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The Twitter Files

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Re: The Twitter Files

#331

Post by kevingadd »

BurningFrog wrote: post #266
afavour wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the more division they create, and the more moderates and people on the [opposite side] grow to resent them This feels like a universal to me that applies to both parties. And I’m sorry, “authoritarian suppression of speech and ideas” is pure propaganda. No mainstream left leaning politician is actually perusing such an idea, it’s a boogeyman created by the right and by the looks of things it’s working great.

It's very common on the left to demand suppression of "hate speech". Of course, that commonly ends up mostly meaning "speech I hate".

So in this specific case, for one example, we're talking about Biden's team requesting the removal of revenge porn. Do you think it's acceptable to make that request? Should Twitter be obligated to leave revenge porn up? Is this an example of the 'suppression of "hate speech"' you're referring to with scare quotes? Because it doesn't seem like one to me.

Re: The Twitter Files

#332

Post by pacoWebConsult »

afavour wrote: post #301
lapcat wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So in America you cannot say negative things about political leaders online?!?! I looked at the tweets mentioned by Taibbi in the Wayback Machine, and they didn't actually appear to be unflattering speech or even speech at all but rather photos. The first tweet, for example, was some explicit photos (which I assume would violate Twitter's rules whether or not they were of Hunter Biden).

I believe all three are pornographic in nature. So while it’s still notable that the Biden team reached out manually to report them it does seem all the tweets were in violation of Twitter policy and fair game for removal.

Twitter is used by sex workers all the time for pornographic images. What specifically about them violates the rules? Is it the fact that the person did not intend on those images being released? Do they have a claim if those images were no longer their property given the terms of service of the repair shop where the laptop was abandoned?

Re: The Twitter Files

#333

Post by zerocrates »

mikece wrote: post #241
Dem_Boys wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest Question: If the white house contacts Twitter and asks for a tweet to be removed, is that a first amendment violation?

No. The 1st Amendment is a restriction on the Legislative branch: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Congress passed no laws in this regard. Whether or not this was illegal activit…

Despite the phrasing being "Congress shall make no law," the First Amendment absolutely applies to the executive.

The mainstream test just looks for a "state actor" but even if you want to go textualist, things probably break down like this: if a law empowers the executive to do an act that violates the First Amendment, the law itself is a violation of the First Amendment. If no law empowers the executive to do the action at issue, then the action is illegal by virtue of being in excess of the executive's authority.

Re: The Twitter Files

#334

Post by tbrownaw »

cwkoss wrote: post #32

Some people are probably going to call for legislation to address this twitter thread. What kinds of laws or regulations do you think could solve this?

Well, the one party wants to require more censorship, which would be bad (and unconstitutional here in the US), and the other party wants to ban censorship, which would also be bad (and unconstitutional here in the US).

Maybe something about transparency would be workable? Even if the policy that whichever site is being transparent about is "all decisions are arbitrary", at least people would know that that's the policy.

Re: The Twitter Files

#335

Post by arthurofbabylon »

I’m surprised by the outrage here. The proliferation of information is always subject to tampering - from news outlets picking headlines to social feeds oriented around engagement. Literally 100% of the flow of information is being shaped by interested parties, from the beginning to the end. (If you had told me that powerful people/organizations could not get tweets removed, I would have been surprised; based on my experience functioning on 21st century tech platforms there is almost always a way to engineer content.)

In this particular case, the information revealed in the “get-your-popcorn” tweet storm was generally already public. So I’m surprised by all the outrage and excitement.

Call me dismissive, but I think this mob mindset around “free speech” and its “anti-far-left” hysteria is not in touch with reality. It complains and whines a lot, constantly outraged, and never clear on its actual ideological position.

A healthier starting point is a philosophical and systems examination of transparency, censorship, and how information proliferates, followed by systems and mechanisms that facilitate a favorable outcome. Anecdotal, sensational stories (like this Twitter Hunter Biden laptop cover-up) are exactly that: misleading anecdotes. They aren’t useful, and being caught up in them is not healthy.

Re: The Twitter Files

#337

Post by bavell »

grecy wrote: post #315
noah_buddy wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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 Of course mainstream TV and print "news" has been doing this for decades, but for some strange reason people assume they're somehow "better". I personally think it's great all this is coming out, because it shows how dangerou…

Agreed, I'm not surprised at all but I'm glad it's in the open.

Re: The Twitter Files

#338

Post by kevingadd »

oska wrote: post #132
anigbrowl wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?)

To get access to the material he had to agree to a bunch of conditions, and it seems like one of those conditions was 'you can only tweet about it' (presumably to drive Twitter traffic).

Re: The Twitter Files

#339

Post by etchalon »

pacoWebConsult wrote: post #332
afavour wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe all three are pornographic in nature. So while it’s still notable that the Biden team reached out manually to report them it does seem all the tweets were in violation of Twitter policy and fair game for removal.

Twitter is used by sex workers all the time for pornographic images. What specifically about them violates the rules? Is it the fact that the person did not intend on those images being released? Do they have a claim if those images were no longer their property given the terms of service of the repair shop where the laptop was abandoned?

Twitter's policy against "revenge porn" was likely the controlling factor. Also, in general, posting private photos of someone, without their consent, is disallowed on most/all platforms.

Re: The Twitter Files

#340

Post by drak0n1c »

mdasen wrote: post #259

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/elon-mus... It seems like this is basically coming from Elon Musk through someone he chose. What you’re about to read is the first installment in a series, based upon thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter Is Elon Musk now "sources at Twitter"? There might be some interesting bits in here, but I think it's important to note that this is Musk…

Matt Taibbi was Rolling Stone's (your citation) most influential and rigorous journalist, he documented Wall Street and financial crimes, Goldman Sachs in particular. When holes appeared in Rolling Stone's other stories over the years, his held up.

If a source reaching out to and sharing documents and hearsay with a reporter is grounds for dismissing a story - because of imagined personal/ideological/PR alignment - then you would be dismissing 95% of the "Democracy Dies In Darkness" reporting by the Washington Post and New York Times.

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