Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Twitter Files, Part Six

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

631–640 of 965 posts

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#631

Post by UncleMeat »

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

That’s why every company has adopted NISTs password guidance and those that refused had their CEOs thrown in prison.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#632

Post by wadayano »

The emphasis on there being an FBI connection seems naive to me, as I had always assumed some gov agency coordination on some level, both in software and hardware companies. Furthermore their involvement does not sound that deep/frequent, some pointed out once a week on average, if viewed in context proportional to amount of users, both real and fake, this does not seem that large.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#633

Post by Yoric »

cratermoon wrote: post #333
lettergram wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an earlier release they also mention regular meetings (weekly?). That was not the only guy being contacted by the FBI either. Regardless, while you may call this “underwhelming” it’s actually hard proof of illegal activity. The FBI cannot censor people, period. That’s fascism and illegal in the US, per multiple Supreme Court rulings. This effectively gives trump, et al a direct path to a lawsuit against the federa…

https://abovethelaw.com/2022/12/hello-youve-been-referred-he...

Thanks for the reference! Best write up I've seen so far on the topic.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#634

Post by Amezarak »

ethanbond wrote: post #627
Amezarak wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, this isn't unexplored. The ACLU says this specific example is unconstitutional. There's also been legal cases about this in the past. It's illegal for the government to do this. "They could sue if they don't want to do it" does not make the request legal. https://twitter.com/aclu/status/1587198479608303622 What's shocking is that people's perceptions of what's legal have changed so dramatically in just…

Not clear what you mean by “this specific example” given that your linked article is about DHS’s defunct Disinformation board and AFAIK this board never even became operational (and in any case hasn’t been mentioned in Twitter Files). It seems to me rather that all these folks shocked to hear this stuff just haven’t been paying attention to either their high school civics course or to current events of the last 20 ye…

I never said I was shocked about it. The government and particularly agencies like the FBI have long engaged in illegal abuses of their power, ranging from illegal speech restrictions like this to the knowing legal persecution of innocent people to outright murder and blackmail.

Nor is it news to me that companies are increasingly voluntarily sharing vast amounts of data with the government, to the point that the surveillance state we feared has come to pass as a corporate-state partnership.

What I’m surprised about is the increasing number of people who see it as normal and acceptable, or choose to dismiss it as “oh, this has been happening.” Yeah, that doesn’t make it okay.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#635

Post by ethanbond »

Amezarak wrote: post #634
ethanbond wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not clear what you mean by “this specific example” given that your linked article is about DHS’s defunct Disinformation board and AFAIK this board never even became operational (and in any case hasn’t been mentioned in Twitter Files). It seems to me rather that all these folks shocked to hear this stuff just haven’t been paying attention to either their high school civics course or to current events of the last 20 ye…

I never said I was shocked about it. The government and particularly agencies like the FBI have long engaged in illegal abuses of their power, ranging from illegal speech restrictions like this to the knowing legal persecution of innocent people to outright murder and blackmail. Nor is it news to me that companies are increasingly voluntarily sharing vast amounts of data with the government, to the point that the sur…

Shocked to learn that it’s legal, not that it happens.

So long as there’s no coercion it’s completely legal. Not considered a controversial topic.

https://reason.com/volokh/2021/07/19/when-government-urges-p...

There are lots of dangers with this pattern but this is simply an extremely extremely poor case to try to take up the fight on.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#636

Post by nverno »

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.

What bothers me most about the FBI's behaviour here is that it is unnecessary. Do we really want the FBI manning a task force of 80+(according to Taibbi) agents to monitor social media threads, and if so, what's to stop that number from just growing and growing?

I'd prefer to see the FBI acting in a passive role, here, rather than a proactive one. Meaning, they act more in response to people reporting social media behavior, instead of creating their own missions, so to speak.

One of the problems with this sort of governmental creep, is once it happens it's nearly impossible to take it back - look at the Patriot act/Homeland security, for example, or the god-awful and useless TSA. It's very easy to imagine this social media task force growing into another branch, and, as with all of these agencies, the Big Brother potential is a scary one.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#637

Post by deadpannini »

meepmorp wrote: post #626
deadpannini wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, read the comment chain you were responding to? How about this: you don't get to decide what's remotely important to people in the context of the election?

I'm not deciding anything for anyone, I'm merely pointing out a fact. Also, you're presuming the truth of the allegations that the FBI did anything to materially suppress this story, and that's not in evidence, Musk-driven hyperventilation aside.

> I'm merely pointing out a fact.

"The Hunter Biden story is insignificant" is a judgement, not a fact, it's a judgement. I'd say that calling it "misinformation" is bizarre, except that most prominent allegations of misinformation boil down to judgements too.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#638

Post by enkid »

lapcat wrote: post #54

This is actually an argument for why Twitter shouldn't exist. Twitter makes it super easy to do mass warrantless surveillance, because Twitter gathers millions of people together in the same searchable public space. It's a honeypot. What's dangerous about the "public square" concept is that Musk doesn't just want a public square — one public space among many, one among equals — he wants the public square, a monopoly…

All internet companies at this point are doing "mass warrantless surveillance" at this point then. Google makes money off matching people to advertisers by learning what they search, post, and how they use their computers.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#639

Post by jacquesm »

UncleMeat wrote: post #558
jacquesm wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FBI would not pass on something in the nature of a direct order without having a paper signed by a judge to back it up.

Never worked in a Trust&Safety team for a major platform, I see.

Actually owned what was at the time the #23 site in the world with pretty much all of th e issues that Twitter had to contend with.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#640

Post by [deleted] »

Georgelemental wrote: post #134
starkd wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem was that it was entirely one way. This was not about dangerous misinformation. Many of the accounts they wanted suppressed were low-follower accounts making jokes. A ton of FBI agents paid to sway an election. Even if you are comfortable with the outcome of the election, what about future elections when they decide to back a candidate you do not support?

> The problem was that it was entirely one way. No, government should not be policing speech on private platforms, period. At most, they should concern themselves with clearly illegal things—threats of violence, child pornongraphy, etc. It doesn't matter whether or not they are being "balanced".

[deleted]
Post reply on HN