News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by Tallasatree on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:01PM (#24793126)
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. We've been watching this happen for a few years now, and some of us are actively paving the road.
Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by Fauntleroy on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:10PM (#24793237)
The "unchecked misinformation" alternative hasn't really been working out so well either, for what it's worth.
Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by mjfl on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:21PM (#24793354)
I don't think it's working nearly as badly as you think.
Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by Fauntleroy on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:24PM (#24793395)
If only the dead in the US could talk.
Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by ohashi on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:28PM (#24793448)
President Trump. I think it's gone pretty fucking badly.
[dead]
Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by wallacoloo on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:51PM (#24793736)
Please read this site's guidelines before participating in discussions here. Particularly the first and third point under "In Comments". Thanks.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by jpttsn on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:23PM (#24793373)
Hits and misses. It worked great for Galileo.
Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by andrewprock on Thursday October 15, 2020 @07:18PM (#24795489)
Could you clarify what you mean by "it worked great" here?
Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by will_pseudonym on Thursday October 15, 2020 @10:04PM (#24796660)
I would assume he was referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair, where the "unchecked misinformation" was heliocentrism.
Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by whimsicalism on Thursday October 15, 2020 @05:12PM (#24794033)
I'm pro-management of information on platforms but anti-this sort of management for these purposes.

Public health misinformation, sure. News articles? Hm.

I think it is stupid to not vote for Biden over something like this. But, I also don't think the articles I've seen "debunking" the NYPost article have been very compelling.

Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by giardini on Thursday October 15, 2020 @05:44PM (#24794437)
whimsicalism says >"I think it is stupid to not vote for Biden over something like this. "<

IMO Biden's likely to pass away before he's elected and so I think it foolish to vote for him. He looks like a dead man walking - a paper cutout that Democrats move from one empty rally to another.

BTW who becomes the Democratic party nominee should Biden

a) die or fall very seriously ill before the election?

b) die on the eve of the election (i.e., halfway through the voting, when some votes have already been cast for the deceased)?

c) die after the election but before he's sworn in as President?

I see Biden's health as extremely precarious.

Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by untog on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:14PM (#24793275)
It cuts both ways, though.

The road to hell (totally censored internet) is paved with good intentions (trying to clamp down on misinformation). But the road to hell (a society full of dangerously misinformed citizens) is also paved with good intentions (trying to keep the internet free of censorship).

I guess my point is that none of this is actually easy to navigate. Anyone saying "censor the story, it's no big deal" is missing the bigger picture. But IMO, so is anyone saying "disinformation is not a problem, it shouldn't be tackled".

Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by wobbegongz on Thursday October 15, 2020 @09:11PM (#24796339)
All roads lead to hell?
Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by adventured on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:12PM (#24793255)
It's not good intentions. The tech giants are attempting to throw an election and they don't care who knows at this point. For the 2012 election Facebook execs bragged about illegally assisting the Obama campaign by giving them practically the entire FB social graph, for free. That violates federal campaign finance laws. Nothing was done about it and you'll never get anyone on HN to go near talking about that fraud, which was entirely out in the open.

The media ran every possible baseless story they could about Trump the past four years, often with zero supporting evidence to the story in question. Every time they turned out to be fake stories, the media conveniently ignored it, refused to run retractions and moved on to the next fraudulent story. Twitter allowed max distribution in every single instance. Now a story blows up about Biden, and they go in to hyper overdrive to stop it, colluding with Facebook. You've got people inside of these companies directly working for the DNC and using company resources to violate federal campaign finance laws.

There is a growing list of people in big tech that need to go to prison for election interference.

Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by Fauntleroy on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:16PM (#24793302)
How is it you're able to see this collusion with only one side, and not the other? I'm genuinely curious.
Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by amanaplanacanal on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:31PM (#24793512)
If there were illegalities, you would think the Trump justice department would have gone after them. Do you have theories as to why that didn’t happen?
Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by AlexandrB on Thursday October 15, 2020 @05:31PM (#24794274)
It takes a lot of cognitive dissonance to pretend that one side of the political spectrum is being oppressed even as they control 2/3 branches of government.
Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by giardini on Thursday October 15, 2020 @05:54PM (#24794573)
Obviously you've never worked in a bureaucracy.
Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by zucked on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:51PM (#24793738)
You gonna cite some of these outlandish claims? Particularly interested in:

> The media ran every possible baseless story they could about Trump the past four years, often with zero supporting evidence to the story in question. Every time they turned out to be fake stories, the media conveniently ignored it, refused to run retractions and moved on to the next fraudulent story.

>You've got people inside of these companies directly working for the DNC and using company resources to violate federal campaign finance laws.

Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by sakopov on Friday October 16, 2020 @02:10AM (#24797997)
Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by zaroth on Thursday October 15, 2020 @06:44PM (#24795147)
I mean the first one is well established fact. No one could argue in good faith that the quality of report first, fact check later stories on Trump is like nothing we’ve ever seen before. But it’s all just flame-bait I guess.

As for the second point, the people making these decisions at Facebook and Twitter factually did or do currently work for the DNC; for the DNC, on the Biden transition team, or worked for Harris.

Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by octoberfranklin on Thursday October 15, 2020 @06:19PM (#24794854)
> Facebook execs bragged about illegally assisting the campaign

I'm sure Chinese tech companies would brag about illegally assisting the CPC. And be happy to have the chance to do so.

BigTech is preparing us for a Chinese-styled political system. They've decided it's inevitable and "if you can't beat 'em, be the first to join 'em".

This has nothing to do with liberal vs conservative. There will be one party left standing and right now it looks like it will be the blue one not the red one, that's all it is.

Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by amarka on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:41PM (#24793631)
The road to hell is littered with "free ice cream this way =>" signs.
Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by 2bitencryption on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:10PM (#24793235)
Recently I've seen people invoking the term "slippery slope fallacy" to describe this phenomenon.

It's really frustrating to see this. I think there was some stupid "list of fallacies" infographic popular on Reddit a few months back that spawned this notion that there's no such thing as a "slippery slope" and calling anything a "slippery slope" means you're wrong and your argument can be tossed out.

But... that's exactly how rights are eroded. It is, in the purest sense, a slippery slope of gradual change.

I'm not sure how I feel about this specific instance (the Twitter/Biden thing) but I think the "slippery slope fallacy" fallacy is relevant here.

Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by nexuist on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:13PM (#24793266)
It is stupid especially considering that the people who are for this sort of censorship (or moderation, if you will) usually also agree with the notion that we are heading towards fascism. Which one is it then? Is it possible to take on step forward and stay put, or does every step forward indicate more steps in the future?

You can't have it both ways, it's either a fallacy or not. History tells us that it is not a fallacy, and that we should use all the warning signs we can find before it's too late to go back.

Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by colordrops on Thursday October 15, 2020 @05:52PM (#24794543)
"slippery slope" is not a fallacy. It happens all the time. It happened with privacy. Do you not remember when a printer driver phoning home with usage stats was a national news story? Now you are a a bad company if you don't do this.
Re:Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reig... by hnhg on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:16PM (#24793295)
Indeed, when done on purpose, it has another name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salami_slicing