Social media (corporate) election interference and censorship

Status
Not open for further replies.
pacegod said:
Its their platform, they can do what they want. Don't like it, make your own social media platform.
Click to expand...
This is true but FB, Facebook, Google et al hide behind the concept of being a public forum for libel and other indemnity. This is fine when they are neutral and don't act as editors. Newspapers are always at risk over what they print social media isn't. But social media have over the last few years become more overtly political none moreso than Twitter. People are rightly asking why are they allowed all the protections and none of the duties of public forum. If they want to be publishers and have a political slant that's fine but they have to bear those risks.

So it is not simple Facebook et al are being intellectually dishonest by claiming to be public forum and claiming protection whilst making political editorial decisions about content. In fairness Facebook are far from the worst. Twitter has an unmistakable bias. They should all be held to account to a common standard. Hopefully this will be resolved in the courts.
 
PlacidCasual said:
This is true but FB, Facebook, Google et al hide behind the concept of being a public forum for libel and other indemnity. This is fine when they are neutral and don't act as editors. Newspapers are always at risk over what they print social media isn't. But social media have over the last few years become more overtly political none moreso than Twitter. People are rightly asking why are they allowed all the protections and none of the duties of public forum. If they want to be publishers and have a political slant that's fine but they have to bear those risks.

So it is not simple Facebook et al are being intellectually dishonest by claiming to be public forum and claiming protection whilst making political editorial decisions about content. In fairness Facebook are far from the worst. Twitter has an unmistakable bias. They should all be held to account to a common standard. Hopefully this will be resolved in the courts.
Click to expand...

But isn't that the case for almost all forums?

Take OCUK forums for example. They likely can also hide behind being a public forum for libel and other indemnity. However, they can still put into place or enforce rules about what can and cannot be posted.

If social media sites had to, by law, allow all content and not be able to ban anything they wouldn't exist because these companies all make money from advertising and most companies/advertisers don't want to advertise on a cess pit of **** and misinformation.
 
Gab is your friend if you want to promote baseless conspiracy theories. You will even get loads of like minded loons agreeing with you. Enjoy.

Its high time social media cleaned up the fake news loons.
 
@Jono8 I doubt there are many internet forums that would be considered public forums in the way the social media giants are. Scope reach etc are on different levels. Also there are legally some things that can be banned moderated such as pornography, graphic violence etc. If the social media kept themselves to those bounds no one would be challenging them. They are become political, no longer neutral. They have a clear editorial position. They have become publishers.

Conflating internet forum and public forum is not a useful comparison in this case.
 
To those concerned that social networks shouldn't police fake political news stories on their sites:

What do you think of politicians and their employees/associates leveraging their positions of authority to push fake news to overly-credulous or complicit news sources? And do you think that, perhaps, there needs to be some sort of hand on the tiller to counteract this sort of misinformation push?

Just taking this example, thoroughly debunked as it is, if it had not been taken out of circulation then the clearly false story would simply have perpetuated. And it was a story so obviously nonsense that only one, bottom feeding, newspaper picked it up.

We need for there to be a way of the general public, who are ill-informed of the proliferation of fake news**, to be able to tell when something they're reading is highly likely to be false.

** I recently had my 78 year old mother in law earnestly telling me that the government was moving Christmas in 2021 to the 27th "Lisa saw it on facebook". It was based on a screenshot of bank holidays: xmas in 2021 is on a Saturday, so the christmas bank holiday was on the 27th. But this is the level we're dealing with of the general public's credulity.
 
PlacidCasual said:
Conflating internet forum and public forum is not a useful comparison in this case.
Click to expand...

Well, it is, because they are a business just like OCUK is. Facebook and Twitter are in it to make money. If they find they dont want certain content, they can stop that content being posted.

I think it is far more dangerous for a government to impose rules on private social media platforms as to what they can/cannot have posted on their servers (except for obviously illegal stuff). No one has any right to post whatever they want on someone else's site, and it should stay that way.

If Jack Dorsey wants to prevent what he sees as misinformation being spread on his own website, isn't it his right to do that?
 
james.miller said:
This isnt fake news, Twitter's CEO has already apologised for it.
Click to expand...

Just another failed attempt to smear Biden/Biden Jnr. Its fake news from conspiracy loons.

Its like one conspiracy dies in flames they just invent another.

MMJ for instance lives in a constant fake reality state of conspiracy lunacy, amusingly its all about Trumps enemies.
 
cheesyboy said:
It was fake, and the Twitter CEO apologised for their communication on why it was blocked, not that they blocked it
Click to expand...

That's right, they didnt apologise for blocking it. It was explained that links to the article were blocked because it contained personal email addresses and it violated their hacked materials policy. Their words, not mine.

If it's fake, why are they claiming it violates that policy?
 
Do people honestly believe that 3 or 4 companies with multi billions of users should decide what those users can and can't see on the basis of there own personal politics? In newspapers there is plurality a wide range of editorial views are available for you to choose from. The barrier to competition is relatively low. Social media giants have no plurality and the barriers are massive in comparison they have monopolistic positions routinely buying out any would be competitors. If they choose to block something 100's millions of people will not find out about it. They have to be neutral or our democracy is gone. We get our knickers in a twist about imaginary Russian hackers changing election results for which there is no evidence but actual mage corporations forcing their politics on us is somehow ok.

Mark Steyn said:
“a good indication of societal decadence is when it prefers to obsess over fictional offences rather than real ones” [quote/]
Click to expand...
 
james.miller said:
That's right, they didnt apologise for blocking it. It was explained that links to the article were blocked because it contained personal email addresses and it violated their hacked materials policy. Their words, not mine.

If it's fake, why are they claiming it violates that policy?
Click to expand...
It's fake AND it violates their policy.

It has personal info, it purports to be hacked materials.... but it turns out that it's actually likely a mixture of benign hacked materials seeded with fake counter-intel pushed on Giuliani from the Russians.
 
cheesyboy said:
It's fake AND it violates their policy.

It has personal info, it purports to be hacked materials.... but it turns out that it's actually likely a mixture of benign hacked materials seeded with fake counter-intel pushed on Giuliani from the Russians.
Click to expand...
Oh so parts of the information (not included emails, phones numbers etc) are real. Ok, which parts?
 
PlacidCasual said:
Do people honestly believe that 3 or 4 companies with multi billions of users should decide what those users can and can't see on the basis of there own personal politics? In newspapers there is plurality a wide range of editorial views are available for you to choose from. The barrier to competition is relatively low. Social media giants have no plurality and the barriers are massive in comparison they have monopolistic positions routinely buying out any would be competitors. If they choose to block something 100's millions of people will not find out about it. They have to be neutral or our democracy is gone. We get our knickers in a twist about imaginary Russian hackers changing election results for which there is no evidence but actual mage corporations forcing their politics on us is somehow ok.
Click to expand...

People who claim its politics are just salty because their people are not allowed to spread lies.
 
PlacidCasual said:
Do people honestly believe that 3 or 4 companies with multi billions of users should decide what those users can and can't see on the basis of there own personal politics? In newspapers there is plurality a wide range of editorial views are available for you to choose from. The barrier to competition is relatively low. Social media giants have no plurality and the barriers are massive in comparison they have monopolistic positions routinely buying out any would be competitors. If they choose to block something 100's millions of people will not find out about it. They have to be neutral or our democracy is gone. We get our knickers in a twist about imaginary Russian hackers changing election results for which there is no evidence but actual mage corporations forcing their politics on us is somehow ok.
Click to expand...

So who decides what a private company can and cannot have on their servers then? The government? That sounds far more dangerous.

None of these sites are open or "free" to use platforms as such. They are businesses that make tons of money from advertising to their users. If people don't like how they operate, they can simply stop using them.

They don't "have to be neutral" at all.
 
cheesyboy said:
Who knows. But I'm not sure we lose much by blocking Russian seeded counter-intel.
Click to expand...

Well, i thought you might know as you said it's been thoroughly debunked? I assumed by that you meant it's been picked apart and disproven quite beyond doubt but now some bits are true, you just don't know what? Could it be that people are dismissing this because it was MMJ who posted it?
 
No, if they don't want to be public forums then, they don't have to be neutral. They can be publishers and responsible for the content they allow and thus liable for the content. What they can't be is both.
If they want the protections of public forums then yes they should be neutral, they get the benefit of not being responsible for what they distribute and are only required to remove what would be illegal in any media.
If they want to editorialise content they are making a conscious decision about what we see and should be responsible for all of it. Just like a newspaper or TV channel is. Then they can have their political slant.

edit:
Jono8 said:
So who decides what a private company can and cannot have on their servers then? The government? That sounds far more dangerous.
Click to expand...
And that is a straw man, no one is suggesting the Government decide what they disseminate except where it is illegal material, just like in publishing and TV. ​
 
Last edited:
james.miller said:
Well, i thought you might know as you said it's been thoroughly debunked? I assumed by that you meant it's been picked apart and disproven quite beyond doubt but now some bits are true, you just don't know what? Could it be that people are dismissing this because it was MMJ who posted it?
Click to expand...
The only item of any seeming interest HAS been debunked: that Hunter Biden arranged a meeting for the guy with his father.

Have a read through this dissection :

 
PlacidCasual said:
No, if they don't want to be public forums then, they don't have to be neutral. They can be publishers and responsible for the content they allow and thus liable for the content. What they can't be is both.
If they want the protections of public forums then yes they should be neutral, they get the benefit of not being responsible for what they distribute and are only required to remove what would be illegal in any media.
If they want to editorialise content they are making a conscious decision about what we see and should be responsible for all of it. Just like a newspaper or TV channel is. Then they can have their political slant.
Click to expand...

So you would back a rule/law whereby the government forces all social media platforms to allow any content, as long as it does not explicitly break the law?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom