Facebook removes ICE-tracking page after US Government 'outreach'
theverge.com
theverge.com
“I believe the government pressure was wrong and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,”
"I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today,” he said, without elaborating. “We’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.”
were lies https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/zuckerberg-says-the-wh...
But for the record, since consistent propriety is the subject of the subthread: as a left-leaning liberal, I hereby declare that I think coercing Twitter to remove content for political reasons is equally as bad as doing the same to Facebook.
[1] Not least because the entity doing the coercing was not the government, which was run by Biden's opponent.
I know that's how it works on the internet: All it takes to negate thousands of people with one opinion is for someone to come out and identify with them and say the opposite. Just one person!
Likewise, if thousands of people believe something, as long as they say "nobody ever claimed THAT!" then, it's as though they never believed it (despite it being obvious from every other indicator that they DO, in fact, believe that).
Unfortunately, it's all just silly internet sophistry and the real world happily ignores it.
... thousands? You haven't cited even one! Which, as I eagerly point out, is exactly one fewer example than I provided. So even accepting your dismissal as framed, I win. By a lot.
Seems to me that it's the person asserting the existence of a conspiracy that needs to be the one coming to the table with evidence.
This is the a government flagging truths that they dislike.
Also, there's a big difference when one government has a proven track-record of abusing its power to punish dissenting media. AFAIK, the Biden admin never threatened to block mergers and similar business deals over speech they disliked. Yes, government requests always have the color of authority, but I don't know of any cases where there was any even implied threat behind it.
Well, other than the possibility of legislation that would make an official legal requirement of "no, you do have a responsibility to police your platform of disinfo where constitutionally legal (eg if it's foreign-government-funded propaganda)".
But an act of congress to elevate an policy into law if self-policing doesn't work is very different from abusing executive powers to punish people without any involvement normal due process of law.
For what's worth, I've actually changed my mind about this. I was originally fine with the government encouraging Twitter to take down pandemic related stuff, but after seeing what Trump has done... well, in hindsight, I think the Biden administration should have stayed out of Twitter moderation, just as the Trump administration should stay out of Facebook moderation.
I still think there is a difference in severity between what Biden did and what Trump is doing, but that's beside the point. The current administration has really demonstrated for me why free speech is so important. We should not compromise on that principle, even when it seems logical in the short term.
Facebook and Twitter not being allowed to ban the sitting President would be a major First Amendment violation, in fact.
In certain contexts, harmful lies can be fraud, defamation, or perjury. It's reasonable for a social media company to have a policy that harmful lies are bad for their site, while still otherwise supporting free speech.
Trump claiming the election was stolen, vaccine disinfo - these are lies, and they're very destructive.
Meanwhile, the takedowns that are happening today are people being punished for stating the truth.
No platform can be considered a useful and valid source of info if data about power structures is rendered unavailable as a routine matter.
The entire value prop of the internet as a human endeavor is in the "inter" part - connecting networks without regard to orthodox boundaries or power structures. An internet that yields to legacy state censorship is just a net.
I really need to take some time get into mastadon or lens or bluesky or whatever.
Mastodon/Fediverse, on the other hand, is truly grassroots and federated instead of being a VC-funded cathedral, but it's just not nearly as successful and the usability barriers are higher.
Which ones we pick to be super hardline about says much about us.
Dispensaries are similarly tacitly permitted on a national level; the DEA is ignoring them as a matter of widespread policy.
I can go on, it's not hard to find.
America used to be the model for progressively dealing with racism. No more.