I'm curious what other people think the informational value of these hearings are. It seems like it is either posturing and grandstanding, or reasonable questions to which evasive or non-answers are given.
Edit: Oh no it's Lindsey Graham, so probably more grandstanding.
Edit 2: Editorializing here, they're threatening to take away section 230 safe harbor protections as a punishment for "censoring" right wing content using the pretext of youth health.
The positive argument is that a hearing forces companies to develop official positions on things they might otherwise prefer to ignore. I know there have been a few times where tech companies announced some new project they’re going to do to address issues just in advance of a hearing.
I tend to agree that their primary function is public shaming, though.
Josh Hawley often promotes the meme that Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube censor conservatives and conservative politicians.
I have an extremely difficult time taking people like him seriously in a world where Facebook refuses to ban Steve Bannon when he calls for Dr. Fauci to be beheaded, yet twitter does so without issue. But then again, Twitter refuses to address covid-19 misinformation, and allows politicians to generally say whatever they want, conservative or no. All while youtube does nothing about qanon conspiracy videos flooding the platform.
It's just a shame that american politicians now have to be hardline partisans to the point where they will lie right into the microphone to toe the party line.
Bannon didn't literally call for Fauci to be beheaded. He was using a fairly old-fashioned figure of speech to call for Fauci to be fired and for an example to be made of him. If that sort of comment warrants a ban, half the sports fans on Earth will lose their Facebook accounts.
"I'd actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I'd put the heads on pikes, right, I'd put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you're gone — time to stop playing games. Blow it all up, put [Trump aide] Ric Grenell today as the interim head of the FBI, that'll light them up, right."
Jack Maxey, the podcast's co-host, responded: "Just yesterday there was the anniversary of the hanging of two Tories in Philadelphia. These were Quaker businessmen who had cohabitated, if you will, with the British while they were occupying Philadelphia. These people were hung. This is what we used to do to traitors."
To this Bannon replied: "That's how you won the revolution. No one wants to talk about it. The revolution wasn't some sort of garden party, right? It was a civil war. It was a civil war."
--------
I think it's pretty fair to characterize this as "literal". It's hard to read this (or listen to it, it was originally in audio form) and not think they're legitimately mulling over the possibility of executions.
I listened to the podcast in question and the following one where he elaborated further. It was very clearly not intended to be taken literally. It was no different to the sorts of things you hear in pubs when people are talking about football referees.
Maybe it was clear to you because you think it would be crazy to start beheading government advisors for the crime of trying to do their job.
However, we've seen plenty of instances where this kind of rhetoric can enable the less stable elements of the population. Pizzagate resulting in a guy holding up a pizza shop he was convinced had child sex slaves in the basement immediately comes to mind. A plot to kidnap a governor comes to mind. Fantasizing about running over protesters, and then James Alex Fields Jr. doing just that and murdering Heather Heyer comes to mind.
I happen to agree but now you're making a different argument, which is that Bannon was not being literal, but that such speech is dangerous anyway because of the sorts of people who might take it literally (as you did).
It's hard to know where to draw the line. Twitter and Facebook will find it very difficult to detect hyperbole, sarcasm, etc. And neither platform seems interested in spending their billions to hire the type and number of people required for proper monitoring.
"Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci. Now I actually want to go a step farther, but I realize the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man. I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes".
I'd be inclined to believe your interpretation but he himself has already ruled out the figurative meaning of the phrase "pikes on head" with the first sentence in that quote, by saying he wants to "go farther" than that. Beyond firing, how exactly can you "make an example" of an employee?
Saying that he called for beheading is deliberately misunderstanding what he said. "Put their heads on pikes", "heads will roll", etc., are hyerpbolic phrases, and shouldn't be taken literally. It'd be like saying that someone should get kicked out of office is threatening to physical harm, or that saying someone should be fired means their belongings should be thrown out of the office and set on fire.
Something strange seems to have happened to America in the past ten or so years. People seem to have become hyper-literal and unable to detect any sarcasm, hyperbole, etc. I wonder whether this is due to spending more and more time communicating via the written word.
It probably wasn't a death threat, but I could see how someone might interpret that way. In the past 10 years? Deliberate misinterpretation of a joke or sarcasm is not a new thing.
I don't remember it being quite so bad in the nineties. It feels like a "medium is the message" type of effect where textual communication has become predominant even in the mainstream (no longer just usenet flamewars), and people have been trained to hyper-focus on just the words in front of them and ignore any potential context.
I mean, it's certainly not a plausible death threat. Steve Bannon isn't in charge of anything anymore, and I don't think he would be put in charge again, even if there was a second term.
It could be a non-plausible death threat though. And it's probably glorification of violence. I'd hate to be an arbiter of policies like this though. There's a line here between legally sanctionable speech (which I don't think this quote is), and what Twitter allows on its site.
I'm not sure that not being in the government makes a death threat implausible. It may even make it more so. Whitey Bulger apparently ordered a few deaths that were carried out.
Oh sure, but the quote was like 'the second term would start with firing ...' and then goes on to say the bit about the murdering. I would interpret that as a strong hypothetical 'if I were in charge, I'd do these things.' Just as he's not likely able to fire people, I would interpret it as he has no plans to murder them either.
There's certainly some interpretation there, but the bar for legal sanctions on a death threat in the US is pretty high, and I don't think this meets it. It's not too far off though, a couple of different word choices, and it might be.
We're all familiar with the figurative meaning of "heads on pikes". This not a problem of reading comprehension or not understanding hyperbole or sarcasm. The problem is Bannon himself ruled out the figurative, hyperbolic meaning of the saying when he said it. Here's the complete quote:
"Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci. Now I actually want to go a step farther...I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes".
So please explain to me. What does "heads on pikes" mean if the person who said it has discounted the "fire in disgrace" interpretation of the saying? This is a serious question. What do you think it really means, taking the entire quote into context?
(funnily this is a rare instance where a quote that sounds fine out of context takes on a sinister note when surrounding quotes are included)
EDIT: I see downvotes, but no answers to what I thought was a very simple question.
"Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci. Now I actually want to go a step farther, but I realize the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man. I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes, right, I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats."
You're saying "pikes on heads" is a figure of speech, meaning firing and making an example of them. But he's saying "let's go beyond just firing". So what does "heads on pikes" mean in the context of the quote? Seriously, I'm trying to understand. How does one make an example of an employee you're displeased with, beyond firing them? Write really mean tweets about them? Fuck with their pensions? What?
He said he'd put their heads on spikes on the corners of the White House as a warning to others which is not a figure of speech. How is that figurative in any way other than he hasn't done it. Nothing Fauci has done deserves that sort of violent rhetoric either.
Having followed hearings related to Libra, sure there is a lot of posturing. However, first, some MP asks precise critical questions. Secondly, it seems that even for trained CEOs one hour of intense questioning takes a toll. I've rarely heard something new, but you can detect some of their personality, their contradictions, the important points for MP ...
If you want cooperative questioning you need a true cooperative goal - otherwise the process is inherently adversarial no matter how much passive aggressive cloaking is applied.
> "Mr. Zuckerberg, I don't feel you answered my colleague's point. Let me ask again..."
That quote is exactly what I mean by passive aggressive cloaking actually. You won't get the answers you want if the questioning process is adversarial as it turns into "Don't talk to the police." or deposition style of being unhelpful as possible instead of trying to actually inform because of incentives.
It’s in line with useless meetings a typical company has. It’s hard to get a sense for how bullshit some people’s jobs are until you accidentally get invited to one of their meetings. I once accidentally stayed much longer than I was supposed to in a meeting between PMs/Product and I was absolutely shocked that that’s what they spend several hours a day doing.
If you want a laugh, go in an enterpise PM meeting, listen to their pain points, and pipe up that you could write an integration of (system X) and (system Y) (that they spend most of their day copying and pasting data between) in a weekend.
Graham makes no sense... Just from the one minute I watched:
"We must incentivize social media platforms to come up with standards that are transparent and opaque"
> I'm curious what other people think the informational value of these hearings are. It seems like it is either posturing and grandstanding, or reasonable questions to which evasive or non-answers are given.
I agree with you.
They need to get the cameras out of congress. Everyone involved in these hearings is mining them for clips for their campaign ads and it's sickening.
They aren't exactly getting praise for what they are doing right now - only less complaints from the brainless hysterical "do-somethingists" and savage roasting by those who have even an amateur level in knowing what the hell they are talking about.
Really I would expect standing up to the fringes in their wings would be a popularity boosting move but party poltical machine alienating one as .
Without the cameras they have no reason to posture. They posture so they can cut a clip, publish it, and say: "Look! Here's me standing up to the evil Republicans|Democrats|tech CEOs who want to steal your precious bodily fluids!"
In the presence of cameras, politicians become instagram celebrities.
If their motivations were to do their real jobs, they would do their real jobs regardless of the cameras. The presence of the cameras reveals that they prefer posturing to doing their jobs, but that does not imply that doing their jobs is the priority immediately below posturing. If the cameras were gone, do you think they would ask real questions, or would they start doing things far worse than posturing in front of the public?
Let's run an experiment by moving cameras into the Supreme Court -- actually all courtrooms -- and the rooms where juries deliberate and all Cabinet meetings. We'll be able to tell that I'm right after our government stops working.
Or we could save ourselves the trouble and ask ourselves why it is that we don't allow cameras in those places to begin with. And then we could extend that reasoning to Congress. Turns out treating your government like a reality tv show is a bad idea.
Removing the cameras isn't going to fix everything...but it will be a positive change.
Judges are motivated in part by the esteem of their peers. In congress, "esteem of your peers" means agreeing to the right pork projects. Public approval is the best metric we're going to get. Take that carrot away, and all remaining carrots will lead in worse directions. At least public approval has some correlation with policy quality.
Because bipartisan deals happen somewhat often, even between people who are invariably acrimonious on camera, and reporting on those bipartisan deals often mentions non-recorded meetings where compromises were made.
If there were no cameras on the floor, they'd just talk to the ones outside. The real work is not done in front of cameras. It will never be done in front of cameras. But it still happens.
Removing cameras from these hearings could make them more productive. But I don't know how useful these types of hearings could be.
>I'm curious what other people think the informational value of these hearings are.
Considering that they are not even under oath, precisely zero. They can lie to the lawmakers' faces with no recourse.
I very distinctly remember Jack telling congress the time before last that they "do not shadowban", and then screenshots of their admin dashboard were leaked[1] that show they explicitly did have multiple kinds of shadowbans.
The witnesses are under oath. Everyone that testifies before Congress is under oath and lying would constitute a federal crime.
Interestingly the questioners, in this case the Senators, are not under oath and they can say whatever they’d like. Regardless of how false or nonsensical.
Yes. There is a bunch of procedure/setup stuff before the sit-down that's not on live stream. Maybe in C-SPAN archives?
I've seen it before, on C-SPAN c2008
Has any witness ever been convicted? There are so many witnesses that give completely false information that is later shown to be a lie. Has there any been a case of prosecuting such lies? Without prosecution it is all just empty threats and there is no real incentive to speak the truth.
At the last hearing, for instance, Jack Dorsey said that they do not shadow ban, but later pictures appeared of their administrative interface and certainly that capacity was there. An outright lie and yet he isn't even interrogated on this. Wouldn't there be arrests and trials if it truly was a federal crime?
It happens. It's whimsical and seems often to be based upon media-generated hype. Important decision-makers like Comey and Clapper both lied to Congress in significant ways and never faced any repercussions. A little nobody like Roger Stone lied to Congress and was prosecuted to the hilt.
Look at the prosecution of Roger Clemens. Why the hell was Congress holding hearings about steroid use in baseball?
> Interestingly the questioners, in this case the Senators, are not under oath and they can say whatever they’d like.
That parallels to attorneys in a trial. Although in a trial there are some limits to questions that can be asked. In a Congressional hearing, the witnesses don't have anyone who can specifically raise an objection on their behalf, they just have to wind down the clock.
Honestly, most of these hearings would be better conducted via letters. Then you wouldn't get nearly so many "I would have to get back to you" answers, often without serious followup.
I think most people on HN agree with you. Because these are televised, and MOST people will not watch the hearing, each senator is looking for their own sound bite which they can replay to show how tough they were. The illusion falls apart when you watch the actual hearing: the same question is asked over and over, the speakers are not given a real chance to reply, and there is no real dialogue.
Of course it doesn't help that many of the questions are ill-informed in their own right.
The expression "bunk" or "bunkum" ultimately derives from Buncombe County, North Carolina, apparently. The story is that the congressman from its district gave a speech in Congress that made no sense at all. When asked, he said that he was "speaking to Buncombe."
It's a tough call. I think part of the problem is frankly the electorate. You won't find many on HN, but remember that this sanctimonious grandstanding is broadly popular. Senators aren't just doing it to entertain themselves.
Don't rely on politicians to do direct questioning of witnesses. Politicians have the wrong incentives, and generally lack the skills, to do anything other than grandstand in public meetings.
Legal fact-finding, including the questioning of witnesses, should be done by lawyers and subject matter experts.
Can any of you survive under a fed prime rate of 20% or above? Doing so would shore up pensions, and improve USA standing with Africa, Asia and South America, likely stopping a lot of wars.
What's the hiring process like at your company?
When the country desperately needed remote employment this past year, how many new hires did you make? Ford Motor Car and GM hired entire factory floors of workers at double the minimum wage.
Can any of you pass your own hiring process or answer just one of your technical interview questions?
You said your success was only due to a privileged upbringing. Isn't that by choice? You could have joined the Marines and get shot or blown up or burnt alive for everyone else, but you didn't. Now you want to burden the entire world. Why? Because you feel guilty? By the way, who said you wouldn't be shot yet?
> I'm curious what other people think the informational value of these hearings are.
I want to hear from conservatives why they think most of (if not all) of big tech is "in the pockets of the Democrats". Why do all of these software engineers/IT field workers typically end up as left-leaning? Is it a matter of education/intelligence? Empathy? I feel like the split has to be at least 85% Democrat / 15% Republican in IT.
In my personal experience my left leaning friends appear to feel very comfortable "letting it all hang out" on social media. It's very clear what their political opinions are. Those who aren't quite in sync with these view points play their cards closer to the chest. So I bet the %s you have aren't quite correct.
I do think the prevailing educational system K-12 and the universities have a strong tilt to the left - generally ahead of the country. I also suspect most people simply inherit these default settings as their view points.
It's a coastal thing, plus it's not a stretch to think that big tech is in the pockets of Democrats when Facebook told the Obama campaign "we're on your side", and google had executives crying on stage after Trump won.
I'm not a conservative, but I suspect the answer would be along the lines of:
1. "Actually you under-estimate the number of conservatives in tech, they just keep quiet about it because conservative opinions are being oppressed"
2. "For example, a great many twitter posts by Donald Trump have been flagged as false or inciting violence. This shows tech companies won't let you say the things half the population thinks!"
3. "Larry Ellison and Elon Musk love Trump's policies!"
4. "Tech workers often support conservative policies like freedom, opposing government waste and avoiding needless over-regulation. Many tech companies like Uber embody conservative ideals, as do Silicon Valley voters through Prop 13 and Prop 22"
5. "Tech workers often oppose liberal policies like rent control, mandatory hiring diversity, and inheritance taxes on multi-million-dollar homes"
6. "Claims the party is anti-intellectual and anti-science are fake news, how could so many republicans run successful campaigns if they weren't smart? Anyone who seems stupid is actually a genius making a 2000-IQ five-dimensional-chess move. Sadly a lot of tech workers have fallen for the lies of the fake news media."
1. The candidate pool is biased - in terms of demographics, under-30, college-educated, coastal-city individuals are dramatically skewed to the left. I think as IT workers get older, have families, and high paying jobs and education become more accessible to rural areas, we'll see a shift to the center.
2. Tech companies are in the spotlight of the "culture wars" - if your platform is an echo chamber for the narratives of the media, those narratives will eventually become descriptive of your company's identity.
3. H1-B visas and outsourcing is great economics for tech companies. This also reinforces the imperative for domestic workers and company culture to be highly inclusive.
4. More of a soft-factor, I think since most of tech's growth happened under Obama, there was an incentive for companies that were still finding their culture to align themselves with the administration and ruling powers at the time.
5. I think all of the above has pushed tech culture to a critical mass where those in the consensus will actively purge non-conformists.
--
A side-note, but another strange feature of tech culture is how the industry started off as more libertarian/anarchist, and I don't think my answers above explain the catalyst of this cultural 180. Curious what others think the reason behind this might be?
I don't know what being conservative is these days.
Other than decreasing taxes and anti-abortion position, I can't think of anything else that conservatives support which wouldn't be unreasonable by their own system.
The goal is to get statements into public record and pin down the answers to be used later. Ideally congress would delegate this job to top lawyers who would go list of questions very methodologically.
Making these hearings public and televised has made them into a show. Congressmen make questions that are more like statements in order to please their voters and lots of value is lost.
I sympathize. Everyone has a few words or phrases with incorrect usages stuck in their heads. For me it’s “fall through”, which feels like it should mean the opposite of what it does mean. I think that idea got stuck in my head because of the phrase “come through”, which implies success.
> Committee chair Senator Lindsey Graham called the session to address what he called "censorship and suppression of news articles" and the "handling of the 2020 election" by the platforms.
Dorsey & Zuckerberg are voluntarily testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
So I guess the counter argument that these platforms are acting as newspapers with editors is that they didn't actually make an editorial decision by limiting virality or putting a warning message on posts and articles.
Quick summary of what is going to happen:
Zuckerberg: Thank you for calling me up, I really love this chance to talk. Thank you. We like to get the peoples message across. Thank you congressman
Random boomer congressman: Why does my google email do the colors when I press the button but not do the colors when I press the other button?
x100 for 6 hours
Let me give a preview for anybody who can’t tune in:
Democrats all say that disinformation is a threat to democracy.
Republicans say that freedom of speech is essential to our democracy.
Jack and Mark preface every answer with “senator thank you for this question” and don’t answer anything. They both insist that the humans making editorial decisions are somehow impartial.
Republicans yell a lot. Somethings they say damn and hell, which are both now acceptable curse words.
Democrats don’t yell and spend their time flattering the witnesses and saying something about election interference.
Nothing happens.
People continue getting more divided and hating each other more so that these two men can get unfathomably wealthy.
The end.
(Bonus points if Ted Cruz says something about the constitution electing presidents, not Silicon Valley tech companies.)
Excuse me, constitutions don't elect presidents, presidents do. The president said so on Twitter yesterday, when he declared himself the winner of the election, after all. A message I can still read today.
This is an interesting question! I'm not sure there is anything I need to hear from these two. That's not to say that polarization and disinformation being amplified due to social media bubbles isn't a serious problem. Rather, I don't think it's up to these two to fix it, nor even understand it.
As a society we need to first understand the problem, then decide on what, if anything, we want to do to fix it. Fixes would most likely take the form of some sort of regulation.
E.g. something like where in Canada, some percentage of media has to be from a Canadian source. That law is very contentious in Canada, but you could imagine a similar law for any system that does content recommendation. E.g. some percentage of the content has to be sampled from the total body of content, and not come from the recommender. Something like this might address polarization, but disinformation is a thornier problem.
In any case, it needs to start first with understanding what is going wrong. Things like Mozilla's media bubble study is a good start. From that we need to form policy. There is no role for CEO opinions in all of this.
Some things are simply too destructive to be in society. I'll take smoking as an example: Of course you should have the option to put whatever you like into your body. But when it starts to seriously affect your health and the people around you, it calls into question whether your right to smoke is above the negative impact on society.
This is how I see social media. (I realise a lot of HN folk work in this area)
These CEOs brought social media into our world, and I expect them to take resposibility for it. If they are unwilling or unable to take responsibility, then I'm OK for The State to do that for them - like you said with regulations. Currently it looks like they don't want to take resposibility for the destruction they have caused.
Sorry for the rant - but I'm seeing first hand the negative effects of QAnon/Consipracy Theories/Extreme Politics within family members.
I've recently conceded to the argument that it's impossible to solve the problem without first defining the role and function of the companies. I believe that should be at the center of Senate questioning, not because it's comfortable, but because it is necessary.
I cooked eggs this morning. There is a diversity of wonderful eggs and even some bad eggs. Is the Twitter service a) the eggs, b) the pan, c) the stove, or d) the hen-to-table service of providing a delicious breakfast?
I don't think it's helpful to pretend to have a full view into the minds of these men. I think it's very possible that Zuckerberg genuinely has no idea why people would care this much about privacy and why people push back against Facebook because of it, just like I think there are people who actually have no idea why the phrase "if you have nothing to fear then you have nothing to hide" is problematic.
He's pretty careful with his own privacy so I think he does understand - it might be more accurate to say he thinks the majority of us don't deserve it.
Obviously they would be 3 good faith questions that must be answered only with the word "yes" or "no", with any other response resulting in being immediately charged with Contempt of Congress.
1) We require food manufacturers to list on the side of their products the ingredients, as well as the nutrition facts so people can make an informed decision about what they are putting in their body.
There is a growing pressure to require your companies to do something similar, and publish the algorithms and metrics you use to keep people on your services longer.
Would you support this movement?
2) Do you believe your products are addictive (this was already asked. I hope it gets asked more.)
3) What does it mean to you for something to be true? Could you give an example of something that you find to be uncontroversially true?
But then you don't inspire other people to come up with better questions if the question is only known to the senator ('s team) until eventually revealed to the public once asked.
> There is a growing pressure to require your companies to do something similar, and publish the algorithms and metrics you use to keep people on your services longer.
Growing pressure from who? I've occasionally seen these suggestions within niche tech communities, but I've never heard a layperson suggest something remotely similar to this. I'm also unsure how useful it would be. How detailed would such disclosures be? Even if they list "We use this machine learning algorithm", that algorithm description seems like it would be largely meaningless without the training data (which I don't think you could convince them to publish at all).
> Do you believe your products are addictive?
What company CEO _wouldn't_ say yes to this? It feels, to me at least, like a fluff question that you already know the answer to and won't yield any interesting insight into the company or how the CEO thinks about the product.
> What does it mean to you for something to be true? Could you give an example of something that you find to be uncontroversially true?
I think this is a much better question, although I worry that it might yield itself to some "gotcha" moments from Senators. For example, if one of the CEOs were to say "The sky is blue", I think you might get a lot of Senators saying "Well what if it's raining". That might not be the best example, but just something off the top of my head.
I agree that it might be hard to come up with a unequivocal definition of what is and is not true, as that's ultimately a complicated philosophical question, but I think we can approximate truth by relying on a variety of sources who we know will do their due-diligence on research and are examining the full context of issues.
These CEOs seems really skilled at using a lot of words to say and commit to very little and it seems like all these questions could be pretty easily dodged.
Mark's way worse than Jack is IMO. Jack's go-to is to say they made a mistake last time and they'll try to do better, which is kind of a dodge but at least he gives up a bit of ground.
Mark never admits a single failing and remarks on how "meaningful" your interaction with his service is.
Like yeah - smoking crack is pretty meaningful when you're a crack addict.
The answer to number 1 is an easy "no" because trade secrets are crucial to just about every industrial sector and an algorithm is clearly a trade secret. Even the food industry allows trade secrets -- the secret Coca-Cola recipe is not printed on every can. Even the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have proprietary stabilizing agents in them. As much as it sounds nice, the outcome would be vagueries like "we use algorithms to select the content we think you'll find most interesting based on your past browsing behavior".
I’m not a big fan of the last question. It seems like it’s hinting at the line of argument (which is very popular on HN) that goes something like “you can’t provide a formal specification for what it means for something to be “true,” and you cannot determine “truth” with 100% reliability, therefore you should have no processes or policies which involve any determination whatsoever about the state of the world.”
Not to be a naysayer, but when you get into legal terms, you have to be careful with terms like "addictive". Addictive implies a component of physicality (by the legal/medical definition, not the common definition). It's horribly habitual, which is as bad as, and hard to differentiate except in the physical symptomology of withdrawal.
I know this sounds like splitting hairs on message boards, but I can guarantee you that all of these people who have been called to testify have been briefed heavily by squads of lawyers.
How many people are required to moderate a 3 billion member network? How do you decide the number? How many do you currently employ city/state/country wise.
Since the engagement algos/infinite scroll/like button/follower counts etc are meddling with the brains reward mechanisms, what determines such meddling is psychologically safe?
1. Would you agree to fund an editorially-independent news organization (or partner with same), producing 1 hour of content-equivalent a night, with proceeds from your businesses?
2. What would you suggest the US Government do to help your company support free speech around the world, including in countries where it's limited?
3. Many of the negative effects of your platforms have been blamed on private ranking and/or broadcasting algorithms. What kind of transparency will you commit to with regards to these algorithms?
1. Do you, personally, visualize? Meaning, do you form internal imagery in your mind of which you are consciously aware of "seeing"?
2. Is that limited to historic memories, such of people, or does it extend to the irrational, where you can see things that aren't real or don't exist yet? I suppose this could also include audio manifestations.
3. Are you aware of any means available which would completely halt all corporate and service functions of the entity you helped create and unleash on the world?
I suppose the last one is a bit of a leading question, but given the seriousness of their actions, meh.
Seems like a lamentation on US political economy and its misplaced priorities -- and how this hearing is just continued pageantry that does not meaningfully seek to discover or improve anything. It's a perspective that might be very interesting to people who are vested in party politics, which is an increasing amount of people in the US.
Maybe these two men actually aren't trying to become more wealthy. Perhaps they are trapped by promises and partnerships made in the past, where they consensually entered an unbreakable alliance.
Many rich people are incredibly miserable and basically stuck in a position they cannot escape from. That doesn't mean they aren't doing a lot of harm (they are) or they aren't aware of it (again, they are) but they might not see a viable way out of it.
I remember when Zuckerberg was just seen like a nerdy, awkward kid suddenly put in big boy pants and people empathizing with him, and not like the eldritch abomination/reptilian drone he's seen like these days.
Sorry but "rich people are miserable because they have too much money" is not a real problem and I feel exactly zero sympathy for anyone in that position.
Exactly. We're supposed to believe Zuckerberg is stuck in a position from which he cannot escape, and that he somehow deserves sympathy? Sorry, but no. He lives in a free country. He could walk away this minute if he wanted to. He could even spin it as a good thing, i.e. "My work is done and I'm leaving the company in more capable hands".
Zuckerberg is in charge because he wants up be. There's a reason he negotiated his shares to have much higher voting power than common shares. He wanted control of his company, he still does, and he is responsible for everything it does.
you're describing a "deal with the devil". who do you propose is the "mafia" like entity they're dealing with that will "break their legs" if they back out of their job? Epstein blackmail maybe?
The positions of the politicians are the same, but Facebook and Twitter have invested in a lot more information shaping efforts than they had 4 years ago.
What's funny about this comment is you can read it as claiming either side doesn't value free speech.
One side says the right wants to use force of government threaten breaking up companies whose speech policies they disagree with. The other side arguing that left-wing social media companies have so much power they can essentially censor opposing views.
My entire point is that you were using such a vague straw man that it's impossible to know which direction you meant it. That's why I intentionally showed how it can be a straw man in either direction.
Also, I've been watching the hearing. So you're correct, I suppose -- that's how I was able to accurately summarize. I'm assuming from comment history that you have a libertarian bent, so I'd imagine you're on this side of government staying the hell out of regulating social media companies? But who knows? That's my point.
The Republicans are pretty clearly wanting to remove legal protections of section 230 of the CDA for social media companies that are acting as quasi-publishers by suppressing the speech of users on their platforms.
The Democrats want more effort made by social media companies to fight what they perceive as online misinformation... and are asking for more suppression of speech on social media platforms.
Nobody is hiding the ball here. These are direct statements made in the opening remarks by the leadership of both parties.
No, my statement was not ambiguous - unless you haven't listened to what is being said by the mainstream representatives of both parties.
I disagree, and am glad you clarified your position.
My view is that these companies are privately run and online communities should be free to run them as they wish. If, say, Christian Mingle wants to ban atheists from using the platform to spread their message, they should be allowed to do that without suddenly taking on liability for things like copyright infringement. If a woodworking community wants to ban discussion of politics, they should be allowed to do that without retribution. If a dating website wants to ban people who say gross things in a first message, there's nothing wrong with allowing them to exist and compete in the marketplace.
If I, as a user of social media, want to belong to a community that removes misinformation around the election, government shouldn't ban such a platform from allowing to exist (since without 230, that'd essentially be impossible). Companies should compete on an equal footing and shouldn't be penalized due to whatever speech policies they favor. It's not government's job to enforce neutral speech codes.
That said, I know some folks disagree and favor government taking a more active role in speech regulations in order to make sure nobody is banned from social media. While both Democrats and Republicans are pushing for changes, mostly only one side favors using the threat of law to enforce their will. It's not that you're genuinely concerned about things like copyright infringement -- you're clearly in favor of laws that would force social media companies to choose between removing the ability of its users to post without a legal review, or using the speech policy you favor, knowing they'll choose the latter. (Since, with so many posts, they couldn't exist with the former.)
If I, as a user of social media, want to belong to a community that removes misinformation around the election, government shouldn't ban such a platform from allowing to exist (since without 230,
You continue to indicate that you haven't actually listened to the arguments made.
The Republican argument is not about whether or not a company can censor information on their platform. In no way is it about the government's "banning" the existence of such a platform.
It's about whether or not the government should blanket protect companies from normal legal liability when they make publishing/editorial decisions over their users' content. That's what Section 230 does.
If Section 230 is removed or amended to the liking of Republicans, it won't be the government that punishes Twitter for their editorial/censoring decisions - it will be everyday people who can make a libel case based upon harm that Twitter caused them. Why should everyday people not be allowed their day in court if they can make a legitimate case of harm as a result of Twitter or Facebook policies?
If your concerns were truly about "everyday people" having a day in court, then it wouldn't be conditional upon these platforms not adopting your preferred speech policies.
Please explain why my woodworking community should be responsible for a user libeling another user about, say, their professional woodwork just because the forum has a "no politics" rule, for example. Or even a "politics sure but no Nazis" rule. What sense does this make? Let private companies compete in the marketplace. If folks don't like policies, they can switch services. No need to rewrite 230 to punish or reward companies based on their speech policies.
Your scenarios depend upon narrowly assumed premises that fail as soon as you put real people in the mix. Sure, if we lived in a perfect world where your woodworking moderators knew for a fact when libel was taking place or Nazis were posting - then we could all rest easily because they would de facto be preventing harm, not causing it.
But that's not the way it works. In reality, moderators don't know legal libel when they see it to the point that they should be automatically indemnified. We see in day-to-day life that not everyone who is accused of being a Nazi or a racist is one in fact. Sometime the accusation of being a Nazi is itself the libel, and if your woodworking moderators are participating in the perpetuation of that libel; then they should be held to account.
If your woodworking community, through moderation, decides to weigh in on user comments through moderation, badging, or editing; then it should be liable for any libel that it amplifies through its policies. If a person can show actual damage from those policies in court, then why should your woodworking community get a pass?
I agree, woodworking moderators wouldn't possibly know legal libel when they see it. Nor would any platform. But that's why every forum, website, blog, social media platform, whatever, would then have to adopt your preferred speech policy. Which, of course, is your intent.
I think the key dishonesty in your comment, whether you're aware of it or not, is this idea that "moderation, badging, or editing" is what would be "amplifying" libel. What sense does that make? How does removing a post that, say, promotes the KKK in a woodworking forum have anything to do with a user possibly-falsely claiming in the public forum that "Joe's Tables and Chairs" doesn't use walnut like they claim?
It's a bizarre claim you're making to justify tremendous government overreach in forcing tiny forums and a billion other websites like it on the web to adopt your preferred speech policies.
Edit: And by the way, I'm being very generous with my examples. For one, I'm assuming you're okay with removing ILLEGAL content, such as child porn, without the website owners being subject to lawsuits for libel and other things -- since they're required to remove those things regardless of 230. But also, what about very legal porn? Or what if a Nintendo Switch game forum removes somebody who posts "first!" as a reply to every thread?
If I'm misreading you, and your preferred policy is instead that these websites should be responsible for claims THEY make -- such as, if the owners call a user a Nazi -- well that's already CURRENT LAW! 230 doesn't grant protection there now. But they're not calling people Nazis -- also, I don't think that lawsuit would go far for reasons based in libel law -- so this never comes up. If you're saying they're "implying" people are Nazi's simply by removing content based on hate speech policies, again, 230 doesn't really apply there. It'd still fail under our libel laws, and any suit would fail on the merits.
Now, maybe you want to rewrite libel laws, too! That'd be a big government approach to even FURTHER regulate free speech, but it'd be difficult to write a law that made it possible to be sued just for implying somebody is a Nazi for something they wrote. Certainly it wouldn't pass Constitutional muster, so you'd have to rewrite the Constitution, too. The only Justice who has shown any openness to re-interpreting libel laws to further restrict speech is Justice Thomas and you'd have to go FAR beyond what he's called for.
One side is actively telling people to "rise up" [0] in a state that recently had a terrorist plot to kidnap the governor [1]. And that had an armed occupation of the house of government [2]. And who were recently told by the President to "stand by" [3].
The other side is saying not to actively invite violence. I'm pretty sure those are not equivalent positions.
I wasn't saying that the left and right hold equivalent positions. My point was that the comment I was responding to was vague and could be read in a variety of ways.
Ah, that would make sense. I've been getting frustrated at the "both sides" talking point, as it frequently comes up when discussing superficial similarities, and misinterpreted your comment.
> The Left and the Right used to agree that freedom of speech was fairly sacrosanct.
Ha. "Agreed" only in the most superficial way. You might have caught people saying it occasionally.
If you follow civil liberties debates and the politics thereof you know there's often a gap between what politicians (or just ordinary people) say about freedom of speech and what they actually believe and do. In the US the politics of things like compelling public schoolkids to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, to give a perennial example, are illustrative of this. (there are tons of examples involving obscenity laws, etc.)
The pledge itself is creepy but isn't a free speech issue. Compelled recitation of the pledge by agents of the state, like schools, at least to me, is.
I don't understand your comment. Regardless of where you stand on the topic, I don't think it's controversial that compelled recitation of the pledge is debated in public and argued about in the courts as a first amendment freedom of speech issue.
(after reading your comment below I think I get it. It's one of the infringements of freedom of speech that you're willing to tolerate because it's merely "creepy?" If so, that's illustrative of the larger point I was trying to make about people treating freedom of speech hypocritically.)
You're welcome to entertain an eccentric definition of "freedom of speech" that doesn't include one of the major freedom of speech issues of our time. It's just very odd.
"Nothing happens" mostly because people disagree about things.
As a result, seems like a good thing that these hearings broadcast different views on these issues so that the public can know how those views differ. Then, after knowing those views, people get to weigh in during election seasons. In this very recent election, of course, the public weighed in and likely delivered divided government, so we can expect some changes but nothing transformative.
I don't think show hearings are necessarily bad. They can serve a valuable purpose, so long as they aren't the only thing being done.
If the Senators spent their time asking meaningful questions that don't know the answer to rather than grandstanding, they might be able to find something they can mutually agree on.
They are behaving based on what they are rewarded for. Almost all of these people will be re-elected.
We need to break out of the GOP/Dem stranglehold if we want to change this behavior. That stranglehold is not desired by the electorate and is also not up for a vote.
Could you please not use HN for political and ideological battle? You've posted dozens of such comments already. We ban that kind of account because doing that destroys the curious conversation that the site is supposed to be for.
Edit: actually you've broken the site guidelines so repeatedly and so badly already that I think we need to ban this account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
I love your characterization of the Republican party as just honest people who get censored by the big bad censoring Democrats.
Let's take this election for example. Republican leaders and officials have jumped on the misinformation train and are now peddling unfounded claims of election and voter fraud. Twitter keeps suppressing those tweets and tagging them as fake, this in turn makes the Republicans mad because they can't spread what they see as reality.
Ignoring the fact that Republicans are the source of most of the misinformation you see online right now might make it seem like they are being censored, but in reality it's just cleaning up what can only be described as dishonest, anti-democratic and delusional lying.
Right now with a split Congress, no legislation is getting passed if it is in any way controversial. Lack of progress has little to do with technology awareness and much to do with partisanship, e.g. "not wanting to give the other side a win".
It's hard to think of rich people who are doing more harm than good. Sure, you could argue that for Zuckerberg, Dorsey, and the Sackler family if you want to. But they are a tiny fraction of all rich people.
"Silently rape" is a pretty harsh thing to say.
Would you prefer we had no rich people? There are places like that.
Really? You have a hard time thinking of rich people doing more harm than good?
Do you recall the decades where the truth about tobacco was actively suppressed? How fossil fuel companies are doing the same thing right now about Global Warming? Or the dismantling of regulatory agencies like the EPA by the Trump admin? Or the various billionaires that fund "think tanks" to conduct "research" favorable to their economic positions? Or people like Rupert Murdoch using their billions to spread divisive propaganda at a loss over their media empire?
It seems less productive to focus on "rich people" and instead focus on "large corporations", because all of these actions are done in the name of the corporation. An adjustment to corporate law to put the responsibility for actions of corporations on to C-level execs could have positive effects for example.
I haven't watched this one, but I watched the previous ones (how many times will these guys have to testify really?) and there was more questions than answers. Most of the times the questioners wouldn't even let the testifiers answer the questions, it was just a show.
It's not your fault that this is the top comment in the thread at this time, but I find it somewhat ironic that I watched the testimony on disinformation -- and it didn't go too much like this comment suggested it would -- and then came here to find the top post is dismissive, incorrect speculation about the content.
What counts as misinformation: generalization? Omission? There might be a partisan-associated divide among these forms of lying, but I don’t want to risk generalizing about Republicans and Democrats nor omitting that I didn’t watch the testimony either.
The real takeaway is they should disseminate the transcriptions not the videos. One thing I feel comfortable generalizing about is, everyone should fucking read more.
At some point, I don't even think some of that nuance matters anymore.
Spin is out the window. Straight up lying with easily disprovable claims is in.
Anyway, I dont think the speculation is off the mark, since every previous session was pretty much just like what user said. Also, judging from this feed I'm reading, its not even far off.
But that would insult Lord of the Rings. His beard and nose ring, with his smug manner, combined with the alien-looking Zuckerberg and his style, should provoke everyone's primal instincts to avoid anything these guys have built.
This hearing is somewhat more productive than the previous ones, and I'm guessing that it's because the election is mostly over. However, there are still plenty of predictable loaded questions.
The fascinating thing with Twitter is their 'corrections' to Trump's tweets say 'official sources' dispute them. Clicking on the corrections gives a pointer to AP and NBC.
Technically they're incorrect. AP and NBC are by no means official sources for the results of US elections. The Electoral College is the official source for the results of US elections.
In this way, Twitter itself spreads disinformation - and somewhat dangerous disinformation at that, as the media most definitely should not have any official control over the election.
This doesn't even make sense. The electoral college doesn't meet until January. The AP and NBC sources collate the results of the elections from each individual state, which comes directly from the Secretary of State websites for each state. What in there is disinformation?
Are you referring to the "Multiple sources called this election differently" disclaimer? Or the "Official sources may not have called the race when this was tweeted" one?
So your argument is that AP and NBC are not allowed to "call" these elections based on results tabulated by each state? Seems like you're really grasping at straws here.
The "official sources" are the election results tabulated by each state. NBC and AP collate this data and show that Biden has enough electoral votes to win. That is what is meant by "call".
A "call" is what happens before the electors meet to vote. To suggest that you need to wait until January 6th or whenever in order to "call" the election is absurd.
Recounts do not change results with something like 99% probability, particularly results with large enough margins like these. Therefore, it is reasonable to determine with high probability what the final electoral results will be from the "preliminary" count of votes. Again, not only are the margins within each individual state large enough to make it improbable to overturn, the margins of the predicted electoral votes are large enough as well, even in the unlikely event that an individual state is somehow overturned. This is not even remotely close to Bush v. Gore in 2000.
Your objections seem overly pedantic, to be honest.
They changed the wording probably because pedantic people like the guy I was arguing with were saying "But ackshually the Electoral College..." It doesn't change the fact that "official sources" come from each state's Department of State.
unrelated but has anyone discovered why Jack Dorsey looks like a seventeenth century Mennonite instead of a CEO of one of the largest social sites in the world?
Because his eccentricity is in part why he founded and is CEO of Twitter and Square? Several million clean cut business suits could have been running them, but they're not.
These hearings just show how they have an impossible task.
* Question 1: Why did you put labels on the president's tweets? What gives you the right to determine that? Putting a label on is completely outrageous!
* Question 2: You labelled the presidents tweet as 'potentially misleading' - but this didn't go far enough, as it was fully misleading! Why are you not harsh enough on fake news?!
There needs to be a separate task of trying to work out what on earth it is that the aim/goal actually is.
Yeah I really don't envy them. They're just guys who built some websites trying to make money. I'm sure they never thought they would be at the center of national discussions about free speech, defending themselves against senators on TV, or being in the no-win situation of having the President use your platform to share obvious lies.
> They're just guys who built some websites trying to make money
Maybe before Tahrir Square that was true, but they've been at this fulcrum for ~9 years now. They know what they're doing and what their part is in the play staging today.
And yet, surely they could change things essentially overnight if they wanted to. I’m not sure how far “they didn’t expect this to happen” goes as a defense.
How would they change though? As the original comment stated, they're being asked to do contradictory things by different parties. The defense isn't that "they didn't expect this to happen," it's that there's no way for them to win. People can't agree on what they did wrong if anything.
Sure, at this point various groups want very specific accommodations to "patch" specific perceived problems. But I think it's pretty clear that the overall problem is the algorithms which boost the distribution of certain kinds of content. Yes, conservatives get upset if posts are removed or flagged as inaccurate, but I don't think liberals would deem that necessary if it weren't the case that every doctored video that fits a conservative political agenda gets distributed to millions of people instantly. (Feel free to swap "conservative" and "liberal" in that previous sentence with whatever you like, the particular groups aren't important to my argument.)
You must not remember Twitter revolutions [0]. When journalists were attributing a wave of protests ranging from Iran to Egypt to Syria (which were later come to be named Arab Spring) to the effect of social media, especially Twitter. Social media giants were hailed as saviours of humanity through spreading democracy. Social media executives were ecstatic: they were changing the world for the better and making a lot of money in the process. I don't know if they took credit for it explicitly, but at least they never objected to the articles praising them for being humanity's saviours.
Twitter et. al. have been a political force for most of their existence. The only thing that has changed is that while in their early years, their political effects were concentrated in the developing world in faraway lands, in recent years they have started affecting western politics as well. Many people who praised the earlier effects are condemning the latter. But the fundamental forces and processes are the same; it is the target that has changed. And Twitter has known it was political at least since 2009, when revolutions were named after it and multiple countries blocked it from their internet for the fear of the havoc it may cause.
I still think there's a big difference between giving a platform to the people who don't have a voice (Twitter revolutions), vs giving a platform to world leaders and people in power trying to use the platform to disseminate their propaganda.
Also, realistically no one's gonna care too much if you ban one of those millions of people without a voice, but good luck trying to censor the president.
> I still think there's a big difference between giving a platform to the people who don't have a voice (Twitter revolutions), vs giving a platform to world leaders and people in power trying to use the platform to disseminate their propaganda.
I don't think Twitter revolutions were free of propaganda. I am sure all the superpowers and regional powers were fanning the flames of discontent and trying to steer the results in their favourite direction. The excuse many countries gave for blocking Twitter was that it was a foreign propaganda tool. I am not saying the entire thing was foreign agents and propaganda. I am saying that there was some of that then as it is now. We have just learned to see it, because now the propaganda is directed at us and we have a clearer view.
Oh I absolutely agree, there always has and will be disguised propaganda, my second point still holds that pure lies and provable misinformation such as "Trump won the election" can get deleted when coming from an average user, but not when coming from someone in power.
Entire networks of bots spreading misinformation get removed every once in a while, but you won't see the same happening with world leaders purposefully spreading lies.
Nothing stops "people who don't have a voice" from posting misinformation, lying, etc to bring about the revolution faster.
Also, almost all of the people who have large followings in Twitter have large followings in real life. That is, they are people in power trying the use the platform to disseminate their propaganda.
In the case of the Twitter revolutions, they are revolutions in far away countries that align with American geopolitical interests, so an American would be inclined to agree with it (due to media, society, their own material interests) and consequently rationalize it.
“Propaganda is communication that is used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be presenting facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is presented.”
Social Media literally turns every important, nuanced discussion into propaganda. Until we all realize that and decide to collectively reject it at an ideological level, it’s gonna be a rough road.
Their earlier efforts was to let voices be heard which is to be lauded. Their current efforts against western democracies is to silence or stifle voices. Big difference.
> The only thing that has changed is that while in their early years, their political effects were concentrated in the developing world in faraway lands, in recent years they have started affecting western politics as wel
This is somewhat disingeneous. Twitters efforts in the developing world were only to make sure everyone had access, and nobodys voice was squashed. It didnt bow down to dictatorial takedown requests, and allowed dissenters voices to be heard, thus enabling the revolutions that followed.
The game they are playing now is arbitrating content, and putting labels on things to guide the narrative. Regardless if they are right or not, as they are in the case with Trump its a very, very different game.
Right now there are two criticisms of Twitter and Facebook et al:
1) That they are arbitrating content, like what you mentioned with Trump
2) That they are not arbitrating content enough, giving platform to climate change denialism, conspiracy theories, far right radicalization, and genocide [0].
So sure, they can return to their original stance and censor nobody. I don't think people would be too happy with them when the world gets more genocide-y and violent protests break out fuelled by conspiracy theories regarding the health of the elections.
So to recap: moderating and not moderating content on their platforms are both subject to serious criticisms. Right now, social media companies are trying to strike a balance, but the result is that they are angering both sides. If they choose a side (all content is allowed / we will moderate the content as closely as HN is moderated), they other side will be angrier at them. They were happy not doing moderation when the negative impacts were only affecting non-western countries, but now that it is also affecting western countries, they are more clearly seeing the negative sides and they have moved more to the middle.
I don't extend personal sympathy to people worth over even a few million dollars -- if they don't like their jobs they can just retire -- but, in the abstract, the social media firms have bitten off far more than they can chew.
The kinds of problems social media has exposed are problems that society isn't able to deal with and the people who were just looking for a quick buck, without needing to do much work, are caught in the middle of it. Corporate structures were never intended to regulate the speech of billions of people in thousands of legal jurisdictions, but that's exactly the situation Facebook is now in.
I don't know if there is a good solution to the problems of social media short of simply outlawing it.
Twitter is doing what I wish all services would do with misinformation. Avoid putting misinformation into feeds, attempt to direct people to rectifying information, but let the misinformation exist so as not to martyr it
Twitter is martyring information now as well. When Trump tweeted misinformation about the election they physically blocked the tweet from being commented on and being viewed.
Once they did anything beyond the bare legal requirements they opened their own Pandora's box. Had they done nothing there would be no reason to question them. Once they did something they just anger both sides as too much or too little.
I truly think the only correct move this year would have been to turn off all social media (including the chans) until the next president is inaugurated. It's already been demonstrated that this stuff can topple countries, and I see no reason why the U.S. would be an exception. Acknowledge these platforms for what they are: information weapons. The management at these corporations cannot compete with nation-state level adversaries intent on waging an information war and that is clearly what we have been up against for at least the last two years. Someone is screwing with the U.S., and they're using social media to do it.
I didn't watch it, but that's a neat idea. What's the difference between a recommendation algorithm and a moderation algorithm? I guess I don't even know how they work. Do they only surface content liked, commented, or retweeted by people you follow / friend?
One of the best things I saw relating to social media was on a HN comment a while ago. Reverse chronological content posted directly by your friends / people you follow should be considered part of the platform. Recommendations pushed in your face by an algorithm should be considered publishing.
> What's the difference between a recommendation algorithm and a moderation algorithm?
They both just seem to be versions of spam filters to me. The real power that Twitter would have is a historical dataset that could influence the weight of certain users' content in recommending/rejecting to a viewer. Algos are only as good as the data behind them, right?
> Recommendations pushed in your face by an algorithm should be considered publishing.
What a disgrace. Republicans and Democrats are basically arguing over the specifics of content moderation by these social media companies. Republicans think the moderation goes too far or is politically biased while Democrats argue the moderation doesn't go far enough and want dissent they call "disinformation" removed from social media. Lindsey Graham at multiple points indulged in McCarthyite questioning about the political beliefs of Twitter and Facebook employees.
All the while, Section 230 is being held hostage even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the content moderation these companies currently perform. Few in elected office seem to have much regard for the 1st Amendment. At this point there's clear bipartisan support for curtailing the Section 230 protections that make these discussions possible.
Why were even Zuckerberg and Dorsey there? It seems like it should be a debate within the senate - they clearly cannot do anything but complain, whatever FB/Twitter does. They'd need to agree between themselves on something first, then they can talk to the social media companies (who were now just in a useless crossfire).
"I don't want the government to take over the job of telling America what tweets are legitimate and what are not. I don't want the government deciding what content to take up or put down -- I think we're all in that category -- but when companies have the POWER of governments..."
The word "but" obliterates everything that came before it...
Sen Hawley was definitely playing for a setup.
As far as I can tell, Tasks is kind of like a giant kanban board. I know Asana is also basically the commercialized version of Tasks as well. It's kind of weird to see it used as a reference to colluding with Google and Twitter for content moderation. It's like saying, "do you use JIRA or email for colluding?" It makes no sense. He should have simply asked do you coordinate with Twitter and Google for content moderation.
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 231 ms ] threadEdit: Oh no it's Lindsey Graham, so probably more grandstanding.
Edit 2: Editorializing here, they're threatening to take away section 230 safe harbor protections as a punishment for "censoring" right wing content using the pretext of youth health.
I tend to agree that their primary function is public shaming, though.
https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1328461277971288067?s=20
Josh Hawley is a US Senator for Missouri.
I have an extremely difficult time taking people like him seriously in a world where Facebook refuses to ban Steve Bannon when he calls for Dr. Fauci to be beheaded, yet twitter does so without issue. But then again, Twitter refuses to address covid-19 misinformation, and allows politicians to generally say whatever they want, conservative or no. All while youtube does nothing about qanon conspiracy videos flooding the platform.
It's just a shame that american politicians now have to be hardline partisans to the point where they will lie right into the microphone to toe the party line.
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"I'd actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I'd put the heads on pikes, right, I'd put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you're gone — time to stop playing games. Blow it all up, put [Trump aide] Ric Grenell today as the interim head of the FBI, that'll light them up, right."
Jack Maxey, the podcast's co-host, responded: "Just yesterday there was the anniversary of the hanging of two Tories in Philadelphia. These were Quaker businessmen who had cohabitated, if you will, with the British while they were occupying Philadelphia. These people were hung. This is what we used to do to traitors."
To this Bannon replied: "That's how you won the revolution. No one wants to talk about it. The revolution wasn't some sort of garden party, right? It was a civil war. It was a civil war."
--------
I think it's pretty fair to characterize this as "literal". It's hard to read this (or listen to it, it was originally in audio form) and not think they're legitimately mulling over the possibility of executions.
However, we've seen plenty of instances where this kind of rhetoric can enable the less stable elements of the population. Pizzagate resulting in a guy holding up a pizza shop he was convinced had child sex slaves in the basement immediately comes to mind. A plot to kidnap a governor comes to mind. Fantasizing about running over protesters, and then James Alex Fields Jr. doing just that and murdering Heather Heyer comes to mind.
It's hard to know where to draw the line. Twitter and Facebook will find it very difficult to detect hyperbole, sarcasm, etc. And neither platform seems interested in spending their billions to hire the type and number of people required for proper monitoring.
"Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci. Now I actually want to go a step farther, but I realize the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man. I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes".
I'd be inclined to believe your interpretation but he himself has already ruled out the figurative meaning of the phrase "pikes on head" with the first sentence in that quote, by saying he wants to "go farther" than that. Beyond firing, how exactly can you "make an example" of an employee?
It could be a non-plausible death threat though. And it's probably glorification of violence. I'd hate to be an arbiter of policies like this though. There's a line here between legally sanctionable speech (which I don't think this quote is), and what Twitter allows on its site.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/10/31/whitey...
There's certainly some interpretation there, but the bar for legal sanctions on a death threat in the US is pretty high, and I don't think this meets it. It's not too far off though, a couple of different word choices, and it might be.
"Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci. Now I actually want to go a step farther...I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes".
So please explain to me. What does "heads on pikes" mean if the person who said it has discounted the "fire in disgrace" interpretation of the saying? This is a serious question. What do you think it really means, taking the entire quote into context?
(funnily this is a rare instance where a quote that sounds fine out of context takes on a sinister note when surrounding quotes are included)
EDIT: I see downvotes, but no answers to what I thought was a very simple question.
"Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci. Now I actually want to go a step farther, but I realize the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man. I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes, right, I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats."
You're saying "pikes on heads" is a figure of speech, meaning firing and making an example of them. But he's saying "let's go beyond just firing". So what does "heads on pikes" mean in the context of the quote? Seriously, I'm trying to understand. How does one make an example of an employee you're displeased with, beyond firing them? Write really mean tweets about them? Fuck with their pensions? What?
If no answer is given, have the next questioner ask the same question again.
At some point, that's going to get under even Zuckerberg's skin.
If a CEO can't answer a question posed by Congress, running out the clock shouldn't be a viable strategy.
"Mr. Zuckerberg, I don't feel you answered my colleague's point. Let me ask again..."
Why do the American people care about the next question, if the previous question wasn't answered? Which is more important, more questions or answers?
That quote is exactly what I mean by passive aggressive cloaking actually. You won't get the answers you want if the questioning process is adversarial as it turns into "Don't talk to the police." or deposition style of being unhelpful as possible instead of trying to actually inform because of incentives.
Zuckerberg isn't dumb. If he's repeating rote memorized passages, it's specifically to run the clock down.
I agree with you.
They need to get the cameras out of congress. Everyone involved in these hearings is mining them for clips for their campaign ads and it's sickening.
It is the cameras you have to thank for finding out that they are posturing and grandstanding.
Really I would expect standing up to the fringes in their wings would be a popularity boosting move but party poltical machine alienating one as .
In the presence of cameras, politicians become instagram celebrities.
Or we could save ourselves the trouble and ask ourselves why it is that we don't allow cameras in those places to begin with. And then we could extend that reasoning to Congress. Turns out treating your government like a reality tv show is a bad idea.
Removing the cameras isn't going to fix everything...but it will be a positive change.
The system operates as it is designed to.
Removing cameras from these hearings could make them more productive. But I don't know how useful these types of hearings could be.
Considering that they are not even under oath, precisely zero. They can lie to the lawmakers' faces with no recourse.
I very distinctly remember Jack telling congress the time before last that they "do not shadowban", and then screenshots of their admin dashboard were leaked[1] that show they explicitly did have multiple kinds of shadowbans.
[1]: https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgxd3d/twitter-insider-acces...
Disregard that first sentence, apparently they are all sworn in by default. It's just that perjury is barely ever pursued.
Interestingly the questioners, in this case the Senators, are not under oath and they can say whatever they’d like. Regardless of how false or nonsensical.
At the last hearing, for instance, Jack Dorsey said that they do not shadow ban, but later pictures appeared of their administrative interface and certainly that capacity was there. An outright lie and yet he isn't even interrogated on this. Wouldn't there be arrests and trials if it truly was a federal crime?
Look at the prosecution of Roger Clemens. Why the hell was Congress holding hearings about steroid use in baseball?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/5-people-who-lied-...
That parallels to attorneys in a trial. Although in a trial there are some limits to questions that can be asked. In a Congressional hearing, the witnesses don't have anyone who can specifically raise an objection on their behalf, they just have to wind down the clock.
Honestly, most of these hearings would be better conducted via letters. Then you wouldn't get nearly so many "I would have to get back to you" answers, often without serious followup.
Of course it doesn't help that many of the questions are ill-informed in their own right.
On the other hand, the meetings of the government should be open and transparent by default.
Don't rely on politicians to do direct questioning of witnesses. Politicians have the wrong incentives, and generally lack the skills, to do anything other than grandstand in public meetings.
Legal fact-finding, including the questioning of witnesses, should be done by lawyers and subject matter experts.
Is Facebook bailed out?
Can any of you survive under a fed prime rate of 20% or above? Doing so would shore up pensions, and improve USA standing with Africa, Asia and South America, likely stopping a lot of wars.
What's the hiring process like at your company?
When the country desperately needed remote employment this past year, how many new hires did you make? Ford Motor Car and GM hired entire factory floors of workers at double the minimum wage.
Can any of you pass your own hiring process or answer just one of your technical interview questions?
You said your success was only due to a privileged upbringing. Isn't that by choice? You could have joined the Marines and get shot or blown up or burnt alive for everyone else, but you didn't. Now you want to burden the entire world. Why? Because you feel guilty? By the way, who said you wouldn't be shot yet?
I want to hear from conservatives why they think most of (if not all) of big tech is "in the pockets of the Democrats". Why do all of these software engineers/IT field workers typically end up as left-leaning? Is it a matter of education/intelligence? Empathy? I feel like the split has to be at least 85% Democrat / 15% Republican in IT.
I do think the prevailing educational system K-12 and the universities have a strong tilt to the left - generally ahead of the country. I also suspect most people simply inherit these default settings as their view points.
Why do New York and California vote so heavily blue?
1. "Actually you under-estimate the number of conservatives in tech, they just keep quiet about it because conservative opinions are being oppressed"
2. "For example, a great many twitter posts by Donald Trump have been flagged as false or inciting violence. This shows tech companies won't let you say the things half the population thinks!"
3. "Larry Ellison and Elon Musk love Trump's policies!"
4. "Tech workers often support conservative policies like freedom, opposing government waste and avoiding needless over-regulation. Many tech companies like Uber embody conservative ideals, as do Silicon Valley voters through Prop 13 and Prop 22"
5. "Tech workers often oppose liberal policies like rent control, mandatory hiring diversity, and inheritance taxes on multi-million-dollar homes"
6. "Claims the party is anti-intellectual and anti-science are fake news, how could so many republicans run successful campaigns if they weren't smart? Anyone who seems stupid is actually a genius making a 2000-IQ five-dimensional-chess move. Sadly a lot of tech workers have fallen for the lies of the fake news media."
1. The candidate pool is biased - in terms of demographics, under-30, college-educated, coastal-city individuals are dramatically skewed to the left. I think as IT workers get older, have families, and high paying jobs and education become more accessible to rural areas, we'll see a shift to the center.
2. Tech companies are in the spotlight of the "culture wars" - if your platform is an echo chamber for the narratives of the media, those narratives will eventually become descriptive of your company's identity.
3. H1-B visas and outsourcing is great economics for tech companies. This also reinforces the imperative for domestic workers and company culture to be highly inclusive.
4. More of a soft-factor, I think since most of tech's growth happened under Obama, there was an incentive for companies that were still finding their culture to align themselves with the administration and ruling powers at the time.
5. I think all of the above has pushed tech culture to a critical mass where those in the consensus will actively purge non-conformists.
--
A side-note, but another strange feature of tech culture is how the industry started off as more libertarian/anarchist, and I don't think my answers above explain the catalyst of this cultural 180. Curious what others think the reason behind this might be?
Other than decreasing taxes and anti-abortion position, I can't think of anything else that conservatives support which wouldn't be unreasonable by their own system.
The goal is to get statements into public record and pin down the answers to be used later. Ideally congress would delegate this job to top lawyers who would go list of questions very methodologically.
Making these hearings public and televised has made them into a show. Congressmen make questions that are more like statements in order to please their voters and lots of value is lost.
We are talking about people who are testifying in the Senate hearings. Those people who raise their hand and then sit face towards congressmen.
In this important event, I can only focus on how whoever wrote that doesn't know what "momentarily" means.
> North American at any moment; very soon: my husband will be here to pick me up momentarily.
Now that you know that this is correct usage of the word, perhaps it will be less distracting the next time you see it used that way.
https://reddit.com/r/confidentlyincorrect is a treasure trove of such cases
Dorsey & Zuckerberg are voluntarily testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/breaking-the-news-...
https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1328461277971288067?s=20
Josh Hawley is a US Senator for Missouri. Supposedly he will ask questions about his information.
Democrats all say that disinformation is a threat to democracy.
Republicans say that freedom of speech is essential to our democracy.
Jack and Mark preface every answer with “senator thank you for this question” and don’t answer anything. They both insist that the humans making editorial decisions are somehow impartial.
Republicans yell a lot. Somethings they say damn and hell, which are both now acceptable curse words.
Democrats don’t yell and spend their time flattering the witnesses and saying something about election interference.
Nothing happens.
People continue getting more divided and hating each other more so that these two men can get unfathomably wealthy.
The end.
(Bonus points if Ted Cruz says something about the constitution electing presidents, not Silicon Valley tech companies.)
As a society we need to first understand the problem, then decide on what, if anything, we want to do to fix it. Fixes would most likely take the form of some sort of regulation.
E.g. something like where in Canada, some percentage of media has to be from a Canadian source. That law is very contentious in Canada, but you could imagine a similar law for any system that does content recommendation. E.g. some percentage of the content has to be sampled from the total body of content, and not come from the recommender. Something like this might address polarization, but disinformation is a thornier problem.
In any case, it needs to start first with understanding what is going wrong. Things like Mozilla's media bubble study is a good start. From that we need to form policy. There is no role for CEO opinions in all of this.
This is how I see social media. (I realise a lot of HN folk work in this area)
These CEOs brought social media into our world, and I expect them to take resposibility for it. If they are unwilling or unable to take responsibility, then I'm OK for The State to do that for them - like you said with regulations. Currently it looks like they don't want to take resposibility for the destruction they have caused.
Sorry for the rant - but I'm seeing first hand the negative effects of QAnon/Consipracy Theories/Extreme Politics within family members.
I cooked eggs this morning. There is a diversity of wonderful eggs and even some bad eggs. Is the Twitter service a) the eggs, b) the pan, c) the stove, or d) the hen-to-table service of providing a delicious breakfast?
Hearings have four audiences in decreasing order of importance: voters, regulators, the hearing participants and legislators.
If you believe these men are irredeemable sociopaths, ask questions that show voters and regulators (e.g. prosecutors) that.
There is a growing pressure to require your companies to do something similar, and publish the algorithms and metrics you use to keep people on your services longer.
Would you support this movement?
2) Do you believe your products are addictive (this was already asked. I hope it gets asked more.)
3) What does it mean to you for something to be true? Could you give an example of something that you find to be uncontroversially true?
There might be even more good questions; possibility too many.
What's the best way to crowdsource such good questions and select a good sample and bring it to the attention of whoever organizes such hearings?
Growing pressure from who? I've occasionally seen these suggestions within niche tech communities, but I've never heard a layperson suggest something remotely similar to this. I'm also unsure how useful it would be. How detailed would such disclosures be? Even if they list "We use this machine learning algorithm", that algorithm description seems like it would be largely meaningless without the training data (which I don't think you could convince them to publish at all).
> Do you believe your products are addictive?
What company CEO _wouldn't_ say yes to this? It feels, to me at least, like a fluff question that you already know the answer to and won't yield any interesting insight into the company or how the CEO thinks about the product.
> What does it mean to you for something to be true? Could you give an example of something that you find to be uncontroversially true?
I think this is a much better question, although I worry that it might yield itself to some "gotcha" moments from Senators. For example, if one of the CEOs were to say "The sky is blue", I think you might get a lot of Senators saying "Well what if it's raining". That might not be the best example, but just something off the top of my head.
I agree that it might be hard to come up with a unequivocal definition of what is and is not true, as that's ultimately a complicated philosophical question, but I think we can approximate truth by relying on a variety of sources who we know will do their due-diligence on research and are examining the full context of issues.
Mark never admits a single failing and remarks on how "meaningful" your interaction with his service is.
Like yeah - smoking crack is pretty meaningful when you're a crack addict.
Live, after each merge/release.
I know this sounds like splitting hairs on message boards, but I can guarantee you that all of these people who have been called to testify have been briefed heavily by squads of lawyers.
Since the engagement algos/infinite scroll/like button/follower counts etc are meddling with the brains reward mechanisms, what determines such meddling is psychologically safe?
2. What would you suggest the US Government do to help your company support free speech around the world, including in countries where it's limited?
3. Many of the negative effects of your platforms have been blamed on private ranking and/or broadcasting algorithms. What kind of transparency will you commit to with regards to these algorithms?
2. Is that limited to historic memories, such of people, or does it extend to the irrational, where you can see things that aren't real or don't exist yet? I suppose this could also include audio manifestations.
3. Are you aware of any means available which would completely halt all corporate and service functions of the entity you helped create and unleash on the world?
I suppose the last one is a bit of a leading question, but given the seriousness of their actions, meh.
I remember when Zuckerberg was just seen like a nerdy, awkward kid suddenly put in big boy pants and people empathizing with him, and not like the eldritch abomination/reptilian drone he's seen like these days.
1. Give Larry Page & Sergey Brin a call.
2. Ask them what to do when you have too much money, but don't want public attention anymore.
If Zuckerberg is still in the public eye, it's because he makes a choice to be.
Zuckerberg is in charge because he wants up be. There's a reason he negotiated his shares to have much higher voting power than common shares. He wanted control of his company, he still does, and he is responsible for everything it does.
citation?
you're describing a "deal with the devil". who do you propose is the "mafia" like entity they're dealing with that will "break their legs" if they back out of their job? Epstein blackmail maybe?
One side says the right wants to use force of government threaten breaking up companies whose speech policies they disagree with. The other side arguing that left-wing social media companies have so much power they can essentially censor opposing views.
Edit: clarity
My entire point is that you were using such a vague straw man that it's impossible to know which direction you meant it. That's why I intentionally showed how it can be a straw man in either direction.
Also, I've been watching the hearing. So you're correct, I suppose -- that's how I was able to accurately summarize. I'm assuming from comment history that you have a libertarian bent, so I'd imagine you're on this side of government staying the hell out of regulating social media companies? But who knows? That's my point.
The Democrats want more effort made by social media companies to fight what they perceive as online misinformation... and are asking for more suppression of speech on social media platforms.
Nobody is hiding the ball here. These are direct statements made in the opening remarks by the leadership of both parties.
No, my statement was not ambiguous - unless you haven't listened to what is being said by the mainstream representatives of both parties.
My view is that these companies are privately run and online communities should be free to run them as they wish. If, say, Christian Mingle wants to ban atheists from using the platform to spread their message, they should be allowed to do that without suddenly taking on liability for things like copyright infringement. If a woodworking community wants to ban discussion of politics, they should be allowed to do that without retribution. If a dating website wants to ban people who say gross things in a first message, there's nothing wrong with allowing them to exist and compete in the marketplace.
If I, as a user of social media, want to belong to a community that removes misinformation around the election, government shouldn't ban such a platform from allowing to exist (since without 230, that'd essentially be impossible). Companies should compete on an equal footing and shouldn't be penalized due to whatever speech policies they favor. It's not government's job to enforce neutral speech codes.
That said, I know some folks disagree and favor government taking a more active role in speech regulations in order to make sure nobody is banned from social media. While both Democrats and Republicans are pushing for changes, mostly only one side favors using the threat of law to enforce their will. It's not that you're genuinely concerned about things like copyright infringement -- you're clearly in favor of laws that would force social media companies to choose between removing the ability of its users to post without a legal review, or using the speech policy you favor, knowing they'll choose the latter. (Since, with so many posts, they couldn't exist with the former.)
You continue to indicate that you haven't actually listened to the arguments made.
The Republican argument is not about whether or not a company can censor information on their platform. In no way is it about the government's "banning" the existence of such a platform.
It's about whether or not the government should blanket protect companies from normal legal liability when they make publishing/editorial decisions over their users' content. That's what Section 230 does.
If Section 230 is removed or amended to the liking of Republicans, it won't be the government that punishes Twitter for their editorial/censoring decisions - it will be everyday people who can make a libel case based upon harm that Twitter caused them. Why should everyday people not be allowed their day in court if they can make a legitimate case of harm as a result of Twitter or Facebook policies?
Please explain why my woodworking community should be responsible for a user libeling another user about, say, their professional woodwork just because the forum has a "no politics" rule, for example. Or even a "politics sure but no Nazis" rule. What sense does this make? Let private companies compete in the marketplace. If folks don't like policies, they can switch services. No need to rewrite 230 to punish or reward companies based on their speech policies.
But that's not the way it works. In reality, moderators don't know legal libel when they see it to the point that they should be automatically indemnified. We see in day-to-day life that not everyone who is accused of being a Nazi or a racist is one in fact. Sometime the accusation of being a Nazi is itself the libel, and if your woodworking moderators are participating in the perpetuation of that libel; then they should be held to account.
If your woodworking community, through moderation, decides to weigh in on user comments through moderation, badging, or editing; then it should be liable for any libel that it amplifies through its policies. If a person can show actual damage from those policies in court, then why should your woodworking community get a pass?
I think the key dishonesty in your comment, whether you're aware of it or not, is this idea that "moderation, badging, or editing" is what would be "amplifying" libel. What sense does that make? How does removing a post that, say, promotes the KKK in a woodworking forum have anything to do with a user possibly-falsely claiming in the public forum that "Joe's Tables and Chairs" doesn't use walnut like they claim?
It's a bizarre claim you're making to justify tremendous government overreach in forcing tiny forums and a billion other websites like it on the web to adopt your preferred speech policies.
Edit: And by the way, I'm being very generous with my examples. For one, I'm assuming you're okay with removing ILLEGAL content, such as child porn, without the website owners being subject to lawsuits for libel and other things -- since they're required to remove those things regardless of 230. But also, what about very legal porn? Or what if a Nintendo Switch game forum removes somebody who posts "first!" as a reply to every thread?
If I'm misreading you, and your preferred policy is instead that these websites should be responsible for claims THEY make -- such as, if the owners call a user a Nazi -- well that's already CURRENT LAW! 230 doesn't grant protection there now. But they're not calling people Nazis -- also, I don't think that lawsuit would go far for reasons based in libel law -- so this never comes up. If you're saying they're "implying" people are Nazi's simply by removing content based on hate speech policies, again, 230 doesn't really apply there. It'd still fail under our libel laws, and any suit would fail on the merits.
Now, maybe you want to rewrite libel laws, too! That'd be a big government approach to even FURTHER regulate free speech, but it'd be difficult to write a law that made it possible to be sued just for implying somebody is a Nazi for something they wrote. Certainly it wouldn't pass Constitutional muster, so you'd have to rewrite the Constitution, too. The only Justice who has shown any openness to re-interpreting libel laws to further restrict speech is Justice Thomas and you'd have to go FAR beyond what he's called for.
The other side is saying not to actively invite violence. I'm pretty sure those are not equivalent positions.
[0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/11/trump-advisor-te...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretchen_Whitmer_kidnapping_pl...
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52496514
[3] https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-race-and-...
Ha. "Agreed" only in the most superficial way. You might have caught people saying it occasionally.
If you follow civil liberties debates and the politics thereof you know there's often a gap between what politicians (or just ordinary people) say about freedom of speech and what they actually believe and do. In the US the politics of things like compelling public schoolkids to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, to give a perennial example, are illustrative of this. (there are tons of examples involving obscenity laws, etc.)
I don't think it has anything substantial to do with freedom of speech issues.
Obscenity laws and flag burning are better examples.
Occasionally being compelled to say something is also bad, but a separate issue to me.
(after reading your comment below I think I get it. It's one of the infringements of freedom of speech that you're willing to tolerate because it's merely "creepy?" If so, that's illustrative of the larger point I was trying to make about people treating freedom of speech hypocritically.)
It doesn't mention "creepy", and says something quite different from what you got from it.
You're welcome to entertain an eccentric definition of "freedom of speech" that doesn't include one of the major freedom of speech issues of our time. It's just very odd.
That's probably all the progress we'll make here :)
As a result, seems like a good thing that these hearings broadcast different views on these issues so that the public can know how those views differ. Then, after knowing those views, people get to weigh in during election seasons. In this very recent election, of course, the public weighed in and likely delivered divided government, so we can expect some changes but nothing transformative.
I don't think show hearings are necessarily bad. They can serve a valuable purpose, so long as they aren't the only thing being done.
We need to break out of the GOP/Dem stranglehold if we want to change this behavior. That stranglehold is not desired by the electorate and is also not up for a vote.
There's no room for agreement here. The sides are
Republicans: stop censoring us
Democrats: please censor Republicans even more
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of HN to heart, we'd appreciate it.
Edit: actually you've broken the site guidelines so repeatedly and so badly already that I think we need to ban this account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
Let's take this election for example. Republican leaders and officials have jumped on the misinformation train and are now peddling unfounded claims of election and voter fraud. Twitter keeps suppressing those tweets and tagging them as fake, this in turn makes the Republicans mad because they can't spread what they see as reality.
Ignoring the fact that Republicans are the source of most of the misinformation you see online right now might make it seem like they are being censored, but in reality it's just cleaning up what can only be described as dishonest, anti-democratic and delusional lying.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Congress is full of decrepit baby boomers that don't know/don't care to know shit about technology.
"Silently rape" is a pretty harsh thing to say.
Would you prefer we had no rich people? There are places like that.
Do you recall the decades where the truth about tobacco was actively suppressed? How fossil fuel companies are doing the same thing right now about Global Warming? Or the dismantling of regulatory agencies like the EPA by the Trump admin? Or the various billionaires that fund "think tanks" to conduct "research" favorable to their economic positions? Or people like Rupert Murdoch using their billions to spread divisive propaganda at a loss over their media empire?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
And I love how they are afforded the right to answer these questions from the comfort of their homes. Make them go to DC!
The real takeaway is they should disseminate the transcriptions not the videos. One thing I feel comfortable generalizing about is, everyone should fucking read more.
Spin is out the window. Straight up lying with easily disprovable claims is in.
Anyway, I dont think the speculation is off the mark, since every previous session was pretty much just like what user said. Also, judging from this feed I'm reading, its not even far off.
Technically they're incorrect. AP and NBC are by no means official sources for the results of US elections. The Electoral College is the official source for the results of US elections.
In this way, Twitter itself spreads disinformation - and somewhat dangerous disinformation at that, as the media most definitely should not have any official control over the election.
1. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Em8ByxrXMAEN_Mi?format=jpg
2. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Em8By4-XcAIUY2D?format=jpg
A "call" is what happens before the electors meet to vote. To suggest that you need to wait until January 6th or whenever in order to "call" the election is absurd.
The Electoral College meets December 14.
The Electoral College determines the winner.
Any 'result' before the EC determines the winner is a preliminary result.
Your objections seem overly pedantic, to be honest.
But it's dangerous to present the media as being an official source of election results.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EnGSHiCWEAcwHse?format=png
* Question 1: Why did you put labels on the president's tweets? What gives you the right to determine that? Putting a label on is completely outrageous!
* Question 2: You labelled the presidents tweet as 'potentially misleading' - but this didn't go far enough, as it was fully misleading! Why are you not harsh enough on fake news?!
There needs to be a separate task of trying to work out what on earth it is that the aim/goal actually is.
Maybe before Tahrir Square that was true, but they've been at this fulcrum for ~9 years now. They know what they're doing and what their part is in the play staging today.
Twitter et. al. have been a political force for most of their existence. The only thing that has changed is that while in their early years, their political effects were concentrated in the developing world in faraway lands, in recent years they have started affecting western politics as well. Many people who praised the earlier effects are condemning the latter. But the fundamental forces and processes are the same; it is the target that has changed. And Twitter has known it was political at least since 2009, when revolutions were named after it and multiple countries blocked it from their internet for the fear of the havoc it may cause.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Revolution
Also, realistically no one's gonna care too much if you ban one of those millions of people without a voice, but good luck trying to censor the president.
I don't think Twitter revolutions were free of propaganda. I am sure all the superpowers and regional powers were fanning the flames of discontent and trying to steer the results in their favourite direction. The excuse many countries gave for blocking Twitter was that it was a foreign propaganda tool. I am not saying the entire thing was foreign agents and propaganda. I am saying that there was some of that then as it is now. We have just learned to see it, because now the propaganda is directed at us and we have a clearer view.
Entire networks of bots spreading misinformation get removed every once in a while, but you won't see the same happening with world leaders purposefully spreading lies.
Also, almost all of the people who have large followings in Twitter have large followings in real life. That is, they are people in power trying the use the platform to disseminate their propaganda.
In the case of the Twitter revolutions, they are revolutions in far away countries that align with American geopolitical interests, so an American would be inclined to agree with it (due to media, society, their own material interests) and consequently rationalize it.
Social Media literally turns every important, nuanced discussion into propaganda. Until we all realize that and decide to collectively reject it at an ideological level, it’s gonna be a rough road.
This is somewhat disingeneous. Twitters efforts in the developing world were only to make sure everyone had access, and nobodys voice was squashed. It didnt bow down to dictatorial takedown requests, and allowed dissenters voices to be heard, thus enabling the revolutions that followed.
The game they are playing now is arbitrating content, and putting labels on things to guide the narrative. Regardless if they are right or not, as they are in the case with Trump its a very, very different game.
1) That they are arbitrating content, like what you mentioned with Trump
2) That they are not arbitrating content enough, giving platform to climate change denialism, conspiracy theories, far right radicalization, and genocide [0].
So sure, they can return to their original stance and censor nobody. I don't think people would be too happy with them when the world gets more genocide-y and violent protests break out fuelled by conspiracy theories regarding the health of the elections.
So to recap: moderating and not moderating content on their platforms are both subject to serious criticisms. Right now, social media companies are trying to strike a balance, but the result is that they are angering both sides. If they choose a side (all content is allowed / we will moderate the content as closely as HN is moderated), they other side will be angrier at them. They were happy not doing moderation when the negative impacts were only affecting non-western countries, but now that it is also affecting western countries, they are more clearly seeing the negative sides and they have moved more to the middle.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...
The kinds of problems social media has exposed are problems that society isn't able to deal with and the people who were just looking for a quick buck, without needing to do much work, are caught in the middle of it. Corporate structures were never intended to regulate the speech of billions of people in thousands of legal jurisdictions, but that's exactly the situation Facebook is now in.
I don't know if there is a good solution to the problems of social media short of simply outlawing it.
Twitter intentionally puts irrelevant tweets from people you don’t follow into your feed.
What if you had the option to switch between moderation algos on the fly in the client?
One of the best things I saw relating to social media was on a HN comment a while ago. Reverse chronological content posted directly by your friends / people you follow should be considered part of the platform. Recommendations pushed in your face by an algorithm should be considered publishing.
They both just seem to be versions of spam filters to me. The real power that Twitter would have is a historical dataset that could influence the weight of certain users' content in recommending/rejecting to a viewer. Algos are only as good as the data behind them, right?
> Recommendations pushed in your face by an algorithm should be considered publishing.
Interesting distinction!
All the while, Section 230 is being held hostage even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the content moderation these companies currently perform. Few in elected office seem to have much regard for the 1st Amendment. At this point there's clear bipartisan support for curtailing the Section 230 protections that make these discussions possible.
"I don't want the government to take over the job of telling America what tweets are legitimate and what are not. I don't want the government deciding what content to take up or put down -- I think we're all in that category -- but when companies have the POWER of governments..."
The word "but" obliterates everything that came before it...
https://youtu.be/OT3OgojnhFM?t=4221
https://youtu.be/OT3OgojnhFM?t=4340
But now it is front page on Foxnews.com
https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/hawley-presses-zucker...