3 ms·

Exactly, aside from the civil liability already being pursued in the reported lawsuit, there should also be criminal liability for people making those editorial

by toss1 6y ago

Exactly, aside from the civil liability already being pursued in the reported lawsuit, there should also be criminal liability for people making those editorial judgements, as far up the management chain as it goes. This is not some algorithmic failure that no human saw -it was specifically examined by a human with managers setting policy, and deemed to be acceptable to distribute. At that point, they are willfully distributing the material, and should be held accountable. Yes, the result may be harsh. Ideally, there would be advance notice of the potential legal jeopardy, but ignorance of the law is never an excuse, and child porn distribution is widely known to be illegal. Standard pull in the workers and get them to flip on the managers, repeat all the way up the chain as far as it goes. It should now be obvious to anyone that internet discussions are either moderated/edited, or will descend into toxic cesspools when any of a variety of bad actors are allowed to run unchecked. The hosts need to be responsible for their editing decisions, which are made at far larger scale than any newspaper or broadcaster.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> This is not some algorithmic failure that no human saw -it was specifically examined by a human with managers setting policy, and deemed to be acceptable to distribute. Or, you know, the claims in the lawsuit are false. This wouldn't be the first time that happened.
- dragontamer 6y ago
  Considering that this is NYPost, its quite possible. I don't really consider NYPost to be a very respectable institution.
  - stretchcat 6y ago
    Do you think the NYPost fabricated the existence of the lawsuit? As far as I can tell, the lawsuit really does exist. Given the nature of the lawsuit, concerning material that is illegal to view, I don't think any journalists, whether from a fishwrapper like the NYPost or a venerable institution like the NYTimes, would be able to verify the claims made by the lawsuit.
    - ardy42 6y ago
      > Do you think the NYPost fabricated the existence of the lawsuit? As far as I can tell, the lawsuit really does exist. Straight up fabrication is not the only way to disinform, and it's in fact it's a pretty shitty way to do it, since it means your disinformation collapses at the slightest scrutiny. To make fabrication effective, the fabrication needs to be laundered to give it credibility (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR_6dibpDfo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR_6dibpDfo), which takes time and effort. A more effective way to disinform is to pluck out a true story that's not representative and amplify or twist it. That will seem more credible to those who give it just a little scrutiny, even if it's just as wrong as a fabrication in some ways. In this case, if the NY Post has a bone to pick with Twitter, it could troll through lawsuits against it until it found one that made scandalous claims, then report those as hard facts.
      - stretchcat 6y ago
        Suppose the NYPost has an axe to grind and went looking for a lawsuit that makes twitter look bad... so what? The lawsuit exists as they claim. That wouldn't mean they're lying, it would only mean they have a different idea of what constitutes news worthiness than you. That wouldn't make it disinformation. Virtually every sentence in the article contains some variation of "the suit alleges." That the suit alleges these things does seem to be hard fact. I see no disinformation here.
        ardy42 6y ago
        > Suppose the NYPost has an axe to grind and went looking for a lawsuit that makes twitter look bad... so what? Because that would be more like propaganda than journalism. > That wouldn't mean they're lying, it would only mean they have a different idea of what constitutes news worthiness than you. That wouldn't make it disinformation. Lying is only one of the many ways you can mislead someone. My point was that lying is inferior way to deceive than assembling true facts in a deceptive way. So the fact that the NY Post themselves didn't outright lie in this story does little to refute the idea that they're a disreputable paper.
  - ghastmaster 6y ago
    > I don't really consider NYPost to be a very respectable institution. Why is that?
    - jdonaldson 6y ago
      I'm assuming you're familiar with tabloids? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Post https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Post
    - athms 6y ago
      It is a right leaning tabloid owned by News Corp. This is the paper that printed the Hunter Biden laptop story that was sourced from Rudy Giuliani. After the US Capitol riot, the editor told staff to stop writing articles whose source material is from CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post, and The New York Times because Trump considered those outlets to be fake news.

by toss1 6y ago

dragonwriter 6y ago

> This is not some algorithmic failure that no human saw -it was specifically examined by a human with managers setting policy, and deemed to be acceptable to distribute. Or, you know, the claims in the lawsuit are false. This wouldn't be the first time that happened.

dragontamer 6y ago
Considering that this is NYPost, its quite possible. I don't really consider NYPost to be a very respectable institution.
- stretchcat 6y ago
  Do you think the NYPost fabricated the existence of the lawsuit? As far as I can tell, the lawsuit really does exist. Given the nature of the lawsuit, concerning material that is illegal to view, I don't think any journalists, whether from a fishwrapper like the NYPost or a venerable institution like the NYTimes, would be able to verify the claims made by the lawsuit.
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > Do you think the NYPost fabricated the existence of the lawsuit? As far as I can tell, the lawsuit really does exist. Straight up fabrication is not the only way to disinform, and it's in fact it's a pretty shitty way to do it, since it means your disinformation collapses at the slightest scrutiny. To make fabrication effective, the fabrication needs to be laundered to give it credibility (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR_6dibpDfo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR_6dibpDfo), which takes time and effort. A more effective way to disinform is to pluck out a true story that's not representative and amplify or twist it. That will seem more credible to those who give it just a little scrutiny, even if it's just as wrong as a fabrication in some ways. In this case, if the NY Post has a bone to pick with Twitter, it could troll through lawsuits against it until it found one that made scandalous claims, then report those as hard facts.
    - stretchcat 6y ago
      Suppose the NYPost has an axe to grind and went looking for a lawsuit that makes twitter look bad... so what? The lawsuit exists as they claim. That wouldn't mean they're lying, it would only mean they have a different idea of what constitutes news worthiness than you. That wouldn't make it disinformation. Virtually every sentence in the article contains some variation of "the suit alleges." That the suit alleges these things does seem to be hard fact. I see no disinformation here.
      - ardy42 6y ago
        > Suppose the NYPost has an axe to grind and went looking for a lawsuit that makes twitter look bad... so what? Because that would be more like propaganda than journalism. > That wouldn't mean they're lying, it would only mean they have a different idea of what constitutes news worthiness than you. That wouldn't make it disinformation. Lying is only one of the many ways you can mislead someone. My point was that lying is inferior way to deceive than assembling true facts in a deceptive way. So the fact that the NY Post themselves didn't outright lie in this story does little to refute the idea that they're a disreputable paper.
- ghastmaster 6y ago
  > I don't really consider NYPost to be a very respectable institution. Why is that?
  - jdonaldson 6y ago
    I'm assuming you're familiar with tabloids? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Post https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Post
  - athms 6y ago
    It is a right leaning tabloid owned by News Corp. This is the paper that printed the Hunter Biden laptop story that was sourced from Rudy Giuliani. After the US Capitol riot, the editor told staff to stop writing articles whose source material is from CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post, and The New York Times because Trump considered those outlets to be fake news.