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

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

#161

Post by sroussey »

jona-f wrote: post #138
xwdv wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is not Twitter’s problem, and if they fulfill this request it just goes down a rabbit hole that eventually creates more liability for the company than what they want to take on. Twitter has taken the correct action here.

Wow, you're morally bankrupt. It's nice to see a well written article like that on the frontpage of this site, but unfortunately the venture capital fueled business model proposed by ycombinator is at the heart of the problem. Liability my ass. This is some disgusting dystopian bullshit. Also if you talk about liability, heard about the Streisand effect? Public opinion about these corporations is low and i think twit…

There is a long history of liability in the USA when you take on editorializing roles. This was broken by the Communication Decency Act (CDA section 230) but case law has is slowly moving back. It is a valid concern.

If CDA 230 were taken away, I wouldn’t be surprised if common carrier laws fell as well. The telephone companies can listen to all phone calls, so they may need to editorialize (mute, disconnect, report to police) on various illegal calls.

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

#162

Post by fluoridation »

indymike wrote: post #160
fluoridation wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're starting from the assumption that the government is posting false tweets that it'll use as excuses to kidnap and torture people, then I don't see what effect removing those tweets would have. A person under a real threat of violence needs real, physical protection. Anything that can be done over the Internet is insufficient.

It removes pretext used for justification of seizure and torture. Doing nothing enables the oppressor in this case.

>because the government could just as easily use a different medium for the same purpose

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

#163

Post by [deleted] »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #29

Being realistic: if your life hangs by the thread of twitter moderation, you should either run and hide, or get your affairs in order. If they really want you dead, even the best possible twitter moderation won't keep you safe. This whole circumstance of people wanting you dead is not twitters fault and there is very little twitter could do to protect you even if their moderation was perfect.

[deleted]

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

#164

Post by chucksmash »

fluoridation wrote: post #114
indymike wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. From the article: the author is asking to have false, defamatory content removed. > That’s the police or justice system’s job. That is not an available option to the author of this article. The author is alleging that false posts are being made to lay the groundwork for the au…

>the author is asking to have false, defamatory content removed. The author is asking to have content that he says is false removed. >The author is alleging that false posts are being made to lay the groundwork for the author being detained and tortured by the local justice system. Since the tweets may be used as an excuse to have him detained, removing them will do nothing, because the government could just as easil…

This is a good point and I think pretty well captures the "and what is Twitter supposed to do about it" angle.

To say "well, thus and such comedian is connected to the regime, that's why he has tweeted about me," well, what level of investigation is Twitter supposed to do that they a) disprove the allegations lobbed at OP (working for RAW provocateurs) and b) are able to support the allegation against the comedian's intent, and thus prove that the whole interaction is as the OP says it is?

Doing so goes beyond moderation, it goes beyond fact checking, it's nearly at the level of a personal background check or a trial.

What is being asked of Twitter seems totally outside the realm of what a social media company should be doing. It seems like OP wanted to do the right thing, to speak truth to power, but is now realizing that power was listening.

An account that publicly exposes your identity is not the right place to antagonize people with machine guns if you are not willing to take on personal risk, and that has nothing to do with moderation policies.

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

#166

Post by toast0 »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #58
MichaelCollins wrote: post #29

Being realistic: if your life hangs by the thread of twitter moderation, you should either run and hide, or get your affairs in order. If they really want you dead, even the best possible twitter moderation won't keep you safe. This whole circumstance of people wanting you dead is not twitters fault and there is very little twitter could do to protect you even if their moderation was perfect.

> Being realistic: if your life hangs by the thread of twitter moderation, you should either run and hide, or get your affairs in order. Perhaps a 3rd option is to go on the attack, and find some angle from which to sue Twitter?

> Perhaps a 3rd option is to go on the attack, and find some angle from which to sue Twitter?

Sueing twitter isn't likely to go far. Twitter doesn't have responsibility for their users' speech (with some very specific exceptions that don't include libel or defamation), and doesn't have a legal obligation to operate its moderation system. I don't think there's much to pursue there, unless there's something very unusual in the TOS.

You'd need to sue the people making the claims, but there's jurisdiction issues; if the alleged corruption of the government of Pakistan is the case, suing in Pakistan would seem to be unlikely to result in the desired outcome. On the other hand, a court in the US, where the OP resides, may not be willing to assert jurisdiction over speech by someone in another country, and the speaker is unlikely to participate in a US case.

In any event, such a case is likely to take years, which doesn't address the immediate nature of this issue. But I don't know how Twitter could really evaluate truthfulness of claims like these.

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

#168

Post by DoreenMichele »

yibg wrote: post #159
DoreenMichele wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not asking Twitter to protect him from murder. He's asking them to do their damn job so the platform cannot be used to facilitate a smear campaign that makes it easy to get away with murder. It's a very reasonable request.

Problem is who determines if it’s a smear campaign? The author claims it was, and I tend to believe him but I haven’t investigated. Have you? And then, how determines if it’s extreme enough to warrant some action? In the ideal world sure there would be an army of people investigating every case in detail. But then 1) Twitter becomes the arbiter of truth and 2) definitely can’t scale.

138 journalists killed in Pakistan since 1990

https://www.dawn.com/news/1595257

At least 39 journalists killed in US due to their work...since 1937

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_i...

These risk levels are not alike.

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

#169

Post by Uehreka »

yibg wrote: post #159
DoreenMichele wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not asking Twitter to protect him from murder. He's asking them to do their damn job so the platform cannot be used to facilitate a smear campaign that makes it easy to get away with murder. It's a very reasonable request.

Problem is who determines if it’s a smear campaign? The author claims it was, and I tend to believe him but I haven’t investigated. Have you? And then, how determines if it’s extreme enough to warrant some action? In the ideal world sure there would be an army of people investigating every case in detail. But then 1) Twitter becomes the arbiter of truth and 2) definitely can’t scale.

Oh come the fuck on. People on HN need to get over this: At a certain point people and organizations need to stop pretending that “both sides could in theory have a point” and actually take a stand.

“But what if the stand they take is opposite the one you think they should take? How would you like that?”

I wouldn’t, I’d badger them to take my position. Hopefully I’d succeed, and if I didn’t, I’d join a long line of people who were right but unsuccessful. So it goes, life sucks sometimes.

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

#170

Post by mypalmike »

pessimizer wrote: post #137
mypalmike wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pace of social media is insurmountable. More information is generated per second on social media than any justice system could process in a year.

More information is generated in the material world per second than is generated on social media per year, but we haven't seen that as a reason to dismantle the justice system.

Nobody was advocating for dismantling the justice system.

Social media specifically lends itself to widespread and high frequency libel, fraud, threats, and other illegal acts. What "material world" information manages to do so at a similar rate?

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