The Twitter Files • Hacker News Board

Re: The Twitter Files

#131

Post by avemg » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 1:57 AM UTC

Dig1t wrote: post #118

andreyk wrote: post #108

It does not seem like this really exposed any new information - Twitter publicly justified its actions as being about its hacked data policy back when this all happened ( https://www.nationalreview.com/news/twitter-cites-hacked-mat... ). All this shows is some internal disagreement as to whether that was the right call. By the way, Facebook also suppressed the news story citing its misinformation policy ( https://www…

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598827602403160064 Biden team asking Twitter to "handle" tweets they don't like. This rubs me the wrong way, nobody in government should be telling Twitter to remove speech.

It should please you to hear that the Biden team was not the government at the time.

Re: The Twitter Files

#132

Post by oska » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 1:57 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #58

slickdork wrote: post #41

Anyone have the 'long form' of this to read? Twitter is such a terrible way to read long content. Aside: I really enjoyed Taibbi's few books, but haven't respected his online opinions since around 2016. I'm not surprised Elon chose Taibbi to 'break this story' considering what 'side' Taibbi's been on -- he's had a pretty clear bias, but I'm willing to check out more of his reporting here in long form.

Just wait until he's done and then tweet '@threadreaderapp unroll' (or look for replies to people who already placed the request. You'll get a link toa. single-page version.

I'm pretty sure that he'll write this up as a proper article too.

Edit : just listened to the podcast episode he linked at the end of the tweet thread and it appears from what he's saying there that he might only write about it on twitter. (Perhaps for legal indemnity reasons?)

Re: The Twitter Files

#133

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 1:57 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #82

whateveracct wrote: post #53

HN is a weird place. Feels like the loudest political voices are alt-right-adjacent nowadays. Just yesterday I had to wade through Q-level talk about Balenciaga being the true villain in society (one user literally said the Latin translation of Balenciaga had occult meanings). It's just so surprising to see Tucker Carlson's outrage machine consistently make rounds in HM comments. I guess he recovered from that Jon St…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33838941

[deleted]

Re: The Twitter Files

#134

Post by cwkoss » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 1:58 AM UTC

Dig1t wrote: post #118

andreyk wrote: post #108

It does not seem like this really exposed any new information - Twitter publicly justified its actions as being about its hacked data policy back when this all happened ( https://www.nationalreview.com/news/twitter-cites-hacked-mat... ). All this shows is some internal disagreement as to whether that was the right call. By the way, Facebook also suppressed the news story citing its misinformation policy ( https://www…

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598827602403160064 Biden team asking Twitter to "handle" tweets they don't like. This rubs me the wrong way, nobody in government should be telling Twitter to remove speech.

Yeah, the rest of the thread was mostly uninteresting documentation of what everyone already knew.

I want to know more about what 'handling' tweets means, whether all 'handle' requests were accepted or in which instances did twitter push back, etc.

Re: The Twitter Files

#135

Post by starkd » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 1:58 AM UTC

partiallypro wrote: post #103

Politicians should never be able to directly influence the moderation of social media items they find politically unfavorable; I don't care which party does it. I can understand something that involves direct threats/calls to violence, but that's about it. Anyone that has used Twitter for some time knows the moderation was often not all that even, not just by pure political means but also threats of violence etc were…

Exactly. The fact so many don't understand this is discouraging. Just because you support a particular candidate shouldn't mean it is ok, because it could very easily go against you on another occasion. There needs to be a uniform standard and accountability for this.

Re: The Twitter Files

#136

Post by rufusroflpunch » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 1:58 AM UTC

Dig1t wrote: post #118

andreyk wrote: post #108

It does not seem like this really exposed any new information - Twitter publicly justified its actions as being about its hacked data policy back when this all happened ( https://www.nationalreview.com/news/twitter-cites-hacked-mat... ). All this shows is some internal disagreement as to whether that was the right call. By the way, Facebook also suppressed the news story citing its misinformation policy ( https://www…

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598827602403160064 Biden team asking Twitter to "handle" tweets they don't like. This rubs me the wrong way, nobody in government should be telling Twitter to remove speech.

I think it's a blatant first amendment violation. Twitter are acting as agents to state to silence individuals. The federal government cannot pick and choose who gets to speak.

Re: The Twitter Files

#137

Post by laborcontract » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 1:58 AM UTC

anoonmoose wrote: post #130

Dig1t wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598827602403160064 Biden team asking Twitter to "handle" tweets they don't like. This rubs me the wrong way, nobody in government should be telling Twitter to remove speech.

1- Biden wasn't in government, he was running for office. Private citizen at the time. 2- They weren't telling, they were asking, and if Twitter feels like they were told, they can sue the government for violating their First Amendment rights.

picking apart semantics is not sufficient to allay concerns expressed in parent

Re: The Twitter Files

#138

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 1:58 AM UTC

Dig1t wrote: post #118

andreyk wrote: post #108

It does not seem like this really exposed any new information - Twitter publicly justified its actions as being about its hacked data policy back when this all happened ( https://www.nationalreview.com/news/twitter-cites-hacked-mat... ). All this shows is some internal disagreement as to whether that was the right call. By the way, Facebook also suppressed the news story citing its misinformation policy ( https://www…

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598827602403160064 Biden team asking Twitter to "handle" tweets they don't like. This rubs me the wrong way, nobody in government should be telling Twitter to remove speech.

[deleted]

Re: The Twitter Files

#139

Post by mpweiher » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 1:59 AM UTC

paulgb wrote: post #95

Dig1t wrote: post #16

I'm a moderate, not a Democrat and not a Republican. I think people on the left have a blind spot here, that the more suppression they use, the more division they create, and the more moderates and people on the right grow to resent them. I would have identified as a Democrat on pretty much every issue, but this authoritarian suppression of speech and ideas has just pushed me away from that side completely. At this p…

Is there a smoking gun here that points the blame to any officials representing the party, as opposed to bad decisions made by twitter employees on their own bias? I find the tweetstorm format to be not particularly coherent, and I haven’t followed the story closely enough to know who the actors are, but Ro Khanna (a Democrat) is one of the names I recognize and he seems to be against the censoring.

> as opposed to bad decisions made by twitter employees on their own bias

I thought that was the smoking gun.

Re: The Twitter Files

#140

Post by Waterluvian » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 1:59 AM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #121

Waterluvian wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a country with five viable parties: this picking sides thing, or even being a “moderate” is just weird and kind of horrifying how normal the populace thinks it is. It’s not normal. People should be FREAKING OUT that their governmental system is in such bad shape. They’re too busy cheering for whichever tribe they’re in. All of politics being one dimensional is one of the biggest lies ever.

I don't think Americans are particularly likely to think politics is one dimensional. Each of our two parties is composed of multiple subgroups whose ideals and interests don't match - they regularly have disputes among each other, and it's less common but far from unheard of for an interest group to migrate between parties. What we call a "party" just mixes in components of what a European-style system would call th…

I think I generally sympathize with your point. There’s probably truth to that.

I think it’s also perilous to collapse “Americans” into zero dimensions by speaking as if they’re one entity with one perspective. I would bet my house that a frighteningly many millions of Americans DO see it as one dimensional tribalism.