The tweet might be disagreeable, but it is still an important statement from a foreign Government. Twitter has no right to be 'Ministry of Information'.
This is one of the reasons I think old-school forums are superior in terms of "web hygiene". You have a group of moderators, each responsible for a clearly defined section and a userbase small enough so rules are still enforceable. And the people running it are not an untouchable megacorporation.
[0] I don't actually have a newsletter.
Twitter could just let the tweet exist for people who personally choose to follow the Chinese US embassy at no cost to other tweets. I mean, it's from a national government's embassy, their angle is not hidden at all.
Now they open themselves up to all sorts of questions, are they softer on the Saudis? On Israel?
Getting into picking and choosing which foreign governments are allowed to post, and which messages they'll countenance, at additional expenses for their mod team? Twitter has a foreign policy?
You'd obviously see similar arguments about keeping Trump's account. What if the leader of a country calls for violence? Keep it because diplomacy?
As someone else mentioned and I now agree with, Twitter isn't an arm of the government. It's a U.S. company that has rules. Government officials can use any platform they want to get their message out. Companies can mostly do whatever they want with their own platforms.
Honestly, this sort of action just seems like a return to the status quo; you can say what you want, and people who read a lot of embassy press releases might see it, but good luck finding a newspaper who’ll cooperate if it’s abhorrent stuff like this.
Twitter has to obey the law, other than that they don't owe that embassy anything.
You might be surprised to know most 4chan boards are very tightly moderated.
Do you have the slightest evidence for this? Census data shows that Uighur population doubled in the past 30 years, because this population hasn't been subjected to the "one child policy" among other things.
This is a war of propaganda, from both side. None is particularly more believable than the other. proceed with caution.
> For decades, China had one of the most extensive systems of minority entitlements in the world, with Uighurs and others getting more points on college entrance exams, hiring quotas for government posts and laxer birth control restrictions. Under China’s now-abandoned ‘one child’ policy, the authorities had long encouraged, often forced, contraceptives, sterilization and abortion on Han Chinese. But minorities were allowed two children — three if they came from the countryside.
Anyway, a world where China's tweet is up and this link is the first reply to it strikes me as far better, in discourse and the availability of truth, then a world where I know I'm only allowed to read this article and China cannot defend themselves.
I am afraid this isn't propaganda unlike the above tweet.
I find it weird to denounce one as propaganda but not look into who wrote this. A lot of the anti China sources are based on his or US and/or weapon manufacturers funded sources.
In this case the fact the tweet was taken down made headlines, but if censorship like this is becoming the norm, as it looks like it is, then these issues potentially get no exposure or discussion.
That seems more dangerous to me.
I used to agree with this line of thinking, but I believe the past dozen years or so of the information age have made it abundantly clear that simply having the truth on your side and making a rational case for it is not even remotely sufficient to counter the spread of misinformation.
Honestly, I'm not sure that free speech as a concept will be able to survive the information age. It seems as though any society holding it sacrosanct might be doomed to collapse from divisive pressure both internal and external. I hope I'm wrong about that, but only time will tell, and interesting[0] times they will be.
[0] In the apocryphal chinese curse sense of the word, if that wasn't obvious.
I'm confused, then why did you say this?
> I used to agree with this line of thinking
Unless I'm misinterpreting this, you seem "not to longer agree" with the merits of free speech. If so, then why do you hope to be wrong about it eventually disappearing?
> the past dozen years or so of the information age have made it abundantly clear that simply having the truth on your side and making a rational case for it is not even remotely sufficient to counter the spread of misinformation.
Even if I agreed with this—which I don't—the answer to this hypothetical reality is definitely not to start removing actual information.[1]
For instance, having tweets like that exist would be good counterevidence to all to apologia of certain bad actors that goes around, even here in HN.
> Honestly, I'm not sure that free speech as a concept will be able to survive the information age
Usually the first ones silenced are the ones promoting censorship. That's what I'd usually say anyway, but it is pointless; I would be silenced eventually too and I don't want to be silenced, even if it happens to me after it does to the ones who are "inadvertently" asking to be silenced.
> It seems as though any society holding it sacrosanct might be doomed to collapse from divisive pressure both internal and external.
Do you have historical evidence to back up this claim?
All in all, my hope is that we find easier, better ways for people to fact check, instead of removing data wholesale. Language is the basis of civilization, so restricting communication is not the way to go. Improving it is the way to move forward; it has always been so, I think.
[1]: And to note, I'm not saying that what was said in that tweeted article wasn't an awful lie. The information is not the content, the information is the fact that it was said at all.
I still believe in the merits of free speech as regards reasoned good-faith open debate and communication, what has changed is that it is now clear to me that bad-faith propaganda without regard for reason cannot be countered by reason, and that such communication is in fact significantly dangerous.
> Even if I agreed with this [that misinformation can't be countered with reason] —which I don't— the answer to this hypothetical reality is definitely not to start removing actual information.
If recent events haven't convinced you, I honestly don't know what will. I don't see any way around having to remove the underlying (mis)information in order to prevent its spread. Events have shown that merely tagging misinforamtion as such is not effective, and that's without getting into an argument about who gets to judge what is and isn't misinformation.
> Do you have historical evidence to back up this claim?
You mean aside from the increasingly violent divisiveness of politics in the past dozen years? Not really. I'm not intending to prove it exhaustively in my post so much as to say that it seems like it might be the case. I welcome evidence to the contrary.
> All in all, my hope is that we find easier, better ways for people to fact check, instead of removing data wholesale.
People have many methods to fact check right now, but it has been shown that people prefer to ignore information that runs counter to what they want to be true. People can be lead to water but can't be made to drink, it seems. Indeed, the information age has made fact checking more accessible than it has ever been in history, yet we have seen recently that people will attempt to overthrow the government based on outright fabrication and even call for the hanging of an otherwise politically aligned individual for disagreeing with them.
These two sentences cannot be true at the same time; one is either in favor of free communication or one isn't. There are many ways to name the idea of "I'm okay with speech as long as I deem it to be in good faith/not dangerous", but free speech is not one of them.
It's the entire point: "I might hate what you say, but I'll defend your right to say it."
> If recent events haven't convinced you, I honestly don't know what will.
Why would anything convince me of the idea that something I deem to be the basis of progress in civilization, is actually not so?
To give an example: The church had significant power—even over the state in vast swathes of Europe—in the middle ages, and they were pretty censorious. Yet the renaissance still happened, in no small part thanks to the printing press and the huge boost it gave to the sharing of knowledge.
Interestingly, the reformation also happened around that time, and with it brought quite a few religious wars, with both groups making claims that don't sound all that unlike to "the other side is spreading falsehoods and there's no other way to stop them".
Nowadays, catholics and protestants seem to be mostly okay with each other, and I'm sure today's conflicts will eventually become a thing of the past too. But it will not be thanks to censorship.
> that's without getting into an argument about who gets to judge what is and isn't misinformation.
This is an argument against your point, not in favor of it, I think. Who's the arbiter of what's misinformation? Twitter or any of the other gigantic and "evil"[1] corporations?
> You mean aside from the increasingly violent divisiveness of politics in the past dozen years?
Interesting, many claim that misinformation is at fault of that divide. Just as many instead claim that it's siloing, filter bubbles and echo chambers the real culprit.
> I'm not intending to prove it exhaustively in my post so much as to say that it seems like it might be the case. I welcome evidence to the contrary.
But the burden of proof is on the one who affirms, not on the one who denies. Believing something just because it seems like it might be true and because one hasn't looked for counterevidence can be unfalsifiable. To wit, one might just believe it and that's that.
Which is, of course, one's prerogative. Free speech and all that; everyone is free to believe anything.
> People have many methods to fact check right now.[...] Indeed, the information age has made fact checking more accessible than it has ever been in history
Case in point. There might be many ways to fact check and it might be more accessible, but clearly not enough, for whatever reason. For example, in this case, if it were easier and faster, you could have more readily looked for evidence of your "any society holding free speech as sacrosanct is doomed to collapse" claim, I think.
[1]: Well, they're "evil" as long as the discussion is not about free speech but instead about any of the other unethical things they do. When the subject is censorship, many people are in their favor, it seems.
Sure, fact-checking has never been so "fast or efficient"... But it clearly is still not yet fast or efficient, or perhaps promoted, enough.
But even that aside, I don't understand what's the point I apparently missed. I can only think that the implication is that fact checking already is as good as it'll ever be and, even assuming that that was true (it isn't), then we should just give up on free speech and resign ourselves to censorship? Well, I didn't "miss" that point, I just don't agree.
> not even remotely sufficient to counter the spread of misinformation.
However, allowing the tweet to be removed - especially when its consequences are so critical - takes away the only tool we have at our disposal. It may not be enough, but the conclusion we ought to reach from this should be that we need more of it, not less of it.
Worse, it makes the situation murky by placing a veil over the initial communication, because the tweet's effect of having been seen has already occurred. Obfuscating this information after it has already seen the light of day adds to its dark powers and makes disinformation harder to stop.
Hasn't that been the case for all of human history?
Not to mention the population most affected by this can't challenge it since they're being decimated by forced re-education camps where they are sterilized by the same government that tweeted this
It's a little tone deaf to ask why it being challenged is preferable in light of that isn't it?
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This is getting so old so quickly in the last few days.
I'll take the flak from people insisting the traction here is totally organic and has nothing to do with current events and that I'm just trying to derail things with "orange man bad":
This wouldn't have made front page as quickly before Trump's suspension. A quick search shows out of the last few months this post already has more points than any other twitter removal post.
Their removal of an entire campaign wasn't even a blip: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/technology/twitter-chines...
At the end of the day Twitter left a President's account along for 4 years through hundreds of violations of their platform, petty insults, vague threats to entire nations, etc.
They finally blinked when that person led to 5 casualties after a mob attacked the Capitol.
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For the slippery slope to matter, there needs to be a slope.
Twitter has demonstrated their extreme restraint in censoring anything remotely deemed as official.
People can keep forcing this angle of how "dangerous" it is that they're willing to remove only the most egregious instances of rules violations on their private platform but it's just not true.
It's their right that was cemented by the Supreme Court because some lady didn't want to bake cakes for gay people, and the discretion in applying that right is excellent.
You can talk about hypotheticals where they go off the deep end and start censoring everything... but by that logic the US government can go off the deep end and start censoring print media. Nothing is immune from doomsday hypotheticals.
Censorship is not a solution, it's the problem. Both in China and in Silicon Valley.
If people don't want 'big tech' to be 'Ministry of Information' stop using them as such? The Chinese government has plenty of channels they could use instead.
It’s like denying someone electricity. Sure we can do without. But society is now set up such that not allowing someone to use electricity is beyond the pale.
Social media has made themselves indispensable and as such they owe access to whomever they’ve extended access to, unless the users violate local laws.
In any case, I’m willing to listen.
> It’s like denying someone electricity.
In some parts of the United States being denied utilities can (and does) lead to death as a result of exposure. I don't believe comparing this to deplatforming from the internet is a good faith argument.
> It may not be exactly indispensable now, but they want to become such.
So they're not now, but they want to be, so we need to treat them like they are? That's like saying we should apply monopoly laws to every company in a market because they're trying to grow. When Twitter has a monopoly on the distribution of speech, I'll agree with you. In the meantime, even without social media, there are more ways to deliver a message than there ever have been in the history of mankind.
As has been mentioned over and over the last few days, freedom of speech means you have the right to say it, not the right to broadcast it.
> In that light I think in ten years when they are your bank and whatever else
I say this semi-sarcastically, but when I can't spend my money because I've been deplatformed from twitter, I screwed up more than them.
Without getting into the point of the conversation[1], taking the most extreme interpretation of someone else's words and argue against that would be the no good faith argument in this case, IMO. The HN guidelines encourage to steelman the other person's point and argue against that; you seem to have done the opposite.
In other words, the other person didn't argue that removing access to social media was akin to killing you (like it would be for a few people if they didn't have access to electricity), but that it would be a huge inconvenience (like it would be for most people if they lost access to electricity).
[1]: I'm starting to not see the point in discussing the merits of free speech or what constitutes free speech or censorship. I believe free speech is fundamental, and for that reason it's anyone's prerogative to think otherwise. Getting into that discussion at all is also a bit ironic.
>>there are more ways to deliver a message than there ever have been in the history of mankind
really resonates with me - its a lot easier now then it ever was with "letters to the editors" or "public access cable" or whatever other medium you pick. Even getting a ham license and taking your message global is easier then before.
By that logic, MS Windows licenses should be free and Wal-mart should be forced to stay in every location it killed off all the competitors. Maybe home depot and ikea too?
But MS windows isn't free, and box stores close locations. TBH, I find these 'mostly monopolies' a lot more disturbing then social media companies.
Fortunately, we aren't seeing such actions yet, so we don't really have a large need for such laws. But yes, if such actions happened, then that would be bad and we should make that illegal.
You mean, be successful?
> It’s like denying someone electricity.
Like electricity? That's a laughable assertion.
Thankfully you are completely mistaken about what the law is.
It's not much of an improvement if we just have a privately owned Firewall.
Now I feel we are making quick brash moves in a moment of excitement and drunkin power, with no judicial oversight. In our collective hangovers we will begin to realize the true ramifications of tech companies deciding what is fair speech and fair thought at its inception, way before a movement, momentum or Legal judicial oversight is even possible.
- Their own website.
- (self-published) books and/or periodicals
TBH, I don't know and I don't care...
Twitter, FB, and even HN are not government agencies, and it's really getting tiresome to hear people complain they should act like one. I don't even use social media outside of imgur and HN. Its really getting annoying listening to whining about how so and so can't use their favorite echo chamber any more.
What happened to the conservative stronghold position that companies can refuse service as they see fit? Hell, isn't jack a buddhist? Maybe he's just started banning stuff that offends his religious beliefs? (As far as I know, he's still the majority owner of twitter, so he can basically call the shots.)
In short, there is no 'right to be on XXX' (FB, twitter, whatever) and private companies can and will de-platform you for a variety of reasons.
ps - thanks for the link. Sounds more like trying to justify the Uygur persecution then anything else.
Entering into a contract ('creating an account') is probably something you shouldn't do without reading the terms.
"copyright is merely a conspiracy thrust upon us", so its perfectly fine to pirate software.
Also, any code I make public will be under terms _I_ find acceptable - what 'everyone knows' really doesn't factor into the equation. You're not entitled to set usage terms for my work.
Oh, and respect for the rules IS required - or you get de-platformed. For examples see half of HN's front page :-P
edit: formatting - need more coffee
edit: actually, I didn't...copyright is a criminal offense too, I think ? "up to 5 years in jail" ?? oh well, my bad.
> The user must click a button or check a box. This action helps confirm the user's agreement of the terms.
https://www.upcounsel.com/are-website-terms-and-conditions-l...
It's not just you either; I've seen comments with 'False.' strewn around this site and it sounds (to me) equally as cold.
Just a friendly note. You're neither a liar nor is your comment false.
I admit, I agree that "Lie." was a little on the cold side. I find that when people blurt out something so obviously and verifiably false that they are either being lazy or facetious which also does not "lead to a constructive conversation". Perhaps if I had the ability to downvote it I would have done that and moved on. Not an excuse, just an explanation.
I just see it a lot here and I pay (way too much) attention to the words/phrases people use, and that one bothers me especially for whatever reason.
https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/glorification...
"This Tweet is not in violation of our policies".
Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/twitter-says-it-...
I think in a democratic society we accept certain structures and laws. If the government declares a group an enemy of the state, then I think it’s fair to comply with that law. Making your own laws is not though.
However, just the other day there was hooplah about GitHub not allowing access from Iran. So it’s like people want to eat their cake and also have it.
It might be different if Twitter had a monopoly on social networks, but that's not the case.
China is not declared a foreign enemy by law and yet the US government is actively using banning and sanctioning their otherwise legally operating companies. If they're not a foreign enemy, do they not have rights in the US?
This whole thing is only shades of grey. Pretending it is black and white makes an honest conversation about it impossible.
So while not an enemy, they do engage in anticompetitive activities and we should counter them.
Now that becomes complicated when you deal with authoritarian regimes whose local laws may significantly violate international law (severe human rights violations, etc).
But that’s only half the deal. The other are the one sided onerous and coercive terms applied to foreign/international companies.
There are two main possibilities of why Google almost pulled out completely from China. One was safeguarding IP, the other is that at the time they cared a bit more about their ideals.
> I think that was precisely their point?
Is China our enemy?
And with this joke of an army is good enough to kill free speech on the net. That's almost as tragically comical as the floatsam in the Gulf of Tonkin that caused millions of deaths, but it's happening right now.
So now you are back in the position of making a judgement call about whose laws permit free enough speech. There's no black and white line to draw here.
Difference in free speech between countries is not some linear continuum that gets gradually fuzzier when you get closer to Russia, Saudi Arabia and China. It varies a little, countries have idiosyncrasies, then there is big discontinuity.
Now let's start going through the other countries and tell me how this isn't a spectrum. Where does Malaysia fall on your bright line? Turkey? The Philippines? Iran? Thailand? Belarus? Brazil? Egypt? Eritrea?
I guarantee you that attempting to draw a bright line will absolutely run into fuzzy edges and judgement calls.
Twitter did not prevent them from stating anything. Twitter employees simply decided they want to have no part in this. Are you saying they should be forced to publish this tweet?
The logic here escapes me.
It is a distinction with no real meaning to me, in this case.
If I was an employee at Twitter working to expand the reach of my platform, and the platform was being used to brag about genocide, then I would feel partly responsible for normalizing that behavior.
If you don’t agree with it, for moral reasons or otherwise, you’re free to provide your own service.
"Parler, the "free speech" social network, reportedly removed a post by Lin Wood, in which the pro-Trump lawyer threatened violence against Vice President Mike Pence.
"Get the firing squads ready. Pence goes FIRST," wrote Wood, according to Mediate. "
https://news.yahoo.com/parler-removed-violent-mike-pence-170...
I can easily find tweets that are violent that stay up for weeks after being reported. It feels like Twitter is being held to a different standard than Parler and that is my issue.
I'm willing to bet that it's going to be amended, just like the EU version of it was.
Consider this precedent :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama
> The Court rejected that contention, noting that ownership "does not always mean absolute dominion." The court pointed out that the more an owner opens his property up to the public in general, the more his rights are circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who are invited in.
In its conclusion, the Court stated that it was essentially weighing the rights of property owners against the rights of citizens to enjoy freedom of press and religion. The Court noted that the rights of citizens under the Bill of Rights occupy a preferred position. Accordingly, the Court held that the property rights of a private entity are not sufficient to justify the restriction of a community of citizens' fundamental rights and liberties.
Twitter has terms of service - that in and of itself is not equivalent to a sidewalk opened for all to use.
It is illegal, due to common carrier laws, for a phone companies to engage in certain actions. They are actually forced to accept certain customers.
These existing laws that apply to phone companies could be expanded to apply to other forms of communication networks.
If this was P2P messaging I'd agree. But that's not the case here.
>By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods now known or later developed (for clarity, these rights include, for example, curating, transforming, and translating).
You could possibly argue that things like email or telephones won't censor people, but if foreign governments tried regularly calling us to send propaganda, they'd get blocked.
Any sorting or recommendation algorithm makes a choice about what ideas should be signal boosted and which ones should be hidden.
You visit twitter to see twitter's take on what's important
China is free to publish its nonsense on its own channels. why should Twitter agree to be a propaganda platform for China?
Twitter can't police every post, but if a post gets a million views and is a blatant lie about human rights abuses, it's a bit silly to argue they should let that slide because it's an 'important statement from a foreign government'.
If the NYT tweets about this statement, and attaches the proper context based on generally accepted standards of proper journalism, it wouldn't have been an issue. You can talk about things without being a propaganda piece. Hitler advertising in the NYT in the WW2 shouldn't be accepted. Journalists writing about something Hitler said and putting it in the context (i.e., mentioning the human rights abuses), is fine. Apologies for the obligatory nazi reference but it makes explaining the principe so much easier, even if China isn't as bad.
There are not enough people holding the Chinese government's nose to the shit they're dropping.