Re: Song of the Day
 

The default to "you're missing the point" is old, Ty. The point you're referencing cannot be missed. My point, which is in response to it, is that no platform should be engaged in such policing, period. Whether compelled by posters on it, or by the govt. If I was not explicit, or expansive, enough, my position includes (necessarily, but apparently this may not be obvious to you) the argument that under no circumstance should a platform or the govt be engaged in culling content to weed out "misinformation."

Bullshit and manipulative lies have been with us forever. If people are susceptible to them, well, that's the price of living in a country that values free expression. And that price includes me having to suffer the behaviors of the deluded and manipulated. I'd much prefer that over policy makers or corporate sorts determining what is and isn't appropriate for people to read.

Re: Song of the Day
 

No. Edify me, wise one who writes in riddles.

Re: Song of the Day
 

I don't have true "political" views. That's the point. I'm about as vanilla a moderate as you can find.

My only view is that people who think they know what's best for me and everyone else really, truly suck. All of we boring folks can sit around and horse trade over policies and reach consensus (give a little here, get a little there). We can be reasonable. But those who complain and those who seek to enforce their rules on the rest of us (and the Venn diagram of those two is nearly a circle... every malcontent assured he's got a law or regulation that'd make things perfect, as he defines it) are, basically, irritants.

Most of the people who really want to enforce what they think is best (their political views) are acting on feelings. Chiefly, arrogance and self-righteousness.

I fully understand the cancer I describe above cannot be extracted. That it is human nature for certain among us to desire power over others and to demand that their grievances be addressed, rather than working on their own to get around the problems that lead to to those grievances. We will never get rid of those who wish to be referee (and therefore should be disqualified from it) or wish to play to the referees. But that doesn't mean the observation shouldn't be made.

Re: Song of the Day
 

I want you to find a mirror, look at it intently, and read these words slowly and clearly, over and over again.

Thank you! No need to report back! Ta ta!

Re: Song of the Day
 

Sure. Sounds great for its stock price.

Which they have done. What are you on about?

Re: Song of the Day
 

This is as helpful as saying that no one should go to prison for a crime they didn't commit. Yes, we "should" have governments that don't try to convict innocent people. But in the real world, the one that we live in, prosecutors are sometimes more interested in getting a conviction than in getting at the truth. If you are an individual subject to that kind of government regulation, you change your behavior because of what the government might do. For Twitter and other online businesses, the same is true. It doesn't do any good to say the government should leave them alone -- it's not going to happen.

Setting the government aside, the idea that platforms should not cull "misinformation" is just incredibly wrong. For example, eBay is a platform. People list things on it. If they are lying about what they're selling, eBay wants to to weed out that "misinformation" because, duh, fraud. If you're defrauded on eBay, you don't go back, and governments start to care, so eBay has a super legitimate interest in doing that sort of culling.

(Now pretend you're a government. Fraud and libel are not OK in meatspace. You're going to pretend they're OK when they happen online? Uh, no.)

This is basically the point that thread is making. Online platforms back into content moderation for reasons like the one I just described, not because they are interested in taking sides in political disputes. They very much don't want to take sides in political disputes.

Re: Song of the Day
 

Yes, we've been here before. You like to pretend that everyone else does politics, but what you believe somehow transcends politics. We all understand that's BS.

Like Hank, I don't usually respond to the same post twice.
 

So now we know who is behind the NYT Pitchbot.

Re: Song of the Day
 

The question for twitter is very commercial - what kind of a product do they want to offer?

I happen to like a product that is not full of all kinds of bots and where people follow the relatively few simple rules of the forum. https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-an.../twitter-rules I think Twitter has discovered the hard way that enforcing its few rules and keeping bots contained are really essential to what they do. Somewhere Kate Klonick did a history of rules on social media that is quite good and that tracks how the big platforms discovered that the bro-culture free-for-all sucks and creates a hellscape that becomes a truly bad product, and how they learned to love the light-handed content moderation they all now do, because it keeps them alive and functioning.

If you or Elon want a different product, there is always Truth social (oh, wait, no, they banned people the day they opened up for saying mean things about Trump and Trumpers). Or maybe Parler (answering the question of whether if a racist screams in forest and no one hears him, is he truly a bigot?). Or, if all else fails, invite Elon on to lawtalkers with you.

Re: Song of the Day
 

I've no objection with culling bots and marketing spam within Twitter. Where it gets sticky is culling a doc who questions vaccinations, or a newspaper running a now verified story about a politically relevant person's laptop.

That's massaging facts, controlling narratives, attempting to craft consensus. Somewhere, the ghost of Edward Bernays must be laughing like Monty Burns.

Re: Song of the Day
 

Enjoy Parler then.

We have seen again and again that you are a victim of disinformation, and believe some truly bizarre shit that's been fed to you.

Re: Like Hank, I don't usually respond to the same post twice.
 

btw, this had me laughing a good laugh.

Re: Like Hank, I don't usually respond to the same post twice.
 

That wordle situation is very distressing.

Re: Like Hank, I don't usually respond to the same post twice.
 

I don’t often 2, but 2.

Re: Song of the Day
 

Okay, several questions- I assume your dog got Covid? How did you know? A human test? Also, any idea how em got it? You and fam didn't have it, right?