←back to thread

Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

(techcrunch.com)
707 points patd | 5 comments | 27 May 20 12:21 UTC | HN request time: 0.006s | source
Show context
Ididntdothis ◴[27 May 20 13:54 UTC] No.23323232[source]▶
I feel like we are slowly reaching the state the movie “Idiocracy” describes. I feel very torn about this. On the one hand I don’t think we should leave it up to companies like Twitter to censor things. On the other hand I find it hard to believe that the president is constantly claiming things without any evidence backing up. It started with the claims of millions of illegal voters in 2016 and the commission they started disbanding quietly after finding nothing. And now publicly spreading rumors about killing somebody.

It’s insane how little respect the US has for the integrity of its political system. As long as it may hurt the “other” side everything is ok without regard to the damage they are constantly doing the health of the system.

replies(20): >>23323289 #>>23323306 #>>23323342 #>>23323354 #>>23323411 #>>23323418 #>>23323422 #>>23323430 #>>23323448 #>>23323480 #>>23323541 #>>23323551 #>>23323586 #>>23323615 #>>23323628 #>>23323640 #>>23323674 #>>23323676 #>>23323863 #>>23324280 #
NicoJuicy ◴[27 May 20 13:58 UTC] No.23323306[source]▶
Reaching Idiocracy is a pretty big understatement.

To be honest, it feels that the president should have a babysitter, if you look at his constant tweet tirades.

replies(2): >>23323463 #>>23323736 #
1. chartpath ◴[27 May 20 14:07 UTC] No.23323463[source]▶
What kind of oversight could even work though? We have the Queen in my neck of the woods but that is not exactly accountable and never does anything to check poor governance and only rips off taxpayers. We also have non-confidence votes which can bring down a Prime Minister, and it seems to work (in minority governments at least).

How can a separation of powers approach still check itself? Like different term limits, VP powers, congressional army? Banning factions or breaking up parties that get too big, banning private donors? Rooting for the American experiment to get sorted!

replies(5): >>23323559 #>>23323702 #>>23323754 #>>23323965 #>>23330616 #
2. Ididntdothis ◴[27 May 20 14:12 UTC] No.23323559[source]▶
You can’t have hard rules to achieve this. In the end it’s a matter of integrity and ethics to guide actions. You can’t write that down as an algorithm. Unfortunately it seems the system is set up for psychopaths who don’t know no limits as long as they can profit.
3. zozbot234 ◴[27 May 20 14:23 UTC] No.23323754[source]▶
> What kind of oversight could even work though?

Some New Confucians and Neo-Reactionaries argue that this kind of basic oversight should be provided by a novel council/board of "wise scholars", or people with real intellectual accomplishments which are not under serious dispute-- appointed with very long, perhaps lifetime terms. There's really no equivalent to this in the U.S. other than perhaps the Supreme Court, but the House of Lords in the U.K. is quite similar and does not currently have much of a political role, so it could be repurposed with relative ease.

4. mistermann ◴[27 May 20 14:36 UTC] No.23323965[source]▶
> What kind of oversight could even work though? We have...that is not exactly accountable and never does anything to check poor governance...

> How can a separation of powers approach still check itself?

If you approach the problem (and it is in fact a very real problem) from an engineering/computing perspective, would a possibly useful approach be to develop an AI that consumes all (or as much as possible) relevant data, and then spits out instances of events where accountability is lacking? Tune it on the overly eager side so it spits out lots of false positives along with legitimate issues, and then a bipartisan committee that consists of representatives from various factions (government, corporate, unions, finance, law enforcement & military), as well as the general public to sort through what comes out.

This would obviously be a fairly major undertaking, but nothing beyond all sorts of other things we do on a regular basis I wouldn't think, and from the amount of news stories and forum comments on the matter, I think the problem is big enough to spend a fair amount of time and money on coming up with some solution.

5. NicoJuicy ◴[27 May 20 22:01 UTC] No.23330616[source]▶
Euh, with T.? A babysitter who can forbid him things that are "not decent", most people learn it when they are a toddler/teenager.

It's named "common decency" for a reason.

Nobody is going to teach their kids to unleash their bulldog when someone does not agree with you ;)