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The Twitter Files

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Re: The Twitter Files

#411

Post by chrisco255 »

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.

No post body was provided.

Re: The Twitter Files

#412

Post by MBCook »

rhaksw wrote: post #404
MBCook wrote: post #393

There is another way to look at this. So Elon posted today he would drop important inside info about the Hunter Biden story the right wing loves so much. And they seemed thrilled and are now debating the “new” info. That’s an interesting turn from yesterday when that same group was pissed at him for going back on his free speech/no censorship claims when he kicked Kanye off. How surprisingly lucky for him he did some…

> This seems like nothing more than a big redirection to get people to move on from the last story. I find government comms with social media to be interesting. Do you not? I'm not sure if there's a bombshell there or not. I believe all public servants since Nixon understand about their actions being reviewable. Not that they shouldn't be able to have private conversations, of course. That's a whole 'nother issue.

It could be.

Here it seems they alerted Twitter to a few tweets containing nudes of someone posted without their consent. That was against the TOS and likely against the law in the 48 (?) states with anti-revenge porn laws.

They didn’t try to stifle debate. They didn’t try to hide news articles.

There has been tons of Hunter Biden tweets they did nothing about.

This doesn’t seem like anything shady at all. So I’m not worried.

Show me political game playing, I’ll be on your side.

Re: The Twitter Files

#413

Post by davidw »

Dig1t wrote: post #188
anoonmoose wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Okay well, this doesn't feel like a good faith discussion if we're resorting to technicalities like this. You are correct, technically Joe Biden was not a part of the government at the time that this email was sent. Do you honestly believe that this behavior is keeping with the spirit of the first amendment? His team, and the DNC (here's one that's very similar, except that its from the DNC instead of the Biden team…

> technicalities

Being president or not seems like kind of a big deal to me.

Re: The Twitter Files

#414

Post by dd36 »

newZWhoDis wrote: post #367
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?

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.

Now political campaigns are the government?

Would be curious on your take of what DeSantis was trying to do to Disney in FL? 30 years in prison for threatening Disney about its speech?

Re: The Twitter Files

#416

Post by rhaksw »

greenthrow wrote: post #200
partiallypro wrote: post #103

Politicians should never be able to directly influence the moderation of social media items they find politically unfavorable; I don't care which party does it. I can understand something that involves direct threats/calls to violence, but that's about it. Anyone that has used Twitter for some time knows the moderation was often not all that even, not just by pure political means but also threats of violence etc were…

What if the content is illegally obtained personal material of the politician's civilian family members?

IANAL but I believe the law says if the journalist didn't aid in whatever made obtaining it illegal, like hacking the data out, then they are clear to publish it. And that's what one Dem called for Twitter to write in its policy, according to the "Twitter files":

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598838041371516929/photo...

Re: The Twitter Files

#417

Post by chrisco255 »

myko wrote: post #309
assttoasstmgr wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people talking about ToS as if it's applied consistently and without bias. Let's assume that the oft-storied "pee tapes" were real, published by a mainstream news outlet and posted to Twitter. Would those same individuals regurgitating ToS violations agree that should receive the same treatment, or would they have been complicit in spreading it as far and wide as possible?

I think there is a big difference between the sitting POTUS who was known to ask for and receive Russia's help getting elected being shown to have kompromat on him vs the unelected son of a presidential candidate's hacked iCloud nudes being posted Especially given that in the "pee tapes" trump is clothed while the women are nude and unknown individuals

The pee tape story was completely fabricated, as was the Russian collusion narrative, and that was revealed although carefully subtexted and de-emphasized in the Mueller Report.

Re: The Twitter Files

#418

Post by dmix »

cplusplusfellow wrote: post #409
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…

Yes but only for some White House admins. The previous White House admin saw their press secretary’s account suspended because the campaign didn’t like the fact that she tweeted about this story. The current White House likely wouldn’t see that same fate.

That’s still fundamentally not the issue here. It shouldn’t matter that there was a certain bias at Twitter at a particular time. What matters was there was a) a serious lack of transparency into decision making and b) a very broad policy/culture of censorship, where ill-defined and ever expanding “misinformation” and “threats to democracy” was enough to silence not only public messages but private DMs between individuals.

People say it’s a hard problem to define the limits of content moderation, but when you have politicians and influence groups sending lists of tweets to silence and the only response is “thanks we handled it” then obviously the limits have gone out the window.

We don’t have to have a free-for-all to massively reduce the risks in the current system.

Limitations and transparency are what defines a good system of governance. Bias in administrations will always exist, but honesty and shining sunlight on it is the only thing that will stop it from turning into a cancer.

Re: The Twitter Files

#419

Post by billjings »

Aeolun wrote: post #280
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.

So in a way Elon taking over is good. At least it’s abundantly clear the whole platform is run based on his personal whims now.

It could be, sure. But people are playing influence games with Elon, too.

Re: The Twitter Files

#420

Post by afavour »

chrisco255 wrote: post #411
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.

Quoted post unavailable.

> they removed a NY Post story

They = Twitter in this instance, not the Biden team. Taibbi jumps from one event to the other as if to draw a line between them but there is an important distinction. None of the evidence presented shows the Biden team asking Twitter to take down the NY Post story, just the pornographic images posted.

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