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Comment by TechBro8615 | Hacker News Reader

Glenn Greenwald warned this would happen in 2013 – the definition of terrorism will continue to gradually expand to include harmful speech against the government.

Now it’s actually happening, Greenwald is still here and refreshingly consistent in his perspective, and yet for some reason it’s become popular to question the credibility of the things he says based on where he says them.

It’s crazy enough that half this country is eager to slide down this slippery slope. But what’s even crazier is it’s the same half of the country that would have been completely opposed to it just eight years ago.

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As a former democrat, now republican, I am honesty extremely surprised that it's the right being targeted. In 2002, I would have sworn the citizen databases would have been listing leftists. Reality is stranger than fiction.

>In 2002, I would have sworn the citizen databases would have been listing leftists

I'm sure that when Republicans come back into power, the left will be targeted as well.

So you're saying it should be opposed now so it's not abused by anyone in power?

> Facebook and tech giants to target attacker manife...

not dependent on who is in .gov

Wouldn't you say that Big Tech (along with most of Big Media) has shown itself to have a (D) bias?

It is true statistically. Big Media is generally Left Biased.[0]

[0] https://guides.lib.umich.edu/c.php?g=637508&p=4462444

Yo, thanks for this.

The same should be ideological placement analysis should be done for Social Media – which is after all a type of Media and where lots of people get their news nowadays even if these places aren't the originators of the news. I feel like this isn't a controversial thing to say.

When the republicans came into power from 2016-2020, they did not use the IRS to harass left-wing groups, which both Obama and Biden did.

We can't pretend every party is equal. Things change, and parties obviously violate their principles (just look at the democratic party!), but when one party is disproportionately engaging in distortion and authoritarianism, they deserve the scorn heaped on them.

This was true when Bush was enacting the patriot act against the GOP. And it's true today against the dems.

Sorry, I'm not going to buy into 'everyone's the same mentality'. This is the same dribble the republicans were telling me during the Bush years -- Oh the democrats will take away your freedoms if they were in power. Well, I'm sure that's true, but actually in 2002, it was the GOP. Not going to pretend.

That is odd, it didn't seem to happen when the Republicans were in power. Actually, quite the opposite. We saw a tremendous amount of censorship of Right content and people.

I was going to say... when scary GOP was in power, the largest websites literally censored and removed the GOP president, to the applause of the left, except for the few reasonable people, like Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard.

Maybe its no longer democrat/republican. Maybe its big tech and whatever directly or indirectly threatens it. For example, big tech likes to source workers globally (bigger labour pool, cheaper wages) so any form of patriotism/nationalism, no matter how reasonable or modest, is an anathema to it.

You could be very correct on this. I do see that the Big Tech leaders tend support left candidates/positions consistently. Perhaps this is because it is beneficial to their business as a whole and nothing to do with their ideology.

Regardless, of whether it is to support their business or the ideology, censoring ideas should not be tolerated.

Interesting article recently on Quillette that talks about this and supports the idea that big tech doesnt really practice true diversity, they hide behind it.

https://quillette.com/2021/07/21/silicon-valleys-cynical-tre...

Great and enlightening article. Thank you.

> That is odd, it didn't seem to happen when the Republicans were in power.

Except it literally did. It literally happened when a Republican was president.

> We saw a tremendous amount of censorship of Right content and people.

A tremendous, but more than the left? Not at all.

https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/10/two-new-studies-show-again...

I don't know, most of the reports that looked into this couldn't find anything to back this up. Numerous studies back this up.

So please, share studies that back up that statement, because so far, the evidence doesn't support that theory.

I'll do a study.

which democratic president was censored on Twitter?

You're assuming all pages are equal. Censoring the Daily Wire is not the same as censoring the local stop climate change page, for example (not that DW has been censored). Your study counts all pages equally, but frankly, it shouldn't.

Censoring the POTUS is more dire than censoring some small leftist organization, because POTUS is more influential.

Perhaps weight the censorings by # followers or a similar metric. We know that right wing alternate media is more popular than left wing, so my hypothesis would be a weighting would reveale something more dire.

Even better, what presidency got to tell Social Media what was disinformation and not?

I'll do a study:

Which president broke the rules of Twitter so frequently, they got their own special rules above and beyond anyone else? Seems to me like Twitter and FB worked really hard to keep POTUS on their platform despite him routinely violating their ToS.

So, literally, the opposite of what you are claiming.

Your reference does not support your claim. It simply shows more right traffic and content. This does NOT prove censorship claims. Simply activity.

Here is a database of confirmed censorship:

https://censortrack.org/

> Your reference does not support your claim.

It does. You are just looking at one point of data. And there were many studies on this.

That being said, it's still more evidence than the OP provided.

> Here is a database of confirmed censorship:

Conservative censorship run by a conservative group focused on supporting conservative views.

It also uses Project Veritas in its "data" which is a major red flag. They are known, proven liars.

And finally, that doesn't support the allegation that conservatives suffer more censorship.

So, you've still failed to backup the original argument.

I'm done.

You are using the Origin Fallacy also known as the Genetic Fallacy as an argument[0]. This is not a valid argument. Stating that the information was curated by conservatives does not make it true or false.

The claims in the database are researched and vetted. You can view each claim and the research applied to it.

If I were to use the Origin Fallacy I could claim that media in general is untrustworthy because it is curated by liberals claiming liberal ideals [1].

Also, you only get to drop the mic when you are a rockstar or Obama. [2]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy

[1]https://guides.lib.umich.edu/c.php?g=637508&p=4462444

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mic_drop

> It literally happened when a Republican was president.

In fact, Twitter changed its rules to provide a PR excuse for why it didn't censor Trump under the same rules as other political actors, entrenching a policy of pro-government, pro-elite bias in its censorship.

Trump’s minions got upset later and screamed about unfairness when they learned that that favorable bias wasn't unlimited while he was in power, and are even more incensed that it cuts against them now that their icon is out of office.

OTOH, freedom of speech means private actors generally are free to decide what ideas to participate in relaying and what ideas not to.

What policies did trump break that other heads of state did not?

> OTOH, freedom of speech means private actors generally are free to decide what ideas to participate in relaying and what ideas not to.

Legally sure, but it doesn't mean we have to tolerate it as normal. Just like disinheriting your children is legal, but ought to be condemned in normal society in general.

>"when Republicans come back into power, the left will be targeted as well."

As trite as this may be to say, we are in uncharted territory. Perhaps suppressing speech and using algorithms to curate biased content to the general public through social media means one side gets the upper hand for generations to come.

I am not surprised, social media companies got bigger and became de_facto platforms and are mostly located in significantly left leaning cities (~90% voted Democrats in west coast cities).

Any expectation of people working in these predominantly left cities/companies, living in their bubble, to take a neutral position when doing anything on their platforms (FB, Twitter, Google and lesser degree Apple) which effects the whole US and other countries is a fantasy.

It will target leftists too; many of whom are highly critical of the current regime. It's just being branded as far-right so they don't get pushback from both sides simultaneously.

This is how it gets implemented, then it'll expand to include dissent more broadly.

Why is that surprising? If you look at the last 50 years of extremist violence in the US, there is a significant divide between right and left wing extremism. Left wing extremism used to be more common in the US, but it was mostly during the beginning of the 20th century. During that time, it was mostly leftists that were being targeted.

Oh, don't worry, leftists are targeted too and were for decades. They just don't talk about it.

Progressives in the US have been demonized since Vietnam. The War on Drugs is on record as an attempt to associate enemies of the Republican party with something that law enforcement could be used as a weapon against. The peaceful skinhead movement was hijacked in an attempt to associate them with neonazis.

In the 90s the middle east was radicalized from years of being occupied by western military forces. 9/11 was, in their words, intended to be a wakeup call to the American people. It was terrorism in every sense of the word: intended to strike fear into American citizens in the same way that they already lived in fear of US forces, with the goal of destabilizing their enemy.

Two decades of right wing propaganda later and it's clear they've succeeded in radicalizing the US right. Progressives never stopped protesting attempts to violate personal freedoms, but conservatives consistently wield their fear as an excuse to persecute anyone who doesn't fit their definition of being an American. Now fear is at an all time high, which means right wing militias are stronger than ever.

Studies show that while both liberals and conservatives are susceptible to misinformation, there is far far more misinformation that appeals to conservatives in circulation, and as a result, the impact of misinformation on conservatives is greater: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/23/eabf1234.full

Jan 6th was a precursor to what's to come. It's only a matter of time before we see another 9/11, but this time it will be carried out by our own citizens. Right wingers, who live in constant fear fed to them by their media and internet bubbles, will want their "enemies" to feel the same fear.

Who are their enemies? Basically everyone: https://www.thetrumparchive.com/insights/insults

So either we control the stoking of fear (which is very questionable for a govt to do) or we monitor these militias as probable terrorist cells (also questionable).

I don't think there's any way we survive this century without another world war. The internet is too important and influential for it to not spark a huge conflict amongst homo sapiens who haven't yet evolved to know how to wield it.

> Progressives never stopped protesting attempts to violate personal freedoms,

What nonsense. Progressives in this country are currently advocating for people to be banned from doing normal every day activities unless they're carrying proof of taking an experimental drug.

There is serious talk amongst 'progressives' in Congress to ban certain people's speech from the internet.

Pull your head out of the sand. No faction is perfect. Why are we pretending.

You're using "progressives" in quotes because you don't think their behavior is progressive or that they qualify as progressives. I agree. The people you do believe qualify as progressive are who I'm referring to.

In other words, progressives are the ones protesting for individual freedoms by definition. I deliberately chose this word in this context instead of "liberal" because the two are not synonymous.

Progressive is in quotes because that's what they call themselves. I have other names for them that are inappropriate for HN.

And progressivism is not for individual freedoms by definition. Far from it. Progressivism refers to the impulse to use government intervention as a means to achieve social ends. The temperance movement was part of the progressive movement in this country. As was the eugenics movement.

Progressivism does not have any unique claims to the fight for individual rights. Far from it. Progressivism was first used in contrast to 'constitutionalism', which was the philosophy of enlightenment individual rights as espoused by those who wrote the American constitution.

This is hardly controversial stuff. It's even in the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism.

> In the United States, progressivism began as an intellectual rebellion against the political philosophy of Constitutionalism as expressed by John Locke and the founders of the American Republic, whereby the authority of government depends on observing limitations on its just powers.

You could have read about that 10 years ago in the subtext of many articles. Journalists have been groomed to rationalize their misinformation for the greater good and they aren't that good at writing that their own words wouldn't betray them. They are in a precarious situation and access to information comes at a price for most of them.

Why was this article flagged btw?

> It’s crazy enough that half this country is eager to slide down this slippery slope.

It's crazy enough that the other half of the country expects fascism to prevail, too, no?

It looks like you are okay with silencing of dissent against the government so long as that clamp down only affects the ideas you disagree with. History tells us that this does not stop and will continue its grip and eventually silence all dissent against the government no matter from whom.

1. You know nothing about my politics or my feelings on dissent.

2. When you lose an election and then attempt to overthrow it, you out yourself as a fascist and the response escalates from the protections of dissent and free speech into addressing a legitimate terror cell. Governments respond appropriately, as do private businesses. This isn't new or interesting. Does ISIS have an official twitter account? No, certainly not.

It's one thing to silence known terrorists (people who engage in terror, or help coordinate terror). It's another to silence dissent because you don't like them.

As far as I know, ISIS and ISIS supporters had Twitter handles till 2015 when they began purges. So they actually were okay with known terrorists to use their platform until the Obama admin pressured them enough.

As I mentioned above, know terrorists, ban them. Enemies of the state, ban them. Dissenters because they harass the government? No. Politicians because they say politically incorrect things that don't align with an admin? No.

The Jan 6 thing was unfortunate, but there is no way in hell that was an attempted coup. Do you think if they had "control" of the Capitol, suddenly all military and government personnel would listen to them, the DoD, FBI, NSA, IRS, DOE, State Govs, etc., etc? That's not how it works.

> It's one thing to silence known terrorists (people who engage in terror, or help coordinate terror). It's another to silence dissent because you don't like them.

I see only the former happening.

> As far as I know, ISIS and ISIS supporters had Twitter handles till 2015 when they began purges. So they actually were okay with known terrorists to use their platform until the Obama admin pressured them enough.

Cite please.

> As I mentioned above, know terrorists, ban them. Enemies of the state, ban them. Dissenters because they harass the government? No. Politicians because they say politically incorrect things that don't align with an admin? No.

I again only see the former happening. Storm the capitol, you're no longer a "dissenter".

> The Jan 6 thing was unfortunate, but there is no way in hell that was an attempted coup.

The great thing about social media is you cannot ret-con a narrative. It was very much an attempted coup. Failing doesn't change the intent.

> Do you think if they had "control" of the Capitol, suddenly all military and government personnel would listen to them, the DoD, FBI, NSA, IRS, DOE, State Govs, etc., etc? That's not how it works.

That's why it was an "attempted" coup. Also, do you think if Trump actually was against the capital riot, the response would've been delayed by hours? Really? _Really_?

Per your original post, _one of us_ is definitely recounting events based off of a specific political alignment, but it's certainly not me.

My original post is that silencing critics doesn't typically stop with silencing those you disagree with, it comes for everyone because it's easier to silence critics than it is to address their complaints (one way or the other). So you get to places where you cannot question official take of official organs or policies.

It looks like dissent stops at burning state buildings, but an incursion into federal buildings crosses the line. Got it. Looks like those people did not get the memo with that distinction.

What consists of an attempted coup? The belief you will overthrow the government? Were the 70s protests where they sat and thought hard revolutionary thoughts that would lift up government buildings (pentagon and whitehouse I believe) and uproot them if they thought hard enough, attempted coups? After all, some truly believed those sit-ins would overthrow the government.

define: coup

> a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government.

That defines a coup. That's also what was attempted.

I don't believe you're posting in good faith. I won't be responding further.

> Does ISIS have an official twitter account?

Probably not. But Taliban has one and it's more than 10 years old. Chinese tweets from a verified account about "reeducation camps liberating uyghur women" (an euphemism for sterilization) are not removed either. What's you point?

It's a very difficult situation when your country's right-wing party gets high on their own supply of conspiracy theories, ignorance, and bigotry and starts organizing violent attacks based on it.

Seems like companies shouldn't be required to facilitate that behavior. (And legally they are not, because of the First Amendment, which is the same reason these people can find other forums for such discussion, even if it is difficult to do so.)

I imagine it must be disturbing if people in your social circles start becoming radicalized to such a degree that much of society shuns and shames their behavior. Would be hard to tell right from wrong, I'd think.

I think the issue is only targeting one side. There are conspiracy theories held by the left. There is radicalization and violence on the left. Instead of trying to stop this on both sides they are only focusing on one side, which just so happens to be the side the majority in big tech oppose. It makes this whole thing feel political instead of a genuine attempt to improve society.

Any chance you can link to the conspiracy theories on the left? Genuinely curious what they are.

Edit: Genuinely not Generally

you can search blue anon but use Bing as Google censors these results ... which should tell you a lot about their position.

One example was that Trump was going to never leave the White House if he lost the election and would become a dictator. [0]

Another is that Trump supported neo nazis. The most commonly cited quote is the very fine people one. Just a few statements after he said said the very fine people he said: "I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists because they should be condemned, totally." [1]. We still have people to this day using this as proof of Trump's neonazi ties.

[0] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/what-happens-if-trum...

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/15/read-the-transcript-of-donal...

[0] is a fear, not a conspiracy theory, as it relates to worries about what might occur.

[1] You are right, he did say that quote, but people look to his hesitancy to directly answer that question, as seen in his answers before and after, and his other repeated dogwhistles and courting of these groups, and other surrounding context. I don't think this is a conspiracy theory as much as you taking some of Trump's words at face value and other people examining his words and actions more closely. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-condemn-white-suprem...

As for [0] if qanon is considered a conspiracy theory then I fail to see how thinking Trump is going to do a coup wouldn't qualify. At what point in time is it just fearful thinking vs a conspiracy theory?

As for [1]. It is the exact opposite of taking his words at face value. He literally said he condemns them shortly after his original statement. Trump has a history of condemning white supremacy longer than some people on this forum have even been alive. I don't remember the exact number but Trump has made something like 20 public condemnations of white supremacy in the last 30 years.

The article you posted is from well after he was first called a neonazi. He did say "Sure, I'm willing to do that." which typically would imply he was in fact condemning neonazis. If anybody other than Trump said that everyone would have agreed he was condemning them especially when taking into context his repeated condemnations. Trump isn't exactly known for being a quality speaker so his statement seems sufficient. Sure he should have been explicit, but anybody who still thinks Trump supports white supremacy is just ignoring his statements.

Was typing out a response but it's hard to walk through the first principles of critical thinking to explain why you're having trouble understanding this, so I don't have a point-by-point response.

Regarding the last point, you are right people are ignoring those statements because they are typically overshadowed by his other actions, statements, and beliefs, and by how difficult it can be to get him to make them. People with racist and bigoted beliefs typically know they are socially unacceptable, so they almost alway say they are not racist or bigoted. I was particularly struck by this documentary wherein a KKK leader denies being racist: https://video.vice.com/de_ch/video/hate-thy-neighbour-americ... (haven't seen it since it came out so I'm paraphrasing). So anyway, people look to his actions and the surrounding context (like when he kept pushing a racist conspiracy theory about Barack Obama being born in Kenya for years and years), which is why Donald Trump is typically considered to be racist.

Let me get this straight. You believe saying Obama is from Kenya is a conspiracy theory, but think accusing Trump of planning a coup is just fearful thinking?

You pretty clearly are just choosing what to call a conspiracy theory based on politics. There is no sense in continuing this conversation since you have shown you do not have a consistent definition of conspiracy theory.

It depends on the actual evidence about what is going on!

Also, accusing him of planning a coup is different than fearing he will attempt one. There were valid reasons to be concerned about that.

You're doing the exact same thing you're accusing me of, which is choosing what to call a conspiracy theory based on politics! You think it's ridiculous that he would plan a coup, so it is convenient for you to call it a conspiracy theory to try to make your argument work.

What if there isn’t the same sort of radicalization and violence on the left? Would it be okay then?

Unfortunately a major component of the situation is the claim that both sides are doing the same thing, which as far as I can tell isn’t meaningfully true.

It doesn't matter if there was only one case of violence or radicalization on the left. You should try to stop all violence and radicalization or none. Specifically targeting only one side is political.

If there is, in fact, only a minimal amount on the left then the additional work would be minimal. There would be no reason to not include the left in this targeting.

There's no evidence that anyone is specifically targeting only "one" "side" here, other than the "terrorist manifestos" and material in question are associated with right-wing extremist groups.

The article only mentions right wing groups and doesn't mention left wing groups. Perhaps they will go after both sides, but the article doesn't mention that.

Sure, but that could just be because there aren’t a substantial amount of violent left-wing extremist groups that organize in this way.

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