US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3588

On April 17 2022 15:52 RenSC2 wrote:
You know what the beautiful thing is? Joe Biden’s taxes are public. So, go through his tax documents and find that 10% he got from his son. I’ll wait.

Shame that Trump could never release his.

That simple fact should really makes a person question why their reality says that Biden is the crook and not Trump.

On April 17 2022 22:19 Gahlo wrote:

Show me the money.

On April 17 2022 14:25 Doc.Rivers wrote:


The notion that Twitter and Facebook should implement the "free marketplace of ideas" does not depend on the law or government intervention.

It's the notion that those companies should implement the principle behind the first amendment. The SC decisions in Masterpiece Cakeshop etc have to do with the law/the first amendment, but the "free marketplace of ideas" that people are advocating for is not really premised on the 1A but instead on the principle behind the 1A. They are saying that principle should be carried forward in the digital age, in which Twitter and Facebook are very much the means of discourse. (And I do think that Packingham case makes the point that social media specifically is the modern day means of discourse.)

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

On April 17 2022 22:16 Doc.Rivers wrote:


The problem with this argument is that even if it were true, it doesn't really explain away the evidence. I looked at the big guy email and it was actually written by Hunter's business partner, not Hunter. The partner is listing who gets and he says 10% for the big guy to be held by H. We also have:

- Hunter complaining to a family member that "pop" demands "half his salary" (this does not have to do with Hunter trying to convince people to enter a venture, and it corroborates the big guy email).
- Hunter's business partner saying to Hunter that Joe called the partner and inquired about Joe's "future earnings potential" (this again does not have to do with Hunter trying to convince people, and it again corroborates the big guy email).
- other docs show that Hunter & Joe shared banks accounts.
- one of Hunter's former partners went on national TV and said explicitly that the big guy is Joe.

It's the totality of evidence for me. Your argument would only explain the big guy email, but the other evidence corroborates the bug guy email, and the big guy email wasn't written by Hunter.

On April 17 2022 16:02 Acrofales wrote:


Would you say you could take your opinion to a different platform? One way to consider it is if you can't, then Facebook and Twitter might be a cartel preventing other social media from operating. However, Snapchat, TikTok and even LinkedIn appear to counter that idea. So if an opinion is "suppressed" by Twitter, can't you just go and talk about that idea elsewhere?

A bit like how TL.net consistently bans balance whines. Does this mean they suppress the idea that protoss is underpowered? Probably. Does it mean the idea is suppressed in "the public space?" I'd say no, despite TL.net being one of the, if not the single most important place to discuss StarCraft. It just means TL.net isn't the right venue to voice complaints about how badly the game is balanced.

And if Facebook or Twitter aren't the right venue for Trump to spew his drivel about the stolen election, or Milo Yiannopoulos to talk about how ugly the cast of the Ghostbusters remake is, then they can move that talk to a different platform.

Do I think that's a good idea? No. It'll just exacerbate the whole issue of information silos and echo chambers, which I feel is very harmful to society. But then again, I don't believe in the free marketplace of ideas in the first place. Ultimately some ideas are too abhorrent to be allowed to get a foothold. So yes, spewing white power (or for that matter, Islamic jihad) propaganda should be forbidden, not just from Twitter/Facebook, but from *all* of the internet. I don't agree that Twitter/Facebook should be the judge of what content should/shouldn't be allowed, but I support their right to be *more* restrictive than the minimum bar. Unfortunately, I feel that right now they are not even meeting the minimum bar on hate speech (while banning high profile other stuff). So government needs to take a more active role in regulating the content moderation.

On April 17 2022 22:52 ghrur wrote:


Okay, good, this is a very important point. The emphasis is mine. I can understand the notion, but again, let us just be clear here. Twitter and Facebook do not need to implement this "free marketplace of ideas." They are not legally obligated to do so as 1A does not apply to them, and we should agree that, legally speaking, they can be as capricious as they'd like with what they allow on their property. Do we agree on that point? I take this quote as a yes given you state they "should implement," not that they "must implement" or "are compelled to implement" or some such synonym.

In that case, what we're arguing about is solely our opinion on what their moderation style should be, not what they are legally or socially bound to do (which is nothing, based upon current Supreme Court decisions and understandings of 1A). I think this is a good starting point of agreement.



Given that private entities are not bound by the first amendment (see above), allow me to try to understand your claims above.
1. Assumption: Principle behind 1A is to create a free marketplace of ideas.
2. Claim: Principle behind 1A is not discussed within Masterpiece Cakeshop
3. Claim: Social media (Twitter, Facebook, et al.) are the modern day "public square" (allow me to change your wording here as "means of discourse" is not mentioned anywhere in the Packingham opinion).
4. Claim: Therefore, social media should implement the principles behind 1A.

Please let me know if I have mischaracterized your claims or misunderstood them in some way. As for why they're wrong, I'll respond below.

1. The guiding principle behind 1A is NOT to create "a free marketplace of ideas." Instead, I'd argue a more reasonable principle behind the first amendment is to inhibit government from infringing upon a person's rights. First, let's start with the text.

.

Note that markets or private entities are not mentioned. Only "Government" is mentioned. This is because, in the historical context of the situation, the primary concern of the writers were about preventing their(our) government from becoming a tyrannical structure similar to the one they had just overthrown. In fact, you can read Madison's original discussions and objectives when creating the Bill of Rights here. Note that Madison does not mention terms such as "market," "market place," "trade," or "exchange." Instead, the contents of the Bill of Rights are simply to protect the natural rights of the people (e.g. Speech) from the government, and the object is to "limit & qualify power ... in a particular manner." Thus, it's clearly shown that the guiding principle behind 1A is not "the free marketplace of ideas," but rather to control the government and ensure the liberties of the people. Interpreted in a modern day sense, Facebook and Twitter are not governments. In fact, based upon case law, they are people themselves which is why Masterpiece Cakeshop indeed applies to our discussion upon this point. To prevent Facebook or Twitter from engaging in moderation as they'd prefer is to inhibit the natural right of speech that these entities are promised based upon the law of the land. Once again, if you want to say they should do X, Y, or Z, that's a valid opinion for you to hold, but it has no support within our current legislative or judicial framework.

2. This is factually false. In fact, the point of case law is specifically to interpret the meaning of our laws, including 1A, and the point of originalism is to apply the historical principles behind the creation of a law to its interpretation. Note that Clarence Thomas is an originalist, and he indeed wrote a concurring opinion in Masterpiece Cakeshop which states "The First Amendment, applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits state laws that abridge the “freedom of speech." My counterargument here is that Supreme Court opinions do indeed take into account the principle behind 1A when deciding their cases, and I'd argue that they're the foremost experts of such interpretation! Hence why they're on the Supreme Court. And as such, the "principle behind 1A" is not a "free marketplace of ideas," but rather necessary limitations on government in order to prevent abuse of power from a government onto its people. In fact, that is the guiding principle behind all 10 amendments, not just 1A. Nowhere within any of these amendments, nor within the text of 1A, nor within any of the sources you've brought forth (i.e. None...).

3. This is a misreading of the opinion, which I have already answered. If you claim Facebook are the modern day "public square," then based upon the opinion you're quoting, do you agree that WebMD, Amazon, and
vampirefreaks.com are also equivalent "public squares" in your interpretation? Because these are the only sites aside from Facebook which are mentioned in Packingham, and these are the examples given by the opinion. If you agree these are all equivalent "public squares," then I'd argue we're back to my claim, which is that the modern day "public square" is not social media, but rather the internet at large. If you disagree that WebMD, Amazon, and vampirefreaks.com are the equivalent (based upon Packingham), could you please provide the case law show casing why that's the case?

4. Again, this is a should, not a must or are compelled to. We can argue about it, but at the end of the day, what Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok, TL, etc. decide to implement in terms of their moderation is up to them. I'm fully supportive of having private businesses be able to decide how to engage with their private property, and at the end of the day, whether or not Twitter or Facebook keeps a piece of data on their hard drives should be completely up to them. The hard drive and the servers are their private property, and for "society" or "government" to force them to use their private property in a given way sounds antithetical to the property rights within the United States. I'm surprised you'd support that.

Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties, and that, in its government, the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end, and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness, and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that, without free speech and assembly, discussion would be futile; that, with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty, and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. [Footnote 2] They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies, and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law -- the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed.

On April 18 2022 13:47 gobbledydook wrote:
You're right.
Trump is corrupt and a danger to democracy.
Biden is merely corrupt.

On April 19 2022 03:54 Mohdoo wrote:
I think discussions regarding censorship on the internet require a lot of nuance and any perspective that tries to make blanket declarations or absolutes is always going to be wrong. There are a few components to this this that I will outline

1) Blackjack makes a very valid point regarding suppression of the covid lab leak theory. A significant number of people in the scientific community believed it to be a very real possibility for multiple reasons. Leaked emails now show Fauci thought it was possible too. Suppression of the lab leak theory as "conspiracy nonsense" was an enormous blunder and made a clear case for the fact that social media companies can make massive blunders.

2) Germany and other examples throughout history have a wealth of data showing that de-platforming damaging ideas is ethical and effective. Nazi ideology is purely damaging to society and we need a proper mechanism of removing genocide advocacy from the internet. It should not just be tossed into the "market of ideas" and allowed to compete. We need a mechanism of dealing with ideas that really are just bad. Moral relativism has no place in society. We can't let Facebook keep "Kill all Jews" groups operating.

3) We have sufficient data showing that the internet and social media are able to be used to manipulate and harm society in ways that simply were not possible 20 years ago. Psychology and sociology have both been used to examine and define this damage and we need to not ignore it. Radicalization and fake news should not be ignored. Twitter and Facebook have both fundamentally shaped society in a way that treating them like "just a private entity" doesn't make sense. Facebook, Twitter, and social media as a whole have become core components in human society. We can't pretend it makes sense to treat them the same as any other private entity.

I think most people agree that the 3 points listed above are true and legitimate. It is just a matter of what you do about it. I think the topic warrants a lot of analysis and trial and error. We have seen the pendulum swing both ways. The early days of the internet were clearly very bad in a lot of ways. Chinese censorship is clearly also very bad. The happy medium will be difficult to get right.

On April 19 2022 05:24 JimmiC wrote:
It is difficult because some things that should have not been banned, explanation on why a lab leak could have happened. And then a lot that got banned should have where someone would post that it was a lab leak and part of a larger plan to blah blah, or bio weapon, and so on.

And it is not as if there are not real life consequences, there was a number of hate attacks on Asians.


The biggest thing to me would be hold people accountable for what they say if they are in anyway profiting from it. That way the person who just shares some charlatans crap does not get it, but the charlatan does.

On April 19 2022 05:24 JimmiC wrote:
It is difficult because some things that should have not been banned, explanation on why a lab leak could have happened. And then a lot that got banned should have where someone would post that it was a lab leak and part of a larger plan to blah blah, or bio weapon, and so on.

And it is not as if there are not real life consequences, there was a number of hate attacks on Asians.


The biggest thing to me would be hold people accountable for what they say if they are in anyway profiting from it. That way the person who just shares some charlatans crap does not get it, but the charlatan does.