Is the 6th floor museum losing its touch?

[Martin Weidmann]

You don't know that there was no substance to the Hunter Biden story.  There is an ongoing Federal investigation.  But that is not the point.  The point is that the story was suppressed by the social media outlets due to political bias.  Do you want information controlled by some social media weirdoes who get to decide what is permissible for the public to consider?  How about let the public decide what has merit instead of some biased kooks who work for these companies?  I wouldn't want any of the many fake, negative stories relating to Trump suppressed.  Put them out there and let the public make their own decisions.  We don't need a Big Brother being the arbiter of the truth for us.

The point is that the story was suppressed by the social media outlets due to political bias.

No it wasn't. The unproven allegations were made public, without a shred of evidence, for political reasons and to influence the election. If Guiliani had made the evidence available it might be another story, but he never did and still hasn't done so to date.

Do you want information controlled by some social media weirdoes who get to decide what is permissible for the public to consider?

What if I publish on social media, without a shred of evidence of course, the allegation that Richard Smith is a child molester and serial rapist. Would you defend my "right" to make such a story public?

How about let the public decide what has merit instead of some biased kooks who work for these companies?

What, you advocate mob justice and extrajudicial trial by public vote?

I wouldn't want any of the many fake, negative stories relating to Trump suppressed.

But what about fake stories about yourself?

[Andrew Mason]

Maybe you need to define censorship.  Twitter suspended the NY Post's account for breaking the Hunter Biden story.  That is a text book example of censorship.  And it was entirely due to political bias.  Again, this has nothing to do with the merits of the underlyng story.  If you want to believe that Russian boogeymen were behind Hunter's lap top, then so be it.  But is a story that the public deserves to hear and come to their own conclusions about its merist.  Just because you falsely have come to a conclusion about it, doesn't mean that others don't deserve to be given access to the information.  That is classic, elitist Big Brother censorship.  Someone believes they know best what is for the benefit of everyone else and all opposing views should be silenced.  Traditional liberals would be shocked by that Stalinist view of the media.

Under the Stalinist system the leader's false propaganda had to be published. If you refused to publish it or if you published the evidence of government abuses you ended up in the Gulag or dead.  It is still much like that in Russia. 

The Hunter Biden allegation was started by Trump and is being investigated at his behest by his toadies in the DOJ. Media organizations have asked to see the evidence so that they can check it out.  The government refuses. So news organizations with any integrity have refused to report on it.

Who is the Stalinist here?

[Martin Weidmann]

Under the Stalinist system the leader's false propaganda had to be published. If you refused to publish it or if you published the evidence of government abuses you ended up in the Gulag or dead.  It is still much like that in Russia. 

The Hunter Biden allegation was started by Trump and is being investigated at his behest by his toadies in the DOJ. Media organizations have asked to see the evidence so that they can check it out.  The government refuses. So news organizations with any integrity have refused to report on it.

Who is the Stalinist here?

Exactly right. Richard basically wants the media to play along when Trump tries to destroy or discredit somebody with false or unproven allegations.

They did it to Hillary Clinton with the fake Benghazi investigations that came to nothing and the alleged "email scandal", in which they claimed emails had been destroyed, when in fact we recently found out they were actually still stored on a server at the ministry.

[John Iacoletti]

Maybe you need to define censorship.  Twitter suspended the NY Post's account for breaking the Hunter Biden story.  That is a text book example of censorship.

Wrong again, “Richard”. Censorship is when the government suppresses speech. Twitter isn’t the government.

And it was entirely due to political bias.  Again, this has nothing to do with the merits of the underlyng story.

There were no merits to the underlying story. It was Rudy-fabricated tabloid nonsense to try to sway the election.

[Bill Chapman]

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies.

[John Iacoletti]

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies.

Thanks for the unsourced cut-and-paste from Wikipedia. Please explain how Twitter is a “controlling body”.

[Andrew Mason]

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies.

That is not the definition of censorship.  That comes from somebody on Wikipedia. And you can see from the talk page discussion that there was disagreement among the contributors to that page on such a definition.  So much for Wikipedia.  By that definition, Twitter suppressing ISIS posts calling for death to America is censorship; white supremacists posting racist hate speech being denied access to Facebook etc.  would be censorship.  That is not what most people mean by censorship.

[Richard Smith]

Under the Stalinist system the leader's false propaganda had to be published. If you refused to publish it or if you published the evidence of government abuses you ended up in the Gulag or dead.  It is still much like that in Russia. 

The Hunter Biden allegation was started by Trump and is being investigated at his behest by his toadies in the DOJ. Media organizations have asked to see the evidence so that they can check it out.  The government refuses. So news organizations with any integrity have refused to report on it.

Who is the Stalinist here?

Did social media allow stories to run about Trump's taxes that were illegally obtained and never provided for inspection?  Of course they did.  They ran that story for weeks without anyone "checking it out" because the tax returns were never made available for review.  No major news outlet had their account suspended for reporting that story.  There is obvious bias and censorship for political purposes.  Everyone should be concerned that social media is censoring speech on the basis of political bias.  They are operating as a Stalinist propaganda arm of the dem party.   Why be afraid of information and want it to be covered up by Big Brother?  Liberals used to be advocates of free speech.  Very sad.