331–340 of 965 posts
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Twitter isn't a media outlet; content moderation isn't censorship; routine communications over email aren't "behind closed doors"; suggestions that Twitter investigate certain accounts carry no legal weight.
Content moderation at the request of the government is the very definition of censorship.
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Can you outline a scheme that would satisfy your needs for transparency while at the same time not result in compromising active investigations, tipping off the perps that they are under surveillance and so on? Because I don't see a practical way to achieve that ideal that would still work. Having been on the receiving end of such requests I was pretty happy all of them were made in a confidential manner, it saved ev…
The problem is that there is this assumption that the FBI is working in good faith. There is a mountain of evidence that they have arbitrarily acted in the interests of the ruling class and not within the confines of the constitution. Just look at COINTELPRO for the most egregious example. Then there's Waco, Ruby Ridge, the campaign finance corruption, infiltration of latin American governments, and modern operations…
But none of that seems to have any bearing on what happened here at Twitter, which is so far - to put it mildly, given the amount of noise made by Musk et al - underwhelming.
If you feel differently then that's fine but personally I think there are far bigger transgressions by the FBI than requesting that Twitter take down objectionable content and rabble rousers.
In NL Twitter was successfully weaponized by our most despicable - outright pro-Nazi - political party and the aftereffects are still felt today. Compared to what happened in the US it obviously pales but you have to wonder how the 6th of January 2020 would have ended if it weren't for the good contacts between the FBI and Twitter.
Not all such contacts are bad.
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…
In an earlier release they also mention regular meetings (weekly?). That was not the only guy being contacted by the FBI either. Regardless, while you may call this “underwhelming” it’s actually hard proof of illegal activity. The FBI cannot censor people, period. That’s fascism and illegal in the US, per multiple Supreme Court rulings. This effectively gives trump, et al a direct path to a lawsuit against the federa…
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.ycombinat…
Nobody has demonstrated any difference between Twitter's description of its own policies and the actual facts. They said they did not shadowban (prevent a user's posts from appearing to other users without their knowledge) and Taibbi and Weiss have confirmed that such functionality does not appear to exist in Twitter.
There's similarly no evidence that Musk's child was "physically threatened" other than his own say-so, and he's a known liar.
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Looks like in this election their meddling was bipartisan, one of Taibbi's very own examples was jokingly intended to mislead GOP voters. https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1603857581503569929
Not everything is a partisan. The FBI should not be asking Twitter to take down accounts. Period. These accounts he cited were low-follower accounts that were doing nothing illegal or immoral. This is a threat to everyone, no matter what side of the fence you are on. How is that so difficult to understand?
Have you considered the real consequences of this? If the FBI for example finds accounts linked to child exploitation, drug trafficking, or terrorism; should they not ask Twitter to take down those accounts? If they find accounts linked to Russian, Chinese, or Iranian farms who are using it to amplify certain messages in order to try to destabilize the US, should they just say hey that’s fine?
Further, from what I read of the tweets, it appears what those accounts wrote may have been illegal after all.
Here’s a quote from an FBI website:
> Report potential election crimes—such as disinformation about the manner, time, or place of voting—to the FBI.
I’m not sure exactly what laws those are referring to, but it appears deceiving people about voting may be illegal. So although you and I and other smart people might read their tweets and think “haha!”, not everyone may read it as a joke.
It is the government’s job to protect the rights of its citizens. Freedom of speech is not absolute (slander, libel, threats, yelling fire in a crowded theatre, etc.), and in this case I think it’s reasonable that one’s right to freedom of speech shouldn’t supersede another’s right to vote.
A Twitter ban is certainly less damaging than criminal charges over whatever statute it violates.
There's an odd new risk for startups: someone buys your company and then releases all the internal documents with hostile intent. The Twitter stuff that's come out now has been pretty uninteresting, surprising and often basically telling a story of people doing the best job they could in difficult circumstances. But if you are at a small company consider what all could be acquired and used to defame your employees an…
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What would a bureau investigating crimes have any involvement in sifting through accounts looking for ToS violations? Are they the TOS violation cops ala BSA? What other companies were they helping in hunting down ToS violators? This is not their scope of work and it has the appearance of impropriety by suggesting accounts that should be reviewed for suspension. Imagine if you had the Trump admin suggesting whose acc…
That's not how it works. How it works is that they come across something that is either illegal or that could snowball into a problem and it happens to violate the TOS. This gives them enough grounds to ask for a removal. If it isn't against the TOS but they feel that they need to have it removed anyway they'll go by a judge and get an order, or, if contact is good they might first ask you politely.
What crimes are vaccine sceptics guilty of? Given they had some sex crimes going on on the platform, where the mounds of those ToS review requests?
In the examples, are they alleging the potential crime or just saying, hey, guys, it looks like these accounts may be violating your ToS, can you take a look?
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I'll give you one example: I was called up on my cell phone in the middle of the night by the police in NL that a person was attempting suicide on camera on our website. We fished their IP number out of the logs and passed it on which allowed LE (after contact with the relevant ISP) + medical assistance to get there in record time and help the person who ended up surviving and being quite happy that their attempt had…
> The only reason people want to know about this stuff is some kind of morbid curiosity. Nobody has a problem with the FBI doing takedown requests for that kind of content. It's about political content (labelled "civic misinformation") on accounts like @RSBNetwork. The FBI isn't supposed to be taking sides and potentially influencing elections by encouraging social media companies to ban accounts of political actors.…