Twitter saw speech they disagreed with, and they fixed it with more speech. They haven't censored any of Trump's arguments, they didn't delete his tweets. They just added their own commentary on top of them. That's what Republicans have always claimed they wanted. Argue that people are wrong, don't censor them. Don't throw people off the platform, add a fact-check.
I grew up listening to Republicans rail against the Fairness Doctrine, and I basically agreed with them on that point. Forcing private broadcasters to act like they were neutral on every issue was problematic. But now apparently that's flipped and free speech means forcing a private company not to take sides on any issue, even when taking a side doesn't require censoring or restricting anyone else's speech.
Any Republican that was genuinely anti-censorship would be cheering Twitter's move, even if they disagreed with the content of this particular fact-check.
Twitter is merely labelling a tweet as being factually incorrect, it's not hiding the content.
Seems like it would be more acceptable.
(sorry for the ads)
You are missing the point. Using objective reporting to paint a bad person in a bad light is exactly what "the media" should do.
I went to cnn's homepage and clicked on this article[1]. Lets look at the first paragraph:
> President Donald Trump's use of the bully pulpit to defy his own government's advice on face coverings has turned into the era's latest ideologically motivated assault on science and civility. His noncompliance is a symbol of his refusal to adopt the customary codes of the presidency during a crisis and his habit of turning even a dire national moment to political advantage.
You can't possibly call that objective reporting. The factual content is true, but highly highly subjective and filled with inflammatory language.
Saying "Trump refuses to wear a facemask in defiance of $HealthExpert's advice" is objective. Calling that act "an assault on science and civility" is a heavily inflammatory and subjective stance.
To be clear, I don't disagree with CNN here. Trump is being dumb. But you can't pretend like CNN is objective or unbiased.
CNN, like all news media, is a private, profit seeking corporation who will pander to their audience to generate ad revenue. And there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But turning around and treating this multi-million dollar corporation as the sole arbiter of absolute, objective truth is plain foolish.
[1]https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/26/politics/donald-trump-covid-m...
EDIT: Some argue that this is an opinion piece and so my point is invalid. Up in the top left corner, this article is marked as "Analysis by $Author" instead of just "by $Author". They don't label it as an opinion, and they don't place it differently on their home page. It is an analysis on current events, written by a CNN reporter, hosted on the CNN front page. This is an explicit endorsement of the content of the article, and it's crazy to say that CNN is absolved of all journalistic integrity because this article is an "analysis" versus "regular" news. The only difference is the addition of the single word "Analysis" hidden in the top left corner. This article is clearly meant to be treated as any other.
I suppose that is the problem with using examples, though. People would rather pick apart the example rather than face the larger claim. Without examples, of course, the point would be dismissed as unsubstantiated. It's just not possible to change people's minds, I guess.
EDIT 2: This is what an actual opinion piece looks like: https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/21/opinions/trump-racist-tweet-m...
They disclaim that the article is the authors opinion, they host it in the opinions section, and have opinion in the header, etc. The article I linked is not an opinion piece.
The problem though, as I think some of the posters above have touched on, is how can Twitter effectively account for media biases in a way that will not make them look biased? I suppose that's just begging the question of: should they care if they appear biased?
One thought I've had is that perhaps, for every tweet that Twitter decides to put a 'fact-check' on, they could link to three different sources of information - one with a well-established left-bias, one with a well-established right-bias, and one without any well-established bias. Just an idea, I'm sure that'll probably present problems as well.
Which Twitter did - https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384
This focus on complaining about just CNN is a red herring.
There's a long list of news organizations:
If it truly was far left, why doesn't Wikipedia host pages of Pol Pot and Stalin filled with praise? Or, in lieu of praise, at least apologism?
I know this is a very massive hypothetical, but it’s one I’ve wondered for a while. Basically, as the head of one of the branches, he could have subordinates forcefully removed, but who’ll forcefully remove him in this case?
So wave the bloody shirt, that's AOK, but say that vote by mail facilitates fraud, and you get a personalized "We Don't Think So!" message from twitter.
Twitter hosts outrage mobs that have the stated goals of getting people fired, and it has caused people I was following to quit the platform.
They simultaneously want to exercise editorial discresion while not being liable for for all the outrageous or outright wrong speech they do host.
In real terms, what are you imagining here? Trump having the NSA execute a DDOS against Twitter? I feel like you have to get to some pretty fantastical action-movie type plots to make this happen.
It is irrelevant how many true things CNN says, or how broadly other organizations agree with them. CNN is still not presenting things in an objective way. Which means that those you would like to convince will flip the bozo bit because of the bias, and never even hear the evidence.
Note that we seldom notice bias in others when it matches our own. So CNN's bias is invisible to its core audience. Just as Fox News' bias is invisible to theirs. But it can't be missed by anyone whose biases differ, or who are actively looking for whether things are presented with bias.
But http://gatewayjr.org/how-a-popular-media-bias-chart-determin... gets it right. CNN skews liberal, and isn't particularly accurate. It is better than Fox News...but not by much.
I think it really depends on what you view twitter as. If it's a communications platform, like your phone, then yes 'merely labelling a tweet' is as troubling as your phone company deciding to shut your call off when you mention to a friend that you're going to vote for Biden. If Twitter is a publishing platform, then it certainly can expose its editorial bias, but one must really consider whether or not it should have to pay its writers.
> Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
> ...
Basically, if Congress decides Trump is incompetent, Pence will immediately become President. No impeachment trial will be necessary. And if Trump refuses to leave the White House at that point, he will be forcefully removed. Whether that’ll actually happen remains to be seen; Section 4 has never been invoked since its ratification.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fifth_Amendment_to_the_...
A great place for one of these "hyperlinks" would be to show everyone this photoshopped picture you're talking about. Not everyone follows whatever sites you'd consider to be "news".
And no, I'm not going to do the legwork and search for random articles trying to figure out what the fuck you're talking about.
You also might want to consider that a person with legal power, say a government official, might be held to a higher standard of informational accuracy than some rando posting a photoshopped picture.
I believe that the unclear identification of an article as 'news' or 'opinion' is a general problem with media. The demarcation was usually clear in the print media, it's often not clear in the digital media. I'd love to see improvement.
I often ask for examples of the press treating Trump unfairly, and I'm always (not sometimes, always) given links to opinion pieces. The public can't seem to discern between the two, which points to a general problem of media illiteracy. This illiteracy is then used to draw false conclusions about the media as a whole, and your post is doing the same.
Let's look at the tweet from the linked article and see how reporting should happen:
>"Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices" "We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen. We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016."
1. Republicans claim social media platforms silence conservative viewpoints. 2. Donald Trump intends to regulate/close them down if they are engaging in this, or prevent them from doing so with regulation. 3. Donald Trump claims that social-media platforms tried to do something in 2016 (insinuating that they meddled with the election).
I don't know about you but I would love actual investigative journalism to look at the above points as it's so loaded and could practically swing elections if confirmed and people decided to act on it.
So the items they need to do for the above facts:
1. Track down some legitimate poll of how Republicans feel about this. Find peer-reviewed studies that look at data-dumps or reports by the media companies. Send emails to social-media companies with details, request data about the makeup of account actions or bans, etc. If < 50% of republicans feel this way, call him out on it. <-- that sort of thing is fact-checkable for Twitter.
2. Talk about the options that Donald Trump has. Investigate the legality about it, consult some lawyers, showcase a poll on the matter, investigate how Common-Carrier laws might apply to this, etc. The media should assume he is right and play that out. What if Donald Trump is on to something and the statistical facts are being hidden. Investigate. Make a note of this and write an article in half a year about how it disappeared from his campaign so he broke his promise/commitment. Hold him accountable, help people see the things that they may have forgotten, be the voice of clear-headed reason and good outcomes for all involved.
3. Really, same as the above on some level. It's been almost 4 years, there is bound to be a plethora of peer-reviewed sources and concluded outcomes. Mention the outcomes of some of the claims during the 2016 election, track down some polls and tie it all together. They're supposed to provide insight and a big-picture view of it all.
It would have to happen through the courts, and the courts won't allow it.
They can bully Twitter and threaten to e.g. withhold federal contracts (though even this runs into legal trouble) but how does the executive branch just "shut down" a platform?
You can't just send in the FBI and put a halt on things.
This will just be more of his mindless rage that a certain portion of the population gobbles up. His real goal is to discredit Twitter et al, which is unlikely to have much impact.
–Stephen Colbert, at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Dinner
The difference would be one is a company, the other a real person. No need for the company to get involved.
People who ignore the correctios and other tweets will ignore the company anyway.
That's because the content I am responding to is a red herring to the question of Twitter's actions.
This derailment into "Is CNN biased?" is not relevant when the majority of news organizations are in agreement about the president lying in the tweet.
Further muddying the waters with claims that it's all just an "opinion" anyways is also non-sequitur because there are definitive facts about mail-in voting showing otherwise: https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384
Surely you understand that the company posting a fact checker is a more credible source, and that there are plenty of twitter users who, even if they disagree with Trump, may not be aware of the facts.
I fail to see how those two are equivalent, shutting off would be removing the tweet, they did not do that. Labeling something is not equivalent to censuring the tweet or cutting off communication.
Warning users is similar to phones letting you know they think a caller is spam.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/21/opinions/trump-racist-tweet-m...
It is at a /opinions/ url, it has the word "Opinion" in the header, and it has this disclaimer above the article:
> The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own
Most importantly, it is not posted directly on the CNN home page. You have to click a link to go to the opinions section to see opinion articles.
The article I chose as an example is not an opinion piece. It is presented to the user the same way every other news piece is, just with the word "Analysis" tacked on in the corner. No reasonable person would say "Oh, this is just an analysis, I shouldn't take it seriously".
The good news is that the presidency (and the leader of the executive branch) is very time limited. The constitution is so clear that there is no wiggle room at all, no matter what happens between now and January next year, the only way he stays in power is by winning the election. Also it seems pretty clear there will be a democrat as acting president if we fail to vote for a new one, but that is mostly coincidences and luck this time around.
The last four years have shown that there are no real checks and balances and they depend on one party keeping its own members in line, and that the GOP have moved far, far, to the right as they are loosing the potential to win fair elections. Winding this down is not going to be pleasant, and in the long run we desperately need reforms. Also it seems like the current best case is that the GOP get voted out everywhere, but that is also a terrible outcome, we need a real opposition party and competition of ideas.
No, it cannot even be considered a free speech issue (except insofar as Trump proposes to censor Twitter). Those of us in the con law/democratic theory community, and everyone else in the universe who is even semi-rational, use them term "counterspeech" to describe what Twitter did.
Traditionally, counterspeech is seen as the virtuous alternative to censorship---as the thing that us snotty free speech people tell those who call for their opponents to be censored to do instead. John Stuart Mill would jump up and down and pop champagne in celebration of what Twitter did.
For you to say that its wrong to discuss media bias because Trump did a bad thing is dishonest at best. Yes, Trump is acting a fool on Twitter as he always is. That does not mean that the news media is beyond reproach and it is wrong to call into question their biases.
In this bizarre hypothetical, Twitter would presumably just fail over to servers outside the US, as would all other significant tech companies. Or, y'know, California might secede. It's such a weird proposition that it's hard to speculate about.
The word 'Analysis' is right there in the title on their web site, it's not confusing in the slightest to a reasonable person imho.
And even if they did, I don't see how that changes anything. This is CNN's analysis of the news, and it has all the problems I outlined in my original comment. This is not disclaimed as the author's own opinion, it is CNN's explanation of the news, and it is filled with subjectivity and inflammatory content.
You would have to be incredibly dishonest with yourself to read that article and not conclude that CNN is biased against Trump.
And I reiterate: I don't think bias in media is inherently bad. But it is foolish to think that private media corporations are unbiased, altruistic arbiters of the complete and objective truth. This is the point I am making, but I suspect you would rather continue to nitpick the examples I have chosen rather than engage in a good faith discussion.
I'll admit that the piece you linked blurs the line between analysis and opinion. You assert that it's not an opinion piece, but I'd assert that it's absolutely not news, it's not reporting, and the larger points of my parent comment still stand: I don't think it's fair to point poeple to this piece and say "look how unfair CNN is".
Provide some co text like a news article or something. If you can't provide some context for people to understand maybe that's the signal to you that whatever random shit you're talking about doesn't quite rise to the level of seriousness of the President spewing unsubstantiated bullshit as claims of fact.
If you think some "leftist" was making absurd claims of fact or saying demonstrably untrue things, report them to Twitter asking for their post to be flagged.
That probably won't happen though, this is really just about stirring up a frenzy of right-wingers so Twitter will have to bow down to them and give them more and more concessions in hopes that somehow, someday they'll stop accusing everything of being biased against them.
> You would have to be incredibly dishonest with yourself to read that article and not conclude that CNN is biased against Trump.
I read it as a non-values neutral piece, and that is not a slant against Trump so much as it's a stance against a pattern of behavior with harmful ramifications for the country's public health. Do you think there's a neutral ground between recklessly endangering public health for political gain versus not doing that?
> But it is foolish to think that private media corporations are unbiased, altruistic arbiters of the complete and objective truth.
I don't know who you're arguing with on this point.
This is a device feature, not a company one (I think at least). Plus spam has a clear meaning of unwanted commercial messages. I still receive calls from political campaigns regularly, and I would hope my phone company did not take it upon themselves to stop that.
Adding a fact-check link to a Tweet is not censorship. Nobody took Trump's link down. And Twitter has a 1st Amendment right both to comment on what it wants to comment on, and to avoid commenting on what it doesn't want to comment on -- regardless of what their reasoning behind those decisions is.
Again, Republicans should be applauding this. Open dialog is what you wanted, right? You wanted no censorship, just open debate. Well that's what you got. Twitter didn't censor the post, they debated it. And they have every right to do so.
If your argument is that Twitter needs to be 100% politically neutral every time it makes a comment on anything, and that its editorial staff shouldn't have the ability to form opinions or choose what they comment on, then that's the Fairness Doctrine, regardless of what you want to call it.
It is of course also legal for Twitter to choose how they outright censor content because of Section 230, but I give Republicans a little bit more slack over objecting to that protection, since at least Section 230 isn't literally a Constitutional right. But anyone who wants to complain that companies should be required to be "fair" when adding political annotations is not someone who supports the 1st Amendment.
See, "incompetence" doesn't mean blundering. It means senility or insanity. Firing Comey may be many things, but it's not incompetence.
You want him gone? Get in line; a lot of people want that. But you're going to have to either vote him out or impeach him. And to impeach him, you're going to have to persuade more than one Republican Senator that he's crossed the line - which means you need something that the other side recognizes as an actual case.
See, the thing is, during the trial in the Senate, Trump’s lawyers literally said:[0]
> Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest, and mostly you're right. Your election is in the public interest. And if a president did something that he believes will help him get elected, in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.
The fact that all but one GOP member voted to acquit is extremely concerning.
> Firing Comey may be many things, but it's not incompetence.
It may not be incompetence, but it sure as hell is corrupt.
[0]: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/29/politics/dershowitz-quid-pro-...
> They provide the reader with facts and evidence. They do not include their own opinion. They are similar to professional teachers. The draw conclusions from events, but the conclusions they state are clearly based on evidence.
I think the article could be called 'analysis' based on your definition, but the article definitely is less clinical than this definition would suggest. It reads more like it was written by an "angry teacher" vs a "professional teacher".
> I don't think it's fair to point poeple to this piece and say "look how unfair CNN is".
I would agree with you if this article was clearly marked as something less than factual reporting. You touched on the issue of branding different kinds of articles earlier. If CNN is going to push this article to their front page and not disclaim the author's opinion, then they need to be responsible for its content. I don't think putting the word 'Analysis' in small grey text in the corner releases them from their responsibilities as a news organization.
The content of the article is biased and inflammatory, even if factually sound. CNN put their seal of approval on this biased content, and so I think it is fair to say "look how unfair CNN is".
Would you trust Elon Musk to put truth under tweets from his company? With his behaviour in the last month(s) I wouldn't trust him with shit.
The next step is Google putting "fact checks" beside search results? Or what? Or a ministry of truth?
Im from Germany, and we see what's going on in America. And we all saw it happening already here, years back.
But I guess every nation needs to go its path and needs to fix their problems on their own.