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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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...
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?
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.
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?
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."
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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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."
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.
> 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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
> > 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."
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.
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?
> 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.
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. :(
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
All news is biased. Left, Right, Center is a false trichotomy. There is no such thing as objective journalism because the news is a filter. Even if one reports "just the facts", the facts one decides to report impart a bias.
I might report that "a woman is suing McDonalds for spilling hot coffee on herself". That is an unbiased fact. And it implants a story of runaway litigiousness. If I also report that "McDonalds was warned many times about the temperature of its coffee and even sure once already and the woman sustained 3rd degree burns" the story becomes one of corporate malfeasance.
Compound this further. I now state that the woman won millions of dollars, you may be tilting back toward over litigiousness. But if I report that she only sought damages and the jury awarded her punitive damages of its own accord the we're back to corporate malfeasance.
Absolutely. I can think of no better example than the recent moral panic over free speech. Because a few college kids on the wokest campuses in the country booted a few right-wingers we spent months covering every campus invitation as if it was the ratification of the first amendment itself. (I'm not saying there are no first amendment issues in America but who decided the events of a few college campuses were the evidentiary standard for a new social phenomena).
What, then, is your stance - do you think there is a difference of degree or agenda that matters? Or are they all the same, and should all be thrown out together.
In terms of trying to sift and acquire information it probably doesn't make much of a difference. It helps to know each outlet's priors so you can distill the useful information. The Drudge Report is obviously biased but for years it was the best place to get the straight dope on natsec because they had 4th amendment sensibilities. Lately I've actually become pretty avid Fox reader because they're bullshit is so blatant it's very easy to discard it and take the value. This approach does have its limits. At a certain point you do hit Infowars levels of nonsense and all useful information is scrambled.
Even if you want to focus on an ethical argument I'm not sure how to create a standard to compare them. Who is worse, Fox News who wears their bias on their sleeve or the New York Times who constantly hold themselves out as remarkable while piping all kinds of military and intelligence propaganda through to their readers. Who is worse? The organization that just outright supported Bush or the one that claimed to be a check and then held the illegal NSA spying story through an election?
IMO it's best not to choose which is better or worse. It's better to know how to read through both.
Don’t you have to know the relative strengths of each so you can weight the information as you read it? That sounds like implicitly choosing which is better or worse.
Another interesting point you brought up: how long a go should we look? Is today’s NYT still culpable for mistakes made nearly 20 years ago? (Not defending them, as I’m sure there are more recent examples. But when has enough time passed?)
> Is this really what people want in the news? A biased political stance?
When we have a great number of people who say things like “but that’s from xyz source so it’s bunk”, without examining the underlying facts or lack of facts, I’d have to say the answer to your question is Yes.
PS I’m willing to examine news from any source and employ discernment.
Someone once told me that you need bias in the news to create an adversarial system. Those that are biased towards some other viewpoint will be the only ones that dig deep to expose the problems of that other viewpoint. If everyone was neutral, there would be more motivation to present what happened rather than call foul.
I'm not sure I completely agree with this, but it did nudge my perspective.
when all mainstream news are heavily biased in favor of one political party and spread blatant misinformation, you need an alternative as a counterbalance and source of truth.
the fact people don't even notice, or choose to ignore the bias in mainstream media is beyond me.
Fox News is already amazingly biased and censured world wide - claiming you need even worse liars to help you feel better about "balance" makes no sense.
This is incorrect. Fox continues to maintain a conservative view. DailyWire and similar are radical right, which maps fairly cleanly to Nationalism, Fascism, and similar.
That's if you are using the commonly received connotation of conservative, rather than trying to rewrite reality.
What a weird thing to say, only a day after nationalists stormed the nation's capitol with the intent to disrupt the democratic process in favor of an autocratic dictator.
> only a day after nationalists stormed the nation's capitol with the intent to disrupt the democratic process in favor of an autocratic dictator.
I'm more curious to ask "why" people no longer trust the Government?
The real failure is that we've locked down society, destroyed the economy, and hastily thrown together an election so rife with problems that it's led to an environment where millions of people do not trust the outcome. The same leaders implementing the lockdowns are meanwhile dictating orders from tropical resorts or caught breaking their own rules in blatant shows of hypocrisy.
The States have not done an adequate job quelling election fraud suspicions and as a result the President and his supporters no longer believe the result. Can you blame them? Is blaming them productive? It fails to address the problem and it won't go away. Calling them white supremascists, nationalists, fasicsts, racists, and the other explicatives that have been used for the past four years is only going to further divide this nation and have the opposite intended outcome.
Did the media single out and target the people supporting, promoting, and engaging in the 3+ months of left-wing riots this past summer? Most of the media pundits now calling this latest event an insurrection, were previously condoning and explaining away "mostly peaceful" protests as multiple cities burned, as violent agitators stormed the Federal Courthouse in Portland for over 100 days, threw bombs, lit fires, burned cars, killed people (chop/chaz/portland), and more. And let's not pretend that had Trump won the election, Antifa and other left-wing groups wouldn't be over a month in of the same thing.
The level of hypocrisy and disconnect is so startling it's scary. What I see is a total lack of understanding across the spectrum, a total failure to acknowledge both sides and apply standards consistently and unequivocally, a total failure of communication and decency. I'm not sure how the country moves in a positive direction.
Or, they were encouraged to believe so by propaganda. And that led to the deaths of several people due to their insurrection, as most people not divorced from reality could have predicted several years before.
Just saying, there was little surprising yesterday to anyone who has taken time to talk to these conspiracy theorists and seen the level of fear they choose to live in and surround themselves with, though it is deeply sad.
Or, it's a coherent philosophy of corporate ownership of the economy directed by government dictate, as it has been known since long before your identified method of deflection.
> corporate ownership of the economy directed by government dictate
Your "explanation" contains a contradiction, so you're not off to a great start here. If the economy or corporations are directed by government dictate, they don't really own anything in a meaningful sense. In this arrangement they are more like managers than owners. If you disagree, ask yourself if any corporation really has another option other to comply if one of their decisions is countermanded by the state.
There is a reason it is named after the Fasces, a symbol of authority borne by a Lictor through the streets of Rome ahead of Tribunes and other officials with authority (okay, granted that this term and symbolism is decidedly Italian, fascism will always feature symbols distinct to each nation). The essence of fascism is power. A fascist believes this power comes from unity (another reason the Fasces is a chosen symbol, as it contains a bundle of sticks that when bound together cannot be easily broken) and so the subordination of the individual and every institution to state power is the cornerstone of their policy.
You seem to misrepresent the primacy of economics in fascist ideology, perhaps confusing this with Syndicalism, which Mussolini was involved with early in his political career. Fascism is something else. While it incorporates the subordination of the economy to the state, above this it values ethics of action, a willingness to commit violence against its enemies, courage, and obedience to authority. It is inherently anti-democratic, authoritarian and totalitarian. It will not tolerate internal rivals or dissent. It always features a leader who rules as dictator and to my knowledge has never succeeded in a stable transfer of power once that leader dies.
It has often been linked to the Romantic period as so much of fascist ideology is based on emotion, feeling, symbolic mysticism, and the irrational. It's politics can be seen as a reaction to the ultra-rational basis from which Communism claims to descend.
Your lack of understanding or stubbornness aside, if your grandfather fought actual fascists it is doubtful he defined the term.
All that is immaterial, of course, to your current incorrect claim that Fox News somehow became liberal recently, which I can only assume is established in your view by the idea that Trump presently dislikes them.
You posted the same thing (almost word for word) five posts upthread. Just repeating yourself is not a convincing argument. It might be a decent propaganda technique, but it's a lousy argument.
OK, to those who downvoted the parent: I understand the temptation to downvote everything someone says when you disagree strongly with them on some point, but there is nothing in the parent post that deserves your downvotes. Downvote the post; not the person.
It's attractive to ignore it because "reality has a well-known liberal bias". Politics are not created equal. Conservatives are observably less educated than liberals: look at the demographics.
That said, any bias (including corporate influence) is worse than an agnostic information reporting machine (which C-SPAN or the BBC approach best).
Education is indeed becoming the dividing line between left and right all over the world. Sadly, it is because the scope of "education" has been expanded to include subjects with no intellectual content.
Mhm, there have always been soft sciences (sorry MBAs).
I agree that education is becoming a major dividing line, but in my opinion that's because the "left" is moving towards elitism, whereas the "right" is slowly embracing populism. "Only dummies vote for the others" is just a snobby way of saying "we lost the working class".
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
> 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!
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.
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.
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
>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.
The larger a company gets, especially in influence, the more regulation is needed to enforce accountability. With great social power, comes great social responsibility.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> Perpetual rule by one party. Much like California.
California has free, open, and fair elections every cycle. Since they've gone to non-gerrymandered voting districts it has been obvious that the current era Republican party is woefully out of touch with most Californians. But there's nothing putting a finger on the scale for the Democrats. Republicans are free to field competetive candidates any time.
So please stop insinuating that CA is some kind of dictatorship or totalitarian enforcing 1-party rule. That's blatantly wrong, and you know it.
Correction: many of CA’s problems arise from being able to simultaneously approve/preserve propositions and cut their funding.
Edit: my great state of WA has this problem as well, it’s just not as much of a circus in practice because there’s a lot more investment in CA politics.
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.
> 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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
> "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]
“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 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
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
> "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.
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)?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
> 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?
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.
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.
>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.
> 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.
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.
> 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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
> 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.
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
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.
> 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”.
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.)
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.
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.
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 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:
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.
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.
“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.
> 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.
> 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!
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.
>> 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.
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 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.
It’s also interesting that you’re so worried by this comment. I found some value in the original comment because it highlighted a software company is doing it. Just relax.
I’m not worried, I’m expressing how ridiculously afraid people are to take a side because hey, it’s kind of a polarizing and controversial topic. Tell us what you think!
In some ways, it’s self-censorship so one doesn’t get downvotes.
I think I find anyone telling someone to relax a bit condescending, but I’m gonna assume good faith that you’re not meaning it.
Sorry if that came across that way. I just found your first reply unnecessary.
I think each take is useful, no matter how opinionated they are. I understand your point though, I also wouldn't want every comment in the thread being neutral. Knowing HN, I think we're doing fine :)
Thinking that you have to Take a Side is IMO a false dichotomy. There is a whole specter of opinions.
Between "I support what facebook did" and "I do not support what facebook did", or "I support Trump" vs "I hate Trump". if I were to take a side right now I would not be able to. Regardless I find it interesting, much of the discussion I've heard in the last 24h is very interesting to me.
I should perhaps expand and sort of agree with you: You don't need to take sides. Just expand more on your stance as neutral than just saying "It's interesting". I expect more from HN comments I guess.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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. "
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.
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.
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?
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.
>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.
>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.
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?
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!
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!
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> "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"
> 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.
> 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.
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 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.
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?
... 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
>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.
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.
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.
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"
Funny how "I should be able to say what I please" and "I should be able to say what I please AND have no-one challenge me or criticise me" are so conflated. Don't dish it if you can't take it.
I’m downvoting you because the person said the comments were a swamp, not that they shouldn’t exist. You interpreted it as the letter which is clearly incorrect.
There were lots of legitimate reasons to downvote your GP comment. It was unsubstantive and flamebait, and broke other guidelines as well. You spawned a low-quality mess. This is not the discussion we're looking for here.
Also, using quotation marks to make it look like you're quoting someone when you're not is an internet flamewar trope that we try to avoid here.
Freedom of speech is the right to speak, it is not the right to be heard. Your audience is effectively walking away from your soapbox. Censorship is when there is interference between a speaker and an audience that would otherwise be captivated.
Nobody here is interested in Trump's lies. Nobody here is interested in hearing his lies being perpetuated. We are not interested and we are not a captivated audience.
And I am not complaining about it being downvoted. If HN doesn't want to hear it, then I am fine with that. Regardless, please check the comments guidelines[1].
> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
I'd also point out that you can always enable 'showdead' in the settings.
That will allow you to see all comments (unless creator deleted). As such, they're not really being censored, they're just hidden unless and until you decide you want to see them.
I don't think that's a good faith take at all. "You're an idiot for saying that" is not the same as "You should have your rights taken away". But go off.
"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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>> 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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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?
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.