Sign up for Twitter  :-)

Here's some tweets for you:

@KentuckyDerby

https://mobile.twitter.com/NBCSports/status/1523104042427334660

Is Fox News against free speech if they don't give a liberal their platform to say that Trump is a Russian agent?

Of course not!

Twitter is a platform.  It is a business just like Fox News.  They have a right to place limits on their platform.  

So does MM on this forum.

Nobody is denying Trump his free speech rights to lie about the election.  But they don't have to give him a platform.

We are  constantly hearing about the bias on assorted news platforms.  There is no question. There is also no question that twitter had a significant bias, demonstrated constantly as they inconsistantly applied "rules" to one side of the aisle.  

There is some debate as to just how much "poetic license" a platform like Twitter has, and that discussion may continue.

Either way, the left never ever worried about the bias of twitter, any more than the bias of MSNBC, et al.  FOX???   That's a different story  :-)

But, Musk taking over Twitter and claiming that it will become a free speech platform certainly has the left up in arms.   You have to wonder about a party that finds free speech so concerning.

Blocking just like "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"

https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/84141/#84276

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https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/beauty-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder.html

'Beauty in the eye of the beholder' has a literal meaning - that the perception of beauty is subjective - what one person finds beautiful another may not.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Or, "One man's trash is another man's treasure"

which might refer to something physical most of the time but the same idea can be applied to online material.

Origin of "one man's trash is another man's treasure"

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/60429/origin-of-one-mans-trash-is-another-mans-treasure

If this technology existed in the late 1930's or if the same situation existed in Germany/Europe today as was the case in the 1930's do you think that Adolf Hitler should have been allowed to post his propaganda on Twitter because it's "free speech"?

Putin does not have a Twitter account but if he did and used it to promote his propaganda to the world and had tens of millions of followers.........should that be allowed because it's "free speech"?

Some good interpretations of this here but its obvious that you will often have 2 sides that disagree. 1 side insisting its free speech, the other side insisting that its dangerous hate speech or DISinformation/propaganda.

https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/95-815.pdf

Twitter, as a private company is not the government of course and can set its own rules so that tweets follow minimal standards(above governments free speech protection) to prevent their site from doing things like becoming a charismatic cult leaders online recruiting venue for millions of followers.

And you can bet, that in doing so, almost every one of the millions of people in that cult will scream bloody murder that their leader was only practicing free speech.

So, again, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder based on their political belief system. 

People in a cult, with captured brains, even if its millions of people will totally see whatever their leader tweets or posts as always acceptable. He/they are professing the tenets of the belief system...........like Putin does to the Russians and Hitler did to the Germans.

mm,

  Altho your extra curricular expansions on subjects of all natures is rarely acknowledged, they are appreciated immensely by myself and ,I'm sure, by most others here. Similar ,I would say, to the unrewarded efforts of a mother.

So valuable yet so taken for granted.

  John

You’re very welcome John!

we live in the best time of human history and access to unlimited information with many opportunities  to learn and share it is a big part of that.

Appreciating it like you and others do(me included) adds even more to that!

We already know your views in censorship MM.  

But,  had Twitter existed in the 30's,  I'd be all for Hitler having access. And for every tweet he'd make,  there'd be 10,000 or more explaining why he was wrong.

Bad ideas, wrong ideas need to be out in the open for discussion,  just like good ideas, and for many of the same reasons.

Read a neat quote the other day,  to the effect of..

"The truth is like a lion.  You don't have to protect it.  Set it free. It will protect itself"

We are all familiar with your distortion of the word censorship.  

 "I'd be all for Hitler having access."  While we were waiting for those counter tweets to come in 50 million people died.    Good going Tim.

Gosh JOJ, that was harsh.

Here's the definition of censorship.

cen·sorship

[ˈsensərSHip]

NOUN

1. the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security:

That applies even if you don't like what the person has to say.  I can't imagine how or why you'd think I've somehow distorted it. It's a pretty simple word.

I in no way condone Hitler or his message.  But just imagine..  If he had real time communications with the world, maybe there would not have been so many people ignoring what he was doing, until it was roo late.

Obviously, we'll never know, but I don't think you can rule out the possibility.

"We already know your views in censorship MM."

Thanks Tim,

Then you must know that I often state "My favorite posts are those that disagree with me because that presents the best opportunity for one or both sides to learn"

I've actually never removed or censored a post here, in 4 years other than one extreme post from mojo jam packed with offensive foul language.

If somebody disagrees with me there are 4 choices:

1. Prove that they are wrong with authentic facts/evidence and scientist(don't forget that I'm a scientist with an additional 2 year degree in statistics)

2. If I can't or on elements that I can't .......learn something and either agree with them or give them the benefit of the doubt.

3. If it's a trivial matter or  a just an opinion based matters, like this important one that can't be proven, then respectfully agree to disagree........like is the case here.

4. If it profoundly matters to society(like the just used  analogy to Hitler/Putin) as in hundreds of thousands of people dying from not getting vaccinated because of DISinformation and I prove to them many dozens of times they are pushing DISinformation and propaganda and they continually ignore my warnings to stop using this site for DISinformation/propaganda but instead, ramp up their DISinformation/propoganda......I will give a warning, then another warning, then another warning.........and if those go unheaded, they will eventually go into the penalty box.

Here's my documented proof on that last one:

2 of 100 posts showing indisputable evidence of the science that was saving lives for the vaccinated and costing lives for the unvaccinated:

Rural/Republican states hit hardest by COVID

https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/73407/

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/covid-coronavirus-vaccines-hospital-cases-rates-unvaccinated

Posters typical response ramping up of the DISinformation which was costing many lives

https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/73302/

After hundreds of posts like that................ a dozen warnings, the person was finally suspended and still not permanently banned............and still posts DISinformation/propaganda and still gets warnings........with not one of his posts ever removed.

And that would be my verified position based on documentation of the facts here, Tim!

If we can't back it up with verified facts/data like this.........then it's often just an opinion.

Tim said:

"Read a neat quote the other day,  to the effect of..

'The truth is like a lion.  You don't have to protect it.  Set it free. It will protect itself'"

-----------------------------------

Tim,

 Perhaps that's normally the case. But is protection needed from the "big lie" (false claim that Trump won in 2020)? Going with the same idea that the truth is a lion, is this a very rare instance of a tiger, which is stronger than and thus can kill a lion, representing the tens of millions still believing the "big lie" happening to live near this particular lion (normally they don't live anywhere near each other unless at a zoo...so think of this as a tiger attacking a lion at a zoo) and thus meaning the lion needs protection in this unusual case?

MM,  I apologize if I've misunderstood,  but I would swear that you have claimed that some forms of censorship are good and necessary.  Your quote below would imply that you would certainly support censoring Hitler.

"If this technology existed in the late 1930's or if the same situation existed in Germany/Europe today as was the case in the 1930's do you think that Adolf Hitler should have been allowed to post his propaganda on Twitter because it's "free speech"?"

Personally, I think censorship is more dangerous than any speech ever could be because censors are human with all the human frailties and biases that will affect their decisions.  

We have a great recent example of why censorship can be a major fail right here on the forum.

I think an argument could be made that the recent docu..  2000 mules was disinformation and discussion of same should be banned

My feeling was it appeared to describe a plausible scenario,  I still do, and wanted to see what had to be said.  I was skeptical for several reasons.   It was apparent the Dinesh expected to make lots of money and some of his tactics have been less than honorable.

Using some criteria, the docu, and any discussion could be banned.  Had that been the case here on the forum, the legitimate questions you raised, and the argument you made against it would have never entered the discussion.

As a result of that exchange, I have serious doubts as to the reliability/validity of the  docu. 

Banning the documentary and any discussion would have left me with the feeling that something valid had been hidden.

Simple summation.   Lies can't survive the light of truth, but they thrive in darkness.   Ban the lies, and the truth will never come out.

Thanks Tim,

Actually, you were correct about what I asserted with the Hitler, Putin analogy.

I just wanted to clarify my personal opinion in just the small realm of MarketForum, where I have all the control and will never censor opinions because I can confront DISinformation/propaganda and expose it and never  try to hide the opinions from people here. 

Just the opposite. Show ALL opinions here so that they can be discussed and proven one way or the other with authentic facts. 

On a larger scale, like Twitter, it's just not possible to manage in the same way, so you are right that I would condone actions against Hitler/Putin and other charismatic leaders with toxic messages that brainwash enough people to cause deaths and/or major damage to society.

Make no mistake on my reasoning below.

Most people are extremely vulnerable to such messages because of their innate human cognitive bias and there are predators out there that know how to take advantage of it with their convincing sounding messages.

Your position is to let people decide.

But sometimes, vulnerable people do actually need to be protected from attacks that they can't defend themselves against.....even if they wanted.

You may not see it as an attack but it absolutely is an attack. Maybe your brain can sort thru the DISinformation and INformation and pick out which is which.

Mine certainly can too.

But sadly, much of the world has shown the inability to do that over and over and over when charismatic, evil powers get control of millions of minds using convincing sounding messages.

Allowing them to use Twitter to recruit, would be providing them with a tool to hurt a great number of people.

I gave you 2 extreme hypothetical examples to make a point. There are many more REAL ones. One of them was the REAL lives lost to DISinformation on the COVID vaccine. Another was the damage from the lies about the 2020 election.

I actually agree with you on almost all of it.............until we get to the point of serious harm to society. 

Where do we draw the line?

I agree strongly with you, there are problems on where the line is and who gets to make the decisions. The fake climate crisis is a quintessential example of a problem in my area of expertise.........atmospheric science.

Hunter Biden's laptop is another outstanding example, where authentic evidence was censored.

So I hear/read your point Tim.

However, if NOT drawing any lines does far more damage than drawing lines somewhere that makes sense............then there should at least be an objective discussion on WHERE to draw the lines, doing the least harm by repressing our right to know and at the same time stop the  biggest, LEGIT threats  based on reasonable threat assessments.

We'll probably have to agree to disagree.  

I am an opponent of the government protecting people from themselves.  History is full of examples where that's gone very badly and "controlling" information is among those examples.

This "ministry of truth" being formed by Biden scares the Kwap outta me.  The individual he has heading it up thought the Steele Dossier was the truth and the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian hoax.  Yeah, that's off to a great start.  Of course, a department called "HomeLand Security" has scared the kwap outta me since Bush signed it into existence.  Government Names/Titles notoriusly end up being the opposite of the actual results.  See any bills with "Freedom" or "Fairness" in the title. *Edit**  or "Affordable".

But getting back to my main concern.    There is no valid objective criteria that can be defined for deciding which information/disinformation should be allowed and which should not.  That being the case, it has to be left up to the judgment of an individual(s) and I would not trust anyone to decide which info I should have access to.

"We'll probably have to agree to disagree."

But also agree on quite a bit too, Tim!

Your example is the perfect one to make the strongest point of your case.

DHS disinformation ‘czar’ Jankowicz pushed Trump-Russia claims at center of Durham case

https://nypost.com/2022/05/10/dhs-disinformation-czar-jankowicz-pushed-trump-russia-claims/

https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/84146/#84153

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Disinformation chief Nina Jankowicz addresses Hunter Biden’s laptop remarks

https://goodwordnews.com/disinformation-chief-nina-jankowicz-addresses-hunter-bidens-laptop-remarks/

Jankowicz had spoken to The Associated Press for an article published on October 15, 2020 and reportedly said there were questions about whether the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden.

“We should consider him a product of the Trump campaign,” Jankowicz said at the time, pointing to the involvement of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Trump associate Steve Bannon.

On October 22, 2020, Jankowicz shared a post on Twitter that she described as “casting even more doubt on the provenance of the Hunter Biden NY Post story” and said in another tweet that day: “Emails don’t need to be changed.  be part of an influence campaign.  Voters deserve this context, not a [fairy] story of a laptop repair shop.”

On March 16, 2021, Jankowicz shared a report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and wrote in a Twitter thread that the intelligence community “has a high degree of confidence that the Kremlin used proxies to pushing narratives of influence, including misleading or unsubstantiated claims about President Biden.”

However, this report did not specifically refer to the laptop.

Newsweek asked the White House for comment.

There has been significant controversy over the history of the laptop during the 2020 presidential election and questions over the authenticity of emails allegedly found on the computer.

Some Republicans had suggested the laptop pointed to evidence of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden in his foreign business dealings that could also have implicated Joe Biden, while some Democrats dismissed it as a possible disinformation operation by Russia.

Twitter and Facebook temporarily restricted story sharing on the laptop at the end of 2020 over fears the emails were the product of a hack.

The laptop was one of three dropped off at a Delaware repair shop run by John Paul Mac Isaac in 2019, but was never picked up at the store.  Mac Isaac, who was reportedly a Trump supporter, reviewed the contents of the laptop and found some of them to be outrageous.

He contacted authorities but also provided a hard drive containing the contents of the laptop to Robert Costello, lawyer for Rudy Giuliani, who shared it with The New York Post as well as other Trump supporters, including Steve Bannon.

The New York Times and The Washington Post were later able to verify some, but not all, of the emails, as no evidence emerged that the laptop was part of a Russian operation and controversy continued over this."

metmike: This is the exact opposite way to establish control over censorship. You don't have a person extremely affiliated with one party's belief system, appoint somebody from their party with blatantly biased and well documented incidents of THEM passing on party affiliated DISinformation and trying to censor the truth.......as the czar of DISinformation discernment. That's counterproductive to the objective of such a position.

If we are to have a credible person in that position they MUST be approved by some diverse body that represents both parties.

If it was Congress, the way to get around the republicans who will vote against anybody because they are against the idea  is to provide  them with X number of candidates and see who gets the most votes/support.

Congress wastes plenty of time fighting over trivial issues but this is the exact opposite of trivial in todays age. Without making a change like this, what will happen is this gal will quit or get fired on the news that a republican will win in 2024 and the R can fill the spot with the person that sees things that line up with the R belief system.

That's the precedent Biden is setting here, in abusing this position.

How about this.

A DISinformation BOARD. With an equal number of  people from both parties on it...or even just 1 person appointed by each party.

Probably we will get people that line up with their party every time and if thats the case.......it shows you how ludicrous it would be to have a person from one party in control ALL the time.

I think your hearts in the right place, but history, both recent and distant, is against you.

No individual, or even small group, can effectively and honestly hold the title "Keeper of the truth".  No matter how sincere, basic human flaws will rule. And quite frankly,  I'd suspect the motives of anyone who would seek the position.

I'll repeat one last time.  I don't trust anyone to decide what information I can access.