SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Twitter adds label to Trump's misleading tweets about mail-in ballots:
Twitter said Tuesday that it added a label to President Donald Trump's tweets for containing "potentially misleading information about voting processes," a rare move that shows the social media company is taking a tougher stance against misinformation.
It's the first time that Twitter has displayed a label on Trump's tweets.
On Tuesday, Trump tweeted that "There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-in-Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent," a claim that has been debunked by fact-checkers and news organizations. He continues his remarks in another tweet, stating that it will be a "Rigged election."
A label appears under both tweets that states "Get the facts about mail-in ballots." Clicking on the warning notice directs users to a page that states that fact-checkers say there isn't any evidence that mail-in ballots are linked to voter fraud. Trump also falsely states in the tweets that California will send mail-in ballots to "anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there" when only registered voters will receive ballots. States such as Oregon, Utah and Washington have long conducted elections by mail only, while states such as Nebraska allow any voter to request a ballot and vote by mail without having to provide a reason.
A Twitter spokeswoman said in a statement that the decision is in line with how the company approaches misinformation on its site, which includes adding warning notices and labels depending on the likelihood and severity of harm a tweet could cause.
Twitter's actions against Trump's tweets will also likely increase tensions between the company and conservative users, who allege that the social network suppresses their speech. Twitter has repeatedly denied those allegations. Earlier this month, Trump tweeted that the "Radical Left" is in control of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google and said his administration is working on a solution.
In two tweets, Trump accused Twitter of interfering in the 2020 US presidential election.
"Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!," he tweeted.
Also at BBC News, Ars Technica, MIT Technology Review
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 27 2020, @03:54PM (37 children)
Nope. You're a liar when you knowingly conflate a single anecdote as evidence of "significant" fraud, though.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Wednesday May 27 2020, @04:15PM (32 children)
You really think this is the only example? Maybe you do, but there's a reason that the legacy media is continuing to bleed trust -- it is obviously partisan, which is fine in itself -- people like reading opinion pieces -- but what peeves people is opinion dressed as objective fact. As the media continues this game, it is inevitable that more and more people will run across a story presented as fact which, either through personal knowledge or by checking sources independently, is revealed as propaganda. From there it's a spiral into a default skeptical reaction rather than a default trusting reaction. Even you might find yourself there someday.
(Score: 5, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 27 2020, @04:39PM (5 children)
It's the only one that was provided. How about you provide, say, ten more then we can talk about trends.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Bot on Wednesday May 27 2020, @10:47PM (3 children)
Trend, republican states have less deaths, in absolute and relative terms, than democrat states. Yet Trump is the crazy one and dems are the saviors. Fact check this.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday May 27 2020, @11:30PM (2 children)
Less population, less dense population, lack of testing (not testing the dead) way underfunded health care. Many do have elevated death tolls this year. I would suspect undercounts due to lack of testing supplies, underfunding and possibly a political desire to undercount.
And yes, Trump is out of his fucking mind. No one sane lies that often, especially on things where the truth would of served him better.
But Dems are not saviors.
Perhaps marginally more sane...but savior is a word I hear much more from the right as a political weapon. You know, like how you just falsely used it or like socialism/communism (the right never learned their definitions and confuse them with regularity) religious rights (translation: Christian rights...why should they have more rights than I? Dammit, I want Atheist rights!) etc, etc....yeah weaponized words to cover ineffective, discriminatory policies or even trying to overturn that which they themselves created or approved (EPA) in earlier, saner times.
You really are a bot, in drastic need of logic circuits.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday May 28 2020, @08:26AM (1 child)
Less population is irrelevant when we are speaking about percentage. Less dense population is irrelevant when lockdown is in effect, unless the lockdown itself is irrelevant, in which case having enforced it is a disaster.
I am not saying dems are the saviours, the mainstream says that. So basically you agree with everything I said.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Thursday May 28 2020, @10:02AM
Agreeing with a portion is not the equivalent of agreeing in total. (As a left-leaning centrist, I don't agree in total with either side.)
And less population and density is by far not irrelevant. The horrid under funding of our medical system is a disaster. Cutting the office responsible for pandemic preparation in 2017 exacerbated the current problems.
Saying the D's are saviors is your biased interpretation of the mainstream.
And Trump is still the Lie-on king.
Good day to you, it's bar-b-que time! (what do bots bar-b-que? motor oil soaked circuit boards?)
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday May 27 2020, @11:06PM
Ok, here's a whole list of voter fraud cases provided by your friend and mine, The Heritage Foundation. I only researched for the most part larger or interesting sounding cases as there is no partisan filter and frequently no mention of party affiliation. There are far too many to research all of them, unless your a political addict or psychotic. So chance played a roll in what I found.
https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud/search?combine=&state=All&year=&case_type=All&fraud_type=All [heritage.org]
Look at that! There's one or two every year in many states of individuals committing voter fraud! Taken all together, they might sway a dog catchers election in a small town!!!!
(changes filters to something with the potential of actual damage--criminal conviction plus altering the vote count)
https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud/search?combine=&state=All&year=&case_type=24487&fraud_type=24511 [heritage.org]
And look at those numbers! FOUR! Democracy is doomed! Two were GOP defrauding the election, one was someone stealing an unsealed ballot box, but didn't get to the stage of changing ballots so political affiliation unknown and one was for a non-partisan private homeowners' association election.
(changes filters to something with the potential of actual damage--criminal conviction plus fraudulent use of absentee ballots)
https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud/search?combine=&state=All&year=&case_type=24487&fraud_type=24489 [heritage.org]
Hmmm, very interesting results...You have to look up each case individually as they don't provide a partisan filter, but I looked up around twenty of the ones involving more that twenty or thirty ballots (that would only matter in the smallest of elections generally), and although most of the largest were GOP defrauding elections in places like S.C. or Alabama, many were non-partisan small town elections committed by businessmen looking for political favor and not party ideologies. Gee, businessmen are crooks? Who knew? A smattering of independent and DNC involved ones as well, but the minority OF THE ONES I RESEARCHED....
(changes filters to something with the potential of actual damage-OK, not actual damage, but one certain factions love to tout as the worst of the worst-criminal conviction plus impersonation fraud at the polls)
https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud/search?combine=&state=All&year=&case_type=24487&fraud_type=24493 [heritage.org]
Spouses telling other spouse how to vote at poll, people voting in place of relatives, one or two of people voting for three or more relatives.....small potatoes and none large enough to matter as far as I could tell.
Now I did NOT look up each and every case in these lists, (I bar-b-q'ing Buffalo burgers later, it's beautiful outside and I don't want to waste all of it looking up stupid shit!) just some of the largest ones which since few stated any political bias in the descriptions means it's POSSIBLE I just stumbled upon more GOP and non-partisan "get my buddy elected so I get favor" fraud than DNC fraud.
There are also a lot of filters I didn't use, buying votes, illegal assistance, illegal registration and a few others. For example overturned elections were mostly Judicial Findings where handfuls of votes that were cast outside of districts, late absentee votes that were counted when they shouldn't of been, recounts and exactly four criminal cases where I did find two DNC, one GOP (this one involves a difficult to find information on the parties involved, and may actually be more of a personal gain than partisan) and one personal interest case involving taxation.
All of these cases are small, none seem larger than a regional or local problem and don't involve a national election, and even if they did their size would be insignificant to change the outcome. So screaming voter fraud at the top of their lungs seems at every damned election (until they win, then it evaporates...hmmmm) more of a preemptive excuse for losing an election than anything grounded in facts.
But then again, the one that yells the loudest about others crimes, is frequently only try to distract attention from their own.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2020, @05:17PM (16 children)
That is only because Republicans have become so extremely rightwing that even lite conservativism like CNN etc. look partisan to you. As a liberal I can safely say that no MSM outlet comes close to my political preferences, they are all flavors of corporate conservatism.
You really should take a vacation and spend some time attempting to critically and objectively analyze conservative and liberal viewpoints. You might be surprised to find that conservatives embody most everything they criticize, in this instance your martyr "snowflake" complex. This COVID issue is also a great example, why are conservatives complaining so much about wearing masks and social distancing? Hardly a cross to bear compared to invading the Middle East with a good chance of dismemberment and death, but hey SUPPORT THE TROOPS, THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS AMIRITE?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Wednesday May 27 2020, @06:00PM (13 children)
I'm a liberal too but the type who feels backstabbed by the DNC. One can make peace with one's enemies or engage in temporary detente when interests align, but traitors, that's a different matter.
As for Republicans becoming super right-wing -- I'm not seeing that. I'm seeing a DNC permeated by FBI, CIA, NSA operatives, a strange newage McCarthyism, a fat hardon for regime change, in banksters back pockets, and a corporate friendly woke agenda that threatens none of those institutional players but does make people completely immune to considering other positions -- you don't negotiate with actual nazis, you kill actual nazis.
And just so we're crystal clear, the most fascistic right wing policy possible, is to execute American citizens without trial for the content of their speech. And that policy, that's on Obama. It was when I learned about due process free execution of citizens (and let's remember that Democrats excoriated GWB for mere due process free detention of foreigners (gitmo)) that my growing doubts about Democrats crystalized -- they don't care about evil policies, they care only that THEY get implement evil policy. Sorry, I'm not in that tribe. I don't care red or blue, I care about policy.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 27 2020, @06:20PM (9 children)
Holy whataboutism batman!
Why is it OK for Republicans, such as Trump's press secretary [tampabay.com] and Trump himself [cnn.com] to vote by mail but not OK for us to?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Wednesday May 27 2020, @06:35PM (8 children)
Really? killing citizens without trial for saying stuff doesn't phase you one bit?
I would say everything else is whataboutism. There is no policy that is a greater human rights violation than that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2020, @06:44PM (6 children)
I too was opposed to those, however, it could easily be argued that those people were enemy combatants as they were putting in with people that we were at war with (even if it was a largely undeclared war, it was authorized by congress under the AUMF, at least according to some legal scholars).
(Score: 2, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Wednesday May 27 2020, @06:49PM (5 children)
No such evidence was ever presented at a public trial as required by the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The ONLY facts we have, are that Americans were murdered by the Feds because they said stuff the Feds did not like. That's fascist. Pure simple authoritarian evil and there is no justification possible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2020, @08:49PM (4 children)
Believe it or not my left-wing ass agrees with you. Many liberals weren't huge fans of Obama, but he was better than most that came before him.
I find it strange that you would then go on to stupport the GOP, it isn't like US fascism hasn't been around for a good long time. Maybe the droning of a US citizen was what woke you up, but all I see from you is mostly conservative tropes. I would think the GOP senate declining to hear evidence in the impeachment trial would rile you up at least a little bit as much.
Ah well, strange times we live in where humans don't know who to trust or what to believe.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Wednesday May 27 2020, @09:05PM
I believe the parties are in the process of reversing roles. It's happened in the past, for example with slavery/race issues. Going forward, I suspect the "right" (I don't even know what the correct word is anymore honestly) is going to be increasingly inclusive, it certainly is more willing to engage in discussion and entertain opposing viewpoints -- the left (if that's the right term) is all in on cancel culture and displaying every greater authoritarian tendencies. I see the DNC becoming the establishment party and the GOP is close to taking up the banner of counter-cultural rebels. Ten years will tell.
I'm neither Democrat nor Republican, but as I've said before, I used to be a Dem, I feel betrayed by them, and the deepest hatred is reserved for one's traitors, not one's enemies. And yeah, I'll admit it: if Trump wins, I will experience schadenfreude even greater than I did last time, even though I voted Green. I want nothing more than to see the entire Clintonian cancer on the DNC, utterly humiliated and excised so we can get to something decent.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2020, @09:58PM (2 children)
I had big hopes for him. And he didn't get anything done at all. Things continued like under Baby Bush. Americans were droned, spied upon; Guantanamo remains open; we fucked up Libya and the Ukraine.
Perhaps he got a visit early on that convinced him not to interfere with the deep state.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @01:25AM (1 child)
There is no deep state, just oligarchies doing their thing like in every country ever. All the buzzwords like terrorist, deep state, conspiracy, military action, those are all to create an air of mystery. To make people thinking something new and different is going on instead of the long history of the wealthy oppressing the poor.
It is tragic how well the bullshit works.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @08:18AM
They employ gamekeepers whose job it is corral those even more unfortunate away from the important people.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Thursday May 28 2020, @10:06PM
Only a democrat would dwonmod a post that condemns a star chamber of the US Executive branch killing its citizens without trial.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2020, @06:22PM (2 children)
I agree, but I see republicans utterly decimated as a party. The religious freaks I hated have mostly disappeared from public view. The tea-partyers have evaporated. What does the republican pary still stand for? Currently all energy seems to go defending Trump, a refugee from the democrat party, from the relentless MSM onslaught.
The democrat party is not in much better shape, but they still have their core constituencies of the media elites and welfare recipients.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2020, @06:29PM (1 child)
"media elites and welfare recipients"
Ho boy, I know that has been a conservative mantra for a long time now, but damn if it isn't the most clueless shit around.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2020, @07:11PM
The first step is to admit the Republican party has a problem. Jared is re-writing the party platform in advance of the Republican National Convention at Mar-ol-Lager. "Some good people" expected to be in attendance. "Welfare recipients" is so pre-Clinton!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 27 2020, @06:30PM (1 child)
Trump threatens to shut down social media after Twitter fact-checks him [chicagotribune.com]
And what would actually be unconstitutional government censorship is completely fine, according to all these censorship wolf-criers.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @01:03AM
Thankfully Tim Pool gets it. [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Wednesday May 27 2020, @05:52PM (8 children)
If you provide only one example, then there is only one example. It's your responsibility, not anybody else's, to collect facts supporting your own argument.
It's unfortunate that the "default skeptical reaction" so often applies only to so-called mainstream media, and is not employed for partisan content one wants to agree with. "Fair and balanced" my ass.
The correct reaction to discovering that everyone has a perspective that can bias their reporting is to insist on facts. If anybody fails to adequately support their own argument, it probably means they haven't even properly investigated it for themselves. It's not your responsibility to collect their facts for them.
The worst thing you can do, though, is scramble about looking for somebody else to trust. Did you learn nothing from discovering CNN's media bias? Why would you think that any cable network is better? Why would you think somebody on the internet is more trustworthy? Just because the left lies sometimes doesn't mean the right never lies ever.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Wednesday May 27 2020, @06:10PM (7 children)
Sorry, this is a total cop out. If you want to pretend to be blind it's on you, but here some things to consider: Yellow cake. Russiagate (including the Flynn debacle). The differences in how sexual assault claims are treated when the target is a Democrat like Biden.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Wednesday May 27 2020, @07:07PM (5 children)
You're not sorry, but I get it. It's much easier to see the flaws in our opponents than it is to see the flaws in ourselves.
I'm not here to tell you that you're wrong. I'm here to tell you that other people are just as skeptical as you are.
When you see some people accept lies and half-truths from the New York Times, it's not that those people are incapable of skepticism. They are plenty skeptical of Fox News and the like. They just have a blind spot for people telling them what they want to hear.
Similarly, when you hear lies and half-truths from Fox News, you should pretend that it came from the New York Times. Apply your "default skeptical reaction" to everything, not just the news sources you have caught saying lies you don't like.
To come back around to my first point, though, it's important how you talk about these things. Don't just assume people know about "yellowcake". You have to go through the motions of relaying the facts yourself. Sometimes, you will find that the narrative you've adopted doesn't quite fit together. It's happened to me a few times that I didn't know I was wrong until I tried to convince someone else I was right.
The last thing any of us should want is for ideology to be more important than the facts. The facts are the only thing that you and I can both look at and agree on. They're the things that make your opponents squirm when they hear them. Use that. Stop trying to turn every argument into some post-modern bullshit about how there is no truth, so the only thing you can do is attack the liars. All that accomplishes is everyone involved believing they were right and everyone else is an idiot.
We all surround ourselves with information that supports our existing worldview. Google and social media do that to us now, too. It's entirely possible that if I search for something, I won't find the facts, because all my friends and Google search results have a particular bias. That's why it's especially important to make a complete and compelling argument to everyone you're talking to. You can't assume they can find the facts anywhere else.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2, Touché) by hemocyanin on Wednesday May 27 2020, @08:47PM (4 children)
You presume SN is a place for discussion. It has devolved into a downmod hoard of Democrat partisans who have no interest in discussion because everyone else, even other liberals like me, is a literal nazi. They can take those terms and RTFG (because of course they wouldn't use DDG) but to hell with putting in any effort for them.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2020, @08:55PM (1 child)
Do you even listen to yourself?
I call straight up bullshit on your "liberal" identity. You are only ever harping on the liberals around here while there is plenty of conservative bullshit for you to bite into.
Get fucked asshole, YOU are the type of partisan fuckwad you are angry about but it is never a YOU problem. Gaslight Obstruct Project! Snowflake whiner.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Thursday May 28 2020, @10:09PM
You confuse (or conflate) liberal with Democrat.
Democrats are the avowed enemy of liberals. Not by words of course, but by their deeds they are known.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2020, @10:01PM
Worse: Their goal is to prevent other people from seeing what someone else wrote, because the default squelch is +1.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @08:26AM
Any yet this is about the 10th time you've said that - on this thread.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2020, @07:09PM
You act as though it is only the Left that is treating sexual assault differently when it is done by the Left.
Don't attempt to claim that the Right did not do the exact same thing when the shoe was on the other foot.
You will need to bring up something that actually distinguishes the two sides to have an argument for one or the other.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday May 27 2020, @04:18PM
But that applies to everyone, right? In all ways, circumstances, right?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2020, @04:41PM (2 children)
Here's a link https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud [heritage.org] to a list of recent election fraud cases in the US. Note they only list ones that are investigated or prosecuted. Oh, and they list sources for every single one.
Even using such strict criteria, they have over a thousand cases.
At some point, anecdotes are data, for a sufficiently large number of anecdotes.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 27 2020, @04:44PM (1 child)
Most of those are NOT mail in voting fraud.
So I guess we need to eliminate in person voting first since it results in more fraud.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Wednesday May 27 2020, @06:13PM
Fraud is fraud. Kind of link how all the "*.onTheInternet" patents are extra-ridiculous ways of describing the same thing done, but with a computer. Voter fraud done by mail is just the evolution of voter fraud, just like paying the seller online is merely an extension of paying the seller in person.