Biden Admin to Fact Check Your Text Messages?

 

From Politico, this is really scary.:

“Biden allied groups, including the Democratic National Committee, are also planning to engage fact-checkers more aggressively and work with SMS carriers to dispel misinformation about vaccines that is sent over social media and text messages”

The DNC wants to fact-check your private messages. What could possibly go wrong? And people wonder why some are hesitant to trust the vaccine. It is amazing how much of a threat this administration has been to civil liberties. For all of you Republicans who think everything is going to be A-OK when pushback to this leads to a Republican landslide in 2022: You may want to think again. An administration that resorts to these measures won’t let some pesky inconvenience like elections get in their way.

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  1. GlennAmurgis Coolidge
    GlennAmurgis
    @GlennAmurgis

    Who gets to tell us what is misinformation, the people us pushed the following narratives:

                   Covid started in a wet Market

                    Hunter’s laptop was a Russian Disinformation  campaign

                     Russian Collusion 

     

     

    • #31
  2. Bishop Wash Member
    Bishop Wash
    @BishopWash

    Misthiocracy got drunk and (View Comment):

    David Foster (View Comment):

    Telegraphy…initially Morse telegraphy and later based on teleprinters…seems like a pretty good technical precedent for SMS messaging, and it would be worthwhile to look at any legal precedents involving this technology.

    Telegraphy was store-and-forward; messages would be received at intermediate locations and their forwarded further toward their destination, either by manual retransmission, paper tape retransmission, or computer-based solutions. So I wonder if there are any cases in which the federal government demanded–without warrants–that the carriers be on the lookout for certain content in messages, from any sender to any recipient or set of recipients….?

    a) Intercepted telegrams routinely landed on Abraham Lincoln’s desk during the Civil War, and in 1920 the US government made a deal with Western Union to gain access to any telegrams it wanted. (Source)

    b) Apropos of nothing: The very first public demonstration of wireless telegraphy was hacked.

    There’s this story out of France. Two brothers took advantage of the government’s semaphore line. There weren’t laws against it at the time so they got away with it.

    • #32
  3. DrewInWisconsin, Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    GlennAmurgis (View Comment):

    Who gets to tell us what is misinformation, the people us pushed the following narratives:

    Covid started in a wet Market

    Hunter’s laptop was a Russian Disinformation campaign

    Russian Collusion

    And so much more!

    The definition of misinformation or disinformation is now “information that reflects badly on the Democrats.”

    • #33
  4. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    That the idea of government monitoring of personal communications got beyond someone other than a know-nothing 22 year old intern indicates how thoroughly un-American ideas have permeated the Biden/Harris/Whomever administration. As soon as the idiot intern mentioned such an idea, everybody else in the room should have shut it down immediately as completely unacceptable for a society of free people. That the idea was allowed to percolate up is a bad sign of how far evil has infiltrated into our government. 

    • #34
  5. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    Misthiocracy got drunk and (View Comment):

    a) Intercepted telegrams routinely landed on Abraham Lincoln’s desk during the Civil War, and in 1920 the US government made a deal with Western Union to gain access to any telegrams it wanted. (Source)

    b) Apropos of nothing: The very first public demonstration of wireless telegraphy was hacked.

    Not surprising that telegrams were intercepted in wartime; the massive capture of telegraph messages by the government circa 1920 and beyond is I think not well-known. Some of this was (at least supposedly) constrained by 1970s-era intelligence reforms.

    re the 1903 demo of wireless, pretty funny…but what exactly was the demonstration trying to show, if ship-to-shore messaging was already a successful business, which the article says it was?

    • #35
  6. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    James Salerno (View Comment):

    DonG (2+2=5. Say it!) (View Comment):

    But no mean Tweets! There are gulags in D.C for political prisoners, but no mean Tweets!

    We also have Capital Police expanding into a National Police Force but no one seems to care or notice.

    Michael Leroy Bird can be the first Chairman of the National NKVD, I mean Capitol Police.

    • #36
  7. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    GlennAmurgis (View Comment):

    Who gets to tell us what is misinformation, the people us pushed the following narratives:

    Covid started in a wet Market

    Hunter’s laptop was a Russian Disinformation campaign

    Russian Collusion

     

     

    On top of decades of conflicting official government recommendations concerning diets (more carbohydrates, less carbohydrates, less fat, “good”fat, more polyunsaturated fats, no polyunsaturated fats, etc.). The government has such a stellar <sarc> record of conveying accurate information about health. 

    • #37
  8. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    James Salerno (View Comment):

    W Bob (View Comment):

    Misthiocracy got drunk and (View Comment):

    Apropos of nothing: I just learned that one can enable end-to-end encryption on Facebook Messenger, but the person with whom you want to communicate has to enable it at their end for it to work.

    This is what I was wondering about. Are they talking about actually filtering individual text messages for misinformation? How is this even technically possible? This would require real time reading of texts by human censors before the text is delivered to its destination, or some kind of AI to do it in place of human censors. And this assumes texts aren’t encrypted, and I think they are.

    Here is my guess – if you share links to Covid-related articles, that trips their censors. If you are sending something from one of the “bad” sites, then that person may receive an automated text along the lines of “we have noticed you are concerned about the effectiveness of the vaccine. Please be aware that much misinformation has been spread, and for your safety, you should only trust official sources. Please visit LINK for more information.”

    That, they can realistically do. I do not think it is possible for them to delay text messaging for editorial review. If they went that far, it’s all over.

    All they need to do is screen the messages for key words.  Mention Covid and your text gets closer review, and a “friendly correction”.  This can happen very quickly. Just look at what happens with Facebook. Mention Covid and up pops a “this may not contain factual information, learn more at blah blah blah”.

    • #38
  9. Craig Inactive
    Craig
    @Craig

    This is the moment COVID became the new FISA court. Hey Biden! I’ll save you the trouble of sifting through my text messages to read this: “you’re a fool”.

    • #39
  10. W Bob Member
    W Bob
    @WBob

    Imagine if Verizon developed a powerful AI to listen to all conversations and disconnect them if someone is talking in a misinformed way. Would anyone stand for that? Would it violate a law? How is that different than anything Facebook is doing or monitoring text messages etc. 

    • #40
  11. DrewInWisconsin, Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    W Bob (View Comment):

    Imagine if Verizon developed a powerful AI to listen to all conversations and disconnect them if someone is talking in a misinformed way. Would anyone stand for that? Would it violate a law? How is that different than anything Facebook is doing or monitoring text messages etc.

    Conservatism, Inc.: “It’s a private company! They can do what they want! Go build your own carrier if you don’t like it!”

    (How does one respond to that argument.)

    • #41
  12. kidCoder Member
    kidCoder
    @kidCoder

    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf (View Comment):

    W Bob (View Comment):

    Imagine if Verizon developed a powerful AI to listen to all conversations and disconnect them if someone is talking in a misinformed way. Would anyone stand for that? Would it violate a law? How is that different than anything Facebook is doing or monitoring text messages etc.

    Conservatism, Inc.: “It’s a private company! They can do what they want!”

    (How does one respond to that argument.)

    They sure can!

    It’s bad for everybody when this happens, we need to make it clear. Public information and talking to companies.

    • #42
  13. DrewInWisconsin, Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    kidCoder (View Comment):

    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf (View Comment):

    W Bob (View Comment):

    Imagine if Verizon developed a powerful AI to listen to all conversations and disconnect them if someone is talking in a misinformed way. Would anyone stand for that? Would it violate a law? How is that different than anything Facebook is doing or monitoring text messages etc.

    Conservatism, Inc.: “It’s a private company! They can do what they want!”

    (How does one respond to that argument.)

    They sure can!

    It’s bad for everybody when this happens, we need to make it clear.

    But it’s not bad for the State. And you know these companies are rewarded for the subservience to the State.

    • #43
  14. DrewInWisconsin, Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Actually, it’s no longer clear which is the tail and which is the dog.

    • #44
  15. DonG (2+2=5. Say it!) Coolidge
    DonG (2+2=5. Say it!)
    @DonG

    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf (View Comment):

    We should have formed that conservative party back in 2012. We’d be in a great position today to take the whole country. Alas, so many dummies thought we needed to stick with Romney.

    The GOP still has a Romney problem.  There are two too many Romney’s on the scene.

    • #45
  16. James Salerno Inactive
    James Salerno
    @JamesSalerno

    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf (View Comment):

    W Bob (View Comment):

    Imagine if Verizon developed a powerful AI to listen to all conversations and disconnect them if someone is talking in a misinformed way. Would anyone stand for that? Would it violate a law? How is that different than anything Facebook is doing or monitoring text messages etc.

    Conservatism, Inc.: “It’s a private company! They can do what they want! Go build your own carrier if you don’t like it!”

    (How does one respond to that argument.)

    You can still make the libertarian argument. These are not private companies. There is a ridiculous amount of subsidizing and crushing competitors that the state does for these corporations. I want to end all cronyism. Republicans do not. Cronyism is built-in to the DNA of the party and has been since the 1860s.

    • #46
  17. DrewInWisconsin, Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    DonG (2+2=5. Say it!) (View Comment):

    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf (View Comment):

    We should have formed that conservative party back in 2012. We’d be in a great position today to take the whole country. Alas, so many dummies thought we needed to stick with Romney.

    The GOP still has a Romney problem. There are two too many Romney’s on the scene.

    And thousands more who are “Romney” in spirit.

    • #47
  18. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf : (How does one respond to that argument.)

    My usual response is that violation of rights is not made kosher by outsourcing the violation to a private company.

    I also remind people of the Hollywood Ten, that group of Communist loving writers blacklisted from Hollywood in the 1950s for their love of the Soviet Union. “So, what you’re admitting is that the Hollywood Red Channels blacklists should be held up as a shining example, right? After all, the studios were private businesses…”

    • #48
  19. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):
    It almost makes me want to tar and feather never-Trumpers, then run them out of town on a jagged rail.

    What’s with the “almost”?

    Trust me, it ain’t easy holding back . . .

    • #49
  20. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    James Salerno (View Comment):

    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf (View Comment):

    W Bob (View Comment):

    Imagine if Verizon developed a powerful AI to listen to all conversations and disconnect them if someone is talking in a misinformed way. Would anyone stand for that? Would it violate a law? How is that different than anything Facebook is doing or monitoring text messages etc.

    Conservatism, Inc.: “It’s a private company! They can do what they want! Go build your own carrier if you don’t like it!”

    (How does one respond to that argument.)

    You can still make the libertarian argument. These are not private companies. There is a ridiculous amount of subsidizing and crushing competitors that the state does for these corporations. I want to end all cronyism. Republicans do not. Cronyism is built-in to the DNA of the party and has been since the 1860s.

    If they were truly private companies, they would have told Obama where to go when he called them to come to a meeting in 2013 to discuss how to control narratives to stop terrorism (aka deplorables).  

    • #50
  21. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    Stad (View Comment):

    James Salerno: An administration that resorts to these measures won’t let some pesky inconvenience like elections get in their way.

    They didn’t in 2020, so let’s wait to see what happens in 2022. It almost makes me want to tar and feather never-Trumpers, then run them out of town on a jagged rail.

    FYI: Tarring and feathering was an extremely painful ptactice. The tar was hot and burned like crazy, and when the victims cooled down and pulled the feathers off, it was doubly painful as some skin was lost.

    You can’t actually mean this, Stad.  You are one of my role models for gentlemanly behavior.  I cannot believe that you would actually nod approvingly if someone were being tortured for the crime of not supporting the “right” politician.

    • #51
  22. DrewInWisconsin, Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):
    You can’t actually mean this, Stad.  You are one of my role models for gentlemanly behavior.

    Are we talking about the same Stad? ; )

    • #52
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