YouTube Waits Until a Month After the Election To Act on False Claims of Election Fraud (cnn.com) 419
YouTube is taking belated action on election misinformation: The company said it would now remove misleading videos that claim widespread fraud or other errors changed the outcome of the US presidential election. From a report: Google-owned YouTube announced that it would begin enforcing against this content on Wednesday, citing Tuesday's safe harbor deadline for the US election, which is the date after which state election results cannot effectively be challenged. YouTube said that enough states have certified their election results to determine a President-elect. National news outlets have universally projected that Joe Biden will be the next President.
As an example of content that would be banned, YouTube said it would take down videos claiming that a presidential candidate won the election due to widespread software glitches or errors in counting votes. It will begin enforcing the policy starting Wednesday, and said it would "ramp up" efforts in the weeks to come. It will still allow videos including news coverage and commentary to remain on the platform if they have enough context. Any videos in violation of the policy that were posted prior to Wednesday, will remain up even though they now break YouTube's rules. They will feature an information panel that says election results have been certified.
As an example of content that would be banned, YouTube said it would take down videos claiming that a presidential candidate won the election due to widespread software glitches or errors in counting votes. It will begin enforcing the policy starting Wednesday, and said it would "ramp up" efforts in the weeks to come. It will still allow videos including news coverage and commentary to remain on the platform if they have enough context. Any videos in violation of the policy that were posted prior to Wednesday, will remain up even though they now break YouTube's rules. They will feature an information panel that says election results have been certified.
1984, Welcome, Albeit a little late (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:1984, Welcome, Albeit a little late (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're creating a system for forwarding other people's content, sooner or later you're going to have to admit that you're at least partially responsible for the more dangerous bullshit out there.
Part of the American mindset has always been that there are no ideas that are too "dangerous" that discussion must be forbidden. Deciding to silence voices because they are citing things you do not believe to be true basically means that whoever is in power can determine what is "true" and shoot down those who disagree.
The Catholic Church for example was in power in the 17th century and KNEW the "truth" - Galileo Galilei spent that last 11 years of his life under house arrest for daring to speak otherwise.
I say this as someone who actually doesn't believe that widespread fraud occurred in the election, but the handling of the situations by the social media companies has been absolutely reprehensible, if not criminal.
Re:1984, Welcome, Albeit a little late (Score:5, Insightful)
YouTube is not silencing anyone, it's just choosing not being their megaphone.
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Part of the American ideal maybe, but not part of the American mindset.
Re:1984, Welcome, Albeit a little late (Score:5, Interesting)
It's the amplitude and reach of so-called dangerous ideas that's changed.
No idea was too dangerous in the pre-social media era because the people who owned the printing presses and broadcast outlets had advertisers and others to which they were kind of responsible to, so they self-regulated. Plus they were run by professionals with a status stake in their professional output.
You could still be a fringe character promoting your message, but you had a reach limited by who you could distribute your message to and your ability to publish it in sufficient quantity with your own money.
The problem seems definitely linked to social media which has more or less been designed to influence people. Without social media, I'd be kind of surprised if YouTube would need to censor anything because it would be difficult to even get enough people interested in wacko videos about dead Venezuelans stealing the election for them to matter.
I'd love to be stuck on a desert island with Sidney Powell to find out how much of her schtick she *actually* believes when there's no other audience to hear her admit it really all is a schtick and she doesn't actually buy any of it. It's kind of hard to believe how someone can be so apparently intelligent yet so far off the deep end.
Re:1984, Welcome, Albeit a little late (Score:5, Informative)
Deciding to silence voices
Not amplifying is not the same as silencing.
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Who decides on what is dangerous bullshit? How about in 10 years from now?
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I've read the first amendment but can't find where it says private companies must publish all content uploaded to their platform. Perhaps you can point me towards it? Are you also aware of many other video hosting sites besides YouTube? Sounds like the free market to me.
Trump's already raised half a billion dollars (Score:5, Insightful)
I do wonder if this'll backfire on his party though. Most of those donations are likely to be from small donors (there's one rather famous example that turned into a lawsuit) simply because anyone who's rich enough to hand out large donations is probably clever enough to understand that Trump lost in a manner that no amount of lawsuits will change (he could probably get one state legislature to hand him an unearned victory Bush v Gore style but he'd need to do that 3 or 4 times with how the EC played out).
This may end up starving smaller down ballot races of funding as those small donors are gonna be kind of broke, and a lot of them are feeling burned right now (my political forums are choked with posts from people who donated and realized the effort to overturn not only isn't working but was never going to work...).
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This may end up starving smaller down ballot races of funding as those small donors are gonna be kind of broke, and a lot of them are feeling burned right now
This, of course, is the purpose of gerrymandering. No need to campaign if you have a lock on your district.
Dilbert (Score:5, Interesting)
It will be interesting to see how Youtube handles Scott Adams. Since election day, he's posted maybe 30 videos where he:
1) makes the case that widespread election fraud was and did necessarily happen because the incentives to commit fraud were massive, the risk of detection very low, and the risk of meaningful punishment even lower.
2) argues that each of the specific examples of fraud that you've heard about is very likely to be false, as are the allegations in the thousands of sworn statements that have been collected.
I presume that he is going to keep saying these things, so it will be interesting to see if Youtube cancels him or not. He has, I think intentionally, planted himself firmly in the grey area.
Re:Dilbert (Score:5, Insightful)
It will be interesting to see how Youtube handles Scott Adams. Since election day, he's posted maybe 30 videos where he:
1) makes the case that widespread election fraud was and did necessarily happen because the incentives to commit fraud were massive, the risk of detection very low, and the risk of meaningful punishment even lower.
2) argues that each of the specific examples of fraud that you've heard about is very likely to be false, as are the allegations in the thousands of sworn statements that have been collected.
I presume that he is going to keep saying these things, so it will be interesting to see if Youtube cancels him or not. He has, I think intentionally, planted himself firmly in the grey area.
Scott is a perfect example of why our tech overlords shouldn't be in charge of what we are allowed to hear. You may disagree with him but he presents coherent, non-inflammatory, persuasive arguments. There is no reason to suppress what he has to say but it could easily happen. I don't know what the right answer is but something has to change. Big tech has become much too powerful.
CAN WE PLEASE... (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine for a moment that Youtube was in a situation of monopolistic control over streaming video content and journalists wanted to make videos discussing this. What if from Youtubes perspective, it isn't truthful that they are a monopoly because other sites are still allowed to exist, regardless of their impact on the market.
Or the often trotted out example of the Iraq war... What if in 2003 we had streaming services aligning with corporate news fully claiming that it was untruthful to suggest Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and intent to use them against the US? Whats the recourse for the censorers being wrong? Hint: There is none. By the time recourse could happen, the damage is done.
Censorship NEVER works. It only winds up being used as a tool to shut down inconvenient conversations. If someone has actually published some bullshit, call it out as such. Get public consensus that its bullshit and be done with it. This has happened countless times through history to great effect. Instead, people seem to be itching for a digital version of Fahrenheit 451 to really bring us fully into our dystopian future. To that I say fuck you.
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Re:CAN WE PLEASE... (Score:4, Insightful)
Stop asking for these corporations to act as supposedly impartial arbiters of truth?
Since it's their platform, it's literally both their prerogative and their responsibility. The only way around this is to build your own platform and decline to arbitrate anything and hope you don't lose your lose your protections under section 230 because you didn't make a good faith effort to moderate your platform. Disinformation does actually harm people (many have been killed as a result of it), so not taking it down would be a failure to moderate the platform.
It's the law, so until section 230 is amended, it will remain this way.
Re:CAN WE PLEASE... (Score:5, Interesting)
What you wrote is objectively false and is explicitly not their responsibility as Section 230 is written.
Incorrect: 47 U.S. Code 230 - Protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material [cornell.edu]
The only way to fight back against the disinformation is to flood the networks with better information.
Incorrect: This assumes people have time to view all content.
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No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
This very explicitly states that Youtube et al ARE NOT liable for the content on their website. That is very literally the entire purpose of Section 230.
Under the "Civil Liability" section, it explicitly states that by removing content that is deemed offensive in nature, is allowed while maintaining the non-publisher status, but since we're talking about law here, offens
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Your argument is the same argument tons of cranky assholes were using in the 1990s about violent video games corrupting the minds of children.
Horseshit. Nobody was arguing that videogames contained deliberately factually wrong information.
And never is never the right choice, in the same way that always is never the right choice. I guarantee you that you support certain forms of censorship. Nobody actually wants to live in the idealisms they claim to believe in.
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What you wrote is objectively false and is explicitly not their responsibility as Section 230 is written. Doing what Youtube is doing is what causes them to lose their Section 230 protection because once you begin curating content, you've accepted the responsibility fully to do so. Taking a fully hands off approach currently remains fully protected.
You really couldn't be any more fucking wrong, which makes one wonder... why the fuck did you write it?
Are you really so grossly fucking misinformed, and so intellectually lazy that you don't want to research the actual statute, or is it an intentional attempt to shore up your beliefs?
S.230 was written quite literally to combat the fact that a case against Prodigy stated what you said.
In short- S.230 was written for the *exact* opposite reason you assert.
Liar or idiot. Which is it.
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"wrong, they don't get to define what "the truth" is"
They do, however, get to define what gets carried on the platform they own. Using their judgment of what is "truth" is not an unreasonable way to do it.
Re:CAN WE PLEASE... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that platforms like YouTube or Facebook aren't designed to present users with an informative cross section of news. They employ algorithms which maximize user engagement. If they allow conspiracy theories to flourish on their site, their sites will turn into brainwashing machines.
The real answer is not to use social media to shape your world views. But social media companies won't like that, because their mission is to keep you on their site every waking moment; if you doubt me, try installing Facebook's mobile app.
So social media companies are stuck. They don't *want* to be arbiters of the truth, but their mission to fill every waking moment of your life becomes unthinkably destructive if they let it fill your consciousness with falsehood, paranoia and superstition. If don't believe that, just imagine what the antifa side of the house is seeing in its feed. So these companies do the predictable corporate thing, which is pay some lip service and hope you won't notice they're poisoning your mind.
What they *could* do is tweak your feed so you see a cross-section of views. But that's like asking General Mills to try to make your breakfast more nutritious. You end up with the "part of this nutritious breakfast" incantation, with a picture of what would be a healthy breakfast if you deleted the Lucky Charms. General Mills doesn't really want you to fill your belly up with nutritious food they don't sell. They don't want to be blamed for the consequences of you eating the nutritional equivalent of a half a cup of sugar with a vitamin pill on the side.
Perfectly normal, perfectly healthy (Score:2)
I am sure Putin would love the same YouTube policies in Russia. Citizens should not be going around complaining about elections on Internet.
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If you bitch loudly enough about an election in Russia, you fall off of a fucking balcony.
Some private corporation doesn't kick you off of their property.
Christ- dumbfucks like you are dooming us.
Thanks, Google (Score:2)
Why NOT make money off of "misinformation"? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've never quite understood the business side of censorship. If someone says something Utterly Stupid and Clearly Wrong but it attracts 100,000 views, hey, that's 100,000 opportunities to make an advertising buck. If what they said was illegal, then obviously that might open you up to legal risk. In that case, those 100,000 opportunities are also 100,000 possible legal actions. From a cost-benefit perspective, that sounds like a losing idea.
But baring promoting clearly illegal speech, there's no down-side that I can see. Sure, I can imagine a need to target what advertising appears on what content, especially to make sure that your high-value advertisers don't wind up looking like they are promoting the Utterly Stupid and Clearly Wrong people. But flat-out censorship?
Nah. There's lots and lots of people who will buy stuff advertised on Utterly Stupid and Clearly Wrong posts.
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If you believe that misinformation leads to an environment that threatens the institutions that permit you to make money, there's your self-interest. Weakening public trust in the institution of federal elections could reasonably considered to be one such example. If enough people spread enough misinformation about how skipping work makes you eligible for a giant government grant, and enough people believe that that it hurts your employee productivity, there's another.
There are lots of examples where that m
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The reason is that Youtube is trying to head off a boycott - an advertiser boycott would hit first.
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High-value advertisers don't want to be associated with Utterly Stupid and Clearly Wrong. And if your platform exceeds some "USCW" threshold, the high-value advertisers will leave even if you promise to put their ads only with the "good" content. And some of the high-value content creators will leave for a platform with a better reputation. Your own brand value suffers
Sure yo
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slashdot advocating for censorship (Score:2)
An election so clearly aboveboard that videos that disagree must be removed... Did Maduro, Putin, and Xi help craft these guidelines?
It has come to the point where France based Dailymotion and UK based Bitchute respect free speech more than a US based "platform", and this change is coming to thunderous applause by morons who don't think this won't backfire stupendously on them. Historically, the left has *always* been the ones censored, because they challenge the status quo / upset the apple cart. And now
So what happens if Trump wins? (Score:4, Insightful)
So this means we can count on YouTube to take a moderating flamethrower to all user accounts that put forward the idea that "Trump stole the election" if the SCOTUS rules in favor of TX and Republican legislatures in the swing states go for Trump, right?
Of course we know the answer to that is a resounding no, and they'll allow every two-bit fake legal expert to explain how the SCOTUS got it wrong and it was a coup.
And this is why people are warming up to the idea of pulling back on S230 and forcing platforms to host speech they don't want to host or face legal consequences. After all, wouldn't it be perfectly fair to force YouTube to pay up for slandering someone as a spreader of disinformation if they turned out to be right?
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False according to whom? (Score:2)
Google is a company managed by anti-American immigrants. Support youtubers who are moving to other platforms like Rumble, Full30, Gab, Parlor, and Locals.
Instead of taking it down (Score:3)
Education is the way out of this mess.
I'm still against censorship (Score:2)
Should they also take down videos questioning the official stories for 9/11 and the JFK assassination too? Or videos questioning the Big Bang, or Creationism? Where does it end?
Why no links to hilarious videos? (Score:2)
At least a fart video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:Gaslighting about lack of evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously, none of this was proven in court.
If they could have proven it then why the hell didn't they?
there is plenty evidence being presented
If it's evidence then why wasn't it presented to a court?
that merits hearing out,
That's what the courts are for. Making allegations and then refusing to act on it is either the dumbest move in history or they know there is no merit to their claims.
Stating that all of this is false is also premature.
They had their chance to present their evidence to multiple courts and have declined to do so in every instance. It's crystal clear it's all bullshit or they are total fucking morons.
Re:Gaslighting about lack of evidence (Score:5, Informative)
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Petitioners do not allege, and there is no evidence of, any fraud in connection with the challenged ballots; Petitioners do not allege, and there is no evidence of, any misconduct in connection with the challenged ballots; Petitioners do not allege, and there is no evidence of, any impropriety in connection with the challenged ballots; Petitioners do not allege, and there is no evidence of, any undue influence committed with respect to the challenged ballots.
My guess is a big part of the "fraud didn't happen" argument is Trump's lawyers, whenever they're in front of a judge where lying matters instead of a TV camera, they make it clear they're not even alleging fraud. Seems to be a questionable strategy for trying to prove fraud.
Re:Gaslighting about lack of evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not aware of any cases filed by Trump's legal team being dismissed with prejudice.
May I suggest that you're possibly shopping for news that fits your belief structure?
I say this, because there have been several, at Federal and State levels.
Now, I fully understand that the merit of every case must be established independently of the spaghetti Trump's team seems to be throwing at the judicial wall, but at some point, it's fair for us (the public) to tune out because it's pretty fucking obvious to any outside observer that they're literally trying to SLAPP the election.
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The judge was an Obama appointee, but you haven't provided any objective basis for concluding either that the judge was corrupt nor that the case was dismissed *because* the judge was appointed by Obama.
I mean, you are entirely welcome to believe that to be the case... that is your right, but it doesn't make it reality. If you want to establish that what you are saying is true, then you need to provide a sustainable argument that is founded on objectively observable facts, not allegations.
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The court case was dismissed with prejudice because their evidence was without merit,
Bullshit. It was dismissed because the judge is a corrupt Obama appointee, who didn't have the personal integrity to recuse himself from the case.
Obama appointees are required to recuse themselves now? What sort of bullshit is that?
Clearly, all Democrat-appointed judges should have to recuse themselves. To make this fair, all Republican-appointed judges should do so as well.
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Who are "they" and
The President's legal team and other parties that are filing suits.
what do you mean by "refuse to present evidence"?
I mean that they have neither alleged fraud in court not submitted evidence thereof.
Also why do you conflate courts declining to hear a case
I never even mentioned that.
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Trump's legal team is currently in the hospital with Covid!
Re:Gaslighting about lack of evidence (Score:5, Informative)
What other parties?
Just the ones from the past couple weeks:
Pennsylvania Republicans - https://thehill.com/regulation... [thehill.com]
Texas AG - https://thehill.com/regulation... [thehill.com]
Michigan Republicans - https://thehill.com/regulation... [thehill.com]
Arizona Republicans - https://thehill.com/regulation... [thehill.com]
I'm sure the Nevada Republicans are on the list but I think I've made my point.
Only you already knew that and intentionally trying to gaslight us by conflating different groups, some that are not credible, into monolithic whole.
Those aren't "a crazy homeless guy living under the overpass". There have been 50+ cases around this and it's involved a lot of groups.
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Before you have a hearing in court on a lawsuit, you file court documents that are supposed to lay out the claims and the evidence. And there's usually quite a bit of back-and-forth in filings and discove
Re:Nixon would have loved your logic (Score:5, Interesting)
You have to remember that most of the Right in the US is comprised of a group of people who subscribe, in some form, to Christianity. This is a group of people who use logic like "if you can't prove there is no God there must be a God." It only follows that they would say "If you can't prove there wasn't massive voter fraud there must have been massive voter fraud." For them, the burden of proof is always on the other party. Further, this is a group of people who understand they can't prove God exists so "faith and belief" are at the core of who they are and it's a central theme of their religion. They "believe" Trump won and no amount of evidence indicating otherwise will overcome their core belief. I'd say that it's dangerous to conflate religious belief with secular events, but having observed that most of the white churches around here and on television are rabid Trump supporters I think it's safe to believe that Trumpism has been mixed in with the religion - at least as people perceive religion in their lives.
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Try again, with actual evidence
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Yes, there's plenty of bullshit, but I award you nor anybody else any points for going around and putting it all in one easy to consume package of bullshit.
Re:Gaslighting about lack of evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
2,560 felons voted 66,247 underage voters....
The article you linked even admits that those figures are allegations (it's even in the title!). Okay, supposedly there's some 1500 page document referenced in that article that has documentation, but there's no direct link. You can "allege" anything you want when filing a lawsuit; without evidence to back up those claims, how do we know those numbers were not just pulled from thin air?
Obviously, none of this was proven in court. However, there is plenty evidence being presented that merits hearing out, so stating that there is no evidence is outright a lie. Stating that all of this is false is also premature.
Who's saying there's no evidence? Nice strawman. Sure there were errors. Mistakes happen. What these lawsuits are claiming is that 1) errors are numerous enough as to have potentially affected the outcome of the election, 2) a significant number of these irregularities are not the result of simple errors inherent in the complexity of holding a general election, but are the deliberate result of a massive conspiracy to commit intentional fraud on the part of democrats nationwide.
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Also, there was evidence presented along with the lawsuit
Liar, liar, pants on fire!
Having the person providing hearsay bullshit "sign" (email to a lawyer) an affidavit does not mean you provided evidence related to the accusations. "Hearsay is a type of evidence," as the saying goes, but filing it with a lawsuit does not imply that you filed evidence of the accusations. Evidence that will be used against your lawyer at their bar hearing? Perhaps.
either sloppy language or intentional gaslighting.
We don't wonder which it was. Your behavior is not as ambiguous as you'd wish it to be.
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Once you are finishing attacking affidavit strawman and threatening to disbar lawyers, do you have any refutation to the following evidence:
Sinij raped 2560 underage children.
Sinij killed 162 old ladies.
Sinij personally gave aid to Al Quaeda.
Obviously, none of this was proven in court. However, there is plenty evidence being presented that merits hearing out, so stating that there is no evidence is outright a lie. Stating that all of this is false is also premature.
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I read the docket and there was nothing to suggest any evidence was submitted. All of the specifics are in documents behind a paywall, so please point to which document contains the evidence or reference to it. I want the truth as much as anyone.
Re:Gaslighting about lack of evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
A list of numbers is not evidence. If there were real evidence, one would assume it would've been presented at one of the many court hearings that have already been held on this matter. It wasn't - at least according to the multiple judges that have been asked to rule on it. Embarrassingly so. So at what point do we stop presenting lists of made up numbers and pretending that it's evidence that "merits hearing out"? According to YouTube, that point is now. According to most sane observers, that point was about a month ago.
Re:Gaslighting about lack of evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
Demanding proof at this stage is either sloppy language or intentional gaslighting.
So just to make sure I have this straight: dozens of lawsuits are filed, each making vague sweeping claims about the validity and integrity of the elections across entire states, most of those lawsuits are then quickly dismissed for being based on "hearsay", lacking standing, being rife with simple mistakes and clerical errors, or otherwise being devoid of actual evidence, and the onus is on those who are asking to see actual proof?
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Republicans control both Houses in Pennsylvania, and whatever happened to states rights? Or isn't this what Republicans keep harping about when they say states right? States rights but only when they don't agree with those rights.
Re:Gaslighting about lack of evidence (Score:5, Informative)
Take Pennsylvania, it's simply against their constitution to not vote in person. The Democrats changed the rules
Wait, what? How did "Democrats [change] the rules" when the Pennsylvania General Assembly is Republican-controlled? How did they pull that off? And how exactly does PA's constitution not allow not voting in person? All I see there is "All elections by the citizens shall be by ballot or by such other method as may be prescribed by law; Provided, That secrecy in voting be preserved." So if the current law allows voting not in person, so be it. Or does the current process not preserve ballot secrecy?
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Re:Gaslighting about lack of evidence (Score:5, Informative)
What are you on about? Mail-in voting in PA was part of a bi-partisan bill passed by the PA legislature back in 2019. Heck, you just have to go to the state website and you can find the bill as well as everyone who voted for it.
There's a reason none of these arguments hold up in court - they're factually incorrect. Sure, you can sell them to the OAN crowd, but when presented to a body (the court) that actually knows and understands the law they don't hold water.
Re:Gaslighting about lack of evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
Mail in voting in PA was a bi-partisan bill passed in 2019. See for yourself who voted for it. https://www.legis.state.pa.us/... [state.pa.us]
Every judge has said if you had a problem with this why did you wait until 2020 to file suit?
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allowing fraudulent votes and allowing the state to violate the law and constitution undermining any faith in the electoral system is damage that destroy nations
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that refusing to comply with the results of the election, installing a loyal military junta, selectively restricting/closing polling places, destroying mail-in capacity for voting, etc does orders of magnatude more damage than "fraudulent votes" - note they're only fraudulent in locales where Trump lost.
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The same guy who was indicted for securities fraud? https://www.texastribune.org/2... [texastribune.org]
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Article VII, section 14 explicitly states who may vote by mail.
No, that section says who shall be provided a manner of voting as absentee. I don't see anything in it about other possible kinds of voting that the legislature is allowed by the same constitution to establish by means of a general law. Hell, specifically, that section doesn't even say "by mail" in the first place.
Re:Gaslighting about lack of evidence (Score:4, Informative)
What lawsuits were filed prior to 2020?
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If you've got evidence (or proof, for that matter), you really, really ought to share it with the Trump legal team. They seem to need the help, with how they're getting embarrassed in courts across the country...
The time for the big reveal of the evidence of massive fraud was 3 weeks ago, when they started losing in court. Why are they delaying?
Re:Translating: They're censoring (Score:5, Insightful)
They're basically picking a side and simply gaslighting those in the opposition.
Gaslighting implies deceit. If they are deceiving people by claiming videos are false then why the hell hasn't ANY evidence been presented to a court?
Seriously, use a smidgen of logic here. Truth isn't partisan, only lies are partisan and everything points to all these claims being lies.
Re:Translating: They're censoring (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, so you say something I don't believe. I perceive you're trying to "deceive" people. Do you have to go to court to prove it? Follow the logic that is you can "select" the winners and loser, the right and wrong on YouTube, why not in your speech? Funny, you mentioned Truth and court in the same breath. Courts have nothing to do with truth, and never have. They have to do with laws. Guilty and not guilty and truth are not the same.
Seriously, this has nothing to do with who is right and who is wrong. This has everything to do with your rights and what you will tolerate. Gosh, gee, videos are claiming false stuff? You see it every day. People bend the "truth" to their own perspective all the time. Do you believe everything? I hope not.
I'm not for one side or the other, but people this is how we lose our rights to free speech. Who gets to say what is truth, and when did we have to start speaking it all the time. If you lie, it's bad for your character and integrity, but not against the law. Do you really believe all the articles in The Enquirer? Everyone knows the stories are made up. Heck most people see it as funny. Should we shut it down? Arrest someone?
This is what I find most disturbing, people will say something is not truth and try and block it from being said. Let everyone have their say. Listen more than talk. Most people or groups will show their true colors if you just let them talk, then telling them they're wrong. Then you know your truth.
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No evidence? Are you sure?
I'm sure if there was evidence then they would have presented it in court... unless they are morons. If they aren't morons then the only conclusion is the so-called "evidence" doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
This is basic logic.
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Re:Translating: They're censoring (Score:5, Informative)
Sworn affidavits are certainly admissible in a court, but it's my understanding that you need to have some additional evidence over and above the affidavits themselves which gives rise to consider the affidavits as credible testimony. Simply put, the evidence they provided failed to meet the burden of proof of the allegations.
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Not only that, but in one court case I read the judge blasted the witnesses for Trump who gave affidavits. Affiants did not understand the vote counting procedures as they had not shown up for the orientation; they made "allegations" that left out information like places, peo
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Video evidence is excellent, when the video actually shows what is being alleged to have occurred actually happening.
Showing video evidence with the allegation that it proves that X happened when the video actually shows that Y happened does not mean that X ever actually happened.
Burden of proof should now shift. (Score:3)
"Like boxes of ballots being pulled out from under desks?"
Any proof that they aren't boxes of legitimate ballots?
As I understand it (I could be VERY wrong...)
This is a civil, not a criminal case. (We're picking between two equivalent sides and potentially correcting a wrong, not determining if a person broke a law and must be punished.) So the standard of proof is preponderance of evidence. But its also foundational to the operation of the country and constitutionally directed selection of office holders
Re:Translating: They're censoring (Score:5, Insightful)
90% of that is "I don't believe numbers like this are possible, therefore its evidence" Nobody credible is touching this stuff because there's nothing credible in there.
That's, uh, not evidence.
Re: (Score:2)
Great how many of those cases haven't been tossed out yet?
Re: (Score:3)
Evidence is being presented in court, most (not all) of the videos about election fraud have pretty convincing evidence
~46 judges + the SCOTUS disagree with this assessment.
Trump lost. Move on.
Links? (Score:3)
And none of that video evidence has been presented in courts. I know, I've been following the 50 some odd cases. What little evidence has been presented is usually from the wrong state. Trump's team used statistics from Minnesota in Michigan, for exampl
There's no side to pick (Score:3)
At this point Trump is just trying to see how long he can string his supporters along and get them to donate money for him to pocket.
As for "censorship", blocking outright and dangerous lies doesn't really qualify. Maybe by a dictionary definition, but I don't think anyone would call it "censorship" for YouTube a video that said you could treat cancer with olive oil
Re:Premature (Score:5, Insightful)
So far the Trump side has thrown a 0-for. One of the case's rulings, in its entirety is "The request is denied."
Re: (Score:2)
No. That's incorrect.
They have 1 win. An election official in maybe PA wanted to give people extra time to to provide ID to validate provisional ballots, and the judge agreed that wasn't allowable under law.
So they're like 1-49 or something.
Re: Premature (Score:5, Insightful)
That's certainly one possibility.
The other possibility is that you don't know how any of this works, and that the people you trust to keep you informed have lied to you, over and over.
What does Fr. Occam say?
Re: (Score:3)
Having read a history book, Fr. Occam says we're being fucked by the establishment. Again.
Fr. Occam would favor an argument that requires a massive conspiracy that includes both Republicans and Democrats, as well as Republican and Democrat-appointed judges, over the null hypothesis, which is that the election was pretty clean, same as always?
I think you need better history books. Stop buying them from QAnon Press.
Re:Premature (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
and one day before the Supreme Court has promised its first action on the Texas v. Pennsylvania case?
You missed the significance of a hearing being scheduled for the 10th on a matter that had a hard time limit of the 8th for Texas to be able to get what they want. ;)
Re: (Score:3)
Still insists she won the governorship of Georgia and there was massive voter suppression in 2018 that The Man is covering up. She has presented no evidence of this,
Voter suppression actually happened (and was down brazenly in the open) but I don't know of any claims about a coverup. She pointed to various changes that were made to the election which is public knowledge and undisputed.
Do you not understand how voter suppression works?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
She has presented no evidence of this
There is a consent decree, moron. Widespread voter suppression in Georgia is not even disputed by the GOP; that's why they consent to be punished for it and actively avoid having their punishments determined by the courts. They do that by admitting to it.
Re: (Score:2)
Your post however, is.
Stacy Abrams is bitching about ostensibly legal soft voter suppression. Its existence is a fact established by multiple courts. There's even a consent decree.
What the crazies are doing this election are alleging some massive conspiracy and essentially a stolen election. This is dangerous. They're flat-out lying in almost every case.
They are not the same thing. If you can't see that, then I really misjudged you.
Is YouTube an anti-democracy criminal enterprise? (Score:2)
Please don't feed the trolls. Even propagating the AC Subject is likely to make it happy. Now about that story:
People who get their news from YouTube must be fools. Wait! I get a lot of my news from YouTube.
Let me rephrase that. Anyone who trusts the recommended videos from YouTube's algorithms is a fool.
That is because scammers and propagandists are highly motivated to game the recommendation system to push their content. Even more it is because the EVIL google doesn't care as long as YouTube gets more eye
Re: (Score:2)
Note: Up to 86 visible comments while I was writing that. But still no other mentions of "criminal". How is it possible to have "YouTube" in a sentence without "criminal"? (Yes, that's an exaggeration, but still...)
Re: (Score:3)