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White House privately demanded Twitter ban me months before the company did so
- mutant 4y agoQanon dressed as independent journalism? I've read his trash site, and he offers little if any citations on his claims. Just another troll.
- jacknews 4y agoI don't agree with the message this person is accused of spreading, but this is the new reality: “Andy Slavitt suggested they had seen data viz [visualization] that had showed he was the epicenter of disinfo that radiated outwards to the persuadable public.” The government can (mostly because of the internet, facebook etc), and are, mapping social influence networks, and then targeting 'nodes' they don't like. In this particular case you might well say 'good riddance' or whatever, but I think this practice is extremely dangerous.
- mikkergp 4y ago> demanded > really wanted to know Asking questions is demanding now?
- TMWNN 4y agoWhy is a government asking in the first place? What business is it of the White House?
- yasp 4y ago> Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?
- mikkergp 4y agoOh good, let’s encourage an incurious government because it might be misinterpreted.
- dleslie 4y agoSimple curiosity would be to request information about general practices in moderating unspecific users. "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" is not such a form of simple curiosity; it's a tacit request for action against a specific person.
- mikkergp 4y agoA tacit request for action is not a demand. The government is allowed; nay encouraged! to make recommendations based on perceived threats, which it doesn’t even sound like it went as far as being a recommendation, just a “tough question”. Analogizing this to a monarch putting a hit out on someone is an appeal to the extreme.
- dleslie 4y agoThis is a centuries-old, well-trod concept that's noted by the phrase. Arguing over it is as tiresome as reading the twisted logic of sovereign citizens.
- mikkergp 4y agoIt sounds like you’re telling me you are biased by this centuries old concept, and you risk applying it in am overly broad way. This post could have been much less click beauty if he’d used a phrase other than “demand”. Encouraged. Influenced. There are lots of great words but he didn’t and now we’re arguing about it. This guy is wholly incentivized to lie. An untrustworthy government doesn’t magically make this person more credible.
- dleslie 4y agoThe veracity of his claims hinges on the provenance of this image[0]. This statement doesn't leave much to the imagination: > they had one very tough question about why Alex Berenson hasn't been kicked off from the platform 0: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F525b334b-1078-4eee-91c0-818092378a29_640x480.jpeg https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr...
- hosteur 4y ago> the company faced “one really tough question about why Alex Berenson hasn’t been kicked off from the platform,” a Twitter employee wrote. Don’t kid yourself. This is not about curiosity.
- mikkergp 4y agoWhat do you mean? Questions are like the definition of curiosity. We can’t just fold because someone asks us a question we don’t like. If it’s a tough question, then maybe it leads to deeper thinking. It requires a giant leap to make any assumption of a demand based on any evidence provided by the author.
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- dfee 4y agoWhen I was asked “why isn’t your room clean?”, I don’t think my mom was trying to have a philosophical discussion with me. Well, maybe the first time.
- kyrra 4y agoMany within the executive branch could not deal with the fact that there were alternate opinions to theirs. See the Fauci emails for example: https://www.wsj.com/articles/fauci-collins-emails-great-barrington-declaration-covid-pandemic-lockdown-11640129116 https://www.wsj.com/articles/fauci-collins-emails-great-barr...
- mikkergp 4y agoThis can be true and this person could also be misusing the term “demand” for clicks.
- sharemywin 4y ago"Vaccinated English adults under 60 are dying at twice the rate of unvaccinated people the same age" "I don't know how to explain this other than..." Here's an idea maybe since people's activity levels increased they started having more bad outcomes.
- origin_path 4y agoNope. Excess death is above the long term average all across Europe, and it's not COVID deaths. Also, don't look at fertility stats which have crashed in many countries.
- pfdietz 4y agoOr maybe it's just total bullshit. https://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-vaccinated-people-dying-143012895.html https://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-vaccinated-people-dying-14...
- defrost 4y ago"Journalist struggles with normalising data" aka: Alex Berenson misrepresents data on death rates [1] https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/nov/30/alex-berenson/alex-berenson-misrepresents-data-death-rates-vacci/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/nov/30/alex-beren... [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-coronavirus-britain-idUSL1N2RP28I https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-coronavirus-britai... I'm now having flashbacks to that time spent explaining UK M&M data on social media.
- hosteur 4y agoSeems he is going to sue Biden admin. https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/if-youre-wondering-if-i-plan-to-sue/comments?utm_medium=DontTrackMe https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/if-youre-wondering-if-i-... Will be interesting to follow.
- gentle 4y agoThis guy spreads vaccine and mask disinformation and as a result should be deplatformed. No sympathy for liars.
- origin_path 4y agoIf that were the standard then the entire public health apparatus in most countries would have been banned many months ago. Clearly it's not. You can spread as many lies as you want as long as it's in favor of vaccines and masks. Anyway Berenson has been reliably ahead of the curve on this. He is FAR more accurate and trustworthy than governments have been. The tweet that got him banned said something like "It doesn't stop infection" and pointing out that because the vaccine only reduces symptoms without reducing infection, that makes it a therapeutic. Which is correct.
- skyde 4y agoNever seen a vaccine before that train your immune system but doesn’t reduce infection. This just doesn’t make sense! do you have any peer reviews research paper that have data showing it doesn’t reduce infection?
- skyde 4y agoif he mean “does not completely prevent you from getting infected” then this is true. All vaccines do not completely prevent infection. But that’s not a reason to stop calling them what they are and start calling them therapeutic :-)
- HonestOp001 4y agoThe disinformation came from the government: 1. Masks work. Nope. Only N95’s are proven. Every study prior to covid deployment showed that masks did not work. All studies comparing the issue show no impact. 2. Vaccines prevent spread. Nope. Government kind of knew this. 3. Vaccines will prevent you from getting covid-19. Nope, natural immunity is probably the only way through it for most of the populace. Sweden’s and Florida’s science based approach turned out to be correct, targeted preventions for at-risk groups. 4. Virus came from a wet market. Anyone going against this insane theory was attacked so viciously that the social media groups cowered in fear of the government. Look what is now being accepted as an option. The government based their approach on a hope that everyone would concurrently get the therapeutic vaccine and freeze the virus to prevent transmission. The problem was the inability to think about the logistics.
- tablespoon 4y agoIf that's true, it was pretty stupid of the administration. I don't know who this person is, but if he was banned it's one less anti-vaxxer out of thousands, but having the request come from the White House just validates and amplifies the unjust persecution narrative (which is one of the most compelling ones these people have).
- nradov 4y agoGovernment actions like this make the legal theory advanced in Missouri et al v. Biden et al at least somewhat plausible. The attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri sued President Joe Biden alleging that his administration colluded with private social media companies to censor speech in violation of the First Amendment. Normally private companies aren't limited by the First Amendment, but the suit claims that they are now effectively acting as an arm of the federal government. I'm skeptical that the court will accept this argument, but it will be interesting to see how the case plays out. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/tech-and-telecom-law/republican-state-ags-sue-biden-claiming-social-media-censorship https://news.bloomberglaw.com/tech-and-telecom-law/republica...
- sebow 4y agoDon't worry, the people who scream "fascism" won't bat an eye at this obvious collusion between corporations & government.It wouldn't be 'okay' even if the Biden admin. was right in their assumption that his tweets 'murdered people'. The author should lower his expectations at fair discussions, speech, and what constitutes the search for truth. But seeing he worked at NYT in the past it might be harder to adjust since he's no longer in a position of power as an authoritative voice.
- bigtex 4y agoWe know the response from HN if it was the Trump administration doing such actions. Front page on the Washington Post, every blue checkmark on Twitter would be crying fascism, etc.
- newaccount2021 4y ago
- trident5000 4y agoThis gets said out of context too often but I suspect this is actually unconstitutional. Demanding a private company silence someone is right up against that line and very likely over it.
- smaryjerry 4y agoThis has been a problem since the White House announced they were working with Facebook and other social media companies to ban people for “misinformation” and later when the White House created a Disinformation Board that was only in place for a few months before the bad publicity got it shut down. It should be no surprise any platform has misinformation, even Wikipedia or your encyclopedia is not the end all be all of truth and there shouldn’t be expectation random people on these sites aren’t pushing their own beliefs. I don’t know a single person who believes Facebook is the best place for research despite claims that it’s the primary cause of misinformation. Politicians themselves are famous for lying, in just one example, the “if you get the vaccine you can’t spread the virus” was very widely spread at the start and espousing the opposite of this statement would get people banned from social media sites for saying so, despite later being found to be false regarding these specific vaccines. It is arrogant to think that 1. people are too stupid to debate amongst themselves to let the good information rise to the top and 2. that the person in charge has all available information. It’s like imagining because your CEO is in charge of your company that they always make the best decision. It’s delusional that being in power should make you any more correct, even if there are more resources available to them, increasing their odds of being correct. It should be obvious my opinion, but social media should stay out of the business of determining what is and isn’t misinformation and especially at the governments direction. It was done in the name of “saving lives” but in a world of 8 billion people, how many lives did being incorrect and forcing bad information to be the only allowed information also cost? I doubt more lives were saved than cost by the misinformation management done by social media.
- mikkergp 4y ago> I don’t know a single person who believes Facebook is the best place for research despite claims that it’s the primary cause of misinformation. Statistically speaking, you don’t know that many people.
- smaryjerry 4y agoSure but how many schools teach, get your best information from Facebook? Any? I look at Facebook more like the phone company facilitating communications, and I wouldn’t blame the phone company for what people say or want the phone company to cut people off.
- ubermonkey 4y agoI for one am completely untroubled by Twitter banning a counterfactual, reflexively contrarian troll like Berenson.
- partiallypro 4y agoI don't care if Twitter bans him or others, but it coming via pressure from an administration is very problematic.
- AnimalMuppet 4y agoBut did it? It came months after the the White House demand. Was the demand the cause of the ban? Or did Twitter blow off the White House, and some months later, for their own reasons, decide to ban him? Is there any cause and effect here? Several months is a lot of lag time. Maybe if they had to run it through the lawyers, it might fit.
- choko 4y agoAgreed. This is what fascism actually looks like.
- nathanaldensr 4y agoDespite your feelings, that's not the issue. The issue is that the government apparently coerced Twitter to do it, which would be a First Amendment violation.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y agos/apparently coerced Twitter/may have been a factor in Twitter's decision/ Now I'm with you. Though we haven't gone that far.
- _hcuq 4y agoIs it? His free speech was not violated. It just wasn’t published by Twitter.
- skywhopper 4y agoDon’t take the headline as truth. Consider the source when interpreting the information. It seems entirely reasonable to me for government officials in the context of meeting with Twitter to talk about what could be done to slow the spread of disinformation, to say “Hey Twitter, you say your policy is to ban spreaders of vaccine disinformation. This person is clearly the source of a lot of it. You’ve banned many others, but why not him?” Encouraging Twitter to enforce its rules consistently is a totally reasonable thing for the government to do, particularly regarding public safety issues.
- curmudgeon22 4y agoAs mentioned in the article, he was banned, filed a lawsuit, and has since been re-instated after admission that the ban was not justified. So I don't think the argument that Twitter wasn't enforcing its rules has merit.