4 ms·

> Define "authoritarian regime" A simple rule of thumb definition (that could probably use some refinement) is regimes that are either explicitly anti-democrat

> Define "authoritarian regime" A simple rule of thumb definition (that could probably use some refinement) is regimes that are either explicitly anti-democratic or a sham democracy. Russia certainly falls into the latter category, as this very story demonstrates. In most cases, it's not that hard.

whimsicalism 5y ago
> as this very story demonstrates. This story is sufficient to demonstrate that Russia is a "sham democracy"? Does the fact that Twitter/Facebook/et al banned the NYPost in the run-up to the 2020 election as well as preventing people from sending links to NYPost articles in their DMs "demonstrate" anything about the US?
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > This story is sufficient to demonstrate that Russia is a "sham democracy"? It's just another example among many. Russia is a sham democracy because the government takes action to prevent opposition politicians from gaining power. > Does the fact that Twitter/Facebook/et al banned the NYPost in the run-up to the 2020 election as well as preventing people from sending links to NYPost articles in their DMs "demonstrate" anything about the US? I sense you think it shows some kind of equivalency, which is not true. Actually, if those organizations had to run the NY Post story, the US would be closer to a sham than it is.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    > Actually, if those organizations had to run the NY Post story, the US would be closer to a sham than it is. Hm, guess I'd like to live in a sham democracy then, as blocking me from sending certain political thoughts in my chat messages is unacceptable to me. I'd rather have this power in the hands of publicly-sanctioned, rules-based agents than arbitrary private actors who can interfere with me at any time for whatever reason they want. Philip Pettit has written quite well on this issue.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > Hm, guess I'd like to live in a sham democracy then, as blocking me from sending certain political thoughts in my chat messages is unacceptable to me. No one's blocking you. Go put a sign up in your front yard, just don't complain your rights are being trampled when I don't let you put up a sign in my yard. Other people have rights too, and that includes the right not to cooperate with you.
      - whimsicalism 5y ago
        Yes, this is a good exemplification of the "freedom as non-interference" view that Pettit criticizes. This conception has become very popular in the 20th century, especially among libertarians. The image of society given by your picture does not resemble real life. Facebook and I are not equal actors akin to neighbors disputing over what gets put in their front yard. It is this recognition that we are not equal neighbors that is the reason we have labor protections, minimum wage laws, campaign finance laws, etc.
        tablespoon 5y ago
        > The image of society given by your picture does not resemble real life. Facebook and I are not equal actors analogous to neighbors disputing over what gets put in their front yard. You're never going to have a society that equal. Do you all the sudden have the right to put signs up at my house because it's bigger or on a busier street than yours? Should you be able to put chapters in the books I write because no one wants to read yours? I think there are good arguments that Facebook is too big and should be broken up, but the NY Post Hunter Biden "story" isn't one of them. It was garbage, and filtering out garbage is an important function. I'm familiar enough with garbage to realize that.
        whimsicalism 5y ago
        The whole point is that this sign on yard analogy is just not relevant to real world circumstance. Facebook and Twitter have outsized control over how I socialize with others. If every major cell phone provider chose to stop delivering any text with that article attached to it, would that be acceptable? What if they decided to unilaterally stop delivering any texts from the Trump campaign? Clearly there is a line to be drawn, and falling back on "it's their private property and thus their right to filter it however they want" is not sufficient in the 21st century, in the age of platform companies and extreme corporate consolidation. > It was garbage, and filtering out garbage is an important function Garbage? It was new, previously unreported information. I voted for Joe Biden, and I still found it of interest - and it did appear to contradict some things Biden had said publicly.
- amatecha 5y ago
  I mean.. > The Post, According to a survey conducted by Pace University in 2004, was rated the least credible major news outlet in New York. from https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-post/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-post/
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    Absolutely, they are incredibly biased and basically a rag outlet. In no way does that justify preventing me from sending true information relevant to a public figure in a chat.
    - amatecha 5y ago
      I think it makes sense to block a known-unreliable news outlet because they are usually seen as sources of authoritative, correct information, and once they have proven they are no longer reliable, anything they say no longer holds the same weight of proper journalistic integrity (essentially losing the privilege of trust and perceived "authority"). If there is true, factual information they posted about, the same information can almost surely be sourced from another, more reputable news outlet that is known to fact-check and provide accurate information. FWIW, I blocked/muted NYPost twitter account years ago because of their vitriolic, sensationalized and misleading click-bait articles. If you can't convey important news without manipulating me, you have no credibility and are no better than a grocery-store-checkout tabloid.
      - whimsicalism 5y ago
        Who decides what outlet is reliable? Should that be blocked from my text messages? Should the standard be to only allow articles written by reputable outlets, which have been known to bury stories (such as those demonstrating war crimes by the US military)? I just completely disagree with you I guess. I should be free to send whatever I want in private chat messages with my friends, even if it is politically unsavory.
        amatecha 5y ago
- yanderekko 5y ago
  >Does the fact that Twitter/Facebook/et al banned the NYPost in the run-up to the 2020 election as well as preventing people from sending links to NYPost articles in their DMs "demonstrate" anything about the US? Not about its government, given that they did not demand (or even informally pressure) that the tech companies involved make this move.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    So it's not a "sham" if large private corporations heavily tilt the scales on who gets elected? Only the reverse?
blacktriangle 5y ago
Where does the US MSM and social media refusing to cover anything about Hunter Biden put us?
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > Where does the US MSM and social media refusing to cover anything about Hunter Biden put us? I'm not a huge fan of Joe Biden (as you can probably infer from my comments here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28550896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28550896), but the Hunter Biden stuff was a shameless distraction with no real substance. So to answer your question: if the US MSM and social media was required to run smears of a sitting president against his opponent, the US would be far closer to being a sham democracy.
  - yanderekko 5y ago
    >but the Hunter Biden stuff was a shameless distraction with no real substance. Uh, that's really not a strong affirmative justification for taking active measures to stop people from using your platform to share a story. And of course the real problem is not simply that the story was suppressed, but that we all know that media platforms do not in fact have a blanket policy against reporting on "shameless distractions with no real substance", and that this sort of post-hoc rationalizing of obvious partisan bias is intellectually insulting.
    - fsociety 5y ago
      They do have policies against spreading misinformation.
      - yanderekko 5y ago
        Yes, and those policies are not evenly applied. That's the issue. iirc Twitter caught some flak for initially justifying the suppression of the story based on the fact that it had come from "hacking" the laptop, and then only let up after it was pointed out that there were many other examples of stories like this that were not suppressed.

whimsicalism 5y ago

> as this very story demonstrates. This story is sufficient to demonstrate that Russia is a "sham democracy"? Does the fact that Twitter/Facebook/et al banned the NYPost in the run-up to the 2020 election as well as preventing people from sending links to NYPost articles in their DMs "demonstrate" anything about the US?

tablespoon 5y ago
> This story is sufficient to demonstrate that Russia is a "sham democracy"? It's just another example among many. Russia is a sham democracy because the government takes action to prevent opposition politicians from gaining power. > Does the fact that Twitter/Facebook/et al banned the NYPost in the run-up to the 2020 election as well as preventing people from sending links to NYPost articles in their DMs "demonstrate" anything about the US? I sense you think it shows some kind of equivalency, which is not true. Actually, if those organizations had to run the NY Post story, the US would be closer to a sham than it is.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  > Actually, if those organizations had to run the NY Post story, the US would be closer to a sham than it is. Hm, guess I'd like to live in a sham democracy then, as blocking me from sending certain political thoughts in my chat messages is unacceptable to me. I'd rather have this power in the hands of publicly-sanctioned, rules-based agents than arbitrary private actors who can interfere with me at any time for whatever reason they want. Philip Pettit has written quite well on this issue.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > Hm, guess I'd like to live in a sham democracy then, as blocking me from sending certain political thoughts in my chat messages is unacceptable to me. No one's blocking you. Go put a sign up in your front yard, just don't complain your rights are being trampled when I don't let you put up a sign in my yard. Other people have rights too, and that includes the right not to cooperate with you.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      Yes, this is a good exemplification of the "freedom as non-interference" view that Pettit criticizes. This conception has become very popular in the 20th century, especially among libertarians. The image of society given by your picture does not resemble real life. Facebook and I are not equal actors akin to neighbors disputing over what gets put in their front yard. It is this recognition that we are not equal neighbors that is the reason we have labor protections, minimum wage laws, campaign finance laws, etc.
      - tablespoon 5y ago
        > The image of society given by your picture does not resemble real life. Facebook and I are not equal actors analogous to neighbors disputing over what gets put in their front yard. You're never going to have a society that equal. Do you all the sudden have the right to put signs up at my house because it's bigger or on a busier street than yours? Should you be able to put chapters in the books I write because no one wants to read yours? I think there are good arguments that Facebook is too big and should be broken up, but the NY Post Hunter Biden "story" isn't one of them. It was garbage, and filtering out garbage is an important function. I'm familiar enough with garbage to realize that.
        whimsicalism 5y ago
        The whole point is that this sign on yard analogy is just not relevant to real world circumstance. Facebook and Twitter have outsized control over how I socialize with others. If every major cell phone provider chose to stop delivering any text with that article attached to it, would that be acceptable? What if they decided to unilaterally stop delivering any texts from the Trump campaign? Clearly there is a line to be drawn, and falling back on "it's their private property and thus their right to filter it however they want" is not sufficient in the 21st century, in the age of platform companies and extreme corporate consolidation. > It was garbage, and filtering out garbage is an important function Garbage? It was new, previously unreported information. I voted for Joe Biden, and I still found it of interest - and it did appear to contradict some things Biden had said publicly.
amatecha 5y ago
I mean.. > The Post, According to a survey conducted by Pace University in 2004, was rated the least credible major news outlet in New York. from https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-post/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-post/
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  Absolutely, they are incredibly biased and basically a rag outlet. In no way does that justify preventing me from sending true information relevant to a public figure in a chat.
  - amatecha 5y ago
    I think it makes sense to block a known-unreliable news outlet because they are usually seen as sources of authoritative, correct information, and once they have proven they are no longer reliable, anything they say no longer holds the same weight of proper journalistic integrity (essentially losing the privilege of trust and perceived "authority"). If there is true, factual information they posted about, the same information can almost surely be sourced from another, more reputable news outlet that is known to fact-check and provide accurate information. FWIW, I blocked/muted NYPost twitter account years ago because of their vitriolic, sensationalized and misleading click-bait articles. If you can't convey important news without manipulating me, you have no credibility and are no better than a grocery-store-checkout tabloid.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      Who decides what outlet is reliable? Should that be blocked from my text messages? Should the standard be to only allow articles written by reputable outlets, which have been known to bury stories (such as those demonstrating war crimes by the US military)? I just completely disagree with you I guess. I should be free to send whatever I want in private chat messages with my friends, even if it is politically unsavory.
      - amatecha 5y ago
yanderekko 5y ago
>Does the fact that Twitter/Facebook/et al banned the NYPost in the run-up to the 2020 election as well as preventing people from sending links to NYPost articles in their DMs "demonstrate" anything about the US? Not about its government, given that they did not demand (or even informally pressure) that the tech companies involved make this move.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  So it's not a "sham" if large private corporations heavily tilt the scales on who gets elected? Only the reverse?

blacktriangle 5y ago

Where does the US MSM and social media refusing to cover anything about Hunter Biden put us?

tablespoon 5y ago
> Where does the US MSM and social media refusing to cover anything about Hunter Biden put us? I'm not a huge fan of Joe Biden (as you can probably infer from my comments here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28550896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28550896), but the Hunter Biden stuff was a shameless distraction with no real substance. So to answer your question: if the US MSM and social media was required to run smears of a sitting president against his opponent, the US would be far closer to being a sham democracy.
- yanderekko 5y ago
  >but the Hunter Biden stuff was a shameless distraction with no real substance. Uh, that's really not a strong affirmative justification for taking active measures to stop people from using your platform to share a story. And of course the real problem is not simply that the story was suppressed, but that we all know that media platforms do not in fact have a blanket policy against reporting on "shameless distractions with no real substance", and that this sort of post-hoc rationalizing of obvious partisan bias is intellectually insulting.
  - fsociety 5y ago
    They do have policies against spreading misinformation.
    - yanderekko 5y ago
      Yes, and those policies are not evenly applied. That's the issue. iirc Twitter caught some flak for initially justifying the suppression of the story based on the fact that it had come from "hacking" the laptop, and then only let up after it was pointed out that there were many other examples of stories like this that were not suppressed.