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The Twitter Files, Part Six

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641–650 of 965 posts

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#641

Post by concordDance »

jasmer wrote: post #617

It's actually good that there is transparency and oversight but this is a study in journalism and populism more than anything. The media is under incredible pressure to make stories, particularly in the US. All of us have seen how MSNBC veered politically over the last 15 years - as have other news outlets. Matt Taibbi is a good guy, smart, down to earth. But he's a 'lone warrior' now, his income comes from substack…

> Elon is not wrong to be suspicious, of course now he's banning actual, legit journalists who dare to question him,

As far as I know he's only banning those that link to ElonJet. He's been a bit irrational since his two year old kid had a close encounter with a crazy person a few days ago.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#642

Post by paulgb »

devmunchies wrote: post #527
eganist wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is very clearly an improper purpose. The FBI is trying to suppress 1A protected speech by reporting the tweets. The FBI is not allowed to suppress 1A protected speech. Imagine there was a button that would delete a Tweet and anyone could press it. Just because anyone could press the button would not make it legal for the FBI to press it. I keep seeing this, and I'm confused every time I see it, because speech on…

> Twitter can always say no to the feds I can also say no to the feds if they ask me to assassinate someone but it doesn’t mean they aren’t breaking a law by asking me. Would be a crazy constitutional loophole if the govt simply needs to ask citizens to censor each other (1a), steal their neighbors guns (2a), tell husbands to prevent their wives from voting (19a), etc. If these censorship request were about bomb thre…

> If these censorship request were about bomb threats or something that’s one thing, but they are mostly just spicy political takes.

There’s some selection bias here — the tweets we see in the thread are the ones twitter didn’t remove and the accounts twitter didn’t ban.

Twitter surely has the deleted tweets around somewhere, but it doesn’t seem to have been provided to the twitter files reporters.

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1603857596112330758

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#643

Post by sethd »

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…

I feel that it makes a good case for the federated approach to social media. Very large centralized services controlled by public corporations are easy targets for this kind of abuse.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#644

Post by concordDance »

UncleMeat wrote: post #554
rayiner wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve never been a big fan of Taibbi. But all the things you’re mentioning are characteristic of his journalistic style, which made him famous in his coverage of Wall Street back in 2008. It’s uncharitable and filtered through a fundamental distrust of moneyed corporations, but I’ve never heard it described as “unhinged.” And I’m not sure “unhinged” is an appropriate description. For example, while “internal lingo” ma…

Orwellian does not just mean changing terms or using euphemisms. It is about terms that make the expression of undesirable thoughts actually impossible. Do any of the scare-quoted terms do this? I can't see any.

"Orwellian language" likely comes from this essay: https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_poli...

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#645

Post by myvoiceismypass »

jasmer wrote: post #617

It's actually good that there is transparency and oversight but this is a study in journalism and populism more than anything. The media is under incredible pressure to make stories, particularly in the US. All of us have seen how MSNBC veered politically over the last 15 years - as have other news outlets. Matt Taibbi is a good guy, smart, down to earth. But he's a 'lone warrior' now, his income comes from substack…

> Matt Taibbi is a good guy, smart, down to earth.

His memoir paints a radically different picture.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#646

Post by canucklady »

nverno wrote: post #636
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.

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 be…

I think using social media to gather intel is entirely reasonable. Given the number of people who have committed mass shootings and other acts of domestic terrorism after being radicalized online, they would be negligent to not be proactively looking at the internet.

Your whole argument is just "sure this is reasonable now but what if there were 8000 agents online and they could extraordinary rendition you". 80 agents for the whole country is not absurd. That's less than 2 per state.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#647

Post by emmelaich »

beebmam wrote: post #596
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…

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?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penumbra_(law)

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#648

Post by concordDance »

davidbarker wrote: post #508
threeseed wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also I think the idea is to try and attract conservatives from other apps e.g. TruthSocial. Good idea in theory except that many of those users aren't as well-behaved so to speak. And so the overall quality of the discourse has noticeably dropped since Musk took over.

I replied to a tweet that referenced Musk and Tesla, and simply mentioned that I sold my Tesla shares at the beginning of this week (and made a loss) because I didn't want any association with Musk any more. The replies I got from Musk fans were shockingly (maybe not so shockingly) vile. Turns out Musk sold his Tesla shares at the same time as I did — I wonder how those people replying to me would square that with th…

As a Musk fan (well, sorta, this twitter posturing is mega cringe), I applaud your common sense in selling a grossly overvalued stock (which I am confident Musk also thinks is overvalued).

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#649

Post by borbulon »

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…

Okay, let's take all you said as unassailable - shouldn't this whole thing be called the FBI files, and not the Twitter files?

I'm inclined to think that anything that went from the FBI to Twitter went through Twitter's Legal Department, and at least one person signed off—which, given the rebuffs of more public attempts, seems like anything signed off on was done in good faith. So in my mind the problem isn't Twitter, it's the FBI. To me it's the framing (which was always going to be problematic, it's Matt Taibbi).

And to be clear, I think one isn't paying attention if they try to lay blame at the feet of any one administration for this, this is a long-standing issue originating inside the FBI.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#650

Post by camgunz »

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…

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

Of course they do, if that speech would likely incite or produce imminent lawless action. IDK if what they were flagging all meets that standard (some of the examples in the thread seem like a stretch to me, but then again they're obviously supposed to), but I think if we're gonna discuss 1A we should actually understand it.

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