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The Twitter Files, Part Six

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Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#131

Post by favorited »

tomohawk wrote: post #110
wesleywt wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More accurately. What was the political speech banned?

The NY Post was banned for breaking a story about revelations contained in a laptop computer abandoned by Hunter Biden. This was just prior to a national election. The FBI was involved in pushing this narrative through Twitter. The Babylon Bee is a satire site that was banned for doing satire. There are many many examples.

The Babylon Bee was not banned, the same way someone who tries to go into a store without shoes on isn't "banned." They just need to put on some shoes, then you're allowed in.

The Babylon Bee was told that 1 Tweet violated Twitter's policy, and that they needed to delete it to unlock their account. They chose not to.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#132

Post by LudwigNagasena »

leoh wrote: post #53

Learned basically nothing here. So the FBI helped Twitter with content moderation? Who gives a crap.

So you think it is totally normal that FBI just helps a company to moderate stuff that is legal but doesn't comply with the company's Terms of Service?

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#133

Post by Waterluvian »

moralestapia wrote: post #52
paulpauper wrote: post #7

3. Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary. 4. Between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth. How is this constant? This is just 1 request every 7 days . I figured it would be more. Also, it's called the FBI. Their job is to investigate federal matters, which includes content on socia…

Once per week for three years is not constant to you? Weird.

It seems really tiny to me. With something like 30 million Americans on Twitter, the FBI only sent about one email a week to the person in charge of safety for that “town square.”

It’s still very interesting data. Now I want to know how this compares to the other big tech companies.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#134

Post by Georgelemental »

starkd wrote: post #26
memish wrote: post #6

"Federal intelligence and law enforcement reach into Twitter included the Department of Homeland Security, which partnered with security contractors and think tanks to pressure Twitter to moderate content." Is this a violation of the 1st Amendment or a way to skirt around it?

The problem was that it was entirely one way. This was not about dangerous misinformation. Many of the accounts they wanted suppressed were low-follower accounts making jokes. A ton of FBI agents paid to sway an election. Even if you are comfortable with the outcome of the election, what about future elections when they decide to back a candidate you do not support?

> The problem was that it was entirely one way.

No, government should not be policing speech on private platforms, period. At most, they should concern themselves with clearly illegal things—threats of violence, child pornongraphy, etc. It doesn't matter whether or not they are being "balanced".

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#135

Post by Apocryphon »

simpleblend wrote: post #118
jacquesm wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that the police have been vested with the authority to enforce the law? A bar owner that does not follow the instructions of the authorities is going to find their bar closed in short order because they have to comply with the law and with instructions by parties authorized to give them . To paraphrase the trope that those that don't like Twitter are free to create their own: if you don't like the way…

You do realize that it's not the job of the FBI to police 1A speech, especially about an election, right?

What is your definition of policing? If those FBI agents had been individual citizens who found misinformation and hit the report button, little different would have occurred. They got to cut the line, perhaps, but I doubt it would be much ahead of organizations like Microsoft, Stanford University, or the Archdiocese of Boston, to name some random bigwig organizations who could potentially complain to Twitter about something on Twitter.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#136

Post by simpleblend »

roflyear wrote: post #117
simpleblend wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very convenient that one side of the asile is always in a position to define what hate speech is. Neat trick, but it doesn't work anymore.

Not a trick, but yeah saying we should harm certain groups of people is hate speech.

Who is saying that people should be harmed? Seriously. Whoever you have in mind, if they're actually advocating violence against people then I'm in agreement with you. That's not cool and they shouldn't be doing that.

Are you referring to calling a trans person by their biological sex?

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#137

Post by jacquesm »

jcranmer wrote: post #121
jacquesm wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially one the size of Twitter, if anything it seems so low that I think they missed whole raft of such communications.

Another possibility I considered is if Twitter had been so uncooperative with prior requests that the government stopped bothering sending so many.

That's a possibility, but unlikely. Twitter execs were probably well aware of the long arm of the law and that their ability to stay in business to a large extent depended on staying on the right side of the line legally. That's precisely why you see them arguing about this to such a degree in these articles, they are well aware of their position vis-a-vis the law.

I've had some contact with the FBI over the years regarding stuff happening on one of my sites and they were - it has to be said - polite and arguing their case quite well, in no way did I feel like figuring out whether if I refused them what the next step would be, it felt like I would be the unreasonable party. But if they had made an unreasonable request I would have told them to fuck off.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#138

Post by kodyo »

time_to_smile wrote: post #74
kodyo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were going after political speech while ignoring actual crimes.

I'm seriously out of the loop on this, what were the actual crimes?

There are lots of crimes that happen in the USA that should probably take priority for the FBI over people posting jokes on Twitter.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#139

Post by ceejayoz »

tomohawk wrote: post #122
roflyear wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a violation of free speech to tell Twitter to take down illegal content.

What was illegal about the NYPost breaking a story about content found on Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop? If you have allegations of illegality, who determined that? Are you saying FBI should just say "Trust us, it's illegal - we don't need a jury or a judge"? Since when does the FBI just get to accuse people of things and take their rights away?

> What was illegal about the NYPost breaking a story about content found on Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop?

Who said it was illegal? The FBI? Twitter? Can you highlight a quote here?

Look at the sort of wording used in the examples in the thread.

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1603857573219819529 - "notifying you of the below accounts which may potentially constitute violations of Twitter's Terms of Service"

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