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They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

waqas.xyz

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Re: They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

#121

Post by tsol »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #30

I am sorry for the responses I am seeing on HN. People with cushy lives who've likely never faced similar danger seem to just not really get it. I will say that your framing is one that most Westerners will have trouble taking seriously. It might go over better to document known cases where this pattern occurred and show the similarities. Walk people through it like they are five, so to speak. I know it's hard to do…

It's strange though, when it involves lgbtq or politics they suddenly understand why Twitter may need to police certain kinds of conversations. But when the actors involved are foreign, suddenly those high minded ideals turn into ambiguity and 'Twitter understandably doesn't want to take a side'. Yet last month I was hearing on this very forum that inaction is indeed pushing a side

Re: They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

#122

Post by tsimionescu »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #119
tsimionescu wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why do you think Pakistani Twitter moderators would feel empowered to take down tweets by government officials willing to torture and murder? The request for Twitter to help in this case only makes sense if it assumed it will be taken by moderators living outside of Pakistan, who don't have to fear government reprisal for their actions.

Hiring locals instead of operating from afar is potentially a means to establish a de facto negotiating position. "I'm sorry, Pakistan, if you can't behave better, we will have no choice but to evacuate our local offices full of relatively well paid jobs and take our toys and go home. Feel free to explain that to your people however you so wish." Money talks.

Twitter is nowhere near big enough to hire enough people in a country like Pakistan to matter as much as control of public media does - especially to a fascist government. Not to mention, knowing how such agencies operate, I would bet anything that a good few of any such moderators would be Pakistani secret services agents.

Re: They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

#123

Post by tsol »

Asooka wrote: post #26
ricardobeat wrote: post #20

I can see where he’s coming from, but Twitter is a media company. They are not directly responsible for anyone’s safety and have no reason to take down content that isn’t a direct threat or clear defamation. That’s the police or justice system’s job. An unfortunate situation but he is barking at the wrong tree it seems.

Twitter has already booted former president of the USA Donald Trump due to similar conduct. As they say, with great power, comes great responsibility. Twitter have shown themselves willing to wield their power for the good of the USA, thus they should also accept their responsibility for the good of all mankind.

Exactly. People are acting like the conversation here for the past year+ hasn't revolved around social media companies taking responsibility for the negative effects of their products

Re: They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

#124

Post by notch656a »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #53
MichaelCollins wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a very low opinion of twitter and certainly wish they'd do a better job. But the premise of twitter as a shield against state-sponsored kidnapping or murder seems flimsy at best.

That's not the premise. This kind of bullshit is exactly how disempowered groups get painted into a corner. Sexual assault doesn't typically begin with violent rape. It ends there. It begins with a million small forms of disrespect. Political crap follows the same pattern. If you think it doesn't fucking matter, what the hell do you care how this goes? It matters to him. If you don't care, what's wrong with saying "T…

Lol, disrespect is the beginning of rape? By that logic, twitter should censor anyone who says anything someone could interpret anything as disrespectful. Criticizing a bad government could be considered disrespectful by the government officials, would you call that starting a rape? And by that same logic, if someone just grabs someone and goes for it, previously being respectful in every way, somehow it isn't rape because it didn't begin with these lesser acts of disrespect.

Re: They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

#125

Post by NavinF »

waqasx wrote: post #90
notch656a wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article reads like an asylum claim. Hopefully they already have permanent legal permanent residence somewhere else, if not they will likely by applying for asylum. It could be the whole thing was written expressly for the purpose of asylum. Going back to Pakistan at this point would mean basically picking how you want to go out. Either by defending your life in one last moment before a corrupt government takes y…

i am not. i find this accusation disgusting. i do not have a problem, legally, in staying here. my problem is exactly because i WANT to go back and not face any violence.

> go back and not face any violence

Seems kinda unrealistic after the gov’t accused you of inciting violence.

Re: They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

#126

Post by DoreenMichele »

tsimionescu wrote: post #122
DoreenMichele wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiring locals instead of operating from afar is potentially a means to establish a de facto negotiating position. "I'm sorry, Pakistan, if you can't behave better, we will have no choice but to evacuate our local offices full of relatively well paid jobs and take our toys and go home. Feel free to explain that to your people however you so wish." Money talks.

Twitter is nowhere near big enough to hire enough people in a country like Pakistan to matter as much as control of public media does - especially to a fascist government. Not to mention, knowing how such agencies operate, I would bet anything that a good few of any such moderators would be Pakistani secret services agents.

No, but they could roll out a pilot program for establishing local moderating offices and as part of that program establish a list of qualifying criteria for where they are willing to place such.

They could do something akin to what McDonald's did for the beef industry. It adopted Temple Grandin's list of best practices as its standard and this got adopted by the beef industry because McDonald's buys so much beef.

Currently, these big companies typically have a predatory relationship to such countries, so such countries have no motivation to cooperate. Make them trade partners and things begin to change.

Re: They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

#127

Post by tsol »

jongjong wrote: post #104

In the new (increasingly lawless) world order, not having any enemies is going to be a big advantage. It's a good time to make amends and disassociate from extremist or nationalist groups.

You'd better also drop race, ideologies, and beliefs as well. People will always find something to make you their enemy

Re: They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

#128

Post by pessimizer »

It's politically impossible for Twitter to start censoring people who are declaring without evidence that other people are on the payroll of a foreign government or organization and guilty of the capital crimes of espionage and treason.

It's far more likely that they'll start labeling tweets with "This tweet was posted by a probable agent of a foreign government for the purpose of sowing discord."

Re: They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

#129

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #37
dcow wrote: post #14

This really sucks to hear. What’s unclear to me is whether Twitter is being negligent or abnormal here or whether this is just shitty world politics unfolding partly on Twitter. Twitter is being used by both sides to fight over a narrative. Nothing new in that respect. The author doesn't really propose a solution other than Twitter essentially siding with him and take (what appears to me to be) a political stance. Of…

Twitter is being used by both sides to fight over a narrative. Nothing new in that respect. It's a narrative that could get one side kidnapped, tortured, imprisoned for years and potentially killed. I've seen previous incidents where Facebook and other platforms were nightmare fuel for locals and the platform didn't even have moderators who spoke the local language for purposes of reviewing the issue. These platforms…

But isn't it more complicated than that? A Western journalist falsely accused of being an agent for a foreign power wouldn't get much help from Twitter either - I'm familiar with a couple who are routinely accused of being Russian agents.

I get why this guy wants more, and I can understand the perspective that Twitter has to take into account the context of local countries and which kinds of speech might be dangerous. But can Twitter really adopt an explicit corporate policy that Pakistan isn't allowed to have as much free speech as the rest of the world because it's too violent?

Re: They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

#130

Post by pessimizer »

deltree7 wrote: post #61
DoreenMichele wrote: post #30

I am sorry for the responses I am seeing on HN. People with cushy lives who've likely never faced similar danger seem to just not really get it. I will say that your framing is one that most Westerners will have trouble taking seriously. It might go over better to document known cases where this pattern occurred and show the similarities. Walk people through it like they are five, so to speak. I know it's hard to do…

People with cushy lives, working for some mid-level corp writing CRUD apps used by 20 people, also have never faced the challenges of moderation at million people scale. So, it kind of cuts both ways

Yet somehow they still have the bandwidth to go after people for misgendering or for saying that they're happy that someone died.
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