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The Twitter Files, Part Six

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Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#571

Post by UncleMeat »

mc32 wrote: post #293
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…

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…

> Imagine if you had the Trump admin suggesting whose accounts to review?

The highly publicized examples of taking down tweets with nude images of Hunter Biden happened when Trump was president. Is everybody ignoring that fact in this story and just assuming that the FBI is aligned with the democrats regardless of who runs the executive branch?

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#572

Post by fallingknife »

eganist wrote: post #506
benmmurphy wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very clearly an improper purpose. The FBI is trying to suppress 1A protected speech by reporting the tweets. The FBI is not allowed to suppress 1A protected speech. Imagine there was a button that would delete a Tweet and anyone could press it. Just because anyone could press the button would not make it legal for the FBI to press it.

> It is very clearly an improper purpose. The FBI is trying to suppress 1A protected speech by reporting the tweets. The FBI is not allowed to suppress 1A protected speech. Imagine there was a button that would delete a Tweet and anyone could press it. Just because anyone could press the button would not make it legal for the FBI to press it. I keep seeing this, and I'm confused every time I see it, because speech on…

A government whose representatives frequently rail against big tech companies, call for regulation, and drag executives in for hearings, "politely requests" something to be removed. It's pretty easy to see that Twitter might think that saying no has consequences.

Furthermore, the FBI is a police force. They have no business searching Twitter for content to remove unless that particular content is involved directly in the investigation of and filing of criminal charges.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#573

Post by marvin »

snowwrestler wrote: post #358

In a system of free speech, the government may also speak. I think that is where a lot of people are getting confused or hung up. They think the First Amendment means the government is not allowed to speak at all. That is incorrect. It prohibits "abridging the freedom of speech," in other words, forcibly restraining other people from speaking. So: it is legal for the FBI to call up a company and say what they think.…

"Hi man, yeah, it's the FBI. Yeah, we see here you fished a small lobster. Yeah, that's a felony, but don't worry about it. So hey, that thing you said on your blog, we don't like that. Yeah. Yeah, good. Talk to you later, take care man."

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#574

Post by Apocryphon »

fallingknife wrote: post #572
eganist wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is very clearly an improper purpose. The FBI is trying to suppress 1A protected speech by reporting the tweets. The FBI is not allowed to suppress 1A protected speech. Imagine there was a button that would delete a Tweet and anyone could press it. Just because anyone could press the button would not make it legal for the FBI to press it. I keep seeing this, and I'm confused every time I see it, because speech on…

A government whose representatives frequently rail against big tech companies, call for regulation, and drag executives in for hearings, "politely requests" something to be removed. It's pretty easy to see that Twitter might think that saying no has consequences. Furthermore, the FBI is a police force. They have no business searching Twitter for content to remove unless that particular content is involved directly in…

Funnily enough according to Taibbi, Twitter was being unusually obsequious when other companies, such as T-Mobile, weren't.

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1603890210252668928

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#575

Post by mhoad »

philwelch wrote: post #510
viro wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poe's Law. No one can tell your dumbass joke saying the election is on a Wednesday is a joke. Especially when it's right next to a bot account from eastern Europe that said the same thing.

I would expect the FBI to be able to tell whether or not that joke is criminal behavior within their legal jurisdiction.

You seem to have some incredibly strong opinions on how you think national security is supposed to work while not seeming to understand even the basic functionality of the role and remit of the FBI.

It’s ok to just say you don’t know sometimes.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#576

Post by nopenopenopeno »

UncleMeat wrote: post #564
the_gipsy wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about Newspeak? What you describe does not sound like what I think "orwellian" usually means.

The term "Orwellian" in describing language comes directly from the properties of Newspeak. "Orwellian" can mean other things when describing state power or surveillance technology, but in this context it is being used to describe language so the connection to Newspeak is the relevant one.

It's straightforwardly a broad term and you have no basis for your nonsense gatekeeping.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#577

Post by blitzar »

etchalon wrote: post #460
scifibestfi wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they contacting Twitter as the FBI in a backchannel to report potentially ToS offending tweets as opposed to the way we all report tweets to Twitter? Or indeed at all when they're not illegal tweets. Imagine Trump is in charge of the FBI.

Trump was in charge of the FBI when this happened, and its director (Wray) was appointed by him.

"The Government" in these revelations is the Donald J. Trump Administration.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#578

Post by blitzar »

lathiat wrote: post #490
rhaksw wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone who has been in a tech company knows that there is internal lingo that refers to features we devs make. But it's presented as being an "Orwellian language" The fact that you need different internal descriptors should be a red flag. All kinds of phrases get used like selective invisibility, visibility filtering, ranking, visible to self, reducing, deboosting, or disguising a gag. Each is a form of censorship,…

OK but at the same time Elon is proposing “freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach”. Which is basically the same thing, no?

> Elon is proposing “freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach”

While proposing that Shadowbanning is a tool of the Woke Mind Virus destroying humanity ...

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#579

Post by ABCLAW »

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.

Pop a few custodians worth of emails into Brainspace or any of the other tools to parse the information and you'll find that 300~ emails over 3 years is next to nothing (i'll double the number listed by Taibbi to be charitable). I'd expect that volume of contact in less than 2 days if there was a $100M construction project going on. And that's emails, not slack messages or other records. Just emails.

Additionally an email isn't an individual issue; an email thread almost always has multiple replies, forwards, etc. On the low end, if we assume only 4 emails per topic between the parties, that means the FBI only approached twitter 75ish times in three years, or 25 issues per year.

I can tell you from my time doing social media threat monitoring that I'd monitor and alert organizations of maybe 10-15 people per month for things like threatening to blow up buildings followed with active attempts to recruit people to support those efforts. And that's for relatively niche, unpoliticized, institutions.

If the FBI is only identifying and acting on 25 instances of active recruitment for crime on twitter per year, it doesn't indicate that they're strong-arming twitter. It means they're asleep at the wheel.

If the worst Taibbi can find is the FBI trying to take down a tweet trying to get republicans to vote on the wrong day, he's found fuck all.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#580

Post by fallingknife »

davidbarker wrote: post #508
threeseed wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also I think the idea is to try and attract conservatives from other apps e.g. TruthSocial. Good idea in theory except that many of those users aren't as well-behaved so to speak. And so the overall quality of the discourse has noticeably dropped since Musk took over.

I replied to a tweet that referenced Musk and Tesla, and simply mentioned that I sold my Tesla shares at the beginning of this week (and made a loss) because I didn't want any association with Musk any more. The replies I got from Musk fans were shockingly (maybe not so shockingly) vile. Turns out Musk sold his Tesla shares at the same time as I did — I wonder how those people replying to me would square that with th…

I'm certainly not going to defend the people insulting you, but suggesting that you sold for moral, and not financial, reasons comes off as very sanctimonious and invites that type of reply in a cesspit like Twitter.
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