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Twitter discloses national security letters

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Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#141

Post by jakubp »

moxious wrote: post #140
jasonkostempski wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its unreasonable to expect people to make life changing decisions based on nice sounding but ultimatley meaningless phrases.

You're only observing how we're caught in this trap, you're not providing any constructive way out. Sure, it's unreasonable to expect this of people. It's also unreasonable for the government to expect they'll help in spying on their customers. It's also unreasonable for the government to do this in the first place. Everything's unreasonable. Someone has to step...the...fuck...up. And the government has demonstrated…

You aren't providing one [constructive way out] either. It's not Twitter's or any other company's fault, yet you want them to pay the price in form of risk. Why don't you pay it yourself?

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#142

Post by sneak »

ensiferum wrote: post #127

And Americans think that they have freedom. In general for anyone conscious about freedom of speech and press it should alarming how certain agencies breach people's data and then put gag orders in place. This isn't freedom, this is tyranny. The citizens of North-Korea probably have more freedom that then the citizens of USA.

I've been to both places. While Americans are not free, and can indeed be tortured for saying the wrong things to the wrong people, the retribution in the DPRK is much more swift and broadly applied.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#143

Post by [deleted] »

jakubp wrote: post #141
moxious wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're only observing how we're caught in this trap, you're not providing any constructive way out. Sure, it's unreasonable to expect this of people. It's also unreasonable for the government to expect they'll help in spying on their customers. It's also unreasonable for the government to do this in the first place. Everything's unreasonable. Someone has to step...the...fuck...up. And the government has demonstrated…

You aren't providing one [constructive way out] either. It's not Twitter's or any other company's fault, yet you want them to pay the price in form of risk. Why don't you pay it yourself?

[deleted]

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#145

Post by Gargoyle »

jasonkostempski wrote: post #137
moxious wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that could happen. But there's the Spider-Man Rule: "with great power comes great responsibility". They're running a major international media outlet over there, and they do have some pretty heavyweight responsibilities that come with that, even if it conflicts with their personal lives.

Its unreasonable to expect people to make life changing decisions based on nice sounding but ultimatley meaningless phrases.

They're being paid a great deal of money on the theory that their jobs have a lot of responsibility. If they choose to ignore whatever parts of that responsibility they can get away with, perhaps they don't actually deserve that compensation after all.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#146

Post by duggan »

jakubp wrote: post #141
moxious wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're only observing how we're caught in this trap, you're not providing any constructive way out. Sure, it's unreasonable to expect this of people. It's also unreasonable for the government to expect they'll help in spying on their customers. It's also unreasonable for the government to do this in the first place. Everything's unreasonable. Someone has to step...the...fuck...up. And the government has demonstrated…

You aren't providing one [constructive way out] either. It's not Twitter's or any other company's fault, yet you want them to pay the price in form of risk. Why don't you pay it yourself?

No, they're providing the only ethical way out.

This is the responsibility that comes with the wealth and power acquired by using other people's personal information.

Particularly for citizens of a nation whose leadership is now treading a familiar historical path.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#147

Post by phpnode »

busted wrote: post #95
phpnode wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Pardon?

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#149

Post by Analemma_ »

ensiferum wrote: post #127

And Americans think that they have freedom. In general for anyone conscious about freedom of speech and press it should alarming how certain agencies breach people's data and then put gag orders in place. This isn't freedom, this is tyranny. The citizens of North-Korea probably have more freedom that then the citizens of USA.

Comments like this are worse than useless, in that people see them and dismiss them as hysterical hyperbole-- because they are-- and thereby become inoculated against more credible warnings of real danger.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#150

Post by moxious »

jakubp wrote: post #141
moxious wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're only observing how we're caught in this trap, you're not providing any constructive way out. Sure, it's unreasonable to expect this of people. It's also unreasonable for the government to expect they'll help in spying on their customers. It's also unreasonable for the government to do this in the first place. Everything's unreasonable. Someone has to step...the...fuck...up. And the government has demonstrated…

You aren't providing one [constructive way out] either. It's not Twitter's or any other company's fault, yet you want them to pay the price in form of risk. Why don't you pay it yourself?

Well, no one can prove what they'd do if they were in this situation. But I can't pay this cost for twitter, because the government hasn't asked this of me.

I don't believe they'd go to jail though. I do believe they'd cause an utter shitstorm for themselves personally and professionally though, but that they'd get a lot of attention to the matter and come out the other side OK. I can think of at least 5 non-profits who would jump to pay their legal costs, just to be in the battle and stick it to the government if this sort of thing ever came up.

What do you think the real consequences of standing up to the government are? Publicity is mostly my bet. Note that if we're dealing with the CEO of twitter, hustling him off to a secret prison somewhere with no trial isn't an option, as that's the same as setting off a big media bomb.

But you know, nobody wants to be inconvenienced, and it is a risk, so I suppose many people feel that's adequate justification for twitter to do nothing and keep serving punch to the crowd.

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