5 ms·

Just step back a little and consider the alternatives here. NYP is pretty obviously smearing for a major civil event here, a civil event that has the potential

Just step back a little and consider the alternatives here. NYP is pretty obviously smearing for a major civil event here, a civil event that has the potential of causing serious harm to the second largest democracy in the world. If the social media companies would just allow this smearing to go unhindered, they are basically saying: “We don’t care if bad actors use our platform to undermine our democracy,” which is nuts.

TMWNN 6y ago
>NYP is pretty obviously smearing for a major civil event here What makes this "obviously smearing"?
- runarberg 6y ago
  1. The sensationalism of the original title. The accusation here is that the candidate’s son introduced a Ukrainian businessman to him. This is hardly a smoking gun evidence against the father doing anything wrong. 2. There is no evidence that the emails are in fact real, and nothing is even offered to that extent. 3. The article does not come from a reputable news source. In fact it comes from a news source with serious damage to it’s reputation. 4. No other major news outlet is picking this story up, further undermining the credibility of the article. If I was a social media company I wouldn’t want to touch this with a 10 meter pole.
  - extropy 6y ago
    0. Event with high reputation impact potential, just before the election. Seriously we should have a 4 week quiet period. So people can sort out though all the dirt and make sense of what is real. This just pushses everyone into sensory overload to blind out any rational thought.
  - throwawaysea 6y ago
    Major news outlets differ greatly on which stories the give attention to based on their biases. And their reputation depends on your personal political bias. You're asking for evidence the emails are real but no such evidence was demanded when NYT posted findings from what they claim are Trump's financial records. If you're a social media company, your job isn't to decide what's true or untrue or what is permissible to share or not share. It is to facilitate communication and get out of the way. Instead, we're seeing companies that control the digital public square enact severely biased policies that favor their employee's politics. That's dangerous and unacceptable.
- googthrowaway42 6y ago
  Any attempt to bring information to light that is harmful to the Cathedral is considered smearing.
michannne 6y ago
We live in a country where we have elected officials and laws to deal with individuals and organizations that undermine our democracy. I don't need some random collective of people headquarted in a random state to decide those things for me.
- mullingitover 6y ago
  Conservatives: we don't need the government censoring things! Trust the free market Free market: censors things Conservatives: no, not like that
  - googthrowaway42 6y ago
    You're thinking of libertarians, not conservatives.
    - orthecreedence 6y ago
      If we're being precise, you're thinking of neolibertarians. "Libertarians" are traditionally libertarian-socialists (anarchists).
      - orthecreedence 6y ago
        Downvotes because I'm wrong, or because of butthurt neolibertarians don't know the history of the word they've co-opted?
  - dexen 6y ago
    >Free market: censors things Literally the opposite of the case. Due to the power of Section 230, the online platforms are shielded from the normal liability, which gives them an inherent advantage. Section 230 distorts the market, making it non-free. See also: the excellent "Propaganda, censorship, and surveillance are all attributes of monopoly"[1] story from earlier on today. Moreover, the Section 230 was specifically created to distort the market, to help kickstart the online communications and commerce, by giving it an edge over the other businesses. Now that it has done its job, we can revoke the Section 230, and return to actual free market. Where a tortious interference would be sorted out by a lawsuit. -- [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24771470 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24771470

TMWNN 6y ago

>NYP is pretty obviously smearing for a major civil event here What makes this "obviously smearing"?

runarberg 6y ago
1. The sensationalism of the original title. The accusation here is that the candidate’s son introduced a Ukrainian businessman to him. This is hardly a smoking gun evidence against the father doing anything wrong. 2. There is no evidence that the emails are in fact real, and nothing is even offered to that extent. 3. The article does not come from a reputable news source. In fact it comes from a news source with serious damage to it’s reputation. 4. No other major news outlet is picking this story up, further undermining the credibility of the article. If I was a social media company I wouldn’t want to touch this with a 10 meter pole.
- extropy 6y ago
  0. Event with high reputation impact potential, just before the election. Seriously we should have a 4 week quiet period. So people can sort out though all the dirt and make sense of what is real. This just pushses everyone into sensory overload to blind out any rational thought.
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  Major news outlets differ greatly on which stories the give attention to based on their biases. And their reputation depends on your personal political bias. You're asking for evidence the emails are real but no such evidence was demanded when NYT posted findings from what they claim are Trump's financial records. If you're a social media company, your job isn't to decide what's true or untrue or what is permissible to share or not share. It is to facilitate communication and get out of the way. Instead, we're seeing companies that control the digital public square enact severely biased policies that favor their employee's politics. That's dangerous and unacceptable.
googthrowaway42 6y ago
Any attempt to bring information to light that is harmful to the Cathedral is considered smearing.

michannne 6y ago

We live in a country where we have elected officials and laws to deal with individuals and organizations that undermine our democracy. I don't need some random collective of people headquarted in a random state to decide those things for me.

mullingitover 6y ago
Conservatives: we don't need the government censoring things! Trust the free market Free market: censors things Conservatives: no, not like that
- googthrowaway42 6y ago
  You're thinking of libertarians, not conservatives.
  - orthecreedence 6y ago
    If we're being precise, you're thinking of neolibertarians. "Libertarians" are traditionally libertarian-socialists (anarchists).
    - orthecreedence 6y ago
      Downvotes because I'm wrong, or because of butthurt neolibertarians don't know the history of the word they've co-opted?
- dexen 6y ago
  >Free market: censors things Literally the opposite of the case. Due to the power of Section 230, the online platforms are shielded from the normal liability, which gives them an inherent advantage. Section 230 distorts the market, making it non-free. See also: the excellent "Propaganda, censorship, and surveillance are all attributes of monopoly"[1] story from earlier on today. Moreover, the Section 230 was specifically created to distort the market, to help kickstart the online communications and commerce, by giving it an edge over the other businesses. Now that it has done its job, we can revoke the Section 230, and return to actual free market. Where a tortious interference would be sorted out by a lawsuit. -- [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24771470 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24771470