5 ms·

Chilling. Governments weaponizing information they have on citizens is textbook dystopian. The lack of oversight on social media platforms that allows this to h

by imiric 2y ago

Chilling. Governments weaponizing information they have on citizens is textbook dystopian. The lack of oversight on social media platforms that allows this to happen is incompetence at best, and complicity at worst. As more governments slip into autocracies, similar scenarios are likely happening in other countries as well, and we just don't know about it. The fact that US social media platforms are operated by people supportive of an aspiring autocrat should be a red flag for anyone still using them. Especially for citizens of the US, where the line between the government and corporations gets thinner by the day. These are truly bizarre and frightening times for anyone outside of this system.

Asooka 2y ago
[flagged]
- petesergeant 2y ago
  > Think back to 2020 when just saying you have any misgivings about taking part in Pfizer's impromptu global human trials would get you … fully debanked and without a job I don’t think I heard about this: is there a reliable place I can read more about it?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - johnisgood 2y ago
    It was not that long ago that even I remember you had to be vaccinated even here in Eastern Europe to be able to keep your job, have doctor's visit, and basic functioning in general. Thankfully I escaped it, as I always have been a reclusive. What I did not escape is an autoimmune disease, unfortunately, but not caused by the vaccines.
- ben_w 2y ago
  I find it quite eye-rolling that people still talk like (1) Pfizer's is the only vaccine in the world, (2) that the various vaccines' rollout was itself the trial. Not heard of anyone getting debanked for it — "u", sure, but not "a".
  - redeeman 2y ago
    with all due respect, is it possible that because you havent heard about it, that is has happened? and PROVIDED it has happened, would you agree that this is atrocious to the level where anyone involved in ANY kind of government capacity would deserve to be thrown in jail forever for that crime?
    - petesergeant 2y ago
      Tell us please about the person who got de-banked for expressing skepticism about the Pfizer rollout online
      - redeeman 2y ago
        answer my question please, IF this happened, would you consider it to be atrocious?
        petesergeant 2y ago
        Sure, I am happy to status for the record that I don’t think people shouldn’t be debanked for simply expressing skepticism about a vaccine.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- imiric 2y ago
  > Elon Musk is probably the best thing to happen for free speech on social media Ha. Please tell me more about this fantasy world you live in. The only thing Musk has done is tilt the needle towards his own biases[1]. Disinformation on X is still rampant[2], and Musk himself is one of the top spreaders of it. Those who benefit from spreading disinformation love to spout the idea that they're victims of censorship, and appeal to free speech absolutism. Yet when placed in positions of power, they're the same ones who censor opposing views for whatever reason they find convenient, while allowing the nonsense they believe in to spread. There was a time when journalism followed a code of ethics. Its mission was to inform the public of world events, without putting a spin on facts. Once media companies became profit-driven corporations, and particularly once social media platforms took over and everyone was given a megaphone to spout their opinion as fact, ethics went out the window, disinformation was cheap to spread, and people were no longer in a position to distinguish fact from fiction. So this is not about censorship. It's about promoting factual information about the world we live in, while demoting whatever someone thinks reality is, and especially when someone could benefit from that line of thinking. This is not a particularly hard problem to solve, but it won't happen on platforms that are driven by profits from engagement. Companies have no incentive to promote truth. Their only incentive is accumulating wealth, and they'll do that by any means necessary. Thinking that free speech will prosper and disinformation will wane on these platforms is delusional, especially now that we have autocrat sympathizers running them, and both companies and the government benefit from the status quo. If you think these people will give up power willingly, think again. [1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2024/01/09/elon-musk-silencing-his-critics-as-journalists-are-suspended-by-x/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2024/01/09/elon-mus... [2]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/wrong-claims-by-musk-us-election-got-2-billion-views-x-2024-report-says-2024-11-04/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/wrong-claims-by-musk-us-ele...
CGamesPlay 2y ago
> The lack of oversight on social media platforms that allows this to happen is incompetence at best, and complicity at worst. The social media platforms are supposed to what? Be a foil to the governments? Replace the government? Be a foil to the governments you don't like? It's unclear what you think the ideal here is.
- mjburgess 2y ago
  Err.. be independent of governments. The thinking of your post betrays an increasingly common totalitarian assumption behind the role of government -- perhaps covid has caused this. In liberal democracies the government is always supposed to have only a minimal, enabling, role to civil society.
  - CGamesPlay 2y ago
    Your "be independent" is what I was hinting at with my "replace". The GP suggests that social networks either need to have oversight or be the oversight. You assert that they should be the oversight, but how is that not the same totalitarianism? To keep this on topic: the GP is suggesting that Meta/X put checks on what the Thai government is able to do on their platforms. This feels like a thin appeal to some higher authority that hopefully GP agrees with more, and definitely doesn't feel like a less totalitarian approach.
    - imiric 2y ago
      > the GP is suggesting that Meta/X put checks on what the Thai government is able to do on their platforms No, that's not at all what I'm suggesting.[1] [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43749941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43749941
  - keybored 2y ago
    Those of us who want democracy want governments to regulate companies since a government at least has the potential of becoming democratic (companies don’t). There are many others who want them to just “enable” society—perhaps because of their own financial incentives.
redeeman 2y ago
> Chilling. Governments weaponizing information they have on citizens is textbook dystopian Welcome to government.
energy123 2y ago
The main reason to value privacy and data protection is that a liberal government cannot be guaranteed to survive. No liberal can guarantee that they won't be replaced with a genocidal authoritarian, so systems need to be designed with that possibility in mind. Something as "innocent" as a census can be weaponized by a future authoritarian government. https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/rearvision/the-dark-side-of-census-collections/7860908 https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/rearvision/the-dark-s...
- csdvrx 2y ago
  Very interesting link! Submitted!

by imiric 2y ago

Asooka 2y ago

[flagged]

petesergeant 2y ago
> Think back to 2020 when just saying you have any misgivings about taking part in Pfizer's impromptu global human trials would get you … fully debanked and without a job I don’t think I heard about this: is there a reliable place I can read more about it?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- johnisgood 2y ago
  It was not that long ago that even I remember you had to be vaccinated even here in Eastern Europe to be able to keep your job, have doctor's visit, and basic functioning in general. Thankfully I escaped it, as I always have been a reclusive. What I did not escape is an autoimmune disease, unfortunately, but not caused by the vaccines.
ben_w 2y ago
I find it quite eye-rolling that people still talk like (1) Pfizer's is the only vaccine in the world, (2) that the various vaccines' rollout was itself the trial. Not heard of anyone getting debanked for it — "u", sure, but not "a".
- redeeman 2y ago
  with all due respect, is it possible that because you havent heard about it, that is has happened? and PROVIDED it has happened, would you agree that this is atrocious to the level where anyone involved in ANY kind of government capacity would deserve to be thrown in jail forever for that crime?
  - petesergeant 2y ago
    Tell us please about the person who got de-banked for expressing skepticism about the Pfizer rollout online
    - redeeman 2y ago
      answer my question please, IF this happened, would you consider it to be atrocious?
      - petesergeant 2y ago
        Sure, I am happy to status for the record that I don’t think people shouldn’t be debanked for simply expressing skepticism about a vaccine.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
imiric 2y ago
> Elon Musk is probably the best thing to happen for free speech on social media Ha. Please tell me more about this fantasy world you live in. The only thing Musk has done is tilt the needle towards his own biases[1]. Disinformation on X is still rampant[2], and Musk himself is one of the top spreaders of it. Those who benefit from spreading disinformation love to spout the idea that they're victims of censorship, and appeal to free speech absolutism. Yet when placed in positions of power, they're the same ones who censor opposing views for whatever reason they find convenient, while allowing the nonsense they believe in to spread. There was a time when journalism followed a code of ethics. Its mission was to inform the public of world events, without putting a spin on facts. Once media companies became profit-driven corporations, and particularly once social media platforms took over and everyone was given a megaphone to spout their opinion as fact, ethics went out the window, disinformation was cheap to spread, and people were no longer in a position to distinguish fact from fiction. So this is not about censorship. It's about promoting factual information about the world we live in, while demoting whatever someone thinks reality is, and especially when someone could benefit from that line of thinking. This is not a particularly hard problem to solve, but it won't happen on platforms that are driven by profits from engagement. Companies have no incentive to promote truth. Their only incentive is accumulating wealth, and they'll do that by any means necessary. Thinking that free speech will prosper and disinformation will wane on these platforms is delusional, especially now that we have autocrat sympathizers running them, and both companies and the government benefit from the status quo. If you think these people will give up power willingly, think again. [1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2024/01/09/elon-musk-silencing-his-critics-as-journalists-are-suspended-by-x/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2024/01/09/elon-mus... [2]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/wrong-claims-by-musk-us-election-got-2-billion-views-x-2024-report-says-2024-11-04/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/wrong-claims-by-musk-us-ele...

CGamesPlay 2y ago

> The lack of oversight on social media platforms that allows this to happen is incompetence at best, and complicity at worst. The social media platforms are supposed to what? Be a foil to the governments? Replace the government? Be a foil to the governments you don't like? It's unclear what you think the ideal here is.

mjburgess 2y ago
Err.. be independent of governments. The thinking of your post betrays an increasingly common totalitarian assumption behind the role of government -- perhaps covid has caused this. In liberal democracies the government is always supposed to have only a minimal, enabling, role to civil society.
- CGamesPlay 2y ago
  Your "be independent" is what I was hinting at with my "replace". The GP suggests that social networks either need to have oversight or be the oversight. You assert that they should be the oversight, but how is that not the same totalitarianism? To keep this on topic: the GP is suggesting that Meta/X put checks on what the Thai government is able to do on their platforms. This feels like a thin appeal to some higher authority that hopefully GP agrees with more, and definitely doesn't feel like a less totalitarian approach.
  - imiric 2y ago
    > the GP is suggesting that Meta/X put checks on what the Thai government is able to do on their platforms No, that's not at all what I'm suggesting.[1] [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43749941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43749941
- keybored 2y ago
  Those of us who want democracy want governments to regulate companies since a government at least has the potential of becoming democratic (companies don’t). There are many others who want them to just “enable” society—perhaps because of their own financial incentives.

redeeman 2y ago

> Chilling. Governments weaponizing information they have on citizens is textbook dystopian Welcome to government.

energy123 2y ago

The main reason to value privacy and data protection is that a liberal government cannot be guaranteed to survive. No liberal can guarantee that they won't be replaced with a genocidal authoritarian, so systems need to be designed with that possibility in mind. Something as "innocent" as a census can be weaponized by a future authoritarian government. https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/rearvision/the-dark-side-of-census-collections/7860908 https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/rearvision/the-dark-s...

csdvrx 2y ago
Very interesting link! Submitted!