Not at all. Free speech in both cases. He is free to say what he thinks, we (us as individuals, Twitter as a company, everyone) are free to say we think he is talking complete and utter balderdash if that is what we think.

A president trying to silence Twitter's statement about what he has said by intimidating them is an attempt at censorship though.

I have no idea why anyone would argue in favor of Twitter. When has it become required to be an expert in the field to be granted the privilege of leaving a comment on a forum? When has it become unacceptable to lie? People lie all the time. Advertisements lie to you, politicians lie to you, your mom lies to you.

It's really annoying that the truth police is going to go and check your tweets or comment—even if you ignore the fact that the line between facts and opinions isn't always easy to see. Even facts like Taiwan being its own country or part of China or the Armenian genocide can be denied, and people should be able to say that—and perhaps rightfully get shit for that, but still be able to say it.

We're going back to the Middle Ages, where if you say Earth isn't flat or God doesn't exist (replace with global warming isn't caused by humans, Covid-19 is man-made), you're executed.

Sad.

Once you start fact checking where does it end? A lot of people have different views on different things and there is no clear right or wrong.

What I would like to see is that the US political system starts fact checking itself and stop spreading misinformation. This should be done out of self respect.

They realize that simply deleting the posts in question and banning the user (Stable Genius) would have a serious backlash from the hard-right. They did what they feel was the next best thing, which is to call out the garbage for what it is by slapping an unremovable label on it. It sort-of seems like a "win", they get to smack-down the asshole, yet not "censor" him.

Unfortunately Stable Genius is playing a different game.

It's a game where outrage, even when directed at him, actually HELPS him. It gives him yet another grievance to trot around, yet another distraction for the public, more leverage for his base, more grist for his vitriol. Meanwhile other republicans will use this cover to continue to cram through unpopular and self-serving greedy agendas, in "shock doctrine" style.

The thing is Twitter is not news, it has no loyalty to the public or the truth. It is a purely money making enterprise, like any other corporation. Jack Dorsey and the board can do whatever the F they want.

Unless Jack Dorsey knows the future, I'm not sure you can fact check something that hasn't happened yet.

How can a separation of powers approach still check itself? Like different term limits, VP powers, congressional army? Banning factions or breaking up parties that get too big, banning private donors? Rooting for the American experiment to get sorted!

A lot of past US Presidents were likely no more competent, but their images demanded that they appear such. Reagan was probably suffering from dementia. JFK was high most of the time. It's just that the PR strategy for those guys was different because their public personae were groomed for different expectations.

Well that, and neither had Twitter.

Idiocracy is an easy pull and rings true because of outward appearances, but the reality is (and probably always has been) closer to Vonnegut's Player Piano or Kubrik's Doctor Strangelove.

If the movie describes reality then it does it pretty well and then apparently reality can be described as a joke.

If the movie satires reality and we cannot discern the satire from reality then reality was already a joke to begin with, we just didn't know.

The question is not how did we get here or how did this happen? But how do we get out of here? :)

Go back farther and read about his actions regarding The Central Park Five. His history is full of complete bs like this.

He later reached a plurality of Republican primary polls while saying...

If you use "by" it implies causation, something no one is able to know, whereas "while" accurately points out that the two events only occurred simultaneously.

Now I'm not sure if you were just writing casually, and I fully expect that now that I've pointed out this "minor" technical shortcoming in your statement you will see my point, and I'm in no way implying that you had a strong intent to imply a cause and effect relationship between these two events...but please don't underestimate the potential significance the aggregate effect millions of seemingly minor slip-ups like this (this is only one example, and only one form) can have on the collective consciousness (aggregate of the internal mental models of all people) of the members of national and global societies when individual members of those societies are subjected to it over a long period of time. If you now think about it, it may seem like you "know" how large of an effect it has, but you actually have literally no way of knowing with certainty and accuracy what the actual effect is.

The world is incredibly complex, filled with all sorts of randomness and incredibly counter-intuitive events, but this is not how we perceive it. We perceive the world as extremely structured and organized, as if mostly everything "adds up", but only because our brain evolved to provide this illusion to our consciousness. This "good enough" illusion rose to the top over all other evolutionary paths that were tried, under the set of conditions in existence at the time they evolved. If conditions (variables) changed significantly, would we be shocked if a formerly highly trustworthy ML/AI model started producing less accurate predictions? I don't think so. Then why should we be surprised if the biological AI in our minds exhibits similar behavior when the inputs undergo a fundamental change? To me, this would be the equivalent of believing in magic of some sort.

People's (that includes you and me) perception of the world is formed based on the information they consume - all of it. It may seem (clear as day, and in full UHD+ resolution) that your personal worldview is based solely on strict evidence and logic, but the fact of the matter is, this is not how the human mind works. Sure, some minds are better at it than others, but the exact degree to which that is true is also unknowable, and making judgements on relative capability are subject to the very same phenomenon I point out.

I will wrap this up with a challenge: for the next month, read not just the news, but also all the general conversations and individual comments in social media forums from your normal perspective, and then also from this perspective. Carefully consider(!) when people are discussing a complicated, massively multivariate issue, whether the discreet observations and assertions that people make are actually knowably true, "first-principle" facts, or if they are actually predictions produced by an amazingly sophisticated AI model. This will not be easy, at all...it will be very difficult and require extreme discipline (you are literally fighting against nature), but the results may be incredibly interesting (perhaps one of the most interesting things you have encountered in years), if you are willing(!) to give it a serious try.

So... no evidence of fraudulent use.

28 million out of how many? "almost 1 in 5". so roughly 150 million ballots mailed out over multiple years and elections, and < 20% are not returned. Or something else?

What does "unaccounted for" mean? They knew they were mailed out. All I can divine from that is 'not returned'.

"There’s little doubt that as the number of mail-in ballots increases, so does fraud."

Yet, right above that in the article, it says of the 28 million - "no evidence of fraud". How many more mail-in ballots do you need to get evidence of fraud? 200 million? 300 million?

What is the insinuation? People are mailing their ballots back, but they're getting "lost"?

It seems that when there's evidence found - as in, criminal investigations turn up fraud and people are charged and prosecuted - "there's evidence of fraud!". When no evidence is found... that's also evidence that it's going on, but not discovered yet. That's how I read this hysteria over 'mail in ballots'.

I guess this demonstrates the tactics that is highly unfavorable to help people make up their own mind:

1) mislead by ignoring evidence, pushing a narrative using "authoritative sources" that fall far short of objectivity standards

2) if #1 fail vote down (shadowbanning, downvotes, etc etc)

3) if #2 fail censor and ban.

4) if #3 fail tell people to ignore those showing contrary evidence, by without evidence claiming they belong to bad group X or because they can't possibly understand due to having identity characteristic Y

This is so boring and trite. It should be clear to everyone at this point that enough people are awake to these tactics to force a discussion on equal terms. With all truths on the table.

Agreed. Congress should be ashamed of themselves.