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707 points patd | 8 comments | | HN request time: 1.136s | source | bottom
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VBprogrammer ◴[] No.23322903[source]
Can this even be considered a free speech issue? They aren't deleting his tweet, only displaying it alongside a fact check. Of course you can try to call into question the impartiality of the fact check but that is a long way from not deciding not to show the content.
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1. danShumway ◴[] No.23323205[source]
Not only does it not seem to be a free speech issue to me, from my point of view this is basically the best-case scenario for avoiding censorship of contentious issues on dominant platforms like Facebook/Twitter. It's the obvious conclusion to arguments like, "the way to deal with bad speech is with more good speech."

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.

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2. ◴[] No.23328648[source]
3. cheaprentalyeti ◴[] No.23329085[source]
And twitter doesn't do this with leftist speech that's wrong/inaccurate propaganda for the sake of propaganda, like (oh, for instance) today someone was posting a photoshopped picture of one of the recent reportedly abusive cops in a "Make America White Again" red hat.

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.

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4. chowchowchow ◴[] No.23329239[source]
so? you're free to not use the service; it still isn't a free speech issue in terms of limiting expression.
5. giantrobot ◴[] No.23329263[source]
One of the coolest features of the web is the hyperlink. You can provide one of these "hyperlinks" to another site as a way to back up assertions you're making or to provide context.

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.

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6. cheaprentalyeti ◴[] No.23329970{3}[source]
Here's a hyperlink with the example Bloody Shirt that was being waved around, along with how the poster thinks it was made.

https://twitter.com/RationalDis/status/1265681731094548480

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7. giantrobot ◴[] No.23330392{4}[source]
A random tweet isn't context! Not everyone is drinking from the shit pipeline that is Twitter. All I got from that Tweet was some guy isn't another guy?

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.

8. danShumway ◴[] No.23330966[source]
> exercise editorial discresion

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.