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by lern_too_spel 124 days ago
> During COVID, there was aggressive censorship of _everything_ related to the virus that didn't exactly toe the party line.

Not by the government. This was by companies that wanted their customers not to die, so they could make money.
1 comments
mrandish 124 days ago
Zuckerberg says the White House pressured Facebook to 'censor' some COVID-19 content during the pandemic: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/zuckerberg-says-the-wh...

> "The United States government pressured Twitter to elevate certain content and suppress other content about Covid-19 and the pandemic... Take, for example, Martin Kulldorff, an epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Kulldorff often tweeted views at odds with U.S. public health authorities ... Kulldorff’s statement was an expert’s opinion—one that happened to be in line with vaccine policies in numerous other countries. Yet it was deemed “false information” by Twitter moderators merely because it differed from CDC guidelines."

How Twitter Rigged the Covid Debate: https://www.thefp.com/p/how-twitter-rigged-the-covid-debate

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lern_too_spel 123 days ago
"Pressured." They merely suggested that it was better for the country and for business, and most of the companies agreed. There were no threats of fines or lawsuits, and none were levied.
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Schmerika 123 days ago
> There were no threats of fines or lawsuits

Weren't there huge monopoly cases being furthered against Meta, Twitter and TikTok at that time? And more action against other major tech companies

If I'm threatening you over your 'possible' monopoly with one hand, and 'politely' asking you to censor millions of stories with the other - are those things completely unrelated? Or is there possible an implied message there?

A mafioso will never tell you straight-up that they're threatening and extorting you. But if you look between the lines even a little bit you can discern the message.

(Sometimes the person delivering that message isn't even aware of the threat they're sending; afaik it's entirely possible that Lina Khan was completely genuine with her push.)

> and none were levied.

Well everyone did what they were 'politely asked', didn't they. Meta alone removed or suppressed well over a hundred million posts.

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lern_too_spel 123 days ago
> Or is there possible an implied message there?

None of these antitrust cases were dropped for doing what was in their mutual interest. You're grasping at straws.

> Well everyone did what they were 'politely asked

Zuckerberg said Meta didn't do everything they were asked.

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Schmerika 123 days ago
> None of these antitrust cases were dropped for doing what was in their mutual interest.

I'm not understanding either what you're claiming or why you believe it. Keep in mind that I don't believe in always taking what the government says at face value.

> You're grasping at straws.

Why would I be desperate? I've no skin in this game, beyond a general wish not to have legitimate and important speech suppressed and censored.

> Zuckerberg said Meta didn't do everything they were asked.

They didn't do everything, they say (did they ever say what they refused to do?), but they did a lot. As did Twitter. We know this for a fact.

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lern_too_spel 121 days ago
> I'm not understanding either what you're claiming or why you believe it. Keep in mind that I don't believe in always taking what the government says at face value.

There was no punishment for not following the government's recommendation or reward for following it.

> Why would I be desperate? I've no skin in this game, beyond a general wish not to have legitimate and important speech suppressed and censored.

You're desperate because you claimed that the government had censored COVID speech, and I showed that it had not, which makes it difficult for you to advance your nonsensical "both sides" narrative.

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aftbit 122 days ago
This is exactly how the current CBS censorship works. The FCC said they "may" revise a rule, so CBS complied in advance by removing the political speech that the admin wanted to avoid.
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lern_too_spel 121 days ago
There was no threat of revising a rule that would result in punishment of the companies. It is exactly not how the current CBS censorship works.
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