
Trump to sign executive order on social media Thursday - notadog
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/499847-trump-to-sign-executive-order-on-social-media-thursday
======
ilaksh
This comment thread is full of people who A) decide not to say anything,
probably because they are not sure and B) very vocal people who are extremely
sure that the other side is completely corrupt.

I feel like the polarization is harmful.

Interested to hear any background like why he would say the mail in is full of
fraud or something and why people are so sure it is not.

~~~
Fjolsvith
West Virginia mail carrier charged with attempted absentee ballot application
fraud [1]

1\. [https://www.whsv.com/content/news/Pendleton-County-mail-
carr...](https://www.whsv.com/content/news/Pendleton-County-mail-carrier-
charged-with-altering-absentee-ballot-requests-570777221.html)

------
ngngngng
It was recently affirmed in court that the first amendment applies to the
government, not corporations. See PragerU v Youtube. I'm curious what he
thinks he's going to do though. Any guesses?

~~~
TechBro8615
Your guess is as good as mine. Personally, I think the free speech issue is an
albatross. What’s much more concerning to me is Twitter arbitrarily “fact
checking” Trump’s tweets, but nobody else’s. More generally, the systemic bias
tends to lean against conservative voices far more often than liberal voices.
There are numerous examples of double standards in terms of who is banned or
censored from platforms, or even who/what shows up in the search results.

Search “Joe Biden creepy” on google, and then search the same thing on Bing.
Why are the results so different?

Try sending a private message on Facebook containing the string
“joebiden.info.” Why won’t it send?

~~~
MisterBastahrd
Google invests more in making sure that it has quality search results, and the
algorithms are just different. Not really that complicated.

The NY Post is a low quality tabloid that is just a step above the Enquirer,
for example.

~~~
TechBro8615
I have a hard time believing that the results page for “Joe Biden creepy” is
not at least semi-manually curated. For example, none of the “creepy” videos
that show up are the most comprehensive versions of the clips someone would
want to watch to inform themselves of what somebody is referring to when
calling him creepy. It’s also not hard for me to believe Google would take
such action, given the political makeup of their employees, and the fact that
they have been recorded suggesting their commitment to making Trump a “blip”
in history.

It’s also worth noting that was only one example I cited. It doesn’t change
the fact that Twitter has only ever “fact checked” Trump (by linking to CNN),
and that Facebook prohibits you from sending links to JoeBiden.info in
_private_ messages. Are these not clear examples of bias?

You can make the argument that these companies have the right to as much bias
as they want on their own platforms. But you cannot in good faith make the
argument that such bias does not exist, or that it’s some conspiracy theory to
suggest that it does.

~~~
sammalloy
Here’s the thing: most of us here don’t really care about left or right. We
care about good and bad ideas. And for the most part, the Republicans espouse
really bad ideas, so bad in fact, that reasonable people vocally call them out
on these bad ideas. You and others misperceive this attention as “bias”. Why?
It’s simple.

Studies of conservatives show that they prefer authoritarianism and
unquestioning loyalty over competency and expertise. When their loyalty to an
idea, a leader, or a political ideology is questioned, it undermines their
worldview. So the “bias” you are really describing, is just good old fashioned
critical thinking, which by its very design, confronts and questions
authority, and upholds values of openness, tolerance, and free inquiry—the
bane of conservatism.

All you have to do is come up with good ideas. It’s that simple.

~~~
TechBro8615
Thanks for telling me what I prefer.

Critical thinking is great. We should all do it. Just because I agree with
that doesn’t mean I want or need some company to do the “critical thinking”
_for me_.

In fact, the things you’re defending tend to _get in the way_ of critical
thinking. It’s hard to apply critical thought with incomplete information,
which is what tends to be available when news agencies apply selection bias to
which stories they report, or search engines remove results they deem
derogatory, or social media platforms forbid sending links in private
messages.

~~~
sammalloy
Are you arguing that the factchecking and verification filters Facebook, and
now Twitter, are currently using, somehow impede free inquiry? We should be
tolerant, but we should not tolerate intolerance. More to the point, we should
not tolerate false news, hoaxes, or conspiracy theories intended to mislead or
cause harm. Sadly, conservatives have come to /depend/ on that kind of “fact
suppression” to sway people over to their side. We saw it with the rise of
birtherism, with the hate-fueled advent of the Tea Party, and in the tribal
nativism that led to the election of Trump.

You raise the “incomplete information” tactic, which denialists on both the
left and the right depend upon. Climate denialists say we shouldn’t mitigate
because we don’t have enough data or they argue that the data is suspect. We
know, and we have consensus. Do we need more information about the 18,000 lies
Trump has spread already?

Facebook and Twitter are already on record (and off record per the WSJ article
yesterday) showing that they gave the benefit of the doubt to conservatives
because algorithms were consistently selecting their rhetoric as problematic.
Twitter wouldn’t filter out the Nazis, for example, because it also targeted
Republican politicians.

~~~
TechBro8615
I’m not arguing whether the bias should or shouldn’t exist. I’m arguing that
it _does_ exist, which you seem to be refuting for some reason. And I’m
certainly going to argue that if platforms try to claim neutrality, they
better show evidence of it, or else stop claiming to be neutral.

Are you okay with Facebook banning links in _private messages_? Why can’t I
link to JoeBiden.info, a clearly marked parody website full of factual
information, in a private message to a friend? What possible reason could
there be for this, other than bias?

Are you okay with Twitter editorializing the president’s tweets, but not doing
the same for those of Adam Schiff or Joe Biden? Both of them have promoted
baseless conspiracy theories on Twitter, like suggesting Trump is a Russian
agent. Yet they’ve never been “fact checked.” Are you okay with the idea that
the person in charge of the fact checking initiative at Twitter has a history
of publicly calling Trump a “Nazi” and a “racist tangerine?” Does this seem
like an arrangement that will result in anything but biased “fact checks?”

I’m having a hard time seeing how this is _good_ for critical thought, as you
seem to be suggesting. Telling people what to think is not the basis upon
which critical thought develops. If anything, such editorializing will only
further polarize people and increase their emotional attachment to pre-
existing beliefs.

~~~
supportlocal4h
I don't Twitter and I don't follow Trump, so I don't know the answer. Does
Twitter fact check every Trump tweet? Does it ever find any to be factual? If
Trump tweeted that he loves the Jets, would that get fact checked? If he
tweeted that FEMA has done a superb job in guiding the WHO through this whole
pandemic, would that get fact checked? Or do only some tweets get the
treatment?

------
bargl
This is news to say news is coming the rest is speculation.

~~~
Simulacra
Social media are publications. A company can not say they have an open
platform and call Themselves immune to libel or censorship if they’re going to
editorialize and punish views you disagree with. Section 230 needs to
destroyed.

~~~
bargl
My comment was posted when the article linked here said, Trump was going to
sign "something pertaining to social media" on Thursday. We had no details.
The article could have been 1 paragraph. That was my point. I didn't have any
of the context from today 5/28\. No one had it.

------
VWWHFSfQ
> Social media platforms' legal right as private companies to delete or
> otherwise regulate speech – or, in this case, tweets – is well established.

I'm curious how this will work out for tweets by the USA president.

Twitter will easily delete anything the Chinese, French, or German government
deems "unacceptable" speech. They've never deleted anything that the USA
government has requested (the USA government has never requested anything to
be deleted).

What's the difference here? What's the double-standard?

~~~
rsynnott
It has deleted things in accordance with local law (and it absolutely does
delete things illegal in the US). What things were you thinking the US
government should ask it to delete? Under what law?

------
notadog
Related discussions:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23317286](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23317286)
and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322112](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322112)

------
notadog
A alleged draft of the order has been leaked:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23333496](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23333496)

------
mrlonglong
Yeah well the first amendment applies here, I think. And quite likely an
illegal order.

------
Simulacra
Social media should be considered publications. A company can not say they
have an open platform and call Themselves immune to libel or censorship if
they’re going to editorialize and punish views you disagree with. Section 230
needs to destroyed.

------
Simulacra
Social media platforms should be considered publications. A company cannot say
they have an open platform and call Themselves immune if they’re going to
editorialize and punish views you disagree with. Section 230 needs to
destroyed.

------
inscartwheelies
An Executive Wish. It's meaningless.

------
ccktlmazeltov
POTUS got "personally attacked" by Twitter and is now attacking back. The US
is now a dictatorship?

How many citizens have lost any faith in the US government? Trump has created
long-lasting damaged in the US democracy.

~~~
devmunchies
democracy has been going downhill across the globe since the popularization of
the internet.

------
nikivi
I would love if HN banned anything that had to do with Trump by default in all
the postings. Most of the discussions around it are a waste of time imo

~~~
sillysaurusx
Have faith in HN. If you believe it will be crummy, you’ll probably find
comments that justify that belief. But believing the opposite usually yields
the opposite.

(You can also yield the opposite directly, by writing good comments.)

~~~
Simulacra
I have zero faith in HN, it operates in the same fantastical bubble that all
of Silicon Valley operates in.

~~~
sillysaurusx
I went through periods of losing faith too. But ultimately, HN = programmers,
writers, and so on. What are the chances of any random programmer/writer being
interesting? Much higher than the general population, for some definitions of
interesting.

You get what you put in. It often doesn't feel like it, but in the long run it
seems to work out that way.

You have to remember that HN is so massive now that it's hard to comprehend
just how many people read the top comments. All the world is a stage, but HN
particularly so. And personally, I think it's cool you can influence the
situation by skill alone – a good top comment can salvage an otherwise
hopeless situation.

~~~
Simulacra
HN is still just mostly overpaid white guys that are immune from most of
societal problems. It's like the rich saying "we're all in this together."
Sounds good but deep down you know it's a lie.

------
milkytron
Oh man, if Trump got upset over that tweet, I can only imagine what would
happen if they put something like "Confirmed/Believed to be false by these
sources...." on his other tweets that have been confirmed to be
false/incorrect/lies.

Interesting times. We'll see what happens.

------
hedora
I hope twitter decides they can’t comply with whatever is in the executive
order, and simply bans his account instead.

In other news, after a certain threshold, when someone lies on TV, there is an
FCC mandate that the broadcaster adds a disclaimer saying the person is
spreading false information. There was a lawsuit over this, because stations
were broadcasting Trump speeches without adding the disclaimer, and the
executive branch isn’t enforcing the rule.

~~~
Simulacra
Social media should be considered publications. A company can not say they
have an open platform and call Themselves immune to libel or censorship if
they’re going to editorialize and punish views you disagree with. Section 230
needs to destroyed.

------
Simulacra
It will be very interesting to see if this method of finger in the scales by
Twitter stands up. I’m glad to see that they have been forced to apply the
same treatment to China, But section 230 simply has to go.

------
nine_zeros
If this is what we think it is and it passes, I am not sure why CCP is worse
than US-style democracy that just steals rights.

~~~
leira
When I left China 9 years ago, I used to think the internet with social media
is a great democratizing power. It opens information to common Chinese to the
extent that the government cannot control all the narratives anymore,
especially with social medias like Twitter.

Now after staying in US for 9 years, I'm not sure if the internet is such a
positive power any more. It might actually just be the opposite. With internet
and social media, it enables information bubble to form. It enables people to
live in totally isolated worlds. And it is almost impossible to penetrate
through the bubbles to reach the other side. In US, it fueled the ever growing
polarization in the society, essentially created 2 or more totally different
US'. While in China, the government creates its narrative bubble through its
propaganda machine and censorship. Rather than the liberation of people's mind
we hoped to see, we actually seeing people's opinion more converged to the
official narrative.

I'm afraid, even someday CCP loosens it's iron grip of censorship, we still
won't see the information freedom we hoped for. But rather bubbles like US,
just with one giant bubble of official narrative, and many tiny bubbles of
other opinions, which can never penetrate the giant bubble.

~~~
threatofrain
The world in general is more bubbled than the web, and most people spend their
whole lives not having substantive experience with people from other
countries. And where does a gay individual find alternative stories in a world
without the web? The world before the web was a terrible fishbowl for anyone
who didn't have money or access.

The web gives people choice where before you either had the money to live a
"broad" lifestyle or you didn't. That some people choose to stay within little
boundaries is the way the world has always worked, but at least they have a
choice.

------
IIAOPSW
In normal times I'd have faith in our institutions to block this blatantly
unconstitutional abuse of power. But 2 of the seats in the Supreme Court were
filled by the administration itself.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
How can you say it's blatantly unconstitutional if the executive order hasn't
even been released?

It wouldn't exactly be out of character for him to spend a couple days
whipping people into a frenzy then announce the reinterpretation of something
that sounds impressive but has no actual meaning and declare it to be a
massive victory.

------
Simulacra
Social media platforms should be considered publications. A company cannot say
they have an open platform and call Themselves immune if they’re going to
editorialize and punish views you disagree with. Section 230 needs to
destroyed.

