4 ms·

The challenge is trying to determine who’s legitimately trying to question the science vs who’s a crank.

by iamacyborg 2y ago

lupusreal 2y ago
If censorship is too "challenging" to do right then maybe you should knock it off.
- stevenAthompson 2y ago
  Censorship is something governments do. What you're discussing is a business decision Facebook made. They deemed it to be in the best interests of their shareholders not to amplify those peoples opinions. Zuck now regrets that decision, but it was still his decision.
  - philwelch 2y ago
    It was a business decision made at the direction of the government.
    - stevenAthompson 2y ago
      You might be right. The article says they were "pressured", it doesn't seem to to say how that pressure was applied. To me, it reads as though compliance was not mandated, just requested. Without more info, I suppose it could be taken either way.
      - philwelch 2y ago
        Any request from the government can be characterized as pressure.
        SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
        Further, there is already precedent that this is in fact, a first amendment violation. The Biden Harris government is guilty of censorship via a third party.
        shadowgovt 2y ago
        If Zuck has a real problem with that, he can sue (as per the SCOTUS ruling on standing vis-a-vis First Amendment protections against government coercion). He isn't suing, and it's up to the rest of us to make our decisions based on how we feel about that.
        SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
        >https://x.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1828485808023539967 https://x.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1828485808023539967 He is making sworn statements to the house judiciary committee. Are you saying he is lying and the BidenHarris admin is telling the truth? Why would he do that? And why does all the evidence of censored accounts on Facebook match up with the Twitter Files and what everyone saw happening?
        shadowgovt 2y ago
        No, I'm not saying he's lying. I'm saying he might have found the circumstances distasteful but he didn't find them a violation of his rights worthy of a lawsuit.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    Call it what you like, if you can't distinguish between doctors and quacks then you shouldn't be banning people you think are quacks because you aren't qualified to do so.
    - stevenAthompson 2y ago
      If i stand up a server and host a website, I get to decide who's allowed to use my server. I don't need to be "qualified", and who would decide what "qualified" means? Should the government be forcing me to host content I find objectionable? Facebook is no different. Just bigger.
      - lupusreal 2y ago
        Nobody is saying a legal right to do so doesn't exist. Only that you shouldn't and you're a jackass if you do. Your retreat into legality and semantics is telling.
        stevenAthompson 2y ago
        Fair enough. When you said they "shouldn't be" I took that to mean they "shouldn't be allowed to", which is different than what you said. My bad.
  - lelanthran 2y ago
    > Censorship is something governments do. Not exclusively, no. There's nothing in the definitions of the words 'censor' or 'censorship' that imply it is an act exclusive to governments. Effectively, something can be censorship even if the government is not involved. When the government is involved, then it's government censorship.
    - stevenAthompson 2y ago
      Semantically, you're right of course, but only because linguistically self-censorship is counted as a type of censorship, despite it not depriving anyone of liberties. For practical purposes though, the kind of censorship that we're concerned with in this conversation can't be done by anyone other than a government or a lunatic with a gun. Companies just don't have any authority over anyone except themselves. They can't deprive you of your ability to speak, only your ability to use their property to do so.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
carlosjobim 2y ago
That is not the challenge, cranks have freedom of speech. There is no such thing as "legitimately" in this question.
- wredue 2y ago
  There is. People saying “the sun is the main driver of climate change “are not legitimately questioning the science”. Flat earthers are not “legitimately questioning the science” This is called JAQing off. “Just Asking Questions”. They’re not. They’re muddying waters, often knowingly.
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    Too bad that you don't like what some other people say or write. That's what public discourse is, most things said will be things you don't agree with. And since you're neither God nor the Supreme Ruler, you don't have the right to silence anybody else.
    - iamacyborg 2y ago
      The nice thing about running a platform is that you absolutely have the right to silence whoever you please.
      - cupcakecommons 2y ago
        ...until your platform becomes important enough for it to matter to people more powerful than you
    - wredue 2y ago
      Why are you so angry? Where did I say that flat earthers should be silenced? You desperately need to remove yourself from communities of perpetual victimhood. All I said was that they are not legitimately questioning the science, because they are not. The one thing that is extremely interesting is that even the people who loudly shout for free speech do not themselves believe in it, as they constantly try to cancel all sorts of free speech and expression essentially constantly. Very very few people believe in absolute free speech.
NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
I'm not sure that this is a useful distinction. It starts to sound an awful lot like philosophy 101 "what is a p-zombie" horseshit... if both people are asking the same questions or using the same rhetoric, why would their internal, unknowable-without-telepathy intent make any difference whatsoever? If you do think there is an actual distinction, somehow, even then should you care? Because people who want to censor the speech will just label the skeptics as cranks anyway, and shut it down. "Crank vs sincere skeptic" is fallacious, as it attacks the person and not the argument.
- iamacyborg 2y ago
  > If you do think there is an actual distinction, somehow, even then should you care? Well yes, because one is trying to get to a positive outcome while the other is trying to confuse and mislead you for ideological reasons.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
    If they're both saying the same things, then it truly does not matter. The crank might accidentally arrive at the positive outcome, the sincere skeptic might mislead unintentionally. You responded, you obviously think you're making a point. I hope you're one of the cranks though, because that would explain how poor your argument is.
    - iamacyborg 2y ago
      > You responded, you obviously think you're making a point. I hope you're one of the cranks though, because that would explain how poor your argument is. Pot, meet kettle.
      - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
        So you're one of the magical thinkers. That somehow the outcomes change due to internal states that no one can even determine, internal states which do not affect the physical world at all. That the crank can actually change things just by thinking about it, like some kind of half-assed troll telekinesis. Wow. You've apparently got a few fans for your idiocy, they're downvoting away.

The challenge is trying to determine who’s legitimately trying to question the science vs who’s a crank.

lupusreal 2y ago

If censorship is too "challenging" to do right then maybe you should knock it off.

stevenAthompson 2y ago
Censorship is something governments do. What you're discussing is a business decision Facebook made. They deemed it to be in the best interests of their shareholders not to amplify those peoples opinions. Zuck now regrets that decision, but it was still his decision.
- philwelch 2y ago
  It was a business decision made at the direction of the government.
  - stevenAthompson 2y ago
    You might be right. The article says they were "pressured", it doesn't seem to to say how that pressure was applied. To me, it reads as though compliance was not mandated, just requested. Without more info, I suppose it could be taken either way.
    - philwelch 2y ago
      Any request from the government can be characterized as pressure.
      - SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
        Further, there is already precedent that this is in fact, a first amendment violation. The Biden Harris government is guilty of censorship via a third party.
        shadowgovt 2y ago
        If Zuck has a real problem with that, he can sue (as per the SCOTUS ruling on standing vis-a-vis First Amendment protections against government coercion). He isn't suing, and it's up to the rest of us to make our decisions based on how we feel about that.
        SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
        >https://x.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1828485808023539967 https://x.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1828485808023539967 He is making sworn statements to the house judiciary committee. Are you saying he is lying and the BidenHarris admin is telling the truth? Why would he do that? And why does all the evidence of censored accounts on Facebook match up with the Twitter Files and what everyone saw happening?
        shadowgovt 2y ago
        No, I'm not saying he's lying. I'm saying he might have found the circumstances distasteful but he didn't find them a violation of his rights worthy of a lawsuit.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  Call it what you like, if you can't distinguish between doctors and quacks then you shouldn't be banning people you think are quacks because you aren't qualified to do so.
  - stevenAthompson 2y ago
    If i stand up a server and host a website, I get to decide who's allowed to use my server. I don't need to be "qualified", and who would decide what "qualified" means? Should the government be forcing me to host content I find objectionable? Facebook is no different. Just bigger.
    - lupusreal 2y ago
      Nobody is saying a legal right to do so doesn't exist. Only that you shouldn't and you're a jackass if you do. Your retreat into legality and semantics is telling.
      - stevenAthompson 2y ago
        Fair enough. When you said they "shouldn't be" I took that to mean they "shouldn't be allowed to", which is different than what you said. My bad.
- lelanthran 2y ago
  > Censorship is something governments do. Not exclusively, no. There's nothing in the definitions of the words 'censor' or 'censorship' that imply it is an act exclusive to governments. Effectively, something can be censorship even if the government is not involved. When the government is involved, then it's government censorship.
  - stevenAthompson 2y ago
    Semantically, you're right of course, but only because linguistically self-censorship is counted as a type of censorship, despite it not depriving anyone of liberties. For practical purposes though, the kind of censorship that we're concerned with in this conversation can't be done by anyone other than a government or a lunatic with a gun. Companies just don't have any authority over anyone except themselves. They can't deprive you of your ability to speak, only your ability to use their property to do so.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

carlosjobim 2y ago

That is not the challenge, cranks have freedom of speech. There is no such thing as "legitimately" in this question.

wredue 2y ago
There is. People saying “the sun is the main driver of climate change “are not legitimately questioning the science”. Flat earthers are not “legitimately questioning the science” This is called JAQing off. “Just Asking Questions”. They’re not. They’re muddying waters, often knowingly.
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  Too bad that you don't like what some other people say or write. That's what public discourse is, most things said will be things you don't agree with. And since you're neither God nor the Supreme Ruler, you don't have the right to silence anybody else.
  - iamacyborg 2y ago
    The nice thing about running a platform is that you absolutely have the right to silence whoever you please.
    - cupcakecommons 2y ago
      ...until your platform becomes important enough for it to matter to people more powerful than you
  - wredue 2y ago
    Why are you so angry? Where did I say that flat earthers should be silenced? You desperately need to remove yourself from communities of perpetual victimhood. All I said was that they are not legitimately questioning the science, because they are not. The one thing that is extremely interesting is that even the people who loudly shout for free speech do not themselves believe in it, as they constantly try to cancel all sorts of free speech and expression essentially constantly. Very very few people believe in absolute free speech.

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

I'm not sure that this is a useful distinction. It starts to sound an awful lot like philosophy 101 "what is a p-zombie" horseshit... if both people are asking the same questions or using the same rhetoric, why would their internal, unknowable-without-telepathy intent make any difference whatsoever? If you do think there is an actual distinction, somehow, even then should you care? Because people who want to censor the speech will just label the skeptics as cranks anyway, and shut it down. "Crank vs sincere skeptic" is fallacious, as it attacks the person and not the argument.

iamacyborg 2y ago
> If you do think there is an actual distinction, somehow, even then should you care? Well yes, because one is trying to get to a positive outcome while the other is trying to confuse and mislead you for ideological reasons.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  If they're both saying the same things, then it truly does not matter. The crank might accidentally arrive at the positive outcome, the sincere skeptic might mislead unintentionally. You responded, you obviously think you're making a point. I hope you're one of the cranks though, because that would explain how poor your argument is.
  - iamacyborg 2y ago
    > You responded, you obviously think you're making a point. I hope you're one of the cranks though, because that would explain how poor your argument is. Pot, meet kettle.
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
      So you're one of the magical thinkers. That somehow the outcomes change due to internal states that no one can even determine, internal states which do not affect the physical world at all. That the crank can actually change things just by thinking about it, like some kind of half-assed troll telekinesis. Wow. You've apparently got a few fans for your idiocy, they're downvoting away.