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The Twitter Files

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Re: The Twitter Files

#141

Post by john-radio »

scifibestfi wrote: post #109
dekhn wrote: post #66

It's still kind of odd to think that you can be an in-favor executive at a company, then somebody else can buy your company, fire you, and go back and read all your work emails (many of which would be extremely sensitive) and share it with journalists who then screenshot it and share it with the world on the same platform that employed you! This was always a possibility (and a probability- my friend was a lawyer who…

It doesn't matter which side, because isn't the problem that the government is doing an end run around the 1st Amendment? If you don't think so now, you might in 2024. So it's time to care now.

> Isn't the problem that the government is doing an end run around the 1st Amendment?

"The Biden team" was not the government in October 2020. (For that matter there is a "Biden team" right now that has no governmental capacity, that is, his re-election team, which is probably engaged in these same kind of activities with many platforms.) I have to wonder if these communications aren't just pretty normal? It might be easier to evaluate how alarmed we should be if any detail were provided by Taibbi at all.

Re: The Twitter Files

#142

Post by andreyk »

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.

What was asked was "More to review from the Biden team". I suppose having some sort of access to request reviews of specific tweets is concerning, but this alone does not demonstrate the degree of influence they had over Twitter's moderation decisions to me. But, it's telling that more damning emails weren't shared...

So ok, there was some new information (from which it's hard to confidently extrapolate much, I would say). But mostly it's a rehash of a known story, right?

Re: The Twitter Files

#143

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: The Twitter Files

#144

Post by shagie »

rufusroflpunch wrote: post #136
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.

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.

What federal government was in the office in October of 2020?

Re: The Twitter Files

#145

Post by [deleted] »

nkozyra wrote: post #88
mikkergp wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> . If Elon thinks this is some sort of big shock that will cause people to get excited.... I can't really see why. I don’t think he does, I think he can literally see engagement falling in the days after a stunt and he’s trying to keep it up. Matt seemed to imply there would be another thread following this one so buckle up

This does seem to be the play. There is a story here! Politicians having direct access to social networks to suppress narratives they don't like is interesting. But 1) I don't think it's surprising and 2) it appears it was not politically motivated at least in a bipartisan sense. A story but one delivered with the kind of panache to drive traffic.

[deleted]

Re: The Twitter Files

#146

Post by noah_buddy »

Dem_Boys wrote: post #127

Most concerning thing here is that this proves political parties (including the white house[0]) have a direct line to Twitter[1] to get stuff they dislike removed. One would have to assume that there was also a direct line to other social medial platforms. It's so wild to have the slimy-ness of our American political system be revealed in yet another way. So in America you cannot say negative things about political l…

It’s blowing my mind to see people on Twitter reading the story and thinking this is an issue of whether or not Hunter Biden is a problem. This is clearly the much more pernicious issue that 1. social media companies are massively influencing the dissemination of information on an ad hoc basis informed by personal political whims and 2. even the leaders of these organizations are unable to rein in these influences.

Re: The Twitter Files

#148

Post by paulgb »

mpweiher wrote: post #139
paulgb wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A smoking gun for twitter maybe, but GP is talking about writing off “the left” because of this.

Re: The Twitter Files

#149

Post by AustinDev »

connectsnk wrote: post #128

Edit: Removed. It was incorrect so I deleted

So, the ratio was at best 30:1 and eventually 300:1? Damn the Democrats really seem to love authoritarianism. Not that the Republicans don't exercise authoritarianism it's just on other topics like women's reproductive rights.

So much for 'Democracy'

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