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Twitter discloses national security letters

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Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#91

Post by orbitingpluto »

thedevil wrote: post #90
orbitingpluto wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Chill out. Wagner is just the go to example for divorcing art and the artist.

When I go to dilbert.com, I see a mixture of full blog entries, cartoons, and blog titles. I'm simply not entertained in his attempts at blogging.

Adams has probably gotten a bit bored pushing the same cartoon out and now conflates the value of his blog with his cartoon.

EDIT: Also compare the UX between http://dilbert.com and http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/. With CtrlAltDel, the blog is there, but you don't have to scroll by it and you can completely ignore it. With Dilbert, the blog shows up before the cartoon. It's pushed down your throat.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#93

Post by madgar »

Neliquat wrote: post #70
exp1orer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the actual letters, you'll see they ask for "the name, address, length of service, and electronic communications transactional records for all services, as well as all accounts, provided to the individual(s) or identifier(s) listed below." The letter explicitly says not to provide information "that would disclose the content of any electronic communication".

A clear endrun of the law, as 'transactional records' can easily be correlated to posts, and therefore content.

Not all user-generated content on Twitter is public. I couldn't possibly know what kinds of transactional records have been requested or the distribution therein, but DMs seem like plausible targets.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#94

Post by nperez »

throwaway91111 wrote: post #79
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I may be in the minority, but I still think these companies are being cowardly. I don't know. Seems really easy to say when it's not you on the receiving end. But I mostly agree about your other points I just have a hard time judging them too harshly for not wanting to risk their business and / or personal freedoms.

What is "just harsh enough" for you?

It's good that they're disclosing this, but they are not doing anything particularly brave. While it's understandable that they would choose not to put their business at risk, a true act of bravery would be to refuse the requests in the first place.

^ that is a medium harshness level, I think.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#95

Post by busted »

phpnode wrote: post #31
teddyh wrote: 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.

It's interesting to me that you probably don't care that this isn't true, nor is it true that Twitter ever decides to not show your tweets to a subset of your followers through a "shadowban". You just say whatever. Doesn't affect you whether it's true or not and if other people believe you, hey that's pretty funny that people just believe things you make up or misunderstood.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#96

Post by dashundchen »

thedevil wrote: 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.

The same Scott Adams who sockpuppets on message boards and reddit, to agree with himself and call himself a genius?

Yeah I'd take the shadowban claims with a grain of salt.

http://comicsalliance.com/scott-adams-plannedchaos-sockpuppe...

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#97

Post by therein »

wfunction wrote: post #60
moxious wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Either way, you make it messy for them and you do probably defeat their primary objective, which is secrecy. How do you think they'd respond? With SEAL Team 6 while keeping everything quiet? When the government shows up to force you to turn over the information, no violence is required, but you can make sure the newspapers are there when it happens, and that the knowledge of it happening is not…

> How do you think they'd respond? With SEAL Team 6 while keeping everything quiet? Possibly by taking you to court and convicting you of breaking some law by refusing to provide the information the first time, perhaps even completely independently of whether or not the order was actually constitutional. I can imagine lots of bad outcomes that would land you in jail without giving you the chance to take the actual is…

But when dealing with a corporate entity, who do you go after? Since this sort of coercion seems to only work on an individual level, going after the entire corporate entity won't invoke the same emotional response.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#98

Post by wfunction »

therein wrote: post #97
wfunction wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you think they'd respond? With SEAL Team 6 while keeping everything quiet? Possibly by taking you to court and convicting you of breaking some law by refusing to provide the information the first time, perhaps even completely independently of whether or not the order was actually constitutional. I can imagine lots of bad outcomes that would land you in jail without giving you the chance to take the actual is…

But when dealing with a corporate entity, who do you go after? Since this sort of coercion seems to only work on an individual level, going after the entire corporate entity won't invoke the same emotional response.

I don't know how the law works. But my completely-unfounded guess is that whoever is supposed to authorize this and who is refusing would be the one convicted.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#99

Post by beezle »

thinkloop wrote: post #25
CaptSpify wrote: post #2

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…

Why not just tape it to the front door? Its directed at the company right? then anybody working there can read it. The secrecy fetish and end around court warrants is disgusting.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#100

Post by kleer001 »

Neliquat wrote: post #71
orbitingpluto wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've stopped reading Dilbert let alone Twitter. Seeing him post pictures of himself acting in the role of sugar daddy to a petulant child-woman is well beyond my initial scope of interest in him. My interest was Dilbert. It was all about making fun of the disconnect between management and employees. Ironically, his public persona is now at odds with the general theme of his work. I suspect his original material is ju…

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

Anything?

No, just the work of the people I'd rather not support. Some artists and I have the same views and interests.

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