I don't really care about the details of these stories, it doesn't affect me if the virus came from a lab or how deep the corruption runs in the Biden family. But any rational person without a political agenda has to agree that the censorship system as it exists is ripe for abuse by bad actors. These two examples in particular completely changed my viewpoint on moderation and I no longer see Facebook or Twitter fighting "misinformation" as a good thing given how easily they can be manipulated into denying valid information. They simply cannot be trusted to identify what is or isn't misinformation.
https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/HSGAC%20-%20Fin...
On April 16, 2014, Vice President Biden met with his son's business partner, Devon Archer, at the White House. Five days later, Vice President Biden visited Ukraine, and he soon after was described in the press as the "public face of the administration's handling of Ukraine." The day after his visit, on April 22, Archer joined the board of Burisma. Six days later, on April 28, British officials seized $23 million from the London bank accounts of Burisma's owner, Mykola Zlochevsky. Fourteen days later, on May 12, Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma, and over the course of the next several years, Hunter Biden and Devon Archer were paid millions of dollars from a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch for their participation on the board.
The op made an accusation as if it was a fact
Any adult should have learnt that starting with a kernel of truth, or flooding the debate with accusations and demands, are effective methods to mislead and deceive people. It is a proven method for suppressing facts. It lacks integrity, and serves the goals of the corrupt.
It is strange to me that people perfectly aligned to the attack lines of corrupt politicians (in your case, the Republican flavour) bother pretending even to themselves that it is the corruption that really bothers them.
This is probably the most tribal thing I ever read here on hn.
So, I’m European, not American. I genuinely don’t care about your politics. My only interaction with it is news titles I inevitably run into. But I don’t have to be American, or Republican to notice your politicians ( and mine for that matter ) are deeply corrupt. From both sides. I think republicans are just as corrupt as democrats. I think Trump is just as corrupt as Biden as Clinton. I think they are all in it for themselves and will gladly sell their influence to the higher bidder, which is usually corporate interests.
And, yeah, I actually wish things were different. But they’re not. So all I’m left with is to point out how ridiculous people like themitigating are.
... That may be true for Twitter, but it's certainly not the case for IG and FB. Discussion of any sort was off-limits, based pretty much entirely on Daszak's letter (we agree that's batshit insane, right?). Millions of posts were deleted, and tens of millions got a little warning bar that dropped interaction by "at least" 80%.
Meanwhile back at Twitter, people who tweeted wrong-think of very mild varieties, such as anything but the current and official (and ever-shifting) stance on vaccine effectiveness were getting banned. While that's not super cool, you're right to point out that Twitter weren't quite as authoritarian as claimed.
Some people did that, sure. Others were genuine. For example, this tweet in cautious favor of a new vaccine development got a Professor of haemostasis and thrombosis at the University of Sheffield banned, and even on appeal they made him delete the tweet: https://twitter.com/ProfMakris/status/1474068222550884367/ph...
Many, many other cases of this sort exist, and there's no justification for it. Speaking of unwarranted - your assumptions about people's motives, to justify attacking and censoring them, are disturbing. Do you feel like that's a normal thing to do?