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But is it? The opinion NYT is reporting on is clear that the censorship in question went beyond Covid: "Their content touched on a host of divisive topics like

by nullc 3y ago

But is it? The opinion NYT is reporting on is clear that the censorship in question went beyond Covid: "Their content touched on a host of divisive topics like the COVID-19 lab-leak theory, pandemic lockdowns, vaccine side-effects, election fraud, and the Hunter Biden laptop story" ... "Individual Plaintiffs seek to express views—and have been censored for their views—on topics well beyond COVID-19, including allegations of election fraud and the Hunter Biden laptop story." Yet the NYT only mentions covid and the discourse on HN-- which at the moment is substantially making excuses for the administration on the basis of "but covid!"-- is worse off for it.

simple-thoughts 3y ago
I’m reading it a bit differently. Yes the censorship of political speech related to political figures is bad but we’re coming out of a period where much more fundamental rights were violated due to a slightly stronger than usual respiratory virus. The seriousness of the covid reaction is an order of magnitude greater than any alleged biden corruption. Until people are ready to reevaluate what happened, we’re still in danger of a return of extreme restrictions - since there are plenty of other things that have high death rates such as cars, drugs, and obesity.
- nullc 3y ago
  An important thing here though is that it doesn't matter that the views the government was imposing were right or wrong. 1A prohibits the imposition. The fact that the NYT article only touches on one point has turned the HN thread into a debate over if tweets about masking, vaccine cardiac side effects, or whatever were right or wrong. But that's immaterial to the law here and it's important because there is clear polarization between posters on the underlying facts. But we don't have to agree on the substance of the censored speech to recognize that the state's use of coercion to suppress views it disagreed with is plainly unlawful. The 1A doesn't only apply when we agree with the speech being protected -- in fact it's most important when we don't: Speech almost everyone agrees with is going to get communicated no matter what the government does to censor it, it's unpopular views that are the most in need of 1A protection. So I think NYT does us a disservice by falsely portraying this as being about 'covid misinformation', as it invites everyone to substitute a discussion about the states power to censor here with yet another debate on covid -- a debate itself which has been tainted by politics and censorship.
  - Guvante 3y ago
    COVID matters as we generally agree that during public health crisises it is reasonable for the government to overstep bounds a little to reduce loss of life. Objectively it is different. Additionally you are going to have a hard time justifying that the federal government shouldn't do anything about disinformation. We cannot allow foreign adversaries to include our politics by saying "but the first amendment". So while we cannot be too broad with our actions and any action should be carefully monitored for violation it isn't fundamental that the government cannot say "please don't give a platform to disinformation". Generally speaking most of the things involved weren't deleted but deplatformed. Most commonly by not recommending them or adding a warning to them. Deletion did occur but my understanding was it wasn't a significant portion of the actions taken by platforms.
    - WhiskeyChicken 3y ago
      > ...we generally agree that during public health crisises it is reasonable for the government to overstep bounds a little to reduce loss of life. No, "we" don't agree in the slightest. In fact, in my view, a "crisis" is exactly when government boundaries are most important and need to be strictly enforced, not relaxed, in order to prevent significant abuse.
      - Guvante 3y ago
        We shouldn't allow the government to act quickly? That is nonsensical, going slower during a crisis makes zero sense. You can argue what boundaries should be relaxed and how far to relax them but "hold the government to a tighter standard ahead of time during a crisis" is the opposite of helpful. We normally hold the government to a strict limit due to there being no time limit.
        WhiskeyChicken 3y ago
        > That is nonsensical, going slower during a crisis makes zero sense. I never said anything about "going slower," I disagreed with your assertion that "we all agree" that government should be allowed to "overstep bounds" in a crisis. I am unsure why you think speed of action implies violating boundaries. Speed up your crisis response all you want, but do so within established boundaries. > You can argue what boundaries should be relaxed and how far to relax them I can argue whatever I want. And my argument is that no boundaries whatsoever should be "relaxed" for any reason. Ever. > We normally hold the government to a strict limit due to there being no time limit. No, we hold the government to strict limits because we have seen throughout history what governments that are not held to strict limits do to people during times of "crisis" and "emergency."
- res0nat0r 3y ago
  The Fifth Circuit really isn't credible currently as they just make up rules as they go along depending on if it fits the politics they like. This sums it up nicely: https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1700512323318824971 https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/17005123233188249... > The Fifth Circuit Court has now held that it's unconstitutional for the federal govt to influence platforms' moderation decisions, while also holding it's constitutional for Texas to compel platforms to leave up content they want to take down. Impossible to square that circle.
  - subsistence234 3y ago
    It's as if this crazy court ruled on one hand that the USPS can't refuse to deliver your mail just because they don't like your opinions, but at the same time the court ruled that Texas is allowed to force the USPS to deliver everyone's mail regardless of their opinions?
Guvante 3y ago
To be fair saying "there was election fraud" is disinformation at this point, we very carefully checked and the only real problems were people following Trump's advice and voting multiple times for him (on extremely small scales that didn't matter for the overall election so not material) There is nuance in the laptop story. There were things said that were objectively disinformation so if those things were targeted it could make sense. Now the White House ideally would have kept and arms length to put forward a "not protecting my own" attitude but there is a wide gap between ideally and illegal coercion.
- nullc 3y ago
  The first amendment protect the right of the people to say wrong things, not just right things. The legality of the government suppression doesn't depend on the things being said being right or not. People who said wrong thing may have committed crimes or subjected themselves to liability for doing so-- freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences. But the government doesn't get to go shutting down speech it deems wrong if it did the first amendment would have no force, because inevitably whatever is censored is viewed as "wrong" in some respect by whomever is doing the censoring.
  - Guvante 3y ago
    They weren't prevented from saying wrong things or even penalized for lying. They were deplatformed. You don't have a first amendment right to use platforms as you like and those platforms have the same first amendment right you do to decide what is brought forward as emphasized by that platform. Should the government be allowed to influence that and in what way is an interesting question but it is less the end users rights and more the platforms rights in question here. Getting removed from the algorithm isn't censorship.
    - subsistence234 3y ago
      >They were deplatformed, which is a penalty for "lying" and prevents them from saying "wrong" things. in that time What's "wrong" and what's a "lie" could change within a few weeks (do masks help? in march 2020 people were called lunatics for believing so, in October 2020 people were called lunatics for not believing so. or consider the absurd psyop about the accidental lab leak hypothesis)

by nullc 3y ago

simple-thoughts 3y ago

I’m reading it a bit differently. Yes the censorship of political speech related to political figures is bad but we’re coming out of a period where much more fundamental rights were violated due to a slightly stronger than usual respiratory virus. The seriousness of the covid reaction is an order of magnitude greater than any alleged biden corruption. Until people are ready to reevaluate what happened, we’re still in danger of a return of extreme restrictions - since there are plenty of other things that have high death rates such as cars, drugs, and obesity.

nullc 3y ago
An important thing here though is that it doesn't matter that the views the government was imposing were right or wrong. 1A prohibits the imposition. The fact that the NYT article only touches on one point has turned the HN thread into a debate over if tweets about masking, vaccine cardiac side effects, or whatever were right or wrong. But that's immaterial to the law here and it's important because there is clear polarization between posters on the underlying facts. But we don't have to agree on the substance of the censored speech to recognize that the state's use of coercion to suppress views it disagreed with is plainly unlawful. The 1A doesn't only apply when we agree with the speech being protected -- in fact it's most important when we don't: Speech almost everyone agrees with is going to get communicated no matter what the government does to censor it, it's unpopular views that are the most in need of 1A protection. So I think NYT does us a disservice by falsely portraying this as being about 'covid misinformation', as it invites everyone to substitute a discussion about the states power to censor here with yet another debate on covid -- a debate itself which has been tainted by politics and censorship.
- Guvante 3y ago
  COVID matters as we generally agree that during public health crisises it is reasonable for the government to overstep bounds a little to reduce loss of life. Objectively it is different. Additionally you are going to have a hard time justifying that the federal government shouldn't do anything about disinformation. We cannot allow foreign adversaries to include our politics by saying "but the first amendment". So while we cannot be too broad with our actions and any action should be carefully monitored for violation it isn't fundamental that the government cannot say "please don't give a platform to disinformation". Generally speaking most of the things involved weren't deleted but deplatformed. Most commonly by not recommending them or adding a warning to them. Deletion did occur but my understanding was it wasn't a significant portion of the actions taken by platforms.
  - WhiskeyChicken 3y ago
    > ...we generally agree that during public health crisises it is reasonable for the government to overstep bounds a little to reduce loss of life. No, "we" don't agree in the slightest. In fact, in my view, a "crisis" is exactly when government boundaries are most important and need to be strictly enforced, not relaxed, in order to prevent significant abuse.
    - Guvante 3y ago
      We shouldn't allow the government to act quickly? That is nonsensical, going slower during a crisis makes zero sense. You can argue what boundaries should be relaxed and how far to relax them but "hold the government to a tighter standard ahead of time during a crisis" is the opposite of helpful. We normally hold the government to a strict limit due to there being no time limit.
      - WhiskeyChicken 3y ago
        > That is nonsensical, going slower during a crisis makes zero sense. I never said anything about "going slower," I disagreed with your assertion that "we all agree" that government should be allowed to "overstep bounds" in a crisis. I am unsure why you think speed of action implies violating boundaries. Speed up your crisis response all you want, but do so within established boundaries. > You can argue what boundaries should be relaxed and how far to relax them I can argue whatever I want. And my argument is that no boundaries whatsoever should be "relaxed" for any reason. Ever. > We normally hold the government to a strict limit due to there being no time limit. No, we hold the government to strict limits because we have seen throughout history what governments that are not held to strict limits do to people during times of "crisis" and "emergency."
res0nat0r 3y ago
The Fifth Circuit really isn't credible currently as they just make up rules as they go along depending on if it fits the politics they like. This sums it up nicely: https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1700512323318824971 https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/17005123233188249... > The Fifth Circuit Court has now held that it's unconstitutional for the federal govt to influence platforms' moderation decisions, while also holding it's constitutional for Texas to compel platforms to leave up content they want to take down. Impossible to square that circle.
- subsistence234 3y ago
  It's as if this crazy court ruled on one hand that the USPS can't refuse to deliver your mail just because they don't like your opinions, but at the same time the court ruled that Texas is allowed to force the USPS to deliver everyone's mail regardless of their opinions?

Guvante 3y ago

To be fair saying "there was election fraud" is disinformation at this point, we very carefully checked and the only real problems were people following Trump's advice and voting multiple times for him (on extremely small scales that didn't matter for the overall election so not material) There is nuance in the laptop story. There were things said that were objectively disinformation so if those things were targeted it could make sense. Now the White House ideally would have kept and arms length to put forward a "not protecting my own" attitude but there is a wide gap between ideally and illegal coercion.

nullc 3y ago
The first amendment protect the right of the people to say wrong things, not just right things. The legality of the government suppression doesn't depend on the things being said being right or not. People who said wrong thing may have committed crimes or subjected themselves to liability for doing so-- freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences. But the government doesn't get to go shutting down speech it deems wrong if it did the first amendment would have no force, because inevitably whatever is censored is viewed as "wrong" in some respect by whomever is doing the censoring.
- Guvante 3y ago
  They weren't prevented from saying wrong things or even penalized for lying. They were deplatformed. You don't have a first amendment right to use platforms as you like and those platforms have the same first amendment right you do to decide what is brought forward as emphasized by that platform. Should the government be allowed to influence that and in what way is an interesting question but it is less the end users rights and more the platforms rights in question here. Getting removed from the algorithm isn't censorship.
  - subsistence234 3y ago
    >They were deplatformed, which is a penalty for "lying" and prevents them from saying "wrong" things. in that time What's "wrong" and what's a "lie" could change within a few weeks (do masks help? in march 2020 people were called lunatics for believing so, in October 2020 people were called lunatics for not believing so. or consider the absurd psyop about the accidental lab leak hypothesis)