So as I understand it, everyone is entitled to US Taxpayer money because they're used to getting it. Make it make sense. The US economy is K shaped for a reason, we're in a massive debt hole, but yea, it's our responsibility to save the world. Average Americans are tired of coming in last. Maybe we should clean up our own country first before throwing billions at everyone else.
It would be funny if it weren't so sad and predictable. This blog has become and ideologues haven. First it was for years claims that censorship of conservative viewpoints were overblown nonsense. Then confronted with evidence that the opposite was the case, everyone here pretends that it wasn't serious and didn't matter. Now we have the exact same thing happening with political violence. Maybe cite a study that doesn't include white nationalists shanking preople in prison as right wing.
More of a free thinker than you, that's for sure. Certainly more of a thinker too, considering that I discuss the issues on their merits, and everyone who's disagreed with me, like yourself, resort to personal attacks because they have no actual argument.
That's the stupidest thing I've seen yet on this comment thread, and that's saying something. You don't even know my politics. I'll give you a hint, I'm not a conservative.
You're so right Mike. It's obvious that because they tried and failed to manipulate people, that it wasn't an attempt at censorship. No harm no foul. You've repeated that asinine argument too many times considering how bad it is.
What proof do I need? 95% of academica is liberal. Everyone knows the universities are a hotbed of far left views. I couldn't find the more recent study that shows the 95% number I saw, but it's real. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/6/liberal-professors-outnumber-conservatives-12-1/
As far as this particular study, I already critiqued it, but here you go again for your easy perusal.
Same problem as with all the others you keep using to “prove” that there isn’t bias, their data collection is more than a little problematic.
“in that it corrected for generally agreed upon false information sharers”
This is pretty odd. I guess it makes some level of sense, but this is why I’m so skeptical of studies on this topic because of how hard it is to get good data. They corrected for “false information sharers” not based on individual articles, but by cataloguing websites “by averaging the trustworthiness ratings of all sites whose links they share.”
In other words, they’ve rated websites and regardless of the content of of what people linked themselves, assigned it a trustworthiness rating. The problem is that these "neutral" people who rate the trustworthiness of websites or aren't trustworthy themselves. I’ve already explained how these fact checkers they relied on are often incredibly biased themselves, Snopes being a good example.
https://nypost.com/2022/02/16/snopes-latest-example-of-fact-checking-the-truth-away/
The authors even stated that their analysis couldn’t prove or disprove the bias allegations, but could only show that conservatives were bigger on misinformation, which in itself is highly problematic. What was called misinformation last year is today's truth so yea, not the best of proxies. Give me a better study.
Actually decided to dig into the study. Same problem as with all the others you keep using to "prove" that there isn't bias, their data collection is problematic.
"in that it corrected for generally agreed upon false information sharers"
This is pretty odd. I guess it makes some level of sense, but this is why I'm so skeptical of studies on this topic because of how hard it is to get good data. They corrected for "false information sharers" not based on individual articles, but by cataloguing websites "by averaging the trustworthiness ratings of all sites whose links they share."
In other words, they've rated websites and regardless of the content of the links themselves, assigned it a trustworthiness rating. The authors even stated that their analysis couldn't prove or disprove the bias allegations, but could only show that conservatives were bigger on misinformation. And I've already explained how these fact checkers they relied on are often incredibly biased themselves, snopes being the most obvious example. so yea. Skeptical. Give me a better study.
It feels like half your arguments are tongue in cheek.
Twitter and facebook should be regarded as public squares. We don't live in the 1700's any more, people don't congregate in physical spaces, social media apps have taken their place. And if you don't like that argument, then if they want section 230 protections, they certainly shouldn't be putting their thumbs on the scales.
Horses not zebras is and idiom about Occam's razor you silly man. If I'm in Africa, sure, it MIGHT be acceptable to think zebra. But in the USA? To quote good 'ol Joe, "C'mon man!" Everyone is twisting themselves into pretzels to try and explain how the laptop story wasn't censorship, when the most obvious and simplest example is that it was.
Alright, seriously. Last post. I'm really tired of people holding up these "studies" as proof positive there isn't censorship happening. They are created by people with a vested interest in finding nothing. What do I mean? Consider that academia today is 95% liberal. That's not an exaggeration, that's the latest figures. In this tribal world we live in today, that means that every single study has been performed by people who wouldn't want to find out that their side is doing the censoring. Secondly, their data sets are abysmal because they have to rely on publicly available data. For example, the NYU study, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b6df958f8370af3217d4178/t/6011e68dec2c7013d3caf3cb/1611785871154/NYU+False+Accusation+report_FINAL.pdf
has this little gem as their summary of how they know conservatives aren't being censored.
"Taken together, these various measures based on engagement suggest that, if the platforms are trying to suppress conservative views, they’re not doing a very good job."
Go look at how they decided whether or not censorship is happening. They use engagement as a proxy because they DON'T HAVE THE DATA. In other words, they say, hey, conservatives are getting a lot of posts, lots of hits, lots of engagement, therefor, censorship isn't happening. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that that argument doesn't track logically. It's the difference between correlation and causation.
I'm not arguing that there is a blanket censorship of conservatives going on, which for some reason, everyone wants to assume is the argument. Oh yea, its because that argument is a lot easier to refute than the one that's actually being made. I'm arguing that censorship is selectively happening around targeted issues, such as the hunter laptop story. Everyone here seems to act like these studies are proving something, when they are all circumstantial to an extreme fault, using other data as a stand in when it simply doesn't work as a stand in, and when they do have hard data on actual examples of censorship, the sample sizes are so paltry I wouldn't be surprised if there was some serious cherry picking going on.
In summary, on one hand, we have highly flawed studies done by groups that have a dog in the fight, on the other hand, we have the Hunter Biden laptop story, a story by a legitimate NEWSPAPER that was CENSORED by Twitter weeks before the election. I mean, what planet are you people living on to ignore direct evidence in favor of highly suspect circumstantial evidence?
I just... I don't get it. It's blindingly obvious what happened. Mike acts like this was just an example of poor moderation or policy (that's the most favorable argument he made out of a bunch of nonsense ones...) , but when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.
See, this is the problem that happens when I try to communicate. You respond with nonsense. let's take a walk down memory lane shall we?
Odd how a post from the 18th doesn't seem to exist on my profile then if it didn't get censored. And yes, I checked the profile. The other censorship I was referring to was two or three years ago, and I received an email explaining that my post was censored and deleted by some automated program. Funnily enough, it was about exactly this same topic. As far as my comment about censorship for this blog post, i've already explained that, yet you act like I should be an expert of a comment system that I hardly ever see or use. I was incorrect about my post here being censored, simply because I don't know what to call it when it's "hidden" and I appreciate the information about being able to see my posts in my profile, as I didn't know that. Regardless, my point stands. I make a disagreement and my post gets flagged? How fragile this community must be.
I never made the claim that ONLY conservative posts have been censored, that's another straw man argument. In fact, if I were trying to censor conservatives and get away with it, you better believe I'd be censoring some liberal posts too as a smoke screen. I made this argument in the original post a few years ago, in which I criticized a study you cited then, because the numbers of posts censored isn't actually that important if you are trying to craft a narrative- what do you think is going to happen if I censor 100 liberal posts by people with less than 100 followers, and then censor 100 conservative posts by more influential people? One might see that only raw numbers is somewhat meaningless in the that context.
another straw man argument. it's like you're allergic to responding to the issue at hand. I NEVER argued that it impacted the election. I said that attempts to censor information like that COULD have influenced it, and I guess the unsaid part, the part that I assumed any reasonable human would understand, is that it COULD HAVE affected the election if conservatives and other media didn't go ham on reporting about it. They still tried to control the narrative by blackholing a story. I THINK that basically you are saying no harm no foul, they didn't get away with it, so therefor it doesn't matter, which is pretty far out there bud.
"you have little patience for idiots who scream wrong things and insist they're right." Wow. I mean, I could write a 500 word essay on how pathetic you are to respond to criticisms of your arguments with criticism of my character. It speaks to a weak mind and an insecure person. And yea, I'm attacking your character now bud because you've been nothing but an asshole in every response who has been unable to directly respond to the substance of the argument.
you better believe I don't trust a Facebook study about Facebook, ESPECIALLY when the results will materially matter. What kind of a moron would? Every time the police are in charge of looking into their own wrongdoing, you make the exact same argument, yet you seem to have forgotten it here.
I actually am interested in your evidence about facebook changing rules to allow more right leaning content, can you please share it? I ask because I seem to remember hearing about posts being flagged for potentially misleading information, then I get linked to a snopes page. Snopes is so far left they contort themselves into pretzels to defend Biden, calling things false that have only the tiniest of problems. Here's an example. https://nypost.com/2022/02/16/snopes-latest-example-of-fact-checking-the-truth-away/
So yea, sorry to get on a tangent, but I'd love to see what rules are going to be beneficial only for far right that wouldn't also also be beneficial for far left.
Let's compare posts, shall we?
The most aggressive thing I said in my first two posts was that you had a bad case of confirmation bias, and that your article on the laptop was cringy.
You on the other hand, go off the deep end with all sorts of personal attacks that were completely irrelevant to the issue at hand. It's just unprofessional, you really should hold yourself to a higher standard.
The WAPO and NYTimes have both confirmed the authenticity of the laptop emails, so no idea where you're getting your information.
"The few emails that weren't fake/tampered" Oh really? What emails were fake? what emails were tampered with? The ones that matter, like the ones that reference "the big guy" have been verified in a multitude of ways.
Same MO- wow, that's such a persuasive argument. Literally ANY negative news about a political party can be claimed as part of a Russian plot now, so saying it looks like Russia's MO is literally meaningless, and is only used to throw dirt when you don't have any facts.
"the stolen laptop's" wow man. it wasn't stolen, it was abandoned. You cant even get through a single sentence without some sort of lie or inaccuracy.
signs of tampering? what? EVEN the Washington post said they found no signs of tampering.
Your response is the same word salad I've seen before.
I think you deliberately ignored that I explained why I couldn't find my comment, because it had been "flagged," which meant that the post simply wasn't visible at all. How is that not censorship, especially when my post was innocuous to begin with. If there is something I'm missing, please let me know so I can understand how your comment system works, but neither the title nor content of my post appears until I click the sentence that says, "This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it." But sure, don't bother to explain and keep calling me a moron if it makes you feel better.
pointing to an example of twitter removing the DDOS SECRETS is literally the stupidest argument I've seen you make since your VERY NEXT ARGUMENT says single examples don't prove anything. Funny how you seem to think it only works one way.
You've created a scenario in which no evidence can be considered legitimate because of all the exceptions and variables. Your studies that you cite were conducted by people with a very strong vested interest in not finding bias, so I'm not surprised that they came up empty. The real problem is that facebook and twitter don't share their data for this, so all the researchers are using only publicly available data that they had to find themselves, which is incredibly limited. You're acting like the few studies you've pointed out definitively prove you point, but ignoring their potential bias and looking at their raw data, they aren't using nearly enough data points- they are looking at sample sizes of 200 and less, again, because they are constrained by what's publicly available that they can scrape.
Individual examples matter, whether they suit you or not, and this one is especially important since it could have affected the election. Trying to hide behind "we don't know the decisions that went into it" is unacceptable, especially for something as big as this. this wasn't some random jackass posting shit, it was A NEWS ORGANIZATION that got censored because twitter didn't like the message. Your statement that experts in content moderation would have trouble with deciding whether a NEWS ARTICLE is legitimate is laughable.
Your statement that the hacked materials policy wasn't out yet is also inaccurate. The policy was implemented in 2018, the tax returns exposed in 2019, and same for trumps "perfect" phone call, but ok, I see that it wouldn't have been in place for the Steele dossier, so you're 1 for 3.
You stand by everything you've written? So you still think the Laptop is a disinformation plot? Cause you were all over that narrative in your original post. even in the title you bias is screaming with the word, "supposed." There was zero evidence that it was fake, but sure, go ahead and use weasel words to bias the audience from the start.
I don't understand why you insist on being so corrosive, but as your lackey said, it's your blog. so keep it up big guy, talking shit must really get you going.
The sad part is I really liked, agreed with, and respected you for years, and was a faithful reader, but the second I disagreed with you, you turned on the hate spigot. Disappointing for someone who seemed so intelligent.
Wow. Your behavior is reprehensible, especially as a front man for the blog. Step off your high horse for half a second you jackass. I don't know why I'm wasting my time with you since you seem to refuse to say anything of substance, only abuse, but let's try.
Please explain to me how Twitter's "policy" isn't an example of censorship when it is repeatedly used to blackhole conservative posts but not liberal ones?
Please explain how twitter's choice to censor the hunter story is different from their lack of censorship for trumps tax records, his "perfect" phone call, or the Steele dossier.
A simple answer to this that actually responds to the question would be appreciated. Maybe you could try to write like a professional rather than 5th grader, you know, use some language skills, maybe avoid the cursing, personal attacks, straw man arguments, and other logical fallacies.
By the way, I notice you don't even try to defend your original article about the hunter story, but I get it. If I were that wrong about something being "misinformation" I'd try and pretend it never happened either. I mean, just reading that article says everything about your bias.
Amazing. Love how you act like people have rebutted me when they just ignore points instead, or start straw-man arguments. I've yet to see a single coherent explanation about twitter's double standard for hacked materials. You say it's a policy, therefor isn't censorship. That's a terrible bad-faith argument. It's obvious that nobody has a decent explanation for why Twitter censored a NYPost article but not articles about other obviously illegally obtained (read; hacked) documents like trumps tax returns. Not a single coherent argument.
I used "ctrl f" to find my comments, and none showed up. after reading your post, I looked again, and I have to click on your response to even access it because it's been "flagged". Nice ad hominem though, looking real petty.
The fact is that you made up your mind about this issue a long time ago, and neither hell nor high water is going to change your mind.
Third time I'm writing a comment in three days, last two were censored, and no, there was nothing wrong with the posts. I'll stop beating the horse after this one though, because I'm sure my posts are being censored by someone who's actually reading them.
Mike Masnick has the worst case of confirmation bias that I've ever seen when it comes to conservative censorship. I had to go back and look at the original article he wrote about the hunter biden laptop story, but honestly, it was so cringy it was hard to get through. Filled with potshots at the reporting, nothing even close to a evenhanded analysis. What I find most egregious though is the complete dismissal of the story, which continues even to this blog post. Twitter's "hacked materials" policy is the stupidest smoke screen i've come across, and you people are eating it up hook, line, and sinker.
Nothing about the laptop was hacked. Nothing about it was CLAIMED to be hacked. So... why was the reporting censored if it isn't even applicable as "hacked material?"
Anyone know of a single Trump story that twitter censored for "hacked" materials? That administration was a freaking sieve, with new leaks daily, and none of those were ever censored. What about links to Trump's "perfect" phone call? totally allowed on twitter. Links to that bad boy were never shut down. A man even made a twitter account just to prove that liberal points, no matter how egregious, were never censored, and lo and behold, was only shut down after he went public about it.
"misinformation" is another word for information liberals don't like. A number of commenters are acting like the lab leak theory is still disproven, when most of the evidence has EVEN THE BIDEN ADMIN LEANING 60-40 in favor of the lab leak theory. I thought the lab theory was bullshit myself until we started seeing Fauci's emails. Those emails were available within a few months of this whole thing kicking off, and yet again, practically nobody even heard or knew about them until a few months ago. Nothing to see there I guess. Certainly couldn't be a case of liberal bias...
Why is it that you think conservatives are so much louder about censorship than liberals? I mean, honestly. That's such a lazy argument. Evidence? none needed, lets just slander them all and let god sort them out. Why not go all the way and use your dog whistle to call conservatives racist homophobes while you're at it.
What about facebook moderators bragging about shutting down trump posts? Oh yea, of course, the Lincoln project is all a bunch of lies so we can safely ignore that.
What ever happened to common sense? 95% of the people who control these major companies like twitter and facebook are very much on the left. Biden laptop story comes out just before the election, and magically nobody can talk about it until two years later after Biden safely ensconced.
If it sounds like a duck and looks like a duck, you people start yelling about Zebras.
Quit forming theories and trying to twist facts to fit them.
Well, I tried to comment last night, as I disagreed with Mike, but it appears that dissenting opinions are not allowed. I'm sure that this is just a "mistake," but getting pretty old to see the same mistake repeatedly keeping me from commenting. Odd how my comments that don't disagree never get caught by the filter but every single attempt to post in the past 3 years that disagreed somehow get caught and deleted before anyone could see. Conservative views are censored. Here, on twitter, pretty much everywhere. Keep pushing your nonsense and enjoy living in the echo chamber, I'm sure that will help. Course, I don't even expect this post to get anywhere, so I don't even know why I bother. Not like any of you are going to change your mind, no matter what evidence is put in front of you. The most obvious example being Hunter Biden laptop story, cause it doesn't fit the narrative. Odd how techdirt managed to miss the entire point, not a single blog post about how a story that the liberals didn't like somehow becomes censored on twitter. Couldn't possibly be an example of biased content moderation. nooo, that's just impossible. Just keep your heads in the sand, it's the best place for them.
I've slowly stopped reading techdirt after numerous articles about how there is no lefty bias in moderation. Decided to come back to check the site out, and low and behold, here we are beating the same dead horse. At the time, in a response to one of the articles, I had pointed out about 5 or so different concrete examples of this happening, specifically of conservatives being censored, only for my post to be black holed because... well, I'll leave it to you to figure out why my post was censored. Despite it being extremely polite.
So, the lefties won and I quit reading techdirt. I figure I can be mature and let bygones be bygones, so let's try one more time.
Please, please, PLEASE, use your convoluted logic to explain to me how Twitter's decision to not allow the Post's story about Hunter Biden's laptop wasn't a clear cut case of liberal censorship of a story they didn't like. And please, let's avoid the red herring arguments, like twitter's BS explanation that the materials were "hacked". They certainly didn't care when the shoe was on the other foot and it was hacked dirt on trump they were allowing to be posted. There is plenty of evidence of conservatives getting censored, from people in facebook content moderation bragging about it, to countless youtubers catching it in the shorts. Even breaking points, Krystal and Saager, former staff from "the hill" had multiple NEWS clips getting pulled from youtube because they posted stories that went against the liberal narrative. But please, let's keep pretending that there isn't bias in censorship. Let's ignore common sense, human nature, and our own principles to push the narrative that the tech titans, who just coincidentally happen to be 95% far left liberals, are being, and have always been, completely even handed. I'm sure that will boost your techdirt readership.
First off, I honestly have no idea how to respond with the mental contortions that must be happening in order for these arguments to make sense. I've made the evidence and links as clear as day. Your and Paul's refusal to see that I've provided actual counter-arguments is on y'all. To paraphrase Upton Sinclair, It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his argument depends upon his not understanding it.
And really, you think Crowder is reprehensible? I bet you think Shapiro, or Peterson are also just as bad. Does that mean that you're one of those people who think that every joke about racism is inherently racist? Say goodbye to comedy people, the politically correct police are here! Say goodbye to hyperbole, oh wait, unless its BLM screaming for us to fry the pigs like bacon, or that covid hasn't killed nearly enough white men. Then it's acceptable hyperbole right? Jeeze you people have ZERO consistency.
As for this little gem you left,"If a 'left wing youtuber' is acting as reprehensibly as the examples you noted then they damn well should get the hammer too."
Amazing, and here i thought the horseshoe theory of ideologies had been debunked. Whatever happened to the liberal ideal of "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." You. are. advocating. for. censorship. How in the holy hell can you consider that a good idea after the countless examples of how that goes horribly wrong on this blog alone? I guess neither of you agree with Masnik when he says that the solution to speech you don't like is more speech. Not very surprising, but certainly disappointing.
Nice. To quote Jake Peralta, "Ya boring."
Still talking in circles without a hint of self-awareness, without addressing any of my rebuttals with any sort of substance, and continuing to make personal attacks. Buh bye.
Let me get this straight
So as I understand it, everyone is entitled to US Taxpayer money because they're used to getting it. Make it make sense. The US economy is K shaped for a reason, we're in a massive debt hole, but yea, it's our responsibility to save the world. Average Americans are tired of coming in last. Maybe we should clean up our own country first before throwing billions at everyone else.
It would be funny if it weren't so sad and predictable. This blog has become and ideologues haven. First it was for years claims that censorship of conservative viewpoints were overblown nonsense. Then confronted with evidence that the opposite was the case, everyone here pretends that it wasn't serious and didn't matter. Now we have the exact same thing happening with political violence. Maybe cite a study that doesn't include white nationalists shanking preople in prison as right wing.
More of a free thinker than you, that's for sure. Certainly more of a thinker too, considering that I discuss the issues on their merits, and everyone who's disagreed with me, like yourself, resort to personal attacks because they have no actual argument.
That's the stupidest thing I've seen yet on this comment thread, and that's saying something. You don't even know my politics. I'll give you a hint, I'm not a conservative.
You're so right Mike. It's obvious that because they tried and failed to manipulate people, that it wasn't an attempt at censorship. No harm no foul. You've repeated that asinine argument too many times considering how bad it is. What proof do I need? 95% of academica is liberal. Everyone knows the universities are a hotbed of far left views. I couldn't find the more recent study that shows the 95% number I saw, but it's real. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/6/liberal-professors-outnumber-conservatives-12-1/ As far as this particular study, I already critiqued it, but here you go again for your easy perusal. Same problem as with all the others you keep using to “prove” that there isn’t bias, their data collection is more than a little problematic. “in that it corrected for generally agreed upon false information sharers” This is pretty odd. I guess it makes some level of sense, but this is why I’m so skeptical of studies on this topic because of how hard it is to get good data. They corrected for “false information sharers” not based on individual articles, but by cataloguing websites “by averaging the trustworthiness ratings of all sites whose links they share.” In other words, they’ve rated websites and regardless of the content of of what people linked themselves, assigned it a trustworthiness rating. The problem is that these "neutral" people who rate the trustworthiness of websites or aren't trustworthy themselves. I’ve already explained how these fact checkers they relied on are often incredibly biased themselves, Snopes being a good example. https://nypost.com/2022/02/16/snopes-latest-example-of-fact-checking-the-truth-away/ The authors even stated that their analysis couldn’t prove or disprove the bias allegations, but could only show that conservatives were bigger on misinformation, which in itself is highly problematic. What was called misinformation last year is today's truth so yea, not the best of proxies. Give me a better study.
This study is problematic.
Actually decided to dig into the study. Same problem as with all the others you keep using to "prove" that there isn't bias, their data collection is problematic. "in that it corrected for generally agreed upon false information sharers" This is pretty odd. I guess it makes some level of sense, but this is why I'm so skeptical of studies on this topic because of how hard it is to get good data. They corrected for "false information sharers" not based on individual articles, but by cataloguing websites "by averaging the trustworthiness ratings of all sites whose links they share." In other words, they've rated websites and regardless of the content of the links themselves, assigned it a trustworthiness rating. The authors even stated that their analysis couldn't prove or disprove the bias allegations, but could only show that conservatives were bigger on misinformation. And I've already explained how these fact checkers they relied on are often incredibly biased themselves, snopes being the most obvious example. so yea. Skeptical. Give me a better study.
It feels like half your arguments are tongue in cheek. Twitter and facebook should be regarded as public squares. We don't live in the 1700's any more, people don't congregate in physical spaces, social media apps have taken their place. And if you don't like that argument, then if they want section 230 protections, they certainly shouldn't be putting their thumbs on the scales. Horses not zebras is and idiom about Occam's razor you silly man. If I'm in Africa, sure, it MIGHT be acceptable to think zebra. But in the USA? To quote good 'ol Joe, "C'mon man!" Everyone is twisting themselves into pretzels to try and explain how the laptop story wasn't censorship, when the most obvious and simplest example is that it was.
Studies that find no censorship.
Alright, seriously. Last post. I'm really tired of people holding up these "studies" as proof positive there isn't censorship happening. They are created by people with a vested interest in finding nothing. What do I mean? Consider that academia today is 95% liberal. That's not an exaggeration, that's the latest figures. In this tribal world we live in today, that means that every single study has been performed by people who wouldn't want to find out that their side is doing the censoring. Secondly, their data sets are abysmal because they have to rely on publicly available data. For example, the NYU study, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b6df958f8370af3217d4178/t/6011e68dec2c7013d3caf3cb/1611785871154/NYU+False+Accusation+report_FINAL.pdf has this little gem as their summary of how they know conservatives aren't being censored. "Taken together, these various measures based on engagement suggest that, if the platforms are trying to suppress conservative views, they’re not doing a very good job." Go look at how they decided whether or not censorship is happening. They use engagement as a proxy because they DON'T HAVE THE DATA. In other words, they say, hey, conservatives are getting a lot of posts, lots of hits, lots of engagement, therefor, censorship isn't happening. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that that argument doesn't track logically. It's the difference between correlation and causation. I'm not arguing that there is a blanket censorship of conservatives going on, which for some reason, everyone wants to assume is the argument. Oh yea, its because that argument is a lot easier to refute than the one that's actually being made. I'm arguing that censorship is selectively happening around targeted issues, such as the hunter laptop story. Everyone here seems to act like these studies are proving something, when they are all circumstantial to an extreme fault, using other data as a stand in when it simply doesn't work as a stand in, and when they do have hard data on actual examples of censorship, the sample sizes are so paltry I wouldn't be surprised if there was some serious cherry picking going on. In summary, on one hand, we have highly flawed studies done by groups that have a dog in the fight, on the other hand, we have the Hunter Biden laptop story, a story by a legitimate NEWSPAPER that was CENSORED by Twitter weeks before the election. I mean, what planet are you people living on to ignore direct evidence in favor of highly suspect circumstantial evidence? I just... I don't get it. It's blindingly obvious what happened. Mike acts like this was just an example of poor moderation or policy (that's the most favorable argument he made out of a bunch of nonsense ones...) , but when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.
See, this is the problem that happens when I try to communicate. You respond with nonsense. let's take a walk down memory lane shall we?
- Odd how a post from the 18th doesn't seem to exist on my profile then if it didn't get censored. And yes, I checked the profile. The other censorship I was referring to was two or three years ago, and I received an email explaining that my post was censored and deleted by some automated program. Funnily enough, it was about exactly this same topic. As far as my comment about censorship for this blog post, i've already explained that, yet you act like I should be an expert of a comment system that I hardly ever see or use. I was incorrect about my post here being censored, simply because I don't know what to call it when it's "hidden" and I appreciate the information about being able to see my posts in my profile, as I didn't know that. Regardless, my point stands. I make a disagreement and my post gets flagged? How fragile this community must be.
- I never made the claim that ONLY conservative posts have been censored, that's another straw man argument. In fact, if I were trying to censor conservatives and get away with it, you better believe I'd be censoring some liberal posts too as a smoke screen. I made this argument in the original post a few years ago, in which I criticized a study you cited then, because the numbers of posts censored isn't actually that important if you are trying to craft a narrative- what do you think is going to happen if I censor 100 liberal posts by people with less than 100 followers, and then censor 100 conservative posts by more influential people? One might see that only raw numbers is somewhat meaningless in the that context.
- another straw man argument. it's like you're allergic to responding to the issue at hand. I NEVER argued that it impacted the election. I said that attempts to censor information like that COULD have influenced it, and I guess the unsaid part, the part that I assumed any reasonable human would understand, is that it COULD HAVE affected the election if conservatives and other media didn't go ham on reporting about it. They still tried to control the narrative by blackholing a story. I THINK that basically you are saying no harm no foul, they didn't get away with it, so therefor it doesn't matter, which is pretty far out there bud.
- "you have little patience for idiots who scream wrong things and insist they're right." Wow. I mean, I could write a 500 word essay on how pathetic you are to respond to criticisms of your arguments with criticism of my character. It speaks to a weak mind and an insecure person. And yea, I'm attacking your character now bud because you've been nothing but an asshole in every response who has been unable to directly respond to the substance of the argument.
- you better believe I don't trust a Facebook study about Facebook, ESPECIALLY when the results will materially matter. What kind of a moron would? Every time the police are in charge of looking into their own wrongdoing, you make the exact same argument, yet you seem to have forgotten it here.
- I actually am interested in your evidence about facebook changing rules to allow more right leaning content, can you please share it? I ask because I seem to remember hearing about posts being flagged for potentially misleading information, then I get linked to a snopes page. Snopes is so far left they contort themselves into pretzels to defend Biden, calling things false that have only the tiniest of problems. Here's an example. https://nypost.com/2022/02/16/snopes-latest-example-of-fact-checking-the-truth-away/
So yea, sorry to get on a tangent, but I'd love to see what rules are going to be beneficial only for far right that wouldn't also also be beneficial for far left.
Let's compare posts, shall we? The most aggressive thing I said in my first two posts was that you had a bad case of confirmation bias, and that your article on the laptop was cringy. You on the other hand, go off the deep end with all sorts of personal attacks that were completely irrelevant to the issue at hand. It's just unprofessional, you really should hold yourself to a higher standard.Nice.
You should probably step out of your echo chamber once in a while. What exactly is the lie?
Still killing it.
Your response is the same word salad I've seen before.
- I think you deliberately ignored that I explained why I couldn't find my comment, because it had been "flagged," which meant that the post simply wasn't visible at all. How is that not censorship, especially when my post was innocuous to begin with. If there is something I'm missing, please let me know so I can understand how your comment system works, but neither the title nor content of my post appears until I click the sentence that says, "This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it." But sure, don't bother to explain and keep calling me a moron if it makes you feel better.
- pointing to an example of twitter removing the DDOS SECRETS is literally the stupidest argument I've seen you make since your VERY NEXT ARGUMENT says single examples don't prove anything. Funny how you seem to think it only works one way.
- You've created a scenario in which no evidence can be considered legitimate because of all the exceptions and variables. Your studies that you cite were conducted by people with a very strong vested interest in not finding bias, so I'm not surprised that they came up empty. The real problem is that facebook and twitter don't share their data for this, so all the researchers are using only publicly available data that they had to find themselves, which is incredibly limited. You're acting like the few studies you've pointed out definitively prove you point, but ignoring their potential bias and looking at their raw data, they aren't using nearly enough data points- they are looking at sample sizes of 200 and less, again, because they are constrained by what's publicly available that they can scrape.
Individual examples matter, whether they suit you or not, and this one is especially important since it could have affected the election. Trying to hide behind "we don't know the decisions that went into it" is unacceptable, especially for something as big as this. this wasn't some random jackass posting shit, it was A NEWS ORGANIZATION that got censored because twitter didn't like the message. Your statement that experts in content moderation would have trouble with deciding whether a NEWS ARTICLE is legitimate is laughable. Your statement that the hacked materials policy wasn't out yet is also inaccurate. The policy was implemented in 2018, the tax returns exposed in 2019, and same for trumps "perfect" phone call, but ok, I see that it wouldn't have been in place for the Steele dossier, so you're 1 for 3.- You stand by everything you've written? So you still think the Laptop is a disinformation plot? Cause you were all over that narrative in your original post. even in the title you bias is screaming with the word, "supposed." There was zero evidence that it was fake, but sure, go ahead and use weasel words to bias the audience from the start.
I don't understand why you insist on being so corrosive, but as your lackey said, it's your blog. so keep it up big guy, talking shit must really get you going. The sad part is I really liked, agreed with, and respected you for years, and was a faithful reader, but the second I disagreed with you, you turned on the hate spigot. Disappointing for someone who seemed so intelligent.Wow. Your behavior is reprehensible, especially as a front man for the blog. Step off your high horse for half a second you jackass. I don't know why I'm wasting my time with you since you seem to refuse to say anything of substance, only abuse, but let's try. Please explain to me how Twitter's "policy" isn't an example of censorship when it is repeatedly used to blackhole conservative posts but not liberal ones? Please explain how twitter's choice to censor the hunter story is different from their lack of censorship for trumps tax records, his "perfect" phone call, or the Steele dossier. A simple answer to this that actually responds to the question would be appreciated. Maybe you could try to write like a professional rather than 5th grader, you know, use some language skills, maybe avoid the cursing, personal attacks, straw man arguments, and other logical fallacies. By the way, I notice you don't even try to defend your original article about the hunter story, but I get it. If I were that wrong about something being "misinformation" I'd try and pretend it never happened either. I mean, just reading that article says everything about your bias.
Wow.
Amazing. Love how you act like people have rebutted me when they just ignore points instead, or start straw-man arguments. I've yet to see a single coherent explanation about twitter's double standard for hacked materials. You say it's a policy, therefor isn't censorship. That's a terrible bad-faith argument. It's obvious that nobody has a decent explanation for why Twitter censored a NYPost article but not articles about other obviously illegally obtained (read; hacked) documents like trumps tax returns. Not a single coherent argument. I used "ctrl f" to find my comments, and none showed up. after reading your post, I looked again, and I have to click on your response to even access it because it's been "flagged". Nice ad hominem though, looking real petty. The fact is that you made up your mind about this issue a long time ago, and neither hell nor high water is going to change your mind.
I'm sure this will get censored too.
Third time I'm writing a comment in three days, last two were censored, and no, there was nothing wrong with the posts. I'll stop beating the horse after this one though, because I'm sure my posts are being censored by someone who's actually reading them. Mike Masnick has the worst case of confirmation bias that I've ever seen when it comes to conservative censorship. I had to go back and look at the original article he wrote about the hunter biden laptop story, but honestly, it was so cringy it was hard to get through. Filled with potshots at the reporting, nothing even close to a evenhanded analysis. What I find most egregious though is the complete dismissal of the story, which continues even to this blog post. Twitter's "hacked materials" policy is the stupidest smoke screen i've come across, and you people are eating it up hook, line, and sinker.
- Nothing about the laptop was hacked. Nothing about it was CLAIMED to be hacked. So... why was the reporting censored if it isn't even applicable as "hacked material?"
- Anyone know of a single Trump story that twitter censored for "hacked" materials? That administration was a freaking sieve, with new leaks daily, and none of those were ever censored. What about links to Trump's "perfect" phone call? totally allowed on twitter. Links to that bad boy were never shut down. A man even made a twitter account just to prove that liberal points, no matter how egregious, were never censored, and lo and behold, was only shut down after he went public about it.
- "misinformation" is another word for information liberals don't like. A number of commenters are acting like the lab leak theory is still disproven, when most of the evidence has EVEN THE BIDEN ADMIN LEANING 60-40 in favor of the lab leak theory. I thought the lab theory was bullshit myself until we started seeing Fauci's emails. Those emails were available within a few months of this whole thing kicking off, and yet again, practically nobody even heard or knew about them until a few months ago. Nothing to see there I guess. Certainly couldn't be a case of liberal bias...
- Why is it that you think conservatives are so much louder about censorship than liberals? I mean, honestly. That's such a lazy argument. Evidence? none needed, lets just slander them all and let god sort them out. Why not go all the way and use your dog whistle to call conservatives racist homophobes while you're at it.
- What about facebook moderators bragging about shutting down trump posts? Oh yea, of course, the Lincoln project is all a bunch of lies so we can safely ignore that.
- What ever happened to common sense? 95% of the people who control these major companies like twitter and facebook are very much on the left. Biden laptop story comes out just before the election, and magically nobody can talk about it until two years later after Biden safely ensconced.
If it sounds like a duck and looks like a duck, you people start yelling about Zebras. Quit forming theories and trying to twist facts to fit them.Quit using the spam filter as an excuse for censorship.
Well, I tried to comment last night, as I disagreed with Mike, but it appears that dissenting opinions are not allowed. I'm sure that this is just a "mistake," but getting pretty old to see the same mistake repeatedly keeping me from commenting. Odd how my comments that don't disagree never get caught by the filter but every single attempt to post in the past 3 years that disagreed somehow get caught and deleted before anyone could see. Conservative views are censored. Here, on twitter, pretty much everywhere. Keep pushing your nonsense and enjoy living in the echo chamber, I'm sure that will help. Course, I don't even expect this post to get anywhere, so I don't even know why I bother. Not like any of you are going to change your mind, no matter what evidence is put in front of you. The most obvious example being Hunter Biden laptop story, cause it doesn't fit the narrative. Odd how techdirt managed to miss the entire point, not a single blog post about how a story that the liberals didn't like somehow becomes censored on twitter. Couldn't possibly be an example of biased content moderation. nooo, that's just impossible. Just keep your heads in the sand, it's the best place for them.
Mike, it's time to quit digging the hole.
I've slowly stopped reading techdirt after numerous articles about how there is no lefty bias in moderation. Decided to come back to check the site out, and low and behold, here we are beating the same dead horse. At the time, in a response to one of the articles, I had pointed out about 5 or so different concrete examples of this happening, specifically of conservatives being censored, only for my post to be black holed because... well, I'll leave it to you to figure out why my post was censored. Despite it being extremely polite. So, the lefties won and I quit reading techdirt. I figure I can be mature and let bygones be bygones, so let's try one more time. Please, please, PLEASE, use your convoluted logic to explain to me how Twitter's decision to not allow the Post's story about Hunter Biden's laptop wasn't a clear cut case of liberal censorship of a story they didn't like. And please, let's avoid the red herring arguments, like twitter's BS explanation that the materials were "hacked". They certainly didn't care when the shoe was on the other foot and it was hacked dirt on trump they were allowing to be posted. There is plenty of evidence of conservatives getting censored, from people in facebook content moderation bragging about it, to countless youtubers catching it in the shorts. Even breaking points, Krystal and Saager, former staff from "the hill" had multiple NEWS clips getting pulled from youtube because they posted stories that went against the liberal narrative. But please, let's keep pretending that there isn't bias in censorship. Let's ignore common sense, human nature, and our own principles to push the narrative that the tech titans, who just coincidentally happen to be 95% far left liberals, are being, and have always been, completely even handed. I'm sure that will boost your techdirt readership.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hitchen's Razor
First off, I honestly have no idea how to respond with the mental contortions that must be happening in order for these arguments to make sense. I've made the evidence and links as clear as day. Your and Paul's refusal to see that I've provided actual counter-arguments is on y'all. To paraphrase Upton Sinclair, It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his argument depends upon his not understanding it. And really, you think Crowder is reprehensible? I bet you think Shapiro, or Peterson are also just as bad. Does that mean that you're one of those people who think that every joke about racism is inherently racist? Say goodbye to comedy people, the politically correct police are here! Say goodbye to hyperbole, oh wait, unless its BLM screaming for us to fry the pigs like bacon, or that covid hasn't killed nearly enough white men. Then it's acceptable hyperbole right? Jeeze you people have ZERO consistency. As for this little gem you left,"If a 'left wing youtuber' is acting as reprehensibly as the examples you noted then they damn well should get the hammer too." Amazing, and here i thought the horseshoe theory of ideologies had been debunked. Whatever happened to the liberal ideal of "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." You. are. advocating. for. censorship. How in the holy hell can you consider that a good idea after the countless examples of how that goes horribly wrong on this blog alone? I guess neither of you agree with Masnik when he says that the solution to speech you don't like is more speech. Not very surprising, but certainly disappointing.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hitchen's Razor
must be nice living in fantasy land.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hitchen's Razor
Nice. To quote Jake Peralta, "Ya boring." Still talking in circles without a hint of self-awareness, without addressing any of my rebuttals with any sort of substance, and continuing to make personal attacks. Buh bye.