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Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

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Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#351

Post by johnny_b_g »

threatofrain wrote: post #314
sebastien_b wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It states that twitter told the user "the account was “artificially” amplifying information" By that logic, Twitter should also be blocking @jack's account due to all the Bitcoin-pushing going on there too. In fact, I think I'll go report it now...

Does @jack use dummy accounts to boost the popularity of his tweets?

That's not even a relevant question - the excuse given by Twitter was "the account was “artificially” amplifying information" not "bots were 'artificially' amplifying the account"

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#352

Post by OrvalWintermute »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #145
mbesto wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> newspeak You guys keep using that word, but I don't think you know what it means. Twitter is a private company. Newspeak was a language developed by the government in Orwell's 1984. VERY different contexts here. For the record - what Twitter communicated is not clear and potentially deceptive, but this response wasn't written by some Twitter PR person. Some support person pressed a button and a canned twitter respo…

I am genuinely curious as to why you seem to assert that "Orwellian" can only apply to governments. I personally sense that we are entering an age where corporations can wield power and influence on the same level as governments themselves. And, that they are able to utilize many of the same tactics that states used in the past century. Why, in your view, would it be incorrect to apply the term to the actions of thes…

I think corporations can wield power and influence way beyond governments.

For example, bigtechs like Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft:

wealthier than many governments

have more capacity to influence internationally

due to regulatory capture, are embedded into many governments

Can utilize powerful governments against weak ones through lobbying arms

Can whip up revolts and foment revolutions easily

fully capable of co-opting national level industries and telecommunications infrastructures

When I think about dystopian, sci-fi, cyberpunk books and films, it was often the Megacorps that exceeded nations in power.

We see that today.

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#353

Post by OrvalWintermute »

ryandrake wrote: post #305
rosmax_1337 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone knows Twitter is a private company, that is besides the point. Consider this: Whoever governs society is the government. Reality does not have clear lines like a textbook about economics and politics might have. When does a company begin to govern society? In my opinion, companies like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Amazon, etc. are large enough to govern society. And as such they can be considered in a differe…

Where does the "monopoly on the use of force" come in? Twitter doesn't govern me, because it cannot force me to do anything if I don't have some kind of relationship with it. Same with Amazon or any other corporation. I'm not knowledgable about the East India Trading Company, but without an army and the ability to legally use force/violence to tell people what to do absent a business arrangement with them, I doubt th…

Perhaps you forgot about [1].

If regulatory capture permits BigTech to force police/govt to exercise authority for them, that is basically close to the same thing.

I'm guessing they could easily horsetrade w. the FBI on this, for expanded levels of access or simply qui pro quo.

[1] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2468894/cops-raid-home...

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#354

Post by nybble41 »

criddell wrote: post #175
linkjuice4all wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is getting into the more nuanced argument of “taking private property” for the public good - or at least allowing access to it for first amendment activities. One issue with “forcing” first amendment protections on a private party is compelling speech from that party (in this case Twitter). If Twitter is entitled to first amendment “protection” from the government then it can’t be compelled to “speak” on behalf…

> If there are infinite public squares do you need to be given access to all of them? But there aren't and infinite number online or off. The key part is the space has to be a place people congregate. Online, are there any public squares?

> But there aren't and infinite number online or off.

Not literally, no. But there is effectively unlimited room in "cyberspace" for both public and private squares. That people actually choose to congregate in a particular place isn't really part of the definition. You have the right to speak to those who wish to listen—not the right to an unwilling audience or the use of others' property to amplify your message.

> Online, are there any public squares?

Only those that the operators choose to make public. The government could run its own forums where it guarantees access to anyone who wants to speak… not that this is necessarily less prone to censorship. It can't guarantee you an audience (and most sane individuals would probably avoid a completely unmoderated forum given the kinds of speakers they attract), but then that's also true of real-life public squares.

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#355

Post by mountainb »

joshuamorton wrote: post #197
mountainb wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be a federal law that requires that these moderation teams keep extensive records of their censorship work product in order to maintain their immunity. This censorship work product would then be have to be made available in discovery. Lawsuits challenging a censorship action or account suspension relating to censorship should be granted an exception to the otherwise binding arbitration agreement. The pur…

Under what claim would you file a lawsuit against a private company about censorship? Or are you asking for the first amendment to be repealed?

I meant under the new fantasy legislation, probably different from some of the recent badly drafted / silly state laws trying to do the same thing. This would be what they would have to do to keep their Section 230 immunity.

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#356

Post by mountainb »

nradov wrote: post #277
ttybird wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that the first amendment was about people rather than companies. In addition to that there are many products where companies have to display certain information, such as age rating for games, health warrnings on cigaretts, food content, allergy warning, nutrition labels, medicine side-effects, etc It is hard to classify censorship as speech for a site that it is all about user-content.

From a legal perspective, corporations are people too. Age ratings for games are voluntary, not legally required. The Supreme Court has held that governments can impose some limits and requirements on purely commercial speech, but those precedents don't apply to censorship decisions made by private companies. The fact that a site contains mostly user generated content is legally irrelevant. https://www.mtsu.edu/first…

It's the corporate person, distinct from a 'natural person.' Corporate persons have many but not all of the effective rights as a natural person does.

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#357

Post by dang »

SQueeeeeL wrote: post #345
dang wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about caring for the posts, it's about caring for the community you're participating in.

I care deeply about the hacker news community, but engaging a conspiracy theorist on a standard discussion is destructive and dangerous to the overall community because such a conversation is a grounds to express more "facts" and reach a broader market. My response quickly points out the connection to existing dangerous communities and reinforces our reality as people casually browsing an internet forum and preempts…

Since you care deeply about the HN community, you should refrain from posting low-quality comments and breaking the site guidelines. As they point out, the way to deal with egregious comments is to not reply, to downvote/flag, and possibly email us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can take a look. Otherwise we just end up in a tedious, offtopic spiral.

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#358

Post by Jimmc414 »

TrispusAttucks wrote: post #214

How do we save our freedom? Why is the truth such an apparent threat? Every day there is more and more of this that I am losing hope.

The truth has always been a threat to those who hide behind lies. It helps to realize that the world isn't necessarily getting worse as much as our information about it is getting better.

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#359

Post by kube-system »

frenchyatwork wrote: post #284
kube-system wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every community center I am familiar with has rules about the types of events that can be held there. Even more so when they're owned by specific interest groups.

Yeah, but those rules are set by the communities that use them.

This is the case for some community centers, but definitely not all of them. It’s not the case for any of the 4 or 5 that are closest to my home. Many are run by private organizations.

Re: Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial

#360

Post by [deleted] »

alex_c wrote: post #281
kube-system wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"artificial amplification" is Twitter's description of a category of behavior that Twitter defines in detail here: https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/platform-mani... There is nothing ambiguous or euphemistic about the phrase. It is very meaningful.

The meaning is clear, and kudos to Twitter for defining it well. But if you think through the usual meanings of the word "artificial" and apply it to this situation, you end up with some amusing conclusions. Definition of artificial 1 : humanly contrived (see contrive sense 1b) often on a natural model : man-made // an artificial limb // artificial diamonds 2a : having existence in legal, economic, or political theor…

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