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Government positions are on the frontline of the policy making debate and the execution of it, paired with how humans communicate imperfectly, it's doomed to be controversial. If anything we should give more leeway to politicians to express themselves in areas of contention.

We in fact already do that, just not uniformly. The media run defense for one side while distorting and assuming* the worse of the other. We have plenty of examples of the media covering the exact same thing but coming to different conclusions based on the political leaning.

It's so tiresome to point this out and get immediately gaslighting replies.

Totally agreed. Look at Teddy Locsin, top diplomat from the Philippines. He's sick and tired of naval incursions by his ambitious neighbor so he went on quite a vulgar rant against them.

How about we don't allow politicians on social media at all? Let them use their own official websites to communicate with the public. No commenting or replying allowed. They should not be allowed to edit old posts, televised and recorded political speeches should be archived and kept on the website... and all of their media should be kept up on that site forever.

There's literally zero need for politicians to go on Twitter or Facebook at all. They should only be allowed to have written communications via official channels with official statements. Everybody knows where to go to read the official statements. Then they can't accuse anyone of censoring them. There's nothing stopping people from posting links onto Twitter or whatever other SM you want to use.

Whether or not that would be better for society, it would very much violate constitutional freedom of speech. There is no "how about we don't allow" in this case. Or rather, the way people would have to do that is through a constitutional amendment.

It would also set a bad or ambiguous precedent. Are TV, radio, newspapers off limits too? If so, what about the annual State of the Union address to the nation? What about the (yes, small) group of people who don't/won't/can't use the internet?

It also wouldn't really help all that much: As you said, nothing stops normal citizens from posting links: similarly, nothing would stop them from posting to SM everything their favored politician writes on their official site. It might stop the specific politician from posting stuff, but that just means it would take a few extra minutes to be posted by someone else.

>> Having clear rules that apply to all users and Facebook

> No, no and NO again! There needs to be rules much stricter for those in extreme places in society - the president is not an "ordinary" user and should have much stricter rules to adhere to, as should be expected of elected officials.

I'd argue for the reverse. The statements of a political figure must be evaluated in as positive a light as possible. Otherwise you end up with every single statement they make being grounds for removal (e.g., "We need to fight against the special interests!, oh no, he's suggesting we fight!).

I'm not much of a fan of lower standards for authority figures.

There's a reason the statement "acting presidential" exists. We generally hold people in power to a higher standard in this country, and rightly so. "We need to fight against special interests" has no context. If the preceding 10 minutes was talking about the civil war - then yes I would be extremely concerned that the President went from talking about war to starting a "fight" with someone.

If the previous 10 minutes was talking about financial reforms, then IN CONTEXT, the president is talking about a very different kind of fight.

I have no time for people who try to dodge responsibility by claiming the context of a statement doesn't matter, on the flip side I have no time for someone who takes a one-sentence snippet out of context to try to hang someone out to dry either.

IMO that's the problem with what I can only describe as the 'twitter generation' we're currently experiencing. Everything is a 140 character snippet and context is completely lost or discarded.

> There's a reason the statement "acting presidential" exists. We generally hold people in power to a higher standard in this country, and rightly so

When did "we" turn into the current governing structure of Facebook?

Exactly. The product never gets a say in what is done to/with it.

They hate our freedoms led to 20 years of war.

It didn't lead to 20 years of war, it was used to sell 20 years of war.

I stand corrected! You are absolutely right, wrong choice of words.

Presidents have always acted unpresidential but the difference is that Twitter and TV didn't exist then. Lincoln was notorious for using profanity, more than a few (Including Jackson) killed someone in a duel. While some presidents have been more controversial, and outspoken than others, the idea that there is a "well mannered" presidential archetype is a myth.

None of your examples are on a public stage for a mass audience.

It's different.

What you say to the crowd has distinctly different impact than what you say "in the locker room" to an acquaintance.

But if you then brag about your locker room conversation to a journalist while on the record, that then become in the public stage.

also, the issue with the access hollywood tapes wasn't that it was "locker room talk" that got public, it was that what he said was morally pretty disgusting. people were mad about what he said, not the manner or forum in which he said it

profanity isn't a real conduct issue, though, unless the president is using it in speeches or in diplomacy in such a way that it makes the country look bad.

and I doubt many people who dislike trump would accept jackson as an archetype of acceptable presidential behavior.

I tend to agree but there are exceptions such as the Philippine foreign minister, Teddy Locsin, who told the Chinese Navy to "get the fuck out" of their waters via Twitter.

Acting presidential went out with the Clinton administration- it was widely commented on at the time (see the commentary around him appearing on Arsenio Hall), but the media loved the cachet/ attention too much to let it get beyond the Sunday morning talking head shows.

I spend too much time on r/politics.. It's mostly people getting outraged together about contextless headlines, quotes, soundbites, articles, and etc. Mostly.

It happens here too. cough basecamp cough.

Isn't that just proving the point? Powerful figures should absolutely be more careful when using words like "fight" out of context because a certain percentage of people may very well misinterpret that as a call to violence. The platform evaluating it in a certain way doesn't change what the rest of the audience is going to evaluate it as.

> Isn't that just proving the point? Powerful figures should absolutely be more careful when using words like "fight" out of context because a certain percentage of people may very well misinterpret that as a call to violence. The platform evaluating it in a certain way doesn't change what the rest of the audience is going to evaluate it as.

No, no, no! The answer to idiots misinterpreting words literally isn't to dumb down our speech. That would be double plus ungood.

tact != dumbing down

If anything, it's the opposite.

It's too bad politicians don't have a way to express their policy views to everyone in as much detail as they need, spanning as many hours as it takes. Oh yeah, they do LOL.

I wonder how long it'll be until we have the first "big brother" politician that has web cams in their office and is transparent about every decision they've made?

>The answer to [less knowledgeable people] misinterpreting words literally isn't to [simplify] our speech.

Yes, it is? For the biggest example, Have you ever done child care? Kids may not understand whatever complex metaphor you're trying to use, they're not "idiots" for being that way, that's your responsibility as the adult to explain what you mean to them or use a simpler phrasing. Some kids may not even be ready for the explanation and you'll have to wait until they're older to use the complex phrasing. Yes it's unfortunate that for some this pattern continues into adulthood but they're also not "idiots" for being that way, not everyone can be an English major.

I don't think the use of a word like 'fight' should be treated differently for powerful figures/politicians - it feels a bit arbitrary. Why not treat Facebook or Twitter as a platform that in aggregate has that degree of influence and power, and ban all uses of the word 'fight' across the entire platform? Think of it like what Apple did when banning the 'pistol' emoji across all their operating systems. Why does it matter whether one politician does it or if ten thousand activists do it - after all, in 2020 the latter group incited a lot more violence than Trump is alleged to have incited.

My perspective is that these efforts to ban speech or speech that includes "human emotion" (like 'fight') would be a step too far for everyone. Right now those rules are being applied to only one side (the right), and so others (on the left) are deeming this censorship acceptable. This is quite evident if you look for all the instances when Democrats used the word 'fight' (https://nypost.com/2021/02/12/trump-team-plays-videos-of-dem...).

> a certain percentage of people may very well misinterpret that as a call to violence

But this is why our society is built around individual, personal responsibility. Those that follow a call to violence are still, solely, responsible for their actions. Our justice system charges those individuals that engaged in criminality on Jan 6th, not Trump. Why should these massive tech platforms be any different in determining who they censor or ban?

> like "fight" out of context

Yet the people who are most angry about calling for a "fight" are the same ones that defend much worse from the likes of Maxine Waters...

The platform evaluating rules for Trump while allowing worse from others - in power or out - is the problem. Examples exist everywhere of much MUCH worse than Trumps non-calls for violence... yet he's the only one to get banned and have a Crusade/Jihad held against him? Says more about the hypocrites that hold double standards than it does about Trump - who's the same bombastic blowhard he's always been.

There are just so many instances of left-leaning politicians inciting, encouraging, or supporting criminality, that there's no defense for the one-sided enforcement of moderation by Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, and the rest of them. I have a list below of articles I dug up from just two minutes of web searches. There are substantially more instances than just these as well, but none of these people are banned, nor is their content censored. We see the same one-sided enforcement with fact-checking, which has been slowly degrading into partisanship as well. These days I often see fact checks with the label "missing context", that aren't really a "fact check" but cast doubt on a claim typically from a moderate or right-leaning voice.

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All the times Democrats used the word "fight": https://nypost.com/2021/02/12/trump-team-plays-videos-of-dem...

Chuck Schumer (and others) inciting/supporting rioting at the Capitol during Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings: https://thefederalist.com/2021/02/03/chuck-schumer-used-viol...

Democrats claiming the 2016 election was stolen and inciting violence against Trump: https://defconnews.com/2021/01/11/all-the-times-democrats-in...

AOC justifying rioting: https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1334184644707758080

It's a double standard though. Maxine Waters recently told George Floyd demonstrators to "get more confrontational". Pelosi defended her and said it wasn't a call to violence, and Twitter didn't ban her, despite George Floyd protests having a history of devolving into looting/violence. Trump said "And we fight, we fight like hell. If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore." and Pelosi said that was incitement of violence and he got banned from the internet.

So... who gets to decide what counts as incitement or not? Apparently whichever party has the largest influence over the mainstream media/social media companies.

The plebs should have more rights to speak freely than the politicians. Or more accurately, the reverse should never be true.

We generally punish culpable people in more senior positions more severely. Mafia bosses get bigger sentences than low-level street thugs. In the aftermath of WW2, high level Nazis received death sentences.

I don't think "treat everyone on Facebook exactly equally" is a reasonable standard.

I'd argue that celebrities of all kinds should be held to higher standards for truth and good behavior.

More followers means more potential for misuse.

> Otherwise you end up with every single statement they make being grounds for removal (e.g., "We need to fight against the special interests!, oh no, he's suggesting we fight!).

That seems to be the case in this situation. The President called on people to show up, not to riot. If the same standard was applied universally this would have a chilling effect on all protest.

This should be unnecessary to say but just in case HN thinks this is political advocacy: I personally dislike Donald Trump.

Completely agree. Their whole statement is completely bizarre IMO. As you state, the ENTIRE PURPOSE of this board was (or at least should be) to act as arbiter in these cases where there is really no right answer - Facebook is guaranteed to get pilloried (as they already have) no matter which side they come down on, so at least having a semi-independent board to make these decisions should keep them as neutral as possible.

On the other hand, I think it also highlights the reality that the US has deep, unbridgeable divides now that really nobody wants to touch, even if it's their job to do so.

> What BS and a waste of time this "board" is when they refuse to do their job.

Arguing over what the job's board should and shouldn't be means it's too late and FB snuck this travesty past us. Private companies shouldn't be instating boards to oversee themselves to begin with.

They did their job, which is basically to determine if FB has correctly applied its policies particularly in the context of freedom of expression. It's a ruling that took 2 parts: 1) The initial decision to ban was okay but 2) The "indefinite" part was too ambiguous without reference to specific FB policies and so they must reinstate Trump's account or to provide concrete policies to justify its actions within 6 months (which I would agree is too long)

This is no different than any other appeals court, at least in the US: An appeals court can rule for/against something but it can also push the case back to those who made the initial ruling and force them to reconsider.

This doesn't even mean that FB is going to be the final decision maker here: After FB makes their case (if they decide to do so) for a perma-ban, the board can then review that and make a final decision on whether FB's application of policy in this case. All they're saying is FB did not provide that justification initially and must now do so.

This is the way systems of justice typically work. It is not a one-time binary decision. It is an iterative process refining the legal (or rules-based) question to hone in the core of the issue.

Did the board have the authority to make the ban permanent? Sure. Should they have done so? Absolutely not. It would set a bad precedent for them to allow FB to get away with decisions on the basis of vague justifications. It's forcing FB to support its decisions with specific references to its policies. In the short term that probably feels unsatisfying to anyone looking to end this saga one way or another, but in the long term it is telling FB it can't make arbitrary decisions unsupported by its own policies.

The only thing I disagree with is that 6 months is really much longer than required for this. FB has had plenty of time on this issue, they shouldn't need more than a few weeks to get this done.

> the president is not an "ordinary" user and should have much stricter rules to adhere

Why do elected positions need to be held to a different standard?

I agree it's time for the "board" to do their job... and wish they'd do the same job for those calling for violence - and doing so - for years before and after the "capital riots"...

IE: Why isn't Maxine Waters banned everywhere? She's ACTUALLY called for more destruction and had it happen... compared to Trumps "call" which specifically said "protest peacefully".

This is all a waste of time and the hypocrisy is astounding... rules for thee but not for me. Wokeness at its deepest levels of hypocrisy.