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The Twitter Files, Part Six

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Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#191

Post by jacquesm »

simpleblend wrote: post #166
jacquesm wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any time the FBI “asks” a company to do something it’s immediately a form of coercion. Strong disagree. I've been on the receiving side of many such requests and all of them came with reasons and citations to back up the request. I've never had a single LE request (including some from the FBI even though we were located in Toronto, Canada and in IJmuiden, NL meaning that we could have refused them simply on account…

1. We're not talking about your company which probably had a different context. We're talking about the FBI telling Twitter to silence opinions and facts. 2. Whether you agree with the LE request has no influence on whether it's legal or not.

> 1. We're not talking about your company which probably had a different context. We're talking about the FBI telling Twitter to silence opinions and facts.

The context was quite comparable: live conversations, messages both public and private.

> 2. Whether you agree with the LE request has no influence on whether it's legal or not.

Twitter had an extensive legal team before Musk fired them all, I'm pretty sure they were well capable of determining which requests were legal and which were not.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#192

Post by kodyo »

_kbh_ wrote: post #64
kodyo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The corporation and the state partnering to censor speech.

So the Trump administration then? because we haven't seen anything to indicate that the Biden administration has asked for things to be censored, only that the Trump administration made requests whilst he was still in power.

Are you under the impression that the FBI was acting on behalf of Trump during his presidency?

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#193

Post by jacquesm »

Brendinooo wrote: post #147
sleepybrett wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's literally none of those things. The FBI contacted trust and safety and said 'Hey we have concerns about these tweets'. Twitter decided to take them down in some cases. Who is corrupted here? Twitter for taking reports and then deciding how to react to them? The FBI for finding misinformation that might lead to crazies creating mass casualty events? The FBI at no time FORCED twitter to do anything. So it's not vi…

I know there’s no easy answer to the question, but how can you be sure we’re not in “will no one rid me of this turbulent priest” territory here?

Because we can all read?

All these installments have done is confirm over-and-over again that this was pretty much the normal and expected kind of interaction.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#194

Post by ShredKazoo »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #3

This is the height of hypocrisy. Everything the "twitter files" have disclosed so far is in line with what most people expected was happening, but Musk's censorship of the platform has been far more egregious than anything that came before. This isn't to defend the actions that Twitter took, which were arguably partisan in some cases, but it's difficult to make the case that Twitter wasn't making a best effort to cur…

>This is the height of hypocrisy. Everything the "twitter files" have disclosed so far is in line with what most people expected was happening

Twitter repeatedly denied that right-wing users were being shadowbanned. That turned out to be false.

A month ago, someone on HN patronizingly explained to me that Twitter's moderation was "primarily dictated by building an advertiser friendly platform": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33652282 The Twitter files have made it clear that this user's claim, "Twitter's moderation policies weren't primarily dictated by their political views", was false.

If Twitter's moderation was primarily about staying advertiser-friendly, they would've announced their shadowbans publicly, so advertisers would know they were safe advertising on Twitter as a platform. There wouldn't be any interesting revelations to be had.

As for doxxing, I see rules against doxxing as pro free speech. Doxxing doesn't contribute meaningfully to the public discourse. It just intimidates people into silence, interfering with speech exercise.

Free speech is a subtle concept: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/01/is-it-possible-to-have... A ban on doxxing advances free speech as I understand it. You're welcome to disagree, but I don't think my position is unreasonable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33995312

>he has doxxed critics in the past in much more damaging ways

Can you point to a case of, say, Yoel Roth's real-time location staying up on Twitter even after the recent rule change which prevents doxxing?

It appears to me, based on the article you linked, that Yoel fled his home in the wake of ordinary criticism. Not doxxing specifically. Ordinary criticism kind of has to be allowed -- it's essential for our democracy that e.g. citizens are allowed to criticize politicians. But doxxing is where I draw the line.

It seems this is why Mastodon was banned: https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/15/elon-musk-suspends-mastodo...

Elon is far from perfect. But his child was physically threatened, and he responded by implementing restrictions which I consider to be correct anyways (as I stated -- doxxing is anti-free speech IMO). I think people are making more of this than it deserves. It's good if you have a CEO who's capable of changing their mind.

In any case, whatever happened to the old "Twitter is a private company, they can do what they want" argument? Right-wingers aren't the only hypocrites here.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#195

Post by Apocryphon »

simpleblend wrote: post #136
roflyear wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Why does your mind instinctively go to that example?

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#196

Post by russdill »

starkd wrote: post #25
mikece wrote: post #4

Aside from people in tech and the MAGA crowd, does anyone actually care about the "Twitter Files" stuff?

You may not mind it because you're side won. But that is incredibly short-sided. What if the FBI decides to sway an election to a candidate you don't support sometime in the future? See where this is going?

I fully support such communications from the government entities being made public to the full extent possible, just as with DMCA requests.

But just take a step back for a second. Are you arguing that the FBI headed by a Trump appointee strong armed a very liberal silicon valley tech company into rigging the election for Biden? What?

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#197

Post by jacquesm »

kadoban wrote: post #174
jacquesm wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FBI would upon such a refusal then most likely go by a court to see if they could get a judge to sign off on an order and those you refuse at your peril.

So the harm to Twitter in refusing the original request is zero, right? There's no "stick" if the downside of refusing is just them asking a different way that you may have to actually listen to.

That depends on the request. If the request was made about something that they felt wasn't legal then they could refuse it, then the ball would be in the court of law enforcement to decide whether or not to escalate (go by a judge) or to drop the matter.

I'm pretty sure all of those have happened over the course of Twitter's life span, but obviously those do not make for sexy releases so I doubt we'll hear from them.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#198

Post by [deleted] »

sleepybrett wrote: post #101
joshuaheard wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's corruption. It's a violation of the First Amendment. It's a dangerous collusion between state and media. We should all be concerned.

It's literally none of those things. The FBI contacted trust and safety and said 'Hey we have concerns about these tweets'. Twitter decided to take them down in some cases. Who is corrupted here? Twitter for taking reports and then deciding how to react to them? The FBI for finding misinformation that might lead to crazies creating mass casualty events? The FBI at no time FORCED twitter to do anything. So it's not vi…

[deleted]

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#199

Post by Izkata »

jacquesm wrote: post #76
simpleblend wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, enlighten me. How is this anything but the Government doing an end run around 1A?

It's a request, not an order, it's the FBI, not congress passing a law. I'm the former owner/operator of ww.com, in its day a pretty large video streaming community, think 'twitch' but many years earlier. We had fairly regular contact with the police to ensure that our members were operating within the law, and some of them repeatedly decided to test where the line was. As responsible operator of a large web property…

> We had fairly regular contact with the police to ensure that our members were operating within the law, and some of them repeatedly decided to test where the line was.

Key words: "the law". That's not what was going on here.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#200

Post by pcwalton »

simpleblend wrote: post #67
pcwalton wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the most part, the US government is allowed to ask anyone to voluntarily remove anything (a few limits such as those set by the establishment clause notwithstanding). That's what happened here.

If you run a social media company and the government tells you, "Hey, we want these people banned", and you ban them, is the company "voluntarily" choosing to ban them? Or are they doing it under duress? Of course it's the latter. The US gov. has been threatening to take down social media companies for years. Do you think Twitter really wanted to upset them now?

> If you run a social media company and the government tells you, "Hey, we want these people banned", and you ban them, is the company "voluntarily" choosing to ban them?

Yes? When the CDC says "we recommend you get vaccinated against the flu", and you get vaccinated, you're acting voluntarily, despite the government recommendation.

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