The Twitter Files • Hacker News Board

Re: The Twitter Files

#361

Post by Uehreka » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 3:34 AM UTC

jimbob45 wrote: post #328

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).

My understanding was that those were examples and that he was implying that there were vastly more that had been requested and removed by both parties before those tweets. Did I misinterpret his tweet?

If these removals were fine but Taibbi has other examples that are actually bad… why didn’t he just post those instead? It’s a huge stretch to say that removing revenge porn is somehow evidence of corruption. If Taibbi had real dirt he should’ve just led with it.

Re: The Twitter Files

#362

Post by mikkergp » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 3:34 AM UTC

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #345

mikkergp wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But your point is the point as to why it’s not hubris! they weren’t trying to censor anything, they were just trying to follow their own moderation policies. This I think is why the censorship story is such a non issue, because Twitter is not an exclusive source of this information.

When moderation policies (or laws) are subjectively and arbitrarily enforced based on the identity of the party being persecuted, it ceases to be a policy and is simply another tool used to bludgeon those who are disfavored. It was a big story in September of 2020 when the NYT published Trump's hacked/leaked tax returns - a story that did not receive the Hunter Biden treatment, but was amplified all across Twitter. H…

>It is stunning to me that so many otherwise intelligent people do not see the problem with big tech colluding with government officials and intelligence agencies to brazenly attempt to distort and censor public discourse - especially right before an election.

You took a giant leap from maybe people at Twitter were acting with bias. You’d need a lot more information to justify this assertion, and who is saying this wouldnt be a problem? I al saying this didn’t happen, not it wouldn’t be a problemZ

Re: The Twitter Files

#363

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 3:35 AM UTC

jimbob45 wrote: post #328

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).

My understanding was that those were examples and that he was implying that there were vastly more that had been requested and removed by both parties before those tweets. Did I misinterpret his tweet?

[deleted]

Re: The Twitter Files

#364

Post by lkrubner » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 3:36 AM UTC

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…

Some of this material was posted during October of 2020, when Trump was President, so it wasn't the "White House" asking that this material be taken down.

Re: The Twitter Files

#365

Post by AmericanOP » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 3:36 AM UTC

purple_ferret wrote: post #170

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…

How is this surprising? People get things resolved via Hacker News when people comment on CEO account comments (Stripe comes to mind). Nearly every company probably has direct lines of access for resolutions for VIPs, politicians not excluded.

Internal policy debates are evil! To save democracy, public forums should be run by benevolent dictators!!

Re: The Twitter Files

#366

Post by idlewords » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 3:36 AM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #102

idlewords wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment illustrates why it's a good idea to prune these kinds of stories from the homepage. No one learns anything new or surprising from discussing this stuff here, at this point we could have the same political nerdfight in our sleep.

I think if your focus is on the discourse, you’re right. But I bet you the majority of people who saw this item on the front page aren’t interested in comments and this is a form of news. To be aware that this is a thing.

My belief is this kind of news is hard to miss elsewhere, so no one is harmed if it's culled from here. But I'm open to correction on that point; everyone has their own surfing habits.

Re: The Twitter Files

#367

Post by newZWhoDis » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 3:36 AM UTC

Dem_Boys wrote: post #169

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.

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

Yes. And a properly-endowed Justice Department would begin prosecution for Twitter employees that colluded with the government to defraud US citizens of their fundamental rights.

Twitter officers conspired with rogue elements of the US government to defraud US citizens of their constitutionally protected rights.

This is not a game. The people involved should be facing 30 year prison sentences.

Re: The Twitter Files

#368

Post by 1270018080 » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 3:36 AM UTC

bakugo wrote: post #352

Quoted post unavailable.

This conspiracy theory validates what you want to be true, is a better way to put it.

Re: The Twitter Files

#369

Post by etchalon » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 3:37 AM UTC

ilyt wrote: post #105

mikkergp wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s the thing thought. So far the emails show a team making a mistake, and being thoughtful about it. Trying to look to their moderation principals and disagreeing about the path forward. Then, later we know Jack and Yoel and most of the team apologized and admitted it was a mistake. If these people were all conservatives and I saw this interaction I would say the same thing. So tell me a story about principals th…

> Then, later we know Jack and Yoel and most of the team apologized and admitted it was a mistake. Sound more like "we're sorry we got caught"

They got caught doing something that it was public knowledge they were doing and the whole point of them doing it was immediately acknowledged in public?

Re: The Twitter Files

#370

Post by chroma » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 3:37 AM UTC

myko wrote: post #314

chroma wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of laws passed after the Enron scandal, publicly traded companies are required to retain internal communications for long periods of time. So if you're going to blame anyone for this, blame the government. Also the owners of Twitter knew that Musk would have access to these messages. That was priced into the deal. Executives and managers at publicly traded companies are very aware of information retention pol…

> If you truly believe that there's no clear evidence, then I don't know what to tell you. Taibbi shows emails where Twitter and the US government collude to censor true information that people wanted to read. That is a big deal. in this case the government was run by donald trump, and the censorship was to remove stolen revenge porn

It wasn't "stolen revenge porn". It was information about how Joe Biden used his political power to shield his son from the consequences of his misdeeds. That story was completely censored from Twitter. You couldn't even link to it.

And the US government isn't run by any one person. The president is the most powerful individual, but there are other officials (both elected and appointed), and they are the ones who colluded.

I don't care whether it's the president, or the speaker of the house, or a freshly-trained FBI agent. Nobody in government should be pressuring private companies to prevent people from reading what they want to read.