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The Twitter Files, Part Six

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Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#771

Post by fallingknife »

exceptione wrote: post #701
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…

Your mistake is that you confuse deliberate misinformation campaigns with free speech. I assume you are not in the know, because --strangely-- the very alarming research results do hardly leave academia. Let met assure you that in St. Petersburg they are working hard and those in Moscow don't complain about the price of steering elections. I invite you to look up the cost of a MiG vs some click farms, alt right bots…

"Russian misinformation campaigns" are an excuse that a certain political party used for why it lost a slam dunk election to a cheese colored used car salesman, and the FBI found convenient to justify expanding its power.

Russian disinformation operations are exactly as effective and competent as the rest of the Russian government, which can't even win a war against Ukraine. Its not remotely scary.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#772

Post by rayiner »

tehwebguy wrote: post #752
rayiner wrote: post #731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

The Patriot act and it’s reauthorizations under different names are the worst federal legislation in decades. Comparing Twitter getting reports about ToS violations from FBI via email instead of from users via the report button isn’t in the same galaxy. I am struggling to think of a more bad faith argument than comparing this to the Patriot act.

I’m not talking about the overall scope of the program. Obviously the Patriot Act is much broader. I’m talking about the double standard of those supporting the FBI. The same people cheering on the FBI now would have flipped out if the FBI was engaged in the same communications with Twitter about imams preaching radical Islam. The same people justifying Twitter working with the FBI to respond to supposed “radicalization” and “domestic terrorism” were against the FBI when the target was foreign terrorists.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#773

Post by acdha »

scythe wrote: post #422
acdha wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You run a bar. There’s a drunk guy on one end of the patio screaming at people. If a cop walks by and tells the bouncer “that guy seems pretty drunk”, is it a 1A violation when they subsequently enforce their rules? The question to ask is whether any of these accounts would have been allowed if reported by people. There’s no evidence that the FBI was making threats that something otherwise allowed had to be removed.

Right, but the cop didn't come by so he could look for people to throw out. The FBI isn't just "walking by" Twitter, they're there for a reason.

But if all they’re doing is politely asking for the company’s own policy to be enforced, and doing so evenly as shown in the thread it’s really hard to see this in the light which right-media is hyping it. This is the most they’ve found and it’s notable for what we don’t see: no hint of threats, nothing which isn’t a policy violation getting taken down, just a bunch of people doing their jobs and dealing with grey areas.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#774

Post by candybar »

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.

Republicans - and Trump specifically - have been directly threatening Twitter for years to try to get them to act in a way that benefits them and you think this "implied consequence for refusal" is some big issue?

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#775

Post by Amezarak »

ethanbond wrote: post #739
TeeMassive wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So long as there’s no coercion it’s completely legal. If the police ask you to do something, do you usually feel generally obligated to comply? What about an even more powerful organization that can and do prosecute people for simply lying or obstructing ?

> If the police ask you to do something, do you usually feel generally obligated to comply? Uh, no? I'm pretty sure every American schoolchild is educated on his or her rights under the Constitution. It's not unusual at all for police to pull people over for minor infractions and assert they have the ability to search their cars, and for people who know their rights to decline said search, and for everyone to go on t…

Twitter and tech companies are regularly threatened with additional regulation and their executives called before Congress. This is the pressure. It’s already taken place and it’s ongoing. Sure, they could sue. They might or might not win. And Congress can make their life difficult in either outcome. There’s not much you do about that since, very nominally, Congress is supposed to represent the people and not security state interests.

This comment also totally ignores the fact that the “Twitter files” have also contributed to the realization that these companies are riddled with ex-FBI and other government employees who were partly responsible for responding to these requests, let alone the idea of corporate employees toadying up to the government security state is incompatible with democracy whether or not someone could hypothetically sue.

Also, it’s great to hear my duty is to sue the government if it does wrong. That’s true. That also works out very badly for people all the time and entails spending a lot of money and years of your life on an uncertain outcome.

These stories are additional proof the FBI needs huge reforms and mass layoffs. It’s still the agency of J Edgar Hoover, who to this day was in charge for nearly half its existence. But the culture of these tech companies is also extremely concerning.

And even moreso, as I said in my original comment (and which you misunderstood even in your response), the shocking part is that people think this is fine, and nobody is asking who and what has caused such a massive shift in American beliefs.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#776

Post by rayiner »

fallingknife wrote: post #771
exceptione wrote: post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your mistake is that you confuse deliberate misinformation campaigns with free speech. I assume you are not in the know, because --strangely-- the very alarming research results do hardly leave academia. Let met assure you that in St. Petersburg they are working hard and those in Moscow don't complain about the price of steering elections. I invite you to look up the cost of a MiG vs some click farms, alt right bots…

"Russian misinformation campaigns" are an excuse that a certain political party used for why it lost a slam dunk election to a cheese colored used car salesman, and the FBI found convenient to justify expanding its power. Russian disinformation operations are exactly as effective and competent as the rest of the Russian government, which can't even win a war against Ukraine. Its not remotely scary.

Ironically, these same people were bending over backward to protect and justify obvious Russian propaganda in America during the Soviet era.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#777

Post by Apocryphon »

starkd wrote: post #756
Apocryphon wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is you alleged that the apathy in this was due to partisan selfishness. It’s clearly not if even the “winning side” is ambivalent about the feds cracking down on their partisans.

That's because the winning side won. It's very short sided. That may be fine for now, but just imagine future elections, when those FBI agents have a different narrative they wish to enforce. It really is not that hard to imagine.

Trying to appeal with the “future elections” angle is amusing. Many on that “winning side” blame FBI interference for losing in 2016. So you would think your appeal would carry weight, yet it doesn’t. One wonders why?

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#778

Post by Lendal »

RetpolineDrama wrote: post #355
Lendal wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's really worrying to me is that he can change those DMs to say whatever suits his fancy, coupled with the fact nobody remaining at Twitter is in any position to blow the whistle on such conduct. It would likely remain secret indefinitely.

>What's really worrying to me is that he can change those DMs to say whatever suits his fancy, I mean NSA has had this capability for 25 years.

Really? News to me. If NSA has had this secret ability, and if it is indeed a secret, how is it that some random person knows all about it and now feels perfectly safe revealing it on a public web site? Changing data in real time on private databases goes way beyond traffic monitoring & intelligence-gathering.

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#779

Post by Apocryphon »

starkd wrote: post #748
Apocryphon wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Based on other posts in this thread, it sounds like SOP as far as content moderation goes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34026457

It sounds like most of this discussion is entirely driven by normative fancies rather than any actual knowledge of how these processes are already being run in the industry, let alone how the first amendment actually applies. For the latter, it would seem that a whole bevy of court cases undergird this whole endeavor:

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

Re: The Twitter Files, Part Six

#780

Post by crimsoneer »

rayiner wrote: post #772
tehwebguy wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Patriot act and it’s reauthorizations under different names are the worst federal legislation in decades. Comparing Twitter getting reports about ToS violations from FBI via email instead of from users via the report button isn’t in the same galaxy. I am struggling to think of a more bad faith argument than comparing this to the Patriot act.

I’m not talking about the overall scope of the program. Obviously the Patriot Act is much broader. I’m talking about the double standard of those supporting the FBI. The same people cheering on the FBI now would have flipped out if the FBI was engaged in the same communications with Twitter about imams preaching radical Islam. The same people justifying Twitter working with the FBI to respond to supposed “radicalizat…

Law enforcement absolutely do refer Islamist content to their social media liaisons...?
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