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The Twitter Files, Part Six

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Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#601

Post by ethanbond »

hgfdhgdhg wrote: post #594
benjaminwootton wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But aren’t they just flagging Tweets as potential violations of TOS? That sounds as tame as it could possibly be. The same option is open to me as an ordinary user.

They're not a normal user. Wouldn't you expect more transparency from your government? It appalls me that many find this okay.

What more transparency do you want? Their right to request moderation actions and Twitter’s right to refuse those requests is extremely well documented in court cases. You want a published list of every request FBI made? So that way FBI can become the primary curator of information that FBI doesn’t like?

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#602

Post by ethanbond »

spoiler wrote: post #599
beebmam wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the 1st amendment for reference: "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." How exactly does the FBI asking a private sector company to take down posts violate this amendment?

When governments ask companies to do something, they usually must comply though lol

Literally not true. They can simply decline and if the Govt wants to come after them they can sue each other and in cases where it’s legal content then Twitter will win. This is extremely well established and not even remotely weird or some dark unexplored corner of Constitutional law.

Edit: Here’s a link with some relevant case law. https://reason.com/volokh/2021/07/19/when-government-urges-p...

Disagree with the established precedent if you want, but if you do, I’d recommend picking a different battleground than whatever this Twitter Files fiasco is. This stuff isn’t even on the questionable end of the spectrum.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#604

Post by meepmorp »

hgdhgfdhgfdh wrote: post #481
lp0_on_fire wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

policing "misinformation" is not the role of the United States government.

What part of the H. Biden laptop was "misinformation"?

The idea that it was remotely important in the context of the election. Also, the idea that the story was suppressed. Those parts, at least.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#605

Post by ethanbond »

akomtu wrote: post #501
jacquesm wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They need to spice it up somehow, the evidence by itself won't do the trick.

I think the goal is to anchor the discourse around "the gov is censoring speech" and let high-rank politicians talk about it openly, since now they are backed by undeniable facts. A few weeks ago anyone auggesting the gov is censoring twitter would be dismissed as a conspiracy theorist. Now anyone who says the opposite will be seen as a fool or a shill. The goal has been achieved, in other words.

What you’re actually seeing is people who already believed govt is censoring speech now feeling like they have evidence of that claim despite none actually being put forward. On the flip side you have people who figured that, yeah, the government asks private entities to control information in certain ways and sometimes companies oblige despite not being required to. This latter claim remains the only one “evidenced” by the Twitter Files but it has also been evidenced by about 200 years of case law.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#606

Post by cauch »

protastus wrote: post #319
NelsonMinar wrote: post #236

There's an odd new risk for startups: someone buys your company and then releases all the internal documents with hostile intent. The Twitter stuff that's come out now has been pretty uninteresting, surprising and often basically telling a story of people doing the best job they could in difficult circumstances. But if you are at a small company consider what all could be acquired and used to defame your employees an…

Corporate records and correspondence can be made public due to a lawsuit. So the risk of disclosure isn't new, and anyone should consider it whether they work at a startup or at a large company. Just another incentive to act with integrity and keep personal correspondence out of corporate systems.

I don't think the point was that "corporate records and correspondence can be made public", but "corporate records and correspondence that do not reflect the full picture and that are cherry-picked to make the company look bad while the company was not bad can be made public while the rest of the picture can be kept not public".

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#607

Post by cactusplant7374 »

partiallypro wrote: post #582
angelbreakfree wrote: post #395

The wildest part of the Twitter files is the unhinged framing that they are presented under. 1. Anyone who has been in a tech company knows that there is internal lingo that refers to features we devs make. But it's presented as being an "Orwellian language" 2. Based on the emails he posts, the agencies give links to review based on tips they receive or their own intel and twitter then decides if it violates ToS or n…

That's all well and good, and I am not a fan of Elon's latest moves toward Twitter (banning some journalists and sources of freely available information on other platforms), but the FBI has absolutely no right to try to get a private company to stop free speech. That's a direct violation of the 1st Amendment. This is a story because the FBI has absolutely no business doing this. There is no "framing" in that, the FBI…

> but the FBI has absolutely no right to try to get a private company to stop free speech.

Do you believe freedom of speech applies to foreign governments?

https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/160385966043116748...

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#608

Post by ethanbond »

rlt wrote: post #520
angelbreakfree wrote: post #395

The wildest part of the Twitter files is the unhinged framing that they are presented under. 1. Anyone who has been in a tech company knows that there is internal lingo that refers to features we devs make. But it's presented as being an "Orwellian language" 2. Based on the emails he posts, the agencies give links to review based on tips they receive or their own intel and twitter then decides if it violates ToS or n…

> Based on the emails he posts, the agencies give links to review based on tips they receive or their own intel and twitter then decides if it violates ToS or not (and they sometimes did not act or simply temporarily suspended). But it's presented as a "deep state"-like collusion where the agencies control if twitter act on them or not. This is an extension of the whole “Three Felonies a Day” idea: it’s likely any pr…

Is it improper? It obviously creates room for impropriety, but I personally find it very obvious that organizations responsible and equipped for e.g. finding CSAM or for mitigating foreign influence campaigns (yes, real things!) or for reducing the spread of ISIS recruitment material should have their reports sit above those of newuser1737382847.

You’d really suggest that all reports must be treated equally?

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#609

Post by cloutchaser »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #592
partiallypro wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all well and good, and I am not a fan of Elon's latest moves toward Twitter (banning some journalists and sources of freely available information on other platforms), but the FBI has absolutely no right to try to get a private company to stop free speech. That's a direct violation of the 1st Amendment. This is a story because the FBI has absolutely no business doing this. There is no "framing" in that, the FBI…

But aren’t they just flagging Tweets as potential violations of TOS? That sounds as tame as it could possibly be. The same option is open to me as an ordinary user.

> But aren’t they just flagging Tweets as potential violations of TOS?

How benevolent of the fbi to be making sure twitters users are compliant with twitters TOS! What a nice federal agency, making twitters moderation so much easier!

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#610

Post by ethanbond »

benmmurphy wrote: post #499
angelbreakfree wrote: post #395

The wildest part of the Twitter files is the unhinged framing that they are presented under. 1. Anyone who has been in a tech company knows that there is internal lingo that refers to features we devs make. But it's presented as being an "Orwellian language" 2. Based on the emails he posts, the agencies give links to review based on tips they receive or their own intel and twitter then decides if it violates ToS or n…

The Tweets the FBI were asking to be removed were speech protected under the first amendment. It is very likely that this is unconstitutional but at a minimum this violates a strong norm in the US that the State does not interfere with people’s speech. When it comes to twitter a court had previously found that Trump could not even block people from his personal Twitter account (a final ruling was never made because t…

The government’s right to request information control and private entities’ right to decline those requests is well established and non-controversial. They cannot coerce or threaten, but there’s no evidence of that happening, and if Twitter felt otherwise they could go ahead and sue the government and win. Well established.
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