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by mullingitover 2078 days ago
If only every case of lying were so simple for the public to understand.

The NY Post story pushes the repeatedly-debunked claim that Biden pushed for the Ukraine prosecutor to be fired in order to protect his son. It has been fact-checked to death and found to be a lie. One side (the Trump campaign) continues to push this lie. The NY Post, owned by Trump henchman Rupert Murdoch, is pushing that lie in the article.

I don't see why Twitter and Facebook have to be neutral on their platforms when it comes to spreading lies in the run-up to a major election. The NY Post is a tabloid and this story has not been verified by any reputable news site. Banning this story is on par with banning a tabloid story that Biden is conspiring with Martians. It's a net good.
1 comments
amadeuspagel 2078 days ago
> If only every case of lying were so simple for the public to understand.

> Banning this story is on par with banning a tabloid story that Biden is conspiring with Martians.

This is the contradiction that I'm trying to get at: To justify censorship by claiming at the same time that something is obviously wrong (like the claim that Biden is conspiring with Martians) and that the public can't understand that it's wrong (though it presumably could understand that Biden isn't conspiring with Martians).

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mullingitover 2078 days ago
Ok, let's try something easier to understand: Let's say that rather than conspiring with aliens, the Post was ginning up a story that Biden conspired with bin Laden and was secretly behind 9/11, and they produced some highly suspect documents to back this up. No reputable news outlets verify the story. The Biden campaign produced evidence contradicting the story. And let's say the Post did this not just any random time, but as millions of people are actively voting in an election.

That's what this is - a pretty blatantly false tabloid story being pushed by Rupert Murdoch, the closest thing the world has to a cartoon villain, during the voting process in a major election. In the time it would take to conclusively debunk the story to the public, the damage would already be done. This is straight out of the 2016 election playbook, where disinformation was pushed as voting was happening.

I'm sorry, but I can't bring myself to clutch pearls over a disreputable tabloid being treated like a disreputable tabloid. If anything it would be good for journalism if they banned the Post from the site forever.

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amadeuspagel 2078 days ago
The inescapable premise here is that there's something that's obviously wrong to "us" (some enlightened circle of censors), so obviously wrong that we don't to discuss it further, but not obviously wrong to the masses who might fall for it. And that might well be true in any specific case, but the historical record of people with this attitude isn't great.
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mullingitover 2078 days ago
No platform has banned discussion of the story or the reasons for deplatforming it, so that's a moot point. The story is freely available on the internet and anyone who wishes can go read it right now.

They did the right thing in this specific case, seems a little alarmist to launch right into slippery slope prognostications about deplatforming. We're on the slippery slope right now when it comes to electioneering disinformation.

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