Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/11/02/heres-how-twitter-says-it-will-handle-fake-election-results-claims.html
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I think I see a flaw here…
when calls are made by at least two of the below national news outlets
Really, it should say “if any of the other outlets decide to join Fox News in declaring the winner.”
The fact that they even include them as a “valid” news outlet is ridiculous.
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According to the post, they too have a “dedicated, independent election decision desks”.
Not everything labeled Fox is completely tainted. Like Fox polling is independent of their news arm, and is fairly accurate (enough so that some at Fox news doesn’t trust it.)
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I’ve heard this argument millions of times, yet somehow it doesn’t jibe with anything I’ve ever seen.
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The slew of bad Section 230 takes responding to this are really something. If Twitter makes editorial decisions like this, they should lose their protection as a “platform” and be considered a “publisher”!!1!
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Not making excuses for their news arm. I was talking specifically about polling, and possibly their election desk. If it is actually independent, it may have reliable reporting based on the actual data. Though it is possible their news arm forgoes listening to what their independent election desk says.
To back up what I am saying, even FiveThirtyEight ranks Fox News POLLING as A-, the same as NBC news, and higher than CNN. (There is a second Polling group for Fox that gets and A/B Rating)
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i suppose just shutting down twitter for 48 hours is out of the question? asking for the part of my brain that has not yet completely melted down.
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Thankfully, Fox News viewers are all known for double checking sourcing and waiting for unbiased independent confirmation before making any assumptions.
ETA: This is the information conundrum in a nutshell. One side does thorough and thoughtful analysis and agonizes over the implication of the exact wording they use so as to avoid the appearance of bias. Meanwhile, the other side is already broadcasting the information they would like to be real and trying on various justifications to see which one sticks.
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Between the sheer volume and the gaming of the system by Russian and American tr0lls, there’s no way they’ll be able to keep up with the garbage.
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I wouldnt rely on twitter to hold a flyswatter let alone tell me election results. Wake me up next week
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There’s already have OAN, RT, Fox News, and Breitbert. So more than enough propaganda outlets to satisfy their so-called requirements.
Edit: I guess at a closer reading, they mean “only” those they explcitly listed, and not just “such as” those… so OAN/RT/Breitbert I presume can be ignored.
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When people attempt to Retweet a Tweet with a misleading information label, they’ll see a prompt pointing them to credible information
which they can just click right past. This is not enough. Twitter needs to take responsibility.
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Not saying they are. I am saying that if Fox news has an independent arm to verify election results, and that is what they are going with, I understand Twitter’s willingness to put them on the list of sources.
If their election results desk isn’t independent, and/or the news desk isn’t going to listen to them, then I would agree with excluding them.
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If? You mean when right?
I wouldn’t be surprised if he calls it before 10pm EST.
Twitterverse is guaranteed to be manipulated in any case.
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The TL;DR: Twitter will allow fake election result claims, and will allow them to be retweeted.
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sure, but if they didn’t then a lot of people wouldn’t trust them either.
Yep. And these messages are weak sauce. Something like “This is a lie. Election results are not yet known and may not be for a while.” might come closer to a correct framing.
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I’m going to be a bit surprised if he isn’t trying to claim it before 10AM EST.
(Edit to add specific time zone.)
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If his campaign does it, does it count:
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Yeah, pretty much. I’m a poll worker tomorrow. Even on a normal year, an estimated day of 06:15 - 22:00 (or later) would be long, of course, but I suspect tomorrow is going to an exceptionally long day.
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