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White House Flagging Social Media Posts For "Disinformation" About Vaccine? (1 Viewer)

Playing devil's advocate for a moment, I'm pretty sure all administrations have done outreach to media outlets to keep sensitive information out of the news -- things like "Yes, I know these troop movements are newsworthy, but could the NYT please just sit on this story for a few weeks?"  Is that how we should view the administration working with Facebook to take down posts they don't like?  That seems very different to me.  

 
Biden & Democrat's ..  working hard to control and bully everyone and force people to do things exactly like they want them to

 
IvanKaramazov said:
I saw this too, and this is an unbelievably awful precedent.  I expect this sort of thing from the Trumps and AOCs of the world.  I'm very disappointed to see Biden go down this road.
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To use a George Carlin bit

It's a big club, and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club. And by the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head in their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table is tilted folks. The game is rigged

 
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IvanKaramazov said:
Playing devil's advocate for a moment, I'm pretty sure all administrations have done outreach to media outlets to keep sensitive information out of the news -- things like "Yes, I know these troop movements are newsworthy, but could the NYT please just sit on this story for a few weeks?"  Is that how we should view the administration working with Facebook to take down posts they don't like?  That seems very different to me.  
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I agree it is different. In the situation you’re describing, the media wants the information to be published and needs to be persuaded by the government to hold off.

In this case Facebook already has a policy that it will take down vaccine misinformation.  It doesn’t want to publish this stuff.  The White House is helping Facebook do something it already wants to do.

 
Flagging the posts vs. deleting them, if I'm reading right. Is it more acceptable in practice since the original message stays visible?

 
I guess people are worried about what ... a slippery slope argument? Because as fatguy mentioned, there doesn't seem to be anything inherently wrong in what the gov't is doing here. And its certainly not illegal. 

If they were telling FB they have to take down the posts, that would be cause for alarm. But they aren't doing that. 

In the article quoted above, the Surgeon General gets into telling news media how to train their reporters. That seems more problematic than pointing out specific posts to FB.

 
Just how our forefathers imagined it. The government would “help” a private company decide what should be censored and what shouldn’t. 

 
fatguyinalittlecoat said:
I agree it is different. In the situation you’re describing, the media wants the information to be published and needs to be persuaded by the government to hold off.

In this case Facebook already has a policy that it will take down vaccine misinformation.  It doesn’t want to publish this stuff.  The White House is helping Facebook do something it already wants to do.
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My concern is: will Facebook feel obligated to delete the content because it is reported by the government. What happens if the government starts reporting valid but unflattering information? I think it is a bad precedent and something the government should avoid. Their duty should be simply to combat false information with accurate information.

 
Doug B said:
Flagging the posts vs. deleting them, if I'm reading right. Is it more acceptable in practice since the original message stays visible?
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That's what I think is happening. Then FB has their policy for just taking stuff down. 

Professional troll types will probably wear this like a badge of honor to be honest.

 
Maybe our elected officials should do their jobs instead of posting hogwash like this:

https://mobile.twitter.com/sentedcruz/status/1415401043291148289

Then you have Tennessee with eliminating outreach to get people vaccinated.  No shortage of science deniers in the far right that have promoting nonsense that is costing people's lives and endangering our children too young for a vaccine. 

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/mississippi-health-officials-warn-delta-surge-12-children/story?id=78828192

Yes, what the heck is going on where our government has to push back in this way mostly against other elected officials. It's evil. There's no other way to say it. 

ETA

I heard a talking head say yesterday that Covid is just now hitting certain areas of the country. Again, horse hockey.   Restrictions have been removed and it's hitting people who have refused to get vaccinated because that makes them a true patriot or something.  

 
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2Squirrels1Nut said:
Maybe our elected officials should do their jobs instead of posting hogwash like this:

https://mobile.twitter.com/sentedcruz/status/1415401043291148289

Then you have Tennessee with eliminating outreach to get people vaccinated.  No shortage of science deniers in the far right that have promoting nonsense that is costing people's lives and endangering our children too young for a vaccine. 

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/mississippi-health-officials-warn-delta-surge-12-children/story?id=78828192

Yes, what the heck is going on where our government has to push back in this way mostly against other elected officials. 
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How do you know what Cruz says isn't true?

He would know what is going on in Texas more than you.

 
PennStater77 said:
Imagine the left if Trump did this..LOL
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This is the wrong way to think about it.  A better approach is "Won't it be fun when Trump is back in office and has this fancy new power that he definitely won't abuse."

I mean, "Trump returns to office in 2025" isn't some weird hard-to-imagine scenario.  The Republican nomination is his if he wants it.  He'll beat Kamala Harris easily and would might do better against Biden than he did in 2016 (when he almost won) because he'll been sort of out of the public eye for a while.  Every new power that this administration asserts for itself has a good chance of ending up in Trump's hands in just a few years.  We should evaluate those expanded powers accordingly.

 
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2Squirrels1Nut said:
Wouldn't it be great if Trump did a PSA telling Americans to talk to their doctor about getting vaccinated?  He's part of the reason we're in this tragic, avoidable, mess. 
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I agree.  I don't think government entanglement with social media moderation is the solution.  I liked it better when Democrats were opposed to that sort of thing, which was the case up until about five minutes ago.

 
the rover said:
So it's like the government hitting the "report" button here.   What's the problem?
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It's the government.  

People like me have been defending the right of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media outlets to moderate their platforms however they like.  Their site, their rules, as Joe would say.  That doesn't mean that their moderation policies are beyond criticism, just that they have the right to choose whatever approach to moderation they like.  Government involvement complicates things and implicates the first amendment.

It's the difference between a local busy-body asking the library to remove a book they find offensive, and the mayor of the city asking the library to remove that same book.  The first is annoying but fundamentally fine.  The other is a problem.

 
Also, how many times have the leaders of social media companies been hauled before congress for their ritual brow-beating?  I don't think we can pretend that these firms will take a "flag" raised by the administration as a simply a gentle suggestion, like a flag raised by a private citizen who doesn't have the ability to shut down their enterprise.

 
whoknew said:
I guess people are worried about what ... a slippery slope argument? Because as fatguy mentioned, there doesn't seem to be anything inherently wrong in what the gov't is doing here. And its certainly not illegal. 

If they were telling FB they have to take down the posts, that would be cause for alarm. But they aren't doing that. 

In the article quoted above, the Surgeon General gets into telling news media how to train their reporters. That seems more problematic than pointing out specific posts to FB.
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No they aren't taking down posts here. So what's the problem? 

 
IvanKaramazov said:
It's the government.  

People like me have been defending the right of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media outlets to moderate their platforms however they like.  Their site, their rules, as Joe would say.  That doesn't mean that their moderation policies are beyond criticism, just that they have the right to choose whatever approach to moderation they like.  Government involvement complicates things and implicates the first amendment.

It's the difference between a local busy-body asking the library to remove a book they find offensive, and the mayor of the city asking the library to remove that same book.  The first is annoying but fundamentally fine.  The other is a problem.
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I want the Surgeon General flagging posts that provide misinformation about Covid and vaccines.   Why wouldn't you?

 
tymarsas said:
My concern is: will Facebook feel obligated to delete the content because it is reported by the government. What happens if the government starts reporting valid but unflattering information? I think it is a bad precedent and something the government should avoid. Their duty should be simply to combat false information with accurate information.
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Exactly.  The government has plenty of channels for spreading their own information and disinformation.

Do not infringe upon individual speech, whether the speech is wrong or right is irrelevant.

All this gonna do is drive the nutsos to use different channels that are actually less opaque and drive more anti-government conspiracy theorists and extremism.  And then we'll wonder why.

 
jobarules said:
The internet is run by the Chinese Government
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Well it's a well-known fact, sonny-jim, that there's a secret society of the 5 wealthiest people in the world, known as The Pentavirate, who run everything in the world including the newspapers, and meet tri-annually in a secret country mansion in Colorado known as The Meadows.

(So who's in this Pentavirate?)

The Queen, the Vatican, the Gettys, the Rothschilds...and Colonel Sanders before he went #### up! Ooh I hated the Colonel, with his wee beady eyes and that smug look on his face! Ohh you're gonna buy my chicken! Ooh!

(Dad, how can you hate the Colonel?)

Because he puts an addictive chemical in his chicken that makes you crave it fortnightly, smart ###!

 
djmich said:
Exactly.  The government has plenty of channels for spreading their own information and disinformation.

Do not infringe upon individual speech, whether the speech is wrong or right is irrelevant.

All this gonna do is drive the nutsos to use different channels that are actually less opaque and drive more anti-government conspiracy theorists and extremism.  And then we'll wonder why.
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If Facebook wants to rely on the Surgeon General or the CDC to determine what is or isn't false information for its own purposes of moderating content, shouldn't they be allowed to do that?   Does it matter if they ask the government to flag false information or if the government does it on its own accord?

 
djmich said:
Exactly.  The government has plenty of channels for spreading their own information and disinformation.

Do not infringe upon individual speech, whether the speech is wrong or right is irrelevant.

All this gonna do is drive the nutsos to use different channels that are actually less opaque and drive more anti-government conspiracy theorists and extremism.  And then we'll wonder why.
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I don’t agree with this portion. 

These same people should be allowed a larger bullhorn? Social media flagging stuff, a process (that is evolving here as we go), trying to be transparent about it, seems the way to go to me.

 
djmich said:
Exactly.  The government has plenty of channels for spreading their own information and disinformation.

Do not infringe upon individual speech, whether the speech is wrong or right is irrelevant.

All this gonna do is drive the nutsos to use different channels that are actually less opaque and drive more anti-government conspiracy theorists and extremism.  And then we'll wonder why.
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Individual speech is not being infringed upon. The posts are being flagged, not being taken down. 

 
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