It's not 'cruel' for any administration to indicate basic realities without some arbitrary historical and legal context.
While we should be eternally vigilant and skeptical, the lack of very specific context in this case is nowhere near a blatant manipulation.
In fact, I would say the 'problem' is maybe the opposite - I am somewhat more skeptical that this is a 'Musk led personal intervention' to draw arbitrary cynicism towards a political entity he does not like - playing 'moral equivalence' games with people who say "The economy is doing good!" (without nuanced context) and "I won the election!" (without the obvious 'context' that the statement is literally false, or blatantly misleading).
That said, it's just skepticism, I really can't say one way or the other obviously.
There's clearly a grey threshold in what we can tolerate from government and political statements, and it's very hard to fathom where that line is - but this one is not near that line.
If any administration wants to claim "Lowest unemployment ever!" in a Tweet, well then that's fine. They can say that as long as it's true, a history lesson is not needed in this case.
In any case, if they are going to do this, they need a set of publicly stated criteria for it, and they need to apply the criteria objectively and consistently.
You really are having a hard time with the words 'cruel' and 'harm'.
The WH statements are not misleading, and they definitely do not cause 'harm'.
You're using the language of post-modern/post-reality hyperbole politics which frankly, might be our greatest scourge at the moment.
When Donald Trump Tweeted that "The US had the lowest unemployment rate for African Americans" during his tenure, one could argue that's a bit of a stretch in terms of him taking credit.
The press had a lot to say about it.
But it's fully within his purview to say that even if it really does require contextualization.
There's no need to 'fix' a Tweet or statement like that.
When people say things like 'XYZ cures cancer!' - or 'XYZ politician is secretly abusing children in the basement of a restaurant' - then there's a moderation issue.
I too strongly disagree with modern political winds and the postmodern moral and social philosophy, but that doesn't have to mean that kindness and not doing harm aren't important or have no meaning. They're just one moral dimension among several that are fully valid (if disproportionately emphasized).
It is morally wrong when leaders (Democrat or Republican) intentionally lie in such a way as to manipulate people into beliefs and behaviors that cause more problems for those people.
> But it's fully within his purview to say that even if it really does require contextualization.
Not morally, no it's not. I believe he'll answer for it come judgment day, along with the others who have done it. You've heard the phrase "there are lies, damned lies, and statistics" -- the point is: wrongly framed statistics, intentionally presented, are the worst form of lying.
You may not subscribe to care/harm moral philosophy, but surely you value truth -- it's the bedrock of freedom. To lie is to take away people's freedom.
The Soviet Union, Communist China, and the DPRK were built on lies. Those who tolerate lies do everyone a disservice.
Unless I'm not understanding the article, it seems like the tweet was truthful, the payout is the highest it's been. Is that entirely due to Biden, less clear. Could also be just adjusting to inflation, also true. But how many things are not adjusted to inflation, so even if the only reason the payout is highest is because of inflation, well at least they are making it match and not ignoring it like a million other things. There are no lies here, only things which might be hard to attribute. And I think it's reasonable to attribute this to Biden in all but the most narrow of interpretations.
For anyone else that didn't read the first paragraph of the article, here it is:
> The White House deleted a Twitter post on Wednesday touting an increase in Social Security benefits for seniors after the social media platform added a “context” note pointing out that the increase was tied to a 1972 law requiring automatic increases based on cost of living changes.
This is a different kind of statement when it's not hedged in any way as compared to the tweet as quoted in the article.
> “Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership” (emphasis mine)
Of course it's easy to assume that they said "the biggest increase" to make it sound as good as possible and it's easy to assume that they said "in 10 years" because they didn't want to just lie. But then, why did they need to include "through President Biden's leadership"? Isn't that technically false if it happened "through 50-year-old legislation"?
That being said, why do you think that statement isn't intentionally misleading? Or if you do think it's intentionally misleading, why do you think the context shouldn't be added? I don't buy that it's arbitrary; it's clearly relevant to the statement that was made.
Certainly I'd agree that this policy is absolutely ripe for abuse (through arbitrary application) but so far I haven't seen a reason for people to think that it will be or has been abused, barring the assumptions they choose to make.
The statement "Lowest unemployment ever!" is definitely 'hedged' in the same manner as this Tweet about benefits.
Taking credit for the 'lowest employment' especially using the term 'ever' would require an hour of debatable qualifications to make it entirely clear.
Would the President make this statement in his 1st month in office, make this a bit of a nonrepresentational statement? Well, probably. But it's still true.
This understanding that somehow this specific WH statement is hedged or loaded in some kind of special manner just isn't correct. In fact, you could likely delve a bit deeper into it as well to find even more relevant nuance.
"Why do you think that statement isn't intentionally misleading?"
It's true, and it doesn't require any more context than any other statement, so it's fine.
I think it would be naive of us to expect that the statement by the WH or any political body is going to run us down on the details and caveats of their statements unless they are hugely relevant.
Some of the language used here that this causes 'cruelty and harm' etc. is ridiculous.
This language within the scope of normal communications enough that we would not even be having this discussion were Twitter to not have initially marked the Tweet.
The so called 'cruelty and harm' would have gone entirely unnoticed.
And finally, this is not a threshold of content moderation for arbitrary 3rd parties to make arbitrary corrections. I'd love a feature that allowed me to add my favourite 'truthy-meter' to Twitter statements, but I'd loathe to trust Twitter specifically for things that are so mundane. They have a responsibility to call out hard misinformation, such as vaccine or election lies - but not arbitrary quips.
I have mixed feelings about this comment. I can't bring myself to disagree with your premises, but I strongly disagree with the conclusion.
> I think it would be naive of us to expect that the statement by the WH or any political body is going to run us down on the details and caveats of their statements unless they are hugely relevant.
> Some of the language used here that this causes 'cruelty and harm' etc. is ridiculous.
> This language within the scope of normal communications enough that we would not even be having this discussion were Twitter to not have initially marked the Tweet.
> The so called 'cruelty and harm' would have gone entirely unnoticed.
I won't disagree but that's because of what "naive" means. It reads that I should expect this kind of behavior, to which I would say I shouldn't tolerate it. I should be able to expect that these political bodies don't produce this kind of statement.
I do think the "cruelty and harm" would have gone unnoticed because it's so common to see this kind of thing. There are people that won't look into this and will have their vote swayed because of it, despite that it doesn't matter. I don't care that it's true when it's so misleading and I don't think it should be tolerated. I do not think it's hyperbole to use this language, disagreements notwithstanding.
I don't remember what it is but I remember hearing a word for this kind of statement. Specifically in public relations, it's a statement that's true on its face and clearly intended to sound good in a particular way, but also missing key context that takes away from the good.
Anyway, often in such cases I will read the context in some public comment section, rather than having it pinned by the staff of the site I'm reading. I can understand that people do not like that this was decided by Twitter staff (and I do honestly expect that's what happened given the account's profile), and I would also prefer that this sort of thing is decided by the community or even not at all.
But I have to end in defense of "cruelty and harm". You can disagree but it would be naive to think it is simply mistaken thinking.
Your comments make a lot of sense were there material indirection about some material issue, but there isn't.
So in this case none of it really applies; notions 'cruelty and harm' are a bit absurd.
There is a habit among 'thinking people' to escalate the most innocuous thing to an undeserved proportion.
When there are no lingering controversies, the most minor supposed slight - becomes the controversy.
This issue is out of proportion for this level of meaningful dissection.
More objectively ... the Tweet does not involve policy, it's not political, it's not controversial, it's not 'before the courts', it does not involve foreign policy, it's not 'insensitive or offensive', it doesn't delve into economic matters, it's not related to health or elections, it won't move markets or affect business - and most appropriately - it's essentially factual.
It's a banal, truthful statement about some secondary, bureaucratic outcome.
If we were to apply this level of conscientious scrutiny to every Tweet or statement, I don't think anyone would ever agree on what 'reality' is.
So there is no 'there' there. There's nothing to escalate.
We have a free press to add more context, that's their job.
Tweets can cause 'harm' obviously, when influential people lie about material things especially related to health, violence, ultra bigotry/racism, political insurrection etc. but otherwise, Twitter is a random tech company, it's beyond their purview to selectively contextualize arbitrary bits of information.
> the lack of very specific context in this case is nowhere near a blatant manipulation
I disagree. First of all the increase wasn't Biden's administration merit and that's one blatant lie.
Then if the social security benefits have increased only to keep up with inflation, to celebrate this as positive is clearly misinformation. Those receiving the benefits are as poor as they were before, while society as a whole becomes poorer. Nothing to celebrate here.
My question then is, would/will the same fact-checking apply to a different government that Musk does support? He’s been pushing for this equal fact checking and equal platform for both parties, but as far as I can tell we’re not seeing these banners anywhere on politics Twitter besides official government accounts.
It's not 'cruel' for any administration to indicate basic realities without some arbitrary historical and legal context.
While we should be eternally vigilant and skeptical, the lack of very specific context in this case is nowhere near a blatant manipulation.
In fact, I would say the 'problem' is maybe the opposite - I am somewhat more skeptical that this is a 'Musk led personal intervention' to draw arbitrary cynicism towards a political entity he does not like - playing 'moral equivalence' games with people who say "The economy is doing good!" (without nuanced context) and "I won the election!" (without the obvious 'context' that the statement is literally false, or blatantly misleading).
That said, it's just skepticism, I really can't say one way or the other obviously.
There's clearly a grey threshold in what we can tolerate from government and political statements, and it's very hard to fathom where that line is - but this one is not near that line.
If any administration wants to claim "Lowest unemployment ever!" in a Tweet, well then that's fine. They can say that as long as it's true, a history lesson is not needed in this case.
In any case, if they are going to do this, they need a set of publicly stated criteria for it, and they need to apply the criteria objectively and consistently.