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Comment by paganel

5 years ago

I said it yesterday and got downvotes, Twitter’s CEO decided to pick sides in the political battle so they should expect what’s coming to them.

Fact checking doesn't imply picking sides. Not fact checking does.

  • Maybe a statement that we can all agree on would be: _selectively_ fact checking implies picking sides?

    I think it's a point of contention (colored by existing political views) as to whether or not Twitter is selectively fact checking here.

    Hopefully this isn't too controversial, there's a lot of hostility already in this thread, and I don't want to contribute to it.

    • Selectively fact checking things that are arguably opinions rather than factual claims in the first place, using flimsy evidence, whilst leaving actual factual misinformation to spread is definitely picking sides.

  • > Fact checking doesn't imply picking sides. Not fact checking does.

    Fact checking with partisan media sources does imply picking sides.

    • There has to be a line somewhere, otherwise the implication is that nobody can be held correct by fact checking. Snopes and Politifact do a pretty good job, IMO. I think this just touches on the fact that the GOP and Trumpists in general are more likely to engage in distorting the truth or outright fabricating lies.

  • it sort of does, WHO they use to check the facts can very def define what side they're on.

    • or perhaps you use it against the most egregious offences by users with a high number of followers. not much point fact checking my tweets because at worst I could misinform 6 people, perhaps if it was retweeted a lot it would then be fact checked. Trump's verbal/typed diarrhea gets everywhere.

Sounds like maybe you should take the hint. It's not "taking sides" to point out that you're glorifying violence if you as the president are threatening to deploy military force against protestors.

  • I've done my own share of protesting (living in Eastern Europe forces you to do that sometimes) and we never resorted to looting. If we had done so I would have expected the powers that be to take some counter-measures that would have involved more than strong verbal reprimands, yes.

    • If by 'we' you're referring to the entirety of Eastern Europe, Russia has a well known history of employing agent provocateurs in order to affect protests or other movements. This isn't isolated to just Eastern Europe either, considering Italy has a history of this as well.

      Needless to say there's also been some reporting and concerns of provocateurs among the protesters here as well using it as an excuse to inflame riots or start looting.

      2 replies →

    • Different places have different forms of political outcry. Protest by destruction of commercial property was a well-known component of American colonial resistance to Britain. (Consider the Boston Tea Party, for example.)

      Personally I have never been part of a riotous protest, but in an academic sense I believe that destruction of commercial property does more to force a change in police activity than destruction of police cars and other public property (things that ultimately belong to the people themselves).

      You can bet that there are more powerful people in the business community there, than on the police force.

      I don't believe this is actively in the mind of most rioters, but I think it is part of the reason that rioting has a major impact on American politics.

  • Sending police to stop violence is "glorifying violence"? How exactly?

    • No, see you've immediately moved the goals posts. He didn't say "I'm sending the police to stop violence".

    • Sigh. Really.

      The tweets didn’t offer “sending in the police” it threatened to send the military in. Which isn’t the police.

      Word matter. The fact I’m m reading this comment here is sad.

I don't understand. He broke their TOS. They applied a punishment in line with their TOS.

Do heads of state somewhere not-stated to the public have some sort of social media diplomatic immunity?

  • He attacks people on Twitter and pretends he can literally do what he wants without consequences — whether from the government and rule of law or in this case, a private company.

    You’re getting downvoted for a fair call out. There’s a deeper rot in this country where a select group believes freedom and fairness is something they can own and define, screw reality or objective fact. Anything else is biased and a conspiracy paid for by Soros, Obama, Hillary, Muslims, Hispanics, and the “swamp”.

To believe that it’s even possible to not pick sides is non-sensical.

“Not picking sides” often means siding with the status quo. That might be fine but it’s not the same as not picking a side.

what's coming to them? Is it violence? That's how I often here the phrase "get what's coming to you" used.