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If they delete tweets like that, Twitter gets shit for censoring foreign officials. If they don't delete tweets like that, they get shit for not intervening whe

by osobo 7y ago

If they delete tweets like that, Twitter gets shit for censoring foreign officials. If they don't delete tweets like that, they get shit for not intervening when the public is obviously put in harm's way. I think they chose the lesser of the two evils. Now, on to censor that umpalumpa you call president.

dntbnmpls 7y ago
> If they don't delete tweets like that, they get shit for not intervening when the public is obviously put in harm's way. Nobody voted for twitter to be the protector of the public. That's the job of the elected official. That's why we have elections. If the public suffers, the fault lies with the official, not twitter. Why bother having elections, democracy, etc. Why not just let twitter and the tech elites rule over us? Zuckerburg, Wojcicki and Dorsey should form a triumvirate and rule over us. Tell us what to think, how to think, when to think, etc.
- Legogris 7y ago
  I also think there's something to be said for not putting Twitter - or any other company - in that position in the first place. We need to put more concerted resources into building decentralized alternatives. https://scuttlebutt.nz/ https://scuttlebutt.nz/ is one such initiative. There are no unsolved theoretical fundamentals here - we "just" need to build product and make it scale.
- rbanffy 7y ago
  > Nobody voted for twitter to be the protector of the public. And Twitter owns the platform he uses to spread dangerous disinformation to further his own political agenda. A car rental company has every right to ban you from their fleet if you repeatedly kill pedestrians with their cars.
  - mantas 7y ago
    Make Twitter (and Youtube while at it) a public utility. Can telephone company cut you off for spreading disinformation? Can a toll road refuse you if you're driving to "spread dangerous disinformation" at a rally?
- evgen 7y ago
  They vote for Twitter to keep doing what it is doing every second of every day in numbers far greater than participate in any national election. Don't like it? Well, last I checked no one is forcing you to use Twitter, so I am sure you can find the door all by yourself.
  - rbanffy 7y ago
    > Don't like it? Well, last I checked no one is forcing you to use Twitter I imagined how evil someone would need to be in order to be banned from Gab. Bolsonaro would be perfectly at home there.
dreen 7y ago
They put themselves in this situation by not evolving their platform into one managed by its community. Instead, they are the gatekeepers of everything with full responsibility but also full access to their users data and therefore ad money.
sambe 7y ago
It's worse than that. He's making a reasonable argument that the public will be put in the way of greater harm by letting the economy collapse. I'd find it pretty hard to say whether he's right or wrong. However, even if you think he's wrong, this is not an argument being made in bad faith. Censorship is a simply bad way to handle it.
- mantap 7y ago
  Is it reasonable? In Italy and Spain they have so many bodies that they are running out of space to put them. These people are not dying of economic effects.
  - _-___________-_ 7y ago
    It's really hard to get reliable data on that. EUROMOMO (the all-cause mortality monitoring that's been used for years for determining if influenza is causing more significantly mortality than baseline each season) doesn't show any significant spike in all-cause mortality in either country.
    - _-___________-_ 7y ago
      So, if I'm interpreting the downvotes correctly: Newspapers with emotive articles about not having space for the bodies: reliable & obviously true European Union all-cause mortality monitoring data, used since 2009 and collected by ECDC/WHO/EUROSTAT/EISN: obviously incorrect Got it.
      - bad_user 7y ago
        Covid-2019 has made 35,000 victims globally, out of which 10,000 just in Italy, just in one month, victims happening in spite of massive movement restrictions happening on a never before seen scale and it's been pretty clear already that this isn't "just a flu". On the other hand the numbers are too small so they currently don't make a dent in the overall statistics, however this is a problem of potential and every single prediction thus far came true, with the news being all bad. The disease is scary not only due to mortality rate, but due to hospitalization rate too and in terms of hospitalization, there's not much difference between the young and healthy and the old or sick. When 10% of those infected require medical assistance, this will cripple your economy regardless of fatally. Plus if the medical system is collapsing, the median age will go down, since the young and healthy won't necessarily get the needed ICU beds. There's also the small matter of the population not having any immunity to this virus (compared with Influenza) which guarantees that if unchecked it will spread to 70% of the population at least. 70% spread, with a 0.5% mortality rate (an optimistic estimate) means 1,560,422 dead just in the EU and this in the ideal case in which everybody gets treated, otherwise that rate can easily be double or triple. Or 27,000,000 worldwide. Such a number is comparable with the victims of World War I. You're being down-voted because of downplaying the severity of this disease, when the writing is on the wall — the Italians downplayed this too and now their hospitals are overwhelmed. Of course, a discussion of where this is headed and what can we do to avoid a severe economic depression is worth having, but let's not downplay how bad this is.
xfitm3 7y ago
Twitter should not be censoring anything, period.
poilcn 7y ago
When organizations like WHO, CDC spread dangerous disinformation like "it's just a flu" or "masks don't help", should Twitter ban these texts as well? Should they ban people saying things that are obviously true (or proven to be true in the future), but go contrary to the statements by these organizations? What if they change their stance every week?

by osobo 7y ago

dntbnmpls 7y ago

> If they don't delete tweets like that, they get shit for not intervening when the public is obviously put in harm's way. Nobody voted for twitter to be the protector of the public. That's the job of the elected official. That's why we have elections. If the public suffers, the fault lies with the official, not twitter. Why bother having elections, democracy, etc. Why not just let twitter and the tech elites rule over us? Zuckerburg, Wojcicki and Dorsey should form a triumvirate and rule over us. Tell us what to think, how to think, when to think, etc.

Legogris 7y ago
I also think there's something to be said for not putting Twitter - or any other company - in that position in the first place. We need to put more concerted resources into building decentralized alternatives. https://scuttlebutt.nz/ https://scuttlebutt.nz/ is one such initiative. There are no unsolved theoretical fundamentals here - we "just" need to build product and make it scale.
rbanffy 7y ago
> Nobody voted for twitter to be the protector of the public. And Twitter owns the platform he uses to spread dangerous disinformation to further his own political agenda. A car rental company has every right to ban you from their fleet if you repeatedly kill pedestrians with their cars.
- mantas 7y ago
  Make Twitter (and Youtube while at it) a public utility. Can telephone company cut you off for spreading disinformation? Can a toll road refuse you if you're driving to "spread dangerous disinformation" at a rally?
evgen 7y ago
They vote for Twitter to keep doing what it is doing every second of every day in numbers far greater than participate in any national election. Don't like it? Well, last I checked no one is forcing you to use Twitter, so I am sure you can find the door all by yourself.
- rbanffy 7y ago
  > Don't like it? Well, last I checked no one is forcing you to use Twitter I imagined how evil someone would need to be in order to be banned from Gab. Bolsonaro would be perfectly at home there.

dreen 7y ago

They put themselves in this situation by not evolving their platform into one managed by its community. Instead, they are the gatekeepers of everything with full responsibility but also full access to their users data and therefore ad money.

sambe 7y ago

It's worse than that. He's making a reasonable argument that the public will be put in the way of greater harm by letting the economy collapse. I'd find it pretty hard to say whether he's right or wrong. However, even if you think he's wrong, this is not an argument being made in bad faith. Censorship is a simply bad way to handle it.

mantap 7y ago
Is it reasonable? In Italy and Spain they have so many bodies that they are running out of space to put them. These people are not dying of economic effects.
- _-___________-_ 7y ago
  It's really hard to get reliable data on that. EUROMOMO (the all-cause mortality monitoring that's been used for years for determining if influenza is causing more significantly mortality than baseline each season) doesn't show any significant spike in all-cause mortality in either country.
  - _-___________-_ 7y ago
    So, if I'm interpreting the downvotes correctly: Newspapers with emotive articles about not having space for the bodies: reliable & obviously true European Union all-cause mortality monitoring data, used since 2009 and collected by ECDC/WHO/EUROSTAT/EISN: obviously incorrect Got it.
    - bad_user 7y ago
      Covid-2019 has made 35,000 victims globally, out of which 10,000 just in Italy, just in one month, victims happening in spite of massive movement restrictions happening on a never before seen scale and it's been pretty clear already that this isn't "just a flu". On the other hand the numbers are too small so they currently don't make a dent in the overall statistics, however this is a problem of potential and every single prediction thus far came true, with the news being all bad. The disease is scary not only due to mortality rate, but due to hospitalization rate too and in terms of hospitalization, there's not much difference between the young and healthy and the old or sick. When 10% of those infected require medical assistance, this will cripple your economy regardless of fatally. Plus if the medical system is collapsing, the median age will go down, since the young and healthy won't necessarily get the needed ICU beds. There's also the small matter of the population not having any immunity to this virus (compared with Influenza) which guarantees that if unchecked it will spread to 70% of the population at least. 70% spread, with a 0.5% mortality rate (an optimistic estimate) means 1,560,422 dead just in the EU and this in the ideal case in which everybody gets treated, otherwise that rate can easily be double or triple. Or 27,000,000 worldwide. Such a number is comparable with the victims of World War I. You're being down-voted because of downplaying the severity of this disease, when the writing is on the wall — the Italians downplayed this too and now their hospitals are overwhelmed. Of course, a discussion of where this is headed and what can we do to avoid a severe economic depression is worth having, but let's not downplay how bad this is.

xfitm3 7y ago

Twitter should not be censoring anything, period.

poilcn 7y ago

When organizations like WHO, CDC spread dangerous disinformation like "it's just a flu" or "masks don't help", should Twitter ban these texts as well? Should they ban people saying things that are obviously true (or proven to be true in the future), but go contrary to the statements by these organizations? What if they change their stance every week?