The tweet might be disagreeable, but it is still an important statement from a foreign Government. Twitter has no right to be 'Ministry of Information'.
The problem is that there's no middleground. Either you don't
play the "ministry of information" role and have to live with
the fact that eventually your platform will turn into a more
chaotic 4chan, or you start removing particularly excessive
content at which point you crossed the only line that can be
clearly defined.
This is one of the reasons I think old-school forums are
superior in terms of "web hygiene". You have a group of
moderators, each responsible for a clearly defined section and a
userbase small enough so rules are still enforceable. And the
people running it are not an untouchable megacorporation.
Since this tweet comes from the chinese embassy of the USA, it seems to me that this is diplomatic matters and should be handled by the government. For example the USA government could apply diplomatic sanctions to the embassy if they do not delete the tweet. I find it very strange that the twitter moderation team is acting in stead of the foreign affairs department.
If we're going to treat Twitter like a public utility, let's just nationalize it and get rid of the oligopoly. Although I'd rather have it broken apart into a bunch of federated websites with a hard requirement to never break federation (GTalk/XMPP style) with the rest of the open web.
This seems backward. The government has no business censoring the Chinese embassy. However, the embassy has no particular right to force platforms to disseminate its propaganda.
Honestly, this sort of action just seems like a return to the status quo; you can say what you want, and people who read a lot of embassy press releases might see it, but good luck finding a newspaper who’ll cooperate if it’s abhorrent stuff like this.
Terrible analogy, newspapers and stations have limited space for what they cover and it's an editorial decision to choose to run something over something else.
Twitter could just let the tweet exist for people who personally choose to follow the Chinese US embassy at no cost to other tweets. I mean, it's from a national government's embassy, their angle is not hidden at all.
Now they open themselves up to all sorts of questions, are they softer on the Saudis? On Israel?
It's more effort to ban a post than to just leave it up.
Getting into picking and choosing which foreign governments are allowed to post, and which messages they'll countenance, at additional expenses for their mod team? Twitter has a foreign policy?
If it's diplomatic matters they should have used the usual
diplomatic channels. They instead posted it on a privately owned
platform they themselves banned in their own country.
Twitter has to obey the law, other than that they don't owe that
embassy anything.
Twitter has the right (and, really, an ethical obligation) to deter the spread of misinformation by malicious actors. This tweet implicitly makes the false claim that mass sterilization in Xinjiang is voluntary, and its deletion will mitigate the impact of the misinformation and fake news.
> it seems to me that this is diplomatic matters and should be handled by the government
You'd obviously see similar arguments about keeping Trump's account. What if the leader of a country calls for violence? Keep it because diplomacy?
As someone else mentioned and I now agree with, Twitter isn't an arm of the government. It's a U.S. company that has rules. Government officials can use any platform they want to get their message out. Companies can mostly do whatever they want with their own platforms.
I didn't write it very clearly, I guess "unmoderated" would have
been a more fitting term. Especially as my main point was about
the need of moderators so the community doesn't turn into a
toxic pit.
The enitity that tweeted this statement forecibly sterlized women and is presenting the results as "emancipation". This isn't disagreeable, its monsterous and diabolical. The same limits that apply to serial killers presenting their handiwork on twitter apply here as well.
I'm inclined to agree across the spectrum. However, I imagine Twitter wants to present an image of balanced moderation after recent domestic censorship.
If that's true, then is it not better the tweet stays up and is challenged?
In this case the fact the tweet was taken down made headlines, but if censorship like this is becoming the norm, as it looks like it is, then these issues potentially get no exposure or discussion.
> If that's true, then is it not better the tweet stays up and is challenged?
I used to agree with this line of thinking, but I believe the past dozen years or so of the information age have made it abundantly clear that simply having the truth on your side and making a rational case for it is not even remotely sufficient to counter the spread of misinformation.
Honestly, I'm not sure that free speech as a concept will be able to survive the information age. It seems as though any society holding it sacrosanct might be doomed to collapse from divisive pressure both internal and external. I hope I'm wrong about that, but only time will tell, and interesting[0] times they will be.
[0] In the apocryphal chinese curse sense of the word, if that wasn't obvious.
> I hope I'm wrong about [society being doomed to collapse because of free speech]
I'm confused, then why did you say this?
> I used to agree with this line of thinking
Unless I'm misinterpreting this, you seem "not to longer agree" with the merits of free speech. If so, then why do you hope to be wrong about it eventually disappearing?
> the past dozen years or so of the information age have made it abundantly clear that simply having the truth on your side and making a rational case for it is not even remotely sufficient to counter the spread of misinformation.
Even if I agreed with this—which I don't—the answer to this hypothetical reality is definitely not to start removing actual information.[1]
For instance, having tweets like that exist would be good counterevidence to all to apologia of certain bad actors that goes around, even here in HN.
> Honestly, I'm not sure that free speech as a concept will be able to survive the information age
Usually the first ones silenced are the ones promoting censorship. That's what I'd usually say anyway, but it is pointless; I would be silenced eventually too and I don't want to be silenced, even if it happens to me after it does to the ones who are "inadvertently" asking to be silenced.
> It seems as though any society holding it sacrosanct might be doomed to collapse from divisive pressure both internal and external.
Do you have historical evidence to back up this claim?
All in all, my hope is that we find easier, better ways for people to fact check, instead of removing data wholesale. Language is the basis of civilization, so restricting communication is not the way to go. Improving it is the way to move forward; it has always been so, I think.
[1]: And to note, I'm not saying that what was said in that tweeted article wasn't an awful lie. The information is not the content, the information is the fact that it was said at all.
> Unless I'm misinterpreting this, you seem "not to longer agree" with the merits of free speech. If so, then why do you hope to be wrong about it eventually disappearing?
I still believe in the merits of free speech as regards reasoned good-faith open debate and communication, what has changed is that it is now clear to me that bad-faith propaganda without regard for reason cannot be countered by reason, and that such communication is in fact significantly dangerous.
> Even if I agreed with this [that misinformation can't be countered with reason] —which I don't— the answer to this hypothetical reality is definitely not to start removing actual information.
If recent events haven't convinced you, I honestly don't know what will. I don't see any way around having to remove the underlying (mis)information in order to prevent its spread. Events have shown that merely tagging misinforamtion as such is not effective, and that's without getting into an argument about who gets to judge what is and isn't misinformation.
> Do you have historical evidence to back up this claim?
You mean aside from the increasingly violent divisiveness of politics in the past dozen years? Not really. I'm not intending to prove it exhaustively in my post so much as to say that it seems like it might be the case. I welcome evidence to the contrary.
> All in all, my hope is that we find easier, better ways for people to fact check, instead of removing data wholesale.
People have many methods to fact check right now, but it has been shown that people prefer to ignore information that runs counter to what they want to be true. People can be lead to water but can't be made to drink, it seems. Indeed, the information age has made fact checking more accessible than it has ever been in history, yet we have seen recently that people will attempt to overthrow the government based on outright fabrication and even call for the hanging of an otherwise politically aligned individual for disagreeing with them.
> I still believe in the merits of free speech as regards reasoned good-faith open debate [...] such communication is in fact significantly dangerous.
These two sentences cannot be true at the same time; one is either in favor of free communication or one isn't. There are many ways to name the idea of "I'm okay with speech as long as I deem it to be in good faith/not dangerous", but free speech is not one of them.
It's the entire point: "I might hate what you say, but I'll defend your right to say it."
> If recent events haven't convinced you, I honestly don't know what will.
Why would anything convince me of the idea that something I deem to be the basis of progress in civilization, is actually not so?
To give an example: The church had significant power—even over the state in vast swathes of Europe—in the middle ages, and they were pretty censorious. Yet the renaissance still happened, in no small part thanks to the printing press and the huge boost it gave to the sharing of knowledge.
Interestingly, the reformation also happened around that time, and with it brought quite a few religious wars, with both groups making claims that don't sound all that unlike to "the other side is spreading falsehoods and there's no other way to stop them".
Nowadays, catholics and protestants seem to be mostly okay with each other, and I'm sure today's conflicts will eventually become a thing of the past too. But it will not be thanks to censorship.
> that's without getting into an argument about who gets to judge what is and isn't misinformation.
This is an argument against your point, not in favor of it, I think. Who's the arbiter of what's misinformation? Twitter or any of the other gigantic and "evil"[1] corporations?
> You mean aside from the increasingly violent divisiveness of politics in the past dozen years?
Interesting, many claim that misinformation is at fault of that divide. Just as many instead claim that it's siloing, filter bubbles and echo chambers the real culprit.
> I'm not intending to prove it exhaustively in my post so much as to say that it seems like it might be the case. I welcome evidence to the contrary.
But the burden of proof is on the one who affirms, not on the one who denies. Believing something just because it seems like it might be true and because one hasn't looked for counterevidence can be unfalsifiable. To wit, one might just believe it and that's that.
Which is, of course, one's prerogative. Free speech and all that; everyone is free to believe anything.
> People have many methods to fact check right now.[...] Indeed, the information age has made fact checking more accessible than it has ever been in history
Case in point. There might be many ways to fact check and it might be more accessible, but clearly not enough, for whatever reason. For example, in this case, if it were easier and faster, you could have more readily looked for evidence of your "any society holding free speech as sacrosanct is doomed to collapse" claim, I think.
[1]: Well, they're "evil" as long as the discussion is not about free speech but instead about any of the other unethical things they do. When the subject is censorship, many people are in their favor, it seems.
You're missing the main point, our fact-checking has never been so fast and efficient, but the point is people just ignore it (e.g. fake ballots being burned, debunked minutes later and millions still believe it).
What point am I missing exactly? I don't understand how that sentence is apropos.
Sure, fact-checking has never been so "fast or efficient"... But it clearly is still not yet fast or efficient, or perhaps promoted, enough.
But even that aside, I don't understand what's the point I apparently missed. I can only think that the implication is that fact checking already is as good as it'll ever be and, even assuming that that was true (it isn't), then we should just give up on free speech and resign ourselves to censorship? Well, I didn't "miss" that point, I just don't agree.
You're correct, having the truth on your side and making a rational case for it is...
> not even remotely sufficient to counter the spread of misinformation.
However, allowing the tweet to be removed - especially when its consequences are so critical - takes away the only tool we have at our disposal. It may not be enough, but the conclusion we ought to reach from this should be that we need more of it, not less of it.
Worse, it makes the situation murky by placing a veil over the initial communication, because the tweet's effect of having been seen has already occurred. Obfuscating this information after it has already seen the light of day adds to its dark powers and makes disinformation harder to stop.
>the past dozen years or so of the information age have made it abundantly clear that simply having the truth on your side and making a rational case for it is not even remotely sufficient to counter the spread of misinformation.
Hasn't that been the case for all of human history?
It's better because Twitter doesn't want to spread their propaganda even if it's rebutted.
Not to mention the population most affected by this can't challenge it since they're being decimated by forced re-education camps where they are sterilized by the same government that tweeted this
It's a little tone deaf to ask why it being challenged is preferable in light of that isn't it?
-
This is getting so old so quickly in the last few days.
I'll take the flak from people insisting the traction here is totally organic and has nothing to do with current events and that I'm just trying to derail things with "orange man bad":
This wouldn't have made front page as quickly before Trump's suspension. A quick search shows out of the last few months this post already has more points than any other twitter removal post.
At the end of the day Twitter left a President's account along for 4 years through hundreds of violations of their platform, petty insults, vague threats to entire nations, etc.
They finally blinked when that person led to 5 casualties after a mob attacked the Capitol.
-
For the slippery slope to matter, there needs to be a slope.
Twitter has demonstrated their extreme restraint in censoring anything remotely deemed as official.
People can keep forcing this angle of how "dangerous" it is that they're willing to remove only the most egregious instances of rules violations on their private platform but it's just not true.
It's their right that was cemented by the Supreme Court because some lady didn't want to bake cakes for gay people, and the discretion in applying that right is excellent.
You can talk about hypotheticals where they go off the deep end and start censoring everything... but by that logic the US government can go off the deep end and start censoring print media. Nothing is immune from doomsday hypotheticals.
> The enitity that tweeted this statement forecibly sterlized women
Do you have the slightest evidence for this? Census data shows that Uighur population doubled in the past 30 years, because this population hasn't been subjected to the "one child policy" among other things.
This is a war of propaganda, from both side. None is particularly more believable than the other. proceed with caution.
I was interested to learn that this policy only dates back to 2014, rather than being some longtime oppression. I had thought it was more similar to America's relationship with the Native Americans.
> For decades, China had one of the most extensive systems of minority entitlements in the world, with Uighurs and others getting more points on college entrance exams, hiring quotas for government posts and laxer birth control restrictions. Under China’s now-abandoned ‘one child’ policy, the authorities had long encouraged, often forced, contraceptives, sterilization and abortion on Han Chinese. But minorities were allowed two children — three if they came from the countryside.
Anyway, a world where China's tweet is up and this link is the first reply to it strikes me as far better, in discourse and the availability of truth, then a world where I know I'm only allowed to read this article and China cannot defend themselves.
Written by Adrian Zenz. I am sorry but if you really want to convince me/someone something isn't propaganda Adrian Zenz isn't the person to link. He is ultra religious and wrote some questional material before he felt "lead by God" against China, and has had quite a few times were we spread fake news.
I find it weird to denounce one as propaganda but not look into who wrote this. A lot of the anti China sources are based on his or US and/or weapon manufacturers funded sources.
If people don't want 'big tech' to be 'Ministry of Information' stop using them as such? The Chinese government has plenty of channels they could use instead.
The article linked by OP says Twitter did not explain it, but since Trump was banned for violation of the Glorification of Violence guideline, maybe it applies here too.
The irony of that statement is the CCP couldn’t use Twitter in China as they had already blocked it. So, they must already use other channels by choice.
Agreed. With each movement and gyration I feel a metaphorical boa-constrictor wrapping tighter and tighter around our freedoms. I can put myself on both sides of most arguments, while my emotional attachment is to a democratic socialist leaning. The implications for tech determining how, where, what and why to every aspect of our daily lives is deeply concerning. Freedom of speech has always had limits and those limits are essential to democracy. Those limits were deeply debated among legal scholars for decades before decisions were made.
Now I feel we are making quick brash moves in a moment of excitement and drunkin power, with no judicial oversight. In our collective hangovers we will begin to realize the true ramifications of tech companies deciding what is fair speech and fair thought at its inception, way before a movement, momentum or Legal judicial oversight is even possible.
I see people asking this question, let me flip it around: where is the guarantee (implicit or explicit) that in a free society we are owed a channel to broadcast a message?
I think when you set out to become ubiquitous, gobble up competitors in your space and advertise yourself in order to gain more followers to cement your network effects.
It’s like denying someone electricity. Sure we can do without. But society is now set up such that not allowing someone to use electricity is beyond the pale.
Social media has made themselves indispensable and as such they owe access to whomever they’ve extended access to, unless the users violate local laws.
>>I think when you set out to become ubiquitous, gobble up competitors in your space and advertise yourself in order to gain more followers to cement your network effects.
By that logic, MS Windows licenses should be free and Wal-mart should be forced to stay in every location it killed off all the competitors. Maybe home depot and ikea too?
But MS windows isn't free, and box stores close locations. TBH, I find these 'mostly monopolies' a lot more disturbing then social media companies.
If Walmart colluded with all the other major grocery stories to ban anyone who wants to raise their taxes, for example, then I would find that pretty horrifying as well and would advocate for laws to prevent that.
Fortunately, we aren't seeing such actions yet, so we don't really have a large need for such laws. But yes, if such actions happened, then that would be bad and we should make that illegal.
I was hoping to find middle ground in this conversation but if you truly believe the ability to tweet or post on Facebook is indispensable, I’m not sure we will.
It won't let me comment on your longer reply below. I just wanted to say, this:
>>there are more ways to deliver a message than there ever have been in the history of mankind
really resonates with me - its a lot easier now then it ever was with "letters to the editors" or "public access cable" or whatever other medium you pick. Even getting a ham license and taking your message global is easier then before.
It may not be exactly indispensable now, but they want to become such. In that light I think in ten years when they are your bank and whatever else, I think they will be indispensable.
> I think when you set out to become ubiquitous, gobble up competitors in your space and advertise yourself in order to gain more followers to cement your network effects.
You mean, be successful?
> It’s like denying someone electricity.
Like electricity? That's a laughable assertion.
Thankfully you are completely mistaken about what the law is.
Sorry but this is a moot point. The real question to ask is do you think it's a good idea or fair to give equal access to Americans and those in nations with free speech, when we're not allowed or able to say what we want to the people of China?
It's naive if you don't consider boundaries or borders of systems and consequences of if there isn't equal reciprocity between those boundaries - there's a power dynamic imbalance that will occur, e.g. it's not an equal playing field - and so it's fair to prevent them access to your population that allows free speech. It's their decision/action that is preventing their free speech, and if they change their action to allow free speech for their population then they'd be allowed equal access to Americans et al; at the moment foreign bad actors do in fact have easy access to populations with free speech - mostly attempting to craft, influencing international narratives or instigate hate to destabilize society/democracy.
The comment I was responding to seems to have been deleted, so I'm gonna leave this here:
TBH, I don't know and I don't care...
Twitter, FB, and even HN are not government agencies, and it's really getting tiresome to hear people complain they should act like one. I don't even use social media outside of imgur and HN. Its really getting annoying listening to whining about how so and so can't use their favorite echo chamber any more.
What happened to the conservative stronghold position that companies can refuse service as they see fit? Hell, isn't jack a buddhist? Maybe he's just started banning stuff that offends his religious beliefs? (As far as I know, he's still the majority owner of twitter, so he can basically call the shots.)
In short, there is no 'right to be on XXX' (FB, twitter, whatever) and private companies can and will de-platform you for a variety of reasons.
ps - thanks for the link. Sounds more like trying to justify the Uygur persecution then anything else.
You know, starting a reply to someone with the single word (sentence?) 'Lie' is not terribly friendly and may not lead to the constructive discussion we all come here to enjoy.
It's not just you either; I've seen comments with 'False.' strewn around this site and it sounds (to me) equally as cold.
Just a friendly note. You're neither a liar nor is your comment false.
To me, simply saying "False." with a link is not any colder than saying "That is false." or "that is untrue, see this ___", etc..
I admit, I agree that "Lie." was a little on the cold side. I find that when people blurt out something so obviously and verifiably false that they are either being lazy or facetious which also does not "lead to a constructive conversation". Perhaps if I had the ability to downvote it I would have done that and moved on. Not an excuse, just an explanation.
Fair point; I see what you mean. It just seems like all it takes is just a few words, and the tone changes dramatically though the meaning remains the same.
I just see it a lot here and I pay (way too much) attention to the words/phrases people use, and that one bothers me especially for whatever reason.
Probably not. If 'everyone knows' the TOS is merely a conspiracy thrust upon 'us'. Then, it'll cease being enforceable. Respect for the rules is not required. It's merely a courtesy society offers, when the rules are 'fair'.
"laws are merely a conspiracy thrust upon us..." Good luck with that logic in your murder trial... :-P
"copyright is merely a conspiracy thrust upon us", so its perfectly fine to pirate software.
Also, any code I make public will be under terms _I_ find acceptable - what 'everyone knows' really doesn't factor into the equation. You're not entitled to set usage terms for my work.
Oh, and respect for the rules IS required - or you get de-platformed. For examples see half of HN's front page :-P
I understand your point but I'm not sure what the TOS has to do with a murder trial... The parent never said anything about all laws being a conspiracy.
How can you say that when there are hundreds of confirmed cases of ISIS radicalizing people from the internet ? Why do you have a problem believing that ?
Are there? Was it through Twitter? In all likelihood what you're talking about is some random semi-private forum that's going to fly under the radar anyway. And you have that big, huge number: hundreds, not mere dozens, hundreds! My oh my, that's a scary army right there. How many suicide bombers have the harassment by ISrael of the illegally occupied territories population created?
And with this joke of an army is good enough to kill free speech on the net. That's almost as tragically comical as the floatsam in the Gulf of Tonkin that caused millions of deaths, but it's happening right now.
I think in a democratic society we accept certain structures and laws. If the government declares a group an enemy of the state, then I think it’s fair to comply with that law. Making your own laws is not though.
However, just the other day there was hooplah about GitHub not allowing access from Iran. So it’s like people want to eat their cake and also have it.
I think this is actually a great point because it shows how much grey there is in something you're trying to make black and white.
China is not declared a foreign enemy by law and yet the US government is actively using banning and sanctioning their otherwise legally operating companies. If they're not a foreign enemy, do they not have rights in the US?
This whole thing is only shades of grey. Pretending it is black and white makes an honest conversation about it impossible.
Twitter doesn't make their own laws. They have a privately owned
platform and can choose how to manage it to some degree. Just
like a restaurant can kick you out if you don't act responsibly.
It might be different if Twitter had a monopoly on social
networks, but that's not the case.
Instead of policing what Twitter can and can't allow on its website, we should look at the root of the issue: the global public square should not be controlled by a single corporation.
That'd ban everyone. Is there a country that permits fully free speech? Certainly not the US. What about Germany?
So now you are back in the position of making a judgement call about whose laws permit free enough speech. There's no black and white line to draw here.
Difference in free speech between countries is not some linear continuum that gets gradually fuzzier when you get closer to Russia, Saudi Arabia and China. It varies a little, countries have idiosyncrasies, then there is big discontinuity.
Yeah? In Denmark you can be fined for language that is insulting or degrading. Germany bans political parties. In Italy speech against the honor and prestige of the president is forbidden. South Korea strictly limits speech around elections. In Australia there is no constitutional protection of free speech and media (particularly depicting violence) is regularly censored.
Now let's start going through the other countries and tell me how this isn't a spectrum. Where does Malaysia fall on your bright line? Turkey? The Philippines? Iran? Thailand? Belarus? Brazil? Egypt? Eritrea?
I guarantee you that attempting to draw a bright line will absolutely run into fuzzy edges and judgement calls.
> Twitter has no right to be 'Ministry of Information'.
Twitter did not prevent them from stating anything. Twitter employees simply decided they want to have no part in this. Are you saying they should be forced to publish this tweet?
They did not publish the tweet. They provided the tools for the tweet to be published. There is a distinction, as they had no hand in the act of creating the tweet itself.
It is a distinction with no real meaning to me, in this case.
If I was an employee at Twitter working to expand the reach of my platform, and the platform was being used to brag about genocide, then I would feel partly responsible for normalizing that behavior.
Twitter is a private sector business in the US with terms that include reserving the right to remove any content for any reason. They have every right to.
If you don’t agree with it, for moral reasons or otherwise, you’re free to provide your own service.
> The Court rejected that contention, noting that ownership "does not always mean absolute dominion." The court pointed out that the more an owner opens his property up to the public in general, the more his rights are circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who are invited in.
In its conclusion, the Court stated that it was essentially weighing the rights of property owners against the rights of citizens to enjoy freedom of press and religion. The Court noted that the rights of citizens under the Bill of Rights occupy a preferred position. Accordingly, the Court held that the property rights of a private entity are not sufficient to justify the restriction of a community of citizens' fundamental rights and liberties.
That’s a really interesting case and surprisingly relevant to today’s situation. I’ve never seen a good argument for being able to counter a companies ability to decide who to service under today’s laws before. People usually concentrate on the idea that new regulation is required.
I think frequency will be hard to prove right now, but when you have things like this, they are completely justified. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck.:
"Parler, the "free speech" social network, reportedly removed a post by Lin Wood, in which the pro-Trump lawyer threatened violence against Vice President Mike Pence.
"Get the firing squads ready. Pence goes FIRST," wrote Wood, according to Mediate. "
I agree frequency is hard to prove but I think its important. If Twitter has a similar or higher frequency then they would also be guilty of consistently inciting violence as well and any person who is consistent should be trying to get Twitter pull off app stores.
I can easily find tweets that are violent that stay up for weeks after being reported. It feels like Twitter is being held to a different standard than Parler and that is my issue.
>By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods now known or later developed (for clarity, these rights include, for example, curating, transforming, and translating).
The newspapers and TV news stations also won't publish the most offensive statements from foreign leaders (or even local ones) either.
You could possibly argue that things like email or telephones won't censor people, but if foreign governments tried regularly calling us to send propaganda, they'd get blocked.
I agree. I'd rather Twitter ban people then just arbitrarily remove random tweets. It's not like the tweets aren't still out there somewhere. They just have decided they don't want the average person to be able to see them.
A ministry of information would jail and possibly harvest the organs of those sending the information. As far as I know, Twitter has not arrested and harvested the organs of anyone working in the embassy.
That's not completely true. We (society) allow these corporations to exist and make money off of us, so there's a worthwhile discussion to have about what should be done about corporations that don't hold our values.
Better to be hated by everyone than counted among the nazis. You can moderate speech, but the first step is to stop caring about the opinions of the chattering classes such as is found on HN (or on Twitter for that matter.)
Indeed. The Catholic Church successfully moderated speech for centuries for the completely benevolent cause of saving people's souls from the eternity of hell fire which awaited them if they were to fall victim to misinformation
They're not, but they can be ministry of their terms and conditions, which don't allow blatant propaganda posts (regardless of whether it's from a citizen or from a government representative) that claim victims of forced sterilisation are simply emancipating and choosing to have fewer children as an explanation for dropping birth rates.
China is free to publish its nonsense on its own channels. why should Twitter agree to be a propaganda platform for China?
Twitter can't police every post, but if a post gets a million views and is a blatant lie about human rights abuses, it's a bit silly to argue they should let that slide because it's an 'important statement from a foreign government'.
If the NYT tweets about this statement, and attaches the proper context based on generally accepted standards of proper journalism, it wouldn't have been an issue. You can talk about things without being a propaganda piece. Hitler advertising in the NYT in the WW2 shouldn't be accepted. Journalists writing about something Hitler said and putting it in the context (i.e., mentioning the human rights abuses), is fine. Apologies for the obligatory nazi reference but it makes explaining the principe so much easier, even if China isn't as bad.
The obligation to apologize for nazi references in one's rhetoric went out the window the moment actual nazis started getting mainstreamed into politics again.
This is one of the reasons I think old-school forums are superior in terms of "web hygiene". You have a group of moderators, each responsible for a clearly defined section and a userbase small enough so rules are still enforceable. And the people running it are not an untouchable megacorporation.