5 ms·

<parody> Okay, let's retroactively suspend John McCain for singing "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran" on a hot mike. President George W. Bush should be suspen

<parody> Okay, let's retroactively suspend John McCain for singing "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran" on a hot mike. President George W. Bush should be suspended for invading Iraq on false or flimsy pretexts, resulting in 6,000 American soldiers killed and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Obama lied when he said "you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan" eleven times and this turned out not to be true (90% anyway). Shouldn't the social networks censor patently false and misleading statements by a very influential leader? Ronald Reagan said something about launching the nukes on the USSR, I don't remember the exact quote. Cancel him off social media. Et cetera. </parody> The harm in censorship is that it actually reduces the flow of communication and information, for future historical records as well as for the present.

deanCommie 6y ago
https://twitter.com/LeftAccidental https://twitter.com/LeftAccidental
hk__2 6y ago
That’s not censorship (private companies, etc), and reducing the flow of harmful communication is a good thing.
- nilkn 6y ago
  Censorship can be performed by private companies. From Wikipedia: “Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies.”
  - sixothree 6y ago
    It would be censorship to _force_ a company to say something they didn't want to say. That is clearly taking away their rights to free speech.
    - valvar 6y ago
      Are you being purposefully obtuse, or do you actually believe that HN wrote your comment?
      - sixothree 6y ago
        I don't think you understand. Read it again. But sigh. I could explain it again. Disallowing companies from banning users would be forcing those companies to carry content they disagree with, thereby removing their right to free speech.
        Proziam 6y ago
        Your stance is effectively that social media sites are publishers instead of platforms. This is my opinion as well, but it carries with it liability. Unfortunately, they currently are immune to such liability while being able to choose who can say what. If they want the protections the phone company gets, they need to act more like the phone company.
        Rapzid 6y ago
        It's not really. You can disagree with something but still not be responsible for it and carry it on your properties. You can also disagree with it and not carry it. I can even prove it. That's how it works. Right. Now.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - undersuit 6y ago
    Control. Trump is not controlled by Twitter. He is controlled by the government just like the rest of the US. A school, they control the children, and they have a limited control over the child's free speech. Your job, possibly a private institution, has control over you. They can censor you with the power they have. We need the 1A because we don't get to choose our government, we do get to choose our internet messaging platforms and they choose to work with us.
- blisterpeanuts 6y ago
  It is the very definition of censorship. And one man's "harmful communication" is another woman's useful communication. Since your comment is egregiously wrong and, in my opinion, harmful, I'm going to delete it so that it doesn't mislead people about the harms of censorship. See where I'm going with this? I say my opinion, you present your side, and we can debate, or move on, but we have both had our say (albeit, at varying shades of grey on HackerNews ;) The notion of "harmful tweets" is a very 2020s phenomenon but the concept goes back thousands of years. There's a reason our Bill of Rights is strongly inspired by Voltaire, Descartes, and other (then) modern thinkers. "I disagree with what you say, but I will give my life for your right to say it." It feels as though we've backslid from that ideal.
  - sixothree 6y ago
    I want to agree with your argument. But your point that this is censorship is so off base. By definition, it's just not.
    - Proziam 6y ago
      By whose definition? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/whodecides/definitions.html https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/whodecides/definitions...
  - asiando 6y ago
    It’s pretty simple, really. “I hate Bob” is fine. “Bob should die” isn’t. Some tweets don’t need to exist because it might lead Bob to be killed, especially when said by someone with a cult-like following.
    - sillycon-valley 6y ago
      "Bob should die" should be allowed to exist and is. It can be said jokingly, yes it's bad taste but not credible. "Bob, I am coming to kill you" or "Bob I'll kill you if you don't do X for me" a court would say is probably a credible threat, which is already illegal. Why do we want to shift the responsibility of deciding how to police speech to private companies? Sticks & stones.
krona 6y ago
If Gutenberg could've been pressured in to restricting what combinations of words were allowed in his press, the enlightenment ultimately may never have happened. Simple as that. The problem is today's printing presses are not owned by the people who use them, and can be confiscated without warning or recourse. The consequence will be the end of liberal society, but society will demand it.
- zapnuk 6y ago
  Gutenberg is one example, Hitler another one. It like people already forgot that followers of the president committed an domestic terror attack right after attending his rally.
  - busterarm 6y ago
    According to some reporters who were there, people were already in the Capitol Building _during_ the rally and that there was a steady flood of people heading there before the rally finished.
    - zapnuk 6y ago
      The capitol was clearly barred+fenced off. They FORCED their way in. All of it was televised. Why even try resort to fringe observations by "some reporters".
      - tylersmith 6y ago
        There is plenty of video of them being let in. They took down the barricades and just started letting people in. This camera person for a news outlet just walked right in with 0 force. https://twitter.com/insidernews/status/1347646782659031043 https://twitter.com/insidernews/status/1347646782659031043
        zapnuk 6y ago
        Because at that point they are heavily outnumbered that point they couldn't do much besides securing the MVPs (Senators, personal etc.). Here is the video where the terrorists crushed an officer to death: https://twitter.com/joshscampbell/status/1347749675777011714 https://twitter.com/joshscampbell/status/1347749675777011714 The doors were definitely not open at the beginning, which everyone who watched it live clearly saw. What he did see is a violent mob who forced their way into the building and a police which was outnumbered and not prepared.
gthtjtkt 6y ago
You forgot Kamala Harris, who encouraged the extremely violent and destructive BLM riots that killed more than 25 people and caused over $2 billion in property damage. That didn't seem to get Twitter's attention. She even set up a bail fund for the terrorists who participated in those riots.
- metabagel 6y ago
  BLM protests were mostly non-violent. https://today.uconn.edu/2020/10/study-2020-protests-shows-difference-reality-perception/ https://today.uconn.edu/2020/10/study-2020-protests-shows-di...
  - therealdrag0 6y ago
    A small percentage of a large number is still a sizable number.
  - hndudette2 6y ago
    Flying on 9/11/2001 was "mostly safe" because less than 96% of flights were hijacked. Also a true statement, but ridiculous. The BLM riots resulted in 19 dead, and thousands of properties damaged. It's equivalently true to say "Trump protests/rallies are mostly non-violent", since the majority of them (probably rivalling the 96% in the article you mention) have had few issues with violence until the recent insurrection. But that would just be a vacuous talking point.
- Pulcinella 6y ago
  Do you a single fact to back that up? I don’t even like Kamala but I don’t think she set up a bail fund for the police, though she has called herself “America’s top cop” so it wouldn’t surprise me.
  - blisterpeanuts 6y ago
    Kamala Harris and several others in the Biden campaign tweeted support for a bail fund; I don't think she herself set up a bail fund but my knowledge about this is limited. 1. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/man-accused-of-raping-young-girl-released-from-jail-after-help-from-bail-fund-touted-by-kamala-harris/ar-BB199jo1 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/man-accused-of-rapin...
filoeleven 6y ago
None of those things were said/done over social media—I could be wrong about Obama here. All of those statements and actions were covered by the media because they were newsworthy. Some of Trump’s tweets are also newsworthy, of course. But the format of direct communication without context to millions of followers is a big part of how he was able to spread and maintain such a false view of reality. Before, any statement from a president was reported on, and usually presented with additional context that includes fact-checking where possible, by a broad range of left- and right-leaning news outfits. That’s no guarantee that batshit-crazy lies don’t get through, as we saw with Iraq WMDs. But it generally provides better safeguards. Trump can still call a press conference, or even put out videos from the White House, any time he wants to. It is not a hardship. I’d argue that he liked Twitter precisely because he controlled the information, and could rely on people to take him at his word. I realize that I’m painting kind of a rosy picture here, since so many trump followers already hate and distrust the media. But presidents got by without Twitter before trump and if it came down to it, whitehouse.gov is just as easy to check for new statements that aren’t edited by the MSM. And I think this is too little, too late from Twitter as well—they never should have made a separate set of rules for him. I don’t think your “future historical records” holds water here, since every tweet he’s made is already archived elsewhere, unless you were getting at something different. As a similar thought exercise to yours, if in the administration’s view the election was stolen, that surely counts as a national emergency, which qualifies the president to “tweet” whatever he wants over the emergency broadcast system. There are plenty of other avenues he can use.
raldi 6y ago
"What, you think we should be filing our nails? Okay then, let's just cut our arms off."

deanCommie 6y ago

https://twitter.com/LeftAccidental https://twitter.com/LeftAccidental

hk__2 6y ago

That’s not censorship (private companies, etc), and reducing the flow of harmful communication is a good thing.

nilkn 6y ago
Censorship can be performed by private companies. From Wikipedia: “Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies.”
- sixothree 6y ago
  It would be censorship to _force_ a company to say something they didn't want to say. That is clearly taking away their rights to free speech.
  - valvar 6y ago
    Are you being purposefully obtuse, or do you actually believe that HN wrote your comment?
    - sixothree 6y ago
      I don't think you understand. Read it again. But sigh. I could explain it again. Disallowing companies from banning users would be forcing those companies to carry content they disagree with, thereby removing their right to free speech.
      - Proziam 6y ago
        Your stance is effectively that social media sites are publishers instead of platforms. This is my opinion as well, but it carries with it liability. Unfortunately, they currently are immune to such liability while being able to choose who can say what. If they want the protections the phone company gets, they need to act more like the phone company.
        Rapzid 6y ago
        It's not really. You can disagree with something but still not be responsible for it and carry it on your properties. You can also disagree with it and not carry it. I can even prove it. That's how it works. Right. Now.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- undersuit 6y ago
  Control. Trump is not controlled by Twitter. He is controlled by the government just like the rest of the US. A school, they control the children, and they have a limited control over the child's free speech. Your job, possibly a private institution, has control over you. They can censor you with the power they have. We need the 1A because we don't get to choose our government, we do get to choose our internet messaging platforms and they choose to work with us.
blisterpeanuts 6y ago
It is the very definition of censorship. And one man's "harmful communication" is another woman's useful communication. Since your comment is egregiously wrong and, in my opinion, harmful, I'm going to delete it so that it doesn't mislead people about the harms of censorship. See where I'm going with this? I say my opinion, you present your side, and we can debate, or move on, but we have both had our say (albeit, at varying shades of grey on HackerNews ;) The notion of "harmful tweets" is a very 2020s phenomenon but the concept goes back thousands of years. There's a reason our Bill of Rights is strongly inspired by Voltaire, Descartes, and other (then) modern thinkers. "I disagree with what you say, but I will give my life for your right to say it." It feels as though we've backslid from that ideal.
- sixothree 6y ago
  I want to agree with your argument. But your point that this is censorship is so off base. By definition, it's just not.
  - Proziam 6y ago
    By whose definition? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/whodecides/definitions.html https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/whodecides/definitions...
- asiando 6y ago
  It’s pretty simple, really. “I hate Bob” is fine. “Bob should die” isn’t. Some tweets don’t need to exist because it might lead Bob to be killed, especially when said by someone with a cult-like following.
  - sillycon-valley 6y ago
    "Bob should die" should be allowed to exist and is. It can be said jokingly, yes it's bad taste but not credible. "Bob, I am coming to kill you" or "Bob I'll kill you if you don't do X for me" a court would say is probably a credible threat, which is already illegal. Why do we want to shift the responsibility of deciding how to police speech to private companies? Sticks & stones.

krona 6y ago

If Gutenberg could've been pressured in to restricting what combinations of words were allowed in his press, the enlightenment ultimately may never have happened. Simple as that. The problem is today's printing presses are not owned by the people who use them, and can be confiscated without warning or recourse. The consequence will be the end of liberal society, but society will demand it.

zapnuk 6y ago
Gutenberg is one example, Hitler another one. It like people already forgot that followers of the president committed an domestic terror attack right after attending his rally.
- busterarm 6y ago
  According to some reporters who were there, people were already in the Capitol Building _during_ the rally and that there was a steady flood of people heading there before the rally finished.
  - zapnuk 6y ago
    The capitol was clearly barred+fenced off. They FORCED their way in. All of it was televised. Why even try resort to fringe observations by "some reporters".
    - tylersmith 6y ago
      There is plenty of video of them being let in. They took down the barricades and just started letting people in. This camera person for a news outlet just walked right in with 0 force. https://twitter.com/insidernews/status/1347646782659031043 https://twitter.com/insidernews/status/1347646782659031043
      - zapnuk 6y ago
        Because at that point they are heavily outnumbered that point they couldn't do much besides securing the MVPs (Senators, personal etc.). Here is the video where the terrorists crushed an officer to death: https://twitter.com/joshscampbell/status/1347749675777011714 https://twitter.com/joshscampbell/status/1347749675777011714 The doors were definitely not open at the beginning, which everyone who watched it live clearly saw. What he did see is a violent mob who forced their way into the building and a police which was outnumbered and not prepared.

gthtjtkt 6y ago

You forgot Kamala Harris, who encouraged the extremely violent and destructive BLM riots that killed more than 25 people and caused over $2 billion in property damage. That didn't seem to get Twitter's attention. She even set up a bail fund for the terrorists who participated in those riots.

metabagel 6y ago
BLM protests were mostly non-violent. https://today.uconn.edu/2020/10/study-2020-protests-shows-difference-reality-perception/ https://today.uconn.edu/2020/10/study-2020-protests-shows-di...
- therealdrag0 6y ago
  A small percentage of a large number is still a sizable number.
- hndudette2 6y ago
  Flying on 9/11/2001 was "mostly safe" because less than 96% of flights were hijacked. Also a true statement, but ridiculous. The BLM riots resulted in 19 dead, and thousands of properties damaged. It's equivalently true to say "Trump protests/rallies are mostly non-violent", since the majority of them (probably rivalling the 96% in the article you mention) have had few issues with violence until the recent insurrection. But that would just be a vacuous talking point.
Pulcinella 6y ago
Do you a single fact to back that up? I don’t even like Kamala but I don’t think she set up a bail fund for the police, though she has called herself “America’s top cop” so it wouldn’t surprise me.
- blisterpeanuts 6y ago
  Kamala Harris and several others in the Biden campaign tweeted support for a bail fund; I don't think she herself set up a bail fund but my knowledge about this is limited. 1. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/man-accused-of-raping-young-girl-released-from-jail-after-help-from-bail-fund-touted-by-kamala-harris/ar-BB199jo1 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/man-accused-of-rapin...

filoeleven 6y ago

None of those things were said/done over social media—I could be wrong about Obama here. All of those statements and actions were covered by the media because they were newsworthy. Some of Trump’s tweets are also newsworthy, of course. But the format of direct communication without context to millions of followers is a big part of how he was able to spread and maintain such a false view of reality. Before, any statement from a president was reported on, and usually presented with additional context that includes fact-checking where possible, by a broad range of left- and right-leaning news outfits. That’s no guarantee that batshit-crazy lies don’t get through, as we saw with Iraq WMDs. But it generally provides better safeguards. Trump can still call a press conference, or even put out videos from the White House, any time he wants to. It is not a hardship. I’d argue that he liked Twitter precisely because he controlled the information, and could rely on people to take him at his word. I realize that I’m painting kind of a rosy picture here, since so many trump followers already hate and distrust the media. But presidents got by without Twitter before trump and if it came down to it, whitehouse.gov is just as easy to check for new statements that aren’t edited by the MSM. And I think this is too little, too late from Twitter as well—they never should have made a separate set of rules for him. I don’t think your “future historical records” holds water here, since every tweet he’s made is already archived elsewhere, unless you were getting at something different. As a similar thought exercise to yours, if in the administration’s view the election was stolen, that surely counts as a national emergency, which qualifies the president to “tweet” whatever he wants over the emergency broadcast system. There are plenty of other avenues he can use.

raldi 6y ago

"What, you think we should be filing our nails? Okay then, let's just cut our arms off."