7 ms·

If you look at my history of comments you'll see how much I dislike the CCP but I still think this is wrong. What now? Are they going to stop doing what they'r

If you look at my history of comments you'll see how much I dislike the CCP but I still think this is wrong. What now? Are they going to stop doing what they're doing? They now have another excuse to show their people how bad and anti-Chinese the West is.

Darmody 6y ago
I don't mind if people downvote me, I don't really post to get internet points but I'd like to see an argument. Where am I wrong? What am I missing?
- mhh__ 6y ago
  I think HN should require either a comment explaining or upvote on a refutation before a downvote. Considering the rigour displayed in many technology threads it's a little disappointing when you get downvoted without explanation - there seems to be a silent caucus of Trump fans who really don't like seeing their guy criticised but won't actually formulate an argument why, for example.
  - chippy 6y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." and "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. "
    - mhh__ 6y ago
      1) not what I did - I'm providing a hypothesis for what I saw. 2) also not what I did, I'm suggesting an alternative design that encourages discourse. Mindlessly posting the rules is also pretty fucking boring too, it's not exactly Hegelian dialectics in the average thread is it.
mhh__ 6y ago
Why is the last point a problem? If you take "Chinese" to mean the Chinese government, I am anti-chinese.
- Darmody 6y ago
  Because I don't like the idea of Chinese people thinking I hate them because I don't.
- liuliu 6y ago
  Any kind of governance requires some consent from people, even if it is not in majority. A lone dictator with no support from the people fails pretty quickly based on our experience in the past a hundred years.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - swebs 6y ago
    >Any kind of governance requires some consent from people Well no, the whole point of totalitarianism is that the people aren't even allowed a choice in the first place. A lot of people did speak out in Tiananmen Square and it didn't work out so well for them.
    - liuliu 6y ago
      As it is hard to swallow for what happened in 1989, that was a fraction of people, not all people as a monolithic sense. And that fraction is not strong enough to overturn the existing ruling class with military support. Russian later did succeed at overthrown their government with military support.
f46f7ab7de71 6y ago
OK Chang
- jacquesm 6y ago
  That's your first contribution on a year old account?
  - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
    What was the comment? Is there a standard for what ‘first contribution on a year old account’ should be..
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      If you switch showdead on you can see for yourself. And if you think that comment passes muster feel free to vouch for it.
      - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
        Ahh! I see it now.
pb7 6y ago
No people will see this in China because Twitter is banned there.
- EastToWest 6y ago
  Incorrect. A lot of Chinese people will see this. Chinese people know Twitter is blocked but largely don't care because Weibo is more fun. Whether that's a good thing or bad thing is left as an exercise to the readers.
  - pb7 6y ago
    >Chinese people know Twitter is blocked but largely don't care because Weibo is more fun. Ah yes. The grapes are sour anyway.
TulliusCicero 6y ago
So Twitter should let them get away with breaking the rules because...it's China? Or something? If they have rules against dehumanizing messages, it makes sense to enforce said rules. That the PRC is playing dumb about what they said isn't fooling anyone here.
- Darmody 6y ago
  No. Maybe deleting the tweet but not banning the account is a better idea. Or now that the Trump administration has declared it a genocide, it could be tagged just as their tagged Trump's tweets. My point is. I don't see how banning a foreign embassy from Twitter will solve anything.
  - TulliusCicero 6y ago
    It will solve, or at least mitigate, the problem of there being dehumanizing tweets on Twitter. I dunno, this seems like a pretty straightforward "how rules work" kind of situation.
mehlmao 6y ago
Twitter is banned in China. Why should Twitter let the CCP use their platform for propaganda campaigns? Do you think Twitter banning them is as bad as CCP concentration camps in Xinjiang?
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  >Twitter is banned in China. Why should Twitter let the CCP use their platform for propaganda campaigns? So because somebody else limits freedom of speech, we should abandon our values and limit theirs? >Do you think Twitter banning them is as bad as CCP concentration camps in Xinjiang? Do you think Twitter banning them helps those interred in concentration camps?
lvs 6y ago
It's no different than a newspaper opting not to print a letter to the editor. It's not state censorship. It's an exercise of editorial discretion.
- Darmody 6y ago
  It IS different. Newspapers are publishers, they choose what they publish and they are responsible for it. Social media companies are NOT publishers, therefore they are not responsible for what other publish. If they were like a newspaper they would be sued and out of business in matter of days after all the illegal stuff that it's being posted daily. Read Section 230. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > It IS different. No, it's not. > Newspapers are publishers, they choose what they publish and they are responsible for it. Correct. > Social media companies are NOT publishers, therefore they are not responsible for what other publish. If Social media companies are publishers except for a defined subset of civil liability purposes; an exception (Section 230) which exists explicitly to avoid discouraging them from acting like publishers. > Read Section 230. I have. And I've read the arguments for it at the time it was adopted (both at the time and several times since.) Section 230 supports exactly the opposite position you are making: online media companies have exactly the editorial freedom of newspapers, plus (with regard to actions concerning user-generated rather than first-party-produced content) some liability immunities designed specifically to encourage them to take an editorial role rather than act as neutral unmoderated platforms. The argument that they lose editorial freedom because of Section 230 (or would lose Section 230 protection as a result of exercising editorial freedom) contravenes both the text of and the very explicit motivation for Section 230.
    - dllthomas 6y ago
      And even newsstands can choose not to carry a paper.
throwaway894345 6y ago
For what its worth, the Chinese people are only going to see what the CCP wants them to see anyway, or at least in the lens through which the CCP wants them to interpret it. We shouldn't let "how the Chinese might perceive us" to influence us very much. That said, I think there are other reasons to not like this; specifically while I appreciate some acknowledgment of the human rights issue, I don't especially like Twitter playing moderator for so much of the world's discourse--even if it correctly moderates a handful of high profile issues, it can still shape the enormous torrent of lower profile issues to its liking and deceptively point to those high profile cases when people challenge its neutrality. Consider for example how easy it would be for Twitter to turn a knob tomorrow and boost the amount of subtly pro-CCP content we see (or replace pro-CCP with whatever issue you don't think we should want more people exposed to). While yes, Twitter is a private entity and (in many western countries, anyway) they are legally free to moderate how they like, I still don't think it's a social good--I don't know that our various free speech laws considered the possibility that so much communication could be at the discretion of a single private entity (or even a small handful of private entities).
jhanschoo 6y ago
> What now? Are they going to stop doing what they're doing? They now have another excuse to show their people how bad and anti-Chinese the West is. If a regular person or company account tweeted a defense of genocide, their account would be censored. I believe this is the right move if we are not to apply double standards between regular people and government accounts on the platform.

Darmody 6y ago

I don't mind if people downvote me, I don't really post to get internet points but I'd like to see an argument. Where am I wrong? What am I missing?

mhh__ 6y ago
I think HN should require either a comment explaining or upvote on a refutation before a downvote. Considering the rigour displayed in many technology threads it's a little disappointing when you get downvoted without explanation - there seems to be a silent caucus of Trump fans who really don't like seeing their guy criticised but won't actually formulate an argument why, for example.
- chippy 6y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." and "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. "
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    1) not what I did - I'm providing a hypothesis for what I saw. 2) also not what I did, I'm suggesting an alternative design that encourages discourse. Mindlessly posting the rules is also pretty fucking boring too, it's not exactly Hegelian dialectics in the average thread is it.

mhh__ 6y ago

Why is the last point a problem? If you take "Chinese" to mean the Chinese government, I am anti-chinese.

Darmody 6y ago
Because I don't like the idea of Chinese people thinking I hate them because I don't.
liuliu 6y ago
Any kind of governance requires some consent from people, even if it is not in majority. A lone dictator with no support from the people fails pretty quickly based on our experience in the past a hundred years.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- swebs 6y ago
  >Any kind of governance requires some consent from people Well no, the whole point of totalitarianism is that the people aren't even allowed a choice in the first place. A lot of people did speak out in Tiananmen Square and it didn't work out so well for them.
  - liuliu 6y ago
    As it is hard to swallow for what happened in 1989, that was a fraction of people, not all people as a monolithic sense. And that fraction is not strong enough to overturn the existing ruling class with military support. Russian later did succeed at overthrown their government with military support.

f46f7ab7de71 6y ago

OK Chang

jacquesm 6y ago
That's your first contribution on a year old account?
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  What was the comment? Is there a standard for what ‘first contribution on a year old account’ should be..
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    If you switch showdead on you can see for yourself. And if you think that comment passes muster feel free to vouch for it.
    - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
      Ahh! I see it now.

pb7 6y ago

No people will see this in China because Twitter is banned there.

EastToWest 6y ago
Incorrect. A lot of Chinese people will see this. Chinese people know Twitter is blocked but largely don't care because Weibo is more fun. Whether that's a good thing or bad thing is left as an exercise to the readers.
- pb7 6y ago
  >Chinese people know Twitter is blocked but largely don't care because Weibo is more fun. Ah yes. The grapes are sour anyway.

TulliusCicero 6y ago

So Twitter should let them get away with breaking the rules because...it's China? Or something? If they have rules against dehumanizing messages, it makes sense to enforce said rules. That the PRC is playing dumb about what they said isn't fooling anyone here.

Darmody 6y ago
No. Maybe deleting the tweet but not banning the account is a better idea. Or now that the Trump administration has declared it a genocide, it could be tagged just as their tagged Trump's tweets. My point is. I don't see how banning a foreign embassy from Twitter will solve anything.
- TulliusCicero 6y ago
  It will solve, or at least mitigate, the problem of there being dehumanizing tweets on Twitter. I dunno, this seems like a pretty straightforward "how rules work" kind of situation.

mehlmao 6y ago

Twitter is banned in China. Why should Twitter let the CCP use their platform for propaganda campaigns? Do you think Twitter banning them is as bad as CCP concentration camps in Xinjiang?

boomboomsubban 6y ago
>Twitter is banned in China. Why should Twitter let the CCP use their platform for propaganda campaigns? So because somebody else limits freedom of speech, we should abandon our values and limit theirs? >Do you think Twitter banning them is as bad as CCP concentration camps in Xinjiang? Do you think Twitter banning them helps those interred in concentration camps?

lvs 6y ago

It's no different than a newspaper opting not to print a letter to the editor. It's not state censorship. It's an exercise of editorial discretion.

Darmody 6y ago
It IS different. Newspapers are publishers, they choose what they publish and they are responsible for it. Social media companies are NOT publishers, therefore they are not responsible for what other publish. If they were like a newspaper they would be sued and out of business in matter of days after all the illegal stuff that it's being posted daily. Read Section 230. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > It IS different. No, it's not. > Newspapers are publishers, they choose what they publish and they are responsible for it. Correct. > Social media companies are NOT publishers, therefore they are not responsible for what other publish. If Social media companies are publishers except for a defined subset of civil liability purposes; an exception (Section 230) which exists explicitly to avoid discouraging them from acting like publishers. > Read Section 230. I have. And I've read the arguments for it at the time it was adopted (both at the time and several times since.) Section 230 supports exactly the opposite position you are making: online media companies have exactly the editorial freedom of newspapers, plus (with regard to actions concerning user-generated rather than first-party-produced content) some liability immunities designed specifically to encourage them to take an editorial role rather than act as neutral unmoderated platforms. The argument that they lose editorial freedom because of Section 230 (or would lose Section 230 protection as a result of exercising editorial freedom) contravenes both the text of and the very explicit motivation for Section 230.
  - dllthomas 6y ago
    And even newsstands can choose not to carry a paper.

throwaway894345 6y ago

For what its worth, the Chinese people are only going to see what the CCP wants them to see anyway, or at least in the lens through which the CCP wants them to interpret it. We shouldn't let "how the Chinese might perceive us" to influence us very much. That said, I think there are other reasons to not like this; specifically while I appreciate some acknowledgment of the human rights issue, I don't especially like Twitter playing moderator for so much of the world's discourse--even if it correctly moderates a handful of high profile issues, it can still shape the enormous torrent of lower profile issues to its liking and deceptively point to those high profile cases when people challenge its neutrality. Consider for example how easy it would be for Twitter to turn a knob tomorrow and boost the amount of subtly pro-CCP content we see (or replace pro-CCP with whatever issue you don't think we should want more people exposed to). While yes, Twitter is a private entity and (in many western countries, anyway) they are legally free to moderate how they like, I still don't think it's a social good--I don't know that our various free speech laws considered the possibility that so much communication could be at the discretion of a single private entity (or even a small handful of private entities).

jhanschoo 6y ago

> What now? Are they going to stop doing what they're doing? They now have another excuse to show their people how bad and anti-Chinese the West is. If a regular person or company account tweeted a defense of genocide, their account would be censored. I believe this is the right move if we are not to apply double standards between regular people and government accounts on the platform.