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> Trump and the Republicans are very much in favor of checking facts. It is the opposite of censorship: Expose everything. You know that you're writing this in
by hackyhacky 2y ago
> Trump and the Republicans are very much in favor of checking facts. It is the opposite of censorship: Expose everything.
You know that you're writing this in a post about how the current Republican administration has been scrubbing massive amounts of scientific data from government websites, right?
I don't see how Greenpeace is at all relevant here.
- grepfru_it 2y agoI'm not saying this is right, but after every party change everything on the government websites change and links/data disappear. This is not limited to this one election, we just happen to notice it now because someone brought it up. Kinda like small chips on your car's windshield. Notice how things like eg the federal reserve data does not disappear because it is protected by legislation. We should be asking not why is it disappearing, but why didn't we enshrine preservation of data in law?
- hackyhacky 2y agoFalse equivalence. This is not some cosmetic change. No administration has ever done a bulk removal of scientific data from all government websites solely because it conflicts with their policy goals. This removal expresses not just a differing policy but a contempt for facts themselves.
- grepfru_it 2y agoWhen Bush took office all of the data about climate change disappeared from government websites. So this is not a post about false equivalence but a question why the previous party did not protect this specific data like other government agencies. I think the answer to that question is more nuanced than we may like to believe
- hackyhacky 2y agoNow you're just gaslighting. There is no "protection" that can prevent a new presidential administration from modifying government websites as they see fit. > I think the answer to that question is more nuanced than we may like to believe What is this, the X Files? Vague allusions like this don't make you look wise, they make you look like you're making stuff up to win internet points.
- grepfru_it 2y agoOk this is getting a little too...hot for HN so just a heads up I will not reply after this one. You are absolutely right that there is no protection that can prevent administrations from modifying websites, otherwise websites would never get redesigned! However, there is a federal law that requires government agencies to retain records and different agencies have different requirements. I will leave it as an exercise to the reader on what could facilitate a records retention change within different agencies.
- hackyhacky 2y agoAs you surely know, the legal requirement to retain records does not extend to a requirement to maintain those records on a public web site. You are not arguing in good faith. Please stop muddying the waters with your buffoonish rhetoric. Thanks.
- lucb1e 2y agoIn case it helps you to have someone chime in besides the person you're arguing with, "You are not arguing in good faith" applies a lot more to "stop muddying the waters with your buffoonish rhetoric" and "What is this, the X Files? Vague allusions like this don't make you look wise" than to anything the person you're arguing with said. I don't know the answer to the point you're arguing and I can't tell who's right from this thread either (neither side posts sources or disproves the other side's central claim, from my point of view), but this isn't how to go about it
- 2y ago