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by SkidanovAlex 2017 days ago
Who decides that the videos in Russia are factual, while the videos in the US are not?
6 comments

I suppose it would depend on whether the claims in the video have been substantiated, e.g., by the intelligence community. A video talking about Russian interference via targeted facebook ads would be fine.

On the other hand, a video claiming Russian agents infiltrated thousands of voting centers with sleeper agents should probably not get through the filter.

Though as with any content filters, there will be edge cases, false positives, false negatives, etc. that will all pose a problem.

This is the fundamental problem of common user spaces on the web these days: a failure to impose standards will often result in a toxic environment. Yet attempting to impose standards is something of an arms-race game of whack-a-mole.

I think HN only manages the balance somewhat decently because the users themselves are also highly interested in productive conversation and mostly downvote -> dead comments that are likely to provoke flaming instead of discourse.

If you're hosting a party, it's not only your right to determine what kinds of behavior and conversations are allowed and not allowed, it's your duty to do so.

YouTube gets to decide what's on their platform. As an organization, they have decided that the election fraud stuff is not only false, but harmful. That's not only their right, it's their duty.

Evidence!
How do we present evidence for the side that's banned, again?
Like normal, and that's a disingenuous rebuttal. The evidence is not being suppressed, the misinformation is.
GoFundMe deplatformed Matt Braynard when he tried to raise money for the voter fraud research. He didn't even assert that the fraud happened or not and they still kicked him off for what they've said is "disinformation".
Historically in the US there have been only a handful of cases where voter fraud overturned an election, and it was in small elections with very narrow margins. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, the likes of which will not happen in a GoFundMe. The effort was meant to sow distrust and repeat the weaponized cynicism.
Seems like "laminar flow" would be a possible explanation here...

Fluid flow near surfaces becomes a near zero vector.

You're moving the goalposts.
GoFundMe is allowed to look at off platform behavior to decide.
That's cool, but he started the campaign on November 6 and they kicked him out the next day. He didn't say anywhere that the fraud happened or not. He was just raising money for the research.
Bring the evidence to the court? It's funny how the side claiming there was fraud apparently has trucks full of evidence and affidavits on news channels and social media, but when it comes to an actual courtroom, where lying has real consequences, suddenly, they don't claim "fraud" anymore and they don't have any real evidence.
It's always the same. Lie endlessly the news, and they tell a different story under oath, or they go to jail for it.

Over and over again.

Who would you have it be? The government? A committee? Honestly, a private company making the decision seems like the least problematic of all options. You're free to "vote them out of office" with your dollars if you wish.
Mueller report and various indictments with pretty documented evidence.
The US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which concluded there existed close ties between Russian nationals, and possibly Russian intelligence, and the Trump campaign.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/512487-senate-p...

Except it didn't find any evidence of collusion:

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/24/706318191/trump-white-house-h...

"Special counsel Robert Mueller did not find evidence that President Trump's campaign conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 election, according to a summary of findings submitted to Congress"

Impressive, a throwaway account that uses the very controversial summary that Barr wrote quickly before the report was released and without Mueller's re-reading. Here's the follow up from NPR where Mueller later distanced himself from this obviously misleading summary: https://www.npr.org/2019/04/30/718883130/mueller-complained-...
There's at least two accounts trying to conflate the Mueller investigation with the Senate Committee. It's kind of amazing how ... clearly identical their arguments are.
Yeah. In a thread where the debate is about "people being able to form their opinions on their own" it seems like they really like to depend on spoon-fed talking points.
>Impressive, a throwaway account that uses the very controversial summary that Barr

Or use the latest findings from the lead on the Senate Intel report: https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases...

“We can say, without any hesitation, that the Committee found absolutely no evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russian government to meddle in the 2016 election."

Unfortunately it has to be a throwaway because these kinds of facts might as well be thought crimes here.

Once again, you're not linking to a source document that explicitly presents evidence. In fact there are clearly more than a hundred pages about Trump and Russians engaging in activity around the 2016 campaign.

You link to a partisan Senator who, by the way contributed to the Donald Trump campaign, says he found no-evidence.

The thought crime here is leaning into the weasel-word of "collusion" when it isn't clearly defined by Rubio or even the report or "Russian government" to cop out of the deep involvement of ex-spies and oligarchs out of Russia.

Source: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu...

>Once again, you're not linking to a source document that explicitly presents evidence.

This is the exact document that Rubio is referencing in his press release I linked above. The evidence presented explicitly presents no evidence of Trump colluding.

>You link to a partisan Senator

Rubio was the head chair of the investigation, not some random senator.

>The thought crime here is leaning into the weasel-word of "collusion" when it isn't clearly defined by Rubio

Facts and legal definitions are not "weasel-words".

Your linked source just proves the following statement:

"We can say, without any hesitation, that the Committee found absolutely no evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russian government to meddle in the 2016 election."

You can continue to believe fake news, but that doesn't make it reality.

The link I provided was not referring to the Mueller investigation.

In August, of this year, the a US Senate Committee on Intelligence found that the Trump campaign colluded with Russian nationals, and possibly Russian intelligence.

Independently of Mueller.

In your own provided source:

"The committee's findings are a more in-depth look at the interference than Mueller's investigation, but the findings run parallel to the conclusions of Mueller's probe, which found overwhelming evidence of Russia's efforts to interfere in the election through disinformation and cyber campaigns but a lack of sufficient evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin to impact the outcome of the 2016 election."

Your own source literally disproves what you're claiming.

I'll say it again, from your source:

"lack of sufficient evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin to impact the outcome of the 2016 election."

Yes, that quote says that the Mueller investigation failed.

However, the article is _about the Senate Committee_. This is a different thing than the Mueller investigation, and it succeeded where Mueller failed.

FTA:

> Among the probe's newest revelations is that Konstantin V. Kilimnik, an associate of Manafort's, was a "Russian intelligence officer." Manafort's contacts also posed a “grave counterintelligence threat,” according to the report.

> "Manafort worked with Kilimnik starting in 2016 on narratives that sought to undermine evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election," the report added.

> "At nearly 1,000 pages, Volume 5 stands as the most comprehensive examination of ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign to date — a breathtaking level of contacts between Trump officials and Russian government operatives that is a very real counterintelligence threat to our elections," Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the panel's vice chairman, added in a statement.

>Yes, that quote says that the Mueller investigation failed.

It says nothing of the sort, it actually agrees with the Mueller investigation, and only adds to its legitimacy.

Nothing that you quoted points towards collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. There were contacts with Russians from both the DNC and RNP, but once again:

> a lack of sufficient evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin to impact the outcome of the 2016 election.

Lack of evidence that Trump conspired. There is no collusion.

Thanks for proving my point with your source.