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Comment by boplicity | Hacker News Reader

> So why should they have the power to essentially remove ideas from public discussion?

They don't. They never have. You're ascribing way more power to tech companies than they've ever had.

That being said, the combined power of tech companies and media companies -- of which there are many -- does have the ability you're talking about. (For example, Fox, Warner, Google, Nytimes, etc.) The lines certainly have become a bit blurred, with Comcast and Verizon buying media companies though.

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I agree a single company doesn't have all the power, but for some reason they generally seem to act in concert with one another. Take for example the Hunter Biden laptop story. It was suppressed "by mistake" according to Jack himself [1]. Later, survey indicated many voters believed it was a "very important" story [2].

Another example is lab leak.

Thus, yes, yes they do.

[1] https://nypost.com/2021/03/25/dorsey-says-blocking-posts-hun...

[2] https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/gen...

Do you have any evidence the laptop story suppression wasn't a mistake?

Do you have evidence that it wasn't? Why do you get to decide the null hypothesis?

Twitter claimed it was a mistake, that's all the information we have. You're claiming they are lying, you have to offer evidence to prove that claim.

You've ignored the point. Twitter made the claim that they made a mistake, should they be held to your standard that "you have to offer evidence to prove that claim."

I'm sorry, you think every social media company censoring a story at the same time was somehow a mistake??

Strangely, practically everyone knows about the Hunter Biden laptop story, so no, that was certainly not very suppressed -- and you certainly did see articles about it in established media organizations, just not all of them. So, no, it was not "essentially removed" from "public discussion" as the OP claimed.

In fact, your bringing up the story (which I immediately recognized) proves the point. It is indeed, part of public discussion.

Yes now it is. It wasn't nearly as well known _before_ the election.

There were articles about the story published by many mainstream news organizations before the election -- including the Washington Post, The New York Times, Politico, Vox, Techcrunch, CNN, CBS News, and USA Today, among others. I fail to see the "supression" of the story from the public discussion, based on the reality of the situation.

Edit: The point is that the story was part of the "public discussion" -- though I understand that some people disagree with some of the articles that were part of the public discussion. Disagreement is a normal part of "discussion." The original claim I was responding to was that this story was "suppressed" from "public discussion." It was not.

You're making no distinction between the content of the coverage. The Hunter Biden laptop story was widely covered pre-election in the context of it being false or disinfo.

Politico: "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say" source: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/19/hunter-biden-story-...

NPR: "Analysis: Questionable 'N.Y. Post' Scoop Driven By Ex-Hannity Producer And Giuliani" source: https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924506867/analysis-questionab...

Compilation of journalists calling it disinfo: https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1440402740409110528

I honestly don't think I am following your argument at all. The fact that they wrongly reported on something without evidence is exactly the point.

It was extremely well known. What you're doing is how Foxnews, the number one cable news network in many situations, claims a story isn't being reported on by the "main stream media".

Streisand effect.

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