A simple rule of thumb definition (that could probably use some refinement) is regimes that are either explicitly anti-democratic or a sham democracy. Russia certainly falls into the latter category, as this very story demonstrates.
> This story is sufficient to demonstrate that Russia is a "sham democracy"?
It's just another example among many. Russia is a sham democracy because the government takes action to prevent opposition politicians from gaining power.
> Does the fact that Twitter/Facebook/et al banned the NYPost in the run-up to the 2020 election as well as preventing people from sending links to NYPost articles in their DMs "demonstrate" anything about the US?
I sense you think it shows some kind of equivalency, which is not true. Actually, if those organizations had to run the NY Post story, the US would be closer to a sham than it is.
> Actually, if those organizations had to run the NY Post story, the US would be closer to a sham than it is.
Hm, guess I'd like to live in a sham democracy then, as blocking me from sending certain political thoughts in my chat messages is unacceptable to me.
I'd rather have this power in the hands of publicly-sanctioned, rules-based agents than arbitrary private actors who can interfere with me at any time for whatever reason they want. Philip Pettit has written quite well on this issue.
> Hm, guess I'd like to live in a sham democracy then, as blocking me from sending certain political thoughts in my chat messages is unacceptable to me.
No one's blocking you. Go put a sign up in your front yard, just don't complain your rights are being trampled when I don't let you put up a sign in my yard.
Other people have rights too, and that includes the right not to cooperate with you.
Yes, this is a good exemplification of the "freedom as non-interference" view that Pettit criticizes. This conception has become very popular in the 20th century, especially among libertarians.
The image of society given by your picture does not resemble real life. Facebook and I are not equal actors akin to neighbors disputing over what gets put in their front yard.
It is this recognition that we are not equal neighbors that is the reason we have labor protections, minimum wage laws, campaign finance laws, etc.
> The image of society given by your picture does not resemble real life. Facebook and I are not equal actors analogous to neighbors disputing over what gets put in their front yard.
You're never going to have a society that equal. Do you all the sudden have the right to put signs up at my house because it's bigger or on a busier street than yours? Should you be able to put chapters in the books I write because no one wants to read yours?
I think there are good arguments that Facebook is too big and should be broken up, but the NY Post Hunter Biden "story" isn't one of them. It was garbage, and filtering out garbage is an important function. I'm familiar enough with garbage to realize that.
> Do you all the sudden have the right to put signs up at my house because it's bigger or on a busier street than yours?
No, I have the right to put signs up at your house because you put up a bulletin board and actively invited anyone in the neighborhood to put signs on it.
It's either open to the general public or it's not, and if you pick "not", the onus is on you to at least refrain from actively and ubiquitously contradicting that.
The whole point is that this sign on yard analogy is just not relevant to real world circumstance. Facebook and Twitter have outsized control over how I socialize with others.
If every major cell phone provider chose to stop delivering any text with that article attached to it, would that be acceptable? What if they decided to unilaterally stop delivering any texts from the Trump campaign?
Clearly there is a line to be drawn, and falling back on "it's their private property and thus their right to filter it however they want" is not sufficient in the 21st century, in the age of platform companies and extreme corporate consolidation.
> It was garbage, and filtering out garbage is an important function
Garbage? It was new, previously unreported information. I voted for Joe Biden, and I still found it of interest - and it did appear to contradict some things Biden had said publicly.
> The whole point is that this sign on yard analogy is just not relevant to real world circumstance. Facebook and Twitter have outsized control over how I socialize with others.
So? They only have that kind of power over you because you chose to give it to them.
If I have cool friends, and you decided to organize your social life around visiting my house to see them, it's not my problem if you don't have a place to socialize if I sour on you and exclude you.
> Clearly there is a line to be drawn, and falling back on "it's their private property and thus their right to filter it however they want" is not sufficient in the 21st century, in the age of platform companies and extreme corporate consolidation.
My perspective is compelled speech or compelled cooperation with political speech is just as bad as censorship, so if that's your solution, you have to find a different one.
> Garbage? It was new, previously unreported information.
If the NY Post has a picture of Biden shitting on the toilet, that would also be "new, previously unreported information." It would also be garbage. Those categories aren't mutually exclusive.
I think it makes sense to block a known-unreliable news outlet because they are usually seen as sources of authoritative, correct information, and once they have proven they are no longer reliable, anything they say no longer holds the same weight of proper journalistic integrity (essentially losing the privilege of trust and perceived "authority").
If there is true, factual information they posted about, the same information can almost surely be sourced from another, more reputable news outlet that is known to fact-check and provide accurate information.
FWIW, I blocked/muted NYPost twitter account years ago because of their vitriolic, sensationalized and misleading click-bait articles. If you can't convey important news without manipulating me, you have no credibility and are no better than a grocery-store-checkout tabloid.
Who decides what outlet is reliable? Should that be blocked from my text messages?
Should the standard be to only allow articles written by reputable outlets, which have been known to bury stories (such as those demonstrating war crimes by the US military)?
I just completely disagree with you I guess. I should be free to send whatever I want in private chat messages with my friends, even if it is politically unsavory.
Yeah, tbh I don't see FB/Twitter as good platforms to have private conversations with friends. Partly for the reason you mention, as well as them being tools of ultra-pervasive surveillance. I don't trust businesses to respect my privacy or even my rights (especially because laws are always severely behind technical innovations). I don't even use Facebook anymore for these reasons.
And yeah, I believe text messages (SMS) are indeed filtered, sadly. I just saw an article about exactly this subject[0] where a company with a .xyz domain was finding that SMS containing their domain were not being delivered! Pretty disappointing.
This whole thread could be a good indicator of the future of online communication, and my personal advice is to start looking at "end-to-end encrypted (with no back doors)" as a requirement for any communication platform you use with friends & family. Too bad such a feature is extremely rare :(
Look, I agree with most of the sentiments you're expressing - but I don't think it is reasonable to hold out hope that everyday Americans will come to this realization. The platforms are powerful, even if we as individuals choose not to use them.
Take campaign finance, for instance. I'm of the opinion that we need much stronger campaign finance laws.
Your response, to me, reads similar to "well, I don't watch ads on TV and I certainly wouldn't vote for someone based on a 10 second ad, so I don't think campaign finance needs reform." The issue is that millions of people do watch those ads, just like millions of people do rely on tech platforms to contact their friends, socialize, engage in political discourse, etc.
Yeah, that makes sense. As much as I try to drag friends/family into more secure communication methods (iMessage(lol), Signal, Matrix, etc.), it's an uphill battle. No one wants to leave the convenience and ubiquity of FB Messenger, WhatsApp, etc.
IMO I feel that NY Post should basically be shut down and banned from publication due to their harmful, divisive rhetoric and blatant lies, but conversely I don't agree with filtering private communication. My personal opinion is that once a given platform allows freeform communication between two people, that communication should be completely private and unable to be filtered or censored. tbh I suppose our exchange has helped me clarify those views a bit ;)
>Does the fact that Twitter/Facebook/et al banned the NYPost in the run-up to the 2020 election as well as preventing people from sending links to NYPost articles in their DMs "demonstrate" anything about the US?
Not about its government, given that they did not demand (or even informally pressure) that the tech companies involved make this move.
> Where does the US MSM and social media refusing to cover anything about Hunter Biden put us?
I'm not a huge fan of Joe Biden (as you can probably infer from my comments here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28550896), but the Hunter Biden stuff was a shameless distraction with no real substance.
So to answer your question: if the US MSM and social media was required to run smears of a sitting president against his opponent, the US would be far closer to being a sham democracy.
>but the Hunter Biden stuff was a shameless distraction with no real substance.
Uh, that's really not a strong affirmative justification for taking active measures to stop people from using your platform to share a story. And of course the real problem is not simply that the story was suppressed, but that we all know that media platforms do not in fact have a blanket policy against reporting on "shameless distractions with no real substance", and that this sort of post-hoc rationalizing of obvious partisan bias is intellectually insulting.
Yes, and those policies are not evenly applied. That's the issue. iirc Twitter caught some flak for initially justifying the suppression of the story based on the fact that it had come from "hacking" the laptop, and then only let up after it was pointed out that there were many other examples of stories like this that were not suppressed.
In our case the sham is that the MSM is independent from the political powers. It’s quite elegant really. And regardless of how transparent it is, roughly half the population will reliably believe the MSM is somehow impartial, because it tells them so.
A simple rule of thumb definition (that could probably use some refinement) is regimes that are either explicitly anti-democratic or a sham democracy. Russia certainly falls into the latter category, as this very story demonstrates.
In most cases, it's not that hard.