Originally Posted by James Brown
I scanned this thread for the first time this morning. I disagree with James, in that I think this story is not a "nothing burger." On the contrary, it is a very instructive example of the clear left bias shown in content moderation on Twitter and FB. This matters because far too many people get their news from Twitter and FB, including apparently many mainstream journalists, which then corrupts and reinforces their worldview and biases their own reporting. This exacerbates the polarization that is plaguing the country. I also think it is pretty clear that the government does it's best to manipulate the press and social media. This should not be surprising to anyone. On the other hand, I doubt that any persuadable voters were unaware of Hunter's laptop in 2020. Other outlets covered it extensively.
As Matt Taibbi himself said about 4 days ago, the main victim of this rampant bias is the press itself; https://taibbi.substack.com/p/be-it-resolved-dont-trust-mainstream I agree with his comments in the linked comments from the Munk Debates. No one should trust the press, any of it, in 2022.
I chose to reply to the post quoted above, since it is pretty clear that James was able to rile Rich to the shouting stage quite easily, as we all knew he could. Everyone can see that Rich was spun up here, even though he will deny and deny until the end of time. It was/is fun to watch. Jim
I disagree with Jim and I agree with James that this is a nothing burger. I see Jim isn't content to limit his contention to the contrary; he now includes Facebook as well.
Any degree of moderation in a public platform can potentially be viewed as biased by anyone who doesn't happen to agree with it. Here, of course, we're referencing private business platforms with terms and conditions and their moderators can respond as they deem appropriate to content that, in their estimation and in consideration of all feedback they receive, do not meet their standards of their platform.
That said, the most ridiculous statement in Jim's post is, "No one should trust the press, any of it, in 2022." So when the press publishes a fact check, it shouldn't be trusted? Or if the press notes it was wrong, it shouldn't publish a retraction because it can't be trusted? Should we have another investigation of the investigation like the failed Durham probe every time a political party disagrees with the outcome and/or the initiation of an investigation? Hunter Biden has not and is not running for political office. He may be charged for tax evasion or some other offense but that remains to be decided by prosecutors. It will not be decided on Twitter or Facebook...