Quid pro Joe?
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Maybe it wasn't on the official schedule...
https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/biden-campaign-says-burisma-meeting-not-on-official-schedule/
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I have no idea if this Biden story has legs or not. What does have legs is the fact that Facebook, and now Twitter have banned the story from a newspaper, not a blog, not some rando. A real newspaper.
https://reason.com/2020/10/14/hunter-biden-new-york-post-story-media-facebook-burisma-ukraine/
Facebook Communications Director Andy Stone, a former Democratic staffer, announced that the social media platform would limit the article's distribution pending a fact-checker's review. He directed users to Facebook policy, which states that "in many countries, including in the US, if we have signals that a piece of content is false, we temporarily reduce its distribution pending review by a third-party fact-checker."
While Facebook is within its rights to take action against content it believes is factually misleading, this seems like a tough standard to enforce evenly. News articles in the mainstream press frequently contain information that is thinly or anonymously sourced, and sometimes proves to be inaccurate. It's one thing for social media platforms to take swift action against viral content that is very obviously false or incendiary, like conspiracy theories about coronavirus miracle cures or voter fraud. It's quite another for the platform to essentially make itself a gatekeeper of legitimate journalism, or a very selective media watchdog that appears to be more concerned about bad reporting when it comes from right-leaning outlets than left-leaning outlets, given the partisan leanings of social media company's internal policy setters.
The obvious result will be a double standard, and an unsustainable one: The right will claim (correctly) that social media companies are biased against questionable conservative content, while the left will claim (also correctly) that plenty of misinformation eludes the moderators. Of course, the oft-proposed solution to the problems with platform content curation is to reform or repeal Section 230, which immunizes online platforms from some lawsuits. This idea is popular with everybody from Trump and Biden to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.), even though the obvious result of removing tech platform's liability protection would be even more aggressive moderation. New York Post op-ed editor Sohrab Ahmari tweeted that Facebook's handling of the Hunter Biden scoop makes the case for modifying Section 230, but without Section 230, Facebook would—for legal reasons—be even more reticent about letting users share unverified claims.
Such an outcome would be bad for a free and open society, for the same reason that it is wrong for the mainstream media to attempt to keep the public wholly ignorant of stories they would rather not tell. The information will get out, and it's better for journalists to contextualize—to add to our understanding—rather than pretend it doesn't exist.
In defending his decision to publish the Steele dossier, which contained unverified, dubious, and speculative information, then-BuzzFeed News Editor in Chief Ben Smith (now a media critic for The New York Times) wrote the following: "You trust us to give you the full story; we trust you to reckon with a messy, sometimes uncertain reality." That's a lesson the entire media should take to heart, and apply evenly, no matter the inconvenience of the narrative.
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@Jolly said in Quid pro Joe?:
Maybe it wasn't on the official schedule...
https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/biden-campaign-says-burisma-meeting-not-on-official-schedule/
Ahem....
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Let me reiterate. I have no idea how valid the
general discharged cocaine-addictedHunter Biden story is.The outrage is that our social "media" is censoring this is beyond outrage, particularly when stories about the "Dossier" and other stuff passed their muster.
It's time a reckoning. Are they publishers or platforms?
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Platforms.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt.
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@Jolly said in Quid pro Joe?:
Platforms.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt.
As Ax and others have said, "If you don't like what Facebook and Twitter are doing, establish your own platform."
It's a nice concept, but these two behemoths are well-established, and everyone uses them. They are de-facto platforms, and they hold absolute censorship power over those who post on those platforms.
In the early 20th century, there were monopolies which controlled communications via copper wires. They controlled access, but not content.
Today, content, what you say, is restricted.
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Ax may say it, but Thomas weighed in today, saying it may be time to take a look at 230.
That would be interesting...
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It's amazing that this story broke so close to the election. They managed to suppress it for so long, and then....wow, amazing.
This, folks, is journalistic integrity at it's finest. Nice going, NYPost!
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@George-K said in Quid pro Joe?:
@Jolly said in Quid pro Joe?:
Platforms.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt.
As Ax and others have said, "If you don't like what Facebook and Twitter are doing, establish your own platform."
It's a nice concept, but these two behemoths are well-established, and everyone uses them. They are de-facto platforms, and they hold absolute censorship power over those who post on those platforms.
In the early 20th century, there were monopolies which controlled communications via copper wires. They controlled access, but not content.
Today, content, what you say, is restricted.
They are private businesses. It’s pitiful to see “conservatives” like @Jolly who argued that a cake baker should be allowed to refuse baking a wedding cake for same-sex wedding now wants to deny other private businesses the right to refuse publishing/replicating specific contents using their private platforms. The likes of Twitter and Facebook don’t owe you shit.
I am sympathetic to anti-monopoly arguments to break these behemoths into separate, smaller businesses. You are welcome to take your media consummation business elsewhere. You are welcome to build competing businesses. But I have no sympathy for giving you power to dictate how other private businesses should decide what opinions to publish/distribute on their platform.
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@Axtremus said in Quid pro Joe?:
@Kincaid said in Quid pro Joe?:
Beware the Deep Fake.
+1
Would like to see independent verification/confirmation.I saw a report today that claims that the Hunter Biden emails were hacked, and the "smoking gun" email was faked and inserted into the batch of actual emails.
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@George-K said in Quid pro Joe?:
I saw a report today that claims that the Hunter Biden emails were hacked, and the "smoking gun" email was faked and inserted into the batch of actual emails.
Be thankful that Twitter’s policy slowed the spread of this potential “fake” then. Let there be investigations, let the journalists write up the full story, then the likes of Twitter and Facebook can distribute comments and opinions on the full story.
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I think it would be a good idea for people to completely ignore any massive revelations concerning either candidate that mysteriously occur within a month of the election.
Common sense should indicate they're going to be bollocks.
Obviously, nobody ever posts massive revelations about their own guy, since they already know they're bollocks.