The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Dec 25, 2022, 8:59 PM UTC

spamizbad wrote: post #159

mef wrote: post #9

I’ve been trying to read these Twitter files threads thoughtfully, and maybe it’s just a sign of the current average level of comfort with government involvement with social media platforms, but I’m generally not seeing much issue with the stuff being revealed. the worst thing about this particular thread seems like the govt agencies talking to Twitter about foreign influence are overreaching a bit (eg asking them to…

I feel like if someone made a bunch of threats on Twitter and then followed through with them people would be completely outraged why the FBI didn’t stop them. Anyway it’s interesting we are having this debate TODAY when after 9/11 and a decade later the adroit use of social media by ISIL the alphabet agencies were crawling all over the internet. Pandora’s box was opened years ago.

[deleted]

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

#262

Post by lovich » Sun, Dec 25, 2022, 9:00 PM UTC

dukeofdoom wrote: post #257

lovich wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The two people Kyle Rittenhouse shot, both had extensive criminal records. That's kind of amazing, that criminals would be such dedicated civil rights protestors. Simpler explanation is that FBI sent informants, or agent provocateurs. “People protesting against the government were criminals as defined by the government they were protesting against. It unbelievable that anyone who is a criminal could be involved in…

Joseph Don Rosenbaum, was imprisoned and made to register as a sex offender involved the molestation and rape of five separate boys. Yes, I'm skeptical that he was there because he was a civil rights advocate.

And he needn’t be to have been protesting against government power. Him being there for entirely self serving reasons is a much simpler explanation than that he was an fbi plant who was willing to put his life on the line for some sort of social manipulation as you have claimed.

You started with a view and appear to have worked your way backwards to justify it.

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

#263

Post by weaksauce » Sun, Dec 25, 2022, 9:00 PM UTC

antiterra wrote: post #125

mef wrote: post #9

I’ve been trying to read these Twitter files threads thoughtfully, and maybe it’s just a sign of the current average level of comfort with government involvement with social media platforms, but I’m generally not seeing much issue with the stuff being revealed. the worst thing about this particular thread seems like the govt agencies talking to Twitter about foreign influence are overreaching a bit (eg asking them to…

I am someone who didn’t see anything seriously objectionable in the Twitter files, but I do think it raised some questions worth thinking about. If the FBI messages you and says ‘hey… review this content and see if it’s violating your own policies,’ is that inherently an innocent request? I could see a world where ‘see if it violates your own policies’ is a code for extortion with plausible deniability. Could anythin…

https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/counterintelligence/foreign-...

they aren't exactly quiet about it.

> Private sector partnerships: The FBI considers strategic engagement with U.S. technology companies, including threat indicator sharing, to be important in combating foreign influence actors.

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

#264

Post by bbbbb5 » Sun, Dec 25, 2022, 9:02 PM UTC

philippejara wrote: post #244

root_axis wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the FBI messages you and says ‘hey… review this content and see if it’s violating your own policies,’ is that inherently an innocent request? I could see a world where ‘see if it violates your own policies’ is a code for extortion with plausible deniability. I've seen this hypothetical raised a lot but I don't find it very compelling. If the post isn't in violation of twitter's TOS then twitter has strong legal…

I'm not going to claim to be an american law expert, but when the agencies can just say "nope" to evidence against them in said court of law, it becomes hard to claim strong legal protections. I may be wrong and misunderstanding the law, but it does seem like that. And as a shot in the dark here I doubt it got any better after the patriot act. "Joseph P. Nacchio (born June 22, 1949 in Brooklyn, New York) is an Americ…

The government proved insider trading.

>I'm not going to claim to be an american law expert, but when the agencies can just say "nope" to evidence against them in said court of law, it becomes hard to claim strong legal protections. I may be wrong and misunderstanding the law, but it does seem like that. And as a shot in the dark here I doubt it got any better after the patriot act.

This is nonsense. In your example the court said "nope" to the defendant trying to push a conspiracy theory which could not possibly have exonerated him.

Here's a decent read on the Nacchio case without weird conspiracy theory bullshit https://truthonthemarket.com/2008/03/31/some-thoughts-on-the...

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

#265

Post by monetus » Sun, Dec 25, 2022, 9:03 PM UTC

cactusplant7374 wrote: post #243

pyuser583 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The process by which Trump was pushed off is concerning. It seems internal employee activism played a large role. That’s not good. While Twitter has a right as a private company to moderate based on internal popularity, it doesn’t build confidence. It seemed the professional moderators were saying “Trump is pushing the limits, but not crossing them” - the other employees were lobbying to get him banned. And they won.…

> The process by which Trump was pushed off is concerning. Trump tried to destroy our democracy. I’m not being hyperbolic. The evidence is all there and all from Trump’s mouth.

> tried to destroy our democracy

He is still trying; that fact hangs over these conversations like Damocles' sword.

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

#266

Post by acdha » Sun, Dec 25, 2022, 9:03 PM UTC

trentnix wrote: post #54

I have to say I’m astonished at the casual dismissal of the blatant lies of the previous Twitter regime, their clear election manipulation, and the governments involvement in drawing attention to utterly trivial social media activity. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks the governments attention on small, inconsequential accounts was all a backstop to justify the narratives they were feeding to the press about Russi…

> I’m astonished at the casual dismissal of the blatant lies of the previous Twitter regime, their clear election manipulation

Can you provide specific examples of these “blatant lies”? For example, Taibbi’s earlier dumps showed that the testimony to Congress was accurate.

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

#267

Post by trentnix » Sun, Dec 25, 2022, 9:04 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #266

trentnix wrote: post #54

I have to say I’m astonished at the casual dismissal of the blatant lies of the previous Twitter regime, their clear election manipulation, and the governments involvement in drawing attention to utterly trivial social media activity. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks the governments attention on small, inconsequential accounts was all a backstop to justify the narratives they were feeding to the press about Russi…

> I’m astonished at the casual dismissal of the blatant lies of the previous Twitter regime, their clear election manipulation Can you provide specific examples of these “blatant lies”? For example, Taibbi’s earlier dumps showed that the testimony to Congress was accurate.

“We don’t shadow ban”

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

#268

Post by michaelmrose » Sun, Dec 25, 2022, 9:05 PM UTC

lurquer wrote: post #166

acdha wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I could see a world where ‘see if it violates your own policies’ is a code for extortion with plausible deniability. This is possible but I would expect people to look for evidence of it before presenting it as a fact. Something like that would show up in internal communications either directly or as people talking like they didn’t really have a choice, or as a trend of tweets being taken down for reasons which don…

The US is a limited govt. No govt agency can do anything for which it isn’t explicitly authorized. The FBI is not authorized to be ensuring private companies adhere to their policies. If a agent is being paid — with taxpayer dollars - to check on Twitter and give it ‘advice’ on how to run itself, that agent is acting outside the scope of his authority. It’s an abuse and misuse of power. It doesn’t matter what the ‘gr…

You have constructed a theory of how government works from whole cloth having nothing whatsoever to do with reality. Limited government means what powers not explicitly granted to government belong to the people. This is to say government can only acquire new powers via legislation or amendment of the constitution it doesn't mean that they are for forbidden from acting beyond the most limited mandate you imagine. No law is therein broken because you feel it's out of scope because the limitation is your invention.

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

#269

Post by chaosbolt » Sun, Dec 25, 2022, 9:06 PM UTC

I still remember how I said the government is telling social media websites and most of faang to censor things like 2 years ago and got downvoted here, it was so obvious a child would see it but somehow most people here blocked that part of their brain so they don't get labeled as a "conspiracy theorist".

We kept running that propaganda about freedom and how authoritarian regimes are evil so much that I for one believed it and thought everyone shared the belief, then saw people ARGUING against free speech and other things I thought were solved problems in first world countries.

The US for example is a country that invaded another country for oil and sold it to its people as a war for freedom, and called Iraqis who fought back terrorists, and now calls Ukrainians who fight back heroes, oh and both the US and the UK made fun of us for not joining their invasion (France).

In my opinion, all types of ideas should be allowed to battle freely and trust that this will drive us forwards, we do it with marketing, everything is allowed to the point people don't even know if they're buying things because they want to or because they're controlled into doing it, just do it with ideas as well, let everyone present their case online and offline and let the opposition argue against it logically or emotionally or whatever, people know what's best for them it's the first principle of a democracy, as soon as you start saying well X-speech will make people do terrible things which are bad for them so we should ban it you stop being a democracy in my opinion.

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

#270

Post by lovich » Sun, Dec 25, 2022, 9:06 PM UTC

colpabar wrote: post #241

lovich wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t like that people aren’t as open minded as you’d like, so you flipped on your values and now try to flag anything you disagree with(i.e. political content)? Am I misinterpreting your comment?

I think dang kinda just looks the other way because he knows people want to talk politics, but it's literally the first thing in the "off topic" section of the guidelines. > What to Submit > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. > Off-To…

>> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

>The exception clause is "unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon, but according to all the top comments on the twitter files threads, "this is nothing new".

You said you were flagging all of political content and then brought it back to Twitter files specifically to justify it not hitting the exception clause.

For me the Twitter files content themselves aren’t interesting, but the effect of the what seems like obviously non interesting content getting so many people up in arms just because a billionaire is claiming it’s bad is an interesting new phenomenon.

I understand this type of content might put you in a bad mood, but given that you weren’t flagging the content until you felt

> The response to the twitter files was the slap in the face I needed to finally understand that.

Kinda feels like you’re trying to engage in the same type of censorship that bothers you.