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Twitter discloses national security letters

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81–90 of 160 posts

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#81
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. That's what courts are for.

But are there no laws that require you to abide by these kinds of orders and challenge them differently? Couldn't you be later convicted of not abiding by those laws independently of whether the orders were themselves legal/constitutional?

An unconstitutional act is void.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#82
post #66
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wants the Constitutional requirement, and the tradition of the separation of powers, to be fulfilled by having a Judge review and sign off on the search. That is all he wants, you are the one imagining insane things.

How you are getting that I want anything different? Also, don't go around calling people insane.

> How you are getting that I want anything different?

Then perhaps you're under the misunderstanding that a judge has signed off on the NSL's. That is not the case, these are warrantless searches.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United...

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#83
post #10
post #7

Is this the same Twitter that has allegedly shadowbanned Scott Adams multiple times for his political positions? If Twitter is interested in transparency, how about some transparency on that? Twitter's actions make me distrust any "transparency" talk, even if I disagree with Adams on certain things.

Is this the same Scott Adams that claims to have been shadowbanned, without any proof? Might his lower Twitter engagement have something to do with people getting sick of hearing from him about Trump?

He's talking about trump? Ye gods, in election season everyone plays politician.

Seriously though, why does he think anyone wants to hear his political spew? It's almost as irrelevant as hearing an update from Sam Altman.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#84
post #7

Is this the same Twitter that has allegedly shadowbanned Scott Adams multiple times for his political positions? If Twitter is interested in transparency, how about some transparency on that? Twitter's actions make me distrust any "transparency" talk, even if I disagree with Adams on certain things.

Twitter let Arab Spring happen. Think about that.. what was their political motivation?

It doesn't take much to let something happen when the correct course is to do nothing.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#85
post #31
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would anyone actually prove something like this, short of getting Twitter to admit it? What he has seen is: > my tweets only go out to a subset of my followers. The rest don’t know I tweeted. My followers tell me this is the case. They have to visit my timeline to see my tweets. What other proof could anyone realistically provide?

That is how twitter works - it doesn't show every tweet from everyone you follow in your timeline, it shows a subset based on what it considers most relevant.

And it would be convenient if Scott Adams' political tweets were considered "irrelevant" more often than others, wouldn't it?

There were also reports that followers would be automatically unfollowed. They wouldn't hear from Scott for a while, so they'd check and realize he was no longer followed. Maybe they slipped and accidentally hit "Unfollow" while scrolling through their feed one day. Maybe it was a one-time glitch. Or maybe it wasn't.

While it's true that such things could easily be imaginary, it's also true that they easily could not be. The idea behind these pseudo-bans is to discourage undesirable users from using the platform, and they do happen on many platforms (can't speak definitively for Twitter).

For example, my HN account was intentionally slowed by YC for years. Each page load would take several seconds. When I asked politely if they could lift it after putting up with it for a couple of years, they confirmed it had been intentionally slowed, but couldn't tell why, and graciously agreed to lift the punishment, which I'm still grateful for. :)

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#86

Although they could have just sent it onto the intended target and gone quietly about their day, I'm really glad that Twitter made this an announcement. Do they have any kind of warrant canary system?

I was just thinking about this - what kind of system could work in these circumstances? Say someone had to press a button every hour otherwise an automatic public release gets sent - the government could simply imprison the person for not pressing it. Say no-one knew who is supposed to press it because of some system of randomness and crypto, then you just threaten the CEO with imprisonment for not dismantling the wh…

Warrant canaries are a thing [1]. For example, see Reddit's one which disappeared last year [2].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary 2. https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/4ct1kz/reddit_de...

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#87
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this the same Scott Adams that claims to have been shadowbanned, without any proof? Might his lower Twitter engagement have something to do with people getting sick of hearing from him about Trump?

He's talking about trump? Ye gods, in election season everyone plays politician. Seriously though, why does he think anyone wants to hear his political spew? It's almost as irrelevant as hearing an update from Sam Altman.

He made a post last summer saying that he has to pretend to support Clinton otherwise when he goes out he'll probably be shot by a Clinton supporter... He's gone a bit off the deep end.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But are there no laws that require you to abide by these kinds of orders and challenge them differently? Couldn't you be later convicted of not abiding by those laws independently of whether the orders were themselves legal/constitutional?

An unconstitutional act is void.

If you're talking about NSLs, they've been found constitutional for almost a year now. Still time to buy that first birthday gift!

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/04/in-a-reversal-ju...

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you reject the art because of the views of the artist? Have a fun time being able to enjoy anything.

I will admit, only listening to GG Allin all day has been getting a little stale.

Yeah, but such expressiveness, and subtlety.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you reject the art because of the views of the artist? Have a fun time being able to enjoy anything.

If you go to dilbert.com the cartoon comes part and parcel with his blog. This dissuades me from visiting the site. I like Wagner too. But if I had to read an anti-Semitic pamphlet every time I listened to him, I wouldn't put him in my playlist. I think that's reasonable, no?

"If you go to dilbert.com the cartoon comes part and parcel with his blog."

You can see blog titles from his blog if you scroll down and read them.

Is seeing blog titles (if you choose to scroll down and then read them) like "outrage dilution" and "Should twitter and Facebook be regulated as entities" comparable to having to read an anti-Semitic pamphlet?

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