8 ms·

Many are confusing "censorship" with "content moderation". The difference is very important. Censorship is when you are prevented from publishing on your own p

• jsu32 6y ago
  It's a matter of scale. As the article says, the current Democratic Party Alliance for suppressing damaging stories is so broad, that even though you can publish your story, the chances of reaching its intended audience at scale are slim. Also - if Twitter gets to decide whats get published on their platform, they are an editorial organization - something they've vehemently denied they are in the past.
  • narshian 6y ago
    The chances of garbage information reaching audiences “at scale” is why we have a malignant tumor in the White House, in the first place.
• throwawayay02 6y ago
  Twitter did not decide that in good faight. First, because they are used as a public platform, like it or not, and as such they are not expected to moderate anything. People follow or block what they want. And second, because they are biased in their censorship and are not forthcoming about it.
  • sagichmal 6y ago
    > because they are used as a public platform . . . they are not expected to moderate anything Says who? > because they are biased in their censorship Yes, and reality has a liberal bias, eh?
  • phs318u 6y ago
    > as such they are not expected to moderate anything When even the president's tweets have been squelched or tagged, I highly doubt that anyone reasonably familiar with Twitter over the last couple of years would have that expectation.
  • AgentME 6y ago
    Every public platform would look exactly like your email's spam folder if they weren't expected to moderate anything.
  • triceratops 6y ago
    There is no legal requirement for a "public platform" (this is not a legal term) to be unmoderated or "neutral". You've been misinformed.
• centimeter 6y ago
  > censorship: the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security There's no sane way to interpret twitter's actions as anything except censorship. The fact that they're legally entitled to commit this censorship doesn't make it something else.
  • hackyhacky 6y ago
    To have a sensible conversation, we have to acknowledge what the alleged Biden emails are: at best, stolen information; and at worst, intentionally manipulated or fabricated information. In either case, the information is being released now for the explicit goal of altering the outcome of the election in favor of those who are releasing it. We haven't had this issue in history before: it's never been so easy to reach so many people with such bad information. This places intermediaries, including Twitter, in an awkward situation: they can "censor" by restricting access to intentionally misleading information; or they can release it, and thereby become pawns of the bad actors who propagate it. As has been pointed out, this is a moral issue. We should step pretending that all censorship is bad, and that compelling intermediaries to publish literally everything is a moral good.
    • centimeter 6y ago
      > stolen information Who the hell cares if the information was stolen? Jeffrey Epstein's little black book was "stolen information" - do you object to using that information to make an indictment? > intentionally misleading information Crazy how a credible leak is "intentionally misleading" when it's politically inconvenient.
    • j8hn 6y ago
      I don't think either of your opinions have to be acknowledged or assumed in order to have a sensible conversation about this issue. "We haven't had this issue in history before: it's never been so easy to reach so many people with such bad information." Is this a literal statement? Is it bad information?
• googthrowaway42 6y ago
  Content moderation is a form of censorship. Censorship isn't always bad. You can look up the history of the term if you want (hint: it shares the same origin as the term "census"). A closely related phenomenon to the pathological applications of censorship is the abuse and redefinition of language for political purposes like what you're doing.
  • strathmeyer 6y ago
    Content moderation is a form of free speech.
    • TeMPOraL 6y ago
      So this would make censorship a form of free speech. We've reach a contradiction, so there must be an error in the chain of reasoning. My money is on "content moderation is a form of free speech" being wrong.
      • nkurz 6y ago
        I'm not sure. What is the exact contradiction that you see? Viewing moderation as another form as speech seems reasonable to me, or at least as reasonable as viewing a campaign contribution as a form of speech. Perhaps the actual issue is that "free speech" cannot be a guaranteed right shared by all, but is inherently a rivalrous good.
      • RangerScience 6y ago
        My money is on censorship being a form of free speech. Not a concept that I've heard before, or that (at a glance) makes any kind of sense to me. Can you walk me through that equality?
      • chrisoverzero 6y ago
        >We’ve reach[ed] a contradiction […] No, it’s only that people are using differing definitions of “censorship” and talking past each other. Content moderation is, in fact, a form of free speech. Twitter (for example) is allowed to choose what they want to host on their website, and what they want not to host on their website. This is free speech – it’s their site, one can’t make them host what one writes. If choosing what to remove from their website is deemed “censorship”, then there’s no contradiction.
• platz 6y ago
  > what they considered to be Russian disinformation and propaganda was it?
  • skindoe 6y ago
    I'm sure they totally would do the same thing for a different political candidate /s
  • TwoBit 6y ago
    I don't know about Russian involvement, but it was clearly a right wing attempt to meddle in the election to achieve a last minute bomb on their opponent like in 2016.
    • mjfl 6y ago
      If something is going to be suppressed as Russian propaganda, there better be evidence that it is Russian propaganda. Otherwise the suppression itself is propaganda in the other direction.
      • nearbuy 6y ago
        Twitter's objection was that the New York Post article contained hacked or illegally obtained material (personal intimate photos, etc.). Publishing those materials is a legal grey area.
        • bgentry 6y ago
          No, if if the content is true and in the public interest, there is really no question about the legality of publishing it in the US: it is 100% constitutionally protected. Twitter’s initial justification for removing the “hacked” material is completely at odds with their past decisions to leave up hacked/illegally obtained materials like the Snowden docs, Trump tax returns, Panama papers, etc. Of course they have since changed their stance.
          • 6y ago
• hackyhacky 6y ago
  You can call it "censorship" or "content moderation." I don't care, the distinction is meaningless for this conversation. The only meaningful argument is what Twitter (for example) CAN do (legally), and what they SHOULD do (morally). Clearly, Twitter is legally in the right to suppress this information, because it's their platform. They can set the content rules as they like, as arbitrarily and capriciously as they like. More of a judgment call, but I would argue that Twitter is morally in the right as well. This is obviously a case of carefully engineering disinformation, using America's value of freedom of speech against us. If they don't suppress it, Twitter is actively aiding bad actors, with very serious consequences. Twitter does not want to be in the business of content moderation, but in this case the information is question is so obviously falsified; it is spread so obviously in bad faith; and its consequences are so obviously dangerous to the nation, that they are justified in taking a moral stand against it.
  • nomdep 6y ago
    Would you say the same if, next year, the official investigation founds that he is guilty?
    • hackyhacky 6y ago
      Good question. The answer is yes. Aside from the factual basis (or lack thereof) of the information in question, there's the question of how it's been used. Giuliani, obviously the bad actor of this story, has been sitting on this laptop for a year. If he wanted to have a serious discussion about Biden's alleged impropriety, he should have released it early. At this point in the election cycle, it's a blatant attempt to grab a news cycle and force voters to a bad decision before the dust has settled. I support a total blackout of political stories in the run-up to an election. [Edit: rephrase to clarify that my position would not change.]
• pessimizer 6y ago
  No, prior restraint is a form of censorship where you are prevented from publishing on your own platform. "Content moderation" is a euphemism for censorship that you agree with. "Content moderation" is to platform censorship as "prevention of material support for terrorism" and "the maintenance of the public order" is to prior restraint.
• nanis 6y ago
  I am always impressed when people make these kinds of absolute statements about the primacy of private property rights. Now, let's consider: * Alice should be able to choose without restriction to whom she is going to rent * Bob should be able to choose without restriction who's allowed to play golf at his club * Carlos should be able to choose without restriction to whom his bank is going to lend money etc. I am not saying I agree with those statements. I am saying when you say "Twitter is a private company. They can choose without restriction who's allowed to use their platform," you are not saying anything substantively different than those statements. In a universe where the ability to put your speech in front of other people depends on being able to post it online in a place where they might be able to see, there are trade-offs involved that seem to be conveniently shoved aside when it is about news you do not like. I prefer the cacophonous chaos of everyone being able to tell me about stuff they deem important. One step further, I prefer to live a society that can learn to live with that without falling apart.
  • Spooky23 6y ago
    Your analogy is broken. Clever to try to compare Twitter to discrimination though. In all of the situations, the principals have broad discretion to make choices about their property. Alice can turn away people with credit problems. Bob can require a specific handicap to play. Carlos can choose to not loan money to high risk professions. They cannot say “no black people at my apartment complex”, “no golf if you are Jewish” or “no loan if you’re gay”. You may prefer chaos, most people do not.
    • tomp 6y ago
      Agreed, these aren’t good analogies. Twitter and Facebook are getting closer to: the post not delivering your mail, or the power company turning off your electricity despite paying your bill, or the phone company cutting you off after you say the wrong thing...
    • abnry 6y ago
      But isn't the sort of sneaky racism exactly what people claim is such a problem today? There's not overt claim of inferiority or an explicit denial of opportunity, but yet there is still "systemic racism". The analogy is that Twitter can't censor stories that benefit republicans, but if the "reasons" for censoring always seem to work against republicans and are applied inconsistently, then perhaps things aren't as they seem.
• fogetti 6y ago
  Doh. By the same logic China (or other oppressors) is not censoring anything because people can travel to Vietnam (or Japan for that matter) and they can tell anyone what they want.
• sleepysysadmin 6y ago
  I would say you're proposing a false dichotomy. There are 4 options or more. In the case of Twitter, in order to maintain their "good samaritan" the extent of their "content moderation" is quite specficic. any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable. The NYPost article was damaging a political opponent to be sure. It was not obscene, lewd, filthy; though clearly twitter allows porn so these are immediately ruled out. It wasn't violent by any means. Was it harassing or otherwise objectionable? Well I think there's some good debate possible but that debate is cut off immediately because the "content moderation" must be done in good faith. This very clearly is violated. So Twitter did not content moderate as per the laws they must obey. Therefore we now have 2 options. Twitter loses platform protections and becomes directly liable for any and all content they publish aka any anonymous person posting. OR they stop their censorship.