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Twitter and Facebook Criticized For Not Removing False Claims About Iowa Voters (siliconvalley.com) 109

Posted by EditorDavid from the pants-on-fire dept.
What happened when conservative activist Tom Fitton issued an inaccurate press release last week about Iowa's voter registration rolls? After being debunked by Republican state officials -- and identified as "false" by the Associated Press -- the false claims simply remained on both Facebook and Twitter.

The Associated Press reports: Fitton, founder of Judicial Watch, tweeted a report claiming that eight Iowa counties have more people registered to vote than are actually eligible to vote. [Republican] Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate moved quickly to counter the false information... Pate tweeted a link to the secretary of state's website, for those who wanted to check the numbers. "The county population numbers you claim are way too low. Dallas County's population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is nearly 9,000+ more than you claim, and Johnson County's is nearly 7,000 higher," Pate tweeted.

But the false information circulated Sunday and throughout the day on social media.
One tweet was retweeted over 40,000 times. But according to another report, that was just the beginning... The claim was amplified on Twitter by Fox TV host Sean Hannity, a close confidant of President Donald Trump... Fitton admitted in an interview that he "used older statistics and census numbers to reach his conclusion," the Associated Press reported. Judicial Watch's posts were still on Twitter and Facebook as of Wednesday afternoon.

A Twitter spokesperson said the Judicial Watch tweet was "not in violation of our election integrity policy as it does not suppress voter turnout or mislead people about when, where, or how to vote." Twitter last year banned political advertising on its platform.

Facebook, which controversially allows politicians to lie in political ads, did not provide a response to this news organization's inquiry about the Judicial Watch post. Facebook's director of product management has said the firm does not fact-check political ads for truthfulness and that those ads should be regulated by the federal government, not social media companies.
The Republican Secretary of State said in a statement that the false claims "erode voter confidence in elections."
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Twitter and Facebook Criticized For Not Removing False Claims About Iowa Voters More

Twitter and Facebook Criticized For Not Removing False Claims About Iowa Voters

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  • Dog eat dog (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Go chew each other to bits, Dims!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I guess you didn't notice the dominant word in that summary "republican", as in: "debunked by Republican state officials" or "[Republican] Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate moved quickly to counter the false information" or "The Republican Secretary of State said in a statement that the false claims "erode voter confidence in elections."" which summarized the problem with all these psychotically anti-social and destructive activities?
  • State officials have direct access to more recent population statistics than John Q. Public (& Tom Fitton) can easily find, so when election officials publish poll results and voter registration stats w/o the corresponding up-to-date “eligible voter” count, they invite paranoid misunderstandings like this. Sad but true. “Welcome to Amerika. Please don't feed the bears.”

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dog-Cow ( 21281 )

      Or, you could not be a fucked-up moron and realize that perhaps you don't have the correct numbers? Nah, can't expect political activists to do any research before they post their biased drivel. That would be un-American!

      • Re:State officials have privileged access to stats (Score:4, Informative)

        by IHTFISP ( 859375 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @12:13PM (#59707730)
        Uhm... speaking of doing research, it isn't quite that simple, actually:

        https://www.realclearpolitics.... [realclearpolitics.com]

      • There are many politicians who are anxious and driven to jump on any and all false reports of voter fraud, in order to feed into the myth that voter fraud is rampant and elections are being stolen wholesale. This is in turn provides fodder for those seeking to add more voter suppression in the name of combating the non-existent fraud. These people don't care about the truth, they just care that their party wins by any means.

        Given the evidence of foreign efforts to sow distrust over the elections in 2016,

        • Given the evidence of foreign efforts to sow distrust over the elections in 2016, we should remain vigilant that election stories this time around are not false or misleading. The biggest danger to democracy we have is in losing faith about our elections, causing voters to think it's not worth the effort to cast a ballot and instead stay home.

          The Democrats have been sowing distrust of the elections since 2016. Hillary Clinton wrote a whole book about it. Adam Schiff just proclaimed during the impeachment trial that “The president’s misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box, for we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won,” Stacey Abrams still has not conceded her loss from 2018. Iowa was just the icing on the cake. It's a little late for complaints about distrust.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dog77 ( 1005249 )

          This is in turn provides fodder for those seeking to add more voter suppression in the name of combating the non-existent fraud.

          Requiring an ID to vote is hardly voter suppression and it certainly is not trying to win by any means. The lack of a requirement to prove you are who you say you are is why there is mistrust in the elections. Do you trust everyone in this world to be honest? Oh yes, you don't, because you said "people don't care about the truth, they just care that their party wins by any means".

          • This is in turn provides fodder for those seeking to add more voter suppression in the name of combating the non-existent fraud.

            Requiring an ID to vote is hardly voter suppression and it certainly is not trying to win by any means.

            It is when coupled with concerted efforts to make it much more difficult for certain people to acquire said ID.

            • Requiring an ID to vote is hardly voter suppression and it certainly is not trying to win by any means.

              It is when coupled with concerted efforts to make it much more difficult for certain people to acquire said ID.

              So the problem is not voter suppression, but difficulty in obtaining valid ID.

              Lets fix that. Free ID for everyone over 18 years of age.

              Old/disabled/can't get to the government office to get an ID issued? Send out government workers to the people who need assistance.

              Don't have the required paperwork? Assign a social worker to help get the paperwork needed.

              Lets fix the root problem instead of whining about it.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Jane Q. Public ( 1010737 )
        Except that Iowa acknowledged that in at least 5 cases, Fitton was correct that either there were more voters than people, or that voter registration was literally unbelievably high (96%-100%).

    • https://www.census.gov/quickfa... [census.gov]

      https://www.press-citizen.com/... [press-citizen.com]

      http://worldpopulationreview.c... [worldpopul...review.com]

      https://factfinder.census.gov/... [census.gov]

      And that's just the first page on google. The only thing the state officials did was took the time to actually look.

  • NB4 "who determines truth" /.ers (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @11:58AM (#59707694)

    Lies, especially disinformation should be taken down regardless of who is posting it. There is no perfect solution here but leaving political disinformation campaigns unscathed is a horrid option. You can cry about semantics and even "what is truth and who determines it" (yeah, some of you cats are fucked up) but taking down political disinformation is the right thing to do.

    The "we need more speech not less" argument fails here because there is already FAR more content than any individual could ever hope to process being posted every single day. Just look at how their normal disinformation take down operations are going and you'll recognize that social sites are a deluge of information with such a high bandwidth that no entity (corporate or human) can fully parse everything being posted. It's information overload and when much of that is disinformation then the enemies of the truth win.

    • There is no perfect solution here but leaving political disinformation campaigns unscathed is a horrid option.

      Unscathed? Respectable authorities countered his claim with real numbers. That's hardly unscathed.

      Unless you're suggesting he somehow be punished for his speech, and to have his speech silenced? Which, reading the rest of your post, is precisely what you seem to be implying should happen. How about no. How about a huge FUCK NO.

      Let's put aside the "private company can do what they want" argument for a moment ( because I'd largely agree with you on that ); what do you think might happen to someone who re

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

        There was a self-policing that took place a generation ago. No respectable journalist would post lies and get away with it for long. The audience didn't stand for it, and the news organization would be embarrassed by it.

      • No one is suggesting punishing the speech (except at the ballot box, let's hope this moron doesn't get reelected), or in censoring the speech. Adding a label to the speech saying that the story is debunked is not the same as preventing the speech.

        There are far more points of data out there to be disseminated as news than can possibly fit. The news media and social media MUST curate this stuff, some stories will lag behind while others are promoted. What's being asked here is that Facebook and Twitter do

    • If I miss 99.999% of the content then I don’t see most of the lies, so what’s the problem. If I don’t want to drink right from the tap, I can get my information filtered for me by any number of sources. I don’t need to evaluate every single one. I’ve got some that I trust to varying degrees and can adjust my trust over time.

      So we’ll say you can have your system where disinformation is removed. Only let’s put the president (executive branch) in charge of it. Hopef

      • I don't think people are asking for official and mandatory solutions. However, as consumers we can and should push back against these social media outlets to provide more truth and less lies, the same as consumers should push back against news outlets. This does not prevent any free speech, there are competitors out there that revel in pushing fake stories.

        • Again, WHO determines what is true or false? I sure as hell don't want Zuckerberg making those decisions. Or we can just trust the public square and let everyone scream it out and then vote just like we always have. It's done ok for 200+ years. But oh no social media is so much different and special! No. It isn't.

          • No, let Zuckerberg (or his workers) just mark the article as lacking in verification or as being debunked. Then the reader can decide to believe or not. If you don't like Zuckerberg, then go someplace else. Just don't have the "all stories are equally valid and should be treated identically" b.s. that has screwed up news media thinking for the last few decades.

            • Debunked by whom? And you say if I don't like Zuck then I can go elsewhere for my news. Hey smart guy, so can everyone else right now without filtering things to save the children. If you don't like Zuckerberg -not- filtering, how about you go somewhere else? Weird how uncomfortable that is when turned around, eh?

    • Re:NB4 "who determines truth" /.ers (Score:4, Interesting)

      by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @12:39PM (#59707810) Homepage

      The real problem isn't the liars. It's us.

      20 years ago, if a journalist lied, or even accidentally didn't check their facts correctly (like using old statistics as in this case) then they would either apologize and silence themselves, or no serious news organization would continue to support them. But today, Fox News isn't going to apologize and keep a tight leash on Sean Hannity and Tom Fitton. Instead they will defend them and relish the ratings that the controversy generated.

      Lies, especially disinformation should be taken down regardless of who is posting it.

      You can't remove things from the internet. You can't change first impressions. People will continue to spout information that supports their position, even if it is a lie. But... suppose we could do it. Suppose the lie police could automatically remove lies from Facebook and Twitter. Then how will we learn to tell lies from truth?

      How about instead of having corporate lie police, we just teach people common sense and dignity, and shame the liars? The real issue here is that journalism has fallen to a low. 10 years ago I thought the problem was that the citizen journalists were irresponsible and I was above it because I used better sources of information. But today, even the major organizations don't know how to be neutral. They don't respect truth. Are new journalism grads taught these values? Is journalism as a degree even valued any longer?

      This is what we need to fix. Censorship is never the answer.

      • Re:NB4 "who determines truth" /.ers (Score:4, Interesting)

        by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @12:52PM (#59707840)

        Instead they will defend them and relish the ratings that the controversy generated.

        And ratings == money, which is what and all they really care about.
        For politicians, this also means power, which is what and all they really care about.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by DogDude ( 805747 )
        How about instead of having corporate lie police, we just teach people common sense and dignity, and shame the liars?

        Ideally, you're 100% correct. I wish that would work today. But I think that with the rise of the Cult of Orange, the idea of dignity and shame have gone right out the window. They're things that a large group of Americans have suddenly decided that they don't care about.

      • The real problem isn't the liars. It's us.

        No, the problem is that some people have enlarged right amygdalas and it enable people peddling fear/hate to bypass critical response mechanisms in the brain that might reject the incoming information. This isn't the first time the US has had to deal with conmen selling lies in this country.

        20 years ago, if a journalist lied, or even accidentally didn't check their facts correctly (like using old statistics as in this case) then they would either apologize and silence themselves, or no serious news organization would continue to support them. But today, Fox News isn't going to apologize and keep a tight leash on Sean Hannity and Tom Fitton. Instead they will defend them and relish the ratings that the controversy generated.

        Yes, this is actually a failure by the government/FCC to properly regulate news programs. Frankly, we need a law about disinformation but that is another topic.

        You can't remove things from the internet. You can't change first impressions. People will continue to spout information that supports their position, even if it is a lie.

        What you can do is minimize their impact.

        Suppose the lie police could automatically remove lies from Facebook and Twitter. Then how will we learn to tell lies from truth?

        Ok, now that's ju

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

          Your solution requires generations of honest effort and a cultural movement in order to succeed and will be easily undermined.

          And your solution gives the power to censor to the biggest liars in American history. The only people such laws will silence is you and I.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by t0rkm3 ( 666910 )

        Agreed that the problem is us.

        Your post is an excellent example. Though it could be said that the post was on topic, it fails to bring to the argument that the truth is abrogated by both sides of the spectrum, which itself is interesting in that I am forced to imply only two sides due to the nature of the propaganda we are presented with.

        The real issue is that truth has been sacrificed for ratings. To simplify the marketing of synthetic truth, the corporate shills are required to maintain the dialectic of L

    • Facebook is not the press, facebook is not an encyclopedia, facebook is not a governement communcation system. It is a complicated forum with the content and information reliability of a bathroom stall scrawling, with the same stink frankly. Maybe make it an "allowed" cork board where people can pin postit in a bathroom. As such, baring legal courtroom ordered takedown due to whatever legal reason (e.g. defamation, threat , etc...) then that Stinky innacurate propaganda loaded post can stay there. It is up

    • Freedom of speech is too valuable to give up to protect from disinformation. If people want to write that the earth is flat and vaccines cause autism let them. The value of free speech is much higher then the cost of morons getting disinformation.

  • Now we have another oxymoron.

    • Now we have another oxymoron.

      < Insert Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Rush Limbaugh Oxycodone joke here. >

  • Why are there so many shitty people on this planet? Can't we do something do it?

    • Why are there so many shitty people on this planet? Can't we do something do it?

      We could all start killing each other, if that's what you mean.
      It worked pretty well in the past. Massive reduction in people, undoubtedly some of them were shitty.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bigbutt ( 65939 )

        Not only that, wars released lots of particulates into the atmosphere increasing cloud cover and cooling the planet. We need more world wide wars clearly.

        [John]

    • Why are there so many shitty people on this planet? Can't we do something do it?

      I'm sure that Global Climate Change and the corresponding rising sea levels, receding coastlines, and negative impact on food and fresh-water supplies will help with that sooner or later, hopefully the deniers and obstructionists will be culled first.

    • The theory of continental drift [wikipedia.org] was proposed in the early 1900s. It was rejected by geologists at the time. Gradually, evidence began piling up substantiating it. The crowning jewel was magnetometer surveys of the ocean floor, which recorded flips of the Earth's magnetic poles in the rocks. When the survey went over a mid-oceanic ridge, they found the magnetometer readings were perfectly symmetrical, like a book whose pages were mirror images of each other. Indicating that new crust was forming at the mi

  • Staunch Republican here (at least until the left gives up on the idea of enslaving everybody, using the vanguard of gun control to first make everyone helpless to their boxcars and death camps of the future):

    Nobody should be "taking down" anything. That's not the American Way. The American Way, if you're old enough to have had parents or grandparents belonging to the greatest generation that kicked Hitler's and Tojo's asses, would be known to you from their occasionally telling people, "I don't agree wi

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by DogDude ( 805747 )
      (at least until the left gives up on the idea of enslaving everybody, using the vanguard of gun control to first make everyone helpless to their boxcars and death camps of the future):

      I think that you forgot about the lizard aliens and the pedophile rings run by George Soros in the basement of the Alamo.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by rally2xs ( 1093023 )

        You laugh, but whether the left currently has that as a goal, once the American people become helplessly disarmed, they WILL be abused. Some evil SOB will once again marshal the boxcars and build the ovens, or something equally horrific. Can't happen here? Ask the Indians at Wounded Knee, where the US Army disarmed them, and then proceeded to slaughter 297 of them. Ask the (unarmed) blacks under Jim Crow laws, when 1000's were lynched, otherwise murdered, or greatly oppressed.

        This shit is real. Give

        • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

          by quonset ( 4839537 )

          I aim to keep it that way, partly by never voting Democrat until they give up their plans to disarm us all.

          As a lifelong Republican I feel the same way. About never voting for Republicans any more until they stop violating the Constitution (separation of church and state, right to privacy) and their insistence on expanding the size and reach of government into our personal lives, not to mention out of control deficit spending and their descent to fascism. This on top of their dereliction of duty by setti

          • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

            by rally2xs ( 1093023 )

            A agree about church and state, not sure who is worse on privacy, but think the left is more "big gov't" than the Republicans. They are, however, both bad, and if you either choose the lesser of 2 evils, or you don't vote at all and you are then politically irrelevant.

            As for out of control deficit spending, that was true of the last administration that added more debt than all the Presidents before him combined. I will say now, as I believe I have analyzed it correctly, that it is NOT HIS FAULT. Neither

          • Who is the last re-unlicensed you voted for? Bush2? Lol. Bush1? Lol. Reagan? Still not your guy. Nixon? Don't get me started. You apparently have never voted for a Republican because they have not stood for the things you say you want for several generations, if ever. The Democrats are no different, they just want to go the same direction faster.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by DogDude ( 805747 )
          This shit is real. Give up your means of resistance, and the evil will rise. Nobody will currently F with the American people and their 450 million guns and billions of rounds of ammo. I aim to keep it that way, partly by never voting Democrat until they give up their plans to disarm us all.

          Sure. Ok. Your little pop guns will protect you from the largest military in the history of the planet. Good luck with that. Be sure to wear your tinfoil hat while you're shooting at the US Army for additional pro

          • We hopelessly outnumber the US military. Plus, they depend on us for everything - arms, food, etc. The gov't intends to go about some kind of oppression, they will be met with resistance on all levels, including turning off their supply lines. There's only 900,000 police in the whole country, too, so they are also hopelessly outnumbered. There's 80 of us (gun owners) to kill each one of them, and we own multiple guns to loan to those not currently gun owners that also wouldn't want to be abused. In

    • The American way is to defend people's rights to say what they want, while also being allowed to DISAGREE with it! I'm pretty sure your American-Way grand parents were all about telling the truth, teaching kids to tell the truth, pointing out the lies when politicians told them, and so forth. The Greatest Generation did not just sit back and allow lies to be told without pushing back with the truth (though it took some time to finally get McCarthy to shut up).

      • The American way is to defend people's rights to say what they want, while also being allowed to DISAGREE with it!

        I agree with that.

        But as i read it, the poster you're responding to does also. His complaint is against those who would censor, and his prescription, like yours, is to instead speak truth to lies and call them out.

      • Exactly. Don't attempt to "take down" someone's supposed lies (as they may not be), just counter them with your own truths.

        • That's part of the problem with this particular case though. The truths are there, Twitter and Facebook just prefer keeping the false stories in place since they generate more revenue than the more boring true stories. It's not that the truth doesn't exist, but that social media companies are curating the news such that the ones more likely to be clicked on show up.

  • And it should stay up (Score:4, Insightful)

    by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @12:23PM (#59707754)

    The blow back is now on Tom Fitton.

    He made an accusation. It was countered with facts and the mud is on his face.

    If he deletes the statement that's one thing - but if someone else pulls it down for "misinformation" then history gets purges and Tom Fitton ends up with a clean slate.

    But people will know his story - sure and what's going to be contained in that story? The exact same post that people are trying to ban! If the article doesn't contain the post and the original post is removed then a few years down the line how does anyone prove what misinformation he put forth?

    Doesn't anybody understand how logic or reason works anymore? Without the paper trail there's no way to ascertain the trustworthiness of an individual or organization.

    • The fundamental problem (Score:5, Informative)

      by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @01:22PM (#59707946) Homepage Journal

      The blow back is now on Tom Fitton.

      He made an accusation. It was countered with facts and the mud is on his face.

      If he deletes the statement that's one thing - but if someone else pulls it down for "misinformation" then history gets purges and Tom Fitton ends up with a clean slate.

      Another outcome is that Tom Fitton is proven correct, and the MSM has mud on their faces, and the conclusions of the OP are wrong.

      As pointed out here [realclearpolitics.com], it's not really clear who is in error here.

      Judicial Watch arrived at its figures using the latest data from the federal Electoral Assistance Commission, which came out last July. The group then hired professional demographers to interpret that data. While the Iowa secretary of state has slightly more recent monthly data for voter registrations, the Post compares these registration numbers against census data from 2018, which is a simple and less sophisticated analysis than would be done by a demographer.

      (Emphasis mine) What *is* clear is that the MSM and a bunch of people have jumped on the issue and made a pre-judgement that Tom Fitton is wrong, and that's highly premature at this point. From the linked article:

      For now, Judicial Watch is standing by its figures. And given the different methodologies involved, a more sophisticated look at the numbers would be required to declare whose numbers are wrong and whose are right. It’s also worth noting both Kentucky and California didn’t contest the accuracy of Judicial Watch’s voter data in federal lawsuits brought against them last year.

      Note that Iowa's Secretary of State didn't post numbers, just a blanket statement saying "no, they're not". I'm skeptical of any SoS knowing more about statistics than professional demographers.

      Once again, we need to be very careful about simply taking claims in the OP as fact. It's click-baity intended to foment immediate outrage, and it's not at all clear whether the outrage will be justified a month from now when the issue is actually resolved.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by geek ( 5680 )

      Doesn't anybody understand how logic or reason works anymore?

      Yes, Tom Fitton does, which is why he hired people that can actually parse the data vs some jack-off politician just sticking his tongue out at Tom saying "You're wrong and I'm right"

      Tom, again, will be proven right. The guys record is impeccable.

    • > He made an accusation. It was countered with facts and the mud is on his face.

      Maybe you should read more on the background of this [realclearpolitics.com] first?

      All that Fitton claimed was that the numbers didn't add up. Iowa officials, using 2018 numbers, claim something different. And the Washington Post put words in his mouth saying that they were alleging electoral fraud, when their article does no such thing--it merely points out that the numbers don't make sense. If you're going to remove someone for "misinformation"

  • A politician lying? (Score:3)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @12:28PM (#59707764)

    Facebook is now tasked with deleting videos where politicians lie? What other platform has this requirement? Just like the old joke goes, how can you tell when a lawyer or politician is lying? Their lips are moving.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bigbutt ( 65939 )

      It’s not. No one has tasked them with taking down political ads. Twitter has voluntarily set up some restrictions which this didn’t fall into. Facebook has said, “not my job. It’s the government’s job to deal with it” and anything goes.

      [John]

      • Facebook said they would do the same thing Twitter did in October. They just aren't following through. Kind of like Twitter and the carefully stitched together Pelosi speech tearing video which makes it look like she's dishonouring the honourees mid speech. But I guess Twitter is okay with fake news providing it's spread by our disgusting impeachee in chief. https://twitter.com/realDonald... [twitter.com]

    • Facebook is now tasked with deleting videos where politicians lie? What other platform has this requirement?

      Twitter. But don't worry, they aren't "tasked" with it. They promised to do it out of the kindness of their hearts and to stem the spread of fake news that they declared worrying.

      You know that lips moving thing is something politicians and Facebook and Twitter execs have in common.

  • Not to take sides, but it's not that simple. (Score:5, Informative)

    by IHTFISP ( 859375 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @12:34PM (#59707784)

    From https://www.realclearpolitics.... [realclearpolitics.com]

    WashPost Tries to Stop Fake News, Becomes Part of the Problem
    COMMENTARY.
    By Mark Hemingway

    [...] In reality, the numbers are in dispute because Judicial Watch is using a different methodology for analyzing them. Judicial Watch arrived at its figures using the latest data from the federal Electoral Assistance Commission, which came out last July. The group then hired professional demographers to interpret that data. While the Iowa secretary of state has slightly more recent monthly data for voter registrations, the Post compares these registration numbers against census data from 2018, which is a simple and less sophisticated analysis than would be done by a demographer.

    One informed source suggests that perhaps one of the reasons there is a discrepancy in the findings is that Judicial Watch may not have accounted for the for the fact Iowa allows 17 years-olds who will be old enough to vote on Election Day to pre-register -- and there may be as many as 5,000 17 year-olds in the state registered to vote. But Judicial Watch responds that Iowa is one of 21 states that allow pre-registration, and this wouldn't affect the large-scale voting analyses it does. Regardless, Judicial Watch is claiming an excess of 18,000 registered voters in eight countries and 5,000 votes would not explain the difference between eight counties with too many registrations and just one, as the Post contends.

    For now, Judicial Watch is standing by its figures. And given the different methodologies involved, a more sophisticated look at the numbers would be required to declare whose numbers are wrong and whose are right. It’s also worth noting both Kentucky and California didn’t contest the accuracy of Judicial Watch’s voter data in federal lawsuits brought against them last year.

  • Free Speech (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @12:35PM (#59707792) Journal

    How many times are we going to rehash this over and over? People are free to say and write what they want (at risk of slander / libel). Just because we have more advanced technology today that allows people to disseminate information with greater ease, doesn't mean anything has changed.

    Pretend it's 1980. Someone writes something false and hands out fliers. Other people take those fliers to copy machines, crank out more copies and in turn hand them out. Would anyone ever propose adding a mechanism to copy machines to prevent them from making copies of that specific document? Of course not. Would the government, back in the day, go to Kinkos and tell them "If anyone tries to copy a document that includes this text, you are to prevent them from doing so" and start giving them lists and lists of text that they may not copy? That is *exactly* what is being proposed here.

    Most people are stupid. Okay, maybe not stupid, but when they are using Facebook or Twitter, they have engaged their "I am stupid" mode. You can share something SO easily, that information disseminates faster than ever in human history. I see many things shared that, while 100% true and accurate, are now 100% pointless. A prime example is missing children that were from years ago (usually to the day, because FB likes to remind you of things you shared exactly N years ago) that have been found, that people are resharing without bothering to take exactly 5 seconds to pull that information up and look at it first (and at the top of the article is usually "UPDATE: They have been safely located").

    It is going to take generations for people to take on the responsibility of discerning the accuracy of things before they share it. Although the youngest generation (of which I am father to a handful) has many things that are concerning, I at least hope that them growing up in the midst of Snapchat, Tik Tok and inundated with social media, is thoroughly ingraining them with a natural distrust of most any claims they see shared online. My generation, and those older, have simply grown up having learned to trust most "news" we see is accurate, professional, and written with journalistic integrity. That has carried over from print to what we see on social media, and so for those generations there is natural tendency is to trust what we see. Most people fail to understand that there are assholes that will take a picture of a baby with a horrible disease and claim that Mark Zuckerberg will donate money to that child each time it is shared, just to see how many times it will be shared and far it will reach. Remember when this was happening with forwarded emails in the late 90s, early 2000s where Bill Gates would send them money for forwarding it? Same exact thing I've been talking about all along, it's just even easier to do that act of sharing now.

    Anyway, my point in all of this is... we are at a turning point in the history of humanity due to the connectivity and information available to us. Most of us are not handling this well, because our brains and social mechanisms are not adapted for this level of social overload. We will get it figured out, but it must be done across the population, not by information overlords that censor and filter what we are allowed to see.

  • FB and Twitter need to take down this trash. There are way, way, way too many uneducated people who believe this garbage, and it's having a very real, harmful effect on all of us (Trump's "policies"). Let the crazies (like this "Judicial Watch" person who can't apparently afford to buy shirts in the correct size) post their garbage on their own web sites. There's no need for these social media sites to amplify it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geek ( 5680 )

      There are way, way, way too many uneducated people who believe this garbage

      We get it, everything you disagree with is garbage. Move on now.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Freedom to publish is not "trash".. in the USA its a protected freedom.
      Re "uneducated people".. the USA does not need people to have a gov approved "media" education to be in the "media" like some nations did.
      The USA protects that freedom for anyone who wants to comment, review, talk about, publish, print. No gov approved "education" needed in the USA.
      Everyone gets the freedom to publish in the USA.
      Re the role of "social media sites"?

      Are social media sites publishing the content under their own ban
  • It's so funny how liberal media can run fake news about Republicans every day but if someone makes fake news about them they cry and cry

  • Three months ago Facebook announced it would tackle fake news. To the surprise of absolutely no one they were simply lying. This isn't an isolated case. They don't care at all about fake news as long as it generates clicks. Here's another story about a carefully cut together video making it look like Pelosi was tearing up the State of Union speech in the middle of Trump lauding honourees. https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]

    But it's okay, at least Twitter said they were clamping down on fake news and deceptive

    • Just curious, is there anything fake ever written/posted by anyone on the left? Or is all this fakery strictly a right wing problem? If there is left wing fakery should that also be taken down? Can you provide an example of a left wing post you'd have removed?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lenski ( 96498 )

        Just curious, do you remember this NPR report where a closely related question was answered clearly? It addresses the asymmetry of "left/right" interpretation of information, as observed by someone who tried making money doing it.

        https://www.npr.org/sections/a... [npr.org]

        When did you notice that fake news does best with Trump supporters?

        Well, this isn't just a Trump-supporter problem. This is a right-wing issue. Sarah Palin's famous blasting of the lamestream media is kind of record and testament to the rise of these kinds of people. The post-fact era is what I would refer to it as. This isn't something that started with Trump. This is something that's been in the works for a while. His whole campaign was this thing of discrediting mainstream media sources, which is one of those dog whistles to his supporters. When we were coming up with headlines it's always kind of about the red meat. Trump really got into the red meat. He knew who his base was. He knew how to feed them a constant diet of this red meat.

        We've tried to do similar things to liberals. It just has never worked, it never takes off. You'll get debunked within the first two comments and then the whole thing just kind of fizzles out.

        Bob Altemeyer has been studying the question of authoritarianism for decades: https://www.theauthoritarians.... [theauthoritarians.org]

        There is also tons of research out there that once a misinforming meme gets going ("goes viral"), it's too late. For this, I'll just cite

        • You're right, nobody would ever spread viral news about how they were obviously smarter than everyone else and could never be fooled, right? I'm sure this random guy that none of us knows is perfectly accurate, despite presenting no evidence whatsoever of this and telling you what you want to hear. I mean, he was on NPR and they are incapable of being wrong. Reality has a well-known liberal bias and all that.

          You didn't totally just pick out that statement for saying something good about yourself that you

  • ... taking Facebook and Twitter seriously.

    The URLs are not: Facebook.gov and Twitter.gov and neither is an official news outlet.

    They are eyeball magnets similar in algo to The Enquirer and as serious as The Onion.

    Every goddam one of us knows that, still the fucking tempest in a teapot makes headlines.

  • I deleted my FB account last week. You need to delete yours ASAP! Every prediction Jaron Lanier made in Ten Arguments to Delete Your Social Media Account Right Now has come to pass. "Social media" have been reduced to a sinister psychological experiment to see how profitable behavior modification can be. The extent to which they are manipulating people is reflected in the profits they reap. By having a facebook or twitter account, you are supporting this assault on humanity. By deleting them, you are re-cap
  • Social media sites like lies. They drive interest and clicks, which makes them money. If information was unbiased and ubiquitous, there would be much less to argue about.
  • Let people think for themselves.
  • People have the freedom to talk about politics.
    The freedom to question math, results, apps, app code, the political origins of any app.
    Thats called freedom of speech.
    The USA is not the UK or Germany where a gov/NGO/charity/think tank/NATO/mil/academic/charity/philanthropist can just demand a stop to online comments.

    In the USA you have the protected freedom to talk about politics, results and can even comment on what some academic/charity/philanthropist/NGO/charity/think tank is requesting..
    Imagine tha

  • It’s interesting that OP is so keen on censoring the Judicial Watch claims they don’t actually provide a link to them, for us to read and evaluate them ourselves. We’re supposed to rely on accounts of what Judicial Watch said, by those who also want them censored. If we had a link we could also read Judicial Watch’s reaction/rebuttal: clearly OP doesn’t want us to.

    Well, I suppose it’s consistent with the policy of censorship. Not so much with a free society.

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