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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

#341

Post by tosc »

epivosism wrote: post #82
tosc wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So every troll and bot farm should be able to have each tweet judged by a jury?

Definitely not. I'm more looking for a gesture towards respecting our values, and a more open negotiation process for developing safe use for this kind of powerful control system. The fact that the administrators of the process on the twitter side were quite polarized politically makes people doubt its fairness, as does the fact that it was mostly done in secret. i.e. it was more of a China-style "the state doesn't l…

Why not just stop using Twitter? Who cares whether the FBI has its thumb on the scales or if it’s Elon Musk and his friends?

“The world’s digital town square” is a marketing slogan, and nothing more. If you instead accept that is simply just another way to sell eyeballs to advertisers, it’s easier to understand.

If we do need a digital town square, someone needs to build one. If it needs to have free speech protections, then the government needs to run it because they are the only ones who are restrained by the 2nd amendment.

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

#342

Post by acdha »

ilyt wrote: post #320
RobLach wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an abuse of power unless the FBI threatens repercussions. It seems like Twitter was more or less happy to oblige. I don't see what the hubbub is about.

For all we know it could be "you can play nicely and remove it when we tell you to "look into it", or we will look further into your company"

That’s possible but you’d expect to see some sign of it: internal emails or messages, legal advice, etc. when those threats were made or guidelines from the legal department about what things the regular trust and safety people can’t ignore.

What’s telling is that Musk’s people can’t find anything like that. If this was happening you’d think there’d be at least one example where someone is saying they have to yank something even though it’s not in violation of the rules. Instead, what we see is bending over backwards to keep people like Trump or Raichik from having the rules applied to them, with no mention of government pressure to yank them.

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

#343

Post by OrvalWintermute »

lovich wrote: post #225
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.

>… on behalf of the Democratic Party… This persecution complex the Republicans have promulgated is amazing with how widely believed it is. The republicans have controlled the reigns of power repeatedly over the past few decades and for a greater number of elections than you’d anticipate looking at the popular vote. The timeline the Twitter files is talking about was explicitly during Republican control and not someth…

[flagged]

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

#344

Post by antiterra »

XorNot wrote: post #251
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…

It's also an anthromorphization fallacy argument. "Twitter" is a company, not a private individual. If the FBI contacts "Twitter" then they're not talking to any one individual, in fact there's no requirement that be the same person at all. So Twitter cannot be threatened or threatened with implied threats - it's a limited liability corporation, there's no individual who can be overly inconvenienced or have any emoti…

You really think an AG or similar can’t have a little brunch with a C level executive resulting in a mandate on operational guidelines in response?

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

#345

Post by dukeofdoom »

lovich wrote: post #284
dukeofdoom wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would would anyone ride a bicycle when the simpler unicycle exists. Is that the crux of your argument?

A:have you never heard of Occam’s razor? B:do you really think that someone with a criminal history would never go to a protest? Are they simply 1 dimensional characters in a play who cant go to a protest or agree with its cause because they are “bad” people? They couldn’t go because even if they didn’t agree, it hurt the government they disliked? They couldn’t have gone because they had friends going and it was a th…

> do you really think that someone with a criminal history would never go to a protest?

1. Just because some criminals attend protests, doesn't mean that is it typical. All 3 people that Kyle shot had criminal backgrounds. What are the odds of this happening in a random sample of all protests? Clearly this wasn't your average protest. White criminals protesting for black people's civil rights?

2. It is important to note that everyone has the right to peacefully assemble and express their views, regardless of their criminal history. However this was not a peaceful protest, as property was being actively destroyed.

3. Criminal justice system forces plea bargains in return for cooperation. Even innocent people will plea bargain under duress. Threats of lengthy prison sentences or harsh treatment, or a parole officer revoking parole is how the system extorts cooperation. Becoming an informant is the only leverage someone like Joseph Rosenbaum may have had.

4. Let's assume you're right. They were there for civil rights protest. But that seems like a conflict in your own thinking. Since the core issue was governments abuse of civil rights. Which would be a giant conspiracy. Which you seem to wave away as being a possibility.

I gave specific examples where other government's intelligence agencies in the past were known to do send in agent provocateurs. Why do you think America is exceptional?

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

#346

Post by zosima »

RobLach wrote: post #240
lurquer wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not an abuse of power unless the FBI threatens repercussions. It seems like Twitter was more or less happy to oblige. I don't see what the hubbub is about.

Just reaching out in the name of FBI, tacitly threatens repercussions. The government can certainly make life difficult for the most law-abiding company or citizen if you get on the wrong side of it. And everyone knows this.

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

#347

Post by zosima »

prawn wrote: post #309
lurquer wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

”The FBI is not authorized to be ensuring private companies adhere to their policies.” This is not their goal. It is part of their method.

But not, in the way that it has been done, a legally sanctioned part of their method.

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

#348

Post by mhoad »

fallingknife wrote: post #340
mhoad wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d actually argue that the idea that the US tech ecosystem is almost exclusively ultra left leaning is the myth here. You’ve just presented that as some kind of a fact which is in stark contrast to thousands of threads filled with comments demonstrating the opposite.

Judging by the companies I've worked at and the people I know, it clearly is. This is biased towards the sv part of the industry, which is the largest concentration, though. It is also backed up by the data of who employees of large tech companies contribute to, which is overwhelmingly democrats.

I don’t think you seem to have any kind of understanding of what “ultra left leaning” means in this context.

You’re just repeating Fox News headlines here and pretending that it’s some black and white issue once again in spite of the overwhelming evidence in this very thread showing that not to be the case.

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

#349

Post by thrashh »

spamizbad wrote: post #246
ummonk wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is simply a fact that ISIS did successfully radicalize and recruit western teenagers via the internet. What if anything the government should do to prevent such recruitment is a matter of debate, but you shouldn't pretend such recruitment didn't happen.

> It is simply a fact that ISIS did successfully radicalize and recruit western teenagers via the internet. At no meaningful scale. If some dumbass wants to throw their life away in a foreign country we obviously should use all legal means to discourage that but part of being a liberal democracy means you do in fact have to give people enough freedom (rope) to hang themselves.

Just like how a bunch of random people paid for flight school classes with cash… oh wait, that ended in 9/11

No one knows what is gonna be credible, but damned if you do and damned if you don’t

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

#350

Post by OrvalWintermute »

Avshalom wrote: post #177
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.

Everything the FBI did here was under republican leadership. It's the fucking FBI, it's a fundamentally right wing organization that has always and will always be so.

> In District of Columbia County, DC 92.1% of the people voted Democrat

Washington DC is overwhelmingly a Democrat bastion, so, regardless of the political appointee SESers, the rank and file that live around DC are likely to have a specific political leaning.

Feel free to fact check this.

https://bestneighborhood.org/conservative-vs-liberal-map-was...

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