Can’t find the claim about the statement not being political anywhere in the linked article. But there’s this:
> Meta’s CEO aired his grievances in a letter Monday to the House Judiciary Committee in response to its investigation into content moderation on online platforms
Sounds like he wasn’t the initiator of the discussion, but I may be misreading the paragraph.
And it’s in the news because it’s being made newsworthy, not because it’s new.
“A U.S. federal judge,” in 2023 “restricted some agencies and officials of the administration of President Joe Biden from meeting and communicating with social media companies to moderate their content” [1].
"On Wednesday, the Supreme Court tossed out claims that the Biden administration coerced social media platforms into censoring users by removing COVID-19 and election-related content."
> “For months, high-ranking Government officials placed unrelenting pressure on Facebook to suppress Americans’ free speech," Alito wrote. "Because the Court unjustifiably refuses to address this serious threat to the First Amendment, I respectfully dissent."
It seems like the court had agreement that government coercion did happen. They threw the case out because they couldn’t draw a direct correlation to harm to the specific people that brought the allegations up.
Unfortunately, Alito has objectively proven himself to be a liar at best. His statements are the farthest of any justice from representing an agreement of the court.
The only "pressure" that was put on FB, was the same put on Twitter, which was that reports and requests from Administration employees has some higher gravity than other reports. The "investigation" here, and Zuckerberg's responce are not evidence of wrongdoing, only political maneuvering.
It's genuinely weird that they keep talking about pressure as if there was an actual means of exerting pressure rather than literally providing feedback - this administration doesn't go after it's enemies in the private sector unlike the last one (JEDI contract comes to mind)
Very funny that the initial case got lots of press on HN and got people like patio11 in a tizzy but when it was tossed out by SCOTUS there was nary a peep.
> Plaintiffs may have succeeded if they were instead seeking damages for past harms. But in her opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that partly because the Biden administration seemingly stopped influencing platforms' content policies in 2022, none of the plaintiffs could show evidence of a "substantial risk that, in the near future, they will suffer an injury that is traceable" to any government official. Thus, they did not seem to face "a real and immediate threat of repeated injury," Barrett wrote.
Are you saying Zuck is lying and the government did not do what he's saying they did? In Twitter's case, there are emails from Adam Schiff - do you think that evidence is fraudulent?
The existence of the government communications with the social media companies requesting suppression of content are referenced in the courts opinions. The Biden admin also admits to these communications. https://rollcall.com/2024/06/26/supreme-court-rejects-lawsui...
> funny to see MAGA people all of a sudden embracing Chad Zuckerberg, as though this represents some sort of organic character development on his part
Honestly, it's refreshingly pragmatic to see American politics ditching the ideological purity tests that defined our recent history. I disagree completely with MAGA politics. But allies don't have to be friends--if someone's on your side, that's really what counts.
Zuckerberg is pretending to be on MAGA's side so that he can assist whatever next phase of the agenda is intended for Trump's next term in office. Of course, if MAGA could pick out people who are only pretending to be on their side they wouldn't be supporting Trump in the first place.
He must have a fantastic PR team. Across the political spectrum, I'm seeing a ton of support for him. Decades of harvesting and selling personal data (including shadow profiles of non-users), "I don't know why people trust me", Cambridge Analytica, the metaverse/attempt at owning the future of the internet- all swept under the rug in exchange for open Llama weights and a couple statements about censorship. Musk could cure mortality without changing as many minds about him.
> He must have a fantastic PR team. Across the political spectrum, I'm seeing a ton of support for him
He's speaking to both sides and has seemingly--almost uniquely in Silicon Valley--mastered the art of shutting the fuck up. Note, for example, his disciplined reticence around endorsing a candidate.
It's relevant right now because there's recent increase in the amount of government-directed censorship and propaganda on the social media platforms at the moment. Take a look at Reddit. Look at what's happening in the UK or with the EU threatening to imprison Musk for allowing Trump to be interviewed.
Holy cow. I'd heard something about the EU recently warning Musk over Twitter, but did not know that it was because of the heinous mortal sin of interviewing the former and possible next US president.
There's just that thing that he forgot to say 'rinse & repeat' at the end of his statement while he's now in the 'rinse' phase. The upcoming election circus will make clear whether he is genuinely regretful or whether he's up to his old tricks. The 'Zuckerbucks' NGO 'Center for Tech and Civic Life' [1] is gearing up again so I suspect the latter to be closer to the truth.
He said it because they got criticized for something that cost them a lot of money. It’s all about how much it costs and takes away from the pockets of the board of directors and owners. For profit companies are amoral for the most part and their only obligation is to make money.
The only truly dispositive photos are the one where he has a little blood on his fingertip after first reaching up to his ear, and the one that supposedly captured a bullet whizzing right past his head, and you'd hardly need AI to make either of them.
- Trump disappears from the public eye for the week leading up to Butler
July 9, Doral Fl
- CNN and other mainstream outlets elect to cover the rally after not broadcasting any others
This was discussed on July 9. They were expecting him to announce his running mate. This is why you saw a lot of press at the July 9th rally.
- The Secret Service shoos crowd members farther from the stage and repositions some of the photographers just before the first shots
They reposition people all the time.
The fact that the first two are easily dismissed as a lie, and the third requires evidence from you that the Secret Service routinely do NOT redirect or move people is enough to discredit this. The rest of what you post is mostly purely subjective.
Please, correct me if I'm wrong. But I'm not. I saw the videos. I saw the media talking about it and literally explaining why they were paying attention.
Could have used some more precise language w.r.t. Trump "disappearing" from the public eye (there was commentary about it at the time, the usual take being that he was happy to just sit back and let Biden & the Dems self detonate, a single rally during the period in question doesn't change this), or the media coverage (Butler was CNN's first live broadcast of a rally). What the media said about why they were broadcasting the rally is just that, a statement, and it may or may not be aligned with the actual truth (or even understanding of the people making the statement). "The Secret Service repositions" people all the time" is just a banal and unhelpful statement of fact, which dodges the peculiar effect of this particular repositioning in both effect (more visibility for the photographers, less for the crowd/spectators) and timing. I'm in no way obligated to establish that the SS "never repositions people" in order to argue that this is suspicious.
These don't constitute "lies," nor do they excuse your underhanded attempt to dismiss the rest of the list of facts as false (probably because they are indeed quite improbable).
I like how you dismiss the lie to change it completely when someone does what you ask and verifies your claim. So much backpedaling.
You made a bold claim. It was 100% wrong.
Talk about underhanded, I’m not the one lying and then changing my story.
And the media story counters your baseless supposition that it was mysterious as to why the media would start paying attention to him. It was the first rally in a while and it makes sense that they might think he’s there to announce his running mate.
I’ve provided evidence. Put up some of your own that say exactly what you are saying, liar.
"the media _said_ why they were covering the rally, checkmate and QED good sir" lol just pathetic
This is the same set of institutions that insisted from January 6, 2021 until about June of this year that Trump was a literal existential threat to democracy who had attempted to carry out an actual insurrection, and needed to be completely deplatformed. Now, all of a sudden deciding to cover his campaign like it's just one more ordinary old POTUS horse race. Okay.
It's a far more plausible accounting of the facts than either mainstream narrative (there are two different ones being pitched to the pro- and anti-Trump camps in this case), but you're not going to accept that because of the level of cognitive dissonance it would generate with your existing perceptions of how the world works (particularly the idea that you're too smart to be fooled).
"Flat Earth" isn't an organic thing either, clearly an astroturfed movement meant to give people like you a handy example of why all such questioning is badthought.
You're suggesting that Donald Trump, of all people, willingly put himself in front of a gun and allowed himself to be SHOT AT to increase his street cred.
There were ACTUAL bullets flying at him, as evidenced by the DEAD MAN who was sitting behind him.
Now you're assuming I think things I didn't even write.
No, of course Trump didn't allow a shot to be taken anywhere near his head. You are certainly correct that he's a very self-regarding person unlikely to put himself in harm's way (another reason the "fight fight fight" fistpump is incongruent with the presence of a genuine threat). What we saw on his ear was just stage blood.
It's already emerged that there were men with guns in the building directly underneath Crooks, one of them probably fired some rounds into the crowd to give the scene believability. I doubt Crooks was even allowed to get on top of that building and point a rifle with live rounds anywhere in Trump's direction.
