SURVEY: Removal of info from Social Media -- Censorship or Not?

[DoctorG]

This is interesting if you have the time and inclination:

 

 

 

[sirineou]

1 hour ago, manarak said:

I voted NO

 

BUT

 

I think false information should be removed.

 

 

I take exception at the wording of the question: "deemed to be false".

I'm not a native English speaker, but I understand "deemed" as meaning "estimated, judged, etc.", but it does not mean "proven".

 

I think only information that is PROVEN to be false should be removed. Any other information is an OPINION.

 

People removing opinions are censors infringing on free speech.

 

 

and... just give it some more thought: how many passages of the Bible or the Qu'ran will have to be removed?

 I voted YES but I understand and respect your NO vote.

  It is a difficult proposition to police content while maintaining the free speech concept.

But there is such a thing as consumer protection from false advertising,  and in the social media venue we are all consumers of information.

[connda]

1 hour ago, Chomper Higgot said:

fascism is another

Most people don't know what fascism is other than a pejorative term used by progressives and individuals with overly-delicate emotions when referring to people and group they don't like, notably Donald Trump, conservatives, and nationalists. 
On the flip side, the fact that being called a fascist when one clearly is not has got to be deemed as offensive by those who are the target of that sort of hate-speech.  But here's the zinger - because the governments or corporations support that sort of hate double-speech as being somehow 'protected', the progressives, far-left, and anyone with an agenda that fits can use this type of rhetorical hate-speech and demagoguery on virtually all the mega-social media platforms.  Simply look at the accepted racist hate-speech used by NYT's editor Sarah Joeng and promulgated by Twitter.  Personally I don't believe there is any place in the public discourse for that kind of race-baiting hate she is spewing, but I support her right and the NYT's right to spew it.  Personally, I just ignore her and people like her, and the NYT isn't on my reading list. 
Bottom line: There are two different standards being used to judge what is 'racist' and what is 'fascist' and what is not.  For those who can't see the danger,  I really do pity you.  You think this is just limited to censoring conservatives, those who believe in national sovereignty, and so-called 'fascist/fascist' Trump supporters, as well as those you personally dislike for whatever reason? 
Wait for the screw to turn, kids! 
Don't believe it, then check out Telesur which is socialistic and very leftist.  Once the genie is out of the bottle, everybody is a target.  But I doubt that those who wish to have their news and social media censored by an 'authority' and 'fact-checking experts' i.e., propagandists who will supply you with just the one-side view of the world that you agree with, will undoubtedly rationalize such dangers away.

Personally I could care less if Facebook (Twitter, Snapchat, Line, et. al) are censored.  Other than posting pictures of pets, food, travel pictures, and family - I don't use them.  However, when the first government firewall goes up in the West, trust me, it's a new dawn and thought-crime will become a reality, albeit, one that will be enjoyed by all those who are currently pining away for a dystopian society in their future - well, until it blows-back that is. 

[dpcjsr]

Don't you get sick and tired of the socialist/democrats all of a sudden becoming advocates for free speech based on the fact these are supposedly private companies.

 

These companies do not exist without compliance with extensive government rules and regulations. If the US gov tells them to jump they must jump or go out of business.

 

They are private in only the most narrow definition. Actually they are controlled by and complicit with whatever the US gov demands.

 

Therefore, what they are doing is blatant censorship. There is no free speech in the US today. Only politically correct speech as determined by the US gov is acceptable. 

 

Are people really dumb enough to think that shutting down sites with anti big government agendas is a coincidence. The gov can no longer stand contrary opinions. Only pro gov rehtoric will be allow.

[sirineou]

6 minutes ago, dpcjsr said:

Don't you get sick and tired of the socialist/democrats all of a sudden becoming advocates for free speech based on the fact these are supposedly private companies.

 

These companies do not exist without compliance with extensive government rules and regulations. If the US gov tells them to jump they must jump or go out of business.

 

They are private in only the most narrow definition. Actually they are controlled by and complicit with whatever the US gov demands.

 

Therefore, what they are doing is blatant censorship. There is no free speech in the US today. Only politically correct speech as determined by the US gov is acceptable. 

 

Are people really dumb enough to think that shutting down sites with anti big government agendas is a coincidence. The gov can no longer stand contrary opinions. Only pro gov rehtoric will be allow.

 Yea I know what you mean, Conservatives have being the champions of free speech and all of a sudden the democrats and liberals want to jump on the bandwagon!   what a bunch of posers.

[Tailwagsdog]

Theres an old saying amongst parliamentarians in Australia & New Zealand ( politicians who have been freely elected to office ) 'I may not agree with what you are saying but i will defend your right to say it'. Please do not censor anybody on any subject, Let me decide for myself. Censorship is the start of the slippery slope that has started with political correctness BS. Thank You.

[stevenl]

6 hours ago, BuaBS said:

 

But no there shouldn't be censorship on social media and youtube . What is happening now months before the US elections is appalling. Whether it is fake news or not , people like Alex Jones/infowars and other conservative voices shouldn't be removed .

Social media should be forced to keep free speech . Again appalling what is happening in europe , censoring everything about "migrant" crimes .

 

Conservative voices shouldn't be and aren't removed because of their conservatism. They should be and are being removed because of spreading false information.

[travelling wilbury]

Deemed falce by who

does anyone have the right to cencor the opinions of other people ?

This site is a classic example of someone setting themselves above everyone else and judgeing if they approve of comments made by its members  (no members...........no advertisers....no money  ....no site  )

So this post will probably be removed as the moderators do not like their judgements questioned

 

but isnt this thread about cencorship ?

[Guest]

11 hours ago, Scott said:

In the past several months there has been a concerted effort to get information deemed to be false or fake removed from social media, such as Facebook and Twitter.   In your opinion, do you think it is correct to remove such content or does it infringe on free speech?

Absolutely not! Information must be available for everyone, in all its forms. Some is bad, some is good. It's up to the receiver to filter what is good information and what is bad information. Education is the key to create those filters.

 

If there are filters for free information, then I demand that every bible and other religious book must be burned down in every part of the world. We all should know that the religions are hogwash, which should not be spread to the people.. and yet it happens all the time.

 

[RickFarang]

The owner of the platform gets to decide. If I don't like the rules, I can play elsewhere.

[mikebike]

3 hours ago, atyclb said:

 

they may be private companies but they have become so big and so encompassing that in essence they wield and influence public opinion. kind of like the old usa private phone company at&t that was deemed a defacto monopoly or such and the court forced them to split up.

 

different analogy; pre usa independance from great britain depended on dissemination of information to americans to guide and motivate them to gain independance from gb. had there been hugely powerful social media controlled by companies with vested interests in the uk they could have censored what they deemed as inappropriate. china does this.

You DO realize that the printing press was the social media of the revolutionary war era and that the founding fathers started printing coincidentally with their revolutionary conspiracies, right?

[Chomper Higgot]

3 hours ago, atyclb said:

 

no, not at face value. each individual must use their own cognitive ability-intuition to decide what they deem as real-credible, etc etc.

 

something akin to a child growing up and mommy no longer making the decisions

Apart from the fact half the population have an IQ of 100 or less and are very susceptible to propaganda.

 

They lack the intellectual bandwidth to discriminate propaganda and truth.

[stevenl]

39 minutes ago, travelling wilbury said:

Deemed falce by who

does anyone have the right to cencor the opinions of other people ?

This site is a classic example of someone setting themselves above everyone else and judgeing if they approve of comments made by its members  (no members...........no advertisers....no money  ....no site  )

So this post will probably be removed as the moderators do not like their judgements questioned

 

but isnt this thread about cencorship ?

Not censoring of opinions, correcting of false facts.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Apart from the fact half the population have an IQ of 100 or less and are very susceptible to propaganda.

 

They lack the intellectual bandwidth to discriminate propaganda and truth.

The other half of the people must then behave in such manner that what they say is listened and understood by the lower iq population. We haven't seen this lately.

 

We really don't want to go to the thought police world.

 

I do support, even the anti-vaccine folk's freedom of speech. It's our duty to either talk to the masses or put them in to a reservate to die.

 

 

[Chomper Higgot]

5 minutes ago, oilinki said:

The other half of the people must then behave in such manner that what they say is listened and understood by the lower iq population. We haven't seen this lately.

 

We really don't want to go to the thought police world.

 

I do support, even the anti-vaccine folk's freedom of speech. It's our duty to either talk to the masses or put them in to a reservate to die.

 

 

It’s not a question of ‘the other half’.

 

The anti vaccine issue is a good example of dangerous misinformation being spread by people with a vested interest and lately by agents of a foreign government.

 

Their misinformation results in real suffering and undermines trust in healthcare professionals and governments.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/23/russian-trolls-spread-vaccine-misinformation-on-twitter

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Chomper Higgot said:

It’s not a question of ‘the other half’.

 

The anti vaccine issue is a good example of dangerous misinformation being spread by people with a vested interest and lately by agents of a foreign government.

 

Their misinformation results in real suffering and undermines trust in healthcare professionals and governments.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/23/russian-trolls-spread-vaccine-misinformation-on-twitter

I used the anti vaccine example for two reasons. One it's one of the most damaging falsehood there is. Secondly, we need to create immunity to false facts. Education works as the vaccination for larger threats, being subjected to false news occasionally works for minor ones. 

[micmichd]

3 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Engage the users in reporting abuse.

 

Automate the removal of comments /images/videos that have already been reported and removed.

 

Spend some of the billions of profit on managing the platform.

Not a good idea. They do that in Germany: remove or block anything that is reported to hurt anyone's feelings. Great times for the PC brigade.

[Chomper Higgot]

24 minutes ago, micmichd said:

Not a good idea. They do that in Germany: remove or block anything that is reported to hurt anyone's feelings. Great times for the PC brigade.

What like Terrorism websites and child pornography?

 

 

[khunPer]

"...deemed false or fake" by who..?

 

Facebook already started to do it – or at least hide information, while investigating a claim about sharing false or fake... – but it's kind of censorship, isn't it..?

 

And yes, it's becoming a huge problem that too many users on social media click "share" at too many posts, that might not all be true – including reused images with another caption, giving both image and caption, which can even be false, a different meaning.

 

I did not vote, I don't find it as simple as "yes" og "no"...?

[Wake Up]

5 hours ago, attrayant said:

 

I receive telepathic transmission every third Saturday of each month from a purple walrus that lives on the far side of Pluto.

 

Prove me wrong.

I am the walrus. You promised not to tell. ?

[stevenl]

2 hours ago, oilinki said:

I used the anti vaccine example for two reasons. One it's one of the most damaging falsehood there is. Secondly, we need to create immunity to false facts. Education works as the vaccination for larger threats, being subjected to false news occasionally works for minor ones. 

A big group of the vaccine refusers are highly educated.

[Chomper Higgot]

1 minute ago, stevenl said:

A big group of the vaccine refusers are highly educated.

The power of the intellect and the health of the mind are by no means necessarily inclusive.

 

Intelligent/highly educated people who believe in one conspiracy frequently believe numerous other conspiracies.

 

Discussing their attachment to a conspiracy can be a very disturbing experience as they reveal the difference between healthy skepticism and the other kind.

[zzaa09]

Ever notice that social media ain't that social...

[Walter Travolta]

Free speech? Only if you are on the left side of politics

Fake news is damaging only to idiots. Idiots who believe anything, then share it and get more idiots sharing it!! 

Its a lot easier to ban people from using something than it is to educate someone how to use something

[mikebike]

2 hours ago, micmichd said:

Not a good idea. They do that in Germany: remove or block anything that is reported to hurt anyone's feelings. Great times for the PC brigade.

The post you replied to was not about hurt feelings. The problem is not hurt feelings.

 

The problem is amateur and professional LIARS using the platforms to disseminate untruths and propaganda.

 

As many of our laws protect the weakest in society from dangerous situations so should  our laws protect the stupid from the manipulations of professional LIARS and propagandists.

 

 

[ELVIS123456]

8 hours ago, manarak said:

I voted NO

BUT

I think false information should be removed.

 

I take exception at the wording of the question: "deemed to be false".

I'm not a native English speaker, but I understand "deemed" as meaning "estimated, judged, etc.", but it does not mean "proven".

 

I think only information that is PROVEN to be false should be removed. Any other information is an OPINION.

People removing opinions are censors infringing on free speech.

and... just give it some more thought: how many passages of the Bible or the Qu'ran will have to be removed?

Nail on the head.  And I would take it a step further - social media should only be allowed to remove comments or stories that are in breach of any Laws.  Then they should be 'reviewed' by an independent authority - the Courts.  

 

The fact that over the last month that most censoring is being done by the progressives in Twitter and Facebook against conservatives, as admitted by the CEO of Twitter, shows that bias is inherent in anyone censoring another person's views on social media. 

 

Example:  Candace Owen is a leading black conservative, and she retweeted exactly what Sarah Jeong (NY Times) said in her pointedly racist tweets against whites and Trump (substituting blacks and Obama),. She was immediately suspended from Twitter. Meanwhile Sarah was certified by Twitter. 

 

Twitter apologised and reinstated Candace, but never suspended or banned Sarah. At best the application of their 'rules' is inconsistent, and at worst it is biased.  And that is the problem -  the people imposing the bans and suspensions on Twitter and Facebook have their own inherent bias.  And now for the last 2 weeks, you only have to search through Twitter and you will now see a lot of progressives complaining about being suspended for calling Trump a nazi or worse, when up until then it was apparently OK  Now they have gone too far the other way.  

 

Social Media has become part of people's lives, and Trump will be very soon implementing some form of control over social media companies censoring people's views, just because they dont agree with them.  In the USA people have the right to say awful things - unlike in Europe and other countries.  Certainly if someone says something extremely innapropriate or offensive that is designed to incite racial or religious hatred, then action should be taken to delete the tweet/account.  But likewise, that person should have the right to exercise their 1st Amendment right and therefore to be able to test in a Court if that delete/suspension decision was valid.  Let the Courts decided - not the SJWs or Nazis in the employ of Facebook and Twitter.   

 

In a rare moment, I did agree with Obama when he refused to do what the progressives wanted and introduce laws making 'hate speech' illegal. An onwer of an NBA team made a particularly offensive racist remark, and refused to apologise and withdraw it.  Obama refused to get involved - and he was right - that is a rocky road best not travelled. In the end the NBA rules that the statement was not in the best interests of the league, and they suspended the racist from being a member - he had to sell his ownership.  That is how to do it - making laws about what anyone can say or not say, and can read and cannot read, is what the Nazis did in Germany - enough said.  

 

[zzaa09]

1 hour ago, Walter Travolta said:

Free speech? Only if you are on the left side of politics

Fake news is damaging only to idiots. Idiots who believe anything, then share it and get more idiots sharing it!! 

Its a lot easier to ban people from using something than it is to educate someone how to use something

Yet, isn't all stimuli and info subjective and manipulated?

Perspective and interpretation will vary greatly.

 

Fake [whatever that is] is quite irrelevant. 

[Chomper Higgot]

59 minutes ago, ELVIS123456 said:

Nail on the head.  And I would take it a step further - social media should only be allowed to remove comments or stories that are in breach of any Laws.  Then they should be 'reviewed' by an independent authority - the Courts.  

 

The fact that over the last month that most censoring is being done by the progressives in Twitter and Facebook against conservatives, as admitted by the CEO of Twitter, shows that bias is inherent in anyone censoring another person's views on social media. 

 

Example:  Candace Owen is a leading black conservative, and she retweeted exactly what Sarah Jeong (NY Times) said in her pointedly racist tweets against whites and Trump (substituting blacks and Obama),. She was immediately suspended from Twitter. Meanwhile Sarah was certified by Twitter. 

 

Twitter apologised and reinstated Candace, but never suspended or banned Sarah. At best the application of their 'rules' is inconsistent, and at worst it is biased.  And that is the problem -  the people imposing the bans and suspensions on Twitter and Facebook have their own inherent bias.  And now for the last 2 weeks, you only have to search through Twitter and you will now see a lot of progressives complaining about being suspended for calling Trump a nazi or worse, when up until then it was apparently OK  Now they have gone too far the other way.  

 

Social Media has become part of people's lives, and Trump will be very soon implementing some form of control over social media companies censoring people's views, just because they dont agree with them.  In the USA people have the right to say awful things - unlike in Europe and other countries.  Certainly if someone says something extremely innapropriate or offensive that is designed to incite racial or religious hatred, then action should be taken to delete the tweet/account.  But likewise, that person should have the right to exercise their 1st Amendment right and therefore to be able to test in a Court if that delete/suspension decision was valid.  Let the Courts decided - not the SJWs or Nazis in the employ of Facebook and Twitter.   

 

In a rare moment, I did agree with Obama when he refused to do what the progressives wanted and introduce laws making 'hate speech' illegal. An onwer of an NBA team made a particularly offensive racist remark, and refused to apologise and withdraw it.  Obama refused to get involved - and he was right - that is a rocky road best not travelled. In the end the NBA rules that the statement was not in the best interests of the league, and they suspended the racist from being a member - he had to sell his ownership.  That is how to do it - making laws about what anyone can say or not say, and can read and cannot read, is what the Nazis did in Germany - enough said.  

 

What the Nazis did in Germany (and elsewhere) is present hate and lies as truth and attack those who challenged hate and lies. 

 

Allowing that same hate and those same lies to be spread is not liberal nor is it a defence of liberty. 

 

Right now we have an internet and social media which is being used by extremists to spread hate and promote violence, But its not just the extremists, we have in Trump an example of a politician who actively uses lies and hate baiting as a means to divide society and align himself with racists. We have  too examples of politicians around the world learning from Trump and applying the same hate baiting for the same purposes. 

 

The Nazis and their obscene acts of racism were defeated by killing them, in very large numbers. 

 

Now now we fret over deleting messages of hatred and propoganda. 

 

 

There is no defence for hatred, lies and propaganda.  

 

You want free speech, speak up in public, face to face where you can be identified and face the consequences of what you have to say.

[Tailwagsdog]

5 hours ago, stevenl said:

Not censoring of opinions, correcting of false facts.

Opinions can be based on false facts or erroneous interpretations that's the basis of debate/ argument ..don't you get it?

[sirineou]

6 hours ago, sirineou said:

 Yea I know what you mean, Conservatives have being the champions of free speech and all of a sudden the democrats and liberals want to jump on the bandwagon!   what a bunch of posers.

^^^^^^^

PS:  Irony alert!  to anyone who doesn't know me and  thought I was serious. ? beep ?beep ? beep 

Arguing with Trump supporters is such low hanging fruit, debating with them is like shooting fish in a barrel.