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The Twitter Files, Part Six

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Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#651

Post by concordDance »

andirk wrote: post #467
roenxi wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be foolish to see this as a left v. right issue. This is an authoritarian vs. libertarian battle. This sort of activity is what the government 100% shouldn't be involved in. Having a department of What is Allowed To Be Said is one of those ideas that gets tried regularly and has a terrible track record that - inevitably - ranges between a source of mild shame in hindsight to a nightmare influence on society.…

The stupid H Biden lap top story shows that factually the government can twist a private company's arm outside of legal channels and said company will do as it is told. That is very bad. I'm not sure people realize this. Every incriminating leak showcases it more and more and yet people are generally not worried about it because they themselves have not been affected. Yet.

Could have sworn these twitter files revealed that the government did zero arm twisting and it was Twitter on its own initiative.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#652

Post by concordDance »

meepmorp wrote: post #604
hgdhgfdhgfdh wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wait, I thought twitter DID suppress the story as part of their anti hacking policy?

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#653

Post by pibechorro »

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…

Ya facism (gov in bed with private biz) used to manipulate election results (hunter laptop, muffling conservatives en mass) and treading all over free speech is "unhinged framing". What twitter, the fbi and the white house did are th opposite of what the USA is supposed to stand for.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#654

Post by gadders »

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…

No post body was provided.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#655

Post by somehnacct3757 »

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…

Social media products have been critical to the exponential growth of domestic terrorism and CSAM. So I definitely want the FBI being proactive on these platforms and to have a much, much, bigger team than 80. It should be 80 per state.

People with poor information diets hear the FBI is involved with Twitter and immediately think it has something to do with red team blue team politics. These are the people the Twitter Files content is produced for. It's written vaguely enough to give potato chip peddlers creative license, so they can monetize attention.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#656

Post by canucklady »

scifibestfi wrote: post #433
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…

Why are they contacting Twitter as the FBI in a backchannel to report potentially ToS offending tweets as opposed to the way we all report tweets to Twitter? Or indeed at all when they're not illegal tweets. Imagine Trump is in charge of the FBI.

Umm, during the run-up to the 2020 election Trump was the president. He appointed Christopher Wray as head of the FBI. So whatever is in this tweets was done by a Trump appointee

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#657

Post by nec4b »

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.

Amazing, a government agency paid by the taxpayers, voluntary combing through twitter and report users that violate twitter's TOS. Is FBI doing pro-bono work for other companies as well?

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#658

Post by jasmer »

concordDance wrote: post #641
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.

He banned a number of MSM journalists who have nothing to do with ElonJet. There was an outcry, he immediately backpedalled and blamed it on some kind of 'internal problem'. It was a big deal, international entities spoke up and fired some warning shots. On one hand it's a private media company, on the other it's an issue when people interfere directly with the press. I'm afraid we don't have our boundaries figured out on this issue yet.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#659

Post by meepmorp »

deadpannini wrote: post #637
meepmorp wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's actually a fact, though.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#660

Post by ModernMech »

koolba wrote: post #618
ethanbond wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 es…

Any voluntary request from the government comes with an implied consequence for refusal or an implied benefit for acceptance. They don’t have to say it out loud for the message to come across.

If Twitter was being coerced by the government, they could have said so in court. They are a multibillion dollar multinational corporation with deep pockets and connection in high places, not a helpless mom and pop.
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