Fact checkers weren't deleting posts and didn't even have the right to do so. They are separate journalistic orgs tagging posts. Deleting is done by Meta moderators, which is something else entirely.
I think you also just proved my point that if HN users can't even get basic facts about an event right, how do you expect the average FB user to do so? Goes to show that even on HN "community noting" would be a disaster.
The problem with "fact-checking" is that if it's done by humans at all then it will be heavily biased.
With Silicon-Valley people being in charge of "fact-checking" for the past decade there's been countless examples of them doing mass cancellations calling things lies that we all know ended up being true.
I mean, we can’t be correct retroactively can we?? I dont think all the doctors that came before antibiotics should be blamed for not knowing Germ theory.
IS this a reasonable expectation of fact checking?
I’m very curious now, I actually would love takes on this. I feel we are implying that the standards of fact checking validity weren’t met, but the standards haven’t been stated.
The reason censorship is generally undesirable is because it assumes the person doing the censoring is always correct, and that they're infallible perfect arbiters of truth incapable of letting their political motivations dictate their censorship decisions...which is of course false. They're very often wrong, and always make decisions based on their political leanings, even when it contradicts the evidence.
Free Speech has nothing to do with whether information is correct or not. It's only about stopping Tyranny. No one should be allowed to control another person's speech because speech is the most basic form of freedom and if you can remove speech freedom you can remove all other freedoms too.
Removing Freedom of Speech is the first thing Tyrannical gov'ts do to control people. Look at what Trudeau tried to do to Canadians, and look at the UK also. People are now being put in JAIL for being rude online. Luckily conservatives all around the world are fed up and finally fighting back.
” But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may
come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas-that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself
accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment.”
If you're wanting to claim that `Cancel Culture` never happened, then I'm afraid, at this point in history, the burden of proof is on you, not me. lol.
No one needs proof Cancel Culture was real. Everyone knows at this point. So you can pretend you need proof if you want, but you're not fooling anyone.
See, thats not how it works in productive conversations. “Adult” so to speak conversations online, require the person making the claim to provide the evidence.
The act of not providing the evidence, is essentially a sign of not having an argument, and resorting to bluffs in the hope that people will take the emotions as facts.
But thats entirely self defeating - it reduces your argument to one about feels and vibes.
I always find this to be annoying, because I dont think people are so inaccurate.
You may well have evidence, and bringing it up makes the case.
And if you dont find evidence, then you improve your own argument. You end up checking and figuring out what made you hold that position.
It’s just a lost chance. And if people said they dont care to do this, then why the heck did they make the effort? You just lost your peace for no reason.
sorry, I only read your first sentence, but for something as well known as "Cancel Culture" if someone claims it must be proven to exist before it can be discussed then that is the person who's not acting in good faith, and has immediately discredited themselves, due to ignorance of very well known facts.
Asking people to list evidence for well known things is a well known troll-tactic, and often used as a way to deflect and redirect a discussion into the specifics of specific cases, especially when the main argument has nothing to do with any of the specific cases.
Be fair. You may be getting downvoted but I think that you are arguing in good faith.
If it helps. I’m not a troll.
There IS a norm where the person making the claim is expected to provide evidence the evidence.
If you asked me, I would have to get something to show you. (Do ask, if only it creates effort on my side to make it fair)
And I don’t think the issue here is whether cancel culture exists.
If you go through your comment chain, your original claim was that it was countless example, ie one of magnitude.
Based on that, you dismissed fact checking entirely.
Which is what people are basically responding to.
Not that cancel culture didn’t exist- but that it was mostly wrong.
And therefore - that fact checking is mostly wrong.
I also have seen fact checking in other countries other than America - it’s absolutely correct in many situations, but is still problematic because it’s unpopular.
The above person was trying to pretend there's no evidence for the existence of Cancel Culture, totally discrediting themselves. To be honest, there are indeed MSM/CNN watchers who are so completely brainwashed that they do genuinely believe that; but more than likely they're trolling so I just avoid them entirely.
There was a long period where people were getting banned from Twitter and Meta platforms for posting (true) claims about the Hunter Biden laptop story (which was, of course, extremely politically consequential)
If you read the article you linked to, you find that 1) Twitter blocked tweets about the WP story, not banned users, and 2) they reversed that decision and unblocked the tweets 24 hours later as they realized their mistake.
It took the corporate media (CNN, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, PBS, etc) a full 3.5 years to admit the laptop was real. It wasn't just some little thing like you're trying to portray it as. It made the difference in the 2020 election.
Yes, people would care that the presidents adult son is pointing a gun at a prostitutes head on video.
Your attempt to minimise this as “people don’t care about a laptop” is either incredibly ignorant of this matter or deliberately misleading framing of the question.
The people saying the laptop doesn't matter are the same ones who believed the MSM story that it was Russian disinfo for 3.5 years.
They won't allow themselves to think it's important because that's an open admission (to themselves and others) of how thoroughly brainwashed they've become by trusting the MSM left-wing perspectives on every issue.
> contained the Ohio US senator’s social security number
Great. I’m not sure why you think that’s relevant to this subject but I’m glad to know this happened, just as I am sure you would be if this had happened to you.
There's no comparison at all there to the laptop. The scandal about the Hunter Laptop was the fact that every MSM network plus the FBI, CIA, and deep state, and all Democrat bureaucrats all colluded to hide the truth, about it, even called for censorship of Americans over it, cancelling even high profile people by the thousands, and ended up swinging an election. There were even democrat politicians who urged not just social media, but phone companies to stop people from even texting at all about the Hunter laptop.
Big Tech, Mainstream Media, FBI, the Deep State, and every Democrat politician claimed that laptop was fake for 3.5 years. Sure, lots of them knew it was a lie, but the majority of the actual public was completely hoodwinked, because they hadn't yet realized there was this big left-wing cabal of power conspiring to lie as much as it takes to push the left-wing narratives.
Didnt people dismiss it initially, then change tune once it was confirmed? All the liberal sides knew it existed, they were mostly focused on the fact that the prosecution was being incredibly focused, which was out of the norm for how cases like that are typically punished.
Nobody ever cared that Biden's son was a crackhead. That wasn't the scandal. The scandal was the censorship and gas-lighting that was done against conservatives by all powerful democrats (FBI, MSM, Gov't, Big Tech, Universities). The gas-lighting has gone on for over a decade ranging from pee tapes, horse-meds, bleach drinking, border is secure, Biden sharp as a tack, Kamala in favor of Border walls, and 100s of other lies for a decade.
I’ve seen this happen before. Back in the good ole days of the libertarian internet.
You had subreddits which had zero moderation, because again “the best ideas succeed”. Those places got filled with the hate speech, vitriol, harassment, stalking and toxicity.
Minorities and women left, because they were basically hunted.
Logical arguments dont work, because hate, harassment and anger are emotionally driven behaviors.
This creates the toxic water cooler effect. The fact that its ok to say horrible things, attracts more people who are happy to say those things.
You lose diversity of arguments, view points and chances to challenge ideas.
You increase radicalization, dramatically speed up the sharing and conversion of anger into action.
Eventually, the subs brought in moderation. As did every social media platform in existence. The people who didn’t like it, created their own spaces.
Which didn’t do well. Because those positions and spaces are NOT popular. Facing this fact, they are now turning to shut off opposition and moderation, because that is necessary to keep the ball going.
This isn’t even opinion, this is the history of the past 30 years. It’s not even that old!
I really do hope this time its different. Genuinely, I said it when the new communities were created. I meant it then, I mean it now.
Moderation is fucking toxic and unhealthy. I rejoined moderation recently, and in the first 10 frikking items, I had to see a dead baby pic from an un covered ethnic war zone.
I really want this to succeed, and want it to be good for users. I am hoping it is.
But experience is clear - making space for hurtful speech, results in more hurtful speech and people just leaving to places where they dont have to be harassed.
Blue sky should probably see a jump in users over time this year.
