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Comment by Spivak | Hacker News Reader

This whole situation feels messy and gross but I think they’re absolutely right that Twitter has massively overstepped what would reasonably be considered moderation.

I’m reasonably mad at Twitter for this because they’ve punched a hornets nest and opened the door to making the lives of every site massively more painful and complicated because the pendulum feels like it’s about to swing the other way where any form of moderation is going to be rebranded as editorial and make the web worse overall.

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What makes you say Twitter “massively overstepped what would reasonably be considered moderation”?

By defining truth they overstepped. It's like when you go to Trader Joes looking for gluten free poptarts. If Trader Joe's has decided gluten free only applies to soft white wheat, then they are the arbiter of truth as to what Gluten Free means in their stores. Twitter takes this one step further by not only identifying what it believes is truth, but also by putting a scarlet letter on what it deems contrary to their truth.

> By defining truth they overstepped.

Do you reject the existence of an objective reality?

Twitter has every right to say what the truth is. It has the right to free speech as much as anyone else. It also will be held to account for its speech under the law.

I don't think I've ever disagreed with anyone more than, "Twitter has massively overstepped what would reasonably be considered moderation."

This is all because they DARED fact check lie number 2129317?LOL

Look Twitter can be right but do the wrong thing.

I now know Twitter, the company’s, stance on the issue because they posted their views on top of someone else’s tweet in a way that nobody bit Twitter can do. Twitter can take a stance and even use their official Twitter account to sing it loud and proud but they wielded their power in away that makes it very clear that Twitter is in control.

Its so weird that a company would make it clear that theyre in control of the platform they own and are responsible for.

You're really being duped here. Its not about "twitter posting their views". This isn't a question of who's opinion may or may not be right. Trump is continuously posting verifiably false information that could kill people. The idea that a single person on earth could object to fact checking these things, that again, will cause more deaths, is just stunning. Stop with the awkward 1984 act. You and I both know you're being completely disingenuous.

> This whole situation feels messy and gross but I think they’re absolutely right that Twitter has massively overstepped what would reasonably be considered moderation.

On the contrary, Twitter has repeatedly failed to enforce their own rules/TOS, primarily to benefit a single extremist political faction.

That doesn't explain the YEARS of absolutely false information coming out of most political candidates, oh and China. Can't forget China, or do they get a pass?

It sounds like you want to give other regimes..I mean twitter accounts immunity.

How is this act different than YouTube removing content on COVID that doesn't meet their guidelines?

Well, for one thing, they haven't actually removed the disinformation....

Wait for it. That's really the next step here. If this blows over, and Twitter is allowed to continue to get away with editorializing content, then the next step is to flat out start deleting tweets.

And...? It's their platform. They pay to run it. And it may be news to you, but they already are deleting tweets that violate their policies. They delete and shut down whole accounts for violating policies.

> Wait for it. That's really the next step here. [...] then the next step is to flat out start deleting tweets.

Wait for what? Twitter has been deleting tweets for years.

It's the same. YouTube removing videos they disagree with - factually correct or not - is by definition editorializing.

But then so is basically any form of moderation by this definition. It’s a grey area and I think YT made the right call and Twitter made the wrong one.

Saying we won’t host content about X that doesn’t come from $authority is very different than using their privileged position to put a banner next to any X video with their stance.

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