The Twitter Files, Part Six • Hacker News Board

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#741

Post by starkd » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 3:27 PM UTC

weaksauce wrote: post #69

starkd wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter if they were pro-dem or pro-republican. They were doing nothing wrong. What business is it to the FBI. The FBI had partisan agents working on government time to censor American citizens during an election. If you step out of your partisan headspace for a moment, you might realize how dangerous this is. Imagine how this my play out in a future election with different candidates.

This is what you could say a classic goal post moving comment from the initial position of "it's only ok because it helped you"(which in and of itself is projection and also pointedly false) to "that doesn't matter they were censoring" (which again is false since they asked for the content team to review it.)

Huh? You can simulataneously point to a bias, while at the same time realizing that individual accounts don't always neatly fall into one of two positions. There was a clear indication they wanted to suppress anything that would suggest an idea counter to a certain narrative. That effort even extended to parody and jokes. Everyone makes jokes.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#742

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 3:30 PM UTC

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #680

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?

> How exactly does the FBI asking a private sector company to take down posts violate this amendment? Imagine if the FBI came to your house and asked you to take down a sign in your front yard.

[deleted]

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#743

Post by roflyear » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 3:33 PM UTC

simpleblend wrote: post #136

roflyear wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a trick, but yeah saying we should harm certain groups of people is hate speech.

Who is saying that people should be harmed? Seriously. Whoever you have in mind, if they're actually advocating violence against people then I'm in agreement with you. That's not cool and they shouldn't be doing that. Are you referring to calling a trans person by their biological sex?

People are actually advocating violence against people, and they have gotten banned for it.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#744

Post by somehnacct3757 » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 3:34 PM UTC

PathOfEclipse wrote: post #733

somehnacct3757 wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Twitte…

What evidence do you have that domestic terrorism has experienced "exponential growth", whatever that means, as I'm pretty sure you're not using "exponential" in the mathematical sense? https://www.dailywire.com/news/whistleblowers-accuse-fbi-of-... This is seriously some hitleresque reichstag fire stuff. The FBi manufactures a fake domestic terrorism crisis and uses it to justify their further expansion of power.

CSIS has published data on the rise of domestic terrorism. [1]

NYT has published data about the growth of CSAM due to tech companies. [2]

Would you engage with the point of my comment if I called the domestic terrorism non-linear growth, and the CSAM growth exponential?

edit: politeness

[1] https://www.csis.org/analysis/evolution-domestic-terrorism

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/28/us/child-sex-...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#745

Post by roflyear » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 3:34 PM UTC

ciler wrote: post #382

jacquesm wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And rightly so.

Depends on the context. People have been suspended from Twitter from saying things like " transwomen are actually men so stop letting them compete in women's sports, it's not safe or fair for actual women ", which isn't hate speech, doesn't target an individual, and is a legitimate political opinion, so in theory should be fine. Yet bans are handed out anyway.

I don't believe that. I know several conservatives who posted that shit all the time and didn't get banned.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#746

Post by roflyear » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 3:34 PM UTC

kodyo wrote: post #143

roflyear wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a trick, but yeah saying we should harm certain groups of people is hate speech.

Joking about political figures isn't hate speech.

Who said it was?

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#747

Post by roflyear » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 3:35 PM UTC

kodyo wrote: post #189

roflyear wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a violation of free speech to tell Twitter to take down illegal content.

Twitter took stuff down at the government's request even though they couldn't find a violation of their own ToS, let alone determine that things were illegal.

Not that I saw... where did you see that?

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#748

Post by starkd » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 3:37 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #84

simpleblend wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's your estimation that both parties were censored an equal amount?

Based on Taibbi's own evidence, it is perhaps arguably so. But to me, more important is the total number of accounts looked at, which appears to be in the mere dozens, if not around a dozen accounts, with none more notable than a lesser Baldwin brother. In principle , certainly it is not great for security services to meddle in public spaces. In reality , I am willing to believe that the federal government is a tiny…

There is a major difference when a branch of government makes these requests as compared to another business entity. Especially, the federal government. For one, it becomes more of a command than a request. The consequences for not complying is orders of magnitude greater.

It's not performative virtue signalling to push back on a lesser threat just because you are not pushing back on the greater threat. The gov't has been very good at hiding the existence of these programs. We do not know much about PRISM, so there's less to go on. You need to push back whereever it occurs. We still have no idea how widespread this is. Not to mention, it is likely going on with google, facebook, instagram as well.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#749

Post by starkd » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 3:40 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #559

starkd wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter if they were pro-dem or pro-republican. They were doing nothing wrong. What business is it to the FBI. The FBI had partisan agents working on government time to censor American citizens during an election. If you step out of your partisan headspace for a moment, you might realize how dangerous this is. Imagine how this my play out in a future election with different candidates.

Literally one comment ago you said "the problem was that it was entirely one way."

Individuals accounts cannot always be categorized in one of two ways. There was a consistent attempt to counter any ideas that ran counter to a certain narrative.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#750

Post by naasking » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 3:41 PM UTC

Marazan wrote: post #740

naasking wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, which matches exactly what Twitter did, and which is how most people understand the term. Or did you miss the part where they delisted some accounts from being discoverable by search. The way Twitter defines shadowban is more narrow than that.

" We do not shadow ban. You are always able to see the tweets from accounts you follow (although you may have to do more work to find them, like go directly to their profile). " They literally wrote a blog post about it 4 years ago[1]. This wasn't hidden. Anyone who is "shocked" by Twitter's definition of shadow banning (which, in my opinion aligns with what I posted anyways) is doing performative outrage of an insin…

Twitter is free to invent whatever narrow definition of shadowbanning they want, and we are free to call out their obfuscation for the bullshit it is.

Language is about effective communication. Right now we're all trying to have an important conversation about relevant social issues which requires a common understanding. You cited the common understanding, I pointed out how Twitter engaged in practices covered by that common understanding, and that should be the end of that. Can we move on now?

Instead of bikeshedding over this irrelevant minutae, engage with the actual substance of the discussions, like whether they should shadowban in the way they've been doing it, whether there should be limits to moderation policies for online public squares, what the guidelines for censoring speech should look like, whether to deplatform people entirely or merely deprioritize their speech, etc.