions back to support the reporters and news orgs doing the reporting.

There is money being spent on ads now, its just going to the wrong people. We're trying to fix that -- and align the incentives back so that everyone -- readers, reporters, us -- succeeds when we have good journalism, not clickbait.

That's interesting. I used to run a newspaper a couple of years ago and have spent a lot of time thinking about business models for it since.

The main problem with advertising is it monetises engagement, which means that it massively favours controversial or emotional content. How are you going to avoid this? If you have a good journalist writing great journalism, and a hack writing clickbait, how are you going to avoid the hack getting more ad revenue?

Because we aren't monetizing the views, per se.

Since we're posting _updates_ rather than full articles, it's more like Twitter. We can display ads in between the updates -- something print newspapers used to (and still) do all the time. Then we just take the revenue share from any specific market, divide it up by the number of updates contributed, and go from there. It's not perfect, and we may still want to tweak, but the hope is that we can then incentivize lots of hard news reporting, and not "5 celebrities without makeup."

OK, yeah I get it. That's interesting, I look forward to seeing how it pans out :) good luck with it :)

I signed up for Forth - you guys need to learn that zip codes only work in the USA, us foreigners have different things ;)

Nillium looks really interesting, too. I get the need. Slack is utterly useless for this, yet seems to be the default for some reason.

Thank you!

We're launching in the US initially -- but I get the issue. Still, any newsrooms outside of the US who might be interested should still get in touch. https://www.nillium.com/schedule-demo/

> upon as accurate source by 70-80% to avoid total collapse of democratic order in US.

The current news stations are reporting from the same, truthful, reality. It's the spin, slant, and selective omission when they're presented that is different. Having some true source, that dryly presents this reality, will be devoid of these biases, but they'll still picked up and presented in an almost certainly more entertaining, vastly more popular, biased way as they are now.

I think the problem is, and always has been, that people fundamentally prefer similar viewpoint rather than raw presentation of facts. I also assume this is why there are exactly 0, for profit, widely watched, media outlets that present information in this relatively boring way.

> There are no sources of information that are credible with more than 45-55% of US Gen pop

I completely agree

I also agree that John Oliver has a liberal bias! What I don't think, however, is that his bias is required by his business model.

(Curiously, as we discuss the daily show hosts, my very conservative parents both really like Trevor Noah. However, I don't think comedy central is to be our information salvation)

John Oliver? are you kidding me? he purposely takes things out of context, cartoonizes and dehumanizes the opposition, uses comedy as a shield to make substantial counter points, etc etc. His goal is less about engagement (like a news media) and more abut driving a deeper wedge between people.

John Oliver is a curse upon humanity, he makes this world worse.

“A curse upon humanity”? Aren’t you getting a bit carried away? You may not like the contents of the show but fact is he presents a lot of really complex issues in an easily digestible, shareable format, for people who only follow the 24/7 (shallow) news cycle and get their understanding from sound bites. Not to mention the hyperbole of “all of humanity” - his audience is not even all of America :)

>Twitter's audience is narrow: Most of the people I know (across countries, religions, genders, professions) do not have a Twitter account.

most of the people in media are on twitter 247, talking heads take from twitter discourse and export that to other media

Twitter has a really high membership ratio in journalism and politics - pretty much every professional journalist and politician is very active.

Whether this is a good thing for society is a different question.

(I'd argue that it's not and that Twitter should be closed down. But I know that's an unpopular opinion)

I reckon it's not as unpopular as you might think.

Twitter is very popular among influential people

Twitter should be closed down

It probably can't be closed down in a way that's not even worse than current situation. Even if there's no coercion and management just has the revelation and decides to close shop, some (probably Chinese-owned) clone will probably reach the same position soon, what's the win?

Does your closing down suggestion only apply to Twitter or also other social media platforms? What would the effect be?

I think the other social media platforms don't have as much of a mega phone effect that twitter does? Twitter posts by default can be seen by the world which differs from other social media sites?

I think most other social media sites are public by default. Reddit, most forums, Youtube, TikTok, HN, etc.

I don't know why Twitter is the one they all chose. It's unique in restricting the size of posts, maybe that's it?

I don't know what the effect would be. I don't think we can roll the clock back to 1995. But equally given the current situation in the USA I don't think the status quo is sustainable.

If you forced me to give an answer, then I think there should be a 1-hour delay on all tweets. It's the immediacy of the thing that gives it the power. If we just slowed it down then I think it would work better, because human nature.

Twitter is really a broadcast medium, more geared towards posting in real time and reposting, and less towards a discussion. It also limits the size of a tweet, making them perfectly quotable, and discouraging nuance and detail, so a juicy bon mot is basically the only winning genre on Twitter.

No wonder any public person, any politician, any celebrity may find out that Twitter is a must, if they want to keep and grow their fame / celebrity / notoriety.

Twitter is the digital equivalent of gossip: truncated content that gets virally shared. Unlike gossip it's truncated from the onset, as opposed to at every reshare. Any kind of facts are then corrupted by comments.

While I actually agree that they are "trying their best" (though I feel like "their best" isn't that great ;P), I feel like they have also--on purpose--built something that requires super human levels of "trying" to get right... content recommendation is something that, even at that scale, should have ramifications attached to it, even if it means people don't build them (as the world would probably be better off without them anyway, and it ain't like causing harm at a larger scale is somehow less harmful than doing it on a smaller scale). Until such point, I am at least glad they have discovered a new source of truth: https://www.theonion.com/mark-zuckerberg-announces-all-of-fa...

I do not use Twitter, and yet I have been seeing screenshots of his half-formed sentences strewn across every news channel for the past 5 years.

At least that will come to an end.

This is a culmination of many things, and overall it shows we’ve really fucked ourselves as a country over the years.

Capitalism dictates how our communication and news operates, and this is a side effect of changing circumstances where TV and print media are dying, people aren’t paying for news, and companies are relying on ad revenue for their business models - which means having to attract and hold on to consumers.

I’m not trying to paint capitalism as the devil. Just saying it’s not like this was a total surprise given we could see the road we went down.

It’s pretty fucking unfortunate the most prevalent sources of current events and information equate to the ‘McDonalds of news and Walmarts of TV’.

I know people get spooked about propaganda at the thought of government funded news... though clearly having a bunch of rich assholes ‘run news’ hasn’t been so good either. Idk, I guess this is an eye-opener of the importance of publicly funded places like PBS?

You can't be fair when you only blame Fox for fact-free content when the same fact-free content(just inverted) is peddled by all the other mass media outlets. They just cater to a different bubble.

So there is no truth at all?

there never was

not in the absolute sense of the word, no.

That’s a pretty false equivalence. To cite the most recently example, Fox repeatedly propagating Trump’s lies about the election has no analog on the left.

What about Trump/Russia collusion?

One of Trump’s children perjured themselves to lie about the purposes of a meeting with a Russian lawyer (later proven to be for Clinton dirt), his campaign manager was convicted for laundering money with Russia connected people, an advisor was convicted for coordinating with WikiLeaks, and some lower level campaign staffers were convicted for more improper connections with Russians. There wasn’t enough proof to say whether Trump personally knew about these things, but the alternative where he is clueless isn’t exactly a good look, either.

All of those things were proven in court. Not one of Trump’s barrage of election lawsuits has gained any traction at all. They are very much not the same.

Trump claimed his campaign had zero contacts with Russia and no business deals in Russia. Turns out his campaign had hundreds of contacts with Russia and Trump was planning to build a tower in Moscow with a penthouse gift for Vladimir Putin. Source: Volume 1 of the Mueller Report

Trump's son, son in law, and campaign manager met with a convicted Russian spy at Trump's house to discuss a trade of damaging information on Hillary Clinton in return to relaxed relations between the two nations in the form of repeal of the Magnitsky Act. Trump lied that this ever happened and tried to create a cover story which was blown apart. Source: Volume 1 of the Mueller Report

Trump's campaign manager met with a Russian intelligence officer and exchanged internal Trump campaign data which is presumed to have been transferred to the FSB. Source: Senate Committee on Intelligence of Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference

Russian interference in the 2016 election was “sweeping and systemic.” Major attack avenues included a social media “information warfare” campaign that “favored” candidate Trump and the hacking of Clinton campaign-related databases and release of stolen materials through Russian-created entities and Wikileaks. Russia also targeted databases in many states related to administering elections gaining access to information for millions of registered voters Source: Volume 1 of the Mueller Report

The Mueller team was unable to establish a before-the-fact criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. The Mueller report includes a whole second chapter dealing with obstruction from the President and his allies, which included lying (by the President himself), witness tampering, interfering with principle investigators, and destroying evidence.

And what did Democrats do with all of this? Did they storm the capital? Did they even impeach the President for any of this? There was literally no response what. so. ever.

Oh, and during all of this the President promised pardons for those who would obstruct the investigation, such as Paul Manafort, who was literally meeting with a Russian Intel Officer and handing him Trump campaign data. If that is not collusion, what is? And then Trump pardoned him. So more obstruction on top of it all.

Donald J. Trump was impeached.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/18/us/politics/trump-impeach...

For obstructing Congress' investigation into an whistleblower complaint that he pressured the president of Ukraine to "initiate or continue an investigation into the activities of former Vice President Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter Biden"

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/764071379/read-house-intel-re...

Of course it turns out hunter biden has been under criminal investigation for awhile.

But democratic controlled media and companies “fact checked it” so it was censored everywhere until election was over.

For people who cream themselves over good documentation, why are there so ma y people who refuse to read the mueller report? It's not that long.

Who am I kidding, we all know the answer is that you think by ignoring the facts insulates you from realizing the republican party and their leader colluded with a foreign adversary to influence the election

I dunno if there was actual collusion, but it was definitely shady as all hell. I do think this was a case where the cover-up was worse than the crime.

I read it, and it doesn’t say that at all. Why lie?

The fact/news reporting from the NYT and others on that story was in fact all correct. It was really just "process reporting", telling us what was going on (who the FBI was talking to, who said what, what got leaked, etc). They did not draw conclusions.

Over in the editorial section there were people trying to stitch that all into a vast conspiracy that was in the end not proven out. But that's what editorial is about.

Do you not understand how what’s going on in the editorial section colors peoples’ views of whether they can trust the paper?

> What about Trump/Russia collusion?

You mean the thing that several people were tried and found guilty of?

It's very fair. Fox - and its equivalents - are run in a knowing and cynical way.

"No reasonable viewer would think Tucker Carlson is news." The media barons believe their consumers are idiots, and treat them accordingly.

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/fox-news-lawyer-suggest...

You're going to have a hard time finding an equivalent statement from the progressive media.

This is about clash of fundamentally incompatible moral systems - one in which one group would like to operate entirely above the law on the superficial basis of skin colour and inherited wealth by appealing to lies and fantasy and the basest and most distorted human instincts, and another which wants humans, politics, society, business, science, and art to be better than that.

Rachel Maddow is a direct equivalent.

https://deadline.com/2020/05/rachel-maddow-one-america-news-...

MSNBC doesn't promote their opinion block as News.

How many people know that Fox News's news division only has 2 hours of programming a day?

I don't watch Maddow regularly nor do I see MSNBC's promotion of her show. The only episode I've watched in the past few years was the one where she claimed she had Trump's tax returns and would be showing them on the show. To me, this seemed like opinion media masquerading as news media.

I believe the response from a Fox news viewer would be "It's not news." It's an opinion segment and all major media networks have them as far as I'm aware.

I remember when I used to think like that. Man was I ever wrong. Now I wonder how it wasn’t obvious sooner.

This sort of hyperbole is central to the problem we face:

"..about clash of fundamentally incompatible moral systems - one in which one group would like to operate entirely above the law on the superficial basis of skin colour and inherited wealth by appealing to lies and fantasy and the basest and most distorted human instincts, and another which wants humans, politics, society, business, science, and art to be better than that."

> all the other mass media outlets

All? C'mon.

You can make the argument that MSNBC is a mirror of Fox News in terms of coddling its viewers, but if you're calling NPR or the New York Times "fact-free," you're only betraying your own ignorance of journalism standards.

Investigating facts and reporting them clearly is a solved problem. There are people who go to universities to study how to do this well, then go to work for institutions committed to doing this well. Their words should be treated differently than the words of some idiot with a Twitter account or a personality on an infotainment TV show.

that 'high standard' apparently allows them to present rumors from anonymous sources as facts as long as it fits a certain political agenda.

The burden of evidence no longer applies neither with NYT not any other heavily biased liberal outlets like WaPo or CNN.

You don't seem to understand what an "anonymous source" is

As far as I know, NYT will not report information from sources where they cannot establish some kind of authenticity. If you don't believe it, try reporting a completely anonymous tip to them and see how far you get. I will bet you they come back asking you provide some kind of further evidence to establish your identity or at least that your knowledge is authoritative.

If the NYT was fabricating their anonymous tips, like parent suggested, why would they publish outside anonymous tips? The fact that they don't publish every anonymous source doesn't mean that all of their anonymous sources have to be real.

I didn't read their comment as claiming they fabricate the sources altogether. However, if you really reduce it to that level you have essentially established an unverifiable theory that is no different to a conspiracy theory. On that basis, the allegation that NYT routinely fabricates sources should not be believed either (since its from an anonymous source with no way to verify it).

I agree, neither the allegation that the nyt fabricates its anonymous sources nor the allegations made through those anonymous sources should be believed (nor should they be believed to be absolutely false). Alternatively, anonymous sources are not evidence and cannot be the basis of stories that must be trusted, and since the times relies often on anonymous sources we can consider them to possibly publish rumors without evidence.

You're equating fabrication with NYT incorporating anonymous sources into its reporting. Those are worlds apart. It is completely fine to use anonymous sources if you can authenticate their material.

Some sort of myth seems to have been created that news reporting can't use anonymous sources. It's not only wrong, but not disclosing sources is an absolutely foundational accepted element of journalism.

All I was arguing is that it is reasonable to be skeptical of articles posted in the new york times that are only confirmed by anonymous sources. As such a story is unverifiable/there is no chain of trust, believing the story involves trusting the newspaper.

It depends what level of skepticism you are applying there. In the sense of "do I have the full story", "is there another side to this I am not hearing", etc. I think its absolutely reasonable.

But if you're skeptical about whether they completely made it up, published a rumour without any confirmation or are deliberately substantially altering it in how they portray it - that's an extremely serious allegation for a reputable news organisation. For example, I think that would stretch beyond "reasonable" in most cases for NYT based on my observation of their practices over time.

How would a reasonable person, unaffiliated with the newspaper, differentiate the two types of inaccuracy?

There is no way to tell if a lie originated with two anonymous sources or with a reporter with an agenda. The "trust but verify" approach only works if something can be verified. IMO the nyt damages its reputation when it posts rumors which cannot be verified.

They would look at the newspaper's track record and research its reputation more generally. The same way you would establish trustworthiness of any entity you don't know more generally.

This is just a more general case of having a trusted broker. How do you trust your bank? How do you trust airlines to be safe? How do you know your doctor is competent? You don't demand first hand evidence for all of these. You trust a regulator to oversee them and the regulator may absolutely rely on evidence that is not made publicly available. A lot of society ceases to operate if you throw out reputational trust.

If my bank steals my money, I have my own documentation about my account and can take them to court.

Airline crashes are regularly in the news when they occur and are easily verifiable.

My doctor has a licensing board and such to report to.

What recourse do I have if the new york times posts something not truthful that can't be verified? How would I even know? I am not the only person to not trust the new york times, they do not have near the level of public support as the Medical/Airline industries. Given the fundamental lack of accountability inherent to anonymously sourced articles, why wouldn't they be abused?

a good example would be Trump' alleged 'suckers and losers' comment regarding fallen soldiers.

This was a rumor started by The Atlantic article citing 'anonymous sources' which spread and re-broadcasted by all news networks and NYT, some of these third-hand versions of the rumor claimed additional verification by, guess what, another group of 'high-ranked anonymous sources', completely ignoring rejection of these allegations by everyone who actually attended that particular event with the President.

This is the definition of slander which is somehow acceptable if you (and your reader base) hate a particular person or ideology.

Ok, many of these sources have later found to have little or no authenticity at all. Sources revealing second or third-hand information on the Trump administration. Mostly based on hearsay. Some imaginary. It has been journalism of the lowest possible standard. I trust NYT only on stuff completely unrelated to politics.

Was the new york times factful in its reporting on iraq in 2003?

And if they later investigated themselves and found that they published information that was not true, would that cancel the war pushed on us by the military industrial complex across all of our media and bring 500,000 dead Iraqis back to life?

The New York Times regularly issues corrections and itself reported on which sources turned out to be untruthful.

I've been surprised by the frequency of corrections, and how difficult it is to find them.

I think a browser extension that alerted you when an article you read was corrected would be interesting.

Yes, this is a well-rehashed example where the NYT seems to have erred. But, poignant as it is, it is also increasingly further in the past - people born after some of those stories were written are adults now!

I think that giving more recent examples would strengthen your argument.

Given 18 years and 500,000 dead, the NYT has killed roughly 28,000 people per year for the past 18 years. Next year this number will drop to around 26,000 people per year, and the following year 25,000 people per year. In 2043, assuming no more flubs like the one that lead to the war in iraq, they will have killed 12,500 people per year.

There has been no incident as bad as the reporting that lead to the war in Iraq because the US had recognized that entering the war was a huge mistake and became somewhat resistant to the type of propaganda that lead to it.

Yes I was afraid you were going to re-emphasize the horrors of the Iraq war. But the thread is about whether the NYT can reasonably be called 'fact-free' or not. And if all you can come up with are inaccuracies from 17-18 years ago then I am (sorry to say that I am) simply not convinced - horrific as the consequences of those inaccuracies may have been.

So if the new york times comes out tomorrow and says it has found evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iran and the country goes to war, will you believe them?

It does not matter if the nyt is usually factful. If they can be subverted by powerful interests to push an agenda, they are not trustworthy.

OP also contains: "Investigating facts and reporting them clearly is a solved problem."

I rest my case.

Nick Sandmann

You are absolutely correct, and no news organization is correct all the time - you should strive to consume a diversity of sources.

NYT remains one of the more reliably correct news sources in the US but they all make mistakes - sometimes accidentally sometimes maliciously. Since there are humans involved you need to understand the biases the news sources have and compensate for that yourself.

This is very a reasonable stance, consuming many sources is necessary to understand what sides of an issue may exist. And news organizations may accidentally report incorrect information (hopefully they swiftly retract it when they learn differently).

But shouldn't we not continue to consume sources that have made malicious mistakes? Even if the maliciousness was a bad outside actor feeding incorrect information to ethical reporters, isn't it likely that such a source will make a malicious mistake again? When the consequences are on the scale of directing the country into a fraudulent war, how can we ever trust their reporting on anything of consequence again?

What we're striving for is to consume media sources that produce the least number of mistakes when we're reading them - the number of past mistakes may be an indicator on the likelihood of future mistakes or it may not. I think trying to make any strong statements leaning on historical data should be carefully weighed.

I can't really answer what the best tactic for weighing news sources is since I think that the true measure would need to involve observing the reporters and editors behind each specific article which isn't really feasible. I don't think it's wrong for you to be hesitant about trusting NYT, and feel free to never trust an article written by Miller - I personally think she's shown a lack of care for discovering the truth - but... Eh, balance in all things.

Investigating facts and reporting them clearly is a solved problem.

Do tell. What is a fact? Is it an assertion that is truthful? If something is not asserted is it still a fact? Is gravity a fact or an assertion without evidence? Was Ptolemy wrong or just complicated?

Who are these people who go to universities and study how to investigate facts and report them clearly? Are they the in journalism or normal schools? Are they philosophers? Are they physics majors?

How much of a fact is bound in the frame of reference or context in which it is asserted? Can two nominally opposed assertions both be true? Does that make them both facts? Can all facts be recorded someplace?

We can go down philosophical rabbit holes and end up in absurd places where we argue over the definition of "truth," but I was obviously making a statement within the context of our discussion about reporting the news and events of the day.

If it's something you're interested in, nothing's stopping you from taking a journalism class or two, and after doing so you'd probably look at certain media outlets differently.

Mr. Pilate once asked "What is truth?". Even though there are various definitions and approaches, I credit Pierce and pragmatists with the best one - truth is what we know at the end of inquiry/investigation. So, the "end of inquiry" being flexible, the truth can change as well, and I think, last decade and especially last year can attest to that. Something reported as a fact today - may not be a fact once we get more information in.

You stated "Investigating facts and reporting them clearly is a solved problem." Is that a factual assertion? What's the evidence?

In terms of reporting the news about establishing facts, where it domestic terrorists that stormed the building or protestors? What word are being used? Where it people spontaneously instigated by the speech made by Trump, or radicals who had organized the attack much earlier and who traveled to the demonstration. What is the narrative and story being told and why does one journalist chose one kind and the other a completely different one despite both using the same facts for it?

People sometimes say we live in a post-truth society. I would say that we live in a world where the narrative is more important than the truth, and part of the reason for that is that journalist are so well trained in creating narratives out of the crumbs of a few facts. I can even see the journalist students be given a handful of facts and asked to write a long article, each being graded on how well the narrative story end up.

FWIW, there is bias in NPR/PBS/NYT/etc, but it is not in the content of the reports, but rather in what is reported.

Any news org can only cover so much, there is an (editorial) call on what to cover and what not to cover. And in that (I've seen studies years go, so not handy) there is a detectable bias.

IMO this is fine. I understand that story selection has editorial bias, even in news reporting. I compensate by reading several different sources that have different editorial slants, but still fact based reporting.

Yes, absolutely. I subscribe to both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times precisely because they report different stories.

In general, business focused subscription publications (WSG, FT, Economist) tend to be more factually accurate. People subscribe because they want facts and good / impartial analysis. People who watch Fox want to be lied to.

> There are people who go to universities to study how to do this well, then go to work for institutions committed to doing this well.

And a lot of these people have lost their minds. I’m trying to explain to my college educated friends right now why using “whiteness” as a pejorative is a bad thing. As an engineer I’ve always been skeptical of liberal arts education. But I didn’t think it would destroy America.

...is it really destroying America?

Building a multi-ethnic Democracy is hard, and rhetoric like this threatens to blow up the whole thing. As a brown guy with mixed kids, I’m not eager to participate in this little experiment. So I’m not exaggerating when I said I think this will destroy the country.

Imagine we’re not talking about America. Imagine we’re talking about Hindu treatment of Muslims in India. And India is on track to become majority Muslim. But people decide to remediate past imbalances by attaching negative characteristics to “Hinduness.” A small minority of Hindus, who control the media and universities, pipe this message to to Hindu households. “The challenges we face dealing with our Muslim immigrants are due to our Hinduness.” What happens? Like millions of people die in a civil war. Obviously. Americans can’t see how obviously wrong this approach is because they’re the fish inside the fishbowl.

The use of “whiteness” as a pejorative is rooted in an odd psychological phenomenon of liberal whites: https://us-central1-spirit-fish-function.cloudfunctions.net/.... They are the only demographic group to express an out-group ethnic bias. Black, Hispanic, and Asian people, along with non-liberal whites all display a moderate (and about equal) in-group preference for people of the same ethnicity. So attaching negative connotations to “whiteness” doesn’t bother them. They view white people as the out-group. They understand that you can be white but not “white” and have a range of other identities: liberal, Democrat, New Yorker, etc. But for non-liberal whites, the same rhetoric serves to reinforce the moderate in-group bias.

Put differently: if you draw a circle on the floor and call it “whiteness” and say it’s bad, liberal whites will happily step out of the circle. But for non-liberal whites (the majority) they will feel attacked on the basis of their skin color, exactly the same as if you did the same thing with “Blackness” or “Asianness.”

To get people to disassociate from something bad, you need to attach it to an identity they can reject, while embracing some other, shared identity. When you say “this is not how we do things in America” people can all come together around that shared identity and reject the bad thing. If you attach it to some characteristic they think they can’t change, you force them to double down on it.

A great example of this is George W. Bush versus versus Macron. When Muslim terrorists hit the twin towers, Bush gave a speech where he said brought Muslims into the fold: https://qz.com/1074258/911-video-and-text-of-george-w-bushs-.... He said we all watched the planes crash into the towers and we Muslims condemned it all around the world. (Which of course wasn’t strictly true.) It worked. If you were a Muslim and you heard that speech, you had no reason to feel attacked. You were being invited into a group where you could condemn this bad thing while doubling down on your identity. As someone with a Muslim last name during that time, I’m eternally grateful for that. I wasn’t thankful then, because at the time, I just assumed this was how America did things. I didn’t realize appeal to universal values would one day be on the chopping block.

Contrast what’s happening in France with Charlie Hebdo and subsequent events. Macron responded by making Islam the issue. He’s giving speeches about radicalization of Islam, etc. He’s not strictly wrong. Almost 1 in 5 French Muslims polled said the didn’t condemn the killings. But the other 80% now feel attacked and forced to maintain group solidarity.

This is happening right now in America and it’s bad. When my aunt in law (who is a sweet woman but a Trump supporter) reads on Breitbart the New York Times tweets blaming the Capitol insurrection on “whiteness” how does she react? “Yes, I condemn the lawlessness and I will strive to be less white!” She doesn’t even think of herself as “white” but she knows she is white as a factual matter, and she doesn’t have a college degree and doesn’t understand how we can “get rid of whiteness” without getting rid of white people. She would absolutely condemn what happened. She votes Republican because she doesn’t believe in abortion. But now she feels attacked based on her skin color. And what other identity would she latch onto anyway? She’s not a New York lawyer who has a plethora of other identity groups to fall back on, and the media shits on those too. She lives in rural Oregon, she’s white and so is almost everyone around her (except her grandkids and us, which include a range of brown and Black), and she works a service job.

White people who aren’t privileged don’t feel privileged. Liberals do not understand this and it’s a dangerous misconception about our reality. Normal white people don’t believe in this “punch up versus punch down stuff.” Those are ideas that exist in books, not in peoples’ heads. All you’re doing when you use “whiteness” is attacking people for something they can’t control and creating a white identity that didn’t exist before. And that’s a recipe for disaster.

> White people who aren’t privileged don’t feel privileged. Liberals do not understand this and it’s a dangerous misconception about our reality.

It’s not that they don’t understand it, it’s that they insist there is no such thing. They’re all in on Critical Race Theory fairy tales, and it’s career suicide at these companies to even question this.

I think some people are in on it. Others are just afraid to say anything, or think it’s harmless.

I’m extremely liberal about social justice, I am. But this critical theory stuff is a powder keg. Building a multi-racial democracy that hasn’t descended into civil war is hard. Look at what’s happening in France right now. Trying to make these untested academic theory into what governs relationships between races in this country is a recipe for disaster.

And at the end of the day, most non-white people don’t want it. The majority of every minority racial demographic doesn’t even want to use race as a factor, even a small one, in college admissions. The recent California affirmative action ban failed miserably. It’s a boutique ideology.

But it’s a boutique ideology with a massive platform. Tomorrow a bunch of people will wake up and see the New York Times and CNN talking about how you can blame the Capitol breach on “whiteness.” And most will brush it off because Americans are good people. But for some it will make them feel attacked based on skin color harden their hearts against condemning something we should be able to condemn universally.

You say it’s a powder keg. Let me bring my perspective here. My background is not dissimilar to yours but my family came to the US in the 1920s before Partition and married both blacks and whites. In India modern Hinduness is defined by bhakti movement and opposition to Muslims whereas before caste was prevalent. With the official removal of caste by Indian constitution yet implementation of reservations the use of Muslims as an enemy to coalesce against has increased. Even Ambedkar conceded this might be an issue which is why he wanted to give Pakistan 10 years trial period. What you are denying is the obvious parallel with the construction of legal whiteness in America from several European ethnic groups (like castes in India but not occupational based) as opposed to free and chattel slave blacks.

This doesn’t seem like an obvious parallel, it seems like projection. Why do you think it’s obvious to you but not to someone else? Why are you certain that you are uniquely capable of seeing it?

I'm saying it should be more obvious to him. I'm not claiming unique insight or authority here. It could be projection, but it seems like parallel phenomena to me.

If most of your argument is that the US is actually a lot better at racial inclusiveness than much of the rest of the world, I feel like it's easy to agree with that without signing on to the claim that "anti-whiteness" is going to destroy the country.

I don't think the idea is going to destroy the country sitting in a book. It's easy enough to understand when you parse through it and have a degree in parsing through tricky language.

What's going to destroy the country is respectable news outlets running headlines like "The Unbearable Whiteness of Storming the Capitol." It's language that's designed to make college-educated elite feel like they're in the in-group, while enraging normal people who don't see the term any differently than if you had inserted any other race in there.

I have tried to explain these academic terms to my dad. He eventually got it, but says "well if it stays in academia it's fine." My mom doesn't get it at all. She's got a graduate degree, but has a language gap. My in laws in exurban and rural America mostly think it's a racial attack on them. If they're somewhat right-leaning to begin with, to them it's as if respectable media has normalized overt racism against white people.

Normalizing this will provoke something very ugly for no reason. There are shared premises that exist when you use terminology like that among educated people. In particular, most people have internalized the idea that "you can't be racist against white people" and things like that (or at least won't complain about it too loudly). Those shared assumptions do not exist when you're talking to the public at large, in a context that's already adversarial and charged.

I sort of get where you're coming from, but while "the unbearable whiteness" of anything is a horrible headline, the racial component of the Capitol attack is pretty clear, isn't it? The US Attorney just a couple hours ago complained publicly that the Capitol Police didn't apprehend the attackers; peaceful racial justice protesters were arrested and beaten over the summer; T. Greg Doucette tracked and lost count of all the video evidence of it. There is an obvious double standard.

The problem I keep having with these arguments is that it's easy for me to accept that Kendi and DiAngelo are grifters, but the people pointing that out also want me to swallow a bunch of other less tenable stuff.

Ibram Kendi is a professor. I’ve read some of his work and I think the basic point is sound, and something I’ve agreed with for years. My concern is the degree to which these ideas have percolated through the the media, etc., which causes well meaning people to think and talk about these issues in a way that doesn’t make sense to people. There is a thought process that causes a bunch of people involved in an article to green light use of “whiteness” as a pejorative when they would never do so to refer to another racial category. Most of the public would call it racist.

This happened with the vaccine prioritization at the CDC. I understand the arguments for it. Most Americans do not believe that life saving vaccines should be allocated based on peoples’ skin color. They would call that unambiguously racist. Thankfully for the CDC, the media barely covered it. Imagine what would have happened if the CDC had prioritized vaccines to white people? All of these people are operating with assumptions that are not universally shared by the public.

Ditto the riots this summer. Most people in the media have internalized this notion that whether violent rioting is okay depends on context. Most Americans do not see it that way. That distorted their coverage of what happened this summer, and burned credibility when it came time to cover the Capitol Hill riot.

I think Biden handled it okay, though I don’t think this was the time to inject the issue. But what if we’d had a President Elizabeth Warren? I shudder to think. Folks like her have really internalized this “they need to hear it for their own good” approach and are apt to use language that ordinary people aren’t familiar with. My in laws in Oregon don’t understand what any of this stuff means, and scolding them won’t help. They don’t feel “privileged” and you’ll only make them feel attacked. Which is fine if your intent is to bring about some sort of reckoning where the bad people are vanquished and the good prevail, but I don’t think that’s a great way to run a country.

My wife's grandma just posted a screed on FB that I think is telling. She's an average non-college educated white lady in her 80s. She's always voted Republican because of abortion. She's pretty smart, tech-savvy, maintains a household by her self in a rural area. She's probably less prejudiced than your average 80-year old American--insofar as she still thinks its okay to make the occasional off-color joke but doesn't object to the mixed relationships that led to her mostly mixed 9 great-grandkids. She doesn't believe in QAnon or whatever. She probably reads too much Breitbart, which gives her a skewed belief of what the Democrat policy agenda really is, but a lot of the material these days are just tweets from progressives.

The stuff she complained about really highlighted for me how the media isn't speaking language she understands anymore. For example:

> Universities that advocate equality, discriminate against Asian-Americans in favor of African-Americans.

> Some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, and other people are not held responsible for what they are doing right now.

> $5 billion for border security is too expensive, but $1.5 trillion for “free” health care is not.

> If you cheat to get into college you go to prison, but if you cheat to get into the country you go to college for free.

> killing murderers is wrong, but killing innocent babies is right.

These complaints all rest on completely conventional beliefs and assumptions. Increasingly, folks in news media and liberal policy circles not only don't hold any of these beliefs, but can't even talk to someone who does. For them, these things are axiomatic, and they can't explain their beliefs by reference to universal principles my wife's grandma shares. And when she reads a steady stream of their tweets, its alarming for her. When people don't share a basic framework of how to see the world, they can't trust each other or have meaningful policy discussions.

Ok but, like, very few of those concerns make any kind of sense. If you cheat to get into the country you do not in fact go to college for free?

I'm also not sure what several of them have to do with anti-whiteness.

Which ones don't make sense?

> > Universities that advocate equality, discriminate against Asian-Americans in favor of African-Americans.

There is a pretty fundamental divergence between most people and the left about how to define "discrimination" (a critical thing in a multi-ethnic society). To most people, the absence of "discrimination" means race-neutrality. Most people on the left have embraced the idea that discrimination between groups can be justified to achieve more equal outcomes.

> Some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, and other people are not held responsible for what they are doing right now.

This is how my wife's grandmother perceives a lot of the discussion of "white privilege" and "whiteness."

> $5 billion for border security is too expensive, but $1.5 trillion for “free” health care is not.

I think there is an increasing number of people on the left don't care about defending the border. They may not be fully "open borders" but within their intellectual framework, they really can't articulate what the legitimate purpose of controlling the border would be and thus aren't willing to spend money on it.

> If you cheat to get into college you go to prison, but if you cheat to get into the country you go to college for free.

There is a major push to offer tuition-discounted or tuition-free community college to undocumented immigrants, including in Oregon. A number of states that offer tuition-free community college are extending those programs to undocumented immigrants.

Traditionally, the view was that welfare benefits should be for those here legally. There is a great discomfort about the idea of extending those benefits to people here illegally. On the left, and in much of the liberal media circle, the prevailing view is opposed to distinguishing between Americans and non-Americans in provision of welfare benefits.

> killing murderers is wrong, but killing innocent babies is right.

There is again been a real shift in how abortion is conceptualized. Roe was justified on universal principles of bodily autonomy. Today, the right to an abortion is treated as axiomatic. And increasingly, there is a push to conceptualize it as "healthcare."

My point is that we're seeing quite a major divergence in basic assumptions about society, which has become particularly acute because most in the media have embraced these new axioms while most of the rest of the country have not. Whatever logical framework causes some people to view the term "unbearable whiteness" as not a racist term is just one example of that divergence.

Moreover, because, for the left these things are increasingly axiomatic, there is no way for them to talk to my wife's grandma about these issues. If you view abortion as a balance between bodily autonomy and the developmental advancement of a fetus, you can have a discussion between someone who supports abortion and someone who doesn't. If you view abortion as "healthcare" you can't have that conversation.

Or, if you have a diluted concept of "citizenship," you can't formulate a response to why anyone would oppose free college tuition for undocumented immigrants other than "bigotry."

Whoah. There's a lot here.

Last thing first: Abortions are at their lowest rates since Roe. Abortions are health care. Frankly, the idea that people should be alarmed by a supposed reframing of abortions as health care is incoherent. People who oppose abortion should be happy that's how it's seen. I come from a very large, very Catholic family, I went to 12 years of Catholic school, my godmother aunt who has made multiple pilgrimages to Međugorje and pickets hospitals still gives me presents every year, and I will relate to you the previous conception pro-life culture had of abortion: a cosmetic convenience.

If our outlook on abortion has changed, it has empirically gotten more conservative. I agree that conservative white people are alarmed by change no matter what form it takes. But we can't reasonably discuss that here while suggesting that destabilizing conservative shifts are somehow attributable to elite left discourse.

(Also, next time you think about how people casually look at abortion as "health care", I'd ask you also to consider that Catholic organizations control huge chunks of the health care infrastructure in this country, and they deny routine medically necessary procedures and medications to women because the church has deemed them abortifacient. I'm a parent and a Catholic and I've seen this firsthand; it's a real problem in Chicago. There is more going on with the "reproductive health care" thing than you're acknowledging here.)

Moving along:

The tuition programs you're talking about build on the DACA framework. They don't reward adults who cross the border with free tuition. Instead, they seek to acknowledge that people brought here as children, a huge portion of whom have known no other life but that of an American, are for all intents and purposes American. This notion is wildly popular in the US; it gets something like 3/4 in favor in surveys. (Would it be more popular if it hadn't been set in motion by executive order? Sure. But that supports my point, which is that the concern you have about destabilization has more to do with partisan politics than it does with ideas).

One of the problems with our discourse on immigration --- surprised if you disagree --- is that we used to be proud of our inclusiveness. People don't pay enough attention to how strict European countries are about immigration. We have birthright citizenship! The left spends too much time rhetorically tearing down American institutions, and the right spends too much time tacitly conceding and expanding on the left's criticisms. That's a shift rightward.

I just don't see what health care costs have to do with border security costs. The problem with $5B for border security is that it's a joke; you can't physically secure the border with that much money. It's a grift, a jobs program for cronies and a monument for Trump. If immigration hawks were serious, their next move would have been nationwide mandatory E-Verify. But more to the point: I have trouble believing that your grandmother-in-law is really tallying up the Trump Wall against health care in the first place.

Nobody is being held responsible for things that happened before they were born. When your grandmother-in-law says that, do you ask her what, specifically, she means?

RBG was a fan of reopening the privileges and immunities clause (NB: in the 14th Am) jurisprudence and justifying the right to abortion via gender equality. In that light she saw Roe as a stopgap.

If you seriously think that was why Partition happened (elite Hindu messages about Hinduness) I have a bridge to sell you in London. Gandhi who undertook to criticize all sorts of things about Hinduness didn’t deserve assassination for it nor did he cause Partition. How about separate drinking glasses all over the country for separate religions in railway stations, how about Hindus handing out water in Lahore supposedly to Brahmins but keeping a dirty nasty cup aside for any Muslims who happen to ask, how about my 8 year old grandfather in Karnataka being treated as if his touch defiled neighbor’s tin and brass pots like untouchable because he was Muslim. Those are very much issues with Hinduness and I suspect you need to have a little powwow with your parents.

"Whiteness" kind of is a problematic term. Italians, Slavs, and Irish people don't actually share all that much culture, do they? The term really is mostly about solidarity against Black people (Black being in fact a real culture, one we managed to create by kidnapping people and stripping them of their original cultures). The meaning of the term has even fluctuated over time, as different European ethnic groups were admitted.

Maybe it's OK if that term gradually goes away?

There's a difference between acknowledging that the term "white" is bad, and suggesting that Poles need to apologize and live lives of penance for what English slaveholders did in the 1800s.

I agree with some of this, but out of all the things that are definitely destroying America, the mindless opinions and think pieces in the NYT are one of the least harmful.

"Whiteness" is a term I don't use and don't really like, but it just plain was white Republican activists[1] who were rioting to stop the election and intimidate representatives two days ago. The Confederate symbols, presence of neo-Nazis, and the bizarre American Viking guy gave it away.

I live in southern Oregon and was born in Missouri, and I don't really understand what you're point is, below, about these areas culturally. The best parts of the culture in Missouri were sports, music, literature, food, river life, and fireworks. The worse parts included the notorious white racism. The "whiteness" discourse in Missouri was already asinine well before the NYT lost its mind. My grandparents had to elope out of state because their marriage was illegal, and when they came back the scandal of what they had done was featured in about a dozen papers.

And Oregon is an entirely different story. For someone who lived in St. Louis and then the Bay Area most of my life, the uniformity here is astonishing. It was officially a no-blacks state by constitutional amendment. My county today is < 1% black, and just got around to renaming "Negro Ben Mountain" in November.[2] Not having to think of yourself as white here is helped along a lot by the demographic homogeneity.

I think that the blame for your aunt feeling attacked for being white lies more truly on Breitbart. If you show non-liberal whites the NYT tweet/article, and also the Breitbart piece quoting the same NYT language, my bet is that "I feel attacked by the media for being white" is a more common and more intense response among those who read only the latter.

My parents were Democrats, and I am a Democrat, but one of my brothers is a Republican. We're both from the same place, the same upbringing, and are the same race (whatever it is). He watches Fox News personalities religiously, and categorically refuses to click on a link to the NYT. I read a local paper, the NYT, and wherever else the news comes from. I'm annoyed every day at the presentation of facts and looses writing standards, but I make my way through it. But this idea that the whites are under attack really connects with my brother in a way that it doesn't for me -- even though I'm the one supposedly encountering the brunt of the media's attack on white people, since I read main stream news and opinions and he doesn't.

Could he simply identify as more white than I do, and so feel more attacked? It's possible but I doubt it. I think it has more to do with this feeling of insecurity being one that the right wing media is nurturing for him.

[1] I mean "white activists" here not just in the sense that they were white people. [2] Renaming it for the second time. :(

Internal polls of NYT employees show less than 10% conservatives.

Given the recent anti-intellectualism and demonization of traditional media outlets by the American right, this shouldn't be a surprise.

I didn't claim NYT writers are unbiased, I said their reporting isn't "fact-free".

There are degrees of "coddling", as you put it. Granted NYT isn't as egregious as CNN or MSNBC, but they definitely have a strong bias, as exemplified by their "revolt": https://www.vox.com/2020/6/5/21280425/new-york-times-tom-cot...

This is just one example.

NYT and NPR are both extremely biased now. I say that as a 20 year long NPR listener. This is no secret, especially at NYT, where the newsroom is no longer firewalled from opinion. They chase even moderate left folks out for not being woke enough. The 1619 project fiasco, Bari Weiss, etc. They have fallen far since Trump got elected.

They're undoubtedly intersectional when it comes to social issues, but they're globalist on international affairs, and relatively centrist when it comes to the economy.

Fox (however detestable you may find it) was created as an alternative to the corporate media hegemony on thought, I fear you have it backwards.

Fox News was created to have enough control over media to prevent a Nixon-like event ever happening to the GOP again.

https://www.businessinsider.com/roger-ailes-blueprint-fox-ne...

That line summarizing the article you linked isn't inaccurate but left out some big chunks of logic. Just to clarify the article outlines that Fox News was created to prevent something like what Nixon did ever having a disastrous effect on the party - rather than preventing what Nixon did.

Sorry, yes, I wrote my comment quickly and poorly. It was created to enable GOP politicians to behave like Nixon while avoiding the accountability to the truth that Nixon was forced to face.

As I understand it, Fox News was created as a "junk food" alternative to traditional media. By cutting back on investigative journalism and focusing on commentary and shows like "The O'reilly Factor" Fox could create "news" content for less than their competitors. I'm not sure if the apparent "right" lean was due to the ownership or to market realities that made that kind of content more appealing to right-of-center media consumers.

This model has been pretty successful financially and the other major media outlets in the US have followed suit (though often leaning left instead). I think MSNBC was one of the first with the obnoxious melodrama of Keith Olbermann.

Yeah, I definitely agree with this. The corporate media is a hive mind of sorts, and look at the unhinged hysteria presented on CNN. I'm definitely not a fan of FOX, but during the Presidential debate, their panel contained two Biden supporters, two Trump supporters, and two never-Trumpers. That diversity of opinion was lacking on all of the other major networks.

I think we're seeing a sort of religious phenomenon here in regards to the corporate media. They're pushing narratives everyone know are untrue, but no-one can come out and say it publicly due to the religiosity of the mob.

No, it was created to make a fantasy land bubble for insane conspiracy theorists and extremist right wingers. It did its job and normalized those things for the entire GOP.

edit: downvotes with no response is really weak, especially given what we see going on in the world today which completely backs up my point.

It has certainly morphed into this - but it wasn't precisely created for this reason. It was created as a place where GOP party lines could be broadcast clearly when other news outlets were focusing on negative facets of GOP actions. This does align pretty closely with your description of a fantasy land bubble, that's pretty apt - but the conspiracy theory stuff is a more recent development.

I do think it's fair to describe fox as openly embracing conspiracy theories - the first really big example for me was how they popularized "the caravan" for months.

> Fox (however detestable you may find it) was created as an alternative to the corporate media hegemony on thought

No, it wasn't. First, because it's part of the corporate media created by what was already a media megacorp, so at best it might participate in the corporate media hegemony on thought, not provide an alternative.

Fox was created by a Republican operative (Roger Ailes) for the purpose of getting Republicans elected to office, financed by Rupert Murdoch, one of the most powerful news executives in the English-speaking world.

Variety has an in depth look into Roger Ailes,

Film Review: ‘Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes’

https://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/divide-and-conquer-the...

> It'll be interesting to see if whoever replaces Ajit Pai holds a different view on public intercourse over the airwaves.

Really hoping you mean "public discourse" :-)

I hope they didn't. ;)

Uh, well...

Intercourse: noun: communication or dealings between individuals or groups.

I mean how you choose to communicate or deal with people is clearly different than me. :-)

Humor aside, intercourse and discourse are synonyms.

Although, intercourse is often used as short for "sexual intercourse".

But you are pretty much asking for that joke (like when you still use "ejaculate" with the "blurt out" meaning).

I literally meant intercourse in the dictionary meaning: "communication or dealings between individuals or groups." Even so words change and usage does too; some people literally don't mean literally when they use that word, but I do. I suppose it's a matter of when you learned the definition.

> Humor aside, intercourse and discourse are synonyms.

TIL, thanks. I've never heard the term "public intercourse" before, always "public discourse", so I thought it was a typo.

Video is a terrible format for anything requiring the reflection and nuance of politics. People need to read at their own pace, stop and make their own judgements, and re-read parts to make it all make sense. Video is a firehose that keeps attention instead of letting you _think_.

Leave it for entertainment and deep documentaries. If we had no more news channels and nightly programs, I think we'd both be happier and better informed.

Straight up Marshall McLuhan, hot (immersive) & cool (passive) media.

Video https://youtu.be/a3IbIPQcmy8 Western Cynical: McLuhan Unclaimed (2018)

The larger a company gets, especially in influence, the more regulation is needed to enforce accountability. With great social power, comes great social responsibility.

> Fox News would have been exempt from the Fairness Doctrine as a cable network, i.e. it doesn't use the public spectrum.

Yes, but city-wide local Fox-affiliate news channels broadcast over the public airwaves would not have been exempt. Those are often watched in their local environments more than their cable alternatives. See also Sinclair Broadcast Group: broadcasting over public airwaves is in the name!

The death of the press¹ has been an worldwide phenomenon, so attributing it to a single US legislative bill is a bit too reductionist.

It's quite possible that there was US protagonism on that process, and it's quite possible that the bill was a relevant factor, but the bill doesn't have an worldwide impact, and the US influence does certainly not come from it.

1 - It looks quite dead by now, nearly everything we call by that name is free of any usable information. Of course there's some activity here or there, but it's dead like a dead forest, something spurs here or there, but nothing is able to grow.

Regardless - giving every single person, no matter what their accomplishments or talents, the same voice online, without anything out there filtering the garbage, was a really, REALLY bad move.

Unfiltered social media is an amplifier for bullshit. Truth, reason, a good analysis - they're all hard. Spewing out nonsensical mythology is easy.

Something needs to change.

Regardless - giving every single person, no matter what their accomplishments or talents, the same ability to vote, without anything out there filtering the garbage, was a really, REALLY bad move. Unfiltered universal suffrage is an amplifier for bullshit. Truth, reason, a good analysis - they're all hard. Spewing out nonsensical mythology is easy. Something needs to change.

Thank you for this -- I hope that the point (that I think) you are making is not lost in the large thread.

Not necessarily, I think what we have today is far better than a world where a few people got to control what was said. That only works if they are well intentioned and trustworthy, but it’s corruptible. And they certainly aren’t necessarily arbiters of truth.

What we have today is orders of magnitude better. The main challenge moving forward will be designing information systems so as to promote challenging opinions rather than reinforcing them, which requires these companies to move away from optimizing engagement but something else.

IMO, solving that problem is a step in the correct direction.

Implementing systems that rely on credentialing and moderation are a net regression, even if they (maybe) solve this specific problem. It’s just going back to systems in the past where things appeared great but weren’t actually. Think of all the people who, today, legitimately thrive because we’ve broken down some of the credentialing gatekeepers (Ben Thompson at Stratechery comes to mind).

I'm not sure the flow of information is even necessarily the problem. People just aren't trained to think critically - and doing so for everything is exhausting however increasing the focus of education on how to think, not what to think would help immensely.

In the interim i would like to see some level of moderation, maybe citizens or states able to exact some kind of consequences against people who via any sort of media spread information which either they know to be or should know to be false (or alternative facts as some people call them). i.e. some kind of process where i as a person or an independent body have standing to sue breitbart for knowingly/negligently distributing false information.

I know we have to be careful with this but at the moment there is simply no way of holding organisations to account if i am not being directly libeled despite the fact that the misinformation harms me directly.

Hmm, the thing is though, this info is rarely 100% false... people have tried things like labeling posts with truth contents, etc. and it falls flat. In cases where it is 100% false I think your approach works (although it might not actually be a sufficient deterrent).

In practice they always seems to be mixed with partial truths (when you read past the headline)... plus, determining what's "true" is kind of a nonstarter, especially at that scale.

I am also certain you would find things on NYT, WaPo, etc. that is not 100% truthful, even if the consequences are not as egregious. It's not just Breitbart. I say this because people on the other side of the aisle will take whatever you design and throw it back at you.

Identifying critical thinking as the problem (as you did in your post) is IMO somewhat right but maybe too hard of a problem to solve (as you pointed out).

The way I see it... we're in the middle of a tug-of-war between the old guard that used news & other power structures to broadcast what they wanted, and the new, democratized users who felt they didn't need to trust them while simultaneously being empowered to have their own voice heard.

The former would manipulate our perception of what was going on through news (print / media), while the latter are empowered by companies that control the new media landscape (Twitter / FB / IG).

What's interesting about the latter is that they leverage a system that was designed innocuously ("serve better ads") but can be adapted to control someone's perception of what is happening in the world (targeted content / engagement).

As of late, I've been thinking that the way forward is going to be identifying the forces that drive extreme polarization and re-imagining them to reign them in.

When I look at what happens with the way feeds are designed, there is such a crazy reinforcement of what I already "like" that drives polarization that maybe it really is just as simple as re-designing the feed to promote more diversity of content. It could be enough to temper some of the extreme outliers of craziness we see on either side of the aisle.

I will admit I am arm-chairing a bit here...

Yet, here you are, a relatively anonymous individual of whose talents, accomplishments or level of education we can't be sure, happily spewing out your own completely unsubstantiated opinion, essentially indistinguishable from garbage, to a reading public on a major news aggregation site.

I am struggling putting it into words, but I have to say I am deeply troubled by the widespread behavior of adults second-guessing the ability of other adults to make distinctions between between competing pieces of information.

It seems to me that this reaction of "we must regulate what is said so that nothing false is ever said (because someone might believe it and even worse might repeat it)" has devolved into "we must regulate what is said because someone might be led to believe something different from what I believe."

>I know Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit and all the rest don't count as broadcast media but I feel like we got here in part because the 1987 elimination of FCC's fairness doctrine slowly allowed a shift in how we communicate with each other.

230 renders the Fairness Doctrine moot. Even if it still existed today.

Blaming Fox is really disingenuous. Fox became popular as an alternative because of the mainstream media’s reaction to George W. Bush, in particular mocking him for his religiousity.

If you look at surveys, people understand Fox has a bias. But it’s very hard to listen to news from people who don’t appear to share your basic values.

Consider this summer. We can debate the merits of whether violent rioting, setting police stations on fire, etc., is a justified response in certain circumstances. But the public has divergent opinions on this, and journalists have a pretty uniform opinion on this issue. This is a divergence that didn’t exist during the 20 years between when CNN was started and when Fox got popular. But it does now. And it’s very hard to watch coverage of this issue when the person behind the news desk obviously sees the world very differently than you.

Fox didn’t create this divergence. It responded to a divergence that grew. And it’s a divergence that’s become more extreme as media consolidation has resulted in most media being beamed from the coasts into the rest of the country.

>It'll be interesting to see if whoever replaces Ajit Pai holds a different view on public intercourse over the airwaves.

I think the word you mean is discourse not intercourse.

This is so Facebook.

* Enables and encourages (and makes money off of) spreading hate messages on their platform for years

* Hamhandedly does a full reverse and bans of one of the leading spreaders only after it's too late to make a difference.

* But just in time to curry favor with the groups newly in power.

A twist to the old cliche: too much, too late.

How cowardly.

Cowardly no matter how you slice it. But I think there are two perspectives here:

* Doing it only now to curry favor with the groups newly in power

* Not doing it earlier because of pretty certain retribution from the group (man) who was in power.

> only after it's too late to make a difference.

I think you underestimate how much damage he can still do

Yesterday was the first time in four years I was tempted to call bottom. I hesitate to be sure, but I think it's more likely than not that we hit bottom yesterday and that the next two weeks and inauguration won't be worse.

you still can have political assassinations. sorry to say that so bluntly. but a crazy guy and a crowd pushing each other over the limits ends with political assassinations.

Yesterday the pipe bombs that were found didn't have a chance to explode. It might not work out so well next time. And given there are over 100 GOP representatives still pushing the false narrative that the election was stolen, there will be a next time.

138 out of 435 US representatives objected to Pennsylvania’s election results. That’s over 30% of the country’s representatives lending credence to that false narrative even after yesterday’s events.

>... but I think it's more likely than not that we hit bottom yesterday...

At the very least, he set the new bar. The next "Trump" will be worse.

Good point.

I probably should have written something like “... only after so much damage to our society has already been done.”

I am worried about about what he and his supporters will still do.

No matter what they do, half the population will scream. Imagine if they strongly censor things from the start, that undoubtedly won't fly well with the HN crowd either. Just look at the HN discussion thread when Youtube decided to remove election fraud videos.

Yeah, it wouldn't fly well because FB shouldn't play a judge.

I don't understand why we don't have a due process for stuff like this.

Trump haters keep justifying that FB is private they can ban whoever they want. Then, when a theme park bans a gay couple, they are screaming violently.

I understand how it would be hard for normal people to push something through legal routes.

But even Warren doesn't want to use a legal route to ban fake news (and such), and she was a lawyer now senate. She instead bought an ads with fake news on Zuck.

People have been wanting Trump and other alt-rights banned for years _because_ of things they _did_ not who they are. Thats a major difference.

And those users have repeatedly crossed the TOS of the services they are using but the pages stay up because it generates engagement. Twitter even admits that Trump was too big to ban because he generates far too much money for them and other social networks.

Thats the crux of the argument people have been saying for years. Banning a gay couple is a complete false equivalence and I don't believe you can argue that in good faith.

Why not? A private business banning people who believes in X, which happens to be gay's right.

Just to be clear: I'm on the side of, if we are gonna ban someone, let's use a proper legal route to do it.

Not "an exec thinks it's wrong. Let's ban them"

The established rule, as far as I know, is that a private business can do something, like banning people, unless there is a law against it, such as one protecting a specific class of people.

Is that not how it works? Is everything illegal until a regulation specifically allows it? Should it be?

It's convenient, I suppose.

A private business bans someone I hate. Oh yeah, private business can ban anybody.

A private business bans someone I like. Oh no that's morally wrong.

This system is stupid. It welcomes a screaming match or who can threaten the execs better.

You’re really comparing a homophobic ban of a gay couple trying to get married, to that of someone pushing an insurrection against the government? Would you also be against civil rights laws because they forced restaurants to allow black people to dine, and churches to marry interracial couples? Your attempts to make the two things equal is deeply disingenuous. This is an outright attack on the whole democratic system because one person is a sore loser.

> Trump haters keep justifying that FB is private they can ban whoever they want. Then, when a theme park bans a gay couple, they are screaming violently.

1. One of these things is not like the other.

2. “Screaming violently”?

Yeah, have you been on twitter? Not random Twitter accounts. These are FAANG employees.

They say Zuck and Dorsey support Nazis, white supremacists, and trump.

I worked at these companies, and that couldn't be further from the truth.

Just to be clear: I'm on the side of, if we are gonna ban someone, let's use a proper legal route to do it. But surprisingly nobody wants to go that route, huh?

Ban somebody. It’s totally legal. No additional steps required.

Normally I edit when I realize I forgot a point, but this one deserves another comment. When us leftists realize we’re being systematically excluded on a platform, yes we also make a stink. But then we go build new platforms and fucking get on with it. Because we’re not crybabies who expect to be amplified even though no one tolerates us.

I don't think it's cowardly for them to do exactly the most logical thing for a corporation to do. If you're looking to LLCs to provide inspiration for good/moral/brave actions, I hate to break this to you, but they only provide inspiration for how to make money.

Regardless of being the right thing to do or not, it is very interesting to see a software platform banning a president of a country.

Interesting times.

You must have something to say besides it’s interesting?

I often find myself responding with "interesting" when I haven't yet formulated an opinion - to me it's an indication that I'll have to get back to you on how I feel about it. I haven't found another synonym to use as a response, and I often catch myself constantly saying "interesting" over and over. It's interesting.

Like Trump is just a regular president of a country.

It's not surprising at all given his behavior. Being president doesn't excuse it.

What policies he pushed you are not happy with? Less taxes, no new wars, and leaving each state making their own decisions for covid-19 seems pretty center right to me.

1. less taxes I am not happy with 2. immigrant children in cages 3. easing of environmental rules 4. pulling out of climate deal 5. pulling out of iran deal 6. lying about the election being a fraud, and causing insurrection 7. pardoning his criminal cronies

> 2. immigrant children in cages

Who built the cages? https://lmddgtfy.net/?q=who%20built%20cages%20for%20children

You’re making https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25673162 ’s point.

> Who built the cages?

Who cares?

There’s all kinds of less-objectionable potential uses of the cages than the ones to which the Trump Administration has put them. Building them isn’t the problem.

> There’s all kinds of less-objectionable potential uses of the cages than the ones to which the Trump Administration has put them.

They were built to keep children separate from each other (gender segregated) and from adults: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/08/26/fac...

Yes, and doing that for a smaller number of people that are transitionally detained after taking steps to minimize their use by minimizing detaining children in the first place (e.g., a policy of not doing custodial detainment of adults accompanying children whose only apparent offense is illegal crossing so that the court-mandated separate detention of children isn't an issue versus deliberately adopting a policy of maximum family separation with the overt motivation of using the associated suffering as a deterrent and punishment.)

No, GP means, literally, who put the cage policy in place. It was not the Trump administration.

People are only cross about this because it's Trump.

> No, GP means, literally, who put the cage policy in place. It was not the Trump administration.

The policy of deliberately maximizing use of the cages by maximizing family separation and using the induced psychic harm as a deterrent is a policy adopted by the Trump Administration.

The policy of requiring segregated detention of children, when actually detained, which caused the cages to be necessary was a judicially-imposed policy.

The policy of minimizing detention of children so as to minimize the use of the cages, including not detaining adults accompanying children without reason beyond illegal crossing, was a direct response to that judicially-imposed policy by the Obama Administration that was abandoned by the Trump Administration.

So, if one is using “built the cages” with the peculiar meaning you suggest of “adopted the policy for their use that is the subject of the objections”, Trump “built the cages”.

Here is a photo of children put in cages during the Obama admin[0] by Donald Trump.

[0]https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2018/06/18/ap_1816885517410...

Not just that, people who should've known better kept on using photos of kids in cages that were literally taken under the Obama administration to insist that Trump was uniquely evil, including members of Congress and mainstream publications, even months (maybe years?) after the fact they were from the Obama era was firmly established. Not just that either. For example, the fricking Associated Press ran an investigative piece about immigrant kids being handed over to forced labour traffickers that was 100% open about the fact its purpose was to attack Trump's immigration policies, even though if you looked at the dates every incident it described happened under Obama. That didn't stop everyone on social media interpreting it in the intended fashion.

Do you have a link to AP story? Genuinely curious to read it

Ditto. I looked and found this short 2017 story by the AP about laborers hidden on property “since mid-2015”, but it doesn’t mention their age. https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-forced-labor-20... (disable JavaScript to disable paywall)

https://www.google.com/search?q=Associated+Press+children+ca...

While I agree that any president of the USA is basically a baddie Trump really blows the scale. Yes we should be talking about the draconian immigration policies under Obama, and we should be talking about Biden’s support for the war on drugs, and we should be talking about drone killings under the Democrats. But that doesn’t mean Trump is not all that and worse.

Yes it is bad that children were arrested under Obama. Obama should absolutely have to answer to those crimes. But so should Trump. In addition Trump also needs to answer for the child separation (not done under Obama). Yes, Obama needs to answer for war crimes and extrajudicial killings, but so should Trump, and in addition Trump needs to answer to toxic rhetoric, inciting racism, inciting racism, inciting people not to follow public health protocols, etc.

and btw, if the dividers were office cube dividers instead of chain link would you still call it a "cage" ?

> 2. immigrant children in cages

by which you mean in immigration holding cells, after being separated from their apparent guardians, as an anti-trafficking measure.

so what would you do?

Virtually all his tweets have a tendency to disinform. He caused a lot of damage to the country during the pandemic, remember that? Why keep on giving Trump carte blanche? His social messages cause a lot of harm to the US.

I guess he's more welcome to GAB or any other radical social media. His followers will flock to him in a similar way as on Twitter or Facebook. Let him be relevant where people don't question him

I didn't mention his policies why do you think they're relevant?

I said 'behaviour' and what I meant is that his incitement to violence is beyond the pale.

FB, Twitter and many other people agree. It's obviously a value judgement but not a particularly difficult one.

Provide evidence please. Give me a example of where Trump called for violence

Come on man, you can't be serious - the public burden of proof is so massive that it's on you if you want to argue, pointlessly otherwise.

Go and read his Twitter feed from the past few weeks, where he has spewed lies about non-existent fraud in an almost hourly basis, told Mike Pence to overturn the result, and where he called on his supporters to come to DC on the 6th. He has been whipping up his supporters into a frenzy for some time.

Watch the video clips of his speeches he has posted on Twitter, with yet more lies about how the election was "stolen from him", the other side are "evil", and how his supporters must "fight" for democracy by helping him overturn the will of the American people.

Listen to the tapes of him telling state officials to "find more votes", with thinly veiled threats.

Watch the video of his speech shortly before the riot, where Rudi Guliani said the way to win was "trial by combat", and Trump told them all to march on the capital.

Listen even to his video statement where he asks them to stop the violence - where he still refuses to denounce their actions, banging on about fraud and what "great patriots" they are!

He has, to my knowledge, never explicitly said "let's go and stage a violent coup!", because even Trump is just a tad more intelligent than that - but it is abundantly clear that this is what he was asking for and what he wanted, and it's been clear for all to see for some time.

Yeah, you're definitely not trying hard:

- http://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-tells-crowd-to-knock-th... "Knock the crap out of them" complete with video and offers to pay legal fees

- https://thinkprogress.org/donald-trump-my-fans-were-right-to... - "Maybe he should have been roughed up." on Fox and Friends

- https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-punch-him-in-the-fac... - "He's smiling [a protestor]. I'd like to punch him. Punch him right in the face."

I find it ... 'odd' ... that you can be so well-informed about DNC issues but have "no recollection" (I love that phrase, works so well when people are being hauled in front of Congress) of any specific issue of violence from Trump or the RNC.

In fact, here you go, someone's collated them all, with evidence:

http://mashable.com/2016/03/12/trump-rally-incite-violence/#...

At least nine video captured incidents:

- "I'll beat the crap out of you"

- "Part of the problem... is no-one wants to hurt each other any more."

- "The audience hit back. We need more of that."

and so on. and so on.

The "hilarious" part is I posted this four years ago, and it was a synopsis of less than a year of Trump's public calls for violence.

It’s incredible that that’s the best you can do. And Joe Biden calling the election “a battle for the soul of America” is calling for war. Get real. 4 years of pearl clutching and you still can’t stop.

“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them,”

“Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”

“...something is wrong here, something is really wrong, can't have happened and we fight, we fight like hell, and if you don't fight like hell you're not going to have a country anymore.”

He said that yesterday morning, right before the capitol was sacked by his supporters, at yet another one of his klan-style rallies.

I further consider falsely calling elections stolen, rigged, or fraudulent just because you lost, as incitement to violence. He has been doing this for two months, but he gave a preview before both the 2016 and 2020 elections that he would call any election he lost as rigged. Without elections, what else is there? Admitting and accepting defeat is one of the most central requirements of a functioning democracy.

Democrats spent years calling the 2016 election illegitimate and fraudulent. I guess you considered that an incitement to violence too right? Oh wait, you didn’t? Weird, because that almost seems like blatant hypocrisy.

Hillary Clinton conceded the day after the election. At no time did any Democrat claim she had actually won the election in a landslide, or that it was a stolen, fraudulent election.

Donald Trump still has not conceded. On Wednesday he was spouting lies about a fraudulent election, a stolen election, and to fight. As he has for two months. And this lie is repeated by more than 140 Republicans, 2/3rds of the caucus, in the House of Representatives. Along with 7 Republican Senators. On the record.

These are not the same two things at all. You know that. And yet you choose to replicate a lie and make a ridiculous claim of hypocrisy. And I think it makes you a coward and a person of bad character, and I also think you know that too. The only question is whether it shames you.

Are you an inveterate liar or just that wildly uninformed? Democrats non-stop have called the 2016 election “stolen”, just like they called the 2000 election “stolen”. In 2019, Hillary Clinton called Trump an “illegitimate president” and accused him of stealing the election. Maybe try getting out of your echo chamber and you’d know these things.

Not to mention, do you know how many Democrats objected during the Congressional electoral college and certification session for Donald Trump? No, of course you don’t, because you’re spoonfed biased talking points and aren’t even interested in knowing the whole story. I bet you won’t even look it up because you don’t want to know the truth that Democratic congressional reps also tried to object to Trump’s presidential certification.

Instead, here you are trying use your childish sense of moral superiority to suppress freedom of expression. Maybe if you clutch your pearls even more strongly next time, I’ll feel the “shame” you think I should feel.

> Less taxes,

Paid for by running up record deficits - which is the opposite of what the right claimed to stand for, and which Trump directly ran on. And those taxes expire for the people, showing who Trump really worked for in this case.

>no new wars,

Yet destabilizing many areas of the world, leaving it in the opinion of some countries in a much less peaceful place. Here's Germany putting Trump as "Greatest Threat to World Peace " [1]. He's destabilized NATO, he's attacked the US and other intelligence forces to where the US is no longer trusted, likely causing other agencies to share less intel with us. Here's how a lot of the first world thinks of Trump [2].

>leaving each state making their own decisions for covid-19

And his lack of leadership is a central reason the US has 350K_ dead, while other first world countries only have a fraction of the death and economic downturn Trump caused.

Trump also fought states having the right to their own election rules, didn't want states to deal with immigration on their own terms, didn't want states to deal with protests on their own terms, has repeatedly claimed he has absolute authority over state decisions (including COVID related ones where he claimed he could dictate economic policy, which he didn't have), and on and on....

Trump uses "states rights" to score political points only - pretend to respect them when he wants, and attack them when he wants.

When your evaulation uses a fallacy (cherry-picking) you end up ignoring the majority of the eivdence, your assessment ends up incorrect.

[1] https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-angela-merkel-germans-...

[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/09/15/us-image-plumm...

>> Trump also fought states having the right to their own election rules.

Its clearly stated in the constitution that if states change their election laws, then they need to go through the legislature in order to do so. GA, WI. MI and PA ALL made changes WITHOUT going through the legislature. Why? Because in each of those states, the legislature was controlled by Republicans.

The fact they changed their laws the way they did is a clear cut violation of the constitution, it's not even debatable.

There's so much wrong in this statement. No state anywhere can change laws without going through the legislature. Only the legislature has the power to write law. The executive branch, which runs elections, always has leeway on how they implement and interpret laws. If someone had a problem with how the laws were interpreted, they could sue in state court - many people did, all the suits were dismissed by the state courts, meaning that the courts did not find any violations of the state constitution. So, "the fact they changed their laws the way they did" -> they did not change their laws. "is a clear-cut violation of the constitution" -> nope, courts determined over and over and over that this is not the case.

In September 2020, the Court rewrote Pennsylvania election law to allow ballots received three days after Election Day, even without a postmark, to be counted. Further, it kicked off the ballot the Green Party candidate, who normally takes away votes from the Democratic candidate. The Court rewrote the clear language of the statute:

Deadline.--Except as provided under 25 Pa.C.S. § 3511[24] (relating to receipt of voted ballot), a completed mail-in ballot must be received in the office of the county board of elections no later than eight o'clock P.M. on the day of the primary or election.

This case is on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on the argument that only the Legislature can set the rules for a federal election:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.*

On November 27, 2020, Judge McCullough of the PA Commonwealth Court issued a preliminary injunction to stop certification of the vote pending review because the Pennsylvania statute, Act 77, enacted on October 31, 2019, which provided for "no-excuse" mail- in voting, changed the Pennsylvania constitution. Amending the PA Constitution requires that the Legislature pass the law in two sessions, and then the amendment is voted upon by the voters. This was not followed in enacting Act 77. The case is Mike Kelly, Sean Parnell, et al. v. Commonwealth of Pa, Governor Thomas Wolf, et al.

On Saturday, November 28, 2020, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overruled Judge McCullough. The vote was 7-0, with the two Republicans joining in the decision with the exception that the two Republicans wanted to keep the case open to decide the constitutionality of the statute.

The two Republicans should have dissented to state that the election was held under an unconstitutional and therefore an illegal statute. They should have stated that Gov. Wolf, his Democrat secretary of state, and Democrat attorney general Josh Shapiro allowed the election to proceed under a statute they knew was unconstitutional. All three are sworn to uphold the laws and constitutions of Pennsylvania and the United States.

Senator Kelly filed an emergency appeal to Judge Alito of the U.S. Supreme Court requesting an injunction to bar the certification.

The issues raised by Kelly are as follows:

1. May a legislature violate its state constitution's restrictions on the lawmaking power when enacting legislation for the conduct of federal elections pursuant to Article I, § 4, and Article II, § 1 of the U.S. Constitution?

2. Did the Pennsylvania Supreme Court violate Petitioners' rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by dismissing with prejudice the case below, on the basis of laches, thereby foreclosing any opportunity for Petitioners to seek retrospective and prospective relief for ongoing constitutional violations?

The Court did not hold an evidentiary hearing to question why Wolf allowed the election to proceed pursuant to a statute he knew was unconstitutional.

Further, the Republicans have a majority in the Senate and House of the PA Legislature. Why did the Republicans in the Legislature vote for Act 77 to allow no-excuse mail-in voting?

The votes of voters who voted in person were not treated equally because the no-excuse mail-in voters voted pursuant to an unconstitutional law. This is a denial of equal protection and due process.

As Judge McCullough stated:

[A] mail-in voting process that would exceed the limits of absentee voting prescribed in PA Const. Article VII sec 14 could be construed as violating the "one person one vote." In that event, the sheer magnitude of the number of mail-in ballots would not be a basis to disregard not only this provision of the Pennsylvania Constitution but also the "one person, one vote" doctrine established by Reynolds, one of the bedrock decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The PA Supreme Court also said the mail-in voters would be disenfranchised. But that is the fault of Wolf and his secretary of state, who created the problem, not the fault of those challenging an unconstitutional law.

Senator Ted Cruz urged the U.S. Supreme Court to review Kelly's appeal.

The PA Supreme Court ruled to protect the "win" by Biden. This is consistent with its decision to rewrite the law to allow unlimited mail-in ballots received after the election date.

To point out just one thing: Why do you think it is ok to ignore votes that arrived late but not too late to be counted? Is that not more like a technicality only? These are, even if late, votes by people.

In all of those instances, the "changes" to election laws were made by the respective state legislatures earlier during the year...or...spoiler alert in prior years.

Get the facts[0], friend.

Because people have been lying to you.

[0] https://electioncases.osu.edu/2021/01/summary-of-post-electi...

> Less taxes,

My taxes went up.

> leaving each state making their own decisions for covid-19

This one especially.

> leaving each state making their own decisions for covid-19

It's so infuriating that this BS would pass for some sort of Trump accolade. The country is in full-blown crisis, the likes of which we haven't seen in a century. Why should the president do anything? He let the states handle it. What a great leader!

I know right? It's like Bush telling the NYPD they can go arrest Bin Laden after 9/11.

> no new wars

but multiple foreign military "actions"

> and leaving each state making their own decisions for covid-19

Well, you know other than seizing PPE, and then having your son-in-law, a part of your administration, state -on the record-, that you would openly withhold PPE from states that "weren't friendly to the President".

There's many, many more. But you're presenting a rather simplistic (and inaccurate) narrative here.

> What policies he pushed you are not happy with?

Some top choices:

Nightmarish treatment of immigrants, both legal and illegal.

Absolute sabotage of any progress on climate change both through manipulation of the relevant departments and through rollbacks of regulation.

Tax cuts that disproportionately affect the rich.

Attempts to completely dismantle Obamacare without any sensible replacement.

Bigoted limitations on transgender people, especially in the military. And continued DoJ support for legal discrimination against gay people.

None of that really matters. I have no doubt he would have won if he didn't say so many stupid things and act like a disrespectful moron.

I think the election was stolen, but stolen by Trump alone and basically handed over to Biden.

If anything, Trump stole the election from his supporters.

They should be pissed he couldn't show restraint and just shut his mouth to take the victory so he could continue with their favored agenda.

Instead, he actively sabotaged himself. His ego prevented him from seeing that unfold. And nobody could reign him in at any point. That's crazy.

Doesn't matter how many good things you get done if you show everyone you are incapable of humility, incapable of listening to advisors and data and fabricating things on the regular.

I learned on HN some time ago that:

> "May you live in interesting times" is an English expression that is claimed to be a translation of a traditional Chinese curse. While seemingly a blessing, the expression is normally used ironically; life is better in "uninteresting times" of peace and tranquility than in "interesting" ones, which are usually times of trouble. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_ti...

I heard this phrase in Shanghai and never knew it may be a curse - thanks for sharing this - I usually say this every once in a while but maybe shouldn't

“Despite being widely attributed as a Chinese curse, there is no known equivalent expression in Chinese.[2] The nearest related Chinese expression translates as "Better to be a dog in times of tranquility than a human in times of chaos." (寧為太平犬，不做亂世人)”

It looks like the symbols for dog (犬) and person (人) are at end of each verse. I can't speak Chinese, but I'd imagine the line rings well hearing the ordering of subject/object/verb like that.

There are more constraints than that - the corresponding words in each phrase are also the same parts of speech, and are often read with a specific cadence. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antithetical_couplet

I might argue it’s always better to be a dog.

As a human, one should strive to be the owner of such a fortunate dog.

I don't think I'd want to swap places with most dogs, personally.

I have a social media platform that I created that Trump isn't on. Did I deplatform him?

Even more interesting is the blatant support of zuckerburg and facebook here.

Of all places, you'd think HN would support free speech, but yesterday, you got downvote brigaded for mentioning that facebook and tech companies shouldn't be our censors.

The logic was "we must protect democracy by having zuckerburg censor an elected government official".

One moment it's facebook is evil. The next moment, facebook and zuckerburg are the heroes we need to save democracy. Go figure.

"The logic" for me is that private censorship IS free speech whether I agree with it personally or not.

The point of free speech protections are to protect the stuff you don't like. Don't like a private business censoring? That's free speech.

> The point of free speech protections are to protect the stuff you don't like

no, its to protect speech you don't like, not "stuff", or it could be abstracted to any number of maxims.

a private business cannot censor its own expressions, only those of others. The issue of censorship only cones up wrt publishing platforms discrimination on who they serve.

Has it not occurred to you that, maybe, we should judge people for their actions? Rather than deciding upon an immutable set of Good People and Bad People, we should judge good and bad deeds?

If only Facebook would act that way towards Trump. He called for the people to leave the Capitol.

My friend, if you believe that tepid action redeems the inveterate liar and his despicable record of action, then there is little you won't look past.

You can do the right thing every now and then while still being evil. It’s been obvious for a long time how stuffed with lies, hate and abuse the President’s social media account have been.

For example? Was it his tweets yesterday saying to comply with the police and leave the Capitol? can we be a bit more substantive?

Since the election results became apparent cable outlets have begun cutting away from the President’s speeches and tech companies have begun censoring the President’s speech.

Absolutely nothing has changed in the President’s speech or behavior since his 1st speech announcing his candidacy 5 years ago.

We needed a John Hancock 5 years ago that was willing to draw a line on violent speech and disinformation regardless of the consequences. Instead we got media leadership with their thumbs to the wind ignoring their platform policies and hiding behind a “public interest” rationale.

Too little too late.

Context matters.

What Trump did over the last 5 years pales in comparison to what he is doing now.

The effortless transition of power is the most fundamental and sacrosanct process in a democracy. And everyone has an obligation to defend it.

It’s literally what he has sworn to defend at the inauguration.

Instead we got this tweet “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election," he tweeted. "Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!"

He has sworn duty to not incite the crowd, no matter how much he thinks he has lost. That’s what the courts are for (which he tried and lost) and even many,many recounts (which didn’t move the needle noticeably) and that is what the democratic process is for.

I'd argue that there's actually no difference in his behavior. Trump has been consistently divisive, untruthful and inflammatory since day one. What has happened is that his sustained behavior has radicalized a significant fraction of the population to the point that they are convinced that everyone else is lying to them and there's a massive conspiracy against their god-leader. I don't want to run afoul of Godwin's Law here, but if you ever wonder how people ended up following leaders like Stalin, Franco or Mussolini - it was a process of years. People who called this out as dangerous from day one were ridiculed as alarmists or partisans.

So true,

Even if the US election often seems like a coin flip, the fact that it only lasts 4 or 8 years means that a wrong flip doesn't matter so much.

This is probably pretty important, as it's well known that Americans like to exhaust all other options before doing the right thing ;)

The argument being made, regardless of whether it's true or not, is that at best it's an unfair coin that favors one party over another. Using that coin, the party has taken two branches of government and allegedly will stack the third in its favor and has no check to prevent it from doing so. With all three branches there is little to no possibility of the unfair coin being investigated.

I find it somewhat disappointing that the more compelling allegations were not tested in court. At least there would be public documentation of the argument and reasoned verdict.

Do you have a list of the more compelling allegations? I'm genuinely curious to see them.

I don’t have a list, but historically SCOTUS has ruled that legislatures are responsible for election laws and those cannot be changed by the whim of the state executive branch. Minimally Wisconsin and Pennsylvania (and possible Michigan and Georgia) sent out, received, and counted ballots that were outside the bounds of their respective election laws. Pennsylvania was especially egregious in that they were told to separate ballots received after the cutoff defined by law in case there was a challenge (which there was); they did not, making it impossible to separate late ballots from on time ballots. Some counties in Pennsylvania also contacted voters to cure ballots before Election Day; (again) my understanding of the law is that mailed ballots could not be opened until the polls opened on Election Day so there would have been no way to identify ballots that needed to be cured. This was inconsistent across counties.

Wisconsin’s screw up had to do with who was eligible to receive a mail in ballot. There was a ruling that confirmed that ballots were sent to people ineligible for mail in voting, but that they would have to be argued individually. IIRC there were 200k mail in ballots provided and now separated from the voter. Even if you could identify all ineligible voters, there would be no way to identify their ballots.

>I don’t have a list,

I do[0]. And if you review the court records (summarized in the link below), you'll find that the courts (including the Supreme Court) found no merit in the allegations you're repeating.

Is it possible that ~80 judges of all political stripes, in the court systems of six different states as well as the federal courts are all in cahoots with the Democratic Party to steal elections?

Sure, I suppose it's possible. But unlikely in the extreme.

To put a fine point on that: The "issues" you're describing have been litigated, several of them repeatedly, and the claims have been found to be largely without merit.

As such, folks who are claiming this stuff is true are either misinformed or lying.

But don't believe me. Check it out for yourself.

Pretty much all the claims, counterclaims, legal arguments and court rulings are public records. As I mentioned, many of those are detailed (with citations/links) in the link below.

[0] https://electioncases.osu.edu/2021/01/summary-of-post-electi...

> the matter is now moot, as it is impossible to issue the requested relief.

> do not warrant the wholesale disenfranchisement of thousands of Pennsylvania voters

> such inaction would result in the disenfranchisement of millions of Pennsylvania voters

> That remedy would be grossly disproportionate to the procedural challenges raised.

> tossing out millions of mail-in ballots would be drastic and unprecedented, disenfranchising a huge swath of the electorate and upsetting all down-ballot races too. That remedy would be grossly disproportionate to the procedural challenges raised

My impression is that’s the crux of many of the decisions.

⅘ of the states would have needed to flip, so as legal avenues close in states the ROI on pursuing other cases begins to turn negative quickly.

Let me be clear: I’m not arguing that any of the arguments are valid or not, just that they weren’t given the time or resources for discovery or developed argument that would provide any type of closure. In many cases the remedy may be worse than the outcome.

Right. And instead of just cherry-picking a sentence here or there from the rulings, compare the "requested remedy" and harms alleged in the claims with the potential impact.

Or you can just have other folks spoon-feed you what you want to hear.

If not, and you do the work, I expect that you'll find that these folks are requesting that the courts throw out hundreds of thousands or even millions of votes based on speculation, issues which could and should (and in some cases, were) have been addressed before the election[0], issues which affect orders of magnitude fewer votes than would be affected or change the result of the election, claims of malfeasance that aren't actually malfeasance and a variety of other mostly spurious claims.

The truth is that while there are always irregularities and even fraud[1] in every election, it wasn't enough to change the outcome in any of the relevant states.

[0] Laches isn't just "too late, you lose!", it's that voters relied on the rules in place and if you change the rules after the fact, you disadvantage/disenfranchise voters who did exactly what the rules required. A good example of this was Kelly v. Pennsylvania. The claim was that PA Act 77 was unconstitutional. Except it was passed in October, 2019. Was this case brought immediately? No. Was it brought before the 2020 primary in Pennsylvania? No. Was it brought before the general election? Nope. The lawsuit was filed after two elections. Millions of voters relied upon Act 77 as the law of Pennsylvania. Should all those folks be disenfranchised after the fact?

[1] https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud

Note that the above database has found ~1300 cases of fraud all across the US since 1982. Even if the real numbers were ten times what was found, and all of those were in one state and one election, it might make a difference, but it's all 50 states over almost 40 years.

I’m agreeing with you while referencing my earlier post.

> I’m agreeing with you while referencing my earlier post.

Gotcha. I was mostly responding to this bit:

>they weren’t given the time or resources for discovery or developed argument that would provide any type of closure. In many cases the remedy may be worse than the outcome.

I'd only add (and I should have in my previous reply, mea culpa) that given the known time constraints that any post-election lawsuit carries, election lawyers and campaigns are used to acting quickly.

What's more, in all 3,193 elections (one in each US county) every election day, there are polling/canvassing observers for all candidates on each ballot present.

And almost all states have either paper ballots or voter-verified paper audit trails[0], creating a physical record of each vote.

And since there are 3,193 separate elections, each with their own administrators, poll workers and polling/canvassing observers, literally tens of thousands of people are involved.

In order to commit fraud at any scale would require the complicity of thousands of people. And while a bit hyperbolic, as Ben Franklin is purported to have said, "three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead." Thousands of people? Not so much.

[0] https://ballotpedia.org/Voting_methods_and_equipment_by_stat...

>What's more, in all 3,193 elections (one in each US county) every election day, there are polling/canvassing observers for all candidates on each ballot present.

>And since there are 3,193 separate elections, each with their own administrators, poll workers and polling/canvassing observers, literally tens of thousands of people are involved.

It's too late for me to edit the above, but the number above should be 3,143 not 3,193.

My apologies for the typo and any confusion.

It's the third branch---which is, ostensibly, stacked heavily by GOP appointees right now---that had adjudicated a lack of credibility in these cases.

I think that strongly suggests there's no "there" there. If it had any bias, we'd expect it to be towards the Republican candidate.

> Even if the US election often seems like a coin flip, the fact that it only lasts 4 or 8 years means that a wrong flip doesn't matter so much.

Except on those occasions when the President, Senate Majority, and House majority are all the same party. (That gives them two years before the House might flip.) In today's we're right and they're wrong -- which is how each side sees it -- one-party rule could get interesting.

What people seem to keep forgetting is that only one Presidential candidate has ever gotten more votes than Trump got in this last election and that was Joe Biden. Both the far right and far left wings need to be reigned in.

>What people seem to keep forgetting is that only one Presidential candidate has ever gotten more votes than Trump got in this last election and that was Joe Biden. Both the far right and far left wings need to be reigned in.

I'd point out that here in the US, the Republican Party is a far-right party, and the Democratic Party is a center-right party.

There is no "far-left" party that has any influence in the US.

> We needed a John Hancock 5 years ago that was willing to draw a line on violent speech

You mean like 'no justice no peace' or just speech that doesn't align with your political ideology? (To be clear, I'm all in favor of defunding police and the government at large)

Yes, any speech calling for violence is not helpful and I think worthy of discussion about the effects it has on our society.

Groups can practice boycotts, peaceful protests, civil disobedience, political activism, fundraising, etc. without resorting to violent speech.

How do you feel about certain protestors being called terrorists?

People openly call for violence every day. People vote for it, it's what they want. Just look at the wars in the Middle East. Entire nations are calling for that violence.

Right now, society has the belief that violence by the state against people is sometimes justified, but never the reverse. Unless it's against a 'bad' state, then it's okay. Then they're freedom fighters.

Things escalated really gradually over the course of 4 years

I don't think that's true at all. It's been an up and down maelstrom of anti-democracy and mob bating since the man walked down that escalator.

It seems more interesting that a software platform like this would be expected to treat a president of a country different than a normal person. Should the queen of England get even more privileges to break rules on the platform? And the peerage somewhere below that (but still much higher than the common folk)?

And what rules exactly did Trump break? He explicitly did not call for violence.

It seems like you want people silenced if they question the official narrative. That's precisely antithetical to free-speech ideals.

Do you know how often I've seen Republicans called Nazis? Or evil? Or that they need to be eliminated? I don't go crying to Facebook to censor opinions I don't like.

Insults are not actual call to immediate violence.

Calling thousands of supporters to go to the capitol and telling them "you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong." is a very precise call to violence.

Got it. Protesting should be illegal. Thanks for the lesson on free speech.

Man, I am sympathetic to the free speech argument and I agree that the right has been getting shafted in that department, but this does seem pretty close to the "don't yell fire in a crowded theater" exception. This was not a protest in the democratic sense. It is a shameful day for the country.

This is way beyond "don't yell fire in a crowded theater," which was an action considered to be outside the protection of free speech because it presented a "clear and present danger." That standard was later restricted further, and is now "imminent lawless action." The President's actions appear to blow right past "clear and present danger" and explicitly call for "imminent lawless action."

That was not a protest. It was a planned and coordinated terrorist mob attack on the US Capitol, and successfully breached it. The first such successful attack since 1814.

Trump and allies have been communicating the date and requesting this behavior for weeks. Anybody surprised at the result should be deemed mentally incompetent.

> Calling thousands of supporters to go to the capitol and telling them "you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong." is a very precise call to violence.

"Kill them", "Attack them", "Burn down that building" is a very precise call to violence. "You have to be strong" is not. "You have to show strength" is not.

#KillAllMen on the other hand is a very precise call to violence, and yet nobody cares about banning that on social media.

> "You have to be strong" is not. "You have to show strength" is not.

It is, in the context of the events from the past few weeks. Some of his supporters had been saying for weeks now that they were "standing by" and ready to do "what had to be done" when Trump would call to them. His speech yesterday was predicably heard as the call.

I don't believe for 1 second that he didn't intended for his words to be interpreted that way.

And for the record, #KillAllWhatever should be banned as well in my book, I'm not defending it.

> #KillAllWhatever should be banned as well in my book, I'm not defending it.

Thank you.

> It is, in the context of the events from the past few weeks

If something is "very precise" in context, then it is not precise. If we have to interpret words, then we have multiple interpretations and everybody can have their own truth. You can't say something is "a very precise call to violence" because of some people may interpret it their way.

His tweet (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/13469127807005777...) is very precise. "I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence!"

So the tweet that wasn’t taken down is the one that isn’t a call to violence. Good to know.

> #KillAllMen on the other hand is a very precise call to violence, and yet nobody cares about banning that on social media.

...are you quite serious? Has a single person in the world taken this as an actual call to action?

Either he’s serious and just deluded, or he’s acting in bad faith. In both cases you just shake your head and move on because no minds will be changed.

It's a good thing our court system in the US doesn't play these games with semantics and instead tries to understand intent. You can use however many layers of coded language you want, but your intent still exists.

This goes the other way too, with obviously satirical hashtags.

Yeah, what could go wrong with courts analyzing for subtext and divining intent of free speech to see if secret crimes were being committed? I continue to be stunned by how utterly naive and blasé people are about freedom of expression.

> secret crime

Sorry, I forgot 18 U.S. Code § 2383 hasn't been declassified yet. [/snark]

It's not clear at all what your point is. Are you a freedom of speech absolutist? Do you not believe in due process?

I'm not familiar with #KillAllMen, but it sounds rhetorical, and even if it's not, it doesn't appear to meet the US standard of "imminent lawless action." Speech can only be limited if the speaker intends for it to incite violence, and that the violence is both imminent and likely. You can literally intend to incite violence at some unspecified future time and that speech is protected. You can also just tweet out incitement for violence at a specific time and it's probably protected if you're a random person with no following or influence that is likely to cause the violence to actually happen.

Strength does not mean violence in this case. >99% of the gathering was peaceful. What if we applied the same standards we applied to the Black Lives Matter protests which also included elements of rioting, looting, arson, & even murder, yet were heralded as "mostly peaceful" (by the same people)?

>99% of BLM protests are also peaceful.

100% of the difference was military authorization for extra security and media slant. On some level this was allowed to happen.

Using a platform to widely spread toxic disinformation about election fraud is probably against Facebook's ToS.

I'm sorry but this is silly (and I'm a "Trump supporter").

> He explicitly did not call for violence.

Effective communication need not be specific. Surely you possess this knowledge, but might it have been in "cold storage" at the time you wrote this comment?

> It seems like you want people silenced if they question the official narrative.

Reality is often not as it seems. Often it is even the exact opposite of how it seems.

> Do you know how often I've seen Republicans called Nazis? Or evil? Or that they need to be eliminated?

"Truthy", but orthogonal. Two wrongs don't make a right (or so "they" say).

Right before he was banned from Twitter, didn't several of his tweets specifically and emphatically urge protesters to avoid violence and respect the police presence?

Perhaps. Were they received by all participants? How were they interpreted?

These are humans, not robots.

The fact that very little of his term is left and that everyone, including his former allies, are abandoning him, make the story less surprising in retrospect.

But yes, these are hard to predict times.

I can see it only going to get worse from here, if social media companies powers go unchecked.

It would be more interesting if they did it years ago. Doing it less than 2 weeks before he leaves office seems uninteresting and cowardly to me.

Can we call it what it is? A corporation is banning the president, not a software platform .

It's a turning point. For the 1st time ever the tech giants asserted that their power in the internet is bigger then the government. It was kinda obvious the last few years, but remained implicit. Today the implicit became explicit. I'm sure it will have a profound impact on American democracy in the long run. Interesting times, indeed.

When people say anonymity online is bad and that having people use their real names would make people more polite, I point them to facebook comments.

Google tried using real names on youtube briefly and it had no affect in reducing white supremacy or conspiracy theories in its comments.

That was just a side-effect of organizational stupidity. The guy they put in charge of "social" was 100% committed to the real names thing and also dedicated to the internal turf war of either taking over or shutting down any product that seemed to have "social features". So youtube comments temporarily became just a foreign feature of Google+, rendered out of context. After they showed that bozo the door, youtube went back to their old comments system.

Yeah, though I didn't agree with the "real names only" policy at Facebook I did think it would lead to better behavior.

That backfired spectacularly.

I think it helped a lot. I still think it's a lot better than Twitter, but it's difficult to compare, because the default-public behavior of Twitter content makes it far more toxic; to find the same stuff on FB you either have to be in a private group, or read public comments on a public article. It doesn't come to you in the same way it does on Twitter.

Most of the horribly content on Facebook is fake accounts, which you can usually identify because their entire profile is around a theme. Facebook tried to make fake accounts impossible for awhile, but apparently they've given up.

Twitter doesn't try.

And I would, in turn, point you to Parler.

Facebook being a cesspit doesn't prove that anonymity can't make things worse.

What are you trying to prove here? Anonymity was always a choice and we can’t go back to pretending it was... unless we go all China on the internet?

The response to crazy fringes minorities by authoritarian governments has almost always been many times worse than the small fringe groups doing stupid dangerous stuff. This lesson after 9/11 in Iraq and what we’ve seen in many other authoritarian governments has been downright counterproductive and equally worse.

It was always naive and overrated thinking banning hate groups or extremists on Facebook and Reddit was sufficient to make them go away. That was already the default before Trump, lets not forget.

And we’ve already gone way further than just banning legitimate hate groups to banning even more stuff so everything is moderated and politically appropriate by some unelected representatives, with no recourse, as many tech companies have tried. Mostly just flailing about. And has only fueled distrust in media companies and authority systems we used to look to.

Hate Inc talks about general outrage being the danger, not specific politically acceptable outrage. Which is something that is quite obvious to anyone non-partisan watching.

People are incredibly mean and nasty to each other on nextdoor in my neighborhood, and they literally live down the street from one another.

You're completely right, it's not anonymity that causes people to act like this, it's the fact that we as humans can't perceive text on a screen as another human being that activates the empathy center in our brains. Coronavirus has made this 100X worse as people are losing their humanity being locked away from everyone else.

I've had some of my best social interaction recently on VRChat of all places as it gets the closest of anything I've found so far of making it feel like there's actually a human being in front of you.

People on Nextdoor think their neighbors are all like them and wrongly assume it's a safe space for airing out their worst thoughts. Mine is completely full of naked racism, calls for murdering specific people, etc. There doesn't seem to be a way to fix it because the "leader", basically the moderator, of my Nextdoor is the worst of them.

It looks like you can report them if they violate Nextdoor's Community Guidelines and potentially get them demoted.

https://help.nextdoor.com/s/article/How-to-remove-Lead-statu...

I agree with your point, however I wanted to mention that Facebook posts are typically done "in private" either accessible only to Facebook friends, or members of the FB private groups.

you know which platform has little to no asshole-ness? LinkedIn. There's more on the line, their career. I envision the next social media wave encompassing this a bit. Closer tie to the person in order to have a more humanistic conversation for fear of backlash.

The statements by Facebook and others pushing moral justifications around Facebook's censorship fail to entertain the possibility that even morality is subjective and relative. Facebook makes its decisions based on its own goals and preferences and morals. Facebook has established itself unfairly as a moral arbiter on a platform that is so widely used that is treated like a public utility. The people who currently agree with Facebook may someday be on the opposite side of Facebook's moral righteousness and be censored. What then?

Yes, but in a lot of ways, the laws of society are a sufficiently objective moral basis, since those are the rules we chose for ourselves. Undermining those is just bad in so many ways.

In some cases, yes. But in other cases they just represent the view of the vocal majority or those in power. Laws are official and objective, morals are relative. It's fine to base decisions on agreed upon laws. Appealing to morality is just using your own opinions

I'm aware that all morals are opinions and are dependent on an underlying subjective stance, and therefore the platforms should remain neutral in order to accommodate different stances. I'm arguing that in this case, since this is about stopping the dismantling of the structure of the laws themselves, it's a stance that it's ok for a platform to take since it's in some way the most fundamental common ground that we all need to share to function together.

So, at worst, delete the post, not ban the user (though I don't support that). In my view, the posts are inferred by some to incite destruction, but there are equal grounds to say that no explicit order was made in any post. Again, it's personal opinion.

It's not a public utility and being widely used does not make it one. Lots of people eat at McDonald's and get coffee from Starbucks, that does not make McDonald's or Starbucks a public utility.

It's treated as such by a lot of it's users. They do not have expectations of being censored. The items you mention are paid services. Facebook isn't for most of its users.

That’s hardly Facebook’s fault. It’s not their responsibility to educate their users on what a public utility is

Agreed. It's not their responsibility to educate users. Maybe it's their responsibility to educate themselves on what their users assume.

So, does that actually matter? At what point are consumer expectations unreasonable?

Also, how did people get the idea that a private service is a public utility? When was the tipping point in which Facebook stopped just being a private social network and started being a public utility? And was this disclosed anywhere? How does a shift from a protected private service transition formally to a public one? Is it purely based on consumer perception?

It seems odd to me that the entire internet is a public square, yet Facebook should be democratized. You can leave that walled garden at any time and setup a blog. What part of a town square requires your voice is effectively heard?

It seems like when people were saying that calling Tesla's autopilot was confusing consumers because they don't know what actual autopilot for aircraft is.

A public utility is really just a private company which has been granted the special privilege of legal monopoly, by some combination of state intervention and regulatory capture.

Censorship may be a bad thing on a moral level, but when it comes to the law of the United States - the country in which Facebook operates - it is pretty clear that free speech protections are an imposition upon what the government may legislate upon - NOT a citizen's "right" to avoid censorship. This leaves open the possibility that private firms can legally "censor" people, while also restricting Congress's ability to write legislation that restricts speech.

I am not sure how relevant it is that a service is "paid," or "unpaid." What really matters is whether all parties are dealing with each other voluntarily and not under any form of coercion. As far as I know, by making your Facebook account, you agree to have your speech moderated under their discretion. You do not have to make a Facebook account, after all, and since Facebook is not the only game in town, I do not really see how it can be called a utility. This also disqualifies it from being an example of a public square.

> You do not have to make a Facebook account, after all, and since Facebook is not the only game in town ...

Isn't that part of the problem? Facebook (and Twitter) are so common and widely used that alternatives are not remotely equivalent. Communication via those alternatives is extremely limiting.

> Communication via those alternatives is extremely limiting.

I disagree with this characterization of the alternatives to Facebook and Twitter. In fact, I find it hard to dispute that the popular alternatives are considerably more open-ended, more secure, and apply much less censorship.

However, for the sake of argument let's assume the characterization is a fair one: that one's communications are limited when using an alternative social network where fewer people are registered users. Under this circumstance, what right does any of us have to reach the kinds of people Facebook and Twitter offer?

Perhaps we shouldn't necessarily consider it "limiting," when we are unable to reach all stretches of the globe. One's ability to be "heard," really falls outside their full control as soon as one wants to be understood past the walls of the current room.

I stand corrected, there are reasonable alternatives to Facebook. But Twitter seems to be a unique channel for global communication. You may be right that we shouldn't expect to have global reach, but if some people have that opportunity while others are denied based on the content of their message, how is that fair? Isn't it up to individuals to reject the message or ignore it if they deem it offensive?

>It's treated as such by a lot of it's users. They do not have expectations of being censored. The items you mention are paid services. Facebook isn't for most of its users.

I'll preface this by saying that I don't use Facebook because I find its business model to be exploitative and invasive for a whole host of reasons.

FB users may treat it as a public forum, but that doesn't mean that it is a public forum.

There are a number of reasons (this is not an exhaustive list) why FB users might think it is a public forum:

1. They never read the terms of service;

2. They assume that they have free speech rights on the platform -- see (1) above;

3. They don't recognize that FB exists to make money selling advertising, and that advertisers are their customers, not them (again, see (1) above). Advertisers are notoriously picky about what sort of content they want their ads seen next to. And the customer is always right;

4. They don't think about the fact that Facebook's servers are the private property of Facebook, and Facebook can do (or not) whatever it wants with its private property[0].

[0] I'd point out that this is a very good thing. Because if Facebook doesn't have private property rights, then neither do you. Or me, for that matter. And if that's the case, I can come over to your house and project gay, furry porn in HD at full volume, on your walls -- all night, every night.

No argument that Facebook is currently within its rights to censor anyone they want for any reason they want. I think the debate is around whether they should have those protections, given that at present they are virtually a monopoly within their sphere and people don't have viable alternatives to use once they are kicked off of Facebook. BTW, my private property rights can be overriden whenever the governement or utilities or even neighbors can show a public need.

>No argument that Facebook is currently within its rights to censor anyone they want for any reason they want. I think the debate is around whether they should have those protections,

But if they can take away Facebook's First Amendment rights, they can take away yours or mine. And I'm not okay with that.

>given that at present they are virtually a monopoly within their sphere and people don't have viable alternatives to use once they are kicked off of Facebook.

I don't use Facebook (I did, ever since they opened up to non-university emails until 2014) and I have no problem staying in touch/sharing/communicating with other people at all.

And until there's a decentralized, privacy and content ownership protecting social media platform (I do have a Diaspora account and even ran a pod for a while, but I don't use that anymore either) that I want to use, I'll pass, thanks.

So no. Facebook isn't required at all. There are many other ways to communicate with others.

Don't like Facebook? Vote with your feet. It doesn't hurt. Really.

>BTW, my private property rights can be overridden whenever the government or utilities or even neighbors can show a public need.

That's absolutely true. But your First Amendment rights cannot be overridden by the government. Of course there are noise/disturbing the peace/public nuisance ordinances, but your (and my) free speech rights aren't absolute either.

Edit: Fixed typos.

Good arguments. And I stand corrected, there are reasonable alternatives to Facebook - I was thinking of Twitter.

>Good arguments. And I stand corrected, there are reasonable alternatives to Facebook - I was thinking of Twitter.

I understand where you're coming from and I probably should have said this in my previous comment; given the widespread usage of FB and Twitter, it is somewhat concerning that so many people are at the mercy of those rapacious scumbags.

My primary concern is the market and network effect power of these organizations. If you limit those, you limit the ability of these corporations to exert so much influence on online discourse.

Rather than removing their free speech (and section 230 liability protections) rights, requiring and enabling competition would be a better solution.

I wrote the following on another site (a section 230 discussion) a few days ago and think it apropos here. Your thoughts and criticism would be welcome:

"Personally, I'd rather see the following:

1. All social media platforms are required to share APIs to allow other platforms (e.g., Diaspora, Mastodon, etc.) to pull as well as post content from/to the larger platforms;

2. Require ISPs to provide a minimum of half the download bandwidth in upload bandwidth (e.g., if you have 100Mb/sec down, you get at least 50Mb/sec up);

3. Modify the licenses social media platforms require for posted content (currently, a non-exclusive, perpetual license to use, modify and display for any reason) to a more user-centric one (e.g., a limited, revocable license which retains copyright and ownership of content for the creator, which can only be used for specific, opt-in purposes and must regularly be renewed);

4. Require platforms to obtain opt-in agreement to all forms of tracking, whether on or off the platform.

Doing the above would reduce the powerful network effects of the big platforms, provide a wider range of interoperable choices for social media connections and platforms including self-hosting.

Throw in federation services and you can create seamless user networks across platforms.

This would promote competition, stronger control for users over their data and information, the ability to congregate/associate as you wish, and allow anyone to create the environment that they want, curated (or not) as they choose.

And it would force the big platforms to compete on features, privacy and quality experience to retain their user base.

That can be done while still maintaining the important section 230 protections that promote free speech, regardless of the size of the platforms.

Most importantly, it retains the ability for people to seek damages for libel/defamation without heavy-handed regulation and/or some person/corporation/entity deciding how much [filter bubble] is too much/too little."

>1. All social media platforms are required to share APIs to allow other platforms (e.g., Diaspora, Mastodon, etc.) to pull as well as post content from/to the larger platforms;

Genuinely cool idea, but how would this work from a technical perspective? And if anyone could cross-post content on any platform, wouldn't the platforms argue that it violates their right to control content on their platforms?

And what happens if you get a concerted effort across platforms to block individuals based on political/moral stances? Within 2 days (I think) Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Redit and others have suspended and/or blocked content from Trump and various Trump supporters. The ex-first lady is asking "big-tech" to take additional actions, whatever that means.

>Genuinely cool idea, but how would this work from a technical perspective?

These platforms already have APIs to share content between servers within their networks. Just provide an interface for external servers.

>And if anyone could cross-post content on any platform, wouldn't the platforms argue that it violates their right to control content on their platforms?

That's what federation is for. As long as I can authenticate to my account, what difference does it make whether a post is interactively entered or sent via an API?

Those platforms still have their own TOS, so they can decide how or if they want to moderate any individual post.

Something along the lines of Diaspora[0] or ActivityPub[1] federation.

>And what happens if you get a concerted effort across platforms to block individuals based on political/moral stances? Within 2 days (I think) Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Redit and others have suspended and/or blocked content from Trump and various Trump supporters. The ex-first lady is asking "big-tech" to take additional actions, whatever that means.

That's the beauty of a decentralized environment. I can host my own federated server or connect to any other federated server. Presumably, someone will be willing to host your content.

And if not[2], you can do it yourself.

The best part is you can control where your data is shared and who gets to see it. If you don't want the big boys to host your stuff, you can use federation to share with others on those platforms.

All of which can democratize the environment and allow you to be in control of your data, not the rapacious scumbags that run FB or Twitter.

[0] https://diaspora.github.io/diaspora_federation/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub#Federated_(server-...

[2] https://xkcd.com/1357/

Thanks for the explanation. Sounds like it would be a move in the right direction. I think the weak link is that until there is true competion, the big platforms will simply exercise their rights to ban posts from people they dislike regardless of how they arrive. Small platforms won't have equivalent reach. But it's a starting point.

I wish I shared your optimism. The level of censorship currently being imposed and surprisingly supported by news media is frightening and disheartening. Twitter just permanently banned Trump claiming that his tweet declining to attend the inauguration was inciting violence!? Scumbags indeed. I wonder if HN moderators will shadow ban me for this comment that mentions Trump?

>small platforms won't have equivalent reach.

Unless you're trying to create a gigantic following (presumably to make money), why would that matter?

If you're utilizing social media to communicate with your social circle (family, friends) and you can federate the platform you're on, they can see your content on your site in the same feed they see others' content on their sites too.

With federation, the content can be stored on any platform, with hooks to pull in into your feed.

At that point, the differentiators are UX quality, level and type of moderation, data licensing model and tracking/spying/ad components.

In this model, those who choose to host their own content and/or support node(s) which cater to your needs have a distinct advantage over those that don't.

Want to read Trump's blather or bask in the sweet glow of alternate facts? Host/find a node that will host such garbage and/or federate with other nodes that will.

Want to send photos of the kids to Grandma? There can be (or you can host) a node that's got you covered.

Want to discuss Barn owl husbandry? There can be a node for that.

Gotta have those furry circle jerk videos? Natch.

In a decentralized environment, there's always a place for everyone.

> Unless you're trying to create a gigantic following (presumably to make money), why would that matter?

Is that what you think this is about? Money? Censorship is almost always about power and the desire to destroy opposition. It is a means to instill fear and stifle the discussion of any 'unpopular' ideas. It separates people. Money comes later.

I have few issues in communicating with friends or family. But now I have to think twice about what I say in public. Conversations must be limited to topics approved by the tech giants and the people who hold power. And I can't easily hear what a lot of other people say. It's definitely limiting. McCarthyism again?

Your solutions are interesting but don't address the problem I'm interested in. Thanks for the thoughtful discussion.

>With federation, the content can be stored on any platform, with hooks to pull in into your feed. >At that point, the differentiators are UX quality, level and type of moderation, data licensing model and tracking/spying/ad components.

This sounds like it would work to avoid censorship but I'm pretty sure I don't fully understand the mechanics of how distribution is handled and how users would find the appropriate site that hosts the content the user is seeking in cases where their normal node decides to block it.

I was hasty in dismissing this line of thought. There's more merit to it than I initially thought.

>I'm pretty sure I don't fully understand the mechanics of how distribution is handled and how users would find the appropriate site that hosts the content the user is seeking in cases where their normal node decides to block it.

There are several ways to address that issue:

1. Use a site that doesn't censor (or at least doesn't censor what you want to hear). Federate (you really should look at the links re: federation I listed a few comments back -- specifically, ActivityPub and Diaspora federation) with other sites. If the big boys are required to allow you to pull information, you can still see what's going on there;

2. All these sites have mobile "apps" (really just inferior interfaces to their web environment), so you (and/or others -- and if these sites are forced to open up their platforms it will definitely happen) can create/use an app that allows you to access mulitple platforms using the appropriate credentials;

3. Vote with your feet, as I did. A site can't censor you if you don't use it. In a decentralized environment, that's less (if at all) of an issue.

I'm sure there are many other ways to do so. Those are the ones that just popped off the top of my head.

In the interest of compactness, I'm going to respond to your later comment here.

>Is that what you think this is about? Money? Censorship is almost always about power and the desire to destroy opposition. It is a means to instill fear and stifle the discussion of any 'unpopular' ideas. It separates people. Money comes later.

I don't pretend to know what you think. However, it seems to me that most attempts to create large groups of "followers" are focused on building brands and making money.

I am a strong supporter of the freedom of expression and the Marketplace of Ideas[0]. I abhor censorship.

But I don't really get your point here. If Facebook/Twitter/Reddit/Joe's Hip Hop Emporium/Bernadette's Universe of Knitting Resources don't want to include your (or anyone else's) voice, those are their free speech rights and they should not be forced to host speech they don't want to host.

So what, exactly, is it that you want? A place(s) where people can share their thoughts and ideas freely and come together with other place(s) that want to participate in that?

Or do you want to force others to host the speech that you like, whether they want to do so or not?

I'm all for the former (which is what decentralization is all about), but fiercely against the latter as it impinges on the right of free speech.

>Your solutions are interesting but don't address the problem I'm interested in. Thanks for the thoughtful discussion.

That may be so, but if that's the case I never understood the problem in which you're interested.

Honestly, I didn't find your comments particularly thoughtful or well researched.

However, I'm glad we could have this discussion too. Thanks!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketplace_of_ideas

Edit: Clarified my thoughts and added referenced link.

Ouch! This isn't my area and you're right I haven't researched this topic in any depth (though I did look at Diaspora), so I'm not surprised it shows. My original comment was around meta-ethics and this is pretty far from that starting point.

Decentralized platforms like Diaspora may be viable alternatives someday, but my possibly ill-informed pragmatic gut tells me they won't be viable alternatives for many years to come.

Thanks for your patience and persistence. It was interesting!

>Ouch! This isn't my area and you're right I haven't researched this topic in any depth (though I did look at Diaspora), so I'm not surprised it shows.

Thanks for responding.

I'm glad you understood (at least I hope you did) my comment wasn't meant as an attack on you. Far from it, it was just my honest assessment. And I do appreciate the discussion.

>Decentralized platforms like Diaspora may be viable alternatives someday, but my possibly ill-informed pragmatic gut tells me they won't be viable alternatives for many years to come.

Network effects[0] give platforms like Facebook and Twitter their power and influence.

Creating (and more importantly, using) decentralized alternatives is, IMHO, the only reasonable way to counteract that advantage.

Which is why I made the suggestions WRT APIs (to level the playing field and give alternatives a chance), ISP upload speeds (to make self-hosting viable), content licenses (to give control back to the creators of content, rather than the aggregators) and tracking/advertising opt-ins (to reduce the money making power and incentives to track/spy/collect data of the big guys).

Your pragmatic gut is pretty spot on. Without at least some of the above, alternative platforms will have a hard time gaining traction (although they do exist and are viable in a number of areas) in the social media space.

I'd say that the success of decentralized alternatives rests on the willingness of people like you and me to use and advocate for those alternatives.

Perhaps it's time to install a Diaspora pod[1] or Mastodon instance[2]?

>Thanks for your patience and persistence. It was interesting!

Likewise.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect

[1] https://wiki.diasporafoundation.org/Installation

[2] https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/run-your-own/

Network effects don't apply to a restaurant. Your analogy is broken.

It's fine that morality is subjective. Objectivity isn't a requirement for ethical action -- I don't need to write a formal proof to ban a white ethnostate nationalist from my web forum.

That's because there have been hundreds of years of efforts within the legal sphere to solidify your private property rights. Much of that effort involved individuals parsing, understanding, and improving the objective realities in which they lived, and resulted in your ability to not give web banning much thought.

According to that principle, you can do anything you want under the umbrella that you find it ethical. Who made you the arbiter of ethics or morals? That's why there are laws. Laws provide objectivity.

Slavoj Žižek, a popular philosopher, has stated in an interview, which I will try to paraphrase: "some morals should be absolute. I don't want to live in a country where we would need to argue if a rape case is justified or not. We should reach consensus on some issues and treat them as absolute. "

https://youtu.be/xN2ZGSX0cIE

36m30s

And I agree with that framing, too.

I don't disagree. But to me, that concensus is embodied in laws. Morals are still relative, not absolute, though they may be widely shared.

I find interesting that at least in spanish facebook does NOTHING to prevent fake news, calls to assassinate local leaders, fake elections fraud and other content to spread. Even those comments are always promoted as "the most relevant". FB is an amplifier of all this mess and is ruining democracies everywhere.

The people running Facebook don’t live in Spain, that’s 100% why.

Spanish is the second language with more native speakers in the world (and FB is banned in China). It is the main language in Latin America, Spain, Guinea Ecuatorial and other places.

Maybe I misunderstood you message, but I was quite surprised to see Spanish as the second most spoken language in the world.

I just looked it up and the rankings are a little less black and white than I expected too.

A lot of the numbers seems to be from older rankings and the explosive growth of some languages in recent years makes them vary wildly.

All in all, it seems Chinese is first, with Spanish coming in just after Hindi+urdu, English, and Arabic.

Interesting stuff.

Which language is the top one depends on your criteria. Do you only consider first language or also non-first that people are native speakers of, what about non-native but fluent?

But either way you count Spanish is not #1, but one of the top few.

Spanish isn't the second most spoken language overall. It's the second most common native(a person's first) language. English is taught and used by huge swathes of Asia and is almost as common as Chinese. I can't even remember the last time I met an asian immigrant who didn't speak english.

it speaks to the greater problem with all of these companies - they dodge responsibility by automating 99% of the work they should be doing to moderate content. i bet youtube, insta/fb, and twitter's actual human employees doing this work are >90% solely english speakers. their insane profitability and aversion to responsibility comes at an obvious cost

I don't think he's talking about Spain here.

Spanish/latin culture also doesn't have the whole politically correct thing that we do.

I heard a reporter on NPR actually say the word "latinx" the other day, threw me for quite the loop.

This is a proposed gender-neutral alternative to latino/latina. According to native Spanish speaking comedian Tom Segura, a Spanish speaker would laugh in your face if you tried to say such a thing to them. The whole language has a masculine/feminine distinction.

i believe though that people (that matter) don't take facebook seriously , if anything it's considered low quality medium , and they expect it to be full of garbage. (and doesn't disappoint)

By Spanish you mean the language or the country?

> involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.

From my understanding the video that got banned asked everyone to go home peacefully but then continued to claim election fraud?

You are correct the video all the platforms are using to justify the bans explicitly asked people to go home. Previously he had urged them to be peaceful which they mostly were as evidenced by the fact that no capitol staff or police were in any way injured during the incident.

edit: Leaving my comment intact as there are people who have replied. VBProgrammer pointed out that a portion of my statement is not true. This morning the DC police revealed two officers were hospitalized with injuries and one was described as having serious injuries while 12 others suffered other injuries.

I’m sorry and I’m being serious.

Why is he banned then?

He's no longer useful to them for generating traffic and user data.

Because the above post is a misrepresentation of what was said.

Because the entire attack on Capitol yesterday can be tied directly to the speech he has made just before it. Just because no police/staff were harmed doesn't make it ok - after all, destruction of federal property and buildings carries a potential 10 year imprisonment penalty.

So not only he's encouraging criminal actions, but after these actions occurs he tells these criminals that he loves them. And yes, tells them to go home - great, but that's not a redeeming factor here.

So......is it still not clear why he's banned?

Fact check: Several police officers were harmed/treated for injuries. The crowd used chemical weapons (pepper/bear spray) on officers at several different times during the riot. No less than 2 improvised explosives were recovered from the scene. Please don't give into the "peaceful" narrative.

https://www.npr.org/sections/congress-electoral-college-tall...

Ok, yeah, my mistake for just repeating a stupid comment then. Thanks for correcting it.

Some of them were also armed with assault rifles, others with blunt weapons like baseball bats. And they were stupid enough to get filmed on camera and partly even incriminated themselves afterwards by admitting the crime and providing their real names in front of the camera. It's pretty crazy, if you think about it.

His commentary on election fraud is seen as fueling the riot. Paraphrasing, the video comes across as: "you should go home. You're special and I love you. This is a fraudulent, illegitimate election and america is being stolen from you"

It's like people who start sentences with "no offense, but"

His speech condone their actions at first and then asks them to be calm and go home. You can't have it both ways.

Destroying and stealing is not "peaceful", it's just not "violent against people".

It is, in the new 2020 definition.

Then doubling down on the narrative that drives these people, one that is directly opposed to peaceful transfer of power: the illegitimacy of the election results. That's an incredibly dangerous message from the President of the United States, he's telling them to go home in one sentence and riling them up in the other, that encourages further insurrection around his persona.

Facebook is in the right not to allow that spark when whole situation is a powder keg.

This really reminds me of Antony's "Friends, romans, countrymen..." speech that is ostensibly peaceful and respectful but is actually riling up the crowd.

That's false. At least 14 officers hurt. See for example:

https://www.foxnews.com/us/d-c-mayor-issues-order-extending-...

That's disingenuous.

Only 2 officers required hospitalization. For comparison, there were many hospitalizations every single night of the 90-ish day Antifa seige of the Oregon federal courthouse.

In Oregon, Antifa were blasting officers with fireworks, going after them with hammers, polearms, shields, etc. We didn't see that in DC either. Instead we find the police generally getting along with the overwhelming majority of protesters.

Even 9 guns is nothing worth mentioning statistically. If those people had been interested in causing serious harm, almost all of them could have shown up with AR-15s. Hundreds of thousands of people with AR-15s could easily overpower any troops that could have been sent into the area. The fact that we didn't see this once again plays against the media's claims of a coup attempt.

They brought bombs and a cooler full of molotov cocktails. This was a planned violent activity

People are reacting negatively to this comment (and rightly so) because your representation of what was said in the video does not match the tone, or underlying message delivered by said video.

The video was the equivalent of watching a kid, who has been rightly verbally disciplined by a parent, and who has been told they must apologize to their sibling/friend/whatever, so that kid says "Ok ok I'm SORRY", but immediately starts to rationalize/explain away why they were still right.

> explicitly asked people to go home

The words were said, but the sentiment and subsequent message told the viewer the opposite. "Go home" ... "but you're loved/special and I understand you, wink wink". The equivalent of "SORRY" ... "(but I'm really not sorry...)".

Others have already reacted to the comment about "peaceful" behavior and injuries, and those comments reflect my thoughts, so I won't expand on them here.

>peaceful which they mostly were as evidenced by the fact that no capitol staff or police were in any way injured during the incident.

At least one Capitol police officer is dead. Beaten to death with a fire extinguisher.

Many of the folks arrested had cable ties similar to those used by police to "handcuff" people. One insurrectionist was found with materials to make molotov cocktails.

Yes, while also providing encouragement for those illegally entering the capital by calling them "loved" and "special".

Wait, seriously why is he banned though?

Because he did not actually provide a statement condemning the riot that took place and said several things that are being interpreted (by both his followers and his opposition) as supporting the behavior.

(Please try not to read this in a condescending way): There is a difference between "You need to leave the capital building immediately. You are breaking the law and this will not be tolerated" (an approximation of the message many officials offered). and "Please go home. You are loved and you are special to this movement" (approximation of Trump's statement)

Are there any other HN folks out there who are confused by this?

If I recall watching it, he asked everyone to go home and peacefully.

It seems the real issue is he won’t accept fraud didn’t happen and people are conflating that with calls to violence.

Doesn’t feel genuine or real.

There has to be people reading this thinking WTF too.

I agree, I'm confused. He's urging against violence, but standing by his claims of fraud. But people are claiming that's not what he's "really" saying. OK.. so I can basically say the same thing about anyone saying anything. Who decides what he "really" means?

Just so I won't be downvoted, I'm not a fan of Trump.

I think the point is that after his supporters broke the law and stormed the capitol, interrupting a constitutionally mandated process for the peaceful transfer of power, he told them:

> "Remember this day forever!"

Thus approving of the actions that already occurred and telling them that the crimes that they committed would be justified by history looking back at what they have done. It in no way deescalates the risk of future conflicts.

That's honestly just an interpretation of it. He could just mean "remember this day of protest against the establishment". Everyone just reads everything he says with their own biases.

I don't think that's inherently wrong, just let's not ban people based on our own biases.

All of the intepretations of the events that happened yesterday could be equally uncharitably interpreted of BLM with the riots, violence, and protests across the country. I mean, they forcefully took over an entire city zone at one point.

Well that is the cleverness of most trump statements, toe the line, give a nod to your side, but also retain deniability. If you don't start interpreting, you get into a trap in which you will be outfoxed by anyone who can toe lines enough to not blatantly incriminate themselves.

As for BLM, personally I was never very sympathetic to the portions of protests/riots that caused violence.

Dog whistles work because they proved the fig leaf of plausible deniability. Trump's presidency has been a series of dog whistles. Why would it have stopped just because he lost an election?

We've had a full two months for election irregularities to be litigated in the courts, and scrutinized in the court of public opinion. The only results that bubbled to the top were the same oft-repeated grand claims, without much of anything backing them up. If there were substantive arguments to be made, Trump's legal team has failed to present them. At this point two months later, the "fraud" narrative is nothing more than a rallying cry. So yes, continuing to push the fake fraud claim is direct incitement of that mob.

Why were Trump's supporters protesting?

Why did they shove police officers and tear down barricades, break windows and smash doors?

Why did they illegally enter government buildings?

The answer to all of these is a mistaken belief that the election was not legitimate, due to President Trump's claims without evidence that there was widespread fraud. Their actions were made believing that the election was being stolen. Their actions were justified by that belief. You cannot reinforce the reasons why they are there with any genuine belief that it will inspire peace and retreat!

You're the not only one. He was using simple persuasion to encourage them to go home peacefully.

"I understand why you're unhappy but it's time to return home peacefully" is much more persuasive than "You are flat out wrong and it's time to return home peacefully". It's negotiation 101: validate the other's feelings if you want to persuade, even if you don't agree with those feelings.

FWIW, one "difference" between the two statements is that the former is the kind of thing that makes people more angry and the latter is the kind of thing that might actually make someone feel heard enough to go home; it just isn't somehow as obvious to me--a stark leftist, btw, who is downright socialist--that this is somehow finally the thing Trump said which should be blocked.

See for yourself:

https://nypost.com/2021/01/06/trump-releases-statement-telli...

Someone described this video as taking a log off the fire while simultaneously pouring gasoline which I think is a fair characterization.

So basically you are saying:

- Asking for peace isn’t enough

- And. He really needs to stop believing his claim of fraud?

Wild. Am I crazy or is everyone else right now?

I'm saying this video will further instill anger in his supporters and possibly if not probably lead to greater acts of political violence.

So you’re ok with disenfranchising people’s genuine dissatisfaction with the way the elections were run?

I'm ok with removing users that violate the terms of service even if they are presidents.

What’s genuine about it? It was litigated in nearly a hundred court cases, many of which had conservative political appointee judges. No evidence. No actual claims of fraud because the lawyers want to keep their bar and know the claims are fraudulent.

Trump’s base is upset that they lost the election. Nothing more.

The “no evidence” statement is demonstrably false.

> genuine dissatisfaction with

... the way President Trump claimed without evidence the elections were run.

Two bedrocks of democracy are that elections are fair so that every vote is counted, and that the people's freedom of speech outweighs the government's freedom of speech, so that governments cannot pull the kind of manipulation and deception that President Trump has been doing so successfully.

Those are the bedrock of democracy? Please cite your sources.

The truth matters. It isn't that their concerns were railroaded or not heard. There were dozens of court cases, the justice department and state authorities investigated. When that turns up nothing, you can't just keep entertaining debunked notions that our democratic system is rigged.

Their concerns were railroaded and not heard. The “no evidence” idea is demonstrably false.

You're trying to change the context here. Trump's supporters weren't expressing their dissatisfaction with the way the elections were run. They were violently seizing the capitol building to prevent the constitutional process of the peaceful transfer of power.

If only those breaking the law were banned that wouldn’t be a problem. What about those who never attended, never spoke about it, and merely expressed dissatisfaction with the election? Why were they banned?

No you're not crazy just disingenuous.

Meaning is transmitted not just by the words you use. For example by being sarcastic you can make the words mean the opposite of what their plain meaning is.

Trump made clear how he felt, and his words did not reflect that.

Watch the video. He spends JUST enough time saying 'go home peacefully' that someone can say he did that. However he spends all the actual time and energy saying the exact opposite - it was stolen, fight for me, etc.

It is the height of disingenuousness to claim it was a call for peace or a thoughtful resolution. It was an emotional call to arms with a fig leaf on it.

These people aren't there because they think it's unimportant. They are convinced the election was stolen and nothing you (or he) says would sway their minds. Insulting would only lead to anger.

You have to acknowledge the feelings of the other individual before they'll listen. They see themselves as good, honorable people, so you address them as such. Once you have their attention in an agreeable manner (instead of an antagonistic manner), you can address the issue at hand.

Trump did precisely this. He empathized with them and their cause. After he had an agreeable mood somewhat established, he then appealed to consequences.

If he hadn't asked them to stop, congress' attempt to reconvene would have no doubt been interrupted as well. The fact that didn't happen goes a long way against the claim that it was a call to violence.

They only reason why they believe the election was stolen in the first place is because Trump has been lying about it for the past two months. He is the root cause. He could end this easily, but he won’t.

> They are convinced the election was stolen and nothing you (or he) says would sway their minds.

That’s not how people work. Imagine for a second that he did come out and say that he was wrong about the fraud claims (“we looked into it and didn’t find anything”) and conceded the election. Do you honestly believe not a single one of his supporters would fall in line? There are a few people who are too far gone, but it’s entirely disingenuous to suggest he has no power over this. Not holding rallies would help a lot too. No, this is all squarely at his feet.

Indeed asking for peace isn't enough if you're going to fan the flames in the same speech. That wasn't the time to reassert the legitimacy of his supporters' motives, he's not any citizen, the President of the United States should have sought to de-escalate the situation created by his mass movement in the US capital first and only.

The time to talk about their struggle was another. And that without going into the legitimacy of him disputing the election results or even the legitimacy of him leading a revolutionary movement at this point.

The mob started at a “Stop the Steal” Trump Rally where DJT personally used mob boss speak about it “not being so nice for some senators” and quickly following up with calls to not be weak.

“Go to the capital and be strong so the legislators can’t steal our victory.”

*several hours later, after they’ve broken into the capital and terrorized the legislation

“Go home, but they did steal the election and you’re special and we love you.”

That was him approving of their actions. That was him saying what they did was what he wanted and he would happily see them go further. Not picking up on this pattern in the past 4 years doesn’t make you crazy, but it does mean you aren’t paying close attention.

Would it be so bad to stop believing his claim of fraud after all such claims have been proven in court to be false?

At what point should a person stop believing their own claims?

You’re not crazy, their bias really is that obvious.

You're misunderstanding.

What he should have done was strongly condemn the violence and call for the people to go home immediately and peacefully.

And nothing else. With no softening weasel words.

He would be able to keep believing his claims of election fraud uninterrupted. And continue to pursuing them, just after the violent insurrection was diffused, not during it.

It's important to note that the insurrection was any least partially incited by his claims of election fraud, so repeating them in that context was extremely dangerous.

Here are the definitions of the words 'incite' and 'violence'

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/inciting to stir, encourage, or urge on; stimulate or prompt to action

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/violence an unjust or unwarranted exertion of force or power, as against rights or laws

I agree he should have strongly condemned those actions and asked them to leave immediately. But I also don't see any evidence that he incited violence. Alleging election fraud, or encouraging people to protest are not the same as inciting violence. I'm open to evidence of Trump inciting violence, but thus far no one has been able to provide it.

I think you should watch the speeches given at the event immediately prior to the rioters going to the capitol building and violently seizing it, including Trump's.

It's the nature of the things that you can always argue about whether a particular speech rises to the level of incitement. E.g., the words like "stir", "encourage", and "stimulate" from the definition are not black-and-white terms.

However, the actual sequence of events are a pretty strong argument for incitement. There's a simple and easy to follow implication of cause and effect here.

Also, remember, we're talking about his video after the violence broke out. If he didn't understand that his claims of election fraud before the riot would lead the riot, he must certainly have understood it during the riot.

Thanks for the response. For me, that's not strong enough a case to say that Trump's social media posts should be censored or blocked. I simply don't see it as incitement of violence. His claims of fraud are misleading for sure, but if the standard is around "violence" specifically, I feel that blame cannot be laid at his feet in a provable manner - because this is a highly political, highly emotional situation, I am looking for evidence that would almost meet a legal standard, like beyond a reasonable doubt (https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Beyond+a+Reas...).

I also think the actions taken by tech companies here reflects a double-standard. For example, why isn't AOC being blocked for supporting rioting? Why weren't Democrats called out for attacks on federal property in Portland, Seattle, and other cities? Look at https://thefederalist.com/2021/01/07/aocs-comms-director-ask... for an exploration of this.

To me, it just looks like big tech companies picking winners and losers in an ongoing political and cultural war, and are reacting to societal or political pressures in taking action rather than acting in any principled manner.

It's a false equivalence.

Here's the AOC quote being referenced:

> "The whole point of protesting is to make ppl uncomfortable. Activists take that discomfort w/ the status quo & advocate for concrete policy changes. Popular support often starts small & grows. To folks who complain protest demands make others uncomfortable… that’s the point."

Where in this statement is there any incitement for rioting or violence?

Now let's take a look at Trump's actions on Wednesday[1]:

> "You don't concede when there's theft involved. Our country has had enough and we will not take it any more"

> "And we fight. We fight like hell and if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."

This is how Trump described the rioters:

> "These are the things that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long."

Contrast this with Pence's response:

> "This attack on our Capitol will not be tolerated and those involved will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law"

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/how-trump-in-final-weeks-inc...

> The whole point of protesting is to make ppl uncomfortable.

This is a thinly-veiled statement in support of protesters engaging in criminal activity to get their way politically. That is the dictionary definition of terrorism (which the capitol incident also qualifies for). I agree it isn't explicit in stating that. But Trump's statement doesn't explicitly call for criminal activity either.

His statements are not asking for violence but asking to challenge the results and fight for what you want politically. That's what every side does in every political confrontation. You COULD also read it as a thinly-veiled statement pushing for violence. But it is entirely subjective to label one that way but not the other. And therefore, big tech companies should hold BOTH AOC and Trump to the same exact standard, or neither.

All that aside, I agree Pence's statement is better and wish Trump was more forceful in condemning these acts and left the "explanations" out.

> I am looking for evidence that would almost meet a legal standard

Well, this is the Internet, not a court of law. So you will not and cannot get what you’re looking for here.

IMO, Trump should face criminal courts of law, though I have little faith it will happen.

> For me, that's not strong enough a case to say that Trump's social media posts should be censored or blocked.

One clarification: Trump's accounts were not blocked for his speech or event before the riot. They were blocked for his response during the riot.

E.g. during the riot he tweeted, "These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!"

So there's a little at the end that is good. But he mostly expresses that the violent insurrection is justified, praises the perpetrators, and suggest that they are the victims. He posted a video with similar sentiments as well. This was while it was still on-going.

Can you explain? I don't think it's constructive to hide behind analogy and cliche when you could come out and tell us the causes and effects that you think are happening here.

I think the video will further instill anger in his supporters and possibly if not probably lead to greater acts of political violence. Hence the claim it violates their terms of service.

"Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th."

If that's an incision of violence, then I'm sure you will apply such interpretations equally to other statements? Any time there's a riot, block the leaders of whatever party they riot on behalf of?

I get that you want to shoehorn in a TOS violation, but it's really not. But I also get that it's important for him to not have a platform right now. I'm just not into this Orwellian twist of rules/words/interpretations to try to justify the fact that we just aren't safe with him broadcasting his lies anymore.

Why do you think it's "hiding"? analogies have a way to explain things to people who don't have context, it's a tool to remove obfuscation, not add more layers.

That only true when it serves to augment the plain English truth. When that's omitted, it's what I dare say is a "Trumpian" method of obscuring reality.

But the plain english truth is the Trump video. The analogy helps explain what people are observing.

When people say "i don't have a problem with what he said, because he said for people to go home" the analogy helps ground the idea that while he may have said go home, he also said things that would rile them up. Hence the taking a log off the fire while adding gasoline analogy. It's not obfuscation. Trump's message was the obfuscation.

So what you observe is that people take a quote out of context, and try to use that to misinform people. Then put the quote in-context to support your position. Don't give different obfuscating garbage.

It's not garbage. It's not obfuscation. It seems like you're the only one with a problem with this analogy.

If you want validation for just hurling political opinions with no justification, Reddit will get you a lot more karma.

There's a phrase "Talking out of both sides of your mouth." He said what he believed the urging of politicans, media and oppositional citizens wanted by saying "go home" while continuing to say what his base wanted to hear - "we won in a landslide and it was stolen."

Each side could choose to only hear what they want, or recognize it for the manipulation it is. We know what his followers will do - hear what they want to hear. We know what his opposition will do - hear it for the manipulation it is. Therefore we can conclude that it was not a genuine urging of his followers to actually give up and leave.

The President's attorney also ran a rally 2 hours before the riot calling for "trial by combat". Some speech is way over the line. There's always a wink at the end.

https://twitter.com/SamuelSokol/status/1347173729458122753

And when politicians call each other Nazis, or when Joe Biden claimed that Mitt Romney wanted to re-enslave black people?

Seems like you're only going to apply your "inciting violence" claim to one side. I watched cities burn over the summer and intense levels of violence... And yet no one on the left trotted out speech bans and "incitement to violence" claims. It's obvious you're selectively targeting enforcement of intentionally vague standards. Federal buildings were being accosted in Portland and Seattle just a few months ago and the mayors supported them. Haven't seen their accounts banned.

Not the same thing. Stop trying to make the two sound the same.

It all started when Mr. Biden, addressing a predominantly African American crowd, quoted Mr. Romney as saying in his first 100 days as president that "he's going to let the big banks once again write their own rules -- unchain Wall Street." Then the vice president added with a grin: "They're going to put y'all back in chains!"

> And when politicians call each other Nazis, or when Joe Biden claimed that Mitt Romney wanted to re-enslave black people?

Name calling isn't incitement to violence. Can you point to the specific instances of violence you are talking about and the speech that inspired them?

The issue here is that this isn't theoretical. Trump actually spoke to a real mob, in person, told them to march to the capitol, and then praised him once they had invaded and sacked it during a joint session of congress. Given that, yes, we look at his speech with much less tolerant criteria. He wasn't just spouting off, he is at least a proximate cause of a direct attack on our seat of government.

What a news-bubble you live in. Multiple cities burned over the summer while many politicians, activist, and newspapers encouraged protests. Numerous Trump supporters were assaulted. At least two Trump supporters were shot to death.

The fact that you don’t know and don’t care about this shows in what politically-biased bad faith you’re operating.

I repeat: Can you point to the specific instances of violence you are talking about and the speech that inspired them?

We both know the game you’re going to play. I’ll give you the name of the murdered man, the murderer aligned with Antifa, and a long list of times Joe Biden refused to condemn Antifa violence, and language from city mayors calling Trump-supporters unamerican, unwelcome, and threats to their city. I’ll say it clearly condoned violence and you’ll say it didn’t. And that’s exactly my point. You want to use a vague wishy-washy standard that you can use to suppress political opinions you disagree while letting political opinions you like slip by. Stop trying to censor speech. It’s 2021, not the dark ages. Grow up.

I repeat: Can you point to the specific instances of violence you are talking about and the speech that inspired them?

The fact that you don’t know which murders I’m taking about already speaks volumes about your myopic news bubble. Or maybe you do know which murders I’m talking about and you just want to continue playing a moving-the-goal post game. Tedious.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler: “I vehemently oppose what the Proud Boys and those associated with them stand for, and I will not tolerate hate speech and the damage it does in our city. White nationalists, particularly those coming to our city armed, threaten the safety of Portlanders and are not welcome here.”

The mayor calls a group of people demonstrating in his city hateful, “not welcome” and “threats to safety”. Not long after, a Patriot Prayer demonstrator Aaron Danielson was the victim of a pre-meditated murder by a man who described himself as “100% Antifa”. Joe Biden was asked on multiple occasions to condemn Antifa, and he refused, instead only generically condemned violence... exactly the same criticism leveled against Trump. I can cry and whine like you that Ted Wheeler and Joe Biden caused murder, but I’m not a baby. I’m not going to make speech illegal because I don’t like its content. Punish actual crimes, not speech you don’t like.

So, get out of your bubble and stop attacking freedom of expression, the most essential of freedoms.

He was intentionally continuing to fan the flames of insurrection using specific lies about the status of the election, while at the same time pretending to ask them to peacefully disperse.

This seems pretty obvious?

It's like saying: your spouse is being assaulted, stay peaceful and go home.

Am guessing you created that throwaway account because you know well how this comment makes you look, but you won't own up to it.

For months Trump has asserted that mail-in voting is intrinsically insecure and fraudulent. He's also been parroting baseless lies and conspiracy theories about the election. Telling his supporters their vote is being suppressed by all the parties that refuse to go along with his insane demands. These parties include: state and federal governments, private companies that build voting machines, poll workers, Republican secretaries of state, state and federal courts, a complicit press, and now even the vice president.

If you believe what Trump says then you must believe that the entire system of democratic representation has broken down. Under this mindset it makes sense to resort to violent action and storm the capitol - what other recourse do you have? That's why rioters left a "WE WILL NOT BACK DOWN" note on Pelosi's desk. And when Trump says the loves and supports the rioters, that's the mindset he's reinforcing and encouraging.

When Trump says everyone should go home - why should we treat that statement as normative? When virtually everything else this man has said agitates and encourages insurrection, why should we glom onto this one positive statement?

> The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden.

The account bans are not just because of this one video considered in isolation. The bans are happening because of the systematic anti-democratic and seditious behavior of the president and his campaign.

Could have done this years ago, but instead wait until it's confirmed he's going out.

What a bunch of spineless opportunists.

I honestly don't know how people can work at facebook in good conscience these days.

Nothing wrong with working for a paycheck, but it would definitely keep me up at night.

Holy hell those comments though. Talk about a swamp.

"Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete."

At some point Facebook is going to have to take a stand on which one it is. Indefinitely or for the next two weeks.

Imagine the advertising revenue they earn from all the Trump loyalists using their platform. Blocking Trump is always done with an eye to maintaining that revenue in the long term. FB does not want to lose Trump supporters to a rival.

Two weeks, but it'll feel like forever.

(More seriously, they'll wait until the dust has settled; they're hedging against the possibility of the peaceful transition of power not happening)

That's exactly what indefinitely means-- they haven't publicly decided when.

Consider this a specification for a date range defining when his account will be restored. Now we can parse the statement as follows:

1. Indefinitely: The date range has no end.

2. And for at least two weeks: The beginning of the date range is at least two weeks away.

From this, I conclude that Mr. Trump's account will be muted for at least two weeks, and thereafter it could be un-muted at any time, but possibly the heat death of the universe may make the whole thing moot at some point.

What? They're just saying the ban is for 2+x weeks where x is an as of yet (publicly) unknown positive number. You're posing a false dichotomy.

"indefinite" just means there's no certain/specific/decided end.

It does not mean "permanently", though it's often used to imply that without saying it outright.

So in this case they're saying "anything from two weeks and up, with no decided end".

Those aren't conflicting positions; indefinitely can mean both "unspecified/undetermined" or "unlimited/forever" amounts of time. So you can interpret that statement as

"we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts for at least the next two weeks, but potentially longer."

Definite lower bound, indefinite upper bound.

"indefinitely" vs. "infinitely", but it took me a second to notice the difference as well.

The platform clearly wields significant soft power, and that should probably be acknowledged.

They are laying some of their cards bare here, but what I find funny is that if the president doesn't use Twitter, Instagram or Facebook as the dominant way to promote their message, they're not under the thumb of those platforms either.

Just like ordinary people aren't under the influence of social medias manipulation (intentional or not) if they just don't use the platform. We all willingly hand over that power to the platforms.

Agreeing that the connotation of “indefinitely” is “permanently”;

They are in a real sense permanently banning “President Trump”

They can suspend whoever they want, that won't make the 70 millions people who voted for him, and the reasons why they voted for him disappear.

Hiding the thermometer doesn't make the fever go away.

>Hiding the thermometer doesn't make the fever go away.

Removing a constant toxic input helps cure the patient.

The patient was sick before Trump, it will continue to be sick after he's gone (maybe even sicker).

So yeah, good luck believing the problem is behind.

I somewhat doubt that medical analogy. Many of Trump's supporters are galvanized by the the conflict between Trump and the media, extending to the social media companies too. In my discussions I have not found many Trump supporters who think he is portrayed fairly in the media or treated fairly by Twitter and Facebook. Most also think important information is being suppressed.

This reminds me of when Perón's Argentina declared war on Germany just a few days before the war was over.

Interesting how they sing a different tune once the other party finally gets certification of the election results, time to get 'cozy' with the new people in power and set up those dinners [1] and ad deals with them.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/trump-hosted-zuckerbe...

Yep. Fuck zuck, finally deleted my Facebook account because of this.

Keep your enemies close.

Wish granted. Facebook and its tracking cookies are close to pretty much everybody who surfs the Web, regardless of having an account or not.

Can you point to any resources that explain how to eradicate your surfing behavior from Facebook's tracking? I'm sure it's not as simple as clearing cookies and never visiting a Facebook property again.

PiHole or a service like NextDNS works very well for this use-case.

You can block facebook domains with uBlock Origin.

Or just install https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-cont...

It may sound weird but I believe you have to thank Trump for this. Finally some good things come out of his mandate.

You deleted your Facebook account, because they banned someone for inciting treason and sedition?

He deleted his account for the reason stated in the top comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25672752) about Facebook is changing their policies, now that Biden has been confirmed as president to suck up for the ad deals.

Probably not because of the ban. Probably for Facebook's relentless facilitation of the person who incited treason and sedition, as well as the cultivation of conspiracy theory groups that produced the insurrectionists.

This spin leaves me incredulous. How does Trump inviting a protest equate to "inciting treason and sedition"? Y'all are bonkers.

He specifically ordered Pence to throw out the Electoral College result. Pence refused on constitutional grounds. How is that not an attempt at sedition?

Never thought I'd have anything nice to say about Pence but pushing back was the right thing to do here. H/T to him

To say nothing to his tacit approval of a mob storming the capitol on EC certification day...

The reality is that we just don't know what happened. We cannot know what happened. Perhaps some nations and companies are just too big and too powerful to exist and people are now starting to realize that.

We know that Trump asked Pence to disregard EC results. I don't understand how that could possibly be under dispute in good faith

Further, peoples' social media accounts show that a mob stormed the capitol with minimal police resistance.

It is very clear what happened here.

"stand back and stand by" wink wink

Whatever the reason, I view this as a good thing. Hopefully the news regarding WhatsApp privacy will convince others as well.

This just seems like both parties are working together including Trump to have these events be a pressure release valve for all the shit of 2020.

A target where people can vent their frustrations and anger, and once Trump leaves get that dopamine hit and simmer down -- until next cycle.

If none of the events of the past month happened people would have to face the reality of their situation. Now they can just scream at Trump. Who knows maybe he's being paid handsomely under the table.

I don't buy in to the conspiracy theories because all of the big players comes out looking terrible. DNC now has to spend most of the first half of Bidens term trying to rebuild the nations confidence. RNC looks like crap because Trump. The only beneficiaries from a political perspective look to be state governments

> DNC now has to spend most of the first half of Bidens term trying to rebuild the nations confidence.

One hopes, but I'd imagine the people living in the alternate reality will just ask "What have the Romans ever done for us?!"[0]

[0] Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvPbj9NX0zc

I doubt that these things are ever personal. People in position of power meet all the time and not necessarily with good intentions.

Trump got power, Zuckerberg got power and they meet to discuss how to proceed. Trump loses power, Zuckerberg locks down his account because the arrangement is no longer viable.

The deal itself could have been anything, maybe Trump threatening to regulate the hell of FB if they don't play ball, maybe Zuckerberg had a good idea on how to get rid of TikTok with the help of Trump in exchange of letting him do his thing. Who knows?

Also, now this will overshadow the WhatsApp blunder. Great timing.

Whatsapp doesn't have enough penetration in the US for that to have ever mattered. I'd watch the EU for news on that front.

Most people on Hacker News are entrepreneurs that run their own private businesses. Social media platforms are not some sort of public utility. Social media platforms are private businesses owned by private individuals who can choose who they want to let in and who they want to kick out just like any restaurant or bar or concert hall. If you dislike who a social media platform allows or does not allow, just use a different one. For example, many Trump supporters use parler... A platform which is known to kick off liberal voices. Or better yet, just set up your own blog on your own host and do whatever you want.

> Most people on Hacker News are entrepreneurs that run their own private businesses.

I don't think that is true at all. There's definitely lots of business owners here (myself included!) but I don't think it's anywhere close to a majority.

> Most people on Hacker News are entrepreneurs that run their own private businesses.

Has there been a survey done on this? Because that's not the impression I have at all. Entrepeneurs are obviously over-represented in contrast to the general population, but I doubt they're the majority.

I believe you’re recycling your material:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25673152

> Parler... A platform which is known to kick off liberal voices.

What? Parler doesn't seem to censor political content at all. A lack of liberal voice does not mean Parler "kicks them off."

At least their CEO seems to ban "Antifa" supporters: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200630/23525844821/parle...

> Social media platforms are private businesses owned by private individuals who can choose who they want to let in and who they want to kick out just like any restaurant or bar or concert hall.

I hate to break it to you, but bars and restaurants and concert halls can't kick out anyone they want to. There are rules around access to semi-public places. For example they can't kick someone out just for wearing a MAGA hat, or for being black, or lots of other protected classes.

I’m aware of race, religion, sex, age, and some other federally protected statuses in the US that a business can’t discriminate against, but what protected class would political affiliation fall under?

California does consider political affiliation as a protected class for employment purposes: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/california-employmen...

That's what real liberalism looks like and it's something we need to extend to the federal level.

Note that this is only for employment. A california business must not discriminate in hiring based on political affiliation, but can refuse to serve customers based on political affiliation.

I never said political affiliation was protected. I was just pointing out that the blanket statement "they can kick out anyone they want" is not correct.

I was referring to your example of being forced to do business with a person wearing a MAGA hat. I am unsure if that falls into a protected class, that is federally protected at least.

Outside of race, gender, religion you can ban people for anything you like from your private place of business.

They CAN kick anyone out- just not for any reason. "I don't want you in my business" is the only reason needed.

Except that isn't true. Sure they can do it, but the person can sue, and if the business can't come up with a reasonable argument to single out that person, they will lose.

This is false. The only lawful grounds for a lawsuit is discrimination against a protected class such as race, gender, religion. Political affiliation is not protected in any way.

> they can't kick someone out just for wearing a MAGA hat,

Actually they can. In most jurisdictions that's not a protected class. Nightclubs are well-known for having dress codes with vague guidelines such as "no gang colors". Some fancy restaurants require men to wear jackets or women to wear dresses (this seems politically fraught to me). Some bars don't let you in if you're wearing shorts. And so on.

Generally a protected class is an unchangeable attribute.

If they have a "no hats" dress code, sure. But if hats are generally allowed, and then they disallow you for your hat, that is illegal.

> But if hats are generally allowed, and then they disallow you for your hat, that is illegal.

Can you cite a relevant case?

You do understand what a protected class is, and why it exists, right?

Actually, a restaurant can ban you for anything outside of specific protected classes like race, gender, religion. A restaurant can ban you for your political beliefs, who your friends are as long as they are not a protected class, they don't like the breed of dog you have, or anything else. Welcome to a free country.

Yeah this is just completely untrue. A business owner can refuse to serve you for any reason, as long as it isn't a specifically protected reason. Much as a company can fire you for any reason except for the legally protected ones.

you can absolutely be denied entry for wearing a MAGA hat. businesses can have dress codes as broad or as specific as they want. must wear shoes and a shirt is pretty low bar. must have a collared shirt, no blue jeans, and no sneakers is also a common dress code. no hats, bandanas, or gang colors or MC colors are all common at bars/clubs/breastaurants.

> hate to break it to you, but bars and restaurants and concert halls can't kick out anyone they want to. There are rules around access to semi-public places.

Yep. Like "No shirt, no shoes, no service." Or a more elaborate dress code.

Which is a simple "Terms of Service" for said establishment.

Facebook has a lengthier one[0].

[0] https://www.facebook.com/terms.php

Elon Musk was publicly bashing Facebook a few hours ago. We already have 3 threads on front page here. The more this bad press happens the more people become aware of Facebook's malpractices and better it is for everyone in long run.

This stunt will put WhatsApp blunder on back burner and it is exactly the kind of thing that Facebook does to spin the narrative.

Everybody looking at Johannes Casper who fought it in 2016: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-bans-whatsapp-data-transfer-to...

Seems like the Whatsapp change doesn't really affect EU users.

Lol, people still use WhatsApp?

Lol, yes.

I think that was going to be hidden by the recent news regardless ;)

Most WhatsApp users probably don't know / care much anyway. Sadly.

What's the WhatsApp blunder?

It's still on the front page of HN. Forcing people to allow data to go to Facebook if you use Whatsapp.

First thing that came to mind as well. 100% opportunism 0% conscience.

There's no meaningful difference between Joe Biden's status yesterday and his status today. I get that pretending otherwise is a good way to frame FB in a negative light, fine, but it's also weirdly close to the deluded thinking of the people who attacked the Capitol building.

No difference for Biden, but a significant difference for the Senate, who staff panels with the power to investigate Facebook.

That's a fair point. I don't think it's likely that FB execs were waiting for the results of the Georgia runoffs to decide how to moderate Trump, but it's at least possible that they were. I don't think the same can be said for the certification of electoral votes.

I think there is a meaningful difference as of yesterday. It now looks like Biden will have a cooperative Democratic controlled senate, because of the Georgia results.

>> time to get 'cozy' with the new people in power and set up those dinners

That is the system. Companies that want to make money need to keep on the good side of people in power. But isn't that how democracy works? Better that they adapt to every incoming elected administration than have them hold loyalties to old regimes. Seeing them so regularly bend to the will of voters isn't a horrible thing.

>Companies that want to make money need to keep on the good side of people in power. But isn't that how democracy works?

No, that's how a republic might work. In democracy companies are not allowed to yield such power, and people elected can be revoked at any time....

What's your definition of “republic” here? You seem to see it as an opposite to democracy. I'd posit that democracy and republic (in the true sense of res publica, “public affair”) cannot be separated.

>What's your definition of “republic” here? You seem to see it as an opposite to democracy.

Yes. Democracy (government by the people) was the ancient Athenian ideal of direct government.

Republic (res publica, administration of public "things"/affairs) is the roman inspired version - but it just means that the country is considered to be governed as a whole "public thing" by some body, as opposed to being a thing belonging to the emperor or king, etc. to do as they wish and for private gate).

A republic doesn't have to be democratic - a cadre of "wise people" could e.g. govern one to the exclusion of the public at large. Or the public might be given some token participation (like voting for one of several bodies of government, or merely voting for electors to elect the actual government, etc., and/or, common too, voting for people with fixed 4-5 year terms on abstract platforms for the whole term taken wholesale).

The discussion is blurred because modern republics (almost everyone) often label themselves democracies because "vote".

that's hardly the case though, big corps are effectively lobbying the government for big profits. they do have their lobbyists already set up for both parties it's not not the time to spend the time or the energy on the losing side for the next 4 years.

My point was that at least they are lobbying those who have been elected. That is democracy ticking along as planned. If they were instead lobbying non-elected people such as former presidents or family patriarchs, that would be undemocratic.

Seeing companies cozy up to elected officials reassures me that those elected officials still wield power. When companies abandon elected officials, ignore them as irrelevant, then we know that our elected representatives are not in charge and democracy no longer matters.

Yes, this must be it. Must have nothing to do with the fact that he said "You're special, we love you!" to the people laying siege at the U.S. Capitol.

Facebook would happily receive foreign money to cause havoc in this country as long as they make a profit on it, oh wait that actually happened https://thehill.com/policy/technology/358102-franken-blasts-...

This must have been the first time in history that President of the United States openly supports people violently "fighting for democracy" against "elected president" of the sovereign country.

Wait what? But this time it's different, this time it's us / US.

The US vehemently supported protestors seizing the Ukrainian parliament and overthrowing the democratically elected president.

American politicians were even present handing out cookies: https://images.csmonitor.com/csm/2013/12/1213-world-Nuland2....

Only reason was because he was POTUS. Otherwise he would have been removed long ago. The moment he wasn't potus anymore he was to be removed from these platforms.

The consequence of this however will be political division. If you thought the political division was bad now because of 'echo chambers'. Wait until the camps are no longer talking because they arent on the same platforms.

This is what scares me. We're already seeing this start with Parler being conservative Twitter. Youtube clones are already popping up. The only saving grace is that such platforms will have difficulties finding advertisers and thus surviving, but if their movement gains traction then corporations will follow the flow of power/money and jump on board.

The issue is not platforms. The issue is the lack of trust in the political system. Deplatforming is just a band-aid.

No, the effect is the opposite. First of all, they haven't been talking to each other in a constructive way on these platforms anyway, they merely exchange hateful messages. There is no dialogue between those sides on social media, because social media are generally not conducive to reasonable and rational discussion (with exceptions like HN, of course, where there is appropriate moderation).

Second, pushing radicals out of mainstream platforms is a good thing because they will go to many different places, break up into smaller fractions, and therefore not be able to reach as many people at once. The division and reality-denial we see today is the result of small minorities reaching to large audiences and looking much larger than they are, thereby allowing radical and violent positions to become seemingly more socially acceptable.

It's perfectly fine if people who want to storm the Capitol (or behead Fauci, etc.) get to talk in their own, small little echo chambers. They do that already. Law enforcement is used to infiltrating closed circles and should know how to deal with those who become terrorists.

>No, the effect is the opposite. First of all, they haven't been talking to each other in a constructive way on these platforms anyway, they merely exchange hateful messages.

So nothing lost?

>Second, pushing radicals out of mainstream platforms is a good thing because they will go to many different places, break up into smaller fractions, and therefore not be able to reach as many people at once.

The thing about banning people on facebook, twitter, reddit, etc. You just create a new account. Nobody has gone anywhere. When there is a push for different platform like parler, then the migration occurs and there won't be cells. thedonald.win for example just as popular as thedonald was. There's no splintering. Though I can bet you within the next 2 weeks those sites will be taken down.

>The division and reality-denial we see today is the result of small minorities reaching to large audiences and looking much larger than they are, thereby allowing radical and violent positions to become seemingly more socially acceptable.

To be clear, the political division is not on the republican side. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charts-americas-political-d...

The political divide is on the democrat side. More specifically... it was just the democrats. That's not the case anymore. The republicans just moved to the right increasing the divide.

>It's perfectly fine if people who want to storm the Capitol (or behead Fauci, etc.) get to talk in their own, small little echo chambers. They do that already. Law enforcement is used to infiltrating closed circles and should know how to deal with those who become terrorists.

That's the thing with reality. Those who arent involved in certain subjects can see it objectively. I'm not american nor am I there.

I have never seen the politics so divided in the usa. It WAS the democrats, It's now both. The political divide has never been so bad.

What are the consequences?

I'm also not in the US and the examples I gave were just examples. I also don't think that "the blame game" makes any sense. The effects of modern media are world-wide and don't have much to do with particular party divides or "left" and "right." Notice I spoke of radicals, regardless of political affiliation.

As I've said, in my opinion the increasing division is partly a result of the fact that radical minorities nowadays have platforms through which they can easily reach millions.[1] This leads to an amplification of radical opinions and makes them appear to be more acceptable, hence also more accepted by people who would otherwise not even consider them. This in turn has to do with in- and out-group behaviour and corresponding cognitive biases.

One way to counter-act the trend while still allowing free speech is to ensure that radical fringe groups do not have large amplifying platforms. They can still have free speech, just like they had in the 80s, but it should be made hard for them to reach out to millions. I agree that this is technically non-trivial, but many experiences have been made already and there are many methods like moderation, karma systems, IP banning, shadow-banning, banning by degrading service, limiting amplification/re-distribution of messages, identifying sockpuppet and bot accounts, and so on.

[1] There are other reasons, of course, that have nothing to do with social media.

>As I've said, in my opinion the increasing division is partly a result of the fact that radical minorities nowadays have platforms through which they can easily reach millions.[1]

this is the funny thing. Trump and the right wing are the ones being banned but it's the democrats who have created the divide.

> I agree that this is technically non-trivial, but many experiences have been made already and there are many methods like moderation, karma systems, IP banning, shadow-banning, banning by degrading service, limiting amplification/re-distribution of messages, identifying sockpuppet and bot accounts, and so on.

I also find it funny that to justify banning and other moderation that it's only being done to the 'radical minority' but it's absolutely not. This is about political opposition being silenced.

Which again comes back to the first problem. The political division in 2019 was 100% democrats. In 2021? Not 100% democrats anymore. The republicans are now adding to the division and that's not going to end well.

Attempting to silence them will never work.

I was only talking about radicalized people who are advocating violence or are completely detached from reality (e.g. people who claim Covid-19 does not exist, or people who claim vaccination is a way to implant microchips into people). I have not talked about the political opposition in general. Your claims about 100% divides are or who caused it, as far as I can see, completely made up and without any evidential support. As I've said, it's also irrelevant who "causes a divide." The political divide is between two sides, so of course both of them are affected and responsible for it. I argued that the divide is partly a consequence of how social media work, because these allow in-group behavior that fosters radicalization. You chose to ignore that argument. Okay, so be it. I certainly don't buy into your argument insofar as I can reconstruct it.

You claim that the political opposition is silenced in the US, a claim for which there is zero evidence. Bans and other measures are put out for concrete violations of ToS such as directly inciting violence or advocating a coup d'etat by storming the Capitol to prevent US Congress from certifying an election result. Bans are very rare in numbers on social media. In fact, the people we're talking about already have their social media accounts on Discord and Parler. But it's a good idea to limit their ability to reach millions. That's not even silencing them, it's just common sense. Nobody should have a platform to post vitriol and hatred to millions, these kind of posts play no constructive role in politics whatsoever.

On a side note, the vast majority of Republicans is moderate and many of them do not even like Trump, as evidenced by opinion polls who have shown that he's one of the least popular presidents in US history. Trump's fan base is quite small, and the people who were storming the Capitol were an even smaller fraction of that. The problem of the Republican party is a systemic problem of any two-party system and could have just as well happened to the Democrats. Moderate Republicans have to continue to cater to a radical minority because they cannot risk the party to be split. If the Republican party split up into two, then both of these new parties would always lose against the Democratic Party. That explains the complete lack of a spine in many leading Republicans. They do not support Trump, they want to prevent the destruction of their party.

The same could happen to the Democrats. It's a general weakness of the US electoral system and the two party division.

yeah

I'm sure this had nothing to do with the attempted coup

Genuine request as I've seem this framing a lot and cannot understand it:

Can you point to the specific things that occurred which you believe were part of an attempted coup, and why you believe they were?

Trump wanted Pence to violate them constitution and overturn the election. When Pence refused he then went to an angry protest and told them to match the Capitol and fight like hell.

The then refused to deploy the National Guard to protect the Capitol and reportedly was thrilled at the fact that the certification was interrupted by the rioters.

After much pressure he finally put out a weak statement telling the rioters he loved them and they should go home, but the election was still a fraud.

What part of that fails to fall under encouraging an insurrection?

A coup requires that power is taken illegally (usually violently), and held. Are you saying this rabble of idiots were intending to take power somehow (what power?), just by occupying a building? How could this have ended with them (or even Trump) in power?

Did you conveniently ignore that some of the folks who broke into the capitol were armed with spears, clubs and firearms, carrying ziptie handcuffs? If the capitol police were not able to secure the escape of the senators and representatives, what do you imagine might have happened when the mob descended upon them?

Did you conveniently ignore the part that the Capitol Police, one of the most well armed and well funded police forces in the US, are either terrible incompetent and couldn't protect one of the most important buildings in the US.

Or did you ignore the videos of them removing barriers, or Trump supporters yelling at people breaking glass to stop, or protestors getting selfies with the guards in the building and tapping them on the shoulder and thanking them for their service?

I don’t know where you’re getting your information from, but there’s at least one video of protesters violently removing the barriers https://mobile.twitter.com/elijahschaffer/status/13469665149...

This is a good list as well https://www.reddit.com/r/Keep_Track/comments/ks56rh/trump_ri...

Here's one video: https://noagendasocial.com/@cgarison/105517331411076930

There was also one on Steve Bannon's War Room too this morning towards the end.

There are multiple ones if you just search of the Capitol police literally waving people in.

oh and here is a video of Trump supporter stopping a vandal:

https://freespeechextremist.com/media/d5a1870d-1c9d-45a9-be2...

The links don’t open for me, sorry. I’ve seen the first video judging by the thumbnail; it shows a cop waving to someone offscreen. Other cops maybe? Given that we have plenty of video of police being attacked I’ll need stronger evidence for the “cops waved them through” theory.

Occam's Razor suggests that the cop was gesturing to other cops on the line that they were retreating from their position and falling back. To suggest otherwise strains credulity and would require much more substantial proof.

That sounds plausible. Police do not calmly wave rioters through in one area while their colleagues are getting beat up elsewhere. Once us vs. them mentality settles in it’s game over.

>Steve Bannon's War Room

Oh my, surely an unbiased source. Why not inform us what Alex Jones is saying as well?

None of that is relevant to my point above.

Are you saying their plan was to attack those senators and representatives, in order to gain and keep power? What evidence do you have for this?

Well yes: the point was to delay or prevent certification oof Biden as president, with the aim of keeping Trump in power.

What other reason for the attack do you imagine there was?

Don’t spend much time on parler do you?

No, but I would need to see evidence, not just your opinion that such evidence exists. Same as for electoral fraud.

> Are you saying this rabble of idiots were intending to take power somehow (what power?)

Trump told them he won the election. He told them it was fraudulently stolen from them. He told them that this could be rectified by interfering in the proceedings. His intent was to take and retain power by remaining president through intimidating congress into refusing to count the electoral college votes. So yes - they were intending to take power. The fact it was based on a made up fantasy with no basis in reality does not alter the intent of either the rabble or Trump who incited them and painted that reality for them.

I have heard this theory stated, but where is the actual evidence that this was the plan and their actions were aligned to that? So far I've only seen people asserting that this was the plan, rather than showing actual evidence linking these things together. It's easy to join dots that don't exist, just as the Trump people seem to have done with electoral fraud.

>A coup requires that power is taken illegally (usually violently), and held

I (obviously) can't know what was in the minds of the folks who broke into the Capitol.

However, multiple news reports detail that a number of the folks arrested were carrying police-restraint style cable ties, firearms and explosives.

Given that both the Vice-president and the Speaker of the House (#2 and #3 in line of succession to the presidency), as well as both houses of Congress were in the Capitol at that moment, it's fair to ask who those folks intended to restrain with those cable ties?

And once they were restrained, what would they do with those restrained people?

Again, I can't say what was in the minds of the folks who attempted to occupy the US Capitol building, but some certainly brought weapons and tools indicating that they wanted to take hostages and possibly harm/kill them.

Do you usually bring molotov cocktails and police-style plastic restraints when you go sightseeing? Out to dinner, maybe? Or even to a protest rally?

While the protestors didn't storm the Capitol or bring tools to restrain people and destroy property, some segment of the rioters/insurrectionists did so.

As I mentioned, taking hostage and murdering the Vice President, the Speaker of the House and perhaps many members of Congress probably wouldn't have destroyed our government, but it certainly could be considered a coup attempt and definitely would be insurrection.

All of it

Exhibit A: Trump's attempted coercion of the GA secretary of state to overturn a certified and triple-counted election.

Exhibit B: Rudy going around and encouraging Republican state legislatures to throw out the vote of the people and instead appoint Donald Trump.

Exhibit C: Trump continuing to tell his supporters that they're right to be angry and this whole election was an undemocratic coup against him even when ostensibly telling them to go home hours after they've breached the Capitol building.

Exhibit D: Literally everything else Trump and his cronies have said over the past 2 months and the past 5.5 years.

Read a transcript of Trump’s verbal diarrhea from his speech yesterday. This was clearly a putsch

coup is a bit much. this happens from time to time at the state level, protesters push their way into chambers. they should have just been arrested, the police dropped the ball.

This went a bit further than a protest I would think.

No it absolutely did not. Stop buying the bullshit the media is feeding you.

If busting the windows out of a Walgreens goes beyond a protest, so does busting the windows out of the US capitol.

It's not the 'bulsshit the media is feeding me', it is the eyewitness testimony from the rioters.

Instead, I'd suggest you try to re-calibrate what you think is normal.

It’s a putsch because the intent was to disrupt or prevent the certification of the next president, literally the formal approval of the transfer of power. This is not a bunch of yahoos upset with a governor about coronavirus restrictions.

No, this happens at the state level from time to time. There were protesters who broke in to state chambers to disrupt a vote on abortion rights iirc. There's also been the same on gun rights votes too. I can't find a link because any search for "protest" turns up yesterday's events.

Everyone wants to use words like coup or insurrection as outrage bait and more clicks and views. It denigrates the plight of people who have actually lived through the real version of those events. As a US citizen, it's embarrassing actually.

I’m not sure why you are not able to understand this. Disrupting legislation is not the same as disrupting the machinery by which we hand power from one executive to the next. Google “self-coup” or “autogolpe” to see how this is not exactly an uncommon action by would-be tyrants.

Do you have evidence that was their intent? And how exactly could they have succeeded, and kept Trump in power?

By their own admission, their intent was "revolution". It's really bizarre to me that you are continuously trying to whitewash these seditious traitors' actions in this thread. Is it a willful act of naivete, or something more disingenuous?

I am asking for rational explanations and evidence for the original claim that this was an attempted coup (something I have experience with sadly). Evidence and logic are valued here. You are accusing me of whitewashing sedition (I am not), being naive (I am certainly not on this topic), and being disingenuous (ditto) for taking that approach. I think you should re-read the HN guidelines.

I don't think there is any reason to exaggerate. People have a will and a right to protest against their perceived injustice at a state or federal level. A coup also usually involves the military and a taking of government by force, neither of which happened yesterday. If this were a coup then the BLM "protests" over the summer were also a coup, and they were causing significantly more damage to small business with destruction and looting.

You are being disingenuous if you label this as a "coup" regurgitating biased media talking points.

When did BLM protestors force their way into a capital building with the express goal of overturning the results of an election?

Do you really think Trump protesters wanted to overthrow an election result by breaking into a building? Have you seen the videos of Capitol Police removing barriers and leading them into the buildings, or some of them taking selfies with the protestors?

Either the Capitol Police are fucking terrible incompetent or they wanted this to happen.

BLM rioters burned down a police station in Minneapolis/St Paul. They took over 6 square blocks in Seattle and their "community police" shot up a Jeep killing a 14 year old boy and removed all the evidence (https://battlepenguin.video/videos/watch/9f81cd38-3ee9-4f26-...).

These people walked into a public building and everyone is upset because they walked around the sacred halls of the rich and powerful; the house of the people. It was peasants in the castle and we can't have that.

Was it wrong? absolutely. That's why the vast majority of people stayed outside.

Oh and a woman was shot by that incompetent Capitol Security force. It's okay though because her life didn't matter since she's white. I'm pretty sure it was her fault because victim blaming is alright if the victim is a privileged air force veteran and isn't an oppressed minority.

The Capitol was the focal point of the protest due to the location and in this case the perceived injustice of the election. When almost half the voting population thinks there is something wrong with the election, maybe its time to listen to those people. If anything I think the hivemind and unemployed young people showing frustration was the spark that ignited what happened yesterday.

I am not trying to justify it as good or bad, but it was not a coup by a long shot and you cant haphazardly label it as such.

There are times when I try my upmost be very careful with my language. And this is one of them: What was undertaken on Jan. 6th was an attempted coup. It was insurrection. It was sedition. I refuse to allow that fact to be downplayed or obfuscated.

https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/jan/06/coup-heres-so...

You are entitled to your opinion and your echo chamber of choice, but you are doing a disservice to your fellow citizens if you think in black and white

The perceived injustice of the election only exists thanks to a massive, baseless propaganda campaign led by President Trump himself.

The courts have "listened" to the "claims of injustice". They found nothing of merit. It's over. Trump lost, fair and square. His inability to handle the loss and his disregard for our democracy has wreaked havoc across the nation.

How would protestors overturn the results? Do they get a vote just because they are standing on the senate floor?

This is such a god-awful take.

They rushed through barricades of the legislative building during a session. This session wasn't merely "some bill" for gun control, or abolishing taxes, or amending the Constitution, or what have you.

It was the procedure of finally and officially certifying the results of an election that has been improperly questioned by the incumbent. This election has been concluded to be free of systemic fraud, or any level of fraud sufficient to flip any state. And yet these seditious citizens broke in with the intent to stop such a vote from occurring, to the extent that representatives had to flee to safety and several people died.

I personally did not support the level of property damage from the summer protests, but the differences are large. Protesting for political change through collective action, and being attacked in many instances by the very force they claim is oppressive.

The protesters in DC were attacking the will of the people, based on lies and the encouragement of the sitting President - and pretty much welcomed in by local law enforcement.

Exactly. If they wanted any respect for this they should have had the courage to do it a few years ago. As it is it shows moral weakness, not strength.

This is at best closing the gate after the horse has bolted, made it to the next county, been hit over on the motorway causing a massive multi-vehicle pile-up which left a fireworks transporting lorry in flames such that its rockets went off setting light to nearby chemical processing facilities.[1]

And that is being charitable. This is simply sucking up to the new regime the same way they've effectively sucked up to the old one, on the very day the transition was finally confirmed by all parties. It can't hurt that it will distract some attention away from the bad PR relating to WhatsApp.

[1] I look forward to the final stages of the story though: the horse in question declared lame after the accident and processed into glue.

quite right

Zuckerboi the greedy one. w/out him and his FB Inc. lot, and that vastly overrated egotist Assange [who never ever has been even close to ethical grounds of, for instance, E. Snowden] the sick-orange cretin HeWas45 never would have made it in the first place

just fits to what's been posted here earlier https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25662215

Anyone with a modicum of sense has been saying this should happen for years now.

Well, do democratic values (and facts, really) matter more than the sweet, sweet engagement metrics and ad revenue Mr Zuckerburg gets from the MAGA crowd?

Sorry if this comes across as bitter. I’m very disappointed at how the large social networks’ have conducted themselves at this point to the point that for a large swathe of the US and the UK, the facts don’t matter any more.

This ban rings hollow. You're 100% correct that Trump has been provoking violence for years now (e.g. "If she [Hillary] gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks...although the Second Amendment people ... maybe there is" / "When the looting starts, the shooting starts").

Zuckerberg just knows now that Democrats will be in power so this is a safe move to appear like he hasn't been perfectly fine helping Trump increase the spread of his violent platform ("Facebook cannot be the arbiter of truth"). It was all about allowing "engagement" that helped Facebook's revenue.

Zuckerberg does not get to change the narrative now.

Those statements you gave as examples weren’t so clear cut.

The first was in the context of talking about court cases that the judges will see. It was probably referencing 2A legal defense and litigator orgs like the NRA and GOA.

The second example capped off a paragraph about curfew measures to prevent daytime protests from being overtaken by nighttime looting. Therefore it could be an empirical statement about tragedies that tend to and have followed looting and is using that to justify his preventive measures. If he meant it normatively and wanted to shoot people he probably wouldn’t have pushed preventative measures.

>The second example capped off a paragraph about curfew measures to prevent daytime protests from being overtaken by nighttime looting. Therefore it could be an empirical statement about tragedies that tend to and have followed looting and is using that to justify his preventive measures. If he meant it normatively and wanted to shoot people he probably wouldn’t have pushed preventative measures.

The second example was a blatantly racist dog whistle[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_looting_starts,_the_s...

For anyone that hasn't heard it, ten states have alleged Facebook entered into an unlawful agreement with a competitor to manipulate advertising auctions. [1]

[1] https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/ima...

By "a competitor" you mean Google?

Facebook, Twitter and the rest shouldn't act like arbiters of truth. I think this is just plain wrong and a slippery slope for the entire industry.

They don’t have to allow their platforms to be used to incite violence or insurrection. That’s their choice. You’re welcome to go to the cesspool that is Parler if you want to make violent threats.

The parent comment didn't say they couldn't, it said they shouldn't.

not just "don't have to" but I'd say that they have a responsibility to make sure that their platforms aren't used to incite violence against anyone but there are better ways to handle an outgoing but still an elected President and it's not clear if that's what really happened. I thought people had the right to protest in this country?

If an elected President of the country is acting deranged then that's the responsibility of congress to do something about and not of glorified CRUD app creators.

>They don’t have to allow their platforms to be used

This is a major flaw in modern legal tradition and social morality. Society will continue to suffer from it. People need to stop pretending Internet media is an optional luxury. It's now integral to the public's extended mind and method of social/political discourse. No one is writing letters to the editor anymore, or going to salons, or likely talking heavy politics with their neighbors.

I'm actually curious: where would this be a slippery slope to, in your opinion? I understand that these platforms have a lot of influence, and I wouldn't like it if they censored whatever I believe. However, I think that new social media platforms are created fast enough that one can always find a place to discuss whatever they would want to discuss. (Both for better or for worse)

Network effect is pretty strong and although these platforms can easily be replicated, it's just not easy to get masses to adopt a new platform. I'm afraid that just like the traditional news media this could lead to a society where these companies could decide what people get to see and read.

They own the servers and have the right to act like arbiters of truth on their own private property.

It doesn't appear to me that their rationale for this is based on a judgement about truthfulness of anything. It is purely based on (in their words):

> we judged that their effect -- and likely their intent -- would be to provoke further violence

I don't like the thought of trillion-dollar advertising companies being the custodians of the platforms where (sadly) a majority of speech in the world happens. That being said, if direct calls to violence and to insurrection against a democracy aren't grounds to take away your megaphone, then what is? If you're a free speech maximalist you'll be opposed to any sort of "censorship" (then again, people with those views also tend to believe that "private companies" hold absolute authority over what goes on in their "property"). But if you believe inciting violence and other kinds of things should be punished by law, then you can hardly disagree with this.

I feel the same way. It's a bad world we live in where tech companies have to moderate the speech of everyone, but until we're out of that situation (thanks to decentralization), then reducing hate and speech that causes harm is the right move.

I don’t think this is a problem caused by centralization. As I think about the past 4 years I think the blame lies with Congress, whom have effectively gridlocked themselves into inaction for the last decade. The powers that they have have already been spilling into other branches (such as using the courts to audaciously overturn laws) so it makes sense that those powers are spilling into the private sector as well.

In other words, the less Congress does, the more easily corporations turn into an authoritarian arm of the government

If there had been direct calls to violence, I would agree with you 100%

Do you have examples of the direct calls to violence and insurrection? Supposedly there were three tweets that Twitter required trump to delete, but I don't see the actual text of them anywhere.

I had one screenshot before it was taken down because I couldn't believe what I was reading: https://svkt.org/~simias/up/20210107-164543_trump.png

Here's the transcript of the deleted video statemenet: "I know your pain. Your hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt. It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us. From me, from you and from our country.

This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So, go home, we love you, you’re very special. You’ve seen what happens. You’ve seen the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home and go home in peace."

Deleted tweets: "Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!"

"These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!"

So the deleted video contained the usual claim of the election being "fraudulent", and these imperatives:

"But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt. ... We have to have peace. So, go home, we love you, you’re very special. You’ve seen what happens. You’ve seen the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home and go home in peace."

Why exactly was it deleted?

Thanks, I was able to actually find that, but that doesn't sound like calls to violence or insurrection to me. Quite the opposite.

I think it's easy to say Trump's comments condoned violence when you censor the comments themselves and everyone will just believe you because it's in line with their biases, like nearly every comment in this thread approving his bans.

As far as I'm concerned free speach is dead. You can only say what the corporate overlords allow.

Trump's statement this morning included the statement, "it's only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again". Some Trump followers read deeply into every word he says, and these words encourage them to mobilize and literally fight. Many had Civil War Jan 6, 2021 shirts, others had explicitly neo-nazi and anti-semitic symbols on clothing or tattoos. They consider Trump their leader, and they are committed to "making America great" at all costs. Clearly there are many opinions at play in a crowd like that, but by doing effectively nothing to stop what happened and by making statements that he knows will promote chaos, he is effectively supporting violence and insurrection.

By not conceding the election or accepting a peaceful transition after exhausting all legal remedies (accepting an "orderly" transition falls short of peaceful), using words like "fight", calling the opposing party "evil" while sympathizing with those breaching the Capitol by saying "I love you" and "I know how you feel", pressuring his VP to unilaterally reject certifying the election, not condemning extreme violence and tragic deaths because of a rally he promoted...the list goes on.

>direct calls to violence and to insurrection against a democracy

Did Trump really call for violence? Are those tweets still accessible somewhere? (Serious question, I did not follow his account.)

No, all he said was: "Big Protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!"

Protest is protected by the first amendment.

What happened was NOT a protest.

As CNN would say.. Fiery but mostly peaceful protest

They should've just declared an autonomous zone and solidarity w/BLM, the media would've loved them.

Regardless of what the media is labeling the events on January 6th, the people involved were acting of their own free will. Trump has no culpability for the actions of his supporters.

Honest question, by that logic, do you think Charles Manson was wrongly imprisoned?

They should have stolen some sneakers and televisions, that's what a protest is as I understand from the MSM.

In what world is a call for a "wild protest" not a call for violence?

are you serious? "wild protest" is about as ambiguous as you can get. There's no call for violence with the word "wild" any more than a "wild party" is a call for violence.

The source is the POTUS, not some frat bro.

Saying a big protest will be wild is a call for violence now.

Psuedo-reality

Does it really matter anymore?

I don't quite disagree with this, but I'm willing to defend those who do because a slightly different weighting in my priorities would make my disagree.

Inciting violence should be punished by the law, not by Facebook. For regular people it makes sense to outsource some of this to Facebook, to minimize the load on the legal system. POTUS however is one very high profile person. His statements are not being missed by those who have the authority to enforce the law. There is public debate ongoing over what should be done. Facebook should not need to help out here.

Of course, as a result of an ubstroctionist attorney general (the baseless memo protecting the president from prosecution) and Senate (refusing to convict for political reasons) Facebook might actually be the best practical route, but them having to take that roll is actively damaging to society.

Trump did not incite violence. If anything, the media this summer was much more involved in inciting and fueling the BLM riots.

Yes he did, just watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBH7ql34Ex0 it's just lies and pushing people to do terrible things.

Trump is currently the most dangerous American alive, he's the most powerful person on the planet spreading lies over lies to his millions of followers.

Was it the

"I know everyone is getting ready to march over to the capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard"

part...?

Or was it the tweets? "Go home with love & in peace."(now deleted) https://www.thetrumparchive.com/

Maybe this one? "am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence!"

Or this video telling everyone to they they lost, and to pick up their toys and head home peacefully.

https://mobile.twitter.com/tom2badcat/status/134701535339052...

Am I in a media bubble? Where's the smoking gun of him inciting violence and trying to prevent a peaceful transition of power?

As far as I can tell, the only real source calling for violence has been the users on thedonald.win, which has caused the mods to step in and say that they will follow the Presidents call for peace and thus not allow the platform to contain calls for violence (https://thedonald.win/p/11RhAqC6sa/mods-are-compromised/)

Maybe check what the Republicans are saying, for example Bill Barr said:

>“Orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress is inexcusable. The president’s conduct yesterday was a betrayal of his office and supporters.”

https://twitter.com/GingerGibson/status/1347213610406313986?...

That’s a logical fallacy if I’ve ever seen one. Bill Barr has his reasons, I’m sure, for saying what he said. That doesn’t mean he’s right.

How is it a logical fallacy to check the opinions of both political parties? The parent asked:

> "Am I in a media bubble?"

Usually helps to check what both sides of the partisan isle are saying to avoid a bubble.

Or maybe the one where he said that he “loves” the violent mob without a single word of condemnation? How is this even a conversation at this point?

He literally stood outside near the Capitol and said, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore” and then encouraged the crowd to go to the Capitol.

What he literally said while he "literally stood outside near the Capitol" (he was almost two miles away from the Capitol):

"Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. After this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to walk down. We’re going to walk down any one you want, but I think right here. We’re going walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong."

...

"So we’re going to, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, I love Pennsylvania Avenue, and we’re going to the Capitol and we’re going to try and give… The Democrats are hopeless. They’re never voting for anything, not even one vote. But we’re going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help, we’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.

So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I want to thank you all. God bless you and God bless America. Thank you all for being here, this is incredible. Thank you very much. Thank you."

Trump is a leader of a populist movement. The call was to march and protest outside.

He gave no direction for them to go inside. And soon after they went in, he made a video statements on Twitter for them to go home.

I also thought its the "Peoples House" after all. Not really sure what laws were broken other than maybe trespassing. BTW, democrats have occupied legislators too during protests.

If I make a dog angry, then take its muzzle off and make it go near you, am I liable when you get bitten? I didn’t give it direction to bite you after all.

I think you are missing the point. He has the support of 70 million people. This is a widely supported populist movement, backed by 20+ years of grievance with the current "uniparty"

Generally it only takes 1% of the people to start a revolution. If Trump intent was to overthrow these legacy fossils it would have happened yesterday. Instead he called his people back.

With every news article condemnation, supreme court rejection, and double standard like facebook banning or twitter trying to disrupt their communications, it only strengthens his backers sense of being aggrieved.

Trump will use these betrayals by republicans to start his own party. The goal has been democratic reform.

> If Trump intent was to overthrow these legacy fossils it would have happened yesterday.

And Putin said that if his security forces wanted to kill the opposition politician, they would have succeeded. If it didn’t work, it’s not a big deal right?

Human beings are not dogs. The law treats them as autonomous. Getting people riled up and angry and encouraging them to protest is not incitement just because a few of them take it too far.

"Fight like hell" does not mean violence. Political groups "fight" for this or that all the time. And yeah, go to the capitol to protest, like the vast majority of people did. Only a tiny percent had anything to do with breaching the building.

You can fight via protesting. That's not inciting violence. The BLM supporter in Chicago literally told people to loot and that looting was reparations:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/aug/11/ariel-atkin...

Should she be arrested? Probably not, even though she was wrong and a terrible person for saying that.

The law is very specific when it comes to free speech. You need specific calls to violence and Trump did not come anywhere near close to that here.

He's asking people to fight because the courts have refused to even hear testimony. Texas brought a lawsuit and was dismissed in three sentences for not having standing, in the only court legally allowed to decide cases between states.

If you still deny any and all election irregularity after all the videos and all the dead people voting and all the questionable information, that is part of the problem. An entire nation watched their court systems refuse to even listen to any evidence. People have lost faith in the system.

And this very minor breaking into a building, causing less than 1/10 of the damage of any BLM riot, is blown up into some crazy "this is the end of democracy" bullshit. People have taken over American federal buildings several times in American history.

The regular peasants walked around the the sacred place of the rich and they're afraid. Also a woman got shot. She's not black so her life doesn't matter.

>He's asking people to fight because the courts have refused to even hear testimony. Texas brought a lawsuit and was dismissed in three sentences for not having standing, in the only court legally allowed to decide cases between states.

You have been lied to.

Here's some actual information[0] about what the courts did (yes, they did take evidence and hear arguments, and where they didn't it was for appropriate reasons.).

Don't believe me. And don't believe anyone else either. Read the complaints, arguments and rulings yourself. Then make up your own mind.

[0] https://electioncases.osu.edu/2021/01/summary-of-post-electi...

Even Bill Barr, Trumps former AG, said Trump incited a mob.

>“Orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress is inexcusable. The president’s conduct yesterday was a betrayal of his office and supporters.”

https://twitter.com/GingerGibson/status/1347213610406313986?...

> if direct calls to violence and to insurrection against a democracy aren't grounds to take away your megaphone, then what is?

Are you suggesting that Trump made direct calls to violence and to insurrection? If so, that is patently false.

From Trump's actual Tweet on December 19th: "... Big Protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!"

All he did was call upon his base of supporters to exert their first amendment right to assemble. To suggest this was anything more than that is pure confabulation.

Whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night.

Even Bill Barr just came out

>Former Attorney General William Barr said Thursday that President Donald Trump inciting a violent insurrection on Capitol Hill the previous day was a "betrayal of his office and supporters."

https://www.businessinsider.com/former-ag-barr-trump-betraye...

But go ahead and hide behind "well he never ACTUALLY said it!!"

Quote the wording you think Trump used to organize an insurrection.

Juxtapose that with the wording you would be okay with him using to organize a protest.

Then try to tell me that the difference between them is "insurrection".

As of 2:00 PM yesterday, the underlying context that several of his supporters are ready, willing, and able to commit sedition in his name is painfully obvious and to deny it would be willful ignorance. After all, they were in the act of committing it [1]. The statements that Trump made would almost unquestionably meet the Brandenburg v Ohio bar of incitement to "imminent lawless action" given that context, urging his supporters (some of whom, given the context, would be willing to commit a felony) to march to Congress to--I don't recall the exact wording--tell them what they think.

If Trump gave that speech this morning, with full knowledge of what transpired, you would have a strong case that he incited to "imminent lawless action." However, that key context isn't necessarily present yesterday morning when Trump actually gave his speech. You can make a case that a reasonable person should have known that a portion of the crowd would react in "imminent lawless action" (which would meet the bar). Likely, the courts would have judged that it's just "politicians saying things they don't mean" and dismissed it on the side of caution. However, the knowledge that imminent lawless action did occur as a result may persuade some people that a reasonable person really should have been able to predict this outcome, and thus that the speech actually meets the bar for incitement. It definitely is not a slam-dunk violation, but the fact that it isn't slam-dunk clear really should give you pause.

[1] 18 USC §2384 is the statutory definition of sedition. The mob yesterday meets all elements: "two or more persons" who "conspire[d]" to "by force" "delay the execution of any law of the United States." It isn't hyperbole to say that their act was sedition, it was literally sedition yesterday.

It's intellectually dishonest to say that he incited violence, especially when there's a heavily censored video of him explicitly instructing people to go home and to be peaceful [1].

[1] https://tv.gab.com/channel/realdonaldtrump/view/we-have-to-h...

Any real free speech maximalist would first and foremost recognize Facebook's right to free speech. Suspending Trump is merely that right. The 1st amendment is between citizens and the government, not between other citizens.

Next version of "social networks" will be technically uncensorable. Law makers, courts, or Mr Suckerberg will be powerless.

I feel similarly. I'm traditional pretty nervous about these platforms taking action.

Yet at the same time its' hard to balance the idea that I want people to have as much free speech on these platforms... and at the same time support the use of these platforms to push anti democratic / misinformation / and actions that would seem to lead to ... other people's rights being infringed and curtailed.

Private companies have no more right to discriminate based on thoughts and ideas than a hotel or restaurant can based on race. These businesses are places of public accommodation and cannot discriminate.

And we can dispense with the "calls to violence" argument, which has been the democrat party platform since 2016.

> direct calls to violence and to insurrection against a democracy

Why do you believe this? The very last message Trump put out was telling people to go home. I've covered both BLM and Trump reallies and I've always felt safer at every Trump protest than at BLM. Even in the case of yesterday, we're seeing clear media manipulation. No one is covering how Trump supporters were let in; how Capitol Police lowered barricades.

Either Capitol Police were terribly incompetent at protecting one of the most secure buildings in the US, or they let this happen. There are videos of people taking selfies with capital police and patting them on the shoulder, thanking them for their service inside the building!

> But if you believe inciting violence and other kinds of things should be punished by law, then you can hardly disagree with this.

YES! Lets' arrest every single person who burned and looted a building during the BLM protests and put them all in jail! Every last one.

Same with the people who went in to the Cap building and stole things. Those are federal crimes; that will get you 3 ~ 8 years! I'm for that too.

Oh and that Federal Guard that shot the Air Force woman, he certainly needs to go to jail.

Only some of those things will happen. Pay attention to which ones.

> Either Capitol Police were terribly incompetent at protecting one of the most secure buildings in the US, or they let this happen.

So that must be what all the pictures of wall-climbing and drawn glocks are all about. </s>

The total and complete incompetence of the strongest and best equipped security force in the nation to defend one building?

Why yes. Yes it is.

They also shot an unarmed woman shooting wildly into a crowd for no god damn reason. That moron could have actually hit that other police officer too!

No, it’s a comment on your suggestion that the police let the insurrectionists in deliberately; I’m saying it’s wrong.

(opinion) Allowing incitement as free speech only makes sense if you can/will hold them accountable for the results of their speech instead. It's either/or, but not neither/nor.

If I say to you, "please shoot john smith", and you do - I should either be held responsible for saying thus, or accomplice in the result. I can't imagine anyone would claim I was without fault or responsibility. To my mind, free-speech maximalism should hold me innocent of saying it, but has no bearing on my being accomplice to the result.

I'm neither a free-speach maximalist, not a Trump supporter - on the contrary, I would say I'm pretty far left-wing. And that is exactly why I feel pretty ambivalent about this. Because what if next time there is a BLM demonstration in front of the Capitol, or for any other progessive issue? What if things get worse here, and we need a democracy movement / "peaceful revolution" like in east Europe? Then I might find myself on the other side of the ban.

I have the theory that we never really defeated fascism in western society. But mass media limited what you could say in public and so we kept a lid on it. Imagine someone disputing an election or calling for violence in the New York Times or on prime time TV. But with the internet and social media, this control function fell away. As a society we are realizing how problematic this can be and slowly reinstating the limitations that we had before the internet.

This silences the violent, the racist, and the extreme right-wing-nuts, but it can also silence progressive ideas and marginalized voices if we are not careful.

Right now we are moving to a situation where people like Trump cannot speak on the common public forum (putting the lid on them), but they can cause a lot of damage. I'd rather have the opposite situation, where they can rant as much as they want, but the society is so strong and principled that they cannot cause damage. But we are far from that, so I guess the pragmatic solution is to put the lid back on for now...

"I guess the pragmatic solution is to put the lid back on for now... "

I am not sure whether this solution is viable. People have drifted apart, there is a lot of general distrust in societies, I cannot see how this level of distrust can be mitigated.

Whoever is on the receiving end of the "lid", will try to find another way of communication. There is a strong desire in humans not to be silenced.

Without a desire to compare, my anecdote: I grew up in Communist Czechoslovakia; even though the state did its best to control communications among people, using outright force, they failed and everyone knew the latest gossip about the apparatchiks. Americans are probably not as competent in muzzling their opponents, plus openly disavowing the idea of free speech will make them internally unhappy. You yourself say that you'd rather have the opposite situation.

Good. This was absolutely the right move from Facebook. Finally.

This is a textbook example of reining someone in for yelling “fire!” in a crowded theater when no fire exists, and inciting imminent harm against others.

Why do so many people that use the fire in a crowded theater example not know what it means?

Do you know that’s not really making the point you think it is? Do you know that it is legal to yell fire in a crowded theater?

The case so often referenced, was overturned.

Are you familiar with the Brandenburg v. Ohio's "imminent lawless action" test? If not, I suggest a quick review of that case law.

> Are you familiar with the Brandenburg v. Ohio’s “imminent lawless action” test?

Yes, and saying this is a perfect example of speech inciting imminent lawless action is better than making the comparison you actually made upthread.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ more folks are familiar with my first analogy as it relates to the topic of free speech and imminent lawless acts. Call it laziness, it gets the point across instead of folks giving you blank stares about case law (and I’m happy to cite as I did above when necessary).

> more folks are familiar with my first analogy as it relates to the topic of free speech and imminent lawless acts.

Your first example doesn't relate to imminent lawless acts at all, that's the problem.

While panicked flight is dangerous (hence, its use to illustrate the “clear and present danger” test in Schenk, that has since been replaced), it is not (unlike, e.g., armed insurrection) lawless.

I 100% do not believe Facebook would have done this if Ossoff and Warnock had not won the GA special elections. This is about acknowledging which Party is about to be in power more than anything else.

Though not from USA, I think people are preferring echo chambers because "reasonable disagreement" are labeled as extremism by the group. I will agree that follow the rule of the law and if "law" is not adequate change it. No need for violence. However if there is report of "some" discrepancy in voting. Now the discrepancy could be small enough to not change the result and most people will on the other side too will agree to it and not support the violence. However people who claim that "discrepancy" was wide enough to change result should be listened to with respect. There is no objective way to know how big the discrepancy was. Indeed people should listen to them and think of ways of reducing the discrepancy in future, while agreeing to disagree. Also agree that the degree of discrepancy is a subjective belief.

Instead people who feel that "discrepancy" was wide are being looked down upon and that does not give people space to talk to.

I am not aware of a good example but I am pretty sure there will be another example where the "others" are looked down upon with disdain. Such behaviour only creates more division and makes the echo chamber stronger.

You will find very smart people in each of these echo chambers so cannot say that these people cannot think properly.

Blaming social media for it is like print media was blamed when it first came out and opposed churches.

Edit: Changed the word biased to "cannot think properly" in the last but one sentence.

Brain-breaking social media platforms have polarized and radicalized us. Zuckerberg's attempts to play both sides and pre-empt a legislative response ring hollow, but that does not make this a bad business nor political decision, in the moment.

The conflation of privately owned social media platforms with democracy is an incredible Jedi mind trick these companies have executed. It's extremely discomforting that they have become so entangled with intellectual activity that something like this could have an impact on the future of democracy.

All of these HN comments are defending shouting "Fire!" falsely in a theater under the guise of it being a slippery slope before all speech is lost. I have lost a lot of respect for these slippery slope arguments because they are easy to make and ignore the obvious problem which is that some speech shouldn't be tolerated... Especially intolerant or harmful speech.

> which is that some speech shouldn't be tolerated

who get to decide what should/shouln't be tolerated ? harmful/harmful ? facebook ?

"Inciting a coup" is a pretty unambiguous bar for harmful speech.

and even if you didn't think that was enough. The fact that if they would have been successful it would have meant a certain civil war which would have been bad for Facebook's business. So even from a completely revenue based view it is good business for Facebook to do this at this time.

Apparently not, in this thread alone, there is plenty of people who disagree let alone harmful.

Can you share a specific piece of evidence where Trump is inciting a coup?

The video where he says "You're special! We love you!" to his followers as they actively besiege the U.S. Capitol and ransack congressional offices. That good enough?

Here's the thing.

If you have an expectation that every event in history is accompanied by the instigators writing/saying "Let's all go do an X" (where X might be "coup" or "revolution" or whatever), you're going to be disappointed.

Most often, it's only historical hindsight that forms the narrative in which "X said Y which led to Z".

If you're somewhat sympathetic towards Trump, then likely only utterly unambiguous language - "So listen up everyone, I want you, in fact I order you, to go to the Capitol, get inside, prevent the certification from taking place, by any means necessary, including violence" - would convince you that he had incited a coup (and perhaps not even that).

Out in the real world, few people speak in such unambiguous ways even if their goals are clear. That's why we often need trials to establish whether or not certain language had intent A or intent B, because the language used was not unambiguous (often deliberately so).

If it matters what “speech” exists on a platform then that platform probably has gotten too big for societal good. Ie it doesn’t matter what balls or strikes they call. Just leave the platform if you disagree with it and go with a competitor. If you can’t do that then we’re in monopoly power situation. Break em up.

The only speech assured by the constitution is from your literal mouth. Anything else is not free speech.

> The only speech assured by the constitution is from your literal mouth

Even if you are going to narrowly interpret freedom of speech as "constitutionally protected rights only", the US Constitution explicitly says:

  Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of
  speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
  peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for
  a redress of grievances.

"of the press" is not "from your literal mouth", pretty much by definition. So please, let's not misrepresent what the constitutional right is about, even if we debate what "of the press" means in today's technology and media environment.

The newspaper doesn't have to publish your letters and neither does facebook or twitter. Feel free, as in free speech, to setup your own website.

Sure, only to have each and every company disavow services from said "own website" when _they_ feel like it.

The "build your own x" argument doesn't take into account that as technology evolves not everyone has the means/skills to "build" their digital public town square, hence why the existing once ought to be regulated by governments once they get too big.

I feel like the “right to a personal webpage” comes sometime after the point where people agree basic shelter, food, and water are a basic human right.

You point is irrelevant, an internet connection is becoming more and more essential in day to day living.

A hundred years ago, no one could own their own press, today I can print a thousand flyers in a few minutes. Technology evolves.

I did not imply that a newspaper or facebook or twitter have to do anything.

That said, if you want to read things into what I said and actually have this conversation, does my hosting provider have to host my website? Does their ISP have to not cut them off if they do? Under a narrow reading of "free speech" as "stuff protected by the First Amendment", obviously not (unless the ISP is run by a government entity, of course). Under a reading of "free speech" as "the ability of society to not have entities with overwhelming power (governments, but not only them) suppress speech they don't like", the situation becomes more complicated.

And I would argue that a narrow legalistic focus on the First Amendment is not the right way to approach the problem. The First Amendment is a means to an end, not an end to itself. For an 18th century analogy, if a private company has the power to go around destroying all printing presses that don't belong to them and refuses to print views it disagrees with, that is just as much a problem for free speech as if the government were doing it. This was just not a realistic scenario in 18th century North America (unlike, say, contemporaneous India), so wasn't a big concern for the framers of the First Amendment.

Is this a scenario we have to worry about now? It's not clear to me that it's an imminent problem right now, but I can easily see it becoming one in the next 10-15 years. Might be worth thinking about norms (and laws, as needed) now so we're not playing catch-up when it does.

None of that has anything to do with the factually inaccurate claim about the narrow constitutional right that was made in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25673573

I believe in free speech, I spent 10 years in the military trying to defend it, but I also believe that the President caused this invasion of Congress with his constant disinformation and lies, so this is fine with me. Next time, I may think it's overreach.

I don't think we'll agree there, so I won't argue further.

Edit: It's going to be a big job to reconcile this country and get people working together again, I hope you don't take this as an assault, I just don't feel like arguing today, but I appreciate your thoughts.

First of all, thank you for your service!

I am absolutely not taking your comments as an assault, and I suspect we largely agree on specific cases.

And specifically, taking down explicit incitement to violent illegal actions by someone already in a position of power does not seem at all unreasonable to me; I can see very little redeeming value in such. Also reasonable is a basic "cooling off" period of "we're not letting you post anymore for a bit, until people calm down".

And I fully agree that there is a long job of getting people to talk to each other, much less be on the same page ahead of us. I hope we succeed at it. Facebook and the like are not going to be helping much with it, unfortunately, because outrage is just so monetizable..

We do. You act like collective decision making is impossible while living in a democracy based on it.

Who gets to decide our taxes, criminal code, safety regulations, or election rules?

> Who gets to decide our taxes, criminal code, safety regulations, or election rules?

Whoever have the stronger power/influence.

And that's where you've checked out of the political philosophy that built the modern world. You should feel right at home living under the Chinese communist party?

Cynicism can really lead you astray as your comment proves.

>political philosophy that built the modern world

Can you explain this and how that contradict my statement

>You should feel right at home living under the Chinese communist party?

I don't feel right at home about it but it doesn't contradict my statement

Chinese communist party get to decide the rule because they are currently the one who have stronger power/influence, this is has nothing to do with how I feel.

well...yes, facebook gets to decide. It's their platform after all. They have a responsibility to their shareholders, not some nebulous definition of "freedom of speech", or the American people, or anything else. They are a business designed to make money. If they lose advertisers because they have given Trump a platform, it is their responsibility (to their shareholders) to remove him from the platform.

Build a public option if you want an alternative.

Yup, Facebook decides about that.. on Facebook. Its only censorship if/when the government restricts freedom of speech, and it wass never absolute to begin with.

>who get to decide what should/shouln't be tolerated ? harmful/harmful ? facebook ?

On Facebook's platform, that would be Facebook.

In my home, that would be me.

In your home, that would be you.

I could go on, but I trust you get the point, yes?

So uh, who's going to be the arbiter of what exactly constitutes intolerant or harmful speech? You? Me? Facebook? The government? Twitter?

Whoever gets the power to define what's acceptable and not acceptable speech is given too much power. You might trust that arbiter now, tomorrow, but do you honestly believe their incentives will always remain pure?

The problem I see with that line of argument is that it basically means you're arguing we can't do anything about it and just have to accept whatever actions people take regardless of the impacts of those actions.

It reads to me like "it's hard, so let us just do nothing".

That's right. You have to have a society with enough moral fiber that it self-polices and restrains itself almost down to the individual level.

When even downvotes are considered censorship what form of self policing society can exist?

Sure, but you seem to be implying that government has no place in how we self-police and restrain ourselves. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Government is not an external entity which subjugates us, it is the tool by which we settle our grievances with each other without beating each other to death with rocks. To facilitate that, we give government the exclusive right to police us. And I would argue part of that duty extends to ensuring that the populace is informed and aware of the facts of the situation.

In our rush to condemn the reprehensible aspects of government we have lost sight of the goal, which is to promote civil society and respect for our fellow man.

I mean, Facebook just suspended Trump, so it seems like we are doing something, we’re just arguing about where the lines should be. I don’t think it’s wrong to note that revolutionary ideas both good and bad come from the fringes and that some consequential positive influences might be deplatformed in the future. This is one of the few times in history the “good guys” have had the power to control the narrative. We should acknowledge that.

Many comments are arguing saying this already crossed the line and that FB are not the good guys here.

There are (or were) comments on this page with people saying they deleted their Facebook accounts over this.

Of course I disagree and find it hilariously ironic that this would be the straw that broke the camel's back, but that's just me.

Incitement to violent insurrection seems like a pretty clear example of "too far." So is peddling provable lies to extremists which are easily linked to terrorist acts.

Ultimately you either think domestic terrorism is fine or you don't. I don't see a case for the media wilfully and knowingly misleading people and inciting violence.

If this was true, then prosecute for incitement to violent insurrection which is already a crime. We already have the means to police unlawful speech, censorship need not be one of them.

But the person inciting the insurrection is the President of the United States. He can't be prosecuted.

That's untrue. He can easily be impeached, removed, and then prosecuted.

"easily"

I guess we'll see. They couldn't get it done after he obstructed a federal investigation. They couldn't get it done after he extorted a bribe from Ukraine. Now he's incited an insurrection, so who knows if that's enough.

Words != actions. Equating actions individuals take to the words they say is dangerous.

We already have laws regarding inciting violence, and as far as I can tell, they work fairly well.

Do you have a better proposal?

Why not just stop pretending human beings are too stupid to decide for themselves?

"Oh but this speech is dangerous!" fucking. Bull. Shit.

The moment you start to curtail speech and ideas, you are making a decision on what is and is not true. Fuck that noise.

We are literally getting into the world if 1984 style though crime. The America I grew up in was not afraid of ideas.

That's why actions must be evaluated on a case by case basis. This time, I support Facebook, but for other actions I make no judgement until I see the facts of the case. That is always the challenge of free, democratic societies. Every actor, public and private, must always be scrutinized. In the 90's, Bill Gates was an unscrupulous monopolist. In 2020, he's at the head of several groundbreaking global health initiatives that he's personally funding. I can support him in one thing while criticizing him for another.

Trump has incited terrorism, he has incited insurrection. The importance of his position in the government makes this situation even more extreme. This is not a routine situation, and if you want to argue there's going to be a slippery slope, then you'll need actual pattern of behavior, not just this extreme situation. Because if not now, then when? When are private parties allowed to say that they're not going to support Trump's treasonous behavior?

I’m always confused by this opinion because this applies to literally every single instance where collective decision making is required or desired.

Who gets to decide how much we pay in taxes? You? Me? The Government? Bloomberg?

Like if you think deciding what constitutes hate speech is too much power then the people who decide the conditions someone is locked up must be gods.

Thank you, this is the cleanest deconstruction of this argument I've ever seen.

I think the fundamental misconception is that speech "cannot infringe other's freedoms" like physical actions can, so no tradeoffs of individual's freedoms have to be collectively decided for speech.

The idea of words propagating beliefs, drowning out others and inciting actions is just subtle enough to weasel out of whenever convenient in this world view.

I think part of the problem as well is that "free speech" has been elevated from "desirable" to "the greatest good". It is good. It is not the greatest good. It does not surprise me to see people involved in Internet communications/social networking trumpeting free speech as the greatest good since these communication channels depend on us not restricting free speech to a more reasonable place in our society.

I don’t think any of this is a good idea but I propose that they create a blockchain voting system for policies on their platform like this.

Yeah right. Stakeholders and investors wouldn't approve of such democracy on their platform.

As was said, this is just a slippery slope argument. Which is especially odd considering the platforms already have all the power they need. There is no more power to give.

> There is no more power to give

Ability to censor top level politicians, deciding what constitutes acceptable and what needs to be censored is not the kind of power they used to have.

Edit: bit clarification

They just did it so I think it certainly was.

This isn't true. Private entities have never been required to distribute messages from US officials or politicians. I believe the only exceptions are certain emergency broadcasts.

I wasn't talking strictly about legal ability.

I'm not sure what you mean then. What power or abilities have changed?

Yep. The comment presumes that there is a need to delegate power to a single arbiter (there isn't).

The government makes rules laying out the worst extremes: for instance, no direct incitement to violence.

Facebook makes rules for what, above and beyond that, is not allowed on Facebook.

Twitter makes rules for what, above and beyond the government's rules, is not allowed on Twitter.

This...really isn't hard.

> for instance, no direct incitement to violence

It's worth pointing out that Trump's videos yesterday -- praising the people who had just attacked and sacked the Capitol Building during a joint session of congress and conspicuously refusing to demand they leave -- were probably legally an incitement to violence regardless. Certainly normal prosecutors could get convictions on that sort of thing[1] in normal courts. The only reason it seems gray is because the speaker is the President.

[1] Remember that in context they were at the capitol because Trump himself, in person, had directed they march there just an hour before. I mean, really, that's pretty open-and-shut as far as mens rea.

Bingo. It may be tempting to take control of speech and think it wont backfire against you one day, but it will

> who's going to be the arbiter of what exactly constitutes intolerant or harmful speech?

Someone needs to do it, though. You don't get free license to incite violence anywhere, and no one thinks that's a good idea. You can't do it here on HN. You can't do it on Reddit. Why should you be able to do it on Facebook?

Now, sure, there's a question as to whether Trump's posts yesterday went quite as far as you think they'd need to be considered "inciting violence". But that's a judgement call. You don't want Facebook carrying a call to attack congress, you just think that's not what Trump did.

But if there is a call for a mob to sack the seat of government and attack a joint session of congress, I think we all agree that Facebook should be allowed to censor the fuck out of that.

Facebook, the government, twitter, they all already arbitrate what speech is/isn’t protected. In the case of twitter/facebook, it’s the digital public square and the government is in the physical public square, for now.

One problem with this is that people do not have as much potential recourse through Facebook and Twitter as they might through the courts.

The penalties are different too. You might be facing a ban from Fb/twitter instead of prison time/fines from the courts.

Having skepticism in the arbiters of what is/isn’t protected speech is critical. We should be skeptical of them and challenge them if we think they are wrong. Organizations, like the ACLU, exist for this reason, to protect our rights.

These aren't difficult questions, nor are they new questions that our country hasn't answered before.

The government is the ultimate arbiter of speech in the US, and their actions are limited by the 1st amendment as interpreted and implemented by our judiciary and legislatures respectively.

When groups gather on private property, we respect the property rights of those who own it.

> ignore the obvious problem which is that some speech shouldn't be tolerated

We must embrace intolerance to snuff out intolerance?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Yes, it’s really not complicated.

Why does Facebook owe anyone a voice?

If you want a 'voice' then the GOVERNMENT should make a social media platform in which NO ONE at all can be censured. Because your silly free speech argument doesn't have anything to do with private companies, although you already knew that, but conveniently ignore it.

If Trump decides to start posting on HN, does HN owe him a voice?

You are the one making slippery slope arguments, not the other way around.

I think you and the op are in agreement...

The problem is that companies like Facebook and Twitter are already operating like the public town square. They are so big that they have greater influence and reach than virtually all countries, in a product space that is highly dependent on network effects. They are, for all intents and purposes, a public utility. And they should be held accordingly to the standards - namely that they cannot censor content, in support of free speech principles.

>The problem is that companies like Facebook and Twitter are already operating like the public town square.

The operative word in the above sentence is 'like'.

FB and Twitter are not the town square and never have been. They are the platforms of private corporations driven by profit from advertising sales.

And they haven't been shy about explaining exactly what you can and cannot do on their property either (cf. the relevant sites' TOS).

That many people treat them like public squares is a result of those people's ignorance of or misapprehension about the platforms, not any subterfuge on the part of FB or Twitter.

And the only reason they have any influence is because those people gave it to them.

Don't use those platforms and they have no influence over you.

In the United States at least, they have the right to censor whoever and whatever they like. Whether that be Donald J. Trump or, anything concerning puff pastry or even tasty, tasty jelly beans.

> the obvious problem which is that some speech shouldn't be tolerated... Especially intolerant or harmful speech.

Many people, both anarchists and non-anarchists, would strongly disagree with that statement. And not all of those people are uneducated edgelords whose main argument is that it's a slippery slope.

This isn't really true. You won't be allowed on most anarchist servers unless you agree not to be racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.

So you’re telling me that these platforms, operated by private entities, do have the power to moderate what content they allowed to be published?

I find it ironic that the same people who question whether or not Facebook should be allowed to do this seemingly have no problem with the moderation on Hacker News. Trump’s account would have been restricted within days here after repeated warnings. And yet few seem to question that @dang’s moderation is precisely how we continue to (mostly) have high-level, thoughtful discussion around these topics. Fewer still question HN’s right to perform moderation in general.

And yet when it comes to Donald Trump’s calls—from a seat of power—to overthrow the results of free, fair, and democratic elections so that he can stay in office, we’re supposed to simply throw our hands up in the air and accept it? When he uses thinly-veiled (and sometimes completely open) language encouraging his supporters to use violence to achieve his goals, we’re supposed to accept that there’s just nothing to be done?

Anyone making this argument should be deeply, deeply ashamed.

I'm not active on any online anarchist servers so I can't comment on that. But the anarchists I know in real life, at least based on the conversations we've had, support absolute free speech.

as an anarchist, i can explain that none of us support government restrictions on speech, and i would like my enemies to be as loud as possible so i know who to target.

You probably mean so-called libertarians or something. No anarchist I know online or in real life accepts hate speech in their community.

No, I've only heard of libertarianism in the context of America. The people I know call themselves anarchists. I don't have much knowledge about anarchism so I don't know if there's different flavors of it. Like I've heard of anarcho-communism which must be fundamentally quite different. Based on the conversations I've had with them, my own understanding was that the idea would be almost like Laissez-faire, but even more extreme since there's no government at all.

Almost all anarchists around the world would not consider those people anarchists. Anarchism is anti-capitalist. Please see the history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism

If it's not anarchism then what would you call a completely stateless system that still has a similar free market economy to what we have today? As far as I know, Laissez-faire system still has a state. The group I know is mostly well-off and educated people, not some edgy 16yos. Maybe they've taken anarchism and given their own spin to it. I guess it doesn't really matter. I should have said the "anarchists" I know and some groups I've seen online support absolute free speech.

Most anarchists around the world would say that it's not possible except for mutualists. What you're talking about is what Americans call libertarianism.

I don’t think you should be speaking for anarchists unless you are one yourself & embedded in that community. As a non-anarchist who is sometimes in coalition with them on certain issues I have a very different impression of their view on this matter. I don’t think you can claim their support for your slippery slope / free speech absolutist position.

As I replied to another comment, I'm not active on any anarchist servers, but I know many anarchists in real life. The notion I've gotten from them is that they support absolute free speech. Maybe they're an exception. Maybe it's an Eastern European thing. I don't know. I don't support absolute free speech myself. I just took issue with the statement that it's obvious that some speech needs to be censored, because I know some very educated intelligent people who disagree with it.

For those who may strongly disagree with that statement, I would be curious to hear their counter argument to the paradox of tolerance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

I don't support free speech myself, but I guess it would be that the whole premise is wrong. To think he's right you need to believe that certain speech leads to violence or hatred and that trying to suppress that speech prevents violence and hatred. And even if speech can lead to violence and hatred, some could argue that it's not enough to justify taking away someone's individual freedoms. Like how someone not being able to responsibly drink alcohol isn't a good justification to take away my right to drink it. If you commit violence because of intoxication, you'll get punished for the violence. But it's not a good reason to take away my right to drink alcohol.

The "slippery slope" / "free speech" arguments are boring, and come into play almost anytime Facebook gets mentioned on HN.

"Slippery slope" is also most commonly a fallacy, which a lot of people seem to ignore.

> the fallacy of arguing that a certain course of action is undesirable or that a certain proposition is implausible because it leads to an undesirable or implausible conclusion via a series of tenuously connected premises [1]

Anyone arguing these points, especially related to Facebook, are arguing just for the sake of it. Playing devil's advocate is not a noble cause, and doesn't really add anything to the discussion at large.

[1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/slippery-slope-argument [1]

Slippery slope arguments only retain validity of each link in the chain is demonstrably probably.

Even then, for something like resisting dangerous speech, what does the slope matter? If the original thing is good to do, don't worry about the slippery slope, just make the right decision. Then of it goes to far and you're on the edge of a slope, that's where you fight.

If guidelines about violent speech are abused, then fight to fix it. Don't avoid the correct decision just because doing it right will be hard work.

Because it is so easy to stop the government from doing absurd things once it gets the power to do them? Like kicking in a door guns ablazing because someone might have smelled weed? Yeah, we stopped that the first time it happened, didn't we...

Literally any thing the government might have authority over or acknowledge as a freedom could have things get absurd. So the argument that it might get absurd doesn't mean the thing is wrong. It just means that, likely any action, there's potential for consequences, and you deal with them.

You don't back down from a good thing just because it might be hard to implement. So then it just comes down to whether you think removing speech that incites violence is a good think or not. If you think it's good in itself but could be abused so maybe not do it? No, you do it and deal with the hard questions that come along every time you make those decisions.

"We need to stop any speech that we think is wrong!"

Well, what if the definition of "we" changes? What if you become the minority and the majority wants your speech limited?

The only reason why we have things like gay rights, women's rights, civil rights, etc, is exactly because of free speech. The speech at that time were the minority but were protected by the Constitution.

If we don't respect the rights of those that we disagree with, when (not if) they come into power, they will use those same rights to quash our free speech. And remember that almost half of the US voted for Trump who is demonstrably the worst president in US history. If there is a smarter, more palatable right-wing candidate (ex. Tom Cotton, etc), we really could see a Republican president in office by 2024. And they would use that hammer that the left have been trying to use to quash that free speech.

We have the Constitution and Free Speech for a reason. And it has worked for centuries now.

Again, you're talking about what might happen. If something goes wrong you address the problem. Your argument could be applied to any law: "We can't let towns and counties and states to set speeding limits! If they do, the next thing you know they'll limit things to 40 mph, and after a while 30 mph. And poof! One day you'll wake up and over 5 mph would get you a speeding ticket!"

This internet cliché whereby someone in a debate circle declares something a formal fallacy, and then a million internet commenters turn it into a meme, should stop.

Slippery slopes can be shown throughout history. Trump himself has put us on a slippery slope it seems. No, it doesn't matter that some college debate class student included it on a list of debate fallacies on Reddit. It's an idiom to succinctly describe a chain of causality.

It is absolutely not a fallacy, as Naval Ravikant points out, given the large numbers of slippery slopes that have played out in the historical record. I have no idea why the belief that it is a logical fallacy is so widespread.

> It's an idiom to succinctly describe a chain of causality.

Right, and the fallacy is that it's being pre-attributed to a sequence of events that hasn't happened yet.

Again, it's a boring argument and adds nothing to the discussion.

The point is not that one thing never leads to another in this way, but that the possibility of a future slippery slope doesn't support an argument by itself.

> "Slippery slope" is also most commonly a fallacy, which a lot of people seem to ignore.

I don't ignore it. I reject it outright. Politics especially (and human behavior, more generally) operates on slopes. Allowing x quite literally can and does often lead to x + 1. If x + 1 is unacceptable, then it's perfectly legitimate to oppose x on the grounds that it will produce x + 1 (even if we all could agree that x is itself acceptable).

The fallacy, such that it exists, is that the truth value of x exists independent of whether it will lead to x + 1. You can't disprove something about x by arguing that it will produce x + 1. That's all well and good, but it's not what anybody's talking about when they invoke a slippery slope argument in the context of human systems.

Freedom of speech is important enough to where the logic of disallowing shouting fire in a theater should not be taken for granted. There are few if any black and white cases to be had here - it might seem like that since we are living in times where "reasonable" speech has always been well tolerated and supported, so it seems like a non-issue for us.

The fire analogy is flawed. Nobody is preventing you from shouting fire. If you shout fire and there is not one, you may be prosecuted. This is important because it requires a demonstration of actual harm (not 'my feelings').

>some speech shouldn't be tolerated

I agree that some speech shouldn't be tolerated. But it cannot be Zuckerberg, or Trump, or Biden, or you, or me, who unilaterally decides what speech is fine, and what speech is banned.

>I agree that some speech shouldn't be tolerated. But it cannot be Zuckerberg, or Trump, or Biden, or you, or me, who unilaterally decides what speech is fine, and what speech is banned.

Actually, in my home, I most certainly can unilaterally ban whatever speech I like.

And that's a good thing.

If the price of my freedom of speech (of which controlling what speech is allowed a platform on my property is a part) is allowing Facebook, Twitter or you to have the same rights, I'm okay with that.

I am not, facebook.com is not facebook's home, it's their place of business and it's "critical infrastructure" at this point. It's very different to your house. Zuckerberg and/or you can make rules for your respective actual residence(s) all you want. You have "editorial control" and the associated liability over who comes to your home and what happens in it. facebook.com does not. You will be thrown in prison when somebody uses your kitchen to plan violent attacks, facebook (or Zuckerberg) is not thrown in prison when somebody uses a facebook group to do the same.

I also do not agree that corporations are people, in general.

I won't address your other points except to point you here:

https://www.facebook.com/terms.php

Think of it as the "no shirt, no shoes, no service" rules of Facebook. And they are fully within their rights to have them.

Don't like it? There are ways to change the laws. Depending on what it is that you'd like changed, I'd likely support you.

>I also do not agree that corporations are people, in general.

Sadly (and I'm not being ironic), the law disagrees. See my above comment about changing the law.

The argument about whether it's legal to yell fire in. a theater isn't even relevant because it's the theater who's kicking you out and banning you, not the government. Of course they have the right to do that, regardless of your interpretation of the first amendment.

The argument is not whether or not the theater owner can kick you out. The argument is whether the government can also criminalize the behavior.

Not only is Trump shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater, but he’s been inviting crowds of people to theaters virtually for the sole purpose of doing so.

Yes, people are not seeing the big precedent being set here, If US President's voice is being shut down, one can only imagine how powerful the biased censorship on social media platforms is. We either need to find/create alternate platforms or set strict rules for everyone and not at the whims/moods of these CEO's.

This is no longer just the “President’s voice” being shut down. This is the shutdown of a man who incited a mob to attack the US Capitol.

For example, saying we should march on congress and 'cheer on' congress?

The problem is you will brand anything you dont like as intolerant or hate, and might makes right!

> Especially intolerant or harmful speech.

That is far too vague.

A lot of people over here are very pro-trump, and just use this as a way to defend him.

It's the same reason why anything non-tech gets flagged nowadays until dang removes protects the threads: they don't want to see news attacking their "Dear Leader", so they flag it as non-relevant. If it was a story about a democrat doing something wrong, I'm pretty sure they won't get flagged as quickly.

Dang: would be REALLY interesting to compare who is flagging with their comments in these and other threads.

You clearly don't get the point of free speech.

The problem with prohibiting hate speech is that you can prohibit any speech by calling it hate.

Sure. But this is not the only issue in human experience where nuance or subtlety may be required, and we seem to have navigated many of those other issues okay.

I do not believe this sort of dichotomous thinking is useful.

You can prohibit any speech by calling it obscenity, adult content or spam, but for some reason people are much more willing to argue for special privileges for hate...

This was going to happen regardless of yesterday's events. Anyone working in close proximity to the activist groups on campus knows this already.

Yesterday has provided perfect cover for folks to do what they want to by using their positions in these companies for political reasons.

Unfortunately many folks think the ends justify the means. Patriot act, WMD in Iraq, FISA courts, now arbitrary banning of politicians by morally dubious companies.

What could possibly go wrong?

If you made a list of Trump's top 10 most outrageous posts they would all hinge on some opinionated postmodernist take on his statements.

It's funny how so many conservatives do not seem to grasp the concept of "private property" ostensibly the being the party of private property rights. They only care about property rights when it comes to complaining about the government taking their tax money.

On the flip side, when other entities choose to exert their private property rights in a manner unfavorable to them (e.g. by banning certain users from their servers) they are completely blindsided and insist they are being "oppressed".

Zuck had his Lindsey Graham moment like so many others will over the coming days ... The King is dead ... Long Live the King.

Many were waiting for this moment, and being on the way out I guess it's the most appropriate to take such decision instead of the past 4 years where they may have been hit back. I wonder, though, were will they (as in social platforms, hosting services, any site providing people "speech") draw the line in the future? There's been a lot of foul words online in the past few days. I don't like the ever so increasing extremization of Internet circles, slowly turning into the so called "echo chambers" most fit and aligned for one's beliefs no matter their actual truth, falling down spirals of disinformation. It'll be disastrous if all of us don't realize things displayed on a screen are not a reflection of reality.

This is pathetic, and I would be embarrassed to be a Facebook employee after what has transpired over the past 5 years.

Extremely too little too late. The damage has already been done, and done, and done. Over and over again. Journalism is a husk of what it was before Facebook's algorithms became the primary way many consume news. Engagement as the key performance metric has damaged the human project.

This company cannot be brought to heel quickly enough. I have zero faith in american regulators, hopefully the EU can do something, anything, to lessen the penetrative rot of this company.

"This company cannot be brought to heel quickly enough."

That you can say that and not think of yourself as authoritarian is the reason the US is so divided right now.

I personally know of two companies that actively refuse to interview recent Facebook employees. Of course most companies see Facebook employment as a positive.

My team actively screens out FB applicants.

It's sad that private corporations have to be one who take actions against the president (although way too late), while rest of government continues to hides heads in the sand and keeps on enabling him. Checks and balances?

What’s interesting to me about this is that it’s not so much a Facebook policy change as it is a USG change. FB policy is to allow comments (including lies) from democratically elected politicians in a western government with rule of law.

The latter is at risk so trump is going under the policy of other dictator type leaders where FB is stricter and more willing to remove access.

https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/16/mark-zuckerberg-and-f...

The fact that Facebook and Twitter have taken more corrective action than congress scares me. Unfit to tweet, but he can keep the nukes? How can we expect to keep our republic if congress is so useless?

Pretty certain he 'll start using one of the uncensorable platforms

Every post on this topic goes like this: You can't cry fire in a theater! But we don't want Facebook being arbiters of truth! But we must do something! But you can't cry fire...

Facebook is not a platform to have a voice. It’s a platform that harvests thoughts and publicizes the ones FB most agrees with while censoring those it does not.

This is a slippery slope and, quite frankly, it’s the people that lose.

Facebook was never for the 'People' they never had a chance at 'winning'

> publicizes the ones FB most agrees with

Change this to

> publicizes the ones expected to make FB the most money

and I agree with you. Either way, they should not be an arbiter of public discourse.

> Either way, they should not be an arbiter of public discourse.

They can be, but they should lose their platform status and be treated as a publisher, ie. take full responsibility for content on their pages. You can't have both.

>They can be, but they should lose their platform status and be treated as a publisher, ie. take full responsibility for content on their pages. You can't have both.

I'm sorry. Would you expand on that? I don't understand what you're advocating. Perhaps this[0] might help you to formulate your response?

[0] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...

Yes, i'm saying that this law/rule (or whatever it's called, I'm not from USA) should be changed.

You should be able to choose a status, either "platform" or "published", and in the case of the first, you'd have to leave everything not directly illegal (with rules in place, how to contest the legality in court if the post was removed and the author think it's legal speech - sort of like with DMCA claims), or you're a publisher, where you can decide what content you want and which you don't want, and then take responsibility for the content you've let stay on your site.

Currently we have social networks like facebook deciding that one type of -ism is worse than the other tipe of -ism, and letting one stay while removing the other [0]. If you expand this to politics, you can get greater consequences than just a few people being recist (but since it's against whites and men, it's "ok" in the eyes of facebook).

So yes, sites like facebook and twitter (which generally have a monopoly) should be regulated more, and having to choose their status.

[0] https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/2020/12/03/facebook-ranks...

>Yes, i'm saying that this law/rule (or whatever it's called, I'm not from USA) should be changed.

It's a section of a law. Specifically, Section 230[0] of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

>You should be able to choose a status, either "platform" or "published", and in the case of the first, you'd have to leave everything not directly illegal (with rules in place, how to contest the legality in court if the post was removed and the author think it's legal speech - sort of like with DMCA claims), or you're a publisher, where you can decide what content you want and which you don't want, and then take responsibility for the content you've let stay on your site.

That's an interesting idea. But it's somewhat problematic for several reasons:

47 U.S. Code § 230 (the section of the law in question) applies to all persons/entities in the United States, and to all third-party communications hosted within the United States. How, exactly, would you implement such a rule?

If I decide to set up a github repo, who and how do I inform that I intend to be a "platform" or a "publisher"?

If I'm a member of a mailing list, quote someone else's words and send it to that mailing list, how do I "register" as a platform or a publisher? This isn't an idle question either. This was an actual case[1] that hinged on one particular email to a particular mailing list.

I host several services via my home Internet connection. If I choose (which I have done in the past) to host a Diaspora[2] pod and invite a few friends and family to join, and maybe even federate with other Diaspora pods, how and to whom do I register as a "publisher" or "platform"?

If I "register" as a platform and I have an argument with my sister in-law, and she says some really vulgar/unkind things on my pod. If I remove those comments, am I now in breach of my "registration" as a platform?

>So yes, sites like facebook and twitter (which generally have a monopoly) should be regulated more, and having to choose their status.

I don't dispute your claim that Facebook/Twitter exert a great deal of influence.

However, Section 230 is not what you seem to think it is. It isn't about censorship, nor is it about freedom of speech.

It is a very specific section of a law that says (paraphrasing):

"I can't sue you for what someone else says." Full stop.

That's it. It's not limited to social networking sites. It's not limited to large corporations. It's not limited to websites (both commercial and non-commercial). It applies everywhere there is third-party content. On a Github repo (think bug reports/feature requests), email mailing lists, IRC channels and any other place where more than one person can share bits.

I'm going to say it again to make sure that it's clear why I say that. Section 230 (c)(1)(this is a direct quote now) says:

"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

I will now translate that into non-legalese:

"You cannot be sued because of something I (or anyone else) say."

That doesn't mean that you can't be sued for stuff that you say.

Let's say that we take your suggestion and remove Section 230 protections from "publishers" (whatever that is defined to mean). That won't stop people from posting obnoxious/unpleasant/hateful things.

Rather, it will mostly just stop people from maintaining/setting up other sites (like HN) where people can share their thoughts. If HN can be sued for stuff that you or I say (upvote/downvote/flag moderation like we have here would almost certainly force HN to be a "publisher" under your definition), I suspect they would shut down this site almost immediately.

If that were the case, the only folks that could afford to take on that kind of liability would be deep-pocketed companies like, you guessed it, Facebook and Twitter.

So, doing what you suggest would actually make things worse and not better.

There may well be some form of regulation that is required to rein in the influence of large social networking platforms, and you won't get any argument about that from me. In fact, I find such sites to be so offensive that I refuse to use them.

But Section 230 isn't the proper place to implement regulation to reduce their influence/market power.

I hope that this helps you to understand why modifying/repealing Section 230 won't solve the very real issues you're talking about.

And so, I must regretfully inform you that you are wrong about Section 230[3].

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

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_v._Rosenthal

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)

[3] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...

Edit: Fixed links and link references. Fixed grammatical/usage error.

When you're more or less encouraging a coup, the "fire in a crowded theater" analogy couldn't be more applicable.

Ah yes, either Trump is a cult leader who is threatening the very core of our democracy, or the election was rigged and we're about to get a Chinese style Manchurian candidate in the White House. I'm so glad that the media vigorously looked into these allegations of corruption and fraud, instead of dismissing them for partisan reasons, because then we might have a split, between people who get their information from mainstream outlets believing nearly half the nation are conspiracy nuts or violent bigots, and those who get their news from independent media online believing that half the nation are brain dead sheep or lying sycophants.

The allegations were thrown out by every court they got brought to and by conservative judges as well. It's a farce and you're the sheep getting fleeced.

If it’s a farce, the parent is the turkey getting stuffed :)

They should've humoured them just to shut up the people saying those things then.

I think the partisanship is what's really driving people like this. The Trump/Russia stuff was investigated, why not investigate election fraud too?

It was investigated, and it is not the federal government's job to police this; the law states that individual States are responsible for that.

> The Trump/Russia stuff was investigated, why not investigate election fraud too?

What do you think they've been doing in the courts for the past month?

Trumps own Justice department wouldn't even pursue it.

1. The evidence provided for election fraud was investigated, and no widespread fraud was found. 2. The Trump/Russia stuff was investigated because there were credible reasons to be concerned. The election fraud issue is entirely (and transparently) manufactured, and everyone in power knows it.

They've done both.

- The Trump/Russia situation resulted in the senate agreeing that Russia did collude with members of the Trump campaign in support of Trump. [1]

- Investigations into the voter fraud and election tampering allegations in favor of Biden have resulted in 61 failed lawsuits in state courts on the basis of "no evidence." [2]

- The supreme court has rejected every lawsuit brought to it on the basis of "no evidence." [3]

While the Russia investigation lead to the arrest of nearly every 2016 Trump campaign manager, the allegations of voter fraud across 10 states has led to nothing that could overturn the election.

[1] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu...

[2] https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/elections/20...

[3] https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/121120zr_p86...

> Investigations into the voter fraud and election tampering allegations in favor of Biden have resulted in 61 failed lawsuits in state courts on the basis of “no evidence.”

That’s not actually true. While some may have been dismissed based on insufficiency of presented or proffered evidence to support the legal claim, most were either voluntarily dismissed or dismissed for legal threshold issues (failure to state a claim, lack of standing, unreasonable delay in filing [laches]) which come before considering evidence.

Well thats the problem, the suits were dismissed out of hand. Very little evidence presented. Despite something like 1000 people swore affidavits of violations. They should have taken the cases and heard the evidence. Foremost, I blame the supreme court, it chickened out from hearing the Texas Lawsuit, which was about the state Governors changing the election rules on unilaterally.

If you look at the spikes in vote counts on some of these graphs, its more than enough to warrant a hearing .

Now the people have lost faith in the courts.

No, it wasn't the problem, and you are willfully or blindly misinterpreting what happened.

The complete lack of evidence and lack of anything but witness testimony was the first stage - as soon as any witness was interviewed it became immediately clear that there was in fact, no evidence at all.

Repeating this "things were dismissed out of hand" meme is true only in the sense that if a man came into court and said he was king of america he would also be given very little space to waste the courts time.

Pennsylvania had 200,000 more votes than voters. What do you mean no evidence? Still no good explanation.

Since this is probably going to get flagged, like my previous post. This is what was entered into the record, during the objections yesterday in the joint session of congress. I stayed up watching it. So I'm not making this up.

Maybe, just maybe, you are being lied to:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pennsylvania-205000-votes/

This is just trying to hand wave the discrepancy away with more votes are still the be counted. Its admitting its true, but

“a few counties have not completed uploading their vote histories,”

And the other explanation is a hypothetical explanation of over or under votes. No proof that this was actually the case here.

> Its admitting its true

How is the statement from the Pennsylvania Department of State admitting that Rep. Ryan's claim is correct?

The problem is that there's an implicit assumption in Rep. Ryan's claim that the SURE numbers are complete and represent the actual number of voters who actually voted. If a few counties have not completed uploading their vote histories, then that implicit assumption is invalidated, thereby invalidating the rest of the claim.

> And the other explanation is a hypothetical explanation of over or under votes. No proof that this was actually the case here.

The burden of proof is on Rep. Ryan to show that the over- and under-voting in 2020 is nefarious/fraudulent/malicious. Merely saying that over- and under-voting exists is not sufficient to show something is wrong; one also needs to show that such a thing does not happen in "clean" elections. Pennsylvania is merely pointing out the gap in the analysis here.

Edit: Added missing word

Do you hear yourself? I assume you are a rational person.

Why wouldn't you expect the count of votes entered into a system to be off before everything is entered into the system? Of course it's off.

Hell, why not just launch this claim on Nov 10 and say that the count is off by millions of votes? It's a braindead argument.

See sibling reply, your purported evidence just went up in a puff of smoke.

Although I have a feeling you'd rather wave your hand and say "Aah, Snopes, what do they know, and it's not concrete enough!".

The problem with the "1000's of people with sworn affidavits of violations" is, it seems their understanding what a violation is, are based on misinterpreting (deliberately or not) and wishful thinking. I've seen the videos of people commenting "Look at this security camera footage, they're taking boxes, and those boxes have fake ballots!", without even showing how he came to those conclusions. I could just as easily show a footage of a man walking into a building and claim it's a building where voting machines are stored and he's a hacker with a USB stick that will hack all the machines. I hope all the affidavits were looked at carefully before being dismissed, but it seems like the courts would have work until the sun burns out if it wants to look at every theory.

>Pennsylvania had 200,000 more votes than voters. What do you mean no evidence? Still no good explanation.

Just not true. In fact, there were nearly 7 million votes cast. The total number of registered voters in 2020 was just over 9 million[0].

[0] https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-afs:Content:9887147...

Despite something like 1000 people swore affidavits of violations.

Not sure why the number of affidavits is so important, and how many of these affidavits were from that form people were filling out a form on a website?

If you look at the spikes in vote counts on some of these graphs, its more than enough to warrant a hearing.

Assuming that "spikes" in a graph are proof of anything wrong at all, if the answer is "That's where a bunch of votes were added to the count." then what is the followup from there that necessitates a hearing of any kind?

You could easily get 1000 Americans to swear that Elvis is alive or they were abducted by aliens or just about anything really. Without corroborating evidence, affidavits are meaningless.

Not really, these were for the most part from election workers.

If would be more like dismissing UFO evidence from 1000 sworn affidavits from people that work at the Pentagon.

Do they allege coordination or irregularities?

There are something like half a million election workers. They're just regular people. It wouldn't be hard to find 1000 of them who are willing to lie or can't distinguish fantasy from reality.

I'd imagine more than 1000 of them believe the earth is flat and/or was created 10,000 years ago.

What you're claiming just isn't true. You've been lied to. See the link below.

And don't take my word for it either. Look at the court documents yourself, then make up your own mind.

https://electioncases.osu.edu/2021/01/summary-of-post-electi...

Spoiler alert: it's the first one.

I'm getting quite tired of these false equivalencies.

Trump directed a mob yesterday to storm our Capitol and it sounds like you're being sarcastic about him threatening our democracy. What does he need to do? Burn it down and hang the Vice President for not exceeding his ceremonial powers like his mob chanted?

The claims of the election should be dismissed by rational people, which is exactly what happened in legislatures and courts across the country led by people of every political position except those that want to tear down our democracy for a demagogue and lie to their constituents about reality.

Rhetorically, you are suggesting that Trump is not a cult leader threatening the very core of our democracy.

If that's the position you support, then you have quite a lot of work ahead of you.

Why would the media need to "vigorously look into them" if judges already threw out the cases?

Apparently, one of those groups understood the legal opinions[0] around the legal claims made (most of which didn't include fraud at all) and another group believed and promulgated a bunch of lies.

I'm sure that many folks on both sides believed what they were told. However, one group was told something approximating the truth and the other were told bald-faced lies.

[0] https://electioncases.osu.edu/2021/01/summary-of-post-electi...

Did Facebook take action against the CHAZ/CHOP?

Edit: Furthermore, would suspensions and bans ALSO apply to anarchists and revolutionaries? We know the answer is 'no'. It's clear to me Facebook wanted to drop Trump for a long time and did not do so for fear of repercussions. Now that there will be a new administration it is safe for them to do it.

False equivalence fallacy.

I think you may be confusing the US Capitol Building in DC with the Capitol Hill area of Seattle.

FYI: Fire in a crowded theater is NOT the analogy you want to use if you defend free speech(not that this action violates the 1A)

https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...

I didn't understand that post when it was written and I don't understand your comment now.

How is this different from saying "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" is not a quote you should use if you are opposed to the government granting special benefits and privileges to blacks in preference to whites, because that was an idea that Martin Luther King supported?

Can an idea have any value independently of the cause someone once used it to support?

People use "fire in a crowded theater" as a valid exception for the taking away your 1A rights. "Fire in a crowded theater" was used to as an argument to support government censorship of wartime dissent. Think of what that means. If Trump was planning a war on Iran, you would have no right to speak out against it because you'd be shouting "fire in a crowded theater"

I also can't make sense of the article. The 1A clearly doesn't protect you from prosecution if you deliberately cause a disturbance by shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre. It's an uncontroversial example illustrating that the 1A has limits. The fact that this uncontroversial example was used in support of some controversial arguments ~100 years ago is neither here nor there.

> People use "fire in a crowded theater" as a valid exception for the taking away your 1A rights. "Fire in a crowded theater" was used to as an argument to support government censorship of wartime dissent. Think of what that means.

I'm thinking, but all I can see is an apparently sincere effort to make the argument that Hitler Ate Sugar ( https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HitlerAteSugar ).

So tell me: what does that mean?

"fire in a crowded theater" is nothing more than remnants of an old opinion quoted out-of-context and neither precedent nor basis for anything of the First Amendment.

I'm sure you were advocating for the silencing of BLM leaders who were encouraging violence during recent months too...

Absolutely, where that occured, and unlike Trump, both Facebook and Twitter has no problem suspending and removing accounts of BLM advocates when they made calls for violence.

Sean King... Still on Twitter, advocated for violence in the name of BLM for months to his > 1 million followers.

This was a coup attempt that involved breaking into congress to stop presidential succession. Are you suggesting the two are comparable?

So presidential succession was stopped and congress was killed? No? I think you are making shit up.

>So presidential succession was stopped and congress was killed? No? I think you are making shit up.

And so if I walk into a bank and demand money, but I don't get any, it's not a bank robbery?

That's an interesting legal angle.

i want to add again, this wasn't a coup attempt. You dilute those words and they become meaningless. It hurts the people who have lived through and suffered from real coups.

This was at least very, very close to what they term an "auto-coup" - a coup by a leader who lost an election, thrown in order to remain in power.

this is a fair point, the acceptance of BLM calls for violence, rioting, and looting by the media and Democrats makes this a much smaller event than it would have been otherwise.

What happened was a failure of adequate planning and execution by the police to control an unruly crowd.

Stop saying it was a coup. A bunch of mostly unarmed morons weren't overtaking anything.

it was an attempted coup its stupidity and lack of success don't change that

Did you miss the part where the mob violently overtook the Capitol Building?

These are fascist methods successfully used in the past for power grabs. I was going to explain in more detail but then I saw your HN handle...

> These are fascist methods successfully used in the past for power grabs. I was going to explain in more detail but then I saw your HN handle...

In case anyone was confused about the above (I was), I web searched 'Dirlewanger' and came up with this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Dirlewanger

Is this considered Doxxing?

I'm confused. How is pointing out someone's HN handle doxxing?

>I'm confused. How is pointing out someone's HN handle doxxing?

My apologies. It was an (apparently ham-fisted) attempt at humor.

Also, I wasn't referring to your comment when I said that, I was referring to mine.

My apologies for any confusion on that point.

Edit: Clarified my intentions WRT my previous comment.

Personally I always feel that the "fire in a crowded theater" is too specific to convince people.

Why not use more "every day" examples?

* I can't say I earned $0 last year --> tax fraud

* I can't say "fuck you" to a judge --> contempt of court

* I can't say my software will make you pretty --> advertising fraud

* I can't say you robbed me yesterday --> libel

I know this is a very European attitude, and always gets Americans worked up, but to me as a Dutch / French person, it seems obvious that free speech is not absolute. Just like the right to bear arms does not mean that I can own any type of military weapon.

Free speech exists in the public square, not on a W2 (you could claim you earned $0 last year all you want, just not to the IRS). In the cases of fraud/libel, the specifics matter.

> it seems obvious that free speech is not absolute

We agree on this, but disagree on where to draw the line. Limiting free speech is an endorsement of the government limiting what I am legally permitted to see, read, and hear. I am unwilling to let the government make that determination on my behalf.

> Just like the right to bear arms does not mean that I can own any type of military weapon.

Private citizens (presumably including the founding fathers) actually used to own canons before the creation of a permanent, federal army!

Interestingly, muzzle loaded cannons of that era, whether genuine or replica, are still legal to own in the US without a license as they are considered antiques.

American free speech is way more broad than European free speech, they’re different legally. You could have a similar argument between American freedom of religion and French “freedom from religion”. Not an apples to apples comparison.

Christopher Hitchens (a Brit, can we still call them European?) would disagree with you. If you have a few minutes, check the beginning of this talk [1] about free speech. He treats the exact "fire" example at the very start of the talk :-)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2uzEM0ugY

Hitchens isn't exactly covering himself with glory here. On multiple occasions he defended David Irving's historical work (and not merely his right to publish it).

>I know this is a very European attitude, and always gets Americans worked up, but to me as a Dutch / French person, it seems obvious that free speech is not absolute. Just like the right to bear arms does not mean that I can own any type of military weapon.

As an American, I know that even in the US, free speech is not absolute, nor has it ever been.

And all the things you mention are, in context, crimes here in the US as well.

One of the big differences in the US (not sure about France/The Netherlands), but in the UK it's much easier to prove libel/defamation than it is here.

I actually could say you robbed me yesterday, but if I didn't file a police report alleging that, it would be difficult for you to successfully sue me over it. Because you would have to prove that I knowingly did so and not only intended to cause injury, I actually did cause injury.

However, if I filed a false police report, I could be prosecuted for that -- and if you suffered some injury because I did (arrest/imprisonment, loss of job, etc.), you could likely win a libel/defamation lawsuit.

If there are people who tell you otherwise, they're either ignorant/uninformed or just lying.

It's only applicable if someone did yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater (and there wasn't a fire).

The worst Trump did here was say that people should march on Capitol Hill and "cheer on" congresspeople.

I guess people are assuming this was coded language to incite violence, but I'm not buying it

In the world we live in, with the Trump followers that we actually have, significant numbers of them took it as a call to violence. And that was predictable. Trump knew or should have known.

Yep, but the problem with people commenting there is, that thay don't like Trump, and cheer for his removal.... when the turntables are turned, and someone else is cheering, it'll be too late, because the precedent has been set, and we've let them do it.

That's a false equivalence, because the words of the president directly incited violence and resulted in an angry mob storming the capitol building.

I would hope that if a left-leaning politician did the same that the same precedent would be applied.

> because the words of the president directly incited violence

Do you have those words? I never saw them because they were censored apparently.

Edit: lol HN, actually asking, chill out. Apparently asking for sources is just unacceptable. Here it is in text because I think they truth is important that n it’s entirety:

""I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt. It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us — from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election. But we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You’re very special. You’ve seen what happens. You see the way others are treated — that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel, but go home and go home in peace."""

Have you tried looking for them yourself? It's not really that hard. Here's the video, judge for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBa5b1Xri8w

It is surprising how short sighted some people are. This pendulum will swing, and so will the reaction.

This reasoning means nobody can ever be held responsible, because "What if it's me?" I like to assume the majority of people are good. So even when I support the right thing, I don't have to worry about turned tables.

The people also lose when others abuse free speech to incite violence.

This happens on both sides, but only one side gets consistently punished. Punish them all!

Not just in America. There is horrible shit being posted on social platforms in other languages as well. Antisemitism, extremism...

FB et al. do not care, as long as they make money and gain important friends.

I remember recently the Iran ayatollah promoted wiping out Israel on Twitter and nothing happened. Jack Dorsey dismissed it as "saber rattling" from a country that routinely helps terrorists attack and kill Israelis. I guess that is not as bad as Trump claiming election fraud...

Another example, Spike Lee tried to dox Zimmerman on Twitter, but ended up posting the address of some entirely unrelated couple who received death threats. Again, nothing happened.

Iran is already sanctioned, and is this the “remove the Zionist regime from the pages of time” quote?

Yes, that's the one. Probably ignored because it doesn't have any harmful implications.

I wonder what the implications are as far as facilitating folks who wish to take undemocratic steps that would seem to bring us closer to far more serious restrictions, imposed by those same folks as far as how a democracy is or isn't allowed to operate.

Is it someone's right to use a platform to push an agenda that leads to impacting other people's rights?

>Is it someone's right to use a platform to push an agenda that leads to impacting other people's rights?

Seriously?

>Seriously?

I don't know what you mean by that.

Are you asking whether it's a good idea to restrict a citizen's advocating for their preferred government policy? Shut down think tanks and community organizers? These all push an agenda that leads to impacting other people's rights.

I was asking exactly the question I posted. I think it is far more specific than the question you posed.

As abhorrent as the actions of Trump are, I still think it's also a massive problem when a few private companies or even single unelected individuals like Zuckerberg who effectively control a defacto monopoly of public forums online between them can regulate speech as they please without any checks and balances whatsoever.

Don't get me wrong, in my opinion Trump is a traitor to the USA and democratic societies as a whole, and did incite a portion of his followers to overthrow the elected government and parliament in an attempt to nullify the democratic election results and install himself as an tyrannic leader (and only backed down and told people to "go home" when he saw this would not succeed in an attempt to cover his ass"), and he should be impeached and convicted and removed from office and receive a jail sentence.

But I shouldn't have the power to be judge, jury and executioner all by myself and put people in jail or even regulate their freedom of speech, and neither should facebook or Zuckerberg or twitter, or Trump for that matter. There is a rule of law and democratically legitimized institutions to enforce it, protected by a system of checks and balances, and it's the place of these institutions to make such decisions in accordance with the law.

This time a lot of people will think the ban hit the right person in Trump. But next time it might be somebody less clearly (to us) deserving of such a ban (like a "traitor" Snowden or a "commie" Sanders). What, for example, if social media had been around in the Jim Crow era and the "rulers" of social media had decided that the civil rights movement was to be silenced? Or that "traditional marriage" is an institution that needs protection from "gay marriage"?

Personally I'm having it both ways.

I don't like so few entities making such calls.

At the same time I recognize the issue of how to handle people's freedoms on a platform... when those freedoms advocate for violence or actions that restrict other people's real world freedoms

Why is Trump's 'voice' or anyone else's more important than FB's 'voice'? Is free speech only for some people?

If I come to your house and rant about my favorite subject you shouldn't be able to silence me?

Should Trump (or anyone else) have the right to sully FB in defiance of its management wishes?

FB doesn't have a special responsibility, it's a for-profit business that has an obligation to it's shareholders.not society.

Right now, FB are getting to have their cake and eat it - Section 230 gives them almost complete immunity from how they use their "voice" on the supposed basis that it's supposedly their users' speech and not theirs, including getting to decide which political violence to support, but they also get full freedom to decide which not-their-speech gets heard and by whom based on their own whims. Ordinary humans who aren't multi-billion-dollar corporations controlling one of the main methods of communication do not have this level of free speech rights.

Of course you can have this level of free speech rights, just start a website with a comments section and you can have the same awesome power.

Unapproved speech will be censored somehow, if necessary at the DNS / internet provider / Cloudflare level. Case in point: Daily Stormer.

So? That's how the society works: its moral values are reflected by the actions of those who participate in it. Most people find the Daily Stormer abhorrent so they refuse to provide services to it. It's actually free speech in action since all those people are expressing their view of DS.

See, free speech works!

> "That's how the society works: its moral values are reflected by the actions of those who participate in it."

The gaping flaw in the "social norms" argument is that slavery, women as second class citizens, religious intolerance, etc. used to be a social norms as well, so in those eras one has to suspect the parent poster would be arguing in favor of those as well. It is basically a conservative viewpoint saying that what society believes to be moral at the present time will always be moral, so hearing it parroted by people claiming to be aligned with the left is just mind-bending.

For the record I am a (old-school) liberal.

So, perhaps, by no longer having access to Facebook, Mr Trump's eccentricities may moderate? Facebook does people a service by cutting them off. I honestly see such disconnections as healthy. If only they would cut people off before they are radicalized.

Conversely, Mr Trump is now a free agent looking for a nest elsewhere. There is probably lots of closed door planning happening: "What do we do if he decides to use our platform for 2024?"

My guess is Trump is going to create his own media company to compete/destroy Fox News.

yep, i made the same prediction in another thread. To go further, i bet it will be and livestreaming commentary on inauguration day and probably outperform the actual inauguration in terms of viewership.

I think the opposite will happen. He will be so sad angry that he will retreat into a world which he can completely control. I bet he will spend that time alone inside one of his gold-plated golf resorts.

So while the Capitol is very symbolic, there wasn’t looting, rioting or major vandalism on the part of the protesters (compare to the “Autonomous Zone” and police precinct burning in Seattle.

Does that mean in the future demonstrations and protests that could potentially end up in violence like that be suppressed by Facebook and Twitter? Or can we expect partisanship and see them bless other protests that turn to violence?

Note: I do not condone occupying public buildings like this. That’s unacceptable. But I think that should be applied evenly to all protests and wherever property is destroyed.

Occupying the washington monument is symbolic.

Invading the capitol building to stop the electoral count and intimidate congress into overturning the election results is not symbolic.

What did you think of the Kavanaugh protestors who invaded the Capitol building to stop his confirmation?

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/408169-police-arrest-128...

I’ve always felt that we all just parrot and recycle the same opinions until someone introduces something creative and new into the conversation for us all to contend with.

This is genuinely new example of the hypocrisy of the left. I wonder how the apologists will contend with this.

I've been looking at several different sources, and I can't find a single mention of Kavanaugh protestors committing any vandalism at all. The result of Kavanaugh protests? 128 people arrested.

You're comparing that with a mob of people who violently clashed with the police outside the Capitol, then stormed inside, broke windows, climbed the walls, sat inside offices with their feet up on desks, walked away with "souvenirs", and planted IEDs. The result of that? 13 arrests.

Can you please explain why your comparison is not disingenuous?

Not symbolic, and also nowhere near the same degree of severity.

At worst, the Kavanaugh protestors committed trespass and pleaded to swing voters; whereas yesterday's mob broke property, assaulted police, looted, and had the intent to overturn the democratic process. While flying confederate and Trump flags and tearing down American flags.

From your link:

"Demonstrators wore shirts that said "Believe Women" and "Be A Hero" in support of Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez, who have each accused Kavanaugh of separate incidents of sexual assault. Kavanaugh has strongly denied the allegations."

How many offices did they trash? How many people died? How many injured? How many had pipes, clubs or guns? How many had molotov cocktails?

That'd be zero on all counts.

Um, excuse me? They shattered windows, climbed walls, forced open doors and intimidated people — the very things conservatives told us for months were deserving of vicious police crackdowns.

There are pictures of literal Nazis — like, literal literal — holding up nameplates broken off walls [1]. They broke into offices, left threatening messages [2], made it out safely and proudly showed off stolen items [3].

[1] https://twitter.com/beschlossdc/status/1346971421134741505

[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-supporters-leave-threa...

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/ks29bj/the_man_shown_...

They invaded the capitol with the sole intention of disrupting congress and preventing a constitutionally mandated handover of power to a democratically elected government. This was an attack on the democracy of the United States, not a building. To portray it as anything else is disingenuous.

As someone else mentioned we also had a group attempting to derail the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice earlier in last year.

Did Twitter et al get all twisted in a bunch about it?

Did the Kavanaugh protesters break windows, climb walls, steal stuff, and plant explosives? If they did, can you please point me to a source that shows that, because I haven't been able to find one?

Were the people attempting to derail the confirmation armed and committing property damage? Did they have zip ties to confine government officials? Did they assault and overwhelm police officers on the way in? If not then I don't think the two are comparable.

>So while the Capitol is very symbolic, there wasn’t looting, rioting or major vandalism on the part of the protesters (compare to the “Autonomous Zone” and police precinct burning in Seattle.

Five people are dead.

Dozens are injured, several severely.

A number of those taken into custody were found with molotov cocktails, police-style plastic restraints, pipes, clubs and firearms.

What do you think they were going to do with those molotov cocktails? Drink them?

Or the restraints?

Don't minimize what happened or compare it to other bad acts.

I don't know of any public official (except President Trump) who encouraged or condoned violence of any kind.

Facts matter.

It's not a slope at all. They pushed it off a cliff.

Though the timing aligning with a new set of committee heads in the Senate is more than suspect. Zuck knows how easy it is for the government to break them up and he's trying to make amends for his original sin of not stopping Trump in 2016.

The argument that "this speech is too dangerous" can be made by anyone about just about anything. This isn't fire in a theater. It's political speech and disagreement. If you accept the outcome here, you or your children will one day regret it when their voices are the ones that are muffled.

About time. Lies travel faster than truth, that guy is a volcano of lies and facebook is the kerosene covering the rest of the country (and planet at this point frankly).

This kind of stuff always saddens me because it's a lose lose. It's like "you know it when you see it", and maybe in a certain instance this kind of block is used for good. But often times it just eventually becomes the basis for a bad actor to use against everyone. So what do you do, allow a shitstorm to proliferate due to "free speech"? Or instigate these rules and basically write your own doom eventually...

Both twitter and Facebook are doing a great job of betraying their proclaimed purposes and becoming arbiters of what people can and can't see on the internet. That seems pretty orwellian/dystopian and is very similar to what goes on in communist China, where the government shuts down websites all the time for showing things that the CCP doesn't want people to see. :(

The power of corporations!

And depending on who is on the losing end, people either love it or hate it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who,_whom%3F

The power of the corporations is only a facade. The real power is of the owners of the money, FED, pharmaceuticals, food, etc, that are a few families.

Note that "indefinitely" here doesn't mean they haven't considered when to bring him back:

"Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete."

Been in tech a long time. Been on HN a long time.

Over the past few years reading comments here it seems that the people are already communist and the government is just now catching up. Trump helped avoid it for a short while.

Tech used to be creative, respectful, and open. I simply cannot believe the commenters here are my peers. The double speak, double standards, and vitriol toward anything Trump/conservative related is unbelievable.

Now that the real fascists have power, there is big trouble ahead. Conform or lose everything. Just like the CCP.

Thanks for the good times.

This is delusional. I recommend you set a reminder to re-evaluate this statement in 5 years.

I recommend you address the arguments and concerns without insulting the person making it and calling them delusional. That's not only against HN policies, it kinda emphases OPs point.

Ok - his 'argument' reflects, I believe, a delusion about the state of American politics. Specifically, he appears to believe that Joe Biden winning the previous election is a harbinger for a leftist totalitarian state in America. This is patently ridiculous - he doesn't deploy rhetoric of the radical left, his policies and record are far to the right of democratic leftist parties in Europe and elsewhere, etc. On its face it is a ridiculous thing to assert.

I don't believe, however, that I can convince the poster of their delusion. Therefore I wanted to present the best evidence for it: reality, as I expect it to be, in five years.

Just wanted to say I second your comment. I have absolutely zero love for Trump and his clownish supporters, but the partisanship on display here is truly absurd. I really worry for the future if these are the individuals at the heads of major tech corps.

I agree entirely. I've often gone to the bottoms of comment threads on controversial topics. It should no longer be a +vote or -vote. Most + is orthodox and most - is heterodoxy.

We are seeing the fracture of the human mind. Part of it is simply the lockdowns which prevent us from being able to see and talk to each other openly. I just wrote about this before all the insanity happened:

https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/the-fracturing-of-the-h...

I get - votes and people yelling at me for bad faith all the time in this thread, but I cannot simply ignore it anymore. Someone has to call people out on their intolerance and media fueled 24/7 hate. We are not in Orwell's world, because there is no way Orwell could even make this shit up. This world would frighten Orwell, and when you bring up 1984, some people will even tell you that Orwell supported fascism.

> “Don’t you see the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expresses in exactly ONE word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten” -George Orwell, 1984

The hard left is controlling language. Major dictionaries changed the definition of a phrase because of what a D-Hawaii said on the floor during a Supreme Court confirmation hearing. This is insanity.

"So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause." -Star Wars II

Trump is a genius in one area: using the media to go viral. Fame or infamy, it goes both ways as far as he's concerned. I know we knee-jerkedly want to jump and blame Fox News (mentioned here in the toppest of the top comment), but the culprits are not just Fox News. Fox is terrible. But so is the rest of the 24/7 coverage: Did You See What Trump Said This Time was a refrain that began BEFORE 2016, as a candidate. I remember, anecdotally, pleading with someone, please stop talking about him, you're just making it worse. It doesn't matter how "horrified" you are, you're giving him free coverage.

The numbers show that suffering news organizations like the NYT were resuscitated with massive subscriptions since 2016. MSNBC and the Washington Post might as well be "The Trump Post" and "MS Trump NBC" because it's all they talked about. Why wouldn't they, if it poured eyeballs into their bottom lines.

The media dumbed us down LONG before Silicon Valley, Trump and the rest of the nightmare of the past years. Yes, algorithms made it worse.

No, the popular (as in, seemingly upvoted) analyses here read like the world began four (or was it twelve) years ago and takes place in the Bay Area and Seattle.

Some recommended reading material: Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky, which covers these issues back in the 90's, Matt Taibbi, a media critic, on YouTube "Rising" from The Hill, Useful Idiots podcast, and if you don't mind salivation and rants, Glenn Greenwald.

> Facebook "indefinitely" blocking Trump's account is meaningless theater.

> The Stop The Steal hashtag is still active. Stop The Steal events are "currently happening" ras we speak. And there are Stop The Steal groups with thousands of members you can join right now.

https://mobile.twitter.com/broderick/status/1347228893124702...

Not really competition. People will just use different platforms and not speak or hear each other anymore. We're just going to see a further fragment in our society.

Normally I would be against this kind of "arbitrarily corporate censorship" and think people should be able to have a voice as long as they aren't convicted for breaking any laws. But in this case it seems pretty warranted.

Basically you have no true principles and will bend your values according to what you deem right and wrong.

Which is a slippery slope because if you knew you were wrong, you wouldn't be in a certain opinion and if you are so sure you are right, to the point you don't think the other side has anything valid to stand on, you probably shouldn't be trusted with decisions of this kind that impact people that may not be exactly like you.

Facebook, and it's tendency to create fake reality bubbles around its users in the name of the all important "engagement", is perhaps more responsible for the sorry state of US politics and democracy then Trump himself.

it's amazing how the american right has managed to get sympathy from HNers thanks to their contrarianism. i guess it goes to show - being STEM-competent doesn't mean you have intelligence.

Consider the possibility that people have values very different from your own, perhaps ones that seem utterly foreign and disgusting to you (the feeling is certainly mutual) and that this is completely orthogonal to intelligence.

i mean i think i understand the values at play here

Facebook is not a public space at this time. As such, they have the right to kick anyone off their platform without reason - just as you may choose who to invite inside your home. To those who are arguing on free speech: your argument has no merit. And until facebook is considered a public space, your argument will continue to have no merit. If you would like to give your argument a leg to stand on, then I would suggest you focus your efforts on making facebook and similar platforms public spaces under the law. I think you'll find instances like this will serve you in making this argument.

Until section 230 is reformed, Facebook can't keep banning whoever they want by making certain concepts more broad.

https://www.instagram.com/khamenei.en/

Ironic, right?

Understanding why Khamenei is a bad guy requires more thought and effort than the blind outrage that the traditional media, social media, and celebrity personalities have instilled in millions of intellectually lazy Americans...

No, actually, "understanding" that Khameni is a "bad guy" requires accepting that received wisdom from nearly anyone in American politics or media. It is not a hard position to have; most Americans already have it without any examination.

The jackboots of the totalitarian left are coming down. There will be no free thought under their reign.

"So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause." -Star Wars II

How you reached this conclusion is flabbergasting. Research totalitarianism - at least it’s definition.

Ah, Joe Biden, the jackboot of the totalitarian left. A career of middling corporate-friendly politics was brilliant cover.

"It has not escaped my attention that the day social media companies decided there actually IS more they could do to police Trump’s destructive behavior was the same day they learned Democrats would chair all the congressional committees that oversee them."

https://twitter.com/jmpalmieri/status/1347064818944118784?s=...

The clown prince of social media.

I know there have been constant cries that Facebook/Twitter are being unfair to Trump and they shouldn't be allowed to block his messages. The fact is, they have bent over backwards to allow Trump to post things that other people would not.

The proof of that: there have been people who tweet the things Trump has tweeted (but not via retweet, just typing it in verbatim) and they get blocked for the content of their messages.

Censorship is pretty much never the right solution. And this is indeed censorship.

And nothing of value was lost.

I hope twitter does the same.

Isn't it what China does Censoring those who create violent atmosphere

Isn't it what China does Ban speech in fear of violent atmosphere

> Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.

Which one is it? Indefinitely or for the next two weeks?

I'm confused by why Facebook would suspend Trump, and worried about the precedent it sets - namely that tech companies' leaders and employees, who operate the digital public town square but are not subject to first amendment free speech law, will now censor anyone whom they politically disagree with.

The first reason I feel this is a bad decision is that it is selective enforcement. As an example, in Seattle, we have had BLM and antifa groups encouraging, inciting, and participating in all kinds of criminal acts - illegal assemblies, failure to follow police orders, property damage, physical violence, blockading of highways, arson, and of course the infamous CHAZ/CHOP autonomous zone incident. Why aren't all those accounts also banned when the damage they have caused is much more consistent and much more clearly an act of violence? Why weren't "journalists" streaming coverage of CHAZ banned from Twitch, Twitter, and Facebook for amplifying the message of those criminals? To this day, the 'Everyday March' group in Seattle (who blocks roads/highways) has used Instagram and Twitter to promote and coordinate dangerous, illegal acts daily. Every single day. And yet no action has been taken by big tech to censor them.

The second reason this doesn't make sense to me, is that I don't see clear evidence of Trump "inciting" people to break the law and storm the capitol. I may just be ignorant and unaware, so if someone could share the evidence I'd appreciate it. But as far as I can tell, there is no tweet or Facebook post where Trump explicitly tells people or encourages them to storm the capitol. Even claiming that Trump "condones" this act is a step too far, putting words in his mouth. I agree he hasn't condemned it explicitly, and that is despicable. But I am not seeing how Trump's posts incite violence, condone the storming of the capitol, or would materially encourage further violence. I get that he doesn't have to be explicit to have that effect, but that is not enough for me to feel that big tech is justified in censoring his posts.

Because he will leave the office. How brave!

So what's the truth or the isn't

A single social network shouldn't wield this much power - and I mean not the act of suspending a political figure but the fact that doing that has such a big impact. I'm not saying Trump should be unblocked from Facebook here. It's the fact that him getting blocked to begin with is a big enough deal to at this point probably have hundreds of news articles written about it that deeply bothers me. We handed the keys to the public square to two advertising companies - maybe it's time to get them back.

> We handed the keys to the public square

Not only in virtual spaces.

'In 2010, during a London Assembly planning and housing committee meeting, Jenny Jones, from the Green party, said: “It has taken us eight years to negotiate with More London so that we politicians can do a TV interview outside our own building.”'[1]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/aug/04/pops-privatel...

Every government official should have hired staff to setup official Government ActiviyPub instances. They don't because they don't see past the absolute control of big tech.

Say what you will about current events but when big tech can prevent the sitting President from addressing the people, they have too much power.

Newspapers feel they have an obligation to report what our representatives say, good or bad, but they also have editorials that comment on that reporting. In some cases (like The Economist) reporting and commentary are mixed together. Most newspapers believe their editorials, and how they report the news are critical to holding government accountable, and one of their missions.

I see flagging messages and banning as Twitter (and really all online platforms) version of an editorial.

As far as I know he can still address the people. Presidents were able to before Facebook was invented.

Good. Now they should start deplatforming the other world leaders who are encouraging genocide in countries the US media doesn't pay as much attention to.

What are the chances of Trump enabling an obscure social service? His existence alone should be able to draw a lot of app installs.

or maybe by executive order launch a twitter clone 1st.gov?

What a travesty, this is f*ing rich coming from a guy who wanted to have Xi Jinping as a godfather.

Why is it announced from Zuckerberg's profile page and not from the official Facebook page?

It is: https://about.fb.com/news/2021/01/responding-to-the-violence...

  Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.

With no options left, I wouldn't be surprised to see Trump creating a TikTok account and reversing his executive order ban.

It's 2 weeks not indefinitely, not the same thing at all.

Boy that is going to cut into their ad money for a bit...

I don't know how to feel about this one.

Yes, what Trump said was highly inappropriate, was pretty obviously intended to agitate a bunch of angry protesters, and resulted in a violent and destructive riot. And when things finally boiled over, instead of condemning the rioters he only tried to walk them back to just before the breaking point. That is obviously unacceptable conduct for a president and I think Facebook has correctly assessed the situation when they say his posts' "effect -- and likely their intent -- would be to provoke further violence".

However... it's also important to note that assessment was made in hindsight. Facebook did not block his account or remove his posts until the riots had already run their course. I suspect that is because Trumps posts (at least the ones I've seen) never directly called for violence - even if that was his intent. What Trump said yesterday was not inconsistent with what he has been saying ever since he lost the election. In context yesterday was different, but that context was never considered until well after events had already unfolded.

So what's the precedent here? Would Trump's posts still be a block-able offense if the riots never happened? What if the context were different and he made the same posts on just another normal Wednesday? Does intent play into it? I believe Trump had bad intent here, but how do you prove that?

Ultimately, I have to ask all these questions because I don't trust Facebook. Their business model is based on establishing and re-enforcing echo chambers to maximize engagement and ad revenue. Those echo chambers have become factories for misinformation and social unrest. Facebook's response is to establish vague and inconsistent policies regarding appropriate content as they scramble to de-platform the echo chambers they consider to be problematic.

Praising Facebook here feels to me like praising BP for their efforts to clean up the 2010 oil spill. Except BP's oil spill and subsequent cleanup efforts didn't threaten to underpin democracy and plunge the nation into a prolonged period of violence.

Can anybody recommend a good WhatsApp alternative?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25669864

Signal (over Telegram). Signal is open-source, on GitHub, and run by a non-profit organisation. You can even use your own server if you're so inclined.

Facebook and their ilk aside I wonder how I would deal with this:

If I'm running a service (let's pretend I'm a bit better than facebook please) I would find it hard to keep the Trump account going for the time being:

There's a balance between allowing a form of free speech on the site... and dealing with folks who using their speech incite acts that are inherently undemocratic and if allowed to continue would incite violence, and acts that clearly have no regard for democracy or anyone's rights but their own...

I don't think there's any magic way of deciding this fairly, but I also think it is hard to ignore the implications of allowing for such things.

Imagine for a moment that Trump's putsch succeeded, that lawmakers, under duress, voted to annul the election results and gave Trump a second term. What would you do? Would you protest? Would you organize? Would you revolt? Now imagine that organizing ~potentially~ violent protest is illegal, and censored on Facebook and Twitter and whatsapp and etc. You would be alone, in a dictatorship.

The failure to imagine "attempted coup succeeding" when hearing "attempted coup" is astounding to me.

The folks at thedonald.win - who openly planned this insurrection on that website - give the the lie to your implication that twitter, facebook, or reddit have the power to prevent protest.

America censors its own president. Absurd.

So what platform is Donald Trump go to? I bet his presence is worth even more dollars than Joe Rogan ...

I see a distinct MAGA party arising. The republicans shot themselves in the foot. Every single republican who turned their back on Trump should not get reelected.

I’d say this is really the kickoff moment of alternative social media becoming a big deal. Banning Trump and his supporters doesn’t make them disappear, they’ll simply go to another platform.

HN readers should be happy: Facebook is about to get some real competition.

Zuck chooses to do it when it is certain that Trump is going and won't be of much use going forward. This is just a sham unless Facebook ensures that the platform doesn't provide space to those indulging in malicious propaganda.

We are still not deploying effective measures to counter the mass spread of dangerous lies. President Trump may have joined Parler yesterday.

I don't like Zuckerberg but I agree with this action. Trump is inciting violence and Facebook is not obliged to be an accomplice.

If pointing an armed and angry mob at the Capitol itself isn't over the line, nothing is. I don't like Facebook and haven't used it in years but this is the right move. Four people are dead today because they listened to Donald Trump, and FB and Twitter bear some responsibility for handing him that megaphone. Stopping him from calling for further violence is the bare minimum they can do here.

I keep seeing 'armed mob' posted everywhere without any evidence. What were they armed with? I watched the whole thing live from many angles and I saw plenty of people doing dumb shit like breaking windows and such. The majority just waltzed in took a tour and walked out. They even obeyed the velvet ropes in the entryway.

edit: looks like at least one person was inside the capitol with a firearm and four others were arrested in DC for open carrying firearms.

I've heard a lot of people mentioning the pipe bomb, but that was at the RNC, so I don't know either, I have yet to see anyone substantiate it.

Also the DNC.

"Armed" does not necessarily mean gun-carrying. I saw footage of an individual smashing AP camera gear with a baseball bat, for example. They didn't break those windows with their bare hands.

There were 5 arrests for firearm offences, a cooler full of molotov cocktails and 2 pipebombs.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/07/ashli-babbit...

This is what I was looking for thanks. It does not specify that the firearm offenses were on the capitol and I know a few of them were from people marching while open carrying off the capitol grounds which is illegal under DC law.

The molotovs is a tidbit I didn't know about thankfully no one actually used them.

> I know a few of them were from people marching while open carrying off the capitol grounds which is illegal under DC law

If you knew this then why did you ask about whether it was an "armed mob" in the first place?

Because they weren't arrested attacking the capitol. I just saw confirmation in this thread that at least one person was arrested with a firearm who had entered the capitol so I corrected my original comment.

How do you feel about this video? https://twitter.com/PhilipinDC/status/1347028917685800961

I see a cop get pushed over then helped up by someone in a MAGA hat. I also see some scrumming with the police which is assault. I still don't see any weapons or any use of weapons on police. This scene doesn't look all too different than scenes we've been witness to for the last 6 months since June with protestors clashing with police.

It really looks like this guy has a gun holstered on his right hip. But he definitely has a fist full of zip ties and looks prepared for more than a brief tour. Forgive the source, Seth sucks, but the picture is real as far as I know.

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1346977323086729218

> They even obeyed the velvet ropes in the entryway.

They did not. There was video of protestors both moving the ropes, and there is video of protestors on the opposite sides of the ropes. Both at least in NBC's coverage. (Unfortunately, they've made their coverage private on YouTube, so I lack a link presently.)

(Sibling comments cover the "armed" aspect well enough.)

Here's a list of items that are prohibited on the Capitol grounds, in the Capitol and visitor center, in the buildings and the galleries:

https://www.uscp.gov/visiting-capitol-hill/regulations-prohi...

The gallery list includes: Firearms to include replica guns and ammunition. Weapons, to include, but not limited to, Black jack, sling shot, sand club, sandbag, knuckles, electric stun guns, knives of any size including razors and box cutters, martial arts weapons or devices. Explosives and explosive devices to include, but not limited to, Molotov Cocktails, components of a destructive device, and fireworks. Mace and pepper spray. Aerosol containers. Non-Aerosol spray except for prescribed medical needs. Battery operated electronic devices to include cellular telephones, electronic keys, cameras, video recorders or any type of recording devices. Electronic medical devices are permitted. Cans, bottles, food, and food containers, including all liquids. Creams, lotions, and perfume. Strollers. Briefcases, backpacks, and suitcases of any size

Why aren’t we blaming anyone that died at CHAZ/CHOP on BLM?

It’s hard not to see the bending-over-backwards academic justifications for why we shouldn’t be suppressing riots last year as anything other than the pretext and lead up to what’s happening now.

I’m not calling legitimate protesting riots - rather the media was fully complicit with ignoring blatant rioting last year. Buildings were burning and government buildings were being swarmed and destroyed.

Riots needs to be suppressed with law and order - full stop. Unfortunately many seem 6 months late to this concept.

Partisan Gamesmanship

Exactly. BLM rioters created enormous damage yet I never saw any news that BLM/Antifa are indefinitely blocked from FB.

Yeah! They should suspended the CEO of ANTIFA from FB, Twitter, Parler, WhatsApp, Telegram, and the Dominos app!

The ANTIFA CEO is sitting in his fortified command center underneath the Appalachian Mountains as we speak, cackling and torturing a Trump supporter to death for not calling xir by the proper pronouns. Our joke of a liberal government is doing nothing to eliminate this dangerous threat to our guns and precious, precious strip malls.

This is whataboutism. Trump organized the rally that became the riot, he told them himself to march to the Capitol. He is responsible for what happened after that.

> Trump organized the rally that became the riot

By that logic, BLM led to the destruction of cities and neighborhoods across the country for months on end.

This isn't whataboutism, it's a call to suppress riots and call the activists and their sympathizers from last year to account for their bias.

Yeah I live a few blocks away from where where ANTIFA was supposedly terrorizing and burning. The only danger to the public was the tear gas the police indiscriminately used and drifted into apartments and retirement homes. You are full of it.

Got it - all the buildings in Minneapolis burned to the ground was just "justice."

I'm not following you, what's the link with BLM?

BLM is a response to (repeated) racist murders from the state and general systemic discriminations. Yesterday's riots were a response to losing a democratic election.

It's hard not to see why one is legitimate and the other isn't.

> It's hard not to see why one is legitimate and the other isn't.

Do you think rioting occurred last year?

What I'm saying is that insofar as government is concerned and law and order - rioting is never justified and must be met with police force.

> rioting is never justified and must be met with police force

Actually, some governments are so oppressive that sometimes rioting is all the citizens have left. Isn't it what the second amendment is for anyway?

I'd even support yesterday's "revolution" if it was justified and the election was actually stolen. But falsely calling an election stolen is dangerous. It's the equivalent of a false rape accusation at a country scale.

And oppressive governments do meet riots with police force. Sometimes they straight up kill the people, yet they keep on rioting because it's the only way they can defend their rights.

I think if you look at any of the cities over the past year, there's example after example of spineless mayors, etc. unwilling to protect their citizens and society generally from chaos and petty thieves.

People powerless while they watch everything they worked for literally go up in flames at the hands of criminals. There's no justification for that, and it's a far cry from "justice."

Disrupting law and order - by definition - turns you into a criminal.

I'm not defending any side of the political spectrum, so it's interesting to see how people interpret this argument.

Manifesting for social change never justifies the type of chaos we saw last year, and if you think otherwise, don't complain about what happened to Congress.

> Disrupting law and order - by definition - turns you into a criminal.

That's only accurate if both the law and the ones who enforce it are reasonable and fair.

People feeling powerless is what fuels riots to begin with. I don't condone the looting and destruction, especially when it hits bystanders. But it didn't start that way. The movement against racism did go through peaceful actions to make itself heard. Their demands were pushed back and the discriminations continued so they had to escalate.

They were cornered into that position.

The protesters who invaded the Capitol were not discriminated against. They just lost an election. No one would've died if they protested peacefully.

You can't equate these protests, just like you can't equate self-defense and murder. The context is important.

You’re justifying riots.

I'm justifying some riots indeed.

What would you do if you were oppressed by your government? Some governments even make protesting illegal and rig the elections (if they're even having elections at all).

Desperate times call for desperate measures, unfortunately.

Let’s consider that your perception is fallible and possibly wrong. And hypothetically assume your concept of “the oppressed” is off to some degree.

You’ve admitted to justifying and even supporting riots on the “left.” And that sets the stage for rioting on the “right.”

Political violence begets political violence and you’re (knowingly or not) supporting the dissolution of civil society.

Sorry, I forgot to follow up. I'm quite enjoying this exchange.

> Let’s consider that your perception is fallible and possibly wrong. And hypothetically assume your concept of “the oppressed” is off to some degree.

Obviously I'm not always right. But neither is the rest of the world. Neither is the government. But then what? Should we just let everyone be?

It's a moral dilemma for sure, and I don't think there's a foolproof way around it. Similarly, you want to allow people to kill in case of self-defense but don't want to allow murder. Or censoring Nazi speech while keeping as much freedom of expression as possible.

You can't say all killings are bad (or good), and you can't say all speech is good (or bad). There's a moral judgement to be made there.

I'm not saying rioting is without risks or consequences. I'm just saying they tend to happen when people run out of alternatives. Then they're justified, and only if the cause is good.

Because tribal affiliation is completely unassailable by logic.

We are all still tribal, barely evolved monkeys, and our manifold cerebral cortex is merely a tool to invent rationalizations for the tribal emotions that well up from our limbic system.

This is, of course, on both sides.

On HN, the effect is even more pronounced, because "I am smart, therefore my opinions are more valid than average" coincides with "I have concocted this justification for my hypocrisy" to grant even greater surety in personal belief.

The LessWrong folks worked pretty hard to inform people of these sort of biases, but the effort thus far has completely failed.

Thanks for this! Someone gets it.

Please, get a grip. The other side goes up in arms when somebody KNEELS. The outrage at the protests earlier this year were obvious, perhaps you weren't reading the news.

When, exactly, did Joe Biden incite CHAZ/CHOP to take over the Capitol Building in order to overthrow lawful election results in a last-ditch attempt to cling to power?

This was a coup attempt.

> the media was fully complicit with ignoring blatant rioting last year

Ignoring? They practically endorsed it as a totally reasonable means of change! The fact that the Trump supporters didn't Riot and very few of them entered the Capitol goes to show the vast majority of those Republicans do believe in law in order!

If the situation was reversed, had Trump won and Biden was challenging the election, you can be assured DC would be completely on fire like it was back in May. The Capital Building would be burning right now.

Yea you don't hear a peep from the "hate has no home here" side when Cathy Griffin holds a beheaded Trump in effigy.

You could only imagine the pearl-clutching if someone made the same image with Biden.

> You must log in to continue.

Click "not now" and you don't have to.

No such button available here.

It's not a button it's a text link (probably grey/hard to see) at the bottom of the dialogue

Yeah, if there was one I would've noticed it. Nothing to click like that, just a login page. Now it loads fine though, I guess I fell into some anti-fraud/DoS system.

I don't have an account and could read the post, no problem.

I was able to read it once, but subsequent re-visits try and force me to log in (I don't have an account).

All it took was one failed coup

Mark Zuckerberg:

The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden.

His decision to use his platform to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol building has rightly disturbed people in the US and around the world. We removed these statements yesterday because we judged that their effect -- and likely their intent -- would be to provoke further violence.

Following the certification of the election results by Congress, the priority for the whole country must now be to ensure that the remaining 13 days and the days after inauguration pass peacefully and in accordance with established democratic norms.

Over the last several years, we have allowed President Trump to use our platform consistent with our own rules, at times removing content or labeling his posts when they violate our policies. We did this because we believe that the public has a right to the broadest possible access to political speech, even controversial speech. But the current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.

We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great. Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.

Crazy part is that one unelected guy (Zuckerberg)has this kind of power. To make this decision at his discretion.

I mean it reads like something a head of state might say.

Nonetheless, at least they are doing it.

To make the decision on who is allowed to post on their website?

No, not that. Basically monopoly power, like with J.P. Morgan.

Facebook has become immensely powerful. It is controlled by Zuckerberg. It's a new domain so it's still unregulated but I'm sure that will eventually change as social media is becoming more and more of a public good or utility.

The power to create Facebook? You have the power to create a social platform as a private company. Then you can as its owner make decisions regarding the platform you created.

No, not that. Basically monopoly power, like with J.P. Morgan.

I thought right-wingers respected private property rights? Surely you don't hold contradictory and illogical opinions, because the right also prides itself on "facts" and "logic?" Is this not true?

He was elected to be the CEO by the FB board of directors. Want a say? Buy enough FB shares.

No, not that. Basically monopoly power, like with J.P. Morgan.

I love how all these social media companies are dumping Trump AFTER they made money off of him. This is capitalism.

Trump’s legacy—the shame and the opportunity https://archive.is/0KxLJ

Zuck the PHP dev thinks he's Emperor.

He is the CEO of the company and gets to decide. You understand that facebook is a private company, right? Trump's 1A rights aren't being denied any more than Fox news is denying AOC her 1A rights by not giving her her own show.

Isn’t he, though?

Sadly yes, because people kept giving is platform power. Funny how they keep calling Trump the god emperor, when it's really Big Tech and Big Media. Just look at the comments on this post. No one is complaining about censorship; they're all claiming it should have been done sooner!

I bet no one one here has looked at one alternative news source for the past four year and eats everything CNN/MSNBC/FOX/NPR feeds them.

This is how the freedom to speak fails. I hope the big take away is that people start moving further and further away from these big platforms, and take their friends with them.

He is into Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome let him have fun. Also he thought that Google Plus was Carthage and Facebook was Roman Empire well it turned out it was kind of like that but only in Social Networking industry, Google is still Roman Empire of the internet.

If you think Trump and/or his army treats this as a defeat, think again. Once Biden is in office, social media companies will become rubber stamps for the establishment or be faced with breakup. You wanted one-party rule...you're going to get it.

At risk of feeding the troll, want to bet? You win if, as of January 21, 2029, the Democratic party has retained continuous control of the Presidency, Senate, and House of Representatives and controls the legislatures of at least 2/3 of the states. I win if not. Loser has to admit they were being histrionic and has to preface every public political comment they make for 5 years after that with "I have a tendency to exaggerate, so feel free not to take me seriously"

It depends on which direction we goes. If the elections really weren't stolen, then we will see things even out. If they were ... well you're wrong about Democrats retaining control. It's not Democrats vs Republicans.

It's establishment vs everyone else.

Let me ask you something: Do you ever think we'll see another person not blessed by either the Bush or Clinton family on the Iron Throne of the Whitehouse? Trump was the only on in my lifetime.

From the 1980s until 2008 we always had a Bush or a Clinton in the Whitehouse and until 2012 Clinton was still Secretary of State. Two royal families have ruled America for my entire life until 2016. Obama and Biden are clearly part of House Clinton.

America is just a monarchy with term limits.

I think you're forgetting how bitter the 2008 Democratic primary was. The Clintons did everything they could to keep Obama from being the nominee (well, as we saw in 2016, not quite everything they could do). Clinton was made secretary of state as an olive branch to keep her end of the party secure.

I think you can comfortably replace "establishment" with "idealogically representative of the inner standard deviation of the american people", with some skewing for party politics, which is pretty much what a representative republic is supposed to do. People also miss that the parties frequently shift to accommodate their candidates, such that any candidate of a major party de facto becomes the establishment for that party (within reason).

Also, Bill Clinton was in no way an establishment candidate in 1992. Nor was Reagan in 1980, nor particularly was Carter in 1976. Skipping their associated unelected presidents (who by nature of being VP were part of the establishment), Kennedy probably also was not particularly establishmenty (but he cheated). Nixon was a solid component of the Republican establishment, Eisenhower had literally run the country's military, and FDR was president for so long it's hard not to think of him as defining the establishment. Before that, my picture of electoral history gets fuzzy.

All that to say, saying things are run by "the establishment" is too ephemeral to be useful.

> America is just a monarchy with term limits.

Yes, that's literally the intent of the executive branch as conceived by the founders. Even the term limits were feature creep.

Yep, very true. I can't disagree with anything you've said. I do remember 2006 very well and the "I landed under sniper fire" from Hillary.

I agree Bill Clinton was outside of it, but he got in and they started their entrenchment. Prescott Bush spent decades preparing for his son to become the president, but it was his long term intention.

Trump started planning this in the 80s and his extended family are also much easier to listen to and less ... squawking. There's a good chance they'll rise despite all of this as another political family like the Kennedys.

Kennedy wasn't corrupt enough, and got taken out by his own people, and somehow to this day over half of the world believe it was just one guy with an axe to grind.

The actual undercarriage of what is going in is deep and complex, held by powerful people who will rip each other, and the peasants, in order to maintain their control and power.

Just look at how people on here are ripping at each other, accusing every Trump supporter as being a Nazi or fascist. I think back to the quote from Wargames about thermonuclear war .. the only way to win, is not to play.

The censorship you don't like always starts out as the censorship you like.

Whatever you think about Trump, it is not a good thing that 3 companies (Twitter, Facebook, Google) have the ability to effectively silence the democratically elected US President.

It's the "first they came for the.." poem.

Zuck continues to prove what a scumbag he is. Trump has been fear mongering and spreading lies and disinformation for years.

Zuck crashed the car and killed a few people, but now acts like he is doing the right thing by selling it for scrap metal.

He has been scumbag from day one.

I guess allowing protestors to put their feet on Pelosi's desk is a worse crime than an ethic genocide [1].

[1] https://time.com/5880118/myanmar-rohingya-genocide-facebook-...

Now that Trump doesn't serve any value to Twitter or Facebook the bans come. Before they justified his behavior because he brought them viewers. It may be cynical but too convenient to play the morality card now.

Anyone who was confused as to the purpose of Facebook and Twitter should hopefully now understand: they exist to make money.

I don't care. That's a fair argument for a slave-wage worker making a moral decision that walks the line between them having a job or not having a job. That's not a fair argument for a company like twitter who is trying to improve their 3+ billion dollar revenue.

If you're a multi-millionare choosing dollars over ethics, you are in the wrong. Plain, clear, and simple. And I hope every tech-leader who has profited from this dumpster fire is labeled in history as such.

I'm not sure that's entirely fair - and I'm someone who has no time for facebook OR twitter. I think Twitter has destroyed western journalism and facebook has been at best complicit in the growth of hate groups around the world.

All that being said: Until November of this year, he wasn't "just Donald Trump" - he was the PUSA. There's a very big difference between banning PUSA and banning DJT. Now if you want to argue they should've done this the day that the results were in back in late November - sure. But the previous 4 years? I'm not sure that was a path either company was willing to test and I can't entirely blame them.

Also: Trump serves them no value? Are you crazy? The viewers haven't gone down, and won't go down in any significant manner. For all the bluster from right-wingers of "we're making our own social network" - they all still somehow seem to be participating on both platforms.

He is still the president today, making your argument dubious.

I guess if you don't see the distinction between someone who has 4 more years in the office with broad political support from his own party, and someone who has 2 weeks left and appears to be trying to incite a coup on his way out while being almost universally shunned by allies and foes alike, I'm not sure what I can say to change your mind.

Exactly my thinking. It's just too obvious to me. Now that it's too late they're playing the "moral" card.

Worst possible option. Unmute Trump, or mute all election conspiracists including Fox. Force the vandals to organize on Parler amongst the people they scammed, and don't let people get sucked in on accident while they were just trying to look at baby pictures.

This half-measure is the most dangerous of all paths. Depending on your interpretation of the 1st Amendment, you have to do either A or B. This is short-term survival at great long-term cost.

That's fine. We've got Gab :)

Pff, Gab's got nothing on freespeechextremist.com

What exactly Trump said to spark this? All information I found is rumors, that he posted a video asking people to respect the police, stop the violence and go home.

Anyone has seen the video and texts in question and can tell me?

EDIT: mass downvoting people, seriously? I didn't even defend Trump (or Biden), I asked a question, I am from Brazil and wanted to know what happened.

Claims he won in a landslide and that the people invading the Capitol in Camp Auschwitz t-shirts were special and he loves them

i think the issue is how the video was worded.

"please respect the police"

and then

"you are completely right to be angry, it was stolen. i love you and you're special"

the first comment is def a calming attempt, followed by an immediate call to action.

"""I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side.

But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt. It’s a very tough period of time.

There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us — from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election.

But we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You’re very special. You’ve seen what happens. You see the way others are treated — that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel, but go home and go home in peace."""

Transcript and video here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25668841

Here's the video, he called them evil https://tv.gab.com/channel/realdonaldtrump/view/we-have-to-h...

The video (if it's yesterday's video you're talking about) started by saying that the election has been stolen, it was a landslide on his favor, yadda yadda, only to end with a variation of "stay peaceful and go home now". it was 20% call to peace and 80% reinforcement of the idea that democracy has been hijacked to get him out.

I've seen the video. It says to go home, but it also says that the election was stolen and that Trump won in a landslide. On balance it says more to encourage the mob than calm them down.

Especially in the context that the mob walked from a Trump rally where he personally encouraged violence on legislators for taking their victory away.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-07/how-donald-trump-rall...

I found this page that shows Trump's deleted tweets: https://factba.se/topic/deleted-tweets

I don't know if the Facebook posts were the same though.

People branding his flags and hats stormed the Capitol walls and Senate floor, as he delayed an eventual reiteration that the elections were rigged, they should be furious, but now they should go home and that he loved them very much and were very special people. There were nooses propped up, people died, and elected officials were bunkered. His close sources also reported that he watched on TV with manic joy at what people were doing in his name. Hence, the ban and mass 11th-hour resignations.

That's not relevant to the question he asked.

> What exactly Trump said to spark this?

No? I did respond with the President’s response, and his response is called fomenting - the reason for the ban in question.

> an eventual reiteration that the elections were rigged, they should be furious, but now they should go home and that he loved them very much and were very special people

Maybe add an attribution <quote> -Trump, otherwise it looks like the random ramblings he goes on.

Everyone is replying about the videos online or after the fact. What I believe the large media outlets are referring to when they reference "inciting" is his words at protest rally he held earlier in the day at which suggested that supporters should march over to the capital. This is after weeks of previous remarks trying to delegitimize the election and suggesting someone should stop "them" from stealing the election.

I don't have the exact words in front of me, but his speech prior to the mob occupying Congress exhorted them to march to Congress. Given the context of the sedition that happened afterwards, the speech may have crossed the line set by Brandenburg v Ohio of incitement to "imminent lawless action" [1].

I believe during the same speech, he also criticized the Vice President for following his Constitutional obligations instead of (as the President would prefer) taking unilateral decisions to throw the vote to Trump instead.

[1] To be clear, the test in Brandenburg v Ohio is a test of whether or not the government can make the speech outright illegal to speak. This is necessarily a very high bar, and it is much higher in the US than most countries in the world. The bar for whether or not private individuals and organizations should feel compelled to disassociate from an individual is clearly lower. That one can seriously entertain that the President's speech is surpassing the high bar of outright illegal speech should indicate how reasonable it is for others to consider it beyond the pale.

By "this" do you mean the bans on facebook or twitter? I saw the video he posted on twitter, he said something like

please be peaceful, please respect our police, we had a beautiful landslide victory that was taken from us, it was stolen i know, but you have to go home now, you're special and we love you but you have to go home.

I'm specifically not using quotation marks because I'm recalling it from memory. I'm sure you can find a backup of it somewhere.

If you're asking about what sparked the actual attack, Trump specifically told a crowd at a nearby rally to march on the capitol before the event. He's also been saying the election was stolen for the past two months every time he's gotten in front of a microphone.

I don't support how Trump has handled the election. Before, after, during. We would all be better off if he would stop this and uphold our tradition of peaceful transition of power.

What I'm not seeing the media talk about is what difference does or does not exist between a group of people breaking into the capital (a political event at a political location) vs. cordoning off parts of a city, burning businesses, etc. If you don't recall, in June of last year, parts of Washington were quite literally on fire.

Without that discussion it greatly appears that they just support one group and their ideas but not the other, all the while calling others divisive.

The difference is massive. Destruction of property is an inconvenience. Literally interrupting the Congress' Constitutional duties is a whole new ball game. It is essentially the difference between vandalism and sedition.

> Destruction of property is an inconvenience.

You never have been poor, have you?

Historically, part of the reason arson is considered such a serious crime is because it's basically attempted murder: you're doing something that's likely to result in someone dying and recklessly disregarding that fact, and at least one person was in fact killed by the fires started in cities throughout the US (possibly more). Not that this got much attention from the mainstream media... think I heard about it due to checking the local press there.

In just a few weeks, a president will take office who ran in part on his support for those rioters.

Zuck > Jack

Zuckerberg redefines the word "indefinitely".

It's easy to start this with Trump because he's outrageous, makes a lot of people uncomfortable and makes spurious claims. But soon it will be every conservative politician (except of course the ones who want regime change in the right places), and then all "leftist extremists" who defy the whims of megacorporations. Those cheering this on are simply demanding a world run by technocratic oligarchs and homicidal communist dictatorships.

Rightwing posters on FB/Twitter/HN: "It is our right to organize an coup on your platform!!!1"

Start your own goddamn website! Zuck and Jack don't owe you anything.

[edited] For some reason I can't delete my own comment that's one minute old. I guess because it already got downvoted and commented. Learn something new every day!

Cough Fox / Murdoch Cough

Unilateral power moves... on moderating their own platform?

I don't think we want facebook making these decisions for themselves, but without adequate regulatory guidelines, they are in a no win situation.

No fan of Trump and I try to be militantly centrist, but how is Trump's baseless rhetoric about election fraud any different than almost every Democrat politician's endless claims that Trump was [eye roll] a "Russian agent"?? Both claims are absurd, but how exactly is one "incitement" while the other is just normal course mainstream news?? Facebook of course provides no specific explanation about their decision. But how would calling the president LITERALLY a Russian spy not qualify as incitement under the same basic logic? I'm just getting tired of all the brazen double standards. It's entirely possible to hate Trump and (a) not go completely overboard about what he does and (b) not pretend the left doesn't also have some disturbing pathologies.

I'm sure this will get about a thousand downvotes...

Solid point. I never saw Twitter tripping over themselves to ban mention of the pee tape, which was clearly a blatant fabrication.

Detractors will be glad a president doesn't have an expansive voice, but the flip side of the coin is that one day it may be you, or a loved one, who is affected by similar actions for engaging in the wrongthink du jour.

From the look of the allegiance of the newly certified admin, it's not hard to entertain the possibility that in some distant future it may not be possible to criticize say, China, or Bill Gates, without facing repercussions comparable to denying the Holocaust–the difference being that this time, your social graph, preferences, biometric data, and metrics of online behavior are held against you, as a warrant.

Private companies and private interests can conveniently play the role of the data collection and profiling arm of the coercive capability of governments, or they simply use governments as proxies to exert coercion directly (as is the case with 'mandates'), if allowed to do so.

Eleventh-hour posturing - Zuckerberg knows which way the wind has turned.

Gotta move with the political winds ehhh zuck?

The entire reason the Cambridge Analytica thing happened was because Zuck made moves for politics. At least that was my theory. I spell it out here:

https://battlepenguin.com/politics/facebook-politics-and-orw...

Thanks for the link. I appreciate it.

I cannot believe it took them this long to realize the immense amount of harm Trump has been causing via social media. But I guess "better late than never" applies here.

Facebook has done this now because he isn't a threat anymore. Before there was a fear of imminent executive orders against Tech Giants

Now I have even fewer reasons to log in to Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, etc all have the capability to silence the leader of the free world.

What a time to be alive!

By what definition is this silencing

He can't talk on those platforms anymore? The opposite of talking is silence

I have no love for Trump but does that not scare anyone else?

If it's good enough to have access to nuclear buttons, why not Facebook ? Confused by what is happening in US.

Anyone else not logged in to Facebook find the "See more of Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook" pop-up a bit disconcerting?

IMO, this potentially opens up Facebook Inc. to securities fraud lawsuits. Corporate executives by default have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder returns. They don't have to abide by this, but if they take material action towards other goals, then they must clearly disclose it in public communications. (E.g. a non-profit company can't pretend that it's not to potential investors.)

It's pretty hard to justify how banning Trump benefits shareholders. Without a doubt, his precense drives user engagement and therefore ad revenue. There's no credible threat of boycott. It's pretty clear executives made this decision in the interest of democracy rather than maximizing shareholder returns. Facebook has never disclosed this consideration on its SEC filings. Therefore under American corporate law, that opens up management to liability.

I'm not taking a stance whether this is good or bad. But I do think that politically motivated security fraud lawsuits against Twitter and Facebook are eventually inevitable. Not least because political opponents will heavily subsidize the plaintiffs, even if the case doesn't look likely to win.

"Corporate executives have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder returns"

My understanding is that that's an oft repeated myth - https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

Corporate executives do not have a fiduciary due to maximize shareholder returns. If the shareholders and board of a public corporation want to quit making money and just throw massive parties all the time until the corporation runs out of money, there's nothing stopping them from doing so.

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

They don't have an absolute duty to maximize returns. But if they're taking deliberate and material actions that go against shareholder interests, they are required to publicly disclose that.

For example there are non-profit corporations, and of course that's perfectly legal, but they're not allowed to masquerade as if they aren't. The key test for securities fraud is advance and public disclosure.

It's funny you bring up the party example, because that's exactly what Tyco did. And it resulted in a $3 billion securities fraud payout.

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna18677004

The Tyco executives were sued by the SEC because they didn't disclose the loans and acted in a way the shareholders didn't approve of in a massive way. Note I stated "If the shareholders and board..." in my comment, so that's totally a different scenario from the one I mentioned. In my example, everyone knows there's a party happening and the majority of shareholders agree with it. So long as everyone knows what's happening and the majority agrees with it, they don't have to bother trying to make a profit. They don't have to bother to make returns. If the shareholders decide buying Maseratis for everyone is what the company wants to do, there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

Corporations don't have to maximize shareholder value. Corporate actors need to be beholden to the interests of the shareholders, but that does not mean they need to bother to make a profit. Most publicly traded companies do focus on making a profit, and most people buy shares in companies with the expectation they generate returns. Nothing says this has to be the goal.

I'm simply going to state a very plain truth.

A publicly traded company has silenced the current Lame Duck President.

Guild wars when?

This is a dangerous short term move. In the end it may create a division and popularize other social medias where this content and worse will still be available in an unmoderated space.

I don't think it's going to play out that way.

The problem with Facebook and Twitter is that everybody is on Facebook and Twitter. Some alternative comes up (let's call it Foo) that lets Trump speak freely. How many Facebook people are going to move to Foo to hear Trump? (Remember that the value of a social network is proportional to the square of the number of people there, and nobody's on Foo yet.) Sure, some will go, and Foo becomes a nest of die-hard Trump supporters. And over there, they get worse, more hardened in their position. They also don't get many new converts, because if you're not already a hard-core Trump supporter, why on earth would you go to Foo?

Is that better or worse than the current situation? I think it's better, because it shuts down the recruitment pipeline.

The popular vote for the presidential election was 51% to 47%. There are more than enough disaffected conservatives to allow Foo to not just survive but even become a roaring success, particularly if boosted with endorsements from leaders in that party. To believe that deplatforming people "shuts down the recruitment pipeline" for a political movement with such broad popularity is wishful thinking.

Like gab.ai and Parler? LOL.

Maybe they should F start banning conspiracy theorists!!!

They did start shutting down Q

Comments here are awful. “It’s interesting” - this is just useless. Tell us why it’s interesting. Engage and tell us your position on this matter.

"indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks" What the hell does that mean?

At least 2 weeks, then reevaluate at the point.

They don't know how long, but it will be at least two weeks.

So why didn't they say that?

That is what they said.

Two weeks, maybe more.

The transcript of the video:

”I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt. It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us — from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election. But we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You’re very special. You’ve seen what happens. You see the way others are treated — that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel, but go home and go home in peace."

This is a Rorschach test for what you want it to be.

> We had an election that was stolen from us.

That's a lie, regardless of what you want it to be.

That's literally what's been disputed. Your opinion doesn't make it fact. The courts have literally said they will not hear any testimony at all, both the 7th circuit who decided they had standing but the case had no merit, and the Supreme Court which decided Texas had no standing in the only venue available for States to resolve conflicts with other States (a state cannot sue in another state court).

The Supreme Court could have taken the case and simply ruled. America is upset because no one is listening. Every means of relief is full of cowards.

It's a lie in the same sense unicorns exist is a lie. No evidence justifying the claim has been presented in court, despite ample opportunity. This tells us the persons making the claims had no valid evidence.

All that exists is self-justifying propaganda.

>No evidence justifying the claim has been presented in court, despite ample opportunity.

Can you please point me to a court case that allowed evidence to be heard before being dismissed?

All the cases had to present enough evidence to allow there to be a chance of a favorable verdict. If the cases are dismissed it's because even if favorably interpreted the claims did not meet that standard. One cannot just say "we'll show our evidence later, just believe me for now".

SCOTUS rejected Texas for standing. Wisconson and PA SCOTUS both rejected for standing and laches, multiple states had courts immediately dismiss because they said they were not the correct court for this and in the cases I saw immediately offered the paperwork for the appellate process.

Which fraud cases were actually lost vs dismissed for technical or procedural reasons?

If your claim is "the courts proved no fraud" you need to show me where the courts actually investigated and heard evidence. Otherwise, I can't agree with your claim.

Right, that was a case that didn't even state a claim that could be addressed. If your case lacks standing then there is literally no evidence for it that could work.

What they were doing there, of course, was trying to use SCOTUS to relitigate claims that had already been shot down in state courts.

That all of the fraud stuff is bullshit should have been obvious from soon after the beginning. The claim of fraud was made, but the evidence to justify the claims was a constantly revolving circus of nonsense. It shows they reached the position that fraud must have occurred not because they had evidence of fraud, but because they didn't like the result.

I like how the courts have treated Trump so brutally. His thing is complete disregard of facts or reason. The courts are the polar opposite of that, so of course he failed utterly there. His normal modus operandi of dishonesty is something judges are there to destroy.

I will add: repeating this lie would now be providing aid or comfort to an armed insurrection, a felony that can get you up to ten years in prison.

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