Another problem is that something like this can function as "evidence" for the claim. There are large groups of people who believe that censorship like this validates a worldview in which powerful interests are censoring true information in order to maintain control. It's similar to the Streisand Effect or "Banned in Boston" but for belief rather than attention.

It seems like the better solution is to have an outpouring of discussion around how and why the claim is wrong. Let others ridicule the statements, rather than shutting down discussion. You'll never convince everyone, but at least you'd avoid the validation-by-censorship effect.

I could be wrong on this though. I don't really have any evidence or data that would show doing it one way is better than the other. I suppose I simply prefer open discussion.

One issue is that it’s asymmetrical. Made up statements have more resonance and shocking value than well thought rebuffs or ridicule.

If you accuse your opponent of eating babies at breakfast, other parties will have a hard time to find something as punchy, and some minority of people will swallow your statement. Throw around enough of these and you’ll have a large base covered, with your opponents left scrambling for boring or after the fact retorts that won’t have the same reach.

And that is why you, yourself, believe lots of wrong things like this, right?

I think that yes, I am effectively exposed to random baseless lies, and only a few of the voices crying foul will ever reach my eyes.

For instance I read a headline about future rising petrol prices due to the stuck Evergreen boat, and honestly I have no idea how true it is, don’t care enough to go down the rabbit hole, but still remembered it as an information, and might subconsciously be influenced by it on some decisions.

This is less likely to happen on fields I have decent interest or expertise in, but that only represents a tiny fragment of the information we consume everyday.

It's a hard problem. Liars can spam lies much faster than honest people can debunk it.

You would only have an outpouring of discussion as to why the claim is wrong if you are 100% certain the claim is wrong.

Last spring the CDC and the WHO were consistently wrong on masks, on asymmetric spread, etc on just about everything.

Maybe the experts themselves don't even trust what is supposedly the truth anymore.

Thing is, any substantiative discussion will be way too complex for most people who could fall to these conspiracy theories, to understand, and they will arrive to a conclusion like "these Jews are trying to look too smart and bullshit us".

Sadly, this asymmetrical warfare from authoritarian nations hits the right point: it forces us to either let misinformation flow and people become manipulated by it, or to revert to authoritarian measures by gradually chipping away freedom of speech.

or increase transparency and demand accountability from platforms amplifying messages without transparent traceability of information.

...which is the exact opposite of what these platforms, as businesses, were designed to do: maximally amplify and disperse the most "clickable" information - which is the one understandable to everyone (dumb) and appealing to people's instincts (authoritarian, because we are herd animals).

given the power these platforms have, i highly doubt this attempt to regulate their business in a clearly negative way to them, can be successful. they are so powerful, even CCP is afraid of them, starting a crackdown on social media in China.

> There are large groups of people who believe that censorship like this validates a worldview in which powerful interests are censoring true information in order to maintain control. It's similar to the Streisand Effect or "Banned in Boston" but for belief rather than attention.

Similarly, there are large groups of people that believe there are large groups of people who believe that censorship like this validates a worldview in which powerful interests are censoring true information in order to maintain control. The degree to which the respective beliefs of these two groups of people are actually correct, is unknown.

I suspect that the group of people that believe this is considerably smaller than the other two groups, at least in Western cultures.

I believe this phenomenon is (at least in part) what Hindus refer to as Maya.

https://www.hinduwebsite.com/hinduism/essays/maya.asp

Obviously Maduro is a problematic despotic leader, but who are Facebook to be arbiters of thrush and falsehood?

We’ve gone down the path of good intentions that leads to hell.

Does this not interfere with self determination? Is there one true north now? Have Facebook found all truth?

This is getting ridiculous.

For their own platform? Facebook is, obviously. How is this even a question?

It's not like a head of state doesn't have plenty of power to send messages through other means. Since when are private actors obligated to let them speak on private platforms?

Facebook doing it of its own volition is one thing, and I'd argue they are within the right to do so. Government pressurizing Facebook to censor stuff is entirely other ballgame, which poses a bigger risk, and nobody seems to be paying attention to. (Most attention is given to the content being censored, not the actors behind the censorship).

I agree that this is an issue. The first amendment should protect private actors here from government influence over their own membership policies, other than certain narrow exceptions like protected classes.

Don't like that they ban too many left-wingers/right-wingers? Feel free to get mad about it, just don't get thinking that this is somehow illegal, or should be.

I think people are mad about the perceived abuse of liability protections enjoyed by these private actors. In my opinion that is totally valid.

Facebook has 2.7 billion users or 34% of world population. Out of interest, I'm curious to know if, given that they are in effect, judge and jury on their own private platform, there is any % level of penetration at which you might change your view? It appears you'd set no limit at all.

> given that they are in effect, judge and jury on their own private platform

You say this like it's some weird, bizarre thing. Who else should be judge and jury by default on a private platform? Should there be some government committee any time a new social media company starts up?

In any case, to answer your question: if the issue is that they've become too powerful, and there's a reasonable case to make there, then I'd say the answer is to either break them up or support alternatives, not have the government barge in and micromanage how they run the particulars of their business. I don't think there's some obvious right answer for "how tightly should a social networking company restrict what people say", so the best possible answer from a societal level is to help choices flourish and let consumers choose.

Every platform has some 'censorship' -- even Parler banned porn, and got rid of left wing 'trolls'. The only real way around it is to not have a platform so much as a protocol, like email.

You can actually sue in court (in America) if a business kicks you out for protected reasons. So we don't need a governmental committee- we have the courts to arbitrate our cases for us.

And you think courts should be arbitrating every time some internet message board bans someone for posting porn or spam or a swastika? Because that's the implication of what you're saying here: let's let courts handle it.

Is this a serious suggestion? The courts are already overwhelmed, packed full of cases. And you want to throw potentially millions of minor cases where someone's mad about getting banned for flaming some other user onto their docket?

Politicians aren't a protected class under US discrimination laws. A politician banned from Facebook would generally have no legal grounds to sue.

> private platform

From where does the idea of “private” come? Is it to distinguish its controllers from that which is government controlled?

That's the normal use of 'private' in this context, yes.

>How is this even a question?

>Since when are private actors obligated to let them speak on private platforms?

This is the same argument slave owners used to defend their "private property", and that business owners used to ban black people from their private property.

So, judging by the history of human rights, it's a perfectly valid question

Except we did decide a private business can refuse service unless its specific discrimination of a protected class. If anything this analogy proves the opposite of your argument.

Are you implying we've reached the pinnacle of human rights, and can no longer progress or regress?

> This is the same argument slave owners used to defend their "private property"

The difference is that slavery is inherently wrong, whereas deciding on your own internal membership policies for some club, or internet forum, or what have you, is not inherently wrong.

This is pretty obvious, because nobody's mad about the small private actors doing the same kind of thing. 99.9999% of the companies or private groups around, nobody gives a shit that they get to decide to ban whoever they like. They're just mad at Facebook and Twitter because they're big. Whereas "small time slaveowners" are still disgusting criminals.

And I get that, these companies being more powerful, their decisions have wider knock-on effects. But the right solution is still alternatives, not the government micromanaging and second guessing every single decision they make. At most, you could mandate some kind of 'nutrition facts' policy, where policies must at least be up front and transparent.

>But the right solution is still alternatives, not the government micromanaging and second guessing every single decision they make.

Agreed! Perhaps a publicly funded (not advertising funded) digital public square which protects lawful speech could be a potential solution?

>The difference is that slavery is inherently wrong, whereas deciding on your own internal membership policies for some club, or internet forum, or what have you, is not inherently wrong.

What is and is not "inherently wrong" is subjective and always changing.

Anyone who pretends that they do not believe in things which will be considered "inherently wrong" 10, 50, or 100 years from now has a god complex and is deeply ignorant of human psychology and history.

>For their own platform? Facebook

That is an American pow, that is not shared in Europe or China.

You can't just shoehorn words like 'obviously' and 'despotic' into your opening sentence then move onto attacking a platform for interference. I would suggest reading into the history of who installed and backed Juan Guido and for what reason. Facebooks 'narrative management' of this issue is just another aspect of that.

There was never good intentions here, they just started at the most palatable points and will keep cranking it up as they can.

You have it backwards. We should be worried about being forced to broadcast political messages we think are lies.

The real problem is that Facebook is in a position of such power and market control that moderation feels like censorship.

True! We need to demand accountability from platforms for amplifying messages without transparent traceability of information.

WHO statement on masks was misleading but I didn't see it as wrong (only wrong in the sense that they should focus on people's perception of their statements). They said that there was no evidence that masks help. Which was true at the time. They paired that statement with suggestions use a variety of prevention methods.

The statement from Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove that symptomatic patients being "very rare" was definitely wrong. But she back tracked the next day and said it only possible they are rare and was aware of the 40% models which have now come out to be much closer to the truth.

This is like your wife coming home and shout "there is no evidence that I cheated on you today". It's the truth, but wtf?

WHO has been extremely incompetent in communicating with public. Their tweets were shockingly bad and misleading.

Strong disagree, at this point people have choosen sides and any attempt to influence people one way or the other will look either pathetic, at an absolute best, or hamfisted if you don't roll a natural 20.

And you really don't want more hamfisted attempts to educate people to your way of seeing the world unless you also want to repeat january 6th.

Then they can spout whatever they want through their official channels. Facebook doesn't need to and isn't obligated to host their content.

In this case, Facebook can do what they please. Any uproar should be directed at the government which can go about using official channels as they please (press conferences, news releases, official government web pages)

Well then you can pay for some servers for people to post text and leave up the text that you think is reasonable.

Like Parler?

We have a mechanism for this. It’s defining protected classes. I don’t see an argument for putting Maduro’s speech into a protected class.

You don’t really need to worry about drawing the line between facts and lies just because you remove the 10% most blatant disinformation. It doesn’t make Facebook the final arbiter of truth.

There are things that are controversial or debated and Facebook and others stay away from that.

Advocating injecting bleach or eating albinos to cure Covid is one thing while arguing the amount of asymptotic transmission is another thing entirely.

Does Facebook ban controversial statements such as “children should be given hormone blocking therapy if they request it, regardless of the wishes of their parents, even if it sterilizes them” or “transgender women should be allowed to go to/volunteer at battered women’s shelters”. Espousing the opposing viewpoint is a fast track to getting banned from Twitter/Facebook or wherever else.

Note I’m not making a judgement about these statements, merely using them as examples of things that absolutely won’t get you kicked off of Facebook for advocating.

That will not happen, it’s not about enforcing morality, it’s about strengthening an ideology by erasing competing messages.

This is first time I see someone worry about trans in battered women shelter. It just sounds like one of these made up issues that actual domestic violence activists dont seem to care about.

Battered women shelters also dont always have exclusively female staff. They do lean more female afaik, but penis won't prevent you to work as lawyer, psychologist, security etc.

What that worry shows mostly is that whoever is creating panic about this one was never interested in domestic violence - nor even curious about it.

Is it? Give me an example of such a thing happening.

Agree, but Facebook has also removed things that are not "10% most blatant disinformation".

Okay — but in practice, channels on YouTube and Facebook merely mentioning COVID have to resort to euphemisms due to the extreme censorship.

So your claim they “stay away from” controversial or genuinely disputed topics is plain wrong: they censor those topics heavily on FB and YT to shape narratives — from COVID to Amber Heard beating her spouse.

Your idealized “just a little” censorship has already been exceeded — showing why it’s impractical as a political idea: it’s inherently unstable.

> It’s a fine line between hate and misinformation and dissent

"Hate" is a pretty Orwellian[1] word in this context, with a meaning pretty far from its usage a couple of decades ago.

Most usage I've seen has a distictively political bend.

E.g. "X are stupid and science proves it!" is not hate when X is "conservatives" but is when X is "muslims".

[1] see the section on meaningless words: https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_poli...

> Don’t know what the answer is, we don’t want echo chambers of misinformation, but we want to live in a democratic society too

If we want less echo chambers we'd need to stop censoring and banning those who disagree with us, otherwise they go elsewhere, encountering those similarly ostracized and form a natural echo chamber.

I don't think anyone claims that "X is stupid" is hate, regardless of how broad or nonsensical X is.

X should die, or X are vile subhumans stealing our jobs, or we should rape X, or X are raping our dogs is hate.

Do remember that something like 'fossil fuels are destroying the environment' would be called 'hate speech' if power shifted a bit. 'Hate' is an emotive term used to bypass peoples thinking so that criticism of certain things can be disposed of by emotion rather than evidence. People bringing up evidence of malfeasance could be called 'hate filled' people, have what they say aggressively censored, so that other people only hear these are 'hate filled' people and what they say be buried so that inconvenient information doesn't come out.

There's an expression in my native language which, directly translated, is something along these lines:

"If my grandma had a rotor, she'd be a helicopter". I think it perfectly encapsulates your "slippery slope" argument, that if today we accept that saying you want to rape someone on Twitter is hate that needs to be stopped, tomorrow saying that processed foods are bad will be hate as well. Do you even realise how stupid your argument sounds? We're not talking about criticism. Were Nazis "criticizing" Jews? Do racists "criticize" other "races"? No, they hate them, and there is a pretty heavy difference between the two.

> Do racists "criticize" other "races"?

The word "racist" seems to have a thousand subtly (and not so subtly) different meanings depending on who is using it. I think this is a good example of the phenomena.

Do you think it impossible that someone could believe that Chinese people are more intelligent than Nigerians due to genetics without hating them? Or do you just think said person would not necessarily be racist?

Yes, another way to discredit someone with a valid concern is use name calling as the basis of their argument, just like what the parent post does here. School yard bullies used named calling to socially destroy the reputation of their victims and isolate them. Adults use the same name calling to do the same thing, they just use different words.

I have definitely seen "Muslims are stupid" be called hate speech.

Though you might have different standards... Would you say "So called transwomen are not women!" is hate speech?

There is a big difference between OMS and populist leaders like Maduro/Bolsonaro/Trump.

What OMS said about masks and asymptomatic cases were the best we known about the pandemic at the current time (we still didn't have many studies on how the virus propagated). Once it became clear that masks helps and asymptomatic cases are super spreaders, OMS changed the tone quickly.

Populist leaders say things about remedies that study after study shown that there is no efficacy and they never change their tone because it would mean they're wrong. Instead, they simple jump for the next "miracle" solution.

I'm guessing most people here will have no idea what you mean by OMS - the English name is WHO (World Health Organization).

Yeah, thanks for the correction.

Also, context matters. OMS avoided recommending masks at the start of the pandemic since no study showed the efficacy of it, and there was no mass production of masks yet. So recommending it for general population would only generate shortage of masks for those who needed (frontline medics and nurses treating the cases). So this is why they're so against it.

> and there was no mass production of masks yet

But that’s not what they said. Fauci said “healthy people do not need to wear masks.” So he either lied then or is lying now. The reason for the lie is irrelevant. If healthy people should wear masks, the lack of production capability doesn’t change the fact.

If masks work and Fauci knew they worked, then his statement that healthy people don’t need masks was scientific fraud.

His exact words: “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.”

That statement was either patently false, or it was true and his current statements are patently false.

Did he lie in order to protect mask supplies? Did some new groundbreaking study come out during the next few months? Of course not. So why would a rational person trust anything coming from Fauci given that we don’t know if it’s the truth, or just some manipulative statement based on whatever the political need happens to be at the time? To be even more cynical, ask oneself why certain older mask-related research papers have been censored?

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/data-do-...

> So he either lied then or is lying now.

There’s also the option that he was wrong and learned/was educated. A lot of scientific progress works like that. “He lied” implies intention.

So how many scientific studies about mask efficacy were completed to change the scientific consensus during those two months when we had a mask shortage and were being told that masks only protect doctors?

Sorry, but when you are the chief advisor in a national crisis you don't get to learn on the job.

I don’t consider that a reasonable stance. New things happen all of the time, all people need to learn on the job. Scientific consensus at the beginning of the COVID pandemic was limited, transmission vectors largely unknown. There must be room for unknowns even for top advisors.

I admit it is not a reasonable stand, it comes from a deep level of fustration with how slowly the politicians are rolling things out and with how confident they sound when they are not doing anything.

> "His exact words: ...."

what fauci said was true (given tolerance for the natural ambiguity inherent in speech). in most cases, masks have been, and continue to be, primarily a palliative and signaling device, not a mitigation. for healthcare workers, it's actually an augmentative mitigation used with other imperfect mitigations in controlled circumstances to get the best possible outcomes from their use. masks are poorer mitigations in most general circumstances in comparison to the easier alternative that is (context-specific) distancing.

at various points, he's buckled to the prevailing political winds to keep his job, but that particular statement was a moment of lucidity and frankness. it threatened the dominant mediopolitical narrative, so he eventually backed off.

> That statement was either patently false, or it was true and his current statements are patently false.

You’re actually missing the correct option which is that scientific consensus has shifted on this issue. Science is a process for the truth and conclusions can change with more evidence.

People keep saying this, but it doesn't make it true. The consensus of public health officials changed for sure, but I haven't seen any evidence that the science changed at all

Science has been changing on this as the research becomes more nuanced for the current pandemic

For example: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8

The fact that he said "people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face" is exactly what I said about context: we still used to think that using alcohol and disinfecting surfaces are more effective than avoiding direct contact (at least for the general public). We now know that this isn't the truth, disinfecting surfaces are barely recommended nowadays since we know that the virus is airbone so masks and social distancing are the recommendation.