Biden Prepares Attack on Facebook's Speech Policies (nytimes.com) 171
The Biden presidential campaign, emboldened by a recent surge in support, is going after a new target: Facebook. From a report: After months of privately battling the tech giant over President Trump's free rein on its social network, the campaign will begin urging its millions of supporters to demand that Facebook strengthen its rules against misinformation and to hold politicians accountable for harmful comments. On Thursday, the campaign will circulate a petition and an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, to change the company's hands-off approach to political speech. The petition will be sent to millions of supporters on its email and text message lists and through social media, including Facebook, imploring them to sign the letter. The campaign will also release a video this week to be shared across social media to explain the issue.
"Real changes to Facebook's policies for their platform and how they enforce them are necessary to protect against a repeat of the role that disinformation played in the 2016 election and that continues to threaten our democracy today," said Bill Russo, a spokesman for the Biden campaign. The move puts the Biden camp in the center of a raging debate about the role and responsibility of tech platforms. Civil rights leaders, Democratic lawmakers and many of Facebook's own employees say that big tech companies have a responsibility to prevent false and hateful information from being shared widely.
"Real changes to Facebook's policies for their platform and how they enforce them are necessary to protect against a repeat of the role that disinformation played in the 2016 election and that continues to threaten our democracy today," said Bill Russo, a spokesman for the Biden campaign. The move puts the Biden camp in the center of a raging debate about the role and responsibility of tech platforms. Civil rights leaders, Democratic lawmakers and many of Facebook's own employees say that big tech companies have a responsibility to prevent false and hateful information from being shared widely.
Meta Warning (Score:5, Insightful)
If I read a headline about any candidate from any party that says "X plans attack on Y free speech policies" that's an instant no-vote from me dawg.
Re:Meta Warning (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone needs to tell Joe that the primaries are over and he should stop pandering to the left.
He needs to win over independent voters in Midwestern swing states.
He isn't going to do that by attacking free speech.
Re: Meta Warning (Score:3, Insightful)
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I'm sorry, but WTF??? When did the most pro-corporate candidate on the Democratic ticket in a century, who spent almost all of her time promising the Moon to Wall Street and Silicon Valley "pander to the left"?
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When they allowed intersectional cultist to form new organisations within their companies. Organisations who's only goal was to infiltrate and subvert their very companies, ensuring that hiring practices vetted out people who didn't agree with intersectional insanity.
So at the very least a decade at this point, if not two.
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Again, WTF? Do I need to follow Q-Anon to understand what you're talking about?
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Are you denying that over last two decades, every major corporation of the kind mentioned above didn't create either an office of diversity and inclusion, or a subsection of HR that performs the same role?
Are you really that disconnected from reality in your far left bubble, or just trolling?
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You have a rather obtuse way to complain that non-WASPs are now allowed to work in major corporations, but whatever. To the surprise of the leadership of most of those companies it's actually worked out very well for them since diverse work forces have been shown to be more productive and creative, which is why those offices still exist and why you're not going to convince them to do away with inclusive policies.
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Let me know when I can tell if someone was hired simply because He/She/They/Zi because they were the best candidate or because of some other "qualification" not related to doing a job. That wonder itself is a horrifying prospect for someone working hard to qualify. They will always be suspect.
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Come to Amazon or Microsoft or Starbucks or the entire physical security industry or the food processing industry or retail or healthcare or ...
If this were still 1985 you might have a valid concern, but it's been a non-issue everywhere that I've worked for the last quarter century. Of course I've lived on the Left Coast for most of that time, YMMV. If you live in some shithole like Louisiana or Georgia I suppose that might still happen, but I don't understand why people choose to live places like that an
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As a member of a minority, I can help you with the last question.
It's because it frees us from stigma of being eternally suspect of having been hired on the basis of our ethnic/sexual characteristics, rather than our expertise with the task we're supposed to perform. It also frees us from baizuo such as yourself and your smug aura of superiority as you "help the ethnically/sexually inferiour folx get the job they would otherwise not be able to get on merit. I'm such a good person".
For the record, when I was
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All right, now I'm confused. You'd prefer to live somewhere that you can be discriminated against and where places hire minorities only because they're forced to by corporate headquarters, as opposed to living where you can compete on an even footing with people from any race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, physical disability, etc. And you think that's a good thing? Sorry, that makes no sense to me at all. Well, I suppose it takes all kinds.
Or perhaps you misunderstand. I currently work in
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He isn't going to do that by attacking free speech.
There's a difference between free speech and actively disseminating lies. Honestly I defend your right to say what you want, but as soon as you post some of the outright bullshit that coming out these days from *both* political parties I'd want to see your speech with a big fucking exclamation mark over it.
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There's a difference between free speech and actively disseminating lies.
There is a difference between social media sites making independent decisions about what to allow, and being pressured by politicians.
I am uncomfortable with Mark Zuckerberg acting as the arbiter of what "truth" I am allowed to read.
I am horrified at Joe Biden making that decision.
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I am horrified at Joe Biden making that decision.
At least with Creepy Uncle Joe, he's too senile to be systematic about it. What gets censored and what gets through would be essentially random.
It's his handlers, who will not be elected to anything and aren't accountable to anyone, who are scary.
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I'd want to see your speech with a big fucking exclamation mark over it
What an absolutely frighting idea.
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Marxists and progressives are almost perfectly aligned. The people that actually would split is intersectionals/Marxists/progressives from pretty much everyone else, ranging from people who just want a slightly more just society to neoliberals. Because former are revolutionaries, and latter are not. And there's no way to reconcile revolutionaries with those that think that current society is functional, and just needs adjustments.
Re:Meta Warning (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the "swing voter", especially in this election cycle, is something of a myth. Biden, and even moreso Trump, aren't going to change anyone's mind about anything. Cliche as it's become, "polarization is at an all-time high" isn't wrong. The lack of a particularly compelling or visionary candidate from either party seals the deal... the swing voter is dead. No one is getting swung in 2020.
The deciding factor in the 2020 election will be turnout. People's minds are made up, it's not about changing them. It's about who actually shows up and votes. The winning strategy is going to look a lot like what they deride as "playing to the base" - whipping people into a frenzy to ensure they actually turn out.
I read the voting blocs like this - You have roughly a third of the people who are, let's call them AlwaysTrumpers. The ones he said would vote for him if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue. Not everyone who elected him in 2016 were AlwaysTrumpers. But the ones that are - Every one of them is going to turn out. In the other corner, you of course have people with the same lockstep mentality, but in somewhat smaller proportion. Less of a cult of personality - Biden doesn't get anyone's dick hard.
Outside of these two "bases" you have what they called swing voters, or independents. Some of them have simply disengaged as the volume of bullshit and cheerleading continues to increase. ("I don't like politics.") Of the ones that are still engaged, essentially none of them have become AlwaysTrumpers. Nobody that thinks critical thoughts, considers new ideas, evaluates them based on evidence, has an unclouded view of the world, etc. will have gone that direction. I hesitate to call them a "silent majority", because they are definitely a minority in the grand scheme of things. But the way for Trump to win is to make sure they stay silent - that they don't turn out. To keep it as a race between inflexible ideologists vs. inflexible ideologists. (Or extremists vs. extremists.) That's a battle Trump will always win; he's got more of them.
So my prediction for the 2020 election. I'm putting it on the record now. If overall voter turnout is similar to or less than 2016, Trump will win. The more he can exclude non-radicals of any stripe, the better it works out for him. If voter turnout is higher than 2016 - maybe as little as 5% - then Biden will probably win. I think the Republicans have recognized this as well, that's why they have developed this late-game mortal fear of mail-in voting. That battle will be decided state-by-state... so it will cloud the picture. Comparing results in states with high turnout vs. low turnout... could be highly interesting. If high turnout is linked to mail-in ballots, AND Biden winning, that provides a golden opportunity for the Rs to beat the "voter fraud" drum some more. That may be how they dispute the election results in a Biden win.
So will the "silent minority" of free and rational thinkers swallow their pride and cast a vote for Biden? I thought not, until recently. Trump is most successful when people don't know, don't understand, or simply don't care what he's doing. Now with the Coronavirus, people have suddenly had less of the daily grind in their way, and more room for deep contemplation on matters of national importance. Not necessarily the virus, but in general. I think the amount of white people showing up at the BLM protests attests to that. In 2015, they were by and large a ghost town.
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There will be a lot of people swinging from one party to the other this time around. When the economy is doing okay and things are generally alright people don't move much, but right now we have a pandemic, an economy in crisis and race riots and it's only June.
Free? Speech?? (Score:2)
Let's be honest though, hateful memes, harmful lies, insults, and outrage porn are no more "free speech" than actual porn.
And at least actual porn does not -in general- damage the trust and reasoning attitude that constitute the very fabric of civil society.
And by the way FB policies were never free speech in the first place. Posts are automatically promoted and demoted all the time, (depending on content too), to maximize engagement. And to avoid pissing off local government laws. Their appeal to the secon
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Right, thanks for giving us the "thinking" of Faux News and the rest of you idiots.
WE oin the left are the ones who'll take him over the top. You want him to prostitute himself to who, the "Brave 2nd Amendment Gun Nuts" (who weren't there to protect the people from the overreaching government) and the rest of the racist bigots?
Why? You won't vote for him anyway, and prostituting himself to you lets you laugh at him on the way to vote for your idol, the Orange Hairball.
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Twitter's solution: Fact Check + hide posts that can incite violence
But only if they are on the right
Re:The left doesn't want this. (Score:4, Insightful)
Biden used to be centre left. People around him and people like you are far left. Biden didn't really care about suppressing speech before this cycle, when extremists like you started pushing for "free speech is speech of our political party, and speech of our opponents is hate speech and needs to be "fact checked" by hiding it and citing opinion pieces of our pundits and banned where ever possible".
Which is why open calls to violence from the BLM are fully accepted and even "liked" by @jack himself, whereas Trump simply reminding rioters that law is in fact about wielding lethal force when necessary to restore order, well that's unacceptable.
Unfortunately as far as US goes, near entirety of the left today agrees with you, as seen by the recent NYT editorial brouhaha, where they agreed with your CCP-style speech stance where free speech is for their own, and everyone else needs to be snitched on and promptly forced to apologise profusely to the mob salivating for their blood. If you're on the left and disagree, you're in the same position as being a member of Russian Duma in 1918 that happened to disagree with Lenin's policies. You shut the fuck up about what you actually think, and publicly profess fealty to the new religious leader.
Because otherwise, you're left to tender mercies of their mob. Which is not big enough to win elections, but big enough to cause life-destroying problems for those that openly declare to oppose them politically.
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Free speech absolutists? I guess you wouldn't consider the leftist university crowd to be like "most of the left" then?
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Biden started his election campaign with one claim about Trump that even CNN was forced to agree to being a lie. That of him having supported white supremacists in Charlottesville protests.
This is peanuts in comparison.
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Biden forgot about that and repeated it today.
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Calling them "very fine people" and drawing false equivalence is support
*Would* be support if he ever said that. Read the very transcript you posted. "...you ***also*** had people that were very fine people, on both sides." If someone said that AmiMoJo came to the gathering, but also some very fine people came to the same gathering, would you take that to mean that they called you a fine person? I doubt it.
Since everyone at Unite the Right was a white supremacist, neo nazi or dumb enough to hang out with those guys
No. The "will not replace us" rally was not even on the same day. It's obvious if you look at the tape. The "will not replace us" rally was at night. Do you think aft
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I mean what kind of very fine person sees swastikas and people chanting "Jews will not replace us, blood and soil.
Again, that was on a different day. The "... will not replace us" rally was at night. Just look at the video of it.
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Yeah, that makes it worse. They did the chanting and the swastikas and then people turned up the NEXT day and protested again. Talk about ample opportunity to be a very fine person.
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Ah, so it's the ones who came the next day and only saw the broad daylight swastika flags/tattoos and didn't leave who are the very fine people?
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If you see someone on the corner screaming "the end is nigh", do you leave or do you just tell yourself "oh, look there are some freaks here, too. These guys will do anything for attention." This wasn't announced as a neo-nazi gathering. It was announced as a gathering of *heterogenous* right-leaning interests. People who showed up expected to have a variety of interests. And, as in any heterogenous group, they expected that there would be some lunatics. Given that the right is kind of paranoid (at the
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"If I read a headline about any candidate from any party that says "X plans attack on Y free speech policies" that's an instant no-vote from me dawg."
In other words you don't vote. Ever. Got it.
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If I read a headline about any candidate from any party that says "X plans attack on Y free speech policies" that's an instant no-vote from me dawg.
I agree with you, but let's wait to see what he actually says before condemning. No need to be judgmental early, especially based on a headline.
Free Speech 4 Life
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By all means though, use this as an excuse to justify a vote for the guy that made this [cnn.com] happen. Facebook policy is so much more important than obstruction of justice.
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Regulating to force them to allow free speech. Why is this hard to comprehend? Is your TDS this blinding?
Because your compass appears to have a 180 degree misalignment, pretending that "regulation of those taking away freedom of the people to guarantee said freedoms" is the same thing as "regulation to take away freedom of the people". Those are diametrically opposed stances, and Trump is on the former side in this one. Twitter and with OP declaration Biden are on the latter one.
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We do know that left's current version is the inversion of what it used to mean for the left in the past. You are the one that's confused.
Yay! (Score:5, Funny)
Whoever wins, Facebook gets destroyed! Rejoice!
Re:Facebook'll be just fine (Score:5, Insightful)
Except of course that Twitter did no such thing. Instead it hid the tweet in question behind a link to an opinion piece of leftist pundits that wrote... an opinion piece.
Not a fact. An opinion. I know that it's all the rage among the far left nutjobs that "feelings don't care about the facts", and opinions are obviously extensions of feelings, but to be this brazen about the claim that opinions are now facts as long as opinions are politically on the left side is rather fucked up. By any measuring stick.
Have to disagree with both parties (Score:2)
Privately-owned, membership platforms (yeah - remember those terms and conditions you agreed to when you made an account?) have no obligation to carry content they don't want to, or to remove content they want to keep up (copyright/child porn laws apply, obviously). If you start a forum for Honda enthusiasts and it gets overrun with folks posting about their Teslas, you have every right to remove those posts. Conversely, if Honda corporation decides they want you to remove posts full of falsehoods that pa
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Privately-owned, membership platforms ... have no obligation to carry content they don't want to, or to remove content they want to keep up.
Joe Biden is running for President of the United States of America, not CEO of Facebook.
So should he be telling Facebook to remove content they want to keep up?
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Well, it's the old laws/norms dichotomy, isn't it?
I totally agree that privately owned platforms have no legal duty to either allow or prevent speech based on what other people think of that speech. That does *not* however immunize them from criticism and social condemnation.
People are free to say bad things about Facebook's policies, boycott Facebook, and publicly shame Facebook users if they want.
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Sorry but that argument got taken out back and told about the rabbits the SECOND that both political parties started using it the platforms to address the public about issues, the second that happened it became a Quango and the courts have already ruled as such
FYI, we really never use the term 'quango' in the US. It doesn't mean we haven't got them, just that we don't use the term.
Plus, our political parties are not parts of our government. If political parties using a news publication to communicate with the public were enough to turn it into an arm of the government, you'd have to say the same about our newspapers, TV, news periodicals, etc.
Trump and AOC being denied the ability to block those they do not like.
You're misunderstanding what happened. The courts didn't say that because Trump and AOC use Twitter that Twitter is fun
Oh boy! (Score:5, Funny)
A politician in favor of censorship!
Yes Censor the Common Sense (Score:2, Informative)
When you can't win on issues, you silence others (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:When you can't win on issues, you silence other (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump is actively inciting violence with his social media posts. It is not a difference of opinion.
That is very much a difference of opinion. No where have I seen him actually incite violence. The most cited example is his quote about looters leading to shooting. He did not say he was going to send in people shooting. He stated a fact based on past rioting and looting. That uncontested rioting has led to shooting and other violence by the same people doing the rioting and looting. The people doing the rioting have already been throwing bricks at people, shooting at police, firebombing buildings, etc. They are doing exactly what Trump said they would. Meanwhile, Trump has not sent in the national guard or military, guns blazing. He has deployed them to help restore peace (through presence, not violence) so that people can go about their business, including peaceful protesting.
Likewise, people keep conflating his comments on rioters and looters with the vast majority of people that are just protesting and expressing opinions. Despite the fact that Trump has distinguished the two groups in many comments. He's said people have every right to peacefully express their opinions and outrage. He's said that he believes those doing the looting and violent acts are not the protesters, but people taking advantage of protesting to force a their own agendas. Yet, people keep making the claim every time Trump speaks of the rioters and looters that he wants to squelch the protesting. It's intellectually dishonest.
What you're reacting to is perception bias. You believe everything Trump says is wrong, so you see something wrong with everything he says. His tweets are often fired off fast and not proof read. He's not a polished politician that sends everything through editors and focus groups. He speaks his mind. What he said was not concise and missing a few words that would like have added clarity. You and many others have chosen to read them in the worst possible way. It's your own prejudice showing through. If you're expecting evil, you'll see evil everywhere you look. Open your mind a bit and don't look at everything through your hate tinted glasses. While you don't have to agree, perhaps you'd at least be a bit more understanding of what's actually going on.
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zuckerbergs latest (Score:2)
this image sums it up pretty well
Two choices: (Score:2)
2. Just kill Facebook once and for all, it's cancerous anyway.
I wish these CEOs had balls. (Score:2)
Boot Trump off twitter and Biden off Facebook. It always amuses me how many people whine and scream about how bad twitter is..on twitter. These same people would have literal mental breakdowns if Jack just decided "Meh, ok" and closed their twitter accounts.
They've both got Fuck You money, what's the worst that would happen? Oh noes, I lost my company and only have several billion dollars to live out the rest of my life in luxury!
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These same people would have literal mental breakdowns if Jack just decided "Meh, ok" and closed their twitter accounts.
Trump would LOVE that. It would fit perfectly into his message that the real victims are white male Christians, and the left is trying to prevent him from defending them.
I just wish (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a choice beside either Trump or Biden. The democratic party has failed it's constituents again.
Your choice is bad or worse, no matter how you order them.
My state is very blue, so my vote for presidential elections really doesn't matter, at all.
For Congressional or local elections, I usually vote for people who appear to at least be capable of doing the job, and I vote against bad, entrenched politicians, on either side,
#votethebumsout
The Fascist Democratic party strikes again. (Score:3, Insightful)
When the "Democrats" claim (without proof) that you are at fault, that's "evidence." But when you present evidence that the Fascist Democratic party is at fault, you are a "russian bot."
Or as George Carlin put it, "it's because your stuff is shit and their shit is stuff."
Tell me again how the administration that got around a subpoena of IRS harddrives, by claiming that 6 harddrives simultaneously failed, did not "have any scandals."
In a post-truth society (Score:2)
Let everybody say what they want. Just judge them on what they say. It is as stupid for the Dems to take their stance as it is for Trump to take his. Something tells me that (history will repeat itself), and this will do more harm to their cause than good.
Careful what you wish for, Joe (Score:2)
As a person that has been called out repeatedly for flat out lying, I don't see Biden as the one to carry the flag for honesty in social media. Remember, this is the guy that claimed:
1) That he graduated in the top half of his law school class. In fact, he graduated 76th out of 85.
2) To have graduated with three degrees. In fact, he graduated with a single degree in Political Science and History.
3) That his wife and daughter were killed by a drunk driver. Tragically, the accident was deemed to be the fault
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You do understand who's in power now, right?
Right?
Re:Desperation (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, China.
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Yes. The Democrats. Look around. They are willing to destroy the entire country just to get rid of Trump and get Biden in. They will do LITERALLY anything. I give up. Let them have it back. We can then restart the wars and things will be back to "normal".
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Wow, so much stupid in such a short post. Are you trying for a record?
The "left" (and FYI, we're not a monolithic group marching in lockstep like the right tend to be) most certainly do **NOT** want Wall Street's buddy Slow Joe in the White House, but the Democratic National Council has stolen the primary elections again so that's who we're stuck with.
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When you're extreme right, everything else is to the left.
I myself will happily give Joe my vote. Is he the best candidate? Fuck no. But I do want that orange asshole to be sent packing.
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The moment no one challenges their illegal plans, the coup is over and anyone they don't like goes against the wall. And once they get done with that, they'll start cannibalizing their own, because when you start off a junta like that, you don't afford to run out of enemies to stand against the wall.
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We can then restart the wars
As if the murderous US war machine ever stopped...
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Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it (Score:3)
Someone remind me, what happened last time Democrats decided that a part of the USA was no longer part of the USA any more?
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Re:Those who forget history are doomed to repeat i (Score:4, Insightful)
How? A certain subset of Democrats certainly haven't changed that much:
They want to break away from the republic, at least if they cant' have power.
They spend way too much time talking about darker-skinned people, as if they're quite different than everyone else.
They burn down minority neighborhoods, cheering while they do so.
They demand not just conformity, but full-bore agreement from everyone, everywhere, so they won't allow certain "truths" to be questioned.
They're willing to use both the government and mob violence to advance themselves.
They don't want people in certain groups punished for crimes, especially when their victims are part of another particular group.
They treat members of one particular group badly because of the actions of a tiny minority of that group.
They're obsessed with the hierarchy of their society.
They're constantly getting on their knees to beg forgiveness, and then think they're better than people who won't do so, but never sinned in the first place.
They see themselves as better than everyone else, and they're owed certain things just because of who they are.
They want to feel powerful, but aren't willing to work for it, and thus act with a lot of bravado, but run away when adversity appears.
They'll lie about a Republican president, almost constantly.
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OK, so 2% of the party is delusional, big fucking deal. Still better than the majority of Republicans.
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> Apparently you haven't noticed that the Democratic and Republican parties have completely swapped positions in the last century and a half.
Indeed, I haven't. The Democrats, who created the KKK, Sanger a eugenicist who created Planned Parenthood to get rid of black babies ("weeds" she called them) to this day support things like segregation and separating themselves from the USA.
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By all the gods, are you unaware that the KKK was established in 1865 (and has been closely allied with the Republican Party since the 1970s) and Sanger has been dead for 56 years (and had very little to do with the Democratic party the latter half of her life)?
Also, her "weeds" statement was about the elimination of the congenitally mentally and physically handicapped, in her clinics she strongly disciplined anyone discriminating for or against any patient based on their race. Her racism was reserved for
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those states they don't let jackbooted thugs with badges and guns just shoot protestors merely for protesting
Can you name a red state where a protester has been shot since George Floyd was killed?
agitators from your side of the aisle are infiltrating the peaceful protests and turning them violent
Can you cite any evidence that this is true?
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As to the rest "oh well I'll just call up my friends in the NSA and ask them to forward their intel documents", LOL. Prove it's NOT true. You know goddamned well it's been true in the past, and it's certainly true now. False-flag.
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Here. That took all of five seconds.
https://www.rollingstone.com/c... [rollingstone.com]
Re:Take about desperate Lie-Boy (Score:4, Interesting)
You have a misconception, the boogaloo aren't from "other side of the aisle though", though many superficial media try to label them. Do deeper research
From article at Middlebury Institute of International Studies:
Administrators of pages such as Big Igloo Bois and Boojahadeen Memes actively supported the anti-racist and Black Lives Matter protests. They adopt a combination of serious moral tirades against police brutality and government capriciousness with memes and images typical of informal political groups. The Boogaloo movement claims a distinctly non-racial approach to anti-government action. As an example, affiliates on Facebook share images supporting gun ownership in African-American communities as a means of defense against abuses by police. Similarly, these Facebook groups draw clear parallels between George Floyd and figures of libertarian and gun-rights movements who have been killed by police in the past
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Kentucky. Fatally with live ammo. Video evidence contradicts what the cops were claiming.
Minnesota. Rubber bullets ( assumed ), in neighborhoods that were peaceful and free from any protesters. While people were on their own property, and were even in an area where the curfew order explicitly allowed them to be. Cop yells "light em up" like he thought he was Rambo.
California. Rubber bullets. Bean bag rounds from a shotgun were aimed at a woman's face, embedding part of the plastic from the round right betwe
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1. David McAtee, Kentucky
Evidence is that he fired first, and NG soldiers returned fire. He was not participating in a protest at the time.
3. Chris Beatty, Indiana
He wasn't killed by the police. This looks like just a normal everyday murder.
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Wrong - we're purple. Just 'cause you can't find us on a map doesn't mean we're red.
Do you know what a swing state is? [gallup.com]
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Is that the job of Facebook, or any other online platform that we've deemed to be a neutral platform?
Who's "we"? Did you not know that they were an advertising company, and not a "neutral" chat platform? I've been a Facebook customer for a while now, and they've never said anything about being a "neutral platform". They take my money and publish what I ask them to publish.
Re: "Hold politicians accountable..." (Score:2)
Do you purchase ads to be delivered via Facebook? If yes, then you're a customer. If you have a Facebook account, you're a user, otherwise known as 'merchandise'.
Re:"Hold politicians accountable..." (Score:5, Informative)
Is that the job of Facebook, or any other online platform that we've deemed to be a neutral platform?
No one has deemed them to be neutral, nor is there anything that requires them to be neutral, nor do they have any risk of legal liability if they fail to be.
Once FB et al, start fact checking and editorializing, then they own it.
Wrong! The law protects them when they do that (and more) in order to encourage them to maintain standards of their own choosing on their site.
47 USC 230(c)(1) says that they can never be treated as the publisher of third party information. Any liability they would have would be based on calling them a publisher. Since the law prohibits that, they're never liable for any speech except their own.
47 USC 230(c)(2)(A) allows them to take action in good faith to remove or limit access to anything that Facebook's owners or operators subjectively find objectionable, and they will not be liable for anything as a result. This is incredibly broad, and allows them to remove basically as much as they like.
So Biden is making a decent argument in asking Facebook to show some spine and get rid of false, inflammatory, and objectionable posts by politicians or anyone else, really. What's odd is that he keeps threatening to try to repeal the law that protects Facebook's ability to do so. Without the safe harbor in 47 USC 230 they'll either have to let everything through or just shut down.
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> Without the safe harbor in 47 USC 230 they'll either have to let everything through or just shut down.
I'm not following this.
There's quite a bit of history in businesses pushing out content while being liable for it. They're called "newspapers" or "magazines" or "tabloids". And that's just the written press. And I'm sure everyone will agree that a lot of them have, and still publish, at times, or often, content of questionable veracity. And yet they still exist.
I don't see why facebook's existence woul
Re:"Hold politicians accountable..." (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't see why facebook's existence would require legal immunity.
No site would want to allow users to post anything if the site becomes liable for all of it, as if it did so itself.
That's the crucial difference between a newspaper and social media. A newspaper only prints materials its reporters generate, or that it takes in over the wires, or that other contributors provide. Editors review everything before the first word is printed. Fact checkers verify the claims that are made. All of this happens behind the scenes, and as a result an individual reporter might not report on a whole lot on any given day; hot news items are pretty limited to the most obvious facts. Investigative journalism can take weeks or months to prepare.
The newspaper isn't liable simply because it can exercise editorial control. Its liability for what it prints also springs from its opportunity to do so. If there is some doubt about a story, the editor can hold it back until it's properly vetted. Compare this to a newsstand, which sells the paper. The newsstand can also exercise editorial control, by simply refusing to carry a particular paper, or by pulling out that section or that page before the seller hands over the paper to the customer. But this is too impractical; newssellers don't read the papers they sell and don't have time to review them and verify them in all particulars. They need to focus on selling. But if made aware of a tortious article, the newsstand is obligated to pull it. (In practice this would only happen with books in a bookstore, and then it's a bit iffy)
Facebook is not vetting what its users post. Once a post is submitted, it instantly appears and is available to the world. They don't have the opportunity or a practical ability to verify everything that's put up. And it's worse for other social media sites, such as YouTube, since video is harder to review than text.
If the site is liable for user posts they cannot practically review and verify due to the speed and quantity of posting, and the poor tools available to aid in reviewing and investigating factual claims, they'll just stop. Or they'll take no action, and be flooded with spam, malware, obscene and hateful content, etc., and not be able to get rid of it safely. And so making them liable would not only kill social media and the opportunity of users to converse directly with one another (as we're doing right now), and turn the Internet into cable tv.
USC 230 and the various "common carrier" status is not an entitlement
'Common carriers' refers to something else; it's an actual legal term, but inapplicable to things like 99.44% of websites. And it's true; it's not an entitlement. But then, lots of things aren't entitlements. You have no entitlement to be allowed to drive a car or receive an education, or to be protected by a fire department, or to have standardized weights and measures and regulations of measuring devices to avoid being cheated at the store. But all these things are beneficial to society. So too with section 230.
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Facebook is not vetting what its users post. Once a post is submitted, it instantly appears and is available to the world.
Well, no. I mean, sort of, but effectively no. Slashdot has a Facebook page [facebook.com], it basically posts every story posted here. If you go directly to their page, you can see the latest stuff they've posted. (Briefly, before it demands you log in or create an account.)
But you're not supposed to visit the page directly. You're supposed to "follow" it. Following it causes the posts to show up in your "feed." Well, in theory.
Except Facebook executes editorial control over what it allows people to actually see in their
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But you're not supposed to visit the page directly. You're supposed to "follow" it.
Don't put too much weight on the mechanics of it, especially in combination with my word choices. I don't use Facebook, but the statute was written broadly back in a day when the Web was still young and most people used commercial dial-up BBSes like AOL. The point is, if it's online, the statutory safe harbor is available.
Without the safe harbor (both prior to it being enacted, and if we lose it) any editorial act, no matter how slight, exposes the site to total liability for the post, even for issues the
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Wrong the original bargain was if you act as common carrier and don't censor or comment on things, just like a phone company or electric company, then you are free from being sued for user content.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
Internet companies wanted to avoid lawsuits like above and be held as common carriers. So 47 USC 230 was crafted but they lobbied to add protections for them being able to censor some stuff they didn't like as well as being treated as common carri
Re:"Hold politicians accountable..." (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think it's too late. Someone should have told him that around third grade.
Re:Trump hates Twitter; Biden hates Facebook (Score:5, Insightful)
Both hate unfettered user input. It devalues their propaganda
False equivalency.
Trump did not attack Twitter because of unfettered user input, but because Twitter was fettering.
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Both of them are fettering.
No they aren't. Nearly all the calls for suppression of speech are coming from the left.
When Trump says something stupid, the left is enraged. They want his twitter account canceled.
When AOC says something stupid, the right is delighted. They want to give her a bigger megaphone.
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The entire concept of progressive government is that a small, elite group of people knows better than the masses. That government exists to guide the ignorant masses and protect them from themselves.
1. Every generation starts out ignorant. "Educate" them in government schools and "progressive" colleges and universities.
2. Dumb down the history and civics courses. Don't teach actual government principles. Substitute politically correct memes (such as a "living document" constitution that can be amended by