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The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

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Re: The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

#71

Post by goostavos »

elurg wrote: post #19

The argument that "it's not censorship if a private company does it" was always weak. What these revelations show is that a lot of so-called moderation was done at the explicit direction of government employees. How do you defend this? "it's not censorship if the private company willingly complies with government requests"? A refusal by twitter would have had quite high costs for the company. The cooperation between…

>How do you defend this?

From this thread, it seems by just going "pfft... no big deal."

As long as there's a layer of abstraction ("I didn't kill him. The bullets and the fall did") and it's applying to speech we generally don't care for (misinformation, "hate speech", etc..), then I guess we're cool with it?

It's tough not to be cynical at times. A decade after PRISM, the government controlling speech indirectly via "polite suggestions" mostly just fills me with similar feelings of "no big deal." Not because it isn't, but because it's expected.

Re: The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

#72

Post by machina_ex_deus »

monsecchris wrote: post #13

The people trying to minimise every intelligence agency working with every tech company on behalf of the Democratic Party are the same people calling this a dangerous far right conspiracy theory not long ago.

Schrodinger's conspiracy: in superposition of being a dangerous conspiracy theory and well known fact everyone knew and nothing interesting.

Of course, the status of a Schrodinger's conspiracy is only known when the truth is revealed and the conspiracy is measured.

When the truth becomes known, it is retconned to have always been known.

Re: The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

#73

Post by ceejayoz »

Fellshard wrote: post #69
ceejayoz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "these are Russian disinfo, eradicate them" The actual wording, of course, was this sort of thing: "FBI San Francisco is notifying you of the below accounts which may potentially constitute violations of Twitter's Terms of Service for any action or inaction deemed appropriate within Twitter policy..." ( https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-employees-notified-twit... )

If the FBI sends such an email, there is a tacit threat of criminal liability.

That's really not how criminal liability works.

Re: The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

#74

Post by epivosism »

lawn wrote: post #44
asynchronous wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Maybe instead of just repeating that we should re-read them, you should point out exactly what is so aggrevating, and where in the files you're referring to? Simply repeating things is a propaganda and brainwashing technique.

jumping in here, but what makes me worried is a strong power being used without proper controls, auditing, and system design.

From a system perspective it looks like the US Gov had elevated access to ban people, and had opportunity and reason to misuse it.

The initial rationale for the US Gov already admits this as a legit reason to ban foreign agents - "undue power/misleading influence". I hold that same view, but also consider that malicious elements in the US Government are also something to worry about, so I'd like their own power to shape the discussion to be limited and tracked, too.

Re: The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

#75

Post by slenocchio »

phphphphp wrote: post #58
monsecchris wrote: post #13

The people trying to minimise every intelligence agency working with every tech company on behalf of the Democratic Party are the same people calling this a dangerous far right conspiracy theory not long ago.

If any party was responsible for this FBI behaviour, surely it would be the party that was in power at the time? The Republican party were in control in 2020.

Not necessarily. The FBI doesn't change much from administration to administration, no?

Re: The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

#76

Post by acdha »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #61
cyberphobe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, these people are just desperately trying to generate outrage over nothing. It’s really really dumb. No need to give them too much thought

Banning DMs talking about true events seems like something reasonable to be outraged about.

It happened for a few hours when the story was flagged as hacked materials (just like they’d do for, say, someone’s non-consensual nudes). Twitter did that on their own and removed it shortly later after their internal discussion agreed that it wasn’t a violation (they took down the tweets reposting actual nudes, not the media coverage).

Re: The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

#77

Post by TylerLives »

froggertoaster wrote: post #33
asynchronous wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

It's a display of power. "Yeah, we're censoring you, so what? Everyone knew this already, and it's a good thing". I'm not sure what the people who decided to publish this were expecting. Who knows though, maybe in the long run it will have some consequences.

Re: The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

#79

Post by [deleted] »

akira2501 wrote: post #49
stefan_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh yes, all those tweets the FBI reported that Matt forgot to tell you were straight up revenge porn. I really wonder why they were deleted! If only he could have found out using, like, the Web Archive, as many others did afterwards. (It was the Trump government FBI, by the way. In case your timeline is a bit mixed up?)

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

#80

Post by ceejayoz »

slenocchio wrote: post #75
phphphphp wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If any party was responsible for this FBI behaviour, surely it would be the party that was in power at the time? The Republican party were in control in 2020.

Not necessarily. The FBI doesn't change much from administration to administration, no?

Trump dismissed the FBI Director and picked the new one in 2017. That's a fairly significant change.
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