Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Twitter Files

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

801–810 of 1001 posts

Re: The Twitter Files

#801

Post by chrisbaker98 »

ruszki wrote: post #789
chrisbaker98 wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> going back on his free speech/no censorship claims when he kicked Kanye off. What's Elon done here that's inconsistent or hypocritical? He's never claimed to be a free speech absolutist (no-one is a free speech absolutist), nor did he say he was going to turn Twitter into a free-for-all for anyone can post anything with no moderation. Kanye posted literal Nazi content; he clearly violated Twitter's stated policies…

There are tons of tweets in the thread which laugh on people who think free speech is not absolute.

People might speak in absolutes for the sake of brevity, hyperbole or rhetorical laziness, but still, almost no-one takes a truly absolute position on free speech when push comes to shove.

E.g. most free speech "absolutists" would agree that there should still be some kinds of laws against defamation, targeted harassment, and direct incitement to violence. That's my position.

Re: The Twitter Files

#802

Post by joenathanone »

chrisbaker98 wrote: post #705
cm2187 wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These policies were always a pretext. The two major social networks blocking the same story at the same time citing different policies that are obviously inconsistently applied (did Twitter block the story about Trump's leaked tax returns? Did facebook block Biden when he claimed that covid would be gone once everyone was vaccinated?). These emails show twitter executives puzzled by the application of those policies.…

> citing different policies that are obviously inconsistently applied Here's a better example: the Canadian trucker protests. GiveSendGo was hacked, and the names of people who had donated to the protests were made public - and Twitter had no problem with those "hacked materials" being shared on its platform. I'd think that if there was ever a reason to block the publication of hacked materials, it would be to preven…

>Twitter subsequently reversed the decision, saying that it had updated its hacked-materials policy and would not retroactively apply it to the New York Post.

Re: The Twitter Files

#803

Post by [deleted] »

Dem_Boys wrote: post #127

Most concerning thing here is that this proves political parties (including the white house[0]) have a direct line to Twitter[1] to get stuff they dislike removed. One would have to assume that there was also a direct line to other social medial platforms. It's so wild to have the slimy-ness of our American political system be revealed in yet another way. So in America you cannot say negative things about political l…

[deleted]

Re: The Twitter Files

#804

Post by headsoup »

Ygg2 wrote: post #755
nathias wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the life of a politically inconvenient story: 1. it's conspiracy theory 2. it was obvious to everyone 3. forgotten

I had this happen on Reddit personally. Shared my Covid experience. Got accused of spreading misinformation. Makes me wonder, if conspiracy theorists might have a point.

Maybe the point is people continue to be labelled 'conspiracy theorists' regardless of being actually, factually proven correct. Makes the arguing so much easier when you can just keep dismissing the 'other' rather than say sorry.

Re: The Twitter Files

#805

Post by [deleted] »

Dem_Boys wrote: post #127

Most concerning thing here is that this proves political parties (including the white house[0]) have a direct line to Twitter[1] to get stuff they dislike removed. One would have to assume that there was also a direct line to other social medial platforms. It's so wild to have the slimy-ness of our American political system be revealed in yet another way. So in America you cannot say negative things about political l…

[deleted]

Re: The Twitter Files

#806

Post by i_like_apis »

meheleventyone wrote: post #708
ajross wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This rubs me the wrong way, nobody in government should be telling Twitter to remove speech. Uh... Biden wasn't in government. It's so weird seeing all the posters in this thread arguing simultaneously that The Real Problem here is government control over the media and citing as evidence the fact that Twitter bent to the whims of someone not in government . I mean, why is government control such a big deal when pri…

The real hilarious thing to me scrolling this sometime later is everyone is focused on Biden when the thread says the Trump team were doing the same thing and he was the President at the time! But crickets over that much stronger claim that it could be a first amendment violation. Are people just being partisan or easily manipulated here?

Twitter’s censorship and selective enforcement of TOS to remove content was heavily slanted in favor of Democrats.

Re: The Twitter Files

#807

Post by arcturus17 »

I'm no Musk apologist; I find him quite an unsavory character, in fact. I also think some - if not many - of his initiatives thus far have been wrong. But I do have a sense that he'll turn things around. He's breaking things at breakneck speed (the blue check fiasco happened in what, 2 weeks after coming in?), but also correcting course just as fast, and many of his detractors are not giving him credit for that.

I think in a year or two Twitter might end up a better-governed org and a better product, unless a newcomer splits the market - I am 100% convinced Mastodon ain't it, but maybe Dorsey's new idea...

Anyone else share this sentiment?

Re: The Twitter Files

#808

Post by nonethewiser »

dan-robertson wrote: post #717
Dig1t wrote: post #16

I'm a moderate, not a Democrat and not a Republican. I think people on the left have a blind spot here, that the more suppression they use, the more division they create, and the more moderates and people on the right grow to resent them. I would have identified as a Democrat on pretty much every issue, but this authoritarian suppression of speech and ideas has just pushed me away from that side completely. At this p…

I think a story one could tell about more recent events is that Twitter banning various extreme right wing views was good for the Republican Party because they could make arguments about free speech or whatever and not need to deal with those extreme views being associated with the Republican Party. If such views aren’t hidden, maybe it will force Republicans to work harder to separate themselves from such views, sim…

Hunter biden laptop story isnt really a right wing view and clearly benefits Biden. There is a performative aspect to banning "extreme" views that certainly domt help Republicans.

Re: The Twitter Files

#809

Post by steinuil »

arthurofbabylon wrote: post #335

I’m surprised by the outrage here. The proliferation of information is always subject to tampering - from news outlets picking headlines to social feeds oriented around engagement. Literally 100% of the flow of information is being shaped by interested parties, from the beginning to the end. (If you had told me that powerful people/organizations could not get tweets removed, I would have been surprised; based on my e…

> A healthier starting point is a philosophical and systems examination of transparency, censorship, and how information proliferates, followed by systems and mechanisms that facilitate a favorable outcome.

I mostly agree with this, but the rest of your comment reads to me as "everybody else does it so it's fine", which is exactly the mindset that leads to this conversation not being had. A sensationalist story might lean the narrative one way and might be "out of touch with reality" but it's a much better starting point than nothing.

Re: The Twitter Files

#810

Post by jmyeet »

laputan_machine wrote: post #670
jmyeet wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm a moderate The Overton window in the US stems from center-right (Democrats) to extreme-right (Republicans) so if you're in the middle of that you're firmly a conservative. Don't believe me? Example: we've got the ongoing threat of a strike tby rail workers who want paid sick leave . They currently have no paid sick leave. Calling in sick will come off their vacation days. It may even get them disciplined and fi…

> The Overton window in the US stems from center-right (Democrats) to extreme-right (Republicans) so if you're in the middle of that you're firmly a conservative. This is something Europeans have been saying online since at least the early 00s. It might be worth splitting it up into "social" policies and "economic" policies. Democrats are a socially very left (dissenting views are not allowed), economically right par…

> it up into "social" policies and "economic" policies.

I understand that inclination but you cannot separate economic and social policy.

Example: consider post-WWII development in the US. The GI Bill gave cheap loans and college education to returning servicement but not if you're black. The rise of the automobile lead to the explosion in suburbs, which became completely car-dependent. These suburbs and the required infrastructure (eg roads) were government subsidized. This allowed some to build up generational wealth.

In building those roads (and the Interstate system) these tended to divide communities along racial lines and in many cases wiped out minority communities.

Further you had redlining.

Once segregation was officially outlawed you had a bunch of communities that became effectively segregated because black people couldn not afford to live there (because restrictive zoning drove up prices) but black people had been denied the ability to build up wealth.

That's an example of what people mean by systemic racism.

Likewise, economic policy creates over-policing and mass incarceration that predominantly affects the poor and economic policy has made sure that black people are disproportionately affected.

> Democrats are a socially very left

I disagree. Biden was the architect of Bill Clinton's 1994 crime bill that ushered in mass incarceration and over-policing shows where Democrats stand: in the same place Republicans are, which is protecting capital and capital owners.

Literally the only reason people accuse Democrats of being very far left is the support of trans people. I would urge people to really examine their feelings here and really ask themselves why they think not being transphobic is an extreme position.

Post reply on HN