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They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

waqas.xyz

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Re: They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

#71

Post by Bakary »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #53
MichaelCollins wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a very low opinion of twitter and certainly wish they'd do a better job. But the premise of twitter as a shield against state-sponsored kidnapping or murder seems flimsy at best.

That's not the premise. This kind of bullshit is exactly how disempowered groups get painted into a corner. Sexual assault doesn't typically begin with violent rape. It ends there. It begins with a million small forms of disrespect. Political crap follows the same pattern. If you think it doesn't fucking matter, what the hell do you care how this goes? It matters to him. If you don't care, what's wrong with saying "T…

The premise is that the guy lacks power. Twitter has very little incentive to help him, and a strong disincentive to piss off the Pakistani government.

Wallowing in outrage is pointless as they have to cynically maneuver until they have results. Part of that strategy might involve stirring up people emotionally towards action, but internalizing the martyrdom doesn't achieve anything on its own.

Ironically, this is precisely the type of martyrdom that helps these tech companies strategically in the long term. From their POV, all they have to do is throw a performative bone once in a while and wait for people's outrage rush to ebb away.

Re: They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

#72

Post by thatguy0900 »

waqasx wrote: post #11
thatguy0900 wrote: post #5

He complains that Twitter doesn't know local Pakistani politics, but what would be the answer in this case? Set up national moderation offices? In this very case, they would just say yeah he's a spy... Unless you want random unaccountable expats making judgment calls about your government

least Twitter can do is sensitize their moderators, or at least a subset of them, about local issues, maybe not to the level of making them regional experts, but enough so that they can tell a truth from a lie, a dangerous maligning campaign vs a fair critique. I dont think that is a hard problem.

How can you tell a truth from a lie in politics? You can certainly find the position you agree with and hire those guys and claim its always the truth, I guess. Unless you actually somehow know who the Indian secret services are paying. I certainly don't, even if I don't believe that this author is guilty of being a spy. This is judgment calls that a low paid Twitter moderator cannot make with any confidence.

Re: They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

#73

Post by notch656a »

pseudo0 wrote: post #62
CoastalCoder wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being realistic: if your life hangs by the thread of twitter moderation, you should either run and hide, or get your affairs in order. Perhaps a 3rd option is to go on the attack, and find some angle from which to sue Twitter?

The focus on Twitter seems a bit strange. Per the author's post, the government of Pakistan is arresting journalists and activists, manufacturing a pretext after the fact: > In Pakistan, activists and journalists are routinely picked up (abducted) and tortured by the country's police and secret services. Same happened this time, some of the top journalists and anchors were picked up - some without warrants with fake…

This article reads like an asylum claim. Hopefully they already have permanent legal permanent residence somewhere else, if not they will likely by applying for asylum. It could be the whole thing was written expressly for the purpose of asylum.

Going back to Pakistan at this point would mean basically picking how you want to go out. Either by defending your life in one last moment before a corrupt government takes your down, or letting them beat you in prison and slowly watch your soul and fighting spirit wither away in prison until you die. I presume if that's how they wanted to go, they would have been doing this journalism inside Pakistan right now.

Re: They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

#75

Post by bell-cot »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #42
MichaelCollins wrote: post #29

Being realistic: if your life hangs by the thread of twitter moderation, you should either run and hide, or get your affairs in order. If they really want you dead, even the best possible twitter moderation won't keep you safe. This whole circumstance of people wanting you dead is not twitters fault and there is very little twitter could do to protect you even if their moderation was perfect.

He's not asking Twitter to protect him from murder. He's asking them to do their damn job so the platform cannot be used to facilitate a smear campaign that makes it easy to get away with murder. It's a very reasonable request.

Morally? Yes, a very reasonable request.

OTOH - is there any large real-world corporation which has ever gotten itself into a sustained info-war conflict with a well-armed and angry nation state, for the purpose of protecting one "ordinary" person from that nation state? I'm guessing "no".

Re: They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

#76

Post by indymike »

ricardobeat wrote: post #20

I can see where he’s coming from, but Twitter is a media company. They are not directly responsible for anyone’s safety and have no reason to take down content that isn’t a direct threat or clear defamation. That’s the police or justice system’s job. An unfortunate situation but he is barking at the wrong tree it seems.

>They are not directly responsible for anyone’s safety and have no reason to take down content that isn’t a direct threat or clear defamation.

From the article: the author is asking to have false, defamatory content removed.

> That’s the police or justice system’s job.

That is not an available option to the author of this article. The author is alleging that false posts are being made to lay the groundwork for the author being detained and tortured by the local justice system.

Re: They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

#77

Post by DoreenMichele »

bell-cot wrote: post #75
DoreenMichele wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not asking Twitter to protect him from murder. He's asking them to do their damn job so the platform cannot be used to facilitate a smear campaign that makes it easy to get away with murder. It's a very reasonable request.

Morally? Yes, a very reasonable request. OTOH - is there any large real-world corporation which has ever gotten itself into a sustained info-war conflict with a well-armed and angry nation state, for the purpose of protecting one "ordinary" person from that nation state? I'm guessing "no".

He says he's a journalist. That used to mean something.

So it's rather dismissive and disrespectful to characterize him as an ordinary person with scare quotes no less.

If these platforms feel unable to moderate fairly due to fear of foreign governments, perhaps they should tuck tail and keep their pussy selves out of the conflict entirely.

I'm not impressed with an argument of "We want the money involved but we can't make any meaningful effort to actually enforce the rules we claim we have. Your country is too tough for my sissy self to man up in. I still want the money though."

Re: They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

#78

Post by driverdan »

Something happened this year with Twitter's internal moderation policies. They seemed to have completely stopped enforcing the rules.

I've reported many open bigots calling for violence against the group(s) and/or people they hate. Twitter used to ban people for promoting violence. They don't anymore. Not a single one of the posts or accounts I've reported in the past few months has been banned unless they reached a threshold of other reports that triggers an automatic ban.

Moderators either aren't doing their job or don't exist anymore.

Re: They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

#79

Post by karaterobot »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #42
MichaelCollins wrote: post #29

Being realistic: if your life hangs by the thread of twitter moderation, you should either run and hide, or get your affairs in order. If they really want you dead, even the best possible twitter moderation won't keep you safe. This whole circumstance of people wanting you dead is not twitters fault and there is very little twitter could do to protect you even if their moderation was perfect.

He's not asking Twitter to protect him from murder. He's asking them to do their damn job so the platform cannot be used to facilitate a smear campaign that makes it easy to get away with murder. It's a very reasonable request.

What should Twitter do in this case? You say "their damn job", but their job is to apply their content policies, which they say they are doing. Given only the tweets linked in the article, I can see how a moderator would look at them and not find that they are obviously breaking any rules. They may be false accusations, but Twitter has not agreed to do independent investigations of every report by a user, or take on the responsibility of trying to guess hidden motives of the accused. Twitter moderation is not a sanctuary, or a refuge, or a crusader for justice, it's a pro forma box-checking policy and never claimed to be more than that.

Re: They're trying to get me kidnapped and tortured, but Twitter doesn't care

#80

Post by DoreenMichele »

karaterobot wrote: post #79
DoreenMichele wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not asking Twitter to protect him from murder. He's asking them to do their damn job so the platform cannot be used to facilitate a smear campaign that makes it easy to get away with murder. It's a very reasonable request.

What should Twitter do in this case? You say "their damn job", but their job is to apply their content policies, which they say they are doing. Given only the tweets linked in the article, I can see how a moderator would look at them and not find that they are obviously breaking any rules. They may be false accusations, but Twitter has not agreed to do independent investigations of every report by a user, or take on…

I've been a moderator. Decisions are made contextually.

One of his complaints is they clearly don't know what the hell is going on in Pakistan and this is a root cause of their mishandling of things.

It is a completely reasonable criticism.

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