| ▲ | mullingitover 3 days ago |
| Florida passed a similar law, and a bunch of other states are attempting to but are blocked by federal courts. Will be interesting to see if the tech industry allows it, or decides to break up the federal government before it becomes too powerful. |
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| ▲ | hearsathought 3 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| > Florida passed a similar law, and a bunch of other states are attempting to but are blocked by federal courts. When much of government ( federal, state, local ) communication is done via social meda, would it be legal to ban anyone from accessing it? Or are official government social media sites required to be accessible to everyone? |
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| ▲ | jedberg 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | People under 18 don't have the same rights. | | |
| ▲ | Aloisius 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | In the US, children's right to free speech has only very narrow exceptions compared to an adult. The Supreme Court has even struck down state bans on selling violent video games to children because it violates a child's first amendment rights. A full ban on social media full of protected speech? That passing Constitutional muster would require some legal gymnastics and overwhelming scientific evidence of harm - evidence that is sorely lacking despite what people believe. | | |
| ▲ | mullingitover 3 days ago | parent [-] | | > That passing Constitutional muster would require some legal gymnastics In the previous era of principles, sure. In The Year of Our Dear Leader, 2025? The Republican Supreme Court just needs the order from above, and the Constitution will say what the ruler says it says. | | |
| ▲ | aorloff 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Jackson's Calvinball footnote was not nearly as alarming as it should have been. |
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| ▲ | Lerc 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Agreed. What rights should they have though? |
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| ▲ | stevage 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | The Australian ban doesn't block anyone from accessing content. | | |
| ▲ | yieldcrv 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Unless the social media site puts up super random login gates and A/B testing anti-patterns that blocks you from accessing content? |
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| ▲ | chistev 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Break up the federal government? |
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| ▲ | kube-system 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawn%27s_Early_Light:_Taking_B... That is basically what the Heritage Foundation wants to do. | | |
| ▲ | delfinom 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Not going to help the tech industry given their largest audience bases are in blue states, who will happily just regulate them to death if the federal government doesn't. |
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| ▲ | estimator7292 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | We're already on the fast track to becoming an authoritarian state. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine the next step is dissolving congress and installing a new constitution. Or just throwing it out entirely and defining the law of the land on the whims of a senile man | | |
| ▲ | paxys 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | There's no need to dissolve congress. You instead make sure that (1) a single party stays in power (through gerrymandering, voter suppression and more), (2) the courts are stacked with loyalists and (3) the legislature and courts rubber stamp all decisions of the executive regardless of legality or anything else. | | |
| ▲ | redhed 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Yeah this is usually how it happens. Whether its ancient Rome, modern Russia, Venezuela, etc all the dressings of the old Republic stay but become subverted by an autocrat. | |
| ▲ | louthy 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You also need a country name with 'Democratic' in it: Democratic People's Republic of America. That's how you know it's a fully totalitarian state. | |
| ▲ | victorbjorklund 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yea, US is probably gonna end up as Russia if nothing changes. On paper a democracy with elections. In practice a dictatorship. | | |
| ▲ | whimsicalism 3 days ago | parent [-] | | utter nonsense, i truly don't see how people can live in the US and be left with this impression. |
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| ▲ | axus 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Democracy with Chinese Characteristics | | |
| ▲ | kazen44 3 days ago | parent [-] | | atleast the people's republic of china never claims to be a democracy in the liberal western, sense of the word. Politically (on paper atleast) the chinese goverment is very much a marxist state, and it is very clear about that. |
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| ▲ | lazide 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Sure, but also why wouldn’t they? It’s historically unpopular as an institution, and clearly toothless. | | |
| ▲ | victorbjorklund 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | For the same reason russia and north Korea has elections? It sounds better to pretend the dictator is chosen by the people | | |
| ▲ | kazen44 3 days ago | parent [-] | | it is also a very easy pathway to create controlled opposition.
When you are a totalitarian dictator without elections, opposition of any kind is hard to control. With faux elections you give people a "choice" which seems reasonable compared the usual extremes in an totalitarian state. |
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| ▲ | Sevrene 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Democratic institutions only have as much power as they're given. | | |
| ▲ | lazide 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Have you not been paying attention? | | |
| ▲ | Sevrene 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Can you expand on this, what do you think I'm missing? | | |
| ▲ | lazide 2 days ago | parent [-] | | the Weimar Republic (a democracy) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic] certainly never directly voted to make Hitler a dictator - they voted him in, and he used the mechanisms of the state against itself (and crisises, both real and imagined) to seize power completely and become the official Dictator (Fuhrer means ‘leader’ in German). Here is a write up [https://www.annefrank.org/en/anne-frank/go-in-depth/germany-...]. Italy transitioned from a regency into democracy - which the fascists used to seize power and form a dictatorship [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_fascism]. When the USSR collapsed, there was a temporary fledging democracy that started to form - that was then hijacked by Putin and twisted to support his now obvious Dictatorship. In the US, while one can certainly argue ‘they knew what they were voting for’, the Trump voters I knew vehemently denied what is now the obvious plan re: economic policies, starting new wars/crises, etc. that are now the norm. The current actual behavior of the US gov’t seems to align quite well with historical norms on this front, and continue to escalate. If ‘the people give them the power’ means ‘it’s legal’ (aka it is within a law the people’s agents have voted on and made official), or was voted on by the people, it’s clear the vast majority of high profile behavior of the gov’t lately doesn’t care about it. If anything, Democracies seem to be inherently ‘dumb’ when it comes to these types of situations. | | |
| ▲ | Sevrene 2 days ago | parent [-] | | The idea that democracy either created hitler or wasn't able to stop his rise via democratic action at all is often spruiked in anarchist communist circles, while it's true hitler wasn't voted in the literal sense, neither is Australia's Prime Minister. That doesn't make the PM undemocratic, it's just its own democractic institution inside the party. There's actually nothing in the Australian consitution about PMs. It doesn't mean you couldn't unelect the party democratically and thus the leader. The public can unelect them from power by voting out the Nazi party of which Hitler was leader (through again, a vote). So this is a case of what I'm saying actually being relevent – if people voted against the nazi party, hitler would not have risen to power. He only gained that power because the democratic institutions, the people let him. This is a case for more and better democracy, of valuing that institution. I've encountered Trump voters who were actually bernie bros and accelerationists - they voted for trump as a fu to the establishment. I think the have a moral responsibility to not vote on those urges and whims. I think this that's bad, even if I can feel the sentiment sometimes, and I think that sort of "democracy bad" is actually a harmful to discourse and simply not true. We need to bolster democracy for the people, not call it toothless while invoking communism and fascism. I don't ultimately blame Trump for his rise to power, I blame the people for being fickle and perfectionists. Democracy is precarious and precious, not a perfect ultimate catch all. The people need to foster it otherwise the rising tide of populism and fascism will drown it. | | |
| ▲ | lazide 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Huh? Do you even listen to yourself? | | |
| ▲ | Sevrene 2 days ago | parent [-] | | It would be a lot clearer to everyone if you said what you think. I don't think it's extreme to believe that democracy is the best tool to fight authoritarianism. That's why people like Trump deride democratic institutions and those important to it's function. | | |
| ▲ | lazide 2 days ago | parent [-] | | You asked for examples where democracies degraded to authoritarianism. I provided 3 recent ones, and yes the US is clearly currently in an authoritarian gov’t. Your response is to… assert they didn’t happen, and to do nothing different? While being completely unsure of what I’m saying when it sure seems pretty clear? | | |
| ▲ | Sevrene 2 days ago | parent [-] | | You've not understood what I said at all. I didn't ask for examples, I asked what you thought I was missing. Turns out I wasn't missing these things at all, we just disagree on the lessons learned there within. Fair enough, we can disagree, but to say I am denying it happened and not to do any different when my entire point was that we need to be MORE democratic, not less – by valuing democracy and not allowing people to tear it down, exactly what I am trying to do now. Democratic institutions only have as much power as they're given. | | |
| ▲ | lazide 2 days ago | parent [-] | | What democratic institutions do you think don’t have the power to deal with the current (or those past) situations? I’m not seeing any. | | |
| ▲ | Sevrene 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I return to you "Have you not been paying attention?" Trump didn't rise to power because of democracy, it was in spite of it, Trump literally tried to overturn the election results and still subverts the people's choice by continuing to spread that lie. He talks of jailing his opponents, plays dirty, doesn't respect the rules or democratic institutions. He is the antithesis of democracy and the people (using democracy) voted him in. The people failed themselves and their own people but they did so not as first order goals. Spartacist uprising, mensheviks vs bolsheviks, etc- people didn't turn away from democracy because democracy itself failed them, they turned away from democracy because they had some idealist world they wanted to get to– by force (i.e not democratic). This is what motivated communist uprises and hitler's brownshirts to subvert the election. Note that this says nothing as to whether they are correct or not in their worldview. Hitler shares this type of thinking and he took advantage of it – just like Trump destroys the media "fake news" or makes voting harder, if we, the people, didn't allow it, we would prevent it one way or another. The problem with Trump or Hitler isn't that they're "too democratic", it's that they subverted the process debasing it in turn. There is power in the collectve. Unions got this via bloodshed so that they need not bleed more. If we devalue unions because some unions are bad we just live in a world in which capital get to rule and bloodshed returns. It's a regression. It's not the right strategy, we need to work together despite our differences in solidarity despite the fact democracy sometimes leads to imperfect outcomes, all in order to prevent dictators, ensuring they govern with mandate and consent, not authoritarian force. It's not one single institution like "Congress". Democracy isn't just voting it requires free and fair elections which require free and fair political discourse which requires transparency, and mass media that informs doesn't distorts, etc. If we don't value these the next step isn't voting on it democratically, it's violence to enforce totalitarianism. In some ways, we're already there. Lets not inadvertently enable it. | | |
| ▲ | lazide 2 days ago | parent [-] | | You seem profoundly confused about cause and effect, and even the meaning of your own prior words. These things are all happening because enough people are turning into greedy short sighted idiots and overwhelmed/disengaged folks with no balls. None of this is about ‘power in democratic institutions’ - they have plenty, which is why they are being turned into powering the authoritarianism. Same as in those prior examples. ‘Why doesn’t anyone do anything?!?’ they say, as they refuse to do anything, or allow anyone sane to do anything either. Because the obvious thing - stand up and use the existing tools to do what needs to be done - requires effort and risk. And the only ones willing to do that are the greedy or insane. | | |
| ▲ | Sevrene 2 days ago | parent [-] | | It's possible we just see things different, I'm not sure why you're so keen to say I'm "profoundly confused"- entirely possible we just have different perceptions no? Lets be more charitable. I agree things have deteriorated, I agree the state is centralising it's power and becoming more authoritarian that's true. I agree that through democracy authoritarianism can rise, and does. What I don't agree is that this by it's nature is because people value democracy, it's the opposite. Upholding democratic institutions might include a citizen doing their part to understand the policy, it might be the ICE agent or brownshirt, it might be judges refusing subverting traditions and spirit of law simply because it's not currently being enforced (much of democratic power is procedural and traditional, not by actual force). If people don't value it, it erodes and disappears. > None of this is about ‘power in democratic institutions’ - they have plenty, which is why they are being turned into powering the authoritarianism I think we might just both have a superficial disagreement with each other, when I say 'democratic institutions only have the power given to them' I mean to say the power of democracy is derived from the people, therefor if the state decides for the people (authoritarianism) and the people reject this but the state retains that power, well- that is treason not democracy. This is what made Hitler a dictator, he wasn't really into democracy, even though he subverted it, and he also used it to get into power. I'm not sure we actually disagree we might just have different framing. I consider this a failing of the people, yet you consider it a failing of the system (I assume). Both are valid I think. To me, if people decide through democracy to elect a dictator that shows a reluctance of the population to care about democracy or institutional norms. That's why this stuff happens during broader social & economic downturns. If people want to elect a person who wants to spend the entire GDP on producing paperclips, well I can't really fault them- that is democracy, the only other choice is authoritarianism isn't it? > ‘Why doesn’t anyone do anything?!?’ they say, as they refuse to do anything, or allow anyone sane to do anything either. Yep, I agree with this. We do need to be smarter and work together. We do have freedom, including the freedom to harm ourselves. People need to respect that and be more responsible, be more virtuous. If not, we get the government we deserve but not the one we might need. | | |
| ▲ | lazide 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | If your answer is ‘people need to be better’ while they are actively being manipulated and controlled by a bad actor in a position of authority over them (one that was manipulating them to get elected in the first place!), while said actor clearly is getting no negative consequences, my answer is ‘that clearly doesn’t seem to usually happen’ and ‘how do you expect that to occur once they are in power’? Notably, Brazil seems to have dealt with Bolsanaro - but that was because the gov’t in power actually recognized the danger and put him in jail in a timely fashion, and stopped him from continuing to do what he was doing. Something, notably, that none of the other examples I gave were able to do (despite some attempts). The only other way out, based on historical precedent, is blood. A lot of it. But hey, I’d love to be wrong! Maybe if we keep ragebaiting on social media about every fault of the opposition while refusing/unable to actually do anything about it - or even rally together for any meaningful course of action - victory will be ours! (/s) |
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| ▲ | stackedinserter 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | TBH these steps are not that easy and probably are not possible in a federated country like US. | | |
| ▲ | joshred 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Gerrymandering already exists. Voter suppression was huge in the past, and may become huge again. The supreme court made sure of that. And also... the supreme court keeps issuing partisan decisions. So... what is left? Number 3? I guess you're arguing that federalism protects people, but how does it do that in a way that isn't already being eroded? | | |
| ▲ | stackedinserter 3 days ago | parent [-] | | There's no voter suppression in US, and it won't stand in courts even if somebody pushes it. Supreme court keeps using partisan decision in favour of Dems and GOP, so it remains balanced. What's left is everything you mentioned. |
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| ▲ | googlywoogly 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | There's no need to do any of things you mention considering that both parties are owned by the same people and are essentially two faces of the same party in practice. Also - almost all the powers that be - including courts and Congress are already for sale/at the service of big tech. | | |
| ▲ | leptons 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Both sides are not the same,not even close, and the voting record proves it. | | |
| ▲ | jdmichal 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > the voting record proves it. Putting on my tin-foil, devils-advocate hat... AKA I don't necessarily believe this but I also have no counter-argument: Mostly performative. When it's decided that something actually needs to pass, then you'll get some sacrificial lambs that vote across the aisle. Typically they'll be close to retirement or from a state where they won't be heavily punished for that specific vote. | | |
| ▲ | leptons 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | It's not performative when people are losing health insurance and other people are at risk of starving. I agree with holding out on the government shutdown to try to prevent Americans losing healthcare. But when Republicans are absolutely fine with poor people starving so that they can take away people's healthcare, with a bonus that they get to shut down the government and say "see, government doesn't work", it becomes clear that letting the government shut down (especially food program shutdowns) continue is going to hurt more people than the government shutdown is going to help. So, when you say "performative" it sounds like you support the "both sides are the same" meme, but the ideologies are vastly different - one side is fine with people starving indefinitely, and the other actually doesn't want that. I would think at least some of this should be obvious, but I guess not? | |
| ▲ | gusgus01 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I mean at some point arguments like this become more akin to Russell's Teapot. If you're making an almost unfalsifiable claim, then the burden of proof is on you to prove it and not others to disprove it. From a political standpoint, the statement "from a state where they won't be heavily punished for that specific vote" is a weird way to put it, since if you framed it in a positive light it would sound more similar to "the state population falls on both sides of the issue and thus either vote could make sense from their legislator depending on exigent circumstances and other factors" or any number of other explanations depending on the vote and populations. |
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| ▲ | googlywoogly 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Both sides are exactly the same when it comes to big tech and the voting record proves it. | | |
| ▲ | leptons 2 days ago | parent [-] | | That's funny, because the president (Republican) just signed an executive order forbidding states from enacting their own AI regulations. Meanwhile, California's governor (Democrat) is trying to regulate AI. Please explain how that's "exactly the same". | | |
| ▲ | googlywoogly a day ago | parent [-] | | We'd have the exact same situation in reverse if democrats were in the white house. | | |
| ▲ | leptons a day ago | parent [-] | | No, we definitely would not, but you aren't here to engage in any kind of honest discussion. Your assertions are simply not supported by reality. |
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| ▲ | whimsicalism 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I will bet you up to $1000 at 2:1 odds that in 5 years we will still have the same constitution and congress will not have been dissolved at any point. perhaps we ought to consider banning social media for adults or maybe just dystopian movies. | | |
| ▲ | wat10000 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Right, because there's no need to change the Constitution when you have a captured Supreme Court to help you ignore it, and no need to dissolve Congress when they've steadily made themselves less and less relevant over the past few decades. | |
| ▲ | XorNot 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Russia still has a constitution, a parliament, separation of powers, and an independent judiciary. It even has opposition political parties and elections. And yet... | | | |
| ▲ | fridder 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I do wonder about the normalization of dystopian ideas. Take even a show like Scandal. The fact that one of the big reveals is that billionaires stole the election by targeted hacking of election machines is kinda messed up. |
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| ▲ | ipaddr 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | |
| ▲ | pessimizer 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Everybody seems to have missed the memo that all power was concentrated in the Executive branch since the Bush Doctrine, and that since 2016 people have started insisting that the Executive doesn't even have any obligation to the President, the only important vote left (although limited to choosing between two private clubs funded by the same donors.). If Congress steps away from doing anything but serving donors (helped by the filibuster), and the captured regulators don't have to obey the President, there's actually no democracy left. We're in the impossible situation where Trump not being in control is scarier than Trump being in control. Even scarier is that the people saying that we're on the way to becoming an authoritarian state are saying that because they think that the voters get too much say. Authoritarianism is when we don't beatify Dr. Fauci, or agree that it's fine for pregnant women to take Tylenol. The upper middle class, in its complete narcissism and fall into self-indulgent fantasy, is entirely focused on aesthetics. edit: when replies that say that there's already a problem, but seem to be heretical about the covid response get flagkilled, there's a blessed opinion. I have no idea how elite echochambers are supposed to avoid an authoritarian state. Your bosses are kissing Trump's ass, and you're working hard doing things that advance their agenda. They couldn't do it without you. |
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| ▲ | mullingitover 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > In an effort to curtail the organization’s outsized influence, Facebook announced Monday that it would be implementing new steps to ensure the breakup of the U.S. government before it becomes too powerful. [1] I'm old enough to remember when The Onion didn't just report the news. [1] https://theonion.com/facebook-announces-plan-to-break-up-u-s... | |
| ▲ | gentooflux 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I believe they're implying that there's an unhealthy amount of regulatory capture in favor of big tech | |
| ▲ | rusk 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It was a clever riff on the current situation where business tells government |
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| ▲ | betteryet 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| How about we break up the tech industry instead? This muskian "I am above laws so I'll break up the USA/EU" is asinine and societies should come down on it like a ton of bricks. |
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| ▲ | eddythompson80 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Is the assumption that non "tech industry" communities (e.g: voat, parler, ovaries, gab, truth, lemmy, mastodon, 4chan, 8chan, etc) are less likely to be a problem or to negatively impact teens than the mainstream "big tech" ones (e.g: facebook, twitter, youtube, tiktok, reddit, etc)? | | |
| ▲ | rockertalker 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I think if you run a website as a main source of your business profitable or not you’re in the tech industry. It’s a question of scale not industry classification or purpose classification. | |
| ▲ | biophysboy 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The thing with those alternative communities is that they sort of orbit around the larger tech platforms. Their agenda is set by the news-of-the-day within certain X/FB/YouTube subcommunities. Its sort of analogous to wire services in traditional media. Additionally, people that post on those platforms originally gained notoriety on the bigger tech platforms, and took their audience with them. | |
| ▲ | betteryet 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Not my point. The original comment said the tech industry can decide to break up the federal government because they don't want to be forced to clean up their act. Societies should be stronger than any industry and fight to maintain freedom, health, peace, and prosperity. If the tech industry is against that, then they should be the ones broken up. | | |
| ▲ | jMyles 3 days ago | parent [-] | | > Societies should be stronger than any industry and fight to maintain freedom, health, peace, and prosperity. I think (I hope!) we all agree with this sentiment. But societies also need to be stronger than states, especially in an age of connection and sharing. States are the main source of uncertainty and violence in the world right now, and I think it's reasonable to hope that the internet will bring the age of peace we pray for. Obviously the social media giants are not it. They are closer to states than they are to algorithms. But I'm wary of siding with states over web apps. What we need are healthier (meaning, chiefly, more decentralized and less rent-seeking) web apps. | | |
| ▲ | betteryet 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Exactly, societies need to be stronger than states too and really need to act early. States can become one person or party and it's game over for a long time. Actually, the American Constitution is pretty great at preventing this exact outcome and I still have a lot of faith in it. | | |
| ▲ | kazen44 3 days ago | parent [-] | | but the constitution is just a piece of paper with some words written on it.
Without an active civic society protection what is enshrined in the document, it is all but powerless. |
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| ▲ | eddythompson80 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > I think (I hope!) we all agree with this sentiment. As long as it's not farming, defense or healthcare of course. Historically speaking at least. | |
| ▲ | thegrimmest 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > They are closer to states than they are to algorithms This seems like nonsense. All the tech industry does is convince people. It doesn't force anyone to do anything. States have a monopoly on violence. No one holds a gun to anyone's head forcing them to consume <insert content you disagree with>. In a country of equals, everyone's opinion, including <position you disagree with>, should hold equal sway, and be resolved via democratic due process. Just because many people hold <position you disagree with> and vote for <politician you find repugnant> doesn't give you any sort of reasonable justification to limit the freedom of others to advocate (including on social media) for it. | | |
| ▲ | jMyles 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I agree with everything you've said with regard to the justice of the matter, but I don't think that there is a free market at work in social media. * So-called "intellectual property" laws dramatically skew what can and cannot be shared * Censorship at the behest of world governments is rampant, and completely overran anything representing a nonviolent scientific dialogue during the recent COVID19 pandemic * States, with their monopoly on the legitimate initiation of force, pick winners and losers at every level of the experience, from chip makers to the duopolistic mobile OS vendors to their app stores to the social media offerings. Sure, network effect may describe the reason people join and stay, but the availability of places to join and stay is in no sense a market phenomenon Consider: the major social media barons meet with POTUS all the freakin' time. Do you suppose that's just because they enjoy his company? | | |
| ▲ | thegrimmest 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > So-called "intellectual property" laws dramatically skew what can and cannot be shared Agree! let's get rid of these :) > Censorship at the behest of world governments is rampant Agree! States have always pursued censorship to maintain power. That doesn't contradict the point that social media companies themselves are not state actors, and are not the problem. > States ... pick winners and losers I'm not sure I'm 100% on board here. States may thumb the scales, but the fact of the existence of FAANG/MANGO seems much more like a market phenomenon than an interventionist project. > social media barons meet with POTUS all the freakin' time There is almost no clearer display of corporate self-preservation than social media vendors kowtowing to the president. Much of what you're outlining is standard run of the mill corruption. The US Government (and others) is acting in contradiction to its stated principles. This is not a new phenomenon, and seems in the category of core human governance challenges. | |
| ▲ | immibis 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Is this a new technique where you put COVID denialism into an otherwise good comment? Does it have a name? | | |
| ▲ | jMyles 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I think you may have misunderstood my comment - or perhaps misunderstood the consequences of the censorship regime. If anything, it seemed like the denialism was amplified by the censorship. What fell by the wayside were the serious, rigorous dialogue that had previously been the best thinking on epidemiology and public health. I was a moderator and frequent contributor to /r/ebola during the 2014 outbreak; during that time I reached out and began to form relationships with (and respect spectrums for) various epidemiologists and academic departments. And it was really hard during the COVID19 pandemic to watch people like John Ioannidis, David Katz, Sunetra Gupta, Michael Levitt, etc. be totally cut out of the conversation while a group of second-stringers who were willing to toe the corporate line took their place. Was it your experience that the censorship worked to _stem_ denialism? It seemed to me that it made it much louder and much worse, muddying the water of genuine discussion and research. | | |
| ▲ | mullingitover 3 days ago | parent [-] | | The idea that real, serious scientific debate was stymied by social media platform policies doesn't pass the smell test for me. Facebook/twitter/et al were making good faith efforts to stop the flood of downright harmful misinformation, and government didn't force them to do it. None of even the most questionable scientists were ever silenced. Those folks had the right wing press broadcasting their worst ideas to the world, the didn't even need social media when they could get on Fox News every day of the week. It was the final attempt of social media even trying to be something more than a cancer. Now? Every social media platform (especially Facebook and twitter) would have zero problems being the driver of modern day pogroms, complete with running betting markets on the outcomes, if it would keep their share prices up. | | |
| ▲ | jMyles 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > None of even the most questionable scientists were ever silenced. ...a literal nobel laureate, a literal Einstein scholar, and literally the author of the most cited paper in the history of open publishing were all censored. Multiple scholars of the Hoover Institution. The director of Oxford Center for EBM. An author of the most widely-assigned textbook in preventative epidemiology. Two editors-in-chief of BMJ publications. Literally the BMJ itself had articles removed from Facebook! The British Journal of Medicine was censored from Facebook dude! Tenured professors form Yale, Johns Hopkins, Oxford, Harvard, and Standard (several from Stanford in particular) had their work either totally removed or subject to shadowban-style censorship. What can you possibly be talking about? I'm broadly anti-credentialist, but I can't fathom not noticing what happened: The world's foremost experts were silenced; we all watched it happen. Let's not mince words here: there was a _thunderous_ chorus of the world's top experts opining against lockdowns. And social media depicted something entirely different, and entirely false. It wasn't like... close. Lockdowns never gained anything resembling mainstream support in the actual real world of epidemiology. David Katz, Michael Levitt, Carl Henegan, Monica Ghandi, Scott Atlas, Vinay Prasad, Eran Bendavid, Sunetra Gupta, John fucking Ioannidis (my personal favorite author of medical science for over a decade prior to COVID19, and arguably the most accomplished medical scientist of our generation)... I can go on and on and on. How on earth are you conducting your "smell test"?! All the most impressive minds of our age were cast aside so some second-stringers from suburban Virginia, who had been collecting a paycheck from NIH and CDC but not doing anything resembling continuing education at their alma maters, could babble nonsense about interdiction and hold aloft the Imperial study which they obviously didn't understand (and which all of us who read it knew it was destined to retracted from the word go). There were a tiny few serious academics who endorsed lockdowns. And some were genuine experts who simply got it wrong. I respect Carl Bergstrom and Marc Lipsitch enormously, and I give them credit for sticking their head above the parapet - I think they genuinely believed in horizontal interdiction and, although they were absolutely wrong, I don't think they were intentional being propagandistic. And I don't think they went out intending to be amplified as they were. I only wish their other work were amplified as much as when it was convenient for the lockdown narrative. ...but it's simply, totally false that accomplished academics and experts weren't censored. I can't even approach that with a straight face. | | |
| ▲ | immibis 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | A lot of people with credentials join the grift train, yes. Apparently it's quite profitable. Listing many of them isn't really an argument that the grift is true. | | |
| ▲ | jMyles 2 days ago | parent [-] | | What a bizarre and reckless take. I thought this 'no true scotsman' nonsense was put to bed in 2022. By this metric, who is _not_ a grifter? You have to be Scott Gottleib or Peter Daszak - shilling pseudoscience while sitting on the boards of corporations making billions from the pandemic - to _not_ be a grifter? Is that it? | | |
| ▲ | immibis 2 days ago | parent [-] | | It seems my opinions are influenced by facts, and not by a parade of firstname lastnames. Thank you for testing this hypothesis. |
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| ▲ | mullingitover 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Literally the BMJ itself had articles removed from Facebook! These people got their stuff published in the British Medical Journal, so nobody in the scientific community had the slightest problem seeing it. Facebook posted a fact check where the story was shared pointing out some problems with it. They didn’t “censor” anything. It was frankly entirely reasonable and the BMJ should have done better in the first place. Facebook did “combat bad speech with more speech”, the thing you’re supposed to do, and the cranks absolutely lost their minds. In any case, the danger is over now and we can rest easy knowing that Facebook won’t lift a finger to prevent millions from being misled about vaccines causing autism. They’ll sell ads alongside the posts! phew | | |
| ▲ | jMyles 2 days ago | parent [-] | | ...let's get our facts straight here. I hope we can agree on this nutshell: * During phase III of the Pfizer trial, there was an unblinding event which was not initially disclosed. At first, it appeared that it might only have been a few dozen participants, but later disclosures showed that it was more serious. * The BMJ learned of this - again, only knowing about a few dozen patients - from the regional director of the contractor carrying out one of the arms of the trial, who was fired the same day she reported the unblinding to the FDA (as required by law). This disclosure included photographs of documents, in the study area, with unblinding information on them. * The BMJ published what was, in retrospect, an extremely cautious report, even though by that time it was becoming clear that the problem went even beyond mass unblinding and into falsified data, so much so that the contractor's quality control check team were overwhelmed trying to catch up in the days between Jackson's termination and the publication of the report. * In response, Facebook added an inane "fact check", calling the BMJ a "news blog", and which got several of the above facts wrong. In fact, the "fact check" didn't actually make any coherent assertions about the actual content of the article at all. It seemed its primary function was to add an insinuation of doubt, via scary red boxes, about the BMJ report, without any critique of the substance or merits. * Three days later, Facebook went further - preventing the story from being shared at all, and adding warnings to users commenting on the article (in places where it had already been shared) that they risked having their accounts degraded or terminated for spreading misinformation. * All the while, board members of Pfizer (one of who was a former FDA commissioner) were permitted to deny these assertions and smear the whistleblowers (in what, in retrospect, turns out to have been actual misinformation) with no "fact checks" or prohibitions on sharing. * Months later, Facebook acknowledged that they took these actions at the urging of the White House. ...I don't think it's the least bit far-fetched to call this "censorship". | | |
| ▲ | mullingitover 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Facebook 'reduced distribution,' they didn't block. And again, your original claim was that social media somehow blocked scientific debate, which is categorically false. All these claims are hand-waving away the fact that this was published in the BMJ from the outset. Facebook could throw all their servers in a wood chipper today and it would have zero effect on scientific debate in the world. |
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| ▲ | immibis 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | All that a state does is convince people. States don't really exist. They're fictional constructs that sometimes convince a police officer to break into a murderer's home and kidnap him. And most of us agree that's a good thing. However sometimes they convince a police officer to break into a protestor's home and kidnap him. And some of us agree that's a bad thing. Other times they convince bomb makers to make bombs and convince aircraft mechanics to attach them to airplanes and convince pilots to fly over hospitals and press the release button. That's bad too - sadly not everyone agrees on that. | | |
| ▲ | jMyles 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | You've written this with a certain sardonic tone, seemingly in efforts to show the person to whom you're responding that their view necessarily leads to the particular brand of anarchism you're espousing. And I must say, I find your argument and phraseology very convincing. I agree with everything you've said here; states are not imbued with any particular magic. They simply convince people to do things that, if people weren't filled with the mindset of exceptions that seem to come when engaging in public services, they'd never ever do. I have a degree in political science, and I wish that the reading material required to get that degree displayed more of the technique you've used here. | | |
| ▲ | mullingitover 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I mean, it's good prose but it's just sort of hand-waving away all the history of how we ended up with modern states. States solve a lot of problems, they're not perfect but I'm pretty passionate about not living in walled cities because there are hordes of raiders who go around enslaving everyone. | | |
| ▲ | immibis 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I think you both may have misunderstood my comment. It's not about history. It's simply a rebuttal to the idea that something which "only convinces" is less influential than a state. States themselves also fall into that category, and therefore we can see that things in that category can be so influential they need forceful restraint. |
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| ▲ | thegrimmest 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > States have a monopoly on violence This could be amended to "States have a monopoly legitimate on violence". Your comment seems to deny the existence of "legitimacy" as a concept. How do you distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate use of force? | | |
| ▲ | immibis 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, states can't do violence because they don't have hands, so they can't hold guns or bats. The violence is done on behalf of the state by some of the people it convinces, mostly police officers and soldiers. |
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| ▲ | eikenberry 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Because Fedgov stopped any real anti-trust regulation over a century ago and have shown they have no will nor ability to change that since. | |
| ▲ | RobotToaster 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Why not both? | |
| ▲ | stronglikedan 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's not going to happen, at least not in the land of crony capitalism. | |
| ▲ | atmosx 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I agree. It’s just there has not been a pro-EU vote in any form or capacity by any EU population. So the stopped doing referendums but the EU grew only even more unpopular- and lately with VDL and KK, its as if its a cruel joke we all expect for it to end soon. | | |
| ▲ | betteryet 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | EU is holding, but the fact that every authoritarian (US, China, Russia) is trying to break it apart should tell you something. It's like the only one remaining, and they don't like it. You may not agree, but VDL and KK have more balls than most men who have run the EU in recent history. | | |
| ▲ | atmosx 3 days ago | parent [-] | | If they had any, they would be in front line… not asking me to go get myself killed :-) |
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| ▲ | wrxd 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | So unpopular that the only country who ever decided to leave is now regretting its decision | | |
| ▲ | atmosx 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Just to make myself clear: I don’t think the UK made the right move. But if you ask most countries in referendums they will choose to leave. Ps. I know HN likes the EU very much because they see it as an opposing power to their home issues but it’s not that. The EU, in its current form, has many structural problems. That doesn’t mean that Europeans like Musk, Trump or Biden. |
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| ▲ | victorbjorklund 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | What are you talking about? Lots of countries have voted to join EU. Any country can leave when they want. EU is still popular in most countries. | | |
| ▲ | atmosx 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Can you name a referendum of a country within the EU that has to do with the EU in some form or capacity and received a positive vote? Netherlands, France, Italy and Greece all voted at a certain point in time. The result was always a “no”. The EU is not popular, within Europe, at all. Maybe the idea is great, but the implementation is certainly not. | | |
| ▲ | kazen44 3 days ago | parent [-] | | what are you on about?
this idea of a referendum is a straw man. Member states joined the EU through mechanisms of their state. (Acts of parlements, referendum or something else). Also, the votes you are described are all about the implementation of certain ideas/legislation inside the context of the EU, not about the organisation itself? | | |
| ▲ | atmosx 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > what are you on about? I'm a European citizen, stating the obvious. Happens to be the contrary of what most ppl in here think it is. > Member states joined the EU through mechanisms of their state. (Acts of parlements, referendum or something else). They did. That was a long time ago. When the EU was created the expectation was to align salaries, social welfare networks through access to cheap lending through the common currency, even though politicians like Margaret Thatcher understood the role of the ECB the moment it was proposed. Indeed her last speech as a PM in the house of commons is legendary[^1]. > Also, the votes you are described are all about the implementation of certain ideas/legislation inside the context of the EU, not about the organisation itself? Most voters don't make that distinction. The fact that every time a government wants to implement an unpopular idea uses the EU as an excuse doesn't help ofc. To recap: given the opportunity, the majority of countries in Europe would choose to live the EU today, if you ask them. It was much easier for the UK to do so, because they were not part of the monetary union. [^1]: "[...] the point of that kind of Europe with a central bank is no democracy, taking powers away from every single Parliament, and having a single currency, a monetary policy and interest rates which take all political power away from us.", M. Thatcher, Excerpt from her last speeh as UK's PM (1990). |
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