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Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views (bloomberg.com)
According to a new Pew Research Center study, 72 percent of those polled (from a sample of 4,594 adults) think it's likely companies such as Facebook and Twitter actively censor political views that they consider objectionable. The study finds that Americans don't trust those companies to be impartial when it comes to partisan politics. Bloomberg reports: Republicans, more than their Democratic counterparts, displayed concern over perceived political bias. Eighty-five percent of Republicans and those who labeled themselves conservative independents said it's likely that social media platforms censor political speech. And 64 percent of Republicans think technology companies support the views of liberals over conservatives. The majority of Democrats, meanwhile, think it's likely that social media platforms censor political viewpoints, coming in at 62 percent. But only about a quarter of Democrats worry that these companies support the views of conservatives over liberals.
As volatile as politics are now, I wouldn't trust anyone to be "objective" anymore. Shit, even my local donut shop is starting to get too heavy-handed with the politics on their Facebook page.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
"Determined by algorithm" doesn't mean the result is impartial. It just means it happened systematically.
I don't understand why it is that anyone trusts these companies at all when it comes to anything.
I hate the thought that we may look back fondly one day soon on an earlier era where most businesses welcomed all customers, regardless of their political beliefs. The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised to see most Silicon Valley-based social media platforms outright banning all posts supporting Trump by the 2020 elections, combined with a backlash from the right that only ratchets up the anger on both sides.
It's just not healthy for us to take politics this personally. A similar thing happened in the U.S. in the 1850's, with Congressmen literally beating each other on the Senate floor. And it ultimately lead to a civil war.
This story, which suggests more right-wingers think companies are biased toward left-wing politics reminds me of a fun quote: "Reality has a liberal bias." I suspect, based on politics in the USA at the moment, Republicans are running out of excuses as to why the world doesn't agree with their views. Suspecting censorship and blaming "fake news" seems to be all they have remaining to keep their bubble intact.
It's kind of like watching religious people claim evolution is fake or that you can't test for the existence of God because He needs to be taken on faith. The amount of mental twisting and denial is amazing and horrifying to watch.
Yeah! Fuck the "most Americans", they almost gave us Hillary!
Slashdot and UNITED STATES CONGRESS are tools of INFIDELS. All who use Slashdot shall PERISH. Only Almighty Allah shall be a reliable source of news.
In my opinion, the issue became palpable in the 1990s with the beginning of the consumer internet age, the massive expansion of telecommunications powers, and the beginnings of the anti-public education campaign. The truth is that the vast majority of people in American have no clue how these businesses work or how their tech works. And they're OK with it because they like what their tech gives them AND they actually like complaining about it. Everyone wants an easy life of luxurious rebellion.
"Yes, I want to be able to say three words to my handheld device and for that device to tell me exactly how to get home... but I HATE that this corporation knows where I live! They have too much power!"
Thus, I can't be surprised when told that people love their Facebook and Twitter with one tongue and speak conspiracy with another. We keep teaching people be exactly like this.
I would settle for a moment of peace where every "friend" on Facebook or Twitter didn't feel the need to bombard with insipid inspirational quotes and the tiniest of details on every moment of their boring fucking lives. "I just took a shit this morning, and so here's an inspirational quote about shitting that I absolutely need to share with the world," said every friend and relative of mine on Facebook every day.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Tech companies aren't biased against Republicans
How many times has Obama's Twitter account been deleted compared to Trump?
I follow a lot of people who are both liberal and conservative, on Twitter and Facebook. I have see tons more conservatives being hit by things like shadow bans or outright bans on Twitter than I have seen any liberals affected.
It's pretty obvious Twitter hires quite a few people to police abuse on Twitter, and some themselves abuse that power to moderate that which they do not like reading.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As an American it saddens me to truthfully say that most Americans today are dumbasses. Most especially, those who regularly ingest the mental poison that is Fox News are the dumbest of the dumb and - not surprisingly for a group locked into the Religious Right - believe their bullshit with religious fervor and are thus immutable to logic and reason. Jesus wept.
Well, in this case "objective" generally means letting people shoot their mouths off without censoring them for it, even if they're dumbasses who you strongly disagree with--in fact *especially* if they're dumbasses who you strongly disagree with. If every social media company only allows people to speak who agree with them, then all you're going to get is an echo chamber that, like an inbred trailer park, only gets more-and-more stupid, radical, and out-of-touch over time.
Letting the other side speak is how we remind ourselves that the world isn't just comprised of our own fragrant farts.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Barring some yuuuge change, we are headed for a civil war or split-up.
I'm hoping that Millennials will turn back from the brink when they realize that there isn't an app for civil war.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The important question isn't "How would you treat Hitler?" The important question is "How would you actually know he was Hitler and not just someone you had mistaken him for?" And it's a pretty important question in an era where everyone thinks they know exactly who Hitler is but, when asked to point him out, they all point to different people.
Will the real Hitler please stand up, please stand up, please stand up...
Plenty is getting done at the federal level. Problem is, the left is extremely angry about it. Instead of trying to win votes, they're aggressively attacking anyone who thinks differently from them. See the Bernie-Bro assassination attempt on Scalisle, the attack on Rand Paul, following Sarah Sanders to the next restaurant after asking her to leave, Maxine Waters advocating stalking people, the harassment of the Florida attorney general.... the list goes on. The left, now more than ever, thinks that they're so much better than their opponents that any depraved act is justified to get back on top.
Fact is they're nuts and going insane with rage. While I derive some guilty pleasure from watching youtube videos of far-away left wing cranks going apoplectic; it's not so fun seeing someone I know and like (who has been a generous host to me at several parties) falling apart on facebook. Her world is collapsing because folks she doesn't agree with got elected, and they're starting to play by some of the rules established by the left under Obama.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
One of the reasons I quit facebook a few years ago was that I was getting too much political propaganda in my feeds through friends sharing every crack-pot theory. It was definitely not biased towards a liberal view point.
The fringes on both ends of the spectrum are virtually the same, basically militant in their approach. I'm more concerned with the mainstream conservatives willing to sell out their values simply to support the candidate with the R next to his name. Anyone thinking Trump is religious is a fool.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
You could turn it around on them. Start broadcasting genuinely factual tidbits with meme-worthy inspirational backgrounds.
[Insert hazy sunrise]
"The vast majority of stock investors are equally likely to lose money on an investment as they are to make money. On the other hand, investing in 'index funds' is like investing in the general growth of a market sector and is significantly more predictable in its success."
[Insert cat hanging from branch]
"Gravity is technically still a 'theory' because while we can predict gravity's effect on objects, we can't explain exactly why it happens. It could be the exchange of a tiny particle (a "graviton"), it could be because of the way things "vibrate". We just don't know for sure yet."
[Insert beautiful feast]
"All the best studies have shown that fad diets don't do much for the long-term fitness of the vast majority of people who try them. While they may see significant body changes in the short run, they typically require too much change from one's comfort level to keep one's progress for more than 6 months. What's the best way to drop pounds and feel better? Reduce your sweets intake, cook your own food, and move around more."
8 Miserable Years of Prosperity.
Part of the problem is politics has gone beyond policy, but to identity.
If you are the tough guy then you should be a republican.
If you are an intellectual then you are a democrat.
If your religious then you are a republican.
If your an atheist then you are a democrat.
It isn’t about policy anymore it is personal. It is about the other side trying to stop your way of life and your values.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Inciting Violence. I'm going to be completely blunt. The reason the right wing (I refuse to call people in favor of radical change "Conservative") get more bans is there's a lot of them hinting at violence.
Oh brutha please.
Leftists literally say "punch a nazi" (meaning their peaceful political opponents, not actual nazis) and mean it, and nobody cares.
He's talking about the constant accusations of Nazi where it doesn't apply and the devaluation of the term.
Own guns? Nazi.
Voted for anyone right wing? Nazi
Deport illegal immigrants? Nazi
Keep criminals in a processing facility to verify who they are? Nazi concentration camp!
We've stopped caring about it. Nazi is a buzzword at this point. It's become almost meaningless.
and really the truth - not one sided political noise - you've got to examine multiple news sources. If all you listen to is MSNBC or FOX then you're only going to get opposite ends of the spectrum. The exact same news story will be reported through a political lens, skewed this way or that to advance a given agenda.
Me? I listen to NPR and I watch FOX and I browse various news sites on the interweb. Somewhere in all that lies the truth. When I hear news I am skeptical. I ask myself what agenda are they trying to sell. And EVERYONE has an agenda. Everyone.
So the trick is to recognize where the news reporting ends and the editorial begins. In the old days, Walter Cronkite would announce "and now for tonight's editorial..." so you knew that what you were about to hear was opinion. Today it is all interspersed so it can be difficult to tell where the reporting ends and the opinion begins.
don't be so fucking stupid.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Social media reinforces homogeneity. Part of it is the echo chamber effect, partly because it is so easy to find people based on your opinions and interests.
When you are 'forced' to interact with neighbours, colleagues etc. even with location and social strata providing some conformity, there's still a greater need to accomodate differences of opinion and even belief. At the same time, being accepted and knowing that you 'belong' even if you don't have exactly the same beliefs and opinions means that there's less pressure to conform.
Finding and knowing your role in a community is a powerful drive. Communication technology has taken our drive to belong and exaggerated it into something unhealthy.
Compromise is no longer as necessary. People are unpractised at it and it takes work to overcome our 'us and them' drive. Easier to simply find a place of like minded people and not deal with 'other'. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Trump only demanded that the existing laws on the treatment of illegal immigrants be enforced. And he inherited these laws from his predecessors. The illegal immigrants bring minor children with them because they work better than a passport. If you want to invade the US all you need to do is bring a child with you. Although over 1/3rd of the minor children being detained crossed the border by themselves. Obama was partial to making executive orders and that is not always a bad thing. Relying on executive orders for the country's immigration policy is not a good solution. The Legislative Branch is the guilty party in the immigration policy debate. The Democrats are crying about the detained children but have not offered a solution to the problem. They are content to use the detained children to attack the President. The Democrats and Republicans that make up the Legislative branch is ultimately responsible for almost every problem the country faces. Immigration, trade, military deployments, and the economy. And the braying public doesn't even understand that the Executive Branch does not have the power to effect the major issues of the day. The President is just the front man. A President cannot dictate laws or even influence the national budget. While every one is focused on the President related investigation the actual culprits are safely out of the spotlight. And the Democrats, Socialists, Communist, Republicans, and Independents are all guilty of forgetting that every action creates a reaction. The Democrat calling for people to harass anyone working for Trump better be ready for a Republican to push back. And for god's sake there is another Presidential election in 2 years and Trump will be gone. Relentlessly hounding everything he says or does just means the next Democrat to become President will face the same type of tactics.
And the post asking if you would you serve Hitler if he came into your business establishment is a trick question. Hitler would have just killed or imprisoned anyone trying to dictate any of his actions.
So what if the facts are wrong?
Then they're not facts, and you refute them with actual facts. Duh.
The pertinent question isn't really "what if they're wrong"; it's "what if they're right". If you have a policy of censoring anyone you believe to be wrong, you aren't even leaving yourself open to the possibility that YOU might be wrong. This is how dictatorships operate. They don't argue with you, they don't consider your position, they just shut you up and lock you away the moment you say anything they don't like.
I would far rather have a marketplace of ideas in which any crank can say whatever stupid thing pops into their mind than a marketplace of ideas where only popular things can be said. The former might be annoying and anarchic, but the latter is far, far more dangerous. All progress ceases when intelligent disagreements aren't even allowed to take place.
Ask Milo why he called for violent assault on the press.
He didn't. He made an offhand barb in private correspondence with reporters who emailed him asking for comment. They then reported his words in "the news". If any violence erupted from that it would be their fault, not his. You might rightly view his words as insulting, rude, or otherwise indicative of a douchebag, but only a moron would see them as "calling for violence".
Had he made the same comment on twitter, or another public forum, or even just egged on his followers in private, that would be a different story. But he didn't.
Straw man.
The examples were provided as a refutation of the 'it is legal' defence.
Horseshit. "The examples" were themselves a strawman since nobody ever argued that legal and moral are the same thing. The previous guy merely pointed out that the government is enforcing the law the way they're supposed to, rather than ignoring it the way a certain previous administration did.
You think the law is immoral? Great, start a campaign to change it. Meanwhile the government has a duty to enforce it as it's written.
It's neither dishonesty nor hyperbole when 45's "fine people" are literally marching in the streets with the swastika. Sorry, not sorry... if it talks like a nazi, goose-steps like a nazi, and sieg heil's like a nazi; it's a goddamned nazi.
Imagine all the people...
Maybe the question is "why do we keep calling people with different political views Hitler/Nazis?"
I mean, enforcing borders laws + procedures that have been around for years (even pre-Obama) suddenly means the fourth reich.
The answer of course, is that the people saying this are being manipulated by the Democrats, with other people being manipulated by the Republicans.
We shouldn't allow little-Stalinists to censor freedom of speech. EVER.
snip...
Obama was partial to making executive orders and that is not always a bad thing. Relying on executive orders for the country's immigration policy is not a good solution
snip....
If Obama was indeed partial to making executive orders what would that make all the other presidents prior to him in the last hundred years? Wikipedia shows that they either did more executive orders or did more per year spent in office than Obama. Of the more recent presidents, only H.W Bush had less executive orders, but he only spent 1 term in office.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I know how tech works, and I know that algorithmically it is possible to design a map gadget that does not tell google where I live. Hell, even google maps works offline.
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
That comment was about the Charlottesville "Unite the Right" participants. Here is the transcript:
REPORTER: The neo-Nazis started this thing. They showed up in Charlottesville.
TRUMP: Excuse me, they didn't put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group â" excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down, of to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.
Trump is saying that some of the Unite the Right protesters were "very fine people" despite their decision to associate and march with people openly displaying swastikas and chanting "blood and soil" while holding their burning torches and wearing 1488 t-shirts.
In any case, the bigger issue was his failure to swiftly and completely condemn the nationalists. If you can't even say "Nazis are bad" or "I dislike people who want to create an ethnostate in the US" then there is a problem. To be fair to Trump, he probably doesn't like those people and doesn't agree with them, but because parts of his base are associated with them or share some of their views he won't directly condemn them.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
So everyone that choses to march or support black lives matter are responsible for what the more extreme in their group said since they didn't branch off and make their own separate march?
If it's possible for illegals to obtain what passes for welfare benefits in the US, then perhaps the US benefits system needs to be fixed. In other countries I've lived in, you're required to show proof that you're a citizen or legal resident before the social assistance people will even talk to you for help with anything other than maybe a one-way ticket home
so you support bring refugee children in and then starving them and denying them medical treatment?
I know that's not what your saying but I guarantee that would be the next argument
The best way to hide a lie is to bury it in truths.
If it's possible for illegals to obtain what passes for welfare benefits in the US, then perhaps the US benefits system needs to be fixed
The vast majority of US benefits require that you show citizenship or a green card (permanent, non-citizen resident).
There's a tiny bit of benefits available to everyone, but that's things like emergency room treatment at a hospital. You can't live on them.
However, the vast majority of Republicans believe "welfare" 1) still exists (it ended in the 1990s), 2) is far more generous than it actually is, and 3) that there are more programs than actually exist. They have believed this since the 1980s and are not going to return to reality any time soon.
Abolishing it would instantly disenfranchise 90% of the states
90% of the states are already effectively disenfranchised. A Republican in CA effectively can not vote for President. Same with a Democrat in TX.
presidential elections would be effectively decided by NYC and LA/SFO
Population of Los Angeles County: 10M
Population of San Francisco County: 870K
Population of the counties that make up New York City: 14.5M
Population of the United States: 325.7M
So, your argument is 7.8% of the population would have complete control over presidential elections, and that would be bad.
Population of Ohio: 11.6M
Population of Florida: 20.9M
11.6% of the population already has complete control over presidential elections, thanks to the electoral college. Isn't that bad? Shouldn't a presidential candidate care about the millions of Republicans in CA or the millions of Democrats in TX?
Theoretically, small states are protected by over-representation the Senate. In reality, we have not expanded the size of the House since the 1910s, so small states are currently over-represented in the House, the Senate and the Presidency. Shouldn't at least one position in our federal government not be determined by small states?
Those the weasel words of a person who supports heinous acts but doesn't want to be held responsible for them. Cowardly and intellectually dishonest. If you think the law is a good one, own it.
What kind of a cunt thinks that its "weasel words" to tell people how to fix something they see as a problem?
I DO think the law is a good one. I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise, but so far nobody has made any serious argument for why it's not good. Hence my "if you think it's immoral, work to change it" statement. You can start by putting together a coherent argument which doesn't just boil down to "hurr durr muh feels".