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The facts aligning in the Senator's favor does not make the request partisan. Nor are they the only political figures to reference the widely acknowledged facts

The facts aligning in the Senator's favor does not make the request partisan. Nor are they the only political figures to reference the widely acknowledged facts that there was no spread widespread voter fraud. Prominent Republican politicians in positions of oversight have agreed with this outcome.

stickyricky 6y ago
Its possible to censor incorrect information. Recognizing false information is not equivalent to calling for it to be suppressed.
- briandear 6y ago
  Who determines “correct?”
  - GreenHeuristics 6y ago
    The US Democratic party.
- 495636483 6y ago
  This. The world will end, if we treat every fucking word like an "opinion", which deserves to be heard. "Covid19 is a lie!1!!" isn't an opinion. It's ignorant non-sense at best, likely malicious, indirect interest-driven misinformation. It absolutely does not deserve the same, attention, platform and range as scientific, or reasonably political debate. Naive unconditional free speech, "attention communism", if you want lol, is an ignorant and anti-democratic idea. The only reason that hasn't hurt us like this before, was the cost of spreading information effectively, pre-www.
samdlathsworth 6y ago
Then it sounds handled. Why even bother? This nanny state nonsense is downright terrifying.
- lukas099 6y ago
  >Why even bother? Because many people have been fooled by misinformation on large social websites, and it gives them a bad name, which is not in the companies' best interest. I don't really see this as a nanny state action, either. YouTube is not part of the state. From a libertarian point of view, shouldn't they have the right to censor what they want on their own platform? Yes, politicians are urging YouTube to take down the videos, but the key word there is "urging". They have no way to force them to take them down.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > They have no way to force them to take them down. https://gizmodo.com/democrats-propose-section-230-changes-say-facebook-alg-1845426762 https://gizmodo.com/democrats-propose-section-230-changes-sa... "Better do what we want, we're introducing legislation that will mess you up" is a pretty direct threat.
    - hshshs2 6y ago
      so, lobbying?
    - lukas099 6y ago
      Hm. That bill's goal seems to be to stop tech companies from using algorithms that lead to amplification of extremist viewpoints. That is not the same as censorship.
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        The censorship is in threatening to pass a law the companies wouldn't like if they don't do what the legislators demand. It isn't any less a threat than a fine for not doing what the legislators demand; it's a threat of punishment for non-compliance. (There are also several other bills of a similar nature, that was only one example.)
        6y ago
hartator 6y ago
> The facts aligning in the Senator's favor does not make the request partisan. Politics requesting censorship is always partisan.
- sbussard 6y ago
  Bye bye first amendment
- Pils 6y ago
  Censorship measures often have bipartisan support.
  - bordercases 6y ago
    Except when they don't.
    - spoopyskelly 6y ago
      Depends on what exactly you want censored: 4 years of "Russia stole the elections" = good, 1 month of "dems stole the election" = bad.
- adamsea 6y ago
  > Politics requesting censorship is always partisan. Extremely general statements are always applicable.
- _RPL5_ 6y ago
  I am curious how something like this would have been handled 50, 100, 200 years ago. Let's say you have a newspaper spreading misinformation that is hurting an important social institution. What do you do? Close it down? Sue the editor for defamation, then close it down? There must have been precedent.
  - snowwrestler 6y ago
    It has always worked the same way: people ask publishers to change what they publish, and the publishers decide whether to make a change or not, based on their own opinions and sense of self-interest.
huffmsa 6y ago
And there was no pee-pee tape, but there are 4 years of video from MSNBC peddling that tired conspiracy theory.
- Covzire 6y ago
  "Disinfo for thee, but not for me..."
- swirepe 6y ago
  >And there was no pee-pee tape You haven't seen it?
- dr-detroit 6y ago
  Actually, 2 independent intelligence sources confirmed it happened.
- mrzimmerman 6y ago
  I’ll agree there was no pee pee tape (or at least zero evidence ever presented for it), but your point is just false equivalence.
downandout 6y ago
The facts aligning in the Senator's favor does not make the request partisan. Of course it's partisan. Had Trump won, and Biden voters were publishing content like this with the same lack of evidence, do you believe that Democratic senators would still be urging YouTube to take it down in the interest of fairness to Trump? I think you know the answer to that. The scary part of this is that elected officials, who were presumably elected by people that thought they were going to protect the freedoms granted to them by the Constitution, and who must take an oath upon taking office to "support and defend the Constitution," sat down and wrote a letter that gleefully trampled all over one of our most fundamental constitutional rights. Since they were successful in this endeavor, it will happen again, on other, more expansive, partisan issues. Down the slippery slope we go. The simple fact of the matter is that people are entitled to their opinions, and in the United States, they have a constitutional right to express those opinions in the same way and on the same platforms as those that disagree with them. The only problem is that now we have politicians who believe that those rights should only be extended to those who are on their side. Both sides of the political aisle are acting this way, and it does not bode well for our future as a country.
- jakelazaroff 6y ago
  > Had Trump won, and Biden voters were publishing content like this with the same lack of evidence, do you believe that Democratic senators would still be urging YouTube to take it down in the interest of fairness to Trump? I think you know the answer to that. The premise here is that both sides are just as likely to push misinformation on behalf of their team. The Democrats aren't perfect, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking that they would engage in the exact same tactics and rhetoric as the GOP if the shoe were on the other foot. I'll flip the question around. Had Trump won, would the Democratic party be publishing content like this with the same lack of evidence? I think you know the answer to that.
  - downandout 6y ago
    I'll flip the question around. Had Trump won, would the Democratic party be publishing content like this with the same lack of evidence? I just listened to 4 years of CNN, MSNBC, and virtually every other media outlet claiming that the previous election was rigged, with similarly sparse evidence. So yes, not only do I believe that they would, but they have already done it, 24/7, for the last 4 straight years.
meragrin 6y ago
If YouTube does as good a job as Facebook, then I have zero faith it won't just become partisan censorship. I have seen "False Information" labels on Facebook posts which were linked to "fact checking articles" which confirmed the post as true rather than false.
- cjohnson318 6y ago
  Can you share examples?
  - umvi 6y ago
    Hunter Biden story suppression comes to mind a few months back. Stories were technically true (or at least mostly true) but fact checkers were going crazy labelling stories as false to suppress propagation.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - cjohnson318 6y ago
      Saying something is "technically true" or "at least mostly true" is a red flag. Try saying these out loud: 1. Try this sushi, it's mostly fresh. 2. Sure, I'll give you a ride, I'm mostly sober. 3. I know what I'm doing, I'm technically a doctor.
      - umvi 6y ago
        Every article is going to have some statements not 100% true. Would you rather fact checkers flag mostly true articles or mostly false articles? If one grain of rice in the bag is bad, is the whole bag bad? How about 2 grains of rice? 20 grains? Where is the line drawn at which a fact checker should label the article as false or partly false? What I've seen this last election on Facebook is partisan fact checkers hunting for that one bad grain of rice so they can use it to label the whole article as "false" or "partly false" in an effort to protect Biden/Harris. I'm having trouble finding them now because facebook isn't super searchable but I remember thinking a lot of them were really nit-picky, similar to this one from 2018[0]. It got so bad I started seeing various viral memes complaining about it[1] [0] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-smash-phone-hammer/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-smash-phon... (Context: Trump tweeted that "crooked Hillary destroyed her phones with a hammer", Snopes labels his tweet as partly false because Hillary personally didn't destroy her phones with a hammer, her aide did) [1] https://imgur.com/a/1Job9xX https://imgur.com/a/1Job9xX
AmericanChopper 6y ago
The facts of this case are quite clearly in dispute, so to make a judgement about which of those facts are accurate and which aren’t is rather clearly taking a partisan political position. This whole fact obsession has gotten completely out of hand. Presiding over disputed matters of fact is pretty much the core purpose of our entire court system. You can’t just call something a fact and be done with it. What you’ve actually described is a collection of opinions, and then declared them settled facts by referencing some of the people that hold them. I know people get terribly riled up by politics, but they’re just losing sight of any form of reasonableness. Having an unaccountable central authority decide what’s true and what’s not is literally one of the most canonical forms of dystopia that exists.
- monsieurbanana 6y ago
  I thought many (most?) US courts had already ruled against widespread voting fraud, and that so far there was no evidence presented. How is it still "quite clearly in dispute"? > Having an unaccountable central authority decide what’s true and what’s not This part of your comment is highly ironic.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    For reasons such as "should have filed before the election". There is a significant volume of claims pending action before the supreme court, including one rather large case filed by the Texas AG, and joined by a number of other state AGs. This rule prohibits the discussion of unapproved narratives about the merits of any of those cases. In any case, anybody who believes they have no merits can happily wait for the supreme court to confirm that. No need for mass partisan political censorship. I'm not at all sure why you think my comment is so ironic either, so please feel free to explain.
    - monsieurbanana 6y ago
      I googled "court ruling against voting fraud" and read through articles Nevada, Pensylvannia and Michigan. None of those fit your "should have filed before the election" narrative. The closest thing I found was: > Pennsylvania’s top court on Nov. 28 dismissed the challenge, saying that the lawsuit was not filed in a timely manner when the mail-in voting law was first enacted. It threw out a lower court ruling that had ordered the state not to certify the election pending a hearing. But this is not about widespread fraud, this is about mail-in voting laws. I don't know what's a reputable website for USA political news, feel free to tell me if I'm reading overly biased junk: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/12/09/nevada-supreme-court-rejects-trump-campaign-election-lawsuit-and-voter-fraud-claims/?sh=fcac3d46f48e https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/12/09/nevada-... https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-election-court-pennsylvania/u-s-supreme-court-rejects-republican-challenge-to-bidens-pennsylvania-win-idUSKBN28I35L https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-election-court-pennsylva... https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/12/09/michigan-supreme-court-election-fraud-case/3867388001/ https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/12/... > I'm not at all sure why you think my comment is so ironic either, so please feel free to explain. Trump calling it a win the night of the election is, no matter how you spin it, very close to your "unaccountable central authority" deciding what’s true and what’s not. So your final point seems correct, just pointed in the wrong direction.

stickyricky 6y ago

Its possible to censor incorrect information. Recognizing false information is not equivalent to calling for it to be suppressed.

briandear 6y ago
Who determines “correct?”
- GreenHeuristics 6y ago
  The US Democratic party.
495636483 6y ago
This. The world will end, if we treat every fucking word like an "opinion", which deserves to be heard. "Covid19 is a lie!1!!" isn't an opinion. It's ignorant non-sense at best, likely malicious, indirect interest-driven misinformation. It absolutely does not deserve the same, attention, platform and range as scientific, or reasonably political debate. Naive unconditional free speech, "attention communism", if you want lol, is an ignorant and anti-democratic idea. The only reason that hasn't hurt us like this before, was the cost of spreading information effectively, pre-www.

samdlathsworth 6y ago

Then it sounds handled. Why even bother? This nanny state nonsense is downright terrifying.

lukas099 6y ago
>Why even bother? Because many people have been fooled by misinformation on large social websites, and it gives them a bad name, which is not in the companies' best interest. I don't really see this as a nanny state action, either. YouTube is not part of the state. From a libertarian point of view, shouldn't they have the right to censor what they want on their own platform? Yes, politicians are urging YouTube to take down the videos, but the key word there is "urging". They have no way to force them to take them down.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > They have no way to force them to take them down. https://gizmodo.com/democrats-propose-section-230-changes-say-facebook-alg-1845426762 https://gizmodo.com/democrats-propose-section-230-changes-sa... "Better do what we want, we're introducing legislation that will mess you up" is a pretty direct threat.
  - hshshs2 6y ago
    so, lobbying?
  - lukas099 6y ago
    Hm. That bill's goal seems to be to stop tech companies from using algorithms that lead to amplification of extremist viewpoints. That is not the same as censorship.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      The censorship is in threatening to pass a law the companies wouldn't like if they don't do what the legislators demand. It isn't any less a threat than a fine for not doing what the legislators demand; it's a threat of punishment for non-compliance. (There are also several other bills of a similar nature, that was only one example.)
      - 6y ago

hartator 6y ago

> The facts aligning in the Senator's favor does not make the request partisan. Politics requesting censorship is always partisan.

sbussard 6y ago
Bye bye first amendment
Pils 6y ago
Censorship measures often have bipartisan support.
- bordercases 6y ago
  Except when they don't.
  - spoopyskelly 6y ago
    Depends on what exactly you want censored: 4 years of "Russia stole the elections" = good, 1 month of "dems stole the election" = bad.
adamsea 6y ago
> Politics requesting censorship is always partisan. Extremely general statements are always applicable.
_RPL5_ 6y ago
I am curious how something like this would have been handled 50, 100, 200 years ago. Let's say you have a newspaper spreading misinformation that is hurting an important social institution. What do you do? Close it down? Sue the editor for defamation, then close it down? There must have been precedent.
- snowwrestler 6y ago
  It has always worked the same way: people ask publishers to change what they publish, and the publishers decide whether to make a change or not, based on their own opinions and sense of self-interest.

huffmsa 6y ago

And there was no pee-pee tape, but there are 4 years of video from MSNBC peddling that tired conspiracy theory.

Covzire 6y ago
"Disinfo for thee, but not for me..."
swirepe 6y ago
>And there was no pee-pee tape You haven't seen it?
dr-detroit 6y ago
Actually, 2 independent intelligence sources confirmed it happened.
mrzimmerman 6y ago
I’ll agree there was no pee pee tape (or at least zero evidence ever presented for it), but your point is just false equivalence.

downandout 6y ago

The facts aligning in the Senator's favor does not make the request partisan. Of course it's partisan. Had Trump won, and Biden voters were publishing content like this with the same lack of evidence, do you believe that Democratic senators would still be urging YouTube to take it down in the interest of fairness to Trump? I think you know the answer to that. The scary part of this is that elected officials, who were presumably elected by people that thought they were going to protect the freedoms granted to them by the Constitution, and who must take an oath upon taking office to "support and defend the Constitution," sat down and wrote a letter that gleefully trampled all over one of our most fundamental constitutional rights. Since they were successful in this endeavor, it will happen again, on other, more expansive, partisan issues. Down the slippery slope we go. The simple fact of the matter is that people are entitled to their opinions, and in the United States, they have a constitutional right to express those opinions in the same way and on the same platforms as those that disagree with them. The only problem is that now we have politicians who believe that those rights should only be extended to those who are on their side. Both sides of the political aisle are acting this way, and it does not bode well for our future as a country.

jakelazaroff 6y ago
> Had Trump won, and Biden voters were publishing content like this with the same lack of evidence, do you believe that Democratic senators would still be urging YouTube to take it down in the interest of fairness to Trump? I think you know the answer to that. The premise here is that both sides are just as likely to push misinformation on behalf of their team. The Democrats aren't perfect, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking that they would engage in the exact same tactics and rhetoric as the GOP if the shoe were on the other foot. I'll flip the question around. Had Trump won, would the Democratic party be publishing content like this with the same lack of evidence? I think you know the answer to that.
- downandout 6y ago
  I'll flip the question around. Had Trump won, would the Democratic party be publishing content like this with the same lack of evidence? I just listened to 4 years of CNN, MSNBC, and virtually every other media outlet claiming that the previous election was rigged, with similarly sparse evidence. So yes, not only do I believe that they would, but they have already done it, 24/7, for the last 4 straight years.

meragrin 6y ago

If YouTube does as good a job as Facebook, then I have zero faith it won't just become partisan censorship. I have seen "False Information" labels on Facebook posts which were linked to "fact checking articles" which confirmed the post as true rather than false.

cjohnson318 6y ago
Can you share examples?
- umvi 6y ago
  Hunter Biden story suppression comes to mind a few months back. Stories were technically true (or at least mostly true) but fact checkers were going crazy labelling stories as false to suppress propagation.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - cjohnson318 6y ago
    Saying something is "technically true" or "at least mostly true" is a red flag. Try saying these out loud: 1. Try this sushi, it's mostly fresh. 2. Sure, I'll give you a ride, I'm mostly sober. 3. I know what I'm doing, I'm technically a doctor.
    - umvi 6y ago
      Every article is going to have some statements not 100% true. Would you rather fact checkers flag mostly true articles or mostly false articles? If one grain of rice in the bag is bad, is the whole bag bad? How about 2 grains of rice? 20 grains? Where is the line drawn at which a fact checker should label the article as false or partly false? What I've seen this last election on Facebook is partisan fact checkers hunting for that one bad grain of rice so they can use it to label the whole article as "false" or "partly false" in an effort to protect Biden/Harris. I'm having trouble finding them now because facebook isn't super searchable but I remember thinking a lot of them were really nit-picky, similar to this one from 2018[0]. It got so bad I started seeing various viral memes complaining about it[1] [0] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-smash-phone-hammer/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-smash-phon... (Context: Trump tweeted that "crooked Hillary destroyed her phones with a hammer", Snopes labels his tweet as partly false because Hillary personally didn't destroy her phones with a hammer, her aide did) [1] https://imgur.com/a/1Job9xX https://imgur.com/a/1Job9xX

AmericanChopper 6y ago

The facts of this case are quite clearly in dispute, so to make a judgement about which of those facts are accurate and which aren’t is rather clearly taking a partisan political position. This whole fact obsession has gotten completely out of hand. Presiding over disputed matters of fact is pretty much the core purpose of our entire court system. You can’t just call something a fact and be done with it. What you’ve actually described is a collection of opinions, and then declared them settled facts by referencing some of the people that hold them. I know people get terribly riled up by politics, but they’re just losing sight of any form of reasonableness. Having an unaccountable central authority decide what’s true and what’s not is literally one of the most canonical forms of dystopia that exists.

monsieurbanana 6y ago
I thought many (most?) US courts had already ruled against widespread voting fraud, and that so far there was no evidence presented. How is it still "quite clearly in dispute"? > Having an unaccountable central authority decide what’s true and what’s not This part of your comment is highly ironic.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  For reasons such as "should have filed before the election". There is a significant volume of claims pending action before the supreme court, including one rather large case filed by the Texas AG, and joined by a number of other state AGs. This rule prohibits the discussion of unapproved narratives about the merits of any of those cases. In any case, anybody who believes they have no merits can happily wait for the supreme court to confirm that. No need for mass partisan political censorship. I'm not at all sure why you think my comment is so ironic either, so please feel free to explain.
  - monsieurbanana 6y ago
    I googled "court ruling against voting fraud" and read through articles Nevada, Pensylvannia and Michigan. None of those fit your "should have filed before the election" narrative. The closest thing I found was: > Pennsylvania’s top court on Nov. 28 dismissed the challenge, saying that the lawsuit was not filed in a timely manner when the mail-in voting law was first enacted. It threw out a lower court ruling that had ordered the state not to certify the election pending a hearing. But this is not about widespread fraud, this is about mail-in voting laws. I don't know what's a reputable website for USA political news, feel free to tell me if I'm reading overly biased junk: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/12/09/nevada-supreme-court-rejects-trump-campaign-election-lawsuit-and-voter-fraud-claims/?sh=fcac3d46f48e https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/12/09/nevada-... https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-election-court-pennsylvania/u-s-supreme-court-rejects-republican-challenge-to-bidens-pennsylvania-win-idUSKBN28I35L https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-election-court-pennsylva... https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/12/09/michigan-supreme-court-election-fraud-case/3867388001/ https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/12/... > I'm not at all sure why you think my comment is so ironic either, so please feel free to explain. Trump calling it a win the night of the election is, no matter how you spin it, very close to your "unaccountable central authority" deciding what’s true and what’s not. So your final point seems correct, just pointed in the wrong direction.