At some point you're gonna have to trust an authoritative source. Whether that is APNews or NYT or straight from the government website.

The question of "Who gets to decide the truth" is extremely tiring to refute - someone has always had the authoritative voice is determining what's true and what's not. You're shifting the burden of truth from one source to the other until there is no one you can trust.

Statement: Foo is Bar. [1]

[1] Source Baz.

You then need to argue, why does Baz gets to decide what's true or not? This goes on ad-infinitum.

By asking "Who gets to decide the truth", you're essentially saying "Why should I trust anyone?" and by that logic "I cannot trust anyone, so everything must be false." The society's fabric is based on trust in institutions. Whether it is government, an independent news source or whatever.

The difference though is that society is largely aware that newspaper editors have opinions and biases and act as gatekeepers and the editors themselves largely acknowledge their roles as gatekeepers. In tech we still try pretend that these companies aren't gatekeepers and the CEOs adamantly insist that they're largely neutral platforms. That's why it's hard to trust tech as an authoritative source.

I would be fine with Twitter censoring but providing an authoritative source (such as APNews) that justifies their censorship. Transparency is better.

I guess I am more concerned about people harping on "Well, I don't trust APNews, why do they get to decide on truth." One can go down a conspiratorial path pretty quickly when theyve already made up their mind to not trust anyone or trust their favorite source that supports their arguments and emotional state.

When you click the blue warning on the tweet, it does exactly that...?

That's actually pretty funny, I did click on that warning on some voter fraud allegations and here is what it said:

    What you need to know
    - Voter fraud of any type is incredibly rare in the US, according to The Associated Press and Reuters
    - US officials say the 2020 US election will be more secure than the 2016 US presidential election
    - US officials confirm that foreign governments are trying to influence the US election, but that foreign governments' interference is mostly relegated to launching misinformation campaigns
    - Experts say US elections are 'resilient'

And then it lists some articles, that just like the tl;dr version above, did not disprove anything that was actually being said in tweets labeled with these warnings.

It's really bad. Laughably bad. It might only confirms your biases if you already believe that the allegations are false, but if you haven't formed an opinion yet - I assure you, no one is ever going to be convinced by this. A lot of people are now treating those factcheckers as a complete joke that cannot be taken seriously. But I don't know, this is just what I noticed by observing this entire thing, make of it what you will.

I didn't know. Not on twitter as much, I'll inquire further.

Just go on Donald Trump's Twitter feed, and click on all the various warnings...(also note that none were "censored"--some just have a warning appended, and others were hidden by default with a warning, and you have to click it to see the tweet.)

It's high time we stopped pretending that and understood that even neutrality is, itself, a stance (i.e. there are criteria determining what is "neutral," and those criteria are chosen by the platform).

> At some point you're gonna have to trust an authoritative source. Whether that is APNews or NYT or straight from the government website.

Would you really teach your children "trust the New York Times and whatever the government says"? When both said Iraq had WMDs, did you believe them? In a perfect world we could all look at the source material (photos, videos, data, etc.) ourselves to figure out reality and there would be uncensorable platforms for individuals to call out corruption and reach the masses. This was the original promise of the internet and social media! Sadly the authoritarian left is insistent on defining "reality" and relishes censoring dissenting facts or opinions. Facebook and Twitter wields their "fact checking" and censorship on a might-is-right basis, which disenfranchises 50% of the population and is seriously incendiary to civil discourse.

I am talking about authoritative source of truth. Not arguing which specific source.

Right. But evidence is more trustworthy than authority.

I am terrified of the idea that the common public of 70 million people that voted for Trump did not have the basic skills to determine what's true and what's not from the evidence. They've been constantly fed lies - as we speak about election fraud. They're provided with plenty of evidence, they choose to not believe.

If you think about the world where 80% of the people are religious, who throw away evidence in favor of faith; you're in for a dark future.

I am saying I don't believe in authoritative sources of truth. All the "wrong" people out there don't enter into it when I am reading news. I look for facts that can be and have been validated.

And it's important to have humility about being right about everything. You don't have to go back far to find folks on the left excited about the prospects for Venezuela. Now, it's possible to find scapegoats, but it does explain some of the right-wing perspective on fake news. If the left and the media had to see a country basically collapse to call the Venezuelan government problematic, what do you call the reporting and debate points before that? "Factual" doesn't cut it.

Pompous comments like this only drive people further away. Evidence being presented by a biased media is not evidence to be trusted. MSM “science” and “facts” are just as much a religion as Catholicism.

If I’m presented evidence from someone that has routinely lied to me, called me names, destroyed my career, and shipped my job prospects overseas, I’m not believing a single word they say.

What’s the distinction between evidence and authority in practical sense?

Vaccine efficacy according to FDA says it’s 90%. ~~~~> Authority.

Paper published by FDA shows data ~~~~> Evidence.

Right?

Who wrote the paper and who collected the data? Some authority.

How about I get to decide who to trust instead of Twitter, Reddit, etc censoring people and deciding for me?

Perhaps you'll go to another source, say ABC news? You can ask them the same thing "Hey ABC news, why are you guys deciding the truth for me?".

Literally every source you will use, your own argument will falsify it.

A journalistic establishment with clear editorial control and clear liability for libel, etc. is not the same thing as a publishing platform.

Fair point, how do you think we need to control rampant misinformation?

I don't feel the need to control others' speech.

As far as better information, diversity in viewpoint in journalistic within organizations will help. News that starts within a bubble is probably more distorted.

The social media problem is harder, but giving users ultimate control on how to filter fake news is important. Otherwise, social media companies should express editorial positions and advertise editorial services as a core part of their offerings, then consumers and content creators would have clear signals about biases in how information is curated on their platforms.

Okay, so are you supportive of Twitter censoring political speech? Or should we be given the opportunity to view information and decide for ourselves what is bullshit and what isn’t? Anyone who believes everything they see on Twitter is beyond being helped by Jack’s censorship.

I didn't say that. "Decide for ourselves" - oh boy, good luck in the era of deep fakes, lies and misinformation.

I do agree with you on one thing - I don't think we should blindly trust Twitter. I am arguing that before censorship, they need to provide a solid source of truth.

Jack didn’t decide what’s true, in fact lies are posted to Twitter by users everyday.

He just decided that these particular lies are too unreasonable for him to help spread them.

"Jack didn’t decide what’s true"

It's a little bit naive to think that the truth is easily discerned by any individual, it's always a matter of shades.

'Stole the Election' can mean many different things in many different contexts, not literally election fraud.

I detest Donald Trump and don't much like Jack Dorsey, but he should not be in a position to arbiter the truth.

I'm very thankful he censored Trump on the eve of the election, not thankful he banned the Post, and very worried about the future.

We probably need regulations over this.

The free speech people have to come to terms with the fact that the big mediums have always been filtered, and it only takes one insane president to start a civil war, that the truth among the plebes is 'Whatever their Ideologue Says' and so there needs to be credibility in the system.

The anti-Trump crowd who are happy with the censoring need to realize how dangerous of a game this is.

Twitter and FB need to set up a completely independent public board, with established guidelines and public oversight to manage these things..

Why would you say that anyone else should decide what's true on his platform? Twitter isn't even so popular that you can say it has a monopoly of any sort. There are plenty of alternative services, and no significant barriers to starting a new one. I guarantee that if the president of the United States was to say "From now on I'm only posting on my blog" then that blog would become very popular.

> I’m not sure why Jack Dorsey should get to decide what’s true just because he invented a social media platform

That's the fundamental misalignment of understanding in this era: he doesn't. He gets to decide what his platform hosts and how he spins it. The determiner of truth is, as it has always been, the audience.

I don't think it's as black and white as you say. "I won the presidency" could, in theory, be a true statement, even if it comes before the counting is complete and we haven't yet determined its veracity. "There was fraud" could, in fact, be true, even if the evidence to prove it is not forthcoming.

Ultimately, Twitter censors things it doesn't think are healthy for its platform. I think that's within its rights, but I don't think it's by any means objective.

I would expect them to have a team actually doing this in a more principled fashion, instead of Jack Dorsey calling the shot from his ivory tower.

> I’m not sure why Jack Dorsey should get to decide what’s true just because he invented a social media platform

A social media platform is a publisher, if it encourages news to be disseminated through its networks then it should be held to the same scrutiny.

Some might cry - well this is impossible! I can tweet anything and a stranger can share it, how can I cope with that volume etc... well, then you have to choose:

if you want to be a broadcaster, then you must obey the law and not broadcast propaganda or blatant falsehoods.

If you do not want to censor or edit, then you must stop being a broadcaster, that is you must limit the reach of that material, so that a person may only communicate it to their friend and not further in the same way as an ordinary conversation in person, by telephone, or text message would work.

Twitter doesn't point out what's true. They point out what's under dispute.

He's not deciding. Just observing and reacting.