The Twitter Files • Hacker News Board

Re: The Twitter Files

#461

Post by nathanaldensr » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 4:29 AM UTC

chroma wrote: post #370

myko wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 col…

Do a CTRL+F for the phrase revenge porn in this thread. It's not an honest attempt at an explanation; it's a specific, coordinated tactic to misdirect away from the incredible information that the Bidens were corrupt.

This has absolutely nothing to do with Hunter's ****.

Re: The Twitter Files

#462

Post by dd36 » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 4:30 AM UTC

laborcontract wrote: post #137

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.

picking apart semantics is not sufficient to allay concerns expressed in parent

Can political campaigns not lobby the media? Do you think that’s something new?

Re: The Twitter Files

#463

Post by archagon » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 4:32 AM UTC

MacsHeadroom wrote: post #443

romellem wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read your own source? The Biden team never asked Twitter staff to “handle” anything. They forwarded tweets that [violated twitter’s ToS][1], a Twitter staff member forwarded them for review, and at that point the reviewer said they “handled these.” That’s what content moderation is supposed to do! [1]: https://twitter.com/parkebench/status/1598841731763810304

"Will no one rid me of these meddlesome Tweets?"

What do you think the Biden administration would do if they were ignored? Arrest the CEO? Revoke Twitter's corporate charter? Please.

Re: The Twitter Files

#464

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 4:33 AM UTC

babyshake wrote: post #306

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…

One thing that is easily forgotten in context of at least this Hunter Biden story is that in 2020, a large cohort of Americans including presumably most Twitter employees not only really didn't want Trump to get re-elected, but were very fearful of what might happen if he did. Not saying that justifies anything, but whether we like it or not humans are very prone to impulsive decision making based on emotions.

[deleted]

Re: The Twitter Files

#465

Post by dd36 » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 4:34 AM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #238

avemg wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should please you to hear that the Biden team was not the government at the time.

This is a distinction with little difference. They can just as much suppress speech, by using the implied threat of future government action. And this is basically just as bad.

That might be problematic if they were threatened in that way. Twitter, however, could fight that rather effectively and easily…

Re: The Twitter Files

#466

Post by mbreese » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 4:34 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…

How is having a direct line to Twitter the most disconcerting thing for you? Of course they have a direct line. I expect that all major political parties, the white house, various legislative committees, etc... would all have a direct line to communicate with Twitter. It's explicitly said that both major parties had these lines of communication, so it's hard to see a problem with the existence of back-channel methods of contact.

The only things that I'd be concerned about are (a) why is it informal? and (b) what did Twitter do about the requests?

Re (a): This should not be an informal process based upon personal contacts. This should have been a well documented procedure, if for not other reason than to remove the appearance of bias. Sure, Twitter could have assigned a "case-manager" type of contact for each group. But the process for requesting such access should have been formalized (and reviewable).

Re (b): Having a direct line to flag to request review/removal of posts is fine. You can request all you want. It's only an issue if Twitter felt like they couldn't reject the request. Again, because it was an informal process, it's not possible to have any sort of comprehensive statistics on who requested what, how often, and how many requests were approved. And again, the biggest benefit would have been to avoid the appearance of any bias.

Re: The Twitter Files

#467

Post by voldacar » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 4:37 AM UTC

stefan_ wrote: post #343

voldacar wrote: post #261

Do we get to read the actual files? Or do we only get them mediated to us by Matt Taibbi's summary + some redacted screenshots?

Oh, it's even better than that. Taibbi shows you emails of some DNC person reporting tweets, but neglects to show you the actual tweets in question: Chinese Spam Bots and revenge porn. Truly the smoking gun. The irony is the misdirection worked, people in this thread are frothing at their mouths unable to tell who even was in government in 2020.

Nah you are definitely trying to minimize this. At this point it is clear that you have political parties (let's be honest, it's really just one political party, coincidentally the one that receives >99% of twitter's political donations) colluding in secret with high level people in twitter (whose political affiliations, curiously enough, are quite different from a random population sample) to censor a news story that could have a big effect on a national election.

I don't have any particularly strong feelings about Matt Taibbi, I just want to read through these files myself and form my own opinions instead of having reality mediated to me by an Approved Professional

Re: The Twitter Files

#468

Post by churnedgodotdev » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 4:38 AM UTC

Elon 1st Amendment comment:

  Twitter acting by itself to suppress free speech is not
  a 1st amendment violation, but acting under orders from
  the government to suppress free speech, with no judicial
  review, is

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1598853708443357185

Re: The Twitter Files

#469

Post by EdwardDiego » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 4:38 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…

> So in America you cannot say negative things about political leaders online?!?!

A brief perusal of Twitter would reveal that, yes, you totally can, and people totally do, and you're making much ado over not much at all.

Re: The Twitter Files

#470

Post by beebmam » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 4:39 AM UTC

mbreese wrote: post #466

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 having a direct line to Twitter the most disconcerting thing for you? Of course they have a direct line. I expect that all major political parties, the white house, various legislative committees, etc... would all have a direct line to communicate with Twitter. It's explicitly said that both major parties had these lines of communication, so it's hard to see a problem with the existence of back-channel methods…

Why shouldn't privately owned companies have the right to determine which speech they want to publish?